The sexuality assemblage: Desire, affect, anti-humanism

Two theoretical moves are required to resist the ‘humanist enticements’ associated with sexuality. Post-structuralism supplies the first, showing how the social produces culturally-specific sexual knowledgeabilities. A second anti-humanist move is then needed to overturn anthropocentric privileging of the human body and subject as the locus of sexuality. In this paper we establish a language and landscape for a Deleuze inspired anti-humanist sociology of sexuality that shifts the location of sexuality away from bodies and individuals. Sexuality in this view is an impersonal affective flow within assemblages of bodies, things, ideas and social institutions, which produces sexual (and other) capacities in bodies. Assemblages territorialise bodies’ desire, setting limits on what it can do: this process determines the shape of sexuality, which is consequently both infinitely variable and typically highly restricted. We illustrate how this anti-humanist ontology may be applied to empirical data to explore sexualityassemblages, and conclude by exploring the theoretical and methodological advantages and disadvantages of an anti-humanist assemblage approach to sexuality

Time spent with cats is never wasted: Lessons learned from feline acromegalic cardiomyopathy, a naturally occurring animal model of the human disease

<div><p>Background</p><p>In humans, acromegaly due to a pituitary somatotrophic adenoma is a recognized cause of increased left ventricular (LV) mass. Acromegalic cardiomyopathy is incompletely understood, and represents a major cause of morbidity and mortality. We describe the clinical, echocardiographic and histopathologic features of naturally occurring feline acromegalic cardiomyopathy, an emerging disease among domestic cats.</p><p>Methods</p><p>Cats with confirmed hypersomatotropism (IGF-1>1000ng/ml and pituitary mass; n = 67) were prospectively recruited, as were two control groups: diabetics (IGF-1<800ng/ml; n = 24) and healthy cats without known endocrinopathy or cardiovascular disease (n = 16). Echocardiography was performed in all cases, including after hypersomatotropism treatment where applicable. Additionally, tissue samples from deceased cats with hypersomatotropism, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and age-matched controls (n = 21 each) were collected and systematically histopathologically reviewed and compared.</p><p>Results</p><p>By echocardiography, cats with hypersomatotropism had a greater maximum LV wall thickness (6.5mm, 4.1–10.1mm) than diabetic (5.9mm, 4.2–9.1mm; Mann Whitney, p<0.001) or control cats (5.2mm, 4.1–6.5mm; Mann Whitney, p<0.001). Left atrial diameter was also greater in cats with hypersomatotropism (16.6mm, 13.0–29.5mm) than in diabetic (15.4mm, 11.2–20.3mm; Mann Whitney, p<0.001) and control cats (14.0mm, 12.6–17.4mm; Mann Whitney, p<0.001). After hypophysectomy and normalization of IGF-1 concentration (n = 20), echocardiographic changes proved mostly reversible. As in humans, histopathology of the feline acromegalic heart was dominated by myocyte hypertrophy with interstitial fibrosis and minimal myofiber disarray.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>These results demonstrate cats could be considered a naturally occurring model of acromegalic cardiomyopathy, and as such help elucidate mechanisms driving cardiovascular remodeling in this disease.</p></div

Interactions between climate change and land use change on biodiversity: attribution problems, risks, and opportunities

Global change drivers are known to interact in their effects on biodiversity, but much research to date ignores this complexity. As a consequence, there are problems in the attribution of biodiversity change to different drivers and, therefore, our ability to manage habitats and landscapes appropriately. Few studies explicitly acknowledge and account for interactive (i.e., nonadditive) effects of land use and climate change on biodiversity. One reason is that the mechanisms by which drivers interact are poorly understood. We evaluate such mechanisms, including interactions between demographic parameters, evolutionary trade-offs and synergies and threshold effects of population size and patch occupancy on population persistence. Other reasons for the lack of appropriate research are limited data availability and analytical issues in addressing interaction effects. We highlight the influence that attribution errors can have on biodiversity projections and discuss experimental designs and analytical tools suited to this challenge. Finally, we summarize the risks and opportunities provided by the existence of interaction effects. Risks include ineffective conservation management; but opportunities also arise, whereby the negative impacts of climate change on biodiversity can be reduced through appropriate land management as an adaptation measure. We hope that increasing the understanding of key mechanisms underlying interaction effects and discussing appropriate experimental and analytical designs for attribution will help researchers, policy makers, and conservation practitioners to better minimize risks and exploit opportunities provided by land use-climate change interactions

Physical activity as a treatment for depression: the TREAD randomised trial protocol

Published version. Copyright © 2010 BioMed CentralBackground: Depression is one of the most common reasons for consulting a General Practitioner (GP) within the UK. Whilst antidepressants have been shown to be clinically effective, many patients and healthcare professionals would like to access other forms of treatment as an alternative or adjunct to drug therapy for depression. A recent systematic review presented some evidence that physical activity could offer one such option, although further investigation is needed to test its effectiveness within the context of the National Health Service. The aim of this paper is to describe the protocol for a randomised, controlled trial (RCT) designed to evaluate an intervention developed to increase physical activity as a treatment for depression within primary care. Methods/design: The TREAD study is a pragmatic, multi-centre, two-arm RCT which targets patients presenting with a new episode of depression. Patients were approached if they were aged 18-69, had recently consulted their GP for depression and, where appropriate, had been taking antidepressants for less than one month. Only those patients with a confirmed diagnosis of a depressive episode as assessed by the Clinical Interview Schedule-Revised (CIS-R), a Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score of at least 14 and informed written consent were included in the study. Eligible patients were individually randomised to one of two treatment groups; usual GP care or usual GP care plus facilitated physical activity. The primary outcome of the trial is clinical symptoms of depression assessed using the BDI four months after randomisation. A number of secondary outcomes are also measured at the 4-, 8- and 12-month follow-up points including quality of life, attitude to and involvement in physical activity and antidepressant use/adherence. Outcomes will be analysed on an intention-to-treat (ITT) basis and will use linear and logistic regression models to compare treatments. Discussion: The results of the trial will provide information about the effectiveness of physical activity as a treatment for depression. Given the current prevalence of depression and its associated economic burden, it is hoped that TREAD will provide a timely contribution to the evidence on treatment options for patients, clinicians and policy-makers

Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era

With its rapid-response capability and multiwavelength complement of instruments, the Swift satellite has transformed our physical understanding of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Providing high-quality observations of hundreds of bursts, and facilitating a wide range of follow-up observations within seconds of each event, Swift has revealed an unforeseen richness in observed burst properties, shed light on the nature of short-duration bursts, and helped realize the promise of GRBs as probes of the processes and environments of star formation out to the earliest cosmic epochs. These advances have opened new perspectives on the nature and properties of burst central engines, interactions with the burst environment from microparsec to gigaparsec scales, and the possibilities for non-photonic signatures. Our understanding of these extreme cosmic sources has thus advanced substantially; yet more than 40 years after their discovery, GRBs continue to present major challenges on both observational and theoretical fronts.Comment: 67 pages, 16 figures; ARAA, 2009; http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/toc/astro/47/

Sustainability, feminist posthumanism and the unusual capacities of (post)humans

Despite the current environmental crises of anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation afflicting the world, dualisms of culture/nature, human/non-human and animate/inanimate sustain a perspective on ‘the environment’ in which the human and the cultural are privileged over the natural world and other species. Policies on ‘sustainable development’ are likewise predicated upon efforts to assure future human prosperity. Our objective in this paper is to establish an alternative, post-anthropocentric perspective on environmental sustainability. Drawing on feminist materialist scholarship supplies an ontology to critique humanist approaches, and establishes the foundation for a posthuman sociology of environment, in which (post)humans are an integral but not privileged element. We consider the implications of this perspective for both sustainability policy and ‘climate justice’. A posthuman ontology leads to the conclusion – perhaps surprisingly, given the anthropogenic roots of current climate change – that some unusual human capacities are now essential to assure environmental potential

Assembling citizenship: sexualities education, micropolitics and the becoming-citizen

This article suggests that citizenship should be seen not as a status to be acquired, lost or refused by an individual. Rather it is an emergent and relational capacity produced and reproduced in everyday material interactions, across a spectrum of activities from work to lifestyle practices. We examine one example of such a material interaction: the engagements that young people have with sexualities education. To aid this endeavour, we apply a new materialist, relational framework that addresses the micropolitical interactions between humans and non-human materialities. Using data from two studies of sexualities education, we assess how the capacities produced during sexualities education interactions – such as a capacity to express specific sexual desires or to manage fertility proactively – contribute inter alia to young people's 'becoming-citizen'. Informed by this analysis, we argue that sociology may usefully apply a bottom–up model of citizenship as becoming, constituted materially from diverse engagements

Young bodies, power and resistance: a new materialist perspective

Portrayals of young people as either victims or perpetrators of errant, aberrant or even dangerous attitudes, desires or behaviours may be criticised for obscuring the relations of power within which young bodies are socially and physically located. However, notions of ‘resistance’ to power within these critiques remain under-theorised. In this theoretical paper we take a new materialist approach to explore the affectivity of young bodies, and the flows and intensities that produce and reproduce power and resistance, and what young bodies can do, feel and desire. To illustrate young bodies’ resistances, we offer the example of the transgressive pro-ana movement that resists both biomedical and social definitions of anorexia. We conclude there is a need to focus upon ‘resisting’ as an affective movement of becoming, rather than upon ‘resistance’ as an agentic act, with consequences both for young bodies, theory, research and activism

Wake up, wake up! It's me! It's my life! patient narratives on person-centeredness in the integrated care context: a qualitative study

Person-centered care emphasizes a holistic, humanistic approach that puts patients first, at the center of medical care. Person-centeredness is also considered a core element of integrated care. Yet typologies of integrated care mainly describe how patients fit within integrated services, rather than how services fit into the patient's world. Patient-centeredness has been commonly defined through physician's behaviors aimed at delivering patient-centered care. Yet, it is unclear how 'person-centeredness' is realized in integrated care through the patient voice. We aimed to explore patient narratives of person-centeredness in the integrated care context