Liberalism, lack and living the dream : re-considering youth, consumer sovereignty and the attractions of night-time leisure in Magaluf

Much of the academic literature on alcohol-based leisure focuses on the pleasures of hedonism and youthful cultural exploration in environments free from the prescriptions, pressures and routines of everyday life. In this article – in which we present data from our ongoing ethnographic research exploring the experiences and attitudes of young British tourists in the Spanish resort of Magaluf on the island of Majorca – we argue that the standard liberal social-scientific image of youth leisure is naive and misrepresents its variegated reality. Our research indicates that many young British tourists gain little contentment from their holiday in the sun. Rather than embarking on a leisure experience composed of boundless freedom, choice, indulgence, excess and that is indicative of personal consumer sovereignty, many of our interviewees could identify the regimented and commodified nature of alcohol-based tourism. Rather than satisfaction, they felt an imprecise dissatisfaction. Drawing upon elements of psychoanalytic theory, we argue that underneath our interviewees’ accounts of drunkenness and promiscuity lies an obdurate but imprecise sense of lack. Yet, it is precisely this absence which only recharges their motivation to do more of the same the year after in similar destinations, thus confirming the presence, power and domination of consumer sovereignty

A Semantic-Based Approach to Attain Reproducibility of Computational Environments in Scientic Work ows: A Case Study

Reproducible research in scientic work ows is often addressed by tracking the provenance of the produced results. While this approach allows inspecting intermediate and nal results, improves understanding, and permits replaying a work ow execution, it does not ensure that the computational environment is available for subsequent executions to reproduce the experiment. In this work, we propose describing the resources involved in the execution of an experiment using a set of semantic vocabularies, so as to conserve the computational environment. We dene a process for documenting the work ow application, management system, and their dependencies based on 4 domain ontologies. We then conduct an experimental evaluation sing a real work ow application on an academic and a public Cloud platform. Results show that our approach can reproduce an equivalent execution environment of a predened virtual machine image on both computing platforms

Understanding resistance vs. susceptibility in visceral leishmaniasis using mouse models of Leishmania infantum Infection

Every year, up to 90,000 new cases of Visceral Leishmaniasis and 30,000 resultant deaths are estimated to occur worldwide. Such numbers give relevance to the continuous study of this complex form of the disease: a zoonosis and an anthroponosis; two known etiological agents (Leishmania infantum and L. donovani, respectively); with an estimated average ratio of 1 symptomatic per 10 asymptomatic individuals; and sometimes associated with atypical clinical presentations. This complexity, which results from a long co-evolutionary process involving vector-host, host-pathogen, and pathogen-vector interactions, is still not completely understood. The determinants of visceralization are not fully defined and the dichotomy resistance vs. susceptibility remains unsolved, translating into obstacles that delay the progress of global disease control. Inbred mouse models, with different susceptibility patterns to Leishmania infection, have been very useful in exploring this dichotomy. BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice were described as susceptible strains to L. donovani visceral infection, while SV/129 was considered resistant. Here, we used these three mouse models, but in the context of L. infantum infection, the other Leishmania species that cause visceral disease in humans, and dynamically compared their local and systemic infection-induced immune responses in order to establish a parallel and to ultimately better understand susceptibility vs. resistance in visceral leishmaniasis. Overall, our results suggest that C57BL/6 mice develop an intermediate "infection-phenotype" in comparison to BALB/c and SV/129 mouse strains, considering both the splenic parasite burden and the determined target organs weights. However, the immune mechanisms associated with the control of infection seem to be different in each mouse strain. We observed that both BALB/c and SV/129, but not C57BL/6 mice, show an infection-induced increase of splenic T follicular helper cells. On the other hand, differences detected in terms of CD21 expression by B cells early after infection, together with the quantified anti-Leishmania specific antibodies, suggest that SV/129 are faster than BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice in the assembly of an efficient B-cell response. Additionally, we observed an infection-induced increase in polyfunctional CD4+ T cells in the resistant SV/129 model, opposing an infection-induced increase in CD4+IL-10+ cells in susceptible BALB/c mice. Our data aligns with the observations reported for L. donovani infection and suggest that not only a single mechanism, but an interaction of several could be necessary for the control of this parasitic disease.The research leading to these results has received funding from the project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000012, supported by Norte Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). PC was supported by Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Portugal, through the individual grant SFRH/BD/121252/2016

Planejamento e implantação do sistema de gestão da qualidade na Embrapa Uva e Vinho.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo propor uma abordagem para conduzir um processo de Implantação de um SGQ (Sistema de Gestão da Qualidade) e relatar os resultados recentes alcançados na Embrapa Uva e Vinho

Physical inactivity and associated factors in elderly people in Brazil

El objetivo fue analizar los factores asociados a la inactividad física en personas mayores en Brasil. Se utilizó un diseño transversal, con una muestra representativa de 909 sujetos de 60 años o más. Fueron clasificados como físicamente inactivos los individuos con menos de 150 minutos de actividad física semanal. La identificación de los factores sociodemográficos, aspectos comportamentales y de salud asociados con la inactividad física se realizó con un análisis multivariante a través de una regresión de Poisson Los resultados sugieren una prevalencia del 39,1% para la inactividad física. La inactividad física presenta una mayor prevalente con o el incremento de la edad, la falta de práctica de actividad física regular en el pasado, los síntomas de depresión y la discapacidad en las Actividades Instrumentales de la Vida Diaria. El aumento de la edad, la falta de práctica regular de actividad física en el pasado, los síntomas depresivos y la discapacidad en las Actividades Instrumentales de la Vida Diaria se evidencian como factores asociados a la inactividad física.The aim was to analyse factors associated with physical inactivity in elderly Brazilians. The study was carried out by using a cross-sectional design and it comprised a representative sample of 909 subjects. Physical inactivity was defined as fewer than 150 minutes per week. In order to identify socio-demographic factors and behavioural and health aspects, which may be associated with physical inactivity, we carried out a multivariate analysis through the Poisson regression. Results suggest that physical inactivity has a prevalence of 39.1%. Physical inactivity presents a higher prevalence with an increase in age, a lack of regular physical activity practice in the past, depressive symptoms and disability in the instrumental activities of daily living. An increase in age, a lack of regular physical activity practice in the past, depressive symptoms and disability in the instrumental activities of daily living are shown as causes of physical inactivit

Effects of a Community Population Health Initiative on Blood Pressure Control in Latinos.

Background Hypertension remains one of the most important, modifiable cardiovascular risk factors. Yet, the largest minority ethnic group (Hispanics/Latinos) often have different health outcomes and behavior, making hypertension management more difficult. We explored the effects of an American Heart Association-sponsored population health intervention aimed at modifying behavior of Latinos living in Texas. Methods and Results We enrolled 8071 patients, and 5714 (65.7%) completed the 90-day program (58.5 years ±11.7; 59% female) from July 2016 to June 2018. Navigators identified patients with risk factors; initial and final blood pressure ( BP ) readings were performed in the physician\u27s office; and interim home measurements were recorded telephonically. The intervention incorporated home BP monitoring, fitness and nutritional counseling, and regular follow-up. Primary outcomes were change in systolic BP and health-related quality of life. Using a univariate paired-samples pre-post design, we found an average 5.5% (7.6-mm Hg) improvement in systolic BP (139.1 versus 131.5, t=10.32,

Identification of Long stress-induced non-coding transcripts that have altered expression in cancer

AbstractIt has recently become clear that the transcriptional output of the human genome is far more abundant than previously anticipated, with the vast majority of transcripts not coding for protein. Utilizing whole-genome tiling arrays, we analyzed the transcription across the entire genome in both normal human bronchial epithelial cells (NHBE) and NHBE cells exposed to the tobacco carcinogen NNK. Our efforts focused on the characterization of non-coding transcripts that were greater than 300 nucleotides in length and whose expression was increased in response to NNK. We identified 12 Long Stress-Induced Non-coding Transcripts that we term LSINCTs. Northern blot analysis revealed that these transcripts were larger than predicted from the tiling array data. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR performed across a panel of normal cell lines indicates that these transcripts are more abundantly expressed in rapidly growing tissues or in tissues that are more prone to cellular stress. These transcripts that have increased expression after exposure to NNK also had increased expression in a number of lung cancer cell lines and also in many breast cancer cell lines. Collectively, our results identified a new class of long stress responsive non-coding transcripts, LSINCTs, which have increased expression in response to DNA damage induced by NNK. LSINCTs interestingly also have increased expression in a number of cancer-derived cell lines, indicating that the expression is increased in both, correlating cellular stress and cancer