The interrupted world: Surrealist disruption and altered escapes from reality

Following Breton’s writings on surreality, we outline how unexpected challenges to consumers’ assumptive worlds have the potential to alter how their escape from reality is experienced. We introduce the concept of ‘surrealist disruption’ to describe ontological discontinuities that disrupt the common-sense frameworks normally used by consumers and that impact upon their ability to suspend their disbeliefs and experience self-loss. To facilitate our theorization, we draw upon interviews with consumers about their changing experiences as viewers of the realist political TV drama House of Cards against a backdrop of disruptive real-world political events. Our analyses reveal that, when faced with a radically altered external environment, escape from reality changes from a restorative, playful experience to an uneasy, earnest one characterized by hysteretic angst, intersubjective sense-making and epistemological community-building. This reconceptualizes escapism as more emotionally multivalenced than previously considered in marketing theory and reveals consumers’ subject position to an aggregative social fabric beyond their control

Issues of energy retrofitting of a modern public housing estates. The ‘Giorgio Morandi’ complex at Tor Sapienza, Rome, 1975-1979

Energy retrofitting of historical residential buildings represents today an interesting challenge of the building sector. This is true especially in Italy where great part of the national buildingstock dates back to pre-modern and modern times and, especially, to the decades between the 1960s and the 1980s. Most of these buildings, in fact, offerthermal performances that are inadequate to current requirements in terms of energy efficiency, human comfort as well as to seismic safety. This study focuses on the energy retrofitting of public housing estatessuch as the“Giorgio Morandi” complex at Tor Sapienza in Rome. The upgrading of this complex is outlined, taking into account issues of energy saving but, also, constraints related to the historical values of the buildings. Intervention options able to improve energy efficiency are therefore foreseeable only in strict observance of cultural heritage values, which entails a deep analysis and survey of the existence in order to identify respectful, correct and feasiblesolutions

Modelling fruit and vegetable consumption : a comparative study of two cities with high and low consumption

The importance of the consumption of a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, for overall health, has been highlighted by the UK government in recent years. Consumption of fruit and vegetables is considerably lower in Scotland than in other parts of the UK. Behavioural change is most likely to come about through a comprehensive understanding of the range of factors influencing fruit and vegetable consumption, and the nature of the interaction of these factors. With variations in fruit and vegetable consumption by place and social class, this study focused on an area of low fruit and vegetable consumption in Scotland, and compared this to an area of high fruit and vegetable consumption in England, with socio-economic profile matched. The determinants of consumption, and their interrelationship, were investigated using qualitative information from focus group discussions, and quantitative data from a structured questionnaire. Multivariate models of fruit and vegetables consumption were developed, using log linear analysis, logistic regression and discriminant analysis. The models developed identified significant differences between fruit and vegetable consumption behaviour. Fruit consumption was mainly influenced by sociodemographic variables,in particulars mokers tatus. The impact of place and social class was substantial, when these variables were considered in interaction with the other socio-demographic variables. In contrast, vegetable consumption was influenced by motivational and attitudinal factors. Of these, the extent to which vegetables satisfied `convenience' expectations, and `hedonic motivations' were the most important influences, critical to vegetable consumption. The findings also suggest that the development of a generic model of food choice may not be an achievable goal, since the models of these two (similar) foodstuffs are so different. Strategies to promote fruit and vegetable consumption, must address the different characteristics, and priorities, of low fruit and vegetable consumers

The human Cranio Facial Development Protein 1 (Cfdp1) gene encodes a protein required for the maintenance of higher-order chromatin organization

The human Cranio Facial Development Protein 1 (Cfdp1) gene maps to chromosome 16q22.2-q22.3 and encodes the CFDP1 protein, which belongs to the evolutionarily conserved Bucentaur (BCNT) family. Craniofacial malformations are developmental disorders of particular biomedical and clinical interest, because they represent the main cause of infant mortality and disability in humans, thus it is important to understand the cellular functions and mechanism of action of the CFDP1 protein. We have carried out a multi-disciplinary study, combining cell biology, reverse genetics and biochemistry, to provide the first in vivo characterization of CFDP1 protein functions in human cells. We show that CFDP1 binds to chromatin and interacts with subunits of the SRCAP chromatin remodeling complex. An RNAi-mediated depletion of CFDP1 in HeLa cells affects chromosome organization, SMC2 condensin recruitment and cell cycle progression. Our findings provide new insight into the chromatin functions and mechanisms of the CFDP1 protein and contribute to our understanding of the link between epigenetic regulation and the onset of human complex developmental disorders

Patient, client, user, consumer? Issues involved with approaching vulnerability with consumer-focused terminology

This presentation aims to build upon the central themes emerging from our ESRC seminar series on Consumer Vulnerability (2013-2014). These seminars provided a space to critically engage with the notion of consumer vulnerability in two key ways. First, they brought together international speakers from the fields of marketing, consumer research, sociology, social policy, law and medicine to ensure developments in thinking and best practice were shared across academic networks and across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Second, policy and practitioner organisations played a key role in our series, thereby adding a more practical element to discussions. An overarching concern emerging from the seminar series was the nature of the language we use when discussing those experiencing vulnerability, and how this language impacts on the relationship s between individuals and the services they used (both private and non - commercial). In particular, this presentation will consider the issues involved when approaching vulnerability with consumer - focused terminology

Simple (γ, δ) algebras are associative

AbstractA (γ, δ) algebra over a field F is a nonassociative algebra satisfying an identity of the form, (a, b, c) + γ(b, a, c) + δ(c, a, b) = 0, for fixed γ, δ ϵ F, and γ2 − δ2 + δ = 1. We assume that F is of characteristic ≠ 2, ≠ 3; however, we do not assume that the algebra is finite-dimensional over F. We show that any simple (γ, δ) algebra is associative with the possible exception of the cases (± 1, 0) and (1, 1). The approach used in this paper is to represent the identities by matrices by way of the group algebra representation. This enables us to manipulate identities by the well-known techniques of matrix theory

Identity refusal: distancing from non-drinking in a drinking culture

Following Scott’s (2018) sociology of nothing, we focus on the process of non-identification, wherein young adults seek to manage the risk of being marked by their non-participation in an important cultural practice. Drawing on qualitative interviews with undergraduate students we develop two overall identity refusal positions (resistance and othering), through which informants seek to disengage with the collective identity of the non-drinker. These positions are underlined by four categories of identity talk: denial and temporal talk (distancing through resistance), and disconnect and concealment talk (distancing through othering), which are used to repudiate non-drinking as culturally and personally meaningful respectively. We contribute understandings of how identities can be performed through active omission, developing Scott’s conceptualization and demonstrating how this can be a potentially planful process, depending on the extent to which individuals credit a particular object or activity with being a ‘something’

Simple (γ, δ) algebras are associative

AbstractA (γ, δ) algebra over a field F is a nonassociative algebra satisfying an identity of the form, (a, b, c) + γ(b, a, c) + δ(c, a, b) = 0, for fixed γ, δ ϵ F, and γ2 − δ2 + δ = 1. We assume that F is of characteristic ≠ 2, ≠ 3; however, we do not assume that the algebra is finite-dimensional over F. We show that any simple (γ, δ) algebra is associative with the possible exception of the cases (± 1, 0) and (1, 1). The approach used in this paper is to represent the identities by matrices by way of the group algebra representation. This enables us to manipulate identities by the well-known techniques of matrix theory