Objectification theory predicts college women’s attitudes toward cosmetic surgery

This study investigated cosmetic surgery attitudes within the framework of objectification theory. One hundred predominantlyWhite, British undergraduate women completed self-report measures of impression management, global selfesteem, interpersonal sexual objectification, self-surveillance, body shame, and three components of cosmetic surgery attitudes. As expected, each of the objectification theory variables predicted greater consideration of having cosmetic surgery in the future. Also, as expected, sexual objectification and body shame uniquely predicted socialmotives for cosmetic surgery, whereas self-surveillance uniquely predicted intrapersonal motives for cosmetic surgery. These findings suggest that women’s acceptance of cosmetic surgery as a way to manipulate physical appearance can be partially explained by the degree to which they view themselves through the lenses of sexual and self-objectification

A narrative study of adults who were bullied by a sibling in childhood

Background: It is argued that sibling relationships are often overlooked in favour of parent child relationships. Sibling interactions have the potential to be emotionally intimate and complex, and experiences can influence later psychological development. Research exploring the significance of sibling relationships is developing, with the majority of studies focussing on the protective nature of this relationship. There has been limited curiosity into the expression of adults’ stories of being bullied by a sibling in childhood. By exploring people’s stories, this study aims to consider what it means to be bullied by a sibling – that is, it will explore the broad question of “how do adults describe and make sense of their childhood sibling bullying experiences?” Method: A qualitative research paradigm was chosen for this study. The method of narrative inquiry was employed, using the Narrative Orientated Inquiry approach. Interviews were completed with seven adults who perceived themselves to have been bullied by a sibling in childhood. Results: Adults’ experiences were understood within the context of content and form. The content of people’s stories were considered alongside the way in which they told their story, facilitating an understanding of what and how they integrated their experiences into the construction of their narrative identities. Adults described their perceptions of sibling bullying and the barriers to defining experience, as well as the impact on their later, sibling relationships. The results also indicated that emotional expression associated with the event varied for every narrator, as they moved towards integration of experience. Discussion: The findings are discussed within existing theoretical models of sibling bullying and subject and identity positioning theory. The clinical implications are framed within psychoanalytic theory and in relation to the perceived acceptability of sibling bullying

Electronic textile garments for fall and near-fall detection

The world population is ageing and one of the biggest detriments to the quality of life of older people is falls. The aim of this thesis is to develop an electronic textiles (E-textile) garment using electronic yarn (E-yarn) technology for near-fall and fall detection. Near-falls are a loss of balance that can be corrected. An increased number in near-falls is seen as a precursor for falls. If near-falls can be detected, hopefully this can lead to fall prevention. The first step to creating an E-textile for near-fall was to determine the appropriate sensor for near-fall detection. Within the literature there are more studies conducted on fall detection systems rather than near-fall detection. Consequently, both types of system were reviewed. Informed by the literature, it was concluded that an inertial measurement unit (IMU) would be used to manufacturing a motion sensing E-yarn. Once the sensor had been determined, the optimal placement of the sensor on the body needed to be found. In accordance with the literature six locations were explored, the waist, chest, wrist, lower back, thigh and ankle. A pilot study was conducted, and the results showed that either the waist, thigh or ankle were best. Interviews and a focus group were held to design an E-textile garment that an older person would be willing to wear. Interviews on clothing preferences, attitudes towards falls, and wearable technology for fall prevention were conducted. Non-functioning prototypes were made and shared with a focus group to determine which would be used in the final design. The design chosen was an over-sock. Lastly, a functioning E-textile garment was developed and tested on young healthy volunteers. The E-textile garment can accurately classify between three types of activities of daily living and three type of falls with an accuracy of 85.7%. When classifying between ADLs and the falls, the accuracy of detection was 99.4%. Furthermore, when classifying between the ADLs, the falls, and a near-fall event an accuracy of 94.2% was achieved. This thesis contributes new knowledge to the field of E-textiles by using human centered design to create an E-textile garment people are willing to wear. It also has created the first near-fall and fall detection system in the form of an E-textile and presents the first E-yarn to contain an IMU

Pharmacogenetics and ethnically targeted therapies

Improvement guarantees for semi-supervised classifiers can currently only be given under restrictive conditions on the data. We propose a general way to perform semi-supervised parameter estimation for likelihood-based classifiers for which, on the full training set, the estimates are never worse than the supervised solution in terms of the log-likelihood. We argue, moreover, that we may expect these solutions to really improve upon the supervised classifier in particular cases. In a worked-out example for LDA, we take it one step further and essentially prove that its semi-supervised version is strictly better than its supervised counterpart. The two new concepts that form the core of our estimation principle are contrast and pessimism. The former refers to the fact that our objective function takes the supervised estimates into account, enabling the semi-supervised solution to explicitly control the potential improvements over this estimate. The latter refers to the fact that our estimates are conservative and therefore resilient to whatever form the true labeling of the unlabeled data takes on. Experiments demonstrate the improvements in terms of both the log-likelihood and the classification error rate on independent test sets.Pattern Recognition and Bioinformatic

Vibration-sensing electronic yarns for the monitoring of hand transmitted vibrations

Overexposure to hand transmitted vibrations (HTVs) from prolonged use of vibrating power tools can result in severe injuries. By monitoring the exposure of a worker to HTVs, overexposure, and injury, can be mitigated. An ideal HTV-monitoring system would measure vibration were it enters the body, which for many power tools will be the palm and fingers, however this is difficult to achieve using conventional transducers as they will affect the comfort of the user and subsequently alter the way that the tool is held. By embedding a transducer within the core of a textile yarn, that can be used to produce a glove, vibration can be monitored close to where it enters the body without compromising the comfort of the user. This work presents a vibration-sensing electronic yarn that was created by embedding a commercially available accelerometer within the structure of a yarn. These yarns were subsequently used to produce a vibration-sensing glove. The purpose of this study is to characterize the response of the embedded accelerometer over a range of relevant frequencies and vibration amplitudes at each stage of the electronic yarn’s manufacture to understand how the yarn structure influences the sensors response. The vibration-sensing electronic yarn was subsequently incorporated into a fabric sample and characterized. Finally, four vibration-sensing electronic yarns were used to produce a vibration-sensing glove that is capable of monitoring vibration at the palm and index finger

Centromeric Repositioning of Coreceptor Loci Predicts Their Stable Silencing and the CD4/CD8 Lineage Choice

The differentiation of CD4+ CD8+ double positive (DP) thymocytes requires the irreversible choice between two alternative lineages, distinguished by the mutually exclusive expression of either CD4 or CD8. Differentiating DP cells transiently down-regulate both CD4 and CD8, and this has complicated the debate whether the mechanism of CD4/CD8 lineage choice is instructive, stochastic/selective, or more complex in nature. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization, we show that the stable silencing of coreceptor loci, and ultimately lineage choice, is predicted by the spatial repositioning of coreceptor alleles to centromeric heterochromatin domains. These data provide evidence that lineage-specific developmental programs are established early during the transition from the DP to the single positive stage

Developing a vibration-sensing yarn for monitoring hand-transmitted vibrations

Overexposure to hand-transmitted vibrations (HTVs) is a serious concern within industries that use vibrating power tools as HTVs can lead to severe and chronic injuries to the hand-arm system, which are preventable by limiting vibration exposure. This study presents a novel vibration-sensing electronic yarn (E-yarn) that can be used to monitor HTVs at the point-of-entry of the vibrations into the hand. The construction of the vibration-sensing E-yarn is described, with the vibration-sensing E-yarns being fully characterised at each stage of the manufacturing process to understand how the manufacturing stages affect the behaviour of the embedded sensor. The results show that there is no significant difference in the sensor response at each of the three stages in the E-yarn production over a range of frequencies and amplitudes relevant to HTVs