Film-making as a Creative Non-linear process (like designing)

This paper draws on research in the practice of design and technology and applies it to the production of television documentaries

Families and Food in Hard Times

Food is fundamental to health and social participation, yet food poverty has increased in the global North. Adopting a realist ontology and taking a comparative case approach, Families and Food in Hard Times addresses the global problem of economic retrenchment and how those most affected are those with the least resources. Based on research carried out with low-income families with children aged 11-15, this timely book examines food poverty in the UK, Portugal and Norway in the decade following the 2008 financial crisis. It examines the resources to which families have access in relation to public policies, local institutions and kinship and friendship networks, and how they intersect. Through ‘thick description’ of families’ everyday lives, it explores the ways in which low income impacts upon practices of household food provisioning, the types of formal and informal support on which families draw to get by, the provision and role of school meals in children’s lives, and the constraints upon families’ social participation involving food. Providing extensive and intensive knowledge concerning the conditions and experiences of low-income parents as they endeavour to feed their families, as well as children’s perspectives of food and eating in the context of low income, the book also draws on the European social science literature on food and families to shed light on the causes and consequences of food poverty in austerity Europe

Narratives of Normativity and Permissible Transgression: Mothers' Blogs About Mothering, Family and Food in Resource-Constrained Times

We consider the characteristics of one form of digital narrative—the blog—and what they may offer to personal narratives about mothering, families, and food and other resources. We draw on narrative analysis of six months of posts from two blogs about feeding families, written by mothers in the context of constrained economic, time, socioemotional, and environmental resources, to make a second-order analysis of the features of blogs that operate to support or transgress normative narratives. We focus on how, on the "About Me" pages of these blogs, the relations between the written and visual narratives, and the semantic multiplicities and contradictions, the styles and the cross-platform genres of the written stories, generate both normative and transgressive narratives around mothering and family, the bloggers' own involvements with the blog, and resource issues. In conclusion, we discuss the limitations of our analysis, and how and to what extent the features of blogs on which we have focused may work to generate narratives of political positioning and action

Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003 employs multiple transcriptional regulators to control metabolism of particular human milk oligosaccharides

Bifidobacterial carbohydrate metabolism has been studied in considerable detail for a variety of both plant and human-derived glycans, particularly involving the bifidobacterial prototype Bifidobacterium breve UCC2003. We recently elucidated the metabolic pathways by which the human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) constituents lacto-N-tetraose (LNT), lacto-N-neotetraose (LNnT) and lacto-N-biose (LNB) are utilized by B. breve UCC2003. However, to date no work has been carried out on the regulatory mechanisms that control expression of the genetic loci involved in these HMO metabolic pathways. In the current study, we describe the characterization of three transcriptional regulators and corresponding operator and associated (inducible) promoter sequences, the latter governing transcription of the genetic elements involved in LN(n)T/LNB metabolism. The activity of these regulators is dependent on the release of specific monosaccharides, which are believed to act as allosteric effectors, and which are derived from the corresponding HMOs targeted by the particular locus.Importance Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are a key factor in the development of the breastfed infant microbiota. They function as prebiotics, selecting for a specific range of microbes, including a number of infant-associated species of bifidobacteria, which are thought to provide a range of health benefits to the infant host. While much research has been carried out on elucidating the mechanisms of HMO metabolism in infant-associated bifidobacteria, there is to date very little understanding of the transcriptional regulation of these pathways. The current study reveals a multi-component transcriptional regulation system that controls the recently-identified pathways of HMO metabolism in the infant-associated Bifidobacterium breve prototype strain UCC2003. This not only provides insight into the regulatory mechanisms present in other infant-associated bifidobacteria, but also provides an example of a network of sequential steps regulating microbial carbohydrate metabolism

Which types of family are at risk of food poverty in the UK? A relative deprivation approach

Not enough is known in the UK about how economic phenomena and policy changes have impacted families’ ability to feed themselves. This article employs a novel way of identifying the types of UK families at risk of food poverty over time. Applying a relative deprivation approach, it asks what counts in the UK as a socially acceptable diet that meets needs for health and social participation and how much this costs. Comparing this to actual food expenditure by different family types, between 2005 and 2013, it identifies which are spending less than expected and may be at risk of food poverty. The analysis finds the proportion has increased over time for most family types and for lone parents and large families in particular. The discussion considers findings in light of changing economic and policy contexts and the implications for policy responses of how food poverty is defined and measured

A Case-by-Case Evolutionary Analysis of Four Imprinted Retrogenes

Retroposition is a widespread phenomenon resulting in the generation of new genes that are initially related to a parent gene via very high coding sequence similarity. We examine the evolutionary fate of four retrogenes generated by such an event; mouse Inpp5f_v2, Mcts2, Nap1l5, and U2af1-rs1. These genes are all subject to the epigenetic phenomenon of parental imprinting. We first provide new data on the age of these retrogene insertions. Using codon-based models of sequence evolution, we show these retrogenes have diverse evolutionary trajectories, including divergence from the parent coding sequence under positive selection pressure, purifying selection pressure maintaining parent-retrogene similarity, and neutral evolution. Examination of the expression pattern of retrogenes shows an atypical, broad pattern across multiple tissues. Protein 3D structure modeling reveals that a positively selected residue in U2af1-rs1, not shared by its parent, may influence protein conformation. Our case-by-case analysis of the evolution of four imprinted retrogenes reveals that this interesting class of imprinted genes, while similar in regulation and sequence characteristics, follow very varied evolutionary paths

Development of methodologies for researching online: the case of food blogs

The expanding reach of the Internet has opened new sites for conducting social science research. More recently, attention has been given to weblogs – or blogs, as they are more commonly known – as a generative data resource. Blogs are a contemporary digital authoring platform widely kept and read across different social and cultural groups for a range of different purposes. They have become a significant aspect of online engagements; their widespread adoption has been attributed to user-friendly template designs in free access blogging platforms. In this paper, we explicate on our combined multimodal social semiotic, ethnographic and narrative methods to provide a more encompassing approach: one that is able to attend to the unique, online material, which might not be wholly illuminated by any one of the three methodologies used independently. This involves coming to terms with the different epistemological perspectives that guide and shape the cross-disciplinary collaboration. We explain the framework we developed and the research processes, including data sampling, collection, archival and analysis; provide an overview of key findings from the substantive focus of this project; discuss the overall possibilities and constraints of working with combined perspectives; as well as offer suggestions for future online research in blogging platforms

Development of methodologies for researching online: the case of food blogs

The expanding reach of the Internet has opened new sites for conducting social science research. The prominence of blogs in combination with their varied areas of focus makes them a rich source of qualitative ‘user-generated data’. However, there are significant practical challenges in empirical research on digital material online. Central among these are ethical, archival and methodological issues. We highlight these in the development of our cross-disciplinary approach. We combine multimodal social semiotic, ethnographic and narrative methods to examine blogs, in our case here, food blogs, created on Wordpress platforms. ‘Food blogs’ are a prospective source of information about parenting, feeding and caring for children, given blogs’ wide use among parents, particularly mothers, in the UK. This relatively new digital environment of the blog, in which often quite intimate portraits of family life are materialized through public ‘multimodal narratives’ of mothers, provides the context for our online research. In this paper, we explicate on our combined multimodal social semiotic, ethnographic and narrative methods to provide a more encompassing approach: one that is able to attend to the unique, online material, which might not be wholly illuminated by any one of the three methodologies used independently. This involves coming to terms with the different epistemological perspectives that guide and shape the cross-disciplinary collaboration. We explain the framework we developed and the research processes, including data sampling, collection, archival and analysis; provide an overview of key findings from the substantive focus of this project; discuss the overall possibilities and constraints of working with combined perspectives; as well as offer suggestions for future online research in blogging platforms

MicroRNA-155 Promotes Autoimmune Inflammation by Enhancing Inflammatory T Cell Development

Mammalian noncoding microRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of gene regulators that have been linked to immune system function. Here, we have investigated the role of miR-155 during an autoimmune inflammatory disease. Consistent with a positive role for miR-155 in mediating inflammatory responses, Mir155^(−/−) mice were highly resistant to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). miR-155 functions in the hematopoietic compartment to promote the development of inflammatory T cells including the T helper 17 (Th17) cell and Th1 cell subsets. Furthermore, the major contribution of miR-155 to EAE was CD4^+ T cell intrinsic, whereas miR-155 was also required for optimum dendritic cell production of cytokines that promoted Th17 cell formation. Our study shows that one aspect of miR-155 function is the promotion of T cell-dependent tissue inflammation, suggesting that miR-155 might be a promising therapeutic target for the treatment of autoimmune disorders

FIGS -- Faint Infrared Grism Survey: Description and Data Reduction

The Faint Infrared Grism Survey (FIGS) is a deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) WFC3/IR (Wide Field Camera 3 Infrared) slitless spectroscopic survey of four deep fields. Two fields are located in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-North (GOODS-N) area and two fields are located in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey-South (GOODS-S) area. One of the southern fields selected is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Each of these four fields were observed using the WFC3/G102 grism (0.8$\mu m$-1.15$\mu m$ continuous coverage) with a total exposure time of 40 orbits (~ 100 kilo-seconds) per field. This reaches a 3 sigma continuum depth of ~26 AB magnitudes and probes emission lines to $\approx 10^{-17}\ erg\ s^{-1} \ cm^{-2}$. This paper details the four FIGS fields and the overall observational strategy of the project. A detailed description of the Simulation Based Extraction (SBE) method used to extract and combine over 10000 spectra of over 2000 distinct sources brighter than m_F105W=26.5 mag is provided. High fidelity simulations of the observations is shown to significantly improve the background subtraction process, the spectral contamination estimates, and the final flux calibration. This allows for the combination of multiple spectra to produce a final high quality, deep, 1D-spectra for each object in the survey.Comment: 21 Pages. 17 Figures. To appear in Ap