“Where do we find the time to do this?” Struggling Against the Tyranny of Time

For the past five years, the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Early Childhood Centre, working with childcare educators, has been researching, piloting, and developing curriculum materials and workshops for infants, toddlers, and other children. As we move in and out of university and daycare spaces where “people are not equally located” (Eyre, 2007, p. 99), our work is rifled with contradictions and ethical tensions. Out of this complex and contradictory landscape, we hear and ask many recursive questions. The question we problematize in this article is: Where do we find the time to do this? (Foucault, 1984; Marshall, 2007). Questions such as this incite experiments and interpretations that enliven and invigorate our pedagogical co-authorings in order to reimagine ourselves and our worlds (Olson, 2005). Our critical examination of experimentations and interpretations provoked through three communally produced texts uncovers how educators both slide into and disrupt cultural orientations toward individualism, deficit, and the tyranny of clock time

A complete ancient RNA genome : identification, reconstruction and evolutionary history of archaeological Barley Stripe Mosaic Virus

The origins of many plant diseases appear to be recent and associated with the rise of domestication, the spread of agriculture or recent global movements of crops. Distinguishing between these possibilities is problematic because of the difficulty of determining rates of molecular evolution over short time frames. Heterochronous approaches using recent and historical samples show that plant viruses exhibit highly variable and often rapid rates of molecular evolution. The accuracy of estimated evolution rates and age of origin can be greatly improved with the inclusion of older molecular data from archaeological material. Here we present the first reconstruction of an archaeological RNA genome, which is of Barley Stripe Mosaic Virus (BSMV) isolated from barley grain ~750 years of age. Phylogenetic analysis of BSMV that includes this genome indicates the divergence of BSMV and its closest relative prior to this time, most likely around 2000 years ago. However, exclusion of the archaeological data results in an apparently much more recent origin of the virus that postdates even the archaeological sample. We conclude that this viral lineage originated in the Near East or North Africa, and spread to North America and East Asia with their hosts along historical trade routes

Storytelling with UK Centenarians: Being a hundred - it’s just luck

What is it like to have lived one hundred years? In the opinion of those who are active and well, what has contributed to their longevity? If asked to tell a story about being 100 years old what would they talk about? In 2010 we interviewed 16 UK centenarians. We travelled to Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England to interview participants in their own homes. We (Koch, Smith, Hutnik and Turner) asked centenarians to tell us their story. We heard about celebrating their 100th birthday with friends and family. We heard that there were 100 balloons or 100 roses or 100 reasons to continue partying into the future. Many chose to talk about aspects of their life that were foremost in their minds. Each person was given space to retell, using their own words, something about themselves and the social context that had shaped their lives. Interviews often included interested friends or relatives. Their accounts ran to several thousand words. Together these stories comprise a social history of ordinary lives lived during the 20th century and into the 21st. Let us introduce you to some of these remarkable older people

Virtual visiting in intensive care during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative descriptive study with ICU clinicians and non-ICU family team liaison members

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Objective: To understand the experiences and perceived benefits of virtual visiting from the perspectives of intensive care unit (ICU)-experienced clinicians and non-ICU-experienced family liaison team members. Design: Qualitative descriptive study. Setting: Adult intensive care setting across 14 hospitals within the UK National Health Service. Participants: ICU-experienced clinicians and non-ICU-experienced family liaison team members deployed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Semistructured telephone/video interviews were conducted with ICU clinicians. Analytical themes were developed inductively following a standard thematic approach, using ‘family-centred care’ and ‘sensemaking’ as sensitising concepts. Results: We completed 36 interviews, with 17 ICU-experienced clinicians and 19 non-ICU-experienced family liaison team members. In the context of inperson visiting restrictions, virtual visiting offered an alternative conduit to (1) restoring the family unit, (2) facilitating family involvement, and (3) enabling sensemaking for the family. Virtual visits with multiple family members concurrently and with those living in distant geographical locations restored a sense of family unit. Family involvement in rehabilitation, communication and orientation activities, as well as presence at the end of life, highlighted how virtual visiting could contribute to family-centred care. Virtual visits were emotionally challenging for many family members, but also cathartic in helping make sense of their own emotions and experience by visualising their relatives in the ICU. Being able to see and interact with loved ones and their immediate care providers afforded important cues to enable family sensemaking of the ICU experience. Conclusions: In this UK qualitative study of clinicians using virtual ICU visiting, in the absence of inperson visiting, virtual visiting was perceived positively as an alternative that promoted family-centred care through virtual presence. We anticipate the perceived benefits of virtual visiting may extend to non-pandemic conditions through improved equity and timeliness of family access to the ICU by offering an alternative option alongside inperson visiting.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Learning a musical instrument can benefit a child with special educational needs

This study explores outcomes related to musical learning in a child with complex special educational needs. CB is a boy who was eight-years-old at the start of the study, and who was diagnosed with co-morbid Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Sensory Processing Difficulties, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia during the study. He was evaluated on a battery of developmental measures before and after one year of music learning. At pretesting CB obtained a high musical aptitude score and an average IQ score. However, his scores on tests measuring motor abilities, executive function, and social-emotional skills were low. Post-testing revealed improvements in CB’s fluid intelligence and motor skills, and whilst teacher and parent reports suggested a decline in his social-emotional functioning, his musical progress was good. The results are discussed in the context of impairments in developmental disorders, the importance of flexible teaching approaches and family support for music learning during childhood

Communication and virtual visiting for families of patients in intensive care during the COVID-19 pandemic:A UK National Survey

© 2021 by the American Thoracic Society. This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 4.0.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Rationale: Restriction or prohibition of family visiting intensive care units (ICUs) during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic poses substantial barriers to communication and family- and patient-centered care. Objectives: To understand how communication among families, patients, and the ICU team was enabled during the pandemic. The secondary objectives were to understand strategies used to facilitate virtual visiting and associated benefits and barriers. Methods: A multicenter, cross-sectional, and self-administered electronic survey was sent (June 2020) to all 217 UK hospitals with at least one ICU. Results: The survey response rate was 54%; 117 of 217 hospitals (182 ICUs) responded. All hospitals imposed visiting restrictions, with visits not permitted under any circumstance in 16% of hospitals (28 ICUs); 63% (112 ICUs) of hospitals permitted family presence at the end of life. The responsibility for communicating with families shifted with decreased bedside nurse involvement. A dedicated ICU family-liaison team was established in 50% (106 ICUs) of hospitals. All but three hospitals instituted virtual visiting, although there was substantial heterogeneity in the videoconferencing platform used. Unconscious or sedated ICU patients were deemed ineligible for virtual visits in 23% of ICUs. Patients at the end of life were deemed ineligible for virtual visits in 7% of ICUs. Commonly reported benefits of virtual visiting were reducing patient psychological distress (78%), improving staff morale (68%), and reorientation of patients with delirium (47%). Common barriers to virtual visiting were related to insufficient staff time, rapid implementation of videoconferencing technology, and challenges associated with family members’ ability to use videoconferencing technology or access a device. Conclusions: Virtual visiting and dedicated communication teams were common COVID-19 pandemic innovations addressing the restrictions to family ICU visiting, and they resulted in valuable benefits in terms of patient recovery and staff morale. Enhancing access and developing a more consistent approach to family virtual ICU visits could improve the quality of care, both during and outside of pandemic conditions.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Medicalization and beyond: the social construction of insomnia and snoring in the news

What role do the media play in the medicalization of sleep problems? This article, based on a British Academy funded project, uses qualitative textual analysis to examine representations of insomnia and snoring in a large representative sample of newspaper articles taken from the UK national press from the mid-1980s to the present day. Constructed as `common problems' in the population at large, insomnia and snoring we show are differentially located in terms of medicalizing—healthicizing discourses and debates. Our findings also suggest important differences in the gendered construction of these problems and in terms of tabloid and `broadsheet' newspaper coverage of these issues. Newspaper constructions of sleep, it is concluded, are complex, depending on both the `problem' and the paper in question

Potential effects of oilseed rape expressing oryzacystatin-1 (OC-1) and of purified insecticidal proteins on larvae of the solitary bee Osmia bicornis

Despite their importance as pollinators in crops and wild plants, solitary bees have not previously been included in non-target testing of insect-resistant transgenic crop plants. Larvae of many solitary bees feed almost exclusively on pollen and thus could be highly exposed to transgene products expressed in the pollen. The potential effects of pollen from oilseed rape expressing the cysteine protease inhibitor oryzacystatin-1 (OC-1) were investigated on larvae of the solitary bee Osmia bicornis (= O. rufa). Furthermore, recombinant OC-1 (rOC-1), the Bt toxin Cry1Ab and the snowdrop lectin Galanthus nivalis agglutinin (GNA) were evaluated for effects on the life history parameters of this important pollinator. Pollen provisions from transgenic OC-1 oilseed rape did not affect overall development. Similarly, high doses of rOC-1 and Cry1Ab as well as a low dose of GNA failed to cause any significant effects. However, a high dose of GNA (0.1%) in the larval diet resulted in significantly increased development time and reduced efficiency in conversion of pollen food into larval body weight. Our results suggest that OC-1 and Cry1Ab expressing transgenic crops would pose a negligible risk for O. bicornis larvae, whereas GNA expressing plants could cause detrimental effects, but only if bees were exposed to high levels of the protein. The described bioassay with bee brood is not only suitable for early tier non-target tests of transgenic plants, but also has broader applicability to other crop protection products

Rotation and Spin in Physics

We delineate the role of rotation and spin in physics, discussing in order Newtonian classical physics, special relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics and general relativity. In the latter case, we discuss the generalization of the Kepler formula to post-Newtonian order $(c^{-2}$) including spin effects and two-body effects. Experiments which verify the theoretical results for general relativistic spin-orbit effects are discussed as well as efforts being made to verify the spin-spin effects