Magnetism Among the Shakers

The article reprinted from the May 1849, issue of Sartain’s Union Magazine of Literature and Art (volume 4, no. 5, pages [337]-38) records a particularly personal account of a visit by a long-time Shaker to the home of an old friend. The Shaker brother had been a member of an unnamed Shaker village for forty years and had joined with his wife and two children. He describes how his daughter left the faith and married and how his wife soon joined the daughter in the World. The son then apostasized, leaving the father alone with the Shakers. The account describes visions from the Era of Manifestations and describes the man’s uneasiness with this new development

The <i>AKARI</i> deep fields: early results from multi-wavelength follow-up campaigns

We present early results from our multi-wavelength follow-up campaigns of the AKARI Deep Fields at the North and South Ecliptic Poles. We summarize our campaigns in this poster paper, and present three early outcomes. (a) Our AAOmega optical spectroscopy of the Deep Field South at the AAT has observed over 550 different targets, and our preliminary local luminosity function at 90 ?m from the first four hours of data is in good agreement with the predictions from Serjeant & Harrison (2005). (b) Our GMRT 610 MHz imaging in the Deep Field North has reached ?30 ?Jy RMS, making this among the deepest images at this frequency. Our 610 MHz source counts at >200 ?Jy are the deepest ever derived at this frequency. (c) Comparing our GMRT data with our 1.4 GHz WSRT data, we have found two examples of radio-loud AGN that may have more than one epoch of activity

Harm minimisation for the management of self-harm: a mixed-methods analysis of electronic health records in secondary mental healthcare

BACKGROUND: Prevalence of self-harm in the UK was reported as 6.4% in 2014. Despite sparse evidence for effectiveness, guidelines recommend harm minimisation; a strategy in which people who self-harm are supported to do so safely. AIMS: To determine the prevalence, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of those who self-harm and practise harm minimisation within a London mental health trust. METHOD: We included electronic health records for patients treated by South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. Using an iterative search strategy, we identified patients who practise harm minimisation, then classified the approaches using a content analysis. We compared the sociodemographic characteristics with that of a control group of patients who self-harm and do not use harm minimisation. RESULTS: In total 22 736 patients reported self-harm, of these 693 (3%) had records reporting the use of harm-minimisation techniques. We coded the approaches into categories: (a) ‘substitution’ (>50% of those using harm minimisation), such as using rubber bands or using ice; (b) ‘simulation’ (9%) such as using red pens; (c) ‘defer or avoid’ (7%) such as an alternative self-injury location; (d) ‘damage limitation’ (9%) such as using antiseptic techniques; the remainder were unclassifiable (24%). The majority of people using harm minimisation described it as helpful (>90%). Those practising harm minimisation were younger, female, of White ethnicity, had previous admissions and were less likely to have self-harmed with suicidal intent. CONCLUSIONS: A small minority of patients who self-harm report using harm minimisation, primarily substitution techniques, and the large majority find harm minimisation helpful. More research is required to determine the acceptability and effectiveness of harm-minimisation techniques and update national clinical guidelines

Theory and simulation of gelation, arrest and yielding in attracting colloids

We present some recent theory and simulation results addressing the phenomena of colloidal gelation at both high and low volume fractions, in the presence of short-range attractive interactions. We discuss the ability of mode-coupling theory and its adaptations to address situations with strong heterogeneity in density and/or dynamics. We include a discussion of the effect of attractions on the shear-thinning and yield behaviour under flow.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

A simple, azulene-based colorimetric probe for the detection of nitrite in water

We describe the synthesis and evaluation of an azulene-based chemodosimeter for nitrite. The probe was found to undergo two distinct color changes upon introduction of aqueous nitrite ion. A near-instant formation of a grey color provides a qualitative indication of the presence of nitrite, followed by the formation of a deep-yellow/ orange color, the endpoint from which quantitative data can be derived. The azulene probe exhibits 1:1 stoichiometry of reaction with nitrite in water, and is selective for nitrite over other anions. The azulene probe was applied to determine nitrite content in cured meat, and compared with the British Standard testing procedure (Griess test). The value obtained from the azulene-based probe agreed closely with the standard test. Our procedure only requires the preparation of one standard solution, instead of the three required for the standard Griess test.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 66599

Psychopolitics: Peter Sedgwick’s legacy for mental health movements

This paper re-considers the relevance of Peter Sedgwick's Psychopolitics (1982) for a politics of mental health. Psychopolitics offered an indictment of ‘anti-psychiatry’ the failure of which, Sedgwick argued, lay in its deconstruction of the category of ‘mental illness’, a gesture that resulted in a politics of nihilism. ‘The radical who is only a radical nihilist’, Sedgwick observed, ‘is for all practical purposes the most adamant of conservatives’. Sedgwick argued, rather, that the concept of ‘mental illness’ could be a truly critical concept if it was deployed ‘to make demands upon the health service facilities of the society in which we live’. The paper contextualizes Psychopolitics within the ‘crisis tendencies’ of its time, surveying the shifting welfare landscape of the subsequent 25 years alongside Sedgwick's continuing relevance. It considers the dilemma that the discourse of ‘mental illness’ – Sedgwick's critical concept – has fallen out of favour with radical mental health movements yet remains paradigmatic within psychiatry itself. Finally, the paper endorses a contemporary perspective that, while necessarily updating Psychopolitics, remains nonetheless ‘Sedgwickian’

Clubbing masculinities: Gender shifts in gay men's dance floor choreographies

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journal of Homosexuality, 58(5), 608-625, 2011 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00918369.2011.563660This article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the intersections of gender, sexuality, and dance. It examines the expressions of sexuality among gay males through culturally popular forms of club dancing. Drawing on political and musical history, I outline an account of how gay men's gendered choreographies changed throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Through a notion of “technologies of the body,” I situate these developments in relation to cultural levels of homophobia, exploring how masculine expressions are entangled with and regulated by musical structures. My driving hypothesis is that as perceptions of cultural homophobia decrease, popular choreographies of gay men's dance have become more feminine in expression. Exploring this idea in the context of the first decade of the new millennium, I present a case study of TigerHeat, one of the largest weekly gay dance club events in the United States

Personality disorder services in England: findings from a national survey

Aims and method: We aimed to evaluate the availability and nature of services for people affected by personality disorder in England by conducting a survey of English National Health Service (NHS) mental health trusts and independent organisations. Results: In England, 84% of organisations reported having at least one dedicated personality disorder service. This represents a fivefold increase compared with a 2002 survey. However, only 55% of organisations reported that patients had equal access across localities to these dedicated services. Dedicated services commonly had good levels of service use and carer involvement, and engagement in education, research and training. However, a wider multidisciplinary team and a greater number of biopsychosocial interventions were available through generic services. Clinical implications: There has been a substantial increase in service provision for people affected by personality disorder, but continued variability in the availability of services is apparent and it remains unclear whether quality of care has improved

Employability and higher education: contextualising female students' workplace experiences to enhance understanding of employability development

Current political and economic discourses position employability as a responsibility of higher education, which deploys mechanisms such as supervised work experience (SWE) to embed employability skills development into the undergraduate curriculum. However, workplaces are socially constructed complex arenas of embodied knowledge that are gendered. Understanding the usefulness of SWE therefore requires consideration of the contextualised experiences of it, within these complex environments. This study considers higher education's use of SWE as a mechanism of employability skills development through exploration of female students' experiences of accounting SWE, and its subsequent shaping of their views of employment. Findings suggest that women experience numerous, indirect gender-based inequalities within their accounting SWE about which higher education is silent, perpetuating the framing of employability as a set of individual skills and abilities. This may limit the potential of SWE to provide equality of employability development. The study concludes by briefly considering how insights provided by this research could better inform higher education's engagement with SWE within the employability discourse, and contribute to equality of employability development opportunity