The Meaning of Re-Emerging Disordered Eating In the Context of Motherhood: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

This study aimed to explore the experiences of re-emerging disordered eating (DE) in the context of motherhood. My rationale for undertaking this endeavour was based on the dearth in anonymous studies on experiences of re-emerging DE in motherhood beyond the post-partum period, and conflicting findings regarding remission and relapse following pregnancy. Theories of control, emotional regulation, and identity formed part of the theoretical framework with which I presented previous literature, and contributed to my rationale for the research question: “what is the experience of re-emerging DE in the context of motherhood?” To explore this question and to expand the diversity in relevant literature, I conducted semi-structured interviews with seven Israeli participants in the Hebrew language. Participants ranged from 24 to 47 years old and were biological mothers for one to four children. Following transcription, I translated interviews and analysed data using the methodology deemed most appropriate; Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The analysis gave rise to three super-ordinate themes: “Motherhood as healing to DE”, “Motherhood as triggering to DE”, and “Good enough vs. thin enough mother”. Each of these super-ordinate themes consisted of three to four sub-ordinate themes. One of the key novel findings in this study is the constant push-and-pull between managing DE and motherhood demands and throughout motherhood (i.e., beyond pregnancy and the post-partum period). A reflection on both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’, as well as ‘confusing’ relationship between DE and motherhood shed light into the previously observed fluctuations in DE presentations in mothers. Another novel finding was the continuous interplay between DE and motherhood, such that participants described coping with ‘guilt about DE in motherhood’ with further DE pre-occupation and/or behaviours. These findings point to the complex nature of re-emerging DE in motherhood. Furthermore, these findings emphasise the need for support to focus on the individual experience of the mother, and in-so-doing reduce shame and stigma that often prevents access to help and that may exacerbate DE struggles. In order to offer relevant support, and to learn from individual experiences, I have made recommendations for clinical practice to explore and normalise experiences for mothers as reactive care (i.e., to mothers struggling with DE) and as preventative care (i.e., to women planning to be mothers). In order to inform guidelines, I suggest areas for future research to check for the commonality of the experiences described by my participants. Considering the context of my study and that participants mentioned conflicting societal demands, recommendations for future research also included research focusing on discourse in line with different epistemologies. My focus on phenomenological and idiosyncratic experience is acknowledged throughout the study and its implications, as aligned with my constructivist epistemological and phenomenological approach

Two-channel Kondo physics in two-impurity Kondo models

We consider the non-Fermi liquid quantum critical state of the spin-S two-impurity Kondo model, and its potential realization in a quantum dot device. Using conformal field theory (CFT) and the numerical renormalization group (NRG), we show the critical point to be identical to that of the two-channel Kondo model with additional potential scattering, for any spin-S. Distinct conductance signatures are shown to arise as a function of device asymmetry; with the `smoking gun' square-root behavior, commonly believed to arise at low-energies, dominant only in certain regimes.Comment: 4.5 pages (with 3 figures) + 9 pages (with 4 figures) supplementary materia

Roadmap to Majorana surface codes

Surface codes offer a very promising avenue towards fault-tolerant quantum computation. We argue that two-dimensional interacting networks of Majorana bound states in topological superconductor/semiconductor heterostructures hold several distinct advantages in that direction, both concerning the hardware realization and the actual operation of the code. We here discuss how topologically protected logical qubits in this Majorana surface code architecture can be defined, initialized, manipulated, and read out. All physical ingredients needed to implement these operations are routinely used in topologically trivial quantum devices. In particular, we show that by means of quantum interference terms in linear conductance measurements, composite single-electron pumping protocols, and gate-tunable tunnel barriers, the full set of quantum gates required for universal quantum computation can be implemented.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure

Towards realistic implementations of a Majorana surface code

Surface codes have emerged as promising candidates for quantum information processing. Building on the previous idea to realize the physical qubits of such systems in terms of Majorana bound states supported by topological semiconductor nanowires, we show that the basic code operations, namely projective stabilizer measurements and qubit manipulations, can be implemented by conventional tunnel conductance probes and charge pumping via single-electron transistors, respectively. The simplicity of the access scheme suggests that a functional code might be in close experimental reach.Comment: 5 pages, 1 p. suppl.mat, PRL in pres

Decision Quicksand: How Trivial Choices Suck Us In

Consumers often get unnecessarily mired in trivial decisions. Four studies support a metacognitive account for this painful phenomenon. Our central premise is that people use subjective experiences of difficulty while making a decision as a cue to how much further time and effort to spend. People generally associate important decisions with difficulty. Consequently, if a decision feels unexpectedly difficult, due to even incidental reasons, people may draw the reverse inference that it is also important, and consequently increase the amount of time and effort they expend. Ironically, this process is particularly likely for decisions that initially seemed unimportant because people expect them to be easier (whereas important decisions are expected to be difficult to begin with). Our studies not only demonstrate that unexpected difficulty causes people to get caught-up in unimportant decisions, but also to voluntarily seek more options, which can increase decision difficulty even further

Comparative transcriptomics reveals key differences in the response to milk oligosaccharides of infant gut-associated bifidobacteria.

Breast milk enhances the predominance of Bifidobacterium species in the infant gut, probably due to its large concentration of human milk oligosaccharides (HMO). Here we screened infant-gut isolates of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis and Bifidobacterium bifidum using individual HMO, and compared the global transcriptomes of representative isolates on major HMO by RNA-seq. While B. infantis displayed homogeneous HMO-utilization patterns, B. bifidum were more diverse and some strains did not use fucosyllactose (FL) or sialyllactose (SL). Transcriptomes of B. bifidum SC555 and B. infantis ATCC 15697 showed that utilization of pooled HMO is similar to neutral HMO, while transcriptomes for growth on FL were more similar to lactose than HMO in B. bifidum. Genes linked to HMO-utilization were upregulated by neutral HMO and SL, but not by FL in both species. In contrast, FL induced the expression of alternative gene clusters in B. infantis. Results also suggest that B. bifidum SC555 does not utilize fucose or sialic acid from HMO. Surprisingly, expression of orthologous genes differed between both bifidobacteria even when grown on identical substrates. This study highlights two major strategies found in Bifidobacterium species to process HMO, and presents detailed information on the close relationship between HMO and infant-gut bifidobacteria

Local Magnetization in the Boundary Ising Chain at Finite Temperature

We study the local magnetization in the 2-D Ising model at its critical temperature on a semi-infinite cylinder geometry, and with a nonzero magnetic field $h$ applied at the circular boundary of circumference $\beta$. This model is equivalent to the semi-infinite quantum critical 1-D transverse field Ising model at temperature $T \propto \beta^{-1}$, with a symmetry-breaking field $\propto h$ applied at the point boundary. Using conformal field theory methods we obtain the full scaling function for the local magnetization analytically in the continuum limit, thereby refining the previous results of Leclair, Lesage and Saleur in Ref. \onlinecite{Leclair}. The validity of our result as the continuum limit of the 1-D lattice model is confirmed numerically, exploiting a modified Jordan-Wigner representation. Applications of the result are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Continuity and Robustness of Bayesian Equilibria in Tullock Contests

We study the continuity and robustness of the Bayesian equilibria of Tullock contests with incomplete information. We show that the Bayesian equilibrium correspondence is upper semicontinuous. We identify conditions under which the Bayesian equilibrium correspondence of Tullock contests with a unique equilibrium is also lower semicontinous. Furthermore, when the Bayesian equilibrium is unique, it is robust to small perturbations of the contest's attributes (the contest success function, and the players' information, value for the prize, and cost of effort).Acknowledgments of financial support: Ministerio Economía Spain, grants ECO2014-55953-P and MDM2014-0431, and Comunidad de Madrid, grant S2015/HUM-3444 (Moreno)

Universal low-temperature crossover in two-channel Kondo models

An exact expression is derived for the electron Green function in two-channel Kondo models with one and two impurities, describing the crossover from non-Fermi liquid (NFL) behavior at intermediate temperatures to standard Fermi liquid (FL) physics at low temperatures. Symmetry-breaking perturbations generically present in experiment ensure the standard low-energy FL description, but the full crossover is wholly characteristic of the unstable NFL state. Distinctive conductance lineshapes in quantum dot devices should result. We exploit a connection between this crossover and one occurring in a classical boundary Ising model to calculate real-space electron densities at finite temperature. The single universal finite-temperature Green function is then extracted by inverting the integral transformation relating these Friedel oscillations to the t matrix. Excellent agreement is demonstrated between exact results and full numerical renormalization group calculations.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures: updated version including new a section and figure comparing exact results to finite-temperature numerical renormalization group calculation