Taken by strum: ukuleles and participatory music-making in Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Ethnographic study of ukulele playing in Hamilton, N

Fifty-kDa Hyaluronic Acid Upregulates Some Epidermal Genes without Changing TNF-α Expression in Reconstituted Epidermis

Background: Due to its strong water binding potential, hyaluronic acid (HA) is a well-known active ingredient for cosmetic applications. However, based on its varying molecular size, skin penetration of HA may be limited. Recent studies have demonstrated that low-molecular-weight HA (LMW HA) may show a certain proinflammatory activity. We thus aimed to characterize an LMW-sized HA molecule that combines strong anti-aging abilities with efficient skin penetration but lacks potential proinflammatory effects. Methods: Total RNA and total protein were isolated from reconstituted human epidermis following incubation with HAs of various molecular weights (20, 50, 130, 300, 800 and 1,500 kDa). Tumor necrosis factor-alpha expression was determined using quantitative PCR. Genonnic and proteomic expression of various junctional proteins was determined using Affymetrix and common Western blotting techniques. Results: LMW HA of approximately 50 kDa did not significantly alter tumor necrosis factor-alpha expression compared to 20-kDa HA, but revealed significantly higher skin penetration rates than larger sized HA associated with increased expression of genes and proteins known to be involved in tight junction formation and keratinocyte cohesion. Conclusion: LMW HA of approximately 50 kDa shows better penetration abilities than larger-sized HA. In addition, LMW HA influences the expression of various genes including those contributing to keratinocyte differentiation and formation of intercellular tight junction complexes without showing proinflammatory activity. These observations contribute to current knowledge on the effects of LMW HA on keratinocyte biology and cutaneous physiology. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

Processes and experiences of creative cognition in seven Western classical composers

In a qualitative study, we explored the range of reflections and experiences involved in the composition of score-based music by administering a 15-item, open-ended, questionnaire to seven professional composers from Europe and North America. Adopting a grounded theory approach, we organized six different codes emerging from our data into two higher-order categories ( the act of composing and establishing relationships). Our content analysis, inspired by the theoretical resources of 4E cognitive science, points to three overlapping characteristics of creative cognition in music composition: it is largely exploratory, it is grounded in bodily experience, and it emerges from the recursive dialogue of agents and their environment. More generally, such preliminary findings suggest that musical creativity may be advantageously understood as a process of constant adaptation – one in which composers enact their musical styles and identities by exploring novel interactivities hidden in their contingent and historical milieux

Towards a sociocultural understanding of children’s voice

While ‘voice’ is frequently invoked in discussions of pupils’ agency and empowerment, less attention has been paid to the dialogic dynamics of children’s voices and the sociocultural features shaping their emergence. Drawing on linguistic ethnographic research involving recent recordings of ten and eleven year-old children’s spoken language experience across the school day, this article examines how pupils’ voices are configured within institutional interactional contexts which render particular kinds of voice more or less hearable, and convey different kinds of value. Analysis shows how children appropriate and reproduce the authoritative voices of education, popular culture and parents in the course of their induction into social practices. At the same time they also express varying degrees of commitment to these voices and orchestrate their own and other people’s voices within accounts and anecdotes, making voice appropriation an uneven, accumulative process shot through with the dynamics of personal and peer-group experience. The examination of children’s dialogue from different contexts across the school day highlights the situated semiotics of voice and the heteroglossic development of children’s speaking consciousness

Hereditary alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency and its clinical consequences

Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) is a genetic disorder that manifests as pulmonary emphysema, liver cirrhosis and, rarely, as the skin disease panniculitis, and is characterized by low serum levels of AAT, the main protease inhibitor (PI) in human serum. The prevalence in Western Europe and in the USA is estimated at approximately 1 in 2,500 and 1 : 5,000 newborns, and is highly dependent on the Scandinavian descent within the population. The most common deficiency alleles in North Europe are PI Z and PI S, and the majority of individuals with severe AATD are PI type ZZ. The clinical manifestations may widely vary between patients, ranging from asymptomatic in some to fatal liver or lung disease in others. Type ZZ and SZ AATD are risk factors for the development of respiratory symptoms (dyspnoea, coughing), early onset emphysema, and airflow obstruction early in adult life. Environmental factors such as cigarette smoking, and dust exposure are additional risk factors and have been linked to an accelerated progression of this condition. Type ZZ AATD may also lead to the development of acute or chronic liver disease in childhood or adulthood: prolonged jaundice after birth with conjugated hyperbilirubinemia and abnormal liver enzymes are characteristic clinical signs. Cirrhotic liver failure may occur around age 50. In very rare cases, necrotizing panniculitis and secondary vasculitis may occur. AATD is caused by mutations in the SERPINA1 gene encoding AAT, and is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. The diagnosis can be established by detection of low serum levels of AAT and isoelectric focusing. Differential diagnoses should exclude bleeding disorders or jaundice, viral infection, hemochromatosis, Wilson's disease and autoimmune hepatitis. For treatment of lung disease, intravenous alpha-1-antitrypsin augmentation therapy, annual flu vaccination and a pneumococcal vaccine every 5 years are recommended. Relief of breathlessness may be obtained with long-acting bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids. The end-stage liver and lung disease can be treated by organ transplantation. In AATD patients with cirrhosis, prognosis is generally grave

Group Singing as a Resource for the Development of a Healthy Public

A growing body of evidence points to a wide range of benefits arising from participation in group singing. Group singing requires participants to engage with each other in a simultaneous musical dialogue in a pluralistic and emergent context, creating a coherent cultural expression through the reflexive negotiation of (musical) meaning manifest in the collective power of the human voice. As such, group singing might be taken – both literally and figuratively – as a potent form of ‘healthy public’, creating an ‘ideal’ community which participants can subsequently mobilise as a positive resource for everyday life. The experiences of a group of singers (n=78) who had participated in an outdoor singing project were collected and analysed using a three-layer research design consisting of: distributed data generation and interpretation, considered against comparative data from other singing groups (n=88); a focus group workshop (n=11); an unstructured interview (n=2). The study confirmed an expected perception of the social bonding effect of group singing, highlighting affordances for interpersonal attunement and attachment alongside a powerful individual sense of feeling ‘uplifted’. This study presents a novel perspective on group singing, highlighting the importance of participant experience as a means of understanding music as a holistic and complex adaptive system. It validates findings about group singing from previous studies - in particular the stability of the social bonding effect as a less variant characteristic in the face of environmental and other situational influences, alongside its capacity for mental health recovery. It establishes a subjective sociocultural and musical understanding of group singing, by expanding on these findings to centralise the importance of individual experience, and the consciousness of that experience as descriptive self-awareness. The ways in which participants describe and discuss their experiences of group singing and its benefits points to a complex interdependence between a number of musical, neurobiological and psychosocial mechanisms which might be independently and objectively analysed. An emerging theory is that at least some of the potency of group singing is as a resource where people can rehearse and perform ‘healthy’ relationships, further emphasising its potential as a resource for healthy publics

Elevated serum neutrophil elastase is related to prehypertension and airflow limitation in obese women

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neutrophil elastase level/activity is elevated in a variety of diseases such as atherosclerosis, systolic hypertension and obstructive pulmonary disease. It is unknown whether obese individuals with prehypertension also have elevated neutrophil elastase, and if so, whether it has a deleterious effect on pulmonary function. Objectives: To determine neutrophil elastase levels in obese prehypertensive women and investigate correlations with pulmonary function tests.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Thirty obese prehypertensive women were compared with 30 obese normotensive subjects and 30 healthy controls. The study groups were matched for age. Measurements: The following were determined: body mass index, waist circumference, blood pressure, lipid profile, high sensitivity C-reactive protein, serum neutrophil elastase, and pulmonary function tests including forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV₁), forced vital capacity (FVC) and FEV₁/FVC ratio.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Serum neutrophil elastase concentration was significantly higher in both prehypertensive (405.8 ± 111.6 ng/ml) and normotensive (336.5 ± 81.5 ng/ml) obese women than in control non-obese women (243.9 ± 23.9 ng/ml); the level was significantly higher in the prehypertensive than the normotensive obese women. FEV1, FVC and FEV1/FVC ratio in both prehypertensive and normotensive obese women were significantly lower than in normal controls, but there was no statistically significant difference between the prehypertensive and normotensive obese women. In prehypertensive obese women, there were significant positive correlations between neutrophil elastase and body mass index, waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, high sensitivity C-reactive protein and negative correlations with high density lipoprotein cholesterol, FEV1, FVC and FEV1/FVC.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Neutrophil elastase concentration is elevated in obese prehypertensive women along with an increase in high sensitivity C-reactive protein which may account for dyslipidemia and airflow dysfunction in the present study population.</p

Analysis of Financial Performance in Public Sector

The study aims to examine the effect of Regional Original Income (PAD) on the financial performance of the Lamongan Regency (local government in East Java Province, Indonesia). The research was conducted in Lamongan using panel data 2010-2017 (eight years) to promote empirical facts. This study uses the Agency Theory and Fiscal Federalism Theory which are designed in the form of quantitative research approaches. The analysis technique in this study uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with a variance based or component-based approach with Partial Least Square (PLS). The results of this study are the Regional Original Revenue (PAD) effect on three components of regional financial performance as measured by the degree of decentralization, regional financial dependency ratio, and local financial independency ratio. These results indicate that the financial performance of local government is influenced by the PAD. The average value of 20% government of Lamongan can maintain and improve the success achieved and have been effective in doing excavation source - a source of local revenue. &nbsp