Things change: Women’s and men’s marital disruption dynamics in Italy during a time of social transformations, 1970-2003

We study women’s and men’s marital disruption in Italy between 1970 and 2003. By applying an event-history analysis to the 2003 Italian variant of the Generations and Gender Survey we found that the spread of marital disruption started among middle-highly educated women. Then in recent years it appears that less educated women have also been able to dissolve their unhappy unions. Overall we can see the beginning of a reversed educational gradient from positive to negative. In contrast the trend in men’s marital disruption risk appears as a change over time common to all educational groups, although with persisting educational differentials.determinants, educational differences, event history analysis, gender difference, Italy, marital disruption

Sigurðar saga fóts (The Saga of Sigurðr Foot): A Translation

This is the first English translation of the short Icelandic romance Sigurðar saga fóts, with an introduction presenting the evidence for its dating and immediate literary context. Like most Icelandic romances, Sigurðar saga is a bridal-quest story; the support of a foster-brother is key to the hero winning the bride; and the foster-brothers start out as opponents before recognising their mutual excellence and swearing foster-brotherhood. Uniquely, however, the men who become foster-brothers begin by competing for the same bride (Signý): the eponymous Sigurðr fótr wins Signý only because Ásmundr gives her to him in exchange for foster-brotherhood. Ásmundr’s decision can be read as demonstrating with unusual starkness the superior importance in much Icelandic romance of homosocial relationships over heterosexual ones, giving the saga a certain paradigmatic status. Translating the saga in an open-access forum and reconstructing its literary context will, we hope, encourage further analyses

Sigurðar saga fóts (The Saga of Sigurðr Foot): A Translation

This is the first English translation of the short Icelandic romance Sigurðar saga fóts, with an introduction presenting the evidence for its dating and immediate literary context. Like most Icelandic romances, Sigurðar saga is a bridal-quest story; the support of a foster-brother is key to the hero winning the bride; and the foster-brothers start out as opponents before recognising their mutual excellence and swearing foster-brotherhood. Uniquely, however, the men who become foster-brothers begin by competing for the same bride (Signý): the eponymous Sigurðr fótr wins Signý only because Ásmundr gives her to him in exchange for foster-brotherhood. Ásmundr’s decision can be read as demonstrating with unusual starkness the superior importance in much Icelandic romance of homosocial relationships over heterosexual ones, giving the saga a certain paradigmatic status. Translating the saga in an open-access forum and reconstructing its literary context will, we hope, encourage further analyses

Changing women's roles, changing environmental knowledges: evidence from Upper Egypt

The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which changing gender roles in a Bedouin community in Upper Egypt, brought about by settlement over the last 20 years on the shores of Lake Nasser, have impacted on the accumulation and development of indigenous environmental knowledges by Bedouin women. The research was carried out among four groups of Ababda Bedouin in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and involved in-depth monthly conversations carried out over a period of 12 months. The main conclusions of the study are that the women of the study area have had to develop new knowledges which, in some cases, are now different from those held by men because of the different economic circumstances in which many find themselves; that these knowledges are fluid, dynamic and ever-changing with their own internal dynamism; and that socially constructed notions of gender are vital in the development process, notions that are sensitive to both men's and women's interests and their interrelationships

Protocolised non-invasive compared with invasive weaning from mechanical ventilation for adults in intensive care : the Breathe RCT

Background: Invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) is a life-saving intervention. Following resolution of the condition that necessitated IMV, a spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) is used to determine patient readiness for IMV discontinuation. In patients who fail one or more SBTs, there is uncertainty as to the optimum management strategy. Objective: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of using non-invasive ventilation (NIV) as an intermediate step in the protocolised weaning of patients from IMV. Design: Pragmatic, open-label, parallel-group randomised controlled trial, with cost-effectiveness analysis. Setting: A total of 51 critical care units across the UK. Participants: Adult intensive care patients who had received IMV for at least 48 hours, who were categorised as ready to wean from ventilation, and who failed a SBT. Interventions: Control group (invasive weaning): patients continued to receive IMV with daily SBTs. A weaning protocol was used to wean pressure support based on the patient’s condition. Intervention group (non-invasive weaning): patients were extubated to NIV. A weaning protocol was used to wean inspiratory positive airway pressure, based on the patient’s condition. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was time to liberation from ventilation. Secondary outcome measures included mortality, duration of IMV, proportion of patients receiving antibiotics for a presumed respiratory infection and health-related quality of life. Results: A total of 364 patients (invasive weaning, n = 182; non-invasive weaning, n = 182) were randomised. Groups were well matched at baseline. There was no difference between the invasive weaning and non-invasive weaning groups in median time to liberation from ventilation {invasive weaning 108 hours [interquartile range (IQR) 57–351 hours] vs. non-invasive weaning 104.3 hours [IQR 34.5–297 hours]; hazard ratio 1.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.89 to 1.39; p = 0.352}. There was also no difference in mortality between groups at any time point. Patients in the non-invasive weaning group had fewer IMV days [invasive weaning 4 days (IQR 2–11 days) vs. non-invasive weaning 1 day (IQR 0–7 days); adjusted mean difference –3.1 days, 95% CI –5.75 to –0.51 days]. In addition, fewer non-invasive weaning patients required antibiotics for a respiratory infection [odds ratio (OR) 0.60, 95% CI 0.41 to 1.00; p = 0.048]. A higher proportion of non-invasive weaning patients required reintubation than those in the invasive weaning group (OR 2.00, 95% CI 1.27 to 3.24). The within-trial economic evaluation showed that NIV was associated with a lower net cost and a higher net effect, and was dominant in health economic terms. The probability that NIV was cost-effective was estimated at 0.58 at a cost-effectiveness threshold of £20,000 per quality-adjusted life-year. Conclusions: A protocolised non-invasive weaning strategy did not reduce time to liberation from ventilation. However, patients who underwent non-invasive weaning had fewer days requiring IMV and required fewer antibiotics for respiratory infections. Future work: In patients who fail a SBT, which factors predict an adverse outcome (reintubation, tracheostomy, death) if extubated and weaned using NIV? Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN15635197. Funding: This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 23, No. 48. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information

Quantum computing with defects

Identifying and designing physical systems for use as qubits, the basic units of quantum information, are critical steps in the development of a quantum computer. Among the possibilities in the solid state, a defect in diamond known as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV-1) center stands out for its robustness - its quantum state can be initialized, manipulated, and measured with high fidelity at room temperature. Here we describe how to systematically identify other deep center defects with similar quantum-mechanical properties. We present a list of physical criteria that these centers and their hosts should meet and explain how these requirements can be used in conjunction with electronic structure theory to intelligently sort through candidate defect systems. To illustrate these points in detail, we compare electronic structure calculations of the NV-1 center in diamond with those of several deep centers in 4H silicon carbide (SiC). We then discuss the proposed criteria for similar defects in other tetrahedrally-coordinated semiconductors.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

pH Variability Exacerbates Effects of Ocean Acidification on a Caribbean Crustose Coralline Alga

Crustose coralline algae (CCA) are among the most sensitive marine taxa to the pH changes predicted with ocean acidification (OA). However, many CCA exist in habitats where diel cycles in pH can surpass near-future OA projections. The prevailing theory that natural variability increases the tolerance of calcifiers to OA has not been widely tested with tropical CCA. Here, we assess the response of the reef-building species Lithophyllum congestum to stable and variable pH treatments, including an ambient control (amb/stable). The amb/variable treatment simulated an ambient diel cycle in pH (7.65–7.95), OA/stable simulated constant low pH reflecting worst-case year 2100 predictions (7.7), and OA/variable combined diel cycling with lower mean pH (7.45–7.75). We monitored the effects of pH on total calcification rate and photophysiology (maximum quantum yield) over 16 weeks. To assess the potential for acclimatization, we also quantified calcification rates during the first (0–8 weeks), and second (8–16 weeks) halves of the experiment. Calcification rates were lower in all pH treatments relative to ambient controls and photophysiology was unaffected. At the end of the 16-week experiment, total calcification rates were similarly low in the amb/variable and OA/stable treatment (27–29%), whereas rates declined by double in the OA/variable treatment (60%). When comparing the first and second halves of the experiment, there was no acclimatization in stable treatments as calcification rates remained unchanged in both the amb/stable and OA/stable treatments. In contrast, calcification rates deteriorated between periods in the variable treatments: from a 16–47% reduction in the amb/variable treatment to a 49–79% reduction in the OA/variable treatment, relative to controls. Our findings provide compelling evidence that pH variability can heighten CCA sensitivity to reductions in pH. Moreover, the decline in calcification rate over time directly contrasts prevailing theory that variability inherently increases organismal tolerances to low pH, and suggests that mechanisms of tolerance may become limited with increasing time of exposure. The significant role of diel pH cycling in CCA responses to OA indicates that organisms in habitats with diel variability could respond more severely to rapid changes in ocean pH associated with OA than predicted by experiments conducted under static conditions

Heterarchy of Transcription Factors Driving Basal and Luminal Cell Phenotypes in Human Urothelium

Cell differentiation is effected by complex networks of transcription factors that co-ordinate re-organisation of the chromatin landscape. The hierarchies of these relationships can be difficult to dissect. During in vitro differentiation of normal human uro-epithelial cells, formaldehyde-assisted isolation of regulatory elements (FAIRE-seq) and RNA-seq were used to identify alterations in chromatin accessibility and gene expression changes following activation of the nuclear receptor PPARG as a differentiation-initiating event. Regions of chromatin identified by FAIRE-seq as having altered accessibility during differentiation were found to be enriched with sequence-specific binding motifs for transcription factors predicted to be involved in driving basal and differentiated urothelial cell phenotypes, including FOXA1, P63, GRHL2, CTCF and GATA3. In addition, co-occurrence of GATA3 motifs was observed within sub-sets of differentiation-specific peaks containing P63 or FOXA1 after induction of differentiation. Changes in abundance of GRHL2, GATA3, and P63 were observed in immunoblots of chromatin-enriched extracts. Transient siRNA knockdown of P63 revealed that P63 favoured a basal-like phenotype by inhibiting differentiation and promoting expression of basal marker genes. GATA3 siRNA prevented differentiation-associated downregulation of P63 protein and transcript, and demonstrated positive feedback of GATA3 on PPARG transcript, but showed no effect on FOXA1 transcript or protein expression. This approach indicates that as a transcriptionally-regulated programme, urothelial differentiation operates as a heterarchy wherein GATA3 is able to co-operate with FOXA1 to drive expression of luminal marker genes, but that P63 has potential to transrepress expression of the same genes

Growth and renal function dynamics of renal oncocytomas on active surveillance

OBJECTIVES: To study the natural history of renal oncocytomas and address indications for intervention by determining how growth is associated with renal function over time, the reasons for surgery and ablation, and disease-specific survival. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study was conducted in a retrospective cohort of consecutive patients with renal oncocytoma on active surveillance reviewed at the Specialist Centre for Kidney Cancer at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (2012 to 2019). Comparison between groups was performed using Mann–Whitney U-tests and chi-squared tests. A mixed-effects model with a random intercept for patient was used to study the longitudinal association between tumour size and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). RESULTS: Longitudinal data from 98 patients with 101 lesions were analysed. Most patients were men (68.3%) and the median (interquartile range [IQR]) age was 69 (13) years. The median (IQR) follow-up was 29 (26) months. Most lesions were small renal masses, and 24% measured over 4 cm. Over half (64.4%) grew at a median (IQR) rate of 2 (4) mm per year. No association was observed between tumour size and eGFR over time (P = 0.871). Nine lesions (8.9%) were subsequently treated. Two deaths were reported, neither were related to the diagnosis of renal oncocytoma. CONCLUSION: Natural history data from the largest active surveillance cohort of renal oncocytomas to date show that renal function does not seem to be negatively impacted by growing oncocytomas, and confirms clinical outcomes are excellent after a median follow-up of over 2 years. Active surveillance should be considered the 'gold standard' management of renal oncocytomas up to 7cm