Developing a Sense of Place: The Role of the Arts in Regenerating Communities

How do cultural planners and policymakers work through the arts to create communities? What do artists need to build a sense of place in their community? To discuss these issues, Developing a Sense of Place brings together new models and case studies, each drawn from a specific geographical or socio-cultural context. Selected for their lasting effect in their local community, the case studies explore new models for opening up the relationship between the university and its regional partners, explicitly connecting creative, critical and theoretical approaches to civic development. The volume has three sections: Case Studies of Place-Making; Models and Methods for Developing Place-Making Through the Arts; and Multidisciplinary Approaches to Place and Contested Identities. The sections cover regions in the UK such as Bedford, East Anglia, Edinburgh, Manchester, London, Plymouth and Wakefield, and internationally in countries such as Brazil, Turkey and Zimbabwe. Developing a Sense of Place offers a range of viewpoints from, for example, the arts strategist, the academic, the practice-researcher and the artist. Through its innovative models, from performing arts to architectural design, the volume will serve the needs and interests of arts and cultural policy managers, master planners and arts workers, as well as students of Human Geography, Cultural Planning, Business and the Creative Industries, and Arts Administration, at undergraduate and postgraduate level

An introduction to Elinor Glyn : her life and legacy

This special issue of Women: A Cultural Review re-evaluates an author who was once a household name, beloved by readers of romance, and whose films were distributed widely in Europe and the Americas. Elinor Glyn (1864–1943) was a British author of romantic fiction who went to Hollywood and became famous for her movies. She was a celebrity figure of the 1920s, and wrote constantly in Hearst's press. She wrote racy stories which were turned into films—most famously, Three Weeks (1924) and It (1927). These were viewed by the judiciary as scandalous, but by others—Hollywood and the Spanish Catholic Church—as acceptably conservative. Glyn has become a peripheral figure in histories of this period, marginalized in accounts of the youth-centred ‘flapper era’. Decades on, the idea of the ‘It Girl’ continues to have great pertinence in the post-feminist discourses of the twenty-first century. The 1910s and 1920s saw the development of intermodal networks between print, sound and screen cultures. This introduction to Glyn's life and legacy reviews the cross-disciplinary debate sparked by renewed interest in Glyn by film scholars and literary and feminist historians, and offers a range of views of Glyn's cultural and historical significance and areas for future research

Molecular Marker Linkage Map for Apple

Linkage maps for two apple clones, White Angel and Rome Beauty, were constructed using isozyme and DNA polymorphisms segregating in a population produced from a Rome Beauty × White Angel cross. The linkage map for White Angel consists of 253 markers arranged in 24 linkage groups and extends over 950 cM. The Rome Beauty map contains 156 markers on 21 linkage groups. The White Angel map was taken as the standard, and we were able to identify linkage groups in Rome Beauty homologous to 13 White Angel linkage groups. The location of several genes not segregating in the Rome Beauty × White Angel population could be determined on the basis of known linkages with segregating markers. Hence, the standard map for apple now contains about 360 markers, with most linkage groups saturated at 10-15 cM. The double pseudotestcross format of the mapping population permitted the comparison of recombination frequencies in male and female parents in certain regions of the genome where appropriate markers were available. The recombination frequencies observed for the approximately 170 cM that were comparable gave no indication that a sex-related difference in recombination rate was characteristic of appl

Exploiting the weekly cycle as observed over Europe to analyse aerosol indirect effects in two climate models: Exploiting the weekly cycle as observed over Europe to analyseaerosol indirect effects in two climate models

A weekly cycle in aerosol pollution and some meteorological quantities is observed over Europe. In the present study we exploit this effect to analyse aerosol-cloudradiation interactions. A weekly cycle is imposed on anthropogenic emissions in two general circulation models that include parameterizations of aerosol processes and cloud microphysics. It is found that the simulated weekly cycles in sulfur dioxide, sulfate, and aerosol optical depth in both models agree reasonably well with those observed indicating model skill in simulating the aerosol cycle. A distinct weekly cycle in cloud droplet number concentration is demonstrated in both observations and models. For other variables, such as cloud liquid water path, cloud cover, top-of-the-atmosphere radiation fluxes, precipitation, and surface temperature, large variability and contradictory results between observations, model simulations, and model control simulations without a weekly cycle in emissions prevent us from reaching any firm conclusions about the potential aerosol impact on meteorology or the realism of the modelled second aerosol indirect effects

Exploiting the weekly cycle as observed over Europe to analyse aerosol indirect effects in two climate models: Exploiting the weekly cycle as observed over Europe to analyseaerosol indirect effects in two climate models

A weekly cycle in aerosol pollution and some meteorological quantities is observed over Europe. In the present study we exploit this effect to analyse aerosol-cloudradiation interactions. A weekly cycle is imposed on anthropogenic emissions in two general circulation models that include parameterizations of aerosol processes and cloud microphysics. It is found that the simulated weekly cycles in sulfur dioxide, sulfate, and aerosol optical depth in both models agree reasonably well with those observed indicating model skill in simulating the aerosol cycle. A distinct weekly cycle in cloud droplet number concentration is demonstrated in both observations and models. For other variables, such as cloud liquid water path, cloud cover, top-of-the-atmosphere radiation fluxes, precipitation, and surface temperature, large variability and contradictory results between observations, model simulations, and model control simulations without a weekly cycle in emissions prevent us from reaching any firm conclusions about the potential aerosol impact on meteorology or the realism of the modelled second aerosol indirect effects

Type 2 Diabetes Risk Alleles Are Associated With Reduced Size at Birth

OBJECTIVE: Low birth weight is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. The mechanisms underlying this association are unknown and may represent intrauterine programming or two phenotypes of one genotype. The fetal insulin hypothesis proposes that common genetic variants that reduce insulin secretion or action may predispose to type 2 diabetes and also reduce birth weight, since insulin is a key fetal growth factor. We tested whether common genetic variants that predispose to type 2 diabetes also reduce birth weight. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We genotyped single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at five recently identified type 2 diabetes loci (CDKAL1, CDKN2A/B, HHEX-IDE, IGF2BP2, and SLC30A8) in 7,986 mothers and 19,200 offspring from four studies of white Europeans. We tested the association between maternal or fetal genotype at each locus and birth weight of the offspring. RESULTS: We found that type 2 diabetes risk alleles at the CDKAL1 and HHEX-IDE loci were associated with reduced birth weight when inherited by the fetus (21 g [95% CI 11-31], P = 2 x 10(-5), and 14 g [4-23], P = 0.004, lower birth weight per risk allele, respectively). The 4% of offspring carrying four risk alleles at these two loci were 80 g (95% CI 39-120) lighter at birth than the 8% carrying none (P(trend) = 5 x 10(-7)). There were no associations between birth weight and fetal genotypes at the three other loci or maternal genotypes at any locus. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are in keeping with the fetal insulin hypothesis and provide robust evidence that common disease-associated variants can alter size at birth directly through the fetal genotype

Type 2 Diabetes Susceptibility Gene TCF7L2 and Its Role in β-Cell Function

Type 2 diabetes is associated with impaired insu-lin secretion. Both 1st- and 2nd-phase insulinsecretion are reduced, but the effect is particu-larly pronounced for the 1st phase. The pro-cesses culminating in impaired insulin secretion are not fully understood, but both genetic and environmental factors are thought to play a role. Over the past 2 years, genome-wide association scans have transformed the ge-netic landscape of type 2 diabetes susceptibility, with the current gene count close to 20 (1). A couple of common themes have emerged from these studies. First, the major-ity of the genes identified thus far seem to affect diabetes susceptibility through -cell dysfunction (2). Second, the risk alleles tend to be common in the population, but their effect on diabetes risk is relatively small (3,4). TCF7L2, the susceptibility gene with the largest effect on disease susceptibility discovered to date, was iden-tified pre–genome-wide association by Grant et al. i

Adult height variants affect birth length and growth rate in children

Previous studies identified 180 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with adult height, explaining ∼10% of the variance. The age at which these begin to affect growth is unclear. We modelled the effect of these SNPs on birth length and childhood growth. A total of 7768 participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children had data available. Individual growth trajectories from 0 to 10 years were estimated using mixed-effects linear spline models and differences in trajectories by individual SNPs and allelic score were determined. The allelic score was associated with birth length (0.026 cm increase per ‘tall’ allele, SE = 0.003, P = 1 × 10−15, equivalent to 0.017 SD). There was little evidence of association between the allelic score and early infancy growth (0–3 months), but there was evidence of association between the allelic score and later growth. This association became stronger with each consecutive growth period, per ‘tall’ allele per month effects were 0.015 SD (3 months–1 year, SE = 0.004), 0.023 SD (1–3 years, SE = 0.003) and 0.028 SD (3–10 years, SE = 0.003). By age 10, the mean height difference between individuals with ≤170 versus ≥191 ‘tall’ alleles (the top and bottom 10%) was 4.7 cm (0.8 SD), explaining ∼5% of the variance. There was evidence of associations with specific growth periods for some SNPs (rs3791675, EFEMP1 and rs6569648, L3MBTL3) and supportive evidence for previously reported age-dependent effects of HHIP and SOCS2 SNPs. SNPs associated with adult height influence birth length and have an increasing effect on growth from late infancy through to late childhood. By age 10, they explain half the height variance (∼5%) of that explained in adults (∼10%)