On the Persuasive Power of Videogame avatars on Health-related behaviours

Background: Avatars are representations of the self in a virtual environment. They have been used to influence behaviour and may represent a promising avenue for designing interventions to promote health-related behaviour change. Aim: To determine the extent to which a representation of the self in a videogame influences health-related behaviours. Method: In addressing the aim of the thesis, a mixed methods approach was adopted. This started with a systematic review investigating the effectiveness of various attempts at health persuasion using avatar appearance manipulation. Next, a qualitative study investigating gamers’ avatar design preferences and experiences of playing an exergame with an idealised, self-similar avatar was conducted. The quantitative phase of the thesis involved three quantitative studies investigating the existence, ambivalence, and variance of stereotypes associated with plus-sized and athletic physiques over three modalities (text, image, video); and a replication-extension of an exergame-based Proteus Effect study involving larger-bodied and ‘average’ avatars. In this latter study, a bespoke exergame was developed that used the stimuli developed in the previous studies as avatars. Results: The systematic review (Chapter 4) revealed that a small number of studies had investigated using avatars to promote health related behaviour, and a common finding was that using larger-bodied (compared with athletic) avatars in exergames resulted in reduced physical-activity. Since this was explained in terms of stereotypical behaviours, such as laziness, being assimilated into the players’ behaviour, the qualitative study (Chapter 5) explored participants’ accounts of being restricted to an athletic avatar and found that this was not always a positive experience. To explore this further, Chapter 6 investigated the stereotype structures of plus-sized and athletic bodies were both found to suggest ambivalence. Text descriptions of prototypical ‘athletic’ groups (Chapter 6), and images of virtual humans with athletic bodies (Chapter 7) were rated as more competent, more arrogant, and less friendly compared with larger-bodied examples. Negative stereotypes, such as laziness, were reflected in evaluations of larger bodied representations, but so was the potentially positive trait of affability. In Chapter 8, larger-bodied exemplars that were animated with counter-stereotypical information (running on the spot) were rated less negatively than those that were stationary. When the exemplars were used as avatars, there was no evidence for behaviour change as a function of avatar-physique in the experimental replication study (Chapter 9). Conclusion: By using methods derived from existing social psychological theories, it is possible to create representations of larger bodies that are evaluated more positively. Further, there may be negative consequences to relying on athletic-bodied avatars to encourage exercise. Although there was no strong evidence that participants behaviour was affected by the type of avatar used, an argument can be made for allowing users to explore a broader range of physiques and presenting larger-bodied characters positively as competent agents

Extracellular Vesicles from Fusarium graminearum Contain Protein Effectors Expressed during Infection of Corn.

Fusarium graminearum (Fgr) is a devastating filamentous fungal pathogen that causes diseases in cereals, while producing mycotoxins that are toxic for humans and animals, and render grains unusable. Low efficiency in managing Fgr poses a constant need for identifying novel control mechanisms. Evidence that fungal extracellular vesicles (EVs) from pathogenic yeast have a role in human disease led us to question whether this is also true for fungal plant pathogens. We separated EVs from Fgr and performed a proteomic analysis to determine if EVs carry proteins with potential roles in pathogenesis. We revealed that protein effectors, which are crucial for fungal virulence, were detected in EV preparations and some of them did not contain predicted secretion signals. Furthermore, a transcriptomic analysis of corn (Zea mays) plants infected by Fgr revealed that the genes of some of the effectors were highly expressed in vivo, suggesting that the Fgr EVs are a mechanism for the unconventional secretion of effectors and virulence factors. Our results expand the knowledge on fungal EVs in plant pathogenesis and cross-kingdom communication, and may contribute to the discovery of new antifungals

Borrelia carolinensis sp. nov., a novel species of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato complex isolated from rodents and a tick from the south-eastern USA

A group of 16 isolates with genotypic characteristics different from those of known species of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato complex were cultured from ear biopsies of the rodents Peromyscus gossypinus and Neotoma floridana trapped at five localities in South Carolina, USA, and from the tick Ixodes minor feeding on N. floridana. Multilocus sequence analysis of members of the novel species, involving the 16S rRNA gene, the 5S–23S (rrf–rrl) intergenic spacer region and the flagellin, ospA and p66 genes, was conducted and published previously and was used to clarify the taxonomic status of the novel group of B. burgdorferi sensu lato isolates. Phylogenetic analysis based on concatenated sequences of the five analysed genomic loci showed that the 16 isolates clustered together but separately from other species in the B. burgdorferi sensu lato complex. The analysed group therefore represents a novel species, formally described here as Borrelia carolinensis sp. nov., with the type strain SCW-22T (=ATCC BAA-1773T =DSM 22119T)

Proposal for a unified nomenclature for target site mutations associated with resistance to fungicides

Evolved resistance to fungicides is a major problem limiting our ability to control agricultural, medical and veterinary pathogens and is frequently associated with substitutions in the amino acid sequence of the target protein. The convention for describing amino-acid substitutions is to cite the wild type amino acid, the codon number and the new amino acid, using the one letter amino acid code. It has frequently been observed that orthologous amino acid mutations have been selected in different species by fungicides from the same mode of action class, but the amino acids have different numbers. These differences in numbering arise from the different lengths of the proteins in each species. The purpose of the current paper is to propose a system for unifying the labelling of amino acids in fungicide target proteins. To do this we have produced alignments between fungicide target proteins of relevant species fitted to a well-studied “archetype” species. Orthologous amino acids in all species are then assigned numerical “labels” based on the position of the amino acid in the archetype protein

The Impossibility of a Perfectly Competitive Labor Market

Using the institutional theory of transaction cost, I demonstrate that the assumptions of the competitive labor market model are internally contradictory and lead to the conclusion that on purely theoretical grounds a perfectly competitive labor market is a logical impossibility. By extension, the familiar diagram of wage determination by supply and demand is also a logical impossibility and the neoclassical labor demand curve is not a well-defined construct. The reason is that the perfectly competitive market model presumes zero transaction cost and with zero transaction cost all labor is hired as independent contractors, implying multi-person firms, the employment relationship, and labor market disappear. With positive transaction cost, on the other hand, employment contracts are incomplete and the labor supply curve to the firm is upward sloping, again causing the labor demand curve to be ill-defined. As a result, theory suggests that wage rates are always and everywhere an amalgam of an administered and bargained price. Working Paper 06-0

Children’s perspectives on neighbourhood barriers and enablers to active school travel: A participatory mapping study

Children today are spending more sedentary time indoors than time playing and being active outdoors. The daily journey to and from school represents a valuable opportunity for children to be physically active through active school travel. The majority of research on children\u27s active school travel omits children from the research process even though children interpret their environments in fundamentally different ways than adults. Our research uses innovative participatory mapping and qualitative GIS methods to examine how children\u27s perceptions of their environments influence their school journey experiences. Through our thematic analysis of 25 map‐based focus groups, we identified three main themes characterizing barriers and enablers to active school travel: safety‐related, material, and affective features. By positioning children as experts of their environments in our participatory methodology, our findings provide an important counterpoint to the adultist privilege characterizing the majority of research on children\u27s active school travel. Environmental features that mattered for children\u27s school journeys took on multiple meanings in their eyes, demonstrating that children\u27s perspectives must be engaged to inform interventions to promote active school travel. We thus argue that identifying barriers and enablers to active school travel for children requires engaging children\u27s views

Observational cross-sectional study of the association of poor broadband provision with demographic and health outcomes: the Wolverhampton Digital ENablement (WODEN) programme

ObjectivesThe association between impaired digital provision, access and health outcomes has not been systematically studied. The Wolverhampton Digital ENablement programme (WODEN) is a multiagency collaborative approach to determine and address digital factors that may impact on health and social care in a single deprived multiethnic health economy. The objective of this study is to determine the association between measurable broadband provision and demographic and health outcomes in a defined population.DesignAn observational cross-sectional whole local population-level study with cohorts defined according to broadband provision.Setting/participantsData for all residents of the City of Wolverhampton, totalling 269 785 residents.Primary outcomesPoor broadband provision is associated with variation in demographics and with increased comorbidity and urgent care needs.ResultsBroadband provision was measured using the Broadband Infrastructure Index (BII) in 158 City localities housing a total of 269 785 residents. Lower broadband provision as determined by BII was associated with younger age (p&lt;0.001), white ethnic status (p&lt;0.001), lesser deprivation as measured by Index of Multiple Deprivation (p&lt;0.001), a higher number of health comorbidities (p&lt;0.001) and more non-elective urgent events over 12 months (p&lt;0.001).ConclusionLocal municipal and health authorities are advised to consider the variations in broadband provision within their locality and determine equal distribution both on a geographical basis but also against demographic, health and social data to determine equitable distribution as a platform for equitable access to digital resources for their residents.</jats:sec

The antimalarial efficacy and mechanism of resistance of the novel chemotype DDD01034957.

New antimalarial therapeutics are needed to ensure that malaria cases continue to be driven down, as both emerging parasite resistance to frontline chemotherapies and mosquito resistance to current insecticides threaten control programmes. Plasmodium, the apicomplexan parasite responsible for malaria, causes disease pathology through repeated cycles of invasion and replication within host erythrocytes (the asexual cycle). Antimalarial drugs primarily target this cycle, seeking to reduce parasite burden within the host as fast as possible and to supress recrudescence for as long as possible. Intense phenotypic drug screening efforts have identified a number of promising new antimalarial molecules. Particularly important is the identification of compounds with new modes of action within the parasite to combat existing drug resistance and suitable for formulation of efficacious combination therapies. Here we detail the antimalarial properties of DDD01034957-a novel antimalarial molecule which is fast-acting and potent against drug resistant strains in vitro, shows activity in vivo, and possesses a resistance mechanism linked to the membrane transporter PfABCI3. These data support further medicinal chemistry lead-optimization of DDD01034957 as a novel antimalarial chemical class and provide new insights to further reduce in vivo metabolic clearance