A qualitative study of children, young people and 'sexting' : English

The purpose of this small scale qualitative research was to respond to and enhance our understandings of the complex nature of sexting and the role of mobile technologies within peer teen networks. It was designed as a pilot study – to investigate a phenomenon whose nature, scale and dimensions were unknown. Thus the research itself also was small in scale and exploratory in nature and also culturally and geographically specific. We conducted focus group interviews with 35 young people years 8 and 10 in two inner city London schools. At the focus groups we asked participants to friend us on Facebook, with a research Facebook profile. We then mapped some of their activities online and returned for 22 individual interviews with selected case study young people. We also interviewed key teachers and staff at the schools. The study found that threats from peers in digital social networks were more problematic for young people that ‘stranger danger’ from adults. Digital technologies facilitated new visual cultures of surveillance, in which young women were pressured to send revealing body photos or asked to perform sexual services by text and through social networking sites. In this way, sexting aggravated peer hierarchies and forms of sexual harassment in schools, meaning that sexting was often coercive and was sometimes a form of cyberbullying. Girls were most negatively affected by ‘sexting’ in cultural contexts of increasing ‘sexualisation’ shaped by sexual double standards and boys had difficulty in challenging constructions of sexually aggressive masculinity. The research allowed for exploration of when pleasurable sexual flirtation through digital communication moved into sexual coercion and harassment, which was illustrated through narrative examples. Considering the relationship between online and offline risks it found sexual double standards in attitudes to digital sexual communication were linked to incidents of real playground sexual harassment and violence. Finally, it found that children at primary school age were being impacted by the coercive aspects of ‘sexting’ at an earlier age, than prior research indicated

Ultrasonic wave propagation in heterogenous media

The non-destructive testing of austenitic steel welds using ultrasound is of vital importance for assessing safety critical structures such as those found in the nuclear industry. The internal geometry of these welds is heterogeneous and highly scattering and this makes it dicult to detect and characterise any defects within them. To help overcome these diculties the use of ultrasound transducer arrays and the associated Full Matrix Capture is becoming more widespread. There is a need therefore to develop post-processing algorithms that best utilise the data from such devices. This paper considers the use of a time-frequency domain method known as the Decomposition of the Time Reversal Operator (DORT) method. To develop this method and to demonstrate its ecacy in tackling this problem a series of simulated data sets are used. The simulated data is generated using a finite element method (PZFLEX) with the heterogeneous internal microstructure of the weld being given by previous Electron Backscatter Diraction measurements. A range of artificial flaws are then inserted into this geometry. By varying the flaw size and type a comparison is conducted between the DORT method and the Total Focusing Method (TFM) and their relative ability to perform flaw detection assessed. Importantly, however, the DORT method relies on a Singular Value Decomposition in time and frequency space and this spectral information contains information about the flaw size and shape

Turning the light on : the negotiation and representation of condom use

This thesis examines how a diverse group of participants in England make sense of condom use, exploring how talk about condoms relates to the operation of and resistance to social inequalities, and examining how public health discourse is taken up and reformulated in everyday talk about sex. It takes a feminist, discursive rhetorical approach, combining this with an exploration of how particular discourses about condom use can be understood to be ideological. The thesis draws on data from surveys, interviews and a media case study of The Jeremy Kyle Show: situating a fine-grained analysis of the discursive construction of condom lise within the context of a broader understanding of the operation of power in the everyday. In addition, the work develops the use of private diaries as a tool for interview research about intimate life. The research explores how talk about condom use can work to construct subjects, developing the concept 'safer sexual subjectivity'. The discursive construction of ' safer subjects' was found to work in complex ways with existing social categories such as 'race', class and gender, with particular subjects marked as more 'risky' than others. Talk about condom use reproduced, resisted and reworked norms of gender, sex and relationships. New norDis of gendered responsibility positioned skillful condom use as a strategy of selfcare and regulation of neoliberal sexual subjectivity. Public health discourse was taken up and reworked by participants, producing new forms of intimacy and desire. The thesis concludes that the negotiation of condom use is not simply an in the moment activity that happens during sex, or a 'healthy choice' made by rational actors. Talk about condom use serves rhetorical purposes in positioning people and communities, categorising relationships and developing norms about sexual practices and gender identities

Turning the light on : the negotiation and representation of condom use

This thesis examines how a diverse group of participants in England make sense of condom use, exploring how talk about condoms relates to the operation of and resistance to social inequalities, and examining how public health discourse is taken up and reformulated in everyday talk about sex. It takes a feminist, discursive rhetorical approach, combining this with an exploration of how particular discourses about condom use can be understood to be ideological. The thesis draws on data from surveys, interviews and a media case study of The Jeremy Kyle Show: situating a fine-grained analysis of the discursive construction of condom lise within the context of a broader understanding of the operation of power in the everyday. In addition, the work develops the use of private diaries as a tool for interview research about intimate life. The research explores how talk about condom use can work to construct subjects, developing the concept 'safer sexual subjectivity'. The discursive construction of ' safer subjects' was found to work in complex ways with existing social categories such as 'race', class and gender, with particular subjects marked as more 'risky' than others. Talk about condom use reproduced, resisted and reworked norms of gender, sex and relationships. New norDis of gendered responsibility positioned skillful condom use as a strategy of selfcare and regulation of neoliberal sexual subjectivity. Public health discourse was taken up and reworked by participants, producing new forms of intimacy and desire. The thesis concludes that the negotiation of condom use is not simply an in the moment activity that happens during sex, or a 'healthy choice' made by rational actors. Talk about condom use serves rhetorical purposes in positioning people and communities, categorising relationships and developing norms about sexual practices and gender identities

Impact of a Tobacco CE Program for Indiana Healthcare Providers.

PosterPurpose: To assess an evidence-based continuing education (CE) program for Indiana healthcare practitioners focusing on tobacco use and dependence which emphasized team-based tobacco dependence treatment. Methods: Program impact was assessed by changes in participants’ self-reported knowledge and clinical application of course concepts and strategies via a 26-item immediate post- CE survey and a 19 -item 3-month follow-up survey. Surveys included multiple-choice and 5-point Likert-style scaled items. The three month follow-up surveys were mailed / delivered electronically to participants; non-responders were sent two reminders. De-identified data were analyzed in aggregate using descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation coefficients, and Mantel-Haenszel chi-square tests. Results: CE programs were held in Tell City, Madison, Lafayette, Goshen, Richmond and Vincennes with a total of 252 participants. Initial survey response was 98.4% (n=248): dental assistants (2%), dental hygienists (83%), dentists (8.5%), and other healthcare professionals (6.45%). Overall, participants reported less knowledge before than immediately after (p<.0001) and 3 months after (p<.0001) the CE program. Reported knowledge at 3 months was less than immediately after the program (p<.002). Participants planned to apply CE program communication strategies (99%), implement brief tobacco intervention strategies (85%), and refer patients to local cessation resources (95%) or the Indiana Quitline (96%). Response rate for the 3 month survey was 54% (n=136). Respondents reported currently playing an active role in team-based tobacco cessation (48%,78), applying CE communication strategies (85%,109), and implementing brief tobacco interventions (71%,90). Sixty-eight respondents reported referring patients to local counselors; eighty-three referred to the Indiana Quitline. Conclusion: Tobacco dependence CE may be beneficial to enhance health care practitioners’ knowledge and willingness to integrate tobacco interventions in their healthcare settings. However, this does not assure that they will change their practice behaviors by utilizing the learned concepts and tobacco interventions with patients. (Funded by the Indiana State Dept. of Health

Stereoisomers of colourless carotenoids from the marine microalga dunaliella salina

Carotenoids comprise a diverse range of naturally occurring stereoisomers, which differ in their physico-chemical properties. Their biosynthesis begins with phytoene, which is a rarity among carotenoids because it is colourless. Phytoene is sought after as a skin protectant against harmful UV range B (290–320 nm) and C (100–290 nm) light, and as a natural skin-whitening agent and is synthesized from geranylgeranyl diphosphate. Geranylgeranyl diphosphate is catalysed by phytoene synthase and phytoene desaturase to phytoene and phytofluene, respectively. The subsequent steps involve desaturation, isomerisation and cyclisation reactions to form α- and β-carotene stereoisomers, via all-trans lycopene. The marine microalga Dunaliella salina is the richest source of β-carotene, but it can accumulate phytoene and phytofluene as well. In the present study, different analytical tools including High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Ultra Performance Convergence Chromatography (UPC2-MS) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) were used to characterize and quantify the phytoene isomeric configurations in D. salina in order to explore both the feasibility of D. salina as a cell factory for phytoene production and to gain knew insight into the carotenoid synthesis pathway in D. salina. D. salina, similar to tomato, produced predominantly 15-cis phytoeneisomer (>98%) and a trace amount of all-trans phytoene (<2%). High light stress, red light stress, or use of a phytoene desaturase inhibitor or a mitotic disrupter herbicide led to the accumulation of 15-cis phytoene but not all-trans phytoene. 9-cis phytoene was not detected in any of the extracts of D. salina biomass. Our main findings suggest that 15-cis phytoene is the most abundant isomer in D. salina and that it is subject to a series of isomerisation and desaturation reactions to form all-trans and 9-cis β-carotene

Mediated intimacy: Sex advice in media culture

The bold argument of Mediated Intimacy (Barker et al., 2018) is that media of various kinds play an increasingly important role in shaping people’s knowledge, desires, practices and expectations about intimate relationships. While arguments rage about the nature and content of sex and relationship education in schools, it is becoming clear that more and more of us – young and old – look not to formal education, or even to our friends, for information about sex, but to the media (Albury, 2016; Attwood et al., 2015). This is not simply a matter of media ‘advice’ in the form of self-help books, magazine problem pages, or online ‘agony’ columns – though these are all proliferating and are discussed at length in the book. It is also about the wider cultural habitat of images, ideas and discourses about intimacy that circulate through and across media: the ‘happy endings’ of romantic comedies; the ‘money shots’ of pornography; the celebrity gossip about who is seeing whom, who is ‘cheating’, and who is looking ‘hot’; the lifestyle TV about ‘embarrassing bodies’ or being ‘undateable’; the newspaper features on how to have a ‘good’ divorce or ‘ten things never to say on a first date’; the new apps that incite us to quantify and rate our sex lives, and so forth. These constitute the ‘taken for granted’ of everyday understandings of intimacy, and they are at the heart of Mediated Intimacy

Medical and surgical management of gallbladder sludge and mucocoele development in a Miniature Schnauzer

The factors enhancing mucocoele development in dogs remain poorly understood. A 7-year-old female spayed Miniature Schnauzer was presented to the Massey University Veterinary Teaching Hospital for progressive lethargy, inappetance and abdominal discomfort. Initial physical examination findings revealed a moderate degree of cranial abdominal pain, with subsequent diagnostic tests confirming the patient as having diabetes mellitus, with a concurrent marked hypertriglyceridaemia. In an attempt to localise the source of pain, an ultrasound examination of the abdomen was performed, revealing a marked degree of gallbladder sludge. With appropriate medical management including ursodeoxycholic acid and insulin therapy, the patient stabilised and was discharged. With persistence of clinical signs three months later, progression of the gallbladder sludge towards mucocoele development was suspected. Exploratory laparotomy was instigated, and an emergency cholecystectomy was performed. This case report therefore entails a suspected gallbladder mucocoele that developed in a diabetic patient with previously diagnosed biliary sludge. A unique feature of this case report is the presence of diabetes mellitus, which has been suggested to be a causative factor in the development of gallbladder mucocoeles. It is also hypothesised that gallbladder sludge and mucocoeles are associated, however it is yet to be ascertained whether this association is causal or contributory. The authors examined the possible relationship between this endocrinopathy and biliary sludge, and their possible effects on mucocoele development. Specific associated factors to sludge formation are also examined. The medical and surgical management of gallbladder mucocoeles is discussed

Teen girls, sexual double standards and 'sexting': gendered value in digital image exchange

This article explores gender inequities and sexual double standards in teens’ digital image exchange, drawing on a UK qualitative research project on youth ‘sexting’. We develop a critique of ‘postfeminist’ media cultures, suggesting teen ‘sexting’ presents specific age and gender related contradictions: teen girls are called upon to produce particular forms of ‘sexy’ self display, yet face legal repercussions, moral condemnation and ‘slut shaming’ when they do so. We examine the production/circulation of gendered value and sexual morality via teens’ discussions of activities on Facebook and Blackberry. For instance, some boys accumulated ‘ratings’ by possessing and exchanging images of girls’ breasts, which operated as a form of currency and value. Girls, in contrast, largely discussed the taking, sharing or posting of such images as risky, potentially inciting blame and shame around sexual reputation (e.g. being called ‘slut’, ‘slag’ or ‘sket’). The daily negotiations of these new digitally mediated, heterosexualised, classed and raced norms of performing teen feminine and masculine desirability are considered

Attention to infrastructure offers a welcome reconfiguration of anthropological approaches to the political

This constitutes the edited proceedings of the 2015 meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory held at Manchester