The case for new academic workspaces

Executive summary: This report draws upon the combined efforts of a number of estates professionals, architects, academics, designers, and senior managers involved in the planning of new university buildings for the 21st century. Across these perspectives, all would agree – although perhaps for different reasons - that this planning is difficult and that a number of particular considerations apply in the design of academic workspaces. Despite these difficulties, they will also agree that when this planning goes well, ‘good’ buildings are truly transformational – for both the university as a whole and the people who work and study in them. The value of well-designed buildings goes far beyond their material costs, and endures long after those costs have been forgotten ..

Longitudinal Study of Body Mass Index in Young Males and the Transition to Fatherhood.

Despite a growing understanding that the social determinants of health have an impact on body mass index (BMI), the role of fatherhood on young men's BMI is understudied. This longitudinal study examines BMI in young men over time as they transition from adolescence into fatherhood in a nationally representative sample. Data from all four waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health supported a 20-year longitudinal analysis of 10,253 men beginning in 1994. A "fatherhood-year" data set was created and changes in BMI were examined based on fatherhood status (nonfather, nonresident father, resident father), fatherhood years, and covariates. Though age is positively associated with BMI over all years for all men, comparing nonresident and resident fathers with nonfathers reveals different trajectories based on fatherhood status. Entrance into fatherhood is associated with an increase in BMI trajectory for both nonresident and resident fathers, while nonfathers exhibit a decrease over the same period. In this longitudinal, population-based study, fatherhood and residence status play a role in men's BMI. Designing obesity prevention interventions for young men that begin in adolescence and carry through young adulthood should target the distinctive needs of these populations, potentially improving their health outcomes

Adolescent Reproductive Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs and Future Fatherhood.

PurposeWith a growing focus on the importance of men's reproductive health, including preconception health, the ways in which young men's knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs (KAB) predict their reproductive paths are understudied. To determine if reproductive KAB predicts fatherhood status, timing and residency (living with child or not).MethodsReproductive KAB and fatherhood outcomes were analyzed from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a 20-year, nationally representative study of individuals from adolescence into adulthood. Four measures of reproductive KAB were assessed during adolescence in waves I and II. A generalized linear latent and mixed model predicted future fatherhood status (nonfather, resident/nonresident father, adolescent father) and timing while controlling for other socio-demographic variables.ResultsOf the 10,253 men, 3,425 were fathers (686 nonresident/2,739 resident) by wave IV. Higher risky sexual behavior scores significantly increased the odds of becoming nonresident father (odds ratio [OR], 1.30; p < .0001), resident father (OR, 1.07; p = .007), and adolescent father (OR, 1.71; p < .0001); higher pregnancy attitudes scores significantly increased the odds of becoming a nonresident father (OR, 1.20; p < .0001) and resident father (OR, 1.11; p < .0001); higher birth control self-efficacy scores significantly decreased the odds of becoming a nonresident father (OR, .72; p < .0001) and adolescent father (OR, .56; p = .01).ConclusionsYoung men's KAB in adolescence predicts their future fatherhood and residency status. Strategies that address adolescent males' reproductive KAB are needed in the prevention of unintended reproductive consequences such as early and nonresident fatherhood

Investigating the role of Sarco-Endoplasmic Reticulum Ca2+-ATPase(SERCA)in airway development

Background: Disorders of lung development cause death and disability in the young and old: novel insights into developmental regulators can aid therapeutic strategies. The Ca2+ATPase SERCA, already implicated in asthma and cystic fibrosis, appears to play a key role in lung development. SERCA inhibition with cyclopiazonic acid (CPA) in vitro, reduces both airway branching and peristalsis reversibly and dose dependently, whilst also halting myogenesis. It is unclear however, whether changes in branching are mediated via SERCA dependent contractility, or whether SERCA is a direct regulator of airway branching. Aims: (i) to further explore the CPA-induced embryonic lung phenotype by assaying gene expression and cell proliferation; and (ii) to determine effects of genetic perturbation of SERCA function in vivo on airway branching morphogenesis, in the absence of contractility (using a Drosophila model). Methods: Embryonic mouse (E11.5) lung explants were cultured +/- CPA at an air/fluid interface. Standard techniques were used to rear Drosophila and SERCA expression manipulated using conditional, heat-sensitive mutants and RNAi targeted to the trachea. Positively labelled, loss-of-function ‘flip-out’ RNAi and mutant clones were produced using heat-shock induced FLP-recombinase. Gene expression was assayed using real-time RT-PCR and SERCA function assessed using calcium dyes and genetic indicators. Embryonic and larval fly airways were imaged using fluorescent proteins and immunostaining, with live or fixed-sample confocal microscopy. Immunofluorescent staining was used to assess protein expression and cell proliferation. Results: SERCA inhibition with CPA significantly up or down regulated mRNA levels of key genes involved in lung branching morphogenesis, myogenesis and angiogenesis in vitro. CPA treatment also reduced cell proliferation dose-dependently in the lung epithelium and mesenchyme. In the fly embryo, neither conditional SERCA mutants nor targeted RNAi significantly affected tracheal morphology. However, residual SERCA mRNA and protein function was evident at this stage of development. Tracheal maturation, in the form of gas filling was significantly impaired though, in embryos expressing a conditional SERCA mutation. In larvae, development of the dorsal air sac primordium (ASP) was severely disrupted by targeted SERCA RNAi and this phenotype could be reproduced when sufficient numbers of loss-of–function clones were present. SERCA inhibition reduced the number of mitotic cells in the ASP and correspondingly, SERCA deficient clones comprised fewer cells than control counterparts: SERCA regulation of airway cell proliferation was therefore evident across species. Fewer SERCA deficient cells reached the tip of the ASP during morphogenesis compared to controls, whereas a greater proportion remained in the stalk, findings that indicate a cell-autonomous defect in cell migration. Changes in morphology were independent of changes in expression of the key ASP signalling pathways MAP kinase and Notch. Expression of the ASP tip-cell marker escargot was expanded in SERCA deficient larvae, with a number of positive cells being abnormally present in the stalk. This finding could be explained by a failure of these cells to migrate to the tip, alternatively by changes in cell fate. Given key roles of tip cells in morphogenetic signalling, escargot may play a role in SERCA inhibition-induced dysmorphogenesis. Conclusions: SERCA has an essential, conserved role in airway branching morphogenesis across species: this role appears independent of contractility. SERCA regulates cell migration and proliferation processes in the airway, findings that may have wider relevance, e.g. in proliferative disease, metastasis and tissue regeneration. Given evidence in plants and fungi of Ca2+ cycling regulating budding, findings here may indicate a role for SERCA as a generic regulator of iterative branching across biology, with clear implications for further research

Decentering the Dancing Text: From Dance Intertext to Hypertext

This paper explains and draws together two projects from different disciplines: dance studies and hypertext writing. Each project sets out to examine the processes and practices of hypertextuality, and to develop new ways of writing using electronic technology and the Internet. The dance studies project seeks to link the critical theory of intertextuality (as a means of dance interpretation) with the theoretical and practical concerns of hypertextuality. It hopes to show a convergence of the two into a working system for analysing dance in a network of people, institutions and information. The Associative Writing Framework (AWF) project seeks to explore how writers could best be supported in representing and exploring hypertextuality in a Web environment, and in producing new hypertexts which integrate or 'glue together' existing Web resources (ideas, concepts, data, descriptions, experiences, claims, theories, suggestions, reports, etc). Following the combining of the two projects we report on some initial evaluation of the AWF system by dance experts, and discuss where the relationship might lead and potential future outcomes of the collaboration