Theorizing physical activity health promotion: towards an Eliasian framework for the analysis of health and medicine

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the convergence of physical activity and public health through a novel theorization drawing upon, applying and developing figurational sociological principles of Norbert Elias. More specifically, we focus on four core aspects of Elias’ theoretical corpus: interdependencies; forethought (as an aspect of civilizing processes); the interaction of “fact” and emotion in socially determining knowledge; and finally, the hinge. As such, we argue that contemporary interest in physical activity health promotion can be attributed to the amalgamation of distinctive figurations of interdependency ties; an associated development in the internalization of human self-control; conceptions of ‘truth’, which derive from a combination of scientific evidence, ideological desires and the gratification brought from the ‘holding’ of such beliefs; and the intersection of social and biological processes on the human body. This paper advances existing figurationally informed theoretical analyses of health and medicine, in highlighting the essential interconnectivity of Elias’s key ideas. This approach is, in turn, more faithful to Elias’ advocacy of a radically relational sociological perspective. The result is both an original conceptualization of this increasingly significant social phenomenon, and a more explicit elucidation of the distinctive Eliasian framework through which future theoretically informed empirical research into contemporary health and medicine can be developed

Theorizing physical activity health promotion: towards an Eliasian framework for the analysis of health and medicine

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the convergence of physical activity and public health through a novel theorization drawing upon, applying and developing figurational sociological principles of Norbert Elias. More specifically, we focus on four core aspects of Elias’ theoretical corpus: interdependencies; forethought (as an aspect of civilizing processes); the interaction of “fact” and emotion in socially determining knowledge; and finally, the hinge. As such, we argue that contemporary interest in physical activity health promotion can be attributed to the amalgamation of distinctive figurations of interdependency ties; an associated development in the internalization of human self-control; conceptions of ‘truth’, which derive from a combination of scientific evidence, ideological desires and the gratification brought from the ‘holding’ of such beliefs; and the intersection of social and biological processes on the human body. This paper advances existing figurationally informed theoretical analyses of health and medicine, in highlighting the essential interconnectivity of Elias’s key ideas. This approach is, in turn, more faithful to Elias’ advocacy of a radically relational sociological perspective. The result is both an original conceptualization of this increasingly significant social phenomenon, and a more explicit elucidation of the distinctive Eliasian framework through which future theoretically informed empirical research into contemporary health and medicine can be developed

The UN in the lab

We consider two alternatives to inaction for governments combating terrorism, which we term Defense and Prevention. Defense consists of investing in resources that reduce the impact of an attack, and generates a negative externality to other governments, making their countries a more attractive objective for terrorists. In contrast, Prevention, which consists of investing in resources that reduce the ability of the terrorist organization to mount an attack, creates a positive externality by reducing the overall threat of terrorism for all. This interaction is captured using a simple 3×3 “Nested Prisoner’s Dilemma” game, with a single Nash equilibrium where both countries choose Defense. Due to the structure of this interaction, countries can benefit from coordination of policy choices, and international institutions (such as the UN) can be utilized to facilitate coordination by implementing agreements to share the burden of Prevention. We introduce an institution that implements a burden-sharing policy for Prevention, and investigate experimentally whether subjects coordinate on a cooperative strategy more frequently under different levels of cost sharing. In all treatments, burden sharing leaves the Prisoner’s Dilemma structure and Nash equilibrium of the game unchanged. We compare three levels of burden sharing to a baseline in a between-subjects design, and find that burden sharing generates a non-linear effect on the choice of the efficient Prevention strategy and overall performance. Only an institution supporting a high level of mandatory burden sharing generates a significant improvement in the use of the Prevention strategy

Identification of HCV protease inhibitor resistance mutations by selection pressure-based method

A major challenge to successful antiviral therapy is the emergence of drug-resistant viruses. Recent studies have developed several automated analyses of HIV sequence polymorphism based on calculations of selection pressure (Ka/Ks) to predict drug resistance mutations. Similar resistance analysis programs for HCV inhibitors are not currently available. Taking advantage of the recently available sequence data of patient HCV samples from a Phase II clinical study of protease inhibitor boceprevir, we calculated the selection pressure for all codons in the HCV protease region (amino acid 1–181) to identify potential resistance mutations. The correlation between mutations was also calculated to evaluate linkage between any two mutations. Using this approach, we identified previously known major resistant mutations, including a recently reported mutation V55A. In addition, a novel mutation V158I was identified, and we further confirmed its resistance to boceprevir in protease enzyme and replicon assay. We also extended the approach to analyze potential interactions between individual mutations and identified three pairs of correlated changes. Our data suggests that selection pressure-based analysis and correlation mapping could provide useful tools to analyze large amount of sequencing data from clinical samples and to identify new drug resistance mutations as well as their linkage and correlations

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements