The everyday geographies of living with diabetes

Diabetes is a condition often placed on the margins of ‘seriousness’. It is often believed to impact minimally on an individual’s everyday life and, while this may be true for some people, living with diabetes is not always experienced so ‘easily’. Research from myriad disciplines has begun to shed light on the complex personal issues of living with the condition, but, with a few exceptions, there is little input from human geography. This thesis hence explores the ‘geographies of diabetes’ in more detail. The findings hinge around a ‘recession’ of the diabetic body in public space. This recession is both discursive and material, caused by the assumptions and expectations of others that diabetes is among the minor of chronic conditions, largely overcome by insulin and ever advancing technologies which enable greater self-control over the diabetic body. Visible diabetic bodies are hence subject to a disciplining gaze, for having transgressed these expectations. This thesis finds that, despite many people displaying their diabetes minimally in public, the condition impacts greatly on a personal level. People with diabetes are aware that their bodies are at risk of both short- and long-term complications more so than if they did not have diabetes. These vulnerabilities serve to create anxious bodies for whom everyday spontaneity is curbed and dependency is heightened. In order to conceal the visible signifier of diabetes, to avoid the disciplining gaze, people ‘perform’ aspects of their self-management, hence further obscuring the anxious realities of living with diabetes. The embodied differences of having diabetes along with the discursive ‘recession’ of the condition, contribute to an ideal of ‘diabetic citizenship’. It is to this ‘diabetic citizen’ – who experiences the condition with few problems, and with any difficulty attributed to personal and moral failing – that many people with diabetes express their frustration. Through the methods of online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews, this thesis raises awareness of the clandestine geography experienced by people with diabetes

"They're thinking, well it's not as bad, I probably won't get addicted to that. But it's still got the nicotine in it, so…":Maturity, control and socialising: Negotiating identities in relation to smoking and vaping. A qualitative study of young adults in Scotland

Objective: To explore the understandings of and engagement with e-cigarettes, of young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds, and how these may be impacting upon existing smoking identities. Methods: Twenty-two small group and 11 individual qualitative interviews conducted in Central Scotland with 72 16-24 year olds between September 2015 and April 2016. Participants were mostly smokers and ex-smokers from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Results: While most participants had tried e-cigarettes, they generally held ambivalent views about e-cigarettes and vaping. Two overarching themes were identified which helped understand this. Firstly, e-cigarettes were understood by the participants in relation to their existing smoking identities. Vaping was viewed as less controllable and more addictive than smoking, which did not fit with their self-identity as controlled smokers. Secondly, they felt that vaping could not replace the social and cultural importance that smoking had in their lives. Conclusion: This study suggests that while young adults from disadvantaged areas are trying e-cigarettes for various reasons, vaping is rarely sustained. Through their own experiences of vaping and their observations of others vaping, the participants perceive the behaviour as endangering an existing acceptable and controlled smoking identity. Additionally, e-cigarettes were considered to be a jarring presence in existing social situations were smoking was valued. This study therefore provides insights into how young adults may be rationalising their continued smoking in the face of potentially less harmful alternatives. Implications: As new and novel nicotine delivery devices, and due to their similarity to smoking, e-cigarettes have the potential to help smokers in their quit attempts. However, the findings from this study raise questions about whether e-cigarettes are regarded as having this potential by young adult smokers from disadvantaged socio-economic environments where smoking is more commonplace and acceptable

Potential for non-combustible nicotine products to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in smoking: a systematic review and synthesis of best available evidence

While some experts have emphasised the potential for e-cigarettes to facilitate cessation among smokers with low socioeconomic status (SES), there is limited evidence of their likely equity impact. We assessed the potential for electronic cigarettes and other non-combustible nicotine-containing products (NCNPs) to reduce inequalities in smoking by systematically reviewing evidence on their use by SES in countries at stage IV of the cigarette epidemic

Diabetes and an inescapable (auto)ethnography

This paper reports on personal reflections from a recent research project on the geographies of living with diabetes. Drawing from research participants’ written and oral accounts alongside the researcher's own everyday experiences, this project aimed to provide a detailed account of life with diabetes. However, issues of the researcher's own diagnosis with diabetes confounded the project so that completing the research soon became a potentially overwhelming task. The paper questions to what extent an autoethnographical approach can be mediated in a project in which the researcher's own involvement is complex. Three different types of fieldwork encounter are discussed in the paper: an anxiety-inducing encounter; supportive encounters; and disciplinary encounters. Each of these encounters involved a different form of personal engagement and degree of vulnerability on the part of the researcher in order to complete the research. Autoethnography was inescapable in this research project, hence the bracketing of the ‘auto’ to indicate the researcher's desire for less personal involvement but still acknowledging that this aim can be difficult to achieve. This paper offers a personal account of how autoethnography can be managed in the interests of the researcher's preferred approach, and for the completion of the research

Researching ‘our’ people and researching ‘other’ people

no abstract available

Everolimus, lutetium-177 DOTATATE and sunitinib for advanced, unresectable or metastatic neuroendocrine tumours with disease progression: a systematic review and cost-effectiveness analysis.

Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) are a group of heterogeneous cancers that develop in cells in the diffuse neuroendocrine system.This report is freely available online. Click on the link above to access the full-tex

Hyperon signatures in the PANDA experiment at FAIR

We present a detailed simulation study of the signatures from the sequential decays of the triple-strange pbar p -> Ω+Ω- -> K+ΛbarK- Λ -> K+pbarπ+K-pπ- process in the PANDA central tracking system with focus on hit patterns and precise time measurement. We present a systematic approach for studying physics channels at the detector level and develop input criteria for tracking algorithms and trigger lines. Finally, we study the beam momentum dependence on the reconstruction efficiency for the PANDA detector