Nutritional modulation of insulin resistance

Insulin resistance has been proposed as the strongest single predictor for the development of Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM). Chronic oversupply of energy from food, together with inadequate physical activity, have been recognized as the most relevant factors leading to overweight, abdominal adiposity, insulin resistance, and finally T2DM. Conversely, energy reduced diets almost invariably to facilitate weight loss and reduce abdominal fat mass and insulin resistance. However, sustained weight loss is generally difficult to achieve, and distinct metabolic characteristics in patients with T2DM further compromise success. Therefore, investigating the effects of modulating the macronutrient composition of isoenergetic diets is an interesting concept that may lead to additional important insights. Metabolic effects of various different dietary concepts and strategies have been claimed, but results from randomized controlled studies and particularly from longer-term-controlled interventions in humans are often lacking. However, some of these concepts are supported by recent research, at least in animal models and short-term studies in humans. This paper provides an update of the current literature regarding the role of nutrition in the modulation of insulin resistance, which includes the discussion of weight-loss-independent metabolic effects of commonly used dietary concepts

The Deviance of the Zookeepers

In May 1968 Alvin Gouldner published his attack on the ‘Becker School’ of sociology (‘The Sociologist as Partisan’). The essay was a sometimes sarcastic and brutal but characteristically insightful and sharp critique of what he called the ‘Becker School’ of sociology – especially as it related to law-breaking and norm-transgressing outsiders. In attacking the failure of ‘sceptical deviancy theory’ to confront the wider structural sources of power and authority, its seeming inability to address gross social divisions of wealth and status, and its lack of attention to the larger political and economic interests that were embedded in departments of State and industrial and financial corporations alike, Gouldner pinpointed with some accuracy the radical motivations of the soon-to-emerge ‘new criminology’ – in both its ‘left idealist’ and ‘left realist’ guises. What Gouldner’s essay really exposed was a certain kind of ‘deviant imagination’ (c.f., Pearson, 1975) prevalent in the emerging critical criminologies of 1960s America (and then the UK, see Young, 1969). In this paper I use Gouldner’s essay as a lens to investigate the ‘deviant imagination’ of contemporary critical criminologies and ask: who are the zookeepers of contemporary criminology and what is their deviant imagination

Criminal Degradations of Consumer Culture

In this chapter I take a ‘social harm’ approach to explore some of the degrading impacts of modern consumerism. My aim is to explore the harmful, often criminal, sometimes fatal consequences that attend the supply of consumer goods in contemporary capitalist societies. At the same time, I note that a focus on social harm begs some very fundamental questions about criminology as an academic discipline – or ‘field’ of study. When a cradle-to-grave assessment of consumer goods is undertaken it reveals that many personal and environmental degradations are nothing more than the ordinary means by which objects are produced, distributed and discarded in contemporary societies. In order to unpack the mundane character of the degradations of a consumer culture I use the example of prawn production but my more general argument is that what is true for prawns is true for (almost) any consumer object

Advanced propulsion for LEO-Moon transport. 1: A method for evaluating advanced propulsion performance

This report describes a study to evaluate the benefits of advanced propulsion technologies for transporting materials between low Earth orbit and the Moon. A relatively conventional reference transportation system, and several other systems, each of which includes one advanced technology component, are compared in terms of how well they perform a chosen mission objective. The evaluation method is based on a pairwise life-cycle cost comparison of each of the advanced systems with the reference system. Somewhat novel and economically important features of the procedure are the inclusion not only of mass payback ratios based on Earth launch costs, but also of repair and capital acquisition costs, and of adjustments in the latter to reflect the technological maturity of the advanced technologies. The required input information is developed by panels of experts. The overall scope and approach of the study are presented in the introduction. The bulk of the paper describes the evaluation method; the reference system and an advanced transportation system, including a spinning tether in an eccentric Earth orbit, are used to illustrate it

School Based Responses to Non-Suicidal Self Injury and Suicide: Literature Considerations When Framing a Policy Response

Deliberate Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) and suicide present distinct but related concerns for schools. An Australian study of over 6,300 families containing children/ adolescents aged 4 to 17 years found that one in 10 young people had engaged with NSSI – with three quarters of this cohort having harmed themselves in the previous twelve months (Lawrence, 2015). The same study found that within the 12 to 17 year old age group, one in 13 individuals had considered suicide in the previous 12 months, with one in 40 having made attempts (Lawrence, 2015). This article seeks to articulate key themes from literature that demand consideration by schools seeking to construct their own framework or pastoral response, balancing the prioritization of student safety whilst also attending to the realities of staff competencies. Given the age group presented in the Lawrence (2015) study, it should not be surprising that adolescents in the school context may disclosure the presence of intrusive thoughts pertaining to at-risk behaviours. Consequently, schools are well placed to deliver prevention services and simultaneously, need to be prepared to respond to situations of NSSI and suicide attempts. Drawing on the expertise of staff from an Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) school located in Brisbane, this paper draws links to existing policy determinants of pastoral care from within this Catholic school, whilst considering the issue of risk-to-self with relevant themes organized according to the three action areas outlined by the Queensland Suicide Action Prevention Plan (Queensland Mental Health Commission, 2015) namely: prevention; intervention; and postvention

Chaotic temperature dependence in a model of spin glasses

We address the problem of chaotic temperature dependence in disordered glassy systems at equilibrium by following states of a random-energy random-entropy model in temperature; of particular interest are the crossings of the free-energies of these states. We find that this model exhibits strong, weak or no temperature chaos depending on the value of an exponent. This allows us to write a general criterion for temperature chaos in disordered systems, predicting the presence of temperature chaos in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick and Edwards-Anderson spin glass models, albeit when the number of spins is large enough. The absence of chaos for smaller systems may justify why it is difficult to observe chaos with current simulations. We also illustrate our findings by studying temperature chaos in the naive mean field equations for the Edwards-Anderson spin glass.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; To be published in European Physics Journal