Using Focus Group Research in Exploring the Relationships Between Youth, Risk and Social Position

This paper draws upon current research to consider the value of the focus group method for exploring the relationships between youth, risk and social position. Groups comprising young people occupying similar social positions were used to generate talk about aspects of everyday life regarded as risk. Through the processes of conversational interaction facilitated by the focus group method, participants co-produced detailed risk narratives, understood here in Bourdieu\'s terms as product and producer of the habitus related to social position. Using data from several of the focus groups I illustrate how the method was especially useful in generating narratives indicative of how risks were experienced and understood in different ways according to social positions of class, gender and ethnicity. Such risk narratives also reproduced distinctions between and within different social positions. Consideration is given to certain limitations of the focus group method in respect of this research. Ultimately, however, the ability of the method to generate collaborative narratives reflective of shared social position is viewed as an invaluable means for developing a rich and nuanced account of the relations between youth and risk.Focus Groups, Youth, Risk, Social Position, Distinctions

Molecular diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonising Hyacinthoides non-scripta (bluebell) in a seminatural woodland

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form symbiotic associations with plant roots. Around 150 species have been described and it is becoming clear that many of these species have different functional properties. The species diversity of AM fungi actively growing in roots is therefore an important component of ecosystem diversity. However, it is difficult to identify AM fungi below the genus level from morphology in planta, as they possess few informative characters. We present here a molecular method for identifying infrageneric sequence types that estimate the taxonomic diversity of AM fungi present in actively growing roots. Bluebell roots were sampled from beneath two different canopy types, oak and sycamore, and DNA sequences were amplified from roots by the polymerase chain reaction with fungal-specific primers for part of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene. Restriction fragment length polymorphism among 141 clones was assessed and 62 clones were sequenced. When aligned, discrete sequence groups emerged that cluster into the three families of AM fungi: Acaulosporaceae, Gigasporaceae and Glomaceae. The sequence variation is consistent with rRNA secondary structure. The same sequence types were found at both sampling times. Frequencies of Scutellospora increased in December, and Acaulospora increased in abundance in July. Sites with a sycamore canopy show a reduced abundance of Acaulospora, and those with oak showed a reduced abundance of Glomus. These distribution patterns are consistent with previous morphological studies carried out in this woodland. The molecular method provides an alternative method of estimating the distribution and abundance of AM fungi, and has the potential to provide greater resolution at the infrageneric level

Youth, risk and identity

Recent socio-economic and cultural changes have had major implications for young people's everyday lives: longer periods are spent in a state of youth-hood while more opportunities to engage in youth practices are available. This changing youth landscape has been accompanied by governmental risk discourses which problematise young people, constructing many youth practices as risky and defining broad sections of youth as a risk population. These issues have been the subject of much academic interest. Yet, questions of how young people experience and understand risk are rarely considered: still less is said of how risks are interwoven with their identities. It is these matters that are the central focus of my investigation. In this thesis I use data from risk narratives generated through focus groups comprising 14-24 year-olds to illustrate the complexity of the relationship between youth, risk and identity. Risk narratives were found to be patterned in different ways according to the material experiences and understandings of risk shared by young people occupying particular social, economic and cultural spaces in Liverpool. Narratives were also informed in a range of ways by governmental youth risk discourses, young people's own culturally related risk discourses and by their age, gender, ethnicity and class. My work shows that, in discussing everyday risks, young people positioned both themselves and others in various subject positions, simultaneously expressing and reproducing a range of social distinctions and hierarchies. Understandings and experiences of risk were, in this regard, found to be closely bound up with social identity. My investigation illustrates that youth does not constitute a risk population in any simplistic way: nor do all young people experience or understand risk in the same terms. Rather, I demonstrate that material and discursive aspects of risk are intricately interwoven with young people's identities. As such, my thesis contributes to extant academic knowledge by highlighting the complexity of the relationship between youth, risk and identity and advancing new ways of addressing these relations

Selectivity and functional diversity in arbuscular mycorrhizas of co-occurring fungi and plants from a temperate deciduous woodland

1 The arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi colonizing plants at a woodland site in North Yorkshire (UK) have been characterized from the roots of five plant species (Rubus fruticosus agg. L., Epilobium angustifolium L., Acer pseudoplatanus L., Ajuga reptans L. and Glechoma hederacea L.), and identified using small-subunit rRNA (SSUrRNA) gene amplification and sequencing. 2 Interactions between five plant species from the site and four co-occurring glomalean fungi were investigated in artificial one-to-one AM symbioses. Three of the fungi were isolated from the site; the fourth was a culture genetically similar to a taxon found at the site. Phosphorus uptake and growth responses were compared with non-mycorrhizal controls. 3 Individual fungi colonized each plant with different spatial distribution and intensity. Some did not colonize at all, indicating incompatibility under the conditions used in the experiments. 4 Glomus hoi consistently occupied a large proportion of root systems and outperformed the other fungi, improving P uptake and enhancing the growth of four out of the five plant species. Only G. hoi colonized and increased P uptake in Acer pseudoplatanus, the host plant with which it associates almost exclusively under field conditions. Colonization of all plant species by Scutellospora dipurpurescens was sparse, and beneficial to only one of the host plants (Teucrium scorodonia). Archaeospora trappei and Glomus sp. UY1225 had variable effects on the host plants, conferring a range of P uptake and growth benefits on Lysimachia nummularia and T. scorodonia, increasing P uptake whilst not affecting biomass in Ajuga reptans and Glechoma hederacea, and failing to form mycorrhizas with A. pseudoplatanus. 5 These experimental mycorrhizas show that root colonization, symbiont compatibility and plant performance vary with each fungus-plant combination, even when the plants and fungi naturally co-exist. 6 We provide evidence of physical and functional selectivity in AM. The small number of described AM fungal species (154) has been ascribed to their supposed lack of host specificity, but if the selectivity we have observed is the general rule, then we may predict that many more, probably hard-to-culture glomalean species await discovery, or that members of species as currently perceived may be physiologically or functionally distinct

Visualization for Equity Analysts: Using the DSM in Stock Picking

We use the Design Study Methodology in a short term project to apply visualization to equity analysis with a major supplier of information to the finance industry. Our interactive prototype is positively received and our work suggests that this kind of design and the application of the DSM to short term visualization projects have potential in stock picking and more broadly in financial analysis

The Geographic Pattern and Socioecological Factors of Helicobacter Pylori Infections in the United States

AbstractHelicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is one of the most common human pathogens and may play a role in the development of several distinct diseases, which include gastric ulcer, duodenal ulcer, and gastric cancer. Studying geographic territories of the United States may reveal clusters with high rates of H. pylori infection and perhaps the prevalence of gastric cancer; however, geographic mapping of patterns in the United States is scarce. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in H pylori infection patterns in the United States between two different time points (2000–2002 and 2016–2018). The primary hypotheses of this study concerned whether socioecological predictors were associated with any regional changes in H. pylori infection patterns. Data on H pylori cases were obtained from the National Inpatient Sample, which represents a 20% stratified sample of U.S. community hospitals and, at the time of data collection, contained data from 10 million inpatient stays in 46 states. Chi-square analyses and multiple logistic regression were used to calculate odds ratios, p-values, and confidence intervals. Although the rates of H. pylori infections did not change over time, there was a regional change in the distribution of infections from the South to the Northeast regions of the United States. H. pylori infections were most prevalent in females less than 55 years of age, and race was not a significant predictor. Medicare and Medicaid usage increased between 2016 and 2018. This study revealed the extent of H. pylori infection in the U.S. and identified socioecological factors that influence its occurrence. This information may help medical and public health professionals and community leaders to create programs and policies to improve infectious outcomes