Elder Abuse as Constructed by Dagens Nyheter: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

In order to analyze how the concept of elder abuse was constructed within the narrative of a newspaper article series, Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) was applied to 175 newspaper articles following the Carema Care elder abuse case. The articles used for the study were published by DN.se, the online version of the Swedish morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter, between 2011-10-11 and 2012-10-11. Throughout the entirety of the article series, the concept of elder abuse was consistently found to be constructed as something shocking and unacceptable. The FDA furthermore revealed how five different discourses - science and medicine, power relationships, economy, morals and ethics and finally the discourse of responsibility - constituted almost all of the synergistic discursive concept combinations that formed the discursive construct of elder abuse within the article series. These five discourses were therefore further analyzed for action orientations, positionings, practices and subjectivity in order to open up the discursive worlds inhabited by the participants of the narrative and to show how the particular subject matter construct was constituted and presented to the recipients of the narrative. Finally, a discussion of the analysis focused on the processes of depersonalization and dehumanization with particular regard to the Foucauldian concept of exclusiveness. The article-constituted passive voicelessness of the victims of elder abuse was given special attention, since being constructed as a non-active subject, as a thing rather than as a human being, has been shown to be an enabling factor in abuse cases

Deciphering the Non-Equivalence of Serine and Threonine O-Glycosylation Points: Implications for Molecular Recognition of the Tn Antigen by an anti-MUC1 Antibody.

The structural features of MUC1-like glycopeptides bearing the Tn antigen (α-O-GalNAc-Ser/Thr) in complex with an anti MUC-1 antibody are reported at atomic resolution. For the α-O-GalNAc-Ser derivative, the glycosidic linkage adopts a high-energy conformation, barely populated in the free state. This unusual structure (also observed in an α-S-GalNAc-Cys mimic) is stabilized by hydrogen bonds between the peptidic fragment and the sugar. The selection of a particular peptide structure by the antibody is thus propagated to the carbohydrate through carbohydrate/peptide contacts, which force a change in the orientation of the sugar moiety. This seems to be unfeasible in the α-O-GalNAc-Thr glycopeptide owing to the more limited flexibility of the side chain imposed by the methyl group. Our data demonstrate the non-equivalence of Ser and Thr O-glycosylation points in molecular recognition processes. These features provide insight into the occurrence in nature of the APDTRP epitope for anti-MUC1 antibodies.We thank the Ministerio de Econom a y Competitividad/FEDER (project CTQ2012-36365, CTQ2012-32065, BFU2010-19504, CTQ2013-44367-C2-2-P, UNLR13-4E-1931 and grant I.C.) and DGA (B89) for financial support. N.M.-S. and D.M. thank Universidad de La Rioja for FPI grants. We thank Katherine Stott (Department of Biochemistry, Cambridge University) for technical help with the BLI experiments. G.J.L.B. thanks financial support from the EPSRC. G.J.L.B. is a Royal Society University Research Fellow. M.S. thanks the Generalitat de Catalunya and Universitat Rovira i Virgili for financial support.This is the published version. It first appeared at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201502813/abstract

Behaviours of wild male and female Colobus angolensis palliatus during morning and afternoon in Diani Beach, Kenya

Colobus angolensis palliatus is a small old world monkey inhabiting southern coastal Kenya to southern Tanzania. The species activity budget is known to vary between seasons and areas, probably due to differences in group sizes, diets, predatory presence and resource competition. The variations between male and female activity budgets are reckoned to be a result of pregnancy and lactation. The aim of this study was to investigate potential differences in behaviours between morning and afternoon periods and between males and females. The study was carried out in two forest fragments in Diani Beach on the south coast of Kenya. A total of four groups of C. a. palliatus were observed during an eight day survey, divided into morning and afternoon observation periods. The method used during the recordings was focal sampling with instantaneous recording. The results indicate differences in proportions of observations spent on behaviours between morning and afternoon periods. The variations in the behaviours feeding (27.0 vs 48.6 %; P < 0.001), resting (59.1 vs 39.7 %; P < 0.001) and auto grooming (3.8 vs 2.5 %; P = 0.018) may be due to ambient temperature, predatory avoidance, competition over resources or season and area. There were no differences in social behaviours and moving between morning and afternoon. There were no differences in the proportion of observations spent on feeding, resting, auto grooming, moving and other behaviours between males and females. However, females spent more time with social behaviours compared to males (2.0 vs 0.4 %; P = 0.009), probably due to more allo grooming among females

Multivalent glycoconjugates as vaccines and potential drug candidates

Pathogens adhere to the host cells during the first steps of infection through multivalent interactions which involve protein–glycan recognition. Multivalent interactions are also involved at different stages of immune response. Insights into these multivalent interactions generate a way to use suitable carbohydrate ligands that are attached to a basic scaffold consisting of e.g., dendrimer, polymer, nanoparticle, etc., with a suitable linker. Thus a multivalent architecture can be obtained with controllable spatial and topology parameters which can interfere with pathogen adhesion. Multivalent glycoconjugates bearing natural or unnatural carbohydrate antigen epitopes have also been used as carbohydrate based vaccines to stimulate an innate and adaptive immune response. Designing and synthesizing an efficient multivalent architecture with optimal ligand density and a suitable linker is a challenging task. This review presents a concise report on the endeavors to potentially use multi- and polyvalent glycoconjugates as vaccines as well as anti-infectious and anti-inflammatory drug candidates

Ketone Hydrosilylation with Sugar Silanes Followed by Intramolecular Aglycone Delivery: An Orthogonal Glycosylation Strategy

Gettin' a little sugar—no alcohol required : A procedure for the direct glycosylation of ketones without a hydroxy intermediate enables the site-selective glycosylation of hydroxyketones at the ketone or the alcohol functionality without the use of protecting groups on the aglycone (see scheme). Site selectivity is controlled by the catalyst structure in hydrosilylation and dehydrogenative silylation reactions with sugar silanes. Bn=benzyl.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63086/1/anie_200901666_sm_miscellaneous_information.pd

The Raman optical activity of β-D-xylose: where experiment and theory meet

Besides its applications in bioenergy and biosynthesis, β-D-xylose is a very simple monosaccharide that exhibits relatively high rigidity. As such, it provides the best basis to study the impact of different solvation shell radii on the computation of its Raman optical activity (ROA) spectrum. Indeed, this chiroptical spectroscopic technique provides exquisite sensitivity to stereochemistry, and benefits much from theoretical support for interpretation. Our simulation approach combines density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) in order to efficiently account for the crucial hydration effects in the simulation of carbohydrates and their spectroscopic response predictions. Excellent agreement between the simulated spectrum and the experiment was obtained with a solvation radius of 10 Å. Vibrational bands have been resolved from the computed ROA data, and compared with previous results on different monosaccharides in order to identify specific structure–spectrum relationships and to investigate the effect of the solvation environment on the conformational dynamics of small sugars. From the comparison with ROA analytical results, a shortcoming of the classical force field used for the MD simulations has been identified and overcome, again highlighting the complementary role of experiment and theory in the structural characterisation of complex biomolecules. Indeed, due to unphysical puckering, a spurious ring conformation initially led to erroneous conformer ratios, which are used as weights for the averaging of the spectral average, and only by removing this contribution was near perfect comparison between theory and experiment achieved

Dynamics of the glacial lake at Flatbreen in Fjærland, Western Norway, and its role in the flood regime of the Tverrdøla catchment

Glaciers are severely affected by climate change as they retreat due to rising temperatures. This increase in meltwater and unveiling of depressions has simultaneously caused a rise in the size and number of glacial lakes globally, further resulting in an increased risk of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs; Shugar et al., 2020). Along with warming temperatures, GLOFs can be influenced by extreme precipitation (Harrison et al., 2018). The patterns of such precipitation have already intensified and are expected to become more extreme as global warming increases (Seneviratne et al., 2021). Given the global growth of glacial lakes, it is imperative to comprehend both the causes of their flooding and their vulnerability to climate change. This study focuses on the glacial lake at Flatbreen glacier in Fjærland, Western Norway. Although relatively small, the Flatbreen glacial lake has a history of flooding the Tverrdøla river. The most recent event occurred in November 2022 when a period of extreme precipitation contributed to a debris flow, destroying a road and isolating locals. Suspected of being a flash flood from extreme precipitation and/or GLOF activity, the exact cause of the flooding was unknown. This study uses a hydrological model (HBV-light) to predict discharge values and a hydraulic model (HEC-RAS) to determine if corresponding water levels match geomorphological evidence of erosion along the channel. Both models help simulate the event and better understand the dynamics of the glacial lake and its role in flooding the Tverrdøla catchment. The results suggest that significant subglacial drainage channels became blocked and rerouted water to the glacial lake in November 2022. The drainage network likely started to close in the fall, and the heavy rainfall overwhelmed the system. In turn, water deviated from its normal course to the icefall and instead flowed out of the lake through the moraine-breach outlet, leading to the debris flow in the Tverrdøla catchment. The simulation provides a peak discharge of 26.4 m3/s at the bridge crossing. However, this does not correspond with evidence of erosion along the channel and is likely underestimated due to some misrepresentation of snow/glacier melt and glacial outflow in the model. Based on expected increases in temperature and heavy precipitation due to climate change, peak discharge in the study area may increase up to 64% by 2060 and 125% by 2100 during a similarly shaped precipitation event. The findings underscore the urgent need to enhance our understanding of glacial lake dynamics and their flood risks, as climate change continues to amplify extreme weather and enlarge glacial lakes.GE4-30