La política del miedo: antiterrorismo y democracia australiana

En los años posteriores al 11-S, los diversos paquetes de reformas legislativas han llevado a un aumento progresivo de la capacidad del Estado australiano para inmiscuirse en la vida de los ciudadanos de a pie y detener y enjuiciar a individuos sospechosos de llevar a cabo actividades relacionadas con el terrorismo sin tener en cuenta las debidas garantías procesales que han caracterizado a la democracia australiana durante más de un siglo. Y aún así, lo que más reafirma los temores de los defensores de las libertades civiles, los socialdemócratas y los miembros de la comunidad australiana tan diversa étnicamente es el discurso promovido en paralelo por el Gobierno de John Howard, en el que el terrorismo se identifica prácticamente con el islam. El resultado ha sido una erosión desigual de la democracia mediante la cual los costes sociales derivados de ese aumento de las competencias del Estado recaen de forma desproporcionada en determinados grupos étnicos y religiosos. Así, el enfoque dado por el Gobierno de Howard a la lucha contra el terrorismo no sólo ha menguado el carácter democrático de Australia, sino que además está socavando también una larga tradición de multiculturalismo y llevando a las comunidades musulmanas a adoptar una postura defensiva que amenaza con aislarlas de sus conciudadanos australianos y complicar futuras iniciativas antiterroristas

Temor y odio: Australia y el antiterrorismo

Este ARI analiza el enfoque australiano sobre el antiterrorismo. A diferencia de muchos de sus homólogos occidentales y vecinos de la región Asia-Pacífico, hasta hace poco Australia había tenido poca experiencia directa del terrorismo. Sin embargo, los acontecimientos del 11-S sacudieron a este país, haciéndole salir de su autocomplacencia, y desde entonces la lucha antiterrorista ha ocupado una posición central en los debates políticos nacionales. Canberra ha adoptado un enfoque a dos niveles con respecto a dicha lucha. A nivel internacional la piedra angular de sus políticas antiterroristas es la alianza militar de Canberra con Estados Unidos. A nivel nacional, el Gobierno australiano ha respondido a la amenaza terrorista endureciendo las competencias punitivas e investigadoras del Estado. Y, sin embargo, hay una serie de supuestos erróneos acerca de la naturaleza y las causas del terrorismo que mina la efectividad de las políticas a ambos niveles. Dadas estas circunstancias, no es probable que el enfoque dado por Canberra a la amenaza del terrorismo vaya a producir beneficios a largo plazo en términos de seguridad regional o nacional

BHPR research: qualitative1. Complex reasoning determines patients' perception of outcome following foot surgery in rheumatoid arhtritis

Background: Foot surgery is common in patients with RA but research into surgical outcomes is limited and conceptually flawed as current outcome measures lack face validity: to date no one has asked patients what is important to them. This study aimed to determine which factors are important to patients when evaluating the success of foot surgery in RA Methods: Semi structured interviews of RA patients who had undergone foot surgery were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis of interviews was conducted to explore issues that were important to patients. Results: 11 RA patients (9 ♂, mean age 59, dis dur = 22yrs, mean of 3 yrs post op) with mixed experiences of foot surgery were interviewed. Patients interpreted outcome in respect to a multitude of factors, frequently positive change in one aspect contrasted with negative opinions about another. Overall, four major themes emerged. Function: Functional ability & participation in valued activities were very important to patients. Walking ability was a key concern but patients interpreted levels of activity in light of other aspects of their disease, reflecting on change in functional ability more than overall level. Positive feelings of improved mobility were often moderated by negative self perception ("I mean, I still walk like a waddling duck”). Appearance: Appearance was important to almost all patients but perhaps the most complex theme of all. Physical appearance, foot shape, and footwear were closely interlinked, yet patients saw these as distinct separate concepts. Patients need to legitimize these feelings was clear and they frequently entered into a defensive repertoire ("it's not cosmetic surgery; it's something that's more important than that, you know?”). Clinician opinion: Surgeons' post operative evaluation of the procedure was very influential. The impact of this appraisal continued to affect patients' lasting impression irrespective of how the outcome compared to their initial goals ("when he'd done it ... he said that hasn't worked as good as he'd wanted to ... but the pain has gone”). Pain: Whilst pain was important to almost all patients, it appeared to be less important than the other themes. Pain was predominately raised when it influenced other themes, such as function; many still felt the need to legitimize their foot pain in order for health professionals to take it seriously ("in the end I went to my GP because it had happened a few times and I went to an orthopaedic surgeon who was quite dismissive of it, it was like what are you complaining about”). Conclusions: Patients interpret the outcome of foot surgery using a multitude of interrelated factors, particularly functional ability, appearance and surgeons' appraisal of the procedure. While pain was often noted, this appeared less important than other factors in the overall outcome of the surgery. Future research into foot surgery should incorporate the complexity of how patients determine their outcome Disclosure statement: All authors have declared no conflicts of interes

Increasing vegetable intakes: rationale and systematic review of published interventions

Purpose While the health benefits of a high fruit and vegetable consumption are well known and considerable work has attempted to improve intakes, increasing evidence also recognises a distinction between fruit and vegetables, both in their impacts on health and in consumption patterns. Increasing work suggests health benefits from a high consumption specifically of vegetables, yet intakes remain low, and barriers to increasing intakes are prevalent making intervention difficult. A systematic review was undertaken to identify from the published literature all studies reporting an intervention to increase intakes of vegetables as a distinct food group. Methods Databases—PubMed, PsychInfo and Medline—were searched over all years of records until April 2015 using pre-specified terms. Results Our searches identified 77 studies, detailing 140 interventions, of which 133 (81 %) interventions were conducted in children. Interventions aimed to use or change hedonic factors, such as taste, liking and familiarity (n = 72), use or change environmental factors (n = 39), use or change cognitive factors (n = 19), or a combination of strategies (n = 10). Increased vegetable acceptance, selection and/or consumption were reported to some degree in 116 (83 %) interventions, but the majority of effects seem small and inconsistent. Conclusions Greater percent success is currently found from environmental, educational and multi-component interventions, but publication bias is likely, and long-term effects and cost-effectiveness are rarely considered. A focus on long-term benefits and sustained behaviour change is required. Certain population groups are also noticeably absent from the current list of tried interventions

Measurement of the forward Z boson production cross-section in pp collisions at s=13\sqrt{s} = 13 TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section of Z bosons in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV is presented using dimuon and dielectron final states in LHCb data. The cross-section is measured for leptons with pseudorapidities in the range $2.0 \eta 4.5$, transverse momenta $p_\text{T} 20$ GeV and dilepton invariant mass in the range $60 m(\ell\ell) 120$ GeV. The integrated cross-section from averaging the two final states is \begin{equation*}\sigma_{\text{Z}}^{\ell\ell} = 194.3 \pm 0.9 \pm 3.3 \pm 7.6\text{ pb,}\end{equation*} where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is due to systematic effects, and the third is due to the luminosity determination. In addition, differential cross-sections are measured as functions of the Z boson rapidity, transverse momentum and the angular variable $\phi^*_\eta$

Sea-Ice Bacteria Halomonas sp. Strain 363 and Paracoccus sp. Strain 392 Produce Multiple Types of Poly-3-Hydroxyalkaonoic Acid (PHA) Storage Polymers at Low Temperature

Poly-3-hydroxyalkanoic acids (PHAs) are bacterial storage polymers commonly used in bioplastic production. Halophilic bacteria are industrially interesting organisms, as their salinity tolerance and psychrophilic nature lowers sterility requirements and subsequent production costs. We investigated PHA synthesis in two bacterial strains, Halomonas sp. 363 and Paracoccus sp. 392, isolated from Southern Ocean sea ice and elucidated the related PHA biopolymer accumulation and composition with various approaches, such as transcriptomics, microscopy, and chromatography. We show that both bacterial strains produce PHAs at 4 degrees C when the availability of nitrogen and/or oxygen limited growth. The genome of Halomonas sp. 363 carries three phaC synthase genes and transcribes genes along three PHA pathways (I to III), whereas Paracoccus sp. 392 carries only one phaC gene and transcribes genes along one pathway (I). Thus, Halomonas sp. 363 has a versatile repertoire of phaC genes and pathways enabling production of both short- and medium-chain-length PHA products. IMPORTANCE Plastic pollution is one of the most topical threats to the health of the oceans and seas. One recognized way to alleviate the problem is to use degradable bioplastic materials in high-risk applications. PHA is a promising bioplastic material as it is nontoxic and fully produced and degraded by bacteria. Sea ice is an interesting environment for prospecting novel PHA-producing organisms, since traits advantageous to lower production costs, such as tolerance for high salinities and low temperatures, are common. We show that two sea-ice bacteria, Halomonas sp. 363 and Paracoccus sp. 392, are able to produce various types of PHA from inexpensive carbon sources. Halomonas sp. 363 is an especially interesting PHA-producing organism, since it has three different synthesis pathways to produce both short- and medium-chain-length PHAs.peerReviewe

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE)

The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), one of the programs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), has now completed its systematic, homogeneous spectroscopic survey sampling all major populations of the Milky Way. After a three-year observing campaign on the Sloan 2.5 m Telescope, APOGEE has collected a half million high-resolution (R ~ 22,500), high signal-to-noise ratio (>100), infrared (1.51–1.70 μm) spectra for 146,000 stars, with time series information via repeat visits to most of these stars. This paper describes the motivations for the survey and its overall design—hardware, field placement, target selection, operations—and gives an overview of these aspects as well as the data reduction, analysis, and products. An index is also given to the complement of technical papers that describe various critical survey components in detail. Finally, we discuss the achieved survey performance and illustrate the variety of potential uses of the data products by way of a number of science demonstrations, which span from time series analysis of stellar spectral variations and radial velocity variations from stellar companions, to spatial maps of kinematics, metallicity, and abundance patterns across the Galaxy and as a function of age, to new views of the interstellar medium, the chemistry of star clusters, and the discovery of rare stellar species. As part of SDSS-III Data Release 12 and later releases, all of the APOGEE data products are publicly available

The contribution of X-linked coding variation to severe developmental disorders

Over 130 X-linked genes have been robustly associated with developmental disorders, and X-linked causes have been hypothesised to underlie the higher developmental disorder rates in males. Here, we evaluate the burden of X-linked coding variation in 11,044 developmental disorder patients, and find a similar rate of X-linked causes in males and females (6.0% and 6.9%, respectively), indicating that such variants do not account for the 1.4-fold male bias. We develop an improved strategy to detect X-linked developmental disorders and identify 23 significant genes, all of which were previously known, consistent with our inference that the vast majority of the X-linked burden is in known developmental disorder-associated genes. Importantly, we estimate that, in male probands, only 13% of inherited rare missense variants in known developmental disorder-associated genes are likely to be pathogenic. Our results demonstrate that statistical analysis of large datasets can refine our understanding of modes of inheritance for individual X-linked disorders.</p