Neoliberalisation and 'lad cultures' in higher education

This paper links HE neoliberalisation and ‘lad cultures’, drawing on interviews and focus groups with women students. We argue that retro-sexist ‘laddish’ forms of masculine competitiveness and misogyny have been reshaped by neoliberal rationalities to become modes of consumerist sexualised audit. We also suggest that neoliberal frameworks scaffold an individualistic and adversarial culture among young people that interacts with perceived threats to men’s privilege and intensifies attempts to put women in their place through misogyny and sexual harassment. Furthermore, ‘lad cultures’, sexism and sexual harassment in higher education may be invisibilised by institutions to preserve marketability in a neoliberal context. In response, we ask if we might foster dialogue and partnership between feminist and anti-marketisation politics

Star Architecture as Socio-Material Assemblage

Taking inspiration from new materialism and assemblage, the chapter deals with star architects and iconic buildings as socio-material network effects that do not pre-exist action, but are enacted in practice, in the materiality of design crafting and city building. Star architects are here conceptualized as part of broader assemblages of actors and practices ‘making star architecture’ a reality, and the buildings they design are considered not just as unique and iconic objects, but dis-articulated as complex crafts mobilizing skills, technologies, materials, and forms of knowledge not necessarily ascribable to architecture. Overcoming narrow criticism focusing on the symbolic order of icons as unique creations and alienated repetitions of capitalist development, the chapter’s main aim is to widen the scope of critique by bridging culture and economy, symbolism and practicality, making star architecture available to a broad, fragmented arena of (potential) critics, unevenly equipped with critical tools and differentiated experiences

Evaluating predictive pharmacogenetic signatures of adverse events in colorectal cancer patients treated with fluoropyrimidines

The potential clinical utility of genetic markers associated with response to fluoropyrimidine treatment in colorectal cancer patients remains controversial despite extensive study. Our aim was to test the clinical validity of both novel and previously identified markers of adverse events in a broad clinical setting. We have conducted an observational pharmacogenetic study of early adverse events in a cohort study of 254 colorectal cancer patients treated with 5-fluorouracil or capecitabine. Sixteen variants of nine key folate (pharmacodynamic) and drug metabolising (pharmacokinetic) enzymes have been analysed as individual markers and/or signatures of markers. We found a significant association between TYMP S471L (rs11479) and early dose modifications and/or severe adverse events (adjusted OR = 2.02 [1.03; 4.00], p = 0.042, adjusted OR = 2.70 [1.23; 5.92], p = 0.01 respectively). There was also a significant association between these phenotypes and a signature of DPYD mutations (Adjusted OR = 3.96 [1.17; 13.33], p = 0.03, adjusted OR = 6.76 [1.99; 22.96], p = 0.002 respectively). We did not identify any significant associations between the individual candidate pharmacodynamic markers and toxicity. If a predictive test for early adverse events analysed the TYMP and DPYD variants as a signature, the sensitivity would be 45.5 %, with a positive predictive value of just 33.9 % and thus poor clinical validity. Most studies to date have been under-powered to consider multiple pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic variants simultaneously but this and similar individualised data sets could be pooled in meta-analyses to resolve uncertainties about the potential clinical utility of these markers

Intractable Alcoholism in a Patient with a Levine Shunt

Ellen Shaw. M.D., Fellow in Hepatology: Mr. J is a forty-six-year-old white male who was initially seen on the medical service in July 1982. At that time he presented with hepatic encephalopathy, jaundice, and ascites. A liver biopsy was performed, confirming the clinical diagnosis of alcoholic hepatitis superimposed on cirrhosis. Following discharge it was difficult to maintain Mr. J as an outpatient. He did not follow dietary restrictions or take diuretics as prescribed. Additionally he was unable to control his drinking. Finally about a year ago a Levine shunt was implanted in an effort to control his ascites. Subsequently he did well for a period of several months. He was able to abstain from alcohol with a resulting decrease in his ascites and jaundice. Recently he has resumed drinking, with a return of his symptoms. He has missed his last several appointments in the clinic. Control of his medical problems remains problematic unless his alcohol abuse can be better controlled

How market standards affect building design: the case of low energy design in commercial offices

This paper develops existing work on building design through a focus on one important yet understudied form of regulation: market standards. Market standards are agreed upon definitions of ‘necessary’ provision in buildings and are fundamental in ‘formatting’ markets and determining the value of a building in the market. The paper presents a case study of the design of ten commercial offices in London, UK, the effects of market standards on the designs and on the potential for the development of lower energy buildings. Theoretically, the paper integrates literatures on standards, institutions and markets to argue that market standards do important ‘work’ in design processes that requires closer scrutiny. In particular, we show that market standards: are an important form of normative and cultural regulation in the field of commercial office design; format and act as calculative devices in property markets; and result in forms of knowledge diminution that break the relationship between building design and occupiers’ practices. Together, these effects result in particular designs being legitimised and valued, and lower energy designs being delegitimised, devalued and pushed to the periphery of the attention of commercial office designers

The sound of street corner society: UK grime music as ethnography

This article explores the ways in which popular music can be linked to ethnography. While there is a tradition of connecting popular music with sociology, this article posits a further resonance that is not so much theoretical as methodological. The article suggests that forms of contemporary popular music parallel key facets of ethnography, not simply in terms of sociological analysis, but with regard to popular music as an ethnographic resource, as ‘data’, and as the reflexive expression of Paul Willis’ conception of the ‘ethnographic imagination’; and the article argues that contemporary British hip-hop in the form of ‘grime’ is a potent exemplar. This is due to the resolutely cultural, spatial nature of grime music: a factor that marks out grime as a distinctive musical genre and a distinctive ethnographic form, as it is an experientially rooted music about urban locations, made from within those urban locations

Klebsiella pneumoniae is able to trigger epithelial-mesenchymal transition process in cultured airway epithelial cells

The ability of some bacterial pathogens to activate Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition normally is a consequence of the persistence of a local chronic inflammatory response or depends on a direct interaction of the pathogens with the host epithelial cells. In this study we monitored the abilities of the K. pneumoniae to activate the expression of genes related to EMT-like processes and the occurrence of phenotypic changes in airway epithelial cells during the early steps of cell infection. We describe changes in the production of intracellular reactive oxygen species and increased HIF-1α mRNA expression in cells exposed to K. pneumoniae infection. We also describe the upregulation of a set of transcription factors implicated in the EMT processes, such as Twist, Snail and ZEB, indicating that the morphological changes of epithelial cells already appreciable after few hours from the K. pneumoniae infection are tightly regulated by the activation of transcriptional pathways, driving epithelial cells to EMT. These effects appear to be effectively counteracted by resveratrol, an antioxidant that is able to exert a sustained scavenging of the intracellular ROS. This is the first report indicating that strains of K. pneumoniae may promote EMT-like programs through direct interaction with epithelial cells without the involvement of inflammatory cells

X-Ray Spectroscopy of Stars

(abridged) Non-degenerate stars of essentially all spectral classes are soft X-ray sources. Low-mass stars on the cooler part of the main sequence and their pre-main sequence predecessors define the dominant stellar population in the galaxy by number. Their X-ray spectra are reminiscent, in the broadest sense, of X-ray spectra from the solar corona. X-ray emission from cool stars is indeed ascribed to magnetically trapped hot gas analogous to the solar coronal plasma. Coronal structure, its thermal stratification and geometric extent can be interpreted based on various spectral diagnostics. New features have been identified in pre-main sequence stars; some of these may be related to accretion shocks on the stellar surface, fluorescence on circumstellar disks due to X-ray irradiation, or shock heating in stellar outflows. Massive, hot stars clearly dominate the interaction with the galactic interstellar medium: they are the main sources of ionizing radiation, mechanical energy and chemical enrichment in galaxies. High-energy emission permits to probe some of the most important processes at work in these stars, and put constraints on their most peculiar feature: the stellar wind. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of cool and hot stars through the study of X-ray spectra, in particular high-resolution spectra now available from XMM-Newton and Chandra. We address issues related to coronal structure, flares, the composition of coronal plasma, X-ray production in accretion streams and outflows, X-rays from single OB-type stars, massive binaries, magnetic hot objects and evolved WR stars.Comment: accepted for Astron. Astrophys. Rev., 98 journal pages, 30 figures (partly multiple); some corrections made after proof stag

Climate change adaptation in European river basins

This paper contains an assessment and standardized comparative analysis of the current water management regimes in four case-studies in three European river basins: the Hungarian part of the Upper Tisza, the Ukrainian part of the Upper Tisza (also called Zacarpathian Tisza), Alentejo Region (including the Alqueva Reservoir) in the Lower Guadiana in Portugal, and Rivierenland in the Netherlands. The analysis comprises several regime elements considered to be important in adaptive and integrated water management: agency, awareness raising and education, type of governance and cooperation structures, information management and—exchange, policy development and—implementation, risk management, and finances and cost recovery. This comparative analysis has an explorative character intended to identify general patterns in adaptive and integrated water management and to determine its role in coping with the impacts of climate change on floods and droughts. The results show that there is a strong interdependence of the elements within a water management regime, and as such this interdependence is a stabilizing factor in current management regimes. For example, this research provides evidence that a lack of joint/participative knowledge is an important obstacle for cooperation, or vice versa. We argue that there is a two-way relationship between information management and collaboration. Moreover, this research suggests that bottom-up governance is not a straightforward solution to water management problems in large-scale, complex, multiple-use systems, such as river basins. Instead, all the regimes being analyzed are in a process of finding a balance between bottom-up and top–down governance. Finally, this research shows that in a basin where one type of extreme is dominant—like droughts in the Alentejo (Portugal) and floods in Rivierenland (Netherlands)—the potential impacts of other extremes are somehow ignored or not perceived with the urgency they might deserv

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal