People in public health. Expert hearings: a summary report

People in Public Health is a national study that is looking at how volunteers and lay workers are involved in improving health in their communities. The study’s main aim is to improve understanding of how to support lay people in their many and varied public health roles. In June 2008, three expert hearings were held so that the research team could listen to the views of people with specialist knowledge or practical experience of working in this way. Fifteen experts were invited from around the country to talk about how and why lay people get involved in public health, why the work they do is important and what the main barriers are. Our experts included lay people active in their communities, university researchers, people working in the health service (NHS), local government and the voluntary sector. While some talked about their experience of specific projects, others made more general points about services and support. All the expert hearings were held in public and there were opportunities for discussion

Materializing Memory, Mood, and Agency: The Emotional Geographies of the Modern Kitchen

Drawing upon narrative and visual ethnographic data collected from households in the UK, this essay explores the material and emotional geographies of the domestic kitchen. Acknowledging that emotions are dynamically related and co-constitutive of place, rather than presenting the kitchen as a simple backdrop against which domestic life is played out, the paper illustrates how decisions regarding the design and layout of the kitchen and the consumption of material artefacts are central to the negotiation and doing of relationships and accomplishment of domestic life. Based on fieldwork in northern England, the paper examines the affective potential of domestic space and its material culture, exploring how individuals are embodied in the fabric and layout of domestic space, and how memories may be materialized in their absence

Cooking up consumer anxieties about ‘provenance’ and ‘ethics. Why it sometimes matters where foods come from in domestic provisioning

Provenance is fundamentally about foods' point of origin. It is thus, unsurprising that studies of food provenance typically focus on circumstances of production and the routes foods follow to get to situations of exchange and, to a lesser extent, final consumption. However, this dominant framing leads to an asymmetry of attention between production and consumption. By neglecting the situatedness of food purchase and use, much of what makes provenance meaningful and productive for consumers is missed. This paper draws upon qualitative and ethnographic data to explore why and how it sometimes matters where food comes from. What emerges is an expanded and problematized practical understanding of provenance, where concerns for the point of origin is generally inseparable from, and subsumed within, a broader range of ethical concerns about where food comes from

Convenience as care: Culinary antinomies in practice

This paper addresses the social and cultural significance of convenience food, often regarded as among the least healthy and most unsustainable of dietary options, subject to frequent moral disapprobation. The paper focuses, in particular, on the relationship between convenience and care, conventionally seen in oppositional terms as a culinary antinomy. Informed by a ‘theories of practice’ approach, the paper presents empirical evidence from ethnographically-informed research on everyday consumption practices in the UK to demonstrate how convenience foods can be used as an expression of care rather than as its antithesis. The paper uses Fisher and Tronto’s theorisation of caring about, taking care of, caregiving and care-receiving to draw out the dynamics of this morally contested social practice

Oscillating Positive Expiratory Pressure on Respiratory Resistance in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease With a Small Amount of Secretion: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract: This study aims to evaluate the acute effects of an oscillating positive expiratory pressure device (flutter) on airways resistance in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Randomized crossover study: 15 COPD outpatients from Asthma Lab–Royal Brompton Hospital underwent spirometry, impulse oscillometry (IOS) for respiratory resistance (R) and reactance (X), and fraction exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) measures. Thirty minutes of flutter exercises: a “flutter-sham” procedure was used as a control, and airway responses after a short-acting bronchodilator were also assessed. Respiratory system resistance (R): in COPD patients an increase in X5insp (-0.21 to -0.33 kPa/L/s) and Fres (24.95 to 26.16 Hz) occurred immediately after flutter exercises without bronchodilator. Following 20 min of rest, a decrease in the R5, [DELTA]R5, R20, X5, and Ax was observed, with R5, R20, and X5 values lower than baseline, with a moderate effect size; there were no changes in FeNO levels or spirometry. The use of flutter can decrease the respiratory system resistance and reactance and expiratory flow limitation in stable COPD patients with small amounts of secretions

Study of genetic variation of some eggplant cultivars through RAPD-PCR molecular markers and its relatedness to phomopsis blight disease reaction

Disease susceptibility and genetic variability in 10 eggplant genotypes were studied after inoculating Phomopsis vexans under confined field conditions. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were used to assess genetic variation and relationships among eggplant genotypes. The disease index of leaves ranged 0.208-13.79%, while fruit infection ranged 2.15-42.76%. Two varieties, Dohazari G and Laffa S, were found to be susceptible, 6 were moderately resistant, 1 was moderately susceptible, and BAU Begun-1 was resistant to P. vexans. Amplification of genomic DNA by using 3 RAPD primers produced 20 bands: 14 (70%) were polymorphic and 6 (30%) were monomorphic. The highest intra-variety similarity indices values were found in ISD 006, Ishurdi L, Jessore L, and BAU Begun-1 (100%), while the lowest was in Dohazari G (90%). The lowest genetic distance (0.0513) and the highest genetic identity (0.9500) were observed between the ISD 006 and Ishurdi L combinations. A comparatively higher genetic distance (0.3724) and the lowest genetic identity (0.6891) were observed between the ISD 006 and Dohazari G combinations. A dendogram was constructed based on Nei’s genetic distance, which produced 2 main clusters of the genotypes - Cluster I: ISD 006, Ishurdi L, Marich begun L, BAU Begun-1, Marich begun S, and Chega and Cluster 2: Laffa S, Dohazari G, Jessore L, and Singhnath. Genetic variation and its relationship with disease susceptibility were assessed using RAPD markers, to develop disease-resistant varieties and improve eggplant crops

Cross inhibition improves activity selection when switching incurs time costs

We consider a behavioural model of an animal choosing between two activities, based on positive feedback, and examine the effect of introducing cross inhibition between the motivations for the two activities. While cross-inhibition has previously been included in models of decision making, the question of what benefit it may provide to an animal's activity selection behaviour has not previously been studied. In neuroscience and in collective behaviour cross-inhibition, and other equivalent means of coupling evidence-accumulating pathways, have been shown to approximate statistically-optimal decision-making and to adaptively break deadlock, thereby improving decision performance. Switching between activities is an ongoing decision process yet here we also find that cross-inhibition robustly improves its efficiency, by reducing the frequency of costly switches between behaviours

What’s sex got to do with it? A family-based investigation of growing up heterosexual during the twentieth century

This paper explores findings from a cross-generational study of the making of heterosexual relationships in East Yorkshire, which has interviewed women and men within extended families. Using a feminist perspective, it examines the relationship between heterosexuality and adulthood, focussing on sexual attraction, courtship, first kisses, first love and first sex, as mediated within family relationships, and at different historical moments. In this way, the contemporary experiences of young people growing up are compared and contrasted with those of mid-lifers and older adults who formed heterosexual relationships within the context of the changing social and sexual mores of the 1960s/1970s, and the upheavals of World War Two

The relationship between BMI and insulin resistance and progression from single to multiple autoantibody positivity and type 1 diabetes among TrialNet Pathway to Prevention participants

Aims/hypothesis The incidence of type 1 diabetes is increasing at a rate of 3–5% per year. Genetics cannot fully account for this trend, suggesting an influence of environmental factors. The accelerator hypothesis proposes an effect of metabolic factors on type 1 diabetes risk. To test this in the TrialNet Pathway to Prevention (PTP) cohort, we analysed the influence of BMI, weight status and insulin resistance on progression from single to multiple islet autoantibodies (Aab) and progression from normoglycaemia to diabetes. Methods HOMA1-IR was used to estimate insulin resistance in Aab-positive PTP participants. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate the effects of BMI, BMI percentile (BMI%), weight status and HOMA1-IR on the progression of autoimmunity or the development of diabetes. Results Data from 1,310 single and 1,897 multiple Aab-positive PTP participants were included. We found no significant relationships between BMI, BMI%, weight status or HOMA1-IR and the progression from one to multiple Aabs. Similarly, among all Aab-positive participants, no significant relationships were found between BMI, weight status or HOMA1-IR and progression to diabetes. Diabetes risk was modestly increased with increasing BMI% among the entire cohort, in obese participants 13–20 years of age and with increasing HOMA1-IR in adult Aab-positive participants. Conclusions/interpretation Analysis of the accelerator hypothesis in the TrialNet PTP cohort does not suggest a broad influence of metabolic variables on diabetes risk. Efforts to identify other potentially modifiable environmental factors should continue