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From Marlene to Conchita and Kim:Gender performativities and iconicity in ‘naked’ dresses
No full textThis article presents a whistle-stop tour through fashion history from Marlene Dietrich to Conchita Wurst and beyond, illustrating the complex iconicity of ‘naked’ dresses, also referred to as ‘nude illusion’ dresses. It interrogates notions of selfhood and performativity in relation to gender and celebrity. The article utilizes the embellished costumes made by Jean Louis for Marlene Dietrich as a starting point to explore the recurring image of a celebrity clad seemingly in nothing but rhinestones, sequins or similar embellishments. By providing an overview of notable instances of such ‘naked’ dresses, the article explores the accumulation of meaning through historical reference points ranging from the 1950s to the 2020s. In particular, it analyses images of femininity and desirability as evoked through these particular garments. The seeming exposure of the desirable body is set in relation to the careful construction of the image which brings together vulnerability and apparent truthfulness through the specific nature of the garment. The article explores how seemingly ‘baring it all’ is a carefully orchestrated performance with a long history and subversive potential.</p
“Spirit child” and concomitant paedicides in Africa:A systematic review of the empirical literature
Get PDFA sizeable proportion of child homicides in most African communities is triggered by certain superstitious beliefs and practices such as the so-called “spirit child/children”–children, particularly disabled babies, believed to possess malevolent spirits that cause misfortunes and deaths in their families and the community. Such children are sometimes killed. The present study sought to consolidate and synthesise information on spirit child homicides in African settings to facilitate greater knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon. Utilising the PRISMA guidelines, a literature search for empirical works on spirit child homicides published between 2000 and 2022 was conducted across four databases: Scopus, Web of Science, Journal Storage (JSTOR), and Google Scholar. Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria. The review shows that spirit child homicide occurs largely in rural communities, and that demonophobia, poverty, poor access to health provision, influence of traditional healers, and lack of support for parents of children with disabilities are the major factors that sustain the practice. Because the spirit child belief is deeply entrenched in the culture of the practicing communities, a multi-layered approach will be required to combat spirit child motivated paedicides.</p
Gender in Modern Welsh History:Perspectives on Masculinity and Femininity in Wales from 1750 to 2000
No full textHuman Activity Recognition with Noise-Injected Time-Distributed AlexNet
Get PDFThis study investigates the integration of biologically inspired noise injection with a time-distributed adaptation of the AlexNet architecture to enhance the performance and robustness of human activity recognition (HAR) systems. It is a critical field in computer vision which involves identifying and interpreting human actions from video sequences and has applications in healthcare, security and smart environments. The proposed model is based on an adaptation of AlexNet, originally developed for static image classification and not inherently suited for modelling temporal sequences for video action classification tasks. While our time-distributed AlexNet efficiently captures spatial and temporal features and suitable for video classification. However, its performance can be limited by overfitting and poor generalisation to unseen scenarios, to address these challenges, Gaussian noise was introduced at the input level during training, inspired by neural mechanisms observed in biological sensory processing to handle variability and uncertainty. Experiments were conducted on the EduNet, UCF50 and UCF101 datasets. The EduNet dataset was specifically designed for educational environments and we evaluate the impact of noise injection on model accuracy, stability and overall performance. The proposed bio-inspired noise-injected time-distributed AlexNet achieved an overall accuracy of 91.40% and an F1 score of 92.77%, outperforming other state-of-the-art models. Hyperparameter tuning, particularly optimising the learning rate, further enhanced model stability, reflected in lower standard deviation values across multiple experimental runs. These findings demonstrate that the strategic combination of noise injection with time-distributed architectures improves generalisation and robustness in HAR, paving the way for resource-efficient and real-world-deployable deep learning systems.</p
How ecosystem services are co-produced:A critical review identifying multiple research framings
Get PDFHow ecosystem services are produced remains a critical research gap that must be addressed if services are to persist under on-going and future environmental change. Interest in this area is coalescing under the term ‘co-production’, which recognises that services are generated through interactions between social and ecological processes. Here we conduct a critical review of academic research into the co-production of ecosystem services, aiming to understand the foundations of this emergent field. Despite its recent origins, we identify four different framings as to how ecosystem services are co-produced and discuss their different epistemological bases and applications. The four framings are: input focused, which identifies and measures the inputs underpinning co-production; actor focused, understanding who is involved in co-production; context focused that situates co-production in social relations and place; and a more disparate disciplines focused approach, which highlights alternative conceptualisations of co-production based on diverse disciplinary and conceptual perspectives. There is overlap and dialogue between the four approaches, and we identify examples of how and where to operationalise these framings together to achieve a more holistic understanding of co-production processes. Nevertheless, behind these different framings are differences over what is or is not considered co-produced, and thus what is considered a valid field of inquiry within co-production research. This indicates ontological differences on the social construction of ecosystem services and the role of people therein. We argue that diversity in co-production research is important for representing the complexity of human-environment interactions, but that a more explicit acknowledgement of the ontological assumptions underpinning co-production is crucial if this area of research is to be analytically useful for the management of current and future ecosystem services.</p
The Importance of Soil Seed Bank Function in Studies of Grassland Degradation
Get PDFThe world’s grasslands are under increasing threat of degradation. Given the potential for multiple drivers of decline, precise diagnosis of degradation is best achieved by comparison with a local, sustainable grassland community. Comparisons of this kind are becoming increasingly common for regional grassland plant communities, but these studies largely overlook interactions between soil responses to system degradation and the effective functioning of the soil seed bank. Surveys of grassland degradation studies have revealed that only around 5% include information on soil seed bank composition and no one aspect of community structure features across all studies. Furthermore, the majority of studies provide information only on ground coverage, sward biomass or species diversity in the plant subcommunity, with very few including information on the health of the soil seed bank or how changes in the soil environment could drive further deterioration in the plant community size, structure or effective functioning of the soil seed bank. We consider that soil responses to sward degradation are likely to exacerbate rather than mitigate impacts on soil seed bank function, leading to a spiral of system degradation in the absence of timely and targeted intervention. We propose improvements for future studies seeking to diagnose and quantify grassland degradation.</p
The effects of ultra-selective beta1-antagonism on the metabolic and cytokine profile in septic shock patients receiving noradrenaline:A sub-investigation from the STRESS-L Randomised Study
Get PDFPurposeThe landiolol and organ failure in patients with septic shock (STRESS-L study) included a pre-planned sub-study to assess the effect of landiolol treatment on inflammatory and metabolomic markers.MethodsSamples collected from 91 patients randomised to STRESS-L were profiled for immune and metabolomic markers. A panel of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines were measured through commercially acquired multiplex Luminex assays and statistically analysed by individual and cluster-level analysis (patient). Metabolite fingerprinting was carried out by flow infusion electrospray ionisation high-resolution mass spectrometry and metabolomic data were analysed using the R-based platform MetaboAnalyst. The metabolites were identified using DIMEdb (dimedb.ibers.aber.ac.uk) from their mass/charge ratios. These metabolomic data were also re-analysed using individual and cluster-level analysis. The individual-level models were adjusted for confounders, such as age, sex, noradrenaline dosage and patient (random effect).ResultsAnalysis was undertaken at cluster- and individual-level. There were no significant differences in cytokine concentration level between trial arms nor survivors and non-survivors over the duration of the observations from day 1 to day 4. Metabolomic analysis showed some separation in the levels of ceramides and cardiolipins between those who survived and those who died. Following adjusted analysis for confounders, plasma metabolite concentrations remained statistically different between landiolol and standard care arms for succinic acid, l-tryptophan, l-alanine, 2,2,2-trichloroethanol, lactic acid and d-glucose.ConclusionsIn a study of ICU patients with established septic shock and a tachycardia, landiolol treatment used to reduce the heart rate from above 95 to a range between 80 and 94 beats per minute did not induce significant cytokine changes. d-Glucose, lactic acid, succinic acid, l-alanine, l-tryptophan and trichloroethanol were pathways that may merit further investigation.Trial Registration: EU Clinical Trials Register Eudra CT: 2017-001785-14 (https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/trial/2017-001785-14/GB); ISRCTN registry Identifier: ISRCTN12600919 (https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN12600919)
Allatostatin-C signaling in the crab Carcinus maenas is implicated in the ecdysis program
Get PDFThe allatostatin (AST) family of neuropeptides are widespread in arthropods. The multitude of structures and pleiotropic actions reflect the tremendous morphological, physiological and behavioral diversity of the phylum. Regarding the AST-C (with C-terminal PISCF motif ) peptides, crustaceans commonly express three (AST-C, AST-CC and AST-CCC) that have likely arisen by gene duplication. However, we know little regarding their physiologically relevant actions. Here, we functionally characterize the cognate receptor for AST-C and AST-CC, determine tissue expression, and comprehensively examine the localization of AST mRNA and peptide. We also measured peptide release, circulating titers and performed bioassays to investigate possible roles. AST-C and AST-CC activate a single receptor (AST-CRd), but this, and other candidate receptors, were not activated by AST-CCC. Whole-mount in situ hybridization and hybridization chain reaction fluorescent in situ hybridization complemented neuropeptide immunolocalization strategies and revealed extensive expression of AST-Cs in the central nervous system. AST-C or AST-CCC expressing neurons were found in the cerebral ganglia, but AST-CC expression was never observed. Of note, we infer that AST-C and AST-CC are co-expressed in every neuron expressing crustacean cardioactive peptide (CCAP) and bursicon (BURS); all four peptides are released from the pericardial organs during a brief period coinciding with completion of emergence. In contrast to other studies, none of the AST-C peptides exhibited any effect on ecdysteroid synthesis or cardiac activity. However, expression of the AST-C receptor on hemocytes suggests a tantalizing glimpse of possible functions in immune modulation following ecdysis, at a time when crustaceans are vulnerable to pathogens.</p
Achieving reliable rainfall forecasting through ensemble deep learning, fuzzy systems, and advanced feature selection
Get PDFClassical Machine Learning (ML) models, like Random Forests, struggle with weather variability. Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) models, though designed for time-dependent predictions, also face challenges with unseen data and extended rainfall forecasts. To address these, the Fuzzy-Integrated Deep Ensemble for Rainfall Forecasting with advanced Feature Selection (FIDERFFS) is developed, combining LSTM and GRU with Fuzzy Inference Systems to create Fuzzified LSTM and GRU hybrids, integrating them with a Transformer model, and leveraging Fuzzy Rough Feature Selection to improve accuracy, generalisation, and interpretability. Tested on meteorological datasets (Aberystwyth and Bath, UK), the Enhanced Ensemble Model outperforms benchmarks and the Foundational Ensemble Model by 12.26% (MAE), 3.21% (RMSE), and 8.77% (RMSLE), in Aberystwyth’s complex terrain. Results show how topography and maritime proximity influence forecasting and position FIDERFFS as a superior alternative to Classical ML while complementing Numerical Weather Prediction, by reducing computational demands and time lags
Gerontology and geriatrics:care and context. Towards integration
Get PDFGerontology, the multidisciplinary study of ageing within the wider social and cultural context and geriatrics, which focuses more on the medical care of older people, are often seen as very separate and distinct. Both focus on improving the lives of older people, but have differing origins, philosophies and practices. Yet the impact of both on society and on the older person themselves is not always easily distinguished. In reality, the difference between the two might represent a false dichotomy and by bridging the (oft false) gap between the two disciplines and creating an integrated model of ageing may lead to improvements in the lives and care of older people