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Autism spectrum disorder and obstetric optimality: a twin study and meta-analysis of sibling studies
Get PDFBackground: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a strong genetic basis. Recent studies have suggested that its aetiology is also influenced by environmental factors. Some of the most examined environmental factors are obstetric complications. However, the results are inconsistent.
Methods
We aimed to explore the association between obstetric complications and autism in a population-based twin sample using the Obstetric Enquiry Scale (OES), a scale that measures the presence or absence of pre-, peri- and neonatal factors. Additionally, we report the meta-analytic results for obstetrical factors reported in previously published sibling studies.
Results: Our study included 115 cases pairs and 62 controls pairs and showed that children with autism and their unaffected co-twins present significantly more obstetric complications than controls (ASD vs. controls β 1.26, CI 95% 1.11–1.40 p < .001; unaffected co-twin vs. controls β 1.20, 95% CI 1.07–1.36 p < .003). However, we did not find statistically significant differences between children with ASD and their unaffected co-twins (β .96, 95% CI 0.85–1.09, p 0.55). Meta-analysis demonstrated that maternal hypertension (RR 1.35, CI 95% 1.23–1.48), uterine bleeding (RR 1.20 CI 95% 1.01–1.42) and exposure to antibiotic during pregnancy (1.11 CI 95% 1.00–1.22) increase risk of ASD.
Conclusions: This study confirms that children with ASD and their unaffected twins show more obstetric complications than controls. However, these complications do not distinguish between ASD twins and their unaffected co-twins. In addition, the meta-analysis showed little influence of birth factors on ASD which suggests a shared familial liability for both obstetric complications and autism, rather than a causal association
From extra-territorial leverage and transnational environmental protection to distortions of competition: the level playing field in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement
Get PDFThis article inquires to what extent the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) may help safeguard high levels of transnational environmental protection, taking into consideration potential reductions in UK levels of protection and the ensuing effects. The article encompasses an analysis of the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) Chapters in EU FTAs; in this respect, it emphasises that the TCA’s provisions are innovative. However, the TCA has marked a shift from the EU’s initial attempts to exercise its extra-territorial leverage and push for high levels of transnational environmental protection to a focus on the stricto sensu economic level playing field. This narrow focus cannot possibly capture many aspects of environmental protection. The article thus concludes that, from an environmental perspective, the TCA’s provisions are far from ambitious. Further, it develops some considerations on the way forward for the EU institutions, as they start to rethink their approach to TSD Chapters
New Models for Open Access Monographs: Opening the Future
No full textA talk at the Charleston preconference
The stuff that screams are made of
No full textThe Stuff that Screams are Made of looks at the phenomenon of the vocal crowds of fans around the Beatles in the early 1960s. The title phrase was coined by Bob Wooler, compere of Liverpool’s Cavern Club which hosted the band in its early days, but also proposes to examine the scream itself and its function. The passionate reactions of the mainly young women who watched a concert or encountered the musicians in public caught media attention as well as a good measure of disapproval and some alarm. The film documents the moral panic that ensued, with a lively roster of fans, academics and practitioners which includes the writer Linda Grant
Stratigraphy and provenance of the Paleogene syn-rift sediments in central-southern Palawan: paleogeographic significance for the South China margin
Get PDFThe Palawan microcontinental block is thought to have separated from the South China margin due to seafloor spreading and opening of the South China Sea. However, it is uncertain when and from which section the Palawan microcontinental block rifted from the South China margin, and little is known about sediment routing across the rifted margin before continental breakup. To address these aspects we studied the biostratigraphy and provenance of syn-rift sedimentary rocks collected from the Panas-Pandian Formation in central-southern Palawan. Micropaleontological evidence indicates a Middle Eocene–earliest Oligocene (47.7–32.9 Ma) age for the Panas-Pandian Formation. Based on this and the oldest age of the post-rift Nido Limestone (~32 Ma), the breakup unconformity on the Palawan microcontinent block is dated around 33–32 Ma. This timing of breakup unconformity is close to that of the Pearl River Mouth Basin (~30 Ma) and IODP Site U1435 (~34Ma), suggesting the conjugate relationship between the Palawan microcontinental block and the Pearl River Mouth Basin. Trace fossils and benthic foraminifera from the Panas-Pandian Formation indicate a middle bathyal to abyssal environment on the continental slope of the South China margin. Multidisciplinary provenance analysis reveals that the Panas-Pandian Formation was derived from both local Mesozoic basement uplifts and the interior Cathaysia Block. It indicates that a paleo-Pearl River has been established at least since the Middle Eocene (47.7– 42.1 Ma) and could deliver sediments from the interior Cathaysia Block to the continental slope, across the wide rifted margin with a low topographic gradien
Surplus to the city: austerity urbanism, displacement and ‘letting die’
Get PDFUrban scholars have traditionally associated displacement in cities of the global North with gentrification, generally understood as a class-based process of neighbourhood change. This article
expands this scalar focus and adopts the larger scale of the local authority district (in this case the London borough) as its epistemological starting point to study the displacement of homeless people by the local state. Participatory action research was undertaken with housing campaigners in the East London borough of Newham to explore who is being displaced, their experiences of displacement and the impacts of displacement on their lives. Empirically, the article argues that displacement in this case is a product of national welfare state restructuring – or
‘austerity urbanism’ – implemented through a localised regime of ‘welfare chauvinism’ in which some groups are framed as economically unproductive and therefore undeserving of
access to social housing. Displacement has the effect of reinforcing the surplus status of these groups by separating them from employment, education and care networks and eroding
their physical and mental health. The article draws on research on the biopolitics of surplus populations in the global South to develop an original theorisation of the relationship between
welfare state restructuring and displacement. This theorisation reveals that displacement is the spatial expression of a biopolitical shift away from the logic of ‘making live’ associated with the
post-war welfare state towards a logic of ‘letting die’ more traditionally associated with post-colonial contexts
Embodying an invisible face shrinks the cone of gaze
Get PDFThe possibility of being invisible has long fascinating people. Recent research showed that multisensory illusions can induce experiences of bodily invisibility, allowing the psychological consequences of invisibility to be explored. Here, we demonstrate an illusion of embodying an invisible face. Participants received touches on their face and simultaneously saw a paintbrush moving synchronously in empty space and defining the shape of an invisible face. We show that such invisible enfacement induces a sense of ownership using both explicit questionnaire measures (Experiment 1) and implicit physiological measures (Experiment 2). We further demonstrated that embodying an invisible face shrinks the width of the cone of gaze, i.e. the range of eye deviations people judge as directed towards themselves (Experiment 3 and 4). These results suggest that the experience of invisibility affects the way in which we process the attention of others toward the self, starting from the perception of gaze direction
A dynamic model of global value network governance
Get PDFThis paper presents a novel understanding of the changing governance
structures in global supply chains. Motivated by the global
garment sector, we develop a geographical political economy dynamic
model that reflects the interaction between bargaining power and distribution
of value among buyer and producer firms. We find that the
interplay between these two forces, in combination with the spatial
specificities of global production and consolidation, can drive governance
structures towards a more symbiotic position
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