669 research outputs found
Genetic influences on level and stability of self-esteem
Get PDFWe attempted to clarify the relation between self-esteem level (high vs. low) and perceived self-esteem stability (within-person variability) by using a behavioral genetics approach. We tested whether the same or independent genetic and environmental influences impact on level and stability. Adolescent twin siblings (n = 183 pairs) completed level and stability scales at two time points. Heritability for both was substantial. The remaining variance in each was attributable to non-shared environmental influences. Shared environmental influences were not significant. Level and stability of self-esteem shared common antecedents via genetic and non-shared environmental influences. Nonetheless, stability was influenced by substantial unique genetic and non-shared environmental influences. The results validate the notion that level and stability are partially autonomous components of self-esteem
Salmonella-host interactions : the interplay between Salmonella, SPI2 and eicosanoids
No full textSalmonella are Gram-negative facultative intracellular pathogens that cross the intestinal barrier, and are taken up by phagocytes where, they can replicate and spread to systemic sites. Salmonella encode two type III secretion systems, Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 and 2 (SPI1 and SPI2), which mediate the translocation of bacterial effectors into the host cell. SPI1 facilitates bacterial uptake into non-phagocytic cells and is involved in forming a special replicative niche, called the Salmonella containing vacuole (SCV). SPI2 is required for maintenance of the SCV, macrophage replication and systemic disease.
A comprehensive study of the contribution of individual SPI2 effectors to virulence had not been previously done, and was therefore performed. Strains deficient in specific SPI2 genes were tested for alterations in virulence in a mouse model of typhoid fever, and in epithelial and macrophage cell infections. These experiments showed that many SPI2 effectors are required for replication in macrophages, and that ΔspvB, ΔssaR, and ΔspiC strains were attenuated in mice.
Salmonella infection causes many perturbations to the host, including changes in metabolites, specifically arachidonic acid metabolism, which leads to the production of eicosanoids. The effects of Salmonella infection of macrophages on eicosanoids were examined. Salmonella infection increased the expression of prostaglandin synthases, but decreased thromboxane and leukotriene synthases. The SPI2 deletion strains were tested to determine involvement of SPI2 in arachidonic acid metabolism. The SPI2 effectors SseF and SseG, which are largely uncharacterized in macrophage infections, were mainly responsible for the induction of prostaglandins.
The effects of prostaglandins on Salmonella infection were studied. It was found that 15-deoxy-Δ12,14-prostaglandin-J2 (15d-PGJ2) significantly reduced Salmonella colonization of macrophages, but not epithelial cells. Furthermore, this occurs independently of SPI1, SPI2, and PPAR-γ. 15d-PGJ2 reduces cytokines and reactive nitrogen species produced by infected macrophages. A role for 15d-PGJ2 in Salmonella infection has not been previously demonstrated. This thesis examines the role of SPI2 in Salmonella virulence and arachidonic acid metabolism.Science, Faculty ofMicrobiology and Immunology, Department ofGraduat
Anthropometry and Scan: A Computational Exploration on Measuring and Imaging
No full textNew developments in the field of technology have led to the use of scanners in order to obtain anthropometric measurements. As a matter of fact, anthropometry finds its roots in the seventeenth century, currently its usage has been strengthened by the employment of scanners. 3D whole-body scanners allow to collect reliable data and to visualise the exact human body shape. Thus, this paper aims at exploring the combination of these topics, anthropometry and scan, through an innovative tool, the scientometrics analysis. This technique provides a clear overview of the existing literature in the field investigated. In our study we examined 1’652 papers from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Network analyses have shown an interesting scenario, emphasising the research evolution over time. Specifically, endocrinology and metabolism emerged as the most active publication domains. Accordingly, the two most high-impact journals and the most cited paper regard nutrition issues and metabolic risk factors respectively. However, the predominance of the USA for number of publications has not been confirmed by the institution’s analysis, which has shown the University of Copenhagen as the most influential one. On the other hand, Yumei Zhang currently appears as the main authority in the field and Leslie G. Farkas as the most influential author over the entire time span analysed. The relevant implications of the findings are discussed in terms of future research lines
The operation of biopower and biopolitics in the implementation process of reproductive health policies in Peru
No full textIn present-day societies, human life is often an arena of debate within which claims of morality, knowledge, and truth are contested. The meaning of human life, as well as the right to exert control over the bodies that create this life, are constructed by various discourses. In this process, special attention is paid to human bodies with particular capacities and needs, such as women’s bodies. The reproductive capacity of women’s bodies has long been considered central to defining the meaning of being a woman in Western societies. This gender essentialism related to the maternal role guides some reproductive health policies, which are implemented within a complex architecture of discourses, institutionalized social stratification, biopower and biopolitics. The Peruvian case offers clear examples of this situation.
In Peru, reproductive healthcare policy has been irregularly implemented throughout the last twenty years, mostly due to the strong influence that conservative Catholic groups have been able to exert on the Peruvian Government. The discourse articulated by these groups asserts that human life begins at the moment of conception and is a gift from God; therefore, no one should be permitted to interfere in the processes of human life from conception until death. This sacralisation of human life has been progressively constructed within Catholic doctrine, which today incorporates selective interpretations of scientific knowledge in support of its claims. This discourse about human life directly and adversely affects Peruvian women’s bodies and lives. Due to their reproductive capacity, the conservative Catholic discourse considers women as bearers of human life. However, their decision-making power about the creation of this life is not taken into account in this discourse, especially when this decision-making power is linked to the exertion of sexual and reproductive rights. The influence of conservative Catholic discourse on the implementation process of Peru’s reproductive health policy is thus the central focus of this thesis.
The analysis offered in this thesis is informed by a feminist critical discourse analysis of Peruvian politics, policy and law relating to three key issues: coercive sterilisation of indigenous Peruvian women during the regime of Fujimori (1996-2000), the ongoing lack of access to safe and legal abortion, and the 2009 Constitutional Court ban on the distribution of free emergency contraception within the public health sector. My analysis reveals that the Catholic interest in, and influence on, reproductive health policy was largely stimulated by Fujimori’s policy of coercive sterilization, which was in turn prompted by a eugenic discourse that conservative Catholic groups, among others within Peruvian civil society, actively denounced. This opposition consolidated the influence of conservative Catholic discourse within the political domain. Further, I suggest that the actions of the State, increasingly influenced by Catholic interests, can best be understood in terms of Foucault’s concept of biopower, with reproductive health policy being the primary tool used to effect the State’s biopolitical agenda. As I illustrate, the influence of Catholic discourse on reproductive policy and practice is most clearly evident in the ongoing impediments placed in the way of women trying to access therapeutic abortions, and the prohibition of the free distribution of the emergency contraceptive pill via the public health system. Even in the face of local and international condemnation, the State persists in its non-compliance with the provisions of international human rights agreements, a failure which I suggest can only be understood by acknowledging the defining influence of Catholic discourse and interests within Peru’s political domain.
The significance of this thesis thus lies in its analysis of the discourses and political machinations that restrict the exertion of Peruvian women’s sexual and reproductive rights. These constraints are achieved through the operation of biopower enacted through the implementation of various reproductive health policies. This situation, I suggest, confines women via a constructed “naturalness” that reproduces essentialist notions of gender. As the case studies presented in this thesis demonstrate, a vital component of this discursive essentialisation of the maternal role is the identification of women as reproductive bodies that can be regulated and managed in accordance with the interests and discursive affiliations of the State, as opposed to individual citizens with autonomous decision-making power over their bodies and their own lives
Ashes col' darg lay dong: Trinidadian students' response to the UK
No full textThis research investigates how Trinidadian students in the United Kingdom (UK) respond to their new environment. The research explores and conceptualises the participants? experiences in the UK. It investigates Trinidadian student adjustment in the UK from a postcolonial perspective. To acquire data on Trinidadian experiences in the UK I created a private, password-protected group blog (interactive webpage) where eight respondents interacted and shared aspects of their everyday life and experiences over six months. After the blogging period follow-up face-to-face individual interviews were conducted with five of the eight participants. The research design was formulated so that the two methods would work together to paint a vivid, multidimensional and dynamic picture of the participants? experiences. These two techniques together are referred to as the blog-interview method. The experiences of three of the participants were captured as in-depth case studies. Grounded Theory was used to analyze the data and generate a working theory of the participants? experiences. A theory of adjustment, called (dis)juncture, was developed. The theory views the students? adjustment as a continuous process of negotiation among simultaneous connecting and disconnecting forces. This can create a student who is a synergy of global experiences, signifying systems, representations, identities, worldviews and perspectives that are not exclusively in one domain: they are hybrid. Unlike much work in this area, (dis)juncture does not view adjustment in stages nor does it assume that adjustment is something that can be achieved. Adjustment is advanced as a process of continuous transformation as a result of constant contact with multiple signifying systems simultaneously. (Dis)Juncture breaks important ground in the field by reconceptualising and re-imaging the process of international student adjustment. The theory thus makes a significant contribution to research on international student experience
Genetic risk and a primary role for cell-mediated immune mechanisms in multiple sclerosis
Get PDFMultiple sclerosis is a common disease of the central nervous system in which the interplay between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in intermittent neurological disturbance followed by progressive accumulation of disability. Epidemiological studies have shown that genetic factors are primarily responsible for the substantially increased frequency of the disease seen in the relatives of affected individuals, and systematic attempts to identify linkage in multiplex families have confirmed that variation within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) exerts the greatest individual effect on risk. Modestly powered genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have enabled more than 20 additional risk loci to be identified and have shown that multiple variants exerting modest individual effects have a key role in disease susceptibility. Most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined and is anticipated to require the analysis of sample sizes that are beyond the numbers currently available to individual research groups. In a collaborative GWAS involving 9,772 cases of European descent collected by 23 research groups working in 15 different countries, we have replicated almost all of the previously suggested associations and identified at least a further 29 novel susceptibility loci. Within the MHC we have refined the identity of the HLA-DRB1 risk alleles and confirmed that variation in the HLA-A gene underlies the independent protective effect attributable to the class I region. Immunologically relevant genes are significantly overrepresented among those mapping close to the identified loci and particularly implicate T-helper-cell differentiation in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis
The rise and fall of the Labour league of youth
No full textThis thesis charts the rise and fall of the Labour Party’s first and most enduring youth organisation, the Labour League of Youth. The history of the League, from its birth in the early nineteen twenties to its demise in the late nineteen fifties, is placed in the context of the Labour Party’s subsequent fruitless attempts to establish and maintain a vibrant and functional youth organisation. A narrative is incorporated that illuminates the culture, organisation and political activism of the League and establishes it as a predominantly working class radical organisation. The reluctance on the part of the Labour Party to grant autonomy to its youth sections resulted in the history of the League of Youth being one of control, suppression and tension. This state of affairs ensured that subsequent youth groups, the Young Socialists and Young Labour, would be established in an atmosphere of reservation and scepticism.
The thesis places the prime responsibility for the failure of the party’s youth organisations with the party leadership but also considers the contributory factors of changing social and political circumstances. A number of themes are explored which include the impact of structure and agency factors, the power of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the political socialisation of leading figures within the party, the social context in which each of the groups emerged and the extent to which the youth groups were prey to intra-party factionalism.
The thesis redresses the balance of research where most accounts have focussed on the Young Socialists and traces the common characteristics that are prevalent in the way the party leadership has approached its relationship with its youth organisations. Use has been made of previously unpublished primary source material, the major source being the League of Youth members themselves whose recollections have helped to demonstrate the arguments put forward in this thesis
DNA fusion gene vaccination mobilizes effective anti-leukemic cytotoxic T lymphocytes from a tolerized repertoire
No full textThe majority of known human tumor-associated antigens derive from non-mutated self proteins. T cell tolerance, essential to prevent autoimmunity, must therefore be cautiously circumvented to generate cytotoxic T cell responses against these targets. Our strategy uses DNA fusion vaccines to activate high levels of peptide-specific CTL. Key foreign sequences from tetanus toxin activate tolerance-breaking CD4+ T cell help. Candidate MHC class Ibinding tumor peptide sequences are fused to the C terminus for optimal processing and presentation. To model performance against a leukemia-associated antigen in a tolerized setting, we constructed a fusion vaccine encoding an immunodominant CTL epitopederived from Friend murine leukemia virus gag protein (FMuLVgag) and vaccinated tolerant FMuLVgag-transgenic (gag-Tg) mice. Vaccination with the construct induced epitopespecificIFN-c-producing CD8+ T cells in normal and gag-Tg mice. The frequency and avidity of activated cells were reduced in gag-Tg mice, and no autoimmune injury resulted. However, these CD8+ T cells did exhibit gag-specific cytotoxicity in vitro and in vivo. Also, epitope-specific CTL killed FBL-3 leukemia cells expressing endogenous FMuLVgag antigen and protected against leukemia challenge in vivo. These results demonstrate a simple strategy to engage anti-microbial T cell help to activate epitope-specific polyclonal CD8+ T cell responses from a residual tolerized repertoire
A Virtuous Cycle: Tracing Democratic Quality through Equality
Get PDFThis dissertation asks the question: How do democracies improve in quality?
Building on previous scholarship, the author offers a theoretical framework that traces
democratic quality through equality of outcomes. The quality of democracy may be
conceptualized as a virtuous cycle where the procedural aspects of democracy
motivate politicians to expand equality. This broadening of substantive opportunities
outcomes, in turn, deepens democracy by developing individual-level political
participation. The theoretical framework is applied to the context of public services
with the expectation that quality democracies with high government capacity more
broadly distribute basic public services and that this pattern of provision cultivates
political participation.
The first empirical analysis tests if the quality of democracy and government
capacity are associated with reduced service inequalities for a sample of 75 countries.
It is found that while equalities of education and sanitation services are significantly
related to democratic quality, healthcare is not, nor is government capacity shown to play a significant role. To further explore this, the Mexican states are analyzed for the
years 2000 to 2004; the results show that capacity in terms of tax collection efforts is
associated with lower inequalities in education services in states with high electoral
competition.
The second empirical analysis turns to the local level of government - where
services are delivered. Using original data from interviews and government records of
four Mexican municipalities, the author examines the aspects of democracy and
government capacity that are correlated with lower inequalities of public services. The
findings highlight that intense electoral competition and institutionalized channels of
citizen input as well as capacity in terms of sound collection of municipal taxes and
innovations in municipal funding are characteristics of governments with broader
distribution of basic public services.
The third empirical analysis tests if public services are related to individual-level
political participation. Employing survey data from Latin America and Africa, the author
finds that ���good��� public service evaluations are associated with greater likelihoods of
voting in high quality democracies - those with intense electoral competition - but
limited government capacity. This offers evidence that in a developing context, public
services enable political participation
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