8 research outputs found
Significant anti-RVG-9r IgG titers detected in mice repeatedly treated with LSPCs, but not in responder mice, coincide with loss of PrP<sup>C</sup> knockdown.
No full textA) Total IgG levels, measured using an ELISA assay, against RVG-9r. We detected significant IgG titers against the RVG-9r peptide in uninfected treated and non-responder mice and one responder (#4) mouse. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. (B) We detected significant anti-RVG-9r IgG titers in mice beginning after the fourth LSPC treatment (B) that coincide with de-repression of PrP mRNA (C) and protein (D) expression. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, one-way and two-way ANOVA.</p
Migration towards Bangladesh coastlines projected to increase with sea-level rise through 2100
No full textTo date, projections of human migration induced by sea-level change (SLC) largely suggest large-scale displacement away from vulnerable coastlines. However, results from our model of Bangladesh suggest counterintuitively that people will continue to migrate toward the vulnerable coastline irrespective of the flooding amplified by future SLC under all emissions scenarios until the end of this century. We developed an empirically calibrated agent-based model of household migration decision-making that captures the multi-faceted push, pull and mooring influences on migration at a household scale. We then exposed ~4,800,000 simulated migrants to 871 scenarios of projected 21st-century coastal flooding under future emissions pathways. Our model does not predict flooding impacts great enough to drive populations away from coastlines in any of the scenarios. One reason is that while flooding does accelerate a transition from agricultural to non-agricultural income opportunities, livelihood alternatives are most abundant in coastal cities. At the same time, some coastal populations are unable to migrate, as flood losses accumulate and reduce the set of livelihood alternatives (so-called "trapped" populations). However, even when we increased access to credit, a commonly-proposed policy lever for incentivizing migration in the face of climate risk, we found that the number of immobile agents actually rose. These findings imply that instead of a straightforward relationship between displacement and migration, projections need to consider the multiple constraints on, and preferences for, mobility. Our model demonstrates that decision-makers seeking to affect migration outcomes around SLC would do well to consider individual-level adaptive behaviors and motivations that evolve through time, as well as the potential for unintended behavioral responses.PRIFPRI3; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; ISIDSG
Another brutal attack in Kakuma: LGBTI refugees let down once again by UNHCR and the Kenya Refugee Affairs Secretariat
No full textAnother brutal attack occurred in Kakuma on 26th July 2021. Once again, LGBT+ refugees are feeling let down by UNHCR and the Kenya Refugee Affairs Secretariat-RAS. This is not the latest attack and it will not be the last. Lucretia Ssenyonjo John and Peter Keogh chronicle the latest abuses at Kakuma and make an urgent plea for action.
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This material is part of the Covid Chronicles from the Margins project, funded by The Open University and The Hague. The project aims to highlight the impact of the pandemic on refugees, asylum seekers & undocumented migrants.
This item can be found on our website, here: https://cov19chronicles.com/another-brutal-attack-in-kakuma/</p
The Smoking Gun: Still no LGBT+ Safety in Kakuma
No full textThis is one of two blogs that were put together in late February 2022, and draw on Facebook messages from Jones Graham and Isa Mubiru. Peter Keogh’s name has been included as co-author. The blog is written with first names only to protect the LGBT+ people still living in Kakuma Block 13. Read their other blog here.
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This material is part of the Covid Chronicles from the Margins project, funded by The Open University and The Hague. The project aims to highlight the impact of the pandemic on refugees, asylum seekers & undocumented migrants.
This item can also be found on the Covid Chronicles website. </p
LGBT+ in Kakuma: The Fire This Time
No full textThis is one of two blogs that were put together in late February 2022, and draw on Facebook messages from Jones Graham and Isa Mubiru. Peter Keogh’s name has been included as co-author. The blog is written with first names only to protect the LGBT+ people still living in Kakuma Block 13. Read their other blog here.
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This material is part of the Covid Chronicles from the Margins project, funded by The Open University and The Hague. The project aims to highlight the impact of the pandemic on refugees, asylum seekers & undocumented migrants.
This item can also be found on the Covid Chronicles website.</p
The utility of cemented femoral stems in modern THA: a 10-year comparative analysis of the Charnley and Exeter stems
No full textBackground: Total hip replacement (THR) is one of the most common surgical procedures performed worldwide. The controversy surrounding the relative merits of a cemented composite beam or cemented taper-slip stem in total hip replacement continues. Our aims primarily were to assess the 10-year outcomes of cemented stems using Charnley and Exeter prostheses with regional registry data and secondarily to assess the main predictors of revision.
Methods: We prospectively collected registry data for procedures performed between January 2005 and June 2008. Only cemented Charnley and Exeter stems were included. Patients were prospectively reviewed at 6 months, 2, 5 and 10 years. The primary outcome measure was a 10-year all-cause revision. Secondary outcomes included 're-revision', 'mortality' and functional 'Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index' (WOMAC) scores.
Results: We recorded a total of 1351 cases in the cohort, 395 Exeter and 956 Charnley stems. The overall all-cause revision rate at 10 years was 1.6%. The revision rate for Charnley stem was 1.4% and 2.3% revision rate for all Exeter stems with no significant difference noted between the two cohorts (p = 0.24). The overall time to revision was 38.3 months. WOMAC scores at 10 years were found to be insignificantly higher for Charnley stems (mean 23.8, σ = 20.11) compared to Exeter stems (mean 19.78, σ = 20.72) (p = 0.1).
Conclusion: There is no significant difference between cemented Charnley and Exeter stems; they both perform well above the international average. The decline in the use of cemented THA is not fully supported by this regional registry data.</p
The long and winding road: archiving and re-using qualitative data from 12 research projects spanning 16 years
No full textWe describe a pilot project designed to assess the feasibility of re-use across 12 diverse qualitative datasets related to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in the UK, from research projects undertaken between 1997 and 2013 – an approach which is chronically underused. First, we consider the sweeping biomedical changes and imperatives relating to HIV in this time frame, offering a rationale for data re-use at this point in the epidemic. We then reflexively situate the processes and procedures we devised for this study with reference to relevant methodological literature. Hammersley’s and Leonelli’s contributions have been particularly instructive through this process, and following their lead, we conclude with further considerations for those undertaking qualitative data re-use, reflecting on the extent to which qualitative data re-use as a practice requires attention to both the given and the constructed aspects of data when assembled as evidence
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An Analysis of Functional Differences in Implicit Learning
No full textThis thesis analysed whether functional implicit learning differences existed in two areas that have produced promising, but equivocal, findings: individual differences in typical populations (e.g., Gebauer & Mackintosh, 2010) and group differences between Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) and Typically Developing (TD) individuals (e.g., L. G. Klinger, Klinger, & Pohlig, 2007). Overall, the results from the four studies presented in this thesis emphasised a lack of functional differences in implicit learning between individuals.
Study I investigated whether there were functional individual differences in implicit learning among a typical population by examining the inter-correlation between the performances of academic psychologists on three implicit learning tasks; the independence of those performances from IQ; the relationships between those performances, intuitive aspects of personality and occupational tacit knowledge; and, finally, whether the performances were related to occupational achievement. There was no evidence of inter-correlation between the implicit learning task performances, nor relationships between any of those performances, and occupational achievement, or personality. The study did replicate a finding that is important to the distinction between implicit and explicit learning: indices of explicit processing, but not performance on implicit learning tasks, were correlated with IQ (e.g., Gebauer & Mackintosh, 2007). Additionally, the study found that Academic Psychology and Business Management Tacit Knowledge Inventories measured knowledge that predicted occupational achievement in academic psychology incrementally to IQ and personality, and was general to both occupations. However, tacit knowledge appeared to be acquired primarily as a function of practice and experience, rather than individual differences in implicit learning. Overall, I asserted that a consideration of the results from Study I with the wider literature currently leads to the conclusion that there are minimal individual differences in implicit learning, which signifies that there is no general implicit learning ability that is critical to how much is learnt implicitly.
In the absence of a general ability that determines how much is learnt implicitly, it was argued that there could still be general, prerequisite processes, which are always necessary for implicit learning but without those processes determining the variation in how much was learnt implicitly. Such prerequisite processes would not constitute a psychometric ability but could be
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conceptualised as general implicit learning processes. This conceptualisation of implicit learning would be supported by the existence of an atypical population who consistently demonstrated profound deficits on all implicit learning tasks and skills associated with an implicit acquisition. There is no convincing evidence of such a patient group, although the ASC population is a plausible candidate (e.g., L. G. Klinger, et al., 2007).
Therefore, Study II compared IQ-matched ASC and TD individuals on a range of implicit learning tasks. The study, taken together with other recent reports (e.g., Barnes, et al., 2008), provided convincing evidence that implicit learning is actually intact in ASC and it was argued that deficits reported in previous studies must have resulted from differences in task procedures (e.g., L. G. Klinger, et al., 2007). In particular, the earlier studies used procedures that encouraged explicit strategies, which disadvantaged the ASC groups who had not been matched for IQ. A further analysis supported that interpretation: TD and ASC groups who were not matched for IQ exhibited differences on an explicit learning task, but not on the implicit learning tasks.
In order to determine whether those previously identified implicit learning deficits in ASC resulted just from differences in IQ, or whether there was also a contribution from an ASC difficulty in explicit learning, Study III compared ASC individuals with IQ-matched TD individuals on an implicit learning task, the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task, with a procedure that encouraged explicit strategies. The SRT procedure was combined with a contextual cueing task that provided an indirect, ongoing index of the extent to which sequence learning was explicit (Jiménez & Vázquez, in press). Study III indicated a difference in initial explicit sequence learning in ASC, which was independent of IQ.
Study IV replicated the difficulty and by using a pre-task manipulation the study was also able to elaborate the nature of that difficulty: ASC individuals were able to learn sequence information explicitly, but they had a specific difficulty with learning to apply that explicit information. Thus, there was good evidence that implicit learning is intact in ASC and that instead ASC individuals have more difficulties with aspects of explicit learning. These findings refute the idea that ASC individuals successfully compensate for implicit deficits with explicit compensatory strategies. Instead, together with the ASC propensity for using explicit strategies, an ASC difficulty with explicit processing might explain some ASC deficits in a range of learnt skills, although I acknowledge that there are also plausible alternatives. More generally, these
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findings and ideas accord with ASC literature concerning impairments in executive functions, which require flexible and intentional processing (e.g., Russell, 1997a) and emphasise that future research is focused on how explicit, executive differences emerge and affect behaviour.
In conclusion, the thesis provided no evidence for the proposal that there are functional differences between individuals in implicit learning. I propose that, taken together with the equivocal evidence discussed in my reviews of the wider literature, it is parsimonious to conclude that there is neither a general implicit learning ability, nor general, prerequisite implicit learning processes. However, in line with previous literature, the thesis did support functional distinctions between implicit and explicit learning: explicit, but not implicit, learning was related to IQ; and ASC individuals have difficulties with explicit but not implicit learning. Therefore, I assert that a descriptive distinction between explicit and implicit learning remains both useful and valid. This is true even though implicit learning seems to be defined by the absence, or minimal influence, of explicit processing rather than the general presence of an implicit learning ability or processes. Beyond the issue of functional differences, I argue that these findings and conclusions make modest, but not decisive, contributions to some of the other fierce debates in the wider implicit learning literature. Finally, I propose some recommendations, and directions, for future research
