Perfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS) have been extensively used in consumer products and humans are widely exposed to these persistent compounds. A recent study found no association between ...exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and miscarriage, but no studies have examined adverse effect of the more recently introduced PFASs. We therefore conducted a case-control study within a population-based, prospective cohort during 2010-2012. Newly pregnant women residing in the Municipality of Odense, Denmark were invited to enroll in the Odense Child Cohort at their first antenatal visit before pregnancy week 12. Among a total of 2,874 participating women, 88 suffered a miscarriage and 59 had stored serum samples, of which 56 occurred before gestational week 12. They were compared to a random sample (N=336) of delivering women, who had also donated serum samples before week 12. Using a case-control design, 51 of the women suffering a miscarriage were matched on parity and gestational day of serum sampling with 204 delivering women. In a multiple logistic regression with adjustment for age, BMI, parity and gestational age at serum sampling, women with the highest tertile of exposure to perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) in pregnancy had odds ratios for miscarriage of 16.5 (95% CI 7.4-36.6-36.5) and 2.67 (1.31-5.44), respectively, as compared to the lowest tertile. In the matched data set, the OR were 37.9 (9.9-145.2) and 3.71 (1.60-8.60), respectively. The association with perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS) was in the same direction, but not statistically significant, while no association was found with PFOA and PFOS. Our findings require confirmation due to the possible public health importance, given that all pregnant women are exposed to these widely used compounds.
Fairy tales have been an essential ingredient in children's literature. Canonical fairy tales passed down from generation to generation not only enrich children's imagination but connote significant ...values typical of the community. However, as time passes, contemporary writers often challenge these traditional values when they work on the same topic. This changing face is evidenced by Emma Donoghue's rewriting of classical tales. Based on my teaching of Donoghue's story 'The Tale of the Bird' alongside Andersen's 'Thumbelina' at a university in Hong Kong, this paper discusses the ever-evolving cultural values and the benefit of reading Donoghue via Andersen or vice versa in the literature class and beyond.
EDITOR'S NOTE 1 Bernheimer, Kate
Fairy tale review,
01/2019, Letnik:
15, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The young student, whether hither or thither, will still remark that Angela Carter over-adorns her pink stories and is trying to make fun of men, and he will rebel against her pink punk feminism. ...Everywhere we encounter stories that ought not be read to the very nervous adult, one keen on preserving unequal axes of power, an anti-pink if you will, as these stories border on blasphemy in that regard, and this can include pink ghost stories. Please note that some of these pink works were filtered first through the African, or the Catalan, or the Latvian, or the Zambian, or the English-language variations from many years past (or more recently) which our esteemed and debut authors have researched or merely enjoyed, as if enjoyment were mere; and you will find the rosiest of influences, if you choose to look for these.
This article explores how Hanna Cormick's performance The Mermaid advances an understanding of air as a substance that connects bodies in lively, dangerous, and potentially even deadly ways. As ...someone who lives with multiple chronic health conditions that are activated by environmental or chemical pollutants, Cormick is particularly attuned to seemingly innocuous airborne substances. This article considers how The Mermaid draws on Cormick's lived experience to illustrate what Stacy Alaimo describes as 'performances of exposure', a concept that demonstrates how humans are linked in a transcorporeal relationship to the environment in life sustaining and life destroying ways. When performing live, Cormick lives with the very real possibility that she will have a seizure or an allergic reaction in response to an airborne pollutant in the performance space. This risk therefore prompts questions related to ethical spectatorship, as audiences are forced to grapple with their own complicity and responsibility in creating a safe and liveable space for Cormick and each other. In much the same way that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the dangers of shared (air) space and airborne transmission, so too does The Mermaid highlight our communal responsibility for the health and safety of others, and of the Earth. What is revealed by considering the ways we are materially linked to the air/space in which performances like The Mermaid take place? What kinds of ethical stakes emerge when we acknowledge the shared air/space of the performance as teeming with meaning? How does positioning the work as a performance of exposure make us more acutely aware of our enmeshment in the world, our culpability in the escalating effects of climate change, and our responsibility in cultivating communally liveable (and breathable) air/spaces? In posing these questions, this article considers how Cormick's work presents new forms of ethical relations that are based on a politics of atmospheric exposure.
The present study aims to highlight some themes, directions and ethical aspects revealed by Andersen's fairy tales, the conception of the world, our existence and its meaning. Andersen is a romantic ...who sees childhood as a pure, but fleeting and sometimes tragic age. Some critics spoke of metaphysical themes and his desire to draw the ideal of humanity but they also offer us a pretext for analysis and meditation.
One of the hallmarks of Celiac disease (CD) is intraepithelial lymphocytosis in the small intestine. Until now, investigations to characterize the T cell subpopulations within the epithelial layer ...have not discriminated between the heterodimeric co-receptor molecule, CD8αβ, and the possibly immunoregulatory CD8αα homodimer molecule. Besides TCRαβ+ CD4+ cells, no other phenotypes have been shown to be gluten-reactive. Using flow cytometry on lymphocytes from duodenal biopsies, we determined that the number of B cells (CD3- CD19+) and the number of CD3+ CD4- CD8- double-negative (DN) T cells were elevated 6-7 fold in children with CD. We next isolated and quantified intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) from biopsies obtained from patients (both children and adults) with CD, potential CD and non-CD controls. Flow cytometric analysis of the duodenal T cell subpopulations was performed including the markers TCRαβ, TCRγδ, CD4, CD8α and CD8β. Proportions of γδ T cells and CD8αβ+ cells among IELs were increased in CD patients, whereas proportions of CD4+ CD8αα+ and CD4+ single-positive T cells were decreased. Additionally, two gluten-reactive T cell lines (TCLs) derived from CD biopsies were analyzed for changes in proportions of T cell subsets before and after gluten stimulation. In a proliferation assay, dividing cells were tracked with carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE), and both αβ and γδ T cells proliferated in response to gluten. Changes in duodenal T cell subpopulations in potential CD patients followed the same pattern as for CD patients, but with less pronounced effect.
The Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen is cultural heritage in Denmark, and his authorship is a part of The Canon of Danish Literature that contains 14 obligatory authorships in the ...Danish educational system. In this article, we examine how the cultural policy of the ideologically rooted and highly political canon affects current teaching materials on Andersen's fairy tales. Our examples show how fixed readings of the fairy tales are reproduced in Danish classrooms. We suggest that dialogic teaching approaches to the fairy tales have potential to counter such readings and offer teachers and students the opportunity to engage with canonical literature in new ways. However, based on examples from existing dialogic teaching materials for Andersen's fairy tales, we also conclude that the task of countering the inexpedient influence of cultural policy in teaching materials should not be underestimated.
Long standing vitamin D deficiency in children causes rickets with growth impairment. We investigated whether sub-ischial leg length (SLL) is shorter, and cephalo-caudal length:length (CCL:L) ratio ...and sitting height:height (SH:H) ratio larger, with lower cord s-25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) in the population-based prospective Odense Child Cohort, Denmark.
We included healthy singletons born to term with available measures of cord 25OHD and anthropometrics up to three years' age. Linear regression was stratified by sex a priori and adjusted for maternal ethnicity, pre-pregnancy body mass index and smoking during pregnancy, season of blood sampling and child age.
Median (IQR) cord 25OHD was 48.0 (34.0-62.4) nmol/L. At mean age 19.1 months, n = 504, mean (SD) SLL was 31.7 (1.7) cm; CCL:L-ratio 0.62 (0.01). At 36.3 months, n = 956, mean SLL was 42.9 (2.0) cm; SH:H-ratio 0.56 (0.01). No participants had rickets. In adjusted analyses, 19-months-old boys had 0.1 cm shorter SLL (p = 0.009) and 0.1% higher CCL:L-ratio (p = 0.04) with every 10 nmol/L increase in cord 25OHD. Similar findings were seen for late pregnancy 25OHD. In the highest cord 25OHD quartile (>60.7 nmol/L), SLL was 0.8 cm shorter (95% C.I.: 1.36;-0.29, linear trend, p = 0.004), and CCL:L-ratio 0.8% higher (95% C.I. 8.0x10-05;0.01, linear trend, p = 0.01), compared to lowest quartile (<30.7 nmol/L). Similar associations with cord 25OHD were observed in 3-year-old boys. No consistent associations between 25OHD and anthropometrics were seen in girls at either age.
No leg shortening was found with decreasing cord s-25OHD in a healthy population of infants. A small, yet significant inverse association between cord 25OHD and SLL in boys 1½-3 years warrants further investigations.
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