Sadness in mothers’ ‘baby-talk’ predicts affective disorder in adolescent offspring

‘Baby-talk’ is common across cultures. It underpins infant vocal preferences, and helps regulate infant engagement. Its longer-term significance is unclear. In a longitudinal study, we found indications of ‘sadness’ in postnatally depressed mothers’ baby-talk statistically mediated effects of maternal depression on offspring adolescent affective disorder.

“Bad talk” made good: language variety in four Caribbean British children’s poets

This article looks at how four British-based poets born in the Caribbean exploit the rich language repertoire available to them in their work for children and young people. Following initial consideration of questions of definition and terminology, poetry collections by James Berry, John Agard, Grace Nichols and Valerie Bloom are discussed, with a focus on the interplay and creative tension between the different varieties of Caribbean creoles (“Bad Talk”) and standard English evident in their work. Variation both between the four poets’ usage and within each individual poet’s work is considered, and a trend over time towards the inclusion of fewer creole-influenced poems is noted. This and other issues, such as the labelling of the four poets’ work as ‘performance poetry’ and the nature of the poets’ contribution to British children’s literature, are considered in the conclusion.

Let's talk about sex(ism): cross-national perspectives on women partners’ narratives on equality and sexism at work in Germany and the UK

While the accounting academy has contributed in important ways to furthering our understanding of the relative absence of women in top positions in Professional Service Firms, in-depth empirical research that focuses specifically on sexism is rare, especially so from a cross-national perspective. Drawing on sixty interviews with women partners in public accountancy firms in Germany and the United Kingdom, this article examines how women partners talk about sexism and equal opportunities in the accountancy profession and considers how these narratives are patterned cross-nationally. Employing cultural theory, this study explores how elite women discursively relate to sexism and equal opportunities through their career histories and demonstrates the complex interrelation between the context in which these narratives are produced and the past and present positions of the respondents. Interestingly, it was the German respondents who drew on problematic notions of ‘choice’ and responsibility, where it was upon women to make a choice between their careers and home lives, while this decision-making process was not expected from men. This was in contrast to the accounts of the UK participants who, although also unveiling tensions in their talk, were more inclined to acknowledge continuing structural constraints.

Girls talk: authorship and authenticity in the reception of Lena Dunham's Girls

By examining the discourse around Lena Dunham's HBO comedy Girls (2012– present), this article argues that the programme served as a space to think through female authorship, televisual representations and cultural tensions surrounding young womanhood. Central to this discourse was the narrative asserting Girls' and Dunham's 'authenticity', originality and universality, which sought to legitimate her gendered authorship and interest in the comedy of female intimacy within HBO' s masculine prestige channel identity. Charting three cycles of discourse surrounding the programme's debut, this article explores the paratextual framing by promotional concerns, television critics and women' s websites. It highlights how journalists and critics furthered HBO's paratextual framing of Dunham, which was later countered by the networked spaces of niche online media, which used the programme as a space to productively work through industrial and cultural tensions; particularly those surrounding female comic authorship, autobiography and intersectionality.

How distinctive is philosophers’ intuition talk?

The word “intuition” is one frequently used in philosophy. It is often assumed that the way in which philosophers use the word, and others like it, is very distinctive. This claim has been subjected to little empirical scrutiny, however. This article presents the first steps in a qualitative analysis of the use of intuition talk in the academy. It presents the findings of two preliminary empirical studies. The first study examines the use of intuition talk in spoken academic English. The second examines the use of intuition talk in written academic English. It considers what these studies tell us about the distinctiveness of philosophical language and methods and considers some implications for evaluative and ameliorative methodology.

Membrane-initiated non-genomic signaling by estrogens in the hypothalamus: cross-talk with glucocorticoids with implications for behavior

The estrogen receptor and glucocorticoid receptor are members of the nuclear receptor superfamily that can signal using both non-genomic and genomic transcriptional modes. Though genomic modes of signaling have been well characterized and several behaviors attributed to this signaling mechanism, the physiological significance of non-genomic modes of signaling has not been well understood. This has partly been due to the controversy regarding the identity of the membrane ER (mER) or membrane GR (mGR) that may mediate rapid, non-genomic signaling and the downstream signaling cascades that may result as a consequence of steroid ligands binding the mER or the mGR. Both estrogens and glucocorticoids exert a number of actions on the hypothalamus, including feedback. This review focuses on the various candidates for the mER or mGR in the hypothalamus and the contribution of non-genomic signaling to classical hypothalamically driven behaviors and changes in neuronal morphology. It also attempts to categorize some of the possible functions of non-genomic signaling at both the cellular level and at the organismal level that are relevant for behavior, including some behaviors that are regulated by both estrogens and glucocorticoids in a potentially synergistic manner. Lastly, it attempts to show that steroid signaling via non-genomic modes may provide the organism with rapid behavioral responses to stimuli.

Use of Information Visualization Methods Eliminating Cross Talk in Multiple Sensing Units Investigated for a Light-Addressable Potentiometric Sensor

The integration of nanostructured films containing biomolecules and silicon-based technologies is a promising direction for reaching miniaturized biosensors that exhibit high sensitivity and selectivity. A challenge, however, is to avoid cross talk among sensing units in an array with multiple sensors located on a small area. In this letter, we describe an array of 16 sensing units, of a light-addressable potentiometric sensor (LAPS), which was made with layer-by-Layer (LbL) films of a poly(amidomine) dendrimer (PAMAM) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), coated with a layer of the enzyme penicillinase. A visual inspection of the data from constant-current measurements with liquid samples containing distinct concentrations of penicillin, glucose, or a buffer indicated a possible cross talk between units that contained penicillinase and those that did not. With the use of multidimensional data projection techniques, normally employed in information Visualization methods, we managed to distinguish the results from the modified LAPS, even in cases where the units were adjacent to each other. Furthermore, the plots generated with the interactive document map (IDMAP) projection technique enabled the distinction of the different concentrations of penicillin, from 5 mmol L(-1) down to 0.5 mmol L(-1). Data visualization also confirmed the enhanced performance of the sensing units containing carbon nanotubes, consistent with the analysis of results for LAPS sensors. The use of visual analytics, as with projection methods, may be essential to handle a large amount of data generated in multiple sensor arrays to achieve high performance in miniaturized systems.