'Our Old Friends and Recent Foes': James Cowan, Rudall Hayward and Memories of Natural Affections in the New Zealand Wars

When the first Taranaki War ended in 1861, a young settler and engineer called George Robinson celebrated the apparent end of interracial hostilities by venturing out with his fellow volunteers to rediscover a peach orchard that war had made inaccessible. Appetites satisfied, he and his friends were exploring further into the lately contested territory, when they met a 'lad' they knew from one of the resistant Maori settlements. The boy invited them home where his people wer enow living: after some hesitation, they accompanied him

'Our Old Friends and Recent Foes': James Cowan, Rudall Hayward and Memories of Natural Affections in the New Zealand Wars

When the first Taranaki War ended in 1861, a young settler and engineer called George Robinson celebrated the apparent end of interracial hostilities by venturing out with his fellow volunteers to rediscover a peach orchard that war had made inaccessible. Appetites satisfied, he and his friends were exploring further into the lately contested territory, when they met a 'lad' they knew from one of the resistant Maori settlements. The boy invited them home where his people wer enow living: after some hesitation, they accompanied him

'Our Old Friends and Recent Foes': James Cowan, Rudall Hayward and Memories of Natural Affections in the New Zealand Wars

When the first Taranaki War ended in 1861, a young settler and engineer called George Robinson celebrated the apparent end of interracial hostilities by venturing out with his fellow volunteers to rediscover a peach orchard that war had made inaccessible. Appetites satisfied, he and his friends were exploring further into the lately contested territory, when they met a 'lad' they knew from one of the resistant Maori settlements. The boy invited them home where his people were now living: after some hesitation, they accompanied him.Peer Reviewe

Effect of random and hub gene disruptions on environmental and mutational robustness in Escherichia coli

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide profiling has allowed the regulatory interaction networks of many organisms to be visualised and the pattern of connections between genes to be studied. These networks are non-random, following a power-law distribution with a small number of well-connected 'hubs' and many genes with only one or a few connections. Theoretical work predicts that power-law networks display several unique properties. One of the most biologically interesting of these is an intrinsic robustness to disturbance such that removal of a random gene will have little effect on network function. Conversely, targeted removal of a hub gene is expected to have a large effect. RESULTS: We compared the response of Escherichia coli to environmental and mutational stress following disruption of random or hub genes. We found that disruption of random genes had less effect on robustness to environmental stress than did the targeted disruption of hub genes. In contrast, random disruption strains were slightly less robust to the effect of mutational stress than were hub disruption strains. When we compared the effect of each disruption on environmental and mutational stress, we found a negative relationship, such that strains that were more environmentally robust tended to be less robust to mutational stress. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that mutant strains of E. coli respond differently to stress, depending on whether random or hub genes are disrupted. This difference indicates that the power-law distribution of regulatory interactions has biological significance, making random disruptions less deleterious to organisms facing environmental stress. That E. coli can reduce the effect of environmental stress without reducing the phenotypic effect of additional mutations, indicates that robustness and evolvability need not be antagonistic

“The whole thing is beyond stress”: Family perspectives on the experience of hospitalisation through to discharge for individuals with severe learning disabilities and complex needs

© 2024 The Authors. British Journal of Learning Disabilities published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Background People with severe learning disabilities and complex needs are more likely to experience delayed discharge from hospital; however, there is little research into their experience in hospital and as they move out as part of the Transforming Care Programme. Methods Six family members of people with complex needs who had moved out of hospital took part in four focus groups co-facilitated with an expert-by-experience consultant. Participants' relatives had hospital admissions that ranged from 6 weeks to 11 years. Transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Additional reflections are included from an expert-by-experience consultant to capture their unique perspective. Results Family members reported stories of abuse in hospital and parallel experiences of institutionalisation and trauma, resulting in long-lasting impacts on themselves and their relative. Family members felt let down and undervalued by professionals. They described relief when their relatives moved out of hospital, but there were on-going difficulties accessing the right support in the community and so stability felt fragile. Conclusions Key recommendations to support community living include respecting family members' expertise, improving partnership working and offering psychological support for family members and people with complex needs post-discharge.Peer reviewe

Primary coronary artery bypass surgery in the presence of decreasing preoperative renal function: effect on short-term outcomes

Background: This study evaluated the impact of decreasing renal function on short-term outcomes in patients undergoing primary coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Methods: The study period was from February 1999 to February 2009. Data on 4050 patients undergoing primary CABG were prospectively collected and analyzed retrospectively. The study population was divided into 3 groups: the CABG:N group, patients with preoperative serum creatinine levels 2 mg/dL (n = 87); and the CABG:D group, patients on dialysis (n = 16). Results: The significant differences between the groups (CABG:D > CABG:RF > CABG:N) in short-term outcomes were with respect to blood product use (P < .001), postoperative acute myocardial infarction (P < .001), pulmonary complications (P .001), infection (P < .001), and death (P < .001). The risk of short-term death (30 days) in the CABG:D group (4/16, 25%) was 25 times greater than that in the CABG:N group (38/3947, 0.96%). Conclusion: CABG in the presence of renal failure is associated with significant morbidity and mortality