'Ladies and gentlemen, hats off, please!' : Dutch film lecturing and the case of Cor Schuring

Aux Pays-Bas, on appelait le bonimenteur de film l'explicateur et il a été présent dans les salles de cinéma jusqu 'à l'arrivée du cinéma sonore. Cet article tente de retrouver cet artiste de l'oral, et par là même insaisissable, à travers quelques traces des trait caractéristiques de son róle et de son statut. Il est illustré par une étude de cas sur un explicateur néerlandais, Cor Schuring, basée principalement sur des entretiens avec son fils et sur un album de coupures de presse. Schuring venait des variétés et du théâtre, et ce parcours, typiquement néerlandais, était celui de bien d'autres explicateurs. L'exemple de Schuring montre le róle politique de ce dernier dans le commerce du cinéma et fait ressortir la demande explicite de flexibilité sociale et d'adaptation dans la gestion des techniques de commentaire

Homocysteine levels and treatment effect in the prospective study of pravastatin in the elderly at risk

Objectives: To assess the effect of preventive pravastatin treatment on coronary heart disease (CHD) morbidity and mortality in older persons at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), stratified according to plasma levels of homocysteine.<p></p> Design: A post hoc subanalysis in the PROspective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk (PROSPER), started in 1997, which is a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial with a mean follow-up of 3.2 years.<p></p> Setting: Primary care setting in two of the three PROSPER study sites (Netherlands and Scotland).<p></p> Participants: Individuals (n = 3,522, aged 70–82, 1,765 male) with a history of or risk factors for CVD were ranked in three groups depending on baseline homocysteine level, sex, and study site.<p></p> Intervention: Pravastatin (40 mg) versus placebo.<p></p> Measurements: Fatal and nonfatal CHD and mortality.<p></p> Results: In the placebo group, participants with a high homocysteine level (n = 588) had a 1.8 higher risk (95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.2–2.5, P = .001) of fatal and nonfatal CHD than those with a low homocysteine level (n = 597). The absolute risk reduction in fatal and nonfatal CHD with pravastatin treatment was 1.6% (95% CI = −1.6 to 4.7%) in the low homocysteine group and 6.7% (95% CI = 2.7–10.7%) in the high homocysteine group (difference 5.2%, 95% CI = 0.11–10.3, P = .046). Therefore, the number needed to treat (NNT) with pravastatin for 3.2 years for benefit related to fatal and nonfatal CHD events was 14.8 (95% CI = 9.3–36.6) for high homocysteine and 64.5 (95% CI = 21.4–∞) for low homocysteine.<p></p> Conclusion: In older persons at risk of CVD, those with high homocysteine are at highest risk for fatal and nonfatal CHD. With pravastatin treatment, this group has the highest absolute risk reduction and the lowest NNT to prevent fatal and nonfatal CHD.<p></p&gt

Program Correctness by Transformation

Deductive program verification can be used effectively to verify high-level programs, but can be challenging for low-level, high-performance code. In this paper, we argue that compilation and program transformations should be made annotation-aware, i.e. during compilation and program transformation, not only the code should be changed, but also the corresponding annotations. As a result, if the original high-level program could be verified, also the resulting low-level program can be verified. We illustrate this approach on a concrete case, where loop annotations that capture possible loop parallelisations are translated into specifications of an OpenCL kernel that corresponds to the parallel loop. We also sketch how several commonly used OpenCL kernel transformations can be adapted to also transform the corresponding program annotations. Finally, we conclude the paper with a list of research challenges that need to be addressed to further develop this approach

Theory of anomalous magnetic interference pattern in mesoscopic SNS Josephson junctions

The magnetic interference pattern in mesoscopic SNS Josephson junctions is sensitive to the scattering in the normal part of the system. In this paper we investigate it, generalizing Ishii's formula for current-phase dependence to the case of normal scattering at NS boundaries in an SNS junction of finite width. The resulting flattening of the first diffraction peak is consistent with experimental data for S-2DEG-S mesoscopic junctions.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Phys. Rev. B 68, 144514 (2003

Die Tempelanlage Amenemhets III. in Hawara

UBL - phd migration 201

Playing with Fire: New Australian music for electroacoustics and acoustic piano

Playing with Fire is a commercially released CD of new Australian music for piano and electroacoustics co-produced and recorded by Stevenson and distributed by Wirripang Media

Musical hallucinations and their relation with epilepsy

Musical hallucinations are poorly understood phenomena. Their relation with epilepsy was first described over a century ago, but never systematically explored. We, therefore, reviewed the literature, and assessed all descriptions of musical hallucinations attributed to epileptic activity. Our search yielded 191 articles, which together describe 983 unique patients, with 24 detailed descriptions of musical hallucinations related to epilepsy. We also describe six of our own patients. Based on the phenomenological descriptions and neurophysiological data, we distinguish four subgroups of epilepsy-related musical hallucination, comprising auras/ictal, inter-ictal and post-ictal phenomena, and phenomena related to brain stimulation. The case descriptions suggest that musical hallucinations in epilepsy can be conceptualised as lying on a continuum with other auditory hallucinations, including verbal auditory hallucinations, and—notably—tinnitus. To account for the underlying mechanism we propose a Bayesian model involving top-down and bottom-up prediction errors within the auditory network that incorporates findings from EEG and MEG studies. An analysis of phenomenological characteristics, pharmacological triggers, and treatment effects suggests wider ramifications for understanding musical hallucinations. We, therefore, conclude that musical hallucinations in epilepsy open a window to understanding these phenomena in a variety of conditions.Stress and Psychopatholog

Frontal plane pelvic motion during gait captures hip osteoarthritis related disability

Gait analysis has widely been accepted as an objective measure of function and clinical outcome. Ambulatory accelerometer-based gait analysis has emerged as a clinically more feasible alternative to optical motion capture systems but does not provide kinematic characterisation to identify disease dependent mechanisms causing walking disability. This study investigated the potential of a single inertial sensor to derive frontal plane motion of the pelvis (i.e. pelvic obliquity) and help identify hip osteoarthritis (OA) related gait alterations. Patients with advanced unilateral hip OA (n = 20) were compared to patients with advanced unilateral knee OA (n = 20) and to a healthy control group (n = 20). Kinematic characterisation of frontal plane pelvic motion during gait demonstrated decreased range of motion and increased asymmetry for hip OA patients specifically. </jats:p