Novorossiya as metaphor: great powerness and the conservative revolution in the Russian political and discursive space

This thesis is focused on the construction of Novorossiya and its relation to great power identity and the conservative revolution in Russia. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the relationship between these three interlocutory discourses in a bid to determine the relationship between Novorossiya and the wider discursive field. Several key questions are answered: of what Novorossiya is an instance; how ideology is inflected in it by conservative revolutionaries; what politics logics are used to move the conservative revolution towards the political and discursive mainstream. The thesis is founded upon a poststructural ontological position and combines the thought of Laclauian discourse theory and TartuMoscow School semiotics of culture to underpin a semiotic model. The concepts of metaphor and metonymy are posited as key theoretical tools of analysis. They are employed in order to explain the conservative revolutionary challenge to liberal hegemony, the chaining of nationalist narratives into a contiguous link with great power identity, and the appearance of Novorossiya as a metaphorical phenomenon. Ideology is unpacked with reference to political logics which focus on forming an analogous relation between discursive and state frontiers. Due to the existence of Novorossiya as a small part of a greater conservative revolution across the Russian political and discursive space, this thesis seeks to provide greater understanding to a widely misunderstood political movement, whilst aiming to provoke a body of work on the new right in Russia.http://www.ester.ee/record=b448780

Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy Pathology and 2-Year Postsurgical Recurrence of Breast Cancer in Kenyan Women

Purpose: The goal of this study was to describe the pathologic findings and early follow-up experience of patients who underwent a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) at Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) between 2008 and 2017. Patients and Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of women with breast cancer who underwent an SLNB at AKUH between 2008 and 2017. The SLNB was performed on patients with stage I and stage II breast cancer, and identification of the sentinel lymph node was made by radioactive tracer, blue dye, or both, per availability and surgeon preference. Demographic, surgical, and pathologic data, including immunohistochemistry of the surgical sample for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, were abstracted from the patient records. Follow-up data were available for a subset of patients. Results: Between 2008 and 2017, six surgeons performed SLNBs on 138 women, 129 of whom had complete records and were included in the study. Thirty-one of 129 (24%) had a positive SLNB, including 10 of 73 (14%) with stage I and 21 of 56 (38%) with stage II disease. Seventy-eight patients (60%) received systemic adjuvant chemotherapy and 79 (62%) received radiation therapy, and of the 102 patients who were estrogen receptor positive, 86 (85%) received endocrine therapy. Seventy-nine patients were observed for \u3e 2 years, and, of these, four (5.1%) had a regional recurrence. Conclusion: The SLNB positivity rates were similar to those of high-income country (HIC) cohorts. However, preliminary data suggest that recurrence rates are elevated at AKUH as compared with those of HIC cohorts, perhaps because of a lower use of radiotherapy and chemotherapy at AKUH compared with HIC cohorts or because of differences in the characteristics of the primary tumor in patients at AKUH as compared with those in HICs

After Mazibuko: exploring the responses of communities excluded from South Africa’s water experiment

Despite a constitutional right to water, challenges remain for access to sufficient water in South Africa. This article considers the degree to which current legal provisions perpetuate approaches, which are antithetical to genuinely eco-socio-sustainable water access. Water in South Africa has largely been re-cast as a commodity, exposed to market rules, proving problematic for many and giving rise to various responses, including litigation. In the seminal case of Mazibuko the Constitutional Court failed to provide robust protection to the right to water, providing impetus for the formation of “commons” strategies for water allocation. Indeed “commoning” is beginning to represent not only an emerging conceptual strand in urban resource allocation, but also a dynamic, contemporary, eco-sensitive, socio-cultural phenomenon, driving innovative, interactive and inclusive forms of planning and social engagement. Against the backdrop of unequal water access, commoning offers glimpses of an empowering and enfranchising subaltern paradigm

Determining the Agreement Between an Automated Respiratory Rate Counter and a Reference Standard for Detecting Symptoms of Pneumonia in Children: Protocol for a Cross-Sectional Study in Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Acute respiratory infections (ARIs), primarily pneumonia, are the leading infectious cause of under-5 mortality worldwide. Manually counting respiratory rate (RR) for 60 seconds using an ARI timer is commonly practiced by community health workers to detect fast breathing, an important sign of pneumonia. However, correctly counting breaths manually and classifying the RR is challenging, often leading to inappropriate treatment. A potential solution is to introduce RR counters, which count and classify RR automatically. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to determine how the RR count of an Automated Respiratory Infection Diagnostic Aid (ARIDA) agrees with the count of an expert panel of pediatricians counting RR by reviewing a video of the child's chest for 60 seconds (reference standard), for children aged younger than 5 years with cough and/or difficult breathing. METHODS: A cross-sectional study aiming to enroll 290 children aged 0 to 59 months presenting to pediatric in- and outpatient departments at a teaching hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was conducted. Enrollment occurred between April and May 2017. Once enrolled, children participated in at least one of three types of RR evaluations: (1) agreement-measure the RR count of an ARIDA in comparison with the reference standard, (2) consistency-measure the agreement between two ARIDA devices strapped to one child, and (3) RR fluctuation-measure RR count variability over time after ARIDA attachment as measured by a manual count. The agreement and consistency of expert clinicians (ECs) counting RR for the same child with the Mark 2 ARI timer for 60 seconds was also measured in comparison with the reference standard. RESULTS: Primary outcomes were (1) mean difference between the ARIDA and reference standard RR count (agreement) and (2) mean difference between RR counts obtained by two ARIDA devices started simultaneously (consistency). CONCLUSIONS: Study strengths included the design allowing for comparison between both ARIDA and the EC with the reference standard RR count. A limitation is that exactly the same set of breaths were not compared between ARIDA and the reference standard since ARIDA can take longer than 60 seconds to count RR. Also, manual RR counting, even when aided by a video of the child's chest movements, is subject to human error and can result in low interrater reliability. Further work is needed to reach global consensus on the most appropriate reference standard and an acceptable level of agreement to provide ministries of health with evidence to make an informed decision on whether to scale up new automated RR counters. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03067558; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03067558. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR1-10.2196/16531

Vernier optical phased array lidar transceivers

Optical phased arrays (OPAs) which beam-steer in two dimensions (2D) are currently limited to grating row spacings well above a half wavelength. This gives rise to grating lobes along one axis which limit the field of view (FOV), introduce return signal ambiguity, and reduce the optical efficiency in lidar applications. We demonstrate a Vernier transceiver scheme which uses paired transmit and receive phased arrays with different row periodicities, leading to mismatched grating lobe angular spacings and only a single aligned pair of transmit and receive lobes. This permits a return signal from a target in the desired lobe to be efficiently coupled back into the receive OPA while back-scatter from the other grating lobes is rejected, removing the ambiguity. Our proposal goes beyond previously considered Vernier schemes in other domains like RF and sound, to enable a dynamic Vernier where all beam directions are simultaneously Vernier aligned, and allow ultra-fast scanning, or multi-beam, operation with Vernier lobe suppression. We analyze two variants of grating lobe suppressing beam-steering configurations, one of which eliminates the FOV limitation, and find the conditions for optimal lobe suppression. We present the first, to the best of our knowledge, experimental demonstration of an OPA Vernier transceiver, including grating lobe suppression of 6.4 dB and beam steering across 5.5&deg;. The demonstration is based on a pair of 2D-wavelength-steered serpentine OPAs. These results address the pervasive issue of grating lobes in integrated photonic lidar schemes, opening the way to larger FOVs and reduced complexity 2D beam-steering designs. &nbsp;</p

The Calcitonin and Glucocorticoids Combination: Mechanistic Insights into Their Class-Effect Synergy in Experimental Arthritis

PMCID: PMC3564948This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Investigation of the relationship between phenylalanine in venous plasma and capillary blood using volumetric blood collection devices

Measurement of plasma and dried blood spot (DBS) phenylalanine (Phe) is key to monitoring patients with phenylketonuria (PKU). The relationship between plasma and capillary DBS Phe concentrations has been investigated previously, however, differences in methodology, calibration approach and assumptions about the volume of blood in a DBS sub‐punch has complicated this. Volumetric blood collection devices (VBCDs) provide an opportunity to re‐evaluate this relationship. Paired venous and capillary samples were collected from patients with PKU (n = 51). Capillary blood was collected onto both conventional newborn screening (NBS) cards and VBCDs. Specimens were analysed by liquid‐chromatography tandem mass‐spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) using a common calibrator. Use of VBCDs was evaluated qualitatively by patients. Mean bias between plasma and volumetrically collected capillary DBS Phe was −13%. Mean recovery (SD) of Phe from DBS was 89.4% (4.6). VBCDs confirmed that the volume of blood typically assumed to be present in a 3.2 mm sub‐punch is over‐estimated by 9.7%. Determination of the relationship between plasma and capillary DBS Phe, using a single analytical method, common calibration and VBCDs, demonstrated that once the under‐recovery of Phe from DBS has been taken into account, there is no significant difference in the concentration of Phe in plasma and capillary blood. Conversely, comparison of plasma Phe with capillary DBS Phe collected on a NBS card highlighted the limitations of this approach. Introducing VBCDs for the routine monitoring of patients with PKU would provide a simple, acceptable specimen collection technique that ensures consistent sample quality and produces accurate and precise blood Phe results which are interchangeable with plasma Phe