Cost effectiveness of cascade testing for familial hypercholesterolaemia, based on data from familial hypercholesterolaemia services in the UK

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

“Structural Dissatisfaction”: academics on safari in the novels of Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan's acclaimed 2010 novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, is a text populated by a disproportionately high number of, often unfulfilled, postgraduate researchers: “I'm in the PhD program at Berkeley”, proclaims Mindy; “Joe, who hailed from Kenya [...] was getting his PhD in robotics at Columbia”; “Bix, who's black, is spending his nights in the electrical-engineering lab where he's doing his PhD research”; while only Rebecca “was an academic star”. Indeed, in this text, academia seems a place of misery, of “harried academic slaving”, and, ultimately, of “immaturity and disastrous choices”. Over the course of this article I will demonstrate that, in fact, Egan's critique of the university is an immanent meta-critique. While the history of the campus novel is often premised on hermetically sealing the campus (the genre usually functions through an explicit focus on a delineated campus space or, at least, predominantly upon the social milieu of the academy), Egan's novels seem to play on bursting the very notions of inside and outside that facilitate this genre, blurring the boundaries between fiction and critique; the leeching of the university into everyday life. She also, simultaneously, however, critiques the structures of labour upon which much of the academy is founded. While I will move towards Egan's latest novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, throughout this article I will make reference to her entire novelistic canon, demonstrating that the treatment of academics throughout cannot be viewed as merely incidental, even if the appearances of such characters are sporadic and diffuse

The Song of the Lark

Willa Cather’s third novel, The Song of the Lark, depicts the growth of an artist, singer Thea Kronborg, a character inspired by the Swedish-born immigrant and renowned Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad. Thea’s early life, however, has much in common with Cather’s own. Set from 1885 to 1909, the novel traces Thea’s long journey from her fictional hometown of Moonstone, Colorado, to her source of inspiration in the Southwest, and to New York and the Metropolitan Opera House. As she makes her way in the world from an unlikely background, Thea distills all her experiences and relationships into the power and passion of her singing, despite the cost. The Song of the Lark presents Cather’s vision of a true artist

The Human and Environmental Health Impacts of Food Quality Among Emergency Food Providers

Abstract Human health and environmental health are inextricably entwined, and the ways in which we grow, process, package, transport, market, and consume food are critical factors for both human and environmental health. The current industrial food system in the United States has numerous adverse effects on environmental and human health, which significantly impact the millions of food insecure Americans who receive their nutritional needs from emergency food providers (American Public Health Association, 2007). The widespread food insecurity in the United States and the increasing prevalence of obesity among adults and children have drawn attention to the role that emergency food services should play in providing healthful foods to vulnerable populations. These trends led Ceres Community Project, an organization based in Sebastopol, California that provides organic meals to low-income people facing serious illness, to begin researching the impact of the industrial food system on food insecurity in the United States. Ceres research highlighted the need for the organization to take on a leadership role in a national campaign to address hunger and food insecurity by promoting organic and sustainably raised food as the “Best Practice” model for emergency food providers. This paper represents the findings from the culmination of a 300-hour research-based fieldwork experience performed at Ceres Community Project, which emphasizes the need for further research on the harmful effects of industrial agriculture on human and environmental health, and the necessity for policies to improve the quality of food offered by emergency food providers

Changing the culture: A first-hand example

In 1998, I joined the Department of Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in the USA as a new Assistant Professor. Professor Mary Barkley and I, both laser spectroscopists, were hired to build a new area of strength. That we were the first women hired as academic staff in the Chemistry Department was such a remarkable event that it made the headlines in the campus newspaper (Figure 1). Today, there are six women with primary academic appointments in CWRU’s Department of Chemistry, and Barkley is the Department Chair. The fact that hiring a woman in chemistry is no longer headline material is due, in part, to a pioneering programme called ACES (Academic Careers in Engineering & Science).

Reforming the United States’ Currency Production

Since the 1980s, the debate about the one-cent piece’s production and use has been discussed throughout relatively recent Congressional history; and has involved economic, financial, industry-based, as well as numismatic groups to weigh in on the topic. The question arises: Why have other countries successfully changed their lower-denomination currency and converted their economic system into one that incorporates cash-rounding while the United States has struggled to do so? By observing international examples of the obsoletion of low-denomination coinage and the implementation of cash-rounding, the proposed economic and financial reform has proved to work as an economically-sound alternative to the current system. Due to industry-based lobbying efforts and growing partisanship within Congress, legislative productivity has decreased across most proposed legislation. The debate about the one-cent piece is one topic that has become stagnant within Congressional committees

The Song of the Lark

Willa Cather’s third novel, The Song of the Lark, depicts the growth of an artist, singer Thea Kronborg, a character inspired by the Swedish-born immigrant and renowned Wagnerian soprano Olive Fremstad. Thea’s early life, however, has much in common with Cather’s own. Set from 1885 to 1909, the novel traces Thea’s long journey from her fictional hometown of Moonstone, Colorado, to her source of inspiration in the Southwest, and to New York and the Metropolitan Opera House. As she makes her way in the world from an unlikely background, Thea distills all her experiences and relationships into the power and passion of her singing, despite the cost. The Song of the Lark presents Cather’s vision of a true artist

Religion in the life and works of Longfellow

An author\u27s work is generally colored by the presence or the lack of religious convictions. The poetry and prose of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow indicate a deep-seated faith in God. Although this faith is most clearly manifested in the works of the man, its source is found in the life and character of the poet himself. It is the aim of this paper to discover the various contributing factors, to ascertain their effect upon the poet and his writings, and to draw certain conclusions concerning his religious faith