If Only They Could Read between the Lines: Alice Randall and the Integration of Country Music

She\u27s got her God and she\u27s got good wine, Aretha Franklin and Patsy Cline, sings Trisha Yearwood in her top-selling 1994 single xxxs and ooos (an American Girl). Cowritten by Matraca Berg, a Nashville singer-songwriter, and Alice Randall, an African American Harvard graduate, it is one of the first songs written by an African American woman to top the country charts. Randall takes special pride in the moment of integration created by naming Franklin and Cline, and such juxtapositions energize nearly all of her writing.1 Unlike Donna Summer, with her wondrous number 1 hit, Dolly Parton\u27s 1980 Starting Over Again, Randall has maintained a presence in country music for nearly twenty years, integrating songwriting teams by creating lyrics with many notable writers, including Steve Earle, Matraca Berg, and Marcus Hummons.l She has also shaped the visual and intellectual presentation of contemporary country music. She cowrote two of the songs included in Peter Bogdanovich\u27s 1993 film about aspiring Nashville songwriters, The Thing Called Love. She worked as a screenwriter on the high-profile video Is There Life Out There for Reba McEntire and the made-for-Tv movie xxx\u27s and ooo \u27s, set in Nashville. Both works were inspired by the complex lives of the American women described in the songs to which the titles refer. The author of My Country Roots: The Ultimate MP3 Guide to America\u27s Original Outsider Music (2oo6, with Carter and Courtney Little), Randall has an encyclopedic knowledge of country songs; My Country Roots features one hundred playlists

The Sand Art Bottles of Andrew Clemens

Review of: The Sand Art Bottles of Andrew Clemens, by Roy Sucholeiki

Hollywood in the Heartland: A Review Essay

Review of: "The Book of Iowa Films" by Marty S. Knepper and John Shelton Lawrence and the exhibition "Hollywood in the Heartland," curated by Leo Landis, at the State Historical Museum of Iowa in Des Moines, Iowa, from June 27, 2014, to December 2016

The Sand Art Bottles of Andrew Clemens

Review of: "The Sand Art Bottles of Andrew Clemens," by Roy Sucholeiki

Barriers to early presentation of self-discovered breast cancer in Singapore and Malaysia: a qualitative multicentre study

Objective: To explore and compare barriers to early presentation of self-discovered breast cancer in Singapore and Malaysia. Design: A qualitative interview study with thematic analysis of transcripts. Participants: 67 patients with self-discovered breast symptoms were included in the analysis. Of these, 36% were of Malay ethnicity, 39% were Chinese and 25% Indian, with an average age of 58 years (range 24–82 years). The number of women diagnosed at early stages of cancer almost equalled those at advanced stages. Approximately three-quarters presented with a painless lump, one-quarter experienced a painful lump and 10% had atypical symptoms. Setting: University hospital setting in Singapore and Malaysia. Results: Patients revealed barriers to early presentation not previously reported: the poor quality of online website information about breast symptoms, financial issues and the negative influence of relatives in both countries, while perceived poor quality of care and services in state-run hospitals and misdiagnosis by healthcare professionals were reported in Malaysia. The pattern of presentation by ethnicity remained unchanged where more Malay delayed help-seeking and had more advanced cancer compared to Chinese and Indian patients. Conclusions: There are few differences in the pattern of presentation and in the reported barriers to seek medical care after symptom discovery between Singapore and Malaysia despite their differing economic status. Strategies to reduce delayed presentation are: a need to improve knowledge of disease, symptoms and causes, quality of care and services, and quality of online information; and addressing fear of diagnosis, treatment and hospitalisation, with more effort focused on the Malay ethnic group. Training is needed to avoid missed diagnoses and other factors contributing to delay among health professionals

Genetically Determined Plasma Lipid Levels and Risk of Diabetic Retinopathy: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

Results from observational studies examining dyslipidemia as a risk factor for diabetic retinopathy (DR) have been inconsistent. We evaluated the causal relationship between plasma lipids and DR using a Mendelian randomization approach. We pooled genome-wide association studies summary statistics from 18 studies for two DR phenotypes: any DR (N = 2,969 case and 4,096 control subjects) and severe DR (N = 1,277 case and 3,980 control subjects). Previously identified lipid-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms served as instrumental variables. Meta-analysis to combine the Mendelian randomization estimates from different cohorts was conducted. There was no statistically significant change in odds ratios of having any DR or severe DR for any of the lipid fractions in the primary analysis that used single nucleotide polymorphisms that did not have a pleiotropic effect on another lipid fraction. Similarly, there was no significant association in the Caucasian and Chinese subgroup analyses. This study did not show evidence of a causal role of the four lipid fractions on DR. However, the study had limited power to detect odds ratios less than 1.23 per SD in genetically induced increase in plasma lipid levels, thus we cannot exclude that causal relationships with more modest effect sizes exist

A mechanistic multi-centre, parallel group, randomised placebo controlled trial of Mesalazine for treatment of irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea (IBS-D)

Introduction: Immune activation has been reported in the mucosa of irritable bowel syndrome patients with diarrhoea (IBS-D) and some small studies have suggested that Mesalazine may reduce symptoms. We performed a double blind, randomised placebo controlled trial of 2g Mesalazine twice daily versus placebo for 3 months in Rome III criteria IBS-D patients. Primary outcome was daily average stool frequency during weeks 11-12; secondary outcomes were abdominal pain, stool consistency, urgency and satisfactory relief of IBS symptoms. Methods: Participants were randomised after a 2-week baseline stool diary. All participants completed a 12-week stool diary and at the end of each week recorded the presence of “satisfactory relief of IBS symptoms”. Results: 136 patients with IBS-D (82 F, 54 M) were randomised, 10 patients withdrew from each group. Analysis by intention to treat showed the daily average stool frequency during weeks 11 and 12 were mean (SD), 2.8 (1.2) in Mesalazine and 2.7 (1.9) in placebo group with no significant group difference (95% confidence interval) 0.1 (-0.33,0.53); p=0.66. Mesalazine did not improve abdominal pain, stool consistency nor percentage with satisfactory relief compared to placebo during the last 2 weeks follow up. Conclusion: This study does not support any clinically meaningful benefit or harm of Mesalazine compared with placebo in unselected IBS with diarrhoea. More precise subtyping based on underlying disease mechanisms is needed to allow more effective targeting of treatment in IBS. (ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT01316718