Our mess is more.

This collection of thirty-one poems, composed between June 2012 and March 2013, was inspired by my travels to Belize, Prague, London, and Thailand. The collection is my attempt to negotiate, through poetry, the concept of wilderness, and the “messes” (literal and figurative), which we humans make in our attempts to tame it. Structurally, the sonnet is the guiding formal force of this collection, which is made up of a prefatory section, two major sections, and two concluding poems. The first section, “A Life Hardly Lived In,” contains fourteen short lyric poems. This section is structured so that each poem loosely mimics the traditional purpose of the corresponding line in a Shakespearean sonnet. The second section, “For the Birds. For the Humans,” is set entirely in London. I originally composed this section as a traditional heroic sonnet crown, or fifteen linked sonnets. In its final form, I have allowed the sequence to follow a more organic logic. Although the repeating lines are still present, I have moved away from strict adherence to the form. I extend the lessons learned by my interactions with the natural world to my negotiations of personal identity and relationships. My personal experiences are meant to extend towards a reflection on the wider human condition. Thematically, this collection considers how we thrive when we relinquish the desire to control the outside world. The tension in these poems is how, despite knowing this, we still balk at allowing the wild to take over

Present Tense : crime fiction in postapartheid South Africa

Since 1994, when South Africa transitioned from apartheid to majority rule, its locally written crime fiction has become a literary force. Although some critics initially dismissed the genre as superficialand clichéd, most now agree it offers important social, political and ethical insights, providing an arena in which shared issues may be theorised and thought through. These include, for example, the implications of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the loss of faith in governance and the rule of law, issues surrounding race and whiteness, and South Africa’s emergence out of isolation and into the larger world. Less well considered, however, is how crime fiction achieves those ends, and that is the focus of this thesis. It argues that the genre’s hermeneutic conventions, far from being reductive, are powerful tools for conveying social insight because these conventions, when adapted by writers or affected by context, change from text to text, and readers use these intertextual differences to interpret meaning. Together with the genre’s concentration on the collective, on morality, and on law and order, such engagement with the conventions helps readers decipher and in some cases find positive proposals for managing the country’s recovery narrative. After locating South African crime fiction historically and critically, I present my argument firstly through a close critical examination of novels by two South African crime writers, Andrew Brown and Mike Nicol, and then creatively, through my own crime novel, Present Tense. In contrast to Brown, who exaggerates features of the conventional police detective in order to highlight aspectsof identity and belonging in present day South Africa, Nicol subverts most of the conventions of the thriller to offer a searing and pessimistic critique of South African society. Present Tense, a police procedural, adapts conventions relating to the setting, protagonist and narrative resolution in order to address the present-day consequences of apartheid, notions of trust and betrayal, and the dislocation felt by white citizens in the new social order. Thus, paradoxically, the seemingly inflexible conventions of crime fiction enable nuanced comment on social issues at a particular place and time; and this ability ensures the genre’s relevance and importance to a post-traumatic, postcolonial society like South Africa. ACCESS TO THE NOVEL, PRESENT TENSE, IS RESTRICTED

(SNP028) Mary Early and George A. Coyner, interviewed by Amanda Moody, transcribed by Allie Giroux and Victoria M. Edwards

Records the reminiscences of Mary Early, (née Leonard), who lived in New Hope, not far from the Black Rock Springs Hotel, in Black Rock Gap, Virginia. The Black Rock Springs Hotel was a popular tourist destination in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both for its scenic views and for the natural mineral springs for which it was named. Mrs. Early recounts her memories of the grounds and buildings and the popularity of the site in the years following the hotel\u27s destruction by fire in 1909. Includes references to people associated with the hotel and springs, as well as many of the families and local people who lived near the hotel in its heyday. The site where the hotel stood was incorporated into Shenandoah National Park in the 1930s. Joining Mrs. Early in the interview is her son-in-law, George Coyner.https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/snp/1034/thumbnail.jp

Roadmap for the Introduction of a New Dengue Vaccine

Dengue remains the most common vector-transmitted disease in the world despite enormous prevention and control efforts by endemic countries and regions. Today, after decades of research, public health programs contemplate as part of the intervention to control the disease, a safe and effective vaccine against dengue. In this chapter, we review general principles for developing a safe and efficacious vaccine against dengue virus, the current vaccine candidates approved and under research, and the roadmap for the introduction of a new dengue vaccine, based on the procedures, carried out by Mexico, for the licensure and eventual adoption of CYD-TDV vaccine, which concluded with Mexico becoming the first country in the world to grant licensure to a Dengue vaccine in December of 2015. Finally, we discuss the rationale for the adoption of dengue vaccines a public health policy and the paradigm shift required for the efficient adoption of vaccines in low- and middle-income countries

The assessment of usability of electronic shopping: A heuristic evaluation

Today there are thousands of electronic shops accessible via the Web. Some provide user-friendly features whilst others seem not to consider usability factors at all. Yet, it is critical that the electronic shopping interface is user-friendly so as to help users to obtain their desired results. This study applied heuristic evaluation to examine the usability of current electronic shopping. In particular, it focused on four UK-based supermarkets offering electronic services: including ASDA, Iceland, Sainsbury, and Tesco. The evaluation consists of two stages: a free-flow inspection and a task-based inspection. The results indicate that the most significant and common usability problems have been found to lie within the areas of ‘User Control and Freedom’ and ‘Help and Documentation’. The findings of this study are applied to develop a set of usability guidelines to support the future design of effective interfaces for electronic shopping

The prevalence of chronic diseases and major disease risk factors at different ages among 150 000 men and women living in Mexico City: cross-sectional analyses of a prospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While most of the global burden from chronic diseases, and especially vascular diseases, is now borne by low and middle-income countries, few large-scale epidemiological studies of chronic diseases in such countries have been performed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From 1998–2004, 52 584 men and 106 962 women aged ≥35 years were visited in their homes in Mexico City. Self reported diagnoses of chronic diseases and major disease risk factors were ascertained and physical measurements taken. Age- and sex-specific prevalences and means were analysed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After about age 50 years, diabetes was extremely common – for example, 23.8% of men and 26.9% of women aged 65–74 reported a diagnosis. By comparison, ischaemic heart disease was reported by 4.8% of men and 3.0% of women aged 65–74, a history of stroke by 2.8% and 2.3%, respectively, and a history of cancer by 1.3% and 2.1%. Cancer history was generally more common among women than men – the excess being largest in middle-age, due to breast and cervical cancer. At older ages, the gap narrowed because of an increasing prevalence of prostate cancer. 51% of men and 25% of women aged 35–54 smoked cigarettes, while 29% of men and 41% of women aged 35–54 were obese (i.e. BMI ≥30 kg/m²). The prevalence of treated hypertension or measured blood pressure ≥140/90 mmHg increased about 50% more steeply with age among women than men, to 66% of women and 58% of men aged 65–74. Physical inactivity was highly prevalent but daily alcohol drinking was relatively uncommon.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Diabetes, obesity and tobacco smoking are highly prevalent among adults living in Mexico City. Long-term follow-up of this and other cohorts will establish the relevance of such factors to the major causes of death and disability in Mexico.</p

1358-P: Point of Care OGTT for the Screening of Gestational Diabetes: A Feasible Proposal for Low-Resource Settings

Due to the ubiquity of risk factors associated with gestational diabetes (GDM) in Mexican women and the low availability of the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT), we compared the efficacy of two point of care (POC) models for GDM detection against the plasmatic 2hr OGTT-75gr in primary health care clinics in Mexico. We evaluated 328 pregnant women without previous diabetes diagnosis from a prospective cohort study “Cuido mi embarazo”; all of them were tested with the gold standard plasmatic 2hr OGTT-75gr for the diagnosis of GDM based on the ADA 2019 criteria. Simultaneously, we measured with a glucometer (ACCU-CHEK instant®) the glucose concentration either by capillary whole blood (172 measures) or from venous whole blood (156 measures). We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy by calculating the sensitivity, specificity, and ROC curve of each of the glucometer test results compared to the plasmatic test. For the first model, POC venous OGTT, the incidence of GDM was 41.66% compared to 7.05% of the plasmatic test. The ROC area under the curve for GDM prediction was 0.81 (95% CI 0.77-0.85), with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 62.8%. The low specificity is dependent on the fasting venous value of 64% since it was compared to 95% and 97% specificity of the 1hr and 2hr values, respectively. The second model, POC capillary OGTT, had an incidence of GDM of 30.23% compared to 8.13% of the plasmatic test. It had lower sensitivity (78.57%) and higher specificity (74.1%) compared to the first model, having an overall 0.76 (95% CI 0.65-0.88) ROC area under the curve for GDM prediction. We propose POC venous OGTT as a feasible diagnostic alternative for low resource settings where laboratory infrastructure is not available. Its positive bias could be beneficial since the treatment and control of early cases is related to better health outcomes for the moms and their babies. Further analysis is needed to improve GDM, POC screening interventions. Disclosure H. Gallardo: None. J. Lomelin-Gascon: Other Relationship; Self; Lilly Global Health Partnership. L.A. Martinez: Other Relationship; Self; Lilly Global Health Partnership. A. Montoya: None. E. Reyes-Muñoz: None. R.C. Tapia-Conyer: None. Funding Eli Lilly and Company </jats:sec