3,076 research outputs found
Feminists really do count : the complexity of feminist methodologies
We are delighted to be presenting this special issue on the topic of feminism and quantitative methods. We believe that such an issue is exceptionally timely. This is not simply because of ongoing debates around quantification within the field of feminism and womenâs studies. It is also because of debates within the wider research community about the development of appropriate methodologies that take account of new technological and philosophical concerns and are fit-for-purpose for researching contemporary social, philosophical, cultural and global issues. Two areas serve as exemplars in this respect and both speak to these combined wider social science and specifically feminist methodological concerns. The first is the increasing concern amongst social scientists with how the complexity of social life can be captured and analysed. Within feminism, this can be seen in debates about intersectionality that recognise the concerns arising from multiple social positions/divisions and associated power issues. As Denis (2008: 688) comments in respect of intersectional analysis âThe challenge of integrating multiple, concurrent, yet often contradictory social locations into analyses of power relations has been issued. Theorising to accomplish this end is evolving, and we are struggling to develop effective methodological tools in order to marry theorising with necessary complex analyses of empirical data.â Secondly, new techniques and new data sources are now coming on line. This includes work in the UK of the ESRC National Data Strategy which has been setting out the priorities for the development of research data resources both within and across the boundaries of the social sciences. This will facilitate historical, longitudinal, interdisciplinary and mixed methodological research. And it may be the case that these developments facilitate the achievement of a longstanding feminist aim not simply for interdisciplinarity but for transdisciplinarity in epistemological and methodological terms
Intranasal melanoma treated with radiation therapy in three dogs
Three dogs were investigated for chronic unilateral nasal discharge. In all cases CT imaging showed an intranasal mass causing turbinate lysis and no evidence of metastasis. Cytology in cases 1 (a 14-year-old neutered male crossbreed dog) and 2 (a five-year-old neutered male German Shepherd dog) demonstrated a pleomorphic cell population with variable intracellular pigment suspicious of melanocytic neoplasia. Histopathology with immunohistochemistry (Melan-A and vimentin, plus PNL-2 in one case) confirmed the diagnosis of melanoma in all dogs. All dogs were treated with megavoltage radiotherapy using linear accelerators. Cases 1 and 3 (a nine-year-old neutered female beagle dog) received a hypofractionated (4 Ă 8 Gy) protocol and case 2 received a definitive (12 Ă 4 Gy) protocol. Complete remission was demonstrated on repeat CT scan five months after diagnosis in case 1 and seven months in case 2. Stable disease was documented on CT at four months for case 3; however, clinical signs in this dog remained controlled for 10 months in total. Case 1 died of unrelated causes five months after diagnosis, case 2 was euthanased due to the development of seizures 13 months after diagnosis, and case 3 was lost to follow-up 12 months after diagnosis. Melanoma should be considered as a rare differential diagnosis for primary nasal neoplasia in the dog and radiation therapy can be used as effective local therapy
Are you handling genital oedema confidently?
Men, women or children can suffer from oedema (swelling) of the genitalia. When differential diagnosis has excluded acute trauma or pathology and swelling remains, the condition may be diagnosed as genital lymphoedema, a chronic condition that increases the relative risk of cellulitis. Diagnosis of genital oedema is often delayed due to problems with patient and health professional behaviour, in terms of embarrassment, lack of confidence or lack of knowledge. Awareness of this condition and knowledge on how to manage it will go a long way in helping both patients and clinicians overcome the challenges of addressing genital oedema. This article describes the authors' experiences in managing genital oedema. It also briefly discusses a new international project that seeks to identify the knowledge and training that health professionals need to manage this condition more confidently
Monitoring the South African National Antiretroviral Treatment Programme, 2003-2007: the IeDEA Southern Africa collaboration.
OBJECTIVES: To introduce the combined South African cohorts of the International epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS Southern Africa (IeDEA-SA) collaboration as reflecting the South African national antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme; to characterise patients accessing these services; and to describe changes in services and patients from 2003 to 2007. DESIGN AND SETTING: Multi-cohort study of 11 ART programmes in Gauteng, Western Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. SUBJECTS: Adults and children (<16 years old) who initiated ART with > or =3 antiretroviral drugs before 2008. RESULTS: Most sites were offering free treatment to adults and children in the public sector, ranging from 264 to 17,835 patients per site. Among 45,383 adults and 6,198 children combined, median age (interquartile range) was 35.0 years (29.8-41.4) and 42.5 months (14.7-82.5), respectively. Of adults, 68% were female. The median CD4 cell count was 102 cells/microl (44-164) and was lower among males than females (86, 34-150 v. 110, 50-169, p<0.001). Median CD4% among children was 12% (7-17.7). Between 2003 and 2007, enrolment increased 11-fold in adults and 3-fold in children. Median CD4 count at enrolment increased for all adults (67-111 cells/microl, p<0.001) and for those in stage IV (39-89 cells/microl, p<0.001). Among children <5 years, baseline CD4% increased over time (11.5-16.0%, p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: IeDEA-SA provides a unique opportunity to report on the national ART programme. The study describes dramatically increased enrolment over time. Late diagnosis and ART initiation, especially of men and children, need attention. Investment in sentinel sites will ensure good individual-level data while freeing most sites to continue with simplified reporting
Initial experience of a public sector antiretroviral treatment programme for HIV-infected children and their infected parents
Objective. To describe the initial experience of treating HIVinfected children and their infected parents with antiretroviral therapy. Design. Prospective, cohort study. Setting. Tertiary, referral hospital. Patients. HIV-infected children and their parents. Methods. This report focuses on the early response of children to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Children were followed up at 4-weekly intervals. Monitoring included initial and yearly viral load measurements, baseline and 6- monthly CD4 counts and 4-weekly adherence checks. Results. Between August 2002 and June 2003, 80 children were enrolled in the programme, representing a follow-up period of 23.9 patient-years. Seventy-five children had severe clinical disease, severe immune suppression, or a combination of the two. The response of children who had received HAART for â„ 6 months (N = 17) was assessed. There was no change in mass z-score (p = 0.11) or length z-score (p = 0.37), but a significant increase in CD4 percentage (p < 0.0001) during the first 6 months of therapy. Six-month viral loads were available for 12 children. There was a significant drop in viral load (p = 0.001) and 9 achieved undetectable levels by 6 months. Most children achieved â„ 85% adherence. By June 2002, 67 children (84%) were relatively well, 1 had B-cell lymphoma, 7 (8.8%) had died, 4 (5%) were lost to follow-up and 1 was withdrawn from the programme. Of 57 children who completed 3 months of HAART, 12 were admitted a total of 17 times for infectious complications. There were no severe drug reactions. Three of 7 mothers on HAART received treatment through the programme. Conclusion. These initial results suggest that many HIVinfected children in the public sector will benefit from antiretroviral therapy. However, both ambulatory and inpatient facilities are required to manage children on HAART comprehensivel
Clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic factors for canine multicentric nonâindolent Tâcell lymphoma: 107 cases
Canine lymphoma, as the most common haematopoietic malignancy, encompasses a group of heterogeneous diseases and even within the T-cell immunophenotype, differences in clinical presentation and responses to treatment exist. The aim of this retrospective study was to determine outcomes and prognostic factors of 107 dogs with multicentric non-indolent T-cell lymphoma (TCL) receiving lomustine-based (70%) and non-lomustine-based (30%) treatment. The majority were Labradors, Boxers, mixed-breed dogs and Dogue de Bordeaux. Eighty-six percent were substage b, 77% had mediastinal involvement, 15% had suspected bone marrow involvement and 12% had other extra-nodal sites of disease. The overall response rate to induction therapy was 80%; dogs receiving procarbazine in the induction protocol (P = .042), dogs with neutrophil concentration below 8.7 Ă 10e9 /L (P = .006) and mitotic rate below 10 per 5 high power field (P = .013), had greater response rates. Median progression-free survival (PFS) for the first remission was 105 days; lack of expression of CD3 on flow cytometry (P < .0001) and pretreatment with steroid (P = .012) were significantly associated with shorter PFS. Median overall survival time (OST) was 136 days; co-expression of CD79a (P = .002), lack of CD3 expression on flow cytometry, presence of anaemia (P = .007), and monocytopenia (P = .002) were predictive of shorter OST. Multicentric non-indolent TCL in dogs is an aggressive cancer with new possible prognostic factors
The problem with Kappa
It is becoming clear that traditional
evaluation measures used in
Computational Linguistics (including
Error Rates, Accuracy, Recall, Precision
and F-measure) are of limited value for
unbiased evaluation of systems, and are
not meaningful for comparison of
algorithms unless both the dataset and
algorithm parameters are strictly
controlled for skew (Prevalence and
Bias). The use of techniques originally
designed for other purposes, in particular
Receiver Operating Characteristics Area
Under Curve, plus variants of Kappa,
have been proposed to fill the void.
This paper aims to clear up some of the
confusion relating to evaluation, by
demonstrating that the usefulness of each
evaluation method is highly dependent on
the assumptions made about the
distributions of the dataset and the
underlying populations. The behaviour of
a number of evaluation measures is
compared under common assumptions.
Deploying a system in a context which
has the opposite skew from its validation
set can be expected to approximately
negate Fleiss Kappa and halve Cohen
Kappa but leave Powers Kappa
unchanged. For most performance
evaluation purposes, the latter is thus
most appropriate, whilst for comparison
of behaviour, Matthews Correlation is
recommended
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA): growing up in a bad neighbourhood - how do low-mass galaxies become passive?
Both theoretical predictions and observations of the very nearby Universe
suggest that low-mass galaxies (log[M/M]<9.5) are likely
to remain star-forming unless they are affected by their local environment. To
test this premise, we compare and contrast the local environment of both
passive and star-forming galaxies as a function of stellar mass, using the
Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey. We find that passive fractions are higher in
both interacting pair and group galaxies than the field at all stellar masses,
and that this effect is most apparent in the lowest mass galaxies. We also find
that essentially all passive log[M/M]<8.5 galaxies are
found in pair/group environments, suggesting that local interactions with a
more massive neighbour cause them to cease forming new stars. We find that the
effects of immediate environment (local galaxy-galaxy interactions) in forming
passive systems increases with decreasing stellar mass, and highlight that this
is potentially due to increasing interaction timescales giving sufficient time
for the galaxy to become passive via starvation. We then present a simplistic
model to test this premise, and show that given our speculative assumptions, it
is consistent with our observed results.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, Accepted to MNRA
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