Crossing the Great Divide: Rewritings of the U.S.-Mexican Encounter in Walter Abish and Richard Rodríguez

In a 1978 essay on the relationship between Mexico and the United States, Octavio Paz suggested that the two countries were separated by a perhaps insuperable divide. Yet two recent works—Richard Rodríguez\u27s collection of essays Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (1992) and Walter Abish\u27s novel Eclipse Fever (1993)—offer evidence of a changing outlook on the U.S.-Mexican encounter. Abish and Rodríguez build upon the storehouse of images of the irreconcilable differences between the two nations. However, insofar as they play with and question these images, they draw attention to the unstable, fluctuating nature of the U.S.-Mexican encounter in the late twentieth century. Abish focuses on the prevailing inequality in the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, and reflects on the distinctive traits of the national character of each of the two countries. Yet a variety of narrative strategies serve to block any reading of Eclipse Fever in terms of sharply differentiated group identities. Rodríguez repeatedly evokes commonplace contrasts between the two nations. Yet his reading both of a variety of cultural phenomena, and of his own trajectory as an individual, suggests a complex interweaving of the cultures of Mexico and the United States

Study Protocol PROMETHEUS:Prospective Multicenter Study to Evaluate the Correlation Between Safety Margin and Local Recurrence After Thermal Ablation Using Image Co-registration in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Purpose: The primary objective is to determine the minimal ablation margin required to achieve a local recurrence rate of 18 years with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage 0/A hepatocellular carcinoma (or B with a maximum of two lesions < 5 cm each) are eligible. Patients will undergo dual-phase contrast-enhanced computed tomography directly before and after ablation. Ablation margins will be quantitatively assessed using co-registration software, blinding assessors (i.e. two experienced radiologists) for outcome. Presence and location of recurrence are evaluated independently on follow-up scans by two other experienced radiologists, blinded for the quantitative margin analysis. A sample size of 189 tumors (~ 145 patients) is required to show with 80% power that the risk of local recurrence is confidently below 10%. A two-sided binomial z-test will be used to test the null hypothesis that the local recurrence rate is ≥ 10% for patients with a minimal ablation margin ≥ 2 mm. Logistic regression will be used to find the relationship between minimal ablation margins and local recurrence. Kaplan–Meier estimates are used to assess local and overall recurrence, disease-free and overall survival. Discussion: It is expected that this study will result in a clear understanding of the correlation between ablation margins and local recurrence. Using co-registration software in future patients undergoing ablation for hepatocellular carcinoma may improve intraprocedural evaluation of technical success. Trial registration The Netherlands Trial Register (NL9713), https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/9713

Adjuvant hepatic arterial infusion pump chemotherapy and resection versus resection alone in patients with low-risk resectable colorectal liver metastases - the multicenter randomized controlled PUMP trial

Background Recurrences are reported in 70% of all patients after resection of colorectal liver metastases (CRLM), in which half are confined to the liver. Adjuvant hepatic arterial infusion pump (HAIP) chemotherapy aims to reduce the risk of intrahepatic recurrence. A large retrospective propensity score analysis demonstrated that HAIP chemotherapy is particularly effective in patients with low-risk oncological features. The aim of this randomized controlled trial (RCT) --the PUMP trial-- is to investigate the efficacy of adjuvant HAIP chemotherapy in low-risk patients with resectable CRLM. Methods This is an open label multicenter RCT. A total of 230 patients with resectable CRLM without extrahepatic disease will be included. Only patients with a clinical risk score (CRS) of 0 to 2 are eligible, meaning: patients are allowed to have no more than two out of five poor prognostic factors (disease-free interval less than 12 months, node-positive colorectal cancer, more than 1 CRLM, largest CRLM more than 5 cm in diameter, serum Carcinoembryonic Antigen above 200 μg/L). Patients randomized to arm A undergo complete resection of CRLM without any adjuvant treatment, which is the standard of care in the Netherlands. Patients in arm B receive an implantable pump at the time of CRLM resection and start adjuvant HAIP chemotherapy 4–12 weeks after surgery, with 6 cycles of floxuridine scheduled. The primary endpoint is progression-free survival (PFS). Secondary endpoints include overall survival, hepatic PFS, safety, quality of life, and cost-effectiveness. Pharmacokinetics of intra-arterial administration of floxuridine will be investigated as well as predictive biomarkers for the efficacy of HAIP chemotherapy. In a side study, the accuracy of CT angiography will be compared to radionuclide scintigraphy to detect extrahepatic perfusion. We hypothesize that adjuvant HAIP chemotherapy leads to improved survival, improved quality of life, and

Crossing the Great Divide: Rewritings of the U.S.-Mexican Encounter in Walter Abish and Richard Rodríguez

In a 1978 essay on the relationship between Mexico and the United States, Octavio Paz suggested that the two countries were separated by a "perhaps insuperable" divide. Yet two recent works—Richard Rodríguez's collection of essays Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (1992) and Walter Abish's novel Eclipse Fever (1993)—offer evidence of a changing outlook on the U.S.-Mexican encounter. Abish and Rodríguez build upon the storehouse of images of the irreconcilable differences between the two nations. However, insofar as they play with and question these images, they draw attention to the unstable, fluctuating nature of the U.S.-Mexican encounter in the late twentieth century. Abish focuses on the prevailing inequality in the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, and reflects on the distinctive traits of the national character of each of the two countries. Yet a variety of narrative strategies serve to block any reading of Eclipse Fever in terms of sharply differentiated group identities. Rodríguez repeatedly evokes commonplace contrasts between the two nations. Yet his reading both of a variety of cultural phenomena, and of his own trajectory as an individual, suggests a complex interweaving of the cultures of Mexico and the United States

Aux confins des États-Unis et du Mexique : traversée ou renforcement des frontières ?

La frontière, ligne à la fois théorique et matérielle de division et de contact, tracé politique et présupposé de rupture et de continuité, invite a priori à reposer d’une autre manière la question « La littérature a-t-elle un espace ? ». Si l’on s’interroge sur le rapport de la littérature et des espaces concrets (géographiques, géopolitique) et si la frontière est à la fois séparation et suture, sécrète-t-elle une littérature spécifique, comme elle favorise le développement d’espaces hybrid..

A Movement-Artefact-Free Heart-Rate Prediction System

Continuous automatic heart rate (HR) monitoring plays a crucial role in timely intervention for postoperative patients. However, for effective alarm management, patients’ activities of daily living need to be considered as they influence HR. This explorative study aimed to develop a heartrate prediction system while performing six activities. An experiment with fourteen participants was conducted to gather data to build a system. This system consisted of a support-vector machine classifier for activity recognition and a k-Nearest Neighbors regressor for HR prediction. The R-squared (a goodness-of-fit measure) of the HR predictor is 79% on average. Given the heterogeneity of different populations, the system will be further tested and developed using patient datasets in future towards linical practice applications