This Court Doth Keep All England in Quiet : Star Chamber and Public Expression in Prerevolutionary England, 1625–1641

The abrupt legislative destruction of the Court of Star Chamber in the summer of 1641 is generally understood as a reaction against the perceived abuses of prerogative government during the decade of Charles I\u27s personal rule. The conception of the court as an \u27extra-legal\u27 tribunal (or as a legitimate court that had exceeded its jurisdictional mandate) emerges from the constitutional debate about the limits of executive authority that played out over in Parliament, in the press, in the pulpit, in the courts, and on the battlefields of seventeenth-century England. Too narrow a focus on the question of the court\u27s legitimacy, however, impedes our ability to understand the historical Court of Star Chamber and the significant role it played in policing the boundaries of public expression in prerevolutionary England. This thesis attempts to capture an image of the Court of Star Chamber as it existed during the late 1620s and early 1630s by identifying the individuals who formed the \u27core\u27 of the court and by examining the court\u27s decisions in a series of representative cases. This study exposes the fault lines of political allegiance, religious persuasion, and judicial temperament that divided the members of the court. On the other hand, it suggests that the men who sat as judges in the Court of Star Chamber shared a commitment to the preservation of the established order in church and state—a commitment fundamentally out of place in a society that was entering a period of radical change

Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Survival of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in the Ontario Population; A Population-Based Study, 1990–2009

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Research has shown that people from higher socioeconomic status (SES) have better hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) survival outcomes, although no such research has been carried out in Canada. We aimed to assess if an association between SES and HCC survival existed in the Canadian context.</p> <h3>Methodology/Prinicpal Findings</h3><p>We conducted a population-based cohort study linking HCC cases identified in the Ontario Cancer Registry between 1990 and 2009 to administrative and hospital data. Logistic regression and chi-squared tests were used to evaluate associations between SES (income quintile) and covariates. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate survival. Sequential analysis of the proportional-hazards models were used to determine the association between SES and HCC survival controlling for potential prognostic covariates. During the period 1990–2009<b>,</b> 5,481 cases of HCC were identified. A significant association was found between SES and curative treatment (p = 0.0003), but no association was found between SES and non-curative treatment (p = 0.064), palliative treatment (p = 0.680), or ultrasound screening (p = 0.615). The median survival for the lowest SES was 8.5 months, compared to 8.8 months for the highest SES group. The age- and sex-adjusted proportional-hazards model showed statistically significant difference in HCC survival among the SES groups, with hazard ratio 0.905 (95% confidence intervals 0.821, 0.998) when comparing highest to lowest SES group. Further adjustments indicated that potentially curative treatment was the likely explanation for the association between SES and HCC survival.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>Our findings suggest that a 10% HCC survival advantage exists for the higher SES groups. This association between SES and HCC survival is most likely a reflection of lack of access to care for low SES groups, revealing inequities in the Canadian healthcare system.</p> </div

Storm-time response of the mid-latitude thermosphere: Observations from a network of Fabry-Perot interferometers

Observations of thermospheric neutral winds and temperatures obtained from a network of five Fabry-Perot interferometers deployed in the midwest United States during a geomagnetic storm on 2 October 2013 showed that coincident with the commencement of the storm, the horizontal wind was observed to surge westward and southward (towards the equator). Simultaneous with this surge in the horizontal winds, an apparent downward wind of approximately 100 m/s lasting for 6 hours was also observed. The neutral temperature was observed to increase by approximately 400 K over all of the sites. Similar results of downward vertical winds and sustained heating have been seen in other geomagnetic storm events. The large sustained apparent downward winds are interpreted as arising from the contamination of the nominal spectral profile of the 630.0-nm population distribution, which is thermalized within the thermosphere region, by fast O related to the infusion of low-energy O+ ions that are generated by charge exchange and momentum transfer collisions. This interpretation is supported through simultaneous observations made by the Helium, Oxygen, Proton, and Electron spectrometer instruments on the twin Van Allen Probes spacecrafts, which show an influx of low-energy ions well correlated with the period of apparent downward winds. These results emphasize the importance of distributed networks of instruments in understanding the complex dynamics that occur in the upper atmosphere during disturbed conditions and represent an example of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling

Kaplan-Meier survival estimates of people diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma by socio-economic status, 1990–2009.

<p>Log-rank test: p = 0.172. Income quintile 1, lowest socioeconomic status; Income quintile 5, highest socioeconomic status.</p

Risk of mortality after the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma: unadjusted Cox proportional-hazards regression models.

†<p>Variable modeled as time-dependent covariate. ^‡Patients were not considered as being screened if they had only one ultrasound in the three months prior to diagnosis or if they were receiving HCC care prior to the ultrasound. CI, confidence intervals; HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma.</p

Odds^† of having a Charlson Comorbidity score greater than or equal to 1, receiving ultrasound screening, and receiving curative treatment, by income quintile.

†<p>Using logistic regression models adjusted for age and sex. ^‡Patients were not considered as being screened if they had only one ultrasound in the three months prior to diagnosis or if they were receiving HCC care prior to the ultrasound.</p><p>Income quintile 1, lowest socioeconomic status; Income quintile 5, highest socioeconomic status.</p><p>OR, odds ratio; CI, confidence intervals.</p

Kaplan-Meier survival estimates of people who received curative treatment for with hepatocellular carcinoma by socio-economic status, 1990–2009.

<p>Log-rank test: p = 0.376. Income quintile 1, lowest socioeconomic status; Income quintile 5, highest socioeconomic status.</p