The F word: Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay’s essay ‘Bad Feminist’ was described by the Guardian as ‘the most persuasive feminist recruitment drive in recent memory’: she argues for embracing the values of feminism, while admitting her own contradictions and imperfections as a feminist. Her book of the same name – a vibrant, provocative, thoughtful collection of essays that blend pop culture, memoir, and politics – is similarly complex and nuanced. Gay, a creative writing professor, brilliantly blends high and low culture in her work: her essay on The Hunger Games is also a reflection on female strength and surviving trauma, and she eviscerates mainstream American culture’s lingering racism through critiques of films like The Help and Django Unchained. She draws on the personal throughout, but always with a purpose. ‘I’ll show you my bloody guts, but there’s going to be, hopefully, a larger purpose to the writing,’ she says. The Haitian-American writer has also been a driving force in agitating to raise the profile of writers of colour, conducting a count of the books reviewed by leading publications. And her debut novel, An Untamed State, about a brutal kidnapping in Haiti and its gruelling aftermath, has been hailed as ‘riveting … smart, searing’ by the Washington Post. Meet one of America’s most engaging new literary voices in conversation with Maxine Beneba Clarke. Their wide-ranging conversation covers inclusive approaches to feminism and activism, as well as the role of race, history and power in informing An Untamed State. &nbsp

The prevalence of major potential drug-drug interactions at a University health centre pharmacy in Jamaica

Objective: To identify major potential drug-drug interactions (DDIs) on prescriptions filled at the University Health Centre Pharmacy, Mona Campus, Jamaica.Methods: This investigation utilised a cross-sectional analysis on all prescriptions with more than one drug that were filled at the Health Centre Pharmacy              between November 2012 and February 2013. Potential DDIs were identified using the online Drug Interactions Checker database of Drugs.com.Results: During the period of the study, a total of 2814 prescriptions were analysed for potential DDIs. The prevalence of potential DDIs found during the study period was 49.82%. Major potential DDIs accounted for 4.7 % of the total number of interactions detected, while moderate potential DDIs and minor potential DDIs were 80.8 % and 14.5 % respectively. The three most frequently occurring major potential DDIs were amlodipine and simvastatin (n=46), amiloride and losartan (n=27) and amiloride and lisinopril (n=16).Conclusion: This study has highlighted the need for educational initiatives to ensure that physicians and pharmacists collaborate in an effort to minimise the risks to the patients. These interactions are avoidable for the most part, as the use of online tools can facilitate the selection of therapeutic alternatives or guide decisions for closer patient monitoring and thus reduce the risks of adverse events

Modes of organizing biomedical innovation in the UK and US and the role of integrative and relational capabilities

Given that biomedical innovation involves intense collaboration across disciplines, occupations and organizations, a nation's integrative capabilities (the ability to move between basic science and clinical development) and relational capabilities (the ability to collaborate with diverse organizations) have been identified as crucial. This paper deploys qualitative analysis of biomedical innovation in the UK and US to identify mechanisms influencing innovation at the project level through which these macro level capabilities may have effects. From this a propositional framework is developed that helps explain the likely impact of such capabilities for characteristically different kinds of innovation projects at the micro level. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved