Leisure, refuge and solidarity:messages in visitors’ books as microforms of travel writing

Visitors’ books not only trace developments in modern tourism, but they also reveal changes in the socio-cultural and language attitudes of travellers from all walks of life over prolonged periods of time. This article investigates messages in visitors’ books from Wales from the mid-nineteenth century up to the present and argues for their recognition as microforms of travel writing. Despite their brevity, entries in visitors’ books are a highly complex form of travel writing particularly in the inscribers’ self-fashioning of identity for future readers. The article examines how writerly choices are not only directly rooted in the discourse of travel, but also in socio-political circumstances in the individual travellers’ countries of origin and their travel destinations

PEDIA: prioritization of exome data by image analysis.

PURPOSE: Phenotype information is crucial for the interpretation of genomic variants. So far it has only been accessible for bioinformatics workflows after encoding into clinical terms by expert dysmorphologists. METHODS: Here, we introduce an approach driven by artificial intelligence that uses portrait photographs for the interpretation of clinical exome data. We measured the value added by computer-assisted image analysis to the diagnostic yield on a cohort consisting of 679 individuals with 105 different monogenic disorders. For each case in the cohort we compiled frontal photos, clinical features, and the disease-causing variants, and simulated multiple exomes of different ethnic backgrounds. RESULTS: The additional use of similarity scores from computer-assisted analysis of frontal photos improved the top 1 accuracy rate by more than 20-89% and the top 10 accuracy rate by more than 5-99% for the disease-causing gene. CONCLUSION: Image analysis by deep-learning algorithms can be used to quantify the phenotypic similarity (PP4 criterion of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics guidelines) and to advance the performance of bioinformatics pipelines for exome analysis

Nutzerberatung im Lesesaal

Mit dem Fokus auf der Praxis soll das Spektrum der Möglichkeiten für eine Organisation der Nutzerberatung umrissen werden. Dazu gilt es, potentielle Ansatzpunkte zu erfassen, zu beschreiben und zu diskutieren sowie systematisch zusammenzustellen. Im Ergebnis soll ein Raster vorgelegt werden, das Archive für die in der Tat vielfältigen Aspekte und Facetten der Nutzerberatung sensibilisiert und das ihnen bei der Prüfung bzw. Gestaltung ihrer hausspezifischen Praxis eine Hilfe sein kann. Aus forschungspraktischen und Platzgründen habe ich mich entschieden, die Untersuchung dabei in doppelter Weise einzugrenzen, und zwar bleibt die Arbeit im Kern auf die Beratung wissenschaftlicher Nutzer in kleinen Archiven beschränkt

Effects of structured patient education in adults with atopic dermatitis: Multicenter randomized controlled trial

Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic relapsing skin disease prevalent in 1% to 3% of adults in Western industrialized countries. Objective: We sought to investigate the effectiveness of educational training in an outpatient setting on coping with the disease, quality of life, symptoms, and severity in adults with AD. Methods: In this German prospective, randomized controlled multicenter study, adult patients with moderate-to-severe AD were educated by referring to a comprehensive 12-hour training manual consented by a multiprofessional study group from different centers (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neurodermitisschulung fur Erwachsene [ARNE]). Patients were randomly allocated to the intervention or waiting control groups. Study visits were performed at baseline and after 1 year (1 year of follow-up). Primary outcomes were defined as a decrease in (1) "catastrophizing cognitions'' with respect to itching (Juckreiz-Kognitions-Fragebogen questionnaire), (2) "social anxiety'' (Marburger Hautfragebogen questionnaire), (3) subjective burden by symptoms of the disease (Skindex-29 questionnaire), and (4) improvement of disease signs and symptoms assessed by using the SCORAD index at 1 year of follow-up. Data were analyzed on an intention-to-treat basis. Results: At 1 year of follow-up, patients from the intervention group (n = 168) showed a significantly better improvement compared with the waiting group (n = 147) in the following defined primary study outcomes: coping behavior with respect to itching (P < .001), quality of life assessed by using the Skindex-29 questionnaire (P < .001), and the SCORAD index (P < .001). Conclusions: This is the first randomized, controlled multicenter study on patient education in adult AD. The ARNE training program shows significant beneficial effects on a variety of psychosocial parameters, as well as AD severity