Reflections of writing, rewriting, and reading in twelfth-century French literature: A study of Guillaume de Palerne as a self-reflexive romance

This thesis explores Guillaume de Palerne as a self-reflexive romance in which twelfth-century practices of writing, rewriting, and reading are reflected in the narrative. As a romance excluded from the main corpus of texts analysed in medieval studies, Guillaume suffered from critical neglect throughout much of the twentieth century. However, a recent rise in interest in this work has called for its integration into mainstream scholarship. This study develops this trend by examining the contribution that Guillaume can make to existing knowledge of romance production and reception. Detailed analysis of Guillaume and its main themes is presented alongside discussion of the intertextual rewriting found within the text. Taking a bipartite form divided into four chapters, the first half of the study explores transformation, before moving on to the notions of doubling and correspondence, and finally to recognition. The thesis argues that the ‘intertextual game of romance’ played between poet and audience is reflected in the Guillaume narrative through the stress placed on transformation and recognition. By exploring doubling and correspondence, this analysis also highlights the relationship between transformation and recognition in the narrative, which in turn mirrors the partnership between poet and audience in romance creation. With its primary focus on the text, this study is facilitated by an engagement with theoretical frameworks, particularly of intertextuality, that discuss medieval composition and reception, stemming both from medieval studies and from modern literary theory. The thesis argues for a holistic approach to examining texts such as Guillaume, stressing the importance of simultaneously exploring both the intra- and extra-diegetic spheres of this work. In so doing, it sheds new light on this overlooked text, and argues for acknowledgement of the place held by Guillaume in the development of French romance

MARIANA ENRÍQUEZ Y EL GÓTICO URBANO DE ARGENTINA

Mariana Enríquez is the predominant figure in Argentine literature today. Her short stories and novels, many of which belong to the subgenre of the Urban Gothic, exemplify the real social fragmentation that currently exists in Buenos Aires through gothic tropes. This paper seeks to understand and explain how Enriquez’s work fits into the gothic genre as a whole, through both a history of gothic literature in general and an analysis of her work. It also seeks to explain the development of Buenos Aires as a gothic city through a historical section and through a panorama of social problems in Buenos Aires today. Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to analyze Enríquez’s work through an urban gothic lens and to explain both the history that shaped it and its implications for the future. Mariana Enríquez es la figura predominante en la literatura argentina hoy. Sus cuentos cortos y sus novelas, muchos de los cuales pertenecen al subgénero del gótico urbano, ejemplifican la fragmentación que existe actualmente en Buenos Aires a través de su uso de tropos góticos. Este artículo trata de comprender y explicar cómo encajan sus obras en el género, a través de ambos una historia de la literatura gótica en general y un análisis de su trabajo. También trata de explicar el desarrollo de Buenos Aires cómo una ciudad gótica a través de una sección de historia y un panorama de los problemas sociales de Buenos Aires hoy en día. A la larga, la meta de este artículo en para analizar las obras de Enríquez a través de una lente del gótico urbano y para explicar ambos la historia que las formó y sus implicaciones para el futuro

What are young Indians saying about mental health? A content analysis of blogs on the It’s Ok To Talk website

Objectives: This study used thematic content analysis to examine submissions to a youth mental health website, www.itsoktotalk.in, in India. Setting: We considered submissions made to the It’s OK to Talk web platform during the first year of its operation (April 2017 - March 2018), focusing specifically on website users based in India. Participants: We analysed 37 submissions by 33 authors aged 19-31 years (mean age 22 years) from 7 Indian cities (New Delhi, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Haryana). Eligible submissions were English-language first-person accounts of self-identified mental health problems, submitted in any media format for online publication by authors aged 18 years or older and who were based in India. Eight study participants were additionally involved in a focus group that contributed to the coding process and preparation of the final manuscript. Results: Four themes were identified:1) Living through difficulties; 2) Mental health in context; 3) Managing one's mental health; and 4) Breaking stigma and sharing hope. Overall, the participants expressed significant feelings of distress and hopelessness as a result of their mental health problems; many described the context of their difficulties as resulting from personal histories or wider societal factors; a general lack of understanding about mental health; and widespread stigma and other negative attitudes. Most participants expressed a desire to overcome mental health prejudice and discrimination. Conclusions: Personal narratives offer a window into young people’s self-identified priorities and challenges related to mental health problems and recovery. Such insights can inform anti-stigma initiatives and other public awareness activities around youth mental health

A ‘living’ guide to fostering collaborative practices in RENEW. Iteration 1.0 (March 2023)

The RENEW project has its foundations in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration, that is, research reaching across disciplines and beyond academia. This document aims to facilitate consideration of, and guide, collaborative practices within and around RENEW. It will act as a ‘living’ resource for RENEW members and partners to use and feed into; this is the first of several planned versions that the Collaboration in Practice team will produce through the project lifetime. In addition to internal versions, at a later stage, drawing on collective learning in RENEW, we will develop this into a publicly available manifesto for collaborative practice, building on other manifestos about wildlife conservation, and interdisciplinarity across natural and social sciences. This first iteration provides several prompts and working recommendations, based on our review of the academic literature and ‘best practice’ reports on interdisciplinarity, co-production, and other modes of research that bring together people from diverse disciplines and sectors. It is a start point, so please contact the authors - the Collaboration in Practice (X3) team of RENEW (https://renewbiodiversity.org.uk/) if you have feedback, additions, amendments, or related ideas

Design and development of the ‘POD Adventures’ smartphone game: a blended problem-solving intervention for adolescent mental health in India

Introduction: Digital technology platforms offer unparalleled opportunities to reach vulnerable adolescents at scale and overcome many barriers that exist around conventional service provision. This paper describes the design and development of POD Adventures, a blended problem-solving game-based intervention for adolescents with or at risk of anxiety, depression and conduct difficulties in India. This intervention was developed as part of the PRemIum for ADolEscents (PRIDE) research programme, which aims to establish a suite of transdiagnostic psychological interventions organised around a stepped care system in Indian secondary schools. Methods and materials: Intervention development followed a person-centered approach consisting of four iterative activities: (i) review of recent context-specific evidence on mental health needs and preferences for the target population of school-going Indian adolescents, including a multiple stakeholder analysis of school counselling priorities and pilot studies of a brief problem-solving intervention; (ii) new focus group discussions with N=46 student participants and N=8 service providers; (iii) co-design workshops with N=22 student participants and N=8 service providers; and (iv) user-testing with N=50 student participants. Participants were aged 12-17 years and recruited from local schools in New Delhi and Goa, including a subgroup with self-identified mental health needs (N=6). Results: Formative data from existing primary sources, new focus groups and co-design workshops supported a blended format for delivering a brief problem-solving intervention, with counsellors supporting use of a game-based app on ‘offline’ smartphones. User-testing with prototypes identified a need for simplification of language, use of concrete examples of concepts and practice elements to enhance engagement. There were also indications that participants most valued relatability and interactivity within real-world stories with judicious support from an in-app guide. The final prototype comprised a set of interactive and gamified vignettes and a structured set of problem-solving questions to consolidate and generalise learning while encouraging real-world application. Discussion: Findings shaped the design of POD Adventures and its delivery as an open-access blended intervention for secondary school students with a felt need for psychological support, consistent with an early intervention paradigm. A randomised controlled trial is planned to evaluate processes and impacts of POD Adventures when delivered for help-seeking students in low-resource school settings

Older UK sheltered housing tenants’ perceptions of wellbeing and their usage of hospital services

The aim of this study was to examine sheltered housing tenants’ views of health and wellbeing, the strategies they adopted to support their wellbeing and their use of health and social care services through a Health Needs Assessment. Sheltered housing in the UK is a form of service-integrated housing for people, predominantly over 60. The study used a parallel, three-strand mixed method approach to encompass the tenants’ perceptions of health and wellbeing (n=96 participants), analysis of the service’s health and wellbeing database and analysis of emergency and elective hospital admissions (n= 978 tenant data sets for the period January to December 2012). Tenants’ perceptions of wellbeing were seen to reinforce much of the previous work on the subject with strategies required to sustain social, community, physical, economic, environmental, leisure, emotional and spiritual dimensions. Of the tenants’ self-reported chronic conditions, arthritis, heart conditions and breathing problems were identified as their most common health concerns. Hospital admission data indicated that 43% of the tenant population was admitted to hospital (886 admissions) with 53% emergency and 47% elective admissions. The potential cost of emergency as opposed to elective admissions was substantial. The mean length of stay for emergency admissions was 8.2 days (median 3.0 days). While elective hospital admission had a mean length of stay of 1.0 day (median 0.0 days). These results suggest the need for multi-professional health, social care and housing services interventions to facilitate sheltered housing tenants’ aspirations and support their strategies to live well and independently in their own homes. Equally there is a need to increase tenants’ awareness of health conditions and their management; the importance of services which offer facilitation, resources and support and the key role played by prevention and reablement

Ecological selection of siderophore-producing microbial taxa in response to heavy metal contamination

Some microbial public goods can provide both individual and community‐wide benefits, and are open to exploitation by non‐producing species. One such example is the production of metal‐detoxifying siderophores. Here, we investigate whether conflicting selection pressures on siderophore production by heavy metals – a detoxifying effect of siderophores, and exploitation of this detoxifying effect – result in a net increase or decrease. We show that the proportion of siderophore‐producing taxa increases along a natural heavy metal gradient. A causal link between metal contamination and siderophore production was subsequently demonstrated in a microcosm experiment in compost, in which we observed changes in community composition towards taxa that produce relatively more siderophores following copper contamination. We confirmed the selective benefit of siderophores by showing that taxa producing large amounts of siderophore suffered less growth inhibition in toxic copper. Our results suggest that ecological selection will favour siderophore‐mediated decontamination, with important consequences for potential remediation strategies

Clinical Impact of Tumour DNA Repair Expression and T-cell Infiltration in Breast Cancers

Impaired DNA repair drives mutagenicity, which increases neoantigen load and immunogenicity. We investigated the expression of proteins involved in the DNA damage response (ATM, Chk2), double-strand break repair (BRCA1, BLM, WRN, RECQL4, RECQL5, TOPO2A, DNA-PKcs, Ku70/Ku80), nucleotide excision repair (ERCC1), base excision repair (XRCC1, pol β, FEN1, PARP1), and immune responses (CD8, PD-1, PD-L1, FOXP3) in 1,269 breast cancers and validated our findings in an independent estrogen receptor–negative (ER−) cohort (n = 279). Patients with tumors that expressed low XRCC1, low ATM, and low BRCA1 were not only associated with high numbers of CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, but were also linked to higher grades, high proliferation indexes, presence of dedifferentiated cells, ER− cells, and poor survival (all P ≤ 0.01). PD-1+ or PD-L1+ breast cancers with low XRCC1 were also linked to an aggressive phenotype that was high grade, had high proliferation indexes, contained dedifferentiated cells and ER− (all with P values ≤ 0.01), and poor survival (P = 0.00021 and P = 0.00022, for PD-1+ and PD-L1+ cancers, respectively) including in an independent ER− validation cohort (P = 0.007 and P = 0.047, respectively). We conclude that the interplay between DNA repair, CD8, PD-L1, and PD-1 can promote aggressive tumor phenotypes. XRCC1-directed personalization of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may be feasible and warrants further investigation in breast cancer. Cancer Immunol Res; 5(4); 292–9. ©2017 AACR

Designing a primary care pharmacist-led review for people treated with opioids for persistent pain: a multi-method qualitative study.

oai:repository.canterbury.ac.uk:97w90Opioids are frequently prescribed for persistent non-cancer pain despite limited evidence of long-term effectiveness and risk of harm. Evidence-based interventions to address inappropriate opioid prescribing are lacking. To explore perspectives of people living with persistent pain to understand barriers and facilitators in reducing opioids in the context of a pharmacist-led primary care review, and identify review components and features for optimal delivery. Primary care multi-method qualitative study. Adults with experience of persistent pain and taking opioids participated in semi-structured interviews (n=15, 73% female) and an online discussion forum (n=31). The Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) provided a framework for data collection and thematic analysis, involving deductive analysis to TDF domains, inductive analysis within-domains to generate subthemes, and subtheme comparison to form across-domain overarching themes. The behaviour change technique taxonomy v.1 and motivational behaviour change technique classification system were used to systematically map themes to behaviour change techniques to identify potential review components and delivery features. 32 facilitator and barrier subthemes for patients reducing opioids were identified across 13 TDF domains. These combined into six overarching themes: learning to live with pain, opioid reduction expectations, assuming a medical model, pharmacist-delivered reviews, pharmacist-patient relationship and patient engagement. Subthemes mapped to 21 unique behaviour change techniques, yielding 17 components and five delivery features for the proposed PROMPPT review. This study generated theoretically-informed evidence for design of a practice pharmacist-led PROMPPT review. Future research will test the feasibility and acceptability of the PROMPPT review and pharmacist training. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2024, The Authors.