Outside Bleak House: a transcript of sorts

Jane Topping was one of several artists who contributed to the exhibition 'The Nabokov Paper: an experiment in novel-reading'. The exhibition took as its starting point a now famous class taught during the 1950s by Vladimir Nabokov at Cornell University, New York State, entitled Literature 311-312: Masters of European Fiction. Nabokov’s approach to teaching literary reading was notoriously idiosyncratic. Convinced that one must teach the books themselves, not ideas or generalities, Nabokov would make diagrams of the floor plans of fictional buildings, map the routes taken by characters through the spaces of the novel, and draw items of clothing or furniture; he would also propose to track the course of a single letter, offer a visual representation of a stylistic device, and uncover what he called the mysteries of literary structures. In April 2012, ten artists, eight writers, six university professors, three translators, two architects, a librarian, a curator, a graphic designer, an illustrator and a computer engineer each selected a question on one of seven course texts: Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. The responses they turned in take the form of writing, drawing, painting, film, graphs, indexes, lists, maps, newly designed editions, objects, scale-models, a lecture and a reading game. Contributors include: Graham Allen, James Arnett, Abraham Asfaw, Anne Attali, Katarzyna Bazarnik, Derek Beaulieu, Paul Becker, Christian Bök, Shanna Bosley, Stephen Bury, Chloe Briggs, Kate Briggs, Maurice Carlin, Jennifer Carr, Guillaume Constantin, Jamie Crewe, Véronique Devoldère, Lucia della Paolera, Craig Dworkin, Zenon Fajfer, Helen Frank, Céline Guyot, John Hamilton, Sharon Kivland, Gianni Lavacchini, Anna-Louise Milne, Forbes Morlock, Simon Morris, Amy Pettifer, Lucrezia Russo, Olivia Sautreuil, Nick Thurston, Jane Topping, Madeleine Walton, Patrick Wildgust, Robert Williams and Jack Aylward-Williams, Sarah Wood, Gillian Wylde

Satellite investigations of ice dynamics and supraglacial lake development in Greenland

This thesis aims to improve the current understanding of the processes which control the flow variability of Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) outlet glaciers. The most recent Intergovernmental Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (Meehl et al., 2007) identifies that a critical limitation to forecasts of sea-level rise are uncertainties in modelling the ice dynamics of the GrIS. Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) feature tracking, seasonal velocities of land- and marine- terminating glaciers in a region in the northeast of Greenland are measured. Records of air temperature in conjunction with seasonal observations of supraglacial lake development, sea ice conditions and ice front positions, derived from SAR imagery, are used to investigate the controls on the observed variations in ice velocity. A clear link between ice velocities and glacier hydrology is found. These findings are consistent with observations from other glaciers in Greenland and are suggestive of a universal hydrological forcing of ice velocity for the whole of the GrIS ablation zone. Lake drainage events have been identified as a key factor in linking atmospheric changes, glacier hydrology and ice velocities in Greenland. For modelling purposes, a means of parameterising the distribution and evolution of supraglacial lakes is therefore needed. Assuming that water will pond in surface depressions, this thesis assesses the ability of using Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) for this purpose. High resolution DEMs are created using Interferometric SAR (InSAR) for two, separate regions of the GrIS. The positions and areal extent of surface depressions are compared with those of lakes observed in optical satellite imagery. The level of correspondence between the two datasets is found to be poor as a result of the resolution of the DEMs and the physical differences between surface depressions and lakes (e.g. lakes may not fill the capacity of the depression). An alternative method for parameterising the seasonal distribution of supra-glacial lakes, by extrapolating trends observed in current lake distributions, is investigated. The locations and evolution of lakes in the west of Greenland during the summer of 2003 are mapped using 47 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images. Clear trends are identified in the distributions of lakes with elevation and are linked to the seasonal melt-cycle and to changes in ice thickness and its influence on surface depressions, tensile stresses and hydrofracturing. It may be possible to extrapolate these trends to other regions and higher elevations on the ice sheet, thereby enabling the distribution of lakes to be parameterised in ice sheet models. The findings of this thesis help to contribute to the understanding of the interaction between climate and ice dynamics in the context of the GrIS

Temporal trends and risk factors for readmission for infections, gastrointestinal and immobility complications after an incident hospitalisation for stroke in Scotland between 1997 and 2005

Background: Improvements in stroke management have led to increases in the numbers of stroke survivors over the last decade and there has been a corresponding increase of hospital readmissions after an initial stroke hospitalisation. The aim of this study was to examine the one year risk of having a readmission due to infective, gastrointestinal or immobility (IGI) complications and to identify temporal trends and any risk factors.<p></p> Methods: Using a cohort of first hospitalised for stroke patients who were discharged alive, time to first event (readmission for IGI complications or death) within 1 year was analysed in a competing risks framework using cumulative incidence methods. Regression on the cumulative incidence function was used to model the risks of having an outcome using the covariates age, sex, socioeconomic status, comorbidity, discharge destination and length of hospital stay.<p></p> Results: There were a total of 51,182 patients discharged alive after an incident stroke hospitalisation in Scotland between 1997–2005, and 7,747 (15.1%) were readmitted for IGI complications within a year of the discharge. Comparing incident stroke hospitalisations in 2005 with 1997, the adjusted risk of IGI readmission did not increase (HR = 1.00 95% CI (0.90, 1.11). However, there was a higher risk of IGI readmission with increasing levels of deprivation (most deprived fifth vs. least deprived fifth HR = 1.16 (1.08, 1.26).<p></p> Conclusions: Approximately 15 in 100 patients discharged alive after an incident hospitalisation for stroke in Scotland between 1997 and 2005 went on to have an IGI readmission within one year. The proportion of readmissions did not change over the study period but those living in deprived areas had an increased risk

Surface and hyporheic transient storage dynamics throughout a coastal stream network

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Water Resources Research 46 (2010): W06516, doi:10.1029/2009WR008222.Transient storage of stream water and associated solutes is expected to vary along stream networks in response to related changes in stream hydraulic conditions and morphologic gradients. These spatial changes are relevant to a wide variety of processes (e.g., biogeochemical cycling), yet data regarding these dynamics are limited and almost exclusively confined to the general storage terms of transient storage models with a single-storage zone (1-SZ). We used a transient storage model with two-storage zones (2-SZ) to simulate field data from conservative solute injections conducted in a coastal stream network in Massachusetts to separately quantify surface transient storage (STS) and hyporheic transient storage (HTS). Solute tracer additions were performed at basin-wide, low-flow conditions, and results were compared with respect to stream size. Strong positive relationships with reach contributing area indicated that the size of the main channel and the size and residence time in surface and hyporheic storage zones all increased from small to large streams. Conversely, longitudinal dispersion and the storage zone exchange coefficients had no consistent trends downstream. The influence of storage exchange on median transport time ( $F_{MED}^{200}$) was consistently large for STS and negligible for HTS. When compared to 1-SZ model estimates, we found that the general 1-SZ model storage terms did not consistently describe either STS or HTS exchange. Overall our results indicated that many zone-specific (STS and HTS) storage dynamics were sensitive to the combination of hydraulic and morphologic gradients along the stream network and followed positive trends with stream size.This material is based upon work supported by NSF grants DEB 06‐14350, BCS‐0709685, and OCE‐0423565

HCI and Health: Learning from Interdisciplinary Interactions

HCI has multidisciplinary roots and has drawn from and contributed to different disciplines, including computer science, psychology, sociology, and medicine. There is a natural overlap between health and HCI researchers, given their joint focus on utilising technologies to better support people’s health and wellbeing. However, the best digital health interventions are not simply the result of the ‘application’ of HCI to the domain of healthcare, but emerge when researchers from both camps seek to overcome differences in disciplinary practices, traditions, and values in order to collaborate more effectively and productively. We propose a special interest group (SIG) to include interdisciplinary researchers (i.e., participants active in both communities) as well as researchers from either discipline, but with interests in the other field

Percutaneous cervical cordotomy for cancer-related pain : national data

Objectives: Percutaneous cervical cordotomy (PCC) is an interventional ablative procedure in the armamentarium for cancer pain treatment, but there is limited evidence to support its use. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness and safety of PCC. Methods: Analysis was undertaken of the first national (UK) prospective data repository of adult patients with cancer undergoing PCC for pain treatment. The relationship between pain and other outcomes before and after PCC was examined using appropriate statistical methods. Results: Data on 159 patients’ PCCs (performed from 1 January 2012 to 6 June 2017 in three centres) were assessed: median (IQR) age was 66 (58–71) years, 47 (30%) were female. Mesothelioma was the most common primary malignancy (57%). The median (IQR) time from cancer diagnosis to PCC assessment was 13.3 (6.2–23.2) months; PCC to follow-up was 9 (8–25) days; and survival after PCC was 1.3 (0.6–2.8) months. The mean (SD) for ‘average pain’ using a numerical rating scale was 6 (2) before PCC and 2 (2) at follow-up, and for ‘worst pain’ 9 (1) and 3 (3), respectively. The median (IQR) reduction in strong opioid dose at follow-up was 50% (34–50). With the exception of ‘activity’, all health-related quality of life scores (5-level version of EuroQol-5 Dimension) either improved or were stable after PCC. Six patients (4%) had PCC-related adverse events. Conclusions: PCC is an effective treatment for cancer pain; however, findings in this study suggest PCC referrals tended to be late in patients’ disease trajectories. Further study into earlier treatment and seeking international consensus on PCC outcomes will further enhance opportunities to improve patient care

Integral Projection Models for host-parasite systems with an application to amphibian chytrid fungus

1. Host–parasite models are typically constructed under either a microparasite or macroparasite paradigm. However, this has long been recognized as a false dichotomy because many infectious disease agents, including most fungal pathogens, have attributes of both microparasites and macroparasites. 2. We illustrate how Integral Projection Models (IPMs) provide a novel modelling framework to represent both types of pathogens. We build a simple host–parasite IPM that tracks both the number of susceptible and infected hosts and the distribution of parasite burdens in infected hosts. 3. The vital rate functions necessary to build IPMs for disease dynamics share many commonalities with classic micro and macroparasite models and we discuss how these functions can be parameterized to build a host–parasite IPM. We illustrate the utility of this IPM approach by modelling the temperature-dependent epizootic dynamics of amphibian chytrid fungus in Mountain yellow-legged frogs (Rana muscosa). 4. The host–parasite IPM can be applied to other diseases such as facial tumour disease in Tasmanian devils and white-nose syndrome in bats. Moreover, the host–parasite IPM can be easily extended to capture more complex disease dynamics and provides an exciting new frontier in modelling wildlife disease.Full Tex

‘Trying to pin down jelly’ - exploring intuitive processes in quality assessment for meta-ethnography

Background: Studies that systematically search for and synthesise qualitative research are becoming more evident in health care, and they can make an important contribution to patient care. However, there is still no agreement as to whether, or how we should appraise studies for inclusion. We aimed to explore the intuitive processes that determined the ‘quality’ of qualitative research for inclusion in qualitative research syntheses. We were particularly interested to explore the way that knowledge was constructed. Methods: We used qualitative methods to explore the process of quality appraisal within a team of seven qualitative researchers funded to undertake a meta-ethnography of chronic non-malignant musculoskeletal pain. Team discussions took place monthly between October 2010 and June 2012 and were recorded and transcribed. Data was coded and organised using constant comparative method. The development of our conceptual analysis was both iterative and collaborative. The strength of this team approach to quality came from open and honest discussion, where team members felt free to agree, disagree, or change their position within the safety of the group. Results: We suggest two core facets of quality for inclusion in meta-ethnography - (1) Conceptual clarity; how clearly has the author articulated a concept that facilitates theoretical insight. (2) Interpretive rigour; fundamentally, can the interpretation ‘be trusted?’ Our findings showed that three important categories help the reader to judge interpretive rigour: (ii) What is the context of the interpretation? (ii) How inductive is the interpretation? (iii) Has the researcher challenged their interpretation? Conclusions: We highlight that methods alone do not determine the quality of research for inclusion into a meta-ethnography. The strength of a concept and its capacity to facilitate theoretical insight is integral to meta-ethnography, and arguably to the quality of research. However, we suggest that to be judged ‘good enough’ there also needs to be some assurance that qualitative findings are more than simply anecdotal. Although our conceptual model was developed specifically for meta-ethnography, it may be transferable to other research methodologies