‘C’était moi mais ce n’était pas moi’: portrayal of the disabled body in Catherine Breillat’s Abus de faiblesse (2013)

Writer/director Catherine Breillat’s most recent film, Abus de faiblesse (2013), explores an important moment of bodily transition: the change from able to disabled body. This semi-autobiographic film follows the story of film director Maud (Breillat’s alter ego), who forms a destructive relationship with a conman, Vilko, after she suffers a disabling stroke. This film shows consistency with Breillat’s previous work in its exploration of the constructed nature of the female body onscreen. In the past the filmmaker has portrayed moments of trauma and transition (such as childbirth, loss of virginity or rape) to subvert processes of objectification. The article argues that Abus de faiblesse challenges and subverts representation of the post-menopausal and disabled body onscreen. The film interrogates binary oppositions such as able/disabled and independence/dependency to challenge representations of the disabled body as ‘other’. With reference to scholarly work on disability and the ageing female body, the article suggests that Maud’s sadomasochistic relationship with Vilko is driven by a quest to retain her subjectivity after her stroke. The article demonstrates that the film dissects the feared and the unknown territory of the ageing female body

Health economic burden that wounds impose on the National Health Service in the UK

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of wounds managed by the UK's National Health Service (NHS) in 2012/2013 and the annual levels of healthcare resource use attributable to their management and corresponding costs. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort analysis of the records of patients in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) Database. Records of 1000 adult patients who had a wound in 2012/2013 (cases) were randomly selected and matched with 1000 patients with no history of a wound (controls). Patients' characteristics, wound-related health outcomes and all healthcare resource use were quantified and the total NHS cost of patient management was estimated at 2013/2014 prices. RESULTS: Patients' mean age was 69.0 years and 45% were male. 76% of patients presented with a new wound in the study year and 61% of wounds healed during the study year. Nutritional deficiency (OR 0.53; p<0.001) and diabetes (OR 0.65; p<0.001) were independent risk factors for non-healing. There were an estimated 2.2 million wounds managed by the NHS in 2012/2013. Annual levels of resource use attributable to managing these wounds and associated comorbidities included 18.6 million practice nurse visits, 10.9 million community nurse visits, 7.7 million GP visits and 3.4 million hospital outpatient visits. The annual NHS cost of managing these wounds and associated comorbidities was pound5.3 billion. This was reduced to between pound5.1 and pound4.5 billion after adjusting for comorbidities. CONCLUSIONS: Real world evidence highlights wound management is predominantly a nurse-led discipline. Approximately 30% of wounds lacked a differential diagnosis, indicative of practical difficulties experienced by non-specialist clinicians. Wounds impose a substantial health economic burden on the UK's NHS, comparable to that of managing obesity ( pound5.0 billion). Clinical and economic benefits could accrue from improved systems of care and an increased awareness of the impact that wounds impose on patients and the NHS.Ye

16S rDNA-based phylogeny of sulfur-oxidizing bacterial endosymbionts in marine bivalves from cold-seep habitats

The phylogenetic relationship of sulphur-oxidising endosymbiotic bacteria from bivalves of the families Vesicomyidae (Calyptogena sp. C1, Calyptogena sp. C3), Solemyidae (Acharax sp.) and Thyasiridae (Conchocele sp.) from cold-seep habitats were determined by 16S rDNA nucleotide sequence analyses. The endosymbiotic bacteria form distinct groups within the gamma-Proteobacteria and are well separated from each other and from free-living sulphur-oxidising bacteria of the genera Beggiatoa, Halothiobacillus and Thiomicrospira. The endosymbiotic bacteria of Acharax sp. from cold seeps off Oregon, Indonesia and Pakistan have sequences highly similar to each other but quite distinct from other thiotrophic endosymbionts. This includes endosymbionts from Solemya spp., to which they are distantly related. Symbiotic bacteria of Conchocele sp. from a cold seep in the Sea of Okhotsk are similar to those of Bathymodiolus thermophilus and related species, as shown by their overall sequence similarity and by signature sequences. The endosymbiotic bacteria of Calyptogena spp. from cold seeps off Oregon and Pakistan are closely related to those of other vesicomyids. Endosymbiont species found off Oregon corresponded to 2 different clusters of Calyptogena spp. symbionts in the same samples. The results corroborate the hypothesis of a monophyletic origin of the symbionts in vesicomyid clams, and support the existence of deeply branching groups in solemyid symbionts and of divergent lines and distribution for thyasirid symbionts. The results also indicate that certain symbiont species cluster according to the depth distribution of their hosts, and that in consequence host species together with their symbionts may have undergone depth-specific adaptation and evolution

Rigid upper bounds for the angular momentum and centre of mass of non-singular asymptotically anti-de Sitter space-times

We prove upper bounds on angular momentum and centre of mass in terms of the Hamiltonian mass and cosmological constant for non-singular asymptotically anti-de Sitter initial data sets satisfying the dominant energy condition. We work in all space-dimensions larger than or equal to three, and allow a large class of asymptotic backgrounds, with spherical and non-spherical conformal infinities; in the latter case, a spin-structure compatibility condition is imposed. We give a large class of non-trivial examples saturating the inequality. We analyse exhaustively the borderline case in space-time dimension four: for spherical cross-sections of Scri, equality together with completeness occurs only in anti-de Sitter space-time. On the other hand, in the toroidal case, regular non-trivial initial data sets saturating the bound exist.Comment: improvements in the presentation; some statements correcte

Standard and Embedded Solitons in Nematic Optical Fibers

A model for a non-Kerr cylindrical nematic fiber is presented. We use the multiple scales method to show the possibility of constructing different kinds of wavepackets of transverse magnetic (TM) modes propagating through the fiber. This procedure allows us to generate different hierarchies of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) which describe the propagation of optical pulses along the fiber. We go beyond the usual weakly nonlinear limit of a Kerr medium and derive an extended Nonlinear Schrodinger equation (eNLS) with a third order derivative nonlinearity, governing the dynamics for the amplitude of the wavepacket. In this derivation the dispersion, self-focussing and diffraction in the nematic are taken into account. Although the resulting nonlinear $PDE$ may be reduced to the modified Korteweg de Vries equation (mKdV), it also has additional complex solutions which include two-parameter families of bright and dark complex solitons. We show analytically that under certain conditions, the bright solitons are actually double embedded solitons. We explain why these solitons do not radiate at all, even though their wavenumbers are contained in the linear spectrum of the system. Finally, we close the paper by making comments on the advantages as well as the limitations of our approach, and on further generalizations of the model and method presented.Comment: "Physical Review E, in press

Shockwave lithotripsy compared with ureteroscopic stone treatment for adults with ureteric stones : the TISU non-inferiority RCT

Acknowledgements The authors wish to thank the patients who participated in the TISU trial.We also thank Stanley Coutts (patient representative) and Charles Clark (patient representative and co-applicant) for their contribution to the design of the participant-facing documents (patient information sheet and questionnaires); Sharon Wren for her secretarial support and data management; previous data co-ordinators, Jessica Wood and Margery Heath, for their data and trial management support; the CHaRT programming team led by Gladys McPherson (to 2016) and Mark Forrest (2016–present); other staff within CHaRT and the HSRU for their assistance with the trial (Cynthia Fraser); members of the PMG for their ongoing advice and support of the trial, plus the independent members of the TSC and DMC; and the staff at the recruitment sites who facilitated the recruitment, treatment and follow-up of trial participants (all listed below); and, finally, we would like to thank the National Institute for Health Research and the Health Technology Assessment programme for funding the TISU trial. Funding This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 26, No. 19. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Bodies on the margins: regulating bodies, regulatory bodies

Sport is all about bodies, but some bodies are seen as on the margins and policies are directed at re-situating them into the mainstream. This article explores some of the ways in which embodied selves are the target of diversity policies and practices, especially those implemented by fan-based, anti-racist organisations. I use the phenomenological concepts of lived bodies and embodied selves to explore some of the processes involved in addressing 'bodies on the margins' in sport. Sport has long been considered a site for the creation of healthy citizens, a tradition which has been rearticulated to encompass diverse groups of people who are seen as under-represented in sport. This article looks at which embodied selves are encouraged to participate by non-governmental regulatory bodies in sport, to investigate the tension between the positive and negative dimensions of diversity politics in sport, as an example of what Paul Gilroy calls 'conviviality'

Preliminary assessment of the feasibility of using AB words to assess candidacy in adults

Background: Adult cochlear implant (CI) candidacy is assessed in part by the use of speech perception measures. In the United Kingdom the current cut-off point to fall within the CI candidacy range is a score of less than 50% on the BKB sentences presented in quiet (presented at 70 dBSPL). Goal: The specific goal of this article was to review the benefit of adding the AB word test to the assessment test battery for candidacy. Results: The AB word test scores showed good sensitivity and specificity when calculated based on both word and phoneme scores. The word score equivalent for 50% correct on the BKB sentences was 18.5% and it was 34.5% when the phoneme score was calculated; these scores are in line with those used in centres in Wales (15% AB word score). Conclusion: The goal of the British Cochlear Implant Group (BCIG) service evaluation was to determine if the pre-implant assessment measures are appropriate and set at the correct level for determining candidacy, the future analyses will determine whether the speech perception cut-off point for candidacy should be adjusted and whether other more challenging measures should be used in the candidacy evaluation