Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy, volume 22, issue 2

Contents include: Editor\u27s Note; Elliott Hayes Award Acceptance Speech From Denver to Gulu, With Thanks to Lynn Nottage; Learning to Speak American: A Writer\u27s Journey, Keynote Remarks Delivered at the Annual Conference of the Literary Managers and Dramturgs of the Americas, Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, GA June 28, 2012; Michael Mark Chemers\u27 Ghost Light: An Introductory Handbook for Dramaturgy; Creative Process in Theatrical Translation: An Interview with Adam Versenyi; Croisades in Quebec: On the Semiotics of Contemporary French Dramaturgie. Issue editors: Sydney Cheek-O\u27Donnell, Debra Cardona, Janine Sobeckhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1044/thumbnail.jp

Back pain outcomes in primary care following a practice improvement intervention:- a prospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Back pain is one of the UK's costliest and least understood health problems, whose prevalence still seems to be increasing. Educational interventions for general practitioners on back pain appear to have had little impact on practice, but these did not include quality improvement learning, involve patients in the learning, record costs or document practice activities as well as patient outcomes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We assessed the outcome of providing information about quality improvement techniques and evidence-based practice for back pain using the Clinical Value Compass. This included clinical outcomes (Roland and Morris Disability Questionnaire), functional outcomes, costs of care and patient satisfaction. We provided workshops which used an action learning approach and collected before and after data on routine practice activity from practice electronic databases. In parallel, we studied outcomes in a separate cohort of patients with acute and sub-acute non-specific back pain recruited from the same practices over the same time period. Patient data were analysed as a prospective, split-cohort study with assessments at baseline and eight weeks following the first consultation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Data for 1014 patients were recorded in the practice database study, and 101 patients in the prospective cohort study. We found that practice activities, costs and patient outcomes changed little after the intervention. However, the intervention was associated with a small, but statistically significant reduction in disability in female patients. Additionally, baseline disability, downheartedness, self-rated health and leg pain had small but statistically significant effects (p < 0.05) on follow-up disability scores in some subgroups.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>GP education for back pain that both includes health improvement methodologies and involves patients may yield additional benefits for some patients without large changes in patterns of practice activity. The effects in this study were small and limited and the reasons for them remain obscure. However, such is the impact of back pain and its frequency of consultation in general practice that this kind of improvement methodology deserves further consideration.</p> <p>Trial registration number</p> <p>ISRCTN: <a href="http://www.controlled-trials.com/ISRCTN30420389">ISRCTN30420389</a></p

Removing symbiotic Wolbachia bacteria specifically inhibits oogenesis in a parasitic wasp

Wolbachia are bacteria that live in the cells of various invertebrate species to which they cause a wide range of effects on physiology and reproduction. We investigated the effect of Wolbachia infection in the parasitic wasp, Asobara tabida Nees (Hymenoptera, Braconidae). In the 13 populations tested, all individuals proved to be infected by Wolbachia. The removal of Wolbachia by antibiotic treatment had a totally unexpected effect—aposymbiotic female wasps were completely incapable of producing mature oocytes and therefore could not reproduce. In contrast, oogenesis was not affected in treated Asobara citri, a closely related species that does not harbor Wolbachia. No difference between natural symbiotic and cured individuals was found for other adult traits including male fertility, locomotor activity, and size, indicating that the effect on oogenesis is highly specific. We argue that indirect effects of the treatments used in our study (antibiotic toxicity or production of toxic agents) are very unlikely to explain the sterility of females, and we present results showing a direct relationship between oocyte production and Wolbachia density in females. We conclude that Wolbachia is necessary for oogenesis in these A. tabida strains, and this association would seem to be the first example of a transition from facultative to obligatory symbiosis in arthropod–Wolbachia associations

Sedimentary record and archaebacteria

This chapter reviews the available ge0chemical evidence for the biogenicity of organic matter in sedimentary rocks as far as 2.7 billion years back in earth history in the light of recent findings of archaebacteria synthesizing a special closs of isoprenoid hydrocarbons and isoprenoid-glycerol ethers. The similarity of the structural distribution of isoprenoids from both the geolipio and the kerogen fractions of ancient sediments and from petroleum with that found in the lipids of archaebacteria suggests that a major amount of sedimentary organic matter has derived from the latter. Approximation of the relative contribution of chemotrophic archaebacteria as opposed to that of phototrophic bacteria and algae is difficult. However, it is apparent that a major portion of the organic matter originally assimilated by cyanobacteria (and phytoplanktion) has been reworked by archaebacteria (methanogens), at least as for back as 1 billion years and possibly as for back as 2.7 billion years ago