War of Nerves: Russia\u27s Use of Cyber Warfare in Estonia, Georgia and Ukraine

This project examines how Soviet military thought has influenced present day Russian military doctrine and has evolved to include cyber warfare as part of the larger structure of Russian information warfare. The analysis of three case studies of Russian cyber activity, the attack on Estonia (2007), the Russian-Georgian war (2008) and the ongoing Ukrainian war (beginning 2014), demonstrates the continuity of military doctrine and the physical manifestation of Russia’s cyber capabilities

L’enfer du langage ou la désorganisation de la lecture dans Le Dernier Soupir du Maure de Salman Rushdie

Un contexte difficile Quand il est sorti en septembre 1995 Le Dernier Soupir du Maure fut accueilli avec enthousiasme par la presse et le public comme exploit littéraire dans un climat on ne peut plus hostile à la création artistique. Il a fallu attendre l'apparition d'études critiques spécialisées pour affronter la gêne profonde engendrée par ce roman où l'accès au sens est sans cesse remis en cause. Si le défi à la compréhension présenté par Les Versets sataniques se dénoue finalement dans ..

THE EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENRICHMENT ON THE IMMUNE RESPONSE AND MEASURES OF DISEASE RESILIENCE AND WELFARE IN PIGS

Disease is a considerable threat to swine well-being and economic productivity. Further, standard barren rearing environments are associated with chronic stress, which can suppress immune function and growth, and contribute to negative social behaviour. Environmental enrichment may mitigate harmful effects of stress, but more research is needed on types of enrichment that improve swine well-being while being practical to use in commercial facilities. This thesis aimed to identify whether pigs provided a rotation of inedible point-source enrichments (E) differ in immune cell concentrations and behaviour compared to barren-housed controls (C), and to explore relationships between behaviour and immune response within each treatment. Chapter Three compared behaviour, productivity, complete blood counts (CBC), and mortality of C and E pigs in three phases of the experiment: quarantine (Q), polymicrobial natural disease challenge (NDC), and finisher (F). E pigs were more likely to interact with enrichments than C pigs on most observation days, but use declined within each phase. E pigs were also more likely to perform comfort-related postures and less likely to show illness-related postures early in the Q and F phases. Lastly, E pigs demonstrated a greater increase in total white blood cell concentration from pre- to post- challenge. Chapter Four examined relationships between individual pigs’ social and exploratory behaviours and their growth rate, CBC values, and disease resilience (classified using mortality, growth, and veterinary treatment rate). E treatment altered Q behaviour: enrichment use was positively correlated with pen rooting and both positive and negative social interactions. Pen rooting was also positively correlated with positive social behaviour in Q and NDC, and with concentrations of white and red blood cells, hemoglobin, and lymphocytes. These results suggest that behavioural influences of enrichment were more likely when enrichment use was highest within a phase. In conclusion, pigs provided with inedible point-source enrichments differed in social and exploratory behaviours and posture frequencies, and provision of enrichment influenced relationships between exploratory behaviour, growth, and cellular immune response. More research is needed on providing enrichment that sustains use and satisfies motivational needs, and therefore may have a greater impact on stress reduction and disease response

Ladies, gentlemen and guys: The gender politics of politeness

Are there ladies and gentlemen in the 21st century? Do we need them? In the 20th century, lady became particularly unpopular with second wave feminists, who preferred ‘woman’. Gentleman was seen as similarly politically incorrect: class, race and culture bound. Following previous research on the word lady, we explore here some current evocations and debates around these words. We consider how the more casual, etymologically gendered term ‘guy’ has been utilized for men and women, and how it functions to reflect and obscure gender. While the return of the lady might be considered a consumer fad, a neo-conservative post-feminist backlash, or nostalgia for an elite ‘polite society’, it also offers an opportunity for a deeper discussion about civility as part of a broader conversation that is gaining impetus in the Western world. Politeness is personal and political. Whilst evidence for a comeback of the gentleman is limited, we critically consider the re-emergence of the lady as reflecting a deeper desire for applied sexual and social ethics. Such gender ethics have global, social and cultural ramifications that we ought not to underestimate. The desire for a culture of civility is gaining momentum as we are increasingly confronted with the violent consequences of a culture without it

Bedside teaching during the COVID‐19 pandemic

The impact of the SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19) pandemic on medical education is well described. Here, we describe an aspect that has received little attention so far, namely the ethical implications of continued bedside teaching. As a team of clinical educators supported by one of our students and an ethicist, we describe this unexpected challenge and how we navigated it in an already existing sea of COVID‐induced issues and uncertainty

Wnt/␤-Catenin Signaling Regulates Proliferation of Human Cornea Epithelial Stem/Progenitor Cells

PURPOSE. To investigate the expression and role of the Wnt signaling pathway in human limbal stem cells (LSCs). METHODS. Total RNA was isolated from the human limbus and central cornea. Limbal or cornea-specific transcripts were identified through quantitative real-time PCR. Protein expression of Wnt molecules was confirmed by immunohistochemistry on human ocular tissue. Activation of Wnt signaling using lithium chloride was achieved in vitro and its effects on LSC differentiation and proliferation were evaluated. RESULTS. Expression of Wnt2, Wnt6, Wnt11, Wnt16b, and four Wnt inhibitors were specific to the limbal region, whereas Wnt3, Wnt7a, Wnt7b, and Wnt10a were upregulated in the central cornea. Nuclear localization of ␤-catenin was observed in a very small subset of basal epithelial cells only at the limbus. Activation of Wnt/␤-catenin signaling increased the proliferation and colony-forming efficiency of primary human LSCs. The stem cell phenotype was maintained, as shown by higher expression levels of putative corneal epithelial stem cell markers, ATP-binding cassette family G2 and ⌬Np63␣, and low expression levels of mature cornea epithelial cell marker, cytokeratin 12. CONCLUSIONS. These findings demonstrate for the first time that Wnt signaling is present in the ocular surface epithelium and plays an important role in the regulation of LSC proliferation. Modulation of Wnt signaling could be of clinical application to increase the efficiency of ex vivo expansion of corneal epithelial stem/progenitor cells for transplantation. (Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2011;52:4734 -4741

Genetic landscape of congenital insensitivity to pain and hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies

Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) and hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (HSAN) are clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorders exclusively or predominantly affecting the sensory and autonomic neurons. Due to the rarity of the diseases and findings based mainly on single case reports or small case series, knowledge about these disorders is limited. Here, we describe the molecular workup of a large international cohort of CIP/HSAN patients including patients from normally under-represented countries. We identify 80 previously unreported pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in a total of 73 families in the >20 known CIP/HSAN-associated genes. The data expand the spectrum of disease-relevant alterations in CIP/HSAN, including novel variants in previously rarely recognized entities such as ATL3-, FLVCR1- and NGF-associated neuropathies and previously under-recognized mutation types such as larger deletions. In silico predictions, heterologous expression studies, segregation analyses and metabolic tests helped to overcome limitations of current variant classification schemes that often fail to categorize a variant as disease-related or benign. The study sheds light on the genetic causes and disease-relevant changes within individual genes in CIP/HSAN. This is becoming increasingly important with emerging clinical trials investigating subtype or gene-specific treatment strategies

The Impact of Speech Recognition on Clinical Documentation Quality

Health care providers report several stressors related to the use of electronic healthrecord (EHR) systems to complete clinical documentation. These stressors include frustrations resulting from time-consuming and cumbersome interaction with the EHR. Speech recognition(SR) has been suggested as a way to help reduce this stress. Consensus is lacking in the research regarding the effect of SR on clinical documentation quality, and the research that has been conducted is primarily quantitative.The purpose of this study was to increase understanding of how the use of SR changes the work of completing clinical documentation and to identify strategies that would facilitate the implementation and use of SR for documentation. Additionally the study aimed to examine how the use of SR is perceived to impact clinical documentation quality. Qualitative methods were employed. Four physicians (three radiologists and one internist) with experience of using SR to complete documentation participated insemi-structured interviews. The results showed that an internist reported increased time spent on documentation due to the need to proofread and correct errors. Radiologists reported experiencing no significant change in the amount of time spent completing documentation. All physicians experienced an increased rate of errors and increased effort needed for proofreading documentation generated via SR. Physicians reported worries arising from the increased error rate to be a source of stress. A set of strategies to improve users’ experience of SR was developed based on physicians’ experiences, and issues to consider when healthcare organizations implement the use of SR for documentation were identified. Uncorrected SR errors, the ability to see the text while using SR and the immediacy that results from eliminating turn-around time were found to affect physicians’ perception of their documentation quality

Recent Works Published: Contemporary World Literature and British Literature

Adiseshiah, Siân and Rupert Hildyard (eds), Twenty-First Century Fiction: What Happens Now, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013 (256 pages), ISBN-13: 978-1137035172. Baxter, Jeanette and David James (eds), Andrea Levy: Contemporary Critical Perspectives, London; New York: Bloomsbury, 2014 (208 pages), ISBN-13: 978-1441113603. Bewes, Timothy (ed.), The Contemporary Novel: Imagining the Twenty-First Century (Novel: a Forum on Fiction, Summer 2012), Durham and London: Duke University Press, 201..