‘How to write a true war novel’: A study of the typology and structure of war novels

Thesis The aim of the thesis is to examine the features that are characteristic of the genre of war fiction and draw conclusions about their significance and literary purpose. After a discussion about the changes in the form of war novels from the Napoleonic to the Vietnam wars, the study analyses eight novels in terms of the key features of their use of focalisation, physical setting and narrative speed. In order to do this it proposes a development of Genette’s concept of narrative speed and a graphic technique to reveal underlying structural patterns. From this analysis it identifies two fundamental types of war novel, of which the chosen eight are variations: type A which focuses overwhelmingly on the battlefront and is characteristic of the realist combat novel, and type B which places the war story within a wider social context in a hybrid structure embracing other genres. Creative work Following from the thesis, the creative work comprises a type B novel, Redemption, which examines the experience of Australians in the Vietnam War. It focuses on the twelve-month period between mid-1967 and mid-1968, culminating in the climactic events of the Tet and Mini Tet offensives as experienced by two groups of Australians, a civilian medical team based in the hospital at Bien Hoa, and an infantry unit caught up in the Battle of Coral. The Vietnamese experiences form the middle section of the novel, framed by accounts of the characters’ lives in the Sydney region before and after these events and coming to a conclusion in the rising tide of anti-war sentiment in the city. The form of the novel grows out of the theoretical work of the thesis, which includes an analysis of its structural patterns to compare with those of the other war novels

Less is more: a rationalization of daily labwork

Routine daily phlebotomy can often act as a replacement for direct patient care.  Some tests are necessary to gauge treatment response, however many are unnecessary and increase a patient’s risk of complications and can impede laboratory processing times. This study addresses the effects of providing resident trainees, who often lack an understanding of the financial impact of the tests they order, with summative feedback. This encouraged them to be resource-conscious. Internal Medicine teams were provided with weekly laboratory spending reports and this resulted in a 33% reduction in Per Person Per Day spending. No changes in mortality were noted

Inhibition of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway activates autophagy and compensatory Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK signalling in prostate cancer

The PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway is frequently activated in advanced prostate cancer, due to loss of the tumour suppressor PTEN, and is an important axis for drug development. We have assessed the molecular and functional consequences of pathway blockade by inhibiting AKT and mTOR kinases either in combination or as individual drug treatments. In established prostate cancer cell lines, a decrease in cell viability and in phospho-biomarker expression was observed. Although apoptosis was not induced, a G1 growth arrest was observed in PTEN null LNCaP cells, but not in BPH1 or PC3 cells. In contrast, when the AKT inhibitor AZD7328 was applied to patient-derived prostate cultures that retained expression of PTEN, activation of a compensatory Ras/MEK/ERK pathway was observed. Moreover, whilst autophagy was induced following treatment with AZD7328, cell viability was less affected in the patient-derived cultures than in cell lines. Surprisingly, treatment with a combination of both AZD7328 and two separate MEK1/2 inhibitors further enhanced phosphorylation of ERK1/2 in primary prostate cultures. However, it also induced irreversible growth arrest and senescence.Ex vivo treatment of a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) of prostate cancer with a combination of AZD7328 and the mTOR inhibitor KU-0063794, significantly reduced tumour frequency upon re-engraftment of tumour cells.The results demonstrate that single agent targeting of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway triggers activation of the Ras/MEK/ERK compensatory pathway in near-patient samples. Therefore, blockade of one pathway is insufficient to treat prostate cancer in man

The increased expression of fatty acid-binding protein 9 in prostate cancer and its prognostic significance

In contrast to numerous studies conducted to investigate the crucial role of fatty acid binding protein 5 (FABP5) in prostate cancer, investigations on the possible involvement of other FABPs are rare. Here we first measured the mRNA levels of 10 FABPs in benign and malignant prostate cell lines and identified the differentially expressed FABP6 and FABP9 mRNAs whose levels in all malignant cell lines were higher than those in the benign cells. Thereafter we assessed the expression status of FABP6 and FABP9 in both prostate cell lines and in human tissues. FABP6 protein was overexpressed only in 1 of the 5 malignant cell lines and its immunostaining intensities were not significantly different between benign and malignant prostate tissues. In contrast, FABP9 protein was highly expressed in highly malignant cell lines PC-3 and PC3-M, but its level in the benign PNT-2 and other malignant cell lines was not detectable. When analysed in an archival set of human prostate tissues, immunohistochemical staining intensity for FABP9 was significantly higher in carcinomas than in benign cases and the increase in FABP9 was significantly correlated with reduced patient survival times. Moreover, the increased level of staining for FABP9 was significantly associated with the increased joint Gleason scores (GS) and androgen receptor index (AR). Suppression of FABP9 expression in highly malignant PC3-M cells inhibited their invasive potential. Our results suggest that FABP9 is a valuable prognostic marker to predict the outcomes of prostate cancer patients, perhaps by playing an important role in prostate cancer cell invasion

RAFT dispersion polymerization : a method to tune the morphology of thymine-containing self-assemblies

YesThe synthesis and self-assembly of thymine-containing polymers were performed using RAFT dispersion polymerization. A combination of microscopy and scattering techniques was used to analyze the resultant complex morphologies. The primary observation from this study is that the obtained aggregates induced during the polymerization were well-defined despite the constituent copolymers possessing broad dispersities. Moreover, a variety of parameters, including the choice of polymerization solvent, the degree of polymerization of both blocks and the presence of an adenine-containing mediator, were observed to affect the resultant size and shape of the assembly.University of Warwick, National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

A Review of the Adverse Effects of Peripheral Alpha-1 Antagonists in Hypertension Therapy

BACKGROUND: Doxazosin and its role as an antihypertensive agent have come under recent scrutiny as a result of the early termination of that treatment arm in ALLHAT. It is unclear why the cardiovascular (CV) event rate in this randomized, controlled trial (RCT), especially heart failure, is higher in those treated with a doxazosin-based regimen than with a chlorthalidone based-regimen. There has been little work in the past to summarize information on peripheral alpha-1 antagonists that may be helpful in evaluating the results of this randomized controlled trial. METHODS: Using Medline and the Cochrane databases, we performed a comprehensive review of the literature on the use of peripheral alpha-1 antagonists as antihypertensive agents, focusing on available information that could explain the excess cardiovascular events observed in the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT). RESULTS: Minimal data were available concerning the effects of peripheral alpha-1 antagonists on CV endpoints. A multitude of short-term studies-ranging from small observational studies to short-term moderate-sized RCTs – focused on safety, efficacy, and tolerability, and some studies investigated the physiologic effects of these agents. These previously reported studies reveal associations with weight gain, fluid retention, and neurohormonal changes among various populations of those treated with peripheral alpha-1 antagonists. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest several possible mechanisms by which doxazosin may be inferior to low-dose diuretics as antihypertensive therapy for the prevention of heart failure

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

On benevolence and love of others

Hobbes is famous for his insights into the impact of man’s fear, glory and greed on war and peace, not for his views on the bearing of men’s benevolence on the commonwealth. Are Hobbesian people even capable of love of others? In the literature, we find two main answers: one view is that Hobbes ruled out the possibility of disinterested benevolence among men; the other is that Hobbes considered actions driven by genuine benevolence possible but uncommon. After reviewing in broad outlines the two above positions, this chapter seeks to demonstrate the claim that Hobbes did not consider relevant to establish if men are capable of genuine benevolence or not, because he maintained that benevolent men can be as inept as egoists in differentiating apparent and real good for themselves and their loved ones and the effect of misguided altruism on the commonwealth is as damaging as the effect of ill-advised egoism.Postprin