Plotting Against America: 9/11 and the Spectacle of Terror in Contemporary American Fiction

This article examines the literary preoccupation with the visual image and the seeming impossibility of realism in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Tracing a series of long and short pieces from a selection of authors, this piece examines how writers were quick to register a series of written responses to the events. Beginning with immediate subjective pieces from writers such as Paul Auster, Martin Amis, and Erica Jong, this essay analyses these writers' emphasis on the visual nature of the attacks, from the omnipresence of the television reports to the eyewitness testimony offered by many. It then moves on to concentrate on some of the short stories from Ulrich Baer's edited volume 110 Stories: New York Writes after 9/11 (2002). Focusing on pieces such as Avital Ronell's "This Was a Test" and A.M. Homes's "We All Saw It, or The View From Home," the author identifies a brooding melancholy over the limits of language as a communicative or affective tool. This is then taken up in a longer concentration on Don DeLillo's Falling Man (2007) and Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), both of which emphasise the visual—the latter to the extent of melding the visual with the written in his account of traumatic loss. Using the theoretical apparatuses of Slavoj Zizek and Jean Baudrillard, the author makes the case that all of these writers, to varying degrees, are self-consciously operating in a textual landscape in which the boundaries of literary realism have been altered. According to DeLillo, the real is now "unreal" or "too real" to be portrayed by straightforward realist narratives. Thus, these writers integrate an emphasis on the visual image within their fictions (performance art in the case of DeLillo and actual photographs interspliced with the text in Foer's novel), thereby offering a heightened version of realism in order to accurately portray the realities of post 9/11 socio-cultural and personal landscapes

Does the yield spread predict real economic activity? : a multicountry analysis

This article evaluates the ability of the yield spread to forecast real economic activity in 11 industrial countries. The first section of this article defines the yield spread and explains why the spread may be a useful predictor of real economic activity. The second section describes the data and criteria used to evaluate the predictive power of the yield spread. The third section examines whether yield spreads have reliably forecast real economic activity in the 11 countries, using several measures of real economic activity and alternative forecast horizons. The empirical results indicate the yield spread is a statistically and economically significant predictor of real economic activity in several industrial countries besides the United States. In addition, the yield spread forecasting model generally outperforms two alternative forecasting models in predicting future real GDP growth.Economic conditions - United States ; Interest rates ; Forecasting ; Gross domestic product

Partial sight, dependency and open poetic forms

This thesis aims to characterize the poetics of partial sight. It first places these poetics within a theoretical framework and then enacts them in a collection of poems. The thesis treats partial sight not primarily as a physiological fact but rather as symbolic of the limitations of human vision. It draws inspiration from the Homeric epics, which acknowledge these limits and show the dependency they bring, whether on the Muse or on other factors external to the poet’s conscious self, as central to poetic composition. The persistent trope of the blind poet, who loses his sight but gains creative vision, highlights links between partial sight and the partial apprehension that poets experience as they engage with an emerging poem. Both situations highlight the partial nature of human perception in a mysterious world and both necessitate dependency on factors beyond the self for success. Critically and creatively the thesis charts an evolving awareness of the importance of partial sight in poetic composition. This awareness has gradually inspired perspectival and methodological changes. The project began as a desire to challenge those poetic representations of blindness that cast it less as a valuable creative perspective than as a symbol of anxiety about dependency and consequent lack of agency. Early versions of the thesis sought to challenge this pattern by asserting the selfhood of figures with visual impairment as part of a disability-based identity poetics. This practice encouraged the use of relatively closed forms that stressed a speaker’s personal vision. However, as the thesis developed it took more account of the power dynamics that underpin poetic form. It became apparent that an overly closed approach could undermine the project’s aims by replicating poetic practices that have facilitated the use of blindness in poetry as an edifying spectacle for sighted readers. Such formal choices can also create a sense of certainty that troubles an aesthetic of partial sight. Moreover, the thesis argues that to confine discussions of partial sight to identity poetics radically restricts our understanding of the poetics of partial sight, dependency and open forms and leaves these poetics insufficiently imagined. It draws on the work of Alan Grossman, Rae Armantrout and Larry Eigner among others, to reimagine partial sight and dependency as a route to poetic knowledge. The poetry collection moves from exploring partial sight as a source of identity to using the combination of partial sight and dependency as a generative principle. Different poems express this principle through troubled syntax, variable lineation and the deformation by erasure of pre-existing texts on blindness. The thesis seeks to demonstrate that partial sight and dependency are experiences shared by, and relevant to, all writers and readers of poetry. It returns to an earlier understanding of these factors, which sees them not as sources of social anxiety, but rather as creative catalysts that open the way to new poetic possibilities. In so doing it aims to challenge understandings not only of poetics but also of the meaning of disability

Web-based technologies to support carers of people living with dementia:a protocol for a mixed methods stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Informal carers play a significant role in supporting people living with dementia; however, carers in rural areas are often isolated, with limited access to support services. Although dementia-friendly communities provide valued support for carers, access to them is limited as they are few and geographically dispersed. OBJECTIVE: This study’s aim was to increase support and services for rural informal carers of people living with dementia by using information and communication technologies accessed through an integrated website and mobile app—the Verily Connect app. The objective of this protocol is to detail the research design used in a complex study that was situated in a challenging real-world setting integrating web-based and on-ground technology and communication. Therefore, it is anticipated that this protocol will strengthen the research of others exploring similar complex concepts. METHODS: A stepped-wedge, open-cohort cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted to implement Verily Connect across 12 rural Australian communities. The Verily Connect intervention delivered web-based, curated information about dementia, a localized directory of dementia services and support, group and individual chat forums, and peer support through videoconference. During the implementation phase of 32 weeks, Verily Connect was progressively implemented in four 8-weekly waves of 3 communities per wave. Usual care, used as a comparator, was available to carers throughout the study period. Participants and researchers were unblinded to the intervention. There were 3 cohorts of participants: carers, volunteers, and staff; participants were recruited from their communities. The primary outcome measure was perceived carer social support measured using the Medical Outcomes Study-Social Support Survey. Volunteers and staff provided feedback on their participation in Verily Connect as qualitative data. Qualitative data were collected from all cohorts of participants through interviews and focus groups. Process evaluation data were collected through interviews and memos written by research staff. Data on the costs of implementing Verily Connect were collected by the research team members and evaluated by a health economist. RESULTS: Between August 2018 and September 2019, a total of 113 participants were recruited. There were 37 (32.7%) carers, 39 (34.5%) volunteers, and 37 (32.7%) health service staff. The study was complex because of the involvement of multiple and varied communities of carers, volunteers, health service staff, and research team members originating from 5 universities. Web-based technologies were used as intervention strategies to support carers and facilitate the process of undertaking the study. CONCLUSIONS: The Verily Connect trial enabled the testing and further development of a web-based approach to increasing support for carers of people living with dementia across a diverse rural landscape in Australia. This protocol provides an example of how to conduct a pragmatic evaluation of a complex and co-designed intervention involving multiple stakeholders. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12618001213235; https://tinyurl.com/4rjvrasf INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR1-10.2196/3302

ELemental abundances of Planets and brown dwarfs Imaged around Stars (ELPIS): I. Potential Metal Enrichment of the Exoplanet AF Lep b and a Novel Retrieval Approach for Cloudy Self-luminous Atmospheres

AF Lep A+b is a remarkable planetary system hosting a gas-giant planet that has the lowest dynamical mass among directly imaged exoplanets. We present an in-depth analysis of the atmospheric composition of the star and planet to probe the planet's formation pathway. Based on new high-resolution spectroscopy of AF Lep A, we measure a uniform set of stellar parameters and elemental abundances (e.g., [Fe/H] = $-0.27 \pm 0.31$ dex). The planet's dynamical mass ($2.8^{+0.6}_{-0.5}$ M$_{\rm Jup}$) and orbit are also refined using published radial velocities, relative astrometry, and absolute astrometry. We use petitRADTRANS to perform chemically-consistent atmospheric retrievals for AF Lep b. The radiative-convective equilibrium temperature profiles are incorporated as parameterized priors on the planet's thermal structure, leading to a robust characterization for cloudy self-luminous atmospheres. This novel approach is enabled by constraining the temperature-pressure profiles via the temperature gradient $(d\ln{T}/d\ln{P})$, a departure from previous studies that solely modeled the temperature. Through multiple retrievals performed on different portions of the $0.9-4.2$ $\mu$m spectrophotometry, along with different priors on the planet's mass and radius, we infer that AF Lep b likely possesses a metal-enriched atmosphere ([Fe/H] $> 1.0$ dex). AF Lep b's potential metal enrichment may be due to planetesimal accretion, giant impacts, and/or core erosion. The first process coincides with the debris disk in the system, which could be dynamically excited by AF Lep b and lead to planetesimal bombardment. Our analysis also determines $T_{\rm eff} \approx 800$ K, $\log{(g)} \approx 3.7$ dex, and the presence of silicate clouds and dis-equilibrium chemistry in the atmosphere. Straddling the L/T transition, AF Lep b is thus far the coldest exoplanet with suggested evidence of silicate clouds.Comment: AJ, in press. Main text: Pages 1-32, Figures 1-15, Tables 1-6. All figures and tables after References belong to the Appendix (Pages 32-58, Figures 16-20, Table 7). For supplementary materials, please refer to the Zenodo repository https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.826746

Sources of error in measurement of minimal residual disease in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Introduction The level of minimal residual disease (MRD) in marrow predicts outcome and guides treatment in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) but accurate prediction depends on accurate measurement. Methods Forty-one children with ALL were studied at the end of induction. Two samples were obtained from each iliac spine and each sample was assayed twice. Assay, sample and side-to-side variation were quantified by analysis of variance and presumptively incorrect decisions related to high-risk disease were determined using the result from each MRD assay, the mean MRD in the patient as the measure of the true value, and each of 3 different MRD cut-off levels which have been used for making decisions on treatment. Results Variation between assays, samples and sides each differed significantly from zero and the overall standard deviation for a single MRD estimation was 0.60 logs. Multifocal residual disease seemed to be at least partly responsible for the variation between samples. Decision errors occurred at a frequency of 13–14% when the mean patient MRD was between 10−2 and 10−5. Decision errors were observed only for an MRD result within 1 log of the cut-off value used for assessing high risk. Depending on the cut-off used, 31–40% of MRD results were within 1 log of the cut-off value and 21–16% of such results would have resulted in a decision error. Conclusion When the result obtained for the level of MRD is within 1 log of the cut-off value used for making decisions, variation in the assay and/or sampling may result in a misleading assessment of the true level of marrow MRD. This may lead to an incorrect decision on treatment

Patient outcomes after hospitalisation with COVID-19 and implications for follow-up:results from a prospective UK cohort

The longer-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection are uncertain. Consecutive patients hospitalised with COVID-19 were prospectively recruited to this observational study (n=163). At 8–12 weeks postadmission, survivors were invited to a systematic clinical follow-up. Of 131 participants, 110 attended the follow-up clinic. Most (74%) had persistent symptoms (notably breathlessness and excessive fatigue) and limitations in reported physical ability. However, clinically significant abnormalities in chest radiograph, exercise tests, blood tests and spirometry were less frequent (35%), especially in patients not requiring supplementary oxygen during their acute infection (7%). Results suggest that a holistic approach focusing on rehabilitation and general well-being is paramount