“All the moments in our lives occupy the same space”: Tracing the Space of Memory in Tim Wright’s In Search of Oldton

Tim Wright‘s 2004 creative memory project, In Search of Oldton, is concerned with a need to reconcile a personal and collective cultural understanding of a recent predigital past with the present. Its complicated and fragmented landscape is produced by the remediation of repurposed pre-digital artefacts, and traversal of its space engages with the manner in which technology is increasingly mediating interaction between the urban landscapes and their inhabitants. This paper seeks to examine the manner in which Oldton‘s ludic-constructive play with memory engages with the psychogeographic understanding of the production of space and place through the user‘s interaction with the work, and its consequent commentary on the expansion of social interactions within a contemporary social apparatus so as to include the technology that makes these interactions possible

I Will Tell Your Story: New Media Activism and the Indian “Rape Crisis”

This article analyzes the mediatized representations of the Indian “rape crisis” that gained global attention in the aftermath of the brutal gang rape of Jyoti Singh Pandey in New Delhi in 2012. While much attention was given to Leslie Udwin’s documentary on the incident, India’s Daughter (2015), which was subsequently banned by the Indian government, there were several other creative responses that attempted to negotiate with the meaning of the event. This article examines two such texts—the multimedia short story We Are Angry (2015) and the augmented-reality comic Priya’s Shakti (2014). Both these texts declare their intention to function as “activist” multimedia pieces that leverage the power of Internet-mediated platforms to raise awareness about the condition of the “Indian woman” in the contemporary moment. This article argues that these texts, in their attempts to portray an essentialized and universalized image of the “Indian woman,” reenact certain violent historical erasures along the lines of caste, sexuality, class, and religion. The article undertakes a medium-specific examination of the works, considering their presumed audiences, language, content, and most notably their (failed) attempts at locating themselves within both historical and contemporary Indian feminist landscapes. In doing so, this discussion situates itself within ongoing Indian social justice debates, specifically those pertaining to mediatized narratives of rape, in order to critique the production of “feminism” in We Are Angry and Priya’s Shakti. By considering these texts alongside other, more inclusive online narrative spaces, we underline the importance of multiple feminist voices being heard on the issues in question, as well as the need to question any seemingly universal “we” of these narratives, their audience, or the women they claim to represent

The kidney failure risk equation:evaluation of novel input variables including eGFR estimated using the CKD-EPI 2021 equation in 59 cohorts

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The kidney failure risk equation (KFRE) uses age, sex, GFR, and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) to predict 2- and 5-year risk of kidney failure in populations with eGFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 . However, the CKD-EPI 2021 creatinine equation for eGFR is now recommended for use but has not been fully tested in the context of KFRE. In 59 cohorts comprising 312,424 patients with CKD, the authors assessed the predictive performance and calibration associated with the use of the CKD-EPI 2021 equation and whether additional variables and accounting for the competing risk of death improves the KFRE's performance. The KFRE generally performed well using the CKD-EPI 2021 eGFR in populations with eGFR <45 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 and was not improved by adding the 2-year prior eGFR slope and cardiovascular comorbidities. BACKGROUND: The kidney failure risk equation (KFRE) uses age, sex, GFR, and urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) to predict kidney failure risk in people with GFR <60 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 . METHODS: Using 59 cohorts with 312,424 patients with CKD, we tested several modifications to the KFRE for their potential to improve the KFRE: using the CKD-EPI 2021 creatinine equation for eGFR, substituting 1-year average ACR for single-measure ACR and 1-year average eGFR in participants with high eGFR variability, and adding 2-year prior eGFR slope and cardiovascular comorbidities. We also assessed calibration of the KFRE in subgroups of eGFR and age before and after accounting for the competing risk of death. RESULTS: The KFRE remained accurate and well calibrated overall using the CKD-EPI 2021 eGFR equation. The other modifications did not improve KFRE performance. In subgroups of eGFR 45-59 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 and in older adults using the 5-year time horizon, the KFRE demonstrated systematic underprediction and overprediction, respectively. We developed and tested a new model with a spline term in eGFR and incorporating the competing risk of mortality, resulting in more accurate calibration in those specific subgroups but not overall. CONCLUSIONS: The original KFRE is generally accurate for eGFR <45 ml/min per 1.73 m 2 when using the CKD-EPI 2021 equation. Incorporating competing risk methodology and splines for eGFR may improve calibration in low-risk settings with longer time horizons. Including historical averages, eGFR slopes, or a competing risk design did not meaningfully alter KFRE performance in most circumstances

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe

Board(er) Games: Space, Culture, and Empire in Jumanji and Its Intertexts

Two recent transmedia narratives—Karuna Riazi’s 2017 middle-grade novel The Gauntlet and the 2017 film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle—have attempted to reclaim the 1995 film Jumanji’s colonial narrative (adapted from Chris Van Allsburg’s 1981 picture book). Both present forms of the “portal fantasy,” in which a protagonist supernaturally breaches the borders of another world. The Gauntlet transports its Muslim Bangladeshi American protagonist to a fantastical board game, whereas Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle reconfigures the genre as multimedia immersive gameplay in a fictional “other” realm. Although these reworkings seemingly destabilize white supremacy by centring multi-ethnic American identities, their negotiations with the board game, itself a product of imperial history and a manifestation of the “gamification” of empire (wherein progress is measured by control of the board) complicate this. The creation of an American neo-colonial nationalism through a system of orientalizing these fantastic spaces (the jungle within the 2017 film and Riazi’s clockwork Islamic city) affirms the need for their control or eventual destruction by the protagonists. This effectively creates cultural borders that extend into these fictional spaces, playing out historical systems of empire in a bid to gain access to neo-empire

Development and Validation of Prediction Models of Adverse Kidney Outcomes in the Population With and Without Diabetes Mellitus

OBJECTIVE To predict adverse kidney outcomes for use in optimizing medical management and clinical trial design. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In this meta-analysis of individual participant data, 43 cohorts (N 5 1,621,817) from research studies, electronic medical records, and clinical trials with global representation were separated into development and validation cohorts. Models were developed and validated within strata of diabetes mellitus (presence or absence) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR; ‡60 or <60 mL/min/ 1.73 m2) to predict a composite of ‡40% decline in eGFR or kidney failure (i.e., re-ceipt of kidney replacement therapy) over 2–3 years. RESULTS There were 17,399 and 24,591 events in development and validation cohorts, re-spectively. Models predicting ‡40% eGFR decline or kidney failure incorporated age, sex, eGFR, albuminuria, systolic blood pressure, antihypertensive medication use, history of heart failure, coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation, smoking sta-tus, and BMI, and, in those with diabetes, hemoglobin A1c, insulin use, and oral diabetes medication use. The median C-statistic was 0.774 (interquartile range [IQR] 5 0.753, 0.782) in the diabetes and higher-eGFR validation cohorts; 0.769 (IQR 5 0.758, 0.808) in the diabetes and lower-eGFR validation cohorts; 0.740 (IQR 5 0.717, 0.763) in the no diabetes and higher-eGFR validation cohorts; and 0.750 (IQR 5 0.731, 0.785) in the no diabetes and lower-eGFR validation cohorts. Incorporating the previous 2-year eGFR slope minimally improved model performance, and then only in the higher-eGFR cohorts. CONCLUSIONS Novel prediction equations for a decline of ‡40% in eGFR can be applied success-fully for use in the general population in persons with and without diabetes with higher or lower eGFR

Development and Validation of Prediction Models of Adverse Kidney Outcomes in the Population With and Without Diabetes.

ObjectiveTo predict adverse kidney outcomes for use in optimizing medical management and clinical trial design.Research design and methodsIn this meta-analysis of individual participant data, 43 cohorts (N = 1,621,817) from research studies, electronic medical records, and clinical trials with global representation were separated into development and validation cohorts. Models were developed and validated within strata of diabetes mellitus (presence or absence) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR; ≥60 or ResultsThere were 17,399 and 24,591 events in development and validation cohorts, respectively. Models predicting ≥40% eGFR decline or kidney failure incorporated age, sex, eGFR, albuminuria, systolic blood pressure, antihypertensive medication use, history of heart failure, coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation, smoking status, and BMI, and, in those with diabetes, hemoglobin A1c, insulin use, and oral diabetes medication use. The median C-statistic was 0.774 (interquartile range [IQR] = 0.753, 0.782) in the diabetes and higher-eGFR validation cohorts; 0.769 (IQR = 0.758, 0.808) in the diabetes and lower-eGFR validation cohorts; 0.740 (IQR = 0.717, 0.763) in the no diabetes and higher-eGFR validation cohorts; and 0.750 (IQR = 0.731, 0.785) in the no diabetes and lower-eGFR validation cohorts. Incorporating the previous 2-year eGFR slope minimally improved model performance, and then only in the higher-eGFR cohorts.ConclusionsNovel prediction equations for a decline of ≥40% in eGFR can be applied successfully for use in the general population in persons with and without diabetes with higher or lower eGFR