Uncollected Essays

Foreword by Paul A. Olson • Buzones, an Alternative Etymology • The Manuel des Péchés and an English Episcopal Decree • Correspondence – The Manuel des Péchés • A Note on the Classical Origin of ‘Circumstances’ in the Medieval Confessional • A Study of Certain Aspects of the Cultural Tradition of ‘Handlyng Synne’ • The Cultural Tradition of Handlyng Synne • Marie de France, Lais, Prologue, 13-16 • Cumhthach Labhras an Lonsa • Chaucerian Tragedy • St. Foy among the Thorns • Amors de terra lonhdana • The Subject of the De Amore of Andreas Capellanus • Why the Devil Wears Green • A Further Note on Conjointure • The Book of the Duchess • Chaucer Criticism • “And for my land thus hastow mordred me?” Land Tenure, the Cloth Industry, and the Wife of Bath • Chaucer and the “Commune Profit”: The Manor • The Intellectual, Artistic and Historical Context • Religion and Stylistic History • Simple Signs from Everyday Life in Chaucer • Chaucer and Christian Tradition • The Wife of Bath and Midas • The Probable Date and Purpose of Chaucer’s Troilus • Who Were “The People”? • Chaucer and the Economic and Social Consequences of the Plague • The Probable Date and Purpose of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale • The Physician’s Comic Tale • Wisdom and “The Manciple’s Tale”: A Chaucerian Comic Interlude ISBN: 978-1-60962-113-1 doi: 10.13014/K23776W6https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/1060/thumbnail.jp

Meaning behind measurement : self-comparisons affect responses to health related quality of life questionnaires

Purpose The subjective nature of quality of life is particularly pertinent to the domain of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) research. The extent to which participants’ responses are affected by subjective information and personal reference frames is unknown. This study investigated how an elderly population living with a chronic metabolic bone disorder evaluated self-reported quality of life. Methods Participants (n = 1,331) in a multi-centre randomised controlled trial for the treatment of Paget’s disease completed annual HRQOL questionnaires, including the SF-36, EQ-5D and HAQ. Supplementary questions were added to reveal implicit reference frames used when making HRQOL evaluations. Twenty-one participants (11 male, 10 female, aged 59–91 years) were interviewed retrospectively about their responses to the supplementary questions, using cognitive interviewing techniques and semi-structured topic guides. Results The interviews revealed that participants used complex and interconnected reference frames to promote response shift when making quality of life evaluations. The choice of reference frame often reflected external factors unrelated to individual health. Many participants also stated that they were unclear whether to report general or disease-related HRQOL. Conclusions It is important, especially in clinical trials, to provide instructions clarifying whether ‘quality of life’ refers to disease-related HRQOL. Information on selfcomparison reference frames is necessary for the interpretation of responses to questions about HRQOL.The Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates, The PRISM funding bodies (the Arthritis Research Campaign, the National Association for the Relief of Paget’s disease and the Alliance for Better Bone Health)Peer reviewedAuthor final versio

Effectiveness of low-dose theophylline for the management of biomass-associated COPD (LODOT-BCOPD): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: COPD is a leading cause of death globally, with the majority of morbidity and mortality occurring in low- and middle-income country (LMIC) settings. While tobacco-smoke exposure is the most important risk factor for COPD in high-income settings, household air pollution from biomass smoke combustion is a leading risk factor for COPD in LMICs. Despite the high burden of biomass smoke-related COPD, few studies have evaluated the efficacy of pharmacotherapy in this context. Currently recommended inhaler-based therapy for COPD is neither available nor affordable in most resource-limited settings. Low-dose theophylline is an oral, once-a-day therapy, long used in high-income countries (HICs), which has been proposed for the management of COPD in LMICs in the absence of inhaled steroids and/or bronchodilators. The Low-dose Theophylline for the Management of Biomass-Associated COPD (LODOT-BCOPD) trial investigates the clinical efficacy and cost-effectiveness of low-dose theophylline for the management of biomass-related COPD in a low-income setting. METHODS: LODOT-BCOPD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to test the efficacy of low-dose theophylline in improving respiratory symptoms in 110 participants with moderate to severe COPD in Central Uganda. The inclusion criteria are as follows: (1) age 40 to 80 years, (2) full-time resident of the study area, (3) daily biomass exposure, (4) post-bronchodilator FEV1/FVC below the 5th percentile of the Global Lung Initiative mixed ethnic reference population, and (5) GOLD Grade B-D COPD. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive once daily low-dose theophylline (200 mg ER, Unicontin-E) or placebo for 52 weeks. All participants will receive education about self-management of COPD and rescue salbutamol inhalers. We will measure health status using the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) and quality of life using the EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) at baseline and every 6 months. In addition, we will assess household air pollution levels, serum inflammatory biomarkers (fibrinogen, hs-CRP), and theophylline levels at baseline, 1 month, and 6 months. The primary outcome is change in SGRQ score at 12 months. Lastly, we will assess the cost-effectiveness of the intervention by calculating quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) from the EQ-5D. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov  NCT03984188 . Registered on June 12, 2019 TRIAL ACRONYM: Low-dose Theophylline for the Management of Biomass-Associated COPD (LODOT-BCOPD)

Services just for men? Insights from a national study of the well men services pilots.

Men continue to have a lower life expectancy in most countries compared to women. Explanations of this gendered health inequality tend to focus on male risk taking, unhealthy lifestyle choices and resistance to seeking help from health services. In the period 2005-2008 the Scottish Government funded a nationwide community health promotion programme aimed at improving men's health, called Well Men Service Pilots (henceforth WMS)

Longer fixation duration while viewing face images

The spatio-temporal properties of saccadic eye movements can be influenced by the cognitive demand and the characteristics of the observed scene. Probably due to its crucial role in social communication, it is argued that face perception may involve different cognitive processes compared with non-face object or scene perception. In this study, we investigated whether and how face and natural scene images can influence the patterns of visuomotor activity. We recorded monkeys’ saccadic eye movements as they freely viewed monkey face and natural scene images. The face and natural scene images attracted similar number of fixations, but viewing of faces was accompanied by longer fixations compared with natural scenes. These longer fixations were dependent on the context of facial features. The duration of fixations directed at facial contours decreased when the face images were scrambled, and increased at the later stage of normal face viewing. The results suggest that face and natural scene images can generate different patterns of visuomotor activity. The extra fixation duration on faces may be correlated with the detailed analysis of facial features

Modern optical astronomy: technology and impact of interferometry

The present `state of the art' and the path to future progress in high spatial resolution imaging interferometry is reviewed. The review begins with a treatment of the fundamentals of stellar optical interferometry, the origin, properties, optical effects of turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere, the passive methods that are applied on a single telescope to overcome atmospheric image degradation such as speckle interferometry, and various other techniques. These topics include differential speckle interferometry, speckle spectroscopy and polarimetry, phase diversity, wavefront shearing interferometry, phase-closure methods, dark speckle imaging, as well as the limitations imposed by the detectors on the performance of speckle imaging. A brief account is given of the technological innovation of adaptive-optics (AO) to compensate such atmospheric effects on the image in real time. A major advancement involves the transition from single-aperture to the dilute-aperture interferometry using multiple telescopes. Therefore, the review deals with recent developments involving ground-based, and space-based optical arrays. Emphasis is placed on the problems specific to delay-lines, beam recombination, polarization, dispersion, fringe-tracking, bootstrapping, coherencing and cophasing, and recovery of the visibility functions. The role of AO in enhancing visibilities is also discussed. The applications of interferometry, such as imaging, astrometry, and nulling are described. The mathematical intricacies of the various `post-detection' image-processing techniques are examined critically. The review concludes with a discussion of the astrophysical importance and the perspectives of interferometry.Comment: 65 pages LaTeX file including 23 figures. Reviews of Modern Physics, 2002, to appear in April issu

Constraints on Nucleon Decay via "Invisible" Modes from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

Data from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory have been used to constrain the lifetime for nucleon decay to ``invisible'' modes, such as n -> 3 nu. The analysis was based on a search for gamma-rays from the de-excitation of the residual nucleus that would result from the disappearance of either a proton or neutron from O16. A limit of tau_inv > 2 x 10^{29} years is obtained at 90% confidence for either neutron or proton decay modes. This is about an order of magnitude more stringent than previous constraints on invisible proton decay modes and 400 times more stringent than similar neutron modes.Comment: Update includes missing efficiency factor (limits change by factor of 2) Submitted to Physical Review Letter