Screening Mothers: Representations of motherhood in Australian films from 1900 to 1988.

Although the position of mothers has changed considerably since the beginning of the twentieth century, an idealised notion of motherhood persists. The cinema provides a source of information about attitudes towards mothering in Australian society which is not diminished by the fact that mothers are often marginal to the narrative. While the study recognises that cinematic images are not unconditionally authoritative, it rests on the belief that films have some capacity to reflect and influence society. The films are placed in an historical context with regard to social change in Australian society, so that the images can be understood within the context of the time of the making and viewing of the films. The depictions of the mother are scrutinised with regard to her appearance, her attitude, her relationship with others and the expectations, whether explicit or implicit, of her role. Of particular significance is what happens to her during the film and whether she is punished or rewarded for her behaviour. The conclusions reached after analysis are used to challenge those ideas which assume that portrayals of motherhood are unchangeable and timeless. The study examines Australian feature films from 1900 to 1988. To augment its historical focus, it uses sociological, psychoanalytical and feminist theoretical writing with special relevance for motherhood and mothering practice. Looking at areas of importance to mothers, it comprises an exploration of what makes a mother good or bad; the significance of the birth of female and male children; the relationship of mothers to daughters; the mother's sexuality and the metaphor of the missing mother. It shows that images of motherhood on screen are organised according to political, social and economic requirements in the community. Further, films frequently show mothers in traditional roles which are useful for maintaining notions of patriarchal privilege in society. The analysis exposes stereotypical depictions of motherhood which are often inaccurate, unfair and oppressive to women

Feature-driven Volume Visualization of Medical Imaging Data

Direct volume rendering (DVR) is a volume visualization technique that has been proved to be a very powerful tool in many scientific visualization domains. Diagnostic medical imaging is one such domain in which DVR provides new capabilities for the analysis of complex cases and improves the efficiency of image interpretation workflows. However, the full potential of DVR in the medical domain has not yet been realized. A major obstacle for a better integration of DVR in the medical domain is the time-consuming process to optimize the rendering parameters that are needed to generate diagnostically relevant visualizations in which the important features that are hidden in image volumes are clearly displayed, such as shape and spatial localization of tumors, its relationship with adjacent structures, and temporal changes in the tumors. In current workflows, clinicians must manually specify the transfer function (TF), view-point (camera), clipping planes, and other visual parameters. Another obstacle for the adoption of DVR to the medical domain is the ever increasing volume of imaging data. The advancement of imaging acquisition techniques has led to a rapid expansion in the size of the data, in the forms of higher resolutions, temporal imaging acquisition to track treatment responses over time, and an increase in the number of imaging modalities that are used for a single procedure. The manual specification of the rendering parameters under these circumstances is very challenging. This thesis proposes a set of innovative methods that visualize important features in multi-dimensional and multi-modality medical images by automatically or semi-automatically optimizing the rendering parameters. Our methods enable visualizations necessary for the diagnostic procedure in which 2D slice of interest (SOI) can be augmented with 3D anatomical contextual information to provide accurate spatial localization of 2D features in the SOI; the rendering parameters are automatically computed to guarantee the visibility of 3D features; and changes in 3D features can be tracked in temporal data under the constraint of consistent contextual information. We also present a method for the efficient computation of visibility histograms (VHs) using adaptive binning, which allows our optimal DVR to be automated and visualized in real-time. We evaluated our methods by producing visualizations for a variety of clinically relevant scenarios and imaging data sets. We also examined the computational performance of our methods for these scenarios

The new CFS Divisia monetary aggregates: design, construction, and data sources

The Center for Financial Stability (CFS) has initiated a new Divisia monetary aggregates database, maintained within the CFS program called Advances in Monetary and Financial Measurement (AMFM). The Director of the program is William A. Barnett, who is the originator of Divisia monetary aggregation and more broadly of the associated field of aggregation-theoretic monetary aggregation. The international section of the AMFM web site is a centralized source for Divisia monetary aggregates data and research for over 40 countries throughout the world. The components of the CFS Divisia monetary aggregates for the United States reflect closely those of the current and former simple-sum monetary aggregates provided by the Federal Reserve. The first five levels, M1, M2, M2M, MZM, and ALL, are composed of currency, deposit accounts, and money market accounts. The liquid asset extensions to M3, M4-, and M4 resemble in spirit the now discontinued M3 and L aggregates, including repurchase agreements, large denomination time deposits, commercial paper, and Treasury bills. When the Federal Reserve discontinued publishing M3 and L, the Fed stopped providing the consolidated, seasonally adjusted components. Also the Fed no longer provides the interest rates on the components. With so much of the needed component quantity and interest-rate data no longer available from the Federal Reserve, decisions about data sources needed in construction of the CFS aggregates have been far from easy and sometimes required regression interpolation. This paper documents the decisions of the CFS regarding United States data sources at the present time, with particular emphasis on Divisia M3 and M4

The new CFS Divisia monetary aggregates: design, construction, and data sources

The Center for Financial Stability (CFS) has initiated a new Divisia monetary aggregates database, maintained within the CFS program called Advances in Monetary and Financial Measurement (AMFM). The Director of the program is William A. Barnett, who is the originator of Divisia monetary aggregation and more broadly of the associated field of aggregation-theoretic monetary aggregation. The international section of the AMFM web site is a centralized source for Divisia monetary aggregates data and research for over 40 countries throughout the world. The components of the CFS Divisia monetary aggregates for the United States reflect closely those of the current and former simple-sum monetary aggregates provided by the Federal Reserve. The first five levels, M1, M2, M2M, MZM, and ALL, are composed of currency, deposit accounts, and money market accounts. The liquid asset extensions to M3, M4-, and M4 resemble in spirit the now discontinued M3 and L aggregates, including repurchase agreements, large denomination time deposits, commercial paper, and Treasury bills. When the Federal Reserve discontinued publishing M3 and L, the Fed stopped providing the consolidated, seasonally adjusted components. Also the Fed no longer provides the interest rates on the components. With so much of the needed component quantity and interest-rate data no longer available from the Federal Reserve, decisions about data sources needed in construction of the CFS aggregates have been far from easy and sometimes required regression interpolation. This paper documents the decisions of the CFS regarding United States data sources at the present time, with particular emphasis on Divisia M3 and M4

Ninety-day complication rate based on 532 Latarjet procedures in Dutch hospitals with different operation volumes

Background: In this study, we aimed to provide insight into the 90-day complication rates following the Latarjet procedure. Data from 2015 were collected from multiple hospitals in the Netherlands, with different volumes of Latarjet procedures. Our second aim was to examine which patient and surgical factors were associated with complications.Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of 13 hospitals between 2015 and 2022. Data regarding complications within 90 days of Latarjet procedures were extracted. The effect of sex, age, body mass index (BMI), smoking, previous shoulder operations, fixation material, hospital volume, screw size, and operation time on the complication rate was assessed by multivariable logistic regression analysis.Results: Of the 532 included patients, 58 (10.9%) had complications. The most common complications were material failure (n = 19, 3.6%) and nerve injury (n = 13, 2.4%). The risk of complications was lower for male patients than for female patients (odds ratio, 0.40; 95% confidence interval, 0.21-0.77; P = .006). Age, BMI, smoking, previous shoulder operations, type of fixation material, hospital volume, screw size, and operation time were not associated with complications.Conclusion: The 90-day complication rate after the Latarjet procedure was 10.9% and was higher in female patients than in male patients. Age, BMI, smoking, previous shoulder operations, type of fixation material, hospital volume, screw size, and operation time did not affect complication rates. We advise setting up a national registry to prevent under-reporting of complications.</p

PD-1T TILs as a predictive biomarker for clinical benefit to PD-1 blockade in patients with advanced NSCLC

PURPOSE Durable clinical benefit to PD-1 blockade in NSCLC is currently limited to a small fraction of patients, underlining the need for predictive biomarkers. We recently identified a tumor-reactive tumor-infiltrating T lymphocyte (TIL) pool, termed PD-1T TILs, with predictive potential in NSCLC. Here, we examined PD-1T TILs as biomarker in NSCLC. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN PD-1T TILs were digitally quantified in120 baseline samples from advanced NSCLC patients treated with PD-1 blockade. Primary outcome was Disease Control (DC) at 6 months. Secondary outcomes were DC at 12 months and survival. Exploratory analyses addressed the impact of lesion-specific responses, tissue sample properties and combination with other biomarkers on the predictive value of PD-1T TILs. RESULTS PD-1T TILs as a biomarker reached 77% sensitivity and 67% specificity at 6 months, and 93% and 65% at 12 months, respectively. Particularly, a patient group without clinical benefit was reliably identified, indicated by a high negative predictive value (NPV) (88% at 6 months, 98% at 12 months). High PD-1T TILs related to significantly longer progression-free (HR 0.39, 95% CI: 0.24-0.63, p<0.0001) and overall survival (HR 0.46, 95% CI: 0.28-0.76, p<0.01). Predictive performance was increased when lesion-specific responses and samples obtained immediately before treatment were assessed. Notably, the predictive performance of PD-1TTILs was superior to PD-L1 and TLS in the same cohort. CONCLUSIONS This study established PD-1T TILs as predictive biomarker for clinical benefit to PD-1 blockade in advanced NSCLC patients. Most importantly, the high NPV demonstrates an accurate identification of a patient group without benefit

Optimising primary molecular profiling in non-small cell lung cancer

Introduction Molecular profiling of NSCLC is essential for optimising treatment decisions, but often incomplete. We assessed the efficacy of protocolised molecular profiling in the current standard-of-care (SoC) in a prospective observational study in the Netherlands and measured the effect of providing standardised diagnostic procedures. We also explored the potential of plasma-based molecular profiling in the primary diagnostic setting. Methods This multi-centre prospective study was designed to explore the performance of current clinical practice during the run-in phase using local SoC tissue profiling procedures. The subsequent phase was designed to investigate the extent to which comprehensive molecular profiling (CMP) can be maximized by protocolising tumour profiling. Successful molecular profiling was defined as completion of at least EGFR and ALK testing. Additionally, PD-L1 tumour proportions scores were explored. Lastly, the additional value of centralised plasma-based testing for EGFR and KRAS mutations using droplet digital PCR was evaluated. Results Total accrual was 878 patients, 22.0% had squamous cell carcinoma and 78.0% had non-squamous NSCLC. Stage I-III was seen in 54.0%, stage IV in 46.0%. Profiling of EGFR and ALK was performed in 69.9% of 136 patients included in the run-in phase, significantly more than real-world data estimates of 55% (p<0.001). Protocolised molecular profiling increased the rate to 77.0% (p = 0.049). EGFR and ALK profiling rates increased from 77.9% to 82.1% in non-squamous NSCLC and from 43.8% to 57.5% in squamous NSCLC. Plasma-based testing was feasible in 98.4% and identified oncogenic driver mutations in 7.1% of patients for whom tissue profiling was unfeasible. Conclusion This study shows a high success rate of tissue-based molecular profiling that was significantly improved by a protocolised approach. Tissue-based profiling remains unfeasible for a substantial proportion of patients. Combined analysis of tumour tissue and circulating tumour DNA is a promising approach to allow adequate molecular profiling of more patients

Prognostic impact of t(16;21)(p11;q22) and t(16;21)(q24;q22) in pediatric AML: a retrospective study by the I-BFM Study Group

To study the prognostic relevance of rare genetic aberrations in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), such as t(16;21), international collaboration is required. Two different types of t(16;21) translocations can be distinguished: t(16;21)(p11;q22), resulting in the FUS-ERG fusion gene; and t(16;21)(q24;q22), resulting in RUNX1-core binding factor (CBFA2T3). We collected data on clinical and biological characteristics of 54 pediatric AML cases with t(16;21) rearrangements from 14 international collaborative study groups participating in the international Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (I-BFM) AML study group. The AML-BFM cohort diagnosed between 1997 and 2013 was used as a reference cohort. RUNX1-CBFA2T3 (n 5 23) had significantly lower median white blood cell count (12.5 3 109/L, P 5 .03) compared with the reference cohort. FUS-ERG rearranged AML (n 5 31) had no predominant French-American-British (FAB) type, whereas 76% of RUNX1-CBFA2T3 had an M1/M2 FAB type (M1, M2), significantly different from the reference cohort (P 5 .004). Four-year event-free survival (EFS) of patients with FUS-ERG was 7% (standard error [SE] 5 5%), significantly lower compared with the reference cohort (51%, SE 5 1%, P &lt; .001). Four-year EFS of RUNX1-CBFA2T3 was 77% (SE 5 8%, P 5 .06), significantly higher compared with the reference cohort. Cumulative incidence of relapse was 74% (SE 5 8%) in FUS-ERG, 0% (SE 5 0%) in RUNX1-CBFA2T3, compared with 32% (SE 5 1%) in the reference cohort (P &lt; .001). Multivariate analysis identified both FUS-ERG and RUNX1-CBFA2T3 as independent risk factors with hazard ratios of 1.9 (P &lt; .0001) and 0.3 (P 5 .025), respectively. These results describe 2 clinically relevant distinct subtypes of pediatric AML. Similarly to other core-binding factor AMLs, patients with RUNX1-CBFA2T3 rearranged AML may benefit from stratification in the standard risk treatment, whereas patients with FUS-ERG rearranged AML should be considered high-risk