Challenging the empire

This paper considers how Paul Gilroy transformed hitherto dominant understandings of the relationship between race and class by developing an innovative account that foregrounded questions of racist oppression and collective resistance amid the organic crisis of British capitalism. The returns from this rethinking were profound in that he was able to make transparent both the structuring power of racism within the working class, and the necessity for autonomous black resistance. At the same time, significant lacunae in his account are identified, including the neglect of the episodic emergence of working-class anti-racism and the part played by socialists, particularly those of racialized minority descent in fashioning a major anti-racist social movement. The paper concludes with a lament for the disappearance of such work informed by a ‘Marxism without guarantees’ in the contemporary field of racism studies, and asks readers to consider the gains to be derived from such a re-engagement

Rassismus, Klasse, Brexit, Krise

Der Brexit wurde von zwei verschiedenen Kampagnen herbeigeführt: „Vote Leave“ der Konservativen und „Leave EU“ der Rechtsaussen-Partei UKIP. Doch egal, ob es sich um die Forderung nach nationaler Abschottung oder um die Phantasien eines „Empire 2.0“ handelte – in beiden Fällen spielte Rassismus eine entscheidende Rolle

Optimizing the use of oral anticoagulant therapy for atrial fibrilation in primary care: a pharmacist-led intervention.

Background: Updated evidence-based guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation (AF) necessitate patient review, particularly with respect to oral anticoagulants, to ensure maximum health gain around stroke prophylaxis. Objective To quantify the level of anticoagulation utilisation in patients with a CHA2DS2-VASc≥1/≥2 (male/female) according to evidence-based guidelines and to assess the impact of a pharmacist-led intervention to optimise therapy. Setting: Fifteen general medical practices in Liverpool, North-West England with a practice population of 99,129. Method GRASP-AF software was employed to interrogate patient electronic medical records to identify and risk stratify AF patients (using CHA2DS2-VASc). A pharmacist then reviewed the medical records of those of patients not anticoagulated and with a CHA2DS2-VASc≥1/≥2 (male/female). Recommendations were discussed with a general practitioner (GP) and those patients in whom the need for anticoagulation was agreed were invited for a consultation with either the pharmacist or GP and therapy optimised where appropriate. The GPs were responsible for managing those patients referred for diagnosis confirmation or further specialist opinion. Main outcome measure: Proportion of patients eligible/not eligible for anticoagulation; proportions in whom anticoagulants initiated, refused, antiplatelets discontinued. Results: Five hundred and twenty-three patients (31% of patients identified with AF and a CHA2DS2-VASc≥1/≥2 (male/female)) were not receiving an anticoagulant (26 subsequently died or left the practice leaving 497). Three hundred and eighty-two (77%) pharmacist recommendations to a GP were agreed without modification. Following outcomes of diagnostic investigations and specialist referrals, 202 (41%) patients were candidates for anticoagulation, 251 (51%) were not eligible for anticoagulation, 103 (21%) were anticoagulated (56 warfarin, 47 DOAC). Conclusion: A pharmacist-led intervention re-aligned oral anticoagulant therapy to the latest evidence based guidelines for stroke prophylaxis, whilst simultaneously correcting the over-utilisation of antiplatelet therapy

A systematic review of primary Sjögren’s syndrome in male and paediatric populations

Primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS) is a chronic multisystem autoimmune rheumatic disease characterised by female predominance. Although the disease is rare in the male and paediatric populations, it has been suggested that it may have a different disease phenotype, which has not been investigated before using a systematic approach. A systematic literature search of PubMed databases (updated to December 2016) was performed to identify all published data on the epidemiological, clinical and laboratory manifestations of pSS in the male and paediatric populations. The literature search of the male and paediatric pSS studies identified 2025 and 186 citations, respectively, out of which 7 and 5 fulfilled our inclusion criteria and were analysed further. The range of age at disease onset was 9.4–10.7 years for children and 39.4–56.9 years at diagnosis for male patients. We identified a prevalence of extra-glandular manifestations between 52.6–92.3% in the male population and 50.0–84.6% in children, while abnormal sialometry was only reported in the paediatric population, with a prevalence between 71.4 and 81.8%. There was a significant variation of positive serological markers, with anti-Ro antibodies reported between 15.7–75.0% and 36.4–84.6%, and anti-La antibodies between 5.6–51.7% and 27.3–65.4%, in the male and paediatric populations, respectively. The characteristics of pSS in the male and paediatric populations varied according to different studies. When compared to data available from pSS adult populations, children diagnosed with pSS reported less dryness and had a higher prevalence of parotitis, lymphadenopathy and systemic symptoms and male patients were younger at the time of diagnosis. This systematic review contributes to a better understanding of the epidemiology of pSS in rare populations. Large longitudinal cohort studies comparing male with female patients and adult with paediatric patients are needed

Calorimetry

These lectures deal with calorimeters and rely heavily on previous reviews of calorimetry [1-6]. The emphasis is placed on their use at the future Large Hadron Collider and examples from ATLAS [7] and CMS [8] are extensively used

Overcoming Inherent Narrow Bandwidth and Low Radiation Properties of Electrically Small Antennas by Using an Active Interior-Matching Circuit

A technique is described to extend the working frequency-band and increase the radiation gain and efficiency of an electrically small antenna (ESA). The geometry of the proposed ESA is in the shape of an "H" structure. A small gap is included at the symmetry of the H-shape structure to embed an inductive load that is used to connect the two halves of the H-shaped antenna. With the lumped element inductor, the bandwidth of the H-shaped antenna is restricted by Chu-lower bound. However, it is demonstrated by analytical analysis and through 3D full-wave electromagnetic simulations that when the inductive load is replaced with negative reactance from a negative impedance converter (NIC) the antenna's bandwidth, radiation gain and efficiency performance can be significantly improved by similar to 40%, 3.6 dBi and 55%, respectively. This is because NIC acts as an effective interior matching circuit. The resonant frequency of the antenna structure with the inductive element was used to determine the required inductance variation in the NIC to realize the required bandwidth and radiation characteristics from the H-shaped antenna

Compact and low-profile on-chip antenna using underside electromagnetic coupling mechanism for terahertz front-end transceivers

The results presented in this paper show that by employing a combination of metasurface and substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technologies, we can realize a compact and low-profile antenna that overcomes the drawbacks of narrow-bandwidth and low-radiation properties encountered by terahertz antennas on-chip (AoC). In addition, an effective RF cross-shaped feed structure is used to excite the antenna from its underside by coupling, electromagnetically, RF energy through the multi-layered antenna structure. The feed mechanism facilitates integration with the integrated circuits. The proposed antenna is constructed from five stacked layers, comprising metal-silicon-metal-silicon-metal. The dimensions of the AoC are 1 x 1 x 0.265 mm(3). The AoC is shown to have an impedance match, radiation gain and efficiency of <= -15 dB, 8.5 dBi and 67.5%, respectively, over a frequency range of 0.20-0.22 THz. The results show that the proposed AoC design is viable for terahertz front-end applications

Efficient wireless power transfer via magnetic resonance coupling using automated impedance matching circuit

In this paper, an automated impedance matching circuit is proposed to match the impedance of the transmit and receive resonators for optimum wireless power transfer (WPT). This is achieved using a 2D open-circuited spiral antenna with magnetic resonance coupling in the low-frequency ISM band at 13.56 MHz. The proposed WPT can be adopted for a wide range of commercial applications, from electric vehicles to consumer electronics, such as tablets and smartphones. The results confirm a power transfer efficiency between the transmit and receive resonant circuits of 92%, with this efficiency being sensitive to the degree of coupling between the coupled pair of resonators

Realizing uwb antenna array with dual and wide rejection bands using metamaterial and electromagnetic bandgaps techniques

This research article describes a technique for realizing wideband dual notched functionality in an ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna array based on metamaterial and electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) techniques. For comparison purposes, a reference antenna array was initially designed comprising hexagonal patches that are interconnected to each other. The array was fabricated on standard FR-4 substrate with thickness of 0.8 mm. The reference antenna exhibited an average gain of 1.5 dBi across 5.25-10.1 GHz. To improve the array's impedance bandwidth for application in UWB systems metamaterial (MTM) characteristics were applied it. This involved embedding hexagonal slots in patch and shorting the patch to the ground-plane with metallic via. This essentially transformed the antenna to a composite right/left-handed structure that behaved like series left-handed capacitance and shunt left-handed inductance. The proposed MTM antenna array now operated over a much wider frequency range (2-12 GHz) with average gain of 5 dBi. Notched band functionality was incorporated in the proposed array to eliminate unwanted interference signals from other wireless communications systems that coexist inside the UWB spectrum. This was achieved by introducing electromagnetic bandgap in the array by etching circular slots on the ground-plane that are aligned underneath each patch and interconnecting microstrip-line in the array. The proposed techniques had no effect on the dimensions of the antenna array (20 mm x 20 mm x 0.87 mm). The results presented confirm dual-band rejection at the wireless local area network (WLAN) band (5.15-5.825 GHz) and X-band satellite downlink communication band (7.10-7.76 GHz). Compared to other dual notched band designs previously published the footprint of the proposed technique is smaller and its rejection notches completely cover the bandwidth of interfering signals