Catholics in a changing Scotland: the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, 1878-1965

Between 1878 and 1965, the Catholic Church in Scotland changed from a small, reclusive and relatively unassertive community to become a force to be reckoned with in social and political terms. The thesis (the first to be based on a thorough examination of the episcopal correspondence of St Andrews and Edinburgh 1878-1965 held in the Scottish Catholic Archives, Edinburgh), argues that this change was caused by the combination of two momentous but unexpected and unconnected events in the 1850s and after — first, the arrival in Scotland of large numbers of economic migrants from Ireland (most of them Catholics) and second, the conversion (through the influence of John Henry Newman) of influential members of the Scottish aristocracy. The former were mainly confined to what is today the geographically small but very densely populated province of Glasgow, the latter, to the geographically more extensive province of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where Irish migrants, much fewer in numbers, integrated more successfully. While Irish migration has been extensively studied by scholars, the conversion of the aristocracy has, with some notable exceptions, remained unappreciated. The thesis contends that it was principally the simultaneous impact of these two phenomena which accounted for the development of the Catholic community in modern Scotland; that it was not only the critical mass of migrants which gave the Catholic Church political leverage but also the networking skills and the funds ofthe convert elites. Other changes in the Catholic Church were subsumed into this larger picture: the role of the clergy was transformed from a pastoral one in 1886 to a combative one in the 1930s and 1940s, while at the same time shifting vis-a-vis the laity (who were themselves moving from subjugation to co-responsibility). The thesis, however, deals not only with the secular clergy but also with the activities of religious orders — the important national provincial Council of Fort Augustus (1886), for example, and the consecration in 1929 of the dynamic Benedictine Abbot Andrew J. McDonald as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. By 1918, the virtual collapse of the Catholic school system played into the hands of the government; the resulting financial compromise was mutually beneficial but its price (while it affirmed the Catholic community by providing the educational tools for better employment opportunities), was the loss of autonomy and control. After a series of financial scandals in the 1880s and other examples of mismanagement in the first two decades of the twentieth century, episcopal and parish finances gradually recovered as stricter safeguards were imposed. Between the first and second Vatican Councils a sea-change is visible, not only in the relationship between pope and bishop but also between clergy and laity. The pressure of social and political events 11 gradually transformed the hierarchical pyramid that was the Catholic Church of 1878 into the more egalitarian model of the People of God as embraced in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council

Horizontal studies of cell mediated immune reactions to autologous tumour antigens in patients with operable mammary carcinoma.

The leucocyte migration and guinea-pig macrophage migration procedures were used to assess cell mediated, tumour directed immune reactions in patients with mammary carcinoma undergoing simple mastectomy with or without post-operative irradiation. Forty-seven per cent of patients reacted to autologous tumour antigens and 40% to allogeneic antigens when tested 7 days after operation; 23% reacted to autologous antigens at 2 months, 19% at 6 months and 34% at 1 year after surgery. Reactions to benign tissue fractions were rare. Better discrimination between test and control subjects was obtained when 3000 g sediments rather than nuclei-depleted homogenates (extracts) were used. Irradiation 3-7 weeks post-operatively did not depress the in vitro response at 2 months and yielded a higher rate of positive reactions at 6 months. Correlations of serial LMT responses with certain clinical findings are discussed

Phase diagrams of correlated electrons: systematic corrections to the mean field theory

Perturbative corrections to the mean field theory for particle-hole instabilities of interacting electron systems are computed within a scheme which is equivalent to the recently developed variational approach to the Kohn-Luttinger superconductivity. This enables an unbiased comparison of particle-particle and particle-hole instabilities within the same approximation scheme. A spin-rotation invariant formulation for the particle-hole instabilities in the triplet channel is developed. The method is applied to the phase diagram of the t-t' Hubbard model on the square lattice. At the Van Hove density, antiferromagnetic and d-wave Pomeranchuk phases are found to be stable close to half filling. However, the latter phase is confined to an extremely narrow interval of densities and away from the singular filling, d-wave superconducting instability dominates

A Model of Tuberculosis Screening for Pregnant Women in Resource-Limited Settings Using Xpert MTB/RIF

Timely diagnosis and treatment of maternal tuberculosis (TB) is important to reduce morbidity and mortality for both the mother and child, particularly in women who are coinfected with HIV. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the integration of TB/HIV screening into antenatal services but available diagnostic tools are slow and insensitive, resulting in delays in treatment initiation. Recently the WHO endorsed Xpert MTB/RIF, a highly sensitive, real-time PCR assay for Mycobacterium tuberculosis that simultaneously detects rifampicin resistance directly from sputum and provides results within 100 minutes. We propose a model for same-day TB screening and diagnosis of all pregnant women at antenatal care using Xpert MTB/RIF. Pilot studies are urgently required to evaluate strategies for the integration of TB screening into antenatal clinics using new diagnostic technologies

A model of tuberculosis screening for pregnant women in resource-limited settings using Xpert MTB/RIF

Timely diagnosis and treatment of maternal tuberculosis (TB) is important to reduce morbidity and mortality for both the mother and child, particularly in women who are coinfected with HIV. TheWorld Health Organization (WHO) recommends the integration of TB/HIV screening into antenatal services but available diagnostic tools are slow and insensitive, resulting in delays in treatment initiation. Recently the WHO endorsed Xpert MTB/RIF, a highly sensitive, real-time PCR assay for Mycobacterium tuberculosis that simultaneously detects rifampicin resistance directly from sputum and provides results within 100 minutes. We propose a model for same-day TB screening and diagnosis of all pregnant women at antenatal care using Xpert MTB/RIF. Pilot studies are urgently required to evaluate strategies for the integration of TB screening into antenatal clinics using new diagnostic technologies