The Victorian Newsletter (Spring 1988)

The Victorian Newsletter is sponsored for the Victorian Group of Modern Language Association by the Western Kentucky University and is published twice annually.Inventing Victorians: Virginia Woolf's "Memoirs of a Novelist" / Mary Kaiser Loges -- Distortion Versus Revaluation: Three Twentieth-Century Responses to Victorian Fiction / Jerome Meckier -- The Dover Bitch: Victorian Duck or Modernist Duck/Rabbit / Gerhard Joseph -- Carlyle's Denial of Axiological Content in Science / Charles W. Schaefer -- Mixed Metaphor, Mixed Gender: Swinburne and the Victorian Critics / Thaïs E. Morgan -- The Humanities Tradition of Matthew Arnold / William E. Buckler -- Oliver (Un)Twisted: Narrative Strategies in Oliver Twist / Joseph Sawicki -- Representation and Homophobia in The Picture of Dorian Gray / Richard Dellamora -- Coming In The Victorian Newsletter -- Books Receive

Concerns about anti-angiogenic treatment in patients with glioblastoma multiforme

BACKGROUND: The relevance of angiogenesis inhibition in the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) should be considered in the unique context of malignant brain tumours. Although patients benefit greatly from reduced cerebral oedema and intracranial pressure, this important clinical improvement on its own may not be considered as an anti-tumour effect. DISCUSSION: GBM can be roughly separated into an angiogenic component, and an invasive or migratory component. Although this latter component seems inert to anti-angiogenic therapy, it is of major importance for disease progression and survival. We reviewed all relevant literature. Published data support that clinical symptoms are tempered by anti-angiogenic treatment, but that tumour invasion continues. Unfortunately, current imaging modalities are affected by anti-angiogenic treatment too, making it even harder to define tumour margins. To illustrate this we present MRI, biopsy and autopsy specimens from bevacizumab-treated patients. Moreover, while treatment of other tumour types may be improved by combining chemotherapy with anti-angiogenic drugs, inhibiting angiogenesis in GBM may antagonise the efficacy of chemotherapeutic drugs by normalising the blood-brain barrier function. SUMMARY: Although angiogenesis inhibition is of considerable value for symptom reduction in GBM patients, lack of proof of a true anti-tumour effect raises concerns about the place of this type of therapy in the treatment of GBM

Ally or Adversary? Using Media Systems for Public Health

AbstractThe media system controls information resources that public health agencies may wish to use to accomplish their goals, particularly in a crisis. The resources of the public health system sometimes are prized by the media system, and this provides opportunities for public health agencies to gain access to the media. This paper reviews the goals and resources of the media system as they relate to the mission of public health agencies in the periods before, during, and after a public health crisis. The various media are reviewed with attention to the role each can play for different purposes and at different stages of a crisis. The importance of presenting health information in the form of stories is emphasized, with specific advice regarding the attributes of an effective story.</jats:p

Dependency Relations and Newspaper Readership

Newspaper readership often has been studied with the aim of developing demographic profiles of readers. This paper considers the goals readers are pursuing and the importance of media system dependency relations in explaining the amount of time spent reading newspapers. In a regression analysis, we find that dependency relations for social and self understanding explain a considerable amount of variance in readership beyond the variance explained by demographic variables. Differences in the dependency relations between more and less affluent readers, as well as between male and female readers, are noted as well. </jats:p