Patriarchal Negotiations: Women, Writing and Religion 1640-1660

PhDWomen were prominent in the Lollard movement in the fifteenth century, but it is only in the mid-seventeenth century that women begin to produce theological texts which contribute to the controversy over popular religious expression and women's part in religious culture. After 1640 women began to publish on a number of theological issues and in a wide range of genres: prose polemic, prophecy, autobiography and spiritual meditation. Subject to widespread criticism, they quickly had to fashion a rhetoric of justification with which to defend their intervention in print and pacify male critics. This thesis shows that they achieved this in two ways: by producing a literature which complied with the expectations of masculine theological culture and by manipulating these assumptions so as to create space for a female symbolic language of piety. They developed a literary self-consciousness which depends on the idea of subjectivity as a gendered experience and they often resisted their detractors by valorising denigrated forms of female subjectivity and pursuing theological conclusions irrespective of normative ideas of gender. Women did not engage in theological debate in isolation, however. They often intervened as committed members of religious sects and thus deserve to be read as representatives of corporate and communal theologies. In contrast to earlier studies which have sought to recover neglected women writers as early feminists, without reading their work historically, this thesis seeks to uncover the social and the theological rather than the authorial origin of much early modem women's writing and to measure its engagement with early modem debates on women and religious culture. It seeks to challenge the increasingly dominant view of early modem women writers which invests them with too modem an authorial presence, by reconstituting the seventeenth-century debates which gave rise to their work and by bringing modem French feminist perspectives to bear on a period largely untouched by theoretical approaches to literature. To this end it proceeds by way of several close readings of women who wrote as women and as Baptists, Independents, Levellers, Presbyterians and Quakers

Atrial fibrillation and survival in colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Survival in colorectal cancer may correlate with the degree of systemic inflammatory response to the tumour. Atrial fibrillation may be regarded as an inflammatory complication. We aimed to determine if atrial fibrillation is a prognostic factor in colorectal cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A prospective colorectal cancer patient database was cross-referenced with the hospital clinical-coding database to identify patients who had underwent colorectal cancer surgery and were in atrial fibrillation pre- or postoperatively. RESULTS: A total of 175 patients underwent surgery for colorectal cancer over a two-year period. Of these, 13 patients had atrial fibrillation pre- or postoperatively. Atrial fibrillation correlated with worse two-year survival (p = 0.04; log-rank test). However, in a Cox regression analysis, atrial fibrillation was not significantly associated with survival. CONCLUSION: The presence or development of atrial fibrillation in patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer is associated with worse overall survival, however it was not found to be an independent factor in multivariate analysis

Does Installation Method Affect Snake Entanglement in Erosion Control Blankets?

Erosion control blankets (ECBs) are installed at construction sites to mitigate against soil loss and promote plant growth. Wildlife, particularly snakes, are prone to becoming entangled in ECBs that contain fixed‐intersection, small‐diameter polypropylene mesh with multiple layers (Ebert et al. 2019 Wildl. Soc. Bull.; Fig. 1). The majority of ECBs on the Texas Department of Transportation’s Approved Product List contain fixed-intersection mesh, which pose a risk to snakes. Snake entanglements often occur at the edge of an ECB where the snake often passes between the multiple mesh layers (Ebert et al. 2019 Wildl. Soc. Bull.) Burying the edge of an ECB may decrease the risk of snake entanglement by allowing them to pass over the ECB edge reducing their encounters with the multiple layers of mesh netting. We hypothesized burying the ECB edge would reduce snakes attempting to pass through the mesh and reducing their risk of entanglement and that there will be a positive correlation between circumference and entanglement

RpfC (Rv1884) atomic structure shows high structural conservation within the resuscitation promoting factor catalytic domain

We report the first structure of the catalytic domain of RpfC (Rv1884), one of theresuscitation-promoting factors (RPFs) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The structure was solved using molecular replacement, once the space group had been correctly identified as twinned P21 rather than the apparent C2221 by searching for anomalous scattering sites in P1. The structure displays a very high degree of structural conservation with the structures of the catalytic domains of RpfB (Rv1009) and RpfE (Rv2450) already published. This structural conservation highlights the importance of the versatile domain composition of the RPF family

Coastal Forest Seawater Exposure Increases Stem Methane Concentration

Methane (CH4) exchange between trees and the atmosphere has recently emerged as an important, but poorly quantified process regulating global climate. The sources (soil and/or tree) and mechanisms driving the increase of CH4 in trees and degassing to the atmosphere are inadequately understood, particularly for coastal forests facing increased exposure to seawater. We investigated the eco‐physiological relationship between tree stem wood density, soil and stem oxygen saturation (an indicator of redox state), soil and stem CH4 concentrations, soil and stem carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, and soil salinity in five forests along the United States coastline. We aim to evaluate the mechanisms underlying greenhouse gas increase in trees and the influence of seawater exposure on stem CH4 accumulation. Seawater exposure corresponded with decreased tree survival and increased tree stem methane. Tree stem wood density was significantly correlated with increased stem CH4 in seawater exposed gymnosperms, indicating that dying gymnosperm trees may accumulate higher levels of CH4 in association with seawater flooding. Further, we found that significant differences in seawater exposed and unexposed gymnosperm tree populations are associated with increased soil and stem CH4 and CO2, indicating that seawater exposure significantly impacts soil and stem greenhouse gas abundance. Our results provide new insight into the potential mechanisms driving tree CH4 accumulation within gymnosperm coastal forests

Recent European Projects on Driver Impairment

This paper gives an overview of recent European Union projects on the assessment of driver impairment. Whereas previous research has focused on vehicle technology (DREAM, DETER) or Human Machine Interfacing (SAVE), more recent efforts have been based on methods to detect the presence of substances (ROSITA) or the level of impaired performance at the roadside (CERTIFIED, IMMORTAL). This paper will summarize the objectives and main conclusions of the most recent project

Introducing research initiatives into healthcare: What do doctors think?

Background: Current national and international policies emphasize the need to develop research initiatives within our health care system. Institutional biobanking represents a modern, large-scale research initiative that is reliant upon the support of several aspects of the health care organization. This research project aims to explore doctors' views on the concept of institutional biobanking and to gain insight into the factors which impact the development of research initiatives within healthcare systems. Methods: Qualitative research study using semi-structured interviews. The research was conducted across two public teaching hospitals in Sydney, Australia where institutional biobanking was being introduced. Twenty-five participants were interviewed, of whom 21 were medical practitioners at the specialist trainee level or above in a specialty directly related to biobanking; four were key stakeholders responsible for the design and implementation of the biobanking initiative. Results: All participants strongly supported the concept of institutional biobanking. Participants highlighted the discordance between the doctors who work to establish the biobank (the contributors) and the researchers who use it (the consumers). Participants identified several barriers that limit the success of research initiatives in the hospital setting including: the 'resistance to change' culture; the difficulties in engaging health professionals in research initiatives; and the lack of incentives offered to doctors for their contribution. Doctors positively valued the opportunity to advise the implementation team, and felt that the initiative could benefit from their knowledge and expertise. Conclusion: Successful integration of research initiatives into hospitals requires early collaboration between the implementing team and the health care professionals to produce a plan that is sensitive to the needs of the health professionals and tailored to the hospital setting. Research initiatives must consider incentives that encourage doctors to adopt operational responsibility for hospital research initiatives

A mathematical modelling study of an athlete's sprint time when towing a weighted sled

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12283-013-0114-2.This study used a mathematical model to examine the effects of the sled, the running surface, and the athlete on sprint time when towing a weighted sled. Simulations showed that ratio scaling is an appropriate method of normalising the weight of the sled for athletes of different body size. The relationship between sprint time and the weight of the sled was almost linear, as long as the sled was not excessively heavy. The athlete’s sprint time and rate of increase in sprint time were greater on running surfaces with a greater coefficient of friction, and on any given running surface an athlete with a greater power-to-weight ratio had a lower rate of increase in sprint time. The angle of the tow cord did not have a substantial effect on an athlete’s sprint time. This greater understanding should help coaches set the training intensity experienced by an athlete when performing a sled-towing exercise

Virus transcript levels and cell growth rates after naturally occurring HPV16 integration events in basal cervical keratinocytes.

Cervical carcinogenesis is characterized by a clonal selection process in which the high-risk human papillomavirus (HRHPV) genome usually changes from the extra-chromosomal (episomal) state seen in productive infections to DNA that is integrated into host chromosomes. However, it is not clear whether all HRHPV integration events provide cells with a selective growth advantage compared with the episome-containing cells from which they originate. It is also unclear whether selection of cells containing a particular integrant from a mixed population simply reflects the highest levels of virus oncogene expression or has additional determinants. These early events in cervical carcinogenesis cannot readily be addressed by cross-sectional studies of clinical samples. We used the W12 model system to generate a panel of cervical squamous cell clones that were derived from an identical background under non-competitive conditions and differed only by the genomic site of HPV16 integration. Compared with the 'baseline' episome-containing cells from which they were isolated, only 9/17 clones (53%) showed significantly greater growth rates and only 7/17 (41%) showed significantly greater expression of the major virus oncogenes E7/E6. There were significant variations in levels of HPV16 transcription per DNA template, changes that were associated with histone modifications in the integrated virus chromatin. Cell growth rates showed only weak and non-significant associations with protein and mRNA levels for E7, E6, and the mean E7/E6 values. We conclude that HPV16 integration in basal cervical cells does not necessarily lead to increased levels of virus oncogenes, or to a competitive growth advantage, when compared with the initiating episome-containing cells