Becoming Angels: women writing cyberspace

As virtual technology evolves and its uses become more widespread, particularly in western communities, women are moving from the virtual spaces of their cultural bodies to the virtual habitats of their cyber-bodies. What makes this migration interesting is the familiarity with which women begin to inhabit their virtual bodies. What seems to be occurring here is the recognition of a virtual existence and of women's learned capacity to inhabit absence. In virtual spaces virtual bodies are downloaded, mirrored, uplinked, morphed and mutated. Their existence as information strings makes them amenable to all kinds of virtual manipulations and manifestations which, in the external/real world are impossible. Perhaps what makes this less confronting for female subjects is their learned capacity to inhabit culture - where their subjectivity has long been overwritten by the male subject - from a position which is not of their own devising. In a culture which renders them as objects women have long since learned many and varied ways of subverting their liminal cultural positions. While male users often express a fear of the dissolution of the body/self, women have known all along what it means to be only virtually real (Wise). We know, furthermore, how to participate in a culture which is the site of our negation

Convalescent plasma in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised controlled, open-label, platform trial

SummaryBackground Azithromycin has been proposed as a treatment for COVID-19 on the basis of its immunomodulatoryactions. We aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of azithromycin in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19.Methods In this randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19Therapy [RECOVERY]), several possible treatments were compared with usual care in patients admitted to hospitalwith COVID-19 in the UK. The trial is underway at 176 hospitals in the UK. Eligible and consenting patients wererandomly allocated to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus azithromycin 500 mg once perday by mouth or intravenously for 10 days or until discharge (or allocation to one of the other RECOVERY treatmentgroups). Patients were assigned via web-based simple (unstratified) randomisation with allocation concealment andwere twice as likely to be randomly assigned to usual care than to any of the active treatment groups. Participants andlocal study staff were not masked to the allocated treatment, but all others involved in the trial were masked to theoutcome data during the trial. The primary outcome was 28-day all-cause mortality, assessed in the intention-to-treatpopulation. The trial is registered with ISRCTN, 50189673, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04381936.Findings Between April 7 and Nov 27, 2020, of 16 442 patients enrolled in the RECOVERY trial, 9433 (57%) wereeligible and 7763 were included in the assessment of azithromycin. The mean age of these study participants was65·3 years (SD 15·7) and approximately a third were women (2944 [38%] of 7763). 2582 patients were randomlyallocated to receive azithromycin and 5181 patients were randomly allocated to usual care alone. Overall,561 (22%) patients allocated to azithromycin and 1162 (22%) patients allocated to usual care died within 28 days(rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·87–1·07; p=0·50). No significant difference was seen in duration of hospital stay (median10 days [IQR 5 to >28] vs 11 days [5 to >28]) or the proportion of patients discharged from hospital alive within 28 days(rate ratio 1·04, 95% CI 0·98–1·10; p=0·19). Among those not on invasive mechanical ventilation at baseline, nosignificant difference was seen in the proportion meeting the composite endpoint of invasive mechanical ventilationor death (risk ratio 0·95, 95% CI 0·87–1·03; p=0·24).Interpretation In patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19, azithromycin did not improve survival or otherprespecified clinical outcomes. Azithromycin use in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should be restrictedto patients in whom there is a clear antimicrobial indication

Writing with imagination: A Practical Guide

Review of Linda Aronson's 'Writing with Imagination

From the Cradle to the Grave: A Novel and Exegesis

From the Cradle to the Grave: A Novel and Exegesis is concerned with maternal infanticide. This is, however, a somewhat inflammatory and perhaps misleading statement. While it is concerned with the infanticidal mother, she is in this instance largely an icon, a way into an exploration of diverse aspects of motherhood, especially negative ideas about mothers and mothering. It would be more precise to say that this thesis is concerned with the paradoxical Childless Mother. Both the novel and exegesis circle around ideas about parenting that seek to confront traditional assumptions about the connections and differences between good and bad mothering. The exegesis - From the Cradle to the Grave - does this through a discussion of various aspects of culture, which produce and are produced by mothering practices. In particular it engages with childcare literature, medical and legal engagements with women and children, and myth and fairy tales. The novel - The Bone Flute - is another exploration of the paradoxical nature of motherhood. While the exegesis seeks to draw together some of the material and historical truths of mothering, the novel addresses another kind of truth; through various narrative devices it seeks a different type of engagement with the lived realities of women. Both texts ask questions about the nature of maternity and its relationship to femininity. Both attempt to come to terms with the paradoxical status of mothers without children. The exegesis is an explication of the research processes, the reflections and considerations that preceded and accompanied the writing of The Bone Flute. It seeks to make explicit the tangled web of reading and thinking that informed the writing of a novel - from initial impulse to final draft. The exegesis is not, however, an explicit explanation of how the novel was written. Rather the two texts existed (and exist) symbiotically - each inciting and reflecting upon the other. While the exegesis explores the materia

The problem of the exegesis in creative writing higher degrees

It has now become standard practice for there to be an exegetical component not only in creative writing PhDs, but also in Masters and even Honours dissertations. In this paper we will examine the main kinds of exegeses currently being submitted and discussed - including reflective/journal-based, 'theory' based, literary criticism, and historical or genre context - and attempt to evaluate their usefulness both for the student/writer and for the broader academic community. \ud \ud We will be exploring such questions as: does current learning theory support the reflective or self-critical approach? Are current exegetical models (particularly the literary criticism model) overly embedded in an English Department idea of writing and writing theory? Does creative writing need to establish its own critical discourse, particularly through the exegesis? What kinds of students are doing these exegeses and how does our understanding of their assumed knowledges impact on developing models for critical work? Does current exegetical practice contribute to a growing theory of creative writing

Airway remodelling and inflammation in asthma are dependent on the extracellular matrix protein fibulin-1c

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. It is characterized by allergic airway inflammation, airway remodelling, and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR). Asthma patients, in particular those with chronic or severe asthma, have airway remodelling that is associated with the accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, such as collagens. Fibulin-1 (Fbln1) is an important ECM protein that stabilizes collagen and other ECM proteins. The level of Fbln1c, one of the four Fbln1 variants, which predominates in both humans and mice, is increased in the serum and airways fluids in asthma but its function is unclear. We show that the level of Fbln1c was increased in the lungs of mice with house dust mite (HDM)-induced chronic allergic airway disease (AAD). Genetic deletion of Fbln1c and therapeutic inhibition of Fbln1c in mice with chronic AAD reduced airway collagen deposition, and protected against AHR. Fbln1c-deficient (Fbln1c(-/-)) mice had reduced mucin (MUC) 5 AC levels, but not MUC5B levels, in the airways as compared with wild-type (WT) mice. Fbln1c interacted with fibronectin and periostin that was linked to collagen deposition around the small airways. Fbln1c(-/-) mice with AAD also had reduced numbers of -smooth muscle actin-positive cells around the airways and reduced airway contractility as compared with WT mice. After HDM challenge, these mice also had fewer airway inflammatory cells, reduced interleukin (IL)-5, IL-13, IL-33, tumour necrosis factor (TNF) and CXCL1 levels in the lungs, and reduced IL-5, IL-33 and TNF levels in lung-draining lymph nodes. Therapeutic targeting of Fbln1c reduced the numbers of GATA3-positive Th2 cells in the lymph nodes and lungs after chronic HDM challenge. Treatment also reduced the secretion of IL-5 and IL-13 from co-cultured dendritic cells and T cells restimulated with HDM extract. Human epithelial cells cultured with Fbln1c peptide produced more CXCL1 mRNA than medium-treated controls. Our data show that Fbln1c may be a therapeutic target in chronic asthma