The Family in four of Andersen’s tales: An Empty Shell or a Community in a Nutshell?

Family is a key institution in Andersen’s fiction, but my focus on its role will be limited to the four tales in which (forms of) the word family appear(s) in the very title: (1) “Nabofamilierne” [The Neighboring Families] (1847), (2) “Den lykkelige Familie” [The Happy Family] (1948), (3) “Hønse-Grethes Familie” [Chicken Grethe’s Family] (1869), and (4) “Hvad hele Familien sagde” [What the Whole Family Said] (1872). Taken as a whole, these four texts, spanning a quarter of a century, reveal how the topoi of family and community – major signifiers of collective sameness versus otherness – typically reinforce and problematize each other within Andersen’s corpus. As his narratives display the variations of this “dialectic” over time, they invite us to reflect on the intricate boundaries between family and community past and present, be it as sociocultural domains or aesthetic tropes

Comparison of bulk milk antibody and youngstock serology screens for determining herd status for Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus

BACKGROUND: This paper examines the use of Bulk Milk antibody (BM Ab), Youngstock (YS) serology (Check Tests) and Bulk Milk PCR (BM PCR) for determining the presence or absence of animals persistently infected (PI) with Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus (BVDV) within a herd. Data is presented from 26 herds where average herd sizes were 343 and 98 animals for dairy and beef units respectively. Seventeen herds had sufficient data to analyse using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) and probability curves enabling calculation of the sensitivity and specificity of BM Ab and YS Check tests for determining the presence of PI animals within herds in this dataset. RESULTS: Using BM Ab to screen a herd for the presence of PI animals, achieved a herd level sensitivity and specificity of 80.00 % (44.39–97.48 %) and 85.71 % (42.13–99.64 %) respectively (95 % confidence intervals quoted). Sensitivity and specificity of YS Check Tests at a cut off of 3/10 Ab positive YS were 81.82 % (48.22–97.72 %) and 66.67 % (22.28–95.67 %) respectively (95 % confidence interval). These results were achieved by comparing the screening tests to whole herd PI searches that took place 1–19 months after the initial screen with a mean interval of 8 months. Removal of this delay by taking BM samples on the day of a whole herd test and simulating a YS Check Test from the herd test data produced improvements in the reliability of the Check Tests. BM Ab sensitivity and specificity remained unchanged. However, the Check Test sensitivity and specificity improved to 90.9 % (58.72–99.77 %) and 100 % (54.07–100 %) respectively (95 % confidence interval) at a cut of off 2.5/10 Ab positive animals. Our limited BM PCR results identified 5/23 dairy farms with a positive BM PCR result; two contained milking PIs, two had non-milking PIs and another had no PIs identified. CONCLUSIONS: Delaying a PI search following an initial herd screen decreased the diagnostic accuracy and relevance of our results. With careful interpretation, longitudinal surveillance using a combination of the techniques discussed can successfully determine farm status and therefore allow changes in BVDV status to be detected early, thus enabling prompt action in the event of a BVDV incursion

The Efficacy of Ultrasound-guided Compression of Iatrogenic Femoral Pseudo-aneurysms

AbstractObjective to evaluate ultrasound guided compression (UGC) for the treatment of iatrogenic femoral pseudoaneurysms (PA). Design retrospective follow-up of 130 patients with suspected PA referred from the cardiac catheterisation laboratory over a 36-month period. Results the overall incidence of PA was 0.5% and was significantly higher after therapeutic (1.5%) than diagnostic (0.3%) procedures (p <0.000001). Forty-eight patients with a PA were treated with UGC with an 88% success rate. Success did not appear to be related to PA diameter.Conclusion the efficacy of UGC as treatment of PAs is confirmed