Exposed Online: Why the New Federal Health Privacy Regulation Doesn't Offer Much Protection to Internet Users

Provides an analysis of how the HIPAA regulation may or may not cover consumer-oriented health Web sites and Internet based health care. Comments on what new standards will be required for those sites covered by the regulation

Locations, Networks and Cycles: Studying the Everyday Life of Richard Stonley (1520-1600)

This project explores everyday life in the early modern period and utilises an extended case study examining the diaries of Richard Stonley, in order to develop new methodological strategies for the analysis and interpretation of archival sources. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the thesis draws on theoretical frameworks from fields including anthropology and material culture studies, and combines qualitative and quantitative modes of analysis. The conclusions of this study draw out effective methods with which to approach highly personal and idiosyncratic, or seemingly mundane archival sources. These methods enable a nuanced understanding of early modern individuals who may fall between established categories, such as 'elite' and 'middling' or 'urban' and 'rural'. The three surviving volumes of Richard Stonley's unpublished diary, dating from 1581 to 1597, contain large amounts of information about daily life at his homes in London and Essex, and in the Fleet prison where he resided in the final years of his life following a serious debt problem. As a Teller of the Exchequer, Richard Stonley also spent much of his time working at the Receipt at Westminster. These four locations would have been inhabited by Stonley on a regular or daily basis, and they were the sites for numerous routine activities recorded in the diary entries and in other archival sources, including inventories and accounts. Social interactions were also recorded in the diary, allowing for an analysis of his quotidian social network, alongside behaviours connected to both routine activities and special occasions. This thesis demonstrates that rather than viewing everyday life merely as a category of activities or objects centered around a domestic setting, this theme can be utilised as a lens through which to examine challenging or dense historical sources. This methodological approach includes exploring a wide range of archival evidence in detail, generating a deeper understanding of the working practices and daily tasks undertaken by historic individuals in the navigation of their quotidian lives and the creation of their social and cultural identities

Investigation of biomarker determinants of treatment efficacy of fulvestrant +/- the RET inhibitor vandetanib in oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer

ER+ breast cancer affects millions of women worldwide. Disease relapse is common after initial treatment and causes significant morbidity and mortality. Many treatments focus on targeting the endocrine receptor but over time resistance to endocrine therapies emerges. The fulvestrant and vandetanib in advanced aromatase inhibitor resistant breast cancer (FURVA) clinical trial aimed to address this by adding vandetanib (a RET inhibitor) to a hormone directed backbone (fulvestrant). The work presented in this thesis documents the investigation into biomarker determinants of response to treatment. Three key areas are investigated (i) RET expression as determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC), (ii) presence of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) by NGS and digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) and (iii) copy number alterations determined by ddPCR. Tissue and plasma samples were collected during trial participation and allowed investigations of both primary tumour, represented by formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue samples and metastatic disease, represented by circulating free DNA (cfDNA) extracted from plasma. Both high total-RET (t-RET) and phosphorylated-RET (p-RET) expression by IHC correlated with longer progression free survival (PFS) in participants in the FURVA clinical trial irrespective of treatment received. In addition, patients with no detectable circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) in plasma samples during trial participation had a longer PFS. There were notable negative findings; increased RET expression did not appear to be related to SNVs in RET and copy number alterations in FGFR1 or MYC did not correlate with PFS but were detectable using ddPCR technology. In conclusion, this thesis has shown that high RET expression correlates with longer PFS and that detection of ctDNA during treatment correlates with shorter PFS when patients are treated with fulvestrant +/- vandetanib

The role of orthographic neighbourhood effects in lateralized lexical decision: a replication study and meta-analysis

The effect of orthographic neighbourhood size (N) on lexical decision reaction time differs when words are presented in the left or right visual fields. Evidence suggests a facilitatory N effect (i.e., faster reaction times for words with larger neighbourhoods) in the left visual field. However, the N effect in the right visual field remains controversial: it may have a weaker facilitative role or it may even be inhibitory. In a pre-registered online experiment, we replicated the interaction between N and visual field and provided support for an inhibitory N effect in the right visual field. We subsequently conducted a pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesise the available evidence and determine the direction of N effects across visual fields. Based on the evidence, it would seem the effect is inhibitory in the right visual field. Furthermore, the size of the N effect is considerably smaller in the right visual field. Both studies revealed considerable heterogeneity between participants and studies, and we consider the implications of this for future work

Boston Hospitality Review: Winter 2013

Lodging Update: Portland, Maine by Rachel Roginsky and Matthew Arrants -- From Boston to the Balkans: Olmsted’s Emerald Legacy by Christina Luke -- An Important Arrival: Te Anatomy of a Vintage Advertisement by Bradford Hudson -- The Historical Origins of Business Statistics and a Current Application in Lodging Forecasting by Barry A.N. Bloom -- Building Hotel Revenues through Tourism by John D. Murtha -- Revisiting the Glass Ceiling: Career Progression for Women in the Hotel Industry by Zoe H

Human viruses:discovery and emergence

There are 219 virus species that are known to be able to infect humans. The first of these to be discovered was yellow fever virus in 1901, and three to four new species are still being found every year. Extrapolation of the discovery curve suggests that there is still a substantial pool of undiscovered human virus species, although an apparent slow-down in the rate of discovery of species from different families may indicate bounds to the potential range of diversity. More than two-thirds of human viruses can also infect non-human hosts, mainly mammals, and sometimes birds. Many specialist human viruses also have mammalian or avian origins. Indeed, a substantial proportion of mammalian viruses may be capable of crossing the species barrier into humans, although only around half of these are capable of being transmitted by humans and around half again of transmitting well enough to cause major outbreaks. A few possible predictors of species jumps can be identified, including the use of phylogenetically conserved cell receptors. It seems almost inevitable that new human viruses will continue to emerge, mainly from other mammals and birds, for the foreseeable future. For this reason, an effective global surveillance system for novel viruses is needed

The effect of targeting tolerance of children's negative emotions among anxious parents of children with anxiety disorders: a pilot randomised controlled trial

Following cognitive behavioural therapy for child anxiety a significant minority of children fail to lose their diagnosis status. One potential barrier is high parental anxiety. We designed a pilot RCT to test claims that parental intolerance of the child’s negative emotions may impact treatment outcomes. Parents of 60 children with an anxiety disorder, who were themselves highly anxious, received either brief parent-delivered treatment for child anxiety or the same treatment with strategies specifically targeting parental tolerance of their child’s negative emotions. Consistent with predictions, parental tolerance of the child’s negative emotions significantly improved from pre- to post-treatment. However, there was no evidence to inform the direction of this association as improvements were substantial in both groups. Moreover, while there were significant improvements in child anxiety in both conditions, there was little evidence that this was associated with the improvement in parental tolerance. Nevertheless, findings provide important clinical insight, including that parent-led treatments are appropriate even when the parent is highly anxious and that it may not be necessary to adjust interventions for many families

Differential Apicobasal VEGF Signaling at Vascular Blood-Neural Barriers

SummaryThe vascular endothelium operates in a highly polarized environment, but to date there has been little exploration of apicobasal polarization of its signaling. We show that VEGF-A, histamine, IGFBP3, and LPA trigger unequal endothelial responses when acting from the circulation or the parenchymal side at blood-neural barriers. For VEGF-A, highly polarized receptor distribution contributed to distinct signaling patterns: VEGFR2, which was found to be predominantly abluminal, mediated increased permeability via p38; in contrast, luminal VEGFR1 led to Akt activation and facilitated cytoprotection. Importantly, such differential apicobasal signaling and VEGFR distribution were found in the microvasculature of brain and retina but not lung, indicating that endothelial cells at blood-neural barriers possess specialized signaling compartments that assign different functions depending on whether an agonist is tissue or blood borne