Cutting as a Literacy Practice: Exploring the Fractured Body, Desire and Rage through Queer and Trans*+ Youth Embodiments

By attending to the ways in which cutting manifests in the life histories of three queer and trans*+ youth of color, I argue that cutting is a literacy practice. I focus on the life histories of three youth, Jay, Harper and Sam, who have different experiences, reasons for, and reactions to their cutting. With each story, we learn something new about the act and how it pushes us to the brink of literacy pedagogy. Jay’s narrative forces us to reckon with youth who refuse to or cannot maintain their bodily integrity. Harper’s story brings to the fore the violence of everyday life for queer and trans*+ youth of color. Sam’s story showcases the nuanced ways in which desire and rage can exist side by side in the act of cutting. All of these stories help us to understand the larger implications of engaging with embodied literacies inside a classroom space

New imaging strategies in neuroendocrine tumors

Nieuwe techniek bij opsporen tumoren in alvleesklierPatiënten met de erfelijke tumorsyndromen von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) en Multipele Endocriene Neoplasie type 1 (MEN1) ontwikkelen al in een vroeg stadium tumoren in de alvleesklier. Sophie van Asselt testte tijdens haar promotieonderzoek nieuwe technieken om deze op te sporen, waarvan één inderdaad effectiever blijkt dan de huidige technieken. Met goede opsporingstechnieken kunnen tumoren eerder ontdekt en bestreden worden om uitzaaiing te voorkomen, en daarmee de levensverwachting van deze patiënten te verhogen.Van Asselt onderzocht patiënten met de ziekte VHL en MEN1. Beide zijn zeldzame, erfelijke ziekten, waarbij in het lichaam zogenaamde neuro-endocrine tumoren ontstaan, onder andere in de alvleesklier. Deze patiënten kunnen alleen genezen als de tumoren met een operatie worden verwijderen. Als ze echter te groot zijn of al uitgezaaid, is genezing vaak niet meer mogelijk. VHL- en MEN1-patiënten worden regelmatig onderzocht op de aanwezigheid van tumoren, om in een zo vroeg mogelijk stadium te kunnen ingrijpen. Tot nu toe gebeurt dat met een CT- of MRI-scan en een octreotidescan. Deze methoden zijn echter nog niet optimaal, waardoor artsen tumoren nog te vaak te laat ontdekken.Van Asselt vergeleek daarom de huidige opsporingsmethoden met andere technieken. Zij concludeert dat endoscopische echografie een gevoeligere techniek is, waarmee tumoren in de alvleesklier eerder op te sporen zijn. Positron emissie tomografie (PET) bleek juist niet zinvol.Neuroendocrine tumours include rare tumours, originating from (neuro)endocrine cells throughout the body. They occur sporadically, but can also be part of the hereditary tumour syndromes von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease and Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia type 1 (MEN1). In both tumour syndromes patients are at high risk to develop pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. The only curative treatment of neuroendocrine tumours is surgery. Compared to epithelial tumors, neuroendocrine tumours often behave indolent, but can also act more aggressive and/or become resistant to treatment.Screening is recommended for early detection of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours in both MEN1 and VHL. In this thesis we compared the new imaging techniques endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) and 11C-5-hydroytryptophan positron emission tomography (11C-5-HTP PET) with the conventional imaging CT or MRI and somatostatin receptor scintigraphy (SRS) for the early detection of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours in these patients.There is a need for biomarkers that can predict disease activity or treatment efficacy. Bevacizumab is a monoclonal antibody against vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A), which is an important growth factor for vascularisation in cancer. Imaging with 89Zr-bevacizumab PET can potentially provide information about VEGF-A status at the tumour site non-invasively. We investigated the role of zirconium -89 (89Zr) labelled bevacizumab as biomarker in PET molecular imaging in VHL disease and in patients with sporadic advanced neuroendocrine tumours treated with everolimus

Comparing Cognitive and Behavioral Profiles in School-Aged Children with Specific Learning Disorder and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Two of the most common childhood disorders are Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), frequently co-occurring, and both impacting academic performance. Given the overlap between these disorders on cognitive and behavioral/emotional factors, assessment research has explored how they are differentiated on standardized tests. The present study investigated cognitive functioning and behavioral/emotional functioning in school-aged children with SLD (n = 31), ADHD (n = 17), and ADHD + SLD (n = 18). The archival data for this study consisted of 66 students from a rural community. Results indicated that students with SLD demonstrated more difficulty with auditory processing than the other diagnostic groups. Behaviorally and emotionally, students with ADHD and ADHD + SLD were found to have increased behavior problems (aggression and hyperactivity). This research further contributes to the literature on determining the accuracy with which cognitive and emotional/behavioral test scores can discriminate these diagnostic groups

Robotic weeding of a maize field based on navigation data of the tractor that performed the seeding (Preprint)

This research presents robotic weeding of a maize field based on navigation data of the tractor that performed the seeding. The availability of tractors equipped with RTK-DGPS based automatic guidance potentially enables robots to perform subsequent tasks in the same field. In an experiment a tractor guidance system generated a route for sowing based on an initial path consisting of two logged positions (A-B line) and then planned the subsequent paths parallel to the initial path one working width apart. After sowing the maize, the A-B line was transferred to the Intelligent Autonomous Weeder (IAW) of Wageningen University. The IAW generated a route plan based on this A-B line and eight coordinates defining the borders of the field and the two headlands. It then successfully performed autonomous weeding of the entire field except of the headlands. The row width was 75 cm and the width of the hoes mounted on the robot was 50 cm. The results show that it is possible to perform robot weeding at field level with high accuracy based on navigation data of the tractor that performed the sowin