Mothering in the Third Person: The Absent Mother of French and English Cinema 1959-1979

This thesis explores the tensions between the cultural construction of motherhood as a discourse and the complex subjectivities of individuals who mother, through analysing representations of mothers in French and English cinema. It begins with a theoretical background on discourses of motherhood in European thought. Drawing together feminist writing on motherhood with Lee Edelman’s theory of the Child, I argue that overzealous imaginations of the Child as the ideal cultural subject are used as grounds to legitimise the erasure of mothers as individual subjects. From here, I examine the extent to which this construction of the child-as-subject leads to representations of mothers in film that identify implicitly with the perspective of the child, and ask whether this engenders an absence of mothering subjects. I explore this question in relation to key gender-related issues that are thematised in English and French film in the 1960s and 1970s. Firstly, I look at gendered commentaries on consumer culture in French new wave and English ‘kitchen sink’ films and argue that masculinised perspectives in these narratives are particularly critical towards the mother in the home as a symbol of domestic objectification. Secondly, I consider representations of unplanned pregnancy and abortion in these films. Taking into account the historical context of public debate in France and England on the decriminalisation of abortion, I suggest that these representations contain important reflections on the meaning of motherhood and the tension between the subjectivities of maternal women and imagined children. I move on from this to a final section exploring films that pose a challenge to traditional ideologies of motherhood, either through the representation of marginalised mothering identities or through critical feminist filmmaking practice. I therefore ultimately argue how film can be used not only to consolidate but to deconstruct the absence of mothering subjectivities

What proportion of adult allergy referrals to secondary care could be dealt with in primary care by a GP with special interest?

Background: The concept of a General Practitioner with Special Interest (GPwSI) was first proposed in the 2000 National Health Service Plan, as a way of providing specialised treatment closer to the patient’s home and reducing hospital waiting times. Given the patchy and inadequate provision of allergy services in the UK the introduction of GPwSIs might reduce the pressure on existing specialist services. Objectives: This study assessed what proportion of referrals to a specialist allergy clinic could be managed in a GPwSI allergy service with a predefined range of facilities and expertise (accurate diagnosis and management of allergy; skin prick testing; provision of advice on allergen avoidance; ability to assess suitability for desensitisation). Methods: 100 consecutive GP referrals to a hospital allergy clinic were reviewed to determine whether patients could be seen in a community-based clinic led by a general practitioner with special interest (GPwSI) allergy. The documentation relating to each referral was independently assessed by three allergy specialists. The referrals were judged initially on the referral letter alone and then re-assessed with the benefit of information summarised in the clinic letter, to determine whether appropriate triage decisions could be made prospectively. The proportion of referrals suitable for a GPwSI was calculated and their referral characteristics identified. Results: 29 % referrals were judged unanimously appropriate for management by a GPwSI and an additional 30 % by 2 of the 3 reviewers. 18 % referrals were unsuitable for a GPwSI service because of the complexity of the presenting problem, patient co-morbidity or the need for specialist knowledge or facilities. Conclusions and clinical relevance: At least a quarter, and possibly half, of allergy referrals to our hospital-based service could be dealt with in a GPwSI clinic, thereby diversifying the patient pathway, allowing specialist services to focus on more complex cases and reducing the waiting time for first appointments

Transcriptome analysis of Brachypodium during fungal pathogen infection reveals both shared and distinct defense responses with wheat

© 2017 The Author(s). Fusarium crown rot (FCR) of wheat and barley, predominantly caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium pseudograminearum, is a disease of economic significance. The quantitative nature of FCR resistance within cultivated wheat germplasm has significantly limited breeding efforts to enhanced FCR resistance in wheat. In this study, we characterized the molecular responses of Brachypodium distachyon (Brachypodium hereafter) to F. pseudograminearum infection using RNA-seq to determine whether Brachypodium can be exploited as a model system towards better understanding of F. pseudograminearum-wheat interaction. The transcriptional response to infection in Brachypodium was strikingly similar to that previously reported in wheat, both in shared expression patterns of wheat homologs of Brachypodium genes and functional overlap revealed through comparative gene ontology analysis in both species. Metabolites produced by various biosynthetic pathways induced in both wheat and Brachypodium were quantified, revealing a high degree of overlap between these two species in metabolic response to infection but also showed Brachypodium does not produce certain defence-related metabolites found in wheat. Functional analyses of candidate genes identified in this study will improve our understanding of resistance mechanisms and may lead to the development of new strategies to protect cereal crops from pathogen infection

Dynamic programming with approximation function for nurse scheduling

Although dynamic programming could ideally solve any combinatorial optimization problem, the curse of dimensionality of the search space seriously limits its application to large optimization problems. For example, only few papers in the literature have reported the application of dynamic programming to workforce scheduling problems. This paper investigates approximate dynamic programming to tackle nurse scheduling problems of size that dynamic programming cannot tackle in practice. Nurse scheduling is one of the problems within workforce scheduling that has been tackled with a considerable number of algorithms particularly meta-heuristics. Experimental results indicate that approximate dynamic programming is a suitable method to solve this problem effectively

A cross-national study on the antecedents of work–life balance from the fit and balance perspective

Drawing on the perceived work–family fit and balance perspective, this study investigates demands and resources as antecedents of work–life balance (WLB) across four countries (New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain), so as to provide empirical cross-national evidence. Using structural equation modelling analysis on a sample of 870 full time employees, we found that work demands, hours worked and family demands were negatively related to WLB, while job autonomy and supervisor support were positively related to WLB. We also found evidence that resources (job autonomy and supervisor support) moderated the relationships between demands and work–life balance, with high resources consistently buffering any detrimental influence of demands on WLB. Furthermore, our study identified additional predictors of WLB that were unique to some national contexts. For example, in France and Italy, overtime hours worked were negatively associated with WLB, while parental status was positively associated with WLB. Overall, the implications for theory and practice are discussed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Evaluating the importance of metamorphism in the foundering of continental crust

The metamorphic conditions and mechanisms required to induce foundering in deep arc crust are assessed using an example of representative lower crust in SW New Zealand. Composite plutons of Cretaceous monzodiorite and gabbro were emplaced at ~1.2 and 1.8 GPa are parts of the Western Fiordland Orthogneiss (WFO); examples of the plutons are tectonically juxtaposed along a structure that excised ~25 km of crust. The 1.8 GPa Breaksea Orthogneiss includes suitably dense minor components (e.g. eclogite) capable of foundering at peak conditions. As the eclogite facies boundary has a positive dP/dT, cooling from supra-solidus conditions (T > 950 ºC) at high-P should be accompanied by omphacite and garnet growth. However, a high monzodioritic proportion and inefficient metamorphism in the Breaksea Orthogneiss resulted in its positive buoyancy and preservation. Metamorphic inefficiency and compositional relationships in the 1.2 GPa Malaspina Pluton meant it was never likely to have developed densities sufficiently high to founder. These relationships suggest that the deep arc crust must have primarily involved significant igneous accumulation of garnet–clinopyroxene (in proportions >75%). Crustal dismemberment with or without the development of extensional shear zones is proposed to have induced foundering of excised cumulate material at P > 1.2 GPa

Potential conservation of circadian clock proteins in the phylum Nematoda as revealed by bioinformatic searches

Although several circadian rhythms have been described in C. elegans, its molecular clock remains elusive. In this work we employed a novel bioinformatic approach, applying probabilistic methodologies, to search for circadian clock proteins of several of the best studied circadian model organisms of different taxa (Mus musculus, Drosophila melanogaster, Neurospora crassa, Arabidopsis thaliana and Synechoccocus elongatus) in the proteomes of C. elegans and other members of the phylum Nematoda. With this approach we found that the Nematoda contain proteins most related to the core and accessory proteins of the insect and mammalian clocks, which provide new insights into the nematode clock and the evolution of the circadian system.Fil: Romanowski, Andrés. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Cronobiología; ArgentinaFil: Garavaglia, Matías Javier. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Ing.genética y Biolog.molecular y Celular. Area Virus de Insectos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Goya, María Eugenia. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Cronobiología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Ghiringhelli, Pablo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Ing.genética y Biolog.molecular y Celular. Area Virus de Insectos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Golombek, Diego Andres. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencia y Tecnología. Laboratorio de Cronobiología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Congruence of additive and non-additive effects on gene expression estimated from pedigree and SNP data

There is increasing evidence that heritable variation in gene expression underlies genetic variation in susceptibility to disease. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the similarity between relatives for transcript variation is warranted-in particular, dissection of phenotypic variation into additive and non-additive genetic factors and shared environmental effects. We conducted a gene expression study in blood samples of 862 individuals from 312 nuclear families containing MZ or DZ twin pairs using both pedigree and genotype information. From a pedigree analysis we show that the vast majority of genetic variation across 17,994 probes is additive, although non-additive genetic variation is identified for 960 transcripts. For 180 of the 960 transcripts with non-additive genetic variation, we identify expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) with dominance effects in a sample of 339 unrelated individuals and replicate 31% of these associations in an independent sample of 139 unrelated individuals. Over-dominance was detected and replicated for a trans association between rs12313805 and ETV6, located 4MB apart on chromosome 12. Surprisingly, only 17 probes exhibit significant levels of common environmental effects, suggesting that environmental and lifestyle factors common to a family do not affect expression variation for most transcripts, at least those measured in blood. Consistent with the genetic architecture of common diseases, gene expression is predominantly additive, but a minority of transcripts display non-additive effects

Small RNA analysis in Sindbis virus infected human HEK293 cells

In contrast to the defence mechanism of RNA interference (RNAi) in plants and invertebrates, its role in the innate response to virus infection of mammals is a matter of debate. Since RNAi has a well-established role in controlling infection of the alphavirus Sindbis virus (SINV) in insects, we have used this virus to investigate the role of RNAi in SINV infection of human cells

Validity and usefulness of members reports of implementation progress in a quality improvement initiative: findings from the Team Check-up Tool (TCT)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Team-based interventions are effective for improving safety and quality of healthcare. However, contextual factors, such as team functioning, leadership, and organizational support, can vary significantly across teams and affect the level of implementation success. Yet, the science for measuring context is immature. The goal of this study is to validate measures from a short instrument tailored to track dynamic context and progress for a team-based quality improvement (QI) intervention.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Design: Secondary cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of data from a clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a team-based quality improvement intervention to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) rates in intensive care units (ICUs).</p> <p>Setting: Forty-six ICUs located within 35 faith-based, not-for-profit community hospitals across 12 states in the U.S.</p> <p>Population: Team members participating in an ICU-based QI intervention.</p> <p>Measures: The primary measure is the Team Check-up Tool (TCT), an original instrument that assesses context and progress of a team-based QI intervention. The TCT is administered monthly. Validation measures include CLABSI rate, Team Functioning Survey (TFS) and Practice Environment Scale (PES) from the Nursing Work Index.</p> <p>Analysis: Temporal stability, responsiveness and validity of the TCT.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found evidence supporting the temporal stability, construct validity, and responsiveness of TCT measures of intervention activities, perceived group-level behaviors, and barriers to team progress.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The TCT demonstrates good measurement reliability, validity, and responsiveness. By having more validated measures on implementation context, researchers can more readily conduct rigorous studies to identify contextual variables linked to key intervention and patient outcomes and strengthen the evidence base on successful spread of efficacious team-based interventions. QI teams participating in an intervention should also find data from a validated tool useful for identifying opportunities to improve their own implementation.</p