Reading for *class: Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, and Sylvia Townsend Warner

Reading for Class is a feminist materialist study of three twentieth-century British writers: Virginia Woolf (1882--1941), Rebecca West (1892--1983), and Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893--1978). In triangulation, Woolf, West, and Warner provide the specific grounding for the project\u27s more general exploration of the intersections between class issues and literature. The Introduction forges the eclectic critical method defined as reading for class, and articulates the historical-political purposes of the method and of the study itself. In Chapter One, analyses of two of Woolf\u27s lesser-known texts, the Introductory Letter to the collection Life as We Have Known It (1931) and Nurse Lugton\u27s Golden Thimble (1965), are juxtaposed with a reading of Mrs. Dalloway (1925). In Chapter Two, West\u27s early journalism is linked with her novel The Return of the Soldier (1918), which is explored at length. Chapter Three reviews Warner\u27s early novels, her 1931 poem Opus 7, and her 1959 lecture Women as Writers, and offers an extended discussion of her second novel, The True Heart (1929). Class differences are represented within the writing produced by these authors in this period, but class is of equal significance in our critical appraisals of their work. In its double layering of class analysis, the dissertation reads for class not only in literary texts, but also in interpretations of them. In the postmodern context, class is a particularly illuminating difference. The method developed in Reading for Class reveals and repoliticizes class within a nexus of discourses that shape literary and critical texts

Modes of Presentation in the Education of Secondary Students with Disabilities

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The Economic Recession: Early Impacts on Health Care Safety Net Providers

Examines how the recession and state and local budget cuts affected safety-net clinics' capacity to meet demand in five communities, the extent to which federal stimulus funds mitigated the impact, strategies for sustainability, and implications

Finding Humanity in Design

The Calgary Board of Education’s Design the Shift was a radical step away from typical professional development opportunities. It was a year-long collaboration designed for educators to provoke a shift in practice by redefining curriculum through design. Our definition of design evolved from a linear business model to a much more generous movement. As designers of learning, the participants took up “what really [mattered] to them”, with design becoming an intersection of creativity, place, and community (Chambers, 1998, p. 17). We created opportunities for participants to charge up against an experience, causing them to make, unmake, and remake the curriculum of their classrooms. All experiences inspired the participants to stop, notice, listen and awaken, drawing on Maxine Greene’s (1977) wide-awakeness philosophy

Diabetes Related Distress and Co-Occurrence with Depressive Symptoms in Urban Low-Income African American and Hispanic/Latinx Adults with Type 2 Diabetes

Introduction. Burden of diabetes in the U.S. is greater in racial-ethnic minority populations than non-Hispanic Whites. Depression and diabetes-related distress (DRD) are recognized as relatively common and important psychosocial areas to address in people living with diabetes. Limited research in the U.S. has focused on DRD in racial-ethnic minority populations. The purpose of this study is to describe patterns of DRD and co-occurrence with depressive symptoms in urban low-income African American and Hispanic/Latinx adults with type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Method. We examined the baseline data collected for a randomized clinical trial (RCT) studying the impact of a culturally tailored diabetes self-care intervention. Individuals with T2DM who self-identified as African American or Hispanic/Latinx were recruited from Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Measurement scales included the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Diabetes Distress Scale (DDS). Participants were categorized into four groups based on the PHQ-9 and DDS: high distress (without probable clinical depression), probable clinical depression (without high distress), both high distress and probable depression, or neither high distress nor probable depression. Baseline variables were summarized by sex, age and racial-ethnic group. Analyses included independent sample t-tests, Chi-square tests, and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results. The study sample included 247 participants with 118 (47.8%) Hispanic/Latinx and 129 (52.2%) African American adults with T2DM. The mean age was 52.9 years (SD=12.2) and 68.0% were female. Based on PHQ-9 scores, 51.4% had none to minimal, 23.5% mild, and 25.1% moderate-severe depressive symptomatology. Based on the DDS, 37.7% had little to no DRD, 27.1% moderate, and 35.2% high DRD. There was not a statistically significant relationship between sex and depression or DRD levels. There was not a statistically significant difference between age and depression; however, there was a statistically significant difference between age and DRD (p=.002). When examining the co-occurrence of DRD and depression, over half of the participants did not experience high distress nor probable clinical depression (57.5%), 17.8% experienced both high distress and depression, 17.4% experienced high distress without depression, and 7.3% experienced depression without distress. There was no statistically significant relationship found between sex and co-occurrence groups; however, there was a statistically significant difference for age (p=.003). Discussion. A substantial proportion of individuals from both racial-ethnic groups experienced high DRD and/or probable clinical depression with some differences for age. Patterns found for specific DRD areas and co-occurrence of DRD and depressive symptoms can help clinicians better understand and address these challenges

Multiple-input subject-specific modeling of plasma glucose concentration for feedforward control

The ability to accurately develop subject-specific, input causation models, for blood glucose concentration (BGC) for large input sets can have a significant impact on tightening control for insulin dependent diabetes. More specifically, for Type 1 diabetics (T1Ds), it can lead to an effective artificial pancreas (i.e., an automatic control system that delivers exogenous insulin) under extreme changes in critical disturbances. These disturbances include food consumption, activity variations, and physiological stress changes. Thus, this paper presents a free-living, outpatient, multiple-input, modeling method for BGC with strong causation attributes that is stable and guards against overfitting to provide an e ffective modeling approach for feedforward control (FFC). This approach is a Wiener block-oriented methodology, which has unique attributes for meeting critical requirements for effective, long-term, FFC

Modelling cross-reactivity and memory in the cellular adaptive immune response to influenza infection in the host

The cellular adaptive immune response plays a key role in resolving influenza infection. Experiments where individuals are successively infected with different strains within a short timeframe provide insight into the underlying viral dynamics and the role of a cross-reactive immune response in resolving an acute infection. We construct a mathematical model of within-host influenza viral dynamics including three possible factors which determine the strength of the cross-reactive cellular adaptive immune response: the initial naive T cell number, the avidity of the interaction between T cells and the epitopes presented by infected cells, and the epitope abundance per infected cell. Our model explains the experimentally observed shortening of a second infection when cross-reactivity is present, and shows that memory in the cellular adaptive immune response is necessary to protect against a second infection.Comment: 35 pages, 12 figure

Coping with kidney disease – qualitative findings from the Empowering Patients on Choices for Renal Replacement Therapy (EPOCH-RRT) study

Abstract Background The highly burdensome effects of kidney failure and its management impose many life-altering changes on patients. Better understanding of successful coping strategies will inform patients and help health care providers support patients’ needs as they navigate these changes together. Methods A qualitative, cross-sectional study involving semi-structured telephone interviews including open- and closed-ended questions, with 179 U.S. patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD), either not yet on dialysis ([CKD-ND], n = 65), or on dialysis (hemodialysis [HD], n = 76; or peritoneal dialysis [PD], n = 38) recruited through social media and in-person contacts from June to December 2013. Themes identified through content analysis of interview transcripts were classified based on the Coping Strategies Index (CSI) and compared across groups by demographics, treatment modality, and health status. Results Overall, more engagement than disengagement strategies were observed. “Take care of myself and follow doctors’ orders,” “accept it,” and “rely on family and friends” were the common coping themes. Participants often used multiple coping strategies. Various factors such as treatment modality, time since diagnosis, presence of other chronic comorbidities, and self-perceived limitations contributed to types of coping strategies used by CKD patients. Conclusions The simultaneous use of coping strategies that span different categories within each of the CSI subscales by CKD patients reflects the complex and reactive response to the variable demands of the disease and its treatment options on their lives. Learning from the lived experience of others could empower patients to more frequently use positive coping strategies depending on their personal context as well as the stage of the disease and associated stressors. Moreover, this understanding can improve the support provided by health care systems and providers to patients to better deal with the many challenges they face in living with kidney disease.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136225/1/12882_2017_Article_542.pd