Thelma and Disease : Susan Gilman's Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven [A Review]

In the nineteenth century, when female travel narratives of miss(adventure) were still read as excursions rather than expeditions, it was common for women travellers to preface their writing with an apology or admission of guilt—a type of disclaimer that excused the author for engaging in such inappropriate activity and bothering the reader with their trivial endeavours. Susan Gilman’s Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven offers no such thing. Instead Gilman begins her memoir with a confession about its lack of lies, half-truth and spin. ‘This is a true story,’ she writes, ‘recounted as accurate as possible and corroborated by notes I took at the time and by others who were present.’

Factors related to the presentation of thin and thick nodular melanoma from a population-based cancer registry in Queensland Australia

Purpose: Worldwide, the incidence of thick melanoma has not declined, and the nodular melanoma (NM) subtype accounts for nearly 40% of newly-diagnosed thick melanoma. To assess differences between patients with thin (≤2.00 mm) and thick (≥2.01 mm) nodular melanoma, we evaluated factors such as demographics, melanoma detection patterns, tumor visibility, and physician screening for NM alone and compared clinical presentation and anatomic location of NM with superficial spreading melanoma (SSM). Methods We utilized data from a large population-based study of Queensland (Australia) residents diagnosed with melanoma. Queensland residents aged 20 to 75 years with histologically confirmed first primary invasive cutaneous melanoma were eligible for the study, and all questionnaires were conducted by telephone (response rate 77.9%). Results During this four-year period, 369 patients with nodular melanoma were interviewed, of whom 56.7% were diagnosed with tumors ≤ 2.00 mm. Men, older individuals, and those who had not been screened by a physician in the past three years were more likely to have nodular tumors of greater thickness. Thickest nodular melanoma (4 mm+) was also most common in persons who had not been screened by a doctor within the past three years (OR 3.75; 95% CI 1.47-9.59). Forty-six percent of patients with thin nodular melanoma (≤ 2.00 mm) reported a change in color, compared with 64% of patients with thin SSM and 26% of patients with thick nodular melanoma (>2.00 mm). Conclusion Awareness of factors related to earlier detection of potentially fatal nodular melanomas, including the benefits of a physician examination, should be useful in enhancing public and professional education strategies. Particular awareness of clinical warning signs associated with thin nodular melanoma should allow for more prompt diagnosis and treatment of this subtype.

Effect of moisture and temperature distribution on dried food microstructure and porosity

Dehydration of food materials requires water removal from it. This removal of moisture prevents the growth and reproduction of microorganisms that cause decay and minimizes many of the moisture-driven deterioration reactions (Brennan, 1994). However, during food drying, many other changes occur simultaneously resulting in a modified overall quality (Kompany et al., 1993). Among the physical attributes of dried food material porosity and microstructure are the important ones that can dominant other quality of dried foods (Aguilera et al., 2000). In addition, this two concerned quality attributes affected by process conditions, material components and raw structure of food stuff. In this work, temperature moisture distribution within food materials during microwave drying will be taken into consideration to observe its participation on the microstructure and porosity of the finished product. Apple is the selective materials for this work. Generally, most of the food materials are found in non-uniformed moisture contained condition. To develop non uniform temperature distribution, food materials have been dried in a microwave oven with different power levels (Chua et al., 2000). First of all, temperature and moisture model is simulated by COMSOL Multiphysics. Later on, digital imaging camera and Image Pro Premier software have been deployed to observation moisture distribution and thermal imaging camera for temperature distribution. Finally, Microstructure and porosity of the food materials are obtained from scanning electron microscope and porosity measuring devices respectively . Moisture distribution and temperature during drying influence the microstructure and porosity significantly. Specially, High temperature and moisture contained regions show less porosity and more rupture. These findings support other literatures of Halder et al. (2011) and Rahman et al (1990). On the other hand, low temperature and moisture regions depict uniform microstructure and high porosity. This work therefore assists in better understanding of the role of moisture and temperature distribution to a prediction of micro structure and porosity of dried food materials.

Consumer perceptions of medication warnings about driving : a comparison of French and Australian labels

OBJECTIVE Little research has examined user perceptions of medication warnings about driving. Consumer perceptions of the Australian national approach to medication warnings about driving are examined. The Australian approach to warning presentation is compared with an alternative approach used in France. Visual characteristics of the warnings and overall warning readability are investigated. Risk perceptions and behavioral intentions associated with the warnings are also examined. METHOD Surveys were conducted with 358 public hospital outpatients in Queensland, Australia. Extending this investigation is a supplementary comparison study of French hospital outpatients (n = 75). RESULTS The results suggest that the Australian warning approach of using a combination of visual characteristics is important for consumers but that the use of a pictogram could enhance effects. Significantly higher levels of risk perception were found among the sample for the French highest severity label compared to the analogous mandatory Australian warning, with a similar trend evident in the French study results. The results also indicated that the French label was associated with more cautious behavioral intentions. CONCLUSION The results are potentially important for the Australian approach to medication warnings about driving impairment. The research contributes practical findings that can be used to enhance the effectiveness of warnings and develop countermeasures in this area. Hospital pharmacy patients should include persons with the highest level of likelihood of knowledge and awareness of medication warning labeling. Even in this context it appears that a review of the Australian warning system would be useful particularly in the context of increasing evidence relating to associated driving risks. Reviewing text size and readability of messages including the addition of pictograms, as well as clarifying the importance of potential risk in a general community context, is recommended for consideration and further research.

Chroma Key Theatre : an examination of similarities and divergences in the use of Green Screen in two experimental theatre works

This paper examines the frame as it contributes to the debate on contemporary intermedial theatre and performance practices in light of increasing astriction between filmic and theatrical discourses. Informed by Auslander (1999), Lehmann (2006), and Giesekam (2007), and through an extrapolation of the tenets Eckersall, Gretchen and Scheer identify in the theory of New Media Dramaturgy, it will analyse two recent works of experimental theatre-making. RUFF (2013), a New York produced solo performance by one of the world’s leading female performers, explores her experiences of having a stroke. Total Dik! (2013), produced in Brisbane, Australia, is an interdisciplinary collaborative performance that examines aspects of dictatorship. They are clearly very different works yet there are a number of significant theatrical similarities in their use of Chroma Key technology and live compositing as material scenic devices. These works overtly and evocatively draw on the cinematic technique and technology of Chroma Key to augment and reveal the tensions and overlaps in their production processes.

Comparison of fractional and geodesic anisotropy in diffusion tensor images of 90 monozygotic and dizygotic twins

We used diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) to reveal the extent of genetic effects on brain fiber microstructure, based on tensor-derived measures, in 22 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) twins and 23 pairs of dizygotic (DZ) twins (90 scans). After Log-Euclidean denoising to remove rank-deficient tensors, DTI volumes were fluidly registered by high-dimensional mapping of co-registered MP-RAGE scans to a geometrically-centered mean neuroanatomical template. After tensor reorientation using the strain of the 3D fluid transformation, we computed two widely used scalar measures of fiber integrity: fractional anisotropy (FA), and geodesic anisotropy (GA), which measures the geodesic distance between tensors in the symmetric positive-definite tensor manifold. Spatial maps of intraclass correlations (r) between MZ and DZ twins were compared to compute maps of Falconer's heritability statistics, i.e. the proportion of population variance explainable by genetic differences among individuals. Cumulative distribution plots (CDF) of effect sizes showed that the manifold measure, GA, comparably the Euclidean measure, FA, in detecting genetic correlations. While maps were relatively noisy, the CDFs showed promise for detecting genetic influences on brain fiber integrity as the current sample expands.

Dissection of the genetics of Parkinson's disease identifies an additional association 5' of SNCA and multiple associated haplotypes at 17q21

We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 1705 Parkinson's disease (PD) UK patients and 5175 UK controls, the largest sample size so far for a PD GWAS. Replication was attempted in an additional cohort of 1039 French PD cases and 1984 controls for the 27 regions showing the strongest evidence of association (P < 10 4). We replicated published associations in the 4q22/SNCA and 17q21/MAPT chromosome regions (P < 10 10) and found evidence for an additional independent association in 4q22/SNCA.A detailed analysis of the haplotype structure at 17q21 showed that there are three separate risk groups within this region. We found weak but consistent evidence of association for common variants located in three previously published associated regions (4p15/BST1, 4p16/GAK and 1q32/PARK16). We found no support for the previously reported SNP association in 12q12/LRRK2. We also found an association of the two SNPs in 4q22/SNCA with the age of onset of the disease. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press.