ATD: a multiplatform for semiautomatic 3-D detection of kidneys and their pathology in real time

This research presents a novel multi-functional system for medical Imaging-enabled Assistive Diagnosis (IAD). Although the IAD demonstrator has focused on abdominal images and supports the clinical diagnosis of kidneys using CT/MRI imaging, it can be adapted to work on image delineation, annotation and 3D real-size volumetric modelling of other organ structures such as the brain, spine, etc. The IAD provides advanced real-time 3D visualisation and measurements with fully automated functionalities as developed in two stages. In the first stage, via the clinically driven user interface, specialist clinicians use CT/MRI imaging datasets to accurately delineate and annotate the kidneys and their possible abnormalities, thus creating “3D Golden Standard Models”. Based on these models, in the second stage, clinical support staff i.e. medical technicians interactively define model-based rules and parameters for the integrated “Automatic Recognition Framework” to achieve results which are closest to that of the clinicians. These specific rules and parameters are stored in “Templates” and can later be used by any clinician to automatically identify organ structures i.e. kidneys and their possible abnormalities. The system also supports the transmission of these “Templates” to another expert for a second opinion. A 3D model of the body, the organs and their possible pathology with real metrics is also integrated. The automatic functionality was tested on eleven MRI datasets (comprising of 286 images) and the 3D models were validated by comparing them with the metrics from the corresponding “3D Golden Standard Models”. The system provides metrics for the evaluation of the results, in terms of Accuracy, Precision, Sensitivity, Specificity and Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) so as to enable benchmarking of its performance. The first IAD prototype has produced promising results as its performance accuracy based on the most widely deployed evaluation metric, DSC, yields 97% for the recognition of kidneys and 96% for their abnormalities; whilst across all the above evaluation metrics its performance ranges between 96% and 100%. Further development of the IAD system is in progress to extend and evaluate its clinical diagnostic support capability through development and integration of additional algorithms to offer fully computer-aided identification of other organs and their abnormalities based on CT/MRI/Ultra-sound Imaging.

Support for the far right in the 2014 European Parliament Elections: a comparative perspective

The May 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were characterised by the success of far-right Eurosceptic parties, including the French Front National, UKIP, the Danish People’s Party, the Hungarian Jobbik, the Austrian FPÖ, the True Finns and the Greek Golden Dawn. However, a closer look at the results across Europe indicates that the success of far-right parties in the EP elections is neither a linear nor a clear-cut phenomenon: (1) the far right actually declined in many European countries compared to the 2009 results; (2) some of the countries that have experienced the worst of the economic crisis, including Spain, Portugal and Ireland, did not experience a significant rise in far-right party support; and (3) ‘far right’ is too broad an umbrella term, covering parties that are too different from each other to be grouped in one single party family.

The spaces of the Wednesday Play (BBC TV 1964–1970): production, technology and style

The BBC television drama anthology The Wednesday Play, broadcast from 1964-70 on the BBC1 channel, was high-profile and often controversial in its time and has since been central to accounts of British television’s ‘golden age’. This article demonstrates that production technologies and methods were more diverse at that time than is now acknowledged, and that The Wednesday Play dramas drew both approving but also very critical responses from contemporary viewers and professional reviewers. This article analyses the ways that the physical spaces of production for different dramas in the series, and the different technologies of shooting and recording that were adopted in these production spaces, are associated with but do not determine aesthetic style. The adoption of single-camera location filming rather than the established production method of multi-camera studio videotaping in some of the dramas in the series has been important to The Wednesday Play’s significance, but each production method was used in different ways. The dramas drew their dramatic forms and aesthetic emphases from both theatre and cinema, as well as connecting with debates about the nature of drama for television. Institutional and regulatory frameworks such as control over staff working away from base, budgetary considerations and union agreements also impacted on decisions about how programmes were made. The article makes use of records from the BBC Written Archives Centre, as well as published scholarship. By placing The Wednesday Play in a range of overlapping historical contexts, its identity can be understood as transitional, differentiated and contested.

Identification and expression analyses of Cytosolic Glutamine Synthetase genes in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)

Glutamine synthetase (GS) is a key enzyme in nitrogen (N) assimilation, particularly during seed development. Three cytosolic GS isoforms (HvGS1) were identified in barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv Golden Promise). Quantitation of gene expression, localization and response to N supply revealed that each gene plays a non-redundant role in different tissues and during development. Localization of HvGS1_1 in vascular cells of different tissues, combined with its abundance in the stem and its response to changes in N supply, indicate that it is important in N transport and remobilization. HvGS1_1 is located on chromosome 6H at 72.54 cM, close to the marker HVM074 which is associated with a major quantitative trait locus (QTL) for grain protein content (GPC). HvGS1_1 may be a potential candidate gene to manipulate barley GPC. HvGS1_2 mRNA was localized to the leaf mesophyll cells, in the cortex and pericycle of roots, and was the dominant HvGS1 isoform in these tissues. HvGS1_2 expression increased in leaves with an increasing supply of N, suggesting its role in the primary assimilation of N. HvGS1_3 was specifically and predominantly localized in the grain, being highly expressed throughout grain development. HvGS1_3 expression increased specifically in the roots of plants grown on high NH+4, suggesting that it has a primary role in grain N assimilation and also in the protection against ammonium toxicity in roots. The expression of HvGS1 genes is directly correlated with protein and enzymatic activity, indicating that transcriptional regulation is of prime importance in the control of GS activity in barley.

Screens

Summer Saloon presented at Lion and Lamb an exhibition venue dedicated to showing current painting. My work "Screens" constructs rather than represents an existing architectural space. The painting investigates an experience of phenomenological depth distinct from the model of perspective depth.

Estimation of Gaussian process regression model using probability distance measures

A new class of parameter estimation algorithms is introduced for Gaussian process regression (GPR) models. It is shown that the integration of the GPR model with probability distance measures of (i) the integrated square error and (ii) Kullback–Leibler (K–L) divergence are analytically tractable. An efficient coordinate descent algorithm is proposed to iteratively estimate the kernel width using golden section search which includes a fast gradient descent algorithm as an inner loop to estimate the noise variance. Numerical examples are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new identification approaches.

Breaching the social contract: crises of democratic representation and patterns of extreme right party support

Why has the extreme right Greek Golden Dawn, a party with clear links to fascism experienced a rise defying all theories that claim that such a party is unlikely to win in post-WWII Europe? And, if we accept that economic crisis is an explanation for this, why has such a phenomenon not occurred in other countries that have similar conducive conditions, such as Portugal and Spain? This article addresses this puzzle by (a) carrying out a controlled comparison of Greece, Portugal and Spain and (b) showing that the rise of the extreme right is not a question of intensity of economic crisis. Rather it is the nature of the crisis, i.e. economic versus overall crisis of democratic representation that facilitates the rise of the extreme right. We argue that extreme right parties are more likely to experience an increase in their support when economic crisis culminates into an overall crisis of democratic representation. Economic crisis is likely to become a political crisis when severe issues of governability impact upon the ability of the state to fulfil its social contract obligations. This breach of the social contract is accompanied by declining levels of trust in state institutions, resulting in party system collapse.

'Nature concocts & expels': the agents and processes of recovery from disease in Early Modern England

The ‘golden saying’ in early modern medicine was ‘Nature is the healer of disease’. This article uncovers the meaning and significance of this forgotten axiom by investigating perceptions of the agents and physiological processes of recovery from illness in England, c.1580-1720. Drawing on sources such as medical texts and diaries, it shows that doctors and laypeople attributed recovery to three agents – God, Nature, and the practitioner. While scholars are familiar with the roles of providence and medicine, the vital agency of Nature has been overlooked. In theory, the agents operated in a hierarchy: Nature was ‘God’s instrument’, and the physician, ‘Nature’s servant’; but in practice the power balance was more ambivalent. Nature was depicted both as a housewife who cooked and cleaned the humours, and as a warrior, who defeated the disease. Through exploring these complex dynamics, the article sheds fresh light on concepts of gender, disease, and bodies.

Weak polygyny in California sea lions and the potential for alternative mating tactics

Female aggregation and male territoriality are considered to be hallmarks of polygynous mating systems. The development of genetic parentage assignment has called into question the accuracy of behavioral traits in predicting true mating systems. In this study we use 14 microsatellite markers to explore the mating system of one of the most behaviorally polygynous species, the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus). We sampled a total of 158 female-pup pairs and 99 territorial males across two breeding rookeries (San Jorge and Los Islotes) in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Fathers could be identified for 30% of pups sampled at San Jorge across three breeding seasons and 15% of sampled pups at Los Islotes across two breeding seasons. Analysis of paternal relatedness between the pups for which no fathers were identified (sampled over four breeding seasons at San Jorge and two at Los Islotes) revealed that few pups were likely to share a father. Thirty-one percent of the sampled males on San Jorge and 15% of the sampled males on Los Islotes were assigned at least one paternity. With one exception, no male was identified as the father of more than two pups. Furthermore, at Los Islotes rookery there were significantly fewer pups assigned paternity than expected given the pool of sampled males (p<0.0001). Overall, we found considerably lower variation in male reproductive success than expected in a species that exhibits behavior associated with strongly polygynous mating. Low variation in male reproductive success may result from heightened mobility among receptive females in the Gulf of California, which reduces the ability of males to monopolize groups of females. Our results raise important questions regarding the adaptive role of territoriality and the potential for alternative mating tactics in this species.

Monuments should not be trusted exhibition

Monuments Should Not Be Trusted brings together over 30 leading artists and groups from the “golden years” of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - the period between the early 1960s and the mid 1980s. Over 100 artworks and artefacts illuminate the key contradictions of this single party state – built after WWII on socialist principles, yet immersed in “utopian consumerism.” This is the first time in the UK that the art of this period, which has attracted increasing attention, has been shown in the context of the social, economic and political conditions that gave rise to it. It draws on new and innovative research on this period, and features many of its most celebrated artists. The exhibition begins with the rise of consumerism, midway through President Josip Broz Tito’s 37 year presidency, and ends a few years after his death in 1980. As well as artists’ works in moving image, collage, photography, sculpture and painting, the exhibition encompasses music, TV clips and fascinating artefacts, such as gifts made by workers for President Tito’s birthday, and relay batons which were carried across the country and ceremonially presented to him.