Authorising History: Gestures of Authorship in Fourteenth-Century English Historiography

This book discusses the strategies and rhetorical means by which four authors of Middle English verse historiography seek to authorise their works and themselves. Paying careful attention to the texts, it traces the ways in which authors inscribe their fictional selves and seek to give authority to their constructions of history. It further investigates how the authors position themselves in relation to their task of writing history, their sources and their audiences. This study provides new insights into the processes of the appropriation of history around 1300 by social groups whose lack of the relevant languages, before this 'anglicising' of the dominant Latin and French history constructions, prevented their access to the history of the British isles.

Relationship between the logistic EuroSCORE and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Predicted Risk of Mortality score in patients implanted with the CoreValve ReValving system--a Bern-Rotterdam Study

Background Surgical risk scores, such as the logistic EuroSCORE (LES) and Society of Thoracic Surgeons Predicted Risk of Mortality (STS) score, are commonly used to identify high-risk or “inoperable” patients for transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). In Europe, the LES plays an important role in selecting patients for implantation with the Medtronic CoreValve System. What is less clear, however, is the role of the STS score of these patients and the relationship between the LES and STS. Objective The purpose of this study is to examine the correlation between LES and STS scores and their performance characteristics in high-risk surgical patients implanted with the Medtronic CoreValve System. Methods All consecutive patients (n = 168) in whom a CoreValve bioprosthesis was implanted between November 2005 and June 2009 at 2 centers (Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland, and Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) were included for analysis. Patient demographics were recorded in a prospective database. Logistic EuroSCORE and STS scores were calculated on a prospective and retrospective basis, respectively. Results Observed mortality was 11.1%. The mean LES was 3 times higher than the mean STS score (LES 20.2% ± 13.9% vs STS 6.7% ± 5.8%). Based on the various LES and STS cutoff values used in previous and ongoing TAVI trials, 53% of patients had an LES ≥15%, 16% had an STS ≥10%, and 40% had an LES ≥20% or STS ≥10%. Pearson correlation coefficient revealed a reasonable (moderate) linear relationship between the LES and STS scores, r = 0.58, P < .001. Although the STS score outperformed the LES, both models had suboptimal discriminatory power (c-statistic, 0.49 for LES and 0.69 for STS) and calibration. Conclusions Clinical judgment and the Heart Team concept should play a key role in selecting patients for TAVI, whereas currently available surgical risk score algorithms should be used to guide clinical decision making.