Preaching to Princes: John Burgess and George Hakewill in the Royal Pulpit

This article examines a previously unnoticed link between the Puritan John Burgess and the Calvinist conformist George Hakewill. In 1604 Burgess preached a court sermon so outspoken and critical of James I’s religious policy that he was imprisoned. Nearly twenty years later, however, Hakewill chose to incorporate extended passages from Burgess’s sermon into the series of sermons, King David’s vow (1621), preached to Prince Charles’s household. This article considers why Burgess’s sermon became so resonant for Hakewill in the early 1620s and also demonstrates how Hakewill deliberately sought to moderate Burgess’s strident polemic. In so doing the article provides important new evidence for the politically attuned sermon culture at Prince Charles’s court in the early 1620s and also suggests how, as the parameters for clerical conformity shifted in the latter years of James’s reign, Calvinist conformists found a new appeal in the works of moderate Puritans. I

An Ecological Correlation Study of Late Age-Related Macular Degeneration and the Complement Factor H Y402H Polymorphism

PURPOSE:
To investigate whether variation in the distribution of the risk allele frequency of the Y402H single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) across various ethnicities and geographic regions reflects differences in the prevalence of late age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in those ethnicities.

METHODS:
Published data were obtained via a systematic search. Study samples were grouped into clusters by ethnicity and geographic location and the Spearman correlation coefficient of the prevalence of late AMD and risk allele frequencies was calculated across clusters.

RESULTS:
Across all ethnicities, AMD prevalence was seen to increase with age. Populations of European descent had both higher risk allele frequencies and prevalence of late AMD than did Japanese, Chinese, and Hispanic descendants. Results for African descendants were anomalous: although allele frequency was similar to that in European populations, the age-specific prevalence of late AMD was considerably lower. The correlation coefficient for the association between allele frequency and AMD prevalence was 0.40 (95% confidence interval [CI] = -0.36 to 0.84, P = 0.28) in all populations combined and 0.71 (95% CI = 0.02-0.94, P = 0.04) when people of African descent were excluded.

CONCLUSIONS:
Evidence was found at the population level to support a positive association between the Y204H risk allele and the prevalence of AMD after exclusion of studies undertaken on persons of African ancestry. Data in African, Middle Eastern, and South American populations are needed to provide a better understanding of the association of late AMD genetic risk across ethnicities.

Prevalence of Early and Late Age-Related Macular Degeneration in India: The INDEYE Study

PURPOSE. To estimate the prevalence of early and late age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in India.

Blood levels of vitamin C, carotenoids and retinol are inversely associated with cataract in a north Indian population

PURPOSE. To examine the association of blood antioxidants with cataract.

"Producers and Consumers in EU E-Commerce Law by John Dickie, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2005 (ISBN 1-841-13454-6)"

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