Comparative performance of multiview stereoscopic and mammographic display modalities for breast lesion detection.

PURPOSE: Mammography is known to be one of the most difficult radiographic exams to interpret. Mammography has important limitations, including the superposition of normal tissue that can obscure a mass, chance alignment of normal tissue to mimic a true lesion and the inability to derive volumetric information. It has been shown that stereomammography can overcome these deficiencies by showing that layers of normal tissue lay at different depths. If standard stereomammography (i.e., a single stereoscopic pair consisting of two projection images) can significantly improve lesion detection, how will multiview stereoscopy (MVS), where many projection images are used, compare to mammography? The aim of this study was to assess the relative performance of MVS compared to mammography for breast mass detection. METHODS: The MVS image sets consisted of the 25 raw projection images acquired over an arc of approximately 45 degrees using a Siemens prototype breast tomosynthesis system. The mammograms were acquired using a commercial Siemens FFDM system. The raw data were taken from both of these systems for 27 cases and realistic simulated mass lesions were added to duplicates of the 27 images at the same local contrast. The images with lesions (27 mammography and 27 MVS) and the images without lesions (27 mammography and 27 MVS) were then postprocessed to provide comparable and representative image appearance across the two modalities. All 108 image sets were shown to five full-time breast imaging radiologists in random order on a state-of-the-art stereoscopic display. The observers were asked to give a confidence rating for each image (0 for lesion definitely not present, 100 for lesion definitely present). The ratings were then compiled and processed using ROC and variance analysis. RESULTS: The mean AUC for the five observers was 0.614 +/- 0.055 for mammography and 0.778 +/- 0.052 for multiview stereoscopy. The difference of 0.164 +/- 0.065 was statistically significant with a p-value of 0.0148. CONCLUSIONS: The differences in the AUCs and the p-value suggest that multiview stereoscopy has a statistically significant advantage over mammography in the detection of simulated breast masses. This highlights the dominance of anatomical noise compared to quantum noise for breast mass detection. It also shows that significant lesion detection can be achieved with MVS without any of the artifacts associated with tomosynthesis.

Rats, floods and flowers: London's Gothicized nature

AUTHOR's OVERVIEW This chapter attempts a definition of London eco-gothic, beginning with an ecocritical reading of the ubiquitous London rat. Following Dracula, popular London gothic has been overrun, from the blunt horror-schlock of James Herbert’s 1970s Rats series to China Miéville’s King Rat. Maud Ellman’s elegant discussion of the modernist rat as a protean figure associated with a ‘panoply of fears and fetishes’, underlines how the rat has always featured in anti-urban discourse: as part of racist representations of immigration; as an expression of fear of disease and poverty; or through a quasi-supernatural anxiety about their indestructible and illimitable nature which makes them a staple feature of post-apocalyptic landscapes. Even so, the London rat is a rather more mundane manifestation of urban eco-gothic than the ‘city wilderness’ metaphors common to representations of New York or Los Angles as identified by eco-critic Andrew White. London’s gothic noses its way out through cracks in the pavements, grows from seeds in suburban gardens or accumulates through the steady drip of rainwater. However, I will suggest, in texts such as Maggie Gee’s The Flood and P. D. James’ Children of Men, London eco-gothic becomes less local and familiar as it responds to global environmental crisis with more dramatic tales of minatorial nature.

Socrates and Plato on asking ‘what is x?’

The Socratic elenchus is a method of philosophical enquiry attributed by Plato, in his dialogues, to his teacher Socrates. It is a method that uses a dialectic technique of questioning and answering to try to discover the truth of the issue under investigation. For Plato’s Socrates, the fundamental question for human beings is that of how to live, thus the enquiries he initiates concern our understanding of what it is to act ethically. In order to begin to enquire into how to act in a virtuous manner, however, Socrates claimed that we must first know what virtue is. We must, that is, first understand the meaning of virtue before we can consider its application it to any particular kind of action; we must first be able to answer the question “what is x?” before considering whether a particular action or kind of action is an instance of x. This requirement leads to what is known as the ‘Socratic Paradox’: if we have to first establish what x means before we confirm or discount cases of it, then how can our enquiry ever commence; how can we begin in asking questions about x if we don’t yet know what x is? Philosophy has continued to grapple with the Socratic paradox since Plato’s formulation of it. This presentation will explain how the paradox is produced out of the elenchus and consider the ways in which Wittgenstein’s account of family resemblance sheds new light upon this age-old issue. [From the Author]

Supporting breastfeeding mothers on children’s wards: an overview

Just under half of all six-week-old babies in the UK are breastfed, and just under a quarter are still being breastfed at six months old so it is likely that children’s nurses will frequently encounter breastfed babies on children’s wards. Support for breastfeeding has traditionally been left to midwives but Department of Health guidance requires that all relevant staff have training in this practice. Children’s nurses need to understand the principles and practice of breastfeeding support including correct positioning and attachment, prevention and management of breastfeeding problems, mothers’ needs and safe use of breast pumps. Breastfeeding should be part of the curriculum for children’s nursing courses, including practical sessions to observe breastfeeding support in the clinical setting. Children’s nurses should be aware that literature and learning resources written for midwives might be appropriate for them to access to increase their understanding in this important area of practice.

Flavian laws, the railway, the newspaper and Loring’s breads

It is abound the research on the formation, rise and failure of the financial and industrial network undertaken by the Loring-Heredia-Larios triangle, bourgeois families who introduced the Industrial Revolution in the south of Andalusia. On the contrary, there are almost nonexistent studies from the perspective of the mentality that sustained their business, social and ethical model in the algid decades of their action (1850-1860). In this paper we propose some hypotheses about the ideological structures of bourgeois group and point out some keys, clues and signs for a future reconstruction of this kind, which so far has not been incardinated that early and failed malaguenan industrial revolution in streams thinking of that time.

Qualitative methods in the study of children's racial attitudes and identities

This article examines the role that qualitative methods can play in the study of children's racial attitudes and behaviour. It does this by discussing a number of examples taken from a qualitative, ethnographic study of five- and six-year-old children in an English multi-ethnic, inner-city primary school. The examples are used to highlight the limitations of research that relies solely on quantitative methods and the potential that qualitative methods have for addressing these limitations. Within this context the article contrasts the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative and quantitative methods in the study of children's racial attitudes and identities. The article concludes by arguing that a much more integrated multi-method approach is needed in this area and sets out some of the most effective ways this could be achieved.

Bolsa Familia Program and school enrolment: An analysis of the 2010 Brazilian demographic census

The Bolsa Família Program goal is to promote social development and poverty reduction, through the direct transfer of conditional cash, in association with other social programs. This study aims to analyze whether Bolsa Família had an association with children’s school attendance, which is one of the educational conditions of the program. Our main hypothesis is that children living in households receiving Bolsa Família had greater chances of attending school. Data from the Ministry of Social Development and Combating Famine indicated that children living in households with Bolsa Família had greater school enrolment levels. By using data from the 2010 Demographic Census, collected by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), some descriptive analyzes and binary logistic regression models were performed for different thresholds of household per capita income. These estimates were made by comparing children who lived in households receiving Bolsa Família to those children not receiving the program. We took into consideration characteristics about the household, mothers, and children. The results were clustered by the municipality of residence of the child. In all income thresholds, children benefi ting from Bolsa Família were more likely to be enrolled in school, compared to children not receiving the benefi t.

Consulting pupils in Assessment for Learning classrooms: the twists and turns of working with students as co-researchers

This is an invited paper to a special issue on pupil voice focusing on methodological issues arising from the ESRC/TLRP project on consulting pupils about assessment practices in their classrooms. The issue of consulting pupils about assessment has rarely been researched before but what this article illustrates are some of the difficulties, tensions and positive outcomes of engaging with students as researchers within a nationally funded (and therefore externally driven), university-based project. This study adds considerably to the body of knowledge in this area by engaging students in the process as researchers in different capacities within the project. Issues discussed include the use of student advisory groups, ethical negotiation, students undertaking videotaped classroom observations and their subsequent role in co-interpreting video excerpts and visual images. The paper has attracted considerable interest already through the ESRC pupil seminar series forum and also from a prior paper presentation to the European Educational Research Association in September 2006 in Switzerland to the Childrens' Rights SIG becasue of researchers' current interests in embedding democratic principles and practices within research with children and young people.

Chronic child abuse: The characteristics and careers of children caught in the child protection system

The introduction of the Quality Protects initiative in England and the focus on performance management has challenged social services departments to examine the systems, processes and outcomes for children who have their name on a child protection register. Research indicates that approximately one-quarter of the situations in which children are registered could be described as chronic—that is, they remain on the child protection register for significant periods of time, experience more than one period of registration or suffer a further incident of significant harm whilst subject to a child protection plan. In this article, the findings from a research study conducted into this group of vulnerable children are reported, focusing on the characteristics of the children and their families, and their careers in the child protection system. The paper concludes with observations about the weak conceptualization of performance management and the need to recognize the complexity of the factors that influence children’s careers in the child protection system.

How teachers of Geography and History of Secondary Education assess?

The purpose of this article is to analyse the assessment procedures and instruments used by teachers of Geography and History of Compulsory Secondary School (ESO) in the Region of Murcia (Spain). The data have been extracted implementing a survey technique proceeded by a descriptive analysis. The results show that teachers generally have a traditional conception of assessment, reflected in the fact that they think that assessment should not change when teaching strategies are changed or when they innovate. On the other hand, although they consider that is necessary to employ a variety of instruments to assess well and to prevent school failure, they still use exams as the most objective and essential instrument in the assessment, while they don’t apply continuous assessment, only tests in a continuous way. The implementation of similar research in other areas or in other subjects shows the existence of contrasts in teacher assessment practices.