Journal articles: 'Northwest, old, description and travel' – Grafiati (2024)

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The Pacific Northwest has become the site of a bitterly fought struggle over the future of the remaining 10% of the region's ancient, or “old growth,” forests. The remaining stands of these forests are important components of the local economy and of the region's ecology. The article begins with a brief description of the economic and ecological crises which are now coming to fruition as a result of the loss of 90% of these forests. It then provides a description of the cultural heritage and sense of community which is being lost in the small, timber-dependent communities of the region—a social crisis resulting from the economic and ecological crises. In conclusion, the article argues that all of these crises should be understood as resulting from the political, economic, and historical circ*mstances which facilitated the emergence of the largest and wealthiest timber ownership.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Part of Martin Gruneweg’s notes dedicated to Belz which was graciously given to the author by the outstanding Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Isaevych is analyzed. Martin Gruneweg (1562 – after 1615), who was born in Gdansk in family of German merchant, serve the Armenian merchants, became a member of the Order of Dominicans and became famous as the author of very interesting travel notes. Page of the Notes, which contains the references to Belz, is in the second part of Gruneweg’s description, where he talks about visit to cities and villages of Poland, Ukraine, Russia, the Balkan countries. A brief description of the city from 1582 is considered in the context of other written and cartographic sources and the results of archaeological studying of Belz. Through information from the Notes data on urban fortifications, authenticity of which is well consistent with written sources older and later than Gruneweg’s description is obtained. It was confirmed that connection between different parts of the city, separated by water flows and swamps, was maintained by wooden dams and platforms, mentioned by Gruneweg and evidenced by results of archaeological researches. This feature of communications was also characteristic for neighboring city of Cherven. On the basis of Gruneweg's reports, date of the first mention of town-hall in Belz, which existed more than a century earlier, was revised. Settlements, listed in the context of the report about Belz, visited by Gruneweg during his travel allow us to partially reconstruct the route of his arrival to Belz, and further way to Lviv. It was established that direction of roads from the northwest from Lublin through Krasnostav, Tishivtsi to Belz and from there through Kulychkiv, Mosty, Kulykiv, Zashkov to Lviv almost did not change from Early Middle Ages till now. Gruneweg's notes about the Częstochowa icon confirm constant historical tradition, which relates one of the main relics of Poland precisely with Belz. Other messages, which also show importance of retrospective analysis of late medieval sources for the studying of Early Medieval cities, are interesting too. Key words: Martin Gruneweg, Belz, written and archaeological sources, planning structure, retrospective analysis.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

During 1998–2002, 124 microbiologically confirmed infections caused by shigatoxigenic Escherichia coli (STEC) were reported in Finland. Of these, 25 (20%) were associated with recent foreign travel. Temporal, geographical and type distribution of the domestically acquired infections (n=99) caused by strains of serogroup O157 (n=52) and non-O157 (n=47) were analysed further. The median age of the patients was 6·8 years (range 0·2–73·1 years). Of the index cases within 26 families, 71% were <5 years old. Family-related infections accounted for 49%, sporadic infections 39%, and 11% were associated with three clusters. Only strains of serogroup O157 carrying eae and stx2 or its variants caused separate clusters. The incidence of STEC infections was at its highest (0·64/100000) in 1998. Since 1999 it has declined considerably (0·17/100000 in 2002). STEC infections occurred in 14 hospital districts, mostly (28%) in the Helsinki region. However, the incidence was highest (10·3) in northwest Finland.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The small braconid subfamily, Ichneutinae is one of the least studied groups within the Braconidae. Old world species of the widely distributed ichneutine genus, Paroligoneurus (unknown from the Neotropical region) is revised along with description of a new species, P. harishi Ranjith & van Achterberg sp. nov. We reinstate the genera Anaprixia Mason and Muesebeckia Mason based on the following characters; exodont mandibles and absence of spiracles in the alternate tergites (in Anaprixia) and presence of carinae on propodeum and anterior subalar depression with carina (in Muesebeckia). Five species, Paroligoneurus cosmopterygivorus (He, 2000), P. crassicornis (He, 2000), P. flavifacialis (He, 2000), P. sinensis (He, 2000) and P. songyangensis (He, 2000) were described from the Oriental part of China are transferred from Oligoneurus to Paroligoneurus. A taxonomic key to the Old world species Paroligoneurus and a provisional checklist of extant species are provided.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Background and Purpose. This case report describes physical therapy for motion sickness in a 34-year-old woman. The purpose of the report is twofold: (1) to provide an overview of the literature regarding motion sickness syndrome, causal factors, and rationale for treatment and (2) to describe the evaluation and treatment of a patient with motion sickness. Case Description and Outcomes. The patient initially had moderate to severe visually induced motion sickness, which affected her functional abilities and prevented her from working. Following 10 weeks of a primarily home-based program of visual-vestibular habituation and balance training, her symptoms were alleviated and she could resume all work-related activities. Discussion. Although motion sickness affects nearly one third of all people who travel by land, sea, or air, little documentation exists regarding prevention or management.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract. Groundwater travel time distributions (TTDs) provide a robust description of the subsurface mixing behavior and hydrological response of a subsurface system. Lagrangian particle tracking is often used to derive the groundwater TTDs. The reliability of this approach is subjected to the uncertainty of external forcings, internal hydraulic properties, and the interplay between them. Here, we evaluate the uncertainty of catchment groundwater TTDs in an agricultural catchment using a 3-D groundwater model with an overall focus on revealing the relationship between external forcing, internal hydraulic properties, and TTD predictions. Eight recharge realizations are sampled from a high-resolution dataset of land surface fluxes and states. Calibration-constrained hydraulic conductivity fields (Ks fields) are stochastically generated using the null-space Monte Carlo (NSMC) method for each recharge realization. The random walk particle tracking (RWPT) method is used to track the pathways of particles and compute travel times. Moreover, an analytical model under the random sampling (RS) assumption is fit against the numerical solutions, serving as a reference for the mixing behavior of the model domain. The StorAge Selection (SAS) function is used to interpret the results in terms of quantifying the systematic preference for discharging young/old water. The simulation results reveal the primary effect of recharge on the predicted mean travel time (MTT). The different realizations of calibration-constrained Ks fields moderately magnify or attenuate the predicted MTTs. The analytical model does not properly replicate the numerical solution, and it underestimates the mean travel time. Simulated SAS functions indicate an overall preference for young water for all realizations. The spatial pattern of recharge controls the shape and breadth of simulated TTDs and SAS functions by changing the spatial distribution of particles' pathways. In conclusion, overlooking the spatial nonuniformity and uncertainty of input (forcing) will result in biased travel time predictions. We also highlight the worth of reliable observations in reducing predictive uncertainty and the good interpretability of SAS functions in terms of understanding catchment transport processes.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The widespread diffusion of location-based real-time dating or mobile dating apps, such as Tinder and Grindr, is changing dating practices. The affordances of these dating apps differ from those of “old school” dating sites, for example, by privileging picture-based selection, minimizing room for textual self-description, and drawing upon existing Facebook profile data. They might also affect users’ privacy perceptions as these services are location based and often include personal conversations and data. Based on a survey collected via Mechanical Turk, we assess how Tinder users perceive privacy concerns. We find that the users are more concerned about institutional privacy than social privacy. Moreover, different motivations for using Tinder—hooking up, relationship, friendship, travel, self-validation, and entertainment—affect social privacy concerns more strongly than institutional concerns. Finally, loneliness significantly increases users’ social and institutional privacy concerns, while narcissism decreases them.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The travel literature is the literature in which the author describes what happened to him during his travels, while providing an accurate description of peoples' customs and traditions that differ, from one people to another. The travels continued unabated during the times, until the appearance of the journey of the traveler's imam in the Arab world Ibn Battuta, the greatest Muslim traveler, as we know who is distinguished by his journey with a lot of knowledge it contains. It follows from this journey, the subject of this research, entitled "The narrative art of the description of sultans and kings at ibn Battuta: descriptive analytical study" This work aims to demonstrate the existence of the stories of sultans and kings in the journey of Ibn Battuta and to consider the book of the journey of ibn Battuta an important reference in the description of lifestyles, traditions, values and the arts of society, as well as a science that deals with the analysis and interpretation of the cultural situation of society. It is worth mentioning that Ibn Battuta’s trip is one of the sources of historical science, which recounts the events he witnessed during the succession of sultans and wars, as he was very interested in the Description of the areas visited and having greatly contributed to the sciences of geography and cartography. Ibn Battuta’s journey helped broaden the horizons of man and his acquaintances by attempting to paint a clear picture of the social and geographical reality and the most important scenes he has attempted to describe, as well as part of his autobiography by telling everything about him during his trip. Sometimes this cynical and light approach can be a treat for grief and psychological pain. The trip portrays an old image of history in which elements such as storytelling, dialogue, description, etc., combine pleasure and interest

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

We report on a series of 7- and 8-year-old genetic trials of red alder (Alnusrubra Bong.) planted in France as an initial exploration of its growth potential and genetic needs. Red alder is native to the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. Seed for the French plantings was collected in four Pacific Northwest river drainages (Santiam, Nisqually, Nooksack, and Hoh), which cover a wide latitudinal and elevational range.Of the four sites at which the red alder seed was planted, the best growth was observed at Rouvray in northwestern France, a site with deep sandy soil and adequate summer precipitation. Growth here was above average for red alder in its native habitat. Poor soil drainage at the other three test sites resulted in much poorer performance. Trees from Santiam River seed sources were generally the poorest performers at all test sites; the source river(s) for the best performing trees, however, varied by test site. Comparing performance of trees from the same source drainage, elevation of seed collection location correlated at best only weakly with growth; the level of nonsys-tematic variation was high. Regression on principal components derived from seed collection location environmental variables indicated that the best growth performance was associated with seed sources from warmer areas with low moisture demands. In general, this combination of climate conditions exists in low-elevation coastal areas; in this study, all seed collection locations fitting this description were in northwestern Washington state.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Introduction. I. A. Efremov (1907–1972) known as the science-fiction writer was first of all a prominent geoscientist and palaeonthologist. Goal. The goal of the article is to analyze the descriptions of antiquities and ethnographic descriptions of Mongolia in I. A. Efremov’s book “The Road of Winds” (1955), that represents the edited notes of the scientist’s paleonthological expeditions and travels in Mongolia in 1946, 1948 and 1949. Results. I. A. Efremov in his book follows the established tradition of the descriptions of travels along the steppes, mountains and deserts. The book contains the description of the old Ulan-Bator, Khangai Mountains, the characteristics of the roads in Mongolia in their conditions and historical perspective, the recordings of the anthropological and archaeological findings. The different observations of the scientist related to the Mongolian ethnography are of great value, the author often points out the cultural phenomena that were not found in ethnographic research. I. A. Efremov’s travel notes were influenced by the way of traveling in the country (during the expeditions people traveled by trucks) as well as the time of reorganization of the economy, culture and lifestyle in Mongolia.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Summary A new approach was attempted to validate the reconstructed internal geometry of a fractured reservoir by reproducing the reservoir dynamic behavior monitored during modular dynamic tests (MDTs). The description of the reservoir fracture network was achieved by integrating relevant data that could be collected from wireline logs, conventional cores, small drilling-mud-loss analysis, and field-scale observations from outcrop analog inspection. Fracture types, properties, and distributions were thus defined, and a static model of the fractured reservoir was generated stochastically. The dynamic behavior of the fractured system was reproduced by a finite-element flow model. Consistency was required between the observed and simulated pressure data to ensure that the reservoir geometry was modeled adequately. Analysis of the model response as a function of the assigned fracture parameters and comparison between the observed and simulated dynamic behavior allowed achievement of a satisfactory description of the reservoir effective fracture network. Introduction This paper presents the procedure applied to generate and validate the model of near-wellbore regions for an oil-bearing fractured reservoir. The described procedure is considered a strategic part of a newly elaborated methodology aimed at better characterizing classical dual-porosity systems.1 In fact, there is a common feeling that improved description and understanding of fractured reservoirs is needed, as is apparent by analogous integrated procedures recently suggested or outlined by other authors.2-6 The developed methodology is mainly based on the definition of a certain number of structural segments and/or near-wellbore regions inside the reservoir. Fracture distributions are generated stochastically within each region, according to all the available data, to reproduce the rock-fracture network. The dynamic behavior of the fracture-network model is then simulated and compared to the observed production-test responses until a satisfactory match is achieved by the appropriate tuning of the model parameters. Once the dynamic model has been calibrated, the equivalent fracture and matrix parameters (i.e., fracture porosity, fracture permeability, matrix block size, and sigma factor) are obtained and extrapolated to the whole reservoir by adoption of appropriate drivers (such as lithology, stress field, and curvature), and they are selected according to their respective significance for the reservoir under study.3,5 In particular, the case study discussed in this paper is focused on the generation and calibration of a fracture-network model that reproduces the reservoir region surrounding the well at which all the data have been collected. The fracture pattern and aperture were statistically defined by the integration of data obtained from image-log recordings, conventional core analyses, drilling-mud-loss interpretations, and observations on outcrop analogs. Only the properties of the main fractures intercepted by the wellbore were deterministically assigned to the model. Image logs and cores from another nearby well were also considered to verify the consistency on the fracture pattern characterization. Upscaling of the fracture distributions observed at the wellbore and at core scale was required to generate a representative model of the formation. A finite-element model of the fracture network was then generated to properly describe the fluid flow in the reservoir, whereas the flow in the matrix was simulated according to a generic matrix-block approach.6,7 Simulations of the model dynamic behavior were performed to reproduce the pressure response recorded during the MDTs. Comparison between simulation results and measured pressure data allowed verification of the model consistency and calibration of the fracture intensity and permeability.3,6 Field Information The investigated reservoir is an oil-bearing, fractured formation mainly made up of massive, unstratified, tight calcareous dolomite (carbonate platform). The field is an elongated, strongly faulted, northwest/southeast-trending anticline located above a northeast-verging thrust zone, which gently dips toward the southwest. The gross reservoir thickness at the well is approximately 400 m. The oil is strongly undersaturated at the initial reservoir conditions, and the oil density is 32°API. According to the 3D seismic interpretation, two dominant fault sets can be observed. The main set is oriented northwest/southeast, whereas the orientation of the second set is slightly different (north-northwest/south-southeast). A minor set, oriented northeast/ southwest and constituted by small faults rarely exceeding 1 km in length, is also present. The reservoir formations crop out approximately 10 to 15 km south of the field: several structural studies, carried out both at macroscopic scale (geological maps and aerial photographs) and at mesoscopic scale (outcrop), are available for this analogue. According to the geological maps, two fault sets are present, oriented northwest/southeast and northeast/southwest, respectively; the former is more intense and shows a little dispersion in the strike distribution. Aerial photos show the existence of some north-northeast/ south-southwest-trending lineations, younger than the previously described faults. The length of these lineations ranges between 0.5 and 1 km. Outcrop data show three main fracture sets (oriented north-northeast/south-southwest, west-northwest/east-southeast, and northeast/southwest, respectively) more ancient than the outcropping faults. Based on these data, the tectonic history of the area has been subdivided into three main phases:A tensile phase - the carbonate platform was dismembered, and the previously mentioned north-northeast/south-southwest, west-northwest/east-southeast, and northeast/southwest fracture sets were generated.A transpressive phase - the northwest/southeast and northeast/ southwest faults set were created; significant thrusting and backthrusting movements also occurred.A new tensile phase - it is still active and contributes to the reactivation of the old fracture sets (northwest/southeast, northeast/ southwest, and north-northeast/south-southwest-oriented) and to the generation of the regional scale north-northeast/south-southwest- oriented lineations. The status of the present-day stress field also has been studied; the breakout analysis on vertical and deviated wells shows that smin is southwest/northeast-oriented (i.e., it is perpendicular to the direction of the main fracture sets), while smax acts along the vertical direction.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Introduction. Collapsing focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is most commonly seen in association with HIV infection. Rare data is available about the association between collapsing FSGS and malaria.Case Description. A 72-year-old African male patient presented to the hospital for generalized body aches, fatigue, fever, and night sweats for three days. He had history of recent travel to Ghana. Patient looked in acute distress and was shivering. Laboratory tests showed elevated serum creatinine (Cr) of 2.09 mg/dL (baseline was 1.5 mg/dL in 2012). Hospital course was significant for rapid elevation of Cr to 9.5 mg/dL and proteinuria of 7.9 grams. Autoimmune studies resulted negative. Blood smear resulted positive forPlasmodium falciparumand patient was treated with Artemether/Lumefantrine. Patient’s fever and pain improved, but kidney function continued to deteriorate and he became oliguric. On day seven, he was started on Hemodialysis. Tests for different causes of glomerular pathology were also negative. He underwent left kidney biopsy which resulted in findings consistent with severe collapsing glomerulopathy.Discussion. This case illustrates a biopsy proven collapsing FSGS likely secondary to malarial infection requiring renal replacement therapy. Literature review revealed only few case reports that suggested the possible association of malaria with secondary form of FSGS.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The Macrothrix rosea-triserialis group of species (Cladocera: Macrothricidae) is characterized by (1) a well developed postabdomen heel; (2) rows of strong spines on preanal margin of postabdomen and (3) scraper 5 of limb II with enlarged subapical teeth. Macrothrix agsensis, a member of this group, was recently described from the Mexican Central Plateau based on parthenogenetic females only. It is characterized by five rows of long spines in the female antenna I, and five thick spines on setae 4–5 of endite 2 of limb I. Here we describe its ephippial females and males, as well as development of the latter. The ephippium is strongly chitinized, with a special ornamentation in the form of hexagonal cells. The male is characterized by peculiar groups of long and short spinules in the anterior half of the antenna I, three furrows with spinules on the male copulatory hook on limb I, and a longer seta in the outer distal lobe, armed with bean-like projections. With regard to the known distribution of Macrothrix in Mexico, it is now feasible to consider the existence of four possible endemic species in this region: Macrothrix mexicanus, M. agsensis, M. sierrafriatiensis and M. marthae. All of them, except the last one, are restricted to the Central Plateau. Another species, Macrothrix smirnovi, was described from Mexico and later found in Sacramento (USA). Among the widespread species are Macrothrix elegans and M. spinosa, the former one of the most common macrothricids in the Neotropics. It shows a northern distributional limit at the northwest of Mexico and it is possible to find it from north to south. Macrothrix hirsuticornis, restricted to North America has a southern limit in the north. Macrotrhix spinosa is found from north to south of Mexico, but its distribution range extends to South America. Other old records are doubtful, such as Macrothrix triserialis, M. rosea and M. laticornis, because they seem to be restricted to the old world.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

In late May 2001, lesions resembling tan spot were observed on lower leaves of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in early boot stage in Nez Perce County, ID. Abundant sporulation was observed from tan lesions with chlorotic haloes after 2 days incubation in a moist chamber at room temperature. Conidia were multicelled, straw colored, approximately 100 × 15 µm, rounded at the apex, and borne singly on dark brown conidiophores. The fungus fit the morphological description of Drechslera tritici-repentis (Died.) Shoemaker, the anamorphic state of Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (Died.) Drechs. (2). Three single-conidial isolates were sampled from infected plants in a 5 × 1 m area of the affected field and induced to sporulate. Two of the isolates were used to spray-inoculate 3-week-old susceptible wheat (cv. Madsen) in the greenhouse (one plant per isolate, 1 × 105 conidia/ml), and tan spot lesions were apparent 3 to 5 days after inoculation with both isolates. DNA was extracted from all three isolates, and the entire nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) was amplified with ITS1 and ITS4 primers (4). Similarly, 610 bp of the 5′ end of the glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate-dehydrogenase gene (gpd) was amplified with gpd-1 and gpd-2 primers (1). ITS and gpd amplicons were direct-sequenced on both strands, and alignment revealed that all three isolates were identical for both regions. A BLAST search of the NCBI database with the ITS sequence revealed P. tritici-repentis accessions AY004808 and AF071348 and D. tritici-repentis accession AF163060 as the closest matches with 100, 99.8, and 98.8% sequence similarity, respectively. A similar search with the gpd sequence revealed P. tritici-repentis accessions AY004838 and AF081370 and P. bromi accession AY004839 as the closest matches with 100, 100, and 99.0% sequence similarity, respectively. These results, coupled with the morphological identification and inoculation results, confirm the identity of the fungus as P. tritici-repentis. Although reported on other grass hosts in the region (3), to our knowledge, this is the first report of tan spot of wheat in the Pacific Northwest. This disease has been of little concern to wheat producers in the Pacific Northwest due to low rainfall and relative humidity during the growing season. References: (1) M. L. Berbee et al. Mycologia 91:964, 1999. (2) M. B. Ellis, Dematiaceous Hyphomycetes. CMI, Kew, Surrey, UK. 1971. (3) R. Sprague. Diseases of Cereals and Grasses in North America (Fungi, Except Smuts and Rusts). Ronald Press Co. New York, 1950. (4) T. J. White et al. Pages 315–322 in: PCR Protocols: A Guide to Methods and Applications. Academic Press Inc., New York, 1990.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

When, in September 1971, I published The Distant Magnet, I planned a personal synthesis, supplemented by small pieces of my own research. I was not taking up a position in any controversy, nor was I engaging in polemic with any other scholar. Yet I did intend some change of emphasis, and in particular I wanted to stress Europe more than anyone had done since Marcus Hansen. I sought realism in the description of travel conditions, rather than dwelling on the wholly exceptional horrors of 1847. I demonstrated how foreign was America's working class. I stressed the American conditions common to all immigrants, rather than the differences between ethnic groups. I showed how British capitalism, supplemented by that of France, Belgium, and, later, Germany, opened up overseas areas and at the same time undermined, further and further eastwards, Europe's peasant economies. I had in mind the impact of factory competition and railway construction in eroding the secondary occupations on which so many peasants depended. In other words, I asserted that the modernization of a small corner of Europe was responsible, to use old-fashioned language, for both “push” and “pull.” To restrict length, and to acknowledge my own shortcomings, I omitted the Colonial period, and also all Hispanic and Oriental migrations – and, of course, before World War II these latter were not very big.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

James Price, Massachusetts Yankee and successful Boston merchant, visited Paris in August 1792, just when the French Revolution was entering into a new and ominous phase. On a trip designed to combine business with pleasure, he ended up witnessing the famous Journée du Dix AoÛt (Tenth of August) – dubbed the “Second French Revolution” by contemporaries – when provincial militia and national guards assaulted the Tuileries palace, massacred the king's Swiss Guards, and toppled the Bourbon monarchy from its centuries-old throne. As a fairly unbiased and certainly perspicacious observer – though with moderate revolutionary sympathies – Price must be included in the list of more famous, and more highly partisan, American witnesses of revolution, notably Thomas Jefferson, John Trumbull, and Gouverneur Morris. Specific topics addressed by Price include women during the Revolution, the dynamic between crowd action and attempts of municipal authorities at control, and the development of a Revolutionary fashion. Price's fascinating diary is not only a running account of events surrounding the fateful Tenth, but also an evaluation and commentary of an outsider, combined with a lively eyewitness description of the Revolutionary street scene. Not included in Marcel Reinhard's standard study on the Journée du Dix, Price's hour-by-hour chronology provides a valuable corroboration of and supplement to Reinhard. His account notes also provide insight into the eighteenth-century Continental travel habits of Americans on the “Grand Tour” and on business.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The Douglas fir crown structure serves important ecological functions in regulating the ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Mapping and modeling of the Douglas-fir crown has traditionally focused on young plantations or old-growth forests. The crown description in natural regime forests is limited by data availability. Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) enables the acquisition of crown structural attributes, even in dense forests, at a fine scale. The certical and horizontal distributions of the fine-scale branch attributes, such as branch diameter, branch length, and branch insertion angle, will reflect the crown behaviors towards light resources availability, as a result of neighborhood competition. The main objective of the study is to compare crown structural models of a group of neighboring trees developed with two TLS-based procedures, namely: semi-automatic (Cyclone software) and automatic (TreeQSM) procedures. The estimated crown attributes are the branch diameter, branch length, branch insertion angle, height of branch insertion point, and branch azimuth. The results show that branch azimuth distribution does not differ between TreeQSM and Cyclone for most of the sample trees. However, the TreeQSM and Cyclone identified branches exhibit different distributions of insertion height. A paired t-test indicates no difference between the mean branch diameter of Cyclone and TreeQSM at an individual tree level. However, Cyclone estimated that the branch length and branch insertion angle are 0.49 m and 9.9° greater than the TreeQSM estimates, respectively. Repeat measurements of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) suggest that the height along the stem is an influential factor of the difference between the Cyclone and TreeQSM branch diameter estimates. To test whether TLS-based estimates are within the ranges of the previous observations, we computed the tree crown attributes of second- and old-growth trees using Monte Carlo simulations for diameter at breast height (DBH) class 50–55 cm, 60–65 cm, and 85–105 cm. We found that the crown attributes estimated from both of the TLS-based methods are between the simulated second- and old-growth trees, except for DBH 85–105 cm. The TLS-based crown structural models show increasingly diverse distributions of branch insertion angles and increasing branch exclusion as DBH increases. Cyclone-based crown structural models are consistent with previous studies. However, TreeQSM-based crown structural models omitted a significant number of branches and generated crown structures with reduced plausibility.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Most of the watermelons, Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai, consumed in the Pacific Northwest during the summer months are grown in the southern Columbia Basin under dry (<5 cm rainfall), low relative humidity (46 to 57%), and high temperature (29 to 41°C) conditions, using transplants, plastic mulch, and drip irrigation. During May 1996, irregularly shaped, water-soaked lesions were observed on cotyledons and first true leaves of watermelon cv. Sangria transplants growing in a greenhouse. Similar lesions were observed later on older leaves in a commercial field of cv. Millionaire. Microscopic examination of symptomatic tissue revealed bacterial streaming, and isolation on nutrient agar consistently yielded numerous creamy to off-white bacterial colonies. Bacteria from purified, single colonies were Gram negative and rod shaped. Physiological characterization by the Biolog GN Bacterial Identification System (version 3.5) showed a similarity of 0.971 to the Biolog description for Acidovorax avenae subsp. citrulli. Pathogenicity of two strains was confirmed in three separate tests by hypodermic needle infiltration of cotyledons or by stab inoculation into hypocotyls of 12 to 24 21-day-old cv. Crimson Sweet seedlings with aqueous suspensions of bacteria containing approximately 6.0 × 108 CFU/ml. Inoculum was prepared from 48-h-old nutrient agar cultures. Test plants were incubated in the greenhouse at 21°C, under a 16-h photoperiod. Hypocotyl and cotyledon inoculations produced water-soaked lesions within 24 to 48 h on both the hypocotyl and cotyledons or just the cotyledon, respectively, on plants inoculated by either method. No symptoms developed on control plants infiltrated or stabbed with sterile water only. Isolations from three symptomatic seedlings yielded colonies similar in morphology to those used for inoculation. Tests of two purified cultures by Biolog indicated the bacteria were A. avenae subsp. citrulli. The symptomatic test plants were transplanted to fields, and the maturing melons developed large, dark green, water-soaked lesions with irregular margins. Similar fruit symptoms were seen in commercial fields. Labels on seed used in commercial production and in our tests warned of risks related to fruit blotch. This is the first report of bacterial fruit blotch of watermelon in Oregon. This disease may have a significant impact on watermelon production in the Columbia Basin.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common extra-cranial solid tumor with outcomes varying from spontaneous regression to metastatic with high mortality rates. The tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) may play a significant role in this disease. In this study we analyze the TIME comparing high-risk (HR) and low-risk (LR) NBs using multiplex platforms. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Two tissue microarrays (TMAs) with 2mm cores were created from 41 patients treated at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Five micron TMA slides were stained for Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP, nanoString) and multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF). For DSP, a 24-patient subset including 11 HR, 8 LR and 4 intermediate risk patients was analyzed for 34 proteins. Protein expression among risk groups was compared using Mann-Whitney t-test. For mIF, TMA FFPE slides were stained for DAPI, CD3, CD8, CD68, HLA-DR, PDL1 and Chromogranin A. Whole TMA cores were captured as 9 -20X multispectral images (MSIs) stitched into a 3x3 MSI using Vectra (Akoya). MSIs were processed with inForm and qualitative analysis performed comparing HR and LR tumors. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: With DSP, we find significantly more HLA-DR in HR compared to LR tumors (p = 0.016). When controlling for immune cells with CD45 we find HLA-DR/CD45 to be higher in HR than LR tumors (p = 0.026). We found increased PD1 and PDL1 expression in all groups without significant difference between LR and HR (p = 0.778 and p = 0.310, respectively). Preliminary analysis of mIF on 9 patients (4 HR and 5 LR) finds HR tumors appear to have more immune cells than LR tumors, specifically more CD3+CD8- T cells while total CD8+ cells may be similar. There may be less macrophages in the HR compared to LR tumors. Completion of image processing and quantitative analysis of mIF data is underway. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Increased expression of immune markers in NB TIME correlates with higher risk, which is unlike many other tumors. We compared TIME in HR and LR NB using multiplex platforms, DSP and mIF. We find that HLA-DR is more expressed in HR NB while PD1 and PDL1 expression is consistently high and not different between risk groups. Further analysis is underway. CONFLICT OF INTEREST DESCRIPTION: Robyn D. Gartrell-Corrado received grant support from nanoString for Digital Spatial Profiling and received honoraria and travel support from Northwest Biotherapeutics and PerkinElmer, respectively.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Kenaf, Hibiscus cannabinus L. (Malvaceae), is being planted commercially in South Africa for the high quality cellulose fibers that it produces. In a January 2001 survey of 3-month-old kenaf plants grown from seed in experimental plots near Rustenburg, Northwest Province, 30% of plants were observed with severe wilting. Stems at ground level of all infected plants had sunken tan lesions, white mycelial strands, and small, dark brown, 1 to 2 mm diameter sclerotia. Isolations from diseased stem tissue on malt extract agar (MEA) consistently yielded a fungus conforming to the description of Sclerotium rolfsii Sacc. (teleomorph Athelia rolfsii (Curzi) Tu & Kimbrough). Pathogenicity tests were conducted by applying toothpick tips (5 mm) colonized by S. rolfsii on MEA to the stems of 120-day-old potted plants of 10 kenaf cultivars in the greenhouse. Five plants of each cultivar were wounded once using a sharp dissecting needle, and a colonized toothpick tip was placed on top of each wound. Control treatments consisted of five plants per cultivar each wounded and inoculated with sterile toothpick tips. All inoculation points were wrapped using Parafilm, and the experiment was conducted twice. Lesions were measured after 10 days. Mean lesion lengths for the 10 cultivars were as follows: Dowling (34.9 mm), Cuba 108 (38.6 mm), Gregg (41.1 mm), Everglades 41 (44.2 mm), SF459 (44.9 mm), Tainung 2 (45.8 mm), El Salvador (45.9 mm), Whitton (46.1 mm), Everglades 71 (46.4 mm), and Endora (54.0 mm). The Newman-Keuls multiple comparison test revealed that cvs. Dowling and Endora were significantly more resistant and more susceptible (P < 0.05), respectively, than the other cultivars. Lesions did not develop on control plants. The fungus was reisolated on MEA from all artificially inoculated plants. The pathogen is reported to cause serious losses in yield and fiber quality of kenaf (1). To our knowledge, this is the first report of S. rolfsii on kenaf in South Africa. Commercial plantings of kenaf in South Africa are expected to exceed 500 ha during the next 2 years, so its potential impact on kenaf production in this country will be significant if efficient disease control measures are not practiced. References: (1) J. M. Dempsey. Kenaf. Pages 203–304 in: Fiber Crops. The University Press of Florida, Gainesville, 1975.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Background and Purpose This case report describes the clinical reasoning process used to examine a person after stroke and intervene with a novel integrated motor imagery treatment designed for the rehabilitation of walking and delivered in the home through telerehabilitation. The integrated motor imagery treatment consisted of patient-centered goal setting and physical practice combined with motor and motivational imagery. Case Description The patient was a 38-year-old woman who had had a diffuse left subarachnoid hemorrhagic stroke 10 years earlier. She lived independently in an assisted living complex and carried a straight cane during long walks or in unfamiliar environments. Examination revealed a slow gait speed, reduced walking endurance, and decreased balance confidence. Although she was in the chronic phase, patient-centered integrated motor imagery was predicted to improve her community mobility. Treatment sessions of 45 to 60 minutes were held 3 times per week for 4 weeks. The practiced tasks included transitioning from sitting to standing, obstacle clearance, and navigation in interior and exterior environments; these tasks were first executed and then imagined at ratios of 1:5. Task execution allowed the creation of a scene based on movement observation. Imagery scenarios were customized to address the patient's goals and observed movement problems. Motivational elements of arousal, problem solving, and reward were embedded in the imagery scenarios. Half of the sessions were provided on site, and the remaining sessions were delivered remotely. Seven sessions were delivered by the clinician in the home, and 5 sessions were delivered using telerehabilitation. Outcomes Improvements in motor imagery ability, gait parameters, and balance were observed after training. Most gains were retained at the 3-month follow-up. Compared with on-site delivery, the telerehabilitation sessions resulted in less therapist travel time and cost, as well as shorter therapy sessions. Discussion The delivery of integrated motor imagery practice for walking recovery was feasible both on site and remotely.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Kebanyakan penelitian arkeologi di Bantaeng berfokus pada kajian prasejarah dan sedikit yangmengkaji periode setelahnya, terutama masa kolonial. Bantaeng dalam historiografi masa kolonial dikenal dengan nama Bonthain, sebuah daerah di timur laut Teluk Bonthain. Di daerah tersebut pemerintah kolonial Belanda mendirikan bangunan-bangunan yang jejak keberadaannya masih dapat dilacak. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk memberikan gambaran eksplanatif mengenai jejak-jejak arkeologis pemerintahan kolonial Belanda di Bantaeng. Data dalam tulisan ini terdiri dari data utama dan data pendukung. Data utama berupa data artefaktual bangunan masa kolonial Belanda bersumber dari survei Balai Arkeologi Sulawesi Selatan tahun 2017, sedangkan data pendukung seperti peta dan foto lama, catatan perjalanan, dan referensi terkait diperoleh dari berbagai sumber. Metode menggunakan teknik observasi, wawancara, kajian pustaka, dan eksplanasi. Tulisan ini memberi kesimpulan bangunan-bangunan peninggalan pemerintahan kolonial Belanda didirikan di antara Sungai TangngaTangnga dan Sungai Calendu tidak jauh dari pesisir teluk. Bangunan-bangunan didirikan untuk aktivitas pemerintahan, peribadatan, pendidikan, pelayanan publik, hunian, dan pemakaman. Most archaeological research in Bantaeng has focused on prehistoric studies and few have examined the period afterwards, especially the colonial period. Bantaeng in colonial history is known as Bonthain, an area in the northeast of Bonthain Bay. In that area the Dutch colonial government erected buildings whose traces of existence could still be traced. This paper aims to provide an explanatory description of the archaeological traces of the Dutch colonial government in Bantaeng. The data in this paper consists of main data and supporting data. The main data in the form of artifactual data on Dutch colonial buildings were sourced from the 2017 South Sulawesi Archaeological Center survey, while supporting data such as old maps and photographs, travel notes, and related references were obtained from various sources. The method uses techniques of observation, interviews, literature review, and explanation. This paper concludes that the buildings of the Dutch colonial government were erected between the Tangnga-Tangnga River and the Calendu River not far from the bay coast. Buildings were erected for government, worship, education, public service, occupancy, and funeral activities.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.) (Malvaceae) is a source of high-quality cellulose fibers and is being investigated in South Africa with a view to commercial production. In April 2001, 20 to 30% of 5-month-old kenaf plants grown from seed in experimental plots near Rustenburg, Northwest Province, South Africa, were affected by gray mold caused by Botrytis cinerea Pers.:Fr. Infected plants displayed brown necrotic areas that girdled the stem, resulting in wilting and lodging in at least 50% of observed cases. Symptoms included extensive growth of mycelia and gray conidia on stem lesions. Microscopic examination revealed hyaline, one-celled conidia and conidiophores conforming to the description of B. cinerea. Plating of diseased stem tissue on malt extract agar (MEA) consistently yielded B. cinerea. Koch's postulates were satisfied by applying toothpick tips (5 mm) colonized by B. cinerea on MEA to the stems of 10 120-day-old greenhouse-grown plants of each of five kenaf cultivars. A colonized toothpick tip was placed on the stem of each of five plants per cultivar at a point ≍15 cm above soil level. Another five plants of each cultivar were wounded once using a sharp dissecting needle, and a colonized toothpick tip was placed on top of each wound. Corresponding control treatments consisted of five additional plants per cultivar, each wounded and mock-inoculated with sterile toothpick tips. Inoculation points were wrapped in Parafilm. The experiment was conducted twice. Developing lesions were measured after 7 days. Mean lesion lengths for the two treatments, nonwounded and wounded, on the five cultivars were, respectively: 32.4 and 35.2 mm for Everglades 41; 14.9 and 53.8 mm for Cuba 108; 39.5 and 55.8 mm for El Salvador; 19.0 and 44.3 mm for SF459; and 12.4 and 43.9 mm for Tainung 2. The Newman-Keuls multiple comparison test revealed no significant difference (P < 0.05) in means among cultivars for the wounded treatment. For the nonwounded treatment, Everglades 41 and El Salvador were significantly more susceptible (P < 0.05) than the three remaining cultivars. No lesions developed on control treatments. The fungus was reisolated on MEA from all artificially inoculated plants. The pathogen is reported to cause serious losses in yield and fiber quality of kenaf in Spain (1). This is the first report of B. cinerea on kenaf in South Africa, and its potential impact on kenaf production in this country should be taken seriously. Reference: (1) A. De Cal and P. Melgarejo. Plant Dis. 76:539, 1992.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

<p>Several Russian Hydropower Design and Research Institutes have recently fulfilled studies of hydropower potential estimation for NorthWest, Caucasian and Angara River’s regions in Russia. An approach to automate the calculation of river flow characteristics, based on the usage of annual flow rate map, was proposed and tested by the authors for the aims of the studies.</p><p>Annual river flow characteristics together with the terrain data are the most important data sources for evaluation of the hydropower potential.</p><p>A set of requirements was made for the approach and for automation of annual flow rate maps creation in order to provide ability for updates in every 5-10 years.</p><p>A problem of lack of hydrological data for small and medium sized rivers was faced. To determine the hydrological characteristics the Russian code specification "Determination of Design Hydrological Performance" was used for the conditions of the lack of hydrological data, methods of spatial interpolation were also used.</p><p>To solve the problems it is necessary to define the parameters of the annual flow distribution: average annual flow, variation coefficient, coefficient of skewness.</p><p>Mapping is based on the assumption of a smooth change of annual flow rate for any territory in accordance with the distribution of climatic and physiographic factors (topography, soil, groundwater depth, etc.).</p><p>Milestones of flow rate mapping included: preparation of hydrological initial data; creating of the updated flow rate maps; determination of the corrections to the influence of local azonal factors; estimation of the accuracy of flow characteristics calculations.</p><p>In order to update the annual flow rate maps a special GIS application “Hydrologist” was created. The GIS application includes computer-assisted tool for processing the hydrological data, import/export tools, tools for analysis of area zoning data, tools for analysis of annual flow rate values in centroids of drainage-basins, location of water stage gauges, also the old and updated flow rate maps.</p><p>The article deals with the approach description, main problems that were faced and presenting the results.</p><p>The technology has been applied for North-West, Volga and Siberian Federal Districts in Russia. Comparison of the created annual flow rate map with the previously used map shows that the updated map is better of acquiring hydrological data for small and medium sized rivers.</p>

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

The article describes the concept “road” as represented in oral stories of Siberians. This investigation is part of a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of Siberia as a cross-border area. The research materials are: texts of the Tomsk Dialect Corpus, which were recorded during dialectological expeditions from the 1940s to 2019 in the areas where old-timer Middle Ob region dialects are spoken; information from dialect dictionaries, memoirs and oral stories of eyewitnesses and witnesses of dekulakization and exile to the Narym region; materials of the project “Free and Non-Free Siberians” published on the website of the Tomsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. A concept is a unit of consciousness that is represented by means of a language. The article uses a modeling method that is implemented through the description of the nominative field of the concept “road”, which includes both direct nominations of the concept itself and nominations of its individual cognitive features. Among the units that represent the concept “road”, there are: the word road and its synonym way, their derivatives, as well as words that name roads in accordance with their various characteristics, words of different parts of speech and phrases that contain the seme “road”: traffic, taxi, taxi driver, turnpike, country road, to go, to swim, to get lost, and many others. The contextual analysis of the material revealed that the following cognitive features receive language objectification: 1) the size of the road and its importance, 2) the use of roads depending on the time of year, 3) place of laying the road, 4) the kind of transport and method of travel, 5) the material from which the road is made, 5) the quality of the road 6) the direction of the road, 7) the road as an integral part of migration processes, 8) construction, laying and maintenance of roads, 9) the road as a factor in the formation of different social ties, communities and an additional reason for economic activity (crafts, entrepreneurship, etc.), 10) the road as an indicator of the development of Siberia, civilization and improvement, 11) the road as a dangerous place, 12) the road as a way of localization, 13) the road as an attribute of superstitions, rituals. Siberians’ autobiographical stories and memoirs contain fragments that reflect the importance and significance of the road in human life. Facts from people’s life connected with the road are: birth on the road, road to school/university/institute, wedding, work, moving, death. The road is a significant fragment of the Siberians’ worldview; it reflects the spatial and temporal characteristics of people’s lives, representing the “friend/foe” opposition. Formal (changes in road categories, obsolescence of expressions, new stable combinations and lexemes) and substantive (new roads, reinterpretation, de-ideologization of road spaces associated with the repressive policy of the state, etc.) transformations in the structure of the concept are due to time (change of epochs) and to political and economic factors.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

BCR-ABL1-positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a rare subtype of acute leukemia and can co-occur with different aberrations such as CBFβ-MYH11, RUNX1-RUNX1T1, PML-RARα, and NPM1. Based on leukemogenesis model, BCR-ABL belongs to the class I mutations, providing a proliferative advantage to the affected cells, where inv(16) is a characteristic class II event, conferring inhibition of differentiation and apoptosis. We observed BCR-ABL1-positive AML de novo without any other molecular/cytogenetic features and CBF-AML (inv(16) at relapse. There are no definite clinical management of BCR-ABL+ AML and it is still a debate whether BCR-ABL1-positive AML patients should be treated with TKI ± chemotherapy as the first-line therapy. A 61-year-old man was diagnosed as having AML in May 2018. Laboratory findings showed: 51.1x 109/L WBC with 58% of blast cells; 38.8% and 4% of blasts in bone marrow and in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) respectively; but 50% t(9;22) positive cells by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and conventional cytogenetic analysis (CyG). Both qualitative and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests confirmed the presence of BCR-ABL1p190 (10.2%) without any ABL1 kinase domain mutations. No other molecular abnormalities including mutations FLT3/ITD, NPM1, MLL, JAK2/V617F, DNMT3A, IDH1/IDH2, ASXL1, EZH2 or fusion genes PML-RARα, CBFβ-MYH11, RUNX1-RUNX1T1, BCR-ABL1p210/p230 were found. Also, 5q-, 7q- or 20q deletions were not detected by FISH. Flow cytometry analysis demonstrated single population of leukemic cells with CD34+CD117+CD13+CD33+CD11c+/-CD4+/-MPO+immunophenotype. No organomegaly was revealed. There was no history of antecedent hematological disorder. The patient was diagnosed as BCR-ABL1+ AML with CNS disease. Undetectable MRD was achieved after 1st cycle of FLAG regimen with dasatinib and intrathecal chemotherapy (IC), which was stopped after 1 month because of severe liquor hypotension. There were no matched related/unrelated donor. Due to severe complications during induction chemotherapy (hemorrhoidal bleeding, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, febrile neutropenia) he continued dasatinib monotherapy for the subsequent 4 months with stable uMRD. Therapy was interrupted for 1 month due to adverse events (grade 3 diarrhea, grade 3 peripheral edema). The relapse occurred in Nov 2018 (after 5 months of uMRD) with 20%, 11% and 3% of blasts in peripheral blood, in bone marrow and in CSF, respectively. Laboratory showed no BCR-ABL1 or t(9;22) by quantitative PCR (qPCR), FISH or CyG, but new transcript CBFβ-MYH11A was detected (100.2%) by qPCR. Cytogenetic analysis showed inv(16)(p13;q22) in 80% cells with absence of additional abnormalities. No mutations of FLT3/ITD,IKZF, TP53 were found. Noteworthy, the patient was refractory to induction chemotherapy "High dose cytarabine (Ara-C) + gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO)" despite CBF-leukemia. CSF complete response was achieved after triple IC. Hematological remission was achieved after 2 cycles of "Ara-C with 5-azacitidine" in combination with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) - imatinib 800mg QD. Triple IC was continued once a month as a prophylaxis of CNS disease. After 6 cycles of therapy CBFβ-MYH11A demonstrated 2log reduction, BCR-ABL1 transcript remains undetectable. The patient is in stable hematological and CSF remission. The clone dynamic and treatment see in table 1. BCR-ABL1 positive AML remains a provisional entity inside a huge part of AML with unclear pathogenesis and clinical management. We presented the first description of BCR-ABL1+ AML de novo leukemia followed by CBF-leukemia at relapse, and a clearance of blast cells in preceding BCR-ABL1 positive cells. Despite the absence of leukemic BCR-ABL1 burden, probably its the subliminal expression is able to maintain the mutational background. While TKI treatment may allow to maintain BCR-ABL1+ AML uMRD, it did not prevent the relapse of AML. High dose combination chemotherapy with BCR-ABL inhibitors is advantageous in these leukemia types in patients ineligible for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Disclosures Lomaia: Novartis: Other: Travel Grant;Lecture fee; Pfizer: Other: Travel Grant. OffLabel Disclosure: Tyrosine kinase inhibitors of BCR-ABL (Dasatinib, Imatinib) were used in case of BCR-ABL positive AML in combination with chemotherapy

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Reading of a map is defined by two different ways of looking: firstly a synoptic gaze grasps the totality of a map, then it locates itself in some particular place and begins to travel – follows linear elements that invite and lead the eye. The reading direction is identified according to fragmentation, topology, framing, central places and layering of the elements. Thus a semiotic approach to a cartographic discourse should begin with an analysis of the plastic level. The reading direction on the 1613 map of Grand Duchy of Lithuania can be identified to start in the corner of the Baltic Sea. The route chosen denies new borders of the country and restores the old boundaries. The subject is motivated by modalities of having to do (figuratively represented by the wind) and wanting (figuratively – rivers). The former is replaced with the latter by establishing the contract between the subject and the sender. The journey ends in the territory of the Black sea, near the mouth of the Bug river – an utopian space related to the cosmic plane and historical past of Lithuania.By following the itinerary the subject passes from one space to another, he crosses forbidden borders. The shift through the border of the semantic field is qualified as an event – unit of plot construction (according to Lotman). By implementing the narrative program the subject negates the order of the plotless text; his movement forms the plot – the narrative. The spatial organization of a cartographic discourse is defined by its conceptual and visual aspects. The former is being related to the nature of space (being): the mapped milieu is usually reduced to a network of points, the distance between points is desemantized. When the being is combined with the appearing the mapped space matches a schema: a territory is seen from above, nothing is hidden, but only relevant elements appear in this view, the space between them is empty. In the map analyzed this scheme is implemented in the depiction of the Black Sea. An orthogonal depiction is related to operation of disengagement, whereas perspective view signifies the opposite. Some elements of the map are represented in perspective, although the space encoded in these representations belongs to the network regime. The space between the points in these depictions is not only desemantized, but also eliminated. The network is so dense that it looks like a tissue. These depictions (city views in the map) can be called perspective maps. The narrative program implements a shift from the space of tissue (the Baltic Sea is represented in mimetic manner) to the space of network (the Black Sea). These opposite terms are linked by the medium term of perspective map, a dense tissue (city views). The performance of the subject is associated with the orthogonal view – this witnesses the authority and value of cartographic discourse.The analysis of the written description of Lithuania appended to the map reveals that a written text can produce a cartographic effect as well. By simulating a synoptic and traveling gaze and devaluing the top category (i.e. – projecting described view onto the surface) it competes with the map and even attempts to transform its meaning.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Extended: In 1980 the caribou (Rangifer tarandus) on Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands represented a healthy geographic population of an Arctic-island caribou ecotype on the southern tier of Canadian Arctic Islands. Those caribou exhibited complex patterns of seasonal range occupancy, involving annual seasonal migrations between and among the three islands and Boothia Peninsula (Miller et al., 1982, 2005; Miller, 1990). A large segment of the population migrated annually from the islands to Boothia Peninsula in early winter, wintered there, and then returned to the islands in the following late winter and spring. There is no evidence for large-scale emigration of caribou anywhere in the study area (Gunn et al., 2006). Caribou on Boothia Peninsula occur as two distinct ecotypes that are genetically different from the Arctic-island ecotype that occurred on Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands (e.g., Zittlau, 2004). Both the Boothia Peninsula ecotype and the Mainland ecotype calve mostly on northern Boothia Peninsula, northwest and northeast sections respectively (Gunn et al., 2000). After summering on the peninsula, most individuals of both ecotypes migrate south of the Boothia Isthmus onto adjacent mainland areas (Gunn et al., 2000). As a result, there were about the same number of caribou wintering on Boothia Peninsula when migrant caribou from Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands wintered there, as in summer when the migrant Arctic-island caribou had returned to Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands and the migrant Boothia Peninsula and Mainland caribou ecotypes had returned from their winter ranges farther south on the mainland to their calving areas and summer ranges on Boothia Peninsula. We treat both caribou ecotypes on Boothia Peninsula as just one geographic population for our assessment. The Arctic-island caribou ecotype on Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands declined about 98% from the estimated 5097 1+ yr-old caribou in 1980 to fewer than 100 1+ yr-old caribou in 1995 (Gunn & Decker, 1984; Miller, 1997; Gunn & Dragon, 1998; Gunn et al., 2006). This loss of caribou on those islands amounts to a near-total loss of a genetically distinctive group of Arctic-island caribou (e.g., Zittlau, 2004). In contrast, the estimated number of caribou in the geographic population on Boothia Peninsula appeared to increase by 1.4-fold from 4831 to 6658 1+ yr-old caribou between 1985 and 1995, although annual harvesting pressure was heavy. It was biologically impossible for the Boothia Peninsula geographic population at its 1985 estimated size to have persisted until 1995, let alone to have increased, under the estimated average annual harvest regime of 1100 1+ yr-old caribou • yr-1. There is no evidence that the Boothia Peninsula population was underestimated in 1985. It would have required a population in 1985 at least twice as great as the calculated estimate to sustain the estimated annual harvest between 1985 and 1995. An underestimate of such magnitude is too great to be probable. In our examination of the survey results, we could find no reason to question that the calculated population estimates were not reasonable approximations. The fixed-wing aerial surveys in 1980 (Gunn & Decker, 1984), 1985 (Gunn & Ashevak, 1990), and 1995 (Gunn & Dragon, 1998) were highly comparable, well designed and executed, using standard procedures for a fixed-width, strip-transect, systematic aerial survey of caribou. One of the two observers was the same experienced survey biologist in all 3 years, the second observer in 1980 was an experienced survey biologist and in 1985 and 1995 was an experienced Inuit hunter familiar with the area, and the pilot was the same on all surveys and had flown many systematic surveys of caribou on the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and mainland Canada. Helicopter searches of known caribou ranges on Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands that were carried out in late winter 1996 under ideal viewing conditions yielded only two caribou on Somerset Island and none on Prince of Wales Island or Russell Island (Miller, 1997). In 2004, a combination aerial and ground survey of caribou by the Nunavut Wildlife Service, using a helicopter and snowmobile-mounted Inuit observers, failed to find even one caribou or any recent sign of caribou on Prince of Wales and Somerset islands (Gunn et al., 2006). Gunn et al. (2006) found no evidence that an absolute shortage of forage, relative unavailability of forage due to extreme snow and ice conditions, intraspecific competition with muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus), large-scale emigration, widespread disease, or heavy parasite burdens played a major role in the near-total loss of caribou on Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands. They did, however, conclude that both wolf (Canis lupus) predation and hunting on Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands most likely contributed to and deepened the final stage of the decline. The role of annual seasonal migration between the islands and Boothia Peninsula was not considered by Gunn et al. (2006). Therefore, we investigated how annual seasonal migration of the Arctic-island caribou ecotype from Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands to Boothia Peninsula could have played the major role by providing a yearly ongoing supply of caribou “recruits” on Boothia Peninsula to buffer the heavy annual harvest of caribou there. We carried out a series of multiple analyses of required population structure, required proportion of females producing calves, required proportion of calves surviving to yearlings, allowable annual harvest, and resultant annual harvest shortfall (the number of caribou lost annually at the estimated level of annual harvest or the number of additional caribou required annually from beyond Boothia Peninsula to sustain the annual harvest) in relation to the required size of the 1985 caribou population on Boothia Peninsula. We derived the annual harvest estimates from data presented in Gunn et al. (1986) and Jingfors (1986), which yielded a per capita mean annual harvest of 3.1 caribou • person-1 • yr-1 throughout the Kitikmeot region and at Taloyoak. We believe the extrapolated annual harvest estimates are conservative, as we did not inflate them to account for the 1.6-fold increase in the human population at Taloyoak between 1980 and 1995 and the Inuit hunters did not report any lack of caribou or hardships in obtaining them during that time. Inuit hunters prefer the meat of Arctic-island caribou to that of either the Boothia Peninsula ecotype or the Mainland ecotype. Thus, individuals of the Arctic-island caribou ecotype were shot each winter while they wintered on Boothia Peninsula in preference to both the Boothia Peninsula and the Mainland caribou ecotypes. Although caribou are killed year-round and there is no restriction on how many can be killed, most caribou hunting takes place during winter, when hunters can travel longer distances and haul carcasses back to the settlements more easily by snow machines. Our analyses and assessment of the changes over time in the sizes of the two caribou populations under consideration led us to three primary conclusions. 1) It was biologically impossible for the 4831 1+ yr-old caribou estimated on Boothia Peninsula in 1985 to have sustained the estimated average annual harvest of 1100 1+ yr-old animals for 10 years: the caribou population on the Boothia Peninsula would have been in a steady state of decline and, with the population performing at expected levels, would have been reduced to a remnant or even extirpated as early as 1992. 2) Although the estimated harvest level was unsustainable by the Boothia Peninsula population, the decline was masked by an annual winter infusion of the migrant Arctic-island caribou ecotype from Prince of Wales, Somerset and Russell islands onto Boothia Peninsula during the peak annual hunting period: without the infusion of caribou from the islands, the Inuit of Taloyoak could only have realized, on average, about two-fifths of the estimated annual harvests between 1985 and 1995 without the Boothia Peninsula population entering into a steady state of decline. 3) Migrant Arctic-island caribou from Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands wintered each year on Boothia Peninsula and this resulted in the persistence of caribou on the Boothia Peninsula, but led to the simultaneous near-demise of the caribou in the Prince of Wales, Russell, and Somerset islands geographic population. The caribou resource within the entire Prince of Wales-Russell-Somerset islands-Boothia Peninsula complex must be managed as a single unit. Effective management is not possible without ongoing assessment of the annual harvest combined with periodic monitoring of population size being carried out on all of those three islands and on Boothia Peninsula at the same times. To date this has not happened. A serious effort should be made to obtain annual harvest statistics yearly and population estimates every 3 years. The interval between population surveys could be stretched to 5 years if the budget demands it, but 6-10 years or more between surveys should be viewed as totally unacceptable. All population surveys should be carried out in July, to obtain population estimate and sex and age composition of the population at the same time during each year and long enough after June calving to get a good measure of the early survival of calves. If any evidence is obtained for large-scale ingress or egress, the population should be surveyed the following July and the magnitude and direction of population change determined and evaluated in relation to current annual harvest estimates. The population should be surveyed the following July after every exceptionally severe winter when a major die-off is probable due to extremely unfavorable snow and ice conditions. All responsible parties (renewable resource agencies and Inuit users) must have the will to act on the findings obtained from the monitoring efforts. Most importantly, they must take the necessary actions in a timely manner, if the findings indicate that the Boothia Peninsula caribou population is in a state of decline. Setting hunting regulations and enforcing harvest limits that are not agreed to by the Inuit users is not practical; therefore, only self-restraint by Inuit hunters will safeguard this valuable renewable caribou resource. The conservation of this hunted caribou population is complicated because preserving only a relatively few caribou is not a satisfactory goal. There must be enough caribou in the population to sustain the desired level of annual harvest or the annual harvest must be quickly adjusted downward to the sustainable level. Otherwise, with a steadily growing human population at Taloyoak, the future of the geographic population of caribou on Boothia Peninsula is not promising and most likely its continual use as a valuable renewable resource is in jeopardy. For further details on this subject see Miller et al. (2007).

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

ABSTRACTThe region encompassing the Pacific Northwest (PNW), Vancouver Island, Oregon, and Washington has been the location of an ongoingCryptococcus gattiioutbreak since the 1990s, and there is evidence that the outbreak is expanding along the West Coast into California. Here we report a clinical case of a 69-year-old, HIV-negative man from North Carolina who was diagnosed with a fungal brain mass by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and pathology. He had traveled to Seattle and Vancouver 3 years earlier and to Costa Rica 4 months prior to presentation. Phenotypic evidence showed that the fungal mass isolated from the patient’s brain representedC. gattii. In agreement with the phenotypic results, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) provided genotypic evidence that assigned the infecting organism within theC. gattiispecies complex and to theC. deuterogattiiVGIIa clade. Whole-genome sequencing revealed >99.99% identity with theC. deuterogattiireference strain R265, indicating that the infecting strain is derived from the highly clonal outbreak strains in the PNW. We conclude that the patient acquired theC. gattiiinfection during his travel to the region 3 years prior and that the infection was dormant for an extended period of time before causing disease. The patient tested positive for anti-granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) autoantibodies, supporting earlier reports that implicate these autoantibodies as a risk factor associated withC. gattiiinfection.IMPORTANCEMortality rates associated withC. gattiiinfections are estimated to be between 13% and 33%, depending on an individual’s predisposition, andC. gattiihas caused at least 39 deaths in the PNW region. There have been four other international travel cases reported in patients from Europe and Asia with travel history to the PNW, but this report describes the first North American traveler who acquiredC. deuterogattiiinfection presenting within the United States and the first case of aC. deuterogattiioutbreak infection associated with anti-GM-CSF autoantibodies. Early and accurate diagnoses are important for disease prevention and treatment and for control of infectious diseases. Continual reporting ofC. deuterogattiiinfections is necessary to raise awareness of the ongoing outbreak in the PNW and to alert travelers and physicians to the areas of endemicity with potential risks.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

One of the key products of archaeological work, the clear disciplinary distinction separating it from amateur curiosity or lucrative treasure hunt, is the text. Not only it stands at the end of almost every archaeological endeavour, text in its various forms often presents the source of fieldwork: archaeological excavations are preceded by (repeated) reading of previously written landscape, either represented through old travelogues, or through recent reports from archaeological surveys. In short, fieldwork and text are dialectically linked: fieldwork practice and texts mutually intertwine, confirm and (re)shape one another. Therefore, along with “founding fathers” of the discipline, some texts may also posses authority – achieved over time, confirmed, or lost. Opposed to the authors and works of the classical canon, Pausanias and his Description of Greece were not of noble origins, that would secure the position of indisputable authority in the field of classical archaeology. Therefore the reputation of the author and his work was built – through confirmations and refutations – in the very landscape of Greece, primarily through archaeological fieldwork. During the 19th century Description of Greece served as a kind of travel guide for researchers to the long-abandoned sites and grand archaeological discoveries, such as Schliemann in Mycenae. The Erechteion in Athens is today known by the name given to the temple by Pausanias. His authority, built in the field of classical archaeology, spread out of the domain of the discipline: on the grounds of the data from the Description of Greece and the esteem of its author, the administration of the new independent Greek kingdom started changing the Slovene, Albanian, Turkish or Italian toponyms in its territory. The excavations at Olympia – the case-study presented here, speak most eloquently about the mutual intertwining of archaeology and Description of Greece. On the one side, the years-long excavations, enabled by the decades-long diplomatic struggle for the licence, deepened the understanding of the work of Pausanias, but on the other side, the fieldwork practice has also changed, as well as the epistemological foundations of classical archaeology. The aim of this paper is to point once more to the inseparable ties linking practical and interpretive aspects, i.e. fieldwork and study in archaeology.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Background Plasmodium falciparum strains with mutations/deletions of the genes encoding the histidine-rich proteins 2/3 (pfhrp2/3) have emerged during the last 10 years leading to false-negative results in HRP2-based rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). This can lead to unrecognized infections in individuals and to setbacks in malaria control in endemic countries where RDTs are the backbone of malaria diagnostics and control. Case description Here the detection of a pfhrp2/3-negative P. falciparum infection acquired in Ethiopia by a 63-year old female traveller is presented. After onset of symptoms during travel, she was first tested negative for malaria, most probably by RDT, at a local hospital in Harar, Ethiopia. Falciparum malaria was finally diagnosed microscopically upon her return to Germany, over 4 weeks after infection. At a parasite density of approximately 5387 parasites/µl, two different high-quality RDTs: Palutop + 4 OPTIMA, NADALRMalaria PF/pan Ag 4 Species, did not respond at their respective P. falciparum test lines. pfhrp2/3 deletion was confirmed by multiplex-PCR. The patient recovered after a complete course of atovaquone and proguanil. According to the travel route, malaria was acquired most likely in the Awash region, Central Ethiopia. This is the first case of imported P. falciparum with confirmed pfhrp2/3 deletion from Ethiopia. Conclusion HRP2-negative P. falciparum strains may not be recognized by the presently available HRP2-based RDTs. When malaria is suspected, confirmation by microscopy and/or qPCR is necessary in order to detect falciparum malaria, which requires immediate treatment. This case of imported P. falciparum, non-reactive to HRP2-based RDT, possibly underlines the necessity for standardized, nationwide investigations in Ethiopia and should alert clinicians from non-endemic countries to the possibility of false-negative RDT results which may increase in returning travellers with potentially life-threatening infections.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Case report - Introduction A 42-year-old pathologist presented with a 1-week history of muscle pain and subjective weakness. CK level on 2 occasions was &gt;3000. The patient was systemically well with no past medical history, medication, or foreign travel. He had 1-day history of shivering with no recorded pyrexia. He reported pain in his proximal muscles and neck and subjective muscle weakness and lack of finger dexterity with no objective findings. Case report - Case description Autoantibody panel and inflammatory markers were performed which were normal. Full blood count with differential white cell count including eosinophils was normal. There was a modest rise in transaminases. Myositis panel was negative. Full viral screen was positive for parechovirus with titre of 30 on several samples. MRI proximal musculature showed increased fluid signal in the perifascial region of both thighs primarily involving the hamstrings, not definitive for myositis but suggestive of fasciitis. Case report - Discussion Parechovirus is a picornavirus, often causing mild gastrointestinal or respiratory illness but has been associated with epidemic myalgia and myositis during outbreaks of parechovirus in a Japanese population. The patient improved spontaneously with CK reduced to 187 and improved symptoms after 1 week. We expect a good outcome and will review on patient's request if necessary. Case report - Key learning points Parechovirus can cause myofasciitis which is usually mild and self-limiting. It can be associated with elevated CK, transaminases and MRI findings and can be confirmed on respiratory viral swab.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

In Victorian times, when female travel narratives were read as excursions rather than expeditions, it was common for women authors to preface their travels with an apology. “What this book wants,” begins Mary Kingsley’s Travels in West Africa, “is not a simple preface but an apology, and a very brilliant and convincing one at that” (4). This tendency of the woman writer to depreciate her travel with an acknowledgment of its presumptuousness crafted her apology essentially as an admission of guilt. “Where I have offered my opinions,” Isabella Bird writes in The Englishwoman in America, “I have done so with extreme diffidence, giving impressions rather than conclusions” (2). While Elizabeth Howells has since argued the apologetic preface was in fact an opposing strategy that allowed women writers to assert their authority by averting it, it is certainly telling of the time and genre that a female writer could only defend her work by first excusing it. The personal apology may have emerged as the natural response to social restrictions but it has not been without consequence for female travel. The female position, often constructed as communal, is still problematised in contemporary travel texts. While there has been a traceable shift from apology to affirmation since the first women travellers abandoned their embroidery, it seems some sense of lingering culpability still remains. In many ways, the modern female traveller, like the early lady traveller, is still a displaced woman. She still sets out cautiously, guide book in hand. Often she writes, like the female confessant, in an attempt to recover what Virginia Woolf calls “the lives of the obscure”: those found locked in old diaries, stuffed away in old drawers or simply unrecorded (44). Often she speaks insistently of the abstract things which Kingsley, ironically, wrote so easily and extensively about. She is, however, even when writing from within the confines of her own home, still writing from abroad. Women’s solitary or “unescorted” travel, even in contemporary times, is considered less common in the Western world, with recurrent travel warnings constantly targeted at female travellers. Travelling women are always made aware of the limits of their body and its vulnerabilities. Mary Morris comments on “the fear of rape, for example, whether crossing the Sahara or just crossing a city street at night” (xvii). While a certain degree of danger always exists in travel for men and women alike and while it is inevitable that some of those risks are gender-specific, travel is frequently viewed as far more hazardous for women. Guide books, travel magazines and online advice columns targeted especially at female readers are cramped with words of concern and caution for women travellers. Often, the implicit message that women are too weak and vulnerable to travel is packaged neatly into “a cache of valuable advice” with shocking anecdotes and officious chapters such as “Dealing with Officials”, “Choosing Companions” or “If You Become a Victim” (Swan and Laufer vii). As these warnings are usually levelled at white, middle to upper class women who have the freedom and financing to travel, the question arises as to what is really at risk when women take to the road. It seems the usual dialogue between issues of mobility and issues of safety can be read more complexly as confusions between questions of mobility and morality. As Kristi Siegel explains, “among the various subtexts embedded in these travel warnings is the long-held fear of ‘women on the loose’” (4). According to Karen Lawrence, travel has always entailed a “risky and rewardingly excessive” terrain for women because of the historical link between wandering and promiscuity (240). Paul Hyland has even suggested that the nature of travel itself is “gloriously” promiscuous: “the shifting destination, arrival again and again, the unknown possessed, the quest for an illusory home” (211). This construction of female travel as a desire to wander connotes straying behaviours that are often cast in sexual terms. The identification of these traits in early criminological research, such as 19th century studies of cacogenic families, is often linked to travel in a broad sense. According to Nicolas Hahn’s study, Too Dumb to Know Better, contributors to the image of the “bad” woman frequently cite three traits as characteristic. “First, they have pictured her as irresolute and all too easily lead. Second, they have usually shown her to be promiscuous and a good deal more lascivious than her virtuous sister. Third, they have often emphasised the bad woman’s responsibility for not only her own sins, but those of her mate and descendents as well” (3). Like Eve, who wanders around the edge of the garden, the promiscuous woman has long been said to have a wandering disposition. Interestingly, however, both male and female travel writers have at different times and for dissimilar reasons assumed hermaphroditic identities while travelling. The female traveller, for example, may assume the figure of “the observer” or “the reporter with historical and political awareness”, while the male traveller may feminise his behaviours to confront inevitabilities of confinement and mortality (Fortunati, Monticelli and Ascari 11). Female travellers such as Alexandra David-Neel and Isabelle Eberhardt who ventured out of the home and cross-dressed for safety or success, deliberately and fully appropriated traditional roles of the male sex. Often, this attempt by female wanderers to fulfil their own intentions in cognito evaded their dismissal as wild and unruly women and asserted their power over those duped by their disguise. Those women who did travel openly into the world were often accused of flaunting the gendered norms of female decorum with their “so-called unnatural and inappropriate behaviour” (Siegel 3). The continued harnessing of this cultural taboo by popular media continues to shape contemporary patterns of female travel. In fact, as a result of perceived connections between wandering and danger, the narrative of the woman traveller often emerges as a self-conscious fiction where “the persona who emerges on the page is as much a character as a woman in a novel” (Bassnett 234). This process of self-fictionalising converts the travel writing into a graph of subliminal fears and desires. In Tracks, for example, which is Robyn Davidson’s account of her solitary journey by camel across the Australian desert, Davidson shares with her readers the single, unvarying warning she received from the locals while preparing for her expedition. That was, if she ventured into the desert alone without a guide or male accompaniment, she would be attacked and raped by an Aboriginal man. In her opening pages, Davidson recounts a conversation in the local pub when one of the “kinder regulars” warns her: “You ought to be more careful, girl, you know you’ve been nominated by some of these blokes as the next town rape case” (19). “I felt really frightened for the first time,” Davidson confesses (20). Perhaps no tale better depicts this gendered troubling than the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood. In the earliest versions of the story, Little Red outwits the Wolf with her own cunning and escapes without harm. By the time the first printed version emerges, however, the story has dramatically changed. Little Red now falls for the guise of the Wolf, and tricked by her captor, is eaten without rescue or escape. Charles Perrault, who is credited with the original publication, explains the moral at the end of the tale, leaving no doubt to its intended meaning. “From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, and it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner” (77). Interestingly, in the Grimm Brothers’ version which emerges two centuries later an explicit warning now appears in the tale, in the shape of the mother’s instruction to “walk nicely and quietly, and not run off the path” (144). This new inclusion sanitises the tale and highlights the slippages between issues of mobility and morality. Where Little Red once set out with no instruction not to wander, she is now told plainly to stay on the path; not for her own safety but for implied matters of virtue. If Little Red strays while travelling alone she risks losing her virginity and, of course, her virtue (Siegel 55). Essentially, this is what is at stake when Little Red wanders; not that she will get lost in the woods and be unable to find her way, but that in straying from the path and purposefully disobeying her mother, she will no longer be “a dear little girl” (Grimm 144). In the Grimms’ version, Red Riding Hood herself critically reflects on her trespassing from the safe space of the village to the dangerous world of the forest and makes a concluding statement that demonstrates she has learnt her lesson. “As long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so” (149). Red’s message to her female readers is representative of the social world’s message to its women travellers. “We are easily distracted and disobedient, we are not safe alone in the woods (travelling off the beaten path); we are fairly stupid; we get ourselves into trouble; and we need to be rescued by a man” (Siegel 56). As Siegel explains, even Angela Carter’s Red Riding Hood, who bursts out laughing when the Wolf says “all the better to eat you with” for “she knew she was nobody’s meat” (219), still shocks readers when she uses her virginity to take power over the voracious Wolf. In Carter’s world “children do not stay young for long,” and Little Red, who has her knife and is “afraid of nothing”, is certainly no exception (215). Yet in the end, when Red seduces the Wolf and falls asleep between his paws, there is still a sense this is a twist ending. As Siegel explains, “even given the background Carter provides in the story’s beginning, the scene startles. We knew the girl was strong, independent, and armed. However, the pattern of woman-alone-travelling-alone-helpless-alone-victim is so embedded in our consciousness we are caught off guard” (57). In Roald Dahl’s revolting rhyme, Little Red is also awarded agency, not through sexual prerogative, but through the enactment of traits often considered synonymous with male bravado: quick thinking, wit and cunning. After the wolf devours Grandmamma, Red pulls a pistol from her underpants and shoots him dead. “The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers. She whips a pistol from her knickers. She aims it at the creature’s head and bang bang bang, she shoots him dead” (lines 48—51). In the weeks that follow Red’s triumph she even takes a trophy, substituting her red cloak for a “furry wolfskin coat” (line 57). While Dahl subverts female stereotypes through Red’s decisive action and immediacy, there is still a sense, perhaps heightened by the rhyming couplets, that we are not to take the shooting seriously. Instead, Red’s girrrl-power is an imagined celebration; it is something comical to be mused over, but its shock value lies in its impossibility; it is not at all believable. While the sexual overtones of the tale have become more explicit in contemporary film adaptations such as David Slade’s Hard Candy and Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood, the question that arises is what is really at threat, or more specifically who is threatened, when women travel off the well-ordered path of duty. As this problematic continues to surface in discussions of the genre, other more nuanced readings have also distorted the purpose and practice of women’s travel. Some psychoanalytical theorists, for example, have adopted Freud’s notion of travel as an escape from the family, particularly the father figure. In his essay A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis, Freud explains how his own longing to travel was “a wish to escape from that pressure, like the force which drives so many adolescent children to run away from home” (237). “When one first catches sight of the sea,” Freud writes, “one feels oneself like a hero who has performed deeds of improbable greatness” (237). The inherent gender trouble with such a reading is the suggestion women only move in search of a quixotic male figure, “fleeing from their real or imaginary powerful fathers and searching for an idealised and imaginary ‘loving father’ instead” (Berger 55). This kind of thinking reduces the identities of modern women to fragile, unfinished selves, whose investment in travel is always linked to recovering or resisting a male self. Such readings neglect the unique history of women’s travel writing as they dismiss differences in the male and female practice and forget that “travel itself is a thoroughly gendered category” (Holland and Huggan 111). Freud’s experience of travel, for example, his description of feeling like a “hero” who has achieved “improbable greatness” is problematised by the female context, since the possibility arises that women may travel with different e/motions and, indeed, motives to their male counterparts. For example, often when a female character does leave home it is to escape an unhappy marriage, recover from a broken heart or search for new love. Elizabeth Gilbert’s best selling travelogue, Eat, Pray, Love (which spent 57 weeks at the number one spot of the New York Times), found its success on the premise of a once happily married woman who, reeling from a contentious divorce, takes off around the world “in search of everything” (1). Since its debut, the novel has been accused of being self-absorbed and sexist, and even branded by the New York Post as “narcissistic New Age reading, curated by Winfrey” (Callahan par 13). Perhaps most interesting for discussions of travel morality, however, is Bitch magazine’s recent article Eat, Pray, Spend, which suggests that the positioning of the memoir as “an Everywoman’s guide to whole, empowered living” typifies a new literature of privilege that excludes “all but the most fortunate among us from participating” (Sanders and Barnes-Brown par 7). Without seeking to limit the novel with separatist generalisations, the freedoms of Elizabeth Gilbert (a wealthy, white American novelist) to leave home and to write about her travels afterwards have not always been the freedoms of all women. As a result of this problematic, many contemporary women mark out alternative patterns of movement when travelling, often moving deliberately in a variety of directions and at varying paces, in an attempt to resist their placelessness in the travel genre and in the mappable world. As Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson, speaking of Housekeeping’s Ruthie and Sylvie, explains, “they do not travel ever westward in search of some frontier space, nor do they travel across great spaces. Rather, they circle, they drift, they wander” (199). As a result of this double displacement, women have to work twice as hard to be considered credible travellers, particularly since travel is traditionally a male discursive practice. In this tradition, the male is often constructed as the heroic explorer while the female is mapped as a place on his itinerary. She is a point of conquest, a land to be penetrated, a site to be mapped and plotted, but rarely a travelling equal. Annette Kolodny considers this metaphor of “land-as-woman” (67) in her seminal work, The Lay of the Land, in which she discusses “men’s impulse to alter, penetrate and conquer” unfamiliar space (87). Finally, it often emerges that even when female travel focuses specifically on an individual or collective female experience, it is still read in opposition to the long tradition of travelling men. In their introduction to Amazonian, Dea Birkett and Sara Wheeler maintain the primary difference between male and female travel writers is that “the male species” has not become extinct (vii). The pair, who have theorised widely on New Travel Writing, identify some of the myths and misconceptions of the female genre, often citing their own encounters with androcentrism in the industry. “We have found that even when people are confronted by a real, live woman travel writer, they still get us wrong. In the time allowed for questions after a lecture, we are regularly asked, ‘Was that before you sailed around the world or after?’ even though neither of us has ever done any such thing” (xvii). The obvious bias in such a comment is an archaic view of what qualifies as “good” travel and a preservation of the stereotypes surrounding women’s intentions in leaving home. As Birkett and Wheeler explain, “the inference here is that to qualify as travel writers women must achieve astonishing and record-breaking feats. Either that, or we’re trying to get our hands down some man’s trousers. One of us was once asked by the president of a distinguished geographical institution, ‘What made you go to Chile? Was it a guy?’” (xviii). In light of such comments, there remain traceable difficulties for contemporary female travel. As travel itself is inherently gendered, its practice has often been “defined by men according to the dictates of their experience” (Holland and Huggan 11). As a result, its discourse has traditionally reinforced male prerogatives to wander and female obligations to wait. Even the travel trade itself, an industry that often makes its profits out of preying on fear, continues to shape the way women move through the world. While the female traveller then may no longer preface her work with an explicit apology, there are still signs she is carrying some historical baggage. It is from this site of trouble that new patterns of female travel will continue to emerge, distinguishably and defiantly, towards a much more colourful vista of general misrule. References Bassnett, Susan. “Travel Writing and Gender.” The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing, eds. Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. 225-40. Berger, Arthur Asa. Deconstructing Travel: Cultural Perspectives on Tourism. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 2004. Bird, Isabella. The Englishwoman in America. London: John Murray, 1856. Birkett, Dea, and Sara Wheeler, eds. Amazonian: The Penguin Book of New Women’s Travel Writing. London: Penguin, 1998. Callahan, Maureen. “Eat, Pray, Loathe: Latest Self-Help Bestseller Proves Faith is Blind.” New York Post 23 Dec. 2007. Carter, Angela. “The Company of Wolves.” Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories. London: Vintage, 1995. 212-20. Dahl, Roald. Revolting Rhymes. London: Puffin Books, 1982. Davidson, Robyn. Tracks. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980. Fortunati, Vita, Rita Monticelli, and Maurizio Ascari, eds. Travel Writing and the Female Imaginary. Bologna: Patron Editore, 2001. Freud, Sigmund. “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XXII. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis and Other Works, 1936. 237-48. Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. New Jersey: Penguin, 2007. Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Red Riding Hood.” Grimms’ Fairy Tales, London: Jonathan Cape, 1962. 144-9. Hahn, Nicolas. “Too Dumb to Know Better: Cacogenic Family Studies and the Criminology of Women.” Criminology 18.1 (1980): 3-25. Hard Candy. Dir. David Slade. Lionsgate. 2005. Holland, Patrick, and Graham Huggan. Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2003. Howells, Elizabeth. “Apologizing for Authority: The Rhetoric of the Prefaces of Eliza Cook, Isabelle Bird, and Hannah More.” Professing Rhetoric: Selected Papers from the 2000 Rhetoric Society of America Conference, eds. F.J. Antczak, C. Coggins, and G.D. Klinger. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. 131-7. Hyland, Paul. The Black Heart: A Voyage into Central Africa. New York: Paragon House, 1988. Kingsley, Mary. Travels in West Africa. Middlesex: The Echo Library, 2008. Kolodny, Annette. The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters. USA: U of North Carolina P, 1975. Lawrence, Karen. Penelope Voyages: Women and Travel in the British Literary Tradition. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994. Morris, Mary. Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travellers. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Perrault, Charles. Perrault’s Complete Fairytales. Trans. A.E. Johnson and others. London: Constable & Company, 1961. Red Riding Hood. Dir. Catherine Hardwicke. Warner Bros. 2011. Sanders, Joshunda, and Diana Barnes-Brown. “Eat, Pray, Spend: Priv-Lit and the New, Enlightened American Dream” Bitch Magazine 47 (2010). 10 May, 2011 < http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend >. Siegel, Kristi. Ed. Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. Slettedahl Macpherson, Heidi. “Women’s Travel Writing and the Politics of Location: Somewhere In-Between.” Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing, ed. Kristi Siegel. New York: Peter Lang, 2004. 194-207. Swan, Sheila, and Peter Laufer. Safety and Security for Women who Travel. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales, 2004. Woolf, Virginia. Women and Writing. London: The Women’s Press, 1979.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Introduction SAPHO is a rare syndrome of osteoarticular disorders with associated skin manifestations. The classic constellation of symptoms includes synovitis, acne, pustulosis, hyperostosis and osteomyelitis. Estimated prevalence is 1-4/10,000, but the syndrome is underdiagnosed due to its variable presentation and lack of formal diagnostic criteria. SAPHO is a diagnosis of exclusion and conditions such as infectious osteomyelitis and bone tumours must be eliminated first. We present a case of SAPHO, mistaken for spinal tuberculosis (TB). Case description A 67-year-old Caribbean man with a history of type 2 diabetes mellitus and multiple prolapsed discs requiring surgical fixation presented in 2014 with severe back pain, swinging fevers and weight loss. A CT scan showed sclerosis of T9/10 vertebrae with corresponding bone oedema on an MRI spine. He commenced induction treatment for TB based on radiological features and travel history. Two months later, an MRI spine showed progressive inflammation at T10/11. Blood and tissue samples were negative for acid fast bacilli. Mycobacterium cultures, Interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) and PCR were negative. However, treatment for TB was continued for a further ten months. Three months later, he re-presented with thoracic back pain and night sweats. MRI showed new inflammation at T6/7 and L3/4 reported as probable osteomyelitis. IGRA, blood and tissue cultures remained negative. Meanwhile, the patient suffered nine episodes of synovitis affecting knees and wrists. Knee X-rays showed end-stage hypertrophic osteoarthritic changes with severe osteophytosis. Synovial biopsies showed inflammatory changes but no evidence of TB. The patient re-presented in 2018 with back pain, sternoclavicular (SC) joint tenderness, painful knee swelling, night sweats and weight loss. Blood and synovial fluid cultures were negative, with calcium pyrophosphate crystals detected in synovial fluid. USS scan of the SC joint showed floridly active right-sided synovitis and synovial thickening on the left. CRP was 350 and he was treated with broad spectrum antibiotics for two weeks for presumed septic arthritis. Rheumatology review was requested when he failed to improve. His constellation of symptoms (synovitis, hyperostosis, osteitis and a history of a pustular rash) suggests a diagnosis of SAPHO. He commenced a weaning prednisolone regime and given zoledronic acid to good effect. Recurrence of symptoms occurred at low dose prednisolone, so he was given IM steroids and commenced on methotrexate. Discussion SAPHO is underdiagnosed due its variable presentation and the need to first exclude infection and malignancy. The patient’s radiological features consistent with spinal TB and risk of TB exposure delayed diagnosis, despite negative serology and cultures. It is important to be aware that the full constellation of symptoms may not be evident at the time of presentation, or indeed at all in the course of the condition; our patient reported a prior history of a pustular rash on the soles of his feet, although there was no clinical evidence of this at the time of review. Involvement of classically affected joints, including anterior chest wall and thoracic spine, or skin involvement should increase clinical suspicion of SAPHO. NSAIDs and corticosteroids are first line therapy, with DMARDs, biological agents and bisphosphonates used to maintain remission. Key learning points Practitioners must consider the possibility of SAPHO, particularly in those with symptoms of osteomyelitis but no identifiable pathogen or who do not respond to antibiotic therapy. High inflammatory markers or high fevers do not preclude its diagnosis. As such, it is important to exclude infection, including osteomyelitis and septic arthritis, and malignancy prior to making a diagnosis. Clinicians should also be aware that the patient may not present with the full SAPHO syndrome; close review of past medical history and questioning about unreported episodes of synovitis or rash may be required to make the diagnosis. Conflicts of interest The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

“What is the point of stories in such a moment”, asks author and critic James Bradley, writing about climate extinction: Bradley emphasises that “climatologist James Hansen once said being a climate scientist was like screaming at people from behind a soundproof glass wall; being a writer concerned with these questions often feels frighteningly similar” (“Writing”). If the impact of climate change asks humans to think differently, to imagine differently, then surely writing—and reading—must change too? According to writer and geographer Samuel Miller-McDonald, “if you’re a writer, then you have to write about this”. But how are we to do that? Where might it be done already? Perhaps not in traditional (or even post-) Modernist modes. In the era of the Anthropocene I find myself turning to non-traditional, un-real models to write the slow violence and read the deep time that is where we can see our current climate catastrophe.At a “Writing in the Age of Extinction” workshop earlier this year Bradley and Jane Rawson advocated changing the language of “climate change”—rejecting such neutral terms—in the same way that I see the stories discussed here pushing against Modernity’s great narrative of progress.My research—as a reader and writer, is in the fantastic realm of speculative fiction; I have written in The Conversation about how this genre seems to be gaining literary popularity. There is no doubt that our current climate crisis has a part to play. As Margaret Atwood writes: “it’s not climate change, it’s everything change” (“Climate”). This “everything” must include literature. Kim Stanley Robinson is not the only one who sees “the models modern literary fiction has are so depleted, what they’re turning to now is our guys in disguise”. I am interested in two recent examples, which both use the strongly genre-associated time-travel trope, to consider how science-fiction concepts might work to re-imagine our “deranged” world (Ghosh), whether applied by genre writers or “our guys in disguise”. Can stories such as The Heavens by Sandra Newman and “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” by Ted Chiang—which apply time travel, whether as an expression of fatalism or free will—help us conceive the current collapse: understand how it has come to pass, and imagine ways we might move through it?The Popularity of Time TravelIt seems to me that time as a notion and the narrative device, is key to any idea of writing through climate change. “Through” as in via, if the highly contested “cli-fi” category is considered a theme; and “through” as entering into and coming out the other side of this ecological end-game. Might time travel offer readers more than the realist perspective of sweeping multi-generational sagas? Time-travel books pose puzzles; they are well suited to “wicked” problems. Time-travel tales are designed to analyse the world in a way that it is not usually analysed—in accordance with Tim Parks’s criterion for great novels (Walton), and in keeping with Darko Suvin’s conception of science fiction as a literature of “cognitive estrangement”. To read, and write, a character who travels in “spacetime” asks something more of us than the emotional engagement of many Modernist tales of interiority—whether they belong to the new “literary middlebrow’” (Driscoll), or China Miéville’s Booker Prize–winning realist “litfic” (Crown).Sometimes, it is true, they ask too much, and do not answer enough. But what resolution is possible is realistic, in the context of this literally existential threat?There are many recent and recommended time-travel novels: Kate Atkinson’s 2013 Life after Life and Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2014 End of Days have main characters who are continually “reset”, exploring the idea of righting history—the more literary experiment concluding less optimistically. For Erpenbeck “only the inevitable is possible”. In her New York Times review Francine Prose likens Life after Life to writing itself: “Atkinson sharpens our awareness of the apparently limitless choices and decisions that a novelist must make on every page, and of what is gained and lost when the consequences of these choices are, like life, singular and final”. Andrew Sean Greer’s 2013 The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells also centres on the WorldWar(s), a natural-enough site to imagine divergent timelines, though he draws a different parallel. In Elan Mastai’s 2017 debut All Our Wrong Todays the reality that is remembered—though ultimately not missed, is more dystopic than our own time, as is also the way with Joyce Carol Oates’s 2018 The Hazards of Time Travel. Oates’s rather slight contribution to the subgenre still makes a clear point: “America is founded upon amnesia” (Oates, Hazards). So, too, is our current environment. We are living in a time created by a previous generation; the environmental consequence of our own actions will not be felt until after we are gone. What better way to write such a riddle than through the loop of time travel?The Purpose of Thought ExperimentsThis list is not meant to be comprehensive. It is an indication of the increasing literary application of the “elaborate thought experiment” of time travel (Oates, “Science Fiction”). These fictional explorations, their political and philosophical considerations, are currently popular and potentially productive in a context where action is essential, and yet practically impossible. What can I do? What could possibly be the point? As well as characters that travel backwards, or forwards in time, these titles introduce visionaries who tell of other worlds. They re-present “not-exactly places, which are anywhere but nowhere, and which are both mappable locations and states of mind”: Margaret Atwood’s “Ustopias” (Atwood, “Road”). Incorporating both utopian and dystopian aspects, they (re)present our own time, in all its contradictory (un)reality.The once-novel, now-generic “novum” of time travel has become a metaphor—the best possible metaphor, I believe, for the climatic consequence of our in/action—in line with Joanna Russ’s wonderful conception of “The Wearing out of Genre Materials”. The new marvel first introduced by popular writers has been assimilated, adopted or “stolen” by the dominant mode. In this case, literary fiction. Angela Carter is not the only one to hope “the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode”. This must be what Robinson expects: that Ken Gelder’s “big L” literature will be unable to contain the wine of “our guys”—even if it isn’t new. In the act of re-use, the time-travel cliché is remade anew.Two Cases to ConsiderTwo texts today seem to me to realise—in both senses of that word—the possibilities of the currently popular, but actually ancient, time-travel conceit. At the Melbourne Writers Festival last year Ted Chiang identified the oracle in The Odyssey as the first time traveller: they—the blind prophet Tiresias was transformed into a woman for seven years—have seen the future and report back in the form of prophecy. Chiang’s most recent short story, “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”, and Newman’s novel The Heavens, both of which came out this year, are original variations on this re-newed theme. Rather than a coherent, consistent, central character who travels and returns to their own time, these stories’ protagonists appear diversified in/between alternate worlds. These texts provide readers not with only one possible alternative but—via their creative application of the idea of temporal divergence—myriad alternatives within the same story. These works use the “characteristic gesture” of science fiction (Le Guin, “Le Guin Talks”), to inspire different, subversive, ways of thinking and seeing our own one-world experiment. The existential speculation of time-travel tropes is, today, more relevant than ever: how should we act when our actions may have no—or no positive, only negative—effect?Time and space travel are classic science fiction concerns. Chiang’s lecture unpacked how the philosophy of time travel speaks uniquely to questions of free will. A number of his stories explore this theme, including “The Alchemist’s Gate” (which the lecture was named after), where he makes his thinking clear: “past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully” (Chiang, Exhalation). In “Story of Your Life”, the novella that the film Arrival is based on, Chiang’s main character-narrator embraces a future that could be seen as dystopic while her partner walks away from it—and her, and his daughter—despite the happiness they will offer. Gary cannot accept the inevitable unhappiness that must accompany them. The suggestion is that if he had had Louise’s foreknowledge he might, like the free-willing protagonist in Looper, have taken steps to ensure that that life—that his daughter’s life itself—never eventuated. Whether he would have been successful is suspect: according to Chiang free will cannot foil fate.If the future cannot be changed, what is the role of free will? Louise wonders: “what if the experience of knowing the future changed a person? What if it evoked a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation to act precisely as she knew she would?” In his “story notes” Chiang says inspiration came from variational principles in physics (Chiang, Stories); I see the influence of climate calamity. Knowing the future must change us—how can it not evoke “a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation”? Even if events play out precisely as we know they will. In his talk Chiang differentiated between time-travel films which favour free will, like Looper, and those that conclude fatalistically, such as Twelve Monkeys. “Story of Your Life” explores the idea that these categories are not mutually exclusive: exercising free will might not change fate; fatalism may not preclude acts of free will.Utopic Free Will vs. Dystopic Fate?Newman’s latest novel is more obviously dystopic: the world in The Heavens is worse each time Kate wakes from her dreams of the past. In the end it has become positively post-apocalyptic. The overwhelming sadness of this book is one of its most unusual aspects, going far beyond that of The Time Traveler’s Wife—2003’s popular tale of love and loss. The Heavens feels fatalistic, even though its future is—unfortunately, in this instance—not set but continually altered by the main character’s attempts to “fix” it (in each sense of the word). Where Twelve Monkeys, Looper, and The Odyssey present every action as a foregone conclusion, The Heavens navigates the nightmare that—against our will—everything we do might have an adverse consequence. As in A Christmas Carol, where the vision of a possible future prompts the protagonist to change his ways and so prevent its coming to pass, it is Kate’s foresight—of our future—which inspires her to act. History doesn’t respond well to Kate’s interventions; she is unable to “correct” events and left more and more isolated by her own unique version of a tortuous Cassandra complex.These largely inexplicable consequences provide a direct connection between Newman’s latest work and James Tiptree Jr.’s 1972 “Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket”. That tale’s conclusion makes no “real” sense either—when Dovy dies Loolie’s father’s advisers can only say that (time) paradoxes are proliferating—but The Heavens is not the intellectual play of Tiptree’s classic science fiction: the wine of time-travel has been poured into the “depleted” vessel of “big L” literature. The sorrow that seeps through this novel is profound; Newman apologises for it in her acknowledgements, linking it to the death of an ex-partner. I read it as a potent expression of “solastalgia”: nostalgia for a place that once provided solace, but doesn’t any more—a term coined by Australian philosopher Glen Albrecht to express the “psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change” (Albrecht et al.). It is Kate’s grief, for a world (she has) destroyed that drives her mad: “deranged”.The Serious Side of SpeculationIn The Great Derangement Ghosh laments the “smaller shadow” cast by climate change in the landscape of literary fiction. He echoes Miéville: “fiction that deals with climate change is almost by definition not the kind that is taken seriously by serious literary journals; the mere mention of the subject is often enough to relegate a novel or short story to the genre of science fiction” (Ghosh). Time-travel tales that pose the kind of questions handled by theologians before the Enlightenment and “big L” literature after—what does it mean to exist in time? How should we live? Who deserves to be happy?—may be a way for literary fiction to take climate change “seriously”: to write through it. Out-of-time narratives such as Chiang and Newman’s pose existential speculations that, rather than locating us in time, may help us imagine time itself differently. How are we to act if the future has already come to pass?“When we are faced with a world whose problems all seem ‘wicked’ and intractable, what is it that fiction can do?” (Uhlmann). At the very least, should writers not be working with “sombre realism”? Science fiction has a long and established tradition of exposing the background narratives of the political—and ecological—landscapes in which we work: the master narratives of Modernism. What Anthony Uhlmann describes here, as the “distancing technique” of fiction becomes outright “estrangement” in speculative hands. Stories such as Newman and Chiang’s reflect (on) what readers might be avoiding: that even though our future is fixed, we must act. We must behave as though our decisions matter, despite knowing the ways in which they do not.These works challenge Modernist concerns despite—or perhaps via—satisfying genre conventions, in direct contradiction to Roy Scranton’s conviction that “Narrative in the Anthropocene Is the Enemy”. In doing so they fit Miéville’s description of a “literature of estrangement” while also exemplifying a new, Anthropocene “literature of recognition” (Crown). These, then, are the stories of our life.What Is Not ExpectedChiang’s 2018 lecture was actually a PowerPoint presentation on how time travel could or would “really” work. His medium, as much as his message, clearly showed the author’s cross-disciplinary affiliations, which are relevant to this discussion of literary fiction’s “depleted” models. In August this year Xu Xi concluded a lecture on speculative fiction for the Vermont College of Fine Arts by encouraging attendees to read—and write—“other” languages, whether foreign forms or alien disciplines. She cited Chiang as someone who successfully raids the riches of non-literary traditions, to produce a new kind of literature. Writing that deals in physics, as much as characters, in philosophy, as much as narrative, presents new, “post-natural” (Bradley, “End”) retro-speculations that (in un- and super-natural generic traditions) offer a real alternative to Modernism’s narrative of inevitable—and inevitably positive—progress.In “What’s Expected of Us” Chiang imagines the possible consequence of comprehending that our actions, and not just their consequence, are predetermined. In what Oates describes as his distinctive, pared-back, “unironic” style (Oates, “Science Fiction”), Chiang concludes: “reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilisation now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has”. The self-deception we need is not America’s amnesia, but the belief that what we do matters.ConclusionThe visions of her “paraself” that Nat sees in “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” encourage her to change her behaviour. The “prism” that enables this perception—a kind of time-tripped iPad that “skypes” alternate temporal realities, activated by people acting in different ways at a crucial moment in their lives—does not always reflect the butterfly effect the protagonist, or reader, might expect. Some actions have dramatic consequences while others have minimal impact. While Nat does not see her future, what she spies inspires her to take the first steps towards becoming a different—read “better”—person. We expect this will lead to more positive outcomes for her self in the story’s “first” world. The device, and Chiang’s tale, illustrates both that our paths are predetermined and that they are not: “our inability to predict the consequences of our own predetermined actions offers a kind of freedom”. The freedom to act, freedom from the coma of inaction.“What’s the use of art on a dying planet? What’s the point, when humanity itself is facing an existential threat?” Alison Croggon asks, and answers herself: “it searches for the complex truth … . It can help us to see the world we have more clearly, and help us to imagine a better one”. In literary thought experiments like Newman and Chiang’s artful time-travel fictions we read complex, metaphoric truths that cannot be put into real(ist) words. In the time-honoured tradition of (speculative) fiction, Chiang and Newman deal in, and with, “what cannot be said in words … in words” (Le Guin, “Introduction”). These most recent time-slip speculations tell unpredictable stories about what is predicted, what is predictable, but what we must (still) believe may not necessarily be—if we are to be free.ReferencesArrival. Dir. Dennis Villeneuve. Paramount Pictures, 2016.Albrecht, Glenn, et al. “Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environmental Change.” Australasian Psychiatry (Feb. 2007): 41–55. Atwood, Margaret. “The Road to Ustopia.” The Guardian 15 Oct. 2011 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/14/margaret-atwood-road-to-ustopia>.———. “It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change.” Medium 27 July 2015. <https://medium.com/matter/it-s-not-climate-change-it-s-everything-change-8fd9aa671804>.Bradley, James. “Writing on the Precipice: On Literature and Change.” City of Tongues. 16 Mar. 2017 <https://cityoftongues.com/2017/03/16/writing-on-the-precipice-on-literature-and-climate-change/>.———. “The End of Nature and Post-Naturalism: Fiction and the Anthropocene.” City of Tongues 30 Dec. 2015 <https://cityoftongues.com/2015/12/30/the-end-of-nature-and-post-naturalism-fiction-and-the-anthropocene/>.Bradley, James, and Jane Rawson. “Writing in the Age of Extinction.” Detached Performance and Project Space, The Old Mercury Building, Hobart. 27 July 2019.Chiang, Ted. Stories of Your Life and Others. New York: Tor, 2002.———. Exhalation: Stories. New York: Knopf, 2019.Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. London: Gollancz, 1983. 69.Croggon, Alison. “On Art.” Overland 235 (2019). 30 Sep. 2019 <https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-235/column-on-art/>.Crown, Sarah. “What the Booker Prize Really Excludes.” The Guardian 17 Oct. 2011 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/oct/17/science-fiction-china-mieville>.Driscoll, Beth. The New Literary Middlebrow: Tastemakers and Reading in the Twenty-First Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.Erpenbeck, Jenny. Trans. Susan Bernofsky. The End of Days. New York: New Directions, 2016.Gelder, Ken. Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field. London: Routledge, 2014.Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. India: Penguin Random House, 2018.Le Guin, Ursula K. “Introduction.” The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace Books, 1979. 5.———. “Ursula K. Le Guin Talks to Michael Cunningham about Genres, Gender, and Broadening Fiction.” Electric Literature 1 Apr. 2016. <https://electricl*terature.com/ursula-k-le-guin-talks-to-michael- cunningham-about-genres-gender-and-broadening-fiction-57d9c967b9c>.Miller-McDonald, Samuel. “What Must We Do to Live?” The Trouble 14 Oct. 2018. <https://www.the-trouble.com/content/2018/10/14/what-must-we-do-to-live>.Oates, Joyce Carol. Hazards of Time Travel. New York: Ecco Press, 2018.———. "Science Fiction Doesn't Have to be Dystopian." The New Yorker 13 May 2019. <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/13/science-fiction-doesnt-have-to-be-dystopian>.Prose, Francine. “Subject to Revision.” New York Times 26 Apr. 2003. <https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/books/review/life-after-life-by-kate-atkinson.html>.Robinson, Kim Stanley. “Kim Stanley Robinson and the Drowning of New York.” The Coode Street Podcast 305 (2017). <http://www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp/the-coode-street-podcast/>.Russ, Joanna. “The Wearing Out of Genre Materials.” College English 33.1 (1971): 46–54.Scranton, Roy. “Narrative in the Anthropocene Is the Enemy.” Lithub.com 18 Sep. 2019. <https://lithub.com/roy-scranton-narrative-in-the-anthropocene-is-the-enemy/>.Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Walton, James. “Fascinating, Fearless, and Distinctly Odd.” The New York Review of Books 9 Jan. 2014: 63–64.Uhlmann, Anthony. “The Other Way, the Other Truth, the Other Life: Simpson Returns.” Sydney Review of Books. 2 Sep. 2019 <https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/macauley-simpson-returns/>. Xu, Xi. “Speculative Fiction.” Presented at the International MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Vermont, 15 Aug. 2019.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Brezenoff, Steve. Return to Titanic: Time Voyage. Illus. Scott Murphy. North Mankato, MN: Stone Arch Books, 2012. Print. The legendary Titanic resurfaces for this children’s novel which cleverly combines history with science fiction. The subject of the Titanic voyage is timely, since it is recently the 100th anniversary of its maiden voyage. Tucker and Maya spend their spring break helping out at a museum and as they sort through a box labeled “special collection” for the Titanic exhibit, they find an original ticket to the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Their curiosity provokes them to open its protective case. Once they touch the ticket, they are sent back in time to Queenstown, Ireland in 1912, the day the Titanic was to set sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Tucker’s mother, the museum’s curator, always said there was “magic in the junk at the museum”. Tucker and Maya must decide what to do next. Should they stop the Titanic from sailing? Is it possible to change history? They begin to wonder how will they ever return back to 2012? Detailed pencil-sketch drawings by Scott Murphy decorate every few pages. These illustrations enhance the description and imagery in the novel while supporting reluctant readers. The shaded teal-coloured sketches assist with setting the tone of history, mystery, and adventure. Inclusion of a map, at the beginning of each chapter, indicates the location of the characters at that moment in the novel, whether they were in Queenstown, Ireland or in New York. To assist with these transitions, the change of time occurs at the start of a new chapter, as well as clear setting descriptions are included throughout, integral in showing the time and place. These time transitions are smooth and easy to follow. Themes of friendship, curiosity, history, time-travel, adventure, and courage are intertwined. Educators can integrate this novel into lessons about the Titanic's history. Time Voyage is an exciting adventure story to accompany non-fiction titles. It is interesting to note the correct historical references of location, dates, and the company that sailed the Titanic incorporated in this work of fiction. Time Voyage is the first novel in the Return to Titanic four book series, written by Steve Brezenoff. With easy vocabulary, great plot description, imagery, and consistent use of strong adjectives, this novel will captivate readers aged 9 to 13 years old, appealing to grade 2 to 3 reading levels. The cliff-hanger at the end of the book will surely entice readers to continue reading this four book series. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Melissa Blackwood Melissa Blackwood is a Primary/Elementary teacher, presently completing a Master of Education in Teacher-Librarianship with the University of Alberta.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Case report - Introduction We present what we believe to be the first reported case of post COVID-19 reactive arthritis, in a previously medically well 16-year-old with no past or family history of inflammatory arthritis. Case report - Case description Our patient was a previously medically fit 16-year-old of Caucasian origin who tested positive for COVID-19 in late March 2020. She developed with a 4-day illness with fever, cough, and myalgia from which she made a full and uncomplicated recovery. Ten days later she developed a new erythematous itchy rash on her legs, trunk, and face and a progressive polyarthralgia affecting her MCPs, wrists, shoulders, hips, and knees. The rash typically lasted for 2 days at one site and was non-scarring. This was associated with a low-grade fever. There were no associated mouth ulcers, photosensitivity, alopecia, Raynaud’s, GI disturbance or respiratory symptoms. She had no relevant family history of autoimmunity, psoriasis or inflammatory bowel disease or travel history and had been prescribed no new medications. On examination, she had an erythematous rash on the face in a non malar distribution. She had multiple tender joints without definite synovitis. Cardiovascular, respiratory, gastroenterology and neurological examinations were unremarkable. Investigations revealed a normal full blood count and CRP&lt;1 with normal liver and renal function tests. Her urinalysis was unremarkable. Immunology was negative for ANA, ANCA and rheumatoid factor. Immunoglobulins were normal. Two weeks later her symptoms were fully resolved. Case report - Discussion Coronaviruses are single-stranded RNA viruses with nearly 30 strains recognised to infect humans. They induce both an innate and adaptive immune system response. It is hypothesised that a dysregulated innate system response, leading to a prolonged adaptive response triggers damaging inflammation and a potential cytokine storm. This is associated with poor outcome during primary viral infection. Variations in this immune response, with different underlying HLA genotypes could lead to other post infectious immune mediated phenomena, such as Paediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome - Temporally associated with COVID-19. There is a European registry collating data about patients with known rheumatic diseases who are admitted with COVID-19. There is emerging data regarding Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome - Temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 (PIMS-TS). There is a growing suggestion that a subgroup of patients is developing a COVID-19 associated post viral fatigue syndrome. We suggest that a registry to collect information on de novo autoimmune diseases presenting post COVID-19 is also commenced. Case report - Key learning points COVID-19 infection is associated with a wide variety of sequalae, including rheumatological ones. Classic post viral Reactive arthritis has been seen. A registry to collect information on de novo autoimmune presentations would be highly informative.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Introduction Fever is a cardinal manifestation of both autoinflammatory disease and infection. Distinguishing the two is a familiar challenge to the rheumatologist. This case report describes a young female presenting with recurrent fevers, rash and inflammatory arthritis. The case illustrates the importance of a careful travel and social history in the diagnosis and management of a patient presenting with recurrent fevers, particularly in an era of globalisation and air travel. Case description A 19-year-old Caucasian female presented to her local district general hospital with episodic fevers, rash, arthralgia, and abdominal pain. Past medical history included autoimmune liver disease, treated with azathioprine. She had no relevant family history, took no medications other than azathioprine, was a non-smoker and had no allergies. On presentation she was pyrexic with a temperature of 40 °C, and tachycardic (120bpm), with a BP of 108/59. She was synovitic in her wrists, knees and ankles. Pustular skin lesions were noted on the lower limbs, spreading to the groin, upper limbs and the face, and evolving into haemorrhagic bullae. Baseline bloods including cultures, and skin swabs were taken. Despite broad-spectrum antimicrobials and acyclovir, she continued to spike temperatures. Her symptoms briefly resolved on two occasions before recurring. Blood cultures and skin swabs were sterile and varicella PCR negative. She had high acute-phase reactants with a CRP of 238 and a ferritin of > 1000. Autoimmune screen was positive for only anti-smooth muscle antibodies. The lack of response to anti-microbials and elevated ferritin raised suspicion of autoinflammatory pathology and prompted inpatient transfer to a tertiary rheumatology service. After transfer further investigations included a PETCT which demonstrated splenomegaly (25cm) with multiple metabolically active lesions. Three pieces of further history were elicited: (1) Four weeks prior to symptom onset, the patient reported a new sexual partner; (2) The patient has a pet cat which frequently scratched her legs, and; (3) She travelled to southern Spain four months prior to admission, and regularly walked her tick-infested grandparent’s dog through shrubland. She subsequently underwent screening for syphilis, HIV and gonococcus, molecular testing for Bartonella species, and serological assessment for tick-borne illnesses. She was positive for non-Lyme Borrelia species. A diagnosis of tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF) was made, and treatment with doxycycline induced a rapid clinical response. Discussion Autoinflammatory diseases are characterised by recurrent episodes of inflammation due to defects in innate immunity. The absence of autoantibodies means recognition of clinical phenotype is crucial. In this patient, the presence of synovitis, high fevers, raised inflammatory markers and serum ferritin fit with adult-onset Still’s disease (AOSD). However, the rash was atypical. The rash in AOSD is salmon-pink, non-pruritic and typically occurs in the upper arms, abdomen and thighs. Additionally, although the spleen is often enlarged, focal lesions are rare. Infections were considered, particularly with background immunosuppression and liver disease. Negative cultures and failure to improve with antibiotics suggested a non-infectious cause. Detailed history identified risk factors for infections undetected by standard microbial tests. Disseminated gonococcal infection can present with pustular acral rash and asymmetric polyarthralgia for which PCR is standard diagnosis. Bartonellosis or cat-scratch disease usually presents 3-12 days after a scratch with tender local unilateral lymphadenopathy, malaise and fever. Bacillary angiomatosis can occur in immunocompromised patients and can present with subcutaneous nodules which haemorrhage or ulcerate. Bartonella is a fastidious gram-negative rod that requires special conditions for culture so is not routinely performed. There is no commercial serology test, so the specimen was sent to Porton Down for PCR, which was negative. A diagnosis of TBRF was reached due to exposure to ticks during travel to southern Spain and positive non-Lyme Borrelia serology. The species of tick found in this region are Ixodes Ricinus and Ornithodoros which are carriers of Borrelia and Babesia. TBRF’s incubation period is 3-18 days and presents with fever, arthritis, rash, abdominal pain and hepatosplenomegaly. Symptoms are episodic with periods of remission. The patient’s symptomatology was consistent with non-Lyme Borrelia species, but the incubation period was significantly prolonged. Samples have been sent for molecular Borrelia testing and blood films. Key learning points Rheumatologists are often asked to review patients with recurrent fever. An awareness of atypical infectious differentials can be crucial to making the correct diagnosis. Relapsing fever is an umbrella term used to describe the characteristic pattern of infection caused by spirochetes of the genus Borrelia and can be transmitted by ticks or lice. Other infectious causes of recurrent fever include malaria and rat-bite fever. An important non-infectious cause is lymphoma. When trying to isolate the causative pathogen, it is important to note that standard microbial cultures are often insufficient for atypical pathogens. In the case of our patient, both spirochete and rickettsia are bacterial tick-borne illness which are undetected by standard cultures. Additionally, the lack of response to antibiotics does not exclude infection; rather it may reflect an inappropriate choice of antibiotics. Thus, an awareness of which pathogens respond to which antibiotics is crucial in the timely and effective treatment of infection. This case illustrates the importance of a careful clinical history in diagnosis and treatment. Particularly in the context of a suspected infection, an extensive travel and social history is important in establishing risk of exposure to pathogens either directly or indirectly via vectors. In this case Bartonellosis was initially suspected before negative PCR made non-Lyme Borreliosis a more likely diagnosis. Fortunately doxycycline is the first-line treatment for both of these organisms. Rheumatologists are familiar with the predisposition of immunocompromised patients to atypical pathogens. These atypical infections are frequently harder to detect, therefore a rheumatologist must keep these organisms in the back of their mind when considering sources of infection in immunocompromised patients. Conflicts of interest The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

At a time when a trip abroad was out of the reach of most women, even if they could not make the journey, Australian women could imagine “abroad” just by reading popular women’s magazines such as Woman (later Woman’s Day and Home then Woman’s Day) and The Australian Women’s Weekly, and journals, such as The Progressive Woman and The Housewife. Increasingly in the post-war period, these magazines and journals contained advertisem*nts for holidaying abroad, recipes for international foods and articles on overseas fashions. It was not unusual for local manufacturers, to use the lure of travel and exotic places as a way of marketing their goods. Healing Bicycles, for example, used the slogan “In Venice men go to work on Gondolas: In Australia it’s a Healing” (“Healing Cycles” 40), and Exotiq cosmetics featured landscapes of countries where Exotiq products had “captured the hearts of women who treasured their loveliness: Cincinnati, Milan, New York, Paris, Geneva and Budapest” (“Exotiq Cosmetics” 36).Unlike Homer’s Penelope, who stayed at home for twenty years waiting for Odysseus to return from the Trojan wars, women have always been on the move to the same extent as men. Their rich travel stories (Riggal, Haysom, Lancaster)—mostly written as letters and diaries—remain largely unpublished and their experiences are not part of the public record to the same extent as the travel stories of men. Ros Pesman argues that the women traveller’s voice was one of privilege and authority full of excitement and disbelief (Pesman 26). She notes that until well into the second part of the twentieth century, “the journey for Australian women to Europe was much more than a return to the sources of family identity and history” (19). It was also:a pilgrimage to the centres and sites of culture, literature and history and an encounter with “the real world.”Europe, and particularly London,was also the place of authority and reference for all those seeking accreditation and recognition, whether as real writers, real ladies or real politicians and statesmen. (19)This article is about two Australian writers; Helen Seager, a journalist employed by The Argus, a daily newspaper in Melbourne Australia, and Gwen Hughes, a graduate of Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy in Melbourne, working in England as a lecturer, demonstrator and cookbook writer for Parkinsons’ Stove Company. Helen Seager travelled to England on an assignment for The Argus in 1950 and sent articles each day for publication in the women’s section of the newspaper. Gwen Hughes travelled extensively in the Balkans in the 1930s recording her impressions, observations, and recipes for traditional foods whilst working for Parkinsons in England. These women were neither returning to the homeland for an encounter with the real world, nor were they there as cultural tourists in the Cook’s Tour sense of the word. They were professional writers and their observations about the places they visited offer fresh and lively versions of England and Europe, its people, places, and customs.Helen SeagerAustralian Journalist Helen Seager (1901–1981) wrote a daily column, Good Morning Ma’am in the women’s pages of The Argus, from 1947 until shortly after her return from abroad in 1950. Seager wrote human interest stories, often about people of note (Golding), but with a twist; a Baroness who finds knitting exciting (Seager, “Baroness” 9) and ballet dancers backstage (Seager, “Ballet” 10). Much-loved by her mainly female readership, in May 1950 The Argus sent her to England where she would file a daily report of her travels. Whilst now we take travel for granted, Seager was sent abroad with letters of introduction from The Argus, stating that she was travelling on a special editorial assignment which included: a certificate signed by the Lord Mayor of The City of Melbourne, seeking that any courtesies be extended on her trip to England, the Continent, and America; a recommendation from the Consul General of France in Australia; and introductions from the Premier’s Department, the Premier of Victoria, and Austria’s representative in Australia. All noted the nature of her trip, her status as an esteemed reporter for a Melbourne newspaper, and requested that any courtesy possible to be made to her.This assignment was an indication that The Argus valued its women readers. Her expenses, and those of her ten-year-old daughter Harriet, who accompanied her, were covered by the newspaper. Her popularity with her readership is apparent by the enthusiastic tone of the editorial article covering her departure. Accompanied with a photograph of Seager and Harriet boarding the aeroplane, her many women readers were treated to their first ever picture of what she looked like:THOUSANDS of "Argus" readers, particularly those in the country, have wanted to know what Helen Seager looks like. Here she is, waving good-bye as she left on the first stage of a trip to England yesterday. She will be writing her bright “Good Morning, Ma'am” feature as she travels—giving her commentary on life abroad. (The Argus, “Goodbye” 1)Figure 1. Helen Seager and her daughter Harriet board their flight for EnglandThe first article “From Helen in London” read,our Helen Seager, after busy days spent exploring England with her 10-year-old daughter, Harriet, today cabled her first “Good Morning, Ma’am” column from abroad. Each day from now on she will report from London her lively impressions in an old land, which is delightfully new to her. (Seager, “From Helen” 3)Whilst some of her dispatches contain the impressions of the awestruck traveller, for the most they are exquisitely observed stories of the everyday and the ordinary, often about the seemingly most trivial of things, and give a colourful, colonial and egalitarian impression of the places that she visits. A West End hair-do is described, “as I walked into that posh looking establishment, full of Louis XV, gold ornateness to be received with bows from the waist by numerous satellites, my first reaction was to turn and bolt” (Seager, “West End” 3).When she visits Oxford’s literary establishments, she is, for this particular article, the awestruck Australian:In Oxford, you go around saying, soto voce and aloud, “Oh, ye dreaming spires of Oxford.” And Matthew Arnold comes alive again as a close personal friend.In a weekend, Ma’am, I have seen more of Oxford than lots of native Oxonians. I have stood and brooded over the spit in Christ Church College’s underground kitchens on which the oxen for Henry the Eighth were roasted.I have seen the Merton Library, oldest in Oxford, in which the chains that imprisoned the books are still to be seen, and have added by shoe scrape to the stone steps worn down by 500 years of walkers. I have walked the old churches, and I have been lost in wonder at the goodly virtues of the dead. And then, those names of Oxford! Holywell, Tom’s Quad, Friars’ Entry, and Long Wall. The gargoyles at Magdalen and the stones untouched by bombs or war’s destruction. It adds a new importance to human beings to know that once, if only, they too have walked and stood and stared. (Seager, “From Helen” 3)Her sense of wonder whilst in Oxford is, however, moderated by the practicalities of travel incorporated into the article. She continues to describe the warnings she was given, before her departure, of foreign travel that had her alarmed about loss and theft, and the care she took to avoid both. “It would have made you laugh, Ma’am, could you have seen the antics to protect personal property in the countries in transit” (Seager, “From Helen” 3).Her description of a trip to Blenheim Palace shows her sense of fun. She does not attempt to describe the palace or its contents, “Blenheim Palace is too vast and too like a great Government building to arouse much envy,” settling instead on a curiosity should there be a turn of events, “as I surged through its great halls with a good-tempered, jostling mob I couldn’t help wondering what those tired pale-faced guides would do if the mob mood changed and it started on an old-fashioned ransack.” Blenheim palace did not impress her as much as did the Sunday crowd at the palace:The only thing I really took a fancy to were the Venetian cradle, which was used during the infancy of the present Duke and a fine Savvonerie carpet in the same room. What I never wanted to see again was the rubbed-fur collar of the lady in front.Sunday’s crowd was typically English, Good tempered, and full of co*ckney wit, and, if you choose to take your pleasures in the mass, it is as good a company as any to be in. (Seager, “We Look” 3)In a description of Dublin and the Dubliners, Seager describes the food-laden shops: “Butchers’ shops leave little room for customers with their great meat carcasses hanging from every hook. … English visitors—and Dublin is awash with them—make an orgy of the cakes that ooze real cream, the pink and juicy hams, and the sweets that demand no points” (Seager, “English” 6). She reports on the humanity of Dublin and Dubliners, “Dublin has a charm that is deep-laid. It springs from the people themselves. Their courtesy is overlaid with a real interest in humanity. They walk and talk, these Dubliners, like Kings” (ibid.).In Paris she melds the ordinary with the noteworthy:I had always imagined that the outside of the Louvre was like and big art gallery. Now that I know it as a series of palaces with courtyards and gardens beyond description in the daytime, and last night, with its cleverly lighted fountains all aplay, its flags and coloured lights, I will never forget it.Just now, down in the street below, somebody is packing the boot of a car to go for, presumably, on a few days’ jaunt. There is one suitcase, maybe with clothes, and on the footpath 47 bottles of the most beautiful wines in the world. (Seager, “When” 3)She writes with a mix of awe and ordinary:My first glimpse of that exciting vista of the Arc de Triomphe in the distance, and the little bistros that I’ve always wanted to see, and all the delights of a new city, […] My first day in Paris, Ma’am, has not taken one whit from the glory that was London. (ibid.) Figure 2: Helen Seager in ParisIt is my belief that Helen Seager intended to do something with her writings abroad. The articles have been cut from The Argus and pasted onto sheets of paper. She has kept copies of the original reports filed whist she was away. The collection shows her insightful egalitarian eye and a sharp humour, a mix of awesome and commonplace.On Bastille Day in 1950, Seager wrote about the celebrations in Paris. Her article is one of exuberant enthusiasm. She writes joyfully about sirens screaming overhead, and people in the street, and looking from windows. Her article, published on 19 July, starts:Paris Ma’am is a magical city. I will never cease to be grateful that I arrived on a day when every thing went wrong, and watched it blossom before my eyes into a gayness that makes our Melbourne Cup gala seem funeral in comparison.Today is July 14.All places of business are closed for five days and only the places of amusem*nt await the world.Parisians are tireless in their celebrations.I went to sleep to the music of bands, dancing feet and singing voices, with the raucous but cheerful toots from motors splitting the night air onto atoms. (Seager, “When” 3)This article resonates uneasiness. How easily could those scenes of celebration on Bastille Day in 1950 be changed into the scenes of carnage on Bastille Day 2016, the cheerful toots of the motors transformed into cries of fear, the sirens in the sky from aeroplanes overhead into the sirens of ambulances and police vehicles, as a Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, as part of a terror attack drives a truck through crowds of people celebrating in Nice.Gwen HughesGwen Hughes graduated from Emily Macpherson College of Domestic Economy with a Diploma of Domestic Science, before she travelled to England to take up employment as senior lecturer and demonstrator of Parkinson’s England, a company that manufactured electric and gas stoves. Hughes wrote in her unpublished manuscript, Balkan Fever, that it was her idea of making ordinary cooking demonstration lessons dramatic and homelike that landed her the job in England (Hughes, Balkan 25-26).Her cookbook, Perfect Cooking, was produced to encourage housewives to enjoy cooking with their Parkinson’s modern cookers with the new Adjusto temperature control. The message she had to convey for Parkinsons was: “Cooking is a matter of putting the right ingredients together and cooking them at the right temperature to achieve a given result” (Hughes, Perfect 3). In reality, Hughes used this cookbook as a vehicle to share her interest in and love of Continental food, especially food from the Balkans where she travelled extensively in the 1930s.Recipes of Continental foods published in Perfect Cooking sit seamlessly alongside traditional British foods. The section on soup, for example, contains recipes for Borscht, a very good soup cooked by the peasants of Russia; Minestrone, an everyday Italian soup; Escudella, from Spain; and Cream of Spinach Soup from France (Perfect 22-23). Hughes devoted a whole chapter to recipes and descriptions of Continental foods labelled “Fascinating Foods From Far Countries,” showing her love and fascination with food and travel. She started this chapter with the observation:There is nearly as much excitement and romance, and, perhaps fear, about sampling a “foreign dish” for the “home stayer” as there is in actually being there for the more adventurous “home leaver”. Let us have a little have a little cruise safe within the comfort of our British homes. Let us try and taste the good things each country is famed for, all the while picturing the romantic setting of these dishes. (Hughes, Perfect 255)Through her recipes and descriptive passages, Hughes took housewives in England and Australia into the strange and wonderful kitchens of exotic women: Madame Darinka Jocanovic in Belgrade, Miss Anicka Zmelova in Prague, Madame Mrskosova at Benesova. These women taught her to make wonderful-sounding foods such as Apfel Strudel, Knedlikcy, Vanilla Kipfel and Christmas Stars. “Who would not enjoy the famous ‘Goose with Dumplings,’” she declares, “in the company of these gay, brave, thoughtful people with their romantic history, their gorgeously appareled peasants set in their richly picturesque scenery” (Perfect 255).It is Hughes’ unpublished manuscript Balkan Fever, written in Melbourne in 1943, to which I now turn. It is part of the Latrobe Heritage collection at the State Library of Victoria. Her manuscript was based on her extensive travels in the Balkans in the 1930s whilst she lived and worked in England, and it was, I suspect, her intention to seek publication.In her twenties, Hughes describes how she set off to the Balkans after meeting a fellow member of the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) at the Royal Yugoslav Legation. He was an expert on village life in the Balkans and advised her, that as a writer she would get more information from the local villagers than she would as a tourist. Hughes, who, before television gave cooking demonstrations on the radio, wrote, “I had been writing down recipes and putting them in books for years and of course the things one talks about over the air have to be written down first—that seemed fair enough” (Hughes, Balkan 25-26). There is nothing of the awestruck traveller in Hughes’ richly detailed observations of the people and the places that she visited. “Travelling in the Balkans is a very different affair from travelling in tourist-conscious countries where you just leave it to Cooks. You must either have unlimited time at your disposal, know the language or else have introductions that will enable the right arrangements to be made for you” (Balkan 2), she wrote. She was the experiential tourist, deeply immersed in her surroundings and recording food culture and society as it was.Hughes acknowledged that she was always drawn away from the cities to seek the real life of the people. “It’s to the country district you must go to find the real flavour of a country and the heart of its people—especially in the Balkans where such a large percentage of the population is agricultural” (Balkan 59). Her descriptions in Balkan Fever are a blend of geography, history, culture, national songs, folklore, national costumes, food, embroidery, and vivid observation of the everyday city life. She made little mention of stately homes or buildings. Her attitude to travel can be summed up in her own words:there are so many things to see and learn in the countries of the old world that, walking with eyes and mind wide open can be an immensely delightful pastime, even with no companion and nowhere to go. An hour or two spent in some unpretentious coffee house can be worth all the dinners at Quaglino’s or at The Ritz, if your companion is a good talker, a specialist in your subject, or knows something of the politics and the inner life of the country you are in. (Balkan 28)Rather than touring the grand cities, she was seduced by the market places with their abundance of food, colour, and action. Describing Sarajevo she wrote:On market day the main square is a blaze of colour and movement, the buyers no less colourful than the peasants who have come in from the farms around with their produce—cream cheese, eggs, chickens, fruit and vegetables. Handmade carpets hung up for sale against walls or from trees add their barbaric colour to the splendor of the scene. (Balkan 75)Markets she visited come to life through her vivid descriptions:Oh those markets, with the gorgeous colours, and heaped untidiness of the fruits and vegetables—paprika, those red and green peppers! Every kind of melon, grape and tomato contributing to the riot of colour. Then there were the fascinating peasant embroideries, laces and rich parts of old costumes brought in from the villages for sale. The lovely gay old embroideries were just laid out on a narrow carpet spread along the pavement or hung from a tree if one happened to be there. (Balkan 11)Perhaps it was her radio cooking shows that gave her the ability to make her descriptions sensorial and pictorial:We tasted luxurious foods, fish, chickens, fruits, wines, and liqueurs. All products of the country. Perfect ambrosial nectar of the gods. I was entirely seduced by the rose petal syrup, fragrant and aromatic, a red drink made from the petals of the darkest red roses. (Balkan 151)Ordinary places and everyday events are beautifully realised:We visited the cheese factory amongst other things. … It was curious to see in that far away spot such a quantity of neatly arranged cheeses in the curing chamber, being prepared for export, and in another room the primitive looking round balls of creamed cheese suspended from rafters. Later we saw trains of pack horses going over the mountains, and these were probably the bearers of these cheeses to Bitolj or Skoplje, whence they would be consigned further for export. (Balkan 182)ConclusionReading Seager and Hughes, one cannot help but be swept along on their travels and take part in their journeys. What is clear, is that they were inspired by their work, which is reflected in the way they wrote about the places they visited. Both sought out people and places that were, as Hughes so vividly puts it, not part of the Cook’s Tour. They travelled with their eyes wide open for experiences that were both new and normal, making their writing relevant even today. Written in Paris on Bastille Day 1950, Seager’s Bastille Day article is poignant when compared to Bastille Day in France in 2016. Hughes’s descriptions of Sarajevo are a far cry from the scenes of destruction in that city between 1992 and 1995. The travel writing of these two women offers us vivid impressions and images of the often unreported events, places, daily lives, and industry of the ordinary and the then every day, and remind us that the more things change, the more they stay the same.Pesman writes, “women have always been on the move and Australian women have been as numerous as passengers on the outbound ships as have men” (20), but the records of their travels seldom appear on the public record. Whilst their work-related writings are part of the public record (see Haysom; Lancaster; Riggal), this body of women’s travel writing has not received the attention it deserves. Hughes’ cookbooks, with their traditional Eastern European recipes and evocative descriptions of people and kitchens, are only there for the researcher who knows that cookbooks are a trove of valuable social and cultural material. Digital copies of Seager’s writing can be accessed on Trove (a digital repository), but there is little else about her or her body of writing on the public record.ReferencesThe Argus. “Goodbye Ma’am.” 26 May 1950: 1. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22831285?searchTerm=Goodbye%20Ma%E2%80%99am%E2%80%99&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.“Exotiq Cosmetics.” Advertisem*nt. Woman 20 Aug. 1945: 36.Golding, Peter. “Just a Chattel of the Sale: A Mostly Light-Hearted Retrospective of a Diverse Life.” In Jim Usher, ed., The Argus: Life & Death of Newspaper. North Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing 2007.Haysom, Ida. Diaries and Photographs of Ida Haysom. <http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/MAIN:Everything:SLV_VOYAGER1637361>.“Healing Cycles.” Advertisem*nt. Woman 27 Aug. 1945: 40. Hughes, Gwen. Balkan Fever. Unpublished Manuscript. State Library of Victoria, MS 12985 Box 3846/4. 1943.———. Perfect Cooking London: Parkinsons, c1940.Lancaster, Rosemary. Je Suis Australienne: Remarkable Women in France 1880-1945. Crawley WA: UWA Press, 2008.Pesman, Ros. “Overseas Travel of Australian Women: Sources in the Australian Manuscripts Collection of the State Library of Victoria.” The Latrobe Journal 58 (Spring 1996): 19-26.Riggal, Louie. (Louise Blanche.) Diary of Italian Tour 1905 February 21 - May 1. <http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/MAIN:Everything:SLV_VOYAGER1635602>.Seager, Helen. “Ballet Dancers Backstage.” The Argus 10 Aug. 1944: 10. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11356057?searchTerm=Ballet%20Dancers%20Backstage&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=194>.———. “The Baroness Who Finds Knitting Exciting.” The Argus 1 Aug. 1944: 9. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11354557?searchTerm=Helen%20seager%20Baroness&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=194>.———. “English Visitors Have a Food Spree in Eire.” The Argus 29 Sep. 1950: 6. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22912011?searchTerm=English%20visitors%20have%20a%20spree%20in%20Eire&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “From Helen in London.” The Argus 20 June 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22836738?searchTerm=From%20Helen%20in%20London&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “Helen Seager Storms Paris—Paris Falls.” The Argus 15 July 1950: 7.<http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22906913?searchTerm=Helen%20Seager%20Storms%20Paris%E2%80%99&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “We Look over Blenheim Palace.” The Argus 28 Sep. 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22902040?searchTerm=Helen%20Seager%20Its%20as%20a%20good%20a%20place%20as%20you%20would%20want%20to%20be&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “West End Hair-Do Was Fun.” The Argus 3 July 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22913940?searchTerm=West%20End%20hair-do%20was%20fun%E2%80%99&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.———. “When You Are in Paris on July 14.” The Argus 19 July 1950: 3. <http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22906244?searchTerm=When%20you%20are%20in%20Paris%20on%20July%2014&searchLimits=l-title=13|||l-decade=195>.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Case report - Introduction Chikungunya is a tropical arbovirus transmitted by female Aedes Aegypti or Aedes Abopitus mosquitos. It is not indigenous to UK but occurs in epidemics in Africa and Asia. It often presents with pyrexia, arthralgia or arthritis, myalgia and a maculopapular rash and can mimic both peripheral and axial inflammatory arthritis as well as more common forms of viral arthritis. It can also become chronic leading to disabling symptoms. The diagnosis should be considered in all patients presenting with early inflammatory arthritis who have travelled to affected areas. Case report - Case description A 57-year-old female developed sudden onset fever along with a macular rash whilst visiting South East Asia. She then developed widespread joint pains and severe inactivity stiffness, particularly affecting her ankles. The rash and fever settled after a few days, but her arthralgia persisted in her cervical spine and both small and large joints. She had a history of recurrent episcleritis and had been investigated for axial spondyloarthropathy two years previously, but MRI imaging of the spine and sacroiliac joints did not show any inflammatory changes. Examination in the rheumatology clinic confirmed right medial epicondylitis, bilateral shoulder tenderness, tenderness over the extensor tendons of the feet and painful cervical spine movement. Investigations revealed high inflammatory markers; CRP 29 (0-10 mg/L) and ESR 48 (0-15 mm/hr), a positive rheumatoid factor but negative anti CCP antibodies and a normal white cell count. Acute seronegative spondyloarthropathy was suspected but Chikungunya serology was requested at the suggestion of the patient, because of the history of a mosquito bite. IgM and IgG antibodies were positive on immunofluorescence, confirming recent infection. She was initially given intramuscular depomedrone and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) with a short response but required oral prednisolone 20mg daily to suppress the inflammation in her feet. An MRI confirmed an ankle effusion and peroneal tenosynovitis. After 6 months her symptoms improved, and she was able to stop prednisolone completely and she remains well 9 months after the initial infection. Case report - Discussion Chikungunya infection causes musculoskeletal symptoms in all affected patients, but the clinical presentation can highly variable, from mild joint pain to erosive arthritis. It can be divided into three phases: incubation phase, acute phase, and chronic phase. The incubation phase varies between one to twelve days after the mosquito bite. The acute phase begins with high fever, headache, polyarthralgia/arthritis, lymphadenopathy, and anorexia. Joint involvement is often distal and symmetrical affecting the hands, wrists, shoulders, knees, ankles, and feet. A maculopapular rash is common. Dengue virus and Zika virus infection can present similarly. Treatment for acute Chikungunya fever is supportive. Analgesic, anti-pyretic and NSAIDs are used for symptom relief. During the chronic phase, infected people develop symmetrical, migratory, oligoarticular or polyarticular arthritis with morning stiffness and joint oedema, which can last from months to years. Our patient had a previous history which was consistent with seronegative spondyloarthropathy, an acute presentation of inflammatory arthritis and results and imaging which supported this diagnosis. The correct diagnosis could easily have been missed if a travel history had not been taken and the patient’s suspicions ignored. The best treatment for chronic Chikungunya arthritis is unclear. NSAIDs are often the first treatment but, as in this case systemic steroids are often necessary. Conventional synthetic DMARDs have also been reported efficacious. Biologic DMARDS have been used in resistant cases. Case report - Key learning points Chikungunya has emerged as a global disease affecting millions of people with significant musculoskeletal morbidity. Any patient has travelled to endemic areas including Africa and Asia, with fever and joint pain should be screened for Chikungunya virus as well as Dengue virus, and Zika virus. Diagnosis is either by RT PCR (positive 0-7 days of infection or Immunoglobulin M (detectable after 5 – 10 day of infection and persists for few months). Treatment is supportive in acute phase, may require low doses of steroids to aid resolution of symptoms. Conventional DMARDS have shown benefit in chronic phase with ongoing synovitis/tenosynovitis. Patients may know more about rare, endemic diseases than their European doctors and their suspicions about potential diagnoses should always be considered.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Case report - Introduction Sjögren’s is an autoimmune multisystem disorder characterised by xerostomia, keratoconjunctivitis sicca and extra glandular manifestations. The presence of sicca symptoms helps with diagnosis but up to 20% patients do not have these. The prevalence of lung involvement has been reported up to 9-24% and includes changes such as NSIP and organising pneumonia. We present an interesting patient who had no sicca symptoms but positive immunology to suggest Sjögren’s. Changes in sequential CT chest scans were in keeping with Connective Tissue Disease- Associated Interstitial Lung disease (CTAILD). However, presentation with an acute renal injury resulted in a diagnosis of ANCA positive vasculitis. Case report - Case description A 64-year-old Indian gentleman with medical background of controlled asthma was referred after 9 months of investigations for gluteal weakness. Initial blood tests included normal CK, ESR, CRP, vitamin B12, HbA1c and TFTs. Rheumatoid factor was low positive (20IU/ml), CCP negative. ANA was 1:80 with positive Ro, negative dsDNA. MRI of thighs was normal -no evidence of myositis. Nerve conduction studies showed no active denervation to suggest inflammatory myopathy and muscle biopsy showed myopathic features only. A CT scan revealed 3 small lung nodules recommending repeat scan. When seen in rheumatology clinic, there was additional bilateral shoulder arthralgia with no reports of sicca symptoms or rashes. A repeat autoimmune screen and CT chest was sent. His ANA was 1:1280 with Ro antibodies; CT showed new ground glass changes (with old nodules). Organising Pneumonia was suggested, and respiratory opinion sought. Extended myositis screen was negative. When seen in respiratory clinic he had new haematuria- ANCA screen showed positive anti-PR3 antibody (23U/ml) with normal U+Es, urine PCR and CRP 8mg/L. Based on these results a renal biopsy was performed-which showed no obvious morphological abnormalities. Thus, a suspected diagnosis of CTAILD with Sjögren’s was made. In clinic 2 months later, there was new shortness of breath and haemoptysis. Urine dip showed haematoproteinuria and Chest X-ray showed increase in peri-hilar masses. He was admitted urgently- blood tests showed a decline in renal function- urea 26.8mmol/L, Creatinine 838umol/L, CRP of 435mg/L and Haemoglobin 100g/L. Urgent repeat renal biopsy was done and CT thorax showed deterioration with bilateral consolidation and new lung lesions. Urgent Plasma exchange and dialysis (9 cycles) was given. Initial results from renal biopsy showed presence of crescents and he was started on cyclophosphamide. On this kidney function has improved- urea 18.4mmol/L and Creatinine 302umol/L; he remains on oral cyclophosphamide. Case report - Discussion With ongoing symptoms, an underlying autoimmune cause of his symptoms was felt likely. However inflammatory markers remained normal and so did CK. Despite this MRI and muscle biopsies were performed - which again were normal. The only tests that were positive were immunology (Ro antibodies) and a CT chest (showing initial small lung nodules). These findings pointed toward CTAILD with Sjögren’s being the likely diagnosis. As new lung nodules were seen, repeat CT scans were done- which showed gradual interstitial changes- the main radiological differential diagnosis was Organising pneumonia. Further investigations were delayed due to patient travel and COVID, but ongoing respiratory advice was sought. Even with changes in CT findings the patient remained stable with normal inflammatory markers. However, the clinical picture changed quite rapidly over a month (despite 2+ years of previous symptoms) with presentation of pulmonary-renal vasculitis. Plasma exchange and dialysis were given. A good response with a positive renal biopsy confirmed the most likely diagnosis was Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (GPA). This case was interesting- the main complaint was of myopathy with no physical signs. Despite this biopsy were performed (muscle and kidney), which were all normal. The red herring in his case was a normal renal biopsy- steering us in the direction of CTD-AILD instead of GPA. Case report - Key learning points In patients with clear symptoms matching their investigations the diagnosis is often obvious. When this is not the case and symptomatology does not match results (i.e. no Sicca symptoms but positive immunology to suggest Sjögren’s) suspicion should remain high. Multidisciplinary working can provide insight, which this case does highlight-with input required from Neurology, Respiratory and Renal medicine. Negative results should be taken in context with patients and their symptoms. Initial renal biopsy in this case was normal- however after a review, further comments were made on the sparsity of glomeruli in the sample. Therefore, tissue obtained for diagnosis should always be questioned and clinical suspicion should remain high. In addition, repeat investigations (6 monthly CT scans) can help note any interval change. Thorough history and examination in follow up of patients can help look out for evolving changes. With the new symptoms of haemoptysis and haematoproteinuria this pointed us to the eventual diagnosis. The road to diagnosis in this case was prolonged with an acute drop in kidney function and pulmonary haemorrhage needing urgent Plasma exchange and dialysis. Thankfully, the patient continues to make a good recovery. A last point to add is although isolated myalgia has been described as a presentation of systemic vasculitis in the literature, those patients have had elevated CK and positive muscle biopsy. Our patient did not have any positive findings with over 2 years of symptoms. Therefore, we feel this case was unique in presentation and has valid learning points as above.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Introduction Auto-immune and auto-inflammatory disorders are believed to cause approximately 20% of cases of pyrexia of unknown origin. Rheumatological opinion is often sought when an infectious source has not been detected. Assessment of recurrent fever is challenging for fear of initiating immunosuppression in the presence of undetected infection. This challenge is even greater in patients with a previous history of auto-immune or infectious disorders. Here, we discuss the investigation and management of a challenging case of recurrent fever, ultimately diagnosed as adult-onset Still’s disease, complicated by the previous occurrence of pulmonary tuberculosis and myasthenia gravis. Case description Our 34-year-old female patient, originally from India, had lived in the UK for 8 years. Her background included previous treatment for pulmonary TB in 2011 and myasthenia gravis diagnosed in 2015 with subsequent thoracoscopic thymectomy in 2016. She was admitted to the infectious diseases unit in October 2016 with 3 weeks of recurrent fever and an itchy rash which had commenced 1-week after holidaying in Spain. Pyrexiae were quotidian, occurring nocturnally and would usually last 1 hour with associated malaise and tachycardia. The rash affected the upper arms, buttocks and face but was not consistent in appearance; initially urticarial and later described as maculopapular. Polyarthralgia of the joints of the hands was reported. Extensive infection screening including blood cultures and serology was negative. A CT-CAP revealed changes of old TB and borderline axillary lymphadenopathy. Immunology revealed a negative ANA and ENA screen along with normal levels of anti-PR3, MPO, DsDNA and CCP antibodies. Further investigations included a CRP of 213, ESR of 75 and serum ferritin of 450mcg/l (15-200). A provisional diagnosis of a periodic fever syndrome was made and the patient agreed to a trial of anti-interleukin 1 therapy (Anakinra 100mg SC OD) while awaiting genetic testing. Immediate defervescence of fever occurred with an improvement in the rash and dramatic reduction in inflammatory indices. Two months later the patient represented with malaise, tachycardia, periorbital odema, widespread rash, diarrhoea and a marked peripheral eosinophilia (5.69 x109/L). Skin biopsy demonstrated vacuolar inflammation and prominent eosinophils. A diagnosis of DRESS (Drug Reaction with Eosinophilia and Systemic Symptoms) syndrome was made and anakinra was withdrawn. However, the patient’s condition deteriorated with a rebound elevation in inflammatory markers, pyrexia and development of synovitis. Repeat serum ferritin during this period was recorded at > 40,000mcg/ml and a diagnosis of adult-onset Still’s disease was made. Discussion This case was challenging on two particular fronts. Firstly, the arrival of a confident and definitive diagnosis was difficult. On initial review and again on deterioration 2 months later, the patient’s previous history of TB, recent travel history and presence of lymphadenopathy led to significant concern of an alternative primary diagnosis. A large number of investigations for occult infection (e.g. TB recurrence) and malignancy (e.g. lymphoma) were conducted. Likewise, the absence of a history of a sore throat, the atypical skin rash, a very modest elevation in serum ferritin, and the absence of synovitis made adult-onset Still’s disease less likely. However, the rapidity and magnitude of the response to Interleukin-1 inhibition with anakinra supported our suspicion of an auto-inflammatory syndrome. The second hurdle in this case was the problematic pharmaceutical management once adult-onset Still’s disease was diagnosed. The occurrence of DRESS syndrome secondary to anakinra is not something we had previously experienced nor does it appear to have been reported in the literature before despite a relatively high incidence of anaphylaxis and localized skin reactions with anakinra. Subsequent interleukin-6 blockade with tocilizumab was partially effective in improving symptoms and clinical parameters but did lead to significant derangement in liver function tests and treatment was stopped. There was an incomplete response to TNF-α inhibition with weekly subcutaneous etanercept injections in combination with high dose oral corticosteroids. Subsequently there was a good response to the monoclonal antibody canakinumab (anti-IL-1β). Our patient remains on 10mg of oral prednisolone but has largely remained in remission for 18 months in combination with canakinumab. Remaining concerns relate to the long-term efficacy of canakinumab for this patient and the limited therapeutic options if recurrent relapses occur. Furthermore, the risk of TB re-activation remains an unavoidable risk with a high degree of clinical suspicion required. Key learning points This was a challenging case complicated by the patient’s past medical history of TB, myasthenia gravis and thymoma, in addition to the occurrence of DRESS syndrome which led to a period of diagnostic uncertainty. While the input of many specialties (i.e., respiratory, infectious diseases, haematology, and dermatology) were required and critical to the overall management of the patient, extensive and prolonged investigation can lead to significant delays in treatment. In such situations, an open discussion with the patient as to the risks and benefits of delaying treatment versus pursuing further investigation is advised. Furthermore, we have learnt from this case to appreciate that focused repetition of some investigations, in the setting of diagnostic uncertainty, can be beneficial. In this case repetition of serum ferritin levels, skin biopsy and cross-sectional CT imaging all led to important diagnostic conclusions and decisions that ultimately resulted in the correct diagnosis and successful management of this patient. Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Case report - Introduction Since the emergence of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) there has been increasing recognition of the potential associated cardio-vascular manifestations. There have been reports of Kawasaki like disease in children. However, in adults there are very few reports of non-cutaneous vasculitis. Here we report the case of an adult male presenting with an inflammatory aortitis associated with COVID-19 infection. Case report - Case description A 71-year-old Caucasian male with a background of cholecystectomy and rotator cuff repair presented to hospital in May 2020 with a 3-month history of feeling generally unwell, weight loss and worsening thoraco-lumbar back pain. Prior to the onset of these symptoms he had had a 2-week illness in March 2020 clinically consistent with COVID-19 infection comprising fevers, hot sweats, dry cough, and chest tightness for which he had not sought medical attention. He had no recent travel history. Physical examination was unremarkable. On admission, COVID-19 tests revealed evidence of prior infection with negative SARS-CoV-2 polymerase chain reaction test but positive SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Blood tests revealed a marked inflammatory state with a C- reactive protein of 122mg/L, plasmas viscosity of 2.76, Ferritin 777ug/L, Interleukin-6 of 25 ng/L and normocytic anaemia with a Haemoglobin of 77g/L. Immunology tests were negative for anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody, anti-glomerular basem*nt antibodies, HLA-B27, anti-citrullinated protein antibody, rheumatoid factor, and nuclear antibodies, with normal IgG 4 subclasses. Microbiology workup showed negative blood cultures, syphilis screen and Hepatitis B and C serology. Temporal artery ultrasound was unremarkable. Troponin-T, pro-B-type natriuretic peptide, electrocardiogram and echocardiogram were normal. CT thorax abdomen pelvis revealed inflammatory change surrounding the aortic arch extending all the way down the aorta in keeping with a florid inflammatory aortitis with no aneurysms seen. Rapid resolution of symptoms was seen with commencement of Prednisolone 40mg once daily, with normalisation of CRP one week later and subsequent normalisation of haemoglobin and plasma viscosity. A repeat CT aorta 2 weeks after commencement of prednisolone demonstrated a reduction in the thickness of the inflammatory rind over the aorta from 6mm to 2mm. The patient now continues a reducing regime of prednisolone and remains in clinical remission. Case report - Discussion In children, Kawasaki like disease associated with COVID-19 is well described and can result in coronary artery inflammation and aneurysm. In adults, COVID-19 associated cutaneous vasculitis is well recognised however there are only a small number of case reports of organ specific vasculitis including the central nervous system, retina, and small bowel. To our knowledge this is the first reported case of aortitis associated with COVID-19 infection in an adult patient. The mechanisms underlying the development of COVID-19 associated vasculitis are not established but may be secondary to endothelial inflammation. Findings from a histological case series suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can infect endothelial cells directly, possibly via endothelial ACE2 receptors, leading to inflammation in the endothelium. Another postulated mechanism is that endothelial cell dysfunction and inflammation is caused by the cytokine storm that can be seen in some patients with COVID-19 infection. Our patient responded very well to corticosteroid treatment. However, in case of a relapse his cytokine profile could be helpful in directing further therapeutic options. IL-6 levels were elevated in our patient. Studies show that IL-6 appears to play a dominant role in the cytokine storm. In a report of 150 patients IL-6 was found to be significantly higher in the group with severe disease and possibly predictive of mortality. The IL-6 antagonist, Tocilizumab, has also been used with promising results. The first report of its use was in China in 21 critically ill COVID-19 patients with significant improvements. Since this first report, further clinical trials are underway investigating the efficacy and tolerability of IL-6 antagonists in patients with COVID-19 disease. Expanding our understanding of the pathogenesis of COVID-19 associated vasculitis is a critical area for future research to identify other immune targets for novel/ existing therapeutic agents. Case report - Key learning points Vasculitis including aortitis can be a complication of COVID-19 infection.Endothelial cell inflammation is likely to play key role in the pathogenesis of COVID-19 associated vasculitis.In addition to corticosteroids, other immune-modulating drugs presently used in rheumatology may be effective therapeutic agents.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Case report - Introduction By June 2020, 175,000 cases of COVID-19 had been identified in London alone. The most common symptoms include fever, headache, loss of smell, cough, myalgia, and sore throat. The major complication is acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) but systemic complications such as cardiomyopathy, acute kidney injury, encephalopathy and coagulopathy are being identified. A delayed multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children has also been recognised and further complications are likely to be identified as our experience increases. Here, we report the case of a patient with large vessel vasculitis who initially presented with symptoms highly likely to be due to COVID-19 infection. Case report - Case description A 36-year-old black African nurse presented in May 2020, with acute onset 7 days prior of high-grade fevers, rigors, nights sweats, generalised myalgia, sore throat, headache with photophobia, anosmia, dysgeusia and a widespread rash. She was a smoker with no other relevant medical, travel nor sexual history, and no drug use. A COVID-19 swab on day 2 had been negative and she had taken a course of Doxycycline. Examination revealed firm palpable subcutaneous nodules on lower limbs, upper back and forehead and cervical lymphadenopathy. She was photophobic with no meningism. The rest of her physical examination was normal. BP was 116/97 mmHg, heart rate 109 bpm and satO2 100%. Investigations demonstrated C-reactive protein 330mg/L, erythrocyte sedimentation rate 140, Ferritin 479, lymphopaenia 0.7x109, eGFR 54 with no haematoproteinuria, D-dimer 3.05 mg/L with INR 1.1, aPTT 1.3, fibrinogen 8.8 g/L. Hb, WCC, liver function, CK, serum ACE and triglycerides were normal. Infectious screen revealed negative blood cultures, HIV, Hepatitis B and C, EBV, CMV and Treponema pallidum serology. CT brain and CSF analysis were normal including bacterial culture and viral PCR. ANA, ENA, dsDNA, ANCA and aPL antibodies were negative with normal complement levels. Throat swab grew group A streptococcus and she was treated with broad spectrum antibiotics for 7 days maintaining fevers up to 39oC. Skin biopsy was non-specific with negative direct immunofluorescence but showed microvascular thrombi in the papillary dermis. COVID-19 PCR tests (three naso-pharyngeal swabs and one stool PCR) and IgG test (day 38) were negative. CT showed no pneumonitis but non-specific retroperitoneal stranding with medium/large vessel vasculitis involving both proximal renal arteries and a 6 cm segment of mid abdominal aorta on PET-CT. We started oral prednisolone 40mg with immediate resolution of her fevers, myalgia, and inflammatory markers, remaining well a month later. Case report - Discussion Takayasu’s arteritis is the most common autoimmune large vessel vasculitis (LVV) affecting young females and involves inflammation of the arterial wall ultimately resulting in stenosis and obstruction of the vessel. However, it is rare in patients with African heritage and usually presents with a prolonged prodromal phase. Given the atypical presentation and symptoms consistent with COVID-19 infection we feel that this patients’ LVV may have been a complication of COVID-19 infection. The relationship between infections and vasculitis is complex. TB and syphilis cause aortitis and a relationship between infection and vasculitis has been proven in HBV associated PAN and HCV associated cryoglobulinemia. Experimental data supports a possible association between CMV and herpes virus and Takayasu arteritis. It could, therefore, be hypothesised that COVID-19 infection can trigger LVV. Our patient had a throat swab positive for Streptococcus pyogenes which is an uncommon cause of infective endocarditis and mycotic aneurism, but this patient had no evidence of either endocarditis or aneurism formation and so it was felt the throat swab finding was incidental. Our patient had repeated negative COVID-19 nasopharyngeal swabs and a negative antibody test at day 38. Although this argues against a diagnosis of COVID-19 related illness, the relative lack of information we currently have regarding sensitivities of the tests, at what point COVID-19 PCR becomes negative in the illness and when/if patients develop antibodies, means these negative tests in the presence of typical symptoms cannot exclude the diagnosis. We believe this case is extremely important to highlight a possible novel inflammatory complication of COVID-19 infection. We decided to treat this patient in line with guidance for the management of LVV, including the introduction of methotrexate, but it will be interesting to observe her long-term outcome. Case report - Key learning points Increasing numbers of COVID-19 related systemic inflammatory conditions are likely to be recognised over the coming months. We present the case of patient with large vessel vasculitis who initially presented atypically with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 infectionTo identify these complications, COVID-19 symptoms questioning should be part of any routine medical historyMore information is required regarding the sensitivity of COVID-19 PCR and antibody tests to aid the diagnosis of these conditionsThe long-term management of inflammatory conditions associated with COVID-19 infection is not clear and a discussion is warranted as to whether DMARDs should be initiated

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Abstract Introduction A 52-year-old man presented with extensive bilateral inflammatory myositis of the quadriceps on a background of pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO). He had markedly elevated acute phase reactants but had a normal CK and did not develop muscle weakness. This was a transient phenomenon which resolved spontaneously over 10 weeks. There was not an infective process identified and he was not treated with glucocorticoids or other immunosuppressants. This case highlights the importance of careful consideration of steroid treatment in atypical presentations without a clear diagnosis and the value of multidisciplinary involvement in patient care. Case description The patient presented with a 2-week history of acute onset bilateral thigh pain, stiffness and persistent fevers following an episode of alcohol intake although symptoms may have preceded this. Myalgia was a prominent feature however he maintained full power of the hip flexors and all other proximal and distal muscle groups. No skin changes, swallow or respiratory symptoms. CK was normal at presentation and remained low. Acute phase reactants were elevated including CRP 405mg/L, ESR 110mm/hr. Platelets 1000x109/L, WCC 17.7x109/L. Urinalysis and renal function normal. ALT raised at 136U/L. AST normal, other liver parameters raised in keeping with acute phase response. No previous episodes, no preceding travel, infection, bites, illicit drugs or family history of muscle disorders. He was taking a statin which was discontinued. PUO work up including cultures, viral titres, echocardiogram and CT imaging did not identify a source. Empiric antibiotics were trialled without improvement. ANA, ANCA and myositis panels were negative. MRI of thighs reported extensive inflammatory myositis involving the quadriceps bilaterally with mild involvement of biceps femoris. There were no features of an infected collection or rhabdomyolysis. Muscle biopsy showed a lymphocytic myositis with neurogenic atrophy. Differential included idiopathic inflammatory myositis (IIM) spectrum with viral myositis felt less likely. Clinically he remained sore but improving and mobilising. Daily pyrexias persisted but he remained fully strong with a low normal CK and a downward trend in inflammatory markers. Investigations for occult malignancy including CTPET and bone marrow biopsy were negative. Steroid treatment was not instigated. A watchful waiting approach was taken and his symptoms and blood investigations gradually improved. He embarked on a physiotherapist guided exercise programme. Follow up MRI at 10 weeks showed complete resolution of the inflammatory features. Discussion This is a case of an acute onset myositis with systemic inflammatory features which resolved spontaneously. Differential diagnoses including inherited, metabolic and toxic myopathies were considered and discounted. Although alcohol had been taken and he had been taking a statin prior to onset, the clinical picture, normal CK and biopsy findings did not support these as likely culprits. Extensive viral and serology infective tests were negative and the exact cause was not identified. The clinical features strongly mimicked an idiopathic inflammatory myositis (IIM) however atypical features including normal CK and lack of objective weakness led to continued doubt of an autoimmune aetiology. Additionally there were no upper limb or neck flexor symptoms and no extra-muscular manifestations. Applying the ACR/EULAR 2017 criteria for IIM to this case the probability of this diagnosis is 5% although this does not take into account the radiological findings. With evidence of inflammatory myositis and a dramatic acute phase response including persistent pyrexia there was a strong temptation to begin steroid therapy. His case was discussed with radiology, pathology and neurology and ultimately the decision to withhold was justified. In this case improvement would have occurred with steroid which would likely have led to an incorrect diagnosis of IIM and the patient would have been unnecessarily treated with prolonged high dose steroid and disease modifying drugs with the associated side effects and long term sequelae. Key learning points This case highlights the importance of confirming a diagnosis prior to initiating steroid therapy particularly if there are atypical features. Glucocorticoids would undoubtedly have led to a clinical improvement however this would have given rise to a misdiagnosis and unnecessary long term immunosuppression. There were many positive test results for inflammation including blood, imaging and muscle tissue but ultimately the clinical examination findings, particularly the absence of weakness, were consistent and the basis of the rationale to withhold steroid treatment. As clinical improvement progressed with supportive management this decision was justified. This demonstrates the importance of patient centred care and the value of the clinical examination. This was an unusual case therefore input and advice was sought from colleagues in neurology, neuropathology, rheumatology and radiology. This was vital to clinical care decisions and emphasizes the importance of a multidisciplinary approach in complex cases. Despite extensive investigations no cause was identified for this transient inflammatory myositis. This highlights the unknown elements within this spectrum of disease and the need for ongoing reporting of atypical cases. Conflicts of interest The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Sri Ravi Varma Thampuran is a writer who has established a reputation for himself in the field of Malayalam literature through his literary works on social, cultural and political issues. Mudippech is his fifteenth book and fifth novel published by Manorama Books. This novel is a continuation of Ravi Varma Thampuran's novel Bhayankaramudi written in 2014. In a nutshell, the theme of the novel is the history of the Kerala Renaissance. The book contains biographies of about sixty Renaissance heroes. The postmodern Malayalam novelists began to pursue a narrative style that transcends the boundaries between history and fiction in1990s. There are many instances that showcases historical background in which lived characters enter into novels in Malayalam literature. M. Mukundan who entered the Malayalam literature as a powerful advocate of modernity embarked this trend. Mukundan's novels Pulayapattu and Pravasam are perfect examples of this technique. Mukundan himself becomes the narrator in Pravasam. The living novelist (persona) himself becomes the narrator (character). Similarly, Ayyankali and Ambedkar appear in the novel Pulayapattu. Thereafter, many novels have entered the field. Many instances of this style include Thakshankunnu Swaroopam (U.K Kumaran), Paleri Manikyam Oru Pathira Kolabathakathinde katha (The Story of a Midnight Murder), K. T. N. Kottur (T.P. Rajeevan), Janakatha (N. Prabhakaran), Manushyanu Oru Aamukam (A Preface to Man) (Subhash Chandran), Akkaporinde Irupath Nasrani Varshangal (Twenty Christian Years of Conflict), Manthalirile Irupathu Communist Varshangal (Twenty Communist Years in Manthalir) (Benyamin), Andhakaranazhi (E. Santhosh Kumar), Karikottakari (Vinoy Thomas). Writings based on imagination are not happening at present. A tendency to look beyond imagination and alternately look at real facts developed. Famous theorist Linda Hutcheon argues that fiction and history are not two separate entities but they travel in the same direction. Historical writing is similar to fiction. Writing history is the same as writing a novel. On account of this, postmodern novelists bring history into the fiction. Ravi Varma Thampuran's Bhayankaramudi and Mudipechu are scrutinizing the deeply rooted religious and racist consciousness in Kerala society. In both novels there is an inquiry into the transcendental understanding of the Renaissance. Ravi Varma Thampuran is making a conscious attempt to present history by transcending narrative. The novelist adopts an approach that revolves around the history of Kerala and rereads and reconstructs the history of Kerala by deviating from a theme that presented the occurrences in the lives of only a few individuals. Ravi Varma Thampuran's aim is to present the cultural history and the renaissance history of Kerala through this novel. In fact, it can be asserted as a novel that goes beyond history. We can affirm that such a novel has never existed in Malayalam literature before. This is because the novelist introduces the characters and the plot to the novel, abandons them, takes the reader back to time and travels through the centuries-old history of Kerala. Such an approach is contemporary in novels of Malayalam literature. There are myriad historical events and historical figures who come into this novel with very few characters. Ravi Varma Thampuran begins the novel like a depiction of a dilapidated illam (traditional house of a Namboodiri). The dilapidated illam is not just an imagination or description of a house. Beyond that, the novelist presents some of the problems that are entwined somewhere in the psyche of the contemporary Keralites associated with savarnas and caste system with this description. What the novelist really wants to articulate is not a description of the house or the life of the character named Sruthakirti who lives in the illam. Moreover, he brings the history of Kerala in the novel. The novel is a journey through disregarded historical documents. History, anti-casteism, racism and extremism are the themes in the novel. Sruthakirti and Azad Mohan are the victims of the mysterious conspiracies of contemporary media. The novel gives us a picture of the present state of media activity as factories that produce communal detestation. A situation where the land is terrified. There are many other minority racial conflicts behind the anti- Brahmin movement that has been discussed in our land for ages. It is related to the economic power and one of the most discussed issues presently. The Namboodiris and the ancient landlords are impoverished today. This work explicates that those who come to power in favour of progressive politics or progressive activists ... or claim to be progressive activists in society ... all have another side of racism and money domination. The misfortune endured by Sruta Keerthi in the panchayat office as well as in the village office illustrates this situation. This work is one of the rare works on time written in Malayalam. Kalanillatha Kalam (Kunchan Nambiar), Nimisham (Moment) (G. Shankara Kurup), Samaya Pravahavum Sahithya Kalayum (Time Flow and Literary Art) (K.P. Appan), Sthalam, Kaalam, Cherukatha (Place, Time, Short Story) (Soman Nellivila), Akkaporinde Irupath Nasrani Varshangal (Twenty Christian Years of Conflict), Manthalirile Irupathu Communist Varshangal (Twenty Communist Years in Manthalir) (Benyamin) and so on have been rare works in Malayalam that has reference to time. Time and place are seldom mentioned in the novels. It is remarkable how time and pace are addressed in this novel. It is also noteworthy that the novel examines the term renaissance. The work presents local and foreign (colonial) streams of the Renaissance. We often say that Renaissance was brought from Europe and imported here. But internally, there has been a renaissance here as well. It is done through Sanskrit study by Punnassery Nambi. (Pattambi Sanskrit School and Pattambi College) Unlike the past, the topic of Renaissance is much discussed in this novel. In recent times there has been no real renaissance in the so-called renaissance debates. When the subject of renaissance which was discussed a century ago is presented now it shifted to politics. Furthermore, his novel Bhayangkaramudi, written six years ago, was based on the transformations that global religious extremism has brought to Kerala society. But the situation today is even worse than it was before. Many of the issues mentioned in Bhayangkaramudi previously are happening in Kerala currently. However in this novel, Mudippech, he has made an inquiry into its present condition. He states this fact precisely in his novel. It was the colonial regime that gave the renaissance for us, the renaissance was achieved by the protests organized by subordinate class, and the eminent personalities like Mannath Padmanabhan organized a march for the Avarnas and savarnas with the in the Vaikom Satyagraha.. All these are discussed accurately in the novel. The the history of the renaissance unravels through the solitary struggle of a Brahmin girl named Sruthakeerthi. The novel has a captivating journey through the time. The time cycle is presented in the novel as something that can be carried forward and backward. Kalangana accompanied with Sruthakirti’s sleepless night experiences. Our subsequent journey is based on the concept of the time cycle. We also become familiar with multitudinous Renaissance heroes in those journeys into the past. The knowledge they impart gives us a whole new realm of experience. Beginning with Thunchath Ramanujan, Ezhuthachan who is meditating on the rock of wisdom on the banks of the river Shokanashinipuzha in Chittoor and goes back to the time of Asan and Ramacharitham. Similarly, the novelist draws back us to the comprehensive history of the Kerala Renaissance through various renaissance heroes including the Zamorin, the Portuguese invasion, feudalism, Pazhashiraja, Veluthambi Dalava, Gauri Lakshmi Bai, Swathi Thirunal, Thycaudu Ayyavu Swamikal, Arattupuzha Velayudha Paniker, Sree Narayana Guru, Muloor, Kerala Varma, Kandathil Varghese Mappila, Chanthu Menon, Raja Ravi Varma, Chattambi Swamikal, Ayyankali, Punnassery Nambi, K.P. Karuppan, V. T. Bhattathiripad, Dr. Pulpu, Barrister, G. P. Pillai, E. M. S. Namboodiripad. In the novel, Ravi Varma Thampuran portrays great personalities like Punnassery Nambi and Sree Narayana Guru vibrantly in the novel. This novel gives us a direct glimpse at how society is fragmented and functioning towards anarchy. After Shrutakirti gets to know the true history of Bhayankaramudi through time cycle she gets infuriated like Ugrabhadrakali (the Great Goddess) in Mudippechi symbolizing a fire that is going to burn the arrogance of every separatist who is trying to make our country a bayangarmudi. Ravi Varma Thampuran honestly apprised the truths he had discovered in his own style within a restricted framework. The essence of this novel is the five hundred years of renaissance history of Kerala. Here the novelist is bringing history through a fantasy. Ravi Varma Thampuran has adopted a new narrative technique in the postmodern novel. As a matter of fact, the novel interprets the life experience of an individual through the social, political and renaissance history of Kerala. More than a fiction, a historical investigation is taking place here. It is appropriate to describe Ravi Varma Thampuran as a historian rather than a novelist. It can be described as a novel that investigates the Kerala renaissance. In addition, the process of deconstructing the contemporary Kerala renaissance and rewriting it racially and ethnically is critically approached here. This novel meticulously depicts the crucial moments in the history of Kerala.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

This article uses a case study of a Melbourne-based youth media project called Youthworx to explore the processes at stake in cultural engagement for marginalised young people. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted between 2008 and 2010, I identify some ways in which the city is implicated in promoting or preventing access to socially valued spaces of creativity and intended social mobility. The ethnographic material presented here has both empirical and theoretical value. It reveals the important relationships between the experience of place, creativity, and social life, demonstrating potentialities and limits of creativity-focused development interventions for marginalised youth. The articulation of these relationships and processes taking place within a particular city setting has theoretical implications. It opens up an opportunity to consider "suburbs" as enacted by specific forms of access, contingencies, and opportunities for a particular demographic, rather than treating "suburbs" as abstract, analytical constructs. Finally, my empirically grounded discussion draws attention to cultural and social consequences that inhabiting certain social worlds and acts of travelling "to and beyond" them have for young people. Youthworx is a community-based youth media initiative employing pathway-based semi-formal creative practices to re-engage young people who have a history of drug or alcohol abuse or juvenile justice, who have been long disconnected from mainstream education, or who are homeless. The focus on media production allows it to tap into, and in fact leverage, popular creativity, tacit knowledge, and familiar media-based activities that young people bring to bear on their media training and work in this context. Underpinned by social and creative industry policy, Youthworx brings together social service agency The Salvation Army (TSA), educational provider Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE (NMIT), youth community media organisation SYN Media, and researchers at Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University. Its day-to-day operation is run by contractual, part-time media facilitators, social workers (as part of TSA’s in-kind support), as well as media industry experts who provide casual media training. Youthworx is characterised by the diversity of its young demographic. One can differentiate between at least two groups of participants: those who join Youthworx because of the social opportunities, and those who put more value on its skill-development, or vocational creative industries orientation. This social organisation is, however, far from static. Over the two years of research (2008-2010) we observed evolving ideas about the identity of the program, its key social functions, and how they can be best served. This had proceeded with the construction of what the Youthworx staff term "a community of safe belonging" to a more "serious" media work environment, exemplified by the establishment of a social enterprise (Youthworx Productions) in 2010 that offers paid traineeships to the most capable and determined young creators. To accommodate the diversity of literacy levels, needs, and aspirations of its young participants, the project offers a tailored media education program with a mix of diversionary, educational, and commercial objectives. One-on-one media training sessions, accredited courses in Creative Industries (Media), and industry training within Youthworx Productions are provided to help young people develop a range of skills transferable into a variety of personal, social and professional contexts. Its creative studio, where learning occurs, is located in a former jeans factory warehouse in the heart of an industrial area of Melbourne’s northern inner-city suburb of Brunswick. Young people are referred to Youthworx by a range of social agencies, and they travel to Brunswick from across Melbourne. Some participants are known to spend over three hours commuting from outer suburbs such as Frankston or even regional towns such as King Lake. Unlike community-based creative programs reliant on established community structures within local suburbs (for example, ICE in Western Sydney), Youthworx moved into Tinning Street in Brunswick because its industry partner—The Salvation Army—had existing youth service infrastructure there. The program, however, was not tapping into an existing media “community of practice” (Lane and Wenger); it had to forge its own culture of media participation. In the early days of the program, there were necessary material resources and professional expertise (teachers/social workers/a creative venue), but it took a long while, and a high level of dedication, passion, and practical optimism on the part of the project managers and teaching staff, for young people to genuinely engage in media training and production. Now, Youthworx’s creative space is a “practised place” in de Certeau’s sense. As “the street geometrically defined by urban planning is transformed into a space by walkers” (De Certeau 117), so is the Youthworx space produced by practices of media learning and making by professional creative practitioners and young amateur creators (Raffo; for ideas on institutionalised co-creative practice see Spurgeon et al.). The Brunswick location is where our extensive ethnographic research has taken place, including regular participant observation and qualitative interviews with staff and young participants. The ethnographers frequently travelled with young people to other locations within Melbourne, accompanying them on their trips to youth community radio station SYN Media in the CBD, where they produce a weekly radio show, as well as to film shoots and public social events around the city. As an access learning program for marginalised youth from around Melbourne, Youthworx provides an interesting example to explore how the concerns of material and cultural capital, geographic and cultural distance intersect and shape processes of creative participation and social inclusion. I draw on our ethnographic material to illustrate how these metonymic relationships play out in the ways young participants “travel distance” (Dewson et. al.) on the project and across the city, both figuratively and literally. The idea of “distance travelled” is adapted here from evaluation literature (for other relevant references see Dowmunt et al.; Hayes and Edwards; Holdsworth et al.), and builds on the argument made previously (Podkalicka and Staley 5), to encompass both the geographical mobility and cultural transformation that young people are supported to undergo as an intended outcome of their involvement in Youthworx. This paper also takes inspiration from ethnographic approaches that study a productive and transformative relationship between material culture, spatial geography and processes of identity formation (see Miller). What happens to Youthworx young participants as they travel in a trivial, and at first sight perhaps inconsequential, way between the suburbs they live in, the Youthworx Brunswick location and the city is both experientially real and meaningful. “Suburban space” is then a cultural site that simultaneously refers to concrete, literal places as well as “a state of mind”—that is, identification and connections that are generative of a sense of identity and belonging (Ferber et al.). Youthworx is an intermediary point on these young people’s travels, rather than the final destination (Podkalicka and Staley 5). It provides access to various forms of new spatial, social, and creative experiences and modes of expression. Creating opportunities for highly disenfranchised young people to access and develop new social and creative experiences is an important aspect of Youthworx’s developmental agenda, and is played out at both philosophical and practical levels. On the one hand, a strength-based approach to youth work assumes respect for young people’s potential and knowledges—unlike public discourses that deny them agency due to an assumed lack of life experience (e.g., Poletti). In addition to the material provision of "food and shelter" typical of traditional social work, attention is paid the higher levels of the Maslow hierarchy of human needs, with creativity, self-esteem, and social connectedness at the top of the scale (see also Podkalicka and Campbell; Podkalicka and Thomas). Former Manager of The Salvation Army’s Brunswick Youth Services (BYS)—one of Youthworx’s partners—Craig Campbell argues: Things like truth and beauty are a higher order of dreams for these kids. And by truth I don’t mean the simple lies that can be told to get them out of trouble [but] is there a greater truth to life than a grinding existence in the impoverished neighbourhood, is there something like beauty and aesthetics that wakes us up in the morning and calls a larger life out of us? Most of those kids only faintly dream of such a thing, and this dream is rapidly being extinguished under the weight of drugs and alcohol, abusive family systems, savage interaction with law and justice system, and education as a toxic environment and experience. (Campbell) Campbell's articulate reflection captures the way the Youthworx project has been conceived. It is also a pertinent example of the many reflections on experience and practice at Youthworx that were recorded in my fieldwork, which illustrate the way these kinds of social projects can be understood, interpreted and evaluated. The following personal narrative and contextual description introduce some of the important issues at stake. (The names and other personal details of young people have been changed.) Nineteen-year-old Dave is temporarily staying in an inner-city refuge. Normally, however, like most Youthworx participants, he lives in Broadmeadows, a far northern suburb of Melbourne. To get to Brunswick, where he does his accredited media course three days a week, he either catches a train or waits for a mini-bus to drive him there. The early-morning pick-up for about ten young people is organised by the program’s partner—The Salvation Army. At the Youthworx creative studio, located in the heart of Brunswick, right next to railway tracks, young people produce an array of media products: live and pre-recorded radio programs, digital storytelling, mini-documentaries, and original music. Once at Youthworx, they share the local neighbourhood with other artists who have adapted warehouses into art workshops, studios and galleries. The suburb of Brunswick is well-known for its multicultural profile, a combination of industrial and residential estates, high rates of tertiary students due to its proximity to universities, and its place in the recent history of urban gentrification. However, Youthworx participants don’t seek out or engage with the existing, physically proximate creative base, even within the same street. On a couple of occasions, the opposite has been the case: Youthworx students have been involved in acts of vandalism of local residents’ property, including nearby parked cars. Their connections to the Brunswick neighbourhood remain poor, often reflecting their low social capital as a result of unstable residential situations, isolation, and fraught relationships with family. From Brunswick, they often travel to the city on their own, wander around, sit on the steps of Flinders Street train station—an inner-city hub and popular meeting place for locals and tourists alike. Youthworx plays an important role in these young people’s lives, as an important access point to not only creative digital media-based experiences and skill development, but also to greater and basic geographical mobility and experiences within the city. As one of the students commented: They are giving us chances that we wouldn’t usually get. Every day you’re getting to a place, where it’s pretty damn easy to get into; that’s what’s good about it. There are so many places where you have to do so much to get there and half the time, some people don’t even have the bloody bus ticket to get a [job] interview. But [at Youthworx/BYS], they will pick you up and drive you around if you need it. They are friends. It is reportedly a common practice for many young people at Youthworx and BYS to catch a train or a tram (rather than bus) without paying for a ticket. However, to be caught dodging a fare a few times has legal consequences and young people often face court as a result. The program responds by offering its young participants tickets for public transport, ready for pick-up after afternoon activities, or, if possible, "driving them around"—as some young people told me. The program’s social workers revealed that girls are particularly afraid to travel on their own, especially when catching trains to the outer northern suburbs, for fear of being harassed or attacked. These supported travels are as practical and necessary as they are meaningful for young people’s identity formation, and as such are recognised and built into the project’s design, co-ordination and delivery. At the most basic level, The Salvation Army’s social workers pick young people up from the Broadmeadows area in the mornings. Youthworx creative practitioners assist young people to make trips to SYN Media in the city. For most participants, this is either the first or sporadic experience of travelling to the city, something they enjoy very much but are also somewhat daunted by. Additionally, as part of the curriculum, Youthworx staff make a point of taking young people to inner-city movie theatres or public media events. The following vignette from the fieldwork highlights another important connection between physical journey and creative expression. There is an excitement in Dave’s voice when he talks about his favourite pastime: hanging out around the city. “Why would you walk around the streets?” a curious female friend interjects. Dave replies: “No, it’s not the streets, man. It’s just Federation Square, everywhere … There is just all these young wannabe criminals and sh*t. People don’t know what goes on; and I want to do a doco on the city, a little doco of the people there, because I know a lot of it.” Dave’s interest in exploring the city may be interpreted as a rather common, mundane routine shared by mildly adventurous adolescents of all walks. And yet, there is much more at stake in his account, and for Youthworx young participants more generally. As mentioned before, for many of these young people, it is the first opportunity to travel to the city. This experience then is crucial in a sense of self-exploration and self-discovery. As they overcome their fear of venturing out into the city on their own, they also learn that they have knowledge which others might lack. This moment of realisation is significant and empowering, and they want to communicate this knowledge to others. Youthworx assists them in learning how to translate this knowledge in a creative and constructive way, through an expression that weaves between the free individual and the social voice constructed to enable a dialogue or understanding (Podkalicka; Podkalicka and Campbell; Podkalicka and Thomas; also Soep and Chavez). For an effective communication to occur, a crafted social voice requires skills and a critical awareness of oneself and an audience, which is very different from the modes of expression that these young people might have accessed previously. Youthworx's young participants draw heavily on their life experiences, geographical locations, the suburbs they come from, and places they visit in the city: their cultural productions often reference their homes, music clubs and hang-out venues, inner city streets, Federation Square, and Youthworx’s immediate physical surroundings, with graffiti-covered narrow alleys and railway tracks. The frequent depiction of Youthworx in young people’s creative outputs is often a token of appreciation of the creative, educational and social opportunities it has offered them. Social and professional connections they make there are found to be very valuable. The existing creative industries literature emphasises the importance of social networks to existing communities of interest and practice for human capacity building. Value is argued to lie not only in specific content produced, but in participatory processes that establish a link between personal growth, individual skills and social and professional networks (Hearn and Bridgestock). In a similar vein, Carlo Raffo uses Granovetter’s concept of “weak ties” to suggest that access to “social relations that go beyond the immediate locality and hence their immediate experiences” can provide marginalised young people with “pathways for authentic and informal learning that go beyond the structuring influences of class, gender and ethnicity and into new and emerging economic experiences” (Raffo 11). But higher levels of confidence or social skills are required to make the most of vocational or professional opportunities beyond the supportive context of Youthworx. Connections between Youthworx participants and other creative practitioners within the creative locality of Brunswick have been absent thus far. Transitions into mainstream education and employment have also proven challenging for this group of heavily marginalised youth. As we found during our ongoing fieldwork, even the most talented students find it hard to get into mainstream education courses, or to get or keep jobs. The project serves as a social basis for young people to develop self-agency and determination so they can start engaging with new opportunities and social networks outside the program (Raffo 15). Indeed, the creative practitioners at Youthworx are key facilitators of connections between young people and the external world. They act as positive role models socially, and illustrate what is possible professionally in terms of media excellence and employment (see also Raffo). There are indications that this very supportive, gradual process of social learning is starting to bear fruit for individual students and the Youthworx community as a whole as they grow more confident with themselves, in interactions with others, and the media work they do. Media projects such as Youthworx are examples of what Leadbeater and Wong call “disruptive innovation,” as they provide new ways of learning for those alienated by formal education. The use of digital hands-on media production makes educational processes relevant and engaging for young people. However, as I demonstrate in this paper, there are tangible, material barriers to releasing creativity, or enhancing self-discovery and sociality. There are, as Leadbeater and Wong observe, persistent links between cultural environment, socio-economic status, corresponding attitudes to learning and educational success in the developed world. In the UK, for example, only small percent of those from the lowest socio-economic background go to university (Leadbeater and Wong 10). Youthworx provides an opportunity and motivation for young people to break a cycle of individual self-destructive behaviour (e.g. getting locked up every 6 months), intergenerational reliance on welfare, or entrenched negative attitudes to learning. At the basic level, it encourages and often insists that young people get up in the morning, with social workers often reporting to have to “knock at people’s houses and get them ready.” The involvement in Youthworx is often an important reason to start delineating between day and night, week and weekend. A couple of students commented: I slept a lot. Yeah, I was always sleeping during the day and out at night; I could have still been doing nothing with my life [were it not for Youthworx]. Now people ask if I want to go out during the week, and I just can’t be bothered. I just want to sleep and then go to [Youthworx] and then weekends are when you go out. It also offers a concrete means to begin exploring the city beyond the constraints of their local suburbs. This literal, geographical mobility is interlocked with potential for a changed perception of opportunities, individual transformation and, consequently, social mobility. Dave, as we have seen, is attracted to the idea of exploring the city but also has creative aspirations, and contemplates professional prospects in the creative industries. It is important to note that the participants are resilient in their negotiation between the suburban, Youthworx and inner city worlds they can inhabit. Accessing learning, despite previous negative schooling experiences, is for many of them very important, and reaffirming of life they aspire to. An opportunity to pursue dreams, creative forms of expression, social networks and education is a vital part of human existence. These aspects of social inclusion are recognised in the current articulation of social policy reconceptualised beyond material, economic equality. Creative industry policy, on the other hand, is concerned with fostering creative outputs and skills to generate engagement and employment opportunities in the knowledge-based economies for wide sections of the population. The value is located in human capacity building, involving basic social as well as vocational skills, and links to social networks. The Youthworx project merges these two policy frameworks of the social and creative to test in practice new collaborative approaches to youth development. The spatial and cultural practices of young people described here serve a basis for proposing a theoretical framework that can help understand the term "suburb" in an intrinsically relational, grounded way. The relationships at stake in cultural and social participation for marginalised young people lead me to suggest that the concept of ‘suburb’ takes on two tightly interwoven meanings. The first refers symbolically to a particular locale for popular creativity (Burgess) or even marginal creativity by a group of young people living at the periphery of the social system. The second meaning refers to the interlocked forms of material and cultural capital (and distance), as theorised in Bourdieu’s work (e.g., Bourdieu). It includes physical, spatial conditions and relations, as well as cultural resources and possibilities made available to young participants by the project (e.g., the instituted, supported travel across the city, or the employment of creative practitioners), and interlinked with everyday dispositions, practices, and status of young people (e.g., taste). This empirically-grounded discussion allows to theorise ‘suburbs’ as perceived and socially enacted by concrete, relational forms of access, contingencies, and opportunities for a particular demographic, rather than analytically pre-conceived, designated spaces within an urban system. The ethnographic material reveals that cultural participation for marginalised youth requires an integrated approach, with a parallel focus on material and creative opportunities made available within creative sites such as Youthworx or even the Brunswick creative area. The important material constraints exemplified in this paper concern socio-economic background, cultural disadvantage and geographical isolation and point to the limits of the creative industries-based interventions to address social inclusion if carried out in isolation. They tap into the very basis of risks for this specific demographic of marginalised youth or "youth at risk." The paper suggests that the productive emphasis on the role of media and communication for (youth) development needs to be contextualised and considered along with the actual realities of everyday existence that often limit young people’s educational and vocational prospects (see Bentley et al.; Leadbeater and Wong). On the other hand, an exclusive focus on material support risks cancelling out the possibilities for positive life transitions, such as those triggered by constructive, non-reductionist engagement with “beauty, aesthetics” (Campbell) and creativity. By exploring how participation in Youthworx engenders both the physical mobility between suburbs and the city, and identity transformation, we are able to gain insights into the nature of social exclusion, its meanings for the youth involved and the project managers and staff. Thinking about Youthworx not just as a hub of creative production but as a cultural site—“a space within a practiced place of identity” (De Certeau 117) in the suburb of Brunswick—opens up a discussion that combines the policy language of opportunity and necessity with concrete creative and material possibilities. Social inclusion objectives aimed at positive youth transitions need to be considered in the light of the connection—or disconnection—between the Youthworx Brunswick site itself, young participants’ suburbs, and, by extension, the trajectory between the inner city and other spaces that young people travel through and inhabit. Acknowledgment I would like to thank all the young participants, staff and industry partners involved in the Youthworx project. I also acknowledge the comments of anonymous peer reviewer which helped to strengthen the argument by foregrounding the value of the empirical material. The paper draws on the larger project funded by the Centre of Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation. Youthworx research team includes: Prof Denise Meredyth (CI); Prof Julian Thomas (CI); Ass/Prof David MacKenzie (CI); Ass/Prof Ellie Rennie; Chris Wilson (PhD candidate), and Jon Staley (Youthworx Manager and PhD candidate). References Bentley, Tom, and Kate Oakley. “The Real Deal: What Young People Think about Government, Politics and Social Exclusion.” Demos. 12 Jan. 2011 ‹http://www.demos.co.uk/files/theRealdeal.pdf›. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1987. Burgess, Jean. “Hearing Ordinary Voices: Cultural Studies, Vernacular Creativity and Digital Storytelling.” Continuum 20.2 (2006): 201–14. Campbell, Craig. Personal Interview. Melbourne, 2009. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984. Dewson, Sara, Judith Eccles, Nii Djan Tackey and Annabel Jackson. “Guide to Measuring Soft Outcomes and Distance Travelled.” The Institute for Employment Studies. 12 Jan. 2011‹http:// www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/distance.pdf›. Dowmunt, Tom, Mark Dunford, and N. van Hemert. Inclusion through Media. London: Open Mute, 2007. Ferber, Sarah, Chris Healy, and Chris McAuliffe. Beasts of Suburbia: Reinterpreting Cultures in Australian Suburbs. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1994. Hayes, Alan, Matthew Gray, and Ben Edwards. “Social Inclusion: Origins, Concepts and Key Themes.” Australian Institute of Family Studies, prepared for the Social Inclusion Unit, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 2008.12 Jan. 2011 ‹http://www.socialinclusion.gov.au/Documents/AIFS_SI_concepts_report_20April09.pdf›. Hearn, Gregory, and Ruth Bridgstock. “Education for the Creative Economy: Innovation, Transdisciplinarity, and Networks. Education in the Creative Economy: Knowledge and Learning in the Age of Innovation. Ed. Daniel Araya and Michael Peters. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. 93–116. Holdsworth, Roger, Murray Lake, Kathleen Stacey, and John Safford. “Doing Positive Things: You Have to Go Out and Do It: Outcomes for Participants in Youth Development Programs.” Australian Youth Research Centre. 12 Jan. 2011 ‹http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/5385FE14-A74C-4B24-98EA-D31EEA8447B2/21803/doing_positive_things1.pdf›. Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Leadbeater, Charles, and Annika Wong. “Learning from the Extremes.” CISCO. 12 Jan. 2011 ‹http://www.socialinclusion.gov.au/Documents/AIFS_SI_concepts_report_20April09.pdf›. Miller, Daniel. Stuff. Cambridge: Polity, 2010. Podkalicka, Aneta. “Young Listening: An Ethnography of Youthworx Media's Radio Project." Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 23.4 (2009): 561–72. ———, and Jon Staley. “Youthworx Media: Creative Media Engagement for ‘at Risk’ Young People.” 3CM 5 (2009). ———, and Julian Thomas. “The Skilled Social Voice: An Experiment in Creative Economy and Communication Rights.’’ International Communication Gazette 72.4–5 (2010): 395–406. ———, and Craig Campbell. “Understanding Digital Storytelling: Beyond the Politics of Voice in Youth Participation Programs.” seminar.net: Media Technology and Lifelong Learning 6.2 (2010). ‹http://www.seminar.net/index.php/home/75-current-issue/150-understanding-digital-storytelling-individual-voice-and-community-building-in-youth-media-programs›. Poletti, Anna. Intimate Ephemera: Reading Young Lives in Australian Zine Culture. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2008. Raffo, Carlo. "Mentoring Disenfranchised Young People: An Action Research Project on the Development of 'Weak Ties' and Social Capital Enhancement." Education and Industry in Partnership 6.3 (2000): 22–42. Soep, Elizabeth, and Vivian Chavez. Drop That Knowledge: Youth Radio Stories. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Spurgeon, Christina, Jean Burgess, Helen Klaebe, Kelly McWilliam, Jo Tacchi, and Mimi Tsai. “Co-Creative Media: Theorising Digital Storytelling as a Platform for Researching and Developing Participatory Culture.” 2009 ANZC Conference Proceedings. 2009. 16 Nov. 2010 ‹http://eprints.qut.edu.au/25811/2/25811.pdf›.

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

Representation of Aboriginality in National Geographic In trafficking images of cultural difference, National Geographic has an unrivalled worldwide reach to over 37 million people per issue. Over the past 25 years, 48 photographs of Aboriginal Australians have appeared in 11 articles in the magazine. This article first examines how the magazine has exoticised, naturalised and sexualised Aboriginal Australians. By deploying the standard evolutionary model, National Geographic typically represents Aboriginal Australians as Black savages relegated to the Stone Age. In the remote outback "Arnhem Land Aboriginals Cling to the Dreamtime" (Scollay & Tweedie 645). In "Journey into Dreamtime" (Arden & Abell 8) an Aboriginal man is "triumphant with his kill of a wild turkey [and] leads a small group of Aborigines who have returned to some of the old ways of their nomadic ancestors in the Great Sandy Desert". The article concludes that the Stone Age encounter with modernity depicted in the magazine became a journey through time from location past to location present. Exoticisation The world of the Aboriginal Australians is male through the eyes of National Geographic. This stems from the Western cultural pattern that assigns things masculine to the cultural and things feminine to the natural realm (Ortner). The male Aboriginal performer of an initiation ritual in "Leapingin tribute" (Scollay & Tweedie 656-7) is represented as rooted in tradition and living in a sacred yet superstitious world. Portraits abound of men with painted faces, as in "Surging energy" (Scollay & Tweedie 648). Male finery and self-display become salient markers, Aboriginal "Boys summon courage" in male initiation focussing on bloodletting (Scollay & Tweedie 656). Such images convey the impression that the region is one of nature, taboo, danger and adventure and that it is a land out of time. The enchantment with ritual stems from it being a key to the past and indicative of photographer and writer having travelled through space to travel through time, similar to the connection made by Victorian evolutionary anthropologists last century (see Fabian). Naturalisation The naturalised Aboriginal Australians appearing in National Geographic are characterised by having timeless societies and personalities, what Wolf identifies as people without history. Routine location narratives naturalise Aboriginal Australians through their remote landscapes and seascapes ("blazing bushfire", Scollay & Tweedie 652-3; "conjuring an image as old as his ancestors", "scorched in one season, sodden in the next" Newman & Abell 3-9). In the West the cultural appropriation of nature is the object of labour, whereas for Aboriginal Australians it is the subject of labour. Aboriginal men are hunters ("triumphant with his kill", Arden & Abell 9; "the earth and sea of their own accord furnish them with all the things necessary for life", Newman & Abell 14-5). Thus, in National Geographic the productive world of work further naturalises the Aboriginal 'Other'. Sexualisation Naked Black women provide the hallmark National Geographic imagery of the sexualized 'Other'. By purveying the nude Aboriginal female, the magazine develops Western ideas about race, gender and sexuality, subcategorised in each case as black, female and unrepressed (Lutz & Collins 115). Women are white, men are Black and Black women are invisible in popular visual representations of motherhood in Western culture. In trafficking in photographs of Black women for an overwhelmingly white readership, National Geographic is clearly linking narrative threads of gender and race (Lutz & Collins166). As the readers' gaze focusses on the Aboriginal child they become the site for dealing with racial anxieties through creating the Black love object ("an appetite for learning", Scollay & Tweedie 654; "mud mates", Ellis & Austen 8-9). National Geographic's nickname for mother-child photos is 'tit* and tots' (Meltzer) and they are a romantic staple in the magazine. Aboriginal mothering in "marriages of diplomacy" is idealised as the foundation of human social life (Scollay & Tweedie 650-1). However, with "seven of Johnny Bungawuy's 11 wives and a handful of his 52 children" this marriage is exotic enough to make cultural difference an issue because it depicts the unusually large number of plural marriage partners available to Aboriginal men in their practice of polygyny. The attribution of erotic qualities and sexual license to Aboriginal women is a result of displaying their bodies for close examination. The naked Aboriginal women in "marriages of diplomacy" represent the nude stylised as ethnographic fact (Scollay & Tweedie 650-1). The addition of a woman in the "marriages of diplomacy" photograph commoditises the practice of polygyny and illustrates that women have traditionally been seen as objects to be possessed, owned and adornments to the lives of men (Pollack). Location Past to Location Present Idealisation of the Aboriginal 'Other' allows for detemporalisation to be played out in alluring images of a simpler, natural Aboriginal world only now tentatively facing the throes of modernisation. Social Darwinism counterpoises superstition/ritual with science/technology and darker skin/exotic clothes with lighter skin/Western clothes. The Aboriginal guide bearing a "striking resemblance to his counterpart on the Burke-Wills journey" facilitates a form of ancestor worship that relates to what Rosaldo calls imperialist nostalgia for the passing of what we ourselves have destroyed (Judge & Scherschel 165). Photographs of the Aboriginal Australians are organised into a story about cultural evolution couched in normative discourse of modernisation and development as progress. In photographs contrasting the premodern with the modern the commodity stands for the future: "soda, soap, and spears in the arms of an [Aboriginal] father and daughter demonstrate their coexistence with white society" (Scollay & Tweedie 662). While for the Aboriginal father in "keeping faith with past and future" his "son enters an era that will inevitably propel his people into modern society" (MacLeish & Nebbia 171). Commodities in these contrasting representations are to be seen simply as a stage on the way to Westernisation. Dynamism, change and agency are apportioned to the Western centre, while Aboriginal Australians are just responding to the onslaught of modernisation on the periphery. Aboriginal masculinisation of modernity is situated in a series of photographs depicting the expansive frontier outback where Aboriginal stockmen are content to muster the cattle of white station owners. In "boiling the red dust" the Aboriginal stockman strums his guitar but sometimes "lapses into tradition and roams on walkabout" (Walker & Scherschel 457). Another Aboriginal stockman, in "saga of beef or bust", "uses his tracking ability to run down strays and cleanskins -- unbranded beasts" (MacLeish & Nebbia 161). "Other than his boots and a jug of water all he owns is rolled into the swag", the Aboriginal stockman must compete with the modern helicopter ("pesky as a giant fly", MacLeish & Stanfield 165); alternatively, "with a wager on the line, an Aboriginal stockman whoops it up at the annual Bedourie Race Meeting" (Ellis & Austen 3). The idealised image is one of the rugged yet happy lives of the Aboriginal stockman in transition to modernity. Social evolutionary theory "saw women in non-Western societies as oppressed and servile creatures, beasts of burden, chattels who could be bought and sold, eventually to be liberated by 'civilisation' or 'progress', thus attaining the enviable position of women in Western society" (Etienne & Leaco*ck 1). Aboriginal feminisation of modernity is told through stories about the premodern helpmate to husband work of Aboriginal women. "Sharing a 'cuppa' at the start of their day" is gendered with vulnerability, primitivity, superstition and the constraints of tradition (Newman & Abell 24-5). The ambivalent message represented in "sharing a 'cuppa' at the start of their day" is complicated by the Aboriginal woman's stockman partner being white. Western ideological understanding of women's work has changed since WWII from helpmate to husband to self-realisation and independence (Chafe). However, images of Aboriginal women in modern work are conspicuously absent. Dispossessed Aboriginal prospectors earn money by 'yandying' ("Paddy Blair's no Irishman", MacLeish & Stanfield 166) -- "winnowing by tossing handfuls of ore into the wind to separate dirt from tin or gold" and 'noodling' -- "poking through rubble" ("selling water and renting bulldozers", Moore & Tweedie 569). Abject "down-and-outs addicted to cheap, poisonous wood alcohol" end up as dispossessed fringe-dwelling 'goomies' in Redfern ("matron saint", Starbird & Madden 224-5). Resistance through situationally motivated undertaking by Indigenous people against expropriation of land and resources is rarely represented in the media (see Drinnon), and National Geographic first attempts such a representation in the 1980s with "heads of several clans" (Scollay & Tweedie 653). Aboriginal men attempt to block a government mining survey crew. But the six Aboriginal men gaze off in different directions and only one is clearly focussed on something in the frame, thus the assembled men assume a disconnected, uncoordinated look. In the 1990s National Geographic story "The Uneasy Magic of Australia's Cape York Peninsula", Aboriginality is equated with caring for the land (Newman & Abell). Aboriginal peoples of Cape York Peninsula are portrayed as conservators valuable for their preservation of biocultural diversity ("the richlytextured landscape", Newman & Abell 17). Aboriginal "white sand people" of Cape York Peninsula are "on a sacred mission" when they "return an ancestor's skull to their homeland at Shelbourne Bay (Newman & Abell 32-3). After years of frustrated efforts to win back their lost domain, the peninsula's native people are at last gaining ground". Aboriginal Australian uses of land and resources are idealised as non-destructive and caring in contrast to rapacious postcolonial development aggression. National Geographic images of Aboriginal Australians have moved from the exoticised, naturalised and sexualised location past. Images in the location present of Cape York mirror the postcolonial transition from Aboriginal dispossession informed by terra nullius to their contemporary empowerment informed by native title. References Arden, H., and S. Abell. "Journey into Dreamtime: The Land of Northwest Australia." National Geographic 179 (Jan. 1991): 8-42. Chafe, W. "Social Change and the American Woman, 1940-70". A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America. Eds. W. Chafe and H. Sitkoff. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. 157-65. Drinnon, R. Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1980. Ellis, W., and D. Austen. "Queensland: Broad Shoulder of Australia." National Geographic 169 (Jan. 1986): 2-39. Etienne, M. and E. Leaco*ck, eds. Women and Colonisation: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Praeger, 1980. Fabian, J. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia UP, 1983. Judge, J., and J. Scherschel. "The Journey of Burke and Wills: First across Australia." National Geographic Feb. (1979): 52-91. Lutz, C., and J. Collins. Reading National Geographic. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. MacLeish, K., and T. Nebbia. "The Top End Down Under." National Geographic Feb. (1993): 143-73. MacLeish, K. and J. Stanfield. "Western Australia: The Big Country." National Geographic Feb. (1975): 147-87. Meltzer, M. Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life. NewYork: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1978. Moore, K., and P. Tweedie. "Coober Pedy: Opal Capital of Australia's Outback." National Geographic Oct. (1976): 560-71. Newman, C., and S. Abell. "The Uneasy Magic of Australia's Cape York Peninsula." National Geographic June (1996 ): 2-33. Ortner, S. "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?" Woman, Culture, and Society. Eds. M. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1974. 67-88. Pollack, G. "What's Wrong with Images of Women?" Looking On: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and the Media. Ed. R. Betterton. London: Pandora, 1987. 40-8. Rosaldo, R. Culture and Truth. Boston: Beacon P, 1989. Scollay, C., and P. Tweedie. "Arnhem Land Aboriginals Cling to the Dreamtime." National Geographic Nov. (1980): 645-61. Starbird, E., and R. Madden. "Sydney: Big, Breezy, and a Bloomin' Good Show." National Geographic Feb. (1979): 211-36. Walker, H., and J. Scherschel. "South Australia, Gateway to the Great Outback." National Geographic April (1970): 441-81. Wolf, E. Europe and the People without History.Berkeley: U of California P, 1982. Citation reference for this article MLA style: David Hyndman. "Postcolonial Representation of Aboriginal Australian Culture: Location Past to Location Present in National Geographic." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.2 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php>. Chicago style: David Hyndman, "Postcolonial Representation of Aboriginal Australian Culture: Location Past to Location Present in National Geographic," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 2 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: David Hyndman. (2000) Postcolonial representation of Aboriginal Australian culture: location past to location present in National Geographic. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(2). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php> ([your date of access]).

APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Abstract:

IntroductionThis essay will focus on some of the connections between digitally transmitted stories, games, narrative processes, and the discipline whose ostensible job is the study of storytelling, namely literature. My observations will be limited to the specific case of computer games, storytelling, and what is often unproblematically referred to as “literature,” in order to focus attention on historical and contemporary features of the development of the relationship between the two that remain largely unexamined. Therefore, one goal of this essay is to re-think this relationship from a fresh perspective, whose “freshness” derives from reopening the past and re-examining what is overlooked when games scholars talk about “narrative” and “literature” as though they were interchangeable.Further, I will discuss the dissemination of narrative on/through various platforms before mass-media, such as textually transmitted stories that anticipate digitally disseminated narrative. This will include specific examples as well as a more general a re-examination of claims made on the topic of literature, narrative and computer games, via a brief review of disciplinary insights from the study of digital games and narrative. The following is therefore intended as a view of games and (literary) narrative in pre-digital forms as an attempt to build bridges between media studies and other disciplines by calling for a longer, developmental history of games, narrative and/or literature that considers them together rather than as separate territories.The Stakes of the Game My reasons for re-examining games and narrative scholarship include my desire to discuss a number of somewhat less-than-accurate or misleading notions about narrative and literature that have been folded into computer game studies, where these notions go unchallenged. I also want to point out a body of work on literature, mimesis and play that has been overlooked in game studies, and that would be helpful in thinking about stories and some of the (digital) platforms through which they are disseminated.To begin by responding to the tacit question of why it is worth asking what literary studies have to do with videogames, my answer resides in the link between play, games and storytelling forged by Aristotle in the Poetics. As a function of imitative play or “mimesis,” he claims, art forms mimic phenomena found in nature such as the singing of birds. So, by virtue of the playful mimetic function ascribed to the arts or “poesis,” games and storytelling are kindred forms of play. Moreover, the pretend function common to art forms such as realist fictional narratives that are read “as if” the story were true, and games played “as if” their premises were real, unfold in playfully imitative ways that produce possible worlds presented through different media.In the intervening centuries, numerous scholars discussed mimesis and play from Kant and Schiller in the 18th century, to Huizinga, and to many scholars who wrote on literature, mimesis and play later in the 20th century, such as Gadamer, Bell, Spariousu, Hutchinson, and Morrow. More recently, games scholar Janet Murray wrote that computer games are “a kind of abstract storytelling that resembles the world of common experience but compresses it in order to heighten interest,” hence even Tetris acts as a dramatic “enactment of the overtasked lives of Americans in the 1990’s” allowing them to “symbolically experience agency,” and “enact control over things outside our power” (142, 143). Similarly, Ryan has argued that videogames offer micro stories that are mostly about the pleasure of discovering nooks and crannies of on-line, digital possible worlds (10).At the same time, a tendency developed in games studies in the 1990s to eschew any connection with narrative, literature and earlier scholarship on mimesis. One example is Markku Eskelinen’s article in Game Studies wherein he argued that “[o]utside academic theory people are usually excellent at making distinctions between narrative, drama and games. If I throw a ball at you I don’t expect you to drop it and wait until it starts telling stories.” Eskelinen then explains that “when games and especially computer games are studied and theorized they are almost without exception colonized from the fields of literary, theatre, drama and film studies.” As Eskelinen’s argument attests, his concern is disciplinary territorialisation rather than stories and their transmedial dissemination, whereas I prefer to take an historical approach to games and storytelling, to which I now direct my attention.Stepping Back Both mimesis and interactivity are central to how stories are told and travel across media. In light thereof, I recall the story of Zeuxis who, in the 5th century BC, introduced a realistic method of painting. As the story goes, Zeuxis painted a boy holding a bunch of grapes so realistically that it attracted birds who tried to enter the world of the painting, whereupon the artist remarked that, were the boy rendered as realistically as the grapes, he would have scared the birds away. Centuries later in the 1550s, the camera obscura and mirrors were used to project scenery as actors moved in and out of it as an early form of multimedia storytelling entertainment (Smith 22). In the late 17th century, van Mieris painted The Raree Show, representing an interactive travelling storyboard and story master who invited audience participation, hence the girl pictured here, leaning forward to interact with the story.Figure 1: The Raree Show (van Mieris)Numerous interactive narrative toys were produced in the 18th and 19th, such as these storytelling playing cards sold as a leaf in The Great Mirror of Folly (1720). Along with the plays, poems and cartoons also contained in this volume dedicated to the South Sea Bubble crisis of 1720, the cards serve as a storyboard with plot lines that follow suits, so that hearts picks up one narrative thread, and clubs, spades and diamonds another. Hence while the cards could be removed for gaming they could also be read as a story in a medium that, to borrow games scholar Espen Aarseth’s terminology, requires non-trivial physical or “ergodic effort” on the part of readers and players.Figure 2: playing cards from The Great Mirror of Folly (1720) In the 20th century examples of interactive and ergodic codex fiction abound, including Hesse’s Das Glasperlenspiel [Glass Bead Game] (1943, 1949), Nabokov’s Pale Fire (1962), Saporta’s Composition No. 1 (1962), and Winterson’s PowerBook (2001) that conceptually and/or physically mimic and anticipate hypertext. More recently, Chloé Delaume’s Corpus Simsi (2003) explicitly attempts to remediate a MMORPG as the title suggests, just as there are videogames that attempt, in various ways, to remediate novels. I have presented these examples to argue for a long-continuum view of storytelling and games, as a series of attempts to produce stories—from Zeuxis grapes to PowerBook and beyond—that can be entered and interacted with, at least metaphorically or cognitively. Over time, various game-like or playful interfaces from text to computer have invited us into storyworlds while partially impeding or opening the door to interaction and texturing our experience of the story in medium-specific ways.The desire to make stories interactive has developed across media, from image to text and various combinations thereof, as a means of externalizing an author’s imagination to be activated by opening and reading a novel, or by playing a game wherein the story is mediated through a screen while players interact to change the course of the story. While I am arguing that storytelling has for centuries striven to interpolate spectators or readers by various means and though numerous media that would eventually make storytelling thoroughly and not only metaphorically interactive, I want now to return briefly to the question of literature.Narrative vs LiteratureThe term “literature” is frequently assumed to be unambiguous when it enters discussions of transmedia storytelling and videogames. What literature “is” was, however, hotly debated in the 1980s-90s with many scholars concluding that literature is a construct invented by “old dead white men,” resulting in much criticism on the topic of canon formation. Yet, without rehearsing the arguments produced in previous decades on the topic of literariness, I want to provide a few examples of what happens when games scholars and practitioners assume they know what literature is and then absorb or eschew it in their own transmedia storytelling endeavours.The 1990s saw the emergence of game studies as a young discipline, eager to burst out of the crucible of English Departments that were, as Eskelinen pointed out, the earliest testing grounds for the legitimized study of games. Thus ensued the “ludology vs narratology” debate wherein “ludologists,” keen to move away from literary studies, insisted that games be studied as games only, and participated in what Gonzalo Frasca famously called the “debate that never happened.” Yet as short-lived as the debate may have been, a negative and limited view of literature still inheres in games studies along with an abiding lack of awareness of the shared origins of stories, games, and thinking about both that I have attempted to sketch out thus far.Exemplary of arguments on the side of “ludology,” was storytelling game designer Chris Crawford’s keynote at Mediaterra 2007, in which he explained that literariness is measured by degrees of fun. Hence, whereas literature is highly formulaic and structured, storytelling is unconstrained and fun because storytellers have no rigid blueprint and can change direction at any moment. Yet, Crawford went on to explain how his storytelling machine works by drawing together individual syntactic elements, oddly echoing the Russian formalists’ description of literature, and particularly models that locate literary production at the intersection of the axis of selection, containing linguistic elements such as verbs, nouns, adjectives and so on, and the axis of combination governed by rules of genre.I foreground Crawford’s ludological argument because it highlights some of the issues that arise when one doesn’t care to know much about the study of literature. Crawford understands literature as rule-based, rigid and non-fun, and then trots out his own storytelling-model based or rigid syntactical building blocks and rule-based laws of combination, without the understanding the irony. This returns me to ludologist Eskelinen who also argued that “stories are just uninteresting ornaments or gift-wrappings to games”. In either case, the matter of “story” is stretched over the rigid syntax of language, and the literary structuralist enterprise has consisted precisely in peeling back that narrative skin or “gift wrap” to reveal the bones of human cognitive thought processes, as for example, when we read rhetorical figures such as metaphor and metonymy. In the words of William Carlos Williams, poetry is a machine made out of words, from whose nuts and bolts meaning emerges when activated, similar to programing language in a videogame whose story is eminent and comes into being as we play.Finally, the question of genre hangs in the background given that “literature” itself is potentially transmedia because its content can take many forms and be transmitted across diverse platforms. Importantly in this regard the novel, which is the form most games scholars have in mind when drawing or rejecting connections between games and literature, is itself a shape-shifting, difficult-to-define genre whose form, as the term novel implies, is subject to the constant imperative to innovate across media as it has done over time.Different Approaches While I just highlighted inadequacies in some of the scholarship on games and narrative (or “literature” when narrative is defined as such) there is work on interactive storytelling and the transmedia dissemination of stories explicitly as games that deals with some of these issues. In their article on virtual bodies in Dante’s Inferno (2010), Welsh and Sebastian explain that the game is a “reboot of a Trecento poem,” and discuss what must have been Dante’s own struggle in the 14th century to “materialize sin through metaphors of suffering,” while contending “with the abstractness of the subject matter [as well as] the representational shortcomings of language itself,” concluding that Dante’s “corporeal allegories must become interactive objects constructed of light and math that feel to the user like they have heft and volume” (166). This notion of “corporeal allegories” accords with my own model of a “body hermeneutic” that could help to understand the reception of stories transmitted in non-codex media: a poetics of reading that includes how game narratives “engage the body hapitically” (Goggin 219).Likewise, Kathi Berens’s work on “Novel Games: Playable Books on iPad” is exemplary of what literary theory and game texts can do for each other, that is, through the ways in which games can remediate, imitate or simply embody the kind of meditative depth that we encounter in the expansive literary narratives of the 19th century. In her reading of Living Will, Berens argues that the best way to gauge meaning is not in the potentialities of its text, but rather “in the human performance of reading and gaming in new thresholds of egodicity,” and offers a close reading that uncovers the story hidden in the JavaScript code, and which potentially changes the meaning of the game. Here again, the argument runs parallel to my own call for readings that take into account the visceral experience of games, and which demands a configurative/interpretative approach to the unfolding of narrative and its impact on our being as a whole. Such an approach would destabilize the old mind/body split and account for various modes of sensation as part of the story itself. This is where literary theory, storytelling, and games may be seen as coming together in novels like Delaume’s Corpus Simsi and a host of others that in some way remediate video games. Such analyses would include features of the platform/text—shape, topography, ergodicity—and how the story is disseminated through the printed text, the authors’ websites, blogs and so on.It is likewise important to examine what literary criticism that has dealt with games and storytelling in the past can do for games. For example, if one agrees with Wittgenstein that language is inherently game-like or ludic and that, by virtue of literature’s long association with mimesis, its “as if” function, and its “autotelic” or supposedly non-expository nature, then most fiction is itself a form of game. Andrew Ferguson’s work on Finnegan’s Wake (1939) takes these considerations into account while moving games and literary studies into the digital age. Ferguson argues that Finnegan’s Wake prefigures much of what computers make possible such as glitching, which “foregrounds the gaps in the code that produces the video-game environment.” This he argues, is an operation that Joyce performed textually, thereby “radically destabilizing” his own work, “leading to effects [similar to] short-circuiting plot events, and entering spaces where a game’s normal ontological conditions are suspended.” As Ferguson points out, moreover, literary criticism resembles glitch hunting as scholars look for keys to unlock the puzzles that constitute the text through which readers must level up.Conclusion My intention has been to highlight arguments presented by ludologists like Eskelinnen who want to keep game studies separate from narrative and literary studies, as well as those game scholars who favour a narrative approach like Murray and Ryan, in order to suggest ways in which a longer, historical view of how stories travel across platforms might offer a more holistic view of where we are at today. Moreover, as my final examples of games scholarship suggest, games, and games that specifically remediate works of literature such as Dante’s Inferno, constitute a rapidly moving target that demands that we keep up by finding new ways to take narrative and ergodic complexity into account.The point of this essay was not, therefore, to adapt a position in any one camp but rather to nod to the major contributors in a debate which was largely about institutional turf, and perhaps never really happened, yet still continues to inform scholarship. At the same time, I wanted to argue for the value of discussing the long tradition of understanding literature as a form of mimesis and therefore as a particular kind of game, and to show how such an understanding contributes to historically situating and analysing videogames. Stories can be experienced across multiple platforms or formats, and my ultimate goal is to see what literary studies can do for game studies by trying to show that the two share more of the same goals, elements, and characteristics than is commonly supposed.ReferencesAristotle. Poetics, Trans. J. Hutton. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2007.Behrens, Kathi. “‘Messy’ Ludology: New Dimensions of Narrator Unreliability in Living Will.” No Trivial Effort: Essays on Games and Literary Theory. Eds. Joyce Goggin and Timothy Welsh. Bloomsbury: Forthcoming.Bell, D. Circ*mstances: Chance in the Literary Text. Lincoln: Nebraska UP, 1993. Delaume, Chloé. Corpus Simsi. Paris: Éditions Léo Scheer, 2003.Eskelinen, Markku. “The Gaming Situation”. Game Studies 1.1 (2011). <http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/eskelinen/>. Ferguson, Andrew. “Let’s Play Finnegan’s Wake.” Hypermedia Joyce Studies 13 (2014). <http://hjs.ff.cuni.cz/archives/v13_1/main/essays.php?essay=ferguson>. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method, Trans. Barden and Cumming. New York: Crossroad, 1985.Goggin, Joyce. “A Body Hermeneutic?: Corpus Simsi or Reading like a Sim.” The Hand of the Interpreter: Essays on Meaning after Theory. Eds. G.F. Mitrano and Eric Jarosinski. Bern: Peter Lang, 2008. 205-223.Hesse, Hermann. The Glass Bead Game [Das Glasperlenspiel]. Trans. Clara Winston. London: Picador, 2002.Huizinga, Johann. hom*o Ludens. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff cop, 1938.Hutchinson, Peter. Games Authors Play. New York: Metheun, 1985.James, Joyce. Finnegan’s Wake. London: Faber and Faber, 1939.Morrow, Nancy. Dreadful Games: The Play of Desire and the 19th-Century Novel. Ohio: Kent State UP, 1988.Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge: MIT UP, 1997.Nabokov, Vladimir. Pale Fire. New York: Putnam, 1962.Ryan, Marie-Laure. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.Saporta, Marc. Composition No. 1. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1962.Smith, Grahame. Dickens and the Dream of Cinema. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2003.Spariosu, Mihai. Literature, Mimesis and Play. Tübigen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1982.Winterson, Janette. The PowerBook. London: Vintage, 2001.Wittgenstein, Ludwig. The Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan: 1972.