Teaching Nordic cinema: Perspectives and possibilities

For the tenth anniversary issue of Journal of Scandinavian Cinema (JSCA), C. Claire Thomson reflects on fifteen years of teaching Nordic cinema at University College London (UCL). The article outlines the teaching and learning contexts in which the subject is taught, and how teaching has been transformed by develop-ments in scholarship in the field and online resources. The constraints and oppor-tunities offered by the pivot to remote teaching during the 2020 pandemic are also considered. Three extracts from essays by students are offered as illustrations of how students from different disciplinary backgrounds and different parts of the world engage with Nordic cinema

Danmarkshistorier: National Imagination and Novel in Late Twentieth Century Denmark

Danmarkshistorier: National Imagination and Novel in Late Twentieth-Century Denmark C.C.Thomson, University of Edinburgh, 2003 This thesis centres on the contemporary Danish novel as a conduit for national imagining. Chapter one begins with a discussion of Benedict Anderson's account of the ability of novels to facilitate an imagining of the national community in time and space. Critical responses to Anderson's hypothesis are then situated in the context of late twentieth-century debates on the 'postnational' and 'posthistorical'. Recent Danish historiography attempts to negotiate national histories that recognise not only the contingency of established historical accounts but also their narrative nature, employing textual strategies such as resisting linear chronology and causality, historicising space and place, and fusing (individual) memory and (collective) history. Such texts, hybrid narratives between histories and stories of Denmark (or Danmarkshistorier), implicate a Danish national model reader who is alive both to the homogenising contemporary discourse of danskhed (Danishness) and to its self-ironising subversion. Contemporary Danish literature, it is argued, shares this concern with what Bhabha identifies as the symbiosis of nationalist historical pedagogy and narrative performance. Chapters two to four focus on three novels which map out the Danish experience of the twentieth century and sit at the intersection of the genres which have marked Danish literature in the 1990s: the punktroman and the encyclopedic novel. Thus all three texts explore temporalities alternative to Anderson's interpretation of Benjamin's 'homogenous empty time', and they construct shifting textual communities of national subjects predicated on the liminalities of cultural identities, on the boundaries between historical fact and fiction, and on the tension between privileged and marginal forms of narrative. In chapter two, Peter Høeg's Forestilling om det tyvende århundrede (1988) is discussed as an anthropological novel which pastiches postcolonial and magical realist writing to critique the longing for order inherent in national historiography and fiction. Peer Hultberg's Byen og verden (1992) is read, in chapter three, as a spatial history of a community in which local, national and global places and times of belonging can coalesce. Chapter four examines the configurations of individual and collective memory, trauma and event, the epochal and the everyday in Vibeke Grønfeldt's I dag (1998). The thesis concludes with a discussion of the novels in question as sites of textual memory, in which 'postnational' spacetimes, including the term of the millennium and the glocal, can be negotiated

Should Research Ethics Encourage the Production of Cost-Effective Interventions?

This project considers whether and how research ethics can contribute to the provision of cost-effective medical interventions. Clinical research ethics represents an underexplored context for the promotion of cost-effectiveness. In particular, although scholars have recently argued that research on less-expensive, less-effective interventions can be ethical, there has been little or no discussion of whether ethical considerations justify curtailing research on more expensive, more effective interventions. Yet considering cost-effectiveness at the research stage can help ensure that scarce resources such as tissue samples or limited subject popula- tions are employed where they do the most good; can support parallel efforts by providers and insurers to promote cost-effectiveness; and can ensure that research has social value and benefits subjects. I discuss and rebut potential objections to the consideration of cost-effectiveness in research, including the difficulty of predicting effectiveness and cost at the research stage, concerns about limitations in cost-effectiveness analysis, and worries about overly limiting researchers’ freedom. I then consider the advantages and disadvantages of having certain participants in the research enterprise, including IRBs, advisory committees, sponsors, investigators, and subjects, consider cost-effectiveness. The project concludes by qualifiedly endorsing the consideration of cost-effectiveness at the research stage. While incorporating cost-effectiveness considerations into the ethical evaluation of human subjects research will not on its own ensure that the health care system realizes cost-effectiveness goals, doing so nonetheless represents an important part of a broader effort to control rising medical costs

New insights into the classification and nomenclature of cortical GABAergic interneurons.

A systematic classification and accepted nomenclature of neuron types is much needed but is currently lacking. This article describes a possible taxonomical solution for classifying GABAergic interneurons of the cerebral cortex based on a novel, web-based interactive system that allows experts to classify neurons with pre-determined criteria. Using Bayesian analysis and clustering algorithms on the resulting data, we investigated the suitability of several anatomical terms and neuron names for cortical GABAergic interneurons. Moreover, we show that supervised classification models could automatically categorize interneurons in agreement with experts' assignments. These results demonstrate a practical and objective approach to the naming, characterization and classification of neurons based on community consensus

Celecoxib exerts protective effects in the vascular endothelium via COX-2-independent activation of AMPK-CREB-Nrf2 signalling

Although concern remains about the athero-thrombotic risk posed by cyclo-oxygenase (COX)-2-selective inhibitors, recent data implicates rofecoxib, while celecoxib appears equivalent to NSAIDs naproxen and ibuprofen. We investigated the hypothesis that celecoxib activates AMP kinase (AMPK) signalling to enhance vascular endothelial protection. In human arterial and venous endothelial cells (EC), and in contrast to ibuprofen and naproxen, celecoxib induced the protective protein heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). Celecoxib derivative 2,5-dimethyl-celecoxib (DMC) which lacks COX-2 inhibition also upregulated HO-1, implicating a COX-2-independent mechanism. Celecoxib activated AMPKα(Thr172) and CREB-1(Ser133) phosphorylation leading to Nrf2 nuclear translocation. Importantly, these responses were not reproduced by ibuprofen or naproxen, while AMPKα silencing abrogated celecoxib-mediated CREB and Nrf2 activation. Moreover, celecoxib induced H-ferritin via the same pathway, and increased HO-1 and H-ferritin in the aortic endothelium of mice fed celecoxib (1000 ppm) or control chow. Functionally, celecoxib inhibited TNF-α-induced NF-κB p65(Ser536) phosphorylation by activating AMPK. This attenuated VCAM-1 upregulation via induction of HO-1, a response reproduced by DMC but not ibuprofen or naproxen. Similarly, celecoxib prevented IL-1β-mediated induction of IL-6. Celecoxib enhances vascular protection via AMPK-CREB-Nrf2 signalling, a mechanism which may mitigate cardiovascular risk in patients prescribed celecoxib. Understanding NSAID heterogeneity and COX-2-independent signalling will ultimately lead to safer anti-inflammatory drugs

Development of an occupational advice intervention for patients undergoing lower limb arthroplasty (the OPAL study)

Background: There are an increasing number of patients of working age undergoing hip and knee replacements. Currently there is variation in the advice and support given about sickness absence, recovery to usual activities and return to work after these procedures. Earlier, sustainable, return to work improves the health of patients and benefits their employers and society. An intervention that encourages and supports early recovery to usual activities, including work, has the potential to reduce the health and socioeconomic burden of hip and knee replacements. Methods/design: A two-phase research programme delivered over 27 months will be used to develop and subsequently test the feasibility of an occupational advice intervention to facilitate return to work and usual activities in patients undergoing lower limb arthroplasty. The 2 phases will incorporate a six-stage intervention mapping process: Phase 1: Intervention mapping stages 1–3: 1 Needs assessment (including rapid evidence synthesis, prospective cohort analysis and structured stakeholder interviews) 2 Identification of intended outcomes and performance objectives 3 Selection of theory-based methods and practical strategies Phase 2: Intervention mapping stages 4–6: 4 Development of components and materials for the occupational advice intervention using a modified Delphi process 5 Adoption and implementation of the intervention 6 Evaluation and feasibility testing The study will be undertaken in four National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the United Kingdom and two Higher Education Institution. Discussion: OPAL (Occupational advice for Patients undergoing Arthroplasty of the Lower limb) aims to develop an occupational advice intervention to support early recovery to usual activities including work, which is tailored to the requirements of patients undergoing hip and knee replacements. The developed intervention will then be assessed with a specific focus on evaluating its feasibility as a potential trial intervention to improve speed of recovery to usual activities including work

Adenosine A2A receptor modulation of hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapse plasticity during associative learning in behaving mice

© 2009 Nature Publishing Group All rights reservedPrevious in vitro studies have characterized the electrophysiological and molecular signaling pathways of adenosine tonic modulation on long-lasting synaptic plasticity events, particularly for hippocampal long-term potentiation(LTP). However, it remains to be elucidated whether the long-term changes produced by endogenous adenosine in the efficiency of synapses are related to those required for learning and memory formation. Our goal was to understand how endogenous activation of adenosine excitatory A2A receptors modulates the associative learning evolution in conscious behaving mice. We have studied here the effects of the application of a highly selective A2A receptor antagonist, SCH58261, upon a well-known associative learning paradigm - classical eyeblink conditioning. We used a trace paradigm, with a tone as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and an electric shock presented to the supraorbital nerve as the unconditioned stimulus(US). A single electrical pulse was presented to the Schaffer collateral–commissural pathway to evoke field EPSPs (fEPSPs) in the pyramidal CA1 area during the CS–US interval. In vehicle-injected animals, there was a progressive increase in the percentage of conditioning responses (CRs) and in the slope of fEPSPs through conditioning sessions, an effect that was completely prevented (and lost) in SCH58261 (0.5 mg/kg, i.p.)-injected animals. Moreover, experimentally evoked LTP was impaired in SCH58261- injected mice. In conclusion, the endogenous activation of adenosine A2A receptors plays a pivotal effect on the associative learning process and its relevant hippocampal circuits, including activity-dependent changes at the CA3-CA1 synapse.This study was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Research (BFU2005-01024 and BFU2005-02512), Spanish Junta de Andalucía (BIO-122 and CVI-02487), and the Fundación Conocimiento y Cultura of the Pablo de Olavide University (Seville, Spain).B. Fontinha was in receipt of a studentship from a project grant (POCI/SAU-NEU/56332/2004) supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), and of an STSM from Cost B30 concerted action of the EU

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Measurement of CP-violation asymmetries in D0 to Ks pi+ pi-

We report a measurement of time-integrated CP-violation asymmetries in the resonant substructure of the three-body decay D0 to Ks pi+ pi- using CDF II data corresponding to 6.0 invfb of integrated luminosity from Tevatron ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The charm mesons used in this analysis come from D*+(2010) to D0 pi+ and D*-(2010) to D0bar pi-, where the production flavor of the charm meson is determined by the charge of the accompanying pion. We apply a Dalitz-amplitude analysis for the description of the dynamic decay structure and use two complementary approaches, namely a full Dalitz-plot fit employing the isobar model for the contributing resonances and a model-independent bin-by-bin comparison of the D0 and D0bar Dalitz plots. We find no CP-violation effects and measure an asymmetry of ACP = (-0.05 +- 0.57 (stat) +- 0.54 (syst))% for the overall integrated CP-violation asymmetry, consistent with the standard model prediction.Comment: 15 page

Observation of the Baryonic Flavor-Changing Neutral Current Decay Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu-

We report the first observation of the baryonic flavor-changing neutral current decay Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu- with 24 signal events and a statistical significance of 5.8 Gaussian standard deviations. This measurement uses ppbar collisions data sample corresponding to 6.8fb-1 at sqrt{s}=1.96TeV collected by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron collider. The total and differential branching ratios for Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu- are measured. We find B(Lambda_b -> Lambda mu+ mu-) = [1.73+-0.42(stat)+-0.55(syst)] x 10^{-6}. We also report the first measurement of the differential branching ratio of B_s -> phi mu+ mu- using 49 signal events. In addition, we report branching ratios for B+ -> K+ mu+ mu-, B0 -> K0 mu+ mu-, and B -> K*(892) mu+ mu- decays.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 4 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let