Books Reviewed

Reviews of Why Men Rebel, The Mugging and The police and the Publi

Hogarth and his Unholy Age

Samuel Johnson, that eighteenth-century English authority on human learning and life, had a surprisingly low regard for painting. But he knew the first great British artist, William Hogarth, and publicly applauded the first art exhibitions in England. Johnson would have found an equally good reason to applaud Bridgewater State College’s Hogarth Festival in October of 1982. This exhibition of twenty-five, beautifully preserved prints was a splendid sampling of Hogarth’s artistic legacy selected from the collection owned by the Judd Family of New Jersey and on loan from Monmouth College, New Jersey through Professor Vincent DiMattio. All in all, the Hogarth Festival afforded spectators a rare opportunity to glimpse the energies and excesses of Henry Fielding’s England and Johnson’s London. To grasp the uniqueness of Hogarth’s artistry is to take into account the more conventional aesthetic standards of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the century’s most famous portrait painter. Reynolds hungered after the epic dignity of the grand style in painting and found nothing of it in Hogarth’s works. Reynolds’ later Discourses held up Michelangelo and the spectacular Sistine Chapel for veneration and imitation: “The style of Michael Angelo, which I have compared to ... the language of the gods, now no longer exists, as it did in the fifteenth century.” No doubt, the differences between Michelangelo of the Sistine Chapel and Hogarth of Leicester Fields, London could not be more dramatic. Whereas the Italian master executed his epic subject of the biblical history of humankind, the engraver captured extraordinary moral insights in the ordinary middle-class culture of England. Hogarth’s contemporaries still respected classical-Renaissance grandeur, but a secular, fact-minded modern sensibility now flourished

Global positioning system supported pilot's display

The hardware, software, and operation of the Microwave Scanning Beam Landing System (MSBLS) Flight Inspection System Pilot's Display is discussed. The Pilot's Display is used in conjunction with flight inspection tests that certify the Microwave Scanning Beam Landing System used at Space Shuttle landing facilities throughout the world. The Pilot's Display was developed for the pilot of test aircraft to set up and fly a given test flight path determined by the flight inspection test engineers. This display also aids the aircraft pilot when hazy or cloud cover conditions exist that limit the pilot's visibility of the Shuttle runway during the flight inspection. The aircraft position is calculated using the Global Positioning System and displayed in the cockpit on a graphical display

An empirical method to cluster objective nebulizer adherence data among adults with cystic fibrosis

Background: The purpose of using preventative inhaled treatments in cystic fibrosis is to improve health outcomes. Therefore, understanding the relationship between adherence to treatment and health outcome is crucial. Temporal variability, as well as absolute magnitude of adherence affects health outcomes, and there is likely to be a threshold effect in the relationship between adherence and outcomes. We therefore propose a pragmatic algorithm-based clustering method of objective nebulizer adherence data to better understand this relationship, and potentially, to guide clinical decisions. Methods to cluster adherence data: This clustering method consists of three related steps. The first step is to split adherence data for the previous 12 months into four 3-monthly sections. The second step is to calculate mean adherence for each section and to score the section based on mean adherence. The third step is to aggregate the individual scores to determine the final cluster (“cluster 1” = very low adherence; “cluster 2” = low adherence; “cluster 3” = moderate adherence; “cluster 4” = high adherence), and taking into account adherence trend as represented by sequential individual scores. The individual scores should be displayed along with the final cluster for clinicians to fully understand the adherence data. Three illustrative cases: We present three cases to illustrate the use of the proposed clustering method. Conclusion: This pragmatic clustering method can deal with adherence data of variable duration (ie, can be used even if 12 months’ worth of data are unavailable) and can cluster adherence data in real time. Empirical support for some of the clustering parameters is not yet available, but the suggested classifications provide a structure to investigate parameters in future prospective datasets in which there are accurate measurements of nebulizer adherence and health outcomes

Development and validation of an LC-MS/MS assay for the quantification of efavirenz in different biological matrices

Aim: The non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor efavirenz is one of the most prescribed antiretroviral therapeutics. Efavirenz-containing therapy has become associated with the occurrence of CNS side effects, including sleep disturbances, depression and even psychosis. Results: The investigation of efavirenz distribution required the development of a versatile and sensitive method. In addition to plasma, quantification was required in brain tissue and phosphate-buffered saline. The assay presented here was linear from 1.9 to 500 ng/ml. Accuracy and precision ranged between 93.7 and 99.5%, and 1.5 and 5.6%, respectively. Discussion: The method developed here represents a versatile, sensitive and easy-to-use assay. The assay has been applied to in vitro and in vivo samples demonstrating reliable efavirenz quantification in multiple matrices

Spinoza

"Spinoza", second edition. Encyclopedia entry for the Springer Encyclopedia of EM Phil and the Sciences, ed. D. Jalobeanu and C. T. Wolfe