Self,Career and Nationhood: The contrasting aspirations of British and French elite graduates

There is increasing interest in the emergence of a ‘global middle class’ in which high achieving young graduates increasingly look to develop careers that transcend national boundaries. This paper explores this issue through comparing and contrasting the aspirations and orientations of two ‘elite’ cohorts of graduates. Interviews with students at the University of Oxford, England, and Sciences‐Po, France, reveal very different ambitions and allegiances. Our Oxford respondents portray their futures as projects of self‐fulfilment as they build portfolio careers by moving from job to job and from country to country with limited social allegiances – epitomizing the nomadic worker of the transnational elite. Our Parisian respondents, on the other hand, display strong allegiances to the nation, state and civic duty. Their projects of the self involve reconciling their personal aspirations with strong allegiances to France. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of these differences. It argues that the enduring role of education in the formation of national identities should not be overlooked and that more detailed research is needed on the contextual specifity of transnationalism and the (re)production of elites.     

Combining Food Frequency and Survey Data to Quantify Long-Term Dietary Exposure: A Methyl Mercury Case Study

Twenty-four-hour recall data from the Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals (CSFII) are frequently used to estimate dietary exposure for risk assessment. Food frequency questionnaires are traditional instruments of epidemiological research; however, their application in dietary exposure and risk assessment has been limited. This article presents a probabilistic method of bridging the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) food frequency and the CSFII data to estimate longitudinal (usual) intake, using a case study of seafood mercury exposures for two population subgroups (females 16 to 49 years and children 1 to 5 years). Two hundred forty-nine CSFII food codes were mapped into 28 NHANES fish/shellfish categories. FDA and state/local seafood mercury data were used. A uniform distribution with minimum and maximum blood-diet ratios of 0.66 to 1.07 was assumed. A probabilistic assessment was conducted to estimate distributions of individual 30-day average daily fish/shellfish intakes, methyl mercury exposure, and blood levels. The upper percentile estimates of fish and shellfish intakes based on the 30-day daily averages were lower than those based on two- and three-day daily averages. These results support previous findings that distributions of "usual" intakes based on a small number of consumption days provide overestimates in the upper percentiles. About 10% of the females (16 to 49 years) and children (1 to 5 years) may be exposed to mercury levels above the EPA's RfD. The predicted 75th and 90th percentile blood mercury levels for the females in the 16-to-49-year group were similar to those reported by NHANES. The predicted 90th percentile blood mercury levels for children in the 1-to-5-year subgroup was similar to NHANES and the 75th percentile estimates were slightly above the NHANES.     

Integrating phase 2 into phase 3 based on an intermediate endpoint while accounting for a cure proportion—With an application to the design of a clinical trial in acute myeloid leukemia

For a trial with primary endpoint overall survival for a molecule with curative potential, statistical methods that rely on the proportional hazards assumption may underestimate the power and the time to final analysis. We show how a cure proportion model can be used to get the necessary number of events and appropriate timing via simulation. If phase 1 results for the new drug are exceptional and/or the medical need in the target population is high, a phase 3 trial might be initiated after phase 1. Building in a futility interim analysis into such a pivotal trial may mitigate the uncertainty of moving directly to phase 3. However, if cure is possible, overall survival might not be mature enough at the interim to support a futility decision. We propose to base this decision on an intermediate endpoint that is sufficiently associated with survival. Planning for such an interim can be interpreted as making a randomized phase 2 trial a part of the pivotal trial: If stopped at the interim, the trial data would be analyzed, and a decision on a subsequent phase 3 trial would be made. If the trial continues at the interim, then the phase 3 trial is already underway. To select a futility boundary, a mechanistic simulation model that connects the intermediate endpoint and survival is proposed. We illustrate how this approach was used to design a pivotal randomized trial in acute myeloid leukemia and discuss historical data that informed the simulation model and operational challenges when implementing it.     

Boys will be boys

While lad's magazines such as FHM and Loaded have been subject to critical attention with respect to the way they represent and negotiate models of masculinity, there has been a significant absence of work that addresses the representation of women in these and other publications, such as Zoo and Nuts. In this paper I argue that these magazines normalise pornography through an invocation of the “real,” by encouraging reader action and interaction, and through alignment with women's magazines. The construction and representation of the “real” is difficult to reconcile with the claims of irony used to excuse representation of women as sexual objects. Such claims are indefensible and are symptomatic of hegemonic gender norms in which women are not yet recognised as human.     

Whose drag is it anyway? Drag kings and monarchy in the UK

This chapter will show that the term "drag" in drag queen has a different meaning, history and value to the term "drag" in drag king. By exposing this basic, yet fundamental, difference this paper will expose the problems inherent in the assumption of parity between the two forms of drag. An exposition of how camp has been used to comprehend and theorise drag queens will facilitating an understanding of the parasitic interrelationship between camp and drag queen performances, while a critique of "Towards a Butch-Femme Aesthetic," by Sue Ellen Case, will point out the problematic assumptions made about camp when attributed to a cultural location different to the drag queen. By interrogating the historical, cultural and theoretical similarities and differences between drag kings, butches, drag queens and femmes this paper will expose the flawed assumption that camp can be attributed to all of the above without proviso, and hence expose why drag has a fundamentally different contextual meaning for kings and queens. This chapter will conclude by examining the work of both Judith Halberstam and Biddy Martin and the practical examples of drag king and queen performances provided at the UK drag contest held at The Fridge in Brixton, London on 23 June 1999.     

A Virginia Tech MFT ethics class reflects on the shootings at Virginia Tech

The authors of this article include the professor and most of the students in a doctoral course on marriage and family therapy ethical and professional issues that met the semester that a disturbed student shot and killed 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty before killing himself. In this article, we reflect through short essays on issues related to the tragedy, ethics, and recovery.