CMRS/SOPHIS

. Blood typing relying on RBC/blood plasma separation on antibody treated paper. (a) Schematic of colorimetric indication of phase separation on the paper channels; (b) and (c) are two replicates of same blood sample confirming A+ blood typing. For better resolution, RGB images of b(I) and c(I) are converted into BRG images b(II) and c(II), respectively.

All 367 recipients and 1,385 donations transfused over a 40-day period were traced and compared by sex, age and discharge diagnosis with the 5,955 concurrent discharges from all general and obstetric hospitals in the area. 6% of discharged patients had been transfused. 21% of transfused patients were dead within 1 year, and at least 30% will die within 5 years. 228 donations of platelet concentrates were required for 7 recipients, 6 of whom died within 2 years. The mortality of blood recipients is overestimated if tracked from donors of multiple components.

We have observed that agglutinated blood wicks differently onto paper than non-agglutinated blood. This phenomenon was investigated to develop paper based blood detection device. In this study, the wicking and the chromatographic separation of blood droplets deposited onto paper strips pretreated with specific and non-specific antibodies were analyzed; drastic differences in transport occurred. Blood agglutinated by interaction with one of its specific antibodies phase separated, causing a chromatographic separation. The red cells wicked very little while the plasma wicked at a faster rate than the original blood sample. Blood agglutination and wicking in paper followed the concepts of colloids chemistry. The immunoglobin M antibodies agglutinated the red blood cells by polymer bridging, upon selective adsorption on the specific antigen at their surface. The transport kinetics was viscosity controlled, with the viscosity of red cells drastically increasing upon blood agglutination. ...

In a doctor-linguist collaboration, a framework of reasoning in clinical contexts is presented. Arguments used for inquiry, justification and persuasion are sketched in diagnosis, counselling, and management settings integral to everyday clinical practice thereby extending the diagnostic function typically associated with clinical reasoning per se. A system of logic, a method of persuasive orientation, and a synthesis of negotiation in dialogue are then elaborated to illustrate the complexity of argument practice in medical culture.

This article looks at the ‘Lives’ of Marie d’Oignies and Douceline of Digne, two of the many laywomen mystics who emerged in Europe in the thirteenth century. It aims to show how a perception of difference based on sex shaped the ways in which the authors of the ‘Lives’ emphasised the women’s somatic spirituality in order to construct them as ‘different’ in a way that would allow the women to be accommodated within, rather than perceived as a threat to, established power structures.

Australia's 18,000-plus Mauritian immigrants make up the country's largest single French-speaking community, but they also speak Kreol, a creole language specific to Mauritius and its dependent island Rodrigues. Kreol is both the lingua franca of Mauritius and the L1 of a growing majority of people there. Census data show that in Australia, Mauritians maintain French as a language at home at much higher rates than Kreol, while this and earlier research by the author (Adler, Lord & McKelvie 2003) indicates that the two languages are used and valued differently in the immigrant community. A starting point for this study was the idea that although social conditions affecting immigrants after they have settled in their adopted country must impact on their ability to maintain first language(s), their pre-migration experiences, beliefs and identities should also be taken into account but are often ignored in accounts of language maintenance and language shift (LM/LS). Through a thematic analysis of interviews with 17 French-and Kreol-speakers from Melbourne's Mauritian community, this study explores the language attitudes these immigrants acquired growing up in Mauritius, and investigates the impact of these attitudes on postmigration maintenance of French and Kreol. It then examines the part French and Kreol play in post-migration identity construction. The study shows that their premigration beliefs, attitudes and experiences were in fact extremely relevant, even decisive, to subsequent LM/LS and language use for this group of Mauritians. Specifically, the study shows that the attitudes to and beliefs about French and Kreol that the study participants brought with them from Mauritius led them to put more effort into transmitting French than Kreol to their children, but have also led them not to resist a shift by children to English at home. However, for themselves, the participants continued to use both French and Kreol at home with spouses and in the Mauritian immigrant community, and in the latter context, some of the dominant French-speakers appeared to be using more Kreol socially than they would once have done in Mauritius. The research harnesses Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, in particular his concepts of 'habitus' and 'symbolic violence/domination', to show how the participants' attitudes were formed and how they have played out in post-migration language choices and use. For these 17 participants growing up in Mauritius, dissatisfaction with the economic and social disadvantages of using Kreol and with the low status offered iv to Kreol-speakers was transformed-in an instance of the symbolic violence described by Bourdieu-into an undervaluing of the language itself, and that French was misrecognised as an inherently superior and more useful language, a differential valuation embedded in diglossic usage in Mauritius. This process led the study participants to accord French a greater symbolic value, which has persisted in the postmigration context regardless of the fact that in that broader Australian context French and Kreol are of similar value to the Mauritian community. v DECLARATION This is to certify that the thesis comprises only my original work except where indicated in the preface; due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all other material used; the thesis is 39,000 words in length, inclusive of footnotes, but exclusive of tables, maps, appendices and bibliography. Jennifer A. Lord vi vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge and thank the many members of the Mauritian community in Melbourne whose cooperation and assistance made this research possible, and whose patience, generosity and hospitality made it easier to carry out.