Poetic Witness in a Networked Age

When online videos mobilize protestors to occupy public spaces, and those protestors incorporate hashtags in their chants and markered placards, deliberative democratic theory must no longer dismiss technology and peoples historically excluded from the arena of politics. Specifically, political models must account for the role of repetition in paving the way for unheard and unseen messages and people to appear in the political arena. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of the Performative and Hannah Arendt’s Space of Appearance, this paper assesses that critical and generative role of iteration. Repeating unheeded acts performs the capacity for those acts to be entered into discourse. The World Wide Web evidently augments such performativity with features such as accessibility, potential for ‘viral’ proliferation, and an endurance unlike non-networked acts. This paper eventually grapples with the hazards and risks of networked repetition (e.g. desensitization, trivialization, etc.) in order to propose a poetics of repetition to mitigate those dangers. Such poetics ultimately distinguishes the witness from the spectator

Representative Defendants

Everyone except the defendant in a criminal proceeding somehow represents the people. Prosecutors, judges, and juries are all considered public agents. Defendants in contrast are thought of as parochial, interested in nothing more than saving their own skins. This broadly shared understanding of criminal court actors was not historically fated nor is it legally accurate today. The Constitution tasks criminal defendants with significant public responsibility. They frequently represent the interests of third parties who have no direct stake in defendants\u27 criminal cases. Defendants vindicate the participatory rights of excluded jurors, they deter unconstitutional searches and seizures that could harm innocent civilians in the future, and they help ensure the transparent and expeditious functioning of the criminal justice system for the public\u27s benefit. Neither courts nor commentators recognize these representative actions as part of a coherent account of defendants\u27 role in the legal system. But representative defendants serve some of the same functions that representative plaintiffs do in the civil setting: overcoming information deficits, low-dollar-value harms, and resource scarcity, all of which make it unlikely that individual harm bearers will seek recourse in court. Courts, commentators, and the public should be clear-eyed about the role defendants play in our legal system. Doing so would help modulate criminal justice policy and enable defense counsel to more effectively challenge the systematic, third-party harms that criminal justice institutions generate

Chronic kidney disease and arrhythmias: conclusions from a Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Controversies Conference.

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are predisposed to heart rhythm disorders, including atrial fibrillation (AF)/atrial flutter, supraventricular tachycardias, ventricular arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death (SCD). While treatment options, including drug, device, and procedural therapies, are available, their use in the setting of CKD is complex and limited. Patients with CKD and end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) have historically been under-represented or excluded from randomized trials of arrhythmia treatment strategies,1 although this situation is changing.2 Cardiovascular society consensus documents have recently identified evidence gaps for treating patients with CKD and heart rhythm disorders [...

Stereotactic Radiosurgery Practice Patterns for Brain Metastases in the United States: A National Survey

Background: Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has emerged as an important modality for the treatment of intracranial metastases. There are currently few established guidelines delineating indications for SRS use and fewer still regarding plan evaluation in the treat- ment of multiple brain metastases. Methods: An 18 question electronic survey was distributed to radiation oncologists at National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated cancer centers in the US (60). Centers without radiation oncologists were excluded. Physicians who indicated that they do not prescribe SRS were excluded from the remaining survey questions. Sign test and Chi-square test were used to determine if responses differed significantly from random distribution. Results: 116 of the 697 radiation oncologists surveyed completed the questionnaire, representing 51 institutions. 62% reported treating patients with brain metastases using SRS. Radiation oncologists prescribing SRS most commonly treat CNS (66.2%) and lung (49.3%) malignancies. SRS was used more frequently for \u3c10 brain metastases (73.7%; p\u3c.0001) and whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) for \u3e10 brain metastases (82.5%; p\u3c.0001). The maximum number of lesions physicians were willing to treat with SRS without WBRT was 1-4 (40.4%) and 5-10 (42.4%) (p\u3c.0001 compared to 11-15, 16-20 and no limit). The most important criteria for choosing SRS or WBRT were number of lesions (p\u3c.0001) and performance status (p=.016). The most common margin for SRS was 0 mm (49.1%; p=.0021). The most common dose constraints other than critical structure was conformity index (84.2%) and brain V12 (61.4%). The LINAC was the most common treatment modality (54.4%) and mono-isocenter technique for multiple brain metastases was commonly used (43.9%; p=.23). Most departments do not have a policy for brain metastases treatment (64.9%; p=.024). Conclusions: This is one of the first national surveys assessing the use of SRS for brain metastases in clinical practice. These data highlight some clinical considerations for physicians treating brain metastases with SRS. Summary: This is among the first national surveys to assess the use of SRS for brain metastases in clinical practice. Specifically, radiation oncologist reported increasingly using SRS instead of WBRT for treating \u3c10 metastases, with the LINAC being the most common modality. Further, treatment parameters considered the most important included 0 mm margins, conformity index, brain V12, and mono- isocenter technique for multiple brain metastases. These results may provide context regarding the use of SRS for brain metastases in clinical practice

Widening Participation in Golf: Barriers to Participation and GolfMark

This research was commissioned by the EGU and R&A in 2010. The aims of the research project were threefold: 1) To review the academic literature on barriers to participation in sport, especially golf; 2) To survey clubs, members and nomadic golfers to describe their perceptions of GolfMark and the issues it intends to address; 3) To gather in-depth data from a range of golf clubs to help understand how different club cultures may lead to the exclusion of underrepresented demographic groups

Shifting conceptions of social (in)justice in Nepal

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and situate the changing discourses of social (in)justice in the context of political transition and restructuring process that Nepal has gone through since 2006. This paper discusses the origin and development of the discourse and analyses how its meaning has changed over time. As the paper argues, the earlier discourses of social justice in Nepal can be linked to the Hindu and Buddhist notion of dharma and various other ethnic cultural traditions. After Janandolan-I in 1990, the policy and practice of social justice began to be equated with the principle of equality, which was based on the assumptions of sameness. After Janandolan-II in 2006, the public conception of social justice has shifted towards a more vocal emphasis on social equity, inclusiveness, proportionate representation and participatory decision-making. The article provides empirical manifestations of social injustices in Nepal, linking them with various discourses and traditions of justice in the early and modern historical, socio-cultural and political contexts. It is hoped that a thorough understanding of historical shifting of public conceptions of social (in)justice in Nepal will be useful in guiding the country’s future public policies towards inclusive restructuring and equitable development

Fatalism as a Metaphysical Thesis

Even though fatalism has been an intermittent topic of philosophy since Greek antiquity, this paper argues that fate ought to be of little concern to metaphysicians. Fatalism is neither an interesting metaphysical thesis in its own right, nor can it be identified with theses that are, such as realism about the future or determinism