“A New Enlightenment”, or: Cosmopolitan Memory Yet Again.

Das Buch Memory and Forgetting in the Post-Holocaust Era: The Ethics of Never Again trägt zur globalen und transnationalen Wende in der kulturellen Erinnerungsforschung bei. Baer und Sznaider stellen Fallstudien zur Rolle der Erinnerung in der Demokratisierung dreier posttotalitarischen Gesellschaften vor. Die empirischen Kapitel zu Argentinien, Spanien und Osteuropa sind von einem Essay zur „ethics of Never Again“ und der „sociology of hope“ flankiert. Einerseits betrachten die Autoren die Erinnerung an den Holocaust als ein universelles Fundament zur Stärkung der Menschenrechte; andererseits versuchen sie die komplexen Beziehungen zu partikularen, oft nationalen, Opfererinnerungen zu konzeptualisieren. Gleichwohl wenig zugänglich für Leser, denen die Debatten zum kosmopolitischen Gedächtnis unbekannt sind, können die essayistischen Teile des Buches für vorab Gebildete Anreize zur kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit den Verflechtungen von Erinnerung, Geschichte, Ethik und dem Globalen bieten.Baer and Sznaider’s volume Memory and Forgetting in the Post-Holocaust Era: The Ethics of Never Again furthers memory studies’ global and transnational turn. Its three case studies of post-dictatorial societies focus on memory’s role in democratic transition in Argentina, Spain, and Eastern Europe. These chapters come between broader essays on the “ethics of Never Again” and “sociology of hope”. The authors present Holocaust memory as the universal foundation of human rights, while exploring its complex entanglements with particular, often nationally-bound, memories of victimhood. Unlikely to appeal to readers unfamiliar with debates over cosmopolitan memory, the book’s essayistic elements could stimulate further critical discussion on relations of memory, history, ethics, and the global among the informed

Whose data set is it anyway? Sharing raw data from randomized trials

BACKGROUND: Sharing of raw research data is common in many areas of medical research, genomics being perhaps the most well-known example. In the clinical trial community investigators routinely refuse to share raw data from a randomized trial without giving a reason. DISCUSSION: Data sharing benefits numerous research-related activities: reproducing analyses; testing secondary hypotheses; developing and evaluating novel statistical methods; teaching; aiding design of future trials; meta-analysis; and, possibly, preventing error, fraud and selective reporting. Clinical trialists, however, sometimes appear overly concerned with being scooped and with misrepresentation of their work. Both possibilities can be avoided with simple measures such as inclusion of the original trialists as co-authors on any publication resulting from data sharing. Moreover, if we treat any data set as belonging to the patients who comprise it, rather than the investigators, such concerns fall away. CONCLUSION: Technological developments, particularly the Internet, have made data sharing generally a trivial logistical problem. Data sharing should come to be seen as an inherent part of conducting a randomized trial, similar to the way in which we consider ethical review and publication of study results. Journals and funding bodies should insist that trialists make raw data available, for example, by publishing data on the Web. If the clinical trial community continues to fail with respect to data sharing, we will only strengthen the public perception that we do clinical trials to benefit ourselves, not our patients

Asteroid mega-impacts and Precambrian banded iron formations: 2.63 Ga and 2.56 Ga impact ejecta/fallout at the base of BIF/argillite units, Hamersley Basin, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia

The temporal association between late Archaean to earliest Proterozoic asteroid impact ejecta/fallout units and overlying banded iron formations suggests that, in some instances, these impacts were closely followed by significant transformation in the nature of source terrains of the sediments. The Jeerinah Impact Layer (JIL) [B.M. Simonson, D. Davies, S.W. Hassler, Discovery of a layer of probable impact melt spherules in the late Archean Jeerinah Formation, Fortescue Group, Western Australia. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 47 (2000) 315-325; B.M. Simonson, S.W. Hassler, Revised correlations in the early Precambrian Hamersley Basin based on a horizon of resedimented impact spherules. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 44 (1997) 37-48; B.M. Simonson, B.P. Glass, Spherule layers - records of ancient impacts. Ann. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 32 (2004) 329-361; A.Y. Glikson, Early Precambrian asteroid impact-triggered tsunami: excavated seabed, debris flows, exotic boulders, and turbulence features associated with 3.47-2.47 Ga-old asteroid impact fallout units, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Astrobiology 4 (2001) 19-50; S.W. Hassler, B.M. Simonson, D.Y. Sumner, D. Murphy, Neoarchaean impact spherule layers in the Fortescue and Hamersley Groups, Western Australia: stratigraphic and depositional implications of re-correlation. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 52 (2005) 759-772; B. Rasmussen, C. Koeberl, Iridium anomalies and shocked quartz in a late Archean spherule layer from the Pilbara Craton: new evidence for a major asteroid impact at 2.63 Ga. Geology 32 (2004) 1029-1032; B. Rasmussen, T.S. Blake, I.R. Fletcher, U-Pb zircon age constraints on the Hamersley spherule beds: Evidence for a single 2.63 Ga Jeerinah-Carawine impact ejecta layer. Geology, 33 (2005) 725-728.] overlies an argillite-dominated unit (Jeerinah Formation, 2684 ± 6 Ma [A.F. Trendall, W. Compston, D.R. Nelson, J.R. deLaeter, V.C. Bennett, SHRIMP zircon ages constraining the depositional chronology of the Hamersley Group, Western Australia. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 51 (2004) 621-644.]) and lies directly below a thin volcanic tuff (2629 ± 5 Ma, [A.F. Trendall, W. Compston, D.R. Nelson, J.R. deLaeter, V.C. Bennett, SHRIMP zircon ages constraining the depositional chronology of the Hamersley Group, Western Australia. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 51 (2004) 621-644.]) and banded iron formation (BIF) (upper part of Marra Mamba Iron Formation, 2597 ± 5 Ma [A.F. Trendall, W. Compston, D.R. Nelson, J.R. deLaeter, V.C. Bennett, SHRIMP zircon ages constraining the depositional chronology of the Hamersley Group, Western Australia. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 51 (2004) 621-644.]). The Spherule Marker Bed (SMB) [B.M. Simonson, Geological evidence for an early Precambrian microtektite strewn field in the Hamersley Basin of Western Australia. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 104 (1992) 829-839; B.M. Simonson, S.W. Hassler, K.A. Schubel, Lithology and proposed revisions in stratigraphic nomenclature of the Wittenoom Formation (Dolomite) and overlying formations, Hamersley Group, Western Australia. Geol. Surv. W. Aust. Rep. 345 (1993) 65-79; S.W. Hassler, B.M. Simonson, D.Y. Sumner, D. Murphy, Neoarchaean impact spherule layers in the Fortescue and Hamersley Groups, Western Australia: stratigraphic and depositional implications of re-correlation. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 52 (2005) 759-772. [5]], which includes two impact cycles [A.Y. Glikson, Early Precambrian asteroid impact-triggered tsunami: excavated seabed, debris flows, exotic boulders, and turbulence features associated with 3.47-2.47 Ga-old asteroid impact fallout units, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Astrobiology 4 (2001) 19-50.], is located at the top of a carbonate/calcareous siltstone-dominated sequence (Bee Gorge Member, Wittenoom Formation, 2565 ± 9 Ma [A.F. Trendall, W. Compston, D.R. Nelson, J.R. deLaeter, V.C. Bennett, SHRIMP zircon ages constraining the depositional chronology of the Hamersley Group, Western Australia. Aust. J. Earth Sci. 51 (2004) 621-644.]) and below a carbonate-poor siltstone-chert-BIF sequence (Mount Sylvia Formation, Bruno's Band [BIF], Mount McRae Shale, 2504 ± 5 Ma [B. Rasmussen, T.S. Blake, I.R. Fletcher, U-Pb zircon age constraints on the Hamersley spherule beds: Evidence for a single 2.63 Ga Jeerinah-Carawine impact ejecta layer. Geology, 33 (2005) 725-728.]). No ferruginous sediments overlie impact layers hosted by stromatolitic carbonates (< 2.63 Ga microkrystite spherule-bearing Carawine mega-breccia, east Hamersley Basin; ∼ 2.6-2.65 Ga Monteville impact layer; 2567 Ma Reivilo Formation, west Griqualand Basin, Transvaal) - a lack possibly attributable to enclosed oxygenated high-pH reef environment. Barring a possible presence of undocumented hiatuses between the impact layers and directly overlying units, and within the accuracy limits of U-Pb zircon age data, it follows that the JIL and SMB mega-impacts were succeeded by enhanced supply of ferruginous and clastic materials. The location of 5 out of 8 Archaean to earliest Proterozoic impact fallout/ejecta units below iron-rich sediments [A.Y. Glikson, Asteroid impact ejecta units overlain by iron-rich sediments in 3.5-2.4 Ga terrains, Pilbara and Kaapvaal cratons: Accidental or cause-effect relationships? Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 246 (2006) 149-160.], including 3.47 Ga, 3.26 Ga, 3.24 Ga, 2.63 Ga and 2.56 Ga units, unless accidental, suggests enrichment of sea water in soluble ferrous iron, possibly derived from impact-triggered mafic volcanic and hydrothermal activity. The scarcity of shocked quartz grains in the ejecta suggests impacts occurred in oceanic regions of the late Archaean Earth [A.Y. Glikson, Early Precambrian asteroid impact-triggered tsunami: excavated seabed, debris flows, exotic boulders, and turbulence features associated with 3.47-2.47 Ga-old asteroid impact fallout units, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Astrobiology 4 (2001) 19-50; A.Y. Glikson, Oceanic mega-impacts and crustal evolution, Geology 27 (1999) 341-387; B.M. Simonson, D. Davies, M. Wallace, S. Reeves, S.W. Hassler, Iridium anomaly but no shocked quartz from late Archean microkrystite layer: oceanic impact ejecta? Geology 26 (1998) 195-198.]. Should further examples of sedimentary facies changes associated with large impact events be identified, the impact factor will need to be taken into account in accounting for the crustal transformations during the transition from the end-Archaean to the earliest Proterozoic

Systematic reviews of complementary therapies – an annotated bibliography. Part 3: Homeopathy

Background Complementary therapies are widespread but controversial. We aim to provide a comprehensive collection and a summary of systematic reviews of clinical trials in three major complementary therapies (acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy). This article is dealing with homeopathy. Potentially relevant reviews were searched through the register of the Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field, the Cochrane Library, Medline, and bibliographies of articles and books. To be included articles had to review prospective clinical trials of homeopathy; had to describe review methods explicitly; had to be published; and had to focus on treatment effects. Information on conditions, interventions, methods, results and conclusions was extracted using a pretested form and summarized descriptively. Results Eighteen out of 22 potentially relevant reviews preselected in the screening process met the inclusion criteria. Six reviews addressed the question whether homeopathy is effective across conditions and interventions. The majority of available trials seem to report positive results but the evidence is not convincing. For isopathic nosodes for allergic conditions, oscillococcinum for influenza-like syndromes and galphimia for pollinosis the evidence is promising while in other areas reviewed the results are equivocal. Interpretation Reviews on homeopathy often address general questions. While the evidence is promising for some topics the findings of the available reviews are unlikely to end the controversy on this therapy

Empirical Study of Data Sharing by Authors Publishing in PLoS Journals

Many journals now require authors share their data with other investigators, either by depositing the data in a public repository or making it freely available upon request. These policies are explicit, but remain largely untested. We sought to determine how well authors comply with such policies by requesting data from authors who had published in one of two journals with clear data sharing policies.We requested data from ten investigators who had published in either PLoS Medicine or PLoS Clinical Trials. All responses were carefully documented. In the event that we were refused data, we reminded authors of the journal's data sharing guidelines. If we did not receive a response to our initial request, a second request was made. Following the ten requests for raw data, three investigators did not respond, four authors responded and refused to share their data, two email addresses were no longer valid, and one author requested further details. A reminder of PLoS's explicit requirement that authors share data did not change the reply from the four authors who initially refused. Only one author sent an original data set.We received only one of ten raw data sets requested. This suggests that journal policies requiring data sharing do not lead to authors making their data sets available to independent investigators

Improve the Understanding of Uncertainties in Numerical Analysis of Moored Floating Wave Energy Converters

The wave energy industry, still in its infancy compared to similar activities offshore, must look to the oil and gas industry for guide lines on design criteria for survival, safety and operational optimisation for installations at sea. Numerical analysis tools for prediction of the response of floating moored structures have become an important part of the design task for the offshore industry offering a low cost and low risk option compared to scale tank testing. However, rather than having only a task of station keeping and survival, the moorings for a wave energy converters (WECs) would also be required to provide the ability of not adversely affecting the power capture task. The main aim of this work is to gain an understanding and reduce the uncertainties in the numerical modelling of WECs. Experimental work designed and performed under the HydraLab III project of which the author was a member were used to evaluate the response characteristics of a 1:20 scale “generic WEC” device with a 3 point mooring system. The investigation was enhanced through further tests implemented by the author at Heriot-Watt wave tank using a single WEC device. The outcomes from these experiments were used to aid in the implementation of the aim identified above. Two numerical model categories were set up to understand the uncertainties apparent to the mooring simulations. The first category included only the calculation of the mooring line response using experimental data to inform the motion of the floating body. The second category included the motion response of the floating body coupling the complex behaviour to the moored system. The mooring tension results for the first category shows an error between the numerical prediction and the experimental results up to 16 times that of the experimental value. This was mainly during slack conditions where the mooring line tension was lower than the pretension in the line at still water. During the higher tension events the average error was 26%. For the second category it was found that the numerical predictions of the WEC motion response in six degree of freedom (6DOF) were generally over predicted. The tension predictions for the coupled simulations identified an error of between 1.4 and 4.5%. The work presented here contributed to the understanding of uncertainties in numerical simu- lations for WEC mooring designs. The disparity between the simulation and experimental results re-enforced the requirement for a better understanding of highly dynamic responding moored cou- pled systems. From this work it is clear that the numerical models used to approximate the response of moored WECs could provide a good first design step. Whilst this work contributed to the understanding of uncertainties and consequently reduced some of these, further work is rec- ommended in chapter 6 to investigate the definition of some of the mechanical and hydrodynamic properties of the mooring line. It is also suggested that external functions should be included 2 that would allow to model the coupled effect of Power-Take-Off (PTO) system. It is intended to conduct future work deriving a fully dynamic mooring simulation including the effects of PTO

A regret theory approach to decision curve analysis: A novel method for eliciting decision makers' preferences and decision-making

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Decision curve analysis (DCA) has been proposed as an alternative method for evaluation of diagnostic tests, prediction models, and molecular markers. However, DCA is based on expected utility theory, which has been routinely violated by decision makers. Decision-making is governed by intuition (system 1), and analytical, deliberative process (system 2), thus, rational decision-making should reflect both formal principles of rationality and intuition about good decisions. We use the cognitive emotion of regret to serve as a link between systems 1 and 2 and to reformulate DCA.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>First, we analysed a classic decision tree describing three decision alternatives: treat, do not treat, and treat or no treat based on a predictive model. We then computed the expected regret for each of these alternatives as the difference between the utility of the action taken and the utility of the action that, in retrospect, should have been taken. For any pair of strategies, we measure the difference in net expected regret. Finally, we employ the concept of acceptable regret to identify the circumstances under which a potentially wrong strategy is tolerable to a decision-maker.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed a novel dual visual analog scale to describe the relationship between regret associated with "omissions" (e.g. failure to treat) vs. "commissions" (e.g. treating unnecessary) and decision maker's preferences as expressed in terms of threshold probability. We then proved that the Net Expected Regret Difference, first presented in this paper, is equivalent to net benefits as described in the original DCA. Based on the concept of acceptable regret we identified the circumstances under which a decision maker tolerates a potentially wrong decision and expressed it in terms of probability of disease.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We present a novel method for eliciting decision maker's preferences and an alternative derivation of DCA based on regret theory. Our approach may be intuitively more appealing to a decision-maker, particularly in those clinical situations when the best management option is the one associated with the least amount of regret (e.g. diagnosis and treatment of advanced cancer, etc).</p

Data and programming code from the studies on the learning curve for radical prostatectomy

Our group analyzed a multi-institutional data set to address the question of how the outcomes of surgery for prostate cancer are affected by surgeon-specific factors. The cohort consists of 9076 patients treated by open radical prostatectomy at one of four US academic institutions 1987 - 2003. The primary analyses focused on 7765 patients without neoadjuvant therapy. The most well-known finding is that of a surgical "learning curve", with rates of prostate cancer cure strongly dependent on surgeon experience. In this "data note", we provide the raw data set, as well as well-annotated programming code for the main analyses. Data include markers of cancer severity (stage, grade and prostate-specific antigen level), cancer outcome, and surgeon variables such as training and experience

Peasants, professors, publishers and censorship: memoirs of rural inhabitants of Poland’s recovered territories (1945-c.1970)

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of memoir competitions in communist-era Poland, focusing on contributions to them by Poles of rural origins inhabiting the lands – known as the Recovered Territories – acquired by the postwar Polish state from Germany in 1945. I explore the history of the memoir method in postwar Poland, the processes involved in producing published volumes of competition memoirs – including editing and censorship, and the use of these sources in communist-era and post-1989 sociological, historiographical and interdisciplinary studies. I focus on existing research both on the Recovered Territories, particularly Polish settlement of those lands and the development of new communities there, and also on postwar peasants’ lives, particularly where theories of social advance are applied. In this respect, this investigation adds to existing literature in social history on early postwar Poland. My study also contributes to work in censorship studies by considering Polish censors’ approach to quite exceptional sources. Because in many cases original competition entries are available, it is possible to establish where editors, publishers and censors have intervened, something that is rarely possible with standard works of literature or academic scholarship produced under communism. I consider what strategies different scholars used in presenting published sources and circumventing restrictions imposed. Subaltern studies approaches to speaking and its critique of nation-centred historiography are, meanwhile, applied in investigating the intersection of peasant autobiographies, academic research, scholars and Party-state institutions and their discourses, as I consider how the published communist-era compilations of competition entries framed peasant writing, experience, culture and consciousness, and how these frames potentially conflicted with the authors’ own interpretations of their experiences and social reality. This investigation also contributes to memory studies, a discipline whose approach to communist and totalitarian states is particularly problematic as many studies assume significant restrictions were imposed not only on publication but also on autobiographical memory expressed in usually unrecorded private and local spheres. I explore whether memory studies’ typical approach, based in notions of competing claims might also apply to Poland under state socialism. Bakhtin’s theories of dialogism prove useful in exploring the history of memory under communism, rather than the memory of it – as is commonplace today in oral history-based studies, for example. It is in respect of censorship studies and memory studies that this thesis makes its most substantial original contributions to research. My research draws on substantial archival research conducted in Poland, where I explored censorship archives in Warsaw and Poznań, Party and ministerial archives, and the Polish Academy of Science archive, since numerous memoir sociologists and rural sociologists were based there. I also used archives housing original competition entries, the main locations being: The Institute of Western Affairs in Poznań (Instytut Zachodni – IZ), the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Science (Instytut Historyczny PAN – IH PAN) and the Museum of the History of the Polish Peasant Movement (MHRPL in Piaseczno, near Tczew). I consider published volumes alongside original sources where possible, although substantial losses have occurred to the store of popular autobiography. Chapter 1 outlines the background of Polish memoir sociology and the main methods and theories used in this investigation, ranging from subaltern studies through Bakhtin to autobiography studies. Chapter 2 focuses on memory studies, including the field’s approach to communist and postcommunist countries, before outlining aspects of censorship studies relevant to this investigation. I end Chapter 2 on a case study of the memoir compilation Miesiąc mojego życia [A Month in my Life – MMŻ; (1964)] and its treatment by censors. Chapter 3 explores recent English- and Polish-language historiography on the Recovered Territories, concentrating on, firstly, how historians have used the memoir resources in considering the early postwar years, and, secondly, how peasants are represented within the recent wave of works exploring Polish communism through nationalism and popular legitimation. I end on a case study of one particular memoir by a female settler to the new Polish lands, highlighting the value of the competition entries as thick descriptions. Chapter 4 investigates the mainstream communist-era memoir movement where the leading analytical concept for approaching peasants and social change was ‘social advance’, developed from Józef Chałasiński’s prewar sociology. I explore how the nine-volume series Młode pokolenie wsi Polski Ludowej [The Young Generation of Rural People’s Poland – MPWPL; (1964-1980)] and other memoir-based studies approached peasants and the Recovered Territories, which were often framed as a site of quicker and more intensive social advance and urbanisation. I also explore the autobiographies of Poles who lost their homelands in the prewar eastern borderlands in the context of today’s assumptions that ‘repatriants’, as the eastern Poles were known under communism, were largely absent from communist-era publications. 4 Chapter 5 considers the academic sociology of the Western Territories, developed at IZ, and how materials from its 1956/57 memoir competition on settlers were used alongside fieldwork. I explore the sociological frameworks developed for analysing migration, settlement and community development, noting that some studies from the 1960s can today be considered forerunners of migration studies and memory studies. Chapter 6 specifically considers the publication Pamiętniki osadników Ziem Odzyskanych [Memoirs of Recovered Territories Settlers – POZO; (1963)], investigating original entries alongside published materials to explore editors’ and academics’ role in censorship, while also investigating how the volume was received in the press. Chapter 7 explores the production of the four-volume series Wieś polska 1939-1948 [Rural Poland 1939-1948; (1967-1971)] by historian-editors Krystyna Kersten and Tomasz Szarota, who treated these previously-unpublished texts written in 1948 explicitly as historical sources, thus contrasting with previously dominant sociological approaches while also posing specific problems for censors as the editors employed a unique method of summaries in an attempt to make the entire set of some 1700 texts available to readers. Exploring different approaches to memoir publication, I aim to illustrate the diversity of the published sphere in People’s Poland, while demonstrating the heterogeneity of ordinary Poles’ memories submitted to different competitions between 1948 and 1970. While the value of the archived sources should be quite evident, exploration of censorship and editing processes should demonstrate the value of compilations and indeed communist-era scholarship, which is often overlooked today. By avoiding totalitarian schools of historiography and memory studies, I aim to demonstrate that competition memoirs illustrated ordinary Poles’ agency within historical and social processes, while also stressing their agency over their memories and autobiographical narratives which at the same time were, as in any society, cultural and social constructs