Mind the Gap: unfolding the proximities of the curatorial

The curatorial is a discursive formation that has emerged from critical engagements with curating as a practice of object presentation and a rejection of dominant practices of knowledge formation traditionally associated with the museum. In this article, I argue that the curatorial in fact makes use of the relational potentialities of the museum display, but, in so doing, is in danger of overlooking the critical opportunity disavowed by traditional museology that lies at the heart of the museum: the irreducible gaps of the exhibitionary encounter. To unfold both the relational power of the museum’s display mechanisms and the ever-presence of distance in moments of exhibitionary proximity, I use an early critique by Mieke Bal of the American Museum of Natural History. Arguing that what Bal makes evident is the impossibility of total coincidence in practices of museum ‘showing’, I turn, in conclusion, to the work of artists Fred Wilson and Jade Montserrat to suggest how the gaps within exhibition display may be (re)practiced

Performing gestures towards the archive: Queer fragments and other ways of mattering

This chapter explores the function of the archival fragment as both evidence of past activity and as persistent materiality in the present. Through a discussion of Trajal Harrell’s Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church (2009–ongoing), the chapter argues that the performed gesture is a particular sort of archival fragment that can transcend causal historical narratives and, in so doing, can unfix subjects from their entrapment in purely evidentiary uses of archives. Building on Vilem Flusser and Giorgio Agamben’s theorisations of the gesture and José Esteban Muñoz’s formulation of queer futurity through his discussion of the gestures of queer club performer Kevin Aviance, it is suggested that the gesture can be a paradigm for the queer potential of the archival fragment. Understood as gestural, it is argued that the archival fragment can be viewed as a piece of material that, because it belongs to the here and now and the then and there, is always enacting a movement that can allow for the simultaneous rethinking of the past-present-future

More than a meeting: Performing the workshop in the art institution

The workshop has become a ubiquitous cultural form within art institutions, used by curators, artists and pedagogues to create opportunities for audiences to do everything from acquiring creative skills to enacting social change. Yet, despite its growing popularity, there is surprisingly little published research exploring the use of the workshop within discourses of curating art and performance. In this article we explore the significance of this turn to the workshop as a special kind of meeting within the art institution. We consider what work the workshop is doing within the context of the art institution and what cultural value systems it shifts, or fails to shift, that have been historically prioritized within those spaces. What does this form of meeting, which promises to be more productive, more open, more useful than an ordinary gathering or talking shop, invoke and bring with it? To answer this question, we draw on Judith Butler’s notion of performativity and Sara Ahmed’s reworking of this notion through the idea of institutional non-performativity, to explore further how the workshop promises, limits and demands forms of action that exceed the mere representation of issues within the art institution. Focusing on an example that both exemplified the trend for art institutions using the workshop as the idealized and politicized performance of public engagement and exceeded the boundaries of sanctioned co-production and performance, ‘Disobedience Makes History: Exploring creative resistance at the boundaries between art and life’ by The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination at Tate Modern in 2010, we argue that the workshop levies a promise for action that, even when non-performatively circumscribed, can lead to performative performance

Primary care blood tests before cancer diagnosis: National Cancer Diagnosis Audit data

Background: Blood tests can support the diagnostic process but how often they are used in cancer patients is unclear. Aim: To explore use of common blood tests before cancer diagnosis in primary care. Design and setting: English National Cancer Diagnosis Audit data on 39,752 cancer patients diagnosed in 2018. Methods: We assessed common blood test use (full blood count (FBC), urea and electrolytes (U&Es), and liver function tests (LFTs)), related variation by patient and symptom group, and associations with the primary care and the diagnostic intervals (PCI, DI). Results: At least one common blood test was used in 41% of cancer patients. Among tested patients, FBC was used in 95%, U&Es in 88% and LFTs in 74%) Blood testing was less common in women (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) vs men: 0.92, 95%CI: 0.87-0.98) and non-white patients (0.89, 0.82-0.97 vs white) and more common in older patients (1.12, 1.06-1.18 for 70+ vs 50-69 years). Test use varied greatly by cancer-site, (melanoma: 2%, leukaemia 84%). Fewer patients presenting with alarm symptoms alone were tested (24%) than those with non-alarm symptoms alone (50%). Median PCI and DI were longer in tested than non-tested patients (PCI: 10 vs 0; DI: 49 vs 32 days, respectively, p<0.001 for both), including among tested patients with alarm symptoms (PCI: 4 vs 0; DI: 41 vs 22). Conclusions: Two-fifths of patients subsequently diagnosed with cancer have primary care blood tests. Given variable test use, research is needed on the clinical context in which blood tests are ordered

Pre-Referral Primary Care Blood Tests and Symptom Presentation before Cancer Diagnosis: National Cancer Diagnosis Audit Data

Background: Blood tests can support the diagnostic process in primary care. Understanding how symptomatic presentations are associated with blood test use in patients subsequently diagnosed with cancer can help to benchmark current practices and guide interventions. Methods: English National Cancer Diagnosis Audit data on 39,751 patients with incident cancer in 2018 were analysed. The frequency of four generic (full blood count, urea and electrolytes, liver function tests, and inflammatory markers) and five organ-specific (cancer biomarkers (PSA or CA125), serum protein electrophoresis, ferritin, bone profile, and amylase) blood tests was described for a total of 83 presenting symptoms. The adjusted analysis explored variation in blood test use by the symptom-positive predictive value (PPV) group. Results: There was a large variation in generic blood test use by presenting symptoms, being higher in patients subsequently diagnosed with cancer who presented with nonspecific symptoms (e.g., fatigue 81% or loss of appetite 79%), and lower in those who presented with alarm symptoms (e.g., breast lump 3% or skin lesion 1%). Serum protein electrophoresis (reflecting suspicion of multiple myeloma) was most frequently used in cancer patients who presented with back pain (18%), and amylase measurement (reflecting suspicion of pancreatic cancer) was used in those who presented with upper abdominal pain (14%). Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) use was greatest in men with cancer who presented with lower urinary tract symptoms (88%), and CA125 in women with cancer who presented with abdominal distention (53%). Symptoms with PPV values between 2.00–2.99% were associated with greater test use (64%) compared with 52% and 51% in symptoms with PPVs in the 0.01–0.99 or 1.00–1.99% range and compared with 42% and 31% in symptoms with PPVs in either the 3.00–4.99 or ≥5% range (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Generic blood test use reflects the PPV of presenting symptoms, and the use of organ-specific tests is greater in patients with symptomatic presentations with known associations with certain cancer sites. There are opportunities for greater blood test use in patients presenting with symptoms that do not meet referral thresholds (i.e., <3% PPV for cancer) where information gain to support referral decisions is likely greatest. The findings benchmark blood test use in cancer patients, highlighting opportunities for increasing use

Bacterial mechanosensitive channels: models for studying mechanosensory transduction

Significance: Sensations of touch and hearing are manifestations of mechanical contact and air pressure acting on touch receptors and hair cells of the inner ear, respectively. In bacteria, osmotic pressure exerts a significant mechanical force on their cellular membrane. Bacteria have evolved mechanosensitive (MS) channels to cope with excessive turgor pressure resulting from a hypo-osmotic shock. MS channel opening allows the expulsion of osmolytes and water, thereby restoring normal cellular turgor and preventing cell lysis. Recent Advances: As biological force-sensing systems, MS channels have been identified as the best examples of membrane proteins coupling molecular dynamics to cellular mechanics. The bacterial MS channel of large conductance (MscL) and MS channel of small conductance (MscS) have been subjected to extensive biophysical, biochemical, genetic, and structural analyses. These studies have established MscL and MscS as model systems for mechanosensory transduction. Critical Issues: In recent years, MS ion channels in mammalian cells have moved into focus of mechanotransduction research, accompanied by an increased awareness of the role they may play in the pathophysiology of diseases, including cardiac hypertrophy, muscular dystrophy, or Xerocytosis. Future Directions: A recent exciting development includes the molecular identification of Piezo proteins, which function as nonselective cation channels in mechanosensory transduction associated with senses of touch and pain. Since research on Piezo channels is very young, applying lessons learned from studies of bacterial MS channels to establishing the mechanism by which the Piezo channels are mechanically activated remains one of the future challenges toward a better understanding of the role that MS channels play in mechanobiology

The ATLAS trigger - high-level trigger commissioning and operation during early data taking

The ATLAS experiment is one of the two general-purpose experiments due to start operation soon at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC will collide protons at a centre of mass energy of 14~TeV, with a bunch-crossing rate of 40~MHz. The ATLAS three-level trigger will reduce this input rate to match the foreseen offline storage capability of 100-200~Hz. This paper gives an overview of the ATLAS High Level Trigger focusing on the system design and its innovative features. We then present the ATLAS trigger strategy for the initial phase of LHC exploitation. Finally, we report on the valuable experience acquired through in-situ commissioning of the system where simulated events were used to exercise the trigger chain. In particular we show critical quantities such as event processing times, measured in a large-scale HLT farm using a complex trigger menu

The ATLAS Trigger/DAQ Authorlist, version 1.0

This is a reference document giving the ATLAS Trigger/DAQ author list, version 1.0 of 20 Nov 2008

Home and Online Management and Evaluation of Blood Pressure (HOME BP) using a digital intervention in poorly controlled hypertension: randomised controlled trial

Objective: The HOME BP (Home and Online Management and Evaluation of Blood Pressure) trial aimed to test a digital intervention for hypertension management in primary care by combining self-monitoring of blood pressure with guided self-management. Design: Unmasked randomised controlled trial with automated ascertainment of primary endpoint. Setting: 76 general practices in the United Kingdom. Participants: 622 people with treated but poorly controlled hypertension (>140/90 mm Hg) and access to the internet. Interventions: Participants were randomised by using a minimisation algorithm to self-monitoring of blood pressure with a digital intervention (305 participants) or usual care (routine hypertension care, with appointments and drug changes made at the discretion of the general practitioner; 317 participants). The digital intervention provided feedback of blood pressure results to patients and professionals with optional lifestyle advice and motivational support. Target blood pressure for hypertension, diabetes, and people aged 80 or older followed UK national guidelines. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was the difference in systolic blood pressure (mean of second and third readings) after one year, adjusted for baseline blood pressure, blood pressure target, age, and practice, with multiple imputation for missing values. Results: After one year, data were available from 552 participants (88.6%) with imputation for the remaining 70 participants (11.4%). Mean blood pressure dropped from 151.7/86.4 to 138.4/80.2 mm Hg in the intervention group and from 151.6/85.3 to 141.8/79.8 mm Hg in the usual care group, giving a mean difference in systolic blood pressure of −3.4 mm Hg (95% confidence interval −6.1 to −0.8 mm Hg) and a mean difference in diastolic blood pressure of −0.5 mm Hg (−1.9 to 0.9 mm Hg). Results were comparable in the complete case analysis and adverse effects were similar between groups. Within trial costs showed an incremental cost effectiveness ratio of £11 ($15, €12; 95% confidence interval £6 to £29) per mm Hg reduction. Conclusions: The HOME BP digital intervention for the management of hypertension by using self-monitored blood pressure led to better control of systolic blood pressure after one year than usual care, with low incremental costs. Implementation in primary care will require integration into clinical workflows and consideration of people who are digitally excluded. Trial registration: ISRCTN13790648