Shifting vantage, common musings: the politics of Wordsworthian excursus in the poetry of Peter Riley

This article reads the poetry of Peter Riley in the tradition of the loco-descriptive excursion poem, interrogating the politics of its logic of ascent and return and the shifting vantage points it allows the twentieth- and twenty-first century poet-traveller on the globalised world of capitalist ‘gain’. It detects dual registers running throughout three excursive volumes – Noon Province (1989), The Llyn Writings (2007) and The Glacial Stairway (2011) – that turn around an ambivalent lexicon that is both spiritual and financial. The article shows how this duality maps onto the self-splitting of Romantic excursus in William Wordsworth and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and argues that such division allows Riley to mediate between spiritual dedication to the excursion’s object and the tainted ‘world’ of commerce and bodily needs. It concludes by deploying Peter Larkin’s concepts of sufficiency and scarcity to frame Riley’s repeated use of dropping, cadential structures at the excursion’s end as a return to what Larkin calls the ‘basic conditions’ of the ordinary, common world. Bathos, withdrawal and coda are rhetorical figures for the abandonment of vantage in favour of a politics of what will suffice: their deployment circumvents the trajectory of accumulative gain that Riley employs the excursion to critique

‘The judgement is not made now; the judgement will be made in the future’: ‘politically motivated’ defence lawyers and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda”s ‘historical record’.

No description supplie

from \u27Forced Fingers\u27

Poetry by Dan Eltringha

The Last Cigarette

Anthropocene Poetics: Deep Time, Sacrifice Zones, and Extinction by David Farrier. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2019. Pp. 184. $92 cloth,$23 paper

Service user reflections on the impact of involvement in research

Background : Reports about the impact of patient and public involvement in research can be improved by involving patients and research staff more collaboratively to co-produce instruments to measure their involvement. This commentary, written by two members of a hospital-based patient panel and their coordinator for its work, describes how we co-produced instruments to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of our involvement. We present here the results, including our quantitative and qualitative findings, of this patient led evaluation and reflect on how our involvement has made a difference to the research projects and research infrastructure within the hospital in which we operate and on us as a panel. Methods : Existing impact frameworks and guidelines were reviewed. Members co-produced and piloted qualitative questionnaires to identify values associated with patient and public involvement (PPI) from both a researcher and panel member perspective, and collected quantitative metrics to provide descriptive statistics on the type of involvement and activities. Members also produced a comments slip to provide contemporaneous feedback after each meeting. Results : The panel has reviewed 36 research projects for the Therapeutics and Palliative Care Directorate drawn from speech and language therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, podiatry, palliative care services and chaplaincy. Some of the main results of our involvement have been the development of grant applications and making written information more understandable for research participants. Examples of how the Panel made a difference included providing an effective forum for debate by providing practical suggestions to improve research design and identifying potential issues that may not have occurred to the researcher. The panel has had an impact outside of meetings both within the context in which it operates and on the individuals involved. Examples included: influencing the Directorate research agenda, sharing resources with other groups, developing research relationships, and enabling member participation in different roles and settings. Discussion : Embedding ourselves within the Directorate research infrastructure has enabled us to adapt to organisational change and actively contribute to the research strategy. There is greater scope for involvement in areas of cost effectiveness and economic evaluation. Increasing member contributions and networking with other groups provides added value as well as cross fertilisation of ideas as part of our widening impact. Conclusion : Evaluating the impact of our involvement has improved our understanding of what aspects of involvement work best for the panel and the researchers who attend our meetings, and in the different settings that we work in. It has helped us to focus on how we need to develop to maximise our resources going forward

‘When we walk out, what was it all about?’: Views on new beginnings from within the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

The 1994 United Nations Security Council resolution which created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) foresaw it marking a ‘new beginning’, both locally (peace and reconciliation in Rwanda) and globally (strengthening the project of international criminal justice). Over time, those who spoke on behalf of the ICTR highlighted the strictly quantifiable (number of arrests, convictions) and the contributions to the global ‘new beginning’ for international criminal justice. Ethnographic fieldwork at the ICTR, however, revealed that lawyers and judges, enmeshed in the Tribunal's institutional order, held diverse views regarding local and global efficacy, refracted through the sense of power(lessness) that accompanied their respective institutional locations. Focusing on the attitude of judges and lawyers to the lack of indictments for members of the Rwandan Patriotic Army for alleged massacres in 1994 and accusations of ‘victor's justice’, this article distinguishes between the ICTR as a disembodied institution that did or did not mark local or global ‘new beginnings’, and the ICTR as a collection of situated persons negotiating their simultaneous empowerment and disempowerment

Momentum on the JSE: the influence of size and liquidity

Thesis (M.Com. (Finance)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2014.This study investigates the buy-and-hold returns to intermediate-term ‘zero investment’ momentum strategies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, using both equally-weighted and value-weighted portfolios. The results indicate that there is little evidence to support the prevalence of intermediate-term ‘pure’ price momentum in South Africa using ‘zero investment’ strategies. Furthermore, this study examines the influence of size and liquidity on momentum returns. Compared to ‘pure’ price ‘zero investment’ momentum strategies, this study finds stronger return continuation for ‘zero investment’ strategies among medium and large capitalisation stocks, as well as the most liquid stocks. Moreover, a detailed analysis into the loser and winner portfolios that constitute the ‘zero investment’ portfolio, reveals that, if one is open to abandoning the traditional ‘zero investment’ approach, the returns to size-sorted momentum strategies may be significantly enhanced by taking a long position in the small-size winner portfolio, and the returns to liquidity-sorted momentum strategies can likewise be enhanced by taking a long position in the high-volume winner portfolio

How does variation in assessment and management of dysphagia in acute stroke affect the development of stroke-associated pneumonia (SAP)?

Background: Patients with dysphagia are at increased risk of stroke-associated pneumonia (SAP). Preventing SAP is therefore one of the key challenges of stroke unit care. This study investigated how variation in assessment and management of dysphagia in acute stroke affects the risk of stroke patients developing SAP. Methods: Two systematic reviews identified the methods of dysphagia assessment and management in acute stroke that influence the risk of SAP, and other interventions and care process that may contribute to that risk. A mixed methods study was used to develop a national survey of organisational practice about dysphagia assessment and management in acute stroke. The quantitative method was a review of stroke patient records (N=30). Qualitative methods included interviews with hospital staff (N=15) and patients and carers (N=6). Four topic areas were identified for exploration: (a) dysphagia screening, (b) specialist swallowing assessments and management, (c) NGT feeding, and (d) oral care processes. Speech and Language Therapists from 166 stroke units in England and Wales were surveyed. Survey data were linked to the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) data to estimate risk of SAP. Results: Survey completion rate was 68% (N=113). There was variation in dysphagia screening protocols (DSPs), oral care and NGT placement. Patterns of consistency occurred in the specialist swallow assessment. Multivariable analyses showed no evidence of association in incidence of SAP when using DSPs that used water only compared to multiple consistencies; when using written guidelines for the specialist swallowing assessment compared to not using written guidelines; when teams inserted NGTs overnight compared to teams that did not; and when teams had a written oral care protocol compared to those that did not. Discussion The multifactorial pathophysiology of SAP and inter dependency of dysphagia care processes make it difficult to unpack which components of dysphagia assessment and management are associated with risk of SAP. Future empirical research and large clinical trials that allow evaluation of multiple interventions to determine what are most effective at minimising risk of SAP are needed

Variation in Dysphagia Assessment and Management in Acute Stroke: An Interview Study

(1) Background: Patients with dysphagia are at increased risk of stroke-associated pneumonia. There is wide variation in the way patients are screened and assessed. The aim of this study is to explore staff opinions about current practice of dysphagia screening, assessment and clinical management in acute phase stroke. (2) Methods: Fifteen interviews were conducted in five English National Health Service hospitals. Hospitals were selected based on size and performance against national targets for dysphagia screening and assessment, and prevalence of stroke-associated pneumonia. Participants were purposefully recruited to reflect a range of healthcare professions. Data were analysed using a six-stage thematic process. (3) Results: Three meta themes were identified: delays in care, lack of standardisation and variability in resources. Patient, staff, and service factors that contribute to delays in dysphagia screening, assessment by a speech and language therapist, and delays in nasogastric tube feeding were identified. These included admission route, perceived lack of ownership for screening patients, prioritisation of assessments and staff resources. There was a lack of standardisation of dysphagia screening protocols and oral care. There was variability in staff competences and resources to assess patients, types of medical interventions, and care processes. (4) Conclusion: There is a lack of standardisation in the way patients are assessed for dysphagia and variation in practice relating to staff competences, resources and care processes between hospitals. A range of patient, staff and service factors have the potential to impact on stroke patients being assessed within the recommended national guidelines

Experiences of dysphagia after stroke: an interview study of stroke survivors and their informal caregivers

(1) Background: Swallowing difficulties (dysphagia) after stroke are not uncommon and is a consistent risk factor for stroke-associated pneumonia. This interview study explores the perspectives of stroke survivors, who had their swallowing assessed in the first few days of admission to hospital, and their informal caregivers. (2) Methods: A participatory approach was used involving people affected by stroke in the interpretation and analysis of the interview data. Data was thematically analysed and six themes were identified. (3) Results: These themes included how past-future experiences may influence a person’s emotional response to events; understanding what is happening and adjustment; the impact of dysphagia; attitudes to care; communication to patients and procedural issues. (4) Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of effective public health messages to improve people’s responsiveness to the signs of stroke, standardisation of assessment and management procedures, effective communication to patients about the consequences of dysphagia, and the impact of dysphagia on the person who had the stroke and their informal caregiver