Ethics-Rorty-cultural studies : towards an understanding of the cultural production of solidarity : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Is cultural studies on the verge of an ethical turn? What role could the work of Richard Rorty play in such an ethical turn? Rorty may be considered as a cultural theorist whose work enables a productive articulation of cultural studies and that area of experience known as "ethics" – one's sensitivity and sense of responsibility to others in pain. Through an extended "misreading" of the dispersed texts Rorty has written on and around the topic, it is possible to formulate a Rortian account of ethics as solidarity, including such concepts as the moral subject, the other, moral identification, moral community, as well as the ethical implications of Rorty's theoretical ethnocentrism. This account, by virtue of its antifoundationalist and discursive theoretical position, holds much interest for a cultural studies concerned to understand the normative dimension of discursive meaning

Aspects of scattering theory

Imperial Users onl

A Study On The Effects Of Cementless Total Knee Arthroscopy Implants’ Surface Morphology With Finite Element Analysis

Total knee arthroscopy is one of the most performed and most successful orthopedic surgeries, with nearly a million procedures performed in 2020 in the United States alone. Due to changing patient demographics, the use of cementless fixation for implant stability is becoming more prevalent amongst recipients. Cementless implants rely on the surface morphology of a porous coating to bond implant to bone; the quality of this bond is dependent on an interference fit and the roughness, or coefficient of friction, between implant and bone. Stress shielding is a comparison of the properties in implanted bone to natural bone; it is a commonly used measurable when using a finite element model to optimize implant design. The purpose of this study is to investigate how different coating types (coefficients of friction) and the location of their application affect the stress shielding response in the tibia. A finite element model was constructed to investigate the impact of these variables. The results concluded that the stress distribution in an implanted tibia is dependent on the coefficient of friction applied at the tip of the stem. Lower friction coefficients applied to the stem tip resulted in higher compressive stresses, and higher friction coefficients resulted in lower compressive stresses. Thus, lower friction coefficients provided more favorable stress shielding responses, however, at the expense of stress concentrations of greater magnitude

The Workers' Compensation System of British Columbia: Still in Transition

This inventory addresses eight core issues in the British Columbia workers' compensation system:* How is the system administered?* How do claims flow through the system?* What dispute resolution procedures are used, and to what effect?* What benefits are paid?* How are vocational rehabilitation services provided?* How is the system financed?* What are the actual costs of administration, benefits, claims processing, and appeal?* What aspects of the system deserve further attention

Washington Pension System Review

The purpose of this study is to analyze the incidence of Total Permanent Disability (TPD)pensions in Washington State's workers' compensation program. Concerns exist at both thelegislature and in the Department of Labor and Industries as there appears to have been a sharp upturn in the number of pensions awarded since late in the 1990s. This report examines the factors that may be causally related to any upsurge in such awards. Our task is to evaluate pension incidence for both the state fund and the self-insured populations, with a view towards identifying causes of the trend in both sectors, although we concentrate more on the state fund Cclaims due to data limitations

Accommodating Complex Substitution Patterns in a Random Utility Model of Recreational Fishing

We employed a cross-nested logit (CNL) model that permits a rich pattern of substitution among alternatives within a closed form choice model. The specification we employed is ideal for applications with many choice alternatives, such as the 431 fishing sites in this application. The CNL model provided a significant improvement over multinomial and nested logit model specifications at explaining observed recreational fishing site choices by residents of northern Ontario, Canada. Results from two scenarios illustrated the implications of using the CNL model on spatial substitution patterns and welfare measures associated with attribute change scenarios. The CNL model forecasts demonstrated that the relative change in fishing site use was lower at the most affected sites and higher at sites near the affected sites than was predicted by the multinomial logit model. No consistent pattern was found in mean or variance of welfare estimates associated with hypothetical attribute changes.Compensating variation, cross-nested logit, fishing site choice, random utility model, spatial substitution, Demand and Price Analysis, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Q26,

Factors associated with wheelchair use and the impact on quality of life among individuals with spinal cord injury

We systematically examined the standard of care for wheelchair provision, factors associated with wheelchair choice, disparities in access to wheelchair technology, and the impact of wheelchair use on quality of life among individuals with spinal cord injury (ISCI), participants of the National Model Spinal Cord Injury Systems (NMSCIS). We administered the Assistive Technology Survey developed by the consensus of the directors of the NMSCIS to a convenient sample of 635 adult full-time wheelchair users who met the eligibility criteria for the NMSCIS in 2 separate data collection periods. About 97% of manual and 54% power wheelchair users had customizable wheelchairs, lending evidence to show that ultralight weight customizable manual wheelchairs and customizable power wheelchairs with programmable controls are the standard of care for wheelchair users with SCI. Power wheelchair users were significantly older (p=0.000) than manual wheelchair users. However, regardless to the level of SCI, manual wheelchair users were able to use manual wheelchairs for an average of more than 10 years. Although the socioeconomic statuses (SES) of manual and power wheelchair users were similar, minorities with lower SES had less access to customizable wheelchairs and additional wheelchairs. We were not able to establish an association between the types and design features of wheelchair used on quality of life. Quality of life outcomes were measured in terms of physical/structural barriers, mobility, physical independence, social integration, and life satisfaction; all of these measures are part of the Craig Hospital Inventory of Environmental Factors, the Craig Handicap Assessment and Reporting Technique, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. However, we were able to conclude that having additional wheelchairs significantly enhanced mobility for wheelchair users. The results of our study generated new knowledge for the field of SCI rehabilitation by elucidating the standard of care for wheelchair provision, the characteristics of wheelchair users with SCI, and the impact of wheelchair use for this population. Furthermore, this study also provided policy makers with valuable data to address disparities in access to customizable wheelchairs and the lack of insurance coverage for additional wheelchairs

An examination of the effects of thalamic lesions on learning and memory in the rat

The study examined the effects of lesions of the thalamic nucleus medialis dorsalis (MD) made by neurotoxin in three cohorts ofrats to help understand the contribution of this nucleus to learning and memory. The lesions typically provided comprehensive damage to . MD, while the use of an excitotoxin helped to minimise damage to fibres of passage or adjacent fibre tracts. This excluded one confounding influence that may have been present in some previous studies. Some MD lesions also affected the anterior thalamic nuclei, and this additional damage led to spatial memory impairments, helping to confirm the value of results from rats with lesions confined to MD. Whilst the groups with MD lesions were largely unimpaired on non-spatial tests of visual recognition and discrimination, they were impaired on a configural discrimination task. The MD lesions did not impair spatial nonmatching to sample in aT-maze, nor the acquisition or performance over delay conditions of the standard radial maze task. There were impairments, however, when the radial maze was rotated during the delay, requiring a strategy shift. Similar impairment was found when a matching, rather than non-matching, strategy was required on the T-maze task and also when only some arms were rewarded on the radial arm maze task for reference memory measurement. No impairment was seen when the T-maze matching task was reversed to the non-matching variant, emphasising the lesion rats' preference for preexisting rules. In addition, some evidence was found that MD lesions brought about increased activity, but had no effect on conditioned place preference. The study concludes that MD damage in rats does not directly cause memory deficits. The influence that MD damage has on memory is, however, similar to that associated with damage to prefrontal cortex causing deficits in rule-switching ability, a higher order frontal lobe function

Medial Dorsal Thalamic Lesions and Working Memory in the Rat

Pigmented rats of the DA strain with either radio frequency or ibotenic acid lesions of the thalamic nucleus medialis dorsalis were postoperatively given non-spatial and spatial tests of working memory. In the non-spatial task, delayed non-matching to sample, rats with both types of thalamic lesions showed acquisition impairmnts. The subgroup of rats with nucleus medialis dorsalis lesions that were able to reach the acquisition criterion did, however, perform normally when the retention interval was extended to 60 seconds and when proactive interference was increased. A final, control variant of this task was included to address the possibility of a sensory deficit. In the spatial task, delayed forced alternation, rats were tested with differing retention intervals and with both spaced and massed trials. Damage to nucleus medialis dorsalis had no effect on acquisition or on spaced trials, but a slight deficit was found in the animals with radio frequency lesions under the massed trial condition. Much clearer deficits were, however, present in those animals in which the lesion extended appreciably into the anterior thalamic nuclei. The findings indicate that while cellular damage to nucleus medialis dorsalis may disrupt learning, some impairments in tests of spatial working memory attributed to this nucleus may reflect damage to the adjacent anterior thalamic nuclei