Karen Tobias-Green

The entire document brings together materials produced for and during a PhD by Design-study and workshop day held at Leeds College of Art on May 14th 2015. This day was-dedicated to exploring multiple possibilities of innovatively disseminating practice based design research. This particular presentation is concerns the role of writing as part of a visual practice. I believe words are-powerful beyond measure, that no language is free from agenda (or gender, for that matter) and that writing is every bit as much an art as any of the visual arts. Like the visual arts, I think it is both incremental and editable and also inspired, inspiring and occasionally heavenly. I try to work by discourse, and by making and by engaging on a very real level with words, text, language and people. This presentation asks how do we How do we make the complex accessible without losing its gift of difficulty. Difficulty as in the acceptance that there is no single truth or privileged knowledge but instead a rhizomic interplay that demands the asking of new questions, or the asking of old questions differently

Walking in Urbana

The output is an exhibition, a series of 20 intermedial images and written narratives taken during an international research trip to Urbana, Illinois (2016). Tobias-Green used a camera-phone to document an urban walk during an interstitial moment. The series of images is understood as an unfolding visual narrative. Research Process: In a research context, walking is associated with a freedom of thought which assumes the freedom of the walking subject (Paterson, 2016) but walking is not universally available and risk free (Heddon, 2016). Walking comes with choices (one path travelled is another less travelled). Walking becomes research by first making space for the sharing of intimate, active exchanges between the human and the non-human. The walk and photographs challenge what Judith Butler calls ‘the subversion of an authority that grounds itself in what may not be questioned’ (1997). Research Insights: Tobias-Green discovered how the process of walking can be a practice-led research inquiry, rebuilding, reviewing and replenishing lost histories, stories of the ‘then’, the ‘now’ and the ‘possible’. The images show the walk across town, during which Tobias-Green’s humanist sense of self gradually receded into a post humanist awareness of a vitally connected world out there, enhanced by what Jones and Hoskins call 'thingly power' (2016), the agency of the land, feet, the camera, the sun, the vastness of past and present. The narrative gives textual voice to this through the sometimes treacherous landscape of the sentence. Dissemination: These images and their accompanying narratives were exhibited at Leeds Arts University in 2017. The peer-review led to a more focused approach so that the exhibition became a walk itself. The project was exhibited at Walking Women, Somerset House, 2016. Tobias-Green has subsequently used the project to explore lines of enquiry at both postgraduate and undergraduate level demonstrating impact on teaching

Stories from an art institution: The writing lives of students with dyslexia

This thesis explores the complex and shifting relationships between writing, the art institution and constructs of dyslexia. At the time of its submission, a detailed study of dyslexia within a post-humanist framework is unique. This thesis engages with the writing lives of six art students diagnosed with dyslexia over the course of an academic year. It interrogates writing in some of its many manifestations, notably writing as an academic, assessed and measurable outcome and writing as a form of fluid and imaginative communication. By placing writing in the art school, I explore both institutional power more broadly, and constructs of the art school, and examine how these relationships interact with and create each other. To do this I actively use ideas around place, objects and materials as factors in the shaping, becoming and making-invisible of dyslexia. I question dyslexia as a fixed and medicalised model, combining theory and practical methods of research to problematise dyslexia and to explore how it comes to be, and its fluctuating relationship to the student participants. I use a post-humanist framework to consider disability, writing, and active, radical pedagogies. I have turned to thinkers including Haraway, Goodley, Butler, Foucault, and Deleuze and Guattari to think through these problems. Refuting the arboreal model of knowledge has allowed me to work with participants, present their stories, navigate the art institution, engage in discourse around dis/ability and writing and develop new and exciting ways of making writing a rich, viable, valid and accessible creative practice. As a direct result of this, I have authored, had validated, and now teach the BA (Hons) Creative Writing undergraduate degree in my institution. This is the only creative wring degree course in an arts institution in the North of England and the only one informed by this radical pedagogy and post-humanist framework. 6 This research contributes to knowledge theoretically, methodologically and pedagogically. Methodologically, the structure and assemblage of the thesis reflects and shapes its subject matter and makes manifest actual students’ writing lives, thereby bringing theoretical considerations and practical circumstances together in a novel way. Regarding theory and pedagogy, the rhizome enables me to interrogate dyslexia differently, and to produce new understandings of a) dyslexia, b) writing, c) the art institution, d) me as a researcher, e) places of research, and f) post-humanist approaches to ethics in research. It does this by employing a critical disability perspective which opens up the relevance of my radical pedagogy to many underrepresented groups and to those who might be regarded as mainstream. The conditions created by this research make this possible and are replicable. This research demonstrates a framework (through explanation and documentation of the 3 workshops) that is portable, transferable and flexible. It can be and has been applied to community groups, adult education students, tutors, community arts groups, literature festivals, writing circles, F.E. and 6th form students across arts and humanities, with dyslexia specialist teachers, with artist lecturers/practitioners, amongst M Level and doctoral students, with groups of young people transitioning from further to higher education, with widening participation cohorts and with potential H.E. applicants from polar quintiles 4 and 5. This research has produced, and continues to produce, peer reviewed articles, conference presentations, creative fiction and non-fiction. This thesis demonstrates a different and transferable way of doing research. It has a life beyond its printed text. It exists in the lives of the participants, in the propagation of the writing workshops and in the development, writing and teaching of the BA (Hons) Creative Writing degree. This thesis presents a vibrant and theoretically sound radical pedagogy which may inspire and provide a blueprint for critically aware, imaginative, liberating and productive teaching and learning

A Conversation about Ethics: A Deliberative and Practice-Based Approach to Ethics in Arts Education

This article reports on a practice-based research project that examined the various orientations of practice to ethical deliberation. The aim was to produce a film that captured ethical debate between two creative practitioners as they walked through their local streets. The film would be a catalyst for staff and students at an arts institution to think about their own ethical practices. The approach taken was based on Aristotelian notions of phronesis or practical wisdom, which is concerned with making ethical judgments based on deliberation. Issues were raised by the project, such as the tensions between policy and practice and the tensions between aesthetic considerations and ethical practice. Questions about the value of narrative, representation, and learning through doing were raised by the work

Conferencing Otherwise : A Feminist New Materialist Writing Experiment

This article attempts to reconfigure hegemonic framings of "the academic conference" and thereby offer a means to (re-)encounter the spatial, temporal, and affective forces that conferences generate, differently. We are a geographically dispersed but multiply entangled group of academic researchers united by theoretical fault lines within our work that seek to ask what if and what else. This "what if" and "what else" thinking has manifested in experimental and subversive doings otherwise at a series of academic conferences. The storying practices presented in this article were made possible by the vital materialism of a shared google.doc. It was within this virtual environment that we attempted to weave diffractive accounts of what conferencing otherwise produces. This writing experiment offers a series of speculative provocations and counter-provocations to ask what else does conferencing make possible. This article is an invitation to the reader to plunge in and wallow within the speculative accounts which ensue and to contemplate the possibilities of breaking free from sedimented ways of neoliberal conferencing.Peer reviewe

Conferencing Otherwise: A Feminist New Materialist Writing Experiment

This article attempts to reconfigure hegemonic framings of “the academic conference” and thereby offer a means to (re-)encounter the spatial, temporal, and affective forces that conferences generate, differently. We are a geographically dispersed but multiply entangled group of academic researchers united by theoretical fault lines within our work that seek to ask what if and what else. This “what if” and “what else” thinking has manifested in experimental and subversive doings otherwise at a series of academic conferences. The storying practices presented in this article were made possible by the vital materialism of a shared google.doc. It was within this virtual environment that we attempted to weave diffractive accounts of what conferencing otherwise produces. This writing experiment offers a series of speculative provocations and counter-provocations to ask what else does conferencing make possible. This article is an invitation to the reader to plunge in and wallow within the speculative accounts which ensue and to contemplate the possibilities of breaking free from sedimented ways of neoliberal conferencing.</p

Correction to: First results on survival from a large Phase 3 clinical trial of an autologous dendritic cell vaccine in newly diagnosed glioblastoma

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported an error in the spelling of one of the author names. In this Correction the incorrect and correct author names are indicated and the author name has been updated in the original publication. The authors also reported an error in the Methods section of the original article. In this Correction the incorrect and correct versions of the affected sentence are indicated. The original article has not been updated with regards to the error in the Methods section.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144529/1/12967_2018_Article_1552.pd

Nutritional therapies for mental disorders

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4 out of the 10 leading causes of disability in the US and other developed countries are mental disorders. Major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are among the most common mental disorders that currently plague numerous countries and have varying incidence rates from 26 percent in America to 4 percent in China. Though some of this difference may be attributable to the manner in which individual healthcare providers diagnose mental disorders, this noticeable distribution can be also explained by studies which show that a lack of certain dietary nutrients contribute to the development of mental disorders. Notably, essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids are often deficient in the general population in America and other developed countries; and are exceptionally deficient in patients suffering from mental disorders. Studies have shown that daily supplements of vital nutrients often effectively reduce patients' symptoms. Supplements that contain amino acids also reduce symptoms, because they are converted to neurotransmitters that alleviate depression and other mental disorders. Based on emerging scientific evidence, this form of nutritional supplement treatment may be appropriate for controlling major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), addiction, and autism. The aim of this manuscript is to emphasize which dietary supplements can aid the treatment of the four most common mental disorders currently affecting America and other developed countries: major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

Beyond the Global Brain Differences:Intraindividual Variability Differences in 1q21.1 Distal and 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 Deletion Carriers

BACKGROUND: Carriers of the 1q21.1 distal and 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 copy number variants exhibit regional and globalbrain differences compared with noncarriers. However, interpreting regional differences is challenging if a globaldifference drives the regional brain differences. Intraindividual variability measures can be used to test for regionaldifferences beyond global differences in brain structure.METHODS: Magnetic resonance imaging data were used to obtain regional brain values for 1q21.1 distal deletion (n =30) and duplication (n = 27) and 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 deletion (n = 170) and duplication (n = 243) carriers and matchednoncarriers (n = 2350). Regional intra-deviation scores, i.e., the standardized difference between an individual’sregional difference and global difference, were used to test for regional differences that diverge from the globaldifference.RESULTS: For the 1q21.1 distal deletion carriers, cortical surface area for regions in the medial visual cortex, posterior cingulate, and temporal pole differed less and regions in the prefrontal and superior temporal cortex differedmore than the global difference in cortical surface area. For the 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 deletion carriers, cortical thicknessin regions in the medial visual cortex, auditory cortex, and temporal pole differed less and the prefrontal andsomatosensory cortex differed more than the global difference in cortical thickness.CONCLUSIONS: We find evidence for regional effects beyond differences in global brain measures in 1q21.1 distaland 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 copy number variants. The results provide new insight into brain profiling of the 1q21.1 distaland 15q11.2 BP1-BP2 copy number variants, with the potential to increase understanding of the mechanismsinvolved in altered neurodevelopment