The UK National Student Survey: An amalgam of discipline and neo-liberal governmentality

The UK National Student Survey (NSS) has high status on the agenda of UK universities. Its rise in status is linked to its influence on national rankings and associated funding streams referenced to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Consequently, many universities have implemented further assessments of student satisfaction, thereby putting additional internal performative pressures on courses and individual lecturers. The research contribution of this paper consists in an analysis of the NSS through Foucault’s notion of “governmentality” with a particular focus on his work on “discipline” and “neo-liberal governmentality”. More specifically, by utilising qualitative data from interviews, research diaries and observations, it will be demonstrated how the NSS functions as a “disciplinary” technology of government which subjects lecturers, departments and universities to intersecting panoptic gazes and perpetual ratings. In addition, the NSS can also be considered ‘neo-liberal’ (Foucault, 2008, p. 193) in that it governs the academic population through narrow conceptions of “freedom” and omnipresent competition. The paper proposes that it is through the amalgamated forces of intersecting panoptic gazes, on the one hand, and neo-liberal free-market principles, on the other, that student feedback develops its power to govern

A multicenter open-label phase II trial to evaluate nivolumab and ipilimumab for 2nd line therapy in elderly patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell cancer (RAMONA)

Background: Advanced esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) is frequently diagnosed in elderly patients. The impact of 2nd line chemotherapy is poorly defined. Recent data demonstrated effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitors in different squamous cell carcinomas. Therefore, we assess combined nivolumab/ipilimumab as 2nd line therapy in elderly ESCC patients. Methods: RAMONA is a multicenter open-label phase II trial. The primary objective is to demonstrate a significant survival benefit of nivolumab/ipilimumab in advanced ESCC compared to historical data of standard chemotherapy. Primary endpoint is therefore overall survival (OS). Major secondary objective is the evaluation of tolerability. Time to QoL deterioration will thus be determined as key secondary endpoint. Further secondary endpoints are tumor response, PFS and safety. We aim to recruit a total of n = 75 subjects that have to be > 65 years old. Eligibility is determined by the geriatric status (G8 screening and Deficit Accumulation Frailty Index (DAFI)). A safety assessment will be performed after a 3 cycle run-in phase of nivolumab (240 mg Q2W) to justify escalation for eligible patients to combined nivolumab (240 mg Q2W) and ipilimumab (1 mg/kg Q6W), while the other patients will remain on nivolumab only. RAMONA also includes translational research sub-studies to identify predictive biomarkers, including PD-1 and PD-L1 evaluation at different time points, establishment of organoid cultures and microbiome analyses for response prediction. Discussion: The RAMONA trial aims to implement checkpoint inhibitors for elderly patients with advanced ESCC as second line therapy. Novel biomarkers for checkpoint-inhibitor response are analyzed in extensive translational sub-studies. Trial registration: EudraCT Number 2017–002056-86; NCT03416244, registered: 31.1.2018

Genealogies of Slavery

This chapter addresses the concept of slavery, exploring its character and significance as a dark page in history, but also as a specifically criminological and zemiological problem, in the context of international law and human rights. By tracing the ambiguities of slavery in international law and international development, the harms associated with slavery are considered. Harms include both those statutorily proscribed, and those that are not, but that can still be regarded as socially destructive. Traditionally, antislavery has been considered within the parameters of abolition and criminalization. In this context recently, anti-trafficking has emerged as a key issue in contemporary anti-slavery work. While valuable, anti-trafficking is shown to have significant limitations. It advances criminalization and stigmatization of the most vulnerable and further perpetuates harm. At the same time, it identifies structural conditions like poverty, vulnerability, and “unfreedom” of movement only to put them aside. Linked to exploitation, violence and zemia, the chapter brings to the fore some crucial questions concerning the prospects of systemic theory in the investigation of slavery, that highlight the root causes of slavery, primarily poverty and inequality. Therefore, the chapter counterposes an alternative approach in which the orienting target is not abolition of slavery but advancing structural changes against social harm

Uber die Genese des Guerinischen Sinus sowie dessen Bedeutung fur die Therapie der Gonorrhoe der mannlichen Harnrohre.

&lt;P&gt;1. Die Frequenz des Guerinischen Sinus betragt nach meinen Untersuchungen 80.08%, d. h. unter 125 Fallen ist derselbe 101 mal nachgewiesen, fehlt 24 mal (19.2%). Schon aus dem prozentualen Verhaltnis la&#946;t sich schlie&#946;en, da&#946; derselbe als physiologisches Produkt anzusehen ist. 2. Der kleine Vordersinus, der dicht vor dem Guerinischen Sinus anliegt, beginnt meist in dem Stadium etwa vom 8. Embryonalmonate an aufzutreten und mit der kraftigen Entwicklung des Guerinischen Sinus wachst er gleichfalls stark. 3. Die Epithelzellen, die sich uber die Wand des Guerinischen Sinus bei Embryonen heruberziehen, bestehen hauptsachlich aus geschichteten Plattenepithelzellen, dazwischen jedoch findet man auch einige aus geschichteten Zylinderepithelzellen bestehende Ge-webe, die gewohnlich um die Morgagnische Sinus herum auffindbar sind. Sehr selten ist bei Erwachsenen die ganze Wand von geschich-teten Zylinderepithelzellen oder Ubergangszellen bekleidet. 4. Im 3. Embryonalmonate la&#946;t sich schon an der hinteren Partie der Pars glandis der Geschlechtsrinne kompakte Epithelial-knospe des Guerinischen Sinus und des Morgagnischen Sinus fest-stellen. 5. Was die Valvula Gurini anbetrifft, so ist sie als nichts anderes anzusehen als die sich verdunnende Partie der Einmun-dungsstelle des Guerinischen Sinus. 6. Gonorrhoe der mannlichen Harnrohre ist in zwei Gruppen zu scheiden, namlich Schleimhautgonorrhoe und Seitenrohrengonor-rhoe. Die erstere tritt sofort nach der Infektion als akute Form auf, die letztere hingegen beim subakuten oder chronischen Stadium. 7. Als Therapie verwende ich im allgemeinen ziemlich milde antiphlogistische Mittel bei akutem Stadium, und blutige Behandlung unter der Urethroskopie bei chronischer Seitenrohrengonorrhoe. Zum Schlu&#946; mochte ich Herrn Prof. Dr. J. Shikinami meinen herzlichsten und ergebensten Dank aussprechen.&lt;/P&gt;</p

OVERHEATED SECURITY? The Securitisation of Climate Change and the Governmentalisation of Security

Since the mid-2000s, climate change has become one of the defining security issues in political as well as academic debates and amongst others has repeatedly been discussed in the UN Security Council and countless high level government reports in various countries. Beyond the question whether the characterisation as ‘security issue’ is backed up by any robust empirical findings, this begs the question whether the ‘securitisation’ of climate change itself has had tangible political consequences. Moreover, within this research area there is still a lively discussion about which security conceptions apply, how to conceptualise (successful) securitisation and whether it is a (politically and normatively) desirable approach to deal with climate change. The aim of this dissertation is to shed light on these issues and particularly to contribute to a more thorough understanding of different forms or ‘discourses’ of securitisation and their political effects on a theoretical and empirical level. Theoretically, it conceptualises securitisation as resting on different forms of power, which are derived from Michel Foucault’s governmentality lectures. The main argument is that this framework allows me to better capture the ambiguous and diverse variants of securitisation and the ever-changing concept of security as well as to come to a more thorough understanding of the political consequences and powerful effects of constructing issues in terms of security. Empirically, the thesis looks at three country cases, namely the United States, Germany and Mexico. This comparative angle allows me to go beyond the existing literature on the securitisation of climate change that mostly looks at the global level, and to come to a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of different climate security discourses and their political consequences. Concerning the main results, the thesis finds that climate change has indeed been securitised very differently in the three countries and thus has facilitated diverse political consequences. These range from an incorporation of climate change into the defence sector in the US, the legitimisation of far-reaching climate policies in Germany, to the integration of climate change into several civil protection and agricultural insurance schemes in Mexico. Moreover, resting on different forms of power, the securitisation of climate change has played a key role in constructing specific actors and forms of knowledge as legitimate as well as in shaping certain identities in the face of the dangers of climate change. From a normative perspective, neither of these political consequences is purely good or bad but highly ambiguous and necessitates a careful, contextual assessment

Governance and Interpretation: What are the Implications of Postfoundationalism?

Interpretive approaches to governance include poststructuralism, constructivist institutionalism, practical philosophy, and democratic pluralism. All of these interpretive approaches share a focus on meanings, sympathy for bottom-up studies, and an emphasis on contingency. All of them also confront theoretical issues that have arisen from the postfoundational turn within philosophy. They face questions about the nature of the meanings we study, the possibilities for recentring given an emphasis on diversity, and the normative and policy implications of their approach. Although poststructuralists have made the running in addressing these questions, their answers are ambiguous or even misleading. They often appear, in particular, mistakenly to renounce situated agency along with autonomy. This essay seeks to provide alternative answers to these theoretical questions and thereby to provide a more robust theoretical framework for interpretive approaches to governance