Cultural measurement on whose terms? Critical friends as an experiment in participant-led evaluation

Critical Friends is an enquiry into the commissioning, planning and delivery of participatory art carried out by the people that such projects claim to empower. Participants become interviewers, researchers and evaluators, acting as ‘productive parasites’ to a process of socially-engaged art. Aims of social cohesion and active citizenship underpinned a series of publicly-funded art commissions in North Greenwich, London (2008-2011). The group of Critical Friends were residents of North Greenwich who came together to investigate what, why and how these socially engaged art projects were happening in their area. Did the projects reflect the ambitious aims to ‘stimulate debate to generate action and change’ and ‘develop connections and relations between people’? Facilitated by myself and Rebecca Maguire over three years, Critical Friends developed their own questions and methods for finding out. While participation and engagement is usually measured for such projects in terms of numbers of people who attend workshops, Critical Friends was a space for enacting a different kind of cultural measurement. The group focused on trying to find out the qualitative experiences of other participants and interrogated the underlying motives, targets and politics behind the commissions. They did this by acting as participant observers in the projects themselves and by interviewing artists, commissioners, board members, their neighbours and friends (http://criticalfriends.sophiehope.org.uk/)

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Clinical relevance and practical implications of trials of perfusion and angiographic imaging in patients with acute ischaemic stroke:a multicentre cohort imaging study

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The benefits and harmsof intravenous thrombolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator within 6 hours of acute ischaemic stroke (the third international stroke trial [IST-3]): a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Thrombolysis is of net benefit in patients with acute ischaemic stroke, who are younger than 80 years of age and are treated within 4•5 h of onset. The third International Stroke Trial (IST-3) sought to determine whether a wider range of patients might benefit up to 6 h from stroke onset. METHODS: In this international, multicentre, randomised, open-treatment trial, patients were allocated to 0•9 mg/kg intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) or to control. The primary analysis was of the proportion of patients alive and independent, as defined by an Oxford Handicap Score (OHS) of 0-2 at 6 months. The study is registered, ISRCTN25765518. FINDINGS: 3035 patients were enrolled by 156 hospitals in 12 countries. All of these patients were included in the analyses (1515 in the rt-PA group vs 1520 in the control group), of whom 1617 (53%) were older than 80 years of age. At 6 months, 554 (37%) patients in the rt-PA group versus 534 (35%) in the control group were alive and independent (OHS 0-2; adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1•13, 95% CI 0•95-1•35, p=0•181; a non-significant absolute increase of 14/1000, 95% CI -20 to 48). An ordinal analysis showed a significant shift in OHS scores; common OR 1•27(95% CI 1•10-1•47, p=0•001). Fatal or non-fatal symptomatic intracranial haemorrhage within 7 days occurred in 104 (7%) patients in the rt-PA group versus 16 (1%) in the control group (adjusted OR 6•94, 95% CI 4•07-11•8; absolute excess 58/1000, 95% CI 44-72). More deaths occurred within 7 days in the rt-PA group(163 [11%]) than in the control group (107 [7%], adjusted OR 1•60, 95% CI 1•22-2•08, p=0•001; absolute increase 37/1000, 95% CI 17-57), but between 7 days and 6 months there were fewer deaths in the rt-PA group than in the control group, so that by 6 months, similar numbers, in total, had died (408 [27%] in the rt-PA group vs 407 [27%] in the control group). INTERPRETATION: For the types of patient recruited in IST-3, despite the early hazards, thrombolysis within 6 h improved functional outcome. Benefit did not seem to be diminished in elderly patients

Vaginal discharge among the primary school students and detection of the affection factors

Large gravitational wave interferometric detectors, like Virgo and LIGO, demonstrated the capability to reach their design sensitivity, but to transform these machines into an effective observational instrument for gravitational wave astronomy a large improvement in sensitivity is required. Advanced detectors in the near future and third-generation observatories in more than one decade will open the possibility to perform gravitational wave astronomical observations from the Earth. An overview of the possible science reaches and the technological progress needed to realize a third-generation observatory are discussed in this paper. The status of the project Einstein Telescope (ET), a design study of a third-generation gravitational wave observatory, will be reported

Electroweak measurements in electron–positron collisions at w-boson-pair energies at lep

Contains fulltext : 121524.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access