Computing Instanton Numbers of Curve Singularities

We present an algorithm for computing instanton numbers of curve singularities. A comparison is made between these and some other invariants of curve singularities. The algorithm has been implemented in the symbolic computer algebra program Macaulay2, and can be downloaded from http://www.math.nmsu.edu/\~{}iswanson/instanton.m2.}Comment: Revised version, several new examples have been added. To appear in J. Symbolic Computatio

Conjuring Creative Citizenship Beyond Rights

A Review of Writing and Righting: Literature in the Age of Human Rights by Lyndsey Stonebridge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 176. $25 hardcover

Opioid vs Antidepressant Efficacy in Treatment of Comorbid Chronic Pain and Depression in Older Adults: An Integrative Literature Review

Background: Complexity of treatment of older adults frequently suffering from comorbid chronic pain and depression necessitates a further understanding of how best to focus treatment for these conditions to increase functional ability, quality of life, social, physical, and emotional well-being. Nurse practitioners should be aware of how to best treat these patients. The question whether to treat the pain directly, treat the depression, or using combined treatment for both conditions is a barrier to effective treatment by clinicians. Objectives: The purpose of this research is to compare the pharmacological treatment strategies and explore their differences, similarities, and effectiveness in improving comorbid pain and depression in older adults. Method: The framework used for the integrative literature review was established by Whitmore and Knafl (2005). The databases used in the research were CINAHL, PsycInfo, and PubMed. Two separate searches were performed to obtain literature on both opioids and antidepressants in relation to pain and depression. Both literature searches were limited to full text articles, primary sources, research articles, English language, age group 65+, and publication dates 2006 through 2017. A total of seven studies were included in the analysis and met the inclusion and exclusion criteria that focused on mean age 55 or older and treatment with either an opioid or antidepressant. The inclusion of a pain and depression scale was a focus of all seven studies as well. Results: The literature demonstrated support for the use of antidepressants, duloxetine and venlafaxine, for treatment of comorbid chronic pain associated with musculoskeletal conditions, neuropathy, and arthritis in depressed older adults. The research also points to length of medication use and consistency of use as better predictors of positive outcome versus the superiority of a single antidepressant. Although the findings show transdermal opioids as safe and effective for older adults with comorbid chronic pain and depression, the use of oral opioids may actually increases rates of depression in those older adults using them for the pain. Signs of early improvement in pain and depression may be a reliable measure of progress to gauge continued response to treatment. The improvement of pain and depression occurs simultaneously but at different rates and may be affected by the cause of the chronic pain. The effective treatment of both chronic pain and depression can have other benefits such as increased functional ability, better general health, and increased quality of life. Conclusion: Both antidepressants and opioids for the treatment of chronic pain and depression present potential risks but also many benefits making them effective treatment options. Future research should be focused on the exclusive study of older adults with chronic pain and depression, single medication use without adjunct therapies, and comparison studies of antidepressants vs opioids for treatment of older adults with these conditions

Hidden memories

Using the Cottage Plantation ruins as a vehicle for investigation, this thesis demonstrates how fragments of information can be layered on each other to draw relationships between the past and present, self and space, memory and experience, architecture and nature. And, in turn, how an understanding of these relationships presents a greater perception of the self

Self-Talk and Handicapped Children's Academic Needs: Applications of Cognitive Behavior Modification

This article addresses the practical validity of self-instruction training as an intervention for severely handicapped children. Three issues are addressed: (I) the development of verbal strategies that are adaptable to children with knowledge deficits, (2) the effects of generalization training, and (3) the role of self-talk (verbalization) in self-instruction. Four studies that address these issues are reviewed. The remedial implications of these studies are also discussed

'Let Us Begin with a Smaller Gesture': An Ethos of Human Rights and the Possibilities of Form in Chris Abani's Song for Night and Becoming Abigail

This essay intervenes in current debates over human rights-oriented approaches to literature through a reading of Chris Abani's two novellas.  As opposed to critics who want either to embrace or unmask human rights in literature, we argue that Abani mediates between these two poles through close attention to the ways in which literary form and aesthetic can craft a shared ethos between reader and text.  In depicting the short lives of a child soldier and sex trafficked young girl, he emphasizes the limits of the law: the gap between the human subject and the legal person whose legal claims are recognizable.  At the same time, his narratives are not sentimental, and they challenge readers to extend a recognition of shared humanity across easy divides of right or wrong behavior.  If, as Abani posits, we cannot become fully human without the courage to unmask ourselves, then too the endeavor of human rights must submit to a similar unmasking (of its foundational paradoxes, its limitations, its pretentions, its complicities) precisely in order to live into, to embrace, the fuller manifestation of justice toward which it gestures.  More specifically, we examine the interplay of lyric and narrative voices within the context of the novella in order to show how Abani deploys temporal and aesthetic constructions to respond to the limits within normative human rights (legal instruments and official discourses). This delicate balance of lyric and narrative, instead of calling upon the reader's responsibility toward the human rights violations he depicts and fostering literary humanitarianism (which has been extensively critiqued as paternalistic by scholars such as Slaughter and Anker), generates a more complicated ethos of reciprocity between reader and text

Open Science Practices are on the Rise: The State of Social Science (3S) Survey

Has there been meaningful movement toward open sci-ence practices within the social sciences in recent years? Discussions about changes in practices such as posting data and pre-registering analyses have been marked by controversy—including controversy over the extent to which change has taken place. This study, based on the State of Social Science (3S) Survey, provides the first com-prehensive assessment of awareness of, attitudes towards, perceived norms regarding, and adoption of open science practices within a broadly representative sample of scholars from four major social science disciplines: economics, political science, psychology, and so-ciology. We observe a steep increase in adoption: as of 2017, over 80% of scholars had used at least one such practice, rising from one quarter a decade earlier. Attitudes toward research transpar-ency are on average similar between older and younger scholars, but the pace of change di˙ers by field and methodology. According with theories of normal science and scientific change, the timing of increases in adoption coincides with technological innovations and institutional policies. Patterns are consistent with most scholars underestimating the trend toward open science in their discipline

Freedom, Commerce, Bodies, Harm: The Case of Backpage.com

This article situates lawsuits against Backpage.com in the context of changing laws and norms of sexual commerce and trafficking, and of evolving legal interpretations of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 has been used repeatedly to shield internet service providers such as Backpage.com from liability for content generated by third parties that has led to criminal harm to others; in this case, the trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of minors. Moving to a critique of the law as at times grievously detached from the realities it addresses, I compare the legal strategies and decisions in three prominent cases brought against Backpage.com in St. Louis, Tacoma, and Boston, respectively. This critique identifies the evacuation of gendered bodies and the harm done to them from the court opinions as an example of what Robert Cover has called the “interpretive violence” of the law, and of the judges who interpret and dispense it. I conclude by calling for courts and Congress to act together to disrupt the accumulation of interpretive precedent favoring freedom of commerce and speech over the protection of bodies from harm