The USA PATRIOT Acts (et al): Collective Amnesia, Paranoia and Convergent, Oligarchic Legislation in the ‘Politics of Fear’

Comparative analysis has been ignored in recent decades as the mantra of ‘convergence’ has taken hegemonic forms under globalisation and, more recently, under the exporting of a United States–inspired ‘exceptionalism’ within this Neo-liberal project. The ‘War on Terror’ provides an unusual window for ‘seeing’ real convergence in the largely ‘invisible’ manoeuvring over framing and re-framing of anti-terrorist legislation in the US, UK/Europe and Australia. A cursory, comparative glance at The USA PATRIOT Act 2001, The USA PATRIOT Act 2006, other legislative variations in the United Kingdom/European Union (UK/EU) and Australia, and Stalinist legislation - Article 58, Criminal Code of the RSFSR (1934) - provides uncomfortable reading and an interesting convergence in the use/abuse of the ‘politics of fear’. Within Neo-liberalism, arguably, the destruction of long standing civil and political rights in the name of defending such rights is surely an issue for future democratic account. The current irrelevance of Habeas Corpus in so-called Anglo-American democracies would have many a tyrant marvelling at the rapidly convergent, authoritarian behaviour of political oligarchs in Liberal-democratic societies and the actual de-legitimation of sovereignty and democratic values under the onslaught of hubris, propaganda and fear

Involving service users in trials: developing a standard operating procedure

<p>BACKGROUND: Many funding bodies require researchers to actively involve service users in research to improve relevance, accountability and quality. Current guidance to researchers mainly discusses general principles. Formal guidance about how to involve service users operationally in the conduct of trials is lacking. We aimed to develop a standard operating procedure (SOP) to support researchers to involve service users in trials and rigorous studies.</p> <p>METHODS: Researchers with experience of involving service users and service users who were contributing to trials collaborated with the West Wales Organisation for Rigorous Trials in Health, a registered clinical trials unit, to develop the SOP. Drafts were prepared in a Task and Finish Group, reviewed by all co-authors and amendments made.</p> <p>RESULTS: We articulated core principles, which defined equality of service users with all other research team members and collaborative processes underpinning the SOP, plus guidance on how to achieve these. We developed a framework for involving service users in research that defined minimum levels of collaboration plus additional consultation and decision-making opportunities. We recommended service users be involved throughout the life of a trial, including planning and development, data collection, analysis and dissemination, and listed tasks for collaboration. We listed people responsible for involving service users in studies and promoting an inclusive culture. We advocate actively involving service users as early as possible in the research process, with a minimum of two on all formal trial groups and committees. We propose that researchers protect at least 1% of their total research budget as a minimum resource to involve service users and allow enough time to facilitate active involvement.</p> <p>CONCLUSIONS: This SOP provides guidance to researchers to involve service users successfully in developing and conducting clinical trials and creating a culture of actively involving service users in research at all stages. The UK Clinical Research Collaboration should encourage clinical trials units actively to involve service users and research funders should provide sufficient funds and time for this in research grants.</p&gt

The impact of immediate breast reconstruction on the time to delivery of adjuvant therapy: the iBRA-2 study

Background: Immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) is routinely offered to improve quality-of-life for women requiring mastectomy, but there are concerns that more complex surgery may delay adjuvant oncological treatments and compromise long-term outcomes. High-quality evidence is lacking. The iBRA-2 study aimed to investigate the impact of IBR on time to adjuvant therapy. Methods: Consecutive women undergoing mastectomy ± IBR for breast cancer July–December, 2016 were included. Patient demographics, operative, oncological and complication data were collected. Time from last definitive cancer surgery to first adjuvant treatment for patients undergoing mastectomy ± IBR were compared and risk factors associated with delays explored. Results: A total of 2540 patients were recruited from 76 centres; 1008 (39.7%) underwent IBR (implant-only [n = 675, 26.6%]; pedicled flaps [n = 105,4.1%] and free-flaps [n = 228, 8.9%]). Complications requiring re-admission or re-operation were significantly more common in patients undergoing IBR than those receiving mastectomy. Adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy was required by 1235 (48.6%) patients. No clinically significant differences were seen in time to adjuvant therapy between patient groups but major complications irrespective of surgery received were significantly associated with treatment delays. Conclusions: IBR does not result in clinically significant delays to adjuvant therapy, but post-operative complications are associated with treatment delays. Strategies to minimise complications, including careful patient selection, are required to improve outcomes for patients

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Will the people united in cyberspace never be defeated? : reflections on the global multitude in the epoch of American empire

Hardt and Negri were certain that the most evolved, emblematic form of technocratic, cyberspace Empire contains “swarm intelligence” the instrument of its own destruction: “[T]he distributed networked structure provides the model for an absolutely democratic organisation that corresponds to the dominant forms of economic and social production and is also the most powerful weapon against the ruling power structure” [Hardt M, Negri A. Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire. New York: Penguin Press; 2004, p. 88]. This paper proposes that such a sanguine appraisal of the forms and strategies of contemporary capitalism belies (or forecloses) hope for any type of resistance. The flexible, distributed “perfect union” expressed in the presumed symbiotic relationship between Empire and the Global Multitude has no clothes [see Passavant P, Dean J, editors. Empire's new clothes: reading Hardt and Negri. NewYork: Routledge; 2004] and resistance, especially the resistance involving the integration of the political and the economic, requires not integrative “swarm intelligence” but the relentless destruction of the enveloping falsifications and futile illusions of dis–embodied, virtual, networked, “global” capitalism and its uncivil appropriation of democracy and the commons.

Diversity and coexistence : towards a convivencia for 21st century public administration

A renewed contemporary convivencia should revolve around interactions where groups and individuals directly confront and interact with alien groups and individuals with different habits and customs. These disorderly interactions should prevent groups and individuals from becoming rigid and complacent and should assist groups, individuals and social compacts to achieve psychological and other forms of maturity. This approach to diversity and coexistence provides a much - needed alternative to the 'demonizing', 'dehumanizing', 'either/or' appro aches representative of recent, still prevalent, fundamentalisms opposed to difference and the ‘other’.

Narcissistic and dangerous 'alphas': 'sovereign individuals' and the problem of cultivating the 'civic' in cyberspace

This paper examines Davidson and Rees-Mogg’s (1997) notion of the ‘sovereign individual’ as part of a continuing, integrated investigation into inter-locking approaches to free-market globalisation, the virtual organisation and individual agency shared by neo-liberal and post-modern thought. Particular attention is given to whether global markets and information technology establishes a new cyberspace realm which conditions the ability of governments to regulate economic and social activity and to cultivate individual actions. The paper investigates whether it is possible for de-physicalised cyberspace to provide sufficient nourishment for any individual, sovereign or otherwise. This exploration questions the privileging of the sovereign individual discourse and practice which eliminates all alternative approaches to social capital, community and identity. This paper suggests that the challenge for public or civic administration and accounting is to escape the illusions and impractical schemes presented by those interests which benefit from elevating the sovereign individual above all other forms of sovereignty, making the visible invisible, communities non-communities and persons non persons.

Virtual Organizations: Some Uses and Abuses in Political and Organizational-Design Discourses

This paper explores the contemporary fascination with seemingly new, benign and transcendent virtual organizations. The paper extends Gerlach and Hamilton’s (2000) investigations into virtuality within the genres of business restructuring and science fiction. The paper unravels a purposeful, enveloping consciousness that masks both neo-liberal fictions and post-modern fantasies dominating the virtual organization discourse. This paper proposes that practical examples of de-physicalized, technologically-transcendent virtual organizations crucial to this virtual consciousness do not exist or are fundamentally different from expectations. The paper proposes that the presumed new epoch of global capitalism based on the productivity unleashed by virtual organizations is illusionary. The paper concludes that once virtual consciousness is penetrated not only is the material and ideological aspects of virtual organizations unmasked but it is possible to locate a pragmatic, conjoint, physicalized type of “virtualised” organization that is not new, benign or transcendental. This type of co-destiny virtual organization (such as terrorist organizations and organised crime) is more reflective of enduring concerns and contemporary purposes fundamental to what organizations make visible or render invisible