The Capaciousness of No: Affective Refusals as Literacy Practices

© 2020 The Authors. Reading Research Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Literacy Association The authors considered the capacious feeling that emerges from saying no to literacy practices, and the affective potential of saying no as a literacy practice. The authors highlight the affective possibilities of saying no to normative understandings of literacy, thinking with a series of vignettes in which children, young people, and teachers refused literacy practices in different ways. The authors use the term capacious to signal possibilities that are as yet unthought: a sense of broadening and opening out through enacting no. The authors examined how attention to affect ruptures humanist logics that inform normative approaches to literacy. Through attention to nonconscious, noncognitive, and transindividual bodily forces and capacities, affect deprivileges the human as the sole agent in an interaction, thus disrupting measurements of who counts as a literate subject and what counts as a literacy event. No is an affective moment. It can signal a pushback, an absence, or a silence. As a theoretical and methodological way of thinking/feeling with literacy, affect proposes problems rather than solutions, countering solution-focused research in which the resistance is to be overcome, co-opted, or solved. Affect operates as a crack or a chink, a tiny ripple, a barely perceivable gesture, that can persist and, in doing so, hold open the possibility for alternative futures

The Cholecystectomy As A Day Case (CAAD) Score: A Validated Score of Preoperative Predictors of Successful Day-Case Cholecystectomy Using the CholeS Data Set

Background Day-case surgery is associated with significant patient and cost benefits. However, only 43% of cholecystectomy patients are discharged home the same day. One hypothesis is day-case cholecystectomy rates, defined as patients discharged the same day as their operation, may be improved by better assessment of patients using standard preoperative variables. Methods Data were extracted from a prospectively collected data set of cholecystectomy patients from 166 UK and Irish hospitals (CholeS). Cholecystectomies performed as elective procedures were divided into main (75%) and validation (25%) data sets. Preoperative predictors were identified, and a risk score of failed day case was devised using multivariate logistic regression. Receiver operating curve analysis was used to validate the score in the validation data set. Results Of the 7426 elective cholecystectomies performed, 49% of these were discharged home the same day. Same-day discharge following cholecystectomy was less likely with older patients (OR 0.18, 95% CI 0.15–0.23), higher ASA scores (OR 0.19, 95% CI 0.15–0.23), complicated cholelithiasis (OR 0.38, 95% CI 0.31 to 0.48), male gender (OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.58–0.74), previous acute gallstone-related admissions (OR 0.54, 95% CI 0.48–0.60) and preoperative endoscopic intervention (OR 0.40, 95% CI 0.34–0.47). The CAAD score was developed using these variables. When applied to the validation subgroup, a CAAD score of ≤5 was associated with 80.8% successful day-case cholecystectomy compared with 19.2% associated with a CAAD score >5 (p < 0.001). Conclusions The CAAD score which utilises data readily available from clinic letters and electronic sources can predict same-day discharges following cholecystectomy

Preparation of high porosity metal foams

Metal foams with porosities greater than 90 pet were prepared by a novel powder metallurgy route using a polymeric vehicle. Coarse titanium powder and fine carbonyl iron powder were tested. The powders were blended with each component of a two-part polyol-isocyanate foaming system, and the resulting suspensions were mixed and allowed to expand. Although the resulting polymer-metal foam was closed cell, particles were not retained in the windows. Upon pyrolysis to remove the resin, the windows opened and the final sintered metal foam was reticulated. Such foams present very low sintered density and are correspondingly weak after sintering but offer a fine reticulated structure with cell diameters in the region of 100 to 200 mum. They may have applications in the areas of catalysis, biomaterials, and composites

The Roles of Settings in Supporting Immigrants’ Resistance to Injustice and Oppression: A Policy Position Statement by the Society for Community Research and Action

In 2018, in response to increasingly oppressive and widespread federal immigration enforcement actions in the United States (U.S.) and around the globe – including family separation, immigration raids, detention, deportation of people who have lived in the country for much of their lives – the Society for Community Research & Action produced a statement on the effects of deportation and forced separation on immigrants, their families, and communities (SCRA, 2018). The statement focused exclusively on the impacts of deportation and forced family separation, documenting the damage done by oppressive U.S. policies and practices. We felt it was imperative to document this harm, and yet were uncomfortable producing a narrow paper that focused solely on harm. There are multiple ways immigrants and their allies resist deportation and other forms of oppression. This resistance is done individually, collectively, and in settings that vary in size and scope, including community‐based, faith‐based, direct care, and educational settings, as well as entire municipalities and transnational organizing settings. Settings facilitate resistance in many ways, focusing on those who are oppressed, their oppressors, and systems of oppression. In this statement, we describe the unique and overlapping ways in which settings facilitate resistance. We situate this review of the scientific and practice literature in the frameworks of change through social settings, empowering settings, healing justice, and decolonization. We also document recommendations for continued resistance