Barge culture : the ebb and flow of cultural traffic

Early moving image devices and viewing apparatus more often than not used the city as their muse. Displaying and re-representing urban views, they revealed the spaces of illusion in our everyday environment, offering prefilmic spectacles to a receptive public. Social as much as than architectural, this interest in observing our immediate environment has provided us with a rich history of the relationship between architecture and the human body. Early films such as Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera and Laing's Metropolis create an interplay between the viewer and their spatiotemporal confines. The ability in film to manipulate time through freeze framing and slowing, and the multiplication and acceleration of movement, renders time as something elastic and magical. In the structures of many modern films such as Memento and Mulholland Drive, narrative structures are played with and chopped up, representing in themselves a fracturing of thought in different space-time structures. This paper reflects on urbanism and the ways in which artists use the city, revealing abstract notions of cultural use. It presents a curated project and a selection of works which map the city in different ways. </p

Curatorial cultures : considering dynamic curatorial practice

The practice of curating is live and temporal. It has shifted dramatically from its anonymous backstage origin within dusty museums to a role at the forefront of modern art, and is responsible for conjuring both a synergy and a dynamic that operates across a multitude of levels. Curation is a rapidly growing practice and discourse that is fundamentally shifting the ways in which we view and receive art. Much of this shift has been influenced by the works being curated, and with a growing body of works being process-led as opposed to object-based; the practice of curation has had to evolve accordingly. This evolution also encompasses the use of alternative exhibition spaces, a movement away from white-walled galleries, and the historic agendas these imply. The increased integration of media-related artworks into mainstream art agendas has contributed to this development of the curatorial role, as it has for collectors, gallerists and archivists. Although it can be argued that performative and interactive works have been curated using traditional methods for a long time now, it is really media-practices that are demanding an alternative perspective. This paper will look at how responsive methods and approaches are called for when curating media-artworks, and how they shift the curatorial role to that of an active practitioner. It will consider curation as praxis; positioning it at a point between what is known and what will be revealed. It will refer to actual exhibition strategies employed by the author, and look to further discuss how dynamic curatorial approaches can be integrated into mainstream curatorial roles, and how these can subsequently evolve thinking on the presentation and display of contemporary art.</p

International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force consensus proposal: Medical treatment of canine epilepsy in Europe

In Europe, the number of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) licensed for dogs has grown considerably over the last years. Nevertheless, the same questions remain, which include, 1) when to start treatment, 2) which drug is best used initially, 3) which adjunctive AED can be advised if treatment with the initial drug is unsatisfactory, and 4) when treatment changes should be considered. In this consensus proposal, an overview is given on the aim of AED treatment, when to start long-term treatment in canine epilepsy and which veterinary AEDs are currently in use for dogs. The consensus proposal for drug treatment protocols, 1) is based on current published evidence-based literature, 2) considers the current legal framework of the cascade regulation for the prescription of veterinary drugs in Europe, and 3) reflects the authors’ experience. With this paper it is aimed to provide a consensus for the management of canine idiopathic epilepsy. Furthermore, for the management of structural epilepsy AEDs are inevitable in addition to treating the underlying cause, if possible

International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force Consensus Proposal: Outcome of therapeutic interventions in canine and feline epilepsy

Common criteria for the diagnosis of drug resistance and the assessment of outcome are needed urgently as a prerequisite for standardized evaluation and reporting of individual therapeutic responses in canine epilepsy. Thus, we provide a proposal for the definition of drug resistance and partial therapeutic success in canine patients with epilepsy. This consensus statement also suggests a list of factors and aspects of outcome, which should be considered in addition to the impact on seizures. Moreover, these expert recommendations discuss criteria which determine the validity and informative value of a therapeutic trial in an individual patient and also suggest the application of individual outcome criteria. Agreement on common guidelines does not only render a basis for future optimization of individual patient management, but is also a presupposition for the design and implementation of clinical studies with highly standardized inclusion and exclusion criteria. Respective standardization will improve the comparability of findings from different studies and renders an improved basis for multicenter studies. Therefore, this proposal provides an in-depth discussion of the implications of outcome criteria for clinical studies. In particular ethical aspects and the different options for study design and application of individual patient-centered outcome criteria are considered

Its all about context

In most forms of practice, relevance is placed on the art form itself, the artist deposits meaning into a piece of work for an audience to extract. This differs in practices that focus on dialogue, participation, collaboration and exchange, offering potential for new contexts to form through yet unformulated experiences

Constellations

An exhibition of four contemporary artists work

Networked: Sonic Pattern

Curatorial work 2015, 10th Kaunas Biennial, ‘Networked: Sonic Pattern’ with Karen Gaskill, . Žilinskas Art Gallery of National Museum of M. K. Čiurlionis (Nepriklausomybės a. 12, Kaunas), Kaunas, Lithuana, 18th September-31st December

Systematic review of the effectiveness of nursing interventions in reducing or relieving post-operative pain

Objectives  The primary objective of this systematic review was to assess the effectiveness of nursing interventions for the relief/reduction of post-operative pain when compared with either standard care or other nursing interventions. Inclusion criteria  Types of studies This review included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and other quasi-randomised experimental research designs. Types of participants Adults treated for post-operative pain in an acute care hospital. Types of interventions Interventions included in the review were only those directly administered by nursing staff such as: (i) administration of analgesia: including oral, intramuscular injection, patient controlled analgesia, epidural; (ii) pre-operative patient education; (iii) assessment and documentation of intensity of pain at regular intervals; (iv) protocols, clinical pathways or flow-sheets used in the management of pain; and (v) non-pharmacological interventions such as massage and relaxation. Types of outcome measures The primary outcome was the relief or reduction of post-operative pain. Other measures included analgesia consumption, patient satisfaction and length of hospital stay. Search strategy  Search terms were chosen after reviewing text words and MeSH terms in relevant articles and databases. A search for published and unpublished research covering the period 1985-2004 (inclusive) was conducted, using 11 major electronic databases. Reference lists of retrieved articles were hand searched. The search was restricted to reports published in English. Assessment of quality  The methodological quality of eligible studies was appraised by two independent reviewers, using a standardised critical appraisal tool. Differences in opinion were decided by consensus after discussion with a third investigator. Data extraction and analysis  Data were extracted from the studies that met the criteria for methodological quality. Two reviewers independently extracted data for each study, using a standardised extraction tool. Results from homogeneous RCTs where possible were pooled in meta-analysis using RevMan4.2 software program. If the studies were clinically or statistically heterogeneous, the results are discussed in a narrative form. Non-randomised studies are also discussed in narrative form. Results  Overall, there is no strong evidence to support the use of any intervention even though a few interventions showed some benefits. However, evidence for these benefits was often based on single studies. Most of the included studies showed that there was no difference between the interventions and the usual care with both being found equally effective. Implications for practice  There was no strong evidence to support a particular practice. No intervention was found to be harmful; however, this does not presume to be evidence of safety. When there are two similarly effective interventions nurses need to weigh the possible positive and negative of the intervention including side effects, risk of adverse events, cost and patient preference. Other considerations include variations in patients' past pain experiences, type of surgery, many different analgesics. Although there were no controlled trials to support assessment and documentation, professionally and legally, documentation is required