Genetic Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance: A Side-by-Side Comparison of the Title I Provisions in H.R. 493 and S. 358

[Excerpt] On April 25, the House passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007, H.R. 493, on a vote of 420-3. Earlier, the measure was reported by the Education and Labor Committee (H.Rept. 110-28, Part I), the Ways and Means Committee (H.Rept. 110-28, Part II), and the Energy and Commerce Committee (H.Rept. 110-28, Parts III & IV). The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved similar legislation (S. 358) on March 29, and filed its report (S.Rept. 110-48) on April 10. S. 358 is awaiting Senate floor action. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act would restrict health insurers’ and employers’ acquisition and use of genetic information in several ways. These restrictions build upon those already imposed in federal law

Multi-modal discrimination learning in humans: evidence for configural theory

Human contingency learning was used to compare the predictions of configural and elemental theories. In three experiments, participants were required to learn which indicators were associated with an increase in core temperature of a fictitious nuclear plant. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated the rate at which a triple-element stimulus (ABC) could be discriminated from either single-element stimuli (A, B, and C) or double-element stimuli (AB, BC, and AC). Experiment 1 used visual stimuli, whilst Experiment 2 used visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli. In both experiments the participants took longer to discriminate the triple-element stimulus from the more similar double-element stimuli than from the less similar single-element stimuli. Experiment 3 tested for summation with stimuli from either single or multiple modalities and summation was found only in the latter. Thus the pattern of results seen in Experiments 1 and 2 was not dependent on whether the stimuli were single- or multi-modal nor was it dependent on whether the stimuli could elicit summation. This pattern of results is consistent with the predictions of Pearce’s (1987) configural theory

Popper's experiment, Copenhagen Interpretation and Nonlocality

A thought experiment, proposed by Karl Popper, which has been experimentally realized recently, is critically examined. A basic flaw in Popper's argument which has also been prevailing in subsequent debates, is pointed out. It is shown that Popper's experiment can be understood easily within the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. An alternate experiment, based on discrete variables, is proposed, which constitutes Popper's test in a clearer way. It refutes the argument of absence of nonlocality in quantum mechanics.Comment: Thoroughly revised. To appear in Int. J. Quantum Informatio

Sound and space: music for organ and electronics

This research explores creative, interpretative and listening processes in ‘open notation’ music for organ and electronics, using Nicholas Bourriaud’s concept of the ‘journey form’ (2010) as a theoretical lens. It pursues an understanding of these processes as iterative practices that articulate separate, but equal, aspects of a single process, and as such postulates a way of considering the ontology of the work as one that finds its expression in the multiplicity of the work in performance. The researcher has explored the genre of organ and electronics through recent works, several specifically commissioned for the project, and through comparison of performance in a number of spaces throughout the UK as part of a national tour. Her specific relationship with these works, and with multiple performance spaces through them, has offered the material for reflection in deriving the conclusions of the work. The research considers the performance space as embodied by the performer as an extension of her instrument, and explores organ performance as a site-specific practice that interacts with the instrument and space through the medium of notation. In the case of each of the pieces, the project works towards a ‘work-specific performance practice’ (Kanga, 2015) as a way of articulating this relationship through the performance of individual works. The goal of this research was not a set of ‘finished’ performances but a way of articulating the expression of the process of a work and the performance as a part of its articulation. The research is expressed through a portfolio of related work: a concert tour, which expresses the processes of the research, a CD recording which documents single expressions of each of the pieces at the end of these processes, and a book chapter that explores the theoretical implications of the research. Further, supporting documentation is offered as a complete record of the processes of the research

On a purported local extension of the quantum formalism

Since the early days of quantum mechanics, a number of physicists have doubted whether quantum mechanics was a complete theory and wondered whether it was possible to extend the quantum formalism by adjoining hidden variables.1 In 1952, Bohm answered this question in the affirmative2 and in doing so refuted von Neumann’s influential yet flawed proof that no such extension was possible.3 However, Bohm’s hidden variable theory has not won wide support partly because the theory is nonlocal: there is instantaneous action at a distance. Since there is an obvious problem reconciling such nonlocal theories with Relativity, hidden variable theories would look much more promising if they also satisfied locality. Accordingly, the question as to whether or not local hidden variable theories are possible assumes great significance. In 1964 Bell appeared to prove that this question had a negative answer:4 He showed that any local hidden variables theory is incompatible with certain quantum mechanical predictions. Since these predictions have been borne out by the experiments of Aspect and others5 the prospects for hidden variable theories have looked grim. Angelidis disagrees.6 He claims to have done to Bell what Bohm did to von Neummann: He has found a theory which is local and which generates a family of probability functions converging uniformly to the probability function generated by quantum mechanics. If this were true, then Angelidis’ theory would be a counterexample to Bell’s theorem and a promising path would once again be open to hidden variable theorists. Unfortunately, Angelidis’ theory fails to live up to his claims: As formulated, the theory does not make the same predictions as quantum mechanics, and while there is a natural extension of his theory which does make the same predictions, the extension is not local. Bell’s Theorem stands

Genetic Discrimination: Overview of the Issue and Proposed Legislation

[Excerpt] A key policy issue before Congress is whether the potential for genetic discrimination by employers and insurers merits protections for genetic information that are more extensive than those already in place for health information. For the stated purpose of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance and employment, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2007 (H.R. 493) was introduced in the House on January 16, 2007. On January 22, 2007, the act was introduced in the Senate (S. 358). The act is identical to the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2005, which passed the Senate by a vote of 98-0 (S. 306, 109th). An identical House bill (H.R. 1227, 109th), never came to a vote. S. 306 was very similar to S. 1053 (108th), which the Senate passed in 2003 by a vote of 95-0. A distinct House bill, H.R. 1910 (108th), never came to a vote. This report focuses on the key points in the ongoing debate about genetic discrimination legislation

/’(H)WETH: VOICE – BREATH – BODY – FORM/S

/’(h)weTH is a collaborative work of visual and sound art produced by R. Armstrong (USA) and Lauren Redhead (UK). The work combines an installation, two video projections, four channel sound, and an optional solo performance part, in order to create an experience that is simultaneously aural and visual, in all of its elements. This article sets out to further explore the main themes of the work, by means of a dialogue between the voices of the two artists. In doing so, it also facilitates a discussion of how /’(h)weTH might contribute to an understanding of the materiality of sound art, and the boundaries between visual art, sound art, and music

Modern ‘live’ football: moving from the panoptican gaze to the performative, virtual and carnivalesque

Drawing on Redhead's discussion of Baudrillard as a theorist of hyperreality, the paper considers the different ways in which the mediatized ‘live’ football spectacle is often modelled on the ‘live’ however eventually usurps the ‘live’ forms position in the cultural economy, thus beginning to replicate the mediatized ‘live’. The blurring of the ‘live’ and ‘real’ through an accelerated mediatization of football allows the formation of an imagined community mobilized by the working class whilst mediated through the sanitization, selling of ‘events’ and the middle classing of football, through the re-encoding of sporting spaces and strategic decision-making about broadcasting. A culture of pub supporting then allows potential for working-class supporters to remove themselves from the panoptican gazing systems of late modern hyperreal football stadia and into carnivalesque performative spaces, which in many cases are hyperreal and simulated themselves

Listening Intertextually in Beat Furrer's Music Theatre Works

This article focuses on three of Beat Furrer's works described as opera or music theatre: Begehren (2001), FAMA (2005) and Wüstenbuch (2010). Each of these pieces sets texts from Roman, contemporary and historical authors in exploration of the liminal spaces between life and death, and the possible transitions between them. In Wüstenbuch one such text is included from the Papyrus Berlin 3024, known as the source of the Ancient Egyptian philosophical text ‘The Dispute between a Man and his Ba’, a reflection on the meaning and value of life and the transition between life and death. Furrer's compositional style does not offer a linear narrative on such questions but rather multiple perspectives and tableaux, each of which calls the others and itself into question. In order to explore this and understand what the meeting and interchange of the different texts and authors offers within the context of Furrer's music, I outline a method of ‘listening intertextually’ in order to hear the liminal spaces not only within but between these compositions. I consider the hybrid and hypertexts that arise within the music, and the ways that they can be therefore considered – as in the subtitle often given to FAMA – a ‘drama of listening’