Object Language/On Defining Sculpture

Object Language In the current era we in the Western, developed world, have almost universal free and uninhibited access to almost every piece of information in existence. Increasingly, regardless of the source, material presented to us as fact has become increasingly suspect. Together, these two things mean this endless stream of data is useless. The question is how to combat this decline, how to reverse the process of a meaningless, constant data-dump. The answer lies in the language used to communicate information. Language is the means by which we communicate complex ideas and knowledge from person to person. Language is something ubiquitous in our society, we see it, we hear it, it is so constant we do not even consider it as a part of the concepts it is used to convey. Altering language is one of the subtlest ways that information can still be obfuscated. Sculpture has the capability to reframe its own context. This is the great privilege evidenced numerous times by such works as Duchamp’s Fountain and enumerated by prominent art historians. Transforming something into sculpture implies that the purpose of the work is, at least in part, to reframe the subject matter of the piece. Translating language into sculpture is an effort to reframe this system. The process takes that which is recognizable and readily consumable and obfuscates it, putting barriers between us, the reader, and the idea expressed. That which is freely given is valueless, easily discarded, and ignored. By transforming the content into sculpture the idea is elevated, made enigmatic, even esoteric. The ideas in the context of this show are not freely given. They have been rendered inaccessible and there must be effort expended to understand the message. These ideas must be earned. This makes them more valuable and much harder to ignore or discard. Information is the most powerful tool we have, its possession saves us from the mistakes of the past, it is what guides us through our present, and it is what ensures our future. When information becomes valueless it is altogether too easy for it to be taken away; we lose the most important tool we have in self determination. The supplemental images are of the art exhibition entitled Object Language, produced by the artist, that this thesis is a companion to

Estimating a preference-based index for a menopause specific health quality of life questionnaire

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to develop a menopause-specific, preference-based healthrelated quality-of-life (HRQoL) index reflecting both menopausal symptoms and potential sideeffects of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). METHODS: The study had three phases: the development of a health state classification, a prospective valuation survey and the estimation of a model to interpolate HRQoL indices for all remaining health states as defined by the classification. A menopausal health state classification was developed with seven dimensions: hot flushes, aching joints/muscles, anxious/frightened feelings, breast tenderness, bleeding, vaginal dryness and undesirable androgenic signs. Each dimension contains between three and five levels and defines a total of 6,075 health states. A sample of 96 health states was selected for the valuation survey. These states were valued by a sample of 229 women aged 45 to 60, randomly selected from 6 general practice lists in Sheffield, UK. Respondents were asked to complete a time trade-off (TTO) task for nine health states, resulting in an average of 16.5 values for each health state. RESULTS: Mean health states valued range from 0.48 to 0.98 (where 1.0 is full health and zero is for states regarded as equivalent to death). Symptoms, as described by the classification system, can be rank-ordered in terms of their impact (from high to low) on menopausal HRQoL as follows: aching joints and muscles, bleeding, breast tenderness, anxious or frightened feelings, vaginal dryness, androgenic signs. Hot flushes did not significantly contribute to model fit. The preferred model produced a mean absolute error of 0.053, but suffered from bias at both ends of the scale. CONCLUSION: This article presents an attempt to directly value a condition specific health state classification. The overall fit was disappointing, but the results demonstrate that menopausal symptoms are perceived by patients to have a significant impact on utility. The overall effect is modest compared to the more generic health state descriptions such as the EQ-5D. The resultant algorithm generates a preference-based index that can be used economic evaluation and that reflects the impact of this condition

Vocational Education and Training: The Northern Territory’s history of public philanthropy

This book represents the first consolidated history of vocational education and training in the Northern Territory. Not only does the story present a chronological account of events, people and institutions, it also offers an explanation of how the system actually works and this has application well beyond the Territory. The mix of historical accounting and operational analysis comes from a unique perspective. It is proposed that the best way to understand the behaviour of the government ministers who have responsibility for vocational training is to compare their decisions and actions with those of wealthy philanthropists

Selection for thinner backfat in swine

This work was conducted in cooperation with the Regional Swine Breeding Laboratory, AHRD, ARS, USDA, and was part of University of Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station research project 3, 'Swine Improvement'--P. [2].Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (pages 53-56)

Medical Repatriation: Examining the Legal and Ethical Implications of an Emerging Practice

Because medical repatriation implicates both legal and ethical questions, any proposal attempting to mitigate its problems must be similarly multifaceted and address both the legal and ethical issues involved. This Note puts forth two proposals. The first involves changing the Code of Federal Regulations to create legal standards limiting the practice of medical repatriation. Additionally, it would more broadly and clearly define the circumstances in which hospitals can receive funding for treatment of undocumented immigrants. The second proposal clarifies the American Medical Association‘s Principles of Medical Ethics with respect to the effect of patients‘ immigration status on the applicability of medical ethics standards. This Note asserts that changes are necessary to both legal regulations on medical repatriation and medical ethics standards. Part I of the History section explains the relevance of medical repatriation and anticipates its likely future, absent new regulations. Part II.A of the History section discusses the evolution of medical repatriation, focusing on the lack of government funding available for treatment of undocumented immigrants and the concurrent mandate that hospitals treat all patients with emergent medical conditions. Part II.B reviews medical ethical standards and examines the interplay between ethical and legal standards. Next, this Note analyzes the various factors contributing to the emergence of medical repatriation and evaluates whether the practice comports with currently established legal and ethical standards. Finally, this Note proposes (1) changes to the federal regulations governing hospitals and (2) clarifications to the ethical standards with which the medical profession strives to comply

Consequences of Fragment for Woody Plant Communities: A Study of Reservoir Islands

Forest fragmentation has been overwhelmingly cited as a major threat to the biodiversity and conservation of forested plant communities worldwide. Here I take a community- and species-specific approach to examine how species richness and composition respond to forest fragmentation. I conducted this research on a series of 35 small forested islands that were fragments of continuous forest created by impoundment of the Savannah River in the Southeastern Piedmont of the United States. I paired the islands with 10 mainland forest sites representing large remnant forest with only a single edge exposed along two reservoirs. Species richness was positively related to island area, as predicted by the species-area relationship, and islands in general had greater species richness than mainland sites because of an addition of liana and shrub species uncommon to oak-hickory forests. Due to the increase of lianas, shrubs and pioneer trees in small forested fragments I detected large differences in the plant communities that have developed on these sites over the last 40 to 70 years. In addition, it appears that islands will continue to diverge from mainland forest over time, likely degrading to the point that the species of oak-hickory forest may disappear and convert entirely to disturbance-tolerant early seral communities. Moreover, these fragments had invasive plants species that were less common in the more intact forest. I used a seedling outplanting experiment to determine if two of the more common, non-native woody invaders are likely to invade intact forest interior sites. Indeed, the non-native woody liana, Lonicera japonica appears to have the ability to not only survive, but also thrive under interior forest. In contrast, Albizia julibrissin does not appear to be a major threat to forest interiors unless there is a large canopy disturbance that increases light to seedlings. Finally, I used this study system to test whether species richness estimators provide accurate estimates and should continue to be used to examine important ecological patterns. I found that all 10 of the ones examined were so imprecise that none of them detected the true species-area relationship found across the forest fragments. Use of species richness estimators, in place of true richness, should therefore be used with extreme caution if the goal is to describe patterns in species richness across a set of sites. Overall, my research highlights how much we still have yet to learn about generalities associated with forest fragmentation and species richness estimation techniques