Woman makes a telephone call

Inscriptions: Verso: [stamped] Photograph by Freda Leinwand. [463 West Street, Studio 229G, New York, NY 10014].

Women marching at a women's rights rally carrying sign reading "Don't call me girl"

Inscription: Verso: women's rights demonstration, New York.

Post discharge follow up of children on long term medication

Background: There have been no published studies observing what happens to children post hospital discharge and if medication discrepancies occurred between the hospital and General Practitioner (GP) interface.1 Objectives: To identify the type of discrepancies between hospital discharge prescription and the patient's medicines after their first GP prescription. Method: Over a 3 month period (March–June 2012) across two London NHS hospital sites, parents of children on long term medications aged 18 years and under, were approached and consented prior to discharge from the ward. The patients were followed up 21 days after discharge by telephone call or home visit depending on their preference. The parent was asked if they had contacted their GP for further medications during the follow up, and if not the follow up was rescheduled. The parents were interviewed to find out if there were any discrepancies that occurred post discharge by comparing the patient's hospital discharge letter and medication at follow up. All this information was captured on a data collection form. Results: Eighty-eight patients were consented and 60 patients (68%; 60/88) were followed up by telephone call 21 days post discharge. A total of 317 medications were ordered at discharge among the 60 patients. Of the 60 that were followed up, nine were lost to follow up, one died post discharge, one was excluded from the study, and 11 had not contacted the GP and were to be followed up at a later date. Of the 38 patients who were followed up, 254 medications were ordered. Of the 38 patients there were 12 (32%) patients who had discrepancies that occurred between the discharge letter and GP, 19 (50%) had no issues, and seven (18%) mentioned issues to do with post discharge that were not discrepancies. Of the 12 patients who had at least one medication discrepancy (total 34 medications, range 1–7 discrepancies per patient), six patients had GP discrepancies, four had discrepancies resulting from a hospital outpatient appointment, one related to the discharge letter order and one was a complex discrepancy. An example: a patient was discharged on amiodarone liquid 16.5 mg daily as opposed to 65 mg daily of amiodarone from the GP. Upon interview the parent used volume units to communicate dose as opposed to the actual dose itself and the strengths of liquid had changed. Conclusions: The preliminary results from the study have shown that discrepancies due to several causes occur when paediatric patients leave hospital.

Police is Dead: On the Birth of Economism

Police is Dead is an historiographic analysis whose objective is to change the terms by which contemporary humanist scholarship assesses the phenomenon currently termed neoliberalism. It proceeds by building an archeology of legal thought in the United States that spans the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. My approach assumes that the decline of certain paradigms of political consciousness set historical conditions that enable the emergence of what is to follow. The particular historical form of political consciousness I seek to reintroduce to the present is what I call “police:” a counter-liberal way of understanding social relations that I claim has particular visibility within a legal archive, but that has been largely ignored by humanist theory on account of two tendencies: first, an over-valuation of liberalism as Western history’s master signifier; and second, inconsistent and selective attention to law as a cultural artifact. The first part of my dissertation reconstructs an anatomy of police through close studies of court opinions, legal treatises, and legal scholarship. I focus in particular on juridical descriptions of intimate relationality—which police configured as a public phenomenon—and slave society apologetics, which projected the notion of community as an affective and embodied structure. The second part of this dissertation demonstrates that the dissolution of police was critical to emergence of a paradigm I call economism: an originally progressive economic framework for understanding social relations that I argue developed at the nexus of law and economics at the turn of the twentieth century. Economism is a way of understanding sociality that collapses ontological distinctions between formally distinct political subjects—i.e., the state, the individual, the collective—by reducing them to the perspective of economic force. Insofar as it was taken up and reoriented by neoliberal theory, this paradigm has become a hegemonic form of political consciousness. This project concludes by encouraging a disarticulation of economism—insofar as it is a form of knowledge—from neoliberalism as its contemporary doctrinal manifestation. I suggest that this is one way progressive scholarship can think about moving forward in the development of economic knowledge, rather than desiring to move backwards to a time before the rise of neoliberalism. Disciplinarily, I aim to show that understanding the legal historiography informing our present moment is crucial to this task.

On the fly type specialization without type analysis

Les langages de programmation typés dynamiquement tels que JavaScript et Python repoussent la vérification de typage jusqu’au moment de l’exécution. Afin d’optimiser la performance de ces langages, les implémentations de machines virtuelles pour langages dynamiques doivent tenter d’éliminer les tests de typage dynamiques redondants. Cela se fait habituellement en utilisant une analyse d’inférence de types. Cependant, les analyses de ce genre sont souvent coûteuses et impliquent des compromis entre le temps de compilation et la précision des résultats obtenus. Ceci a conduit à la conception d’architectures de VM de plus en plus complexes. Nous proposons le versionnement paresseux de blocs de base, une technique de compilation à la volée simple qui élimine efficacement les tests de typage dynamiques redondants sur les chemins d’exécution critiques. Cette nouvelle approche génère paresseusement des versions spécialisées des blocs de base tout en propageant de l’information de typage contextualisée. Notre technique ne nécessite pas l’utilisation d’analyses de programme coûteuses, n’est pas contrainte par les limitations de précision des analyses d’inférence de types traditionnelles et évite la complexité des techniques d’optimisation spéculatives. Trois extensions sont apportées au versionnement de blocs de base afin de lui donner des capacités d’optimisation interprocédurale. Une première extension lui donne la possibilité de joindre des informations de typage aux propriétés des objets et aux variables globales. Puis, la spécialisation de points d’entrée lui permet de passer de l’information de typage des fonctions appellantes aux fonctions appellées. Finalement, la spécialisation des continuations d’appels permet de transmettre le type des valeurs de retour des fonctions appellées aux appellants sans coût dynamique. Nous démontrons empiriquement que ces extensions permettent au versionnement de blocs de base d’éliminer plus de tests de typage dynamiques que toute analyse d’inférence de typage statique.

Effects of Prenatal and Early Postnatal Exposure to Aversive Stimuli on Fearfulness and Exploratory Behavior in Bobwhite Qauil Neonates (Colinus virginianus)

Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is a behavioral trait found across a number of animal species, including humans. Neophobic individuals perceive novel environments and stimuli to have aversive properties, and exhibit fearful behaviors when presented with non-familiar situations. The present study examined how early life exposure to aversive novel stimuli could reduce neophobia in bobwhite quail chicks. Experiment 1 exposed chicks to a novel auditory tone previously shown to be aversive to naïve chicks (Suarez, 2012) for 24 hours immediately after hatching, then subsequently tested them in the presence of the tone within a novel maze task. Postnatally exposed chicks demonstrated decreased fearfulness compared to naïve chicks, and behaved more similarly to chicks tested in the presence of a known attractive auditory stimulus (a bobwhite maternal assembly call vocalization). Experiment 2 exposed chicks to the novel auditory tone for 24 hours prenatally, then subsequently tested them within a novel maze task. Prenatally exposed chicks showed decreased fearfulness to a similar degree as those postnatally exposed, revealing that both prenatal and postnatal exposure methods are capable of decreasing fear of auditory stimuli. Experiment 3 exposed chicks to a novel visual stimulus for 24 hours postnatally, then subsequently tested them within a novel emergence box / T-maze apparatus. Chicks exposed to the visual stimulus showed decreased fearfulness compared to naïve chicks, thereby demonstrating the utility of this method across sense modalities. Experiment 4 assessed whether early postnatal exposure to one novel stimulus could generalize and serve to decrease fear of novelty when chicks were tested in the presence of markedly different stimuli. By combining the methods of Experiments 1 and 3, this experiment revealed that chicks exposed to one type of stimulus (auditory or visual) demonstrated decreased fear when subsequently tested in the presence of the opposite type of novel stimulus. These results suggest that experience with novel stimuli can moderate the extent to which neophobia will develop during early development.

Effect of reading sport chronicles on the perception of justice and the predisposition to protest actions in soccer

In this study three chronicles from national newspapers (one generalist and two sport press) were analyzed. The chronicles belong to Spain’s soccer final of the King’s Cup in 2014. The aim of the study was to know if there was any influence on the readers’ perception of justice and consequently if this influence could cause a particular predisposition to participate in acts of protest. 462 university students participated. The results showed that different chronicles caused differences in the perception of justice depending on the chronicle read. However, a clear influence on the willingness to participate in acts of protest was not obtained. These results should make us think about the impact of sport press and its influence, and to be aware of the indirect responsibility of every sector on the antisocial behaviors generated by soccer in our country.

Concept maps as a tool to analyze the ideas of teacher training students regarding what to teach on human nutrition in Primary Education

Concept maps are a technique used to obtain a visual representation of a person's ideas about a concept or a set of related concepts. Specifically, in this paper, through a qualitative methodology, we analyze the concept maps proposed by 52 groups of teacher training students in order to find out the characteristics of the maps and the degree of adequacy of the contents with regard to the teaching of human nutrition in the 3rd cycle of primary education. The participants were enrolled in the Teacher Training Degree majoring in Primary Education, and the data collection was carried out through a training activity under the theme of what to teach about Science in Primary School? The results show that the maps are a useful tool for working in teacher education as they allow organizing, synthesizing, and communicating what students know. Moreover, through this work, it has been possible to see that future teachers have acceptable skills for representing the concepts/ideas in a concept map, although the level of adequacy of concepts/ideas about human nutrition and its relations is usually medium or low. These results are a wake-up call for teacher training, both initial and ongoing, because they shows the inability to change priorities as far as the selection of content is concerned.

Rabbits, stoats and the predator problem: Why a strong animal rights position need not call for human intervention to protect prey from predators

Animal rights positions face the ‘predator problem’: the suggestion that if the rights of nonhuman animals are to be protected, then we are obliged to interfere in natural ecosystems to protect prey from predators. Generally, rather than embracing this conclusion, animal ethicists have rejected it, basing this objection on a number of different arguments. This paper considers but challenges three such arguments, before defending a fourth possibility. Rejected are Peter Singer’s suggestion that interference will lead to more harm than good, Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s suggestion that respect for nonhuman sovereignty necessitates non-interference in normal circumstances, and Alasdair Cochrane’s solution based on the claim that predators cannot survive without killing prey. The possibility defended builds upon Tom Regan’s suggestion that predators, as moral patients but not moral agents, cannot violate the rights of their prey, and so the rights of the prey, while they do exist, do not call for intervention. This idea is developed by a consideration of how moral agents can be more or less responsible for a given event, and defended against criticisms offered by thinkers including Alasdair Cochrane and Dale Jamieson.

E-Government Collaboration in the Swedish Public Sector : Multiple Studies on Collaboration Facilitators and Collaboration Modes

Collaboration in the public sector is imperative to achieve e-government objectives such as improved efficiency and effectiveness of public administration and improved quality of public services. Collaboration across organizational and institutional boundaries requires public organizations to share e-government systems and services through for instance, interoperable information technology and processes. Demands on public organizations to become more open also require that public organizations adopt new collaborative approaches for inviting and engaging citizens in governmental activities. E-government related collaboration in the public sector is challenging, however, and collaboration initiatives often fail. Public organizations need to learn how to collaborate since forms of e-government collaboration and expected outcomes are mostly unknown. How public organizations can collaborate and the expected outcomes are thus investigated in this thesis by studying multiple collaboration cases on the acquisition and implementation of a particular e-government investment (digital archive). This thesis also investigates how e-government collaboration can be facilitated through artifacts. It is done through a case study, where objects that cross boundaries between collaborating communities in the public sector are studied, and by designing a configurable process model integrating several processes for social services. By using design science, this thesis also investigates how an m-government solution that facilitates collaboration between citizens and public organizations can be designed. The thesis contributes to literature through describing five different modes of interorganizational collaboration in the public sector and the expected benefits from each mode. It also contributes with an instantiation of a configurable process model supporting three open social e-services and with evidence of how it can facilitate collaboration. This thesis further describes how boundary objects facilitate collaboration between different communities in an open government design initiative. It contributes with a designed mobile government solution, thereby providing proof of concept and initial design implications for enabling collaboration with citizens through citizen sourcing (outsourcing a governmental activity to citizens through an open call). This thesis also identifies research streams within e-government collaboration research through a literature review and the thesis contributions are related to the identified research streams. This thesis gives directions for future research by suggesting that future research should focus further on understanding e-government collaboration and how information and communication technology can facilitate collaboration in the public sector. It is suggested that further research should investigate m-government solutions to form design theories. Future research should also examine how value can be co-created in e-government collaboration.

Democratic Citizenship - A Conditioned Apprenticeship : A Call for Destabilisation of Democracy in Education

We live in times when the search for a citizenship education that can transcend national, ethnical and cultural borders is an important part of educational policy. In times of increased pressure by the European Union on its nation states to provide for nation-transcending democracy, this question becomes crucial for national policymaking in Europe. In this text, Swedish education policy will be taken as a case in point in order to shed light on how this question is being handled in this particular national policy setting. It is argued that the policy’s citizen fostering agenda tends to be counterproductive in the sense that it is still situated in national notions of the relationship between democracy and education, which tend to exclude certain individuals and groups of people on an age-related and (ethno) cultural basis. It is further argued that these excluding features can be related to educational ideas about socialisation. The aim of this text is underlined by suggesting a different way of framing democracy and democratic citizenship education: to increase the potential of education as regards the renewal of democracy and democratic citizenship.

Dream characteristics in a Brazilian sample: an online survey focusing on lucid dreaming

During sleep, humans experience the offline images and sensations that we call dreams, which are typically emotional and lacking in rational judgment of their bizarreness. However, during lucid dreaming (LD), subjects know that they are dreaming, and may control oneiric content. Dreaming and LD features have been studied in North Americans, Europeans and Asians, but not among Brazilians, the largest population in Latin America. Here we investigated dreams and LD characteristics in a Brazilian sample (n=3,427; median age=25 years) through an online survey. The subjects reported recalling dreams at least once a week (76%), and that dreams typically depicted actions (93%), known people (92%), sounds/voices (78%), and colored images (76%). The oneiric content was associated with plans for the upcoming days (37%), memories of the previous day (13%), or unrelated to the dreamer (30%). Nightmares usually depicted anxiety/fear (65%), being stalked (48%), or other unpleasant sensations(47%). These data corroborate Freudian notion of day residue in dreams, and suggest that dreams and nightmares are simulations of life situations that are related to our psychobiological integrity. Regarding LD, we observed that 77% of the subjects experienced LD at least once in life (44% up to 10 episodes ever), and for 48% LD subjectively lasted less than 1 min. LD frequency correlated weakly with dream recall frequency (r =0.20,p< 0.01), and LD control was rare (29%). LD occurrence was facilitated when subjects did not need to wake up early (38%), a situation that increases rapid eye movement sleep (REMS) duration, or when subjects were under stress (30%), which increases REMS transitions into waking. These results indicate that LD is relatively ubiquitous but rare, unstable, difficult to control, and facilitated by increases in REMS duration and transitions to wake state. Together with LD incidence in USA, Europe and Asia, our data from Latin America strengthen the notion that LD is a general phenomenon of the human species.

Good year, bad year: changing strategies, changing networks? A two-year study on seed acquisition in northern Cameroon

Analysis of seed exchange networks at a single point in time may reify sporadic relations into apparently fixed and long-lasting ones. In northern Cameroon, where environment is not only strongly seasonal but also shows unpredictable interannual variation, farmers’ social networks are flexible from year to year. When adjusting their strategies, Tupuri farmers do not systematically solicit the same partners to acquire the desired propagules. Seed acquisitions documented during a single cropping season may thus not accurately reflect the underlying larger social network that can be mobilized at the local level. To test this hypothesis, we documented, at the outset of two cropping seasons (2010 and 2011), the relationships through which seeds were acquired by the members of 16 households in a Tupuri community. In 2011, farmers faced sudden failure of the rains and had to solicit distant relatives, highlighting their ability to quickly trigger specific social relations to acquire necessary seeding material. Observing the same set of individuals during two successive years and the seed sources they solicited in each year enabled us to discriminate repeated relations from sporadic ones. Although farmers did not acquire seeds from the same individuals from one year to the next, they relied on quite similar relational categories of people. However, the worse weather conditions during the second year led to (1) a shift from red sorghum seeds to pearl millet seeds, (2) a geographical extension of the network, and (3) an increased participation of women in seed acquisitions. In critical situations, women mobilized their own kin almost exclusively. We suggest that studying the seed acquisition network over a single year provides a misrepresentation of the underlying social network. Depending on the difficulties farmers face, they may occasionally call on relationships that transcend the local relationships used each year.

Time Delays on the Identification of the Need for CPR for Limited English Proficient 9-1-1 Callers

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Verification and Implementation of Call Sequence Analysing Algorithm

Työssä arvioidaan ja verifioidaan puheluiden luokitteluun suunniteltu Call Sequence Analysing Algorithm (CSA-algoritmi). Algoritmin tavoitteena on luokitella riittävän samankaltaiset puhelut ryhmiksi tarkempaa vika-analyysia varten. Työssä esitellään eri koneoppimisalgoritmien pääluokitukset ja niiden tyypilliset eroavaisuudet, eri luokitteluprosesseille ominaiset datatyypit, sekä toimintaympäristöt, joissa kyseinen toteutus on suunniteltu toimivaksi. CSA-algoritmille syötetään verkon ylläpitoviesteistä koostuvia viestisarjoja, joiden sisällön perusteella samankaltaiset sarjat ryhmitellään kokonaisuuksiksi. Algoritmin suorituskykyä arvioidaan 94 käsin luokitellun verrokkisarjan avulla. Sarjat on kerätty toimivasta 3G-verkon kontrollerista. Kahta sarjaa vertailemalla sarjaparille muodostetaan keskinäinen tunnusluku: sarjojen samanlaisuutta kuvaava etäisyys. Tässä työssä keskitytään erityisesti Hamming-etäisyyteen. Etäisyyden avulla sarjat koostetaan ryhmiksi. Muuttamalla hyväksyttävää maksimietäisyyttä, jonka perusteella kaksi sarjaa lasketaan kuuluvaksi samaan ryhmään, saadaan aikaiseksi alaryhmiä, joihin kuuluu ainoastaan samankaltaisia sarjoja. Hyväksyttävän etäisyyden kasvaessa, myös virheluokitusten määrä kasvaa. Oikeiden lajittelutulosten vertailukohteena toimii käsin luokiteltu ryhmittely. CSA-algoritmin luokittelutuloksen tarkkuus esitetään prosentuaalisena osuutena tavoiteryhmittelystä maksimietäisyyden funktiona. Työssä osoitetaan, miten etäisyysattribuutiksi valittu Hamming-etäisyys ei sovellu tämän datan luokitteluun. Työn lopussa ehdotetaan menetelmää ja työkalua, joiden avulla useampaa eri lajittelija-algoritmia voidaan testata nopealla kehityssyklillä.