The Right Amount of Sex: Digital Labor in the Grey Zone of Platform Governance

Women in the "Grey Zone"? Ambiguity, Complicity and Rape Culture

BackgroundThe Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2) High-Risk HPV DNA assay serves as a triage test in the Slovenian national cervical cancer screening programme ZORA. To improve the limited analytical accuracy of HC2 test results near the cut-off value (1.0 relative light units/cut-off (RLU/CO)), we follow an internal protocol of repeating the test on all samples with borderline results within the 0.7-2.0 RLU/CO interval. The aim of the study was (i) to determine the clinical relevance of HC2 test results within three different “grey zones” for samples stored in Specimen Transport Medium (STM) and (ii) to determine whether the current algorithm of retesting “grey zone” STM specimens with the HC2 assay is clinically relevant.Patients and methodsThe study included 594 women between 20 and 65 years of age. All participating women were referred for colposcopy, and in cases of abnormal results, biopsy was performed. We assessed the distribution of HC2 test results and the corresponding proportion of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or worse (CIN2+) lesions in three different “grey zones” (1.0–2.5, 0.4–4.0 and 0.7–2.0 RLU/CO), retested specimens with results within a 0.4–4.0 RLU/CO interval and calculated the sensitivity and specificity for HC2 at different RLU/CO values.ResultsThe proportion of specimens within 1.0–2.5, 0.4–4.0 and 0.7–2.0 RLU/CO intervals was 3.9%, 10.8% and 4.5%, respectively. The proportion of CIN2+ lesions within these “grey zones” was 2.5%, 5.6% and 1.2%, respectively. Retesting the samples did not detect any additional CIN2+ cases. Within the 1.0–2.5 RLU/CO interval, the sensitivity decreased from 93.8% to 91.4%, while the specificity increased from 63.3% to 67.5%; for the 0.4–4.0 RLU/CO interval, the sensitivity decreased from 95.1% to 89.5%, while the specificity increased from 56.8% to 69.4%; and for the 0.7–2.0 RLU/CO interval, the sensitivity remained nearly constant (94.4 vs. 93.2%), while the specificity increased from 60.6% to 66.4%.ConclusionsOur results show that retesting STM samples within the “grey zones” is not necessary. Retesting samples in the negative “grey zone” does not increase sensitivity, and retesting in the positive “grey zone” is not followed by a less intensive management of women, since these women are recalled regardless of the results of the retest. Furthermore, the majority of samples retain the original HC2 results after retest, and the number of CIN2+ lesions among women with “grey zone” HC2 results is low.

Zone

BackgroundIn an inter-rater agreement study, if two raters tend to rate considering different aspects of the subject of interest or have different experience levels, a grey zone occurs among the levels of a square contingency table showing the inter-rater agreement. These grey zones distort the degree of agreement between raters and negatively impact the decisions based on the inter-rater agreement tables. In this sense, it is important to know how the existence of a grey zone impacts the inter-rater agreement coefficients to choose the most reliable agreement coefficient against the grey zones to reach out with more reliable decisions.MethodsIn this article, we propose two approaches to create grey zones in simulations setting and conduct an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study to figure out the impact of having grey zones on the weighted inter-rater agreement measures for ordinal tables over a comprehensive simulation space.ResultsThe weighted inter-rater agreement coefficients are not reliable against the existence of grey zones. Increasing sample size and the number of categories in the agreement table decreases the accuracy of weighted inter-rater agreement measures when there is a grey zone. When the degree of agreement between the raters is high, the agreement measures are not significantly impacted by the existence of grey zones. However, if there is a medium to low degree of inter-rater agreement, all the weighted coefficients are more or less impacted.ConclusionsIt is observed in this study that the existence of grey zones has a significant negative impact on the accuracy of agreement measures especially for a low degree of true agreement and high sample and tables sizes. In general, Gwet’s AC2 and Brennan-Prediger’s κ with quadratic or ordinal weights are reliable against the grey zones.

The 2017 Assisi Think Tank Meeting on rectal cancer: A positioning paper

Drawing on numerous case studies, the article examines the specific conditions for organising and managing the employment relationship on digital labour platforms. We show that these conditions are largely due to the disruptive nature of the process of digitising the employee–employer relationship. Digitisation replaces the employment contract of the standard employment relationship with a triangular “worker–platform–customer” relationship. In this model, the boundaries of the employment relationship become opaque and more uncertain: the bond of subordination disappears, labour law gives way to commercial law, and the figures of the employer and the employee lose institutional visibility. The article seeks to clarify the contours of this “in-between” model and proposes the notion of the “grey zone,” borrowed from geopolitics. This notion of the “employment grey zone” makes it possible to shift the researcher's perspective by focusing attention on practices and “intermediate spaces of regulation,” which are relatively autonomous and endowed with their own dynamics. This framework of analysis broadens the perspective and helps to better understand the impact on the employment relationship of new forms of governance in a context of a digital turning point. The article first returns to the notion of the “grey zone” and argues on the foundations and interest of mobilising this notion in the field of industrial relations studies. The links between digital platforms and grey zones are then examined. In particular, we show that digital governance is based on a confusion of powers between coordination and leadership. The reflection continues in a third phase with an examination of digital management practices in two areas: the control of the activity of connected workers, and the production and management of externalities resulting from the operation of platforms. The article concludes with a discussion on the heuristic value of the notion of grey zones of employment.

There has been growing concern about the increase in gender-based violence (GBV) among young people. The aim of this study was to explore the grey zones in GBV alongside gender (masculinities and femininities) discourses in young adults. We used the concept of a "grey zone" as an analytical tool to identify possible contradictory discursive positions where the notions of victims and perpetrators of GBV converge and become ambiguous. We performed a qualitative study based on 20 semi-structured interviews and 4 focus groups (October 2019 to February 2020) in Spain with a sample of 49 cisgender women and men, aged between 18 and 24, some involved in feminist activism and some not. We conducted a sociological analysis of the discourse system. Study findings show how culturally constructed gender norms intervene in the ways in which young people understand and deal with GBV. When asked general questions about GBV, this concept was problematized along with gender assumptions and two discursive positions were identified: the discourse of "men as authors of GBV" and the discourse of "GBV as an individual genderless issue." When vignettes of everyday GBV situations were shown, grey zones became visible when discussing subtle forms of GBV influenced by the myths of romantic love, victim-blaming around sexual violence, digital GBV and bystander men intervention on GBV. In those grey zones, discourses on GBV were articulated around unequal notions of gender that, in turn, served as its justification, reproduction, and normalization. The grey zones identified represent contexts of oppression that illustrate how GBV is systematically reproduced, as well as the ways in which young people can be involved in it, perpetuating power and health inequalities. Our findings provide information as a guide to design GBV interventions and prevention actions that incorporate a focus on gender configurations.

107 The 13C-urea breath test (UBT) is well suitable to detect H. pylori infection in school age children but has not been validated in infants and toddlers. We evaluated the UBT with a mathematical method in a large paediatric population. Methods: UBTs (n=1499) were performed in children (2 m - 18 y) after ≥4 h fasting with 75 mg 13C-urea in apple juice. Breath samples were obtained at 0, 15 & 30 min. Distribution of natural logarithms of δ-over-base-line (DOB) values allowed calculation of optimal cut-off values between pos. and neg. results. Using discriminate analysis grey zones with a risk of erroneous interpretation ≥10 % were determined. Results were calculated for 3 age groups (≤6 y, >6 - ≤12 y, and >12 y). Since only 23/1499 children were ≤2 y, additional 257 infants/toddlers were tested to further evaluate age effects on DOB-values. Results: The calculated optimal cut off values were 4.7 ‰ at 15 min and 5 ‰ at 30 min. At 30 min, median DOB-values of children considered infected were higher (23.4 ‰ vs. 20.9 ‰ at 15 min) and less results (2.6 % vs. 3.1 %) were in the calculated grey zones (2.6 - 6.5 ‰ vs. 2.2 - 6.0 ‰). At both time points mean DOB-values were significantly different between age groups (p<0.001), and a higher % of young patients had values in the grey zones for both, neg. and pos. results (table: mean DOB, 95 % CI, % of pat. in grey zone). Applying the cut-off values and grey zones to children ≤2 y of age (n=95) revealed 11.6 % of considered negative results in the grey zone at 30 min, and 23.8 % at 15 min. With increasing age, these proportions decreased: age group >2 - ≤4 y (n=138): 7.5 % at 30 min, 9.6 % at 15 min, age group >4 - ≤6 y (n=269): 5 % at 30 min, 3 % at 15 min. Conclusions: Infants and toddlers very often have borderline DOB-values, with a high risk of diagnostic misclassification. Until UBT is validated against invasive methods in young children, test results should be interpreted with caution.Table

BackgroundIn inter-rater agreement studies, the assessment behaviour of raters can be influenced by their experience, training levels, the degree of willingness to take risks, and the availability of clear guidelines for the assessment. When the assessment behaviour of raters differentiates for some levels of an ordinal classification, a grey zone occurs between the corresponding adjacent cells to these levels around the main diagonal of the table. A grey zone introduces a negative bias to the estimate of the agreement level between the raters. In that sense, it is crucial to detect the existence of a grey zone in an agreement table.MethodsIn this study, a framework composed of a metric and the corresponding threshold is developed to identify grey zones in an agreement table. The symmetry model and Cohen’s kappa are used to define the metric, and the threshold is based on a nonlinear regression model. A numerical study is conducted to assess the accuracy of the developed framework. Real data examples are provided to illustrate the use of the metric and the impact of identifying a grey zone.ResultsThe sensitivity and specificity of the proposed framework are shown to be very high under moderate, substantial, and near-perfect agreement levels for 3times 3 and 4 times 4 tables and sample sizes greater than or equal to 100 and 50, respectively. Real data examples demonstrate that when a grey zone is detected in the table, it is possible to report a notably higher level of agreement in the studies.ConclusionsThe accuracy of the proposed framework is sufficiently high; hence, it provides practitioners with a precise way to detect the grey zones in agreement tables.

The article analyses the ‘ordinary’ violence of revolutionary politics, particularly acts of gendered and sexual violence that tend to be neglected in the face of the ‘extraordinariness’ of political terror. Focusing on the extreme left Naxalbari movement of West Bengal, it points to those morally ambiguous ‘grey zones’ that confound the rigid distinctions between victim and victimizer in insurrectionary politics. Public and private recollections of sexual and gender‐based injuries by women activists point to the complex intermeshing of different forms of violence (everyday, political, structural, symbolic) across ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ spaces, ‘public’ and ‘private’ worlds, and communities of trust and those of betrayal. In making sense of these memories and their largely secret or ‘untellable’ nature, the article places sexual violence on a continuum of multiple and interrelated forces that are both overt and symbolic, and include a society's ways of mourning some forms of violence and silencing others. The idea of a continuum explores the ‘greyness’ of violence as the very object of anthropological inquiry.RésuméL'article analyse la violence « ordinaire » des politiques révolutionnaires, en particulier les actes de violence sexuée et sexuelle, souvent négligées face au caractère « extraordinaire » de la terreur politique. Dans le cas précis du mouvement d'extrême‐gauche Naxalbari du Bengale occidental, l'auteur pointe les « zones grises » d'ambiguïté morale où les distinctions strictes entre victimes et agresseurs se confondent dans les politiques d'insurrection. Les souvenirs, publics et privés, d'agressions sexuelles et sexuées de femmes activistes mettent en évidence les liens complexes entre différentes formes de violence (quotidienne, politique, structurelle, symbolique) dans les espaces « sûrs » et « à risques », dans le monde « public » et « privé », et les communautés de confiance et de trahison. En recherchant le sens de ces souvenirs et de leur nature en grande partie secrète ou « indicible », l'auteur situe la violence sexuelle dans un continuum de forces multiples et liées, à la fois manifestes et symboliques, qui incluent la façon dont une société déplore certaines formes de violence et en passe d'autres sous silence. L'idée d'un continuum explore le caractère « gris » de la violence comme l'objet même de l'enquête anthropologique.

Purpose: The study purpose is to examine the financial stability of Pakistani textile enterprises. Investment towards textile is crucial to boost the textile sector’s financial performance, which can be analyzed by adopting the model of Altman Z-score.&#x0D; Design/Methodology/Approach: The Altman Z-score approach is a method, applied to analyze the financial stability of textile firms for seven years from 2013-2014 to 2019-2020 through the annual reports of textile firms which were taken from companies’ website and PSX links. Quantitative analysis is done by MS-Excel using simple random sampling technique of secondary data of 10 firms taken from 5% listed companies.&#x0D; Findings:Finding of the study shows that financial performance of textile sector lies in all three zones of safe, grey and distress zones. 30% of textile sector falls in safe zone, 40% falls in grey while only 30% of textile sector of Pakistan falls in distress zone. Average result of textile sector of Pakistan is in grey zone, which shows the companies can get safe zone if they control required ratios.&#x0D; Implications/Originality/Value: Result shows that textile firms of Pakistan may improve financial performance and stability because it lies in grey zone by controlling their financial ratios which are the part of Altman Z-Score model.

PurposeCoronary angiography-derived fractional flow reserve (caFFR) is a novel computational flow dynamics (CFD)-derived assessment of coronary vessel flow with good diagnostic performance. Herein, we performed a retrospective study to evaluate the reproducibility of caFFR findings between observers and investigate the diagnostic performance of caFFR for coronary stenosis defined as FFR ≤0.80, especially in the grey zone (0.75≤caFFR ≤0.80).Patients and MethodsA total of 150 patients (167 coronary vessels) underwent caFFR (with FlashAngio used for calculation of flow variables) and subsequent invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) measurements. Outcomes, including reproducibility, were compared for vessels in and outside the grey zone.ResultsThe correlation of caFFR findings was good between the two laboratories (r = 0.723, p<0.001). The AUC of ROC were both high for caFFR-CoreLab1 and caFFR-CoreLab2 (0.975 and 0.883). The diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and negative and positive predictive values were not significantly different between the two laboratories (p>0.05). caFFR had a strong correlation with measures to FFR (r=0.911, p<0.001). There was no systematic difference between caFFR and FFR on Bland-Altman analysis in and outside the grey zone. There was no difference in diagnostic accuracy between the grey and non-grey zones in the prediction of FFR ≤0.80 (p=0.09).ConclusionThe inter-observer reproducibility for caFFR was high, and the diagnostic accuracy of caFFR was good compared to that of FFR.

Gray zones, which develop wherever oppression is severe and lasting, are inhabited by victims of evil who become complicit in perpetrating on others the evils that threaten to engulf themselves. Women, who have inhabited many gray zones, present challenges for feminist theorists, who have long struggled with how resistance is possible under coercive institutions. Building on Primo Levi's reflections on the gray zone in Nazi death camps and ghettos, this essay argues that resistance is sometimes possible, although outsiders are rarely, if ever, in a position to judge when. It also raises questions about the adequacy of ordinary moral concepts to mark the distinctions that would be helpful for thinking about how to respond in a gray zone.

Visible darkfield reflectance spectroscopy equipped with a color mapping system has been developed and applied to a brown-colored Rokko granite sample. Sample reflectance spectra converted to Kubelka-Munk (KM) spectra show similar features to goethite and lepidocrocite. Raman microspectroscopy on the granite sample surface confirms the presence of these minerals. Here, L*a*b* color values (second Commission Internationale d'Eclairage [CIELab] 1976 color space) were determined from the sample reflection spectra. Grey, yellow, and brown zones of the granite show different L*, a*, and b* values. In the a*-b* diagram, a* and b* values in the grey and brown zones are on the lepidocrocite/ferrihydrite trends, but their values in the brown zone are larger than those in the grey zone. The yellow zone shows data points close to the goethite trend. Iron (hydr)oxide-rich areas can be visualized by means of large a* and b* values in the L*, a*, and b* maps. Although the present method has some problems and limitations, the visible darkfield reflectance spectroscopy can be a useful method for colored-material characterization.

Decrease in pulse pressure and stroke volume variations after mini-fluid challenge accurately predicts fluid responsiveness