Claims Of Superiority Research Articles

On Second Thought

On Second Thought

ЛИАНОЗОВСКИЙ БИОГРАФИЧЕСКИЙ МИФ В РОМАНЕ ВЛАДИМИРА СОРОКИНА «ГОЛУБОЕ САЛО

The article examines one of the key episodes of V. Sorokin's novel “Blue Lard” (1999) from the perspective of the biographical myth. In the novel, some prominent representatives of Soviet uncensored art appear as characters. They are members of the Lianozovo group Evgeny Kropivnitsky, Oskar Rabin, Igor Kholin, Genrikh Sapgir, and Vsevolod Nekrasov. It is argued that the Lianozovian “biographical legend” cultivated in the work is formed on the basis of three equal and interrelated semes: “marginality”, “opposition to official art”, and “claims of aesthetic superiority”. The first seme “highlights” I. Holin's past as a prisoner and O. Rabin's complicated relationship with the law; the second emphasizes the opposition of underground art to any “permitted” forms of literature; the third absolutizes its artistic primacy and avant-garde character. The sources of the myth outlined in the novel are analyzed through the memoirs collected by V. Pivovarov in his album Holin and Sapgir jubilant, metapoetic texts by the Lianozovites featuring the literary life of the era (for example, V. Nekrasov's article “<They brought me to Lianozovo in autumn 59...>”) and their literary works (poems and paintings). V. Sorokin's myth-making strategy involves, on the one hand, reducing biographical images to a few of their most expressive qualities (which makes them one-dimensional) and, on the other hand, replacing conventional codes with occasional ones or “doubling” them (bringing them to their semantic limit).

Black Mental Health Matters: Bridging the Mental Health Gap in the Black Community

18 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 84, NO. 2 84 No.2 BLACK MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS: BRIDGING THE MENTAL HEALTH GAP IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY By Erika Lourenco de Freitas, Ashley Franco, and Annette Teasdell Throughout the course of 2020, the world saw how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the way people go about their daily lives. COVID-19 and its social isolation protocols have forced individuals worldwide to reevaluate their interactions with friends and family and how they take care of their physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. With such rapidly changing dynamics, it is no surprise that the pandemic has harmed both the physical and mental health of communities around the world, particularly Blacks and African Americans , as they anxiously await a return to normalcy. The effects of racism represent a serious mental health issue that stems from people being treated differently because of their phenotype (skin color, eye color, hair color, etc.).1 Due to its usefulness in analyzing racial and ethnic relations in social and institutional systems in terms of patterns and relationships between race, culture, gender, and social structures, this paper applies critical race structuralism (CRS) as a theoretical framework.2 As a theory of social change, CRS mitigates against racism and other forms of oppression and emphasizes social justice to advocate for equitable representation , access, and resources for underserved populations in education and beyond. Thus, this article’s guiding research question is: How are the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism impacting Black mental health? In the purview of CRS, Black health and wellness is a social justice issue that is heightened by institutionalized racism in schools and society. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, more data regarding testing, infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates are becoming available, shedding light on the disparate ways the crisis is affecting specific demographic groups. The move to online learning because of COVID-19 revealed a digital divide that has led to unequal educational access for poor and minoritized students. This health crisis demonstrated the need for culturally responsive online teaching that empowers students intellectually, culturally, socially, and emotionally.3 Poor mental health has been associated with high suicide rates, such as in the historical case of Ota Benga, a Mbuti African whose maltreatment and display as an “animal” in the monkey house of the Bronx Zoo in 1906 led to his ultimate suicide.4 Despite the assumption that such overt racist practices would be socially unacceptable nowadays, the impacts of harmful attitudes or behaviors toward Black students continue to lead to disastrous health outcomes. As such, in 2019, US Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman established the Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health. Their report, Ring the Alarm: The Crisis of Black Youth Suicide in America,5 was released in December 2019 and points to the bleak reality of Black youth in the US: “Over the past decade, increases in the suicide death rate for Black youth have seen the rate rising from 2.55 per 100,000 in 2007 to 4.82 per 100,000 in 2017. Black youth under 13 years are twice as likely to die by suicide and when comparing by sex, Black males, 5 to 11 years, are more likely to die by suicide compared to their White peers.”6 In the light of such grim outcomes, one can argue that racism itself results from the poor mental health condition of those who dehumanize others and make fallacious claims of cultural and/or racial superiority. Per CRS, this is a conditioned reflex of those who hold power and use it to racialize, dehumanize, and “other” people as a conduit of their own lack of self-efficacy and ignorance. In this sense, those who de- BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 84, NO. 2 | 19 84 No.2 humanize operate in toxic mental spaces, exhibited by racist behaviors. These actions can also be expressed in behaviors imitated from the dominant group, as internalized domination and degradation among minority groups. Thus, the oppressor and oppressed may both be impacted psychologically and physically by the perils of White racism. In the era of COVID-19, more attention should be paid to health and wellness, both...

And You Will Be Amazed: The Rhetoric of Authority in the Greek Magical Papyri

AbstractAn analysis of the rhetorical strategies used in the so-called Greek Magical Papyri to bolster the authority of the authors provides insight into the authors of these texts and their intended audiences. This article reviews the scholarship on the identity of the composers of the Greek Magical Papyri and explores the rhetorical strategies used in the texts to create authority, before comparing the dominant strategies in the Greek Magical Papyri with similar ones in other kinds of recipe collections, specifically alchemical and medical texts. The authors of the recipes in the Greek Magical Papyri make little use of the traditional authority of the temples but instead justify their claims of superiority with reference to the amazing efficacy of the procedures they describe. The direct, second person address in formulas such as “and you will be amazed” suggests that the intended audience was imagined not as potential clients who need to be convinced of the author’s expertise, but rather as potential practitioners interested in impressing their own clients.

RESPONSABILIDADE AMBIENTAL DA PESQUISA MINERAL COM FINS ACADÊMICOS E CIENTÍFICOS

he Coronavirus pandemic that spread around the world in the first half of 2020 brought impacts to society that will be registered for an extended period. In this paper, the effects showed an impossibility to maintain the progress of mineral research made by professionals in the academic and scientific areas. In an attempt to find justifications in the legal order of the mineral industry, to continue the work, it was faced with imposing environmental legislation that made a claim even more difficult. It was found that the Mining Code in place no longer regulates the activities of extraction of mineral specimens for museums, educational establishments and other scientific purposes. This left the legal security tied only to the interpretation of legal provisions in articles of the code and its regulation, as well as procedure manuals for environmental inspection bodies, and therefore, subject to the consequences of legal disputes with final decisions in higher courts, given the claim of superiority of the environmental issue over mining. Keywords: Coronavirus, pandemic, environmental legislation, mining code

The pharmacist’s active role in combating COVID-19 medication misinformation

Pharmacists listen to and dispel medication misinformation daily. Because of their accessibility, pharmacists have the opportunity during pharmacist-patient interactions to begin a dialogue with their patients and provide critical education to improve patient safety and public health. Current examples of pharmacists intervening with medication misinformation include addressing the antivaccination community, educating on the safety of generic drugs, and using evidence-based medicine for antimicrobial stewardship. However, combating medication misinformation in pharmacy practice with patients takes on many forms and can pose a number of challenges. Most recently during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a concurrent infodemic has led to claims of pharmacotherapeutic superiority and efficacy unsubstantiated by scientific evidence. Misinformation and partisan politics have also created a distrust in COVID-19 vaccine development. In addition, rogue Internet pharmacies and companies have marketed new and unverified COVID-19 treatments and tests. Pharmacists must actively combat these instances of medication misinformation and educate their patients on how not to fall victim to convincing marketing and misinformation schemes. Pharmacists can help patients recognize misinformation by vetting sources of information and communicating how negative emotional information circulates. In addition, pharmacists combat misinformation with patients by providing accurate alternative explanations in patient-friendly language. Although it is easier to stay silent and let misinformation circulate, pharmacists must work with their health care team members to actively reject misinformation pertaining to medications, COVID-19 pharmacotherapy and vaccinations, and in any future public health crisis.

Women teachers and the feminisation of the teaching profession in a Finnish journal for primary school teachers (The Teacher), 1915–1920

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the discussions about the feminisation of the teaching profession that were covered in the Finnish journal of primary school teachers, The Teacher (Opettajain Lehti), during the years 1915 to 1920. The Teacher, a weekly trade union journal, published the writings of various stakeholders (for example, teachers, school inspectors, the counsellor of education representing the National Board of Education, the editors of The Teacher, and teachers’ local trade unions). First, this article examines the arguments of the writers who took part in the discussions. Second, this article explores how the teaching profession was represented by these writings. The article explores how the discussions took a stand on the process itself, its reasons and its consequences, and also highlighted the gendered assumptions and ideas about the teaching profession and the characteristics associated with women and men teachers. The proponents of women teachers’ expertise and professionalism employed these public discussions successfully when claiming and defending their right to be a part of the teaching profession. Even though the discussions included opposing interests and claims of superiority, they also had a strong, constructive tone with arguments of gender equality amongst teachers and solidarity between women and men teachers.

George Box’s Realization, That All Models, Especially Statistical Models, Are Wrong Means That It Is Impossible for There to Be Any True Probabilities, True Models, True Theories, True Expectations or True (Accepted) Hypotheses: The Claims, Made By Rational Expectations Proponents About True Objective Probabilities, True Models, True Expectations, True Expected Values, etc., Have No Scientific Foundation

R. Muth’s 1961 paper in Econometrica is an example of an academic economist suffering from extreme and extraordinary ignorance about very basic scientific, statistical, methodological, epistemological, philosophical, and logical tenets. These tenets were all discussed rigorously by Haavelmo in his 1944 paper in Econometrica on methodological and epistemological issues related to the question about exactly what conclusions a statistical model using economic data could support as far as sound(never valid, right ,correct, true). Haavelmo’s entire 115 page article can be summarized briefly by George Box’s brief statement noted above .Muth’s belief ,that economists had derived true theories and true models is simple nonsense. What Muth should have argued in his 1961 article, but did not, is that rational expectations, when compared to its rivals,was a better model compared to the rival models in terms of minimizing its forecasting error.Of course, Muth would have had to have supported this claim of forecast superiority with explicit proper scoring rule studies showing that the rational expectations statistical model did in fact yield superior forecast results. No such study exists at the present time because no proponent of the rational expectations hypothesis has ever demonstrated such forecasting superiority. Two additional, very severe problems result from Muth’s confused understanding of what scientific modeling is capable of regarding the specification of objective and subjective probabilities or probability distributions. First,It is simply impossible to assume the truth of the objective theory of a limiting frequency interpretation of probability and then claim that decision makers can learn from experience what the convergence properties of such a distribution are in the short run when such properties will only manifest themselves in the far ,distant(infinite)long run. It is impossible for any human ,unless rational expectations proponents are claiming that there are actual decision makers who live to infinity,to learn of such properties .Kolmogorov made it quite clear that the strengthened limiting frequency interpretation he had provided for R.Von Mises law of large numbers,which resulted from the substitution of the assumption of countable additivity for finite additivity “ …does not contribute anything to substantiate the application of the results of probability theory to real practical problems where we always have to deal with a finite number of trials”(Kolmogorov). Second, given L. J. Savage’s clearly expressed and emphasized restrictions concerning the applicability of the theory of subjective probability and expected subjective utility to the short run at the micro level ,any attempt to apply Savage’s theory at the macro level or to the intermediate to long run or intertemporally over infinite time is “utterly preposterous” and complete”nonsense according to Savage.This means that Muth’s claim about subjective probability transforming itself into objective probability might only be considered a subject for possible study and scrutiny in the short run at the microeconomic level. Economists and econometricians are good number crunchers only. Their subjective claims and beliefs about infinitely lived decision makers, who are able to learn about so called true ,objective probability distributions ,are “utterly preposterous “ and anti scientific. William McChesney Martin ,FRS chair of the BOD in Washington,D.C.from 1950 and 1970 ,correctly kept the econometricians ,economists, and Paul Volcker in the basement of the NY Federal Reserve Bank, where they had no input or say in actual or proposed monetary policy decisions. Martin realized that the extremely narrow understanding of what was required in the real world of monetary policy on the part of economists necessitated this setup. Alan Greenspan, in his 2004 (May) paper in the AER ,also rejected the applicability of the theory of rational expectations in monetary policy from 1987 to 2005,given his emphasis on the importance of taking into consideration all models, including those dealing with uncertainty where the knowledge base ranged from complete ignorance to complete knowledge. On the other hand ,A. Burns, P.Volcker,B. Bernanke, and T .Geithner did believe that their mathematical and econometric models were true. One can compare the great success of Martin and Greenspan with the failures of Volcker and Bernanke(Geithner) and reach the conclusion that it is time to return the economists and econometricians back to the basement of the FRBNY where they belong as effective and useful number crunchers only.

Real Differences between OT and CRDT in Correctness and Complexity for Consistency Maintenance in Co-Editors

OT (Operational Transformation) was invented for supporting real-time co-editors in the late 1980s and has evolved to become core techniques widely used in today's working co-editors and adopted in industrial products. CRDT (Commutative Replicated Data Type) for co-editors was first proposed around 2006, under the name of WOOT (WithOut Operational Transformation). Follow-up CRDT variations are commonly labeled as "post-OT" techniques capable of making concurrent operations natively commutative in co-editors. On top of that, CRDT solutions have made broad claims of superiority over OT solutions, and often portrayed OT as an incorrect and inefficient technique. Over one decade later, however, CRDT is rarely found in working co-editors; OT remains the choice for building the vast majority of today's co-editors. Contradictions between the reality and CRDT's purported advantages have been the source of much confusion and debate in co-editing researcher and developer communities. To seek truth from facts, we set out to conduct a comprehensive and critical review on representative OT and CRDT solutions and working co-editors based on them. From this work, we have made important discoveries about OT and CRDT, and revealed facts and evidences that refute CRDT claims over OT on all accounts. These discoveries help explain the underlying reasons for the choice between OT and CRDT in the real world. We report these results in a series of three articles. In this article (the second in the series), we reveal the differences between OT and CRDT in their basic approaches to realizing the same general transformation and how such differences had resulted in different technical challenges and consequential correctness and complexity issues. Moreover, we reveal hidden complexity and algorithmic flaws with representative CRDT solutions, and discuss common myths and facts related to correctness and complexity of OT and CRDT. We hope the discoveries from this work help clear up common myths and confusions surrounding OT and CRDT, and accelerate progress in co-editing technology for real world applications.

Are cancer patients better off if they participate in clinical trials? A mixed methods study

BackgroundResearch and cancer care are closely intertwined; however, it is not clear whether physicians and nurses believe that clinical trials offer the best treatment for patients and, if so, whether this belief is justified. The aim of this study was therefore: (i) to explore how physicians and nurses perceive the benefits of clinical trial participation compared with standard care and (ii) whether it is justified to claim that clinical trial participation improves outcomes for cancer patients.MethodsA mixed methods approach was used employing semi-structured interviews with 57 physicians and nurses in oncology and haematology and a literature review of the evidence for trial superiority, i.e. the idea that receiving treatment in a clinical trial leads to a better outcome compared with standard care. Inductive thematic analysis was used to examine the interview data. A literature review comprising nine articles was conducted according to a conceptual framework developed by Peppercorn et al. and evaluated recent evidence on trial superiority.ResultsOur findings show that many physicians and nurses make claims supporting trial superiority, however very little evidence is available in the literature comparing outcomes for trial participants and non-participants that supports their assertions.ConclusionsDespite the recent rapid development and use of targeted therapy and immunotherapy, we find no support for trial participation to provide better outcomes for cancer patients than standard care. Hence, our present results are in line with previous results from Peppercorn et al. A weaker version of the superiority claim is that even if a trial does not bring about a direct positive effect, it brings about indirect positive effects. However, as the value of such indirect effects is dependent on the individual’s specific circumstances and preferences, their existence cannot establish the general claim that treatment in trials is superior. Belief in trial superiority is therefore unfounded. Hence, if such beliefs are communicated to patients in a trial recruitment context, it would provide misleading information. Instead emphasis should be on patients volunteering to give an altruistic contribution to the furthering of knowledge and to the potential benefit of future patients.

“Armed and Dangerous”: The Criminalization of Angela Davis and the Cold War Myth of America’s Innocence

AbstractThis essay explores the arrest, imprisonment, and trial of Angela Davis as the most politically charged legal defense case of the détente era of the Cold War that drew international attention over a nearly two-year period (1970–72). It demonstrates that the life of this young black female intellectual in post-civil rights America became inseparable from securing (or contesting) the dominant narrative of U.S. democratic superiority. Davis, her family, and legal team insisted that racism and politics motivated the criminal charges against her and that a transnational movement was imperative to ensuring her safety as a black woman communist in the American justice system. U.S. leaders and mainstream journalists dismissed the veracity of such claims, ridiculed Davis’s fears for her safety, and asserted that political trials and racism existed only “over there” in the communist universe. They racialized Davis as a “black militant,” invoking traditional sexist–racist tropes of black women as emotionally unstable, sexual sirens, in order to reassure the American public of the righteousness of U.S. democracy and of Davis’s concomitant guilt. After an all-white jury acquitted Davis of all criminal charges, the mainstream press hailed the acquittal as evidence not of Davis’s innocence but as proof that she was wrong about America. Davis persisted in contesting on a world stage America’s Cold War claims of democratic moral superiority and traveled to the Soviet Union to thank leaders for helping spearhead the international campaign that she credited for saving her life.

Adventure Therapy and Routine Outcome Monitoring of Treatment: The Time Is Now

Background: Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) was popularized in the mid-1990s to improve client outcomes in psychotherapy, though implementation in clinical practice has been slow. Although increased outcome research in adventure therapy (AT) in the last decade has demonstrated AT as a viable treatment option, recent reviews have found worrying trends regarding research methodology and poorly substantiated claims of superiority. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore the potential for ROM in AT. Methodology/Approach: We conducted a brief review of the literature on ROM and offered a discussion that positions principles of ROM with the nascent knowledge base of AT. Findings/Conclusions: We propose ROM is a viable next step in AT research and practice. ROM can explore when change is likely to occur during an AT program and provide a platform for improving client engagement and outcomes. Implications: We recommend implementation of ROM in AT and that future AT research explore therapist effects and important therapeutic factors, such as the therapeutic alliance and deterioration.

The Negative Image and the Repentance of Ishmael in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Some Implications for an Anti-Islamic Polemic

Abstract The image of Ishmael in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (Tg. Ps.-J.) has been interpreted either as thoroughly negative or as ambiguous. While the negative presentation of Ishmael has been used to argue for an anti-Ishmael and an anti-Islamic polemic within the Targum, the Tar-gum's mention of Ishmael's repentance has been submitted as evidence of the Targum’s ambiguous perspective of Ishmael, with the implication that Tg. Ps.-J. is not anti-Ishmael and therefore not anti-Islamic. Beyond this, each interpretation has been used to argue for a relative date of the composition of Tg. Ps.-J. — an ambiguous image suggesting a pre-Islamic date, and a negative image suggesting a post-Islamic date. Focusing on the implications of Ishmael's repentance for the image of Ishmael in Tg. Ps-J, this paper seeks to show that the repentance of Ishmael does not subvert the Targum’s negative por-trayal of Ishmael. On the one hand, the targumist exploits Ishmael's repentance to honour Abraham and Isaac, not Ishmael. On the other, the targumist confirms the negative image of Ishmael by disparaging him in the very context of his repentance. This conclusion, then, affirms that (1) Ishmael is a thoroughly negative character-type in Tg. Ps-J; that (2) the negative representation of Ishmael is a plausible literary device used to deliver an anti-Islamic polemic; and that (3) the composition of Tg. Ps.-J. is better suited for a post-Islamic date — when a Jewish targumist would have had reason to disparage a traditional ancestor of Islam and in this way to promote the Jewish claim of superiority over Islam.

The Problem of African Girlhood: Raising the Age of Consent in the Cape of Good Hope, 1893–1905

In 1893, legislation in the Cape Colony raised the age of consent to sexual intercourse from twelve to fourteen. Only twelve years later, however, did colonial administrators extend the law to the predominantly African districts in the eastern region of the colony. A reconstruction of the political debates surrounding the law, and its eventual extension, illuminates the relationship between understandings of childhood and race in the Cape. By the late 19th century, the comparison of Africans to children had become the governing metaphor for the “native question”; but this metaphor contained fundamental ambiguities. Debates over the age of consent forced Cape politicians to confront the racial and chronological boundaries of childhood innocence, and thus to articulate more precise theories of racial difference itself. Rural elites upheld a vision of hierarchy calibrated by wealth and social knowledge as well as race. Reformers sought to protect the innocence of white girls, in part to defend against racial degeneration, but disagreed over the inclusion of black girls. Meanwhile, even liberal social purity advocates hesitated to extend the law to the eastern districts, where “native law and custom” seemed not only to offer more protection but also to undermine claims of European superiority.

ANATOMICAL AND VISUAL OUTCOMES OF INVERTED INTERNAL LIMITING MEMBRANE FLAP TECHNIQUE VERSUS INTERNAL LIMITING MEMBRANE PEELING IN MYOPIC MACULAR HOLE WITHOUT RETINAL DETACHMENT: A Preliminary Retrospective Study.

To compare the results of vitrectomy with internal limiting membrane (ILM) peeling and inverted ILM flap for treating myopic macular hole without retinal detachment. Twenty-eight eyes of 28 patients undergoing vitrectomy with either ILM peeling (n = 16) or inverted ILM flap technique (n = 12) were included. Outcomes were myopic macular hole closure by optical coherence tomography and visual acuity at 6 months and at the end of follow-up. Closure of myopic macular hole was achieved in 13 eyes (81.2%) of the ILM peeling group and in 11 eyes (91.7%) of the inverted ILM flap group. The median length of follow-up was 18 months in the peeling group and 10.3 in the inverted group. There were not statistically significant differences between restoration of the external limiting membrane, external limiting membrane and ellipsoid zone, and none of both layers between the two groups. The median best-corrected visual acuity (logarithm of minimal angle of resolution) at the end of follow-up was 0.25 (20/35 Snellen) in the peeling group and 0.4 (20/50) in the inverted group (P = 0.027). Both techniques were associated with high closure rates of myopic macular hole but the small sample size and the retrospective design prevents any claims of superiority of one technique over the other.

Real Differences between OT and CRDT under a General Transformation Framework for Consistency Maintenance in Co-Editors

OT (Operational Transformation) was invented for supporting real-time co-editors in the late 1980s and has evolved to become a collection of core techniques widely used in today's working co-editors and adopted in major industrial products. CRDT (Commutative Replicated Data Type) for co-editors was first proposed around 2006, under the name of WOOT (WithOut Operational Transformation). Follow-up CRDT variations are commonly labeled as "post-OT" techniques capable of making concurrent operations natively commutativity in co-editors. On top of that, CRDT solutions have made broad claims of superiority over OT solutions, and routinely portrayed OT as an incorrect, complex and inefficient technique. Over one decade later, however, CRDT is rarely found in working co-editors, and OT remains the choice for building the vast majority of today's co-editors. Contradictions between the reality and CRDT's purported advantages have been the source of much confusion and debate in co-editing research and developer communities. Have the vast majority of co-editors been unfortunate in choosing the faulty and inferior OT, or those CRDT claims are false? What are the real differences between OT and CRDT for co-editors? What are the key factors and underlying reasons behind the choices between OT and CRDT in the real world? A thorough examination of these questions is relevant not only to researchers who are exploring the frontiers of co-editing technologies and systems, but also to practitioners who are seeking viable techniques to build real world applications. To seek truth from facts, we set out to conduct a comprehensive and critical review on representative OT and CRDT solutions and working co-editors based on them. From this work, we have made important discoveries about OT and CRDT, and revealed facts and evidences that refute CRDT claims over OT on all accounts. We report our discoveries in a series of articles and the current article is the first one in this series. In this paper, we present a general transformation framework for consistency maintenance in co-editors, which was distilled from dissecting and examining representative OT and CRDT solutions (and other alternative solutions) during this work, and report our discoveries under the guidance of this framework. In particular, we reveal that CRDT is like OT in following a general transformation approach, but achieves the same transformation indirectly, in contrast to OT direct transformation approach; and CRDT is not natively commutative for concurrent co-editing operations, but has to achieve the same OT commutativity indirectly as well, with consequential correctness and complexity issues. Uncovering the hidden transformation nature and demystifying the commutativity property of CRDT provides much-needed clarity about what CRDT really is and is not to co-editing, and serves as the foundation to explore the real differences between OT and CRDT in correctness, complexity, implementation, and real world applications, which are reported in follow-up articles. We hope discoveries from this work help clear up common misconceptions and confusions surrounding OT and CRDT, and accelerate progress in co-editing technology for real world applications.?

A Comparison of Paul K. Feyerabend’s and Thomas Kuhn’s Notions of Scientific Progress: Implications for African Philosophical Eclecticism

Western civilization prides itself in having offered humanity a canon of institutionalized rationality namely, science. Consequently, scientists attribute to their discipline a bogus epistemological success. Regrettably, their failure to adopt a consistent method for doing science, questions the credibility of their superiority claims. Ceding ultimate epistemic authority to science therefore becomes increasingly difficult for disciplines like the humanities. This multiplicity of scientific methods manifest in different conceptions of scientific progress, which the post modernists perceive as methodologies. Against this backdrop, this essay undertakes a comparative examination of the notions of scientific progress in Paul K. Feyerabend and Thomas S. Kuhn. However, the aim is to identify the implications of such multifarious methodologies on the knowing process, and scientific progress generally and, also to show how African philosophical eclecticism represents a richer paradigmatic approach to knowledge acquisition. This particularly brings in the desired mark of novelty in this paper. The author adopts comparative analysis to arrive at its conclusion.

Race in John's Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach by Andrew Benko

Reviewed by: Race in John's Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach by Andrew Benko Shawn Kelley Jr. andrew benko, Race in John's Gospel: Toward an Ethnos-Conscious Approach (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019). Pp. xvi + 263. $95. This exhaustively researched book employs an "ethnos-conscious approach" to argue that the Gospel of John replaces then current racial categories with cosmological-racial ones. The opening theoretical chapter explains Benko's approach and develops a model for [End Page 700] textual interpretation attentive to ancient racial markers. This is followed by two sections: a lengthy analysis of historical-geographical categories employed but ultimately rejected in the Gospel (part 1) and a briefer analysis of Johannine cosmological-racial thinking (part 2). In the first chapter, B. begins by defending his use of race as an analytical category for ancient texts. He is attentive to the difference between ancient and modern categorizations of race but argues for a historically grounded approach. The bulk of the chapter consists of a rigorous analysis of the categories that support ancient racial thinking. This includes a discussion of terminology (ethnos, genos, laos), with attention paid to the difficulty of translating Ioudaios (i.e., Jew? Judean?). B. nimbly works his way through various scholarly debates on race in antiquity (Jonathan Hall, David Konstan, Denise Kimber Buell, Caroline Johnson Hodge, Dennis Duling, and Markus Cromhout). B. includes a discussion of five ancient theories of race before offering his own model of ancient ethnicity-race. This model is attentive to relevant categories like claims of common ancestry, common home-land, and distinctive culture. This dense but readable chapter provides a theoretically sophisticated and historically grounded model for identifying the way race functions in John's Gospel and could be broadly applied to other early Christian writings. The theoretical model is first applied to three races that appear in John's Gospel: the Galileans (chap. 2), the Samaritans (chap. 3) and the Judeans (chap. 4). Each chapter explores, sometimes in more detail than is necessary, the historical-political situation facing each race as well as how each race defines itself and is defined by others. B. argues that the Galileans were Judeans who were distinctive enough to be their own ethnos (p. 70), that the Samaritans shared a history with the Judeans that included both common religious ideas and ancestry as well as often painful periods of conflicts (p. 99), and that the Judeans claimed a distinctive identity forged in the Roman world (p. 124). Each chapter also explores how these racial identities function within the Johannine textual world. B. argues that Galilee is identified as the homeland of Jesus and as a place of refuge while "Galilean" is employed as an ethnic slur. He argues that John's Gospel is comparatively positive in its valuation of Samaria, presenting it as a ripe missionary field and showing that Jesus rejects anti-Samaritan slurs. Finally, he argues that Jesus rejects the Judean claims of ethnic superiority. His central claim is that John thoroughly employs these ancient racial categories to reject them. It may be tempting to suggest that John's Gospel rejects the particulars of racial thinking for a universal Christian humanism, but B. astutely takes the argument in a different direction. Instead he argues that John replaces historical-geographical racial categories with a cosmological form of racial thinking (part 2). He argues that John uses racial categories (i.e., birth, descent, homeland, distinctive character) but translates them into a new framework. He does so by exploring Johannine claims about children of God/the devil and by analyzing two recurring metaphors (the sheepfold and the vine). John's Jesus claims that his followers share a common ancestor (God rather than Abraham), a common homeland (heaven rather than this world) and a common moral, spiritual character. John's claims go beyond Pauline claims of spiritual kinship: "It is an affirmation of consubstantial unity, of shared essence, derived from their membership in the same people" (p. 183). John identifies early Christians in cosmological-racial terms that show who is to be included and who is to be condemned as children of the devil. The vine and shepherd imagery, reimagined by the...

Performance of cartridge and granular carbon dioxide absorbents in a closed-circuit diving rebreather

Scrubbers in closed-circuit rebreather systems remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the exhaled gas. In an attempt to be more user-friendly and efficient, the ExtendAir® non-granular, pre-formed scrubber cartridge has been developed. The cartridge manufacturer claims twice the absorptive capacity of granular CO2 absorbent, with less variability, lower work of breathing, and reduced exposure to caustic chemicals after a flood. To our knowledge there are no published data that support these claims. Cartridge (ExtendAir®) and granular (Sofnolime® 797) scrubbers of equal volume and mass were tested five times in an immersed and mechanically ventilated O2ptima rebreather. Exercise protocols involving staged (90 minutes 6 MET, followed by 2 MET) and continuous (6 MET) activity were simulated. We compared: duration until breakthrough, and variability in duration, to endpoints of 1.0 kPa and 0.5 kPa inspired partial pressure of CO2; inspiratory-expiratory pressure difference in the breathing loop; and pH of eluted water after a 5 minute flood. Mean difference in scrubber endurance was 0-20% in favour of the ExtendAir® cartridge, depending on exercise protocol and chosen CO2 endpoint. There were no meaningful differences in endpoint variability, inspiratory-expiratory pressure in the loop, or pH in the eluted water after a flood. Cartridge and granular scrubbers were very similar in duration, variability, ventilation pressures, and causticity after a flood. Our findings were not consistent with claims of substantial superiority for the ExtendAir® cartridge.

Updates and Controversies of Robotic-Assisted Surgery in Gynecologic Surgery.

minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is the standard approach to performance of several gynecologic procedures, including hysterectomy, gynecologic cancer staging procedures, myomectomy, pelvic organ prolapse repair, and select adnexal procedures. Robotic-assisted surgery, a computer-based MIS approach, has been adopted widely in the United States and several other countries. Robotics may offer technological and ergonomic benefits that overcome limitations associated with conventional laparoscopy; however, it is not clear that reported claims of superiority translate into improved gynecologic patient outcomes compared with other MIS approaches. This review critically appraises the evolving role, benefits, limitations, and controversies of robotic-assisted surgery utilization in benign and oncologic gynecology settings.