Constellation Approach Research Articles

Automated Quality Control Scheme for GPM Satellite Precipitation Products

AbstractThe constellation approach underpinning precipitation products such as the Integrated Multi‐satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) is key to achieving high resolution, but the use of data from multiple sources can unintentionally incorporate instrumental artifacts. Here, we introduce a machine learning–based anomaly detection scheme called SPEEDe, which processes a two‐dimensional precipitation field into a re‐estimated precipitation field that can be compared with the input. Large differences identify IMERG fields with bad orbit data, separating most of the bad cases from the good cases. When modified to process the passive microwave inputs, SPEEDe can pick out orbits with bad data, enabling quality control on these IMERG inputs. SPEEDe works by producing a locally realistic‐looking precipitation field when given unphysical data, which results in a larger‐than‐normal difference between the input and the output. SPEEDe is implemented as an automated quality control for GPM precipitation products.

Temporal duration-based probabilistic argumentation frameworks

Abstract The study of Dung-style Argumentation Frameworks in recent years has focused on incorporating time. For example, availability intervals have been added to arguments and relations, resulting in different outputs of Dung semantics over time. This paper examines the probability distribution of arguments over time intervals. Using this temporal probabilistic model, the study explores how these frameworks can be transformed into a probabilistic argumentation according to the constellation approach and how they can be interpreted within the epistemic approach. The epistemic approach relies on the notion of defeat to select significant conflicts based on probability distributions. The study also introduces the temporal acceptability of arguments based on the concept of defence, allowing for more precise results over time. Finally, the models (constellation and epistemic) are extended to account for events that have a duration, i.e. that can occur for several consecutive instants of time.

Barriers and facilitators associated with the upscaling of the Transmural Trauma Care Model: a qualitative study

BackgroundTo assess the barriers and facilitators associated with upscaling the Transmural Trauma Care Model (TTCM), a multidisciplinary and patient‐centred transmural rehabilitation care model.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with eight trauma surgeons, eight hospital-based physiotherapists, eight trauma patients, and eight primary care physiotherapists who were part of a trauma rehabilitation network. Audio recordings of the interviews were made and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using a framework method based on the “constellation approach”. Identified barriers and facilitators were grouped into categories related to structure, culture, and practice.ResultsVarious barriers and facilitators to upscaling were identified. Under structure, barriers and facilitators belonged to one of five themes: “financial structure”, “communication structure”, “physical structures and resources”, “rules and regulations”, and “organisation of the network”. Under culture, the five themes were “commitment”, “job satisfaction”, “acting as a team”, “quality and efficiency of care”, and “patients’ experience”. Under practice, the two themes were “practical issues at the outpatient clinic” and “knowledge gained”.ConclusionThe success of upscaling the TTCM differed across hospitals and settings. The most important prerequisites for successfully upscaling the TTCM were adequate financial support and presence of “key actors” within an organisation who felt a sense of urgency for change and/or expected the intervention to increase their job satisfaction.Trial registrationNL8163 The Netherlands National Trial Register, date of registration 16-11-2019.

“We’re Not the Cure, We’re Just the Band-Aid”: The Interplay of Structure, Culture, and Practice in Police Service Provision to Persons with Mental Illnesses

This study uses the constellation approach of transition theory as a theoretical framework to depict the ways in which facilitators and barriers in police system's structure, culture, and practice interact to shape police response to persons with mental illnesses (PWMIs). The study utilizes the framework method to analyze 57 in-depth interviews with police officers in Texas. Using a hybrid approach of inductive and deductive thematic analysis, we develop a matrix of four quadrants characterizing the constellation of mental health service provision by police: (1) structural barriers (deficits in resources, unsuccessful collaboration, lack of training), (2) structural facilitators (crisis intervention teams, informal cross-disciplinary collaborations, technology), (3) cultural barriers (role conflict, perceived inability to help, stigma), and (4) cultural facilitators (the police mission ‘to serve and protect’, improving police public image, managerial support). The study ends with recommendations for the scaling up of police mental health service provision to PWMIs.

The introduction of advanced practice physiotherapy within Dutch primary care is a quest for possibilities, added value, and mutual trust: a qualitative study amongst advanced practice physiotherapists and general practitioners

BackgroundDespite the increased deployment and added value of Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapy (APP) in musculoskeletal care internationally, APP is not yet widely accepted within Dutch primary care. This may be due to specific constraints in the implementation of APP within the Dutch healthcare system. This study aimed to explore the experiences and perceptions of Advanced Practitioner Physiotherapists (APPs) and General Practitioners (GPs) with respect to implementing APP within Dutch primary care.MethodsThis explorative and interpretive qualitative study included 12 APPs and 3 GPs who were in various stages of implementing an APP care model. Semi-structured interviews were conducted between January and March 2021. The topic list was based on existing literature, the personal input of researchers, and the Constellation Approach framework. Data were analysed using a thematic inductive approach.ResultsFour main themes emerged from the data; 1) Both GPs’ trust in APP and a clear added value of APP are critical for starting implementation, 2) APPs need continuous support from GPs, 3) APPs believe that their position needs strengthening, and 4) Implementation of the APP model creates tension over ownership. These four themes highlight the perceived difficulties in gaining trust, lack of clarity over the added value of APP, ambiguity over APPs’ professional profile and positioning, a need on behalf of GPs to maintain authority, lack of reimbursement structure, and the struggle APPs face to strike a balance with current care.ConclusionThis study demonstrates that implementing an APP model of care is challenging, in part, because the deployment of APP does not sufficiently align with the core values of GPs, while GPs appear reluctant to hand over control of elements of patient care to APPs. APPs do not appear to have ownership over the implementation, given their strong dependence on the practice, values and needs of GPs.Trial registrationEthical approval was obtained from the Medical Ethics Committee of VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam; reference number 2020.17 . All participants were asked to provide written informed consent prior to participating in the study.

Detection of Change Points in Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites Time Series Using Multi-Sensor Satellite Imagery

The remote sensing community has extensively used Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites (PICS) to monitor the long-term in-flight radiometric calibration of Earth-observing satellites. The use of the PICS has an underlying assumption that these sites are invariant over time. However, the site’s temporal stability has not been assured in the past. This work evaluates the temporal stability of PICS by not only detecting the trend but also locating significant shifts (change points) lying behind the time series. A single time series was formed using the virtual constellation approach in which multiple sensors data were combined for each site to achieve denser temporal coverage and overcome the limitation of dependence related to a specific sensor. The sensors used for this work were selected based on radiometric calibration uncertainty and availability of the data: operational land imager (Landsat8), enhanced thematic mapper (Landsat-7), moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (Terra and Aqua), and multispectral instrument (Sentinel-2A). An inverse variance weighting method was applied to the Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance time series to reveal the underlying trend. The sequential Mann–Kendall test was employed upon the weighted TOA reflectance time-series recorded over 20 years to detect abrupt changes for six reflective bands. Statistically significant trends and abrupt changes have been detected for all sites, but the magnitude of the trends (maximum of 0.215% change in TOA reflectance per year) suggest that these sites are not changing substantially over time. Hence, it can be stated that despite minor changes in all evaluated PICS, they can be used for radiometric calibration of optical remote sensing sensors. The new approach provides useful results by revealing underlying trends and providing a better understanding of PICS’ stability.

Aggregation of Perspectives Using the Constellations Approach to Probabilistic Argumentation

In the constellations approach to probabilistic argumentation, there is a probability distribution over the subgraphs of an argument graph, and this can be used to represent the uncertainty in the structure of the argument graph. In this paper, we consider how we can construct this probability distribution from data. We provide a language for data based on perspectives (opinions) on the structure of the graph, and we introduce a framework (based on general properties and some specific proposals) for aggregating these perspectives, and as a result obtaining a probability distribution that best reflects these perspectives. This can be used in applications such as summarizing collections of online reviews and combining conflicting reports.

Concept Development and Risk Reduction for MISTiC Winds, A Micro-Satellite Constellation Approach for Vertically Resolved Wind and IR Sounding Observations in the Troposphere

MISTiC Winds is an instrument and constellation mission approach to simultaneously observe the global thermodynamic state and the vertically resolved horizontal wind field in the troposphere from LEO SSO. The instrument is a wide-field imaging spectrometer operated in the 4.05–5.75 μm range, with the spectral resolution, sampling, radiometric sensitivity, and stability needed to provide temperature and water vapor soundings of the atmosphere, with 1 km vertical resolution in the troposphere-comparable to those of NASA’s atmospheric infrared sounder (AIRS). These instruments have much higher spatial resolution (<3 km at nadir) and finer spatial sampling than current hyperspectral sounders, allowing a sequence of such observations from several micro-satellites in an orbital plane with short time separation, from which atmospheric motion vector (AMV) winds are derived. AMVs for both cloud-motion and water vapor-motion, derived from hyperspectral imagery, will have improved velocity resolution relative to AMVs obtained from multi-spectral instruments operating in GEO. MISTiC’s extraordinarily small size, low mass (<15 kg), and minimal cooling requirements can be accommodated aboard an ESPA-class microsatellite. Low fabrication and launch costs enable this constellation to provide more frequent atmospheric observations than current-generation sounders provide, at much lower mission cost. Key technology and observation method risks have been reduced through recent laboratory and airborne (NASA ER2) testing funded under NASA’s Instrument Incubator Program and BAE Systems IR&D, and through an observing system simulation experiment performed by NASA GMAO. This approach would provide a valuable new capability for the study of the processes driving high-impact weather events, and critical high-resolution observations needed for future numerical weather prediction.

A general approach to reasoning with probabilities

We propose a general scheme for adding probabilistic reasoning capabilities to a wide variety of knowledge representation formalisms and we study its properties. Syntactically, we consider adding probabilities to the formulas of a given base logic. Semantically, we define a probability distribution over the subsets of a knowledge base by taking the probabilities of the formulas into account accordingly. This gives rise to a probabilistic entailment relation that can be used for uncertain reasoning. Our approach is a generalisation of many concrete probabilistic enrichments of existing approaches, such as ProbLog (an approach to probabilistic logic programming) and the constellation approach to abstract argumentation. We analyse general properties of our approach and provide some insights into novel instantiations that have not been investigated yet.

Empirical evaluation of abstract argumentation: Supporting the need for bipolar and probabilistic approaches

In dialogical argumentation, it is often assumed that the involved parties will always correctly identify the intended statements posited by each other and realize all of the associated relations, conform to the three acceptability states (accepted, rejected, undecided), adjust their views whenever new and correct information comes in, and that a framework handling only attack relations is sufficient to represent their opinions. Although it is natural to make these assumptions as a starting point for further research, dropping some of them has become quite challenging.Probabilistic argumentation is one of the approaches that can be harnessed for more accurate user modelling. The epistemic approach allows us to represent how much a given argument is believed or disbelieved by a given person, offering us the possibility to express more than just three agreement states. It comes equipped with a wide range of postulates, including those that do not make any restrictions concerning how initial arguments should be viewed. Thus, this approach is potentially more suitable for handling beliefs of the people that have not fully disclosed their opinions or counterarguments with respect to standard Dung's semantics. The constellation approach can be used to represent the views of different people concerning the structure of the framework we are dealing with, including situations in which not all relations are acknowledged or when they are seen differently than intended. Finally, bipolar argumentation frameworks can be used to express both positive and negative relations between arguments.In this paper we will describe the results of an experiment in which participants were asked to judge dialogues in terms of agreement and structure. We will compare our findings with the aforementioned assumptions as well as with the constellation and epistemic approaches to probabilistic argumentation and bipolar argumentation.

Abstract PR11: Utah familial colorectal cancer risk model

Abstract Background: Family history is an important risk factor for CRC, but there is still confusion about the appropriate guidelines councilors should recommend to people depending on the specifics of their family history. Most previous studies that have estimated familial relative risk (FRR) of CRC have based this on first-degree relatives (FDRs), whereas information on second- or third-degree relatives (SDRs or TDRs) has been of poor quality or non-existent. The most notable exception to this is a publication by Taylor et al that utilized the Utah Population Database (UPDB), a population-based resource with a computerized genealogy linked to statewide cancer registry records.[1] They reported FRRs of CRC for probands by selected combinations of affected relatives, extending to third-degree. The aim of this study was to extend this work by developing a simple and clinically-useful model of familial CRC risk. Methods: We restricted the analysis to people aged 30 years or older born between 1930 and 1985 (probands) from the UPDB. Data were collected on the proband's age, sex and history of CRC for FDRs, SDRs and TDRs. Unconditional multiple linear logistic regression was used to model the familial CRC risk for probands as a function of their family history measures. Various combinations of CRC status of relatives were considered, including categorizations by ages at diagnoses (<50, 50-59, 60-69, 70+), type of FDR (mother/father/brother/sister/child) and side of family for SDRs and TDRs (maternal or paternal). The best fitting model was determined by Akaike's Information Criterion. Results: A total of 591,535 probands were extracted of whom 2,115 probands were identified as having a primary diagnosis of CRC. The best-fitting model for CRC was FRR = exp(SUM/5)*0.8, where SUM equals: 4 points for each parent diagnosed with CRC 6 points for each sibling diagnosed with CRC 12 points for each child diagnosed with CRC 2 points for each SDR diagnosed with CRC 1 point for each TDR diagnosed with CRC. Therefore, a doubling of risk would be 5 points, a tripling of risk would be 7 points, while a 5-fold increased risk would be 10 points. The model had good internal consistency. Additional information on ages at diagnoses of affected FDRs, SDRs or TDRs or whether diagnoses were confined to a particular side of the family did not improve the model fit. Conclusions: This simple algorithm shows that knowing the total number of affected parents, siblings, children, SDRs and TDRs, irrespective of the age at diagnosis, is sufficient for accurate estimation of FRR. This model could be useful in the clinical and genetic counseling setting. 1. Taylor DP, et al. Population-based family history-specific risks for colorectal cancer: a constellation approach. Gastroenterology. 2010 Mar;138(3):877-85. This abstract is also being presented as Poster B06. Citation Format: Robert J. MacInnis, Mark A. Jenkins, John L. Hopper, Lisa A. Cannon-Albright. Utah familial colorectal cancer risk model. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference: Improving Cancer Risk Prediction for Prevention and Early Detection; Nov 16-19, 2016; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2017;26(5 Suppl):Abstract nr PR11.

Stakeholder perspectives on the implementation of genetic carrier screening in a changing landscape

BackgroundIn most countries, genetic carrier screening is neither offered, nor embedded in mainstream healthcare. Technological developments have triggered a two-fold transition in carrier screening: the expansion from screening one single disorder to many disorders simultaneously, and offering screening universally, regardless of ancestry. This study aims to identify general and population-specific barriers and needs reflected by stakeholders regarding the implementation of carrier screening in a changing landscape.MethodsSeventeen semi-structured interviews were conducted with Dutch key stakeholders working in the practical and scientific field of carrier screening. The constellation approach was used to categorise barriers and needs into three levels: culture, structure and practice.ResultsBarriers on a cultural level include: undecidedness about the desirability of carrier screening, and a lack of priority of screening in mainstream healthcare. On a structural level barriers included: need for organisational structures in healthcare for embedding carrier screening, need for guidelines, financial structures, practical tools for overcoming challenges during counselling, and a need for training and education of both professionals and the public. A lack of demand for screening by the public, and a need for a division of responsibilities were barriers on a practical level.ConclusionThe absence of a collective sense of urgency for genetic carrier screening, a lack of organisational structures, and uncertainty or even disagreement about the responsibilities seem to be important barriers in the implementation of carrier screening. Stakeholders therefore suggest that change agents should be formally acknowledged to strategically plan broadening of current initiatives and attune different stakeholders.

Determination of global Earth outgoing radiation at high temporal resolution using a theoretical constellation of satellites

AbstractNew, viable, and sustainable observation strategies from a constellation of satellites have attracted great attention across many scientific communities. Yet the potential for monitoring global Earth outgoing radiation using such a strategy has not been explored. To evaluate the potential of such a constellation concept and to investigate the configuration requirement for measuring radiation at a time resolution sufficient to resolve the diurnal cycle for weather and climate studies, we have developed a new recovery method and conducted a series of simulation experiments. Using idealized wide field‐of‐view broadband radiometers as an example, we find that a baseline constellation of 36 satellites can monitor global Earth outgoing radiation reliably to a spatial resolution of 1000 km at an hourly time scale. The error in recovered daily global mean irradiance is 0.16 W m−2 and −0.13 W m−2, and the estimated uncertainty in recovered hourly global mean irradiance from this day is 0.45 W m−2 and 0.15 W m−2, in the shortwave and longwave spectral regions, respectively. Sensitivity tests show that addressing instrument‐related issues that lead to systematic measurement error remains of central importance to achieving similar accuracies in reality. The presented error statistics therefore likely represent the lower bounds of what could currently be achieved with the constellation approach, but this study demonstrates the promise of an unprecedented sampling capability for better observing the Earth's radiation budget.

An International Inquiry

This article features an international inquiry of two high-poverty urban schools, one Canadian and one American. The article examines poverty in terms of “small stories” that educators and students live and tell, often on the edges, unheard and unaccounted for in grand narratives. It also expands the story constellations approach to narrative inquiry by adding a new set of paired stories: stories of poverty–poverty stories. The overall intent is to illuminate in more nuanced ways the complex factors that shape people’s lives outside the boundaries of policy prescriptions.

Quantifying Libya-4 Surface Reflectance Heterogeneity With WorldView-1, 2 and EO-1 Hyperion

The land surface imaging (LSI) virtual constellation approach promotes the concept of increasing Earth observations from multiple but disparate satellites. We evaluated this through spectral and spatial domains, by comparing surface reflectance from 30-m Hyperion and 2-m resolution WorldView-2 (WV-2) data in the Libya-4 pseudoinvariant calibration site. We convolved and resampled Hyperion to WV-2 bands using both cubic convolution and nearest neighbor (NN) interpolation. Additionally, WV-2 and WV-1 same-date imagery were processed as a cross-track stereo pair to generate a digital terrain model to evaluate the effects from large ( $>$ 70 m) linear dunes. Agreement was moderate to low on dune peaks between WV-2 and Hyperion $(R^{2} but higher in areas of lower elevation and slope $(R^{2} > 0.6)$ . Our results provide a satellite sensor intercomparison protocol for an LSI virtual constellation at high spatial resolution, which should start with geolocation of pixels, followed by NN interpolation to avoid tall dunes that enhance surface reflectance differences across this internationally utilized site.

When patterning discriminations are harder than biconditional ones: A cue constellation approach.

Recent attempts to distinguish configural from nonconfigural accounts of causal learning have compared the relative ease of learning 2 kinds of complex discriminations, a biconditional discrimination (e.g., AB+, CD+, AC0, and BD0), and a negative patterning discrimination, (e.g., A+, B+, and AB0), but have yielded conflicting results. Some studies have found the biconditional task to be easier than negative patterning and others have found negative patterning to be easier than the biconditional. This article evaluates these complex discriminations in several studies using a method that attempts to correct methodological problems that arise in comparisons of individual stimuli and stimulus compounds. Across several variations in procedure, negative patterning discriminations were significantly more difficult than biconditional discriminations. The research also found evidence in comparisons across studies that the difficulty of the biconditional, relative to a comparable nonconfigural compound discrimination, depended on whether the task emphasized configural or nonconfigural cues. The overall pattern of results appeared to be well accounted for by models that include configural information, suggesting that theories which invoke configural elements as a basis for learning complex discriminations remain viable explanatory frameworks.

Peak-to-average power ratio reduction in all-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system using rotated constellation approach

In this paper, a new approach for reducing peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) based on modulated half subcarriers in all-optical OFDM systems with rotated QAM constellation is presented. To reduce the PAPR, the odd subcarriers are modulated with rotated QAM constellation, while the even subcarriers are modulated with standard QAM constellation. The impact of the rotation angle on the PAPR is mathematically modeled. The effect of PAPR reduction on the system performance is investigated by simulating the all-optical OFDM system, which uses optical coupler-based inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT)/fast Fourier transform (FFT). The all-optical system is numerically demonstrated with 29 subcarriers. Each subcarrier is modulated by a QAM modulator at a symbol rate of 25Gsymbol/s. The results reveal that PAPR is reduced with increasing the angle of rotation. The PAPR reduction can reach about 0.8dB when the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) is 1×10−3. Furthermore, both the nonlinear phase noise and the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of the system are improved in comparison with the original all-optical OFDM without PAPR reduction.

Meeting Earth Observation Requirements for Global Agricultural Monitoring: An Evaluation of the Revisit Capabilities of Current and Planned Moderate Resolution Optical Earth Observing Missions

Agriculture is a highly dynamic process in space and time, with many applications requiring data with both a relatively high temporal resolution (at least every 8 days) and fine-to-moderate (FTM < 100 m) spatial resolution. The relatively infrequent revisit of FTM optical satellite observatories coupled with the impacts of cloud occultation have translated into a barrier for the derivation of agricultural information at the regional-to-global scale. Drawing upon the Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEOGLAM) Initiative’s general satellite Earth observation (EO) requirements for monitoring of major production areas, Whitcraft et al. (this issue) have described where, when, and how frequently satellite data acquisitions are required throughout the agricultural growing season at 0.05°, globally. The majority of areas and times of year require multiple revisits to probabilistically yield a view at least 70%, 80%, 90%, or 95% clear within eight days, something that no present single FTM optical observatory is capable of delivering. As such, there is a great potential to meet these moderate spatial resolution optical data requirements through a multi-space agency/multi-mission constellation approach. This research models the combined revisit capabilities of seven hypothetical constellations made from five satellite sensors—Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (Landsat 7 ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor (Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS), Resourcesat-2 Advanced Wide Field Sensor (Resourcesat-2 AWiFS), Sentinel-2A Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI), and Sentinel-2B MSI—and compares these capabilities with the revisit frequency requirements for a reasonably cloud-free clear view within eight days throughout the agricultural growing season. Supplementing Landsat 7 and 8 with missions from different space agencies leads to an improved capacity to meet requirements, with Resourcesat-2 providing the largest incremental improvement in requirements met. The best performing constellation can meet 71%–91% of the requirements for a view at least 70% clear, and 45%–68% of requirements for a view at least 95% clear, varying by month. Still, gaps exist in persistently cloudy regions/periods, highlighting the need for data coordination and for consideration of active EO for agricultural monitoring. This research highlights opportunities, but not actual acquisition rates or data availability/access; systematic acquisitions over actively cropped agricultural areas as well as a policy which guarantees continuous access to high quality, interoperable data are essential in the effort to meet EO requirements for agricultural monitoring.

The Dream of the Great American Novel by Lawrence Buell (review)

BUELL, LAWRENCE. The Dream of the Great American Novel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. 584 pp. $39.95. The Dream of the Great American Novel. It's a big concept--and Lawrence Buell has written a big book. Weighing in at over five hundred pages, this is twice the size of most scholarly monographs. Buell's astonishing range and trademark versatility are immediately evident. His account of the great American novel (or GAN as he calls it, breathing new life into Henry James's acronym) offers sustained discussion of The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Hucklebeny Finn, The Great Gatsby, An American Tragedy, U.S.A., Absalom, Absalom!, Invisible Man, Gravity's Rainbow, and Beloved, as well as briefer treatment of dozens of additional novels including The Grandissimes, The Marrow of Tradition, Gone with the Wind, and Grapes of Wrath. To say that very few scholars could treat this range of texts is an understatement indeed. Buell advances four interrelated points. First, the dream of the GAN began shortly after the Civil War and has proven remarkably resilient, a case for which this book offers rock solid evidence. Second, GAN contenders tend to be acutely aware of their predecessors and often comment on them intertextually (for instance, Buell looks at Invisible Man as a response to Hucklebeny Finn). Third, GANs are tied up with nation-building but critical of American exceptionalism arguably Buell's most important point, though one set aside for long stretches as he pursues other ideas. Finally, Buell anatomizes GANs as following four distinct templates. Three of those templates derive from plot and thematics. There is the up-from story of self-making such as The Great Gatsby and An American Tragedy, the romance of the divide focusing on conflict among races, ethnicities, or regions such as Beloved and Absalom, Absalom!; the meganovel that uses a fictional microcosm to comment on the failed promise of American democracy, such as U.S.A. and Gravity's Rainbow. The fourth template reflects forces more external to the literary work: when a novel is referenced and imitated repeatedly (often by multiple media), it can, as in the case of The Scarlet Letter, attain GAN status retrospectively. While Buell organizes the book around these four templates, providing examples over a large swath of time, it proceeds less as an anatomy than as a very readable, if recursive, account of a large chunk of literary history. The historical depth is extended by Buell's adopting a constellation approach, surrounding a detailed reading of a central text with briefer mention of many related works. …

Giving the Dead Their Rightful Place

The author explores how unresolved issues in the family system, including previous generations, can interfere with effective grieving in the here and now. The principles underpinning Hellinger’s (1998) family constellation approach are described, and aspects of entanglement and exclusion that are important in resolving issues related to grief and loss are considered. Some of the puzzles inherent in this work, such as intergenerational memory, are addressed, and transactional analysis authors whose approaches are congruent with systemic theory are cited. The author critiques some difficulties in Hellinger’s theory and describes recent developments in constellation theory, particularly ways to work in individual therapy sessions using this approach. A case study demonstrates practical tools that are accessible to transactional analysts who wish to include a systemic perspective when doing grief work.