End In Disaster Research Articles

Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece by Yulia Ustinova

What role did altered states of consciousness play in the life of ancient Greek society? With consummate skill and scholarship, Yulia Ustinova answers this question in her book, Divine Mania: Alteration of Consciousness in Ancient Greece. It appears that the secret of the extraordinary creativity of the ancient Greeks was their receptivity to, and approval of, a particular altered state of consciousness they cultivated. Mania is the name for this but it must be qualified as “god-given.” Mania is a word that touches on a cluster of concepts: madness, ecstasy, and enthusiasm, engoddedness, to use Ustinova’s more vivid coinage. It seems a paradox that this special, strange and often quite frightening state of dissociation should be so closely linked to one of the most creative civilizations. Unlike the Roman and Egyptian, the Greek approved and recognized the value of god-inspired mania. Plato makes Socrates say in the Phaedrus that through mania we may obtain the “greatest blessings.” Whereas resistance to divine ecstasy can end in disaster, as Euripides illustrates in The Bacchants when Pentheus, a repressive authoritarian, tries to inhibit a posse of women from their ecstatic mountain dances. He is torn to shreds by his mother and her maniacal cohorts. This mindset of the ancient Greeks may have long ago petered out, but similar tendencies are constants, expressed in one form or another, throughout history.

What If, Pig?

What If, Pig? Linzie Hunter and Kiri Palm Hunter, Linzie What If, Pig?; written and illus. by Linzie Hunter. HarperCollins, 2021 [40 p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780062986092 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780063089709 $12.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 4-6 yrs Pig is just about the best friend Mouse could ever have; he's kind, fun, and generous and everyone likes him. It's therefore no surprise that thoughtful Pig invites everyone to a great party, complete with "top tunes," decorations, and snacks on sticks ("NO sausages"). Now that the "fancy invitations" are in the mail, though, Pig has a problem, a terrible secret he's been hiding: Pig is "a tremendous worrier. A porky panicker! A proper nervous Nelly," and he's convinced the party will end in disaster. Like any worrywart worth their salt, Pig catastrophizes a wealth of tragedies (What if a lion eats all the guests? What if there's a blizzard? What if everyone comes and has an awful time?), at last reaching a fever pitch that many listeners may know well: "What if … no one really likes me at all?" Can Mouse assuage Pig's fears and convince him that their friends truly do love him? Hunter's picture book will draw its audience with vibrant colors, oh-soadorable characters, and plenty of silliness; her digital art features bold character designs unencumbered by outlines that pop off of solid or lightly textured backgrounds, with doodle-esque accessories adding to their charm (Pig, for instance, sports a pair of glasses and frequently wears a transparent party hat). Background details such as Pig's party supply list, intermittently appearing donuts, and conversations among partygoers make for delightful surprises for more astute viewers. The book truly shines, though, in conveying Pig's anxiety. Hunter employs hand-lettering for the text, twisting the words around Pig as he spirals into despair, shrinking sentences to show embarrassment, situating text between gloomy tree trunks as Pig hesitantly asks Mouse, "What if I always feel sad?" Shifting fonts make for an easy guide for less experienced readers-aloud, encouraging changes of pitch, volume, and even character voices to fit with the energetic lettering. As Pig grows more and more despondent and his worrying changes from elaborate fantasy to palpable despair, the book transitions to a focus on the world around Pig and Mouse, with forest green and blue-gray replacing earlier pinks, oranges, and teals; backgrounds become more detailed and realistic, and foliage and nearby birds are brought into focus to suggest Pig's gentle ascent back to the real world. It's a subtle change that slows the jovial pace, allowing both listener and Pig to sit with his concerns and reflect on their own. A page turn and a step into a clearing reveals a surprise party Mouse and friends have planned for Pig, and the partygoers begin to share fears big, small, and comically absurd (states a nebulous, bi-pedal creature, "I worry that no one can tell I'm a horse"). In this silly second cousin to Charlotte Agell's Maybe Tomorrow, Pig's struggle serves as a clear, approachable introduction to anxiety and imposter syndrome [End Page 413] that may come in handy for older readers as much as little ones. Seeing Pig supported and accepted by his community for all his worrying ways puts a sweet finish on this charming tale. Even sweeter is Mouse's encouragement when Pig realizes he has "the kindest, most generous and fun friends a pig could meet." This is certain to please at storytime or more intimate readings, and it may result in a fair share of great parties. (See p. 427 for publication information.) Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Farmer and non-farmer responsibility to each other: Negotiating the social contracts and public good of agriculture

If farmers expect society to help protect them against the crushing effect of surpluses, they must be prepared to protect society by working out permanent arrangements for storing of reserve food supplies. Both farmers and non-farmers have a responsibility to each other, and any dodging of this responsibility by either group is likely to end in disaster. — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace (1936a, 1936b:14).

Transfusion may be a common procedure but it can end in disaster

Stakes are high when handling and managing blood products for transfusion – here’s how nurses can prevent errors and keep patients safe

„Jesteśmy tu dla Polski”. III Rada Narodowa RP wobec wydarzeń w kraju (1949–1951)

The article presents discussions on the situation in Poland which took place at the forum of the Third National Council. The Council was appointed by the president of Poland in Exile August Zaleski in 1949. It was vicariously performing some of the functions of the Parliament and as such it was an advisory body to the president and to the government. Its term of office lasted for two years (between 1949 and 1951). Polish authorities in exileregarded Poland as an occupied country and that it was ruled by imposed agents. News coming from the country indicated that the communists ruling in Poland were steering it toward its total sovietisation. Politicians in emigration appealed numerous times to their fellow countrymen in the homeland not to undertake armed combat. They feared that an anti-communist uprising would end in disaster. Their goal was free Poland, independent and whole. However, they could not create a programme which would enable achieving this goal.

Iranian Women in Focus at Tehran’s Fajr Film Festival

Iranian Women in Focus at Tehran’s Fajr Film Festival

Endoscopic evaluation in upper gastrointestinal bleed

Background: Gastrointestinal bleeding is one of the few frightening things that the patient experiences, which can indicate simple, benign, complex or malignant disorders and can end in disaster if proper steps are not taken to identify the source of bleeding and treat it. Aim was to study the role of oesophagogastroduodenoscopy in diagnosis, management and prognosis of upper gastrointestinal bleeding and see the aetiology and age sex incidence. Methods: The study was conducted on 200 patients, presenting with haematemesis and melaena or history of same and Endoscopy was done using Fujinon 200 Videoendoscope (that consist of end viewing endoscope, videoprocessor and monitor). Results: Upper gastrointestinal bleeding was 4.5 times more common in males than in females and the mean age in this series was 40 years. Most common cause of upper gastrointestinal bleeding was found to be secondary to oesophageal varices (About 90%), peptic ulcers (6%) and 4% secondary to mucosal erosions. About 22% of patients had both haematemesis and melaena, 28% had hypotension and 70% had tachycardia at the time of presentation. 54% of them had hemoglobin value less than 8 gm% and they were given blood transfusion as per requirement Conclusions: Oesophagogastroduodenoscopy plays a major role in diagnosis, management and prognosis of upper gastrointestinal bleeding and its importance cannot be replaced by other imaging modalities.

Shaping a sustainable future – an outline of the transition

The warnings from scientists are urgent and unequivocal: our civilisation is unwittingly stepping in front of an ecological lorry that is about to flatten us (Steffen, W., et al., 2004. Global change and the earth system: a planet under pressure. Berlin: Springer-Verlag). We are using resources future generations will need, damaging environmental systems and compromising social stability by increasing the gap between rich and poor. In short, we are consuming the future. Without a radical re-thinking of the way we currently live, our society is doomed. We need to tackle this problem head-on and develop far-reaching solutions to our environmental and social crisis. This does not just require technical innovation. It also demands fundamental changes to our values and our social institutions. This paper develops a vision of a HEALTHIER society – one that is Humane, takes an Eco-centric approach, adopts Long-term thinking, uses our natural resources responsibly, is Informed about the fragility of our natural systems, is Efficient in turning resources into the services we need and is Resourced from natural flows of energy. The paper goes on to suggest the first concrete steps toward achieving this sort of desirable future. History has shown that human systems can change very quickly. Once we realise the need for a new direction – and act on it – an equitable and sustainable world is within reach. If civilisation is to survive, this century will have to be a time of dramatic transformation, not just in technical capacity but also in our approach to the natural world – and each other. The road we are travelling now can only end in disaster.

Joy Lawn: saving newborn babies' lives

This interview with the author reflects on her experience as a neonatal epidemiology and Senior Policy and Research Advisor for Saving Newborn Lives/Save the Children-US. She uses her personal story to illustrate the overwhelming but impersonal newborn mortality statistics as she offers insights to preventing maternal and newborn deaths.

Laser conservation of art

Focusing a laser on the dirt covering a precious work of art may seem like a dangerous thing to do, but this unexpected technique has found a variety of cleaning applications. Analogies from other fields of materials science can provide guidance for its use, and model experiments ensure it doesn't all end in disaster.

Questioning M&A

AbstractNow that the stock market has recovered a bit, merger and acquisition (M&A) activity has increased. Many companies view M&A as a quick way to enhance their financials. But think before you leap—is the candidate company really a good fit? Or might a merger end in disaster, like the Time Warner/AOL debacle? Is short‐term financing overruling good business judgment?The author takes a sobering look at some of the hype surrounding M&A and shows how you can decide if this is really the right move for your firm. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Mike Jay, The air loom gang: the strange and true story of James Tilly Matthews and his visionary madness, London and New York, Bantam Press, 2003, pp. xiv, 306, illus, £12.99 (hardback 0-593-04997-7); £7.99 (paperback 0-553-81485-0).

For a man who spent much of his life incarcerated in English asylums and French prisons, James Tilly Matthews enjoyed a remarkable and varied career. A sometime tea-merchant, peace activist, secret agent, draughtsman, mesmerized pawn, lunatic and self-styled “Omni-Imperious Arch-Grand-Arch Emperor Supreme”, he is now better remembered as a psychiatric exemplar: joining Freud's Dora, Judge Schreber, Sally Beauchamp and Mary Barnes in the addled pantheon of representative case histories on which psychiatrists and historians draw in their arguments over the nature of illness and politics of diagnosis. Yet in Matthews' case, the academic co-option of his troubled life does, for once, seem oddly appropriate. As Mike Jay shows in this brilliant historical account, Matthews' biography can be characterized as a struggle for self-determination within the competing philosophical schemes and political agendas of Hanoverian England. Matthews is now remembered as a prototypical schizophrenic. A philosophical radical and follower of the eminent Welsh republican, David Williams, he had devoted his energies to preventing the threatened war between England and revolutionary France. His mission would end in disaster. A self-elected intermediary, he was imprisoned by the Jacobins as an English spy. Freed after three and a half years, he returned to London only to find himself reincarcerated within the walls of Bethlem. Matthews recognized the source of his misfortunes. At each step of his sorry progress, he had been frustrated by the secret machinations of the “Air Loom”: a mesmeric mechanism which could control action and thought. Words would suddenly fail him. Sympathetic audiences would abruptly lose interest. Politicians, who must have known the details of his peace mission, were mysteriously rendered ignorant. His struggle for peace and self expression was subverted by invisible forces, with agendas quite different to his own. Clandestine mesmerists were not the only group interested in conscripting Tilly Matthews. At Bethlem, he fell under the control of James Haslam, an ambitious apothecary determined to establish his reputation within the nascent discipline of psychological medicine. Theirs was to be an unhappy relationship. Haslam was harassed by Matthews' wife, who, over the course of a decade, repeatedly raised his detention with Bethlem's governors and issued a writ of habeas corpus against the asylum. Believing that his professional authority was being impugned in these proceedings, Haslam responded with a detailed history of Matthews' delusions: Illustrations of madness: exhibiting a singular case of insanity and a no less remarkable difference in medical opinion: … with a description of the tortures experienced by bomb-bursting, lobster-cracking and lengthening the brain (1810). It was the first book-length study of an individual's madness published in England. If Bethlem had been intended to silence Matthews, its staff would end up preserving his voice. Haslam might have wanted to convict Matthews out his own mouth but, as Jay demonstrates in his penetrating analysis of Illustrations, many other readings are possible. “It is a book that cannot simply be read: but demands to be hijacked” Jay writes, and as Haslam had forced new meanings from Matthews' life, Jay reveals the unintended significance of the Illustrations. Jay takes the description of the air loom, not simply as a deranged fantasy, but as a metaphor for the individual's loss of agency within an asylum system bent on breaking the patient's will upon the physician's reason. If Matthews had been a pawn in the mesmerists' scheme, so too was he used by Haslam to advance his own medical agenda. Yet he was never entirely defeated. From his cell he would draw up new plans for Bethlem, which would later be incorporated in the rebuilding of the asylum. From his deathbed, his description of his forced detention would inspire the Parliamentary Select Committee's investigations into the asylum, investigations that would wreck the career Haslam had so ruthlessly pursued. It is a salutary lesson for those who would give a voice to the mad, whether mesmerists, psychiatrists or historians. Such work demands the same kind of sympathy and insight as Jay demonstrates in his riveting account of The air loom gang.

Midline forehead flaps in nasal reconstruction

There are a variety of midline forehead flaps available, and how these are used is limited only by the ingenuity of the surgeon. An additional fact which is significant in terms of reconstruction and patient satisfaction is that midline donor site scars heal well. It is rare to have one of these spread or to become hypertrophic, regardless of the type of skin. These were initially popularized by Esser [1]. As with all flaps, those from the forehead can be used as local pedicled or island flaps. Due to the laxity of the midline in most people the closure of wide defects is almost always possible. This can be further increased by the use of tissue expansion. Perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the forehead skin is that it is similar in color and texture to that of the nose. To understand the safe use of the forehead as a flap donor site the nature of the blood supply to the forehead must be understood. It is the vascular anatomy which determines the important characteristics of the forehead flap, namely its length, its width and where the base is situated. 1. Medial supply: the dorsal nasal artery comes from the ophthalmic artery which is from the internal carotid. 2. Lateral supply: the angular artery passes under the levator labii superioris nasi. It comes from the facial artery which in turn originates from the external carotid artery. 3. Additional lateral supply: there is a component from the lateral supratrochlear artery from the ophthalmic artery which comes from the internal carotid. The venous drainage is by means of the ophthalmic veins which end up in the cavernous sinuses. The supratrochlear vein connects to the angular vein. Innervation is from the supratrochlear nerve. As a result of our clinical investigations and some recent cadaver studies, there appears to be a consistent area of anastomoses between the frontal and the paranasal vascular regions [2] (Fig. 1). The significance of this is that a midline flap can be made very long since it can be based low down on the paranasal area at the level of the medial canthus. Having established this fact, midline forehead flap design is easy and the length is considerable; it can reach the tip of the nose and beyond. What has not, as yet, been completely established is the width of the flap which can be taken from the central forehead. It is probably related only to the ability to close the transverse defect. Basing the flap on the glabellar area, which is classic teaching and trying to reconstruct the tip and columella will end in disaster either by loss of flap or by forming a short nose. A flap based on the medial canthal area is safe and will comfortably reach the base of the columella without tension, no matter how long or large the nose is. No longer do we end up with a short upturned nose which, in the male or the older female, is a disaster (Figs. 2, 3).

What to do when the government calls

There never has been a higher probability that your business will become directly or indirectly involved in a government fraud investigation. With the right advice, it need not end in disaster. This article provides management with a practical guide on how properly to respond to a such an investigation. Never rely on “self‐help” strategies. Management acting on its own without counsel can lose the opportunity to navigate its first contact with the government’s investigators safely. Counsel should help management in determining how the government might approach your company and who might be under investigation, as well as providing clear and specific instructions to employees, deciding whether to conduct a parallel internal investigation, understanding “joint defense” or “common interest” agreements, and developing an action plan.

Burbank with a Baedeker: Modernism's Grand Tours

Modernist literature shares many of the topoi of travel writing. On occasions, it intervenes directly in the genre. The tourist abroad, in Eliot's poem ‘Burbank with a Baedeker’, offers a paradigm of the Modernist impulse, constructing its texts out of the allusive plunder of a global culture—an operation theorised by André Malraux in the concept of the ‘Imaginary Museum’. It also offers a less positive image of what travel has meant for the majority of people in the twentieth century, exemplified by The Waste Land's vision of a world driven by the coercive agendas of mass migration, ethnic cleansing, exile and fight. Whereas the Romantic quest sought to recover a lost ‘home’, the Modernist, after Baudelaire, is an existential traveller, recognising that any attempt to ‘go native’ is likely to end in disaster. Explicitly Modernist travelogues by such writers as MacNeice, Auden and Isherwood seek, in a deliberate parody of the form, to deconstruct these earlier scenarios in serio-comic mode, while recognising the complementarity of privileged tourist and that representatively modern figure, the ‘displaced person’.

Romania: Law on Security Interests in Personal Property and Commentaries

AbstractThis paper presents the Romanian Law on Security Interests in Movable Property, together with commentaries on its main articles. It also discusses the background research and analysis that preceded the enactment of the law. Problems in the legal and institutional framework for secured transactions ranked high among the factors that limited access to credit in Romania. Limited access to credit, in turn, led to lower rates of investment and, thence, to lower rates of economic growth. Moreover, since the existing credit system could safely take as collateral only large holdings of real estate, the credit system discriminated heavily against those with mainly movable property as assets—the poor and operators of small businesses and farms. These legal problems reduced access to credit in Romania more than did macroeconomic instability or a variety of other structural features of the economy. Moreover, these limits would have lingered on undiminished long after macroeconomic stability could have been achieved. Limited access to credit has been generally recognized as constraining growth and aggravating poverty. Many donors and governments have attempted to address this problem without remedying its underlying legal roots: they have supported directed credit programs, state loan guarantees, state-funded guarantee funds, and direct loans by state agencies. These efforts typically end in disaster. Even where employees of such institutions matched their private counterparts in their desire to collect loans, the legal and regulatory framework prevented collection. State lenders may be able to make loans that the private sector will not make; however, they are no more able to collect them. No one has devised a feasible and effective economic remedy to this legal problem. Good public policy relaxes limits to access to credit by addressing the legal roots of this problem. Notwithstanding the importance of collateral to lenders and of movable property to producers, before the reform, the laws and legal registries of Romania largely prevented private lenders from taking movable property as collateral for loans. The new Romanian Law on Security Interests in Personal Property remedies this problem. It sets out a comprehensive framework for using personal property as collateral for loans. It introduces a broad system of security interests in personal property that derogates the existing narrow regime of non-possessory pledges. The law broadens the range of property that can serve as collateral under the concept of security interests (Garantiile Reale) far beyond the scope of what the pre-reform pledge. Today, a wide variety of property and transactions can secure a loan. The law sets out a compulsory and unique system for establishing priority among creditors in collateral. It provides that the first creditor who files a notice of the security interest shall be the first entitled to receive the proceeds from the sale of the collateral should the borrower default. These provisions apply to any secured creditor and to any creditor who—under any contract—has a right to satisfaction from property of the debtor or from property in the debtor's possession. This includes creditors in financial leases, conditional sales, warehouse operations, and accounts receivable financing. The law provides that the ranking of priority depends only on the time of filing a notice of the security interest in an Electronic Archive. Unlike a pledge registry, this Archive system does not register the security agreement. Rather, it files in a database a notice that a security interest exists. This notice contains minimal information about the parties to the transaction and the security interest. Furthermore, the law sets out—for the first time anywhere in the world—a registry archive in the Internet that may be accessed on-line both to file and to retrieve information.

Large volume liquid silicone injection in the upper thighs: a never ending story

This report concerns a 26-year-old male-to- female transsexual who had received a large volume liquid silicone injection of unknown grade into her upper lateral thighs to gain female contour. She presented at our outpatient clinic 4 years after the silicone injection with complaints of pain and silicone sagging down as far as both ankles. On physical examination a massively swollen right ankle with signs of inflammation was seen. On magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), massive diffuse and localized silicone infiltration in the soft tissues of the entire lower limbs was seen. After conservative treatment of the soft tissue infection, the first attempt to solve this problem was excision of large solid infiltrates of silicone in combination with liposuction. Liposuction was not able to reduce the silicone load. After a recurrent inflammation had subsided, radical subcutaneous debridement was performed. The local skin was used as a full-thickness skin graft. As of now, there has been no recurrence of pain and inflammation for the first 15 months. It is concluded that, even now, large-volume silicone injections are performed. These procedures will end in disaster without exception. The treatment of these disasters is complicated and never satisfactory.

Feet of clay: saints, sinners, and madmen: a study of gurus

In his classic work, Solitude, internationally acclaimed author and psychiatrist Anthony Storr probed our basic and often unmet need for solitude, especially emphasizing its relation to creativity. In Music and the Mind, Storr explored the fundamental human need for music, demonstrating its ability to reunite the mind and body. Now, in Feet of Clay, Storr again provides a fresh perspective into one of the most potentially dangerous human needs, the need for certitude. In vivid portraits of some of history's most intriguing gurus, from David Koresh to Freud and Jung to Jesus, Storr examines why we are so enthralled with certain dogmatic figures who play on our need for certainty. Gurus are extraordinary individuals who cast doubt upon current psychiatric distinctions between sanity and madness. Because gurus are charismatic figures who are gifted teachers, they recruit disciples who adopt the guru's vision as their own. The guru convinces others that he knows, a persuasive capacity which can bring illumination but which may end in disaster. Storr demonstrates that most of us harbor irrational beliefs, and he discusses how the human wish for certainty in an insecure world leads to our confusing delusion with truth. Storr reveals how the adoration for the guru can so easily corrupt him and explains why certain gurus become moral parasites while others become spiritual beacons.

Towed Water Sports

Variations of the traditional sport of waterskiing are providing people with challenging and exciting ways to plane and jump across the water. But the thrill of kneeboarding, tubing, and skiboarding can unexpectedly end in disaster and tragedy. By becoming familiar with these towed water innovations, physicians can better prepare for the minor and serious injuries that may occur.

Palateless dentures: Help for the gagging patient

distance, a lower over-denture covering the posterior teeth may be necessary to provide the correct occlusal plane and a satisfactory occlusion. Whatever method of treatment is carried out, it is essential that patients maintain meticulous oral hygiene and motivation so that the few teeth they have can be retained. In no situation is this more important than with overdentures, where neglect can lead to rapid destruction of the crowns by caries or loss of periodontal support. Patient selection is critical; otherwise excellent results may end in disaster. Regular recall visits with scaling, polishing, fluoride application, and consolidation of oral hyg.iene instruction are essential. Patients are instructed to leave overdentures out at night to allow the soft tissues to recover and to thoroughly rinse the dentures and the mouth in water after meals if full oral hygiene is not feasible. Coating the tissue surface of an overdenture with a fluoride gel each day will reduce the tendency of the teeth to decalcify. Some patients find the taste unpleasant, and an alternative is to place a thin coat of a fluoride tooth cream on the tissue surface each day. The esthetic and psychologic improvement in the patient illustrated in Figs. 1) 2, and 6 was so great that it was later decided to extract the deciduous lower incisor and make a complete lower overdenture, because the lower anterior teeth had become the esthetic problem.