Extraordinary Interventions Research Articles

Study of the radionuclide deposition in the radioactive ion line of the Selective Production of Exotic Species (SPES) facility

SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) is a second generation facility for the production of radioactive ion beams that is going to be commissioned at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro of INFN at Legnaro, Padua, Italy. Radioactive neutron-rich isotopes are expected to be produced by nuclear fission induced by a 40 MeV, 200 μA primary proton beam impinging on a 238UCx target. The expected reaction rate is about 1013 fission/s. Radioactive ion beams are produced using the isotope separation on-line technique. The production of such an amount of radioactive species raises radiological issues throughout the life cycle of the facility. A study of the radioactive contamination of the components of the radioactive ion beam line is performed with the FLUKA Monte Carlo simulation code, under realistic hypotheses for the produced isobaric beams. The present results complete previous studies focused on the radiological impact of the production target irradiation, the residual activation of the primary proton beam line and the radioactive contamination of the ion source complex. The overall ambient dose equivalent rate due to the different radiation sources is calculated at several positions inside the production bunker and at different times after a typical one-year operating period of the facility with the 238UCx target at full power. The obtained results and the developed methodology provide the guidelines and the needed tools to plan ordinary and extraordinary interventions as well as final decommissioning of the SPES facility.

Shifting landscapes of digital literacy

This paper explores how changing digital literacy practices in educational contexts require that we continually revisit conceptualisations of digital literacy education. We begin by analysing the positions taken by stakeholders who contribute to digital literacy discourses in Australia, exploring how competing interests produce effects which manifest in ways that differently consecrate social and cultural practice in the digital age. We advocate the need for pedagogic frameworks that support digital literacy education. Existing approaches tend to privilege the operationalisation of digital technology. By contrast, teaching is needed which focusses on meaning-making and creating. However, the ‘datafication of everyday life’ (Barassi, 2018, p.170) has included extraordinary interventions into schooling that have significant implications for teachers and students. We argue that preparing young people for digital citizenship must include a focus on critical digital literacies that are responsive to contemporary digital forces (e.g. platformatisation, artificial intelligence, edu-apps, algorithms) as well as those digital technologies that are yet to make their way into formal schooling.

Multi-Dimensional Cost-Effectiveness Analysis for Prioritizing Railway Station Investments: A General Framework with an Application to the Italian Case Study

In recent years, several authors have highlighted the merits of the Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA), e.g., compared to Cost-Benefits Analysis (CBA), particularly for small projects appraisal (e.g., revamping or extraordinary maintenance interventions) and when the impacts of the project are difficult to value or quantify in monetary terms. CEA is a quite consolidated technique, typically applied in practice when one specific impact prevails over the others. This research extends the concept of CEA to a multi-dimensional decision-making context, outlining a methodological framework that includes several criteria to assess the impacts of railway station revamping in urban contexts. The proposed method has already been applied for the project appraisals of five railway stations in Italy; this paper presents the application to a case study representing the typical configuration of a medium-sized Italian railway station. Results have shown that the proposed approach is a valid tool for both designers and infrastructure managers for prioritizing railway station investments in the presence of multiple strategic objectives that also conflict with each other. A multi-dimensional CEA can provide, in a communicative, lean, and effective way, the information on investment costs and the impacts that different policies, layouts, and technological solutions would have, creating the basis for a more transparent debate on resource allocation priorities. Finally, results have shown that the CEA is not only a method for project assessment, but also a tool for improving and directing the design towards the identification of interventions that allow the achievement of the key objectives set ex ante.

MEMORY AND SPACE IN AYSE ERKMEN'S ARTWORKS

Ayse Erkmen is known for her site-specific installations and she created some of her artworks by making use of memory of the space. In these works, the artist transforms the space with its memory into an art material. By making simple but extraordinary interventions to the space, she grasps the past and memories of the space. In this way, in her works she touches the memory of the space created with a minimal reality. In her own words, the practice of the artist, standing at a point "between being an art and not being an art", brings forward the relationship between space and memory with an innovative approach. This research examines the relationship between memory and space that is especially inherent in the artist’s site-specific works. Therefore, a detailed research is carried out on the practice of the artist, who deals with this relation ship in a postmodern context. The aim of this article is to conduct a research on the relationship between space and memory in postmodern art, based on Ayse Erkmen’s site-specific works. In the research, document analysis method, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was applied. In the article, it has been concluded that the relationship between space and memory in Ayşe Erkmen's works does not contain an utopian discourse. Instead without creating a nostalgic feeling, this relationship carries a postmodern context with minor narratives. Keywords: Space Memory, Postmodern Art

如何看待政府在疫病中的干預？自由至上主義的道德困境

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 在「自由至上主義」(Libertarianism)的政治哲學詞典中，「政府干預」(state interference)或「政府父權主義」(state paternalism)基本上是一個貶義詞，因為政府意味著官僚、腐敗、無效率，意味著對公民個體自由的干預和限制。然而，自2020年以來在全球範圍內爆發和流行的新冠疫情，讓一貫反政府干預、堅持「小政府」原則的自由至上派的學者倍受挑戰。 面對疫情的肆虐，許多人認為政府的干預（如封城、鎖國、宵禁、隔離、邊控等措施的實行）是必要的。本文探討自由至上主義的自由觀在疫病中所面臨的道德兩難以及政府應在公共衛生管理中扮演的角色。作者指出，雖然自由至上主義的一些有關自由的理念在現實生活中顯得過於教條和不切實際，但從另一個角度看，當我們一再倒向政府的力量以抗擊疫情之時， 我們更需要自由至上主義對我們的提醒，以防政府利用疫情不斷擴大自身的權力範圍，最終傷害每個人的自由權利。
 For Libertarians, state interference or state paternalism has a pejorative meaning given that government often implies bureaucracy, corruption, and inefficiency. However, such a view has faced significant resistance since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. For the sake of public health, many people now believe that we must accept much greater governmental intervention in our lives and that it is morally permissible and necessary to have public policies such as lockdowns, mandatory social distancing, border restrictions, and mandatory vaccination. Is it true that “there are no libertarians in a pandemic”? This paper explores the role of the government and the meaning of individual liberty in the face of the current public health crisis. The author contends that the Libertarian views of civil liberty and self-ownership should be taken more seriously as the government obtains more power and a host of extraordinary interventions are being implemented during the pandemic.

Of Viruses, Economic Crises and Banks: The European Banking Union and the Response to Covid-19

This article provides an account of how the Covid-19 outbreak and its impact on the banking sector were tackled in the European Union. The Covid-19 crisis is the first economic crisis after the enactment of the regulatory reforms of the last decade and represents the first relevant test for the assessment of their effectiveness in particular in the Eurozone. The analysis focuses specifically on the new framework for Banking Supervision in the Euroarea, the Single Supervisory Mechanism within the Banking Union, and explains how ECB Banking Supervision reacted to the economic and financial shock generated by the Covid-19 outbreak until the end of 2020. In this context, the article discusses the ECB’s policy interventions within the wider European and international context where also significant initiatives from the central bank side of the ECB, the European Commission, the European Banking Authority, the European Systemic Risk Board, the EU co-legislators and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision took place.1 The Article also analyses the potential limitations of the existing European framework for crisis management, should a further severe shock with new waves of infections and lockdowns require extraordinary policy interventions. The article is divided into 4 sections: section A sets the scene and briefly describes the unprecedented economic shock deriving from the outbreak of the virus followed by the various measures of containment and lockdown. Section B analyses the various policy initiatives taken by ECB Banking Supervision to tackle the crisis within the wider European and international context. Section C discusses the potential use of the European framework for crisis management in the banking sector, should a further severe economic shock with ample repercussions on the banking sector materialise. Section D concludes. European Banking Supervision, Covid-19, microprudential supervision, macroprudential supervision, distribution restrictions, usable capital, crisis management framework, precautionary recapitalisation, non-performing loans, asset management company

Crisis-Driven Tax Law: The Case of Section 382

At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Notice 2008–83 (the Notice), administrative guidance that limited Internal Revenue Code (the Code) section 382, an important tax rule designed to discourage tax-motivated acquisitions. Although styled as a mere interpretation of existing law, the Notice has been widely viewed as an improper exercise of the IRS’s authority that undermined its legitimacy. But did the Notice work? There were many extraordinary interventions during the financial crisis that raised questions about eroding the rule of law and the long-term destabilizing effects of bail­outs. In a financial crisis, regulators must weigh these real, but distant and uncertain, costs against the immediate benefits of the intervention. Toward that end, we report the first evidence of the effects of limiting Code section 382 during the 2008 financial crisis. Although we find lit­tle evidence that the Notice affected bank merger activity, those merg­ers that occurred while the Notice was in effect produced lower post-merger income growth. The results suggest that Code section 382 may have some benefits in terms of discouraging tax-motivated acqui­sitions. We use the Notice to illustrate the concerns that should guide lawmakers’ decisions about if and how to make law during a crisis.

Plant maintenance in hospitals facilities

Maintenance is crucial in hospitals, where potential systems failures can have a significant impact on patients. An hospital is a complex asset because of the co-existence of multiple areas and interaction among health-related and non-health-related activities. The central hypothesis is that the appropriate maintenance procedure depends on served spaces and plants. Therefore, the research aims at establishing a correlation between the operational criticalities of each area and critical elements of plants to improve and optimize the execution of maintenance activities. The analysis is based on three steps. Firstly, the identification of criteria aimed at defining the plants criticality in correlation with the ways in which spaces are served and, moreover, definition of criteria for spaces classification based on performed activities. Last step is the description of components through two categories of factors. The first refers to analysis of design and functioning aspects of plants; the second is related to components functioning and deterioration. This correlation among “criticality index” and “health index” for all components provides indications on modalities and priorities for extraordinary interventions. Relative weights were attributed through the consultation with hospital technical office. The proposed maintenance management was applied in a hospital made up of 65000 squared-meters to include it in the informatic system that is currently used for repairs. This new maintenance management has the purpose of providing indications for maintenance strategies by considering contemporary nature of functional spaces, activities design characteristics and health state of them. The implementation into the informatic system and its check will be developed in future.

Renoprofilaxis in secondary chronic pyelonephritis in children

Patients with secondary pyelonephritis have a high risk of developing chronic renal failure and a decline in the quality of life already in childhood. This pathology is prone to chronization, recurrence and progression with the formation of nephrosclerosis and the development of CRF, leading to disability of the body and requiring extraordinary interventions. Annually in the world among children it is fixed about 50 million cases of infection of urinary ways. In an open, prospective comparative study, the results of the analysis of the outcomes of the therapeutic and prophylactic efficacy of various therapies are presented in 85 children aged 4-15 years with chronic dysmetabolic pyelonephritis. Objective: to develop the principles of secondary prevention of chronic dysmetabolic pyelonephritis in children. Patients were divided into 2 groups depending on the method of treatment. 1 group consisted of 48 patients who used conventional methods of treatment. Group 2 consisted of 37 patients with children who received complex therapy: regional lymphotropic antibiotic therapy + electrophoresis with 0.5% euphillin. The results of our studies showed that after the conventional treatment there was no positive dynamics of the studied indicators of the functional state of the kidneys. A comparative assessment of the results of the study of the functional state of the kidneys and indices of endogenous intoxication showed a high efficiency of the combined use of regional lymphotropic antibiotic therapy + electrophoresis with euphyllin. Complex treatment, recommended by the authors, promotes renoprophylaxis: prevention of frequent recurrence of the disease and development of renal failure.

Interventions to improve utilization of cataract surgical services by girls: Case studies from Asia and Africa

ABSTRACTPurpose: Gender and blindness initiatives continue to make eye care personnel aware of the service utilization inequity strongly favouring men, yet interventions to reduce that inequity, particularly for girls, are under developed.Methods: This descriptive study gathered quantitative data on the degree of gender equity at five Child Eye Health Tertiary Facilities (CEHTFs) in Asia and Africa and conducted in-depth interviews with eye care personnel to assess their strategies and capacity to reduce gender inequity. Cataract surgery was utilized to assess the degree of inequity and success of interventions to reduce inequity in case finding, service utilization, and follow-up.Results: CEHTF administrative data showed significant gender inequity in cataract surgical services favouring boys in all settings. CEHTFs actively seek children through community and school-based outreach, yet do not have initiatives to reduce gender inequity. Little gender inequity was found among children receiving surgical and follow-up care, although two out of three children were boys. CEHTF staff, despite being aware, offered no effective means to reduce gender inequity involving cataract surgical services. Interventions that successfully increased service utilization by girls came from individual cases, involving extraordinary effort by a single eye care programme person.Conclusion: Community-based case finders such as Anganwadi workers in India, Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) in Nepal, and Key Informants (KIs) in Africa are necessary to identify children in need of cataract services, but insufficient to increase service utilization by girls. Secondary, often extra-ordinary community-based interventions by eye care personnel are needed in all settings.

Extraordinary interventions: Toward a framework for rapid transition and deep emission reductions in the energy space

A survey of key processes at work in the energy space suggests that a rapid transition away from fossil fuels is possible, and for several reasons. The energy policy environment is increasingly supportive of innovation and rapid system change. Zero carbon replacement technologies are available now. Transition outcomes are firmly established and affordable. The energy space is resourceful and flexible enough to accommodate novel solutions. However, to fully mobilize and accelerate these processes, a universal acknowledgment of the climate crisis will be required. When acknowledgement occurs, the world must be ready for action. It will need a framework for rapid energy transition.Any such framework will focus on the main instigators of climate change: the billion or so mechanical devices (gasoline engines, industrial boilers, etc.) worldwide that burn fossil fuels. Those devices are to be replaced or modified. An effective framework would organize this task along four energy sector pathways: electricity generation, transportation, heavy industry, and buildings. The framework would maintain system functionality as transition occurs. With such a framework in hand, the global community will be prepared to face the climate emergency head on, and respond with certainty and speed.

Contested Terrain: The State versus Threatened Lynch Mob Violence

Prior research on mob violence in the American South has focused on lynchings that were successfully completed. Here, the authors explore new territory by studying the relationship between state interventions in threatened mob violence and industrial expansion in the South. Using a newly available inventory of lynching threats, they find that the frequency of extraordinary state interventions to avoid mob violence between 1880 and 1909 was positively related to the strength of the manufacturing sector within counties and negatively related to the prevalence of a “Deep South cotton culture.” The authors’ research offers support for the hypothesis that mob violence was incompatible with the image of the “New South” and that contradiction motivated state authorities to make extraordinary interventions when lynching was threatened.

Defining Human Enhancement: Towards a Foundational Conceptual Tool for Enhancement Law

Emerging technologies open the prospect of extraordinary interventions on the human body. These may go beyond what is strictly necessary to sustain health and well-being. While responding to social and ethical challenges of such advances, the Law simultaneously faces the challenge of reflecting on the legitimacy to legislate and on whether the existing legal framework is appropriate to address the various concerns. In order to do so, it is crucial to establish clear legal definitions. Precise distinctions between interventions on the human body are intrinsically difficult to formulate. However, subject-matter definitions are vital legal tools to determine what is currently regulated in established fields of law and whether there is room for a new legal field – Enhancement Law. This paper provides a reflection on the relevance of establishing a legal definition of human enhancement and to what extent different legal fields and jurisdictions may warrant different understandings of such concept. It reviews a number of different and often divergent concepts and taxonomies of human enhancement and concludes with the proposal and analysis of a definition: Use of technological means with the intention to improve, modify or introduce in the human body aesthetic features, physical, emotional or cognitive performance levels and abilities beyond the human species typical standards under the current evolutionary state, and resulting in induced permanent alterations in the human body.

Extraordinary interventions for extraordinary clients: existential sex therapy and open non-monogamy

Open non-monogamy is an important and sensitive area for psychotherapists and counselors, as it can challenge the practitioner's personal values, and professional assumptions about dyadic sexual relationships. Additionally, the increased attention to non-monogamy in popular culture, and the sometimes-ambiguous distinction between “monogamy” and “non-monogamy” make understanding the potentials and challenges of non-monogamy a priority for sex therapy specialists. We recommend existential sex therapy as a useful, non-pathologizing model for addressing the needs of openly non-monogamous clients. Both therapists with limited experience working with non-monogamous clients, and those seeking new theoretical frameworks, may benefit from the use of existential sex therapy. We identify core existential therapy principles, including bracketing (i.e. reflectively identifying, and endeavoring to separate out one's own prejudgments and values) and horizontalizing (i.e. working to situate the client's sexual identity within the wider context/horizon of their life experience), as methods for affirming the importance of freedom and belonging in light of the client's subjective, lived experience.

Conversations over the Gap

Scenography relates to the study and practice of design for performance, the articulation of space. As Performance Studies has broadened notions of performance to include ritual and everyday life behaviours, scenography must be broadened to provide perspective on the design of our everyday environments, especially our cities. Since the 2010-2011 Christchurch earthquakes, the central city has been 70% demolished and is full of gaps: unarticulated spaces. This paper is an experiment in documenting the extraordinary aesthetic interventions on these gaps by the Christchurch organisation Gap Filler through conversation. We are particularly interested in how these spatial articulations may be read differently by those making and participating in them (Ryan) from those experiencing them from afar through images and social media (Renee). We seek to problematise the notion and experience of ‘environment/s’ by questioning proximity and distance, constructions of place and space, and how meaning is being made from acting inside or outside these gaps of catastrophe in the urban landscape of Christchurch. Through a combination of interview, dialogue and conceptual grounding we delve into our divergent experiences of these projects to explore the significance of these aesthetic inscriptions in space and time.

The Extraordinary Interventions of Alfonso Ossorio, Patron and Collector of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Extraordinary Interventions of Alfonso Ossorio, Patron and Collector of Jackson Pollock and Lee KrasnerGAIL LEVINGAIL LEVIN Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Archives of American Art Journal Volume 50, Number 1/2SPRING 2011 Sponsored by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/aaa.50.1_2.23025819 Views: 62Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref © 2011 Smithsonian InstitutionPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Gail Levin JAPANESE CULTURAL INFLUENCE IN AMERICA: THE BOSTON-NEW YORK EXCHANGE, Source: Notes in the History of Art 31, no.33 (Sep 2015): 13–22.https://doi.org/10.1086/sou.31.3.23208590

Disasters in Kenya: A major public health concern

A disaster is defined as an event or series of events, which give rise to casualties and/or damage or loss of property, infrastructure, essential services or means of livelihoods on a scale which is beyond the normal capacity of the affected community to cope with unaided. This event or events disrupt the normal patterns of life (or ecosystem) and extraordinary emergency interventions are required to save and preserve human lives and/or the environment. Disasters can either be manmade or natural, and either of slow or rapid onset. The objective of this work was to review disasters that have happened in Kenya in the last twenty five years in respect to their public health impact, community perceptions and preparedness. Results indicate that there is inadequate preparedness and responses despite the repetitive nature of specific disaster episodes. This may be due to economic, social, and cultural barriers prevent effective devolution of mitigating institutional and policy frameworks from central institutions to local communities. Key words: Disasters, Kenya.

Digital divide and economic development: case study of sub‐Saharan Africa

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the nexus between the digital divide and development and discusses attempts being made at continental, regional and country levels to bridge the digital divide in sub‐Saharan Africa.Design/methodology/approachAn analytical and comparative approach of global e‐readiness, digital opportunity, and information society indices is applied to infer the status of the digital divide in sub‐Saharan Africa.FindingsThe paper finds that there is a link between bridging the digital divide and economic development. However, there is as yet no unanimity as to whether the digital divide is narrowing or widening in developing countries including those in sub‐Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, countries in sub‐Saharan Africa are making tremendous strides, especially in infrastructure development and mobile phone connectivity, to bridge the digital divide.Research limitations/implicationsAn empirical study is needed to determine the impact of the surge in infrastructure and policy development in sub‐Saharan Africa with regard to bridging the digital divide.Practical implicationsHitherto, attempts to measure the extent of the digital divide between and within countries have largely relied on e‐readiness rankings and have rarely used other relevant indices that are available, such as e‐government, information society, and digital opportunity indices. The use of a wide range of indices to infer the breadth and depth of the digital divide between sub‐Saharan Africa and the developed world would provide a clearer picture of the extent of the divide.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates that several tools other than e‐readiness ranking can be used to measure the breadth and depth of the digital divide. The paper brings to the fore the importance of addressing sub‐Saharan Africa's digital divide peculiarities using extraordinary interventions.

Schism within the Curia: The Twin Papal Elections of 1378

The Great Western Schism divided Latin Christendom along national lines, but it began in 1378 not as a conflict between two national factions of cardinals in the conclave, but in two successive elections by the same college of cardinals, none dissenting. Each of the two new popes had the same usual claim to canonical legitimacy, but since each election was flawed in its circumstances and procedure, each pope could and did condemn and excommunicate his rival. Investigating the activities of the two leading bureaucrats of the Roman Curia, the archbishops who headed its two most powerful ministries, the Chancery and Camera, this paper explores an alternative interpretation of the two elections. According to this narrative, there were two extraordinary interventions in the succession to Pope Gregory xi: the disorderly papal election of 9 April 1378 was captured by one papal minister, the deputy director of the papal Chancery, Bartolomeo Prignano, archbishop of Bari; the second election, of 20 September, which began the Great Western Schism, was a counter-coup managed by the minister in charge of the Camera Apostolica, the chamberlain Pierre de Cros, archbishop of Arles.

Lung transplantation: donor and recipient critical care aspects

The purpose of this paper is to highlight new developments in donor and recipient lung transplant issues for the critical care physician. A shortage of suitable lung donors has led to the use of extended donors and the development of novel techniques such as live-donor lung transplantation and the use of non-heart-beating donors. The increased experience and success with lung transplantation has also resulted in the extension of this therapy to patients previously considered unsuitable for transplantation. Postoperative outcomes can be affected by many of these recent donor and recipient changes. Improved preservation solutions and techniques to reduce reperfusion injury may be able to ameliorate some of the new perioperative graft dysfunction, but morbidity is still potentially significant, and extraordinary interventions such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation may be required in selected cases. Patients undergoing lung transplantation continue to be very challenging in the intensive care unit. A multidisciplinary approach to care, and early recognition of serious problems, will help improve outcomes.