Formal Scrutiny Research Articles

Ancient Egypt Hieroglyphs — Contemporary Reading for Fresh Ideas in Art

The aim of this article is to rationalise emotional, intellectual and aesthetic impact of Egyptian hieroglyphs through their examination with the research tools of the aesthetics as an academic discipline and its related sciences. Their evocative power made them possess the property of life, resulting in attributing the ancient Egyptian writing with the power of storing a universal sagacity. The latter is suggested as both a rationale and an outcome of every creative process to which the art of hieroglyphs seems to invite. Results. Nevertheless, through taking a down-to-earth stand for a methodological choice we aim to be reconnected with techniques of making a single hieroglyph and getting insight into conceptual principles of tying them in rows of a text that generate intentional ancient meaning to be decoded and delighted through present day lens. Scientific novelty. The study tries to establish a new both bond and relationship between the signifier and the signified to allow contemporary reading of the ancient signs that could bridge modern man with their Ancient Egypt ancestors. Following Ferdinand de Saussure’s exposition of the semiotic nature of the symbolisation process it opens an investigation into ways the modern mind can bear new meaning that will substitute the extinct signified in relation to the compelling ancient signifier a single hieroglyph is. Conclusions. Adhering to a formal scrutiny of the outer form of an ideogram in the first place, we intend to both challenge and inform contemporary art with strongly symbolic nature of ancient Egypt thought and spirituality that yielded those polysemous signs created with extremely sublime logic of artistic wisdom and craft. A nonrandom and revealing interchange between logics and aesthetics suggests the given art form can bring to light some strict and invariant rational laws that constituted it.

The Percentage of Mature Height as a Morphometric Index of Somatic Growth: A Formal Scrutiny of Conventional Simple Ratio Scaling Assumptions.

To assess conventional assumptions that underpin the percentage of mature height index as the simple ratio of screening height (numerator) divided by actual or predicted adult height (denominator). We examined cross-sectional data from 99 academy youth soccer players (chronological age range, 11.5 to 17.7y) skeletally immature at the screening time and with adult height measurements available at follow-up. The y-intercept value of -60cm (95% confidence interval, -115 to -6cm) from linear regression between screening height and adult height indicated the failure to meet the zero y-intercept assumption. The correlation coefficient between present height and adult height of .64 (95% confidence interval, .50 to .74) was not equal to the ratio of coefficient of variations between these variables (CVx/CVy = 0.46) suggesting Tanner's special circumstance was violated. The non-zero correlation between the ratio and the denominator of .21 (95% confidence interval, .01 to .39) indicated that the percentage of mature height was biased low for players with generally shorter adult height, and vice versa. For the first time, we have demonstrated that the percentage of mature height is an inconsistent statistic for determining the extent of completed growth, leading to potentially biased inferences for research and applied purposes.

What does a department need to get involved in clinical trials?

Clinical trials are conducted to evaluate the usefulness of a drug, medical treatment, surgical intervention, radiological procedure, behavioral intervention, or preventive health care strategy. Clinical trials are challenging, time-consuming, and need careful planning and execution. There are certain requirements for an academic unit to be ready for conducting quality research, especially clinical trials. These include logistical concerns, infrastructure, appropriately trained human resources, conformity with ethical compliances and regulatory compliances as per the laws governing the respective geographical regions.Infrastructure requirements include research division space, robust data archival system, archival of imaging data, laboratory services, information technology division and facilities for the appropriate consenting process. Human resources such as principal investigators, data managers, clinical research assistants and biostatisticians are needed to execute the clinical trial as per the study design. Adherence to ethical and regulatory standards; during the conduct of the clinical trial are imperative. Strict compliance with prevailing governing laws in the country is a prerequisite for a department to get involved in clinical trials. The department also needs to put in place an institutional ethics committee; the composition of which is often governed by regulatory laws. The ethical aspects of the trial undergo a formal scrutiny by an Institute ethics committee that ensures quality care to the patient, and safeguards the patient's rights and privileges.The academic unit of any department forms the core for possible research and pursuit of clinical trials. A department with rich clinical experience and expertise in the filed aids in the execution of quality research. The academic department must consider grant writing and multiple center collaborative research projects in due course of time to further enhance the quality of clinical trials and research output.

Olga Albizu’s Lyrical Abstraction and the Borders of the Canvas

The abstractionist paintings of Puerto Rican artist Olga Albizu (1924–2005) gained prominence in the late 1950s when her work debuted in galleries across the Americas and entered the commercial music industry with RCA and Verve records. However, existing scholarship has failed to capture the complex relationship between Albizu’s anti-commercial abstractionist aesthetic and its mass reproduction as cover art for vinyl records during the Cold War era. Returning to the canvas to explore the iconographic, formal, and aesthetic qualities of Albizu’s work within its sociohistorical post-World War II context, this study reveals Albizu’s devotion to formal borders, vivid color juxtapositions, and compositional tensions. I argue that Albizu’s practice constitutes an ongoing concern with a Modernist dialectic and ideals about subjective transformation in a postmodern world of mass culture, a message she conveyed through the material and experiential borders of the canvas. As an avowed formalist and Modernist existing between the postcolonial and postmodern worlds of San Juan and New York City, her work merits formal scrutiny. This paper will add to the diverse histories of Abstract Expressionism and mid-century Modernisms across the Americas while shedding light on an important post-war historical moment and artistic impulse that held on to anti-commercial values in an all-encompassing consumerist world.

CETA and the External Autonomy of the EU Legal Order: Risk Regulation as a Test

This article endeavours to assess whether the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (‘ISDS’) mechanism established under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (‘CETA’) may in fact undermine the external autonomy of the EU legal order, arguing that in Opinion 1/17 the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) has lowered the bar in its analysis of compatibility with this principle. After a brief overview of the notion of external autonomy the article turns to an analysis of the CETA Opinion, arguing that the CJEU confined itself to a formal scrutiny of the relevant textual provisions and failed to thoroughly explore the impact that CETA’s ISDS mechanism is liable to have in practice. The article then deploys two hypothetical scenarios, both involving the field of EU risk regulation. These will show how CETA Tribunals might indirectly interpret EU law as a matter of law and how, when assessing whether an EU measure breaches CETA, they might encroach on the EU determination of the adequate level of protection of public interests. Against this backdrop, the article argues that CETA’s ISDS system is liable to undermine the uniform and consistent interpretation and application of EU law. Further, CETA Tribunals might de facto bind the CJEU in its interpretation of EU law and influence other EU institutions in the exercise of their powers. CETA, ISDS, External Autonomy, Achmea, Risk Regulation, GMOs, Health and Environmental Protection.

Medico-legal Audit: An essential yet ignored aspect of healthcare in India

Clinical audits have become an indispensable and mandatory tool in ascertaining quality assurance in the context of health care services. The significance of these audits is laid by regulatory bodies which prescribe the procedural format and logistics to conduct these audits. Conventionally, medico-legal audits are often mentioned in relation to the medico-legal reports and documents such as insurance records etc. The available literature further describes that medico-legal audits deal particularly with the formal scrutiny of forensic case work. Medico-legal audits are an integral part of hospital/clinical audits that involves examination of all the hospital records. The clinical audits aim towards quality improvement measures and hence are limited to the scrutiny of patient's clinical records. On the contrary, a medico-legal audit aims at the prevention of foreseeable litigations on the hospital and thus includes the perusal of all the hospital records. Medico-legal audits are significant whenever there is an interaction between the working of the hospital and the law. The present article discusses the various aspects of conducting audits, their significance, aims and objectives, limitations, variants, procedural layouts, etc.

Explaining subnational parliamentary scrutiny powers: A fuzzy-set analysis of German Landtage

ABSTRACTWhile the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty has important implications for regional parliaments with legislative competences, most studies have focused on cross-country differences or examined the activities of regional parliaments at the EU level. This contribution shows the existence of substantial intra-country differences in the formal scrutiny rights of regional parliaments. We analyse how German regional parliaments (Landtage) have addressed the challenge of controlling their governments in EU affairs. Using fuzzy-set comparative qualitative analysis, we find that institutional and partisan factors (vote share in the second chamber, economic potential, and conservative governments) explain the differences found among German Landtage particularly well. Landtage with otherwise weak parliamentary prerogatives were successful in using the reform momentum to strengthen their rights in the field of EU policy. Combined with the party political salience of EU policy-making, the integration process has thus empowered formally weaker Landtage.

Distinction between inflammatory hepatocellular adenoma and mass effect on liver sampling

Inflammatory hepatocellular adenoma (IHA) is characterized by sinusoidal dilation, inflammation, and bile ductular reaction. However, these changes can also be seen in nonneoplastic liver tissue adjacent to a mass lesion. This differential may arise in biopsy tissue attempting to sample a liver mass. Serum amyloid A (SAA) immunostaining is useful for the diagnosis of IHA but is not entirely specific. In addition, the histologic pattern of mass effect (ME) has received little formal scrutiny. We compared the clinical, morphologic, and immunohistochemical findings in 18 IHA and 36 livers with ME. Several histologic findings were evaluated in all cases. SAA and CD34 staining were also performed. Patients with IHA were younger (P<.0001) and more often female (P=.0044) than patients with specimens showing ME, but lesions were multifocal on imaging in two-thirds of patients in each category. Unpaired arteries were only seen in IHA (P<.0001), whereas ductular reaction was more common in ME (P=.012). Strong SAA immunostaining was observed in 100% of IHAs and 56% of ME cases (P=.0004), and CD34 staining was seen in 95% of IHAs and 6% of ME cases (P<.0001). Unpaired arteries and staining for SAA and CD34 best distinguish IHA from ME. However, unpaired arteries may be absent because of sampling, and SAA is not available in all laboratories. Ductular reaction can occur in IHA but is more common in ME.

Legislatures, Bureaucracies, and Distributive Spending

This article develops a theory of bureaucratic influence on distributive politics. Although there exists a rich literature on the effects of institutions such as presidents, electoral systems, and bicameralism on government spending, the role of professional bureaucrats has yet to receive formal scrutiny. In the model, legislators bargain over the allocation of distributive benefits across districts. The legislature may either “politicize” a program by bargaining directly over pork and bypassing bureaucratic scrutiny, or “professionalize” it by letting a bureaucrat approve or reject project funding in each district according to an underlying quality standard. The model predicts that the legislature will professionalize when the expected program quality is high. However, politicization becomes more likely as the number of high-quality projects increases and under divided government. Further, more competent bureaucrats can encourage politicization if the expected program quality is low. Finally, politicized programs are larger than professionalized programs.

Critical evaluation of the neoclassical model for the equilibrium electrostatic field in a tokamak

The neoclassical prescription to use an equation of motion to determine the electrostatic field within a tokamak plasma is fraught with difficulties. Herein we examine two popular expressions for the equilibrium electrostatic field so determined and show that one fails to withstand a formal scrutiny thereof while the other fails to respect the vector nature of the diamagnetic current. Reconsideration of the justification for the presence of the equilibrium electrostatic field indicates that no field is needed for a neutral plasma when considering the net bound current defined as the curl of the magnetization. With any shift in the toroidal magnetic flux distribution, a dynamic electric field is generated with both radial and poloidal components, providing an alternate explanation for any measurements thereof.

Recommended Guidelines for Submission, Trimming, Margin Evaluation, and Reporting of Tumor Biopsy Specimens in Veterinary Surgical Pathology

Neoplastic diseases are typically diagnosed by biopsy and histopathological evaluation. The pathology report is key in determining prognosis, therapeutic decisions, and overall case management and therefore requires diagnostic accuracy, completeness, and clarity. Successful management relies on collaboration between clinical veterinarians, oncologists, and pathologists. To date there has been no standardized approach or guideline for the submission, trimming, margin evaluation, or reporting of neoplastic biopsy specimens in veterinary medicine. To address this issue, a committee consisting of veterinary pathologists and oncologists was established under the auspices of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists Oncology Committee. These consensus guidelines were subsequently reviewed and endorsed by a large international group of veterinary pathologists. These recommended guidelines are not mandated but rather exist to help clinicians and veterinary pathologists optimally handle neoplastic biopsy samples. Many of these guidelines represent the collective experience of the committee members and consensus group when assessing neoplastic lesions from veterinary patients but have not met the rigors of definitive scientific study and investigation. These questions of technique, analysis, and evaluation should be put through formal scrutiny in rigorous clinical studies in the near future so that more definitive guidelines can be derived.

Hopkins' Affective Rhythm: Grace and Intention in Tension

Hopkins' Affective Rhythm:Grace and Intention in Tension Joshua King (bio) "Why do I employ sprung rhythm at all?" the Victorian poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins asks fellow poet Robert Bridges in 1877.1 Hopkins' question remains largely unanswered. I do not, however, intend yet another contribution to the eye-glazing debate over sprung rhythm's technical integrity, its viability versus impracticability; doing so would merely perpetuate the presumption, still active in most discussions of sprung rhythm since W. H. Gardner's foundational Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889): A Study of Poetic Idiosyncrasy in Relation to Poetic Tradition, that Hopkins poses his question in purely technical terms.2 Unquestionably much has been and is yet to be learned from such formal scrutiny; but the assumption that analysis of sprung rhythm should begin and end at this level is entirely questionable. Hopkins answers his own question for Bridges, and his focus is not on pure technique. He champions his prosody's preservation of "the native and natural rhythm of speech" (Letters, p. 46). To presume to have captured in poetry the native character of spoken rhythm is to presume to have captured at least some of the native character of its speaker.3 Sprung rhythm is more than a metrical novelty: in it Hopkins finds a means for apprehending and recommending to a reader kinds of affective and cognitive experience. In his earliest experiments with sprung rhythm, he connects its performance to an experience of grace. He wants to guide his anticipated reader's rhythmic voicing into an impression of grace. My use of "anticipated" recognizes the tension between Hopkins' intention for his rhythm and his inability to ensure its fulfillment. In Hopkins' theology and prosody, the intentions—meanings, designs, purposes—of poetry and the experienced world are "uttered" by a person through intensive mental engagement and received by him as stresses of affective and cognitive energy. This process requires straining inherent qualities of the speaker and what is spoken into more vigorous states, just as potential energy is converted into kinetic: the activation of sprung rhythm's intentional tension necessitates conversion of a reader's "natural" inclinations in voicing. When Hopkins' few contemporary readers resist this conversion, he is confronted by the possibility that, rather than conveying the nature of grace, his cadences evidence his efforts to shape his reader's nature. [End Page 209] II. One's Own Utterances: Hopkins' Theology of Grace "God, grant to men to see in a small thing, notices common to things great and small."4 St. Augustine comments on our experience of time and grace, "notices" of which we encounter "in [the] small thing" of listening to ourselves speak. He recites a line of Latin verse, wondering how he measures its syllables, since each is instantly passing before he finishes hearing it. He does this, he believes, because his "'present [mental] intention (praesens intentio) [intentio: a straining, a tension]'" conveys before him a sequence of mentally preserved sensations.5 A person's present intention can be drawn out of mental distension (distentio: a stretching asunder) between diverse impressions and toward God's eternal present through the mediation of the incarnate Word, Christ. Hopkins holds a similar conviction: humans are intended to interpret temporally and spatially distended impressions of the world's energies into spoken utterances, through which may be felt present, affective stresses of God's grace. He wrote his most systematic meditations on grace while on his 1881 Long Retreat, a thirty-day contemplation of St. Ignatius Loyola's Exercises observed by Jesuits. Yet, the meditations are Hopkins' exposition, with the aid of Roman Catholic theology,6 of intuitions he had been working out in poetry and prose for over a decade: these temporally disparate writings can be used to interpret each other's uniting intentions. We might begin with notes Hopkins made as an undergraduate at Oxford on the pre-Socratic philosopher, Parmenides. Parmenides believes the "is" invoked or implied by all speech acts (e.g. "blood is red") actually exists, everywhere indivisible and itself: every time we speak we can hear ourselves saying "Being is." Cotter identifies the significance of this statement for Hopkins: "The divine name of...

Peer Reviewing E-Learning: Opportunities, Challenges, and Solutions

Peer review is the foundation of academic publication and a necessary step in the scrutiny of any scholarly work. Simply defined, peer review is the attentive, unbiased assessment of any scholarly work that is submitted for formal scrutiny. Although medical school faculty increasingly use technology in clinical teaching, e-learning materials are often not subjected to a rigorous peer review process. The authors contrast peer review of e-learning materials with that of print materials, describe peer review issues regarding e-learning materials, propose approaches to address the challenges of peer review of e-learning materials, and outline directions for refinement of the e-learning peer review process. At its core, the peer review of e-learning materials should not differ substantially from that of traditional manuscripts. However, e-learning introduces new demands that impel reviewers to consider aspects that are unique to educational technology, including pedagogy, format, usability, navigation, interactivity, delivery, ease of updating, distribution, and access. Four approaches are offered to ease the burden and improve the quality of e-learning peer review: develop peer review training, embrace multidisciplinary peer review, develop guidelines, and provide incentives and compensation. The authors conclude with suggestions about peer review research.

Challenges in defining an optimal approach to formula-based allocations of public health funds in the United States

BackgroundControversy and debate can arise whenever public health agencies determine how program funds should be allocated among constituent jurisdictions. Two common strategies for making such allocations are expert review of competitive applications and the use of funding formulas. Despite widespread use of funding formulas by public health agencies in the United States, formula allocation strategies in public health have been subject to relatively little formal scrutiny, with the notable exception of the attention focused on formula funding of HIV care programs. To inform debates and deliberations in the selection of a formula-based approach, we summarize key challenges to formula-based funding, based on prior reviews of federal programs in the United States.DiscussionThe primary challenge lies in identifying data sources and formula calculation methods that both reflect and serve program objectives, with or without adjustments for variations in the cost of delivering services, the availability of local resources, capacity, or performance. Simplicity and transparency are major advantages of formula-based allocations, but these advantages can be offset if formula-based allocations are perceived to under- or over-fund some jurisdictions, which may result from how guaranteed minimum funding levels are set or from "hold-harmless" provisions intended to blunt the effects of changes in formula design or random variations in source data. While fairness is considered an advantage of formula-based allocations, the design of a formula may implicitly reflect unquestioned values concerning equity versus equivalence in setting funding policies. Whether or how past or projected trends are taken into account can also have substantial impacts on allocations.SummaryInsufficient attention has been focused on how the approach to designing funding formulas in public health should differ for treatment or service versus prevention programs. Further evaluations of formula-based versus competitive allocation methods are needed to promote the optimal use of public health funds. In the meantime, those who use formula-based strategies to allocate funds should be familiar with the nuances of this approach.

Future Perspectives in the Evaluation of the Physiological Demands of Soccer

Soccer (association football) is a team sport that incorporates frequent fluctuations between high and low exercise intensities. These unpredictable changes may be accompanied by unorthodox patterns of movements and the performance of specific skills. The individual activity profiles are highly variable and include elements of self-pacing, since decision making about opportunities to become engaged in play dictates individual activities. Approaches utilised to investigate the demands placed on players during competitive performances include behavioural observations during games, physiological evaluations in matches and assessments of the physical capacity of players. Observations made during games to determine the work-rate patterns of individual players are highly variable and make generalisations based on individual activity patterns conditional, unless the sample sizes are large and data are collected on a number of occasions. The data may also be affected by the diverse methodological approaches to their collection and analysis and a failure to determine the reliability and objectivity of the relevant measuring tools. Techniques that can be used to collect data in matches are limited as the sports rules and regulations restrict some approaches. The validity of applying data from non-competitive matches to the competitive situation must, therefore, be subject to formal scrutiny. There is also a concern as to the degree to which principles of steady-state are applicable to dynamically changing exercise intensities. In the evaluation of the physical capacities of players, the variability in overall soccer performance is reduced to fitness statistics, whereas in reality, soccer performance is a construct based on many different performance components and their interaction at the level of both player and team. Despite these caveats, valuable insights have been acquired into the physiological requirements of the game that have subsequently informed both research projects and impacted upon practice. The challenge for future researchers is to overcome remaining research design hurdles and devise ways to understand more fully the complexities of invasive field games such as soccer. The interactions between individuals within a team require investigation and there is a need to refine and develop methods that employ sophisticated measurement techniques and yet possess both internal and external validity, such as laboratory-based simulations.

The Europeanisation of the German Bundestag: Institutional change and informal adaptation

At first glance, the Europeanisation of the German Bundestag seems quite straightforward: in reaction to the process of European integration the Bundestag acquired a set of comparatively strong participation and scrutiny rights in EU politics. It therefore seems rather astonishing that German members of parliament make only very little use of these rights. Different explanations have been put forward in the literature, such as the complicated decision-making system of the EU and the government's gate-keeper position within it, institutional flaws of the German scrutiny system as well as the overall consensus on European integration and the low electoral salience of EU issues. The paper contributes to this discussion in two respects: On the one hand, it offers an additional explanation for the infrequent use of formal instruments. The main argument is that the formal instruments of scrutiny in EU affairs are incompatible with both the overall logic of a parliamentary system as well as the challenges of policy-making in the EU multilevel system. On the other hand, the paper argues that the exclusive focus on the use of formal parliamentary scrutiny rights leads us to overlook more informal means of parliamentary influence and therefore to underestimate the involvement of German parliamentarians in EU affairs. Thus, in order to fully assess processes of parliamentary Europeanisation, we need to take forms of informal or strategic Europeanisation into account.

What Drives the Disposition Effect? An Analysis of a Long-Standing Preference-Based Explanation

One of the most striking portfolio puzzles is the disposition effect: the tendency of individuals to sell stocks in their portfolios that have risen in value since purchase, rather than fallen in value. Perhaps the most prominent explanation for this puzzle is based on prospect theory. Despite its prominence, this hypothesis has received little formal scrutiny. We take up this task, and analyze the trading behavior of investors with prospect theory preferences. Surprisingly, we find that, in its simplest implementation, prospect theory often predicts the opposite of the disposition effect. We provide intuition for this result, and identify the conditions under which the disposition effect holds or fails. We also discuss the implications of our results for other disposition-type effects that have been documented in settings such as the housing market, futures trading, and executive stock options.

Pass the salt

In the months to come, the Government will be able to make its anti-terrorism policies felt in practice with virtually no formal scrutiny, since Parliament's long summer holiday will last until October unless it is recalled to consider emergency legislation. Scrutiny will therefore be in the hands of the media alone...[and] that reporting ought to be seasoned with well-placed pinches of salt. Scepticism, as a word, has been tainted with misuse in one political context, and many whose positions depend on getting the public to trust them would like to have scepticism confused with cynicism. They are not the same thing, but readers who are deprived of sceptical reporting have every excuse for turning into cynics.

Discourses of accountability: Policy scrutiny of an English regional development agency

Blackman T. and Ormston C. (2005) Discourses of accountability: policy scrutiny of an English regional development agency, Regional Studies 39 , 375–386. England's regional development agencies (RDAs) are publicly funded economic development bodies accountable to both central government and representative regional chambers. The relationship of accountability to chambers has recently been strengthened by giving them responsibility for the formal scrutiny of RDAs' work. This paper examines how accountability was interpreted by key professional actors in the first set of scrutiny exercises in North East England. Contrasting repertoires of accountability were found to be in play, reflecting the different relationships of power of the two organizations. Although these shaped the extent to which different types of evidence were regarded as legitimate in judging the effectiveness of the RDA, a dominant and shared discourse of consensus was constructed by the two groups of officers, reflecting their concerns that regionally based decision‐making continues to be given legitimacy by England's strong central state.

Disability in an Eastern Religious Context

Disability and ‘difference’ in the histories of eastern religions have attracted little formal or comparative scrutiny. A range is sketched here of historical data, viewpoints and attitudes on disability and physiognomic difference in historical Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim texts, which continue to influence the thoughts of half the world's population. Approaches for more detailed studies are suggested, moving towards such global measures for understanding, remediating and accommodating disability as might be more appropriate and acceptable to the non-western majority. Popular notions associated with disability in these religions are discussed.