State Practice Research Articles

Laughing at the state: state violence and satirical acts of citizenship in the Afro-Brazilian diaspora

This article explores acts of humour that enact citizens as political subjects in the face of state violence and practices of controlled incorporation of racialised Afro-Brazilian others. To do this I analyse hitherto unstudied material from the online memes that followed the forced disappearance of Mr Amarildo de Souza by the ‘pacifying’ police in Rio de Janeiro. Doing this I show how multi-modal online memes that take an ironic stance towards state-violence can be understood as enacting a radical equality which subverts the state-sanctioned racialised and gendered distribution of unequal functions and places that serves to ‘pacify’ threatening racialised others. Thus, I argue that the act of joking is an act of citizenship because it presupposes equality while enacting an incongruity between this equality and the reality of racist state violence, and its ostensible purpose of ‘saving’ racialised victims. In this way ironic memes can provide an important contribution to theory of citizenship, which hitherto has not involved the study of humour as a political act. Thus, if the political nature of humour involves incongruity between conceptualisation and experience, abstract and sensory/objective, sanctity and profanity, dignity and baseness, acts that ironically enact these incongruities as existing in and between state-discourse and practice are deeply political acts and need to be studied as such.

Extension studies in revascularization for left main coronary artery disease: considerations for good statistical practice and clinical guidance.

Extension studies in revascularization for left main coronary artery disease: considerations for good statistical practice and clinical guidance.

Has the National Treatment Treaty Standard Evolved into a Customary Rule of International Law?

The present paper examines whether the consistent inclusion of the National Treatment standard in various BITs has led to the emergence of a customary international law rule of similar content. To analyse this issue, the paper tailors the test established by the ICJ in the North Sea Continental Shelf cases, which examines the process of development of a treaty rule into a customary law rule. The article concludes that the mere presence of the National Treatment standard in numerous BITs does not inherently imply that it has evolved into a customary international law rule. The article argues that this is primarily because the assessment of customary international law necessitates state practice to exist separately and autonomously from treaty practice. Hence, the replication of the rule across BITs alone does not provide sufficient grounds for presuming the existence of a customary law rule. By assessing and tailoring the criteria set forth by the ICJ and considering the scholarly perspectives on this matter, this paper offers an understanding of the conditions required for the transformation of a treaty-based rule into a customary law principle. The aim is to contribute to the ongoing scholarly discourse on the development and identification of customary international law, specifically in the context of investment treaties and the National Treatment standard.

The Biological Weapons Amendment to the ICC Statute and National Provisions

Abstract After a contentious path, the amendment incorporating biological weapons into Article 8 of the ICC Statute was finally adopted in 2017. Since then, 18 states have ratified the amendment. This article examines the amendment in light of national provisions addressing the use of biological weapons in armed conflict. By discussing the national provisions before and after the amendment, it is possible to determine the effect of the amendment on subsequent national provisions. Combined with an analysis of states’ rationale for adopting relevant legislation, it is possible to assess the impact on state practice and consequently understand the significance of adopting an amendment to the ICC Statute and incorporating it into national legislation for the development or confirmation of customary international law. The lessons learned in the process could be applied to other existing or future amendments.

Inheritance, Marriage and Adoption: Changing Judicial Practices in Hyderabad State

Although Hindu banking firms in Hyderabad state had an advantage over Muslim ones because Hindu law allowed adoptions while Islamic law did not, adoptions were nonetheless a source of great conflict and division for firms. Before the late nineteenth century, inheritance practices in Hyderabad privileged both Hindu and Muslim nobles and officials, but as Hyderabad’s courts and advocates began to be connected to courts and advocates based in British India, contesting family members turned from the family and customary law generally administered in Hyderabad to the evolving standardisation of Hindu and Islamic law in British India. Hyderabad’s government, however, continued to privilege Hindu and Muslim nobles well into the twentieth century, although more research is needed about changing judicial practices in Hyderabad and other native states.

Nefarious Implications in Yasmina Khadra’s The Sirens of Baghdad

The research paper is mainly concerned with the projection of the nefarious implications as exposed in Yasmina Khadra’s The Sirens of Baghdad (2007). This novel depicts the evildoings of the American soldiers that have been practiced against the Iraqi people living in Iraq. They have committed nefarious yet shameful acts against the Iraqi individuals whom they consider their foes, whereas the latter are innocent and friendly people Evil has been an everlasting wrongdoing on earth since the creation of the world. It has been extremely embedded in the nature of man and is sure fought by good-natured people. It is no wonder to find a whole country like the United States practice evildoings against many and various nations, being the posterity of the tribes of the Vikings, Vandals, Gales, Danes and above all the Anglo-Saxons that invaded Britain, slaughtered its nation and settled in it in the fifth and sixth centuries AD and whose posterity are still oppressing other nations and invading countries all over the world. The research meticulously examines those nefarious actions made by the occupying American soldiers depicted in the titular novel, pointing out the bitter behavior of the Americans against the Iraqi nation as represented in The Sirens of Baghdad. Edward W. Said’s representations in his book Orientalism unfolds the Westerners’ crooked means in exploiting other nations, whose oriental perspective cannot be exempted from this study.

The Problem and the Solution: Centering Taxation in the History of Civil Rights

When African-American history is done well, it allows us to see the places where inequality hides. Scholars in the areas of the history of capitalism, African-American history, and urban studies have popularized the language of historical phenomena such as white flight, redlining, and privatization, in the process of explaining the origins of contemporary challenges. A reasonably educated person understands that deindustrialization at mid-century led to job losses. Every May, pundits write essays about the failure to equalize schools as the nation memorializes the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Popular journalists Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nicole Hannah-Jones owe their careers to their study of historical work in order to leverage public-facing conversations from reparations for slavery to the politicization of the teaching of civil rights. Essentially, good history helps us search for the state practices and policies that soften the blow of inequality, assault human dignity, and normalize poverty. In his deeply researched and thoughtfully written book The Black Tax, Andrew Kahrl addresses another obscure mechanism that has historically worked to dispossess and disadvantage African Americans across regions and generations, and has ensnarled both landowners and tenants. Kahrl's book forces readers and scholars to think about the ways that a lack of federal authority and will to protect Black citizens allowed states and municipalities to assess, tax, and place liens on Black property—from vacant plots to farm land to family homes.

Migration policies and labor mobility in Africa

Labor migration appears to be one of today's solutions to the socio-economic and cultural imbalance in Africa. Its contribution to the growing interconnection of the world over the last century through the commercialization of raw materials is undoubtedly significant, given the relief it has brought to most economies in Africa and beyond. Unfortunately, a panoramic look at the legal atmosphere that hangs over labor migration in Africa leaves one wondering. The aim of this study, which complements many others already carried out on the subject, is to determine the appropriate legal interpretation of migration policies and labor mobility in Africa. According to the results of the analysis and comparison of regional and sub-regional policy frameworks and the various state practices developed in the field of labor migration, a mixed reading reveals that the genuine political will to encourage labor mobility, affirmed at supra-state level, remains inconsistent at state level.

Sharing Stories, Food and Passports: Forced Migration, Museum and Memory Activism in Contemporary Germany

ABSTRACT This article uses the online exhibition ‘Arriving: Life after Forced Migration’ by the Marienfelde Refugee Center Museum in Berlin as a case study to investigate how museum activism can contribute to creating and disseminating memories about contemporary forced migration. Employing a close visual and textual analysis of the online exhibition combined with insights from recent discourses on museum activism, migration and memory studies, the article explores which forms of memory the exhibition creates, how these memories emerge and to which end they are used. The analysis firstly illustrates how the exhibition creates a space for communicative memory to surface within the portrayed refugee families through the sharing of stories, objects and food from ‘home’. Secondly, it goes on to argue that the exhibition engages in memory activism by humanizing the portrayed individuals, exposing discriminatory state practices and challenging the audience through provocative questions. Thirdly, the article submits that this online exhibition contributes to a growing transnational archive of forced migration memories. Comprised of a multitude of online platforms dedicated to collecting, preserving and sharing forced migration stories, this archive stimulates multidirectional memory making and allows counter narratives to surface within an increasingly divided Europe.

Teacher Cultivation of Classroom Statistical Modeling Practice: A Case Study

This report characterizes forms of dialogic support that a sixth-grade teacher generated during whole-class and small-group conversations to help students develop a practice of statistical modeling. During four weeks of instruction, students constructed and revised models to account for variability and uncertainty across a variety of random processes, many of which they experienced first-hand. Data sources for the research included field notes and video recordings of classroom conversations involving the teacher. Analyses identified and characterized teacher assistance during classroom episodes in which the teacher fostered the emergence and development of fundamental aspects of statistical modeling practice. These aspects included a) establishing mappings between models of chance and the situations or processes being modeled, b) imagining outcomes as constituents of a long-run random process, c) evaluating model fit, and d) making model-based inferences. Throughout instruction, the teacher systematically helped students coordinate these distinctive aspects of modeling practice. The findings suggest how teacher practices can promote the sustained development of statistical reasoning as a dialogue between data and model, and more generally, how teacher assistance attuned to student thinking about aspects of a disciplinary practice can foster a student-centered phenomenology of that practice.

State Variation in Medicare Reimbursement for the Top 100 Cardiothoracic Surgery Procedures, 2013-2022.

Objective We analyzed changes in reimbursement rates for cardiothoracic surgery procedures from 2013 to 2022 to identify interstate variance andcompare changes in reimbursement between procedural groups. Methods The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services database was analyzed to find the 100 highest-grossing cardiothoracic surgery CPT codes from 2013 to 2022. Medicare Administrative Contractor codes were utilized to identify reimbursement for each state. The payments were adjusted for inflation utilizing the consumer price index. Procedures were weighted according to revenue, and an average yearly, inflation-adjusted percent change in reimbursement was generated for each U.S. state. Procedural groups were compared using single-factor ANOVA and post-hoc tests. Results Since 2013, the inflation-adjusted Medicare reimbursement for the top cardiothoracic surgery procedures for all U.S. states and territories decreased by a yearly average of 2.67%. Puerto Rico (-0.33%), Louisiana (-1.84%), and Alabama (-1.85%) showed the smallest change. Illinois (-3.62%), Kansas (-3.40%), and Wyoming (-3.22%) had the greatest decrease in reimbursement throughout the observed period. Pacemaker and defibrillator (mean: -20.85), valvular (-22.07%), and coronary artery bypass graft(CABG) surgery (-21.99%) procedural groups demonstrated significant differences between valvular (p=0.01) or CABG (p=0.02) and pacemaker and defibrillator. Conclusions Our study confirms that reimbursement patterns vary by geographical area. Second, geographic variation suggests an incentive for physicians to practice in states with higher Medicare reimbursement. Certain procedural groups have been affected more than others. New lobbying strategies may be needed to mitigate diminishing reimbursement so that quality of care is not impacted for Medicare beneficiaries in low reimbursement states.

ПРАВОВАЯ ПОЛИТИКА ГОСУДАРСТВ-ЧЛЕНОВ ЕАЭС В СФЕРЕ РЕАЛИЗАЦИИ ПЕНСИОННЫХ ПРАВ

The article discusses issues of legal policy of the EAEU member states in the field of implementation of pension rights of citizens using the comparative method. Based on the legislative practices of states, the author examines the models of state pension systems and highlights their specifics and common, advantageous features. In the process of the study, the essence and direction of reforms of state pension systems were established, aimed at solving a number of problems in reducing social tensions, with the gradual release of the budget from the burden of pension payments, reducing the unemployment rate, which helps to increase the interest of citizens in pension savings and stimulate the personal responsibility of citizens for pension provision for a decent standard of living when acquiring pension rights. It is noted that one of the fundamental principles and norms of international law in the system of protection of social and labor human rights is the right to pension provision, guaranteed by the constitutions of the EAEU member states and their obligations to fulfill the ILO minimum social standards to provide citizens with at least 40% of the level of pensions in relation to average salary. At the same time, states should direct efforts to implement policies to ensure employment, protection against unemployment and the development of non-state investment institutions in the field of pensions.

Effects of Statistical Practices for Longitudinal Group Comparison of the Penetration-Aspiration Scale on Power and Effect Size Estimation: A Monte Carlo Simulation Study.

Multiple bolus trials are administered during clinical and research swallowing assessments to comprehensively capture an individual's swallowing function. Despite valuable information obtained from these boluses, it remains common practice to use a single bolus (e.g., the worst score) to describe the degree of dysfunction. Researchers also often collapse continuous or ordinal swallowing measures into categories, potentially exacerbating information loss. These practices may adversely affect statistical power to detect and estimate smaller, yet potentially meaningful, treatment effects. This study sought to examine the impact of aggregating and categorizing penetration-aspiration scale (PAS) scores on statistical power and effect size estimates. We used a Monte Carlo approach to simulate three hypothetical within-subject treatment studies in Parkinson's disease and head and neck cancer across a range of data characteristics (e.g., sample size, number of bolus trials, variability). Different statistical models (aggregated or multilevel) as well as various PAS reduction approaches (i.e., types of categorizations) were performed to examine their impact on power and the accuracy of effect size estimates. Across all scenarios, multilevel models demonstrated higher statistical power to detect group-level longitudinal change and more accurate estimates compared to aggregated (worst score) models. Categorizing PAS scores also reduced power and biased effect size estimates compared to an ordinal approach, though this depended on the type of categorization and baseline PAS distribution. Multilevel models should be considered as a more robust approach for the statistical analysis of multiple boluses administered in standardized swallowing protocols due to its high sensitivity and accuracy to compare group-level changes in swallowing function. Importantly, this finding appears to be consistent across patient populations with distinct pathophysiology (i.e., PD and HNC) and patterns of airway invasion. The decision to categorize a continuous or ordinal outcome should be grounded in the clinical or research question with recognition that scale reduction may negatively affect the quality of statistical inferences in certain scenarios.

МОСКВА МАМЛЕКЕТТИК ЛИНГВИСТИКАЛЫК УНИВЕРСИТЕТИНИН САНАРИПТИК ЧӨЙРӨСҮНДӨ КЫРГЫЗ ТИЛИН ЧЕТ ТИЛИ КАТАРЫНДА ОКУТУУ

The article studies the issue of teaching the languages of the CIS countries, including the Kyrgyz language, in the digital environment of the Moscow State Linguistic University as an important aspect of pedagogical science and practice of the CIS member states, which is associated with the growing interest in the languages and culture of the CIS countries. The issue of teaching Kyrgyz language as a foreign language in the digital environment of the university is considered in the context of a personal-activity approach aimed at developing the creative potential of students, taking into account interests and values in the general context. The pace of development of modern infrastructure technologies increases the demand for digital skills. Of course, this phenomenon has brought significant changes to the education system and opens up new opportunities. Kyrgyz is taught as a second foreign language, and general and additional education curricula are being developed.

Being watched: The aftermath of covert policing

AbstractThe ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry (UCPI) is largely a response to a stream of national media scandals that exposed the illegal and unethical behaviour of undercover police officers in two secretive units. The testimony of those who were the targets of undercover operations has further exposed the human costs stemming from the personalised and highly invasive surveillance undertaken by anonymous state agents. In this article, we reflect upon the existing research on covert policing and identify new areas for conceptual and methodological engagement, with a view to better understanding the harms that these secretive operations can generate. Attending to the inherent and inescapable intimacy of covert policing offers a much‐needed opportunity to explore the effects of a unique state practice that can radically alter the lives of individual surveillance subjects, and which tests our conventional understandings of the legitimacy and limits of force, coercion and police power.

Ten questions concerning statistical data analysis in human-centric buildings research: A focus on thermal comfort investigations

Given the large amount of time we spend indoors, designing and operating buildings that are safe, comfortable, and conducive to productivity and well-being is essential. To achieve this goal, in the past decades, research has been conducted to investigate the influence of the indoor environment on occupants. Thermal comfort has been the subject of most investigations in this field. However, despite being a consolidated research topic since the 1920s, statistical practices for analysing thermal comfort data often rely on simplified premises, which may be due to several possible factors (e.g., limited computational capabilities and lack of training). Consequently, important aspects of data analysis are often absent or overlooked. Recent statistics and statistical software advances have provided more options for effectively modelling complex issues. However, properly using these tools requires a solid understanding of statistical analysis, increasing the risk of misuse in practice. This paper presents ten questions highlighting the most critical issues regarding statistical analysis for thermal comfort research and practice. The first four questions provide general perspectives concerning statistical data analysis, while the remaining ones address specific problems related to thermal comfort research, but that can extend to all human-centric research in the built environment. Additionally, the last five questions demonstrate the practical significance of analysis pitfalls (i.e., sampling variability, selection bias, variable selection, clustered/nested observations, and measurement error) through examples with synthetic data. This study provides insights into the current statistical ‘habits’ in thermal comfort research and, more importantly, help researchers better define and conduct their statistical analyses.

Leveraging the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) to Develop the American College of Rheumatology's Toolkit for Implementation of Rheumatoid Arthritis Outcome Measures in Clinical Practice: A Qualitative Study.

Despite the recognized benefits of collecting rheumatoid arthritis (RA) outcomes measures, their use in routine care is inconsistent. Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), we conducted semi-structured interviews with United States rheumatologists and practice personnel to assess workflows, opportunities, and challenges in collecting RA outcome measures. Using insights from interviews, we developed the RA Measures Toolkit to enhance their utilization in clinical practice. We invited 138 RISE registry practices and 5 academic medical centers with ≥ 30 patients eligible for RA outcome measures to participate in the study. Practices were classified based on their performance in quality payment programs. Recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically using deductive and inductive techniques. The findings were used to create the RA Measures Toolkit. We conducted 20 interviews with 38 participants across 20 practices. Key themes within the CFIR domains highlighted the challenges and best practices in RA outcome measure collection and included: 1) Process: the variability in practices' use of RA outcome measures and the importance of streamlined workflows, 2) Intervention: challenges of integrating PROs into electronic health records (EHRs), and 3) Individual characteristics: importance of clinic culture around quality improvement. Using this data, we developed the RA Toolkit, a multimedia online resource, featuring guidelines, best practices, and educational resources to improve the efficiency of current workflows and to enhance patient care. This study identifies critical gaps in the collection of RA outcome measures in U.S. rheumatology practices and provides actionable recommendations and resources to address challenges via the RA Toolkit.

Access to justice as an element of the rule of law in the modern democratic state

The article examines access to justice as an element of the rule of law in a modern democratic state. The issue of securing access to justice in the legislative practice of countries is detailed. Practice is analyzed, where access to justice is considered as an opportunity for any interested person to go to court without hindrance and participate in the legal process at all its stages. At the same time, it is emphasized that such access implies access to national and international justice systems. This significantly contributes to a person’s ability to defend himself against encroachments on his rights, compensation for damage caused by offenses and self-defense in criminal proceedings. It is proven that access to justice is increasingly included in the international and national practice of states and begins to occupy an important place in the organization and functioning of the judiciary. It is noted that today the concept of access to justice does not have a unified approach to its understanding in the circles of the scientific community. The development of this issue continues for a considerable period of time. Long-standing discussions give reasons to testify that access to justice is an extremely broad concept that can be distinguished as a separate concept, principle or right. It is emphasized that in this context it is extremely important to emphasize the mechanisms of human rights protection, that is, its application to those categories of the population that do not have the opportunity and resources to go to court. In view of this, it is extremely important to apply the principle of equality before the court in practice. This will make it possible to ensure equal access to the trial for all participants in the process. The international experience of access to justice and its generalization in legal practice is analyzed. It is noted that international law has singled out an important component of access to justice, which is the right to access international mechanisms for ensuring the protection of human rights. It is emphasized that the justice system can use the norms of international law, including anti-discrimination norms. The key in this process is ensuring access to justice, which is an important basis for the conclusion of international treaties and the effective functioning of international human rights organizations.

Seeking environmental justice through the state: Insider allies in U.S. state and federal government agencies

Geographers and political ecologists have demonstrated settler-colonial states’ longstanding key roles in producing environmental injustice through colonialism, racial capitalism, neoliberalism, and other mechanisms. Such studies tend to conclude, implicitly or explicitly, that environmental justice (EJ) movements’ pursuits of more sustainable and just futures must therefore antagonistically confront the state or work beyond it entirely to create alternative futures that do not reinforce state hegemony and violence. However, other scholars in recent years have critiqued such characterizations of the state as unilaterally and fundamentally oppressive, arguing instead that states are terrains of struggle whose contradictory programs and practices reflect not only the interests of capital but also actions of movements. They demonstrate that movements pursuing more just and sustainable futures find purchase working both through and beyond the state. Here, we follow these scholars but depart from them in one respect – namely, they frame movements as pressuring the state only from outside of it. We argue that conceptualizing the state and movements as ontologically overlapping and permeable realms in which some actors move back and forth illuminates additional movement influence on state practice and additional factors that mediate their efforts. We make this case by following a group of U.S. EJ activists who pursue EJ movements’ goals by taking formal positions inside the government agencies they seek to change. We show that they accomplish meaningful change in these roles and that their work is mediated not only by industry power over state agencies, as other scholars have rightly identified, but also by elements of regulatory workplace culture, insider allies’ skills honed in external EJ advocacy, and solidarity among EJ advocates within and beyond the state. By more fully identifying such mediating factors and showing how they shape insider allies’ work, we hope to highlight new fronts of struggle as former EJ movement activists use their insider ally positions to wrest more control over the state from capital and for liberatory ends.

Performance and Interpretation of Lung Scintigraphy: An Evaluation of Current Practices in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and United States.

Although ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) scintigraphy is a widely used imaging test, different options are possible for the acquisition and interpretation of the scan. The aim of this study was to assess current practices regarding the use and interpretation of lung scintigraphy in various clinical indications. An online survey comprising 25 questions was sent to nuclear medicine departments in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and United States between 2022 and 2023. A single response per department was consolidated. Four hundred nineteen responses were collected (Australia: 32, Canada: 58, France: 149, Germany: 92, and United States: 88). For acute pulmonary embolism (PE) diagnosis, 82.8% of centers reported using SPECT acquisitions (Australia: 93.3%, Canada: 91.8%, France: 99.2%, Germany: 96.2%, and United States: 32.1%). Among them, SPECT images were combined with a CT scan in 70.5% of centers. A total of 10.6% of centers reported not using ventilation for acute PE diagnosis. SPECT acquisition was used in 97.8% of centers using 99m Tc carbon particles, 97.1% 81m Kr gas, 58.7% 99m Tc-DTPA, and 19.4% 133 Xe gas, respectively. For V/Q SPECT interpretation, the EANM criteria were used in 65.0% of departments. A very wide variety of practices were observed in pregnant women and in COVID-19 patients. SPECT acquisition was widely used in the follow-up of PE and for the screening of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (>90% of centers), with inconsistency regarding the interpretation of matched perfusion defects in this setting. This survey shows the strong adoption of SPECT in the various clinical indications of lung scintigraphy, except in the United States, where planar imaging is still mostly used. The survey also shows variability in interpretation criteria both for PE diagnosis and screening for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, highlighting the need for further standardizations of practices.