Times Of Intervention Research Articles

Orality in the service of Karamojong autonomy: polity and performance*

It has been assumed by Jack Goody and others that literacy facilitates the external penetration and domination of African societies. However the case of the Karamojong in north-east Africa challenges the inevitability of the rise of literacy. Where there is no thirst for literate education, the very features of orality noted by Jack Goody function to maintain traditional politics against predations by state or global economy. The Karamojong age-class system has proven persistent in the face of various attempts to ‘develop’ Karamoja. The key to the maintenance of the rule of elders is the performance of prayer at the sacrifice of an ox, yet prayer has been relatively little studied in research on orality. Translations of prayers recorded at an initiation ceremony reveal the usual antiphonal litany that makes the sacrifice a consensually determinative event. Policy-making comes about not by public discussion, but in the prayers as the prayer-leaders command the actors, whether animate or to us apparently inanimate, in their world to bless the life and lives of the community, yet not to afflict. Politics then is most intimately related with this religion that so many observers see as marginal. The conclusion is that through a range of subtle ways, orality privileges the power of elders in a way that enables them to direct their people in ways that maximize Karamojong autonomy to a surprising degree in these times of global intervention. *Different presentations of this topic were at SOAS, London under the titles, ‘Dichotomies and Diffusions of Orality and Literacy in Three Aspects of Karamojong Culture: Governance, Law and Religion’ for the Language, Power, and Society Workshop on 19 July 2003, and ‘Orality and Literacy in the Service of Karamojong Autonomy’ at a seminar for the Centre of African Studies on 11 December 2003.

A Real-time System For Remote Co-ordination OfRescue Teams In An Emergency Phase

This paper describes how organization and coordination of rescue teams acting in the field are crucial issues for public bodies in institutions that have to guarantee help and support both in times of peace and in phases of crisis. A perfect synergy of the rescue parties permits one to intervene in an efficient and precise way during calamitous events, effectively directing the operations of the emergency, reducing the times of intervention and optimizing the human resources. The system proposed in this paper has been developed for the “operational Room” of the Civil Defense of the Siena Province (Italy), working primarily in emergency situations. It allows the visualization and the real-time tracking of the rescue parties acting the field, through an “Intelligent Board” installed in the Operational Room. The localization is visualized on Geographic Information System (GIS) maps and it can be implemented both through dedicated software, allowing high analysis capabilities, and through web browsers, enabling remote visualizations. The rescue teams are equipped with palmtop devices with networking capabilities, in order to communicate with the Operational Room and to point out in real time the occurrence of certain calamitous events (i.e. interrupted load, landslide, accident, etc.), thus allowing the coordination and distribution of these data to all the other rescue parties.

Exploratory analysis of longitudinal trials with staggered intervention times

Longitudinal trials involving surgical interventions commonly have subject-specific intervention times, due to constraints on the availability of surgeons and operating theatres. Moreover, the intervention often effects a discontinuous change in the mean response. We propose a nonparametric estimator for the mean response profile of longitudinal data with staggered intervention times and a discontinuity at the times of intervention, as an exploratory tool to assist the formulation of a suitable parametric model. We use an adaptation of the standard generalized additive model algorithm for estimation, with smoothing constants chosen by a cross-validation criterion. We illustrate the method using longitudinal data from a trial to assess the effect of lung resection surgery in the treatment of emphysema patients.

Obesity in children and adolescents worldwide: current views and future directions--Working Group Report of the First World Congress of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.

Obesity in children and adolescents worldwide: current views and future directions--Working Group Report of the First World Congress of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.

Determining Intent: Why Do US Leaders Intervene in Other Countries?

How do we determine what are the motives of US leaders when they intervene in other countries either directly with US armed forces or indirectly with surrogate forces? Rather than accepting the policymakers' claims at face value, we can look for patterns of intervention: what kinds of governments and political movements do US leaders support? What kind do they oppose and seek to destroy? And what socioeconomic goals do they pursue upon successfully intervening? Rather than seeing US policy as befuddled and contradictory, we observe that it is often remarkably consistent in services rendered on behalf of transnational corporate global domination. Other policy considerations do come into play during times of intervention, but there is no reason to treat them as mutually exclusive of economic motives.

Animal welfare considerations — pastoral animals

Modern pastoral farming has radically transformed the niche where agricultural animals live. Recent trends in husbandry tend to give as much emphasis to economic profit and human convenience, as do a concern for the farmed species. Most of the traditional ways of handling sheep, cattle, goats, horses and pigs, like castration, ear tagging, tail-docking or horse breaking, have been accepted by the public with little concern. Inevitably, as renewed public interest focuses on intensive farming, some questions are directed towards extensive pastoral farming practices, particularly in newly-farmed species like deer. Criteria for the humane care of pastoral animals must he set by consensus. These should include the avoidance of injury, handling animals in the least stressful manner, and meeting the unique needs of each farmed species, This is particularly important at times of critical intervention like the birth of the young, shearing, dipping, milking, yarding and during transport. Several examples of current emotive issues of welfare in pastoral animals are discussed. In general, New Zealand owners of extensive pastoral holdings produce a welfare product which should command a premium in the more affluent overseas markets. Vigilance will he needed to keep it so and in this veterinarians have a key role to play.