: The author explores disability in K-12 schools where attitudes, beliefs, and practices shape the school culture and influence enduring perceptions about disability among school professionals, students, and their families. Drawing on recent conversations among moral philosophers who view disability as a central feature of human life that has yet to enrich understanding of ourselves and others, the author encourages the practice of reform grounded in a process that begins with a "suspicion of the self" and a willingness to risk (...) the personal. (shrink)

The author explores disability in K-12 schools where attitudes, beliefs, and practices shape the school culture and influence enduring perceptions about disability among school professionals, students, and their families. Drawing on recent conversations among moral philosophers who view disability as a central feature of human life that has yet to enrich understanding of ourselves and others, the author encourages the practice of reform grounded in a process that begins with a “suspicion of the self” and a willingness to risk the (...) personal. (shrink)

Understanding each patient's situation or lived experience evolves from a nurse's sincere communication with the patient. Through rhetoric, the nurse's use of competent language and expressions is more likely to engage the patient in a dialogical discussion that brings forth an open, honest display of feelings and emotions. Through hermeneutics, the nurse gains an accurate understanding and interpretation of a patient's beliefs, values, and situations that supports explanations of meaning. Thus, with rhetoric being the words or expressions that give rise (...) to hermeneutics or the interpretation, the blending of the two creates a rhetorical–hermeneutical relationship that provides accurate understanding of a patient's true lived experience. Consequently, knowing the patient depends upon the nurse's rhetorical competence and accurate assessment of each patient's authentic self. Nurses should seek to interpret and understand the lived experiences of patients in order to limit or prevent misunderstandings and inaccuracies in communication. The truth that emerges from the expressed rhetorical–hermeneutical interrelationship will enhance nurses’ sensitivity to patient matters, produce relationship outcomes that emerge from a consistent and effectively applied set of interpersonal principles, and more importantly, successfully influence nurses’ lives and those of their patients with meaning that ultimately improves the human condition. Thus, nurses’ communication and perceptive understanding of each patient's world or lived experience becomes an integral and necessary component to effectively carrying out the practice role of caregiving. (shrink)

The EEG and MEG studies cited in the target article found reduced gamma band power following pseudowords in comparison with words. Pulvermüller interprets this power difference in terms of reverberating lexical cell assemblies. An alternative interpretation in terms of latency jitter in the gamma band following pseudowords is proposed that does not appeal to lexical cell assemblies.

Preparing the Next Generation of Oral Historians is an invaluable resource to educators seeking to bring history alive for students at all levels. Filled with insightful reflections on teaching oral history, it offers practical suggestions for educators seeking to create curricula, engage students, gather community support, and meet educational standards. By the close of the book, readers will be able to successfully incorporate oral history projects in their own classrooms.

The relationship between humanity and the soil is an increasingly important topic in social theory. However, conceptualisations of the soil developed by anticolonial thinkers at the high point of the movement for self-determination between the 1940s and the 1970s have remained largely ignored. This is a shame, not least because theorists like Eric Williams, Walter Rodney, Suzanne Césaire and Amílcar Cabral were concerned with the soil. Building on recent work on human-soil relations and decolonial ecology, we argue that these four (...) thinkers conceptualised the connection between soil, empire, and anticolonial revolt. Williams and Rodney ground understanding of soil degradation in global relations of economic power, while Césaire and Cabral reconceptualise postcolonial nationhood in terms of the mutability and diversity of the soil. The article concludes by suggesting that these two anticolonial counterpoints, global connectivity and more-than-human identification, anticipate and deepen contemporary attempts to decolonise ecological thinking. (shrink)

Space Gender Knowledge is an innovative and comprehensive introduction to the geographies of gender and the gendered nature of spatial relations. It examines the major issues raised by women's movements and academic feminism, and outlines the main shifts in feminist geographical work, from the geography of women to the impact of post-structuralism. In making their selection, the editors have drawn on a wide range of interdisciplinary material, ranging across spatial scales from the body to the globe. The book presents influential (...) arguments for the importance of the intersection between space and gender. Looking both at geography and beyond the discipline, it explores the gendered construction of space and the spatial construction of gender. Divided into a number of conceptual sections, each prefaced by an editorial introduction, this reader includes extracts from both landmark texts and less well-known works, making it an indispensable introduction to this dynamic field of study. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between utopian production and reception via a reading of the work of the great utopian author and theorist William Morris. This relationship has invariably been defined by an inequality: utopian producers have claimed unlimited freedom in their attempts to imagine new worlds, while utopian recipients have been asked to adopt such visions as their own without question. Morris’s work suggests two possible responses to this inequality. One response, associated with theorist Miguel Abensour, is to liberate (...) reception, with Morris’s utopianism containing an invitation to readers to reformulate the vision proffered. However, this response, despite its dominance in contemporary utopian theory, not only misreads Morris but also undermines the political efficacy of utopianism. Consequently, I suggest that Morris responds to the problem of utopian inequality by constraining production, proposing a historical control on utopianising; new utopias are directed by an archive of visions articulated in past struggles. (shrink)

William Morris, author of the famous nineteenth-century utopian novel News from Nowhere, thought it both possible and desirable to develop a utopian vision that could be affirmed by many individual...

In recent years, there has been increasing discontent with feminism’s understanding of its own history and, more specifically, the place of the feminist 1970s. Feminist scholars – most prominently, Elizabeth Freeman, Victoria Hesford, Kate Eichhorn and Kathi Weeks – have sought to move beyond the feelings of progress and nostalgia that the feminist 1970s often inspires. There is a need to mediate between the urge to leave the past behind and the desire to return to it, with feminists adopting positions (...) that ricochet between progress and nostalgia. In this article, I argue that the feminist literary utopia offers a particularly productive means by which to represent this ambivalent, paradoxical temporal understanding. The classic feminist utopias of the 1970s have become the object of critical contention in more recent speculative texts, which destabilise both progress and nostalgia in their evocation of second-wave separatism. To elaborate this claim, I turn to Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army, which critically assesses the feminist 1970s via an account of a separatist feminist enclave in a near-future Britain. The community of women is a homage to the feminist 1970s, displaying both the potentialities of the movements of this time as well as their sometimes violent limitations. The dreams of the 1970s emerge in the text as an unsettling presence in the world, a force that can neither be left behind nor fully embraced. (shrink)

The weathered stone, collapsed lintels and hollow roofs of the ruin have long evoked a sense of pathos, standing as monuments to the disastrous contours of history and the possibility of alternative futures. In this article, I ask: What is the meaning of the ruin in the postcolonial context of the Caribbean? There are few physical ruins in the Caribbean, resulting in a feeling of lack: the architectural landscape fails to speak to the catastrophes of slavery and colonialism. Dub, a (...) subgenre of Jamaican reggae, responds to this sense of deprivation. The dub producers of the 1970s decomposed reggae songs, creating ruinous constructions where crucial elements of the original version are missing. Fragmented dub compositions act as icons of the traumatic history of the Caribbean and a utopian pique to the imagination, forcing the listener to fill in the gaps and imagine the world remade. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have urged those working in Christian higher education to attend more purposefully to student spiritual and character formation. Anchored by the belief that college is a formative time for the development of values, commitments, identity, and life purpose, these calls have taken many different forms. One consistent theme, however, has been the need to expand character formation beyond ethical training and moral decision-making. While such tools are necessary, these scholars note, there is also a pressing need (...) for the development of righteous virtues, affections, commitments, and patterns of living rooted in a right understanding of God and self. How can professors encourage spiritual attentiveness and transformation within the academic setting of a college classroom? What assignments foster spiritual focus and growth into Christlikeness? What helpful practices from the historic Christian tradition can be included in syllabi and course experiences? As professors committed to educationally-based spiritual formation, we are concerned with how to best encourage student spiritual growth. This article is the culmination of conversations, as well as trial and error in our classrooms, in an attempt to answer these questions. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the US, many patients forgo recommended care due to cost. The ANA Code of Ethics requires nurses to give care based on need. Therefore, US nurses are compelled to practice in a context which breaches their professional ethical code.Research ObjectivesThis study sought to determine if nurses do care for patients who forgo treatment due to cost (PFTDC) and if so, does this result in an experience of moral distress (MD).Research DesignSemi-structured interviews were transcribed and analyzed using a qualitative content (...) analysis.Participants and Research ContextA convenience sample of 20 nurses in practice for at least one year from a variety of health care setting participated.Ethical ConsiderationsThis project was approved by the Michigan State University Biomedical Institutional Review Board.ResultsThere were 19 female and one male nurse-participants, averaging 47 years old with an average of 10 years in practice. 18 reported caring for PFTDC. These 17 nurse-participants experienced a moderate degree of MD as a result, averaging 5.4 of 10 on the Moral Distress Thermometer. In the interviews, the following themes were identified, strategies to help PFTDC, and the broken US health care system which had the subthemes of preference for business over patient-oriented benefit, PFTDC using the emergency department, and limited support for treatment/management of PFTDC.ConclusionsThe existence of this phenomenon places the profession of nursing in the US in a position of moral compromise and threatens to corrupt the institution of nursing in the US. (shrink)

This a collection of contemporary popular and scholarly writing on the subject of sexual harassment. The book is designed to clarify and enrich understanding of a topic that in recent years, especially in the United States, has been the subject of contentious debate in the media, the law, and the academy. The book's variety of political analysis, legal theory, philosophical debate, multicultural and international perspectives, regulatory documents, and Supreme Court case law is unprecedented in any single volume on the subject.

Attempts to understand farmer conservation behavior based on quantitative socio-demographic, attitude, and awareness variables have been largely inconclusive. In order to understand fully how farmers are making conservation decisions, 32 in-depth interviews were conducted in the Eagle Creek watershed in central Indiana. Coding for environmental attitudes and practice adoption revealed several dominant themes, representing multi-dimensional aspects of environmental attitudes. Farmers who were motivated by off-farm environmental benefits and those who identified responsibilities to others (stewardship) were most likely to adopt conservation (...) practices. Those farmers who focused on the farm as business and were most concerned about profitability were less likely to adopt practices. The notion of environmental stewardship in particular was found to be much more complex than the way it is traditionally measured in quantitative studies. The interplay between on-farm and off-farm benefits to practice adoption is an issue that quantitative studies largely do not address. This study seeks to increase understanding of farmers’ environmental attitudes and the connections to conservation behavior. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of strategic conversations in corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy formation. The authors suggest that explicitly engaging stakeholders in the CSR strategy-making process, through the mechanism of strategic conversations, will minimize future stakeholder concerns and enhance CSR strategy making. In addition, suggestions for future research are offered to enable a better understanding of effective strategic conversation processes in CSR strategy making and the resulting performance outcomes.

How far does a researcher’s responsibility extend when an incidental finding is identified? Balancing pertinent ethical principles such as beneficence, respect for persons, and duty to rescue is not always straightforward, particularly in neuroimaging research where empirical data that might help guide decision making are lacking. We conducted a systematic survey of perceptions and preferences of 396 investigators, research participants, and Institutional Review Board members at our institution. Using the partial entrustment model as described by Richardson, we argue that our (...) data supports universal reading by a neuroradiologist of all research MRI scans for incidental findings and providing full disclosure to all participants. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Ray's recent proposal that the intellectual property rights attached to potentially life saving/life sustaining innovations should become public goods in cases where markets are either unable or unwilling to pay for the creation of the intellectual property. Using a free market approach to innovation based on Western moral philosophy, we suggest that treating intellectually protected life saving/life sustaining innovations as public goods will likely reduce social welfare over the long term.

This landmark collection of essays by six renowned philosophers explores the implications of the contentious realism/antirealism debate for epistemology. The essays examine issues such as whether epistemology needs to be realist, the bearing of a realist conception of truth on epistemology, and realism and antirealism in terms of a pragmatist conception of epistemic justification. Richard Rorty's essay provides a critical commentary on the other five.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Frederick J. Streng Book Award:An Interview with Harold Kasimow, John Keenan, and Linda KeenanHarold Kasimow, John P. Keenan, and Linda Klepinger KeenanThe recipient of the Frederick J. Streng Book of the Year Award for 2004 is Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha, edited by Harold Kasimow, John P. Keenan, and Linda Klepinger Keenan. This book provides the reader with a combination (...) of reflection on the creatively transformative power of interreligious dialogue and documentation of that creative transformation in the lives of committed Jews and Christians in dialogue with Buddhism. The bulk of this book consists of candid, autobiographical essays by seven Jewish and Christian scholars in the form of personal testimony, which, taken as a whole, presents an extended argument for the value of interfaith dialogue in general and Buddhist-Christian-Jewish dialogue in particular. The final section of the book consists of four essays written from sociological, Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist perspectives by authors who have read the primary essays and reflect on interreligious dialogue more broadly in light of their own particular experience and research.Those who read Beside Still Waters as seekers will find themselves in the company of fellow pilgrims on the Way who offer their particular life stories filled with focused insight and theological sophistication. The strength of this collection of essays is that it robustly displays Jewish and Christian encounter with Buddhism as a new direction that contemporary Buddhist-Christian dialogue as practiced within the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies would do well to emulate.Buddhist-Christian Studies asked the editors a few questions.Buddhist-Christian Studies: Why did you write Beside Still Waters?John Keenan: Because Harold and I wanted to write a book together. Each of us is much involved in our own tradition as well as in the study and practice of Buddhism, and we wanted to show that this kind of encounter with another religious tradition does not mutate one's own identity. For this reason, we wanted contributors to speak out of their personal experience rather than to address the philosophical and doctrinal issues that are engendered by such interfaith encounters—although these issues should of course be addressed elsewhere.Harold Kasimow: Perhaps the following Hassidic tale best answers this question: "Rabbi Eizik, son of Rabbi Yekel, travels to Prague in search of treasure. He ultimately discovers, after meeting with a Christian, that the treasure is in fact buried [End Page 205] at his family's home back in Krakow. Thus it is a Christian who helps Rabbi Eizik to find the treasure in Judaism, to perceive more profoundly the depth and uniqueness of the Jewish tradition." This has been my own experience and is the reason why I was interested in writing this book together with people with whom I have a very strong karmic connection.Was it difficult to solicit and edit the contributors' essays?Linda Keenan: Not at all. With only one exception, everyone we contacted agreed to write an essay for the book. In one or two instances, we pushed for something more personal than was first submitted, and we were very pleased with the final collection.How did the three of you work together?HK: I often spoke to Linda over the phone, and John could speak to her in person, and Linda did all the work.LK: Harold and John conceived the idea and contacted potential contributors. The three of us consulted a great deal over the telephone and by e-mail. And Harold kept us on task at each stage of the book and has been its greatest promoter.JK: The above is accurate, but the book was written by the contributors.Is there anything you would have done differently if you could do it over? Any contributors you missed this time for one reason or another that you would recruit for a new edition?LK: We would not change what we did, but there are certainly many more Jews and Christians who could make excellent contributions to a new edition of the book. In fact, the most difficult thing was knowing so many people—including, among others, most of the membership of the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Frederick J. Streng Book Award:An Interview with Harold Kasimow, John Keenan, and Linda KeenanHarold Kasimow, John P. Keenan, and Linda Klepinger KeenanThe recipient of the Frederick J. Streng Book of the Year Award for 2004 is Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha, edited by Harold Kasimow, John P. Keenan, and Linda Klepinger Keenan. This book provides the reader with a combination (...) of reflection on the creatively transformative power of interreligious dialogue and documentation of that creative transformation in the lives of committed Jews and Christians in dialogue with Buddhism. The bulk of this book consists of candid, autobiographical essays by seven Jewish and Christian scholars in the form of personal testimony, which, taken as a whole, presents an extended argument for the value of interfaith dialogue in general and Buddhist-Christian-Jewish dialogue in particular. The final section of the book consists of four essays written from sociological, Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist perspectives by authors who have read the primary essays and reflect on interreligious dialogue more broadly in light of their own particular experience and research.Those who read Beside Still Waters as seekers will find themselves in the company of fellow pilgrims on the Way who offer their particular life stories filled with focused insight and theological sophistication. The strength of this collection of essays is that it robustly displays Jewish and Christian encounter with Buddhism as a new direction that contemporary Buddhist-Christian dialogue as practiced within the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies would do well to emulate.Buddhist-Christian Studies asked the editors a few questions.Buddhist-Christian Studies: Why did you write Beside Still Waters?John Keenan: Because Harold and I wanted to write a book together. Each of us is much involved in our own tradition as well as in the study and practice of Buddhism, and we wanted to show that this kind of encounter with another religious tradition does not mutate one's own identity. For this reason, we wanted contributors to speak out of their personal experience rather than to address the philosophical and doctrinal issues that are engendered by such interfaith encounters—although these issues should of course be addressed elsewhere.Harold Kasimow: Perhaps the following Hassidic tale best answers this question: "Rabbi Eizik, son of Rabbi Yekel, travels to Prague in search of treasure. He ultimately discovers, after meeting with a Christian, that the treasure is in fact buried [End Page 205] at his family's home back in Krakow. Thus it is a Christian who helps Rabbi Eizik to find the treasure in Judaism, to perceive more profoundly the depth and uniqueness of the Jewish tradition." This has been my own experience and is the reason why I was interested in writing this book together with people with whom I have a very strong karmic connection.Was it difficult to solicit and edit the contributors' essays?Linda Keenan: Not at all. With only one exception, everyone we contacted agreed to write an essay for the book. In one or two instances, we pushed for something more personal than was first submitted, and we were very pleased with the final collection.How did the three of you work together?HK: I often spoke to Linda over the phone, and John could speak to her in person, and Linda did all the work.LK: Harold and John conceived the idea and contacted potential contributors. The three of us consulted a great deal over the telephone and by e-mail. And Harold kept us on task at each stage of the book and has been its greatest promoter.JK: The above is accurate, but the book was written by the contributors.Is there anything you would have done differently if you could do it over? Any contributors you missed this time for one reason or another that you would recruit for a new edition?LK: We would not change what we did, but there are certainly many more Jews and Christians who could make excellent contributions to a new edition of the book. In fact, the most difficult thing was knowing so many people—including, among others, most of the membership of the... (shrink)

In recent years, images of climate catastrophe have become commonplace. However, Black visions of the confluence of the Anthropocene and the apocalypse have been largely ignored. As we argue in this article, Black social thought offers crucial resources for drawing out the implicit exclusions of dominant representations of climate breakdown and developing an alternative account of the planet’s future. By reading a range of critical race theorists, from Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois to Octavia Butler and Ta-Nehisi (...) Coates, we propose a rethinking of the climate apocalypse. The African American theoretical and cultural tradition elaborates an image of the end of the world that emphasises the non-revelatory nature of climate catastrophe, warns against associating collapse with rebirth, and articulates a mode of maroon survivalism in which the apocalypse is an event to be endured and escaped rather than fatalistically expected or infinitely delayed. (shrink)

We define the notion of a completely determined Borel code in reverse mathematics, and consider the principle $CD - PB$, which states that every completely determined Borel set has the property of Baire. We show that this principle is strictly weaker than $AT{R_0}$. Any ω-model of $CD - PB$ must be closed under hyperarithmetic reduction, but $CD - PB$ is not a theory of hyperarithmetic analysis. We show that whenever $M \subseteq {2^\omega }$ is the second-order part of an ω-model (...) of $CD - PB$, then for every $Z \in M$, there is a $G \in M$ such that G is ${\rm{\Delta }}_1^1$-generic relative to Z. (shrink)

Water is the major contributor to the eating and keeping qualities and structure of baked products. Its management and control during preparation, processing, baking, cooling and storage is essential for the optimisation of product quality. This successful and highly practical volume describes in detail the role and control of water in the formation of cake batters, bread, pastry and biscuit doughs, their subsequent processing and the baked product. Now in a fully revised and updated second edition, the book has been (...) expanded and developed through the inclusion of new information and references related to the formation and processing of batters and dough into baked products. The new edition includes a selection of case studies based on practical experience in the manufacture and optimisation of baked products. Each case study, illustrated as appropriate, considers the various roles that water may play in different manufacturing contexts. The book is aimed at food scientists and technologists in bakery companies; ingredient suppliers; flour millers; researchers and students in academic food science departments. (shrink)

This book has been written in the hopes of equipping teachers-in-training—that is, teacher candidates—with the skills needed for action research: a process that leads to focused, effective, and responsive strategies that help students succeed.

Through the lens of the Health Belief Model and Protection Motivation Theory, we analyzed interviews of 36 agricultural advisors in Indiana and Nebraska to understand their appraisals of climate change risk, related decision making processes and subsequent risk management advice to producers. Most advisors interviewed accept that weather events are a risk for US Midwestern agriculture; however, they are more concerned about tangible threats such as crop prices. There is not much concern about climate change among agricultural advisors. Management practices (...) that could help producers adapt to climate change were more likely to be recommended by conservation and Extension advisors, while financial and crop advisors focused more upon season-to-season decision making. We contend that the agricultural community should integrate long-term thinking as part of farm decision making processes and that agricultural advisors are in a prime position to influence producers. In the face of increasing extreme weather events, climatologists and advisors should work more closely to reach a shared understanding of the risks posed to agriculture by climate change. (shrink)

This article relates the emergence of a group of faculty researchers utilizing complexity science approaches. The narrative emerges from three projects combining research into complexity, communities, and technologies. Details of how the research was initiated, and the nature and quality of the conversational method, are provided. In addition, theoretical concepts that were consciously applied and others that arose through insights from the data as it was collected are discussed. Although this is like most real narratives, a never-ending story, it concludes (...) with a presentation of some of the ideas that separate complexity-informed research from other paradigms. (shrink)

Programmatic concepts have elements that point in a valued direction or name a desired goal. We provide a detailed analysis of the nature of programmatic concepts and cite examples of the programmatic elements found in conceptions of scientific literacy. Next we describe what values underlie these elements and what theories of value might be brought to bear in assessing them. We present an analysis of approximately 70 conceptions of scientific literacy found in the literature since the year 2000. We identify (...) the goals that each of these conceptions of scientific literacy implies and uncover the programmatic elements that are used to justify these goals. Our purpose is to present a sufficiently wide range of views to have a good representation of goals and programmatic elements. Third, we point to a number of pitfalls in any attempt to make preferential selections among the programmatic elements of conceptions of scientific literacy. (shrink)

This paper discusses how adoption of the social dimensions of the marketing concept may unintentionally restrict innovation and corporate entrepreneurship, ultimately reducing social welfare. The impact of social marketing on innovation and entrepreneurship is discussed using the case of multinational pharmaceutical firms that are under pressure when marketing HIV treatments in poor countries.The argument this paper supports is that social welfare may eventually be diminished if forced social responsibility is imposed. The case of providing subsidized AIDS medication to less developed (...) nations is used to illustrate how social blackmail may result in less innovation, entrepreneurship, and product development efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, ultimately reducing social welfare. (shrink)

Social Responsibility (SA) 8000 registration/certification is a response by the business community to address consumer and investor perceptions of the importance of emerging global social issues such as child labor, worker rights, discrimination, compensation, etc. As more U.S. and European firms outsource production to less developed nations, social, environmental, and reputational issues have become more important. SA8000 is a series of behavioral standards that represents a comprehensive, and potentially global, corporate social responsibility registration system that provides a standard of socially (...) responsible treatment of workers. This paper explores how SA8000 adoption may impact a firm's marketing activities. (shrink)

Nanomedicine is yielding new and improved treatments and diagnostics for a range of diseases and disorders. Nanomedicine applications incorporate materials and components with nanoscale dimensions where novel physiochemical properties emerge as a result of size-dependent phenomena and high surface-to-mass ratio. Nanotherapeutics and in vivo nanodiagnostics are a subset of nanomedicine products that enter the human body. These include drugs, biological products, implantable medical devices, and combination products that are designed to function in the body in ways unachievable at larger scales. (...) Nanotherapeutics andin vivonanodiagnostics incorporate materials that are engineered at the nanoscale to express novel properties that are medicinally useful. These nanomedicine applications can also contain nanomaterials that are biologically active, producing interactions that depend on biological triggers. Examples include nanoscale formulations of insoluble drugs to improve bioavailability and pharmacokinetics, drugs encapsulated in hollow nanoparticles with the ability to target and cross cellular and tissue membranes and to release their payload at a specific time or location, imaging agents that demonstrate novel optical properties to aid in locating micrometastases, and antimicrobial and drug-eluting components or coatings of implantable medical devices such as stents. (shrink)