Tort claims have been studied for various reasons. Several studies have found that most tort claims are not related to negligent adverse events and most negligent adverse events do not result in tort claims. Several studies have examined the disposition of tort claims to understand the likelihood of payment once a claim has been made. Still others have proposed that tort-claims trend analysis may help administrators target their quality-improvement efforts and identify problems with quality that would not otherwise be captured.In (...) this article, we conduct a tort-claims analysis to explore areas for quality improvement, specifically for patient safety, in the Veterans Health Administration. Patient safety is an increasingly highlighted aspect of health-care delivery. Failure to assure patient safety can result in bad clinical outcomes, additional costs of care, and a negative organizational image. Filing a tort claim is one way for an individual to express concern about an organization. For our analysis, we draw from resolved tort claims in the Veterans Health Administration from fiscal years 1989 to 2000. (shrink)

Tort claims have been studied for various reasons. Several studies have found that most tort claims are not related to negligent adverse events and most negligent adverse events do not result in tort claims. Several studies have examined the disposition of tort claims to understand the likelihood of payment once a claim has been made. Still others have proposed that tort-claims trend analysis may help administrators target their quality-improvement efforts and identify problems with quality that would not otherwise be captured.In (...) this article, we conduct a tort-claims analysis to explore areas for quality improvement, specifically for patient safety, in the Veterans Health Administration. Patient safety is an increasingly highlighted aspect of health-care delivery. Failure to assure patient safety can result in bad clinical outcomes, additional costs of care, and a negative organizational image. Filing a tort claim is one way for an individual to express concern about an organization. For our analysis, we draw from resolved tort claims in the Veterans Health Administration from fiscal years 1989 to 2000. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval EnglandEdward E. FosterThe French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval England, by William Calin; xvi & 587pp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994, $75.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.Probably not many people will read all of this book, because it is very long. That is too bad, because it is also very good and its length is necessary for its double purpose: (...) to reconceptualize the connections between French and English literature in the Middle Ages and to provide sensitive interpretations both of familiar and of ignored Medieval narratives. The doubleness is neatly reciprocal: the readings grow into the revisionist definition of influence, and the notion of influence informs the individual readings.The innovative and persuasive argument that orders the whole book is that the impact of the French tradition has been too narrowly defined. Rather than simply retracing the influence of the classics of French fin amour, like Chrétien, on the corpus of Middle English literature, Calin sinuously argues the influence of Anglo-Norman and thirteenth and fourteenth century Central French works on the literature of the high English Middle Ages. From Anglo-Norman, Calin draws, predictably, on the lais of Marie de France. Less predictably, he draws on Beroul and Thomas of England and on romances like Ipomedon, Amadas et Ydione, and Gui de Warewic. Least predictably, he draws on the tradition of saints’ lives as formative of later Medieval moral narrative. From Central French, he draws, predictably, on the Roman de la Rose. Less predictably, but very convincingly, he draws on material frequently slighted even by French critics: Guillaume de Digulleville, the Prose Lancelot, Machaut, Froissart, and Chartier. But even more than influence, in the traditional sense, Calin persuasively demonstrates an enlivening intertextuality. He rescues Anglo-Norman classics from their stodgy reputation and late Central French texts from inattention and makes both relevant to the development of the English narrative tradition in court poetry and in popular romance.The power of Calin’s overarching argument depends heavily on the critiques of individual works. Without forgetting Chrétien and the earlier French tradition, he traces in Marie, Beroul, and Thomas, the formation and complication of fin amour which were present and available to English writers. He describes the narrative force of Anglo-Norman saints’ lives on the fictional techniques of English romance. His acute treatment of interlace in the Prose Lancelot reveals the treasure trove that English romancers could draw on, for technique as well as themes. In addition, he shows both how de Digulleville served up the “dream vision” and Machaut and Froissart served up the limited, even bumbling, narrator for fourteenth-century England.It could be argued that Calin’s method of doing very modern or postmodern analyses of early French poetry and prose is misleading. And it is true that some of the readings of French texts seem eccentric. For example, the relentless imposition of Freud on Marie is perplexing even when plausible. One wonders [End Page 400] whether this is the best way to approach the Lais. And Calin moves on to feminist, and old and new historicist readings of other texts. Each is well done, but it is sometimes hard to tell which way the winds of theory are blowing and why. While it must be granted that the interpretations of Middle English romances, like Ywain and Gawain, Amis and Amiloun, and William of Palerne, are not profoundly different from what other scholars have come to, there is no denying that embedding them in their French contexts gives them a richness they ordinarily lack. Even more laudable is the way in which influence is elaborated not just as a matter of themes but as a transformation of techniques and even sensibility.My greatest reservation is the treatment of Chaucer, especially “The Franklin’s Tale.” Calin does recognize Chaucer’s debts to the classics (though mostly through the Ovid Moralisé) and to the Italians. Yet Chaucer is the one author for whom the weight of French intertextuality seems less a determinant than a stimulant. In “The Franklin’s Tale,” the French burden leads to a reading that too easily dismisses both ironic... (shrink)

One common response to the knowledge argument is the ability hypothesis. Proponents of the ability hypothesis accept that Mary learns what seeing red is like when she exits her black-and-white room, but they deny that the kind of knowledge she gains is propositional in nature. Rather, she acquires a cluster of abilities that she previously lacked, in particular, the abilities to recognize, remember, and imagine the color red. For proponents of the ability hypothesis, knowing what an experience is like simply (...) consists in the possession of these abilities. Criticisms of the ability hypothesis tend to focus on this last claim. Such critics tend to accept that Mary gains these abilities when she leaves the room, but they deny that such abilities constitute knowledge of what an experience is like. To my mind, however, this critical strategy grants too much. Focusing specifically on imaginative ability, I argue that Mary does not gain this ability when she leaves the room for she already had the ability to imagine red while she was inside it. Moreover, despite what some have thought, the ability hypothesis cannot be easily rescued by recasting it in terms of a more restrictive imaginative ability. My purpose here is not to take sides in the debate about physicalism, i.e., my criticism of the ability hypothesis is not offered in an attempt to defend the anti-physicalist conclusion of the knowledge argument. Rather, my purpose is to redeem the imagination from the misleading picture of it that discussion of the knowledge argument has fostered. (shrink)

Introduction -- Karl Marx's concept of alienation -- Objectification, alienation, and estrangement -- Other origins of alienation and objectification -- Marx's account of alienation : from early to late -- The alienated object of production : commodity fetishism -- The alienated means of production : machine fetishism -- Machines and the transformation of work -- Marx's energeticist turn -- The first law of thermodynamics -- From arbeit to arbeitskraft -- The second law of thermodynamics -- Machines in the communist future (...) -- Technology and the boundaries of nature -- Material wealth and value : the Grundrisse's fragment on machines -- The strife between technology and capital : the fall in the rate of profit -- Enjoyment not value : challenging the logic of exhaustion -- Man himself as fixed capital -- Class kinship and the redistribution of the means of production -- Machines in the capitalist reality -- Between thermodynamics and humanism : approaching capital -- Machinery as an historical category of production -- Machines, trains, and other capitalist monsters -- Rough, foul-mouthed boys : women's monstrous laboring bodies -- Wage labor and race -- Wage labor and sexuality -- Machinery and revolution -- Alienation beyond Marx -- Science and technology in Marx's excerpt notebooks -- Karl Marx and Charles Babbage -- Machines and temporality : the treadmill effect and free time -- Technophobia and technophilia -- Technophobia and twentieth-century theory. (shrink)

Neural substrates of fatigue in traumatic brain injury are not well understood despite the considerable burden of fatigue on return to productivity. Fatigue is associated with diminishing performance under conditions of high cognitive demand, sense of effort, or need for motivation, all of which are associated with cognitive control brain network integrity. We hypothesize that the pathophysiology of TBI results in damage to diffuse cognitive control networks, disrupting coordination of moment-to-moment monitoring, prediction, and regulation of behavior. We investigate the cingulo-opercular (...) and frontoparietal networks, which are engaged to sustain attention for task and maintain performance. A total of 61 individuals with mild TBI and 42 orthopedic control subjects participated in functional MRI during performance of a constant effort task requiring altering the amount of effort utilized to manually squeeze a pneumostatic bulb across six 30-s trials. Network-based statistics assessed within-network organization and fluctuation with task manipulations by group. Results demonstrate small group differences in network organization, but considerable group differences in the evolution of task-related modulation of connectivity. The mild TBI group demonstrated elevated CO connectivity throughout the task with little variation in effort level or time on task, while CO connectivity diminished over time in controls. Several interregional CO connections were predictive of fatigue in the TBI group. In contrast, FP connectivity fluctuated with task manipulations and predicted fatigue in the controls, but connectivity fluctuations were delayed in the mild traumatic brain injury group and did not relate to fatigue. Thus, the mTBI group’s hyper-connectivity of the CO irrespective of task demands, along with hypo-connectivity and delayed peak connectivity of the FP, may allow for attainment of task goals, but also contributes to fatigue. Findings are discussed in relation to performance monitoring of prediction error that relies on internal cues from sensorimotor feedback during task performance. Delay or inability to detect and respond to prediction errors in TBI, particularly evident in bilateral insula-temporal CO connectivity, corresponds to day-to-day fatigue and fatigue during task performance. (shrink)

Two studies examined the use of think aloud (TA) protocol as a means for collecting data of cognitive processes during performance in golf. In study 1, TA was employed to examine if different verbalisation (Level 2 or Level 3 TA) instructions influence performance of high and low skilled golfers. Participants performed 30 putts using TA at either Level 2, Level 3, or no verbalization condition. Although Level 3 verbalization produced a higher volume of verbal data than Level 2, TA at (...) either level 2 or 3 did not impair putting performance compared to no verbalization. Study 2 examined the congruence between data collected via TA at Level 3 and cued retrospective recall of cognitive processes during golf performance. Experienced golfers performed six holes of golf whilst engaging in Level 3 TA. After performance, three semi-structured retrospective interviews were conducted (ten minutes after performance, 24 hours after performance and 48 hours after performance). A comparison of the themes identified large discrepancies between the information reported during TA and at interview, with only 38-41% similarity in variables reported to influence decision making on each hole. Both studies suggest TA is a valuable method for recording cognitive processes of individuals during task performance. TA provides richer verbal data regarding decisions than cued retrospective recall, and TA does not negatively impact performance. (shrink)

Of general interest, this study confirms the syntactic manifestation of the interpersonal dynamics of the participants in discourse and of their high-level cognitive processes therein. More specifically, this study formalizes categories of the Spanish indicative and subjunctive in a cognitive map based on the deictic organization of the Spanish mood system. This cognitive map, based on a pragmasyntactic approach to mood use, allows us to view mood in Spanish as a mechanism that establishes metaphorical distance from the individual¿s here and (...) now. This study treats the indicative and subjunctive moods of Spanish with special attention to the so-called ¿factive¿ clauses [those clauses subordinated to matrices of subjective comment such as me alegro que (I am glad that), es bueno que (It is good that), no me gusta que (I don¿t like it that), etc. and mental act matrices such as darse cuenta de que (to realize that), tomar en consideración que (to take into account that), etc.]. We propose an approach to analyzing mood use that is based on the information value of an utterance in discourse. In considering information value we take into account (a) Lambrecht¿s (1994) work featuring presuppositions as inherent parts of certain syntactical structures; (b) Mejías-Bikandi¿s (1994) claim that the subjective comment structure in Spanish (subjective comment + que + clause marked with subjunctive) inherently contains a pragmatic presupposition; (c) Mejías-Bikandi¿s reaffirmation that assertion is the role of the indicative and non-assertion is the role of the subjunctive in Spanish; (d) Lunn¿s (1988, 1989a & b) suggestion that the indicative is used to assert propositions with high information value while the subjunctive¿s role is to not assert propositions with low information value; and (e) Lambrecht¿s (1994) ideas on what constitutes information. We assume that non-assertion, including pragmatic presupposition, and asserted propositions work together to create the relative information value of utterances. We show how the information value of utterances can be organized by means of deixis to create a cognitive map. The graphic design for the three dimensional version, which incorporates the notion of the time line with that of metaphorical distance from any individual¿s deictic center, was inspired by Langacker¿s (1991) Cognitive Gram- mar. (shrink)

Essay Review of New Waves in the Philosophy of Technology (Olsen/Selinger). Treats issue of difference of technology in Marx and Heidegger at some length.

Marx claims that economic crisis is endemic to capitalism and will worsen as capitalism develops. The article situates Marx’s crisis theory within the discipline of political economy, explains its relationship to mainstream economics, charts economic crises that have happened since the 1840s, and explains Marx’s crisis theorem of the fall in the rate of profit. In conclusion, the 2008 economic crisis, and the notion of crisis in general, are speculatively considered. Special attention is given to the affective desire to own (...) a home, particularly as this is desire is developed by capitalism, in relation to the sub-prime mortgage credit crisis. (shrink)

Karl Marx claims that alienation inheres in all wage labor. I raise questions about the applicability of this claim to subjects of patriarchy. In the first section, I discuss industrial wage labor and its allure for women who were trying to escape the norms of familial patriarchy. In the second section, I extend this criticism of Marx’s claim by considering the racially enslaved subjects of the Antebellum American South, for whom economicallyrecognized wage labor was still a bloody political battle. Finally, (...) I turn to the identification of working class women and sexuality, in order to show how wage labor offered liberation from narrow bourgeois sexual strictures. I conclude by reassessing the viability of Marx’s critique of alienation, taking into account the standpoints from which wage labor itself was a considerable political achievement. (shrink)

Of general interest, this study confirms the syntactic manifestation of the interpersonal dynamics of the participants in discourse and of their high-level cognitive processes therein. More specifically, this study formalizes categories of the Spanish indicative and subjunctive in a cognitive map based on the deictic organization of the Spanish mood system. This cognitive map, based on a pragmasyntactic approach to mood use, allows us to view mood in Spanish as a mechanism that establishes metaphorical distance from the individual’s here and (...) now. This study treats the indicative and subjunctive moods of Spanish with special attention to the so-called ‘factive’ clauses [those clauses subordinated to matrices of subjective comment such as me alegro que, es bueno que, no me gusta que, etc. and mental act matrices such as darse cuenta de que, tomar en consideración que, etc.]. We propose an approach to analyzing mood use that is based on the information value of an utterance in discourse. In considering information value we take into account Lambrecht’s work featuring presuppositions as inherent parts of certain syntactical structures; Mejías-Bikandi’s claim that the subjective comment structure in Spanish inherently contains a pragmatic presupposition; Mejías-Bikandi’s reaffirmation that assertion is the role of the indicative and non-assertion is the role of the subjunctive in Spanish; Lunn’s suggestion that the indicative is used to assert propositions with high information value while the subjunctive’s role is to not assert propositions with low information value; and Lambrecht’s ideas on what constitutes information. We assume that non-assertion, including pragmatic presupposition, and asserted propositions work together to create the relative information value of utterances. We show how the information value of utterances can be organized by means of deixis to create a cognitive map. The graphic design for the three dimensional version, which incorporates the notion of the time line with that of metaphorical distance from any individual’s deictic center, was inspired by Langacker’s Cognitive Gram- mar. (shrink)

Is the meaning of life to get rich quick? That would certainly explain the way many people have lived under the spell of a constitutive fantasy: the fantasy of instant wealth. Drawing on Lacan’s Discourse of the Capitalist, the article explores the fantasy of instant wealth and its relationship to addiction, especially addiction to shopping. The article concludes with a meditation on how the fantasy of instant wealth supplants and in some ways contradicts another fantasy: the fantasy of labour.

The concepts that organize our thinking wield, by virtue of this fact, a great deal of political power. This book looks at five concepts whose dominion has increased, steadily, during the bourgeois period of modernity: Labor, Time, Property, Value, and Crisis. These ruling ideas are central not only to many academic disciplines— from philosophy and law to the political, social, and economic sciences— but also to everyday life.

This dissertation has two principle aims: To show that current arguments from proponents and opponents of the regulation of sexually explicit Internet content are unsound and to construct an argument against content regulation that avoids the failures of current arguments. ;The dissertation is organized into seven chapters. In Chapter One I provide background information on attempts to regulate sexually explicit materials and briefly outline the development of the Internet. Chapter Two examines the current regulation of obscenity on the Internet. Chapter (...) Three investigates the claim that the Internet should not be regulated due to the value of free speech. In this chapter I examine the claims that opponents of Internet regulation make and the applicability of the First Amendment to Internet speech. I argue that proponents' claims, which are often based on the arguments originally expounded by John Stuart Mill, fall short and are not sound. The next three chapters investigate arguments in support of regulation. These arguments include claims that an unregulated Internet can harm children, women and societal morals. I examine each of the arguments proponents give in support of regulatory action and argue that they are defective. Given the faulted nature of proponents' arguments, it is my conclusion that the arguments fail to justify Internet content regulation. ;Drawing on the conclusions offered in previous chapters, in the final chapter I offer a consequentialist argument against the regulation of sexually explicit Internet materials. Given that, as concluded in previous chapters, the arguments provided to prove that sexually explicit materials on the Internet are harmful fail, there will be little utility gained by regulation. In addition, in this chapter I outline the harm that will be produced by regulating the Internet and conclude that, overall, disutility will ensue if such materials are regulated. (shrink)

During the Middle Ages, the principle of legitimate or right authority constituted a central part of the just war tradition. The question of which actors had the authority to declare war was so cen...

Not long after matriculation—sometimes even before—medical students begin hearing the question, "So, what are you going into?" It can be heard as a colloquial version of a practical question, "To which type of residency are you planning to apply?" Some will evade the question, claiming, perhaps sincerely, to be fascinated by everything from radiology to geriatrics, open to all possible paths. Others will acknowledge that they enjoy or dread working with children, that they crave long-term relationships or bursts of adrenaline, (...) that they are drawn to the knife or sickened at the sight of blood. A smaller number will confess to having a clear vision of their futures, perhaps a desire to... (shrink)

Medical anthropologists have long recognized variation between cultures with regard to the locus of healing in different systems and traditions: that is, in some cultures, the human body is a “bounded physical unit” and healing is thus focused on the body alone. This perspective will be most familiar to Western health-care providers, and indeed, many providers do not imagine an alternative perspective. However, in many cultures, experiences of health, illness, disease, and healing are intricately connected with the social spheres. In (...) these contexts, healing practices and rituals may seek to address family dynamics, alter roles within a community, and resolve social rifts, and illness itself may be... (shrink)

Recent scholarship has tied duties of distributive justice to the existence of coercive institutions. This body of work argues that, because the international system lacks institutions that can coerce individuals in the same manner as domestic institutions, there are no international obligations to address relative poverty and inequality. Proponents of this view use it to support the existence of a compatriot preference that requires us to meet the needs of compatriots before meeting those of the global poor. Even supposing distributive (...) justice to be linked to coercion, coercive institutions do exist at the international level. These institutions coerce states rather than individuals, but their ability to coerce gives rise to duties of economic redistribution between states. (shrink)

In his provocative book War and Self-Defense, David Rodin criticizes attempts to justify national defense based on an analogy between the individual and the state. In doing so, he treats state personality as an analogy to the personality of the individual. Yet the state possesses the key attributes of moral personality, including a conception of the good life and a sense of justice. The state's unobservable — but nevertheless real — moral personality means that it also possessed the right to (...) defend the continued existence of that personality against an attack. Subject to the same constraints that are placed on individuals, such as necessity and proportionality, the state possesses the right to national defense based on its own personality. (shrink)

Although parents are the default legal surrogate decision-makers for minor children in the U.S., shared decision making in a pluralistic society is often much more complicated, involving not just parents and pediatricians, but also grandparents, other relatives, and even community or religious elders. Parents may not only choose to involve others in their children’s healthcare decisions but choose to defer to another; such deference does not imply agreement with the decision being made and adds complexity when disagreements arise between surrogate (...) decision-makers for minor children and their physicians. I argue that clinicians and ethicists have a duty to consider voices marginalized by hierarchical structures, including but not limited to gender-based inequalities. This approach involves negotiating potential conflicts: between respecting differences of culture and religion, on one hand, and assuring that the wishes of those who are most invested in children’s lives are considered, on the other. (shrink)