The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has caused shortages of life-sustaining medical resources, and future waves of the virus may cause further scarcity. The Yale New Haven Health System developed a triage protocol to allocate scarce medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the primary goal of saving the most lives possible, and a secondary goal of making triage assessments and decisions consistent, transparent, and fair. We outline the process of developing the protocol, summarize the protocol, and discuss the major ethical challenges (...) encountered, along with our answers to the challenges. These challenges include (1) the role of age and chronic comorbidities; (2) evaluating children and pregnant patients; (3) racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health; (4) prioritization of healthcare workers; and (5) balancing clinical judgment versus protocolized assessments.We conclude with a review of the limitations of our protocol and the lessons learned. We hope that a robust public discussion of such protocols and the ethical challenges they raise will result in the fairest possible processes, less need for triage, and more lives saved during future waves of the pandemic and similar public health emergencies. (shrink)

This book offers a sustained engagement with the writings of the increasingly influential French philosopher and writer on literature, Gilles Deleuze, offering an introduction to his fascinating body of work and emphasizing its multiple possibilities for literary study. Deleuze offers a 'philosophy of becoming' whose many aspects are gaining increasing importance in a variety of disciplines both on the Continent and in Anglo-American circles. Accordingly, the first part of the book stresses the distinctiveness of Deleuze's work, setting out its provenance (...) and recurrent concerns, and developing an account of its relevance for literary theory and literary criticism. The second part of the book provides, in these latter contexts, close readings of several late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century works of fiction by Hardy, Gissing, Conrad and Woolf. Above all, Deleuze's work opens up ways of reading that enable an articulation of fundamental ethical and effective issues explored and staged within literary texts. (shrink)

A lucid examination of the pivotal theories of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, this accessible text demonstrates the continuing relevance of these three figures to contemporary sociology. The authors show how the classical apparatus is still in use, even though it is being directed in new ways in response to the changing character of society. Writing with the needs of the undergraduate student in mind, the authors emphasize the continuities in modern sociological thought, and argue that many of the ideas of (...) postmodern thinkers were anticipated by classical theorists. The introduction outlines the main elements of the sociological tradition and highlights its roots in the Enlightenment. The chapters that follow give detailed, shar. (shrink)

Measuring neuronal activity with electrophysiological methods may be useful in detecting neurological dysfunctions, such as mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). This approach may be particularly valuable for rapid detection in at-risk populations including military service members and athletes. Electrophysiological methods, such as quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) and recording event-related potentials (ERPs) may be promising; however, the field is nascent and significant controversy exists on the efficacy and accuracy of the approaches as diagnostic tools. For example, the specific measures derived from an (...) electroencephalogram (EEG) that are most suitable as markers of dysfunction have not been clearly established. A study was conducted to summarize and evaluate the statistical rigor of evidence on the overall utility of qEEG as an mTBI detection tool. The analysis evaluated qEEG measures/parameters that may be most suitable as fieldable diagnostic tools, identified other types of EEG measures and analysis methods of promise, recommended specific measures and analysis methods for further development as mTBI detection tools, identified research gaps in the field, and recommended future research and development thrust areas. The qEEG study group formed the following conclusions: 1. Individual qEEG measures provide limited diagnostic utility for mTBI. However, many measures can be important features of qEEG discriminant functions, which do show significant promise as mTBI detection tools. 2. ERPs offer utility in mTBI detection. In fact, evidence indicates that ERPs can identify abnormalities in cases where EEGs alone are nondisclosing. 3. The standard mathematical procedures used in the characterization of mTBI EEGs should be expanded to incorporate newer methods of analysis including nonlinear dynamical analysis, complexity measures, analysis of causal interactions, graph theory and information dynamics. 4. and 5. are too long to include here. (shrink)

Introduction Patients require an accurate knowledge about placebos and their possible effects to ensure consent for placebo-controlled clinical trials is adequately informed. However, few previous studies have explored patients’ baseline levels of understanding and knowledge about placebos. The present online survey aimed to assess knowledge about placebos among patients with a history of back pain. Design A 15-item questionnaire was constructed to measure knowledge about placebos. Additional questions assessed sociodemographic characteristics, duration and severity of back pain, and previous experience of (...) receiving placebos. Setting Participants recruited from community settings completed the study online. Results 210 participants completed the questionnaire. 86.7% had back pain in the past 6 months, 44.3% currently had back pain. 4.3% had received a placebo intervention as part of a clinical trial and 68.1% had previously read or heard information about placebos. Overall knowledge of placebos was high, with participants on average answering 12.07 of 15 questions about placebos correctly. However, few participants correctly answered questions about the nocebo effect and the impact of the colour of a placebo pill. Conclusions The findings identified key gaps in knowledge about placebos. The lack of understanding of the nocebo effect in particular has implications for the informed consent of trial participants. Research ethics committees and investigators should prioritise amending informed consent procedures to incorporate the fact that participants in the placebo arm might experience adverse side effects. (shrink)

This paper reports on-going work in the eSCAPE Project (Esprit Long Term Research Project 25377) directed to the research and development of electronic landscapes for public use. Our concern here is to elucidate a sociologically informed approach towards the design of electronic landscapes or virtual worlds. We suggest — and demonstrate through ethnographic studies of virtual technologies at a multimedia art museum and information technology trade show — that members sense of space is produced through social practices tied to the (...) accomplishment of activities occurring within the locations their actions are situated. Space, in other words, is socially constructed and shaped through members’ practices for accomplishing situated activities. We explicate, by practical examples, an approach to discovering social practices in and through which a sense of space is constructed and outline how such understandings may be used to formulate requirements for the design of electronic landscapes. In explicating our ethnographically informed approach, we outline how future technologies may bedeveloped through the situated evaluation of experimental prototypes in public use. (shrink)

In this article I engage with Sergei Bulgakov's “sophiological” critique of Aquinas's account of creatio ex nihilo and the divine ideas. Bulgakov claims that Aquinas's account is insufficiently Trinitarian, too influenced by pagan philosophy, and as such separates the divine will and intellect in such a way as to introduce arbitrariness and instrumentality into the relationship between the divine ideas and creation. I argue that it is inaccurate to characterise Aquinas's account of creation and the divine ideas as pagan or (...) non‐Trinitarian; instead, following Augustine, Aquinas understands the divine ideas as essential to a thoroughly Trinitarian understanding of creation which is necessary to avoid reducing creation to impersonal necessary emanation on the one hand, or an arbitrary act of will on the other. However, I concede that, at times, Aquinas's account of the ideas of things which are never created may have opened the door to later more voluntarist and possibilist views. (shrink)

Deleuze's references to Woolf's work, and his work on Bergson, allow for a more far-reaching as well as more nuanced and diverse account of her correspondences with Bergson than have been noted. Her early collection of stories, Monday or Tuesday, reveals a powerful, many-sided metaphysical and aesthetic inspiration that bears out in detailed, various and fundamental ways what can be called the Deleuzian or Bergsonian aspects of Woolf's creativity and style at this crucial phase of her development as a writer.