Although cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was initially used very selectively at the discretion of clinicians, the use of CPR rapidly expanded to the point that it was required to be performed on all patients having in‐hospital cardiac arrests, regardless of the underlying condition. This created problems with CPR being clearly inadvisable for many patients. Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders emerged as a means of providing a transparent process for making decisions in advance regarding resuscitation, initially by patients and later also by (...) clinicians. Under hospital policies in many countries, however, CPR remains the default position for all patients having cardiac arrest in the hospital if there is no DNR order in place, regardless of whether CPR is medically indicated or in the patient's best interests. “Slow Codes” are the delayed or token efforts to provide CPR when clinicians feel CPR is futile or inappropriate. After giving a historical overview of the development and the changing use of CPR, we argue that more attention needs to be given to the cause of slow codes, namely, policies requiring CPR to be performed as the default action while simultaneously lacking implementing interventions such as advance care planning as a routine policy. This is ethically and legally inappropriate, and hospital policies should be modified to allow clinicians to consider whether CPR is appropriate at the time of arrest. Such a change requires a stronger emphasis on early recognition of patients for whom CPR is not in their best interests and to improve hospital emergency planning. (shrink)

It is not unusual for patients or families to disagree with healthcare professionals (HCPs) over best treatment options. Conversation typically results and mutually agreeable choices are implemented. Rarely, but increasingly, patients or families will request, even demand, interventions the treating team believes will be ineffective (they will not achieve the intended goal) or inappropriate (the medical or moral harms clearly outweigh any potential benefits). One's duty as an HCP requires one to refuse such interventions, but resulting patient or family conflict (...) makes such refusals challenging, even traumatic, and HCPs often acquiesce. Some states have legal options that protect HCPs and their respective institutions when they make such unilateral choices, but the process is complex, time‐consuming, and emotionally fraught. In this paper, We describe one especially difficult case, using it as a paradigmatic example of when, and why, a slow code is sometimes, if rarely, justified. We also discuss strategies HCPs can use to reduce the need for this, admittedly problematic, solution. (shrink)

Slow codes—insincere attempts at resuscitation—are widely regarded in medicine and medical ethics as morally impermissible. My goal here is to enrich this special issue on the slow code with an argument for the permissibility of slow codes that is rooted in moral psychology. Specifically, if we take seriously the results from moral psychology, the slow code is not only permissible, it is often the best option. The context of the decision about whether to perform (...) a slow code is analogous to thoroughly investigated moral dilemmas such as the trolley problem. In particular, when the trolley problem is framed as a trilemma, it becomes clear that the decisional context of the slow code is analogous to the famous moral dilemma. Since in the trolley problem the choice analogous to the slow code is the best choice, the slow code may be the best choice when facing patient or family requests for futile CPR. In establishing this claim, I address a range of objections to the slow code. I conclude with an empirically supported explanation of the conventional wisdom. Resistance to the slow code doesn’t sprout from the act’s moral properties, but from moral judgments influenced by factors such as emotion, physical distance, and personal force. (shrink)

Background: Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation is the default procedure during cardio-pulmonary arrest. If a patient does not want cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, then a do not attempt resuscitation order must be documented. Often, this order is not given; even if thought to be appropriate. This situation can lead to a slow code, defined as an ineffective resuscitation, where all resuscitation procedures are not performed or done slowly. Research objectives: To describe the perceptions of nurses working on internal medicine wards of slow (...) codes, including the factors associated with its implementation. Research design: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study. Participants completed a personal characteristics questionnaire and the Perceptions and Factors of Slow Codes questionnaire designed for this study. Participants and research context: The sample was a convenience sample of nurses working on internal medicine wards in two Israeli hospitals. Ethical considerations: The study received ethical approval from both institutions, where data were collected and stored according to institutional policy. Findings: Most reported that resuscitations were conducted according to protocol (n = 90, 76.2%). Some took their time calling the code (n = 22, 18.3%), or waited by the bedside and did not perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (n = 45, 37.5%). Factors most associated with slow codes were poor patient prognosis (mean = 3.52/5, standard deviation = 1.27) and a low chance of patient survival (mean = 3.37/5, standard deviation = 1.21). Two-thirds (n = 76, 66.8%) reported that slow codes were done on their unit and the majority (n = 80, 69%) perceived slow codes as ethical. Discussion: This study confirms that slow codes are part of medical care on internal medicine wards, where most nurses perceive them as an ethical alternative. These perceptions are in contrast to most legal and ethical opinions expressed in the literature. Conclusion: Nurses should be educated about the legal and ethical implications of slow codes, and qualitative and quantitative studies should be conducted that further investigate its implementation. (shrink)

The term slow code refers to an intentional reduction in the pace or intensity of resuscitative efforts during a medical emergency. This can be understood as an intermediate level between full code (full resuscitation efforts) and no code (no resuscitation efforts) and serves as a symbolic gesture when intervention is considered medically futile. While some previous research acknowledges the slow code as an integral part of clinical practice, many ethicists have condemned the practice as (...) dishonest and causing unnecessary pain for the patient. As the public's views on this issue have been largely absent from the discussion to date, two vignette experiments were performed to investigate their perceptions. The findings indicate that laypersons believe that slow codes are commonplace and often prefer them over a no code. While a full code was perceived as the standard approach and rated most ethical and least punishable, the present results do not support the widespread assumption that laypersons generally oppose slow codes, and this finding should inform ethical discussion and clinical practice. (shrink)

Most bioethicists and professional medical societies condemn the practice of ?slow codes.? The American College of Physicians ethics manual states, ?Because it is deceptive, physicians or nurses should not perform half-hearted resuscitation efforts (?slow codes?).? A leading textbook calls slow codes ?dishonest, crass dissimulation, and unethical.? A medical sociologist describes them as ?deplorable, dishonest and inconsistent with established ethical principles.? Nevertheless, we believe that slow codes may be appropriate and ethically defensible in situations in which cardiopulmonary (...) resuscitation (CPR) is likely to be ineffective, the family decision makers understand and accept that death is inevitable, and those family members cannot bring themselves to consent or even assent to a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order. In such cases, we argue, physicians may best serve both the patient and the family by having a carefully ambiguous discussion about end-of-life options and then providing resuscitation efforts that are less vigorous or prolonged than usual. (shrink)

After briefly reviewing the historical development and ethical regulation of resuscitative technologies, this study probes why clinicians engage in the morally problematic practice of show and slow coding and why hospitals tolerate it? Studies conducted in 1995 and 2020 indicate that conscientious clinicians engage in these practices to protect their patients from abusive or futile resuscitation. And hospitals' clinical cultures tolerate these practices to protect conscientious clinicians from censure, dismissal, delicensing, or legal prosecution for withholding or withdrawing abusive or (...) futile resuscitative technologies without prior patient or surrogate consent. Show and slow coding evolved in American clinical cultures in the second half of the 20th century when closed‐chest cardiac massage, defibrillators, ventilators, and other resuscitative technologies raised seemingly novel ethical questions. To address these questions, bioethics commissions, healthcare societies, lawmakers, and a Roman Catholic Pope developed ethics standards requiring clinicians to obtain patient or surrogate consent before withholding or withdrawing resuscitative technologies. They thus conferred on patients an implicit right of resuscitation even if it was abusive and/or futile. Conscientious clinicians circumvented this implicit right by show and slow coding to protect patients from abusive resuscitation. Recognizing clinicians' benign intent, hospitals' clinical cultures tolerate show and slow coding as acts of conscience, akin to civil disobedience. Thus, rescinding ethics standards and laws requiring prior patient/surrogate consent for non‐resuscitation or for cessation of resuscitative technologies decisions should end show/slow coding. Such a reform should also recognize clinicians' right of conscientious refusal to perform CPR. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 27-29, November 2011.

The aim of this study was to ascertain nurses' and doctors' perspectives on the practice of slow codes, which are cardiopulmonary resuscitative efforts that are intentionally performed too slowly for resuscitation to occur. A Heideggerian phenomenological study was conducted in 2005, during which data were gathered in the Republic of Ireland from three nurses and two doctors (via unstructured interviews) and analysed using Colaizzi's reductive procedure. Slow codes do occur in Ireland and are intended as beneficent acts. However, (...) slow codes were identified as pointless and undignified when intrusive measures were employed. There is a need for discussion on the topic of slow codes in Ireland, and for aids to cardiopulmonary resuscitation decision making to be developed, such as advance directives, communication training, clinical guidelines and an explanatory leaflet for patients and families. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 13-14, November 2011.

The ethical permissibility of the “slow code” sparks vigorous debate. However, definitions of the “slow code” that exist in the literature often leave room for interpretation. Thus, those assessing the ethical permissibility of the slow code may not be operating with shared definitions, and definitions may not align with clinicians' understanding and use of the term in clinical practice. To add clarity and nuance to discussions of the “slow code,” this manuscript highlights (...) the salient medical and moral components that distinguish resuscitative practices, resulting in a taxonomy that includes nine distinct entries: the Fake Code, Casual Code, Time‐Limited Code, Family Code, Contained Code, a la Carte Code, Preventive Code, Passive Code, and Accepted Code. We argue that cogent analyses of the ethical implications of the “slow code” must begin with clear, shared understandings of the practices under debate. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 29-30, November 2011.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 22-23, November 2011.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 17-18, November 2011.

Adopting Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's formulations of the rhizome, this article will examine a dynamic that lies between the film Japón's (Carlos Reygadas, 2002) vernacular specificities, European modernist aesthetics and cosmopolitan spectatorship. The article aims to reveal that Japón, along with other contemporary slow films from around the world, has the potential to reify a deterritorialising and reterritorialising encounter that rethinks a Eurocentric genealogical reading of world cinema and challenges a capitalist code of filmmaking.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to introduce the term Slow Tech as a way of describing information and communication technology that is good, clean and fair. These are technologies that are human centred, environmentally sustainable and socially desirable.Design/methodology/approach– The paper's approach is based on a qualitative discourse that justifies the introduction of Slow Tech as a new design paradigm.Findings– The limits of the human body, and the need to take into account human wellbeing, the limits of (...) the planet and stakeholders' interests in decision making, all suggest the need for a new paradigm, Slow Tech, in the design of ICT and ICT systems. Three scenarios are described as case studies.Practical implications– In order to prepare the next generation of researchers and computer professionals, many different actions need to be taken. Universities and colleges need to redesign education programmes for computer scientists and engineers by introducing subjects related to the social and ethical implications of computing, and computer professionals' associations need to introduce a code of ethics or ethical analysis into their members' career development. As a result, future computer professionals who are familiar with the Slow Tech approach will be able to collaborate much more easily across the kind of cross disciplinary teams suited to design human centred, sustainable and desirable technologies.Social implications– Rather than simply focusing on the role of computer professionals, all members of society are called to play a new role in the design of future ICT scenarios. Starting a societal dialogue that involves computer professionals, users, researchers, designers, ICT industrialists, and policy makers is very much needed.Originality/value– The value of this paper is in its call for reflection followed by action. Based on an holistic approach to the design of new ICT systems, the paper advocates a new starting point for systems design: it should be based on a long-term view of the desirability and social importance of technologies, their environmental impact and sustainability, and the fairness and equity of the conditions of workers involved in the computing manufacturing processes. (shrink)

Despite its prevalence today, the practice of purely performative resuscitation (PPR)—paradigmatically, the ‘slow code’—has attracted more critics in bioethics than defenders. The most common criticism of the slow code is that it’s fundamentally deceptive or harmful, while the most common justification offered is that it may benefit the patient’s loved ones, by symbolically honoring the patient or the care team’s relationship with the family. I argue that critics and defenders of the slow code each (...) have a point. Advocates of the slow code are right that not all PPR is wrongly deceptive or harmful to the patient or his family, and that the symbolic aspect of medicine is itself morally significant. But the critics are also correct: slow codes are prima facie wrong. I argue that pursuing a slow code amounts to treating the patient as a tool for others’ benefit—hence, treating him as an object—and that this instrumentalizing quality constitutes one core prima facie wrong of the practice. I also build a case for the idea that the slow code may not always be all-things-considered wrong, specifying certain limited conditions under which acts of PPR might ultimately be permissible. Thus, the symbolic dimension of medical treatment is indeed morally important, both in morally favorable and in morally problematic respects—namely, in its symbolic denial of the patient’s humanity. (shrink)

Live coding is an embodied, sensorial and live technological–human relationship that is recursively iterated through sonic and visual outputs based on what we argue are kinship relations between and through bodies and technology. At the same time, and in a familiar moment of déjà vu for feminist scholars, live coding is most often discussed not in relation to the lived and sensory human–technology kinship, but in terms of fetishised code or software, output and agency. As feminist scholars have long (...) argued, emphasising and fetishising code or software, and celebrating output and agency are normatively masculine, white and Western conceptions of technology that feed into the growing valorisation of accelerationist logic whilst also negating embodied, not to mention other (non-white, Western, masculine) bodies, expertise or histories per se. In this article, we want to redress this by drawing on our empirical material on live coding to focus on human–technology kinship and, in so doing, think about failure, slowness and embodiment and about human–technology relations that are more akin to what Alison Kafer (drawing on the work of Donna Haraway) has termed ‘becoming with’ or ‘making kin’. This, we argue, has the potential to shift the focus from the potentialities of technologies on or through the body, towards the generative capacities of mediation (including failure), which are caught up in lived experiences. The question is not only about how the relations of bodies and technologies are played out in certain circumstances but about what might be played out if we reconceptualise these relations in these terms. (shrink)

Historically nurses have lacked significant input in end-of-life decision-making, despite being an integral part of care. Nurses experience negative feelings and moral conflict when forced to aggressively deliver care to patients at the EOL. As a result, nurses participate in slow codes, described as a limited resuscitation effort with no intended benefit of patient survival. The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the process nurses followed when making decisions about participation in limited resuscitation. Five core categories (...) emerged that describe this theory: (1) recognition of patient and family values at the EOL; (2) stretching time and reluctance in decision-making; (3) harm and suffering caused by the physical components of CPR; (4) nurse’s emotional and moral response to delivering aggressive care, and; (5) choosing limited resuscitation with or without a physician order. Several factors in end-of-life disputes contribute to negative feelings and moral distress driving some nurses to perform slow codes in order to preserve their own moral conflict, while other nurses refrain unless specifically ordered by physicians to provide limited care through tailored orders. (shrink)

In early 2020, in-person data collection dramatically slowed or was completely halted across the world as many labs were forced to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Developmental researchers who assess looking time were forced to re-think their methods of data collection. While a variety of remote or online platforms are available for gathering behavioral data outside of the typical lab setting, few are specifically designed for collecting and processing looking time data in infants and young children. To address these (...) challenges, our lab developed several novel approaches for continuing data collection and coding for a remotely administered audiovisual looking time protocol. First, we detail a comprehensive approach for successfully administering the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol, developed by our lab to assess multisensory attention skills. The MAAP is administered from a distance by using Zoom, Gorilla Experiment Builder, an internet connection, and a home computer. This new data collection approach has the advantage that participants can be tested in their homes. We discuss challenges and successes in implementing our approach for remote testing and data collection during an ongoing longitudinal project. Second, we detail an approach for estimating gaze direction and duration collected remotely from webcam recordings using a post processing toolkit and demonstrate its effectiveness and precision. However, because OpenFace derives gaze estimates without translating them to an external frame of reference, we developed a machine learning approach to overcome this limitation. Thus, third, we trained a ML algorithm [] to classify gaze estimates from OpenFace with respect to areas of interest on the participant's screen. We then demonstrate reliability between this approach and traditional coding approaches. The combination of OpenFace and ML will provide a method to automate the coding of looking time for data collected remotely. Finally, we outline a series of best practices for developmental researchers conducting remote data collection for looking time studies. (shrink)

MicroRNAs are non-coding parts of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, preventing the weakest part of the genetic regulatory networks from being expressed and preventing the appearance of a too many attractors in these networks. They have also a great influence on the chromatin clock, which ensures the updating of the genetic regulatory networks. The post-transcriptional inhibitory activity by the microRNAs, which is partly unspecific, is due firstly to their possibly direct negative action during translation by hybridizing tRNAs, especially those inside the (...) mitochondrion, hence slowing mitochondrial respiration, and secondly to their action on a large number of putative m-RNA targets like those involved in immunetworks; We show that the circuits in the core of the interaction graphs are responsible for the small number of dedicated attractors that correspond to genetically controlled functions, partly due to a general filtering by the microRNAs. We analyze this influence as well as their impact on important functions like the control by the p53 network over the apoptosis/proliferation system and the homeostasis of the energy metabolism. In this last case, we show the role of two kinds of microRNAs, both involved in the control of the mitochondrial genome: (1) nuclear microRNAs, called mitoMirs, inhibiting mitochondrial genes and (2) putative mitochondrial microRNAs inhibiting the tRNAs functioning. (shrink)

Theory change is a slow, tortuous process. Problems associated with how we communicate ideas and how these ideas are received by our peers become catalysts for change in how we ourselves perceive and sanction what the discipline is capable of doing. Some parts of semiotics, and particularly biosemiotics, have come under critical scrutiny because of their heavy commitment to Peircean philosophy, but at the same time, the contributions of Peircean philosophy are almost impossible to discount. The ripples of this (...) situation are quite visible in the emergence of code biology as a post-semiotic research programme. Yet there is a general balance between those who do not put that much stock in Peircean concepts and those who cannot conceive semiotics without these.This paper will ask whether a biosemiotics after Peirce is possible at all in the sense of acknowledging Peirce’s contributions to the field while also taking to heart the criticisms raised by those skeptical of the implications of Peircean semiotics. While the answer is most likely positive, it depends on what background our concept of meaning relies on and how it may bleed into the other areas of semiotics that biosemiotics may claim a stake on. Being able to discuss potential theoretical distinctions across semiotics while also allowing communication between the areas caught in this differentiation will be crucial for the health of the discipline as the gap between theories becomes more profound. (shrink)

Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society--and ethics--change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in this emerging field. (...) Starting with an overview of the issues and relevant ethical theories, the topics flow naturally from the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war to legal and policy questions, including liability and privacy concerns. The contributors then turn to human-robot emotional relationships, examining the ethical implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants. Finally, they explore the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration. Ethics is often slow to catch up with technological developments. This authoritative and accessible volume fills a gap in both scholarly literature and policy discussion, offering an impressive collection of expert analyses of the most crucial topics in this increasingly important field. (shrink)

Modern biology has not yet come to terms with the presence of many organic codes in Nature, despite the fact that we can prove their existence. As a result, it has not yet accepted the idea that the great events of macroevolution were associated with the origin of new organic codes, despite the fact that this is the most parsimonious and logical explanation of those events. This is probably due to the fact that the existence of organic codes in all (...) fundamental processes of life, and in all major transitions in the history of life, has enormous theoretical implications. It requires nothing less than a new theoretical framework, and that kind of change is inevitably slow. There are too many facts to reconsider, too many bits of history to weave together in a new mosaic. But this is what science is about, and the purpose of the present paper is to show that it can be done. More precisely, it is shown that the whole natural history of the brain can be revisited in the light of the organic codes. What is described here is only a bird’s-eye view of brain macroevolution, but it is hoped that the extraordinary potential of the organic codes can nevertheless come through. The paper contains also another message. The organic codes prove that life is based on semiosis, and are in fact the components of organic semiosis, the first and the most diffused form of semiosis on Earth, but not the only one. It will be shown that the evolution of the brain was accompanied by the development of two new types of sign processes. More precisely, it gave origin first to interpretive semiosis, mostly in vertebrates, and then to cultural semiosis, in our species. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an urgent threat to global public health and development. Mitigating this threat requires substantial short-term action on key AMR priorities. While international legal agreements are the strongest mechanism for ensuring collaboration among countries, negotiating new international agreements can be a slow process. In the second article in this special issue, we consider whether harnessing existing international legal agreements offers an opportunity to increase collective action on AMR goals in the short-term. We highlight ten AMR priorities (...) and several strategies for achieving these goals using existing “legal hooks” that draw on elements of international environmental, trade and health laws governing related matters that could be used as they exist or revised to include AMR. We also consider the institutional mandates of international authorities to highlight areas where additional steps could be taken on AMR without constitutional changes. Overall, we identify 37 possible mechanisms to strengthen AMR governance using the International Health Regulations, the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, and the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm conventions. Although we identify many shorter-term opportunities for addressing AMR using existing legal hooks, none of these options are capable of comprehensively addressing all global governance challenges related to AMR, such that they should be pursued simultaneously with longer-term approaches including a dedicated international legal agreement on AMR. (shrink)

This paper presents three cases of research ethics violations in the social sciences and humanities that involved major educational institutions in Vietnam. The violations share two common points: the use of sophistry by the accused perpetrators and their sympathisers, and the relative ease with which they succeeded unpunished. The strategies the violators used to avoid punishment could be summarised as: (i) relying on people not paying enough attention when asked to do something relatively quickly, (ii) asking for the benefit of (...) the doubt, (iii) redefining the meaning of ethics, and (iv) defaming the whistleblowers and showing how fighting ethics violations is too costly, slow and, in the end, worthless. We offer suggestions to improve transparency: investment in translation and education about codes of conduct in Vietnam; investment in research ethics and integrity; the use of open online resources and platforms; and educating Vietnamese researchers about international standards. (shrink)

BackgroundTriggered by a series of controversies and diversifying expectations of editorial practices, several innovative peer review procedures and supporting technologies have been proposed. However, adoption of these new initiatives seems slow. This raises questions about the wider conditions for peer review change and about the considerations that inform decisions to innovate. We set out to study the structure of commercial publishers’ editorial process, to reveal how the benefits of peer review innovations are understood, and to describe the considerations that (...) inform the implementation of innovations.MethodsWe carried out field visits to the editorial office of two large academic publishers housing the editorial staff of several hundreds of journals, to study their editorial process, and interviewed editors not affiliated with large publishers. Field notes were transcribed and analysed using coding software.ResultsAt the publishers we analysed, the decision-making structure seems to show both clear patterns of hierarchy and layering of the different editorial practices. While information about new initiatives circulates widely, their implementation depends on assessment of stakeholder’s wishes, impact on reputation, efficiency and implementation costs, with final decisions left to managers at the top of the internal hierarchy. Main tensions arise between commercial and substantial arguments. The editorial process is closely connected to commercial practices of creating business value, and the very specific terms in which business value is understood, such as reputation considerations and the urge to increase efficiency. Journals independent of large commercial publishers tend to have less hierarchically structured processes, report more flexibility to implement innovations, and to a greater extent decouple commercial and editorial perspectives.ConclusionOur study demonstrates that peer review innovations are partly to be understood in light of commercial considerations related to reputation, efficiency and implementations costs. These arguments extend beyond previously studied topics in publishing economics, including publishers’ choice for business or publication models and reach into the very heart of the editorial and peer review process. (shrink)

This paper explores the epistemic status of models and simulations between theory, on the one hand, and observations, on the other. In particular, I will argue that the interpretation of an essentially invariant astrophysical model structure can change substantially over time. I will illustrate this claim using as an example the first 20 years (1985–2004) of development of the Paris-Durham shock code—a numerical model of slow interstellar shock waves (i.e. a disturbance of the medium that travel faster than (...) the local speed of sound). I will show that the model’s interpretation and, in particular, its underlying representational ideal—the modeler’s (often implicit) goal governing the development and the use of the model—changed notably during this period. Whereas the code was originally used in a purely exploratory fashion, it was later taken to represent and encompass the target phenomenon as completely as possible. It is noteworthy that during this transition the model’s change of epistemic status was never explicitly acknowledged or in any way articulated. However, the impetus for the change can, I claim, be found in the role that observational data came to play in the later publications. (shrink)

A set X of nonnegative integers is computably enumerable (c.e.), also called recursively enumerable (r.e.), if there is a computable method to list its elements. Let ε denote the structure of the computably enumerable sets under inclusion, $\varepsilon = (\{W_e\}_{e\in \omega}, \subseteq)$ . We previously exhibited a first order ε-definable property Q(X) such that Q(X) guarantees that X is not Turing complete (i.e., does not code complete information about c.e. sets). Here we show first that Q(X) implies that X (...) has a certain "slowness" property whereby the elements must enter X slowly (under a certain precise complexity measure of speed of computation) even though X may have high information content. Second we prove that every X with this slowness property is computable in some member of any nontrivial orbit, namely for any noncomputable A ∈ ε there exists B in the orbit of A such that X ≤ T B under relative Turing computability (≤ T ). We produce B using the Δ 0 3 -automorphism method we introduced earlier. (shrink)

Abstract: The following is an outline of an emerging foundation for science that begins to explain living forms and their patterns of movement beyond the sphere of mechanistic interactions. Employing an event ontology based on a convergence of quantum physics and Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy, coupled with the controversial yet promising theory of formative causation, this development will explore possible influences on the outcomes of events beyond any combination of external forces, laws of Nature, and chance. If it turns (...) out there are no such additional influences--beyond mechanistic causes--it is difficult to see how agency or free will could exist. Assuming agency exists, as Whitehead apparently does, while committing to an event ontology in which process is fundamental leads to interesting questions about the natures of any entities that might participate in events. Furthermore, what might the purposes and agendas of such entities be based upon, beyond memory traces or DNA code? This ontological model, recognizing processes as fundamental, leads to a revised cosmology where the trajectory of a series of events may be due to more than rearrangement of material bits according to external forces and where goal-directed, recurring processes and the emergence of mind are not so surprising. Just as special relativity reduces to classical treatment when speeds slow down, this scientific model for a living world reduces to mechanistic materialism whenever conditions are more limited. Though this development is based on a philosophy of process, there are some dissimilarities with respect to Whitehead’s particular version. (shrink)

Contemporary art is increasingly reverting to notions of the index to image the slow changes and catastrophic destructions caused by climate breakdown. Looking at Gideon Mendel’s photo series Watermarks (since 2011), Tomonari Nishikawa’s short film sound of a million insects, light of a thousand stars (2014), and Santiago Sierra’s installation 52 Canvases Exposed to Mexico City’s Air (2019), the essay analyzes three positions that employ analog techniques of direct exposure to the elements and to toxicity. They use the index (...) to create artworks that function as collaborative testimonies of human and non-human witnessing work, prompting a re-reading of Rosalind Krauss’ two-part essay “Notes on the Index” (1977) for the present. Central to such a re-reading is the form the testimonies take on. I describe them as indexical abstractions, seeing in them images that are materially connected to the world yet expressing that involvement in non-mimetic ways. The works cite the idiom of abstract art not only to show that modernism has put the planet into distress but to also find a pictorial code operating beyond the confines of linear perspective. By doing so, they give expression to what Timothy Morton has called the hyperobject of climate change, creating pictures that combine image and imagination, thereby asking viewers to approach them – and the world they index – with care. (shrink)

One of the most influential physics books of the twentieth century was actually about biology. In a series of lectures, Erwin Schrödinger described how he believed that quantum mechanics, or some variant of it, would soon solve the riddle of life. These lectures were published in 1944 under the title What is life? and are credited by some as ushering in the age of molecular biology. In the nineteenth century, many scientists thought they knew the answer to Schrödinger’s rhetorical question. (...) Life, they maintained, was some sort of magic matter. The continued use of the term ‘organic chemistry’ is a hangover from that era. The belief that there is a chemical recipe for life led to the hope that, if only we knew what it was, we could mix up the right stuff in a test tube and make life in the lab. Most research on biogenesis has followed that tradition, by assuming that chemistry was a bridge — and a long one at that — linking matter with life. Elucidating this chemical pathway has been a tantalizing goal, spurred on by the famous Miller–Urey experiment of 1952, in which amino acids were made by sparking electricity through a mixture of water and common gases. But the concept has turned out to be something of a blind alley, and further progress with prebiotic chemical synthesis has been frustratingly slow. The origin of life remains one of the great outstanding mysteries of science. To take up Schrödinger’s suggestion, a radical solution to the problem, ‘What is life?’ could be that quantum mechanics enabled life to emerge directly from the atomic world, without the need for complex intermediate chemistry. Life must have a chemical basis: organic molecules provide the hardware for biology. But what about the software? When Schrödinger asked, ‘What is life?’ he could already glimpse the central significance of the cell’s information storage and replication processes, even though the role of DNA and the genetic code was yet to be discovered.. (shrink)

There are many algorithm texts that provide lots of well-polished code and proofs of correctness. Instead, this book presents insights, notations, and analogies to help the novice describe and think about algorithms like an expert. By looking at both the big picture and easy step-by-step methods for developing algorithms, the author helps students avoid the common pitfalls. He stresses paradigms such as loop invariants and recursion to unify a huge range of algorithms into a few meta-algorithms. Part of the (...) goal is to teach the students to think abstractly. Without getting bogged with formal proofs, the book fosters a deeper understanding of how and why each algorithm works. These insights are presented in a slow and clear manner accessible to second- or third-year students of computer science, preparing them to find their own innovative ways to solve problems. (shrink)

What is there not to like about “openness”? The premise seems to have virtue, particularly in the space of critique of government. From totalitarianism through to oligarchies, it can be argued that it is opacity and secrecy that have contributed to abuses of power for many centuries. In other spaces, the notion has caught hold. In several scientific fields, it appears that a lack of openness can lead to misconduct and in some cases a slowness that may cost lives. In (...) the humanities, we might say that its absence fosters insularity. In computer software production, open-source paradigms have led to remarkable developments such as the Linux kernel and allowed us to see the inner machinations of the code that is.. (shrink)

The Confederated Colville Tribes collaborated with DroneSeed, a forestry drone start-up, to use drones to replant their tribal forest after a devastating fire. Using concepts from Bernard Stiegler to interrogate ethnographic data, this article argues that forestry drones are pharmaka: their biopolitics can be therapeutic, that is, negentropic, capable of reversing ecological simplification. Drone forestry is a type of arborescent governmentality, a tree-based computer-coded attempt to control the growth of a forest. For the Colville, this negentropy is also an act (...) of sovereignty that protects culture and honors multispecies relationships. For DroneSeed, it is an experiment in negentropic geoengineering, an attempt to profitably leverage technologies and biological regeneration to sequester carbon and reduce global existential risk. Ultimately the project was not the success desired; the failure of technoliberal projects that blend ecological and economic liberalism shows that a more radical approach might be necessary to root carbon and slow capitalism. (shrink)

There is no escaping the fact that law shapes identity. Laws tells us who we are and where we stand in society. While sometimes benign, such classification can also be a devastatingly powerful instrument of ostracism and subjugation. Legally enforced racial segregation sent a cold and harsh message about what the dominant society thought it meant to be black. The recent backlash against affirmative action resurrects degrading stereotypes and sends old messages wrapped in new code words about racial identity. (...) “English-only” laws and attempts to restrict public support for immigrants define targeted groups as “outsiders,” people who do not belong in America. The acceptance of anti-sodomy laws brands homosexuals as deviant And the slow, grudging history of legal recognition of sexual harassment, the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, and the persistence of the “reasonable man” standard effaces the distinctive experiences of women in society while subjecting all to measurement against a male norm. (shrink)

The bodies of non-White girls are hyper-visible in humanitarian discourses. This article engages in theoretical reflections around the articulation of Whiteness through the body of the third world girl. I curate and examine an archive of texts and visuals from menstrual hygiene and female genital mutilation (FGM) awareness campaigns to show how the figure of the third world girl is materialised simultaneously as deserving of care/protection and as a contaminant/imperfection. These apparently contradictory registers of legibility are possible due to the (...) reiteration of the non-White female body as ontologically dirty, incomplete and an imperfect representation of full humanity. The third world girl then is the constitutive outside of Whiteness, and her production as such conjoins humanitarian protection codes with penalising political regimes. The latter is reflected by new border patrolling initiatives in the US and UK, launched specifically to identify victims of FGM. Such exercises of state power craft racialised bodies for constant interrogation, prodding and, ultimately, ejection. These bodies then become the loci of benevolent necropower and experience slow social death. (shrink)

The answer is surprising, and what we're about to learn will wake us up to a reality most of us never knew existed.The reason we're so oblivious is because we've all been operating at human speed, relying on our own physical power and our five senses. But there is something extremely important we've all been missing. It holds the key to everything good--the key to life, success, happiness, peace of mind, and understanding beyond our wildest imagination. It's perhaps the best-kept (...) secret in the history of mankind and it packs a staggering, invigorating message that can change your life for the better--improving understanding, eliminating anxiety, and helping to extend your living years indefinitely. All we have to do is open our eyes and ears.We're all inundated with this secret at all times. It's present in our favorite songs and movies, the stories we tell our children, and even in every commercial campaign! The secret is broadcast in famous news stories including the coronavirus pandemic, the sinking of the Titanic, or the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. It's in ordinary life activities such as breathing, sleeping, waking up, traveling, sex, and getting married and changing one's name.Now, bestselling author and award-winning journalist Joe Kovacs reveals the solution--cracking the divine code that shifts our minds from operating at slow, human speed and making the jump to the incredibly quick "God speed."Hundreds of ancient mysteries and prophecies are instantly unsealed as the master key that unlocks the mystery of everything is now in your hands. (shrink)

The c‐myc proto‐oncogene is believed to be involved in the regulation of cell growth and differentiation. Deregulation of this gene, resulting in an inappropriate increase of gene product, can contribute to cancer formation. One of the ways in which the expression of the c‐myc gene can be deregulated is by the stabilization of the labile c‐myc mRNA. The rapid degradation of the c‐myc transcript appears to be mediated by at least two distinct regions in the mRNA. One lies in the (...) 3' untranslated region, and presumably consists of (A+U)‐rich sequences. The other lies in the C‐terminal part of the coding region and colocalizes with sequences encoding protein‐dimerization motifs. The exact mechanism by which the destabilizing elements function is not yet clear. Shortening of the poly(A) tail of the c‐myc message appears to precede degradation of the transcript. When translation is blocked, this shortening is slowed down and the mRNA is stabilized. This suggests that deadenylation is required before degradation of the mRNA body can take place. (shrink)

Cognitive aging researchers have been challenged with demonstrating age-related effects above and beyond global slowing ever since Cerella raised this issue in 1990. As the literature has made clear, this has indeed proved to be a difficult task and continues to plague the field. One way that researchers have attempted to test for disproportionate age differences across task conditions is by using Brinley plots, or plotting the mean response latencies of older adults against the mean latencies for younger adults. The (...) simplicity and large proportion of variance accounted for by these models has led to the widespread use of Brinley plots over the years. However, as systematically tested here through eight cases of simulated data, it is clear that the Brinley technique is not well suited to either identify or display the underlying structure of datasets examining age-related differences in attentional control. Some of the problems with conventional Brinley plots can be resolved by using a modified Brinley plot that includes study-specific slopes linking trial types and a no-age-difference reference line. Multilevel models find all of the relevant effects, especially if applied to trial-level data, and have the advantage of incorporating study-level moderators that might account for slope heterogeneity. Ultimately, we encourage fellow cognitive aging researchers to access the code and data for this project on OSF and employ the use of multilevel models over Brinley plots. (shrink)

Recent developments in criminal legislation of the Republic of Lithuania among other significant novelties include the criminalization of illicit enrichment as criminal offence. Such offence presents new legal instrument for the law enforcement in dealing with individuals who acquire property in doubtful ways. The crime of illicit enrichment is rather a novelty within the context of criminal legislation. Such novelty was largely based upon the requirements of United Nations Convention against Corruption, which stipulates the implementation of such legal measure. According (...) to the article Twenty of the convention, “Subject to its constitution and the fundamental principles of its legal system, each State Party shall consider adopting such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as a criminal offence, when committed intentionally, illicit enrichment, that is, a significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to his or her lawful income”. While the convention was undoubtedly major factor for making grounds for said developments the need to widen the scope of confiscation of property and impound illegally acquired wealth were the driving forces behind the political will to support amendments to the Criminal Code. At same time the new offence of illicit enrichment presents significant challenges for the investigative bodies with the prosecution as well as the courts establishing such offences. First and foremost, the techniques of criminalization and legal wording of the offence are new and do not go well with the established principles of criminalization. Unnatural features of the corpus of the crime listed in the code (article No. 1891 of the Criminal Code of Lithuania) involve criminal act lacking attributes illegitimacy, complications regarding guilt of the accused. In addition, doubts and questions regarding the fundamental principles of criminal procedure, due process concerns, and problems of the balance of the rights of the accused with the right of the society to recover illicitly acquired wealth. The relationship of illicit enrichment to other criminal acts committed by the same accused is also of a great importance in establishing sources of such enrichment. As for the time of submission of present article, one hundred and seven interrogations on the illicit enrichment were on and lasting while only three simplified judgments and one proper court sentence were passed. The reasons for such slow implementation of the law are the ambiguities of the definition of law, as well as limitations of regulations, insufficiencies in asset declaration systems, lack of theoretical background and complete absence of court practice on such cases. Two of the existing convictions are analyzed from the point of view of establishment of guilt, the evidence set in the case, the grounds of adequacy of such convictions. The examples presented give basis to judge the adequacy of the new law an opportunity to predict the future rulings of the courts. Necessity of the improvements of the law becomes quite obvious on the basis of the analysis. Strong criticisms, various scientific suggestions on the improvements of the regulations, namely on the constitution of guilt, wording of the criminal act are presented by the author. (shrink)

New Zealand’s lack, until recently, of a ‘code of patients’ rights’ does not mean that health and disability services consumers have hitherto had no rights. There is already a significant body of professional guidelines, ethical precepts, and common law rules which govern interactions between providers and consumers. Much of the Code is entirely consistent with established codes of ethics and current law. Nonetheless, it represents an important advance in the legal recognition of consumers’ rights. Access to the Commissioner (...) and independent advocates will assuredly empower consumers. The experience of the Human Rights Commission and the Privacy Commissioner suggests that consumers will not be slow to exercise their new-found rights, and that providers will risk public censure, and costly settlements, if they choose to ignore the Code. (shrink)

With the human genome mapped, and with the mapping of more than one hundred animal genomes in progress, the amount of genetic data available is increasing exponentially. This exponential increase in data is having an immediate impact on the process of drug development. By using techniques of information technology to manipulate data regarding the genes, proteins, and biochemical pathways associated with various diseases, scientists are beginning to be able to design drugs in a systematic fashion. In the context of any (...) given disease, scientists look to see whether a gene, a protein for which the gene codes, or another protein in the relevant biochemical pathway could be the “target” biological molecule, the “knocking out” of which would halt or slow the disease's progression. Once a target molecule has been identified and characterized structurally, drug therapies that would be likely to knock out this target can be identified and tested systematically. The merger of information technology and genetic technology has changed the process of pharmaceutical development so much that a new term—bioinformatics—has been coined to describe this new approach to such development. (shrink)

Models of word meaning that exploit patterns of word usage across large text corpora to capture semantic relations, like the topic model and word2vec, condense word-by-context co-occurrence statistics to induce representations that organize words along semantically relevant dimensions (e.g., synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, etc.). However, their reliance on latent representations leaves them vulnerable to interference, makes them slow learners, and commits to a dual-systems account of episodic and semantic memory. We show how it is possible to construct the meaning of (...) words online during retrieval to avoid these limitations. We implement a spreading activation account of word meaning in an associative net, a one-layer highly recurrent network of associations, called a Dynamic-Eigen-Net, that we developed to address the limitations of earlier variants of associative nets when scaling up to deal with unstructured input domains like natural language text. We show that spreading activation using a one-hot coded Dynamic-Eigen-Net outperforms the topic model and reaches similar levels of performance as word2vec when predicting human free associations and word similarity ratings. Latent Semantic Analysis vectors reached similar levels of performance when constructed by applying dimensionality reduction to the Shifted Positive Pointwise Mutual Information but showed poorer predictability for free associations when using an entropy-based normalization. An analysis of the rate at which the Dynamic-Eigen-Net reaches asymptotic performance shows that it learns faster than word2vec. We argue in favor of the Dynamic-Eigen-Net as a fast learner, with a single-store, that is not subject to catastrophic interference. We present it as an alternative to instance models when delegating the induction of latent relationships to process assumptions instead of assumptions about representation. (shrink)

The translation of bedside experience to pedagogical content presents a unique challenge for the field of bioethics. The contributions are multidisciplinary, the practices are heterogeneous, and the work product is characteristically nuanced. While academic bioethics education programs have proliferated, developing content and pedagogy sufficient to teach clinical ethics effectively remains a longstanding challenge. The authors identify three reasons why progress towards this goal has been slow. First, there is a lack of robust, empirical knowledge for education focused on praxis. (...) Second, the methods employed in academic education tend to focus on traditional didactic approaches rather than engendering competency through interaction and practice—the principle means by which clinical ethicists work. Third, the data practitioners have captured has not been presented in a medium educators and students can most meaningfully interact with. In this paper, the authors describe a novel pedagogical tool: the Armstrong Clinical Ethics Coding System (ACECS) and interactive visual analytics dashboard. Together, these components comprise an educational platform that utilizes the empirical data collected by the institution’s ethics service. The tool offers four advantages. First, it aids with the identification of ethical issues that present during a consultation at that specific institution or medical unit by making use of a lingua franca comprehensible to both ethicists and non-ethicists. Second, content is centered on issue frequency, type, and relation to other issues. Iterating through cases, requestors, or hospital units allows one to understand cases typologically and through metanarratives that reveal relationships and subtle patterns. Third, the use of interactive data visualizations and data storytelling aids comprehension and retention. Fourth, the process of using the system necessitates understanding the manifold ways each case can be understood, accommodating a wide range of perspectives and ethical lenses, enhancing case analysis and self-reflection conducive to life-long learning. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 22–28. Jeroen Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene twice. First, in 2005, when he became a strong presence on the nascent Dutch poetry blogosphere overnight as he embarked on his critical project Dichtersalfabet (Poet’s Alphabet). And again in 2011, when to great critical acclaim (and some bafflement) his complete writings were published – almost five years after his far too early death. 2005 was the year in which Dutch poetry blogging exploded. That year saw the foundation (...) of the influential, polemical, and populistically inclined weblog De Contrabas (The Double Bass), which became a strong force for internet poetry in Dutch in the years to follow. In the summer of that year, a lively debate raged in the aftermath of Bas Belleman’s article “ Doet poëzie er nu eindelijk toe ?” (“Does poetry finally matter now?”), on a blog specifically devoted to this question. Up to that point, the poetical debate in the Netherlands had largely been confined to literary reviews (which were often subsidized), having become mostly marginalized in more mainstream media, where poetry could be covered by only a small number of so-called authorities. As a result, literary debate had acquired a rather placid quality. Though a variety of camps with different aesthetics could be discerned, most poetical positions shared a general acceptance of poetry as a form of art somewhat apart from fundamental political concerns. Late modernists would pursue subtlety and density of reference. Others would insist poetry was best understood as a form of entertainment that should ideally be accessible and work well on the stage. Still others would insist that poetry is mostly a play with forms. Linguistically disruptive strategies were valued highly by some, but mostly for their aesthetic effect. Values of disinterested playfulness reigned supreme everywhere. Any idea that poetry could be a field in which one confronts politics and the world was decidedly marginal. This led to a climate in which most attempts at polemics were DOA, often based on far too superficial positioning and analysis. The greatest polemical debates were revolving around the question of whether poetry should be difficult or easy, with both camps defining their ideas of difficulty and accessibility in ways that were so utterly shallow as to make the entire point moot. Debates were performed, rather than engaged with. It was a postmodern hell of underarticulated poetics. Half-consciously, people were yearning for new forms of criticism that could put the oomph back into poetry. Weblogs provided for ways to explore debate directly outside of the clotted older channels of the reviews and the newspapers. Belleman’s essay and the resulting online activity had shown that there was a widespread eagerness to take poetry more seriously as a social art form. It was in this environment that Mettes started his remarkable project Dichtersalfabet . At that moment, Mettes was active mostly in academic circles, having become noted at Leiden University as a particularly gifted student of literary theory. Within the Netherlands, the field of literary theory has a very odd relationship to literature as it is practiced in the country. Academic theory tends to have a mostly international view and engage with international debates of cultural criticism, literary theory, and philosophy, with academics often publishing in English and attending conferences around the world. Literature itself however is much more concerned with domestic traditions. Consequently, in the Netherlands, there exists a language gap between academic theoretical practice (as it is studied in the literary theory departments) and literary practice (which, academically, gets studied in specialized departments of Dutch literature). The Dichtersalfabet can be seen as Mettes’s attempt to close this gap. It is also an attempt to bridge the divide between theory and practice, in which he could apply his theoretical knowledge in a very unorthodox and unacademic critical mode that moreover could reach far beyond the domain of conventional criticism. Mettes’s goal was to trace a diagonal through Dutch poetic culture, to “strangle” what he perceived to be its dominant oppressive traditions of agreeable irrelevance, in order to see whatever might be able to survive his critical assaults. But he could only do so by means of a very serious engagement with poetry itself. To this end, he would go systematically through the poetry bookshelf of the Verwijs bookshop (part of a mainstream chain of booksellers) in The Hague, buying one publication per blog item, starting from A and working his way through the alphabet, reading whatever he might encounter that way in the restaurant of the HEMA store (another big commercial chain in the country). He would subsequently write down his reading experiences, refraining however from trying to write a nuanced book review. Rather, he would write about anything that caught his attention and sparked his critical interest. This way of working would yield vast, at times somewhat rambling, dense, lively, and generally brilliant essays, in which he held no punches. He never hesitated to pull out his entire arsenal of concepts from the international theory traditions, while never degenerating into mere academic exercise and pointless intertextualities. The attempt was rather to live the poetry that he read, and to engage it with the full range of political, academic, cultural, and personal references that he had at his disposal—all that composed the individual named Jeroen Mettes as a reader. Often what he wrote would not be according to the standards of what we usually think of as a critical review of a book of poetry. Sometimes he would even be a little sloppy in his judgments of poets or representations of the books he read, for example by basing an entire essay on the blurb of a book rather than its poetry content. But what he did was always brilliant writing nonetheless—virtuoso riffs on poetic fragments randomly found within capitalist society, exposing an incisive and insistent poetical sensibility. Mettes read poetry for political reasons, to see whether poetry could offer him a way to deal with a political world he detested. The right-wing horrors of the Bush years, the Iraq war, and the turn of Dutch public opinion towards ever more conservative, narrow-minded, and xenophobic views alongside a complete failure of the political left to present any credible alternative, were weighing heavily on the times in which Mettes reported on his reading. Poetry was to measure this world, diagram it, to lay bare its inconsistencies and faults, to indicate where lines of flight might be found. Amid the ruins of a world wrecked by imperialist policies, corporate capitalism, and doctrinal neoliberalism it would have to show the possibility of a new community. And it was, through its rhythmical workings, to release the reading subject from his confinement to ideologically conditioned individuality and lead him into the immanent paradise of reading. The stakes were high. Much higher than anything Dutch poetry had seen for many years. Mettes’s blog was widely read from the start. His posts sparked lively debates. Some of these subsequently led to the publication of extensive essays on a few key poets in some literary journals, particularly Parmentier and the Flemish journal yang , for which Mettes would become a member of the editorial board, a few months after starting the Dichtersalfabet . This could have been the start of a brilliant career, but this was not to be. The initial manic energy that fueled the blog gradually subsided. The Alfabet was updated less and less regularly. Mettes sometimes just disappeared for many weeks, then suddenly returning with a brilliant essay. Until, on September 21, 2006, he posted his final blogpost, consisting of no text whatsoever. That night I learned from his mentor at Leiden University that he had committed suicide. Mettes and I had had some fruitful exchanges on poetry, rhythm, music, and form, mostly on the blogs, but also by email. Three weeks before his death was the last time I heard from him: a very sudden, uncharacteristically curt note saying “My old new sentence epic.” Attached to that message I found a DOC-file of a work so major that I felt intimidated. This was N30 , a text he had been working on for over five years. After his death, it took me a long time before I dared to read it in its entirety. In the meantime, the work of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted by his relatives to his colleagues at yang magazine. It took them a few years to brush up the text and to edit the Dichtersalfabet -blog (which, apart from the Alphabet project itself, incorporated many other fragments of political, polemical, and theoretical writing) into book form along with the essays. The result of this labor was finally published in 2011 as a two-book set, and Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene for the second time. The work was widely reviewed, on blogs, in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many critics who had not followed the blogs in 2005 showed themselves surprised, baffled even, by the intensity of Mettes’s critical writing. But for those who had read the blog, the main surprise was in the poetry. During Mettes’s lifetime, some of his poems had already been published in Parmentier . Although these were strong texts by themselves, in no way did they prepare readers for N30 . Nothing like it had been written in Dutch before. Instead, N30 explicitly follows the American tradition of Language Writing, directly referencing Ron Silliman and his concept of The New Sentence. However, it would seem that much of the poetical thinking around his use of this technique puts him closer to a writer such as Bruce Andrews. For Mettes, using non sequiturs as a unit of poetic construction was not only a way of reinventing formal textual construction, but it was another way of finding the fault lines in the social fabric. From the perspective of the Language tradition, one may put N30 somewhere between Silliman and Andrews. N30 shares an autobiographical element with Silliman’s New Sentence projects, and as in Andrews, there is a concern for mapping out social totality within text—what Mettes refers to as a “textual world civil war.” Again this shows a formal textual strategy for allowing the person “Jeroen Mettes” to be absorbed by the world, which here appears as a whirlwind of demotic and demonic chatter, full of violence, humor, intensity, beauty, disgust, sex, commerce, and strife. Influenced as it may by American precursors, Mettes’s tone and form end up quite different from his American counterparts, consistently referencing a world that is Dutch, all too Dutch, taking on the oppressive orderliness of Dutch society with its endemic penchant for consensus by introducing chaos into its daily life and laying bare its implicit aggressions. The work’s 31 chapters each have a different feel and rhythmical outline, but none of them follow a predetermined pattern. Rather, Mettes would consistently edit and reedit the text, randomly rewriting parts of it, as he explains in his poetical creed Politieke Poëzie (Political Poetry). N30 – referring to the 1999 antiglobalist protest in Seattle – was to be the first text of a trilogy. The work itself was written “in the mode of the present.” A second text was to be written in the mode of the future, and a third one, in the mode of the past, was going to be an epic poem about the Paris Commune, and to form an alternative poetic constitution for the European project. I still deeply regret that Jeroen Mettes never got to complete those projects, just as I would be very keen on knowing what he might have had to say about more recent political developments. Instead, in 2006, he remained stuck in the horrors of the present, that ended up consuming him completely. He left Dutch literature with some of its most piercing criticism and its most profoundly moving, exciting and powerful poetry. Excerpts from N30 Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "N30." In N30+ . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. Chapter 1 1999. A day is a space too. And another man, who had chained himself, had his ribs crushed, and a motor has driven over somebody’s legs. Dutch health care system spends ±145 million guilders per year on worriers. A spiderweb vibrates as I pass by. Randstad renovating. She slaps her bag against her ass: “Hurry up!” OPINION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP Your skin. It doesn’t express anything. “But the use of the sword, that’s what I learned, and you’ll need nothing more for the moment.” Just try to interrogate a guy like that. Gullit in Sierra Leone. Codes silently lying all around. But that’s simply what belongs to “that it’s just allowed”: that sigh of “world” (a word expressing that the trees are now standing along the water like black men with white bags in their hair); that’s nothing else right? And you see how everything has to move, and first of all what cannot do so. Without Elysium and without savings, barbarians lashing out, horny for an enemy, staring across the water, staring into the air—staring to get out of it. “You’ve never showed me more than the mall,” she said. All those “dreams” in the end—and now? It was lying on the stairway, so I picked it up and took it upstairs. Chapter 3 “You know what?” Telecommunication. For love… I don’t really like that cheap cultural pessimism, but… The holy city is on pilgrimage in the earthly bodies of the faithful until the time of the heavenly kingdom has come. The end of an exhausting autumn day behind the computer, my eyes filled with tears of fatigue. KITCHEN / INSTALLATION / SPECIALIST. Network integration. In the sun, stretched out on a sheet. (…) I don’t believe what I’m reading, because I want to believe something else. An illusion? Suits me. There’s a variety of shapes and tastes… “So what?” you may think. 102 dalmatians can’t be wrong. But I want more, dear… A feel good movie. I’m smashing the burned body. So what? We continue to save the European civilization. What’s there to win? Plato with poets = Stalin without gulag? Ball against the crossbar. No wonder. She comes straight to her point. She’s standing in the kitchen eating an apple. (…) The godless Napoleon had used her as a stable and wanted to have her taken down. “Our” Rutger Hauer. Ready or not here I come. Psst… are you also wearing a string? Nobody understands our desire. Cliffs breaking the waves and shattering the sunset. I used to be a real romantic (as a poet). A typical fantasy used to be the one in which I brutally raped mother and daughter Seaver from the sitcom Growing Pains . Nevertheless you only contain bad words. Eyelashes. Automatic or manual? That your skin always in the afternoon. Integration. The air is empty. Too bad! Hand in hand on their lonely way. Alaska! Chapter 12 May 5, 2001 [10:00-10:30] A dust cloud on a hill. Globe. Indian (British) (tie) / pope. Damascus. Rape. We’re carrying the ayatollah’s portrait through the streets. At the moment the girl is mostly suede jacket with white ribbons on her sleeves. A small explosion flares up/impact. Camouflage. Close up. We’re analyzing the situation. He’s dead right? Dead dead. Dead. Everything without, these, and only with the body. Indices signal death. Dollar bills are printed in factories. Holes. Light patch. Globe in a box. Microphone. What’s the situation? Grey impact on a green hill (field?). The water is blue. He has no lips. Interns on the background with skirts that are too long. This is an example of a sonnet. An Islamic woman pushes against the door of an electronics shop. Arrows (percentages (prices)). Is this what awaits the American? Touch screen interface. The word, an island, can only be a sign in that situation. We pull up a chair, join in on the fun. On the shelves only books about computers. One glance in the distance is enough to lighten up a luna park in the distance. She’s really desperate, especially when she laughs. Click. Ah. Next. And now it’s raining, but that’s ok. Yellow stains sliding over the south. Shallow caves light: clothes, boots, electrical equipment. 45. 22:10. Nothing gives you the right to eat more than people starving to death. The Hague. Slam dunk. Traffic light. Two H’s, one L (standing for the L (little prick)). We’re happy to say something. Clouds, small suns, temperatures, cities. The truth is never an excuse. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Green. Yellow. Will you email me? Skeleton: “No.” Ex-nerds in brand-new and brightly red sport cars. $$$. I love. Shihab. Hooves in the sand. Skinny senior with over-sized sunglasses; old jockey (cap, trophy) smiling in slow motion. And there I am again, flashback, crying with my head in between my hands. Sometimes I’ve got the feeling that cannibals. Eyes: blue. Cancer. Why would I wait until tomorrow? Golden beams protruding from the lifted/lit earth. May 5, 2001 [11:30-12:45] You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Graphs, diagrams. Bu$ine$$. Blue shirt, white collar, no neck (porn star). A name lights up. I’m hysteric. Will you join us? Letters falling in their words. Fingers set up a tent and start to dance. Young entrepreneurs from poor neighborhoods (read: black) guided by Microsoft. Kinda makes me happy, that sort of kitsch. A sense of exhaustion/impotence to see anything but the present. (…) Wouldn’t you like to? Orange explosion in an industrial zone. YOU’RE DOING THIS FOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Would you. A familiar face. Clouds and blossom. Sunflowers. Supermodels. Mountainous area in a rectangle: shades of brown, from dark to beige, more green toward the south. Tents and next to them (it’s all a blur) people. Plane. Stadium. Geometrical block of people. No, I ain’t crying. I don’t speak no more. I just want. Quote + photo. (Positive:) screaming crowd. Three-piece suit, seen from the back, before entering the arena. On the back: “Daddy abused me.” Oh, bummer. State of emergency has been declared and everyone has to cooperate. She’s cut her wrists. What we do know (…) is that there’s never been a unique word, an imperative name, nor will there ever be. [Click here for work that suits you.] Barefooted children are watching it (coherent pieces revelation of what’s lying below). Who knows how she’s changed during those two years. “Everything used to be better” + sigh. And here we are. An empty field of parquet. A city lying behind it. Explosion. Blue. A rain drop falling in my coffee. May 5, 2001 [14:30-15:30] A young Arafat on video speaking with raised finger. “I’m calling from my convertible.” Names on walls, victims, numbers… Tourists. Yellow. Yellow. “Your own child! Really, what kind of human are you?” I don’t want to hear it no more. A woman jumping out of the water in a yellow bikini against a background of fireworks and the Cheops pyramid. Thy sorrow shall become good fortune, thy complaints laudation. All planets will float and wander. Wo die Welt zum Bild wird, kommt das System (…) zur Herrschaft. It is something, but is it? May 5, 2001 [18:30-19:00] Iris. Leaves. NASDAQ. Open / and white and. For the one who’s doing nothing, just waiting. (…) NO DEFEAT is made entirely up of defeat -- since / the world it opens is always a place / formerly / unsuspected. October 2002. “Jeroen, I’m leaving for the cemetery, byeeee.” The rise of the middle class. My entire oeuvre is an ode to the. My entire head is a fight against the. God always demands what you cannot sacrifice. You may take that the easy way, but… “The state hasn’t made us, but we make the state” (Hitler). A stork exits the elevator. Skeletons of. Moscow. Helsinki. Palermo. Paris. Chapter 30 Like your paradises: nothing. United Desire, as only remaining superpower. And even though the sea is now calmer and the wind is blowing pleasantly in my face… Heart! Who determines whether a tradition is “alive”? The yellow leaf or the white branch? Mars. This sentence is a typical example. Most Dutch people are happy. No consolation. When I see a girl sitting at a table with a book, a notepad, a pen, a bottle of mineral water, her hand writing in the light—then I consider that one thing. “Presents,” “poetry,” “classics.” We are what we cannot make from ourselves. “Left”: mendicant orders, missionaries. Saint-Just: “A republic is founded on the destruction of its enemies.” She crosses the street with a banana peel between her fingers. (…) We chose our own wardens, torturers, it was us who called all this insanity upon ourselves, we created this nightmare… But “no”? Girl (just like a beach ball) talking rapid Spanish (Portuguese?) in a mobile phone. Do I have a chance now that her boyfriend is getting bold? CLIO, horny bitch. What else do you want? An old woman, between the doors of the C1000, is suddenly unable to go on; her husband stretches out his hand, speaking a few encouraging words. Selection from. Der Führer schenkt den Jüden ein Stadt. How can it reach us if we haven’t been already reached somehow? It doesn’t “speak.” No problem. Each word she uses is a small miracle, as if she doesn’t belong to it, to language, but wanders around with a pocket light looking for the exit; she’s never desperate (maybe a little nervous), lighting up heavy words from the inside. But indeed, we’re free. But the predicate is not an attribute, but an event, and the subject is not a subject, but a shell. That’s why also samurai, knights, and warriors raised the blossom as emblem: they knew how to die. Locked up in a baby carriage with a McDonald’s balloon. Blue helicopter, the blue sky. Whether you want to refer? The point is. How / Motherfucker can I sing a sad song / When I remember Zion? You’ll feel so miserable and worthless that you think: “If only I were dead!,” or: “Just put an end to it!” “So you’re an economist?” Her card—two little birds building a nest, her handwriting shaking—is still on the mantelpiece. Guevara: “No, a communist.” A straw fire, such was our life: rapidly it flared up, rapidly it passed. I’m fleeing, coming from nowhere. (…) Eazy-E drinking coffee with the American president. If I’d scream, would that be an event? Drown it: the cleaner it will rise up from the depths. No! The night, so fast… As if there’s something opened up in that face. Come on, we may not curse life. He shows me his methadone: “If you drink that all at once, you’ll die instantly.” The last one dictates how we should behave to deserve happiness. One shine / above the earth. “I want to go to Bosnia,” I said bluntly. I don’t even know the name of the current mayor. Let’s despise our success! “There is no future; this is the future. Hope is a weakness that we've overcome. We have found happiness!” Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I feel like a bomb about to explode at any moment. Makes a difference for the reconstruction right? The decor moves forward. Daughter of Nereus, you nymphs of the sea, and you Thetis, you should have kept his tired head above the waves! Alas! This sentence has been written wearing a green cap. I receive my orders from the future. A frog jumps into it. Her husband has turned the Intifada, which he follows daily on CCN, into his hobby, “to forget that he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet." Suddenly the sun slides over the crosswalk. Her (his?) foot is playing with the slipper under the table. Is this how I’m writing this book now? I’m not a fellow man. I hate you and I want to hurt you. These are my people. Their screaming doesn’t rise above the constantly wailing sirens which we've learned to ignore. My whole body became warm and suddenly started to tremble. Unfortunate is he who is standing on the threshold of the most beautiful time, but awaits a better one. Arafat’s “removal” is contrary to American interests. Jeep drives into boy. What you can do alone, you should do alone. A food gift from the people of the United States of America. Two seagulls. [...]. (shrink)

In this paper, to solve the problem of slow design of arts and crafts and to improve design efficiency and aesthetics, the existing big data and 3D technology are used to conduct an in-depth analysis of the optimization of the rapid design system of arts and crafts machine salt baking. In the system requirement analysis, the functional modules of this system are identified as nine functional modules such as design terminology management system and external information import function according to (...) the actual usage requirements. In the system design, the overall structure design, database design, and functional module design of the system are comprehensively elaborated, and the key issues such as 3D display and home layout generation algorithm based on reinforcement learning are analyzed and designed. In the implementation part of the system, the overall construction of the system and the composition of functional modules are introduced in detail and the main functional modules of the system are presented with interface diagrams. In the system implementation part, the overall system construction and functional module composition are introduced in detail, the main functional modules of the system are shown with interface diagrams, codes, and algorithms, and the specific implementation process of 3D display and soft layout algorithms are also explained in detail. The process of Surface Mount Technology big data processing and analysis is designed, and the design of SMT production line data collection scheme and real-time data processing architecture is completed. Based on the characteristics of SMT production line data, the K-means algorithm is used to detect data outliers and verify the accuracy of the method; also, the Spark-based association rule printing parameter recommendation model is designed, and the efficiency of the Apriori algorithm is significantly improved by parallelization. (shrink)

The ethics research community has all but ignored issues of oversight ethics – the vices and virtues of overseers. This study develops a conceptual framework for exploring the ethics of oversight and provides insights into the design of codes of ethics for oversight institutions and for overseers. Analysis of business licensing in Israel reveals prospective and retrospective oversight ethics problems at the levels of national and local policy and implementation: Overseers failed to act on knowledge of breaches of business licensing (...) stipulations and took action known to be slow and ineffective; policymakers neglected their duty to enact significant policy change in an oversight system that was clearly not working. Partially as a result of these oversight failures, over one third of Israeli businesses are unlicensed, 23 people were killed in the collapse of an unlicensed banquet hall, 2 major fires erupted in the same shopping mall, and a fire in a fertilizer warehouse very nearly became a mega-disaster. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References.