Constant consensus building: art and conflict in the ESMA museum and site of memory

This article describes the history, development and social role of the ESMA Museum and Site of Memory, which is located on the grounds of the former clandestine centre for detention, torture and extermination, in the intergenerational transmission of traumatic memories of the Argentinian dictatorship. The project is characterised by the cumulative effort of artistic expression, public debate, conflict and tension. Through the presentation of different artistic installations and plays, the article explains the focal function of art practices in spaces of memory that are strongly linked to a traumatic past, as well as how undertaking these practices can lead to the establishment of consensus.

Referral writing: Consensus building on a tool for writing structured referrals

Competency in referral writing skill is needed by doctors for which they are never trained. Although there is a lot of work done about improvement of consultation letters still priority is not given. There must be a course for teaching and learning medical referral writing skills to students along with the assessment. Currently there is such tool to assess the way communication letter are written. An 18-point assessment scale has been developed through Delphi technique to increase the quality of referral letters. The objective of the present study was to design a structured Performa for writing referrals, validated by 7 participants using Delphi. Results were finalised after the acceptance of structured referral by selected participants through Delphi. The response rate was 70%. The validity and interrater reliability were calculated using SPSS25. The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.7 and Kappa was 0.3. Both were statistically significant. The designed Performa for writing referrals, with its inter-rater reliability calculated, is best for writing effective and structured referrals. The study further recommending training junior doctors in making proper referrals. MeSH Words: Referral and consultation, improving quality and referral, Checklists and referrals and consultation.

Dual UMIs and Dual Barcodes With Minimal PCR Amplification Removes Artifacts and Acquires Accurate Antibody Repertoire

Antibody repertoire sequencing (Rep-seq) has been widely used to reveal repertoire dynamics and to interrogate antibodies of interest at single nucleotide-level resolution. However, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification introduces extensive artifacts including chimeras and nucleotide errors, leading to false discovery of antibodies and incorrect assessment of somatic hypermutations (SHMs) which subsequently mislead downstream investigations. Here, a novel approach named DUMPArts, which improves the accuracy of antibody repertoires by labeling each sample with dual barcodes and each molecule with dual unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) via minimal PCR amplification to remove artifacts, is developed. Tested by ultra-deep Rep-seq data, DUMPArts removed inter-sample chimeras, which cause artifactual shared clones and constitute approximately 15% of reads in the library, as well as intra-sample chimeras with erroneous SHMs and constituting approximately 20% of the reads, and corrected base errors and amplification biases by consensus building. The removal of these artifacts will provide an accurate assessment of antibody repertoires and benefit related studies, especially mAb discovery and antibody-guided vaccine design.

Colombian economy to moderate after impressive rebound

Significance The OECD similarly raised its forecast for Colombia this month to 9.5%, from 7.6% previously. The optimism follows impressive growth of 17.6% and 13.2% year-on-year in the second and third quarters, according to national statistics agency DANE, as the economy emerges from the paralysis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Impacts The banking sector has proven resilient during the pandemic; solvency risks will remain low and no recapitalisation needs are expected. Additional social, health and education spending will be needed to reverse a sharp increase in the poverty rate, now 43%. Security problems will continue to threaten Colombia’s social and economic development. Congress will remain fragmented after the March legislative elections, making consensus-building crucial to the passing of legislation.

How can clinicians choose between conflicting and discordant systematic reviews? A replication study of the Jadad algorithm

Introduction: The exponential growth of published SRs (SRs) presents challenges for clinicians seeking to answer clinical questions. In 1997, an algorithm was created by Jadad et al. to choose the best SR across multiple but similar SRs with conflicting results. Our study aims to replicate assessments done by authors using the Jadad algorithm to determine: (i) if we chose the same SR as the authors; and (ii) if we would reach the same results.Methods and Analysis: We searched MEDLINE, Epistemonikos, and Cochrane Database of SRs. We included any study using the Jadad algorithm. We used consensus building strategies to operationalise the algorithm and to ensure a consistent approach to interpretation.Results: We identified 21 studies that used the Jadad algorithm to choose one or more SRs. In 62% (13/21) of cases, we were unable to replicate the Jadad assessment and ultimately chose a different SR than the authors. Overall, 18 out of the 21 (86%) independent Jadad assessments agreed in direction of the findings despite 13 having chosen a different SR.Conclusions: Our results suggest that the Jadad algorithm is not reproducible between users as there are no prescriptive instructions about how to operationalise the algorithm. In the absence of a validated algorithm, we recommend that healthcare providers, policy makers, patients and researchers address conflicts between review findings by choosing the SR(s) with meta-analysis of RCTs that most closely resemble their clinical, public health, or policy question, are the most recent, comprehensive (i.e. in terms of number of included RCTs), and at the lowest risk of bias.

Exploring the Possible Contributions of the African Palaver towards a Participatory Synodal Church

This essay argues for a participatory synodal Church and the possible contributions of the African palaver as a model for participatory dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church. The African palaver is the art of conversation, dialogue, and consensus-building in traditional society that can be appropriated in the current search for a more inclusive and expansive participatory dialogue at all levels of the life of the Church. I will develop this essay first by briefly exploring some theological developments on synodality between the Second Vatican Council and Pope Francis and some of the contributions of the reforms of Pope Francis to synodality in the Church. Secondly, I will identify how the African palaver functions through examples taken from two African ethnic groups. I will proceed to show how the African palaver could enter into dialogue with other new approaches to participatory dialogue for a synodal Church.

The Democratic Legitimacy of Secession and the Demos Problem

The normative literature on secession has widely addressed the question of under which conditions the secession of a particular territory from a larger state might be regarded as justifiable. The idea of a normative justification of secession, however, remains ambiguous unless one distinguishes between the justice of secession and its legitimacy, a distinction that is now widely accepted in political philosophy. Much of the literature seems to have focused on the question about justice, while, in comparison, very little attention has been paid to the question of under which conditions secession can be regarded as democratically legitimate, as something explicitly different to the question of justice. This article addresses this second question. After some preliminary remarks, the article focuses on the main obstacle to develop a theory of democratic legitimacy of secessions, the so-called “demos problem.” Such problem, it is argued, has no categorical solution. This does not imply, however, that there is no democratic, legitimate way of redrawing our borders. Two strategies are proposed in this article to overcome the difficulty posed by the demos problem: an ideal strategy of consensus building and a non-ideal strategy of decision-making in the circumstances of disagreement.