Their Own Devices: Steampunk Airships as Heterotopias of Crisis and Deviance

Michel Foucault uses a sailing vessel as the exemplar of his theory of heterotopia because of its mobility. The lateral and vertical mobility of the steampunk airship indicates the potential for an even greater exemplar of heterotopia, particularly of Foucault’s defining principles of heterotopic crisis and deviance. These principles are explored onboard the steampunk airships of Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy and Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series, resulting in travel towards progressive social frontiers of gender and race. The protagonists of the Leviathan trilogy move from a position of crisis to deviance, as mediated through the friendship and romance of two representatives of warring factions. In contrast, the heroine of the Finishing School series moves from deviance to crisis as she navigates the vagaries of gender and racial identity. These airship heterotopias of young adult fiction, which not only descend geographically but also socially, cross liminal crisis spaces of class, race, gender, and identity to craft literary cartographies for these social frontiers, providing readers with literary maps for their uncertain real worlds of crisis.

Glam “Heroines”. Gaps in Glam Historicisation from Black Self-Feminised Musicians to the Herstory of Glam Rock

The narration of glam music, especially glam rock, as queer is countered by a canonisation of male white icons in pop musicology, which is illuminated and expanded in this article. Early glam performances by self-feminised Black musicians (Ward 1998) as well as the music making of female agents of glam rock are at the center of this exploration. Firstly, an outline of the current gender and race specific remembrance of glam rock is given. Secondly, the “glamorous” origins of glam music are questioned with Ward; musical canon of glam is also re-arranged regarding the category of gender by adding the basic biographies of two further female heroines, Bobbie McGee and Cherrie Vangelder-Smith. They are present in digital (DIY) media within practices of affective archiving (Baker 2015), which enable lyrics interpretation in this paper.

Designing the careful and kind clinic: an evidence-based approach

BackgroundThere is evidence that creating a ‘healthy workplace’ can be of profound importance for clinicians, team members and patients. Yet there have been few papers that have proposed mechanisms to take decades of research and translate this into a practical list of options for leaders and managers to take into account when structuring a clinic based on care and kindness to achieve optimal health.EvidenceWe bring together 20 years of scholarship linking care of the caregivers with outcomes for caregivers and patients. The data are used to support both structures and cultures that will result in satisfied and thriving healthcare team members, as well as satisfied and healthy patients.ResultsThe clinic based on care of the caregivers will be structured to address key aspects of worklife that are known to cause either satisfaction or burnout. Aspects of care, such as time pressure, chaotic environments and worker control of their workplace, will be taken into account in clinical design; organisational culture will be supportive and cohesive, emphasising quality, values and communication. Experiences based on gender and race will be measured and continuously improved; and performance will be evaluated in a new, human-centred manner.OutcomesThe careful and kind clinic will be a remarkable place to work; in contrast to industrialised healthcare, this will be an environment where health can indeed be optimised, for both workers and patients.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Spike in Georgia: An Epidemiologic Study of Data, Modelling, and Policy Implications to Understand the Gender-and Race-Specific Variations

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to investigate the gender-and race-specific predictive variations in COVID-19 cases and deaths in Georgia, USA.MethodsThe data were extracted from the Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH). Statistical methods, such as descriptive statistics, Artificial neural networks (ANN), and Bayesian approach, were utilized to analyze the data.ResultsMore Whites died from COVID-19 than African-Americans/Blacks in Cobb, Hall, Gwinnett, and non-Georgia residents; however, more Blacks died in Dekalb and Fulton counties. The highest posterior mean for female deaths was obtained in Gwinnett County (77.17; 95% CI, 74.23–80.07) and for male deaths in Fulton County (73.48; 95% CI, 72.18–74.49). For overall race/ethnicity, Whites had the highest posterior mean for deaths (183.18; 95% CI, 128.29–238.27) compared with Blacks (162.48; 95% CI, 127.15– 197.42). Assessing the classification of the chronic medical conditions using ANN, Cobb and Hall Counties showed the highest mean AUC-ROC of the models (78% and 79%, respectively).ConclusionsThe predictive models of COVID-19 transmission will help public health practitioners and researchers to better understand the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study findings are generalizable to populations with geographic and racial/ethnic similarities and may be used to determine gender/race-specific future virus models for effective interventions or policy modifications.Human SubjectsNo personal identifiable information was obtained.

The Inward Turn and the Future of Tort Theory

The future of tort theory cannot be sensibly imagined without understanding its past. Our aim is to understand where tort theory has been in order to predict where it may go. We contend that tort theory has experienced two different eras, and that it may well be about to enter a third. In the first era, spanning roughly the first three-quarters of the twentieth century, tort theory faced outward to the world, focusing on issues affecting redress for civil injuries that were being decided in the courts and emerging in American society at large. In the second era, roughly the last 30 to 40 years, tort theory turned inward and focused mostly on itself. The tort theory that has been done during this second era, valuable though it has been, may well have borne most of its scholarly fruit. We may therefore be ready to move into a third era, in which tort theory turns outward again and becomes occupied with the cutting-edge issues of tort law policy and principle that will be generated as the twenty-first century progresses. This Essay chronicles the first era, in which tort theory faced outward, the second era, in which tort theory turned inward, and identifies three issues that we believe may be on the tort theory agenda, when and if tort theory turns outward again. These involve the coordination and systematization of tort with other sources of regulation and compensation; redressing data theft and digital invasions of privacy; and heightened sensitivity to harm associated with sex, gender, and race-related misconduct.

Health Literacy and Health Conditions at the Intersections of Gender and Race in Later Life

The benefits of health literacy are well-documented. Health literacy is a set of skills to locate, understand, and use health-related information to make optimal health decisions. However, relatively less is known about the long-term relationship between health literacy and overall health conditions among older adults. Additionally, health literacy and health at the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity, rather than gender and race separately, are yet to be investigated. This study analyzed sub-samples (n = 1,260 adults age 50+) of the 2010 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) health literacy module data, and the 2012, 2014, and 2016 HRS data to examine the trajectories of health based on eight physical and mental conditions (0-8 points: better-worse) among older adults. Latent growth curve mixture models were used to investigate the changes in health and six groups defined by gender (women and men) and race/ethnicity (White, Black, and Hispanic). Results showed that overall health deteriorated over time (latent-slope = 0.19, p < 0.001) but the trajectories were diverse (latent-slope variance = 0.06, p < 0.001). Greater health literacy (0-5 points: worse-best scaling), which was measured with a validated scale, was associated with better overall health only among White women and men. Notably, White women received the baseline health benefits (b = -0.20, p < 0.05) from health literacy whereas Black women (b = 0.09, p > 0.05) did not [Δb = 0.09 -(-0.20) = 0.29, p < 0.05]. Other detailed comparisons, theoretical explanations, and public health policy implications for diverse older populations were evaluated.