Eating to become ‘good’ citizens: exploring the visceral biopolitics of eating in Singapore

This paper develops a more-than-representational approach to consumer agency in food biopolitics that is sensitive to people’s everyday eating experiences. In recent years, studies of food biopolitics have engaged with questions of agency by examining how socially constructed ideas of ‘good’ eating and citizenship are engaged on the ground. Yet, there remain opportunities to depart from the evaluative mind as a dominant site of ethical self-formation, and engage with the body as a site of political action and agency. In this paper, I argue that people’s sense of citizen selves has long been, and continue to be, organised across the interplay of material, discursive, and visceral spaces of eating. I develop this argument by drawing on a critical analysis of historical and contemporary news forums related to public eating in Singapore. For many consumers, their disdain for certain food—ranging from the erstwhile state-vaunted meal plans to leftover food on public dining tables—express an embodied agency in negotiating the technocratic designs of citizenship. In developing a visceral biopolitics of eating, this paper aims to expand understandings of consumers’ capacity in negotiating the ethical tensions between hegemonic imaginings of ‘good’ citizens and the everyday pleasures of eating. Approaching consumer agency this way orientates critical yet oft-overlooked attention to the body’s capacity to act, and possibly effect change, within the broader workings of dietary bio-power.

The Touch of Intelligence

I have yet to be persuaded that what arts therapists are doing with their clients either actually counts as art—rather than an applied form of occupational therapy—or seems likely to have any long-term effect on easing their suffering, other than by distraction and temporary companionship. I don’t for a moment doubt the relevance of the arts, properly so called, for individual and collective wellbeing—one of the aims of this paper is to spell out what that might mean—butan art practice structured around the conventions of psychoanalysis seems to me entirely mistaken because, as a basis of legitimacy, it favours rationality and modelling over feeling and making good things.Rational, analytical ways of knowing are a direct contradiction to the intuitive and imaginative procedures of art, where touch rather than talk does all the work. The arts offer to effect change in the patient from within rather than from without, via empathetic attunement between the therapist and the patient rather by than argument and persuasion on the one hand or compliance on the other.

Training Kuwaiti Teachers to Lead: A Case Study of Competitive Debate at the Basic Education College

This paper presents a case study of a competitive debate program designed for teachers-in-training at the Basic Education College in Kuwait. Stakeholders at different levels have expressed an interest in introducing more constructivist-based pedagogies into the Kuwaiti national education system, but institutional and ideological challenges have hindered implementation. Teachers at the college designed and implemented a debate program based on constructivist principles of authenticity, student meaning-making, collaboration, and high performance expectations. Survey data suggest that participants experienced debate as a transformative experience, changing their perception of themselves, of the world, and of their ability to effect change in it. Participants came to imagine themselves as future system leaders preparing future generations with higher-order skills involving complex solving, which an increasingly complex social reality demanded. From 2015 to 2018, a group of professors formed debate teams at the Kuwait University National English Debate League. This endeavour formed the empirical research presented here as evidence to support a move from instructivist teaching to constructivist learning for future teachers in Kuwait.

Mechanical Cues: Bidirectional Reciprocity in the Extracellular Matrix Drives Mechano-Signalling in Articular Cartilage

The composition and organisation of the extracellular matrix (ECM), particularly the pericellular matrix (PCM), in articular cartilage is critical to its biomechanical functionality; the presence of proteoglycans such as aggrecan, entrapped within a type II collagen fibrillar network, confers mechanical resilience underweight-bearing. Furthermore, components of the PCM including type VI collagen, perlecan, small leucine-rich proteoglycans—decorin and biglycan—and fibronectin facilitate the transduction of both biomechanical and biochemical signals to the residing chondrocytes, thereby regulating the process of mechanotransduction in cartilage. In this review, we summarise the literature reporting on the bidirectional reciprocity of the ECM in chondrocyte mechano-signalling and articular cartilage homeostasis. Specifically, we discuss studies that have characterised the response of articular cartilage to mechanical perturbations in the local tissue environment and how the magnitude or type of loading applied elicits cellular behaviours to effect change. In vivo, including transgenic approaches, and in vitro studies have illustrated how physiological loading maintains a homeostatic balance of anabolic and catabolic activities, involving the direct engagement of many PCM molecules in orchestrating this slow but consistent turnover of the cartilage matrix. Furthermore, we document studies characterising how abnormal, non-physiological loading including excessive loading or joint trauma negatively impacts matrix molecule biosynthesis and/or organisation, affecting PCM mechanical properties and reducing the tissue’s ability to withstand load. We present compelling evidence showing that reciprocal engagement of the cells with this altered ECM environment can thus impact tissue homeostasis and, if sustained, can result in cartilage degradation and onset of osteoarthritis pathology. Enhanced dysregulation of PCM/ECM turnover is partially driven by mechanically mediated proteolytic degradation of cartilage ECM components. This generates bioactive breakdown fragments such as fibronectin, biglycan and lumican fragments, which can subsequently activate or inhibit additional signalling pathways including those involved in inflammation. Finally, we discuss how bidirectionality within the ECM is critically important in enabling the chondrocytes to synthesise and release PCM/ECM molecules, growth factors, pro-inflammatory cytokines and proteolytic enzymes, under a specified load, to influence PCM/ECM composition and mechanical properties in cartilage health and disease.

In Situ Team-Based Simulation Training to Close the Loop on Event Reporting

Reporting adverse events is often stigmatized in medicine. Adverse events are underreported. Underreporting has been linked to fear, the time required to complete a report, and a belief that reporting may not result in improvement.1 The reluctance to report is multidimensional and may relate to guilt, fear of punishment of self or others, fear of embarrassment, fear of litigation, and lack of confidence to effect change. Central to this fear is the widely held belief that errors and adverse events are due to carelessness and that blame must be assigned—often to the provider “at fault” or at the sharp end of the process. However, reporting of events offers an invaluable opportunity to identify latent systems issues and review and redesign error-trapping procedures and workflows. Without measurement, it is challenging to leverage adverse events as catalysts for targeted process improvement. Mandated reporting at the state and national levels is an influential catalyst to enhance data collection of adverse events. Aggregated data across varied practice settings are powerful. Mandated reporting alleviates some of the fear associated with reporting and increases reporting volume and relevance.

Counter-hegemonic leadership for democratic alter-politics in our times

This article sets out to grapple with strategic challenges facing democratic alter-politics in our times, dwelling on the question of leadership to explore ways of overcoming the frailties and risks that beset grassroots collective agency for democratic renewal. Discussion begins thus by fleshing out the notion of contemporary democratic alter-politics which breaks both with top-down statist rule and conventional activism, fostering openness, diversity, assembly-based democracy, attention to process, egalitarianism, prefiguration, work in everyday life along with mass mobilization, and engagement with institutions to effect change. In a second step, the argument brings out the strategic limitations of this alter-politics by engaging with relevant theories and reflections on strategy. The following key part of the article sketches the outlines of a strategy of counter-hegemony that could tackle some of these limitations by reconfiguring democratic leadership. Drawing on recent social movements and organizational studies, critical analysis will seek to indicate how the pursuit of effective leadership can be aligned with the alter-politics of egalitarian collective self-direction to boost and expand it in the political circumstances of the present. The nub of the argument is that ‘another leadership’ that is assembly-based, technopolitical, reflective, distributed, ‘servant’, and feminized can further democratic alter-politics.

A Systematic Approach to Identifying and Developing Implementation Strategies to Support the Uptake of a Risk Tool to Aid in Clinical Management of Patients with Syncope: A Qualitative Study

Background: The Canadian Syncope Risk Score (CSRS) is a validated risk stratification tool developed to optimize the accuracy of emergency department decisions and inform evidence-based clinical actions. While preliminary work has been undertaken to understand the barriers to CSRS use, no work to date has explored how to implement the CSRS to overcome these barriers in practice. This study aimed to identify which implementation strategies are most appropriate to address these barriers and how they should be implemented to mitigate the possibility of poor uptake. Methods: We conducted a series of three iterative online user-centered design workshops with emergency medicine physicians from three hospital sites in Ontario, Canada. The objective of the workshops was to engage participants in identifying acceptable strategies to promote CSRS uptake and how they should be operationalized. To support this, we systematically mapped previously identified barriers to corresponding behaviour change techniques to identify the most likely strategies to effect change. The sessions were audio-recorded and dialogue relating directly to the study objective were transcribed. We performed a qualitative content data analysis according to pre-defined objectives for each workshop. Results: Fourteen physicians participated across the three workshops. The main implementation strategies identified to overcome identified barriers were: education in the format of meetings, videos, journal clubs, and posters (uncertainty around when and how to apply the CSRS); an online calculator and integration of the CSRS into electronic medical record (uncertainty in how to apply the CSRS), local champion (lack of team buy-in); and dissemination of evidence summaries and feedback through email communications (lack of evidence about impact). Conclusions: The ability of the CSRS to effectively improve patient safety and syncope management relies on broad buy-in and uptake across physicians. To ensure the CSRS is well-positioned for impact, a comprehensive suite of implementation strategies was identified to address known barriers. This next phase of work will provide insight into whether these strategies facilitated better alignment with barriers, higher physician engagement with the implementation strategies, and broader uptake of the CSRS, with the objective of improving the likelihood that the CSRS will positively influence patient outcomes.

Implications of the Marginalisation of Social Sciences in the Fight against the Covid 19 Pandemic: A Humanities Perspective

In the history of pandemics that plagued humanity, COVID-19 represents a catastrophic global health crisis. The pandemic has placed a huge burden on health care systems around the globe. Due to its easy transmission from one individual to the other, COVID-19 prevention require large scale behaviour change. Through the recommendations of the WHO, governments across the world have enacted policies of social distancing, national lockdown, wearing face mask, release of inmates from prisons, temporary citizenship to migrants and refugees. In fostering the contingent measures to manage the pandemic between March and December 2020, most governments have consulted epidemiologists, public health experts, virologists among other pure sciences disciplines. However, notably absent, or poorly represented were the insights from social and behavioural scientists. The researchers argue that the absence or marginalisation of social sciences in the battle against the pandemic creates a myriad of gaps among the mechanisms crafted to manage the pandemic. The aim of this paper is to provide the entry points of social scientists in the fight against the pandemic. Through the use of insights of sociology and social work disciplines, the researchers noted that social scientists are involved in behaviour modification, compacting fear and anxiety, promotion of human rights, psychosocial support to vulnerable populations; and understanding the pandemic in the scope of globalisation. In terms of recommendations, we suggest that social workers and sociologists need to depend on the repertoire of their disciplines in order to effect change in different communities during the pandemic and its aftermath.

The AI ethicist’s dilemma: fighting Big Tech by supporting Big Tech

Assume that a researcher uncovers a major problem with how social media are currently used. What sort of challenges arise when they must subsequently decide whether or not to use social media to create awareness about this problem? This situation routinely occurs as ethicists navigate choices regarding how to effect change and potentially remedy the problems they uncover. In this article, challenges related to new technologies and what is often referred to as ‘Big Tech’ are emphasized. We present what we refer to as the AI ethicist’s dilemma, which emerges when an AI ethicist has to consider how their own success in communicating an identified problem is associated with a high risk of decreasing the chances of successfully remedying the problem. We examine how the ethicist can resolve the dilemma and arrive at ethically sound paths of action through combining three ethical theories: virtue ethics, deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics. The article concludes that attempting to change the world of Big Tech only using the technologies and tools they provide will at times prove to be counter-productive, and that political and other more disruptive avenues of action should also be seriously considered by ethicists who want to effect long-term change. Both strategies have advantages and disadvantages, and a combination might be desirable to achieve these advantages and mitigate some of the disadvantages discussed.

Cultural Magnitude: Interactive visual mapping - A hybrid network for indigenous data

<p>This research has been undertaken in response to the limitations of standard mapping techniques, in particular, those that use ESRI-based technology and delivery. The work argues that our ability to understand the complex nature of indigenous ontologies and spatial models are affected by the available tools and their ontological frameworks. It sets out to visualise, in a tool, traditionally non-physical, but inherently spatial, data and information. The map, in a traditional sense, now becomes a fluid, open, self-referential virtual topography or ‘space’, challenging the rational top-down fixity of western cartographic representation. As an architectural thesis, it seeks to create holistically structured space as a virtual edifice and is concerned with that which is not represented and concludes that the most important aspect of creating a mapping framework for an indigenous ontology is to understand the inseparable relationship between people, knowledge and land. The research describes a tool designed and built by the author that contributes to cultural and spiritual health (whai ora) and wellbeing of Māori. Through its ontological framework, it aims to provide an alternate map that enables users to navigate and share cultural knowledge. The central concept is to ‘re-connect’, in particular, urban and disenfranchised Māori, through the creation of a virtual space that can be customised and inhabited in various ways by its users. It questions and challenges what is included and what is excluded, what can be represented, asking where might culture have a ‘place’? How might people and their environments effect change in themselves? In others? Cultural Magnitude is the exploration of the development of a tool that acts as a digital representation and storage place of whakapapa and taonga, and as a cultural resource for Māori to understand their spiritual bounds to physical locations - a tangible foundation for a digital marae.</p>