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And the World Watches On: The Inadequate Response to the Unfolding Crisis in Myanmar and Where to Go From Here
No full textIn February of 2021, Myanmar’s burgeoning democracy was stifled when a military junta staged a coup and ousted the then recently elected government. Since the coup, the military junta has engaged in a campaign of terror that has resulted in displacement, famine, the loss of political freedoms, and near total disenfranchisement of the Rohingya people. These crises have been compounded by natural disasters that regularly plague the country, resulting in a dire situation for the citizens of Myanmar. With little hope for domestic remedies, the international community must intervene to stop the worsening humanitarian crises. This Article explores possible approaches rooted in international law to combat the situation in Myanmar. It explores solutions based on human rights treaties, the obligations the international community has under the Right to Protect, the need for increased humanitarian aid access, and the possibility of an ASEAN intervention. While the way forward may not yet be clear, one thing is certain: when it comes to Myanmar, the international community must act now
Confronting Intellectual Property Nationalism
No full textStories about nations engaging in vaccine (and medical) nationalism by hoarding limited COVID-19 vaccines and treatments are widespread, but there is a hidden phenomenon that has exacerbated vaccine nationalism and prolonged the pandemic: intellectual property nationalism or “IP nationalism.” This Article coins and explains this term and highlights its negative impacts. Essentially, some nations, primarily of the Global North, are hoarding essential knowledge protected by intellectual property (IP). This Article argues that IP nationalism has contributed to millions of unnecessary deaths and limited the growth of the global economy. Meanwhile, countries and pharmaceutical companies obscure the role of IP nationalism by highlighting red herrings as the alleged main barriers to vaccine access. This Article advocates that countries jettison IP nationalism in favor of a polar-opposite framework—a “global public goods” approach, where IP on essential medical treatments is freely available to all. The global public goods approach goes beyond the (original) waiver of international IP obligations proposed by India and South Africa that simply removes liability. Instead, a global public goods approach would involve actively sharing knowledge on COVID-19 treatments. In most instances, the proposed waiver alone would not facilitate creation of COVID-19 vaccines by new manufacturers. Especially for effective mRNA vaccines, manufacturing involves trade secret processes that are, by definition, secret; a waiver of liability for stealing trade secrets does not grant other companies access to trade secrets. On the other hand, if the trade secrets were considered global public goods and policy makers enacted laws accordingly, then companies would be forced to share them. This approach is consistent with historical policy underlying IP norms, which recognizes that IP exclusivity sometimes needs to yield to other interests such as public health. Recognizing the existence and influence of IP nationalism is an essential first step to better address IP constraints and distortions in the context of public health. This is a timely issue now that the World Health Organization has begun negotiations for a global pandemic treaty, with the goal of being better prepared for inevitable future pandemics. Hopefully, by considering IP on pandemic treatments as global public goods, this treaty could help prevent another global vaccine apartheid. This Article provides concrete suggestions to meet this goal while still ensuring adequate incentives for innovation. Moreover, the Article also recommends complementary modifications to domestic law to similarly promote affordable essential treatments while preserving innovation even in non-pandemic situations
Denver Pain Authenticity Stimulus Set (D-PASS)
Get PDFTo access this database download the usage agreement via the Download button on this page and send your signed agreement to [email protected]. You will then receive a password permitting access to the database, which may be downloaded in the Additional Files section at the bottom of this page.
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We introduce the Denver Pain Authenticity Stimulus Set (D-PASS), a free resource containing 315 videos of 105 unique individuals expressing authentic and posed pain. All expressers were recorded displaying one authentic (105; pain was elicited via a pressure algometer) and two posed (210) expressions of pain (one posed expression recorded before [posed-unrehearsed] and one recorded after [posed-rehearsed] the authentic pain expression). In addition to authentic and posed pain videos, the database includes an accompanying codebook including metrics assessed at the expresser and video-level (e.g., Facial Action Coding System (FACS) metrics for each video (controlling for neutral images of the expresser), expressers’ pain threshold and pain tolerance values, averaged pain detection performance by naïve perceivers who viewed the videos (e.g., accuracy, response bias), neutral images of each expresser, and face characteristic rating data for neutral images of each expresser (e.g., attractiveness, trustworthiness). The stimuli and accompanying codebook can be accessed for academic research purposes from https://digitalcommons.du.edu/lsdl_dpass/1/. The relatively large number of stimuli allow for consideration of expresser-level variability in analyses and enables more advanced statistical approaches (e.g., signal detection analyses); the inclusion of a large number of Black (n = 41) and White (n = 56) expressers permits investigations into the role of race in pain expression, perception, and authenticity detection; the accompanying codebook may provide pilot data for novel investigations in the intergroup or pain sciences
Unsupervised Learning Algorithm for Noise Suppression and Speech Enhancement Applications
Get PDFSmart and intelligent devices are being integrated more and more into day-to-day life to perform a multitude of tasks. These tasks include, but are not limited to, job automation, smart utility management, etc., with the aim to improve quality of life and to make normal day-to-day chores as effortless as possible. These smart devices may or may not be connected to the internet to accomplish tasks. Additionally, human-machine interaction with such devices may be touch-screen based or based on voice commands. To understand and act upon received voice commands, these devices require to enhance and distinguish the (clean) speech signal from the recorded noisy signal (that is contaminated by interference and background noise). The enhanced speech signal is then analyzed locally or in cloud to extract the command. This speech enhancement task may effectively be achieved if the number of recording microphones is large. But incorporating many microphones is only possible in large and expensive devices. With multiple microphones present, the computational complexity of speech enhancement algorithms is high, along with its power consumption requirements. However, if the device under consideration is small with limited power and computational capabilities, having multiple microphones is not possible. For example, hearing aids and cochlear implant devices. Thus, most of these devices have been developed with a single microphone. As a result of this handicap, developing a speech enhancement algorithm for assisted learning devices with a single microphone, while keeping computational complexity and power consumption of the said algorithm low, is a challenging problem. There has been considerable research to solve this problem with good speech enhancement performance. However, most real-time speech enhancement algorithms lose their effectiveness if the level of noise present in the recorded speech is high. This dissertation deals with this problem, i.e., the objective is to develop a method that enhances performance by reducing the input signal noise level. To this end, it is proposed to include a pre-processing step before applying speech enhancement algorithms. This pre-processing performs noise suppression in the transformed domain by generating an approximation of the noisy signals’ short-time Fourier transform. The approximated signal with improved input signal to noise ratio is then used by other speech enhancement algorithms to recover the underlying clean signal. This approximation is performed by using the proposed Block-Principal Component Analysis (Block-PCA) algorithm. To illustrate efficacy of the methodology, a detailed performance analysis under multiple noise types and noise levels is followed, which demonstrates that the inclusion of the pre-processing step improves considerably the performance of speech enhancement algorithms when compared to other approaches with no pre-processing steps
Being and Trauma: A Theory of Listening as a Dis/Appropriation of the Listener to the Call of the Unspeakable in Trauma
No full textWhat is it to have a voice, to be heard? And how is this connected to the need to have someone listen? Through a close reading of Heidegger’s later works woven together with readings of Judith Butler, Jean Luc Marion, Michel Foucault, and Shoshana Felman, I explore a concept of Listening as it is connected to the event of our being, creating a theory of Listening that emphasizes what happens in the Listener as she Listens.
The concept of Listening is relied on, but under-considered, in both clinical and philosophical theories. In order to understand what it means to have a voice or to be heard in the aftermath of trauma, we need a more accurate and nuanced understanding of what happens when we Listen in the therapeutic setting, as well as more generally. Exploring the happening of Listening gives us an increased understanding of what Listening to trauma requires of the Listener as she addresses the unspeakableness of the survivors’ experiences.
By developing a new way of thinking about what happens in the Listener as she Listens, I make these two contributions: in Heideggerian studies I offer an application of Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, and in Trauma Studies, I offer a new way to view what a Listener does as she Listens.
Building on the practical emphasis in Trauma Studies on the importance of Listening, how to Listen, and in particular how to Listen in such a way as to not develop secondary post-traumatic stress as a Listener, I develop a new way of thinking about what it is that happens in the Listener as she listens to the traumatic, or more precisely, Listens to what is unspeakable in the trauma—that which makes it, by definition, traumatic
Does Publicness Matter? A Mixed Method Analysis Identifying and Measuring Institutional Contributions to State Goals for Public Higher Education
Get PDFStates founded, control, and fund public postsecondary institutions because higher education helps meet state goals. Public institutions of higher education provide considerable public benefits to states, but these benefits have not been systematically measured. As a result, public conversations about the broad value proposition of higher education do not center the public benefits produced by institutions. Using a framework of empirical and realized publicness, this exploratory sequential mixed-methods study used content analysis of state agency mission and vision statements to identify state goals for public higher education. Quantitative measurements of institutional contributions to common state goals for higher education were developed using exploratory factor analysis. This study examined the extent to which public institutions such as research institutions, regional comprehensive institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and enrollment-based Minority Serving institutions provide realized publicness outcomes related to states’ goals for higher education. Random-effects and fixed-effects regression models were used to test the impacts of financial publicness, state governance structures, and state accountability on institutional realized publicness outcomes. State goals for public higher education’s contributions to society centered around providing broad access to affordability education regardless of a student’s demographic background, ensuring equal success for all students and boosting state attainment, educating the state’s workforce and providing economic development, and engaging with their communities and providing community development. The various contributions of public institutions to each of these state goals varied by the type of institution and, to a certain extent, varied based on the empirical publicness of the institution. Notably, financial publicness positively impacts institutional access and affordability incomes, and increased state authority has mixed and sometimes negative impacts on access, affordability, and workforce outcomes. This evidence indicates that the long-term trend toward privatization in higher education revenues negatively affects some of states’ primary purposes for higher education. As one of the first analyses of publicness in higher education, this study provides empirical evidence about the connection between publicness and institutional outcomes, which may aid state policymakers as they consider changes in their funding allocations, governance structure, and measures of accountability for higher education
Abstract and Acknowledgments
Get PDFAn overview of the contents of the book, plus the author’s acknowledgements
The Use of Metaphor in Intersubjective Supervision
No full textIn contemporary psychotherapy education, psychotherapy supervision holds immense power and importance regarding preparation and training of psychotherapists (Watkins, 2012). While there is current literature addressing the use of metaphor in psychotherapy (Amundson & Thrift, 2008; Lyddon, Clay, & Sparks, 2001), there is limited literature addressing its use in supervision (Edwards, 2010; Guiffrida, et al., 2012; Sommer & Cox, 2003; Valadex & Garcia, 1998). Moreover, while Breyer (2013) has discussed the use of metaphor in intersubjective therapy, there is no available literature specifically addressing the use of metaphor in intersubjective supervision. This paper aims to introduce and articulate how the exploration and use of metaphor models and supports intersubjective theory and practice. Specific examples are offered related to the use of metaphor and intersubjective methods and interventions such as unknowingness, cotransferences, illumination, co-construction, developmental narratives, charged words/phrases, and creativity and play (co-regulation)
Noise Peddler: An exploration of the 21st century pedalboard
Get PDFNoise Peddler is a practice-based research project exploring the 21st century guitar pedalboard as composition and performance interface. Recent growth in the guitar pedal industry has seen a notable increase in popularity of the pedal platform, expansion in the number of manufacturers, the scope of effects available, and solidification of the concept of the pedalboard. The widespread adoption of MIDI/CV control, alongside the packaging of increasingly experimental and complex processing into stompbox formats has expanded the pedalboardʼs potential as a flexible canvas for the creation of unconventional guitar sounds. Performers such as Sarah Lipstate, Nels Cline and Ed OʼBrien have popularised the use of unconventional processing techniques to produce soundscapes where the guitar itself, arguably, no longer occupies the main role, acting as signal generator at the start of a chain. Noise Peddler takes this development to a possible conclusion, removing the guitar to create no-input pedalboard performance systems. This paper gives an overview of the Noise Peddler project, the contexts in which it operates and the opportunities it offers for reconsidering the pedalboard as a performative and compositional tool. It reflects on the research undertaken to date and engages with a series of questions: what is the role of the pedalboard in the performance ecosystem of the contemporary guitarist? How do the affordances of the pedalboard as a performance system, and guitar pedal technology more broadly, shape composition and performance practice? What is revealed of the ghost of the guitar when the guitar itself is removed and all that remains are the pedals? Ultimately, Noise Peddler explores guitar-based music created beyond the fretboard, in the circuits, systems and processes of the pedalboard, informed by the researchersʼ practices that unite unconventional approaches to contemporary instrumental and electroacoustic composition with musical journeys founded on being guitarists
Jorge Peixinho ‒ In Memoriam for solo guitar: A compositional and interpretative tribute
Get PDFThis paper focuses on a compositional and interpretative tribute, consisting of a work for solo guitar composed by Pedro Baptista in 2021 and titled Jorge Peixinho ‒ In Memoriam. The piece is intended to crystallize, focus and amplify recurrent and characteristic elements of Jorge Peixinhoʼs (1940-1995) guitar writing, During the second half of the 20th century, shaping the avant-garde musical movement in Portugal, this composer developed and used a range of techniques, effects, gestures and structures, which Baptista now explores in a systematic way. These elements were identified through analysis and hands-on exploration with the guitar of Peixinhoʼs manuscripts, as well as interviews with persons who worked with the composer. In Jorge Peixinho ‒ In Memoriam there was a search for possibilities of development, fusion, fertilization, proliferation, interweaving and incorporation of these particularities in a 21st century composition. The piece is intended to contribute for the development of a 21st century contemporary guitar, rooted on the recent history that precedes it, alongside with the dissemination of the barely known guitar role in Jorge Peixinhoʼs works, as well as pay a deserved and heartfelt tribute to the composer