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Towards an anti-colonial aesthetic politics: surrealist praxis and epistemic refusal
No full textThis paper considers what anti-colonial surrealist praxis can provide those of us interested in the nexus of aesthetics and world politics. Thinking beyond the commonly held notion of surrealism as a European cultural movement, I engage with the writings of 20th-century anti-colonial surrealists, namely, Suzanne Césaire, Aimé Césaire, and René Ménil. In doing so, I argue that anti-colonial surrealism is beyond a movement, a selection of methods, a genre or a set of ideas. Instead, I aim to position anti-colonial surrealist praxis as an epistemology that allows us to move beyond the limitations of representation, both by surfacing historical intimacies (rather than gaps) between content and form, while also questioning the demarcation between art and politics. I illustrate my argument’s resonance in the contemporary political moment through an engagement with aesthetic interventions produced by Sai, an artist exiled from contemporary Myanmar. Sai’s absurdist creative interventions and material drawn from in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations allow me to demonstrate the political possibilities of an ‘anti-colonial surrealist praxis’ approach, in its conception of aesthetics as co-constitutive, rather than only representative, of the political
Is relevancy everything? A deep-learning approach to understand the effect of image-text congruence
No full textFirms increasingly use a combination of image and text description when displaying products and engaging consumers. Existing research has examined consumers’ response to text and image stimuli separately but has yet to systematically consider how the semantic relationship between image and text impacts consumer choice. In this research, we conduct a series of multimethod empirical studies to examine the congruence between image- and text-based product representation. First, we propose a deep-learning approach to measure image-text congruence by building a state-of-the-art two-branch neural network model based on wide residual networks and bidirectional encoder representations from transformers. Next, we apply our method to data from an online reading platform and discover a U-shaped effect of image-text congruence: Consumers’ preference toward a product is higher when the congruence between the image and text representation is either high or low than when the congruence is at the medium level. We then conduct experiments to establish the causal effect of this finding and explore the underlying mechanisms. We further explore the generalizability of the proposed deep-learning model and our substantive finding in two additional settings. Our research contributes to the literature on consumer information processing and generates managerial implications for practitioners on how to strategically pair images and text on digital platforms
Sex and gender differences in access, quality of care, and effectiveness of treatment in dementia: a scoping review of studies up to 2024
No full textDementia represents one of the greatest global health challenges. Women have a greater lifetime risk of developing dementia compared to men. Both pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions aimed at slowing cognitive decline show promising results. However, most studies do not examine whether there are sex and gender differences in access to treatment, quality of care or treatment effectiveness. To summarise evidence on sex and gender differences in access to treatment, management, and treatment effectiveness for people with dementia. This scoping review followed PRISMA guidelines and was conducted in PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar, and ClinicalTrials.Gov databases in November 2023 and updated in January 2024. Systematic reviews and observational studies were included to explore sex and gender differences in access or management of dementia. Systematic reviews and clinical trials were included to investigate sex and gender differences in treatment effectiveness. We included 16 studies in our review. Sex and gender differences were observed in the prescription and receipt of anti-dementia medications, as well as access to primary care, with variations by settings. Mixed results were found concerning polypharmacy and inappropriate medications, with women being prescribed antipsychotic and other psychotropic medications for longer periods compared to men. Studies of the impact of exercise on cognitive decline yielded mixed results, though limited disaggregated data by sex indicated a more pronounced impact in women than in men. Cognitive stimulation therapy interventions showed greater cognitive improvements for women. Clinical trials assessing the effectiveness of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) suggest that women may be less responsive to DMTs than men. There are important differences between men and women living with dementia in access to diagnosis, treatments, quality of care and effectiveness of treatments. Such differences can significantly impact health outcomes. Sex and gender inequalities should be considered when planning and implementing healthcare, social care, and associated strategies in dementia. To provide conclusive evidence, it is essential for clinical trials to have sufficient statistical power and report outcomes disaggregated by sex
Improving outcomes for people with autism spectrum disorders by reducing mental health problems: the IAMHealth research programme including one RCT
No full textBackground: Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition whose core symptoms include impairments in social communication, restricted and repetitive behaviours and sensory atypicalities, which can have varying severity. Most autistic people experience additional, impairing mental health and behavioural problems, but these are often under-recognised by healthcare professionals, autistic people and their caretakers. Objective(s): We aim to improve identification of mental health problems by developing a tool for clinical use, which can also be used to monitor treatment response. Design: Work package 1: We developed and validated a new instrument to provide improved detection of mental health and behavioural problems in autistic people from childhood through to adult life. Work package 2: We explored how autistic young adults understand and manage their mental health. Work package 3: We undertook a cohort study to identify risk and protective factors for mental health and behavioural problems in autistic adolescents. Work package 4: We undertook a pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial of Predictive Parenting compared to group-based psychoeducation and active control intervention. It was not the aim of the pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial to undertake hypothesis testing. Setting: Participants in work package 1 were ascertained through clinical sites within London and Liverpool and through specialist autism schools in London. In work package 2, participants were selected from a cohort originally ascertained from 11 regions across south-east England. Participants were drawn from London Boroughs of Bromley and Lewisham (work packages 3 and 4) and London Borough of Lambeth (work package 4). Participants: Work package 1: 255 parents of autistic children/adolescent; work package 2: 19 autistic young adults; work package 3: QUEST cohort of 277 children; work package: 62 children. Intervention: Predictive Parenting-a novel parent-mediated intervention. Main outcome measure: Work package 4: A blinded observational measure of child behaviours that challenge. Results: We developed the Assessment of Concerning Behaviour to be completed by parents/caretakers, autistic children/young people/adults and teachers, and showed it has two reliable and valid subscales reflecting emotional and behavioural problems. We identified that poor or incomplete understanding of autism affected young adults’ and parents’ understanding, discernment and management of mental health difficulties. We showed strong continuity of emotional and behavioural problems as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder from early childhood to late adolescence, with prediction being largely within domain (emotional, behavioural or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Early childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms had a significant negative impact on adolescent everyday functioning. At an individual level, parents’ accounts suggested multiple factors may affect mental health trajectories and outcomes in the late teenage years. Our pilot feasibility trial of our new intervention, Predictive Parenting, directed at parents of young autistic children was highly acceptable and feasible to deliver. Limitations: To date, only the parent version of the Assessment of Concerning Behaviour has had its psychometric properties ascertained. We combined clinical and non-clinical samples and the scale could have different psychometric properties for these two groups. The qualitative work in work package 2 was limited to young adults without an intellectual disability and there was under-representation of females and non-white ethnicity, as well as those with severe mental health problems. The QUEST cohort in work package 3 was derived from those receiving an early autism diagnosis, who are more likely to have severe autistic presentations and intellectual disability, so the results may not generalise to the full autistic population. The pilot feasibility study had a small sample size and hence modest power to detect group differences; the lack of an objective rating of intervention fidelity; the lack of a treatment as usual group to track the natural trajectory of child and parent behaviours over time; and the fact that although the researchers who coded the observational measure were blinded to intervention allocation, they were not blinded to time point. Conclusions: The research undertaken in the current programme shows that mental health and behavioural problems are more common in autistic people and are strongly persistent over time, even when they commence in the early childhood period. Interventions for mental health and behavioural problems are a priority for autistic people and their families. However, we showed that autistic people and their families often find it difficult to discern the difference between autistic features and mental health and behavioural problems. Future work: A definitive randomised controlled trial including an economic evaluation is needed to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Predictive Parenting. Future longitudinal research could focus on modifiable risk and resilience factors related to mental health problems in autistic people and could determine whether routine use of mental health screening questionnaires increases the identification and treatment of mental health problems in autistic children and young people. Trial registration: This trial is registered as Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN91411078
Contagious McKean–Vlasov problems with common noise: from smooth to singular feedback through hitting times
No full textWe consider a family of McKean–Vlasov equations arising as the large particle limit of a system of interacting particles on the positive half-line with common noise and feedback. Such systems are motivated by structural models for systemic risk with contagion. This contagious interaction is such that when a particle hits zero, the impact is to move all the others toward the origin through a kernel which smooths the impact over time. We study a rescaling of the impact kernel under which it converges to the Dirac delta function so that the interaction happens instantaneously and the limiting singular McKean–Vlasov equation can exhibit jumps. Our approach provides a novel method to construct solutions to such singular problems that allows for more general drift and diffusion coefficients and we establish weak convergence to relaxed solutions in this setting. With more restrictions on the coefficients we can establish an almost sure version showing convergence to strong solutions. Under some regularity conditions on the contagion, we also show a rate of convergence up to the time the regularity of the contagion breaks down. Lastly, we perform some numerical experiments to investigate the sharpness of our bounds for the rate of convergence
Charting a middle course: theory and methods in the practice of cross-cultural research
No full textRecent years have seen a resurgence in work arguing for the importance of cross-cultural research. Yet, there are few guides and worked examples of how theory in cognitive science and anthropology can actually be instantiated in a productive research program. This chapter collects contributions on this topic, with several background essays on the practice of crosscultural research and six concrete examples of research programs. Across these contributions, the recurring theme is balancing the need for generating generalizable science with attention to local cultural contexts. Instead of converging on a single solution, these contributions provide a lay of the land, demonstrating the various ways in which researchers have found a pragmatic balance between the universal and the specific in studying our cultural species
The pentacrisis: Colombia’s foreign policy at a crossroads in a polarized world
No full textIn the context of the world's polycrisis, this working paper introduces five challenges that Colombia will face in 2026 and afterward in the following areas: fiscal, energy, health, security, and foreign policy. Those are defined as the pentacrisis. This document particularly emphasizes Colombia's crisis in international relations, which have reached a low point. Therefore, it is needed to recover the country’s voice, presence, and regional and international prestige, to avoid the risk of becoming irrelevant in the hemisphere and the world. A new “foreign policy for development” is proposed to allow the projection of the national interest over time and the promotion of the overall national well-being. This approach is based on the concepts of strategic autonomy and Respice Omnia, and principles such as broad internal consensus, plural dialogue, pragmatism, respect for democracy and international law, and promotion of a renewed multilateralism
Implementing executive orders in the administrative state
No full textScholarship once counted the raw number of executive orders (EOs) issued as a kind of proxy for presidential power; now it grapples with whether such directives are actually implemented, a challenging puzzle since agency action is difficult for scholars to systematically observe. This article addresses that difficulty by examining bureaucratic promulgation of a final rule responding to a given EO. To factors previously hypothesized to matter for the likelihood of implementation it adds new ones, notably (1) centralization, or the extent to which an agency itself was involved in the formulation of an EO directing it to act, and (2) an agency's structural insulation from presidential control. In a set of 103 executive orders issued between 1988 and 2004, we find that centralization has little independent effect but has important interaction effects with agency insulation. More insulated agencies are less responsive than their more permeable peers to EOs created via centralized processes that exclude their input. Other factors predicting the likelihood of responsiveness are the specificity of the presidential directive and whether the agency has the substantive capacity to comply—as well as the bureaucratic influence not to
Introduction to live methods revisited: the roots and conjuncture of live methods
No full textIn this introduction to Live Methods Revisited, we reflect upon the conjuncture in which Live Methods was originally published as a way of contextualising and appraising its legacy. In doing so we focus on an aspect of Live Methods which has had less attention – the politics of methods. Live Methods offered a reassertion of the promise and potential for sociological practice through reimagining methods, in the face of a proclaimed crisis of empirical sociology. Resultantly, it made an important intervention into how sociological research methods are practised, understood and written about. Following the 10-year anniversary of its publication, the reflections on the legacy of Live Methods have taken on greater meaning, in a different kind of crisis, that of Higher Education. The dire impacts of marketisation have borne directly upon the institution in which Live Methods was created, marking this special section in The Sociological Review as offering a critical reflection and an act of preservation of the distinct contribution of Goldsmiths Sociology. We reflect upon the role of Live Methods in the current political conjuncture and how it may, in renewed ways, offer different kinds of interventions to help navigate and creatively resist this contemporary crisis
The Esterházy myth: how economics and literature correct mistakes
No full textScientists are occasionally confronted with having made a mistake knowingly or unknowingly. Once the flawed evidence is exposed, the scientific results get discredited, the study is formally withdrawn, and its policy application is discarded. Reputational damage depends on the motivation and circumstances of the mistake and how fast the disclosure is made. But mistakes can also happen in art, the land of imagination and emotion, when it comes to facts. This essay compares similarities and differences in the way artists and scientists find and then disclose false information. The focus is on the renowned Hungarian writer Péter Esterházy of the country’s most famous noble dynasty. He had to deal with the devastating discovery that his father Count Esterházy, whom he had idolised and celebrated in his earlier book as the model of stoic resistance to Hungary’s communist regime, had in fact been an informant of it for decades. Instead of making an immediate disclosure and withdrawing the book with the flawed evidence as a researcher would do, Péter Esterházy decided to hold on and write a sequel - titled “Corrected Edition” - that exposes the mistake, sets the historic record straight, and takes the reader through the moral and physical brutality and inhumanity that dictatorships instil in their people. In the end, another brilliant book is born and today we read the two books together: the first one as a masterful piece of linguistic art, and the second one also as a damning historic evidence of a brutal dictatorial regime