Complex Field (complex + field)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


THE SCHOOL AS AN EXCEPTIONAL SPACE: RETHINKING EDUCATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE BIOPEDAGOGICAL

EDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 2 2006
Tyson E. LewisArticle first published online: 3 MAY 200
Agamben's theory of the camp provides a challenging, critical vantage point for looking at the ambiguities that emerge from the complex field of disciplinary procedures now prevalent in inner-city, low-income, minority schools, and helps to clarify what exactly is at stake in the symbolic and sometimes physical violence of schooling. Key to understanding the primary relation between camp and classroom is Agamben's framework of the biopolitical, which paradoxically includes life as a political concern through its exclusion from the political sphere. Here Lewis appropriates Agamben's terminology in order to theorize the biopedagogical, wherein educational life is included in schooling through its abandonment. For Lewis, the theory of the camp is necessary to recognizing how schools function and, in turn, how they could function differently. [source]


EFNS guideline on diagnosis and management of limb girdle muscular dystrophies

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROLOGY, Issue 12 2007
F. Norwood
The limb girdle muscular dystrophies (LGMD) are termed as such as they share the characteristic feature of muscle weakness predominantly affecting the shoulder and pelvic girdles; their classification has been completely revised in recent years because of elucidation of many of the underlying genetic and protein alterations in the various subtypes. An array of diagnostic measures is possible but with varying ease of use and availability. Several aspects of muscle cell function appear to be involved in the causation of muscle pathology. These cellular variations may confer some specific clinical features thus permitting recognition of the LGMD subtype and hence directing appropriate levels of monitoring and intervention. Despite an extensive literature on the individual limb girdle dystrophies, these publications may be impenetrable for the general neurologist in this increasingly complex field. The proposed guidelines suggest an approach to the diagnosis and monitoring of the limb girdle dystrophies in a manner accessible to general neurologists. [source]


The challenges of commissioning healthcare: a discussion paper

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2009
Article first published online: 5 JUN 200, Sheila Peskett
Abstract The UK's Department of Health Independent Sector Programme to procure healthcare for National Health Service (NHS) patients from the independent sector revealed many of the challenges of commissioning, particularly assessing governance arrangements and identifying the organisational attributes of high quality healthcare providers. These issues were first discussed in a workshop at the British Association of Medical Managers (BAMM) Medical Directors Conference in Dublin in November 2007 (Dale, et al., 2009). The more difficult challenges of achieving effective clinical engagement, including motivational factors, organisational environment and systems and partnership working, in the complex field of commissioning healthcare in the UK are also explored here with particular reference to systems in other countries. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


The Idea of Health: History, Medical Pluralism, and the Management of the Body in Emilia-Romagna, Italy

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2003
Elizabeth D. Whitaker
Basic beliefs about health in north central Italy derive from an approach to the personal management of the body that is not just reactive but also proactive. This article examines a complex field of health factors in relation to historical processes and a system of medical pluralism. Rapid demographic and social changes over the past century have brought an accommodation of ancient medical beliefs to more recent germ-oriented principles. An enduring belief in the permeability of the body leads to an emphasis on moderation in personal conduct to prevent debilitation, whether by atmospheric insults, microbial infection, or modern-day miasmas such as pollution or additives in food. The idea of health itself is analyzed to show how biomedicine varies across societies and how historical processes have shaped contemporary cultural patterns and led to generational continuities and differences in beliefs and behaviors. This information may also improve interactions between patients and health care providers, [health beliefs, Italy, Emilia-Romagna, humoral medicine, medical pluralism] [source]


Therapeutics targeting tumor immune escape: Towards the development of new generation anticancer vaccines

MEDICINAL RESEARCH REVIEWS, Issue 3 2008
Simone Mocellin
Abstract Despite the evidence that immune effectors can play a significant role in controlling tumor growth under natural conditions or in response to therapeutic manipulation, it is clear that malignant cells evade immune surveillance in most cases. Considering that anticancer vaccination has reached a plateau of results and currently no vaccination regimen is indicated as a standard anticancer therapy, the dissection of the molecular events underlying tumor immune escape is the necessary condition to make anticancer vaccines a therapeutic weapon effective enough to be implemented in the routine clinical setting. Recent years have witnessed significant advances in our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying tumor immune escape. These mechanistic insights are fostering the development of rationally designed therapeutics aimed at reverting the immunosuppressive circuits that undermine an effective antitumor immune response. In this review, the best characterized mechanisms that allow cancer cells to evade immune surveillance are overviewed and the most debated controversies constellating this complex field are highlighted. In addition, the latest therapeutic strategies devised to overcome tumor immune escape are described, with special regard to those entering clinical phase investigation. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Med Res Rev, 28, No. 3, 413,444, 2008 [source]