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Published online: 04 Oct 2021 The Congress movement in South Africa was transformed in the early 1960s from a movement committed to the exclusive use of non-violent means in the struggle against apartheid to one focused on rural guerrilla warfare as a free-standing and sufficient first step towards ‘all-out war’ and the armed seizure of power. But few, if any, of the participants in the Congress movement’s deliberations in 1960–61 on whether to ‘turn to violence’ had believed that this was the strategy that they were endorsing when they authorised the abandonment of exclusive reliance on non-violence. The choice facing the Congress movement after 1960 was not between mutually exclusive alternatives of ‘non-violence’ on the one hand and ‘violence’ or ‘armed struggle’ on the other. Rather, Congress leaders contemplated a range of different forms of violent action and considered their relationship to various forms of non-violent activity and to the kind of transition from apartheid that these actions could and should be intended to produce. This article analyses the range of strategic options that were canvassed within the Congress leadership in the early 1960s and the decision-making process by which those options were gradually narrowed. That process was shaped by ambiguity, unilateral action, unintended consequences and state repression, with the result that the Congress movement’s ‘turn to violence’ ultimately took a form that few Congress leaders had initially desired or anticipated.

Why did leaders of the Congress movement in South Africa abandon their exclusive reliance on non-violent means in the struggle against apartheid, form an armed unit (Umkhonto we Sizwe), and launch a campaign of spectacular sabotage bombings of symbols of apartheid in 1961? None of the earlier violent struggles from which Congress leaders drew inspiration, and none of the contemporaneous insurgencies against white minority rule elsewhere in southern Africa, involved a similar distinct, preliminary and extended phase of non-lethal symbolic sabotage. Following the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, Congress leaders feared the social and political consequences of increased popular enthusiasm for using violence. Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, and the other founders of Umkhonto we Sizwe did not launch their sabotage campaign because they believed it would prompt a change of heart among white South Africans, nor because they believed urban sabotage bombings were a necessary prelude to the launch of rural guerrilla warfare. Rather, the sabotage campaign was a spectacular placeholder, a stopgap intended to advertise the Congress movement's abandonment of exclusive non-violence and thus to discourage opponents of apartheid, both inside and outside South Africa, from supporting rival groups or initiating ‘uncontrolled violent action themselves.

Tokamak Energy’s ST40 spherical tokamak, operating in a double null diverted configuration, has a design basis of toroidal field Bt = 3 T on-axis (R = 40 cm), and plasma current Ip = 2MA. The procurement and installation of the top and bottom divertors for installation into ST40 was anticipated to be completed on a quick timescale of approximately ten weeks. The difficulties inherent in a tight deadline were exacerbated by the necessary social distancing measures introduced to combat the global crisis of COVID-19. This paper describes the procurement and installation of the divertors, the design is described in the sister paper [1], authored by Daniel Iglesias.

Winner of Interdependent Social Research Foundation International essay competition 2017. If I were to say that the architecture in our public spaces is ‘really speaking to us’, you would be forgiven for thinking this is a piece about the aesthetics of our cities. In some ways in fact, it is, but not in any artistic sense. I am not discussing a collection of monuments, town houses or grandiose buildings. Alas, the architecture I talk of is more humble and yet perhaps more sinister. There is a message encoded into it, within our parks, streets and centres, which seems to be part of a wider narrative. This essay is an attempt to read it, find out what it says, and consider how that may affect our concept of autonomy, but also, to encourage us to reflect on how we choose to read it: to think on what theoretical framework we should discuss homelessness. The aim is not to necessarily reconceptualize something then, but is more in the tradition of making the familiar seem unfamiliar: not only in what we think, but how we come to think what we do and the extent to which the former is limited by the latter. To achieve this, the leading question I therefore ask is: what does the organization of public space in reaction to a homeless presence tell us about autonomy, and how we think about autonomy?

If I were to say that the architecture in our public spaces is ‘really speaking to us’, you would be forgiven for thinking this is a piece about the aesthetics of our cities. In some ways in fact, it is, but not in any artistic sense. I am not discussing a collection of monuments, town houses or grandiose buildings. Alas, the architecture I talk of is more humble and yet perhaps more sinister. There is a message encoded into it, within our parks, streets and centres, which when presented together, seems to be part of a wider narrative. This paper is an attempt to read it and find out what it says, but also, to set up a discussion on how we choose to read it. In short, this is a substantive example of a storytelling approach to political theory which I believe could help us when we wish to aspire to public engagement . I hope this example allows me to discuss the method behind it in the panel.

When both academic critique and funding criteria essentially say to political theory, ‘what is the point?’, anxiety creeps into the heart of every normative theorist and agonising self-reflection ensues; the study of the political without advisory comment and application may not seem a legitimate use of public finances, where demands to ‘make better use’ of research (in a UK context at least) reveal a common tendency towards impact (Council E. a., 2017). Thus, our response appears urgent: not just for the standing of the subject, but for its very survival, for the continuation of PhD funding relies upon the quality of the reply. The problem is, the replies do not merely conflict, they rest upon fundamentally opposed views of what the subject actually is – effectively, whether or not it should be in pursuit of actual impact. With the premise of an impact agenda therefore set up, in this paper I intend to deliver three objections to a consequential ‘impact theory’, and seek to resolve those objections with an altered methodological approach. I hope this gives us a normative theory that can be seen as ‘legitimate’ in terms of being able to explicitly rise to the challenge of ‘why it should be funded by the taxpayer’, and ‘legitimate’ in the sense that it still retains its philosophical identity; that social prescription does not come at the cost of, what I believe, should be key elements of theorising – conceptual analysis and deep reflection.

Aims: Advances in genomics and molecular diagnostic testing are expanding, but national data on which to base clinical, regulatory and reimbursement policies in the USA are lacking. The study objective is to provide current estimates of utilization/spending trends for private and public payers. Patients & methods: Healthcare utilization/expenditure claims data for 32 million individuals across the USA in 2008–2011 were analyzed. Genetic testing and molecular diagnostic usage was categorized by major testing groups: infectious disease, cancer and inherited/other acquired conditions. Results: Per-person testing cost grew by 14% per year between 2008 and 2011, primarily resulting from increased utilization. Spending per person for Medicare and Medicaid was higher than for commercially insured patients. Expenditure across the USA was estimated at US$5.5 billion in 2011, up 13% from 2010. Discussion: Greater understanding of usage and technology diffusion requires increased data transparency and granularity. Conclusion & future perspective: The use of genetic testing and molecular diagnostics will grow over the next 5 years, with uncertainty about the precise diffusion trajectory. By strengthening the capacity to capture and analyze trends in this changing area of medicine, we increase our chances of promoting positive change to the benefit of patients.

Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a neuropsychiatric state potentially complicating cirrhosis following the accumulation of toxic compounds that cross the blood–brain barrier and affect brain function; the compounds may undergo alveolar gas exchange and be partially excreted by exhalation. Thus breath analysis as a non-invasive means of diagnosing HE, cirrhosis and harmful drinking was investigated in a pilot study. One litre samples of breath were collected from patients with alcohol-related cirrhosis (n = 34) with HE (n = 11) and without HE (n = 23), non-alcoholic cirrhosis without HE (n = 13), harmful drinkers without cirrhosis (n = 7), and healthy controls (n = 15) in a hospital setting. Breath compounds trapped on adsorbent tubes were released via thermal desorption and analysed by gas chromatography mass spectrometry for separation and detection. Multivariate discriminant analysis was used to identify volatile organic compounds to differentiate patients according to disease status and build models for disease classification. HE was correctly identified in 90.9 % of alcoholic cirrhotic patients and liver cirrhosis in 100 % of alcoholic patients. In patients without clinical HE, alcohol was correctly predicted as the cause of cirrhosis in 78.3 % of patients and non-alcoholic causes of cirrhosis were correctly determined in 69.2 %. Non-alcoholic cirrhosis, alcoholic cirrhosis, and harmful drinking could be discriminated from healthy controls with a sensitivity of 92.3, 97.1 and 100 %, respectively. Breath volatile analysis has the potential to aid the diagnosis of HE and a range of liver disorders.

The Carter administration's adoption of an approach towards the South African government's policy of apartheid that was, as Jimmy Carter put it, “correct but as easy on them as possible,” cannot be explained solely by American economic and strategic interests in the region or by the administration's desire for South Africa's cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation and the resolution of the conflicts in neighboring Rhodesia and Namibia. The lessons Carter and Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young drew from their earlier personal experiences in the American South in the 1960s were also of great significance. Those experiences not only gave Carter and Young a strong commitment to ending apartheid in South Africa but also strongly influenced the ways in which they thought that objective might be achieved. First, Carter and Young had considerable sympathy for the position of white South Africans and were concerned to work with them toward peaceful change in a spirit of cooperation rather than confrontation. Second, they believed that American businesses could have a positive impact on race relations in South Africa. They therefore encouraged American investors to adopt “enlightened employment practices,” and resisted pressure from anti-apartheid activists to impose economic sanctions.

Des etudes archeologiques, financees par des promoteurs, sur l'ile de Sheppey, se sont conclues par la decouverte de deux enclos neolithiques a chaussee empierree sur le meme sommet de colline et tres proches l'un de l'autre (env. 300 m). A l'âge du bronze final, on construisait les enclos tout a fait a l'est et ils s'accompagnaient d'inhumations a incineration, s'en suivirent des enclos de l'âge du fer, et finalement, des systemes de champs a partir de l'âge du fer final. Un programme de datation au carbone 14 a permis de saisir la suite chronologique et les 'hiatus' de chacun de ces evenements, mais cette etude se concentre sur l'exploration des relations physiques, chronologiques et sociales entre les deux enclos neolithiques a chaussee empierree. Ils etaient de formes differentes, et bien que tous deux aient ete situes sur le meme sommet, ils semblaient chacun jouir d'une perspective de toute evidence bien differente sur la Tamise et la Swale respectivement. On a releve des differences tenues, mais problablement chargees de sens, dans la culture materielle et les pratiques de depot, ce qui nous permet d'explorer les fonctions et role(s) possibles de ces deux sites neolithiques en grande partie contemporains. Est-ce qu'ils assuraient les memes fonctions pour deux communautes ou assumaient-ils des roles separes et distincts pour une communaute unique? L'etude examine egalement la nature de l'utilisation du sommet plus tard. Les enclos de l'âge du bronze, bien qu'assumant une fonction agricole, semblaient de toute evidence respecter leurs predecesseurs neolithiques, invoquant une memoire du lieu qui avait disparu a l'âge du fer. On explore comment on s'est eloigne de la fonction speciale de ce paysage au neolithique pour se tourner, par la suite, vers une utilisation agricole, ainsi que le cycle d'utilisation et de reutilisation des lieux.

Stevens reviews Ryan Irwin’s 'Gordian Knot: Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order' (2012) and Rob Skinner’s 'The Foundations of Anti-Apartheid: Liberal Humanitarians and Transnational Activists in Britain and the United States, c. 1919–64' (2010), two of the first published studies from an emerging stream of more detached and critical scholarship on the global anti-apartheid movement. The review essay addresses the questions of periodization, strategy, ideology, and the kinds of actors on which scholars focus, highlighting the ways in which these books advance the study of the external struggle against apartheid and the avenues for future research that they suggest.

This article describes and reflects on a project to develop service user involvement in the teaching and learning of students on one social work degree course. It includes the perspectives of a service user who took a lead role in the project and a part‐time academic member of staff given a specific contract to develop the work. The aspects of the project discussed are: getting started; bringing people together; student learning from individual voices; and student learning from collective experiences. Achievements and obstacles are discussed and key points of learning noted.

Patient engagement is crucial to better outcomes and a high-performing health system, but efforts to support it often focus narrowly on the role of physicians and other care providers. Such efforts miss payers' unique capabilities to help patients achieve better health. Using the experience of UnitedHealthcare, a large national payer, this article demonstrates how health plans can analyze and present information to both patients and providers to help close gaps in care; share detailed quality and cost information to inform patients' choice of providers; and offer treatment decision support and value-based benefit designs to help guide choices of diagnostic tests and therapies. As an employer, UnitedHealth Group has used these strategies along with an "earn-back" program that provides positive financial incentives through reduced premiums to employees who adopt healthful habits. UnitedHealth's experience provides lessons for other payers and for Medicare and Medicaid, which have had minimal involvement with demand-side strategies and could benefit from efforts to promote activated beneficiaries.

Reforming payment methods to move away from fee-for-service reimbursement is widely seen as a crucial step toward controlling health care costs. Although there is a good deal of evidence about variability in costs under Medicare, little has been published about the variability of costs for care that is financed by private insurance. We examined both quality and actual medical costs for episodes of care provided by nearly 250,000 US physicians serving commercially insured patients nationwide. Overall, episode costs for a set of major medical procedures varied about 2.5-fold, and for a selected set of common chronic conditions, episode costs varied about 15-fold. Among doctors meeting quality and efficiency benchmarks, however, costs for episodes of care were on average 14 percent lower than among other doctors. Some markets exhibited much higher variation in episode costs, but there was essentially no correlation between average episode costs and measured quality across markets. The overall analysis suggests that changing incentives through payment reforms could help to improve performance, but providers are at different stages of readiness for such reforms and thus will often need support in order to succeed.