Body Of Opinion Research Articles

After Brexit: The State of the UK Union

Brexit shattered the ambiguity that had long sustained the unique construct that is the United Kingdom. As an assertion of British sovereignty, Brexit overrode the will of the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland. That broke the long tradition of territorial management of the United Kingdom, latterly formalised in a measure of self-government for the three smaller territories through devolution of substantial powers from 1999. But devolution had not resolved the existing challenges to the Union which were now reinforced by Brexit. The UK government’s response has oscillated between a hardline ‘muscular’ unionism and a more emollient ‘reasonableness’ agenda. This has left the Union in a state of unstable equilibrium, with considerable bodies of opinion in the three smaller territories dissatisfied with the status quo and with growing indifference to the future of the Union in England. Brexit has further undermined what was already a Union under pressure, leaving its future survival a more uncertain prospect.

Microbial Volatile Organic Compounds: Applications and Future Prospects

Microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCs) are organic compounds having low molecular mass (less than 300 Da) and high vapor pressure due to low boiling point. Microorganisms produce a plethora of volatile compounds that can play a very crucial role in intra- and inter-kingdom interactions. Many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) secreted by microbes associated with soil and plants have been described to be involved in microbial communications. A considerable body of opinion indicates that MVOCs have potential to be utilized as a beneficial and good sustainable approach for diverse areas including agriculture, industrial and health sector. They can induce plant defense systems and inhibit the development of diverse plant pathogens.

Reading Shelley and Adorno on “Life”: A Further Exploration

ABSTRACTBuilding on a congruent body of opinion, this article provides a fuller exploration of affinities between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Theodor Adorno especially in regard to conceptions of “Life.” Most intriguing of all is the tendency of both Shelley and Adorno to examine “Life” itself and to reflect on the paradoxical failure to “live life” in a post-Enlightenment world. This indicates an existential crisis pre- and post-Auschwitz that is related to the ascendency (or “triumph”) of instrumental reason (calculation for predetermined ends) at the expense of “integral thought,” an outcome which Shelley already observed in “A Defence of Poetry.” The Enlightenment is in question and Bacon (whose emergence almost by default, in Shelley’s largely gloom-ridden “Triumph of Life,” is an instance of Adornian “negative dialectics”) is seen by Shelley as an exemplary figure, a “poet-revolutionary” who breaks free of stultifying epistemological closure by advancing a reciprocal, imaginative approach to protean nature, and to the unlocking of nature’s secrets. In contrast, for Adorno and Horkheimer, Bacon was the modern inaugurator of the Enlightenment’s failed project and its assumption of dominion over nature. In this case, divergent views proposed from a similar perspective offer a conflicting dialogue which yet has strong points of agreement.

Big data and the reform of the European data protection framework: an overview of potential concerns associated with proposals for risk management-based approaches to the concept of personal data

ABSTRACTThis article considers the emergence of big data and how it poses considerable difficulties for the European Data Protection framework's key enabling concept: the notion of personal data. The article starts by outlining the fact that there is an emerging body of opinion which suggests that some of these problems might best be addressed by adopting a risk-management-based model of personal data. This, it is argued, is suggestive of the emergence of a possible fusion between the disciplines of data protection law and risk management. The article contends, however, that there are several complications associated with the adoption of risk-management-based regulatory strategies, which have to date not been meaningfully explored in the legal and regulatory literature pertaining to data protection. Consequently, these are issues in need of address. Whilst not intending to counsel against the adoption of risk-management-based regulatory strategies, the aim of this article is to begin bridging the metaphorical ‘gap’ between legal, regulatory, and risk research and management discourses, to stoke a much-needed debate in this topical area. To this end, the article highlights several areas which are in need of further consideration, and where there will likely be possibilities for future inter-disciplinary research.

Free Trade Agreements, Private Courts and Environmental Exploitation: Disconnected Policies, Denials and Moral Disengagement

Although there is strong scientific consensus that climate change and environmental degradation are occurring, there is also a significant body of opinion that is sceptical about, or denies the validity of, evidence for this. However it is not solely the nature of differing views about global warming or ecological disaster that is being contested but the case for or against intervention and regulation in the market. At an international level, gestures toward ‘sustainability’ are (i) compromised by combining them with declarations of the need for continued economic growth, and (ii) undermined by the arrangements put in place by existing and new transnational trade agreements. The paper examines these views and developments, and the patterns of denial, disconnection and fragmentation they display.

New Public Management: The Story Continues

AbstractNew Public Management (NPM) has aroused significant interest amongst academe, policy makers and practitioners, since its first articulation in the seminal articles by Hood (1991 and 1995). However, in the 21stcentury, a body of opinion has developed which asserts that the NPM ispassé. This paper seeks to determine the contemporary status of NPM in the context of the UK, one of the early adopters of NPM. Close inspection of UK Government policy underlines the importance of NPM ideas in the New Labour Governmentmodernisationpolicy (1997‐2010). Furthermore, the policy actions of the 2010–2015 UK Coalition Government reveal that the global financial crisis intensified the drive for NPM in the UK's public sector. This discussion reveals no evidence in support of the demise of NPM.

Consent

In 2015, the Supreme Court gave their decision on a case involving the issue of informed consent for an obstetric procedure.1 That judgement (referred to hereafter as ‘Montgomery’) has implications for all doctors practising within the United Kingdom. The claimant was a small, diabetic woman with a large foetus. The risk of shoulder dystocia was estimated to be between 9% and 10%, but the mother was not informed of this because her consultant considered the risk of a ‘grave problem’ for the baby to be “very small” (in the event of shoulder dystocia occurring, there was a 0.2% chance of brachial plexus injury and a 0.1% chance of prolonged hypoxia). The option of planned caesarean section (CS) was not discussed with the claimant, and induction was planned for 39 weeks. During delivery, there was occlusion of the umbilical cord resulting in a hypoxic brain injury. Subsequently, the mother claimed that she should have been warned of the risk of shoulder dystocia and the potentially catastrophic consequences, and of the alternative of planned CS, in which case she would have opted for CS. At both the initial trial and on appeal, the defendant’s experts stated that the “risk of grave problems was very small”, but also that “if such women were warned, most would opt for CS”. Both courts concluded that to not warn the patient was accepted as proper by a responsible body of medical opinion. The Supreme Court accepted that the consultant’s decision accorded with a reasonable body of opinion, but that patients have rights and are not passive recipients of the care of the medical profession. A person is entitled to decide which, if any, of the available forms of treatment to undergo. The Supreme Court accepted that, if appropriately warned, the claimant would not have agreed …

Lame Jack his haultings: J. H. Hexter, the ‘middle group’ and William Prynne

This article examines the historiography of J. H. Hexter's ‘middle group’, arguing that current trends in historical scholarship have revived the need for a convincing scheme of faction in the Long Parliament. Hexter's evidence is discussed, and his supporters and critics addressed, before the hypothesis of a moderate, secular, constitutionalist lobby is subjected to scrutiny through a tract by William Prynne, commissioned by the Commons at the height of middle group ‘ascendancy’. In light of this, it is argued that Prynne represents a body of opinion within the Commons that was radical, religious and essentially Anglo-Saxon, which has implications for neo-whig, bicameral and ‘Three Kingdoms’ interpretations alike.

La cura CHIVA sigue siendo válida para el tratamiento de las varices

The title proposed by the editors of the journal indicates that there is a body of opinion in that the CHIVA technique is no longer valid. My opinion is absolutely the opposite. It has never stopped being valid, and the articles published up until now, support with greater evidence that the superiority of the CHIVA method is above those others with which it has been compared.

A new legislative framework for mental capacity and mental health legislation in Northern Ireland: an analysis of the current proposals

<p>When the Bamford Review of Mental Health and Learning Disability completed its work in the autumn of 2007, it drew to a close an extensive consultation and analysis of mental health and learning disability services and the law in Northern Ireland. Its last report on A Comprehensive Legislative Framework made<br />a compelling case for a major overhaul of the law that the Review team itself described as ‘quite radical’. The Review identified the case for reform in the need to ensure that mental health law conforms to the requirements of human rights law, reflects changes to professional practice, reflects the needs of service<br />users and their carers, and keeps pace with reform elsewhere in the UK. Alone of all the jurisdictions in the UK, Northern Ireland has been operating largely in a legislative vacuum in relation to mental capacity law. The Review’s proposals for reform therefore extended to reform of mental health law and the introduction of mental capacity law.</p><p>In the autumn of 2008 the NI Executive published its response to the Bamford Review indicating that it intended to develop the law sequentially: reform of the Mental Health (NI) Order 1986 by 2011 followed by the introduction of mental capacity law in 2014. Responses to the Executive’s consultation resulted in<br />the Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) revising its approach and it signalled its intention to bring forward mental capacity and mental health legislation together. This reated a unique opportunity in Northern Ireland for fusion of incapacity and mental health legislation. A further consultation paper was issued in January 2009, setting out the key approaches to the content<br />of two bills. However as a result of the consultation, the Health Minister Michael McGimpsey announced in September 2009 that there would be a single bill with an overall principle of autonomy. His press statement noted: “ A strong body of opinion, particularly from professional groups and lead voluntary organisations, which considered that separate mental health legislation continues to be stigmatising and recommended that mental capacity and mental health provisions should instead be encompassed into a single piece of legislation”</p><p>This short paper provides an overview of the current direction of travel on law reform in Northern Ireland. It comments on the policy climate and arguments for a fusion of mental capacity and mental health legislation. It also highlights some of the key policy issues that will need to be further explored as the Department develops its law reform proposals and concludes with some hopes and fears for the new legislation.</p>

Religious studies, religious education and the aims of education

This article interacts with a recent article by Denise Cush and Catherine Robinson in which they call for a new dialogue between religious studies in universities and religious education, and identify a number of developments in religious studies that have implications for the practice of religious education in schools. Cush and Robinson are representative of an influential body of opinion among religious educators that looks to religious studies for inspiration. It is argued that they, along with others, fail to appreciate the difference between the aims of religious studies and those of religious education and that this unrecognised difference leads them both to engage uncritically and superficially with the history of post-confessional religious education and to fail to recognise that the roots of some of the weaknesses in contemporary religious education can be traced to the influence of religious studies over it. Showing that religious education has (and is required to have) a different set of aims from religious studies (though some aims may be held in common) alerts us to its distinctive nature, and this in turn facilitates a clearer understanding of its role in schools, which can serve both to direct and to evaluate educational outcomes.

Blogging

Blogging

PLD.27 Fetal Blood Sampling in the Operating Theatre – Advised or Indefensible?

There is a body of opinion within expert witnesses that suggests that the undertaking of fetal scalp blood sampling (FBS) in a theatre setting prior to performing a perceived difficult...

Reviewer’s comment concerning “Unstable atlas fracture treatment by anterior plate C1-ring osteosynthesis using a transoral approach” (10.1007/s00586-013-2870-x by Weihu Ma, Nanjian Xu, Yong Hu, Guoqing Li, Liujun Zhao, Shaohua Sun, Weiyu Jiang, Guanyi Liu, Yongjie Gu, Jiayong Liu and Liang Yu)

This short report is of interest in that it demonstrates the divergence of views in spinal surgery and even the difficulty in deciding the classification of a single fracture such as this. Is it stable or unstable given the CT appears to show a unilateral lateral mass fracture only? What is the age of the patient? Do they have co-morbidities? What is their employment? These are just some of the questions that might be posed. There would be a body of opinion that would always treat a fracture such as this conservatively with external orthosis. Others would take the view that it should be fixed if we assume that it is unstable, with transverse ligament injury. Surgical fixation has been previously described by others including Ruf et al. [1] in 2004. This suggests the need for registry data to try to answer some of the questions posed by this type of injury.

FINANCIAL SHOCKS, UNEMPLOYMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY

This paper reviews key features of the 2007–08 financial crisis, ‘Great Recession’ and European public debt problem. In the light of these it discusses new avenues of research that have opened up. A large body of opinion supports continued research within the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) paradigm, dealing incrementally with inter alia financial frictions, heterogeneous agents, and more descriptively realistic models of wage and price adjustment than ‘Calvo contracts’. However, the crisis has boosted more radical approaches to money and finance, modelling bubbles in asset prices, and taking forward insights from psychological research and experimental and behavioural economics.

Intranasal contact points as a cause of facial pain or headache: a systematic review

There is a body of opinion in the clinical literature advocating the removal of intranasal contact points to treat facial pain. To review the evidence that intranasal mucosal contact points cause facial pain or headache and their removal is therapeutic. Systematic review. A systematic search of the available literature was performed using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane library and NHS Evidence from inception to September 2011. Terms used include facial pain and contact point (3628), rhinologic headache (6) contact point and surgery/endoscopy (38). Inclusion criteria applied. Assessment of papers were undertaken by one reviewer and checked by the second. A narrative review of each study was performed and results recorded in tables. In one study, 973 consecutive patients with a provisional diagnosis of rhinosinusitis were divided into groups with (42%) and without facial pain. There was a 4% prevalence of nasal contact in both groups, which was unrelated to the presence of facial pain. In another study of 100 patient's coronal paranasal sinus CT scans, 29% had headache and 55% had a contact point but their presence was inversely related to the presence of pain.(1) In a further study, ten healthy volunteers had palpation, adrenaline, substance P and placebo applied to different areas throughout the nasal cavity and none of these stimuli caused facial pain. Nineteen studies were identified where nasal mucosal contact points had been removed surgically for the treatment of facial pain. They were small case series, not randomised and subject to selection bias, had no control group, a limited follow-up and were open to observer bias with level IV evidence. Seven studies had a statistically significant improvement in pain postoperatively compared with preoperative questionnaire results but the majority had residual facial pain. The majority of people with contact points experience no facial pain. The presence of a contact point is not a good predictor of facial pain. The removal of a contact point rarely results in the total elimination of facial pain making the theory that a contact point is responsible unlikely. The improvement in postoperative symptoms following the removal of contact points in some patients may be explained by cognitive dissonance or neuroplasticity. A randomised, controlled and blinded trial with a followed up period of over 12 months is needed to assess the place of surgery in the removal of a contact point for the treatment of facial pain.

Common Ethical Standards for Counsel before the European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights

There is no ‘international bar’ that regulates the practice of forensic advocacy before international courts and tribunals. The lack of common ethical standards for representatives before international courts and tribunals has become increasingly topical, particularly in the field of investment arbitration. Initiatives by such professional organizations as the International Law Association and the International Bar Association to identify universal ethical principles suggest that there is a body of opinion amongst practitioners who believe that common ethical standards are necessary. However, the topic remains virgin territory in relation to the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. This article examines the historical evolution of the representation before the Courts and the procedural and ethical problems concerning representatives that have arisen in practice. It concludes that, far from being a topic of only theoretical interest, there have been considerable problems in practice arising from questionable professional conduct by representatives and conflicting national standards. It suggests that the absence of a prescribed code of conduct setting out the Courts’ precise standard for representatives is a threat to the Courts’ procedural integrity and legitimacy. It proposes that the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe take the lead in drafting a code of conduct for the European Courts, in consultation with their judiciaries, which could subsequently be adopted by the Courts and integrated into national codes of conduct.

Détente2.0? The Meaning of Russia's “Reset” with the United States

This paper asks whether the recent “reset” in Russia–US relations parallels the Cold War reprieve from East to West tensions during Detente. The author considers the enthusiasm for this reset shared by Presidents Medvedev and Obama and acknowledges the benefits accrued for Russia as a result of better relations with the United States. In so doing, the paper argues that the Medvedev–Obama reset is not the result of a convergence of liberal-minded principles shared by the leadership, due in large part to the absence of a meaningful commitment on the part of Medvedev to bring about meaningful liberal reforms in Russia. In fact, the reset seems more the result of a desire by both leaders to shed past ideological disagreements in favor of a more pragmatic approach to relations, based upon mutual benefit. The paper then concludes that the current reset is not a temporary warming of relations akin to a second-generation detente because there was no “new Cold War” to abate. The paper contributes to the growing body of opinion that acknowledges a need for analysts and practitioners to search for a better lens through which to view Russia–US relations than the Cold War prism that persistently frames our analysis.

The Scotland Bill: Whence and Whither?

At a time when a growing body of opinion in Scotland is expressing support for greater financial powers to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, the recent reports of the Holyrood and Westminster committees charged with scrutinising the Scotland Bill make particularly interesting reading. 1 The Bill is the most significant amendment to the devolution settlement to date. Published in March 2011, both reports are detailed considerations of the provisions of the Bill, financial and otherwise, and constitute an important review of the current state of academic and political thinking on the range and scope of fiscal powers that ought to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Whilst many of the arguments have already been made in various working papers, official reports, and the press, the committees represented a coming together of various, often isolated, strands of the debate about financing Scotland.

Long-term survival after lung-sparing total pleurectomy for locally advanced (International Mesothelioma Interest Group Stage T3-T4) non-sarcomatoid malignant pleural mesothelioma

There is a body of opinion that advocates extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) as the only radical treatment option for locally advanced (T3/T4) malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). We tested the hypothesis that lung-sparing total pleurectomy (LSTP) can be as effective as EPP in locally advanced MPM with reduced risk. We analysed prospective data on 165 patients (128 with epithelioid and 37 with biphasic MPM) with pT3 (n=108) and pT4 (n=57) tumours. Ninety-eight (59.4%) of the patients underwent EPP and 67 (40.6%) LSTP. We compared intergroup differences in: length of stay (LOS), post-operative complications, survival, pattern of disease progression and disease-free interval (DFI). There were significantly more complications after EPP: 67 (68%) vs. 29 (43%) in LSTP, P=0.002. Thirty-day mortality was 7% for EPP and 3% for LSTP (P=0.31). LOS was similar (mean 19 days for EPP, 15 days for LSTP, P=0.19). We noted only minor differences in the initial site of disease progression. In 33 (41%) of EPP patients, disease progressed locally compared with 22 (44%) after LSTP. Seventeen patients post-EPP (21%) had distal progression compared with only three (6%) post-LSTP and synchronous distal and local recurrence was similar: 15 (19%) post-EPP vs. 12% for LSTP (P=0.11). There was no significant intergroup difference in median survival: EPP 14.7 months (SE 1.3, 95% CI 12.2-17.2) vs. LSTP 13.4 months (SE 1.9, 95% CI 9.7-17.1), P=0.91, nor in DFI: EPP 10.7 months (SE 0.8, 95% CI 9-12) vs. LSTP 16 months (SE 1, 95% CI 9-22). In chemonaive patients (n=124), adjuvant chemotherapy was received by significantly more patients after LSTP (32/53 LSTP vs. 26/71 EPP patients, P=0.011). Estimated 1-5 years survival for EPP was 58, 30, 11, 9 and 6% and for LSTP 52, 28, 20, 13 and 4%. In disagreement with standard opinion, we advocate LSTP as the procedure of choice in locally advanced MPM: it offers at least equally as good oncological results as EPP in this group of patients with reduced early complications. Despite a tendency for increased local recurrence in the LSTP group, overall survival is not compromised.