Frequent Comments Research Articles

Development and Evaluation of a Mandatory Research Experience in a Medical Education Program: The Independent Learning Project at UNSW

As part of the reform of its undergraduate 6-year medical program, the University of New South Wales developed an in-depth research experience of 24 weeks full-time duration, which all students are required to undertake. Central aims of this Independent Learning Project (ILP) are to develop the generic capability of self-directed learning and critical evaluation, to understand how knowledge is created within a field and its limitations, and to reinforce the scientific basis of medical practice through personal research experience. The ILP is taken in either year 3 or 4 in any area of research relevant to medicine, including biomedical science, public health, and clinical research. Assessment includes supervisor grades and a report in the form of a scientific manuscript. High achieving and motivated students have the option of substituting the ILP period with a formal Bachelor of Science (Medicine) Honours degree, which is 28 weeks in duration with a more rigorous assessment. Currently, this Honours option is limited to the academically best (∼30) students each year. Between 2006 and 2010, 846 students completed an ILP and 159 undertook an Honours project in lieu. At least 64 peer-reviewed manuscripts have been published as a result of ILP projects. Student evaluations are generally positive with 65% of respondents undertaking an ILP in 2009–2010 reporting that they were satisfied with their experience. Motivation, interest, and recognition were the key factors which characterized students who reported satisfaction with their ILP experiences. In open-ended comments, students reported key intellectual outcomes related to research as the highest ranked ‘best aspects’ of their ILP. The most frequent negative comments reflected resistance to the compulsory nature of the ILP, a need for better selection or training of supervisors, and interruption to their clinical learning.

Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire by Kim Bowes (review)

Reviewed by: Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire by Kim Bowes Jeremy Rossiter Kim Bowes. Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire. Duckworth Debates in Archaeology. London: Duckworth, 2010. Pp. 120, 23 figures. CDN $26.95. ISBN 9780715638828. This short book, one of a new Duckworth series titled “Debates in Archaeology”, aims to give the reader a clear state-of-the-art view of where the study of late Roman houses now stands. As such, it is more about the study of houses and about different methodological approaches to the topic than about the houses themselves. According to the publisher’s blurb, the book is targeted equally at both “students and serious scholars” (one hopes these are not mutually exclusive categories). In practice it is geared more towards graduate than undergraduate students; it is not a book for the casual reader. Bowes’ methodological territory is quickly staked out. The study of late Roman houses, she argues, has moved away from traditional text-based interpretations towards a more archaeological and theory-based approach(19). Bowes acknowledges the important role played in this process by two earlier scholars, Yvon Thébert and Simon Ellis (the latter “arguably the most influential scholar on the later Roman house,” 28). Nonetheless the model of Late Roman housing proposed by these scholars, she claims, is misleading. Whereas they argued for a bold “new” style of Late Roman élite housing based on new patterns of social behaviour, Bowes asserts rather that the houses of the rich in late Antiquity were built to accommodate patterns of social behaviour which were little changed from previous centuries. [End Page 148] This is perhaps correct but, as with the work of Thébert and Ellis, one has to question the evidentiary basis on which Bowes builds her argument. Her source base, it appears, is almost exclusively the material blueprint of late Roman domestic life, the structures and instrumenta (‘pots and lamps,’ 85) of excavated houses and villas. But this gives at best only a partial picture. Patterns of social behaviour are not easily reconstructed from house plans and small finds alone. A large hall with an apse and an opus sectile floor can be interpreted many different ways: as a reception room, a dining room, a library, an auditorium, even a courtroom. How are we to choose? Interpretations based on spatial analysis or artifact distribution can only take us so far. They do not explain social behaviour or household ritual. Ultimately we are going to need every scrap of help we can get from contemporary written sources, however flawed these may be. Of course written sources are problematical; writers have agendas, they have imaginations. But this is not a reason to devalue them; what matters is how we use them. This is where Bowes runs into difficulty. She wants to distance herself from the written evidence which she views as unreliable and potentially misleading (e.g. her comments on Sidonius’ description of élite dining, 57-58) but by doing so she deprives herself of a rich source of cultural information which can provide important clues to understanding why houses were built the way they were. It was precisely this problem which undermined the earlier work of Thébert and Ellis. In his analysis of the so-called “Palace of the Dux” at Apollonia in Libya (used by Bowes as the front image of her book), Ellis introduced all sorts of ideas about ceremony and hierarchy within the late Roman house but never explained what exactly these ideas involved. Bowes tends to follow along the same path; there is little discussion here of the actual social practices which influenced the design of late Roman houses; no discussion of late Roman domestic protocols or of how these protocols may have varied from one region to another. Instead, what we have is a good theoretical discussion of late Roman housing based squarely on the material evidence afforded by excavation but little comment on the lives of the individuals and households for whom the houses were created. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the author’s frequent comments about apses. In late Roman houses apses were everywhere: “[a]t Carranque in...

Aging by the Book: The Emergence of Midlife in Victorian Britain (review)

Reviewed by: Aging by the Book: The Emergence of Midlife in Victorian Britain Tamara S. Wagner Heath, Kay . Aging by the Book: The Emergence of Midlife in Victorian Britain. New York: State University of New York, 2009. 247 pp. $75.00 cloth. The marriage plot, generally considered a determining paradigm of nineteenth-century popular fiction, achieves a very different significance and reveals surprising new twists when we read the often remarked age differences not along easily typecast assumptions on gendered double standards but instead through the lens of age anxiety. Kay Heath's probing exploration of the literary and larger cultural representations of aging exposes this concern as a Victorian invention. Victorian culture transformed middle age, changing it from the "prime of life" into a period of decline, for men as well as for women. Previously considered "the apotheosis of adulthood" (6), it became an age of anxiety, of worries about status in society and in the work force, about marriageability, and about waning masculinity. Signs of aging were no longer an indicator of maturity, experience, wisdom, and hence increased status, but were instead anxiously watched as physical symptoms of decay in health, strength, beauty, or virility. While Heath acknowledges the expected double standard—which is significantly still with us—that "a gendered paradigm of midlife onset heralds the end of youth and marriageability at a much earlier point for females than males" (149), she also shows the effects this new invention had on men. An important number of heroes in Victorian novels suffer from the new anxiety, just as women worry about attractiveness (and fertility) or widows capitalize on the allure of experience. Arthur Clennam in Little Dorrit (1857) springs to mind as one of the most self-conscious middle-aged men, as does, of course, the seemingly ageless Dorian Gray in the eponymous novel at the end of the century. But Heath discloses a range of otherwise very different male and female protagonists, minor and major, who struggle or come to terms with the changing perception of their age. As a result, this cultural history of midlife's invention also offers a new approach to nineteenth-century fiction: a literary history of aging heroes and heroines. [End Page 486] The spectrum of novels—both canonical and non-canonical—that Heath covers is impressive, inviting us to go back to and reread them, to search them out, or also to apply the paradigm (the tracing of age anxiety as an interpretative tool itself) to other novels of the time. A self-reflexive proviso in the introduction alerts us to the sheer pervasiveness of aging as a theme and the consequent development of what Heath calls "midlife plots" (13). At conferences at which she has been presenting and discussing her research, Heath stresses, "one of the most frequent comments has been the suggestion of yet another novel to include" (17). Clearly, "midlife is a Victorian issue so ubiquitous it would not be feasible to cover even a fraction of eligible texts" (17), while it also invites further study. Heath's method of selecting texts is as impressive as her coverage of the "fraction" she has sought out. In fact, what makes her study a delightful read as well as informative are the connections she establishes between outwardly very different texts, comparing and contrasting them across genres. While she supplements her perceptive close readings with equally insightful analyses of medical literature, demographic data, and advertisements, treating them as constructed texts as well, she importantly states from the beginning that she is going to "center [her] attention most extensively on Victorian novels" (3). Stressing that fiction "indicates a much more complicated scenario" (9) and shows finer distinctions, especially in such a culturally loaded and constructed discourse as the invention of a new and continuously shifting life stage, she thereby also illustrates how novels form such a revealing and often particularly intriguing insight precisely because they are "problematic bearers of cultural freight" (18). It is indeed a major strength of the study that it draws on a wide range of works, analyzes representative texts in detail, and thereby presents a different key to tracing literary history along the marriage plots of novelists including...

Measuring Agricultural Stewardship: Risks and Rewards

First paragraphs: As a process facilitator working exclusively on food system issues, I spend a lot of time on the road talking to farmers and other food system actors about sustainability. The two most frequent comments I hear, particularly from producers, are what the heck does sustainability mean? and if we were not sustainable, we would not be here today. The dialogue from this point may follow one of several paths. We can try to define sustainability abstractly, and inevitably someone will bring forward a definition that mimics the Brundtland[1] formulation: Sustainability means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Others may say that sustainability is a set of practices, such as organic or biodynamic farming. Still others suggest that it has an ever-shifting end point, never reached and also never fully defined. [1] The Brundtland Commission, more formally the World Commission on Environment and Development, developed the first popularized framework for sustainable development in the mid-1980s.

“Ask for Bread, not Peace”

In contrast to restless students in Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi, Timiş oara, and other cities, who tried to organize rallies calling for government reforms in the fall of 1956 but failed, Romanian workers and peasants expressed their feelings about the revolution in nearby Hungary by going on feverish shopping sprees; stockpiling food staples; writing anonymous leaflets and graffiti; spreading rumors; and engaging in arson, vandalism, and physical brawls. The Hungarian crisis aroused in some citizens fears of a World War III, for others a war over Transylvania, and for still others a Hungarian-style revolt in Romania. A survey of published Securitate reports written between 26 October and 23 November 1956 shows that the three most frequent oral comments recorded were those complaining about the economy, those predicting that “what happened in Hungary will happen in Romania,” and those asking “why was the Soviet intervention necessary?” The economic complaints outnumbered the other two types of comments. Political messages, oral and written, spanned the spectrum, from fascist, Iron Guard songs, monarchist comments, to procapitalist slogans. Although most irredentist comments, oral and written, originated from cities in Transylvania, more than half of the incidents of physical aggression, including arson and other acts of sabotage, occurred in non-Transylvanian regions. Although the Securitate sometimes exploited ethnic tensions to gain recruits, Romanian citizens expressed more rage toward the communist dictatorship than against ethnic Hungarians.

John W. Holmes

For close to 50 years, John W Holmes (1910-1988) played a leading role in the development and interpretation of Canada and its place in the world. Long-time students of Canadian foreign policy still recall his remarkable abilities as a diplomat, essayist, historian, commentator, university professor, and mentor. Nevertheless, today, Holmes's name no longer resonates with the average Canadian as it may have in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was a frequent commentator on television and in the newspapers. Of the substantial body of scholarship he accumulated in the 1970s and 1980s, his two-volume history of postwar Canadian foreign policy continues to appear on some course outlines and is consulted by university students (particularly in history departments), but a great deal of his other writing is relatively unknown to contemporary students and policymakers.Given the increasingly presentist focus of the study of Canada's place in the world, this is perhaps hardly surprising. Canadians today, or so we are often told, face challenges that are nothing like those before them. The world is more complex, and as a result we need new solutions, new approaches, and new ways of understanding our globalized village. What relevance, some might ask, could a man who passed away before the Cold War even came to a close, let alone before 9/11, have to Canadians with an interest in foreign policy today?To mark the centenary of Holmes's birth, the editors of International Journal asked the two of us - Chapnick is a historian who has just published a biography of Holmes; Nossal, a political scientist, was a student of Holmes's - to examine what relevance Holmes's reflections on Canadian foreign policy might have in the 21st century.1 We invited nine commentators to write short papers inspired by some OfHoImCS1S most notable quotations. Our contributors were selected with Holmes's own approach to such academic exercises in mind: a mix of young and old, academics and policy practitioners, with both traditional and nontraditional approaches to the study of Canadian foreign policy. Some, like Nossal, knew Holmes well; others, like Chapnick, had never met him; indeed, some contributors had hardly read his work before they were asked to participate. AU, however, have brought a flair for writing and a depth of analysis to the quotations that would have made Holmes proud.There is no denying that the world has changed since Holmes's name stopped appearing in newspapers, magazines, and academic publications across Canada and around the world. Denis Stairs, whose academic career spans both Holmes's most prolific years and the two decades that have followed, captures those changes effectively in his contribution to this collection. But Stairs also demonstrates that much of the international context is not quite as different as contemporary analysts often make it out to be. Moreover, one might even venture to say that the demands of the 21st century, while more complex, are hardly greater than those faced by Holmes during his junior years as a civil servant in the 1940s. Two years after he joined the Department of External Affairs in 1943, Holmes and Lester Pearson were leaving the Hotel Savoy in London when they noticed a news bulletin informing them of the detonation of the world's first atomic weapon in Hiroshima. The paradigm shift faced by policymakers that day was overwhelming, and its impact on the development of foreign policy was no less significant than that of 9/11 on the world more recently. The ability to be flexible, to adapt to changing international circumstances, and to manage the unexpected are all skills that Holmes was forced to master. Given the events of the last decade, the lessons that he learned, and passed on to generations of Canadians from all walks of life, are all the more relevant and worth recalling than they ever have been.John Wendell Holmes was born in London, Ontario, on 18 June 1910. The second of four children, he was brought up in a household that was fairly standard for a smaller city in Ontario at the time. …

Two controversies in the early history of the telegraph

Two related questions emerge from these controversies over the invention and early commercialization of the telegraph. First, how could Morse, a man with little scientific training or mechanical skill, invent the telegraph? Second, how should we apportion credit for the telegraph among Morse, Henry, and Vail?The author's conclusion is clear: Morse was the one who succeeded in reducing the invention of telegraphy in the United States to practice, but he relied on the substantialcontributions to the then-new science of electricity by Henry and the mechanical ingenuity of Vail. Without the help of either one, the Morse telegraph would not have been successful as a commercial system. As another interesting note, the author points out that the Morse code was developed by Morse himself, despite frequent comments that Vail was the one who developed the code.

Peer review process in medical research publications: Language and content comments

Every article sent by an author to a reputed scientific journal undergoes a rigorous editorial evaluation. The editor has the final responsibility of accepting or rejecting manuscripts and thus can confer authority and validity on the author’s research and help to disseminate new knowledge. In this task, editors make use of a panel of expert peer reviewers in the field who examine the manuscript and make recommendations. Some aspects of the peer review process have been investigated by medical scientists and by linguists but to the best of our knowledge, there have been no studies conducted on peer reviewer comments of medical articles written in English by Italian researchers. The present study aimed to establish the most frequent types of comments made by peer reviewers to identify the most frequent linguistic problems that Italian researchers encounter in this process. A collection of clinical research manuscripts submitted by Italian medical researchers to reputable English language journals were analysed together with the comments by editors and reviewers. The most frequent comments and criticisms were mainly in the area of scientific and methodological content, followed by lexical and grammatical errors, clarity and verbosity or repetition. An awareness of the features which might affect the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts may help novice writers and furnish training materials to aid researchers in writing publications in English.

Appearance-based comments, body dissatisfaction and drive for muscularity in males

This study examined the role of positive and negative appearance-based comments on body dissatisfaction and drive for muscularity among young adult males. The direct and moderating effect of self-esteem were also investigated; and BMI, age, and social desirability were included as covariates. The participants were 214 males aged between 18 and 30 years. More frequent negative comments were associated with higher body dissatisfaction whilst more frequent positive comments were associated with lower body dissatisfaction. However, both frequent negative and positive commentary were associated with higher drive for muscularity. Self-esteem was also associated with both body dissatisfaction and the drive for muscularity, but it did not moderate that influence of either positive or negative messages. Longitudinal research is now needed to determine the directionality of these relationships. Further research is required to establish the contexts in which positive and negative messages are associated with body dissatisfaction and the drive for muscularity.

Introduction

Introduction John McLaughlin (bio) This issue of The SAIS Review appears at a moment when America's intelligence community is dealing with some of the toughest challenges in its history, while facing unprecedented public scrutiny of its activities. It is therefore the ideal time to present this issue, in which our contributors tackle topics such as the ethical questions involved in intelligence work, the relationship between intelligence officers and their policy counterparts, and the nature of intelligence success and failure. The challenges facing intelligence today flow from the dramatically altered state of the world since the end of the Cod War and the attacks of September 11. These twin watersheds changed the world in ways that present intelligence with both secrets to discover and mysteries to unravel. The intelligence community must work to ascertain the capabilities and locations of terrorist cells, the plans of adversaries, and the status of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons proliferation around the globe. Furthermore, intelligence analysts must also look beyond this to unravel the mysteries that are inherently unknowable yet susceptible to predictive analysis. These include the future of rising powers and the downstream impact of global trends ranging from the population explosion in the developing world to the soaring demand for energy and revolutionary changes in technology. The intelligence plate is overflowing. All of this comes at time when the Intelligence Community itself is in the midst of a dramatic transformation. After dramatic resource cuts during the 'peace dividend' era of the 1990s, money and people have begun flowing back into the community. Intelligence agencies have in the last two years been hiring at a record clip. While this has the decided benefit of bringing in fresh perspectives and vital new energy, it also means that many agencies now have staffs with a majority of people who have been in the business [End Page 3] fewer than five years. Many intelligence professionals are thus climbing a very steep learning curve while wrestling with the above challenges. Another part of this transformation involves the restructuring of the intelligence community under the Director of National Intelligence. The Director—whose position was created in December 2004—is now the nation's principal intelligence official charged with overseeing and coordinating the work of the community's 16 diverse agencies. As with most major reorganizations in their early years, all of this remains a 'work in progress.' The new Director differs from his/her predecessor—the Director of Central Intelligence—in not having simultaneously to manage the CIA on a daily basis. In theory, this means that the new leader has the potential to devote more time and energy to integrating the work of the community's diverse agencies and achieving progress on long-standing issues, such as information sharing, common standards for hiring and training, and uniform practices for recruiting and vetting secret agents. A good start has been made on many of these issues, but it is widely believed that Congress did not give the new Director sufficient authority to achieve the stated goals. Various proposals are on the table for strengthening the new Director's authority, but important decisions have yet to be made. In short, much is at stake for the United States as the Intelligence Community copes with the twin challenges of understanding a more complex world and transforming the way it does business. Although espionage is a secret business, American intelligence must function in a free and open society, operate in a way consistent with our values, and earn the public's trust. The challenges that our intelligence agencies now face—running the gamut from substantive to managerial—call for an unprecedented degree of public debate and understanding. With this issue of The SAIS Review, we hope to contribute substantially to that discussion. John McLaughlin John McLaughlin is a Senior Research Fellow at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Prior to coming to SAIS, he worked on a broad range of issues during a three decades-long career at the Central Intelligence Agency, where, between 2000-2004, he served as Deputy Director and Acting Director. He is a frequent commentator on international issues for CNN and...

Du bon usage de l’antigène spécifique prostatique en pratique de ville

To standardize interpretation and comments of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) assay results by clinical pathology laboratories in office practice. From September 2004 to May 2006, interpretation and comments of PSA assay results performed by 100 different laboratories were analysed retrospectively. Nineteen different PSA assay kits were used. The so-called "normal" value for total PSA was less than 4 ng/ml for two-thirds of kits. Determination of the free PSA/total PSA ratio (91 cases) was based on a cut-off value ranging from 10 to 25% and the frequent laboratory comments (89 cases) more often referred to benign prostatic hyperplasia (51 case) than prostate cancer (nine cases). The marked diversity of PSA assay techniques currently used and the divergent interpretations by various laboratories lead to problems of interpretation for both practitioners and patients.

Adolescent-Evaluated Quality of Life: A Longitudinal Study

Opportunities for adolescents with cancer to interact with each other are few. This project provided a weekend retreat for adolescents with cancer and obtained longitudinal self-evaluated quality of life data. Data were collected using the Adolescent Quality of Life instrument, which is a 16-item Likert-scaled survey that assesses quality of life. Twenty-two adolescents attended the weekend, and 17 participated in the study. Evaluations of the weekend retreat were positive, with "making friends" and "meeting others like me" the most frequent comments. Data from the Adolescent Quality of Life instrument revealed that for this population, quality of life was unchanged directly after the weekend and was statistically worse 1 month later. Enrollment methods skewed study participation toward individuals receiving treatment, which may explain these results. The reliability of the Adolescent Quality of Life instrument remained stable over time, and it appears to accurately assess and reflect changes in quality of life.

In This Issue

In This Issue

Questionnaire

Jacques Attali is a professor, writer and honorary member of the Conseil d'Etat; CEO of A&A, an international consulting firm specializing in new technologies; and President of PlaNet Finance, an international non-profit organization that assists microfinance institutions all over the world. He also served as Special Advisor to the President of France from 1981 to 1991 and was the founder and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1991 to 1993). He is a columnist for L'Express and has also published forty books including numerous essays on a wide variety of subjects, biographies, novels, children's tales, and plays. Chochana Boukhobza was born in Tunisia in 1959. She worked as a journalist and has published six novels and two children's books and directed a documentary film, Un billet aller-retour, which analyses the relationship of the French Jews with Israel (2005). Her first book, Un été à Jèrusalem (1986) was awarded the Prix Méditerranée. Her other books include Le cri, Les herbes amères, Pour l'amour du père, and Sous les Etoiles. Naïm Kattan was born in Baghdad in 1928 and emigrated to Montreal in 1954. A few months after his arrival in Montreal he founded the Bulletin du Cercle Juif. He has contributed to many newspapers and literary periodicals in Canada, France, Belgium, and other countries and is a frequent commentator on radio and television. He has published thirty five books: novels, short stories, essays, and plays. In 1992, Kattan became an associate professor at the Université du Québec de Montreal. Naïm Kattan has received many honors and awards. In 2004, he was the laureate of Quebec's Athanase David literary prize. Albert Memmi, one of the founding figures of Tunisian literature in French, has lived in France since the 1950s. His novels include La statue de sel (1953), Agar (1955) and Le Pharaon (1988). He is also the author of sociological studies on race and ethnicity in colonial and postcolonial situations, including Portrait du colonisé, précédé du portrait du colonisateur (1957), Le racisme (1982) and Portrait du décolonisé arabo-musulman (2004). Among his books on Jewishness and the Jewish condition: Portrait d'un juif (I 1962, II 1966) and Juifs et Arabes (1974). His autobiography, Le nomade immobile, was published in 2000. Georges Moustaki was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1934. He is a singer and songwriter. His parents were originally from the island of Corfu (Greece) and moved to Egypt. Moustaki left Alexandria for Paris in 1951. Victor Teboul is the editor of the popular Webzine Tolerance.ca® (www.tolerance.ca). His most recent novel, La Lente découverte de l'étrangeté, recounts the brutal departure of Jews from Egypt during the 1956 Suez Crisis. Dr. Teboul teaches literature at a college near Montreal. For more details on his works, please consult his website at http://www.victorteboul.com.

Views on the efficacy and ethics of punishment: Results from a national survey.

Punishment is typically defined as a reduction in behavior due to a consequence made contingent on the performance of that behavior (Azrin & Holz, 1966). The consequence can be the introduction of an aversive stimulus (i.e., positive punishment) such as electric shock, loud noise, a reprimand, etc., or the removal of a reinforcing stimulus (i.e., negative punishment) such as food, money, or access to the social environment. Punishment-based strategies developed for clinical use include overcorrection, time-out, response cost, visual screening, and many more (Axelrod & Apsche, 1983; Conyers et al., 2004). Punishment-based interventions are among the most controversial treatments for behavior disorders in the applied behavior analysis literature (e.g., Johnston, 1991; Matson & Kazdin, 1981; Repp & Singh, 1990). The controversy is actually double, concerning both the efficacy and the ethics of punishment, and both researchers and practitioners tend to argue for or against the morality of punishment by developing a position on its efficacy. Some scholars (e.g., LaVigna & Donnellan, 1986) have argued that punishment is unnecessary, claiming that reinforcement-based strategies provide the efficacy of punishment without harmful side effects, thereby making punishment unethical. Alternatively, other scholars (e.g., Axelrod, 1990; Foxx, 2005) have argued that punishment, especially when used in conjunction with reinforcement, has efficacy superior to that of reinforcement alone, making punishment at least sometimes ethical. Controversy over punishment has led to dozens of position papers (see chapters in Repp & Singh, 1990), as well as debates over the legality of aversive stimuli (Lohrmann-O'Rourke & Zirkel, 1998), the long-term effects of punishment-based discipline (Benjet & Kazdin, 2003), and even the interpretation of B. F. Skinner's position on punishment (Dinsmoor, 1992). However, despite frequent comments about the diversity of opinion on the ethics and efficacy of punishment, no empirical research has focused on this diversity itself. That is, no systematic survey has examined attitudes toward punishment in a representative sample of the general public, professionals in the field of behavior analysis, or psychologists in general. Without such data, it is difficult to assess whether either side in the punishment debate constitutes a mainstream view or a radical one. Although no general survey exists, there has been a small amount of research on attitudes toward punishment among professionals who work with individuals with disabilities. Irvin and Lunderworld (1988) asked special education teachers to rate various punishment procedures on four dimensions: restrictiveness, intrusiveness, acceptability, and efficacy. These investigators found that teachers' perceptions of efficacy was closely related to acceptability but not to restrictiveness or intrusiveness, suggesting that these participants were able to separate their judgments of efficacy from other judgments that focused more on the ethics of punishment procedures. Harris, Handleman, Gill, and Fong (1991) conducted a related study investigating the relationship between use of aversives and job satisfaction in a sample of direct care staff working in programs serving individuals with autism. Harris and colleagues divided participants into two groups, depending on whether the participants' programs permitted the use of aversives, and found that participants who were permitted to use strong aversives had a greater sense of personal accomplishment in their work. This finding, taken in the context of other results, suggested that giving staff a fuller range of treatment strategies increases a sense of satisfaction and control in one's work and prevents the burnout so common in clinical work. Research on service providers has recently been supplemented by studies investigating perceptions of punishment among typically developing children. …

The Use of Fair Value in IFRS

ABSTRACT The implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), particularly in the European Union, has led to frequent comments that IFRS are “fair value based standards” and that the IASB is moving inexorably towards full fair value accounting. This article examines the extent to which IFRS do, in fact, require the use of fair values for the measurement of assets and liabilities. It explains the definition of fair value in IFRS, the evolution of that definition and the need for further clarifications and guidance with respect to the application of the definition. It then identifies the four main uses of fair value in IFRS. Three of these uses reflect what should have happened under many national standards. The fourth use is, in practice, restricted to very few assets and liabilities. The article concluded with suggestions about the possible areas in which the IASB might extend the use of fair values.

What makes a good nurse? Views of patients and carers

Ninety-six patients, service users and carers were consulted about what makes a good nurse in an exercise designed to inform a Diploma in Nursing curriculum at the University of Nottingham, but the results are relevant across the nursing profession. Good communication, respect, appropriate appearance, attention to hygiene and detailed knowledge of patients' conditions and treatments were the areas that generated the most frequent comments. Participants give an insight into the experiences of care they had received and by implication provide a worrying indictment of current nursing practice. The authors recommend that the findings be used to inform nursing curricula and to highlight patient and carer needs for a quality nursing service.

L'imaginaire médiéval dans le cinéma occidental by François Amy de la Bretèque (review)

REVIEWS83 The New Historians ofthe Twelfth-Century Renaissance (Woodbridge, 1999). In the light of this recent research, it is clear that Bakhtin's generic distinctions are not especially helpful for our understanding of the Brut, though his views on language prove to be more fruitful. The moral dimension to language and its importance in shaping our response to the theme of betrayal in La^amon's poem is perceptively analysed in chaptct 1, whilst the exploration of the possible interaction between preaching andwriting (chapter 3) makes a number ofcogent points that will certainly be revisited by other scholars. Also notewotthy is the discussion ofthe function of Merlin and his prophecies in the Brut. This is a well-researched, carefully produced and clearly written piece of scholarship, that all students ofLa^amon and ofArthurian literature will read with profit. And while it will not prove to be as controversial as Daniel Donoghue's 1990 article, it is to be hoped that it will spark new research into hithetto unexplored aspects of the Brut. FRANÇOISE LE SAUX University of Reading BRIEF NOTICE: François amy de la BRETÈQUE, L'imaginaire médiéval dans le cinéma occidental. Paris: Honoré Champion Editeur, 2004. Pp.1277. isbn: 2-7453-12064-x. $170 euros. The study of cinema arthuriana begins in France in the 1940s as patt of the more general study ofcinema medievalia. More recently, no one has been a more frequent commentator on cinema arthuriana and medievalia than Professor Amy de la Bretèque. In what will doubtless for some time remain the definitive study ofWestern 'medieval cinema,' he discusses in varying detail more than 500 films. Of special interest to Atthurian scholars will be chapters 10-14 and 16 in which Amy de la Bretèque turns his attention to films about the Round Table, Gawain, Lancelot and Guinevere, Parsifal/Perceval, Merlin, and Tristan and Isolde. Those interested in broadet range of cinema medievalia will also want to read what the author has to say about the cinematic traditions of Robin Hood, Joan ofArc, and the Crusades, as well as about individual films such as Alexander Nevsky, Le Miracle des loups, Le Moine et la sorcière, The Name ofthe Rose, The Nibelungenlied, La Passion Béatrice, The Seventh Seal, and Les Visiteurs du soir. KEVIN J. HARTY \? Salle University ...

Development of the National Eye Institute refractive error correction quality of life questionnaire: Focus groups

Objective To identify the content area for a questionnaire designed to measure the vision-targeted, health-related quality of life for persons with well-corrected refractive error. Design Cross-sectional study. Participants Fifty-two focus groups were conducted with 414 patients from 5 geographically diverse ophthalmic and optometric sites to identify the content area of a questionnaire for use among persons with myopia and hyperopia. Methods A standard protocol was used to structure each focus group discussion, and groups were led by centrally trained moderators at each participating site. Results were summarized and analyzed using a standard set of codes. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted. Main outcome measure Self-reported observations or comments about vision, vision correction, and other aspects of quality of life. Results Among the 414 participants, 9262 mentions of comments were recorded. The most frequent comments reported by participants were about types of vision correction, followed by comments with their own vision and vision-related symptoms. The distribution of comments by topic domain was generally similar across types of correction and type of refractive error. The most frequent specific comments about glasses concerned problems with reading, adjustment between near and far vision, and appearance. The most frequent comments about contact lenses included those on symptoms such as dry eyes, itching and tired eyes, and headaches, and negative comments about ease of use. The most frequent comments among patients with surgical correction concerned fewer driving problems; fewer symptoms; and improvement in vision, recreation, and comfort. Participants provided equal numbers of positive and negative comments about glasses. Twice as many positive as negative comments were given by contact lens wearers, and 4 times as many positive comments were provided by patients who had undergone surgical correction. Conclusions Using focus groups, we were able to identify content areas and aspects of visual functioning in persons with refractive error that are not measured by standard visual acuity testing in the clinic or by other vision-targeted, health-related quality of life instruments such as the 25- or 51-item National Eye Institute–Visual Functioning Questionnaire. The similarity of problems mentioned across refractive error type and correction method suggests it will be possible to develop a single questionnaire with adequate content validity to compare the impact of different modes of correction in vision-targeted, health-related quality of life.

Whose Border is it, Anyway?

Stephen Handelman, author and journalist, writes the biweekly TIME Canada column and is a frequent commentator on North American and international affairs. We cannot accept unpaid the sheltering protection of another state. -Stephen Leacock, 1909TWO YEARS AFTER THE TERROR ATTACKS on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, North America is a profoundly divided continent. Canada, Mexico and the United States have achieved a level of security co-operation that would have been unthinkable a few years ago, but the lingering sense of vulnerability in the region's most powerful nation continues to influence, and in some cases distort, the politics of the region. The solidarity and common vision that accompanied the signing of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have been undermined by the opposition of America's northern and southern neighbours to its war in Iraq. Moreover, Washington's troubled and potentially long-term occupation of that faraway Middle Eastern country raises doubts about whether it can sustain the momentum (or interest) for the broadened hemisphere partnership promised at the outset of George W. Bush's presidency. Meanwhile, although the huge trade flows that made the region an engine of world prosperity in the 1990s have resumed, trade and social policy conflicts have sharpened as economic uncertainties have begun to eat away at consumer and investor confidence. With increasingly divergent views on foreign and economic affairs, on security threats, and on their obligations to each other, the three nations have rarely been so far apart.Arguably, the Canada-US relationship, in particular, has suffered the most bruising blows. The sophisticated social, economic and political linkages across the 49th Parallel made it easier for Canadians to move towards the new security condominium demanded by Washington. If nothing else, the deepening integration of the two economies (and the common vulnerabilities arising from that integration) made such a partnership a matter of obvious self-interest for both countries. Yet Canadian suspicion of American policies, coupled with American resentment of Canadian softness in foreign and military policy, has diminished the possibilities for a genuine political dialogue that would rise above technical discussions over border controls and customs harmonization. Such a dialogue is even more crucial now as the two countries move from tackling border security to the thornier issue of continental defence.The framework for dialogue is certainly there. North America changed shape on 12 December 2001. On that date, Canada's then foreign affairs minister John Manley and Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor who had become director of the new US Office of Homeland Security, met in Ottawa to give their governments' formal approval of a 30-point Smart Border Action Plan--hurriedly worked out by officials of both countries in the aftermath of the attacks that had taken place, almost to the day, three months earlier. A similar (though considerably less ambitious) agreement was signed between the US and Mexico on 22 March 2002. Both plans were in some ways extensions of the NAFTA agreement in that they created a system of co-operative vigilance at the borders that would enable the benefits of the trade pact to continue.The 30 points of the Canada-US plan, which would later be expanded to cover other forms of commercial and agricultural trade, included measures for joint policing and customs inspection that would incorporate the latest innovations in scanning technology and data sharing. But the agenda, in Canada's case at least, was about far more than the border. Manley and Ridge declared that their aim was to create a zone of confidence in which citizens of both countries could continue to trade and interact inside a new protective security shield.It may have sounded modest, but this was a transforming proposal. …