Wider Literature Research Articles

A Micro-Level Analysis of Support in Britain for the War in Afghanistan

Research Highlights and Abstract The article conducts a detailed and robust analysis of the social and attitudinal underpinnings of general support for the war in Afghanistan. The article contributes to scholarly understanding of public attitudes in Britain on foreign policy issues and to the wider literature on public opinion and war. The findings underline the long-standing ‘gender gap’ in attitudes to war, with men more in favour. Labour partisanship and political knowledge are directly related to support for the war, though there is only weak evidence that the effects of partisanship are mediated via political knowledge. This article analyses the micro-level factors affecting public opinion in Britain towards the long-running war in Afghanistan, a major foreign policy issue in the post-9-11 era. It examines the effects of social and attitudinal factors, including perceptions of how the war is going. There is a strong evidence of a ‘gender gap’, with men more in favour, while those with higher educational attainment are more supportive. Perceptions of the war's progress play a strong role in shaping general support. Labour partisans are more supportive while political knowledge is positively-related to support for the war. There is weaker evidence that the effects of partisanship are mediated via political knowledge. This article contributes to the scholarly understanding of public attitudes in Britain on foreign policy issues and to the wider literature on public opinion and military intervention.

Naturalistic Moral Realism and Moral Disagreement: David Copp’s Account

To enhance the plausibility of naturalistic moral realism, David Copp develops an argument from epistemic defeaters aiming to show that strongly a priori synthetic moral truths do not exist. In making a case for the non-naturalistic position, I locate Copp’s account within the wider literature on peer disagreement; I identify key points of divergence between Copp’s doctrine and conciliatorist doctrines; I introduce the notion of ‘minimal moral competence’; I contend that some plausible benchmarks for minimal moral competence are grounded in substantive moral considerations; and I discuss two forms of spinelessness that Copp’s moral naturalism could result in.

Intimations of immortality

Young’s paper (2012) offers an interesting and fruitful extension to recent work on Cotard’s syndrome, and in particular, a philosophical investigation of how and why beliefs around death and non-existence frequently co-occur with beliefs around immortality. In this brief response, we discuss a few issues from the paper. Namely, the issue of Cotard delusion being a natural kind, the seeming paradox of death and immortality and its relation to wider culture and literature, and the utility of the concept of misplaced being.

Investigating the relationship between nanomaterial hazard and physicochemical properties: Informing the exploitation of nanomaterials within therapeutic and diagnostic applications

Nanomaterials (NMs) have the potential to improve the treatment and diagnosis of disease as they are suitable candidates for a number of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. On entering the body via a variety of exposure routes, and during their translocation to secondary target sites it is inevitable that NMs interact with biological molecules, such as proteins. These interactions may influence the behaviour and toxicity of NMs following exposure. As the surface of NMs is what interacts with cells and tissues it is necessary to identify the influence of NM surface properties on their toxicity, and determine how this is influenced by the route of exposure, and physico-chemical characteristics of NMs. The term protein corona is used to describe the coating of the NM surface with protein. The protein corona is a dynamic and complex structure whose composition is dictated by the biological medium and the physico-chemical properties of NMs (such as their size, composition, hydrophobicity and charge) as this influences protein binding specificity and affinity. Depending on the route of exposure (e.g. inhalation or injection) NMs will encounter different proteins. We have observed that i) the composition of protein corona of NMs is likely to be dictated by their route of entry, ii) the translocation of NMs to secondary target sites may influence the composition of the protein corona (i.e. they encounter different proteins on their transport in the body) so that the composition of the protein corona evolves over time, iii) the physico-chemical characteristics of NMs dictate the composition of the protein corona, and the toxicity of NMs and iv) NMs can affect secondary target sites that vary according to delivery route and corona composition following exposure. These findings, and evidence from the wider literature has therefore led us to hypothesise that NM toxicity is dictated by the exposure route due to the acquisition of a surface coating (protein corona) that is determined by the route of entry and physico-chemical properties of the NM. This information can be exploited within the intelligent design of NMs in the future (e.g. to control protein adsorption and the subsequent cellular response), and be used to improve the design of toxicology investigations (e.g. to inform how NMs should be dispersed within in vitro experiments to more accurately reflect in vivo conditions).

Explanations of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Falklands memoirs: The fragmented self and the collective body

The Falklands War has been described and experienced as disproportionately traumatic. The war was the first following the consolidation of the diagnostic for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as the measurement for the traumatic nature of combat. Whilst a variety of different disciplines and literatures have explored the traumatic nature of warfare, the experiences and accounts of Falklands veterans have been key to the popularization of the PTSD model, as well as to campaigns around the treatment and rehabilitation of ex-combatants. Ex-combatants' Falklands memoirs share a number of explanations of trauma with the wider literature. However, Falklands soldiers' memoirs also provide invaluable insight into both the specificity of their battlefield experience, and suggest wider universal lessons on trauma more generally. Although presented as individual accounts, central to Falklands memoirs is the importance of the military collective body in maintaining resilience to, and enabling recuperation from, the traumatic impact of combat.

Image-guided percutaneous spinal biopsy

The purpose of this article is to discuss the role of imaging in the diagnosis and management of spinal disorders, with particular attention to that of image-guided percutaneous spinal biopsy. We discuss the indications, general principles, pre-procedural steps and specific techniques used for image-guided percutaneous spinal biopsy in the context of our experience and the wider literature. Percutaneous spinal biopsy is a safe and diagnostically accurate procedure when appropriately selected for further evaluation in the multidisciplinary team setting.

Agricultural History. Vol. 3 of The History of the Prairie West Series (review)

Reviewed by: Agricultural History. Vol. 3 of The History of the Prairie West Series Marvin McInnis Agricultural History. Vol. 3 of The History of the Prairie West Series. Gregory P. Marchildon, ed. Regina: CPRC Press, 2011. Pp. 550, $59.95, cloth In this volume Gregory Marchildon has assembled eighteen papers previously published in the journal Prairie Forum. That is, at one and the same time, the strength and the weakness of the book. Prairie Forum is not the most widely recognized journal, so for many readers it will be convenient to have these papers republished in a single volume, with a common focus. On the other hand, because the selection is restricted to articles that have been published in this one journal, the reader is presented with a rather unsystematic smattering of items. Of the eighteen chapters, three deal with the earliest developments in prairie agriculture. The opening chapter, by Lewis Thomas, although titled "A History of Agriculture on the Prairies to 1914," is primarily about the earliest development and is very thin on the main settlement period. No fewer than six of the chapters deal with the cattle industry. Since these were written initially as independent articles, there is, not surprisingly, quite a bit of overlap. Yet there remain gaps and contradictions. For example, A.B. McCullough tells us that 'ranching is not inherently a capital-intensive, large-scale industry' and that 'ranching in the Foothills probably would have developed without the large infusion of capital which came in the 1880s,' but then goes on to discuss the size and sources of the large capital infusion. The authors of these chapters describe at length the story of the large ranches, and how so many of them met their demise, but leave us wondering how it could be that after 1914 Alberta went on to be a bigger producer of beef cattle than in the heyday of the great ranches. Four chapters on grain farming would seem to be a skimpy allocation to how the Canadian prairies came to be the world's leading exporter of wheat, but then the editor was tied to what had been published in Prairie Forum. Two of the papers on grain, however, have received wide recognition as important contributions to our understanding of the development of farming on the prairies. These are Lyle Dick's paper on farm-making costs, and Tony Ward's paper on the evolving technology of grain farming and the implications for [End Page 338] farm size. Grain farming also lies in the background of three rather narrowly focused chapters on the marketing of wheat. These are more concerned with the politics of grain marketing and do not do much to enlighten the reader through the analysis of the grain marketing system. Rather, they tend to assume a knowledge of it. A final chapter on journalism and the politics of the post-Second World War Canada-United Kingdom Wheat Agreement appears to be there just to round out space in the volume. What is notably lacking is a freshly written, substantial, and comprehensive introductory essay on prairie agriculture. That would have done a lot to give context to the republished papers. That could also have shown how these papers fit into the wider literature on prairie agriculture. The editor, Gregory Marchildon, is someone who could well have written such a substantial and useful introduction. That would have made the book much more valuable. Marvin McInnis Queen's University Copyright © 2012 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

Patient Feedback Via a National Registry Could Improve Physicians’ CME

To the Editor: We welcome your review by Reinders1 highlighting the limited data supporting the effectiveness of patient feedback on improving physicians’ consultation skills. To address this, we seek to highlight the potential role of registry data from medical licensing authorities using patient feedback as a mandatory requirement for physician training and revalidation.2 This process has the potential to further research the reliability, validity, and delivery of patient feedback tools. We acknowledge the author’s recognition that feedback is an essential part of medical education as supported by the wider literature.3 We propose the research agenda should focus on not if, but how to implement patient feedback. In the United Kingdom, doctors’ performance data are collected in a national registry for the purposes of continued medical licensing and revalidation. This registry includes standardized patient feedback questionnaires in addition to other sources of physician performance such as workplace-based assessments and significant event analysis. Analysis of a large cohort of patient feedback data in this setting may identify previously unidentified predictors of future observed or actual performance. For example, problems communicating risk identified from patient feedback may correlate with a particular adverse clinical event. These data could then support early intervention by supervising physicians to address problems in a format that is likely to have improved face validity for trainees. This process can then form the basis for the iterative development and quality improvement of patient feedback mechanisms. To conclude, feedback is an essential component of improving continuing medical education, and patient perceptions should be no exception. We propose that further research should use national licensing registries with the ability to triangulate other measurements of physicians’ performance. Christian H. Hariman, MBChB, MRCP Clinical teaching fellow, University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, Coventry, United Kingdom; [email protected] James Bateman, MBChB, MRCP, PGA MedEd Arthritis Research UK education research fellow, Warwick University, Warwick, United Kingdom. Jack Bond, BMBS, MRCP Clinical teaching fellow, University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, Coventry, United Kingdom.

Questionnaire surveys of dentists on radiology

Survey by questionnaire is a widely used research method in dental radiology. A major concern in reviews of questionnaires is non-response. The objectives of this study were to review questionnaire studies in dental radiology with regard to potential survey errors and to develop recommendations to assist future researchers. A literature search with the software search package PubMed was used to obtain internet-based access to Medline through the website www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed. A search of the English language peer-reviewed literature was conducted of all published studies, with no restriction on date. The search strategy found articles with dates from 1983 to 2010. The medical subject heading terms used were "questionnaire", "dental radiology" and "dental radiography". The reference sections of articles retrieved by this method were hand-searched in order to identify further relevant papers. Reviews, commentaries and relevant studies from the wider literature were also included. 53 questionnaire studies were identified in the dental literature that concerned dental radiography and included a report of response rate. These were all published between 1983 and 2010. In total, 87 articles are referred to in this review, including the 53 dental radiology studies. Other cited articles include reviews, commentaries and examples of studies outside dental radiology where they are germane to the arguments presented. Non-response is only one of four broad areas of error to which questionnaire surveys are subject. This review considers coverage, sampling and measurement, as well as non-response. Recommendations are made to assist future research that uses questionnaire surveys.

From Aid Recipients to Aid Donors? Development Policies of Central and Eastern European States1

This article provides an overview of the emergence of development aid donors in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It explores the definitions employed to characterize these donors before going on to examine the challenges faced in creating a development policy in the CEE states. It outlines how a soft acquis from the EU, weak governmental structures, low political will and low public understanding prevented the policy from acquiring strong roots. As a result, the economic crisis, which is used to frame the debate, has knocked all the states in the region off course. Finally, it situates the papers in this special issue in the wider context of the overview and the wider literature and summarizes the main questions raised by the special issue: development cooperation as an expression of foreign policy interests, the normative role of the other international and European actors, the advantages of the CEE development cooperation programmes, and their embodiment in a wider societal context.

The British Ugandan Asian diaspora: multiple and contested belongings

AbstractIn this article, I map the diverse allegiances and changing conceptions of home expressed by British Ugandan Asians. Drawing on in‐depth interviews, I situate the analysis within the wider literature on diaspora, belonging and home. By revealing their different trajectories of belonging, I challenge much of the current literature on the South Asian diaspora, which focuses on connections to India as the principal homeland. Their complex relationship to Britain in the aftermath of the expulsion provides an alternative insight to previous research, which has stressed their commitment to the UK. I trace how they constructed their sense of ‘home’ in Uganda, how their forced migration transformed this and how they responded to their contested and multiple belongings. The respondents' emphasis on their previous attachments to Uganda helps to challenge stereotypes about South Asians in Uganda and can partly be seen as an attempt to reclaim their place in Uganda's history.

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp: What can it teach us today?

We report on the use of a high fidelity patient simulator (SimMan) within a clinical lab setting to teach learning disability nursing students about epilepsy management. We had previously prepped the students with verbal discussions on epilepsy management and, when the simulator began to undergo a seizure, small groups of students managed the unfolding scenario. We received written feedback from the students on the experience, and with reference to this and to the wider literature we consider the benefits of this approach to patient care. We surmise that lessons learned here will be applicable to trainee professionals from other parts of the register and in other fields allied to healthcare. We anticipate that this will improve care for people with intellectual disability in line with recommendations in Health Care for All (2008).

Equianalgesic doses of opioids - their use in clinical practice.

Opioid rotation is an established means of managing the side-effects of strong opioids.1 From its origins in palliative care, the concept has moved into the fields of acute and chronic pain in cases where it is felt that changing a strong opioid may confer a benefit or if it becomes necessary in the context of co-morbidity. In an acute pain setting, for example, if a patient is undergoing an operation that may result in a reduction in their renal function then it may be necessary to change their opioid to one without metabolites that can cause problems with accumulation. In a pain clinic, it may be that a patient has developed tolerance over time to the analgesic effect of an opioid that was initially helpful, and the clinician believes that opioid rotation rather than dose escalation is an appropriate way to manage this. In a hospice, a patient may be receiving acceptable pain relief using a strong opioid, but may also be struggling with side-effects; therefore, a change to a different opioid, anticipated to have fewer side-effects, is planned. The question, therefore, clinicians often find themselves asking is, ‘If I am starting with “a” opioid at “b” dose, what dose of “x” opioid do I need to prescribe to have the same analgesic effect?’. This information can be derived from the equianalgesic dose, which is the dose of two opioids required to produce the same analgesic effect.2 There are a number of sources of information available to guide clinicians. The British National Formulary (BNF) publishes tables comparing a number of strong opioids with morphine as the ‘gold standard’.3 The Palliative Care Formulary provides more comprehensive information, and for some drugs information is given in the summary of product characteristics.4 In the wider literature there are summary tables,5,6 diagrams7,8 and now online resources including medically orientated smartphone applications. Importantly, however, the BNF and most publications display notices of caution alongside such tables. The BNF notes, ‘these equivalences are intended only as an approximate guide; patients should be carefully monitored after any change in medication and dose titration may be required’. There are a number of reasons why caution is raised alongside the publication of such tables, and these relate to patient factors and issues surrounding the information used to create the tables.

Conservation Agriculture in Maize- and Wheat-Based Systems in the (Sub)tropics: Lessons from Adaptation Initiatives in South Asia, Mexico, and Southern Africa

Conservation agriculture's underlying principles—minimal soil disturbance, soil cover and crop rotation—are increasingly recognized as essential for sustainable agriculture. This article summarizes three contrasting cases of adapting conservation agriculture (CA) to smallholder conditions in the (sub)tropics: a) irrigated rice-wheat systems in South Asia; b) rainfed maize/wheat and irrigated wheat systems in Mexico; and c) rainfed maize in Southern Africa. In the South Asia case, farm surveys show rapid and widespread adoption of zero tillage wheat—primarily due to a substantial cost saving (15–16%). In the other cases, uptake so far has been limited—although long-term trials show continuously higher and more stable yields both for maize and wheat. Under marginal conditions CA can generate substantial yield increases—averaging some 50% over conventional smallholder maize yields of 1 ton per ha over 6 years in on-farm trails in Southern Africa. The diverse experiences attest to the wide adaptability of CA systems, which can generate clear economic and potentially enormous environmental benefits. The case studies and wider literature however also reiterate the substantial challenges in terms of targeting, adapting and adopting CA—particularly for smallholders in the (sub)tropics. CA systems are best developed in situ through a multi-stakeholder adaptive learning process to create viable CA-based options that are technically sound, economically attractive, and socially acceptable.

Donor Complaints About Fundraising: What Are They and Why Should We Care?

The Fund Raising Standards Board is the body responsible for the self-regulation of fundraising practice in the UK. As a requirement of membership of this body, charities are required to complete an annual return detailing the complaints received about their fundraising practice in the previous year. We conduct through this study an analysis of these data to highlight the percentage of solicitations in a wide variety of media that result in a complaint. We also examine the nature of those complaints and interpret our results in the context of the wider literature exploring the role of complaints in bolstering customer/donor satisfaction and determining subsequent behaviour.

Maxillary Sinus in relation to Modern Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Maxillary Sinus in relation to Modern Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Giving an Account of Another: Commentary on Rozmarin's “Maternal Silence”

This discussion of Miri Rozmarin's “Maternal Silence” (this issue) situates Rozmarin's article within a wider literature on motherhood and writing before moving on to argue that although a powerful account of maternal ethics, Rozmarin's call for a certain stepping aside from maternal narrative has particular resonance with discourses of maternal masochism. I argue that the child's “open future” cannot be protected by maternal silence as, following Jean Laplanche (2007), both maternal and social “noise” precipitate the possibility of a future that is never fully open. I close by linking maternal narrative with maternal temporality and suggest that this may entail an acceptance of what refuses development, what resists time.

Australian approaches for managing ‘country’ using Indigenous and non‐Indigenous knowledge

Summary This paper synthesises the lessons learnt and challenges encountered when applying Indigenous and non‐Indigenous knowledge and methods in natural and cultural resource management (NCRM) in northern and central Australia. We primarily draw on the papers within this special issue of Ecological Management & Restoration, which originated largely from the Indigenous land management symposium at the 2010 Ecological Society of Australia conference. Many of the papers and therefore this article discuss practical experiences that offer insight for enhanced on‐ground cross‐cultural NCRM and can inform broader thinking and theoretical critiques. A wider literature is also drawn upon to substantiate the points and broaden the scope of the synthesis. Four key themes for consideration in collaborative cross‐cultural NCRM are discussed. They are as follows: 1. The differences in environmental philosophy between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous cultures which profoundly shape perceptions of environmental management; 2. Cross‐cultural awareness of Indigenous and non‐Indigenous knowledge and methods; 3. The mechanics of two‐way approaches to ecological research and managing country (NCRM as perceived by Indigenous people) and 4. Operational challenges for Indigenous NCRM organisations. To conclude, we point out five broad principles for managing country using Indigenous and non‐Indigenous knowledge: (i) Recognise the validity of both Indigenous and non‐Indigenous environmental philosophies; (ii) Create more opportunities for improved cross‐cultural understanding, respect and collaborations; (iii) Involve Indigenous people and their knowledge and interests at all stages of the Indigenous NCRM project or research (including planning, design, implementation, communication and evaluation); (iv) Ensure that time and continuity of effort and resources are available (to undertake participatory processes and for trust‐building and innovation) and (v) Establish high‐level political support through legal and policy frameworks to maintain continuity of government commitment to Indigenous NCRM.

Decentring 1788: Beyond Biotic Nativeness

AbstractThe usefulness of the concept of biotic nativeness has been challenged in both the social and natural sciences, for different reasons. This paper explores the particular construction of nativeness in Australia in relation to plants, showing that the definition builds on and inscribes more deeply the boundary between humans and the rest of nature seen in the wider literature. In this context two further boundaries are etched: between some humans and others, and before and after European colonisation. Such a use of nativeness as an axiom of environmental management is argued to be problematic, foreclosing a number of future options just when we need to increase our capacity to deal with contingency and unpredictability. But if Australia has experienced distinctive historical processes of entrenching these boundaries, it also has a distinctive heritage of destabilisation in a range of geographic work. The paper discusses how we might build on this heritage to imagine more open futures in which the problematic boundaries were removed. Some of these futures resonate with vernacular recombinations of plants from diverse origins.

A stochastic frontier approach to modelling financial constraints in firms: An application to India

We propose the use of stochastic frontier approach to modelling financial constraints of firms. The main advantage of the stochastic frontier approach over the stylised approaches that use pooled OLS or fixed effects panel regression models is that we can not only decide whether or not the average firm is financially constrained, but also estimate a measure of the degree of the constraint for each firm and for each time period, and also the marginal impact of firm characteristics on this measure. We then apply the stochastic frontier approach to a panel of Indian manufacturing firms, for the 1997–2006 period. In our application, we highlight and discuss the aforementioned advantages, while also demonstrating that the stochastic frontier approach generates regression estimates that are consistent with the stylised intuition found in the literature on financial constraint and the wider literature on the Indian credit/capital market.