Title registration for a review proposal: The effectiveness of crop targeting as a drug control strategy

BACKGROUND\ud \ud Briefly describe and define the problem\ud \ud Illegal drug use is a global public health problem with consequences for social and economic development. Recent estimates from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimate the global prevalence of illegal drug use at between 149 million and 272 million people per year, or 3.3 to 6.1 percent of the world’s population, and rising (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2011). Illegal drug use directly results in almost 200,000 deaths per year (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2011). However, direct users are not the only group affected. The indirect social and economic consequences of illegal drug supply are much greater..

An Early Beaker funerary monument at Porton Down, Wiltshire

Excavation of an Early Beaker-Early Bronze Age funerary monument at Porton Down revealed an unusually complex burial sequence of 12 individuals, spanning four centuries, including eight neonates or infants and only one probable male, surrounded by a segmented ring-ditch. In the centre was a large grave which contained the disturbed remains of an adult female, accompanied by a Beaker, which had probably been placed within a timber chamber and later ‘revisited’ on one or more occasions. This primary burial and an antler pick from the base of the ring-ditch provided identical Early Beaker radiocarbon dates. Two burials were accompanied by a Food Vessel and a miniature Collared Urn respectively, others were unaccompanied, and there was a single and a double cremation burial, both within inverted Collared Urns. A C-shaped enclosure nearby may have been contemporary with the funerary monument, but its date and function are uncertain. Other features included an Early Neolithic pit which contained a significant assemblage of worked flint, and several Middle Bronze Age ditches and a Late Bronze Age ‘Wessex Linear’ ditch that reflect later prehistoric land divisions probably related to stock control

Cross-border-assisted reproduction: a qualitative account of UK travellers’ experiences

Surveys on patients’ experiences of cross-border fertility treatment have reported a range of positive and challenging features. However, the number of such studies is limited, and there is no detailed qualitative account of the experiences of UK patients who travel overseas for fertility treatment. The present study used a cross-sectional, qualitative design and in-depth interviews. Fifty-one participants (41 women and 10 men, representing 41 treatment ‘cases’) participated in semi-structured interviews. The experiences reported were broadly positive with a large proportion of participants (39 cases, 95%) citing a favourable overall experience with only two cases (5%) reporting a more negative experience. Thematic analysis revealed 6 major categories and 20 sub-categories, which described the positive and challenging aspects of cross-border fertility travel. The positive aspects were represented by the categories: ‘access’, ‘control’ and ‘care and respect’. The more challenging aspects were categorized as ‘logistics and coordination of care’, ‘uncertainty’ and ‘cultural dissonance’. The study confirms findings from others that despite some challenges, there is a relatively high level of patient satisfaction with cross-border treatment with participants able to extend the boundaries of their fertility-seeking trajectories and in some cases, regain a sense of control over their treatment

Ibsen\u27s stagecraft: the symbolic setting

Henrik Ibsen\u27s critics have long acknowledged his mastery of the stage, that is, his use of the physical and off-stage settings, architectural details, props, and space as symbol. However, study of Ibsen\u27s symbolic settings has been limited to one play or to aspects of his stagecraft in general terms. Peter Tenant\u27s Ibsen\u27s Dramatic Technique discusses the settings and stage directions of his major plays as they relate to plot and theme. In Patterns of Ibsen\u27s Middle Plays, Richard Hornby studies the settings and scenic background only for An Enemy of the People. Edward Beyer in Ibsen\u27s The Man And His Work focuses on the plays\u27 symbols as they relate to theme. Finally, David Thomas presents an excellent study of stage space in The Lady From the Sea. These authors and others have touched upon the genius of Ibsen\u27s stagecraft. More can and should be said because understanding Ibsen\u27s symbolic settings will lead to a deeper reading and appreciation of his plays. Ibsen\u27s use of the symbolic setting provides focus and unity to the plays that were written between 1882 and 1892. His settings become a projection of his major themes and the characters• souls or psyches. Areas on and off the stage, props, furniture, and architectural details may be a stage projection of the protagonist\u27s mind, intention, motivation, or suppression. Since the essential nature of drama is conflict, Ibsen often uses his settings as symbols of conflict. Varied settings, architectural details, placement of the furniture, and the characters• positions and movement on the stage provide a visual symbolism for his themes in An Enemy of the People, Rosmersholm, Lady From The Sea, Hedda Gabler, and The Master Builder. Ibsen\u27s settings often caused a great deal of trouble to stage because they were complicated. Indoor settings were his effort to create a realistic illusion, while his later abandonment of indoor settings coincided with his reversion to romantic symbolism, according to Tenant (67). With The Lady From The Sea in 1888, his plays expanded to the open air. Three plays, Rosmersholm, The Lady From the Sea, and The Master Builder, begin in an enclosed setting that gradually and symbolically takes the protagonist to the outdoors and freedom. However, in The Enemy of the People, Ibsen uses enclosed settings that are mirror images of one another, thus symbolizing the pattern of thematic contrasts. Only Hedda Gabler takes place in one enclosed set, which becomes a symbolic entrapment for Hedda. In these latter two plays and The Master Builder, Ibsen enlarged his stage with the help of an inner room or a back room that functioned not only as a way to place his characters and therefore complicate the plot, but also to project his themes and his characters\u27 psychological states. In addition, he uses off-stage settings not only to symbolize further the conflicts within his characters, but also to enhance his themes

Using interpretative phenomenological analysis to inform physiotherapy practice: An introduction with reference to the lived experience of cerebellar ataxia

The attached file is a pre-published version of the full and final paper which can be found at the link below.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Qualitative research methods that focus on the lived experience of people with health conditions are relatively underutilised in physiotherapy research. This article aims to introduce interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), a research methodology oriented toward exploring and understanding the experience of a particular phenomenon (e.g., living with spinal cord injury or chronic pain, or being the carer of someone with a particular health condition). Researchers using IPA try to find out how people make sense of their experiences and the meanings they attach to them. The findings from IPA research are highly nuanced and offer a fine grained understanding that can be used to contextualise existing quantitative research, to inform understanding of novel or underresearched topics or, in their own right, to provoke a reappraisal of what is considered known about a specified phenomenon. We advocate IPA as a useful and accessible approach to qualitative research that can be used in the clinical setting to inform physiotherapy practice and the development of services from the perspective of individuals with particular health conditions.This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Thoughts on the Need for Capacity Building for implementing Food and Nutrition Security Programs with Special Reference to Information, Communication Technologies

Presentation on theme 3: Information and Communication Tools in Food and Nutrition Securit

Improving Fecal Occult Blood Testing Compliance Using a Mailed Educational Reminder

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Randomized controlled trials have shown that annual screening fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) reduces CRC mortality and incidence. However, patient compliance with FOBT is low. To determine whether a mailed educational reminder increases FOBT card return rates and to examine predictors of FOBT compliance. Blinded, randomized, controlled trial at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center, San Diego, California. Seven hundred and seventy-five consecutive patients ≥50 years of age referred by their primary care physicians for FOBT. Patients were randomly assigned to the usual care group or the intervention group. Ten days after picking up the FOBT cards, a 1-page reminder with information related to CRC screening was mailed to the intervention group only. The primary outcome was proportion of returned FOBT cards after 6 months. Patient demographic, clinical characteristics and prior FOBT completed were collected for multivariate regression analysis. At 6 months after card distribution, 64.6% of patients in the intervention group returned cards compared with 48.4% in the control group (P < 0.001). Patients who received a mailed reminder (OR 2.02; 95% CI: 1.48–2.74) or have a prior history of returning the FOBT cards (OR 1.87; 95% CI: 1.29–2.70) were more likely to return the FOBT cards. Patients with current or recent illicit drug use were less likely to return the FOBT cards (OR 0.26; 95% CI: 0.13–0.50). A simple mailed educational reminder significantly increases compliance with FOBT for CRC screening

The impact of parenthood on environmental attitudes and behaviour: a longitudinal investigation of the legacy hypothesis

Willingness to engage in sustainable actions may be limited by the psychological distance of climate change. In this study, we test the legacy hypothesis, which holds that having children leads parents to consider the legacy left to offspring in respect of environmental quality. Using the Understanding Society dataset, a longitudinal survey representative of the UK population (n = 18,176), we assess how having children may change people’s individual environmental attitudes and behaviour. Results indicate that having a new child is associated with a small decrease in the frequency of a few environmental behaviours. Only parents with already high environmental concern show a small increase in the desire to act more sustainably after the birth of their first child. Overall, the results do not provide evidence in support of the legacy hypothesis in terms of individual-level environmental attitudes and behaviours. We argue that the transition to parenthood is a time where concern is prioritised on the immediate wellbeing of the child and not on the future environmental threats