Negotiating the edge:The rationalisation of sexual risk-taking amongst Western male sex tourists to Thailand

Every year thousands of Western men travel to Thailand as sex tourists to participate in paid-for sex. Although many of these men will use condoms to protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections (STIs), others will not, despite the risks. By applying Steven Lyng's (1990) concept of edgework to data collected from 14 face-to-face interviews with male sex tourists in Pattaya, Thailand, and 1,237 online discussion board posts, this article explores the ways in which these men understood and sought to rationalize the sexual risks they took. We argue that notions of likelihood of infection and significance of consequence underpin these behaviors, and we identify the existence of understandings of sexual risk that reject mainstream safer-sex messages and frame condomless sex as a broadly safe activity for heterosexual men. The article concludes by summarizing the difficulties inherent in driving behavior change among this group of men, for whom sexual risks appear to be easily rationalized away as either inconsequential or irrelevant

From boundary object to boundary subject; the role of the patient in coordination across complex systems of care during hospital discharge

From boundary object to boundary subject; the role of 1 the patient in coordination across complex systems of 2 care during hospital discharge 3 4 Abstract 5 Advocates for patient involvement argue that seeking the active contribution of 6 patients and families in the coordination of care can help mitigate system 7 complexity, and lead to improvements in quality. However, sociological and 8 organisational research has identified barriers to involving patients in care 9 planning, not least the power of, and boundaries between, multiple professional 10 groups. This study draws on literature from Science and Technology Studies (STS) 11 to explore the patients' role in coordinating care across professional-practice 12 boundaries in complex care systems. Findings are drawn from a two-year 13 ethnographic study (including 69 qualitative interviews) of hospital discharge 14 following hip-fracture care, and describe the changing role of the patient as they 15 move out of hospital into community settings. Findings describe how 'the patient' 16 plays a relatively passive role as boundary object while recovering from surgery 17 within hospital, where inter-professional coordination was prescribed by 18 evidence-based guidelines, leaving little space for patient voice. As discharge 19 planning begins, patient involvement is both encouraged and contested by 20 different professional groups, with varying commitment to include patient 21 subjectivities in care. As patients move into home and community settings, they, 2

Polaron Coherence as Origin of the Pseudogap Phase in High Temperature Superconducting Cuprates

Within a two component approach to high Tc copper oxides including polaronic couplings, we identify the pseudogap phase as the onset of polaron ordering. This ordering persists in the superconducting phase. A huge isotope effect on the pseudogap onset temperature is predicted and in agreement with experimental data. The anomalous temperature dependence of the mean square copper oxygen ion displacement observed above, at and below Tc stems from an s-wave superconducting component of the order parameter, whereas a pure d-wave order parameter alone can be excluded.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Using large-scale additive manufacturing (LSAM) as a bridge manufacturing process in response to shortages in PPE during the COVID-19 outbreak

The global COVID-19 pandemic has led to an international shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), with traditional supply chains unable to cope with the significant demand leading to critical shortfalls. A number of open and crowd sourced initiatives have sought to address this shortfall by producing equipment such as protective face shields using additive manufacturing techniques such as Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF). This paper reports the process of designing and manufacturing protective face shields using Large-scale Additive Manufacturing (LSAM) to produce the major thermoplastic components of the face shield. LSAM offers significant advantages over other Additive Manufacturing (AM) technologies in bridge manufacturing scenarios as a true transition between prototypes and mass production techniques such as injection moulding. In the context of production of COVID-19 face shields, the ability to produce the optimised components in under five minutes compared to what would typically take one to two hours using another AM technologies meant that significant production volume could be achieved rapidly with minimal staffing

HRM in public private partnerships: working in a health production system

This study explores the changing nature of employment and employment management within multi-organisational public services ‘partnerships’. In line with international trends, a major feature of the 1997-2010 New Labour government’s public policy was encouraging partnerships between organisations of all sectors to run public services. Within healthcare, central government has increasingly been seen as taking on a role of market regulator, with organisations from all sectors allowed to plan as well as provide public services (Illife and Munro, 2000). As part of this picture, bringing private companies into partnership arrangements with the National Health Service has been seen as a catalyst for workforce re-configuration and employment change through furthering the reach of private sector type Human Resource Management. However, research has illustrated how inter-organisational contracts can also restrict an organisations choice of employment practice, disrupt the direct relationship between managers and employees, and undermine any aspirations for fair or consistent employment (Marchington et al, 2005). In more recent healthcare partnerships, employment is further complicated as partnerships involve powerful professional groups with their own protected employment systems and established norms of practice. This study seeks to investigate the prospects for HRM within such a professionalised partnership context through comparative case study of two Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) operating under differing employment regulations and contractual agreements. In both cases, private sector management sought to impose a more ‘rationalised’ and standardised approach to work with a greater focus on outputs and productivity, placing ISTCs at the forefront of the Fordist ‘scientific-bureaucratic’ (Harrison, 2002) approach to medicine. However, the study identifies a number of limits to the degree to which the management of the private health care companies could shape HRM practices in line with these aims. The thesis also examines how being separate from, or integrated with, existing National Health Service organisations can lead to different types of contingencies affecting work and employment, and multiple varieties of inconsistency across the workforce. The findings of the study are explored in terms of the implications for public policy, health service management and HRM theory

Susceptibility of faba bean (Vicia faba L.) to heat stress during floral development and anthesis

Experiments were conducted over two years to quantify the response of faba bean (Vicia faba L.) to heat stress. Potted winter faba bean plants (cv. Wizard) were exposed to temperature treatments (18/10; 22/14; 26/18; 30/22; 34/26°C day/night) for five days during floral development and anthesis. Developmental stages of all flowers were scored prior to stress, plants were grown in exclusion from insect pollinators to prevent pollen movement between flowers, and yield was harvested at an individual pod scale, enabling effects of heat stress to be investigated at a high resolution. Susceptibility to stress differed between floral stages, flowers were most affected during initial green-bud stages. Yield and pollen germination of flowers present before stress showed threshold relationships to stress, with lethal temperatures (t50) ~28°C and ~32°C, while whole plant yield showed a linear negative relationship to stress with high plasticity in yield allocation, such that yield lost at lower nodes was partially compensated at higher nodal positions. Faba bean has many beneficial attributes for sustainable modern cropping systems but these results suggest that yield will be limited by projected climate change, necessitating the development of heat tolerant cultivars, or improved resilience by other mechanisms such as earlier flowering times