1,146 research outputs found
Strengthening impact assessment: a call for integration and focus
We suggest that the impact assessment community has lost its way based on our observation that impact assessment is under attack because of a perceived lack of efficiency. Specifically, we contend that the proliferation of different impact assessment types creates separate silos of expertise and feeds arguments for not only a lack of efficiency but also a lack of effectiveness of the process through excessive specialisation and a lack of interdisciplinary practice. We propose that the solution is a return to the basics of impact assessment with a call for increased integration around the goal of sustainable development and focus through better scoping. We rehearse and rebut counter arguments covering silo-based expertise, advocacy, democracy, sustainability understanding and communication. We call on the impact assessment community to rise to the challenge of increasing integration and focus, and to engage in the debate about the means of strengthening impact assessment
Participant profile and impacts of an Aboriginal healthy lifestyle and weight loss challenge over four years 2012-2015
OBJECTIVE: To explore participation, consistency of demographic and health profiles, and short-term impacts across six Aboriginal Knockout Health Challenge (KHC) team-based weight loss competitions, 2012 to 2015. METHODS: Data comprised one competition each from 2012 and 2013 and two per year in 2014 and 2015. We compared baseline and change (pre- to post-competition) in weight, fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity and waist circumference (baseline only) across competitions using mixed models. RESULTS: Numbers of teams and participants increased from 2012 to 2015 from 13 and 324 to 33 and 830, respectively. A total of 3,625 participants registered, representing 2,645 unique people (25.4% repeat participation). Participants were mainly female and >90% were classified obese at baseline. Baseline weight and weight lost (between 1.9% and 2.5%) were significantly lower in subsequent competitions compared with the first. Improvements in fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity were comparable across competitions. CONCLUSION: The KHC has increasing and sustained appeal among Aboriginal communities, attracting those at risk from lifestyle-associated chronic disease and effectively reducing weight and promoting healthy lifestyles in the short term. Implications for public health: Community-led programs generated by, and responsive to, Aboriginal Australians' needs can demonstrate consistent community reach and sustained program-level lifestyle improvements
The holy blood and the holy grail: Myths of scientific racism and the pursuit of excellence in sport
Despite the continuing publication of research that suggests there is no scientific basis to 'race' as a biological category, theories of racial difference continue to be invoked within sport to explain the perceived dominance of black athletes. In the case of John Entine's controversial 'Taboo: why black athletes dominate sports and why we are afraid to talk about it' or undergraduate textbooks that suggest 'racial differences' in physique may significantly affect athletic performance, scientific racism is normalised in sport. In this article, the relationship between scientific racism and sport will be examined. Qualitative research with current sport scientists is used to investigate the socio-ethical tensions within the subject field of sport science between professionalism, scientism and the demand from external interests to produce results that help people in sport win medals. It will be shown that these tensions, combined with the history of race as a category in sport science, combine to create the discourse of scientific knowledge that reflects, rather than challenges, folk genetics of black athletic physicality
Black-boxing Sustainable Development: Environmental Impact Assessment on the River Uruguay
International audienceThis chapter offers an original account of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as a technology that scripts collective action through black-boxing the politics of governance. After tracing the global trajectory of the instrument, the chapter looks at EIA struggles in the case of pulp mills on the River Uruguay. As actors seeking to halt projects because of their potential harmful impact follow the choreography of EIA, the authoritative governance script is reinforced rather than undermined. There is a tragic aspect to this, in that those wishing to block a project are actually making it stronger. This points to a subtle de-politicization resulting from the evolution of instruments in use, and a need for their re-politicization
Anomalous Neutrino Reactions at HERA
We study the sensitivity of HERA to new physics using the helicity suppressed
reaction , where the final neutrino can be a standard
model one or a heavy neutrino. The approach is model independent and is based
on an effective lagrangian parametrization. It is shown that HERA will put
significant bounds on the scale of new physics, though, in general, these are
more modest than previously thought. If deviations from the standard model are
observed in the above processes, future colliders such as the SSC and LHC will
be able to directly probe the physics responsible for these discrepancies}Comment: 11 Pages + 2 figures is TOPDRAWER (included at the end or available
by mail). Report UCRHEP-T113 (requires the macropackage PHYZZX). A line in
the TeX file requesting an input file has been removed, it caused problem
Results from the First Science Run of the ZEPLIN-III Dark Matter Search Experiment
The ZEPLIN-III experiment in the Palmer Underground Laboratory at Boulby uses
a 12kg two-phase xenon time projection chamber to search for the weakly
interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that may account for the dark matter of
our Galaxy. The detector measures both scintillation and ionisation produced by
radiation interacting in the liquid to differentiate between the nuclear
recoils expected from WIMPs and the electron recoil background signals down to
~10keV nuclear recoil energy. An analysis of 847kg.days of data acquired
between February 27th 2008 and May 20th 2008 has excluded a WIMP-nucleon
elastic scattering spin-independent cross-section above 8.1x10(-8)pb at
55GeV/c2 with a 90% confidence limit. It has also demonstrated that the
two-phase xenon technique is capable of better discrimination between electron
and nuclear recoils at low-energy than previously achieved by other xenon-based
experiments.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figure
High Q^2 Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA
High Q^2 NC and CC cross-sections as measured at HERA can give information on
two distinct areas of current interest. Firstly, supposing that all the
electroweak parameters are well known, these cross-sections may be used to give
information on parton distributions at high x and high Q^2. Secondly, supposing
that parton distributions are well known, after evolution in Q^2 from the
kinematic regime where they are already measured, these cross-sections can be
used to give information on electroweak parameters in a process where the
exchanged boson is `spacelike' rather than `timelike'. WG1 addressed itself to
clarifying the limits of our present and possible future knowledge on both
these areas.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures. Uses iopart.cls, iopart12.clo, axodraw.sty.
Report of WG1 of the 3rd UK Phenomenology Workshop on HERA Physics, Durham
1998. To be published in Journal of Physics
Research review: young people leaving care
This paper reviews the international research on young people leaving care. Set in the context of a social exclusion framework, it explores young people's accelerated and compressed transitions to adulthood, and discusses the development and classification of leaving care services in responding to their needs. It then considers the evidence from outcome studies and argues that adopting a resilience framework suggests that young people leaving care may fall into three groups: young people 'moving on', 'survivors' and 'victims'. In concluding, it argues that these three pathways are associated with the quality of care young people receive, their transitions from care and the support they receive after care
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