Until death do they part: preventing intimate partner homicide\ud

Just under one quarter of all homicide victims in England and Wales were killed by an intimate partner in the year 2008/9, according to Home Office statistics. In the aftermath of such fatalities, where the offender was clearly well known to the victim, questions are often raised about whether the attack could have been foreseen and whether services had failed the victim in not preventing the sometimes seemingly inevitable event. This article considers how psychological theory and research can lend itself to the prevention of serious and fatal intimate partner violence and looks at the current state of practice in this domain

Democratic Humanism in German Painting, 1945-1949: Cultural Division and Public Reception

This article addresses the immediate post-war debates surrounding artistic production and more specifically the plural and often contradictory critical responses to visual artists who, also for quite contrasting reasons, saw the possibility of re-engaging with a humanist tradition as a way for art to rediscover its meaning and future purpose in a post-fascist world. Art became a metaphor for a country still in shock about its past and uncertain about its future as tensions emerged between those in the west hoping to rebuild continuities with the legacy of German visual cultural heritage, and those in the east who saw 1945 as the chance to construct new cultural foundations within in the context of the new Cold War social order. The analysis focuses on how these hotly-contested debates were constructed in Germany’s two most significant early post-war art periodicals, Bildende Kunst and Das Kunstwerk. By examining the critical responses to major exhibitions in both eastern and western occupation zones with a discussion of some of the key debates, editorial features and most-debated artists, it offers a new interpretation of how diversely painters, critics, cultural commentators and the art-going public interpreted and appropriated the humanist rubric to suit their own agendas. Despite this, humanism successfully managed to bridge the growing divisions between proponents of the restoration of art’s liberal principles and those who seeking to politicise its function to socialist ends

Liturgical music in Rome (1605-45)

Research has been undertaken on Palestrina, the main figure in Roman liturgical music at the close of the 16th century, and on Carissimi who enjoyed a similar position in the mid-17th century. While there exists a considerable stylistic distinction between the work of these composers, little attempt has been made to trace the transition of the intervening generation. It has been held that Romans so revered the memory of Palestrina as to continue to imitate his style, and to allow no place for the manifestation of an idiom more typical of the seicento, with its monodies and the continuo. The thesis examines this repertory, and indicates that Roman composers did keep pace with progressive tendencies which were becoming apparent throughout the peninsula. The small-scale motet was popular in Rome from the 1590s; the solo and concertato motets gained currency in Rome from the second decade of the century; and the basso continuo was standard from 1603 onwards. A different view therefore emerges from the traditional one stated in Bukofzer's Music in the Baroque Era xdiere Rome is described as the 'bulwark of traditionalism'. Chapter I gives an introduction to previous literature and Chapter II deals with historical and artistic aspects of the period. The thesis then falls broadly into two parts, the one archival and the other dealing with the music. Chapter III discusses references to music in the archives of five churches. The music is then discussed according to liturgical function: the Mass is treated in Chapter IV; music for the divine office (Vespers, Matins and Compline) in Chapter V; and the motet in Chapter VI. Finally, a synthesis of archival and musical material is presented in the one area where this is possible, the multiple-choir repertory commonly called the 'colossal Baroque'

"New" and distributed leadership in quality and safety in healthcare, or "old" and hierarchical? : An interview study with strategic stakeholders

Peer reviewedPostprin

The friends and family test : a qualitative study of concerns that influence the willingness of English National Health Service staff to recommend their organisation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Fighting the Infodemic on Two Fronts: Reducing False Beliefs Without Increasing Polarization

Actors aiming to remedy the effects of health misinformation often issue corrections focused on individual outcomes (i.e., promoting individual health behaviors) rather than societal outcomes (i.e., reducing issue polarization). Yet, for highly politicized health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, such interventions run the risk of exacerbating societal cleavages, driving those holding opposing views further apart from one another. Interventions yielding individual benefits but causing societal harm are certainly not ideal. But is the design of such dual-focus corrections even possible? We believe this to be the case. Here, we delineate an agenda for future research that should help social scientists in identifying the characteristics of corrections that might reduce false beliefs without increasing polarization

Is pesticide exposure a cause of obstructive airways disease?

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

On gauge unification in Type I/I' models

We discuss whether the (MSSM) unification of gauge couplings can be accommodated in string theories with a low (TeV) string scale. This requires either power law running of the couplings or logarithmic running extremely far above the string scale. In both cases it is difficult to arrange for the multiplet structure to give the MSSM result. For the case of power law running there is also enhanced sensitivity to the spectrum at the unification scale. For the case of logarithmic running there is a fine tuning problem associated with the light closed string Kaluza Klein spectrum which requires gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking on the ``visible'' brane with a dangerously low scale of supersymmetry breaking. Evading these problems in low string scale models requires a departure from the MSSM structure, which would imply that the success of gauge unification in the MSSM is just an accident.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures; minor change

Senior stakeholder views on policies to foster a culture of openness in the English National Health Service: a qualitative interview study.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the experiences of clinical and managerial leaders in the English healthcare system charged with implementing policy goals of openness, particularly in relation to improving employee voice. DESIGN: Semi-structured qualitative interviews. SETTING: National Health Service, regulatory and third-sector organisations in England. PARTICIPANTS: Fifty-one interviewees, including senior leaders in healthcare organisations (38) and policymakers and representatives of other relevant regulatory, legal and third-sector organisations (13). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Not applicable. RESULTS: Participants recognised the limitations of treating the new policies as an exercise in procedural implementation alone and highlighted the need for additional 'cultural engineering' to engender change. However, formidable impediments included legacies of historical examples of detriment arising from speaking up, the anxiety arising from increased monitoring and the introduction of a legislative imperative and challenges in identifying areas characterised by a lack of openness and engaging with them to improve employee voice. Beyond healthcare organisations themselves, recent legal cases and examples of 'blacklisting' of whistle-blowers served to reinforce the view that giving voice to concerns was a risky endeavour. CONCLUSIONS: Implementation of procedural interventions to support openness is challenging but feasible; engineering cultural change is much more daunting, given deep-rooted and pervasive assumptions about what should be said and the consequences of mis-speaking, together with ongoing ambivalences in the organisational environment about the propriety of giving voice to concerns.GPM acknowledges the support of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East Midlands (CLAHRC EM). MDW and GPM are supported by the Health Foundation’s grant to the University of Cambridge for The Healthcare Improvement Studies (THIS) Institute. THIS Institute is supported by the Health Foundation—an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK. MDW is a Wellcome Trust Investigator (award WT09789) and a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, or the Department of Health and Social Care