The focus on better communicating certain ‘truths’ is misplaced: academics must improve their emotional literacy

Following the selection of ‘post-truth’ as the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016, Ruth Dixon takes inspiration from artist Grayson Perry’s plea that academics should cultivate greater emotional understanding of those with whom they disagree. It’s time for political scientists to question, with some humility, their own ‘deficit model’ of the public understanding of politics

Leader approval ratings give neither main party cause for optimism if an election was held in 2018

Ruth Dixon considers poll results of UK party leader satisfaction amongst their own party supporters as possible predictors of election success. The findings give little comfort to either of the two main parties, should an election be held in 2018. ‘Enthusiastic supporters’ appear less numerous than before any election over the past two decades. These polls give neither party a clear predicted victory, making it very risky for the government to hold an election at this time

The Acquisition of Medicinal Plant Knowledge: A Cross-Cultural Survey

Purpose of Study: A 10% random sample of fertility-related plants was taken from Table III of Farnsworth et al.\u27s article, Potential Value of Plants as Sources of New Antifertility Agents I (Farnsworth et al. 1975: 547-554), one of the most extensive compilations of cross-cultural and chemical information on fertility-related plants available in the literature. A single class of medicinal plants, fertility-related medicinals, was chosen because it is possible that the attributes that lead to the identification of fertility-related plants are different than for plants used to treat other conditions. Five objective criteria related to plant morphology, chemistry and ecology were proposed as being significant in contributing to the perceptual salience of potential medicinal plants. The chemical, botanical and ethnographic literature was searched for descriptions of each plant contained in the random sample. Findings: Of the 15 plant species in the random sample, approximately 70% were found to fit one or more of the criteria related to perceptual salience, supporting the hypothesis that acquisition of medicinal plant knowledge is not the result of purely random processes. It is possible that these attributes are in some way clues to the potential bioactivity of the plant\u27s chemical constituents. Once a link between a certain odor, taste or other characteristic and a specific physiological effect was noted by humans, this may have led to experimentation with other plants with a similar odor, taste, or appearance to produce the same physiological effect

Unitarity Cuts with Massive Propagators and Algebraic Expressions for Coefficients

In the first part of this paper, we extend the d-dimensional unitarity cut method of hep-ph/0609191 to cases with massive propagators. We present formulas for integral reduction with which one can obtain coefficients of all pentagon, box, triangle and massive bubble integrals. In the second part of this paper, we present a detailed study of the phase space integration for unitarity cuts. We carry out spinor integration in generality and give algebraic expressions for coefficients, intended for automated evaluation.Comment: 33 pages. v2: notation modified. v3: typos fixe

Efficiency and legitimacy in inter-local agreements: why collaboration has become a default choice among councils

Over 97 per cent of English local authorities cooperate with one another, providing common public services across separate council areas. Ruth Dixon and Thomas Elston consider how and why this occurs. In a follow-up to their previous post, they find that propensity to collaborate is unpredictable, but partner choice can be partly explained by geographical proximity of councils and similarities in organizational and resource characteristics. Contrary to the view that collaboration is a wholly ‘rational’ strategy chosen simply to improve service costs or quality, therefore, this analysis suggests that both efficiency and legitimacy influenced reform choices

Community organization staff perceptions about the importance of selected practices in building effective community-university service and learning partnerships

The purpose of this study was to explore community organization staff perceptions about the importance of selected practices in building effective community-university service and learning partnerships. The target population was community organization staff members who were current or potential partners for community-university service and learning partnerships. The accessible population was community organization staff members listed with a southern metropolitan volunteer placement organization in a an area served by several universities, one large Research I Land-grant university, a historically Black Land-grant university, and at least two other state universities. The researcher designed a mail survey questionnaire based on scholarly and practitioner literature asking demographic information about interest and experience in community-university partnerships, as well as current staff position or role. Respondents were also asked to indicate perceived levels of importance and levels of frequency with which 52 partnership practices had been observed on a two-part anchored scale (0 – 4). Data from 261 usable surveys were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Principle component analysis of mean importance levels was used to reduce 52 partnership practice items to seven primary factors or constructs: University Institutional Context, Community Organization Context, Preparation/ Training, Community Partner Roles, Faculty Partner Roles, Relationship/ Communication, and Evaluation/ Outcomes. The researcher synthesized a COMparre Model for planning, evaluating and reporting community-university partnerships from research findings and the literature: C for the partnership context, including organizational missions and purpose; O for outcomes or results; and M for mechanisms or processes involved in the partnership, including preparation, action, relationship, reflection and evaluation. Multiple regression analyses identified experiences that explained statistically significant portions of the variance in perceived importance including: (a) the total amount of experience with community university service and learning partnership as measured by seven selected types of experience; (b) a particular type of experience, service-learning training for community partners; (c) experience making decisions about whether or not to use university students to fulfill community service goals; and (d) experience in a combination of specific positions or roles played at their organization, volunteer placement coordinator combined with direct service supervisor

How cultural theory can help us to better design and implement social impact bonds

Social impact bonds - arrangements that bring together the public, private and voluntary sectors in order to address complex social issues - are often characterised by tensions. Ruth Dixon explains how cultural theory can be used to explain the dynamics between the various partners in order to improve this useful policy tool

A model of the determinants of expenditure on children's personal social services

Every year the United Kingdom central government assesses the relative spending needs of English local authorities in respect of the services for which is it responsible. This is done by estimating a Standard Spending Assessment (SSA) for each service, which is intended to indicate the spending requirements of an authority if it were to adopt a standard level of services, given the circumstances in its area. In practice, statistical methods are used to develop SSAs for most services. This report describes the findings of a study designed to review the methods for setting SSAs for a single service: personal social services (PSS) for children, which in 1995/96 accounting for about £1.8 billion of expenditure (4.4% of total local government expenditure). The study was commissioned by the Department of Health and undertaken by a consortium which comprised The University of York, MORI and the National Children’s Bureau. The study was guided by a technical advisory group, comprising representatives from the local authority associations and the Department of Health. In seeking to limit the length of the report, the authors have necessarily omitted a great deal of the technical material produced in the course of the study. We understand that the Department of Health is willing to make this material and the data used in the study available to interested parties, subject to certain confidentiality restrictions. Existing methodology for constructing SSAs had been the subject of some criticism, both in general and specifically in respect of children’s PSS. This document reports the results of a study designed to apply a radically new statistical approach to estimating the SSA for children’s PSS. Previous methods were based on statistical analysis of local authority aggregate data. In contrast, this study is based on an analysis of PSS spending in 1,036 small areas (with populations of about 10,000) within 25 local authorities. A relatively new statistical method known as multilevel modelling, which was originally developed in the educational sector, was used for this purpose.children, SSA, social services

Taking the heat or taking the temperature? A qualitative study of a large-scale exercise in seeking to measure for improvement, not blame.

Measurement of quality and safety has an important role in improving healthcare, but is susceptible to unintended consequences. One frequently made argument is that optimising the benefits from measurement requires controlling the risks of blame, but whether it is possible to do this remains unclear. We examined responses to a programme known as the NHS Safety Thermometer (NHS-ST). Measuring four common patient harms in diverse care settings with the goal of supporting local improvement, the programme explicitly eschews a role for blame. The study design was ethnographic. We conducted 115 hours of observation across 19 care organisations and conducted 126 interviews with frontline staff, senior national leaders, experts in the four harms, and the NHS-ST programme leadership and development team. We also collected and analysed relevant documents. The programme theory of the NHS-ST was based in a logic of measurement for improvement: the designers of the programme sought to avoid the appropriation of the data for any purpose other than supporting improvement. However, organisational participants - both at frontline and senior levels - were concerned that the NHS-ST functioned latently as a blame allocation device. These perceptions were influenced, first, by field-level logics of accountability and managerialism and, second, by specific features of the programme, including public reporting, financial incentives, and ambiguities about definitions that amplified the concerns. In consequence, organisational participants, while they identified some merits of the programme, tended to identify and categorise it as another example of performance management, rich in potential for blame. These findings indicate that the search to optimise the benefits of measurement by controlling the risks of blame remains challenging. They further suggest that a well-intentioned programme theory, while necessary, may not be sufficient for achieving goals for improvement in healthcare systems dominated by institutional logics that run counter to the programme theory