Taking flight:Trust, ethics, and the comfort of strangers

This article explores the themes of trust and ethical conduct in social research, with particular attention to the trust that can develop between the members of a research team as well as between researchers and the researched. The authors draw upon a three-year empirical study of destinations and outcomes for young people excluded from alternative educational provision. They also make reference to a contemporary exposition of Aristotle's writing on friendship in order to explore two sets of relevant distinctions that have a bearing upon our understanding of relationships that emerge in the context of social research projects. These distinctions are between impartiality and selectivity on the one hand, and between universality and particularity on the other. The authors attempt to demonstrate that these distinctions influence the development of trust and the conduct of ethical research, arguing that the latter is not synonymous with compliance to ethical guidelines

Emotional Education as second language acquisition?

In this paper we argue that while emotional education intervention packages offer certain advantages, there are risks associated with their uncritical use. The main risk is that if the unwanted behaviour of some pupils is seen merely as a problem that can be dealt with through targeted intervention, then important, identity constitutive parts of their reality might become obscured. We reconsider sociological explanations of school disaffection, along with more recent sociological and philosophical attempts to explore the emotional aspect of schooling. We hypothesise that some of the challenging behaviour exhibited by young people in schools is solution seeking; that it is a functional adaptation to an essentially foreign emotional environment. We conclude that attempts to educate the emotions should aim to develop morally rich virtues rather than empty intelligences

The colorimetric determination of hexoses with carbazole

The optimum conditions for the calorimetric estimation of hexoses by reaction with carbazole in hot sulfuric acid solution have been determined and a convenient procedure, giving results with a precision of 2 to 5 per cent in the range of 50 to 150 γ of glucose, is described. The colors obtained with glucose, galactose, fructose, and mannose are not sufficiently distinctive to allow their ready differentiation and identification by spectral measurements. The significance of the ultraviolet spectra of heated and unheated sulfuric acid solutions of hexoses to the problem of estimation and identification of hexoses is discussed

Tidal influence on self-potential measurements

DJM was supported by NERC CASE studentship NE/I018417/1. The authors would also like to thank Southern Water for access to the borehole at Saltdean. Atkins Global and Southern Water are thanked for funding installation of the equipment and for additional funding under the NERC studentship. The laboratory components of this work were carried out in the TOTAL Reservoir Physics Laboratory at Imperial College London and their support is gratefully acknowledged. Jackson acknowledges partial support from TOTAL under the TOTAL Chairs programme. The data supporting the conclusions of this work are available through the corresponding author.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Class dealignment and the neighbourhood effect: Miller revisited

The concept of a neighbourhood effect within British voting patterns has largely been discarded, because no data have been available for testing it at the appropriate spatial scales. To undertake such tests, bespoke neighbourhoods have been created around the home of each respondent to the 1997 British Election Study survey in England and Wales, and small-area census data have been assembled for these to depict the socio-economic characteristics of voters' local contexts. Analyses of voting in these small areas, divided into five equal-sized status areas, provides very strong evidence that members of each social class were much more likely to vote Labour than Conservative in the low-status than in the high-status areas. This is entirely consistent with the concept of the neighbourhood effect, but alternative explanations are feasible. The data provide very strong evidence of micro-geographical variations in voting patterns, for which further research is necessary to identify the processes involved

Retention and attrition of students in higher education: Challenges in modern times to what works

Retention and attrition rates in higher education have long been a focus of research. This paper presents findingsof a single case study, undertaken in a School of Education, which identify important strategies that have led to attrition of five to eight per cent, compared with 18 per cent cross the education sector in Australia (Department of Education, Science and Training, 2004). Findings include: individual admissions interviews, funding of an Associate Dean Pastoral Care, course coordinators providing continuity of support, easy access for students to academic staff, well-supported, extended professional experience, senior staff lecturing undergraduates, congruence between co-curricular supports and the educational framework, and comprehensive mentoring of new students. Finally, sustainability of these strategies in modern times is discussed

Postconditioning protects against endothelial ischemia-reperfusion injury in the human forearm

Background: Hypoxic cell death follows interruption of blood supply to tissues. Although successful restoration of blood flow is mandatory for salvage of ischemic tissues, reperfusion can paradoxically place tissues at risk of further injury. Brief periods of ischemia applied at the onset of reperfusion have been shown to reduce ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury, a phenomenon called postconditioning. The aim of this study was to determine whether postconditioning protects against endothelial IR injury in humans, in vivo. Methods and Results: Brachial artery endothelial function was assessed by vascular ultrasound to measure flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in response to forearm reactive hyperemia. FMD was measured before and after IR (20 minutes of arm ischemia followed by 20 minutes of reperfusion) in healthy volunteers. To test the protective effects of postconditioning, 3 cycles of reperfusion followed by ischemia (each lasting 10 or 30 seconds) were applied immediately after 20 minutes of arm ischemia. To determine whether postconditioning needs to be applied at the onset of reperfusion, a 1-minute period of arm reperfusion was allowed before the application of the 10-second postconditioning stimulus. IR caused endothelial dysfunction (FMD 9.1±1.2% pre-IR, 3.6±0.7% post-IR, P<0.001; n=11), which was prevented by postconditioning applied as 10-second cycles of reperfusion/ischemia (FMD 9.9±1.7% pre-IR, 8.3±1.4% post-IR, P=NS; n=11) and 30-second cycles of reperfusion/ischemia (FMD 10.8±1.7% pre-IR, 9.5±1.5% post-IR, P=NS; n=10) immediately at the onset of reperfusion. No protection was observed when the application of the 10-second postconditioning stimulus was delayed for 1 minute after the onset of reperfusion (FMD 9.8±1.2% pre-IR, 4.0±0.9% post-IR, P<0.001; n=8). Conclusions: This study demonstrates for the first time that postconditioning can protect against endothelial IR injury in humans. Postconditioning might reduce tissue injury when applied at the onset of reperfusion by modifying the reperfusion phase of IR

Transient limb ischemia induces remote ischemic preconditioning in vivo

Background-Ischemic preconditioning reduces local tissue injury caused by subsequent ischemia-reperfusion (IR), but may also have a salutary effect on IR injury of tissues remote from those undergoing preconditioning. We tested the hypothesis that limb ischemia induces remote preconditioning, reduces endothelial IR injury in humans, and reduces experimental myocardial infarct size.Methods and Results-Endothelial IR injury of the human forearm was induced by 20 minutes of upper limb ischemia (inflation of a blood pressure cuff to 200 mm Hg) followed by reperfusion. Remote preconditioning was induced by three 5-minute cycles of ischemia of the contralateral limb. Venous occlusion plethysmography was used to assess forearm blood flow in response to acetylcholine at baseline and 15 minutes after reperfusion. Experimental myocardial infarction was achieved by 40 minutes of balloon occlusion of the left anterior descending artery in 15-kg pigs. Remote preconditioning was induced by four 5-minute cycles of lower limb ischemia. Triphenyltetrazolium staining was used to assess the extent of myocardial infarction. In the human study, the response to acetylcholine was significantly attenuated in the control group after 15 minutes' reperfusion, but remote preconditioning prevented this reduction. Limb ischemia caused a significant reduction in the extent of myocardial infarction relative to the area at risk compared with control (26 +/- 9% versus 53 +/- 8%, P < 0.05).Conclusion-Remote ischemic preconditioning prevents IR-induced endothelial dysfunction in humans and reduces the extent of myocardial infarction in experimental animals. Transient limb ischemia is a simple preconditioning stimulus with important potential clinical applications