What's Hot in Jurisprudence?

This article was presented as a Victoria University of Wellington Centennial Lecture during Law Festival Week in 1999. The author notes the relatively recent rise to popularity of legal theory, and discusses two trends which are in part influenced by theoretical fashions, and are in part the symptoms of what is a fundamental and enduring alteration in all types of theoretical scholarship: bodies and spirits

Organizational Change and the Health and Well-Being of Home Care Workers

Objective: The objective of this research is to study the impact of health care restructuring and other organizational changes on the mental and physical health of home care workers. Methods: This study covers 11 agencies and 7 union locals. We interviewed 59 key decision-makers, 171 workers in 29 focus groups, and surveyed 1,311 workers (70% response rate). Qualitative data are analyzed for themes and quantitative data analysis consists of descriptive statistics and associations between variables. Results: The restructuring of the health care sector and organizational change have increased stress levels and musculoskeletal disorders of home care workers. Physical health problems among this workforce are much higher than the comparable group in the Canadian population. Restructuring and organizational change are significant factors in decreasing job satisfaction, while increasing absenteeism rates, fear of job loss, and propensity to leave. Conclusions: Occupational health problems experienced by these workers are preventable. It is important to acknowledge that occupational stress can result from incremental changes in the work and external work environment, affecting physical health, job dissatisfaction, absenteeism, and propensity to leave. Sufficient government funding to provide services, avoiding continuous changes in the work environment, and creating supportive work environments can positively contribute to workers' health.health care restructuring; home care workers; occupational stress

The conquest of infant mortality: the case of Hemsworth, 1871-1911

This thesis began as part of wider project undertaken by postgraduate students of the Open University looking at the decline of infant mortality during the period 1871-1911. The main primary source for this has been the Vaccination Registers which were produced to record vaccination of infants under the Vaccination Act of 1871. Under this Act vaccination against smallpox became compulsory for all infants. The registers therefore give us a unique opportunity to examine the data on all infants born during this period in the areas where the registers survive. The district selected for this thesis is the Hemsworth district in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In 1871 the economy of the district was purely based on agriculture, but by 1911 several deep coal mines had been sunk in the area which had led to a rapid and steep rise in the population. This rise in the population was accompanied by an increase in infant mortality which grew from below the mean for England and Wales in 1871, to above the mean by the late 1890s. Unlike most of the rest of the country the IMR in Hemsworth did not actually begin to decline until 1905. This thesis examines the causes of the high IMR through a comparison between a large village which grew to be a colliery township. South Kirkby, and those townships in the district which remained purely agricultural even after the sinking of the deep mines. A micro-study of one street in South Kirkby with a particularly high IMR facilitates a detailed examination of the households and the infant deaths which occurred there

Co-production and values in museums: with special reference to the production of temporary exhibitions in Britain

This thesis looks at co-production in museums, specifically how external parties were involved in the production of temporary exhibitions. It explores the different patterns of co-production found in various museum contexts, offers an explanation for the differences based on values and discusses the implications for museum managers. The research explored the topic from a museum management perspective, an interdisciplinary field informed by museum and heritage studies as well as various management disciplines. The central research question was - why does the pattern of external involvement in temporary exhibitions vary in different museum settings? Over a 15 month period data was gathered from a range of museums in Britain to create 20 case studies. A grounded theory methodology (Goulding 2002; Glaser and Strauss 1967; Glaser 1996) meant that existing work in museum studies, eo-production, project management and organisational culture, informed rather than defined the direction of research. Data gathering and analysis were part of an iterative process which allowed for progressive focusing on the key issues (Stake 1981). Using a typology of eo-production developed specifically for this research the pattern of external involvement was analysed. This established similarities and differences in the pattern of eo-production across the case studies. This analysis found that some parts of the exhibition making process were more open to external involvement than others. It also found that some patterns of eo-production could be explained by particular exhibition variables, e.g. the size of the budget. However, it became apparent that important aspects of eo-production could only be understood by reference to the wider museum context. Hence a higher-level framework to represent the variety of museum contexts, in terms of values, priorities and norms, was needed. Such a framework needed to locate and illuminate the range of co-production documented in the study, be theoretically robust and make sense to practitioners. To this end, the Museum Values Framework, was developed from the work of Quinn and others (Quinn and Rohrbaugh 1981), used to interrogate the data further, and trialed in the field. This study offers new knowledge on the nature and variety of co-production in museums and highlights the importance of individual, group and organisational values in shaping behaviour in a museum context. The wider implications of the findings for museum management are also discussed. In addition this research makes a theoretical and methodological contribution in the form of the Museum Values Framework. Considerable scope exists to apply this analytic tool to other aspects of museums' work and behaviour

What counts as good evidence

Making better use of evidence is essential if public services are to deliver more for less. Central to this challenge is the need for a clearer understanding about standards of evidence that can be applied to the research informing social policy. This paper reviews the extent to which it is possible to reach a workable consensus on ways of identifying and labelling evidence. It does this by exploring the efforts made to date and the debates that have ensued. Throughout, the focus is on evidence that is underpinned by research, rather than other sources of evidence such as expert opinion or stakeholder views.Publisher PD

Where Have All The Home Care Workers Gone?

Because of the on-going need to co-ordinate care and ensure its continuity, issues of retention and recruitment are of major concern to home care agencies. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors affecting turnover decisions among visiting home care workers. In 1996, 620 visiting nurses and personal support workers from three non-profit agencies in a mid-sized Ontario city participated in a survey on their work and health. By the fall of 2001, 320 of these respondents had left the agencies. Analysis of the turnover data showed a temporal association between the implementation of managed competition and turnover. We mailed a self-completion questionnaire asking about their reasons for leaving the agency and about their subsequent work experience. One hundred and sixty nine (53%) responded to this survey. Respondents indicated dissatisfaction with the implementation of managed competition, with pay, hours of work, lack of organizational support and work load as well as health reasons, including work-related stress, as reasons for leaving. Less than one-third remained employed in the home care field, one-third worked in other health care workplaces and one-third were no longer working in health care. Their responses to our 1996 survey were used to predict turnover. Results show that nurses were more likely to leave if they had unpredictable hours of work, if they worked shifts or weekends and had higher levels of education. They were more likely to stay with the agency if they reported working with difficult clients, had predictable hours, good benefits, had children under 12 years of age in the home, and were younger. Personal support workers were more likely to leave if they reported higher symptoms of stress, and had difficult clients. They were more likely to stay if they worked weekends and perceived their benefits to be good.turnover, home care workers, nurses, personal support workers, managed competition, home care sector, policy, for-profit agency, non-profit agency

Inmigración y educación para la ciudadanía democrática: una oportunidad para el desarrollo profesional

Describimos ciertas cuestiones que han surgido de los debates sobre nacionalidad, ciudadanía y educación para la ciudadanía y debatimos sobre ellas. Sugerimos que ha habido una tendencia tanto a integrar como a recelar de una educación relacionada con formas nacionales de ciudadanía. Esta imagen confusa nos ha llevado a perder oportunidades en la construcción de formas de educación relacionadas con sociedades multinacionales y multiculturales. Proponemos formas de desarrollo profesional que estarían conectadas con esta caracterización de ciudadanía.We describe and dicuss here certain issues that have been mentioned in the debates related to nationality, citizenship and the Education For Citizenship’ school subject. We suggest that it have been both or tendency to integrate and a tendency to distcust of an education related to national forms of citizenship. This blurred image has led us to loose opportunities in the construction of an education related to multinational and multicultural societies. We propose ways of professional development connected with this characterization of citizenship

Navigating Troubled Seas: the future of the Law School in the United Kingdom and the United States

Legal education in both the United Kingdom and the United States has faced troubled waters in recent years. With a decrease in employment opportunities for lawyers, rising expenses in legal education and unceasing critiques from the practicing bar, law schools in both countries have worked to revamp their curriculum to meet these new challenges. This article outlines some of the legal education reforms implemented in these two countries. In some areas, the reforms match in goals and methods, but in others, they diverge. Ultimately, these changes add insight into the nature and identity of the legal professional itself. This article ends with comparative observations about the direction of legal education in both countries

Characterisation of the feline leukaemia virus fusion peptide: implications for the fusion mechanism

Membrane fusion, the merging of two initially distinct membranes to form one common lipid bilayer, is a fundamental mechanism of life. It occurs many times each day within every eukaryotic cell as part of essential daily homeostatic processes, as well as between individual cells, such as sperm and egg during fertilisation. The fusion mechanism is, however, also crucial to the development of many diseases. All enveloped viruses, and indeed many other obligate intracellular parasites, must fuse their own surrounding lipid bilayer with the membrane of their host's target cell in order to gain cell entry and thus the ability to replicate. These infections produce disease states, and possibly even death, in the host speciesDespite the clear importance of fusion, the precise molecular events that occur during this process are still not known. Fusion proteins of viruses have recently become popular tools for use in fusion studies. More specifically, several viruses have known fusion peptides, the sections of these proteins which confer their fusogenic activity. This thesis examines the structure and function of the putative fusion peptide of the retrovirus Feline leukaemia virus, (FeLV), using a variety of mainly biophysical techniques.The structural effects of the FeLV fusion peptide on lipid polymorphism were studied. Using differential scanning calorimetry, ³¹P nuclear magnetic resonance and time-resolved X-ray diffraction this peptide was found to induce changes in lipid conformation and motion similar to those of known fusogens: it favoured the formation of non-bilayer lipid conformations which have a relatively large negative curvature, namely the inverted hexagonal phase and isotropic lipid states. Moreover, using X-ray diffraction, a new lipid phase was observed in the presence of the FeLV peptideNeutron diffraction studies revealed a change in the packing of lipid molecules within a bilayer and also possible thinning ofthe bilayer, both ofwhich were induced by interaction with the FeLV fusion peptide.Fusogenic activity for this putative viral fusion peptide was demonstrated, using fusion assays, which measured the merging of lipid membranes in the presence ofthe FeLV fusion peptide.These findings are discussed in the light ofthe current concepts ofthe fusion mechanism. They add support to two currently favoured theories of fusion: precession by a fusion peptide as a means of inducing the initial destabilisation of a bilayer, and the formation ofhighly bent, high energy lipid intermediates, such as the 'modified stalk', in the multistep fusion pathway.Circular dichroism was employed to determine the secondary structure ofthe FeLV fusion peptide under a variety of experimental conditions. This peptide was observed to flip readily between a-helical and p sheet conformations. This suggests that structural plasticity may be an important dynamic property offusion peptides. Possible relationships between peptide structure and function are discusse

The Economic Well-Being of Older Women Who Become Divorced or Separated in Mid and Later Life

This paper examines the economic well-being of women who become divorced or separated in mid and later life using 1994 data from the Statistics Canada Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics. Three measures of economic well-being are considered: adjusted economic family total money income; before-tax low income cutoff; and ownership of dwelling. Women and men aged 65 and older in their first marriages are compared with women and men aged 65 and older divorced or separated women who had become divorced or separated at age 45 and older. Results show that women who become divorced or separated in mid and later life are more likely to be in poverty than married persons and men who divorce or separate in mid and later life. Persons who divorce or separate in mid and later life are less likely than married persons to live in a dwelling which is owned by a member of the household. Regression analyses show that receipt of pension income and earnings are positively associated with income for women who become divorced or separated in mid and later life. Implications for the Canadian legal and retirement income systems are discussed.economic well-being; divorce; aging; SLID