“The road from Mandalay to Wigan is a long one and the reasons for taking it aren’t immediately clear”: A World-System Biography of George Orwell

<p><em>George Orwell is one the best known and highly regarded writers of the twentieth century. In his adjective form—Orwellian—he has become a “Sartrean ‘singular universal,’ an individual whose “singular” experiences express the “universal” character of a historical moment. Orwell is a literary representation of the unease felt in the disenchanted, alienated, anomic world of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This towering cultural legacy obscures a<del cite="mailto:J%20Smith" datetime="2015-07-20T13:04"></del> more complex and interesting legacy. This world-system biography explains his contemporary relevance by retracing  the road from Mandalay to Wigan that transformed Eric Blair, a disappointing-Etonian-turned-imperial-policeman, into George Orwell, a contradictory and complex socialist and, later, literary icon. Orwell’s contradictory class position—between both ruling class and working class and nation and empire—and resultantly tense relationship to nationalism, empire, and the Left  makes his work a particularly powerful exposition of the tension between comsopolitianism and radicalism, between the abstract concerns of intellectuals and the complex demands of local political action. Viewed in full, Orwell represents the “traumatic kernel” of our age of cynicism: the historic failure and inability of the left to find a revolutionary path forward between the “timid reformism” of social democrats and “comfortable martyrdom” of anachronistic and self-satisfied radicals.</em></p

Bay of Plenty kiwifruit industry: exposure calls for diversification

The New Zealand Kellogg Rural Leaders Programme develops emerging agribusiness leaders to help shape the future of New Zealand agribusiness and rural affairs. Lincoln University has been involved with this leaders programme since 1979 when it was launched with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation, USA.This research assignment aims to look at the need for diversification in horticultural crops within regions. This\ud has become evident through the unwanted introduction of Psa to New Zealand. Regions such as the Bay of\ud Plenty are largely exposed to the kiwifruit industry which is concerning when currently the outlook on the\ud industry is still very bleak.\ud I will look at the regional impact that a downturn in the industry could result in and ultimately relate this back\ud to the need for diversification of the individual grower to ensure that the region by default is diversified. In\ud order to show this I will base some figures for kiwifruit on an actual orchard that is looking to covert some of\ud the kiwifruit area to grow citrus.\ud At the end we will see the overwhelming reason why the individual kiwifruit grower has not diversified into\ud other horticultural crops. However there is still a strong need that growers look to investments outside the\ud horticultural sector to gain some financial security if the New Zealand kiwifruit industry was not to recover\ud from the Psa epidemic

Maine Voices: State legislators face difficult decisions, historic choices

What values will Maine’s budget reflect – social justice or fear and repression

Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision

The United States has poured over a billion dollars into a network of interagency intelligence centers called “fusion centers.” These centers were ostensibly set up to prevent terrorism, but politicians, the press, and policy advocates have criticized them for failing on this account. So why do these security systems persist? Pacifying the Homeland travels inside the secret world of intelligence fusion, looks beyond the apparent failure of fusion centers, and reveals a broader shift away from mass incarceration and toward a more surveillance- and police-intensive system of social regulation. Provided with unprecedented access to domestic intelligence centers, Brendan McQuade uncovers how the institutionalization of intelligence fusion enables decarceration without fully addressing the underlying social problems at the root of mass incarceration. The result is a startling analysis that contributes to the debates on surveillance, mass incarceration, and policing and challenges readers to see surveillance, policing, mass incarceration, and the security state in an entirely new light.https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/facbooks/1259/thumbnail.jp

Notes on the Method of World-System Biography

C. Wright Mills boiled the social sciences down to one sentence: “They are attempts to help us understand biography and history, and the connections between the two in a variety of social structures.” This special issue considers biography as an fruitful entry point into macro-historical sociology. With lineages from Marx and Weber to Wallerstein and Bourdieu, the sociology of the individual can produce a clearer path between the muddy oppositions of structure and agency or the longue durée and the event. This special issue unbinds biography from methodological nationalism and the teleology of great men tales. Instead, we aim to show how individuals are "a world within a world," an acting subject structured within world historical time and place

Notes on the Method of World-System Biography

C. Wright Mills boiled the social sciences down to one sentence: “They are attempts to help us understand biography and history, and the connections between the two in a variety of social structures.” This special issue considers biography as an fruitful entry point into macro-historical sociology. With lineages from Marx and Weber to Wallerstein and Bourdieu, the sociology of the individual can produce a clearer path between the muddy oppositions of structure and agency or the longue durée and the event. This special issue unbinds biography from methodological nationalism and the teleology of great men tales. Instead, we aim to show how individuals are "a world within a world," an acting subject structured within world historical time and place

Optimal timing of SPECT/CT to demonstrate parathyroid adenomas in 99mTc-sestamibi scintigraphy

Background: Accurate preoperative localisation of the parathyroid adenoma is essential to achieve a minimally invasive parathyroidectomy. The purpose of this study was to validate and improve our single-isotope dual-phase parathyroid imaging protocol utilising 99mTechnetium-Sestamibi ([99mTc]MIBI). There has been no accepted gold standard evidence-based protocol regarding timing of single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) acquisition in parathyroid imaging with resultant variation between centres. We sought to determine the optimum timing of SPECT/CT post administration of [99mTc]MIBI in the identification of parathyroid adenomas. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of early and late SPECT/CT and to establish whether SPECT/CT demonstrates increased sensitivity over planar imaging.Material and methods: A sample of 36 patients with primary hyperparathyroidism underwent planar and SPECT/CT acquisition 15 minutes (early) and two hours (late) post [99mTc]MIBI administration. Two radionuclide radiologists reviewed the images and Fisher’s exact Chi-squared statistic was used to evaluate the diagnostic performances of early versus late SPECT/CT acquisition and SPECT/CT versus planar imaging.Results: Twenty-one likely parathyroid adenomas were identified with a statistically superior diagnosis rate in the lateSPECT/CT acquisition compared with both early SPECT/CT and planar imaging (p &lt; 0.05). All adenomas diagnosed on early SPECT/CT acquisition were also identified on late SPECT/CT images.Conclusions: Single late phase SPECT/CT is significantly superior to early SPECT/CT in the identification of parathyroid adenomas. Late SPECT/CT improves diagnostic accuracy over planar acquisition. Imaging protocols should be revised to include late SPECT/CT acquisition. Early SPECT/CT acquisition can be eliminated from scan protocols with associated implications regarding reduced scan time and increased patient throughput

Chlamydia Screening in Ireland: a pilot study of opportunistic screening for genital Chlamydia trachomatis infection in Ireland (2007-2009). Pre-screening Report

Summary A series of background studies in 18 to 29 year olds were conducted in a range of primary care settings in Dublin and Galway, 2007-09, to assess the acceptability and feasibility of opportunistic screening for chlamydia: - semi-structured interviews with 35 women who had never been tested for a sexually transmitted infection (STI) - similar interviews with 30 men and women who had had a STI test - a questionnaire survey of 5685 students and 400 primary care patients - four focus group discussions with university students - semi-structured interviews with eight doctors and 10 practice nurses. The most important barrier to seeking or taking a STI test was the stigma young Irish men and women associated with chlamydia and other STIs, and the fear of being seen doing this. This fear was greater among young women. Young people, especially women, were aware that chlamydia infection was often asymptomatic and were conscious of the danger of complications such as infertility and the consequences of transmitting chlamydia to other women. Factors that would encourage acceptance of a chlamydia screening test, which were common to women and men, were: - normalising STI testing, by portraying it as a responsible practice that adults should engage in - not being asked questions by staff about their sexual history - being offered screening by younger non-judgmental female healthcare professionals - being offered screening in private or general health care settings, where others would not be aware that they were getting an STI test There was a high level of acceptance of chlamydia screening among young people: 95% said it would be acceptable to be offered a test, and 90% of health facility attendees and 75% of students said they would accept a test if offered. The most acceptable setting for chlamydia screening was a General Practice where respondents were most comfortable with being offered screening by a doctor or nurse. Other primary care settings were also acceptable, whereas pharmacies were not because they were seen as public settings. 80% said they would inform their current partner if they tested positive for chlamydia, though this fell to 55-60% in the case of previous partners. Health care providers (doctors and nurses) viewed chlamydia screening as a priority, because young people are sexually active and are at high risk because of alcohol. Providers anticipated high chlamydia test offers and uptake rates. Providers viewed chlamydia testing as a core activity to undertake in primary care, but they would need support for partner notification and easy access to laboratory tests, especially urine-based ones. Conclusion: Most 18-29 year old men and women would respond positively if offered a test for chlamydia, when attending a health care facility for other reasons. They recognise the risks and the importance of their sexual contacts being tested, if they themselves test positive for chlamydia. However, sexual health services in Ireland need to minimise stigma and ensure the confidentiality and acceptability of STI testing of young people.</p