'A feminine touch’: gender, design and the ocean liner

This article offers an interdisciplinary account of gender in relation to ocean liner interior design. It outlines a case study of what the discipline of design history can bring to gender and maritime history. A historiography of the subject is followed by an analysis of the ways in which the spaces on board British ocean liners were conceived of, designed and used in terms of gender. Some spaces on board were designated as female only and other spaces understood to be male only – particularly the smoking room. The concluding part of the article considers the role of women designers within the patriarchal world of ship design and construction, by investigating the contributions of Elsie Mackay at P & O and the Zinkeisen sisters on the Queen Mary. Using primary sources, including visual evidence, the article considers a range of liners, from the Hindostan (1842) through to the Orontes (1929; refitted 1948). This bridges the gap between design history, gender and maritime history and adds to debates around gender and maritime history with a consideration of the overlooked area of design and its histories

The impact of the prevent duty on schools: a review of the evidence

The UK has emerged as an influential global player in developing policy to counter violent extremism, and therefore it is important to consider the emerging evidence about the impact of this policy in education. The Prevent Duty came into force in the UK in 2015, placing a legal responsibility on schools and teachers to implement anti-terrorist legislation and prevent young people from being drawn into extremism or radicalisation. This article reviews all of the material based on empirical studies in England involving school teachers and students published between 2015 (when the Duty was introduced) and the beginning of 2019 (27 articles and reports in total) to consider the impact of the policy on schools. The key themes emerging from our analysis of this evidence base are related (1) to the ways the policy is interpreted within Islamophobic discourses, (2) the emergence of Britishness as a key feature of fundamental British values, and (3) the implications of framing Prevent as a safeguarding issue. We argue that the evidence gives support to those who have been critical of the Prevent Duty in schools, and that it seems to be generating a number of unintended and negative side effects. However, the evidence also illustrates how teachers have agency in relation to the policy, and may thus be able to enact the policy in ways which reduce some of the most harmful effects

Determination of Manganese in Whole Blood by Cathodic Stripping Voltammetry with Indium Tin Oxide

Manganese (Mn) is a required trace metal in the body. In recent years however, it has garnered significant attention as a developmental neurotoxin in children with chronic exposure. It has been linked to complications such as memory loss with negatively associated IQ scores, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and in extreme cases, the development of a Parkinson's disease analogue-manganism. Cathodic stripping voltammetry (CSV) has proven to be a suitable method for electroanalytical determination of Mn. We have established Mn CSV using indium tin oxide (ITO) as the working electrode for the determination of Mn in bovine whole blood after an acid digestion. Reliable, accurate, and precise results were obtained, as only 9% variation in the digested blood was observed. The CSV results were compared with graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy (GF-AAS) and inductively coupled plasmamass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and favorable agreement across the methods was observed. Due to ITO's excellent positive potential window and stability under harsh environments, this method could be applied to other oxide-forming transition metals detectable by CSV