3,579 research outputs found

    Oppen's Pragmatism

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    Shopper Questionnaire Surveys at Convenience Foodstores in West Yorkshire

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    This report sets out the preliminary findings of a series of questionnaire shopper surveys at five convenience foodstores in West Yorkshire. The surveys, which form the second phase of a current research study, followed an earlier series of surveys, the results of which were given in a report produced earlier this year 1 . The questionnaire surveys were carried out in May-June 1983 and the information obtained comprised that on the shopper and shopper's household together with trip, travel mode and attitudinal data

    Parking and Vehicle Activity Surveys at Large Convenience Foodstores in West Yorkshire: Results and Guidelines for Design

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    This report sets out the main results and conclusions of a series of vehicular activity,and parking surveys at thirteen convenience food stores in West Yorkshire. The surveys, carried out in the period February - June 1982, were undertaken at stores ranging from a typical high street supermarket to large superstores. Data on vehicular flows and-parking indices were obtained at twelve stores; in addition registration number surveys were completed at three stores to allow customer parking durations to be determined

    Restoring the mauri of coastal dune lake ecosystems : the case study of Lake Waiorongomai, Ōtaki, Aotearoa/New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Resource and Environmental Planning, at Massey University, Palmerston North, Aotearoa/New Zealand

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    The following Figures have been removed for copyright reasons but may be accessed via their sources listed in the bibliography (page numbers in the captions): 1.2.1 (p.13); 2.2.1 (p.48); 4.2.3 (p.166); 4.2.4 (p.168); 4.3.1 (p.184); 4.3.4 (p.191); 4.3.5 (p.194); 4.3.6 (p.198); 4.3.7 (p.203); 4.3.8 (p.205); 4.3.9 (p.208); 6.0.1 (p.326); & 6.3.11 (p.392).This doctoral thesis documents and analyses a six-year, hapū-led, iwi-and community-supported, kaupapa-Māori-based (Māori-cultural-values-based) project that resulted in the transformative change of a dune lake ecosystem (which included people i.e., a whānau Māori ecosystem). Lake Waiorongomai, just north of Ōtaki, is a culturally-significant ancestral landscape and wāhi tapu (sacred site) for local whānau (extended families), hapū (sub-tribes) and iwi (tribes). The mana (prestige), mauri (life force) and ecological wellbeing of this wāhi tapu was diminished as a result of forest clearance, hydrological modification of the lake catchment, and the effects of pastoral farming activities. Attempts over the last three decades to bring Māori land owners and hapū members together to re-instate the mana and mauri of the dune lake ecosystem met with limited success. This thesis documents and seeks to better understand: (i) the conditions that gave rise to a successful restoration project; and (ii) the factors that empowered this hapū-led project. The study shows that conditions that contributed to a successful project involved: (i) collective land owner, local hapū and iwi support; (ii) a kaupapa Māori approach; (iii) project activities guided by the expression of rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and the contributions of a kaitiaki team who were appointed by hapū members; and (iv) the engagement of a kaupapa Māori researcher to support the hapū initiative and their revitalisation aspirations. Transformative change in this case study was change that had positive effects on physical, cultural, social, psychological and spiritual wellbeing. In the Lake Waiorongomai restoration project, the outcomes that had positive effects for the whānau Māori ecosystem include, but are not limited to: (i) fencing the lake with a 50m riparian margin; (ii) fencing the Waiorongomai Stream with a 10m riparian margin; (iii) community involvement in planting more than 3000 native plants, translocating over 1000 harakeke (swamp flax), and trapping over 100 pests (including stoats and ferrets); and (iv) reconnection of whānau and hapū members to the lake, through regular wānanga and ongoing restoration activities such as winter planting days. The habitat within the lake and surrounding wetlands provided opportunities to observe amongst other things threatened species such as the tiny button daisy, raoriki (swamp buttercup), fennel-leaved pond weed, matuku (bittern), kotuku ngutupapa (royal spoonbill), kotuku (white heron), parera (grey ducks), weweia (dab chicks) and pūweto (spotless crake). The improvement in the wellbeing of two species, inanga (whitebait) and watercress, over the course of the study is of particular note, since these species hold customary value for whānau and hapū. A central focus of this research is the relationship that ecological wellbeing and whānau, hapū, iwi wellbeing are inextricably linked. In summary, this hapū-led, community supported project took initial, confident steps in reclaiming, reframing and re-instating the mana and mauri of this whānau Māori ecosystem. This thesis argues that transformative changes were generated by empowering factors that were closely linked with: (i) the creation of a project space that allowed the free expression of kaupapa and tikanga (customs) in a socially and culturally mediated journey; (ii) whānau and hapū members’ expressions of kaupapa and tikanga that enhanced the success of this project; (iii) contributions of iwi members, councils and the wider community; (iv) the sharing and developing of mātauranga (knowledge) including through the involvement of learning institutes (e.g. whare wānanga, kura kaupapa, kōhanga reo and university students); and (v) a synthesis of Māori and Western restoration and research methods (including ecological monitoring). These empowering factors assisted in affirming to local hapū members that their expressions of kaupapa and tikanga were crucial in generating initial lake ecosystem wellbeing improvements including the enhancement of mauri. Two key lessons can be drawn from the role of these various factors in transformative change. First, no individual contribution was enough to ensure the success of the restoration. However, when a safe kaupapa and tikanga space was created for the inclusion of all contributors, the total effect was more than the sum of the individual parts (i.e., a synergistic outcome resulted). Second, the results indicate that it is highly unlikely that a Western methodological approach on its own would have been as successful in achieving a project outcome of this kind. A comparison of the key characteristics of kaupapa Māori and action research showed that a kaupapa Māori research methodology was the most appropriate for this case study. As such, this thesis may enhance current action research theory and method by showing how it could be responsive to cultural values, knowledge, customs and language in a real-world, wicked problem context of this kind. In documenting and exploring the various conditions and factors that made this restoration project possible, this thesis provides environmental planners and policy makers a real-world window into how transformative and progressive communityecosystem outcomes can be achieved in a Māori cultural context through the use of a kaupapa Māori approach

    Associating places: strategies for live, site specific, sound art performance

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    Claims for originality in this thesis lie in bringing together many different disciplines in art, music, sound studies and performance. The methodology, contextually indebted to the dialogues of site specific art, performance, and sound improvisation, has emerged as a multi-disciplinary one, informed in part by the study of those artists from the 1960s onwards who actively sought to resist the gallery system. The practice has driven the thesis in developing and continuously testing the requirement to respond uniquely to chosen sites. By using relevant references, instruments, and sonified materials, a compulsion to convey something of the particularity of the site’s associations through sound, is performed on site. In the course of considering the wider implications of a site through both the sound performances and the critical writing, I propose that there are essentially three aspects to identify when working with sound on site. I define these as: the actual the activated the associative The first aspect describes what is essentially inherent to the place, the second what can be encouraged to be ‘sounded’ through physical intervention, and the third outlines and forms what I have coined as the wider material of the site. This term draws on any relevant aspects of the social, physical, historical, anecdotal, and aural associations that a site may proffer. However, it is the notion of the associative that primarily informs the research by providing a methodology for the practice and in proposing a new paradigm of a live, site specific, performed, sound art work. The twenty or so works in the portfolio undertaken hitherto have existed not only as live performances but also in virtual and physical documentation, critical 4 analyses, and in the potential possibilities brought to the form by the response of others. By addressing this new taxonomy of approach in defining the actual, the activated and the associative as a kind of aural ground to the site (borrowing a term from painting), significant live sound art works have been developed to temporarily inhabit a space by exploring this latent material of the site

    The social construction of formal adult cautioning by police: an ethnographic study

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    Since its official introduction in England and Wales during 1985, the formal cautioning of adult offenders by police has grown to become a significant mechanism by which certain offenders are diverted from the criminal justice system. Currently some 30% of adult male offenders and 45% of adult female offenders arrested by the police are dealt with in this way. Cautioning is a procedural mechanism by which the police, contingent upon their adherence to the provisions of national guidelines, can elect to deal with certain criminal cases by means other than prosecution. Instead, they can choose to 'divert' the suspect from the court system by administering a formal caution; signed for by the suspect; often accompanied by verbal censure by a senior police officer; recordable on centralised police criminal indices; subject to the allocation of a CRO (criminal records office) number and citable in any subsequent court proceedings as a previous finding of guilt. The official rhetoric of cautioning espouses the virtues of benevolence through the provision of a second-chance for first time and petty offenders, allowing them to turn away from further offending, as well as efficiency through the speedy and timely management and disposal of cases not considered to be in the public interest to prosecute. But the burgeoning use of formal cautioning by the police has created problems of inconsistency, inequity and misapplication through repeat cautioning and its inappropriate use in cases of serious crime such as rape and murder. The fundamental principles of cautioning have also been criticised for eroding a suspect's due process rights such as the right to trial, the right to have prosecution evidence rigorously tested through an adversarial process that secures the right to legal counsel, a process that demands proof beyond reasonable doubt and which is subject to external review through an appeals process. These safeguards are almost completely absent with cautioning. Furthermore, the mechanisms by which police cautioning decisions are regulated have also been found wanting following research that suggests that the national guidelines are poorly defined, non-prioritised and provide for excessive latitude for police decision makers. This research project is an investigation into both the theory and practice of formal adult cautioning by the police. At its centre is a two-year covert participant observational study of the police work-world and of the ways in which cautioning, as intentional social action, draws meaning from and can be located within this occupational culture. Building upon a comprehensive review of available literature and consideration of the methodological and ethical issues created by the research, the thesis sets out to examine the true nature of the cautioning of adult offenders by the police in its natural setting - the custody office - and uses data drawn from officer and suspect interactions as the basis for a detailed analysis of how, why and by whom cautioning decisions actually come to be made. From this analysis conclusions have been drawn and recommendations made concerning how this disposal method might develop in the future and how existing problems might be overcome leading to a new, more consistent and equitable system of cautioning

    Metalliferous Biosignatures for Deep Subsurface Microbial Activity

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    Acknowledgments We thank the British Geological Survey (BGS) for the provision of samples and the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) grant (ST/L001233/1) for PhD funding which aided this project. Research on selenium in reduction spheroids was also supported by NERC grants (NE/L001764/1 and NE/ M010953/1). The University of Aberdeen Raman facility was funded by the BBSRC. We also thank John Still for invaluable technical assistance.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

    Gold in Devono-Carboniferous red beds of northern Britain

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    We are grateful to D. Craw and an anonymous reviewer for comments that helped to clarify the paper. Research was funded by NERC grants NE/L001764/1 and NE/M010953/1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

    Antibiotics for sore throat

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    Background: Sore throat is a common reason for people to present for medical care. Although it remits spontaneously, primary care doctors commonly prescribe antibiotics for it. Objectives: To assess the benefits of antibiotics for sore throat for patients in primary care settings. Search methods: We searched CENTRAL 2013, Issue 6, MEDLINE (January 1966 to July week 1, 2013) and EMBASE (January 1990 to July 2013). Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi‐RCTs of antibiotics versus control assessing typical sore throat symptoms or complications. Data collection and analysis: Two review authors independently screened studies for inclusion and extracted data. We resolved differences in opinion by discussion. We contacted trial authors from three studies for additional information. Main results: We included 27 trials with 12,835 cases of sore throat. We did not identify any new trials in this 2013 update. 1. Symptoms - Throat soreness and fever were reduced by about half by using antibiotics. The greatest difference was seen at day three. The number needed to treat to benefit (NNTB) to prevent one sore throat at day three was less than six; at week one it was 21. 2. Non‐suppurative complications - The trend was antibiotics protecting against acute glomerulonephritis but there were too few cases to be sure. Several studies found antibiotics reduced acute rheumatic fever by more than two‐thirds within one month (risk ratio (RR) 0.27; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.12 to 0.60). 3. Suppurative complications - Antibiotics reduced the incidence of acute otitis media within 14 days (RR 0.30; 95% CI 0.15 to 0.58); acute sinusitis within 14 days (RR 0.48; 95% CI 0.08 to 2.76); and quinsy within two months (RR 0.15; 95% CI 0.05 to 0.47) compared to those taking placebo. 4. Subgroup analyses of symptom reduction - Antibiotics were more effective against symptoms at day three (RR 0.58; 95% CI 0.48 to 0.71) if throat swabs were positive for Streptococcus, compared to RR 0.78; 95% CI 0.63 to 0.97 if negative. Similarly at week one the RR was 0.29 (95% CI 0.12 to 0.70) for positive and 0.73 (95% CI 0.50 to 1.07) for negative Streptococcus swabs. Authors' conclusions: Antibiotics confer relative benefits in the treatment of sore throat. However, the absolute benefits are modest. Protecting sore throat sufferers against suppurative and non‐suppurative complications in high‐income countries requires treating many with antibiotics for one to benefit. This NNTB may be lower in low‐income countries. Antibiotics shorten the duration of symptoms by about 16 hours overall.Griffith Health, School of MedicineFull Tex
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