Did Labour fundamentally change Britain in its thirteen years of power? Hardly at all

The ‘new Labour’ governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown altered the societal landscape in the UK. But did they fundamentally change Britain? In a new book, David Walker and Polly Toynbee take an in-depth and balanced look at the achievements of the Labour project. There were some policy successes, and the authors give Labour 6 out of 10 for these. Yet the party lacked an overall vision or narrative, and so squandered its opportunity to push the UK in a more social democratic directio

Notes On Some Common Misconceptions In Input-Output Impact Methodology

The methodology in many studies involving input-output analysis appears to be often misunderstood, particularly in the way multipliers are used. The preoccupation with multipliers has led in many cases to incorrect analytical procedures; for example, there is a temptation to first derive a multiplier and then use this multiplier to calculate the total impact on the economy. This paper demonstrates that this approach is often erroneous and can result in significant errors. In addition, the importance of determining how imports are treated when using input-output in empirical situations is discussed. This is particularly relevant when using input-output tables in developing countries. Other issues which are clarified include the use of output multipliers, state versus regional multipliers and impacts, expenditure switching and table balancing

How sustainable agriculture can address the environmental and human health harms of industrial agriculture.

The industrial agriculture system consumes fossil fuel, water, and topsoil at unsustainable rates. It contributes to numerous forms of environmental degradation, including air and water pollution, soil depletion, diminishing biodiversity, and fish die-offs. Meat production contributes disproportionately to these problems, in part because feeding grain to livestock to produce meat--instead of feeding it directly to humans--involves a large energy loss, making animal agriculture more resource intensive than other forms of food production. The proliferation of factory-style animal agriculture creates environmental and public health concerns, including pollution from the high concentration of animal wastes and the extensive use of antibiotics, which may compromise their effectiveness in medical use. At the consumption end, animal fat is implicated in many of the chronic degenerative diseases that afflict industrial and newly industrializing societies, particularly cardiovascular disease and some cancers. In terms of human health, both affluent and poor countries could benefit from policies that more equitably distribute high-protein foods. The pesticides used heavily in industrial agriculture are associated with elevated cancer risks for workers and consumers and are coming under greater scrutiny for their links to endocrine disruption and reproductive dysfunction. In this article we outline the environmental and human health problems associated with current food production practices and discuss how these systems could be made more sustainable

A Reconceptualization of the Self-In-Relationship: Contributions from Voices of Cherokee Americans

In any worldview the Self is a central concept. This article summarizes doctoral dissertation research that re-centers a Cherokee American conceptualization of the Self-In-Relationship. In conversational format, the summary details study results that show how a concept analysis methodology plumbs a depth of meaning that a dictionary definition cannot reach in grasping the complex intersection between two meta-worldviews, American Indian and Western. Concepts that emerged about the Self or Self-In-Relationship were held in focus by the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model lens. The conceptualization of Self in the IFS model was found to be resonant with Cherokee American study participants’ narratives and with Cherokee literature about the Self-In-Relationship. Findings from Cherokee descendants’ perspectives may contribute to widening a crosswalk of understanding for those who straddle Cherokee and Western worldviews. Metaphors that emerged from bringing voices from traditional Cherokee knowledge systems into side-by-side interrelationship with voices from Western scholarship re-centered Cherokee conceptual frameworks as foundational for wellbeing and with potential to inform consciousness about healing beyond the sphere of Cherokee culture

The Influence of Running on Women's Self-Esteem and Attributional Style

Thesis advisor: Carolyn ThomasA quasi-experimental study was done to investigate the relative influence of running on the self-esteem and attributional styles of a group of 623 women in Boston. Volunteers from the participants in the 1983 Bonne Bell 10K race formed the runners group while the two control groups, athletic non-runners and non-athletic women, were composed of volunteers randomly self-selected from among patrons in various Boston service organizations. Study participants were tested using Seligmans Attribution Style Questionnaire (1981) and Hudson's Index of Self-Esteem (1982). Results of the ASQ showed that the women who ran consistently tended to have a more internal than external locus of control and had an attributional style associated with an empowered sense of self. Results of the ISE showed that women who run consistently have a significantly higher level of self-esteem than do either the women who are athletic but who do not run or the non-athletic women, with the non-athletic women scoring with lower self-esteem than the athletic non-runners. On a subjective rating for degree of happiness, the consistent runners scored significantly higher than those women in the control groups. Both clinical and policy implications of these findings were discussed.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 1987.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work.Discipline: Social Work

A new tool to measure approaches to supervision from the perspective of community health workers: a prospective, longitudinal, validation study in seven countries

Background: The global scale-up of community health workers (CHWs) depends on supportive management and supervision of this expanding cadre. Existing tools fail to incorporate the perspective of the CHW (i.e. perceived supervision) in terms of supportive experiences with their supervisor. Aligned to the WHO’s strategy on human resources for health, we developed and validated a simple tool to measure perceived supervision across seven low and middle-income countries. Methods: Phase 1 was carried out with 327 CHWs in Sierra Leone. Twelve questions, informed by the extant literature on health worker supervision, were reduced to six questions using confirmatory factor analysis. Phase 2 employed structural equation modelling with 741 CHWs in six countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique), to assess the factorial validity, predictive validity, and internal reliability of the questions at three time-points, over 8-months. Results: We developed a robust, 6-item measure of perceived supervision (PSS), capturing regular contact, two-way communication, and joint problem-solving elements as being critical from the perspective of CHWs. When assessed across the six countries, over time, the PSS was also found to have good validity and internal reliability. PSS scores at baseline positively and significantly predicted a range of performance-related outcomes at follow-up. Conclusion: The PSS is the first validated tool that measures supervisory experience from the perspective of CHWs and is applicable across multiple, culturally-distinct global health contexts with a wide range of CHW typologies. Simple, quick to administer, and freely available in 11 languages, the PSS could assist practitioners in the management of community health programmes

Articulating encounters between children and plastics

In the context of global concerns about plastics, this paper sets out and exemplifies a research agenda for articulating children’s encounters with plastics. The paper analyses data co-produced with 11–15 year-olds through interviews, app-based research and experimental/arts-led workshops. It moves beyond scholarship in health and environmental sciences, and in environmental education research, to outline a far richer range of ways to conceptualise children’s encounters with plastics, based in children’s everyday, embodied and emotive interactions with plastics

On the dependent recognition of some long zinc finger proteins

The human genome contains about 800 C2H2 zinc finger proteins (ZFPs), and most of them are composed of long arrays of zinc fingers. Standard ZFP recognition model asserts longer finger arrays should recognize longer DNA-binding sites. However, recent experimental efforts to identify in vivo ZFP binding sites contradict this assumption, with many exhibiting short motifs. Here we use ZFY, CTCF, ZIM3, and ZNF343 as examples to address three closely related questions: What are the reasons that impede current motif discovery methods? What are the functions of those seemingly unused fingers and how can we improve the motif discovery algorithms based on long ZFPs\u27 biophysical properties? Using ZFY, we employed a variety of methods and find evidence for \u27dependent recognition\u27 where downstream fingers can recognize some previously undiscovered motifs only in the presence of an intact core site. For CTCF, high-throughput measurements revealed its upstream specificity profile depends on the strength of its core. Moreover, the binding strength of the upstream site modulates CTCF\u27s sensitivity to different epigenetic modifications within the core, providing new insight into how the previously identified intellectual disability-causing and cancer-related mutant R567W disrupts upstream recognition and deregulates the epigenetic control by CTCF. Our results establish that, because of irregular motif structures, variable spacing and dependent recognition between sub-motifs, the specificities of long ZFPs are significantly underestimated, so we developed an algorithm, ModeMap, to infer the motifs and recognition models of ZIM3 and ZNF343, which facilitates high-confidence identification of specific binding sites, including repeats-derived elements. With revised concept, technique, and algorithm, we can discover the overlooked specificities and functions of those \u27extra\u27 fingers, and therefore decipher their broader roles in human biology and diseases

How Sustainable Agriculture Can Address the Environment and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture

2 p. Review produced for HC 441: Science Colloquium: Willamette River Environmental Health, Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon, Spring term, 2004