Compound Histories:Materials, Governance and Production, 1760-1840

Compound Histories: Materials, Governance and Production, 1760-1840 explores the intertwined realms of production, governance and materials, placing chemists and chemistry at the center of processes most closely identified with the construction of the modern world

Enlightened Female Networks: Gendered Ways of Producing Knowledge (1720-1830)

This special issue investigates women's scientific networks in Europe roughly between 1720 and 1830, an interesting period from a gender point of view. The articles analyse the role that networks played in enabling, shaping and circumscribing women in their intellectual pursuits, social aspirations and ideals. They also focus on the nature of the members' relationships, how women negotiated their scientific identities and how often women could use their femininity to create new social spaces for themselves and their families. We traced different types of networks such as 'paper', 'technical', 'distant' (in its special and temporal sense), 'moral' and 'mixed', as well as how many of these networks were characterized by broad intellectual engagement that was never exclusively scientific, but also literary, poetic, educational and philosophic

Home and Online Management and Evaluation of Blood Pressure (HOME BP) using a digital intervention in poorly controlled hypertension: randomised controlled trial

Objective: The HOME BP (Home and Online Management and Evaluation of Blood Pressure) trial aimed to test a digital intervention for hypertension management in primary care by combining self-monitoring of blood pressure with guided self-management. Design: Unmasked randomised controlled trial with automated ascertainment of primary endpoint. Setting: 76 general practices in the United Kingdom. Participants: 622 people with treated but poorly controlled hypertension (>140/90 mm Hg) and access to the internet. Interventions: Participants were randomised by using a minimisation algorithm to self-monitoring of blood pressure with a digital intervention (305 participants) or usual care (routine hypertension care, with appointments and drug changes made at the discretion of the general practitioner; 317 participants). The digital intervention provided feedback of blood pressure results to patients and professionals with optional lifestyle advice and motivational support. Target blood pressure for hypertension, diabetes, and people aged 80 or older followed UK national guidelines. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was the difference in systolic blood pressure (mean of second and third readings) after one year, adjusted for baseline blood pressure, blood pressure target, age, and practice, with multiple imputation for missing values. Results: After one year, data were available from 552 participants (88.6%) with imputation for the remaining 70 participants (11.4%). Mean blood pressure dropped from 151.7/86.4 to 138.4/80.2 mm Hg in the intervention group and from 151.6/85.3 to 141.8/79.8 mm Hg in the usual care group, giving a mean difference in systolic blood pressure of −3.4 mm Hg (95% confidence interval −6.1 to −0.8 mm Hg) and a mean difference in diastolic blood pressure of −0.5 mm Hg (−1.9 to 0.9 mm Hg). Results were comparable in the complete case analysis and adverse effects were similar between groups. Within trial costs showed an incremental cost effectiveness ratio of £11 ($15, €12; 95% confidence interval £6 to £29) per mm Hg reduction. Conclusions: The HOME BP digital intervention for the management of hypertension by using self-monitored blood pressure led to better control of systolic blood pressure after one year than usual care, with low incremental costs. Implementation in primary care will require integration into clinical workflows and consideration of people who are digitally excluded. Trial registration: ISRCTN13790648

The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic age <b>The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic age</b> , by Noreen Herzfeld, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2023, 233 pp., £22.22 (paperback), ISBN 9781506486901

From Crossref journal articles via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: epub 2024-05-23, issued 2024-05-23, published 2024-05-23Publication status: Publishe

Wonders never cease: Descartes's 'Météores' and the rainbow fountain

This essay argues that the material culture of the Renaissance garden played an important role in the development of Cartesian mathematical and mechanical philosophy. Garden machinery such as Salomon and Isaac de Caus's automata and grottoes provided a model from which Descartes drew his clockwork conceptions of nature and the human body. This machinery was also crucial in the Cartesian explanation of the rainbow. Not simply an exercise in intellectual curiosity, Descartes's geometrical description of the rainbow in Discourse Eight of the Météores was a direct response to the engineers of artificial rainbow fountains which populated European princely gardens for much of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Rejecting distinctions between 'natural' and 'artificial' rainbows, Descartes used these fountains and his own constructions of artificial water drops to discern the causes of the rainbow by refraction and reflection and, by analogy, to suppose this the explanation of rainbows in the sky. This knowledge was then utilized to propose an alternative to the rainbow fountain, using refracting liquids to cast images in the sky. Descartes presented a 'science of miracles' destined not to eradicate wonder but to make transparent the wonders of traditional garden engineers and replace them with wonders derived from knowledge of mathematical and mechanical philosophy. As such, the 'science of miracles' gave a new emphasis to the mind of the natural philosopher as the essential component in the creation of wonders, rather than the traditional skills and experience of the artisan or engineer