Risk Owners & Risk Managers: Dealing with the complexity of feeding children with neurodevelopmental disability

This paper illustrates negotiations around risk between lay people and clinicians in relation to gastrostomy interventions for disabled children. These negotiations centre on differing interpretations of what constitutes risk in relation to the safety of oral feeding and a child's need for a feeding tube between parents, carers and clinical specialties. Drawing on Heyman's distinction between risk managers and risk owners, we show that not only do clinicians act as risk managers and parents and carers as risk owners, but that these distinctions often become blurred either because of the shifting dynamics of relations of care or because of the specificity of clinical practice. Parents become risk managers in relation to carers' roles, while clinicians become risk owners in relation to particular procedures which define their practice. This has implications for lay and expert interactions as well as professional accountability for those caring for children with complex medical conditions. Although not an empirical article, we draw on empirical work in the UK. We analyse both parental and professional constructions of risk based on observations of co-ordinating a clinical trial designed to evaluate the effectiveness of gastrostomy surgery. We also examine the diverse value systems used by different groups of professionals and lay carers which inform judgements about risk and feeding. We conclude by arguing that issues of risk in contemporary health care are not just examples of ‘manufactured uncertainty’ or of ‘negotiated power’ but constitute a dialectical relationship which breaks down the essentialist dualism of lay and professional constructions of risk

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Trust and Risk

Trust, like risk, has been defined from an array of contrasting perspectives. Studies of trust have explored the dynamics of dyadic and group interactions and relations, the forms and functions of organisational processes, and variations in social and political norms and structures across regions and countries. The purpose of this chapter is not to attempt a comprehensive list of conceptual approaches but rather to consider some of the most important ways by which trust can be related to risk. In doing so, we will consider how the study of trust illuminates important social processes around risk

Interviews as a Means of Exploring Risk Lifeworlds: Excavating the Roots of Everyday Meanings, Experiences and Practices

Interpretations and expectations regarding uncertain futures are rooted in taken-for-granted understandings. In this chapter we consider how to dig deeper into these implicit meaning-making processes—or lifeworlds—through careful design, collection, and analysis of interview data. Drawing on Schützian phenomenology, ethnomethodology, and recent debates around interviewing, we explore how selecting pertinent cases, being attentive to power dynamics within interviews, using multiple interviews over time, triangulating interviews with observations, and combining these approaches can be used to grasp the depths of interpretations and meanings. We consider how these techniques have enabled new insights into the system assumptions underlying trust, the texture of lifeworlds shaped by psychosis, the gendered assumptions of professional decision-making, and how drug users rework their future horizons in the face of diverse risks

Application of pulse combustion technology in spray drying process

The paper presents development of valved pulse combustor designed for application in drying process and drying tests performed in a specially built installation. Laser technique was applied to investigate the flow field and structure of dispersed phase during pulse combustion spray drying process. PDA technique was used to determine initial atomization parameters as well as particle size distribution, velocity of the particles, mass concentration of liquid phase in the cross section of spray stream, etc., in the drying chamber during drying tests. Water was used to estimate the level of evaporation and 5 and 10% solutions of sodium chloride to carry out drying tests. The Computational Fluid Dynamics technique was used to perform theoretical predictions of time-dependent velocity, temperature distribution and particle trajectories in the drying chamber. Satisfactory agreement between calculations and experimental results was found in certain regions of the drying chamber

Perspectives on ‘the lens of risk’ interview series: interviews with Tom Horlick-Jones, Paul Slovic and Andy Alaszewski

This article is the fourth and final of an interview series with a selection of significant contributors to the social science of risk. It provides quasi-verbatim interviews with Tom Horlick-Jones, Paul Slovic and Andy Alaszewski. Tom Horlick-Jones contributed to Chapter 6 of the Royal Society Risk monograph, on risk management. He offers further insights into the debates which underlay its production to those given by Nick Pidgeon in the first article of this series. Paul Slovic provides a North American perspective on risk social science. Andy Alaszewski, in the last of the eight interviews, discusses his views about risk in relation to the evolution of his journal, Health, Risk & Society

Technology, change, and uncertainty: maintaining career confidence in the early 21st century

Over the coming decades, technology and automation are expected to dramatically transform how work will be undertaken. While many of these developments will improve productivity and provide new opportunities, some jobs will likely disappear. In this article, we report data from in-depth interviews undertaken with 51 young Australians about their strategies for managing the possibility of technological disruption in the workplace. In the face of future uncertainties, we found that the majority of our participants remained confident in their ability to maintain for themselves a ‘good’ career story. We posit, however, that those who could neither avoid nor reduce the possibility that technological advancements might jeopardise their career plans demonstrated an outlook of career malleability whereby they accepted the risk yet remained subjectively confident in their own capacity to rewrite their career narrative if, or when, circumstances demanded