The Telegraphic Revolution: Speed, Space and Time in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract This article investigates the impact of the ‘communications revolution’ upon experiences of time and space during the nineteenth century. Focusing upon the first three decades of telegraphic communication, it unpacks the assumptions underlying linear narratives of ‘acceleration’ and ‘time-space compression’ to understand the roots of Germany’s fraught relationship to modernity. In doing so, it highlights the importance of the changes which took place between the 1848 revolutions and the early years of the Kaiserreich and which laid the foundations for the peculiarities of the Wilhelmine Era. During this period, it argues, the perceived impact of telegraphic communication, the ‘expansion’ or ‘contraction’ of space and time, varied from one person and place to another, reflecting the technology’s progressive and uneven expansion across Germany. Access to new networks of communication was dependent upon, and in turn influenced, the changing status of individuals, towns and the countryside experiencing the forces of industrialization, market capitalism and globalization. Speed, space and time, as a result, became a measure of the divisions emerging in modern Germany.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement Number 340121

Health insurance and healthcare utilisation for Shenzhen residents: A tale of registrants and migrants?

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Modelling the healthcare costs of an opportunistic chlamydia screening programme.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the average cost per screening offer, cost per testing episode and cost per chlamydia positive episode for an opportunistic chlamydia screening programme (including partner management), and to explore the uncertainty of parameter assumptions, based on the costs to the healthcare system. METHODS: A decision tree was constructed and parameterised using empirical data from a chlamydia screening pilot study and other sources. The model was run using baseline data from the pilot, and univariate and multivariate sensitivity analyses were conducted. RESULTS: The total estimated cost for offering screening over 12 months to 33,215 females aged 16-24 was 493,412 pounds . The average cost (with partner management) was 14.88 pounds per screening offer (90% credibility interval (CI) 10.34 to 18.56), 21.83 pounds per testing episode (90% CI 18.16 to 24.20), and 38.36 pounds per positive episode (90% CI 33.97 to 42.25). The proportion of individuals accepting screening, the clinician (general practitioner/nurse) time and their relative involvement in discussing screening, the test cost, the time to notify patients of their results, and the receptionist time recruiting patients had the greatest impact on the outcomes in both the univariate and multivariate sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Results from this costing study may be used to inform resource allocation for current and future chlamydia screening programme implementation

Chinese University of Hong Kong portfolio of basic, epidemiological, public health and clinical research on a diverse range of potentially emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases

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The development and validation of questionnaire to assess the collaboration and teamwork between doctors and nurses in public hospital in China

This study reports the development and psychometric properties of a Chinese in-strument to assess doctor-nurse teamwork and collaboration. 398 doctors and nurses participated in the study. Feedback from experts with international medical or nursing background and doctors and nurses working in hospitals in China informed the questionnaire refinement. Through validity and reliability test, a 26-item questionnaire was developed. Three were identified. The overall questionnaire as well as each factor had high construct validity. The internal consistency reliabil-ity and test-retest reliability are also satis-factory.published_or_final_versio

Research reports on the diagnosis and detection; environment and infection; and evaluation of interventions on infectious diseases.

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The University of Hong Kong portfolio of basic research on emerging infectious diseases

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Cost-effectiveness analysis of newborn screening for organic acidemias in Hong Kong

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The biomechanics of fast-starts during ontogeny in the common carp Cyprinus carpio

Common carp Cyprinus carpio L. were reared a constant temperature of 20 degrees C from the larval (7 mm total length) to the juvenile (80 mm) stage. Body morphology and white muscle mass distribution were measured. Fast-start escape responses were recorded using high-speed cinematography from which the velocities, accelerations and hydrodynamic power requirements were estimated. All three measures of fast-start performance increased during development. White muscle contraction regimes were calculated from changes in body shape during the fast-starts and used to predict the muscle force and power production for all longitudinal positions along the body. Scaling arguments predicted that increases in body length would constrain the fish to bend less rapidly because the cross-sectional muscle area, and hence force production, does not increase at the same rate as the inertial mass that resists bending. As predicted, the increases in body length resulted in decreases in muscle shortening velocity, and this coincided with increases in both the force and power produced by the muscles. The hydrodynamic efficiency, which relates the mechanical power produced by the muscles to the inertial power requirements in the direction of travel, showed no significant change during ontogeny. The increasing hydrodynamic power requirements were thus met by increases in the power available from the muscles. The majority of the increases in fast-start swimming performance during ontogeny can be explained by size-dependent increases in muscle power output. For all sizes, there was a decrease in muscle-mass-specific power output and an increase in muscle stress in a posterior direction along the body due to systematic variations in fibre strain. These changing strain regimes result in the central muscle bulk producing the majority of the power requirements during the fast-start, and this power is transmitted to the tail region of the fish and ultimately to the water via muscle in the caudal myotomes

Teamwork and collaboration among doctors and nurses in two public hospitals in China

The Work-related Collaboration among Doctor-Nurse Scale (WCDNS) was ad-ministered to 398 doctors and nurses working in one of two hospitals in Guangzhou to assess 1) inter professional (doctor-nurse) differences in collaboration and teamwork and 2) inter hospital (general-specialist) differences in doctor nurse collaboration. Significant between profession and hospital differences were observed. Implications for future studies in doctor-nurse collaboration are discussed.published_or_final_versio