Book review: British foreign policy: the new Labour years

Matthew Partridge finds that Oliver Daddow and Jamie Gaskarth’s strong collection of essays on Blair and Brown’s foreign policy highs and lows is strong enough to justify its place on reading-lists, covering the Iraq, Afghanistan, and the War on Terror

Book review: Blair’s just war: Iraq and the illusion of morality, by Peter Lee

When is it right to go to war? Peter Lee argues that Tony Blair’s “illusion of morality” evaporated after the 2003 Iraq invasion because the ideas he relied upon were taken out of their historical context. Dr Matthew Partridge is not convinced by the author’s arguments, and finds that exaggerations make the book into a polemic, rather than a serious academic study

Book review: optimism about the Arab Spring has gone too far

Violence and political instability remain across Tunisia, Egypt, and the Arab region as old regimes continue to be challenged by protesters seeking justice and fresh elections. In After the Arab Spring, John R. Bradley argues that what we think we know about the uprisings is wrong - political change has destroyed a stable order and that the new “moderate” parties are myths designed to fool both voters and the West. Dr Matthew Partridge looks closer. After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts. John R. Bradley. Palgrave. January 2012

Book review: the Labour party and the world: Labour’s foreign policy since 1951

Rhiannon Vickers should be congratulated for delivering a concise, balanced, and accessible account of how left of centre thinking on foreign policy has evolved over the last sixty years, writes Matthew Partridg

Book review: the struggle for Egypt: from Nasser to Tahrir Square

Steven Cook’s master-class in Egyptian political history since the military coup in 1952 is essential to understanding the political tensions between militarists, Islamists, and democrats which persist up to the present day, finds Matthew Partridge

Counterfactual history suggests that the last ten years of American foreign policy has made us safer

With the ten-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon only days away, a debate still rages over whether Britain and America are now more secure now than on September 10th 2001. Critics complain that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the overarching idea of the “Global War On Terror”, were counterproductive, doing “more damage to ourselves than did the two-bit criminals who baited us” and “left the US weaker, more divided and broke”. This raises the question of what would have happened had American foreign policy continued along pre-9/11 lines

A solution to the slow stabilisation of surface pressure sensors based on the Wilhelmy method

Dynamic measurement of surface pressure is of particular interest in the field of Langmuir monolayers, where the change in surface pressure throughout an experiment can provide information on the properties of the monolayer forming material, or on the reaction kinetics of the monolayer’s interaction with other materials. One of the most common methods for the measurement of dynamic surface pressure is the Wilhelmy plate method. This method measures changes in the forces acting upon a thin plate of material at the air-water interface; this measurement is then converted to surface pressure. One version of this method, which uses filter paper plates at the air-water interface, is particularly popular due to their relatively low cost. However, it has been seen that the use of filter paper plates attached to a Wilhelmy balance requires an initial stabilisation period lasting several hours, during which the readings drift from the original baseline. Here the cause of this drift is explored, considering how changes in the weight of the plate over time influence the assumptions on which the surface pressure is derived from the measurements made by the Wilhelmy balance. A simple method for preventing this drift through pre-soaking of the filter paper plates is presented

Dissolved oxygen sensing using an optical fibre long period grating coated with hemoglobin

A long period grating fiber optic sensor coated with hemoglobin is used to detect dissolved oxygen. The sensitivity of this sensor to the ratio of dissolved carbon dioxide to dissolved oxygen is demonstrated via the conversion of carboxyhemoglobin to oxyhemoglobin on the sensor surface. The sensor shows good repeatability with a %CV of less than 1% for carboxyhemoglobin and oxyhemoglobin states with no measurable drift or hysteresis

Overwrite fabrication and tuning of long period gratings

The central wavelengths of the resonance bands are critical aspect of the performance of long period gratings (LPGs) as sensors, particularly for devices designed to operate near the phase matching turning point (PMTP), where the sensitivity to measurements can vary rapidly. Generally, LPGs are characterized by their period, but the amplitude of the amplitude of the index modulation is also an important factor in determining the wavelengths of the resonance bands. Variations in fabrication between LPG sensors can increase or decrease the sensitivity of the LPG to strain, temperature or surrounding refractive index. Here, the technique of overwritten UV laser fabrication is demonstrated. It is shown that, on repeated overwriting, the resonance bands of an LPG exhibit significant wavelength shift, which can be monitored and which can be used to tune the resonance bands to the desired wavelengths. This technique is applied to periods in the range 100 to 200 µm, showing the cycle-to-cycle evolution of the resonance bands near the PMTPs of a number of cladding modes. The use of online monitoring is shown to reduce the resonance band sensor-to-sensor central wavelength variation from 10 nm to 3 nm

The use of social media to combat research-isolation

Research-isolation is a common problem affecting many researchers who are disconnected from their research communities. It can be caused by a number of factors, including physical isolation, unfamiliar research topics, diversity, and the nature of the supervisory relationship. All of these aspects can have an impact on both work and the mental health of researchers. Increasingly, researchers are turning to social media for support, by both looking for communities and for increasing the impact of their work. In this paper, we set out a brief introduction to a range of social media platforms used by researchers and present a discussion of the networks within those platforms aimed at reducing research-isolation. These examples highlight just a few of the number of small communities that have grown online to meet the needs of those seeking support through social media. We conclude with some recommendations for those affected by research-isolation and highlight the need for more research into the role of social media on mental health in academics