Negotiating Value: Comparing Human and Animal Fracture Care in Industrial Societies

At the beginning of the twentieth-century, human and veterinary surgeons faced the challenge of a medical marketplace transformed by technology. The socio-economic value ascribed to their patients – people and domestic animals – was changing, reflecting the increasing mechanisation of industry and the decreasing dependence of society upon non-human animals for labour. In human medicine, concern for the economic consequences of fractures “pathologised” any significant level of post-therapeutic disability, a productivist perspective contrary to the traditional corpus of medical values. In contrast, veterinarians adapted to the mechanisation of horse-power by shifting their primary professional interest to companion animals; a type of veterinary patient generally valued for the unique emotional attachment of the owner, and not the productive capacity of the animal. The economic rationalisation of human fracture care and the “sentimental” transformation of veterinary orthopaedic expertise indicates how these specialists utilised increasingly convergent rhetorical arguments to justify the application of innovative fracture care technologies to their humans and animal patients. Keywords: Fracture care, Industrialisation, Veterinary History, Human/animal relation

Research for city practice

CITY KNOW-HOW: Worrying trends in terms of human health and planetary health are receiving increasing global concern. City leadership, planning and development all place the constraints on urban behaviours and lifestyles, usually accelerating the problems. It is imperative that human health and environmental impacts become core foci in urban policies around the world. Changing our trajectory will require concerted action. Cities & Health aims to be part of that change; it is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions, to help make this happen. We support better communication between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities, and decision-makers in cities. This is the primary purpose of this City Know-how section of the journal. ‘Research for city practice’ disseminates lessons research, allowing researchers to explain new knowledge and key messages arising from their studies for city leaders, communities, and the professions involved in city policy and practice. ‘City shorts’ provide glimpses of what is being attempted or achieved ‘on the ground’ and ’case studies’ are where you will find evaluations of interventions. Lastly, ‘Commentary and debate’ extends the conversations we are having to develop and mobilise important and innovative thinking. We invite you to join these conversations. In order to strengthen communities of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from practitioners, politicians and policy-makers and researchers who are supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives. Whether you are a just starting out on your journey, or an old hand, we would love to hear from you

Rethinking place-making: aligning placeness factors with perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) to improve the built environment in historical district

Understanding the concept of place is critically important for urban design and place-making practice, and this research attempted to investigate the pathways by which perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) influence placeness factors in the Chinese context. Twelve hypotheses were developed and combined in a structural equation model for validation. The Tanhualin historical district in Wuhan, China was selected for the analysis. As a result, place attachment was verified as a critical bridge factor that mediated the influence of PUDQs on place satisfaction. Among the five selected PUDQs, walkability and space quality were revealed as the most influential factors associated with place attachment and place satisfaction. Accessibility was actually indirectly beneficial to place-making via the mediation of walkability. Corresponding implications and strategies were discussed to maintain the sense of place for historic districts

FTIR OF METHYL PYRUVATE CONFORMERS IN AN ARGON MATRIX

Author Institution: Department of Chemistry, One John Marshall Drive, Huntington, WV 25755Methyl pyruvate has been isolated in a low-temperature argon matrix and its vibrational spectrum recorded by FTIR. The spectrum is compared to results from B3LYP/6-311++G** optimization and frequency calculations for the s-cis and s-trans conformers of methyl pyruvate. The s-cis conformer of methyl pyruvate is predicted to have an energy of 1.03 kcal/mol relative to the s-trans conformer, with a barrier height of 2.66 kcal/mol for interconversion between the two conformers. Unique bands of both conformers have been identified in the FTIR spectrum and then compared to the simulated spectra to determine that matrix-isolated methyl pyruvate is composed of approximately 92\% s-trans conformer