A Role for Ethical Analysis in Social Research on Agrifood and Environmental Standards

Lawrence Busch claims that, although some philosophers may recognize the ethical import of standards, they do not endeavor to understand how people justify standards in social reality. The argument in this paper is that the Michigan State University (MSU) School of Agrifood Governance and Technoscience should actually be understood as fleshing out a more important role for ethicists. This argument is explored through an analysis of the MSU School’s research on standards, a reassessment of J.O. Urmson’s “On Grading,” and a review of major ethical theories, from utilitarianism to discourse ethics. The conclusion is that, though standards may be used and justified within social networks and worlds, there will always be points where their determination and application require discussion by stakeholders and other publics. It is at these points that the reasons offered in support of various standards should be subject to debate and skepticism, and the role of ethics as an activity is crucial in conjunction with social scientific research

From Eastern Love to Eastern Song: Re-translating Asian Poetry

This essay explores the loop of translations and re-translations of ‘Eastern poetry’ from Asia into Europe and back into (South) Asia at the hands of ‘Oriental translators’, translators of poetry who typically used existing translations as their original texts for their ambitious and voluminous enterprises. If ‘Eastern’ stood in all cases for a kind of exotic (in the etymological sense of ‘from the outside’) poetic exploration, for Adolphe Thalasso in French and E. Powys Mathers in English, Eastern love poetry could shade into prurient ethno-eroticism. For the Urdu poet and translator Miraji, instead, what counted in Eastern poetry was oral, rhythmic and visual richness – song

Weaving Indigenous science, protocols and sustainability science

This is the author's accepted manuscript, made available with the permission of the publisher.The proceedings of the National Science Foundation supported WIS2DOM workshop state that sustainability scientists must respect the “protocols” of practitioners of Indigenous sciences if the practitioners of the two knowledge systems are to learn from each other. Indigenous persons at the workshop described protocols as referring to attitudes about how to approach the world that are inseparable from how people approach scientific inquiry; they used the terms caretaking and stewardship to characterize protocols in their Indigenous communities and nations. Yet sustainability scientists may be rather mystified by the idea of protocols as a necessary dimension of scientific inquiry. Moreover, the terms stewardship and caretaking are seldom used in sustainability science. In this case report, the authors seek to elaborate on some possible meanings of protocols for sustainability scientists who may be unaccustomed to talking about stewardship and caretaking in relation to scientific inquiry. To do so, the authors describe cases of Indigenous protocols in action in relation to scientific inquiry in two Indigenous-led sustainability initiatives in the Great Lakes/Midwest North American region. We claim that each case expresses concepts of stewardship and caretaking to describe protocols in which humans approach the world with the attitude of respectful partners in genealogical relationships of interconnected humans, non-human beings, entities and collectives who have reciprocal responsibilities to one another. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of Indigenous protocols for future dialog between practitioners of sustainability and Indigenous sciences.National Science Foundatio

CORONA (COre ultRasOund of covid in iNtensive care & Acute medicine) Study : national service evaluation of lung and heart ultrasound in intensive care patients with suspected or proven COVID-19

Background Combined Lung Ultrasound (LUS) and Focused UltraSound for Intensive Care heart (FUSIC Heart - formerly Focused Intensive Care Echocardiography, FICE) can aid diagnosis, risk stratification and management in COVID-19. However, data on its application and results are limited to small studies in varying countries and hospitals. This United Kingdom (UK) national service evaluation study assessed how combined LUS and FUSIC Heart were used in COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients during the first wave of the pandemic. Method Twelve trusts across the UK registered for this prospective study. LUS and FUSIC Heart data were obtained, using a standardised data set including scoring of abnormalities, between 1st February 2020 to 30th July 2020. The scans were performed by intensivists with FUSIC Lung and Heart competency as a minimum standard. Data was anonymised locally prior to transfer to a central database. Results 372 studies were performed on 265 patients. There was a small but significant relationship between LUS score >8 and 30-day mortality (OR 1.8). Progression of score was associated with an increase in 30-day mortality (OR 1.2). 30-day mortality was increased in patients with right ventricular (RV) dysfunction (49.4% vs 29.2%). Severity of LUS score correlated with RV dysfunction (p < 0.05). Change in management occurred in 65% of patients following a combined scan. Conclusions In COVID-19 patients, there is an association between lung ultrasound score severity, RV dysfunction and mortality identifiable by combined LUS and FUSIC Heart. The use of 12-point LUS scanning resulted in similar risk score to 6-point imaging in the majority of cases. Our findings suggest that serial combined LUS and FUSIC Heart on COVID-19 ICU patients may aid in clinical decision making and prognostication

Costs and effects of a 'healthy living' approach to community development in two deprived communities: findings from a mixed methods study

Background: Inequalities in health have proved resistant to 'top down' approaches. It is increasingly recognised that health promotion initiatives are unlikely to succeed without strong local involvement at all stages of the process and many programmes now use grass roots approaches. A healthy living approach to community development (HLA) was developed as an innovative response to local concerns about a lack of appropriate services in two deprived communities in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. We sought to assess feasibility, costs, benefits and working relationships of this HLA. Methods: The HLA intervention operated through existing community forums and focused on the whole community and its relationship with statutory and voluntary sectors. Local people were trained as community researchers and gathered views about local needs though resident interviews. Forums used interview results to write action plans, disseminated to commissioning organisations. The process was supported throughout through the project. The evaluation used a multi-method before and after study design including process and outcome formative and summative evaluation; data gathered through documentary evidence, diaries and reflective accounts, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and costing proformas. Main outcome measures were processes and timelines of implementation of HLA; self reported impact on communities and participants; community-agency processes of liaison; costs. Results: Communities were able to produce and disseminate action plans based on locally-identified needs. The process was slower than anticipated: few community changes had occurred but expectations were high. Community participants gained skills and confidence. Cross-sector partnership working developed. The process had credibility within service provider organisations but mechanisms for refocusing commissioning were patchy. Intervention costs averaged £58,304 per community per annum. Conclusions: The intervention was feasible and inexpensive, with indications of potential impact at individual, community and policy planning levels. However, it is a long term process which requires sustained investment and must be embedded in planning and service delivery processes.12 page(s

Written in the skies:advertising, technology, and modernity in Britain since 1885

New technologies significantly increased the reach of advertising from the late nineteenth century. Some aspects of this phenomenon, such as advances in printing methods, are well-known; others, in particular its controversial leap into the sky, have received far less attention. Though no longer seen as the home of divine portents, the sky did not become “empty space” in the modern era: it was still freighted with significance. This meant that the various attempts made by entrepreneurs from the 1880s to bring advertising to the skies were often met with hostility, even panic. In exploring these responses, this article resists depicting opponents of aerial advertising as over-sensitive aesthetes or technophobes. Rather, it explores the ways in which urbanization and commercial development imbued the sky with new meanings. The sky was imagined as man’s most valuable connection to nature in an urban society, a precious but endangered part of the nation’s heritage, and an essential counterweight to consumer society. Aerial advertising therefore represented an unjustifiable commercialization of a priceless public space. The rejection of this form of advertising did not involve denying modernity, but achieving an accommodation with it

Time and organization studies

We argue that the more time is being attended to in organization studies, the more it is concealed. The time being concealed is not the time of clocks or the linear passage of past, present and future, it is not the time of temporal structures, and it is not the time of processual flow by which all substance is held as little more than a temporary arrest. In all these understandings time is treated as something available and, potentially, affirmative. Rather, it is a time that barely a few hundred years ago was considered a force always present and yet always against us. What, we ask, has happened to this time, the time beyond organization