Analysing randomised controlled trials with missing data : Choice of approach affects conclusions

Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. PMID: 22265924 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Peer reviewedPostprin

Is Prevent a safe space?

In this article, I test the claims of the UK government and universities that the Prevent programme aims to create a safe space for the discussion of ‘extremist’ ideas in universities. I do this by comparing the main elements of the Prevent duty that has been imposed on universities with those of safe spaces as imagined by student campaigners and some educational writers. I conclude that, while there are manifest and significant differences in the harms that the two strategies aim to prevent, and in the sources, nature and targets of the coercion that the two strategies entail, their overall form and the underlying assumptions that rationalise them are shared. I consider some implications of their differences and of their shared characteristics for the critics of the two strategies

Imprisonment and political equality

In this paper I outline the logical relations between political equality and the practice of imprisonment by the state. I identify the very limited conditions in which the citizen-rulers of a democratic state give it the authority to imprison them, and the still more limited conditions in which a democratic state has good reason to imprison its citizen-rulers. I further argue that this reason to imprison becomes less significant the more that formal political equality leads to substantive equality of political influence among citizens. The more democratic is the state, the more it will substitute restorative justice methods for imprisonment. I demonstrate that this democratic theory of punishment can explain recent huge rises in imprisonment rates in the US and the UK as one consequence of the retreat of political equality in those countries over the same period. I conclude by considering in turn the position of non-citizens in a penal regime of political equality; the persistent social injustice of democratic state punishment; and the inherent abolitionism of a penal theory based on a serious commitment to political equality

The dialogic community at dusk

This paper offers a critical response to Alan Brudner's magisterial Punishment and Freedom. Brudner’s Hegelian political theory of criminal law makes a significant advance over predominant moral theories. However Brudner misleads when he claims that the general part of the criminal law can be understood as a dialectical unity of three antithetical paradigms of individual freedom, a unity he calls dialogic community. The rise of preventive criminal law in the UK reveals that the tension between these paradigms has proved impossible to manage in practice. Brudner’s painstaking elaboration of the paradigms of liberal freedom nevertheless allows us to identify the source of the breakdown of the dialogic community, and to understand better the subsequent decay of liberal order

Using the literature to quantify the learning curve: a case study

Objective: To assess whether a literature review of a technology can allow a learning curve to be quantified. Methods: The literature for fibreoptic intubation was searched for studies reporting information relevant to the learning curve. The Cochrane Librar y, Medline, Embase and Science Citation index were searched. Studies that reported a procedure time were included. Data were abstracted on the three features of learning: initial level, rate of learning and asymptote level. Random effect meta-analysis was performed. Results: Only 21 studies gave explicit information concerning the previous experience of the operator(s). There were 32 different definitions of procedure time. From 4 studies of fibreoptic nasotracheal intubation, the mean starting level and time for the 10th procedure (95% confidence interval) was estimated to be 133s (113, 153) and 71s (62, 79) respectively. Conclusions: The review approach allowed learning to be quantified for our example technology. Poor and insufficient reporting constrained formal statistical estimation. Standardised reporting of non-drug techniques with adequate learning curve details is needed to inform trial design and costeffectiveness analysis

Simultaneous optical polarimetry and X-ray observations of the magnetic CV CP Tuc (AX J2315--592)

CP Tuc (AX J2315--592) shows a dip in X-rays which lasts for approximately half the binary orbit and is deeper in soft X-rays compared with hard X-rays. It has been proposed that this dip is due to the accretion stream obscuring the accretion region from view. If CP Tuc was a polar, as has been suggested, then the length of such a dip would make it unique amongst polars since in those polars in which a dip is seen in hard X-rays the dip lasts for only 0.1 of the orbit. We present optical polarimetry and RXTE observations of CP Tuc which show circular polarisation levels of ~10 per cent and find evidence for only one photometric period. These data confirm CP Tuc as a polar. Our modelling of the polarisation data imply that the X-ray dip is due to the bulk of the primary accretion region being self-eclipsed by the white dwarf. The energy dependence of the dip is due to a combination of this self-eclipse and also the presence of an X-ray temperature gradient over the primary accretion region.Comment: 6 pages, accepted for publication in MNRA

Distances of CVs and related objects derived from Gaia Data Release 1

We consider the parallaxes of sixteen cataclysmic variables and related objects that are included in the TGAS catalogue, which is part of the Gaia first data release, and compare these with previous parallax measurements. The parallax of the dwarf nova SS Cyg is consistent with the parallax determination made using the VLBI, but with only one of the analyses of the HST Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) observations of this system. In contrast, the Gaia parallaxes of V603 Aql and RR Pic are broadly consistent, but less precise than the HST/FGS measurements. The Gaia parallaxes of IX Vel, V3885 Sgr, and AE Aqr are consistent with, but much more accurate than the Hipparcos measurements. We take the derived Gaia distances and find that absolute magnitudes of outbursting systems show a weak correlation with orbital period. For systems with measured X-ray fluxes we find that the X-ray luminosity is a clear indicator of whether the accretion disc is in the hot and ionised or cool and neutral state. We also find evidence for the X-ray emission of both low and high state discs correlating with orbital period, and hence the long-term average accretion rate. The inferred mass accretion rates for the nova-like variables and dwarf novae are compared with the critical mass accretion rate predicted by the Disk Instability Model. While we find agreement to be good for most systems there appears to be some uncertainty in the system parameters of SS Cyg. Our results illustrate how future Gaia data releases will be an extremely valuable resource in mapping the evolution of cataclysmic variables.Comment: Accepted by A&

Review of Vincent Chiao, Criminal Law in the Age of the Administrative State

Criminal Law in the Age of the Administrative State, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019, 270 p

How EU membership undermines the left

In a recent article, Peter J Verovsek criticised left-wing supporters of Brexit, claiming that they were backing a ‘statist, nationalist initiative’ that could only benefit the right. Peter Ramsay replies, arguing that it is left-wing Remainers who are stuck in the past and that a fetishism of the supranational and the cosmopolitan is the real problem for the left

A community of argument: why academic freedom matters

As the Palestine-Israel conflict arouses strong feelings on campus, Peter Ramsay explains why we should care for each other and for our community by caring for the quality of our arguments