People in Public Health. Research Summary

Members of the public are becoming increasingly important in the delivery of public health programmes. The work they do varies. They might give out information about a health issue or tell people about a local service. They might help someone who is going to a health improvement activity for the first time or organise a group that encourages healthy living. Some are paid, others are volunteers. The People in Public Health research study wanted to find out more about these lay health workers. It wanted to discover what type of things they do in public health programmes, how they are recruited, trained and supported and what is needed to make these approaches work well

Nitrate and Inhibition of Ruminal Methanogenesis : Microbial Ecology, Obstacles, and Opportunities for Lowering Methane Emissions from Ruminant Livestock

Acknowledgments CY was supported by a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council. IC was supported by the SRUC International Engagement Strategy Fund. The nitrate project was funded by EBLEX, a Division of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. RINH and SRUC are funded by the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) of the Scottish Government.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Claims Culture: A Taxonomy of Industry Attitudes

This paper presents an analysis of a familiar aspect of construction industry culture that we have dubbed 'the claims culture'. This is a culture of contract administration that lays a strong emphasis on the planning and management of claims. The principal elements of the analysis are two sets of distinctions. The first comprises economic and occupational orders, referring to two kinds of control that are exercised over the construction process; predicated respectively on economic ownership and occupational competence. The second refers to contrasting attitudes towards relationships and problem solving within these orders: respectively 'distributive' and 'integrative'. The concepts of economic and occupational order entail further sub-categories. The various attitudes associated with these categories and sub-categories are described. They are assessed as to their consequences for change initiatives in the industry

Archaeal abundance in post-mortem ruminal digesta may help predict methane emissions from beef cattle

The Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health and SRUC are funded by the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) of the Scottish Government. The project was supported by DEFRA and DA funded Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Inventory Research Platform. Our thanks are due to the excellent support staff at the SRUC Beef Research Centre, Edinburgh, also to Graham Horgan of BioSS, Aberdeen, for conducting multivariate analysis.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Zande magic and the Dawkins delusion

This paper considers some logical errors in the analysis of belief systems, adopting the analytic methods of two Wittgensteinian thinkers, Peter Winch and Wes Sharrock. Examining the different analyses of Zande magic provided by E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Alasdair MacIntyre, we suggest that these methods can be characterised by their identification of ‘moments’, places where such analyses go catastrophically wrong. A Winch moment is the point in an account where something not required in the analysis is smuggled in to facilitate the making of unnecessary and unwarranted claims. A Sharrock moment is an incoherent or nonsensical premise or assumption made to get an account off the ground in the first place, without which little of the account remains. Some of Richard Dawkins’ accounts of religious belief are examined to show where both Winch and Sharrock moments can be found in his arguments