Unpalatable Truths: Food and Drink as Medicine in Colonial British India.

This article considers the significance of eating and drinking within a series of diaries and journals produced in British colonial India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The discussion of food and drink in this context was not simply a means to add color or compelling detail to these accounts, but was instead a vital ingredient of the authors’ understanding of health and medical treatment. These texts suggest a broader colonial medical understanding of the importance of regulating diet to maintain physical health. Concern with food, and the lack thereof, was understandably a key element in diaries, and in the eyewitness accounts kept by British soldiers, doctors, and civilians during the rebellion. At a narrative level, mention of food also functioned as a trope serving to increase dramatic tension and to capture an imagery of fortitude. In references to drink, by contrast, these sources reveal a conflict between professional and lay opinions regarding the use of alcohol as part of medical treatment. The accounts show the persistent use of alcohol both for medicinal and restorative purposes, despite growing social and medical anxieties over its ill-effects on the body. Close examination of these references to food and drink reflect the quotidian habits, social composition, and the extent of professional and lay knowledge of health and medicine in colonial British India

'A Great Beneficial Disease': Colonial Medicine and Imperial Authority in J.G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur.

This article examines J. G. Farrell's depictions of colonial medicine as a means of analysing the historical reception of the further past and argues that the end-of-Empire context of the 1970s in which Farrell was writing informed his reappraisal of Imperial authority with particular regard to the limits of medical knowledge and treatment. The article illustrates how in The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), Farrell repeatedly sought to challenge the authority of medical and colonial history by making direct use of period material in the construction of his fictional narrative; by using these sources with deliberate critical intent, Farrell directly engages with the received historical narrative of colonial India, that the British presence brought progress and development, particularly in matters relating to medicine and health. To support these assertions the paper examines how Farrell employed primary sources and period medical practices such as the nineteenth-century debate between miasma and waterborne Cholera transmission and the popularity of phrenology within his novels in order to cast doubt over and interrogate the British right to rule. Overall the paper will argue that Farrell's critique of colonial medical practices, apparently based on science and reason, was shaped by the political context of the 1970s and used to question the wider moral position of Empire throughout his fiction

“We’re Not Gay One Month Out of the Year…We’re Always Who We Are.” Exploring Connections Between Organizations, Pride Branding, and LGBTQ+ Publics

LGBTQ+ visibility has increased in American society; moral acceptability of these identities increased significantly over the last 20 years alone and several US Presidents deemed June to be Pride Month in recognition and celebration of these individuals. To major companies and organizations, LGBTQ+ identities – which constitute more than 11 million US adults – are a growing and richly diverse market segment with considerable buying power and cultural influence. As companies attempt to engage with this segment, they increasingly attempt to engage with Pride Month and events related to Pride – including but not limited to having same-sex representation in advertising, hosting booths at Pride festivals, and selling Pride-laden merchandise. Companies have a historical interest in fostering relationships with audiences in order to affect profits and meaningfully engage with broader society. This theory of relationship management shifts the focus of company public relations (PR) from solely communicating with publics to the quality of relationships with publics, using communication as a tool to influence this quality. This theory has developed in tandem with the idea that company goals, communication, and engagement should transcend mere profit-and-loss; they should engage with diverse social identities and with different social issues to help improve aspects such as socio-economics and environmental policies and actions – this is otherwise known as corporate social responsibility (CSR). While more companies are engaging CSR and are attempting to engage with LGBTQ+ audiences through Pride Month, existing queer PR research needs to examine how engaging with Pride can affect LGBTQ+ perceptions of and engagements with organizations who participate. Through focus group interviews, this research explores how LGBTQ+ people perceive their relationships with companies in general, how they perceive and respond to Pride branding and other Pride PR, how these perceptions and responses influence their real or perceived relationships to the companies, and how other pieces of identity beyond sexuality may help clarify these perceptions and relationships. In order to provide rich descriptions and robust explorations of PR geared towards LGBTQ+ people, the aforementioned diversified PR, relationship management, and CSR contextualize and clarify the findings. This project reinforces and extends the importance of companies managing relationships with their publics (external and internal), of CSR, and clarifies specific meaningful ways for companies to engage with social niches, competing perceptions, and unique cultures

Differences in vision performance in different scenarios and implications for design.

To design accessibly, designers need good, relevant population data on visual abilities. However, currently available data often focuses on clinical vision measures that are not entirely relevant to everyday product use. This paper presents data from a pilot survey of 362 participants in the UK, covering a range of vision measures of particular relevance to product design. The results from the different measures are compared, and recommendations are given for relative text sizes to use in different situations. The results indicate that text needs to be 17-18% larger for comfortable rather than perceived threshold viewing, and a further 20% larger when users are expected to wear their everyday vision setup rather than specific reading aids.The survey was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the i~design 3 grant (Award Number: RG45089). The survey itself was conducted by the National Centre for Social Research under the direction of the research team. As well as the authors of this paper, several others made substantial contributions to the design and analysis of this survey, including Felicia Huppert, Pat Langdon, Kai Ruggeri, Eddy Elton, Jose Liht and John Ryan. Further analysis was funded by EPSRC through the KT-EQUAL project (grant number EP/G030898/2).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2016.02.00

Willingness-to-Pay for New Products in a University Foodservice Setting

A dairy products manufacturer wishing to expand into university foodservice operations collaborated with a graduate marketing class to research student preferences regarding the Company’s products. Baseline and follow-up stated choice surveys and conditional logit analyses were conducted at a land-grant university where the Company’s products were introduced. Brand awareness grew but remained low during the study period. Average WTP estimates for the Company’s most popular product approximated the retail price and resembled WTP for a competing brand. Average WTP for the Company’s other products, however, was considerably lower than the retail price. Significant WTP differences existed among some consumer segments.Willingness-to-Pay, Consumer Segment, University Foodservice, Conjoint analysis, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Comorbidity and dementia: a scoping review of the literature

BackgroundEvidence suggests that amongst people with dementia there is a high prevalence of comorbid medical conditions and related complaints. The presence of dementia may complicate clinical care for other conditions and undermine a patient¿s ability to manage a chronic condition. The aim of this study was to scope the extent, range and nature of research activity around dementia and comorbidity.MethodsWe undertook a scoping review including all types of research relating to the prevalence of comorbidities in people with dementia; current systems, structures and other issues relating to service organisation and delivery; patient and carer experiences; and the experiences and attitudes of service providers. We searched AMED, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, PubMed, NHS Evidence, Scopus, Google Scholar (searched 2012, Pubmed updated 2013), checked reference lists and performed citation searches on PubMed and Google Scholar (ongoing to February 2014).ResultsWe included 54 primary studies, eight reviews and three guidelines. Much of the available literature relates to the prevalence of comorbidities in people with dementia or issues around quality of care. Less is known about service organisation and delivery or the views and experiences of people with dementia and their family carers. There is some evidence that people with dementia did not have the same access to treatment and monitoring for conditions such as visual impairment and diabetes as those with similar comorbidities but without dementia.ConclusionsThe prevalence of comorbid conditions in people with dementia is high. Whilst current evidence suggests that people with dementia may have poorer access to services the reasons for this are not clear. There is a need for more research looking at the ways in which having dementia impacts on clinical care for other conditions and how the process of care and different services are adapting to the needs of people with dementia and comorbidity. People with dementia should be included in the debate about the management of comorbidities in older populations and there needs to be greater consideration given to including them in studies that focus on age-related healthcare issues.</p

Splitting of the Dipole and Spin-Dipole Resonances

Cross sections for the 90,92,94Zr(p,n) reactions were measured at energies of 79.2 and 119.4 MeV. A phenomenological model was developed to describe the variation with bombarding energy of the position of the L=1 peak observed in these and other (p,n) reactions. The model yields the splitting between the giant dipole and giant spin dipole resonances. Values of these splittings are obtained for isotopes of Zr and Sn and for 208Pb.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

‘Global Britain’? assessing Boris Johnson’s major changes to national security and foreign policy

There is a real risk that the shake-up of UK national security and foreign policy currently being orchestrated by Number 10 will not provide the solutions the country needs, write Edward Elliott and Sam Goodman. Here they interview former National Security Advisers, former Foreign Secretaries, former foreign policy advisers to PMs, and former senior diplomats, to assess recent developments and their potential repercussions