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Pilgrimage and textual culture
Get PDFPilgrimage formed a central motif of medieval culture and shaped a defining aesthetic of early literature. Despite this centrality, research remains in a preliminary state for many of the actual texts, manuscripts, and books connected to pilgrimage and how they contributed to the exchange and translation of knowledge and ideas. This special issue considers issues of reading and writing before, during, and after medieval pilgrimages, as well as the methodological and historical issues at stake for both pilgrim writers and modern scholars. In particular, the articles address the vexed issue of where—and how much—reading and writing took place around historically attested pilgrimages. By employing insights from literature, history, bibliography, geography, and anthropology, this collection aims not only to understand the past, but also to examine how current biases might affect interpretation of that past. From this multidisciplinary perspective, deeper insight is offered into how pilgrims’ libraries shaped not only pilgrimage, but medieval culture in general
Predictors of distress among patients undergoing staging investigations for suspected colorectal and lung cancer
Get PDFPeople undergoing investigations for suspected cancer face the threat of serious illness while having to undergo a number of investigations before they know their full diagnosis and treatment plan. Although considerable research has examined distress among cancer survivors, little has examined distress during the diagnostic phase. We examined predictors of distress among patients undergoing staging investigations for suspected colorectal or lung cancer among patients prospectively recruited to two multicentre trials comparing WB-MRI with standard scans. Participants completed a questionnaire, administered at trial recruitment, measuring demographic and psychological variables (n=129, 66 colorectal, 63 lung; median age 66.4, range: 31-89). Predictors of distress were analysed using logistic regression. Forty percent of patients reported high distress (a score of 4 or higher on the GHQ-12). High distress was predicted by higher deprivation and greater intolerance of uncertainty (IU) in both unadjusted (low deprivation: OR 0.352, 95% CIs 0.144 to 0.860, p=0.022; IU: OR 1.972, 95% CIs: 1.357 to 2.865, p<0.001) and adjusted analyses (low deprivation: OR 0.243, 95% CIs 0.083 to 0.714, p=0.010; IU: OR 2.231, 95% CIs 1.429 to 3.485, p<0.001). Age, gender, presence of comorbid illness, cancer type, probable knowledge of cancer diagnosis, and a final diagnosis of cancer did not predict high distress. Among patients undergoing staging investigations for suspected lung or colorectal cancer, high distress is common, and the odds of distress are greater among people with high deprivation and higher intolerance to uncertainty. Future research should examine how best to reduce distress in patients undergoing investigations for cancer, particularly among those who find uncertainty difficult to manage
Utilisation and development of Systematic Reviews in management research: what do we know and where do we go from here?
Get PDFSeveral years since the introduction of systematic review in management
research, our paper takes stock of how the methodology has been used
thus far to elicit potential areas for improvement and a future best
practice agenda. It was our focus to investigate how synthesis methods
have been approached and how implications are spelled out for future
research, practice and, where relevant, policy. To address this, we
conducted a systematic review of systematic reviews published in
management research since the early 2000s (N = 391). We found that
whilst scholars adopted similar methodological steps, there was
variability in focus, with more attention paid to explaining the SRm
protocol and search strategy utilised, than on detailed analysis and
synthesis of the included studies’ findings. These aspects should be
addressed more explicitly from the outset as an integral aspect of an SR
protocol to support more refined application of relevant synthesis
methods to develop the field. We conclude with a guide for ‘best practice’
including recommendations and published examples where available and
an agenda for future refinement
Keynes, Capitalism and public purpose
Get PDFWhen the same person is described as a Capitalist Revolutionary (Backhouse and Bateman
2011) and “A Bourgeois Marxist” (Katiforis 2004), you know that there is a tug-of-war going
on between opposing ideologies to claim the ideas of that person, in this case, John Maynard
Keynes. James Crotty, in his recent book, Keynes against Capitalism (2019), joins the game.
Crotty takes issue with the conventional interpretation: that Keynes was trying to save
capitalism. Instead, he argues that from the mid-1920s until his death in 1946, Keynes
consistently argued for replacing capitalism with “liberal socialism”. Crotty also maintains
that The General Theory was designed to provide the theoretical foundation in support of his
case against capitalism, in favour of liberal socialism. We contend that these labels, however
clear they might have been to Keynes, are now laden with all sorts of interpretive baggage,
and that Keynes’s thinking was rather too subtle and complex to be comfortably described by
them. To make this case, we examine the social purpose that Keynes’s theoretical and policy
work was designed to achieve and the means by which he thought it could best be achieved,
as his thinking developed in the context of the rapidly changing times through which he lived
Exploring the relationship between inequality, crime and punishment: some afterthoughts on method
Get PDFBook synopsis: The question of inequality has moved decisively to the top of the contemporary intellectual agenda. Going beyond Thomas Piketty's focus on wealth, increasing inequalities of various kinds, and their impact on social, political and economic life, now present themselves among the most urgent issues facing scholars in the humanities and the social sciences. Key among these is the relationship between inequality, crime and punishment. The propositions that social inequality shapes crime and punishment, and that crime and punishment themselves cause or exacerbate inequality, are conventional wisdom. Yet, paradoxically, they are also controversial.
In this volume, historians, criminologists, lawyers, sociologists and political scientists come together to try to solve this paradox by unpacking these relationships in different contexts. The causal mechanisms underlying these correlations call for investigation by means of a sustained programme of research bringing different disciplines to bear on the problem. This volume develops an interdisciplinary approach which builds on but goes beyond recent comparative and historical research on the institutional, cultural and political-economic factors shaping crime and punishment so as better to understand whether, and if so how and why, social and economic inequality influences levels and types of crime and punishment, and conversely whether crime and punishment shape inequalities
The psychological impact of food allergy and undergoing a food challenge test in adult age
Get PDFIntroduction: Despite an increasing number of adults being affected by food allergy, there is currently limited research regarding the psychological impact of living with this condition in this age group and the effect of undergoing food challenge testing - the gold standard for diagnosis- on health-related quality of life (HRQoL).
Objectives: To assess whether ruling out a food allergy using an open food challenge could improve HRQoL and emotional well-being. To evaluate whether HRQoL gains are higher among people testing negative for food allergy and whether people higher on health anxiety would be less reassured by a negative food challenge.
Methods: A cross-sectional study (n=276) and a prospective study (n=53) were performed. Adults with a positive (n=34), or negative food challenge (n=34), or with an allergy confirmed via other means (No challenge, n=208), completed the Food Allergy Quality of Life Questionnaire-Adult Form, General Health Questionnaire-12, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory short form, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, shortened version of the Health Anxiety Questionnaire in addition to clinical and demographic variables. A prospective study examined these measures before and three months after a food challenge (negative, n=45; positive, n=8).
Results: Adults with a negative food challenge outcome had better HRQoL than those with a food allergy confirmed via other means (No challenge), with no differences between the two allergy positive groups (food challenge vs. no challenge). No group differences in emotional distress, health anxiety or mood were found. The prospective study showed HRQoL significantly improved following a food challenge (F(1,39) = 16.868; p<0.001; Intention-to-treat F(1,52) = 15.346; p<0.001). High health anxiety was not associated with lower reassurance following a negative test.
Conclusions: People who have a food allergy excluded following a food challenge have better HRQoL. There was a significant improvement in HRQoL following an open food challenge which supports the need to increase provision of food challenge testing in this age group
Mental health and death in custody: The Angiolini Review
Get PDFThe author discusses the findings and recommendations of the first official review of practices and processes relating to and following police-related deaths in the UK. Dame Elish Angiolini’s 2017 report paid particular notice to mental health implications and the impact on families, who had lost loved ones. Excerpts are provided here of remarks by Deborah Coles (of INQUEST) and Marcia Rigg (of United Families and Friends Campaign) at the report’s launch – focusing on the call for automatic legal aid for families at inquests and the end to police conferring after an incident. Though not an abolitionist text, the author points to certain recommendations which could lead to less and less dangerous policing of vulnerable communities
Précis of Cooper, Byde, de Cecilio, Fulks and Morais (2018): ‘Set-Shifting and Place-Keeping as Separable Control Processes’
No full textOut of sight, out of mind?
No full textAn essay published in the Indian political magazine 'Seminar' examining recent developments in global - and Indian - prison populations, the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on prison systems and their implications for wider criminal justice policies. The essay draws on data from ICPR's World Prison Brief prison population database, and on findings from ICPR's World Prison Research Programme relating to prison overcrowding and the causes and consequences of recent increases in the use of imprisonment across much of the world
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