'An aid to mental health': natural history, alienists and therapeutics in Victorian Scotland

In the nineteenth century natural history was widely regarded as a rational and ‘distracting’ pursuit that countered the ill-effects, physical and mental, of urban life. This familiar argument was not only made by members of naturalists’ societies but was also borrowed and adapted by alienists concerned with the moral treatment of the insane. This paper examines the work of five long-serving superintendents in Victorian Scotland and uncovers the connections made between an interest in natural history and the management of mental disease. In addition to recovering a significant influence on the conduct of several alienists the paper explores arguments made outside the asylum walls in favour of natural history as an aid to mental health. Investigating the promotion of natural history as a therapeutic recreation in Scotland and elsewhere reveals more fully the moral and cultural significance attached to natural history pursuits in the nineteenth century.

Civil Society Aid to Post-Communist Countries

A major debate within foreign aid literature is whether civil society can be ‘purchased’ through outside assistance.We test this proposition by exploring the influence of aid provided by the United States Agency for International
Development on post-communist civil rights environments. A review of research critical of international assistance highlights the risk of unsustainability, polarization and dependence among recipient civic organizations.We argue that
a more effective stimulant is socio-economic growth, which stimulates committed constituencies, higher citizen expectations and pressure on the state to protect civil freedoms. Using cross-sectional, time-series data from 27
post-communist countries, we find no evidence that aid independently promotes stronger civil rights environments but that economic growth produces substantial improvements. Further, any aid effectiveness appears to be conditional on economic strength.We conclude that developmental organizations should reassess how and where civil society aid is targeted.

Capitalising on the conceptual divide: access to public and private justice in children's proceedings

This article argues that the concept of a public/private divide is inappropriate in the context of children's proceedings in Northern Ireland. It highlights the problem by examining policy proposals in respect of legal aid/services, which have been structured and validated by the concept. A spectral model for understanding children's proceedings is proffered by way of a proposed replacement.

Output Additionality of Public Support for Innovation: Evidence for Irish Manufacturing Plants

Public support for private R&D and innovation is part of most national and regional innovation support regimes. In this article, we estimate the effect of public innovation support on innovation outputs in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Three dimensions of output additionality are considered: extensive additionality, in which public support encourages a larger proportion of the population of firms to innovate; improved product additionality, in which there is an increase in the average importance of incremental innovation; new product additionality, in which there is an increase in the average importance of more radical innovation. Using an instrumental variable approach, our results are generally positive, with public support for innovation having positive, and generally significant, extensive, improved and new product additionality effects. These results hold both for all plants and indigenously owned plants, a specific target of policy in both jurisdictions. The suggestion is that grant aid to firms can be effective in both encouraging firms to initiate new innovation and improve the quality and sophistication of their innovation activity. Our results also emphasize the importance for innovation of in-house R&D, supply-chain linkages, skill levels and capital investment, all of which may be the focus of complementary policy initiatives.

Design and Evaluation of a "Pharmacists in Schools" Community Outreach Programme: A Pilot Study.

Aims: To design, evaluate and pilot a novel programme that would allow school children to become “pharmacists for the day”,encouraging them to recognise the importance of science, to contribute to the Department of Health‟s Building the Community Partnership strategy and University Outreach to the community and to provide undergraduate pharmacy students with teaching experience and an opportunity to build their CV.

Methods: Concept and formulation development, branding work,schools visits,questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.

Results: Suitable formulations were developed and prepared by school children on visits to their schools. The children seemed to enjoy the experience and their teachers gave both positive and constructive feedback. Pharmacy undergraduate students felt they had gained valuable experience that will benefit their future careers.

Conclusion: The Pharmacists in Schools outreach programme has now been successfully piloted and launched and will now be fully implemented in 20 schools in the local community.

Sharing Classes between Separate Schools: a mechanism for improving inter-group relations in Northern Ireland?

One manifestation of division and the history of conflict in Northern Ireland is the parallel education system that exists for Protestants and Catholics. Although recent decades have seen some advances in the promotion of integrated education, around 95% of children continue to attend schools separated on ethno-religious lines. In 2007 a programme for sharing education was established. Underpinned by intergroup contact theory, and reflecting educational priorities shared by all school sectors, the programme seeks to offer children from different denominational schools an opportunity to engage with each other on a sustained basis. In this article the authors adopt a quantitative approach to examining the impact of participation in the Sharing Education Programme on a range of outcomes (out-group attitudes, positive action tendencies and out-group trust) via, first, intergroup contact (cross-group friendships) and, second, intergroup anxiety. Their findings confirm the value of contact as a mechanism for promoting more harmonious relationships, and affirm the Sharing Education Programme as an initiative that can help promote social cohesion in a society that remains deeply divided.

Export Cartels: Is it Legal to Target your Neighbour? Analysis in Light of Recent Case Law

Despite the growing sophistication of antitrust regimes around the world, export cartels benefit from special treatment: they are almost universally tolerated, if not encouraged in the countries of origin. Economists do not offer an unambiguous policy recommendation on how to deal with them in part due to the lack of empirical data. This article discusses arguments for and against export cartels and it identifies the existing gaps in the present regulatory framework. The theoretical part is followed by an analysis of the recent case law: a US cartel challenged with different outcomes in India and South Africa, as well as Chinese export cartels pursued in the USA. The Chinese cases are particularly topical as the conduct at stake, apart from being subject to private antitrust actions before US courts, was also challenged within the WTO dispute settlement framework, pointing out to the existing interface between trade and competition. While the recent developments prove that unaddressed issues tend not to vanish, the new South-North dimension has the potential of placing export cartels again on the international agenda. Pragmatic thinking suggests looking for the solution within the WTO framework.

Sustaining school partnerships: The context of cross-sectoral collaboration between schools in a separate education system in Northern Ireland

This study explores the current understanding of cross-sectoral collaboration between schools in a divided society. The paper provides the context surrounding inter-school collaboration in Northern Ireland then presents findings based on a qualitative study of five post-primary partnerships made up of schools from the various sectors in Northern Ireland (maintained/Catholic, controlled/Protestant and integrated sectors). Participants in the study are teachers and school leaders. Evidence from this study reveals a number of things: despite a separate education system made up of different sectors, schools on an inter-sectoral basis are willing to collaborate and those represented in this study appeared disposed to sustain partnership activities; schools recognised that collaboration and partnership while beset with a number of logistical challenges, is also beneficial for pupils and institutions. In all cases there remained evidence of sustainable collaborative practice; although some of this was more developed in some partnerships than in others. In effect this paper concludes by recognising that schools do require some level of funding to sustain partnership working but that sustainability should not be couched entirely around these terms; rather, sustainability is about creating the right conditions to allow schools to develop effective and strong partnerships. These conditions are outlined in the latter stages of this paper.