The medieval papacy and holy war: General crusading letters and papal authority, 1145-1213

Chapter in an edited collection on the twelfth-century papacy and its authorisation of crusades to the Near East.

Long-run restrictions and survey forecasts of output, consumption and investment

We consider the extent to which long-horizon survey forecasts of consumption, investment and output growth are consistent with theory-based steady-state values, and whether imposing these restrictions on long-horizon forecasts will enhance their accuracy. The restrictions we impose are consistent with a two-sector model in which the variables grow at different rates in steady state. The restrictions are imposed by exponential-tilting of simple auxiliary forecast densities. We show that imposing the consumption-output restriction yields modest improvements in the long-horizon output growth forecasts, and larger improvements in the forecasts of the cointegrating combination of consumption and output: the transformation of the data on which accuracy is assessed plays an important role.

What matters in business incubation? A literature review and a suggestion for situated theorising

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide a critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness and second, to submit a situated theoretical perspective on how business incubation management can provide an environment that supports the development of incubatee entrepreneurs and their businesses. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a narrative critical assessment of the literature on business incubation effectiveness. Definitional issues, performance aspects and approaches to establishing critical success factors in business incubation are discussed. Business incubation management is identified as an overarching factor for theorising on business incubation effectiveness. Findings – The literature on business incubation effectiveness suffers from several deficiencies, including definitional incongruence, descriptive accounts, fragmentation and lack of strong conceptual grounding. Notwithstanding the growth of research on this domain, understanding of how entrepreneurs and their businesses develop within the business incubator environment remains limited. Given the importance of relational, intangible factors in business incubation and the critical role of business incubation management in orchestrating and optimising such factors, it is suggested that theorising efforts would benefit from a situated perspective. Originality/value – The identification of specific shortcomings in the literature on business incubation highlights the need for more systematic efforts towards theory building. It is suggested that focusing on the role of business incubation management from a situated learning theory perspective can lend itself to a more profound understanding of the development process of incubatee entrepreneurs and their firms. Theoretical propositions are offered to this effect, as well as avenues for future research.

Composition differences between organic and conventional meat: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis

Demand for organic meat is partially driven by consumer perceptions that organic foods are more nutritious than non-organic foods. However, there have been no systematic reviews comparing specifically the nutrient content of organic and conventionally produced meat. In this study, we report results of a meta-analysis based on sixty-seven published studies comparing the composition of organic and non-organic meat products. For many nutritionally relevant compounds (e.g. minerals, antioxidants and most individual fatty acids (FA)), the evidence base was too weak for meaningful meta-analyses. However, significant differences in FA profiles were detected when data from all livestock species were pooled. Concentrations of SFA and MUFA were similar or slightly lower, respectively, in organic compared with conventional meat. Larger differences were detected for total PUFA and n-3 PUFA, which were an estimated 23 (95 % CI 11, 35) % and 47 (95 % CI 10, 84) % higher in organic meat, respectively. However, for these and many other composition parameters, for which meta-analyses found significant differences, heterogeneity was high, and this could be explained by differences between animal species/meat types. Evidence from controlled experimental studies indicates that the high grazing/forage-based diets prescribed under organic farming standards may be the main reason for differences in FA profiles. Further studies are required to enable meta-analyses for a wider range of parameters (e.g. antioxidant, vitamin and mineral concentrations) and to improve both precision and consistency of results for FA profiles for all species. Potential impacts of composition differences on human health are discussed.

'In Charge of the Truffula Seeds' : On Children's Literature, Rationality and Children's Voices in Philosophy

In this paper I investigate how philosophy can speak for children and how children can have a voice in philosophy and speak for philosophy. I argue that we should understand children as responsible rational individuals who are involved in their own philosophical inquiries and who can be involved in our own philosophical investigations-not because of their rational abilities, but because we acknowledge them as conversational partners, acknowledge their reasons as reasons, and speak for them as well as let them speak for us and our rational community. In order to argue this I turn, first, to Gareth Matthews' philosophy of childhood and suggest a reconstruction of some of his concepts in line with the philosophy of Stanley Cavell. Second, in order to examine more closely our conceptions of rationality and our pictures of children, I consider the children's books, The Lorax and Where is My Sister? and Henrik Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck.

It makes you realize, really, just how deep your subtext is : Literature, subjectivity and curriculum change

This paper draws on the notion of discourse to explore complex relationships between teachers and curriculum change. It uses poststructuralist views of discourse to explore ways in which school subjects, such as Literature, are discursively constructed across time, while teachers too are positioned within discourses that shape the ways they understand the subject and themselves as teachers of it. This paper reports on the experience of a small group of teachers of a new literature course in the Australian state of Victoria. Nine teachers were interviewed over 3 years, and the interview transcripts read for traces of discourses formative in shaping their response to the new course. I identified three discourses: Leavisite and New Critical formations of the subject Literature; charismatic pedagogy; and critical theory, which was embodied in the new subject's study design. These 3 discourses, together with the traditions and culture of the school, form the framework for analysis of the interviews. The paper explores ways in which the teachers' positioning within this mix of discourses and settings variously supported or undermined their preparedness to accept new configurations of the subject Literature as well as the implications of curriculum change not just for constructions of the subject but also for teacher subjectivity.

Football-as-war, coach-as-general: analogy, metaphor and management implications

Sporting terms have been used as metaphor and analogy to describe and prescribe life experiences. It has been suggested that the use of sport terminology can assist in the general understanding of complex terms and situations, however, the use of sport as metaphor and analogy for many aspects of social understanding can have negative consequences. The analogy of sport and war seems to be particularly prevalent within football, irrespective of the code or culture in which it is played. This article demonstrates the popular understanding of Australian Rules ‘football as war’ through two complementary studies. The first study investigates the representation of Australian Rules football as war, specifically through the analysis of both images and text on the front covers of the sport ‘lift-out’ sections of two prominent Melbourne newspapers, The Herald Sun and The Age. The second study examines whether people interpret non-war-like images of Australian Rules football in war-like terms. Forty-five undergraduate sport marketing and management students were asked to write about one of four different images of football players and coaches interacting, which revealed that football is understood as war. Further, when prompted by an image of football players and coaches interacting, people in this study interpreted the interactions as consistently war-like. Coaches were portrayed as militaristic generals and the athletes as soldiers. Implications for management, education and practice are discussed.

General practitioners' competence and confidentiality determinations with a minor who requests the oral contraceptive pill

The right of minors to make medical treatment decisions is an issue that is not explicitly addressed in the legislation of most Australian jurisdictions. While recent common law decisions allow competent minors to consent to treatment, current legislation in Victoria does not provide adequate guidelines on how competence is to be measured. It is also unclear whether the duty of confidentiality is extended to competent minors. The current study explored general practitioners' competence and confidentiality decisions with a hypothetical 14-year-old patient who requests the oral contraceptive pill (OCP). Questionnaires were sent to 1,000 Victorian general practitioners, 305 of whom responded. General practitioners were asked to determine whether "Liz" was competent to request the OCP, and whether they would maintain her confidentiality. A total of 81% of respondents found the patient competent, while 91% would have maintained her confidentiality. Results indicate that the majority of general practitioners used rationales that generally did not conform to current legal principles when making competence and confidentiality determinations regarding this patient.

The relevance of the Heart Foundation of Australia's dietary recommendations for adult Australians : a comparison of views of general practitioners, cardiologists and dietitians

PURPOSE: To compare the views of general practitioners, cardiologists and dietitians about the relevance of the Heart Foundation of Australia's dietary recommendations for adult cardiac patients.

BASIC PROCEDURES: Quantitative-cross sectional study. Postal questionnaires were self-completed by 248 Victorian general practitioners (30% response), 189 Australia-wide cardiologists (47% response) and 180 Victorian dietitians (45% response). Responses were represented as percentages and analyses of variance were conducted to explore the impact of the independent variables: age, work status and gender on the dependent variable: dietary recommendation.

MAIN FINDINGS: Approximately half of the recommendations were viewed as strongly important to implement; these related to lean meats, limiting takeaways and cakes/biscuits, and adjusting energy intake. Others of importance were eating fruits, vegetables and fish. However, most of these goals were seen as difficult to achieve. Dietitians appeared to share responses of doctors, except for greater importance of eating fruit and vegetables and a greater difficulty in limiting cakes and biscuits. There was a high level of agreement among the three groups (mean 87%) about patients having difficulty implementing adjusting energy intake.

CONCLUSIONS: There is agreement amongst these professionals that many of the recommendations lack importance, specifically those pertaining to unsaturated oils, low fat dairy products, cholesterol rich foods, intake of legumes and grains and the restriction of salt. This may reflect a need for further nutrition education.