Mining Money: the generative capacities of scientific and legal knowledge practices in the making of resource economies

In 1997 a scandal associated with Bre-X, a junior mining firm, and its prospecting activities in Indonesia, exposed to public scrutiny the ways in which mineral exploration firms acquire, assess and report on scientific claims about the natural environment. At stake here was not just how investors understood the provisional nature of scientific knowledge, but also evidence of fraud. Contemporaneous mining scandals not only included the salting of cores, but also unreliable proprietary sample preparation and assay methods, mis-representations of visual field estimates as drilling results and ‘overly optimistic’ geological reports. This paper reports on initiatives taken in the wake of these scandals and prompted by the Mining Standards Task Force (TSE/OSC 1999). For regulators, mandated to increase investor confidence in Canada’s leading role within the global mining industry, efforts focused first and foremost upon identifying and removing sources of error and wilfulness within the production and circulation of scientific knowledge claims. A common goal cross-cutting these initiatives was ‘a faithful representation of nature’ (Daston and Galison 2010), however, as the paper argues, this was manifest in an assemblage of practices governed by distinct and rival regulative visions of science and the making of markets in claims about ‘nature’. These ‘practices of fidelity’, it is argued, can be consequential in shaping the spatial and temporal dynamics of the marketization of nature.

Impact of non-pharmacological interventions on prevention and treatment of delirium in critically ill patients: protocol for a systematic review of quantitative and qualitative research

Background: Critically ill patients have an increased risk of developing delirium during their intensive care stay.To date, pharmacological interventions have not been shown to be effective for delirium management but non-pharmacological interventions have shown some promise. The aim of this systematic review is to identify effective non-pharmacological interventions for reducing the incidence or the duration of delirium in critically ill patients.

Methods: We will search MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, AMED, psycINFO and the Cochrane Library.We will include studies of critically ill adults and children. We will include randomised trials and controlled trials which measure the effectiveness of one or more non-pharmacological interventions in reducing incidence or duration ofdelirium in critically ill patients. We will also include qualitative studies that provide an insight into patients and their families’ experiences of delirium and non-pharmacological interventions. Two independent reviewers will assess studies for eligibility, extract data and appraise quality. We will conduct meta-analyses if possible or present results narratively.Qualitative studies will also be reviewed by two independent reviewers, and a specially designed quality assessment tool incorporating the CASP framework and the POPAY framework will be used to assess quality.

Discussion: Although non-pharmacological interventions have been studied in populations outside of intensive care units and multicomponent interventions have successfully reduced incidence and duration of delirium, no systematic review of non-pharmacological interventions specifically targeting delirium in critically ill patients have been undertaken to date. This systematic review will provide evidence for the development of a multicomponent intervention for delirium management of critically ill patients that can be tested in a subsequent multicentre randomised trial.

The ethics of ethical debates in peace and conflict research: Notes towards the development of a research covenant

This article outlines the case for peace and conflict researchers to formulate a research covenant to better shape their ethical obligations and responsibilities. This is an urgent necessity given that ethical debates have in some proponents become emotive and are not conducted in an ethical manner. In coming to this assessment, the article reviews trends in the research ethics literature and draws out some of the generic issues addressed in a review of the personal reflexivity that an assortment of individual peace and conflict researchers have engaged in when recounting their fieldwork experiences. These generic issues are reformulated in an attempt to codify appropriate ethical practice in peace and conflict research, and they go towards determining the contents of the research covenant. It is suggested that the research covenant is a more ethical way to debate the ethics of peace and conflict research.

Where the consumer is not a myth : letters from England describing economic and industrial conditions by Zach McGhee, Washington correspondent : speech of Hon. Wyatt Aiken in the House of Representatives, Tuesday, March 22, 1910

This document contains a speech of David Wyatt Aiken, representative of South Carolina, to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, March 22, 1910. Much of the speech is a letter from Zach McGhee, Washington correspondent of The State newspaper on industrial conditions in England and Europe.

Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research, pt. 3

Discussion of how archaeology today can illuminate the world of the Bible, specifically the Israelite settlement in Canaan, and how it is possible to reconstruct the lost background of the Israelite cults.

Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research, pt. 1

Discussion of how archaeology today can illuminate the world of the Bible, specifically the Israelite settlement in Canaan, and how it is possible to reconstruct the lost background of the Israelite cults.

A survey of wireless technologies coexistence in WBAN: analysis and open research issues

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is the most convenient, cost-effective, accurate, and non-invasive technology for e-health monitoring. The performance of WBAN may be disturbed when coexisting with other wireless networks. Accordingly, this paper provides a comprehensive study and in-depth analysis of coexistence issues and interference mitigation solutions in WBAN technologies. A thorough survey of state-of-the art research in WBAN coexistence issues is conducted. The survey classified, discussed, and compared the studies according to the parameters used to analyze the coexistence problem. Solutions suggested by the studies are then classified according to the followed techniques and concomitant shortcomings are identified. Moreover, the coexistence problem in WBAN technologies is mathematically analyzed and formulas are derived for the probability of successful channel access for different wireless technologies with the coexistence of an interfering network. Finally, extensive simulations are conducted using OPNET with several real-life scenarios to evaluate the impact of coexistence interference on different WBAN technologies. In particular, three main WBAN wireless technologies are considered: IEEE 802.15.6, IEEE 802.15.4, and low-power WiFi. The mathematical analysis and the simulation results are discussed and the impact of interfering network on the different wireless technologies is compared and analyzed. The results show that an interfering network (e.g., standard WiFi) has an impact on the performance of WBAN and may disrupt its operation. In addition, using low-power WiFi for WBANs is investigated and proved to be a feasible option compared to other wireless technologies.

Initial dilemmas in IST research: design science and design research, a clarification of concepts

The inter-disciplinarity of information systems, applied discipline and activity of design, and the study from different paradigms perspectives explains the diversity of problems addressed. The context is broad and includes important issues beyond technology, as the application, use, effectiveness, efficiency and their organizational and social impacts. In design science, the research interest is in contributing to the improvement of the processes of the design activity itself. The relevance of research in design science is associated with the result obtained for the improvement of living conditions in organizational, inter-organizational and Society contexts. In the research whose results are artifacts, the adoption of design research as a process of research is crucial to ensure discipline, rigor and transparency. Based on a literature review, this paper clarifies the terms of design science and design research. This is the main motivation for presenting this paper, determinant for the phase in research in technologies and information systems which are the three research projects presented. As a result the three projects are discussed in relation to the concepts of design science and design research.

Quantitative and qualitative research on brief systemic therapies carried out within the framework of an ambulatory consultation for couples and families

Abstract: This article presents both a brief systemic intervention method (IBS) consisting in 6 sessions developed in an ambulatory service for couples and families, and two research projects done in collaboration with the Institute for Psychotherapy of the University of Lausanne. The first project is quantitative and it aims at evaluating the effectiveness of ISB. One of its main feature is that outcomes are assessed at different levels of individual and family functioning: 1) symptoms and individual functioning; 2) quality of marital relationship; 3) parental and co-parental relationships; 4) familial relationships. The second project is a qualitative case study about a marital therapy which identifies and analyses significant moments of the therapeutic process from the patients' perspective. Methodology was largely inspired by Daniel Stem's work about "moments of meeting" in psychotherapy. Results show that patients' theories about relationship and change are important elements that deepen our understanding of the change process in couple and family therapy. The interest of associating clinicians and researchers for the development and validation of a new clinical model is discussed.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation: Pawn or Global Player?,

This contribution aims at exploring the significance of the new generation of UNESCO conventions for the recognition of higher education qualifications. It discusses three possible scenarios and links them to the empirical findings of a study that compares the enabling conditions of the first generation of recognition conventions established in the 1970s and 1980s with the ones establishing the second generation today. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the paper argues that the changes illustrate a more general shift in the architecture of the global order and highlights a new role of UNESCO.

Problem solving and computer-assisted instruction in science education : analysis of research findings and the research process /

The quantitative component of this study examined the effect of computerassisted instruction (CAI) on science problem-solving performance, as well as the significance of logical reasoning ability to this relationship. I had the dual role of researcher and teacher, as I conducted the study with 84 grade seven students to whom I simultaneously taught science on a rotary-basis. A two-treatment research design using this sample of convenience allowed for a comparison between the problem-solving performance of a CAI treatment group (n = 46) versus a laboratory-based control group (n = 38). Science problem-solving performance was measured by a pretest and posttest that I developed for this study. The validity of these tests was addressed through critical discussions with faculty members, colleagues, as well as through feedback gained in a pilot study. High reliability was revealed between the pretest and the posttest; in this way, students who tended to score high on the pretest also tended to score high on the posttest. Interrater reliability was found to be high for 30 randomly-selected test responses which were scored independently by two raters (i.e., myself and my faculty advisor). Results indicated that the form of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) used in this study did not significantly improve students' problem-solving performance. Logical reasoning ability was measured by an abbreviated version of the Group Assessment of Lx)gical Thinking (GALT). Logical reasoning ability was found to be correlated to problem-solving performance in that, students with high logical reasoning ability tended to do better on the problem-solving tests and vice versa. However, no significant difference was observed in problem-solving improvement, in the laboratory-based instruction group versus the CAI group, for students varying in level of logical reasoning ability.Insignificant trends were noted in results obtained from students of high logical reasoning ability, but require further study. It was acknowledged that conclusions drawn from the quantitative component of this study were limited, as further modifications of the tests were recommended, as well as the use of a larger sample size. The purpose of the qualitative component of the study was to provide a detailed description ofmy thesis research process as a Brock University Master of Education student. My research journal notes served as the data base for open coding analysis. This analysis revealed six main themes which best described my research experience: research interests, practical considerations, research design, research analysis, development of the problem-solving tests, and scoring scheme development. These important areas ofmy thesis research experience were recounted in the form of a personal narrative. It was noted that the research process was a form of problem solving in itself, as I made use of several problem-solving strategies to achieve desired thesis outcomes.

Niagara Council on Smoking and Health Collection, 1974, 1977-2004, n.d.

NCOSH stands for Niagara Council on Smoking and Health. The former name of this group was Niagara Interagency Council on Smoking and Health. This group was established in 1976 to address the impact of tobacco on health.