The perceived impact of the National Health Service on personalised nutrition service delivery among the UK public

Personalised nutrition (PN) has the potential to reduce disease risk and optimise health and performance. Although previous research has shown good acceptance of the concept of PN in the UK, preferences regarding the delivery of a PN service (e.g. online v. face-to-face) are not fully understood. It is anticipated that the presence of a free at point of delivery healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS), in the UK may have an impact on end-user preferences for deliverances. To determine this, supplementary analysis of qualitative data obtained from focus group discussions on PN service delivery, collected as part of the Food4Me project in the UK and Ireland, was undertaken. Irish data provided comparative analysis of a healthcare system that is not provided free of charge at the point of delivery to the entire population. Analyses were conducted using the 'framework approach' described by Rabiee (Focus-group interview and data analysis. Proc Nutr Soc 63, 655-660). There was a preference for services to be led by the government and delivered face-to-face, which was perceived to increase trust and transparency, and add value. Both countries associated paying for nutritional advice with increased commitment and motivation to follow guidelines. Contrary to Ireland, however, and despite the perceived benefit of paying, UK discussants still expected PN services to be delivered free of charge by the NHS. Consideration of this unique challenge of free healthcare that is embedded in the NHS culture will be crucial when introducing PN to the UK.

JULES-crop: a parametrisation of crops in the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator

Studies of climate change impacts on the terrestrial biosphere have been completed without recognition of the integrated nature of the biosphere. Improved assessment of the impacts of climate change on food and water security requires the development and use of models not only representing each component but also their interactions. To meet this requirement the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) land surface model has been modified to include a generic parametrisation of annual crops. The new model, JULES-crop, is described and evaluation at global and site levels for the four globally important crops; wheat, soybean, maize and rice. JULES-crop demonstrates skill in simulating the inter-annual variations of yield for maize and soybean at the global and country levels, and for wheat for major spring wheat producing countries. The impact of the new parametrisation, compared to the standard configuration, on the simulation of surface heat fluxes is largely an alteration of the partitioning between latent and sensible heat fluxes during the later part of the growing season. Further evaluation at the site level shows the model captures the seasonality of leaf area index, gross primary production and canopy height better than in the standard JULES. However, this does not lead to an improvement in the simulation of sensible and latent heat fluxes. The performance of JULES-crop from both an Earth system and crop yield model perspective is encouraging. However, more effort is needed to develop the parametrisation of the model for specific applications. Key future model developments identified include the introduction of processes such as irrigation and nitrogen limitation which will enable better representation of the spatial variability in yield.

The role of simulation in intertemporal choices

One route to understanding the thoughts and feelings of others is by mentally putting one's self in their shoes and seeing the world from their perspective, i.e., by simulation. Simulation is potentially used not only for inferring how others feel, but also for predicting how we ourselves will feel in the future. For instance, one might judge the worth of a future reward by simulating how much it will eventually be enjoyed. In intertemporal choices between smaller immediate and larger delayed rewards, it is observed that as the length of delay increases, delayed rewards lose subjective value; a phenomenon known as temporal discounting. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework for the proposition that simulation mechanisms involved in empathizing with others also underlie intertemporal choices. This framework yields a testable psychological account of temporal discounting based on simulation. Such an account, if experimentally validated, could have important implications for how simulation mechanisms are investigated, and makes predictions about special populations characterized by putative deficits in simulating others.

Improving productivity and water use efficiency: a case study of farms in England

The idea of Sustainable Intensification comes as a response to the challenge of avoiding resources such as land, water and energy being overexploited while increasing food production for an increasing demand from a growing global population. Sustainable Intensification means that farmers need to simultaneously increase yields and sustainably use limited natural resources, such as water. Within the agricultural sector water has a number of uses including irrigation, spraying, drinking for livestock and washing (vegetables, livestock buildings). In order to achieve Sustainable Intensification measures are needed that enable policy makers and managers to inform them about the relative performance of farms as well as of possible ways to improve such performance. We provide a benchmarking tool to assess water use (relative) efficiency at a farm level, suggest pathways to improve farm level productivity by identifying best practices for reducing excessive use of water for irrigation. Data Envelopment Analysis techniques including analysis of returns to scale were used to evaluate any excess in agricultural water use of 66 Horticulture Farms based on different River Basin Catchments across England. We found that farms in the sample can reduce on average water requirements by 35% to achieve the same output (Gross Margin) when compared to their peers on the frontier. In addition, 47% of the farms operate under increasing returns to scale, indicating that farms will need to develop economies of scale to achieve input cost savings. Regarding the adoption of specific water use efficiency management practices, we found that the use of a decision support tool, recycling water and the installation of trickle/drip/spray lines irrigation system has a positive impact on water use efficiency at a farm level whereas the use of other irrigation systems such as the overhead irrigation system was found to have a negative effect on water use efficiency.

A revenge problem without the concept of truth

The vast majority of putative solutions to the liar paradox face the infamous revenge problem. In recent work, however, Kevin Scharp has extensively developed an exciting and highly novel ‘inconsistency approach’ to the paradox that, he claims, does not face revenge. If Scharp is right, then this represents a significant step forward in our attempts to solve the liar paradox. However, in this paper, I raise a revenge problem that faces Scharp’s inconsistency approach.

Resilience as transformative capacity: exploring the quadripartite cycle of structuration in a Mozambican resettlement programme

The concept of resilience has emerged out of a complex literature that has sought to make sense of an increasingly interconnected world that appears ever more beset by crises. Resilience’s appeal is reflected by the burgeoning mass of literature that has appeared on the subject in the past five years. However, there is ongoing debate surrounding its usage, with some commentators claiming that the term is inherently too conservative a one to be usefully applied to situations of vulnerability in which more radical social change is required. This article extends existing efforts to formulate more transformative notions of resilience by reframing it as a double-edged outcome of the pre-reflective and critical ways in which actors draw upon their internal structures following the occurrence of a negative event, thus reproducing or changing the external structural context that gave rise to the event in the first place. By employing a structuration-inspired analysis to the study of small-scale farmer responses to a flood-induced resettlement programme in central Mozambique, the article presents a systematic approach to the examination of resilience in light of this reframing. The case study findings suggest that more attention should be paid to the facilitative, as well as constraining, nature of structures if vulnerable populations are to be assisted in their efforts to exert transformative capacity over the wider conditions that give rise to their difficulties.

Advanced multivariate analysis to assess remediation of hydrocarbons in soils

Accurate monitoring of degradation levels in soils is essential in order to understand and achieve complete degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in contaminated soils. We aimed to develop the use of multivariate methods for the monitoring of biodegradation of diesel in soils and to determine if diesel contaminated soils could be remediated to a chemical composition similar to that of an uncontaminated soil. An incubation experiment was set up with three contrasting soil types. Each soil was exposed to diesel at varying stages of degradation and then analysed for key hydrocarbons throughout 161 days of incubation. Hydrocarbon distributions were analysed by Principal Coordinate Analysis and similar samples grouped by cluster analysis. Variation and differences between samples were determined using permutational multivariate analysis of variance. It was found that all soils followed trajectories approaching the chemical composition of the unpolluted soil. Some contaminated soils were no longer significantly different to that of uncontaminated soil after 161 days of incubation. The use of cluster analysis allows the assignment of a percentage chemical similarity of a diesel contaminated soil to an uncontaminated soil sample. This will aid in the monitoring of hydrocarbon contaminated sites and the establishment of potential endpoints for successful remediation.

Manipulation of lipids in animal-derived foods: can it contribute to public health nutrition?

Foods derived from animals are an important source of nutrients for humans. Concerns have been raised that due to their SFA content, dairy foods may increase the risk of cardiometabolic disease. Prospective studies do not indicate an association between milk consumption and increased disease risk although there are less data for other dairy foods. SFA in dairy products can be partially replaced by cis-MUFA through nutrition of the dairy cow although there are too few human studies to conclude that such modification leads to reduced chronic disease risk. Intakes of LCn-3 FA are sub-optimal in many countries and while foods such as poultry meat can be enriched by inclusion of fish oil in the diet of the birds, fish oil is expensive and has an associated risk that the meat will be oxidatively unstable. Novel sources of LCn-3 FA such as kirll oil, algae, and genetically modified plants may prove to be better candidates for meat enrichment. The value of FA-modified foods cannot be judged by their FA composition alone and there needs to be detailed human intervention studies carried out before judgements concerning improved health value can be made. Practical applications: The amount and FA composition of dietary lipids are known to contribute to the risk of chronic disease in humans which is increasing and becoming very costly to treat. The use of animal nutrition to improve the FA composition of staple foods such as dairy products and poultry meat has considerable potential to reduce chronic risk at population level although judgements must not be based simply on FA composition of the foods.

Compensation and Rewards for Environmental Services (CRES) and efficient design of contracts in developing countries. Behavioral insights from a natural field experiment

The use of economic incentives for biodiversity (mostly Compensation and Reward for Environmental Services including Payment for ES) has been widely supported in the past decades and became the main innovative policy tools for biodiversity conservation worldwide. These policy tools are often based on the insight that rational actors perfectly weigh the costs and benefits of adopting certain behaviors and well-crafted economic incentives and disincentives will lead to socially desirable development scenarios. This rationalist mode of thought has provided interesting insights and results, but it also misestimates the context by which ‘real individuals’ come to decisions, and the multitude of factors influencing development sequences. In this study, our goal is to examine how these policies can take advantage of some unintended behavioral reactions that might in return impact, either positively or negatively, general policy performances. We test the effect of income's origin (‘Low effort’ based money vs. ‘High effort’ based money) on spending decisions (Necessity vs. Superior goods) and subsequent pro social preferences (Future pro-environmental behavior) within Madagascar rural areas, using a natural field experiment. Our results show that money obtained under low effort leads to different consumption patterns than money obtained under high efforts: superior goods are more salient in the case of low effort money. In parallel, money obtained under low effort leads to subsequent higher pro social behavior. Compensation and rewards policies for ecosystem services may mobilize knowledge on behavioral biases to improve their design and foster positive spillovers on their development goals.

The brand likeability scale: an exploratory study of likeability in firm-level brands

We develop a new measurement scale to assess consumers’ brand likeability in firm-level brands. We present brand likeability as a multidimensional construct. In the context of service experience purchases, we find that increased likeability in brands results in: (1) greater amount of positive association; (2) increased interaction interest; (3) more personified quality; and (4) increased brand contentment. The four-dimensional multiple-item scale demonstrates good psychometric properties, showing strong evidence of reliability as well as convergent, discriminant and nomological validity. Our findings reveal that brand likeability is positively associated with satisfaction and positive word of mouth. The scale extends existing branding research, providing brand managers with a metric so that likeability can be managed strategically. It addresses the need for firms to act more likeably in an interaction-dominated economy. Focusing on likeability acts as a differentiator and encourages likeable brand personality traits. We present theoretical implications and future research directions on the holistic brand likeability concept.

Non-cinema: the location of politics in film

Philosophy has repeatedly denied cinema in order to grant it artistic status. Adorno, for example, defined an ‘uncinematic’ element in the negation of movement in modern cinema, ‘which constitutes its artistic character’. Similarly, Lyotard defended an ‘acinema’, which rather than selecting and excluding movements through editing, accepts what is ‘fortuitous, dirty, confused, unclear, poorly framed, overexposed’. In his Handbook of Inaesthetics, Badiou embraces a similar idea, by describing cinema as an ‘impure circulation’ that incorporates the other arts. Resonating with Bazin and his defence of ‘impure cinema’, that is, of cinema’s interbreeding with other arts, Badiou seems to agree with him also in identifying the uncinematic as the location of the Real. This article will investigate the particular impurities of cinema that drive it beyond the specificities of the medium and into the realm of the other arts and the reality of life itself. Privileged examples will be drawn from various moments in film history and geography, starting with the analysis of two films by Jafar Panahi: This Is Not a Film (In film nist, 2011), whose anti-cinema stance in announced in its own title; and The Mirror (Aineh, 1997), another relentless exercise in self-negation. It goes on to examine Kenji Mizoguchi’s deconstruction of cinematic acting in his exploration of the geidomono genre (films about theatre actors) in The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Zangigku monogatari, 1939), and culminates in the conjuring of the physical experience of death through the systematic demolition of film genres in The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer et al., 2012).

The dream’s door: a case of MNC in Poland

Globalisation inevitably led to attempts to transfer know‐how and expertise to markets in different locations and cultures, where the particular organisation is willing to begin to operate. Hence, the need for understanding the conditions for successful knowledge transfer is especially important. The globalisation process in the Eastern bloc, which began in 1990, is a good example of knowledge transfer where the mutual meaning creation played a crucial role. This case study illustrates the process of international knowledge transfer between Western Europe and an emerging economy using the example of DAK Corporation and quality transfer to Poland. The case is especially useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students, including MBA students, studying general management as well as more specialised courses stemming from international management, for example, cross‐cultural management and organisational behaviour. Since the material focuses on people management and development as well as organisational culture creation, current and future practitioners from the human resources department will find it particularly useful. Students considering a career in a multinational company can also use this case in their preparation for the challenges of operating in a global business environment.

Knowledge transfer of the Western concept of ‘quality’

This paper addresses one of the issues in contemporary globalisation theory: the extent to which there is ‘one best way’ in which business can be done and organisations managed. It uses Czarniawska’s ‘Travels of Ideas’ model as an organising framework to present and understand how the concept of ‘Quality’, so important in contemporary approaches to manufacturing & services, and their management, travelled to, and impinged on, a newly opened vehicle assembly plant in Poland. The extent to which new meanings were mutually created in the process of translation is discussed, using ethnographic reporting and analysis techniques commonly used in diffusion research. Parallels between the process of translation as an idea becomes embedded into a new cultural location, and the processes which contemporary research has identified as important to organisational learning, are briefly discussed in conclusion.

The history of the practice of strategy from Antiquity to Napoleon

This chapter outlines the history of the practice of strategy, predating the introduction of the term. It homes in on episodes of European history since Antiquity for which historians claim to have found evidence of the practice of strategy, defined by Kimberly Kagan as ‘the setting of a state’s objectives and of priorities among those objectives’ in order to allocate resources and choose the best means. While focusing only on Europe, this chapter covers case studies over nearly 2500 ranging from the wars of Ancient Greece, of the Romans to Medieval warfare (here with a focus on English history), the warfare of Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Frederick II of Prussia, the French Revolutionaries and Napoleon.