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Research Materials (research + material)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences66%

Selected Abstracts

Interpreting sustainable development and societal utility in Norwegian GMO assessments

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2008
G. Kristin Rosendal
Abstract This article examines the process of assessing applications for genetically modified (GM) crops or plants for import or commercial planting in Norway. GMO legislation in Norway is closely linked to the EU through the Agreement on the European Economic Area (EEA), to which Norway is a party. A central difference with the EU processes emanates from specific clauses in the Norwegian Gene Technology Act on ,sustainable development' and ,societal utility', which provide a potentially wider leverage for Norwegian authorities to turn down the applications. Research material indicates evidence of an increasingly restrictive practice in the Norwegian evaluations, raising the question of how this can be explained in the face of increasing global acceptance of GMOs. A related question is to what extent and how this result is affected by the trends in the EU. An increasingly restrictive practice may be explained by changes in the access structure to the evaluating body, or it may be due to learning and a growing acceptance of the precautionary principle in this sector. Third, a higher number of rejections may largely be associated with the interest structure pertaining to GMOs in Norway. Final decisions are pending and there are uncertainties concerning how Norwegian authorities will apply the specific criteria of the Gene Technology Act. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]

Long slow night hemodialysis and quality of life

HEMODIALYSIS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 1 2005
P. Hakkarainen
Background:,Long slow hemodialysis (LS-HD) improves many biochemical parameters compared with conventional HD. However, its influences on quality of life are less well known. Aims:,The objective of this study was to examine the quality of life of patients on LS-HD performed overnight compared to the patients on standard hemodialysis. This extends the previous study, conducted in 2001, which examined the LS-HD patients, quality of life. Patients and methods:,We sent questionnaires to 12 LS-HD (overnight, treatment time 8 h × 3/wk) patients and 15 day HD (4.5 h × 3/wk) patients, all being treated using the limited care method. Data was collected using two different structured questionnaires. One was constructed for a previous study (2001) and the other one was a standardized set of questionnaires (RAND-36). Research material was collected from patient documents, such as the essential biochemical parameters, blood pressure, weight gain, and weekly EPO doses were recorded. Ten of the LS-HD patients (83%) and 13/15 (87%) of day HD patients returned the questionnaires. Three day hemodialysis patients returned empty questionnaires, which were disqualified. Results:,Based on the medical facts, the results showed that the patients of LS-HD felt better than the patients in another group. Patients on the LS-HD had higher Kt/V (2.623 vs. 1.577) and Hb (118 vs. 111) and lower Pi (1.36 vs. 1.63) and EPO dose (epoietin-beta 2667 ky/week vs. 5833 ky/week; darbepoetin 16 ky/week vs. 37 ky/week). However, their predialysis BP as well as the weight gain between treatments and salt and fluid balances caused problems furthermore. The experiences of the therapy of the LS-HD patients were more positive than of the control group: they felt their medical condition was better than of the patients on day HD. However we didn't observe significant differences in the replies showing physical or psychosocial conditions between the two groups. Conclusions:,The study suggests that when patients can themselves make the choice between treatment modalities, it improves the quality of life of the patients. Control of anemia is improved in LS-HD overnight patients with lower doses of EPO. The LS-HD gives the patients more freedom of diet. However, more attention must be paid to salt and fluid restriction. The LS-HD makes it possible for many patients to work normally. [source]

Partisan responses to Europe: Comparing Finnish and Swedish political parties

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2001
KARL MAGNUS JOHANSSON
This article analyzes party responses to European integration in Finland andSweden. We argue that such responses are shaped by seven explanatory factors: basic ideology, public opinion, factionalism, leadership influence, party competition, transnational links, and the development of integration. Each factor can lead to a positive or a negative evaluation of the European Union. In the empirical analysis, the sample includes all parties represented in the respective national parliaments, and the research material consists of party documents, parliamentary votes, statements by leading party figures, public opinion surveys, direct observation and interviews. Party competition and leadership influence are the strongest factors in the Finnish case, while public opinion and factionalism are the strongest factors in Sweden. Issue avoidance combined with the secondary importance of the EU in party politics explain why parties have been relatively successful in containing internal factionalism and discord, especially in Finland. [source]

The Financialization of Urban Redevelopment

GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 8 2010
Ted Rutland
Spurred by the conviction that not only financial capital but also changes in finance and changes in its relations with non-financial activities have immense and complicated consequences for ongoing processes of urban redevelopment, this article puts the presently separate financialization and urban redevelopment literatures in conversation. The article begins with a review of the financialization literature, outlining and evaluating four different approaches to the topic and seeking to consider what, if anything, they might have to offer to an area of inquiry that has long considered finance to be a central concern. The second section examines how financial capital has been analyzed in the urban redevelopment literature since the pioneering work of David Harvey in the 1970s. The final section examines how financialization has played out in the medium-sized port city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Drawing on interviews with financiers and property developments, as well as secondary research materials, the study describes how a recent urban design process in Halifax enlisted urban images and ideas to rewrite development regulations, eliminate popular political involvement in the development approvals process, and lever open the downtown landscape to the whims of worldwide financial markets. The essay concludes that studies of urban redevelopment would indeed gain something by engaging with the financialization literature, so long as the former continue to attend not just to financial capital but also to the material and ideological mechanisms through which property is continually reproduced as a financial asset. [source]

Using Websites to Disseminate Research on Urban Spatialities

GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 6 2009
Gillian Rose
This paper reviews a selection of websites that explore urban geographies. Many sites use the web as a depository for large amounts of research data. However, many are using websites to disseminate research findings, and the paper focuses on these. It suggests that, thus far, there are three significant ways in which urban researchers are exploiting the potentialities of web technologies to interpret urban spaces: by evoking a sense of the complexity of urban spatialities; by inviting site visitors to engage actively and performatively with the research materials; and by emphasising the sensory qualities of urban spaces. The paper discusses how one website in particular invites its visitors to engage with complex, sensory urban spatialities. The paper compares geographers' use of collage and montage as part of this discussion, and ends by reflecting on current work and commenting on its future development. [source]

Scholarly work and the shaping of digital access

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 11 2005
Carole L. Palmer
In the cycle of scholarly communication, scholars play the role of both consumer and contributor of intellectual works within the stores of recorded knowledge. In the digital environment scholars are seeking and using information in new ways and generating new types of scholarly products, many of which are specialized resources for access to research information. These practices have important implications for the collection and organization of digital access resources. Drawing on a series of qualitative studies investigating the information work of scientists and humanities scholars, specific information seeking activities influenced by the Internet and two general modes of information access evident in research practice are identified in this article. These conceptual modes of access are examined in relation to the digital access resources currently being developed by researchers in the humanities and neuroscience. Scholars' modes of access and their "working" and "implicit" assemblages of information represent what researchers actually do when gathering and working with research materials and therefore provide a useful framework for the collection and organization of access resources in research libraries. [source]