bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Responsibility Of Mental Defectives
Authors: Haksar Vinit
Published: February 2009

It is generally agreed that at least those who suffer from severe mental subnormality, like idiots, are not responsible for the antisocial actions that they may commit. Even Lady Wootton agrees that in the case of idiots and imbeciles ‘the defect is so great that no dispute is likely to arise, either as to the reality of the handicap or as to its effect in impairing capacity to conform to expected standards’.1 This passage, incidentally, contradicts some of her other views, e.g. the view that we can never make judgments about people's capacity.
Professor Urmson on ‘saints and Heroes’
Authors: Chopra Yogendra
Published: February 2009

In a paper entitled ‘Saints and Heroes’1 Professor J. O. Urmson has criticised ‘the trichotomy of duties, indifferent actions, and wrongdoing’ (p. 215), commonly found in moral philosophy, on the ground that it fails to cover an important class of actions, of which saintly and heroic actions are ‘conspicuous” but by no means the only examples. I am inclined to think that this trichotomy is defensible, and that at least it deserves a much longer run for its money than Urmson gives it. The form in which he presents it, however, makes it more implausible than it need be and this is perhaps the main reason why he finds it so indefensible.
Darwin, Teleology and Taxonomy
Authors: Woodfield Andrew
Published: February 2009

Darwinism is ‘much more than a theory’, said the German botanist Albert Wigand in 1875; ‘it is a frame of mind which dominates thought, a resuscitated “Naturphilosophie”, in which the terms “Polarity”, “Totality”, “Subject”, “Object” are replaced by terms such as “Struggle for Existence”, “Inheritance”, “Selection”, and so on.’ Subsequent events have indicated that Wigand had a point. But it is not clear to us yet whatexactlythe point is. Interest in Man's Place in Nature, and in his alleged biological uniqueness as a language-user and tool-maker, is as great now as it was in 1871 when Darwin'sDescent of Manwas first published. We now have access to well over a hundred years' worth of material sparked off byThe Origin of Species, linking Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection to almost every field under the sun. Yet the precise status of his theory is still the subject of vigorous controversy in philosophy of science.
Flew, Strawson and Locke's Parrot
Authors: Moulder James
Published: February 2009

Strawson's discussion of the concept of a person does seem to allow for the possibility of there being immaterial persons. Nevertheless his insistence that the concept of a person is the concept of a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics … are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type suggests that he is conflating the concept of a human being, in the technical sense of homo sapiens, and the concept of a person.
Freedom and Personality
Authors: Taylor A. E.
Published: February 2009

Is it possible to say anything on the well-worn theme of human freedom or unfreedom which has not been ahready better said by someone else before us? It may be doubted; yet it is always worth while to see whether we cannot at least set what is perhaps already familiar to us in a fresh light and so come to a clearer comprehension of our own meaning. This, at any rate, is all that will be attempted in these pages; I have spoken in an earlier essay of the “practical situation” in which we find ourselves whenever we have to make a decision as involving indetermination, and my purpose is simply to make it plainer to myself, and so incidentally perhaps to a reader, what I mean by such an expression. I shall start, then, by adopting what we may perhaps agree to call a phenomenological attitude to the subject; that is, I will try to describe the facts in a way which anyone who recalls occasions when he has been driven to take a decision will recognize as faithful to his experience, without imparting into the description any element of explanatory speculative hypothesis. The description is meant to be one which will be admitted to be true to the “appearances,” independently of any theory about the “freedom of the will”—to describe correctly that which it is the object of all such theories to explain.
Plato's Presentation of Intuitive Mind in His Portrait of Socrates
Authors: Wild K. W.
Published: February 2009

It has been said that in Plato the intuitive mode of receiving knowledge is accepted implicitly, and that it is left to Aristotle to make a clear-cut distinction between Intuition and Reason.
“Actions Speak Louder than Words”
Authors: Duncan-Jones Austin
Published: February 2009

Beliefs and desires are linked with one another by an obvious kind of duality. Everyone assumes that a person's beliefs may be, to some extent, ascertained by seeing how he acts: for we suppose that he will do the things which he believes will fulfil his wishes, and avoid doing what he thinks will frustrate them. Similarly, his desires may, to some extent, be ascertained by seeing how he acts; for if we know what he thinks about the results of his actions, we suppose that the expected results are desired or not disliked and those believed unlikely are disliked or undesired. We have three variables, conduct, desire, and belief; and we suppose that there is some equation by which the first in conjunction with one of the others implies a determinate value of the third. In principle, it should be equally possible to deduce conduct from belief and desire. But that seems of less metaphysical interest, because we think of actions as open to observation in a straightforward way, whereas we are more dubious about beliefs and desires.
Professor Passmore on the Objectivity of History
Authors: Jarvie I. C.
Published: February 2009

In his lucid paper “The Objectivity of History” (PHILOSOPHY, April 1958, pp. 97–111) Professor Pass more poses the problem of history's objectivity and seeks to find out in what the objectivity of history might consist. In this note I wish only to criticize his presentation of Popper's views (under his head Criterion Seven). I think Pass more's failure to report Popper's views correctly causes him to overlook the striking similarity between Popper's conclusion and his own.
Austin on Performatives
Authors: Black Max
Published: February 2009

The late John Austin's William James Lectures1 might well have borne the subtitle ‘In Pursuit of a Vanishing Distinction’. Although the chase is remorseless, glimpses of the quarry become increasingly equivocal and the hunter is left empty-handed at last. It is hard to know what has gone awry. Has the wrong game been pursued—and in the wrong direction?
‘Sense and Sensibilia’
Authors: Harrod Roy
Published: February 2009

The late Professor J. L. Austin was a man of the highest character and considerable intellectual ability. Those who heard him lecture testify that he made a strong and deep impression. He seemed to be completely master of his subject, his mind moved with great rapidity and he manifested a rare integrity of spirit. His death in early middle age is not only mourned by his colleagues; it is one of those events that make a deep gash, causing people to wonder why things are sometimes arranged so perversely in this world. He had so much to give.
The Theory of Translation
Authors: Haas W.
Published: February 2009

To translate is one thing; to say how we do it, is another. The practice is familiar enough, and there are familiar theories of it. But when we try to look more closely, theory tends to obscure rather than explain, and the familiar practice—an ancient practice, without which Western civilisation is unthinkable—appears to be just baffling, its very possibility a mystery.
Heidegger and Language
Authors: Adkins Arthur W. H
Published: February 2009

Heidegger's thought has recently been made more available to English readers by the publication of two books: one a translation of one of Heidegger's works, the other, by Thomas Langan, an American scholar, described as a critical study of Heidegger. Heidegger's philosophy has had little or no influence in England; and this seems a good opportunity for considering whether this neglect is merited, or whether some defence can be offered of Heidegger's curious manipulations of the German and Greek tongues. Since An Introduction to Metaphysics philosophises on a basis of Greek, though it purports to be philosophy, not history of philosophy, most of this article will be concerned with Heidegger's use and abuse of that language. I shall suggest, however, that the same conclusions hold good of Heidegger's use of German.
Ifs and Cans Revisited
Authors: Locke Don
Published: February 2009

In this paper I shall be principally concerned with three points arising from Professor Austin's British Academy Lecture on ‘Ifs and Cans’.1 These points only concern that use of ‘can’ where it is used in the general sense of ‘to be able’ and applied to human beings in respect of actual or possible actions.2 To some extent, of course, the basic problem is simply what sense of ‘can’ it is which is involved when we talk of possible but not actual human actions, i.e. when we say that a person could do or could have done what he does not or did not do (this was Moore's original problem).
Analogy and Equivocation in Hobbes
Authors: Engel S. Morris
Published: February 2009

The failures of a philosophic system (like the failures and set-backs in the life and career of a person) are often a good deal more revealing than its successes, for such failures (like those in real life) test its strength and mark the limits of its endurance. Yet if these failures disclose any uniform pattern they are not only revealing but instructive and can be turned to good account.
The Biological Approach to Philosophy
Authors: Ritchie A. D.
Published: February 2009

There are many possible ways of approach to philosophy, and there is also an impossible one, though one that has often been tried. That the philosopher can somehow spin his philosophy out of what he finds inside himself; that he has some private internal source of information in virtue of which he can decide what the Universe must be, without needing to take the trouble to look at it, is a belief that dies hard. But it is now dying, if not dead, so that it is hardly necessary to refute it in detail. It should suffice to say that anybody who cherishes the belief will not find anything to interest him in what follows. I shall simply assume that the philosopher is, what we all are to some extent, a spectator of the world and of man's life in it and a commentator on what he sees. Where the philosopher differs from others is in the kind of interest he takes in the facts, not in the kind of facts that are there to be interested in.
Ethics and Description
Authors: Newell R. W.
Published: February 2009

To some extent, perhaps under Moore's chastening influence, eccentric philosophical denials of the existence of physical objects, other people's minds, the past, and so on, have gone out of fashion. All the same there is at least one very common philosophical conclusion which, though not as extravagant as these, is no less paradoxical. This is the dogma that ethical statements could not describe anything at all, and the collateral claim that they could not be true or false. This is, I suggest, as paradoxical as traditional denials of the existence of chairs and tables, since the denial that ethical statements could be descriptive, like the denial that chairs and tables could exist, is opposed by the common observation that ethical statements do describe, just as the other is opposed by the common observation that chairs and tables do exist. I hope to make two things perfectly clear. First of all, that ethical statements do describe states of affairs; and secondly, that the reason ultimately given for saying that they could not describe anything, namely that they differ in verification from statements of fact, is only partly true, and its uncritical acceptance has led to the canonisation of the belief that ethical statements are non-descriptive and have no truth-values.
On Liberty and the Real Will
Authors: Day J. P.
Published: February 2009

1. Introduction. In the chapter which he devotes to the applications of his principle of individual liberty, Mill considers the question ‘how far liberty may legitimately be invaded for the prevention of crime, or of accident’. On the latter topic, he writes:—‘… it is a proper office of public authority to guard against accidents. If either a public officer or anyone else saw a person attempting to cross a bridge which had been ascertained to be unsafe, and there were no time to warn him of his danger, they might seize him and turn him back, without any real infringement of his liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not desire to fall into the river.” (Q1)
Sunt Lacrimae Rerum: A Study in the Logic of Pessimism
Authors: Clarke J. J.
Published: February 2009

In this paper I shall deal with a new form of Optimism. Rationalists once believed that it was mistaken to suppose that a world without God is a meaningless one; material progress along with the improvement of men and their institutions, indefinitely protracted, ensured that life was meaningful. More recently it has become fashionable to claim that the pessimist, the cosmic mourner, is not mistaken at all, but rather incoherent. It is not that there is no answer to his question but rather that no sensible question has been asked—at least in the terms in which he poses it. The latter qualification is necessary, for no one is denying that people's lives may either possess or lack meaning. Rather what is being denied is that life as a whole, tout court and without limitation, can be said either to have or not to have sense. One cannot, it is argued, regret what could not, logically, be otherwise, and since nothing could possibly count as endowing the cosmos as a whole with meaning it is not logically possible for the cosmos as a whole to have, or not to have, meaning. The regret evinced by the pessimist becomes, therefore, a pseudo-regret. ‘… it is perverse writes Ayer, ‘to see tragedy in what could not conceivably be otherwise.’ Just as a pseudo-problem is one for which there could, logically, be no solution, so a pseudo-regret is one in which there can be no assuagement of the regretted situation. None of this is to deny, of course, that a man can experience a state of mind which might be described as ‘cosmic anguish’, but such an experience has no cognitive value: it is a state of mind, no doubt painful for the possessor, which tells us nothing about the world beyond it. That people have confused this state of mind with a judgement about the world is understandable, but mistaken.
Hobbes and Performatives
Authors: Weiler Gershon
Published: February 2009

Professor J. W. N. Watkins argues in his Hobbes' System of Ideas that Hobbes' theory of moral predicates must be interpreted in terms of Austinian performatives. In this paper I shall argue two points. First, that Watkins' thesis is false. Second, that Hobbes' own doctrine, which asserts that things are made good or just by being declared to be so by the sovereign, is inconsistent.

Watkins begins with brief exposition of Hobbes' theory of moral language as stated in the Leviathan.

But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is if, which he for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, Evill; And of his Contempt, Vile and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, Evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and Evill, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the Person of the man (where there is no Common-wealth;) or, (in a Common-wealth,) from the Person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the Rule thereof.
Collective Responsibility
Authors: Lewis H. D.
Published: February 2009

If I were asked to put forward an ethical principle which I considered to be especially certain, it would be that no one can be responsible, in the properly ethical sense, for the conduct of another. Responsibility belongs essentially to the individual. The implications of this principle are much more far-reaching than is evident at first, and reflection upon them may lead many to withdraw the assent which they might otherwise be very ready to accord to this view of responsibility. But if the difficulties do appear to be insurmountable, and that, very certainly, does not seem to me to be the case, then the proper procedure will be, not to revert to the barbarous notion of collective or group responsibility, but to give up altogether the view that we are accountable in any distinctively moral sense.
Psychologies of Love
Authors: Halmos Paul
Published: February 2009

Ideologies of progress sprout from an inextinguishable hope that one day things will be better. Somewhere ahead life will be more abundant and there will be less pain and fear. Somewhere ahead there will be more rationality, objectivity, and truth. Somewhere ahead there will always be more love and compassion for others. Any combination of these and of other values could easily be extracted from the literature of progress. When writers begin with the thesis, ‘there is progress in the realisation of values’, they assume two things. Firstly, they put forward a sociological-historical hypothesis according to which social changes proceed in a set direction and fall into some sort of sequential pattern, and secondly, they contrive to find that, on the whole, in this sequence, there is a linear increase in the realisation of some values which they regard as essential to humanity. A careful inspection of the second of these two assumptions discloses the belief that not only things will be getting better and better but people too. Those, then, who are ideologists of progress are committed to a coherent directionality not only in the betterment of circumstances but also in the betterment of people; in brief, social changes will be accompanied by changes in the ‘modal’ personality as well.
Existentialism and Metaphysics
Authors: Leon Philip
Published: February 2009

There has been for some years a feeling in the philosophical world in this country that we have had enough of the unproductive working of the treadmill of linguistics and of the new logic and that Metaphysics is at least not criminal, and even justifiable; notable justifications of Metaphysics are Professor Emmet's The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking and Professor Barnes” The Philosophical Predicament. But what is Metaphysics about? That, it seems to me, is a question which has to be looked into far more carefully than it has been, before we can think of justifying Metaphysics (or, for that matter, of attacking it). “About the Whole” would appear to be the answer which no would-be metaphysician can avoid, however frightened he may be of being sent into a concentration camp by his Ayerian colleagues for giving it. What is this Whole and how is it to be got? Judging at least by most nineteenth-century metaphysics, it would seem that the Whole is some kind of totality (of all that is known or to be known), comparable, save in respect of comprehensiveness, to the totality say which Physics deals with, and that it is got by reflecting on the nature of any knowing (epistemology) and/or on all the branches of knowledge and their relations to each other; Metaphysics, we should conclude, is a synthesis or construct both crowning, and confirmed by, knowledge.
Poetry, Language and Communication
Authors: Mayo Bernard
Published: February 2009

There is a wide gap, at any rate in the English-speaking world, between the people whose business it is to talk about the nature of poetry and those who are concerned with the critical analysis of language. Although both subjects are legitimate topics for philosophical discussion, there are few philosophers who combine a deep and effective interest in aesthetics with a concern in the problems of linguistic analysis. The analytical philosopher is only too ready to relegate poetry to the field of “emotive” meaning; and, although “emotive” is a convenient term for marking off aspects of meaning with which the scientist (for example) is not concerned, it is also a means for keeping questions closed which ought to be opened. For it conceals the enormous differences which exist between various nonscientific uses of language. It does this behind an implicit suggestion that, since “emotions” are the province of the psychologist, any sort of inquiry into these uses of language will be merely a psychological inquiry. Poetry, of course, falls into this category of non-scientific uses of language, and a few psycho-analysts have accepted the commitment to discuss it; but on the whole its discussion is left to a very small band of aestheticians and a very large fraternity of literary critics.
Russell and McTaggart
Authors: Macdonald Margaret
Published: February 2009

In his Introduction to McTaggart's Philosophical Studies, Dr. S. V. Keeling complains that in the interests of a prejudice in favour of science and scientific methods, Russell and his followers have denied the possibility of solving metaphysical problems without giving any philosophical reason for this proscription. And by “metaphysical problems,” Dr. Keeling seems to mean (as against Russell and in agreement with McTaggart) ethical problems about the amount of good and evil in the world, the nature of human beings and their destiny, the hopes of men about immortality, and hence the “ultimate analysis of Time,” etc. Science is not concerned with such problems, and moreover it is the business of philosophy to “justify” induction and cannot itself employ a scientific method. Dr. Keeling therefore urges a return to the rationalism of McTaggart and the attempt to solve such problems by the deductive method. I want to say why this seems to me impossible and why such problems are insoluble unless they can be interpreted empirically and left to the investigation of the special sciences. I shall refer first to the most important feature of present empirical philosophy, then discuss metaphysical and other deductive systems, and finally dispute McTaggart's claim that the Self must be known by acquaintance and not by description, which Dr. Keeling regards, mistakenly, as it seems to me, the final refutation of this part of “positivistic phenomenalism.“ By this procedure I do not intend to justify or defend analytic philosophy but merely to re-compare its method with that of McTaggart.
Locke and the Intuitionist Theory of Number
Authors: Aaron Richard , Walters Philip
Published: February 2009

The Purpose of this paper is to ask how far Locke can be said to have anticipated modern theories of number, particularly the intuitionist theory of Brouwer and Heyting. It has in mind Mr Edward E. Dawson's statement that Locke's account of number was not merely ‘a good effort in his own day’ but that ‘what Locke had to say really was quite fundamental, and a good deal of modern mathematics assumes his position, either explicitly or implicitly’. Mr Dawson thinks that some of the central notions of the intuitionist theory are already present in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, xvi, ‘Of Number’. We should like to examine the view.
Berkeley's Impact on Scottish Philosophers
Authors: Davie G. E.
Published: February 2009

In 1728, when the sixteen-year-old Hume, still apparently ‘at college’, was beginning, all unknown to his family, to turn his attention to philosophy, Edinburgh and Glasgow were swarming with earnest metaphysicians, many of them not much older than Hume himself. ‘It is well known’, the Ochtertyre papers relate, ‘that between the years 1723 and 1740 nothing was in more request with the Edinburgh literati, both laical and clerical, than metaphysical disquisitions’, and Locke, Clarke, Butler and Berkeley are mentioned as the chief subjects for debate. Moreover, it is clear enough from the records that this surge of intellectual interests was chiefly the work of a younger generation, wearied alike of Calvinist theology and of Jacobite politics. Indeed to begin with it was the students’ societies which took the lead, and a plain enough hint of their serious critical attack is given in one sour entry in the diary of the Calvinist minister Woodrow for 1726. ‘These student clubs are like to have a very ill influence; they declare against reading and cry up thinking.’
The Final Good in Aristotle's Ethics
Authors: Hardie W. F. R.
Published: February 2009

Aristotle maintains that every man has, or should have, a single end (τλος), a target at which he aims. The doctrine is stated in E.N. I 2. ‘If, then, there is some end of the things we do which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life ? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim t, be more likely to hit upon what is right?’ (1094a 18–24). Aristotle does not here prove, nor need we understand him as claiming to prove, that there is only one end which is desired for itself. He points out correctly that, if there are objects which are desired but not desired for themselves, there must be some object which is desired for itself. The passage further suggests that, if there were one such object and one only, this fact would be important and helpful for the conduct of life.
Sulfur dioxide emissions and per capita income: a disaggregation of the effects of long-run and short-run income growth
Authors: BOUVIER RACHEL A.
Published: February 2009

This paper investigates the links between growth in gross domestic product (GDP) and sulfur dioxide emissions by disaggregating income growth into long-term growth (the trend of GDP over time) and short-term growth (income fluctuations around the trend). Results indicate a substantial fixed component of sulfur dioxide emissions. Once income fluctuations are controlled for, the effect of changes in the scale of the economy over time can be distinguished from the effects of the changing composition of output and the state of technological development. Results indicate that at low levels of income, the composition and technology effects are associated with an increase in emissions; for high levels of income, the composition and technology effects are associated with a leveling off of emissions.
The secret wartime housing estates of Geoffrey Jellicoe
Authors: Jensen Finn
Published: February 2009

With war looming at the end of the 1930s, the government had resurrected most of the existing munition works, the Royal Ordnance Factories, and it had also established new sites. Production was being stepped up, and thousands of workers became employed in areas where accommodation was very difficult to find. Many workers were taken in as lodgers, and temporary buildings or ‘hutments’ were erected, as were hostels for single persons. Also, permanent dwellings for married couples, with or without children, were to be designed and built.
Personality, consumption and architectural pedagogy in the UK, 1958–1968
Authors: Upitis Alise
Published: February 2009

The Pop-Art doyens of the Independent Group (IG) and the British design establishment were in two minds about burgeoning British consumerism during the 1950s. Members of IG were busy collaging images appropriated from American consumer culture while members of the British design establishment were fiercely opposed to adopting principles of capitalist consumerism, such as expendability of goods and planning for obsolescence. Protests against consumerist values were voiced by figures of the Modernist design establishment such as historian Nikolaus Pevsner and Michael Farr, then editor of the Council of Industrial Design's publication Design. Their views were reinforced by the stances of the British Standards Institution, the Molony Committee, created in 1959 to review and revise consumer law, and the Consumers' Association, publisher of the popular product-review magazine Which? These organisations held paramount design's durability, function and use. However, such institutionally-sanctioned concerns, in the tradition of the nineteenth-century preoccupation with social empiricism and consumer education, hardly stemmed a rising fascination with what an increasing consumption of goods could teach design.
Revolutions in space: parallel projections in the early modern era
Authors: Bryon Hilary
Published: February 2009

There is ambiguity and confusion concerning the nomenclature of parallel projection. Today, such representations are often broadly identified as axonometrics. However, the actual history of parallel projection, delineated by oblique and axonometric projections, reveals inherent spatial differences. By clarifying the intrinsic demarcations between these two forms of parallel projection, one may bring into question anew the approaches and applications of parallel projection as an architectural form of representation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
‘Quo Vadis’
Authors: Radford Mark
Published: February 2009

The new millennium has now arrived in style, with appropriate hype and fireworks we are truly in the dawn of a new age. However, if you were working I have been reliably informed that Cuba will be holding the ‘true’ millennium party in twelve months time. At the end of 1999 it was a time for reflection and the year looking forward into the future of 2000. What of anaesthetic and recovery nursing? What does the future hold?
Education in post anaesthetic care nursing
Authors: Oakley Melanie
Published: February 2009

Post anaesthetic care nursing was viewed for many years as the ‘poor relation’ of theatre and anaesthetic nursing. This was for a number of reasons, but primarily because recovery of the anaesthetised patient was, until relatively recently ward based. However with the advent of anaesthesia becoming more ‘high tech’ the skill required to look after a patient post anaesthesia has increased and with that increase the need for a high level of education for nurses within this speciality. There is now a long English National Board course for the Post anaesthetic care nurse, and opportunities are arising for nurses working in this area to add to the body of knowledge in post anaesthetic care nursing.
Diffusion Hypoxia
Authors: Scotcher Deborah
Published: February 2009

The aim of this study was to see if we could improve our practice in theatres for the benefit of the patient thus preventing diffusion hypoxia. When a patient continues to breathe from an anaesthetic circuit at the end of anaesthesia, there is a risk of delayed recovery, both by rebreathing and by the presence of anaesthetic vapour emerging from the tubes and other components of the anaesthetic equipment. It has been recommended that nitrous oxide be discontinued early in the recovery period, to monitor the patient during the first elimination phase. As hyperventilation does not influence the elimination of nitrous oxide largely, but increases the risk of subsequent hypoventilation during transport to the recovery room, hyperventilation should be avoided. It is also recommended that oxygen therapy should be used, during transport from theatre to the recovery room, regardless of the duration of nitrous oxide anaesthesia. There has proven to be a risk of Diffusion Hypoxia for at least 30 minutes after discontinuation of nitrous oxide administration in the presence of hypoventilation. The practitioner should always be cautious with heavy smokers, as they present a much greater risk of respiratory problems, and careful observation is needed for the first 5 minutes of breathing room air. Diffusion Hypoxia has proven to be avoided by administration of oxygen for 10 minutes from cessation of nitrous oxide anaesthesia.
From Anaesthetic Nurse to Nurse Anaesthetist: Is This Possible in the UK?
Authors: Cowan David
Published: February 2009

Current practice in the United Kingdom (UK) dictates that the administration of a general anaesthetic is undertaken by a physician. However, for several years now the controversial question has been raised as to whether other practitioners, primarily nurse anaesthetists, should also be allowed administer general anaesthetics. The ensuing debate has been refueled in recent times resulting from the trend towards providing cost-effective health care delivery combined with concerns over current and anticipated further shortages in anaesthetic manpower. This paper discusses some of the arguments both for and against the introduction non-physician anaesthetists in the UK, also drawing on the debate in other parts of the world, concluding with a call for more research to address the controversy. First though, because there appears to be some confusion over the difference between the meaning of the titles ‘Anaesthetic Nurse’ and ‘Nurse Anaesthetist’, it will be helpful to provide brief definitions of these terms.
Arrhythmia interpretation in the perioperative arena (Cont)
Authors: Spiers Christine M.
Published: February 2009

This article continues the series on cardiac monitoring in the peri-operative area by reviewing those arrhythmias that are classified as atrial or supraventricular. Whilst these arrhythmias are rarely life threatening, their haemodynamic effects can be significant and may not be tolerated in conjunction with the concurrent operative procedures. These arrhythmias are however, very commonly seen in perioperative practice and may be associated with anaesthetic procedures, surgical techniques and the recovery phase. In this increasingly technological age, it is imperative that perioperative practitioners can recognise and respond appropriately to the rhythms observed on the cardiac monitor.
Care of Patients with learning disabilities in the day surgery setting
Authors: Bratchell Joanne
Published: February 2009

The shift in the philosophy of care for people with learning disabilities from institutional care to living in the community has placed greater demands on generic health services. Alack of training and appropriate skills have been identified as problem areas for health care providers who may be required to care for this group of people. The dental health of people with learning disabilities has shown no improvement over the last fifty years despite advances in dental treatment. Requests for dental care present practitioners with ethical and legal problems due to a reduced capacity to give informed consent. The provision of dental care for patients with learning disabilities in the day surgery unit of a local hospital is critically evaluated and recommendations are then made as to how current practice may be improved with reference to the findings of current literature.
An Exploration of the Value of Education in Recruiting and Retaining Staff
Authors: Parker Amanda
Published: February 2009

Recruitment and retention within specialist areas of nursing has been consistently difficult to achieve. This research explores the value of providing education and how this may enhance the ability to recruit and retain staff within the perioperative environment. This an area where nurses are perceived as not essential to the provision of quality care due to the technical nature of the nurses′ role detracting from the patient centred care delivered.

A multiple strategy approach was used with data collected via two questionnaires from ten Trusts within the South East of England. Findings demonstrated that while the provision of education may enhance the recruitment and retention of staff, prior to this occurring operating theatres needed to address the issues of motivation and morale within their departments. Many staff were found to be demotivated their views and opinions supporting the work of Herzberg (1959) on job satisfaction. Conclusions were that only once ‘satisfiers’ were increased and ‘dissatisfiers’ addressed could the provision of education supported by an educationalist benefit recruitment and retention of staff.
Perioperative Temperature Regulation
Authors: Hegarty J.
Published: February 2009

The regulation of body temperature is one of a variety of mechanisms, which play a part in maintaining a stable internal environment in the body thus enabling the body to function optimally. It is crucial that the core body temperature is maintained within a narrow (36–37.5°C) range [Luckmann, 1997]. Thermoregulation in the operating theatre and post anaesthetic care unit is often an underemphasized concern for surgical patients. Anaesthesia and surgery commonly cause substantial alterations in the temperature of surgical patients.

Unnecessary heat loss, hypothermia, the typical variation, results from a combination of anaesthetic-induced impairment of thermoregulatory control, a cool, operating room environment and other factors exclusive to surgery and anaesthesia. Estimates of the incidence of inadvertent perioperative hypothermia range from 60% to 90% of all surgical cases [Bernthal, 1999, Litwack, 1995], when this condition is defined as a body temperature below 36°C (degrees Celsius) 96.8°F (degrees Fahrenheit) (Arndt, 1999). Hypothermia apart from causing a very unpleasant sensation of cold, places the patient at risk of developing life-threatening events, which include altered cardiac performance, delayed emergence from anaesthesia and increased rates of morbidity and mortality. Although the aim of temperature management by intraoperative medical and nursing staff is prevention of heat loss, the objective of post anaesthetic recovery room staff is usually the restoration of normothermia. Thus, perioperative nurses need to be aware of the need to monitor patient's temperature, be familiar with different patient warming/rewarming methods and be alert for potential problems that can arise from hypothermia.
Water‐dominated vegetation activity across biomes in mid‐latitudinal eastern China
Authors: Wu Xiuchen , Liu Hongyan , Ren Ji , He Siyuan , Zhang Yuke
Published: February 2009

Sensitivity of vegetation activity to water and temperature in eastern China was investigated using growing‐season Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and climate factors (MAP, mean annual precipitation; RH, relative humidity; PDSI, Palmer Drought Severity Index; and MAT, mean annual temperature). At a regional level, the cut‐off of mean NDVI value receiving a MAP interval of 543 ± 69 mm is identified, indicating the saturating effect of natural vegetation cover or greenness in the open‐canopy summer‐green deciduous forest of eastern China along the north–south rainfall gradient. The rainfall‐use efficiency (RUE) of vegetation as well as correlation coefficients of NDVI against MAP, RH and PDSI decreases with increased precipitation in a consistent logarithmic pattern. In most cases, temperature does not have a significant effect on the vegetation activity. The results of this study highlight a clear pattern of water‐dominated vegetation activity; however, a potential temperature‐induced drought stress in temperate steppe and subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest of eastern China is also indicated.
Plasma wake of Tethys: Hybrid simulations versus Cassini MAG data
Authors: Simon S. , Saur J. , Neubauer F. M. , Motschmann U. , Dougherty M. K.
Published: February 2009

The interaction between Saturn's fifth largest satellite, Tethys, and the corotating plasma of the inner magnetosphere has been studied with a three‐dimensional hybrid simulation. Since Tethys possesses neither an intrinsic magnetic field nor a substantial ionosphere, the moon's surface is directly exposed to the impinging plasma. This leads to the formation of an extended density cavity in the downstream region, expanding above and below Tethys along the magnetic field lines. The resulting deficit of plasma pressure is compensated by a compression of the field lines at the wakeside. By confronting our simulation results with Cassini magnetometer data from the so far only targeted flyby in 2005, we demonstrate that these key features of Tethys' plasma interaction are quantitatively reproducible within the framework of the hybrid model. Besides, the simulation results illustrate the importance of ambipolar electric fields for ion dynamics in the wake of Tethys.
Evaluation of precise terrain effects using high‐resolution digital elevation models
Authors: Tsoulis Dimitrios , Novák Pavel , Kadlec Martin
Published: February 2009

Currently available high‐resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) permit computations of terrain‐related gravitational parameters, such as the terrain effect, with an unprecedented accuracy. In addition, given the increasing availability of new high‐resolution global DEMs specifically over continental regions, such as the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) model, which offers a 3‐arc sec resolution for selected parts of the Earth, the investigation and assessment of the short‐wavelength part of the Earth's gravitational spectrum becomes an issue of high demand. The article deals with the numerical evaluation of the first‐order radial derivative of the gravitational potential (terrain effect) by two modeling methods based on a prismatic and tesseroidal description of the terrain masses. The prismatic method, which offers exact analytical formulations, is connected to the planar or spherical approximation. The tesseroidal method related to the spherical or ellipsoidal approximation provides results at the same accuracy level, however, in significantly shorter computational times. Numerical investigations have been performed to assess the two modeling methods by elaborating on them through various computational strategies for evaluating the terrain effect from the view of computational precision and complexity. Additionally, the effect of the accuracy of the two modeling methods on the accuracy of the corresponding geoidal height is presented. The test area chosen for the numerical investigations is an alpine region in central Europe with a very complex topography. Two DEMs, with respective resolutions of 3 and 30 arc sec, represent the input elevation data. The obtained results indicate that for the current high‐resolution DEMs, the choice of a particular modeling method becomes less critical when an appropriate computational strategy is used. The results of the two modeling methods converge to the same values, even at complex mountainous terrain.
A method for estimating surface transient storage parameters for streams with concurrent hyporheic storage
Authors: Briggs Martin A. , Gooseff Michael N. , Arp Christopher D. , Baker Michelle A.
Published: February 2009

Application of transient storage models has become popular for characterizing hydrologic and biogeochemical processes in streams. The typical transient storage model represents exchange between the main channel and a single storage zone, essentially lumping together different exchange processes. Here we present a method to inform a transient storage model that accounts for two storage zones (2‐SZ) to discriminate between surface transient storage (STS) exchange and exchange with hyporheic transient storage (HTS). This method requires that, in addition to tracer breakthrough curves from the main channel, cross‐sectional stream velocity distributions and stream tracer concentration time series data from several main channel locations and adjacent representative STS zones be collected. We apply this method to a constant rate conservative tracer injection in a first‐order stream and to an instantaneous slug conservative tracer injection in a fourth‐order stream. The 2‐SZ model simulations matched observed breakthrough curves of tracer concentration in the main channel and general STS behavior well. Additionally, we compared the optimized parameter sets of the 2‐SZ model to one–storage zone model (1‐SZ) simulations and found that the lumped storage terms of the 1‐SZ model described the time scales of 2‐SZ model HTS exchange and attributed the time scales of observed STS exchange to longitudinal dispersion. With additional field data collection efforts and data processing, this method can provide much more useful results than the 1‐SZ approach to those interested in discriminating between surface and subsurface transient storage dynamics of streams, which is important for discerning processes important to the cycling and fate of biogeochemicals.
Effects of titanium surfaces blasted with TiO2 particles on the initial attachment of cells derived from human mandibular bone
Authors: Mustafa Kamal , Wroblewski Joanna , Hultenby Kjell , Silva Lopez Blanca , Arvidson Kristina
Published: February 2009

This study was performed to determine the effect of commercially pure titanium surfaces blasted with TiO2 particles on the biological responses of cells derived from human mandibular bone. The morphology and attachment of those cells were investigated on turned titanium surfaces (control) and surfaces blasted with 45 μm (standard), 45–63 μm, and 63–90 μm TiO2 particles. The surfaces were analyzed in a scanning electron microscope. Based on surface analyses reported elsewhere, the turned samples had the smoothest surfaces and the roughest were those blasted with the largest particles (63–90 μm). The cell profile areas were measured using a semi‐automatic interactive image analyzer. The attachment was determined as a ratio of the area of cell profiles and the total micrograph area and was expressed as percentage of attachment. Morphologically, the cells were heterogeneous. In general, the cells had spread well on all titanium surfaces, indicating good attachment to both smooth and rough surfaces. After 1, 3 and 6 h, the percentage of cell attachment did not differ significantly between the surfaces blasted with 63–90 μm and the turned surfaces, but was significantly lower on the surfaces blasted with 45 μm or 45–63 μm particles. After 24 h the surfaces blasted with 63–90 μm particles had a higher rate of cell attachment than all the other surfaces including the controls. It is concluded that attachment and growth of cells originating from human mandibular bone in vitro, are influenced by the micro‐texture of the implant surface.
Micro‐morphometric assessment of titanium plasma‐sprayed coating removal using burs for the treatment of peri‐implant disease
Authors: Rimondini Lia , Cicognani Simoncini Francesco , Carrassi Antonio
Published: February 2009

This study evaluated, in vitro, the effectiveness of diamond and carbide burs, and bur sequences to remove the plasma‐sprayed titanium coating from IMZ fixture surfaces. Fifteen polishing procedures were tested. They included the use of 12, 16, 30 bladed carbide burs or bevered carbide burs and 30, 15, 8 μm mean‐particles‐size diamond burs. The treated surfaces were evaluated with profilometer and SEM. Worn burs and titanium debris produced by the grinding were observed with SEM. All procedures produce smoother surfaces than baseline plasma‐sprayed surfaces for both Ra and Rz(DIN) parameters (P<0.001). A roughening effect of the 8 μm mean‐grit diamond bur and 30 bladed burs were noted. The single carbide burs produce polished surfaces affected by waviness. Waviness was minimized by sequence or diamond bur use. The carbide bur blades were variously damaged after their use. In contrast, the grit of diamond burs was observed to be clogged by titanium debris whose amount seemed to be inversely related to the diamond mean particle size. Debris produced by diamond burs was granular whereas that produced by carbide bladed burs showed needle or flake morphology. In conclusion, the most effective titanium plasma sprayed removal were obtained by 30 μm and 15 μm mean‐particle‐size diamond burs, i.e. 30 μm plus 15 μm diamond burs and carbide 12 plus 16 bladed burs used in sequence.