America’s increasing obesity problem requires federal, state, and local lawyers, policymakers, and public health practitioners to consider legal strategies to encourage healthy eating and physical activity. The complexity of the legal landscape as it affects obesity requires an analysis of coordination across multiple sectors and disciplines. Government jurisdictions can be viewed “vertically,” including the local, state, tribal, and federal levels, or “horizontally” as agencies or branches of government at the same vertical level. Inspired by the successful tobacco control movement, obesity (...) prevention advocates seek comprehensive strategies to “normalize” healthy behaviors by creating environmental and legal changes that ensure healthy choices are the default or easy choices. With many competing demands on diminishing municipal budgets, strategic coordination both vertically and horizontally is essential to foster the environmental and social changes needed to reverse the obesity epidemic. (shrink)

Mounting evidence documents the extraordinary toll on human health resulting from the consumption of unhealthy food products and physical inactivity. In response to America's growing obesity problem, local policymakers have been looking for legal strategies that can be adopted in their communities to encourage healthful behaviors. In order to provide practical tools to policymakers, this article examines four possible venues for local policy change to improve the health of a community: the school environment the built environment () community facilities and (...) the point of sale environment. Finally, the article examines the use of taxes or fees as a means of paying for nutrition policy work as well as potentially reducing the consumption of unhealthy products. This article illustrates that local laws and policies can be a valuable tool in changing a community's environment in order to improve nutritional options and increase opportunities for physical activity. (shrink)

Mounting evidence documents the extraordinary toll on human health resulting from the consumption of unhealthy food products and physical inactivity. Diseases related to poor nutrition – such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and some cancers – are among the leading causes of disability and death in the United States. Poor diet and lack of exercise come second only to tobacco use in actual causes of preventable death in this country. It is estimated that 6% of all adult health care, 7% (...) of Medicare, and 11% of Medicaid expenditures are attributable to obesity. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the direct medical cost associated with physical inactivity was nearly $76.6 billion in 2000.In response to America's growing obesity problem, local policymakers have been looking for legal strategies to adopt in their communities to encourage healthful behaviors. Taking the lead from the successful tobacco control movement, nutrition advocates are seeking strategies to “denormalize” unhealthy behaviors, rather than pursuing education-based approaches that encourage individuals to change their own personal behavior. (shrink)

America’s increasing obesity problem requires federal, state, and local lawyers, policymakers, and public health practitioners to consider legal strategies to encourage healthy eating and physical activity. The complexity of the legal landscape as it affects obesity requires an analysis of coordination across multiple sectors and disciplines. Government jurisdictions can be viewed “vertically,” including the local, state, tribal, and federal levels, or “horizontally” as agencies or branches of government at the same vertical level. Inspired by the successful tobacco control movement, obesity (...) prevention advocates seek comprehensive strategies to “normalize” healthy behaviors by creating environmental and legal changes that ensure healthy choices are the default or easy choices. With many competing demands on diminishing municipal budgets, strategic coordination both vertically and horizontally is essential to foster the environmental and social changes needed to reverse the obesity epidemic. (shrink)

The Tobacco Control Legal Consortium is a national “network” designed to tap expertise about tobacco control legislation and to leverage existing resources. Based at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Consortium supports local counsel with research, strategic advice, sample materials and pleadings, and amicus briefs. The Consortium’s priorities are to support capacity nationally, to offer education, and to perform outreach activities to a variety of audiences.The Consortium seeks to advance policy change by making legal expertise (...) more readily available to the tobacco control community. Legal issues are inevitably involved in policy change. The Consortium does not provide legal representation, but conducts analysis and research. They publish on important and emerging legal issues as well as on specific cases, assist in the development of legislation, and train public health practitioners and policy makers on recurring legal issues. (shrink)

The Tobacco Control Legal Consortium is a national “network” designed to tap expertise about tobacco control legislation and to leverage existing resources. Based at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Consortium supports local counsel with research, strategic advice, sample materials and pleadings, and amicus briefs. The Consortium’s priorities are to support capacity nationally, to offer education, and to perform outreach activities to a variety of audiences.The Consortium seeks to advance policy change by making legal expertise (...) more readily available to the tobacco control community. Legal issues are inevitably involved in policy change. The Consortium does not provide legal representation, but conducts analysis and research. They publish on important and emerging legal issues as well as on specific cases, assist in the development of legislation, and train public health practitioners and policy makers on recurring legal issues. (shrink)

Newly emerging links between sugar and addiction raise challenging issues for public health policy. What was once a naturally occurring food ingredient is now a highly concentrated food additive. If foods containing artificially high levels of sugar are capable of triggering addictive behaviors, how should policymakers respond? What regulatory steps would be suitable and practical? This paper explores the concept and definition of addiction and presents evidence of the addictive potential of sugar. It also explores the legal implications if sufficient (...) evidence demonstrates that sugar is indeed addictive. (shrink)

Sugar consumption has long been linked with a host of chronic health problems, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. To reduce Americans’ intake, many have called for taxing sugary products or limiting access in certain environments like schools and workplaces. These sometimes controversial calls for new public policy to curb consumption may soon be eclipsed by newly emerging links between sugar and addiction.Attaching the label “addictive” to a substance like sugar, which is necessary for human life, challenges widely held beliefs (...) about addiction. But the extraordinary increase in sugar consumption during the past century, with related tripling of chronic diseases like obesity and diabetes, means our common understandings may be outdated.Part I of this paper will define “addiction” — especially as it relates to what was once a naturally occurring food nutrient and now is a highly concentrated food additive — and present evidence of the addictive potential of sugar. (shrink)

Knowledge of the law and its impact on health outcomes is increasingly important in public health practice. The CDC's Public Health Law Academy helps satisfy this need by providing online trainings, facilitator toolkits, and legal epidemiology tools to aid practitioners in learning about the law's role in promoting public health.

This paper is the companion to the “Assessment of Coordination of Legal-Based Efforts across Jurisdictions and Sectors for Obesity Prevention and Control” paper, and the third of four papers outlining action options that policymakers can consider as discussed as part of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control. The goal of this paper is to identify potential action and policy strategies related to coordination across jurisdictions and sectors that can be adopted by policymakers and implemented by (...) practitioners to address the obesity epidemic. The paper examines collaboration among four sectors — community agencies and organizations, schools, health care institutions, and workplaces — and examines collaboration from both vertical and horizontal perspectives. Additionally, the paper is structured around three legal themes — which are posed as questions — to frame the policy action discussion. (shrink)

This paper is the companion to the “Assessment of Coordination of Legal-Based Efforts across Jurisdictions and Sectors for Obesity Prevention and Control” paper, and the third of four papers outlining action options that policymakers can consider as discussed as part of the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control. The goal of this paper is to identify potential action and policy strategies related to coordination across jurisdictions and sectors that can be adopted by policymakers and implemented by (...) practitioners to address the obesity epidemic. The paper examines collaboration among four sectors — community agencies and organizations, schools, health care institutions, and workplaces — and examines collaboration from both vertical and horizontal perspectives. Additionally, the paper is structured around three legal themes — which are posed as questions — to frame the policy action discussion. (shrink)

We propose that marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to Black and Latino consumers results from the intersection of a business model in which profits come primarily from marketing an unhealthy mix of products, standard targeted marketing strategies, and societal forces of structural racism, and contributes to health disparities.

The book examines ethics and employment issues in contemporary Human Resource Management (HRM). Written by an international team of academics from universities in the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand, it examines the problems and opportunities facing employers and employees. The book subdivides into three sections: Part I assesses the context of HRM; Part II analyses contemporary debates, continuity and change in HRM, and Part III proposes likely developments for the future seeking to identify a more proactive HRM approach (...) towards ethical issues arising in employment. Distinctive features include: -/- -Comprehensive analysis of continuity and change in employment and HRM -In-depth assessment of the ethical contribution and potential of HRM -Timely evaluation of the ethical achievements to-date of HRM in: individualized employment relations, HRM partnerships, HRM and employee performance, and strategic HRM -Detailed recommendations for HR managers and general managers encouraging more ethically aware practice -Guidance on ethical approaches to leadership, knowledge management and collective employment relations -Analysis of alternative futures for HRM as a profession and advice on how to create more rigorous and independent professional practice -A vision of a more innovative, cooperative and ethically sensitive set of HRM practices -Clear proposals for HRM on how to attain more ethical conduct. (shrink)

Dr Bawa-Garba, a senior paediatric trainee who had been involved in the care of a child who died shortly after admission to hospital, was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter and subsequently erased from the medical register. We argue that criminalisation of doctors in this way is fraught with ethical tensions at levels of individual blameworthiness, systemic failures, professionalism, patient safety and at the interface of the regulator and doctor. The current response to alleged manslaughter during clinical care is not fit (...) for purpose because of its narrow focus on criminalisation and punishment of individual doctors. The justice system fails to take into account systemic issues in a sufficiently proper and informed way particularly in respect of human factors involved in decision-making. It is easier to convict individual doctors for gross negligence manslaughter than it is to effect legal accountability upon organisations. If educational reflections are used to apportion blame, then this could impact detrimentally on honesty and the duty of candour, with negative implications for patient safety. Regulatory processes should not be deployed without consideration of context. There is an urgent need for a fresh and open evaluation of professional and societal expectations from the regulator that should include positive action as well as those that are proportionately punitive. Justice and patient safety would be served better by more sophisticated contextualisation through an approach that balances accountability in healthcare with failures that can occur within complex systems, and by working to a radical shift towards a just culture. (shrink)

Studies of multiple paternity in mammals and other animal species generally report proportion of multiple paternity among litters, mean litter sizes, and mean number of sires per litter. It is shown how these variables can be used to produce an estimate of the probability of reproductive success for a male that has mated with a female. This estimate of male success is more informative about the mating system that alternative measures, like the proportion of litters with multiple paternity or the (...) mean number of sires per litter. The probability of success for a mated male can be measured both theoretically and empirically, and gives an estimate of the intensity of sperm competition and of a male's “confidence of paternity” upon mating. The probability of success for mated males for ten “exemplar” species of mammals is estimated and they are compared for insights into the functioning of their mating systems. (shrink)

First published in 1977. Ethics is the most practical branch of philosophy: its immediate concern is with people's actions. Yet most philosophers do little to relate ethics intelligibly to the human situation. In this inquiry into the nature of ethics, William Ash draws on the relevant works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin to present the theory and practice of Marxist ethics. He offers an explanation of the moral aspect of Marx's dictum: 'The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in (...) various ways; the point, however, is to change it.' The book includes, perhaps for the first time in so considered a form, an assessment of Mao Tsetung's contribution to Marxist moral philosophy, together with the ethical implications of such developments in social practice as the Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The author deals with the question of value by analysing the concept of 'good'; with the question of claims on people and things by analysing the concept of 'right'; with the question of the limits and scope of freedom of choice and action by analysing the concept of 'ought'.' Clearly written in order to 'de-mystify' the subject, the book challenges readers to test the author's enlightened, Marxist approach in terms of the ethical ordering of their own society. (shrink)

Just as burnout is manifested through changes in behavioural and communication patterns, it is important to examine whether certain aspects of communication can affect student burnout development. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between communication and academic burnout. To achieve this, the study proposes an integrated model examining the effects of three communication dimensions – support from academic staff, support from colleagues, and participation in decision-making – on four different dimensions of academic burnout, as well as students’ overall (...) burnout. The model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis. High coefficients of determination regarding particular burnout dimensions validate the strength of the proposed model. The results show that support from academic staff and support from fellow students significantly and negatively influence academic burnout, and might be instrumental in its reduction. Unexpectedly, participation in decision-making is shown to be positively related to academic burnout. (shrink)

Afghānī, Jamāl al-Dīn, 1838-1897; views on; philosophy; rationalism; Islam and reason.

Velvet revolutions, continued-. The strange toppling of Slobadan Milošević ; "The country summoned me" ; Orange Revolution in Ukraine ; The revolution that wasn't ; 1968 and 1989 ; 1989! ; Velvet Revolution in past and future -- Europe and other headaches. Ghosts in the machine ; Are there moral foundations of European power? ; The twins' new Poland ; Exchange of empires ; Why Britain is in Europe ; Europe's new story ; National anthems ; "O chink, where is (...) thy wall?" ; The perfect EU member -- Islam, terror and freedom. La Alhambra ; Islam in Europe ; The invisible front line ; Against taboos ; Respect? ; Secularism or atheism? ; No if and no buts -- USA! USA!. Mr. President ; 9/11 ; Anti-Europeanism in America ; In defence of the fence ; Zorba the Bush ; Warsaw, Missouri ; Dancing with history ; Liberalism -- Beyond the West. Beauty and the beast in Burma ; Soldiers of the hidden Imam ; East meets West ; The brotherhood against Pharaoh ; Cities of no God ; Beyond race -- Writers and facts. The brown grass of memory ; The Stasi on our minds ; Orwell in our time ; Orwell's list ; Is "British intellectual" an oxymoron? ; "Ich bin ein Berliner" ; The literature of fact -- Envoi. Elephant, feet of clay ; Decivilization ; The mice in the organ. (shrink)

Among many managers Charles Handy might well be described as a ‘world class’ management thinker. He is certainly the first British management author to have achieved international guru status. The author of widely-commended management best-sellers and MBA set texts, known through broadcasting and management videos, he has presented himself more recently as a self-styled ‘social philosopher’. But just how philosophical is he? Does he offer genuinely new ideas? And what explains his vast appeal? Ashly Pinnington considers three works from Handy’s (...) social philosopher period. He argues that they are conservative and focused on the interests of managers and business owners rather than employees or society as a whole. Like a mediaeval friar seeking converts, Handy uses mythic structures and exempla to invest his claims and propositions with plausibility and authority. Drawing on research into management gurus as a phenomenon, Ashly Pinnington concludes that when we read authors like Handy we should attend not merely to the ‘philosophy’ but also to the way narrative techniques are used in conveying ideological and moral messages. (shrink)

Among many managers Charles Handy might well be described as a ‘world class’ management thinker. He is certainly the first British management author to have achieved international guru status. The author of widely-commended management best-sellers and MBA set texts, known through broadcasting and management videos, he has presented himself more recently as a self-styled ‘social philosopher’. But just how philosophical is he? Does he offer genuinely new ideas? And what explains his vast appeal? Ashly Pinnington considers three works from Handy’s (...) social philosopher period. He argues that they are conservative and focused on the interests of managers and business owners rather than employees or society as a whole. Like a mediaeval friar seeking converts, Handy uses mythic structures and exempla to invest his claims and propositions with plausibility and authority. Drawing on research into management gurus as a phenomenon, Ashly Pinnington concludes that when we read authors like Handy we should attend not merely to the ‘philosophy’ but also to the way narrative techniques are used in conveying ideological and moral messages. (shrink)

This paper considers the evaluation of leadership development and reflects on the psychological resistances, political obstacles and cultural impracticalities of developing democratic leadership. The focus is on the development and sustainability of democratic leadership through processes of evaluation. While the authors acknowledge that there exist formidable obstacles to the collective practice of evaluating leadership development, suggestions are made for practitioners and researchers who nonetheless remain interested in democratic leadership.

The Australian bush has many meanings. Notably, the bush is an environment of both nostalgic loss and regeneration, and is a contradictory place capable of signifying homeliness and otherness. This article examines the durability of the myth of the Australian bush as a locale for the internationalisation of capital, employment and environmental management and as a resource for traditional concepts of Australian identity.

The Australian bush has many meanings. Notably, the bush is an environment of both nostalgic loss and regeneration, and is a contradictory place capable of signifying homeliness and otherness. This article examines the durability of the myth of the Australian bush as a locale for the internationalisation of capital, employment and environmental management and as a resource for traditional concepts of Australian identity.

This paper sketches a historical account of interdisciplinarity. A central claim advanced is that the modern array of scientific and humanistic disciplines and interdisciplinarity emerged together; both are moving targets, which must therefore be studied historically in relation to one another as institutionalized practices. A second claim is that of a steadily increasing complexity; new fields emerged on the boundaries of existing disciplines beginning in the late nineteenth century, followed by multi- and transdisciplinary initiatives in the twentieth, and finally transdisciplinary (...) programmatic research in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The latter two phases in this development have been driven primarily by funding agencies seeking to move the sciences in particular directions deemed socially or politically desirable (in dictatorships as well as democracies), while the existing disciplines remained in place and new ones came into being. Such policy initiatives have transformed both disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity in unanticipated ways. The question whether multi- or transdisciplinary arrangements produce epistemically better science or scholarship appears not to have been raised, let alone examined, by the policy actors driving their creation. (shrink)

This book describes a program of research in computable structure theory. The goal is to find definability conditions corresponding to bounds on complexity which persist under isomorphism. The results apply to familiar kinds of structures (groups, fields, vector spaces, linear orderings Boolean algebras, Abelian p-groups, models of arithmetic). There are many interesting results already, but there are also many natural questions still to be answered. The book is self-contained in that it includes necessary background material from recursion theory (ordinal notations, (...) the hyperarithmetical hierarchy) and model theory (infinitary formulas, consistency properties). (shrink)