The lost control and other mysteries: Further revelations on New Zealand's fluoridation trial

The Hastings fluoridation trial in the 1950s is listed in textbooks as an important study confirming the effectiveness of fluoridation. A paper to the 56th (1987) Congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science co‐authored by one of us (JC) showed, from government archives obtained under the Official Information Act, that the claimed tooth decay reductions were mainly the result of local changes in diagnostic procedure in school dental clinics, which were not mentioned in published versions of the study. The experimental control town, at first described as ‘ideal’, was abandoned following the discovery that after fluoridation commenced younger children had less tooth decay in the unfluoridated control town. Proponents claimed in explanation that a previously unknown soil factor had resulted in the control town having below average tooth decay. Opponents claimed that fluoride had worsened the teeth in the fluoridated town. This paper comments on reactions to the earlier published findings, and reports some further discoveries which help to answer questions concerning the old debate over the lost control, the behavior of those concerned and some other mysteries.     

'The heart and home of horror': The great London fogs of the late nineteenth century

This article centres on the unprecedentedly severe fog crisis which afflicted London between the 1870s and the mid-1890s. An overview of meteorological developments prefaces an interrogation of the mid-Victorian origins of environmental cost-benefit analysis and the only slowly dawning awareness that adverse weather conditions might make a significant contribution to mortality and morbidity from respiratory disease. At the same time, exceptionally degraded air quality came to be associated with the threat of physical and psychological degeneration in the poorest inner and eastern districts of the city. Perceived as a totality, these bodies of knowledge and ideology - economic, epidemiological and social Darwinistic - reinforced and legitimated a catastrophist fin de sicle vision of almost unbearably debilitating social, economic and cultural relationships between 'darkness at noon' and the potential implosion of the late nineteenth century metropolis.     

Responding to Youth Crime in Scotland

Correspondence to Bill Whyte, Director, Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre for Scotland, School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh, Flat 1FR, 31 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LJ. E-mail: B.Whyte{at}ed.ac.uk Summary Scotland’s Children’s Hearings deal with young peoplewho offend within an integrated system dealing also with youngpeople in need of care and protection, on the assumption thatthe difficulties of both groups have similar roots in multiplesocial disadvantage and social adversity (Whyte, 1998a). A government-fundedstudy, one of the first since the system’s inception in1971, was commissioned to examine the social characteristicsof over 1,000 children and young people referred for offenceand nonoffence reasons. This paper describes the characteristicsof 465 of the young people who were referred specifically foroffending. It provides the first ‘official’ datain twenty-five years on young people in the system. The studyfound that most of those referred for offending had characteristicsstrikingly similar to those referred for nonoffence reasons,as predicted when the system was first established, and similarto those present in the general literature on young offendersfrom other jurisdictions. The study poses fundamental questionstaken up by the Scottish Executive’s review of youth crimeon how best to design systems and develop social interventionsthat can address offending and social disadvantage in an integratedway.     

Evaluating Social Service Agencies: Fuzzy Pictures of Organizational Effectiveness

This article presents a case study of how members of three funding organizations evaluated the same two agencies in Canada. The research on which the article is based sheds light on the organizational effectiveness construct, on the ways in which the evaluators use it to reach conclusions on agency effectiveness, and the relation between these conclusions and funders' decisions on agency funding. The authors describe a framework for understanding evaluation processes, describe three funders in terms of this framework, set out predominant patterns in evaluation processes the funders used, and show the effects of these patterns from the agency's perspective. They then discuss the implications of the findings for agency managers and how the findings relate to theories of organization.     

The superstore format in Australia: Opportunities and limitations

This article outlines the development of both food superstores and non-food superstores (referred to as category killers) in Australia. Ten retail categories have been identified where there is a moderate to high rate of adoption of the superstore format (more than 20 outlets). These ten categories have been analyzed to identify the success factors in superstore development, which include accurate assessment of consumer one-stop shopping needs, sufficient finance, good store design skills and a balanced program of store expansion. The article explores the managerial implications for traditional retailers, for existing superstore retailers (especially the issue of optimal store size), for existing convenience store operators, department stores and for manufacturers and wholesalers. There are limitations of the superstore format in categories which are fashion orientated or where consumers require close distance convenience. These limitations actually provide opportunities to a myriad of retailers in fast food, dry-cleaning, banking, florists and the like, to reassess their locational and service delivery strategies. The superstore concept is clearly a revolution in itself, but its shock waves are provoking and stimulating second order mini-revolutions in traditional specialist stores, department stores, convenience stores, warehousing and manufacturing.     

The senses and virtual environments

Designers and developers of immersive 3D virtual environments typically aim to faithfully recreate real-world scenarios yet, traditional emphasis is placed on recreating the visual, and to a much lesser extent, auditory scenes, while ignoring the other senses despite their importance in the real world. However, simulation all of the senses in real-time with a high level of fidelity is still not feasible and recent work has shown that high fidelity reproduction of the real world doesn’t necessarily lead to the greatest user experience and outcomes. In the real world, senses interact with one another and alter each other’s processing and ultimately perception. An understanding of this multi-modal interactivity can, therefore, inform our development of virtual environments. Through perceptual-based rendering, we can exploit multimodal effects to reduce computational requirements while creating more compelling scenarios that take advantage of current technology. In this article, we provide a brief review of fidelity, multimodal interactions and perceptual-based rendering in the virtual domain. We emphasize the perception of reality in the virtual world is subjective and not necessarily a reproduction of reality, but rather a combination of personal experiences including those pertaining to media consumption, which can ultimately lead to better user experiences.     

Knowledge translation strategies in a community–university partnership: examining local Quality of Life (QoL)

There is a growing interest in quality of life as an integrated approach to addressing key social, environmental and economic determinants of health. The University of Saskatchewan’s Community-University Institute for Social Research, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (grant #410-2004-0669) has examined the process and results of a multi-stakeholder approach to the ongoing sustainability of Saskatoon, Canada as a healthy city with an improving and a more equitably distributed quality of life. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, together with GIS technology, this research has examined the quality of life across three locales in Saskatoon—representing Low, Middle and High socio-economic status in both 2001 and 2004. The participatory action research approach used in this work ensures the value of the outputs to the stakeholders. Given the strong recognition of the importance of interfacing policy, research and community, and the growing impatience with the limited application of research findings to social and health practices and policies, this project has undertaken four major knowledge translation/transfer strategies, above and beyond the traditional academic channels: (1) engagement of local media on a consistent basis, (2) implementing community policy forums to ensure continued community readiness and uptake, (3) facilitation of and successful functioning of a steering committee, and (4) employment of an action researcher to operate as a policy entrepreneur. This paper will review and discuss each of these strategies and outline the evaluative research being done to document the success of these strategies.