The politicisation of Australian nurses: Victoria 1984–1986

This paper examines the nursing disputes in Victoria between 1984 and 1986 against the background of moves by nurses to acquire professional status. It investigates the reasons for the disputes and argues that the politicisation of nurses in Victoria is in part a result of their historical relationship to the dominant profession in the health systems and of their previous reluctance to use industrial action in support of improved working conditions. Our research is discussed in relation to findings in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The conclusion is drawn that political action by nurses is indicative of a particular trend in white‐collar unionism and that it is inextricably linked to the process of professionalisation.     

POPULATION ANALYSIS ON THE MICROCOMPUTER: A SYSTEM OF SOFTWARE PACKAGES

This paper describes a system of versatile software packages that has been developed by the author for population analysis on IBM-compatible microcomputers using PC or MS DOS. The series includes programs for the production of life tables, the analysis of spatial patterns and temporal trends in mortality, population projections, stationary-state population simulations and demographic planning, cohort survival estimates of net migration, and the analysis of migration matrices. Each of the programs in the series is discussed in terms of its principal analytical features, associated conceptual and methodological issues, and potential applications. The programs are intended for use both as basic research and planning tools and as instructional aids in university-level courses. The programs and related documentation are available on a set of four 360K diskettes.     

An Assessment of the Role of an Open Shelter in Reducing Soiling and Microbial Growth on the Archaeological Site of the Bishop’s Palace,Witney, England

Two sets of twelve Portland limestone tablets were attached to carousels outside and under the open, lightweight shelter at Bishop’s Palace (Witney, England) for 18 months to assess the influence of shelters on soiling and microbiological growth on stone. At the start, and at 6-month intervals, tablets were analysed using microscopy (optical and SEM), colour measurement (spectrophotometry), weight change measurement and salt content determination (ion chromatography). Concentrations of NO₂ and SO₂ were also monitored for a month using diffusion tubes. In addition, results were compared with those obtained by the UK National Materials Exposure Programme (NMEP) on chemical weathering rates. Differences in soiling and biological growth on sheltered and unsheltered samples, and their influence on limestone decay were established. The shelter is likely to reduce biological growth by modifying the micro-environmental conditions. However, it may also exacerbate dust deposition, which might increase decay rates in the long-term.     

Marconi,masculinity and the heroic age of science: wireless telegraphy at the British Association meeting at Dover in 1899

Abstract

In September 1899, at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) in Dover, Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless telegraphy system was used to transmit messages across the English Channel (and across a national border) for the first time. This achievement represented a highly effective performance of scientific masculinity and constitutes a key turning point in an important struggle between competing interpretations of invention and innovation as masculine practices within British science. The British Association tended to favor a narrative of scientific research as a collectivist, international, gentlemanly-amateur pursuit, largely confined to the laboratory. Marconi, by contrast, explained the development of wireless telegraphy as the achievement of his own genius. Appealing not only to the established scientific elite but to a range of non-traditional audiences, and stressing the possibilities or ‘imagined uses’ of his technology even more so than his actual results, he succeeded in commanding unprecedented influence.     

Between friendship and justice: on Lincoln’s political thought

Reading Aristotle and applying his notion of philia, or political friendship, across 26 centuries sheds significant light into Abraham Lincoln’s career. It is precisely in Lincoln’s embodiment of the Aristotelian notion of friendship that we come to understand his unique greatness. Perhaps he alone of all Americans proved capable of such extraordinary feats as leading the Republican party to victory in 1860, holding the Union together through the secession crisis and four long years of bloody civil war, ending slavery without white backlash, and offering reconciliation with the incredible magnanimity expressed in the ringing phrases of the Second Inaugural address. The basis of Lincoln’s preternatural political genius proved to be his ability to comprehend all sides, a comprehension that can only come from a profound belief in the importance of friendship. Americans, Lincoln argued throughout a terrible war as he had his entire life, were not enemies but friends who shared a commitment to nature and nature’s law as expressed in the Declaration.