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In an interesting article, which recently appeared in The New Statesman, relating to the prevalence of bovine tuberculosis, the writer observes that whenever the question of tubercle in milk is raised, reassuring statements are promptly forthcoming from official sources, but apparently they are not always based upon sound knowledge. For example, the Minister of Agriculture stated in the House of Commons some months ago that the working of the Tuberculosis Order of 1925 showed that only about two per cent. of the cattle in England are affected. This statement is in all probability not only wrong, but wrong to an extent that would surprise any save those who are in touch with actual conditions. Reliable statistics tend to suggest that more than 30 per cent. of the cows in the British Islands are affected by the disease, the only exceptions to this proportion being in those herds which have been submitted regularly to the tuberculin test and from which reactors have been eliminated. The whole question is so important that no apology is needed for dealing with it here and setting out facts rather than theories. In 1924 a herd of 84 cows and 2 bulls belonging to a leading agriculturist was submitted to the tuberculin test; both bulls and 54 cows reacted. A year later, when the herd consisted of 87 cows and 2 bulls, 12 cows and 1 bull were tested for the first time. The bull and 11 cows reacted; of the remaining 75 cows and 1 bull only 7 cows reacted. In 1926 the herd consisted of 108 cows and 3 bulls; 11 cows were tested for the first time and 4 reacted. Of the remainder of the herd, consisting of 97 cows and 3 bulls, there were only 5 reactors, all cows. Many of the reactors in 1924–25–26 were slaughtered and tuberculosis was found to be present in every beast examined. There are at least four methods of testing: intradermal, ophthalmic, palpebral and subcutaneous, the subcutaneous being reliable under laboratory conditions for the first time only, because the maximum period of nonreaction to this test is not yet ascertained. It is well to remember that a tuberculous cow does not necessarily give tuberculous milk; in fact, little more than one per cent. of the cows that are afflicted with the disease have affected milk, and this is usually found where there is udder trouble. The tuberculin test is optional and at present owners are left to report suspected cases in their herds to the police. It follows in a great majority of cases that the cows they report are wasters, only fit for the knacker, who will pay 10s. to 15s. a piece for them. It is likely that a high percentage of cows in herds of standing, where the tuberculin test is not given regularly, would react to it. Under the Milk and Dairies Order of 1926, which came into operation in October of that year, sanitary authorities are required to keep registers of all persons carrying on the trade of dairykeeper or cowkeeper in their district, and all farms and other premises which are used as dairies; no man may carry on the trade of dairykeeper or cowkeeper unless he and his premises are registered. County Councils and County Borough Councils may order inspections, and a cowkeeper may not permit any cow to be removed from his premises after he has received notice that the Inspector is about to make a call. Further provisions for light, air and water made under the Order have been postponed for the benefit of the trade, but they will come into working not later than 1929. The powers of the Medical Officer of Health are considerable; if he is of opinion that anybody is suffering from an infectious disease caused by the consumption of milk supplied within the district from any registered premises, he may stop that supply until he is satisfied that there is no longer any trouble. There are in the Order many other clauses of interest to the consumer and the cowkeeper is obliged to take a large number of precautionary measures which will tend to increase rather than to diminish. Unfortunately the Milk and Dairies Act of the Ministry of Health and the Tuberculosis Order of the Ministry of Agriculture are not administered with uniformity. The local authorities up and down the country appear to vary the procedure as they think best. In these days when so great an effort is being made to promote increased consumption of milk, and when the food value of the pure article is admitted on nearly every hand, herds should be inspected regularly by a qualified veterinary surgeon, once a year at least, and certain of the present methods should be very carefully revised. To show the danger of the present procedure the following authenticated instances are interesting. Not long ago the London County Council, in accordance with the Milk and Dairies Act, took samples of milk from four distributors and caused it to be examined biologically. This examination took six weeks and in every case the milk was found to be tuberculous. The Medical Officer of the County from which the milk came was notified and he caused the herds in question to be examined and samples taken once more for biological examination. Tubercle being found, the case was handed over to the police to deal with under the Tuberculosis Order, and the Veterinary Inspector under the Contagious Diseases of Animals Act repeated the examination. In one of these four cases the London County Council notified the County Medical Officer in October, 1926, and the alleged offender among the herd was discovered by a process of elimination over a long period in April, 1927! On discovery the Veterinary Inspector condemned the beast and arrangements were being made for its slaughter when the owner produced a certificate to show that this particular cow was free from tuberculosis; it had been submitted to the tuberculin test and failed to react. A further sample was taken and the cow was pronounced healthy. In none of the four cases referred to was any cow giving tuberculous milk traced. It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. In these days, when many leading dairymen record their milk, some of them sell cows as soon as they are going out of profit and buy down‐calvers in order to keep the herd in full profit It follows that by the time the milk has been submitted to two or three biological examinations and three or four months have passed, the cow that has caused trouble may be infecting another herd. When we come to remember how closely the cows stand together in most cow houses, and how quickly, in the heated atmosphere of most of them, germs would spread, particularly in the winter, it is very easy to realise that the healthy may be infected by the sick and that many a cow may be tuberculous long before the owner has any idea that there is trouble. Something should be done to shorten procedure without rendering it ineffective, and the testing should be compulsory. At present an animal reported under the Tuberculosis Order and condemned is valued by agreement between the Local Authority and the owner of the animal, and if they fail to agree by a valuer appointed by the local authority and the owner, and the market value is assumed to be the price which might reasonably have been obtained from a purchaser in the open market who had no knowledge of any trouble other than he might have been supposed to have learned from inspection. If an animal, after being slaughtered, is found to be free from tubercle, the local authority must pay the market value plus 20s. If the animal was suffering from tuberculosis that was not in an advanced stage the local authority must pay a sum equal to three‐quarters of the market value, or 45s., whichever is the greater. If the animal was suffering from advanced tuberculosis, the compensation is one‐fourth of the market value, or 45s., whichever is the greater. This system of compensation is not found satisfactory. The owner may be honestly unaware of his cow's condition, he may even be disposed to do his best in the public interest, but when a man has any doubt as to whether he will get a fair price or not for his beast, he is extremely unlikely to submit to these examinations; he would prefer, unless the symptoms are obvious, to take the chance of selling in the open market. One of the difficulties of the position is to find the most suitable method of dealing with reactors, because the tuberculin test does not tell to what extent any animal is affected. But undoubtedly the present practice would be much improved if the control of diseases in cows were looked after by a department of the Ministry of Health, with a chief veterinary officer at its head who would be directly responsible to the Minister. All orders under the Contagious Diseases of Animals Act should be administered in the same fashion in all counties, i.e., by a veterinary officer and not by the police. Under the Dairies Acts veterinary inspection of all milk‐giving cows should be obligatory and not optional, and the full market value should be paid to owners whose cows are slaughtered under the Tuberculosis Order. The excessive delay and the duplication of procedure that is now so common should be avoided in some fashion that may be found practical by those who are best qualified to handle an extremely difficult situation. It is important that we should not deal too optimistically with the question of tuberculosis in cows. There is a big movement to increase the consumption of milk, yet there is ample evidence to lead us to believe that, outside the tested herds at least, one cow in three or four is tuberculous.

Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health officials were concerned with the relatively lower rates of uptake among certain racial/ethnic minority groups. We suggest that this may also be patterned by racial/ethnic residential segregation, which previous work has demonstrated to be an important factor for both health and access to health care.

In this study, we examine county-level vaccination rates, racial/ethnic composition, and residential segregation across the U.S. We compile data from several sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) measured at the county level.

We find that just looking at the associations between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, both percent Black and percent White are significant and negative, meaning that higher percentages of these groups in a county are associated with lower vaccination rates, whereas the opposite is the case for percent Latino. When we factor in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, the patterns change somewhat. Dissimilarity itself was not significant in the models across all groups, but when interacted with race/ethnic composition, it moderates the association. For both percent Black and percent White, the interaction with the Black-White dissimilarity index is significant and negative, meaning that it deepens the negative association between composition and the vaccination rate.

The analysis is only limited to county-level measures of racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, so we are unable to see at the individual-level who is getting vaccinated.

We find that segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, suggesting that local race relations in a county helps contextualize the compositional effects of race/ethnicity.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out among market sellers in Equatorial Guinea’s capital Malabo at the height of its oil-boom in 2010–2012, this paper explores how prices were negotiated and set. It describes how the marketplace constitutes an important institution in Guinean society, not only as a site for provisioning, but also as a space for fostering relationships, engaging in politics and seeking social justice. The case of Equatorial Guinea helps us to re-think the notion of the just price as it is established through contingent and negotiated relations between traders, their customers and powerful political actors, rather than being the outcome of supply and demand or the result of struggles over the production and reproduction of labour. The emphasis on the political dimension of the just price speaks to key debates in the moral economy literature.

In the first millennium AD when international trade brought silver coins to Madagascar, they were melted down for jewelry or cut into pieces to meet the needs of small-scale local trade. The Merina culture of the highland interior saw in the original uncut silver coin an image of completeness and perfection. Such coins became obligatory ritual offerings acknowledging the sanctity of the sovereign. “Ritual economy” is brought into fine grain relief when pieces of “all-purpose money” are used in ritual prestation and when markets become a symbol of morality indexing political legitimacy. Today traditions of the highlands have co-opted the royal offering of “uncut coins” for local ritual purposes and local ritual specialists engage in symbolic assaults on “all-purpose money.” This chapter draws upon Merina royal oral traditions, ethnohistoric accounts, and contemporary ethnographic work with Betsileo ritual specialists to argue that the poetic and the syncretic necessarily enter into discussions of the economic.

The chapter aims to evaluate the efficacy of stakeholder participation in the solid waste management system of Mauritius in view of providing a possible mechanism to attain the goals of a sustainable waste management framework.

The study employs qualitative indicators, namely, User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity of the Wasteaware Benchmark Indicators. Secondary data are used to conduct a critical and comprehensive analysis of the sub-indicators falling under each of the two main indicators to determine the overall compliance level with respect to stakeholder engagement of the waste management sector of Mauritius.

The results of the study show a LOW/MEDIUM compliance level for both User Inclusivity and Provider Inclusivity indicators, which indicates that improvement is required in the stakeholder engagement mechanism in Mauritius. The main weaknesses identified comprise of lack of an adequate legal framework with clear definition of waste types with regards to segregation, especially for non-hazardous wastes, low efficiency of sustainable waste management awareness campaigns and lack of inclusion of the informal sector. The main strengths identified consist of a proper bidding mechanism in place and a good level of equity in the provision of waste management services with respect to comingled waste collection. Suggested improvement areas include a revamping of the existing legal framework related to waste management to cater for higher inclusivity of all stakeholders together with including sustainable waste management topics in the formal education curriculum.

The User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity indicators were previously applied only to cities to measure the level of stakeholder participation, but this study has demonstrated that these indicators can also be adopted on a nation-wide level to evaluate stakeholder engagement. The use of these indicators together with secondary data presents a less time-consuming method to assess stakeholder participation in the waste sector, which can be particularly useful for Small Island Developing States.

PLR now has a long history. If our ‘Prologue’ were to recall A P Herbert, John Brophy and the Scandinavian pioneers, then in ‘Act 1’ PLR became a policy with all party support. Through the 1970s PLR was repeatedly on the parliamentary agenda: lobbying was persistent—and the interests of writers, publishers, librarians and literature were frequently in discord. Finally, PLR became a legal right of intellectual property; most inportantly—to the man in the street the idea of PLR came to seem fair and natural.

I'VE said it before, and I'll say it again: Eastbourne is an excellent place for a conference, and I set out for it after five years' absence with the hope that its handsome and genial presence would produce something better than the mixture of ordinary, obvious and sometimes inaudible papers that have been a constituent of more than one intervening conference. That towns can affect such occasions is no doubt a farfetched conceit, but they certainly affect me; as soon as I arrived the environmental magic worked, and old friends and new faces were seen in the golden light of perfect autumn weather.

This paper delves into evaluating the effectiveness of warning messages as a deterrent against excessive fat consumption. It examines how consumers perceive the fat content of food products when presented with two distinct label types: (1) a textual warning, providing succinct information about the fat content, and (2) a pictorial warning, offering a visual representation that immediately signifies the fat content.

Two quantitative studies were carried out. Study 1 employed a questionnaire to evaluate the efficacy of textual and pictorial warning messages on high- and low-fat food products. Similarly, Study 2 replicated this comparison while incorporating a neuromarketing instrument to gauge participants’ cerebral reactions.

Results indicate that pictorial warnings on high-fat foods significantly deter consumers’ purchasing intentions. Notably, these pictorial warnings stimulate the left prefrontal area of the cerebral cortex, inducing negative emotions in consumers and driving them away from high-fat food items.

While the influence of images over text in shaping consumer decisions is well understood in marketing, this study accentuates the underlying mechanism of such an impact through the elicitation of negative emotions. By understanding this emotional pathway, the paper presents fresh academic and managerial perspectives, underscoring the potency of pictorial warnings in guiding consumers towards healthier food choices.

1. Textual warnings do not seem to discourage high-fat product consumption.

2. A pictorial warning represents the fat content of an equivalent product.

3. Pictorial warnings decrease the intention to purchase a high-fat product.

4. Pictorial warnings determine an increase in negative emotions.

Textual warnings do not seem to discourage high-fat product consumption.

A pictorial warning represents the fat content of an equivalent product.

Pictorial warnings decrease the intention to purchase a high-fat product.

Pictorial warnings determine an increase in negative emotions.