Scientific and technological innovation continues at a rapid pace, but the public is increasingly aware of possible risks and demanding greater involvement in decisions about new technologies. This edited volume brings together leading social scientists who address recent evidence and debates about public engagement and trust in experts. The chapters consider different methods of public consultation and 'deliberation' in relation to a variety of new technologies, including genetically modified foods, mobile telecommunications, nanotechnology, and hydrogen energy.

Using a variety of evidence the author documents the rise of general management, the application of new techniques to reduce medical costs and improve efficiency, and other methods to control use and evaluate clinical performance.

Using a variety of evidence in the health management field, the author documents the rise of general management, the application of new techniques to reduce medical costs and improve efficiency, and other methods of controlling, using and evaluating clinical performance. The impact and significance of these developments is discussed and illustrated in detail by means of original case study material and interview data about managerial strategies of rationalization and retrenchment. Rob Flynn describes new systems of monitoring, regulation and surveillance applied to doctors and health workers, and argues that these threaten established power relations and institutional arrangements, by elevating managerial concepts for efficiency above professional definitions of need and citizenship demands for unrestricted access on the basis of need. Measures to create an internal market in the NHS are also analyzed, and the author argues that current trends will intensify managerial influence and undermine professional medical power. The contradictions and complexities of changes in structures of control in the NHS are examined in connection with critical assessments of theories about state rest

Our everyday lives are inevitably touched-and immeasurably enriched-by an extraordinary variety of miniature forms of verbal communication, from classified ads to street signs, and from yesterday's graffito to tomorrow's headline. Celebrating our long history of compact speech, Short Cuts offers a well-researched and vibrantly written account of this unsung corner of the linguistic world, inspiring a new appreciation of the wondrously varied forms of our briefest exchanges. Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, and Rob Flynn here shed light on an ever-growing field of minimalist genres, ranging from the bank robbery note to the billboard, from the curse hurled from a car window (or the Senate floor) to the suicide note, and from the ghost-word to the ring tone. The book is divided into ten sections, such as In the Dictionary(discussing such topics as the Wiktionary, Dords, Sniglets, and Mountweazels), In and Out of Trouble(error messages, weasel words, the pre-nup), and OEn the Lam(ransom notes, wanted posters, APBs). The authors look at the comic strip's maladicta balloon and the dinner-interrupter's robocalls, the advice column and the obit, and the many ways your personal appearance tells us who you are, from the message on your gimme cap to the tattoo with your S.O.'s name on your ankle. Uncovering the elegance, the humour, and the unspoken implications in these fleeting communications, this book provides a satisfying thoroughness and an abundance of connections that unravel how the oath became the swearword and the calling card morphed into the tweet. And of course, no treatment of short-form communication would be complete without investigating the structures, components, and etiquette of instant messaging. For readers who love language and enjoy rummaging through the cultural baggage that comes with it, Short Cuts gathers an engaging sampler of the most delightful and cogent-and above all brief-forms of contemporary English.

This edited volume brings together leading social scientists who address recent evidence and debates about public engagement and trust in experts. The chapters consider different methods of public consultation for a variety of new technologies, including genetically modified foods, mobile telecommunications, nanotechnology, and hydrogen energy.

Sweeping changes have taken place in many parts of the world in the provision and organisation of health care, welfare and other 'public' services. The UK's National Health Service (NHS) has been a prime example of this. This multi-disciplinary collection of essays reviews recent evidence from a major research programme, commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ERSC), into the evolution and impact of contracting in the NHS. Each chapter examines a particular aspect of health and social care, including competition between hospitals and the effects of GP fundholding, and discusses the important theoretical implication of experience in the NHS quasi-market. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary debate surrounding the issues.