Electrically switchable metallic polymer nanoantennas.

Electrical switching of a metal-to-insulator transition would provide a building block for integrated electro-optically active plasmonics. In this work, we realize plasmonic nanoantennas from metallic polymers, which show well-pronounced localized plasmon resonances in their metallic state. As a result of the electrochemically driven optical metal-to-insulator transition of the polymer, the plasmonic resonances can be electrically switched fully off and back on at video-rate frequencies of up to 30 hertz by applying alternating voltages of only ±1 volt. With the use of this concept, we demonstrate electrically switchable beam-steering metasurfaces with a 100% contrast ratio in transmission. Our approach will help to realize ultrahigh efficiency plasmonic-based integrated active optical devices, including high-resolution augmented and virtual reality technologies.

The best laid plans? Women's choices, expectations and experiences in childbirth.

The past decades have seen a drastic increase in the medicalization of childbirth, evidenced by increasing Caesarean section rates in many Western countries. In a rare moment of congruence, alternative health-care providers, feminist advocates for women's health and, most recently, mainstream medical service providers have all expressed serious concerns about the rise in Caesarean section rates and women's roles in medicalization. These concerns stem from divergent philosophical positions as well as differing assumptions about the causes for increasing medicalization. Drawing on this debate, and using a feminist and governmentality framing of the problem, we interviewed 22 women who have recently had children about their birthing choices, their expectations and their birth experiences. The women's narratives revealed a disjuncture between their expectations of choosing, planning and achieving as natural a birth as possible, and their lived experiences of births that did not typically go to plan. They also reveal the disciplining qualities of both natural and medical discourses about birth and choice. Furthermore, their narratives counter assumptions that women, as ideal patient consumers, are driving medicalization.

Women and cosmetic breast surgery: weighing the medical, social, and lifestyle risks.

In this article we provide a comparative analysis of qualitative, semistructured interviews with 24 women who had undergone different forms of cosmetic breast surgery (CBS). We argue that women must negotiate three types of risk: potential medical risks, lifestyle risks connected with choosing "frivolous" self-enhancements, and countervailing social risks affiliated with pressures to maximize one's feminine beauty. In addition, we highlight the challenges faced in negotiating these risks by examining the limits to traditional forms of medical informed consent provided to the women, who received little information on the medical risks associated with CBS, or who were given uncertain and contradictory risk information. Even respondents who felt that they were well informed expressed difficulties in making "wise" choices because the risks were distant or unlikely, and hence easily minimized. Given this, it is fairly understandable that the known social risks of "failed" beauty faced by the women often outweighed the ambiguous or understated risks outlined by medicine. We argue that traditional notions of informed consent and risk awareness might not be adequate for women choosing CBS.

Reflexive journaling on emotional research topics: ethical issues for team researchers.

Traditional epistemological concerns in qualitative research focus on the effects of researchers' values and emotions on choices of research topics, power relations with research participants, and the influence of researcher standpoints on data collection and analysis. However, the research process also affects the researchers' values, emotions, and standpoints. Drawing on reflexive journal entries of assistant researchers involved in emotionally demanding team research, this article explores issues of emotional fallout for research team members, the implications of hierarchical power imbalances on research teams, and the importance of providing ethical opportunities for reflexive writing about the challenges of doing emotional research. Such reflexive approaches ensure the emotional safety of research team members and foster opportunities for emancipatory consciousness among research team members.

Medicalization, ambivalence and social control: mothers' descriptions of educators and ADD/ADHD.

Conrad notes that non-medical personnel often accomplish the routine, everyday work of medicalization. This is particularly so in the case of Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder, where teachers, special educators and school psychologists identify, assess and administer medication to 'problematic' children. Drawing on data from interviews with Canadian and British mothers of ADD/ADHD children, this article explores mothers' perceptions of educators' roles in medicalizing children who are different, comparing medicalization in two divergent sites. In Canada, where ADD/ADHD is a highly medicalized phenomenon, and teachers have few alternative forms of social control available to them in classrooms, it appears that educators are prepared to identify problem children and press for medical treatment with remarkable vigor. In Britain, where medicalization remains incomplete, and where teachers and special educators have more stringent alternative forms of social control available to them, educators were often described as gatekeepers who will refuse the label or to administer medication.