"The biggest gang"? Police and people in the 2011 England riots

Conflict with the police is a staple of civil disorder and the English riots of 2011 were no exception. The antagonism towards the police expressed by the rioters varied in intensity – from a low-level anger stemming from occasional negative experiences on the one hand to outright, visceral hostility on the other – but was visible everywhere riots took place. Leading politicians dismissed this hostility as nothing more than the typical wariness criminals have of the police. Indeed, it is undoubtedly the case that the police are an easy target for rioters seeking to explain away their conduct. Nevertheless, drawing on 270 interviews with people involved in the riots this paper shows that for some involved the police were a very deliberate and specific focus of anger and resentment. The basis of such feelings was complex and variable, but included historically poor relations between the police and particular communities, an inherited distrust of the police as an institution, to more particular and immediate experiences of mistreatment and prejudice – often coalescing around the perceived misuse of police powers such as stop and search

'The Biggest Gang'? Police and people in the 2011 England riots

Conflict with the police is a staple of civil disorder and the English riots of 2011 were no exception. The antagonism towards the police expressed by the rioters varied in intensity – from a low-­‐level anger stemming from occasional negative experiences on the one hand to outright, visceral hostility on the other – but was visible everywhere riots took place. Leading politicians dismissed this hostility as nothing more than the typical wariness criminals have of the police. Indeed, it is undoubtedly the case that the police are an easy target for rioters seeking to explain away their conduct. Nevertheless, drawing on 270 interviews with people involved in the riots this paper shows that for some involved the police were a very deliberate and specific focus of anger and resentment. The basis of such feelings was complex and variable, but included historically poor relations between the police and particular communities, an inherited distrust of the police as an institution, to more particular and immediate experiences of mistreatment and prejudice – often coalescing around the perceived misuse of police powers such as stop and search

"The best three days of my life”: pleasure, power and alienation in the 2011 riots

This article considers one the less frequently elements of riots: the emotions to which they give rise. Based on testimony from interviews with people who took part in the 2011 England riots, it explores the curiosity which drew many onto the streets, the excitement and the fear involved in such quickly unfolding and unpredictable events, the impunity that many felt being part of such large crowds together with the sense of ‘empowerment’ many experienced as a consequence of their involvement. The article suggests that a number of concepts regularly deployed within cultural criminology – most obviously ‘carnival’ and ‘edgework’ - are useful in understanding elements of the emotional world of the riot. More fundamentally, however, it is argued that what the accounts describe more than aanything else is a pervading sense of ‘alienation’ among many of those involved in the disorder

A Review of Lithium-Ion Battery Fire Suppression

Lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) are a proven technology for energy storage systems, mobile electronics, power tools, aerospace, automotive and maritime applications. LiBs have attracted interest from academia and industry due to their high power and energy densities compared to other battery technologies. Despite the extensive usage of LiBs, there is a substantial fire risk associated with their use which is a concern, especially when utilised in electric vehicles, aeroplanes, and submarines. This review presents LiB hazards, techniques for mitigating risks, the suppression of LiB fires and identification of shortcomings for future improvement. Water is identified as an efficient cooling and suppressing agent and water mist is considered the most promising technique to extinguish LiB fires. In the initial stages, the present review covers some relevant information regarding the material constitution and configuration of the cell assemblies, and phenomenological evolution of the thermal runaway reactions, which in turn can potentially lead to flaming combustion of cells and battery assemblies. This is followed by short descriptions of various active fire control agents to suppress fires involving LiBs in general, and water as a superior extinguishing medium in particular. In the latter parts of the review, the phenomena associated with water mist suppression of LiB fires are comprehensively reviewed

The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of respite for caregivers of frail older people

The proportion of frail elderly people in the industrialized world is increasing. Respite care is a potentially important way of maintaining the quality of life for these people and their caregivers. The objective of this systematic review was to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different models of community-based respite care for frail older people and their caregivers. To identify relevant studies, 37 databases were searched, and reference checking and citation searches were undertaken. Well-controlled effectiveness studies were eligible for inclusion, with uncontrolled studies admissible only in the absence of higher-quality evidence. Studies assessed the effect of community-based respite on caregivers of frail elderly people relative to usual care or to another support intervention. Eligible economic evaluations also addressed costs. Where appropriate, data were synthesized using standard meta-analytic techniques. Ten randomized, controlled trials, seven quasi-experimental studies and five uncontrolled studies were included in the review. For all types of respite, the effects upon caregivers were generally small, with better-controlled studies finding modest benefits only for certain subgroups, although many studies reported high levels of caregiver satisfaction. No reliable evidence was found that respite care delays entry to residential care or adversely affects frail older people. The economic evaluations all assessed day care, which tended to be associated with similar or higher costs than usual care. Given the increasing numbers of frail elderly people and the lack of up-to-date, good-quality evidence for all types of respite care, better-quality evidence is urgently needed to inform current policy and practice

Axial Higgs Mode Detected by Quantum Pathway Interference in RTe3

The observation of the Higgs boson solidified the standard model of particle physics. However, explanations of anomalies (e.g. dark matter) rely on further symmetry breaking calling for an undiscovered axial Higgs mode. In condensed matter the Higgs was seen in magnetic, superconducting and charge density wave(CDW) systems. Uncovering a low energy mode's vector properties is challenging, requiring going beyond typical spectroscopic or scattering techniques. Here, we discover an axial Higgs mode in the CDW system RTe3 using the interference of quantum pathways. In RTe3 (R=La,Gd), the electronic ordering couples bands of equal or different angular momenta. As such, the Raman scattering tensor associated to the Higgs mode contains both symmetric and antisymmetric components, which can be excited via two distinct, but degenerate pathways. This leads to constructive or destructive interference of these pathways, depending on the choice of the incident and Raman scattered light polarization. The qualitative behavior of the Raman spectra is well-captured by an appropriate tight-binding model including an axial Higgs mode. The elucidation of the antisymmetric component provides direct evidence that the Higgs mode contains an axial vector representation (i.e. a pseudo-angular momentum) and hints the CDW in RTe3 is unconventional. Thus we provide a means for measuring collective modes quantum properties without resorting to extreme experimental conditions

Engineering Anomalously Large Electron Transport in Topological Semimetals

Anomalous transport of topological semimetals has generated significant interest for applications in optoelectronics, nanoscale devices, and interconnects. Understanding the origin of novel transport is crucial to engineering the desired material properties, yet their orders of magnitude higher transport than single-particle mobilities remain unexplained. This work demonstrates the dramatic mobility enhancements result from phonons primarily returning momentum to electrons due to phonon-electron dominating over phonon-phonon scattering. Proving this idea, proposed by Peierls in 1932, requires tuning electron and phonon dispersions without changing symmetry, topology, or disorder. This is achieved by combining de Haas - van Alphen (dHvA), electron transport, Raman scattering, and first-principles calculations in the topological semimetals MX$_2$ (M=Nb, Ta and X=Ge, Si). Replacing Ge with Si brings the transport mobilities from an order magnitude larger than single particle ones to nearly balanced. This occurs without changing the crystal structure or topology and with small differences in disorder or Fermi surface. Simultaneously, Raman scattering and first-principles calculations establish phonon-electron dominated scattering only in the MGe$_2$ compounds. Thus, this study proves that phonon-drag is crucial to the transport properties of topological semimetals and provides insight to further engineer these materials.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Oralism: a sign of the times? The contest for deaf communication in education provision in late nineteenth-century Scotland

Disability history is a diverse field. In focussing upon children within deaf education in late nineteenth-century Scotland, this essay reflects some of that diversity. In 1880, the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf in Milan stipulated that speech should have ‘preference’ over signs in the education of deaf children. The mode of achieving this, however, effectively banned sign language. Endeavours to teach deaf children to articulate were not new, but this decision placed pressures on deaf institutions to favour the oral system of deaf communication over other methods. In Scotland efforts were made to adopt oralism, and yet educators were faced with the reality that this was not good educational practice for most pupils. This article will consider responses of Scottish educators of deaf children from the 1870s until the beginning of the twentieth century