1,156 research outputs found
A "superstorm": When moral panic and new risk discourses converge in the media
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Health, Risk and Society, 15(6), 681-698, 2013, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13698575.2013.851180.There has been a proliferation of risk discourses in recent decades but studies of these have been polarised, drawing either on moral panic or new risk frameworks to analyse journalistic discourses. This article opens the theoretical possibility that the two may co-exist and converge in the same scare. I do this by bringing together more recent developments in moral panic thesis, with new risk theory and the concept of media logic. I then apply this theoretical approach to an empirical analysis of how and with what consequences moral panic and new risk type discourses converged in the editorials of four newspaper campaigns against GM food policy in Britain in the late 1990s. The article analyses 112 editorials published between January 1998 and December 2000, supplemented with news stories where these were needed for contextual clarity. This analysis shows that not only did this novel food generate intense media and public reactions; these developed in the absence of the type of concrete details journalists usually look for in risk stories. Media logic is important in understanding how journalists were able to engage and hence how a major scare could be constructed around convergent moral panic and new risk type discourses. The result was a media âsuperstormâ of sustained coverage in which both types of discourse converged in highly emotive mutually reinforcing ways that resonated in a highly sensitised context. The consequence was acute anxiety, social volatility and the potential for the disruption of policy and social change
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Phenotypic heterogeneity and genetic modification of P102L inherited prion disease in an international series
The largest kindred with inherited prion disease P102L, historically Gerstmann-StrÀussler-Scheinker syndrome, originates from central England, with émigrés now resident in various parts of the English-speaking world. We have collected data from 84 patients in the large UK kindred and numerous small unrelated pedigrees to investigate phenotypic heterogeneity and modifying factors. This collection represents by far the largest series of P102L patients so far reported. Microsatellite and genealogical analyses of eight separate European kindreds support multiple distinct mutational events at a cytosine-phosphate diester-guanidine dinucleotide mutation hot spot. All of the smaller P102L kindreds were linked to polymorphic human prion protein gene codon 129M and were not connected by genealogy or microsatellite haplotype background to the large kindred or each other. While many present with classical Gerstmann-StrÀussler-Scheinker syndrome, a slowly progressive cerebellar ataxia with later onset cognitive impairment, there is remarkable heterogeneity. A subset of patients present with prominent cognitive and psychiatric features and some have met diagnostic criteria for sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. We show that polymorphic human prion protein gene codon 129 modifies age at onset: the earliest eight clinical onsets were all MM homozygotes and overall age at onset was 7 years earlier for MM compared with MV heterozygotes (P = 0.02). Unexpectedly, apolipoprotein E4 carriers have a delayed age of onset by 10 years (P = 0.02). We found a preponderance of female patients compared with males (54 females versus 30 males, P = 0.01), which probably relates to ascertainment bias. However, these modifiers had no impact on a semi-quantitative pathological phenotype in 10 autopsied patients. These data allow an appreciation of the range of clinical phenotype, modern imaging and molecular investigation and should inform genetic counselling of at-risk individuals, with the identification of two genetic modifiers
Finite-Size Scaling of the Domain Wall Entropy Distributions for the 2D Ising Spin Glass
The statistics of domain walls for ground states of the 2D Ising spin glass
with +1 and -1 bonds are studied for square lattices with , and = 0.5, where is the fraction of negative bonds, using periodic
and/or antiperiodic boundary conditions. When is even, almost all domain
walls have energy = 0 or 4. When is odd, most domain walls have
= 2. The probability distribution of the entropy, , is found
to depend strongly on . When , the probability distribution
of is approximately exponential. The variance of this distribution
is proportional to , in agreement with the results of Saul and Kardar. For
the distribution of is not symmetric about zero. In
these cases the variance still appears to be linear in , but the average of
grows faster than . This suggests a one-parameter scaling
form for the -dependence of the distributions of for .Comment: 13 page
Far-infrared photo-conductivity of electrons in an array of nano-structured antidots
We present far-infrared (FIR) photo-conductivity measurements for a
two-dimensional electron gas in an array of nano-structured antidots. We
detect, resistively and spectrally resolved, both the magnetoplasmon and the
edge-magnetoplasmon modes. Temperature-dependent measurements demonstrates that
both modes contribute to the photo resistance by heating the electron gas via
resonant absorption of the FIR radiation. Influences of spin effect and phonon
bands on the collective excitations in the antidot lattice are observed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Preparing to work: dramaturgy, cynicism and normative âremoteâ control in the socialization of graduate recruits in management consulting
online) This paper examines the socialization of graduate recruits into a knowledge intensive labour
process and organizational culture. Theoretically the paper draws upon the idea of âpreparing
for workâ to position this early socialization as a crucial moment in the production of
subjectivities suited (and booted) for the labour process of management consulting. Empirically
the paper reports on a two-day induction session for new graduate recruits joining a global
management consultancy and their responses to this training. Particular attention is given to
the use of role-play and a dramaturgical workshop used in part of the training process. The paper
argues that the utilization of dramaturgy in training is consistent with the overall approach to
control developed in the firm in response to the fact that the labour process of consulting is
often conducted on client sites, away from any direct supervisory gaze. As such, the consultants
were subjected to a form of cultural control that was designed to function independently of
direct supervision. This control did not operate directly upon the new employees professed
values, however, but at one step removed so that a âcynical distanceâ from the content of the
organizationâs culture was accepted so long as a professional âethic of behaviourâ was
established. By focusing on an âethic of behaviourâ these young professionals were encouraged
to internalize a self-control akin to that of an actor, rather than internalizing the corporate values
entirely
Magneto infra-red absorption in high electronic density GaAs quantum wells
Magneto infra-red absorption measurements have been performed in a highly
doped GaAs quantum well which has been lifted off and bonded to a silicon
substrate, in order to study the resonant polaron interaction. It is found that
the pinning of the cyclotron energy occurs at an energy close to that of the
transverse optical phonon of GaAs. This unexpected result is explained by a
model taking into account the full dielectric constant of the quantum well.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
ASCORE: an up-to-date cardiovascular risk score for hypertensive patients reflecting contemporary clinical practice developed using the (ASCOT-BPLA) trial data.
A number of risk scores already exist to predict cardiovascular (CV) events. However, scores developed with data collected some time ago might not accurately predict the CV risk of contemporary hypertensive patients that benefit from more modern treatments and management. Using data from the randomised clinical trial Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial-BPLA, with 15â955 hypertensive patients without previous CV disease receiving contemporary preventive CV management, we developed a new risk score predicting the 5-year risk of a first CV event (CV death, myocardial infarction or stroke). Cox proportional hazard models were used to develop a risk equation from baseline predictors. The final risk model (ASCORE) included age, sex, smoking, diabetes, previous blood pressure (BP) treatment, systolic BP, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, fasting glucose and creatinine baseline variables. A simplified model (ASCORE-S) excluding laboratory variables was also derived. Both models showed very good internal validity. User-friendly integer score tables are reported for both models. Applying the latest Framingham risk score to our data significantly overpredicted the observed 5-year risk of the composite CV outcome. We conclude that risk scores derived using older databases (such as Framingham) may overestimate the CV risk of patients receiving current BP treatments; therefore, 'updated' risk scores are needed for current patients
Follow-up of blood-pressure lowering and glucose control in type 2 diabetes.
BACKGROUND
In the Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease: Preterax and Diamicron Modified Release Controlled Evaluation (ADVANCE) factorial trial, the combination of perindopril and indapamide reduced mortality among patients with type 2 diabetes, but intensive glucose control, targeting a glycated hemoglobin level of less than 6.5%, did not. We now report results of the 6-year post-trial follow-up.
METHODS
We invited surviving participants, who had previously been assigned to perindoprilâindapamide or placebo and to intensive or standard glucose control (with the glucose-control comparison extending for an additional 6 months), to participate in a post-trial follow-up evaluation. The primary end points were death from any cause and major macrovascular events.
RESULTS
The baseline characteristics were similar among the 11,140 patients who originally underwent randomization and the 8494 patients who participated in the post-trial follow-up for a median of 5.9 years (blood-pressureâlowering comparison) or 5.4 years (glucose-control comparison). Between-group differences in blood pressure and glycated hemoglobin levels during the trial were no longer evident by the first post-trial visit. The reductions in the risk of death from any cause and of death from cardiovascular causes that had been observed in the group receiving active blood-pressureâlowering treatment during the trial were attenuated but significant at the end of the post-trial follow-up; the hazard ratios were 0.91 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.84 to 0.99; P=0.03) and 0.88 (95% CI, 0.77 to 0.99; P=0.04), respectively. No differences were observed during follow-up in the risk of death from any cause or major macrovascular events between the intensive-glucose-control group and the standard-glucose-control group; the hazard ratios were 1.00 (95% CI, 0.92 to 1.08) and 1.00 (95% CI, 0.92 to 1.08), respectively.
CONCLUSIONS
The benefits with respect to mortality that had been observed among patients originally assigned to blood-pressureâlowering therapy were attenuated but still evident at the end of follow-up. There was no evidence that intensive glucose control during the trial led to long-term benefits with respect to mortality or macrovascular events
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