Millbank tendency: the strengths and limitations of mediated protest ‘events’ in UK student activism cycles

UK students’ desire to create disruptive, media-friendly ‘events’ during the 2010-11 protests against fees and cuts is reflective of wider cycles and processes in student activism history. First, constant cohort turnover restricts students’ ability to convert campaigns into durable movements, necessitating that they must periodically ‘start from scratch’. This informs a second process, namely the need to gain the attention of mainstream media, as this can potentially amplify students’ grievances far beyond their own organisational capacities. Both have shaped student activism over the past fifty years, compelling contemporary students to create protest events that live up to their radical history. These processes were evident in autumn 2010, when an NUS demonstration saw students attack and briefly occupy Conservative Party headquarters at 30 Millbank. The protest’s mass mediation was central to activists’ ‘eventing’ processes, and provided the spark for the radical UK-wide campaign that followed. Yet once the fees bill was passed by Parliament, students’ dependency on mainstream media cycles was quickly exposed. With ‘mediatization’ tendencies having dogged student activism since the sixties, this article argues that creating ‘events’ epitomises students’ longstanding strengths and limitations as society’s ‘incipient intelligentsia’ (Rootes, 1980: 475)

Bridging big data in the ENIGMA consortium to combine non-equivalent cognitive measures

Data availability: Raw data are available upon reasonable request pending appropriate study approvals and data transfer agreements between participating institutions. Interested researchers should contact Emily Dennis ([email protected]). Code used for analysis and online tool creation are available upon request.Investigators in neuroscience have turned to Big Data to address replication and reliability issues by increasing sample size. These efforts unveil new questions about how to integrate data across distinct sources and instruments. The goal of this study was to link scores across common auditory verbal learning tasks (AVLTs). This international secondary analysis aggregated multisite raw data for AVLTs across 53 studies totaling 10,505 individuals. Using the ComBat-GAM algorithm, we isolated and removed the component of memory scores associated with site effects while preserving instrumental effects. After adjustment, a continuous item response theory model used multiple memory items of varying difficulty to estimate each individual’s latent verbal learning ability on a single scale. Equivalent raw scores across AVLTs were then found by linking individuals through the ability scale. Harmonization reduced total cross-site score variance by 37% while preserving meaningful memory effects. Age had the largest impact on scores overall (− 11.4%), while race/ethnicity variable was not significant (p > 0.05). The resulting tools were validated on dually administered tests. The conversion tool is available online so researchers and clinicians can convert memory scores across instruments. This work demonstrates that global harmonization initiatives can address reproducibility challenges across the behavioral sciences.Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Instituto de Salud Carlos III: PI15-00852, PI18-00945, JR19-00024, PI17-00481, PI20-00721, Sara Borrell contract (CD19-00149); European Union: NextGenerationEU (PMP21/00051), PI19/01024, Structural Funds, Seventh Framework Program, H2020 Program under the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking: Project PRISM-2 (Grant agreement No.101034377), Project AIMS-2-TRIALS (Grant agreement No 777394), Horizon Europe; National Institutes of Health: U01MH124639, P50MH115846, R01MH113827, R25MH080663, K08MH068540, R01NS100973, R01EB006841, P20GM103472, RO1MH083553, T32MH019535, R01 HD061504, RO1MH083553, R01AG050595, R01AG076838, R01AG060470, R01AG064955, P01AG055367, K23MH095661, R01MH094524, R01MH121246, T32MH019535, R01NS124585, R01NS122827, R61NS120249, R01NS122184, U54EB020403, R01MH116147, R56AG058854, P41EB015922, R01MH111671, P41RR14075, M01RR01066, R01EB006841, R01EB005846, R01 EB000840, RC1MH089257, U24 RR021992, NCRR 5 month-RR001066 (MGH General Clinical Research Center); NSF: 2112455; Madrid Regional Government: B2017/BMD-3740 AGES-CM-2; Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation; Research Nova Scotia, RNS-NHIG-2021-1931; US Department of Defense: Award # AZ150145; US Department of Veterans Affairs: 1I01RX003444; NJ Commission on TBI Research Grants: CBIR11PJT020, CBIR13IRG026: Department of Psychology, University of Oslo; Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital: HF F32NS119285; Canadian Institutes of Health Research: Grant 166098; Neurological Foundation of New Zealand; Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, University of Otago. Biogen US, Investigator-initiated grant; Italian Ministry of Health: RF-2019-12370182, Ricerca Corrente RC 23; National Institute on Aging: National Health and Medical Research Council, Investigator Grant APP1176426; PA Health Research: Grant SAP #4100077082 to Dr. Hillary; La Caixa Foundation, ID: 100010434, fellowship code: LCF/BQ/PR22/11920017; Research Council of Norway: 248238; Health Research Council of New Zealand: Sir Charles Hercus Early Career Development (17/039), 14-440; South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, 2018076; Norwegian ExtraFoundation for Health and Rehabilitation: 2015/ FO5146, 2015044; Stiftelsen K.G. Jebsen, SKGJ MED-02; German Research Foundation: DFG grant FOR2107 to Andreas Jansen, JA 1890/7-1, JA 1890/7-2, DFG grant FOR2107 to Igor Nenadić, NE2254/1-2,NE2254/3-1,NE2254/4-1, DFG grant FOR2107, KI588/14-1 and FOR2107, KI588/14-2, DFG, grant FOR2107 DA1151/5-1 and DA1151/5-2, SFB-TRR58, Projects C09 and Z02; Central Norway Regional Health Authority (RHA) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); National Health and Medical Research Council: APP1020526; Brain Foundation, Wicking Trust, Collie Trust, Sidney and Fiona Myer Family Foundation. U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC): Award #13129004; Department of Energy: DE- FG02-99ER62764: Mind Research Network, National Association for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders: Young Investigator Award, Blowitz Ridgeway and Essel Foundations, NOW ZonMw TOP 91211021, UCLA Easton Clinic for Brain Health, UCLA Brain Injury Research Center, Stan and Patty Silver, Clinical and Translational Research Center: UL1RR033176, UL1TR000124; Mount Sinai Institute for NeuroAIDS Disparities, VA Rehab SPIRE, CDMRP PRAP, VA RR&D IK2RX002922, Veski Fellowship, Femino Foundation grant, Fundación Familia Alonso, Fundación Alicia Koplowitz, CIBERSAM, Madrid Regional Government (B2017/BMD-3740 AGES-CM-2), 2019R1C1C1002457, 21-BR-03-01, 2020M3E5D9079910, 21-BR-03-01, Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research (IZKF) of the medical faculty of Münster