The anatomy of written scam communications: An empirical analysis

This paper examines the interactional construction of written scam communications. It draws on an empirical corpus of 52 envelopes containing letters and leaflets designed to deceive recipients into parting with their money or personal details, and presents the analysis of eight extracts in illustrating the findings. This research draws on interactional methodologies to provide in-depth insights into the underlying techniques used in scams, and to identify a wider framework that accommodates and facilitates their effect. It explores and exposes what elements of the scammers’ communicative efforts are enlisted and directed towards the performance of particular acts such as inferring legitimacy and credibility, and inspiring urgency and secrecy. These elements combine to perform a range of highly effective communicative acts that, although the communication is mass-produced with no knowledge of the recipient other than a name and address, result in the exploitation of their individual vulnerability in a highly personalised manner

Crowd behaviour in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) emergencies: behavioural and psychological responses to incidents involving emergency decontamination

Planning for incidents involving mass decontamination has focused almost exclusively on technical aspects of decontamination, with little attempt to understand public experiences and behaviour. This thesis aimed to examine relevant theory and research, in order to understand public behaviour during incidents involving mass decontamination, and to develop theoretically-derived recommendations for emergency responders. As these incidents involve groups, it was expected that social identity processes would play an important role in public responses. A review of small-scale incidents involving decontamination is presented, along with a review of decontamination guidance documents for emergency responders. This literature shows that responder communication strategies play an important role in public experiences and behaviour, but that the importance of communication is not reflected in guidance documents. Theories of mass emergency behaviour, in particular the social identity approach, are reviewed, in order to generate hypotheses and recommendations for the management of incidents involving mass decontamination. It is hypothesised that effective responder communication will increase public compliance and cooperation, and reduce anxiety, mediated by social identity variables (e.g. perceptions of responder legitimacy, identification with emergency responders and other members of public, and collective agency). The empirical research presented in this thesis tests the hypotheses and recommendations derived from the social identity approach. The research includes: a responder interview study; three studies of volunteer feedback from field exercises; a visualisation experiment; and a mass decontamination field experiment. Findings show that effective responder communication consistently results in increased willingness to comply with decontamination, and increased public cooperation; this relationship is mediated by social identity variables. Results support the hypotheses, and show that an understanding of the social identity approach facilitates the development of effective responder communication strategies for incidents involving mass decontamination. Four theoretically-derived, and evidence-based, recommendations for emergency responders are generated as a result of this thesis

Dracula: The Anti-Vaccination Movement and Urban Life in Victorian England

Often, scholars examine Dracula through the lens of sexual dangers and exploits; however, there is another avenue that deserves investigation. Dracula: The Anti-Vaccination Movement and Urban Life in Victorian England examines the relationship between Bram Stoker\u27s Dracula and the anti-vaccination movement in Victorian England. In particular, this paper focuses on Stoker\u27s commentary on Victorian England\u27s vaccination movement throughout the pages of his work

Masters v Cameron – Again!

Since 1986 many Australian courts have accepted that there exists a fourth category of Masters v Cameron. In 2004 the authors published an article criticising this development. That article was the subject of a reply by David McLauchlan in which he defended the fourth category on the basis that it allowed for the enforcement of an agreement to agree which he thought was a welcome development. This present article is a comment on Professor McLauchlan's paper and argues that the adoption of the fourth category has conflated an issue of construction – the meaning of 'subject to contract' when used in an agreement – with an issue of fact, namely, whether the parties intend to be bound

Laughing matters: A conversation analytic account the use of laughter by suspects and officers in the police interview

This conversation analytic research uses police interviews as data in investigating the role of laughter by police officers and suspects in managing aspects of police interviews. Laughter in the institutional context of the police interview has not been subject to extensive research in this field, unlike that of ordinary conversation. The two-tiered approach to the analysis finds the basic actions performed by the laughter (such as in response to a ridiculous comment in the prior turn) are uniform across participants. Attention is then given to the way it is used, on a secondary level, in differing ways by the participants. The suspect uses laughter to support his/her position, for instance that of innocence, or to deflect contradiction of the officer. On the part of the officer, laughter is used to frame a ‘time out’ from the constraints he/she is operating under. This highlights the tailoring of the way laughter is used according to the role played in the police interview

When is a lie not a lie? When it’s divergent: Examining lies and deceptive responses in a police interview

Using UK police interviews as data, this empirical work seeks to explore and explain the interactional phenomena that accompany, distinguish, and are drawn upon by suspects in performing deceptive talk. It explores the effects of the myriad and often conflicting interactional requirements of turntaking, preference organisation and conversational maxims on the suspect’s talk, alongside the practical interactional choices of a suspect attempting to avoid revealing his guilt. This paper reveals a close link between the officer’s and suspect’s interaction and the patterned organisation of an assortment of divergent utterances produced in response to probing questions that follow a lie. The findings expose a hierarchical interactional order that explains the diverse and conflicting accounts of cues to deception in this field, suggesting that interactional phenomena are systematically enlisted in the orientating to, and the violation of interactional organisation which enables the suspect to produce utterances that protect his position, and can also be directed towards the performance of wider objectives such as reinforcing a claim of innocence or supporting a version of events

Establishing a three-dimensional organoid model of primary breast cancer for assessing effects of oncolytic virotherapy

Although several oncolytic viruses have already been tested in early-stage clinical studies of breast cancer, there is still an urgent need to develop patient-derived experimental systems that mimic the response of breast cancer to oncolytic agents in preparation of testing different oncolytic viruses in clinical trials. We addressed this need by developing a protocol to study the effects of oncolytic viruses in stable organoid cell cultures derived from breast cancer tissue and control tissue. We used an established three-dimensional organoid model derived from tissue of 10 patients with primary breast cancer. Furthermore, we established an organoid model derived from healthy control tissue from 6 patients. We developed an experimental protocol for infecting organoid cultures with oncolytic viruses and compared the oncolytic effects of a measles vaccine virus (MeV) and a vaccinia virus (GLV) genetically engineered to express either green fluorescent protein (MeV-GFP) and red fluorescent protein (GLV-0b347), respectively, or a suicide gene encoding a fusion of cytosine deaminase with uracil phosphoribosyltransferase (MeV-SCD and GLV-1h94, respectively), thereby enabling enzymatic conversion of the prodrug 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC) into cytotoxic compounds 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and 5-fluorouridine monophosphate (5-FUMP). The method demonstrated that all four oncolytic viruses significantly inhibited cell viability in organoid cultures derived from breast cancer tissue. The oncolytic effects of the oncolytic viruses expressing suicide genes (MeV-SCD and GLV-1h94) were further enhanced by virus-triggered conversion of the prodrug 5-FC to toxic 5-FU and toxic 5-FUMP. The model therefore provides a promising in vitro method to help further testing and engineering of new generations of virotherapeutic vectors for in vivo use

The dielectric properties of simple polar liquids at millimetre wavelengths

Previous methods of determining the complex permittivity, e* = e' - je", at millimetre wavelengths are reviewed, and at a wavelength of 0.848cms six different ways of determining this quantity from the experimental observations are compared. It is found that the method first described by Fatuzzo and Mason is the most suitable for determining the temperature variation of the complex permittivity at wavelengths of and 0.435cms, and the three sets of apparatus are adapted to cut down experimental errors to a minimum. The complex permittivity, for several simple liquids, is determined at each of the three wavelengths over a temperature range from 50aC down to the freezing point of the liquid The static permittivity Es and the refractive index at the Sodium-D line nD are also measured over this same temperature range. Assuming that the dispersion of E* is given by Debye's equations, then, knowing the static permittivity and the experimental value of E* at one other wavelength, the permittivity at the high frequency end of the dispersion curve E-infinity and the critical wavelength lambdac can "be calculated. Using the value of E* at each of the three experimental wavelengths in turn, three different values for E-infinity and lambdac at each temperature are calculated. The value of E-infinity and lambdac at 3.332cms are taken as the correct values, and the deviation of the values at the other two wavelengths from this value noted. This deviation is to smaller values of E-infinity and lambdac as the wavelength shortens and the deviation increases with decreasing 'temperature. This type of deviation is explained by the presence of a second absorption band centered at sub-millimetre wavelengths. By considering the amount of the deviation and the difference E-infinity - N&phis;2 as compared with ES - N&phis;2 it is concluded that; the second absorption band is due to a resonance absorption, rather than a Debye type absorption, and having a resonant frequency which decreases slightly with increasing temperature.<p