Falwell v. Flynt: Lampooning or Liability; The Realization of a Three-Pronged Tort Approach for Establishing Media Liability for Fictional Defamation

This article will discuss the appellate court\u27s interpretation and application of the three tort theories of liability. It will also analyze the potential floodgate effect this case may have on future defamation actions against the media for publishing fictional publications, including political cartoons

Using newspaper content analysis to understand media representations of health issues and inform improved health policy advocacy

The mass media represent a powerful societal institution that reflects and shapes the social, cultural and political world. Within health research, media content analysis is an increasingly popular tool for examining how the media represent, and potentially influence, audiences’ understandings of health. This submission comprises eight published papers analysing UK news media representations of health issues and policies, and an explanatory essay. The essay seeks to contextualise the papers within relevant theoretical literatures and demonstrate the papers’ original contributions, both individually and collectively, to knowledge in health communication and policy advocacy. The analytical developments between the submitted papers are contextualised within literatures on the mass media, media research and policymaking, each of which is has been a site of paradigmatic change. The submitted papers demonstrate the application of content analysis to UK newspaper and online news coverage of obesity, single-episodic drinking, alcohol pricing policy, smoke-free policy and e-cigarette regulation. Approaches used include quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods content analysis, consistent with the epistemological heterogeneity of the field. Each paper is informed by relevant theory, chiefly agenda setting theory and framing theory. While each paper produces its own novel topic-specific insights, the explanatory essay also considers commonalities across topics that lead to transferrable learning for practice in health communication and policy advocacy. The submitted works’ novel contributions to knowledge include: documenting media frames; analysing trends within media frames; documenting stakeholders’ engagement in media debates; highlighting the strategic importance of defining target groups; identifying areas for improvement in media health communication; identifying the need for a social justice approach to public health communication; and identifying the need to engage with values of public health. Specific transferrable learning emerging from synthesis of findings includes: the effectiveness of positioning children as affected groups in negating opposition arguments about individual responsibility; the opportunity to use trends in media coverage to anticipate media framing and policy actor engagement in media debates; and the need for health communication to avoid reproducing harmful stigma, stereotyping and inequality. While content analysis alone cannot provide conclusive prescriptions for media engagement, the submitted works mitigate the inherent restrictions of the method through the use of rigorous, theory-led methods and the triangulation of findings between different topics and analytical approaches. In doing so, the submitted works contribute to a growing international literature by providing health communicators and policy advocates with novel learning that may contribute to practice. The explanatory essay justifies the importance of studying mass media representations of health issues and policies, and demonstrates the contribution of the submitted works to understanding media representations of health issues and informing improved health policy advocacy

Wearable activity sensors and early pain after total joint arthroplasty.

A prospective observational cohort of 20 primary total hip arthroplasty (n = 12) and total knee arthroplasty (n = 8) patients (mean age: 63 ± 6 years) was passively monitored with a consumer-level wearable activity sensor before and 6 weeks after surgery. Patients were clustered by minimal change or decreased activity using sensor data. Decreased postoperative activity was associated with greater pain reduction (-5.5 vs -2.0, P = .03). All patients surpassed minimal clinical benefit thresholds of total joint arthroplasty (TJA) (Hip Disability and Osteoarthritis Score Junior 30.5 vs 20.8, P = .23; Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score Junior 23.3 vs 18.2, P = .77) within 6 weeks. Patients who objectively "take it easy" after TJA may experience less pain with no difference in early subjective outcome. Remote, passive analysis of outpatient wearable sensor data may permit real-time detection of early problems after TJA

Mathematical study of the effects of applied stress, T-stress and back stress in photoelastic fringe patterns

This work is an attempt at developing a novel mathematical model to describe the stresses near the crack tip, taking into consideration the effects of plasticity. The focus is on describing how the applied stress normal to the crack, herein referred to as the K-stress, Tstress and ‘back stress’ induced by plasticity along the crack flank and in the crack tip plastic zone influence the crack tip elastic stress fields. The important features emerging from this study are that the sign and magnitude of each term can substantially alter the crack tip stress fields, and hence influence the photoelastic fringe patterns. To validate the mathematical model, polycarbonate compact tension specimens have been used and observed in a transmission polariscope in order to study the single effect of a pure ‘back stress’ (acting as an interfacial shear stress at the elastic-plastic boundary) and combination effects of K-stress, Tstress and ‘back stress’. It is observed that the fringe patterns obtained through experiment show good agreement with those derived by mathematical modelling

Precise Measures of Orbital Period, Before and After Nova Eruption for QZ Aurigae

For the ordinary classical nova QZ Aurigae (which erupted in 1964), we report 1317 magnitudes from 1912--2016, including four eclipses detected on archival photographic plates from long before the eruption. We have accurate and robust measures of the orbital period both pre-eruption and post-eruption, and we find that the orbital period decreased, with a fractional change of -290.71+-0.28 parts-per-million across the eruption, with the orbit necessarily getting smaller. Further, we find that the light curve outside of eclipses and eruption is flat at near B=17.14 from 1912--1981, whereupon the average light curve starts fading down to B=17.49 with large variability. QZ Aur is a robust counter-example against the Hibernation model for the evolution of cataclysmic variables, where the model requires that all novae have their period increase across eruptions. Large period decreases across eruptions can easily arise from mass imbalances in the ejecta, as are commonly seen in asymmetric nova shells.Comment: MNRAS in press, 24 pages, 5 tables, 6 figure

Extension of the CJP model to mixed mode I and mode II

The present authors have previously proposed a novel ‘plastic inclusion’ approach for dealing withthe local plasticity which occurs at the tip of a growing fatigue crack. This meso-scale model provides amodified set of crack tip stress intensity factors that include the magnitude of plastic wake-induced crack tipshielding and which have the potential to help resolve some long-standing controversies associated withplasticity-induced closure. The present work extends the CJP model to deal with the case of mixed Mode I andMode II loading and thus opens up enhanced possibilities for testing it on inclined cracks in metallic specimens.This extension requires the addition of only one new force parameter to the model, i.e. an anti-symmetric shearforce on either side of the crack