Members are not the only fruit: Volunteer activity in British political parties at the 2010 general election

This is the accepted version of the following article: Fisher, J., Fieldhouse, E. and Cutts, D. (2014), Members Are Not the Only Fruit: Volunteer Activity in British Political Parties at the 2010 General Election. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 16: 75–95, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-856X.12011/abstract.Existing research on volunteer activity in political parties has tended to focus on party membership, both in terms of numbers and activities undertaken. Recent developments in British political parties suggest however, an increasing role for party supporters—supporters of parties who are not formal members. Using data collected through surveys of election agents at the 2010 general election, this article examines the extent of supporter activity in constituency (district-level) campaigns, the extent to which active local parties stimulate supporter activity, the correlates of supporter and member activity, and whether supporter activity makes a positive and independent contribution to parties’ constituency campaigns. The article provides an important opportunity to question whether the evolution of party organisations suggests that formal members may be less important than has been previously assumed in the conduct of election campaigns and the extent to which supporter activity complements that of members.Economic and Social Research Counci

You get what you (don’t) pay for: The impact of volunteer labour and candidate spending at the 2010 British general election

The published version of this article is fully available from the publisher at the link below.Repeated evidence in Britain demonstrates the positive electoral payoffs from constituency campaigning. However, the impact of such campaigning varies depending upon the electoral context and the effectiveness of campaign management. Debate also exists in respect of the relative impact of traditional versus more modern campaign techniques, as well as between campaign techniques that incur cost and those that are carried out voluntarily. Such debates are of interest not only to academics and political parties, but also to regulators when considering whether to restrict campaign spending in the interests of electoral parity. This article uses candidate spending data and responses to an extensive survey of election agents at the British General Election of 2010 to assess the impact of both campaign expenditure and free, voluntary labour on electoral performance. It suggests that both have some independent impact, but that impact varies by party. The implications of these results are highly significant in both academic and regulatory terms—campaign expenditure can affect electoral outcomes but these effects are offset to some extent by voluntary efforts

Experiences of evidence presentation in court: an insight into the practice of crime scene examiners in England, Wales and Australia

Background: The ability to present complex forensic evidence in a courtroom in a manner that is fully comprehensible to all stakeholders remains problematic. Individual subjective interpretations may impede a collective and correct understanding of the complex environments and the evidence therein presented to them. This is not fully facilitated or assisted in any way with current non-technological evidence presentation methods such as poor resolution black and white photocopies or unidimensional photographs of complex 3D environments. Given the wide availability of relatively cheap technology, such as tablets, smartphones and laptops, there is evidence to suggest that individuals are already used to receiving visually complex information in relatively short periods of time such as is available in a court hearing. courtrooms could learn from this more generic widespread use of technology and have demonstrated their ability to do so in part by their adoption of the use of tablets for Magistrates. The aim of this current study was to identify the types of digital technology being used in courts and to obtain data from police personnel presenting digital evidence in court. Results: A questionnaire study was conducted in this research to explore current technology used within courtrooms from the perspective of crime scene personnel involved in the presentation of complex crime scene evidence. The study demonstrated that whilst many of the participants currently utilize high-end technological solutions to document their crime scenes, such as 360° photography or laser scanning technologies, their ability to present such evidence was hindered or prevented. This was most likely due to either a lack of existing technology installed in the court, or due to a lack of interoperability between new and existing technology. Conclusion: This study has contributed to this academic field by publishing real life experiences of crime scene examiner’s, who have used advanced technology to record and evaluate crime scenes but are limited in their scope for sharing this information with the court due to technological insufficiency. Contemporary recording techniques have provided the opportunity for further review of crime scenes, which is considered to be a valuable property over previous documentation practice, which relied upon the competency of the investigator to comprehensively capture the scene, often in a single opportunity

Epis and monos which must be isos

Orzech [1] has shown that every surjective endomorphism of a noetherian module is an isomorphism. Here we prove analogous results for injective endomorphisms of noetherian injective modules, and the duals of these results. We prove that every injective endomorphism, with large image, of a module with the descending chain condition on large submodules is an isomorphism, which dualizes a result of Varadarajan [2]. Finally we prove the following result and its dual: if p is any radical then every surjective endomorphism of a module M, with kernel contained in pM, is an isomorphism, provided that every surjective endomorphism of pM is an isomorphism

The Reed-Stanton press rig for the generation of reproducible fingermarks : towards a standardised methodology for fingermark research

In the search for better or new methods/techniques to visualise fingermarks or to analyse them exploiting their chemical content, fingermarks inter-variability may hinder the assessment of the method effectiveness. Variability is due to changes in the chemical composition of the fingermarks between different donors and within the same donor, as well as to differential contact time, pressure and angle. When validating a method or comparing it with existing ones, it is not always possible to account for this type of variability. One way to compensate for these issues is to employ, in the early stages of the method development, a device generating reproducible fingermarks. Here the authors present their take on such device, as well as quantitatively describing its performance and benefits against the manual production of marks. Finally a short application is illustrated for the use of this device, at the method developmental stages, in an emerging area of fingerprinting research concerning the retrieval of chemical intelligence from fingermarks

Collaborative practise in forensic science and academia: the development of a documentation strategy for fingerprint examinations in an English fingerprint bureau in the ISO 17025 era

The mandatory introduction of ISO 17,025 accreditation to fingerprint comparisons forced changes to the documentation procedures. Academic and grey literature consistently suggest that the documentation should provide a sufficient auditable trail, yet there is some dissimilarity in the guidance relating to documentation content, and subjectivity with its interpretation. The accreditation body, UK Accreditation Service (UKAS), was not prescriptive in the methods required to produce working notes and were open to different practises, which has provided a useful opportunity to compare approaches to casework and to work with practitioners to inform effective practise. The research team carried out a gap analysis between pre-accreditation operational documentation practise and an ACE-V checklist, which was a summary of best practise guidance on documentation content. A white box study included thirty-one fingerprint examiners from six institutions, who were asked to undertake an ‘Analysis’ of eight friction ridge impressions. Participants were asked to produce working notes using their pre-accreditation documentation approach and a piece of software called ‘PiAnoS’, which prompted mark annotation and an assessment of mark quality. The notes were compared to the ACE-V checklist to determine which of the documentary suggestions were considered to obtain an understanding of experts’ decision making. The results were used to develop a documentation strategy for an operational English fingerprint bureau, referred to as a “Mark Analysis Form”. It consisted of content from the ACE-V checklist, supported by literature, and which received high response rates from experts alongside discussions by the research team to determine its relevance in the documentation strategy. The strategy met with the ISO 17,025 standard, evidenced by UKAS approval, and is currently used for casework

The macroeconomic effects of Government asset purchases: evidence from postwar US housing credit policy

We document the portfolio activity of federal housing agencies and provide evidence on its impact on mortgage markets and the economy. Through a narrative analysis, we identify historical policy changes leading to expansions or contractions in agency mortgage holdings. Based on those regulatory events that we classify as unrelated to short-run cyclical or credit market shocks, we find that an increase in mortgage purchases by the agencies boosts mortgage lending and lowers mortgage rates. Agency purchases influence prices in other asset markets and stimulate residential investment. Using information in GSE stock prices to construct an alternative instrument for agency purchasing activity yields very similar results as our benchmark narrative identification approach

Defining a self-evaluation digital literacy framework for secondary educators: the DigiLit Leicester project

Despite the growing interest in digital literacy within educational policy, guidance for secondary educators in terms of how digital literacy translates into the classroom is lacking. As a result, many teachers feel ill-prepared to support their learners in using technology effectively. The DigiLit Leicester project created an infrastructure for holistic, integrated change, by supporting staff development in the area of digital literacy for secondary school teachers and teaching support staff. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the critique of existing digital literacy frameworks enabled a self-evaluation framework for practitioners to be developed. Crucially, this framework enables a co-operative, partnership approach to be taken to pedagogic innovation. Moreover, it enables social and ethical issues to underpin a focus on teacher-agency and radical collegiality inside the domain of digital literacy. Thus, the authors argue that the shared development framework constitutes a new model for implementing digital literacy aimed at transforming the provision of secondary education across a city