Shock Advertising; Its Justification and the Effects on Society

Advertising encapsulates both the realities and fantasies of the world in which we live (Cortesse, 1999). Dating back to the Roman era, advertising has been used as a communications medium, revolutionising the way in which people view the world around them and changing the lifestyle of those who surrender to its calls. However, the power of this medium is grossly underestimated. To many, advertising is seen as an enjoyable form of persuasive artwork, capable of igniting ones’ emotions irrespective of age, gender or socio-economic status. To others, advertising presents a platform for advertisers to exploit their creative talents, formulating deceiving, provocative and highly controversial advertisements, staged before our very own eyes or ears. Sadly, this is a truer depiction of the advertising world. Although many choose to concentrate on the positive influence it continues to provide and the reward it holds for this who use it respectfully. Many however choose to neglect the damaging effects advertising has had on the moral and ethical high grounds on which some elements of society rest. Fundamental misconceptions and distorted truths can often be blamed on advertising campaigns that choose to shock their audience for the sake of generating publicity. The debate argued within this paper seeks to decipher whether shock advertising is predominately justifiable, based as it is upon the frequent misuse and exploitation of sensitive and delicate issues. The paper also questions whether the intentions were morally and ethically justified (Wnek, 2003), in spite of causing widespread public offence. More often than not, advertising agencies are oblivious to the damaging effects that shock advertising continues to have on society. It leaves those responsible to grapple with the burdening question of whether images and literature used in advertising campaigns pose a risk of introducing messages that contain impurities into the most vulnerable elements of society and our society as a whole. This paper draws in views gathered during interviews with the Advertising Standards Authority and OfCom, based in the United Kingdom, together with perspectives from advertising agencies to present a consideration of both the reasons for and the impact of using shock tactics within advertising. Do advertisers perceive that a highly controversial and offensive advertisement is a success if publicity and profit were generated, despite considerable public complaints? Are agencies lowering their standards of advertising through the use of such controversial material? Where do they, and the regulatory bodies, see advertising progressing in the future and what effect might this have on society as a whole? Concern for the future of advertising is therefore in need of much attention, since the consequences of neglect may be damaging to our future prosperity. The study highlights the much-needed role for a greater responsibility to be exercised throughout the industry, together with an effective regulatory framework, void of any potential loopholes

Why Can Weak Linkages Cause International Stock Market Synchronization? The Mode-Locking Effect

This study investigates the synchronization between stock markets in different countries. International stock markets tend to synchronize with one another in what appears to be an international financial cycle, yet trade and capital flows between the stock markets do not appear to be strong enough for one stock market to “drive” fluctuations in another stock market. Why are these weakly linked financial markets synchronized? This study suggests that global stock market synchronization results from a “mode-locking” phenomenon, a nonlinear process in which even a weak coupling between oscillating systems like stock markets tends to synchronize the fluctuations between the systems. Simulations, econometric analysis, and spectral analysis investigate this mode-locking hypothesis. Analysis reveals modest support for the mode-locking hypothesis of international stock market synchronization

Patient and researcher perspectives on facilitating patient and public involvement in rheumatology research

No abstract available

Optimizing the Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Remote Community Infrastructure

Remote communities such as rural villages, post-disaster housing camps, and military forward operating bases are often located in remote and hostile areas with limited or no access to established infrastructure grids. Operating these communities with conventional assets requires constant resupply, which yields a significant logistical burden, creates negative environmental impacts, and increases costs. For example, a 2000-member isolated village in northern Canada relying on diesel generators required 8.6 million USD of fuel per year and emitted 8500 tons of carbon dioxide. Remote community planners can mitigate these negative impacts by selecting sustainable technologies that minimize resource consumption and emissions. However, the alternatives often come at a higher procurement cost and mobilization requirement. To assist planners with this challenging task, this paper presents the development of a novel infrastructure sustainability assessment model capable of generating optimal tradeoffs between minimizing environmental impacts and minimizing life-cycle costs over the community’s anticipated lifespan. Model performance was evaluated using a case study of a hypothetical 500-person remote military base with 864 feasible infrastructure portfolios and 48 procedural portfolios. The case study results demonstrated the model’s novel capability to assist planners in identifying optimal combinations of infrastructure alternatives that minimize negative sustainability impacts, leading to remote communities that are more self-sufficient with reduced emissions and costs

Why does chronic inflammation persist: An unexpected role for fibroblasts

One of the most important but as yet unanswered questions in inflammation research is not why inflammation occurs (we all get episodes of self limiting inflammation during the course of our lives) but why it does not resolve. Current models of inflammation stress the role of antigen-specific lymphocyte responses and attempt to address the causative agent. However, recent studies have begun to challenge the primacy of the leukocyte and have instead focused on an extended immune system in which stromal cells, such as fibroblasts play a role in the persistence of the inflammatory lesion. In this review I will illustrate how fibroblasts help regulate the switch from acute resolving to chronic persistent inflammation and provide positional memory during inflammatory responses. In chronic inflammation the normal physiological process of the removal of unwanted inflammatory effector cells becomes disordered, leading to the accumulation of leucocytes within lymphoid aggregates that resemble those seen in lymphoid tissue. I will describe how fibroblasts provide survival and retention signals for leukocytes leading to their inappropriate and persistent accumulation within inflamed tissue

What can rheumatologists learn from translational cancer therapy?

It is well established that an intimate connection exists between inflammation and neoplasia. Indeed, particular chronic infections and autoimmune processes giving rise to prolonged site-specific inflammation are known to increase the probability of the development of specific cancers. Molecular characterisation of these processes has revealed profound similarities in the specific molecules involved in persistence of inflammation and in both the primary induction of neoplastic processes and in specification of the preferred anatomic sites of metastatic spread. The therapeutic importance of these findings is underscored by the remarkable success in the treatment of autoimmune pathology using medications initially developed for use in oncology and this arena is one of considerable therapeutic promise for rheumatologists

Projected t-SNE for batch correction

Motivation: Low-dimensional representations of high-dimensional data are routinely employed in biomedical research to visualize, interpret and communicate results from different pipelines. In this article, we propose a novel procedure to directly estimate t-SNE embeddings that are not driven by batch effects. Without correction, interesting structure in the data can be obscured by batch effects. The proposed algorithm can therefore significantly aid visualization of high-dimensional data. Results: The proposed methods are based on linear algebra and constrained optimization, leading to efficient algorithms and fast computation in many high-dimensional settings. Results on artificial single-cell transcription profiling data show that the proposed procedure successfully removes multiple batch effects from t-SNE embeddings, while retaining fundamental information on cell types. When applied to single-cell gene expression data to investigate mouse medulloblastoma, the proposed method successfully removes batches related with mice identifiers and the date of the experiment, while preserving clusters of oligodendrocytes, astrocytes, and endothelial cells and microglia, which are expected to lie in the stroma within or adjacent to the tumours. Contact: [email protected]