'Moving life stories tell us just why politics matters’: personal narratives in tabloid anti-austerity campaigns

This article examines the use of personal narratives in two tabloid newspaper campaigns against a controversial welfare reform popularly known as the ‘bedroom tax’. It aims firstly to evaluate whether the personal narratives operate as political testimony to challenge government accounts of welfare reform and dominant stereotypes of benefits claimants, and secondly to assess the potential for and limits to progressive advocacy in popular journalism. The study uses content analysis of 473 articles over the course of a year in the Daily Mirror and Sunday People newspapers, and qualitative analysis of a sub-set of 113 articles to analyse the extent to which the campaign articles extrapolated from the personal to the general, and the role of ‘victim-witnesses’ in articulating their own subjectivity and political agency. The analysis indicates that both newspapers allowed affected individuals to express their own subjectivity to challenge stereotypes, but it was civil society organisations and opinion columnists who most explicitly extrapolated from the personal to the political. Collectively organised benefits claimants were rarely quoted, and there was some evidence of ventriloquization of the editorial voice in the political criticisms of victim-witnesses. However, a campaigning columnist in the Mirror more actively empowered some of those affected to speak directly to politicians. This indicates the value of campaigning journalism when it is truly engaged in solidarity with those affected, rather than instrumentalising victim-witnesses to further the newspapers’ campaign goals

Automation in human-machine networks: how increasing machine agency affects human agency

© 2018, Springer International Publishing AG. Efficient human-machine networks require productive interaction between human and machine actors. In this study, we address how a strengthening of machine agency, for example through increasing levels of automation, affect the human actors of the networks. Findings from case studies within air traffic management, emergency management, and crowd evacuation are presented, shedding light on how automation may strengthen the agency of human actors in the network through responsibility sharing and task allocation, and serve as a needed prerequisite of innovation and change

Energy modellers should explore extremes more systematically in scenarios

Scenarios are the primary tool for examining how current decisions shape the future, but the future is affected as much by out-of-ordinary extremes as by generally expected trends. Energy modellers can study extremes both by incorporating them directly within models and by using complementary off-model analyses

Tools for delivering entomopathogenic fungi to malaria mosquitoes: effects of delivery surfaces on fungal efficacy and persistence.

BACKGROUND\ud \ud Entomopathogenic fungi infection on malaria vectors increases daily mortality rates and thus represents a control measure that could be used in integrated programmes alongside insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS). Before entomopathogenic fungi can be integrated into control programmes, an effective delivery system must be developed.\ud \ud METHODS\ud \ud The efficacy of Metarhizium anisopliae ICIPE-30 and Beauveria bassiana I93-825 (IMI 391510) (2 × 10(10) conidia m(-2)) applied on mud panels (simulating walls of traditional Tanzanian houses), black cotton cloth and polyester netting was evaluated against adult Anopheles gambiae sensu stricto. Mosquitoes were exposed to the treated surfaces 2, 14 and 28 d after conidia were applied. Survival of mosquitoes was monitored daily.\ud \ud RESULTS\ud \ud All fungal treatments caused a significantly increased mortality in the exposed mosquitoes, descending with time since fungal application. Mosquitoes exposed to M. anisopliae conidia on mud panels had a greater daily risk of dying compared to those exposed to conidia on either netting or cotton cloth (p < 0.001). Mosquitoes exposed to B. bassiana conidia on mud panels or cotton cloth had similar daily risk of death (p = 0.14), and a higher risk than those exposed to treated polyester netting (p < 0.001). Residual activity of fungi declined over time; however, conidia remained pathogenic at 28 d post application, and were able to infect and kill 73 - 82% of mosquitoes within 14 d.\ud \ud CONCLUSION\ud \ud Both fungal isolates reduced mosquito survival on immediate exposure and up to 28 d after application. Conidia were more effective when applied on mud panels and cotton cloth compared with polyester netting. Cotton cloth and mud, therefore, represent potential substrates for delivering fungi to mosquitoes in the field

Evaluation of the impact of a school gardening intervention on children's fruit and vegetable intake: a randomised controlled trial.

Background: Current academic literature suggests that school gardening programmes can provide an interactive environment with the potential to change children’s fruit and vegetable intake. This is the first cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) designed to evaluate whether a school gardening programme can have an effect on children’s fruit and vegetable intake. Methods: The trial included children from 23 schools; these schools were randomised into two groups, one to receive the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)-led intervention and the other to receive the less involved Teacher-led intervention. A 24-hour food diary (CADET) was used to collect baseline and follow-up dietary intake 18 months apart. Questionnaires were also administered to evaluate the intervention implementation. Results: A total of 641 children completed the trial with a mean age of 8.1 years (95% CI: 8.0, 8.4). The unadjusted results from multilevel regression analysis revealed that for combined daily fruit and vegetable intake the Teacher-led group had a higher daily mean change of 8 g (95% CI: −19, 36) compared to the RHS-led group -32 g (95% CI: −60, −3). However, after adjusting for possible confounders this difference was not significant (intervention effect: −40 g, 95% CI: −88, 1; p = 0.06). The adjusted analysis of process measures identified that if schools improved their gardening score by 3 levels (a measure of school gardening involvement - the scale has 6 levels from 0 ‘no garden’ to 5 ‘community involvement’), irrespective of group allocation, children had, on average, a daily increase of 81 g of fruit and vegetable intake (95% CI: 0, 163; p = 0.05) compared to schools that had no change in gardening score. Conclusions: This study is the first cluster randomised controlled trial designed to evaluate a school gardening intervention. The results have found very little evidence to support the claims that school gardening alone can improve children’s daily fruit and vegetable intake. However, when a gardening intervention is implemented at a high level within the school it may improve children’s daily fruit and vegetable intake by a portion. Improving children’s fruit and vegetable intake remains a challenging task

Halloween, Organization, and the Ethics of Uncanny Celebration

This article examines the relationship between organizational ethics, the uncanny, and the annual celebration of Halloween. We begin by exploring the traditional and contemporary organizational function of Halloween as ‘tension-management ritual’ (Etzioni, Sociol Theory 18(1):44–59, 2000) through which collective fears, anxieties, and fantasies are played out and given material expression. Combining the uncanny with the folkloric concept of ostension, we then examine an incident in which UK supermarket retailers made national news headlines for selling offensive Halloween costumes depicting ‘escaped mental patients’. Rather than treating this incident as a problem of moral hygiene—in which products are removed, apologies made, and lessons learned—we consider the value of Halloween as a unique and disruptive ethical encounter with the uncanny Other. Looking beyond its commercial appeal and controversy, we reflect on the creative, generous, and disruptive potential of Halloween as both tension-management ritual and unique organizational space of hospitality through which to receive and embrace alterity and so discover the homely within the unheimlich

The birth of airplane stability theory

Airplane stability theory was born at the end of the XIX century and matured around 100 years ago, when airplanes were hardly controllable yet. The success and safety of flights in the pioneer years depended upon largely unknown stability and control characteristics. Understanding the modes of airplane motion has been of paramount importance for the development of aviation. The contributions made by a few scientists in the decades preceding and following the first flight by the Wright brothers set the concepts and equations that, with minor notation aspects, have remained almost unchanged till present day.Magraner Rullan, JP.; Martinez-Val, R. (2014). The birth of airplane stability theory. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G: Journal of Aerospace Engineering. 228(9):1498-1506. doi:10.1177/0954410013494139S149815062289PERKINS, C. D. (1970). Development of airplane stability and control technology /1970 Von Karman Lecture/. Journal of Aircraft, 7(4), 290-301. doi:10.2514/3.44167Abzug, M. J., & Larrabee, E. E. (2002). Airplane Stability and Control, Second Edition. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511607141Graham, W. R. (1999). Asymptotic analysis of the classical aircraft stability equations. The Aeronautical Journal, 103(1020), 95-103. doi:10.1017/s0001924000027792Bryan, G. H., & Williams, W. E. (1904). The Longitudinal Stability of Aerial Gliders. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 73(488-496), 100-116. doi:10.1098/rspl.1904.0017Wegener, P. P. (1997). What Makes Airplanes Fly? doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-2254-5Pradeep, S., & Kamesh, S. (1999). Does the Phugoid Frequency Depend on Speed? Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 22(2), 372-373. doi:10.2514/2.4391Phillips, W. F. (2000). Phugoid Approximation for Conventional Airplanes. Journal of Aircraft, 37(1), 30-36. doi:10.2514/2.2586Pamadi, B. N. (2004). Performance, Stability, Dynamics, and Control of Airplanes, Second Edition. doi:10.2514/4.862274Ananthkrishnan, N., & Ramadevi, P. (2002). Consistent Approximations to Aircraft Longitudinal Modes. Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 25(4), 820-824. doi:10.2514/2.4952McRuer, D. T., Graham, D., & Ashkenas, I. (1990). Aircraft Dynamics and Automatic Control. doi:10.1515/978140085598

Breakdown of the adiabatic limit in low dimensional gapless systems

It is generally believed that a generic system can be reversibly transformed from one state into another by sufficiently slow change of parameters. A standard argument favoring this assertion is based on a possibility to expand the energy or the entropy of the system into the Taylor series in the ramp speed. Here we show that this argumentation is only valid in high enough dimensions and can break down in low-dimensional gapless systems. We identify three generic regimes of a system response to a slow ramp: (A) mean-field, (B) non-analytic, and (C) non-adiabatic. In the last regime the limits of the ramp speed going to zero and the system size going to infinity do not commute and the adiabatic process does not exist in the thermodynamic limit. We support our results by numerical simulations. Our findings can be relevant to condensed-matter, atomic physics, quantum computing, quantum optics, cosmology and others.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Nature Physics (originally submitted version

Alterations in cognitive performance during passive hyperthermia are task dependent

The objectives of this study were to (1) assess the effect of passive heating upon attention and memory task performance, and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of the application of cold packs to the head on preserving these functions. Using a counterbalance design 16 subjects underwent three trials: a control (CON, 20°C, 40% rH), hot (HOT, 50°C, 50% rH) and hot with the head kept cool (HHC). In each condition, three attention tests and two memory tests were performed. Mean core, forehead and tympanic temperatures were all significantly higher (p< 0.05) during HOT (38.6° ±0.1°, 39.6° ±0.2° and 38.8°±0.1°C, respectively) and HHC (38°±0.2, 37.7°±0.3° and 37.7°C, respectively) than in CON (37.1°±0.6°, 33.3° ±0.2° and 35.9°±0.3°C, respectively). Results indicate that there was impairment in working memory with heat exposure (p < 0.05) without alteration in attentional processes. The regular application of cold packs only prevented the detrimental effect of hyperthermia on short-term memory. Our results show that impairments in cognitive function with passive hyperthermia and the beneficial effect of head cooling are task dependent and suggests that exposure to a hot environment is a competing variable to the cognitive processes

The Mechanisms of Codon Reassignments in Mitochondrial Genetic Codes

Many cases of non-standard genetic codes are known in mitochondrial genomes. We carry out analysis of phylogeny and codon usage of organisms for which the complete mitochondrial genome is available, and we determine the most likely mechanism for codon reassignment in each case. Reassignment events can be classified according to the gain-loss framework. The gain represents the appearance of a new tRNA for the reassigned codon or the change of an existing tRNA such that it gains the ability to pair with the codon. The loss represents the deletion of a tRNA or the change in a tRNA so that it no longer translates the codon. One possible mechanism is Codon Disappearance, where the codon disappears from the genome prior to the gain and loss events. In the alternative mechanisms the codon does not disappear. In the Unassigned Codon mechanism, the loss occurs first, whereas in the Ambiguous Intermediate mechanism, the gain occurs first. Codon usage analysis gives clear evidence of cases where the codon disappeared at the point of the reassignment and also cases where it did not disappear. Codon disappearance is the probable explanation for stop to sense reassignments and a small number of reassignments of sense codons. However, the majority of sense to sense reassignments cannot be explained by codon disappearance. In the latter cases, by analysis of the presence or absence of tRNAs in the genome and of the changes in tRNA sequences, it is sometimes possible to distinguish between the Unassigned Codon and Ambiguous Intermediate mechanisms. We emphasize that not all reassignments follow the same scenario and that it is necessary to consider the details of each case carefully.Comment: 53 pages (45 pages, including 4 figures + 8 pages of supplementary information). To appear in J.Mol.Evo