British fair play: sport across diasporas at the BBC World Service

This chapter uses archive material to explore the role of sports broadcasting on the BBC World Service in the twentieth century.Whereas the service's early audiences were expatriate British listeners, the BBC WS recruited different diasporic audiences later into the twentieth century.This chapter looks at specific sports and at the accommodations of the tensions between the WS's links with both Empire and with discourses of impartiaility, which have led to both endurances in the postcolonialist aspects of sport as well as new opportunities for reconfigurations of diaspora

Experimental taxonomy

The accompanying series of papers embodies an endeavour to express in taxonomic terms the units established by experimental analyses of wild and cultivated populations. At the outset I should like to emphasise that the taxonomic treatment advocated in the following pages is not antagonistic to traditional methods of classification. Experimental Taxonomy, as its title implies, is based upon experimentally ascertainable facts, and when such evidence is lacking classificatory treatment must perforce follow another technique. Experimental Taxonomy, therefore, is actually complementary to Traditional Taxonomy and will ultimately, I hope, provide an additional focus for evolutionary discussion.In arranging the papers I have given precedence to those bearing on the study of wild populations. This, I believe, is the most logical order since the more or less artificially controlled methods of raising and maintaining economically valuable populations are essentially repetitions of the processes operating naturally in the wild. Undoubtedly such an arrangement somewhat interrupts the chronological sequence of ideas, but this defect is probably more than balanced by the considerations outlined above. Finally it will be noticed that one of the papers in the Flantago series has been written in collaboration with two of my colleagues. This parer has been included here because it forms an integral part of the series as it is the only one containing a detailed account of the technique employed throughout the investigations.I. Experimental delimitation of species. || II. Experiments on the genetics of wild populations. I. Plantage maritima. || III. Experimental Taxonomy. I. Experimental garden technique in relation to the recognition of the small taxonomic units. || IV. Experimental Taxonomy. U. Initial population differentiation in Plantage maritima L. of Britain. || V. Experimental Taxonomy. IV. Population differentiation in N. American and European Sea Plantains allied to Plantago maritima L. || VI. The ecotype concept in relation to the registration of crop plants. || VII. Reflections concerning new crop varieties

Pollination of some important agricultural grasses with a view to improved methods of breeding

The pollination of some important agricultural grasses with a view to improved methods of breedin

A patch-clamp study of glutamate receptor channels and glutamate uptake in rat cerebellar neurones and glia

Whole-cell and outside-out configurations of the patch-clamp recording technique have been used to investigate the properties of non-NMDA glutamate receptor-channels present in granule neurones and macroglia cells in rat cerebellar cultures. Of the various types of glial cell present in such cultures only type-2 astrocytes and oligodendrocyte/type-2 astrocyte (O-2A) progenitor cells possessed 'fast' glutamate non-NMDA receptor-channels, whereas type-1-like astrocytes and oligodendrocytes lacked receptor channels. No evidence was found for the presence of NMDA channels in any of the glial cell types. In addition, type-1-like astrocytes were unique in possessing a detectable electrogenic uptake carrier for glutamate. Further investigations revealed that "glial" and "neuronal" type non-NMDA receptors were similar in many of their pharmacological properties. However, in one clear respect they differed; analysis of single channels in outside-out patches isolated from type-2 astrocytes and granule cells indicated that in addition to opening to conductance levels of between 10 and 30pS, the non-NMDA channels in these cells also opened to 40 and 50pS conductance levels (~20% of all activations). There was no evidence in granule cells that non-NMDA channels could give rise to large conductance (40/50pS) openings. A detailed investigation has been made of non-NMDA receptor-channels present in excised membrane patches of cerebellar granule neurones. Application of non-NMDA receptor agonists to membrane patches evoked two types of response, which were termed 'high' and 'low' conductance type responses. In high conductance patches glutamate, AMPA and kainate each opened resolvable single channels that had conductances of approximately 10, 20 and 30pS. Kainate responses in low conductance patches were characterized by a small noise increase in the current trace and a small DC shift, whereas AMPA opened resolvable channels in such patches, but such channels had conductances of mainly 5pS. In addition to investigating the conductance levels of non-NMDA receptor-channels, a preliminary kinetic analysis of these channels was undertaken. It is proposed from the experiments on high and low conductance patches that cerebellar granule neurones possess more than one type of non-NMDA channel

The Port Norfolk Project: Improved Raster Navigation Products From High Resolution Source Data

With increasing capabilities in technology, modern hydrographic surveys are comprised of similarly increasing amounts of data, only a minute fraction of which is currently available in the nautical charts produced by the NOAA Office of Coast Survey (OCS). Simultaneously, a tremendous amount of effort goes into the generalization and optimal cartographic representation of the hydrographic data onto raster products, from which the vector products are digitized. Preserving and maintaining a single database of high-resolution vector source data will retain— and make accessible—much more of the hydrographic data collected, alleviate the burden of generalization, and would allow for delivery of high-resolution vector products, as well as a very wide selection of raster products. From high-resolution source data, raster output could be generated at customer specifications. These “user-defined” raster products could be suitably tailored to meet anyone’s needs, regardless if they are a mariner, a scientist, a fisherman, a student, or a casual “common man” customer. The “user-defined” concept will ultimately improve our ability to meet the highly variable needs of our customers. This paper is intended as an exploratory endeavor, specifically, using the Paper Chart Editor component of CARIS HPD to create examples of the kinds of raster products one can create from high-resolution source data, how this process could optimize the current raster chart production workflow within OCS, while also providing a stronger focus on customer service. Finally, the capabilities and lessons learned from the experimentation with HPD will be applied toward the NOAA-wide implementation of Nautical Chart System II (NCSII)

Inference of infectious disease transmission through a relaxed bottleneck using multiple genomes per host

In recent times, pathogen genome sequencing has become increasingly used to investigate infectious disease outbreaks. When genomic data is sampled densely enough amongst infected individuals, it can help resolve who infected whom. However, transmission analysis cannot rely solely on a phylogeny of the genomes but must account for the within-host evolution of the pathogen, which blurs the relationship between phylogenetic and transmission trees. When only a single genome is sampled for each host, the uncertainty about who infected whom can be quite high. Consequently, transmission analysis based on multiple genomes of the same pathogen per host has a clear potential for delivering more precise results, even though it is more laborious to achieve. Here we present a new methodology that can use any number of genomes sampled from a set of individuals to reconstruct their transmission network. Furthermore, we remove the need for the assumption of a complete transmission bottleneck. We use simulated data to show that our method becomes more accurate as more genomes per host are provided, and that it can infer key infectious disease parameters such as the size of the transmission bottleneck, within-host growth rate, basic reproduction number and sampling fraction. We demonstrate the usefulness of our method in applications to real datasets from an outbreak of Pseudomonas aeruginosa amongst cystic fibrosis patients and a nosocomial outbreak of Klebsiella pneumoniae

Improving quality of care and outcome at very preterm birth: the Preterm Birth research programme, including the Cord pilot RCT

BACKGROUND:Being born very premature (i.e. before 32 weeks’ gestation) has an impact on survival and quality of life. Improving care at birth may improve outcomes and parents’ experiences. OBJECTIVES:To improve the quality of care and outcomes following very preterm birth. DESIGN:We used mixed methods, including a James Lind Alliance prioritisation, a systematic review, a framework synthesis, a comparative review, qualitative studies, development of a questionnaire tool and a medical device (a neonatal resuscitation trolley), a survey of practice, a randomised trial and a protocol for a prospective meta-analysis using individual participant data. SETTING:For the prioritisation, this included people affected by preterm birth and health-care practitioners in the UK relevant to preterm birth. The qualitative work on preterm birth and the development of the questionnaire involved parents of infants born at three maternity hospitals in southern England. The medical device was developed at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. The survey of practice involved UK neonatal units. The randomised trial was conducted at eight UK tertiary maternity hospitals. PARTICIPANTS:For prioritisation, 26 organisations and 386 individuals; for the interviews and questionnaire tool, 32 mothers and seven fathers who had a baby born before 32 weeks’ gestation for interviews evaluating the trolley, 30 people who had experienced it being used at the birth of their baby (19 mothers, 10 partners and 1 grandmother) and 20 clinicians who were present when it was being used; for the trial, 261 women expected to have a live birth before 32 weeks’ gestation, and their 276 babies. INTERVENTIONS:Providing neonatal care at very preterm birth beside the mother, and with the umbilical cord intact; timing of cord clamping at very preterm birth. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Research priorities for preterm birth; feasibility and acceptability of the trolley; feasibility of a randomised trial, death and intraventricular haemorrhage. REVIEW METHODS:Systematic review of Cochrane reviews (umbrella review); framework synthesis of ethics aspects of consent, with conceptual framework to inform selection criteria for empirical and analytical studies. The comparative review included studies using a questionnaire to assess satisfaction with care during childbirth, and provided psychometric information. RESULTS:Our prioritisation identified 104 research topics for preterm birth, with the top 30 ranked. An ethnographic analysis of decision-making during this process suggested ways that it might be improved. Qualitative interviews with parents about their experiences of very preterm birth identified two differences with term births: the importance of the staff appearing calm and of staff taking control. Following a comparative review, this led to the development of a questionnaire to assess parents’ views of care during very preterm birth. A systematic overview summarised evidence for delivery room neonatal care and revealed significant evidence gaps. The framework synthesis explored ethics issues in consent for trials involving sick or preterm infants, concluding that no existing process is ideal and identifying three important gaps. This led to the development of a two-stage consent pathway (oral assent followed by written consent), subsequently evaluated in our randomised trial. Our survey of practice for care at the time of birth showed variation in approaches to cord clamping, and that no hospitals were providing neonatal care with the cord intact. We showed that neonatal care could be provided beside the mother using either the mobile neonatal resuscitation trolley we developed or existing equipment. Qualitative interviews suggested that neonatal care beside the mother is valued by parents and acceptable to clinicians. Our pilot randomised trial compared cord clamping after 2 minutes and initial neonatal care, if needed, with the cord intact, with clamping within 20 seconds and initial neonatal care after clamping. This study demonstrated feasibility of a large UK randomised trial. Of 135 infants allocated to cord clamping ≥ 2 minutes, 7 (5.2%) died and, of 135 allocated to cord clamping ≤ 20 seconds, 15 (11.1%) died (risk difference –5.9%, 95% confidence interval –12.4% to 0.6%). Of live births, 43 out of 134 (32%) allocated to cord clamping ≥ 2 minutes had intraventricular haemorrhage compared with 47 out of 132 (36%) allocated to cord clamping ≤ 20 seconds (risk difference –3.5%, 95% CI –14.9% to 7.8%). LIMITATIONS:Small sample for the qualitative interviews about preterm birth, single-centre evaluation of neonatal care beside the mother, and a pilot trial. CONCLUSIONS:Our programme of research has improved understanding of parent experiences of very preterm birth, and informed clinical guidelines and the research agenda. Our two-stage consent pathway is recommended for intrapartum clinical research trials. Our pilot trial will contribute to the individual participant data meta-analysis, results of which will guide design of future trials. FUTURE WORK:Research in preterm birth should take account of the top priorities. Further evaluation of neonatal care beside the mother is merited, and future trial of alternative policies for management of cord clamping should take account of the meta-analysis. STUDY REGISTRATION:This study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42012003038 and CRD42013004405. In addition, Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN21456601. FUNDING:This project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Programme Grants for Applied Research programme and will be published in full in Programme Grants for Applied Research; Vol. 7, No. 8. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information