Visible justice: YouTube and the UK Supreme Court

The purpose of the article is to undertake a critical examination of a new audiovisual form of judicial communicati on developed by the UK Supreme Court. An audiovisual recording of the judge delivering a summary of the judgment now accompanies the publication of the full written judgment and a two page “ press summary ” of the judgment. The summary judgment video is avai lable for viewing on demand and at a distance via The Internet. The article begins by introducing the audiovisual data that makes up the video case study at the centre of this study and outlines the methods used to undertake the subsequent analysis. It is followed by a review of a number of fields of scholarship and debates that the study of these videos engages with: about cameras in courts; transparency and open justice; and news media representations of courts. A consideration of these literatures provid es an opportunity to identify and consider how this study helps to make sense of the Court’s video initiative. It also provides an opportunity to consider the contribution that this study can make to those areas of work. An analysis of the case study video s follows, beginning with a consideration of the representations of the court, the judge and judgment that are to be found in those videos. Attention then turns to study the some of the cultural assumptions and institutional factors that shape the visibili ty of judgment that the videos are generating. The paper ends with some reflections and conclusions about the nature of this visibility and the contribution that the summary judgment videos make to “ open justice ” and the “ transparency ” of the court; in par ticular the judiciary and judicial decision - making

What\u27s Home Got To Do With It? Kinship, Space, and the Case of Family, Spouse and Civil Partnership in the UK

The analysis that is offered in this Article has two dimensions. The first focuses upon the context in which the battle for legal recognition of same-sex partnerships has taken place. Using two key reported decisions from the U.K.\u27s final domestic court of appeal, Fitzpatrick v Sterling Housing and Ghaidan v Mendoza, the objective here is to explore the shifting terrain against which legal activism relating to the recognition of same-sex domestic relationships has achieved some success in the U.K. These two cases represent key developments in the judicial recognition of the rights of parties in same-sex domestic relationships. These cases have particular importance. In Fitzpatrick, the House of Lords decided that a same-sex couple\u27s relationship fell within the meaning of family. In Ghaidan the court decided that the term spouse was to be applied to same-sex couples. Some of the key legal effect

Bias crime policing: ‘The Graveyard Shift’

Bias crime is crime that is motivated by prejudice or bias towards an attribute of the victim, such as race, religion or sexuality. Police have been criticised for failing to take bias crime seriously. There is a pressing need to understand the reasons for this failure. This article aims to address this gap by presenting the results of the first empirical study of bias crime policing in the Australian state of New South Wales. Drawing on interviews with the New South Wales Police Force, our study found that sustainable reform in this domain has proven elusive. This can be attributed to a number of key challenges: reporting; recording; identification; framing; community engagement and leadership. The lessons that emerge from our findings have important ramifications for all police organisations

A previously unexplored encounter: the English judiciary, carte de visite and photography as a form of mass media

Studies exploring the link between the representation of judges, photography and mass media tend to focus on the appearance of cameras in courtrooms and the reproduction of the resulting photographs in the press at the beginning of the 20th century. But more than 50 years separates these developments from the birth of photography, in the late 1830’s. This study examines a previously unexplored encounter between the English judiciary and photography that began in the 1860’s. The pictures where known as ‘carte de visite’. They were the first type of photographic image capable of being mass produced. It’s a form of photography that for a period of almost 20 years attracted a frenzy of interest. Drawing upon a number of archives, including the library of Lincoln’s Inn, London’s National Portrait Gallery and my own personal collection this article has two objectives. The first is to examine the carte portraits of senior members of the judiciary that were produced during that time. What appears within the frame of this new form of portraiture? Of particular interest is the impact the chemical and technological developments that come together in carte photographs had on what appears within the frame of judicial portraits. The second objective is to examine the manner in which they were displayed. This engages a commonplace of scholarship on portraiture; the location and mode of display shape the meaning of what lies within the frame of the picture. Carte portraits were produced with a particular display in mind: the album. They were to be viewed not in isolation but as part of an assemblage of portraits. Few albums survive. Those that do offer a rare opportunity to examine the way carte portraits of judges were used and the meanings they generated through their display. Three albums containing carte portraits of judges will be considered

Structural insights into Clostridium perfringens delta toxin pore formation

Clostridium perfringens Delta toxin is one of the three hemolysin-like proteins produced by C. perfringens type C and possibly type B strains. One of the others, NetB, has been shown to be the major cause of Avian Nectrotic Enteritis, which following the reduction in use of antibiotics as growth promoters, has become an emerging disease of industrial poultry. Delta toxin itself is cytotoxic to the wide range of human and animal macrophages and platelets that present GM2 ganglioside on their membranes. It has sequence similarity with Staphylococcus aureus β-pore forming toxins and is expected to heptamerize and form pores in the lipid bilayer of host cell membranes. Nevertheless, its exact mode of action remains undetermined. Here we report the 2.4 Å crystal structure of monomeric Delta toxin. The superposition of this structure with the structure of the phospholipid-bound F component of S. aureus leucocidin (LukF) revealed that the glycerol molecules bound to Delta toxin and the phospholipids in LukF are accommodated in the same hydrophobic clefts, corresponding to where the toxin is expected to latch onto the membrane, though the binding sites show significant differences. From structure-based sequence alignment with the known structure of staphylococcal α-hemolysin, a model of the Delta toxin pore form has been built. Using electron microscopy, we have validated our model and characterized the Delta toxin pore on liposomes. These results highlight both similarities and differences in the mechanism of Delta toxin (and by extension NetB) cytotoxicity from that of the staphylococcal pore-forming toxins

A Sino-German 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane VII. Small supernova remnants

We study the spectral and polarization properties of supernova remnants (SNRs) based on our 6cm survey data. The observations were taken from the Sino-German 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane. By using the integrated flux densities at 6cm together with measurements at other wavelengths from the literature we derive the global spectra of 50 SNRs. In addition, we use the observations at 6cm to present the polarization images of 24 SNRs. We derived integrated flux densities at 6cm for 51 small SNRs with angular sizes less than 1 degree. Global radio spectral indices were obtained in all the cases except for Cas A. For SNRs G15.1-1.6, G16.2-2.7, G16.4-0.5, G17.4-2.3, G17.8-2.6, G20.4+0.1, G36.6+2.6, G43.9+1.6, G53.6-2.2, G55.7+3.4, G59.8+1.2, G68.6-1.2, and G113.0+0.2, the spectra have been significantly improved. From our analysis we argue that the object G16.8-1.1 is probably an HII region instead of a SNR. Cas A shows a secular decrease in total intensity, and we measured a flux density of 688+/-35 Jy at 6cm between 2004 and 2008. Polarized emission from 25 SNRs were detected. For G16.2-2.7, G69.7+1.0, G84.2-0.8 and G85.9-0.6, the polarized emission is detected for the first time confirming them as SNRs. High frequency observations of SNRs are rare but important to establish their spectra and trace them in polarization in particular towards the inner Galaxy where Faraday effects are important.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in A&

Approximating Fixation Probabilities in the Generalized Moran Process

We consider the Moran process, as generalized by Lieberman, Hauert and Nowak (Nature, 433:312--316, 2005). A population resides on the vertices of a finite, connected, undirected graph and, at each time step, an individual is chosen at random with probability proportional to its assigned 'fitness' value. It reproduces, placing a copy of itself on a neighbouring vertex chosen uniformly at random, replacing the individual that was there. The initial population consists of a single mutant of fitness $r>0$ placed uniformly at random, with every other vertex occupied by an individual of fitness 1. The main quantities of interest are the probabilities that the descendants of the initial mutant come to occupy the whole graph (fixation) and that they die out (extinction); almost surely, these are the only possibilities. In general, exact computation of these quantities by standard Markov chain techniques requires solving a system of linear equations of size exponential in the order of the graph so is not feasible. We show that, with high probability, the number of steps needed to reach fixation or extinction is bounded by a polynomial in the number of vertices in the graph. This bound allows us to construct fully polynomial randomized approximation schemes (FPRAS) for the probability of fixation (when $r\geq 1$) and of extinction (for all $r>0$).Comment: updated to the final version, which appeared in Algorithmic

A cross-sectional study examining predictors of visit frequency to local green space and the impact this has on physical activity levels

Background Lack of physical activity (PA) is a growing public health concern. There is a growing body of literature that suggests a positive relationship may exist between the amount of local green space near one?s home and PA levels. For instance, park proximity has been shown to predict PA levels amongst certain populations. However, there is little evidence for the role of relatedness towards nature and perceptions of local green space on this relationship. The aim of this study was to examine, in a National UK sample, whether subjective indices associated with local green space were better predictors of visit frequency to local green space and PA levels compared to objectively measured quantity of local green space. Methods A cross-sectional survey was designed. From a random sample, 2079 working age adults responded to an online survey in September 2011. Demographics, self-reported PA, objective measures of the local environment (including local green space, road coverage, and environmental deprivation), were assessed in conjunction with perceptions of local green space and nature relatedness. Quantity of local green space was assessed by cross-referencing respondents? home postcodes with general land use databases. Regression models were conducted to assess which of our independent variables best predicted visit frequency to local green space and/or meeting PA guidelines. In addition, an ordinal regression was run to examine the relationship between visit frequency to local green space and the likelihood of meeting national PA guidelines. Results Nature relatedness was the strongest predictor for both visit frequency to local green space and meeting PA guidelines. Results show that perceived quality is a better predictor of visit frequency to local green space than objective quantity of local green space. The odds of achieving the recommended amount of PA was over four times greater for people who visited local green space once per week compared to never going (OR 4.151; 95 % CI, 2.40 to 7.17). Conclusions These results suggest that perceptions of local green space and nature relatedness play an important role in the relationship between local green space and PA. Considering the known health benefits of PA, our results are potentially important for public health interventions, policy making and environmental planning

L1TD1 Is a Marker for Undifferentiated Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Human embryonic stem cells (hESC) are stem cells capable of differentiating into cells representative of the three primary embryonic germ layers. There has been considerable interest in understanding the mechanisms regulating stem cell pluripotency, which will ultimately lead to development of more efficient methods to derive and culture hESC. In particular, Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog are transcription factors known to be important in maintenance of hESC. However, many of the downstream targets of these transcription factors are not well characterized. Furthermore, it remains unknown whether additional novel stem cell factors are involved in the establishment and maintenance of the stem cell state.Here we show that a novel gene, L1TD1 (also known as FLJ10884 or ECAT11), is abundantly expressed in undifferentiated hESC. Differentiation of hESC via embryoid body (EB) formation or BMP4 treatment results in the rapid down-regulation of L1TD1 expression. Furthermore, populations of undifferentiated and differentiated hESC were sorted using the stem cell markers SSEA4 and TRA160. Our results show that L1TD1 is enriched in the SSEA4-positive or TRA160-positive population of hESC. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation we found enriched association of Nanog to the predicted promoter region of L1TD1. Furthermore, siRNA-mediated knockdown of Nanog in hESC also resulted in downregulation of L1TD1 expression. Finally, using luciferase reporter assay we demonstrated that Nanog can activate the L1TD1 upstream promoter region. Altogether, these results provide evidence that L1TD1 is a downstream target of Nanog.Taken together, our results suggest that L1TD1 is a downstream target of Nanog and represents a useful marker for identifying undifferentiated hESC