Television, national identity and the public sphere - a comparative study of Scottish and Catalan discussion programmes

This project examines questions of national identity and democracy in television through the analysis of the production processes of audience discussion programmes. The study of television debates, as public spaces through which members of particular communities discuss topics of common concern, shed some light on two different questions. On the one hand, this project explores whether the (re)construction of national and cultural identity intervenes in the process of programme-making within stateless nations. On the other hand, audience discussion programmes are examined to assess whether they can function as democratic spheres of social representation in the media. These two strands of research are developed through ethnographic insights into two television debates: Scottish Women - produced by the commercial company Scottish Television (STV), and La Vida en un Xip - transmitted through the. Catalan public television channel TV3 and produced by the production company DCo.S.A. A comparative study of these two programmes and their respective broadcasting contexts is provided. Also, the distinctive political status of Scotland and Catalonia within their respective states - Britain and Spain - and the European and international contexts, is examined in relation to the media. The current debates concerning nationalism, the nation and national identity are discussed on the basis of culture as the essential element of the nation-building process. This study explores the process of cultural identity fonnation in Scotland and Catalonia and the role of their respective media structures as potential actors in the (re)construction of collective identities. Thus, the analysis of television production is regarded as a key instrument with which to assessh ow this medium intervenesi n such processes. Audience discussion programmes are examined as television formats with the potential for providing a democratic public sphere in the media. An expansion of the concept of the public sphere, its transformation and its role in contemporary societies is, therefore, essential to develop this argument. Also, the relation between television debates and the community is explored through a survey carried out amongst participants of Scottish Women and La Vida en un Xip. This work provides media studies with some keys to evaluate the role of television debates in the delicate political make-up of two nations without a state, Scotland and Catalonia. Questions of national and cultural identity are crucial to the policy-making of their respective broadcasting, industries. Yet, such questions are difficult to distinguish and define in their programming. The comparative analysis of the two case studies reveals that every person involved in television making reflects to a certain extent his/her own perceptions of the country, and therefore, television debates mirror the ambiguities that may lie behind them. This study provides some clues to reformulate the concept of the 'public sphere' on the basis of a 'dissection' of television production procedures. The findings also reveal the economic, political and social criteria that develop audience discussion programmes into spheres of entertainment rather than rational communicative environments in which a public sphere could function. The concepts of national identity and the public sphere are framed in the context of contemporary societies, in which post-modem values are eroding the role and interest of the individual in the political process

The Role of Teachers in Identifying and Supporting Homeless Secondary School Students: Important Lessons for Teacher Education

Young people entering homelessness often do so while still at school. This study explores Australian teachers’ and other student support staff perspectives of the experiences of students who are running away from home, the barriers to student help-seeking, and how local youth services can best support secondary schools to provide necessary services to keep students at school and at home or in some other form of safe and secure accommodation. The study revealed that although teachers and student support staff report awareness that student couch surfing exists; there are a range of barriers which prevent a student from seeking help. Teachers called for stronger relationships between schools and youth homelessness services to achieve a more effective and informed early intervention response. Teachers also asked for guidance on how to respond when students are homeless. The overall results have important implications for teacher education and practice as well as informing education welfare policies

A novel automata-theoretic approach to timeline-based planning

Timeline-based planning is a well-established approach successfully employed in a number of application domains. A very restricted fragment, featuring only bounded temporal relations and token durations, is expressive enough to capture action-based temporal planning. As for computational complexity, it has been shown to be EXPSPACE-complete when unbounded temporal relations, but only bounded token durations, are allowed. In this paper, we present a novel automata-theoretic characterisation of timeline-based planning where the existence of a plan is shown to be equivalent to the nonemptiness of the language recognised by a nondeterministic finite-state automaton that suitably encodes all the problem constraints (timelines and synchronisation rules). Besides allowing us to restate known complexity results in a fairly natural and compact way, such an alternative characterisation makes it possible to finally establish the exact complexity of the full version of the problem with unbounded temporal relations and token durations, which was still open and turns out to be EXPSPACE-complete. Moreover, the proposed technique is general enough to cope with (infinite) recurrent goals, which received little attention so far, despite being quite common in real-word application scenarios

LCA environmental impacts of Europe’s housing stock and prevention scenarios

Resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to cope with impacts by minimising their effects (through adaptation and mitigation). In practice, upstream measures on the causes, in terms of reducing the emissions or using resource more efficiently, should constitute the main action strategy for reducing the environmental impacts. The article describes the results of a research aiming at quantifing the average environmental impacts associated with the current housing stock in Europe through the construction of statistically-based representative models and the application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method. Knowledge of the characteristics and the environmental performances of the building stock – particularly the residential building stock – is of fundamental importance to establish effective policies and priority actions for the prevention of impacts and the strengthening of the resilience

Cantu syndrome–associated SUR2 (ABCC9) mutations in distinct structural domains result in KATP channel gain-of-function by differential mechanisms

The complex disorder Cantu syndrome (CS) arises from gainof-function mutations in either KCNJ8 or ABCC9, the genes encoding the Kir6.1 and SUR2 subunits of ATP-sensitive potassium (KATP) channels, respectively. Recent reports indicate that such mutations can increase channel activity by multiple molecular mechanisms. In this study, we determined the mechanism by which KATP function is altered by several substitutions in distinct structural domains of SUR2: D207E in the intracellular L0-linker and Y985S, G989E, M1060I, and R1154Q/R1154W in TMD2. We engineered substitutions at their equivalent positions in rat SUR2A (D207E, Y981S, G985E, M1056I, and R1150Q/R1150W) and investigated functional consequences using macroscopic rubidium (86Rb-) efflux assays and patchclamp electrophysiology. Our results indicate that D207E increases KATP channel activity by increasing intrinsic stability of the open state, whereas the cluster of Y981S/G985E/M1056I substitutions, as well as R1150Q/R1150W, augmented Mg-nucleotide activation. We also tested the responses of these channel variants to inhibition by the sulfonylurea drug glibenclamide, a potential pharmacotherapy for CS. None of the D207E, Y981S, G985E, or M1056I substitutions had a significant effect on glibenclamide sensitivity. However, Gln and Trp substitution at Arg-1150 significantly decreased glibenclamide potency. In summary, these results provide additional confirmation that mutations in CS-Associated SUR2 mutations result in KATP gain-of-function. They help link CS genotypes to phenotypes and shed light on the underlying molecular mechanisms, including consequences for inhibitory drug sensitivity, insights that may inform the development of therapeutic approaches to manage CS

Secreted CLCA1 modulates TMEM16A to activate Ca2+-dependent chloride currents in human cells

Calcium-activated chloride channel regulator 1 (CLCA1) activates calcium-dependent chloride currents; neither the target, nor mechanism, is known. We demonstrate that secreted CLCA1 activates calcium-dependent chloride currents in HEK293T cells in a paracrine fashion, and endogenous TMEM16A/Anoctamin1 conducts the currents. Exposure to exogenous CLCA1 increases cell surface levels of TMEM16A and cellular binding experiments indicate CLCA1 engages TMEM16A on the surface of these cells. Altogether, our data suggest that CLCA1 stabilizes TMEM16A on the cell surface, thus increasing surface expression, which results in increased calcium-dependent chloride currents. Our results identify the first Cl(−) channel target of the CLCA family of proteins and establish CLCA1 as the first secreted direct modifier of TMEM16A activity, delineating a unique mechanism to increase currents. These results suggest cooperative roles for CLCA and TMEM16 proteins in influencing the physiology of multiple tissues, and the pathology of multiple diseases, including asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, and certain cancers. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.05875.00

Novel roles for chloride channels, exchangers, and regulators in chronic inflammatory airway diseases

Chloride transport proteins play critical roles in inflammatory airway diseases, contributing to the detrimental aspects of mucus overproduction, mucus secretion, and airway constriction. However, they also play crucial roles in contributing to the innate immune properties of mucus and mucociliary clearance. In this review, we focus on the emerging novel roles for a chloride channel regulator (CLCA1), a calcium-activated chloride channel (TMEM16A), and two chloride exchangers (SLC26A4/pendrin and SLC26A9) in chronic inflammatory airway diseases