When Corporate Communication Goes Public: Communication Policies in Public Communication

This article deals with communication policies within the public sector. It takes its point of departure within the overall framework of corporate communication and hence exclusively sees communication policies from that perspective. Communication policies are seen as means of corporate communication. As means of corporate communication they feature what we have labelled ‘mediational properties’ within an organization. As such they – from a communicative point of view – constitute the interface between the strategic and the operational levels of communication management. As policies they should support decision making processes when it comes to ensuring that any instance of communication is in line with the mission, vision and values of an organisation. And they should offer a defi nite course of communicative action contingent on situational factors. The contextual background of the article is the re-structuring of the Danish regional political landscape, which is to have taken place by January 1st 2007. Communicating the mission, vision and values of the new municipalities is seen as an essential part of re-configurating and maintaining political legitimacy in the transaction period and beyond. The empirical part of the article deals with an extensive corpus analysis of a broad selection of authentic communication policies stemming from Danish municipalities. The analytical framework applied gives rise to a number of new observations regarding the generic heterogeneity of communication policies. The analysis also delivers new input to the theoretical discussion of the status of communication policies within a corporate communication framework in general and within a current Danish municipality setting in particular

The Boundary Conjecture for Leaf Spaces

We prove that the boundary of an orbit space or more generally a leaf space of a singular Riemannian foliation is an Alexandrov space in its intrinsic metric, and that its lower curvature bound is that of the leaf space. A rigidity theorem for positively curved leaf spaces with maximal boundary volume is also established and plays a key role in the proof of the boundary problem.Comment: 7 page

Hepatoma cell density promotes claudin-1 and scavenger receptor BI expression and hepatitis C virus internalization.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) entry occurs via a pH- and clathrin-dependent endocytic pathway and requires a number of cellular factors, including CD81, the tight-junction proteins claudin 1 (CLDN1) and occludin, and scavenger receptor class B member I (SR-BI). HCV tropism is restricted to the liver, where hepatocytes are tightly packed. Here, we demonstrate that SR-BI and CLDN1 expression is modulated in confluent human hepatoma cells, with both receptors being enriched at cell-cell junctions. Cellular contact increased HCV pseudoparticle (HCVpp) and HCV particle (HCVcc) infection and accelerated the internalization of cell-bound HCVcc, suggesting that the cell contact modulation of receptor levels may facilitate the assembly of receptor complexes required for virus internalization. CLDN1 overexpression in subconfluent cells was unable to recapitulate this effect, whereas increased SR-BI expression enhanced HCVpp entry and HCVcc internalization, demonstrating a rate-limiting role for SR-BI in HCV internalization

Explaining Criminal Careers: Implications for Justice Policy

Explaining Criminal Careers presents a simple quantitative theory of crime, conviction and reconviction, the assumptions of the theory are derived directly from a detailed analysis of cohort samples drawn from the “UK Home Office” Offenders Index (OI). Mathematical models based on the theory, together with population trends, are used to make: exact quantitative predictions of features of criminal careers; aggregate crime levels; the prison population; and to explain the age-crime curve, alternative explanations are shown not to be supported by the data. Previous research is reviewed, clearly identifying the foundations of the current work. Using graphical techniques to identify mathematical regularities in the data, recidivism (risk) and frequency (rate) of conviction are analysed and modelled. These models are brought together to identify three categories of offender: high-risk / high-rate, high-risk / low-rate and low-risk / low-rate. The theory is shown to rest on just 6 basic assumptions. Within this theoretical framework the seriousness of offending, specialisation or versatility in offence types and the psychological characteristics of offenders are all explored suggesting that the most serious offenders are a random sample from the risk/rate categories but that those with custody later in their careers are predominantly high-risk/high-rate. In general offenders are shown to be versatile rather than specialist and can be categorised using psychological profiles. The policy implications are drawn out highlighting the importance of conviction in desistance from crime and the absence of any additional deterrence effect of imprisonment. The use of the theory in evaluation of interventions is demonstrated

Identification of a residue in hepatitis C virus E2 glycoprotein that determines scavenger receptor BI and CD81 receptor dependency and sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is dependent on at least three coreceptors: CD81, scavenger receptor BI (SR-BI), and claudin-1. The mechanism of how these molecules coordinate HCV entry is unknown. In this study we demonstrate that a cell culture-adapted JFH-1 mutant, with an amino acid change in E2 at position 451 (G451R), has a reduced dependency on SR-BI. This altered receptor dependency is accompanied by an increased sensitivity to neutralization by soluble CD81 and enhanced binding of recombinant E2 to cell surface-expressed and soluble CD81. Fractionation of HCV by density gradient centrifugation allows the analysis of particle-lipoprotein associations. The cell culture-adapted mutation alters the relationship between particle density and infectivity, with the peak infectivity occurring at higher density than the parental virus. No association was observed between particle density and SR-BI or CD81 coreceptor dependence. JFH-1 G451R is highly sensitive to neutralization by gp-specific antibodies, suggesting increased epitope exposure at the virion surface. Finally, an association was observed between JFH-1 particle density and sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies (NAbs), suggesting that lipoprotein association reduces the sensitivity of particles to NAbs. In summary, mutation of E2 at position 451 alters the relationship between particle density and infectivity, disrupts coreceptor dependence, and increases virion sensitivity to receptor mimics and NAbs. Our data suggest that a balanced interplay between HCV particles, lipoprotein components, and viral receptors allows the evasion of host immune responses

Uncharted Waters? Exploring Experts’ Opinions on the Opportunities and Limitations of Serious Games for Foreign Language Learning.

The use of serious games has seen a remarkable growth in the past decade. This resulted in a substantial number of people with hands-on experience. However, to our knowledge, no research has been performed to harvest this source of information. By means of a survey with closed and open-ended questions, we explore the opinions of 50 serious game and CALL experts on serious games’ potential for foreign language learning. The first part of the paper discusses attitudes on serious games and learning. In general, we discern a rather strong belief in the potential of learning games. The second part of the paper zooms in on foreign language learning through games whereby some remarkable results emerge on the possibilities and limitations of foreign language learning games. Next, we discuss respondents’ opinions on issues regarding the integration of foreign language learning games in a classroom context and on their design. The final part of the paper elaborates on a SWOT analysis of foreign language learning games resulting in a nuanced view on the opportunities and limitations of foreign language learning games. As a consequence, this paper not only identifies topics which bear a broad consensus among experts, but also shows that strong differences in opinion exist

Comparing the potential of commercial off-the-shelf and educational games video games for adult foreign language education: an experimental study

The goal of this paper is to explore the experiences evoked by playing a commercial and two digital language learning games. More particularly, it deals with the differences in the playing and learning experiences of adult foreign language learners ( N=62). While results of the experimental design suggest that the commercial game evokes better playing and learning experiences, these findings are partly neutralized by the attitude of the participants towards learning through video games and by being a gamer or not. This raises questions as to how video games should look to appeal to a public of learners that is not familiar with gaming in general and with digital game-based learning in specific