Quality of working time in the police : the experience of shift extensification for officers and staff

This chapter examines the quality of working time within the police service, focusing on one particular dimension of working time, shift extensification. For the police service, demands for operational efficiency make shiftwork and unsocial working hours an expectation. However, extended shifts which are unpredictable are seldom formally recognised. The chapter proposes that, over time, such regular shift extensification leads to degradation in the quality of working time as a result of its consequences for employee work-life balance, wellbeing and health. It reports a study drawing from a survey of 3257 UK police officers and staff to examine the extent to which extended hours are an issue. The chapter presents analysis of 2198 open text comments across the range of occupations in order to enrich the understanding of how working time quality is affected by this form of unplanned shift extensification. The data allows us to reflect on the implications for working time quality in situations where employer-driven demands for short notice flexible scheduling are shifting the adjustment back on employees. It is argued that this pattern is increasingly evident in many front-line occupations in a range of contemporary contexts, including the public sector

Dissociating Orienting Biases From Integration Effects With Eye Movements

Despite decades of research, the conditions under which shifts of attention to prior target locations are facilitated or inhibited remain unknown. This ambiguity is a product of the popular feature discrimination task, in which attentional bias is commonly inferred from the efficiency by which a stimulus feature is discriminated after its location has been repeated or changed. Problematically, these tasks lead to integration effects; effects of target-location repetition appear to depend entirely on whether the target feature or response also repeats, allowing for several possible inferences about orienting bias. To parcel out integration effects and orienting biases, we designed the present experiments to require localized eye movements and manual discrimination responses to serially presented targets with randomly repeating locations. Eye movements revealed consistent biases away from prior target locations. Manual discrimination responses revealed integration effects. These data collectively revealed inhibited reorienting and integration effects, which resolve the ambiguity and reconcile episodic integration and attentional orienting accounts

Unpredictable working time, well-being and health in the police service

The unpredictability of working time is a seldom studied feature of employment. This paper proposes that unpredictability in scheduling is associated with greater employee work-life conflict and perceived stress. This, in turn, has implications for health behaviour (alcohol consumption, sleep disturbance) and symptoms (digestive and cardiovascular problems). Increasing employee control through flexible working arrangements (FWA) is examined as a potential moderator. We also examine the possibility that alcohol consumption exacerbates the negative effects of unpredictability on well-being and health. A survey of 1207 police officers, for whom working unsocial hours is commonly accepted, showed direct effects of unpredictability over and above nonstandard hours on digestive health, and indirect effects through well-being on sleep, digestive and cardiovascular health. In some cases, these indirect effects were reduced or absent with greater employee control through FWA, although this was not uniform. Alcohol consumption intensified the effects of unpredictability on well-being and some health outcomes. As well as highlighting unpredictability as a key dimension of working time quality, the findings reflect a tension between employer-centred scheduling strategies for enhancing workforce flexibility and HRM practices, such as FWA, which purport to provide employees with greater control and work-life balance

Bayesian modelling of the cool core galaxy group NGC 4325

We present an X-ray analysis of the radio-quiet cool-core galaxy group NGC 4325 (z=0.026) based on Chandra and ROSAT observations. The Chandra data were analysed using XSPEC deprojection, 2D spectral mapping and forward-fitting with parametric models. Additionally, a Markov chain Monte Carlo method was used to perform a joint Bayesian analysis of the Chandra and ROSAT data. The results of the various analysis methods are compared, particularly those obtained by forward-fitting and deprojection. The spectral mapping reveals the presence of cool gas displaced up to 10 kpc from the group centre. The Chandra X-ray surface brightness shows the group core to be highly disturbed, and indicates the presence of two small X-ray cavities within 15 kpc of the group core. The XSPEC deprojection analysis shows that the group has a particularly steep entropy profile, suggesting that an AGN outburst may be about to occur. With the evidence of prior AGN activity, but with no radio emission currently observed, we suggest that the group in in a pre-outburst state, with the cavities and displaced gas providing evidence of a previous, weak AGN outburst.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication in MNRA

A parametric physical model for the intracluster medium and its use in joint SZ/X-ray analyses of galaxy clusters

We present a parameterized model of the intra-cluster medium that is suitable for jointly analysing pointed observations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect and X-ray emission in galaxy clusters. The model is based on assumptions of hydrostatic equilibrium, the Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW) model for the dark matter, and a softened power law profile for the gas entropy. We test this entropy-based model against high and low signal-to-noise mock observations of a relaxed and recently-merged cluster from N-body/hydrodynamic simulations, using Bayesian hyper-parameters to optimise the relative statistical weighting of the mock SZ and X-ray data. We find that it accurately reproduces both the global values of the cluster temperature, total mass and gas mass fraction (fgas), as well as the radial dependencies of these quantities outside of the core (r > kpc). For reference we also provide a comparison with results from the single isothermal beta model. We confirm previous results that the single isothermal beta model can result in significant biases in derived cluster properties.Comment: Published in MNRAS. 20 pages. 9 figure

Water quality improvement performance of geotextiles within permeable pavement systems: A critical review

Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS; or best management practices) are increasingly being used as ecological engineering techniques to prevent the contamination of receiving watercourses and groundwater. Permeable paving is a SuDS technique, which is commonplace in car parks, driveways and minor roads where one of their functions is to improve the quality of urban runoff. However, little is known about the water quality benefits of incorporating an upper geotextile within the paving structure. The review focuses on five different categories of pollutants: organic matter, nutrients, heavy metals, motor oils, suspended solids originating from street dust, and chloride. The paper critically assesses results from previous international tests and draws conclusions on the scientific rigour and significance of the data. Findings indicate that only very few studies have been undertaken to address the role of geotextiles directly. All indications are that the presence of a geotextile leads only to minor water quality improvements. For example, suspended solids are being held back by the geotextile and these solids sometimes contain organic matter, nutrients and heavy metals. However, most studies were inconclusive and data were often unsuitable for further statistical analysis. Further long-term research on industry-relevant, and statistically and scientifically sound, experimental set-ups is recommended

Description of the Larva of Lophodiplosis trifida, an Australian Gall Midge (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) and Biocontrol Agent of Paperbark in

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Clinical Best Practice Advice for Hepatology and Liver Transplant Providers During the COVID‐19 Pandemic: AASLD Expert Panel Consensus Statement

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156235/2/hep31281.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156235/1/hep31281_am.pd

A Systematic Review of Online Sex Addiction and Clinical Treatments Using CONSORT Evaluation

Researchers have suggested that the advances of the Internet over the past two decades have gradually eliminated traditional offline methods of obtaining sexual material. Additionally, research on cybersex and/or online sex addictions has increased alongside the development of online technology. The present study extended the findings from Griffiths’ (2012) systematic empirical review of online sex addiction by additionally investigating empirical studies that implemented and/or documented clinical treatments for online sex addiction in adults. A total of nine studies were identified and then each underwent a CONSORT evaluation. The main findings of the present review provide some evidence to suggest that some treatments (both psychological and/or pharmacological) provide positive outcomes among those experiencing difficulties with online sex addiction. Similar to Griffiths’ original review, this study recommends that further research is warranted to establish the efficacy of empirically driven treatments for online sex addiction