"I Wouldn't Be Friends with Someone If They Were Liking Too Much Rubbish": A Qualitative Study of Alcohol Brands, Youth Identity and Social Media

The consumption of alcohol by young people remains a major public health concern at both the national and international level. Levels of drinking among 15‐year olds in the United Kingdom (UK) remain significantly higher than the European average. This study explored how alcohol brands are used by young people to develop their desired identities and how these acts of consumption extend to young people's profiles on social media. It also deepens understanding of how alcohol brands are connected to young peoples' concerns about image and peer group dynamics. This involved qualitative focus groups with young people aged 14-7 in Central Scotland. Certain alcohol brands were approved and viewed as socially acceptable by young people, while others were rejected. Children as young as 14 were selecting products to portray a drinking identity that was appropriately aligned to their gender and sexuality. Participants displayed a desire to associate themselves with the mature drinking culture personified by some brands, whilst simultaneously distancing themselves from immature drinking practices associated with others. Publicly associating with alcohol brands on social media carried with it potential risks to peer group acceptance. Understanding how young people perceive alcohol brands, the importance of social media in communicating that identity to their peers and the role that alcohol brands play in adolescent identity formation is an important first step to reforming alcohol marketing regulations

"What are you meant to do when you see it everywhere?": Young people, alcohol packaging and digital media

The consumption of alcohol plays an important part in the way in which people create identities and live their social lives. Alcohol brands become embedded in everyday life through marketing practices, and this is amplified by an increase in new technologies that facilitate the transference of marketing messages. This research explores how alcohol brands use social networking sites (SNS) and packaging as part of their repertoire of marketing activities, and how users respond to these activities

Palynologie et lithostratigraphie du Pléistocène du site de Donnacona, vallée du Saint-Laurent, Québec

À Donnacona, une séquence de sédiments non glaciaires est intercalée entre un complexe glaciaire inférieur et le Till de Gentilly. Le complexe inférieur comprend un till basal, des dépôts de marge glaciaire, un diamicton, quelques varves, un till et une rudite sommitale. La séquence intermédiaire est composée de trois unités: des silts et sables riches en débris végétaux, datés à >35 000 BP (UQ-678), des sables stratifiés et des silts massifs. L'interprétation paléoenvironnementale de la séquence tient compte du spectre et de la concentration polliniques, de la diversité taxonomique et de la nature des sédiments. Un traitement statistique met en évidence quatre palynozones. La palynologie démontre que les dépôts stratifiés intermédiaires de Donnacona sont en fait postérieurs aux Sédiments de Saint-Pierre, à l'exception d'une mince zone inférieure (palynozone Donnacona 1 à Picea et Abies dominants) corrélée au sommet des Sédiments de Saint-Pierre. Le reste de l'unité à débris organiques est attribué aux Rythmites du Saint-Maurice. Des rythmites saisonnières sont révélées par la palynologie. Le contenu pollinique (palynozone Donnacona 2) évoque une sapinière méridionale incluant des espèces thermophiles dont Tsuga et Tilia, progressivement remplacée par une pes-sière. L'unité de sables contenant les palynozones Donnacona 3 et la base de Donnacona 4 est corrélée aux Sables des Vieilles-Forges. Elle représente une détérioration climatique. L'unité sous le Till de Gentilly indique un environnement glaciolacustre contemporain d'une toundra forestière puis d'une toundra (partie supérieure de la palynozone Donnacona 4).At Donnacona, a sequence of non-glacial sediments is intercalated between a lower glacial complex and the Gentilly Till. The lower complex consists of a basal till, ice margin deposits, a diamicton, some varves, a till and an upper rudite. The intermediate stratified sequence includes three units: silt and sand with plant debris, dated at >35,000 BP (UQ-678), stratified coarse sands and a massive sift. The paleoenvironments are assessed from the pollen spectra and concentrations, the taxonomic diversity and the sedimentology. The pollen diagram is divided into four palynozones by statistical treatment. Pollen study demonstrates that the intermediate stratified deposits at Donnacona are younger than the St. Pierre Sediments, except a thin lower zone (palynozone Donnacona 1 with dominant Picea and Abies) which is correlated with the upper part of the St. Pierre Sediments. The remainder of the unit with plant debris is correlated with the Saint-Maurice Rhyth-mites. Pollen analysis revealed that this unit contains seasonal rhythmites. The pollen content (palynozone Donnacona 2) indicates that a southern Abies forest, which included thermophilous species such as Tsuga and Tilia, was gradually replaced by a Picea forest. The coarse sand unit contains the Donnacona 3 and the lower part of Donnacona 4 palynozones. It is related to the Vieilles-Forges Sands and to a climatic deterioration. The unit below Gentilly Till was deposited in a glacial lake coeval with a forest tundra and later with a tundra (upper part of palynozone Donnacona 4).Bei Donnacona ist eine Sequenz nicht glazialer Sedimente zwischen einen tieferen glazialen Komplex und die Grundmorane von Gentilly eingefugt. Der untere glaziale Komplex urnfaRt ein Basaltill, Ablagerungen von dem glazialen Saum, ein Diamikton, einige War-wen, eine Grundmorane und eine daruberliegende Rudite. Die mittlere Sequenz besteht aus drei Einheiten: Schlamm und Sand, die sehr viel pflanzliche Uberreste en-thalten und die auf > 35 000 v.u.Z. (UQ-678) datiert werden, geschichteter Sand und massiver Schlamm. Die Interpretation der Palaoumwelt der Sequenz berucksichtigt Pollen-Spektrum und -Konzentration, die Vielfalt der Systematik und der Natur der Sedimente. Eine statistische Verarbeitung hebt vier Palynozonen hervor. Die Pollen-Analyze zeigt, dafî die geschichteten mittleren Ablagerungen von Donnacona in der Tatjungerals die Sedimente von Saint-Pierre sind mit Ausnahme einer feinen unteren Zone (Palynozone Donnacona 1 mit Dominanz von Picea und Abies), die mit der Spitze der Sedimente von Saint-Pierre korreliert wird. Der Rest der Einheit mit organischen Frag-menten wird den Rythmiten von Saint-Maurice zugeordnet. Die Pollen-Analyse deckt saisonbedingte Rythmite auf. Der Pollen-Gehalt (Palynozone Donnacona 2) weist auf einen sudlichen Tannenwald, der thermophile Arten wie Tsuga und Tilia enthielt und allmâhlich durch einen Picea-Wald ersetzt wurde. Die Sandeinheit, welche die Palynozonen Donnacona 3 und die Basis von Donnacona 4 enthalt, wird mit dem Sand von Vieilles-Forges korreliert. Sie stellt eine KIi-maverschlechterung dar. Die Einheit unter der Grundmorane von Gentilly weist auf eine glaziallimnische Unwelt, die mit einer WaId-Tundra und dann einer Tundra zeitlich zusammenfiel (obérer Teil der Palynozone Donnacona 4)

The Response of Retailers in Scotland to the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations and Tobacco Products Directive

Introduction With most marketing channels prohibited, the retail environment has assumed greater importance for tobacco companies, even in markets with a ban on the open display of tobacco products. Research has yet to qualitatively explore how retailers respond to standardized packaging in a country where this has been introduced. Methods As part of the DISPLAY study, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 24 small retailers in Scotland between May 23 and June 26, 2017; the interviews were conducted after The Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations and the Tobacco Products Directive were fully implemented. Results We found high retailer compliance with the legislation. With price-marked packs and packs containing less than 20 cigarettes and 30 g of rolling tobacco banned, retailers stated that this helped simplify ordering and stock management. The removal of price-marked packs also allowed them some flexibility to set their own prices, but many chose to stick closely to recommended retail price in order to remain competitive and avoid complaints from customers. In contrast to one of the tobacco industry’s arguments against standardized packaging, most retailers suggested that transaction times had not increased, even though the changes had only recently come into force. Conclusions This study challenges some of the arguments used against standardized packaging and provides an insight into the storage and pricing strategies adopted by retailers following the removal of price-marked packs. Implications This study explores the response of the retailers to the introduction of standardized tobacco packaging and provides an insight into the storage and pricing strategies adopted by retailers following the removal of price-marked packs. It explores the importance of the retailer in tobacco companies’ desire to maintain tobacco sales and challenges some of the arguments used against standardized packaging, such as an increase in transaction times. Countries seeking to introduce standardized packaging should monitor the experiences of retailers, preferably from preimplementation through to post implementation, to help understand how retailers respond to this policy and to inform compliance

Experience with Adults Shapes Multisensory Representation of Social Familiarity in the Brain of a Songbird

Social animals learn to perceive their social environment, and their social skills and preferences are thought to emerge from greater exposure to and hence familiarity with some social signals rather than others. Familiarity appears to be tightly linked to multisensory integration. The ability to differentiate and categorize familiar and unfamiliar individuals and to build a multisensory representation of known individuals emerges from successive social interactions, in particular with adult, experienced models. In different species, adults have been shown to shape the social behavior of young by promoting selective attention to multisensory cues. The question of what representation of known conspecifics adult-deprived animals may build therefore arises. Here we show that starlings raised with no experience with adults fail to develop a multisensory representation of familiar and unfamiliar starlings. Electrophysiological recordings of neuronal activity throughout the primary auditory area of these birds, while they were exposed to audio-only or audiovisual familiar and unfamiliar cues, showed that visual stimuli did, as in wild-caught starlings, modulate auditory responses but that, unlike what was observed in wild-caught birds, this modulation was not influenced by familiarity. Thus, adult-deprived starlings seem to fail to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar individuals. This suggests that adults may shape multisensory representation of known individuals in the brain, possibly by focusing the young’s attention on relevant, multisensory cues. Multisensory stimulation by experienced, adult models may thus be ubiquitously important for the development of social skills (and of the neural properties underlying such skills) in a variety of species

No need to Talk, I Know You: Familiarity Influences Early Multisensory Integration in a Songbird's Brain

It is well known that visual information can affect auditory perception, as in the famous “McGurk effect,” but little is known concerning the processes involved. To address this issue, we used the best-developed animal model to study language-related processes in the brain: songbirds. European starlings were exposed to audiovisual compared to auditory-only playback of conspecific songs, while electrophysiological recordings were made in their primary auditory area (Field L). The results show that the audiovisual condition modulated the auditory responses. Enhancement and suppression were both observed, depending on the stimulus familiarity. Seeing a familiar bird led to suppressed auditory responses while seeing an unfamiliar bird led to response enhancement, suggesting that unisensory perception may be enough if the stimulus is familiar while redundancy may be required for unfamiliar items. This is to our knowledge the first evidence that multisensory integration may occur in a low-level, putatively unisensory area of a non-mammalian vertebrate brain, and also that familiarity of the stimuli may influence modulation of auditory responses by vision

Police officers\u27 perceptions of their reactions to viewing internet child exploitation material

The purpose of this paper is to extend prior research on the impact of working in the area of Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) investigation by exploring ICE investigators' perceptions of and reactions to viewing child exploitation material. A diverse sample of 32 ICE investigators across all nine Australian jurisdictions individually participated in anonymous in-depth interviews. Participants were asked to discuss their subjective experience of viewing ICE material and its effect on them and to describe a case that evoked an adverse reaction, the nature of the reaction, and the characteristics of the material that contributed to it. The results revealed that ICE investigators experience salient emotional, cognitive, social and behavioural consequences due to viewing ICE material and their reactions can be short and long term. The degree of negative impact appears to vary markedly across individuals, types and content of material and viewing context, with variation based on individual, case-related and contextual factors both in and outside the workplace.No Full Tex

Tobacco companies' use of retailer incentives after a ban on point-of-sale tobacco displays in Scotland

Introduction  Incentives have been used by tobacco companies for many years to encourage retailers to sell and promote their products. However, few studies have examined the use of retailer incentives in countries with a ban on the open display of tobacco products in stores. Methods  As part of the DISPLAY(Determining the Impact of Smoking Point of Sale Legislation Among Youth) study, annual qualitative interviews were conducted with 24 small retailers in four Scottish communities. This article focuses on data collected in June to July 2015 and June to July 2016 after a ban on the open display of tobacco was fully implemented in Scotland. Results  Retailers described being offered and benefiting from a range of financial and other incentives, typically offered via tobacco company representatives ('reps'). Most of the retailers received tobacco manufacturer support for converting their storage unit to be compliant with the new regulations, and several participated in manufacturer 'loyalty' or 'reward' schemes. Incentives were additionally offered for maintaining stock levels and availability, positioning brands in specified spaces in the public-facing storage units (even though products were covered up), increasing sales, trialling new products and participating in specific promotions, such as verbally recommending specific brands to customers. Conclusions  Even in a market where the open display of tobacco is prohibited, tobacco companies continue to incentivise retailers to sell and promote their brands and have developed new promotional strategies. For countries that have implemented tobacco display bans, or are considering doing so, one option to combat these practices would be to ban promotional communications between manufacturers and retailers