Radio formats and social media use in Europe - 28 case studies of public service practice

The aim of this article is to report, summarize and spread the results of a largescale European research project funded by EBU Radio in 2011 to map best practices in social media and European public radio, focusing on the way successful public service radio formats have incorporated social media in their production flow. The programmes have been selected for one of the following reasons: Programmes that are audience leaders in their country, use innovative radio language or are youthoriented productions. The survey has been carried out by a team of ten European researchers from seven countries on a sample of 28 public radio programmes analysed for two months between January and February 2011. The research team attempted to answer the empirical question: 'How social media are used by public service?'. Are there some common threads and shared practices among successful programmes in different countries? The team adopted an empirical approach based on social media content analysis and interviews with radio producers. This article will present the main results of this empirical research project. It will conclude with practical guidelines for public radio production and social media innovation

Preventing fraud and providing services: The private healthcare insurance sector

The private healthcare insurance sector is rarely the subject of criminological analysis unless seen as corrupt. It is even more unusual that it is the subject of analysis as a victim of fraud. This paper is thus different in that it establishes a picture of international private healthcare insurance sectors approach in preventing fraud and providing healthcare services. We start by explaining why the private health insurance markets exist. This is followed by the methods employed to secure innovative data from the private health insurance sector. The results of the research conducted in collaboration with the International Federation of Health Plans are then presented. A discussion on key aspects of this research is then examined before we lastly, consider a way forward and the development of fraud resilience in the private insurance healthcare market

Forces between silica surfaces with adsorbed cationic surfactants: Influence of salt and added nonionic surfactants

Forces have been measured between silica surfaces with adsorbed surfactants by means of a bimorph surface force apparatus. The surfactants used are the cationic surfactant tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide (TTAB) and the nonionic surfactant hexakis(ethylene glycol) mono-n-tetradecyl ether (C14E6) as well as mixtures of these two surfactants. The measurements were made at elevated pH, and the effect of salt was studied. At high pH the glass surface is highly charged, which increases the adsorption of TTAB. Despite the low adsorption generally seen for nonionic surfactants on silica at high pH, addition Of C14E6 has a considerable effect on the surface forces between two glass surfaces in a TTAB solution. The barrier force is hardly affected, but the adhesion is reduced remarkably. Also, addition of salt decreases the adhesion, but increases the barrier force. In the presence of salt, addition Of C14E6 also increases the thickness of the adsorbed layer. The force barrier height is also shown to be related to literature values for surface pressure data in these systems