Virtual corporeality: narrative and spectacle in Hollywood VR cinema

This thesis is an inquiry into the emergence, development and eventual transmutation of the 'virtual reality' (VR) subgenre. I critically intervene in discourse on cinema, digital media, phenomenology and science fiction (SF) to explore how these films refract and enact Hollywood cinema‘s engagement with digital media and imaging technologies. Given that these films are about bodily immersive mediated experiences, I argue, their reflexive displays of special effects technologies are far from anti- or contra-narrative, as certain analyses imply. My emphasis on the imbrication of narrative and spectacle motivates a critical questioning of further, often interrelated and mutually sustaining dichotomies between body and mind, cognition and affect, cinema and digital media, real and virtual, reflection and immersion. Via close textual analysis with a phenomenological leaning, I explore how these films variously disrupt such binaries. As both old and new media produce and address differently mediated publics, they adopt, adapt and assimilate the narrative-aesthetic modalities of other (digital) media, negotiating their impacts upon our phenomenological relations to the world and to cinema. Through reflexive allusions to their increasingly mediated extradiegetic contexts, they function to uphold cinema‘s ability both to present innovative technological spectacle and to represent contemporary experiential realities. I explore how earlier VR films Tron and The Lawnmower Man aesthetically and conceptually 'map' VR, and how Strange Days and The Matrix ambivalently explore the implications of intensified and widespread virtual experience in radically different ways. I characterise Avatar and Source Code as 'Post-VR' cinema, in which formerly upheld dichotomies – particularly between 'real' and 'virtual' – prove untenably anachronistic. I ultimately maintain the value of an approach to popular cinema which apprehends genre, context and convergence, while advocating sustained and detailed close analysis as a means of grasping cinema‘s narrative-aesthetic functions in the digital age

Does a monetary incentive improve the response to a postal questionnaire in a randomised controlled trial? : the MINT incentive study

Background: Sending a monetary incentive with postal questionnaires has been found to improve the proportion of responders, in research in non-healthcare settings. However, there is little research on use of incentives to improve follow-up rates in clinical trials, and existing studies are inconclusive. We conducted a randomised trial among participants in the Managing Injuries of the Neck Trial (MINT) to investigate the effects on the proportion of questionnaires returned and overall non-response of sending a £5 gift voucher with a follow-up questionnaire. Methods: Participants in MINT were randomised to receive either: (a) a £5 gift voucher (incentive group) or (b) no gift voucher (no incentive group), with their 4 month or 8 month follow-up questionnaire. We recorded, for each group, the number of questionnaires returned, the number returned without any chasing from the study office, the overall number of non-responders (after all chasing efforts by the study office), and the costs of following up each group. Results: 2144 participants were randomised, 1070 to the incentive group and 1074 to the no incentive group. The proportion of questionnaires returned (RR 1.10 (95% CI 1.05, 1.16)) and the proportion returned without chasing (RR 1.14 (95% CI 1.05, 1.24) were higher in the incentive group, and the overall non-response rate was lower (RR 0.68 (95% CI 0.53, 0.87)). Adjustment for injury severity and hospital of recruitment to MINT made no difference to these results, and there were no differences in results between the 4-month and 8-month follow up questionnaires. Analysis of costs suggested a cost of £67.29 per additional questionnaire returned. Conclusion: Monetary incentives may be an effective way to increase the proportion of postal questionnaires returned and minimise loss to follow-up in clinical trials

A national survey of clinical practice for the management of whiplash-associated disorders in UK emergency departments

Objective: To undertake a national survey to determine current practice for the management of whiplash injuries in UK emergency departments (ED). Methods: Postal questionnaire survey. 316 lead consultants from all UK ED with annual new attendances of over 50 000 people were asked to indicate the use of a range of treatments and the frequency with which these treatments were used. Samples of written advice were requested and content analysis was conducted and compared with survey responses. Results: The response rate was 79% (251/316). The intervention most frequently used was verbal advice to exercise, reported by 84% of respondents for most or all cases, and advice against the use of a collar (83%). Other treatments reported as being used frequently were written advice and anti-inflammatory medication. 106 consultants (42%) provided a sample of written materials. Reference to expected recovery and encouragement for early return to activities were included in less than 6%. Nearly 50% of written materials contained information on how to use a soft collar and 61% contained information on solicitors and pursuing a personal injury claim. There were important differences between reported verbal behaviours and written advice. Conclusion: Verbal advice is the primary method for managing whiplash injuries in ED and is usually supplemented by written advice. Within individual hospitals there is a lack of consistency between verbal and written advice. The promotion of personal injury claims is a common feature of written advice. Research is required to develop effective and consistent models of advice

Development and delivery of an exercise programme for falls prevention: the Prevention of Falls Injury Trial (PreFIT)

This paper describes the development and implementation of an exercise intervention to prevent falls within The Prevention of Fall Injury Trial (PreFIT), which is a large multi-centred randomised controlled trial based in the UK National Health Service (NHS).Using the template for intervention description and replication (TIDieR) checklist, to describe the rationale and processes for treatment selection and delivery of the PreFIT exercise intervention.Based on the results of a validated falls and balance survey, participants were eligible for the exercise intervention if they were at moderate or high risk of falling.Intervention development was informed using the current evidence base, published guidelines, and pre-existing surveys of clinical practice, a pilot study and consensus work with therapists and practitioners. The exercise programme targets lower limb strength and balance, which are known, modifiable risk factors for falling. Treatment was individually tailored and progressive, with seven recommended contacts over a six-month period. Clinical Trials Registry (ISCTRN 71002650)