THE POLITICAL ANALYSIS OF ECUNOMIC MARKETS

Summary This article presents a framework drawn from Weber for analysing markets as dynamic processes in which competition is seen as a struggle to deny opportunities to others. Markets have a tendency to monopolization which arises from the efforts of economic actors to exclude others through a process of closure. The process whereby the excluded actors seek to undermine the power of the dominant actors is defined as usurpation. The article presents a case study of the consumer electronics market in Britain over a 20 year period, and analyses the various closure and usurpation strategies employed by British and Japanese firms which resulted in the exit of all the British firms from the industry. Resumé L'analyse politique des marchés économiques Cet article présente une structure – d'inspiration wéberienne – pour l'analyse des marchés comme procédés dynamiques où la concurrence prend la forme d'une lutte qui cherche à entraver les tiers. Les marchés ont une tendance de monopolisation qui résulte de l'effort des acteurs économiques pour exclure les tiers par un processus de fermeture. Le processus par lequel les acteurs exclus cherchent à miner le pouvoir des acteurs dominants se nomme l'usurpation. L'auteur présente une étude de cas sur le marché britannique des produits de consommation électroniques au cours d'une période de vingt ans, et analyse les diverses stratégies de fermeture et d'usurpation adoptées par les entreprises britanniques et japonnaises, strateegies dont la conséquence a été que les entreprises britanniques ont toute quitté l'industrie. Resumen El análisis político de los mercados económicos Este artículo presenta una estructura (inspirada en Weber) para analizar los mercados económicos como procesos dinámicos en los cuales la competencia se presenta como un esfuerzo para negar oportunidades a otros. Los mercados tienen una tendencia a la monopolización que proviene de la pugna entre los participantes por excluir a otros a través de un proceso de clausura. A su vez el proceso por el cual los participantes excluidos intentar minar el poder de los predominantes se define como usurpación. El articulo presenta el estudio del caso del mercado de consumidores de la industria electrónica en Gran Bretaña a lo largo de un período de veinte años, y analiza las diferentes estrategias de cierre y usurpación empleadas por compañías británicas y japonesas, que trajo como resultado la exclusión de todas las empresas británicas de la mencionada industria

The 2010 UK Home Office ‘Sexualisation of Young People’ Review: a discursive policy analysis

This paper offers a discursive policy analysis of the 2010 UK Home Office Sexualisation of Young People Review, authored by Linda Papadopoulos (2010a). It will scrutinise the narrative presented by the text of the danger posed by cultural representations to healthy development, and trace the way that the text links this danger to catastrophic outcomes: child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. Examining this narrative, the article will propose that the UK Review deploys spatial metaphors to naturalise a gendered account of childhood, sexuality and danger, evoking the creeping influence of a corrupting culture on a girl's most private self. The article will also demonstrate that this spatial narrative underpins the epistemological structure of the text – its separation of the primary from the secondary, the real from the artificial

Continuity or change in business representation in Britain? An assessment of the Heseltine initiatives of the 1990s

Britain has a fragmented, overlapping, and underresourced system of business representation. Attempts at reform, however, have proved difficult and largely unsuccessful. A coherent and logical system is relevant, in terms of both an effective dialogue between government and business, and the promotion of competitiveness and productivity. Through interviews and archival evidence, I look at how government has attempted to reform business associations. The main focus is the Heseltine initiatives of the 1990s: I outline the various initiatives taken, reveal the extent to which policy represented continuity or change, and consider whether the initiatives were effective. I show that they had a degree of success but that they would have made greater impact if they had been sustained over a longer period of time. A consideration of the historical context, moreover, suggests there may be limits to the role of government intervention in business association reform

Psychosis and sexual abuse: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: J. E. Rhodes, N. D. O’Neill, and P. W. Nel, ‘Psychosis and sexual abuse: An interpretative phenomenological analysis’, Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, March 2018, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2189. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the first-person perspective of psychosis sufferers who survived childhood sexual abuse. Methods: Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed to explore the experiences of 7 women with a history of sexual abuse and psychosis. Results: Analysis generated six themes: (a) degradation of self, interlinking shame, guilt, and sometimes disgust; (b) body-self entrapment, experiencing bodily constraint and distortion; (c) a sense of being different to others, involving interpersonal problems; (d) unending struggle and depression, a pervasive sense of defeat; (e) psychotic condemnations and abuse, describing psychotic phenomena related to harm and sexual abuse; and (f) perception of links to the past, the links made from past abuse to current functioning. Conclusion: Participants suffered extreme psychological, physical, and interpersonal difficulties past and present. Psychotic experiences reported exhibited themes of condemnation by external entities and reflected the topic of sexual abuse. Participants did not generally link psychosis to their past abusive experiences.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Keratocystic odontogenic tumor: case report with CT and ultrasonography findings

Keratocystic odontogenic tumor (KCOT) is a benign odontogenic tumor with a potentially aggressive and infiltrative behavior. KCOT is most commonly occurred in mandible and demonstrate a unilocular, round, oval, scalloped radiolucent area, while large lesions may appear multilocular. An important characteristic of KCOT is its propensity to grow in an antero-posterior direction within medullary cavity of bone causing minimal expansion. Definitive diagnosis relies on histological examination. In this report, a KCOT that had an expansion both buccal and lingual cortical bone is described including its features in computed tomography and ultrasonographic exams. The lesion was removed surgically via an intraoral approach under local anesthesia and histologically reported as a KCOT

The CCD/Transit Instrument (CTI) data-analysis system

The automated software system for archiving, analyzing, and interrogating data from the CCD/Transit Instrument (CTI) is described. The CTI collects up to 450 Mbytes of image-data each clear night in the form of a narrow strip of sky observed in two colors. The large data-volumes and the scientific aims of the project make it imperative that the data are analyzed within the 24-hour period following the observations. To this end a fully automatic and self evaluating software system has been developed. The data are collected from the telescope in real-time and then transported to Tucson for analysis. Verification is performed by visual inspection of random subsets of the data and obvious cosmic rays are detected and removed before permanent archival is made to the optical disc. The analysis phase is performed by a pair of linked algorithms, one operating on the absolute pixel-values and the other on the spatial derivative of the data. In this way both isolated and merged images are reliably detected in a single pass. In order to isolate the latter algorithm from the effects of noise spikes a 3x3 Hanning filter is applied to the raw data before the analysis is run. The algorithms reduce the input pixel-data to a database of measured parameters for each image which has been found. A contrast filter is applied in order to assign a detection-probability to each image and then x-y calibration and intensity calibration are performed using known reference stars in the strip. These are added to as necessary by secondary standards boot-strapped from the CTI data itself. The final stages involve merging the new data into the CTI Master-list and History-list and the automatic comparison of each new detection with a set of pre-defined templates in parameter-space to find interesting objects such as supernovae, quasars and variable stars. Each stage of the processing from verification to interesting image selection is performed under a data-logging system which both controls the pipe-lining of data through the system and records key performance monitor parameters which are built into the software. Furthermore, the data from each stage are stored in databases to facilitate evaluation, and all stages offer the facility to enter keyword-indexed free-format text into the data-logging system. In this way a large measure of certification is built into the system to provide the necessary confidence in the end results