Mapping the Police-Media Institutional Relationship

The relationship between police and media has been and remains one of the most significant for both institutions. The modern police and modern newspaper developed contemporaneously, each influencing the form, function, and popular appeal of the other. Theories of media and power, however, often address the police as part of larger power structures and ignore the unique police-media institutional relationship. This research paper establishes essential characteristics of the police-media relationship and identifies frequent sites of interaction between them, with a focus on crime reporting. Media effects, dominant ideology, and institutional approaches are then assessed as interpretive frameworks, concluding that institutional theory provides the strongest theoretical model for analyzing internal and interorganizational behaviours. The professional norms and practices that compose police and media institutional logics are defined, and their historical origins and evolutions are investigated. These long-established logics continue to direct how police and media construct and respond to crime, and consequently how crime is perceived by the public and treated by legal authorities. Because the habits of crime reporting shape policing practices, altering routine media coverage of crime and police issues may help address systemic problems in policing

Repurposing literacy: the uses of Richard Hoggart for creative education

After 50 years, what are the implications of Uses of Literacy for educational modernisation, in the light of subsequent changes from 'read only' literacy to 'read-write' uses of multimedia? This chapter argues that a broad extension of popular literacy via consumer-created digital content offers not only emancipationist potential in line with Hoggart's own project, but also economic benefits via the dynamics of creative innovation. Multimedia 'popular entertainments' pose a challenge to formal education, but not in the way that Hoggart feared. Instead of producing 'tamed helots,' commercial culture may be outpacing formal schooling in promoting creative digital literacy via entrepreneurial and distributed learning. It may indeed be that those in need of a creative make-over are not teenagers but teachers

Perceptual Interactions Between Electrodes Using Focused and Monopolar Cochlear Stimulation

In today’s cochlear implant (CI) systems, the monopolar (MP) electrode configuration is the most commonly used stimulation mode, requiring only a single current source. However, with an implant that will allow simultaneous activation of multiple independent current sources, it is possible to implement an all-polar (AP) stimulation mode designed to create a focused electrical field. The goal of this experiment was to study the potential benefits of this all-polar mode for reducing uncontrolled electrode interactions compared with the monopolar mode. The five participants who took part in the study were implanted with a research device that was connected via a percutaneous connector to a benchtop stimulator providing 22 independent current sources. The perceptual effects of the AP mode were tested in three experiments. In Experiment 1, the current level difference between loudness-matched sequential and simultaneous stimuli composed of 2 spatially separated pulse trains was measured as function of the electrode separation. Results indicated a strong current-summation interaction for simultaneous stimuli in the MP mode for separations up to at least 4.8 mm. No significant interaction was found in the AP mode beyond a separation of 2.4 mm. In Experiment 2, a forward-masking paradigm was used with fixed equally loud probes in AP and MP modes, and AP maskers presented on different electrode positions. Results indicated a similar spatial masking pattern between modes. In Experiment 3, subjects were asked to discriminate between across-electrode temporal delays. It was hypothesized that discrimination would decrease with electrode separation faster in AP compared to MP modes. However, results showed no difference between the two modes. Overall, the results indicated that the AP mode produced less current spread than MP mode but did not lead to a significant advantage in terms of spread of neuronal excitation at equally loud levels

Commercialisation of impression creep testing

Impression creep testing is a technique in which the deformation resulting from load applied via a rectangular indenter can be converted relatively straightforwardly into a proxy for creep minimum strain rate. This offers a valuable route to assess the creep performance ranking of in-service high temperature plant materials for a number of reasons: the small specimen size makes extraction feasible without significantly affecting the structural integrity of plant; the possibility to test a single specimen at several stresses or temperatures enables multiple assessments; and, increasingly, the maturity of underlying technical understanding and quality of results increases confidence in the technique. However, the method is not without challenges, in particular the capital and running costs associated with servo-electric test rigs. Development of a bespoke deadweight loaded testing system at Wood (formerly Amec Foster Wheeler) has enabled commercially sustainable impression creep testing, which has been successfully applied to ex-plant Grade 91 steel

Targeted disruption of fibulin-4 abolishes elastogenesis and causes perinatal lethality in mice

Elastic fibers provide tissues with elasticity which is critical to the function of arteries, lungs, skin, and other dynamic organs. Loss of elasticity is a major contributing factor in aging and diseases. However, the mechanism of elastic fiber development and assembly is poorly understood. Here, we show that lack of fibulin-4, an extracellular matrix molecule, abolishes elastogenesis. fibulin-4(−/−) mice generated by gene targeting exhibited severe lung and vascular defects including emphysema, artery tortuosity, irregularity, aneurysm, rupture, and resulting hemorrhages. All the homozygous mice died perinatally. The earliest abnormality noted was a uniformly narrowing of the descending aorta in fibulin-4(−/−) embryos at embryonic day 12.5 (E12.5). Aorta tortuosity and irregularity became noticeable at E15.5. Histological analysis demonstrated that fibulin-4(−/−) mice do not develop intact elastic fibers but contain irregular elastin aggregates. Electron microscopy revealed that the elastin aggregates are highly unusual in that they contain evenly distributed rod-like filaments, in contrast to the amorphous appearance of normal elastic fibers. Desmosine analysis indicated that elastin cross-links in fibulin-4(−/−) tissues were largely diminished. However, expression of tropoelastin or lysyl oxidase mRNA was unaffected in fibulin-4(−/−) mice. In addition, fibulin-4 strongly interacts with tropoelastin and colocalizes with elastic fibers in culture. These results demonstrate that fibulin-4 plays an irreplaceable role in elastogenesis

Impression creep test of a P91 steel: a round robin programme

The process of standardisation of small specimen creep testing techniques, specifically the impression creep test requires the repeatability of the test method. In this study it is accomplished through a round robin programme involving four different labs which have slightly different test set-ups adhering to predefined recommendations stated in previous work. The labs all conducted the same stepped stress test on a reference heat of grade 91 power plant steel and the displacement traces of the tests are analysed to outline the effects of different test set-ups and their efficacies. Main differences are in temperature control and loading application and control

Using Interpolation to Estimate System Uncertainty in Gene Expression Experiments

The widespread use of high-throughput experimental assays designed to measure the entire complement of a cell's genes or gene products has led to vast stores of data that are extremely plentiful in terms of the number of items they can measure in a single sample, yet often sparse in the number of samples per experiment due to their high cost. This often leads to datasets where the number of treatment levels or time points sampled is limited, or where there are very small numbers of technical and/or biological replicates. Here we introduce a novel algorithm to quantify the uncertainty in the unmeasured intervals between biological measurements taken across a set of quantitative treatments. The algorithm provides a probabilistic distribution of possible gene expression values within unmeasured intervals, based on a plausible biological constraint. We show how quantification of this uncertainty can be used to guide researchers in further data collection by identifying which samples would likely add the most information to the system under study. Although the context for developing the algorithm was gene expression measurements taken over a time series, the approach can be readily applied to any set of quantitative systems biology measurements taken following quantitative (i.e. non-categorical) treatments. In principle, the method could also be applied to combinations of treatments, in which case it could greatly simplify the task of exploring the large combinatorial space of future possible measurements

A review of epidural simulators: Where are we today?

Thirty-one central neural blockade simulators have been implemented into clinical practice over the last thirty years either commercially or for research. This review aims to provide a detailed evaluation of why we need epidural and spinal simulators in the first instance and then draws comparisons between computer-based and manikin-based simulators. This review covers thirty-one simulators in total; sixteen of which are solely epidural simulators, nine are for epidural plus spinal or lumbar puncture simulation, and six, which are solely lumbar puncture simulators. All hardware and software components of simulators are discussed, including actuators, sensors, graphics, haptics, and virtual reality based simulators. The purpose of this comparative review is to identify the direction for future epidural simulation by outlining necessary improvements to create the ideal epidural simulator. The weaknesses of existing simulators are discussed and their strengths identified so that these can be carried forward. This review aims to provide a foundation for the future creation of advanced simulators to enhance the training of epiduralists, enabling them to comprehensively practice epidural insertion in vitro before training on patients and ultimately reducing the potential risk of harm. © 2013 IPEM

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty