Like, share, vote

This report explores the potential for social media to support efforts to get out the vote. Overview Across Europe, low voter turnout in European and national elections is a growing concern. Many citizens are disengaged from the political process, threatening the health of our democracies. At the same time, the increasingly prominent role that social media plays in our lives and its function as a new digital public space offers new opportunities to reengage non-voters. This report explores the potential for social media to support efforts to get out the vote. It lays out which groups need to be the focus of voter mobilisation efforts, and makes the case for using social media campaigning as a core part of our voter mobilisation efforts. The research draws on a series of social media voter mobilisation workshops run by Demos with small third sector organisations in six target countries across Europe, as well as expert interviews, literature review and social media analysis. Having affirmed the need for and utility of social media voter turnout efforts, Like, Share, Vote establishes key principles and techniques for a successful social media campaign: how to listen to the digital discourse of your audience, how to use quizzes and interactive approaches, how to micro-target specific groups and how to coordinate offline events with online campaigns. This report concludes that, with more of our social and political lives taking place online than ever before, failing to use social media to reinvigorate our democracy would be a real missed opportunity

Perfect powers in elliptic divisibility sequences

It is shown that there are finitely many perfect powers in an elliptic divisibility sequence whose first term is divisible by 2 or 3. For Mordell curves the same conclusion is shown to hold if the first term is greater than 1. Examples of Mordell curves and families of congruent number curves are given with corresponding elliptic divisibility sequences having no perfect power terms. The proofs combine primitive divisor results with modular methods for Diophantine equations.Comment: 16 page

Social mobility: selling transportation and modernity in independence-era Ghana

African Studies Center Working Paper No. 256During the period of the 1960s and 1970s, a considerable amount of scholarly energy was devoted to studying the process of "modernization." Scholars, particularly political scientists and anthropologists, theorized extensively over exactly what modernization was and debated how it could best be quantified and measured.1 By the 1980s, however, the very notion of the "modern," along with its antithesis, the "traditional" was falling out of favor. Indeed, by declaring the new era "post-modern," the academic avant-guard signaled that the concept of modernity had effectively been relegated to the past. The past, however, is the turf of historians, so perhaps now that the concept of modernity has become old-fashioned it is time for historians to take their turn at examining its meaning. This paper will approach the concept of the "modern" by examining the role of advertising in creating notions of modernity in independence-era Ghana. Ghana, at the time of independence in 1957, was a country of supreme optimism about the future. Not only did Ghanaians see themselves as being on the cutting edge politically (as the first sub-Saharan colony to achieve independence), but they also believed that independence would bring a new era of economic development and wealth. Ghana, as a country, was "going places." The new nation's optimism found many manifestations, but this paper will focus on only one aspect of this exuberance—representations of transportation as modernity in the advertisements and articles of Ghana's premier newspaper, the Daily Graphic. As stated before, early scholarship on modernization was concerned primarily with developing a way of measuring the demise of the traditional and the rise of the modern. Such studies focused on examining populations of "traditional" or "transitional" peoples to attempt to discern just how "modern" they had or had not become. What the previous studies did not consider, and what this paper seeks to examine, is exactly how modernity was presented to and by such populations. No single factor seems to represent modernity more than motion itself—be it actual movement across space or be it social and economic change. Indeed, Daniel Lerner, the prominent scholar of modernity, defined the key aspect of being modern as having... [TRUNCATED

A comparative study of the effects of meclofenamate, diclofenac and placebo, in combination with physiotherapy, on the healing of acute quadriceps and hamstring muscle tears

A double-blind, placebo controlled research technique was used to determine the effects of two non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, meclofenamate and diclofenac, in combination with physiotherapy treatment, on the rate and extent of healing of acute hamstring muscle tears. Sixty patients were recruited and treated at No's 1 and 2 Military Hospitals in Voortrekkerhoogte and Wynberg, Cape Town, respectively. Patients were randomly allocated to one of three treatment groups: meclofenamate, diclofenac and placebo. Patient assessments were performed on days 1, 3 and 7 of the 7-day study period. These assessments included pain assessment (visual analogue scale), swelling measurement (thigh circumference measurement at the site of the muscle tear) and muscle performance test (Cybex isokinetic dynamometer and data reduction computer). All patients received physiotherapy treatment on all 7 days of the study. This comprised early rest, ice, compression and elevation (RICE), and later, ultrasound and deep transverse friction massage. An intensive regime of strengthening and stretching exercises was used throughout the study, beginning with stretching and isometric exercises gradually moving onto isotonic exercises and aerobic exercise including swimming, running and cycling. No competitive sport was allowed during the study period. Statistical significance was determined using the analysis-of-variance (ANOVA) test with an acceptance level of p<0.05. No differences in pain, swelling or muscle performance were demonstrated between the three treatment groups. In terms of the pain and swelling assessments, the injuries did not appear to be very severe. Accordingly, the groups were divided into severe and non-severe sub-groups and statistical significance was determined using the ANOVA test with an acceptance level of p<0.05. A significant difference was found in the severe hamstring injury sub-group. In this group, pain reduction was greater in the placebo group than in the meclofenamate group on day 7. There were no other significant differences found in this sub-group analysis. Relatively few side effects were encountered, and those encountered were mild. No patients were withdrawn from the study as a result of these adverse events. Drowsiness and gastro-intestinal disturbance were the most common side effects reported. In conclusion, the study found that no benefit was gained from the use of meclofenamate or diclofenac in combination with physiotherapeutic modalities as compared to the use of physiotherapeutic modalities on their own. Thus, the widespread use of NSAIDs in the treatment of acute muscle injuries may not be justified