Modelling Reactive Multimedia: Design and Authoring

Multimedia document authoring is a multifaceted activity, and authoring tools tend to concentrate on a restricted set of the activities involved in the creation of a multimedia artifact. In particular, a distinction may be drawn between the design and the implementation of a multimedia artifact. This paper presents a comparison of three different authoring paradigms, based on the common case study of a simple interactive animation. We present details of its implementation using the three different authoring tools, MCF, Fran and SMIL 2.0, and we discuss the conclusions that may be drawn from our comparison of the three approaches

Post-Crisis, Post-Devolution Politics and the Mansion Tax

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final published version is available via Wiley at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.12146/abstract

Germany and the Euro-Zone Crisis: The European Reformation of the German Banking Crisis and the Future of the Euro

Analysis of the German response to the euro crisis has been framed around a narrative of the relationship between domestic sacrifice and hegemony and sustains an assumption that the German commitment to the euro is proven. Such analysis downplays the importance of the banking crisis in Germany in explaining the decision-making of the German government around the euro-zone debt crisis. Giving German interests in relation to the German banking crisis analytical weight can explain both the positions taken by the German government and their consequences for the underlying structural problems the euro-zone faces as a monetary union. Since the outcomes of German policy have advanced German interests, German handling of the euro-zone crisis cannot sustain a claim that Germany has demonstrated its commitment to the euro.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2015.104147

Book Review: Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (Gender, Racism, Ethnicity)

Review of Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (Gender, Racism, Ethnicity) by Bronwen Walte

Mexitl: Multimedia in Executable Interval Temporal Logic

This paper explores a formalism for describing a wide class of multimedia document constraints, based on an interval temporal logic. We describe the requirements on temporal logic specification that arise from the multimedia documents application area. In particular, we highlight a canonical specification example. Then we present the temporal logic formalism that we use. This extends existing interval temporal logic with a number of new features: actions, framing of actions, past operators, a projection-like operator called filter and a new handling of interval length. A model theory, logic and satisfaction relation are defined for the notation, a specification of the canonical example is presented, and a proof system for the logic is introduced

Why oil matters for British politics

Despite not being talked about often in British politics, oil has a very important role in the economic and political issues that confront the West. Helen Thompson draws on her new book to explain the problems that the rising cost of oil posed in the years leading up to the 2008 crash, and the difficulties that a volatile oil market currently poses to economic recovery

An investigation of gender and age differences in academic motivation and classroom behaviour in adolescents

This study investigated gender- and age-related differences in academic motivation and classroom behaviour in adolescents. Eight hundred and fifty-five students (415 girls and 440 boys) aged 11–16 (M age = 13.96, SD = 1.47) filled in a questionnaire that examined student academic motivation and teachers completed a questionnaire reporting student classroom behaviour. Interestingly, early adolescent boys’ (11–12 years) self-reported academic motivation was significantly more closely associated with reports of student classroom behaviour completed by teachers. However, a surprising result was the significant drop in girls’ adaptive motivation from early to mid-adolescence (13–14 years) and a significant increase in mid-adolescence (13–14 years). Furthermore, teachers reported a significant increase in negative classroom behaviour in mid-adolescent and late adolescent girls (15–16 years). The need to further understand the association between academic motivation and classroom behaviour at different stages in adolescence, and to design interventions to improve classroom behaviour, is deliberated

The midterms have shown that President Trump’s campaign rhetoric on the economy has come back to haunt him

It has been long argued that the US economy has a massive influence on elections. But the Democrats’ midterm successes in the face of a Republican administration presiding over a healthy economy may have called that commonly held view into question. Helen Thompson writes that this new apparent disconnect between the economy and voters’ preferences may be down to President Trump; after campaigning on the falsity of economic data in 2016, Americans are now unconvinced of his claims of a booming economy that may seem detached from their daily reality

The transformation of British politics: was it really caused by the 2008 crisis?

The vote to leave the EU, the rise of the SNP, the demise of the Liberal Democrats, and Labour’s turn to the left mean British politics looks very different now than it did in 2008. But these changes are not the product of the 2008 crash per se; rather they are the result of the intense politicisation of issues that were already evident as fault lines when the crisis happened, writes Helen Thompson