Culture Shock: New media and organizational change in the BBC in In: Natalie Fenton, ed. New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age. Sage, pp. 73-86. ISBN 9781847875730

A culture that grew organically for the best part of a century is now undergoing a would-be revolutionary transformation in response to changes in news consumption -facilitated by new technologies - and to accommodate the economic and political pressures bearing down on the BBC. Tracking this new dawn through the experience and opinion of many of those involved reveals divergent opinions on how radical, valuable and sustainable it all is, and exposes faultlines within an organisation keen to lay its old image of ‘Auntie’ to rest, while seeking a new relevance and appeal for the 21st century. New media has been a convenient Trojan Horse for importing a root and branch reorganisation many thought long overdue at BBC News. This short account can only offer a few stanzas from that odyssey. It looks at how new technology meets changing patterns of consumption; how new platforms of delivery have pitted technology against creativity; and how the BBC has managed the change

Live Dissection of Drosophila Embryos: Streamlined Methods for Screening Mutant Collections by Antibody Staining

Drosophila embryos between stages 14 and 17 of embryonic development can be readily dissected to generate "fillet" preparations. In these preparations, the central nervous system runs down the middle, and is flanked by the body walls. Many different phenotypes have been examined using such preparations. In most cases, the fillets were generated by dissection of antibody-stained fixed whole-mount embryos. These "fixed dissections" have some disadvantages, however. They are time-consuming to execute, and it is difficult to sort mutant (GFP-negative) embryos from stocks in which mutations are maintained over GFP balancer chromosomes. Since 2002, our group has been conducting deficiency and ectopic expression screens to identify ligands for orphan receptors. In order to do this, we developed streamlined protocols for live embryo dissection and antibody staining of collections containing hundreds of balanced lines. We have concluded that it is considerably more efficient to examine phenotypes in large collections of stocks by live dissection than by fixed dissection. Using the protocol described here, a single trained individual can screen up to 10 lines per day for phenotypes, examining 4-7 mutant embryos from each line under a compound microscope. This allows the identification of mutations conferring subtle, low-penetrance phenotypes, since up to 70 hemisegments per line are scored at high magnification with a 40X water-immersion lens

Virulence attenuation of Dengue virus due to augmented glycosaminoglycan-binding affinity and restriction in extraneural dissemination

To gain insight into the role of cell surface glycosaminoglycans (GAG) in dengue virus (DEN) cell tropism and virulence, DEN-2 mouse brain-adapted vaccine candidate, neurovirulent prototype strain (NGC) and low-passage strain, PUO-218, were passaged in BHK-21 and SW13 cells to isolate variants with high affinity for GAG. Sequence comparisons of parent and passage variants revealed five GAG-binding determinants, which all cluster in a surface-exposed region in domain II of the three-dimensional structure of the DEN envelope protein. Using an infectious cDNA clone of NGC and an NGC/PUO-218 prM-E chimeric clone, it was demonstrated that the GAG-binding determinants augment the specific infectivity for BHK-21 and/or SW13 cells by 10- to 170-fold and in some cases marginally reduce that for Vero cells. This altered cell tropism was due to a greater dependence of the variants on cell surface GAG for attachment/entry, given their increased susceptibility to heparin inhibition. The effect of the GAG-binding determinants on virulence was examined in mice deficient in alpha/beta/gamma interferon responses. High GAG affinity strongly correlated with low neuroinvasiveness due to rapid virus clearance from the blood. It was speculated that this mechanism accounts for the attenuation in primates of some DEN vaccine candidates. Interestingly, the GAG-binding variants did not display marked attenuation of neurovirulence and the opposing effect of enhanced neurovirulence was associated with one determinant (Lys126) already present in mouse brain-adapted NGC. This discrepancy of attenuated neuroinvasiveness and augmented neurovirulence may be reconciled by the existence of different mechanisms of virus dissemination in the brain and in extraneural tissues

Search Engine Optimisation in UK news production

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Journalism Practice, 5(4), 462 - 477, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17512786.2010.551020.This paper represents an exploratory study into an emerging culture in UK online newsrooms—the practice of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which assesses its impact on news production. Comprising a short-term participant observational case study at a national online news publisher, and a series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with SEO professionals at three further UK media organisations, the author sets out to establish how SEO is operationalised in the newsroom, and what consequences these practices have for online news production. SEO practice is found to be varied and application is not universal. Not all UK news organisations are making the most of SEO even though some publishers take a highly sophisticated approach. Efforts are constrained by time, resources and management support, as well as off-page technical issues. SEO policy is found, in some cases, to inform editorial policy, but there is resistance to the principal of SEO driving decision-making. Several themes are established which call for further research

Intelligent scheduling for in-car notifications.

The process of driving a car involves a cognitive load that varies over time. Additional load comes from secondary factors not directly associated with the driving process, including navigation devices, entertainment systems and the car’s own warnings. In this paper, we present a framework for intelligent scheduling of in-car notifications based on the driver’s estimated cognitive load. As the single channel for communication, it reschedules the notifications using a priority queue, and relays them to the driver based on the urgency of the notification and the overall estimated cognitive load being experienced by the driver at any given moment. We evaluate our system using a dataset collected from a car’s CAN bus during multiple onroad trials and show that our proposed approach reduces the number of simultaneous calls on the driver’s attention during the driving task. We also demonstrate that our intelligent scheduling significantly reduces the maximum cognitive load experienced by the driver and the frequency with which high loads occur

Towards a practical framework for managing the risks of selecting technology to support independent living

Information and communication technology applications can help increase the independence and quality of life of older people, or people with disabilities who live in their own homes. A risk management framework is proposed to assist in selecting applications that match the needs and wishes of particular individuals. Risk comprises two components: the likelihood of the occurrence of harm and the consequences of that harm. In the home, the social and psychological harms are as important as the physical ones. The importance of the harm (e.g., injury) is conditioned by its consequences (e.g., distress, costly medical treatment). We identify six generic types of harm (including dependency, loneliness, fear and debt) and four generic consequences (including distress and loss of confidence in ability to live independently). The resultant client-centred framework offers a systematic basis for selecting and evaluating technology for independent living

Understanding data reuse and barriers to reuse of archaeological data: a quality-in-use methodological approach

Over the last decade, innovation has centred on making archaeological data more interoperable, increasing the discoverability of data through integrated cross-search and facilitating knowledge creation by combining data in new ways. An emerging research challenge for the next decade is optimising archaeological data for reuse and defining what constitutes good practice around reuse. Critical to this research is understanding the current state-of-the-art regarding both existing best practices and barriers to using and reusing archaeological data. This research aimed to understand how to optimise archives and interfaces to maximise the discovery, use and reuse of archaeological data and explore how archaeological archives can better respond to user needs. The study was bound by (i) the reuse of digital archaeological archives; (ii) orientation to content usability and reusability; (iii) maintaining a user-orientated approach; (iv) collecting data from professionals in archaeology and heritage. The research group members adopted the quality-in-use conceptual approach for this study. Quality in use is 'the degree to which a product or system can be used by specific users to meet their needs to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, and freedom from risk in specific contexts of use'. The research methodology is based on the SQuaRE (System and Software Quality Requirements and Evaluation) model, represented in the ISO/IEC 25000 standards series. In addition, the quality-in-use metric for investigation of reuse and barriers to reuse of archaeological data were adopted from the standardised measurement functions and methods of ISO/IEC 25022:2016. The result was a methodological model composed of 5 characteristics (Effectiveness, Efficiency, Satisfaction, Context coverage and Usability) with 14 measures (Task completeness, Objectives achievement, Task time, Cost-effectiveness, Overall satisfaction, Satisfaction with features, User trust in the system, data and paradata, User pleasure, Physical comfort, Context completeness, Flexible context of use and User guidance completeness). The methodology was tested with specific Contexts of use (use cases), orientated to a distinct user with the specific professional goal of data reuse. Three use cases relating to 3D Pottery, radiocarbon, and GIS data were created. The pilot study has proven that the methodology works and could be applied in future research. This article discusses the application of the quality-in-use approach for evaluating the quality of digital archaeological archives, as well as presenting the methodology and the results of the pilot study

Report on the State of Available Data for the Study of International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

This report, prepared for the Committee on Economic Statistics of the American Economic Association, examines the state of available data for the study of international trade and foreign direct investment. Data on values of imports and exports of goods are of high quality and coverage, but price data suffer from insufficient detail. It would be desirable to have more data measuring value-added in trade as well as prices of comparable domestic and imported inputs. Value data for imports and exports of services are too aggregated and valuations are questionable, while price data for service exports and imports are almost non-existent. Foreign direct investment data are of high quality but quality has suffered from budget cuts. Data on trade in intellectual property are fragmentary. The intangibility of the trade makes measurement difficult, but budget cuts have added to the difficulties. Modest funding increases would result in data more useful for research and policy analysis.

Personalising Learning

This report presents the findings of the Personalising Learning project, which was commissioned by Becta. The core aim of the project is to develop a robust model of the effective use of digital technologies for the personalising of learning. Personalising learning in this context involves the tailoring of pedagogy, curriculum and learning support to meet the needs and aspirations of individual learners irrespective of ability, culture or social status in order to nurture the unique talents of every pupil. Section 2 of this report outlines the background and aims of this research project. Section 3 traces the development of the model and the accompanying learning equation. The key concept encapsulated in this model is that of overlapping action spaces, school, teaching, personal and living spaces, in which learning occurs. These spaces are populated by the key educational stakeholders: learners, their teachers, their family and peers. In each of these spaces a range of digital technologies is available to support the learner. Section 4 is a validation of the model using evidence from field research