Researcher identity: exploring the transformatory power of the research experience.

In consumer research, we frequently focus on the phenomenon of transformation, whether the transformatory effects of a particular consumption community or the great body of work being carried out under the banner of transformative consumer research. However, there is a particular transformation which occurs in the field of interpretivist consumer research that, we would argue, is overlooked—that of researcher transformation. We present as data our reflexive considerations on the ways in which our own research with vulnerable consumers has affected and changed us. We consider short-term transformations in the field, reflecting on the various ways that researcher identity is carefully managed and negotiated to fit with the social–cultural setting. We also consider longer term transformations and discuss the enduring impact of the research process—the people we have met, the homes we have visited, and the stories we have heard. By reflecting on the shaping of identities ‘in the field’, we aim to deepen our appreciation of the interpretive consumer research process and contribute to theoretical understanding of transformative identity research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

On the relativistic iron line and soft excess in the Seyfert 1 galaxy Markarian 335

We report a 133-ks XMM-Newton observation of the Seyfert 1 galaxy Markarian 335. The 0.4-12 keV spectrum contains an underlying power-law continuum, a soft excess below 2 keV, and a double-peaked iron emission feature in the 6-7 keV range. We investigate the possibility that the double-peaked emission might represent the characteristic signature of the accretion disc. Detailed investigations show that a moderately broad accretion disc line is most likely present, but that the peaks may be due to narrower components from more distant material. The peaks at 6.4 and 7 keV can be identified, respectively, with the molecular torus in active galactic nucleus unification schemes, and very highly ionized, optically thin gas filling the torus. The X-ray variability spectra on both long (~100 ks) and short (~1 ks) time-scales do not support the recent suggestion that the soft excess is an artefact of variable, moderately ionized absorption. © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 RAS.

Charity accountability in the UK: through the eyes of the donor

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore accountability from the perspective of charity donors.

Design/methodology/approach – The research utilises semi-structured interviews with a range of donors. In addition, it summarises the main findings from key related research (that uses document content analysis and questionnaire surveys) as a basis for better appreciating donor engagement.

Findings – This research offers evidence that while donors are viewed as the key stakeholder to whom a charity should be accountable, the relevance of the information commonly disclosed in formal charity communications is questionable. This is viewed as significant in terms of small dependent donors, although less critical in the case of non-dependent large donors who have power to demand individualised information. However, although all donors do not particularly engage with these formal communications, they are viewed by them as having significance and their production and publication serves as an important legitimising tool in the sector (enhancing trust and reputation).

Research limitations/implications – This research is based on semi-structured interviews with individual small donors and large institutional donors to large UK charities and therefore any generalising of the conclusions beyond large charities, and beyond the UK, should be undertaken with care. In addition, it focuses solely on the perceptions of donors, and other stakeholder groups are also important in this process.

Originality/value – Despite the widespread acceptance that charities have a duty to discharge accountability to their stakeholders, there is limited knowledge of their information needs and whether the performance information currently being disclosed fulfils them. This study provides a unique insight into the perspective of a key stakeholder group (donors) with respect to accountability.

Efficacy of Biocides Used in the Modern Food Industry To Control Salmonella enterica, and Links between Biocide Tolerance and Resistance to Clinically Relevant Antimicrobial Compounds

Biocides play an essential role in limiting the spread of infectious disease. The food industry is dependent on these agents, and their increasing use is a matter for concern. Specifically, the emergence of bacteria demonstrating increased tolerance to biocides, coupled with the potential for the development of a phenotype of cross-resistance to clinically important antimicrobial compounds, needs to be assessed. In this study, we investigated the tolerance of a collection of susceptible and multidrug-resistant (MDR) Salmonella enterica strains to a panel of seven commercially available food-grade biocide formulations. We explored their abilities to adapt to these formulations and their active biocidal agents, i.e., triclosan, chlorhexidine, hydrogen peroxide, and benzalkonium chloride, after sequential rounds of in vitro selection. Finally, cross-tolerance of different categories of biocidal formulations, their active agents, and the potential for coselection of resistance to clinically important antibiotics were investigated. Six of seven food-grade biocide formulations were bactericidal at their recommended working concentrations. All showed a reduced activity against both surface-dried and biofilm cultures. A stable phenotype of tolerance to biocide formulations could not be selected. Upon exposure of Salmonella strains to an active biocidal compound, a high-level of tolerance was selected for a number of Salmonella serotypes. No cross-tolerance to the different biocidal agents or food-grade biocide formulations was observed. Most tolerant isolates displayed changes in their patterns of susceptibility to antimicrobial compounds. Food industry biocides are effective against planktonic Salmonella. When exposed to sublethal concentrations of individual active biocidal agents, tolerant isolates may emerge. This emergence was associated with changes in antimicrobial susceptibilities.

Strong electronic correlation in the hydrogen chain: A variational Monte Carlo study

In this paper, we report a fully ab initio variational Monte Carlo study of the linear and periodic chain of hydrogen atoms, a prototype system providing the simplest example of strong electronic correlation in low dimensions. In particular, we prove that numerical accuracy comparable to that of benchmark density-matrix renormalization-group calculations can be achieved by using a highly correlated Jastrow-antisymmetrized geminal power variational wave function. Furthermore, by using the so-called "modern theory of polarization" and by studying the spin-spin and dimer-dimer correlations functions, we have characterized in detail the crossover between the weakly and strongly correlated regimes of this atomic chain. Our results show that variational Monte Carlo provides an accurate and flexible alternative to highly correlated methods of quantum chemistry which, at variance with these methods, can be also applied to a strongly correlated solid in low dimensions close to a crossover or a phase transition.

Body-centric ultra-wideband multi-channel characterisation and spatial diversity in the indoor environment

This study presents the findings of an empirical channel characterisation for an ultra-wideband off-body optic fibre-fed multiple-antenna array within an office and corridor environment. The results show that for received power experiments, the office and corridor were best modelled by lognormal and Rician distributions, respectively [for both line of sight (LOS) and non-LOS (NLOS) scenarios]. In the office, LOS measurements for t and tRMS were both described by the Normal distribution for all channels, whereas NLOS measurements for t and t were Nakagami and Weibull distributed, respectively. For the corridor measurements, LOS for t and t were either Nakagami or normally distributed for all channels, with NLOS measurements for t and t being Nakagami and normally distributed, respectively. This work also shows that achievable diversity gain was influenced by both mutual coupling and cross-correlation co-efficients. Although the best diversity gains were 1.8 dB for three-channel selective diversity combining, the authors present recommendations for improving these results. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2013.

Hardware Acceleration of Background Modeling in the Compressed Domain

In intelligent video surveillance systems, scalability (of the number of simultaneous video streams) is important. Two key factors which hinder scalability are the time spent in decompressing the input video streams, and the limited computational power of the processor. This paper demonstrates how a combination of algorithmic and hardware techniques can overcome these limitations, and significantly increase the number of simultaneous streams. The techniques used are processing in the compressed domain, and exploitation of the multicore and vector processing capability of modern processors. The paper presents a system which performs background modeling, using a Mixture of Gaussians approach. This is an important first step in the segmentation of moving targets. The paper explores the effects of reducing the number of coefficients in the compressed domain, in terms of throughput speed and quality of the background modeling. The speedups achieved by exploiting compressed domain processing, multicore and vector processing are explored individually. Experiments show that a combination of all these techniques can give a speedup of 170 times on a single CPU compared to a purely serial, spatial domain implementation, with a slight gain in quality.

The making of a void sovereignty: political implications of the military checkpoints in the West Bank

Research on the Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank has emphasized not only that these checkpoints have dire implications for the Palestinians living there, at the personal, familial, and communal levels, and devastating eff ects on the Palestinian economy, but also that they have far-reaching consequences for the ability of the Palestinians to establish an independent political entity. At the same time, analysis of the Israeli forms of domination over the Palestinians has also stressed the role of a Palestinian governing authority in sustaining the Israeli rule, since the former relieves the latter of its responsibility to care for the occupied Palestinian population. This paper aims to address this apparent contradiction claiming that a comprehensive analysis of Israeli forms of domination requires a spatial examination of the operation of sovereignty with an assessment of governmentalizing arrays. This combined analysis suggests that a Palestinian sovereignty, but one which is emptied of its actual ruling power, is construed at the checkpoints as an epiphenomenon of Israeli apparatuses of control. © 2013 Pion and its Licensors.

General Nurses’ Experiences of End-Of-Life Care in the Acute Hospital Setting

Approximately 90% of the UK population spend some time in hospital in their final year of life, and more than half of the population die in hospital. This review aims to explore the experiences of general nurses when providing end-of-life care to patients in the acute hospital setting. Nine studies were identified through a literature search, and each was then analysed and evaluated until themes emerged. Six themes were drawn from the literature: lack of education and knowledge, lack of time with patients, barriers arising in the culture of the health-care setting, communication barriers, symptom management, and nurses' personal issues. The themes cause concern about the quality of end-of-life care being provided in the acute care setting. The literature appears to be consistent in the view that terminally ill patients are best cared for in specialised care settings, such as palliative care units and hospices. However, increasing demands on health services will result in greater numbers of dying patients being admitted to the acute hospital setting. It is therefore paramount that general nurses' educational needs are met to ensure they develop clinical competence to provide high-quality holistic end-of-life care.

Man-in-the-Middle Attack Test-bed Investigating Cyber-security Vulnerabilities in Smart Grid SCADA Systems

The increased complexity and interconnectivity of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems in the Smart Grid has exposed them to a wide range of cyber-security issues, and there are a multitude of potential access points for cyber attackers. This paper presents a SCADA-specific cyber-security test-bed which contains SCADA software and communication infrastructure. This test-bed is used to investigate an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) spoofing based man-in-the-middle attack. Finally, the paper proposes a future work plan which focuses on applying intrusion detection and prevention technology to address cyber-security issues in SCADA systems.

Energy expenditure during activity in the American lobster Homarus americanus:Correlations with body acceleration

How animals manage time and expend energy has implications for survivorship. Being able to measure key metabolic costs of animals under natural conditions is therefore an important tool in behavioral ecology. One method for estimating activity-specific metabolic rate is via derived measures of acceleration, often 'overall dynamic body acceleration' (ODBA), recorded by an instrumented acceleration logger. ODBA has been shown to correlate well with rate of oxygen consumption (V ?o) in a range of species during activity in the laboratory. This study devised a method for attaching acceleration loggers to decapod crustaceans and then correlated ODBA against concurrent respirometry readings to assess accelerometry as a proxy for activity-specific energy expenditure in a model species, the American lobster Homarus americanus. Where the instrumented animals exhibited a sufficient range of activity levels, positive linear relationships were found between V ?o and ODBA over 20min periods at a range of ambient temperatures (6, 13 and 20°C). Mixed effect linear models based on these data and morphometrics provided reasonably strong predictive power for estimating activity-specific V ?o from ODBA. These V ?o-ODBA calibrations demonstrate the potential of accelerometry as an effective predictor of behavior-specific metabolic rate of crustaceans in the wild during periods of activity. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

The opportunities and limitations of using CFD in the development of wave energy converters

Most Wave Energy Converters (WECs) being developed are fundamentally different from known marine structures. Limited experience is a fundamental challenge for the design, especially issues concerning load assumptions and power estimates. Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) CFD methods are being used successfully in many areas of marine engineering. They have been shown to accurately simulate many hydrodynamic effects and are a helpful tool for investigating complex flows. The major drawback is the significant computational power required and the associated overhead with pre and post-processing. This paper presents the challenges and advantages in the application of RANS CFD methods in the design process of a wave energy converter and compares the time, labour and ultimately financial requirements for obtaining practical results.

Rethinking the Sacred and Secular Divide. Accounting and Accountability Practices in the Diocese of Ferrara (1431-1457)

Purpose – Informed by the work of Laughlin and Booth, the paper analyses the role of accounting and accountability practices within the 15th century Roman Catholic Church, more specifically within the Diocese of Ferrara (northern Italy), in order to determine the presence of a sacred-secular dichotomy. Pope Eugenius IV had embarked upon a comprehensive reform of the Church to counter the spreading moral corruption within the clergy and the subsequent disaffection with the Church by many believers. The reforms were notable not only for the Pope’s determination to restore the moral authority and power of the Church but for the essential contributions of ‘profane’ financial and accounting practices to the success of the reforms.
Design/methodology/approach – Original 15th century Latin documents and account books of the Diocese of Ferrara are used to highlight the link between the new sacred values imposed by Pope Eugenius IV’s reforms and accounting and accountability practices.
Findings – The documents reveal that secular accounting and accountability practices were not regarded as necessarily antithetical to religious values, as would be expected by Laughlin and Booth. Instead, they were seen to assume a role which was complementary to the Church’s religious mission. Indeed, they were essential to its sacred mission during a period in which the Pope sought to arrest the moral decay of the clergy and reinstate the Church’s authority. Research implications/limitations – The paper shows that the sacred-secular dichotomy cannot be considered as a priori valid in space and time. There is also scope for examining other Italian dioceses where there was little evidence of Pope Eugenius’ reforms.
Originality/value – The paper presents a critique of the sacred-secular divide paradigm by considering an under-researched period and a non Anglo-Saxon context.

Landscape and Cosmology in the Dindshenchas

This contribution presents an analysis of the relationship between transgression, naming and the formation of the landscape in the medieval Gaelic collection of place-name lore known as the Dindshenchas. It includes analyses of the origin legends of the rivers Boyne and Shannon, as well as those of Lough Neagh and Lough Ree.

Invaders, Launchpads and Hybrids: The Importance of Transmediality in British Science Fiction Film in the 1950s

With its origins in the trick films of the 1890s and early 1900s, British science fiction film has a long history. While Things to Come (1936) is often identified as significant for being written by H.G.Wells, one of the fathers of science fiction as a genre, the importance of the interactions between media in the development of British science fiction film are often set aside. This chapter examines the importance of broadcast media to film-making in Britain, focusing on the 1950s as a period often valourised in writings about American science fiction, to the detriment of other national expressions of the genre. This period is key to the development of the genre in Britain, however, with the establishment of television as a popular medium incorporating the development of domestic science fiction television alongside the import of American products, together with the spread of the very term ‘science fiction’ through books, pulps and comics as well as radio, television and cinema. It was also the time of a backlash against the perceived threat of American soft cultural power embodied in the attractive shine of science fiction with its promise of a bright technological future. In particular, this chapter examines the significance of the relationship between the BBC television and radio services and the film production company Hammer, which was responsible for multiple adaptations of BBC properties, including a number of science fiction texts. The Hammer adaptation of the television serial The Quatermass Experiment proved to be the first major success for the company, moving it towards its most famous identity as producer of horror texts, though often horror with an underlying scientific element, as with their successful series of Frankenstein films. This chapter thus argues that the interaction between film and broadcast media in relation to science fiction was crucial at this historical juncture, not only in helping promote the identities of filmmakers like Hammer, but also in supporting the identity of the BBC and its properties, and in acting as a nexus for the then current debates on taste and national identity.