Parent Issues: How Life on Mars Negotiates a Television Generation Gap

In defining what he termed 'Television's Second Golden Age', Robert J.Thompson refers to characteristics such as being 'not regular TV', internal continuity, mixed genres but an aspiration towards 'realism', complex writing, self-consciousness and intertextuality. Such characteristics are displayed by the BBC series Life on Mars (2006-2007) which intermingles the Seventies tough cop show with psychological fantasy. This chapter examines the way that the series can be understood as a dramatisation of the negotiation that the creators undertook with their Seventies source material to update it for the values and qualities of contemporary television drama. It will emphasise the importance of television in the generation of the imagined 1973 and its characters, but also as an ongoing connection between the real and the imagined within the programme, including forming a breach of the boundaries between the two. Sam's actions within his Seventies world to remake it to include his own ideas of justice and due process while retaining the passion and freedom of action that the milieu provides will also be be examined in relation to the series' creators' needs to remake the Seventies tough-cop show in the light of modern social and media mores. The paper will also consider how Sam has to come to terms with his father's crimes, as the series' creators had to come to terms with the 'crimes' of taste, morality and approach of their 'parent' programmes from the Seventies' Golden Age.

Young children's food brand knowledge. Early development and associations with television viewing and parent's diet

Brand knowledge is a prerequisite of children's requests and choices for branded foods. We explored the development of young children's brand knowledge of foods highly advertised on television - both healthy and less healthy. Participants were 172 children aged 3-5 years in diverse socio-economic settings, from two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland with different regulatory environments. Results indicated that food brand knowledge (i) did not differ across jurisdictions; (ii) increased significantly between 3 and 4 years; and (iii) children had significantly greater knowledge of unhealthy food brands, compared with similarly advertised healthy brands. In addition, (iv) children's healthy food brand knowledge was not related to their television viewing, their mother's education, or parent or child eating. However, (v) unhealthy brand knowledge was significantly related to all these factors, although only parent eating and children's age were independent predictors. Findings indicate that effects of food marketing for unhealthy foods take place through routes other than television advertising alone, and are present before pre-schoolers develop the concept of healthy eating. Implications are that marketing restrictions of unhealthy foods should extend beyond television advertising; and that family-focused obesity prevention programmes should begin before children are 3 years of age.

A randomised study of two training programmes for general practitioners in the techniques of shoulder injection

Training on patients in addition to conventional mannequins increased GPs shoulder injection activity and their level of confidence.Hospital injection clinicsa may provide a suitable setting in which to train GPs interested in developing their shoulder joint injection skills

Economic modelling of antenatal screening and ultrasound scanning programmes for identification of fetal abnormalities

Objective Within the framework of a health technology assessment and using an economic model, to determine the most clinically and cost effective policy of scanning and screening for fetal abnormalities in early pregnancy. Design A discrete event simulation model of 50,000 singleton pregnancies. Setting Maternity services in Scotland. Population Women during the first 24 weeks of their pregnancy. Methods The mathematical model was populated with data on uptake of screening, prevalence, detection and false positive rates for eight fetal abnormalities and with costs for ultrasound scanning and serum screening. Inclusion of abnormalities was based on the relative prevalence and clinical importance of conditions and the availability of data. Six strategies for the identification of abnormalities prenatally including combinations of first and second trimester ultrasound scanning and first and second trimester screening for chromosomal abnormalities were compared. Main outcome measures The number of abnormalities detected and missed, the number of iatrogenic losses resulting from invasive tests, the total cost of strategies and the cost per abnormality detected were compared between strategies. Results First trimester screening for chromosomal abnormalities costs more than second trimester screening but results in fewer iatrogenic losses. Strategies which include a second trimester ultrasound scan result in more abnormalities being detected and have lower costs per anomaly detected. Conclusions The preferred strategy includes both first and second trimester ultrasound scans and a first trimester screening test for chromosomal abnormalities. It has been recommended that this policy is offered to all women in Scotland.

Instrumental and interpretive methods in evaluating urban programmes

The turn within urban policy to address increasingly complex social, economic and environmental problems has exposed some of the fragility of traditional measurement models and their reliance on the rational paradigm. This article looks at the experiences of the European Union (EU) Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and its particular attempt to construct new District Partnerships to deliver area-based regeneration programmes. It highlights the need to combine instrumental and interpretative evaluation methods in an attempt to explain the wider contribution of governance to conflict resolution and participatory practice in local development. It concludes by highlighting the value of conceptual approaches that deal with the politics of evaluation and the distributional effects of policy interventions designed to create new relationships within and between multiple stakeholders.

The general and specific effects of educational programmes aimed at promoting awareness of and respect for diversity among young children

This article reports the findings of a mixed-method evaluation of a pilot educational programme undertaken with 6-7 year olds in a sample of primary schools in England with the aim of increasing their awareness of and respect for diversity through theatre, workshops and related teacher-led classroom activities. The qualitative feedback from the teachers involved was extremely positive and encouraging and an analysis of the actual impact of the pilot programme on the children’s attitudes and awareness, using an experimental design, demonstrated some positive effects. In particular, the programme was found to increase the children’s general awareness of diversity and their ability to recognise instances of exclusion. While not a planned objective of the pilot programme, the evaluation also examined whether it had any effects on the children’s attitudes to specific differences, in this particular case racial differences. Interestingly, however, no evidence was found of any change in the children’s racial attitudes. With this in mind the article suggests that there is a need to distinguish between the general and specific effects of such educational programmes. The article considers the implications of this for future work in the area and also stresses the need to undertake more thorough and rigorous evaluations of such initiatives.

Public Participation in Area-based Urban Regeneration Programmes

This paper reports the findings of research into the representation of local interests in area-based urban regeneration programmes in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The two case studies are contextualised by a review of the promotion of public participation in urban regeneration in both parts of Ireland and theorised as a site of interaction between state agencies and civil society. It is argued that the practice of public participation is a hegemonic project, which, within urban regeneration, is operationalised through partnership structures. The paper concludes that many factors from within and outside the case study programmes affected their consultation processes. Therefore the design and implementation of regeneration programmes should be undertaken in the context of an understanding of the relationship between the state and civil society in the empirical case.

Randomised controlled trial of home-based walking programmes at and below current recommended levels of exercise in sedentary adults

Objectives: To determine, using unsupervised walking programmes, the effects of exercise at a level lower than currently recommended to improve cardiovascular risk factors and functional capacity.

A New Concept of Interprofessional Education in Planning Programmes: Reflections on Healthy Urban Planning Project

Although widely debated, some of the defining professional characteristics of planners appear to be competencies in co-ordination, mediation and multidisciplinary working. Despite this, there is little pedagogical reflection on how interprofessional skills are promoted in planning programmes. This paper reflects on the experience of bringing together undergraduate students from medicine and planning to explore the concept of Healthy Urban Planning in a real life context of an urban motorway extension. This reveals a number of unexpected outcomes of such collaboration and points to the value of promoting interprofessional education, both as a way of increasing interest in some of the key challenges now facing society and in order to induce greater professional reflection amongst our students.