Taking the brand promise online: challenges and opportunities

Starting from the fact that a 'brand' is a universal concept regardless of environment, but its enactment changes according to environment, this paper provides pointers about brand building on the internet. It presents a three-level model of a brand to help organisations characterise their brands' promises. By expanding this model it then considers how a brand's promise can be enacted on the internet in order to assess the coherence of the brand. Through considering how some organisations have taken advantage of the internet, it highlights three factors critical for success. Ten key action points for marketers are presented.

Ensuring the right to the city: pro-poor housing, urban development and tenure legalization in São Paulo, Brazil

São Paulo is one of Latin America’s most modern and developed cities, yet around one-third of its 10 million inhabitants live in poor-quality housing in sub-standard settlements. This paper describes the response of the São Paulo municipal government that took office in 2001. Through its Secretariat of Housing and Urban Development, it designed a new policy framework with a strong emphasis on improving the quantity and quality of housing for low-income groups. Supported by new legislation, financial instruments and partnerships with the private sector, the mainstays of the new policy are integrated housing and urban development, modernization of the administrative system, and public participation in all decision-making and implementation processes. The programmes centre on upgrading and legalizing land tenure in informal settlements, and regeneration of the city centre. The new focus on valuing the investments that low-income groups have already made in their housing and settlements has proved to be more cost-effective than previous interventions, leading to improvements on an impressive scale.

Are the debates on water privatization missing the point? Experiences from Africa, Asia and Latin America

This paper has two principal aims: first, to unravel some of the arguments mobilized in the controversial privatization debate, and second, to review the scale and nature of private sector provision of water and sanitation in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Despite being vigorously promoted in the policy arena and having been implemented in several countries in the South in the 1990s, privatization has achieved neither the scale nor benefits anticipated. In particular, the paper is pessimistic about the role that privatization can play in achieving the Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of people without access to water and sanitation by 2015. This is not because of some inherent contradiction between private profits and the public good, but because neither publicly nor privately operated utilities are well suited to serving the majority of low-income households with inadequate water and sanitation, and because many of the barriers to service provision in poor settlements can persist whether water and sanitation utilities are publicly or privately operated. This is not to say that well-governed localities should not choose to involve private companies in water and sanitation provision, but it does imply that there is no justification for international agencies and agreements to actively promote greater private sector participation on the grounds that it can significantly reduce deficiencies in water and sanitation services in the South.

Atrocities in theory and practice: An introduction

Classical counterinsurgency theory – written before the 19th century – has generally strongly opposed atrocities, as have theoreticians writing on how to conduct insurgencies. For a variety of reasons – ranging from pragmatic to religious or humanitarian – theoreticians of both groups have particularly argued for the lenient treatment of civilians associated with the enemy camp, although there is a marked pattern of exceptions, for example, where heretics or populations of cities refusing to surrender to besieging armies are concerned. And yet atrocities – defined here as acts of violence against the unarmed (non-combatants, or wounded or imprisoned enemy soldiers), or needlessly painful and/or humiliating treatment of enemy combatants, beyond any action needed to incapacitate or disarm them – occur frequently in small wars. Examples abound where these exhortations have been ignored, both by forces engaged in an insurgency and by forces trying to put down a rebellion. Why have so many atrocities been committed in war if so many arguments have been put forward against them? This is the basic puzzle for which the individual contributions to this special issue are seeking to find tentative answers, drawing on case studies.

Enhanced viability of corneal epithelial cells for efficient transport/storage using a structurally-modified calcium alginate hydrogel

Aims: Therapeutic limbal epithelial stem cells could be managed more efficiently if clinically validated batches were transported for ‘on-demand’ use. Materials & methods: In this study, corneal epithelial cell viability in calcium alginate hydrogels was examined under cell culture, ambient and chilled conditions for up to 7 days. Results: Cell viability improved as gel internal pore size increased, and was further enhanced with modification of the gel from a mass to a thin disc. Ambient storage conditions were optimal for supporting cell viability in gel discs. Cell viability in gel discs was significantly enhanced with increases in pore size mediated by hydroxyethyl cellulose. Conclusion: Our novel methodology of controlling alginate gel shape and pore size together provides a more practical and economical alternative to established corneal tissue/cell storage methods.

Variability of starch-based thickened drinks for patients with dysphagia in the hospital setting

Starch-based thickening agents may be prescribed for patients with dysphagia. Thickened fluids alter variables of the swallow reflex, allowing more time for bolus manipulation without compromising airway closure. This investigation explored the variation in viscosity and physical characteristics of thickened drinks prepared in different media under laboratory conditions and compared the results with those of thickened drinks presented to dysphagic patients in one hospital. The rheological characteristics were tested on a simple plastometer and a Bohlin CVOR rheometer (Malvern Instruments, Worcestershire, UK). Samples prepared to “syrup” consistency both in the laboratory and in the hospitalwere significantly different from each other (P < 0.0001). This was also the case for samples prepared to “custard” consistency. Differences existed not only in viscosity, but drinks prepared in different media produced different rheological matrices. This signifies different viscoelastic behaviors that may effect manipulation in the mouth. From this study, preparation of thickened drinks using starch-based instant thickening powders appears to be a highly variable practice.

The printed page

In the year 1702 two books were published, in Oxford and Paris, that can now be seen as defining the presses that produced them. In Paris, the Imprimerie Royale issued the Médailles sur les principaux évènements du règne de Louis le Grand, a large folio of text and plates intended to glorify the regime of Louis XIV. In Oxford, the first, large format volume of Clarendon’s The history of the rebellion appeared; painstakingly edited at Christ Church, it brought prestige and profit to the University. Both were considerable statements of publishing intent in graphic form: both were sumptuous, and both used types and decorations reserved to their respective presses. But the French book points the way to future developments in typography, particularly in the design of type, while the Oxford book is a summation of the past, and its types and page design would be abandoned by the Oxford press in little more than thirty years. Tracing the printed pages of Oxford books from the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century shows changes that parallel wider developments in English and European typography, but from a distinctly Oxford perspective.

When consent doesn't work: a rights-based case for limits to consent’s capacity to legitimise

Consent's capacity to legitimise actions and claims is limited by conditions such as coercion, which render consent ineffective. A better understanding of the limits to consent's capacity to legitimise can shed light on a variety of applied debates, in political philosophy, bioethics, economics and law. I show that traditional paternalist explanations for limits to consent's capacity to legitimise cannot explain the central intuition that consent is often rendered ineffective when brought about by a rights violation or threatened rights violation. I argue that this intuition is an expression of the same principles of corrective justice that underlie norms of compensation and rectification. I show how these principles can explain and clarify core intuitions about conditions which render consent ineffective, including those concerned with the consenting agent's option set, his mental competence, and available information.

Economic rationale for interventions to control livestock disease

Disease in farm animals has significant economic impacts on livestock production and incurs substantial costs for societies. Impacts affect not only livestock farms and the livestock industries but also sectors outside of farming. Important negative externalities of livestock disease include impacts on the health of other producers’ livestock, on human health, and on animal welfare. Good disease risk management/biosecurity and good animal welfare are public goods. Not taking account of these externality and public good aspects can lead to a misallocation of resources for livestock disease control. In such instances, there may be a strong case for government or other authority to intervene to ensure a better use of resources. There are a number of policy instruments that can be implemented for this purpose. One potential instrument is a Farm Animal Health and Welfare Stewardship Scheme funded under Pillar II of the CAP. A number of countries have public–private partnership cost-sharing schemes that aim to share appropriately both responsibilities and costs of epidemic livestock disease. There is a strong future agenda for appropriate intervention by governments in the management of livestock disease risks, including responsibility and cost sharing for livestock disease control, within the European Union and elsewhere.

Departures from convective equilibrium with a rapidly-varying surface forcing

Convective equilibrium is a long-standing and useful concept for understanding many aspects of the behaviour of deep moist convection. For example, it is often invoked in developing parameterizations for large-scale models. However, the equilibrium assumption may begin to break down as models are increasingly used with shorter timesteps and finer resolutions. Here we perform idealized cloud-system resolving model simulations of deep convection with imposed time variations in the surface forcing. A range of rapid forcing timescales from 1 − 36hr are used, in order to induce systematic departures from equilibrium. For the longer forcing timescales, the equilibrium assumption remains valid, in at least the limited sense that cycle-integrated measures of convective activity are very similar from cycle to cycle. For shorter forcing timescales, cycle-integrated convection becomes more variable, with enhanced activity on one cycle being correlated with reduced activity on the next, suggesting a role for convective memory. Further investigation shows that the memory does not appear to be carried by the domain-mean thermodynamic fields but rather by structures on horizontal scales of 5 − 20km. Such structures are produced by the convective clouds and can persist beyond the lifetime of the cloud, even through to the next forcing cycle.

Altitude acts as an environmental filter on phylogenetic composition, traits and diversity in bee communities.

Knowledge about the phylogeny and ecology of communities along environmental gradients helps to disentangle the role of competition-driven processes and environmental filtering for community assembly. In this study, we evaluated patterns in species richness, phylogenetic structure and life-history traits of bee communities along altitudinal gradients in the Alps, Germany. We found a linear decline in species richness and abundance but increasing phylogenetic clustering in communities with increasing altitude. The proportion of social- and ground-nesting species, as well as mean body size and altitudinal range of bee communities, increased with increasing altitude, whereas the mean geographical distribution decreased. Our results suggest that community assembly at high altitudes is dominated by environmental filtering effects, whereas the relative importance of competition increases at low altitudes. We conclude that inherent phylogenetic and ecological species attributes at high altitudes pose a threat for less competitive alpine specialists with ongoing climate change.

Perception of thickness, mouth-coating and mouth-drying of dairy beverages by younger and older volunteer

Sensory perception has been found to change during ageing. The perception of mouth feel by older adults, and the role of ageing on the sensory perception of texture attributes is uncertain. . This study investigated perception of the textural attributes of thickness, mouth-coating and mouth-drying, in the context of dairy beverages, by older and younger adults. Just noticeable differences (JND) of a starch thickener and for cream concentration within milk were established for thickness and mouth-coating perception, finding no age-related differences between participant groups. Mouth-drying was assessed through the directional paired comparison of a mouth-drying milk beverage to a skimmed milk sample. The older adults were found to be more sensitive to mouth-drying (p=0.03) than the younger adults. This study found no age-related decline in texture perception with older adults finding perception of some attributes such as mouth-drying enhanced by ageing.

Paraméricas Utópicas: entranced and transient nations in "I Am Cuba" (1964) and "Land in Anguish" (1967)

This article examines the astonishing similarities between two political films, Land in Trance (Glauber Rocha, 1967) and I Am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964). Both address the subject of revolution through the enactment of trance. Both reject all forms of naturalistic account, adopting a series of anti-realist devices, such as poetic language, synecdoche, personification, parable and allegory, as a means of expanding the concept of the nation beyond territorial borders and conveying the meaning of revolution through the film form, rather than its content. Because there is no evidence that Glauber Rocha had seen I Am Cuba before he shot Land in Trance, these coincidences are treated as an intellectual 'transit' between film-makers whose art was fuelled by cinephilia and the belief in the reality of the film medium.