Effect of major lifestyle risk factors, independent and jointly, on life expectancy with and without cardiovascular disease: results from the Consortium on Health and Ageing Network of Cohorts in Europe and the United States (CHANCES)

Seldom have studies taken account of changes in lifestyle habits in the elderly, or investigated their impact on disease-free life expectancy (LE) and LE with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Using data on subjects aged 50+ years from three European cohorts (RCPH, ESTHER and Tromsø), we used multi-state Markov models to calculate the independent and joint effects of smoking, physical activity, obesity and alcohol consumption on LE with and without CVD. Men and women aged 50 years who have a favourable lifestyle (overweight but not obese, light/moderate drinker, non-smoker and participates in vigorous physical activity) lived between 7.4 (in Tromsø men) and 15.7 (in ESTHER women) years longer than those with an unfavourable lifestyle (overweight but not obese, light/moderate drinker, smoker and does not participate in physical activity). The greater part of the extra life years was in terms of "disease-free" years, though a healthy lifestyle was also associated with extra years lived after a CVD event. There are sizeable benefits to LE without CVD and also for survival after CVD onset when people favour a lifestyle characterized by salutary behaviours. Remaining a non-smoker yielded the greatest extra years in overall LE, when compared to the effects of routinely taking physical activity, being overweight but not obese, and drinking in moderation. The majority of the overall LE benefit is in disease free years. Therefore, it is important for policy makers and the public to know that prevention through maintaining a favourable lifestyle is "never too late".

Independent Ireland

Although many Irish nationalists at the turn of the twentieth century expected Ireland to achieve self-government within their own lifetime, few could have anticipated its form or consequences: the promised land that they envisioned was to be achieved through political means rather than insurrection and partition. But while the violence of the revolutionary decade created the political structures that shape present-day Ireland, the social and economic changes of the final decades of the twentieth century, by rupturing cultural patterns that predated independence, arguably brought about a more profound dislocation. Within Southern Ireland, the focus of this essay, the long era between these periods of upheaval was initially characterised by the pursuit of national sovereignty and self-sufficiency. In contrast, the decades after the Second World War saw the gradual abandonment of that vision in favour of a more pragmatic policy of economic liberalisation. The resulting ‘modernisation’ saw many traditional aspects of Irish society replaced by individualistic values more typical of contemporary European society.

Hybrid time dependent/independent solution for the He i line ratio temperature and density diagnostic for a thermal helium beam with applications in the scrape-off layer-edge regions in tokamaks

Spectroscopic studies of line emission intensities and ratios offer an attractive option in the\r\ndevelopment of non-invasive plasma diagnostics. Evaluating ratios of selected He I line\r\nemission profiles from the singlet and triplet neutral helium spin systems allows for simultaneous\r\nmeasurement of electron density (ne) and temperature (Te) profiles. Typically, this powerful\r\ndiagnostic tool is limited by the relatively long relaxation times of the 3S metastable term of helium\r\nthat populates the triplet spin system, and on which electron temperature sensitive lines are based.\r\nBy developing a time dependent analytical solution, we model the time evolution of the two spin\r\nsystems. We present a hybrid time dependent/independent line ratio solution that improves the\r\nrange of application of this diagnostic technique in the scrape-off layer (SOL) and edge plasma\r\nregions when comparing it against the current equilibrium line ratio helium model used at\r\nTEXTOR.

Ghosts and Television

This chapter explores the ghost story on television, and particularly the tensions between the medium and the genre. Television has long been seen as a nearly-supernatural medium, an association that the very term 'medium' enhances. In particular, the very intimacy of television, and its domestic presence, have led to it being considered to be a suitable and effective venue for the ghost story, while at the same time concerns have risen over it being too effective at conveying horror into the home. The ghost story is thus one of the genres where the tensions between the medium's aesthetic possibilities and desire for censorship can be most clearly seen. As such, there is a recurring use of the ghost story in relation to different techniques of special effects and narrative on television, some more effective than others, and the presence of the ghost story on television waxes and wanes as different styles become more or less popular, and different narrative forms, such as single play or serial or series, become more or less dominant. Drawing on examples primarily from a British and US context, this chapter outlines the history of the ghost story on television and demonstrates how the tensions in presentation, narrative and considerations of the viewer have influenced the many changes that have taken place within the genre.

Most Haunted and the Convergence of Traditional Belief and Popular Television.

LivingTV's flagship series, Most Haunted, has been haunting the satellite network since 2002. The set-up of the series is straightforward: a team of investigators, including a historian, a parapsychologist, and "spiritualist medium" Derek Acorah, "legend-trip," spending the night at some location within the United Kingdom that is reputed to be haunted, with the hopes of catching on video concrete proof of the existence of ghosts. However, unlike other reality television or true-life supernatural television shows, Most Haunted includes and addresses the audience less as a spectator and more as an active participant in the ghost hunt. Watching Most Haunted, we are directed not so much to accept or reject the evidence provided, as to engage in the debate over the evidence's veracity. Like legend-telling in its oral form, belief in or rejection of the truth-claims of the story are less central than the possibility of the narrative's truth - a position that invites debates about those truth-claims. This paper argues that Most Haunted, in its premise and structure, not only depicts or represents legend texts (here ghost stories), but engages the audience in the debates about the status of its truth-claims, thereby bringing this mass-mediated popular culture text closer to the folkloristic, legend-telling dynamic than other similar shows.

The Media as a Window on the Past? The Impact of Television and Newspaper Consumption on Knowledge of the Democratic Transition in Portugal

This study seeks to expand our understanding of how the media increase the level of political information, by focusing on an understudied yet important learning outcome: knowledge of the political past. The article explores the factors underlying variation in the recognition of the leading actors in the transitional process in Portugal. The results show that television news and newspaper exposure foster recognition of these actors, but that media use interacts with personal experience of the transition (stronger effects among younger cohorts) and party identification (stronger impact on those who do not feel close to a political party).

Children's television: the soft underbelly of public service broadcasting

The provision of children's content should be a key constituent of the public service brand, but has often been viewed as a programme category at risk. Certainly in many countries children's television has moved from the 'scarcity' associated with terrestrial provision, to the 'plenty' of digital (see Ellis 2000). However in spite of a range of dedicated public service children's channels in Europe (CBeebies, Kika, Z@ppelin), domestically produced children's television in Europe is notoriously under-resourced if not marginalised. There is a pronounced reliance on imports (particularly on commercial television) notwithstanding the launch by US-owned multinationals (Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network) of localised versions of their children's television channels in many European countries. Within the broader context of global developments in children's media, this paper starts by outlining the recent and rapid crisis in British children's television and the factors that caused it. This was a crisis, which caught broadcasters and producers by surprise in the middle of 2006, but reflects many of the challenges faced by the children's television sector in other countries. It clearly demonstrated how a combination of the lack of regulatory protection, a change in commercial priorities among broadcasters, advertising restrictions, budgetary pressures and the competitive environment at home and abroad all combined to reinforce the trend towards a contraction of domestic production. The crisis also served to underline the dominance of the BBC - both as a representative of public service principles, and as the dominant producer and commissioner in the market. With the reasons underpinning the crisis explained, the paper will then analyse how the children's television community responded to the crisis and with what effect. Based on interviews, contemporary accounts and documentary evidence the paper will chart the converging and diverging views of broadcasters, producers, regulatory authority Ofcom, and a range of advocacy groups which represent children's interests and the industry. What arguments were elaborated in favour of protecting children's television as an integral part of the public service media brand? Can lessons be learned about how best to ensure the origination of children's media within a public service environment? Can developments in the UK be used to provide insight into how children's media might develop further?

Defining the nation, defining public television: discourses of publics on public service television in post-communist Latvia

Institutional and political economy approaches have long dominated the study of post-Communist public broadcasting, as well as the entire body of post-Communist media transformations research, and the enquiry into publics of public broadcasting has traditionally been neglected. Though media scholars like to talk about a deep crisis in the relationship between public broadcasters and their publics in former Communist bloc countries across Central and Eastern Europe, little has been done to understand the relationship between public broadcasters and their publics in these societies drawing on qualitative audience research tradition. Building on Hirschman’s influential theory of ‘exit, voice and loyalty’, which made it possible to see viewing choices audiences make as an act of agency, in combination with theoretical tools developed within the framework of social constructionist approaches to national imagination and broadcasting, my study focuses on the investigation of responses publics of the Latvian public television LTV have developed vis-à-vis its role as contributing to the nation-building project in this ex-Soviet Baltic country. With the help of focus groups methodology and family ethnography, the thesis aims to explore the relationship between the way members of the ethno-linguistic majority of Latvian-speakers and the sizeable ethno-linguistic minority of Russian-speakers conceptualize the public broadcaster LTV, as well as understand the concept of public broadcasting more generally, and the way they define the national ‘we’. The study concludes that what I call publics of LTV employ Hirschman’s described exit mechanism as a voice-type response. Through their rejection of public television which, for a number of complex reasons they consider to be a state broadcaster serving the interests of those in power they voice their protest against the country’s political establishment and in the case of its Russian-speaking publics also against the government’s ethno-nationalistic conception of the national ‘we’. I also find that though having exited from the public broadcaster LTV, its publics have not abandoned the idea of public broadcasting as such. At least at a normative level the public broadcasting ideals are recognized, accepted and valued, though they are not necessarily associated with the country’s de jure institutional embodiment of public broadcasting LTV. Rejection of the public television has also not made its non-loyal publics ‘less citizens’. The commercial rivals of LTV, be they national or, in the case of Russian-speaking audiences, localized transnational Russian television, have allowed their viewers to exercise citizenship and be loyal nationals day in day out in a way that is more liberal and flexible than the hegemonic form of citizenship and national imagination of the public television LTV can offer.

Good Practice in EU Public Service Media and Contemporary Practice in Jordan: A Comparative Analysis

UNESCO Amman Office Foreword: UNESCO Amman office is pleased to publish a comparative analysis between good Public Service Media (PSM) practices in Europe and the contemporary practice in Jordan. The study is part of the Support to Media in Jordan project, funded by the European Union, aiming to increase media freedom, media independence and journalistic professionalism in Jordan. The state owned broadcaster, Jordan Radio and Television (JRTV), has informed, entertained and educated Jordanians for decades. JRTV reaches almost every corner of the Kingdom and has the potential to serve all Jordanians with balanced, impartial and accurate news and programmes relevant to their day-to-day lives.Based on this potential there has been a long standing ambition to transform the JRTV from a state broadcaster to a public service broadcaster; from a TV and radio that predominately serves the state, to a broadcaster that serves the public and is independent from the Government of the day. This ambition is expressed also in the Support to Media in Jordan project, agreed between the Government an the EU, under which UNESCO has been asked to produce two studies: The comparative PSM analysis and a broader media landscape assessment based on UNESCO’s Media Development Indicators (MDI’s). The Jordanian MDI assessment was carried out by a team of national and international researchers during the first six months of 2015, and builds on the rich flora of recent studies on the Jordanian media landscape, as well as on original research. The study is available in Arabic and English. Professor Naomi Sakr carried out the comparative PSM analysis parallel to the MDI study, and in close cooperation with the MDI research team and UNESCO Amman office.

Acute hypoxia reduces plasma myostatin independent of hypoxic dose

Background: Muscle atrophy is seen ~ 25 % of patients with cardiopulmonary disorders, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and chronic heart failure. Multiple hypotheses exist for this loss, including inactivity, inflammation, malnutrition and hypoxia. Healthy individuals exposed to chronic hypobaric hypoxia also show wasting, suggesting hypoxia alone is sufficient to induce atrophy. Myostatin regulates muscle mass and may underlie hypoxic-induced atrophy. Our previous work suggests a decrease in plasma myostatin and increase in muscle myostatin following 10 hours of exposure to 12 % O2. Aims: To establish the effect of hypoxic dose on plasma myostatin concentration. Concentration of plasma myostatin following two doses of normobaric hypoxia (10.7 % and 12.3 % O2) in a randomised, single-blinded crossover design (n = 8 lowlanders, n = 1 Sherpa), with plasma collected pre (0 hours), post (2 hours) and 2 hours following (4 hours) exposure. Results: An effect of time was noted, plasma myostatin decreased at 4 hours but not 2 hours relative to 0 hours (p = 0.01; 0 hours = 3.26 [0.408] ng.mL-1, 2 hours = 3.33, [0.426] ng.mL-1, 4 hours = 2.92, [0.342] ng.mL-1). No difference in plasma myostatin response was seen between hypoxic conditions (10.7 % vs. 12.3 % O2). Myostatin reduction in the Sherpa case study was similar to the lowlander cohort. Conclusions: Decreased myostatin peptide expression suggests hypoxia in isolation is sufficient to challenge muscle homeostasis, independent of confounding factors seen in chronic cardiopulmonary disorders, in a manner consistent with our previous work. Decreased myostatin peptide may represent flux towards peripheral muscle, or a reduction to protect muscle mass. Chronic adaption to hypoxia does not appear to protect against this response, however larger cohorts are needed to confirm this. Future work will examine tissue changes in parallel with systemic effects.

The relation between content providers and distributors: Lessons from the regulation of television distribution in the United Kingdom

Using the United Kingdom (UK) as a case study, this article analyses the growing commercial and regulatory significance of broadcaster-distributor relations within the contemporary television industry. The first part of the article argues that despite important changes in broadcast delivery technology, more recently shaped by the growth of the Internet, and the associated growth of options of receiving television content, the traditional delivery platforms (digital terrestrial, satellite and cable) remain by far the preferred choice for viewers in Britain. At the same time, public service broadcasters continue to be the biggest investors in domestic original non-sport content and account for over half of all television viewing. The strength of PSBs in content and their growing reliance on commercial proprietary subscription platforms (cable and satellite) and gradually on the Internet presents challenges in the nexus between broadcasters and distributors. The article focuses on the debate over retransmission fees between PSBs and Sky, and on the question of whether Sky should be required to offer some of its premium content to rival pay-TV platforms. These two examples highlight the impact regulatory intervention can have on the balance of power between broadcasters and distributors. The article concludes that such debates concerning the commercial relations between content providers and distributors will remain pivotal and become more heated given that similar issues are raised in the Internet environment.

Understanding the Effect of Television Advertising on Women's Attitudes and Purchase Intentions Towards Beer: A Study of Three Major Brands.

Abstract Purpose of Paper: The market for beer in the UK is now mature and sales have been stable at around £16bn for about ten years (Mintel 2014). More recently, there have been changes in the market as consumers have switched from bigger mainstream brands to a growing number of smaller craft beers. However, in order to grow further significantly, the industry needs to explore new market segments and find new consumers for beer. So far, it is estimated that only 1.3m women in the UK drink beer (O'Reilly, 2014; Mail Online, 2015). Women are therefore an underexplored segment and present the main growth opportunity for beer drinking in the UK. However, most beer television advertising has traditionally been aimed at the male audience and there have been suggestions that some of this advertising has been seen as unpopular with or even insulting to women (Jackson, 2013; Zwarun et al., 2006). The Chief Executive of major brewer SAB Miller, which owns the Foster's brand, has recently written that, 'We have to acknowledge that core lager advertising, for many years, was either dismissive of, or insulting to, women.' (Shubber, 2015). If women are to be the new consumers and the future target for beer advertising, there is therefore a significant gap in the knowledge and literature concerned with how women differ from men in responding to the television advertising produced by beer brands and it is important that this gap in knowledge is addressed. The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore the effect of the television advertising of the three top selling UK beer brands on women's attitudes and purchase intentions towards those brands. More specifically, the objectives are: 1) To gain an understanding of how female consumers respond to existing beer television advertising, specifically in terms of the ‘likeability’ of the content of TV commercials produced by the three leading UK beer brands among female consumers. 2) To examine the effect of the rational and emotional content, including the use of humour, in television commercials produced by the three leading UK beer brands on the attitudes of female consumers towards those brands. 3) To explore in-depth female consumer attitudes towards the content (message cues and symbolism) of the television commercials produced by the three leading beer brands in the UK and their effect on subsequent purchase intentions for each brand.

Dynamic power- and failure-aware cloud resources allocation for Sets of independent tasks

Cloud computing is increasingly being adopted in different scenarios, like social networking, business applications, scientific experiments, etc. Relying in virtualization technology, the construction of these computing environments targets improvements in the infrastructure, such as power-efficiency and fulfillment of users’ SLA specifications. The methodology usually applied is packing all the virtual machines on the proper physical servers. However, failure occurrences in these networked computing systems can induce substantial negative impact on system performance, deviating the system from ours initial objectives. In this work, we propose adapted algorithms to dynamically map virtual machines to physical hosts, in order to improve cloud infrastructure power-efficiency, with low impact on users’ required performance. Our decision making algorithms leverage proactive fault-tolerance techniques to deal with systems failures, allied with virtual machine technology to share nodes resources in an accurately and controlled manner. The results indicate that our algorithms perform better targeting power-efficiency and SLA fulfillment, in face of cloud infrastructure failures.