Harms to ‘others’ from alcohol consumption in the minimum unit pricing policy debate: A qualitative content analysis of UK newspapers (2005-2012)

<b>Background and aims</b> Minimum unit pricing is a fiscal intervention intended to tackle the social and health harms from alcohol to individual drinkers and wider society. This paper presents the first large-scale qualitative examination of how newsprint media framed the debate around the harms of alcohol consumption to ‘others’ during the development and passing of minimum unit pricing legislation in Scotland.<p></p> <b>Methods</b> Qualitative content analysis was conducted on seven United Kingdom and three Scottish national newspapers between 1January 2005 and 30 June 2012. Relevant articles were identified using the electronic databases Nexis UK and Newsbank. A total of 403 articles focused on the harms of alcohol consumption to ‘others’ and were eligible for detailed coding and analysis.<p></p> <b>Results</b> Alcohol harms to wider society and communities were identified as being a worsening issue increasingly affecting everyone through shared economic costs, social disorder, crime and violence. The availability of cheap alcohol was blamed, alongside a minority of ‘problem’ youth binge drinkers. The harm caused to families was less widely reported.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b> If news reporting encourages the public to perceive the harms caused by alcohol to wider society as having reached crisis point, a population based intervention may be deemed necessary and acceptable. However, the current focus in news reports on youth binge drinkers may be masking the wider issue of over-consumption across the broader population.<p></p&gt

Interfacing dielectric elastomer actuators with liquids

Methods and materials for liquid encapsulation in thin (19 μm) silicone membranes are presented in this work. A set of 12 liquids including solvents, oils, silicone pre-polymers and one ionic liquid are experimentally tested. We show that all selected liquids are chemically inert to silicone and that vapor pressure is the key parameter for stable encapsulation. It is demonstrated that encapsulated volume of silicone pre-polymers and ionic liquids can stay stable for more than 1 month. The actuation of dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) in conductive liquids is also investigated. An analysis of the equivalent electrical circuits of immersed DEAs shows that non-overlapping regions of the electrodes should be minimized. It also provides guidelines to determine when the electrodes should be passivated. The effects of immersion in a conductive liquid are assessed by measuring the actuation strain and capacitance over periodic actuation. The experimental results show no sign of liquid-induced degradation over more than 45k actuation cycles

Migrationsliteratur aus der Schweiz

Kaum etwas prägt ein Leben so stark wie die Erfahrung der Migration. Wie ist es, in einer fremden Gesellschaft ein neues Leben zu beginnen? Und welche Antworten kann die Literatur auf diese Frage geben? Stéphane Maffli analysiert die Literatursprache und Erzählweise von fünf Texten aus der deutschsprachigen Schweiz, die Einblick in Migration geben. Er zeigt, wie sich bei der Lektüre die Möglichkeit der Identifikation mit den Figuren eröffnet, und wie die Rolle der Migrationserfahrung für die Identitätsbildung vorstellbar wird. Die Berücksichtigung gesellschaftlicher und kultureller Prozesse erweitert die literaturwissenschaftliche Perspektive um eine soziologische Dimension

Gary/Ajar: la mort du double auteur

Le 2 décembre 1980, âgé de 66 ans, Romain Gary déjeune avec son éditeur Claude Gallimard, puis il rentre chez lui, rue du Bac à Paris, et se tire une balle dans la bouche. Il laisse une lettre qui se termine par ces mots: «Je me suis enfin exprimé entièrement.» L’auteur en question s’appelle d’abord Roman Kacew et naît en 1914. Dans La promesse de l’aube (1960), il raconte son enfance à Vilnius, son adolescence à Nice et son parcours d’aviateur au sein des Forces aériennes françaises libres. ..

A METHOD TO ESTIMATE TEMPERATURE OF UNPROTECTED STEEL STRUCTURES IN A FIRE ROOM FOR PERFORMANCE BASED FIRE-PROOF DESIGN

To realize low-voltage dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) for artificial muscles, a high-permittivity elastomer and a related thin-film deposition technique must be selected. For polydimethylsiloxane, fillers or functionalized crosslinkers have been incorporated into the elastomer to improve dielectric properties. To produce elastomer layers nanometers thin, molecular beam deposition was introduced. We pursue the synthesis of a high-permittivity oligomer, namely a chloropropyl-functional, vinyl-terminated siloxane to be thermally evaporated and subsequent UV curing to form an elastomer. The synthesized oligomer exhibits dielectric permittivity enhanced by 33% and a breakdown increase of 26% with respect to the commercially available oligomer DMS-V05. Films 160 nm thin were fabricated after being evaporated under ultra-high vacuum conditions. Spectroscopic ellipsometery served for film growth monitoring. Using atomic force microscopy, the film surface morphology and mechanics were characterized after growth termination and subsequent curing. The Young's modulus of the elastomer corresponded to (1.8 ± 0.2) MPa and is thus a factor of two lower than that of DMS-V05. Consequently, the properties of the films prepared by the new elastomer can be quantified by the normalized figure of merit, which estimates to 4.6. The presented approach is an essential step toward the realization of low-voltage DEA for medical applications and beyond

Designing a sustainable travel package: the case of Slovenia

Because of its continuous growth, tourism is becoming one of the largest industries in the world. The impacts of tourism and especially of mass tourism have proven to be harmful for both the natural environment and the local inhabitants of the visited areas. This leads to the necessity to develop alternative forms of tourism that will ensure a global sustainable development. This paper researches the possibility to develop a tourism package that would be responsible and respond to this global issue