After Atos Healthcare: is the Employment and Support Allowance fit for purpose and does the Work Capability Assessment have a future?

In June 2014 the BBC reported that it had seen a number of UK Department for Work and Pensions documents relating to the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). These documents, which included six memos written by civil servants and government advisers, tell us very little that we did not know already; namely that the ESA is in crisis, and that waiting lists for assessment and appeals are unacceptable. However, what is significant is that these concerns are being raised within the Department for Work and Pensions itself. The underlying drift is that the question of whether the current model of ESA and Work Capability Assessment is sustainable is now firmly on the UK government’s radar.     

远程虚拟实验室教学模式的研究

将虚拟实验室与远程教育结合在一起，基于网络技术和虚拟仪器技术的远程虚拟实验室已成为新型的远程教育模式，解决了远程实验教学的困难。文章就远程虚拟实验室的组成、特征、基本要求及实现方法进行了研究，它在改革传统教学方法、教育资源共享、提高教学水平和节约投资等方面具有重要意义。     

岷江上游典型流域林冠截持降雨遥感模型与反演

在对岷江上游典型流域研究区实地踏勘和定位观测的基础上,综合利用ETM和ASTER遥感数据、地面实测数据和常规观测数据等资料,结合森林水量平衡原理,建立了岷江上游典型流域林冠截持降雨遥感信息模型。以遥感图像中单个像元作为测算单位,对模型参数叶面最大持水度、覆盖度、叶面积指数(LAI)进行了计算,并对岷江上游毛儿盖地区林冠截留降雨量进行了反演。并利用研究区实测数据、生态环境本底遥感调查数据和水文气象数据对上述模型反演结果进行验证和精度分析。结果表明,模型反演结果精度较高,能较好反应研究区植被冠层截留量的实际状况。     

王维与宰相二张关系考论

王维于唐玄宗开元年间，曾先后以诗干谒过张说与张九龄两位宰相，前者时间为开元十三年（725），后者则在开元二十三年（735）。王维上诗张说，纯为干谒者与被干谒者的关系，并因张说未能拔擢耿耿于怀。而王维自献诗张九龄后，即与张九龄结下了不解之缘，并写下了“举世无相识，终身思旧恩”的诗句，以表示对张九龄的汲引之恩永世不忘。认识王维与宰相二张关系的亲疏概况，有助于对王维相关作品的具体把握与准确理解。     

Stripping for the State

This article examines whole body imaging technologies in contemporary airport security contexts. Situating these technologies more broadly within histories of aviation and theories of mobility, we examine how discourses of technological efficiency and freedom of movement work to obscure the ever-expanding surveillance practices of the state. While whole body imaging technologies are marketed as objective and neutral, we investigate how they draw upon, and reinscribe, existing social inequalities. Using Angela Davis' theory of the strip search as a form of state-sponsored sexual assault, we assess contemporary uses of whole body scanners by the state and allied corporate interests not only as alleged privacy violations, but also as potential acts of violence by the state on marginalized subjects. By demonstrating the disproportionate impact of whole body imaging technologies on particular communities, including the intersections of transgendered travelers, travelers with disabilities, and racialized and religious communities, we show that whole body imaging technologies continue and expand upon the tradition of stratified mobilities that has always been a component of air travel. We also argue that the alleged non-invasiveness and efficiency of the “virtual strip search” marks a troubling trend in which the state consolidates power through increasingly concealed surveillance practices.     

Embodying the breach: (In)securitization and ethnographic engagement in the US

In this commentary, the author offers three related perspectives regarding (in)securitization: first, an overview of ongoing discussions taking place among US‐based ethnographers of colour about the effects of surveillance on ethnography; second, an example of the impact that (in)securitization may have on the researcher/researched relationship in contemporary ethnographic research; and third, an extension of Garfinkel’s notion of the “breach” within the current sociopolitical context. Throughout this essay, the author calls for a greater sense of connection to and solidarity with those “vulnerable subjects” that we engage with ethnographically.     

On the use and evaluation of prospective scan methods for health-related surveillance

Summary.  We review some prospective scan-based methods that are used in health-related applications to detect increased rates of mortality or morbidity and to detect bioterrorism or active clusters of disease. We relate these methods to the use of the moving average chart in industrial applications. Issues that are related to the performance evaluation of spatiotemporal scan-based methods are discussed. In particular we clarify the definition of a recurrence interval and demonstrate that this measure does not reflect some important aspects of the statistical performance of scan-based, and other, surveillance methods. Some research needs in this area are given.     

U.S. Population Estimates and Correlates of Sexual Abuse of Community-Dwelling Older Adults

We describe the annual prevalence of sexual abuse among community-dwelling older adults in the United States. We also describe factors associated with experiencing sexual abuse. We used data from 24,343 older adults from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System pooled across 18 states. We estimated prevalence of sexual abuse, bivariate distributions, and odds ratio associations across demographic, health, and contextual factors. Our results show that 0.9% of older adults reported experiencing sexual abuse in the previous year. This represents approximately 90,289 community-dwelling older adults. We also report on factors associated with experiencing recent sexual abuse. There was a significant gender by binge drinking interaction, with a stronger association among women. There is a need for health promotion efforts targeted specifically toward older adults, encouraging them to seek services, if possible, after exposure to sexual abuse.     

EVERYBODY'S GOT A LITTLE LIGHT UNDER THE SUN

This article examines the production of The Book of Negroes during the British evacuation of New York in 1783 and situates it as the first government-issued document for state regulated migration between the United States and Canada that explicitly links corporeal identifiers to the right to travel. I do this to argue that the body made legible with the modern passport system has a history in the technologies of tracking blackness. I explore surveillance technologies of transatlantic slavery, namely lantern laws, and I examine arbitration that took place at Fraunces Tavern in New York City in 1783 between fugitive slaves exercising mobility rights claims by seeking to be included in The Book of Negroes and those who claimed them as property. Coupling the archive of The Book of Negroes with a discussion of rituals and practices engaged by free and enslaved blacks, I suggest that these interactions with surveillance served as both strategies of coping and critique, and in so being represent acts of freedom. This article begins with a story of black escape by taking up the surveillance-based reality television programme Mantracker to question how certain technologies instituted through slavery to track blackness as property anticipate the contemporary surveillance of the racial body.     

THEORYCRAFTING

This article investigates theorycrafting, a cultural practice of gaming communities, to analyse the differences in participation, knowledge production and dissemination and to show the effect that this has on the community itself. Theorycrafting describes a process of reverse engineering, a process of extracting design ‘blue prints’ to understand a technology better, whose design is not accessible. The ‘design’ not accessible in this case is the game algorithm. The concept of scientification of gameplay is used to highlight the scientific approach of theorycrafters to their gameplay. Their ‘scientific’ approach is described by using Aristotle's concepts episteme, techne and phronesis. His concepts have been chosen as they help us to analyse the different layers of the meaning of ‘theory’ in theorycrafting. This article investigates which understanding of theory and science is central in the practice of theorycrafting. How is a specific concept of science part of mechanisms of participatory surveillance? Theorycrafting can be understood as the desire of players to gain control over the game and share this knowledge with other players. The production of knowledge for the community leads to formulas that are used to improve playing skills, but through the spread of add-ons and forms of social control, it can also be described as a tool for surveillance.