Station In England Research Articles

Fabric of law-in-action

This article reports findings from a study of police interviews of people suspected of having committed relatively minor criminal offences, in a police station in England. The data comprise audio-recorded investigative interviews which were analysed using conversation analysis. It is focused on a communicative practice employed by police officers while questioning suspects. This practice is to ‘formulate’ what the suspect has just said; formulations are a means of summarising the suspect’s evidence in a particular phase of questioning, in such a way as to represent the suspect’s own words. Formulations, as a practice in talk-in-interaction, enable police officers to a) summarise the upshot of what a suspect has said during a period or phase of questioning, b) attribute this summary directly to a suspect’s ‘own words’, c) construct a suspect’s account (confirmation) as legally relevant, and which can d) elicit from the suspect a form of admission. Formulations are employed as a mechanism to rework prior descriptions and utterances by transforming and elaborating them and consolidating their legal relevance. Through this practice, police officers manage to attribute legal labels to what suspects have said during the interview, to their evidence (e.g. as denying, admitting, telling, etc.) as well as to the character of the incidents or events in question (e.g. assault, breach of harassment warning, criminal damage, arson). Formulating, therefore, is an interactional practice through which key legal work is accomplished in police interviews with suspects in England. It is a device that constitutes the fabric of law-in-action.

Disruption of emergency response to vulnerable populations during floods

Emergency responders must reach urgent cases within mandatory timeframes, regardless of weather conditions. However, flooding of transport networks can add critical minutes to travel times between dispatch and arrival. Here, we explicitly model the spatial coverage of all Ambulance Service and Fire and Rescue Service stations in England during flooding of varying severity under compliant response times. We show that even low-magnitude floods can lead to a reduction in national-level compliance with mandatory response times and this reduction can be even more dramatic in some urban agglomerations, making the effectiveness of the emergency response particularly sensitive to the expected impacts of future increases in extreme rainfall and flood risk. Underpinning this sensitivity are policies leading to the centralization of the Ambulance Service and the decentralization of the Fire and Rescue Service. The results provide opportunities to identify hotspots of vulnerability (such as care homes, sheltered accommodation, nurseries and schools) for optimizing the distribution of response stations and developing contingency plans for stranded sites.

Combination of modified Mann‐Kendall method and Şen innovative trend analysis

AbstractMann‐Kendall (MK) trend test is frequently employed as the most familiar trend detection method. Its application requires serial independence of available hydrometeorological time series records. As suggested in the literature, the serial correlation effect can be removed from the given time series by using prewhitening, variance correction or overwhitening processes such as in the modified Mann‐Kendall (MMK) procedure. The PW process may cause some of the current trends to be removed along with the serial correlation. In this study, the MMK method is supported by Şen innovative trend analysis instead of Sen slope estimator (SSE). The MMK method is applied to monthly maximum temperatures of Oxford station in England, for which the data length is large and the moving trend slope values are calculated starting from 1854 for all durations between 1873 and 2017. The MMK_SSE and MMK_ITA methods yield significant increasing trends between 0.0037 and 0.0125°C/year annual slopes for January, March, May, July, August, September, October, November, December, but for February, there is not any significant trend. While MMK_SSE does not give any significant trend for April that has maximum positive kurtosis and skew, but MMK_ITA reflects an increasing trend of 0.0059°C per year.

Intercontinental spread of Asian-origin H7 avian influenza viruses by captive bird trade in 1990's

Wild bird migration and illegal trade of infected poultry, eggs, and poultry products have been associated with the spread of avian influenza viruses (AIV). During 1992–1996, H7N1 and H7N8 low pathogenic AIV (LPAIV) were identified from captive wild birds; such as Pekin robin (Leiothrix lutea), magpie robin (Copsychus saularis), flycatcher sp. (genus Empidonax), a species of softbill and parakeet, sun conure (Aratinga solstitialis), painted conure (Pyrrhura picta), fairy bluebird (Irena puella), and common iora (Aegithina tiphia), kept in aviaries or quarantine stations in England, The Netherlands, Singapore and the United States (U.S.). In this study, we sequenced these H7 viruses isolated from quarantine facilities and aviaries using next-generation sequencing and conducted a comparative phylogenetic analysis of complete genome sequences to elucidate spread patterns. The complete genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis suggested that H7 viruses originated from a common source, even though they were obtained from birds in distant geographical regions. All H7N1 and H7N8 viruses were LPAIV, except a H7N1 highly pathogenic AIV (HPAIV), A/Pekin robin/California/30412/1994(H7N1) virus. Our results support the continued need for regulation of the captive wild bird trade to reduce the risk of introduction and dissemination of both LPAIV and HPAIV throughout the world.

Background levels of micro-organisms in the busy urban environment of transport hubs.

We constantly interact with our surrounding microbiome, including the micro-organisms present in highly populated public places. However, data on everyday exposure to background levels of micro-organisms are limited. To address this, bacteria and fungi were collected and enumerated in settled dust from railway stations. Samples were collected weekly for 52weeks, from up to three pre-determined surfaces in each of 17 railway stations in England and Scotland. Trained staff at each station took surface wipes, sending them to the laboratory for culture-based analysis for total bacteria and fungi. Maximum yields of bacteria at the stations were 107 -108 colony forming units (CFU) per cm2 , and 104 -105 CFU per cm2 for fungi. There was evidence of seasonal trends, with bacterial numbers rising from spring through to winter, while fungal numbers peaked in autumn. Microbial numbers were similar in samples taken at the same time at a given station. Influences on contamination levels were likely to be a combination of passenger numbers and station layout, with dust generated from construction work also contributing. A baseline of typical human exposure to micro-organisms in public transport hubs was established through the generation of a comprehensive database.

A depth–duration–frequency analysis for short-duration rainfall events in England and Wales

Abstract This study presents a depth–duration–frequency (DDF) model, which is applied to the annual maxima of sub-hourly rainfall totals of selected stations in England and Wales. The proposed DDF model follows from the standard assumption that the block maxima are generalised extreme value (GEV) distributed. The model structure is based on empirical features of the observed data and the assumption that, for each site, the distribution of the rainfall maxima of all durations can be characterised by common lower bound and skewness parameters. Some basic relationships between the location and scale parameters of the GEV distributions are enforced to ensure that frequency estimates for different durations are consistent. The derived DDF curves give a good fit to the observed data. The rainfall depths estimated by the proposed model are then compared with the standard DDF models used in the United Kingdom. The proposed model performs well for the shorter return periods for which reliable estimates of the rainfall frequency can be obtained from the observed data, while the standard methods show more variable results. Although the standard methods used no or little sub-hourly data in their calibration, they give fairly reliable estimates for the estimated rainfall depths overall.

The confident forecaster. Lessons from the upscaling of the electricity industry in England and Wales

This article analyses the upscaling technological stage in the life cycle of capital-intensive technologies from the business history viewpoint. We correspondingly demonstrate how the pursuit of technological trajectories based on systematic increases in the size and power capacities of units pushed a new class of professionals, skills and procedures to the forefront of business decision-making. From 1958 onwards, forecasting framed and sharpened organisational insight into problems. Drawing on archival data on coal-fired, oil-fired and nuclear powered stations in England and Wales, the final section proceeds to measure the gap between reality and forecasts and singles out three major hypotheses to explain forecasting errors: inability to predict rapid changes outside the model (inter-fuel substitution); disregard of technical shortcomings in replication and standardisation, and overconfidence in extrapolating cost reductions at higher capacity levels.

The quest for the ultimate vacuum tube

In July, 1962, the Telstar 1 satellite took an enormous leap toward the globally connected world we now take for granted. It relayed from space, for the first time ever, live television images and telephone calls between continents: specifically, a ground station in Andover, Maine, and other stations in England and France. It accomplished this feat thanks to a microwave repeater that had at its heart a slight but powerful vacuum device known as a traveling-wave tube. The 30-centimeter-long, glasswalled electron tube was at the time the only device capable of boosting a broadband television signal with enough power to cross an ocean. Solid-state devices just weren't up to the task.

A novel framework for discharge uncertainty quantification applied to 500 UK gauging stations.

Benchmarking the quality of river discharge data and understanding its information content for hydrological analyses is an important task for hydrologic science. There is a wide variety of techniques to assess discharge uncertainty. However, few studies have developed generalized approaches to quantify discharge uncertainty. This study presents a generalized framework for estimating discharge uncertainty at many gauging stations with different errors in the stage‐discharge relationship. The methodology utilizes a nonparametric LOWESS regression within a novel framework that accounts for uncertainty in the stage‐discharge measurements, scatter in the stage‐discharge data and multisection rating curves. The framework was applied to 500 gauging stations in England and Wales and we evaluated the magnitude of discharge uncertainty at low, mean and high flow points on the rating curve. The framework was shown to be robust, versatile and able to capture place‐specific uncertainties for a number of different examples. Our study revealed a wide range of discharge uncertainties (10–397% discharge uncertainty interval widths), but the majority of the gauging stations (over 80%) had mean and high flow uncertainty intervals of less than 40%. We identified some regional differences in the stage‐discharge relationships, however the results show that local conditions dominated in determining the magnitude of discharge uncertainty at a gauging station. This highlights the importance of estimating discharge uncertainty for each gauging station prior to using those data in hydrological analyses.

Assessing the possible radiological impact of routine radiological discharges from proposed nuclear power stations in England and Wales

The aim of this work is to assess the possible radiological impact on the population of the United Kingdom (UK) from new nuclear power stations proposed for up to eight sites in England and Wales. The radiological impact was measured in terms of collective dose to the UK, European and world populations from a single year’s discharge integrated to 500 and 100 000 years and the annual dose to an average member of the UK population (known as the per-caput dose). The doses were calculated for two reactor types, UK EPR™ and AP1000™, using the annual expected discharges estimated by the designers of the reactors and assuming two reactors per site. In addition, typical individual doses to adults living close to the sites were calculated on the basis of continuous discharges for 60 years (the assumed lifetime of the reactors). The dose to a representative person (previously known as the critical group) was not calculated, as this has been done elsewhere. The assessments were carried out using the software program PC-CREAM 08® which implements the updated European Commission methodology for assessing the radiological impact of routine releases of radionuclides to the environment. The collective dose truncated to 500 years to the UK population was estimated to be 0.5 manSv assuming UK EPR reactors on all sites and 0.6 manSv assuming AP1000s on three sites with UK EPRs on the other sites. The most significant contribution to the collective dose to the UK population is due to the global circulation of carbon-14 released to the atmosphere. The annual dose to an average member of the UK population from all sites was calculated to be around 10 nSv y−1 and would therefore contribute little to an individual’s total radiation dose. All the calculated doses to a typical adult living near the sites assuming continuous discharges for 60 years were found to be below 1 μSv y−1.

Evaluating hydrometric networks for prediction in ungauged basins: a new methodology and its application to England and Wales

Flow estimates for ungauged catchments are often derived through regionalisation methods, which enable data transfer from a pool of hydrologically similar catchments with existing gauging stations (i.e., pooling-groups). This paper presents a methodology for indexing the utility of gauged catchments within widely used pooling-group methodologies for high and low flow estimation; this methodology is then used as the basis for a network evaluation strategy. The utility of monitoring stations is assessed using catchment properties and a parallel, but independent, appraisal of the quality of gauging station data, which considers hydrometric performance, anthropogenic disturbances and record length. Results from the application of the method to a national network of over 1,100 gauging stations in England and Wales are presented. First, the method is used to appraise the fitness for purpose of the network for regionalisation. The method is then used to identify gauges which monitor catchments with high potential for regionalisation, but which are deficient in terms of data quality – where upgrades in hydrometric performance would yield the greatest benefits. Finally, gauging stations with limited value for regionalisation, given the pooling-group criteria employed, are identified. Alongside a wider review of other uses of the network, this analysis could inform a judicious approach to network rationalisation.

Unexpected results in online controlled experiments

Controlled experiments, also called randomized experiments and A/B tests, have had a profound influence on multiple fields, including medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and advertising. Offline controlled experiments have been well studied and documented since Sir Ronald A. Fisher led the development of statistical experimental design while working at the Rothamsted Agricultural Experimental Station in England in the 1920s. With the growth of the world-wide-web and web services, online controlled experiments are being used frequently, utilizing software capabilities like ramp-up (exposure control) and running experiments on large server farms with millions of users. We share several real examples of unexpected results and lessons learned.

Children, Young People and Requests for Police Station Legal Advice: 25 years on from PACE

Informed by data extracted from 30,921 police electronic custody records, drawn from 44 police stations across four police force areas and including 5153 records of juveniles aged 10 to 17 years, this article examines the take-up of legal advice by children and young people in police stations in England and Wales. There are wide variations in the extent to which juveniles request and receive legal advice when compared to adults but also between juveniles of different ages. Such variations are explored both in relation to the age of detainees and the type and seriousness of offence and case disposal. Also examined are variations based on different police force areas. The implications emanating from children’s differential access to legal advice at police stations are considered in relation to children’s rights.

Policing Hatred: A Case Study of an English Police Force

This article makes an important contribution to the field of hate studies by advancing the understanding of hate crime policing in the United Kingdom. The article presents an ethnographic case study on hate crime policing within a small-city police station in England. The study focused primarily on the police station’s Community Cohesion Unit (CCU), which was responsible for supporting hate crime informants, and for monitoring and assisting police officers handling hate incidents and hate crimes. The case study is mostly descriptive and exploratory in nature. Its primary objective is to provide needed insight into the inner workings of a police unit in order to obtain systematic knowledge on how hate crime laws are enforced in real-world settings. The study does not aim to present a new theory of hate crime policing; but in gathering fresh data from a new source, the study suggests potential directions for future empirical work and theoretical inquiry.

Alcohol screening and brief intervention in a policing context: A mixed methods feasibility study

There is a strong association between alcohol and offending behaviour and 25% of police time involves alcohol-related incidents. This pilot study aimed to investigate the feasibility of delivering alcohol screening and brief intervention (ASBI) to individuals arrested for offences linked to drinking behaviour. Participants were detainees arrested for public order or assault offences in one North East police station in England. Following a 2 h training session, 10 Detention Officers (DOs) conducted ASBI over 3 months during routine police work. In-depth interviews with the DOs provided further details about the acceptability of ASBI procedures. Of 704 target arrestees, 229 (33%) agreed to participate in the study. Most were male (81%), white British (95%) and under the age of 30 (62%). Fifty-nine per cent screened positively for an alcohol use disorder (50% were hazardous, 15% harmful and 35% dependent drinkers), although 23% detainees either refused or were unable to complete the screening tool. Of the 134 participants that screened positively, 98% were willing to receive brief intervention. DOs reported mixed views about ASBI; while half were positive about the process the remaining DOs expressed reservations about the appropriateness of the policing context for ASBI. Despite limited training, DOs were able to deliver ASBI during routine police work. These findings provide a promising platform for future evaluative research on brief intervention outcomes in this setting. However, the issue of coercion needs to be explored more fully with both detainees and DOs.[Brown N, Newbury-Birch D, McGovern R, Phinn E, Kaner E. Alcohol screening and brief intervention in a policing context: A mixed methods feasibility study.

Estimating Green Water Footprints in a Temperate Environment

The “green” water footprint (GWF) of a product is often considered less important than the “blue” water footprint (BWF) as “green” water generally has a low, or even negligible, opportunity cost. However, when considering food, fibre and tree products, is not only a useful indicator of the total appropriation of a natural resource, but from a methodological perspective, blue water footprints are frequently estimated as the residual after green water is subtracted from total crop water use. In most published studies, green water use (ETgreen) has been estimated from the FAO CROPWAT model using the USDA method for effective rainfall. In this study, four methods for the estimation of the ETgreen of pasture were compared. Two were based on effective rainfall estimated from monthly rainfall and potential evapotranspiration, and two were based on a simulated water balance using long-term daily, or average monthly, weather data from 11 stations in England. The results show that the effective rainfall methods significantly underestimate the annual ETgreen in all cases, as they do not adequately account for the depletion of stored soil water during the summer. A simplified model, based on annual rainfall and reference evapotranspiration (ETo) has been tested and used to map the average annual ETgreen of pasture in England.

A VLF survey using current gathering phenomena for tracing buried faults of Fethiye–Burdur Fault Zone, Turkey

Fethiye–Burdur Fault Zone (FBFZ) produces moderate to large earthquakes which can severely affect the surrounding cities spreading towards the basins of the region. In this study, with the aim of feature city planning, very low frequency electromagnetic (VLF) survey was carried out across (FBFZ) to locate subsurface faults covered by basin fills. VLF parameters such as the apparent resistivity, phase (VLF-R response) real and imaginary parts of tipper (VLF-EM response) were obtained using GBZ, a well known radio station in England at Oxford, which give a strong signal in our survey area with a suitable frequency (19.6 kHz) for our purposes. VLF method is called as VLF-EM, when it is only relying on the measurement of horizontal and vertical magnetic fields. However, when it includes measurement of horizontal electric field, providing resistivity values, it is referred as VLF-R method. In this study, the direction of horizontal electric field is perpendicular to fault strike describing the H-polarization mode. Although this mode produces strong VLF-R (resistivity) response, we also obtained quite clear and characteristic VLF-EM anomalies along some of the survey profiles. Both VLF-R and VLF-EM responses with the contribution of the vortex and gathered (direct) currents, in E and H-polarization modes, are reviewed and VLF anomalies observed over FBFZ are discussed. In FBFZ, current gathering anomalies become stronger in the presence of high conductivity contrast and in the presence of parallel fault branches separating the medium into resistors in series. In these conditions, changing electrical charge at the contacts of faults cause successive variations in E-field. As a result VLF-R response is strengthened and also secondary magnetic field which causes VLF-EM anomalies may be enhanced, in H-polarization mode. Interpretation of resistivity, phase and tipper data with current density pseudosections, over our survey lines, showed the location of buried faults of FBFZ beneath the sedimentary covers of the basins.

Alcohol, young people and the media: a study of radio output in six radio stations in England

This research investigated the representation of alcohol in radio output. The study was prompted by concerns that media output might be part of a developing culture of excessive drinking among young people. Alcohol comments were examined across six radio stations in England. 1200 h of weekend output was screened and the sampling frame included periods when references to alcohol would be expected, such as the Christmas period. Statistical analysis identified the volume and proportion of comments, whereas qualitative analysis explored these in more depth, focusing on the themes and discourses surrounding alcohol talk. Of 703 alcohol comments identified, 244 involved presenters. The volume of comments about alcohol varied between stations, being lower on BBC than on commercial stations and being influenced by music genre. Seventy-three percent of comments initiated by presenters, compared with 45% of comments from all sources, encouraged drinking. The majority of comments by presenters support drinking in relation to partying and socializing. Alcohol comments seem to create identity for programmes and forge connections between presenters and audiences, although some presenters achieve this without mentioning drinking. The assumption that alcohol is necessary to have a good time is seldom directly challenged. While it may be unsurprising that much of this content reflected themes of weekend drinking and partying, the study suggests that alcohol comments play a particular role in marketing and branding of radio output. Comments about alcohol are shaped by broadcasting conventions that make it difficult to challenge discourses surrounding excessive drinking. Further research is needed on the influence that radio output may have on drinking behaviour among young people.

Trip end models of local rail demand in England and Wales

This paper details models which have been developed to forecast the total number of trips made from local rail stations in England and Wales over a one year period. The use of multiple linear regression and geographically weighted regression in calibration are compared, with both explaining over 75% of the variation in the observed data. The latter technique has not previously been used in rail demand modelling, and allows significant spatial variations in the effect of independent variables to be identified and mapped. A number of catchment definition methods are investigated, as is the inclusion of a wide range of demographic and service related explanatory variables. The models developed are used to forecast usage at stations on the recently opened Ebbw Vale branch line in South Wales and these predictions are compared to initial usage figures.

Quickening the PACE? The use of volunteers as appropriate adults in England and Wales

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 Codes of Practice, an ‘appropriate adult’ should accompany a juvenile suspect at the police station in England and Wales, and similar roles exist elsewhere. In the past, there have been various recommendations to use volunteers as appropriate adults or in comparable roles. One of the reasons for this is that it was considered that their use would enhance the availability of appropriate adults and reduce the delays in securing their attendance. Dealing with young suspects expeditiously and detaining them for the shortest time possible is an issue of universal concern, not least because it is the subject of international law. This article explores the extent of delays in obtaining appropriate adults and the reasons behind them. It presents the results of a case study of a volunteer appropriate adult service which found that just over half of volunteers were contacted within two hours of the young suspect's arrest and that they then tended to arrive within the two hours required in England and Wales. The article concludes with a number of recommendations for minimising delays.