Emergency Response Systems and the Creeping Legibility of People and Places

Over the last 35 years, centralized universal-number (in the United States, 9-1-1) systems have come to be the preferred means of emergency-response dispatching. The creation of these systems has motivated the development of information systems that render the landscape, to those with the right access, increasingly legible. This has been to the benefit of those receiving emergency services, but also to the benefit of police and commercial interests, who have used the improved infrastructure as bases for the creation of geodemographic and other profiling systems. More recently, the creation of wireless telephony has motivated the creation of a further surveillance infrastructure built on and integrated into that landscape. One consequence has been the commercialization of the systems in ways that permit the incorporation of more intimate and detailed data into preexisting systems. Public concern with locational surveillance systems has focused on privacy. However, “privacy” may be an inadequate frame through which to understand these issues and to fashion appropriate responses.     

A Reliable Method for the Measurement of Constant Load Maximal Endurance Performance on the Bicycle Ergometer

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of achievement goal orientations and perceived motivational climate to perceptions of the intensity and direction of competitive state anxiety in a sample of university athletes representing various team sports. Although some studies have demonstrated that task orientation and mastery climate are associated with adaptive emotional patterns and ego orientation and performance climate are linked to less adaptive emotions, others have not verified these findings. In the present study, structural equation modeling was used to test these links. The results showed that perceptions of a performance climate were associated with ego orientation, whereas perceptions of a mastery climate were linked to task orientation. Furthermore, no significant links were found between task orientation and direction of competitive anxiety, while it was shown that the impact of ego orientation on the intensity and direction of cognitive and somatic anxiety was exerted through self-confidence. No significant direct links were found between motivational climates and competitive anxiety, thus implying that motivational climates may have an indirect impact on affective responses through the different goal orientations. The findings of the present study are discussed along with suggestions for examining situational and individual difference variables that may explain the relationships between intensity and direction of competitive anxiety and achievement goals and motivational climates.     

A career in professional services: accident,serendipity or something more?

As part of a larger study, professional staff from two universities, Australian and British, were asked how they entered into a higher education career and what factors kept them in that career. Many participants reported that they found themselves in professional services almost by accident, or by a fortunate combination of circumstances. However, in addition to the serendipitous recruitment reported in earlier studies, our analysis found a positive value associated with higher education that attracted people to seek out employment opportunities, and to remain in the sector. This suggests that recruitment is not as accidental or serendipitous as might first appear. We argue that while there are many reasons why our participants remained in higher education, the variety offered in day-to-day roles and responsibilities is a key factor in retaining professional staff. Our findings have implications for policy and practice, for both the recruitment and retention of talented professional staff.