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In the UK, police reforms to meet needs of a diverse society have been limited in the case of deaf signers to an increase in sign language interpreting services (SLIS). This article explores the consequences of this dependence on SLIS by the UK police. We consider how deaf signers’ contact with the police may be inaccessible, despite national frameworks that ‘guarantee’ accessibility through the provision of BSL-English interpreting. We draw on qualitative data from focus groups and interviews with police officers and custody sergeants who describe their experiences of having contact with deaf signers (or other minority language users) through interpreters. We examine and contrast their perceptions and experiences concerning if, when, and how SLIS provided access, as well as its impact on their contact with deaf signers. We compare these findings with UK police reform policies to identify the current state of these provisions along with potential divergences.

This article reports the findings of a nationwide sign language translator and interpreter (SLTI) census to establish a baseline description of the United Kingdom’s SLTI workforce that was commissioned by the Association of Sign Language Interpreters UK. Complete responses were received from 690 practitioners from across the United Kingdom (43% of the potential sample). The survey responses were analysed using the SPSS statistical software, specifically to look at various intersectional characteristics concerning gender, age, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. This article provides an overview of the findings with respect to two key themes: representation and diversity in the profession, along with discussion of the profile of the SLTI profession in the United Kingdom, and recommendations for actions for key stakeholder organisations. As a first snapshot, this census functions as a baseline for future comparisons, and can be modified and improved through open dialogue with professional and community groups. This snapshot helps us to identify gaps in representation. Finally, it can also inform the planning and forecasting of recruitment needs for the workforce and highlight any education and training needs.

Aim: Among hospitalized patients, venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a preventable cause of morbidity and mortality. This study analyzed the effects of a large-scale adoption of a prompt response and education protocol to increase VTE prophylaxis adherence in the USA. Methods: A Markov model was developed that simulates outcomes and costs of delivering a VTE education bundle versus not, to hospitalized at-risk patients. Results: The education bundle could avert more than 134,000 VTEs, 552,000 hospital days and 19,000 deaths over 5 years. Patients could save 13 million hours in work absenteeism and travel time, valued at US$237 million. Total societal savings could amount to US$2.8 billion. In scenario analyses with assumed lower-effectiveness estimates, the bundle averts 16,000 VTEs, 67,000 hospital days and 2000 deaths. Conclusion: A nationwide rollout of an education bundle to reduce missed doses of prescribed prophylaxis could improve quality of care, resulting in a decline in VTEs and mortality.

Aim: Analyze the impact of nationwide implementation of teledermatological care for psoriasis. Methods: Develop a Markov model that estimates the impact of telehealth technology for treatment of moderate-to-severe psoriasis on health and healthcare expenditures compared with in-person clinical care. Results: Lower medical costs by US$1.5 billion and total social costs of US$4.3 billion over 5 years. Patients save more than 67 million hours in work absenteeism and travel time, valued at US$598 million. Employers save US$1.2 billion over 5 years due to decreased employee absenteeism. Conclusion: National implementation of telehealth for psoriasis care has the potential to substantially reduce both formal healthcare costs and informal costs for families and patients, while maintaining equivalent clinical outcomes as traditional in-person care.

How the police prepare for and engage with a citizen who is deaf and uses British Sign Language (BSL) is a national problem. From the perspective of deaf sign language users, the police remain largely inaccessible and unprepared in how to accommodate their linguistic needs. Four regional forces have responded to this issue by introducing a local solution, a bespoke 101 non-emergency video relay service (101VRS). Independent VRS companies function as the auxiliary service, mediating video calls to a 101 helpline. This service was identified as a simple solution that relied on minimal resourcing and input from the police. In using Pinch and Bijker’s social construction of technology (SCOT) framework, we look at competing interpretations of the 101VRS concept and how this has led to a range of intended and unintended solutions and problems (Pinch TJ and Bijker WE (1984) The social construction of facts and artefacts: or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other. Social Studies of Science 14(3): 399–441). To maintain the investment in improving access to the police, we recommend harmonization of 101VRS nationally, and ongoing consultation with how front-line services can become better prepared at assisting deaf citizens.

Critical peace education literature has focused attention on how programmes that promise to teach peace contribute to and contest existing power relations. However, using social theory to work out ...

Aim: To estimate the economic impacts of increased use of specialty care infusion centers for treating adults experiencing vaso-occlusive crises. Methods: A Markov model is developed to estimate the impact of expanding use of specialty care infusion centers to treat vaso-occlusive crises compared to emergency department care. Results: Access to infusion centers for sickle cell disease could result in savings over US$1.9 billion in formal medical costs and over US$2 billion in societal costs, based on uptake assumptions over 10 years. Conclusion: Expansion of adult sickle cell disease centers across the nation could lead to considerably better economic outcomes in the form of reduced costs and hospital length of stay in addition to improved clinical outcomes as reported in the existing literature.

Deaf people’s lives are frequently predicated on working with interpreters. Identity becomes known and performed through the translated self in many interactions with hearing, non-signing people. Taking an interdisciplinary approach in combining interpreting studies, deaf studies, applied linguistics and social research, the ‘Translating the Deaf Self ’ project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), sought to explore the experience of deaf people and other stakeholders of the lived experience of being translated. Drawing on discourses of identity, representation and trust, this paper gives an overview of the findings from two focus groups with sign language interpreters (n = 7) on their perspectives of the experiences of deaf signers being ‘known’ through interpreting. Social constructionism underpinned our approach to data analysis and the dominant theme of ‘trust’ was examined with reference to a framework for trustworthiness developed by Alan Jones and Samantha Sin. In particular, we focus on the issue of trust in relation to representation, relationships, ability and boundaries. The main findings demonstrate that sign language interpreters are acutely aware of the responsibility they have to represent deaf signers, especially at work, and thus represent their professional-and-deaf identities, and the important role of trust for deaf professionals to feel represented through interpreters. Open Access Attribution: CC BY

The United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) were ratified with much enthusiasm by all UN member states in 2015. However, subsequent progress to meet these goals has been hampered by a lack of data available to measure the SDG indicators (SDIs), and a lack of evidence-based insights to inform effective policy responses. We outline an interdisciplinary program of research into the use of artificial intelligence techniques to support measurement of the SDIs, using both machine learning methods to model SDI measurements and explainable AI techniques to present the outputs in a human-friendly manner. As well as addressing the technical concerns, we will investigate the governance issues of what forms of evidence, methods of collecting that evidence and means of its communication will most usefully inform effective policy development. By addressing these fundamental challenges, we aim to provide policy makers with the evidence needed to take effective action towards realising the Sustainable Development Goals.

As the field of peace-building has moved away from top-down models of intervention, there has been renewed interest in the subject of knowledge production. Engaging with questions about what is mea...

Mycobacterium marinum is typically seen in patients who have a history of exposure to aquariums. We report a unique case of M. marinum that developed on the right knee following participation in a Hurricane Katrina reconstruction project. We are hopeful that this report will alert providers to elicit a thorough history and include cultures for less commonly encountered infectious agents along with routine bacterial and fungal stains and cultures when seeing patients with particular exposure histories such as this.

It has long been recognised that deaf people experience barriers to political participation and that notions of citizenship do not take into account the needs of deaf sign language users. In light of an effort at the European level to increase the potential for deaf sign language users to participate in political processes through technology, this paper provides results from a survey study of deaf sign language users across Europe as to their preferences in using Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS), whether they would like to see the establishment of a pan-European multilingual TRS and if they would make use of such a service for the purposes of political participation. Responses from 74 deaf people across 14 European member states confirm that deaf people want to see such a service, and would be willing to use it in order to make contact with European institutions. Therefore, the establishment of such a service has the potential to contribute to improved access to, and increased willingness t...

Deaf people’s lives are predicated to some extent on working with sign language interpreters. The self is translated on a regular basis and is a long-term state of being. Identity becomes known and performed through the translated self in many interactions, especially at work. (Hearing) others’ experience of deaf people, largely formed indirectly through the use of sign language interpreters, is rarely understood as intercultural or from a sociocultural linguistic perspective. This study positions itself at the cross-roads of translation studies, sociolinguistics and deaf studies, to specifically discuss findings from a scoping study that sought, for the first time, to explore whether the experience of being ‘known’ through translation is a pertinent issue for deaf signers. Through interviews with three deaf signers, we examine how they draw upon their linguistic repertoires and adopt bimodal translanguaging strategies in their work to assert or maintain their professional identity, including bypassing their representation through interpreters. This group we refer to as ‘Deaf Contextual Speakers’ (DCS). The DCS revealed the tensions they experienced as deaf signers in reinforcing, contravening or perpetuating language ideologies, with respect to assumptions that hearing people make about them as deaf people, their language use in differing contexts; the status of sign language; as well as the perceptions of other deaf signers about their translanguaging choices. This preliminary discussion of DCS’ engagement with translation, translanguaging and professional identity(ies) will contribute to theoretical discussions of translanguaging through the examination of how this group of deaf people draw upon their multilingual and multimodal repertoires, contingent and situational influences on these choices, and extend our understanding of the relationship between language use, power, identity, translation and representation.

A regional depletion planning and comprehensive EOR screening was completed for Alaskan viscous oil (VO) resources, which have in-place volumes exceeding 10 billion barrels (Figure 1). Developed areas are shown in dark blue. With initial production dating from 1985 and a moderate development pace, viscous oil has experienced technology waves in drilling, completion, and EOR capability. Lower viscosity portions of the reservoir have typically been developed first. To date, ~ 150 million barrels of viscous oil have been produced. Ugnu heavy oil (HO) resource footprint is shown by the red outline; areas of overlap may yield development cost savings opportunities. This multi-year screening effort was undertaken and funded by BP to deepen understanding of extraction techniques, development options, and operability issues that need clarity prior to moving discrete development projects forward. Key viscous oil challenges are high well and facility costs, low well deliverability, and low waterflood oil recovery (less than 20%). This screening included technical evaluations and laboratory studies that led to separately funded geomechanics studies and field trials. This work addressed these main questions: Can we improve the oil recovery factor? How far up the viscosity continuum can we progress? Can development cost be reduced to acceptable levels? Alaska viscous oil resides in soft, friable, pressure/stress sensitive sands. A key performance issue in early- to mid-life for many waterflood patterns is catastrophic rock failure with water short-circuiting between producer and injector or producer and aquifer, called a matrix bypass event (MBE). Potential MBE mechanisms were evaluated using a coupled reservoir flow, rock mechanics, and sand transport model to predict sand failure processes and evaluate remediation and prevention options. Installing producer sand control, maintaining reservoir pressure, and moderating the interwell pressure gradient reduces sanding and MBE risks, extends waterflood pattern life, and increases oil recovery.