University of Westminster

About: University of Westminster is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 2944 authors who have published 8426 publications receiving 200236 citations. The organization is also known as: Westminster University & Royal Polytechnic Institution.

Food safety and consumers: constructions of choice and risk

Abstract: This paper argues that food safety did not arise as a "new" obsession at the end of the twentieth century, but has been an intermittent object of public and policy concern over the last two hundred years in the UK. However, the nature of food policy has shifted over that period, from an orientation towards protecting a largely ignorant public from fraud, through controlling the risks potentially arising from negligence in food–handling, to informing rational consumers to enable them to "choose" the right foods. Most recently, the public have had a nominally more active role in food policy, as citizens consulted on the content of the policy agenda. Drawing on histories of food policy in the UK and social science research on consumers, this paper explores the links between the changing risks and publics addressed by British food policy.

The CARMA Report: Western Media Coverage of Humanitarian Disasters

Abstract: This 17-page article shares CARMA International research examining western media coverage of 6 humanitarian disasters: the earthquake in Pakistani Kashmir (October 8 2005), Hurricane Stanley (October 1 2005), Hurricane Katrina (August 23 2005), the Indian Ocean earthquake/Tsunami (December 26 2004), the earthquake in Bam, Iran (December 26 2003), and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan (since February 2003) The purpose was to ascertain what factors drive western media interest by investigating the relationship between media coverage and national interest to gain a sense of the cultural and economic tenor of relationships between the disaster region and those nations writing about it

Views of software quality: a field report

Abstract: The authors present findings from a recent study into the quality views of software practitioners in five UK companies. The study explored how issues of software quality have affected grassroots practitioners in ordinary companies; in particular the typical quality experiences of practitioners and what practitioners really think about quality initiatives. It is only by listening to the experiences and views of ordinary practitioners that truly effective approaches to quality can be developed. Indeed various ways are recomended in which the results presented can be used to improve the effectiveness of quality initiatives. One of the main findings is that managers and developers are keen to see software quality improved, and are positive about ways in which that can be achieved. Developers are more enthusiastic than is usually believed to see quality formalism in software development. Developers in almost all of the companies in the study said they wanted a more formal approach to quality; developers in the companies with the least quality formalism were most keen to see it implemented. Although there has been significant progress in the field of software quality, it is shown that this has not yet filtered through to ordinary companies. Where it has, there is evidence of an overzealousness and dogma that have turned practitioners off quality altogether. The result is that many practitioners are frustrated about poor quality but feel they lack the power and information to do anything about it. Indeed, many practitioners believe that the market wants cheap software quickly and is not too concerned about its quality.