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The Corporation
No full textThis chapter offers a TWAIL-inspired introduction to the corporation, a legal construct operating in the global political economy, at times an object and subject of international law. Part A of this chapter describes, through texts by key TWAIL authors and their predecessors, how (metropolitan) corporations shaped early modern law, through their role in European ‘exploration’, plunder and colonization of most of the Global South. A key aspect is the corporate enslavement of, and trade in upwards of 13 million Africans which laid the basis for today’s racialized global capitalism. We review some TWAIL (-aligned) writing on the corporation in the global political economy. Part B of this chapter focuses on the continuation of the corporation’s historical role today and how this is enabled in particular through background rules. It describes, through the example of the OECD’s involvement in corporate governance reform, how the Turkish economy has been opened up to predatory (‘neocolonial’) foreign investment. It places this example in the context of broader World Bank and IMF involvement in Third World and so-called ‘Emerging Market’ economies in the service of western capital, through the vehicle of the corporation. Finally, a short Part C outlines various forms of resistance against such corporate neo- and recolonialisation, highlighting Balakrishnan Rajagopal’s claim, that it is easier to organise resistance against, for instance, a dam than against the background norms that are as powerful, all the more insidious, and invisible to most people. A key task for TWAIL scholars therefore, it is posited, is to unearth, make visible and offer challenge to the background norms structuring contemporary corporate capitalism. Ultimately, however, we should draw TWAIL’s critique to its logical conclusion and seek to build alternative structures of ordering, production, and justice, from the ground up
The experiences of young people who use social media regularly and who deliberately self-harm
Get PDFThe use of social media has significantly altered the daily lives of young people, raising concerns about its potential impact on their mental health, specifically its association with deliberate self-harm and suicidal ideation. This study explores how regular social media use affects youth engagement in deliberate self-harm and suicidality, unveiling the intricate link between youth mental health and social media through an extensive Medline and CINAHL database search. The findings of this review show a complex link between online imagery, social media and suicidal behaviour in young people, where social media can foster peer connections and treatment access, but may also exacerbate deliberate self-harm and suicidal thoughts, especially in vulnerable young people. Overall, this review highlights the in-depth experiences between regular social media use and youth who deliberate self-harm and experience suicidal ideation, identifying the need for education of young people concerning the risks of using social media and monitoring by parents, teachers and mental health professionals. Despite prior inconsistencies, regular use of social media by young people is associated with an increased risk of deliberate self-harm and suicidality, particularly among those who are vulnerable due to exposure to triggering online content and the potential for negative social interactions
Enhancing privacy-preserving brain tumor classification with adaptive reputation-aware federated learning and homomorphic encryption
Get PDFBrain tumor diagnosis using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans is critical for improving patient survival rates. However, automating the analysis of these scans faces significant challenges, including data privacy concerns and the scarcity of large, diverse datasets. A potential solution is federated learning (FL), which enables cooperative model training among multiple organizations without requiring the sharing of raw data; however, it faces various challenges. To address these, we propose Federated Adaptive Reputation-aware aggregation with CKKS (Cheon-Kim-Kim-Song) Homomorphic encryption (FedARCH), a novel FL framework designed for a cross-silo scenario, where client weights are aggregated based on reputation scores derived from performance evaluations. Our framework incorporates a weighted aggregation method using these reputation scores to enhance the robustness of the global model. To address sudden changes in client performance, a smoothing factor is introduced, while a decay factor ensures that recent updates have a greater influence on the global model. These factors work together for dynamic performance management. Additionally, we address potential privacy risks from model inversion attacks by implementing a simplified and computationally efficient CKKS homomorphic encryption, which allows secure operations on encrypted data. With FedARCH, encrypted model weights of each client are multiplied by a plaintext reputation score for weighted aggregation. Since we are multiplying ciphertexts by plaintexts, instead of ciphertexts, the need for relinearization is eliminated, efficiently reducing the computational overhead. FedARCH achieved an accuracy of 99.39%, highlighting its potential in distinguishing between brain tumor classes. Several experiments were conducted by adding noise to the clients’ data and varying the number of noisy clients. An accuracy of 94% was maintained even with 50% of noisy clients at a high noise level, while the standard FL approach accuracy dropped to 33%. Our results and the security analysis demonstrate the effectiveness of FedARCH in improving model accuracy, its robustness to noisy data, and its ability to ensure data privacy, making it a viable approach for medical image analysis in federated settings
Protocol of a randomised controlled trial of a novel brief psychological intervention for young people presenting to emergency departments in the UK with self-harm or suicidal ideation with recent self-harm: the SASH study (Supporting Adolescents with Self-Harm)
Get PDFIntroduction
Self-harm is the strongest predictor of suicide in young people. Self-harm presentations to the emergency department (ED) are associated with repeat self-harm and suicide. Rapid follow-up contact after ED offers an opportunity to intervene before self-harm becomes an established coping strategy. Despite recent progress in self-harm treatment, currently, there are no evidence-based interventions to prevent future self-harm and suicide offered to young people after visits to the ED. Preliminary evidence suggests therapeutic assessment and rapid follow-up contacts may reduce self-harm and improve engagement in follow-up care. In this study, we assess the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a brief psychological intervention, supporting adolescents with self-harm (SASH), in addition to standard care in a randomised controlled trial, compared with standard care only. As per National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, standard care involves at least one follow-up by a mental health professional within 7 days of ED discharge.
Methods and analysis
The SASH intervention comprises up to six follow-up contacts with a mental health professional delivered over approximately 2 months for young people and their carers using a solution-focused approach, shortly after presenting to the ED. Participants are aged 12–18, presenting to the ED with self-harm or suicidal ideation (with self-harm in the past month), with capacity to consent. We aim to recruit 144 young people into the trial who will be randomised on a 1:1 basis to the SASH intervention or treatment as usual. Participants are assessed postintervention/standard care and at 6-month follow-up after randomisation. Self-reported self-harm is assessed via text message survey every 2 weeks during the 6-month follow-up period. The primary outcome is self-reported episodes of self-harm in the past month assessed at 6 months by summing three behavioural domains of the self-injurious thoughts and behaviours interview. We hypothesise that the therapeutic relationship with the mental health practitioner will mediate this relationship. Secondary outcomes include symptoms of depression and anxiety, frequency of reattendance at ED, death by suicide, school attendance, well-being and additional domains of self-harm-related behaviour and thoughts in the past month. The trial will also consider service use, costs to carer and carer health-related quality of life to evaluate the costs and cost-effectiveness of the intervention.
Ethics and dissemination
London-Riverside Nation Health Service REC (22/LO/0400) provided a favourable ethical opinion. Findings will be disseminated through social media, a website, scientific papers, conferences and reports, in collaboration with our Young Person’s Lived Experience Advisory Group
Autonomy and Equality in Tension: The Italian Constitutional Court’s Approach to Asymmetric Regionalism
Get PDFThis paper analyses the Italian Constitutional Court’s recent case law on asymmetric regionalism, focusing on its reading of Article 116(3) with Article 117(2)(m) of the Constitution. It argues that the Court has established a constitutional framework in which competences affecting civil and social rights can be devolved only once the Essential Levels of Services (Livelli Essenziali delle Prestazioni, or LEP) are defined, securing equality across the national territory.
The Court considers asymmetric devolution permissible only when subsidiarity – interpreted in functional and citizen-oriented terms – provides a clear justification for transferring powers. The article reconstructs the criteria identified by the Court – administrative functionality, equality in rights protection, and institutional accountability – and shows how they operate as benchmarks for assessing the legitimacy of differentiated arrangements, offering a structured methodology for future practice.
Grounded in the Italian experience, the analysis contributes to broader debates on how multilevel systems reconcile territorial diversity with shared rights and solidarity – a tension common to federal and decentralised states
Regional brain morphology and current antidepressant use: findings from 32 international cohorts from the ENIGMA major depressive disorder working group
Get PDFThe understanding of how antidepressant (AD) use is associated with brain structure in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) remains incomplete. We aimed to examine the association between AD medication use and brain morphology in relation to age and sex by pooling structural neuroimaging and clinical data from 32 cohorts within the ENIGMA-MDD working group. Interaction effects of group (2076 cases with current AD use (AD), 1495 cases not currently taking AD (nAD) and 5125 healthy controls (HC)) with age and sex, and main effects of group on regional brain structure (cortical surface area and thickness, and subcortical volume) were examined. Additionally, we examined the effect of AD type (SSRI, SNRI or mirtazapine) and duration of use on brain morphology. Younger individuals in the AD group showed lower bilateral middle temporal gyrus thickness compared to nAD and HC, but this was not seen in older individuals (crossover around 50 years). Lower hippocampal volume and thinner inferior temporal gyrus were shown in AD compared to nAD. These effects were independent of group differences in disease-course-related measures, but were driven by depressive symptom severity. Greater bilateral rostral anterior cingulate thickness was found in individuals older than approximately 40 years taking mirtazapine compared to individuals taking SSRIs or SNRIs. Evidence for subtle structural brain differences in temporal and limbic regions in individuals with MDD who currently use AD medication were found compared to those not currently taking AD medication. Future longitudinal studies are needed to determine the causality of these associations
Advancing Abductive Theory Building: Balancing Creative Curiosity and Programmatic Rigour Through ‘Loosely Coupled Abduction’
No full textAbductive theory building holds much promise for management research. Unlike induction and deduction, abductive theorizing begins with a surprising fact or ‘mystery’ that cannot be accounted in extant knowledge stocks. However, emergent debates about its utility in management research risk becoming polarized, with some scholars promoting abduction as creative guesswork on the one hand (or what we term uncoupled abduction) and others calling for more disciplined programmatic rigour on the other hand (or what we term tightly coupled abduction). Both poles are problematic. In this Point essay, we develop a middle ground, which we term loosely coupled abduction. It benefits from both creative curiosity and programmatic rigour without succumbing to their respective disadvantages in theory construction. We go on to explore the implications of loosely coupled abduction for building new knowledge in management and organization studies
Meaning in Life Improves Response to Others’ Self-Promotion
No full textWhile social media serves as a beneficial means of interpersonal connection and communication, its widespread use for self-promotion has been associated with adverse psychological effects on users, including decreased emotional well-being and increased negative affect. This paper examines how individual differences in meaning in life presence (MIL presence) influence emotional responses to others’ self-promotional content, advancing our understanding of how and why consumers experience social media positively or negatively. Across four studies (total N = 1,599), we demonstrate that both trait-level MIL presence and a brief intervention involving reflection on the presence of meaning in one’s life significantly improve viewers’ emotional responses to others’ self-promotion. These findings contribute to our understanding of individual differences in psychological responses to social media content and offer practical implications for protecting user well-being in digital environments
Social Media are a Threat for Democracy! – A Political Perspective for Analyzing and Diminishing Harm
No full textSocial media platforms, once hailed as potential champions of dialogue, have evolved into commodified spaces in which their business models incentivize hate speech, misinformation, polarization, and the political fragmentation of society, benefiting corporate and political elites while eroding democracy. The existing market and technological conceptualizations of social media platforms offer only partial analysis of and solutions to these issues. This paper advances a political perspective grounded in deliberative democracy, arguing that social media companies are political actors responsible for maintaining a well-functioning public sphere. We argue that transforming social media platforms into true facilitators of democratic discourse requires enhancing their deliberative capacity. Beyond the capacities of the public sphere suggested by the market and technology perspectives (1) transparency and accountability and (2) openness and inclusiveness; we propose that fostering deliberative capacity also requires (3) conduciveness to argumentation and (4) consequentiality. We thus contribute to understanding how management theories can explain and address current threats to democracy
On Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Investment under Financial Frictions
Get PDFThe view that corporations have a wider focus than just maximizing shareholder value has received considerable attention from practitioners, managers, and academics alike. We investigate the Q theory of corporate investment with financial frictions when management maximizes stakeholder value instead of shareholder value. Different objective functions are investigated. We characterize the optimal investment and financial policy of the firm. The results show that stakeholder firms invest more than shareholder firms, i.e., over invest, and an increase of stakeholder shares increases investment, except when equity issuing firms face severe informational asymmetries or severe cost of external equity. We also discuss different approaches to model investment of stakeholder firms and its implications for empirical analysis
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