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Towards an ontology of development: conceptualising development amongst experts within sport-for-development and peace
No full textIn the mass mobilisation of movements in recent years to tackle global inequalities, the sport-for-development and peace (SDP) movement, which at its core aims to use sport as a tool for development, has gained prominence. However, the term development in social science is one without a uniform definition. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to attempt to understand the meaning of development amongst academics within the SDP field in an effort to bring greater clarity around the ambiguous notion of development. Through interviews with six SDP experts, an attempt is made to conceptualise development within SDP
Criminology meets nursing simulated technology: taking blended learning in new directions
No full textThis article presents an innovative approach to blended learning that integrates criminology and nursing pedagogy in a higher educational institution. It explores a Crime Scene Investigation module from a criminology undergraduate degree programme that used an Anatomage table, a life-size high-resolution tool used in the nursing degree courses, that allows students to have digital interactions with human cadavers. A murder victim, investigated by the students during this module, was aligned with one of the five digitised cadavers from the Anatomage table. Within the module presented in this article, the students investigated a staged crime scene of a murder victim with stab wounds. They then attended a simulation laboratory to explore the anatomical structures below each stab wound, enabling them to identify the fatal incision. The activity was designed to develop critical thinking, forensic interpretation, and real-world problem solving by using pedagogical approaches such as contingency, fading, and scaffolding. This scoping case study demonstrates the potential of cross-disciplinary pedagogical innovations and how diversifying the use of technologies can enhance the student experience through blended learning approaches. It does not provide formal data collection but highlights potential for future empirical research
Scenes and sex scenes
No full textThis chapter develops a sustained conceptual framework for rethinking the “sex scene” in screen media, challenging reductive accounts that treat sex scenes as discrete, countable moments of sexual explicitness. Taking contemporary debates about the apparent decline of sex scenes as a point of departure, it interrogates the unstable categories through which sex, sexual content and scenes are commonly defined, and argues that such slippages obscure how sex functions formally, narratively and culturally on screen. The chapter’s central intervention is to reconceptualise the sex scene through an expanded theory of scene that brings together film‑theoretical notions of staging and mise en scène with cultural‑studies understandings of scenes as spaces of practice, mediation, regulation and affect.Drawing on film theory, pornography studies and cultural studies, the chapter builds on Linda Williams’s influential framing of screening sex as a dialectic of visibility and invisibility – of revelation and concealment – demonstrating how sex on screen is constituted not only through explicit depiction but through ellipsis, interruption, metaphor, framing and off‑screen implication. By situating sex scenes within wider narrative structures, industrial conditions, technological environments and cultural histories, the chapter argues that sex scenes function as key structuring devices through which questions of power, consent, pleasure, realism and spectatorship are negotiated. Treating the sex scene as both a cinematic unit and a cultural formation, the chapter establishes a rigorous critical vocabulary for analysing sex on screen across media forms, genres and historical moments
Exploring the role of cultural intelligence in career sustainability: a multi-industry comparative study
No full textThe concept of sustainable careers has gained increasing attention. Some recent studies proposed a framework which identifies happiness, health, and productivity as core dimensions of career sustainability and spirituality. While previous research has examined Cultural Intelligence in the context of the airline industry, particularly in Intercultural Service Encounters, little is known about how Cultural Intelligence contributes to career sustainability across various industries. This study seeks to extend the existing research by conducting a multi-industry comparative study, investigating the role of Cultural Intelligence in fostering career sustainability across service-oriented industries. It provides preliminary insights into how individuals, organisations, and national culture interact to shape sustainable careers in Intercultural Service Encounters settings
The power of naming: co-constructing knowledge about violence in the family
No full textA pilot project was conducted in the English Midlands to better understand how violence in family settings is described and defined. We present qualitative data from focus groups with mothers who have experienced violence in their families and practitioners working to address such experiences. Drawing upon this evidence, we show the importance of developing a shared, contextualized understanding of family violence to clearly identify what survivors of violence need and to facilitate appropriate service referrals. Participants’ naming of violent behaviors is an intersectional project marked by gender, race, disability, and class, best understood within the context of life stages. The process of practitioners and survivors co-constructing meaningful, intersectional definitions of violence helps clarify the extent to which daily experiences align with social policies, and is essential to improving criminal justice, health and social care praxis. This paper contributes new knowledge about how “violence in the family” is constructed and enacted within patriarchal social structures in ways injurious to family lif
Critical factors influencing the maturity of business analytics of software and apparel industries in Sri Lanka
No full textIn today's data-driven business environment, Business Analytics Maturity (BAM) reflects an organization’s capability to leverage data for strategic decisions. In Sri Lanka’s key export sectors, software, and apparel, this study identifies six critical factors influencing BAM: technology-supporting infrastructure, data management, organizational culture, top management support, competitive pressure, and government regulations. Using a quantitative approach and data from 147 respondents, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) revealed competitive pressure and government regulations as the strongest drivers, followed by organizational culture and data management. While top management support and technology infrastructure showed less direct effects their foundational role is acknowledged. This research offers insights for enhancing analytics adoption in emerging economies, advancing competitiveness, and compliance while enriching BAM literature for future studies
Evaluation of Birmingham Children’s Trust Supporting Families/Think Family Service: working with families where domestic violence and abuse is present
No full textIn the Executive Summary we summarise how the domestic violence and abuse service provided by Birmingham Children’s Trust (hereafter the Trust) meets (or does not meet) the evaluation criteria as laid out in the OECD Evaluation Framework (2022) and highlight issues of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. The service began under a government agenda originally known as Think Family and was later renamed as Supporting Families with an underlying approach focussed on meeting the various needs of families predominantly in the Early Help space. Grant funding came directly from central government and was/is based on the previous year utilising a “payment by results” or positive outcomes model. The Supporting Families grant is distributed across all types of need, including children in need, parental conflict, health needs, educational needs, substance use, neglect, etc. Some of the grant within the Trust is used for funding the specialist commissioned services for Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA); thus, the services being evaluated are those funded under the Supporting Families, for DVA provision rather than the service being a Think Family service. For simplicity and clarity throughout this report we will refer to the service as the Supporting Families/Think Family Service, as many respondents use the original terminology
Corporate governance and sustainability disclosure: challenges and opportunities for the Libyan Audit Bureau in the oil sector
No full textThis study identifies challenges faced by Libyan Audit Bureau (LAB) members in monitoring governance practices and sustainability disclosure in Libya's oil sector. Using quantitative data from 231 distributed questionnaires (88% response rate), the research reveals that LAB oversight remains in early stages due to persistent challenges including regulatory gaps, weak enforcement, insufficient professional standards, and cultural‐institutional barriers. While international benchmarks such as IFRS S1 and S2 gain worldwide adoption, Libya's implementation remains limited. Enhanced LAB effectiveness requires policies addressing stakeholder rights, Islamic principles integration, transparency mechanisms, conflict management, and external factors including professional development, legal system strengthening, enforcement improvement, cultural considerations, and awareness building for governance and sustainability reporting
Archimedes optimization algorithm for DNA motif discovery
No full textThis research work introduces a novel metaheuristic method named Archimedes Optimization Algorithm (AOA) for solving biomedical problems. Two case studies on Motif Discovery (MD) and Optic Disc (OD) are also analysed. AOA is based on the concept of Archimedes’ principle in physics. It assumes that a buoyant force exerted upwards on an object in a fluid is equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. In our case studies, the motif part encapsulates the motifs’ essential features in DNA sequences, the suggested solution emulates the huddling behaviour of Archimedes’ law while incorporating the motif characteristics to detect the desired motif. The effectiveness of the AOA optimizer is tested using both real & synthetic datasets of motif discovery, and optic disc. Based on the results comparison with various common algorithms (including DREME, PMbPSO, MEME, MACS, and XXmotif), it can be confirmed that AOA can efficiently solve hard motif discovery problems. In addition, efficiency and flexibility of the proposed AOA are further validated on a biomedical problem, Optic Disc (OD) extraction from 369 retinal fundus images of four publicly available datasets. Results confirm the robustness of AOA and demonstrate its value as a OD finding tool with a 100% success rate for images from well-known datasets like DRIVE, and DRIONS-DB datasets, while achieving 98.5% and 98.8% for DIARETDB0 and DIARETDB1 datasets respectively; which is surpassing the state-of-the-art methods
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