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The ISRSA Report – a personal response
Get PDFA personal reponse to the 2022 ISRSA statement on the 2018 proposals of the Commission for Religious Education
Individual and situational factors affecting the movement characteristics and internal responses to Touch match-play during an international tournament.
Get PDFThis is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Science and Medicine in Football on 03/08/2022, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/24733938.2022.2107232The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of individual and situational factors on the movement characteristics and internal responses of players to an international Touch tournament. Using 47 International Touch players (25 men and 22 women), the associations between the movement characteristics and internal responses with individual (sprint, glycolytic test, Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test level 1 [Yo-Yo IR1], jump performance and wellbeing) and situational (sex, squad, position, competition day, points scored/conceded, result, and opposition rank) factors were examined using linear mixed modelling. Yo-Yo IR1 distance was associated with all movement characteristics and internal responses (r=-0.29 to 0.37), whilst sprint and glycolytic times only influenced mean heart rate (HRmean) (r=0.15) and high-speed distance (r=0.10), respectively. Sex influenced high-speed distance (r=-0.41), whilst squad was associated with playing time and HRmean (r=-0.10-0.33). Other associations included: playing position with all movement characteristics (r=-0.67-0.81); points conceded with relative distance (r=-0.14); winning with high metabolic power and session RPE (r=-0.07-0.09), and opposition rank with HRmean and RPE (r=0.11-0.35). Individual and situational factors can influence the movement characteristics and internal responses to Touch and should be considered when developing the characteristics of players and interpreting responses to match-play
Split spin factor algebras
Get PDFMotivated by Yabe's classification of symmetric -generated axial algebras of Monster type \cite{yabe}, we introduce a large class of algebras of Monster type , generalising Yabe's family. Our algebras bear a striking similarity with Jordan spin factor algebras with the difference being that we asymmetrically split the identity as a sum of two idempotents. We investigate the properties of these algebras, including the existence of a Frobenius form and ideals. In the -generated case, where our algebra is isomorphic to one of Yabe's examples, we use our new viewpoint to identify the axet, that is, the closure of the two generating axes
An exploration of the helpful and hindering aspects of counselling and psychotherapy with Middle Eastern clients in England
Get PDFOver the last few decades, there has been exponential growth in the demographics of diversity within British society. As a result, Britain is home to many ethnic groups, including at least half a million Middle Eastern individuals. However, when it comes to counselling and psychotherapy with Middle Eastern clients, there appears to be a lack of counselling and psychotherapy literature around the topic in Britain. Therefore, it is becoming more pertinent than ever for the mainstream profession of counselling and psychotherapy to understand the needs of the Middle Eastern population in Britain. This research explored the helpful and hindering aspects of counselling and psychotherapy with Middle Eastern clients living in England. The research aimed to understand the attitude of Middle Eastern individuals towards accessing counselling and psychotherapy support; to explore the helpful and hindering aspects of counselling and psychotherapy for Middle Eastern clients; and to identify the specific ways of relating and attributes utilised by counsellors and psychotherapists in delivering therapy for Middle Eastern clients in England.
This research utilised a mixed-methods approach consisting of three distinctive phases. Phase One involved quantitively surveying (online) Middle Eastern individuals in England. This was conducted by employing the Short-Form (Fischer & Farina, 1995) of the Attitude Towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (Fischer & Turner, 1970). 66 survey responses were analysed using the Online Bristol Survey. The purpose of Phase One was to understand the attitude of Middle Eastern individuals towards accessing counselling and psychotherapy support in England, as well as recruiting participants for Phase Two. The survey identified four contactable interviewees who had a lived experience of engaging with counselling as clients. The four interviewees participated in qualitative semi-structured interviews conducted in Phase Two to explore the helpful and hindering aspects of counselling with Middle Eastern clients in England from the client's perspectives. Phase Three focused on counsellors' and psychotherapists' perspectives who have engaged therapeutically with Middle Eastern clients in England. This involved qualitative, semi-structured interviews with six counsellors and psychotherapists who had self-selected to partake. Data gained from the interviews for Phase Two and Phase Three were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The main findings identified a sense of reluctance towards accessing counselling and psychotherapy support; a cultural stigma attached to mental health and counselling; cultural identity factors (i.e., language, religion and gender) that influenced the therapeutic process and relationship; challenges and helpful therapeutic practices; and the importance of cultural sensitivity when working with Middle Eastern clients.
The findings of this research are transferable and significant in delivering culturally competent and congruent counselling and psychotherapy support to Middle Eastern clients in England. The findings also have implications for Middle Eastern clients, practitioners, trainers, supervisors, professional bodies, practice, therapy services and policies which need to be considered. Finally, the research findings generated knowledge to enhance our understanding of working effectively with Middle Eastern clients and delivered a sense of justice within the British counselling and psychotherapy literature in England. The research proposes recommendations for future research to consider
Evaluation of the use of Corporate Social Responsibility to Address the Practices of the UK Banking Industry
Get PDFThis study is an empirical project utilising case studies and the analysis of corporate material documents as its primary source to consider the philosophy of CSR in the UK Banking Industry. The research asks how CSR has changed according to the economic, legal, social and political background and whether the philosophy of CSR can be used to improve the practices of the UK Banking Industry. The project uses the corporate reports of six UK and three European/Worldwide institutional case studies and conducts both a content and critical discourse analysis of the documents to answer the
research questions.
The study found a lack of reliability in corporate material, the abandonment of corporate citizenship in practice and a lack of correlation between corporate size and CSR efforts. However, the most significant findings relate to the discourse of CSR.
This research found that in times of increased profits, efforts on philanthropic activities soared. Yet, in times of crises and/or scandal, such as the GFC, and exposure of manipulation and mis-selling scandals, or more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, a
reduction or abandonment of philanthropic activity occurred. This is because the UK Banking Institutions studied did not have an embedded CSR philosophy. The six UK institutions did not view the practice of CSR as a compulsory, embedded element of
the business but as an optional, ancillary extra, used to create or maintain a social licence. This research argues that unless this changes, the philosophy of CSR will not be sufficient to improve the practices of the UK Banking Industry. It is proposed the
solution to this is greater governmental control in institutional CSR activities
Equity crowdfunding as an alternative source of entrepreneurial finance
Get PDFEquity-based Crowdfunding (EBC) has been playing an increasingly important role in financing entrepreneurial companies (Signori & Vismara, 2018). Project founders raise funds via online platforms, such as Crowdcube, which also gives project founders direct interaction with potential investors. Through their feedback, investors provide opinions of the business idea, which may prove useful in reshaping and improving the products or services. Although current research on equity-based crowdfunding has correlated various campaign and projects’ features to success, there is a lack of convincing conceptual framework that has the potential to incorporate the interplay of the different factors in crowdfunding. In particular, the extant literature has so far attempted to explain success in terms of project characteristics, generally ignoring the characteristics of fund structure and their interrelationship with project characteristics in the success (or failure) of equity crowdfunding. This thesis is aiming to address this gap by building upon signalling theory, goal setting theory and social capital theories to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework that incorporate projects characteristics, fundraising structure and their interplay in the EBC campaign. Hypotheses are developed based on the conceptual framework.
The data of the thesis were collected from the 850 projects funded between 2011 and 2019 on EBC platform, Crowdcube, in UK. The data was analysed using a quantitative method, with the dataset being analysed using an Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and a series of robustness tests using a logistic regression to assess the reliability of my results.
The result of this study found that higher firm age, more social media channels, and more management team members in project characteristics can contribute to the success of EBC campaigns, whilst lower funding target, less equity offered, and moderate investment threshold value to gain voting rights in fundraising characteristics can also contribute to the success of EBC campaigns. The results also suggest that project founders may establish a higher investment threshold value for investors to obtain voting rights if they are confident in the project's ability to create substantial cash flows or revenue in the future. Moreover, investors may waive their voting rights if project founders provide signals of higher-quality projects. More importantly, the result of this study found significant interaction effect between different factors, including firm age and social media, equity offered and social media, and equity offered and investment. The findings help to depict a complex web of interacting factors that when considered together, are contributing to the success of EBC.
Through investigation of the factors of project characters and its fund structure characters in equity crowdfunding, this thesis assists project founders in setting up their crowdfunding campaign and investors screening out projects with growth potential and advances understanding of Crowdfunding, especially for equity crowdfunding
Welfare conditionality, ethics and social care for older people in the UK: From civic rights to abandonment?
Get PDFThis is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in [British Journal of Social Work] following peer review. The version of record [Carey, M. (2022). Welfare conditionality, ethics and social care for older people in the UK: From civic rights to abandonment?’ British Journal of Social Work, 52(5), 3230–3246] is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/bjsw/bcab233/6460193?redirectedFrom=fulltext.Welfare systems are becoming ever more conditional, with access to state support increasingly rationed via a legion of legally-defined and financially-driven restrictions and rules. Civic protection and economic rights for older citizens within Western policy systems are subsequently diminishing and continue to give way to neoliberal discursive practices which prioritise welfare activation, autonomy, participation, asset-based yet precarious self-care, the aversion of health-centred risks and much higher levels of eligibility for support. This article looks at welfare conditionality and its relationship to older people, ethics and governance within social care. By using three examples of welfare conditional reforms from the UK, it is highlighted that strains typically persist between the altruistic components of some ethical frameworks and the everyday experiences of many older people. The relative gatekeeping powers of welfare professionals and expectations placed on family members and carers have also increased, especially upon older people with higher needs and who may lack economic and cultural capital. This is despite rhetorical policy-led claims of increasing choice and control, and allowing support to be more asset-based and personalised
GCRF policy briefing
Get PDFThere is a global rise of precarious work which does not pay enough or is not secure enough for people to live, or which is physically or emotionally toxic. The International Labour Organization (2022) describe ‘Decent Work’ as work which is
productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organize and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men.
Decent Work is an ambition to empower marginalised groups from histories of disadvantage. As it describes a category of work related to income and social integration, it directly connects to other global challenges such as poverty, hunger, inequality, and health and wellbeing.
Despite global policy efforts, even the ‘working poor’ are an increasing population in developed countries like the UK and the US. Policy can be developed to create these the conditions for ‘Decent Work for all’ so that no one is left behind.
This policy briefing pinpoints key factors (policy levers) impacting Decent Work for all, drawing insights from Vietnam, one of the world’s fastest growing economies. It draws from a study examining the empowerment of minority ethnic young people (aged 18-25) to re-vision Decent Work in Vietnam with policy-makers, employers and university leaders (see overview of study below).
This particular brief draws from survey data to examine the links between exclusionary factors and Decent Work (as defined through 15 characteristics indicated by the International Labour Organization scope above). It pinpoints key principles which can act as policy levers, such as addressing mismatches in localised labour and education markets, problems in policy implementation at the local level, through to a deficit in the range of empowerment capabilities of young people to change their employment prospects at a national level.
Whilst the recommendations in this report are directly relevant to policy makers across the fields of education and work in Vietnam and similar developing countries (see context of study below), the underlying principles have a wider resonance and applicability to policy makers across other geographic contexts with similar characteristics. For example, the rising occurrence of informal and unstable work opportunities which do not provide sufficient wage ‘to live’ has been noted for over two decades in the UK and US. We invite all policy makers in the fields of education and work to consider the practical value of the recommendations and principles within this brief
Experimental taphonomy of fish bone from warm and cold water species: Testing the effects of amino acid composition on collagen breakdown in modern fish bone using thermal maturation experiments
Get PDFDecay experiments have the potential to provide useful analogues in the interpretation of archaeological remains. Previous studies have focused on how physical properties or processing methods can influence fish bone distributions within archaeological sites. However, the means by which intrinsic chemical properties of fish bone, such as baseline collagen type I [‘collagen (I)’] chemistry, may affect both biomolecule and whole bone degradation has not been the focus of any prior study. The variation of facies and resulting impact on taphonomy is not a new concept, but an understanding of the discrete relationship between temperature and the breakdown of collagen (I) in bone material has not been well explored. Here, modern fish bone powder is subjected to differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and water-immersed heat experiments. This is to test whether taxa with less thermally stable collagen (I) configurations, such as cold-water species with reduced proline and hydroxyproline concentrations (Pro+Hyp), will generate collagen breakdown products (TOC and TN) more rapidly than those with more thermally stable arrangements, such as warm-water fish with typically increased Pro+Hyp. Our results show that bone collagen (I) in the cold-water fish species in this study (cod and herring with lower Pro+Hyp concentrations) display significantly increased decomposition rates than collagen (I) from the warm-water fishes in this study (amberjack and tilapia with higher Pro+Hyp concentrations), given the same experimental conditions (heating in water at 75 °C for up to eight days). Initial reaction rate estimates, based on TOC and TN product concentrations, suggest that cod bone (15.6% Pro+Hyp) reacts ~9 times faster than tilapia bone (20.3% Pro+Hyp). We suggest that the primary influencer of collagen (I) stability in bone is the concentration of Pro+Hyp residues and not a function of physical bone structure. Our results suggest that a reduction in collagen (I) stability is likely to lead to a decrease in whole bone stability following deposition, due to the intimate association between organic and inorganic phases of bone. Therefore, species composition based upon bone remains may vary in archaeological and palaeontological sites, as a function of the thermal stability of collagen (I)
Magazines as contradictory spaces for alcohol messaging: a mixed method content and thematic analysis of UK women’s magazine representations of alcohol and its consumption
Get PDFBACKGROUND Women’s magazines provide a space in which gendered norms around alcohol-related practice are (re)-produced. They act as important points of reference for women to draw upon in their own understandings of alcohol use within their identity making. Studying the alcohol-related messages women’s magazines disseminate is therefore an important line of inquiry.
METHODS An analysis of textual and visual alcohol depictions, including alcohol advertising, in 70 editions of 20 printed magazines targeted at and read by women, published between August 2020 and January 2021, was conducted using quantitative content and qualitative thematic analysis.
RESULTS Women’s magazines have the potential to disseminate public health messages about the physical and mental health impacts of alcohol use, alcohol’s role in gender inequalities and the risk of harm from alcohol use by men. However, they do so in ways that reproduce harmful gender norms and expectations, and overlook the structural causes of alcohol-related harms. Associations between alcohol use and violence against women were simplified, in ways that ignored the root causes, produced victim-blaming narratives and deflected responsibility from the perpetrator to the effects of alcohol. Narratives around drinking and sobriety were underpinned by concerns over appearance, which reinforced social expectations of the ideal feminine body. Health narratives were in conflict with the presence of pro-alcohol messages such as consumption suggestions and alcohol advertising, which promoted alcohol use as a normalised aspect of women’s day to day lives.
CONCLUSIONS Women receive a number of mixed and contradictory messages on alcohol use through their magazine readership, which places limits on magazines as educational sources of public health messaging
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