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Preventing youth crime and violence: intervention and evaluation issues
Full text linkWhilst youth offending has been declining, there have been increases in serious youth violence in the last decade. Therefore, there is a pressing need to prevent youth crime and violence owing to its prevalence, harms and cost to society. Part of the effort to address this involves identifying and disseminating evidence-based practice. We explore key challenges in this endeavour and offer ideas for how to address them. These fall into two categories. The first concerns the focus and nature of interventions and the imperative to increase the effectiveness of our collective efforts. We start by considering neglected issues and groups in need of intervention responses, arguing that interventions too often do not consider relevant risk and contextual factors. Next, we explore emerging means of designing and delivering interventions that warrant greater investment, including those that extend beyond a traditional focus on programmes. Finally, we highlight cross-cutting issues affecting the delivery and uptake of interventions and therefore their success. The second set of challenges concerns intervention evaluation and the need to maximise the usefulness of our cumulative evaluation activity in this field. Here, we start by discussing common challenges involved in moving through the pipeline of feasibility, pilot and definitive (often trial-based) evaluations. We then explore issues concerning the actual design and conduct of such studies, before closing with thoughts on the potential value of underused (non-trial) methods of impact evaluation. Throughout the article, we draw on the scientific literature and our collective experience over many years of developing, adapting, evaluating and promoting interventions and other forms of evidence-based practice in this space
Strategic HR in the digital era: synergising retention, inclusion and AI-driven practices for organisational performance in the IT industry
Full text linkPurpose
Despite growing recognition of human resource management (HRM)'s strategic importance in technology-driven sectors, limited research examines how talent retention, diversity and inclusion (D&I) and technological integration interconnect within emerging markets confronting brain drain, sociocultural barriers and weak institutional frameworks. This study investigates how information technology (IT) firms in Pakistan design and implement these HRM practices and strategies, impacting employee engagement and organisational performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Guided by the resource-based view (RBV), this qualitative multi-site study employed hybrid semi-structured interviews with 16 HR professionals across 8 IT organisations of varying sizes in 4 Pakistani cities. Rigorous thematic analysis revealed how strategic HRM practices function as valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable (VRIN) resources generating sustainable competitive advantage.
Findings
Three interconnected themes as HRM practices and strategies emerged: talent retention through promotional policies, personalised recognition and trust-based management addressing turnover and migration; D&I via blind recruitment, culturally aware leadership and cultural celebrations navigating deep-rooted barriers; and technological integration deploying HRIS platforms, artificial intelligence (AI) tools (IBM Watson, HireVue) and predictive analytics whilst prioritising ethical governance. Organisations synergistically integrating all three practices achieved superior outcomes. A proposed framework illustrates synergistic effects enhancing employee engagement and performance.
Practical implications
Practically, organisations should adopt synergistic HRM approaches integrating career development pathways, recognition-based compensation, flexible work arrangements, blind recruitment practices, cultural diversity celebrations and HRIS/AI platforms (IBM Watson, SAP SuccessFactors) supported by comprehensive ethical governance and staff training programmes.
Originality/value
Addressing critical gaps in emerging market HRM research, this study extends RBV by demonstrating how strategically integrated practices transform talent retention, diversity and AI technologies into VRIN-based assets despite pervasive brain drain and institutional deficits. The framework breaks new ground by positioning ethical AI governance as a trust-building imperative. HR practitioners gain evidence-based blueprints for turning resource constraints and cultural complexities into strategic advantages through responsible technological transformation
“A demonstration is also FUN”. Folk humour and play as tactics to disrupt the rational state during the 1968 protests
No full textThe 1968 student protest movement is framed in the popular imagination as an outburst of youthful fury against an archaic, restrictive, and oppressive world order. What is often overlooked in these violent clashes is the inherent humour and sense of playfulness that was integral to many of the participants’ actions. Ideas about staging humorous protests travelled from members of the Situationist International to the Dutch Provos, the US Yippies, the Italian Provos groups and Germany’s Subversive Aktion, as well as many other smaller and ad-hoc groups. The demonstrations were intended to “to reveal the irrationality behind the rational order, to show in a funny way that the role models in this society are fools” (Kommune I 1966). Humour directly relates to everyday behaviour and is a means through which the standard presentation modes of the state are counteracted, alternative ways of living are actively practiced, an audience and sympathisers more readily attracted, and the perceived hysteria of the state and media laid bare. Music, actions, theatre, art, and DIY publications all served as vehicles for satirical critique of politicians, the state, and conservative society with the intention to show the absurdity of authority, bureaucracy, social expectations and accepted behaviours. This chapter will use examples from various cities during the ‘68 movement to demonstrate how the international tactic of humour was modified and adapted in confrontation with local conditions. It will be seen how fundamental the energy, playfulness, and irony with which the protesters interacted with their cities, provided the basis for fundamental change, as the complete antithesis to expected and accepted modes of representation and rebellion
Chapter 11. “Suspend the Sigh, dear Sir”: Politics of voice and address in two elegies by Phillis Wheatley Peters
No full textThis chapter illumines the politics of voice in Boston poet Phillis Wheatley’s neoclassical elegies in Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) and from among her uncollected works. As the first African-born woman to publish a poetry collection in English, Wheatley’s oeuvre has long been of interest to scholars of Early American and eighteenth-century British literary history, and her fiercely eloquent yet politic protests against the injustices of chattel slavery are key texts in the African-American canon. Although the rhetoric and politics of Wheatley’s elegies have been compellingly analysed by scholars including Gregory Rigby, Isani Mukhtar Ali and, more recently, Andrea Haslanger and Antonio T. Bly, scholarship on Wheatley has yet to connect these insights to the gender-ambiguous rhetoric of lament that allowed eighteenth-century English-speaking Protestant women to use neoclassical elegy as a vehicle for political debate. This chapter argues that, as deployed by Wheatley, neoclassical elegiac rhetoric produces a critical deconstruction of eighteenth-century feminine lyric voice as paradoxically disenfranchised yet authoritative and, thus, complicit with Atlantic world social hierarchies and inequalities. Focusing on two linked elegies from the early 1770s, the chapter shows how, adopting a gender-ambiguous elegiac voice derived from classical and neoclassical sources, Wheatley both ventriloquizes and re-codes a set of “antique” metrical patterns, rhetorical figures and religio-literary allusions. In this strategy, which I elucidate via the theorization of voice by twentieth-century poet and critic bell hooks, the authority long sought by eighteenth-century female elegists is ironized by being voiced by a woman who, as chattelized, is doubly disenfranchised. Christian death, as occasion, provides the context and alibi for this subversion
Regulation of mixotrophy in Synechocystis by a rhomboid protease
Full text linkThe intramembrane ‘rhomboid’ protease family is almost ubiquitous across evolution, with its well-conserved transmembrane domains typified in crystal structures of bacterial representatives, such as the Escherichia coli GlpG. In contrast with accumulating data on rhomboid function in higher organisms, where roles in human disease are an incentive for study, findings remain sparse about the functions and substrates of the prokaryotic enzymes, even though these provided the earliest protein structures. In particular, nothing at all is known about the rhomboid proteases of photosynthetic prokaryotes despite the importance of cyanobacteria as relatives of the progenitor of chloroplasts. Findings relating to the cyanobacterial enzymes would complement data on plant plastid rhomboids from work in Arabidopsis thaliana. Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 was used, therefore, to investigate conserved photosynthetic functions across evolution for this protein family. Reverse-genetics studies using Slr1461, the single rhomboid protease of Synechocystis 6803, did not reveal a non-photochemical quenching phenotype as observed for the Arabidopsis RBL10 null mutant, which lacked a chloroplast outer membrane rhomboid. The Slr1461 mutant exhibited a marginal change in pigment composition, and its growth rate was only slightly different from that of WT under optimal light intensity. The most dramatic effect of the inactivation of Slr1461 was the mutant’s distinct inability to reduce photosynthetic activity under mixotrophic conditions. Concurrent phototrophy and heterotrophy in mixotrophic growth aids survival and competitiveness in phytoplankton, allowing conservation of energy by reducing the need for uptake and fixing of CO2 when an organic carbon source is available. It was notable, therefore, that, in the absence of the Slr1461 rhomboid, the steady-state mRNA levels were reduced for a subset of genes encoding facilitators of high-affinity CO2 import and of transcriptional regulators of the carbon-concentrating mechanism (CCM). Slr1461 activity was also linked with that of another membrane protease, the AAA protease FtsH2, which was likewise observed to act within regulatory networks for the cyanobacterial carbon uptake mechanism. Aberrant transcript levels were most evident specifically under high CO2 conditions, when the impact of Slr1461 enzymatic activity appeared to be upstream of NdhR, a central, controlling transcription factor of the CCM
PTSD and suPAR: a multicohort investigation of chronic inflammation
No full textPosttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with poor health. Prior research has shown stressful events are associated with inflammatory biomarkers, such as soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR), suggesting systemic chronic inflammation could be a mechanism linking adversity to poor health. In this study, we examined associations of PTSD and suPAR in two research cohorts—the E-Risk Study (United Kingdom; n = 1,389) and the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study (New Zealand; n = 927)—and a clinical cohort of medical patients (Denmark; n = 29,285). We also present results from two commonly assessed inflammatory biomarkers: C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). People with a lifetime history of PTSD had higher suPAR at age 18 in E-Risk (β = 0.21, p = 0.046) and age 38 in the Dunedin Study (β = 0.23, p = 0.025), but not age 45 in the Dunedin Study (β = 0.18, p = 0.050). Individuals who developed PTSD in the year prior to age 45 in Dunedin had significant increases in suPAR from age 38 to 45 (β = 0.45, p = 0.034). Danish patients with a recent diagnosis of PTSD or a stress-related psychiatric disorder had higher levels of suPAR compared to propensity score-matched patients without such diagnoses (0.10 < βs < 0.24, ps < 0.05). CRP and IL-6 did not show consistent associations with PTSD. These results suggest that PTSD is associated with suPAR and that systemic chronic inflammation could help explain how trauma and PTSD might result in poor health
Recanting children’s descriptions of influences and pressures to recant intrafamilial child sexual abuse
No full textThis study examined interviews with 53 4 to 15-year-old children recanting sexual abuse to determine whether they were forthcoming about potential influences and pressures that could have led them to recant. The great majority (87%) of children mentioned one or more influences or pressures. With respect to influences, about half of children mentioned their positive feelings for the suspect, and about a third mentioned negative consequences for the suspect. About 30% disclosed that their immediate family missed the suspect. About half mentioned concerns about separation from their family, and almost 30% discussed negative consequences for their mother. Pressures from others were mentioned by about half of children. They rarely mentioned pressures from the suspect, but over a third disclosed family pressures, most often the lack of maternal support. Over two-thirds of children described feeling guilty and other internal influences. The results provide preliminary support for questioning recanting children about influences and pressures
Developing a holistic circular business model framework for the EV battery closed-loop supply chain: a data-driven approach
Full text linkThe transition toward circularity in the electric vehicle batteries (EVBs) sector demands circular business models that address environmental, economic, and regulatory challenges. Grounded in the resource-based view (RBV) and industrial ecology (IE) perspectives, this study develops a data-driven framework to map circular business models (CBMs) across the EVBs' closed-loop supply chain (CLSC). The framework is developed by identifying CBMs from existing academic literature and analysing industry practices through press releases, resulting in a detailed map of value creation across the EVBs' lifecycle. A hybrid methodology combining topic modelling and literature synthesis was employed, using data from over 1800 industry press releases and academic databases. The findings reveal nine CBMs in literature and industry: battery leasing, charging as a service, remanufacturing, repurposing, recycling, repairing, refurbishing, EV sharing, and technology-led models, with notable applications across the EVBs’ CLSC. This study makes significant theoretical and practical contributions by integrating CBMs within an EVB CLSC framework, thus highlighting value creation, value delivery, and value capture mechanisms across phases from production to second-life applications. The findings offer strategic insights for industry
practitioners and policymakers, supporting sustainable EVB lifecycles and advancing circularity objectives. This framework provides a roadmap for industry implementation and informs broader sustainable practices in resource-intensive sectors
Navigating the boundary between ‘normative’ and ‘non-normative’ collective action: a British case study of the removal of a public statue associated with racism
No full textPsychological research typically distinguishes between normative (e.g., peaceful protests, petitions) and non-normative (e.g., property destruction, riots) collective action. This binary framework has proved useful in exploring the psychological factors that shape different forms of collective action. However, recent critiques suggest it oversimplifies the fluid, contested, and context-dependent nature of collective protest. Our paper develops these critiques through qualitative analysis of walking interview accounts and courtroom transcripts of an event occurring at a 2020 Black Lives Matter rally in the city of Bristol, UK. During this event, a public statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721), a 17th century slaver, was toppled, defaced, and thrown in the River Avon, and four protestors were subsequently charged with, then acquitted of, criminal damage. Implications for conceptualising and investigating collective action are explored and the importance of recovering the situated meanings and consequences of local understandings of normative and non-normative action emphasised
Lupin as an alternative source of protein for plant-based foods—a review
Full text linkLupin, an underutilized legume belonging to the Fabaceae family, demonstrates a huge potential as an alternative protein source by contributing to food security and environmental resilience in the face of climate change. This work highlights the potential of lupin protein as a preferred substitute for soy protein in plant-based food applications. A critical assessment of the protein extraction methods for lupin and their influence on the physicochemical and nutritional properties of the extracted lupin protein was determined. Furthermore, the structural and physicochemical properties of lupin proteins compared to those of soybean were examined. Despite its high protein content and excellent amino acid profile, the poor functional properties of lupin protein in comparison to soy posed a major limitation for its use in food formulations. Based on this observation, the effect of novel and non-thermal processing on lupin protein was further determined. Findings revealed increasing utilization of lupin protein for novel foods, but limited success in the adoption of lupin protein in the mainstream plant protein sector, attributed largely to the presence of anti-nutritional factors, allergens, and inferior organoleptic qualities. Therefore, by offering process-induced improvement of the functional properties, a wider application of lupin protein in food products could address the protein diversity challenge
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