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The New World Order of Economic Hyperglobalisation: The Strengthening and the Reinvigoration of the WTO’s Legal Principles of Predictability, Trade without Discrimination and Fair Competition
No full textThis chapter critically assesses the environment of economic hyperglobalisation, as a more robust and vigorous form of globalisation, against recent attempts to raise and establish protectionist barriers, measures and regimes in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. In so doing, it considers certain WTO disputes and related matter and examines relevant areas of contestation in contemporary international economic law and trade. The paper proceeds on the basis that the hyperglobalisation phenomenon directly and ab initio opposes forms of protectionism. Methodologically, this is a contribution that evaluates and assesses, amongst others, comparative perspectives and approaches from around the world in furtherance of its analytical goals and conclusions. Furthermore, the contribution assesses whether the new world order of hyperglobalisation is practically one that amounts to a close-to-a-wholly-integrated world trade regime, despite certain exceptions to the contrary. Equally, the chapter recognises that the new protectionist regimes, which are constantly created and which can take a variety of forms, may be ones that cause the integration of international economic law to be adversely affected. Acknowledgement is also made to the fact that the geopolitical factor can negatively impact the rigour of the new world order of interconnected economics. The contribution thereafter assesses, on an indicative basis, protectionist measures, policies, and regimes by examining their legality in the face of the new world order of economic hyperglobalisation. It acknowledges the ever-increasing sophistication of the protectionist regimes around the world, especially the ones from recent decades, by otherwise categorising them into overt and covert ones. Moreover, the paper reinforces the view that the world’s strongest economies continue to engage in protectionist regulatory regimes and practices on a considerable scale, often by significantly affecting the well-being of international trade and the benefits that arise from it, even though the aspiration for free world trade is now one that the overwhelming majority of States embrace and recognise. Finally, in addition to assessing recent developments in the area of its investigation, the chapter proposes a number of ways in relation to the strengthening and the reinvigoration of central WTO principles. It does so by focusing on a number of WTO principles, namely the principle of trade without discrimination, the principle of predictability and the principle of fair competition. The paper concludes with its key findings
Evaluating the Probability of Head-Acceleration Events in Elite Men’s and Women’s Rugby Union Match-Play: The Impact of Tackle Height and Body Position
No full textBackground
Head acceleration events (HAEs) are an increasing concern in collision sports owing to potential negative health outcomes.
Objectives
The objective of this study is to describe the probabilities of HAEs in tackles of differing heights and body positions in elite men’s and women’s rugby union.
Methods
Instrumented mouthguards (iMGs) were worn in men’s (n = 24 teams, 508 players, 782 observations) and women’s (n = 26 teams, 350 players, 1080 observations) rugby union matches. Tackle height (i.e. point of contact on ball-carrier) and body positions of tacklers and ball-carriers were labelled for all tackles in which a player wore an iMG. HAEs from the initial impact were identified. Mean player, tackler and ball-carrier exceedance probabilities for various peak linear and angular acceleration thresholds were estimated from ordinal mixed-effects models.
Results
Contact with ball-carriers’ head/neck resulted in the highest mean HAE probabilities for both sexes. The probability of an HAE to the ball-carrier decreased as tackle height lowered. The highest probability for the tackler was initial contact to the ball-carriers upper leg. Body position influenced the probability of HAEs, with falling/diving ball-carriers resulting in higher mean probabilities. When a player, regardless of role, was bent-at-waist, elevated HAE probabilities were observed in men’s competitions. Women’s data demonstrated similar probabilities of an HAE for all body positions.
Conclusions
Initial contact to the ball-carrier’s head/neck had the highest chance of an HAE, whilst role-specific differences are apparent for different tackle heights and body positions. Future player-welfare strategies targeting contact events should therefore consider HAE mechanisms along with current literature
The Learn Together programme (part B): evaluating co-designed guidance to support patient and family involvement in patient safety incident investigations
Get PDFBackground
Expectations of patient and family involvement in investigations of healthcare harm are becoming conventional. Nonetheless, how people should be involved, is less clear. Therefore, the “Learn Together” guidance was co-designed, aiming to provide practical and emotional support to investigators, patients and families.
Aim
To longitudinally evaluate use of the Learn Together guidance in practice—designed to support patient and family involvement in investigations of healthcare harm.
Methods
A 15-month process evaluation took place across five sites, following 29 investigations in which the Learn Together guidance was used. Sites comprised two mental health and two physical health hospital Trusts, and an independent maternity investigatory body in England. Longitudinally, 127 interviews were conducted with investigators, patients, families, staff, and management. Interview and observational data were synthesized using Pen Portraits and analyzed using multi-case thematic analysis.
Findings
The guidance supported the systematic involvement of patients and families in investigations of healthcare harm and informed them how, why, and when to be involved across settings. However, within hospital Trusts, investigators often had to conduct “pre-investigations” to source appropriate details of people to contact, juggle ethical dilemmas of involving vs. re-traumatizing, and work within contexts of unclear organizational processes and responsibilities. These issues were largely circumvented when investigations were conducted by an independent body, due to better established processes, infrastructure and resources, however independence did introduce challenge to the rebuilding of relationships between families and the hospital Trust. Across settings, the involvement of patients and families fluctuated over time and sharing a draft investigation report marked an important part of the process—perhaps symbolic of organizational ethos surrounding involvement. This was made particularly difficult within hospital Trusts, as investigators often had to navigate systemic barriers alone. Organizational learning was also a challenge across settings.
Conclusions
Investigations of healthcare harm are complex, relational processes that have the potential to either repair, or compound harm. The Learn Together guidance helped to support patient and family involvement and the evaluation led to further revisions, to better inform and support patients, families and investigators in ways that meet their needs (https://learn-together.org.uk). In particular, the five-stage process is designed to center the needs of patients and families to be heard, and their experiences dignified, before moving to address organizational needs for learning and improvement. However, as a healthcare system, we call for more formal recognition, support and training for the complex challenges investigators face—beyond clinical skills, as well as the appropriate and flexible infrastructure to enable a receptive organizational culture and context for meaningful patient and family involvement
Women and STEM: Editorial introduction
No full textThe twentieth century has been termed the Century of Women, an era marked by significant social and political changes that began around 1900. Although by no means universal and occurring in differing sequences and at different speeds throughout the twentieth century, there were noteworthy improvements in the position of women in society encompassing extensions of suffrage, greater educational opportunities, removal of many restrictions on employment, access to healthcare including contraception and abortion, and legislation against forms of sexual discrimination. These developments were neither straightforward nor universal, and in recent times there have been many examples of these advances being curtailed and even put into reverse with the position of women and young girls deteriorating significantly
Peer Research in Health Promotion Research
No full textPeer research is about academics and other professional researchers working with and training non-researchers to do research on issues that they have lived experience of and that involves collecting data from people like them—their peers. In health promotion specifically, peer research is a form of community-based participatory research and is based on a recognition that community members are experts on their own lives and so are best placed to identify and plan to solve their own health problems. Peer researchers are able to leverage their insider status within a community to improve research findings and knowledge production compared to nonparticipatory approaches. The act of involving community members as peer researchers can also support social justice and health promotion outcomes. However, there are practical, ethical, role, epistemological, and emancipatory challenges with peer research. In this chapter, strategies to support implementation of peer research in health promotion research are discussed, including involving peers as early as possible, clarifying roles and responsibilities, paying peer researchers for their contributions, and providing training and ongoing support to peer researchers. However, the relative newness of peer research as a research methodology means that a lot of questions remain about its operation and effectiveness; the majority of evidence about the method comes from informal evaluation, academic researcher observations, and feedback from peer researchers. More systematic investigation is needed to understand the utility of peer research in different health promotion contexts
Full Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics Ahead: Leveraging Immersive Virtual Reality to Create Equitable and Transformative Learning Experiences
No full textImmersive virtual reality (IVR) is widely promoted as a means of enriching learning in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), yet evidence of its capacity to foster equitable classroom experiences for marginalised groups remains limited, particularly outside traditional STEM domains. Addressing this gap, the present mixed‐method multiple‐case study explores how IVR influences equity, motivation and collaboration in two contrasting secondary‐school settings in England: a single‐session computer‐science (CS) lesson with 326 year‐8 students and a 4‐week series of English lessons with 6 year‐9 students. Data were gathered through pre‐lesson questionnaires, post‐lesson surveys, nonparticipant observations, focus groups, field notes and reconstructed lesson narratives. This research study explores how IVR has the potential to transform classrooms at a sociocultural level. In a secondary English classroom, IVR enhanced students' cultural and techno‐capital, revealing the potential to develop a relational pedagogy based on knowledge exchange. Additionally, in computer science, IVR tackled gender disparities in STEM by creating equitable learning environments through game‐based learning. This research study, which captures the pedagogical application of IVR in both arts‐based subjects and STEM, shows the potential of IVR to create more equitable, engaging, and personalised learning opportunities, transforming classrooms and challenging traditional expectations
The reliability of a commonly used (CatapultTM Vector S7) microtechnology unit to detect movement characteristics used in court-based sports
Get PDFThis two-part study evaluated the inter- and intra-unit reliability of Catapult Vector S7 microtechnology units in an indoor court-sport setting. In part-one, 27 female netball players completed a controlled movement series on two separate occasions to assess the inter- and intra-unit reliability of inertial movement analysis (IMA) variables (acceleration, deceleration, changes of direction and jumps). In part-two, 13 female netball players participated in 10 netball training sessions to assess the inter-unit reliability of IMA and PlayerLoadTM variables. Participants wore two microtechnology units placed side-by-side. Reliability was assessed using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), coefficient of variation (CV) and typical error (TE). Total IMA events showed good inter-unit reliability during the movement series (ICC, 1.00; CV, 3.7%) and training sessions (ICC, 0.99; CV, 4.5%). Inter-unit (ICC, 0.97; CV, 4.7%) and intra-unit (ICC, 0.97; CV, 4.3%) reliability for total IMA jump count was good in the movement series, with moderate CV (7.7%) during training. Reliability decreased when IMA counts were categorised by intensity and movement type. PlayerLoadTM (ICC, 1.00; CV, 1.5%) and associated variables revealed good inter-reliability, except peak PlayerLoadTM (moderate) and PlayerLoadSLOW (moderate). Counts of IMA variables, when considered as total and low-medium counts, and PlayerLoad variables are reliable for monitoring indoor court-sports players
How does the productivity of rugby league academies relate to differences in their physical qualities and physical development?
Get PDFDifferent talent development environments exhibit varying training practices in the rugby league TIDS, which may influence rates of talent development and subsequent productivity of each TDE. This study aimed to compare physical qualities and rates of physical development between different rugby league TDEs within the same TIDS, alongside differences between groups of TDEs based on their level of productivity. A sample of 261 youth rugby league players from six academy teams (i.e., TDEs) within the professional TIDS were tested as part of a league-wide fitness testing battery for measures of anthropometrics, strength, power, speed, and cardiovascular fitness. Linear mixed models revealed medium, significant differences in maximum sprint velocity at the beginning of the season (η2=0.05, p=0.03) and large, significant differences in the development of prone Yo-Yo IR1 distance over time (η2=0.14-0.18, p<0.001) between TDEs. No significant differences between groups of TDEs based on their productivity were found. These findings indicate that possible variability in the practices of TDEs mostly leads to small or trivial differences in physical qualities and physical development. Differences in physical qualities and physical development do not appear to relate to the productivity of TDEs, therefore TDEs should focus on holistic development to maximise productivity
S.J. Celestine Edwards: Placing Anti-Racism in Victorian Print Culture
No full textIn the 1890s, a Dominican named S.J. Celestine Edwards (1858-1894) became the first black editor of a British periodical. In fact, he edited two. Having established himself as a popular speaker in east London, where he defended Christianity against rising atheistic belief, in August 1892 he created a weekly newspaper promoting the Christian Evidence movement, titled Lux. The following July he took over the editorship of the Society for Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man’s monthly magazine, which had previously been called Anti-Caste, and which he retitled Fraternity. In Fraternity, he helped combat prejudice and violence predicated on racial and cultural difference. This article explores how these two ostensibly separate causes were interlinked in Edwards’s thought, as well as his editorial and networking activities. Analysing both papers alongside contemporary press reportage, I observe that Edwards placed the emerging cause of anti-racism before audiences both textually, in editorials and in advertisements and other columns of Lux that announce Fraternity, and geographically and temporally, in lecturing about racial and imperial violence in the afternoons in cities where Edwards had spent the morning speaking on behalf of Christian Evidence. I find it is restrictive to view Edwards’s anti-racist credentials in isolation from his anti-atheism. With regards to Victorian culture and society at large, Edwards’s strategies highlight the potential for other aspects of thought and debate to intersect with anti-racism. With Edwards, we can see the late-Victorian period anew, as one defined not simply by its racism but by its potential to challenge racism
Housing Experiences of Global Southern Migrants
Get PDFPeople from the Global South, including women who migrate, have neglected experiences in research. After consultation, this project aimed to explore Global Southern migrants’ experiences with housing. Study 1 surveyed 158 migrants (75% female) revealing mixed conditions (e.g., 27% poor heating), challenges with housing providers (11% intimidation) and housemates (21% hid religion/ sexuality). Study 2 through peer-led interviews and focus groups with 25 migrant students (68% female) also highlighted mixed experiences including family accommodation support against racism, bureaucracy and isolation (e.g., “[I wish there was] a way that [I] can still like make friends”). Attending to these experiences not only challenges psychology’s colonial dominance but also emphasizes the critical importance of decent housing, especially for vulnerable groups like migrant women
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