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Leisure in Middletown: cultural change and social capital in an inter-war American community
No full textIn both America and Great Britain, the social survey became an important tool for the documentation of leisure in the late nineteenth century. To social reformers it revealed inequalities to be addressed; to policy makers it was essential to planning and civic renewal. The Middletown survey was a social study of the city of Muncie, Indiana in 1924. As one of the earliest social surveys to be conducted by social anthropology, it remains a classic text of social science. Social anthropology dealt directly with the everyday life of the organic community and the cultural values and practices of people. It regarded leisure not as superfluous but as a vital field of both private and social life. Undertaken in the new modernity of the inter-war period, the Middletown survey presents a contemporaneous interpretation of the impact of the new technologies of the cinema, radio and automobile on established leisure patterns and of the changing nature and social functions of leisure-based clubs and associations. Anticipating recent interest in leisure and social capital, it reveals historical awareness of the importance of associational leisure activity to community cohesion and offers insights to a nascent sociology of leisure not yet widely recognized in leisure studies
Myth-Making - Or Just Taking the Myth? The Dangers of Myth Becoming Fact in Lewis's Narnia Series
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Creative teaching methods to bridge the gap between the science of audiology and the human experience of hearing loss A Critical Commentary
No full textThe purpose of this work is to present a portfolio of creative pedagogical approaches used inaudiology education which: -• Brings to life the lived experience of hearing loss, through portraiture and storytelling.Students and service users work together co design curricula content which raises theimportance of attending to the human experience of hearing loss. By focusing onlearning with rather than about service users, moves service user engagement inaudiology education from being tokenistic, to one of truly inclusive, meaningfulinvolvement.• Takes students on a learning journey allowing them to come out of the classroom andenter community locations to uncover and explore first-hand, the hearing health needsof the local population, raising their awareness of the importance of cultural competencein audiology practice• Enables students to explore their sense of self via participatory photography. Thisapproach moves away from the traditional didactic teaching of self -awareness. Allowingaudiology students the opportunity to explore their sense of self via visual imagery,opens their minds, hones their skills of observation and enables them to practise the artof communicating what they see.• Uses curricula content developed by both service users and students to raise awarenessof acquired hearing loss via public exhibitions, thus challenging society’s perceptions ofhearing loss being related to aging and cognitive decline
The impact of continuing bonds between pet owners and their pets following the death of their pet: a systematic narrative synthesis
No full textWhen a pet dies, owners can experience similar levels of grief as when a human dies. Previous research indicates the role of continuing bonds (CB) when a pet is alive. To understand the impact of these bonds after the pet has died, we conducted a systematic narrative synthesis according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines (PRISMA). Findings were heterogenous, yet there were still parallels in the literature. CB can sometimes aggravate and intensify grief experiences, particularly when pet grief is perceived as disenfranchised grief. However, identifying appropriate bonds can be useful to moderate the intensity of grief and be a valuable mechanism of support. CB can also help post-traumatic growth of owners
PSEM: An Audit Tool for Higher Education
No full textThe aim of this guidance paper is to present the proposed social enterprise audit tool. The idea of the social enterprise audit tool is to set out what should be covered when designing a social enterprise curriculum for an interdisciplinary social science subject area. The work that is presented here is formulated from a funded Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) project undertaken by the authors
Teacher induction across the United Kingdom
No full textThis chapter outlines arrangements for new teacher induction across the four nations that comprise the United Kingdom: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.Arrangements for initial teacher education, induction (the first year of teaching) and early professional development (the second and third years of teaching) vary across the four jurisdictions. Following (differing degrees of) political devolution from 1998, possibilities for greater cross-nation divergence in education policy within the UK have increased.Teacher education is undergoing a period of active development with the announcement in March 2011 of the Review of Teachers’ Standards in England, the Review of Teacher Education in Northern Ireland (consultation conducted between June and November 2010) and the publication of the Review of Teacher Education in Scotland, Teaching Scotland’s Future (Donaldson, 2011). The different ways in which issues of professional support are approached within each nation reflects an accommodation between supra-national trends and national contexts, histories and cultures
Reductive mechanisms for unwanted intrusive thoughts: Exploring affectivity in clinical and non-clinical samples
No full textUnwanted intrusive thoughts are a major public health concern (Nock et al., 2008; Bentum et al., 2017), and they are key to the development of a variety of dysregulated behaviours (Jungmann et al., 2016; Bergen et al., 2012). Thus, this study investigates reductive mechanisms for unwanted intrusive thoughts by analysing aspects of affectivity in clinical and non-clinical samples.Quantitative means of data collection and analysis were used to explore UITs and affectivity. 530 adults took part in this study (236 males, 253 females, and 15 transgenders). Participants consisted of clinical (N=168) and non-clinical samples (N=336) who completed the MIDUS Sense of Control Scale (Lachman and Weaver, 1998), 20-Item Neuroticism Scale (Goldberg, 1999), Self-Compassion Scale (Neff, 2003a), Flourishing Scale (Diener et al., 2009), PANAS-N Scale (Watson et al., 1988), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (Spitzer et al., 2006), and Repetitive Thinking Questionnaire-10 (McEvoy et al., 2010).Participants who experienced high levels of psychological flourishing, emotional stability, self-compassion, perceived control, and affective wellbeing were prone to experience minimal UITs. Anxiety was positively related to UITs. These findings suggest that these aspects of affectivity may aid the reduction or management of clinical and non-clinical unwanted intrusive thoughts.This study has addressed gaps in knowledge and the literature on UITs by demonstrating that psychological flourishing, emotional stability, self-compassion, perceived control, and affective wellbeing as aspects of affectivity can be implemented as a reductive mechanism for UITs, and such implementation may have a high probability of effective reduction or management of clinical and non-clinical unwanted intrusive thoughts
An investigation into the financial performance of commercial statutory corporations in Malawi
No full textThe history of state-owned enterprises, or statutory corporations, dates to as far back as the 1930s, particularly just after the two World Wars. Governments have used statutory corporations to meet various social, economic and political motives. Overtime, however, it has been observed that the performance of statutory corporations worldwide has generally not been impressive. In Malawi, for instance, there has been a public outcry that statutory corporations have performed poorly financially, resulting in them being a drain on the public purse. This study was therefore undertaken with the over-arching aim to investigate how commercial statutory corporations in Malawi have performed financially.Although there has been a public outcry in Malawi on the financial performance of statutory corporations, there has been no backing of a comprehensive analysis on the financial performance of the corporations. In addition,the literature mentions several factors that have affected the financial performance of statutory corporations. These factors are only too broad and it is not clear how applicable they are to the Malawian context. These deficiencies necessitated that the research be carried out.The research was carried out in two phases. The first phase involved collecting quantitative data in the form of audited financial statements for eight commercial statutory corporations from 2008 to 2012, and then 2016 to 2017. The 2016 and 2017 financial statements were included to provide a fresh insight, and so inclusion of the years 2013 to 2015 was not found necessary. The financial statements were analyzed to determine the financial performance of the corporations in terms of profitability, liquidity, and solvency.The second phase involved gathering qualitative data in the form of views on factors that affected the financial performance of the statutory corporations in Malawi. Given the nature of the research, case study was chosen as the appropriate research method for this part (the other research methods of ethnography, action research, and grounded theory were not found suitable). Face to face Interviews were held with senior employees of the corporations, and some top government officials. More data was obtained from the newspapers, board papers, and management reports. In the seven years under review, it was found that the financial performance of the commercial statutory corporations was much below expectation. Among the corporations under study, only one was seemingly making profits while the rest were generally in losses and were in a poor liquidity position.Even for the exceptional case, its profitability was not good enough to make a difference in terms of dividend contribution to the national treasury. In addition, of all the eight case corporations, none provided a financial return to government, but instead the government provided in total a large financial bail-out to some of them.The quantitative data was analysed through comparison of revenues and expenditures to determine absolute profit or loss, as well as through ratio analysis to determine relative profitability (return on capital employed), liquidity (current ratio and quick ratio), as well as solvency (gearing ratio, interest cover, and cash flow ratio). On the other hand, the qualitative data was analysed on a thematic basis. The analysis (both quantitative and qualitative) was done manually by the researcher.The study has revealed that the poor financial performance of these corporations is attributable to a number of factors, and these included: the poor state of the economy, povertyamong people, climate change, corruption, inadequate investment, lack of autonomy, competition, lack of cost consciousness, poor management, and use of statutory corporations by government as warehouses for political appointees in terms of the board and senior management. The study has made theoretical and practical contributions. On the theoretical side, the research adds to the body of knowledge on the hurdles that statutory corporations face in Africa and how such hurdles may be minimized.The practical dimension of the study includes the various strategies that have been suggested which, if implemented, should contribute towards an improved financial performance of statutory corporations, and eventually lead to improved socio-economic welfare of the citizens in Malawi. The findings and recommendations of this research should also be of use in other developing countries in Africa and probably beyond
Introduction to Construction Management
No full textIntroduction to Construction Management, Second Edition, is the beginner's guide to key concepts, terms, processes and practices associated with modern construction management. The new edition has been fully updated with new data, case studies and enhancements and remains the most practical and accessible book on the subject available. Significant new topics have been added, including construction ethics, coverage of mental health and wellbeing in the industry, project delivery and Construction 4.0, to make this the most cutting-edge book available for students on construction and civil engineering management courses.Supported by diagrams, illustrations and case studies, the book starts with a general introduction to the industry and covers the relevant management theory before providing applied coverage of:Production managementCommercial managementQuality managementHealth and Safety managementEnvironmental managementThis is the most approachable text available for anyone starting to learn about construction management at any level
Security-based explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) in healthcare system
No full textExplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) is one of the most advanced research areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI). To explain the deep learning (DL) model is the main objective of XAI. It deals with artificial models which are understandable to humans, including the users, developers, policymakers, etc. XAI is very important in some critical domains like security, healthcare, etc. The purpose of XAI is only to provide a clear answer to the question of how the model made its decision. The explanation is very important before any system decision-making. As an example, if a system responds to a decision, it is necessary to have inside knowledge of the model about that decision. The decision can be positive or negative, but it is more important to know the decision based on characteristics. The decision of the model should be trusted when we know the internal structure of the DL model. Generally, DL models come under the black box models. So for security purposes, it is very necessary to explain a system internally for any decision-making. Security is very crucial in healthcare as well as in any other domain. The objective of this research is to provide a decision about security based on XAI which is a big challenge. We can improve security systems based on XAI for the next level. For medical/healthcare security, when we recognize human action using transfer learning techniques, one pre-trained model is considered good for action and the same action is not good in terms of accuracy using another pre-trained model. This is called the black-box model problem, and it needs to know what is the internal mechanism of both models for the same action. Why one model considers good for action and why the same action is not very well using another model? Here need a model-specific approach of post-hoc interpretability to know the internal structure and characteristics of both models for the same action