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Insider trading before earnings news: the role of executive pay disparity
Get PDFWe investigate how executive pay disparity affects insider profits around earnings news. Our findings reveal that high pay disparity is linked to higher abnormal returns from insider purchases before positive news, suggesting insiders exploit good news for greater gains. Conversely, it is associated with lower abnormal returns from insider sales before negative news, indicating less benefit from such sales. These insights highlight the influence of pay disparity on insider trading and underscore the importance of understanding this dynamic to improve decision-making and reduce misuse of insider information
Researching the impact of South Asian dance on autistic children
No full textPurpose: The purpose of this study was to understand the potential impact of dance classes informed by practices including Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Bollywood and Yoga on communication, expression and creativity in autistic young people.
Literature review: Autism can be classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder which can impact upon a child’s development including cognitive, social and adaptive skills. Dance can be a useful tool in helping to manage symptoms and improve social interactions and communication in a cost-effective way. While the majority of research in this area focuses on dance therapy, there is a lack of research focusing on potential benefits of other dance forms outside the western canon.
Methods: The study was approved by the University of Middlesex ethics committee and all participants completed a detailed consent form. A multimodal, co-created research design was selected incorporating teachers, learners, parents and dance artists. Learners participated in small group or 1-2-1 dance sessions for approximately 10-15 mins per week. The project utilized dance artist feedback, the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire for parents (SDQ P4-17) and teachers (SDQ T4-17), curriculum progress, and video observations looking at changes in movement quality, interaction and engagement. This project is part of an ongoing longitudinal study. The following reflects findings from initial case study analysis between January and April 2024.
Results and Discussion: Due to the highly individualized nature of autism, group analysis of the impact of a dance intervention would not be appropriate. Instead, each learner was considered at an individual level. Initial analysis demonstrated improvements for many learners in motor control and coordination, use of space, ability to fully extend limbs, and to carry out movement independently. While improvements were noted in engagement and focus, this was dependent on the day and other personal contextual and environmental factors that are not possible to control for.
Conclusion: This research echoes calls for a person-centered approach to research and intervention design in the dance for health context. Further longitudinal studies are required to understand the long-term impacts of these interventions and potential to generalize these dance skills to other aspects of school and home life.
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The (only) future of fashion? The role of small sustainable entrepreneurship in driving transformational change
No full textIn this short essay, we, by drawing on recent research, set out what is required to prefigure an alternative, sustainable and responsible fashion industry. To have a future, the fashion industry needs a rapid transformation; from the mainstream fashion industry’s obsession with novelty and growth, often ignoring the costs to society and the environment to genuine alternatives. Although operating mostly in niches, a growing number of small fashion entrepreneurs already pioneered sustainable ways of doing fashion. These fashion entrepreneurs are agents for change in their industry seeking an active negotiation and harmonisation of sustainability and the demands of business in capitalist modernity. We present innovative approaches and the very process of how many sustainable fashion entrepreneurs overcome tensions and generate opportunities in an attempt to drive a profound transformation of the industry towards sustainability
Community action, counter-professionals and radical planning in the UK
Get PDFThis paper reconsiders the roles of ‘counter-professionals’ (Goodman, 1972) in urban social movements, focusing on the generation of students, activists and planners involved in the UK’s community action movement from the late-60s. The paper therefore provides the first historical account of the ways community action stimulated the development of a distinctive counter-tradition of radical planning in the UK, inspiring experimentation with new, activist roles amongst a generation of young professionals who sought to support community-based movements seeking to challenge the post-war state, develop new models of participatory planning and lay the foundations for a more democratic society. Drawing on oral history interviews with key figures and archival materials from their personal records coupled with analysis of Community Action magazine (1972-90), we track how many of those involved developed careers ‘working the spaces of power’ in and against various state projects (Newman, 2012).
The paper explores our participants’ experiences through the lens of three key dilemmas that we argue are central to counter-professional practice and the politics of radical planning: their relations with the state; their relations with community-based movements and organisations; and thirdly, the ways these relations shaped the political horizons of community action. Our empirical work concludes by accounting for the relative decline of community action in the 1980s. Through reconsideration of the UK context, the paper contributes to debates about the politics of radical planning and the roles of activist-professionals within urban social movements. It concludes with reflection on the seemingly constrained conditions of possibility for counter-professional practices today and the wider lessons of the community action moment. By reconsidering the role of radical planners in community action in the UK we hope the paper can inspire further debate about the contributions future generations of counter-professionals might make to ongoing movements for urban justice
Benevolent authoritarianism, paternalism and religious humanitarianism in Sri Lanka: a dependent or autonomous HR?
Get PDFThis article examines the cases of five Sri Lankan export-oriented companies, each situated within global production networks (GPN) with British companies at the apex. In examining their managerial practices, a strong similarity to the practices associated with Anglo-Saxon paternalism is identified. However, these observed parallels are a product of local circumstances and the particular location within the GPN rather than a consequence of any emulation of British practices. The resulting system reflects a high power-dependency relationship that employers hold over employees. In this sense, the emergent HR system is partly dependent on the position in the GPN and partly autonomous. The system is characterised by a gendered division of labour and by the proximity of managerial oversight over the issue of worker autonomy. The factory setting has lower levels of worker autonomy and dependency compared to tea harvesting. One outlying exception to the general paternalistic approach, in one of the companies studied, is where the religious and ethnic makeup of the workforce is not shared with management, leading to increased conflict with the unionised workforce. The nature of Sri Lankan paternalism is specific and endogenous, but the conditions creating this paternalism are likely to be replicated elsewhere
How to better understand students’ sense of belonging
No full textDavid Gilani and Sophie Connor explain how qualitative methods can deepen the sector's understanding of belonging and connectio
Belonging Research Project: an analysis of innovative methodologies
No full textThe Belonging Research Project provides a case study of four methods used to explore students' sense of belonging in UK universities. The report was written by Sophie Connor who interviewed those utilising these different approaches to better understand and embed practices to support student belonging. Readers of the report will learn what each of these four methods entail, why each was chosen for their respective contexts, practical details like the recruitment of participants, and an overall critique of the strengths and challenges of each method. The report aims to make each of these innovative methods more accessible, so that they can be further utilised in student voice and institutional research projects around student belonging
Reliability of quadriceps twitch muscle properties and explosive voluntary contractions at different knee joint angles
Get PDFBackground: Measures that assess muscle strength and its development, either voluntarily or involuntarily, are important in the clinical and research context. The main aim of this study was to verify the inter day reliability and the minimum detectable change (MDC) of the knee extensors muscles torque using evoked contractions and explosive voluntary contractions (EVC), across 6 different joint angles.
Methods: 20 participants, 16 men and 4 women (26.5 ± 6.6 years; 174.5 ± 11.1 cm; 73.7 ± 11.3 kg) participated in this study. Evoked twitch contractions and voluntary explosive contractions of the knee extensors were performed in 2 days (test-retest) at 20, 40, 70, 90, 105 and 115 degrees.
Results: The most reliable twitch parameters were peak torque (PT), contraction time (CT), half relaxation-time (½ time), total impulse and peak rate of torque development (RTDPeak), with coefficient of variation (CV) ranging from ~8% at 20o to 5% at 115o angle. It was verified that CT and ½ time become more reliable as the knee angle changed from 20 to 115 degrees, from shorter to longer muscle lengths (7.3 to 2.7% and 8.8% to 4.0%, respectively). The more reliable parameters for voluntary contraction were PT, RTD250ms, RTDPeak and impulse250ms (CV from around ~8% at 20o/115o and 5% at 70o/ 90o). For voluntary contractions, all measures performed at 70o angle were more reliable compared to the other angles.
Conclusion: It was concluded that for the knee extensor muscles, evoked twitch contractions presented greater reliability across knee angles, with lower CV values when compared to the voluntary measures for the same time windows. Specifically, for the evoked twitch contractions, angles from 70 to 115-degree proved to be highly reliable. On the other hand, for the voluntary contractions, the central angles (70 and 90-degree) were the most reliable
Martial arts in/as science fiction
Get PDFMartial arts and science fiction (SF) might initially seem strange – even inimical – bedfellows. Literary and cinematic martial arts genres such as wuxia typically locate us in a mythical (or at best historical) past rather than the rational, technoscientific future, and they are keyed to the larger category of Fantasy, in opposition to which SF theorists from Darko Suvin to Fredric Jameson have sought to define their preferred object of study. However, martial arts have been insistently recurrent in SF media since the 1960s, from the original Star Trek series’s ‘Kirk fu’ (and later excursions into Klingon tai chi and the way of the bat’leth) through to the Jedi mysticism of Star Wars and the cyberpunk techno-Orientalism of The Matrix. This might already suggest that the opposition between Fantasy and SF is not as stable as it might seem, and that the martial arts may inhabit a territory of their intersection. Furthermore, the existence of real-world training and competition in the science-fictional art of the lightsaber suggests that these ‘media supplements’ also articulate the phantasies that underpin actual martial arts practice. Such practice shares with SF theory a concern with negotiating seeming oppositions between fantasy and realism, myth and reason, tradition and modernity, orient and occident. I thus set out to explore what the inclusion of martial arts in SF media reveals about their meaning beyond the page or screen, but also ask: what happens when we try to think of the martial arts not only _in_ but _as_ science fiction
Photographic work exhibited in 'Celebrating 25 years of the Wakelin Award', Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
No full textPhotographic work from the Glynn Vivian's permanent collection was exhibited in 'Celebrating 25 years of the Wakelin award', Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (23rd March - 1 September 2024).
This was a retrospective exhibition that brought together work from all the past winners of the Wakelin award.
The Wakelin award was founded in memory of Swansea-based artists, Richard and Rosemary Wakelin. The annual award is given to an artist living and working in Wales, whose work is purchased for the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection.
Dr Peter Wakelin, said: “When we set up the Award after my mother died in 1998, we thought it would be something our parents would have enjoyed because of their love of the Glynn Vivian, and it would last for a few years. We never guessed that the scheme would continue to be so worthwhile for a quarter of a century. It’s fantastic to look back at all the artists the Award has supported in that time and the wealth of works that have been added to the Glynn Vivian collection to be enjoyed by the people of Swansea.”
Louise Burston, Chair of the Friends of the Glynn Vivian, added: “The Friends are very pleased to be involved with such a prestigious award. It is heartening to be able to support Welsh artists and contribute towards the gallery’s contemporary collection of art, plus it’s always fascinating to see whose work the nominated selector will choose. Over the years the award has gone to a splendidly diverse selection of artists from different disciplines and at different stages in their careers.”
Karen MacKinnon, Curator, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, said: “The Wakelin Award has enabled the gallery for the past 25 years to acquire wonderful works for its permanent collection ... This exhibition is a celebration of what the award has achieved over so many years.