Population Focused Nursing: Advocacy for Vulnerable Populations in an RN-BSN Program

The purpose of this article is to describe an innovative learning activity for online RN-BSN students designed to foster advocacy for vulnerable populations. The Vulnerable Population Advocacy Assignment, included as a component of the online Population-Focused Nursing class, provides students with the opportunity to identify and develop an awareness of issues impacting vulnerable populations and to advocate for policy changes that will influence the health of individuals, families, and populations. RN-BSN students build on previous knowledge and skills in professional communication and advocacy as they develop a policy statement designed to address health disparities impacting local, national, and global populations

Finding Australia’s social enterprise sector: final report

Executive Summary Social enterprises are organisations that: Are led by an economic, social, cultural, or environmental mission consistent with a public or community benefit; Trade to fulfil their mission; Derive a substantial portion of their income from trade; and Reinvest the majority of their profit/surplus in the fulfilment of their mission. This document reports on the research findings of the Finding Australia’s Social Enterprise Sector (FASES) project. FASES is a joint initiative of Social Traders and the Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. It is a first attempt to identify the range and scope of social enterprises in Australia. The methodology utilised in this research included: a review of existing literature and methods of social enterprise mapping; establishment of a project website and preliminary discussion paper to stimulate public engagement with defining and identifying Australian social enterprises, which resulted in four online responses to the discussion paper and 157 nominations of social enterprises to be included in the research; a series of workshops and interviews with 34 key informants to assist in defining social enterprise for the purposes of the research; identification of the social enterprise population through a combination of web and media review, review of existing databases and feedback through the project website; development and administration of an online survey; and collation and analysis of secondary data. Five hundred and thirty-nine organisations commenced the online survey, of which 365 were valid social enterprises according to our definition. Based on pre-existing research data and information from our survey, we estimate that there are up to 20 000 Australian social enterprises. This estimate takes into account that some not for profit organisations have multiple business ventures, and that not all social enterprises are incorporated as not for profits. Our survey results suggest that the Australian social enterprise sector is mature, sustainable and internally diverse with regard to mission and organisational structure. Amongst the 365 survey respondents, 73% had been operational for at least five years, and 62% were at least 10 years old. Australian social enterprises seek to fulfil a diversity of missions and serve a wide variety of beneficiaries. As a whole, the dominant foci of our survey respondents were on creating opportunities for people to participate in their community, and on finding new solutions to social, environmental, cultural and economic problems. Australian social enterprises operate in every industry of our economy. Our survey data suggest that they trade predominantly in local and regional markets and focus on fulfilling their missions at local and regional goals. However, some social enterprises operate in international markets and seek to respond to missions of international scope

The Critical Theory of Artistic Capitalism

This article takes up Lipovetsky‟s discussion on artistic capitalism in L’esthétisation du monde. Vivre à l’âge du capitalisme artiste, to trace its definitions and methodological construction, but also in order to create a critical theory of artistic capitalism, based on the following working-hypothesis: the production of art and the production of self, understood in the sense of a Foucauldian project of the aesthetics of existence, represent correspondent purposes in artistic capitalism. My research will be focused on examining previous attempts of developing such a critical inquiry, claimed by Luc Boltanski, Eve Chiapello, and Luc Ferry. It is my thesis that the failure of a homogeneous critical theory of artistic capitalism is owed to different inconsistent interpretations of contaminating ethics with aesthetics in order to create an ideal of morality and authenticity for the existence of the individual inspired by contemporary techniques of art production, aspects that were conceived by Lipovetsky as parts of the process of the “aestheticization of the world”

Cyber maturity in the Asia-Pacific Region 2014

Summary: To make considered, evidence-based cyber policy judgements in the Asia-Pacific there’s a need for better tools to assess the existing ‘cyber maturity’ of nations in the region. Over the past twelve months the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre has developed a Maturity Metric which provides an assessment of the regional cyber landscape. This measurement encompasses an evaluation of whole-of-government policy and legislative structures, military organisation, business and digital economic strength and levels of cyber social awareness. This information is distilled into an accessible format, using metrics to provide a snapshot by which government, business, and the public alike can garner an understanding of the cyber profile of regional actors

Disability in Kazakhstan : an evaluation of official data

In order to answer the questions of (a) what is the true pattern of disability in Kazakhstan; (b) whether the incidence of disability is decreasing; and (c) what is the life expectancy of Kazakhstan's disabled, this paper attempts first to create an historical picture of disability in Kazakhstan by analyzing government population statistics and studying the evolution of disability determination procedure in the former Soviet Union and independent Kazakhstan. Doing so is not a trivial task, as there has been almost no systematic research, either in Russian or English. The paper concludes that the optimistic official picture of disability patterns in Kazakhstan is almost certainly inaccurate. The paper details that the quality of official disability data is high, and much can be learned from the patterns. However, changing definitions and strictness of enforcement make time series comparisons problematic, and the improvements in adult disability recorded are inconsistent both with trends for children, and with mortality trends. Rather, the authors note that barriers for applying disability benefits have increased and incentives to report disabilities have decreased markedly in the past 15 years, so that it is virtually certain that there is substantial hidden disability.Population Policies,Disease Control&Prevention,Disability,,Social Protections&Assistance

The UK Employment and Skills almanac 2010 (Evidence Report 26)

"Employment and skills are not the only determinants of productivity and a fairer and more inclusive society; other external drivers include economic, technological, institutional and political factors and fall outside the remit of the UK Commission. This study has sought to recognise these other drivers and incorporate them into the evidence base where necessary and possible. The latest data included within the Almanac runs to 2009, covering the recessionary period in part. Where relevant to the discussion the implication of the recession is noted, and we have included in our concluding chapter a spotlight feature on the impact of the recession on young people. This report and accompanying workbooks hosted on the Almanac Online website form the evidence base." - Page 15

Open Knowledge Resources for Higher Education: Scholarly Publications, Course Materials, Academic Software

This paper will explain why electronic knowledge resources in academia cannot only be regarded as private commodities, but also as public goods. After sketching a concept of public goods for a postnational, global society, three types of electronic knowledge resources are distinguished: scholarly publications, course materials and academic software. With the help of practical examples, similarities between these resources are developed. Finally, it will be explained what advantages the status of public good for knowledge resources would have and how it could be achieved by the academic community