Using multi-stakeholder causal mapping to explore priorities for infrastructure resilience to flooding

Urban resilience to natural hazards could make our cities less vulnerable to adverse weather events. However, the implementation of resilience actions is currently not effective, as mechanisms to facilitate collaboration among involved stakeholders are missing. This paper for the first time explores causal mapping as a method to disassemble major issues of urban resilience into a more manageable understanding, and thus identify key objectives, barriers and opportunities in thinking “resilient cities”. In this study, a cognitive-mapping-based workshop was held to elicit information from stakeholders in the remit of urban resilience to flooding. The statements and connections identified during the workshop led a consolidated map, analysed using the StrategyFinder software. This analysis highlighted barriers related to data availability, silo-based approaches and lack of funding; it also evidenced shared goals, such as the need to protect the built environment and minimise impact from flooding. Overall, causal mapping resulted a powerful analytical tool for improving understanding of the complex dynamics of urban resilience, identifying key variables and relationships, as well as eliciting information from stakeholders. Furthermore, this approach facilitated systems thinking, communication and collaboration. This enhanced understanding is fundamental for advancing strategies for future planning, contributing to urban sustainability and liveability

Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture, Vol.10

Kontorslokaler nyttjas generellt cirka 2500 av årets 8760 timmar. Ett vanligt problem med kontorslokaler är det termiska klimatet, antingen är det för varmt, för kallt, eller så drar det. Höga temperaturer, över ca 26°C, bidrar till trötthet, nedsatt koncentration och gör att luften känns mindre fräsch. Stora variationen av lasten mellan dag och nattetid kan också resultera i att lokalerna överventileras under nattetid och underventileras under dagtid. Syftet med examensarbetet var att undersöka och jämföra Ecoclimes komforttaks lösning med andra olika värme och kylsystem i kontorslokaler. Att undersöka vilka eventuella fördelar Ecoclimes komforttak har gällande komfort, kyla, ventilation och ur energisynpunkt. Simuleringsprogrammet IDA ICE har använts för att simulera komforten och rumstemperaturer för ett kontor och ett konferensrum i en byggnad placerad i centrala Umeå. Resultaten från simuleringar indikerar att Ecoclimes komforttak, sänker den operativa temperaturen och höjer komforten med en mindre andel missnöjda i sitt rum jämfört med andra system trots samma rumstemperatur. För att bedömma andelen missnöjda i ett rum har komfortindexet PMV(Predicted mean vote) och PPD(Predicted percentage dissatisfied) använts. Den höga passiva effekten bidrar också till mindre energianvändning av ventilationsfläktar ifall ett VAV-system med rumstempertaurreglering används. Vidare har en känslighetsanalys genomförts på komforttaken där det undersöks hur kyleffekten påverkar kyltider, temperatur och komfort. Känslighetsanalysen visar att en ökning eller minskning av kyleffekten med 10% påverkar resultaten mest under en mycket varm dag jämfört med en normalvarm. Skillnaden i komfort var dock liten, endast 0,2 procentenheter från grundfallet

The 2016 EU Referendum: Explaining Support for Brexit Among Would-Be British MPs

The outcome of the 2016 referendum on European Union membership took many by surprise and has continued to define the political discourse in Britain. Despite there being a growing body of research focused on explaining how voters cast their ballot, we still know little about what motivated our politicians to do the same. In this article, we draw on individual-level survey data from the British Representation Study to explore support for Brexit among parliamentary candidates who stood at the 2017 general election. We find that candidates' political views on immigration and democracy were key determinants of their decision to vote Leave. In addition, more optimistic views of how Brexit was expected to impact British economy and democracy are associated with greater likelihood of voting Leave. These findings highlight that, while politicians were less likely than voters to support Brexit overall, their motivations for doing so were quite similar. Interestingly, however, we also find that candidates contesting constituencies with higher Leave support were no more likely to vote for Brexit themselves. Taken together, these findings have important implications for elite representation of voters' policy preferences on the issue of Brexit

The great divide? Occupational limbo and permanent liminality amongst ‘teaching only’ staff in higher education

In this paper, we contribute new theoretical perspectives and empirical findings to the conceptualisation of occupational liminality, specifically in relation to so-called ‘teaching-only’ staff at UK universities. Here, we posit ‘occupational limbo’ as a state distinct from both transitional and permanent liminality; an important analytic distinction in better understanding occupational experiences. In its anthropological sense, liminality refers to a state of being betwixt and between; it is temporary and transitional. Permanent liminality refers to a state of being neither-this-nor-that, or both-this-and-that. We extend this framework in proposing a conceptualisation of occupational limbo as always-this-and-never-that. Based on interviews with 51 teaching-only staff at 20 research-intensive ‘Russell Group’ universities in the United Kingdom, findings revealed participants’ highly challenging occupational experiences. Interviewees reported feeling ‘locked-in’ to an uncomfortable state by a set of structural and social barriers often perceived as insurmountable. These staff felt negatively ‘marked’ (Allen-Collinson, 2009), subject to identity contestation as academics, and were found to engage in negative, often self-deprecatory identity talk that highlighted a felt inability to cross the līmen to the elevated status of ‘proper academics’ (Bamber et al., 2017). The findings and the new conceptual framework provide sociological insights with wider application to other occupational spheres

Foreign language teaching and learning

This volume honours the academic achievements and scholarship of Professor Florence Myles as a world-leading scholar in the fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and French Linguistics, in particular for her work in corpus-based SLA and language policy in primary school education. In addition to reviews of the field (e.g., primary languages policy in the UK), the volume presents new research studies reflective of key theoretical and methodological issues in current SLA research, including theory-building, corpus-based investigations, studies of language development, as well as informing teacher professional development through research. Taken together, this edited book provides a wide-ranging and balanced account of Myles’s work and speaks to her influence on SLA research and primary languages policy. We invite readers to learn more about the fascinating research presented here as inspired by Florence’s dedication to field

An ever-winding stream : (re)surfacing competing for advantage from the continuous entwinement of navigation and wayfinding

Error on title page – year of award is 2023.This research is a strategy coup de grâce. It has helped mend deeply-rooted, intuitive, in situ sponte sua beliefs about the nature of strategy’s river-flow—echoed from a minuscule, scarcely-inhabited river-cave of the strategy field-flow—with its actual unfolding in real, earth-bound organisational settings. In a nutshell, the research charted the until-now uncharted becoming of competing for advantage. For what Sheryl Crow sings in her immensely popular ‘Everyday is a winding road’ is simply the sentiment Bob Dylan so effectively describes ‘Like a rolling stone’ in a way that completely resonates with what the Beatles had sung even before in their ‘Long and winding road’. Namely, that strategy is wayfaring, meandering, and forever oblique. And hence, strategy is not either linear or curve, but both linear and curve. Deliberate and emergent. Content and process. Planning and wayfinding, in a universal, uninterrupted coping, which echoes ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men’ (Burns, 1785, added emphasis) so beautifully captured in the evocative poetics of Scotland’s national bard. Over a 9-month immersion during most of 2018, in an automotive manufacturing site in the outskirts of Glasgow’s Green-Glen, the research amassed a comprehensive volume of data anchorings following a ‘near documentary’ style of inquiry (Chia and Holt, 2009). A wayfinding methodology-of-sorts emerged, which included extensive field note-makings, reflecting-in-action, photographic animations, and annotated information supported by news articles, company records, semi-formal interviews, live off-the-cuff conversations, shadowing-in-observation, and attendance of both formal, fixed meetings, and informal, impromptu coming-together gatherings. Analysis followed to reconstruct the river-flow of the case-streams. Namely, the metamorphosis of Rosti Automotive Larkhall (RAL), from being a general plastic injection moulder, to becoming a tier 1 automotive supplier, in the period covering 2016-2018. Overarchingly, the research crystalizes a triple-win of exciting possibilities for the field of strategic management and the social sciences more broadly. Namely, (i) a tried-and-tested wayfinding-process philosophical-methodology focused on explicating the dynamics of processes-in-motion; (ii) a fresh reconceptualization of a central construct—the central construct, perhaps—of the strategy field, competitive advantage, towards a forever becoming-idea—the primordial hunch of strategy—competing for advantage; and (iii) this new conceptualisation is born out of the two most basic motions—currents—of the competing river-flow: competere and concurrere, from which concurrere emerges as the vital traversing of strategy, its wayfinding and zero-degree of organisation (Chia and Holt, 2009; Cooper 1986: 321).This research is a strategy coup de grâce. It has helped mend deeply-rooted, intuitive, in situ sponte sua beliefs about the nature of strategy’s river-flow—echoed from a minuscule, scarcely-inhabited river-cave of the strategy field-flow—with its actual unfolding in real, earth-bound organisational settings. In a nutshell, the research charted the until-now uncharted becoming of competing for advantage. For what Sheryl Crow sings in her immensely popular ‘Everyday is a winding road’ is simply the sentiment Bob Dylan so effectively describes ‘Like a rolling stone’ in a way that completely resonates with what the Beatles had sung even before in their ‘Long and winding road’. Namely, that strategy is wayfaring, meandering, and forever oblique. And hence, strategy is not either linear or curve, but both linear and curve. Deliberate and emergent. Content and process. Planning and wayfinding, in a universal, uninterrupted coping, which echoes ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men’ (Burns, 1785, added emphasis) so beautifully captured in the evocative poetics of Scotland’s national bard. Over a 9-month immersion during most of 2018, in an automotive manufacturing site in the outskirts of Glasgow’s Green-Glen, the research amassed a comprehensive volume of data anchorings following a ‘near documentary’ style of inquiry (Chia and Holt, 2009). A wayfinding methodology-of-sorts emerged, which included extensive field note-makings, reflecting-in-action, photographic animations, and annotated information supported by news articles, company records, semi-formal interviews, live off-the-cuff conversations, shadowing-in-observation, and attendance of both formal, fixed meetings, and informal, impromptu coming-together gatherings. Analysis followed to reconstruct the river-flow of the case-streams. Namely, the metamorphosis of Rosti Automotive Larkhall (RAL), from being a general plastic injection moulder, to becoming a tier 1 automotive supplier, in the period covering 2016-2018. Overarchingly, the research crystalizes a triple-win of exciting possibilities for the field of strategic management and the social sciences more broadly. Namely, (i) a tried-and-tested wayfinding-process philosophical-methodology focused on explicating the dynamics of processes-in-motion; (ii) a fresh reconceptualization of a central construct—the central construct, perhaps—of the strategy field, competitive advantage, towards a forever becoming-idea—the primordial hunch of strategy—competing for advantage; and (iii) this new conceptualisation is born out of the two most basic motions—currents—of the competing river-flow: competere and concurrere, from which concurrere emerges as the vital traversing of strategy, its wayfinding and zero-degree of organisation (Chia and Holt, 2009; Cooper 1986: 321)

How special are early birds?

This volume honours the academic achievements and scholarship of Professor Florence Myles as a world-leading scholar in the fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and French Linguistics, in particular for her work in corpus-based SLA and language policy in primary school education. In addition to reviews of the field (e.g., primary languages policy in the UK), the volume presents new research studies reflective of key theoretical and methodological issues in current SLA research, including theory-building, corpus-based investigations, studies of language development, as well as informing teacher professional development through research. Taken together, this edited book provides a wide-ranging and balanced account of Myles’s work and speaks to her influence on SLA research and primary languages policy. We invite readers to learn more about the fascinating research presented here as inspired by Florence’s dedication to field