Do the citizens of Europe trust their police?

Purpose - The maintenance of public order and the control of crime are clearly amongst the primary objectives of global law enforcement agencies. An important antecedent to this is the consideration of public trust in their police force. The purpose of this paper is to utilise data from the 5th Round European Social Survey (ESS), to investigate how public social indicators may highlight the level of trust in a country’s police force. Design/methodology/approach – The results from the ESS are analysed using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), multiply conjunctional causal configurations of the considered social indicators are then established and analysed. Findings - A consequence of using fsQCA, asymmetric causal configurations are identified for the relative high and low limiting levels of trust towards the police in the considered countries. The results offer novel insights into the relationship between social indicators and police trust, as well as expositing a nascent technique (fsQCA) that may offer future potential in this area. Originality/value – This paper introduces a novel technique to analyse a major European data set relating to citizens perceptions of the police. The findings might prove useful for policing organisations as they develop strategies to maintain/improve the level of trust and confidence of citizens in the policing services they provide

Moving to a Green Economy? The Story of an “Unjust” Transition in the UK

Coal played a central part in the discussions at the COP26 conference on climate change held in Glasgow in 2021. Here it was established as the most deadly of the carbon fuels with the future of the planet depending upon its eradication. This was a cause some concern for the leaders of China and India and also for some of the smaller economies strongly linked to the coal expert trade, including Colombia and Australia. It was in this context that considerable thought was given to the need to carefully consider the transition from coal and the need for this to be done in a just manner. Prime Minister Johnson had contributed to this debate by asserting that the UK led the way in this regard. In his view Mrs Thatcher, in her defeat of the National Union of Mineworkers and the early closure of the industry that followed, had given Britain a head start in moving towards a green economy. This, however, was no recipe for others to follow. It was in fact the classic case of an unjust transition, which has had serious, and long-term deleterious effects upon the country’s economy and society. It shows others what not to do and, though obtusely, this negative exemplar provides elements for a more positive framework of future policy

The Persistence of Union Membership in the Coalfields of Britain

Spatial variance in union membership has been attributed to the favourable attitudes that persist in areas with an historical legacy of trade unionism. Within the United Kingdom, villages and towns located in areas once dominated by coalmining remain among the strongest and most durable bases for the trade union movement. This article empirically examines the effect of living within or near these areas upon union membership. Those residing in ex-mining areas retain an increased propensity for union membership. However, this effect diminishes sharply with distance. The analysis reveals that particular places can serve as conduits of trade unionism, long after employment within traditional industries has vanished

S=1/2 chains and spin-Peierls transition in TiOCl

We study TiOCl as an example of an S=1/2 layered Mott insulator. From our analysis of new susceptibility data, combined with LDA and LDA+U band structure calculations, we conclude that orbital ordering produces quasi-one-dimensional spin chains and that TiOCl is a new example of Heisenberg-chains which undergo a spin-Peierls transition. The energy scale is an order of magnitude larger than that of previously known examples. The effects of non-magnetic Sc impurities are explained using a model of broken finite chains.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures (color); details on crystal growth added; to be published in Phys. Rev.

Genome-wide association mapping and comparative genomics identifies genomic regions governing grain nutritional traits in finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertn)

Micronutrient deficiency is a serious and underestimated global health concern. Identifying existing micronutritional richness in traditional crops, and breeding this potential into staple crops that are more frequently consumed, could offer a potential low-cost, sustainable solution to micronutrient deficiency. Here, we provide the first insight into genetic control of grain micronutrient content in the staple food crop finger millet ( Eleusine coracana ). Quantifying the existing natural variation in nutritional traits, and identifying the regions of the genome associated with these traits, will underpin future breeding efforts to improve not only global food and nutrition security, but also human health

Determination of micro-scale plastic strain caused by orthogonal cutting

An electron beam lithography technique has been used to produce microgrids in order to measure local plastic strains, induced during an orthogonal cutting process, at the microscopic scale in the shear zone and under the machined surface. Microgrids with a 10 μm pitch and a line width less than 1 μm have been printed on the polished surface of an aluminium alloy AA 5182 to test the applicability of the technique in metal cutting operations. Orthogonal cutting tests were carried out at 40 mm/s. Results show that the distortion of the grids could successfully be used to compute plastic strains due to orthogonal cutting with higher accuracy compared to other techniques reported in the literature. Strain maps of the machined specimens have been produced and show high-strain gradients very close to the machined surface with local values reaching 2.2. High-resolution strain measurements carried out in the primary deformation zone also provide new insight into the material deformation during the chip formation process

On the poverty of a priorism: technology, surveillance in the workplace and employee responses

Many debates about surveillance at work are framed by a set of a priori assumptions about the nature of the employment relationship that inhibits efforts to understand the complexity of employee responses to the spread of new technology at work. In particular, the debate about the prevalence of resistance is hamstrung from the outset by the assumption that all apparently non-compliant acts, whether intentional or not, are to be counted as acts of resistance. Against this background this paper seeks to redress the balance by reviewing results from an ethnographic study of surveillance-capable technologies in a number of British workplaces. It argues for greater attention to be paid to the empirical character of the social relations at work in and through which technologies are deployed and in the context of which employee responses are played out