Charities and ICTs: Can IS-enabled Innovation in Business Critical Activities Be Delivered?

This article looks at the ways in which a number of charities are leading the United Kingdom’s ‘Third Sector’ in their use of ICT/IS capabilities to deliver innovations in a range of business critical activities. It shows that new ICT/IS capabilities afforded opportunities within different types of charities to deliver change. In the older charities established in the ‘pre-Internet’ era, these shifts tend to work with and reflect the existing ‘enterprise logic’ or established ‘ways of doing’. In the younger ‘Net generation’ organisations, the shifts tend to be more fluid in nature, enabling the delivery of new ways of doing and denoting the more flexible model of organisation upon which they were founded. Our research also shows that, in all of the charities, information and data capture and interrogation are intensifying

Interview with Eleanor Bedell Burt

An interview on August 11, 1978 with Eleanor Bedell Burt, wife of Robert C. Burt, research and teaching fellow, 1921-1927, and alumnus, receiving his PhD from Caltech in 1926

Moral agency in charities and business corporations : exploring the constraints of law and regulation

For centuries in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, charities have been widely regarded as admirable and virtuous organisations. Business corporations, by contrast, have been characterised in the popular imagination as entities that lack a capacity for moral judgement. Drawing on the philosophical literature on the moral agency of organisations, we examine how the law shapes the ability of charities and business corporations headquartered in England to exercise moral agency. Paradoxically, we find that charities are legally constrained in exercising moral agency in ways in which business corporations are not. Implications for charities and business corporations are then explored.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Bourdieu's non-material forms of capital:Implications for start-up policy

The role of Bourdieu’s non-material forms of capital (cultural, social and symbolic) in the entrepreneurial process has received little dedicated research attention. Similarly, the link between occupationally distinct entrepreneurship and accumulation of non-material capitals is understudied. Addressing this, we examine the non-material capitals of different nascent entrepreneurs by occupational classification who participated on two enterprise-training programmes funded by the 1997-2010 Labour Government; each with considerably different foci. Findings demonstrate that professional and higher technician entrepreneurs possess valuable non-material capitals, in contrast to non-professional entrepreneurs. Against the backdrop of recent business enterprise policy, findings suggest that policy-makers should prioritise focused support that nurtures the valuable, productive non-material capitals of professional and higher technician entrepreneurs. Furthermore, initiatives should be tailored to improve the less distinguished non-material capitals of non-professional entrepreneurs

Social media and social class

Background: This paper explores the relationship between social class and social media use, and draws upon the work of Bourdieu examining class in terms of social, economic and cultural capital. The paper starts from a prior finding that those who predominantly only use social media formed a higher proportion of internet users from lower socio-economic groups. Data: Drawing on data from two nationally representative UK surveys the paper makes use of the Ofcom Media Literacy survey (n ≈ 1800 per annum) and the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Taking Part survey (n ≈ 10,000 per annum). Methods: Following Yates, et al. (2015a), five types of internet behaviour and eight types of internet user are identified utilising a principal components analysis and k-means clustering. These internet user types are then examined against measures of social, economic and cultural capital. Data on forms of cultural consumption and digital media use are examined using multiple correspondence analysis. Findings: The paper concludes that forms of digital media use are in correspondence with other social, cultural and economic aspects of social class status and contemporary social systems of distinction

OPtimising Treatment for MIld Systolic hypertension in the Elderly (OPTiMISE): protocol for a randomised controlled non-inferiority trial

Introduction: Recent evidence suggests that larger blood pressure reductions and multiple antihypertensive drugs may be harmful in older people, particularly frail individuals with polypharmacy and multi-morbidity. However, there is a lack of evidence to support de-prescribing of antihypertensives, which limits the practice of medication reduction in routine clinical care. The aim of this trial is to examine whether antihypertensive medication reduction is possible in older patients without significant changes in blood pressure control at follow-up. Methods and analysis: This trial will use a Primary Care based, open label, randomised controlled trial design. A total of 540 participants will be recruited, aged ≥80 years, with systolic blood pressure <150 mmHg and receiving ≥2 antihypertensive medications. Participants will have no compelling indication for medication continuation and will be considered to potentially benefit from medication reduction due to existing polypharmacy, co-morbidity and frailty. Following a baseline appointment, individuals will be randomised to a strategy of medication reduction (intervention) with optional self-monitoring or usual care (control). Those in the intervention group will have one antihypertensive medication stopped. The primary outcome will be to determine if a reduction in medication can achieve a proportion of participants with clinically safe blood pressure levels at 12 week follow-up (defined as a systolic blood pressure <150mmHg) which is non-inferior (within 10%) to that achieved by the usual care group. Qualitative interviews will be used to understand the barriers and facilitators to medication reduction. The study will use economic modelling to predict the long term effects of any observed changes in blood pressure and quality-of-life. Ethics and dissemination: The protocol and written information has been approved by a Research Ethics Committee, medicines regulatory authority (MHRA), and national and local health research authorities. All research outputs will be published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national and international conferences

Resistance to pirimiphos-methyl in West African Anopheles is spreading via duplication and introgression of the Ace1 locus

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Grau-Bové et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Vector population control using insecticides is a key element of current strategies to prevent malaria transmission in Africa. The introduction of effective insecticides, such as the organophosphate pirimiphos-methyl, is essential to overcome the recurrent emergence of resistance driven by the highly diverse Anopheles genomes. Here, we use a population genomic approach to investigate the basis of pirimiphos-methyl resistance in the major malaria vectors Anopheles gambiae and A. coluzzii. A combination of copy number variation and a single non-synonymous substitution in the acetylcholinesterase gene, Ace1, provides the key resistance diagnostic in an A. coluzzii population from Côte d’Ivoire that we used for sequence-based association mapping, with replication in other West African populations. The Ace1 substitution and duplications occur on a unique resistance haplotype that evolved in A. gambiae and introgressed into A. coluzzii, and is now common in West Africa primarily due to selection imposed by other organophosphate or carbamate insecticides. Our findings highlight the predictive value of this complex resistance haplotype for phenotypic resistance and clarify its evolutionary history, providing tools to for molecular surveillance of the current and future effectiveness of pirimiphos-methyl based interventions.publishersversionpublishe

Genome variation and population structure among 1142 mosquitoes of the African malaria vector species Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii

Mosquito control remains a central pillar of efforts to reduce malaria burden in sub-Saharan Africa. However, insecticide resistance is entrenched in malaria vector populations, and countries with a high malaria burden face a daunting challenge to sustain malaria control with a limited set of surveillance and intervention tools. Here we report on the second phase of a project to build an open resource of high-quality data on genome variation among natural populations of the major African malaria vector species Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii. We analyzed whole genomes of 1142 individual mosquitoes sampled from the wild in 13 African countries, as well as a further 234 individuals comprising parents and progeny of 11 laboratory crosses. The data resource includes high-confidence single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) calls at 57 million variable sites, genome-wide copy number variation (CNV) calls, and haplotypes phased at biallelic SNPs. We use these data to analyze genetic population structure and characterize genetic diversity within and between populations. We illustrate the utility of these data by investigating species differences in isolation by distance, genetic variation within proposed gene drive target sequences, and patterns of resistance to pyrethroid insecticides. This data resource provides a foundation for developing new operational systems for molecular surveillance and for accelerating research and development of new vector control tools. It also provides a unique resource for the study of population genomics and evolutionary biology in eukaryotic species with high levels of genetic diversity under strong anthropogenic evolutionary pressures