Public service innovation and multiple institutional logics: the case of hybrid social enterprise providers of health and wellbeing

Public sector organisations are confronted with growing health and social care needs in combination with severe resource constraints, prompting interest in innovative responses to such challenges. Public service and social innovation is poorly understood, particularly where innovators must navigate between the norms, practices and logics of public, private and civil society sectors. We contribute to the understanding of how innovating hybrid organisations are able to creatively combine co-existing logics. Case study evidence from newly established social enterprise providers of health and wellbeing services in England is utilised to examine how innovations are shaped by (i) an incumbent state or public sector logic, and two ‘challenger’ logics relating to (ii) the market and increasing competition; and (iii) civil society, emphasising social value and democratic engagement with employees and service users. The analysis shows how a more fluid and creative interplay of logics can be observed in relation to specific strategies and practices. Within organisations, these strategies relate to the empowerment of staff to be creative, financial management, and knowledge sharing and protection. The interplay of logics shaping social innovation is also found in relationships with key stakeholders, notably public sector funders, service users and service delivery partners. Implications are drawn for innovation in public services and hybrid organisations more broadly

Consequences of land-use change and the wildfire disaster of 2017 for the central Chilean biodiversity hotspot

Central Chile is an important biodiversity hotspot in Latin America. Biodiversity hotspots are characterised by a high number of endemic species cooccurring with a high level of anthropogenic pressure. In central Chile, the pressure is caused by land-use change, in which near-natural primary and secondary forests are replaced and fragmented by commercial pine and eucalyptus plantations. Large forest fires are another factor that can potentially endanger biodiversity. Usually, environmental hazards, such as wildfires, are part of the regular environmental dynamic and not considered a threat to biodiversity. Nonetheless, this situation may change if land-use change and altered wildfire regimes coerce. Land-use change pressure may destroy landscape integrity in terms of habitat loss and fragmentation, while wildfires may destroy the last remnants of native forests. This study aims to understand the joint effects of land-use change and a catastrophic wildfire on habitat loss and habitat fragmentation of local plant species richness hotspots in central Chile. To achieve this, we apply a combination of ecological fieldwork, remote sensing, and geoprocessing to estimate the spread and spatial patterns of biodiverse habitats under current and past land-use conditions and how these habitats were altered by land-use change and by a single large wildfire event. We show that land-use change has exceeded the wildfire’s impacts on diverse habitats. Despite the fact that the impact of the wildfire was comparably small here, wildfire may coerce with land-use change regarding pressure on biodiversity hotspots. Our findings can be used to develop restoration concepts, targeting on an increase of habitat diversity within currently fire-cleared areas and evaluate their benefits for plant species richness conservation

Centered Fluidity and the Horizons of Continuity in Djuna Barnes\u27 Nightwood

Modern writers like Djuna Barnes allow for the post-modern fluidity and explosion of sex and gender without finalizing either in a fixed form. Whereas the classical, archetypal androgyne is made up of two halves, one man and one woman; the deconstructed androgynous figure is not constituted of oppositional terms which would reflect an essential and unimpeachable truth. I reveal the way Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood not only thematizes the fluid androgyne, but also cleverly verbalizes David Wood’s perpetual and un-dischargable “debt” to extra-discursivity while poetically critiquing gender “appropriateness,” societal constraints, and the constitution of identity. Barnes presents a decentralized, ungrounded and non-prescribed world in Nightwood not only through her cross-dressing and androgynous characters, but also in her poetics, her assertion of the open-ended quality of language, and a strong imperative to negotiate our physical existence in a world of fluid gender and sexual boundaries

Corrigendum: Initiating Change of People With Criminal Justice Involvement Through Participation in a Drama Project: An Exploratory Study

Author proofs are not yet ready for revisio

A methodology for realistic space launch risk estimation using information-fusion-based metric

In light of the significant changes being observed in the US space industry, in terms of the increase share of commercial launches, the development of inland spaceports, and the emergence of new vehicle designs and propulsion systems, there is need to reassess launch safety. In this paper, several issues related to space launch safety are reviewed, one in particular being the use, as the main the safety metric, of the mean collective risk to the general public, also known as the expectation of casualties. A new, decision level, information-fusion-based metric is proposed, and through a detailed case study, its merit in terms of the quality and quantity of information it generates is illustrated. The need for a new metric is here advocated as a critical first step toward the necessary transition from a risk avoidance philosophy to space launch safety to a risk management philosophy

Influência do tipo de levedura e do uso de enzima pectolítica sobre a qualidade de vinhos tintos tropicais cv. Petit verdot.

Existem leveduras com atividades metabólicas variáveis, que permitem a elaboração de vinhos com características sensoriais diferentes. A região do Vale do Submédio São Francisco vem produzindo vinhos há 20 anos, mas está ainda em busca de cultivares que sejam representativas e que possibilitem a obtenção de vinhos potenciais com qualidade e tipicidade. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a influência do tipo de levedura e do uso de enzima pectolítica, em três condições, sobre a qualidade de vinhos da cv. Petit Verdot. As plantas foram instaladas em fevereiro de 2005, enxertadas sobre o porta-enxerto R110, sistema de condução em espaldeira, solo arenoso, irrigadas por gotejamento. As uvas foram colhidas em julho/2007, apresentando sólidos solúveis totais de 24,5 (ºBrix), acidez total titulável (ATT) de 8 g.L-1 em ácido tartárico, pH 3,5 e peso médio de 100 bagas de 97,6 g. A vinificação foi realizada em frascos de vidro de 20 L, utilizando-se 15 Kg de uvas para cada tratamento. As cinco leveduras testadas foram PDM, Ever rouge e Ever cru, Fermol rouge e Fermol cru. Para cada levedura, foram realizados três tratamentos: sem adição de enzima pectolítica (25 ºC, a temperatura de fermentação), com enzima adicionada a frio (10 ºC durante 24 h) para a maceração pré-fermentação, e enzima adicionada a 25 ºC, totalizando quinze tratamentos. Após a fermentação malolática, os vinhos foram analisados, apresentando variações no teor de álcool (entre 14,2 e 15 % v/v), ATT (entre 4,4 e 7,7), pH (entre 3,9 e 4,3) e índice de polifenóis totais, IPT (entre 89,7 e 101,6). A escolha do tipo de levedura e o uso de enzimas é fundamental para a obtenção de vinhos com diferentes estilos, principalmente nas condições do Vale do São Francisco, onde se busca ainda conhecer o potencial de diferentes cultivares às condições edafo-climáticas locais

Monitoring and evaluating business mentoring: towards a research and evaluation toolkit to measure impact

This paper presents a Research and Evaluation Toolkit (RET) which has applicability to mentoring programmes in all sectors and organizational contexts. The RET offers a practical guide for human resource development practitioners engaged in evaluation of learning and development programmes and more specifically, mentoring. The RET was a key outcome of a global 2.5-year impact evaluation project with Youth Business International and Middlesex University Business School, evaluating the impact of volunteer business mentoring on under-served young entrepreneurs and their business ventures. This paper brings to the forefront the importance of integrating a measurement and evaluation strategy from the initial mentoring programme design phase and ongoing management. Despite the growing number of survey reports and studies that highlight the importance of this aspect of mentoring programme design and management, measurement and evaluation continues to be one of the most challenging areas. As such, this paper contributes to our understanding concerning the role and effectiveness of ongoing monitoring and evaluation in relation to demonstrating the impact of human resource development interventions and provides a practical approach for practitioners to develop and enhance their evaluation strategy and methods. Key words: research and evaluation, business mentoring, impac

Component Microenvironments and System Biogeography Structure Microorganism Distributions in Recirculating Aquaculture and Aquaponic Systems

ABSTRACT Flowthrough and pond aquaculture system microbiome management practices aim to mitigate fish disease and stress. However, the operational success of recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) depends directly on system microbial community activities. In RAS, each component environment is engineered for a specific microbial niche for waste management, as the water continuously flowing through the system must be processed before returning to the rearing tank. In this study, we compared waste management component microbiomes (rearing tank water, pH correction tank, solid-waste clarifier, biofilter, and degassing tower) within a commercial-scale freshwater RAS by high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing. To assess consistency among freshwater RAS microbiomes, we also compared the microbial community compositions of six aquaculture and aquaponic farms. Community assemblages reflected site and source water relationships, and the presence of a hydroponic subsystem was a major community determinant. In contrast to the facility-specific community composition, some sequence variants, mainly classified into Flavobacterium, Cetobacterium, the family Sphingomonadaceae, and nitrifying guilds of ammonia-oxidizing archaea and Nitrospira, were common across all facilities. The findings of this study suggest that, independently of system design, core taxa exist across RAS rearing similar fish species but that system design informs the individual aquatic microbiome assemblages. Future RAS design would benefit from understanding the roles of these core taxa and then capitalizing on their activities to further reduce system waste/added operational controls. IMPORTANCE Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) are agroecosystems for intensive on-land cultivation of products of fisheries. Practitioners that incorporate edible plant production into RAS refer to these facilities as aquaponic systems (AP). RAS have the potential to offset declining production levels of wild global fisheries while reducing waste and product distance to market, but system optimization is needed to reduce costs. Both RAS and AP rely on microbial consortia for maintaining water quality and promoting fish/plant health, but little is known about the microorganisms actually present. This lack of knowledge prevents optimization of designs and operational controls to target the growth of beneficial microbial species or consortia. The significance of our research is in identifying the common microorganisms that inhabit production RAS and AP and the operational factors that influence which microorganisms colonize and become abundant. Identifying these organisms is a first step toward advanced control of microbial activities that improve reproducibility and reduce costs