Experimental and computational studies of jamming

Jamming is a common feature of out of equilibrium systems showing slow relaxation dynamics. Here we review our efforts in understanding jamming in granular materials using experiments and computer simulations. We first obtain an estimation of an effective temperature for a slowly sheared granular material very close to jamming. The measurement of the effective temperature is realized in the laboratory by slowly shearing a closely-packed ensemble of spherical beads confined by an external pressure in a Couette geometry. All the probe particles, independent of their characteristic features, equilibrate at the same temperature, given by the packing density of the system. This suggests that the effective temperature is a state variable for the nearly jammed system. Then we investigate numerically whether the effective temperature can be obtained from a flat average over the jammed configuration at a given energy in the granular packing, as postulated by the thermodynamic approach to grains.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

The victorious English language: hegemonic practices in the management academy

This study explores hegemonic linguistic processes, that is, the dominant and unreflective use of the English language in the production of textual knowledge accounts. The authors see the production of management knowledge as situated in central or peripheral locations, which they examine from an English language perspective. Their inquiry is based on an empirical study based on the perspectives of 33 management academics (not English language speakers) in (semi) peripheral locations, who have to generate and disseminate knowledge in and through the English language. Although the hegemony of the center in the knowledge production process has long been acknowledged, the specific contribution of this study is to explore how the English language operates as part of the “ideological complex” that produces and maintains this hegemony, as well as how this hegemony is manifested at the local level of publication practices in peripherally located business and management schools

The domestic and gendered context for retirement

Against a global backdrop of population and workforce ageing, successive UK governments have encouraged people to work longer and delay retirement. Debates focus mainly on factors affecting individuals’ decisions on when and how to retire. We argue that a fuller understanding of retirement can be achieved by recognizing the ways in which individuals’ expectations and behaviours reflect a complicated, dynamic set of interactions between domestic environments and gender roles, often established over a long time period, and more temporally proximate factors. Using a qualitative data set, we explore how the timing, nature and meaning of retirement and retirement planning are played out in specific domestic contexts. We conclude that future research and policies surrounding retirement need to: focus on the household, not the individual; consider retirement as an often messy and disrupted process and not a discrete event; and understand that retirement may mean very different things for women and for men

Regulating for Responsibility: Reputation and Social Media

The framework brought forward by the United Kingdom's Defamation Act 2013 underlines a traditional hierarchy of expression in which news media are viewed as high-level speech. Although of a different form, social media are a dominant means of expression. The current study explores the rationale for a more robust and forceful discussion of responsibility in speech on social media platforms. The underlying premise here is that speech should be viewed as a qualified good and that a more appropriate paradigm is one found in the phrase ‘freedom to participate’

The impact of overseas training on curriculum innovation and change in English language education in Western China

This article assesses the impact of a UK-based professional development programme on curriculum innovation and change in English Language Education (ELE) in Western China. Based on interviews, focus group discussions and observation of a total of 48 English teachers who had participated in an overseas professional development programme influenced by modern approaches to education and ELE, and 9 of their colleagues who had not taken part, it assesses the uptake of new approaches on teachers’ return to China. Interviews with 10 senior managers provided supplementary data. Using Diffusion of Innovations Theory as the conceptual framework, we examine those aspects of the Chinese situation that are supportive of change and those that constrain innovation. We offer evidence of innovation in classroom practice on the part of returnees and ‘reinvention’ of the innovation to ensure a better fit with local needs. The key role of course participants as opinion leaders in the diffusion of new ideas is also explored. We conclude that the selective uptake of this innovation is under way and likely to be sustained against a background of continued curriculum reform in China

Education and older adults at the University of the Third Age

This article reports a critical analysis of older adult education in Malta. In educational gerontology, a critical perspective demands the exposure of how relations of power and inequality, in their myriad forms, combinations, and complexities, are manifest in late-life learning initiatives. Fieldwork conducted at the University of the Third Age (UTA) in Malta uncovered the political nature of elder-learning, especially with respect to three intersecting lines of inequality - namely, positive aging, elitism, and gender. A cautionary note is, therefore, warranted at the dominant positive interpretations of UTAs since late-life learning, as any other education activity, is not politically neutral.peer-reviewe

Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility

There are four main interconnecting themes around which the contributions in this book are based. This introductory chapter aims to establish the broad context for the chapters that follow by discussing each of the themes. It does so by setting these themes within the overarching demographic challenge of the twenty-first century – demographic ageing. Each chapter is introduced in the context of the specific theme to which it primarily relates and there is a summary of the data sets used by the contributors to illustrate the wide range of cross-sectional and longitudinal data analysed

Active ageing, pensions and retirement in the UK

The ageing population has led to increasing concerns about pensions and their future sustainability. Much of the dominant policy discourse around ageing and pension provision over the last decade has focussed on postponing retirement and prolonging employment. These measures are central to productive notions of ‘active ageing’. Initially the paper briefly sets out the pension developments in the UK. Then it introduces active ageing and active ageing policy, exploring its implications for UK pension provision. It demonstrates that a more comprehensive active ageing framework, which incorporates a life-course perspective, has the potential to assist the UK to respond to the challenges of an ageing population. In doing so it needs to highlight older people as an economic and social resource, and reduce barriers to older people’s participation in society

The future role of Scottish local government economic development

Since 1979 local authorities have been subjected to two main pressures from central government: increasing control over the range and type of services that can be provided; and greater emphasis on the private sector's role. So far, beyond being affected by the general financial constraints that local government has been placed under, the economic development services that many local authorities provide have escaped largely unscathed. This situation seems now likely to change radically as a result of three measures. These are:- a) the Local Government and Housing Bill; b) Scottish Enterprise; and c) changes to the structure of local government. When considered in isolation these measures contain much that is attractive and which could produce a more effective economic development service; for example, a specific power to carry out economic development and the creation of an integrated training and enterprise development service. However the argument that is put forward in this paper is that these measures have to be seen as complementary. They are part of an overall strategy intended to result in a major reduction in local government's local economic development activities

A narrative inquiry into the identity formation of Chinese doctoral students in relation to study abroad

The present study explores a topic which has been under-studied to date, namely the identity formation of Chinese PhD students in relation to study abroad. Underpinned by Giddens' (1991) "reflexive project of the self", which privileges agency and reflexivity, and using a narrative inquiry approach, it presents four students' 'stories' collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions in the form of a trajectory of development fro past to future. In building a picture of theways in which students' self-identity is shaped by and shapes their experience of study abroad, the stories illustrate individual agency, motivation, self-determination and reflexivity. In doing so, they challenge the essentialised view of Chinese students as a homogeneous and sometimes problematic group and point to implications for action by the host institutions