Enabling and constraining successful reablement: Individual and neighbourhood factors

Using multilevel logistic regression to analyse management data of reablement episodes collected by Essex County Council, a UK local authority, this article identifies constraining and enabling factors for successful reablement. Overall, 59.5% of reablement clients were classed as able to care for themselves when assessed after 13 weeks following the reablement intervention (N = 8,118). Several age-related, disability, referral, and social factors were found to constrain reablement, but some of the largest constraining effects were neighbourhood deprivation as measured through the Index of Multiple Deprivation and, particularly, unfavourable geodemographic profiles as measured through Experian Mosaic consumer classifications. The results suggest that in order to optimise reablement, programmes should consider broader social and environmental influences on reablement rather than only individual and organisational aspects. Reablement might also be better tailored and intensified for client groups with particular underlying disabilities and for those displaying specific geodemographic characteristics

Builders: The social organisation of a construction site.

This thesis is based on an ethnographic case study of a London building site. The social organisation of building work and building workers was framed by the city, and cross-cut by class, race and gender, the structures and processes of which are explored throughout. The fieldwork site was characterised by racial divides between subcontracted trade groups, which were organised around informal networks within ethnic communities. Those communities, in their turn, were bounded by patterns of gift-exchange, reciprocity and ensuing loyalties. Networked contacts, which were predominately ascribed by social, ethnic and regional origins, formed an aspect of the perpetuation of race and class structures. Strong notions of trust and loyalty fostered illegitimate activities because information concerning rule-breaking was kept within the communities and went undetected by agencies representing the formal law. Informal networks were also contrived and engineered by entrepreneurial subcontractors whose relationships with building contractors and consultants were characterised by gift-giving. This process shielded competition from rivals and closed down the competitiveness of the construction market. 'Embedded' economic relations excluded recent migrant groups and their subcontracted representatives by blocking access to jobs and contracts, despite the groups' ability to offer cheaper and harder-working labour. Contractual arrangements were informal and sometimes illicit, and this erected barriers to legal and regulatory power. Coupled with short-term and ephemeral working practices, a social order partly supported by the threat of violence was established. The masculinity expressed by builders was, in part, a consequence of this display of violence. The building industry was virtually a 'non-modern ' organisation whose social relations were marked by network morality, nepotism, reciprocity, gift relations and the threat of violence. Yet, violence underpinned forms of social power, which manufactured the imbalance of false reciprocities

Charismatic violence and the sanctification of the super-rich

Drawing historical comparisons between the 19th century and the present, this article describes and analyses how an elite section of the global rich, through mega-giving and a reemerging notion of ‘noblesse oblige’ that is enshrined in the philanthrocapitalism movement, have fostered a sacred rationale for their extreme wealth. Not only do the new nobles hold the power of wealth but, through mega-giving, they generate a moral imagery akin to religious figures who ostensibly self-sacrifice for the good of everyone else. This generates a form of charismatic authority that affords the super-rich an influential space from which to spread a ‘theodicy of privilege’ – legitimating their elevated economic position, shielding growing wealth concentration from criticism, and sanctifying the claim that individual mega-wealth is collectively beneficial. Through its contribution to and facilitation of the inegalitarian status quo, this theodicy engenders various forms of structural violence. Here we explore the mechanisms that enable wealthy donors to position themselves as apparent benefactors of humanity, including a reliance on metrics that appear to justify the claim that targeted philanthropic expenditures can and are reducing global wealth and health inequalities, but which raise unanswered questions surrounding the actual effects of the outcomes claimed

Philanthrocapitalism and crimes of the powerful [Le philanthrocapitalisme et les « crimes des dominants »]

Over the past decade, a new generation of philanthropic donors have taken to labelling their corporate practices ‘philanthropic’ even when their investments are for-profit in nature and explicitly bring direct financial benefits to donors – often at the expense of the recipients of philanthropic ‘gifts.’ Novel philanthropic trends subsumed under the term ‘philanthrocapitalism’ have led to calls for an end to the for-profit versus non-profit distinction when it comes to giving practices, insisting that money directed at for-profit recipients can be more ‘effective’ than grants to traditional, non-profit bodies. Today’s philanthrocapitalists sometimes cite Adam Smith’s discussion of the ‘invisible hand’ to defend their approach to charitable giving. But they deliberately ignore Smith’s writing on state’s vital role in distributing wealth and regulating criminal activity, as well as his views on why economic inequality is harmful for nations. Drawing parallels to work in criminology on ‘crimes of the powerful,’ we explore, firstly, how today’s wealth elites profit personally from a reconfiguration of the long-standing distinction between for-profit and non-profit grant recipients. Secondly, we draw on concepts from ignorance studies in order to theorize how and why elite actors whose actions often harm the general public have managed to successfully uphold self-serving strategies as publicly beneficial

ARTEFACTS: How do we want to deal with the future of our one and only planet?

The European Commission’s Science and Knowledge Service, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), decided to try working hand-in-hand with leading European science centres and museums. Behind this decision was the idea that the JRC could better support EU Institutions in engaging with the European public. The fact that European Union policies are firmly based on scientific evidence is a strong message which the JRC is uniquely able to illustrate. Such a collaboration would not only provide a platform to explain the benefits of EU policies to our daily lives but also provide an opportunity for European citizens to engage by taking a more active part in the EU policy making process for the future. A PILOT PROGRAMME To test the idea, the JRC launched an experimental programme to work with science museums: a perfect partner for three compelling reasons. Firstly, they attract a large and growing number of visitors. Leading science museums in Europe have typically 500 000 visitors per year. Furthermore, they are based in large European cities and attract local visitors as well as tourists from across Europe and beyond. The second reason for working with museums is that they have mastered the art of how to communicate key elements of sophisticated arguments across to the public and making complex topics of public interest readily accessible. That is a high-value added skill and a crucial part of the valorisation of public-funded research, never to be underestimated. Finally museums are, at present, undergoing something of a renaissance. Museums today are vibrant environments offering new techniques and technologies to both inform and entertain, and attract visitors of all demographics.JRC.H.2-Knowledge Management Methodologies, Communities and Disseminatio

A framework for assessing the circularity and technological maturity of plastic waste management strategies in hospitals

Consumer single-use plastic waste has received much attention from the public, policy-makers and researchers. However, the management of such waste in medical settings has been less well examined. This article reviews existing evidence on waste management strategies within hospitals, with a particular focus on single-use plastics. The article develops the ‘Waste Hierarchy-Technology Readiness Levels’ framework and assesses each waste management strategy against it, indicating the maturity of the technology and the strategy’s position in the Waste Hierarchy, in addition to its relative adherence to circular economy principles. Findings show that currently dominant waste management strategies include disposal to landfill, incineration and recycling, while alternative strategies include reduction, reuse, bioremediation and chemical recycling. Most strategies reviewed are at a high level of technology readiness and at a low level on the Waste Hierarchy, demonstrating that hospital waste management strategies tend to be based on mature technologies and suggesting a need for more innovative, circular economy solutions. Exceptions, which are at a high level on the Waste Hierarchy but at an early stage of development, include bioremediation using microbial action and chemical recycling using hydrophilic solvents. This review highlights a disparity between the levels of alignment with the circular economy principles in waste management strategies of developed and developing nations, suggesting a need for both international collaboration and strategies sensitive to specific regional contexts

Measurement of the Splitting Function in &ITpp &ITand Pb-Pb Collisions at root&ITsNN&IT=5.02 TeV

Data from heavy ion collisions suggest that the evolution of a parton shower is modified by interactions with the color charges in the dense partonic medium created in these collisions, but it is not known where in the shower evolution the modifications occur. The momentum ratio of the two leading partons, resolved as subjets, provides information about the parton shower evolution. This substructure observable, known as the splitting function, reflects the process of a parton splitting into two other partons and has been measured for jets with transverse momentum between 140 and 500 GeV, in pp and PbPb collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV per nucleon pair. In central PbPb collisions, the splitting function indicates a more unbalanced momentum ratio, compared to peripheral PbPb and pp collisions.. The measurements are compared to various predictions from event generators and analytical calculations.Peer reviewe

Inclusive Search for a Highly Boosted Higgs Boson Decaying to a Bottom Quark-Antiquark Pair

© 2018 CERN. An inclusive search for the standard model Higgs boson (H) produced with large transverse momentum (pT) and decaying to a bottom quark-antiquark pair (bb) is performed using a data set of pp collisions at s=13 TeV collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb-1. A highly Lorentz-boosted Higgs boson decaying to bb is reconstructed as a single, large radius jet, and it is identified using jet substructure and dedicated b tagging techniques. The method is validated with Z→bb decays. The Z→bb process is observed for the first time in the single-jet topology with a local significance of 5.1 standard deviations (5.8 expected). For a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV, an excess of events above the expected background is observed (expected) with a local significance of 1.5 (0.7) standard deviations. The measured cross section times branching fraction for production via gluon fusion of H→bb with reconstructed pT > 450 GeV and in the pseudorapidity range -2.5 < η < 2.5 is 74±48(stat)-10+17(syst) fb, which is consistent within uncertainties with the standard model prediction

It Isn't Charity because We've Paid into it’: Social Citizenship and the Moral Economy of Welfare Recipients in the Wake of 2012 UK Welfare Reform Act

Drawing on interviews with welfare claimants living in Essex, UK, this article examines the material and symbolic effects of the UK government’s 2012 Welfare Reform Act, and it highlights the participants’ interpretations of and responses to that. In reaction to their sense of material and symbolic exclusion, participants made moral claims for their inclusion through a notion of social citizenship based on collective reciprocity and care. They claimed to have paid-in to the national purse in various material and moral ways until circumstances outside of their control meant they could no longer do so. They thus asserted a moral-economic right to social inclusion and an ensuing right to receive adequate, non-stigmatised, and non-punitive welfare. These moral-economic claims differ from other, more public, counter-narratives to welfare reform and government austerity, and they assert a clear but subtle opposition to the market-bound logic of the reform