We need a minimum standard of living for all citizens if we wish to achieve community cohesion

Many debates about welfare policy rest on implicit or explicit claims about the social ramifications of welfare spending. Matthew Donoghue suggests that community cohesion is a crucial issue to be considered as part of such debates. He argues that individual autonomy, ensured by a minimum standard of living, stands as a necessary condition for community cohesion

When rhetoric does not translate to reality: hardship, empowerment and the third sector in Austerity Localism

© The Author(s) 2018Austerity localism powerfully explains dynamics of (dis)empowerment at the local level, especially regarding the autonomy and accountability of local authorities and third sector organisations (TSOs) in the UK. Yet these dynamics at institutional level have also a clear impact on individuals, especially the socio-economically vulnerable. This is especially true in a time of cost-containment and welfare retrenchment. This article addresses a gap in the literature by focusing not only on TSOs but also on the experiences of vulnerable individuals under austerity localism. The discussion is centred on two types of TSOs: foodbanks and advice/advocacy organisations. Drawing upon primary qualitative data from three locations in England and Wales, the article argues that the emphatic rhetoric of empowerment within austerity localism, which others have shown to be problematic at the institutional level, does not translate into real-world empowerment for service users and other vulnerable individuals. In making the argument the article contributes to work on expanding the analytical scope of austerity localism, as well as further exploring the roles and prospects of TSOs in the current long period of austerity in the UK.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Socio-economic practices of households coping with hardship

© 2020 The Author(s) and Editor(s). All rights reserved. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This is the accepted manuscript version of a book chapter which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788973205.00016Top-down responses to major shocks have been of major interest to social scientists and they contributed to our understanding of restructuring, transformation and development. Research into socio-economic practices of families in times of crises, on the other hand, can help us to develop bottom-up approaches of resilience that are sensitised for the impacts of macro policies on households. This chapter examines the socio-economic practices of households in the context of the 2008 crisis and the Great Recession in Europe. The framework of analysis focuses on assets and resources, income generation and cost management. The case study findings show that despite some variation, efforts for containing cost of living has been the most prominent household response across Europe. Welfare benefits stand out as the most relevant baseline for social resilience against unpredicted shocks such as the 2008 crisis as well as the ordinary ups and downs related to unemployment

Structural Foundations of Social Resilience

© 2020 Cambridge University Press. This paper has been accepted for publication and will appear in a revised form, subsequent to peer-review and/or editorial input by Cambridge University Press. This manuscript is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial No-Derivatives License (CC-BY-NC-ND). For further information please see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This article aims to contribute to the theoretical development of the social resilience approach. Recognising the interface between resilience and poverty studies, it proposes a distinct role for resilience research from a critical perspective to understand the dynamics of hardship in exceptional times, such as times of socio-economic crises, rather than explaining the long-term trajectories of poverty. It then provides a conceptual framework on the structural foundations of social resilience, highlighting three components: rules, resources and power relations. The article uses the 2008 crisis and the ensuing period of austerity as a microcosm to place the discussion within a contemporary context.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Critical perspectives on resilience

© 2020 The Author(s) and Editor(s). All rights reserved. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This is the accepted manuscript version of a book chapter which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788973205.00014This chapter aims to contribute to the critical discussion of the concept of resilience and its pertinence and usefulness to contexts of socioeconomic hardship. Starting from an approach that contrasts the poverty studies literature to the resilience approaches literature in the context of the debt crisis in Europe, it proposes to develop a distinct approach to social resilience research. The objective is to provide a framework to study the responses from individuals and families to socioeconomic shocks and the processes of survival and adaptation in contexts of hardship. This conceptualization is anchored in strong social foundations - covering the political, the institutional and the economical dimensions -, leading to a critical perspective focused on resilience as a social phenomenon shaped by social structure and the natural environment. This chapter draws on shared research findings, both in terms of empirical data and theoretical development

Resilience, Agency and Coping with Hardship : Evidence from Europe during the Great Recession

© Cambridge University Press 2018This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on resilience by focusing on coping with hardship during the Great Recession, drawing upon primary data gathered through household and key informant interviews in nine European countries. As the resilience approach highlights agency, the paper examines the nature of household responses to hardship during this period on the basis of the ‘structure-agency problem’. An important contribution of this paper is to identify different forms of agency and discuss their implications. More specifically, we conceptualise three different types of agency in coping with hardship: absorptive, adaptive and transformative. Analysis of the findings indicates that structural constraints remain prominent. Most coping mechanisms fall under the category of absorptive and adaptive agency characterised here as burden-bearing actions that ‘conform’ to changing circumstances rather than shaping those circumstances.Peer reviewe

Photoreceptors generate neuronal diversity in their target field through a Hedgehog morphogen gradient in Drosophila

Defining the origin of neuronal diversity is a major challenge in developmental neurobiology. The Drosophila visual system is an excellent paradigm to study how cellular diversity is generated. Photoreceptors from the eye disc grow their axons into the optic lobe and secrete Hedgehog (Hh) to induce the lamina, such that for every unit eye there is a corresponding lamina unit made up of post-mitotic precursors stacked into columns. Each differentiated column contains five lamina neuron types (L1-L5), making it the simplest neuropil in the optic lobe, yet how this diversity is generated was unknown. Here, we found that Hh pathway activity is graded along the distal-proximal axis of lamina columns and further determined that this gradient in pathway activity arises from a gradient of Hh ligand. We manipulated Hh pathway activity cell-autonomously in lamina precursors and non-cell autonomously by inactivating the Hh ligand, and by knocking it down in photoreceptors. These manipulations showed that different thresholds of activity specify unique cell identities, with more proximal cell types specified in response to progressively lower Hh levels. Thus, our data establish that Hh acts as a morphogen to pattern the lamina. Although, this is the first such report during Drosophila nervous system development, our work uncovers a remarkable similarity with the vertebrate neural tube, which is patterned by Sonic Hedgehog. Altogether, we show that differentiating neurons can regulate the neuronal diversity of their distant target fields through morphogen gradients

The identification of mitochondrial DNA variants in glioblastoma multiforme

Background: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) encodes key proteins of the electron transfer chain (ETC), which produces ATP through oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and is essential for cells to perform specialised functions. Tumor-initiating cells use aerobic glycolysis, a combination of glycolysis and low levels of OXPHOS, to promote rapid cell proliferation and tumor growth. Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is an aggressively malignant brain tumor and mitochondria have been proposed to play a vital role in GBM tumorigenesis. Results: Using next generation sequencing and high resolution melt analysis, we identified a large number of mtDNA variants within coding and non-coding regions of GBM cell lines and predicted their disease-causing potential through in silico modeling. The frequency of variants was greatest in the D-loop and origin of light strand replication in non-coding regions. ND6 was the most susceptible coding gene to mutation whilst ND4 had the highest frequency of mutation. Both genes encode subunits of complex I of the ETC. These variants were not detected in unaffected brain samples and many have not been previously reported. Depletion of HSR-GBM1 cells to varying degrees of their mtDNA followed by transplantation into immunedeficient mice resulted in the repopulation of the same variants during tumorigenesis. Likewise, de novo variants identified in other GBM cell lines were also incorporated. Nevertheless, ND4 and ND6 were still the most affected genes. We confirmed the presence of these variants in high grade gliomas. Conclusions: These novel variants contribute to GBM by rendering the ETC. partially dysfunctional. This restricts metabolism to anaerobic glycolysis and promotes cell proliferation

Evolution of the calcium-based intracellular signalling system

To progress our understanding of molecular evolution from a collection of well-studied genes toward the level of the cell, we must consider whole systems. Here, we reveal the evolution of an important intracellular signaling system. The calcium-signaling toolkit is made up of different multidomain proteins that have undergone duplication, recombination, sequence divergence, and selection. The picture of evolution, considering the repertoire of proteins in the toolkit of both extant organisms and ancestors, is radically different from that of other systems. In eukaryotes, the repertoire increased in both abundance and diversity at a far greater rate than general genomic expansion. We describe how calcium-based intracellular signaling evolution differs not only in rate but in nature, and how this correlates with the disparity of plants and animals