'An Apotheosis of Well-Being': Durkheim on austerity and double-dip recessions

This article is an attempt to contribute a view on the economic crisis from classical sociology, a voice often missing from the sociological response to the crisis. The work of Émile Durkheim provides a unique perspective here centred on morality and inequality produced in a historical context akin to our neoliberal times. It is argued there are four key points to take from Durkheim’s work. Firstly, that the initial credit crunch can be more fully understood with reference to the economic anomie which Durkheim sees as ‘chronic’ in a time of marketization. Secondly, that this creates an antagonistic relationship between a supposedly self-dependent rich and lazy poor. Thirdly, this conception of self-dependency and individual initiative makes any attempt to regulate the economy akin to sacrilege. Finally, the state is unwilling to intervene due to the emergence of ‘pseudo-democracies’. Therefore, Durkheim’s theory accounts for the initial crisis, austerity and double-dip recessions in a sociological framework. The article concludes by returning to the centrality of morality to the crisis for Durkheim and highlighting the omission of this in contemporary debates

NUVA: A Naming Utterance Verifier for Aphasia Treatment

Anomia (word-finding difficulties) is the hallmark of aphasia, an acquired language disorder most commonly caused by stroke. Assessment of speech performance using picture naming tasks is a key method for both diagnosis and monitoring of responses to treatment interventions by people with aphasia (PWA). Currently, this assessment is conducted manually by speech and language therapists (SLT). Surprisingly, despite advancements in automatic speech recognition (ASR) and artificial intelligence with technologies like deep learning, research on developing automated systems for this task has been scarce. Here we present NUVA, an utterance verification system incorporating a deep learning element that classifies 'correct' versus' incorrect' naming attempts from aphasic stroke patients. When tested on eight native British-English speaking PWA the system's performance accuracy ranged between 83.6% to 93.6%, with a 10-fold cross-validation mean of 89.5%. This performance was not only significantly better than a baseline created for this study using one of the leading commercially available ASRs (Google speech-to-text service) but also comparable in some instances with two independent SLT ratings for the same dataset

More than one way to improve a CAT: Outcomes and reflections on two iterations of the Queen Square Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Programme

Background The field of human expert performance teaches us that high quality, high-dose guided practice is required to make large gains in cognitively driven acts. The same also seems to be true for people with acquired brain injury, yet therapy services for people with aphasia (PWA) have traditionally not been designed with this in mind. Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Programmes (ICAPs) are one way to address the chronic under-dosing of therapy that most PWA experience. Aims There are several ways to deliver an ICAP; here we describe two iterations of our Queen Square ICAP. There was a 20-month COVID-induced pause between the Year 1 (Y1) and Year 2 (Y2) ICAP groups. We analyse ICAP-induced changes in both groups of PWA on a series of key outcome measures that span the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, covering language impairment and function as well as mood and social participation. Methods & Procedures Forty-six PWA took part in Y1 and 44 in Y2. The PWA were all in the chronic stage post stroke and varied in aphasia severity from mild to severe, with the Y2 group being more impaired than Y1. Quantitative data was collected before and after the ICAP. The Y2 therapy team provided independent reflections on their experiences of delivering an ICAP. Outcomes & Results ICAP-related changes in outcome measures (impairment, function and goal attainment) were generally comparable for the Y1 and Y2 groups, with both groups’ speech production abilities improving the most. Both groups made clinically and statistically significant gains on the main quality of life measure. Participation in the ICAP made a big difference to PWAs’ self-confidence ratings. Their mood ratings also improved significantly, although they were not, on average, in the depressed range at baseline (directly pre-ICAP). All improvements achieved in both groups were maintained at the 3-month follow-up, highlighting the lasting effects that ICAPs can provide. Conclusions Evidence continues to accrue that ICAPs are an efficient way of increasing the dose of expert coaching required for people with chronic aphasia to make clinically meaningful improvements in their communicative abilities and quality of life. The main challenge remaining is convincing health-care providers to invest in them

Beyond capitalism and liberal democracy: on the relevance of GDH Cole’s sociological critique and alternative

This article argues for a return to the social thought of the often ignored early 20th-century English thinker GDH Cole. The authors contend that Cole combined a sociological critique of capitalism and liberal democracy with a well-developed alternative in his work on guild socialism bearing particular relevance to advanced capitalist societies. Both of these, with their focus on the limitations on ‘free communal service’ in associations and the inability of capitalism to yield emancipation in either production or consumption, are relevant to social theorists looking to understand, critique and contribute to the subversion of neoliberalism. Therefore, the authors suggest that Cole’s associational sociology, and the invitation it provides to think of formations beyond capitalism and liberal democracy, is a timely and valuable resource which should be returned to

Networked but Commodified: The (Dis)Embeddedness of Digital Labour in the Gig Economy

This article investigates the (dis)embeddedness of digital labour within the remote gig economy. We use interview and survey data to highlight how platform workers in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are normatively disembedded from social protections through a process of commodification. Normative disembeddedness leaves workers exposed to the vagaries of the external labour market due to an absence of labour regulations and rights. It also endangers social reproduction by limiting access to healthcare and requiring workers to engage in significant unpaid ‘work-for-labour’. However, we show that these workers are also simultaneously embedded within interpersonal networks of trust, which enable the work to be completed despite the low-trust nature of the gig economy. In bringing together the concepts of normative and network embeddedness, we reconnect the two sides of Polanyi’s thinking and demonstrate the value of an integrated understanding of Polanyi’s approach to embeddedness for understanding contemporary economic transformations

Welfare Reform, Precarity and the Re-Commodification of Labour

While welfare reform matters for workers and workplaces, it is peripheral in English-language sociology of work and industrial relations research. This article’s core proposition is that active labour market policies (ALMPs) are altering the institutional constitution of the labour market by intensifying market discipline within the workforce. This re-commodification effect is specified drawing on Marxism, comparative institutionalism, German-language sociology, and English-language social policy analysis. Because of administrative failures and employer discrimination, however, ALMPs may worsen precarity without achieving the stated goal of increasing labour-market participation

Transnational regulation of temporary agency work compromised partnership between Private Employment Agencies and Global Union Federations

This article critically assesses the potential for the international regulation of temporary agency work (TAW) through building partnership between the Global Union Federations (GUFs) and major Private Employment Agencies (PrEAs). Given the limits of existing national and international regulation of TAW, particularly in developing countries, and the current deadlock in dialogue through the International Labour Organization, the argument of this article is that Transnational Private Labour Regulation (TPLR) offers a unique opportunity to establish a basis for minimum standards for temporary agency workers. This article goes on to propose three potential TPLR frameworks that, although compromised, are transparent, fair and sufficiently elastic to accommodate the distributive and political risks associated with partnership. They also offer important gains, namely increasing the competitive advantage of the PrEAs involved, minimum standards for agency workers and ‘field enlarging’ strategies for the GUFs and their affiliates

The global subject of precarity

Peer reviewedPostprin

Understanding animal fears: a comparison of the cognitive vulnerability and harm-looming models

Background: The Cognitive Vulnerability Model holds that both clinical and sub-clinical manifestations of animal fears are a result of how an animal is perceived, and can be used to explain both individual differences in fear acquisition and the uneven distribution of fears in the population. This study looked at the association between fear of a number of animals and perceptions of the animals as uncontrollable, unpredictable, dangerous and disgusting. Also assessed were the perceived loomingness, prior familiarity, and negative evaluation of the animals as well as possible conditioning experiences. Methods: 162 first-year University students rated their fear and perceptions of four high-fear and four low-fear animals. Results: Perceptions of the animals as dangerous, disgusting and uncontrollable were significantly associated with fear of both high- and low-fear animals while perceptions of unpredictability were significantly associated with fear of high-fear animals. Conditioning experiences were unrelated to fear of any animals. In multiple regression analyses, loomingness did not account for a significant amount of the variance in fear beyond that accounted for by the cognitive vulnerability variables. However, the vulnerability variables accounted for between 20% and 51% of the variance in all animals fears beyond that accounted for by perceptions of the animals as looming. Perceptions of dangerousness, uncontrollability and unpredictability were highly predictive of the uneven distribution of animal fears. Conclusion: This study provides support for the Cognitive Vulnerability Model of the etiology of specific fears and phobias and brings into question the utility of the harm-looming model in explaining animal fearJason M Armfiel

Clinical effectiveness of usual care with or without antidepressant medication for primary care patients with minor or mild-major depression: a randomized equivalence trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Minor and mild-major depression are highly prevalent in primary care. There is insufficient evidence for the effectiveness of antidepressants in the treatment of minor and mild-major depression. We compared the effectiveness of usual primary care treatment, with or without antidepressants, in minor and mild-major depression.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A pragmatic patient-randomized equivalence trial with 52 weeks follow-up was conducted in The Netherlands. In total, 59 primary care physicians (PCPs) recruited and treated 181 adult patients with minor or mild-major depression. Patients were randomized to four consultations within 3 months of usual care plus antidepressants (UCandAD) or usual care alone (UCnoAD). The Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) was used to assess changes in severity of depressive symptoms. The predefined equivalence margin was set at five points. Multilevel analysis was used to analyze the data. Secondary outcome measures were the Short-Form 36 (SF-36), and the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Patients received on average 3.0 (SD 1.4) 15-min consultations within 3 months with (n = 85) or without paroxetine (n = 96). Equivalence of UCandAD and UCnoAD was demonstrated in the intention-to-treat analyses as well as the per-protocol analysis after 6 weeks, but not at 13, 26 and 52 weeks follow-up. No statistical differences in effectiveness between treatment groups were found in the intention-to-treat analysis. No differences in the physical and mental functioning (SF-36) were found between the treatment groups. Patients allocated to UCandAD were slightly more satisfied with their treatment at 13 weeks follow-up (but not at 52 weeks follow-up) than patients allocated to UCnoAD. Preliminary analyses suggested that subgroups such as patients with mild-major (instead of a minor) depression might benefit from antidepressant treatment. Patients who were assigned to their preferred treatment (in particular to UCnoAD) were more often compliant and had better clinical outcomes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>UCandAD was as effective as UCnoAD over the first 6 weeks, but not at 13, 26, and 52 weeks. However, superiority of either treatment could not be demonstrated either. The question whether antidepressants add any clinical effect to usual care remains unresolved. We recommend future studies to look for subgroups of patients who may benefit from antidepressants.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Dutch Trial Registry ISRCN03007807.</p