Daniel Eccleston of Lancaster 1745-1821: A Man not Afraid to Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

It is unusual for an historian to be able to establish in great detail the life of any but those considered one of \u27the great and the good\u27. The substantial amount of documentary sources, both by, and about, the Quaker radical Daniel Eccleston of Lancaster (1745-1821), provide an opportunity to view a turbulent period in British history through the experiences of one individual. The links between industrial and scientific advance, Nonconformity in religion and calls for political reform were growing increasingly common as the eighteenth century progressed. This paper attempts to show the centrality of Eccleston\u27s Quaker upbringing to his later political radicalisation. Although Eccleston was not an Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Paine or Richard Price, he was an Enlightenment radical, prepared to defend with his pen and a consequent loss of his liberty, the rights of the British to freedom of thought, speech, worship and writing

Selling hope:gambling entrepreneurs in Britain 1906–1960

This research explores historical perspectives on gambling amongst poorer social groups in order to better understand why the poorest people in society gamble even though gambling seems economically illogical. A principal finding was that pleasure gained from hope of a small win and the agency of making a choice on use of scarce resources may be important in helping poorer people maintain optimism in the face of difficult life circumstances. The paper also explores patterns of illegal gambling entrepreneurship that arose as a response to the desire of the masses to “buy a few days hope” (Orwell, 1937). The paper concludes that where public opinion is out of step with the statute book then an illegal economy will develop to provide the goods or services the public is demanding and that apparently irrational behavior may in fact be a positive experience for many people

Improving Sustainability and Encouraging Innovation in Traditional Craft Sectors:the Case of Sri Lankan Handloom Industry

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to assess sustainability across the handloom industry in Sri Lanka and identify opportunities for sustainable innovations supporting new markets, development of SMEs and growth in the Sri Lankan craft sector Design/Methodology/Approach – Using a multiple case studies methodology 10 case studies and 37 semi-structured interviews were analysed in conjunction with the triple-layered business model canvas. Findings- The study reveals the handloom industry to be fundamentally sustainable but with structural barriers hindering innovation and growth. The environmentally conscious production process and social inclusion within weaving communities are the key driving forces of sustainability in the sector but the structure of the industry and lack of access to markets and information act as barriers to innovation and growth. The incorporation of design interventions, closed-loop manufacturing strategies and the encouragement of community-based entrepreneurship would support sustainability orientated business innovation in the handloom industry. Originality/Value - The rapidly increasing market share for high-quality, hand-made goods indicates the potential of the creative industries to accelerate socio-economic growth. Handloom textiles is attracting growing interest in fashion markets, due to increasing concern about exploitation in production encouraging interest in the economic benefits of fairly traded, high quality materials, but also the potential contribution of handloom to sustainability in the fashion industry. The findings of this study will support the handloom industry and policy makers in developing support for sustainable innovation in the handloom industry

Gambling on debt:problem gamblers strategies for concealing deviant identities

Problem gamblers are not easy to identify, they do not overdose and present at hospital, they are not visibly drunk in the way people abusing alcohol might be. Thus problem gambling has been labelled ‘the hidden addiction’ (Ladoucer, 2004) a term which also illustrates how problem gamblers become adept at concealing their behaviour; that is, protecting their deviant identities and normalising their actions. Impacts from problem gambling on the wider family and community include the loss of access to money needed for housing, utilities and food, stress linked to the problem gambling of a family member (arguments about money, domestic violence), the social stigma of having a family member with problem gambling, and criminal activity committed by the problem gambler in order to access money for gambling (Orford et al 2012: 275; Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, 2010). The first UK Gambling and Debt study (Downs and Woolrych, 2010) provides evidence of the wider social impacts of problem gambling and considers the utility of sociological approaches to the understanding and management of problem gamblin

Mind the skills gap:the role of enterprise education in developing enterprise amongst socially marginalised groups

The Eliemental project is an EU-funded partnership across four countries and eight partners working to understand the impact of socio-cultural barriers on entrepreneurship amongst socially marginalised groups. The European Commission notes ‘Certain groups in society such as people from ethnic minorities face additional difficulties in trying to set up businesses’ and highlights the need for solutions to barriers to entrepreneurship (http://ow.ly/8Obz8).This paper will explore types of enterprise education required to help people overcome socio-cultural barriers and move towards self-employment. Working with diverse communities including Roma, recovering substance abusers, people experiencing mental and physical ill health, disabilities, long-term unemployed youth and migrants we identified a soft-skills gap and a range of impacts caused by shortfalls in soft skills that act as invisible barriers to enterprise. Our project has also taken an innovative participatory action approach to working in the communities where our target groups live, and have identified community access points which will become a focus for the delivery of mentoring and enterprise-readiness education and training. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of the potential for Eliemental to be adopted as a first-stage enterprise education intervention in a variety of settings

Rethinking reflective practice:John Boyd's OODA loop as an alternative to Kolb

The world is changing and business schools are struggling to keep up. Theories of reflective practice developed by the likes of Schon (1983), Gibbs (1988), Driscoll (1994, 2007) and Kolb (1984, 2015) are outdated and unfit for current purposes. Problems include the chronology of events, the orientation of the observer, the impact of external inputs, and the fact that neither education nor the workplace follow a structured, linear path. In response to these challenges, we propose a new ‘solution’: John Boyd’s OODA loop. We argue that OODA loops offer the chance to reshape reflective practice and work-based learning for a world in which individuals must cope with ‘an unfolding evolving reality that is uncertain, ever changing and unpredictable’ (Boyd, 1995, slide 1). By embracing the philosophy of John Boyd and his OODA loop theory, business schools can develop greater resilience and employability in graduates, preparing them to embrace change while also embedding the concept of life-long learning to make them better equipped to face the uncertainty that the modern world brings

The Paradox of Work-Placement Identity:Exploring the Challenges of Role Transition from Students to Interns in the Workplace

In this paper, we argue that identities often become destabilised and disrupted during macro-level transitions across organisational boundaries i.e. university to the placement organisation. This can lead to conflicts between the role of students, who remain enrolled with their university programme, and interns, who see themselves as student-practitioners. We aim to untangle the complex relationship between work and placement identities, often intertwined and taken-for-granted in work-based learning (WBL) arrangements (e.g. internships or placement programmes)

In-house deep environmental sentience for smart homecare solutions toward ageing society.

With an increasing amount of elderly people needing home care around the clock, care workers are not able to keep up with the demand of providing maximum support to those who require it. As medical costs of home care increase the quality is care suffering as a result of staff shortages, a solution is desperately needed to make the valuable care time of these workers more efficient. This paper proposes a system that is able to make use of the deep learning resources currently available to produce a base system that could provide a solution to many of the problems that care homes and staff face today. Transfer learning was conducted on a deep convolutional neural network to recognize common household objects was proposed. This system showed promising results with an accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 90.6%, 0.90977 and 0.99668 respectively. Real-time applications were also considered, with the system achieving a maximum speed of 19.6 FPS on an MSI GTX 1060 GPU with 4GB of VRAM allocated

Re-routing development in peripheral regions:exploiting anchor institution networks for micro/SME enterprise growth and innovation

Purpose This research explores the socio-cultural barriers to enterprise in economically disadvantaged communities across five countries: UK, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Design/methodology/approach Our EU-funded project took the form of community-based participatory action research (PAR). In this article, we focus on the data from our interviews and network mapping exercises. A total of 40 individual interviews took place, with interviewees from communities with entrenched disadvantage and limited opportunities for employment and education and low rates of business start-ups. Findings Our research shows that barriers to entrepreneurship can be overcome where a trusted representative (or ‘mediator’) can act as a bridge, facilitating access to new knowledge and networks. This approach can be used to support micro / SMEs for growth and innovation. In targeting these businesses, policy makers need to recognise the power imbalances between actors and take steps to overcome these, by establishing links with community-based mediators who can act as trusted interlocutors, enabling sustainable relationships to be developed. Originality This research targets many often hard-to-reach groups and offers insights into the lived experiences of those who often operate at the peripheries. In doing so, it shows how trusted individuals can be used to remove barriers and promote growth, making clear links between theory to practice

Are undergraduate internships worth the effort?:Time to reconceptualize work-based learning for building protean meta-competencies

Internships are widely recognized within higher education as a useful work-based learning (WBL) approach to enhance student employability. However there remains a need to understand whether internships provide a developmental experience that includes higher-level (soft) skills such as self-responsibility, flexibility and innovation. Our study inductively analyses 154 undergraduate student-interns’ reflective diaries over a three-year period to explore the relationship between internship experience and development of higher-level skills, or protean ‘meta-competencies’. In the research, we find the interns’ developed three meta-competencies that can broadly be categorized as: self-regulation, self-awareness and self-direction. Our findings also highlight the role of socio-political dynamics of internship work in shaping students' experiences as an indicator of the changing world of work. The study has implications for higher education institutions (HEIs) and host organisations in adopting a WBL approach that supports interns with reflexive engagement with situated organizational practices and accessing (in)formal learning opportunities in the workplace. Our research therefore offers insights into a learner-centred WBL approach that contributes towards a more holistic internship/WBL experience that facilitates student-interns in developing protean meta-competencies and graduate employability