Methodological Triangulation at the Bank of England:An Investigation

This paper investigates the extent to which triangulation takes place within the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) process at the Bank of England. Triangulation is at its most basic, the mixing of two or more methods, investigators, theories, methodologies or data in a single investigation. More specifically, we argue for triangulation as a commitment in research design to the mixing of methods in the act of inference. The paper argues that there are many motivations for triangulation as well as types of triangulation. It is argued that there is evidence of extensive triangulation of different types within the MPC process. However, there is very little theoretical triangulation present; raising concerns about pluralism. Also, it is argued that the triangulation which occurs is mainly undertaken for pragmatic reasons and does not reflect other, coherent ontological and epistemological positions.

Participation, Spectatorship and Media Coverage in Sport

This article considers the relationship between active participation in sport, sports spectatorship and television viewing habits using data from the 2005 DCMS Taking Part Survey. We find robust evidence that participation and sports spectatorship are symbiotically linked. In contrast, increase TV viewing per se leads to a reduction in participation.spectator demand; sporting participation; count models

Trust, Trustworthiness, Relational Goods and Social Capital: A Cross-Country Economic Analysis

For a sample of 34 countries, this paper examines the impact that relational goods have on trust and, more specifically, trustworthiness; that is the degree of trust placed in others. Relational goods emanate from social interactions, which can be viewed as underpinning the development of social capital in the sense of helping to form trust in society. The relational goods examined comprise both informal activities such as meeting with family and friends, as well as more formal but voluntary association connected with participation in cultural, political, civic, sport and religious organisations. As the measure of trust comprises an ordered variable, a variety of ordered estimators are applied to the data, including attempts to account for the country-specific grouping of observation and, as a consequence, unobserved heterogeneity. The results suggest that whilst informal relational activities tend to generate trustworthiness, consistent with the concept of ‘thick’ trust, along with cultural and civic association and frequent political association, there is less evidence that sports does. In addition, the results suggest that religious association can actually reduce trustworthiness along with less frequent political association. Therefore, the results suggest, that it is the type and frequency of associational activity that contributes to the development of trustworthiness, rather than its existence per se.Trust, relational goods, social capital

Interrogating sustainable productivism: lessons from the ‘Almerían miracle’

Many have suggested that a new form of sustainable agricultural productivism is needed in response to the challenges to food security posed by climate change and population growth. This paper employs elements of ecological modernisation theory and focusses on sustainability challenges and solutions, as well as the knowledge networks and production rationale to assess whether the intensive horticultural industry located in the Spanish province of Almería represents sustainable productivism. The Almerían horticultural industry, lauded as an example of neo-endogenous growth, manifests a range of sustainable technologies addressing environmental impacts. Yet, we argue that Almerían horticulture represents ‘weak ecological modernisation’ and its main sustainability challenges are posed by water scarcity, a demand led production rationale and the precarious situation of family farms that at present provide a degree of economic embeddedness in this highly industrialised production model. A competitive imperative yields marketing organisations huge sway in production decision-making, and while a cost-price squeeze has driven efficiency in the use of farm inputs and product innovation, it has paradoxically made further advances in sustainable water management very difficult to achieve. Transforming the Almerían horticultural industry into a truly sustainable model of productivism would require the concerted efforts of individual farmers and marketing organisations as well as regional and local water governance institutions and land use planning. A significant obstacle to this remains the dominant normative perception that justifies groundwater abstraction on the grounds of its high economic returns and the perceived inability of small farmers to invest in desalinated water or further technological solutions

A universal relationship between magnetization and local structure changes below the ferromagnetic transition in La_{1-x}Ca_xMnO_3; evidence for magnetic dimers

We present extensive X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS) measurements on La_{1-x}Ca_xMnO_3 as a function of B-field (to 11T) and Ca concentration, x (21-45%). These results reveal local structure changes (associated with polaron formation) that depend only on the magnetization for a given sample, irrespective of whether the magnetization is achieved through a decrease in temperature or an applied magnetic field. Furthermore, the relationship between local structure and magnetization depends on the hole doping. A model is proposed in which a filamentary magnetization initially develops via the aggregation of pairs of Mn atoms involving a hole and an electron site. These pairs have little distortion and it is likely that they pre-form at temperatures above T_c.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures (1 with 2 parts) -- v2. new data added (updated figures); discussion expande

Heterogeneous Sports Participation and Labour Market Outcomes in England

Based on a unique composite dataset measuring heterogeneous sports participation, labour market outcomes and local facilities provision, this paper examines for the first time the association between different types of sports participation on employment and earnings in England. Clear associations between labour market outcomes and sports participation are established through matching estimation whilst controlling for some important confounding factors. The results suggest a link between different types of sports participation to initial access to employment and then higher income opportunities with ageing. However, these vary between the genders and across sports. Specifically, the results suggest that team sports contribute most to employability, but that this varies by age across genders and that outdoor activities contribute most towards higher incomes

Heterogeneous Sports Participation and Labour Market Outcomes in England

Based on a unique composite dataset measuring heterogeneous sports participation, labour market outcomes and local facilities provision, this paper examines for the first time the association between different types of sports participation on employment and earnings in England. Clear associations between labour market outcomes and sports participation are established through matching estimation whilst controlling for some important confounding factors. The results suggest a link between different types of sports participation to initial access to employment and then higher income opportunities with ageing. However, these vary between the genders and across sports. Specifically, the results suggest that team sports contribute most to employability, but that this varies by age across genders and that outdoor activities contribute most towards higher incomes

Interrogating sustainable productivism: lessons from the ‘Almerían miracle’

Many have suggested that a new form of sustainable agricultural productivism is needed in response to the challenges to food security posed by climate change and population growth. This paper employs elements of ecological modernisation theory and focusses on sustainability challenges and solutions, as well as the knowledge networks and production rationale to assess whether the intensive horticultural industry located in the Spanish province of Almería represents sustainable productivism. The Almerían horticultural industry, lauded as an example of neo-endogenous growth, manifests a range of sustainable technologies addressing environmental impacts. Yet, we argue that Almerían horticulture represents ‘weak ecological modernisation’ and its main sustainability challenges are posed by water scarcity, a demand led production rationale and the precarious situation of family farms that at present provide a degree of economic embeddedness in this highly industrialised production model. A competitive imperative yields marketing organisations huge sway in production decision-making, and while a cost-price squeeze has driven efficiency in the use of farm inputs and product innovation, it has paradoxically made further advances in sustainable water management very difficult to achieve. Transforming the Almerían horticultural industry into a truly sustainable model of productivism would require the concerted efforts of individual farmers and marketing organisations as well as regional and local water governance institutions and land use planning. A significant obstacle to this remains the dominant normative perception that justifies groundwater abstraction on the grounds of its high economic returns and the perceived inability of small farmers to invest in desalinated water or further technological solutions

An investigation into talent identification and development in English Netball

The Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy (ISLP) at Loughborough University was pleased to respond to a request by Cathy Partridge, Regional Talent Officer for the East Midlands, and Kelly Parkyn, Talent Manager for England Netball, to investigate talent identification and development in netball. The context of the evaluation is the recent change in Sport England’s strategy from a policy of Long-term Athlete Development (LTAD) to one in which National Governing Bodies and sports clubs will be charged with ensuring that they Grow participation in their sport, that they Sustain participation in their sport and also to ensure that talent progresses to an elite level, that is Excel

The AeroSonicDB (YPAD-0523) Dataset for Acoustic Detection and Classification of Aircraft

The time and expense required to collect and label audio data has been a prohibitive factor in the availability of domain specific audio datasets. As the predictive specificity of a classifier depends on the specificity of the labels it is trained on, it follows that finely-labelled datasets are crucial for advances in machine learning. Aiming to stimulate progress in the field of machine listening, this paper introduces AeroSonicDB (YPAD-0523), a dataset of low-flying aircraft sounds for training acoustic detection and classification systems. This paper describes the method of exploiting ADS-B radio transmissions to passively collect and label audio samples. Provides a summary of the collated dataset. Presents baseline results from three binary classification models, then discusses the limitations of the current dataset and its future potential. The dataset contains 625 aircraft recordings ranging in event duration from 18 to 60 seconds, for a total of 8.87 hours of aircraft audio. These 625 samples feature 301 unique aircraft, each of which are supplied with 14 supplementary (non-acoustic) labels to describe the aircraft. The dataset also contains 3.52 hours of ambient background audio ("silence"), as a means to distinguish aircraft noise from other local environmental noises. Additionally, 6 hours of urban soundscape recordings (with aircraft annotations) are included as an ancillary method for evaluating model performance, and to provide a testing ground for real-time applications