How participation in Covid‐19 mutual aid groups affects subjective well‐being and how political identity moderates these effects

Mutual aid groups have flourished during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, a major challenge is sustaining such groups, which tend to decline following the initial upsurge immediately after emergencies. The present study investigates one possible motivation for continued participation: the well-being benefits associated with psychological membership of groups, as suggested by the “social cure” approach. Interviews were conducted with 11 volunteers in a mutual aid group organized by ACORN, a community union and anti-poverty campaigning organization. Through qualitative analysis, we show that participation provided well-being in different ways: positive emotional experiences, increased engagement in life, improved social relationships, and greater sense of control. Participants also reported some negative emotional experiences. While all interviewees experienced benefits from participation, those who viewed their participation through a political lens were able to experience additional benefits such as feelings of empowerment. Moreover, the benefits conferred by a shared political identity appeared to be qualitatively different from the benefits conferred by other forms of shared identity. The interview data is used to hypothesize an overall process by which participants may come to attain a political identity via mutual aid. These findings have implications for how such groups retain their members and how authorities support these groups

What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering in the UK? A rapid review of the literature.

Background Community engagement and volunteering are essential for the public response to COVID-19. Since March 2020 a large number of people in the UK have been regularly doing unpaid activities to benefit others besides their close relatives. Although most mutual aid groups emerged from local neighbourhoods and communities, official public institutions also fostered community volunteering, namely through the community champions scheme. By considering a broad definition of COVID-19 volunteering, this article describes a systematic review of the literature focused on one broad question: What have we learned about COVID-19 volunteering both at the UK national level and the more local community level? Methods A rapid review of the literature in peer-reviewed databases and grey literature was applied in our search, following the PRISMA principles. The search was conducted from 10 to 16 of October 2020, and sources were included on the basis of having been published between January and October 2020, focusing on COVID-19 and addressing community groups, volunteering groups, volunteers, or community champions in the UK. Results After initial screening, a total of 40 relevant sources were identified. From these, 27 were considered eligible. Findings suggest that food shopping and emotional support were the most common activities, but there were diverse models of organisation and coordination in COVID-19 volunteering. Additionally, community support groups seem to be adjusting their activities and scope of action to current needs and challenges. Volunteers were mostly women, middle-class, highly educated, and working-age people. Social networks and connections, local knowledge, and social trust were key dimensions associated with community organising and volunteering. Furthermore, despite the efforts of a few official public institutions and councils, there has been limited community engagement and collaboration with volunteering groups and other community-based organisations. Conclusions We identified important factors for fostering community engagement and COVID-19 volunteering as well as gaps in the current literature. We suggest that future research should be directed towards deepening knowledge on sustaining community engagement, collaboration and community participation over time, during and beyond this pandemic

Reception of climate activist messages by low-carbon transition actors: argument evasion in the carbon offsetting debate

How do adherents to hegemonic discourses construe and respond to radical arguments by activists? To address the question, we examined how adherents to hegemonic climate change discourses react to a climate activist’s arguments. In interviews conducted with corporate actors of low-carbon transitions, we used a video excerpt to elicit critical reactions to an activist’s argumentation on carbon offsetting. We used the critical reactions as an index of interviewees’ reception of the activist’s case and pragma-dialectical theory to analyze them. We found that interviewees advanced four types of criticism concerning individual agency, awareness-raising, neutralization, and financial instruments. We discuss their inter-relations and how interviewees construed the activist’s argumentation in ways that evaded his more antagonistic claims.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Congruences on monoids of order-preserving or order-reversing transformations on a finite chain

Glasgow Mathematical Journal, nº 47 (2005), pg. 413-424This paper is mainly dedicated to describing the congruences on certain monoids of transformations on a finite chain Xn with n elements. Namely, we consider the monoids ODn and PODn of all full, respectively partial, transformations on Xn that preserve or reverse the order, as well as the submonoid POn of PODn of all its order-preserving elements. The inverse monoid PODIn of all injective elements of PODn is also considered. We show that in POn any congruence is a Rees congruence, but this may not happen in the monoids ODn, PODIn and PODn. However in all these cases the congruences form a chain.This work was developed within the activities of Centro de ´Algebra da Universidade de Lisboa, supported by FCT and FEDER, within project POCTI ”Fundamental and Applied Algebra

Congruences on monoids of transformations preserving the orientation on a finite chain

Journal of Algebra, 321 (2009), p. 743–757Congruences on monoids of transformations preserving the orientation on a finite chai

The cardinal and the idempotent number of various monoids of transformations on a finite chain

Bulletin of the Malaysian Mathematical Sciences Society, 2, 34 (1),(2011), p. 79–85We consider various classes of monoids of transformations on a finite chain, in particular transformations that preserve or reverse either the order or the orientation. Being finite monoids we are naturally interested in computing both their cardinals and the number of their idempotents. In this note we present a short survey on these questions which have been approached by various authors and close the problem by computing the number of idempotents of those monoids not considered before. Fibonacci and Lucas numbers play an essential role in the last computations

Sources of Innovation: The Case of Portuguese Consultancy Sector

This study addresses the effects of external environments on types of innovation introduced by Portuguese consultancy firms (PCs) in computer, technical, and management areas. It distinguishes the most determinant factors for innovation regarding product, process, organization, and marketing. The assessment framework followed three steps: 1) evaluation of propensity to use external sources of information and cooperation with agents, 2) identification of factors used most often during innovation, and 3) derivation of profiles of firms under study. The method generated tree-based classification models that segmented the sample into innovative and non-innovative firms, and distinct profiles that emphasized specificities concerning use of external sources and agents for innovation

Soft skills and psychological well-being: A study on Italian urban and rural NEETs

Soft skills retain a certain importance in fully understanding the NEET phenomenon: however, only few researchers have focused on them specifically. The aim of this work is two-fold: a) to detect the differences in terms of soft skills and psychological well-being between urban and rural NEETs; and b) to evaluate which of the soft skills analysed may be predictors of psychological well-being. A sample of young 6998 18−34 years old representative of the Italian population was used. Although gender and educational attainment play a key role in determining NEET status, the degree of urbanisation must be considered because it appears to influence the well-being and perceived soft skills of a group of NEETs. The present study shows that females with low educational attainment residing in rural areas have lower levels of well-being than females with low educational attainment residing in urban areas. A similar influence exists in relation to one particular soft skill: positive vision. Furthermore, soft skills predict psychological well-being wherein degree of urbanisation and gender seems to play a determining role. Policies should, therefore, consider these issues in their design and implementation phases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Síndrome de Austrian: descrição de uma entidade excepcionalmente rara e mortal

Austrian Syndrome is the rare combination of a triad of endocarditis, meningitis, and pneumonia in the context of pneumococcal infection. Due to the involvement of several anatomical sites, the Austrian syndrome has a high mortality. Importantly, endocarditis is usually not considered during pneumococcal infection. We present a case of Austrian syndrome in a previously healthy 67-year-old woman. She featured with mental state alteration, respiratory failure, and shock, and was diagnosed with ceftriaxone-sensitive pneumococcal bacteremia, meningitis, and pneumonia. A transesophageal echocardiogram revealed vegetation of the mitral valve. Despite an improvement in her medical condition, she remained in a coma and died due to neurological complications. Even though the major cause of mortality in Austrian syndrome is cardiac involvement, meningitis is also linked with high morbidity and eventually death. We emphasize the relevance of an early diagnosis of the triad in order to decrease the very high mortality associated with this syndrome.A síndrome de Austrian é uma entidade extremamente rara, pautada por meningite, endocardite e pneumonia secundárias a doença pneumocócica invasiva. Devido à expressão multissistêmica, a mortalidade associada é elevada. Particularmente, a manifestação como endocardite é muitas vezes clinicamente insuspeita, carecendo de elevado índice de suspeita. Apresenta-se um caso de síndrome de Austrian numa doente do sexo feminino, 67 anos, previamente saudável. Clinicamente, apresentava coma, insuficiência respiratória e choque, tendo sido diagnosticada pneumonia e meningite, e com bacteremia a Streptococcus pneumoniae. Ecocardiograma transesofágico evidenciou uma vegetação na válvula mitral. Apesar da regressão do quadro respiratório, persistiu um quadro de coma, acabando a doente por morrer. Apesar da principal causa de morte descrita na síndrome de Austrian estar relacionada com complicações de endocardite, apresenta-se um caso único de apresentação e morte por meningite. Com poucos casos descritos mundialmente, sublinha-se a necessidade de um diagnóstico precoce desta tríade, motivo pelo qual relatamos o caso descrito