More than a Match: The Role of Football in Britain’s Deaf Community

The University of Central Lancashire has undertaken a major research project into the role of football within the deaf community in Britain. As well as reconstructing the long history of deaf involvement in football for the first time, the project has also focused on the way in which football has provided deaf people with a means of developing and maintaining social contacts within the community, and of expressing the community’s cultural values. This article will draw on primary data gathered from interviews conducted with people involved in deaf football in a variety of capacities. During the course of these interviews, a number of themes and issues emerged relating to the values and benefits those involved with deaf football place on the game, and it is these which are explored here

The Dematerialization Potential of the Australian Economy

In this paper we test the long term dematerialization potential for Australia in terms of materials, energy, and water use as well as CO2 emissions, by introducing concrete targets for major sectors. Major improvements in the construction and housing, transport and mobility, and food and nutrition sectors in the Australian economy, if coupled with significant reductions in the resource export sectors, would substantially improve the current material, energy and emission intensive pattern of Australia’s production and consumption system. Using the Australian Stocks and Flows framework we model all system interactions to understand the contributions of large scale changes in technology, infrastructure and lifestyle to decoupling the economy from the environment. The modelling shows a considerable reduction in natural resource use, while energy and water use decrease to a much lesser extent because a reduction in natural resource consumption creates a trade-off in energy use. It also shows that trade and economic growth may continue, but at a reduced rate compared with a business-as-usual scenario. The findings of our modelling are discussed in light of the large body of literature on dematerialization, eco-efficiency and rebound effects that may occur when efficiency is increased. We argue that Australia cannot rely on incremental efficiency gains but has to undergo a sustainability transition to achieve a low carbon future to keep in line with the international effort to avoid climate change and resource use conflicts. We touch upon the institutional changes that would be required to guide a sustainability transition in the Australian economy, such as, for instance, an emission trading scheme.dematerialization, physical accounting, stocks and flows, resource productivity, material flows, Australia

Additional measures of progress for Scotland : an analysis of the issues and problems associated with aggregate/composite measures of sustainability

the purpose of this paper is to consider the broad set of issues and problems associated with adopting aggregate measures of sustainability. We do this by first considering what we mean when we talk about 'sustainable development' in a policy context and the role that we want sustainability indicators to play. Two broad types of sustainability are identified and we argue that the role of sustainability indicators depends on which type we are concerned with. This also proves to have a bearing on many of the problems and issues commonly associated with composite or aggregate indicators. In order to consider these problems and issues systematically we initially abstract from examination of any specific candidate. Of course GDP is an aggregate measure, involving valuing output at prices that, in perfect markets, reflect the valuations of individuals. indicators. However, in the latter stages of the paper we illustrate our analysis with a number of candidate measures of sustainability

Speech intelligibility in multilingual spaces

No abstract available

Holistic facial composite systems: are they compatible with witness recall?

Facial composite systems offer a particular challenge to human-computer interaction as they must facilitate several cognitively complex tasks and also aid communication between the operator and the witness. This paper presents the findings from a survey conducted with UK police composite operators that explored some of the issues involved in composite construction. A particular emphasis was placed on the information that witnesses report and its compatibility with both the composite system interface and the underlying construction method used by the system

Fetal ultrasound measurements and associations with postnatal outcomes in infancy and childhood : a systematic review of an emerging literature

Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.Peer reviewedPostprin

Historical Calibration of a Water Account System

Models that are used for future based scenarios should be calibrated with historical water supply and use data. Historical water records in Australia are discontinuous, incomplete and often incongruently disaggregated. We present a systematic method to produce a coherent reconstruction of the historical provision and consumption of water in Victorian catchments. This is demonstrated using WAS: an accounting and simulation tool that tracks the stocks and flows of physical quantities relating to the water system. The WAS is also part of, and informed by, an integrated framework of stocks and flows calculators for simulating long-term interactions between other sectors of the physical economy. Both the WAS and related frameworks consider a wide scope of inputs regarding population, land use, energy and water. The physical history of the water sector is reconstructed by integrating water data with these information sources using a data modelling process that resolves conflicts and deduces missing information. The WAS allows strategic exploration of water and energy implications of scenarios of water sourcing, treatment, delivery and end use cognisant of historical records.water accounting, stocks and flows, historical time series, data modelling, calibration

A Water Accounting System for Strategic Water Management

This paper describes a water accounting system (WAS) that has been developed as an innovative new tool for strategic long-term water management. The WAS incorporates both disaggregated water use and availability, provides a comprehensive and consistent historical database, and can integrate climate and hydrological model outputs for the exploration of scenarios. It has been established and tested for the state of Victoria in Australia, and can be extended to cover other or all regions of Australia. The WAS is implemented using stock-and-flow dynamics, currently employing major river basins as the spatial units and a yearly time step. While this system shares features with system dynamics, learning is enhanced and strategic management of water resources is improved by application of a Design Approach and the structure of the WAS. We compare the WAS with other relevant accounting systems and outline its benefits, particularly the potential for resolving tensions between water supply and demand. Integrated management is facilitated by combination with other stocks and flows frameworks that provide data on key drivers such as demography, land-use and electricity production.water accounts, stocks and flows, water budgets, decision support systems, strategic management

The fetus or the infant : Which is the father of the man? (Both)

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