Spatial Divisions of Welfare: The Geography of Welfare Benefit Expenditure and Housing Benefit in Britain

This paper examines the structure of state welfare expenditure in Britain. It argues that the geography of state welfare expenditure and its impacts have been relatively neglected given their importance in terms of state expenditure, regional distribution and spatial equality. It shows that welfare spending is a key component of government expenditure and that it has a distinct regional and local geography. It shows that there are distinct differences in the geographical incidence of different welfare benefits some of which function to redistribute income from the South to the North of Britain and it focuses on the geography of housing benefit as an example of what has been termed ‘spatial divisions of Welfare’

Economic and social change and inequality in global cities: the case of London

No abstract (available).

Les aveugles et l'éléphant : l'explication de la gentrification

Dans ce texte sont présentées les principales théories sur la gentrification proposées au cours de la dernière décennie, ainsi que le débat qui s'est développé autour d'elles. La gentrification a fait l'objet de nombreuses polémiques, parce qu'il s'agit d'un des champs de bataille théoriques les plus importants en géographie humaine, qui met en lumière les oppositions entre structure et action, production et consommation, capital et culture, offre et demande. Mais chacune des deux grandes explications qui ont été avancées pour rendre compte du processus de gentrification est une explication partielle, nécessaire mais non suffisante. Une explication complète de la gentrification doit à la fois tenir compte de la production des quartiers dévalorisés et de logements dégradés, et de la production de gentrifieurs et de leurs modes spécifiques de consommation et de reproduction.The blind men and the elephants : the explanation of gentrification This paper critically reviews the major theories of gentrification which have emerged over the last 10 years and the debate which has surrounded them. It argues the reason why the gentrification debate has attracted so much interest, and has been so hard fought, is that is one of key theoretical battlegrounds of contemporary human geography which highlights the arguments between structure and agency, production and consumption, capital and culture, and supply and demand. It also argues that each of the two major explanations which have been advanced to account for gentrifrication (the rent gap and the production of gentrifiers) is a partial explanation necessary but not sufficient. Finally, it argues that an integrated explanation for gentrification must involve both explanation of the production of devalued areas and housing and the production of gentrifiers and their specific consumption and reproduction patterns

The Regeneration Games: Commodities, Gifts and the Economics of London 2012

This paper considers contradictions between two concurrent and tacit conceptions of the Olympic ‘legacy’, setting out one conception that understands the games and their legacies as gifts alongside and as counterpoint to the prevailing discourse, which conceives Olympic assets as commodities. The paper critically examines press and governmental discussion of legacy, in order to locate these in the context of a wider perspective contrasting ‘gift’ and ‘commodity’ Olympics – setting anthropological conceptions of gift-based sociality as a necessary supplement to contractual and dis-embedded socioeconomic organizational assumptions underpinning the commodity Olympics. Costbenefit planning is central to modern city building and mega-event delivery. The paper considers the insufficiency of this approach as the exclusive paradigm within which to frame and manage a dynamic socio-economic and cultural legacy arising from the 2012 games

The impact of immediate breast reconstruction on the time to delivery of adjuvant therapy: the iBRA-2 study

Background: Immediate breast reconstruction (IBR) is routinely offered to improve quality-of-life for women requiring mastectomy, but there are concerns that more complex surgery may delay adjuvant oncological treatments and compromise long-term outcomes. High-quality evidence is lacking. The iBRA-2 study aimed to investigate the impact of IBR on time to adjuvant therapy. Methods: Consecutive women undergoing mastectomy ± IBR for breast cancer July–December, 2016 were included. Patient demographics, operative, oncological and complication data were collected. Time from last definitive cancer surgery to first adjuvant treatment for patients undergoing mastectomy ± IBR were compared and risk factors associated with delays explored. Results: A total of 2540 patients were recruited from 76 centres; 1008 (39.7%) underwent IBR (implant-only [n = 675, 26.6%]; pedicled flaps [n = 105,4.1%] and free-flaps [n = 228, 8.9%]). Complications requiring re-admission or re-operation were significantly more common in patients undergoing IBR than those receiving mastectomy. Adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy was required by 1235 (48.6%) patients. No clinically significant differences were seen in time to adjuvant therapy between patient groups but major complications irrespective of surgery received were significantly associated with treatment delays. Conclusions: IBR does not result in clinically significant delays to adjuvant therapy, but post-operative complications are associated with treatment delays. Strategies to minimise complications, including careful patient selection, are required to improve outcomes for patients

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements