Beyond Legalism in Turbulent Times: Re-grounding UK Social Work in a Richer International Human Rights Perspective

Human rights have always been intrinsically woven into social work, but in the UK, often in a way that is either vague or wholly legalistic. In this article, we make a case for embedding a broader and richer concept of human rights in UK social work practice and education. We contrast the international social work perspective on human rights with that of UK professional codes and suggest that the narrow and uninterrogated conceptualisation of human rights in the UK may be acting as a barrier to UK social workers fully understanding and engaging with broader human rights agendas of the sort found in international practice. We argue for the merits of regrounding UK social work in this broader human rights concept, in which radical and emancipatory approaches can be underpinned by a common and unifying rights-orientated perspective. We make this argument, initially, in the context of the Human Rights Act 1998 remaining in UK law, which we see as entirely necessary for the protection of human rights in social work in the country, but insufficient for a broader, richer concept. We also, however, consider a scenario in which the Act is replaced by a British Bill of Rights and argue that such a development would present a further urgent need for embedding a broader human rights concept in UK social work. We close by setting out some of what such a concept might involve

Social work for critical peace: A comparative approach to understanding social work and political conflict

This paper uses a case study approach to explore issues of social work policy and practice in three sites of political conflict in Europe: Northern Ireland; Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Cyprus. It begins with a review of the international literature on social work and political conflict and then discusses the strengths and limitations in engaging with comparative case study approaches. The authors explain how they view the writing of the paper as an intellectual encounter that helped establish the beginning stages of their comparative analysis. This starts with an analysis of the existing knowledge base about the three case studies that each share similar patterns of colonial histories, political and community conflict and the social work response. The second part of the paper extends this analysis to a critique of the impact of neo-liberal social and economic policies that often adversely impact upon the role of social workers in resolving conflict and building peace. The paper concludes with an appeal for social work to rediscover its rights-based role in working with victims and survivors of political conflict, what the authors describe as: ‘social work for critical peace’

Clientelistic networks and local corruption: Evidence from Western Crete DIMITRIOS CHRISTOPOULOS

In this article, the attitudes and interaction of local political and business elites in western Crete are examined by means of an attitudinal survey, triangulated with data from in-depth interviews, conducted between July and October 1991. The data examined indicate that the endemic prevalence of clientelistic networks creates the background for corruption, although evidence of corrupt practice is not strong. In this analysis it is presumed that the attitudes and perceptions of key actors are affected by a definition of corruption that is relevant to their particular civil society alone. Data analyzed here suggest that local élite attitudes towards corruption are not perceived to affect the standards of conduct at the local level. It can also be deduced that if corruption is linked to the problems of administrative efficiency and economic development of the region, these can be related to vertical clientelistic networks with the national centre

Wind Power and Electricity Consumption Forecasting on a Smart House Location

Abstract. This paper presents the use of an artificial neural network for classification on a residence house that uses wind and electricity consumption predictions to identify patterns at the desired location, in order to obtain a stochastic distribution of the daily wind and electricity profile. This is a step on the further creation of a short-term operation model that allows determining the technical and economic impact of stationary/mobile batteries of electric vehicles in presence of microrenewables along with the electricity consumption. This short-term operation model will be in the day-ahead perfect market operation (unit commitment) where specific changes are made to consider stationary and mobile operation

Assessment for Carbon Capture and Storage Opportunities

The energy balance of greece is strongly dependent on imported oil. The rather late introduction of natural gas has increased the diversity of the energy mixture with the share of renewable sources still low and the need to increase according to the existing potential. Yet, greece as the most of the eu countries encounters a serious task: the need to increase its electricity production that increases 5% per year but at the same time to reduce the c02 emissions according with the national and international (20-20-20) regulations and plans. Therefore reducing c02 emissions has become a major priority for national government. Even more, from 2013 and onwards there will be the full implementation of the wholesale market in the european trading scheme (ets) which is currently in the last stages of a transition phase.in greece electricity is generated mainly from lignite thus making the electricity sector the main one for the ghg emissions with levels that are above 40% of the total in the country and more than the average of the corresponding ones of the rest of the eu countries. The possible implementation of the carbon capture and storage (ccs) technology would be able to become very important due mainly to the large use of the lignite as the major fuel on the energy mixture of the country. Ccs technology has the potential of increasing the flexibility on the achievement greenhouse gas emissions reduction by allowing the continuing use of fossil fuels, which still guarantees feasibility in the energy sector. This work presents a roadmap with the modeling of the main technologies associated to the ccs and their implementation into the greek energy system considering existing national and international strategic energy plans under different scenarios. The implementation of ccs technologies would have a large influence on the national electrical power production, having the responsibility for large shares of the emissions reduction that can potentially achieved in this sector. For this purpose, the times (integrated markal/efom system) has been chosen as the principal tool for building a technical-economic model of the greek energy system and its possible evaluation over time (2040)