Bulldozed: Innovative Strategies for Addressing the Mental Health Consequences of Gentrification

A stick on its own is easily broken but if you put sticks in a bundle that bundle becomes very strong, so strong that you cannot break it. A spirit on its own can be easilybroken. But bundled together we will not break. That is our power and our strength. Malawian Prover

Voter Registration at Tax Time: Evidence of Efficacy, Approaches to Implementation

Voting rights are the bedrock of democracy, but in many parts of the country, those rights are being eroded. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, while 25 states have enacted laws to improve access to the ballot, 18 states have enacted 30 laws making it harder to vote.Policies encouraging citizens to register to vote when they file their income tax returns could play a crucial part in the protection and expansion of ballot access nationally. Properly implemented, voter registration at tax time has the capacity to augment existing ballot access policies and counteract or even reverse voter suppression policies as they apply to registration.The following report presents the results of two rounds of field experiments conducted during the 2018 and 2020 election cycles, that tested the efficacy of a program offering voter registration to lower-income people filing their income taxes through nonprofit Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites. It then reviews possible routes to broad implementation of tax-time voter registration through voluntary channels, at the state level, and via federal action

Are Gypsy Roma Traveller communities indigenous and would identification as such better address their public health needs?

Introduction: Across Europe large numbers of Gypsy Roma Traveller communities, experience significant health inequities such as higher morbidity, mortality and infant mortality. This health inequity is perpetuated by wider determinants such as lower social status, lower educational attainment and sub-standard accommodation. This is not dissimilar to other indigenous peoples, even though many Gypsy Roma Traveller communities are not identified as indigenous. Methods: This paper presents contemporary literature and research alongside the internationally agreed principles of indigenous peoples; examining similarities between Gypsy Roma Traveller communities and other indigenous peoples. Results: We argue that Gypsy Roma Traveller communities could be recognised as indigenous in terms of the internationally agreed principles of indigeneity as well as shared experiences of health inequity, colonisation and cultural genocide. Doing so would enable a more robust public health strategy and development of public health guidelines that take into account their cultural views and practices. Conclusion: Recognising Gypsy Roma Traveller communities in this way is important, especially concerning public health, as formal recognition of indigeneity provides certain rights and protection that can be used to develop appropriate public health strategies. Included within this are more nuanced approaches to promoting health, which focus on strengths and assets rather than deficit constructs that can perpetuate problematizing of these communities

You just had to put your big-girl pants on and get on with it

Judi Lee-Headman is one of only a handful of women at the very top of production sound mixing. She is hugely experienced, award-winning, and works on high-profile US and UK television dramas, like 'Homeland'. Her role involves recording and mixing the sound on set. What makes her even more unusual, is that she is a Black woman from Birmingham. In this edited interview Judi describes her career journey, and explains some of the challenges facing ethnically diverse workers in television production

Frocks and Powder Puffs

This article argues that the under-valuing of costume designers’ work in the US, identified by Miranda Banks, extended to women’s wider work in television craft departments, including costume, make-up and production design, in the BBC in the second half of the twentieth century. The study draws on oral history testimony from women working in BBC television in costume, make-up and production design departments from the 1950s to the 1990s. It explores the nature of their work and how they interacted with production and other departments. The work of these women was frequently under-appreciated and often went uncredited, when the programmes were transmitted. One production designer mentioned animosity towards women, with hostility from male colleagues in engineering, who felt they were taking men’s jobs. This was less the case in female gendered departments like costume and make-up. Instead, they were often seen as “a bit of a nuisance”, as they adjusted costumes just before the cameras rolled, with cameramen and directors wanting to get them out of shot. The roles these women undertook were complex, combining technical expertise with creative vision and management of resources and personnel. The nature of their contribution was often misunderstood as they strove to interpret the vision of the director bounded by the realities of what could be achieved. Working to tight production budgets they had to be resourceful and persuasive. Often, they were marginalised and not listened to. For instance, extensive plans the Head of Costume had drawn up when moving to a new broadcast centre were ignored. The facilities she was given were inadequate and impractical. The hours that were demanded of them were frequently exhausting. One costume designer talked of working a sequence of 21-hour days, whilst another explained how she and two colleagues had campaigned for a maximum 72 hour working week, with little backing from the union or management: a battle she eventually won. The long hours meant that combining motherhood with working in costume or design was hugely challenging; one of my interviewees remembered a colleague being told by her manager that she would have to leave after the birth of a child. Ironically, despite the privations and challenges these women faced, all had had long, and mostly satisfying, careers. They particularly enjoyed the collective endeavour across all departments to put on the best show they possibly could

Interview with David Waine (1944-2021) Head of Network Production Centre/Head of Broadcasting, BBC Pebble Mill, 1983-1994

David Waine was the Head of Network Production, and subsequently, Head of Broadcasting at BBC Pebble Mill from 1983 to 1994. He held the top job at Pebble Mill during a period of great significance for the BBC Nations and Regions, with competition from independent production becoming established and privatisation beginning to affect the working culture within the BBC. He focussed attention on four key areas of television programming, which are explored in this interview: daytime, leisure, drama and multicultural output. However, by the time he left, there were foreboding signs concerning the long-term future of the broadcast centre

An Improved Algorithm for Generating Database Transactions from Relational Algebra Specifications

Alloy is a lightweight modeling formalism based on relational algebra. In prior work with Fisler, Giannakopoulos, Krishnamurthi, and Yoo, we have presented a tool, Alchemy, that compiles Alloy specifications into implementations that execute against persistent databases. The foundation of Alchemy is an algorithm for rewriting relational algebra formulas into code for database transactions. In this paper we report on recent progress in improving the robustness and efficiency of this transformation

Towards a Formal Approach to Validating and Verifying Functional Design for Complex Safety Critical Systems

The quality and reliability of safety criticalsoftware systems are highly dependent on proper systemvalidation and verification. In model-driven softwaredevelopment, semi-formal notations are often used inrequirements capture. Though semi-formal notations possessadvantages, their major disadvantage is their imprecision. Atechnique to eliminate imprecision is to transform semi-formalmodels into an analyzable representation using formalspecification techniques (FSTs). With this approach to systemvalidation and verification, safety critical systems can bedeveloped more reliably. This work documents early experienceof applying FSTs on UML class diagrams as attributeconstraints, and pre- post-conditions on procedures. Thevalidation and verification of the requirements of a system tomonitor unmanned aerial vehicles in unrestricted airspace is theorigin of this work. The challenge is the development of a systemwith incomplete specifications; multiple conflicting stakeholders’interests; existence of a prototype system; the need forstandardized compliance, where validation and verification areparamount, which necessitates forward and reverse engineeringactivities

“Because we have really unique art”: Decolonizing Research with Indigenous Youth Using the Arts

Indigenous communities in Canada share a common history of colonial oppression. As a result, many Indigenous populations are disproportionately burdened with poor health outcomes, including HIV. Conventional public health approaches have not yet been successful in reversing this trend. For this study, a team of community- and university-based researchers came together to imagine new possibilities for health promotion with Indigenous youth. A strengths-based approach was taken that relied on using the energies and talents of Indigenous youth as a leadership resource. Art-making workshops were held in six different Indigenous communities across Canada in which youth could explore the links between community, culture, colonization, and HIV. Twenty artists and more than 85 youth participated in the workshops. Afterwards, youth participants reflected on their experiences in individual in-depth interviews. Youth participants viewed the process of making art as fun, participatory, and empowering; they felt that their art pieces instilled pride, conveyed information, raised awareness, and constituted a tangible achievement. Youth participants found that both the process and products of arts-based methods were important. Findings from this project support the notion that arts-based approaches to the development of HIV-prevention knowledge and Indigenous youth leadership are helping to involve a diverse cross-section of youth in a critical dialogue about health. Arts-based approaches represent one way to assist with decolonization for future generations