Justice must be seen to be done: organisational justice and the headscarf and burqa laws in France

This article discusses the 'affair of the headscarf' in France in 1989, its aftermath, the 2004 enactment of a secularism law forbidding students to wear visible religious signs in public schools, and the 2010 adoption of a law prohibiting the wearing of the burqa. The article examines these events and community responses to the two laws in the context of organisational justice, which looks at individual perceptions of whether organisational change is morally right or fair, and considers whether organisational justice theories may help to explain aspects of the affair of the headscarf and the issues surrounding the burqa

Submission to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee on the Human Rights Bill 2018

On 31 October 2018, the Human Rights Bill 2018 was introduced into the Queensland Parliament. The Bill is currently being considered by the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee which has issued a call for submissions. This submission, written by two legal academics at the University of Southern Queensland School of Law and Justice, draws upon their experience and scholarly background in human rights and civil liberties. Four distinct submissions are presented below

Meeting Report: Biomedical Research Conference

This meeting brought together staff from the Department of Life Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University and the 150 final-year BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science students taking the ‘Current Advances in Biomedical Science’ module led by Richard Jones. The module aimed to promote students’ career prospects and interest in exciting research through employability, studentship and biomedical research conference days at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in semester 2, 2014. The venue for all three conference days was the Mumford Theatre at ARU’s Cambridge Campus. The Mumford Theatre has excellent acoustics and normally hosts theatre companies. Knowledge accumulated during these days was assessed at the end of the module using a 1 hour written examination

Cenozoic evolution of the eastern Black Sea: a test of depth-dependent stretching models

Subsidence analysis of the eastern Black Sea basin suggests that the stratigraphy of this deep, extensional basin can be explained by a predominantly pure-shear stretching history. A strain-rate inversion method that assumes pure-shear extension obtains good fits between observed and predicted stratigraphy. A relatively pure-shear strain distribution is also obtained when a strain-rate inversion algorithm is applied that allows extension to vary with depth without assuming its existence or form. The timing of opening of the eastern Black Sea, which occupied a back-arc position during the closure of the Tethys Ocean, has also been a subject of intense debate; competing theories called for basin opening during the Jurassic, Cretaceous or Paleocene/Eocene. Our work suggests that extension likely continued into the early Cenozoic, in agreement with stratigraphic relationships onshore and with estimates for the timing of arc magmatism. Further basin deepening also appears to have occurred in the last 20 myr. This anomalous subsidence event is focused in the northern part of the basin and reaches its peak at 15–10 Ma. We suggest that this comparatively localized shortening is associated with the northward movement of the Arabian plate. We also explore the effects of paleowater depth and elastic thickness on the results. These parameters are controversial, particularly for deep-water basins and margins, but their estimation is a necessary step in any analysis of the tectonic subsidence record stored in stratigraphy. <br/

Visions of Sandown: Partner Report for Isle of Wight Council

The Feeling Towns project, in collaboration with officers at the Isle of Wight Council, explored the meaning and value of place, regeneration and the economy in Sandown. Research was undertaken in spring 2023, when different visions for Sandown were under discussion. We spoke with approximately 50 people using a variety of methods, including interviews and a facilitated creative worksho

Pride and Dorchester: Partner Report for Dorchester Town Council

The Feeling Towns project, in collaboration with officers at Dorchester Town Council, explored the meaning and value of pride, culture, heritage and the environment in Dorchester. Research was undertaken between February and June 2023, when local government and stakeholders sought to understand different strategic visions for the town and its resident communities. We undertook fieldwork, speaking with approximately 300 people using a variety of research methods, including interviews, fieldwork and facilitated creative workshops. We also undertook desk-based research, placing Dorchester’s cultural, heritage and digital strategy within a wider comparative context

Open Networking Lab: online practical learning of computer networking

Learning to configure computer networks is a topic requiring a substantial practical component and suggesting a pedagogic approach that foregrounds experiential learning. However, providing appropriate computer networking hardware is expensive for classroom labs, and is not viable for individual distance learners. Simulation offers an alternative basis for practical learning and supports a range of modes, from individual distance learning to in-class blended learning. Sophisticated network simulation packages, such as Cisco’s Packet Tracer, have high fidelity to networking devices and can simulate complex network scenarios. Unfortunately their complex interfaces make it difficult for a novice student to engage productively. The Open Networking Lab (ONL) will provide online resources for students of introductory computer networking. It will take an activity-centred approach, supported with video and screencasts, in preference to lengthy text. Practical activity is based on PT Anywhere, a network simulator that provides students with an easy-to-use, browser-based interface over Cisco’s Packet Tracer. PT Anywhere thus provides fully authentic simulation but, by only revealing a subset of features, supports a carefully scaffolded approach to teaching and learning. We report at an early stage in the development of the ONL. Material is being piloted with students at UK Further Education colleges. Evaluation will include observation, surveys and interviews with students and staff; PT Anywhere also provides learning analytics. A further stage of development will culminate in a badged open course on the Open University’s OpenLearn platform. The ONL will provide vocational learning at scale in educational institutions, employment contexts and for individual learners

Suicidal students' use of and attitudes to primary care prevention services

Aim The aims of this study were to improve responses to students in distress and who are feeling suicidal, to help practitioners to increase their responsiveness to those at high risk of suicide and to develop effective responses to those affected by their deaths. The study sought to build a detailed picture of students’ patterns of service use. Background National suicide prevention strategies emphasise that suicide prevention requires the collaboration of a wide range of organisations. Among these, primary care services play a key role in relation to suicide prevention for young people in crisis. Methods This study, undertaken between 2004 and 2007, focused on 20 case studies of student suicide that took place in the United Kingdom between May 2000 and June 2005. It adopted a psychological autopsy approach to learn from a wide range of informants, including parents, friends, university staff and the records of coroners or procurator fiscals. Twenty families gave permission for their son’s or daughter’s death to be included in the study and agreed to participate in the study. Informants were interviewed in person and the data were analysed thematically. Analysis of the case study data suggested that in a number of cases students had failed to engage with services sufficiently early or in sufficient depth. Primary care practitioners need to be proactive in communicating concerns about vulnerable students to student support services. At local levels, collaboration between student support and National Health Service practitioners varied considerably and channels of communication need to be developed

Recapture or precapture? Fallibility of standard capture-recapture methods in the presence of referrals between sources.

Capture-recapture methods, largely developed in ecology, are now commonly used in epidemiology to adjust for incomplete registries and to estimate the size of difficult-to-reach populations such as problem drug users. Overlapping lists of individuals in the target population, taken from administrative data sources, are considered analogous to overlapping "captures" of animals. Log-linear models, incorporating interaction terms to account for dependencies between sources, are used to predict the number of unobserved individuals and, hence, the total population size. A standard assumption to ensure parameter identifiability is that the highest-order interaction term is 0. We demonstrate that, when individuals are referred directly between sources, this assumption will often be violated, and the standard modeling approach may lead to seriously biased estimates. We refer to such individuals as having been "precaptured," rather than truly recaptured. Although sometimes an alternative identifiable log-linear model could accommodate the referral structure, this will not always be the case. Further, multiple plausible models may fit the data equally well but provide widely varying estimates of the population size. We demonstrate an alternative modeling approach, based on an interpretable parameterization and driven by careful consideration of the relationships between the sources, and we make recommendations for capture-recapture in practice