Social Enterprise: Bridging the Gap between the Statutory and Third Sector

This article contributes to research of vulnerable communities and investigates the role of social enterprise created or saved from closure by social entrepreneurs affected personally by a life-changing event, in the context of stroke survival. Qualitative research is deployed to investigate the ways in which social enterprise supports survivors of stroke and their caregivers. Research analysis identifies start-up motives and challenges faced by social entrepreneurs and highlights how social enterprise can bridge the gap in support provision provided by the statutory and third sectors. Involvement in stroke clubs was found to be a key positive contributor to participants’ life after stroke. This study has found that those who become social entrepreneurs after a life-changing event exhibit altruistic behaviours, while engagement between these social enterprises and this vulnerable group created specific benefits for vulnerable individuals and their caregivers, highlighting the potential for social enterprise to bridge the gap between statutory and third sectors which is currently overlooked in existing policy provision. The article concludes by making detailed recommendations for future research in this context and for governments and policymakers

Le theme de l'absence dans le theatre d'Arthur Adamov

[From Introduction]. L'oeuvre dramatique d'Arthur Adamov (1908-1970) s'lténd sur une trentaine d'années et révèle une grande variété d'influences et d'intérêts. Depuis son point de départ "absurde" des années quarante en passant par une période oú s'imposent des préoccupations d'ordre social et politique pour aboutir á une fusion des sujets métaphysiques et des sujets engagés dans un théâtre qui est de nouveau non-réaliste et onirique, nous pouvons tracer des influences aussi diverses que celle provenant de Flaubert et des premiers surréalistes, de Strindberg et de Kafka, de Dostoîevsky et des expressionnistes russes et allemands, de Buchner, d'Antonin Artaud, de Brecht et de Karl Marx

Pelear por la Dignidad: La lucha de las mujeres trabajadoras sexuales voluntarias por derechos laborales en un clima estigmatizado políticamente / To Fight for Dignity: The fight of female voluntary sex workers for labor rights in a politically stigmatized climate

Argentina is a country with a rich history of social movements and popular mobilization. Currently, the issue of women’s equality is highly prevalent in the national and political dialogue. An area that is frequently referenced as a divide in the feminist movement is sex work. Argentina has adopted a series of laws and regulations that have created an ‘abolitionist’ political atmosphere, outlawing the sexual exploitation of individuals and persecuting ‘pimps’, per se. The politics surrounding sex work, on paper, are meant to eliminate human trafficking rings and lower the amount of victims exploited through trafficking. However, the application of the laws surrounding sex work in Argentina has homogenized the concept of sex work and created the image of female sex workers as victims of exploitation, which makes the sector of sex workers who voluntarily engage in the practice largely invisible. According to Ley 26.364 and Artículos 125, 125 bis, 126, and 127 in Argentina’s Código Penal, all sex work is considered to be a form of sexual exploitation and all those who identify as prostitutes are victims of sexual slavery. The laws and their application have adopted a victimizing narrative in order to homogenize sex work as one cohesive concept. The popular perception of sex workers is that of a fallen individual, either morally disgraceful or forced into exploitative labor practices. It is clear from the application of abolitionist laws that the current political atmosphere does not recognize sex work as a legitimate form of labor, due to the socially unaccepted sexual practices of female sex workers. These individuals embody a type of sexuality that is considered distasteful and disrespectful, for it goes against the norm of a married, child-bearing, motherly, monogamous woman. As a result of this stigma, there is no recognition of sex work as legitimate work, which leaves these women without economic, medical, or personal security. There are no laws which protect the rights of women who voluntarily choose to sell sexual services as a form of income. This lack of recognition means that these women are essentialized by the application of anti-trafficking laws, which paint female sex workers as victims and remove their agency, and also increase the likelihood for the experience of institutional violence. This project aims to deconstruct the political stigma that exists towards voluntary female sex work and how the current application of anti-trafficking laws has affected the livelihoods of individuals who identify as voluntary female sex workers. The evidence for this project is qualitatively drawn from personal interviews with academics about female sex work in Buenos Aires and with activists from the advocacy networks of AMMAR (Asociación de Mujeres Meretrices de la Argentina en Acción por Nuestros Derechos) and RedTraSex (Red de Mujeres Trabajadoras Sexuales de Latinoamérica y el Caribe). AMMAR and RedTraSex have created a connection with the Central de Trabajador@s Argentinos, and AMMAR has adopted the title of a formal labor union for voluntary female sex workers in Argentina. This project aims to analyze how the application of abolitionist politics by the state of Argentina have infringed on the human rights of voluntary female sex workers, and how female sex workers are creating strategies in order to combat the political stigma that exists. This project intends to reveal the intentional targeting by the state of voluntary sex workers, under the veil of abolitionist application of laws, in order to control and subvert the sexuality of women in Buenos Aires. The concepts of machista, patriarchal culture will be used as a method to examine the roots of current application of abolitionist politics, and the social stigma of female sexuality will be used to analyze why voluntary female sex workers suffer discrimination in the political sphere of Argentina. The analysis of these dimensions allows for an insight as to how the current laws surrounding sex work are essentializing and removing agency from an entire sector of workers who are being denied legal protections of economic rights in the Argentine economy as a result of their defiance of heteronormative sexuality

A Blended Value Proposition: Towards a Regional Sustainability Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Framework for the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE)

This extended abstract has been submitted for the Faculty of Business and Law Research Day 2022

Quantitative electrical imaging of slope moisture dynamics

PhD ThesisFuture climate change is likely to affect the factors which determine the stability of engineered slopes, which constitute a third of UK transport infrastructure. The cost of remediation works being approximately ten times that of preventative action, accurate methods of stability assessment are of increasing importance to stakeholders. Electrical resistivity tomography allows high resolution volumetric time-lapse imaging of subsurface resistivity distribution, which, combined with proxy relationships, offers the potential to quantitatively investigate slope moisture dynamics. Therefore, it is essential that the relationships between resistivity and the geotechnical parameters which impact slope stability (water content, suction and shear strength) are fully resolved, particularly where soils undergo significant cycles of drying and wetting, which progressively weaken fill material. This PhD thesis presents a study to establish these relationships for a remoulded clay taken from a purpose-built test embankment in Northumberland, United Kingdom. A rigorous, multi-scalar laboratory testing programme was combined with a three year geoelectrical field monitoring experiment, supported by a network of point sensors. To verify the resolution of the geoelectric method, the test site was subjected to series of hydrodynamic perturbations. To simulate seasonal effects, drying and wetting cycles were imposed on laboratory specimens. Results indicated an inverse power relationship between soil resistivity and water content, and showed the more conventional, two point method to over-estimate values due to the inclusion of contact resistances. Linear hysteretic relationships were established between undrained shear strength and water content, demonstrating suction loss between drying and wetting paths due to hysteretic soil water retention. Laboratory relationships were observed to evolve with ongoing seasonal cycling, due to soil fabric deterioration associated with drying beyond the continuity of the pore water phase. Trends observed in the laboratory were supported by images obtained from scanning electron microscopy. Waxman-Smits and Van Genuchten modelling parameters were applied to resistivity – water content and soil water retention curves respectively, defining proxy relationships which were then used to translate field resistivity data into estimates of both water content and suction. ii These images captured general seasonal trends in subsurface moisture processes, in response to sustained environmental conditions, allowing a structured hydrological model of the test embankment to be resolved. Localised damping of the geotechnical response was observed, as a function of depth, aspect and compaction. On a weekly scale, the development of near-surface cracks was captured during the summer months. Rainwater ingress following rapid rainfall events was investigated via daily time-lapse imaging, and highlighted seasonal differences in infiltration processes. Proxy-derived water content estimates compared very well with those measured using the point sensor network, both qualitatively and quantitatively, providing invaluable information on the dynamic moisture processes which precede slope failure, with particular reference to soil fabric deterioration. Ultimately, this thesis describes a methodology for translating ERT-derived resistivity data into information directly relevant to slope stability. It highlights the importance of considering soil water retention when estimating in situ soil suctions, employing a localised saturation history-based approach to account for spatial variation. The issue of ambiguity inherent to the nature of inverse theory is discussed, with suggestions for its minimisation, including the use of three- rather than two-dimensional resistivity data, temperature correction and correlation with point sensors. This methodology has been incorporated into a set of computer programmes which read in raw ERT data and automatically convert to geotechnical data, furthering the development of a fully-automated slope stability monitoring system

Evaluating the sensitivity, reproducibility and flexibility of a method to test hard shell capsules intended for use in dry powder inhalers

Pharmaceutical tests for hard shell capsules are designed for orally administered capsules. The use of capsules in dry powder inhalers is widespread and increasing and therefore more appropriate tests are required to ensure quality and determine if these capsules are fit for purpose. This study aims to determine the flexibility, reproducibility and sensitivity of a quantitative method that is designed to evaluate the puncture characteristics of different capsule shell formulations under different climatic conditions. A puncture testing method was used to generate force displacement curves for five capsule formulations that were stored and tested at two different temperatures (5 °C and 19 °C). Force-displacement puncture profiles were reproducible for individual capsule shell formulations. The methodology was able to discriminate between capsules produced using different primary materials i.e. gelatin versus hypromellose, as well as more minor changes to capsule formulation i.e. different material grades and excipients. Reduced temperature increased the forces required for capsule puncture however further work is required to confirm its significance. Results indicate the method provides a reproducible and sensitive means of evaluating capsule puncture. Future studies should validate the methodology at different test sites, using different operators and with different capsule shell formulations

Common Sense Reasoning for Detection, Prevention, and Mitigation of Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying (harassment on social networks) is widely recognized as a serious social problem, especially for adolescents. It is as much a threat to the viability of online social networks for youth today as spam once was to email in the early days of the Internet. Current work to tackle this problem has involved social and psychological studies on its prevalence as well as its negative effects on adolescents. While true solutions rest on teaching youth to have healthy personal relationships, few have considered innovative design of social network software as a tool for mitigating this problem. Mitigating cyberbullying involves two key components: robust techniques for effective detection and reflective user interfaces that encourage users to reflect upon their behavior and their choices. Spam filters have been successful by applying statistical approaches like Bayesian networks and hidden Markov models. They can, like Google’s GMail, aggregate human spam judgments because spam is sent nearly identically to many people. Bullying is more personalized, varied, and contextual. In this work, we present an approach for bullying detection based on state-of-the-art natural language processing and a common sense knowledge base, which permits recognition over a broad spectrum of topics in everyday life. We analyze a more narrow range of particular subject matter associated with bullying (e.g. appearance, intelligence, racial and ethnic slurs, social acceptance, and rejection), and construct BullySpace, a common sense knowledge base that encodes particular knowledge about bullying situations. We then perform joint reasoning with common sense knowledge about a wide range of everyday life topics. We analyze messages using our novel AnalogySpace common sense reasoning technique. We also take into account social network analysis and other factors. We evaluate the model on real-world instances that have been reported by users on Formspring, a social networking website that is popular with teenagers. On the intervention side, we explore a set of reflective user-interaction paradigms with the goal of promoting empathy among social network participants. We propose an “air traffic control”-like dashboard, which alerts moderators to large-scale outbreaks that appear to be escalating or spreading and helps them prioritize the current deluge of user complaints. For potential victims, we provide educational material that informs them about how to cope with the situation, and connects them with emotional support from others. A user evaluation shows that in-context, targeted, and dynamic help during cyberbullying situations fosters end-user reflection that promotes better coping strategies

Do patients' faces influence General Practitioners' cancer suspicions? A test of automatic processing of sociodemographic information

Funding: Roberta Garau is a medical student who completed this project as part of a BSc (MedSci). She received financial support for this degree from The John & Gladys Colquhoun Trust Fund. No other specific funding was received.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Understanding delayed access to antenatal care: a qualitative interview study

BackgroundDelayed access to antenatal care ('late booking’) has been linked to increased maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity. The aim of this qualitative study was to understand why some women are late to access antenatal care.Methods27 women presenting after 19 completed weeks gestation for their first hospital booking appointment were interviewed, using a semi-structured format, in community and maternity hospital settings in South Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and entered onto NVivo 8 software. An interdisciplinary, iterative, thematic analysis was undertaken.ResultsThe late booking women were diverse in terms of: age (15–37 years); parity (0–4); socioeconomic status; educational attainment and ethnicity. Three key themes relating to late booking were identified from our data: 1) 'not knowing’: realisation (absence of classic symptoms, misinterpretation); belief (age, subfertility, using contraception, lay hindrance); 2) 'knowing’: avoidance (ambivalence, fear, self-care); postponement (fear, location, not valuing care, self-care); and 3) 'delayed’ (professional and system failures, knowledge/empowerment issues).ConclusionsWhilst vulnerable groups are strongly represented in this study, women do not always fit a socio-cultural stereotype of a 'late booker’. We report a new taxonomy of more complex reasons for late antenatal booking than the prevalent concepts of denial, concealment and disadvantage. Explanatory sub-themes are also discussed, which relate to psychological, empowerment and socio-cultural factors. These include poor reproductive health knowledge and delayed recognition of pregnancy, the influence of a pregnancy 'mindset’ and previous pregnancy experience, and the perceived value of antenatal care. The study also highlights deficiencies in early pregnancy diagnosis and service organisation. These issues should be considered by practitioners and service commissioners in order to promote timely antenatal care for all women