Loud, Proud and Prosperous! Report on the Mobility International USA International Symposium on Microcredit for Women with Disabilities

[Excerpt] MIUSA designed the International Symposium on Microcredit for Women with Disabilities in response to recommendations from women leaders with disabilities at WILD, at the Symposium in Beijing, and from our own experience with US-based international development programs. It seemed apparent that economic empowerment of women with disabilities was not high on any agenda – international aid agencies, development organizations, women’s programs, or even disability rights movements. Women with disabilities expressed that they – women with disabilities – would need to take leadership in this area, and that they needed particular knowledge and skills to be effective as leaders in this area

Sand chair: Improving access to Cornish beaches through sustainable design

Sustainable Innovation 2016: ‘Circular Economy’ Sustainable Innovation & Design This paper is a case study describing a collaborative product design and development project between Falmouth University and local charity, Cornwall Mobility (CM), in Truro. The project focused on the design of a beach wheelchair, or ‘sand chair’. An opportunity was identified by CM for greater access to beach wheelchairs in Cornwall. This is part of a wider remit to explore how Cornish beaches can be made more accessible to people with physical disabilities and mobility difficulties to enjoy the physiological and psychological benefits that being by the sea can bring. Beach wheelchairs are frequently used by locals and visitors to Cornwall, including children and adults who are physically disabled through disease or injury, and elderly people who struggle with mobility. The current beach wheelchairs – until recently operated by Cornwall Council – are imported from the USA, are expensive and subject to import duty. In addition, a number of known faults and design improvements have already been recognised with the existing product sourced by CM. Working closely with CM, with the benefit of their expertise in this field, the case study examines the opportunity to develop a much improved designed product at a lower cost that could be manufactured locally, in Cornwall. The project demonstrates how a charity, such as CM, can be empowered through design, to provide improved access to products and services for their users. CM has supported important primary research activities in this product realm due to its advisory role to a large client base. The collaboration has allowed for engagement with CM clients for user centred design practice. As part of this process, CM clients with mobility ranging from paralysis to severe arthritis have been involved in the testing of Sand Chair prototypes. They evaluated the product against two competitor beach wheelchairs and participated in a research exercise to establish the key functional priorities of the product. The wider client base also affords marketing and retail opportunities for the product through CM's existing market networks. The developed product is easier to get in and out of and easier for the person pushing the chair to handle. It is also visually more attractive with aesthetic detailing synonymous with the seaside rather than a hospital. However, in addition to product usability, technical issues relating to materials and manufacturing have also been addressed. Early development saw the exploration of the potential of sheet material as a key structural component. This challenges the commonly prescribed stainless steel tube assembly seen on many beach wheelchairs. Sheet materials can be CNC machined, negating the need for specialist tooling, and provide flexibility in terms of component detailing. It becomes very easy to make bespoke details or component alterations. A dry joint system is used embracing design for disassembly, making the product consistently repairable or upgradable, and allows components to be easily separated for recycling. The assembly of the product does not require a high skill level. The product is now at a mature development stage with further prototype trials planned during summer 2016

Changing course in public transport: the car as a component of competitive services

Local public transport has long enjoyed special government protection and mas-sive subsidies. It also plays a special role in transport and environmental policy. With increasing individualization in society, however, the needs of many road and rail user have changed. In a world where the automobile has become the measure of all things public transport companies in many places lack entrepreneurial skills and customer orientation. These shortcomings leave them ill equipped for the imminent European-wide liberalization of licensing procedures for public transport. The present discussion paper by the WZB’s Project Group on Mobility explores what must happen in business practice and transport policy in order to prevent the impending spiral of diminishing demand, worsening supply, and a further slump in demand. More than just organizational innovation is necessary. The key recommendation for improving public transport services is to expand them by adding car sharing and other alternatives centered on the automobile. The objective of adopting the car as a component of competitive services is to link traditional with modern, flexible transport and thereby create an integrated system. -- Bisher steht der öffentliche Personennahverkehr (ÖPNV) unter einem besonderen staatlichen Schutz. Seine Finanzierung basiert zu einem Großteil auf Subven-tionen. Dem ÖPNV kommt zudem eine besondere verkehrs- und umweltpolitische Rolle zu. Die Bedürfnisse vieler Verkehrsteilnehmer haben sich jedoch entspre-chend der gesellschaftlichen Individualisierung verändert. Das Automobil ist das Maß aller Dinge geworden. Doch vielerorts hapert es bei den öffentlichen Ver-kehrsunternehmen an Kundenorientierung und ihre unternehmerischen Fähig-keiten blieben unterentwickelt. Gleichzeitig steht die europaweite Liberalisierung der Konzessionsvergabe im öffentlichen Verkehr vor der Tür. Vor diesem Problemhintergrund geht die Projektgruppe Mobilität des WZB in dem vorliegende discussion paper der Frage nach, was unternehmerisch und verkehrs-politisch geschehen muss, um die drohende Abwärtsspirale sinkender Nachfrage, fortschreitender Angebotsverschlechterung und weiter sinkender Nachfrage zu verhindern. Notwendig sind nicht nur organisatorische Innovationen. Die zentrale Empfehlung für die Verbesserung des Verkehrsangebotes lautet vielmehr, Car Sharing und andere automobile Verkehrsdienstleistungen als “Autobaustein“ in die Produktpalette von öffentlichen Transportunternehmen aufzunehmen. Ziel muss die Verknüpfung von traditionellen mit modernen, flexiblen Verkehrsdienstleistun-gen zu einem integrierten Verkehrsangebot sein.

Arlington RAPID Autonomy Insights Report [March 2021- March 2022]

Monthly reports on Arlington RAPID project which integrates a shared, dynamically routed automated vehicle (AV) fleet into an existing public rideshare system in Arlington, Texas

‘Talent-spotting’ or ‘social magic’? Inequality, cultural sorting and constructions of the ideal graduate in elite professions

Graduate outcomes – including rates of employment and earnings – are marked by persistent inequalities related to social class, as well as gender, ethnicity and institution. Despite national policy agendas related to social mobility and ‘fair access to the professions’, high-status occupations are disproportionately composed of those from socially privileged backgrounds, and evidence suggests that in recent decades many professions have become less socially representative. This article makes an original contribution to sociological studies of inequalities in graduate transitions and elite reproduction through a distinct focus on the ‘pre-hiring’ practices of graduate employers. It does this through a critical analysis of the graduate recruitment material of two popular graduate employers. It shows how, despite espousing commitments to diversity and inclusion, constructions of the ‘ideal’ graduate privilege individuals who can mobilise and embody certain valued capitals. Using Bourdieusian concepts of ‘social magic’ and ‘institutional habitus’, the article argues that more attention must be paid to how graduate employers’ practices constitute tacit processes of social exclusion and thus militate against the achievement of more equitable graduate outcomes and fair access to the ‘top jobs

How the accounting profession is addressing upward mobility of women and family issues in the workplace

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_comm/1100/thumbnail.jp

Upward mobility of women: Special committee report to the AICPA Board of Directors

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_assoc/1411/thumbnail.jp

Impact of affluence on the local spread of SARS-CoV2 during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic

Objectives Socioeconomic factors such as elevated incidence of chronic disease, overcrowding, and increased occupational exposure result in higher risk of infectious disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has appeared to disproportionately affect communities affected by deprivation and discrimination, who also appear to be at greater risk of severe disease. Our aim was to investigate the evolution of the socioeconomic groups affected by COVID-19 over the course of the first wave of the pandemic by examining patients presenting to an acute NHS trust. Study design and methods: A retrospective study using the postcodes of patients presenting to the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust who tested PCR-positive for COVID-19 were used to determine average house price and index of multiple deprivation. These were used as markers of affluence to examine the trend in the socioeconomic status of affected patients from February to May 2020. Results 384 cases were included. The postcodes of those individuals who were initially infected had higher average house prices and index of multiple deprivation, both of which followed downward trends as the outbreak progressed. Conclusion Our data shows that the outbreak spread from higher to lower affluence groups through the course of the pandemic. We hypothesise that this was due to wealthier individuals initially transmitting the virus from abroad. Therefore, an earlier and more effective quarantine could have reduced spread to members of the community at greater risk of infection and harm. We suggest that hospitals systematically record the socioeconomic status of affected individuals in order to monitor trends, identify those who may be at risk of severe disease, and to push for more equitable public health policy

Fusión de datos para la planificación de servicios urbanos sostenibles: Casos de uso en transporte, medio ambiente y turismo

The planning and management of sustainable cities requires understanding thebehavioural patterns of the population: transport planning and operation requiresaccurate, reliable and updated travel demand information; the definition of effective strategies to mitigate the exposure to air pollutants needs information on the spatio-temporal distribution of the population along the day; tourist’s activity and mobility patterns are essential to design a sustainable touristic offer. Traditional data collectionmethods, such as household travel surveys, provide rich travel and demographic data,but they also suffer from shortcomings: they depend on users’ willingness to answer,people may provide incorrect or imprecise answers, and they are expensive andrequire months to complete, which limits the size of the sample and the frequency withwhich information is updated.New digital data sources make it possible to complement and/or replace traditionaltravel surveys, overcoming some of their main limitations. In particular, mobile phonerecords can give access to a sample that is usually at least one order of magnitudehigher than the one provided by traditional sources, and that is also well distributedacross the different socioeconomic segments, given the high penetration of mobilephone services. Additionally, the high temporal granularity of mobile phone data allowsus to determine in detail the location of the device along the day and their spatialresolution is in general suitable to study population’s behaviour at urban andmetropolitan scale.This contribution focuses on the analysis of anonymised mobile phone data and theirfusion with other data sources to provide information on population’s activity andmobility. We discuss the need to enrich the information obtained from mobile telephonedata with different data sources and we described the methodology followed in threeuse cases: the study of mobility, including public transport mobility, in the city of Málagausing mobile phone data and intelligent transport card data; the study of populationexposure to air pollutants in the city of Madrid using dynamic population maps and anair pollutants dispersion model; and the characterisation of the visitors to the ParqueNacional de la Sierra de Guadarrama using mobile phone data and people counts.La planificación y gestión de ciudades sostenibles requiere entender elcomportamiento de la población: la planificación y operación del transporte necesitainformación precisa, fiable y actualizada sobre la demanda de viajes; la definición deestrategias efectivas que mitiguen la exposición a la contaminación requiere conocer ladistribución espacio-temporal de la población a lo largo del día; el diseño de una ofertaturística sostenible necesita conocer los patrones de actividad de los turistas. Lasfuentes de datos tradicionales, basadas fundamentalmente en encuestas,proporcionan información muy valiosa, pero no están exentas de inconvenientes. Engeneral, las encuestas resultan caras y lentas de realizar, lo que limita el tamaño de lamuestra y su frecuencia de actualización. Además, están sujetas a respuestasincorrectas e imprecisas y dependen de la disposición a responder de losentrevistados. La posibilidad de recoger datos geolocalizados procedentes de dispositivos móvilespersonales, de manera dinámica y a un coste inferior al de los métodos tradicionales,abre nuevas oportunidades para superar estos problemas. En particular, los datosprocedentes de las redes de telefonía móvil permiten obtener un tamaño de muestrauno o dos órdenes de magnitud superior al de las encuestas convencionales.Asimismo, el alto nivel de penetración de los servicios móviles en prácticamente todoslos estratos de la sociedad garantiza muestras muy bien distribuidas. La elevadagranularidad temporal de los datos permite determinar con detalle la localización delmóvil a lo largo del día y su resolución espacial resulta en general adecuada paraestudios a escala urbana y metropolitana. La presente comunicación aborda el análisis de registros anonimizados de telefoníamóvil y su fusión con otras fuentes de datos para proporcionar información sobreactividad y movilidad de la población. Se discute la necesidad de enriquecer lainformación obtenida mediante telefonía móvil con diversas fuentes de datos, seexpone la metodología y se presentan tres casos de uso: el estudio de la movilidadgeneral y en transporte público en Málaga mediante la fusión de datos de telefoníamóvil y datos de tarjeta inteligente de transporte; el estudio de la exposición a lacontaminación en Madrid a partir de mapas dinámicos de población y de un modelo dedispersión de contaminantes; y el análisis de los visitantes al Parque Nacional de laSierra de Guadarrama a partir de datos de telefonía móvil y datos de aforo