False economy? The costs of contracting and workforce insecurity in the voluntary sector

The purpose of this project has been to gain insights into the direct and indirect implications of the insecure funding regime faced by the social care sector, with a particular focus on those relating to employment and service quality. Respondents revealed an intensifying climate of competition and anxiety among workers and their representatives regarding future employment prospects. This situation was aggravated by uncertainties over Supporting People funding and the actual, and perceived potential, impact of new EU public procurement regulations

Belligerent Internment; 1939 - 1945

No abstract availabl

The Arrest and Sentencing of Jesus: A Historical Reconstruction

I will approach the subject using official Catholic teaching as the starting point for a consideration of our primary sources of information, the four Gospel passion narratives. By examining three scenes in the passion story and comparing what the different Gospel accounts describe, I will offer some conclusions about the historical events that lie behind them. These conclusions are fairly widely agreed upon in contemporary scripture scholarship. As one of the professors invited by the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to read a shooting script of Mel Gibson\u27s The Passion of the Christ, it is appropriate for me to proceed in this way. At that time, I was primarily concerned to see if the shooting script conformed to Catholic teaching on the nature of the Gospels and in particular on the proper interpretation of the passion narratives

Tiananmen Moon: Preface

If getting caught up in a popular uprising in China has taught me anything, it is that the past, present and future flow together as one with ferocious intensity. Looking back now at the eventful uprising at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 makes it all the more clear that what happened there was shaped by things that came before; and today’s China, basking in a post-Olympic glow and new-found national strength, is still profoundly haunted by the seminal events of 1989, though the topic is strictly taboo in the media and still feared by influential people in the leadership. I initially got involved in the demonstrations because of my interest in Chinese history, the abstract study of which I had pursued at college and in graduate school. Then I moved to China. Trying to be a little more Chinese and a little less foreign, I immersed myself in Beijing campus life and cultural activities, mostly with Chinese friends. In the time it takes for a new moon to grow full and then wane back into blackness again, I was pulled so deeply into the vortex of living, breathing history-in-the-making that my life would never be the same. More than any history book I ever read, or any period film I ever worked on, being on the streets of Beijing as history was being made was the most profoundly moving and eye-opening experience of all. The Tiananmen demonstrations were crushed, cruelly, breaking the implicit pact that the People’s Liberation Army would never turn its guns on the people and burying student activism for many years to come, but not before inspiring millions in China and around the world to push for reform and change, heralding the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The uprising at Tiananmen, though highly controversial in China to this day, would shape many of the choices of the Chinese leadership and has been an unacknowledged inspiration for much of the change that has swept China ever since

The Forgotten Meaning of Tiananmen

“Tiananmen” is a taboo topic in China. But even in places where it is remembered and commemorated, the Beijing student movement of 1989 is best known for its bloody ending on June 4, a tragic turning point of unquestioned significance, but one which tends to obscure the amazing weeks of restraint, harmony and cooperation in crowds that swelled to a million at the height of an entirely peaceful and extremely popular social movement. Twenty years ago, as hundreds of thousands demonstrated day after day in Beijing, as ordinary citizens joined in or supported the student protesters with offers of food, drink and hearty cheers, crime all but disappeared and with it everyday suspicions and the habitual selfishness of an alienated populace. A remarkable degree of forbearance was evident on all sides, the government included, making it possible for a truly peaceful mass movement to emerge and blossom in the sunshine of that fateful Beijing spring. Even the provocative hunger strike, despite its grim overtones of self-starvation, did not claim a single victim and was wisely called off after one week. Given the way the media works, perhaps reflecting something intrinsic to the workings of memory itself, there is undue focus on the big-bang at the end, the ultimate failure of the movement, rather than its peaceful flowering. The brutal crackdown of June 4 tends to eclipse the breath-taking accomplishments of April 27, May 4, May 10, May 13 — indeed nearly every day in mid-May 1989 —until martial law was declared. After the troops were moved in, protesters started to panic and mutual threats became more pointedly violent

5/26/89: An Audience with an Audience

On May 26 I got another glimpse of student command central, when Chai Ling was at the height of her power. She was holding court in the broadcast tent, the ideological hothouse of student-occupied Tiananmen Square. It wasn’t easy getting in. I had to pass three rings of student security to secure an “audience.” The BBC had yet to give me any kind of ID, so I learned to talk my way into things. My only “press” pass was my wit, which worked okay because I liked to talk and could do so in Chinese. There were times when the well-known call letters BBC did not suffice to gain entry, while merely saying I was looking for a friend from Shida might do the trick. The closer I got to the student center, the higher the likelihood I’d run into someone who’d seen me before, which also helped expedite entry. I could remember most of the faces, if not names, of the hundreds I’d spoken to in the last few weeks, so overall I had a high degree of mobility on the cordoned-off, people-controlled Square. As a provincial student leader, self-appointed or otherwise, Wang Li expected and obtained a certain amount of access to the Beijing student command center at the Broadcast Tent. What Wang Li lacked in social cachet as an unknown provincial student from Xian, I think he started to make up for by speaking on behalf of the BBC, since he was now on the payroll and knew he could impress fellow students with his important international connections. Student security guards were vigilant about keeping ordinary Chinese away from their “leaders,” but by becoming a leader, or media person, many of the petty controls could be circumvented. Wang Li put in a word for me with the provincial students, but they seemed terribly disorganized and no interviews or memorable conversations came out of that effort. After jointly touring the provincial student outpost near the museum, we cut west and headed towards the broadcast tent in the center of the Square. The amateur security got woollier and woollier as we pushed towards the center, so we temporarily split up when he got permission to enter a controlled area that I couldn’t enter. Wang Li rushed ahead on his own, to see if he could find a student leader willing to talk to me. In the meantime, I decided to wing it, slowly working my way past various student gatekeepers until I ran into a familiar face from the Sports Institute

Symbol or reality?: Eucharistic doctrine in the first four centuries

Not availabl

“Genuine Brotherhood” without Remorse: A Commentary on Joseph Ratzinger’s "Comments on 'De Iudaeis'"

This article critically engages, section by section, a 2018 essay on Catholic-Jewish relations by emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. It is the result of joint analysis by a Jewish professor and a Catholic professor who co-direct an academic institute devoted to Catholic-Jewish relations. Benedict’s treatment of such topics as supersessionism, the “unrevoked covenant,” and the State of Israel is complex, and his reasoning is often difficult to follow, but the authors conclude that his essay makes genuine contributions to a Catholic theology of relations with Jews and Judaism that deserve serious, dispassionate, and critical study. This is true despite some serious weaknesses, especially its lack of consistent engagement with Judaism as lived by Jews today

Soft, Vertical Handover of Streamed Multimedia in a 4G Network

In this paper the soft, vertical handover of streamed multimedia in a 4G network is considered. We propose a soft handover solution in which the mobile client controls the handover. This solution requires no modifications to existing wireless networks. The second stream required for the soft handover is duplicated just above the transport layer, rather than requiring the server to play out a second stream that needs to be synchronised with the existing stream. Such a scheme is outlined, and the results are presented that show how the scheme functioned in an emulated environment

A virtual world of paleontology

Computer-aided visualization and analysis of fossils has revolutionized the study of extinct organisms. Novel techniques allow fossils to be characterized in three dimensions and in unprecedented detail. This has enabled paleontologists to gain important insights into their anatomy, development, and preservation. New protocols allow more objective reconstructions of fossil organisms, including soft tissues, from incomplete remains. The resulting digital reconstructions can be used in functional analyses, rigorously testing long-standing hypotheses regarding the paleobiology of extinct organisms. These approaches are transforming our understanding of long-studied fossil groups, and of the narratives of organismal and ecological evolution that have been built upon them