Participatory internet radio (RadioActive101) as a social innovation and co-production methodology for engagement and non-formal learning amongst socially excluded young people

This paper describes an original interlinking of a conceptual frame and co-production methodology of a participatory internet radio intervention (RadioActive101) that supports engagement and non-formal learning amongst socially excluded young people. This considers the inclusive learning of socially excluded young people as a social innovation that is realised through a participation and co-production methodology that is inspired and informed by Paulo Freire. These are combined to develop an innovative pedagogy that has led to relatively high levels of participation (163 young people facilitated by 29 youth workers) and youth-led co-production (33 radio shows) that supports the reported development of psychosocial dimensions and twenty-first century (21C) and employability skills of young people in London in the UK. This approach and its evaluations suggest that our method (RadioActive101) involves harmonising emancipatory learning through co-production with an instrumental approach to skills development, to support a holistic approach to learning. The foundation and ‘key’ to this holistic learning appears to be the co-development of confidence and communication in ways that lead to the thoughtful and effective use of voice to underpin and support the development of 21C and employability skills

Finding and Interpreting Arguments: An Important Challenge for Humanities Computing and Scholarly Practice

Skillful identification and interpretation of arguments is a cornerstone of learning, scholarly activity and thoughtful civic engagement. These are difficult skills for people to learn, and they are beyond the reach of current computational methods from artificial intelligence and machine learning, despite hype suggesting the contrary. In previous work, we have attempted to build systems that scaffold these skills in people. In this paper we reflect on the difficulties posed by this work, and we argue that it is a serious challenge which ought to be taken up within the digital humanities and related efforts to computationally support scholarly practice. Network analysis, bibliometrics, and stylometrics, essentially leave out the fundamental humanistic skill of charitable argument interpretation because they touch very little on the meanings embedded in texts. We present a problematisation of the design space for potential tool development, as a result of insights about the nature and form of arguments in historical texts gained from our attempt to locate and map the arguments in one corner of the Hathi Trust digital library

Addressing the Safety and Criminal Exploitation of Vulnerable Young People: Before, During and After COVID-19 and Lockdown

This chapter is discussing the intersection of what is arguably an epidemic, and a pandemic, both of which can be fatal. In recent years there has been an epidemic in youth violence and crime, particularly in East London, and in the London Borough of Newham, where knife crime cases and youth knife injuries in particular have been consistently higher than comparator boroughs and London as a whole between 2013 and 2017. The chapter discusses in some detail the pre-pandemic Newham Keeping Safe (hereafter NKS) intervention aimed at vulnerable teenagers, proposing how this type of intervention could be adapted to the changing conditions of COVID-19 restrictions, and exploring the broader psychosocial implications for future interventions that aim to reduce the criminal exploitation of vulnerable young people, as we ‘open up’, or, at least, travel through new sets of changing conditions and restrictions. Such an endeavour requires that we reflect on what future levels of social distancing combined with more digital connections and practices could mean. Future interventions, we argue, need to include a reflection on the complex needs of children and families, and fathom the impact of interventions and their future post-COVID-19

RadioActive: inclusive informal learning and employability through international internet radio

Addressing how disenfranchised young people can be included and engaged within relevant work-related vocational learning paths is one of the key challenges within the UK and across the globe. Weakening social and economic conditions linked to cut-backs in education is arguably producing a ‘lost generation’ of young people who are excluded from education and training, particularly within the UK and Europe. The challenge of including, engaging and educating these marginalised young people, in innovative and low-cost ways, so that they can become active and engaged citizens, who contribute to legitimate economies, is a substantive problem linked to research priorities within the UK and EU. Our RadioActive initiative addresses these challenges directly, through two related Community Action Research projects, one focussed in London and the UK (RadioActive UK, funded by Nominet Trust), and the other focussed on the broader European landscape (RadioActive EU, funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme). Collectively, these projects provide a broad international application of internet radio for inclusion, informal learning and employability. The project is implementing a radical approach to conceptualising, designing and developing internet radio and social media for informal learning within ‘lived communities’ through ‘wrapping around’ existing community organisations and networks (including youth organisations, schools, parish outreach organisations and disability groups). It embodies the key pedagogical ideas of Paulo Freire (1970) and his notion of transformational (or emancipatory) learning through lived experience. This is achieved in the UK context through embedding the radio and content production within the existing practices of established youth organisations. The internet radio is used to catalyse, connect and communicate developmental practices within these existing organisations, leading to rich personal and organisational learning, change and development. In particular, exploring rich and varied personal and community identities, and promoting their articulation, expression and positive transformation, are pivotal to RadioActive. It also embodies a new approach to social media design - that is conceived as an intervention in existing digital, and mixed-reality, cultures. Hence, the application of our approach captures, organises and legitimises the digital practices, content production and critical and creative potential of disenfranchised young people to provide a new and original community voice. This voice combines the intimacy, relevance and ‘touchability’ of local radio with the crowd sourcing power of social media. The UK project had an initial setup phase of 6 months, that included: problematisation (or ‘understanding in order to change’) of the community organisations, their members and their contexts; installing the ‘lightweight’ radio and music technology; devising a suitable Governance and Editorial Model (GEM) ; and, training in - technology, radio practices and legal and regulatory issues. The training was particularly innovative, in that is was ‘backward engineered’ from show ideas, which involved weekly modular training linked directly to the production practices that led to shows. The second phase of the project, that was interlinked with further training activities following the model above, ran for 5 months, and involved learning how to make radio shows ‘in action’ and led to 5 shows (2 pre-recorded and 3 live). This involved 16 youth workers and academics across two youth organisations facilitating 55 young people to make and perform the radio shows ‘themselves’. Early findings that assessed the impact of the internet radio are unusually striking. At one youth organisation the radio production activity acted like an intervention into their youth work practices between Oct 12 and Feb 13 (5 months), when a newly employed Youth Worker started focusing on radio as one of his main projects. During this time: the number of new young people attending the centre increased from 5-28 (approx. 560% increase); more at-risk young people were retained, increasing from 2 – 10 (approx. 500% increase); and, perhaps most striking was that the number of young people moving from ‘NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) to EET (in Education, Employment and Training), increased from 3 – 24 (approx. 800% increase). Also the trend of these improvements ‘accelerated’ during the most recent months as pre-recorded and live shows were broadcast (3 in total). A more specific intervention can be mapped to the activities of 10 young people from a local Academy on a two week work placement from 28 Jan – 8 Feb, most of whom focussed on RadioActive. These young people: contributed to and participated in a 3 hr live show on 8th Feb 13 (approx. 12.20 to15.20) ; turned up every day and nobody dropped out, with their teacher remarking “I can’t believe they’re all turning up”; became interested in radio related activities, such as writing poetry and rap through attending a class called ‘WriterZ and ScribeZ’ (cf. table tennis and computer games); some came into Youth Centre at weekends to do school work; and, 7 are continuing with RadioActive at the youth organisation after placement (despite potential danger related to post-code ‘wars’). Two things are particularly exciting about these findings. Firstly, these are clear early signs of RadioActive leading to concrete positive personal and social change. Secondly, the intervention of the internet radio has significant secondary effects, creating more interest in a youth centre generally and promoting writing activities that were previously unpopular. Clearly, our initial vision of the internet radio acting as both a glue and a catalyst for developing existing youth work activities is being borne out and is clearly illustrated. This talk will present: our original rationale and pedagogical approach; the new learning design methodology linked to the resulting RadioActive platform; some exemplar broadcasts and content; and, the early findings that give insights into the degree to which RadioActive has led to personal and community learning and development within participating youth organisations

RadioActive101: Implementation and Evaluation of Internet Radio as an Educational Intervention for Inclusion, Informal Learning and Employability, as part of Addressing Inequality: Is ICT a Silver Bullet?

RadioActive101 is an international internet radio hub that is an educational intervention which gives a voice to disenfranchised groups throughout Europe. It is realised through the application of state-of-the-art thinking in Community Action Research, Socio-technical design and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), and has been funded by the Nominet Trust in the UK and through the EU Lifelong Learning Programme (ECLLP)

Translating Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) scores into clinical practice by suggesting severity strata derived using anchor-based methods

Background: The Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) is a validated, patient-derived assessment measure for monitoring atopic eczema severity, although further information on how different POEM scores translate into disease severity categories is needed for clinical trials, epidemiological research and audit. Objectives: We sought to determine the relationship between Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) scores (range 0–28) and two Global Questions (GQ1 and 2) concerning patients’/parents’ views of the overall severity of their/their child’s atopic eczema, in order to stratify POEM scores into five severity bands. Methods: POEM scores and GQs were completed by 300 patients from general practice and 700 patients from dermatology outpatient clinics, including 300 adults aged ≥ 16 years and 700 children. Results: The mean POEM score was 136 (range 0–28), and standard deviation (SD) was 72. Mean GQ1/GQ2 scores were 21/21, respectively (range 0–4 and SD 11 for both). The mean, mode and median of the GQ scores for each POEM score were used to devise possible POEM bandings. The proposed banding for POEM scores are: 0–2 (clear/almost clear); 3–7 (mild); 8–16 (moderate); 17–24 (severe); 25–28 (very severe), kappa coefficient 046. Conclusions: Severity banding of the POEM will allow more clinically meaningful use in everyday clinical practice and as a core outcome measure in future atopic eczema research

Pharmacokinetics of a syrup formulation of amoxycillin-potassium clavulanate in children

The pharmacokinetics of a syrup formulation consisting of four parts of amoxycillin and one part of potassium clavulanate (Augmentin) were studied in 11 paediatric patients, 3 to 14 years of age. Single oral doses of 25 mg of Augmentin per kg body weight (20 mg of amoxycillin per kg plus 5 mg of potassium clavulanate per kg, i.e. 1 mg of the syrup per kg) were administered on an empty stomach, and were well accepted and tolerated. Mean peak plasma concentrations 60-90 min after dosing were 7.2 mg/l for amoxycillin and 2-0 mg/l for clavulanic acid. Mean terminal phase plasma half-lifes were 1.4 and 1.0 h, respectively. It is concluded that 25-mg/kg doses of this syrup formulation of Augmentin administered three times daily should be adequate therapy for various childhood bacterial infection

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá: masculinity, memory and authority in contemporary republican Belfast

The Good Friday Agreements in Northern Ireland marked the end of a thirty year period of violence known as the Troubles. The shift from the bullet to the ballot box was a complicated rhetorical move, particularly for the Republican faction, who had a communal identity predicated upon a public memory of 800 years of opposition to British rule. This public memory, articulated in both verbal and material narratives, was used to justify the war. Both the Leader(ship) and the People articulate these narratives, while being simultaneously articulated by them. In the Northern Irish case, the Leader for a majority of the Republican People has been the Sinn Féin Leader(ship). Their authority is predicated upon an authenticity derived from memories of their embodied masculine performances. Sinn Féin's authority is currently being questioned by dissidents. Their dissonance points to contradictions in the gender performance of the Sinn Féin Leader(ship). In so doing, these dissidents contest the foundation of Sinn Féin's power, particularly in the communities that most earnestly demand the continuity of the nuanced communal gender roles that Sinn Féin supported during the Troubles

Natural organic matter in sedimentary basins and its relation to arsenic in anoxic ground water: the example of West Bengal and its worldwide implications

In order to investigate the mechanism of As release to anoxic ground water in alluvial aquifers, the authors sampled ground waters from 3 piezometer nests, 79 shallow (80 m) wells, in an area 750 m by 450 m, just north of Barasat, near Kolkata (Calcutta), in southern West Bengal. High concentrations of As (200-1180 mug L-1) are accompanied by high concentrations of Fe (3-13.7 mgL(-1)) and PO4 (1-6.5 mg L-1). Ground water that is rich in Mn (1-5.3 mg L-1) contains <50 mug L-1 of As. The composition of shallow ground water varies at the 100-m scale laterally and the metre-scale vertically, with vertical gradients in As concentration reaching 200 mug L-1 m(-1). The As is supplied by reductive dissolution of FeOOH and release of the sorbed As to solution. The process is driven by natural organic matter in peaty strata both within the aquifer sands and in the overlying confining unit. In well waters, thermotolerant coliforms, a proxy for faecal contamination, are not present in high numbers (<10 cfu/100 ml in 85% of wells) showing that faecally-derived organic matter does not enter the aquifer, does not drive reduction of FeOOH, and so does not release As to ground water.Arsenic concentrations are high (much greater than50 mug L-1) where reduction of FeOOH is complete and its entire load of sorbed As is released to solution, at which point the aquifer sediments become grey in colour as FeOOH vanishes. Where reduction is incomplete, the sediments are brown in colour and resorption of As to residual FeOOH keeps As concentrations below 10 mug L-1 in the presence of dissolved Fe. Sorbed As released by reduction of Mn oxides does not increase As in ground water because the As resorbs to FeOOH. High concentrations of As are common in alluvial aquifers of the Bengal Basin arise because Himalayan erosion supplies immature sediments, with low surface-loadings of FeOOH on mineral grains, to a depositional environment that is rich in organic mater so that complete reduction of FeOOH is common. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier Ltd