Creative Industry: Fact or Fiction?

In the late 1990's there was a growing realisation that for many 'post industrial' economies and especially the UK, not only had they become dominated by traditional 'service' businesses (banking, finance, retail, logistics, law and other professional service firms) but that the most rapidly growing group of these 'knowledge based' firms were in an ill defined sector that depended on creativity for their source of competitive advantage such as fashion, design, architecture, advertising and PR, books, music, film and TV production, theatre, online communities, video games, museum and gallery exhibitions and other print and screen based media. Many of these firms were young and rapidly growing, there were some large scale businesses in media and advertising but the majority stayed small and had a high attrition rate. In the UK they represented about 8% of GDP but crucially were growing at twice the rate of the economy as a whole. From a policy point of view they attracted a lot of interest - was this the holy grail of the future 'knowledge economy'? Now nearly 10 years on from the UK's declaration of 'cool Britannia' under Tony Blair's New Labour project, it is worth reflecting on what we really know about the 'Creative Industries and Creative Business'. Are they fact or fiction? and what might be the implications for education in the arts and management

Practical Modelling of Trip Rescheduling under Congested Conditions

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that drivers may make small changes in their time of travel to take advantage of lower levels of congestion. However, progress in modelling such “micro” re-scheduling within peak period traffic remains slow. While there exist research papers describing theoretical solutions, there are no techniques available for practical use. Most commonly used assignment programs are temporally aggregate, while packages which do allow some “dynamic assignment” typically assume a fixed demand profile. The aim of the paper is to present a more heuristic method which could at least be used on an interim basis. The assumption is that the demand profile can be demanded into a number of mutually exclusive “windows” in relation to the “preferred arrival time”, while on the assignment side, independently defined sequential “timeslices” are used in order to respect some of the dynamic processes relating to the build-up of queues. The demand process, whereby some drivers shift away from their preferred window, leads to an iterative procedure with the aim of achieving reasonable convergence. Using the well-known scheduling theory developed by Vickrey, Small, and Arnott, de Palma & Lindsey, the basic approach can be described, extending from the simple “bottleneck”, to which the theory was originally applied, to a general network. So far, insufficient research funds have been made available to test the approach properly. It is hoped that by bringing the ideas into the public domain, further research into this area may be stimulated.

Parables of Un-freedom: Novels about the Spanish Inquisition in post-1956 People’s Poland

The article examines three post-1956 novels ostensibly about the Spanish Inquisition’s activities in Spain at the end of the fifteenth century: Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Ciemności kryją ziemię (The Inquisitors, 1957), Julian Stryjkowski’s Przybysz z Narbony (1978), and Jozef Cepik’s Torquemada (1986). These works are placed in a number of broader contexts: the uses of the historical novel in Poland; post-war Polish censorship discourse about the use of historical analogy to address current social and political problems, a practice which the political authorities sought to restrict; the contemporary critical reception where reviews of each novel are seen as articulating the novels’ fundamental concerns albeit subject to the same censorship restrictions; and ultimately the longestablished tradition of Aesopian writing within Polish literature. The analysis demonstrates the expansion of the space for critical public expression particularly in the Thaw years of 1956-57, and its contraction over time up to the mid-1970s. The rise of an independent publishing network at that point paradoxically both facilitates a more open discussion of the potential meanings of literary texts but equally has to observe censorship proprieties to avoid exposing officially published authors to political sanctions. With the growth of underground publishing, the Spanish Inquisition theme gradually declines in relevance, reflected by the critical marginalisation of Cepik’s novel. Ultimately, the article positions the trend within Macherey’s theory of significant silences within literary works, which permits a refinement of the historically contingent screen and marker that have typically defined Aesopian works. The article presents, with their English translations, hitherto unpublished documents from the Polish Party and Censorship archives, including examples of work confiscated by the censors.project “Examining Patterns of Representation in Literary Discourses” (OPVK CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0125), which has been jointly financed by the European Social Fund and the State Budget of the Czech Republic

Assignment Impossible? Time for the final call for companies purchasing claims for denied boarding compensation?

Passenger rights to compensation for denied boarding, delayed and cancelled flights have been with us for over 8 years. Some airlines have met their obligations to passengers better than others. The European Commission has recently weighed into the debate, expressing concern that passenger rights were not being vindicated. Should claims purchasing companies be part of the structures to bridge the gap in access to justice for consumers? What are the competing tensions in encouraging access to justice and discouraging a market in claims

The globalisation discourse, neo-liberalism and its impact on the education and training of social workers

This research is concerned with the implementation of the new degree in social work following the Care Standards Act of 2000. The degree was introduced against a backcloth of extraordinary changes in the provision of welfare, the practical delivery of social work services and the education of social work students within a higher education setting which itself has undergone profound changes. It examines the political and economic changes which have impacted on the welfare state and how those in turn, have affected what is taught to social work students and how it is taught in our universities. By exploring the implementation of the degree in Wales insights from academics and government officials were analysed to gain a better understanding of the policy drivers which lay behind the implementation of the degree and its impact on the various 'players'. Nine participants were interviewed from different settings including the University, the Care Council for Wales and the Social Services Inspectorate for Wales. People's accounts revealed a sharp difference in perception as to the way the degree was introduced, the nature of partnership working and the ultimate effectiveness of the new degree in improving the skills and knowledge of future social work practitioners. Several implications for policy and practice are presented. The analysis suggests the need for a broader debate as to what is taught on social work programmes and how it might be assessed, which should involve academics, practitioners, service users and government officials. The task is to create a curriculum which offers a less predetermined understanding of practice characterised by uncertainty, without losing a concern for safe practice. This may require a shift of authority towards practitioners' situated judgements and away from predetermined outcomes, both in respect of programme planning and policy guidelines on the specification of standards. A new alliance is proposed to encourage a more authentic engagement with the process from practitioners, service users and social work educators

Properties of real metallic surfaces: Effects of density functional semilocality and van der Waals nonlocality

We have computed the surface energies, work functions, and interlayer surface relaxations of clean (111), (110), and (100) surfaces of Al, Cu, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Pt, and Au. Many of these metallic surfaces have technological or catalytic applications. We compare experimental reference values to those of the local density approximation (LDA), the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) generalized gradient approximation (GGA), the PBEsol (PBE for solids) GGA, the SCAN meta-GGA, and SCAN+rVV10 (SCAN with a long-range van der Waals or vdW correction). The closest agreement with uncertain experimental values is achieved by the simplest density functional (LDA) and by the most sophisticated general-purpose one (SCAN+rVV10). The long-range vdW interaction increases the surface energies by about 10%, and the work functions by about 1%. LDA works for metal surfaces through a stronger-than-usual error cancellation. PBE yields the most-underestimated and presumably least accurate surface energies and work functions. Surface energies within the random phase approximation (RPA) are also reported. Interlayer relaxations from different functionals are in reasonable agreement with one another, and usually with experiment

How World Trade Centers, JET and International Education Consider Cultural Dimensions when Facilitating Intercultural Communication with Japanese

Abstract Due to globalization, situations requiring intercultural communication skills such as cross-cultural business exchanges and foreign language teaching are more frequent and necessary. To provide a snapshot of how professionals currently practice intercultural communication, I researched how those from three case studies consider, intentionally or otherwise, cultural dimensions when interacting with those from Japan. Moreover, I speculated how these professionals and those in similar situations might be able to practice better intercultural communication skills. I preselected two interviewees from World Trade Centers, those that have taught in the Japan Exchange and Teaching program, (JET), and international education programs and performed loosely structured interviews through a process influenced by the incremental interview protocol, asking questions regarding how they consider five cultural dimensions: collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, assertiveness, context orientation and tightness. I conducted a thematic, qualitative analysis of interviewees responses through a method influenced by the general inductive approach. I found that context orientation was accounted for the most by interviewees and discovered a common trend in interviewees reluctance to rely too heavily on absolutes derived from cultural competencies. As such I recommend being aware of cultural dimensions theory, emphasizing consideration of context orientation and expressing cultural humility in similar situations