3,112 research outputs found
The public presence of religion in Western Europe : its social significance among religious constituencies lying between the secular and churchgoing Christians?
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
A European federation of states is the only form of integration which has the chance to preserve freedom and survive shifting power relations between sovereign nations
Over 200 years ago, the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, predicted the rise of a great political body in Europe, akin to the present European Union. Using Kantâs âphilosophical triangleâ Simon Glendinning argues that Europeâs present position as a region of connected, but sovereign states does not go far enough, but that a single unified Europe would be a âgraveyard of freedomâ. Instead, a federation of states provides the best future for Europe
Police reform in Thailand post-2006
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Dependence, independence or inter-dependence? Revisiting the concepts of 'care' and 'dependency'
Research and theory on 'dependency' and 'care-giving' have to date proceeded along largely separate lines, with little sense that they are exploring and explaining different aspects of the same phenomenon. Research on 'care', initially linked to feminism during the early 1980s, has revealed and exposed to public gaze what was hitherto assumed to be a 'natural' female activity. Conversely, disability activists and writers who have promoted a social model of disability have seen the language of and the policy focus upon 'care' as oppressive and objectifying. 'Dependency' is an equally contested concept: sociologists have scrutinised the social construction of dependency, politicians have ascribed negative connotations of passivity, while medical and social policy discourse employs the term in a positivist sense as a measure of physical need for professional intervention. Autonomy and independence, in contrast, are promoted as universal and largely unproblematic goals. These contrasting perspectives have led social theory, research and policies to separate and segregate the worlds of 'carers' from those for whom they 'care'. Drawing on the work of Kittay and others, this paper explores the ways in which sociological perspectives can develop new understanding of the social contexts of 'care' and 'dependence'
Hierarchy and Polysynchrony in an adaptive network
We describe a simple adaptive network of coupled chaotic maps. The network
reaches a stationary state (frozen topology) for all values of the coupling
parameter, although the dynamics of the maps at the nodes of the network can be
non-trivial. The structure of the network shows interesting hierarchical
properties and in certain parameter regions the dynamics is polysynchronous:
nodes can be divided in differently synchronized classes but contrary to
cluster synchronization, nodes in the same class need not be connected to each
other. These complicated synchrony patterns have been conjectured to play roles
in systems biology and circuits. The adaptive system we study describes ways
whereby this behaviour can evolve from undifferentiated nodes.Comment: 13 pages, 17 figure
Individual Budgets : Lessons from Early Users' Experiences
Within the context of modernization, there has been a trend towards 'cash-for-care' schemes designed to bring choice and control closer to the service user. In England, Individual Budgets (IBs) are being piloted, with the aim of promoting personalized support for disabled people and other users of social care services. This paper reports on the experiences and outcomes of early IB users two to three months after first being offered an IB. The users included adults with physical/sensory impairments, learning difficulties, mental health problems and older people. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with nine service users and five proxies. The findings suggest that IBs have the potential to be innovative and life-enhancing. However, achieving this potential in practice depends on a range of other factors, including changes in the routine practices and organizational culture of adult social care services and ensuring users have access to appropriate documentation and support. Any conclusions drawn from the experiences of these early IB users must be treated with caution. The findings nevertheless indicate some of the issues that will need to be addressed as IBs are implemented more widely to replace conventional forms of adult social care provision
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