94 research outputs found
Localism and the Big Society: the asset transfer of leisure centres and libraries – fighting closures or empowering communities?
This paper critically examines the ‘asset transfer’ of leisure services from the public to the voluntary sector. Asset transfer might be theorised as ‘austerity localism’, in which volunteers are obliged to fill the gaps left by retreating public provision, or as ‘progressive localism’, which represents new opportunities through the localism and Big Society agendas to develop more locally responsive, cooperative and mutualist visions. In this way, asset transfer might overcome the limitations of the United Kingdom policies in which ‘Big Government’ is replaced by civic society. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel (volunteers, managers and local authority officers) at 12 leisure facilities, a grounded assessment of the nuanced balance between ‘austerity localism’ and ‘progressive localism’ is provided, including three observations. First, the main impetus for transfer was cuts in local authority budgets which stimulated the emergence of local groups of volunteers. Secondly, the transfers themselves required interaction between local government and the volunteer groups; however, the nature of the relationship and support given varied and support was limited by austerity measures. Thirdly, volunteers do not automatically fill a gap left by the state: without support transfer viability relies on the financial and social capital among volunteer groups, and this is unevenly distributed. These findings suggest that the capacity for a ‘progressive localism’ to emerge through asset transfer is limited. However, where transfer has occurred, there are some progressive benefits of volunteer empowerment and a more flexible service
Watching the pennies and the people – how volunteer led sport facilities have transformed services for local communities
Rationale/Purpose
This paper shows how the transfer of public sport facilities to management led by volunteers has increased the responsiveness of services to local needs; while at the same time reducing running costs. It provides a contrast to previous research on transfer to large leisure trusts.
Design/Methodology/approach
It draws on interviews with key personnel at 8 sport facilities transferred to small-volunteer led community groups.
Findings
Running costs have been cut because of the greater attention to detail and flexibility of volunteer managed services. The service has become more sensitive and flexible to the needs of the local community because volunteers are their own marketing information system, rooted in that community. The positive outcomes are driven by needs to attain economic sustainability; and to renew volunteer effort by changing the public perception of the facility to an asset created by the community, rather than just as a public service consumed by it.
Practical implications
The paper shows the progressive potential of the small trusts in meeting local leisure needs, making a case to support this type of sport facility delivery.
Research contribution
These small leisure trusts retain advantages of the large leisure trusts, established in the 1990’s, but with further advantages derived from local production
Watching the pennies and the people – how volunteer led sport facilities have cut costs and improved the quality of service for local communities
This paper will show how the transfer of public leisure facilities to management led by volunteers (Findlay-King et al, 2017) has transformed services, with improved performance in usage, income and expenditure. This paper uses data collected from interviews with key personnel (volunteers, managers and local authority officers) at 8 sport facilities to explore the management of facilities transferred to volunteer led community groups, in response to local authority funding cuts. The findings are explored in relation to social enterprise literature and in particular Simmons (2008) positive review of the social entrepreneurial benefits of the large leisure trusts in the early ‘00s and Reid’s (2003) similar appraisal of ‘third way’ management of services. Whilst running costs have been cut by attention to detail, the service has also become more sensitive and flexible to meet the needs of the local community. Volunteers are their own marketing information system, with roots in that community. The politics of these enterprises can reveal limitations and problems, for example the redundancy, or less favourable conditions, of paid employees; and the marginalisation of some classes from volunteer and customer groups. Nevertheless, the positive outcomes of volunteer led management can reduce costs and enhance quality; driven partly by the need to attain sustainability; economically and in terms of becoming regarded as an asset created by the community as well as consumed by it. Thus they retain many of the advantages of the first wave of leisure trusts established in the 1990’s but at a smaller scale.Findlay-King, L., Nicholls, G, Forbes, D. & Macfadyen, G. (2017) ‘Localism and the Big Society: the asset transfer of leisure centres and libraries – fighting closures or empowering communities?’ Leisure Studies 0:0, 1-13.Reid, G. (2003) ‘Charitable trusts: municipal leisure's "third way'?’ Managing Leisure 8:4, 171-183.Simmons, R. (2008) ‘Harnessing Social Enterprise for Local Public Services.’ Public Policy and Administration 23:3, 278-301
The first Infrared study of the close environment of a long Gamma-Ray Burst
We present a characterization of the close environment of GRB980425 based on
5-160mic spectro-imaging obtained with Spitzer. The Gamma-Ray Burst GRB980425
occurred in a nearby (z=0.0085) SBc-type dwarf galaxy, at a projected distance
of 900pc from an HII region with strong signatures of Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars.
While this "WR region" produces less than 5% of the B-band emission of the
host, we find that it is responsible for 45+/-10% of the total infrared
luminosity, with a maximum contribution reaching 75% at 25-30mic. This atypical
property is rarely observed among morphologically-relaxed dwarves, suggesting a
strong causal link with the GRB event. The luminosity of the WR region
(L_8-1000mic=4.6x10^8 Lsol), the peak of its spectral energy distribution at
<~100mic and the presence of highly-ionized emission lines (e.g., [NeIII]) also
reveal extremely young (<5Myr) star-forming activity, with a typical time-scale
of only 47Myr to double the stellar mass already built. Finally, the mid-IR
over B-band luminosity ratio in this region is substantially higher than in
star-forming galaxies with similar L_IR, but it is lower than in young
dust-enshrouded stellar clusters. Considering the modest obscuration measured
from the silicate features (tau_9.7mic ~ 0.015), this suggests that the WR
region is dominated by one or several star clusters that have either partly
escaped or cleared out their parent molecular cloud. Combined with the
properties characterizing the whole population of GRB hosts, our results
reinforce the idea that long GRBs mostly happen within or in the vicinity of
relatively unobscured galactic regions harboring very recent star formation.Comment: ApJ in press, 14 pages, 2 tables, 7 figure
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On species delimitation, hybridization and population structure of cassava whitefly in Africa.
The Bemisia cassava whitefly complex includes species that cause severe crop damage through vectoring cassava viruses in eastern Africa. Currently, this whitefly complex is divided into species and subgroups (SG) based on very limited molecular markers that do not allow clear definition of species and population structure. Based on 14,358 genome-wide SNPs from 62 Bemisia cassava whitefly individuals belonging to sub-Saharan African species (SSA1, SSA2 and SSA4), and using a well-curated mtCOI gene database, we show clear incongruities in previous taxonomic approaches underpinned by effects from pseudogenes. We show that the SSA4 species is nested within SSA2, and that populations of the SSA1 species comprise well-defined south-eastern (Madagascar, Tanzania) and north-western (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi) putative sub-species. Signatures of allopatric incipient speciation, and the presence of a 'hybrid zone' separating the two putative sub-species were also detected. These findings provide insights into the evolution and molecular ecology of a highly cryptic hemipteran insect complex in African, and allow the systematic use of genomic data to be incorporated in the development of management strategies for this cassava pest
Consumer Socialization and the Role of Branding in Hazardous Adolescent Drinking
This study examines the relationship between alcohol marketing and consumer socialization to alcohol brands (assessed here using aided and unaided brand recognition and brand saliency), and the associated relationship between consumer socialization and hazardous alcohol consumption among a cohort of adolescents surveyed in Scotland. The research addresses gaps in the consumer socialization literature, by examining how marketing influences brand consumer socialization, and how brand consumer socialization influences subsequent hazardous consumption behavior over time, using a robust longitudinal design that assesses causal relationships while controlling for a wide range of important confounding variables. The results demonstrate the contribution of marketing to adolescents’ brand socialization to alcohol and the impact of this socialization on subsequent drinking behaviors. Implications for marketing managers, parents, policymakers, and consumer researchers are discussed, together with suggestions for future consumer research
The SEDs and Host Galaxies of the dustiest GRB afterglows
(Abridged) Until recently the information inferred from gamma-ray burst
follow-up observations was mostly limited to optically bright afterglows,
biasing all demographic studies against sight-lines that contain large amounts
of dust. Here, we present GRB afterglow and host observations for a sample of
bursts that are exemplary of previously missed ones because of high visual
extinction along the sight-line. This facilitates an investigation of the
properties, geometry and location of the absorbing dust of these
poorly-explored host galaxies, and a comparison to hosts from
optically-selected samples. The hosts of the dustiest afterglows are diverse in
their properties, but on average redder, more luminous and massive than the
hosts of optically-bright events. We hence probe a different galaxy population,
suggesting that previous host samples miss most of the massive,
chemically-evolved and metal-rich members. This also indicates that the dust
along the sight-line is often related to host properties, and thus probably
located in the diffuse ISM or interstellar clouds and not in the immediate GRB
environment. Some of the hosts in our sample, are blue, young or of small
stellar mass illustrating that even apparently non-extinguished galaxies
possess very dusty sight-lines due to a patchy dust distribution. The presented
observations establish a population of luminous, massive and correspondingly
chemically-evolved GRB hosts. This suggests that GRBs trace the global
star-formation rate better than studies based on optically-selected host
samples indicate, and the previously-claimed deficiency of high-mass host
galaxies was at least partially a selection effect.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, resubmitted to A&A after referee repor
A REVERSE SHOCK in GRB 160509A
We present the second multi-frequency radio detection of a reverse shock in a γ-ray burst. By combining our extensive radio observations of the Fermi-Large Area Telescope γ-ray burst 160509A at z = 1.17 up to 20 days after the burst with Swift X-ray observations and ground-based optical and near-infrared data, we show that the afterglow emission comprises distinct reverse shock and forward shock contributions: the reverse shock emission dominates in the radio band at ≲10 days, while the forward shock emission dominates in the X-ray, optical, and near-infrared bands. Through multi-wavelength modeling, we determine a circumburst density of , supporting our previous suggestion that a low-density circumburst environment is conducive to the production of long-lasting reverse shock radiation in the radio band. We infer the presence of a large excess X-ray absorption column, N H ≈ 1.5 ×1022 , and a high rest-frame optical extinction, A V ≈ 3.4 mag. We identify a jet break in the X-ray light curve at , and thus derive a jet opening angle of , yielding a beaming-corrected kinetic energy and radiated γ-ray energy of erg and erg (1-104 keV, rest frame), respectively. Consistency arguments connecting the forward shocks and reverse shocks suggest a deceleration time of s ≈ T 90, a Lorentz factor of , and a reverse-shock-to-forward-shock fractional magnetic energy density ratio of . Our study highlights the power of rapid-response radio observations in the study of the properties and dynamics of γ-ray burst ejecta. © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved
Identification of Markers that Distinguish Monocyte-Derived Fibrocytes from Monocytes, Macrophages, and Fibroblasts
The processes that drive fibrotic diseases are complex and include an influx of peripheral blood monocytes that can differentiate into fibroblast-like cells called fibrocytes. Monocytes can also differentiate into other cell types, such as tissue macrophages. The ability to discriminate between monocytes, macrophages, fibrocytes, and fibroblasts in fibrotic lesions could be beneficial in identifying therapies that target either stromal fibroblasts or fibrocytes. and in sections from human lung. We found that markers such as CD34, CD68, and collagen do not effectively discriminate between the four cell types. In addition, IL-4, IL-12, IL-13, IFN-γ, and SAP differentially regulate the expression of CD32, CD163, CD172a, and CD206 on both macrophages and fibrocytes. Finally, CD49c (α3 integrin) expression identifies a subset of fibrocytes, and this subset increases with time in culture.These results suggest that discrimination of monocytes, macrophages, fibrocytes, and fibroblasts in fibrotic lesions is possible, and this may allow for an assessment of fibrocytes in fibrotic diseases
Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use in early acute respiratory distress syndrome : Insights from the LUNG SAFE study
Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.Background: Concerns exist regarding the prevalence and impact of unnecessary oxygen use in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). We examined this issue in patients with ARDS enrolled in the Large observational study to UNderstand the Global impact of Severe Acute respiratory FailurE (LUNG SAFE) study. Methods: In this secondary analysis of the LUNG SAFE study, we wished to determine the prevalence and the outcomes associated with hyperoxemia on day 1, sustained hyperoxemia, and excessive oxygen use in patients with early ARDS. Patients who fulfilled criteria of ARDS on day 1 and day 2 of acute hypoxemic respiratory failure were categorized based on the presence of hyperoxemia (PaO2 > 100 mmHg) on day 1, sustained (i.e., present on day 1 and day 2) hyperoxemia, or excessive oxygen use (FIO2 ≥ 0.60 during hyperoxemia). Results: Of 2005 patients that met the inclusion criteria, 131 (6.5%) were hypoxemic (PaO2 < 55 mmHg), 607 (30%) had hyperoxemia on day 1, and 250 (12%) had sustained hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use occurred in 400 (66%) out of 607 patients with hyperoxemia. Excess FIO2 use decreased from day 1 to day 2 of ARDS, with most hyperoxemic patients on day 2 receiving relatively low FIO2. Multivariate analyses found no independent relationship between day 1 hyperoxemia, sustained hyperoxemia, or excess FIO2 use and adverse clinical outcomes. Mortality was 42% in patients with excess FIO2 use, compared to 39% in a propensity-matched sample of normoxemic (PaO2 55-100 mmHg) patients (P = 0.47). Conclusions: Hyperoxemia and excess oxygen use are both prevalent in early ARDS but are most often non-sustained. No relationship was found between hyperoxemia or excessive oxygen use and patient outcome in this cohort. Trial registration: LUNG-SAFE is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02010073publishersversionPeer reviewe
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