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Peter Townsend is one of the greatest social scientists of the twentieth century and best known for his pioneering research into poverty. This paper aims to revisit Townsend's early work discussing the measurement of poverty and attempts to operationalise his ideas for determining minimum income standards for healthy living.

The article is based upon a secondary analysis of data taken from the UK Expenditure and Food Survey, a continuous cross‐sectional survey of household income, expenditure, and food consumption. Here, the sample has been restricted to an older population and the authors observe the relationship between household income and a healthy standard of living (indicated by diet) for people aged 60 years and over.

Minimum income requirements for healthy living, for this population in the UK, are 37 per cent greater than the British state pension for single pensioners and 37 per cent for pensioner couples. It is also appreciably greater than the official minimum income safety net (after means testing), the pension credit guarantee.

Objective evidence‐based assessment of living standards are practicable but do not presently provide a basis for social policy in the UK or elsewhere apparently. Such assessment could provide a credible basis for helping to establish minimum income standards in official policy.

Recent developments in the design of a British social survey have made it possible to operationalise Townsend's ideas for establishing minimum income standards over half a century after he proposed them.

Our attitudes, values and tastes are shaped by our position in social space. At least, that was the argument Pierre Bourdieu set out in his seminal work, La Distinction. The purpose of this paper is to consider Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction and his argument that working-class families exhibit cultural attitudes and tastes for social necessity.

Attitudinal data relating to social necessity are taken from a national social survey of the British population. The results provide a rich source of data for exploring classed attitudes towards necessity in contemporary Britain.

Bourdieu's original claims for working-class “choice of the necessary” and working-class “taste for necessity” are based on his observations grounded in social survey evidence drawn from 1960s French society. Analysis of contemporary British social survey and attitudinal data also reveals sharp contours and differences in attitudes and tastes according to class fractions. These are evident in classed tastes and preferences for food, clothes, the home and social life.

Within the Bourdieusian theoretical framework, we understand that the tastes of necessity are preferences that arise as adaptations to deprivation of necessary goods and services. La Distinction and Bourdieu's approach to unmasking inequalities and structures in social space continue to be relevant in contemporary Britain. More generally, study findings add to the growing evidence that casts some doubt on current arguments concerning “individualisation”, claiming that social class has ceased to be significant in modern societies.

This paper sheds fresh light on the empirical validity and continuing theoretical relevance of Bourdieu's work examining the role of social necessity in shaping working-class culture. Bourdieu argues that the real principle of our preferences is taste and for working-class families, this is a virtue made of necessity.

This paper aims to highlight devastating consequences when professionals misappropriate the presumption of capacity in s1 Mental Capacity Act 2005.

This is the story of my vulnerable son's life and the failure of services to provide the professional help and support he needed in order to stay safe. I have flagged, with specific examples, how the law was perpetually misapplied in his case, with tragic consequences.

The application of the statutory presumption of capacity is widely misunderstood. The presumption is frequently misappropriated by health and social care professionals as well as by legal professionals. Concerned families are being ignored or blocked out by professionals, many of whom seem unclear as to when evidence based mental capacity assessments, with rationale, are required. This is rendering the legislation in place for the protection of vulnerable adults ineffective and then allowing preventable deaths to evade appropriate scrutiny.

Some of the documents (e.g. police logs and records, some social care records) were withheld from the author or heavily redacted when the author requested them following her son's death.

Vulnerable people can frequently suffer neglect and abuse in the community. Their deaths, following state agency failures, are not being investigated as they should be, preventing learning from mistakes.

We live in a society where, sadly, vulnerable people are often not appropriately supported by professional services. As a result, the police can be left to pick up the pieces following mental health service failures. Whilst there may now be a greater awareness of autism, this is not yet accompanied by a greater understanding of the condition.

Christopher's story is unique, raising issues of serious concern across many different agencies. These appear to stem from a widespread lack of understanding of the vulnerability of adults with high functioning autism/Asperger's syndrome and a significant discrepancy between their intelligence and their life skills.

This study assesses disruption risk management and resilience capabilities from the perspective of top-level operations and supply chain managers when faced with COVID-19 disruptions.

The study involves qualitative research via a triple-phase, interview-based method, following an interpretivist philosophy embodying an empathetic, subjective view to interpret the perspective of top-level managers. The data has been coded and analysed thematically.

Based on the ability to adapt to changing and uncertain environments using quick decision-making, technology and access to resources, the findings show a level of resilience adequate to withstand risk disruptions. The data do not expose differences between disruption management and traditional risk management but do display potential for businesses to adopt a disruption-oriented supply network that is flexible.

Currently, there are little data concerning COVID-19 disruption risk, and the propagation of these impacts throughout the supply chain. This study is limited to the perspective of top, senior-level managers in supply chain and operations.

The research signifies that by adopting a disruption-oriented, flexible network, business may have the means to overcome and surpass impacts from disruption risks. The study offers knowledge on supply chain resilience and flexibility in times of crisis. Managers and practitioners might adopt the evidence to support in developing strategies towards building resilient supply chains.

The findings and conclusions of this paper are the product of the authors’ own work, and the research has been supported appropriately through academic contributions in the study area. All sources have been acknowledged.

Aims to trace the legal bases for the protection of fundamental rights in the European Community and the European Union, but looks here at internal policy only. Though there was no basis in the Treaty of Rome (1957) for human rights, the European Court of Justice has declared that fundamental human rights are enshrined in the general principles of Community law and thereby protected by the Court. Investigates the Charter, in full, herein

Effective teaching, while supplemented by best practice methods and assessments, is rooted in accurate, age-appropriate, and engaging content. As a foundation for history content, elementary educators rely strongly on textbooks and children’s literature, both fiction and non-fiction. While many researchers have examined the historical accuracy of textbook content, few have rigorously scrutinized the historical accuracy of children’s literature. Those projects that carried out such examination were more descriptive than comprehensive due to significantly smaller data pools. I investigate how children’s non-fiction and fiction books depict and historicize a meaningful and frequently taught history topic: Christopher Columbus’s accomplishments and misdeeds. Results from a comprehensive content analysis indicate that children’s books are engaging curricular supplements with age-appropriate readability yet frequently misrepresent history in eight consequential ways. Demonstrating a substantive disconnect between experts’ understandings of Columbus, these discouraging findings are due to the ways in which authors of children’s books recurrently omit relevant and contentious historical content in order to construct interesting, personalized narratives.

A clinical audit is a key component of the clinical governance framework. The rate of audit completion in general surgery has not been investigated. The purpose of this paper is to assess the rates of audit activity and completion and explore the barriers to successful audit completion.

This was a multi-centre study evaluating current surgical audit practice. A standardised audit proforma was designed. All clinical audits in general surgery during a two-year period were identified and retrospectively reviewed. Data held by the audit departments were collated, and individual audit teams were contacted to verify the data accuracy. Audit teams failing to complete the full audit cycle with a re-audit were asked to explain the underlying reasons behind this.

Of the six trusts approached, two refused to participate, and one failed to initiate the project. A total of 39 audits were registered across three surgical directorates. Only 15 out of 39 audits completed at least one audit cycle, with 4 deemed of no value to re-audit. Only seven audits were completed to re-audit. Achieving a publication or a presentation was the most cited reason for not completing the audit loop.

This study demonstrates that the poor rates of audit completion rate found in other areas of clinical medicine pervade general surgery. Improved completion of an audit is essential and strategies to achieve this are urgently needed.

This article makes the case that the education community can learn from professional learning and innovation practices, collectively called “Working in the Open” (or “Working Open”), that have roots in the free/open source software (F/OSS) movement. These practices focus on values of transparency, collaboration and sharing within communities of experimentation. This paper aims to argues that Working Open offers a compelling approach to fostering distributed educational professional networks that focus on co-constructing new projects and best practices.

Insights presented here are based on three sources: expert perspectives on open source work practices gleaned through interviews and blog posts, a qualitative case analysis of a collaborative project enacted by a group of informal learning organizations within the Hive NYC Learning Network, a community of over 70 youth-facing organizations in New York City, as well as an overview of that network’s participation structures, and, finally, knowledge-building activities and discussions held within the Hive NYC community about the topic in situ. From these sources, the authors derived general principles to guide open work approaches.

The authors identify five practices deemed as central to Working Open: public storytelling and context setting, enabling community contribution, rapid prototyping “in the wild”, public reflection and documentation and, lastly, creating remixable work products. The authors describe these practices, show how they are enacted in situ, outline ways that Hive NYC stewards promote a Working Open organizational ecosystem and conclude with recommendations for utilizing a Working Open approach.

Drawing from the F/OSS movement, this article builds on standard practices of professional learning communities to provide an approach that focuses on pushing forward innovation and changes in practice as opposed to solely sharing reflections or observing practices.

This study aims to identify critical capabilities to address unforeseen and novel disruptions, such as those instigated by COVID-19, and explore their role as essential enablers of supply chain resilience and responsiveness, leading to improved performance.

The structural equation modeling technique was employed for analyzing the proposed associations using survey data from 206 manufacturers operating during the COVID-19 pandemic in a developing country, Pakistan.

Key findings show how improvisation and anticipation act distinctly yet jointly to facilitate supply chain resilience and responsiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, data analytics capability positively affects anticipation and improvisation, which mediate the effect of data analytics on supply chain resilience and responsiveness.

The findings contribute to the theoretical and empirical understanding of the existing literature, suggesting that a combination of improvisation, anticipation and data analytics capabilities is highly imperative for enhancing supply chain resilience and responsiveness in novel and unexpected disruptions.

This is the first study to examine the impact of data analytics on improvisation and anticipation and the latter as complementary capabilities to enhance supply chain resilience and responsiveness. The empirical investigation explores the interplay among data analytics, improvisation, and anticipation capabilities for enhancing supply chain resilience, responsiveness, and performance during the unforeseen and novel disruptions, such as brought to bear by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the supply chain management (SCM) skills that support the sensing and seizing of opportunities in a changing business environment.

Based on the previous literature on the T-shaped model of SCM skills, data were collected through a mail survey among Australian business executives. The resultant skill sets are grouped along factors that support the sensing vs seizing of opportunities.

Interestingly from an SCM perspective, functional logistics-related skills are important to maintain competitiveness but are not the ones contributing to a firm’s ability to sense opportunities and threats, and to seize opportunities in a changing business environment. The authors, therefore, support the notion that supply chain managers should be managers first. Factual SCM knowledge is the solid basis, but otherwise only an entry requirement in this field.

Problem-solving skills, along with forecasting and customer/supplier relationship management, stand out as important components that support the ability of supply chain managers to sense and shape opportunities and threats in a turbulent business environment. This focus would tend to suggest the importance of supply chain integration and collaboration as management approaches. Other SCM skills from warehousing and inventory management to transportation and purchasing are more prevalent for maintaining competitiveness.

The results of the survey and the consequential analysis indicate that the content of tertiary-level educational programmes should be significantly reviewed to deliver two distinct (but partially overlapping) streams that focus on the generalist and functionalist managers who must work together in the management of the increasingly global and complex supply chains.

Functional skills often form the basis of training and education programmes for supply chain managers. Whilst these form the solid foundation for their jobs, they are entry requirements at best. In a changing business environment, other skills are needed for success. Given that turbulence is becoming the norm rather than the exception, this finding necessitates rethinking in training and education programmes, as well as in the recruitment of supply chain managers.

Testing the T-shaped model of SCM skills from a dynamic capabilities perspective, the results of the factor analysis lead to a regrouping of skill sets in terms of sensing and seizing opportunities in a turbulent business environment.