Search results

Considered alone, risk is static; the purpose of this paper is to illustrate risk not as static but as a fluid condition dependent, for example, upon circumstances of its context in changeable vulnerability and behavioural responses of people facing risk.

Psychology provides strong evidence of behavioural response when facing hazards; technological disasters providing more evidence of behavioural responses to hazards and risk than response to disasters assumed to be “natural”. Initial and subsequent behavioural responses may critically affect ultimate outcomes. Post-event inquiries into technological disasters have revealed actions and inactions which created or aggravated subsequent consequences and their aftermath.

Decisions taken at a Japanese school between the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and details of the 2017 fire at a tower-block in London, UK, indicate, in spite of training, that rigidity, uncertainty, hesitation or waver may affect critical decisions and their consequences. Pre- and post-disaster behaviour may not follow preferred patterns. Fear of imagined or real events may induce unanticipated denial of the reality of risk. Physical changes made after assessments of risk may not be recognised as affecting risk.

Few published examples exist of public inquiries following disasters assumed to be from natural causes.

Reports of inquiries into technological disasters provide significant examples of behavioural responses which, if replicated, may influence outcomes of disasters labelled as “natural”.

Awareness of risk as a fluid condition will facilitate realisation of effects upon risk of uncompleted or ongoing works, inappropriate behavioural responses, undeveloped resilience and of the need for regular reassessments of risk.

This study encourages comprehension of risk as an evolving and fluid condition.

The purpose of this paper is to address the lack of knowledge of the accounting occupational group in England prior to the formation of professional accounting bodies. It aims to do so by focusing on attempts made by writing masters and accountants to establish a recognisable persona in the public domain, in England, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and to enhance that identity by behaving in a manner designed to persuade the public of the professionalism associated with themselves and their work.

The study is based principally on the contents of early accounting treatises and secondary sources drawn from beyond the accounting literature. Notions of identity, credentialism and jurisdiction are employed to help understand and evaluate the occupational history of the writing master and accountant occupational group.

Writing masters and accountants emerged as specialist pedagogues providing the expert business knowledge required in the counting houses of entities that flourished as the result of rapid commercial expansion during the early modern period. Their demise as an occupational group may be attributed to a range of factors, amongst which an emphasis on personal identity, the neglect of group identity and derogation of the writing craft were most important.

The paper highlights Early English Books Online (available at: http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (available at: www.gale.cengage.com/DigitalCollections/products/ecco/index.htm) and the seventeenth and eighteenth century Burney Collection Newspapers as first class electronic resources now available for studying accounting history from the sixteenth century through to the eighteenth century.

The paper advances knowledge of accounting history by: profiling commercial educators active in England in the early modern period; studying the devices they employed to achieve upward social and economic trajectory; explaining the failure of an embryonic professionalisation initiative; and demonstrating the contingent nature of the professionalisation process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of co-producing a formulation alongside a service user and the clinical team within a secure inpatient service. This paper has been co-authored by the service user and members of the multi-disciplinary team (MDT).

An open-ended focus group discussion was facilitated with the service user and members of her MDT. The process of thematic analysis was applied to the focus group transcript.

The following themes highlighted important outcomes of co-producing a formulation within a secure inpatient setting; “Meaningful Collaboration”, “Co-Produced Understanding” and a “Shift in Power Differential”. This paper demonstrates the importance of meaningful co-production within a secure inpatient service whilst also highlighting the challenges and tensions of working in a co-produced way within this context.

This paper explores the process of co-producing and developing a formulation from the perspective of one service user and their MDT within a secure inpatient setting. It would be unhelpful to extrapolate broad assumptions from this case study although this study does raise important considerations for future research and encourages an emphasis on a co-produced design and dissemination.

This case study highlights the importance of co-production in clinical endeavours, service delivery and development perspectives and in the dissemination of this information.

The importance of co-producing and co-authoring alongside service users have been highlighted in this paper. This approach to co-production and co-authorship is highly recommended in future research endeavours.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasise how vulnerability is not only “place-based” and to explore by example how vulnerability to hazards in England may comprise additional economic, social and psychological contributors to poverty. The mutuality of poverty and vulnerability is demonstrated, as are examples of susceptibility of the vulnerable to stigmatic disregard and cruelty.

“Place-based” vulnerability is exemplified by coastal vulnerabilities and causes of their increase. Poverty and its causes are explained, followed by examples of possible contributors, indicators and consequences in incomes, living costs and debt; housing welfare and homelessness; food, nutrition, health and mental ill-health. Susceptibility to stigmatic behaviours exacerbate personal vulnerabilities.

Dynamics of mutual inter-relationships between poverty and vulnerability are demonstrated. Behavioural responses to either condition by individuals and by society at large, to which those who are vulnerable or in poverty are susceptible, are described in the present and from history.

Findings form a “theoretical reality” upon which some measures may follow. An additional need is identified for long-term social field research to follow adults’ and childrens’ experiences, and consequences of poverty in vulnerable situations.

Vulnerability accrues irrevocably between disasters, the results of which may be exposed by disaster impacts.

Recognition of linkages between economic and social vulnerability and disasters is essential for subsequent action to reduce the impact of disasters upon society.

Though vulnerability has been explored for many years, the dynamics of its contributing processes require further explanation before their wider comprehension is achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to reassess Chiswell's vulnerability to storm and sea flooding since an analysis made in 1979 and to identify characteristics of resilience, a more recent item of disaster studies terminology.

Chiswell's geography, geomorphology and changes affecting its vulnerability up to 1979, are described against its history of storms. Two serious storms in 1978 and 1979 drew attention to Chiswell's need of improved protection and a flood alleviation scheme was completed. Some consequences for Chiswell of the completed scheme are described and considered in relation to climate change, Chiswell's inclusion in the UNESCO Jurassic Coast and its expression of human ecology in a context of natural hazards of the sea.

Resilience existed before its inclusion in the terminology of disaster studies. The role of a community pressure group and of local and national administrations are considered against the timescale of protection provision. The essential requirement of external inputs before community resilience became evident is highlighted, together with additional observed and itemised characteristics of resilience.

Updated research is based upon the results of rapid field observation and extensive use of internet sources, not available in 1979.

Realities of resilience may assist interpretation of its theoretical evaluations and expectations.

As yet, there are few field evaluations of resilience.

The aim of this paper is to explore community resilience during the short-term stages of recovery of Wittenberge in 1945, surrender in the final months of the Second World War and the commencement for the town of Soviet administration; with comments on longer-term contexts of continued resilience and recovery to the present day. The paper examines origins and current use of the term “resilience” for comparison with its realities that are identified.

Translated extracts of a chronology of events in Wittenberge during 1945 (Muchow) are the basis of an exploration of social impacts for a town in wartime of exhaustion, defeat, surrender, political change and impoverishment.

Current interpretations of social resilience frequently do not match its reality, largely due to overuse of the word. Resilience is conditioned by circumstances that cannot be assumed, sudden change here being part of the war experience, not a consequence.

Whereas other research (e.g. Hewitt) has considered the social impact of mass bombing during the second World War, this paper takes the example of a single town in an exposed geographical situation which is described.

Whereas Second World War military history continues to be repeatedly re-examined, its social impacts are comparatively understated. This paper offers a rare example in English of the experience of a small town in Germany in 1945.

This intentionally short paper considers the wide range of interpretations of “vulnerability” since its 1979 adoption in disaster studies and proposes some necessary separation and re-categorisation of its current applications.

The short history of the use of “vulnerability” in disasters studies is examined, contrasting present day contexts with those of its earliest use.

“Vulnerability” is retained for its conventional place-based role, whilst superimposed social and political constraints are allocated to “susceptibility”, a term often used to define “vulnerability”; the two terms taking on equal mutually supportive roles. Separation of the two terms is supported by on example of their realities in war and post-war conditions, together with other examples not in contexts of war. Separation of terms suggests the issue of whether manifestation of vulnerability brings about additional personal susceptibility.

Implications are that both vulnerability and susceptibility may become better understood in disaster studies and its applications in the field.

The media is seen as a possible eventual target for a published version of this short paper so that, in time, public as well as academic readership may be reached.

Dissatisfaction occasionally expressed regarding uses of “vulnerability” has, so far, received little radical attention.

The development of the moving automobile final assembly line was a major milestone in manufacturing. The techniques required to make it work are demanding, but the resulting increase in productivity is phenomenal. Consequently, and not surprisingly, some people have claimed a major role in its development. The initial date for this innovation is either July 1908, or August 1913 and credit is given to Henry Ford, Charles Sorensen, Clarence Avery, or W.C. Klann, depending on whom one reads. This paper tries to clarify what happened on these dates and who was responsible. Investigation reveals that each of these men did play a role in development of the moving automobile assembly line.

It is probably well known to the majority of educated Englishmen that in the United States of America two kinds of Government exist side by side, and are jointly responsible to the people for the conduct of the external and internal relations of the Republic. These two forms of government are represented by the Federal Government and by the several governments of the different States of the Union.

Sports leagues and media providers are constantly seeking new ways of improving the consumption experience of viewers. Several new technologies have arrived in the industry, but many have not proved financially viable. Among these new technologies is tracking technology, used to augment television coverage and for coaching enhancement. This has had mixed results. In this paper I argue that the emergence of Moneyball management practices in sport have created the supervening necessity (Winston, 1998) required to drive demand for player tracking technology in ice hockey. This technology is able to collect the data necessary to implement statistical analyses comparable to those used in professional baseball to cover media enhancement, coaching enhancement and Moneyball management.