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Animals can influence their social environment by preferentially associating with certain conspecifics. Such preferential association has gained increasing theoretical attention, as it may influence social evolution and population dynamics. However, relatively little empirical work has examined the occurrence of preferential association and its effects on cooperative group formation. Here, we test the factors associated with cooperative group formation in Polistes dominulus nest-founding queen wasps. P. dominulus are a good system to study preferential association, as foundresses can nest alone or in groups and group membership is flexible. We found that both social and environmental factors were associated with partner choice. First, facial patterns were associated with cooperation. Wasps with more similar facial patterns were more likely to cooperate than wasps with less similar facial patterns. This preferential phenotypic association fits the theoretical criteria for the evolution of tag-based cooperation. Season was also associated with cooperation; wasps on early-season nests were more likely to cooperate than wasps on late-season nests. High levels of aggression by nest owners during initial interactions were also correlated with lower probabilities of subsequent cooperation, suggesting that nest owners have some control over group membership. Other factors including body weight, weight similarity and nest productivity were not linked with cooperation. Overall, multiple factors influence cooperation in paper wasps, including facial pattern similarity. The occurrence of preferential phenotypic association in paper wasps is quite interesting and may influence the evolution of cooperation and population divergence in this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss a contemporary 'take' on the concept of adaptation in light of Crichton-Miller's original 1926 paper. I look briefly at some of the ways that contemporary thinking is both similar to and different from ideas of 90 years ago. In particular I think about how recent neurobiological findings, epigenetic research and attachment theory have cast new light on our understanding of the ways humans adapt to social and emotional environments. It looks at how psychiatric presentations which are seen as maladaptive might well have an adaptive origin in early life. In this account I emphasise how a more modern version of evolutionary theory can be developed, particularly one influenced by life history theory, and suggest that such ideas have powerful explanatory power as well as being based solidly in good research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the context for the accompanying suite of papers on creating and sustaining democratic spaces in education. Prompted by the centenary of Summerhill, the internationally famous democratic school founded in Suffolk, England, in 1921, by A.S. Neill, this collection of papers explores and broadens out the central questions at the heart of experiments in democratic education. We suggest that, at a time of distrust in and questioning of the central institutions of democratic government, and in the wake of challenges to the mainstream system of state schooling, these questions are more relevant than ever. We argue that detailed attention to the everyday practice of creating democratic spaces in a variety of educational and social contexts can highlight the myriad ways in which educators, students, families and communities can keep democratic values and principles alive, thereby enriching our discussions about the meaning and value of democratic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary, I reflect on the paper "Poverty and Health: Prospective Evidence From the Alameda County Study" by Haan et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 1987;125(6):989-998), which together with supporting work ushered in a surge of epidemiologic interest in the impact of social contexts on health. I discuss why the paper was influential and how the premise of this type of work influenced theories and methods in epidemiology. The paper is placed in the broader context of the nature of evidence in epidemiology and the ultimate purpose of epidemiologic inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating how animals navigate space and time is key to understanding communication. Small differences in spatial positioning or timing can mean the difference between a message received and a missed connection. However, these spatio-temporal dynamics are often overlooked or are subject to simplifying assumptions in investigations of animal signaling. This special issue addresses this significant knowledge gap by integrating work from researchers with disciplinary backgrounds in neuroscience, cognitive ecology, sensory ecology, computer science, evolutionary biology, animal behavior, and philosophy. This introduction to the special issue outlines the novel questions and approaches that will advance our understanding of spatio-temporal dynamics of animal communication. We highlight papers that consider the evolution of spatio-temporal dynamics of behavior across sensory modalities and social contexts. We summarize contributions that address the neural and physiological mechanisms in senders and receivers that shape communication. We then turn to papers that introduce cutting edge technologies that will revolutionize our ability to track spatio-temporal dynamics of individuals during social encounters. The interdisciplinary collaborations that gave rise to these papers emerged in part from a novel workshop-symposium model, which we briefly summarize for those interested in fostering syntheses across disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) are increasingly being used in the treatment of advanced heart failure. Left ventricular assist device patients frequently report improvements in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) post-implantation. However, HRQOL varies over time and between patients, which can be explained by patient-related and environmental factors, as individual studies suggest. This review aims to synthesize qualitative evidence on factors influencing HRQOL of LVAD patients. Methods and results We systematically searched the databases PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, and CINAHL for qualitative studies on factors influencing HRQOL of patients with continuous flow LVADs. The included papers were synthesized using a thematic synthesis. The results were validated in discussion with a patient and practical implications were jointly developed. We included 11 papers and developed 7 themes that represent influencing factors for HRQOL of LVAD patients: disease experiences , emotional reactivity , heart failure and mechanical circulatory support symptoms , medical care , self-care , self-concept, and social environment. Conclusion The identified themes highlight influencing factors on HRQOL. These help to explain variation in patient outcomes and to better consider the individual situation in rehabilitation. Based on the results, four strategies are proposed for promoting psychosocial outcomes: facilitate self-care, ensure social support, offer psychosocial support, and manage patient expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has documented how the decline in professional self-regulation in the UK and Australia was led by policy-makers in response to regulatory failures. In Canada, professional self-regulation is currently in decline as well, and while policy-makers have driven some change it is also the case that self-regulating professions have begun to transform themselves from within: altering their structure, make-up, and processes to enhance fairness, public input, and accountability, while reducing professional control. Why would they do so? This paper draws on the concept of institutional isomorphism to understand why professional regulators would invoke changes that, on the surface, might seem to counteract their own interests. Analysing data from 46 interviews with leaders in healthcare profession regulation, this paper examines how coercive, mimetic, and normative processes drive regulatory reform in a changing regulatory field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to defend moral relativism from the accusation that it would make it irrational to classify past changes in public opinion as instances of moral progress, for they would constitute an improvement only from our current point of view. The argument is this. For our assessment of a change in public opinion as an instance of moral progress to be rational, we need to take the moral claims made before the change to be false simpliciter while being open to the possibility that we ourselves change our minds at some point. These two things can be made compatible if we construe moral relativism as taking the truth of moral claims to be relative to the context of assessment. Thus understood, moral relativism is in fact the only view that makes room for talk of moral progress, as the rest of candidate positions make it irrational. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explain the kinematics of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement. This occurs when one speaker has greater control in the joint activity of pairing contents with words in a context. I argue that some forms of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement are deeply worrying, namely those that involves certain power imbalances. In such cases, a speaker possesses illegitimate control in metalinguistic disagreement owing to the operation of identity prejudice. I call this metalinguistic injustice. The wrong involves restricting a speaker from participating in the processes that determine the epistemic/linguistic resources of a conversation, and/or undermining a speaker's ability to affect metalinguistic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the tactical changes made by the asylum seeker community in Hong Kong in negotiating local refugee assistance policies and practices. The analysis presented in this paper is grounded in my ethnographic fieldwork with an asylum seeker-led organization and supplemented by archival study and informal interviews. In recent years, the asylum seeker community has adopted a pragmatic approach to advocacy, increasingly asking the local community for support in providing humanitarian aid rather than calling for changes to the assistance system, a tactic that this group used in the past. I argue that these tactical changes cannot be separated from the social and political contexts of Hong Kong. The presence of stimulating events, particularly those involving local and global refugee and migrant communities, the space available for voicing dissent, and the level of institutional responsiveness, all affect how the asylum seeker community in Hong Kong participates in policy discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a case study of contemporary employment relations in tourism and catering in Greece, this paper seeks to contribute to our empirical understanding of employment law. Which factors determine the ways in which the law is perceived by employers and workers and complied with, breached or avoided? The main argument of the paper is that not only market forces are relevant here; several other factors need to be taken into consideration, which when combined with market forces can re-regulate as well as deregulate the field of employment. These tend to be informal, locally embedded and influenced by wider social relations. By constructing a simple matrix of employment settings based on locale and seasonality on one axis, and size of enterprise and scope of services provided on the other, the paper demonstrates how organisational and spatial parameters and the social environment interact with market forces and legal forces to shape prevailing norms and to influence the behaviour of parties to the contract for work. It further demonstrates that the structuring of the sectoral labour market is a process determined by broader social power dynamics. Beyond serving as part of the context within which contracting for work takes place, legal rules are a resource to be mobilised by both employers and workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite well-documented evidence that structurally disadvantaged populations are disproportionately affected by infectious diseases, our understanding of the pathways that connect structural disadvantage to the burden of infectious diseases is limited. We propose a conceptual framework to facilitate more rigorous examination and testing of hypothesized mechanisms through which social and environmental factors shape the burden of infectious diseases and lead to persistent inequities. Drawing upon the principles laid out by Link and Phelan in their landmark paper on social conditions (J Health Soc Behav. 1995;(spec no.):80–94), we offer an explication of potential pathways through which structural disadvantage (e.g. racism, sexism, and economic deprivation) operates to produce infectious disease inequities. Specifically, we describe how the social environment affects an individual's risk of infectious disease by 1) increasing exposure to infectious pathogens and 2) increasing susceptibility to infection. This framework will facilitate both the systematic examination of the ways in which structural disadvantage shapes the burden of infectious disease and the design of interventions that can disrupt these pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the year 2003 when the first walkability scale was published to date, person-environment fit models and empirical research, some of which was published in Health Promotion International , have encapsulated healthy communities in 'neighborhood walkability'. While there is no doubt that neighborhood walkability positively influences health-seeking behaviors and health, recent models suggest that their measurement and conceptualization have not emphasized the role played by psychosocial and personal factors in aging in place. Thus, the development of scales measuring human ecosystem factors has not recognized all critical factors suited for older adults. In this paper, we aim to draw on relevant literature to frame a more holistic construct, hereby referred to as Socially Active Neighborhoods (SAN), that would better support aging in place in older populations. Through a narrative review based on a systematic search of the literature, we define the scope of SAN and delineate some contextual implications for gerontology, health promotion and psychometric testing. SAN, unlike neighborhood walkability in its current measurement and conceptualization, incorporates critical theory-informed psychosocial factors (i.e. safety and disability friendliness of neighborhood infrastructure) that can encourage older adults with physiological and cognitive limitations to maintain physical and social activities as well as health in later life. The SAN is the result of our adaptation of key person-environment models, including the Context Dynamics in Aging (CODA) framework, that recognizes the role of context in healthy aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Cassel's 1976 paper "The Contribution of the Social Environment to Host Resistance" (Am J Epidemiol. 1976;104(2):107-123) is widely regarded as a classic in epidemiology. He makes the compelling argument that the quality of a person's social relationships, that is, the degree to which her relationships are more stressful than supportive (or vice versa) influences her susceptibility to disease independent of genetic endowment, diet, physical activity, etc. Cassel's provocative thesis was anchored in a cogent synthesis of findings from animal experiments and observational studies on diverse human populations. Beginning in the late 1970s, the paper stimulated an explosion of epidemiologic research on social support and human health. Beyond advancing epidemiologic theory, Cassel showed how findings from various epidemiologic study designs could be marshalled to build a persuasive causal argument that impaired social bonds increase the risk of premature disease and death. The paper also foreshadowed core ideas of later theoretical constructs, such as weathering and allostatic load, regarding the power of chronic environmental stressors to accelerate biological aging across multiple organ systems. Cassel's assessment of the research and practice implications of his conclusions has remarkable contemporary resonance for the field of epidemiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health impact assessment (HIA) is a method by which a policy, programme or project falling outside traditional health fields, may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of a population to mitigate negative impacts and strengthen the positive ones. Proposals are analysed from the perspective of all the determinants of health. In France, HIAs are mainly applied to urban development projects where social cohesion (SCo) is a major issue. Although the HIA method is well structured as a step-by-step process, there are no guidelines for assessing SCo. This article opens with literature review to clarify the concept of SCo and to understand how the built environment influences SCo and how social environment influence health. Drawing on this work, this paper presents an analytical framework to assess SCo, integrating both the spatial and physical dimensions of urban design and the perceptions of the neighbourhood characteristics. Following a brief overview of the key findings from applying this framework to HIA of an urban development project, the paper discusses its related strengths and weaknesses. The framework could be a useful tool for HIA as it embraces knowledge from both urban planning and social sciences. It also allows for an overall analysis of all the indicators without relying on a checklist. Nevertheless, it should be tested further to improve its validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People are often more influenced by opinions similar to their own and even seek information from those with whom they expect to most agree—behaviours often attributed to irrational biases. In this paper, I argue that these behaviours can be understood within the context of rational social learning by accounting for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity in preferences or priors. Individuals display local learning by placing greater weight on opinions that are closer to their own. When individuals choose whom to learn from, local learning leads to the development of echo chambers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses issues in social services around the world as of December 2020 and the need for social workers to engage in policymaking to achieve effective change in their profession. Topics include the need for social workers to reflect on the interactions between the people and state actors, the power dynamics between institutions, and the people's political behaviour, as well as the welfare programs by emerging countries like China, India and South Africa.

Creating and developing mathematical models to solve real-world problems is a complex task and students often have difficulties in tackling it successfully. The design and implementation of sequences that help students autonomously develop their ability to solve modelling tasks could be a useful scaffolding tool to foster modelling learning. In this paper we present a sequence of estimation tasks in a real context based on what we have called the upscaling technique, which consists of scaling the accessibility and knowledge of the context used. A study with two samples of grade 10 students, experimental and control, has allowed us to find out whether this sequence promotes success in solving complex contextualized estimation problems and whether it helps students to improve their mathematical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prisons offer policymakers an opportunity to address the pre-existing high prevalence of physical and mental health issues among prisoners. This notion has been widely integrated into international and national prison health policies, including the Healthy Prisons Agenda, which calls for governments to address the health needs of prisoners and safeguard their health entitlement during imprisonment, and the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 concerning reducing inequality among disadvantaged populations. However, the implementation of the austerity policy in the United Kingdom since the re-emergence of the global financial crisis in 2008 has impeded this aspiration. This interdisciplinary paper critically evaluates the impact of austerity on prison health. The aforementioned policy has obstructed prisoners' access to healthcare, exacerbated the degradation of their living conditions, impeded their purposeful activities and subjected them to an increasing level of violence. This paper calls for alternatives to imprisonment, initiating a more informed economic recovery policy, and relying on transnational and national organizations to scrutinize prisoners' entitlement to health. These systemic solutions could act as a springboard for political and policy discussions at national and international forums with regard to improving prisoners' health and simultaneously meeting the aspirations of the Healthy Prisons Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of supererogation—going above and beyond the call of duty—is typically discussed in a moral context. However, in this paper we argue for the existence of rationally supererogatory actions: that is, actions that go above and beyond the call of rational duty. In order to establish the existence of such actions, we first need to overcome the so-called paradox of supererogation: we need to provide some explanation for why, if some act is rationally optimal, it is not the case that we are rationally required to carry out that act. We argue that a response to this 'paradox' can be found by reflecting on normative conflicts: cases where what is best according to some normative domain is different from what is best according to some other normative domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes children's perceptions and visions for a healthier social and physical environment in the setting of a primary school on the Danish island of Bornholm. Guided by an everyday-life perspective and applying participatory action research methods including social imagination and visual techniques within the framework of future creating workshops, the study engaged 50 children aged 6–9 years in creative processes of identifying health-related problem areas and solutions in their school setting. The study observed that the children were very capable of articulating their thoughts, ideas and visions for a better and healthier school environment. Identified problem areas and solutions differed widely and represented a broad perspective of health including social, physical, environmental and emotional aspects. The paper discusses advantages and challenges of involving children in decision-making processes and concludes that children are visionary and creative agents of change in health promotion projects provided that applied participatory methods are appealing to the children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As evidence of the relationship between place and health mounts, more epidemiologists and clinical science researchers are becoming interested in incorporating place-based measures and analyses into their examination of population health and health inequities. Given the extensive literature on place and health, it can be challenging for researchers new to this area to develop neighborhood-effects research questions and apply the appropriate measures and methods. This paper provides a road map for guiding health researchers through the conceptual and methodological stages of incorporating various dimensions of place into their quantitative health research. Synthesizing across reviews, commentaries, and empirical investigations, the road map consists of 4 broad stages for considering place and health: 1) why? : articulating the motivation for assessing place and health and grounding the motivation in theory; 2) what? : identifying the relevant place-based characteristics and specifying their link to health to build a conceptual framework; 3) how? : determining how to operationalize the conceptual framework by defining, measuring, and assessing place-based characteristics and quantifying their effect on health; and 4) now what? : discussing the implications of neighborhood research findings for future research, policy, and practice. This road map supports efforts to develop conceptually and analytically rigorous neighborhood research projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives This paper critically reviewed the scientific literature on recreational activity (RA) behaviors in assisted living (AL) communities. Research Design and Methods A search of three databases yielded 70 quantitative, qualitative, and observational articles that met criteria for inclusion. Results AL residents participated in various types of RA, however, did so infrequently. Individual, interindividual, environmental, and relocation factors influenced RA behaviors, and participation may relate to positive consequences for residents and AL communities. This review identified multiple limitations in the literature related to construct definitions, measurement protocols, and incomplete or absent theoretical frameworks. Discussion and Implications To address these limitations, the current review proposes a multivariate measurement model and an interdisciplinary theoretical model of factors relating to RA, consistent with an ecological framework. The proposed models appreciate individual psychological factors that influence the multiple facets of human choice and behavior, as well as the interaction between individuals and the unique sociophysical environment of AL. This paper concludes with recommendations for future research, emphasizing studies that have applied implications for practice and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen deliberations cannot be entirely isolated from their wider social, political and cultural context. The fact that particular deliberative mechanisms are based on sound theories does not mean that they will necessarily produce sound results in specific instances. Similarly, the fact that such mechanisms have been found to work well in practice in one social environment does not mean they will necessarily work equally well in another. Using a recent deliberation initiative in Japan, this paper addresses this important issue. It explores how the process of the Japanese consensus conference on genetically modified crops in 2000 was influenced by Japan's sociopolitical environment and how its outcomes challenged the established understanding of the policymaking process. The paper argues that the transfer of a particular policy process from one culture to another can result in a conflict of values between the process and its new social environment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the degree to which pre-revolutionary Iranian New Wave cinema is influenced by modern Persian fiction. Considering Iranian film adaptations have barely received any scholarly attention, this article focuses on Dariush Mehrjui's The Cow/Gav (1969), one of the pioneering films of the New Wave, adapted from Gholamhosein Sa'edi's story collection entitled The Mourners of Bayal/Azadaran-e Bayal (1965). The rise of the New Wave cinema through the pre-revolutionary years before 1979 was interwoven with the engagement of filmmakers like Mehrjui with Persian fiction. While Sa'edi's stories present criticisms of the socio-political atmosphere of the late 1960s and 1970s, I argue that Mehrjui's adaptation complicates Sa'edi's critical perspective to establish an overt social commentary on contemporary Iranian society. This paper will conclude by demonstrating that Mehrjui in The Cow draws on Sa'edi's work to portray a microcosm of Iranian society and places it in relation to the motifs of overdependence, fear, religion, and waiting, which are interpretable in the social context of the late 1960s and 1970s. This analysis highlights the invisible yet significant role of modern Persian fiction and adaptation strategies in establishing the perspective of The Cow , which left an impression on many New Wave films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I summarize the medical evidence regarding the auditory and non-auditory effects of noise and analyse the ethics of noise and personal autonomy in the social environment using a variety of case studies. Key to this discussion is the fact that, contrary to the traditional definition of noise, sound can be noise without being annoying, as the evidence shows that some sounds can harm without being perceived. Ultimately, I develop a theory of 'noisy autonomy' with which to guide us in discussing the public health ethics of noise and other sounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the importance of involving families in care provision in residential care facilities is recognised, how to achieve an inclusive care space that balances the needs of families, residents, staff and the sector's regulatory requirements remains problematic for social work and the aged care sector. In this paper, a spatial perspective is used to examine the role of family carers in residential care facilities. Information obtained from focus groups with families, naturalistic interviews with staff and families, and observations of mealtimes in one case study site is analysed thematically to demonstrate how the physical, social and symbolic meanings of space interact to produce or impede family care-giving. The findings provide important guidelines for social work in this setting suggesting practice at micro, mezzo and macro levels. These include the acknowledgement of families in care-giving, genuine partnerships between staff and families, and family-inclusive policies within facilities. In addition, this paper highlights how the social work profession and the residential care sector more generally can strengthen their person-centred focus, engage with families and lessen the marginalisation of families in care-giving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the historical perspectives and interpretations of Impressionism by various art historians, particularly Meyer Schapiro. It highlights the different approaches taken by scholars like Robert Herbert and T. J. Clark, who drew inspiration from Schapiro's remarks on Impressionism. It also discusses how Schapiro's views on Impressionism evolved over time, with a focus on the role of content and social context in modern art.

Frequently people draw on different domains of knowledge to reach a conclusion that seems reasonable despite being difficult to justify from the perspective of a single domain. For example, there appears to be no reason for ethics to involve mathematics, nor is there a mechanism in mathematics to embrace moral questions; however, both ethics and mathematics are likely to be involved in resolving questions about how an autonomous vehicle should make decisions in a social context. In this paper, we present a specialized mode of reasoning, transepistemic abduction (TeA), which establishes how two agents, in order to satisfactorily explain a phenomenon, reason across two epistemic domains despite each agent being ignorant of the other's domain knowledge. We formalize TeA with epistemic logic and provide a naturalized example that brings together a psychosocial agent and a computational agent for the analysis of subjective text. We find that interaction between agents is critical to the process of TeA and that there are limits to the formalization while remaining true to naturalized reasoning. We conclude with some important implications of these findings for future work in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although social neuroscience is concerned with understanding how the brain interacts with its social environment, prevailing research in the field has primarily considered the human brain in isolation, deprived of its rich social context. Emerging work in social neuroscience that leverages tools from network analysis has begun to advance knowledge of how the human brain influences and is influenced by the structures of its social environment. In this paper, we provide an overview of key theory and methods in network analysis (especially for social systems) as an introduction for social neuroscientists who are interested in relating individual cognition to the structures of an individual's social environments. We also highlight some exciting new work as examples of how to productively use these tools to investigate questions of relevance to social neuroscientists. We include tutorials to help with practical implementations of the concepts that we discuss. We conclude by highlighting a broad range of exciting research opportunities for social neuroscientists who are interested in using network analysis to study social systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that modal logics for reasoning about social choice quickly become undecidable. In particular, we study modal logics that can be used to reason about situations involving both actual and claimed preferences in the context of a social choice function and argue that reasoning on this level often occurs in social choice. We formally define a particular logic, interpreted in such situations, that can express the properties involved in the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem. We then, however, demonstrate that any modal logic interpreted in such situations having a certain natural expressive power, in particular a modality quantifying over all possible claimed preferences, becomes undecidable when there are enough agents in the system. We also discuss a decidable special case and provide a complete axiomatization of fragment of the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article constitutes the first large-scale examination of the Cork anti-Methodist riots of 1749–50. Methodist hagiographers have described the rioters as disengaged foot soldiers for Cork's corporation and Anglican clergy. By exploring these disturbances in their religious, political and social context, this paper suggests that the predominantly Catholic rioters were fuelled by their own politico-theological grievances, thereby illuminating the persistence of religious violence in eighteenth-century Ireland. Furthermore, by exploring tensions between Cork Methodists and Baptists, it highlights both the ways in which Methodists sometimes fuelled opposition and the fact that they were not always the sole victims of anti-Methodist violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of testimony has gained increased prominence in recent years in epistemology, where it is typically taken to refer to the possible acquisition of knowledge through the understanding and acceptance of someone else's judgement. There is no doubt that learning in this way is a prominent feature of education. This conception of testimony contrasts, however, with the more restricted way in which it is commonly understood: everyday usage situates the concept in such contexts as places of worship and courts of law. Testimony in these contexts is likely to be seen by the epistemologist as a special case of testimony in the wider sense, but is this accurate? With reference to contrasting traditions in philosophy and drawing on examples from film and literature, this paper considers the relationship between the epistemological and the everyday senses of testimony, exploring the significance of these matters for questions of teaching and learning as well as for the understanding of language as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors comment on a paper which examined the influence of neighborhood context on cognitive ability in older adults. They mention that the article highlighted the lower cognitive function of older adults living in areas with low aggregate education compared with those living in areas with high aggregate education. They claim that the study was representative of the increasing literature on multilevel analysis. They discuss several issues, including specificity of association, multilevel causal pathways and heterogeneity of associations.

This paper explores how smoking among older smokers with a smoking-related illness is influenced by the wider cultural context of smoking. The paper draws upon a Scottish qualitative interview study to explore lifecourse changes in smoking-related beliefs and behaviours, in current smokers between the ages of 65 and 84 years with arterial disease. The respondents' understanding of smoking as a socially acceptable behaviour of their youth, had undergone dramatic change over the course of their lives. While some respondents continued to associate their current smoking with their, albeit reduced, participation in social activities, others now smoked at home alone and associated smoking with increasing levels of isolation in their lives. Through an examination of how social attitudes may contribute to smoking as a solitary activity, the paper highlights the implications of cultural context for the adaptive strategies that older people use to cope with the circumstances and conditions of later life. The paper concludes that the wider cultural context of smoking is influential in shaping smoking as either an isolated 'home' activity, or as a social' activity for those whose opportunities to smoke in the private sphere are limited by disapproved of significant others. Within the social context, however, these 'social' smokers experience further constraints which shape and reduce their smoking behaviour. The data suggest that in order to be successful with this group of smokers, further research is needed to identify aspects of the lives of older people that sustain smoking in later life. These data will be necessary to develop appropriate health promotion measures to successfully target aspects of lives that support smoking in later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 20 years ago an article about the use of drawings in higher education appeared in a medical journal. After that, other papers explored the possible contribution of drawings in adult education, while only very few in the field of health promotion and education. This article aims to introduce the use of drawing in this field using the salutogenic lens to think, plan and reflect on academic learning. Reflections on what salutogenesis is and what we can consider a clear application of salutogenic principles to the learning process answer a hypothetical question for the reader concerning the relationship between drawings and health promotion theories. They appear as communication tools capable of exploring meaning-making processes, capturing data that is flexible to dynamic systems, power relations, as well as emotional and latent aspects of human experience. This article proposes a connection between salutogenesis and drawings through: a theoretical framework on salutogenic learning and drawings; a teacher practice and its tools focusing the critical point on visual data analysis in a learning environment; a learner case example for knowledge and capacity building through the drawing process; and a health promotion competency-based analysis. Our case example illustrates how drawings were introduced in a post-graduate course in Health Promotion and Education and argues their strengths and weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Second screening politics is an emerging communication practice for engaging with public affairs content. Scholars are increasingly interested in exploring pro-democratic effects of dual screening during news events and election cycles. This paper examines the potential for second screening practices to develop social capital on social media platforms through online and offline political discussion: a key component of maintaining social resources. More specifically, this manuscript focuses on the development of community-related social capital. Relying on two waves of panel data from 19 countries, the results suggest that dual screening contributes to the proliferation of building social capital on social media over time. This relationship is also partially mediated through online political discussion. Moreover, the between-country variation in the relationship between second screening and social media social capital is related to country-level freedom of expression indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of generating evidence-based public health interventions is understood to include steps that define the issue, generate and test solutions in controlled settings, replicate and then disseminate more widely. However, to date models have not considered the types and scale of formative evaluation tasks that are needed to up-scale interventions, from efficacy to population-wide dissemination in the real world. In this paper, we propose that an additional stage of ‘translational formative evaluation’ is necessary for the translation of effectiveness evidence into wide-scale public health practice. We illustrate the utility of translational formative evaluation, through a case study of the Get Healthy Information and Coaching Service® (GHS), a population-based telephone service designed to assist adults change lifestyle-related behaviours. The additional translational formative evaluation steps comprised synthesis of efficacy studies, qualitative research with the wider target audience, environmental analysis and stakeholder consultation. They produced precise recommendations to refine GHS design and implementation. Translational formative evaluation is a necessary intermediate step, following efficacy studies and a precursor to population-wide implementation of public health programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Lushan county of Ya’an city, Sichuan Province, China, on 20 April 2013. The Lushan earthquake damage is less than the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake’s, where 70,000 houses collapsed and 2 million people across nineteen prefectures and 115 counties of Sichuan province were affected. Temple Village (fictitious name), an old village in S township, was chosen as an intervention site. As most young adults went to work in the city, the old community became dilapidated and its traditional culture, architecture, custom, skill and wisdom were dying. Social workers were unable to tackle fully this community’s multiple needs, especially those associated with environmental and physical spaces linked to notions of belonging and identity, on their own. A transdisciplinary action research team in which social workers operated hand in hand with the disciplines of architectural design became the means for exploring an alternative model of post-disaster community reconstruction that would enhance the quality of life of left-behind people in this disaster-affected community. Working together, the research team facilitated the formation of a community kitchen project that enabled villagers to create a new building and co-operative organisations for the village’s long-term sustainable development. This paper presents the participatory design process, contribution of green social work and transdisciplinary interventions in post-disaster community reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stress and strain among adolescents have been investigated and discussed largely within three separate disciplines: mental health, where the focus has been on the negative effects of stress on emotional health; criminology, where the emphasis has been on the effects of strain on delinquency; and biology, where the focus has been to understand the effects of stress on physiology. Recently, scholars have called for increased multilevel developmental analyses of the bio-psychosocial nature of risk and protection for behaviors of individuals. This paper draws on several different but converging theoretical perspectives in an attempt to provide an overview of research relevant to stress in adolescence and puts forth a new framework that aims to provide both a common language and consilience by which future research can analyze the effects of multiple biological, social and environmental factors experienced during specific developmental periods, and cumulatively over time, on harmful behavior during adolescence. We present a framework to examine the effects of stress on diverse behavioral outcomes among adolescents, including substance use, suicidal behavior, self-inflicted harm, and delinquency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the role of Technology and Innovation Centres (TICs) in bridging the gap between the university research base and industry in order to foster economic development in a lagging industrial region. The context is provided by an academic literature on the role of universities in regional innovation systems, some of which casts doubt on the capacity of universities to operate in this domain, particularly within a lagging region. The empirical case reports on a bold experiment initiated by the Regional Development Agency in the older industrial region of the North-East of England to create and support new TICs in the fields of process innovation in high-value manufacturing and new and renewable energy, and on the engagement of a regionally committed university with these centres. The evidence presented suggests that while there are links between the university and the centres, both are principally operating in a national science and technology system in which contributing to addressing uneven regional economic development is a secondary concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is now increasing evidence as to the role played by social factors in contributing to the onset of mental health difficulties, there has been little systematic examination of the role that social factors can play in enabling (or impeding) recovery. This paper provides a review of the emerging international literature in this area, and is linked to a wider conceptual review undertaken as part of a major project researching recovery practice in the UK. Research findings are explored in detail in relation to three areas that had been identified by the wider review as central to recovery: empowerment and control over one's life; connectedness (including both inter-personal relationships and social inclusion); and rebuilding positive identities (often within the context of stigma and discrimination). Out of this emerges a clearer picture of the importance of particular social factors, which starts to define a more broad-based and proactive agenda for mental health social work—with an emphasis not just on working with individuals, but also on engaging with families and communities. However, there is a need for further research and development work in order to determine how to intervene most effectively in order to influence specific social factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Globally, the mental health system is being transformed into a strengths-based, recovery-oriented system of care, to which the concept of active living is central. Based on an integrative review of the literature, this paper presents a heuristic conceptual framework of the potential contribution that enjoyable and meaningful leisure experiences can have in active living, recovery, health and life quality among persons with mental illness. This framework is holistic and reflects the humanistic approach to mental illness endorsed by the United Nations and the World Health Organization. It also includes ecological factors such as health care systems and environmental factors as well as cultural influences that can facilitate and/or hamper recovery, active living and health/life quality. Unique to this framework is our conceptualization of active living from a broad-based and meaning-oriented perspective rather than the traditional, narrower conceptualization which focuses on physical activity and exercise. Conceptualizing active living in this manner suggests a unique and culturally sensitive potential for leisure experiences to contribute to recovery, health and life quality. In particular, this paper highlights the potential of leisure engagements as a positive, strengths-based and potentially cost-effective means for helping people better deal with the challenges of living with mental illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background There has been a philosophical commitment to participation in public health since the 1970s. UK policy rhetoric on participation in public health has been particularly marked since 1997. It is less clear that participatory approaches have been pursued by UK public health units in practice. Methods A systematic review was undertaken of all studies using any recognized research methodology from 1974 to 2007 reporting on health and social outcomes of participatory approaches by UK public health units. Seventeen electronic databases were searched and inclusion/exclusion criteria and quality appraisal criteria applied. Results Five thousand and four hundred and fifty-one references were identified, reduced to 2155 once duplicates were removed. Only eight papers covering seven studies were relevant and included in the analysis. Only two studies met more than half of the relevant quality appraisal criteria. The studies fell into two distinct groups: four used qualitative methods to illustrate the complexities of effective community participation; three claimed success for their participative initiative without providing adequate evidence to substantiate such claims. Conclusions This systematic review demonstrates that there is very little evidence in the peer-reviewed literature of participatory approaches by UK public health units or of such approaches having any noteworthy impact on health and social outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores black African children's experiences of the child protection system in the UK. The central focus of the paper is a review of the available literature on the social circumstances and environmental influences affecting many black African families involved in the child protection system; specific parenting practices and caregiving environments; and their experiences of social work and other professional interventions aimed at safeguarding and promoting the needs of African children. This paper examines these themes to elucidate the factors that contribute to the pro- vision of effective, culturally competent interventions with black African children at risk of significant harm. It suggests that there are a number of tensions inherent for professionals in working with culturally diverse African families such as reconciling different beliefs and behaviours concerning child-rearing practices; affirming the parenting practices of these families in the engagement process; adopting a strengths-based orientation whilst at the same time safeguarding and promoting the welfare of vulnerable children. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, two modes of the strategic relationship of the researcher with his environment are known. These are the 'ivory tower' and 'strategic research', known also as mode1 and mode2. In this paper, we develop an analytical model that not only predicts these two well-known modes but also leads to a new, third mode - the research entrepreneur. The research entrepreneur is directing his environment by creating demand for his scientific products instead of supplying on the demand of his environment. The first results of a few cases from an empirical study conducted at the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology confirm the feasibility of the model in creating observables for the different modes of strategic positioning of the researcher, in this case MESA+. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the importance of understanding management theories to development of the settings approach to health promotion. It then provides an overview of two areas of especial pertinence: organization development and systems thinking. This is followed by the articulation of the Healthy Living and Working Model, which is proposed as a mechanism for applying the principles of the settings approach in practice within organizations. The paper concludes by pointing to future challenges in developing this Model and reiterating that facilitating improvement at the organizational level should be the defining characteristic of the settings approach to health promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sen's 'capability approach' is especially focused on human development as freedom from deprivations, while Scitovsky's The Joyless Economy is focused on how people can expand their internal capability endogenously by enjoying learning as a socially embedded process. This paper uses the complementarity between the two authors to build a comprehensive dynamic approach to people's 'functionings and capabilities'. Different groups of 'functionings' are thus characterised by their different patterns of development in interaction with the resources available and the social context. As a result, Sen's problems of evaluating 'functionings' and measuring 'capability' can be alleviated; harmful functionings can be predicted; children's welfare can be better evaluated; and Sen's definitions of 'capability', 'agency' and 'well-being' can be refined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]