Making the Right Moves: Promoting Smart Growth and Active Aging in Communities

This article describes an award program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for excellence in smart growth and active aging. Having examined qualitative and quantitative data, we suggest that any community can foster changes to improve the health and well-being of its aging population. Diverse winners took unique paths to change their built environments and encourage physical activity. The policy changes undertaken by the award winners have both short- and long-term benefits that are important for persons of all ages, but especially for an aging society.     

Devil in the Details: A Critical Review of “Theoretical Loss”

In their review of Internet gambling studies, Auer and Griffiths (J Gambl Stud 30(4), 879–887, 2014) question the validity of using bet size as an indicator of gambling intensity. Instead, in that review and in a response (Auer and Griffiths, J Gambl Stud 31(3), 921–931, 2015) to a previous comment (Braverman et al., J Gambl Stud 31(2), 359–366, 2015), Auer and Griffiths suggested using “theoretical loss” as a preferable measure of gambling intensity. This comment extends and advances the discussion about measures of gambling intensity. In this paper, we describe previously identified problems that Auer and Griffiths need to address to sustain theoretical loss as a viable measure of gambling intensity and add details to the discussion that demonstrate difficulties associated with the use of theoretical loss with certain gambling games.     

Communicated commitment and conversational voice: Abbreviated measures of communicative strategies for maintaining organization-public relationships

Guided by relationship theory, this study develops and tests abbreviated operational definitions of communicated commitment and conversational voice as communicative strategies in maintaining organization-public relationships (OPRs). Researchers first identified 25 relational maintenance items from 12 prior published studies. Then surveying three independent subsamples of an organization’s key public (N = 1,169), the distilled list revealed two univariate concepts measured with a total of 11 items. The shorter scales make the measurement and evaluation of communication online and real-world activities more accessible and manageable for practitioners and academics focused on organization-public relationships.     

Mxolisi Nyezwa’s Poetry of No Sure Place

A change in direction of the journal New Coin during the 1990s saw the emergence of a diverse group of poets who had previously struggled for publication. This article recognises this often overlooked collective and argues that they quickly established their own style of “Poetry of No Sure Place”, which expresses a malaise of sadness within South Africa that is popularly felt but rarely articulated. Focusing on three collections of poetry by Mxolisi Nyezwa, I show how this group’s work rests on a permanent – and possibly worsening – sense of imbalance. The article explores how Nyezwa attempts to reconcile a felt public and private need to write, struggles to find a source of connection and questions the permanence of social change in South Africa. Nyezwa epitomises the marginalisation, apprehension and uncertainty of New Coin’s Poetry of No Sure Place.     

Already at the Table: Patterns of Play and Gambling Involvement Prior to Gambling Expansion

During 2011, the Governor of Massachusetts signed a bill to allow casino gambling in the state (Commonwealth of Massachusetts 2011). As a result, two resort casinos will begin operations during 2018 and 2019; a smaller slots parlor began operations during June 2015. Prior to this expansion, gambling was widely available in Massachusetts, through the state lottery, off-track betting, and gambling opportunities available in neighboring states. Within this context, it is important to understand the patterns of gambling involvement in the population prior to gambling expansion. The current study examined gambling involvement, patterns of play, and gambling-related problems prior to gambling expansion among a sample of 511 Massachusetts residents who were members of a statewide Internet panel. To measure patterns of play, we asked questions about past-year games played and frequency of play. To measure breadth of involvement, we assessed the number of different games played. To measure depth of involvement, we measured time spent gambling, amount wagered, and amount won or lost. Principal component analysis revealed four play pattern components accounting for more than 50% of the variance in game play frequency. Multiple regression analyses revealed that component scores composed of casino gambling and skill-based gambling (e.g., poker, sports) variables uniquely contributed to the prediction of gambling-related problems, even when depth of involvement was controlled. However, the addition of breadth of involvement to the model resulted in a model where no set of variables contributed significantly, suggesting a complex relationship among play patterns, depth, and breadth of involvement. The study established discrete and distinguishable gambling play patterns associated with gambling-related problems and identified groups of individuals potentially vulnerable to the effects of gambling expansion.     

Social media use, perceptions of decision-making power, and public relations roles

Public relations practitioners in this study who were more frequent users of social network sites and social media tools reported greater perceptions of their own structural, expert and prestige power. Forty of 115 members of a PRSA chapter responded to the survey request. In terms of day-to-day practice, the sample matched national samples of practitioners, with manager and technician questionnaire items loading on the exact same factors as in prior studies. However, those enacting predominantly manager roles did not differ significantly from those enacting predominately technician roles in social media use. This study points to the need for future research to examine more closely the use of social media in the daily roles of public relations practitioners.     

The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long‐term casework: Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study

Social work in the United Kingdom is preoccupied with what social workers cannot do due to having limited time to spend with service users. Yet remarkably little research has examined what social workers actually do, especially in long‐term relationships. This paper draws from an ethnographic study of two social work departments in England that spent 15 months observing practice and organizational life. Our findings show that social work some of the time has a significant amount of involvement with some service users and the dominant view that relationship‐based practice is rarely achieved is in need of some revision. However, families at one research site received a much more substantial, reliable overall service due to the additional input of family support workers and having a stable workforce who had their own desks and were co‐located with managers in small team offices. This generated a much more supportive, reflective culture for social workers and service users than at the second site, a large open plan “hot‐desking” office. Drawing on relational, systemic, and complexity theories, the paper shows how the nature of what social workers do and culture of practice are shaped by the interaction between available services, office designs, and practitioners', managers', and service users' experiences of relating together.     

Moving beyond the nature-based solutions discourse: introducing nature-based thinking

Urban Ecosystems - Suites of concepts and approaches have been launched during recent years to promote urban nature and greener cities. However, it is doubtable whether tinkering within the current...