Rurality discourses and the role of the social enterprise in regenerating rural Scotland

Social enterprises are businesses with primarily social objectives that reinvest their surplus in the community rather than seeking to maximise profit for shareholders. However, there is a debate regarding the drivers and the role of the social enterprise, the outcome of which is expected to have serious implications for the future of the institution [Brady, C., 2003. Social Enterprise development and the Role of the Social Economy in Scotland. CBS Network, Edinburgh]. A ‘reformist’ view supports the position that social enterprises are simple extensions of existing economic systems, whereas a ‘radical’ stance sees them as the embodiment of an alternative vision of running local economies. Development Trusts (DTs) are social enterprises that focus on community regeneration. Our research explored DT stakeholder views regarding the role of DTs in regenerating rural Scotland. Using Q methodology [Barry, J., Proops, J., 1999. Seeking sustainability discourses with Q methodology. Ecological Economics, 28, 337–345], we drew on ‘rurality’ discourses [Frouws, J., 1998. The contested redefinition of the countryside. An analysis of rural discourses in The Netherlands. Sociologia Ruralis 38(1), 54–68] expressed by DT stakeholders in order to investigate how these discourses informed their views. Radical positions were mostly associated with a hedonist rurality discourse and were split into three sub-discourses, whereas reformist positions mostly reflected a utilitarian rurality discourse. There was consensus between discourses in rejecting a primary DT contribution to rural regeneration by substituting state and local authority functions in rural Scotland. Results suggest that stakeholders prefer that DTs develop their own agendas and activity rather than try to substitute unsuccessful state or local authority provision of rural services. Social enterprise strategies and support policies promoting a service-providing role for DTs in rural Scotland should consider this issue if they are to avoid stakeholder objection and contribute to the success of DTs in becoming active vehicles of rural regeneration.     

Grounding Childhood (Trans)National Identities in the Everyday

This paper engages with the lived and experiential aspects of (trans)national identities in childhood, through the exploration of an ethnographic biography of a Greek‐Albanian boy in Athens. Through a grounded ethnographic approach, we examine the ways in which he experiences and negotiates his (trans)national identity. Our analysis demonstrates the everyday subtle and sophisticated understanding of the complexities and contradictions of national identities, and the child's own positioning within that. In conclusion, we suggest that interdisciplinary approaches should be assumed in the study of (trans)national identities in childhood, and ones that are grounded in children's own meaning making of their experiences of such identities.     

A modified power spectral density test applied to?weighing matrices with small weight

The power spectral density test has been used for at least a decade in the search for many kinds of combinatorial matrices, such as weighing matrices for instance. In this paper we establish a modified power spectral density test that we apply to the search for weighing matrices of small weights constructed from two circulants. The main novelty of our approach is to define the Discrete Fourier Transform on the support of the first rows of the two circulants, thus exploiting the inherent sparsity of the problem. This new formalism turns out to be very efficient for small weights 9,18,36 and we find 10 new weighing matrices W(2⋅p,18) for prime p∈{37,47,53,59,61,67,73,79,83,97}. These matrices are given here for the first time. We also discuss briefly a connection with Combinatorial Optimization.     

Assessing bank soundness with classification techniques

The recent crisis highlighted, once again, the importance of early warning models to assess the soundness of individual banks. In the present study, we use six quantitative techniques originating from various disciplines to classify banks in three groups. The first group includes very strong and strong banks; the second one includes adequate banks, while the third group includes banks with weaknesses or serious problems. We compare models developed with financial variables only, with models that incorporate additional information in relation to the regulatory environment, institutional development, and macroeconomic conditions. The accuracy of classification of the models that include only financial variables is rather poor. We observe a substantial improvement in accuracy when we consider the country-level variables, with five out of the six models achieving out-of-sample classification accuracy above 70% on average. The models developed with multi-criteria decision aid and artificial neural networks achieve the highest accuracies. We also explore the development of stacked models that combine the predictions of the individual models at a higher level. While the stacked models outperform the corresponding individual models in most cases, we found no evidence that the best stacked model can outperform the best individual model.     

Inclusion of Dietary Evaluation in Cardiovascular Disease Risk Prediction Models Increases Accuracy and Reduces Bias of the Estimations

In the past few years, the prediction of CVD risk has received special attention; however, some investigators assert that risk models have so far not been very successful. Thus, we examined whether the inclusion of dietary evaluation in a risk prediction model that already contained the classical CVD risk factors increases the accuracy and reduces the bias in estimating future CVD events. The database of the ATTICA study (which included information from 1,514 men and 1,528 women) was used. At baseline, the HellenicSCORE values (based on age, gender, smoking, systolic blood pressure, and total cholesterol) were calculated, while overall assessment of dietary habits was based on the Mediterranean diet score (MDS) that evaluates adherence to this traditional diet. In 2006, a five-year follow-up was performed in 2,101 participants and development of CVD (coronary heart disease, acute coronary syndromes, stroke, or other CVD) was defined according to WHO-ICD-10 criteria. The MDS and the HellenicSCORE were significant predictors of CVD events, even after adjusting for various potential confounders ( p < 0.05). However, estimating bias (i.e., misclassification of cases) of the model that included HellenicSCORE and other potential confounders was 8.7%. The MDS was associated with the estimating bias of the outcome ( p < 0.001) and explained 5.5% of this bias. Other baseline factors associated with bias were increased body mass index, low education status, and increased energy intake/BMR ratio. The inclusion of dietary evaluation, as well as other Sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics, increases the accuracy and reduces estimating bias of CVD risk prediction models.     

Social work education in Cyprus: prospects and challenges in developing an indigenous character

The evolution of the social work education and welfare system in Cyprus is inextricably linked to the country’s recent turbulent history. Social Work in the Republic of Cyprus, although shaped by the country’s turbulent political past and present, is also influenced by Western theory as in many other countries in the Asian and African continent [Gray, M., & Fook, J. (2004). The quest for a universal social work: Some issues and implications, Social Work Education, 23(5), 625–644; Rankopo, M. J., & Hwedie, K. O. (2011). Globalization and culturally relevant social work: African perspectives on indigenization. International Social Work, 54(1), 137–147; Yip, K. S. (2007). Tensions and dilemmas of social work education in China. International Social Work, 50(1), 93–105]. In contrast with social welfare which has a long history (since late nineteenth century), social work education is still at an early stage of development in Cyprus. A non-surprising situation given that social work practice and education, in its early stages, is essentially a modernist Western invention which has a history of silencing marginal voices and importing, into diverse cultural contexts across the world, Western thinking primarily from the UK and the USA (Gray & Fook, 2004). However, if an indigenous social work character is to be developed in Cyprus, and a more distinctive identity with regard to the social work academic curricula is to be demonstrated, then Payne’s [(2001). Knowledge bases and knowledge biases in social work. Journal of Social Work, 1(2), 133–136] views on social work knowledge need further exploration.     

Stakeholder Communication in 140 Characters or Less: A Study of Community Sport Foundations

Community sport foundations (CSFs), like other non-profit organizations, are increasingly employing social media such as Twitter to communicate their mission and activities to their diverse stakeholder groups. However, the way these CSFs utilize social media for communicating such practices remains unclear. Through a mixed-method approach of content analysis of tweets from 22 CSFs established by English professional football clubs and interviews with key individuals within these CSFs (n = 7), this study examines the extent to which CSFs’ core activities are being communicated through Twitter and identifies the strategies employed for doing so. Reflecting the target audiences CSFs are seeking to reach through Twitter and the challenges associated with communication about projects involving marginalized groups, tweets largely concern programs related to sports participation and education. The most frequently employed communication strategy is to inform, rather than interact or engage with stakeholders. However, CSFs with higher organizational capacity attempt to go beyond mere informing towards engaging with stakeholder groups that relate to their social agenda, highlighting the importance of trained and dedicated social media personnel in optimizing CSFs’ use of Twitter for communication.     

On Approximating a Scheduling Problem

Given a set of communication tasks (best described in terms of a weighted bipartite graph where one set of nodes denotes the senders, the other set the receivers, edges are communication tasks, and the weight of an edge is the time required for transmission), we wish to minimize the total time required for the completion of all communication tasks assuming that tasks can be preempted (that is, each edge can be subdivided into many edges with weights adding up to the edge's original weight) and that preemption comes with a cost. In this paper, we first prove that one cannot approximate this problem within a factor smaller than unless P=NP. It is known that a simple approximation algorithm achieves within a ratio of two (H. Choi and S.L. Hakimi, Algorithmica, vol. 3, pp. 223–245, 1988). However, our experimental results show that its performance is worse than the originally proposed heuristic algorithm (I.S. Gopal and C.K. Wong, IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 33, pp. 497–501, 1985). We devise a more sophisticated algorithm, called the potential function algorithm which, on the one hand, achieves a provable approximation ratio of two, and on the other hand, shows very good experimental performance. Moreover, the way in which our more sophisticated algorithm derives from the simple one, suggests a hierarchy of algorithms, all of which have a worst-case performance at most two, but which we suspect to have increasingly better performance, both in worst case and with actual instances.     

Modelling Labour Demand Dynamics beyond the Frictionless Environment

Abstract. In this study we develop a simple econometric model for labour demand dynamics by explicitly considering deviations from the standard frictionless economic environment. In particular, we explore the potential effect on labour demand of capital market imperfections, labour market institutional rigidities in the form of union power, and the impact of uncertainty. In addition, in the presence of uncertainty, adjustment costs and irreversibility emerge as an important factor that introduces an option value of waiting. According to our results, leverage exerts a direct negative impact on employment dynamics indicating that capital market imperfections are indeed present. Moreover, leverage is found to also affect the adjustment process of employment. Finally, we document asymmetric effects of frictions on labour demand across different size groups that imply a higher vulnerability of small and medium sectors with respect to debt levels. Uncertainty exerts a significantly negative impact on labour demand, which is compatible with presence of partial irreversibility of employment decisions. Finally, unions over and above their effect via higher wages are positively related to employment, a finding that is indicative of their pursue for job security.