Enhancing the rights and well‐being of people with acquired brain injuries in the criminal justice system: Some findings from a qualitative study

This article focuses on the issues currently facing people with an acquired brain injury (ABI) in the criminal justice system in the state of Victoria, Australia and, in particular, the impact of this condition on people suffering various forms of social disadvantage. This qualitative study involved in‐depth interviews with key stakeholders, such as service providers working in the system, court personnel including Magistrates and Judges, legal practitioners and persons living with an ABI and their carers. The aim was to determine the advantages and limitations of current policy and practices, and to identify possible actions which could lead to improved outcomes for this cohort. This paper responds to our research findings in relation to two key areas: first, the awareness of ABI amongst legal practitioners and service providers, prompting the need for better education, training and professional development; and second, the requirement to improve processes for identification, assessment and support, for people involved in the criminal justice system with ABI. A number of systemic modifications and educational initiatives are recommended to address the unreasonable and unacceptable impacts on persons living with an ABI in the criminal justice system.     

Unemployment Flows in Finland, 1969–95: A Time Series Analysis

We adopt a flow approach to analyse Finnish unemployment experience during the last three decades. In addition to data on short-term and total outflow and inflow rates from a relatively long period beginning in 1969, we also have data on duration-specific outflow rates for the period 1984 I–96 II which encompasses the spectacular increase in unemployment in the early nineties. The empirical study shows that both the inflow and the outflow is mainly driven by variation in job opportunities. For a given vacancy-unemployment ratio, the outflow rate has fallen because of changes in unemployment compensation, demographic structure and emigration. The outflow has been only marginally affected by long-term unemployment. The results indicate that the beneficial effects of labour market policies on long-term unemployment are to some extent counteracted by substitution effects.     

Stratified Gaussian graphical models

Gaussian graphical models represent the backbone of the statistical toolbox for analyzing continuous multivariate systems. However, due to the intrinsic properties of the multivariate normal distribution, use of this model family may hide certain forms of context-specific independence that are natural to consider from an applied perspective. Such independencies have been earlier introduced to generalize discrete graphical models and Bayesian networks into more flexible model families. Here, we adapt the idea of context-specific independence to Gaussian graphical models by introducing a stratification of the Euclidean space such that a conditional independence may hold in certain segments but be absent elsewhere. It is shown that the stratified models define a curved exponential family, which retains considerable tractability for parameter estimation and model selection.     

Friend or foe: the media’s power to inform and shape societal attitudes towards people with acquired brain injury

Media representations play an integral role in modern society, informing the public about a range of issues affecting their communities. Using qualitative content analysis, this article reports on the study of a sample of Australian media coverage, spanning 30 years, covering issues associated with acquired brain injury (ABI) and related cognitive disabilities. The analysis explores how the media both portray and actively shape public perceptions about people living with ABI, the lived experience of the condition, and its broader social implications. The authors identify a range of themes arising in the sample that communicate specific ideas about ABI, disability, and deviance. Importantly, they identify how these themes are able to either construct or reinforce dominant understandings of disability and deviance through both their content and structure.     

Development of the Virginity Beliefs Scale

Past research on first sexual intercourse experiences and virginity has largely focused on using demographics such as age at first intercourse as predictors of future sexual behaviors and beliefs. Carpenter (2002 Carpenter , L. M. ( 2002 ). Gender and the meaning and experience of virginity loss in the contemporary United States . Gender and Society , 16 , 345 – 365 . doi: 10.1177/0891243202016003005 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2005 Carpenter , L. M. ( 2005 ). Virginity lost: An intimate portrait of first sexual experiences . New York , NY : New York University Press . [Google Scholar]) suggested a model of three virginity metaphors that describe how individuals perceive their virginity: gift, stigma, and process. Using Carpenter's framework as a starting point, scale items were developed based on the conceptual understanding of the three metaphors. In Study 1 (N = 223, mean age = 19.9, SD = 2.4), 50 items were factor analyzed, yielding 22 items found to be strong indicators of the three metaphors; ten items for gift, eight for stigma, and four for process. The three subscales were validated using measures of gender-role beliefs and affective reactions to first intercourse. In Study 2 (N = 359, mean age = 19.7, SD = 2.4), confirmatory factor analysis was used to confirm the 22-item factor breakdown. The resulting Virginity Beliefs Scale is discussed in terms of how it applies to Carpenter's original framework and its future research potential.     

“Right to the City” and the Structure of Civic Organizational Fields: Evidence from Cape Town

This article proposes a network analytic approach to the role of frames in shaping the structure of civic organizational fields. Adopting a perspective from the global South, it looks at the impact of the expression “Right to the city” (RTC) over alliance building among civil society actors, exploring patterns of collaborative ties among 129 civil society organizations active in Cape Town from 2012 to 2014. The article addresses two broad questions: What is the relation between RTC and other frames that are also frequently invoked to describe urban struggles and issues? Does the RTC frame affect the structure of urban civic organizational fields in significant ways? Data suggest that while RTC plays a significant role in local civil society, it is neither the only interpretative frame that Capetonian civic organizations draw upon to characterize their activity, nor the more salient. “Urban conservation,” especially tied to nature conservation and environmental issues, actually shapes the structure of local organizational fields in a sharper manner. This is, however, a potentially more divisive frame, rooted as it is in the apartheid legacy that still shapes urban dynamics in the city.     

Lean in Swedish agriculture: strategic and operational perspectives

The purpose of this article is to present and test a framework for lean implementation in the agricultural sector, addressing challenges from an operational and strategical perspective. The article builds on the previous literature on the use of Lean and reports empirical data from a lean implementation project in the south-western Sweden, including interviews, observations, diaries and questionnaires. A framework is developed to examine strategic and operational perspectives on Lean Thinking. Using this framework, a number of challenges encountered in Lean implementation are presented. This article is limited to the study of Lean among a group of Swedish farms although its findings may have implications for the wider agricultural sectors. Many societal challenges are linked with agricultural sustainability, stressing the need for productive, resource-efficient, resilient and less wasteful food production. This article is the first to develop and test a Lean implementation framework in the agriculture sector.     

Populism: a major threat to democracy?

ABSTRACT

Unsurprisingly, given the surge in support for “populist” movements across the globe, there has been a resurgence of academic interest in the subject. Our aim in this volume is to explore some of the key issues in these contemporary debates. In this introduction, we focus upon five of the main questions raised in this literature: What is populism? What variants of it are there? How serious a problem is the rise of populism? Why has there been a rise in populism? And how can populism be addressed?     

Integration of Critical Infrastructure and Societal Consequence Models: Impact on Swedish Power System Mitigation Decisions

Critical infrastructures provide society with services essential to its functioning, and extensive disruptions give rise to large societal consequences. Risk and vulnerability analyses of critical infrastructures generally focus narrowly on the infrastructure of interest and describe the consequences as nonsupplied commodities or the cost of unsupplied commodities; they rarely holistically consider the larger impact with respect to higher‐order consequences for the society. From a societal perspective, this narrow focus may lead to severe underestimation of the negative effects of infrastructure disruptions. To explore this theory, an integrated modeling approach, combining models of critical infrastructures and economic input–output models, is proposed and applied in a case study. In the case study, a representative model of the Swedish power transmission system and a regionalized economic input–output model are utilized. This enables exploration of how a narrow infrastructure or a more holistic societal consequence perspective affects vulnerability‐related mitigation decisions regarding critical infrastructures. Two decision contexts related to prioritization of different vulnerability‐reducing measures are considered—identifying critical components and adding system components to increase robustness. It is concluded that higher‐order societal consequences due to power supply disruptions can be up to twice as large as first‐order consequences, which in turn has a significant effect on the identification of which critical components are to be protected or strengthened and a smaller effect on the ranking of improvement measures in terms of adding system components to increase system redundancy.