scholarly journals Chapter 9 Peat hazards: compression and failure

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Warburton
Keyword(s):  
Hydraulic Properties ◽  
Rheological Behaviour ◽  
Simple Relationship ◽  
Geological Hazards ◽  
Peat Soils ◽  
Geological Material ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Peat Deposits ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

AbstractPeat is a highly compressible geological material whose time-dependent consolidation and rheological behaviour is determined by peat structure, degree of humification and hydraulic properties. This chapter reviews the engineering background to peat compression, describes the distribution of peat soils in the UK, provides examples of the hazards associated with compressible peat deposits and considers ways these hazards might be mitigated. Although some generalizations can be made about gross differences between broad peat types, no simple relationship exists between the magnitude and rate of compression of peat and loading. Based on examples described here, land failures resulting from peat compression are locally generated, but due to the sensitive nature of peat these can result in runaway failures that pose great risk. Understanding the geological hazards associated with compressible peat soils is challenging because peat is geotechnically highly variable and the mapped extent of peat in the UK is subject to considerable error due to inconsistencies in the definition of peat. Mitigating compression hazards in peat soils is therefore subject to considerable uncertainty; however, a combination of improved understanding of the properties of compressible peat, better mapping and land use zoning, and appropriate construction will help to mitigate risk.

Creating and Capturing Value through Crowdsourcing

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Systems Biology ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Product Innovation ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Innovation Management ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

Examples of the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing go back to at least 1714, when the UK used crowdsourcing to solve the Longitude Problem, obtaining a solution that would enable the UK to become the dominant maritime force of its time. Today, Wikipedia uses crowds to provide entries for the world’s largest and free encyclopedia. Partly fueled by the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing, interest in researching the phenomenon has been remarkable. For example, the Best Paper Awards in 2012 for a record-setting three journals—the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Academy of Management Perspectives—were about crowdsourcing. In spite of the interest in crowdsourcing—or perhaps because of it—research on the phenomenon has been conducted in different research silos within the fields of management (from strategy to finance to operations to information systems), biology, communications, computer science, economics, political science, among others. In these silos, crowdsourcing takes names such as broadcast search, innovation tournaments, crowdfunding, community innovation, distributed innovation, collective intelligence, open source, crowdpower, and even open innovation. The book aims to assemble papers from as many of these silos as possible since the ultimate potential of crowdsourcing research is likely to be attained only by bridging them. The papers provide a systematic overview of the research on crowdsourcing from different fields based on a more encompassing definition of the concept, its difference for innovation, and its value for both the private and public sectors.

MONARCHS, TRAVELLERS AND EMPIRE IN THE PACIFIC'S AGE OF REVOLUTIONS

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Sujit Sivasundaram
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Islanders ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Global History ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Cultural Terms ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
A Site

AbstractThe Pacific has often been invisible in global histories written in the UK. Yet it has consistently been a site for contemplating the past and the future, even among Britons cast on its shores. In this lecture, I reconsider a critical moment of globalisation and empire, the ‘age of revolutions’ at the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the nineteenth century, by journeying with European voyagers to the Pacific Ocean. The lecture will point to what this age meant for Pacific islanders, in social, political and cultural terms. It works with a definition of the Pacific's age of revolutions as a surge of indigeneity met by a counter-revolutionary imperialism. What was involved in undertaking a European voyage changed in this era, even as one important expedition was interrupted by news from revolutionary Europe. Yet more fundamentally vocabularies and practices of monarchy were consolidated by islanders across the Pacific. This was followed by the outworkings of counter-revolutionary imperialism through agreements of alliance and alleged cessation. Such an argument allows me, for instance, to place the 1806 wreck of the Port-au-Prince within the Pacific's age of revolutions. This was an English ship used to raid French and Spanish targets in the Pacific, but which was stripped of its guns, iron, gunpowder and carronades by Tongans. To chart the trajectory from revolution and islander agency on to violence and empire is to appreciate the unsettled paths that gave rise to our modern world. This view foregrounds people who inhabited and travelled through the earth's oceanic frontiers. It is a global history from a specific place in the oceanic south, on the opposite side of the planet to Europe.

scholarly journals Exploring International and Inter-Sector Differences of Social Enterprises in the UK and India

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5870
Author(s):  
Philipp Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Shape Features ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

Social Entrepreneurship (SE) describes a new entrepreneurial form combining the generation of financial and social value. In recent years, research interest in SE increased in various disciplines with a particular focus on the characteristics of social enterprises. Whereas a clear-cut definition of SE is yet to be found, there is evidence that culture and economy affect and shape features of SE activity. In addition, sector-dependent differences are supposed. Building on Institutional Theory and employing a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, this study sheds light on the existence of international and inter-sector differences by examining 161 UK and Indian social enterprises. A content analysis and analyses of variance were employed and yielded similarities as well as several significant differences on an international and inter-sector level, e.g., regarding innovativeness and the generation of revenue. The current study contributes to a more nuanced picture of the SE landscape by comparing social enterprise characteristics in a developed and a developing country on the one hand and different sectors on the other hand. Furthermore, I highlight the benefits of jointly applying qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Future research should pay more attention to the innate heterogeneity among social enterprises and further consolidate and extend these findings.

scholarly journals Advancing UK Regulatory Science Strategy in the Context of Global Regulation: a Stakeholder Survey

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Cruz Rivera ◽  
Barbara Torlinska ◽  
Eliot Marston ◽  
Alastair K. Denniston ◽  
Kathy Oliver ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pay For Performance ◽  
Regulatory Science ◽  
International Strategy ◽  
Free Text ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Accurate Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Healthcare Innovation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Medium Enterprises

Abstract Background The UK’s transition from the European Union creates both an urgent need and key opportunity for the UK and its global collaborators to consider new approaches to the regulation of emerging technologies, underpinned by regulatory science. This survey aimed to identify the most accurate definition of regulatory science, to define strategic areas of the regulation of healthcare innovation which can be informed through regulatory science and to explore the training and infrastructure needed to advance UK and international regulatory science. Methods A survey was distributed to UK healthcare professionals, academics, patients, health technology assessment agencies, ethicists and trade associations, as well as international regulators, pharmaceutical companies and small or medium enterprises which have expertise in regulatory science and in developing or applying regulation in healthcare. Subsequently, a descriptive quantitative analyses of survey results and directed thematic analysis of free-text comments were applied. Results Priority areas for UK regulatory science identified by 145 participants included the following: flexibility: the capability of regulations to adapt to novel products and target patient outcomes; co-development: collaboration across sectors, e.g. patients, manufacturers, regulators, and educators working together to develop appropriate training for novel product deployment; responsiveness: the preparation of frameworks which enable timely innovation required by emerging events; speed: the rate at which new products can reach the market; reimbursement: developing effective tools to track and evaluate outcomes for “pay for performance” products; and education and professional development. Conclusions The UK has a time-critical opportunity to establish its national and international strategy for regulatory science leadership by harnessing broader academic input, developing strategic cross-sector collaborations, incorporating patients’ experiences and perspectives, and investing in a skilled workforce.

“Talk in Tamil!” – Does Sri Lankan Tamil onward migration from Europe influence Tamil language maintenance in the UK?

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (269) ◽  
pp. 123-149
Author(s):  
Lavanya Sankaran
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Recent Change ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Onward Migration ◽  
Migratory Patterns ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

Abstract This article uses the “communicative repertoire” conceptual framework to investigate the evolving linguistic practices in the Sri Lankan Tamil (SLT) diaspora, looking specifically at how changing mobility patterns have had an influence on heritage language use. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken with 42 participants of diverse migration trajectories in London, the study finds that onward migration has important implications for Tamil language maintenance and use in the UK, and for the introduction of European languages into the community. It argues that Tamil practices can only be fully understood if we consider them within the context of participants' communicative repertoires. Further, the definition of Tamil needs to be expanded to include different varieties, registers and styles that have been shaped by onward migration. As the trend of multiple migrations is becoming increasingly common in globalization processes, studying the recent change in SLT migratory patterns is also crucial to gaining insight into the diversities and transnational links that exist within and across diaspora communities respectively.

Religious freedom and the ‘right to discriminate’ in the school admissions context: a neo-republican critique

Legal Studies ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eoin Daly ◽  
Tom Hickey
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religious Discrimination ◽  
Religious Schools ◽  
The Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right ◽  
Republican Theory ◽  
Faith Schools

In law and discourse, it has typically been assumed that the religious freedom of state-funded religious schools must trump any competing right to non-discrimination on grounds of belief. For example, the Irish Constitution has been interpreted as requiring the broad exemption of denominational schools from the statutory prohibition on religious discrimination in school admissions. This stance is mirrored in the UK Equality Act 2010. Thus, religious discrimination in the public education context has been rationalised with reference to a ‘liberty-equality dichotomy’, which prioritises the integrity of faith schools' ‘ethos’, as an imperative of religious freedom. We argue that this familiar conceptual dichotomy generates a novel set of absurdities in this peculiar context. We suggest that the construction of religious freedom and non-discrimination as separate and antagonistic values rests on a conceptually flawed definition of religious freedom itself, which overlooks the necessary dependence of religious freedom on non-discrimination. Furthermore, it overstates the necessity, to religious freedom, of religious schools' ‘right to discriminate’. We argue for an alternative ordering of the values of religious freedom and non-discrimination – which we locate within the neo-republican theory of freedom as non-domination.

THE ELECTRON MICROSCOPY OF LEAF SURFACES PRESERVED IN PEAT

1966 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Stewart ◽  
Edward A. C. Follett
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Cell Wall ◽  
Calluna Vulgaris ◽  
Surface Features ◽  
Peat Deposits ◽  
Leaf Surfaces ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Peat Formation ◽  
Physical And Chemical ◽  
Cuticular Surface

Phragmites communis, Eriophorum vaginatum, Calluna vulgaris, and Sphagnum palustre are representative of plants whose remains are frequently encountered in Scottish peat deposits. The effects of preservation in peat on the surface features of their leaves were followed by electron microscopy. Wax projections were observed on the surfaces of mature living leaves of Phragmites and Eriophorum but not on Calluna or Sphagnum. Details of cell wall outlines and stomata (or pores) were clearly defined in Phragmites, Eriophorum, and Sphagnum, but obscured in Calluna. The previous year's leaves differed by displaying a general absence of wax projections, an erosion of the cuticular surface, which took the form of either a loss in definition of the cell wall outlines or a definite etching of the surface, and the presence of numerous microorganisms. The surface features of preserved leaves exhibited to a greater degree this erosion of cell wall outline and cuticular surface. This preliminary study has indicated that major alterations in the submicroscopic features of cuticularized leaf surfaces occur at the leaf litter stage. The primary agents responsible for this degradation would appear to be microorganisms in conjunction with the physical and chemical processes of peat formation.

scholarly journals Charting a course to an emerging field of 'research engagement studies': A conceptual meta-synthesis

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude Fransman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
International Development ◽  
Higher Education Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Research Engagement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Education Science

The past decades in the UK have witnessed renewed interest by policymakers, research funders and research institutions in the engagement of non-academic individuals, groups and organizations with research processes and products. There has been a broad consensus that better engagement leads to better impact, as well as significant learning around understanding engagement and improving practice. However, this sits in tension to a parallel trend in British higher education policy that reduces the field to a narrow definition of quantitatively measured impacts attributed to individual researchers, projects and institutions. In response, this article argues for the mobilization of an emerging field of 'research engagement studies' that brings together an extensive and diverse existing literature around understandings and experiences of engagement, and has the potential to contribute both strategically and conceptually to the broader impact debate. However, to inform this, some stocktaking is needed to trace the different traditions back to their conceptual roots and chart out a common set of themes, approaches and framings across the literature. In response, this article maps the literature by developing a genealogy of understandings of research engagement within five UK-based domains of policy and practice: higher education; science and technology; public policy (health, social care and education); international development; and community development. After identifying patterns and trends within and across these clusters, the article concludes by proposing a framework for comparing understandings of engagement, and uses this framework to highlight trends, gaps and ways forward for the emerging field.

From an emic perspective: Exploring consent in forced marriage law

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Sowey
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Primary Research ◽  
Marriage Law ◽  
Forced Marriage ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Emic Perspective ◽  
The Uk

Forced marriage was criminalised in Australia in March 2013, putting the issue on the agenda of policy-makers and social service providers. Increasingly, however, it is being recognised that criminal laws alone cannot address the practice; protective and preventative strategies are also needed. This paper argues that strategies to address forced marriage will be most effective if they are informed by contextualised and emic understandings of the phenomenon, that is, by the perspectives of individuals, families and communities who are directly affected by forced marriage. Primary research is required to obtain such perspectives. Research into forced marriage in Australia is still in its infancy, and primary research is almost non-existent. This paper, then, looks to primary research from the UK and other comparable Western multicultural nations, offering a critique of this body of literature before drawing out what is revealed about why marriages are forced, how marriages are forced, and what people in forced marriage situations want. The implications of criminal prosecution are then considered in light of this emic understanding. The legal definition of forced marriage hinges on the concept of consent: it is consent that distinguishes an arranged marriage from a forced one. In the UK, the notion of consent has been robustly problematised. However this is not the case in Australia at present, and this paper critiques the value of the concept of consent given the social contexts of forced marriage described above. The implications of this critique for the application of Australia’s forced marriage law are then considered. Finally, from a place of contextualised and emic understanding of forced marriage, this paper considers how protective and preventative strategies might be enhanced.

scholarly journals Mesothelioma: one disease, many definitions. Comparative linguistic analysis in a “health literacy” perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Maconi ◽  
Mariateresa Dacquino ◽  
Federica Viazzi ◽  
Emanuela Bovo ◽  
Federica Grosso ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
English Language ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Patient Portal ◽  
Medical Field ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Medical Concepts

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how, while remaining within a specific field such as medicine, it is possible to use different languages depending on the target audience (doctors, professionals from other fields or patients) in order to improve its degree of health literacy. In particular, the aim is to show how even the definition of a disease, which should in principle be unambiguous, can in fact be linguistically adapted to the reader's basic knowledge. Methodology: Five definitions of mesothelioma are examined, analysed lexically, syntactically and graphically. Specifically, this comparison is made on three main levels, which in turn have different nuances: popular, including definitions from Wikipedia and the UK Mesothelioma patient portal; intermediate, corresponding to the Collins English language dictionary; and specialist, with definitions from the MeSH thesaurus and the Orphanet database. Results: At the end of the comparative analysis, it is possible to state that in linguistic and Health Literacy terms there is no single definition for this rare disease but as many definitions as there are targets. In particular, they vary in syntactic structure, graphic form and vocabulary, as they have to use technicalities typical of the medical field but have different nuances of complexity. Conclusion: A comparison of the definitions shows that the degree of readability does not always correspond to that of comprehensibility. The analysis demonstrates that it is difficult to explain complex medical concepts to practitioners and patients in a simple, clear and usable way and that this requires specific techniques of Health Literacy, related to both the linguistic and graphic aspects. The comparison of definitions is therefore a methodological premise for the creation of brochures dedicated to mesothelioma and the revision of the "Mai soli" site for mesothelioma patients.

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