scholarly journals The Evolution of Urban Australian Meat-Eating Practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tani Khara ◽  
Christopher Riedy ◽  
Matthew B. Ruby
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Social Practice Theory ◽  
Main Mode ◽  
Meat Eating ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Political Policy ◽  
Health Consciousness ◽  
Eating Practices

This qualitative study used social practice theory to explore how meat-eating practices are changing in contemporary urban Australia, drawing on a sample of Sydney residents aged 23–45 years. The research used an iterative study design and an inductive analysis approach. Semi-structured face-to-face in-depth interviews were the main mode of data collection, supplemented by observations in places such as markets and local neighborhoods. Research participants explained that the role of meat in their diet has changed in response to shifting conventions and social infrastructures. They have reduced consumption of red meat in favor of meats considered healthier or more ethical. Key factors driving the change include exposure to alternative eating practices brought about through changes in political policy and the advent of globalization. Changing discourses of masculinity and the move toward embracing more fluid representations of gender have, in turn, changed meanings in relation to the meat-eating man and a meat-heavy diet. Rising environmental and health consciousness, and concerns for animal welfare have also contributed to dietary changes. While several participants claimed to have increased their consumption of plant-based foods, meat still continues to maintain a significant presence within their diets. Many participants expressed interest in cutting back further on meat consumption and adopting more plant-based foods but they also identified several challenges—e.g., limited access to plant-based ingredients and recipes, negative meanings associated with vegetarian and vegan diets, and a lack of competence in relation to preparing and consuming appetizing meals using plant-based foods.

Evaluating the role of blat in finding graduate employment in post-Soviet Ukraine

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Onoshchenko ◽  
Colin C. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Graduate Employment ◽  
Personal Connections ◽  
The City ◽  
Formal Procedures

Purpose – This paper aims to evaluate the use of personal connections to circumvent formal procedures, known as blat in the Soviet era, in post-Soviet societies by studying its role in graduate employment recruitment. Design/methodology/approach – To do this, the extent to which and how blat is used by graduates to find a job in the city of Mykolayiv in Ukraine is analysed through 85 face-to-face structured interviews with those who in the past seven years have sought employment after graduating from university. Findings – The finding is that blat is widely used by graduates to find a job. However, contrary to the existing literature which suggests that blat has become commodified in post-Soviet market societies with monetary payment being requested by and given to personal connections “pulling strings”, no evidence is found that this is the case. Instead, this remains a non-monetised form of friendly help by and for close social relations, akin to the Soviet era, and is viewed in a positive or neutral manner by participants even though its consequences can be to circumvent meritocratic formal recruitment procedures and foster nepotism and cronyism. Research limitations/implications – This study of blat is limited to analysing graduate recruitment in one city in Ukraine. Broader empirical research on the contemporary role of blat in this and other spheres in post-Soviet societies and beyond is now required so as to develop a more nuanced context-bound understanding of both the positive and negative facets of this social practice in contemporary societies. Originality/value – This study reveals that blat is commonly used to find graduate jobs and is widely viewed as a socially acceptable practice, despite hindering meritocratic recruitment procedures.

scholarly journals Disrupting household food consumption through experimental HomeLabs: Outcomes, connections, contexts

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 823-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Devaney ◽  
Anna R. Davies
Keyword(s):  
Food Consumption ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Transition Planning ◽  
Product Regulatory ◽  
Promising Practices ◽  
Social Practice Theory ◽  
Sustainable Food ◽  
Home Based ◽  
Eating Practices

This article explores the implications of conceptualising, designing and implementing experimental sites seeking to support more sustainable home-based eating practices, or HomeLabs for brevity. Building on earlier phases of practice-oriented participatory backcasting and transition framework construction, the HomeLabs involved collaboration with public, private and civil society sectors and with the members of participating households. These collaborations identified a suite of supportive socio-technological, informational and governance interventions that mimicked, as far as possible, the characteristics of promising practices for sustainable eating developed through backcasting and transition planning. The implemented interventions enabled householders to question, disassemble and reconfigure their eating practices onto more sustainable pathways across the integrated practices of food acquisition, storage, preparation and waste management. This process generated manifold insights into household eating practices, and this article focuses specifically on key outcomes of the HomeLabs, and the significance of social context, social relations and micropolitics of everyday life in shaping those outcomes. In particular, the HomeLabs findings reinforce calls to connect, combine and align product, regulatory, informational and motivational supports across the interdependent practices of eating (acquisition, storage and preparation and waste recovery) to optimise transitions towards sustainability. Offering a lens to interrogate interventions for sustainable food consumption in the home, this article provides a novel exercise in operationalising social practice theory.

scholarly journals Collecting as a liberal personal self-fulfillment

2020 ◽  
pp. 62-73
Author(s):  
Elena Aleksandrovna Makarova
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Psychological Type ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Creative Potential ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Creative Personality ◽  
Social Creativity

This article examines the phenomenon of collecting from the perspective of its social significance. Manifesting as a form of liberal activity, collecting historically resembled a captivating human activity based on the desire to release creative potential of an individual through collecting items. The author positions collecting as a social activity, the primary cause of which underlies the psychological type of personality. Analysis of these processes in the context of psychology allows explaining the essential aspects of collecting, when the collector is an actor of social creativity; as well as revealing negative moments that define collecting as one of the deviant forms of human behavior. The article compares various theoretical concepts on the topic of social practice of collecting. The author considers the key factors contributing to increase of the role of individual in the society. The novelty of this work consists in the conclusion on the fundamental traits of psychological type of a collector. These traits in a certain way form the inner potential of a collector, which he releases through collecting, as well as the forms of social activity that allow a collector to find self-fulfillment as a liberal creative personality.

scholarly journals Key factors to consider when measuring multimorbidity

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 2235042X1879530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren E Griffith ◽  
Andrea Gruneir ◽  
Kathryn A Fisher ◽  
Kathryn Nicholson ◽  
Dilzayn Panjwani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Expert Opinions ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Research And Policy

Background: There are multiple multimorbidity measures but little consensus on which measures are most appropriate for different circumstances. Objective: To share insights gained from discussions with experts in the fields of ageing research and multimorbidity on key factors to consider when measuring multimorbidity. Design: Descriptive study of expert opinions on multimorbidity measures, informed by literature to identify available measures followed by a face-to-face meeting and an online survey. Results: The expert group included clinicians, researchers and policymakers in Canada with expertise in the fields of multimorbidity and ageing. Of the 30 experts invited, 15 (50%) attended the in-person meeting and 14 (47%) responded to the subsequent online survey. Experts agreed that there is no single multimorbidity measure that is suitable for all research studies. They cited a number of factors that need to be considered in selecting a measure for use in a research study including: (1) fit with the study purpose; (2) the conditions included in multimorbidity measures; (3) the role of episodic conditions or diseases; and (4) the role of social factors and other concepts missing in existing approaches. Conclusions: The suitability of existing multimorbidity measures for use in a specific research study depends on factors such as the purpose of the study, outcomes examined and preferences of the involved stakeholders. The results of this study suggest that there are areas that require further building out in both the conceptualization and measurement of multimorbidity for the benefit of future clinical, research and policy decisions.

scholarly journals Effects of High-Tech Urban Agriculture on Cooking and Eating in Dutch Nursing Homes

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 5379
Author(s):  
Paulien C. H. van de Vlasakker ◽  
Esther J. Veen
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Homes ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Food System ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Social Practice Theory ◽  
Fresh Vegetables ◽  
Cooking Practices ◽  
Eating Practices

Questions have arisen about the sustainability of the industrialised food system. Alternatives like urban agriculture have emerged to reduce the negative social, environmental and health impacts of industrial agriculture. Such new food supply chains can change the way that people acquire and process food. This study looks at high-tech indoor gardening practices in nursing homes for elderly people, studying four nursing homes in the Dutch city of Velp. We used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect data, using site visits, a survey amongst employees, and semi-structured interviewees with residents and decision makers. Inspired by social practice theory, we aimed to understand the transformation of existing practices, investigating how the gardens affect cooking and eating practices, and how their constitutive elements of meaning, material and competences enable these transformations. Our work shows that the indoor gardens resulted in an integration of gardening and the resulting harvest into cooking practices, which in turn transformed residents’ eating practices. Appreciation of the taste of fresh vegetables and appearance of the meal decorated by fresh vegetables, as well as observing the growth of plants and their use, holds value for the elderly residents. Employees welcome the possibility to serve healthier meals. The integration of indoor gardens in existing cooking practices is more successful when employees have gardening and/or cooking competences, when they enjoy cooking and when they do not already cook with fresh ingredients. The gardens are more easily integrated when they are easily accessible. The materiality of the gardens does not require fully equipped kitchens.

Collection of Ego-Centered Network Data with Computer-Assisted Interviews

Methodology ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joachim Gerich ◽  
Roland Lehner
Keyword(s):  
Survey Methods ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Dynamic Structure ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Network Data ◽  
Great Effort ◽  
Self Administration ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Full Network

Although ego-centered network data provide information that is limited in various ways as compared with full network data, an ego-centered design can be used without the need for a priori and researcher-defined network borders. Moreover, ego-centered network data can be obtained with traditional survey methods. However, due to the dynamic structure of the questionnaires involved, a great effort is required on the part of either respondents (with self-administration) or interviewers (with face-to-face interviews). As an alternative, we will show the advantages of using CASI (computer-assisted self-administered interview) methods for the collection of ego-centered network data as applied in a study on the role of social networks in substance use among college students.

PTTG has a Dual Role of Promotion-Inhibition in the Development of Pituitary Adenomas

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 800-818
Author(s):  
Zujian Xiong ◽  
Xuejun Li ◽  
Qi Yang
Keyword(s):  
Cell Cycle ◽  
Pituitary Adenoma ◽  
Pituitary Adenomas ◽  
Cell Cycle Progression ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Cycle Progression ◽  
Sister Chromatids ◽  
Regulation Of Cell Cycle ◽  
Late Stages

Pituitary Tumor Transforming Gene (PTTG) of human is known as a checkpoint gene in the middle and late stages of mitosis, and is also a proto-oncogene that promotes cell cycle progression. In the nucleus, PTTG works as securin in controlling the mid-term segregation of sister chromatids. Overexpression of PTTG, entering the nucleus with the help of PBF in pituitary adenomas, participates in the regulation of cell cycle, interferes with DNA repair, induces genetic instability, transactivates FGF-2 and VEGF and promotes angiogenesis and tumor invasion. Simultaneously, overexpression of PTTG induces tumor cell senescence through the DNA damage pathway, making pituitary adenoma possessing the potential self-limiting ability. To elucidate the mechanism of PTTG in the regulation of pituitary adenomas, we focus on both the positive and negative function of PTTG and find out key factors interacted with PTTG in pituitary adenomas. Furthermore, we discuss other possible mechanisms correlate with PTTG in pituitary adenoma initiation and development and the potential value of PTTG in clinical treatment.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith: A Student Introduction to Federal Tax Compliance and Documentation

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaele L. Morrow ◽  
Shane R. Stinson
Keyword(s):  
Communication Skills ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Compliance ◽  
Personal Income Tax ◽  
Initial Information ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Client Advocacy ◽  
Tax Practice

ABSTRACT In this case, students assume the role of new accounting staff tasked with the preparation of a personal income tax return and supporting documentation for a client of their firm. Students are provided prior year work papers and client communications, a copy of the prior year's tax return, as well as a letter and supporting documents from the client for the current year. To complete the case, students generate questions based on the initial information provided, meet face-to-face with the client, and roll forward a set of electronic work papers before submitting a complete current year engagement file for senior review. This case adds work papers and client interaction to the traditional tax compliance case to reinforce both the technical and communication skills valued in professional practice. The formulation of questions for the client also allows students to practice discussing technical topics in a non-technical manner and underscores the required balance between attitudes of client advocacy stressed in professional tax practice and legal requirements for “good-faith” tax return reporting. This case is appropriate for an individual income tax course at either the undergraduate or graduate level, and can be easily adapted to increase or decrease difficulty.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document