Capital access of nonprofit organisations

This paper draws on a recently completed report for the National Roundtable of Nonprofit Organisations (Lyons, North-Samardzic and Young, 2007) to determine the extent and dimensions of problems nonprofit organisations have in accessing the capital they need.

Education reform for at-risk youth : a social capital approach

Using the Education Queensland Reform Agenda to illustrate examples and approaches to education reform, this article discusses education reform for at-risk youth. It argues that the characteristics of modernity, the rise of Mode 2 Society, and the power asymmetries associated with the emergence of the politico-economic will contain the reform ambitions of the Education Queensland and other education reform agendas. It is proposed that the State adopt a transgressive and complimentary set of reform strategies including the adoption of distributed governance, making available meaningful school performance data, encouraging experimentation and facilitating broad stakeholder, community and neighbourhood engagement in school planning and operations. The article argues that measures such as these will assist to mobilize trust, minimise social fragmentation, generate and regenerate community resources, build cohesion, foster the socio-cultural-self-identities of 'at-risk' youth and will assist youth to achieve full participation in a robust and vibrant democracy.

Work ethic, protestantism and human capital

Weber's contribution on Protestant work ethic has stimulated numerous social scientists. However, the question whether a Protestant specific work ethic exists at all is still rarely analysed. Our results indicate that work ethic is influenced by denomination-based religiosity and education.

The home stigma : adverse selection in ADRs and the home capital market environment

We investigate whether characteristics of the home country capital environment, such as information disclosure and investor rights protection continue to affect ADRs cross-listed in the U.S. Using microstructure measures as proxies for adverse selection, we find that characteristics of the home markets continue to be relevant, especially for emerging market firms. Less transparent disclosure, poorer protection of investor rights and weaker legal institutions are associated with higher levels of information asymmetry. Developed market firms appear to be affected by whether or not home business laws are common law or civil law legal origin. Our finding contributes to the bonding literature. It suggests that cross-listing in the U.S. should not be viewed as a substitute for improvement in the quality of local institutions, and attention must be paid to improve investor protection in order to achieve the full benefits of improved disclosure. Improvement in the domestic capital market environment can attract more investors even for U.S. cross-listed firms.

The role of social capital in reducing negative health outcomes among police officers

This paper investigates the role of social capital on the reduction of short and long run negative health effects associated with stress, as well as indicators of burnout among police officers. Despite the large volume of research on either social capital or the health effects of stress, the interaction of these factors remains an underexplored topic. In this empirical analysis we aim to reduce such a shortcoming focusing on a highly stressful and emotionally draining work environment, namely law enforcement agents who perform as an essential part of maintaining modern society. Using a multivariate regression analysis focusing on three different proxies of health and three proxies for social capital conducting also several robustness checks, we find strong evidence that increased levels of social capital is highly correlated with better health outcomes. Additionally we observe that while social capital at work is very important, social capital in the home environment and work-life balance are even more important. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that work and stress programs should actively encourage employees to build stronger social networks as well as incorporate better working/home life arrangements.

La raza y la lengua como capital en las escuelas : una propuesta sociológica para las reformas en educación lingüística

Este texto hace un acercamiento sociológico al análisis de la raza y la lengua en la formación de programas de educación en idiomas. Este enfoque usa los modelos de Bourdieu de habitus y campo social, los cuales enmarcan la raza y la lengua como elementos variables en el cambio educativo y pedagógico, que están, a la vez, sujetos a la agenciamiento de profesores y estudiantes. El enfoque sugiere que una política de educación en lenguas para la justicia social puede concentrarse no sólo en el cambio y el desarrollo del sujeto humano, sino también en cambio sistemático de los campos sociales del currículo.

Exercise, appetite, and energy balance: The interactions between energy expenditure and intake, and the implications for weight management

This book disseminates current information pertaining to the modulatory effects of foods and other food substances on behavior and neurological pathways and, importantly, vice versa. This ranges from the neuroendocrine control of eating to the effects of life-threatening disease on eating behavior. The importance of this contribution to the scientific literature lies in the fact that food and eating are an essential component of cultural heritage but the effects of perturbations in the food/cognitive axis can be profound. The complex interrelationship between neuropsychological processing, diet, and behavioral outcome is explored within the context of the most contemporary psychobiological research in the area. This comprehensive psychobiology- and pathology-themed text examines the broad spectrum of diet, behavioral, and neuropsychological interactions from normative function to occurrences of severe and enduring psychopathological processes

Capital music : personal expression with a public display of song choice

Using information and communication technology devices in public urban places can help to create a personalised space. Looking at a mobile phone screen or listening to music on an MP3 player is a common practice avoiding direct contact with others e.g. whilst using public transport. However, such devices can also be utilised to explore how to build new meaningful connections with the urban space and the collocated people within. We present findings of work-in-progress on Capital Music, a mobile application enabling urban dwellers to listen to music songs as usual, but also allowing them to announce song titles and discover songs currently being listened to by other people in the vicinity. We study the ways that this tool can change or even enhance people’s experience of public urban spaces. Our first user study also found changes in choosing different songs. Anonymous social interactions based on users’ music selection are implemented in the first iteration of the prototype that we studied.

Exercise-induced energy expenditure : implications for exercise prescription and obesity

Objective: Walking is commonly recommended to help with weight management. We measured total energy expenditure (TEE) and its components to quantify the impact of increasing exercise-induced energy expenditure (ExEE) on other components of TEE. Methods: Thirteen obese women underwent an 8-week walking group intervention. TEE was quantified using doubly labeled water, ExEE was quantified using heart rate monitors, daily movement was assessed by accelerometry and resting metabolic rate was measured using indirect calorimetry. Results: Four of the 13 participants achieved the target of 1500 kcal wk−1 of ExEE and all achieved 1000 kcal wk−1. The average ExEE achieved by the group across the 8 weeks was 1434 ± 237 kcal wk−1. Vigorous physical activity, as assessed by accelerometry, increased during the intervention by an average of 30 min per day. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) decreased, on average, by 175 kcal d−1 (−22%) from baseline to the intervention and baseline fitness was correlated with change in NEAT. Conclusions: Potential alterations in non-exercise activity should be considered when exercise is prescribed. The provision of appropriate education on how to self-monitor daily activity levels may improve intervention outcomes in groups who are new to exercise. Practice implications: Strategies to sustain incidental and light physical activity should be offered to help empower individuals as they develop and maintain healthy and long-lasting lifestyle habits.

Interactions between energy intake and expenditure in the development and treatment of obesity.

Summary There are four interactions to consider between energy intake (EI) and energy expenditure (EE) in the development and treatment of obesity. (1) Does sedentariness alter levels of EI or subsequent EE? and (2) Do high levels of EI alter physical activity or exercise? (3) Do exercise-induced increases in EE drive EI upwards and undermine dietary approaches to weight management and (4) Do low levels of EI elevate or decrease EE? There is little evidence that sedentariness alters levels of EI. This lack of cross-talk between altered EE and EI appears to promote a positive EB. Lifestyle studies also suggest that a sedentary routine actually offers the opportunity for over-consumption. Substantive changes in non exercise activity thermogenesis are feasible, but not clearly demonstrated. Cross talk between elevated EE and EI is initially too weak and takes too long to activate, to seriously threaten dietary approaches to weight management. It appears that substantial fat loss is possible before intake begins to track a sustained elevation of EE. There is more evidence that low levels of EI does lower physical activity levels, in relatively lean men under conditions of acute or prolonged semi-starvation and in dieting obese subjects. During altered EB there are a number of small but significant changes in the components of EE, including (i) sleeping and basal metabolic rate, (ii) energy cost of weight change alters as weight is gained or lost, (iii) exercise efficiency, (iv) energy cost of weight bearing activities, (v) during substantive overfeeding diet composition (fat versus carbohydrate) will influence the energy cost of nutrient storage by ~ 15%. The responses (i-v) above are all “obligatory” responses. Altered EB can also stimulate facultative behavioural responses, as a consequence of cross-talk between EI and EE. Altered EB will lead to changes in the mode duration and intensity of physical activities. Feeding behaviour can also change. The degree of inter-individual variability in these responses will define the scope within which various mechanisms of EB compensation can operate. The relative importance of “obligatory” versus facultative, behavioural responses -as components of EB control- need to be defined.

Social clubs and social capital : the effect of electronic gaming machines in disadvantaged regions on the creation or destruction of community resilience

The role of particular third sector organisations, Social Clubs, in supporting gambling through the use of EGMs in venues presents as a difficult social issue. Social Clubs gain revenue from gambling activities; but also contribute to social well-being through the provision of services to communities. The revenues derived from gambling in specific geographic locales has been seen by government as a way to increase economic development particularly in deprived areas. However there are also concerns about accessibility of low-income citizens to Electronic Gaming Machines (EGMS) and the high level of gambling overall in these deprived areas. We argue that social capital can be viewed as a guard against deleterious effects of unconstrained use of EGM gambling in communities. However, it is contended that social capital may also be destroyed by gambling activity if commercial business actors are able to use EGMs without community obligations to service provision. This paper examines access to gambling through EGMs and its relationship to social capital and the consequent effect on community resilience, via an Australian case study. The results highlight the potential two-way relationship between gambling and volunteering, such that volunteering (and social capital more generally) may help protect against problems of gambling, but also that volunteering as an activity may be damaged by increased gambling activity. This suggests that, regardless of the direction of causation, it is necessary to build up social capital via volunteering and other social capital activities in areas where EGMS are concentrated. The study concludes that Social Clubs using EGMs to derive funds are uniquely positioned within the community to develop programs that foster social capital creation and build community resilience in deprived areas.

Anthony Browne and the cultural capital of classic fairy tales

Prolific British author/illustrator Anthony Browne both participates in the classic fairy-tale tradition and appropriates its cultural capital, ultimately undertaking a process of self-canonisation alongside the dissemination of fairy tales. In reading Browne’s Hansel and Gretel (1981), The Tunnel (1989) and Into the Forest (2004), a trajectory emerges that moves from broadly intertextual to more exclusively self-referential modes of representation which reward readers of “Anthony Browne”, rather than readers of “fairy tales”. All three books depict ‘babes in the woods’ stories wherein child characters must negotiate some form of threat outside the home in order to return home safely. Thus, they represent childhood agency. However, these visions of agency are ultimately subordinated to logics of capital, which means that child readers of Browne’s fairy-tale books are overtly invited to identify with children who act, but are interpellated as privileged if they ‘know’. Bourdieu’s model of ‘cultural capital’ offers a lens for considering Browne’s production of ‘value’ for his own works within a broader cultural landscape which privileges literary fairy tales as a register of juvenile cultural competency. If cultural capital can be formulated most simply as the symbolic exchange value of approved modes of knowing and being, it is clearly helpful when trying to unpack logics of meaning within heavily intertextual or citational texts. It is also helpful thinking about what kinds of stories we as a culture choose to disseminate, choose to privilege, or choose to suppress. Zipes notes of fairy tales that, “the genre itself becomes a kind of institute that is involved in the socialization and acculturation of readers” (22). He elaborates that, “We initiate readers and expect them to learn the fairy-tale code as part of our responsibility in the civilizing process” (Zipes 29), so it is little wonder that Tatar describes fairy tales as “a vital part of our cultural capital” (xix). Although Browne is clearly interested in literary fairy tales, the most obvious strategies of self-canonisation take place in Browne’s work not in words but in pictures: hidden in plain sight, as illustration becomes self-reflexive citation.