Understanding the roles of social and tangible technologies in maintaining social interaction, habits and independence into old age

The research offers a deeper understanding of how objects currently facilitate social interaction and physical activity for older adults living independently. It uses this awareness to develop, from a human perspective, considerations for the design of internet connected objects that provide novel ways of maintaining contact with loved ones. The research found that people invest emotional attachment to objects and objects foster emotional responses in people. Objects can facilitate feeling connected to another however the relationship is a result of time and repeated interaction. Recreating this connection/relationship digitally is not as simple as attaching a hyperlink.

Disclosures of social value creation and managing legitimacy: A case study of three global social enterprises

This study seeks to fill the gap in the existing literature by examining at how and whether disclosure of social value creation becomes a part of legitimation strategies of social enterprises. By using Suchman’s (1995) moral dimension of legitimacy theory this study sets out that three global social organizations, Grameen Bank, Charity Water, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, disclose social value creation as if they conform to expectations of the broader community. The study finds that there is an apparent disconnection between disclosure and actions by social enterprises. With references to few incidents highlighted in this study, social enterprises, use disclosures as their managerial efforts, rather than creating moral legitimacy. The notion of apparent disconnection between disclosure and real action by the case social enterprises is common with the notion of the motivation behind disclosure practices by corporations as captured in extant disclosure literature. The finding suggest that when an organisation (whether it is a corporation or a social enterprise) face legitimacy crisis, it appears to disclose good news than bad news questioning organizational moral legitimacy.

Leaving Planet Earth (Follow-on Voucher Project).

SFC FOLLOW-ON VOUCHER The project was undertaken as a SFC Follow-on Voucher (£40K) alongside a student project with BDes (Hons) Design & Digital Arts (D&DA).James Blake (Centre for Media & Culture) brought together students and staff to develop digital content, including films, for a transmedia project and the induction video on the coaches to Ratho. Malcolm Innes, Ian Lambert, Andrew O’Dowd, and Euan Winton (Centre for Design Practice & Research) developed the Old Earth Museum (both physical and virtual), and transmedia designer and research student Beata Zemanek oversaw the transmedia strategy and making of the Gatekeeper film, supported by D&DA students and graduates.

The Encyclopaedia of missions : descriptive, historical, biographical, statistical : with a full assortment of maps, a complete bibliography, and lists of Bible versions, missionary societies, mission stations, and a general index / edited by Edwin Munsell Bliss.

http://www.archive.org/details/encyclopaediamis02unknuoft

The corporate social responsibility movement and law's empire: Is there a conflict?

At the heart of corporate governance and social responsibility discourse is recognition of the fact that the modern corporation is primarily governed by the profit maximisation imperative coupled with moral and ethical concerns that such a limited imperative drives the actions of large and wealthy corporations which have the ability to act in influential and significant ways, shaping how our social world is experienced. The actions of the corporation and its management will have a wide sphere of impact over all of its stakeholders whether these are employees, shareholders, consumers or the community in which the corporation is located. As globalisation has become central to the way we think it is also clear that ‘community’ has an ever expanding meaning which may include workers and communities living very far away from Corporate HQ. In recent years academic commentators have become increasingly concerned about the emphasis on what can be called short-term profit maximisation and the perception that this extremist interpretation of the profit imperative results in morally and ethically unacceptable outcomes.1 Hence demands for more corporate social responsibility. Following Cadbury’s2 classification of corporate social responsibility into three distinct areas, this paper will argue that once the legally regulated tier is left aside corporate responsibility can become so nebulous as to be relatively meaningless. The argument is not that corporations should not be required to act in socially responsible ways but that unless supported by regulation, which either demands high standards, or at the very least incentivises the attainment of such standards such initiatives are doomed to failure. The paper will illustrate by reference to various chosen cases that law’s discourse has already signposted ways to consider and resolve corporate governance problems in the broader social responsibility context.3 It will also illustrate how corporate responsibility can and must be supported by legal measures. Secondly, this paper will consider the potential conflict between an emphasis on corporate social responsibility and the regulatory approach.4 Finally, this paper will place the current interest in corporate social responsibility within the broader debate on the relationship between law and non-legally enforceable norms and will present some reflections on the norm debate arising from this consideration of the CSR movement.

Exploring the relationship between social network sites and the consumption of cultural goods through the lens of affordances

This thesis presents research theorising the use of social network sites (SNS) for the consumption of cultural goods. SNS are Internet-based applications that enable people to connect, interact, discover, and share user-generated content. They have transformed communication practices and are facilitating users to present their identity online through the disclosure of information on a profile. SNS are especially effective for propagating content far and wide within a network of connections. Cultural goods constitute hedonic experiential goods with cultural, artistic, and entertainment value, such as music, books, films, and fashion. Their consumption is culturally dependant and they have unique characteristics that distinguish them from utilitarian products. The way in which users express their identity on SNS is through the sharing of cultural interests and tastes. This makes cultural good consumption vulnerable to the exchange of content and ideas that occurs across an expansive network of connections within these social systems. This study proposes the lens of affordances to theorise the use of social network sites for the consumption of cultural goods. Qualitative case study research using two phases of data collection is proposed in the application of affordances to the research topic. The interaction between task, technology, and user characteristics is investigated by examining each characteristic in detail, before investigating the actual interaction between the user and the artifact for a particular purpose. The study contributes to knowledge by (i) improving our understanding of the affordances of social network sites for the consumption of cultural goods, (ii) demonstrating the role of task, technology and user characteristics in mediating user behaviour for user-artifact interactions, (iii) explaining the technical features and user activities important to the process of consuming cultural goods using social network sites, and (iv) theorising the consumption of cultural goods using SNS by presenting a theoretical research model which identifies empirical indicators of model constructs and maps out affordance dependencies and hierarchies. The study also provides a systematic research process for applying the concept of affordances to the study of system use.

Oceans and Human Health (OHH): a European Perspective from the Marine Board of the European Science Foundation (Marine Board-ESF)

The oceans and coastal seas provide mankind with many benefits including food for around a third of the global population, the air that we breathe and our climate system which enables habitation of much of the planet. However, the converse is that generation of natural events (such as hurricanes, severe storms and tsunamis) can have devastating impacts on coastal populations, while pollution of the seas by pathogens and toxic waste can cause illness and death in humans and animals. Harmful effects from biogenic toxins produced by algal blooms (HABs) and from the pathogens associated with microbial pollution are also a health hazard in seafood and from direct contact with water. The overall global burden of human disease caused by sewage pollution of coastal waters has been estimated at 4 million lost person-years annually. Finally, the impacts of all of these issues will be exacerbated by climate change. A holistic systems approach is needed. It must consider whole ecosystems, and their sustainability, such as integrated coastal zone management, is necessary to address the highly interconnected scientific challenges of increased human population pressure, pollution and over-exploitation of food (and other) resources as drivers of adverse ecological, social and economic impacts. There is also an urgent and critical requirement for effective and integrated public health solutions to be developed through the formulation of politically and environmentally meaningful policies. The research community required to address "Oceans & Human Health" in Europe is currently very fragmented, and recognition by policy makers of some of the problems, outlined in the list of challenges above, is limited. Nevertheless, relevant key policy issues for governments worldwide include the reduction of the burden of disease (including the early detection of emerging pathogens and other threats) and improving the quality of the global environment. Failure to effectively address these issues will impact adversely on efforts to alleviate poverty, sustain the availability of environmental goods and services and improve health and social and economic stability; and thus, will impinge on many policy decisions, both nationally and internationally. Knowledge exchange (KE) will be a key element of any ensuing research. KE will facilitate the integration of biological, medical, epidemiological, social and economic disciplines, as well as the emergence of synergies between seemingly unconnected areas of science and socio-economic issues, and will help to leverage knowledge transfer across the European Union (EU) and beyond. An integrated interdisciplinary systems approach is an effective way to bring together the appropriate groups of scientists, social scientists, economists, industry and other stakeholders with the policy formulators in order to address the complexities of interfacial problems in the area of environment and human health. The Marine Board of the European Science Foundation Working Group on "Oceans and Human Health" has been charged with developing a position paper on this topic with a view to identifying the scientific, social and economic challenges and making recommendations to the EU on policy-relevant research and development activities in this arena. This paper includes the background to health-related issues linked to the coastal environment and highlights the main arguments for an ecosystem-based whole systems approach.