Linking the fifth pillar to the first in the UN Decade of Action

The UN Decade of Action outlines five pillars of activity within a safe system framework to achieve the goal of slowing and then reversing the global growth in road traffic fatalities, especially in low-income and middle-income countries. The first four pillars - road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, and safer road users – have a strong focus on prevention of road traffic crashes and mitigation of energy exchange when a crash occurs. The fifth pillar – post-crash response – is far more specific, focusing only on crash victims in the event of a safe system failure. The victims appear to be relevant to the first four pillars only insofar as their numbers can be used to evaluate the success of road safety programs and identify the target groups and contributing factors. This paper argues that a better understanding of the lived experience of long term disability from traffic crashes has the potential to provide a feedback loop from the fifth pillar to the first. Research conducted in Thailand with male crash victims with spinal injury demonstrates that patterns of attribution and social and cultural factors have important implications for road safety management and for interventions aimed at influencing behaviour. In addition, the mobility constraints experienced by people with long term disability can point to systemic issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. The UN Decade of Action can benefit from a more thorough exploration of the experiences and circumstances of people with long term disability as the result of a road traffic crash. Rather than being evidence of the failure of the safe system, they can inform the development of more effective road safety management on low-income and middle-income countries.

Linking scientific evidence and decision making : A case study of hand hygiene interventions

We consider how data from scientific research should be used for decision making in health services. Whether a hand hygiene intervention to reduce risk of nosocomial infection should be widely adopted is the case study. Improving hand hygiene has been described as the most important measure to prevent nosocomial infection. 1 Transmission of microorganisms is reduced, and fewer infections arise, which leads to a reduction in mortality2 and cost savings.3 Implementing a hand hygiene program is itself costly, so the extra investment should be tested for cost-effectiveness.4,5 The first part of our commentary is about cost-effectiveness models and how they inform decision making for health services. The second part is about how data on the effectiveness of hand hygiene programs arising from scientific studies are used, and 2 points are made: the threshold for statistical inference of .05 used to judge effectiveness studies is not important for decision making,6,7 and potentially valuable evidence about effectiveness might be excluded by decision makers because it is deemed low quality.8 The ideas put forward will help researchers and health services decision makers to appraise scientific evidence in a more powerful way.

Linking Karumba : Creating Sustainable Connections

Linking Karumba: Creating Sustainable Connections This exhibition showcases the work of 3rd -4th year undergraduate landscape architecture, architecture, Industrial Design, Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering students in response to issues of sustainability in the Gulf of Carpentaria town of Karumba. It presented the work to the Karumba and Carpentaria Shire community. 16 students and four staff set off on a 2488km journey to undertake the first half of the Carpentaria Project: a fortnight-long strategic planning project entitled Linking Karumba to encourage social, economic, environmental and cultural linkages across the town. Karumba, along with the nearby town of Normanton, is one of Queensland’s most remote settlements. Its economy is based on fishing, tourism, and mining. It has two centres, 2.5km apart by river, or 9km by road. This physical disconnect was identified by Carpentaria Shire Council (CSC) and the Karumba Progress Association (KPA) as a source of socio-cultural disconnection, which formed the basis of our project brief. Student designs were highly responsive to the character of Karumba’s culture and environment, indicating remarkable levels of immersion, and attracting $830 000 in Qld. state government funding for implementation. The Exhibition Four groups of four students produced four strategic planning and design options toward this future: Make the Switch: Alice Anonuevo, Michael Marriott, Carla Priestley & Grant Harvey Realigning the Systems: Claudia Bergs, Rebecca Stephens, Anna Coulson & Lois Kerrigan Diversification of Experience: Rebecca North, Kyle Bush, Debra Sullivan & Jenna Green The River is the Main Street: Ashley Nicholson, Monica Kuiken, Dean Bowen & Bill Schild

QUT Linking Karumba Project

QUT Linking Karumba Project This exhibition showcases the work of 3rd -4th year undergraduate landscape architecture, architecture, Industrial Design, Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering students in response to issues of sustainability in the Gulf of Carpentaria town of Karumba. It presented the final, polished set of work to the Karumba and Carpentaria Shire community, following revisions in line with feedback from the 2008 exhibition. 16 students and four staff set off on a 2488km journey to undertake the first half of the Carpentaria Project: a fortnight-long strategic planning project entitled Linking Karumba to encourage social, economic, environmental and cultural linkages across the town. Karumba, along with the nearby town of Normanton, is one of Queensland’s most remote settlements. Its economy is based on fishing, tourism, and mining. It has two centres, 2.5km apart by river, or 9km by road. This physical disconnect was identified by Carpentaria Shire Council (CSC) and the Karumba Progress Association (KPA) as a source of socio-cultural disconnection, which formed the basis of our project brief. Student designs were highly responsive to the character of Karumba’s culture and environment, indicating remarkable levels of immersion, and attracting $830 000 in Qld. state government funding for implementation. The Exhibition Four groups of four students produced four strategic planning and design options toward this future: Make the Switch: Alice Anonuevo, Michael Marriott, Carla Priestley & Grant Harvey Realigning the Systems: Claudia Bergs, Rebecca Stephens, Anna Coulson & Lois Kerrigan Diversification of Experience: Rebecca North, Kyle Bush, Debra Sullivan & Jenna Green The River is the Main Street: Ashley Nicholson, Monica Kuiken, Dean Bowen & Bill Schild

Evaluation in health outcomes research : linking theories, methodologies and practice in health promotion.

Health outcomes research has developed as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of health care interventions and as an approach to informing resource allocation. The use of a health outcomes approach in health promotion has made increasing demands on evaluation methodologies to demonstrate program effectiveness. However, criticism of the contribution of health promotion to outcomes research has made several assumptions about the use of qualitative methodologies and the content of program objectives largely derived from a biomedical approach. In contrast to the measurement of biomedical interventions in clinical health care, health promotion practice involves social phenomena, wide-reaching cultural, psychological, political and ideological problems and issues. The integration of methodologies of health promotion evaluation will inform further conceptualisation of the health outcomes approach with the differentiation of three types of outcomes: health development outcomes; social health outcomes; and biomedical health outcomes. It is concluded that this differentiation moves away from dualist concepts that advocate the replacement of goals and targets with regional and locally based approaches. Rather, the future direction for health promotion evaluation needs to employ a framework that elaborates multiple methodologies and approaches necessary for establishing what relationships exist between morbidity, mortality, health advancement and equity.

Sustaining social innovation enterprises through a design led innovation framework

Constant changes in the global economic environment require companies to revisit traditional assumptions about how businesses create and capture value (Teece, 2010). In recent years, management practice literature has focused largely on better understanding business models and business model innovation (Amit, Zott and Massa, 2010; Johnson, Christensen and Kagermann, 2008). Much has been written on the benefits of linking design and design thinking to organisational strategies and business transformation. However, very little has been researched and reported on regarding the impact of design led approaches to triple bottom-line opportunities such as, social innovation enterprise. In the context of this paper Design Led Innovation is defined as the tools and approaches which enable design thinking to be embedded as an element of cultural transformation within a business. Being Design Led requires a company to have a vision for top line growth founded on deep customer insights and expanded through customer and stakeholder engagements. The outcomes of this are then mapped to all aspects of the business, enabling the vision to be successfully implemented and achieved. It is the latter part of this definition where we believe Design Led Innovation has the greatest value in transforming social innovation enterprise into a sustainable business venture. However, we also acknowledge that enabling these firms to think strategically about their business model is difficult given the unique operational and funding challenges that often characterize many social enterprises. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to pose the question, do sustainable innovation enterprise innovate their business model? And if so, how? It is the authors’ opinion that such enterprises only innovate at the product or system level without a complete understanding of the business model structure, which underpins the long term viability. However, in this paper we challenge this notion and explore if such firms can overcome their size and operational constraints to become sustainable enterprises using a design led approach. This is achieved through contextualizing business model innovation, briefly defining social innovation enterprise and profiling a new and emerging industry in Australia – Clean Technology. Future research challenges and opportunities are also presented.

Social media, audiences, and audience co-creativity in contemporary performance: Restoring balance?

Producers, technicians, performers, audiences and critics are all critical components of the performing arts ecology – critical components of an ecosystem that have to come together into some sort of productive relationship if the performing arts are to be vital, viable and successful. Different performance practices developed in different times, spaces and places do, of course, connect these players in different ways as part of their attempt to achieve their own definition of success, be it based on entertainment, educational, expression, empowerment, or something else. In some contemporary performance practices, social media platforms, applications and processes are seen to have significant potential to restore balance to the relationship between performer and audience, providing audiences with more power to participate in a performance event. In this paper, I investigate prevailing assumptions about social media’s power to democratise performance practice, or, at least, develop more co-creative performance practices in which producers, performers and audiences participate actively before, during and after the event. I focus, in particular, on the use of social media as a means of developing a participatory aesthetic in which an audience member is asked to contribute to the cast of characters, plot or progression of a performance. Although diverse – from performances streamed online, to performances that offer transmedia components the audience can use to learn more about character, context and plot online, to performances that incorporate online voting, liking or linking, to performances that unfold fully online on websites, blogs, microblogs or other social media platforms – what a lot of uses of social media in contemporary performance today share is a desire to encourage audiences to reflect on their role in making, and making meaning, of the event. In this paper I interrogate if, and if so how, this democratises or develops deeper levels of co-creativity in the relationship between producers, performers and audiences.

The Relational Self, the Social Bond and the Dynamics of Personal Relationships : A Sociological Analysis

This study analyses personal relationships linking research to sociological theory on the questions of the social bond and on the self as social. From the viewpoint of disruptive life events and experiences, such as loss, divorce and illness, it aims at understanding how selves are bound to their significant others as those specific people ‘close or otherwise important’ to them. Who form the configurations of significant others? How do different bonds respond in disruptions and how do relational processes unfold? How is the embeddedness of selves manifested in the processes of bonding, on the one hand, and in the relational formation of the self, on the other? The bonds are analyzed from an anti-categorical viewpoint based on personal citations of significance as opposed to given relationship categories, such as ‘family’ or ‘friendship’ – the two kinds of relationships that in fact are most frequently significant. The study draws from analysis of the personal narratives of 37 Finnish women and men (in all 80 interviews) and their entire configurations of those specific people who they cite as ‘close or otherwise important’. The analysis stresses the subjective experiences, while also investigating the actualized relational processes and configurations of all personal relationships with certain relationship histories embedded in micro-level structures. The research is based on four empirical sub-studies of personal relationships and a summary discussing the questions of the self and social bond. Discussion draws from G. H. Mead, C. Cooley, N. Elias, T. Scheff, G. Simmel and the contributors of ‘relational sociology’. Sub-studies analyse bonds to others from the viewpoint of biographical disruption and re-configuration of significant others, estranged family bonds, peer support and the formation of the most intimate relationships into exclusive and inclusive configurations. All analyses examine the dialectics of the social and the personal, asking how different structuring mechanisms and personal experiences and negotiations together contribute to the unfolding of the bonds. The summary elaborates personal relationships as social bonds embedded in wider webs of interdependent people and social settings that are laden with cultural expectations. Regarding the question of the relational self, the study proposes both bonding and individuality as significant. They are seen as interdependent phases of the relationality of the self. Bonding anchors the self to its significant relationships, in which individuality is manifested, for example, in contrasting and differentiating dynamics, but also in active attempts to connect with others. Individuality is not a fixed quality of the self, but a fluid and interdependent phase of the relational self. More specifically, it appears in three formats in the flux of relational processes: as a sense of unique self (via cultivation of subjective experiences), as agency and as (a search for) relative autonomy. The study includes an epilogue addressing the ambivalence between the social expectation of individuality in society and the bonded reality of selves.

Linking public perceptions of socioeconmic change and marine resource management in rural Maine

Rural coastal regions across the United States are coping with dramatic social and environmental changes. Historically, these areas relied heavily on fishing and marine commerce and these economic activities defined the character of coastal communities. However, shifting ocean and climate conditions, together with inadequate management strategies, have led to sharp declines in harvestable marine resources. These trends, along with increasing competition from aquaculture and international sources of fish, have led to the steady decline of fishing as the central economic activity in many rural coastal communities. (PDF contains 3 pages)

Ethnography as a linking method between psychology and sociology: research design

World Conference on Psychology and Sociology 2012

Questão social em tempos de hegemonia neoliberal: a centralidade da mídia e o processo brasileiro de passivização

Este estudo objetiva apresentar contribuições para o aprofundamento do debate acerca da relação entre questão social e mídia no Brasil, articulando esta temática à discussão sobre as particularidades da formação social brasileira, com destaque para o conceito de revolução passiva no pensamento de Antonio Gramsci. A aproximação a este complexo campo de reflexão se dará, em seus aspectos gerais, pela articulação entre três grandes debates teóricos: a) o concernente à questão social, sobretudo a discussão realizada no interior do Serviço Social, pelo estudo de suas expressões e determinações fundantes, seu desenvolvimento histórico, as particularidades que assume na formação social brasileira e em tempos de hegemonia neoliberal; b) o denso debate sobre as particularidades do desenvolvimento histórico da formação social brasileira, tendo como fio condutor a noção de revolução burguesa, tal como desenvolvida por Florestan Fernandes. O diálogo com autores que trataram das especificidades do desenvolvimento capitalista e da instauração da ordem burguesa no Brasil, aporta não apenas elementos para se pensar na questão social no País, mas também, compreender a conexão entre a trajetória histórica da sociedade brasileira que, a nosso ver, é marcada por momentos de transição pelo alto (o que Gramsci chamou de revolução passiva) e a relevância e influência que a chamada grande mídia tem na sociedade brasileira atual; c) o debate teórico entorno do conceito de hegemonia no pensamento de Gramsci, no sentido de compreender a função e o lugar da grande mídia na luta de classes, articulando o conceito de hegemonia compreendido como a capacidade de uma classe formar e conservar seu poder através da direção intelectual e moral às noções de sociedade civil, senso comum, aparelhos privados de hegemonia, cultura, entre outros. Trata-se de uma análise de caráter fundamentalmente teórico-interpretativo, que não pode prescindir, assim sendo, de uma análise que, partindo do presente, se aproxime de processos históricos elementares para pensar o contexto atual, sobre o qual incide nossa proposta de estudo. Na condição de aparelho privado de hegemonia, a mídia burguesa cumpre a função de fabricar e difundir consensos que formam o senso comum e contribuem para a reprodução da passivização das classes subalternas. No Brasil, essa questão assume dimensão diferenciada, em virtude das recorrentes soluções pelo alto, típicas de uma revolução burguesa experimentada como revolução sem revolução, que marcaram a trajetória histórica do país. Nesse processo, o Estado assume protagonismo para preservar a hegemonia das classes dominantes, excluindo a massa do povo de exercer influência na direção da vida política e social através da repressão direta e da coerção e através da construção de estratégias destinadas à obtenção do consenso das classes subalternas. Com a hegemonia neoliberal, efetiva-se um aprofundamento da subordinação e passivização destas classes, por um novo processo de fragilização de seus aparelhos de disputa por hegemonia, ao mesmo tempo que grandes conglomerados midiáticos se formam e se fortalecem, interferindo em todas as esferas da vida social e participando na construção de uma direção hegemônica da sociedade que seja favorável à preservação da ordem.

A gestão pública do Sistema Único de Assistência Social (SUAS) no município de Niterói/RJ: os Centros de Referência da Assistência Social (CRAS) no foco crítico

O presente trabalho insere-se no campo da Política de Assistência Social. Tem como objeto de estudo a concepção de Política de Assistência Social que embasa o processo de implementação da gestão do SUAS no município de Niterói e os fundamentos teóricos e conceituais da gestão pública do SUAS em tal localidade, tendo como recorte a execução dos serviços de proteção básica nos CRAS. O objetivo da tese é analisar a concepção de Assistência Social que orienta a gestão do SUAS em Niterói e, articuladamente a tal discussão, os fundamentos conceituais que pautam a gestão pública do SUAS, no que diz respeito às atividades de proteção social básica nos CRAS. Utilizou-se como instrumento para a realização deste trabalho a pesquisa bibliográfica, sendo que a discussão teórica abordou, primeiramente, as diferentes orientações da gestão pública no Brasil, vinculando-a com a intervenção do Estado no desenvolvimento do capitalismo brasileiro. O trabalho também apresenta o debate sobre a concepção da Política de Assistência Social, compreendendo que esta se reflete na condução da gestão pública do SUAS. Demonstrou-se as tendências da Assistência Social na contemporaneidade, que se vinculam no enfrentamento da pobreza (extrema) através de sua intervenção nos programas/ações de transferência de renda. Destacou-se a influência da gestão gerencial nos processos de gestão do SUAS. Para a análise da gestão do SUAS no município de Niterói, desenvolveu-se uma pesquisa qualitativa, através de pesquisa documental nas Atas do Conselho Municipal de Assistência Social CMAS de Niterói; nos Relatórios de Gestão da Secretaria Municipal de Assistência Social; nos documentos sobre o cofinanciamento para o SUAS no município; no Censo SUAS 2014 de Niterói, na área da gestão e dos CRAS; no Plano Brasil Sem Miséria no seu Município-Niterói; no Plano Municipal de Assistência Social 2014-2017. Também aplicou-se questionário, com questões abertas e fechadas, nos 8 CRAS de Niterói no ano de 2013. Verificou-se a relevância que ocupam, no município, as ações do Programa Bolsa Família, de cadastramento, de atendimentos, de acompanhamento familiar, em detrimento da constituição das ações coletivas dos serviços socioassistenciais. Tais características se articulam à totalidade histórica maior das tendências da Assistência Social e da intervenção do Estado brasileiro, que privilegia políticas sociais focalizadas e não universais em sua atuação em prol do capital financeiro. Constatou-se a apropriação dos elementos da gestão gerencial pelo órgão gestor municipal, no processo de implementação do SUAS no município, principalmente com relação ao cumprimento de resultados e metas pelos CRAS, e a subvalorização dos determinantes políticos da gestão pública, dificultando a constituição de uma perspectiva mais democrática de gestão no âmbito do SUAS em Niterói.

Linking territorial and coastal planning: the Venezuelan experience

Venezuela is located in central northern South America, with some 4 000 km of coastline and near 700 000 km2 of marine and submarine areas. The Venezuelan coastal zone is characterized by serious problems of land use and utilisation of its natural resources, caused by a generally anarchical spatial occupation and lack of sufficient legal and administrative means for control. In this paper, a synthesis of the Venezuelan approach to attaining a sustainable development of its marine and coastal zones is presented. This means the accomplishment of the social and economic development of the Venezuelan population in general, and specifically the coastal inhabitants, taking into account the legal and administrative patterns that govern land use planning and the utilisation of natural resources, particularly in marine and coastal areas. The paper is organised in three parts: (1) the diagnosis of the current situation; (2) the presentation of a hypothesis based on present trends (trend scenario); and (3) the statement and application of a sound and adequate solution (desirable and possible scenario).

Reexamining the science of marine protected areas: Linking knowledge to action

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are often implemented to conserve or restore species, fisheries, habitats, ecosystems, and ecological functions and services; buffer against the ecological effects of climate change; and alleviate poverty in coastal communities. Scientific research provides valuable insights into the social and ecological impacts of MPAs, as well as the factors that shape these impacts, providing useful guidance or "rules of thumb" for science-based MPA policy. Both ecological and social factors foster effective MPAs, including substantial coverage of representative habitats and oceanographic conditions; diverse size and spacing; protection of habitat bottlenecks; participatory decisionmaking arrangements; bounded and contextually appropriate resource use rights; active and accountable monitoring and enforcement systems; and accessible conflict resolution mechanisms. For MPAs to realize their full potential as a tool for ocean governance, further advances in policy-relevant MPA science are required. These research frontiers include MPA impacts on nontarget and wide-ranging species and habitats; impacts beyond MPA boundaries, on ecosystem services, and on resource-dependent human populations, as well as potential scale mismatches of ecosystem service flows. Explicitly treating MPAs as "policy experiments" and employing the tools of impact evaluation holds particular promise as a way for policy-relevant science to inform and advance science-based MPA policy. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.