The Post-Growth Project:how the end of economic growth could bring a fairer and happier society

This book challenges the assumption that it is bad news when the economy doesn’t grow. For decades, it has been widely recognized that there are ecological limits to continuing economic growth and that different ways of living, working and organizing our economies are urgently required. This urgency has increased since the financial crash of 2007–2008, but mainstream economists and politicians are unable to think differently. The authors of this book demonstrate why our economic system demands ecologically unsustainable growth and the pursuit of more ‘stuff’. They believe that what matters is quality, not quantity – a better life based on having fewer material possessions, less production and less work. Such a way of life will emphasize well‑being, community, security and ‘conviviality’. That is, more real wealth. The book will therefore appeal to everyone curious as to how a new post-growth economics can be conceived and enacted. It will be of particular interest to policy makers, politicians, businesspeople, trade unionists, academics, students, journalists and a wide range of people working in the not-for-profit sector. All of the contributors are leading thinkers on green issues and members of the new think-tank Green House.

Differences in the prevalence of ankylosing spondylitis in primary and secondary care : only one-third of patients are managed in rheumatology

Funding: No specific funding was received from any bodies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors to carry out the work described in this article. Disclosure statement: G.T.J. and G.J.M. have received research funding from Pfizer and AbbVie. L.E.D. conducted the analysis while funded by an Medical Research Council PhD studentship

Sites of Excavation and Construction

For his first solo show in Belgium, British artist Neal White presents a range of recent and new work – some of them in collaboration with artist Tina O’Connell – that reflect his ongoing preoccupations with deep time and the spaces of art. OBJECTIF EXHIBITIONS is a not-for-profit institution devoted to the presentation of contemporary art, supported by the Flemish Community. Curated by Antony Hudek

Service Quality in Arts Events: Operations Management Strategies for Effective Delivery

Recent debate on the quality of arts events has concentrated on the requirement to deliver against a complex range of political, social, and cultural criteria with an emphasis on the external partnerships that are forged. Yet those aspects of quality over which event organizers have more direct control have been accorded minor examination. The authors believe that operational effectiveness is key to service quality in the cultural context, and seek to demonstrate that a balanced consideration of both process and product is vital to fully deliver quality arts events. This article identifies areas of emergent research and practice and focuses on issues in the front-of-house environment where the breakdown of service quality is a real concern, using the experience of one UK not-for-profit arts organization as a case study to illustrate potential management responses.

Sound Art and Public Engagement in the Built Environment: Reflections from an Architecture Center

This article explores the deployment of sound in architectural-curatorial and community engagement contexts through the work of PLACE, a multidisciplinary not-for-profit architecture center in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The author, who worked with PLACE and contributed to the projects discussed here, contextualizes architecture centers and their relationship with sound before examining the specific case of sound and sound art in Northern Ireland and case studies of projects delivered by PLACE. Specifically, the article evaluates two sound installation artworks and three community engagement projects for young audiences. As a means of curating urbanism and architecture, sound-art-as-public-art affords useful strategies to examine, describe or critique the environment as alternatives to traditional architecture exhibition formats. Sound’s temporality and materiality allow sound art works to exist as temporary sculptural interventions in the urban sphere, with attendant implications for public art procurement and urban acoustics. Rich territories of engagement are opened when using sound in a community participatory context.

Using Information on Unconstrained Student Demand to Improve University Course Schedules

We examine how using information on unconstrained demand can improve operational decisions. Specifically, we examine the widespread problem of developing course schedules in not-for-profit university settings. We investigate the potential benefit of incorporating, into the scheduling process, information on the unconstrained demand of students for courses. Prior to this study, the status quo in our college, like that in a large proportion of university settings, was building the course schedule to avoid time conflicts between required courses and to minimize time conflicts between designated groups of courses, such as electives in a particular area. Compared to the status quo approach, we find that, based on three semester's worth of actual data, an approach that explicitly considers students’ course preferences improves a student-based metric of schedule quality on the order of over 4% (which is the equivalent, in our setting, of improving service for over 20% of students).

Evolution of an Interactive Online Magazine for Students, Academics and Expert Practitioners to Engage Students in ESD

Urgency to embed awareness of sustainability principles and practice across society, and need for digital literacy and advocacy for sustainability are reshaping ESD. These, together with developments in learning and teaching, demand new tools to support implementation of project-based learning and more interactive approaches. This investigation explores the evolution of susthingsout.com, an online magazine for students, academics and expert practitioners, developed by the University of Worcester. This comprises two parts; the first, a private site specifically for students involved in sustainability learning on-campus; the second, an open-access site developed to deliver sustainability information and good practice across campus, community and not-for-profit and commercial organisations. This paper involves only the private site i.e. the equivalent of an in-house VLE specifically designed to support the teaching of sustainability to multi-disciplinary first and second year undergraduate students. It reports on the progress of the VLE, following three years of use and initial improvements, in terms of the student support and engagement, as well as considering the practical issues affecting these. The results fall into four categories of pedagogical, operational, cultural and external factors, which are synthesised to capture and share emerging knowledge of good practice offering insights to other developers of online sustainability materials.

Tracks of Change - the changing value commitments of non-profit organisations

If nonprofit organisations are moving towards more market oriented ways of operating, is this changing the traditional meanings and value of commitments associated with their activities? This article discusses the findings of a research project conducted by the University of Queensland into the impact that changes in government policies are having on the community services sector, in particular disability services. The values and belief systems traditionally associated with the sector were found to be fundamentally unaltered.

Hydro energy systems management in Portugal: Profit-based evaluation of a mixed-integer nonlinear approach

In this paper, a novel mixed-integer nonlinear approach is proposed to solve the short-term hydro scheduling problem in the day-ahead electricity market, considering not only head-dependency, but also start/stop of units, discontinuous operating regions and discharge ramping constraints. Results from a case study based on one of the main Portuguese cascaded hydro energy systems are presented, showing that the proposedmixed-integer nonlinear approach is proficient. Conclusions are duly drawn. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Two-production-period in a duopoly with nonprofit and for-profit firms

We investigate endogenous roles in a competition between a nonprofit firm and a for-profit firm in a homogeneous goods market, by allowing two production periods. We find that the Cournot-type equilibrium and one Stackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the follower exist; however, another tackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the leader does not exist.

Why and how projects in organizations differ? The example of Portuguese profit and non-profit organizations

This research has as a goal to give an overview of what Project Management is in Portugal. The purpose is not to focus on a small picture, but to understand the broad concept and perception of Project Management in Portugal in two very important sectors: Profit- and Non-Profit Sector. Both Profit- and Non-Profit project managers have been interviewed, giving an insight of how different projects are in both sectors and why. This paper will be especially helpful comparing the Project Management maturity of Portugal to other countries regarding these two different point of views.

Marx's analysis of the falling rate of profit on the first version of volume III of capital

The paper provides a description and analysis of the Hodgskin section of Theories of Surplus Value and the general law section of the first version of Volume III of Capital. It then considers Part III of Volume III, the evolution of Marx's thought and various interpretations of his theory in the light of this analysis. It is suggested that Marx thought that the rate of profit must fall and even in the 1870s hoped to be able to provide a demonstration of this. However the main conclusions are: 1. Marx's major attempt to show that the rate of profit must fall occurred in the general law section. 2. Part III does not contain a demonstration that the rate of profit must fall. 3. Marx was never able to demonstrate that the rate of profit must fall and he was aware of this.

A Descriptive and analytic look at Marx's own explanations of the falling rate of profit (second version)

This paper examines, both descriptively and analytically, Marx's arguments for the falling rate of profit from the Hodgskin section of Theories of Surplus Value, The General Law section of the recently published Volume 33 of the Collected Works and Chapter 3 of Volume III of Capital. The conclusions are as follows: First, Marx realised that his main attempt to give an intrinsic explanation of the falling rate of profit, which occurred in the General Law section, had failed; but he still hoped that he would be able to demonstrate it in the future. Second, the Hodgskin and General Law sections contain a number of subsidiary explanations, mostly related to resource scarcity, some of which are correct. Third, Part III of volume III does not contain a demonstration of the falling rate of profit, but a description of the role of the falling rate of profit in capitalist development. Forth, it also contains suppressed references to resource scarcity. And finally, in Chapter 3 of Volume III, Marx says that it is resource scarcity that causes the fall in the rate of profit described in Part III of the same volume. The key to all these conclusions in the careful analysis of the General Law section.