bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of the Shenzhuo formula in the treatment of patients with macroalbuminuria secondary to diabetic kidney disease: protocol update and statistical analysis plan
Authors: Wei Yu , Huang Yi-Shan , Yang Ze , Wang Xinmiao , Li Yanbo , Zhang Ying , Zhao Lin-Hua , Tong Xiaolin
Published: January 2022

Background

Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is a significant complication of diabetes and has garnered considerable attention. Our previous retrospective study indicated that Shenzhuo formula (SZF) potentially reduces macroalbuminuria secondary to DKD.

Methods

This trial is a 24-week, randomized, multicentric, double-blinded, double-dummy clinical trial. A total of 120 patients with DKD will be equally and randomly divided into two groups: SZF+ irbesartan simulator or irbesartan + SZF simulator. The 24-h urinary protein change from baseline to week 24 is the primary outcome measure. The secondary outcome measures include serum creatinine, estimated glomerular filtration rate, urinary albumin excretion rate, improvement in traditional Chinese medicine symptoms, fasting blood glucose, 2-h postprandial plasma glucose, hemoglobin A1c, cholesterol, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein, blood pressure, albumin to creatinine ratio, and the Audit of Diabetes-Dependent Quality of Life 19. Our recruitment began in May 2015; currently, we have recruited 100 participants, with a designed maximum sample size of 120. The interim results were reviewed at N = 60, and continuing recruitment was recommended. This statistical analysis plan includes our approach to missing data imputation, primary and secondary outcomes analyses, and safety endpoints.

Discussion

This statistical analysis plan will standardize the clinical trial’s statistical analysis and avoid outcome selective reporting bias and data-driven analysis. This trial will provide further clinical evidence regarding the effectiveness of SZF in managing macroalbuminuria secondary to DKD.

Trial registration

Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR-ICR-15006311. Registered on 26 May 2013. http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=10862
Adjuvant treatment of high-risk melanoma – cost-effectiveness analysis of treatment options for BRAF 600 mutated tumors
Authors: Wahler Steffen , Müller Alfred , Fuchs Sabine , von der Schulenburg Johann-Matthias
Published: January 2022

Introduction

Until recently, adjuvant treatment options for higher stage resectable cutaneous melanoma were limited. Two studies with a similar set-up, published 2017, led to registration of targeted therapy for BRAF-mutated melanoma with dabrafenib and trametinib as well as of the immunotherapy with nivolumab irrespective of BRAF-mutation status. Both options have been positively assessed in Germany since 2019 for the adjuvant treatment of BRAF-V600 mutated melanoma. This study evaluates the cost-effectiveness of both treatment alternatives (dabrafenib/trametinib and nivolumab) against observation as a comparative therapy from the perspective of German statutory health funds.

Methods

Partitioned survival analysis based on published survival curves for the investigated treatment options was used for a cohort model for the health states relapse free survival, progression, and death. The partitioned survival analysis approach was based on the survival curves published for the key studies Combi AD and Checkmate-238. The modelling was performed for the remaining lifetime for a cohort with starting age of 50 years. For extrapolation of the survival curves, convergence to general population mortality rates was assumed in the long term. Within the progression state, a Markov model uses three levels of progressions (locoregional, distant metastases with 1st and 2nd line treatment). Lifetime treatment costs were calculated using the German statutory health fund reimbursement scheme. Quality adjusted life years (QALYs) associated to the health states were adopted from previously published utilities based on the Combi AD study.

Results

The treatment with dabrafenib/trametinib yielded an increase in quality adjusted life years of 2.28 QALY at an incremental lifetime cost of 86.1 T€. The incremental cost effectiveness ratio of dabrafenib/trametinib and nivolumab was comparable with 37.8 T€/QALY and 30.0 T€/QALY, respectively. Several sensitivity analyses proved the result to be insensitive. General model parameters like discount rate and length of the time horizon had stronger influence. For nivolumab, the model showed lower discounted lifetime costs (118.1 T€) compared to dabrafenib/trametinib [155.1 T€], associated with a lower gain in QALYs (1.64 years) compared to observation.

Conclusion

Both dabrafenib/trametinib and nivolumab turned out to be cost effective within internationally accepted Incremental Cost Effectiveness Ratio (ICER) thresholds with comparable cost effectiveness ratios.
Influence of bacteriocin-producing Bacillus strains on quality characteristics of fermented soybean product with biogenic amine-forming lactic acid bacteria
Authors: Lim Eun-Seo
Published: January 2022

This study evaluated the antibacterial activity of bacteriocin produced by Bacillus strains against biogenic amines (BA)-forming lactic acid bacteria (LAB), and the applicability of desirable strains as Bacillus starters for safety and quality improvement of fermented soybean products. The BA-forming ability of the tested LAB in amino acid decarboxylase broth was mostly strain specific rather that species specific. The bacteriocin produced by specific Bacillus strains: Bacillus sp. DB407, Bacillus licheniformis DB612, and Bacillus subtilis DB821 may play a contributory role in the inhibiting the growth of BA-forming strains. In fermented soybean products manufactured using different starter cultures, there was a significant reduction (p < 0.05) in the cell counts of LAB by application of a mixed culture containing B. subtilis DB821, which showed the highest antimicrobial activity. Specifically, B. subtilis DB821 was highly efficient in reducing accumulation of cadaverine, tryptamine, and tyramine produced by Enterococcus faecium D12 and Enterococcus faecalis D51 during soybean fermentation. In conclusion, the bacteriocin-producing Bacillus strains such as Bacillus sp. DB 407, B. licheniformis DB612, and B. subtilis DB821 can be used as a starter culture for the production of BA-controlled soybean products and for the enhancement of the quality and safety of fermented foods.
Investigation of fiber utilization in the rumen of dairy cows based on metagenome-assembled genomes and single-cell RNA sequencing
Authors: Xue Ming-Yuan , Wu Jia-Jin , Xie Yun-Yi , Zhu Sen-Lin , Zhong Yi-Fan , Liu Jian-Xin , Sun Hui-Zeng
Published: January 2022

Background

Dairy cows utilize human-inedible, low-value plant biomass to produce milk, a low-cost product with rich nutrients and high proteins. This process largely relies on rumen microbes that ferment lignocellulose and cellulose to produce volatile fatty acids (VFAs). The VFAs are absorbed and partly metabolized by the stratified squamous rumen epithelium, which is mediated by diverse cell types. Here, we applied a metagenomic binning approach to explore the individual microbes involved in fiber digestion and performed single-cell RNA sequencing on rumen epithelial cells to investigate the cell subtypes contributing to VFA absorption and metabolism.

Results

The 52 mid-lactating dairy cows in our study (parity = 2.62 ± 0.91) had milk yield of 33.10 ± 6.72 kg. We determined the fiber digestion and fermentation capacities of 186 bacterial genomes using metagenomic binning and identified specific bacterial genomes with strong cellulose/xylan/pectin degradation capabilities that were highly associated with the biosynthesis of VFAs. Furthermore, we constructed a rumen epithelial single-cell map consisting of 18 rumen epithelial cell subtypes based on the transcriptome of 20,728 individual epithelial cells. A systematic survey of the expression profiles of genes encoding candidates for VFA transporters revealed that IGFBP5+ cg-like spinous cells uniquely highly expressed SLC16A1 and SLC4A9, suggesting that this cell type may play important roles in VFA absorption. Potential cross-talk between the microbiome and host cells and their roles in modulating the expression of key genes in the key rumen epithelial cell subtypes were also identified.

Conclusions

We discovered the key individual microbial genomes and epithelial cell subtypes involved in fiber digestion, VFA uptake and metabolism, respectively, in the rumen. The integration of these data enables us to link microbial genomes and epithelial single cells to the trophic system.
Development and using of some nanopesticide formulations against the conical snail, Cochlicella acuta, and the chocolate banded snail, Massylaea vermiculata
Authors: Sabry Al-kazafy Hassan , Ali Reham Fathey
Published: January 2022

Background

Nanopesticides are considered promising strategy in pest control. So, this strategy became an important new approach in pesticide formulations production. In this study, three traditional pesticide formulations (chlorfenapyr, imidacloprid and indoxacarb) were developed into nanoformulations. The toxicity of these nanoformulations was evaluated against the adults of the conical snail, Cochlicella acuta (Müller, 1774), and the chocolate banded snail, Massylaea vermiculata (Mohamed and Ali, Anim Biol J
2(4):171–180, 2011).

Results

The results revealed that the nanosizes of nanoformulation nanoparticles were ranged between 220 and 534 nm. The loading capacities of the selected pesticides on polymer were 65.3 ± 6.4, 62.8 ± 5.3 and 37.1 ± 0.4%for nanochlorfenapyr, nanoimidacloprid and nanoindoxacarb, respectively. The nanochlorfenapyr was the most toxic against both the C. acuta and M. vermiculata followed by nanoindoxacarb and nanoimidacloprid. The LC50,s of the nanoformulations were 6.1, 7.7 and 14.9 ppm for chlorfenapyr, indoxacarb and imidacloprid, respectively.

Conclusions

These results cleared that the conical snails were more susceptible to all the tested pesticides than the chocolate banded snail, M. vermiculata. The efficacy of nanochlorfenapyr, nanoindoxacarb and nanoimidacloprid on conical snails (6.1, 7.7 and 14.9 ppm, respectively) was about fourfold compared with M. vermiculata (23.1, 31.9 and 60.6 ppm, respectively).The results also revealed that the potency of nanoformulation used was not only by direct killing of tested snails but also by repellent effect.
The emerging therapeutic role of some pharmacological antidotes in management of COVID-19
Authors: El Shehaby Doaa M. , Mohammed Marwa Kh. , Ebrahem Noha Esmael , Abd El-Azim Mariam M. , Sayed Islam G. , Eweda Sarah A.
Published: January 2022

Background

A novel RNA coronavirus was identified in January 2020 as the cause of a pneumonia epidemic affecting the city of Wuhan; it rapidly spread across China.

Aim of the review

The aim is to discuss the potential efficacy of some pharmacologically known pharmacological antidotes (N-acetylcysteine; hyperbaric oxygen; deferoxamine; low-dose naloxone) for the management of COVID-19-associated symptoms and complications.

Method

An extensive search was accomplished in Medline, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and Central databases until the end of April, 2021. Four independent researchers completed the screening, and finally, the associated studies were involved.

Conclusion

The current proof hinders the experts for suggesting the proper pharmacological lines of treatment of COVID-19. Organizations, for example, WHO, should pursue more practical actions and design well-planned clinical trials so that their results may be used in the treatment of future outbreaks.
Forms of Catastrophe
Authors: Gayk Shannon , Reynolds Evelyn
Published: January 2022

This special issue considers how depictions of premodern catastrophe—environmental, social, political—shape and are shaped by literary form. The issue's introduction explores what form has to do with catastrophe and offers a case study of how form moves in a Middle English lyric about three fourteenth-century catastrophes: a revolt, a plague, and an earthquake. The six essays that follow approach the dynamics of catastrophic form in their own ways while sharing a set of assumptions about how catastrophe invites formal experimentation. Form, these essays agree, can manage or even contain the chaotic accumulation of catastrophe, as well as being a means of gesturing toward catastrophe's often inexpressible surplus. As literary forms depict catastrophe, they attempt to structure or manage disorder but in doing so often throw into relief their own fragility, their inability to contain what they aim to express. This collection of essays thus reflects on how forms not only represent but also embody catastrophe's continuities and discontinuities, its rhythms and ruptures, its order and disorder, and its anxieties, uncertainties, and possibilities.
Natural History of Spinal Cord Cavernous Malformations: A Multicenter Cohort Study
Authors: Ren Jian , Jiang Nan , Bian Lisong , Dmytriw Adam A. , Zeng Gao , He Chuan , Sun Liyong , Li Xiaoyu , Ma Yongjie , Yu Jiaxing , Li Guilin , Ye Ming , Hu Peng , Li Jingwei , Yang Fan , Li Qianwen , Ling Feng , Zhang Hongqi , Hong Tao
Published: January 2022

BACKGROUND:

The natural history of spinal cord cavernous malformations (SCCMs) remains relatively unclear.

OBJECTIVE:

To investigate the natural history for hemorrhagic risks and neurological outcomes, as well as relevant predicting factors, of SCCMs.

METHODS:

All patients between 2002 and 2019 with diagnosis of SCCMs were identified retrospectively. An observational study of patients with conservative management was performed to reveal the natural history of SCCMs.

RESULTS:

We identified 305 patients in the full cohort, including 126 patients who were conservatively treated for at least 6 months (median observational period, 24.0 months). Forty-five hemorrhage events occurred during 527 person-years of follow-up, yielding an annual hemorrhage rate of 8.5% per person-year. The 1-, 2-, and 5-year cumulative risks of hemorrhage were 13.9%, 26.1%, and 35.1%, respectively. Prior hemorrhage (hazard ratio [HR] = 12.948, P = .012) and pediatric patients (HR = 2.841, P = .031) were independent predictors of hemorrhage in the long-term follow-up. Familial form (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 30.695, P = .010) and subsequent hemorrhage events (adjusted OR = 16.333, P = .000) were independent risk factors for worsening of neurological function, and baseline neurological status (adjusted OR = 78.984, P = .000) and presence of subsequent hemorrhage (adjusted OR = 9.611, P = .001) were significantly associated with neurological outcomes.

CONCLUSION:

The natural history of SCCMs varies. Baseline characteristics, such as pediatric patients, familial form, and baseline neurological status, as well as prior and subsequent hemorrhagic events, significantly affect the natural history of the SCCMs, which prompts a differentiated treatment strategy.
On the feeding biomechanics of nectarivorous birds
Authors: Cuban David , Hewes Amanda E. , Sargent Alyssa J. , Groom Derrick J. E. , Rico-Guevara Alejandro
Published: January 2022

Nectar-feeding birds employ unique mechanisms to collect minute liquid rewards hidden within floral structures. In recent years, techniques developed to study drinking mechanisms in hummingbirds have prepared the groundwork for investigating nectar feeding across birds. In most avian nectarivores, fluid intake mechanisms are understudied or simply unknown beyond hypotheses based on their morphological traits, such as their tongues, which are semi-tubular in sunbirds, frayed-tipped in honeyeaters and brush-tipped in lorikeets. Here, we use hummingbirds as a case study to identify and describe the proposed drinking mechanisms to examine the role of those peculiar traits, which will help to disentangle nectar-drinking hypotheses for other groups. We divide nectar drinking into three stages: (1) liquid collection, (2) offloading of aliquots into the mouth and (3) intraoral transport to where the fluid can be swallowed. Investigating the entire drinking process is crucial to fully understand how avian nectarivores feed; nectar-feeding not only involves the collection of nectar with the tongue, but also includes the mechanisms necessary to transfer and move the liquid through the bill and into the throat. We highlight the potential for modern technologies in comparative anatomy [such as microcomputed tomography (μCT) scanning] and biomechanics (such as tracking BaSO4-stained nectar via high-speed fluoroscopy) to elucidate how disparate clades have solved this biophysical puzzle through parallel, convergent or alternative solutions.
Immersive virtual classroom as an education tool for color barrier-free presentations: a pilot study
Authors: Fukuyama Sayaka , Saito Toki , Ichikawa Daisuke , Kohyama Ayako , Oyama Hiroshi
Published: January 2022

Background: This study aimed to propose an experiential approach for understanding color vision variation using virtual reality technology.

Methods: The study design was adapted from the phase 1 clinical trial for medical apps. A virtual classroom was developed in a three-dimensional space, and ten healthy university students were tested to understand color vision variations.

Results: No participant interrupted the experience due to VR sickness. Most participants noted that the virtual classroom was an excellent educational tool, which could help teachers understand the problems associated with [visual analog scale (VAS): mean ± standard deviation (SD), 9.6 ± 0.6] and obtain a better understanding of (VAS: mean ± SD, 9.0 ± 1.0) color vision deficiencies.

Conclusions: A pilot study was conducted on the impact of immersive virtual classroom experiences as an educational tool for color barrier-free presentations. This approach may help the participants to respond appropriately to children who suffer from this disorder. It is necessary to evaluate the impact of this approach on new teachers.
About the Authors
Authors: Authors About
Published: January 2022

About the Authors
Ulnar impaction syndrome: how to diagnose and treat?
Authors: Seok Hyun Sik , Park Jong Woong , Kang Jong Woo
Published: January 2022

Ulnar impaction syndrome (UIS), also called ulnocarpal abutment syndrome, is a degenerative condition induced by repeated loads on the ulnocarpal joint and is a representative cause of ulnar-sided wrist pain. Because of the small, complex, and overlapping anatomy of the ulnar wrist, ulnar wrist pathologies often present very similar symptoms to those of UIS, which causes confusion in diagnosing UIS. Thus, careful history-taking, clinical examinations, and diagnostic imaging are essential for the diagnosis of UIS. As appropriate and effective treatment for UIS, early surgical treatment should be considered if patients cannot reduce their wrist usage in daily living and work and have distal radioulnar instability. There are various surgical techniques for UIS. Surgeons should be deliberate in choosing a technique and pay attention to accompanying disorders around the ulnar wrist to achieve satisfactory treatment outcomes.
Auction-Based Permit Allocation and Sharing System (A-PASS) for Travel Demand Management
Authors: Li Ruijie , Nie Yu (Marco) , Liu Xiaobo
Published: January 2022

This paper proposes a novel quantity-based demand management system that aims to promote ridesharing. The system sells a time-dependent permit to access a road facility (conceptualized as a bottleneck) by auction but encourages commuters to share permits with each other. The commuters may be assigned one of three roles: solo driver, ridesharing driver, or rider. At the core of this auction-based permit allocation and sharing system (A-PASS) is a trilateral matching problem (TMP) that matches permits, drivers, and riders. Formulated as an integer program, TMP is first shown to be tightly bounded by its linear relaxation. A pricing policy based on the classical Vickrey–Clarke–Groves (VCG) mechanism is then devised to determine the payment of each commuter. We prove that, under the VCG policy, different commuters pay exactly the same price as long as their role and access time are the same. Importantly, by controlling the number of shared rides, any deficit that may arise from the VCG policy can be eliminated. This may be achieved with a relatively small loss to system efficiency, thanks to the revenue generated from selling permits. Results of a numerical experiment suggest A-PASS strongly promotes ridesharing. As sharing increases, all stakeholders are better off: the ridesharing platform receives greater profits, the commuters enjoy higher utility, and society benefits from more efficient utilization of the road infrastructure.
Urban Futures
Authors: Dixon Timothy J. , Tewdwr-Jones Mark
Published: January 2022

In these uncertain times of continuing climate change impact and the recent global pandemic, it is now more important than ever that we look long-term and provide the right tools for people to decide what sort of future they want for their cities across the world. ‘Urban futures’ thinking is based on the notion that we need a practical and formal framework to imagine what our cities could and should be like to live, work and play in, in the long term; how they will operate; what infrastructure is needed; and how governance systems will be required to help shape them and ensure their resilience. The book explores the history and evolution of city visions, placing them in the wider context of art, science, culture and urban theory. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the authors’ own research of urban change, the book examines the rationale and development of city visions, and why they are now so important. To do this, the book places city visioning in the context of urban and regional planning and the emergence of ‘city foresight’, which is a set of futures-based techniques and methods to identify how cities might evolve into the future. The book highlights and critically reviews examples of city visions from around the world, contrasting their development, and outlining the key benefits and challenges in developing such visions. This is set within the wider context of the policy and practice implications of city foresight and city visions.
Access to communication as resistance and struggle in the 21st century
Authors: Thomas Pradip Ninan
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores global advocacy linked to the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) Treaty for the Visually Impaired (Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works) and national advocacy related to the NGO, Rhizomatica’s community-based partnerships in the establishment of telecom cooperatives among indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico as examples of resistance and the extension of communication rights. Both struggles remain incomplete and the chapter attempts to theorise these struggles and concludes with a section on the responsibilities of theorising in contexts characterised by uneven development and multiple communication deficits.
Frameworks for assessing and reconsidering empowerment in community arts
Authors: Wong Samson Kei Shun
Published: January 2022

This chapter uses two community/socially-engaged arts projects by Hong Kong artists as case studies to discuss Bishop’s criticism of the usage of Arnstein’s ‘ladder of participation’, and to consider more recent frameworks such as Hart’s ‘ladder for children participation’ and Shier’s ‘pathways to participation’. The analysis will demonstrate how the two models can be used to help artists and organizations think about autonomy and empowerment. Important questions arise in the discussion: Is autonomy the goal of community arts? What is the relationship between artists and participants that mediates the process?
Maintaining a critical approach to collaborative art and youth work practice in neoliberal times
Authors: Whelan Fiona , Lawlor Jim
Published: January 2022

Fiona Whelan and Jim Lawlor, based in Dublin Ireland, have been working together since 2004; Jim as Manager of Rialto Youth Project, a community-based youth service in Dublin’s south inner city; and Fiona as artist-in-residence there. Together, and in collaboration with a range of other partners in youth work, community development, the arts and beyond, their collaborative practice has been committed to a complex critical exploration of power relations at a personal, community and societal levels. In this conversation, they exchange and build analyses of prior arts processes that engaged young people and adults in open-ended dialogical enquiries into power and inequality. They also critically interrogate the values and methodologies at the core of those collaborations. As contemporary youth work and community development in Ireland becomes increasingly evidence-based and outcome-driven, Fiona and Jim debate and argue for an emergent approach to practice that is collaborative, open-ended, dialogical, and imaginative.
Introduction: the challenge of a living wage
Authors: Wilson Shaun
Published: January 2022

The Introductory chapter begins with the claim that renewed pressure for higher minimum or living wages has special significance for the Anglo-American social model. The English-speaking liberal welfare states have assertively pushed ‘work first’ social policy through hard-line welfare reform, particularly in Australia, the UK, and US, and the consequence is renewed emphasis on improving low-wage employment as a path to ameliorating inequality. The Introduction further establishes that arguments for living wages go beyond union demands and claims made by socialists—liberals and conservatives have cause to support wage justice. At the same time, living wage movements offer practical beginning points for a major challenge to increasing inequality and should be seen as the most significant alternative redistributive project to the basic income.
Minimum wage workers and the low-wage labour market
Authors: Wilson Shaun
Published: January 2022

This chapter is the first of two chapters that present the most important foundations for later analysis of contemporary minimum wage politics and policy. It begins with an overview of the typical occupational and employment profiles associated with minimum and low-wage workforces and then presents cross-country social survey data on the attitudes and experiences of low-wage workers in the English-speaking welfare states. Findings are clear: minimum and low-wage workers exemplify broader social and gender inequalities but workers express commitment to their work and a clear preference and need for higher pay. The chapter ends with a presentation of the basic architecture of minimum wage determination across the six liberal countries that are central to the analysis contained in this book.
Ability and its use in schools
Authors: Bradbury Alice
Published: January 2022

This chapter attempts to answer two questions ‘Why examine ability?’, and ‘How is ‘ability’ used in schools?’. It provides a more detailed explanation of the logic of focusing on one key concept and considering its operation at a particular historical time. This then leads onto an overview of the historical context for concepts of ‘merit’ and ‘ability’. Drawing on research data drawn from a survey of over 1000 teachers, the chapter also discusses what is particular about the current use of ability. It is argued that the very ambiguity of the term adds to its power as an organising concept which disadvantages some groups of students. Two key conceptions of ability emerge – ability as innate, and ability as positional. Finally, the last section focuses on research data on how the terms are used in schools as justification for pedagogical practices such as ability grouping. Here I set out the findings from my own research on primary education to emphasise the importance of ability in the organisation of students in classrooms. It is argued that ability works powerfully to justify systems of grouping and labelling pupils which limit expectation and attainment, often in inequitable ways.
Reconceptualising inner-city education? Marketisation, strategies and competition in the gentrified city
Authors: Larsson Eric , Bengtsson Anki
Published: January 2022

In this chapter, Eric Larsson and Anki Bengtsson explore how multiple waves of neoliberal educational marketisation are transforming Swedish schools, student experiences and family prerogatives. The chapter explores some key impacts of educational marketisation becoming normalised within institutional and urban spaces. The chapter shows how successive educational neoliberalisations in Stockholm since the 1990s have radically transformed schools in this region, not least via a major proliferation of schools funded by for-profit venture capitalist investors. The chapter also shows how aspirational discourses and architectures thus constituted are impacting upon young people’s everyday experiences, creating and hardening classed social exclusions. The chapter thus calls for more careful, participatory understandings of actually-existing neoliberalisations in the lives of children, young people and families.
Youth migration to Lima: vulnerability or opportunity, exclusion or network-building?
Authors: Aufseeser Dena
Published: January 2022

In this chapter, Dena Aufseeser explores complex, intersecting transformations in contemporary children, young people and families’ lives through research with young people who migrate from rural Peruvian villages to Lima for work during school vacations. Aufseeser notes how these young migrants are caught between a range of differently-paced transformations. On the one hand, their lives are being profoundly affected by rapid and relentlessly uneven economic change in Peru as well as accelerating anthropocenic environmental degradation. On the other hand, young migrants’ lives are also shaped by remarkably static and obdurate Peruvian media/policy discourses which cast them as vulnerable ‘victims’ and call for migration to be ‘prevented’ via criminalisation or education programmes. The chapter shows how this combination of rapidly-worsening economic-environmental risks versus only-slowly-evolving social norms is placing young migrants in profoundly challenging situations of isolation and marginality.
Negotiating social and familial norms: women’s labour market participation in rural Bangladesh and North India
Authors: Piggott Heather
Published: January 2022

In this chapter, Heather Piggott explores how experiences of poverty in rural Bangladesh and North India intersect with experiences of motherhood and family care-giving. The chapter highlights how previous research on women’s labour market participation in the global South has overwhelmingly taken the form of nationally- or regionally- scaled quantitative economic analysis, overlooking families’ lived experiences of poverty and work. Through research with families in rural Bangladesh and North India, the chapter explores how experiences of poverty, inequality and marginality are compounded by neoliberal labour market restructurings and traditional patriarchal gender roles. The chapter suggests that subtle shifts in social attitudes may be allowing some hopeful, affirmative futures for women in and girls in this context, but these attitudinal shifts remain uneven in terms of religion, class and caste norms.
Marginalised youth perspectives and positive uncertainty in Addis Ababa and Kathmandu
Authors: Johnson Vicky , West Andy
Published: January 2022

In this chapter, Vicky Johnson and Andy West reflect upon research with street-connected young people in Addis Ababa and Kathmandu. The chapter shows how these young people’s experiences of profound marginality intersect with, and are patterned by, the very uneven provision of institutional support offered by government and non-governmental agencies. The chapter reveals multiple, compound forms of marginalisation that remain hidden from public perceptions and government policy-making in both Ethiopia and Nepal. In particular, the chapter highlights how experiences of poverty intersect with young people’s experiences of genderfluidity and disabilities. In so doing, the chapter calls for further youth-centred research and advocacy to better understand and address children, young people and families’ bodily and relational experiences of poverty -intersecting -with- gender, ethnicity, sexualities, caste, family situations, exploitative work and disabilities.
Dependent subjects and financial inclusion: launching a credit union on a campus in Taiwan
Authors: Pei Hao-Che , Chang Chiung-wen
Published: January 2022

This chapter by Hao-Che Pei and Chiung-wen Chang offers a case study of young people working collaboratively to provide an innovative, affirmative support network to sustain hopeful futures in hard times. The chapter contextualises this project by evidencing severe experiences of precarity for many Taiwanese Higher Education students. The chapter shows how increasing graduate unemployment rates, rising living costs, and growing inequalities have required many students to take on precarious, exploitative work and finance. In this context, the chapter reports on a collaborative, youth-led action research project to ‘reinvigorate economic imaginations’ and ‘enact alternative economies’. The chapter notes the considerable regulatory and institutional barriers to enacting affirmative alternative futures, but also show how the project has been successful in constituting organisational change and new, more hopeful personal and collective orientations to the future.
Conclusions and futures
Authors: Pimlott-Wilson Helena , Hall Sarah Marie , Horton John
Published: January 2022

This concluding chapter offers a series of reflections on the diverse chapters within the edited collection. It also offers a range of prompts for future research, reflection and practice. In essence, this concluding reflection is intended to prompt readers to develop their own reflections, responses and ways forward in hard times having encountered the multiple, interrelated hard times present throughout the edited collection
Sexual expression and pleasure among black minority ethnic older women
Authors: Harley Debra A.
Published: January 2022

This chapter addresses erroneous assumptions and ageist stereotypes about the sexual desires and sexual health of black minority ethnic (BME) older women. Discussion is about the social and cultural contextualization of their sexuality, the impact of traumatizing historical and social events on generations of BME females and sexuality, sexual silencing of BME older women, risk-taking behaviors and methods of sexual pleasure. The intent is to move discussion BME older women’s sexuality from a topic of limit research and taboo to one of discourse on their identify as sexual beings in interlocking systems of “isms”.
Older people, sex and social class: unusual bedfellows?
Authors: Simpson Paul
Published: January 2022

This chapter examines the literatures on ageing and classed sexuality respectively. As far as could be determined, these bodies of work have largely ignored each other. Lack of focus on class in relation to sex in later life is surprising given that the former influences a sense of entitlement and access to ideas that legitimate an ongoing erotic life (Jackson, 2011). The chapter will therefore address how influences of age and class combine to produce accounts indicating constraint, contradiction and agency in relation to sex and intimacy. Given that class is neglected in studies of ageing sexuality, hat chapter contributes to knowledge by highlighting how the class-based theorizing of Bourdieu (1984, 2005), which involves recognizing class as both structuring influence, and as relational and cultural process, could address this knowledge gap. The chapter also sketches a research agenda involving possibilities implicit within other theoretical perspectives.
The aesthetic(s) of eroticism in later life
Authors: Iacub Ricardo , Villar Feliciano
Published: January 2022

In chapter 4, Ricardo Iacub and Feliciano Villar explore how negative aesthetics of old age contribute to or even construct a stigmatized sexuality that arouses feelings of disgust or else prompts ridicule. Such stigma naturalizes and limits critical and political thinking about the mechanisms of social control over eroticism in later life. In addition to examining how older-body-selves are desexualized, this chapter also discusses images of more recent vintage that defy conformity to traditional ageing stereotypes  and which have emerged especially in the gay world such as ‘Bears’ (older, bigger/fatter hairier men), ‘daddies’, mature men, and grand-daddies. Essentially, this chapter critically examines the mechanisms that regulate the aesthetics of erotica as they relate to old age from fragments of historical accounts, exploration of social trends and by using insights from psychological studies, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of younger people’s perceptions of young and old people about sexuality and older bodies. Such a focus enables an analysis that accounts for in-depth understanding of the ‘politics of age’ (Iacub 2002) and how the ‘aesthetics of the erotic in old age’ can work differently for different individuals and social groups (Iacub 2002).
Ageing, intellectual disability and desexualisation
Authors: Gillen Susan , Reynolds Paul
Published: January 2022

This chapter explores the impact of the intersections of ageing and intellectual disability on older people’s sexual and intimate lives. It reviews the shift in conceptual framings of intellectual disability from pathological and prejudicial understandings of rationality through to neurodiverse critiques. This provides a critical analysis if norms and representations that desexualise older intellectually disabled people. It then explores issues of consent and competence that are pivotal to understanding the challenges, representational and real, to how older intellectually disabled peoples explore their sexual and intimate lives and how those lives are regulated. It then surveys some of the emergent studies and scholarship that both describe discourses of desexualisation and set the beginnings of the agenda for their reversal.
Clients, Consumers or Citizens?
Authors: Hudson Bob
Published: January 2022

Adult social care was the first major social policy domain in England to be transferred from the state to the market. There is now a forty-year period to look back at to consider the thinking behind the strategy, the impacts on commissioners and providers of care, on the care workforce and on those who use care and support services. In this book, Bob Hudson meticulously charts these shifts. He examines the shift from philanthropic endeavour to state planning and provision, through to the marketisation of services and support. He challenges the dominant market paradigm, explores alternative models for a post-Covid future and locates the debate within the wider literature on political thinking and policy change.
The emergence and consolidation of the market
Authors: Hudson Bob
Published: January 2022

Chapter 2 explores the emergence of ‘neoliberalism’ as the dominant approach to politics and policy in the 1980s and the way in which this led to critiques of the state run model of the 1970s. It charts the subsequent emergence of the market model based upon the split between the commissioning of services and their provision, and the growing acceptance of this as the new paradigm.
Looking ahead: an ethical future for adult social care
Authors: Hudson Bob
Published: January 2022

Chapter 7 develops a new framework for the commissioning of ethical care with several components: ethical business commissioning; commissioning local and small; commissioning personally; and commissioning for wellbeing.
The ‘social’ in the age of sustainability
Authors: Deeming Christopher
Published: January 2022

This chapter lays out a critical introduction to the idea of the ‘social’ and examines how notions of the social are now guiding the development of global social policy for the age of sustainability. The chapter presents the different contributions to the evolving debate on the social of social policy and the social dimensions of sustainability that this volume brings together for critical examination and reflection. It approaches the social from multiple angles, rooted in history and culture studies, economics and political science, social politics, sociology and social epidemiology, written by scholars working within and across these different disciplines. The chapter helps us to think more critically about important moral and political aspects of the ‘social’ and especially of the notion of ‘social policy’. It forces us to think very carefully about the meaning of the ‘social’, and the different conceptualizations of the ‘social’ of social policy.
Putting the global in social justice?
Authors: Craig Gary
Published: January 2022

This chapter addresses the question of how and when ‘justice’ morphed into ‘social justice’. It reviews the central elements of current debates about ‘social justice’ in light of the pressing global social policy imperative, reflected in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to integrate economic, social and environmental needs for a more just and sustainable world. The chapter then examines how should the conception of global social justice be formulated where most states are increasingly multicultural. It seeks to understand the underlying questions like: Can we rely on an almost exclusively Eurocentric or Anglo-American, not to say Judaeo-Christian, understanding of the meaning of social justice? What might a global social justice framework look like in theory and how might it work in practice, and what are some of the likely political consequences if it is accepted by mainstream political and cultural groups? By discussing the demands for stronger global social justice, the chapter unfolds many challenges ahead on this long and winding road, if the idea of global social justice can be turned into a reality for all.
‘Go-social’? Inclusive growth and global social governance
Authors: Deeming Christopher
Published: January 2022

This chapter considers the prospects for improved social governance to tackle the global challenges of the 21st century, as humanity moves towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production, and hopefully a more socially responsible, equitable, inclusive and just world. It particularly examines the emerging social policies being articulated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in an effort to reform global capitalism. This international organization is made up of rich nation states and is in the process of repositioning itself as the international institution responsible for promoting ‘global social justice’, a highly challenging endeavour. The chapter finds that the OECD is now shaping important aspects of international governance and global social policy, attempting to establish a new global social governance architecture in an effort to tackle growing social inequality. The chapter looks at how the ‘growth paradigm’ is being maintained, while the opportunities for greater redistribution of resources within and among countries gets crowded out by the dominant discourse sustaining global capitalism.
The violence against women movements burst into life
Authors: Hague Gill
Published: January 2022

This chapter moves on to domestic violence. It discusses the new, challenging and radical movements which sprang out of women’s liberation, specifically to address sexual violence and domestic abuse. These movements, in the UK and internationally, stepped forward into the unknown. They began campaigning about domestic and other forms of violence against women in the early 1970s, and then developed the new idea of setting up specific women’s services. The chapter covers these unprecedented developments from the first glimmerings to the establishing of refuges, rape crisis centres and campaigns, and their subsequent evolution. Such services had never been seen before and they challenged the roots of men’s control over women. The chapter celebrates these stunningly brave developments led by dedicated women. It looks at the development of the Women’s Aid federations over time and the challenges mounted by Black women and the Black women’s movement. These resulted in the subsequent setting up of specialist projects for Black and minority women, e.g. the network of refuges for women of South Asian descent. The new women’s domestic violence services were passionate moves forward and the chapter charts their development into the 1980s.
Alignment and service user participation in low-threshold meetings with people using drugs
Authors: Raitakari Suvi , Ranta Johanna , Saario Sirpa
Published: January 2022

The chapter examines multi-agency meetings in low-threshold services for people using drugs in Finland. It approaches the data extracts as examples of collaborative service user participation accomplished as an interactional achievement in situ and applies the concept of alignment as a linguistic device in which meeting participants cooperate in interactions. It demonstrates how markers of aligning make the interaction flow in a cooperative direction, and how, for example, question-answer sequences and positioning of both service users and professionals in alternating ways as ‘tellers’ and ‘recipients’ are essential alignment techniques to advance collaborative participation. It concludes that participation is never complete but always partially achieved and is at risk of failing.
The North East of England: place, economy and people
Authors: Brooks Elizabeth , Steer Mel
Published: January 2022

This chapter introduces the North East of England: its people, industries, economy, how it is governed, how it compares to other regions and its future outlook. The idea of the North East is traced to its origins, uncovering the various layers of sub and supra regional devolution that frame its governance today. A thumbnail portrait of the North East region’s geography, industry, heritage and culture outlines its economic trajectory from ‘coal to call centres and ships to microchips’, and highlights the often forgotten two thirds of the region that are rural, rich in environmental assets and growing in population. While emphasising the challenges and vulnerabilities of the region, the account also points to its distinct identity and cultural renaissance through flagship projects in places including Newcastle upon Tyne, Durham, Sunderland, and Middlesbrough. The chapter ends with a consideration of the region’s prospects during Covid-19 and post-Brexit.
Realising the potential of universities for inclusive, innovation-led development: the case of the Newcastle City Futures Urban Living Partnership pilot
Authors: Kempton Louise , Marlow David
Published: January 2022

Newcastle City Futures (NCF), based at Newcastle University and initiated through Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal, was established as a collaborative and innovation platform in 2014 to address urban needs, linking academic research expertise to external partners in the public, private and voluntary sectors, while also facilitating new innovation proof of concept projects. The crosscutting themes of NCF are engagement, visualisation and digital enablement. This chapter outlines the independent review of NCF that was conducted by David Marlow and critically engages with the concept of the civic university, drawing on the experiences and practices of models of the civic university in other regions and countries.