Search results

The chapter advances some critical reflections around commons and commoning in the smart city. It suggests that so-called smart commons – that is, forms of ownership of data and digital infrastructure increasingly central to the discourse around appropriation and co-production of smart technologies – tends to focus more on the outcome (open data or free software) rather than the process which maintains and reproduces such commons. Thus, the chapter makes a positional argument for a “smart approach” to the commons, advocating for a central role for the public as a stakeholder in advancing, nurturing, and maintaining urban commons in the smart city. The argument is illustrated through three brief case studies which reflect on instances of commons and commoning in relation to the implementation of public Internet infrastructure.

This chapter provides an introduction to the smart city and engages with its idea and ideals from a critical social science perspective. After setting out in brief the emergence of smart cities and current key debates, we note a number of practical, political, and normative questions relating to citizenship, social justice, and the public good that warrant examination. The remainder of the chapter provides an initial framing for engaging with these questions. The first section details the dominant neoliberal conception and enactment of smart cities and how this works to promote the interests of capital and state power and reshape governmentality. We then detail some of the more troubling ethical issues associated with smart city technologies and initiatives. Having set out some of the more troubling aspects of how social relations are produced within smart cities, we then examine how citizens and citizenship have been conceived and operationalized in the smart city to date. We then follow this with a discussion of social justice and the smart city. In the fifth section, we explore the notion of the “right to the smart city” and how this might be used to recast the smart city in emancipatory and empowering ways. Finally, we set out how the book seeks to answer our questions and extend our initial framing, exploring the extent to which the “right to the city” should be a fundamental principle of smart city endeavors.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a computer‐assisted learning experience in operations management (OM) higher education that entailed the development of interactive learning software, its evaluation in an experimental environment and the formal analysis of the teaching method's influence on student perceptions.

The software design follows the constructivist focus based on widely‐accepted educational technology principles. Objective tests of knowledge and subjective appraisal of the learning process were used in the experiment to compare two educational scenarios (computer‐assisted learning and on‐site class). Students' perceptions of the software's technical and teaching features are also analyzed.

The study shows that the teaching method can significantly affect students' perceptions of the learning process. The findings also confirm the pedagogical effectiveness of the software that was designed and that information communication technologies (ICT)‐based methods are an alternative to traditional methods used in OM education.

The experiment involved strict control over various potential threats to validity. From a statistical point‐of‐view, the conclusions can only be generalized in the population analyzed. Nevertheless, the features of the software and the student profile allow the main conclusions to be generalized to other OM environments.

The use and evaluation of interactive software in OM educational environments are reflected on, with emphasis on the influence that the teaching methodology has on students' attitudes to the learning process. It is of interest for researchers interested in improving teaching through the use of ICT.

There are very few studies on interactive self‐learning software for OM and its effects on student perceptions. This paper is a new contribution to this field.

The author investigates and debates around authenticity in relation to the heritage communities of a Chinese intangible cultural heritage (ICH) item ‘Nüshu’. Nüshu is a monosyllabic phonetic system of writing created and used by women in the Jiangyong County, Hunan Province, in Southern China. Drawing on insights from both online and offline ethnographies, this study argues that in the field of ICH, disputes over heritage authenticity are fiercely negotiated by different stakeholders, including powerful state and supra-state actors. However, the emergence of digital platform has become a way for Nüshu participants to perform their identity and competence and lay claim to their own heritage authenticity.

Dual‐diagnosis strategies are developing in medium secure services in response to both government policies and clinical need and there has been a move towards integrated services for this patient group. Substance use that has been a feature of the index offence must be taken into account as much as psychosis or the offending behaviour. Treatment of dual diagnosis relies heavily on cognitive‐behavioural therapies. Relapse in either psychosis or substance use increases risk and re‐admission rates to medium security. This paper reviews the literature on family interventions in dual diagnosis and its applicability to forensic mental health inpatient services. As there appeared to be limited direct evidence, various domains were examined and extrapolated to a forensic setting as appropriate. The review indicates the potential for positive outcomes for families following family interventions in dual diagnosis, which may be beneficial in a forensic setting in lowering risk.

This paper describes a project developed to help an inpatient mental health team improve their care of service users with comorbid mental health and substance misuse problems. The project aims to enable team members to become active participants in improving their own practice through use of a practitioner action research model.

With permission, this paper is an edited and abridged version of an article written by Richards, Doyle and Cook for The British Journal of Forensic Practice (Richards et al, 2009), detailing their literature review on family interventions in dual diagnosis and with reference to forensic mental health care. There appeared to be limited direct evidence, therefore various domains were examined and extrapolated to a forensic setting as appropriate. The review indicates the potential for positive outcomes for families following family interventions in dual diagnosis, which may be beneficial in a forensic setting in lowering risk.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON would have delighted in the deep irony of his own idle words, penned in a letter to William Archer in October 1887. His early death in Samoa, itself a symbolic reflection of an incredibly romantic life, short but full of incident and perfectly constructed for journalistic highlighting, inspired a spate of fulsomely admiring biographical studies which at one time threatened to obscure his true talent. Essay upon essay, book after book, some merely appreciative, some approaching adulation, poured from the presses until literary criticism proper was engulfed in a myth of quite extraordinary dimensions.