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The book "Histories of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Australia" edited by Evan Smith, Jayne Persian, and Vashti Jane Fox sheds light on the often overlooked topic of Australian right-wing radicalism. The book explores the historical context and various individuals, groups, and movements within the radical right in Australia. It also examines the relationship between the political mainstream and the radical right, as well as the opposition faced by anti-fascists. While the book has some imbalances and omissions, it offers important observations that can contribute to future research and debate on the subject. The book also addresses the tension between scholarship and activism, and the question of whether the Australian radical right is endogenous or influenced by international factors. Overall, the book provides valuable insights and should be read to stimulate further discussion and research. [Extracted from the article]

"A History of Crime in Australia: Australian Underworlds" by Nancy Cushing is an introductory text for students of crime history and criminology. The book explores the impact of English law on transported convicts and First Nations peoples in Australia, and how their own systems of law were disregarded by colonists. It is organized into twelve chapters, each focusing on a specific aspect of crime history in Australia. The book includes essays by historians in each chapter, providing examples of scholarly writing. While the book primarily focuses on the legal history of New South Wales and Victoria, it offers thought-provoking case studies and is accessible to both students and general readers interested in crime history. [Extracted from the article]

Bridget Griffen-Foley's book, "Australian Radio Listeners and Television Viewers: Historical Perspectives," explores the experiences of Australian radio and television audiences throughout the twentieth century. Through six historical case studies, Griffen-Foley examines how radio and television stations engaged their audiences through promotions and initiatives, and how listeners and viewers responded. The book draws on primary sources such as fan letters and regulatory records to provide detailed insights into the lives of Australian media consumers. While the book raises many questions, it serves as a valuable resource for future researchers interested in exploring the relationship between Australian society, media consumption, and cultural identities. [Extracted from the article]

Three-colour four-way traffic light completed 100 years in 2020. Even though the traffic light in the form of Semaphore arms has been in use in London since 1868, electric traffic lights came into existence in 1912 and the standard three-colour four-way light in 1920. Research is continuously being carried out to develop better algorithms to improve safety, reduce travel delays, and optimize road capacity. Hence a review of the evolution of traffic lights is warranted. This paper presents an all-round review using a six-prong approach. Timeline of the evolution of the literature in the last 100 years, the evolution of hardware, algorithms, traffic control schemes, standards and the pedestrian lights and count down timer are the six areas in which the review is carried out. A timeline of the different keywords related to the various algorithms in use is presented. This article delves into the thinking and meticulous approach of early researchers and practitioners of the field while dwelling on the past. They laid the rock-solid foundation of today's research. Also, future research areas like connected vehicles and automated vehicles are pointed out, and a summary of the findings is presented at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to better understand the processes and procedures adopted by micro-influencers to create 'instagrammable' content. It is based on 17 in-depth interviews with foodie micro-influencers based in London and Barcelona. Interview data was complemented with participant observation in restaurants or cafes. This paper makes three original contributions. Firstly, the study expands the understanding of the concept of 'instagrammability' by approaching it from the perspective of influencers creating content to satisfy and/or grow an audience. Secondly, it illustrates how two dominant factors drive influencers' content creation process: the self/audience focus content branding orientation. The 'audience-focus' content development process varied drastically, with some influencers being very conscious of responding to their audiences' needs whereas others maintained first and foremost a very strong 'self-focus'. However, even for the influencers who were the most responsive to their audiences' perceived wishes, a sense of 'self-focus' was maintained as an anchor point in all developed content, often linked to a passion for a certain type of food. Thirdly, this paper maps and describes the behind-the-scenes content creation process adopted by micro-influencers, including four stages (1) Content Planning, (2) Media Gathering, (3) Editing, and (4) Publishing, which was followed by an engagement phase. This study offers a timely contribution to better comprehend the content creation cycle adopted by micro-influencers by using foodie influencers as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how eight London nurseries examined whether better use of bicycles would strengthen children's physical activity as a step to reducing child obesity. The nurseries are part of a social enterprise which offers one-third of the 4200 nursery places to children from poor and disadvantaged families/communities where rates of child obesity are high and increasing. The research was instigated because the nurseries built a partnership with Bikeworks which provided free bikes and staff wanted to ensure they were using them effectively to benefit children. Parents were involved but also asked a specific question about interest in a bike lending scheme. The paper concluded that staff became more observant of how they could enhance their practice using bikes to support children's physical and sociolinguistic development. It heightened the importance of observation of the children but also in identifying barriers such as poor cycling surface and state of bike repairs. Parents considered bikes to be a key part of their children's nursery life especially extending physical skills but were divided evenly about the value of introducing a bike lending scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the coevolution between the development of British constitutional rights and the status of social and minority groups in planning London since its first post-WWII comprehensive plan. The study employed a historical document analysis by scrutinizing major London urban plans, pertinent British legislation, and constitutional rights enactments to uncover the evolution of urban planning amid a changing rights-based constitutional landscape. The study concludes that the status of social and minority groups within London’s urban planning is not solely a product of planning approaches but is significantly shaped by the prevailing political and constitutional frameworks regarding minority rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the state of affordable housing in England, with a focus on regional variations in space standards and standardized dwelling layouts widely used by volume housebuilders. Space standards are not statutory and therefore adopted inconsistently across development types or building typologies in England. The study draws on data obtained from planning applications, analysing 153 housing developments and 9876 newly constructed affordable housing units from different regions in England that were completed and marketed in 2021. Based on this, the study compares space standards and their effectiveness as well as the use of standardized unit types. The analysis reveals that apart from London, the most recent Nationally Described Space Standard (2015) is not yet widely used. Instead, Housing Quality Indicators that preceded the new national standards continue to be the norm for houses built outside of London. The findings demonstrate that there is a high level of standardization in affordable housing in terms of dwelling size and layout, with widely used standard house types often determining the design and size of dwellings more than space standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, police services around the world were granted unprecedented new powers to enforce social distancing restrictions. In this paper, we present data from a rolling representative sample survey of Londoners (n = 3,201) fielded during the height of the first wave of the pandemic (April to June 2020). We examine the scale of public support for giving police additional powers to enforce the regulations, whether support for different powers ebbed and flowed over time, and which factors predicted support for police powers. First, we use interrupted time-series analysis to model change over time. Second, we pool the data to test the predictors of support for police powers. Aside from one lockdown-specific temporal factor (the easing of restrictions), we find that even in the midst of a pandemic, legitimacy, procedural justice and affective evaluations of pandemic powers are the most important factors explaining variation in public support for police empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This writing is born out of our experiences of becoming older women, academy hags, facing the performative demands of the neoliberalizing patriarchal university. We are raging. With the figure of the Crone, and feminist-killjoy-croning as our creative and livid research method (Ahmed, S. 2023. Feminist Killjoy. London: Penguin Random House), we squeeze time out/with impossible university spaces and schedules to tend to grey matters. This paper traces the normalization of menopause policies in workplaces and universities, following the social trending and capitalization of menopausal and ageing matters. We question what menopause policies do and argue they constitute a failed project for the advancement of gender equality and should be abandoned. Inspired by Barad’s (2021. “Dialogue with Karen Barad Dialogues on Agential Realism.” In Dialogues on Agential Realism: Engaging in Worldings through Research Practice, edited by H. P. Juelskjær and A. W. Stine, 118–141. London: Taylor and Francis) call to engage in ‘spacetimemattering’, we create webs of entanglement through the objects of university menopause policies. We grey, fade out/ fit in, sweat, bleed, scowl. Powered by fury and frustration, we scrape away the genealogical underpinnings of menopausal bodyminds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst NHS Health Service management is usually characterized by hierarchized bureaucracy and profit-driven competitiveness, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically disrupted these ways of working and allowed London-based non-clinical management to experience their roles otherwise. This paper is based on 35 interviews with senior non-clinical management at a London-based NHS Trust during 'Alpha phase' of Britain's pandemic response (May-August 2020), an oft-overlooked group in the literature. I will draw upon Graeber's theory of "total bureaucratization" to argue that though the increasing neo-liberalization of the health-services has hitherto contributed toward a corporate mentality, the pandemic gave managers a chance to experience more collaboration and freedom than usual, which ultimately led to more effective realization of decision-making and change. The pandemic has shown NHS managers that there are alternatives to neoliberal logics of competition and hierarchy, and that those alternatives actually result in happier and effectively, more capable staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people arriving alone in the UK due to forced migration face significant hardships including, but not limited to, their history of experiences, current and future uncertainties, and cultural differences. This paper took a critical perspective of current dominant theories of refugee youth through in-depth exploration of lived experiences of coping. Following the authors' involvement in a community youth project and consultation, five young people took part in individual interviews. The participants were living in semi-independent accommodation in or near London, and were all male, while four identified as Muslim and one as Christian. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), a culturally relative understanding of coping was developed. These young people were found to be taking active roles in managing their lives in the context of extensive loss, and gaining independence through connection to others. Religious practices were important, with young people making sense of their experiences through worldviews shaped by religious beliefs. While religion was described predominantly in a positive and beneficial light, an area for further investigation is the experience of religious struggle, and how this may impact experiences and coping. Implications for support for young people both from services and in communities are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This meeting was hosted by St George's Hospital, London 13th–15th September 2023 at the Twickenham Conference and Events Centre, London. The full abstracts of the platform presentations are followed by the titles of those submissions accepted as short orals and e-posters. The order of abstracts is that of presentation. Any papers in the programme that were not presented to the society at the meeting have not been published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the recovery and identification of oothecae of the oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis L.) from deposits associated with an Early Romano-British bakery oven from Roman Londinium (now modern-day London). The ecology, behaviour and past archaeological history of this species are presented. The implications of finding this species for our understanding of the movement and importation of stored products and other materials by the Roman Army and citizenry is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the insights derived from practical trials conducted with carriers operating in London, this article proposes a last-mile delivery model that involves both driving and walking. A particularly innovative aspect of the model is the shared use of a third-party portering service between the carriers as an enabler to collaborative provision, and shared micro-consolidation points for temporary storage of goods. The model gives rise to a complex routing problem, for which a tabu search algorithm is developed. The algorithm is able to suggest vehicle routes that consolidate parcels in shared locations and porter paths that deliver items from various companies, reducing the overall delivery cost. We applied this algorithm to a manifest dataset obtained from two carriers operating in London. The results from the model suggested that sharing a third party portering service for the last-mile delivery element between the rival carriers in the case study reduced overall transport costs by up to 14%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores 'inspiration' in the context of the Olympic Games, focusing on the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics years after the event hosting. Utilizing a retroductive strategy, the study identifies key sources of inspiration, constructs a causal model based on existing literature, and validates it through qualitative and quantitative data. Although contextual differences exist between the two cities, similar findings emerged: inspirational feelings have indeed persisted years after the hosting of the Games, largely attributed to the 'elite role model' effects and 'the overall experience of the Games'. While the effects of such feelings on sports participation vary, in Beijing at least, the hosting of the Games had a significant correlation with participation in sport/physical activity in the years that followed. While hosting such events might be valuable for promoting participation, its influence should not be overstated, and further research is needed to fully understand its long-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2018 Windrush Scandal prompted widespread condemnation of the British government's treatment of older Caribbean migrants. Yet broader questions pertaining to the effects of the scandal on the wider Caribbean community remain underexplored. Given the salient position that Caribbean mothers occupy in the British nation, this article examines narrative interviews with five Caribbean mothers living in London, addressing how the scandal affected their sense of belonging and subsequent mothering strategies. The findings indicate that the scandal is part of a broader repertoire of racialized exclusion instigated by the state, and identifies three mothering strategies deployed as tools of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusion is an expectation of all mainstream schools across England yet research into strategies concerning how teachers and teaching assistants facilitate effective inclusive practice remains limited. This study explores the enactment of Florian and Black Hawkins (2011. "Exploring Inclusive Pedagogy." British Educational Research Journal 37 (5): 813–828) approach to inclusive pedagogy through the lens of teachers and teaching assistants working with children across year 4 within one primary school in London to redress this balance and identify any challenges they may encounter with this approach. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews revealed several key themes: whole-class approaches; emphasis on learners' capabilities; flexibility; commitment to ongoing professional development; diversity of needs; TA interventions; and ability-based tasks. While practitioners exemplified inclusive pedagogy on a regular basis it was difficult to implement in all aspects of classroom life, given the complex nature and diverse range of needs they encountered in mainstream classrooms. The importance of acknowledging individual needs was recognised and some key strategies to accommodate these without causing feelings of marginalisation were highlighted. Practitioners voiced positive experiences and placed great value on, working flexibly with one another to create welcoming environments for all children yet the effective deployment of TAs was not consistently realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the dramatic increase in the number of cyclists, cycling safety has become a critical issue worldwide. It is important to ensure a safe, comfortable, and continuous cycling environment for cyclists. However, the safety effects of discontinuities in cycle network have been greatly ignored in the literature. This study aims to investigate the safety effects of discontinuities in cycle network inside and between Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs) in London. Bayesian hierarchical spatial model is employed using the number of accesses as spatial weights. Covariates, including cycle network characteristics, road network characteristics, exposure variables, cycle-related facilities, traffic characteristics, and environmental conditions are also considered in the model. The results reveal that the discontinuities in cycle network are significantly associated with cycle crashes. For inside-TAZ level, "discontinuity in cycle lane class" and "standard deviation of cycle link length" have positive effects on cycle crashes. For between-TAZs level, the discontinuities in cycle lane accesses, and cycle lanes and tracks density are positively associated with cycle crashes. The results emphasize the importance of minimizing the discontinuities in cycle network, not only inside the TAZ but also between TAZs. This study also provides several practical implications for future cycling infrastructure planning and construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]