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Solid organic waste is a significant source of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and effective treatment strategies are urgently required to limit the spread of antimicrobial resistance. Here, we studied ARG diversity and abundance as well as the relationship between antibiotic resistome and microbial community structure within a lab-scale solid-state anaerobic digester treating a mixture of food waste, paper and cardboard. A total of 10 samples from digester feed and digestion products were collected for microbial community analysis including small subunit rRNA gene sequencing, total community metagenome sequencing and high-throughput quantitative PCR. We observed a significant shift in microbial community composition and a reduction in ARG diversity and abundance after 6 weeks of digestion. ARGs were identified in all samples with multidrug resistance being the most abundant ARG type. Thirty-two per cent of ARGs detected in digester feed were located on plasmids indicating potential for horizontal gene transfer. Using metagenomic assembly and binning, we detected potential bacterial hosts of ARGs in digester feed, which included Erwinia , Bifidobacteriaceae , Lactococcus lactis and Lactobacillus. Our results indicate that the process of sequential solid-state anaerobic digestion of food waste, paper and cardboard tested herein provides a significant reduction in the relative abundance of ARGs per 16S rRNA gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gandhi and Ambedkar offer a fascinating picture of community organizers fighting against caste oppression and caste discrimination. Both were committed to transforming the social, economic, political, and cultural conditions of 'Dalits'†. They claimed that only through social action could societal transformation take place. As a result, they placed a strong emphasis on mobilizing the public against untouchability. They envisioned the removal of untouchability through popular struggles and popular participation. Not only did Gandhi and Ambedkar undertake popular campaigns, but they also saw them as necessary and beneficial. This paper explores the implications of integrating the constructs of the Gandhian and Ambedkarian models to tackle the problem of untouchability. It re-reads the Constitution of the Anti-Untouchability League (AUL) which was prepared by Gandhi himself in January 1935 in conjunction with a comprehensive letter penned by Ambedkar in November 1932, containing a plan of action for the AUL to carry out for the uplift of 'Dalits', to shed light on the lessons that are still important for the modern-day community organizers in India. The paper argues that synergizing Gandhi's and Ambedkar's emancipatory discourses can enrich the present-day activism for social action combatting untouchability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community engagement is gaining prominence in health research. But communities rarely have a say in the agendas or conduct of the very health research projects that aim to help them. One way thought to achieve greater inclusion for communities throughout health research projects, including during priority-setting, is for researchers to partner with community organizations (COs). This paper provides initial empirical evidence as to the complexities such partnerships bring to priority-setting practice. Case study research was undertaken on a three-stage CO-led priority-setting process for health systems research. The CO was the Zilla Budakattu Girijana Abhivrudhhi Sangha, a district-level community development organization representing the Soliga people in Karnataka, India. Data on the priority-setting process were collected in 2018 and 2019 through in-depth interviews with researchers, Sangha leaders and field investigators from the Soliga community who collected data as part of the priority-setting process. Direct observation and document collection were also performed, and data from all three sources were thematically analysed. The case study demonstrates that, when COs lead health research priority-setting, their strengths and weaknesses in terms of representation and voice will affect inclusion at each stage of the priority-setting process. CO strengths can deepen inclusion by the CO and its wider community. CO weaknesses can create limitations for inclusion if not mitigated, exacerbating or reinforcing the very hierarchies that impede the achievement of improved health outcomes, e.g. exclusion of women in decision-making processes related to their health. Based on these findings, recommendations are made to support the achievement of inclusive CO-led health research priority-setting processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developing countries with limited resources available for aid distribution, community-based organizations have been pivotal in providing emergency relief to marginalized groups during the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent lockdown(s). Using the theory of power–dependence relations and resource dependency theory, this paper explores the realities of refugee-led community-based organizations (RLOs) in Malaysia and their relationships with internal and external agents. Utilizing qualitative data from 38 leaders and followers, we conducted a thematic analysis to understand the experiences of RLOs since March 2020, finding that during the pandemic: (1) a significant burden fell on a few leaders to distribute aid from external parties; (2) leaders and followers experienced the pandemic very differently; and (3) leaders became disseminators of public health information. Given the power structures, dependencies and findings identified in this paper, we propose a more cohesive aid distribution strategy for different actors to engage with RLOs, allowing them to maximize the reach of disbursed funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a commentary to a former paper by Sedwick and Jensen published in this very journal. On the one hand, the commentary praises the paper's urgently needed focus on interorganizational relationships and empirical richness. On the other, the commentary questions habitual path dependence as a theoretically useful concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978, countries have varied in their progress towards establishing and sustaining comprehensive primary health care (PHC) and realizing its associated vision of 'Health for All'. International health emergencies such as the coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic underscore the importance of PHC in underpinning health equity, including via access to routine essential services and emergency responsiveness. This review synthesizes the current state of knowledge about PHC impacts, implementation enablers and barriers, and knowledge gaps across the three main PHC components as conceptualized in the 2018 Astana Framework. A scoping review design was adopted to summarize evidence from a diverse body of literature with a modification to accommodate four discrete phases of searching, screening and eligibility assessment: a database search in PubMed for PHC-related literature reviews and multi-country analyses (Phase 1); a website search for key global PHC synthesis reports (Phase 2); targeted searches for peer-reviewed literature relating to specific components of PHC (Phase 3) and searches for emerging insights relating to PHC in the COVID-19 context (Phase 4). Evidence from 96 included papers were analysed across deductive themes corresponding to the three main components of PHC. Findings affirm that investments in PHC improve equity and access, healthcare performance, accountability of health systems and health outcomes. Key enablers of PHC implementation include equity-informed financing models, health system and governance frameworks that differentiate multi-sectoral PHC from more discrete service-focussed primary care, and governance mechanisms that strengthen linkages between policymakers, civil society, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations and private sector entities. Although knowledge about, and experience in, PHC implementation continues to grow, critical knowledge gaps are evident, particularly relating to country-level, context-specific governance, financing, workforce, accountability and service coordination mechanisms. An agenda to guide future country-specific PHC research is outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The southernmost portion of the Andes in South America hosts Nothofagaceae forests that form ectomycorrhizal (EcM) associations. We compiled all the published reports of EcM taxa from these woodlands, based on fruit-body collections and molecularly identified root tips. This resulted in 87 peer-reviewed research papers dealing with EcM associations from Nothofagaceae forests published over the past 62 years. Based on these papers the EcM richness and its association with Nothofagaceae species was analyzed. Represented by 45 genera (34 Basidiomycetes and 11 Ascomycetes), 479 EcM taxa have been recorded, plus an additional 46 EcM taxa which are potentially EcM. Cortinarius was the most frequent and diverse genus , with 64.9% of total species. Nothofagus dombeyi had the highest number of unique EcM species, followed by N. pumilio , N. antarctica and Lophozonia obliqua. The EcM community associated with Nothofagus species , except N. nitida, showed higher similarities among themselves, than with Lophozonia and Fuscospora species. Beta diversity indexes showed EcM Nothofagus species have 29–42% niche overlap, while Nothofagus — Lophozonia only had 1–16%. The assessment of the accuracy of the EcM diversity, host specificity and community structure deserve further studies combining phylogenetic analysis based on broad ecological surveys. On the basis of pre-selected criteria Austropaxillus statuum, Cortinarius fragilis, Cortinarius xiphidipus and Hallingea purpurea are proposed as candidates for nursery spore inoculations, and should be subject to scientific evaluation to determine costs and benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the explosion of videogames as a global entertainment medium has been explored in International Relations (IR) and associated fields in some detail in recent years, the proliferation of games in military settings remains under-researched. This paper examines the uses to which US military veterans put videogames following service, showing that they play an important role in healing and rehabilitation processes through community building, therapeutic relief, and suicide prevention. Drawing in detail on interviews conducted with veterans and support workers between 2017 and 2019, the paper shows that grassroots gaming groups promote forms of communication, connectivity, and community which the military's stigmatizing reintegration and mental health programs often do not. The core argument developed is that while they do not embrace an antimilitarist ethos, through their promotion of mental and physical recovery, veterans' gaming groups can be read as important sites of everyday resistance to the violences enacted by the US military on its personnel. Unsettling critical scholarly assumptions about what resistance looks like, and where it takes place, the paper ultimately demonstrates that it is possible to challenge the embodied alienations of militarism from within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the efforts of an intensive English programme to design a class that addressed the challenges of bringing authentic English into the curriculum. This class exposed students to a variety of authentic English language input, while providing support. Through this class, students volunteered with various community organizations. These placements were linked with the curriculum of our intensive English programme. This hybrid class consisted of class meetings, electronic discussions, the community placement, paper journals, a final reflection paper, and a capstone experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a letter from the editor of "British Journal of Social Work" concerning the October 2007 issue. Articles in the issue focus on the experiences of users accessing social work services, issues of financial remuneration or payment, and social workers themselves. The author details the major points of the papers included in the issue, focusing particularly on an article describing the significance and consequences of social worker registration and regulation in England through the General Social Care Council.

Given the failure of top-down initiatives to bring about community development (CD) in many developing countries, attention is switching to bottom-up approaches, one of which is to use community-based organizations (CBOs) as the conduit through which CD may be achieved. This paper compares the effectiveness of traditional CBOs and modern CBOs in fostering CD in eight communities in Ogoniland, Nigeria, where there is a long history of neglect and underdevelopment. The paper was based on extensive fieldwork carried out in eight Ogoni communities during 2013-2014, which involved 101 telephone interviews with residents, 67 face-to-face key informant interviews, 189 survey questionnaires, and 3 focus groups discussions. The two main conclusions reached by this paper are that despite some praise expressed by respondents for their CBOs, the fashionable belief that CBOs are strong agents of bottom-up CD is not borne out by this study; and there is little difference between respondents' evaluations of the contributions to CD made by modern CBOs and the much vaunted traditional CBOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the importance of emphasizing the agency and the initiative of community voluntary associations in relations of shared governance with the local state. This is intended to counter what the author sees as a current over emphasis on government-initiated, -directed, -guided or -administered forms of collaboration. Dangers documented by other scholars of this kind of collaborative governance include cooptation, placation, lack of real authority, absence of diversity and overall lack of parity with government. Based on a larger qualitative study of a mid-sized city near Boston, MA, the paper describes associations which choose to act (i) in opposition to local government as a path towards parity in shared governance, and (ii) in parallel with but separate from local government as a way to influence that government. The author argues that when associations exercise their agency to choose when and how to work with government (and when not to), this preserves associational independence while at the same time allowing for beneficial forms of state-associational engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conducting methodologically defensible, logistically feasible and affordable large-scale national surveys of migrants is a serious challenge. This paper outlines the pros and cons of working with and through NGOs which provide services to migrants, in order to conduct a national longitudinal survey on migrant access to basic public services. This access method clearly does not result in a sample which is representative of a total national population of migrants, but the paper argues that there are also benefits of such a methodology. Apart from making larger and more longitudinal surveys logistically and financially possible in the first place, such benefits include the formation of active and collaborative networks among organizations in the migrant rights sector; capacity building within this sector around research and the use and meaning of empirical data; and the direct integration of empirical data into local and national advocacy work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Policy-planning organizations have undergone significant development in France over the last two decades. Interconnecting the economic, political and intellectual elites, their study merits particular attention. This paper examines the active involvement of the business community in these organizations to highlight its role in the policy-planning process. Focusing on the top 100 corporations and the top 40 policy organizations, it analyses the structure of their interlocking directorates. The cohesion of the policy-planning network significantly relies on the brokering role of a few business leaders and economists. The network discloses a core-periphery structure and a left–right polarization. The results shed light on the relative convergence among the main policy organizations and the relegation of less consensual organizations to the network periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK ‘New’ Labour Government has introduced a number of regional, local and neighbourhood initiatives. These claim to share similar characteristics based upon the concepts of ‘partnership’ and ‘multi-agency’ cooperation. New structures to ensure the accountability and the delivery of these new forms of governance and service delivery have been established. Local Strategic Partnerships, with an emphasis on community ‘capacity’ building are the latest policy response. This paper, drawing upon research in Manchester and Glasgow, suggests that whilst these initiatives use a new language, they are steeped in old practices. Changing structures does not, of itself, alter the power differences inherent in local neighbourhoods where community groups are cast as ‘dependent’ by regeneration managers seeking to meet performance targets. The paper seeks to identify ways in which this relationship can be altered to enable local groups to negotiate a new agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-organisms such as bacteria form complex ecological community networks that can be greatly influenced by diet and other environmental factors. Differential analysis of microbial community structures aims to elucidate systematic changes during an adaptive response to changes in environment. In this paper, we propose a flexible Markov random field model for microbial network structure and introduce a hypothesis testing framework for detecting differences between networks, also known as differential network analysis. Our global test for differential networks is particularly powerful against sparse alternatives. In addition, we develop a multiple testing procedure with false discovery rate control to identify the structure of the differential network. The proposed method is applied to data from a gut microbiome study on U.K. twins to evaluate how age affects the microbial community network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, community organizing has been initiated by different government and non-government organizations in corruption prevention through creating social awareness and motivation. The question arises: Can community-based organizations or community organizing empower people to raise their voice to prevent corruption? Based on empirical evidence, this research argues that engaging the community in anti-corruption initiatives can be an effective way to avert corruption and empower people's voice. The finding shows that anti-corruption initiatives through spontaneous individual and collective involvement at the local level have an impact on creating accountability and transparency. Despite several challenges, these group and individual efforts have had significant results in promoting anti-corruption efforts in Bangladesh. Effective anti-corruption initiatives in engaging the community need 'spontaneous' participation by individuals or groups. As such, the government should give primacy of these individuals and groups and use them to create more formalized corruption watchdog bodies at the sub-regional level and make it a stronger National Integrity Systems foundation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subtle and complex nature of Northern Ireland's transitional landscape presents acute difficulties for the community policing concept. As the core to the police reforms in the country, its implementation has faltered in the face of institutional inertia within the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). This has been further exacerbated by a failure of the police to adequately increase the co-production of security through improved engagement and utilization of Northern Ireland's diverse community infrastructures. This paper will assess the delivery of community policing by the PSNI, while exploring their engagement with Northern Ireland's grass-roots community organizations, and specifically those involved with the governance of security at the local level. Thus, through a framework of adaptation, engagement and delivery of community policing by the PSNI within the unique context of Northern Ireland's security 'otherness', the paper will explore the key issues to police-community interaction associated with the broader vision of the Independent Commission on Policing (ICP) on community policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing concern that health policies and programmes may be contributing to disparities in health and wealth between and within households in low-income settings. However, there is disagreement concerning which combination of health and non-health sector interventions might best protect the poor. Potentially promising interventions include those that build on the social resources that have been found to be particularly critical for the poor in preventing and coping with illness costs. In this paper we present data on the role of one form of social resource—community-based organizations (CBOs)—in household ability to pay for health care on the Kenyan coast. Data were gathered from a rural and an urban setting using individual interviews (n = 24), focus group discussions (n = 18 in each setting) and cross-sectional surveys (n = 294 rural and n = 576 urban households). We describe the complex hierarchy of CBOs operating at the strategic, intermediate and local level in both settings, and comment on the potential of working through these organizations to reach and protect the poor. We highlight the challenges around several interventions that are of particular international interest at present: community-based health insurance schemes; micro-finance initiatives; and the removal of primary care user fees. We argue the importance of identifying and building upon organizations with a strong trust base in efforts to assist households to meet treatment costs, and emphasize the necessity of reducing the costs of services themselves for the poorest households. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on social disorganization theories this paper considers what type of voluntary organization might mediate community social norms in localities with low income where violence is embedded in social institutions and residents appear unable to informally regulate violent crimes. This study describes how the situated logic of one organization, located in a favela in Brazil, transcends personal ties to the organization and illustrates how community-based organizations have potential to influence community norms with the expectation that rates of violence will decline. This organization has made it possible for young people to publically disrupt the symbolic order that maintains divisive social rules and has started to alter gendered norms that contribute to high levels of neighbourhood violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study of networks, it is often insightful to use algorithms to determine mesoscale features such as 'community structure', in which densely connected sets of nodes constitute 'communities' that have sparse connections to other communities. The most popular way of detecting communities algorithmically is to maximize the quality function known as modularity. When maximizing modularity, one compares the actual connections in a (static or time-dependent) network to the connections obtained from a random-graph ensemble that acts as a null model. The communities are then the sets of nodes that are connected to each other densely relative to what is expected from the null model. Clearly, the process of community detection depends fundamentally on the choice of the null model, so it is important to develop and analyse novel null models that take into account appropriate features of the system under study. In this paper, we investigate the effects of using null models that incorporate spatial information, and we propose a novel null model based on the radiation model of population spread. We also develop novel synthetic spatial benchmark networks in which the connections between entities are based on the distance or flux between nodes, and we compare the performance of static and time-dependent versions of the radiation null model to the standard ('Newman-Girvan') null model for modularity optimization and to a recently proposed gravity null model. In our comparisons, we use both the above synthetic benchmarks and time-dependent correlation networks that we construct using countrywide dengue fever incidence data for Peru. Our findings illustrate the need to use appropriate generative models for the development of spatial null models for community detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contradiction to much of the theoretical literature on the community organization field, this paper assumes that the practitioner is not a free agent but is bound by the goals and structure of the employing agency. An attempt Is made to sort out the variety of agencies in the field by analyzing them as miniature polities. Focus is on organizational constitutions and goals, the limitations on agencies Imposed by their constituencies, dilemmas of agency target relations, and the foreign or external relations among agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of this paper discusses a few important questions which social scientists should consider when faced with the problem of communicating with the general public and with special publics. The second part describes some recent efforts of the University of Michigan's social research laboratory, the Detroit Area Study, to feed back findings to Detroit and the nation. S. Joseph Fauman is Director of Community Relations and Research for the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit. Harry Sharp is Director of the Detroit Area Study of the University of Michigan. Once it is agreed that the findings of social science ought to be available to the community, this question arises as how can the researcher describe his activities to the public in such a way that they will be "generally understandable and properly informative"? Shall research findings be disseminated to the public at large via press releases on the theory that if the facts and conclusions are made available? This generally results in an increased awareness of the value of social research and a greater willingness to cooperate with and support the academic researcher.

Drawing on original empirical research and theories of cultural geography, this article investigates the multiple ways community is produced, understood and valued through a closer interrogation of the community centre as a contested site. The paper investigates the symbolism of the buildings [see Dovey, K. (1999) Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form. Routledge, London] as they are claimed and framed by local government; the use of the buildings and how this contributes to what we might call the overall assemblage or forming of the building [see Lees (Towards a critical geography of architecture: the case of ersatz colosseum. Cult. Geograp.; 2001 8:51–86), De Landa (2006) A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity, Continuum, London, Jacobs (A geography of big things, Cult. Geograph. 2006;13:1–27)]; the affect of the buildings or architecture on community use [see Thrift, N. (2004) Intensities of feeling: towards a spatial politics of affect, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 86(1), 57–78]; and disruptive, haptic, unintended or ‘queer’ use of such spaces (see Grosz (2001) Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA). In so doing, we argue that an investigation of architecture can offer key insights and contributions to debates in wider policy, particularly in relation to the values and affordances of ‘community’ in the UK today. By focusing on the community centre, we also shift the existing focus of much architectural research away from what Jacobs has called ‘big things’ [Jacobs (A geography of big things, Cult. Geograph. 2006;13:1–27, pp. 4–5)] onto ordinary, everyday and mundane architectures of community centres. Secondly, we argue that, particularly the newer breed of ‘community facing social enterprise centres’, construct and imagine notions of communities in inherently problematic ways, and while in some instances such productions and imaginings are disrupted through use, the architecture nevertheless continues to be claimed by local government as a powerful indicator of (a particular notion and construction of) community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In most natural and engineered systems, a set of entities interact with each other in complicated patterns that can encompass multiple types of relationships, change in time and include other types of complications. Such systems include multiple subsystems and layers of connectivity, and it is important to take such ‘multilayer’ features into account to try to improve our understanding of complex systems. Consequently, it is necessary to generalize ‘traditional’ network theory by developing (and validating) a framework and associated tools to study multilayer systems in a comprehensive fashion. The origins of such efforts date back several decades and arose in multiple disciplines, and now the study of multilayer networks has become one of the most important directions in network science. In this paper, we discuss the history of multilayer networks (and related concepts) and review the exploding body of work on such networks. To unify the disparate terminology in the large body of recent work, we discuss a general framework for multilayer networks, construct a dictionary of terminology to relate the numerous existing concepts to each other and provide a thorough discussion that compares, contrasts and translates between related notions such as multilayer networks, multiplex networks, interdependent networks, networks of networks and many others. We also survey and discuss existing data sets that can be represented as multilayer networks. We review attempts to generalize single-layer-network diagnostics to multilayer networks. We also discuss the rapidly expanding research on multilayer-network models and notions like community structure, connected components, tensor decompositions and various types of dynamical processes on multilayer networks. We conclude with a summary and an outlook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper locates responses to the 2011 Tottenham riots within a historical analysis of planning, regeneration and the politics of community participation in the London Borough of Haringey. It examines understandings of the role of such participation and related recommendations within three 2012 reports: North London Citizens, an alliance of mostly faith organizations, The Tottenham Community Panel established by Haringey Council and the Riots, Communities and Victims Panel set up by Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1978, when economic reform began in China, it was the party-state-controlled people's organizations that were most deeply involved in people's work and social life. For example, the official trade union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), was the one and only legal organization representing workers. Although people who worked for state-owned enterprises were mostly unionized under the umbrella of the ACFTU, the new migrant workers in private enterprises were basically unorganized. Since the mid-1990s, labour activists, some of whom are supported by the international civil society, have tried to establish an alternative form of organization, specifically labour non-governmental organizations (NGOs), for migrant workers. The labour NGOs are concentrated in the Pearl River Delta of South China and provide services in migrant workers' settlement communities. This paper evaluates the degree to which the labour NGOs have maintained a relatively autonomous civil society space for the vulnerable migrant workers and nurtured a democratic form of labour organization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We run a novel field experiment to link managers of African manufacturing firms. The experiment resembles the many forms of interaction that business and community organizations offer to their members. The design features exogenous link formation, exogenous seeding of information, and exogenous assignment to treatment and placebo. We study the impact of the experiment on firm business practices outside of the lab. We find that the experiment successfully created new variation in social networks. We find significant diffusion of business practices in terms of VAT registration and having a bank current account. This diffusion is a combination of diffusion of innovation and simple imitation. At the time of our experiment, all three studied countries were undergoing large changes in their VAT legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving community capacity for influencing actions on the determinants of health is an immediate outcome of many Public Health Agency of Canada-funding community-based programs. Despite the importance of this outcome, it has been difficult to measure and describe the contribution of funding programs to improving community capacity. This paper reports on a study conducted to develop and establish the psychometric properties of scales that measure community capacity to address health issues in the context of federally funded community-based programs. A literature review and national think tank with 21 experts informed the development of the first draft of the scales that outlined nine key domains of community capacity. Two focus groups with community practitioners provided information on the face and content validity and general usability of this draft instrument. The revised instrument was sent for pilot testing to 114 community organizations. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed to assess the validity, reliability and usability of the instrument. Twenty-nine organizations returned a completed instrument (25% response rate). Principal Component Analysis confirmed scale unidimensionality for eight multi-item scales: all of the component loadings were considered good with all scales loading between 0.60 and 0.92. Scale internal consistency was also considered high with alphas between 0.72 and 0.86 for six of these eight scales. Spearman's correlations were significant for the remaining two multi-item scales (composed of two items each), indicating that the two items for each scale were significantly correlated to each other. One scale could not be analyzed quantitatively, as it contained only a single item. Triangulation of qualitative and quantitative results found consistency in interpretations of scale response sets. Feedback on the instrument indicated interest in using it for project planning and evaluation. Psychometric analyses and triangulation provided evidence of the construct validity and reliability of the instrument. The final instrument covers 9 domains and has a total of 26 items, each with a four-point rating scale and a section for qualitative contextual comments. The instrument provides quantitative and qualitative information on community capacity within the context and scope of community-based funding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concentrates on the issues of merit and diversity in social work. The principal focus is ethnic diversity, used as an example to illustrate a wider point about diversity. It is clear that ethnic diversity in particular has become a major political objective across the public sector as part of the 'community cohesion' initiative. Several benefits have been identified and linked to the achievement of ethnic diversity in the workforce; many of these have appeared in social work debate. The argument here is that while diversity has transformative potential, it must be located within a more radical agenda if it is to be successful. As a profession with a radical thread to its pedigree, social work is well placed to take this agenda forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, Ireland has emerged as a paradigmatic case of partnership governance. Underpinned by state-facilitated national agreements that sought to maximize economic and social development, 'partnership' was also held to include the development of progressive social policies. The 'community and voluntary sector' has been both the site and purported vehicle for these progressive policies. In this context, community development emerged as a discourse of social action that was both popular with what Donnelly-Cox and Jaffro (1999) have in the Irish context called 'second generation community development', i.e. the emergence of self-activated local community groups informed by a social justice ethos, and to the Irish state as a route to social inclusion for an array of marginalized social groups. Since the early 1990s, these groups have been the recipients of significantly increased state funding. This resource has had a dramatic effect on the structure and nature of community development. In this paper, we outline and assess the model of community development that has emerged in Ireland during this period. Based on empirical data arising from a nationwide survey of community workers, we profile the extent of state funding; the consequent employment profile of community development workers and the impact on volunteerism; and the nature and consequence of community development's emerging relationship with the Irish state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and likeminded nonprofit networks have assisted colonias – or poor, marginalized communities in the four states along the US–Mexico border – in community organizing and providing basic services. This paper explores the successes and challenges of NGOs in this region, considers the ways in which local NGOs have partnered with larger NGO networks, and assesses the advantages and risks of NGOs partnering with NGO networks. It concludes with recommendations as to how NGO networks might assist in ‘scaling up’ the successes of local NGOs to improve the quality of life in colonias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past twenty years there has been an upsurge of interest in the credit union movement. They claim to play a key role in community development and regeneration. Against a background of increasing financial exclusion and debt, its has been suggested that the community development focus of this movement is a key factor in its success. This paper based on a large community based organization suggests that there is a considerable discrepancy between what the organization claims its contribution to the community is and how the members view its role. It is suggested that their contribution to community development is limited to providing a savings and low cost loans service. Their claims to evoke a community spirit, sense of solidarity and empowerment are largely rhetoric. It is concluded that the credit union movement must re‐assess and re‐examine its aims as it is in danger of becoming seen simply as another financial institution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Community development and area regeneration partnerships require a relationship of trust between partners in order to be effective. Trust between community representatives and the wider community of residents allows regeneration activities to proceed with least disruption. Residents, however, will want to scrutinize the work undertaken on their behalf. This paper presents the results of a survey-based analysis of residents' expressions of trust in local community groups active in public-community partnerships in Northern Ireland. It identifies three types of community groups; groups led by businesspersons, groups formed from existing community organizations, and groups founded by community and political activists. The analysis shows that the type of community group is a major influence on residents' belief in the representativeness of a group, but not their assessment of a group's ability to deliver successful regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although there is broad evidence for the value of peer support (PS) in preventing and managing diabetes and other chronic diseases, identifying approaches to stage, scale, and adapt PS interventions is a challenge. Community organization may provide a process for such adaptation of standardized PS and diabetes management to individual communities. This community organization approach was used to develop PS in 12 communities in Shanghai, China. Through a convergent mixed methods design, project records, semi-structured interviews, and an implementation assessment characterized processes of adaptation of standardized materials, examined the extent to which the program was implemented, and identified key success factors and challenges. Findings from both interviews and the implementation assessment indicated that communities adapted standardized intervention components to meet the needs of their communities and assumed responsibility for implementation of different components of the program based on their community's available capacity. Additionally, community innovations occurring as part of the project were reported and standardized for dissemination in future iterations of the program. Key success factors identified included cooperation and collaboration among varied partners within and across communities. Two challenges illustrate the resilience of the community organization model in response to COVID-19 and the need for further adaptation in rural communities. Community organization provided a useful approach to standardization, adaptation, innovation, and reporting of PS interventions for diabetes management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically reflects on twenty years of efforts to prevent and punish sexual exploitation by peacekeepers and humanitarian actors through the UN's zero-tolerance policy ('the Bulletin'). I trace the assumptions and motivations that underpin the Bulletin's framing of (un)acceptable sex and investigate the operational and normative implications of its strong discouragement of sexual relationships with beneficiaries. I argue that, by construing the power differential between local communities and UN/NGO personnel as inherent, singular and totalizing, the Bulletin first reinforces conservative gender norms by framing women as perpetually and uniquely vulnerable and reinscribing gendered power imbalances. Second, it denies women agency in an era of Women, Peace and Security, laying the foundation for a detrimental separation between local people and international personnel. Third, it restructures paternalism in ways that entrench power imbalances between local communities and the organizations mandated to 'protect' them, reproducing colonial patterns of dealing with sex and sexuality. This analysis lays bare the tensions between care and control in how the international community responds to sexual misconduct by UN/NGO personnel and demonstrates the ramifications of these tensions for the practice and effectiveness of peace and humanitarian operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By integrating a learning experience with community organizations, service-learning (SL) can be considered a tool to facilitate rural communities' development, acting as a resource mobilizer. This study presents a participatory process based on the assets-based approach for community development approach. Six local organizations and 16 university students in three Italian rural communities were engaged to assess local resources and co-construct rural SL (RSL) projects. A two-phase rural participative process was developed and evaluated using qualitative instruments, such as focus groups and students' reflexive journals. Results indicated that rural communities uncovered a set of material and intangible inner assets to develop. Indeed, they identified internal (and potentially external) resources that could effectively bring some insights to rural challenges. Moreover, community members experienced new paths through SL to count on their internal assets through effective collaboration with university students. The collaboration between students (and university) and community organizations delivered new local and rural development opportunities while supporting the partnership for RSL. Students experienced themselves as potential agents of change, enhancing their psychosocial resources and competencies, and strengthening rural development. The result's implications involve the development of rural policies, including effective participation of rural communities (and organizations) and regarding different dimensions of development, like economic or psychosocial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background People who inject drugs (PWID) have low rates of COVID-19 testing yet are vulnerable to severe disease. In partnership with a mobile syringe service program (SSP) in San Diego County, CA, we developed the evidence-, community-, and Social Cognitive Theory-informed "LinkUP" intervention (tailored education, motivational interviewing, problem-solving, and planning) to increase COVID-19 testing uptake among PWID. Purpose To assess preliminary efficacy of LinkUP in increasing PWID COVID-19 testing in a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT). Methods We referred participants (PWID, ≥18 years old, San Diego County residents who had not recently undergone voluntary COVID-19 testing) to mobile SSP sites that had been randomized (by week) to offer the active LinkUP intervention or didactic attention-control conditions delivered by trained peer counselors. Following either condition, counselors offered on-site rapid COVID-19 antigen testing. Analyses estimated preliminary intervention efficacy and explored potential moderation. Results Among 150 participants, median age was 40.5 years, 33.3% identified as Hispanic/Latinx, 64.7% were male, 73.3% were experiencing homelessness, and 44.7% had prior mandatory COVID-19 testing. The LinkUP intervention was significantly associated with higher COVID-19 testing uptake (p  < .0001). Homelessness moderated intervention effects; LinkUP increased COVID-19 testing uptake more among participants experiencing homelessness (adjusted risk ratio [aRR]: 1.80; 95% CI: 1.56–2.09; p <.0001) than those not experiencing homelessness (aRR: 1.20; 95% CI: 1.01–1.43; p =.04). Conclusions Findings from this pilot RCT support the preliminary efficacy of the "LinkUP" intervention to increase COVID-19 testing among PWID and underscore the importance of academic-community partnerships and prevention service delivery through SSPs and other community-based organizations serving vulnerable populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to several papers published within the issue including the role of nonprofit sector in the neoliberalization process in Canada, the impact of corporate social responsibility on community development, and the role of community based organizations in community development.

All groups face problems of self-maintenance and task achievement. This paper presents the technique of nonverbal exercises (borrowed from sensitivity training) and discusses how such exercises can help groups deal with these problems. Also presented are case examples that demonstrate the application of the exercises to community organization and group work practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with two polar models of community power structure, the elitist and the pluralist, and shows how certain organizational strategies are appropriate to communities of each type. Tentative guidelines are suggested for the community organization practitioner who needs to know which type of power structure his community has. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the route by which community organization has come to its present interest in organizing among the "grass roots" population and attempts to support th. rationale, viability, and future of such organizational efforts in light of the fact that almost all welfare services are currently provided by government It is because social welfare is moving to the point at which it serves a total community of citizen-clients, the author states, that community organization should concern itself with organizing the grass-roots population to participate in welfare planning. Such activity calls for new techniques, which are spelled out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper undertakes a discussion of two important controversies in the field of community planning. The first has to do with the role and relationship of a health and welfare council to comprehensive community planning. The comments and point of view that follow are based on several years of life in a climate of change. The New Haven area has undergone both a physical and a social transformation. The Community Council of Greater New Haven, responding first to the need to relate social planning to the physical changes taking place through a comprehensive redevelopment program, developed new relationships. The complaint of being bypassed is like pouting in the corner. Nevertheless, it was relatively simple to pick up the initiative, to demonstrate not only interest but willingness to work with the redevelopers in terms of the human needs they were attempting to meet, and to bring the council, the renewal planners, and the city government into a close working relationship. The ability to use staff community organization training in the development of an effective interdisciplinary planning organization. Council staff should be leaders in helping to weld an effective partnership out of the team members.

This paper examines the traditional literature in community organization and attempts to reformulate certain ideas in a way that achieves greater clarity and utility for practice. The focus is on goals in community organization practice, varying roles of the practitioner related to these, and the relationship of these two variables to certain aspects of decision making. To have validity community organization practice must be geared to the attainment of some social welfare goal or to the solution of some social welfare problem. It entails the completion of a concrete task or the solution of a delimited problem having to do with the functioning of the community social system. It is important to note that these delimited goals are always directed toward achieving some common good, never to the attainment of personal profit or gain as a prime motive or objective. In drawing up criteria for defining the welfare field as a social institution in the society indicates that there must be "absence of profit motive as a dominant program purpose."

A social group worker whose previous experience had been with settlement houses was assigned to the patient government association of a California state hospital. Similarities noted in the experiences of patients and those of members of the community groups led to the thesis that patients can receive help by dealing with real problems in a controlled situation, the social action process has a therapeutic effect, and the group worker may transfer settlement house skills successfully to a psychiatric hospital setting. The values understood to exist in the use of the group have found increased application in the mental hospital. This paper, describing the patient government association in Camarillo State Hospital is an attempt to explain the help given through the social action process as applied by a group worker with a settlement house background. The author believes that social action has the effect of restoring personal and community equilibrium when democratic process is utilized, also, that the use of the group to help the individual express his opinions about social disorder and engage in efforts to improve society is similar in both hospital and settlement house.

The article presents information about a method for evaluating the social functioning of families under treatment. This paper is a progress report on an attempt to measure the social functioning of families under treatment, as a preliminary step to measuring change or movement. This approach has it origin in the realization gained through the research work of the Family-centered Project that movement measurements are of limited usefulness without knowledge of the position from which and toward which change takes place. Furthermore, the experience and that of others had shown that it is easier to get reliable evaluation of movement when judges rating movement are able to refer to anchor points delineating the continuum of change. The endeavor to evaluate the social functioning of the family rather than that of individual clients has its roots in the work of the Family-centered Project, a pilot project in casework, research, and community organization, aimed at helping seriously disorganized, hard-to-reach families with children in dear and present danger. The project is an alliance of local agencies, operating with the financial aid of the Hill Family Foundation and under the auspices of the Greater St. Paul Community Chest and Councils.

Social work during its evolution as a profession, has developed or used numerous working concepts, among them that expressed by the terms "representativeness," "representation," and "the representative." This concept figures prominently in a particular area of social work practice, namely, community organization work. This paper attempts to delineate the various ways in which the concept is applied in practice and to examine some of the resultant implications. Two distinctly different concepts emanate from the adjective "representative" or the noun "representativeness." The first of these is a socio political idea and refers to the authorized functioning or acting by one person in behalf of another or others. The second comes from a statistical frame of reference and has to do with the quality of being typical or typifying a group or class. Both, found in social work practice, need clarification. The socio-political definition of "representativeness" can be readily demonstrated in the community organization activities in social work. It is most clearly revealed in the role of the professional worker providing the agency service to clientele. In community organization, the worker may be the staff member of such agencies as a community welfare council, a sectarian planning federation, a neighborhood council, or a health education agency.

This research paper focuses on the image of community power held by top labor influentials in a midwestern city. Community power structure may be defined as that network of relations obtaining between individuals and organizations which affect decisions regarding issues or actions of community wide importance. Much of the recent research in the area of community power has focused on the reputed power of local elites to influence the decision-making process. Despite labor's increasing economic, political, and social power, there is disagreement about its place in community power structure and its image of that structure. This study found that labor sees itself committed to community participation and to solving the problems attending it. Its present limited participation is perceived as resulting from internal problems rather than from the opposition of management or other groups. Most union officials appraise their community operations as effective but some realize they are ineffective in getting others to support independent labor goals. In short, labor has made friends, but has not influenced them.

This article has been an attempt to synthesize and apply the theories and methods of action research to a practical research problem. It grew out of the needs of the authors for a framework within which to analyze specific actions of community groups. In the spring and summer of 1932 it was used as the basis for a field study of 145 community-needs-oriented actions in ten rural communities in North Carolina. Community research in the United States has been predominantly structural in emphasis. While acknowledging the fundamental importance of structural studies, it must be recognized that they have not been very fruitful for predicting actions of organized groups within communities. Even in those studies of communities in which the functions performed by structural elements have been featured, the group or organization itself is the major focus or unit of analysis. The twin aims of understanding and allowing the researcher to predict group actions under given conditions, either actions of the total community or the actions of some part of the community, are met only in small degree by concentrating on this unit.

Motivation Higher-order interaction patterns among proteins have the potential to reveal mechanisms behind molecular processes and diseases. While clustering methods are used to identify functional groups within molecular interaction networks, these methods largely focus on edge density and do not explicitly take into consideration higher-order interactions. Disease genes in these networks have been shown to exhibit rich higher-order structure in their vicinity, and considering these higher-order interaction patterns in network clustering have the potential to reveal new disease-associated modules. Results We propose a higher-order community detection method which identifies community structure in networks with respect to specific higher-order connectivity patterns beyond edges. Higher-order community detection on four different protein–protein interaction networks identifies biologically significant modules and disease modules that conventional edge-based clustering methods fail to discover. Higher-order clusters also identify disease modules from genome-wide association study data, including new modules that were not discovered by top-performing approaches in a Disease Module DREAM Challenge. Our approach provides a more comprehensive view of community structure that enables us to predict new disease–gene associations. Availability and implementation https://github.com/Reed-CompBio/graphlet-clustering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]