Women, Families and Work : How to help L&Q's women residents into work and tackle the barriers they face

Women’s rates of employment are lower than men’s. Housing association residents' rates of employment are lower than those in other tenures. Thus women housing association tenants have high rates of out-of-work benefit claims and high rates of poverty. It is known that women housing association residents with children face constraints to employment, ranging from their own individual circumstances to shortages of services and problems with the jobs available. In this context, housing associations, including L&Q, have increasingly become involved in providing information, support and training to help their residents both to get work and also to progress in it. The research aimed to better understand the constraints felt by L&Q’s women residents with children making the transition to work, and the supports that could them make and sustain the transition. It also aimed to identify a range of practical ways in which L&Q could support women residents to overcome barriers to work. It complements ‘Real London Lives’, another research project carried out by L&Q and its 15 partner housing associations which form the G15 group in London (http://reallondonlives.co.uk

Women, families and work : how to help L&Q's women residents into work and tackle the barriers they face

Women’s rates of employment are lower than men’s. Housing association residents' rates of employment are lower than those in other tenures. Thus women housing association tenants have high rates of out-of-work benefit claims and high rates of poverty. It is known that women housing association residents with children face constraints to employment, ranging from their own individual circumstances to shortages of services and problems with the jobs available. In this context, housing associations, including L&Q, have increasingly become involved in providing information, support and training to help their residents both to get work and also to progress in it. The research aimed to better understand the constraints felt by L&Q’s women residents with children making the transition to work, and the supports that could them make and sustain the transition. It also aimed to identify a range of practical ways in which L&Q could support women residents to overcome barriers to work. It complements ‘Real London Lives’, another research project carried out by L&Q and its 15 partner housing associations which form the G15 group in London (http://reallondonlives.co.uk

Women, families and work. How to help L&Q’s women residents into work and tackle the barriers they face. Executive Summary

Women’s rates of employment are lower than men’s. Housing association residents' rates of employment are lower than those in other tenures. Thus women housing association tenants have high rates of out-of-work benefit claims and high rates of poverty. It is known that women housing association residents with children face constraints to employment, ranging from their own individual circumstances to shortages of services and problems with the jobs available. In this context, housing associations, including L&Q, have increasingly become involved in providing information, support and training to help their residents both to get work and also to progress in it. The research aimed to better understand the constraints felt by L&Q’s women residents with children making the transition to work, and the supports that could them make and sustain the transition. It also aimed to identify a range of practical ways in which L&Q could support women residents to overcome barriers to work. It complements ‘Real London Lives’, another research project carried out by L&Q and its 15 partner housing associations which form the G15 group in London (http://reallondonlives.co.uk

Electron tomography provides a direct link between the Payne effect and the inter-particle spacing of rubber composites.

Rubber-filler composites are a key component in the manufacture of tyres. The filler provides mechanical reinforcement and additional wear resistance to the rubber, but it in turn introduces non-linear mechanical behaviour to the material which most likely arises from interactions between the filler particles, mediated by the rubber matrix. While various studies have been made on the bulk mechanical properties and of the filler network structure (both imaging and by simulations), there presently does not exist any work directly linking filler particle spacing and mechanical properties. Here we show that using STEM tomography, aided by a machine learning image analysis procedure, to measure silica particle spacings provides a direct link between the inter-particle spacing and the reduction in shear modulus as a function of strain (the Payne effect), measured using dynamic mechanical analysis. Simulations of filler network formation using attractive, repulsive and non-interacting potentials were processed using the same method and compared with the experimental data, with the net result being that an attractive inter-particle potential is the most accurate way of modelling styrene-butadiene rubber-silica composite formation.L.S. and P.A.M thank Michelin for funding. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement 291522-3DIMAGE.This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/141209/srep07389/full/srep07389.html

Women, families and work. How to help L&Q’s women residents into work and tackle the barriers they face. Executive Summary

Women’s rates of employment are lower than men’s. Housing association residents' rates of employment are lower than those in other tenures. Thus women housing association tenants have high rates of out-of-work benefit claims and high rates of poverty. It is known that women housing association residents with children face constraints to employment, ranging from their own individual circumstances to shortages of services and problems with the jobs available. In this context, housing associations, including L&Q, have increasingly become involved in providing information, support and training to help their residents both to get work and also to progress in it. The research aimed to better understand the constraints felt by L&Q’s women residents with children making the transition to work, and the supports that could them make and sustain the transition. It also aimed to identify a range of practical ways in which L&Q could support women residents to overcome barriers to work. It complements ‘Real London Lives’, another research project carried out by L&Q and its 15 partner housing associations which form the G15 group in London (http://reallondonlives.co.uk

Ethnicity maintenance : its contingent nature and impact on health : case studies of second generation Poles in the West Midlands (UK) and South Michigan (US)

OBJECTIVES My topic of research is a comparative study of ethnicity and (selected) health patterns among second generation Poles (and to a lesser extent, first generation Poles), looked at by means of two case studies, one in the UK and one in the USA. I examine the level of ethnicity (cultural) maintenance in a white - assumed assimilated - minority ethnic group in two specific geographic locations and therefore the context specific nature of ethnicity maintenance. I also examine whether it is possible to assess the impact of such maintenance on their personal health, well-being, and quality of life. METHODS My research design includes a (smaller, post WWII) selection of first generation UK and USA Polish respondents who act as point of reference, and allow me to define within this study, the parameters of the cultural 'nuances' in question. My design allows for the assessment of any evidence of ethnic self-identity and a common sub-cultural identity, as well as any differences between the two groups of respondents in relation to their respective degrees of co-operation, and accommodation problems, with host groups. The collection of data is operationalized via multiple methods, including questionnaires. I employ the use of qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic elements, thus allowing for multidimensional analysis of selected issues. Comparisons are made with extant data from both the host ( indigenous) communities. RESULTS/CONCLUSION Empirical results bore out variations in the degree of maintained ethnic lifestyles, across a range of social groups. Some of the differences can be explained by the different environments (UK and USA), as well as the diasporic nature of the first generation's immigration experiences. Qualitative and ethnographic evidence was found to be crucial in explaining the various affective ethnic nuances that quantitative methods are unable to reveal, such as the pervasive impact that the first generation's diasporic experiences, as well as the nature of the Polish exiled community, have had on the second generation, both in the UK and the USA, and their respective qualities of life. This study has indicated that maintaining one's ethnic roots can for these individuals be just as problematic, although in differing ways, as for members of non-white ethnic minorities

Transmission-mode imaging in the environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM)

Electron microscopy was first conducted in the 1930s with the advent of the TEM and later the STEM. In 1969, the first commercial SEM was released, with the possibility of retrofitting it to behave like a STEM following soon afterwards. In 1979, Danilatos and Robinson advanced electron microscopy by creating a new type of SEM which allowed a controlled quantity of gas into the sample chamber, termed ESEM. The most recent evolution in this line was the combination of ESEM and STEM in 2005, a procedure termed Wet STEM. The focus of this work is on investigating applications of this new technique, along with the contrast mechanisms involved in forming an image. To that end, a wide variety of samples will be imaged. Clay and paint suspensions (colloids) are used to test Wet STEM’s capacity to image submerged objects, as well as thin objects which are stacked together. Diblock copolymer films are used to test Wet STEM’s ability to distinguish chemically similar materials without staining, the physical effects of heavy metal staining and to demonstrate the necessity of gas for the purpose of charge neutralisation. Single cell biological samples are also investigated. Internal contrast in mammalian cells is visible without recourse to staining, but chemical fixation is required despite maintaining a high relative humidity. Bacteria are more resilient and as such are easier to image than animal cells, requiring no prior treatment. When exposed to low relative humidity, bacteria are found to collapse. The collapse pattern is observed to differ between wild-type and cytoskeletal-deficient bacteria of the same species and strain, so it is likely that dehydration-induced collapse offers information about the position and shape of the bacterial cytoskeleton.This work was funded by the EPSRC [grant number EP/P50385X/1] and by a CASE studentship from FEI Company

Biocompatible Ceramic – Glass Composite – Manufacturing and Selected Physical – Mechanical Properties

Environmental monitorin