Alternative Frame Research Articles

Poking holes in things: a view from the museum

ABSTRACT This paper is not intended as a conventional research report, but rather as an experimental ‘think piece’ that attempts to situate African beads in relation to alternative geographical, temporal and theoretical frames. Throughout the history of archaeology, museums have (re)assembled artefacts to create new contexts for them by establishing new associations and juxtapositions with other artefacts. In pursuing a similar approach, this paper attempts to constitute a ‘view from the museum’ rather than from any particular disciplinary field. Museum practice promises an alternative model of speculative ‘free association’ where artefactual form enables sometimes seemingly unlikely connections to be made. The paper’s intention is to highlight the theoretical richness with which beads can be approached as artefacts. In pursuing this agenda, it builds on David Graeber’s important work synthesising and advancing anthropological theories of economic, political and cultural value. A central aim of Graeber’s project was to put coins back in their place as rather peculiar denominators of value. Beads, with their considerably deeper history and wider geographical distribution, offer an alternative starting point from which to address questions of value in human lives.

The ribosome profiling landscape of yeast reveals a high diversity in pervasive translation

BackgroundPervasive translation is a widespread phenomenon that plays a critical role in the emergence of novel microproteins, but the diversity of translation patterns contributing to their generation remains unclear. Based on 54 ribosome profiling (Ribo-Seq) datasets, we investigated the yeast Ribo-Seq landscape using a representation framework that allows the comprehensive inventory and classification of the entire diversity of Ribo-Seq signals, including non-canonical ones.ResultsWe show that if coding regions occupy specific areas of the Ribo-Seq landscape, noncoding regions encompass a wide diversity of Ribo-Seq signals and, conversely, populate the entire landscape. Our results show that pervasive translation can, nevertheless, be associated with high specificity, with 1055 noncoding ORFs exhibiting canonical Ribo-Seq signals. Using mass spectrometry under standard conditions or proteasome inhibition with an in-house analysis protocol, we report 239 microproteins originating from noncoding ORFs that display canonical but also non-canonical Ribo-Seq signals. Each condition yields dozens of additional microprotein candidates with comparable translation properties, suggesting a larger population of volatile microproteins that are challenging to detect. Our findings suggest that non-canonical translation signals may harbor valuable information and underscore the significance of considering them in proteogenomic studies. Finally, we show that the translation outcome of a noncoding ORF is primarily determined by the initiating codon and the codon distribution in its two alternative frames, rather than features indicative of functionality.ConclusionOur results enable us to propose a topology of a species’ Ribo-Seq landscape, opening the way to comparative analyses of this translation landscape under different conditions.

(Post)-pandemic subversive pedagogies: Slowness, relationality and care

While power is central to the study of global politics, pedagogy is often under-recognised as a central site of power within the discipline, shaping not only what is studied but who is invited into this scholarly endeavour. We advocate for subversive pedagogies that challenge the status quo by troubling the ‘knowledge-transmission’ model of education that sees learners as passive recipients of knowledge imparted by subject experts. We articulate three key dispositions in our pedagogical practices that allow us to acknowledge how existing power relations structure our teaching and provide alternative frames for learning with our students: slowness, relationality and care. First, we identify the challenges we face working in ‘the academy at speed’, advocating a slower approach to our pedagogical practice. Second, we articulate the central features of relationality and care that can accompany a slower pedagogy, offering new possibilities for how we engage our subject and our students. We finish by tracing these elements of subversive pedagogies across the contributions to this special issue, noting how intentional subversion and attentiveness to time, relationality and care centres the power inherent in pedagogy.

Social Justice Imaginaries and Education Policy in Aotearoa New Zealand (2017–2024)

AbstractIn this article, we continue Martin Thrupp’s critical work in education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand by examining the policies of the Sixth Labour-led Government (2017–2023) and the Sixth National-led Government (2023-present). We consider their attempts to mitigate social injustice via education policy and the social imaginaries that underpin such efforts. Our conceptual framework draws on Nancy Fraser’s tripartite analysis (redistribution, recognition, participation), the contributions of education policy scholars who have built upon her work, and others who offer alternative framings of social justice. To contextualise our analysis, we provide a historical account of the discursive shift from equality to equity in New Zealand education policy and the recent transition by the Left from the ‘Third Way’ (Giddens, The third way: The renewal of social democracy, Polity Press, 1999) to ‘progressive neoliberalism’ (Fraser, American Affairs 1:46–64, 2017, Fraser, The old is dying and the new cannot be born: From progressive neoliberalism to Trump and beyond, Verso, 2019). Examination of selected education policies by the most recent Labour and National governments reveals that, despite equity infusing the rhetoric of both governments, their actual policies have consistently adopted affirmative responses aimed only at ameliorating inequality’s most visible effects. We conclude with a call for more intentionally transformative efforts in education based on holistic conceptions of social justice.

Parameter-Free Data Reduction for Short-Time Hypersonic Heat Flux Measurements

High-speed flows associated with hypersonics require significant, diverse, and successful ground-test campaigns before engaging in a flight test program. The present investigation focuses on demonstrating a new data reduction pathway for estimating the source heat flux using an elegant, though fragile, thin-film temperature gauge. The rapid response time of such sensors makes them well-suited for shock tunnel experiments. In such experiments, contaminated flow, composed of diaphragm debris, can often damage the sensing element. For the moment, the existence of an ideal coating (or even a hardened sensing element) is presumed that preserves the sensor’s survivability and accuracy over several test runs. A dynamic, physics-based data reduction methodology is proposed that accounts for the protective coating and that is applicable to millisecond testing times. This paper addresses three critical issues for acquiring the best estimate of the source heat flux. These issues include a) the formation of a baseline data reduction view that accounts for thin coatings; b) the development of a dynamic calibration method that removes the need for specifying thermophysical or geometrical properties; and c) the introduction of a time-scaling that allows for calibration to be performed in alternative and convenient time frames. This last point demonstrates the concept of the dimensionless time map and its novel consequences. The procedure is demonstrated on a reduced formulation, illustrating the merit of the concepts.

Participatory backcasting towards desirable co-produced mobility futures: A case study of MaaS in Greater Manchester

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) has emerged as a model supported by popular discourse on achieving greener, more efficient and equitable future mobility. While technological change is a primary driver for models of development, the policy pathways, implementation and implications of MaaS are complex and unclear. In this paper, we explore the implications and limitations of a participatory approach to co-produced MaaS futures in Greater Manchester (GM). We adapt a backcasting methodology involving two stakeholder workshops to develop shared future visions and action pathways. Our methodology includes a participatory approach to pluralistic vision development and the use of a Three Horizons method for backcasting. This approach provides the opportunity to explore multiple desirable futures and the formulation of action pathways without negating plausible future possibilities. The research identifies multiple policy and collaborative action areas while also revealing limitations in MaaS user agency and unaddressed sustainability concerns related to wider Smart City criticisms. Findings also suggest a lack of adequate theory within current MaaS frameworks to engage with uncertainty, change and adaptive capacity. Future areas of research include the expansion of current frameworks to incorporate alternative framings from planning and complexity theories already attempting to address these dimensions of futures.

Attending to history in climate change–demography research

Climate change is among the most urgent challenges of our time. While often considered a problem for the natural and physical sciences, the humanities and social sciences have made equally important interventions into research on the reciprocal relationship between humans and our climate. Because demography occupies the intersection of the natural and social sciences, and because it deals specifically with rates of change in social and natural processes, we believe it can make valuable contributions to the pressing imperatives of understanding and addressing climate change and mitigating the harms it is already visiting on the world’s most vulnerable people. We also believe that climate change may afford demographers an opportunity to expand our capacity to think about time and space at finer scales, and to examine the relationships among the core demographic processes – mortality, fertility and migration – which have typically been considered in isolation from one another. Yet responsibly leveraging climate change to advance demography, and leveraging demography to advance climate science and policy, require a cognizance of history that will assist demographers and those who use our analyses in avoiding the replication of past harms and, we hope, the invention of new ones. Understanding the history of demography and of population-environment thought more broadly can help us challenge assumptions that have not served science or policy well in the past – such as the assumption that larger or faster-growing populations necessarily put more pressure on the environment, independent of structural conditions – and consider alternative theoretical framings that might lead to better scientific models and policy solutions.

Talking about assessment: metaphors of grading in dance education

ABSTRACT The way that dance educators think and speak about grading can impact our approaches to assessment and our overall curriculum and pedagogy. Four metaphors are commonly found in conversations around grading in dance: Grades Are Measurements, Grades Are Currency, Grades Are Nourishment, and Grades Are Moral Valuations. These metaphors are constructed through a combination of primary metaphors in our conceptual system and commonplace understandings, and they surface in many ways in our communication with students and colleagues. Such metaphors present both affordances and challenges to the dance pedagogy and curriculum we enact as dance teachers and learners. Understanding the metaphors we use offers an opportunity to move toward more transparent, purposeful, and ethical communication regarding dance assessment. Ultimately, we might shift our thinking, reflected in the alternative framing: grades are information.

The Pedal Curves Generated by Alternative Frame Vectors and Their Smarandache Curves

In this paper, pedal-like curves are defined resulting from the orthogonal projection of a fixed point on the alternative frame vectors of a given regular curve. For each pedal curve, the Frenet vectors, the curvature and the torsion functions are found to provide the common relations among the main curve and its pedal curves. Then, Smarandache curves are defined by using the alternative frame vectors of each pedal curve as position vectors. The relations of the Frenet apparatus are also established for the pedal curves and their corresponding Smarandache curves. Finally, the expressions of the alternative frame apparatus of each Smarandache curves are given in terms of the alternative frame elements of the pedal curves. Thus, a set of new symmetric curves are introduced that contribute to the vast curve family.

Introducing 'Brother-Love': If 'No-Homo' Were Invented in the Victorian Era

Working off of information surrounding nineteenth century intimate male friendships provided by E. Anthony Rotundo’s 1989 article “Romantic Friendship: Male Intimacy and Middle-Class Youth in the Norther United States, 1800-1900,” as well as ideas of female intimacy of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Julian Carter’s 2005 article “On Mother-Love: History, Queer Theory, and Nonlesbian Identity,” the concept of “brother-love” encompasses important components of intimate male friendships during the Victorian period. Hidden physical and emotional intimacy were vital to these intimate friendships, in ways differing from Carter’s “mother-love” as explored in this project. Anna Clark’s concept of “Twilight Moments” (2005) will help explain “brotherlove” as it is compared to Carter’s “mother-love.” “Brother-love” is a response to contemporary terms and concepts queer scholars use when focusing on historical moments, and it provides an alternative frame of reference for intimate and romantic male friendships while extracting contemporary influence of same-sex relations.

Quasi-position vector curves in Galilean 4-space

The Frenet frame is not suitable for describing the behavior of the curve in the Galilean space since it is not defined everywhere. In this study, an alternative frame, the so-called quasi-frame, is investigated in Galilean 4-space. Furthermore, the quasi-formulas in Galilean 4-space are deduced and quasi-curvatures are obtained in terms of the quasi-frame and its derivatives. Quasi-rectifying, quasi-normal, and quasi-osculating curves are studied in Galilean 4-space. We prove that there is no quasi-normal and accordingly normal curve in Galilean 4-space.

An Exploratory Study of Alternative Time Frames and Descriptors for EQ-5D-5L in Obstructive Airway Diseases Using Mixed Methods

ObjectivesEQ-5D-5L with its recall time of “today” may limit its ability to capture episodic symptoms and exacerbations in chronic obstructive airway diseases (OAD). We examined whether longer time frames and changing the intensity response scales to frequency scales could improve the measurement properties of EQ-5D-5L. MethodsWe used a mixed-method design starting with in-depth interviews with 20 patients and clinicians to elicit preferred time frames using concept elicitation techniques and content analyses. We then administered the top 4 preferred variants using 1- and 4-weeks’ time frames with the original intensity or an alternative frequency response scale alongside EQ-5D-5L and St George Respiratory Questionnaire to OAD patients during 2 different visits. We compared the ceiling effects and construct validity by testing a priori hypotheses in relation to St George Respiratory Questionnaire and clinical outcomes via correlation and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, respectively. Follow-up patients were categorized into “better,” “stable,” and “worse” groups to assess reliability using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) or Cohen’s Kappa (k) and responsiveness using ROC analysis. ResultsA total of 184 patients (mean [SD] age: 54[18]; female: 37.0%) completed baseline assessments. A total of 120 patients also completed follow-up assessments (mean [SD] interval: 2.8 [1.7] months). The ceilings were lower in the variants compared with EQ-5D-5L (P < .001). Reliability of the variants were comparable to or higher than EQ-5D-5L. The c-statistic values derived from ROC analyses of the variants were consistently higher than EQ-5D-5L. ConclusionsUse of longer time frames with the original intensity or the frequency response scales may improve EQ-5D-5L’s psychometric properties in OAD patients.

Alternative View of Inextensible Flows of Curves and Ruled Surfaces via Alternative Frame

In this paper, we present the evolutions of ruled surfaces generated by the principal normal, the principal normal’s derivative, and the Darboux vector fields along a space curve that are the elements of an alternative frame. The comprehension of an object’s rotational behavior is crucial knowledge relevant to various realms, and this can be accomplished by analyzing the Darboux vector along the path of a point on the object as it moves through space. In that regard, examining the evolutions of the ruled surfaces based on the changes in their directrices, including the Darboux vector in the alternative frame along a space curve, is significant. As the first step of this study, we express the evolution of the alternative frame elements of a space curve. Subsequently, the conditions for the ruled surfaces generated by them to be minimal, developable, and inextensible are investigated. These findings can allow some physical phenomena to be well understood through surface evolutions satisfying these conditions. In the final step, we provide graphical representations of some examples of inextensible ruled surfaces and curve evolutions.

Global governance and a new social contract for education: Addressing power asymmetries

UNESCO’s 2021 Report Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education calls for principled dialogue and laudable commitment to education as a common good. At its heart is the call for a new social contract for education. This article interrogates the governance implications of such a principled social contract in the contemporary global education policy context, marked by power asymmetries between various actors, including state actors, non-state actors, and international agencies. It identifies several governance challenges in realizing this new social contract in the current dominant global discourse and in the international educational cooperation architecture. In light of these analyses, this article argues for an alternative framing of the governance of such a social contract, based on the principles of recognition, redistribution, and representation. The elements of such an approach, while reflected in the report, are not consolidated. This framing is one way through which the called-for new social contact can gain significant policy traction for social justice and the right to quality education for all.

Ethnicity in Print Media: Alternative Framings of the Short Story “The Gray Robe”

Ethnicity in Print Media: Alternative Framings of the Short Story “The Gray Robe”

Shared Inequity: An Alternative Frame for Racial Justice in Employment

Shared Inequity: An Alternative Frame for Racial Justice in Employment

Biochar in the UK Print News Media: Issue Frames and Their Implications for Opening up Debate About Land-based Greenhouse Gas Removal

ABSTRACT Biochar is a land-based greenhouse gas removal technology with potential to address the climate crisis. This article examines societal debate and discussion around biochar as represented in the UK print news media and reflects on its implications for the democratic governance of novel technologies. Using an “issue frame” analysis approach, the following frames are identified – Innovation, Economics, Security, Governance and Accountability, Risk, Justice, Substitution, Salvation and Tradition – with some more prominent than others. Economics and Innovation frames are particularly pronounced, together with the argument for market-based forms of governance, while Risk and Justice frames are weakly developed. The findings show that some frames and their associated actors dominate debate, while others are absent or side-lined. This might hinder opening up the debate to a wider group of stakeholders and publics and alternative framings, thus constraining effective governance of biochar.

Surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state: a comparative institutional analysis

AbstractWhat is the connection between mass surveillance and institutions of individual agency, freedom, and self-governance? Recent literature on “surveillance capitalism” argues that, over the past two decades, the capitalist Big Tech companies have commodified personal data for profit. This commodification goes beyond gathering information to improve the products provided by the collecting organization directly and entails using data to predict what people will do, the sale of that data, and its use to modify the behaviors of unknowing consumers. According to critics, this erodes individual dignity and freedom while also threatening democracy. This paper offers an alternative framing of surveillance and data collection based on comparative institutional analysis. While data collection and attempts at persuasion are present in private and government settings, the welfare effects vary due to institutional differences. We leverage the comparative institutional framework to analyze the differences between private data collection (“surveillance capitalism”) and government data collection (the “surveillance state”). Our analysis sheds light on how data collection in the private, for-profit sector has different welfare consequences from those in the surveillance state.

Trading-off or trading-in? A critical political economy perspective of green growth’s policy framing

ABSTRACT The trade-off policy framing has been a central feature of green growth since the 1980s, employed to frame the countervailing spheres of social, environmental, and economic policies purported to ensure the sustainable development of the global economy. This article argues that so central has this framing become that IPE scholars have tended to focus on different types of ‘greenable’ growth observable within capitalism, rather than question the prospect of greening growth itself. Far from value-free, the trade-off framing is ultimately determined by the structural imperative for economic growth, veiling the disciplines anthropocentric ontology in a normative or objective guise. To account for the tacit prioritization, the trade-in policy framing – the compromising of environmental objectives to accommodate the growth imperative – is advanced as an alternative framing. The trading-in of environmental policies is legitimized through political-industrial narratives, of which three, the (i) consequential, (ii) allay, and (iii) finance are outlined in this analysis.

Ignorance As Political Instrument? Integration Discourses on Migrant Welfare Recipients in Switzerland

ABSTRACT Agnotology, the study of doubt and ignorance in areas where knowledge can be possessed, altered, hidden, and reclaimed, offers multiple insights into the working of states. This article explores the role of ‘ignoring’ as an active strategy of ignorance; a practice used by local governments to disregard certain knowledge and the production of alternative framings. Studying the intersection of welfare and migration policy based on an example of policy making and implementation in Switzerland, this work shows how resistance can be built by not paying attention, thus ignoring certain rules and policies, while actively shaping alternative frameworks to increase migrants’ rights. The cases build on the newly introduced Federal Act on Foreign Nationals and Integration, in which integration requirements exclude social assistance reception for foreign nationals in case they intend to retain or stabilise their residence status. Any financial dependence will thus cause a potential loss of residence or settlement permit. Focusing on the deficit of migrants individually and as a collective, therefore allows governments to exclude them, making ‘knowledge production’ and ‘ignoring’ fruitful concepts to explore such bordering processes. Yet, two city initiatives contested these restrictions, developing alternative financial support for foreign nationals, even if one of them was ruled unlawful. The examples show how authorities create sanctuary policies and choose to circumvent laws through an active ignoring of national policy intentions, reframing them on the local level. Linking ignorance to such local scales and their sanctuary support provides an asset in understanding local and practical endeavours of municipalities to secure political autonomy and increase resistance strategies. Hence, a restrictive understanding of integration at the national level foregrounds a one-sided view of non-citizens as costly and potential abusers of allegedly generous welfare support. Migration and social policy laws support such a one-sided perspective by allowing assessments to consider mainly economic integration, thereby excluding those who are not active in the labour market. However, local responses can challenge this one-sidedness by choosing to ignore an overly restrictive framework and try out potentials to resist.