Analytical Focus Research Articles

Territorial subjectivities. The missing link between political subjectivity and territorialization

Political subjectivity and territorialization often appear disconnected in recent debates. We propose a fresh approach based on Latin American scholarship to understand subjects and territories as relational: Subjects are (de)stabilized in processes of territorialization, while territories are (de)stabilized in processes of subject formation. We introduce the concept of territorial subjectivities and use examples from the literature to show how these emerge in Berlin, Buenos Aires, and Dresden. Placing an analytical focus on becoming rather than being, the contingency of territorial subjectivities is key to this novel conceptual link that supports a differentiated reading of socio-territorial struggles in diverse geographical contexts.

Educational Marginalization in Rural Pakistan: Sociocultural Economic Determinants for Policy Implications

In the socioeconomic context of the Koh-e-Suleman Tamun Qaisrani region of District Dera Ghazi Khan, the research examined the critical issue of early school departure and its multifaceted implications for the community and broader economic progress. Addressing a core aspect of human capital formation and societal development, the study scrutinized the impact of educational discontinuation on a country's overall advancement, emphasizing the linkage between early school dropout and a low literacy rate with manifold concomitant social challenges. Using a methodological approach encompassing convenient sampling techniques, data was elicited from 250 respondents via questionnaires. The research's analytical focus unearthed a clear correlation between parental income and literacy levels with students' dropout ratios and early school leaving tendencies. Key determinants were identified, including familial socioeconomic background, peer relationships, cultural phenomena such as early marriages, and logistical barriers like school distance. The findings divulged that lower parental income and literacy contribute to higher dropout rates and augmented probabilities of premature educational withdrawal. The study thus expounded a sociological critique of these systemic failures, accentuating the state's onus to ameliorate these issues. Recommendations were proffered, accenting the government's obligation to furnish elementary school amenities and institute financial aid measures for economically disadvantaged students, thereby cultivating an environment conducive to the amelioration of this profound social malaise.

The development of visual expertise in a virtual environment: A case of maritime pilots in training

This study connects to an ongoing discussion about the limits and affordances of simulators as realistic and relevant contexts for professional learning, in this case in the development of visual expertise. Earlier studies of simulator-based maritime pilot training conclude that there are risks associated with so-called negative skills transfer due to a lack of photorealism in simulator environments. The aim of this study is to carefully examine how visual expertise develops in and through training in a simulated environment. Through a practice-based approach to the development of visual expertise, and by using qualitative interaction analysis of video recorded training sessions, the analytical focus is directed towards maritime pilot trainees’ talk about imperfections and inconsistencies in the virtual environment during exercises in a high-fidelity bridge simulator. Considering the multi-layered nature of the maritime pilot’s visual expertise, findings show that the maritime pilots in training noticed and adapted to the specific methodological and technological challenges when manoeuvring a simulated vessel. During such reflection-in-action, they also commented on and explored the differences between, navigating in a simulator, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, navigating on board a ship. Instead of concluding that there is a risk for negative skills transfer that follows from the differences between the two contexts of navigating, we argue that the challenges introduced by representations encountered when training in a virtual environment may add to the expertise of the trainees and lead to enriched conceptual, methodological, and technical knowledge regarding the specificities of visually demanding and ambiguous navigation situations. In this way, this study contributes to advance our understanding of learning in virtual environments to the frontline of learning research.

Ethical dilemmas and professional judgment as a pathway to inclusion and equity in mathematics teaching

This study focuses on ethical dilemmas that arise in moments of inclusion and equity in mathematics teaching and how they might be tackled through teachers’ professional judgment. Skovsmose’s inclusive landscapes of investigation approach was used to design the study and to collect teachers’ joint reflections on moments of inclusion and equity in their teaching. Ethical dilemmas and professional judgment were the analytical foci for a qualitative thematic content analysis. Three explorative workshops were held with two teams of teachers from two schools in Sweden. The analysis identified three themes of ethical dilemma, and ways in which these were responded to by teachers’ professional judgment: (1) dilemmas of diversity and acting justly; (2) dilemmas of resources and allocating them fairly; (3) dilemmas of values and recognising diversity. We conclude that mathematics teachers’ professional judgments involve showing bravery, going outside of the norm, negotiating values and duties, listening to the students, and throughout this, engaging in collegial learning in the best interests of the learner.

Examining the function of macrophage oxidative stress response and immune system in glioblastoma multiforme through analysis of single-cell transcriptomics.

Glioblastoma (GBM), a prevalent malignant neoplasm within the neuro-oncological domain, has been a subject of considerable scrutiny. Macrophages, serving as the principal immunological constituents, profoundly infiltrate the microenvironment of GBM. However, investigations elucidating the intricate immunological mechanisms governing macrophage involvement in GBM at the single-cell level remain notably limited. We conducted a comprehensive investigation employing single-cell analysis, aiming to redefine the intricate cellular landscape within both the core and peripheral regions of GBM tumors. Our analytical focus extended to the profound study of macrophages, elucidating their roles within the context of oxidative stress, intercellular information exchange, and cellular trajectories concerning GBM and its assorted subpopulations. We pursued the identification of GBM prognostic genes intricately associated with macrophages. Utilizing experimental research to investigate the relevance of MANBA in the context of GBM. Our investigations have illuminated the central role of macrophages in the intricate interplay among various subpopulations within the GBM microenvironment. Notably, we observed a pronounced intensity of oxidative stress responses within macrophages when compared to their GBM counterparts in other subpopulations. Moreover, macrophages orchestrated intricate cellular communication networks, facilitated by the SPP1-CD44 axis, both internally and with neighboring subpopulations. These findings collectively suggest the potential for macrophage polarization from an M1 to an M2 phenotype, contributing to immune suppression within the tumor microenvironment. Furthermore, our exploration unearthed GBM prognostic genes closely associated with macrophages, most notably MANBA and TCF12. Remarkably, MANBA appears to participate in the modulation of neuroimmune functionality by exerting inhibitory effects on M1-polarized macrophages, thereby fostering tumor progression. To bolster these assertions, experimental validations unequivocally affirmed the promotional impact of MANBA on GBM, elucidated through its capacity to curb cell proliferation, invasiveness, and metastatic potential. These revelations represent a pivotal step towards unraveling the intricate immunological mechanisms governing the interactions between macrophages and diverse subpopulations within the GBM milieu. Furthermore, they lay the foundation for the development of an innovative GBM prognostic model, with MANBA at its epicenter, and underscore the potential for novel immunotherapeutic targets in the ongoing pursuit of enhanced treatment modalities for this formidable malignancy.

What’s so Critical About Critical Oral History?

ABSTRACT James Blight, David Welch, and Janet Lang developed Critical Oral History in the 1980s and 1990s as an attempt to expand foreign policy history’s understanding of the past beyond a document-based epistemology. Despite this new method’s incorporation of “oral history” into its name, Blight, Welch, and Lang utilized few methodological or theoretical perspectives from oral history. While Critical Oral History has had a small renaissance in foreign policy history research in recent years, differentiation from political science’s method of expert interviews is still largely absent. In this article, I argue that if international history and international relations researchers are to use the concept of oral history as opposed to expert or elite interviews, it should be an indicator of the type of epistemological assumptions and thus, methodological analysis, in which memory is problematized. This will allow foreign policy history researchers to open a new variety of research questions and analytical foci while also problematizing memory. For oral historians, it offers reflections on intersubjective power relations and opportunities to expand understandings of misremembering, silence, and other key tenets of oral history theory. Examples from oral history interviews with retired Finnish and American diplomats are presented to implement these ideas in what I term a Foreign Policy Oral History method and methodology.

Nível de conhecimento das habilidades comportamentais dos enfermeiros e técnicos de saúde: estudo exploratório

ABSTRACT Objective: To assess the knowledge level of nurses and healthcare technicians regarding soft skills (SS) and to identify the most crucial SS. Method: This is a quantitative exploratory study with an analytical focus, encompassing 350 nurses and healthcare technicians in the Souss-Massa region. Results: Approximately half of participants (49.7%) exhibited some understanding of SS, with only 12.3% having received any training on the subject. According to participants, the top 10 SS are communication, teamwork, stress management, problem-solving, conflict management, honesty, decision-making, adaptability, lifelong learning, and confidence. Additionally, the prediction model indicates a significant association between SS knowledge and experience (p < 0.001), academic level (p < 0.001), and SS training (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Nurses and healthcare technicians possess knowledge of SS despite the absence of formal training. Identifying the most important SS in this field is, therefore, invaluable for integration into training programmes for both healthcare professionals and students. Furthermore, additional studies are recommended on SS development and assessment.

O Tempo de Aprender e o silenciamento do letramento no processo de alfabetização

ABSTRACT This paper aims to analyse the conceptualisation of language and learning in the proposal of literacy in the continuing education course of the 2020 programme Tempo de Aprender for the National Policy for Literacy (Brasil, 2019). The study is characterised as qualitative with a descriptive and analytic focus, and the methodology will analyse official documents. The empirical material for analysis corresponds to axle 1 (Continuing education for literacy professionals) and axle 2 (pedagogical support guiding the teacher education programme). In the context of the investigation, we highlight two analytical topics: (1) Where are the study phonological awareness, promotion of metalinguistic curiosity and playfulness, which were current in the literacy education courses for teachers? and (2) where are reflection about the literacy united to practices of reading and writing in academic productions in Brazil? In this paper we will emphasise the first topic. Results of the investigation abled the identification of some weakness in the proposal of the course, that is: hierarchisation of knowledge from smaller units to larger ones in the process of learning to read and write; standardisation of phonics instruction as a teaching proposal; and motor training to improve spelling. The highlighted topics demonstrated the silenced literacy in the process of learning how to read and write.

Geographies of storage

AbstractResource storage has long played a key role in the production of socio‐ecological arrangements and economic relations. Even so, storage as a concept has remained somewhat marginal within geographical scholarship, often obscured by an analytical focus on the dynamics of movement. Reviewing recent works from geography, science and technology studies, and anthropology that center sites and practices of storage, this essay elaborates the diverse ways in which storage arrangements mediate resource circulation and the production of space. This literature demonstrates that thinking systematically with storage can illuminate a range of novel temporal, material, and value entanglements in‐the‐making, pointing to potentially fruitful avenues for future research.

Disinformation-for-Hire as Everyday Digital Labor: Introduction to the Special Issue

This introduction for the special issue “Disinformation-for-Hire as Everyday Digital Labor” carves out a specific area of inquiry within the ever-growing field of disinformation studies, with its sharp focus on the commercial transactions, organizational logics, and entrepreneurial practices that propel the production of disinformation. Inspired by traditions of political economy, media production studies, and everyday life approaches, this framework draws analytical focus to (1) the slow-burn horror of disinformation as everyday digital labor; (2) the diverse industries and workers engaged in disinformation production; and (3) regulatory areas beyond social media content policy and platform-centric accountability—especially relevant in the Global Majority context. Furthermore, this essay discusses how digital labor studies need to engage more directly with the ways disinformation thrives in the gray in-betweens of formal/informal and licit/illicit digital economies. The essays in our collection mobilize “disinformation-for-hire” as a valuable analytical frame that lays bare disinformation as a product of commercial and political complicities in the late capitalist arrangement of transnational digital industries.

Debating representations of the 2019 Hong Kong protests online: New evidence for ‘metalinguistic density’

The current paper replicates findings related to the analytical heuristic of ‘metalinguistic density’. It provides updated theoretical motivations for an analytical focus on explicit metalanguage in online text-based settings, based on notions of symbolic interactionism. An analysis of online user comment data of the 2019 Hong Kong protests reconfirms that the relative occurrence of metalanguage focusing on certain terms indicates the extent to which these terms’ denotational norms are shared amongst a community of language users.While most terms in the corpus do not regularly attract explicit metalanguage, several terms thematically related to the protests did. This disproportionate metalinguistic attention may be explained by political disputes on the movement's legitimacy, which led to normative debates on the discursive representation of the protest movement. Finally, certain phrases had become indexical of a certain political position to the extent that they were the frequent target of irony. In general, the results suggests that ‘metalinguistic density’ is a useful heuristic to employ in text-analytical investigations that seek to explain participants’ interpretations of discursive interactions.

Open for business: the discursive diffusion of regulatory sandboxes for fintech innovation

ABSTRACT Within a timespan of a few years, regulatory sandboxes, a novel initiative for testing fintech innovations, have spread to financial conduct authorities across the world. We study the discursive diffusion of this regulatory innovation as evidence of a broader reconfiguration of relations between the financial sector and its regulators. To do so, we analyse media articles, policy documents, and political speeches, identifying the logics and arguments used to diffuse rhetorical sandboxes. Based on the initial mapping, we detail the anatomy of three national arguments, showing how the underlying rationales for establishing sandboxes are variously reproduced across the contexts of the UK, Singapore, and Denmark. In each case, we find, innovation is posited as a driver of competition, which, in turn, leads to economic growth. Through regulatory sandboxes, financial regulators are becoming actively involved in the promotion of innovation and, hence, continue to rely on and reproduce the exhausted promissory legitimacy of neoliberalism. Whilst appearing to depoliticize the field of finance, the assumption that regulators should be ‘open for business’ is in itself political; as such, we argue, it needs to be approached more critically, which becomes possible by shifting the analytical focus from discursive diffusion to rhetorical struggle.

Analysis Options for Urban Green Spaces Based on Unified Urban Masks: Selected Results for European Cities

At a time of rising urbanisation and climate change, urban green spaces (UGSs) are an essential element to help adapt to extreme weather events. Especially in urban core areas, heat and drought are regarded as human stress factors. The delineation of such areas constitutes an important reference geometry in topographic geodata (urban mask). This article deals with possibilities for investigating UGSs in European cities—based on unified urban masks—by applying city-wide metrics to Copernicus data (Urban Atlas including the Street Tree Layer). Both public and tree-covered urban green spaces are examined in detail. Selected results are presented for 30 European cities that display a wide range of urban structures. The spatial reference to uniformly delineated urban masks places the analytical focus of city-wide metrics onto corresponding core areas. In general, the values of UGS metrics vary considerably between cities, indicating the strong influence of city-specific factors on urban structures in Europe. For the comparative analysis of tree-covered urban areas, the Urban Green Raster Germany and a municipal tree register are used to provide additional data sources. The regular updating of the Copernicus dataset means that green spaces in European cities can be monitored, also using urban masks.

POVERTY IN BULGARIA: A GENERAL CHALLENGE

The current article is not committed to the complex task of providing solutions to the deepening unfavorable economic situation in the country, but rather to put an emphasis on one of the most pressing problems for society in Bulgaria - poverty. European statistics report that our country faces the highest risk of poverty compared to other members of the European Union. Among those most at risk are some of the working people - the so-called working poor, children and persons over 65 years of age. Bulgaria is the EU-27 country with the highest inequality in income distribution and a low poverty threshold. The research has an empirical and analytical focus, considering indicators that have a direct relationship to the high proportion of the poor population in our country.

Crossing the Boundaries of Gender: Care Experiences Among Bolivian Aymara Migrant Women in the Andean Triple-Border

This article addresses the results of an ethnography study on the cross-border experiences of Bolivian Aymara women in the Chilean territories of the Andean Triple-border (between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia). Its objective is to test the assumptions of the international literature on the relationship between gender inequalities, care, and migration. Its analytical focus is on the relationship between (1) the constitution of inequalities in the gender division of labor in the women's families and ethnic communities, (2) their productive and reproductive overloads, and (3) the articulation of female care chains that sustain cross-border mobilities.

What kind of discipline are we? A network analysis of British Politics

AbstractResearch on British politics has traditionally been too reliant on a single model for understanding its field of inquiry—initially the Westminster model and then, since the 2000s, the governance-focused ‘differentiated polity model’. It has also been criticised for being preoccupied by the institutions that make up the Westminster system in terms of its substantive analytical focus, neglecting theory and international comparisons, failing to learn from other disciplines, and neglecting issues of age, gender, ethnicity and the environment (Marsh in Br Polit 7:43–54, 2012; Randall in Br Polit 7:17–29, 2012; BJPIR in Br J Polit Int Relat 24:3–10, 2022). This article aims to substantiate some of these claims using a network analysis of articles published in the journal British Politics to illuminate the who and the what of contemporary British politics research: Who authors it, which communities they form, what topics they focus on, and how they relate to the rest of the discipline. The evidence presented paints a picture of a valuable, but also still somewhat insular and fragmented discipline, and one that is itself inflected by structured inequalities.

Actualizing societal membership in imaginary interaction: The "real construction of society" in the opening of current affairs TV discussion.

The wonder of modern mass-scale society has preoccupied sociological theorists for centuries. How does the whole live on and function? At the extreme of strong empirical traditions, conversation analysis focuses on studying the interactional organization of ongoing action and identities. My article puts these two inquiries together to explore the broader relevancies of situated talk and evidence the skillfulness of social actors in managing multi-scaled cultural memberships simultaneously. Approaching society as a processual accomplishment, this article investigates the instantiation of "societal membership" in a mundane institutional setting of broadcast television. The aim of the article is to experiment with how classical theoretical conceptualization can feed into methodological insight and how detailed empirical scrutiny can enrich our theoretical understanding of the mysteries of modern co-existence. This entails casting an analytic eye on the duality of structure and action. The article re-examines the structural scope of on-site interactional achievements. From an opposite angle, it highlights how integrative societal structures are made real and maintained in the art of interactional encounters. This two-way dynamic is exemplified by scrutinizing a fragment of a televised current affairs program. A set of theoretical key concepts is introduced to shed light on the societal orientations of participants in the opening talk of the program. The opening talk addresses an imaginary audience directly via the camera. It provides a view of the interactional methods used by journalists to invoke relevant identifications for the anticipated recipient at a distance. The encounter is imagined, yet instead of imagining a community in the reception, the analytic focus of the article is on actualizing society in the production of the talk. The spatially and temporally organized societal membership materializes in social relations and interdependencies, which are constituted through intersubjective interpretations, normative positionings, and interactional choices by intentional and knowledgeable actors in the routines of everyday life. The article reverse-engineers the relational framework of the deliberative public sphere enacted in mediated interaction as a collaborative scene of the democratic system. This is achieved by explicating the contextually embedded acts of societization taking place in a journalistically regulated field of participation by means of quasi-interactive public speech.

The Graduate School Pipeline and First-Generation/Working-Class Inequalities

Sociological research has long been interested in inequalities generated by and within educational institutions. Although relatively rich as a literature, less analytic focus has centered on educational mobility and inequality experiences within graduate training specifically. In this article, we draw on a combination of survey and open-ended qualitative data from approximately 450 graduate students in the discipline of sociology to analyze graduate school pipeline divergences for first-generation and working-class students and the implications for inequalities in tangible resources, advising and support, and a sense of isolation. Our results point to an important connection between private undergraduate institutional enrollment and higher-status graduate program attendance—a pattern that undercuts social-class mobility in graduate training and creates notable precarities in debt, advising, and sense of belonging for first-generation and working-class graduate students. We conclude by discussing the unequal pathways revealed and their implications for merit and mobility, graduate training, and opportunity within our and other disciplines.

The concentration booth and the handshaking lane: ideologies of the phatic

Abstract Scholars of language and culture have effectively used the language ideology concept to critique the referentialist assumption in the post-Enlightenment conceptualization of language and society. Continuing with this critical project, this article attempts a further reorientation of our analytic metalanguage to explore the ideology of the phatic, the way in which salient emphasis is placed on problems regarding communicative channels of contact. The article identifies this ideology in the increasingly visible role played by phatic labor and its concrete manifestations in scenes of service and affective labor in contemporary Japan. Two separate instances are analyzed to reveal their common engagement with channels of contact as a metapragmatic concern. First, I analyze one Japanese restaurant chain’s attempt to design and control the material zone of contact in dining experience, as indicative of the larger tendency in the contemporary economy to standardize consumer desire at the level of the phatic. Second, I look to the culture of celebrity, especially popular idols, and examine the institutionalization of fan-idol contact that has become a hegemonic marketing strategy. These cases witness rituals of public encounter that either work to hybridize human speech acts with nonhuman speech-actants inhabiting the material environment of contact, or to regulate forms of interaction deemed detrimental to the channel of affect through monitoring, interruption, and other forms of phatic policing. I use this analysis to draw attention to the necessity of taking the phatic function seriously in the scholarly exploration of language ideology. While scholars in various fields have frequently spoken of the centrality of communicative labor in postindustrial societies, the analytic focus on ideologization of the phatic offers a more precise theoretical and empirical framework for examining how communication is fetishized as the central site of political and economic intervention.

EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF POSTOPERATIVE GASTROINTESTINAL NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCY IN NGAOUNDERE HOSPITALS, ADAMAWA REGION, CAMEROON

Background and objective: Undernutrition is defined as an insufficient intake of nutritional foods. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiological aspect of postoperative gastrointestinal nutritional deficiency in Ngaoundere Hospitals. Methods: It was a prospective, cross-sectional study with an analytical focus, over a 5-month period from July to November 2022. Undernutrition was defined by the presence of at least one phenotypic criteria plus one etiological criteria. Logistic regression for multivariate analyses, and the Chi-square test for univariate analyses, were used to identify the determinants of undernutrition. A difference was considered significant if p<0.05. Results: A total of 134 patients were included in the current study. Males were the most represented, with rates of 82.09%. The average age of patients was 36±17.78. Undernutrition at discharge was observed in 110 patients (82.09%). Endogenous risk factors associated with the occurrence of undernutrition were: Muslim religion, persistent symptoms, emergency surgery modality, nutritional grades, postoperative nausea, and diarrhea (p<0.0001); the protective one was minor surgery (p<0.0001). Exogenous risk factors for undernutrition included failure to meet carbohydrate, protein, and calorie targets on day-3 and at discharge (p<0.0001). Finally, in multivariate analysis, persistent symptoms (p=0.02), minor surgery (p=0.04), presence of diarrhea (p=0.01), and failure to meet caloric targets were independently associated with undernutrition at discharge. Conclusion: The incidence of post-digestive surgery undernutrition is relatively high in the 2 hospitals in Adamawa, Cameroon. It, therefore, requires early detection and management. Peer Review History: Received: 7 September 2023; Revised: 2 October; Accepted: 9 November, Available online: 15 November 2023 Academic Editor: Dr. A.A. Mgbahurike, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, amaka_mgbahurike@yahoo.com Received file: Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 6.0/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.0/10 Reviewers: Prof. Hassan A.H. Al-Shamahy, Sana'a University, Yemen, shmahe@yemen.net.ye Dr. Owanaro Peter, Nigeria, Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. owonaropeter@gmail.com