Association Conference Research Articles

Actors and structures in politics

This manuscript reports, with minor variations, the opening Key Lecture of the Italian Political Science Association Conference held in Trieste on September 12, 2024. This text consists of tentative but hopefully not random thoughts on the topic of the relationship between ‘actors’ and ‘structures’ in politics. It defends some lines of research that the author regards as definitely needed in the current state of the discipline. It covers a great number of complex topics that is compelled to treat succinctly and for this owes apologies to the audience. The title includes three terms; actors, structures and politics. The first two terms do not require special clarification, except for two points. First, they are used as synonymous of the terms ‘micro’ (referring to actors) and ‘macro’ (referring to structures). Second, the text avoids to enter in the extensive theoretical literature that discuss the terms ‘structure’ and ‘structuralism’. The term ‘structure’ is used for the ‘constellation of political actors’, as discussed later in the text. In this context, the term ‘politics’ means simply that the relationship between actors and structures will be seen from the specific point of view of political science. This is a vantage point of view with respect to how the problem is usually framed in sociology and economics.

Analysis of Legal Verbiage in State Legislation for Insurer Coverage of Early Eyedrop Refills in the United States

State laws on early eyedrop refills, implemented to help patients obtain their medications when they run out early, have many inconsistencies possibly impacting their efficacy and functionality. This study sought to examine different state laws and elucidate unique features and commonalities that may influence their effectiveness. A review of all state legislation to date regarding early eyedrop refills was performed. All 50 states were included, with an in-depth review of the 33 states that had early eyedrop refill legislation. The law database Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis) and each state's individual law code site were used to identify relevant laws (or proposed legislation) using keywords such as "eyedrop," "eye," "refill," and "early." Political data based on the year these laws were passed was obtained from the National Governor's Association and National Conference of State Legislatures. This data was aggregated and analyzed using descriptive statistics. State law wording was analyzed for percentage of dosage period passed, days passed, and other requirements. Of the 33 states with early eyedrop refill laws, 14 were only days based, 8 were only percentage based, 4 had both, 4 had neither percentage nor days criteria, and 3 had neither but cited CMS guidelines. These laws were passed between 2009-2023, with a notable increase from 2014-2018, rising from 10 to 29 states. Regionally, the Northeast had the highest adoption rate (88%), followed by the West (77%), the South (56%), and the Midwest (50%). Political climates varied: 14 states had Republican control, 2 had Democratic control, and 17 had mixed party control. Of the 17 states without an early eyedrop refill law 4 attempted passage but were not put into law for various reasons with the other 13 not appearing to have had any attempts at law passage. State laws providing coverage for early eyedrop refills vary in terms of verbiage and requirements necessary to obtain a covered early eyedrop refill. Region, political climate, and year appear to play minor roles in early eyedrop refill verbiage and passage.

Edith Wharton Society Panels: Edith Wharton and Emotion at the American Literature Association Conference, Chicago, 22–25 May 2024, organized by Margaret Jay Jessee

Edith Wharton Society Panels: Edith Wharton and Emotion at the American Literature Association Conference, Chicago, 22–25 May 2024, organized by Margaret Jay Jessee

Miguel Cardona addresses FAFSA, students’ civil rights

LAS VEGAS — When U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona came to the national Education Writer's Association conference in June, it was expected that his interview was going to touch on some of the hottest topics in higher education today, namely the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and campus protests.

Leadership from the extreme periphery to the mainstream? A reflection on the critical journey and how traditioning might offer a Pentecostal denomination a rediscovery of ancient paths

ABSTRACT This paper was given as a keynote at the 2022 conference of the European Pentecostal Theological Association (EPTA). Drawing on a doctoral study 1 1 Foster, “Authority and Authenticity in the Leadership of the British Assemblies of God”. that explored the leadership and organizational culture of a Pentecostal denomination – British Assemblies of God (AoG) – an ecclesiological ethnography 2 2 Principles and techniques drawn from a long-term involvement with Ward and Scharen’s, Ecclesiology and Ethnography.; see also Ward, ed. Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography;Scharen, ed. Exporations in Ecclesiology and Ethnoggraphy. Healy, “Ecclesiology, Ethnography and God”.; Fiddes, “Ecclesiology and Ethnography”. approach is taken in this paper to combine resultant research insights with reflections from the author’s involvement in the leadership of a local Pentecostal church through two difficult leadership transitions and the consequent spiritual formation journey. The possible future implications for Pentecostal leaders of the adoption of Pete Scazzero’s 3 3 Scazerro, The Emotionally Healthy Leader. Emotionally Healthy Leadership (EHL) teachings in the first year of AoG’s Ministers in Training (MIT) programme are anticipated and Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich’s 4 4 Hagberg and Guelich, The Critical Journey. Critical Journey framework applied to analyze likely issues for Pentecostal leaders when rediscovering ancient paths (Jer 6:16). By casting an ethnographic gaze in the direction of a key denomination in the UK charismatic movement 5 5 Vineyard Churches UK & Ireland, led by John and Debbie Wright. that is already journeying this path and by paying attention to the thought leadership with the rising popularity of mentees of Dallas Willard. 6 6 For example, John Mark Comer’s ministry Practicing the Way and Bill and Kristi Gaultiere's ministry Soul Shepherding. Underpinning the paper is Simon Chan’s 7 7 Chan, Pentecostal Theology. notion of Pentecostal Traditioning employed both to provide foundational context and possible future trajectories. Similar to Elijah’s servant, these insights and reflections may presently seem to be nothing or we may have to look seven times before we see them as small as a man’s hand (1 Kings 18:43–44). However, this paper seeks to offer a practical-prophetic voice 8 8 A Practical-Prophetic voice focuses theological attention on the state of the concrete seen church; engages with other traditions of enquiry and their embodiments that bear upon the concrete identity of the church namely history, sociology, cultural analysis and ethnography; and offers a critical voice into the present and possible future see Healy, Church, World and the Christian Life. proposing the possibilities for bringing practices rooted in contemplative and monastic traditions from the periphery to the mainstream of Pentecostalism spiritual development and leadership.

Miguel Cardona on FAFSA and students’ civil rights

LAS VEGAS – When Education Secretary Miguel Cardona came to the national Education Writer's Association conference in June, it was expected that his interview was going to touch on some of the hottest topics in higher education today, namely FAFSA and campus protests.

Miguel Cardona on FAFSA and students’ civil rights

LAS VEGAS – When Education Secretary Miguel Cardona came to the national Education Writer's Association conference in June, it was expected that his interview was going to touch on some of the hottest topics in higher education today, namely FAFSA and campus protests.

Editorial and tribute to Janette Poulton

This special issue of the Journal of Philosophy in Schools is based on papers presented at the Federation of Asia-Pacific Philosophy in Schools Associations (FAPSA) conference on Communities of Inquiry: Significance, Cultural Change and the Ongoing Relationship to P4C, and held at the University of Melbourne from 1 to 3 October 2022.

58th Western Literature Association Conference

58th Western Literature Association Conference

The development and trial of beyond 2050 polylogues as a tool for future-thinking in business tourism

ABSTRACT In this methodology research letter, we describe the development, piloting and large-scale trial of an experimental concurrent group discussion approach. Specifically, we detail how we used provocative 2050 scenarios to ‘open up’ future thinking, facilitate multiple polylogues and efficiently collect large sample qualitative data. The method was trialled with 120 business tourism professionals at the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) conference in Glasgow in 2023. We conclude by reflecting on our learning from the large-scale trial and consider how this method can be developed for other tourism research applications.

Each friend of 10 has at least 10 nonidentical prime factors

For each positive integer n, if the sum of the factors of n is divided by n, then the result is called the abundancy index of n. If the abundancy index of some positive integer m equals the abundancy index of n but m is not equal to n, then m and n are called friends. A positive integer with no friends is called solitary. The smallest positive integer that is not known to have a friend and is not known to be solitary is 10.It is not known if the number 6 has odd friends, that is, if odd perfect numbers exist. In a 2007 article, Nielsen proved that the number of nonidentical prime factors in any odd perfect number is at least 9. A 2015 article by Nielsen, which was more complicated and used a computer program that took months to complete, increased the lower bound from 9 to 10.This work applies methods from Nielsen’s 2007 article to show that each friend of 10 has at least 10 nonidentical prime factors.This is a formal write-up of results presented at the Southern Africa Mathematical Sciences Association Conference 2023 at the University of Pretoria.

Nil Darpan: how a mistakenly published play helped force labour reforms in British India

In 1860s India, Bengali playwright Dinabandhu Mitra wrote the play Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror), an exposé of violent abuses committed against Indian farm workers by powerful British indigo dealers. With help from a Christian missionary, the play was translated into English and shared with the office of Bengal’s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir John Peter Grant. Grant approved a few copies to be printed to share with colleagues; instead, hundreds were mistakenly printed and distributed to Parliament members in England, outraging and embarrassing the British Raj. But would the amusing debacle help bring positive change to Indian labourers? The events of the Nil Darpan controversy are well-known to historians but have often been mythologised and misrepresented. The author provides a unique perspective on the events by comparing and contrasting the news media’s coverage of the Nil Darpan controversy, and Bengali theatre and film artists’ reactions to it, using his own findings from Indian, UK and US newspapers of the era ranging from 1859 to 1917. This article is based on a lecture given at the annual Fulbright Association Conference in October 2023 held in Denver, Colorado.

Inter-observer variation of head and foot point selection for subject height determination.

The purpose of this study was to examine factors affecting video analysts' decisions in marking the vertex of the head and foot point and corresponding inter-observer marking variances when conducting height analysis on individuals seen in video. Nineteen video analysts participated in an exercise at the 2022 Ontario Forensic Video Analysts' Association (OFVAA) conference where they were asked to mark the vertex of the head and a corresponding foot point of a "suspect" on extracted video frames in a variety of positions and with different headwear (no headwear, baseball cap, and hoodie). A height scale with discrete marking points located at the same positions as where the suspect was positioned was also included in a separate image set, offering a comparison to the suspect. Marked points for all analysts were overlayed onto the respective image frame for visual observations. Summary statistics were used for data interpretation. This study demonstrated that factors such as the suspect's proximity to the camera and suspect's headwear affected the variability and range of marking, which has a direct correlation to the estimated height of the suspect. In general, when the region to be marked was larger, the variability was also larger. This study also demonstrates that marking errors were significantly reduced when discrete marking locations were present such as on a height scale. The average percentage difference of height was most notable, approximately 3%, when the suspect was wearing a hoodie and was at a position closest to the camera. The range of the percentage difference was also the highest at this position, which was 10.6%. In comparison, the height scale had a maximum percent height difference of 0.6% at position D-5, the furthest position from the camera. The range at this location was approximately 2%, which was also the highest range value for the height scale. Future studies should consider suspect posture and look at how these errors may be minimized by examining the best locations to mark the head and foot points under different scenarios.

Inaugural Brij Lal Memorial Lecture: Belonging, and Banishment from and in the Sea of Islands

ABSTRACT This is a written version of the Inaugural Brij Lal Memorial Lecture delivered for the Pacific History Association (PHA) conference at Warrnambool on 4 November 2023. It is in memory of Brij V. Lal, who died on 25 December 2021. In November 2009 he, and later his wife Padma Narsey Lal, were banished by Fiji’s military regime from their birthplace. This address considers the troubled questions of belonging and banishment in Oceania. The first section explores this in relation to Brij’s life, as well as other examples of political exile. The second part considers how other Oceanians might not quite belong because of the circumstances of their parentage or gender, or through the different mental and embodied spaces they inhabited. The lecture concludes by posing questions about how the present is invested in the past, and what the future holds for Oceanians who may be forced, chosen, or persuaded to leave their islands.

What is Religious Studies?

This address was given in-person at the 2023 annual conference of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion, hosted by the Institute for Ethics and Society at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney. The purpose of the address was to raise the question about the fundamental aspects of our thinking about religion, and via this process of inquiry to underline the importance of our relationship to words, ideas, and their meaning. So as not to take for granted our existing relationship to the language we use, but to recognise that we are always and already in such a relationship. Thinking about religion, therefore, becomes not only the process but the nature of our being in relation to what we understand about religion. The talk drew upon my reflection on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the mysticism of Meister Eckhart, and Zen Buddhism—the cross section of which was made particularly significant for me in reading Caputo’s The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought. All of this, however, is underpinned by the methodological remarks made by Trompf about religious studies in In Search of Origins; something that has stayed with me since my time studying at the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney.

Use of Digital COVID-19 Exposure Notifications at a Large Gathering: Survey Analysis of Public Health Conference Attendees.

WA Notify was Washington State's smartphone-based COVID-19 digital exposure notification (EN) tool, which was used to help limit the spread of COVID-19 between November 30, 2020, and May 11, 2023. Following the 2022 Washington State Public Health Association Annual Conference, attendees who had WA Notify activated began receiving ENs alerting them to a possible COVID-19 exposure during the conference. A survey was emailed to all conference attendees to measure WA Notify adoption, mechanisms through which attendees received ENs, and self-reported engagement in protective behaviors postexposure. This study aimed to learn more about the experiences of WA Notify adopters and nonadopters who may have been exposed to COVID-19 at a large group gathering. A web-based survey administered through REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture; Vanderbilt University) was sent to all attendees of the Washington State Public Health Association conference. Self-reported demographic information and characteristics of respondents were summarized. Regression models were used to estimate relative risks to compare WA Notify adoption and testing behaviors between groups. Of the 464 total registered attendees who were sent the survey, 205 (44%) responses were received; 201 eligible attendees were included in this analysis. Of those, 149 (74%) respondents reported having WA Notify activated on their phones at the time of the conference. Among respondents with WA Notify activated, 54% (n=77) reported learning of their potential exposure from a WA Notify EN. Respondents who reported that they did not have WA Notify activated and learned of their potential exposure via the event-wide email from conference organizers were 39% less likely to test for COVID-19 compared to respondents with WA Notify activated who learned of their potential exposure from the email (relative risk 0.61, 95% CI 0.40-0.93; P=.02), and this gap was even larger when compared to respondents who learned of their exposure from a WA Notify EN. The most commonly cited reason for not having WA Notify activated was privacy concerns (n=17, 35%), followed by not wanting to receive ENs (n=6, 12%) and being unaware of WA Notify (n=5, 10%). Digital EN systems are an important tool to directly and anonymously notify close contacts of potential exposures and provide guidance on the next steps in a timely manner. Given the privacy concerns, there is still a need for increasing transparency surrounding EN technology to increase uptake by the public if this technology were to be used in the future to slow the spread of communicable diseases.

9th Conference of the European Association of Health Law, Warsaw, Poland, 18–20 September 2024

9th Conference of the European Association of Health Law, Warsaw, Poland, 18–20 September 2024

Abstracts from the Transplant Nurses’ Association Conference 2023

Abstracts from the Transplant Nurses’ Association Conference 2023

Highlights from the Transplant Nurses’ Association Conference 2023

Highlights from the Transplant Nurses’ Association Conference 2023

Time, the Middle Stone Age and lithic analyses following the Third Science Revolution

ABSTRACT This paper is a response to the conference session ‘Generic MSA: fact or fiction?’ held as part of the PanAfrican Association Conference in 2022 in Unguja, Tanzania. It questions the validity of the concept of a ‘generic Middle Stone Age’ and goes beyond the simple debate of terminology that has persisted for nearly 75 years. Instead, it uses this as a starting point to discuss the past, present and future of lithic analyses, including the history of terminology in the African Stone Age, the current topics of lithic enquiry and the role of lithic analysis following the Third Science Revolution. It highlights the effect of tensions between science versus humanities approaches and provides suggestions for future lithic analysts. Lithic studies remain of great importance but are only one source of evidence in modern interdisciplinary human origins research. The paper contends that there is not a single approach suitable for all sites or regions since analyses are contingent upon the questions being asked. Instead, it emphasises opportunities for multivocality and suggests that despite the focus here on the Middle Stone Age the conclusions reached are more widely applicable to other times and places.