Clear Sense Research Articles

Purpose, Spirituality and Moderate Secularism: The Contribution of Religious Institutions to Purpose Development

Building on moderate secularism, this article proposes a contribution that religious institutions could make to the common good of pluralistic societies, making more salient their relevance in the public sphere. In particular, based on the latest academic research on the many personal and social benefits of having a clear sense of purpose, it is explored whether religious institutions could contribute to identifying and developing the person’s purpose as a central aspect of spiritual growth, and how to take on this task with the specific means religious institutions have available. Purpose is understood as a superordinate/second-order aim that organises short-term or low-level goals in a way that they are interconnected and can be read teleologically, and which necessarily includes a self-transcendence or other-regarding dimension. Even though this transcendence has, for many nowadays, a purely secular/horizontal meaning, it is argued that religious institutions should get involved in deliberately fostering purpose in a well-informed way, since purpose is a component of spiritual development. In addition, this could help to widen participation and reconnect with those who have moved away from institutional religion but still have a clear concern for spiritual development: the spiritual ‘seekers’, regaining their interest. This poses the challenge of bridging the gap between horizontal and vertical self-transcendence.

Wear estimation at the contact surfaces of oval shaped hip implants using finite element analysis

The hip joint is one of the most essential joints for transmitting weights to the lower abdomen during day-to-day activities. Loosening of hip implants is mostly caused by wear. The wear assessment during the design stage offers a clear sense of the implant’s life expectancy, and modest adjustments in the design may also greatly enhance the implant’s life expectancy, lowering the probability of revision surgery. Linear wear is estimated at the contact surfaces of the femoral head to the acetabular cup and the acetabular cup to the backing cup in this study. In this work, oval-shaped hip implant is considered with a femoral head diameter of 28 mm, an acetabular cup thickness of 4 mm, and a backing cup thickness of 2 mm. The Archard’s law used to estimate the linear wear rate. It is observed that when the acetabular cup is made of UHWMPE and the stem, femoral head, and backing cup are made of CoCr, the least overall deformation is 0.394 mm during walking loads. When the stem is considered Ti−6Al−4 V and the acetabular cup of UHWMPE, the minimum wear between the femoral head and acetabular cup is 0.063 mm/year. During a typical standing posture, an acetabular cup-to-backing cup wear rate of 0.007 mm/year is estimated. Overall, the CoCr material combination had the lowest wear rate in the four activities considered for this work. These implants designs can be 3D-printed and further can be tested in a hip simulator under the same loading conditions.

Identity profiles, motivations for attending university and study-related burnout: differences between Finnish students in professional and non-professional fields

Research suggests that the reported increase in student mental health issues such as study burnout might be related to students’ identity problems and their motivations for undertaking higher education. The present study added to this line of research by investigating the associations between identity profiles, motives for attending university and study burnout in a sample of Finnish first-year university students (N = 430). Field of study (professional vs non-professional) as a factor was also evaluated because differing occupational prospects might influence one’s sense of identity. The results showed that (1) three identity profiles emerged (i.e. achievement, moderate moratorium and diffusion), (2) students in the achievement profile scored lowest on burnout, (3) the achievement profile was the most common among students studying for entry to a profession and (4) students in the achievement profile scored highest on internal motives for attending university. It is concluded that most students lack a clear sense of identity and that identity measures may be more appropriate in predicting study progression and well-being than motives for attending university or engaging in a field of study.

Moving the Millers' Minnie Moore Mine Mansion: A True Story by Dave Eggers

Reviewed by: Moving the Millers' Minnie Moore Mine Mansion: A True Story by Dave Eggers April Spisak Eggers, Dave Moving the Millers' Minnie Moore Mine Mansion: A True Story; illus. by Júlia Sardà. Candlewick, 2023 [56p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781536215885 $19.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 2-4 "Like all of the best stories, this takes place in Idaho," and with that irresistible first line, Eggers dives into a clever, buoyant, and fascinating nonfiction story of a house, a woman, and, eventually, her pigs. The story of the mine itself is told with brevity and wit: a dog accidentally finds silver, a mine is subsequently built there, and it becomes quite successful under the watch of Henry Miller. Miller decides to find a wife, Annie, and builds her a mansion as a wedding gift, a wild extravagance in 1880s Idaho. From then on, Annie is the star of this story as she struggles to provide for her son after Henry dies. She ultimately decides to raise pigs, but after it becomes clear their town Bellevue does not permit livestock in yards, she makes a brilliant, outlandish decision: she will move her mansion out of the town limits. That process, down to intricate details described with unbridled enthusiasm by Eggers (who clearly thinks this is just as cool as readers likely will) closes out the [End Page 290] story, with a quick note at the end that the house still stands. The absurdity of the tale itself is a delight, and the wandering path from lucky dog to a yard full of pigs is peppered with clever asides, an informal and inviting tone, and enough historical context to conjure up a clear sense of the time, location, and series of events. The digital illustrations ably tell the rest of the story, calling up an Edward Gorey-like style mixed with washed out colors of the Old West. Expansive use of full-page spreads slows the pace and offer striking and often humorous details that reward the careful observer. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Psychopathology and Atmospheres: Neither Inside Nor Outside

Psychopathology and Atmospheres: Neither Inside Nor Outside

Beyond Rape Culture? Toward A Theory of the Work of Rape

Beyond Rape Culture? Toward A Theory of the Work of Rape

Do They Have a Choice? Surrogate Decision-Making After Severe Acute Brain Injury.

In the early phase of severe acute brain injury (SABI), surrogate decision-makers must make treatment decisions in the face of prognostic uncertainty. Evidence-based strategies to communicate uncertainty and support decision-making are lacking. Our objective was to better understand surrogate experiences and needs during the period of active decision-making in SABI, to inform interventions to support SABI patients and families and improve clinician-surrogate communication. We interviewed surrogate decision-makers during patients' acute hospitalization for SABI, as part of a larger ( n = 222) prospective longitudinal cohort study of patients with SABI and their family members. Constructivist grounded theory informed data collection and analysis. One U.S. academic medical center. We iteratively collected and analyzed semistructured interviews with 22 surrogates for 19 patients. None. Through several rounds of coding, interview notes, reflexive memos, and group discussion, we developed a thematic model describing the relationship between surrogate perspectives on decision-making and surrogate experiences of prognostic uncertainty. Patients ranged from 20 to 79 years of age (mean = 55 years) and had primary diagnoses of stroke ( n = 13; 68%), traumatic brain injury ( n = 5; 26%), and anoxic brain injury after cardiac arrest ( n = 1; 5%). Patients were predominantly male ( n = 12; 63%), whereas surrogates were predominantly female ( n = 13; 68%). Two distinct perspectives on decision-making emerged: one group of surrogates felt a clear sense of agency around decision-making, whereas the other group reported a more passive role in decision-making, such that they did not even perceive there being a decision to make. Surrogates in both groups identified prognostic uncertainty as the central challenge in SABI, but they managed it differently. Only surrogates who felt they were actively deciding described time-limited trials as helpful. In this qualitative study, not all surrogate "decision-makers" viewed themselves as making decisions. Nearly all struggled with prognostic uncertainty. Our findings underline the need for longitudinal prognostic communication strategies in SABI targeted at surrogates' current perspectives on decision-making.

Walls between groups: Self‐uncertainty, social identity, and intergroup leadership

AbstractLowering barriers between polarized groups and the identity silos they inhabit can be challenging in times of crisis and uncertainty. This article overviewsuncertainty‐identity theory’s analysis of the motivational role played by self‐uncertainty in group identification and group/intergroup behavior, and focuses on how self‐uncertainty can motivate zealous identification with “extremist” groups and identities. People need a clear sense of who they are to understand the world and their place within it, and to plan action and anticipate others’ behavior. They strive to reduce self‐uncertainty, and can achieve this by identifying with distinctive groups that have unambiguously defined social identities. Tumultuous social change can create identity threat, self‐uncertainty, and alienation from and marginalization in society. To reduce self‐uncertainty people zealously identify with ethnocentric, populist and xenophobic groups that are intolerant of dissent and have autocratic leaders—effectively building identity silos and walls between hyper‐polarized groups. Under these circumstances breaking down walls to reconcile polarized and hostile groups and identities is a challenge. I close by outliningintergroup leadership theory, and its implications for building harmony between polarized identities—a particular form of leadership and identity messaging plays a key role.

The Rhetorical Arts in Late Antique and Early Medieval Ireland, by Brian James Stone

The Rhetorical Arts in Late Antique and Early Medieval Ireland, by Brian James Stone

Employing James Gee’s Analytic Lens for Identity to Investigate Teacher Identity Development

The current article is an exploration of the construction and development of teacher identities at the tertiary level in Pakistan. Identity is the sense of who one is as a professional, and it is becoming evident that it is important for teachers at all levels to develop a clear sense of identity which is at harmony with their inner sense of self and personal values. There is evidence that successful identity construction leads to better practices and high level of commitment to the profession.

Kafka Verstehen: Text + Deutung by Gerhard Oberlin

Reviewed by: Kafka Verstehen: Text + Deutung by Gerhard Oberlin Andrew B. B. Hamilton Gerhard Oberlin, Kafka Verstehen: Text + Deutung. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2021. 284 pp. Who among us is not excited at the promise of the title? Kafka Verstehen is the first entry in the series Text + Deutung by Gerhard Oberlin. (Subsequent entries so far take on Kleist and Rilke.) The volume contains a selection of Kafka's texts, each piece of prose followed by a short essay of commentary and explanation, as well as a longer essay by way of introduction. The selection of texts includes some of Kafka's most important stories: the collections Betrachtung and Ein Landarzt as well as three longer stories: "Das Urteil," "Die Verwandlung," and "In der Strafkolonie." Understanding Kafka is no easy feat, and teaching Kafka entails a host of complications; any volume that offers a path forward is welcome. A selection of texts, gathered in one volume and supplemented by explanatory material, is immediately appealing for the teacher—I cannot be the only one—who has seen students struck dumb by Kafka, intrigued and curious, but simply unable to find a point of entry. Yet this is not that book, and it is not entirely clear what the author seeks to add to the literature on Kafka, a body long since known to be, as W. G. Sebald put it, "hypertrophic." What Oberlin writes in the introduction and in the commentaries seems to struggle to conceive of its audience. It is neither the kind of factual and contextual information readers find in student editions from Suhrkamp or Reclam nor an invitation to consider less trodden points of view, as might be welcome for readers already familiar with the biographical and interpretive basics—books like Dietrich Krusche's Kafka und Kafka-Deutung or Roberto Calasso's K. come to mind in this category. Nor is it a purely scholarly treatment, offering well-developed readings together with the texts they discuss. [End Page 85] The lack of clarity in purpose pervades the whole volume, and the reader will not make it far before the realization sets in that this will be no aid in understanding Kafka. Oberlin all but admits as much in the introduction, which does the reader no favors by relishing in complicating its own premise. "Da es um Verstehen geht, wäre zunächst zu fragen, was das eigentlich ist" (9), Oberlin writes at the outset. It may be conceptually sound to begin in such a reflective mode, but I would venture that a reader who picks up a book called Kafka Verstehen already has a pretty clear sense of what it would mean to understand Kafka and hopes for help from this book. Instead, that same paragraph builds to this supremely unhelpful conclusion: "Verstehen heißt letztlich sich selbst verstehen, und gelegentlich scheint bei Weitem nichts schwieriger als das" (9). The oracle at Delphi couldn't have put it better. Having gotten that out of the way, the introduction picks up steam fast, beginning with a short treatment of Kafka's infamous deathbed directive, then proceeding to a catalogue of complex ideas. "Alle Kommentare sind als Anregungen zum Verstehen, als Denkanstöße gesetzt," we read (8). And the impetuses for thought come hard and fast: the categories of "mythology," "alienation," and "reality," hints at psychoanalytical treatments of the author, metaphysical questions, comparisons to Wittgenstein, hermeneutic circles, the boundaries of language, the figure of the clown—the list goes on, each an invitation to a framework for understanding Kafka, rather than a tool for actual understanding. The question that never goes away amidst all this is: doesn't Kafka himself already give us plenty of Denkanstöße? What value is added by these open-ended invitations? Here are some examples of what this uncertainty about audience looks like. In the opening pages, Oberlin promises to use "eine Sprache, die man auch ohne Vor- und Fachwissen versteht" (8). This pronouncement is followed by remarkably many phrases in Latin and Greek, often without translation, throughout the book. Each story is followed by a treatment that resembles the introduction, but with particular attention to what the text in question called to mind...

Bring the World to the Child: Technologies of Global Citizenship in American Education by Katie Day Good

Reviewed by: Bring the World to the Child: Technologies of Global Citizenship in American Education by Katie Day Good Timothy Kelly Bring the World to the Child: Technologies of Global Citizenship in American Education. By Katie Day Good. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2020. xii + 279 pp. The COVID-19 pandemic both highlighted and amplified the role that technology plays in today's K–12 education and opened widespread debate about its efficacy, equity, and appropriateness. Katie Day Good suggests that we might reasonably be concerned with other questions as well, such as toward what ideological purpose these technologies might be aimed. She does so by exploring another push for greater integration of technology in the classroom that occurred a century earlier. Good sees this early to mid-twentieth-century movement to expand the use of technology in schools as coming from two sources. The first was a pedagogical reform initiative that urged teachers to expand beyond rote and textbook-based learning in favor of a rich immersion in imagery and sound that would allow students to use more of their senses to learn. The second was a growing conviction that Americans should become citizens of the world rather than see themselves as set apart from it. Good suggests that these two movements [End Page 327] converged "amidst rising social concerns about intercultural contact, mass media, and global war" (3). Advocates for implementing these technologies stressed their abilities to open the world to students, to allow them to see the foreign and exotic from the safety of the classroom, and to generate support for efforts by the United States to reshape that world to be more hospitable to American values. Good argues that "these media were more than mere AV aids; they were powerful 'devices' for efficiently preparing children to understand and uphold the dominant social values of native-born European Americans within an increasingly diverse United States, and ensure a dominant role for the nation in a changing international order" (27). The new technologies encompassed a wide range of media and included such innovations in sensory stimulation as stereoscopes, lantern slides, movies, and radio. Each of these allowed teachers to bring the world to their classrooms, to provide rich information about other places, cultures, and societies for students who might never leave their home counties. Educators and the for-profit producers of most of these technologies promoted them as sensorily powerful and safe ways to expose students to knowledge that they would otherwise have to travel to learn. The technologies would make students more cosmopolitan in their outlooks at a time when the United States had begun to expand its role in shaping the world. This greater international responsibility required that Americans shed their parochial outlooks. It also depended on students maintaining a high degree of surety that the world ought to conform to American ideals and interests. It demanded a sophisticated world view and a deeply felt patriotism. Even as progressive educators championed new technologies for their abilities to offer students a wider sensory experience, teachers often saw the virtues of some less cutting-edge "technologies." They favored maps for instance, bulletin boards, and pageants that celebrated America's embrace of ethnic diversity. Teachers could master these readily and they stimulated student learning. Schools could afford them. Good offers rich evidence revealing the goals that technology developers and promoters advanced for their products, as well as of the discourse that took place in educators' professional associations. We learn much about what interested adults intended these technologies to accomplish—or worried that they might do. Less clear is how students actually experienced the technologies. The sources for this are far more elusive and so we do not get a clear sense of whether students imbibed the lessons as the curriculum designers intended. In the midst of this early twentieth-century technology push, the world suffered a pandemic that killed far more people worldwide than COVID-19 [End Page 328] will likely claim. Given the powerful role that we saw the COVID-19 pandemic play in shaping technology advancements in K–12 education in recent years, it might be useful to consider the impact that the 1918 influenza outbreak played in this...

Faculty Development for Medical Faculty: Importance and Strategies

Unlike in the past, standards for the quantity and quality of work expected from medical school faculty are continuously rising, causing changes and stress in various areas. This highlights the need for career development among medical school faculty for professional, personal, organizational, and societal reasons. The role of medical school faculty has become more diverse, leading to an increase in the types and levels of competencies required. Medical schools must support their faculty members with diverse identities in fully utilizing their capabilities to achieve the institution’s mission. Furthermore, societal changes suggest that career development for medical school faculty will become even more crucial in the future. To achieve this, both individuals and organizations must make efforts and play appropriate roles. For this purpose, medical schools use a combination of promotion and tenure evaluations and faculty development programs, while individual faculty members follow a career path within the medical school environment. Medical school faculty must be able to meet the evolving demands at each stage of their careers. It is important for professors, who engage in career development, to have a clear sense of their identity and values, and to prioritize their career goals. Medical schools should also ensure that the implicit messages they convey align with the organization’s explicit values. Finally, proactively preparing for future changes in society and generations is essential from a long-term perspective.

Anthropology Majors Prepare for Life after College

AbstractUnlike business, health, or engineering courses, undergraduate liberal arts programs do not point majors directly to a professional application, so students often need to creatively explore and identify professional roles and workplaces in which to use their education. Anthropology presents particular challenges: while students may enroll in economics if their institution has no undergraduate business program, or biochemistry may function as premed, there is no clear sense of what comes after an anthropology degree. In 2018, the American Anthropological Association announced a new approach to understanding this issue through its Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Currently enrolled anthropology majors worked together with faculty mentors, collaboratively across universities, to do anthropological research on the question, “how do anthropology majors approach the question of what comes after college?” The research provided practical insights and recommendations to departments, faculty members, career counseling centers, and the students themselves. This special section comprises six papers: an introduction to the project and the field sites; four analytic papers in which student researchers and faculty mentors explore the topics, “how students come to major in anthropology,” “how students are changed by studying anthropology,” “what anthropology majors think about their professional future,” and “what resources are available to support students’ college‐to‐career transition”; and a reflective essay that considers the fellowship not as a research program but as a high‐impact pedagogical intervention. We show that, by participating in ethnographic research, student researchers become full members of the anthropology community who can give valuable recommendations for the future of the discipline.

On the road to achieving work-life balance in academia.

On the road to achieving work-life balance in academia.

The Etiquette of Equality

The Etiquette of Equality

Tracking Moored Vessel Movement in Multiple DOF Using Active Sensing Methods

Over the years, the economics of scale have caused vessels used for the transportation of goods to become increasingly larger, handling more containers. This increase in capacity (and particular in the dimensions of the vessels) leads to larger forces on the moored vessels during (un)loading operations, and as a result, the process becomes more prone to potential errors. One of those risks is the movement of the vessel that occurs despite of it being moored with a large number of mooring lines. These movements can cause the handling process to slow down, limiting harbor efficiency, and to potentially endanger harbor personnel. It is of great importance for harbors to get a clear sense of these movements so that they can be analyzed and help implement efficient measures to minimize any potential dangers. In this letter, several active sensing methods (SONAR, RADAR, and LiDAR) are used to try and capture these movements in multiple degrees of freedom, and their results are compared. Initially, the testing is done in a simulated harbor environment, and afterwards, the setups are validated in practice at several different active quays in the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, Belgium.

Harry S. Truman: An Ordinary Man, His Extraordinary Journey. Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, Independence, MO

<i>Harry S. Truman: An Ordinary Man, His Extraordinary Journey</i>. Harry S. Truman Library &amp; Museum, Independence, MO

The Borderlands

The Borderlands

Understanding tailoring to support the implementation of evidence-based interventions in healthcare: The CUSTOMISE research programme protocol.

Although there are effective evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to prevent, treat and coordinate care for chronic conditions they may not be adopted widely and when adopted, implementation challenges can limit their impact. Implementation strategies are "methods or techniques used to enhance the adoption, implementation, and sustainment of a clinical program or practice". There is some evidence to suggest that to be more effective, strategies should be tailored; that is, selected and designed to address specific determinants which may influence implementation in a given context. Despite the growing popularity of tailoring the concept is ill-defined, and the way in which tailoring is applied can vary across studies or lack detail when reported. There has been less focus on the part of tailoring where stakeholders prioritise determinants and select strategies, and the way in which theory, evidence and stakeholders' perspectives should be combined to make decisions during the process. Typically, tailoring is evaluated based on the effectiveness of the tailored strategy, we do not have a clear sense of the mechanisms through which tailoring works, or how to measure the "success" of the tailoring process. We lack an understanding of how stakeholders can be involved effectively in tailoring and the influence of different approaches on the outcome of tailoring. Our research programme, CUSTOMISE (Comparing and Understanding Tailoring Methods for Implementation Strategies in healthcare) will address some of these outstanding questions and generate evidence on the feasibility, acceptability, and efficiency of different tailoring approaches, and build capacity in implementation science in Ireland, developing and delivering training and supports for, and network of, researchers and implementation practitioners. The evidence generated across the studies conducted as part of CUSTOMISE will bring greater clarity, consistency, coherence, and transparency to tailoring, a key process in implementation science.