Related Concepts Research Articles

Development and Evaluation of an Out-of-Control Scale Measuring Global Contextual Stressors Across 20 Countries and Regions

Abstract: Stressful contexts like the COVID-19 pandemic precipitated remarkable socio-economic changes, exacerbating universal uncertainty and a pervasive loss of control. Improving mental health outcomes on the operational definition and measurement of related concepts. This study analyzed cross-sectional data from 20 countries and regions, collected between January 25 and November 10, 2021. Psychometric evaluation occurred in two stages: initially, item review and factor analysis with a 2,749 adult sample from Mainland of China and Hong Kong SAR; subsequently, confirmation of factor structure, measurement invariance testing, and advanced analyses with a 4,000 adult sample from 20 countries and regions. A six-item, single-factor structure was verified, confirming satisfactory factor loading, fit indices and consistency. Measurement invariance across geographies and groupings was also confirmed. Three Out-of-Control profiles representing low, medium, and high stress levels, were identified, with age, depression/anxiety symptoms, education, socio-economic status, and exposure to COVID-19-affected acquaintances significantly influencing affiliation. The item “I think I cannot control things that I previously could” was the most critical node. This newly validated scale represents a substantial advancement in measuring stress within the context of global health crises, thus enhancing comprehension of psychological responses. Continual evaluation of the scale’s effectiveness and accuracy is crucial.

Comparison of TMS 19 and IFRS in Directing Foreign Direct Investment to Employment

This study aims to examine TAS 19 and the International Financial Reporting System (IFRS) systems in order to direct foreign investment to employment. In this research, firstly, general information on related concepts was given, and then, in order to encourage foreign investment, TAS 19 and the IFRS system are compared in general. According to the results of the study, there is not enough incentive and ease in directing foreign investors to both the IAS 19 and UFDRS systems. When these two systems are compared with each other, it has been observed that TAS 19 is more effective in terms of employment oriented applications and directing foreign direct investment to employment, and responds more effectively than the IFRS system in many areas, especially from employee rights to investor's legal rights and regulations. TAS 19 is important for directing domestic investments to employment, and IFRS is important for bringing foreign direct investment to the country. It can be stated that the revision of TAS 19 to allow the free movement of capital in the international arena, similar to the IFRS system, will have positive contributions to the economy by increasing both field practices and increasing employment.

Assessment of knowledge integration in student learning of galvanic cell: An interdisciplinary approach connecting physics and chemistry

The galvanic cell is a typical interdisciplinary topic, which is primarily taught in chemistry but its underpinning is closely related to physics. Student learning in galvanic cell has been extensively studied in chemistry education, which has revealed a large number of misconceptions that are difficult to change through traditional instruction. A source of the learning difficulties is that most students lack an explanatory framework to integrate the many complex phenomena and processes into a coherent knowledge system. As a result, students often rely on memorization of terms, laws, and equations in solving problems but without a meaningful understanding of their reasoning. To address the deficit in learning, this study aims to help students develop an explanatory framework for supporting an integrated knowledge structure. Specifically, a conceptual framework model for galvanic cell is developed based on the central idea from physics, which is used as the core concept for mechanistic explanations of the related chemistry concepts. Guided by the conceptual framework, an instrument is developed to assess the knowledge integration in student learning of galvanic cell. A combination of qualitative and quantitative measures was used to assess the levels of knowledge integration in learning galvanic cell with a large number of Chinese high school and college students. The assessment results show that the conceptual framework model can effectively represent the knowledge structures of students at different levels of knowledge integration. The galvanic cell conceptual framework and assessment results can provide useful resources for teachers to develop instruction for promoting knowledge integration. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Building Upon “Foundationalism” to Achieve the Objectives of Contemporary Science: How this can Lead to Faster Scientific Progress and Inclusive Science

This paper is one of our most important ones in the core philosophy of science, and one that we expect to stand science in extremely good stead as well. We believe this can move the needle and push the envelope as well, and lead us to what we have always called “scientific progress at the speed of light”. We naturally commence this paper by tracing the history of the term “foundationalism” itself, right from the time of the Ancient Greeks, renaissance and enlightenment thinkers, and finally to the modern and contemporary ones. Types of foundationalism such as strong and weak foundationalism, modest foundationalism, and then finally anti-foundationalism, internalism and externalism are also discussed and dissected threadbare along with allied and related concepts such as circular logic and reasoning, regress and infinite regress, all of which form a part of epistemology. The core concepts forming a part of this paper such as forward linkages, backward linkages, and traceability matrices are also discussed. We follow this up with the core principles of this paper, and discuss the ideal and recommended direction of research, including the ideal nature of research, primary research, secondary research, basic and applied research, and cross-cultural collaboration including vertical and horizontal collaboration as well. This paper is also much more importantly linked to our papers on sociocultural change, pedagogy, scientific methods, and other papers in the social sciences for maximum impact and efficacy. It is therefore an important part and parcel of our globalization of science movement, and one that will help realize our overall goals and mission greatly.

Current legal activities come to the complexity of the term "electronic commerce": international and national level

The article provides a comprehensive study of various approaches to defining the term «electronic commerce» in the context of modern legal, economic and technological challenges. The analysis begins with an overview of scholarly perspectives on e-commerce, which range from narrow interpretations that focus on basic online sales contracts to broader concepts that encompass all aspects of electronic interaction between business entities, including logistics, marketing, financial operations and international transactions. The term «e-commerce» is clearly distinguished from related concepts, such as «e-commerce», «e-business», which mostly focuses on the sale of goods and services. The article also explores the positive aspects of e-commerce, such as increasing the efficiency of business processes, reducing transaction costs, access to global markets, increased convenience for consumers, etc. At the same time, a number of negatives have been identified, including the risk of personal data theft, payment fraud, and other types of cybercrime. The normative regulation of electronic commerce at the level of international law and in Ukraine is separately analyzed. The main legislative acts and their impact on the development of e-commerce are highlighted. On the basis of the conducted research, three key criteria for a clear definition of e-commerce are formulated, including legal relations arising through electronic means, interaction of entities through the Internet, and multi-level business processes, namely: basic e-commerce, integrated e-commerce and global e-commerce. As a result, a proper understanding of e-commerce as a form of business activity is proposed, which involves the implementation of commercial transactions using information and telecommunication means, covering a wide range of processes, including the conclusion and execution of contracts for the sale of goods and services, payment processing, logistics, marketing and advertising , as well as management of currency and customs operations during international transactions, which allows to increase business efficiency and reduce costs due to process automation, optimization of resource management, rapid exchange of information, reduction of transaction costs and simplification of communication between market participants.

A Systematic Literature Review on the Influence of Enhanced Developer Experience on Developers' Productivity: Factors, Practices, and Recommendations

Context and Motivation – Developer eXperience (Dev-X) is a recent research area that focuses on developers perceptions, feelings, and values with respect to software development and software quality. Research suggests that factors and practices related to Dev-X can have a substantial impact on developer productivity (Dev-P). However, despite a large and diverse body of literature on factors that can impact Dev-P in general, there is no coherent and comprehensive characterization of how Dev-X-specific insights can influence developer productivity. Aims – In the presented research, we aim to provide a coherent, comprehensive characterization of factors and practices related to Dev-X, with a particular focus on those factors and practices that potentially affect Dev-P. Method – To this end, we performed a systematic literature review and identified 218 relevant papers in this area. We characterize the papers based on the related frameworks and concepts common to Dev-X and Dev-P as presented in the existing literature. Dev-X factors such as “work fragmentation” and practices such as “collaboration with owner-developer” are identified using a grounded-in-the-literature, content-analysis method, guided by the theory. For each Dev-X factor, we identify attributes that might be used to assess/ measure the current status (of an organization or project) regarding that factor and how that factor and its effects on productivity have been evidenced in the literature (mentioned vs. considered in questionnaires vs. substantiated with a more positivist evaluation). Results – We identify 33 Dev-X-related factors and 41 Dev-X-related practices, which are organized into 10 themes to summarize their influence. The results suggest that the availability of required resources, relevant expertise re the allocated tasks, and fewer interruptions are among the top positively impacting factors. Conversely, factors such as code complexity, heterogeneous contexts of tasks, and non-adherence to standardization harm Dev-X and Dev-P. Top industrial practices employed to mitigate the negative influence of factors include characterization-based task assignments, mental model support, and the timely evolution of technologies. Conclusions – Overall, this research suggests that organizations can influence Dev-P through improved Dev-X, incorporating suitable practices to mediate relevant factors in their context. Important in this regard are practices such as fragmenting large tasks, highlighting the utility of proposed tasks/changes to the developers, and promoting (developer) ownership of artefacts. Finally, our results point to areas where further research seems appropriate, i.e., where Dev-X factors/practices have been proposed as being impactful on Dev-P but not yet fully substantiated or explored as such (factors like “Nature of Activity” and practices like choosing practices/protocols appropriately).

Understanding migration power in international studies

Abstract Where and how does power operate in the governance of international migration? Migrants and refugees are increasingly used for strategic purposes in international politics, but scholarship on this matter has yet to engage thoroughly with the central International Relations concept of power. This article draws on the thinking of Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall to propose a well-rounded picture of the multiple forms of power in, through or against migration that are mobilized by states and other international actors. We thus conceptualize migration power across two relational dimensions: the nature of the social relations between the actors involved (interactive or constitutive) and the specificity of such relations (direct or diffuse). This leads us to distinguish between four complementary types of migration power—compulsory, institutional, structural and productive—and to identify the main causal mechanisms through which they operate. We argue that power in international migration governance is diffuse, wielded by a wide range of actors, unevenly spread across its different dimensions, and yet, deeply asymmetrical in its distribution along intersecting axes: namely global North vs South, as well as state vs non-state. Beyond academia, the recognition of this complexity can encourage more reflexivity in policy-making and more sensitivity among practitioners.

Masculinity: Phallogocentrism and Performativity. A Philosophical Analysis Based on the Studies of Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler and Raewyn Connell to Counter Patriarchal Hegemony

Feminist considerations have induced a rethinking of many aspects of our contemporary world, such as the concept of gender and power relations. This has led to a re-examination of the entire previous tradition of thought, finding in phallogocentrism the paradigm of reference. This term indicates, starting with Derrida's considerations, the Western tendency to have centred not only the logos, but also the phallus, weaving an intricate relationship between masculinity and language. It's precisely this bond that makes man the archetype on which society is founded, placing his supremacy in the natural order, defining power relations and nailing pre-established categories. A being-nailed in the Lévinasian sense, thus an adherence between the agreement of voices and being, which produces 'category-beings' in which pre-delineated social identity is concealed in a condition of 'nature', such as the 'being-male'. It's precisely this naturalness, discursively produced, that has made man universal. Consequently, man has convinced himself that he can speak for all humanity, becoming the logos through which he declines the rest. Declinations that have produced rigid and hierarchical categories that precede and define each person, prescribing 'consonant' ways, rhetorically assumed as 'human nature'. The "nature" of being man or woman does not, in fact, concern monolithic essentialisms, but rather movements of intertwined meanings in a process that Derrida defines as différance. A process, therefore, in becoming, which has over time produced unequal power relations, justifying them as "natural", and which daily reiterates a hegemonic and sexist social model. The aim of this analysis, hence, will be to bring phallogocentric masculinity and consequent hegemonic structures into the field of philosophical reflection, with the purpose of redirecting praxis towards performative processes of characterisation the person, rather than a pre-delineated categorisation. Thus, to release being from socio-cultural categories, which historical-performative praxis nails to each body.

Creativity and Creative Subject in the Field of Social Communications: modern understanding and basic characteristics (part I)

The article examines the dynamics of creativity perception in successive attempts to study its interpretations in the social sciences and proposes a social and communicative approach to understanding the categories of creativity and the creative subject. The authors analyze the approaches to defining creativity in various research paradigms, which shows the applicability of the socio-communicative approach with a critical view on socio-psychological and sociological definitions of creativity. The text represents the discussion of the criteria and features of creativity and consider the main parameters and criteria of creativity as a communicative phenomenon. The authors propose a new understanding of the concept of creativity and explain it through three related concepts: (1) creative process, (2) creative subject and (3) creative product. At the end, the authors substantiate the typology of creative products and discuss the essence of the consumer value of creative products, highlighting its rational and emotional dimensions.

On application of the relative entropy concept in reliability assessment of some engineering cable structures

The main research problem studied in this work is an uncertain response and reliability assessment of the spatial cable structures due to the environmental stochasticity as well as material and geometrical imperfections. Some popular cable structures are analyzed for this purpose using the Stochastic Finite Element Method (SFEM) implemented with the use of three different techniques, namely the iterative generalized perturbation method, semi-analytical approach as well as the Monte-Carlo simulation. Uncertainty quantification delivered in this study is based on the series of FEM analyses of both static and dynamic structural problems. They enable the Least Squares Method determination of the structural polynomial responses linking extreme stresses and deformations with several uncorrelated uncertainty sources. Reliability assessment, fundamental in durability and Structural Health Monitoring, is completed using a comparison of the First Order Reliability Method (FORM) with probabilistic distance formulated by Bhattacharyya. Input uncertainties are assumed to be Gaussian according to the Maximum Entropy Principle. They have specific expected values following engineering design demands or the provisions of designing codes, whereas their standard deviations do not exceed the 10% level. The methods presented and the results obtained in this study may serve for further reliability analyses of large-scale civil engineering structures completed with both steel cables and also reinforced concrete plates like suspended bridges, for instance.

Influencing Factors for Sanitary Sewage in Brazilian Municipalities

The objective of this work is to identify the main influential factors for the attendance of sanitary sewage in Brazilian municipalities, through a survey and quantitative analysis of secondary data. The justification is to contribute to a more systemic and integrated view of sanitary sewage services in the country and their potential causes linked to the context of infrastructure in the country. The conceptual framework pre-establishes relationships between total sanitary sewage care and independent variables related to the availability of sustainable inputs/technologies, nature and quality of institutions, human competences, financing, socio-environmental governance and sanitary administration. The methodology adopted is quantitative research, with random and stratified sampling of municipalities, applying correlation analysis and multivariate regression. The results of the research point to a positive correlation between the total sanitary sewage service and variables associated with the physical governmental structure and human relations existing in the health area. On the other hand, they identify a negative correlation with legislation aimed at the ecological, economic and social zoning of the localities, which may indicate that this legal-institutional framework is not being properly integrated into the planning and implementation of sanitation infrastructures and, thus, guaranteeing, in fact, better living and housing conditions for the populations.

Cultural keystone species and their role in biocultural conservation

AbstractBiocultural diversity is declining globally. Cultural keystone species (CKS) are one promising pathway by which biocultural approaches to conservation, which seek to protect both biological and cultural diversity, might be implemented in practice. We traced the evolution of the CKS concept in relation to Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian context through a scoping review of the literature from 2000 to 2021 and nine in‐depth interviews with Indigenous Guardians and knowledge holders. Emergent themes in this scoping review indicate that CKS, rather than being viewed as objects for conservation, can be understood as ongoing relationship(s) between the cultural and ecological, which are intimately tied to language, knowledge, practices, and places in ways that are deeply interconnected. One cannot protect CKS, therefore, without also protecting the relationships that people (or groups of people) have to that species. We conclude by recommending further investment in policies and programs that support enabling mechanisms for Indigenous Peoples to maintain, manage, and restore relationships with CKS.

Communication Breakdown - Of Disease Clusters, a Trillium and One Health.

One health is based on an interdisciplinary collaboration across professions using a common language. Geographic epidemiology is the study of spatial patterns of population health in a study area. Such spatial patterns (trend, cluster and clustering) require clear definition to be meaningful in science communication. However, the term "disease cluster" has been defined in the literature in various and rather different ways. When geographic epidemiology is unable to make sense of its own concepts it is questionable how respective research results can benefit one health. The goal of this study was to clarify the disease cluster concept. Examples of disease cluster definitions from the literature were used for illustration. The epidemiological triangle of causation (agent, host and environment) was used to conceptualize geographic epidemiological data analysis. The term disease cluster was distinguished from related concepts (clustering, high-risk area, hot spot and outbreak) additionally the semantics and statistical meaning of expectation and prediction were reviewed to further identify the cluster concept as a statistical outlier. The new paradigm of the geographic epidemiological trillium is proposed here and embedded within the spatial generalized linear mixed model to clarify concepts of spatial patterns and guide epidemiological research and teaching.

Name and Power Relation to African-American Identity in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man

This study aims to explore the relationship between names and African-American identity in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Through a qualitative descriptive analysis, the study investigates how power relations influence the construction of African-American identity in the novel. This study used semiotic approach by applying Charles Sander Peirce’s semiotic theory in examiningg the use of name, as well as sociological approach by applying Michel Foucault's concept of power relations in analyzing power relation to social identity. The findings reveal that names, while significant, are not the sole determinants of African-American identity. The study discovers that, after the Civil War, many African-American characters in the novel chose names of European origin in an attempt to avoid negative racial stigma and discrimination. Instead, the study finds that identity construction is primarily shaped by social categorization and comparison and that power relations play a crucial role in limiting positive representations of African-American identity. This study sheds new light on the relationship between names, power, and African-American identity in literature and provides insights into the ongoing discourse surrounding these important cultural and social issues.

Are We Getting Closer to Consensus? An Analysis of Changes in Socially Perceived Necessities Over Time in Japan

The measurement of poverty using the material deprivation scale has become widespread throughout the world. One of the technical challenges in constructing the material deprivation scale is the identification of socially perceived necessities. Researchers have used methods ranging from focus groups to separate public opinion surveys to develop a list of socially perceived necessities. However, material deprivation is a relative concept. As society undergoes economic, demographic and political change, the list needs to be reviewed for relevance. The aim of this study was to examine the stability of perceptions of children's necessities in Japan at a time when public awareness of child poverty in Japan has risen sharply. The results of the analysis show that, using the 50% criterion, the list of socially perceived necessities for children has been surprisingly stable over 20 years. However, there has been a statistically significant change in the public's perception of necessity for 16 of the 25 items, even after controlling for age, gender, income and whether they have children. Furthermore, the analysis shows that although the consensus between genders and between income quintile groups is fairly stable or converging, there is a greater divergence in the consensus between age groups and between respondents with and without children. In a society with increasing numbers of elderly and childless people, we need to be increasingly careful that the items selected for the deprivation scale not only meet the 50% criteria, but are also agreed by different segments of the population.

Health-related quality of life of children and adolescents with sickle cell disease: An evolutionary concept analysis

The concept of Health-Related Quality of life (HRQOL) of children and adolescents with Sickle cell disease (SCD) is not clearly understood due to the lack of available studies. This review aimed to elucidate various attributes and related concepts of HRQOL in children and adolescents with SCD using Rodgers' (2000) concept analysis framework. A systematic search was performed to identify studies reporting the attributes, antecedents, consequences, surrogate terms, and related concepts of HRQOL in children and adolescents with SCD. The review included 75 articles, including 70 quantitative, two mixed-methods, and three qualitative studies. These were categorized into attributes, antecedents, consequences, surrogate terms, related concepts, and an exemplar of HRQOL in children and adolescents with SCD. The review identified nine important attributes. It includes multidimensional and dynamic concepts, acknowledging the illness, maintaining emotional balance and self-control, coping with the disease, pain management, stigma and discrimination, treatment burden, palliative care and personal resilience. The antecedents were knowledge and attitude toward the disease, self-efficacy, social support, spirituality and spiritual well-being, disease severity, access to healthcare, environmental factors, and financial considerations. The consequences were independence in personal life, improved physical health outcomes, psychological well-being, family and caregiver well-being, improved family, social and peer relationships and social interactions, improved school performance, and improved overall HRQOL and long-term outcomes. This analysis provides an overview of HRQOL concepts related to children and adolescents with SCD, guiding further research into nursing care and clinical practice.

What Do News Disseminators and Audiences in the Digital Age Need Most? — Skills? Knowledge? Or Accuracy-motivated Sceptical Knowing

In the digital age, journalism encounters both challenges and opportunities. Drawing on a wide range of classic discussions and investigative experiments, this article introduces the concept of “accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing.” This concept, driven by the verification of factual accuracy, represents a professional form of sceptical knowing and is crucial for becoming a responsible media professional and an informed citizen. This article discusses the necessity of transitioning from “general scepticism” to accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing. From the perspectives of both the disseminator and the audience, this article proposes methods for accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing: the disseminator should persist and innovate, while the audience should focus on the source, evidence, openness, and education, and both disseminators and audiences should embrace the “Hurtt Six Points” — questioning, suspension, search, empathy, self-esteem, and autonomy. Finally, this article clarifies the difference between accuracy-motivated sceptical knowing and related concepts, as well as the boundaries of its application.

Understanding Co-Creation in a Research Partnership Programme Exploring Patient-Driven Innovations: A Qualitative Longitudinal Study.

Research indicates that successful co-creation depends on a shared understanding of co-creation and its related concepts. However, it also shows that, in practice, views on co-creation and how to do it differ. This study aims to explore how patient innovators and researchers in a partnership research programme understand co-creation and how this understanding changes over time. An explorative longitudinal qualitative study was conducted with the 'Patients in the Driver's Seat' partnership research programme. Fifty-eight interviews were performed and analysed using a reflexive thematic approach. Four different ways of understanding co-creation were identified. These can be instrumentally conceptualized as themes using the inputs-process-outputs model: (1) combining different perspectives, experiences and backgrounds (inputs); (2) deliberately dynamic and exploratory (process); (3) striving for equity, not equality (process); and (4) diverse value creation, tangible and intangible (outputs). Together, these themes represent the varied understandings of co-creation among partnership programme members. Our study of patient innovators and researchers identified four distinct yet complementary understandings of co-creation. The study suggests that co-creation is the sum of its essential components, which can be divided into inputs, process, and outputs. This study, and the partnership programme it explored, aims to improve the relevance of research for patients and informal caregivers through an improved understanding of the concept of co-creation within research on patient innovation. All patient innovators involved in the programme were invited, as interviewees and researchers, to contribute to the study design and data analysis.

With a Little Help from Our Friends: Applying a Critical Friends Orientation to Critical Literature Reviews

ABSTRACTThis paper describes how we developed and applied an exploratory critical friends orientation to a critical literature review that explores how feminist theories and approaches have been used in archival studies literature and reports on insights generated by this method. A critical friend is a trusted ally and critic who both values our ideas and can push them forward. Our “critical friends” critical literature review includes two parts; using traditional critical review methods we identify and synthesize how critical feminist approaches have been employed in archival studies literature. Atypically, and in part two, we also pay attention to those scholarly articles that discussed relevant or related concepts but were ultimately excluded from our final literature review corpus during the appraisal process. These peripheral articles act as critical friends to the research area under review. We describe how this approach identifies disciplinary boundaries and traditions and explores areas of overlap across intersecting and adjacent fields. A critical friends approach allows us to generously interpret and analyze the complex concepts of “feminisms” and “archives” across disciplinary fields in order to identify, learn from, and engage across fields that have much in common as well as fundamental differences.

MHEC: One-shot relational learning of knowledge graphs completion based on multi-hop information enhancement

With the wide application of knowledge graphs, knowledge graph completion has garnered increasing attention in recent years. However, we find that the long tail relation is more common in the KG. These relations typically do not have a large number of triples for training and are referred to as few-shot relations. The knowledge graph completion in the few-shot scenario is a major challenge currently. The current mainstream knowledge graph completion algorithms have the following drawbacks. The metric-based methods lack interpretability of results, while the algorithms based on path interaction are not suitable for few-shot scenarios and the availability of the model is limited in sparse knowledge graphs. In this paper, we propose a one-shot relational learning of knowledge graphs completion based on multi-hop information enhancement(MHEC). Firstly, MHEC extracts entity concepts from multi-hop paths to obtain task related entity concepts and filters out noisy neighbor attributes. Then, MHEC combines multi-hop path information between head and tail to represent entity pairs. Compared to previous completion methods that only consider structural features of entities, MHEC considers the reasoning logic between entity pairs, which not only includes structural features but also possesses rich semantic features. Next, MHEC introduces a reasoning process in the completion task to address the issues of lack of interpretability in the one-shot scenario. In addition, to improve completion and reasoning quality in sparse knowledge graphs, MHEC utilizes contrastive learning to enhance pre-training vector representations of entities and relations and proposes a matching processor that leverages the semantic information of pre-training vectors to assist the reasoning model in expanding the multi-hop paths. Experiments demonstrate that MHEC outperforms the state-of-the-art completion techniques on real-world datasets NELL-One and FB15k237-One.