Conceptual Context Research Articles

Place Branding: The State of the Art

This article examines the relevance of place branding as a political phenomenon in international politics. After setting place branding in a historical and conceptual context, it maps out the connections between branding and international politics by looking at three examples. First, it examines the challenges facing the European Union to strengthen its image as a global player. Second, it analyzes the efforts of the United States to deal with its collapsing image in the aftermath of its failing “war on terror” and military intervention in Iraq. Third, it examines negative place branding by focusing on the Borat movie that upset Kazakhstan in 2006 and the cartoon crisis that erupted in Denmark in September 2005. This article also aims to situate the practice of place branding in a broader analytical context. It argues that place branding is part of a wider spectrum of postmodern power, where soft power and public diplomacy also have their place.

Congruence: An integrative five-dimension model / Kongruenz: Ein integratives Modell mit fünf Dimensionen / Congruencia: Un modelo integrativo de cinco dimensiones / La Congruence: Un modèle intégratif en cinq dimensions / Congruência: Um modelo integrativo em cinco dimensões /

There have been numerous discussions of the concept of congruence. This paper presents a five-dimension model that brings different aspects together, clarifying their similarities and differences. It articulates various characteristics of congruence, including what it means to be a person, relationships with other person-centered and experiential theoretical concepts, historical and conceptual contexts, and appropriate synonyms inherent in these discussions. The paper explores the different dimensions separately with the understanding that congruence in practice is a unified experience.

Novelties in Physics of Explosive Welding and Powder Compaction

Widely known technologies of explosive (X) welding and explosive (X) powder compaction are based on applications of porous composite solid or liquid explosives. Recent results on dynamics of X-welding and X-powder compaction are presented and discussed in this paper in the conceptual context of an orderly oscillating detonation wave (DW), a synergetic phenomena observed in detonation of all classes of composite energetic materials, that was discovered in LEDAP in last eight years. Regular instabilities that are induced by oscillating DW, are transmitted through the interface of the impacted materials, causing the local instability and fluctuations in both processes, formation of the interfacial waves (X-welding mechanism) and in an initial phase of powder compaction. Application of high resolution optical probes (spatial resolution 250 *m, temporal resolution 1 ns, 96 independent channels) allowed the simultaneous registration of the oscillating DW in the X-charge and transmission of oscillations, trough the flyer plate, up to the welding zone. Similar measurements have been made in experiments with X-compaction of tungsten powder providing the continuous registration of shock wave velocity inside the compacted powder, its geometrical shape, their instabilities and irregularities.

Information kiosks: a taxonomy

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose a multi‐dimensional taxonomy for information kiosk‐based self service technologies (SSTs). This taxonomy has an important contribution to make to the integration of research and development, in relation to information kiosks. There are aspects that may also be extended to e‐service, online service and self‐service.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual context for this work is established by a review of previous literature. This focuses on taxonomies and classification schemes relating to information kiosks, traditional services (p‐services) and e‐services. A comprehensive database of information kiosk technologies and their applications is constructed. Longitudinal observation of the development of information kiosk technologies is the basis for this and has been extended by web research.FindingsAn iterative analysis of the kiosk database defines the nature of service delivery from kiosks, and supports the identification and verification of the dimensions and sub‐dimensions of the taxonomy. It is informed by earlier classification schemes and taxonomies in the information kiosk, e‐service and p‐service literature.Originality/valueThis taxonomy has four main dimensions: Location, User, Task and Technology. Sub‐dimensions are developed for each of these main dimensions. It can be used to classify all information kiosks.

The Tmdl Program Results Analysis Project: Matching Results Measures with Program Expectations

The evaluation of environmental results from federal programs has increased significantly in recent years, both due to government-wide review requirements and agencies’ own interest in identifying potential program improvements. The USEPA’s Clean Water Act TMDL program has undertaken a self-evaluation of TMDL environmental results, program milestones, and explanatory factors that can collectively improve understanding of program results, provide a feedback loop for program managers, and lead to results-based program improvements. An effective approach to results analysis initially required the clarification of TMDL program goals and expectations, followed by identification of measurable results concepts that relate directly to progress toward program goals. We reviewed several recent analyses of the TMDL program and similar restoration programs to identify lines of evidence that showed possible results patterns that could be monitored with available databases. From the available evidence we developed evaluation metrics of three types. Response measures relate to environmental outcomes – interim improvements and full recovery in waters that have been addressed by the TMDL program. Programmatic measures track key milestones in the several-step TMDL program process from TMDL development and implementation through recovery. Explanatory measures assess linkages between environmental response results and potential causes; these measures are crucial for revealing why certain results are occurring and focusing attention on specific causes that should be addressed in program improvements. As this five-year effort accumulates new insights into TMDL results and their driving factors, the TMDL results analysis project will provide insights and evidence for improving the TMDL program. This paper provides the conceptual overview and unifying context for several papers comprising a special session on TMDL results analysis at the WEF TMDL 2007 conference.

Efficient Exploitation of Existing Corporate Knowledge in Conceptual Ship Design

This paper presents some fundamental processes related to design inference and knowledge acquisition in the context of shipbuilding. Key categories of existing knowledge relevant for conceptual design are identified and classified. Alternative strategies for making this knowledge operable in a conceptual design context are discussed.

Theory, Data, Interpretations, and More Theory

Even though the paper had been revised and resubmitted for a second round of reviews at JCA, at some level I felt like the authors were perversely begging the editorial referees to recommend rejection of the manuscript. The revision involved an extensive rewriting of some sections, citations were added, the data were subjected to additional new analysis, and the authors provided very detailed supplemental notes to explain the changes to the reviewers. Yet for the directive from the decision on the first version that they provide a stronger conceptual context for study, the authors only noted they considered it unnecessary. To my amazement, they refused to provide a theoretical basis for the research. The omission was explained with the simple assertion that are behaviorists and therefore not concerned with theory, as if that would excuse data collection for its own sake. At the most basic level, they misunderstood that psychologists invented behaviorism itself as a basis for theoretical explanations, prediction and testing. If you will forgive a minor lapse into the pedantic, the original term referenced a direction for research in a social science that would allow control and measurement of all relevant variables by ignoring human thought or cognition. Instead of speculating as to what might transpire in people's minds, only behavior responses would be measured in relation to test stimuli so researchers could conduct experiments that would provide stronger tests of theoretical predictions. In other words, behaviorism was a route to being more scientific in a manner similar to the so-called hard sciences of chemistry or physics. This narrow and more directly measurable focus, in turn, allowed for greater use of statistical analysis of experimental results. The goal was a greater use of methods for stronger theories, or so they hoped. This tendency for stimulus-response experiments and overall preference for some type of mathematical statement has today spread into other social sciences. To critics of these approaches, important research questions are ignored if they do not fit into confines of a quantitative study. The techniques for mathematical data manipulation have become increasingly sophisticated and complex, and governed by strict assumptions, as if the analytical method is an end unto itself. Making more sense might be the preeminent economist and mathematician of the late 19th century Alfred Marshall who is credited with stating a five-step directive for use of math in research: (1) use it as a shorthand language rather than as an engine of inquiry, (2) keep them until you are done, (3) translate into English; (4) illustrate with examples that are important in real life, and (5) bum the mathematics. In the 21st century, people have forgotten this. But my point here is not to condemn any research approach, be it quantitative or qualitative, but to place emphasis on the thought behind the research. Numbers suggest, constrain, and refute; they do not, by themselves, specify the content of (Gould 1981, 106). As the numbers and methods gain greater attention, some might forget or ignore the need for a conceptual foundation that must precede the analysis. The late naturalist Stephen Jay Gould repeatedly explained that often think, naively, that missing data are the primary impediments to intellectual progress--just find the right facts and all problems will dissipate. But barriers are often deeper and more abstract in thought. We must have access to the fight metaphor, not only the requisite information. Revolutionary thinkers are not, primarily, gatherers of facts, but weavers of new intellectual structures (Gould 1985, 151). As one of his many examples, he explained that the original theories of DNA and genetics needed the invention of a computer not to crunch existing data but to provide a conceptual metaphor for how biological binary signals can work. …

The Theory of Real Options as Theoretical Foundation for the Assessment of Human Capital in Organizations

The human capital represented by corporate employees involved in the information and knowledge economy is becoming an increasingly central value-creating factor in global competition. However, in contrast to other value-creating factors, human capital is more difficult to measure, evaluate and manage. Due to human capital's great importance for economic value creation, a series of studies on human capital evaluation have been published during the last few years. This paper discusses why so many traditional evaluation methods are only partly appropriate for categorizing, analyzing and evaluating human capital's special characteristics. In particular, it is difficult for many traditional approaches to integrate notions of flexibility and options with regard to the human capital of companies. Our result shows that the real options theory provides a theoretical framework for the evaluation of human capital and allows a differentiated analysis that, on a qualitative basis, enables investments in uncertainties that are associated with human capital. This theory thus forms the foundation for the quantification of human capital's inherent opportunities and risks. Consequently, this paper provides approaches for the future evaluation of human capital and a conceptual context for empirical studies.

VsLattice: A vector-based conceptual index structure for web service retrieval

With the rising adoption of web services, effective management of web services becomes a critical issue in making the paradigm of service-oriented computing more practical. In this paper, a novel structure, called Vector-based service Lattice ( VsLattice), is devised to index web services in a semantic way. Each web service is modeled as a group of Service Operation Vectors (SOVs) in the vector space, and each SOV represents an operation provided by the service. The web services, SOVs and the relationship between web services and SOVs form the Conceptual Indexing Context (CIC) of a given service collection. In the CIC, web services that provide similar operations (functions) are conceptually indexed by the same Operation Vector Concepts (OVCs). The underlying relationships among the OVCs are captured with the VsLattice, which is constructed by adopting the traditional concept lattice in a CIC. By taking advantage of the information obtained from the VsLattice, a new representation of SOV is devised. Based on this representation, a novel service retrieval model and the implemental system are developed to retrieve web services efficiently. The performance and retrieving quality of the proposed approach has been evaluated through a series of experiments.

Sovereign impunity in America’s war on terror: examining reconfigured power and the absence of accountability

Significant socio-legal transformations since September 11th have attracted scholarly investigations in pursuit of identifying the precise nature of a newly configured form of power. In the course of suspending law, the US government has instituted controversial tactics in the war on terror, many of which are deemed illegal under international law (i.e., the unlawful enemy combatant designation, torture, and the war in Iraq). This work attends to recent analyses on sovereignty, governmentality, counter-law, and states of exception in an effort to elaborate on state impunity since it is regarded as an important phenomenon warranting greater exploration. Due to an absence of accountability that would otherwise hold specific government actors responsible, key counter-terrorism strategies perpetuate serious state crimes. The article situates those transgressions within a conceptual context that deepens our understanding of power in a post-9/11 world while inviting further critique on the war on terror as it undermines the rule of law and established human rights protections.

An Analysis of the Joint Board or County Model as the Structural Basis for Effective Australian Local Governance

Australian policy‐makers continue to rely on municipal amalgamation as the main engine of structural reform in local government, despite strong evidence that it diminishes participation and representation without improving service efficiency. Several promising, but neglected alternative models of structural reform have been developed, including ad hoc resource sharing models, Regional Organisations of Councils, virtual local government, and agency models. In an encouraging response to the recent policy of enforced council amalgamations in NSW, the Shires Association of NSW (2004) has recently proposed a ‘Joint Board model’ of local governance and invited comment on this model. This article takes up this challenge and seeks to place the Joint Board model in conceptual context and evaluate its characteristics and simulated cost savings.

Porphyry Copper Deposit Tract Definition – A Global Analysis Comparing Geologic Map Scales

Geologic maps are a fundamental data source used to define mineral-resource potential tracts for the first step of a mineral resource assessment. Further, it is generally believed that the scale of the geologic map is a critical consideration. Previously published research has demonstrated that the U.S. Geological Survey porphyry tracts identified for the United States, which are based on 1:500,000-scale geology and larger scale data and published at 1:1,000,000 scale, can be approximated using a more generalized 1:2,500,000-scale geologic map. Comparison of the USGS porphyry tracts for the United States with weights-of-evidence models made using a 1:10,000,000-scale geologic map, which was made for petroleum applications, and a 1:35,000,000-scale geologic map, which was created as context for the distribution of porphyry deposits, demonstrates that, again, the USGS US porphyry tracts identified are similar to tracts defined on features from these small scale maps. In fact, the results using the 1:35,000,000-scale map show a slightly higher correlation with the USGS US tract definition, probably because the conceptual context for this small-scale map is more appropriate for porphyry tract definition than either of the other maps. This finding demonstrates that geologic maps are conceptual maps. The map information shown in each map is selected and generalized for the map to display the concepts deemed important for the map maker’s purpose. Some geologic maps of small scale prove to be useful for regional mineral-resource tract definition, despite the decrease in spatial accuracy with decreasing scale. The utility of a particular geologic map for a particular application is critically dependent on the alignment of the intention of the map maker with the application.

Systolic and diastolic heart failure: Different phenotypes of the same disease?

Traditional pathophysiological concepts of chronic heart failure have largely focused on the haemodynamic consequences of ventricular systolic dysfunction. How these concepts relate to the pathophysiology of diastolic heart failure, i.e., heart failure with a preserved ejection fraction is, however, unclear, causing uncertainty about pathophysiology, diagnosis and management. Recent measurements of regional myocardial systolic function in patients with diastolic heart failure indicate that systolic and diastolic heart failure may be more closely related than previously anticipated. Rather than being considered as separate diseases with a distinct pathophysiology, systolic and diastolic heart failure may be merely different clinical presentations within a phenotypic spectrum of one and the same disease. In this review, we will interpret these new insights in a broader conceptual context of chronic heart failure and design novel paradigms in which systolic and diastolic heart failure jointly progress in a pathophysiological time trajectory of only one disease.

Spatio-temporal patterns in county-level incidence and reporting of Lyme disease in the northeastern United States, 1990–2000

We present an exploratory analysis of reported county-specific incidence of Lyme disease in the northeastern United States for the years 1990–2000. We briefly review the disease ecology of Lyme disease and the use of risk maps to describe local incidence as estimates of local risk of disease. We place the relevant elements of local environmental and ecological variables, local disease incidence, and (importantly) local disease reporting in a conceptual context to frame our analysis. We then apply hierarchical linear models of increasing complexity to summarize observed patterns in reported incidence, borrowing information across counties to improve local precision. We find areas of increasing incidence in the central northeastern Atlantic coast counties, increasing incidence branching to the north and west, and an area of fairly stable and slightly decreasing reported incidence in western New York.

Understanding mental constructs of biodiversity: Implications for biodiversity management and conservation

The participation of the public in environmental decision-making and management is increasingly seen as essential for the success of conservation initiatives. Ecological scientists and conservation practitioners have, however, argued that a lack of understanding of biodiversity issues by the public is a barrier to their effective participation in decision-making processes. These arguments are often based on studies where scientific knowledge is used as the sole measure of public understanding of biodiversity, and therefore fail to account for individuals’ constructs of biodiversity and related issues such as biodiversity management. We examined individuals’ mental constructs of biodiversity, and their conceptual contexts, through a series of focus group discussions with members of the general public in Scotland. To gain a fuller picture of public understanding of biodiversity, we distinguished between mental associations with the term ‘biodiversity’, and the meanings associated with biodiversity-related concepts independent of scientific terminology. We found participants to express rich mental concepts of biodiversity, irrespective of their scientific knowledge. These included notions of balance, food chains and human–nature interactions, and showed strong normative dimensions that were used to define desirable or ideal states of nature. These concepts of biodiversity were, in turn, strongly related to their attitudes towards how best to manage biodiversity. This study highlights that a better understanding of individuals’ mental constructs of biodiversity, which are linked to their attitudes towards biodiversity management, is essential for the design of biodiversity-related policies that are supported by the public.

Cheating Ourselves: The Economics of Tax Evasion

No government can announce a tax system and then rely on taxpayers' sense of duty to remit what is owed. Some dutiful people will undoubtedly pay what they owe, but many others will not. Over time the ranks of the dutiful will shrink, as they see how they are being taken advantage of by the others. Thus, paying taxes must be made a legal responsibility of citizens, with penalties attendant on noncompliance. But even in the face of those penalties, substantial tax evasion exists. Tax evasion is widespread, always has been, and probably always will be. This essay reviews what is known about the magnitude, nature, and determinants of tax evasion, with an emphasis on the U.S. income tax. It then places this information into a conceptual context, examining various models and theories, and considers policy implications.

Image and Video Indexing Using Networks of Operators

This article presents a framework for the design of concept detection systems for image and video indexing. This framework integrates in a homogeneous way all the data and processing types. The semantic gap is crossed in a number of steps, each producing a small increase in the abstraction level of the handled data. All the data inside the semantic gap and on both sides included are seen as a homogeneous type called numcept and all the processing modules between the various numcepts are seen as a homogeneous type called operator. Concepts are extracted from the raw signal using networks of operators operating on numcepts. These networks can be represented as data-flow graphs and the introduced homogenizations allow fusing elements regardless of their nature. Low-level descriptors can be fused with intermediate of final concepts. This framework has been used to build a variety of indexing networks for images and videos and to evaluate many aspects of them. Using annotated corpora and protocols of the 2003 to 2006 TRECVID evaluation campaigns, the benefit brought by the use of individual features, the use of several modalities, the use of various fusion strategies, and the use of topologic and conceptual contexts was measured. The framework proved its efficiency for the design and evaluation of a series of network architectures while factorizing the training effort for common subnetworks.

A cautionary tale of two matrices: the duality of multivariate abstraction

The metaphorical Tale of Two Matrices reveals how combining the worlds of multivariate abstraction and empiricism can both illuminate and obfuscate biological questions. To be sure, there are many potential benefits to limiting the dimensionality in multivariate problems—greater statistical power and the ability to explore relationships among more than two traits simultaneously are chief among them. Conversely, the rotation of trait space into new orthogonal axes may lead us ever further from the biological realities and intuitions that underlie the questions we pursue. The seduction of generating increasingly complex ways to view selection and multivariate inheritance brings with it the cost of greater and greater abstraction as disparate biological forces are lumped into common summary statistics. The success of matrix diagonalization for examining selection and quantitative genetics will be determined by practitioners’ ability to keep their eyes on the prize and use the techniques to inform experimental tests of the hypotheses they generate. The power of any methodology is determined by its ability to help us answer the questions we want to ask. Evolutionary quantitative genetics (EQG) and related approaches became popular because they are quantitative and simple to apply, and because they offer a direct insight into fundamental questions in evolutionary biology. As is often the case with a new set of tools, the heyday of EQG was accompanied by a sometimes blind application to any and every system, without sufficient regard to the importance of conceptual context and the limitations of the techniques. Diagonalization of the important matrices in EQG gives us a new set of variables to examine, but we are still inherently bound by the same questions, constraints and pitfalls. Below, we offer our opinions on the key problems in selection and EQG and the ways in which matrix diagonalization may or may not move us forward on these fronts. What is the form of natural selection?

Cooperation in the Justice and Home Affairs Domain: Characteristics, Constraints and Progress

Justice and Home Affairs cooperation in the European Union has developed rapidly since the end of the 1990s. Now under the label of the ‘Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’, the EU’s responsibilities have grown considerably in the effort to combat cross–border crime (including terrorism) and illegal immigration. This article outlines recent developments in this area, along with key obstacles to continued cooperation. The analysis focuses on five dimensions of security and risk management related to JHA cooperation: the conceptual context in which cooperation takes place, the various policy–making initiatives, the role of information exchange and analysis, operational instruments and the various aims of legislation. These dimensions shed light not only on the EU’s particular role in this increasingly active area of policy making, but also on the main challenges to further cooperation and integration.

Community capacity building and health promotion in a globalized world

In this paper, community capacity building (CCB) is seen as part of a long-standing health promotion tradition involving community action in health promotion. The conceptual context of the term CCB is presented, and compared with other community approaches. The usage of the term is variable. It is submitted that its common features are (i) the concepts of capacity and empowerment (versus disease and deficiency), (ii) bottom-up, community-determined agendas and actions and (iii) processes for developing competence. A brief literature review looks at some of the main contributions from the 1990 s on, which reveal an emphasis on building competencies, the measurement of community capacity and the attempt to break CCB down into operational components. Academic research on the impact of CCB on health is lacking, but multiple case studies documented in the 'grey literature' suggest CCB is highly effective, as does research in related areas, such as community empowerment. Five contemporary case studies submitted by the contributing authors show both the range and efficacy of CCB applications. The concluding synthesis and recommendations say that what is needed for health promotion in a globalized world is a balance between global macro (policy, regulatory, etc.) actions and those of the human and local scale represented by CCB. It is concluded that action centred on empowered and capable communities, in synergistic collaboration with other key players, may be the most powerful instrument available for the future of health promotion in a globalized world.