Conceptual Foundation Research Articles

Determinants influencing tourists’ willingness to visit Türkiye – Impact of earthquake hazards on Serbian visitors’ preferences

Abstract Earthquakes are a rather complex natural phenomenon that cannot be prevented, and their effects can be catastrophic and have profound implications on various economic sectors (especially tourism). This study investigates the relationships between subjective factors (gender, age, education, previous experience, and disaster anxiety), the perceived travel risk, and the travel intention of tourists from Serbia to destinations in Türkiye. The pilot study was done in March 2023 with 110 respondents from the Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Tourism, and Hotel Management, Novi Sad. After the validation of the instruments, the main survey was conducted in the period from March to June 2023. The subjects of interest were residents of Serbia over the age of 18. The data from this study are analyzed using the confirmatory factor analysis and path analyses. This study aims to enhance the understanding of perceived risk and travel intention, specifically focusing on Türkiye. The assessed outcome relates to how tourists perceive three specific categories of risk when traveling to destinations with a high risk of natural disasters, such as earthquake-prone areas. The findings suggest that older respondents tend to perceive lower physical and financial travel risks, even though the influence of age on the perception of socio-psychological risks was inconclusive. Further results reveal that individuals with prior experience tend to hold a heightened perception of physical, financial, and socio-psychological risks. An examination of the relationship between disaster anxiety and perceived travel risks indicates that physical, financial, and socio-psychological risks exert a negative influence on travel intention. Thus, this study may provide a conceptual foundation for both theoretical and practical implications for the improvement of risk management techniques at a specific travel destination in areas prone to earthquake hazards.

Contextualizing Measurement: Establishing a Construct and Content Foundation for the Assessment of Cancer-Related Dyadic Efficacy.

This paper illustrates a rigorous approach to the initial phases of scale development when evaluating an existing construct, dyadic efficacy, in a new population. Cancer-related dyadic efficacy represents a couples' confidence in their conjoint abilities to manage the effects of cancer. Two samples of individuals diagnosed with cancer and their partners, along with a professional panel, contributed lay and content expertise, respectively. Thematic analysis was used to describe cancer-related dyadic efficacy and identify content domains. Cancer-related dyadic efficacy was conceptualized as multidimensional, consistent with relational functioning, and distinct from self-efficacy. A pool of 50 items was developed to assess eight content domains grouped into three main themes: dyadic efficacy for managing (a) illness intrusions, (b) emotional responses and (c) communication and care for children. This paper responds to calls for more rigorous reporting of the qualitative procedures required to establish a conceptual grounding for a new scale.

Developing a Conceptual Framework: Women STEM Faculty's Participation in Entrepreneurship Education Programs

AbstractMotivated by the high socio-economic impact of innovations in science and technology, entrepreneurship in STEM disciplines is gaining increasing attention. As a result, entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) have been introduced and designed to train STEM faculty and expose them to entrepreneurial practice. This study examines factors influencing women STEM faculty's perspectives on their participation in EEPs within the broader socio-cultural context of academia. The study addresses the under-researched and undertheorized area of women academics in STEM entrepreneurship by drawing on adult participation literature and key theoretical works in entrepreneurship education to formulate the conceptual grounding. Using qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with 32 women STEM faculty, the findings identify internal and external influences and unpacks their complex interactions across the programmatic and systemic dimensions. Internal factors include perceptions of entrepreneurship, STEM academic identity, entrepreneurial identity, and self-efficacy, while external factors included professional mentors, personal role models, socioemotional support, and financial resources. The study conceptually synthesizes these factors and elucidates a nuanced understanding of women STEM faculty’s perspectives on their participation in EEPs, offering insights for future research and program development to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusivity in STEM entrepreneurship education.

Implementation of Pancasila Economic System Based on Sustainable Development Based on Kinship

The Pancasila economic system aims to renew the national economy in a structured, systematic, and massive manner by ensuring constitutional freedom in sustainable development based on family values to improve the quality of human life. The research formulates an effective strategy to implement the Pancasila Economic System within sustainable development, identifying challenges and obstacles and evaluating the impact of its family-based approach. This study employs literature research, collecting data through reviews of books, articles, journals, and relevant internet sources. The data collection tool is document research, and the data is analyzed qualitatively. Results indicate that an effective strategy for implementing the Pancasila economic system involves stakeholder and government involvement in policy-making, using a conceptual foundation to guide development. The system faces challenges such as global competition, foreign cultural influences, and technological transformation. To address these, collaboration among the government, private sector, and community is essential. For economic progress, the Pancasila economic democracy should be implemented based on kinship principles, emphasizing ethical, democratic values and a social sense of kinship among economic actors.

Why psychological scientists should disdain determinism

This essay strives to challenge a conceptual foundation of psychology that is questioned all too rarely: causal determinism. Specifically, the issue we have an argument with is the idea that human behavior is characterized by strict and inevitable sequences of cause and effect. We make two arguments against this notion. First, we argue that, even if true, this conception of determinism is useless and misleading for psychological theories, because psychological theories typically must explain how agents respond to situations defined by having multiple alternative possible outcomes. Second, we argue that this determinism is probably wrong, outdated, and circular in its reasoning. Alongside these arguments, we present results of a survey among fellow researchers, assessing their beliefs on the topic. Results show that psychologists are indeed discordant about this issue, and tendencies to endorse notions of causal determinism are more prevalent in younger than older scientists. We respect this diversity of opinion and seek to make the case that psychology theory would be best served by abandoning the wrongheaded idea of human behavior being inevitable and physically predetermined and replacing it with a brain-based agent operating in a world defined by multiple genuine possibilities and probabilistic causation.

The Salvetti Project: A Journey Toward Digital Approaches and Public History

This article offers an in-depth exploration of The Salvetti Project, a groundbreaking initiative dedicated to the digitisation and analysis of handwritten newsletters from the Medici Residents in London between 1640 and 1660. It chronicles the project’s development, emphasising its conceptual foundation and the collaborative efforts that brought it to fruition. The Salvetti Project merges academic scholarship with practical application, combining traditional research methods, digital approaches, and public history to create a comprehensive and accessible historical resource.

Understanding Business Models in the Brazilian Context of Electric Mobility: A Proposed Framework

In the transition to electric mobility (EM), business model innovation plays a crucial role in expanding the use of electric vehicles and increasing acceptance of this technology. The transition pathways differ between countries in the largest economies and those in Latin America. Brazil presents a unique scenario, benefiting from an early start with biofuels, the production of flex-fuel vehicles, predominantly renewable electric energy generation (>80%), and the absence of a structured national policy aligned with local governments. This study introduces a framework that surveys and categorizes businesses in EM, relating them to sustainable development aspects and regulatory maturity. It builds a solid conceptual foundation, incorporating data from technical and commercial events, as well as interviews with Brazilian specialists for validation. The proposed framework aids in understanding the Brazilian context, identifying regulatory gaps, and developing a common language to advance studies on business model innovation, contributing to electromobility studies in Latin America. Additionally, it can guide the construction of regional and local public policies and help identify more sustainable projects.

Tafsir Iqtisadi di Indonesia: Metodologi, Validitas dan Kontribusi

Abstract: This research aims to examine the works of Tafsir Iqtisadi/Tafsir on economic verses published in Indonesia from 2012 to 2023. Many of these works appeared when Sharia economics was developing, especially when PTKI opened a Sharia Economics Department in Indonesia. Have we employed the descriptive-analytical method, and historical philosophical approach, and based on the literature study, this article finds that Tafsir Iqtisadi in Indonesia is a tafsir product, which is a book and research in itself. The Tafsir Iqtisadi product is an interpretation of the Al-Quran with an economic approach. This approach is an acceptable style of interpretation and originates from the style of Tafsir Ilmi, Tafsir Ahkam and Tafsir Adabi Ijtima’i. Methodologically, the Tafsir Iqtisadi books combine tafsir bil ra'yi and tafsir bil ma'tsur. Meanwhile, the presentation of Tafsir Iqtisadi products consists of the presentation of tahlili, ijmali and maudhui. In terms of validity, Tafsir Iqtisadi can be said to be valid because it is in accordance with general interpretation methods, and also become a theological and conceptual foundation tool in developing Sharia Economics in Indonesia.

Leveraging TSR and social innovation for social inclusion via platforms

ABSTRACT This study examines the potential of digital platforms to drive transformative social innovation and create new services that promote social inclusion. By integrating transformative service research (TSR) with social innovation literature, this study presents an interdisciplinary framework that highlights the role of digital platforms in alleviating the suffering of vulnerable populations and fostering happiness, thereby enhancing social conditions and community well-being. Empirical examples, such as Kiva, Duolingo, and Change.org, demonstrate the practical application of this framework in finance, education, and civic engagement. This research advances the conceptual foundation of TSR, offering valuable insights for academics, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to leverage digital platforms for social inclusion and societal improvement.

A radically usage-based, collostructional approach to assessing the differences between negative modal contractions and their parent forms

Abstract Starting from the premise that English negative modal contractions constitute partly variable patterns of associations that include both the preceding subject and the following verb infinitive, the study sets out to investigate distributional differences between can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t and their corresponding uncontracted parent forms. Given that some configurations are assumed to correlate with specific modal meanings (e.g. inanimate subjects and stative verbs > ‘epistemic prediction’; first person subjects > ‘(un)willingness’ or ‘commissive modality’), roughly 200,000 trigrams from COCA are submitted to distinctive covarying collexeme analysis in order to uncover if these contractions and their full forms are conventionalized and entrenched differentially enough to merit their separate treatment on both conceptual and methodological grounds. The results point to probabilistic tendencies, suggesting a cline where won’t and can’t appear to be more emancipated from their respective full-form analogue than shouldn’t. Furthermore, the study showcases how collostructional methods can be applied fruitfully to case studies embedded in Schmid’s (Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2020. The dynamics of the linguistic system: Usage, conventionalization, and entrenchment. Oxford: Oxford University Press) Entrenchment and Conventionalization Model.

Social Assistive Robotics: An Ethical and Political Inquiry Through the Lens of Freedom

The development of social assistive robots for supporting healthcare provision faces a lack of an ethical approach that adequately addresses the normatively relevant challenges regarding its deployment. Current ethical reflection is primarily informed by an individual-centered perspective focused on robots’ implications for their end-users and thereby limited to the dyadic human–robot interaction sphere. Considering that this is tightly correlated to the restricted understanding of core ethical concepts upon which reflection stands, this paper delves into the concept of freedom from a philosophical perspective to unfold its full normative breadth for a critical assessment of technological development. By bringing to the fore the political-structural dimension of freedom and, in turn, elaborating the political dimension of technology, the undertaken philosophical approach discloses freedom as a transversal ethical concept for a normative reflection on technology. Thereby, it broadens the scope of ethical attention beyond the sphere of human–robot interaction and turns attention to the so far overlooked structural dimension of human–robot relations. Drawing on conceptions of freedom as non-domination, among others, the paper approaches social assistive robotics and reexamines the terrain of relevant issues for its development. Since freedom is one major issue upon which current concerns revolve, the undertaken analysis substantially enriches the ongoing ethical discussion on social assistive robotics’ implications for human freedom. In this way, this work contributes to going beyond the current individual-centered ethical perspective by laying conceptual grounds for a comprehensive ethical approach to social assistive robotics’ development.

Dénètem Touam Bona, Fugitive, where are you running?

Fugitive, Where are you Running? is a collection of essays, most of which were previously published in French, by writer, philosopher and curator Dénètem Touam Bona. The author's inclination to straddle geographic and conceptual lines is reflected in the scope, exuberance and poetic verve of the volume. The first three chapters ('Return of the Maroni', 'The Art of the Fugue', 'Manhunt') lay the conceptual foundation by foregrounding categories of marronage, fugitivity and fugue. The fugitive slave is presented as the figure that haunts the establishment of capitalist modernity and the only possible 'line of flight' from it. The fugue is the art of subtle evasion from the prisons of racialised capitalism and an alternative to the triumphalist politics of armed liberation struggles. Touam Bona proposes an impressionistic, rhapsodic and allegorical travel through the various incarnations of the maroon community - with its spontaneous and horizontal modes of organisation and accretion - and capitalism's death drive to surveil and suppress them. The following two chapters track the iterations and repression of fugitivity in the present, by engaging with technologies of migrant surveillance at the border ('Heroic Land', which mixes critique and fiction) and the space of Mayotte, a French department in the heart of the Indian Ocean, increasingly securitised and excised from the histories of flux that characterise this region ('The Impossibility of an Island'). The sixth chapter ('Cosmo-poetics of the Refuge') returns to the book's central theme of the maroon rebellion, connecting it to Afro-diasporic spirituality and performance. The final extended chapter ('Liana Dreaming') turns to environmental concerns, by foregrounding the figure of the liana as the point of resistance to colonial penetration and weapon of maroon resistance. In Caribbean cultures, the liana and the vine bring together collective bodies and communities. Against colonial tropes of taming, erasure and penetration, the power of the forest itself generates plant-induced visions of unsubmission.

Quantum Reconstructions as Stepping Stones Toward ψ-Doxastic Interpretations?

In quantum foundations, there is growing interest in the program of reconstructing the quantum formalism from clear physical principles. These reconstructions are formulated in an operational framework, deriving the formalism from information-theoretic principles. It has been recognized that this project is in tension with standard ψ-ontic interpretations. This paper presupposes that the quantum reconstruction program (QRP) (i) is a worthwhile project and (ii) puts pressure on ψ-ontic interpretations. Where does this leave us? Prima facie, it seems that ψ-epistemic interpretations perfectly fit the spirit of information-based reconstructions. However, ψ-epistemic interpretations, understood as saying that the wave functions represents one’s knowledge about a physical system, recently have been challenged on technical and conceptual grounds. More importantly, for some researchers working on reconstructions, the lesson of successful reconstructions is that the wave function does not represent objective facts about the world. Since knowledge is a factive concept, this speaks against epistemic interpretations. In this paper, I discuss whether ψ-doxastic interpretations constitute a reasonable alternative. My thesis is that if we want to engage QRP with ψ-doxastic interpretations, then we should aim at a reconstruction that is spelled out in non-factive experiential terms.

Philosophy of gardening and a sense for scents. An environmental ethics perspective

This article investigates the role of gardening (as human practice) and gardens (as locations) from the perspective of a ‘deep’ anthropocentric environmental ethics. On conceptual grounds, it outlines the concepts of gardens and gardening, defines some essential traits of gardens, and presents a typology of gardens. In its methodology, the article combines archaeology, hermeneutics, and semiotics with phenomenology of nature and ethics. A focus is given to eudemonic values of gardens, and special interest is devoted to garden scents. Garden scents are a fugitive, but intense sensual attraction which stimulates (non-moral) reverence for plant life. The ethical case for ‘good’ gardening is given in the conclusion.

Cекулярность и религия: реальность или концепт?

The article examines radical rethinking of the correlation between secularity and religion in so-called post-secular period, which has led to the emergence of a variety of concepts based on very different grounds. The article is aimed at searching an answer to the following question: are the common, taken for granted theoretical concepts of secularity and religion can be adequate to the reality they seek to describe, and, if so, how this could be proved? The article examines the concept of “secularity” in the modernity as meta-narrative according to which secularity and religion are seen as opposites where strengthening of one necessarily entails the weakening of the other; the disintegration of this meta-narrative in postcolonial critique and the theory of “multiple secularities”, which has raised doubts about the adequacy of the historical interpretation of secularity as a homogeneous project within the framework of modernization as a global process is studied. The history of the concept “religion” in relation to secularity is reviewed; it is proved that today, due to the infinite variety of empirical manifestations of religiosity (doctrines, symbols, rituals, institutions, etc.), their analytical description is complicated due to the lack of a common conceptual ground. The contradiction between institutional and individual religion, and various theories of new types of religiosity, are considered. The article analyzes the concept of pluralism as one of the research strategies in studying the correlation of secularity and religion; pluralism is seen as the situation when none of the competing worldviews can pose itself as the final arbiter of the available systems of ultimate meanings, which gives individuals and communities the right to freely construct their religious identity. The author pays special attention to Ch. Taylor and R. Bellah’s concepts of secularity and religion. It is concluded that in the crisis of the previous research strategy in the study of secularity and religion, the most adequate is meta-position as an attempt to assess the relationship between the reality being described and theoretical methods of describing it. In addition, meta-position presupposes a fundamental shift of the research focus from the subject as an object to the subject as a researcher and to the specifics of the research process.

TECHNOLOGY OF VISUAL PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS IN PEDAGOGICAL COMMUNICATION

Background. The article discusses modern profiling techniques, the integration of which into pedagogical communication will improve the quality of the educational process at a university. The relevance of the study is due to the decisive role of pedagogical communication in the education and upbringing of the younger generation, the need to enrich it with new communication technologies. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the importance of constructing a visual psychodiagnostic technology that promotes operational perception, including non-verbal, external manifestations, of individual characteristics of students in order to establish effective interaction with them. Objectives of the study: presentation of profiling in the context of its formation as an independent branch of psychological knowledge; studying the nature of teachers’ ideas about the possibilities of using operational “reading” techniques in the educational process of a university; designing a technology for operational visual psychodiagnostics, determining its structural components. Methodology. To achieve this goal, systemic, interdisciplinary and person-oriented approaches were used, which made it possible to systematize the structural components of visual psychodiagnostics technology as enriching traditional methods of interaction with students in pedagogy. The results of the study allowed us to draw a conclusion about the special role of visual psychodiagnostics in the operational perception and understanding of students, its demand by university teachers, as evidenced by the data of the survey. The applied value of the technology is indicated, associated with the possibility of interpreting external non-verbal manifestations as reflecting internal states and intentions. Conceptual and substantive grounds for designing the technology are proposed, and its format is defined as person-oriented.

Structural characteristics of foreign language communicative competence of the modern specialist in the pedagogical concepts of Ukrainian and German scientists

The article offered is devoted to an attempt to analyse the structural framework of foreign language communicative competence (the FLСC) of the modern specialist in the pedagogical concepts of German and Ukrainian specialists. The aim of the paper is to consolidate the research positions of German and Ukrainian scholars in the field of educational sciences on the structure of the FLСC which is conditioned by the solution of the tasks of studying the theoretical basis of the competence approach in the modern education. The object matter of the research is the FLСC itself, and the subject matter comprises its structural features in view of the conceptual grounds of Ukrainian and German educators. The methodological basis of the work are general scientific methods like those of analysis and synthesis, comparison and contrast, as well as the narrow scientific method of frame analysis which allows to build an integrated structural characteristics of the FLСC. The study found that Ukrainian and German scholars have the same understanding of the essence of competence as the root element of the competence-based approach to education which is perceived as unity of theory and practice, whilst the FLСC is interpreted as a set of professional elements of knowledge which includes skills and abilities for the effective use of a foreign language by a communicator in a particular situation in order to achieve communication results deriving also from the extralinguistic factors. A special theoretical premise of the German- language professional literature is the close correlation of the FLСC with the learner’s native language communicative competence and translation sub-competence. The elements of the FLСC can include not only language and speech components, but also extralinguistic components, as well as situational knowledge because in the process of learning a foreign language other skills are acquired that depend on the content of education and are of an interdisciplinary nature.

Youth–adult partnerships for youth activism: a critique of the utility of empowerment theory

This article examines empowerment theory (ET) for its applicability to adult work with youth activists. It argues that despite ET’s prominence within both youth activism and social work broadly, the theory lacks a universally accepted conceptual grounding. As such, adults working to support youth activists have interpreted ET’s tenets in significantly divergent ways, with implications for their work and its ultimate viability. By exploring the difficulties in delineating the substance of ET as a practical theory and outlining some of the common tenets of the theory, we make the case for adults working in partnership with youth activists to be more explicit about the ways in which they are drawing upon ET in their work.

A human-centred approach to symbiotic AI: Questioning the ethical and conceptual foundation

This paper advocates for a constructivist approach to symbiosis to restore human-centredness in the governance of Symbiotic Artificial Intelligence (SAI). Challenging rigid, deterministic foundational methods warns against the risk of divorcing ethics from mere adherence to moral principles. Instead, it calls for a shift towards a distributed, contextual, relational, and dialectical structure to embody human-centredness. Through an analysis of the SAI landscape and its interplay between social and technological factors, the paper argues for a reconceptualisation of theoretical foundation and human responsibility within the socio-technical perspective. Chapter 2 delves into foundational issues of SAI, questioning the application of biological categories and proposing patterns of SAI based on definitions of intelligent life. Chapter 3 explores the potential of a constructivist approach, emphasising flexibility and context awareness, and presents a framework for understanding and evaluating SAI systems, components of an evolving methodology.

HARMONISASI PENGETAHUAN

This research aims to comprehend the roles of Islam and philosophy in the development of scientific knowledge. Islam and philosophy play significant roles in shaping worldviews, values, and epistemological approaches that underpin the development of scientific knowledge. The study employs a descriptive-analytical approach to explore the relationships among religion, philosophy, and science. Data is collected through a literature review encompassing relevant primary and secondary sources related to the research topic. Data analysis involves the collection, classification, and interpretation of pertinent information. The findings indicate that Islam exerts a strong influence on the development of scientific knowledge through moral perspectives, ethics, and views on the universe. Islam often provides a value framework that shapes the motivation and goals of research, influencing ethical decisions in scientific practices. On the other hand, philosophy also plays a crucial role in the development of scientific knowledge through studies of epistemology, logic, and research methods. Philosophy provides a theoretical and conceptual foundation supporting understanding, reasoning, and critical reflection in scientific practice. The interconnectedness of Islam, philosophy, and science reflects a dialogue and interaction between religious beliefs, rational philosophy, and empirical understanding. The integration of these aspects allows for the holistic development of scientific knowledge, combining spiritual, intellectual, and empirical aspects in the understanding and explanation of natural phenomena.