Conceptual Link Research Articles

The Textual Evolution of the Ottoman Şeyhülislams’ Fetvas: A Cross-Corpora Computational Analysis

Abstract In this article, we use a mix of computational techniques to identify textual shifts in the Ottoman şeyhülislams’ fetvas between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Our analysis, supplemented by a close reading of these texts, indicates that the fetvas underwent multiple forms of transformation, a consequence of the institutional evolution of the şeyhülislam’s fetva office (fetvahane) that aimed to speed up and streamline the production of the fetvas: over time, the texts appropriated a more uniform character and came to contain shorter responses. In the compositions of the questions, we identified many “trigger terms” that facilitated reflexive responses independent of the fetvas’ jurisprudential contexts, a tendency that became stronger after the second half of the seventeenth century. In addition, we propose in the article a methodology that measures the relative strengths of textual and conceptual links among the fetva corpora of various Ottoman şeyhülislams. This analysis informs us about possible paths of long-term evolution of this genre of jurisprudential documents.

Parliaments Facing the Virtual Challenge: A Conceptual Approach for New Models of Representation

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated digital transformations in all spheres of public and private life, providing a strong incentive also for parliaments to adopt digital and remote working methods. The entry of the virtual paradigm into parliamentary work is part of a scenario already marked by a crisis of the traditional political representation model, also as a consequence of the disintermediation phenomena induced by the digital revolution. This article aims at investigating some conceptual links between the crisis of parliamentary representation and the digital transition and at analysing pros and cons of virtual/hybrid parliamentary proceedings and investigating with a non-empirical approach some potential systemic effects that could derive from maintaining them even after the current pandemic is over. Finally, the article suggests that the virtual challenge could encourage the evolution of parliaments towards new hybrid and network-based representation models which might help in providing a new centrality to legislatures in 21st century democratic systems.

Shared injection experiences: Interpersonal involvement in injection drug practices among women

Background: Many women who inject drugs are aware of the associated risks, however social influences play a part in their behavioral decisions. Incorporation of others in drug use behaviors may be common practice among women who use drugs. The aim of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of women’s injection drug use experiences with a focus on interpersonal involvement. Methods: Venue-based recruitment was conducted in collaboration with a harm reduction program. A group of 30 women, ages 18 and older, who reported injecting drugs within the past 30 days took part in a demographic survey and semi-structured interview to gain an understanding of their injection practices. In vivo coding and thematic analysis were conducted. Results: Three main themes that relate to incorporating others into injection drug behaviors surfaced, including: (1) injection practices described as we and not I, (2) partnered purchase and drug preparation, and (3) assisted injection. This group of women most often incorporated sexual and/or romantic partners (same and other-gender), friends, or family members into their injection drug use behaviors. Some women described a lack of ability to inject themselves and require assistance every time they use. Women also reported helping other women during drug use behaviors. Conclusions: Our primary themes indicate that a variety of relationship partners are important conceptual links in theoretical frameworks explaining drug use behaviors among women. Findings suggest same gender assistance during drug use behaviors, including injection, that may reduce harm. The interpersonal nature of injection drug use among women may indicate the expansion of treatment options designed for couples or other relationship partners, such as family, together.

On the evolution of trophic position.

The trophic structure of food webs is primarily determined by the variation in trophic position among species and individuals. Temporal dynamics of food web structure are central to our understanding of energy and nutrient fluxes in changing environments, but little is known about how evolutionary processes shape trophic position variation in natural populations. We propose that trophic position, whose expression depends on both environmental and genetic determinants of the diet variation in individual consumers, is a quantitative trait that can evolve via natural selection. Such evolution can occur either when trophic position is correlated with other heritable morphological and behavioural traits under selection, or when trophic position is a target of selection, which is possible if the fitness effects of prey items are heterogeneously distributed along food chains. Recognising trophic position as an evolving trait, whose expression depends on the food web context, provides an important conceptual link between behavioural foraging theory and food web dynamics, and a useful starting point for the integration of ecological and evolutionary studies of trophic position.

Nonequilibrium Dynamics and Weakly Broken Integrability.

Motivated by dynamical experiments on cold atomic gases, we develop a quantum kinetic approach to weakly perturbed integrable models out of equilibrium. Using the exact matrix elements of the underlying integrable model, we establish an analytical approach to real-time dynamics. The method addresses a broad range of timescales, from the intermediate regime of prethermalization to late-time thermalization. Predictions are given for the time evolution of physical quantities, including effective temperatures and thermalization rates. The approach provides conceptual links between perturbed quantum many-body dynamics and classical Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theory. In particular, we identify a family of perturbations which do not cause thermalization in the weakly perturbed regime.

Analysis of Cutback Management Strategy in Financial Sustainability in the Public Sector in Indonesia

There are many literature reviews that write about the causes and expected consequences of an environmental, social, and economic crisis. It should be remembered that the role of the public sector is critical to overcoming crises, to promoting sustainable development and to managing the balance between supply and demand for public services. This qualitative research takes a case study approach to public agencies under the Ministry of Finance, namely the Directorate General of Customs and Excise. This study aims to explain financial sustainability in public bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic, and explain cutback management strategies indicated through refocusing carried out by government agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as explain the relationship between cutback management and financial sustainability which is significantly directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the analysis show that there are differences in the financial sustainability of Customs and Excise during the pandemic, namely in terms of state revenues, it certainly changes (decreases) in terms of tax revenues, import duties, and excise. Then identified indicators of cutback strategies at Customs and Excise, and there is a conceptual link between financial sustainability, the COVID-19 pandemic and cutback management strategies.

The Amplified Crisis: Assessing Negative Social Amplification and Source of a Crisis Response

Extending the situational crisis communication theory, this research evaluates how the consequences of a crisis extend to social media and how using internal and external sources influence crisis response processing. A structural equation model assessed the conceptual link between organizational reputation and the negative amplification of a message on social media using data derived from an online experiment. Findings contextualize crisis communication to suggest source and social amplification could lead to a vanguard of future SCCT research that guides researchers and professionals in optimizing a crisis response.

Text—Emotion—Video: The Poetics of Jennifer Crandall’s Documentary Cycle Whitman, Alabama

This book explores the orality/aurality of theatre performance and in accord with its subject -- theatrical sound as an intermedial, fluid, and multi-faceted phenomenon -- necessarily adopts a multidisciplinary approach. Making the case that the historical avant-garde initiated a new, hybridized concept of the arts that has become a hallmark of the dramaturgy and performance style of postdramatic theatre, it discusses contemporary theatricality in light of the principles and methods of sound poetry, painting, and music. Its focus is primarily on a specific dramaturgy of sound that, rather than helping to reveal the plot of a literary text, reads/writes another type of text by the temporal and spatial disposition of oral acts and aural objects as elements of performance. These elements include both voice -- not only a carrier of speech but also an emotional, pulsional, gestural expression in excess of it -- and sound in general -- not only supporting music or incidental noise but also an autonomous stage building material. A dramaturgy of sound that tells its own “plot” through its own semiosis has become constitutive of a postdramatic theatre that places more emphasis on performance, mise en scène, and the audio-visual architecture of the stage than it does on dramatic text. Its daring revision of the referentiality of the theatrical sign comes as a consequence of the experiments led by Italian and Russian Futurists, Dadaists, Expressionists, and other avant-gardes. Assessing their works in relation to sound, this book offers abundant evidence of this development and indicates the inevitable emergence of a twofold, oral/aural dramaturgy dealing simultaneously with the corporeal, vocal gesture and incantation in performance (explored by Antonin Artaud, Roland Barthes, and Jean-François Lyotard) and abstract/concrete sound in the “theatre of totality” (explored by Wassily Kandinsky, the Bauhaus theatre, and Robert Wilson). At the same time the book reveals the significance of the conceptual and practical links of our contemporary theatre with historical avant-garde sources, connections that are reflected in the current discourse on “scenic dynamic,” “performative turn,” “musicalization,” and “auditory semiotics.” Key words: the dramaturgy of sound, orality/aurality of theatre, sound poetry, onomatopoeia, iconicity, words-in-freedom (parole in libertà), beyonsense language (zaum), historical avant-garde, Italian Futurism, synthetic theatre, Russian Cubo-Futurism, Dadaism, Expressionism, Bauhaus, musicalization of theatre, performativity, and postdramatic theatre.

Exploring the Alternative Model for Personality Disorders Using SCORS-G Ratings on Thematic Apperception Test Narratives

The Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) in Section III of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) conceptualizes personality pathology as a combination of impairment (Criterion A) and traits (Criterion B). One measure used to develop Criterion A was the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale - Global Rating Method (SCORS-G), which is a multidimensional, object-relational clinician-rated measure of personality functioning. Although there are conceptual links between the AMPD and SCORS-G dimensions, there exists no research examining the relationship. To address this, we examined associations between the SCORS-G dimensions and measures of the AMPD constructs in a large, archival dataset of outpatients and inpatients. More pathological scores on SCORS-G dimensions reflecting self- and interpersonal functioning were associated with greater pathological traits and impairment. Overall, results support further investigation into SCORS-G as a useful measure in AMPD research and assessment.

Nurses’ Perception of Structural Empowerment in Commitment Towards Quality Improvement Sustainability

The purpose of this study is to examine the level of nurses’ perception on key predictors of structural empowerment that provided at workplace, which could influence the nurses’ commitment towards sustainability activities through QI in healthcare, Malaysia. The researcher has utilized the dominant elements of the Quality Improvement Framework (2016) developed by National Improvement (QI) team and relate to the conceptual links of Kanter’s Structural Theory of Power in Organizations (1977, 1993) to form the conceptual framework to support the current basic quantitative study. A total of 315 nurses from 5 private specialist hospitals in Johor, Malaysia was participated in the current study. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling (SEM) analyses. Through descriptive statistics, results revealed that the nurses perceived themselves to empower with moderate to high level of powers gains through their existing formal and informal QI activities/system, as well as accesses to job-related empowerment structures in the workplace that could enhanced their commitment towards QI sustainability. SEM analysis indicated that a significant effect of job-related empowerment structures and the nurses’ commitment towards sustainable QI practices in local private healthcare sector in Johor, Malaysia. In conclusion, nurses can be empowered for sustainability activities through QI at all levels in the healthcare organization if they are empowering with sufficient and efficient of fundamental keys of job-related empowerment structures in workplace.

Enhancing the Utility of Codes of Conduct for Chemical and Biological Security through Active Learning

The role of codes of conduct in promoting the norms of chemical and biological security among science stakeholders has been recognized within the context of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). This paper focuses on the mutually reinforcing relationship between codes of conduct and education as a basis for the implementation of integrated approaches for strengthening the prevention of chemical and biological security risks and ensuring that chemical and life sciences are used only for peaceful purposes. The paper draws upon concrete examples of innovative active learning strategies to elucidate the conceptual link between codes of conduct and education and examine its implications for embedding chemical and biological security considerations in the professional practice of public and private science stakeholders.

Designing Activities to Support Prospective High School Teachers’ Proofs of Congruence from a Transformation Perspective

Undergraduate mathematics instructors are called by many current standards to promote prospective teachers’ learning of geometry from a transformation perspective, marking a change from previous standards. The novelty of this situation means it is unclear what is involved in undergraduate learning and teaching of geometry from a transformation perspective. To approach this problem, we illustrate how specific in-class activities and design principles might help prospective teachers make conceptual links between congruence proofs and a transformation approach to geometry. Additionally, to illustrate these activities for instructors, we provide examples of prospective teachers’ work on some of these problems.

Normalizing far right party rhetoric: the impact of media populist frames and coverage on the electoral prospects of far-right parties in the case of Cyprus

ABSTRACT This article tries to identify the links between media and politics within the context of far-right politics. Populism provides such a conceptual link. In this article, we ask whether the way some media frame certain discussions, which are considered privileged issues for the far right, facilitates the diffusion of their narrative and ideas and thus normalizes their rhetoric among the population and improves their electoral prospects. We also examine the way the far-right party itself frames the same issues in order to identify whether there is a match between the two frames. Our case study is the Greek Cypriot far right party, ELAM. We argue that the populist representation of these particular issues by the media and the way the party positions itself on these same issues has facilitated the normalization of their political rhetoric, thus enabling it to penetrate into the mainstream political space and increase its electoral potentials.

Pharmacopoeia: Illness narratives.

Pharmacopoeia: Illness narratives.

The Chinese Economy From the Underside: Funny Money and Institutional Transformation in the Xi Jinping Era

This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist examines the irregular transactions and informal institutions that constitute the essential underside of the Chinese economy. Contributors with a range of disciplinary backgrounds explore shadow banking, social welfare and rural development by private enterprise, NGO financing, the credit/debt cycle of informal international trade, and offshore investment by Chinese state-owned enterprises. The question posed by all contributors is as follows: How, in China through the 2010s, do irregular or nonlegal financial transactions influence political authority? Institutions, the rules and norms by which we live, are found to be key. This “Introduction” sketches the conceptual links between money, rules, and ruling in the context of the heightened authoritarianism and institutional formalization of the 2010s—the Xi Jinping era.

Wartime Is Peacetime: Undeclared Armed Conflict in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries

Abstract War has increasingly concealed itself by way of euphemism and undeclared armed conflict, a practice that has unsettled the distinction between wartime and peacetime. Each of the four books reviewed herein touches upon this topic, either directly or indirectly. Carson addresses the features of and reasons for covert operations over the course of the twentieth century, focusing on concerted concerns over the risk of escalation. Hoffman and Weiss investigate the evolution of the mainstay commitment to humanitarianism in the international arena, and the extent to which it has become increasingly attached to security. Fazal largely agrees with this conclusion, but takes it one step further. She persuasively shows how the proliferation of international humanitarian law led to a decrease in formal declarations of war among states, a practice that contributed to semantic confusion as well as to the growing use of euphemism to account for armed conflict. Schadlow argues consistently for greater conceptual and practical links between war and postconflict governance, pointing, among other things, to how ill-conceived strategy regarding the broader meaning of war leads to unsuccessful military operations. The review essay subsequently links this common thread—particularly the concealed types of warfare, the use of euphemism, and limited conceptions of armed conflict—to ongoing debates on wartime and peacetime and their relationship to the international order. Overall, the international order's specific setup in conjunction with how war is no longer explicitly recognized or declared has resulted in a division of labor among the military, technocrats, and the police. This division of labor has in turn unsettled the traditional distinction between peacetime and wartime to the effect that the latter is no longer explicitly acknowledged.

Relations between graduates’ learning experiences and employment outcomes: a cautionary note for institutional performance indicators

Higher education broadly assumes a conceptual link between generic skills and employability. We accessed a large sample of data collected by the Australian Government to investigate whether the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) subscales Good Teaching (GTS), Graduate Skills (GSS), and Graduate Qualities (GQS) predicted graduates’ employment status, overall course satisfaction, and decisions to take further studies. GTS was found to predict graduates’ overall course satisfaction; however, GSS and GQS scales combined predicted negligible increases in employment outcomes. Our findings highlight the imperative for higher education leaders to critically examine discourse about the link between employability skills and employment outcomes.

Photograph method fosters direct access to second-language word meaning: Direct evidence from a word-picture matching task.

This experiment was designed to investigate conceptual links directly through a word-picture matching task in children. Participants were asked to indicate between two pictures the one depicting the same concept as the newly learned L2 word (target). One of the two pictures was the target, while the other was either semantically related to it or was unrelated. To investigate whether learning methods modulate L2 word processing, two learning methods were compared: an L2-photograph method and an L1-L2 method. Results showed a semantic interference effect only with the L2-photograph method: Children responded more slowly in the related condition than in the unrelated one. The learning method modulated L2 word processing and L2 word meaning was not necessarily accessed through L1 mediation in the first steps of learning. The method used paves the way for the direct investigation of conceptual links.

Developing support teachers’ digital competencies for an inclusive citizenship

The present work focuses on the construct of digital citizenship from an educational and inclusive point of view. Considering the general European interest in implementing citizens’ digital skills and with particular care for the contemporary situation of overall emergency, due to the Covid 19 pandemic case, the idea is that of considering a possible conceptual link between digital skills and the Capability Approach. In the light of an ‘Education for all’, the aware development of teachers and, particularly support teachers’ digital skills, may be a crucial key to enact inclusive processes able to guarantee any pupil and student the chance to become a capable and valuable citizen, despite his/her frailties and social failures. This paper is part of a wider research project entitled “Best practices and tools of analysis in schools and community contexts: learning, teaching & inclusion”, started in March 2019 and funded by the Department of Psychological, Pedagogical Sciences, Physical Exercise and Training, of the University of Palermo, and of which just a segment related to the analysis of support teachers’ digital competence is reported here.

Family commitment and performance in private family firms: moderating effect of professionalization

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to examine the interplay between family commitment as a family-centric resource and professionalization of the organization as a firm-centric resource to determine how the two phenomenon come together to enhance business performance in the context of privately held family firms.Design/methodology/approachDeploying the theoretical lens offered by the resource-based view, a conceptual link is developed between family commitment to the firm and firm performance with the potential moderating influence of firm professionalization. The hypotheses are tested using data collected from 357 privately held medium-to-large family-owned manufacturing companies in Bangladesh. The data are analyzed through structural equation modeling using SmartPLS (v.3.2).FindingsThe data analysis suggests that in absence of the moderator; professionalization, family commitment has a positive and significant association with firm performance. While in the presence of the moderator the above relationship is substantially stronger. The findings indicate that when family-specific resources and firm-specific resources are synchronized, it enhances performance of the family firm and puts it on a strong economic footing toward a more sustainable future.Research limitations/implicationsCross-sectional nature of the study exposes it to the specter of common method bias despite the fact that procedural remedies were initiated to minimize the impact of such occurrence. Furthermore, data were collected from a single individual in each organization. Therefore, a longitudinal study with data obtained from multiple individuals at different levels of the organization would possibly yield more robust findings.Practical implicationsLeaders of family firms may find pertinent clues from the outcome of this study. Particularly, the confluence of family commitment to the firm as a family-specific resource and professionalization as a firm-specific resource can be valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and substitute source of competitive advantage for the family business organization.Social implicationsSurvival of family businesses is vital to the global economy as one of the primary drivers of global gross domestic product growth and source of new employment. Policymakers can benefit from the findings of this study to customize policies to nurture growth of family enterprises and incentivize family firms to adopt professionalization through better governance and transparent managerial procedures.Originality/valueA nuanced understanding of how family commitment and firm professionalization combine to significantly improve performance of family firms has not been dominant in the literature. Therefore, findings of this study carry special theoretical implications, because it suggests that both family-specific features and firm-specific features are necessary for enhanced levels of firm-centric business outcomes such as economic performance.