Conceptual Tools Research Articles

Barbarians at the Tills? Post-pandemic reflections on violence and abuse against workers in the retail industry

The UK retail sector is witnessing substantial increases in violence and abuse towards its customer-facing workers in the post-pandemic era. The costs of this violence to employee wellbeing, local community stability and economic losses to the retail industry are manifold. COVID-19 has been implicated as a central driver in these increases, as the legacy of abuse in retail settings during the pandemic lockdowns continues to affect workers across the sector. This article adopts a series of conceptual tools from critical criminology to argue that rising violence against retail staff cannot be explained by the pandemic alone. Rather, criminology must consider these trends against a background of longer-standing increases in interpersonal violence and rapidly shifting cultural currents under late-neoliberal capitalism. This article also reflects on the hardening of consumer subjectivities and declining deference to mechanisms of authority that continue to manifest under postmodern cultural conditions. These all serve as prominent features in the contextual aetiology of abuse against retail staff and render the possibility of addressing retail violence through deterrence and prevention measures problematic.

Narratives Behind Climate Strategy in Finland

The 2015 Paris Agreement (PA) represents a profound change in global climate governance becoming a blueprint for other governance arenas. However, the varying success of reaching the national climate targets, unstable security, and growing right-wing populism poses a question of which direction the EU climate policy is moving after ten years of PA. The success of this agreement depends heavily on the effectiveness of national climate change policies wherein political parties have a critical role in developing these policies while also impacting public attitudes on climate change. We use the case of Finnish climate strategy as a case of national climate strategy. We analyzed Finnish climate policy documents by using Ostrom’s IAD Framework and Multiple stream framework analysis to create the narratives behind the Finnish climate strategy. The Institutional Analysis and Development framework (IAD) is a conceptual tool that Ostrom and her colleagues developed to analyze and understand the complex interactions and dynamics within institutions that govern common-pool resources. Our research question is: What are the narratives behind the Finnish climate strategy? Key words: Climate strategy, narrative, IAD framework, Multiple stream analysis framework

Groundwaterscapes: A Global Classification and Mapping of Groundwater's Large‐Scale Socioeconomic, Ecological, and Earth System Functions

AbstractGroundwater is a dynamic component of the global water cycle with important social, economic, ecological, and Earth system functions. We present a new global classification and mapping of groundwater systems, which we call groundwaterscapes, that represent predominant configurations of large‐scale groundwater system functions. We identify and map 15 groundwaterscapes which offer a new lens to conceptualize, study, model, and manage groundwater. Groundwaterscapes are derived using a novel application of sequenced self‐organizing maps that capture patterns in groundwater system functions at the grid cell level (∼10 km), including groundwater‐dependent ecosystem type and density, storage capacity, irrigation, safe drinking water access, and national governance. All large aquifer systems of the world are characterized by multiple groundwaterscapes, highlighting the pitfalls of treating these groundwater bodies as lumped systems in global assessments. We evaluate the distribution of Global Groundwater Monitoring Network wells across groundwaterscapes and find that industrial agricultural regions are disproportionately monitored, while several groundwaterscapes have next to no monitoring wells. This disparity undermines the ability to understand system dynamics across the full range of settings that characterize groundwater systems globally. We argue that groundwaterscapes offer a conceptual and spatial tool to guide model development, hypothesis testing, and future data collection initiatives to better understand groundwater's embeddedness within social‐ecological systems at the global scale.

Integrating Values to Improve the Relevance of Climate‐Risk Research

AbstractClimate risks are growing. Research is increasingly important to inform the design of risk‐management strategies. Assessing such strategies necessarily brings values into research. But the values assumed within research (often only implicitly) may not align with those of stakeholders and decision makers. These misalignments are often invisible to researchers and can severely limit research relevance or lead to inappropriate policy advice. Aligning strategy assessments with stakeholders' values requires a holistic approach to research design that is oriented around those values from the start. Integrating values into research in this way requires collaboration with stakeholders, integration across disciplines, and attention to all aspects of research design. Here we describe and demonstrate a qualitative conceptual tool called a values‐informed mental model (ViMM) to support such values‐centered research design. ViMMs map stakeholders' values onto a conceptual model of a study system to visualize the intersection of those values with coupled natural‐human system dynamics. Through this mapping, ViMMs integrate inputs from diverse collaborators to support the design of research that assesses risk‐management strategies in light of stakeholders' values. We define a visual language for ViMMs, describe accompanying practices and workflows, and present an illustrative application to the case of flood‐risk management in a small community along the Susquehanna river in the Northeast United States.

Developing & Validating a Clinical Decision Support Tool for ER-targeted PET Imaging with 16α-18F-Fluoro-17β-Fluoroestradiol

BackgroundEstrogen receptor (ER) status in breast cancer (BC) is routinely determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC); however, this technique is not without limitations, including false results. Imaging of CeriannaTM (fluoroestradiol F18) injection provides high diagnostic accuracy of ER expression, supplementing information from biopsy. A Clinical Decision Support (CDS) tool was developed to better assess its clinical usefulness in metastatic and recurrent breast cancer management. This study evaluated a conceptual tool that reflects clinical practice variables. MethodsIndividual patient characteristics - candidacy for therapeutic treatment and rate of recurrence - determined initial eligibility. The CDS tool uses rules (IF-THEN statements) to produce an output on the diagnostic accuracy of ER status based on tumor burden, anatomical location(s) of metastasis, heterogeneity, and confidence in sample collection & pathology accuracy (CSC & PA). An Excel-based probability decision tree calculates the accuracy of ER expression. Results360 oncologists in the United States participated in the survey study. 223 respondents identified as medical oncologists (62%), 77 as clinical oncologists (21%), and 60 as hematologic oncologists (17%). 93% of respondents found the CDS tool intuitive and easy to follow with medical and clinical oncologists favoring the tool more than hematologic oncologists. Individual CDS attributes - clinical criteria, diagnostic comparator, true positive and true negative, patient inclusion and exclusion, and clinical patient level inputs - were tested with overall positive feedback. ConclusionsBased on respondent feedback, further development of CDS tools are warranted for potential use in patients’ diagnostic workup. Micro abstractCorrect identification of estrogen receptor (ER) status in breast cancer is critical to optimal treatment decisions. While ER status is routinely determined by biopsy and immunohistochemistry (IHC), this technique may yield false positive or negative results. Cerianna (fluoroestradiol F18) injection provides high diagnostic accuracy of ER expression, supplementing the information obtained by IHC. A Clinical Decision Support tool was developed to help identify the contribution that Cerianna may contribute to the management of metastatic and recurrent breast cancer. This study incorporated the feedback of 360 Oncologists representing several sub-specialties, settings of care, and other variables. The results confirmed the validity of the CDS tool concluding that it resonates with clinical practice today, is complete and would be used in clinical practice.

Who Counts as Child? Using Child as Method and Fanon to Challenge Figurations of Childhood

Child as method is a critical and interdisciplinary approach interrogating figurations of childhood that engage, organize, justify (and perhaps even resist) sociopolitical processes. In this article, we start by presenting Child as method as a conceptual and methodological tool for critical research in childhood, education, and psychological studies and then show how it informed discussions of and about childhood in two different projects. The first concerns Legal Gender Recognition in the United Kingdom where a Child as method perspective highlights how the idea of developmentalism is embedded in figurations of childhood. This aligns with age conformities of “being more like adults than children,” while also showing how gender recognition and childhood have been built in opposition to each other. The second project mobilizes Child as method as a conceptual and methodological orientation to critically reflect on the role-played by age assessment practices in migration control in Greece. This highlights how “the child” becomes a trope within forced migration policies and practices, and how “childhood” performs a social condition in which children are represented as victims in state and humanitarian discourse. In doing so, this not only creates a “universalised” notion of childhood but also enacts epistemic violence. Indeed, these discourses mobilize action in the form of age assessment for those young people who do not look or perform like “real children,” establishing, in essence, who is and is not welcomed in the Western territory. The article ends by discussing Frantz Fanon as a critical childhood theorist. It depicts how Fanon’s contribution informs, conceptually and methodologically, the research analytic of Child as method. Together with Child as method, we put forward Fanon’s contribution to critical childhood studies while highlighting Fanon’s call for action from everyone, including children.

Screening Tools for Alcohol Use Disorder Among Older Adults: A Scoping Review.

As the number of older adults increases, the volume of alcohol-related problems among the older adult population also rises. The purpose of the current scoping review was to summarize and disseminate research findings related to screening for alcohol use disorder (AUD) in older adults (aged ≥60 years) and determine if research gaps exist in the current literature. The concepts of older adults, screening tools, AUD, and instrument evaluation were searched in Medline, APA PsycINFO, and CINAHL. After eligibility criteria were established, screening was completed using Covidence software. Data extracted from each study included the instrument used, method of evaluation, and findings. Seven studies remained after screening. None of the studies took place in the United States. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and related variations were used most often and were found to be adequate for detecting at-risk drinking among older adults. In addition, some studies suggested lower screening limits for older adults. As the percentage of older adults engaging in risky or hazardous drinking patterns grows, there is an increased need for AUD screening using a reliable tool. Current research is limited; more research is needed regarding which tools perform best in various settings, as well as how to interpret instrument results for older adults. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, xx(xx), xx-xx.].

Tendón de Aquiles anatomía e insuficiencia

Introduction: the main aspects of Achilles tendon (AT) insufficiency were determined through the review of classic texts and current literature on the topic, to acquire the various conceptual and therapeutic tools in clinical practice. Methodology: we used the PubMed, Clinical Key, Embase, Cochrane and Lilacs search engines, including references in Spanish and English published between 1980 and 2020. Articles were reviewed using the CONSORT, STROBE or PRISMA guidelines, as appropriate. Results: 30 articles directly related to the topic were selected. Meta-analyses, systematic reviews, prospective and observational studies, and narrative reviews were included. Discussion: there is a wide spectrum of intrinsic and extrinsic predisposing risk factors for the development of AT insufficiency, but its etiology remains unclear. The mainstay treatment for tendinopathies in general, is rehabilitation provided by trained personnel. The surgical approach, by percutaneous or open surgical release techniques, is reserved for cases in which conservative approaches fail. Nonsurgical treatment for ruptured AT has shown excellent outcomes if patients undergo a strict rehabilitation process following diagnosis, however, in our socioeconomic context, tendon repair surgery continues to be a first-line therapeutic pillar. Conclusion: this review provides basic concepts and their correlation with biomechanics, indispensable for an early diagnosis and successful treatment.

The Geoeconomic Turn in International Trade, Investment, and Technology

This thematic issue brings together a set of articles that empirically map the state of the ongoing geoeconomic turn in the global political economy from an international political economy (IPE) perspective. Changes in the modus operandi of the global political economy urge the development of new conceptual and theoretical tools to grasp the new geoeconomic reality of world affairs. At the same time, the contemporary study of geoeconomics remains theory-centred and focused on its security dimension, thereby underplaying the empirical nuances and variegated aspects of these developments. We therefore make the case for an empirically grounded study of concrete cases and instances of the geoeconomic turn, which can then deliver insights for further theory-building. Likewise, many aspects of the geoeconomic turn cannot be explained by security logics only, but have political economy roots that need to be brought to the foreground. Our thematic issue excavates these dynamics across four key challenges for the global economy: the role of states and firms in a geoeconomic world; global technological competition; the green transition; and implications of the geoeconomic turn for the non-Western world. Collectively, the contributions demonstrate that the geoeconomic turn is only starting to concretely (and partially) materialize and that these transformations, in many cases, tend to replicate existing power structures that prioritize capital(ist) interests related to profit-maximisation over societal interests, ecological sustainability, or social equity. We close by delineating prospects for further IPE research into the ongoing geoeconomic turn in the global political economy.

After Admission: The Emotional Suffering of Students Enrolled Through the Rural Students Quota Plan in China's Elite Universities

ABSTRACTThe Chinese government has implemented a series of special admission policies in recent years to promote higher education equity. One of the key approaches is the ‘Rural Students Quota Plan’, which requires elite universities to enrol a certain number of rural students from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds each year. This study adopted qualitative methods to explore the experiences of these students, focusing on their emotional journeys after admission to elite universities. In this project, 32 rural students from R University were invited to participate in semi‐structured interviews. After thematic analysis, this paper further focuses on the systematic presentation and in‐depth analysis of ten of these Quota Plan students' university experiences to carefully delve into their emotional journeys while integrating the narratives of other participants as background data into the analysis. Drawing on Bourdieu's conceptual tools, this study highlights how emotional struggles such as the sense of feeling lost and inferior are shaped by external social structures and the elite university field. The study argues that as elite universities strive to enrol more rural students, mechanisms must be put in place to better support rural students in their adaptation and integration throughout the higher education process.

Exploring Smokers Perspectives on Health Status and Health Seeking Behavior: A Qualitative Exploration

Objective: Smokers might tend to ignore when communicating about smoking health risks. We used Bourdieu’s conceptual tool to guide and explore their perception of being healthy despite their smoking behavior and their health seeking practice. Material and Methods: A qualitative method, using a semi-structured interview as the main method of collecting the data, was used. This method was implemented because of its flexibility in the exploration, based on participant responses. Results: The findings are reported as per the thematic analysis of 15 purposively selected participants. The ages of the 15 participants varied from 20 to 55 years old, and they were selected from the quantitative study to participate voluntarily in this qualitative exploration. Among them, 14 were males and one was female. The ethnic representation in this qualitative part were Malays (n=14) and Chinese (n=1). The duration of smoking varied in the sample, with the majority smoking for more than five years. Conclusion: This study better understands smokers’ health perception and their health-seeking behavior. Firstly, the perception of the less harmful effects of smoking on the health of smokers was understood within the views of Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Health Capital, which, in turn poses challenges to smoking cessation programs and campaigns. This study reported that smokers perceived themselves as healthy, and thus continued their smoking habit despite knowing its side effects.

Intergenerational emotions and family history: temporal feelings and national stories

Intergenerational emotions highlight the feelings that we have for our ancestors and descendants, drawing attention to a lineage of feeling and its temporalities. This article revisits the idea of intergenerational emotions as a conceptual tool and methodological approach that is used to explore how we grapple with feelings that persist across time, and which draws attention to the importance of temporalities in shaping social structures and emotional practices. It particularly positions the family as a key site where ideas of emotion and temporality are negotiated, and so to generating intergenerational emotions as a historical and cultural construct. To illustrate this discussion, it uses the example of family history making in an exhibition by the Windrush Generation Legacy Association.

Robert Bernasconi and the challenges of a Critical Philosophy of Race: (Un)learning to read and teach the history of moral philosophy

This essay is an attempt to determine what Robert Bernasconi’s body of work in Critical Philosophy of Race can teach us about the way in which we, philosophers and professors of philosophy, ought to treat our institutional heritage. What should we make, for instance, of moral claims made by philosophers of the modern era who – tacitly or explicitly – manifested certain levels of endorsement toward the Atlantic Slave Trade? How should we comprehend the conceptual tools that we have inherited from them, knowing that those were formulated alongside justificatory claims for the enslavement of Africans – claims that we now deem undoubtably and universally immoral? I extract from Bernasconi’s writings an implicit methodology that can be broken down into three main moves: (1) a historiographical work, akin to Michel Foucault’s ‘archaeological’ method, aimed at uncovering the material conditions that allowed for the emergence of philosophical ideas of the past, (2) a dialectical work aimed at interpreting this collection of historical data through the critical lens of race, and (3) a pedagogical work aimed at transforming the practice of academic philosophy in light of the critique. I conclude that his methodological contribution culminates in an invitation to revisit and transform the past of the institution by treating the history of academic philosophy as philosophically and conceptually relevant rather than merely incidental. Such a commitment toward critically engaging the past of our institution urges us to revisit the canon in specific ways.

Houcine Slaoui’s Song ‘Lmarikane’ or ‘The Handsome Blue-eyed Ones’: A Postcolonial Perspective

The present paper is a retrospective journey/ ‘voyage back’ in Moroccan popular art, an invitation to cast a new perspective on its lyrical heritage, to uncover hitherto overlooked dimensions, and ultimately to rethink in novel and original ways Moroccan popular culture. Read through the prism of Postcolonial theory with its arsenal of conceptual tools, Houcine Slaoui’s Lmarikane or ‘The Handsome Blue eyed Ones’ is invested with unsuspected revolutionary potentials in so far as it erects itself as a genuine anthropological document unravelling the deeply ambivalent condition of subalternity. While being politically and historically grounded, the complexity of the song/ text lies in forcing the spotlight on the epistemic violence committed by Western imperial powers, namely the American presence in Morocco ensuing Operation Torch in 1942, and ultimately exploring how identity is constructed through a complex engagement with otherness.

How to Do Things with Normative Political Theories: The Performative Nature of Political Philosophy

Recently, there has been much debate about the role and nature of political theories. Jeremy Waldron has argued that we misconstrue a theory’s purpose if we summarize it in terms of ‘What Plato Would Allow’, because a normative theory is a conceptual exploration and should not be reduced to a policy wish list. To make sense of such phrases beyond Waldron’s critique, this paper provides some conceptual tools to clarify the practical purpose of normative political theories. First, it draws on Bernard Williams’ distinction between the enactive and structural models in political theory. Second, it seeks to reconstruct normative political theories as sets of speech acts having an illocutionary point that expresses the relation between theory and practice. Third, the paper outlines five types of illocutionary points (Intervention, Justification, Reconciliation, Critique, and Imagination of alternatives). The idea of an illocutionary point can make sense of the practical import of a theory in a multifaceted manner and without subscribing to a specific conception of practicality.

Analysis of the process behaviour of diamond-coated foams in finishing of ground hardened steel

To broaden the process understanding with regard to a tool concept for finishing operations based on soft foams coated with diamonds, the application behaviour with respect to the surface preparation of a ground hardened steel surface is considered. By analysing the surface on the basis of established roughness parameters, the material removal behaviour is investigated in dependence on the process parameters and tool specifications. Furthermore, the influence on the micro roughness superimposed on the roughness profile can be analysed. The recorded process forces serve as a basis for understanding the underlying mechanisms and for interpreting the results.

A human digital twin for the M-Machine

Human digital twins are computational models of the human actions involved in interacting and operating technical artifacts. Such models provide a conceptual and practical tool for artificial intelligence designers when they seek to replace human work with intelligent machines. Indeed, digital twins have long served as models of technical and cyber-physical processes. Human digital twins have such models as their foundations but also include models of human actions. As a result, human digital twin models enable technology designers to model how people interact with intelligent technical artifacts. Yet, development of human digital twins is associated with certain conceptual problems. To clarify the basic idea, we constructed a human digital twin for Minsky’s M-Machine. The abstract conceptual structure of this machine and its generality allowed us to analyze the general properties of human digital twins, their design, and their use as tools in designing intelligent technologies.

On Foucault’s Legacy: Governmentality, Critique and Subjectivation as Conceptual Tools for Understanding Neoliberalism

The text addresses Foucault’s critical understanding of neoliberalism as a new contemporary governmentality strategy for the conduction of people’s lives. A major aspect of Foucault’s analysis of neoliberalism relies on his understanding of the neoliberal homo oeconomicus as dependent on subjectivation processes related to self-assumed values and standards oriented by the competitive economic market. Our hypothesis is that governmentality, critique and subjectivation are the core notions that shaped Foucault’s understanding of neoliberalism and form the legacy of his seminal analysis. Contrary to critics who affirm that Foucault flirted or even became fascinated with neoliberalism, we argue that he offered critical tools for its understanding in a critique that is not to be confused with denunciation, however. Accordingly, we discuss Foucault’s conception of critique and relate his analysis of neoliberalism to his notions of governmentality and subjectivation. Finally, we briefly point out how some contemporary critics of the neoliberal order have appropriated and developed Foucault’s conceptual tools in their own understanding of it. We conclude that although Foucault did not propose a comprehensive theory of neoliberalism, he offered important critical insights for the understanding of it in our times.

Prediction of perceived annoyance caused by an electric drone noise through its technical, operational, and psychoacoustic parameters.

Electric drones serve diverse functions, including delivery and surveillance. Nonetheless, they encounter significant challenges due to their annoying noise emissions. To address this issue, a sound database was created from experiments conducted in a hover-test-bench and real flights operated indoors. These experiments involved a wide range of parameter variations and operational conditions. A global digital user study involving 578 participants was conducted to assess drone noise annoyance. Furthermore, correlations between annoyance levels, psychoacoustic metrics, sociocultural factors, and technical/operational parameters were analyzed. The effects of implementing acoustic optimization modifications on the drone's performance were quantified with a conceptual design tool. The findings indicate that reducing the levels of loudness, sharpness, tonality, and roughness or fluctuation strength led to an improvement in annoyance. Differences in variable importance of psychoacoustic metrics dependent on the specific model were found. Sociocultural factors did not affect annoyance. Technical and operational parameters impacted annoyance, especially when reducing blade tip speed. A 20% reduction in tip speed showed potential through tool application as it maintained acceptable drone performance while beneficially targeting annoyance. A multi-disciplinary optimization is recommended to maintain operational efficiency. Last, psychoacoustic metrics were validated as an effective measure to evaluate a design solution.

Affectivism and the Emotional Elephant: How a Componential Approach Can Reconcile Opposing Theories to Serve the Future of Affective Sciences.

This article discusses how the affectivism framework and the componential approach to emotion may serve the future of affective sciences. A particular aim of the article is to show that an appraisal-based componential approach to emotion can help reconcile opposing theories. It begins by contextualizing the evolution of emotion science within the framework of affectivism, acknowledging that the significant epistemological differences between various theories have paradoxically spurred interest in studying emotion across various perspectives and disciplines. If affectivism is regarded as the pursuit of a deeper understanding of not only emotions and other affective processes but also cognitive and behavioral processes, then its success can be partly attributed to the existence of multiple approaches, allowing each discipline and perspective to advance using the most suitable theory and methodology. We contend that a componential approach reveals that the five principal theories of emotion have each focused on one of five components of emotion. Overall, based on the analysis of several articles published in the special issue on the future of affective science, we argue that affective scientists are well equipped not onlyto build a future in which conceptual and methodological tools will be used to test diverging hypotheses between competing theories but also to acknowledge and celebrate where such theories converge.