Contrasting Case Studies Research Articles

Pre-service teachers in PE involved in an organizational critical incident: emotions, appraisal and coping strategies

Background: Emotions play a major role in the learning of pre-service teachers. However, there is a lack of in-depth research on emotion in the context of physical education (PE), especially during the practicum. Lazarus's model and its concepts of appraisal and coping is a salient theoretical framework for understanding the emotional process.Aim: To understand the role of personal and contextual factors in the emotional process experienced by pre-service teachers in PE.Participants: Contrasting case studies of two pre-service teachers in PE during their practicum at a secondary school in Belgium.Data collection and analysis: Participants were interviewed after viewing an audio-visual recording of a lesson they gave and encouraged to express the emotions and describe the strategies they used to cope with an unanticipated event called an ‘organizational critical incident’ (OCI). The verbatim was analysed using QSR-NVivo software to describe these emotions, appraisals and coping strategies.Findings: Pre-service teachers experience emotional flux when they are involved in an OCI. They appraise the situation as being either a challenge or a threat. Perception of self-efficacy in classroom management and the ability to seize opportunities as they emerge in an unfolding situation are determinant factors in the choice of coping strategies.Conclusions: The study reveals that OCIs are experienced as negative emotional episodes, more or less intense. Immersed in such an emotional situation, the choice of a coping strategy is linked to personal factors, such as goal hierarchy and a perception of high self-efficacy, coupled with contextual factors, such as pupils' rate of activity.

Surviving a cluster collapse: risk aversion as a core value

PurposeThis paper analyses firms, which survived in a collapsed regional cluster. The target is to analyze whether the principles for enduring success identified researching success factors of very old firms also apply in such an environment.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct a series of contrasting case studies, embedded in cluster theory and enduring success research.FindingsFirms survived with very different strategies and levels of outsourcing. However, surviving firms were congruently very conservative in their finances and in innovation behavior. Risk aversion and an early detachment from the declining cluster were found as success patterns for survival.Research limitations/implicationsOwing to the disappearance of most other firms in the cluster, it was not possible to evaluate their unsuccessful strategies, which means that they cannot be excluded for sure if failed firms applied similar tactics than the surviving firms. This study is focused on one cluster in one industry. Future research could feel encouraged to test the enduring success principles on large scale, multi‐industry surveys.Practical implicationsThe conclusions from this research stress the merits of a conservative approach to corporate management, which contrasts with a more risk‐taking attitude managers may feel tempted to take in order to satisfy some (financial) stakeholders.Social implicationsThe “conservatism hypothesis” discussed in this research complements the discussion on corporate ethics.Originality/valueThis paper adds to existing enduring success literature by applying it to the extremely challenging environment of a declining industry. It contributes to cluster theory, in particular to cluster life cycle research.

Agriculture’s Inter‐industry Linkages, Aggregation Bias and Rural Policy Reforms

AbstractAs agricultural policy reform and its effects have become increasingly territorialised, analyses that attempt to explain or predict impacts need to be both more localised and to identify spill‐over effects. Local and regional general equilibrium approaches have become increasingly popular because they can extend predictions of policy shocks obtainable from partial equilibrium sectoral models to identify the wider effects. However, agriculture is usually described as a single sector in input–output accounts, whereas policy shocks that affect constituent commodities with differential impacts will have inter‐industry effects that are different to those implied by average input–output coefficients. Regionalisation of aggregated input–output tables adds further to these difficulties. The objective of this study is to develop a practical method for dealing with these problems. It describes the theoretical basis of aggregation bias and shows how it can be measured, in two contrasting case study regions in the UK and Sweden. Having established that this is a significant issue, a simple but effective procedure is demonstrated, based on additional information on variable costs, which transforms policy shocks from a direct change in agricultural output to that transmitted to the suppliers of inputs. This method provides an impact close to that which could be calculated if the general equilibrium system had indeed been disaggregated, and supports use of this approach in impact studies where insufficient time or funding are available for complete disaggregation of an agricultural sector’s regional accounts.

Proceedings of the Dengue Symposium at the 9th International Congress of Tropical Pediatrics

Dengue is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease. With four different serotypes, it is a burden throughout tropical and subtropical regions and a potential threat to almost half of the world’s population. Recent studies estimate that 50–100 million people are infected each year, of whom about 500,000 develop dengue haemorrhagic fever – a severe form of the disease – and 22,000 of whom die. Dengue haemorrhagic fever is also a leading cause of hospitalisation, placing tremendous pressure on strained medical resources, with an associated major economic and societal impact. Many factors have contributed to the recent dramatic rise in the number of cases of dengue fever, including increased urbanisation and travel. The heavy burden of dengue can only be lifted by strong cooperation between international institutions and agencies to create a new strategy targeting prevention of deaths, reducing morbidity and lessening the associated social and economic losses. In addition, a dengue vaccine is seen as the best way to control dengue effectively. Proper management of dengue infection, mosquito control measures as well as a candidate dengue vaccine, requires a comprehensive update of knowledge in all relevant aspects. This parallel symposium was organised by the Thailand Chapter of the International Society of Tropical Pediatrics on 20 October 2011, in collaboration with the 9th International Congress of Tropical Pediatrics, which was held on 18–20 October 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand. The objective of the symposium was to provide the participants with a unique opportunity to share their experiences and discuss various issues relating to the pathophysiology, epidemiology, management and control of dengue. Through this symposium, participants gained knowledge and experience from invited speakers from various parts of highly endemic areas. In this context, the symposium also illustrated the importance of sharing best practice and knowledge across all regions and specialities involved in the struggle against dengue. These proceedings summarise the Parallel Symposium on Dengue held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Bangkok, Thailand, on 20 October 2011. The supplement begins with an interesting commentary from Scott Halstead as he seeks to analyse and resolve six key controversies in dengue fever research, including the utility of the 1997 World Health Organization (WHO) case definition of dengue haemorrhagic fever and an examination of several theories of dengue infection pathogenesis. Following this, Roberto Tapia-Conyer and colleagues consider the more practical aspects of dengue fever management: community participation, structured by an integrated management strategy. It has the overall aim of improving the efficacy, cost-effectiveness, environmental impact and sustainability of vector control strategies. Tapia-Conyer and his co-authors then discuss in detail the problem of dengue fever infection in Latin America overall. They suggest various ways in which the disease could be combated, including using a vaccine or involving the community, but conclude that politics, finance and co-operation are all areas that need to be managed. A contrasting case study is then presented by Fred Were, focusing on dengue in Africa and the possible differences in the spread of the disease compared with the remainder of the dengue-endemic population. However, Were points out that it is difficult to characterise the disease in Africa owing to the poor surveillance infrastructure and under-recognition of the disease, as there is often a greater focus on malaria. Terapong Tantawichien follows this with a discussion of the increasing prevalence of dengue infection in adolescents and adults, with an in-depth analysis of its clinical manifestations and specific treatment in this age group. On a similar theme, Annelies Wilder-Smith focuses on a particular subset of the adult population threatened by dengue infection – travellers. Travellers are not only at risk themselves but they contribute to the spread of dengue; furthermore, they may serve to alert the international community to current epidemics. Sri Rezeki Hadinegoro considers the diagnoses of dengue fever, dengue haemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome in relation to the WHO classification systems of 1997 and 2009. There has been much debate surrounding these classification criteria and Hadinegoro suggests that the evolution of dengue over past years has contributed to the limited applicability of the older case definitions. Following the DENCO study, the newer classification system was formed, but the effectiveness of this is still being debated. Finally, Nguyen Thanh Hung describes the types of intravenous solutions for treatment of children with dengue; he concludes that isotonic crystalloid solutions can be used for the majority of children, and colloids can be considered a second option. We should like to express our sincere thanks to all of the distinguished invited speakers and resource persons for their contribution. We hope that these proceedings will prove of great interest, and help the global dengue community to improve the prevention, diagnosis and management of dengue infection.

The precautionary principle and evidence-based policy

The precautionary principle recommends, in the face of pressing but unquantifiable threats, that decision makers should not wait indefinitely for the backing of evidence. As such, it represents another potential challenge to the turbulent fortunes of evidence-based policy. Through four contrasting case studies, this paper examines this challenge and formulates a preliminary model of the role of the precautionary principle in evidence-based policy. We conclude that although precaution may be a barrier to evidence-based policy making, this is not always so and depending on the contextual factors, it can also be enabling, encouraging policy makers to engage with the evidence.

Molecular Strategies for Identification and Deployment of Gene(s) for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants

We live in a momentous period for deploying plant genetic resources to meet abiotic environmental challenges to agricultural productivity and human well-being. Abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, high and low temperatures and others limit yield and productivity of many cultivated crop plants worldwide. Conventional plant breeding techniques, though resulted in development of many abiotic stress-tolerant varieties has not provided the complete solution to this problem. The successful use of gene technology for complex crop traits and responses to stress environments remains a challenging approach despite its potential. In recent years there have been novel functional genomics approaches in the field of plant biotechnology for identifying genes through transcript profiling, mapping and cloning of QTLS and their deployment through transgenic approach and marker-assisted selection, respectively. These approaches have provided altogether new dimensions to crop improvement activities and opened up avenues for addressing some of the difficult problems hitherto highly intractable through conventional means. In this article efforts have been made to review experimental contrasting case studies reported for identification and deployment of gene(s) for the enhancement of abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants using various strategies.

Comparative Housing Research: A ‘System-Embedded’ Approach

This paper seeks to rebuild and strengthen the case for policy-related comparative housing research as an academic activity. Critiques that have discouraged the practice of international research have undermined its legitimacy whilst eroding the evidence base, and have devalued its function through the use of value-laden language and unevidenced assertions. While ‘glocalisation’ presents a challenge to cross-national research we argue that nation states are still policy resource rich, and that the existence of distinctive national institutions through which common international pressures are mediated strengthens the case for it. Building on an examination of the distinctive qualities of housing compared to the main ‘pillars’ of the welfare state, we make the case for what we call ‘system-embedded research’. This marks a development from existing ‘middle ways’, being founded on the principle that policy is conceived within wider housing systems and housing systems themselves operate within wider social and economic structures. Through contrasting case studies we show that if founded on the principle of being system-embedded, policy-related comparative housing research can reap high rewards; but if it does not it carries grave risks.

Historical Institutionalism and the Varieties of Federalism in Germany and Canada

This article uses two contrasting case studies, Canada and Germany, to illustrate how varieties of federalism evolve on diverging developmental pathways. Applying a historical institutionalist framework, the article explains how different forms of institutionalized relationships between governmental tiers grow out from early institutional alignments and become self-reinforcing. As federal institutional designs variously embody constraining and enabling elements, this institutional legacy has important consequences for the scope of entrepreneurial politics. Institutional variation, therefore, is likely to generate different adjustment paths in federal systems.

System alignment as a key strategy in building capacity for school transformation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review strategies to build capacity for school improvement in Australia. The focus is on public schools and strategies adopted for the system as a whole.Design/methodology/approachThis paper traces developments from a national perspective and makes a case for the key contemporary policy shift that has provided the platform for a new era of educational reform. Two contrasting case studies are described in order to demonstrate the pathways embarked on by a large jurisdiction, namely the State of Victoria, which has led the nation in terms of devolved decision‐making for public schools, and second, a much smaller jurisdiction, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which is introducing a range of reforms to give public schools much greater autonomy in order to achieve improved performance. The paper concludes with a “futures” view of how strategies may continue to evolve. Shifting the language from “improvement” to “transformation” is canvassed.FindingsIt is concluded that a key to success has been to align strategies among different levels of the school system: central, regional/district, school and classroom. The possibilities for moving beyond improvement to transformation are canvassed.Originality/valueThe value of the paper lies in its up‐to‐date account of system‐wide efforts to improve schools and a summary of evidence on their impact. The paper is of particular interest to school and school system leaders as well as those engaged in the study of educational policy and educational leadership.

Conservation of the fynbos biome in the Cape Floral Region: the role of biological control in the management of invasive alien trees

Fynbos is a vegetation type in the Cape Floral Region (CFR), at the southern tip of Africa. Portions of the CFR are recognised as a ‘serial’ World Heritage site and acclaimed by UNESCO as the world’s ‘hottest hot spot’ for plant species richness and endemism. Habitat degradation and species losses through human intrusion in the CFR include transformations brought about by introduced invasive alien tree species. Since 1970, ten invasive tree species in the fynbos biome have been subjected to biological control, namely: six Acacia species and Paraserianthes lophantha (Mimosaceae), Hakea sericea (Proteaceae) and Leptospermum laevigatum (Myrtaceae), all from Australia, and Sesbania punicea (Fabaceae) from South America. A total of 19 species have been deployed as biological control agents, including nine weevil species (eight Curculionidae and one species in the family Brentidae: Apioninae), a seed-feeding moth species (Lepidoptera: Carposinidae), two species of bud-gallers (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae), two species of flower-gallers (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), and a gall-forming rust fungus (Uredinales: Pileolariaceae). Most of these agents primarily reduce seed production, directly or indirectly, but some also cause die-back and mortality of their host plants. The overall result, often in combination with mechanical clearing and herbicide applications, has been a substantial decline in the abundance and/or aggressiveness of most of the targeted host-plants. In this review, four representative but contrasting case studies are used to show that biological control is an indispensible supplement to other management practices for long-term conservation of the remnants of the fynbos biome.

The uses and limits of visionary scenarios: learning from the African experience

PurposeThere has been no shortage of rosy visions for the future of Africa or its regions. Almost without exception, these visions have been dashed by reality. The question therefore arises: “To what extent or under what conditions is visioning an ideal future a worthy exercise?” or “Under what conditions is it useful and when is it limiting?” In anticipating the future in general, and seeking a better future for Africa in particular, might foresight tools built on another (non‐visionary) basis provide better fruit? This paper aims to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe paper considers this question as it applies to scenario planning in particular, by investigating recent, contrasting case studies of scenario‐building activities in Africa (Tanzania and South Africa).FindingsThe paper determines the appropriate uses and limits of “visionary” scenario planning, and suggests a contrasting “adaptive” basis for scenario work.Originality/valueIt is argued that maintaining the purpose‐platform distinction between these two modes is fundamental to getting full value out of scenario work in general, and in the African context in particular. The contrasting case studies explain how and why the adaptive‐normative distinction is important; how different purposes each demand different use of the scenario process tools that currently exist, and show why failure to fit scenario approaches to purpose greatly diminishes the efficacy of the method for either purpose.

Advance Care Planning (ACP) within a palliative approach for residential aged care

In a unique collaboration between palliative care and aged care the Australian government produced Guidelines for a palliative approach in residential aged care, endorsed by the National Health & Medical...

Using technology to explore mathematical relationships: a framework for orienting mathematics courses for prospective teachers

The technological revolution that has finally permeated K-12 education has direct implications for modern teacher educators whose “Hippocratic oath” is to best prepare future teachers for twenty-first-century classrooms. The goal of this article is to suggest that the heart of sound technological implementation is to encourage students to use whatever tools are available to explain the mathematical relations that underlie what they observe on the screen. We suggest ways in which Mishra and Koehler’s construct of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge may be customized to provide a framework for guiding prospective teachers’ efforts to develop and assess lesson plans that use technology in novel and effective ways. Data are presented in the form of two contrasting case studies to illustrate the differing degrees to which prospective mathematics teachers leveraged technology to teach themselves and their future students to explain the mathematics behind various topics.

A Reflective Lens: Applying Critical Systems Thinking and Visual Methods to Ecohealth Research

Critical systems methodology has been advocated as an effective and ethical way to engage with the uncertainty and conflicting values common to ecohealth problems. We use two contrasting case studies, coral reef management in the Philippines and national park management in Australia, to illustrate the value of critical systems approaches in exploring how people respond to environmental threats to their physical and spiritual well-being. In both cases, we used visual methods--participatory modeling and rich picturing, respectively. The critical systems methodology, with its emphasis on reflection, guided an appraisal of the research process. A discussion of these two case studies suggests that visual methods can be usefully applied within a critical systems framework to offer new insights into ecohealth issues across a diverse range of socio-political contexts. With this article, we hope to open up a conversation with other practitioners to expand the use of visual methods in integrated research.

Kosher in New York City, halal in Aquitaine: challenging the relationship between neoliberalism and food auditing

Previous work in the agri-food tradition has framed food auditing as a novelty characteristic of a shift to neoliberal governance in agri-food systems and has tackled the analysis of food “quality” in the same light. This article argues that agri-food scholars’ recent interest in the contested qualities of food needs to be situated alongside a much longer history of contested cultural attributions of trust in food relations. It builds on an earlier discussion suggesting that, although neoliberalism has undoubtedly opened up new spaces for audit activity, older political and social dynamics operating around food audits were established long before the neoliberal historical moment. Breaking new ground (as far as is known) by looking further back than the early history of the organic social movement, it examines intersections of religious food auditing, migrant food culture, and commercial dynamics in food systems. Based on secondary sources, two contrasting case studies are presented to illustrate the flux and complexity for: New World Diaspora migrants to New York City of assuring food was kosher; and more recent Maghrebi migrants to southwest France of assuring food is halal. The article concludes by noting that the neoliberal moment stands not as the unique progenitor of a new style of food authority, but rather as the latest response to a wider rupture in the historically contingent arbitration of new forms of trust in food.

Managing for justice in community-based water planning: a conceptual framework

SUMMARYThis paper provides a systematic way to consider justice in community-based environmental planning and management. A conceptual framework connects the literature on management functions to the empirical and theoretical research on justice. Two contrasting case studies of the water reform process in Australia are used to illustrate how to apply this framework. These case studies show that certain perspectives of justice are particularly pertinent during different phases of a planning process, and that community-based environmental planning and management can be more difficult when the stakeholders involved have different values and views about a resource, and when perceived injustices occur early in a planning process.

An experimental and theoretical approach to determining linkages between geochemical variability and microbial biodiversity in seafloor hydrothermal chimneys

New experimental results of fluid-mineral reactions at hydrothermal conditions relevant to life demonstrate that key redox reactions involving iron, sulfur, and hydrogen remain at disequilibrium at 100 °C, even in a heterogeneous system and thus are energetically favorable for microbial metabolism. Predictions from geochemical models utilizing the experimental results and specific to two contrasting case studies from the East Pacific Rise were statistically characterized and correlated to the energetics of redox reactions available for intra-chimney microbial populations. In general, predictions of available energy for autotrophic metabolism are largely similar between the mature and the nascent chimneys, although important differences still exist. Metabolic processes predicted by energetics exhibit the same trends observed in the field data for the mature chimney, but overestimate the diversity observed in the nascent chimney. Several combinations of redox reaction pairs are predicted to support mixed consortia, while some combinations appear to favor more versatile microbes capable of utilizing several reactions under rapidly changing environmental conditions within chimney walls. In addition, conditions favorable to elemental sulfur reduction and methanogenesis exhibit a negative control on the diversity of microbial populations within these chimney walls, whereas H₂S oxidation, elemental sulfur oxidation and the knallgas reaction are positively correlated with both abundance and diversity of micro-organisms. Coupling field observations of both microbial diversity and geochemical heterogeneity with lab-based experimental and theoretical modeling can facilitate translation of the observed genetic diversity into physiological diversity, thus enhancing understanding of linked phenomena of microbially induced biogeochemical transformations in complex heterogeneous systems.

Observations of the Nocturnal Boundary Layer Associated with the West African Monsoon

AbstractA set of nighttime tethered balloon and kite measurements from the central Sahel (15.2°N, 1.3°W) in August 2005 were acquired and analyzed. A composite of all the nights’ data was produced using boundary layer height to normalize measured altitudes. The observations showed some typical characteristics of nocturnal boundary layer development, notably a strong inversion after sunset and the formation of a low-level nocturnal jet later in the night. On most nights, the sampled jet did not change direction significantly during the night.The boundary layer thermodynamic structure displayed some variations from one night to the next. This was investigated using two contrasting case studies from the period. In one of these case studies (18 August 2005), the low-level wind direction changed significantly during the night. This change was captured well by two large-scale models, suggesting that the large-scale dynamics had a significant impact on boundary layer winds on this night. For both case studies, the models tended to underestimate near-surface wind speeds during the night, which is a feature that may lead to an underestimation of moisture flux northward by models.

Unpacking the Postpolitics of Golf Course Provision in Singapore

The number of golf courses in the Southeast Asian city-state of Singapore has grown dramatically in the last few decades. The 1990s was particularly significant both in terms of the number of new courses that was built and the intensity of public opposition against these courses. This article outlines the politics between the opponents and proponents of golf courses based on two contrasting case studies. It highlights the predominant representations of golf courses promulgated by golf proponents and contrary images held by activists and the general public. Through analyzing newspaper reports and interviews with planners, golf course managers and activists, this article shows how the politics of golf course has become more consensual than confrontational since the 2000s. The reasons for this subtle shift are also explored. The article considers the extent to which such “consensual politics” is a conscious tactic used by planners and golf proponents to circumvent and manage dissent toward the construction of new golf courses.

Gendering politics and policy in transitions to democracy: Chile and South Africa

Through a detailed comparison of two contrasting case studies – Chile and South Africa – this article explores two questions that are key to furthering our understanding of how politics and policies are gendered in third-wave transitions to democracy. First, why was it that some of the most active women’s movements were unable to translate the importance of their pre-transition activism into greater gains in the post-transition period? Second, what are the possible explanations for the differences in gendered outcomes in different contexts and what factors account for these variations? Through detailed empirical analysis, this article shows the ways in which women’s political activism can, under certain conditions, interact with political institutions to produce gender-positive policy outcomes, for example in the areas of gender quotas and domestic violence legislation.