Disruptive Phenomena Research Articles

An Econometric Approach Regarding the Impact of Fiscal Pressure on Equilibrium: Evidence from Electricity, Gas and Oil Companies Listed on the New York Stock Exchange

The matter of fiscal pressure is more current than ever in most countries around the world for various reasons. In the first place, disruptive phenomena such as financial crises put tremendous pressure on worldwide economies. Secondly, high taxes trigger an overall reduction in the level of investments aiming at creating stable and well-paid jobs. Thirdly, the income generated by the majority of taxpayers is subject to excessive taxation, which may fuel tax evasion acts. On these grounds, the article is the first empirical research investigating the impact of fiscal pressure on the financial equilibrium of energy companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The sample included 88 electricity, gas, and oil companies from around the world, which were analyzed over a time span of 16 years, including the periods before, during, and after the 2008 global financial crisis. The methodology entailed estimating econometric models via Panel Least Squares (cross-section weights) with and without time fixed effects. Empirical results showed that fiscal pressure had a stronger impact on the short-term and long-term equilibrium of electricity and oil companies than on the equilibrium of gas companies. The study can serve as a compass for the managers of energy companies interested in estimating the evolution of company equilibrium state when considering other potential financial downturns.

Breakthrough and Disruptive Innovation: A Theoretical Reflection

The aim of this paper is a theoretical reflection which attempt is to define the breakthrough and disruptive innovation phenomena. For many years, scholars have studied the different forms of innovation and have provided new definitions and proposed different approaches to this topic. An issue discussed in this work is the differences between disruptive and breakthrough innovations, which can be perceived as similar but are producing different effects in the industry and market structure, and as well in the product structure and the technological approach to develop an innovation. This paper aims to develop a univocal meaning in the literature, differentiating the two phenomena, and provides a framework for the analysis of the different forms of technological change, studying its pervasive influence on our economy.

Integration: Achieving Coherence Between Education and Practice in the Professions

Integrated health services, focused on prevention, anticipate needs and support people to manage conditions, especially in compromised environments. Learning about contemporary, integrated health care is best achieved through integrated approaches to education.Contexts of care are crucial moderators of ways professionals respond to demands. The world of work is complex: In health services measures of safe and therapeutic practice differ across settings; cultures and contexts vary for different client groups; there is a range of capacities and levels of competence within professional and inter-professional groups; and, there are different approaches to managing well in crises. Implicit in successful, rapid responses to crises, are the capable workforces with particular abilities to deal with new situations. The authors suggest that Problem-based Learning (PBL) principles underpinning ideas on integration within and across education and practice, allow for validation of relevant concepts. Goals for Person-Centred Care (PCC) espoused by the World Health Organization apply in a range of situations, including the COVID19 scenario and will be reflected in students' learning outcomes.Given COVID19 challenges, health professions (within healthcare and education systems) recognized the need to adapt and innovate to provide effective patient care and ensure ongoing learning for existing and emerging professionals. Technologies assisted change processes, with limited resources. However, the extent of compromise on levels of integration in practice and education is unknown. Answers to questions posed here will assist with responses to global disruptive phenomena; lessons learned provide direction for management of chronic diseases, healthier living and engagement with the professional education that facilitates rapid responses to novel situations.

Climate disaster and the resilience of local maritime networks: Two examples from the Aegean Bronze Age

This paper investigates changing patterns of maritime small-world networks among the Cycladic islands of the southern Aegean Sea in the context of two climate disasters in the Bronze Age (ca. 3200 BCE - 1100 BCE): the 4.2 ka event at the end of the Early Bronze Age and the eruption of Thera in the late 17th century BCE in the Late Bronze Age. The 4.2 ka event is a period where changing environmental conditions — including landscape degradation, deforestation, and increased drought — correlate with drastically reduced maritime connectivity and increased settlement isolation. Previous archaeological study of the eruption of the Theran volcano (Santorini) has shown the persistence of regional-scale communication networks for a period of up to a century after the eruption. This paper examines the effect of the eruption on local-scale maritime networks. The archaeological study of both climate events is complicated by chronological discrepancies and, in the case of the 4.2 ka event, reliance on indirect environmental data.This paper addresses the questions: a) what effect did these two climate disasters have on small-world maritime networks in the Bronze Age Cyclades, and b) how did the island inhabitants adapt within a context of disruptive environmental phenomena? GIS modeling reveals that small-world networks in the Early Bronze Age Cyclades were substantially altered in the face of the 4.2 ka climate event, while in response to the eruption of Thera, small-world networks were resilient. Variables influencing the differing network responses include the temporality of the climate disasters, the availability of the sail as a technology of resilience, and varying environmental and social vulnerabilities.

Designing Knowledge Strategies for Universities in Crazy Times

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyze the challenges universities have during crazy times and to show how to design knowledge strategies to navigate successfully through the changing economic landscape. Crazy times mean times of rapid and unpredictable changes in the economic environment, times of crises, and disruptive phenomena. For such kind of new realities, the deliberate strategies designed for a predictable future cannot help anymore. They should be replaced by emergent strategies, which consider a moving time coming from the future towards us. Universities are knowledge-intensive organizations, and knowledge is a strategic resource. Designing knowledge strategies and integrating them into the university business strategies becomes a new necessity. Our research is based on a conceptual analysis of time perception and strategy design for strengthening the university competitiveness in a changing environment. We make use of the known-unknown matrix and search for those generic strategies which contribute to the renewal of intellectual capital and achieving a competitive advantage in the new global market of higher education. The quest for becoming a world-class university and the pressure of the ranking systems require a special focus on designing and implementing knowledge strategies.

Summary report of the 3rd IAEA technical meeting on fusion data processing validation and analysis (FDPVA)

The Third IAEA Technical Meeting on Fusion Data Processing, Validation and Analysis took place at the IAEA Headquarters in Vienna, Austria, from 28–31 May and brought together more than 60 scientists and engineers from 19 Member States, the European Commission and ITER Organisation working on data analysis and machine learning (ML) methods for the processing of fusion data, collected either from experimental diagnostics or from plasma simulations.‘Accurate data processing leads to a better understanding of the physics related to nuclear fusion research. It is essential for the careful estimate of the error bars of the raw measurements and processed data,’ said D. Mazon (Chair, CEA, France) in his introductory talk and progress has been shown in this direction during the meeting. In particular the meeting discussed new developments in fusion R&D applications in the following areas: inversion techniques, such as tomography; magnetic topology reconstruction, such as equilibrium reconstructions; system identification; scaling laws determination and their accuracy for extrapolation from current machines to fusion reactors; model-based algorithms for control applications; identification of spurious and undesired events, such as disruptive phenomena or hot spots in infra-red images using sophisticated mathematical techniques like neural network and support vector machines.Discussions also focused on the potential use of these techniques for ITER, in particular, on their relevance to the first ITER plasma. The use of Integrated Modelling & Analysis Suite (IMAS) infrastructure—a convenient platform that allows implementation of different simulation codes in the same format—and synthetic diagnostics that could be coupled with this structure, in order to test the different mathematical approaches developed by the meeting participants, were explored in detail. Recent results and progress in the development of new tools will be discussed during the next meeting on the topic, scheduled in 2021.

Demystifying Disruptive Innovation Phenomenon: Economic and Societal Impacts

This research aims to demystify disruptive innovation phenomena and its economic and societal impacts. The study is investigative in nature and highlights the gap between the current endorsed disruptive innovation theory and the actual impacts of the phenomena as evident in markets, industries, and societies. The study adopts a positivism philosophical approach and deductive reasoning that builds on secondary data from literature across multiple disciplines that have a strong correlation with the research topic and case study analysis of five market-leading organizations that have significantly impacted their respective industries. The paper presents a comprehensive definition and a conceptual framework that provides an appropriate illustration of the term disruptive innovation based on the conceptual findings. The findings reveal that despite challenging mainstream incumbents, disruptive innovation yields positive impacts on economies, consumers and societies. The research concludes by advocating further research to empirically test the conceptual framework and validate it through primary data and assess its generalizability.

The Same Fertility Ideals as in the Country of Origin? A Study of the Personal Ideal Family Size among Immigrant Women in Italy

The role of the personal ideal family size for international migrants has rarely been studied in the current debate on fertility and migration in the European context. It is not known to which extent the reduction of fertility observed among immigrants who settle in a country where fertility is lower than in their country of origin is the result of a change in fertility norms among those immigrants. The study of migrants’ ideals family size has the potential to shed light on fertility norms without the interference of economic conditions and migration-related disruptive phenomena. Due to the complexity of its migration context, Italy is an interesting destination country for studying changes in migrants’ ideal family sizes. This paper uses data from the survey of the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) on immigrant families conducted in 2011-12. We compare the personal ideal family size of women of reproductive age with the prevalent norm in their country of origin, applying a multinomial logistic regression analysis. Results show that the country of origin has an important role in the determination of immigrants’ ideal family sizes. Women from countries where large families are the ideal are more likely to show a lower personal ideal family size compared to their non-migrant co-nationals, while women from countries where two children are considered ideal mostly share the same norm. The occurrence of fertility preferences expressed in a non-numeric form (e.g. “Up to God”) changes between women with different countries of origin. This study confirms that conformity with the ideal of the country of origin is more likely among women who migrated as adults. At the same time, the number of years spent in the destination country is not significantly associated with a shift away from the norms prevalent in the country of origin. Finally, female empowerment and gender equity show their effects mainly on the reduction of non-numeric responses. * This article belongs to a special issue on migrant fertility.

Industrija 4.0 i industrijske revolucije - jedna procena na osnovu na teoriji kompleksnosti

The evolution of society can be related to industrial revolutions. Revolutions are disruptive and transformative phenomena that change and interact with several systems. Industrial revolutions depend on changes in scientific, and mostly technological, paradigms and require people's participation. They are not only created with individual political intentions, because they are collective and complex systems. The expression Industry 4.0, created in Germany in 2011, denotes the so-called fourth industrial revolution. The question considered in this paper is whether Industry 4.0, as the fourth industrial revolution, is effectively underway or is it still only a vision of the future? This article analyses, from the point of view of the science of complexity, the transformations and the relations of industrial systems with other selected systems. It was made through fractal analysis using indicators of four countries, namely, United Kingdom, United States of America, Germany and China. Considering the evolution of population growth, Gross Domestic Product per capita, communication technologies and intellectual property, the results of the analysis show that the factor that stands out is the protection of intellectual property. The analysis of the previous indicators showed that it is not possible to claim that the fourth industrial revolution is underway, implying that Industrial 4.0 may still be a vision of the future. The results obtained can not be considered conclusive and more research is needed.

Governance and control of sharing economy platforms: Hosting on Airbnb

Sharing economy platforms have recently surged as popular venues of business enabling people around the world to digitally interact and temporarily exchange their under-utilised assets. Beyond a very small number of exploratory studies of accounting practices underpinning these digital platform organisations, little is known about their governance and management control. This paper examines the governance and management control exercised by a digital platform owner over global users exhibited by Airbnb, a successful and pervasive sharing economy platform in the holiday accommodation sector. Through netnographic method, this study investigates the platform owner governance and control issues with respect to hosts. The analysis reveals the platform owner using predominantly formal bureaucratic control systems as mechanisms to govern and control its users. Through users’ compliance, they and their activities are made visible to the platform owner, which in turn maintains control over the value creation process. This study provides insights into how accounting systems are mobilised in digital platforms to facilitate their governance through mechanisms of surveillance, monitoring control over digital users worldwide, and how innovative and disruptive phenomena nonetheless rely on traditional technologies of governance to maintain power and control.

Arte y Estética de la Disrupción

Este ensayo analiza el modo de ser del juego como disrupción a través del juego, la fiesta y el ritual y su fuerza como transfiguración de lo real mediante la filosofía hermenéutica de Georg Gadamer y Bolívar Echeverría, y la estética de la cotidianidad de Katya Mandoki quienes estudian estos fenómenos disruptivos como alternativas críticas a la noción de estética entendida como desinterés, belleza, buen gusto y genialidad; y a la del arte al servicio de las exigencias de la modernidad. Las artes no son meras producciones materiales, estáticas y anémicas, sino espíritus vivos a través de los cuales podemos hacer un reconocimiento intersubjetivo y comunitario. En este sentido, esta investigación defiende la tesis de una refuncionalidad del arte como disrupción estética para responder a la pregunta de si existe la posibilidad de una transformación de las estéticas y de las prácticas artísticas contemporáneas en oposición al servilismo de las exigencias de la modernidad, para liberar a nuestra sensibilidad del dominio de las formas de vida productivistas mediante la vía lúdica y festiva, una rebelión en el arte.

Adolescent Developmental Disruptions: Haunted by the Future, Guarded by Haunting Ancestors

ABSTRACTThis article will explore two potentially disruptive developmental phenomena that occur during life transitions. One is the role of anticipatory haunting during adolescence, and the other is the strict adherence to an already defined life narrative at the gate to young adulthood (Levy-Warren, 2016a, 2016b). Historically, in psychoanalytic theory, we have looked at flaws in an adolescent’s foundation as causal in adolescent paralysis. Anticipatory haunting, fearing what is to come, also can be traumatic enough to disrupt an adolescent’s development. Similarly, in the transition from late adolescence to young adulthood, we have assumed that the past must be left behind for the youth to progress in development and that focusing on the past can inhibit the envisioning of a future. In this instance, the necessity for a particular kind of reworking of the young adult’s history so that a future can be envisioned is articulated. Each of these points of view represents a departure from traditional ways of understanding and treating developmental disruptions.

Is radical innovation in architecture crucial to sustainability? Lessons from three Scottish contemporary buildings

ABSTRACTRadical innovation is largely recognised as a medium for advancement, a source of growth for economies and a trigger for progress in different economic sectors. Often, this type of innovation is identified with technological advancements, disruptive phenomena and the creation of new systems and dynamics. Yet, within the context of a changing world, in which principles of economic, environmental and social sustainability are largely adopted as common objectives, a reflection on the type of progress and the need for radical innovation is necessary with the aim of informing on their impacts and effectiveness. This work presents an analysis of a number of contemporary Scottish architectural designs, developed under the aegis of sustainability principles, and explores the types of sustainable innovations introduced and the results achieved by analysing the type of design change that triggered specific sustainable results, demonstrating alternative innovation strategies, other than the radical one. This analysis provides a basis for discussion on the need for radical innovation in the context of sustainable architecture and explores the role of other types of innovation against the results achieved. This discussion could contribute to a better understanding of the current state of practice in architectural design, as well as in policy-making in regard to the design and management of the future built environment.

Abundance – A new window on how disruptive innovation occurs

The economic philosophy of abundance has provided a new portal to view disruptive innovation. After decades of the world's middle class shrinking and the poor becoming poorer the abundance concept has created an interest in the “Rising Billion” transforming the poor into a more viable economic force and grow a worldwide vibrant middle class throughout the developed, developing and underdeveloped world. The abundance concept provides a new set of potential problems that are spurring new opportunities. The 21st century grand challenges have been enumerated by many but include at least six key basic human necessities: healthcare; water, education; food generation, energy, and the environment. The key to “Abundance” is to better understand the disruptive innovation phenomena, and how it can be used for social change. Scholars have utilized different perspectives to explain innovation phenomenon, but literature on disruptive innovation can benefit from a coherent theoretical framework that can explain origins of disruptive innovation and the role of scarcity/abundance in that process. In this paper, we provide one such theoretical framework to better explain and understand the relationship among scarcity, abundance, and innovation concepts from a market perspective. More specifically, this paper address the need to understand how radical or disruptive innovations occur to create a more abundant world and what market conditions motivates innovators, especially in communities enduring poverty and scarcity of resources such as the “Bottom Billion” and the shrinking middle class to do so. We build a theoretical model of disruptive innovation in a resource-constrained environment by integrating arguments from the theory of social capital, disruptive innovation and entrepreneurial action, and social innovation.

Complex moral dilemmas of large scale development projects: the case of Macdom-ARDA Chisumbanje ethanol project in Chipinge, Southeastern Zimbabwe

Elitist socio-economic policies are largely responsible for community displacements in Africa. Historically, colonial governments' land-intensive projects were major disruptive phenomena for the affected communities. Practically, however, displacement unsettles communities, upsets cultural or traditional practices, justice systems and communal livelihoods. Quite often, communal displacement represents low regard for human rights by state and non-state actors. Ironically, planners of displacements often adopt and deploy the rhetoric of sustainable development and modernism. In Zimbabwe, the persistent conclusion in displacement narratives is that land dispossessions pushed Africans into supporting the nationalist movements of the 1960s and the liberation struggle that followed. However, post-independence joint projects have continued to haunt communities. This paper presents moral issues associated with development-induced displacements and resettlement. It provides communal narratives emanating from the Public-Private Partnership Macdom-ARDA Chisumbanje ethanol project, arguing that the project is morally objectionable insofar as it is responsible for the displacement of thousands of local people.

Quantifying the Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex with Video-Oculography: Nature and Frequency of Artifacts

Video-oculography devices are now used to quantify the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) at the bedside using the head impulse test (HIT). Little is known about the impact of disruptive phenomena (e.g. corrective saccades, nystagmus, fixation losses, eye-blink artifacts) on quantitative VOR assessment in acute vertigo. This study systematically characterized the frequency, nature, and impact of artifacts on HIT VOR measures. From a prospective study of 26 patients with acute vestibular syndrome (16 vestibular neuritis, 10 stroke), we classified findings using a structured coding manual. Of 1,358 individual HIT traces, 72% had abnormal disruptive saccades, 44% had at least one artifact, and 42% were uninterpretable. Physicians using quantitative recording devices to measure head impulse VOR responses for clinical diagnosis should be aware of the potential impact of disruptive eye movements and measurement artifacts. i 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel

Communities Facing Disruption: The Need to Shift from Individual to Community Paradigms in Pastoral Care

In a country regarded as one of the most violent and unequal in the world, no community in South Africa is spared the intrusive, disruptive and traumatizing effects of a seemingly well-established culture of violence. Although people are affected by these in an individual capacity, the well-being of entire communities is at risk. This presents us with the question of whether our pastoral care orientations are adequately aligned with the needs of the communities affected by disruptive phenomena. In response to this question the article sets out to present a pleading case for pastoral theologians and care givers to become aware of the traumatizing contexts within which our communities exist. It further provides Biblical and theological motivation for a (w)holistic understanding of health, well-being, healing and restoration that is only fully understood when such understanding is undergirded by an acute awareness of the relational and communal dimension of each of these.

Why Development-Induced Displacement is morally Objectionable: An Ethical Appraisal of the Macdom-ARDA Chisumbanje Ethanol Project in Chipinge, Southeastern Zimbabwe

Elitist socio-economic policies have remained largely responsible for community displacements in many African countries. Previously, colonial governments established land-intensive projects which became major disruptive phenomena for the affected communities in Africa. Experience has shown that displacement unsettles communities, upsets cultural or traditional practices, justice systems and communal livelihoods. In some instances, communal displacement represents low regard for human rights by state and non-state actors. Ironically, planners of displacements often adopt and deploy the rhetoric of development and modernism. In Zimbabwe, the persistent conclusion in displacement narratives is that land dispossessions pushed Africans into supporting the nationalist movements of the 1960s and the liberation struggle of the 1970s. However, post-independence state-sponsored projects have continued to haunt communities. This paper tackles the moral issues associated with developmentinduced displacements and resettlement. It provides the communal narratives emanating from the grand statesponsored Macdom-ARDA Chisumbanje ethanol project, arguing that the project’s establishment is morally objectionable.

The Role of the Pediatrician in Preventing Congenital Malformations

The Role of the Pediatrician in Preventing Congenital Malformations

Multi-scale MHD analysis incorporating pressure transport equation for beta-increasing LHD plasma

A multi-scale MHD numerical scheme is developed for analysis of nonlinear evolution of a beta-increasing plasma. The scheme is based on iterative calculations of nonlinear dynamics based on the reduced MHD (RMHD) equations and three-dimensional static equilibrium. The equation for average pressure in the RMHD equations plays the role of a transport equation that involves a heat source term and background pressure diffusion terms. The heat source term is controlled so that the beta value should be increased at a constant rate. The scheme is applied to a Large Helical Device (LHD) plasma up to average beta of 1.05%, which is unstable against linear ideal interchange modes while beta values much higher than the stability limit are obtained in the experiments. The result with the multi-scale scheme indicates that many local flat regions are generated in the background pressure profile in the nonlinear evolution of the interchange modes. This structure of the pressure profile suppresses disruptive phenomena because it reduces the driving force of the modes at higher beta value. Such self-organization in the pressure profile is considered to be the stabilizing mechanism in the plasma.