First-hand Reflections Research Articles

Exploring humour within the PhD experience: a first-hand reflection

This opinion piece presents a reflective analysis that employs three theories in humour research, namely the benign violation theory, the theory of superiority and the ontic-epistemic theory of the comic, in order to delve into the doctoral experience. Using three vignettes, I elucidate the potential role of higher education faculty in facilitating transformative shifts in the perspectives of postgraduate students, enabling them to navigate cognitive dissonance and surmount obstacles in their academic development. This contribution holds practical value for both PhD students and faculty members, fostering opportunities for introspection and critical contemplation.

Library Service in Ensuring the Information Ecology of an Organization: A Case Study of a Research University Library

Objective. Information products and services provided by academic libraries to support the educational process and research are a component of the information ecology of educational institutions, but their list within each academic library depends on the institutional ecology. Therefore, it is useful to study the practical experience of various academic libraries in ensuring the information ecology of research universities. As an example, we consider the successful experience of G. Denysenko Scientific and Technical Library of the National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute" (KPI Library). Methods. A qualitative method of longitudinal research was used to obtain data and analyze the KPI Library information services. A number of primary data sources were used, such as diaries of first-hand reflection, observations, engaged in documenting and developing a narrative about the effectiveness of interaction of students, lecturers, scientists with the information environment. Analytical and review, logical, systematic methods are applied to substantiate the place of library service in information ecology. Results. The experience of KPI Library in ensuring the information ecology of the university was studied. Ways of organizing prompt, effective and safe (ecological) interaction with users and support of internal information products and services are analyzed. It is shown which services (tools and information resources) and areas of activity of the library form the information ecology of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. The role of the library in the formation of information culture and the culture of academic integrity of scientists, teachers and students of the university is shown. Conclusions. The considered example of KPI Library activity confirms that an academic library is directly involved in formation of the information ecology of a research university. A deeper analysis of the value of products and the effectiveness of library services for various members of the academic community as a component of the information ecology of the university may be the subject of further research.

Redeeming Poetics

AbstractIn this essay, I argue that ‘poetics’—defined as ‘poet‐criticism’, a practitioner’s firsthand reflection on poetic composition (poiēsis) and verse technique (technē)—makes possible for philosophical theology something that has heretofore been overlooked. I contend that Martin Heidegger’s rendition of the poetic ‘afflatus’, which travesties technē variously as an eidetic, violent, and inauthentic aspect of poiēsis, has exerted an outsized influence on contemporary theology’s engagements with poetry. The upshot is a tendentious dualism between poiēsis and creatio, through which the interdisciplinary movement known as ‘theopoetics’ currently deconstructs the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. I show that the quietism of theopoetics is merely the reverse face of Heidegger’s residual voluntarism. The neglected late essays of the poet‐critic Geoffrey Hill demonstrate that mastery in verse technique, far from conforming to Heidegger’s caricature, entails an erotically motivated co‐operation between the poet and their medium. Hill’s poetics is shown to be consonant with the metaphysics of creation and theological anthropology expressed in the writings of Nicholas of Cusa. I ultimately defend the continued relevance of the analogy between human poiēsis and creatio ex nihilo by appealing to Cusanus’s exposition of technē as partaking in the triune co‐inherence of God.

Time for space at the table: an African American - Native American analyst-in-training's first-hand reflections. A call for the IAAP to publicly denounce (but not erase) the White supremacist writings of C.G. Jung.

This article provides an African American-Native American analyst-in-training's first-hand reflections on Jung's firm depiction of Blacks of African descent and America's First Nations People (the Red man) as inferior, through a theory of primitivity that unveils Jung's belief in and support of White supremacy. With no intended disrespect or neglect intended toward America's First Nations, this article focuses primarily on Jung's apparent disdain for Blacks (the Negro). Utilizing writings from Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois and Na'im Akbar, this article highlights ways in which Jung's biases align with the White supremacist perspective of the Negro as a problem, detrimental to social order. The paper concludes with an Appendix which outlines a call to the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) to take corrective action and to publicly denounce those facets of Jung's writings that diverge from the core of his theory and that promote toxic attitudes of bigotry, perhaps discouraging many people of colour from enrolling in analytic training.

Reflections on Peer Facilitation of Graduate Teaching Assistant Training

This paper outlines a recently designed programme of training for graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), focusing on peer elements embedded in the programme. In particular, we describe our approach to co-facilitation of training, with sessions facilitated by the GTA programme lead and an experienced Peer GTA. Peer GTAs have at least one year of teaching experience and are able to provide practical, contextualised and discipline-specific input, which helps to address the challenge of balancing generic and discipline-specific training in GTA programmes. We describe a small case study of co-facilitation and reflect on the benefits of this approach for new GTAs and for the Peer GTAs themselves. The paper is co-authored by the GTA programme lead and a Peer GTA, who provides first-hand reflections on her experiences.

"The era of single disease cowboys is out": evaluating the experiences of students, faculty, and collaborators in an interdisciplinary global health training program

BackgroundGlobal Health is an inherently interdisciplinary field but overseas training in global health, particularly among health science institutions, has been an ‘individual’ or ‘individual discipline’ experience. Team-based training is an approach to global health education which is increasing in popularity; research on team-training demonstrates that teams are more productive than individuals. In 2015, the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health (CGH) developed the Global Established Multidisciplinary Sites (GEMS) program, an interdisciplinary training program which was designed to establish a new norm in global health training by bringing interdisciplinary teams of faculty and students together to identify and solve complex global health challenges. This research aims to evaluate the program’s first year and contribute to the literature on interdisciplinary team training. We conducted 22 in-depth interviews with students, faculty, and local collaborators from 3 GEMS project sites. Findings were analyzed for themes through a framework approach.ResultsThe program exposed students, faculty, and collaborators to a wide range of disciplines in global health. Students’ desire to learn how other disciplines contribute to global health solutions was an important motivator for joining GEMS; many participants including faculty and collaborators valued exposure to multiple disciplines. Mentorship and communication were a challenge across all teams in part due to members having distinct “disciplinary languages”. Balancing disciplinary representation on teams and establishing work plans were also key challenges.ConclusionsBased on the data the CGH provides four recommendations for institutions developing global health interdisciplinary teams to optimize team functioning and address challenges in mentorship, language, and roles: 1) address interdisciplinary communication early, 2) develop work plans during group formation, 3) meet as a team prior to travel, and 4) establish regular check ins. This article provides first-hand reflections on interdisciplinary team experiences in a global context and provides a pathway for the development of innovative strategies in global health training.

Vision-based gait impairment analysis for aided diagnosis.

Gait is a firsthand reflection of health condition. This belief has inspired recent research efforts to automate the analysis of pathological gait, in order to assist physicians in decision-making. However, most of these efforts rely on gait descriptions which are difficult to understand by humans, or on sensing technologies hardly available in ambulatory services. This paper proposes a number of semantic and normalized gait features computed from a single video acquired by a low-cost sensor. Far from being conventional spatio-temporal descriptors, features are aimed at quantifying gait impairment, such as gait asymmetry from several perspectives or falling risk. They were designed to be invariant to frame rate and image size, allowing cross-platform comparisons. Experiments were formulated in terms of two databases. A well-known general-purpose gait dataset is used to establish normal references for features, while a new database, introduced in this work, provides samples under eight different walking styles: one normal and seven impaired patterns. A number of statistical studies were carried out to prove the sensitivity of features at measuring the expected pathologies, providing enough evidence about their accuracy. Graphical Abstract Graphical abstract reflecting main contributions of the manuscript: at the top, a robust, semantic and easy-to-interpret feature set to describe impaired gait patterns; at the bottom, a new dataset consisting of video-recordings of a number of volunteers simulating different patterns of pathological gait, where features were statistically assessed.

“And Yet It Was a Blessing”: Psychodynamic Insights for Well-Being While Coping with Serious Illness (TH368)

•Highlight moments in coping with terminal illness from the narrative and firsthand reflections of a patient's spouse.•Identify key insights from psychodynamic theory that provide a useful framework for psychological coping.•Strategize techniques and best practices in providing stability, wisdom and supportive structures to accompany patients and spouses facing terminal illness. Some patients and families make striking statements amid the tragedy of illness, such as, “…and yet it was a blessing.” It appears that these patients have a sense of holistic well-being as they approach death, which has developmentally emerged throughout the trajectory of their life-limiting illness. This phenomenon of “Existential Maturity” provides foundational principles to both capture and comprehend the unique nuances that foster psychologically coping. Lessons from traditions such as self-psychology, development and attachment theory provide inroads for better understanding this process. Moreover, clinicians' awareness of Existential Maturity can enhance patients' well-being, identity, relationships and quality of life as they face mortality. In this concurrent session, a patient's spouse will speak from her experience of accompanying her husband through the dying process. Her narrative will serve as a platform for highlighting various psychodynamic processes normative in terminal illness. A friend and psychoanalyst who accompanied the patient and spouse will reveal how the works of thinkers such as Winnicot, Bolwby, Kohut, Erickson and others illuminated the dynamics of their journey with serious illness. Finally, experts in palliative care and psychodynamic theory will provide practical techniques for clinicians to utilize these insights when caring for patients and families. The groundbreaking elements of this presentation are the firsthand, synthesized reflections from a patient's spouse and a collaborative discovery of the dimensions of the couple's experiences that are generalizable to many who face mortality. Moreover, clinicians of all disciplines will acquire skills to apply this framework of Existential Maturity in psychological coping towards a state of thriving at the end of life. As the field of palliative care quickly expands in breadth, this session offers greater depth to the psychological processes of each clinical encounter.

Dealing with disappointment in the application process

The process of applying and getting accepted onto a research program is fraught with rejection and disappointment. This article provides information about application rejection, as well as tips and first-hand reflections on how to deal with the aftermath of disappointment in the application process, and move forward in a meaningful way.

日林協アンケートに見る「森林・林業再生プラン」に対する関係者の意識（研究ノート）

日林協アンケートに見る「森林・林業再生プラン」に対する関係者の意識（研究ノート）

A critical reflection on the future of intellectual capital: from reporting to disclosure

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a personal critical reflection on the future of intellectual capital (IC) based on my experience as an IC researcher, author, editor, teacher and practitioner. Design/methodology/approach – Offers a first-hand reflection on the future of IC, using evidence collected from IC in the field and the author’s personal reflections. Findings – I argue that the authors need to abandon reporting and instead concentrate on how an organisation discloses what “was previously secret or unknown”, so that all stakeholders understand how an organisation takes into consideration ethical, social and environmental impacts in keeping with an eco-systems approach to IC. Research limitations/implications – While much of the empirical evidence presented in this paper is freely available to all scholars, the interpretation and findings is subjective. Other researchers, given the same opportunity and evidence, may not necessarily make the same conclusions. Social implications – We are now on the cusp of the fourth stage of IC research (Dumay, 2013), whereby IC expands its boundaries into the wider eco-system, to “go beyond IC reporting” (Edvinsson, 2013, p. 163). Originality/value – Offers a critical review of the impact of IC reporting which is relevant to consider because of the newfound resurging interest in IC, based on the current push for integrated reporting ( < IR > ), which arguably contains IC information targeted at investors.

The emotional side of carrying out a PhD

Completing a PhD gives the opportunity to lead research projects but can be a challenging and isolating experience. This article provides first-hand reflections of the emotional elements of PhD study, with a range of tips to help.

Defining digital-Foley for live performance

Using a series of reflective case-studies, the role of the Foley artist is reconsidered alongside technological innovations in both digital sound manipulation and physical computing. Through a series of theatrical productions and collaborations Challis and Dean have explored the sonic and dramatic possibilities created by the utilisation of digital technology in a live performance context. In this article, a variety of approaches to electronic sound-production and control are described along with first-hand reflections on the expressivity and control that are offered by each within a context of live drama. Their current project is a multimedia adaptation of the novel and film Metropolis where the aural accompaniment will be performed live using a range of adapted and purpose built sonic triggers. In defining digital-Foley, design considerations and key principles are outlined that can enhance the connectivity between the sound-artist and the sonic-landscapes they create.

Addressivity in cogenerative dialogues

Ashraf Shady’s paper provides a first-hand reflection on how a foreign teacher used cogens as culturally adaptive pedagogy to address cultural misalignments with students. In this paper, Shady drew on several cogen sessions to showcase his journey of using different forms of cogens with his students. To improve the quality of cogens, one strategy he used was to adjust the number of participants in cogens. As a result, some cogens worked and others did not. During the course of reading his paper, I was impressed by his creative and flexible use of cogens and at the same time was intrigued by the question of why some cogens work and not others. In searching for an answer, I found that Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism, especially the concept of addressivity, provides a comprehensive framework to address this question. In this commentary, I reanalyze the cogen episodes described in Shady’s paper in the light of dialogism. My analysis suggests that addressivity plays an important role in mediating the success of cogens. Cogens with high addressivity function as internally persuasive discourse that allows diverse consciousnesses to coexist and so likely affords productive dialogues. The implications of addressivity in teaching and learning are further discussed.

Making Eye Contact: The performance art of Mary Beth Edelson as public pedagogy

Abstract In the context of a university community, this article presents a visual and textual first-hand reflection by the co-authors (participating faculty and student) on public performance as an art intervention challenging alienation. Making Eye Contact, led by internationally known feminist artist Mary Beth Edelson, offered students and community members a way to connect with unknown ‘others’, and cross barriers of race, gender, class and the busyness of life in a digital age. The authors will situate the performance art of Making Eye Contact as a significant art event that became a form of public pedagogy. This article offers a generic template for others to create a Making Eye Contact performance. It also attempts to articulate the learning rendered possible through public performances, offering a case for introducing arts-based interventions into classroom and campus environments as learning opportunities.

Mechita: capabilities of a railway town to promote local development

This paper aims to analyse the characteristics of a formerly quite important town, product of the (English) railway system established in the rural area of the province of Buenos Aires, which has been deeply affected by the changes of the last decades of the twentieth century, as well as to describe its current situation and the actions conceived and carried out in order to revitalise it. Since the authors have been involved in the surveys and evaluation procedures, it is a first-hand reflection on successes and failures.