Informal Measures Research Articles

Governance fragmentation and agency of miners in Ghana’s artisanal mining sector

Artisanal mining in Ghana was established by law as a legitimate indigenous economic activity in 1989, but the sector still lacks a designated formalized governance architecture. Artisanal mining in Ghana borrows from a governance architecture that is designed for large-scale corporate mining. Aspects of artisanal mining fall under governance of various issue areas. Mechanisms that are exclusive to artisanal mining are mostly temporary, including such ad hoc measures as moratoria and paramilitary operations. Also, non-state actors adopt measures to address specific needs in the sector. Hence, Ghana’s artisanal mining governance architecture includes duplicate, overlapping, uncoordinated, and competitive formal and informal measures. This creates confusion and uncertainty, complicates and derails governance, and disrupts legal mining activity. Miners manage to navigate the environment, often through illegal operations. Sometimes, miners also craft independent governance architectures in the mining sites. Literature on governance of artisanal mining in Ghana addresses various empirical and theoretical questions, without highlighting the sector’s fragmented governance architectures and miners’ agency in that context. Redirecting attention to the trend, this paper examines the following questions: 1) In what ways does governance fragmentation manifest in Ghana’s artisanal mining sector? How do miners navigate the environment and how does miner agency impact the fragmented governance? The paper applies a global governance concept to shed new light on governance of artisanal mining, an informal domestic sector, in relation to miner agency in the fragmented governance environment in Ghana. Focusing on environmental issues, the paper uses data from field research in Ghana and relevant secondary sources. Although miners’ independent governance effort extends the governance fragmentation, it is an important guide on formalizing artisanal mining in the Ghanaian context. The paper makes novel empirical and theoretical contributions to discussions on governance fragmentation and governance of artisanal mining.

Studying children's motives in mathematical problem-solving during transition from kindergarten to school: A Conceptual PlayWorld approach

Developing children's mathematical problem-solving is important to promote children's deep understanding of mathematical concepts and future academic success. Acknowledging that play-based approaches can support mathematical learning, limited research explores how imaginative play creates conditions for children's mathematical problem-solving in the kindergarten period during the transition to school. To support children's mathematical problem-solving in this period, this study drew upon the cultural-historical concept of play and motives and adapted Li and Disney's (2021) Conceptual PlayWorld in mathematics (CPW) by conducting an educational experiment. This research investigated how CPW created motivating conditions in supporting children's learning motive in mathematical problem-solving in the kindergarten period during the transition to school. Video observations of teacher-child interactions during the CPW on the mathematical concepts of informal measurement of area and partial units were analysed. This study followed the focus child William's intentions and motives, revealing that CPW created motivating conditions for a dialectical transformation between play motives and mathematical learning motives. We argued that the collective and emotionally charged CPW encouraged children's continuous exploration of the dramatised mathematics problem, thus developing mathematical learning motives. The development of mathematical learning motive also contributed to play motive to engage with the play narrative. This study enriched the empirical evidence of the CPW approach, supporting kindergarten children's mathematical problem-solving in the kindergarten period during the transition to school.

Border as Dispositif: Sovereignty, Discipline, and Governmentality at the China-Kazakhstan Border

Using Khorgas as a case study, this article examines the dynamics in China’s borderlands through a dispositif-inspired three-level analytical framework. This article finds that, at the sovereignty level, the state’s control is unevenly distributed across borders, with China assuming more responsibilities due to greater resources; that discipline is enforced through both formal and informal measures, with local officials and private actors such as Camel Teams negotiating state control; and finally that governmentality reflects how local actors adapt to and operate within state-imposed structures, maintaining resilience in grassroots economies. This framework reveals how border spaces are shaped by both top-down regulations and the everyday adaptations of those living and working within them, creating a dynamic balance of power.

Prywatna wielka własność ziemska na Litwie. Dobra retowskie Marii z Potulickich Ogińskiej w okresie I wojny światowej

The source article presents problems related to the functioning of Maria Ogińska’s private estate in Rietavas, Lithuania, during the First World War. A handwritten report of Kazimierz Rzeszowski, the estate’s manager, found in the National Archives in Krakow, enabled the creation of this article. The estates were located in the territory of the Russian Partition. From 1915, they were under German occupation. For several years, the plenipotentiary took formal and informal measures to secure the Duchess’s assets. As a result of his personal intervention, a palace in Pojeziory, owned by Zygmunt Nagurski, was saved from being burned down. After the end of the war and the establishment of the Lithuanian state, the Rietavas estates were nationalized. The unique manuscript provides information about the fate of the cultural property gathered in the palace in Rietavas. It is a proof of the destruction and dispersion of cultural heritage valuable for Lithuanians and Poles, related to the large private landed property of Ogiński’s princes.

"Feminist Borers from Within": The CBS Women's Advisory Council and Media Workplace Reform in the 1970s

abstract: In the early 1970s, women who worked at the corporate headquarters of NBC, ABC, and CBS formed groups meant to correct gender inequalities in their workplaces. What began as informal measures taken by a small number of women soon expanded into organized, large-scale reform efforts. Once formalized, the women's groups shaped company policies, formed alliances among workers, and liaised between women employees and company executives for the betterment of women workers. With a focus on the most successful of the groups—the Women's Advisory Council at CBS—this article illustrates how feminist concerns found voice in a corporate media culture, demonstrates the value of a women workers' collective, and re-evaluates the tactics and players of media reform in the age of women's liberation.

Neighborhood-level Residential Isolation and Neighborhood Composition: Similar but Different.

Residential segregation has been considered as a potential cause of racial and/or ethnic disparities in health. Among the five dimensions of residential segregation, the isolation dimension has been conceived to play an essential role in disproportionately shaping the health of racial and ethnic minorities, particularly in urban or metropolitan areas. However, a noticeable amount of research studies has been using informal measures of neighborhood composition (i.e., proportions or percentages), which do not capture any of the five dimensions of residential segregation. Since the inappropriateness of measurement may obstruct a meaningful interpretation and an effective dissemination of research findings, a combination of graphical and non-graphical techniques was used to demonstrate the similarities and differences between formal measures of neighborhood-level residential isolation and informal measures of neighborhood composition. These were intended to provide intuitive and mutual understandings across academic disciples (e.g., city or urban planning, geography, public health, and sociology) and practitioners or professionals in multiple fields (e.g., community development workers, health service providers, policymakers, and social workers). Conceptual and methodological explanations with analytical discussions are also provided to differentiate and/or distinguish the two types of measures. While the concepts, methodologies, and research implications discussed herein are most relevant for research studies in urban or metropolitan areas of the United States, the general framework is also applicable to those of other industrialized counties.

Determinants of the level of informality amongst female street food vendors in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from two regions in Ghana

This paper relied on data from the food service industry in Ghana to measure the extent of informality as well as to determine the motivations and challenges that influence selection into informal entrepreneurship. Because of the need to guarantee food safety and hygiene and protect the consuming public, enterprises in the food service industry are required to undergo some practices and procedures that limit the conventional measures of informality in describing them correctly. By varying this conventional definition, we showed that informality can more appropriately be measured in the food service industry. Using data from 406 female street food vendors in Ghana's Greater Accra and Central regions, we show that approximately 62 % of enterprises in the food service industry tend to be wholly informal. We again found that higher levels of informalization tend to be associated with survivalist and opportunist motivations as well as some economic and spatial challenges, and this is similar to characteristics of informal firms measured using the well-known conventional definitions. One practical implication of our finding is that a sector-specific definition may be appropriate when measuring informality in the food service industry. Our findings show that by varying this definition, many of the known characteristics of informalization can still be realized.

Shear-reduced seamless parametrization

Shear distortion has been a popular formal and informal measure, whether used quantitatively or visually, in assessing the quality of mappings or the shape of elements in a quad mesh. Nevertheless, well-known energies such as conformal- and isometric-based energies do not directly target lowering shear distortion but only bound it. Consequently, the shear distortion can be unnecessarily high.We introduce a new shear energy and offer an efficient way to incorporate it in the latest state-of-the-art optimization framework. The resultant mapping has substantially lower shear distortion, and the cost is a reasonably low addition of conformal or isometric distortion. The energy is minimized efficiently, and the run time of an iteration is of the same order of optimizing other popular energies. We also introduce a new scale-invariant, second-order smoothness energy that when combined with the shear energy, leads to smooth anisotropic mappings with low shear distortion.We demonstrate these energies and compare with the state of the art in the application of seamless parametrization, where the quality of mapping a checkerboard pattern is paramount since it directly affects the quality of an extracted quad mesh.

Police Responses to Domestic Abuse during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Positive Action and Police Legitimacy

AbstractThis article presents evidence from a mixed-methods study examining the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on frontline police responses to domestic abuse, with a particular focus on ‘positive action’, across seven police forces in England. Statistical analysis of police-recorded domestic abuse administrative data is combined with 73 semi-structured officer interviews conducted over the first year of the pandemic (June 2020 to June 2021). Findings identify officers felt their general approach to domestic abuse remained unchanged. However, officers used their discretion to adapt positive action practices to the pandemic context, for example, by temporarily making greater use of arrests, Domestic Violence Protection Notices/Orders, and informal measures. Mirroring broader tensions relating to police legitimacy arising during the pandemic, officers saw victim safeguarding as a priority but simultaneously expressed concern about proportionality. The article concludes by addressing the implications of the findings for the understanding and evaluation of domestic abuse policing practices both within and beyond the pandemic context—in terms of informing theoretical understandings of positive action, as well as police institutional knowledge, policy, and practice going forwards.

Reliability of a Global Gait Symmetry Index Based on Linear Joint Displacements

Gait symmetry is commonly used as an informal measure to assess functional gait recovery. As other outcome measures used for the evaluation of clinical change over time, gait symmetry indices must be reliable. However, studies assessing the reliability of symmetry indices are scarce and focused on discrete and local indices (i.e., peak joint angle, step length), which fail to assess overall gait symmetry. On the other hand, the repeatability of global symmetry indices (using multiple continuous waveforms) based on joint angles may be hampered by the sensitivity of these variables to marker placement imprecision. The aim of this study is to evaluate the test–retest intra-rater reliability and measurement error of an alternative global symmetry index. Two 3D gait analyses were performed on separate days (a week interval) on twenty-three healthy adults. Reliability and measurement error were assessed by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient and the 95% limits of agreement, standard error of measurement and smallest detectable change, respectively. The new symmetry index presented acceptable results in terms of reliability (ICC = 0.71, 95% CI 0.33–0.88) and measurement error (95% LOA between −30.2% and 29.1%, SEM = 10.7% and SDC = 29.7%), thus being a more promising tool to assess overall gait symmetry.

Reimagining Assessment of Literacy Skills for Adolescents With Intellectual Disabilities: A Tutorial for an Individualized Approach

Purpose: Reading and writing are foundational skills that provide access to educational, vocational, and social experiences. However, while the gap widens between the literacy skills of individuals with intellectual disability (ID) and those with typical development as they grow into adolescence, little is known about meeting the comprehensive literacy needs of adolescents with ID. This tutorial reimagines the assessment of literacy-specific skills for adolescents with ID as an individualized approach that will reveal a profile of strengths and challenges so they can receive targeted intervention. Method: Extant research investigating literacy achievement for individuals with ID is reviewed, followed by a discussion of emergent to conventional literacy skills and a conceptual framework within which to organize the skills. Then, an individualized assessment approach is presented that addresses considerations for the selection of complementary formal and informal measures and strategic analysis of the results. Results: A clinical case study depicting a literacy assessment of an adolescent diagnosed with ID is utilized to demonstrate the process for determining individual strengths and challenges in emergent and conventional literacy skills. Detailed discussion of assessment results and error analysis provide insight into her level of emergent and conventional reading and writing skills, which is then linked to intervention goal suggestions. Conclusion: Comprehensive individualized assessment batteries enable practitioners to align literacy interventions with each adolescent's needs in order to promote conventional reading and writing development.

Guiding Science and Mathematics Learning when Students Construct Representations

There is a long tradition of teaching science through inquiry, with broad agreement about the form it should take. Students should investigate researchable questions; gather and analyse data; and develop and represent evidence-based claims. Authoritative teacher or textbook representations are generally used to guide this learning (Buckley & Boulter, 2000; Bybee, 1997; Furtak et al., 2012; Sell et al., 2006). Parallel to this approach, teachers have also guided students to construct, review and refine their own representations, leading to learning gains. However, this student representation construction approach poses new challenges for teachers. The teacher is expected to elicit and guide students’ reasoning about their own represented claims as an orientation to understanding and learning scientific forms of reasoning and their representation. In this paper, drawing on our initial account of this pedagogy, we aim to clarify further this approach’s rationale and teacher strategies and underlying purposes in key early stages of exploration in the topics of chemistry and mathematics with a Grade 5 class. An interdisciplinary focus was used to guide students’ learning about the science concepts of states of matter, evaporation and the mathematical concepts of formal and informal measurement and data representation. Analysed data included video capture of the teacher’s guidance of tasks and classroom discussion, student artefacts and teacher and student interviews. We identify how the teacher framed the task, oriented student inquiry and guided evaluation of students’ representations through implicit and explicit instruction.

Remote Teaching of Multidigit Multiplication for Students With Learning Disabilities

State standards include fluent use of standard computational algorithms. However, learning and using them require conceptual understanding of numbers and operations. Previous research using the concrete–representational–abstract (CRA) sequence has been effective in teaching computational algorithms to students at risk of and students with learning disabilities by emphasizing conceptual understanding. However, all the research was face-to-face and few captured the impact of the intervention on students’ conceptual understanding. The current study occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, so researchers modified CRA for remote instruction. This study investigated the effects of modified CRA on the fluency and accuracy of three sixth-grade students with learning disabilities. They also included an assessment of conceptual understanding. The researchers used a multiple probe across participants design, demonstrating a functional relation between CRA and students’ fluency and accuracy. Researchers assessed conceptual understanding with informal measures that required application of their conceptual understanding. The results and implications are discussed.

Management of communication function following non-traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage: a survey examining speech-language therapists’ clinical practices and perspectives

ABSTRACT Non-traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage [Nt-SAH] is a type of haemorrhagic stroke which commonly occurs following cerebral aneurysm. While communication impairments are a known complication of Nt-SAH, little is known about speech-language therapists’ [SLTs] clinical practices and perspectives with this population. This study aimed to examine the clinical practices and perspectives of Australian SLTs in assessing and managing communication function following Nt-SAH. An anonymous web-based survey was developed and reported according to the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-surveys (CHERRIES). The survey comprised 21 items across four domains: (1) Demographic and service context information, (2) Practices in managing communication function following SAH, (3) Clinician self-rated confidence and satisfaction, and (4) Information sources, research, and training priorities. The survey was distributed via multiple online platforms to practicing SLTs in Australia. Open-ended responses were analysed using content analysis, while closed-ended responses were analysed using frequency counts/percentages. Twenty-seven participants’ responses were analysed. Cognitive-communication impairments were the most frequently reported communication impairment observed (85.7%) in the Nt-SAH population. Assessment was primarily conducted using informal measures (70.4%). Provision of education (89.2%) and compensatory management strategies (85.7%) were the most frequently reported interventions provided. SLTs use a range of assessment and treatment options for communication function in the Nt-SAH population. Further research is required to develop assessment and intervention specific to the Nt-SAH population for implementation in clinical practice.

Examining consumer's purchasing behavior of energy-efficient appliance through the lenses of theory of planned behavior and environmental factors

PurposeThis study investigates consumer purchases of energy-efficient appliances (EEAs). The adoption of EEA would reduce the detrimental impact of the environment from the consumer behavioral perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis study evaluates consumer purchase of EEA based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), environmental factors, and consumer energy-efficient behavior (EEB). Applying partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), 412 household respondents within the five regions in Malaysia were analyzed.FindingsFindings depicted that EEB has a significant influence on intention to purchase and subsequently purchasing behavior of EEA. Similarly, the TPB variables were significant predictors of EEB and intention to purchase except for attitude. Meanwhile, among the environmental factors, only environmental awareness was significant.Research limitations/implicationsImplications include integrating educational programs through formal and informal measures. The former includes infusing within the mainstream educational system. On the other hand, the latter is through effective and captivating media communication.Originality/valueThe integration of EEB towards consumers' intention and behavior of purchasing EEAs.

Illegal Legality and the Façade of Good Faith – Migration and Law in Populist Hungary

Abstract Hungarian migration regulation has undergone a radical transformation since 2015, resulting in a system that essentially deprives asylum seekers of any international protection. This was a strategic move by the government to portray itself as the defender of Hungary and even Europe of the menace of uncontrolled migration. This article critically analyzes this transformation by first giving a comprehensive account of the major legislative changes and showing how they were framed to boost the populist political propaganda of the government. Then it argues that even though such populist legalism is in clear contravention of Hungary’s international legal obligations and thus constitute bad faith action, the European Union is still powerless to effectively oppose these measures since its own asylum policies are aimed at maintaining “Fortress Europe”, i.e. restricting irregular migration as much as possible through legal and informal measures. In conclusion, the only real antidote to populist legalism would be acting in good faith.

Extracting the communication profile of a patient who underwent right Fronto-Temporo-Parietal decompressive craniotomy post Traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injury is one of the leading causes for cognitive-linguistic impairments in individuals. Considering cerebral lateralization, the type of communication impairments does depend on the hemisphere that is damaged. The current study reports about a 26-year-old female who has underwent right fronto-temporo-parietal (FTP) craniotomy and evacuation of acute subdural hematoma, followed by left FTP decompressive craniotomy and conservative evacuation of the left temporal contusion. A detailed assessment focussing on the linguistic, cognitive, and speech skills were done using formal and informal measures. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol. 21 No. 02 April’22 Page : 422-425

The three pillars’ impact on entrepreneurial activity and funding: A country-level examination

Extant research suggests that formal and informal measures are substitutive. However, this study builds theory and empirically tests an additive effect of the three institutional pillars (i.e., cognitive, normative, and regulative) on entrepreneurial activity and venture capital availability. Using panel data from 2007 to 2014, we test the impact of these pillars from a sample of 383 observations stemming from 111 countries. The results indicate that all three pillars play an additive role in spurring entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, education, training, the favorability of the regulative institution, legitimizing media, and social norms all play a significant role in venture capital development.

Makers Do Math! Legitimizing Informal Mathematical Practices Within Making Contexts

In this paper, we argue that making activities within non-formal learning environments (e.g., museums, libraries) provide opportunities to engage youth in what we define as mathematical practices for making, everyday mathematical practices within the context of making activities. The mathematical practices identified from two non-formal school-based contexts highlighted three mathematical practices for making: informal measurement, spatial reasoning, and curiosity. These practices are identified in prior scholarship as being beneficial and foundational for the understanding of mathematical concepts. As educators and researchers turn to non-formal and informal contexts, with an eye toward understanding ways youth engage in the activity of making, descriptions of mathematical practices for making build upon prior everyday mathematical practices and open up a new landscape of inquiry.

International cooperation in the fight against cyberpression in the context of response to new challenges and threats

This article explores criminal procedure and other organizational and legal aspects of international cooperation between states in the fight against cybercrime in the face of new challenges and threats. The aim is to identify and consider formal and informal measures of international cooperation in response to transnational cybercrime. Through legal analysis, we demonstrate that such crimes, as a rule, have an international character, as they have negative consequences on the territory of other sovereign countries. The author analyzes various forms of international cooperation in the fight against crime, which include extradition (extradition), legal assistance in criminal matters, transfer of criminal prosecution (judicial proceedings), as well as informal cooperation between law enforcement agencies (international police cooperation), in particular within the framework of US law called “СLOUD Act”. As an empirical basis for the study, materials of Russian operational and investigative practice for 2018–2019, as well as decisions of courts of foreign states, were used. However, the majority of law enforcement agencies deliberately or without intent resort to the practice of obtaining evidence on cybercrimes that are physically located on the territory of another country, independently, without obtaining the consent of this state. This happens through a remote connection in real time to the subscriber device of a criminally prosecuted person or its withdrawal from a victim or witness located on the territory of the state by law enforcement agencies that conduct proceedings on a cybercrime case with subsequent inspection to find information relevant to the case, as well as through the use of other legal methods.