Permanent Institution Research Articles

The Facade of Transience: How Projects Become Strategic

While prior research recognizes the tension inherent between temporary and permanent institutions, less is understood of the underlying paths projects take in becoming strategic. This investigation...

Women's Agency and the Agenda-Setting of Danish Family Policy in the 1950s and 1960s

In the decades after 1945, Danish governments approved a series of family policy reforms which came to constitute the core elements of what is considered the women-friendly welfare state. In order to understand these developments, this article explores the rise of women's political influence, looking specifically at women's agency outside the parliamentary sphere. This article analyses how a network of influential women combined critical resources such as knowledge of families' concerns and inside information from commissions and boards with agenda-setting strategies promoting family policy reforms, even though women constituted a minority in parliament and had no permanent women's state institution. Hence, modern Danish family policy was not a state project granted to women but to a great extent the result of a network of exceptional women setting a new agenda.

Evaluating the cultural cooperation: the role of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) in the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) held its 9th Summit in November 2012, marking 16 years of existence. Because of its biennial character, around the time of Summits, ASEM usually gains increased attention. And it is around each Summit that questions about ASEM’s relevance and contribution to global politics re-surface. While political and economic cooperation have attracted much anticipation and analyses, this essay draws attention to the under-researched socio-cultural pillar. It re-assesses the role of socio-cultural cooperation in the relations between Asia-Europe and its relevance to the Asia-Europe Meeting process overall. The study analyses the stream of activities and the design of programmes coordinated by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), the only permanent institution of the ASEM process, responsible for the “third-pillar” implementations. ASEF in this analysis serves as a reflection of ASEM, and by looking into working mechanisms and evaluating ASEF’s effectiveness, the author evaluates ASEM. The purpose of this study is to offer the first comprehensive analysis of Asia-Europe Foundation, which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary, by examining its relationship with the ASEM process. The study evaluates ASEF’s contribution to Asia-Europe inter-regional cooperation and outlines the limitations that the Foundation faces. A multi-method research approach is adopted including data from the ASEF archives and reports of its activities, and analysis based on the existing literature and official documents of ASEM and ASEF, as well as in-depth interviews conducted by the author.

The Massachusetts Experiment: The Role of the Environment in Collection Preservation

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) has collected a unique set of environmental data from storage and display areas in hundreds of cultural institutions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in time frames that spanned the heating and cooling seasons of the year. The goal of this research project was to investigate whether this unique resource of data could be organized, distilled, and synthesized into useful environmental management benchmarks and interpretive guidelines that institutions could use to evaluate their own stewardship and compare it to peer institutions. Utilizing an environmental data analysis software program and metrics designed by the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) to identify and compare preservation quality, the researchers created a detailed statistical analysis of indoor and outdoor environments in Massachusetts by season, region, and institution. The research identified the importance of seasonal climatic differences, the fall season being the most problematic...

Protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD) in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, 1900–2010

National parks, nature reserves, and other protected areas (PAs) are the centerpiece of efforts to conserve biodiversity. Conservation policy and practice assume that PAs are permanent institutions, but scattered evidence suggests widespread PA downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD). To assess the extent, patterns, trends, causes, and consequences of PADDD, we reviewed authoritative United Nations lists of PAs (1962–2009), examined published documents, and consulted 128 conservation experts. We focused on Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, which collectively contain most global priorities for conservation and more than 70% of the global PA estate. We identified 543 instances of PADDD in 57 countries, affecting more than 503 591km2 of protected lands and waters. The occurrence, spatial extent, timing, proximate causes, and consequences of PADDD varied widely among countries. Of the 375 PAs affected by PADDD, 76 PAs (20.3%) were affected more than once. Thirty (5.5%) of the 543 PADDD events were eventually partially or wholly reversed. In the absence of PA downsizing and degazettement, at least four additional countries would have already met 2020 targets for PA coverage established under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Our findings suggest that PADDD is a patchy, episodic phenomenon associated with industrial-scale natural resource extraction and development; local land pressures and land claims; and conservation planning. Though some PADDD events may foster biodiversity conservation, most PADDD suggests tradeoffs between conservation goals and other policy objectives. PADDD thus represents both a largely unrecognized threat to biodiversity and a rarely employed mechanism to strengthen conservation policy.

The Image Permanence Institute: An Interview with James Reilly, IPI Founder and Director

The Image Permanence Institute: An Interview with James Reilly, IPI Founder and Director

The Founding of Walter Reed General Hospital and the Beginning of Modern Institutional Army Medical Care in the United States

When Walter Reed United States Army General Hospital opened its doors in 1909, the Spanish-American War had been over for a decade, World War I was in the unforeseeable future, and army hospital admission rates were steadily decreasing. The story of the founding of Walter Reed, which remained one of the flagship military health institutions in the United States until its 2011 closure, is a story about the complexities of the turn of the twentieth century. Broad historical factors-heightened imperial ambitions, a drive to modernize the army and its medical services, and a growing acceptance of hospitals as ideal places for treatment-explain why the institution was so urgently fought for and ultimately won funding at the particular moment it did. The justifications put forth for the establishment of Walter Reed indicate that the provision of publicly funded medical care for soldiers has been predicated not only on a sense of humanitarian commitment to those who serve, but on principles of military efficiency, thrift, pragmatism, and international competition. On a more general level, the story of Walter Reed's founding demonstrates a Progressive Era shift in health services for U.S. soldiers-from temporary, makeshift hospitals to permanent institutions with expansive goals.

Emergent disaster rescue methods and prevention management

PurposeThis study is an inquiry into practical solutions in the field of emergent disaster rescue methods and prevention management, and it focuses on planning, real‐time rescue, and emergency management. This study is a conventional writing style. Thus, the purpose of this study is to offer methods for governor reducing disaster losses in terms of human life and livelihoods.Design/methodology/approachThe government should establish permanent disaster recovery institutions, such as disaster recovery coordinators, resource distributors at the provincial or state level, and nodes in districts to manage supplies, rescue activities. During the preparation stage of disaster responses, government offices must prepare the rescue plans and policies for future disasters, as well as create the documents for establishing part‐time civilian and volunteer agreements.FindingsEven though residents suffer tremendous losses in terms of human life, regional administrators are usually and poorly organized at the preparation stage.Practical implicationsDisaster rescue activities depend heavily on civilians and organizations. A disaster rescue manager plays a key role, because he or she has received training in and has become familiar with emergent rescue operations.Originality/valueDisaster rescue management is a valuable topic because it is a globally significant challenge to safeguard people's lives. A complex disaster of earthquakes and tsunamis occurring can give rise to nuclear radiation damage, for example, that occurred in Japan on March 11, 2011, is an illustrative case.

Contradiction, Circumvention and Conceptual Gymnastics: The Impact of the Adoption of the ESM Treaty on the State of European Democracy

This paper makes the claim that the legal framework governing the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is contradictory, conceptually incoherent and may be characterized as a circumvention of Union law. It is further claimed that such circumvention, and the resulting establishment of a significant permanent institution outside and beyond the scope of the Union legal order, represents a challenge to European democracy and to the principle of respect for the rule of law.

Energy Savings Trial in the Library of Congress John Adams Building Stacks

In 2009, Preservation staff at the Library of Congress (LoC), working in collaboration with consultants from the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) and Herzog Wheeler Associates (H/W), proposed an experiment to determine whether a programmed nightly shutdown of all HVAC operations within a targeted collection area could achieve significant energy savings without posing unacceptable risk to the long term stability and usefulness of the volumes stored in these stacks. This article will briefly present the reasons for proposing this trial and selecting its location, steps taken to prepare for the shutdown test, results from two years of nightly shutdowns, and lessons learned.

Risk Analysis and Sustainability

Strategic equipment shutdowns are common strategies for saving energy in buildings during unoccupied times. The Image Permanence Institute is testing whether it is possible to significantly reduce energy usage in libraries and other cultural institutions through carefully monitored and risk-managed shutdowns of air-handling units during unoccupied hours in select spaces without compromising the quality of the preservation environment. This paper concentrates on the identification and mitigation of risks and the decision-making process related to experimental shutdown procedures in the currently in-progress three-year project, federally funded in the United States by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Potential risk factors are identified for candidate spaces and shutdown procedures, options for qualitative and quantitative analyses are presented, and potential benefits in both preservation quality and energy savings are described.

Further Observations of Ozone and Nitrogen Dioxide Pre-Dosed Digital Prints Over Time

There have been numerous reports on the effects of atmospheric pollutants on digitally printed materials that describe fading of colorants, yellowing of substrates, colorant bleed, and delamination of the ink-receiving layer on some digital prints. In 2010, the Image Permanence Institute published the results of an experiment on the effects of ozone and nitrogen dioxide on various digital print types. While it was not the intent of that experiment to determine the longterm effects of pre-exposure to pollutants, it was discovered after publishing the research that some of the samples dramatically yellowed while in storage. This research studied how those same digital prints stored at controlled room conditions changed after being exposed to ozone or nitrogen dioxide prior to storage. The yellowing of papers exposed to ozone before storage was previously documented in studies directed toward the development of test methods for accelerated aging. This paper documents real-time observation of digital prints after several hundred days in storage and addresses the potential damage to digital prints over time after exposure to ozone or nitrogen dioxide. The test samples included inkjet, color and black-andwhite electrophotography, dye sublimation, digital press, chromogenic, and offset lithography prints. Paper yellowing, colorant change, further colorant bleed, and additional disintegration of the colorant layer of some prints were observed. Porous-coated materials exposed to ozone yellowed more dramatically in storage than when under direct exposure. This illustrates that initial results of change in these materials do not describe the whole story.

The selfish signifier: meaning, virulence and transmissibility in a management fashion

PurposeManagement fashions can be, and have been, conceptualized as narrative elements competing for replication and resources in the wider managerial discourse. Most wax and wane through a life cycle. Some achieve an extended place and even a transition to quasi‐ permanent institutions. Facilities/Facility Management (FM) is one such example, the purpose of this paper is to explore this.Design/methodology/approachThe case draws FM's history since 1968 and asks whether it is compatible with recent and classic Darwin, thoughts on cultural evolution as a selection process between competing discourses.FindingsSeveral properties of that history are argued as compatible with the theoretical stance taken particularly the mutation of the syntactic content to suit local circumstances and the dilution of the term's intent. Success attributes in the selective competition include contingency, securing an organizational home and mutability (what was represented became, more operational, less virulent but in the process more transmissible). In spreading globally the signifier/meme FM also proved mutatable to local managerial discourses.Originality/valueThe study supports a developing paradigm that it is possible to view organizations as ecologies of variously, memes, signifiers, narratives, representations or discourses. All five terms are shown to have been used to make similar significations by different authors. It shows how a natural history of narrative memes can be constructed.

Veterans with a Vision: Canada’s War Blinded in Peace and War (review)

Reviewed by: Veterans with a Vision: Canada’s War Blinded in Peace and War Brian MacDowall Durflinger, Serge Marc – Veterans with a Vision: Canada’s War Blinded in Peace and War. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010. Pp. 428. In Veterans with a Vision: Canada’s War Blinded in Peace and War, Serge Marc Durflinger recounts the experiences and co butions of war blinded veterans in twentieth-century Canada. Though the monograph covers the years between 1899 and 2002, it primarily focuses on the tumultuous aftermaths of the two world wars. Concerned with both institutions and government policy, Veterans with a Vision traces the development of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and the Sir Arthur Pearson Association of War Blinded (SAPA) from their haphazard roots in the First World War into competent bureaucracies involved in both military and civilian initiatives. To do so, Durflinger draws on extensive archival holdings that include the CNIB and SAPA Archives as well as the records of the Departments of Militia and Defence and Veterans’ Affairs housed at Library and Archives of Canada. Veterans with a Vision contends that Canadian re-establishment organizations and veterans’ associations, while initially designed to temporarily ease the transition of war blinded soldiers into civil society, were transformed into efficient and permanent institutions over the twentieth century. “The war blind served,” writes Durflinger, “as a hinge not just between the civilian and military blind but between disabled and non-disabled veterans” (p. 9). This argument is sustained through six chronological chapters that often contain comparisons that situate Canada’s initiatives towards the war blinded alongside those of other countries. Though each chapter broadly focuses on institutional development, Durflinger also relies extensively on individual biographies as case studies of [End Page 203] Canadian war blinded veterans. Fifty-four excellent illustrations are included of these various personalities, while the efforts of Durflinger, the CNIB, and the UBC Press have ensured that the text itself is accessible to visually impaired readers. Yet this exclusive blend of personal biography and institutional development leaves the reader yearning for a deeper analysis of the socio-economic and cultural conditions that informed contemporary understanding of disability, veteranship, or gender. Durflinger’s focus on the personal and collective triumphs of war blinded veterans celebrates achievement in the face of severe adversity. The overall accomplishments of the war blinded are summarized as “lead[ing] the way in organizing Canada’s blinded population and in revolutionizing public perceptions of disability” (p. 32). Furthermore, Durflinger examines the collegial nature of the war blinded institutions, detailing the social nature of the many SAPA outings and reunions such as picnics, golf, boating trips, and banquets. More than simply social outings, Durflinger argues that these activities came to be seen as essential components of the rehabilitation process. However, one wonders if it is possible to read these sociable aftercare outings as quests for masculine respectability, where displays of physical prowess and socializing customs reinforced the middle-class respectable functionality of the war blinded while providing opportunities for veterans to commiserate. Veterans with a Vision is especially successful at illuminating how post-1945 responses to war blinded veterans and retraining programs were profoundly shaped by the experiences of the 1920s and 1930s. Durflinger argues that during the Second World War, “with the CNIB in full operation, Canada’s war blinded could return with the utmost confidence that their training and billeting needs would be met” (p. 170). Many of the men involved in the management of SAPA, Pearson Hall, and war blinded advocacy in general, were instrumental in guiding public policy. Their experiences in the aftermath of the Great War directly led to a greater anticipation of what would be required in the aftermath of the Second World War. Though such earlier experiences were undoubtedly important, Veterans with a Vision neither unpacks contemporary discourses on sight nor does it draw on the social and cultural implications of blindness that would have also shaped these veterans’ lives. The inclusion of this literature, coupled with closer attention to the gendered, cultural, and social components of disability, veteranship, and the emerging field of ‘sensory history’ would have only strengthened Durflinger’s arguments. Though this...

Incidence of Poor Health and Long-Term Care: Health Transitions in Europe – Results from the European Community Household Panel

This is the final report of Work Package 3 of the AHEAD project, undertaken by the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the University of Kent. This Work Package has aimed at providing estimations, based on the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), of annual probabilities of transition between health states, including two states regarded as absorbing: permanent institutionalization and mortality. The purpose of this work is to serve as a building block for estimating healthy life expectancy and forecasting the future health expenditure needs of populations. This report breaks new ground in providing comparative information on rates of long-stay entry into permanent health-care institutions for persons aged over 65. Two definitions of health state are used for this purpose: self-assessed health and a chronic, hampering health condition. After an initial assessment of the ECHP, undocumented problems regarding the reporting of mortality and institutionalization resulted in a change of strategy. This change involved post-stratification to adjust for mortality and obtaining information about rates of institutionalization from alternative sources on a country-by-country basis for those countries for which information was available. Yet this approach was not practicable for all of the countries participating in the ECHP. Full results are provided for Belgium, the UK, Ireland and Italy; partial results are provided for Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece, Portugal and Finland. These results consist of the estimated annual probabilities of transition between health states (including mortality) for adults living in private households, and for persons over 65 the estimated annual probabilities of first-time admission from the community as a long-stay resident of a health-care institution. The results are presented in the form of probit equations, which enable estimates to be prepared by age and gender.

The nutrition-microcredit synergy: A case for multiple interventions and strategies

Poor diet quality is the primary determinant of the high prevalence rates of malnutrition in Ghana. In this West African country, young children’s diets primarily consist of cereals and roots which have both low energy and nutrient density and poor bioavailability of micronutrients. A 2008 national survey reported that over one-third of children consumed no nutrient-rich Animal Source Foods (ASF) on the previous day. An intervention to enhance children’s diet and nutritional status was developed based on the assumption that improving knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of caregivers would lead to increased use of ASF for young children only if ASF availability (presence in the communities) and accessibility (families’ ability to obtain ASF through purchase, trade, hunting, or raising animals at home) were also improved. The Enhancing Child Nutrition through Animal Source Food Management (ENAM) project introduced an integrated approach of microcredit and weekly sessions of nutrition education and entrepreneurship training among rural women to increase the use of ASF in the diets of their 2- to 5-year-old children. Although the project may have not reached the poorest women in the community, the integrated activities benefited many households in diverse ways – directly through increased income and improved productivity that improved purchasing power and made foods available in the home, as well as indirectly through the empowerment of women participants. Women reported increased self-confidence, leadership skills, and social capital. Children’s diets benefited the most when caregivers were engaged in enterprises related to ASF because they facilitated sharing ASF with children and the high profits from these activities increased mothers’ ability to purchase other ASF from the market. Other family members also benefited from the project through women sharing loans for joint economic activities, improving the quality of the diet for the whole family, and sharing new knowledge. Integration of rural bank partners from an early stage of the project helped transfer activities to these permanent institutions to expand and sustain project activities. The ENAM project provided the evidence that an integrated package of microcredit and education can improve household food security and improve the diet and growth of young children living in rural communities.

Forced residence in liberal Italy: a pre-history, 1815–65

This article analyzes the origins of domicilio coatto (forced residence), a system of police-administered deportation implemented by the liberal government in 1863. Initially an expedient for defusing the post-unitary crisis in the south, domicilio coatto evolved soon after into a permanent institution of preventative policing in liberal Italy; it would also serve as an important blueprint for Mussolini's confino di polizia. Focusing on the legal ancestry of domicilio coatto and the juridical mentalities of its framers, this article seeks to explain how and why liberal legal experts devised and endorsed such an illiberal institution. It begins by identifying the origins of forced residence in a wide range of pre-unitary penal and police statutes. Throughout, it argues that domicilio coatto was conceived not simply as a means of repressing political opponents in the Mezzogiorno but more importantly as an aggressive approach to preventing common crime. In so doing, it challenges previous assumptions about the beginnings, aims and appeal of forced residence in the constitutional monarchy.

WAR TRAUMA, MEMORIES, AND TRUTHS

The establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea (TRCK) in 2005 marks a turning point in the history of South Korean efforts to understand the truth of the Korean War, a truth that had been remembered only selectively. As essential as the TRCK's fact finding and reparation efforts are in establishing the truth of the war, it is also important to think about the full meaning of the word “truth” at this current juncture. This article attempts to perform this task, first by introducing the concepts of truth proposed by Heidegger and Bakhtin, and then by examining Pak Wan-so's autobiographical novels on the Korean War and the “Still Present Pasts” multimedia exhibit on Korean American memories of the Korean War. Regarding Heidegger and Bakhtin, the author focuses on the fact that, for them, truth is both scientific and aesthetic in nature, hence dialogic and dynamic as well. Pak Wan-so's autobiographical novels are an example of this kind of dialogic and dynamic truth in that they engage in creative and critical dialogues with various discourses on the Korean War, including her own works. “Still Present Pasts” is another example of how space for endless dialogues can be created through multimedia and interactive structures. These two examples suggest that the missions of a TRC can be achieved only when it exists as a permanent institution in which individuals and social groups and entities are provided with an appropriate level of authority and resources and can then creatively collaborate with each other.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of a phonoaudiology program for the rehabilitation of dysphagia in the elderly

The object of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a phonoaudiology rehabilitation program directed towards the degenerative changes of the neurophysiological mechanisms responsible for the upper digestive system compromised by the age between 80 and 90 years, in a regime of internment in a long permanence institution in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which express, bodily, their difficulty in swallowing food of liquid or pasty consistency. To achieve such an object, the current study was developed in an experimental format or design, comprised of a sample group of 23 elderly subjects, of both genders, undergoing evaluation by the phonoaudiology protocol for evaluating the risk of dysphagia (abbreviated from the Portuguese name: Protocolo de Avaliação do Risco para Disfagia = PARD), pre- and post-intervention procedure. The developed program used the indirect therapy approach based on the adaptive myotherapeutic and myofunctional stimulation, contemplating two isometric and isokinetic orofacial active myotherapeutic exercises, two passive myotherapeutic manipulations for the supra-hyoidal musculature, as well as adaptive cephalic postural maneuvres, associated to the intra-oral olfactive and gustative sensory stimulation. The evolution of the individuals was analyzed before and after the therapy by estimating the capacity of swallowing food in the liquid fluid (LF) consistency, by the paired Student t-test, giving a p = 0.01, making the difference of 2.31 between the 2 evaluations statistically significant. The changes produced by the PARD program in the capacity of individuals in swallowing food of a pasty consistency were also significant when analyzing the variance of the results on the 2 instances by using the F-test (pre- and post-intervention difference = 4.47, p = 0.039).

Education and Training of Mandated Reporters: Innovative Models, Overcoming Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Several Archstone Foundation funded projects developed and implemented training curricula on elder abuse for mandated reporters such as dentists, adult protective services workers, paramedics, and coroner investigators. Common education and training issues emerged, including the need to provide basic content on normal aging and the need for creating standardized trainings. Strategies include integrating elder abuse and neglect content into existing courses, building relationships with stakeholders, and customizing content and delivery to student needs and preferences. Projects developed relevant, practice-based content, decided on curriculum delivery methods, engaged learners, and provided feedback to them. A main outcome is the permanent institution of elder abuse content in training curricula.