Power Shift Research Articles

Forging a learner-centric blended-learning framework via an adaptive content-based architecture

The covid-19 pandemic was reported with significant negative impact on global education with shocks that disrupted the learning processes via the closure of traditional classrooms/schools from 2020 to March 2022. These effects have continued to ripple across even with advances in media literacy. The Nigerian frontier has also witnessed a paradigm shift in the adoption/integration of the information and communication tech as tools for both digital revolution and advancement of alternative education delivery. Today’s education which aspires for growth and progressive development is assured of positive changes if priority for educational values and ICT is harnessed. Past educational theories seem not to cope with the ever-changing, information society. Nigeria must develop strategies to address education reforms with frameworks to bridge these gaps vid post covid-19 era. Our study implements a hybrid a(synchronous) learning framework for Nigerian Tertiary education. Result shows improved learner cognition, engaged qualitative learning, and a learning scenario that ensures a power shift in the educational structure that will further equip learners to become knowledge producer, help teachers to emancipate students academically, in a framework that measures quality of engaged student’s learning

Power to the people? A co-produced critical review of service user involvement in mental health professions education.

Meaningful service user involvement in health professions education requires integrating knowledge held by "lay" people affected by health challenges into professional theories and practices. Involving service users redefines whose knowledge "counts" and implies a shift in power. Such a shift is especially significant in the mental health field, where power imbalances between health professionals and service users are magnified. However, reviews of the literature on service user involvement in mental health professional education do little to explore how power manifests in this work. Meanwhile critical and Mad studies scholars have highlighted that without real shifts in power, inclusion practices can lead to harmful consequences. We conducted a critical review to explore how power is addressed in the literature that describes service user involvement in mental health professions education. Our team used a co-produced approach and critical theories to identify how power implicitly and explicitly operates in this work to unearth the inequities and power structures that service user involvement may inadvertently perpetuate. We demonstrate that power permeates service user involvement in mental health professional education but is rarely made visible. We also argue that by missing the opportunity to locate power, the literature contributes to a series of epistemic injustices that reveal the contours of legitimate knowledge in mental health professions education and its neoliberal underpinnings. Ultimately, we call for a critical turn that foregrounds power relations to unlock the social justice-oriented transformative potential of service user involvement in mental health professions education and health professions education more broadly.

The Legitimation of International Organizations: Introducing a New Dataset

Abstract This article introduces a new dataset on how international organizations (IOs) justify their authority. For a long time, IOs were believed to derive legitimacy from member-state consent and technocratic problem-solving capacities. Over recent decades, the growing politicization of IOs, political polarization within Western democracies, and power shifts in the international system have spurred IOs’ efforts to justify their right to rule, using a variety of legitimation practices. While research on the theory and practice of IO legitimation has grown considerably over the past decade, much of this work builds on case studies of prominent global and regional IOs. As a result, we lack data suitable for systematic comparative analyses across time, IOs, and world regions. The Legitimation Strategies of Regional Organizations (LegRO) dataset aims to narrow this gap, providing data on the standards, intensity, and modes of legitimation for twenty eight regional IOs from 1980 to 2019. These variables inform theoretical and policy-relevant research on contemporary global governance by providing the first systematic overview of IOs’ legitimation practices.

Systems-level analysis of local field potentials reveals differential effects of lysergic acid diethylamide and ketamine on neuronal activity and functional connectivity.

Psychedelic substances have in recent years attracted considerable interest as potential treatments for several psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and addiction. Imaging studies in humans point to a number of possible mechanisms underlying the acute effects of psychedelics, including changes in neuronal firing rates and excitability as well as alterations in functional connectivity between various brain nodes. In addition, animal studies using invasive recordings, have suggested synchronous high-frequency oscillations involving several brain regions as another key feature of the psychedelic brain state. To better understand how the imaging data might be related to high-resolution electrophysiological measurements, we have here analyzed the aperiodic part of the local field potential (LFP) in rodents treated with a classic psychedelic (LSD) or a dissociative anesthetic (ketamine). In addition, functional connectivity, as quantified by mutual information measures in the LFP time series, has been assessed with in and between different structures. Our data suggest that the altered brain states of LSD and ketamine are caused by different underlying mechanisms, where LFP power shifts indicate increased neuronal activity but reduced connectivity following ketamine, while LSD also leads to reduced connectivity but without an accompanying change in LFP broadband power.

Southeast Asia amid Sino-US Competition: Power Shift and Regional Order Transition

Abstract Most observers agree that, for Southeast Asian countries, the prospect of Sino-US competition presents an epic challenge. There is, however, broad disagreement on exactly how great power rivalry would affect the region. This article aims to examine the ongoing debates and discussions and demonstrates that they revolve around four key issues: (1) how the regional balance of power would shift; (2) how Sino-US competition would affect Southeast Asian countries’ strategic choices; (3) what role the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) would play in the evolving regional order; and (4) how regional order would evolve. This article argues that certain disagreements may be resolved through rigorous conceptualisation and operationalisation of key variables, such as power and hedging. However, there is profound disagreement over whether China’s economic ascent would continue and whether China can compete with the USA on all fronts. Furthermore, the interplay of systemic and domestic pressure adds uncertainty to these regional countries’ strategic choices, which require further theoretical construction. Most studies agree that ASEAN centrality is likely to diminish due to great power politics and ASEAN’s internal weakness, apparent in a low level of institutionalisation. As to the evolving regional order, however, scholars have offered competing perspectives, ranging from a dual structure to the balance of power, great power concerts, and a hegemonic order dominated either by China or by the USA.

The French Phonetic Impact on English

The Normandy conquest to England represented a shift in power from the Anglo-Saxon into French or Norman possession. It sheds great effects on people’s life. This shift undoubtedly made a great influence or impact on English in considering that languages are channels for the interaction of cultures and habits. Hence, English was influenced by Latin descendants which reflected by Old French, Old Norse and later the Anglo-Norman variety. This paper tackles French phonetic impact on English which made crucial changes in each spelling and pronunciation by which English shifted from old to middle era. Moreover, by French conventions, some consonants and their literary representations were added to English by loanwords. Vowels were reduced, lengthened or diphthongized by certain processes or phonetic environments. The modifications and merges appeared in the Middle English phonemes were nearly the main inputs for Present- Day English.

Teragertsevaya spektroskopiya s vremennym razresheniem (THZ–TDS) svetodiodnykh geterostruktur s tremya i pyat'yu kvantovymiyamami InxGa1−xN/GaN

Using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS), we have detected resonance frequencies of plasmon oscillations excited in heterostructures with multiple InxGa1 – xN/GaN quantum wells by laser pulses with a duration of 130 fs in the temperature range from 90 to 170 K. The fast Fourier transform of temporal forms of terahertz pulses has made it possible to obtain frequency spectra of the power and of the phase shift of terahertz radiation, the interpretation of which has allowed us to estimate the quasi-momentum relaxation time (τ = 10–12 s), mobility (μ = 4 × 103 cm2/(V s)), and effective mass (m* = 0.45m) of majority charge carriers in these heterostructures. Based on the frequency spectra of power and phase shift of terahertz radiation, we have obtained the temperature dependences of the effective mass and relaxation time of the quasi-momentum of a 2D electron gas (2DEG). The 2DEG mobility value obtained by the THz-TDS method is in good agreement with the Hall measurement data.

Гемодинамическая асимметрия и альфа-асимметрия полушарий головного мозга человека при различных положениях тела

Hemispheric asymmetry has been intensively studied by psycho- and neurophysiology mostly using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging. However, there is little data available on the characteristics of bioelectrical and haemodynamic asymmetry of the human brain during postural changes. This pilot study introduces a combined technique of simultaneous recording of brain haemodynamic and bioelectric asymmetry in different body positions. The aim of the paper was to compare asymmetry coefficients in three different body positions and to establish cortex areas with the most active shift in blood flow and alpha power in response to postural changes. The research involved 12 healthy volunteers aged between 20 and 25 years (mean age 21.4 ± 1.5 years) evenly distributed by sex. Materials and methods. Bioelectric and haemodynamic activity of the brain was assessed by means of rheoencephalography and EEG, respectively. Rheographic index and spectral power of alpha waves were recorded in three body positions (sitting, supine and 45° head-down tilt), followed by the calculation of haemodynamic asymmetry (Khda) and alpha asymmetry (Kαa) coefficients. Results. Statistical analysis of Khda showed no sex differences or significant differences in this parameter between the body positions, which can be explained by direct effects of baroreflex and cerebrovascular autoregulation. Statistical comparison of Kαa of EEG signals from all electrode leads with each other and in each position demonstrated significant changes in Kαa of P3/P4, T5/T6 and F3/F4 pairs in male subjects. These findings can indicate that posterior parietal cortex of both hemispheres and left parietotemporal region, which play an important role in spatial perception, as well as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which participates in muscle tone regulation for posture correction, are actively involved in bioelectrical response to postural changes.

A brief analysis of the theoretical logic and system operation of the downward shift of administrative law enforcement power

The downward transfer of administrative law enforcement power is one of the core contents of China's administrative law enforcement system reform, and it is also an important part of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. However, due to the lack of internal written norms and insufficient supply of external systems, the current system has a tendency to deviate from the requirements of national policies and the rule of law in practice, so the reconstruction of its system is an inevitable choice to ensure the benign operation of the downward transfer of administrative law enforcement power. Before carrying out the institutional construction, it is necessary to return to the natural and actual logic of "administrative law enforcement power downward" itself to describe the ideal goal of this system construction, reflect on the risks and challenges it may bring in the context of the legality and rationality of administration and the social background of extensive grassroots social governance, and then explore the final foothold of its standardization and institutionalization. In terms of specific system construction, it is necessary to give full play to the significance of theoretical contents such as the limits, basic principles and management models of the downward transfer of administrative law enforcement power in reform practice, and on this basis, carry out specific system design from the aspects of law enforcement teams, institutional guarantees, and supervision systems, so as to realize the organic unity of the legality and rationality of the system of decentralization of administrative law enforcement power.

Russia’s approach to arms control: caught between asymmetry and the desire for strategic stability

ABSTRACT This paper analyses Russia’s approach to strategic arms control with a particular focus on two central yet largely paradoxical principles: strategic stability and asymmetry. A rise in asymmetries in the capabilities of the United States and the Russian Federation, global shifts in power, and a proceeding deterioration of U.S.–Russia relations have marked the post-Cold War era, challenging traditional arms control regimes based on strategic stability understood in terms of parity in the nuclear arsenals of the two most potent nuclear powers. Somewhat counterintuitively, the developments in the military-technological sphere that undermine the very principle of parity concurrently incentivise Russia to invest in asymmetric solutions to counterbalance these tendencies and maintain strategic stability. By analysing the views of Russian military experts, the article takes a look at the INF Treaty, New START and hypersonic weapons to examine the past, present and future challenges to the U.S.–Russian arms control architecture. It arrives at the conclusion that Russia’s home-grown solution to its security conundrum is a perplexing mix of a desire for strategic stability-cum-parity in strategic arms control and a pragmatic emphasis on asymmetries while it tries to preserve its position, which is symptomatic of the paradoxical nature of strategy itself.

Pick me! I am young, healthy and interested in the arts in your city! – exploring the future of travel visas

PurposeThis viewpoint paper aims to explore the past, present and future of travel visas granting permission to travel. Visa restrictions are used by governments as an efficient method of restricting access in advance of travel. This paper explores how this may change in the future resulting in a shift of power from tourist to destination.Design/methodology/approachThe Futures Triangle method was used to create a scenario incorporating the three dimensions of the triangle, i.e. the pulls of the future, the pushes of the present and the weights of the past. An artefact of the future was created to help visualise this future.FindingsThis analysis suggests that the role of visas may change in the future such that visa regimes may become part of a destination strategy. A future scenario is postulated in which destinations demand proof of fit with the destination strategy before granting a visa.Originality/valueThis viewpoint paper develops an artefact of the future based on the changing role of travel visas. It suggests that tourists might need to market themselves to the destination, proving that they are a good destination fit, before they are granted a visa to travel.

Power and light, profit and loss: the establishment and operation of the Damascus Electricity and Tramway Company, 1903-1914

This article addresses the shift of power that occurred in Ottoman Damascus as a result of the establishment of its electricity and tramway network that started operating in 1907. The company, which ought to have been public, in the ownership of Ottoman-Syrian investors, ended up being owned by a Belgian consortium. The central argument in the article is that the Damascene elite families rationally refrained from the risk of establishing the Electricity Company but paid the price of losing control over power and light in the city. An informal network of Ottoman officials and Belgian businessmen, led by the second secretary of Sultan Abdülhamid II, the Damascene İzzet Pasha, orchestrated the buyout. Therefore, Damascus’s encounter with its first electric grid, which was naturally complex in the first place, was also subjected to the tensions of outsourcing a local-municipal power to an external network that the Central Ottoman Government imposed. This article is an outcome of research on the electrification of Damascus, based on the papers of the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works from the Ottoman Archive and the company’s records from Belgium’s National Archive, the Ottoman-Syrian press, and the British and American consulates’ archives.

Evaluation for Risk of Cascading Failures in Power Grids by Inverse-Community Structure

Recently, the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) enables more comprehensive and intelligent analysis and defense for cascading failures in power grids. This paper summarizes power grids as Temporal Weighted Networks (TWN) which are different from conventional temporal networks. For TWN, the topological structure is fixed but weight distribution is time-varying. Then it is noted that for different operating states represented by different weight (power flow) distribution at different time sections, the risks of cascading failures would be completely different. Inspired by analysis of inter-subnetworks power shifts in cascading failures, Inverse-Community (IC) structure is proposed in TWN to intuitively identify the risk of cascading failures. IC describes a structure in weighted networks with several communities in which the weighted interaction between communities is significantly stronger than that within the same community. Furthermore, the conventional modularity is upgraded as Inverse Modularity (IM) to quantify the characteristic of IC structure in power networks. Subsequently, considers the risk of cascading failures represented by IM and the cost of power network operation, a security/economic dispatch (SED) method is designed to handle the optimal power dispatch issues. Simulation results prove a positive correlation between IM of power flow distribution and risk of cascading failures. Furthermore, the results on the IEEE 118-bus system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed SED method in mitigating cascading failure risks.

Exploring the Signal Filtering Properties of Idealized Watersheds Using Spectral Analysis

Watersheds act as low-pass filters, damping and attenuating climatic signals as water moves through the surface and subsurface. This is a well observed phenomenon; however, the ways in which watershed properties control the nature of this filtering are less well documented, especially with respect to groundwater surface water interactions. Here, we use a physically based groundwater surface water model to simulate idealized hillslope ensembles with varying watershed properties (hillslope slope, hydraulic conductivity, and precipitation magnitude) to quantitively explore the impact of watershed configuration on temporal filtering in both the surface and subsurface. To limit the complexities of this system an idealized titled-v domain is used. Multi-decadal simulations (95 years) are run, and then power spectral densities and transfer functions are used to quantify the temporal dynamics and damping of each simulation. Overall, we show that the degree of filtering and the degree of signal transformation is controlled by the total time spent in the subsurface and the degree of groundwater surface water exchanges. The ratio of precipitation to hydraulic conductivity controls the partitioning between infiltration and runoff. Greater infiltration results in less filtering in the subsurface and more filtering in streamflow. For a given precipitation conductivity ratio, deeper water table depths lead to greater streamflow filtering for periods less than 5 years. For time periods greater than 5 years the streamflow filtering is most strongly related to hydraulic conductivity which controls the baseflow dynamics. The majority of the input signal is filtered in the subsurface for short periods less than one year. For longer time scales, hydraulic conductivity is found to be the primary control of filtering and power shift taking place in the subsurface with larger conductivities correlated to less filtering and less of a signal transformation. Deeper water table depths lead to more signal transformation in saturated storage but are not correlated to filtering in unsaturated storage. This is likely due to counteracting effects of higher conductivity (which decreases filtering) and deeper water table depths (which increase filtering).

EFL Teachers’ Identity and Power in China: A Discursive Analysis of Their Humor

Previous studies examined the benefits of the use of humor in language classrooms, but none of them has queried a deep understanding of the role of humor from teachers’ perspectives. This qualitative case study explored the perceptions of three Chinese secondary school English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers on the use of humor in a period of six months of research. It discussed Chinese EFL teachers’ identity and proposed humor as a strategy that helps maintain or shift the power in the Chinese teaching context. The path of power shift proposed in this study can be applied to educational scenarios similar to Chinese secondary schools in which exam is oriented and the size of class is large.

Protecting and Advancing Women's Health and Rights Post-Roe Era Through Policy.

Since federal legalization in 1973, abortion has become a safe and popular option for those who desire to terminate a pregnancy. However, the Supreme Court decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in June 2022 clearly outlined a national divide that shifted abortion rights in the hands of state legislatures. This shift in legislative power will unveil major systematic flaws and further exacerbate health inequalities among underserved populations. However, legislatures can mitigate the disruption by addressing current infrastructural gaps that will make a positive lasting impact on women's health. Legislatures should investigate the gaps within the current telehealth guidelines and interstate compact agreements that may lead to a lack of clarity and legality with a shift to state power for abortive services that may prevent abortive service distribution entirely. In addition, Graduate Medical Education Accreditation Councils and state legislatures have the opportunity to blunt the abortion provider shortage that is expected to increase with state power through expansion of family medicine residency programs curriculum and health Advanced Practice Clinicians licensure. Finally, implementation of comprehensive sexual education has shown to promote sexual health and decrease risk factors associated with utilization of abortive service and could be utilized as a preventive measure for future generations. By promptly addressing current infrastructural gaps, legislatures will be on the forefront of the challenges brought by prompt systemic change in the abortion infrastructure.

The Rise and Fall of a Wilsonian Dream

This book represents an archive based, original, and in-depth study or biography of the Williamstown Institute of Politics (IOP) and its inspiration Harry Garfield, son of the assassinated U.S. President James A. Garfield. Harry Garfield’s principal claim to historical recognition is described and to some extent explained in this interesting study. Garfield established an interwar-years center for the study and discussion of international affairs with a view to educating the U.S. public about the world and reducing nationalist feeling, in favor of a Wilsonian League of Nations vision of international order. Ultimately, the IOP project lasted just over a decade, shone quite brilliantly in the transatlantic elite consciousness, and passed away suddenly in August 1932 with Garfield’s own retirement as President of Williams College. Although the author does not venture to suggest this, nor so classify the IOP and its organizers, funders, networks, and leading speakers, the Institute in effect represented elite U.S. and British, and some other, organic intellectuals at a time of global power shifts. These shifts occurred on a global scale in the aftermath of World War I, the Russian revolution, the Amritsar massacre, ferment in China, Africa, and the Middle East, and rising democratic movements among workers and women. Public opinion—unchained and untutored—stalked the land. Massive change was in the air, colonialism had led the world to the deadliest war in human history, and the British empire’s reformist wing looked to their Anglo-Saxon cousin to save the empire from obsolescence. The book shows how a specific group, long-neglected by historians, played a key role in airing ideas and debates and differences at a time of anxiety about the direction of world affairs. Complementarily, this was also the coming of age of east coast U.S. foreign policy elites, looking for their place in the sun, armed with a new ideology—liberal internationalism—to replace moribund colonialism. The future belonged to the U.S. elite—but the American people were not convinced. It was to educate them in the new realities that the IOP came into being, to realize U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s progressive mission. Indeed, no less a figure than Antonio Gramsci himself, had lavished praise on Wilson’s internationalism, despite the limitations and great power politics of the proposed League of Nations.

Powershift and Teambuilding: Healthcare Is Now a Team Sport

To operate with maximum efficiency, the highly complex healthcare delivery system requires integrated knowledge management in a patient-centric context. With this technology-induced change comes a transformation in the culture and a necessarily fresh approach to relationships with peers and teams, new collaborative problem solving, shared leadership, and shared decision-making. This cultural transformation is a shift in power traditionally held by physicians in their professional role, from one focused on authority and autonomy to one focused on leadership and collaboration.

War in Ukraine: Social and Medical Perspective

This review discusses social and medical aspects of the war in Ukraine. If the world is becoming multipolar, armed conflicts of various magnitude may become permanent. International tension contributes to the increase in the birth rate: it is believed that the population growth strengthens defenses and sovereignty. Environmental degradation and the depletion of non-renewable resources are proportional to the population size. A reasonable option would be the global leadership centered in developed countries. Potential benefits include conflict prevention, environmental and population management, taking into account ecological and economic conditions in different regions. Large projects can be implemented to improve the quality of life and create jobs, which would be a reasonable alternative to excessive military spending. If the global power shifts to Russia, it will come along with losses of certain values. The quality of many services, products and foodstuffs will decline. Autocratic management style would spread also in the healthcare and science. Several examples from the field of healthcare are discussed here. Confidence-building measures, international trust and reliability are needed. Ukraine must become a testing ground for the international cooperation.

Who archives the city? place-making at Gwanghwamun square: power struggles between political authority and civil power

ABSTRACT Working within the framework of the “city-as-archive,” this article investigates recent place-making processes that have occurred in Seoul, South Korea—debates over the function and symbolism of Gwanghwamun Square. The nature of the dynamics in who archives a city is determined by which actors hold power in place-making. In turn, archiving a city is a vigorously political process. In order to understand how the actors of Gwanghwamun Square’s place-making affect the visualization and formation of shared city stories and memories, three significant stages of development at Gwangwmun Square will be examined: 1) the construction of a historical site that archives political ambition and nation-building, 2) the creation of an icon for global brand-building, and 3) as the archival site of conflicts between political leaders’ ambitions and their citizens’ priorities. By analyzing three phases of re-development, it becomes clear how power shifts, and how the scope of stakeholders expands and changes. It reveals the city as an archive, how a public space has been (re)collected, revised, retrieved, and erased by different stakeholders during different political contexts.