Realistic Framework Research Articles

Exploring the implementation of a novel, transdiagnostic, hybrid ecological momentary intervention for improving resilience in youth (EMIcompass): A process evaluation in the realist framework.

Previous research indicates that the hybrid compassion-focused intervention EMIcompass may reduce stress reactivity and improve quality of life. Our aim was to investigate what components of the intervention work for whom, how, and under which circumstances to contribute to the enhancement of resilience. We conducted a process evaluation using a realist framework. First, we developed initial programme theories using compassion-focused interventions and ecological momentary intervention documents, in addition to conducting a focus group and an interview with an individual expert. Second, we tested the initial programme theories based on qualitative data from 20 participants. Third, we refined the programme theories by analysing and interpreting the data. We identified four programme components experienced as enhancing the activation of the soothing system and the application of compassion-focused principles. EMIcompass was perceived as lowering the burden of and barriers to treatment and facilitating the translation into daily life. Intra- and interpersonal context factors interacted with the mechanisms, leading to improvement in well-being, which was identified as a main outcome. The intervention worked by strengthening participants' soothing system and facilitating ecological translation leading to improved well-being. Adaptions to improve the intervention may allow for more flexibility in individual intervention trajectories acknowledging different needs and preferences.

Healthcare Providers' Experiences With and Perspective on Delivering the Enhanced Recovery After Elective Caesarean Birth Pathway With Next-Day Discharge: Qualitative Analysis.

To understand the perspectives and experiences of healthcare providers who have experience working with an enhanced recovery care after elective caesarean birth pathway with next-day discharge and home midwifery. This study applies a qualitative study design with a pragmatic realist approach. The realist framework was used while also taking a post-positivist philosophy. The work was conducted in South Australia, Australia between May and October 2019. Twenty-three semi-structured interviews were completed with 5 doctors and 18 midwives who had occupational experience working with the pathway. Interviews were analysed using following the six-phase qualitative thematic analysis process outlined by Braun and Clarke. COREQ guidelines were followed. Four main themes and 11 sub-themes were identified. Main themes identified were as follows: The pathway is more than just early discharge; experiences with the process; staff engagement with the pathway; and the impact of the pathway within the health system. Healthcare providers generally accepted the pathway and found enhanced recovery care to be a positive and beneficial model of care. Staff identified five main challenges with implementing the pathway: early discharge; eligible women's automatic inclusion on the pathway; engaging women; change for staff and organisational constraints and procedures. Elements that support integration include the following: education for women; reassurance and communication with women and families; prepared care and supports including home midwifery; staff education and communication of the evidence; clear guidelines and protocols; defined staff roles; enough clinical time and clinical flexibility. Knowledge from staff in this study would be useful for other health services to consider when looking to deliver similar models of care. The health service and health providers were involved with the initiation and development of the research aims and design.

Unmasking inequalities of the code: Disentangling the nexus of AI and inequality

This article provides an interdisciplinary exploration of the complex dynamics between artificial intelligence (AI) and inequality, drawing upon social sciences and technology studies. It scrutinises the power dynamics that shape the development, deployment, and utilisation of AI technologies, and how these dynamics influence access to and control over AI resources. To do so, we employ Margaret Archer's social realism framework to illuminate the ways in which AI systems can reinforce various forms of inequalities. This theoretical perspective underscores the dynamic interplay between social context, individual agency, and the processes of morphostasis and morphogenesis, offering a nuanced understanding of how inequalities are reproduced and potentially transformed within the AI context. We further discuss the challenges posed by the access and opportunity divide, privacy and surveillance concerns, and the digital divide in the context of AI. We propose co-ownership as a potential solution to economic inequalities induced by AI, suggesting that stakeholders contributing to AI development should have significant claims of ownership. We also advocate for the recognition of AI systems as legal entities, which could provide a mechanism for accountability and compensation in cases of privacy breaches. Finally, we conclude by emphasising the need for robust data governance frameworks, global governance, and a commitment to social justice in navigating the complex landscape of AI and inequality.

Single-Nucleus and Spatial Transcriptomics Revealing Host Response Differences Triggered by Mutated Virus in Severe Dengue.

Dengue virus (DENV) infection causes various disease manifestations ranging from an asymptomatic state to severe, life-threatening dengue. Despite intensive research, the molecular mechanisms underlying the abnormal host responses and severe disease symptoms caused by evolved DENV strains is not fully understood. First, the spatial structure of mutant DENV was compared via in silico molecular modeling analysis. Second, employing single-nucleus and spatial RNA sequencing, we analyzed and verified transcriptome samples in uninfected, mild (NGC group), and severe (N10 group) liver tissues from murine models. In this study, we obtained a cumulatively mutated DENV-2 N10 with enhanced capability of replication and pathogenicity post 10 serial passages in Ifnra-/- mice. This variant caused severe damage in the liver, as compared with other organs. Furthermore, mutated DENV infection elicited stronger responses in hepatocytes. The critical host factor Nrg4 was identified. It dominated mainly via the activation of the NRG/ErbB pathway in mice with severe symptoms. We report on evolved N10 viruses with changes observed in different organisms and tissue. This evolutionary variant results in high replicability, severe pathogenicity, and strong responses in murine. Moreover, the host responses may play a role by activating the NRG/ErbB signaling pathway. Our findings provide a realistic framework for defining disturbed host responses at the animal model level that might be one of the main causes of severe dengue and the potential application value.

Investigating Cancer Inequalities in Urbanizing Texas with Plausible Reasoning

This article contributes to geographical methodology by presenting an epistemology of plausible reasoning (PR) as a complement to realist and reflexive frameworks for science. I introduce PR’s theory of evidence, after Harold Jeffreys and George Pólya, and then extrapolate principles for nonexperimental study designs. This article leverages these principles to structure an investigation into the causes of a racial disparity in the colorectal cancer (CRC) burden in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan areas. Centered on a series of empirical questions pertaining to racial ghettoization, contemporary urbanization, and cancer inequalities, the study uncovers important geographic and social changes in the CRC burden in the study areas between 1999 and 2019. These include the emergence of a substantial class-related inequality in CRC incidence, the rise of aggregate racial disparities in CRC incidence outside of historically ghettoized areas, and an overall intensification of spatial CRC inequality. Drawing on fundamental cause theory and critical urban studies, I propose that these changes are a product of the uneven spread of new preventive technologies (screening colonoscopy) amid extensive and polarizing urbanization processes that are reshaping these regions. The study highlights the value of incorporating concern for dynamic macrostructures and political economy into analyses of spatial health data, and illustrates how PR can contribute to such work.

Impact of U.S. Trade and Economic Policies on Sino-American Bilateral Relations

Since the Trump administration initiated the U.S.-China trade war in 2018, it has pushed the U.S. to adopt stronger economic and trade policy instruments against China through tariff policies, exacerbating the trend of economic decoupling between China and the U.S. and seriously affecting the normal operation of the global supply chain; the Biden administration continued some of the tariff measures against China, and was affected by the political contributions to 5G communication high-tech enterprises, semiconductors and other industries during the Biden period, and joined forces with European The Biden administration has continued some of the tariff measures against China, influenced by political contributions to 5G communications, semiconductors, and other industries during the Biden years, and has joined with European allies to push for the blockade of China's high-tech fields, and has imposed a technological embargo on China, mainly in the semiconductor and new energy fields. Within the framework of realism, the article focuses on the number of U.S. lists of Chinese entities and the sanctions and tariff increases imposed on Chinese companies, which have further led to the deterioration of bilateral relations between the U.S. and China.

მოქმედებს თუ არა გველის შხამი სოციალისტურ რეალიზმზე?

In 1927, philosopher Serge Danelia published an article of criticism “Vazha-Pshavela and Georgian Nation,” in which he discussed the poet Vazha-Pshavela’s conception and representation of nature. Among the topics discussed in this article, Danelia’s interpretation of the poem “Snake Eater” is of particular interest to us. To answer a question of why the snake poison did not work on the protagonist Mindia as soon as he ate snake meat, he offers the explaination that the meat was boiled and so the effect of poison was slowed down. This interpretation, of course, strikes us as excessively realistic. Where did this attitude come from? How much does Danelia’s account reflect the tendency of social realism of that time? Danelia thought that Vazha-Pshavela represented nature as an endless circle, as opposed to the historical process, which moves in the direction of progress. Further, for Vazha, nature is not to be measured by the good and evil of the events that occur in nature, but by its beauty. In Vazha’s understanding, this beauty is woven into the fabric of nature itself and exists independent of human judgment. This conception of a transcendentally beautiful, ahistorical nature, Danelia claims, belongs to an Eastern, paganistic worldview, which he poses as an anthithesis to the Western, Christian conception of “history.” This criticism can be explained by dialectical materialism. According to the scholar, Vazha’s representation of nature in “The Snake Eater” is fundamentally realist. The only reality that exists for the poet is indepentent nature. However, he criticizes, the poem also mixes a folktale into the realistic framework. Therefore, two different motifs, paganism and Christianity, are mixed in the work, which he regards as illogical; this destroys the any consistency in the poem’s plot line or framework. According to this argument, he rejected the poem and regarded it as a “weak” work. This is an inadequate and unsuccessful reading, even giving credit to the value of his dialectical materialist analysis of Vazha’s conception of nature. Danelia’s criticism shows a forced application of the conventions of realism to “The Snake Eater”  supposedly, as demanded by the period  and, from this point of view, ignores or denies the magical element in the poem. However, today the concept of materialism again attracts our attention under the name of “new mate­rialism.” While his evaluation of the poem is flawed, a part of Danelia’s ar­gu­ment, in which he criticised the critic K’it’a Abashidze’s understanding of Vazha-Pshavela as a symbolist poet, is convincing and invites more careful discussion.

Social media profiling: The influence of personal and professional social media content on hiring ratings

AbstractThis study integrates identity and situational strength theories into a realistic accuracy model framework to develop and test hypotheses regarding how hiring managers perceive social media (SM) information, and how those perceptions translate into ratings. In Study 1, 310 h professionals rated which SM content they perceive as most useful in assessing applicants on various work‐related constructs. The provided a foundation for Study 2, where 151 h professionals participated in an experimental hiring simulation to understand whether these perceptions of SM information translate into rating behavior. Results indicate that manipulating SM content influenced HR professionals’ ratings of applicants. Non‐job‐related SM content influenced ratings of work‐related constructs more strongly than job‐related content. Professional SM was rated more favorably than personal SM.

Anthropogenic double jeopardy: Urban noise and artificial light at night interact synergistically to influence abundance

Artificial light at night (ALAN) and urban noise are increasing globally and can have a range of impacts on wildlife. While ALAN and noise often co-occur and can affect wildlife in similar ways, their impacts have generally been studied in isolation. Information about possible interactive impacts, which can be more serious, is critical to guide conservation.We studied how noise and ALAN impact a common urban waterbird (Eurasian coot Fulica atra) around the city of Melbourne in south-eastern Australia. We aimed to examine: (1) the individual and (2) interactive impacts of noise and ALAN on abundance, and (3) the relative influence of these stressors and other environmental predictors. To do so, we used data from a large-scale (1,463 surveys across an area of 9,250 km2 with significant heterogeneity in noise and ALAN conditions), long-term (2008–2018) monitoring program, overlaid with georeferenced noise and light data. We used generalized linear mixed effects models and boosted regression trees to model individual and interactive effects of ALAN and noise on abundance.Abundance was negatively correlated with noise and ALAN individually. Furthermore, the two stressors had a negative synergistic effect, ultimately resulting in the absence of coots at the highest observed ALAN and noise levels. We also estimate that the combined influence of the two stressors on abundance was larger than that of other examined environmental factors.Our findings that noise and ALAN have detrimental interactive impacts is worrying for two reasons. First, Eurasian coots are thought to be tolerant to urbanisation, so impacts may be more severe for less tolerant species. Second, noise and ALAN commonly co-occur around cities, so similar impacts are likely elsewhere. By adopting more biologically and ecologically realistic analytical frameworks, future studies can better estimate the cumulative impacts of multiple stressors to facilitate improved conservation and management.

Efficient Modeling of Spatial Extremes over Large Geographical Domains

Various natural phenomena exhibit spatial extremal dependence at short spatial distances. However, existing models proposed in the spatial extremes literature often assume that extremal dependence persists across the entire domain. This is a strong limitation when modeling extremes over large geographical domains, and yet it has been mostly overlooked in the literature. We here develop a more realistic Bayesian framework based on a novel Gaussian scale mixture model, with the Gaussian process component defined by a stochastic partial differential equation yielding a sparse precision matrix, and the random scale component modeled as a low-rank Pareto-tailed or Weibull-tailed spatial process determined by compactly-supported basis functions. We show that our proposed model is approximately tail-stationary and that it can capture a wide range of extremal dependence structures. Its inherently sparse structure allows fast Bayesian computations in high spatial dimensions based on a customized Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm prioritizing calibration in the tail. We fit our model to analyze heavy monsoon rainfall data in Bangladesh. Our study shows that our model outperforms natural competitors and that it fits precipitation extremes well. We finally use the fitted model to draw inference on long-term return levels for marginal precipitation and spatial aggregates.

Greening the procurement: a SMART evaluation of environmental sustainability in Australian government purchasing policies

PurposeThis study evaluates how well Victorian local councils’ procurement policies align with the sustainable and circular economy (CE) approach that prioritises sustainable and regenerative practices. It proposes a set of criteria designed to effectively integrate environmental sustainability issues into purchasing policies.Design/methodology/approachEmploying the Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART) framework, a multi-dimensional content analysis guided by the goal-setting theory was applied to evaluate all 79 Victorian local councils’ procurement policies. This approach provided an assessment of policy specificity, measurability, assignability, realism and time sensitivity in promoting environmental sustainability through purchasing policies.FindingsThe findings underscored a significant deficiency in policy adherence to all SMART criteria concerning environmental sustainability, hindering the effective green purchasing decisions within government entities. This lack of integration of greening in purchasing policy poses challenges for manufacturers of waste-derived goods, obscuring the procurement objectives of these critical public sector customers.Practical implicationsThe paper contributes to the sustainable procurement (SP) discourse by proposing guidelines aimed at improving the efficacy of governmental purchasing of sustainable products. These guidelines address the broader imperative to mitigate the environmental impacts of governmental spending on less sustainable goods, thereby fostering ecological sustainability and promoting responsible consumption.Originality/valueWhile past studies have often relied on subjective content analysis methods, the SMART assessment used to develop the environmental sustainability criteria for purchasing policies, which distinguishes this study from previous governmental policy evaluation studies. This approach marks a departure from traditional governmental policy evaluation studies, offering a more structured analysis of policy effectiveness in promoting SP practices.

시민민주주의와 보편적 법체계의 발전: 헌법과 국제법을 대체하는 세계법의 수사학

The Constitution is the highest law of the country, while international law is a field of law that deals with the rights and obligations between countries. The essence of international community is of decentralized nature, in which the legal order is formed according to the principle of sovereign equality. However, there are many perspectives that approach the international community and international law from a universalistic and idealistic viewpoint. In other words, if the positivist and pseudo-oriented view of international law is the reality of international community and international law, the universalist or idealist perception of international law can be said to be their goals. It is true that those two perspectives on international community and international law are neither omnicient nor all-perceiving, but complexly intertwined. The Constitution and international law, which can be considered the two axes of public law, are closely interrelated to the formation of a modern absolute state and civic democracy. The absoluteness of state power and civic democracy are doomed to fate our present and our future. This is not only such fundamental political order, but it also has become a foundation for the development of modern and contemporary order of law. And the two dimensions of order, politics and law, are developing in a dialectical manner. Under this background, this paper aims to provide a harmonious view sprucing up the reality of public law that penetrates both of the international and domestic society within a large framework. It is for research purpose and needs an effort of work by reviewing and analyzing the essence, commonalities, and differences among various adjacent concepts of the Constitution and international law discourse. This paper first begins with a discussion by presenting the historical development of existing hard legal system that penetrates the Constitution and international law through their realistic framework. Furthermore, we look at the softness of international law, conceptual discourse on the international law and world law, international constitutionalism and constitutional theory, and a compendium of world administrative law. We look at the background for the development of these commentaries, the main topics of discussion, and their commonalities or differences. Finally we briefly diagnose and place the future of new sermons that needs to be adduced due to changes in the international community.

Exploring users’ algorithmic knowledge and reflexivity in a music streaming context: A critical realist approach

Digital platforms such as Spotify have specific characteristics and properties that influence, to some extent, how the platform is used. However, users develop their own interpretations of these properties as well as unique ways to engage with the platform. This study applies a critical realist framework to explore how reflexivity modes are practiced in the context of Spotify as an example of algorithmic recommendation systems. From this perspective, reflexivity is a person’s capacity to reflect on their contexts, data, previous experiences, and knowledge, among other elements, before deciding how to act. Findings from interviews with Spotify users suggest that participants practice multiple reflexivity modes when interpreting Spotify’s recommendations and deciding what to listen to. These modes depend on each participant’s concerns and algorithmic knowledge.

Deep Entropy-Learning based virtual inertia control for VRFB regulation considering Phase-Locked loop dynamics

The virtual inertia control (VIC) technique is often adopted as a prominent mechanism to address the inertia deficiency of modern integrated power systems with high penetration of sustainable energy units. In such control mechanisms, a phase-locked loop (PLL) is required to estimate the grid frequency. However, utilization of such frequency measurement platforms is accompanied by large frequency fluctuations due to its inherent dynamics. In particular, this paper proposes an adaptive integral recursive backstepping (I-RBSC) based on virtual inertia for the regulation of vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) in stand-alone Micro-Grids (SMGs). Unlike previous works that neglected the effect of frequency measurement devices, this work investigates the effect of PLL dynamics in virtual inertia control. The I-RBSC controller is designed by an entropy-driven actor-critic neural networks (NNs) to adaptively adjust the tunable coefficients during its interaction with the SMG. By training the ability of deep NNs, the entropy is maximized to regulate the system output. The VRFB unit can be discharged up to 90% which can quickly respond to the randomness of loads and sustainable energy units. The transient outcomes of SMG reveal the feasibility of I-RBSC (designed by entropy learning) to address the challenges of low inertia and PLL dynamics. The real-data of wind turbine and solar radiation are utilized to simulate the SMG in a more realistic framework from a systematic point of view. The comprehensive analysis under typical scenarios confirms the supremacy of the suggested VIC controller over prevalent state-of-the-art virtual inertia controllers including conventional VIC, fuzzy logic, backstepping, and model-predictive control (MPC).

Optimization and performance analytics of global aircraft-based wastewater surveillance networks.

Aircraft wastewater surveillance has been proposed as a novel approach to monitor the global spread of pathogens. Here we develop a computational framework to provide actionable information for designing and estimating the effectiveness of global aircraft-based wastewater surveillance networks (WWSNs). We study respiratory diseases of varying transmission potentials and find that networks of 10 to 20 strategically placed wastewater sentinel sites can provide timely situational awareness and function effectively as an early warning system. The model identifies potential blind spots and suggests optimization strategies to increase WWSNs effectiveness while minimizing resource use. Our findings highlight that increasing the number of sentinel sites beyond a critical threshold does not proportionately improve WWSNs capabilities, stressing the importance of resource optimization. We show through retrospective analyses that WWSNs can significantly shorten the detection time for emerging pathogens. The presented approach offers a realistic analytic framework for the analysis of WWSNs at airports.

Rethinking Trans Trajectories via Life History

This article provides a life history analysis of Pepa Moreno, a transgender individual from Puebla, Mexico. The life events that she narrated in the interview conducted at her home and business—her move out of street sex work and her start as a business and property owner—offer a glimpse into the intertwining of personal/familial history and the processes unfolding in the spaces of society and economy. The article employs a critical realist framework around identity, based on life history as method, setting the scene around major restructurings of economy that private property regimes, urban transformation, morphing class realities, and capital investment (under neoliberalism) effected over her life: from adolescence into middle age. These transformations conjugate with changes across Pepa's own trajectory; key here are the meanings of “legitimate” work and moral worth that lie at the heart of the moral-legal economies that trans people in town, especially of working-class backgrounds, must confront. Labor status and class deeply intersect with a remaking of herself, which culminates with her naming herself as transgender once she has established herself as property owner and businessperson. However, even while invoking this category, she does not use it in line with the activist and sexological discourses that arose from the late 1990s on in Mexico City and which became prominent in Puebla in the early 2000s. The article thus maps the changing positions—and positionalities—of Pepa, examining the dialectics between lived experience and social structure, and the spaces of agency achieved through identity work.

Fostering language awareness for integration through teacher-researcher collaboration in a Spanish bilingual education context

Research on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes has shown that teachers find it difficult to integrate content and language in their teaching, and that this may be due to a lack of a specific type of teacher language awareness (TLA) for this type of teaching. This study explores how TLA for CLIL is manifested in metatalk in the context of a collaborative professional development activity, which took place in a bilingual secondary school in Madrid (Spain). Content and language teachers in pairs designed content and language integrated instructional sequences, implemented them, and assessed the students’ output. Four sessions in which teachers reflected on the activity, in collaboration with researchers, were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. The data were analyzed using a social realist framework for investigating knowledge-building practices, Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). The analysis showed how content and language teachers refer to three types of knowledge (content, language, and language and content integration) in terms of ‘what’ is known (conceptual frameworks) and ‘how’ it is approached (following specific methods). The results confirm the importance of developing CLIL teachers’ language awareness through on-site collaboration which is closely linked to their normal teaching activities.

‘I just feel very dispensable’: Exploring the connections between precarity and identity for academic literacy developers

Precarious employment is a well-established feature in academia, with many lecturers, tutors and professional services staff on forms of fixed-term contract. It is especially a feature of academic development spaces, such as English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes, and academic staff and student development programmes. Precarity results in high staff turnover and undermines staff credibility and capacity; these issues may impact student success. Further, for lecturers and tutors themselves, there are implications for their professional identity and sense of legitimacy within their role, department, and university. Using data from qualitative surveys and interviews with academic literacy practitioners in South Africa, this article explores how being precariously employed affects agency and the development of a professional practitioner identity for those on fixed-term contracts. Using aspects of Archer's social realist framework to theorise agency, we show how precarity impacts a sense of purpose and professional self within the university in relation to other academics and students.

Suicidal ideation among Chinese national team elite athletes

The present study reveals the subjective experiences of suicidal ideation among Chinese national team athletes. The two objectives were to situate the experiences of athletes’ suicidal ideation and to identify the common features of athletes’ suicidal ideation and their coping strategies in the Chinese sport system. Following a critical realist framework, 10 national team athletes were purposively recruited to share their experiences of suicidal ideation as they progressed in their national teams through in-depth semi-structured interviews. A reflexive thematic analysis followed by composite vignettes were undertaken to provide a rich description of suicidal ideation in relation to the athletes’ progressive careers. Three composite vignettes were generated: (a) suicidal ideation resulting from early overtraining, (b) difficulty in adjusting to a highly competitive environment post-transition, and (c) competition failures among established athletes. The manifestations, durations, reactions, and coping strategies of suicidal ideations varied as the athletes progressed in their careers. Age, athletic performance, social support, medal-orientation, and collectivism contributed to suicidal ideation.

A qualitative exploration of perceived challenges and opportunities in the implementation of injury prevention and management in amateur female sport.

Coaches, practitioners, and leadership in amateur female sport must navigate many obstacles in the pursuit of athlete availability and optimal performance. The present study aims to evaluate opportunities and challenges to both injury prevention and management in amateur female sport, as experienced by mixed-gender coaches, allied healthcare professionals, and general practitioners. Semi-structured virtual interviews of coaches, allied healthcare professionals, and general practitioners (N = 25), recruited via convenience snowball sample. Data transcribed verbatim with reflexive thematic analysis through a critical realism framework. Female-specific issues, education, and resource capital were challenges to the implementation of injury prevention and management in amateur female sport, thus negatively impacting on performance, prevention, and rehabilitation. Opportunities for improved care for female athletes were developing communication and relationships, outsourcing responsibility, and providing greater education, in response to desires for such, and lastly exposure to elite sport and national governing bodies' protocols. In amateur female sport, developing communication pathways and relationships, along with upskilling coaches, can help better support female athletes, coaches, and healthcare professionals. Leaders and stakeholders must advocate for and support greater education, resourcing, and an understanding of female-specific issues in amateur female sport. It is intended that these findings will provide evidence and opportunities for discourse between stakeholders in amateur female sport to improve standard of supports for female athletes, coaches, and healthcare professionals. These findings may also help practitioners better exploit opportunities and circumvent challenges to improve the welfare and performance of amateur female athletes.