Share Ideas Research Articles

Theory in action research

In this prologue to the special issue on theory in action research we provide a context and an introduction for the articles that follow. We begin by sketching in some of our shared ideas on theory in action research and some of the differences between our own approaches. Then, after briefly describing the process of preparing this issue, we provide a succinct pointer to each article in the issue.

Assessment of Stage of Change, Decisional Balance, Self-efficacy, and Use of Processes of Change of Low-income Parents for Increasing Servings of Fruits and Vegetables to Preschool-aged Children

Objective Use the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change (TTM) to determine the proportionate stage of change of low-income parents and primary caregivers (PPC) for increasing accessibility, measured as servings served, of fruits and vegetables (FV) to their preschool-aged children and evaluate response differences for theoretical constructs. Design Cross-sectional, quantitative survey design consisting of staging algorithm, construct scales, and food frequency questionnaire. Setting Rural and urban communities in a southwestern state of the United States. Participants 238 low-income PPC enrolled in federal nutrition education programs were recruited from group nutrition education sessions. Main Outcome Measures Stage of change using a staging algorithm, TTM constructs of processes of change, decisional balance, and self-efficacy measured by multiple-item scales using Likert response, and fruit and vegetable servings served using a food frequency questionnaire. Analysis Descriptive analysis, Pearson's chi-square, analyses of variance with Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference post hoc test, and principal component function analysis. Results Of the surveyed PPC, 43% were in precontemplation/contemplation stages, and 29% were in the preparation stage for increasing FV accessibility (measured by servings served) to their preschool-aged children. PPC in the action/maintenance stages evidenced greater use of behavioral processes and had higher self-efficacy scores compared to PPC in precontemplation/contemplation and preparation stages. Conclusions and Implications Interventions aimed at increasing FV accessibility for preschool-aged children should be tailored to meet PPCs' stage of change. Interventions targeting PPC in precontemplation/contemplation stages should use methods to share ideas for planning meals and snacks to include FV. Interventions for PPC in the preparation stage should aim to build skills in quick preparation of economical FV, address parental role modeling of FV consumption, and encourage goal setting. Learning formats providing social support may prove effective in prevention of behavior relapse for PPC in action/maintenance stages.

Medical Director, CPGs Spell QI Success

Medical Director, CPGs Spell QI Success

Creating a market in the presence of cultural resistance: the case of life insurance in China

This article brings together two different conceptions of culture—a shared meaning system on one hand and a repertoire of strategies on the other—to understand the emergence of a market. Based on ethnographic data, it examines how a Chinese life insurance market is emerging in the presence of incompatible shared values and ideas acting as cultural barriers, and how these cultural barriers shape the formation of the market. The findings reveal a burgeoning Chinese life insurance market despite local cultural logics incompatible with the profit-oriented institutional logic of life insurance. This Chinese market, however, has developed along a different trajectory from what might be expected. It first emerged as a money management, rather than a risk management, market. I argue that the very cultural barriers that compose the local resistance to a new economic practice also necessitate the mobilization of the cultural tool-kit to circumvent this resistance. These dual processes, shared ideas composing the resistance and the cultural tool-kit circumventing the resistance, shape the trajectory and characteristics of an emergent market. I propose a theoretical model specifying the mechanisms through which the two forms of culture interplay to influence the development of the life insurance. I apply this model to extend Zelizer’s (1979) insights and discuss how culture matters in forging a new market in the global diffusion of capitalism.

Nanocomposites for Engineering Applications

Advanced polymer-based nanocomposite materials have gained popularity for wide engineering applications with improving virtually all types of products and commercialization of products that exploit their unique mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. However, these properties present new challenges to understand, predict, and manage potential adverse effects, such as toxicity impacts exposure to human lives and environment. Thus, widespread applications of nanomaterials induce enormous potentials positively and negatively for human exposure and environmental release. Federal budget also emphasizes these implications and it is expected that the total annual budget for various sectors from the National Nanotechnology Initiatives will increase substantially in the coming years. The applications of nanostructure resins for biological applications have been conducted in vitro and in vivo environments in research in the past few years. The evaluation involved how the resins can bond for biocompatibility to bone for repair after breaking, teeth for filling, other various types of tissues for wound healing, and so on. Natural and synthetic polymeric materials have been found to be suitable for tissue engineering applications. For an example, silk (like cocoon or spider) fiber /biodegradable polymer biocomposites have been used for tissue engineering (scaffolding) for bone repair. Many researches have also demonstrated the use of nano structural materials as reinforcements, such as nano apatite, nanoclay, and nanofibers (polymer-based or carbon nanotubes) to enhance themechanical properties and thermal stability of bio compatible polymers for artificial joints and scaffolding. Tissue engineering is one such aspect that utilizes both engineering and life science disciplines to either maintain existing tissue structures or to enable tissue growth. Furthermore, tissue-engineered organs can be used in testing procedures, reducing or eliminating the need for animal subjects. Nano biotechnology is an interdisciplinary field resulting from the interfaces between biotechnology, materials science, and nanotechnology. This special issue “Nanocomposites for Engineering Applications” covers a wide range of papers contributed by authors around the world on the nanocomposites and their structural andmechanical properties. This aim is to provide a platform for scientists and researchers to exchange and share ideas and findings in the field.

Facebook for Finance: Why do Investors Share Ideas via Their Social Networks?

Empirical evidence suggests that investors share price-relevant information via their social networks. I analyze why and under what circumstances skilled investors (“arbitrageurs”) will rationally share private information via this word-of-mouth mechanism. My “diversification” sharing model suggests that capital constrained arbitrageurs will share ideas to gain access to new ideas and lower their portfolio volatility. My “awareness” sharing model suggests that arbitrageurs share their private information to attract additional capital into their asset market. My models make multiple hypotheses about when, where, and how arbitrageurs will rationally share information via their social networks - many of these predictions are observed empirically.

Audiologists Join SLPs at Schools Conference

Audiologists Join SLPs at Schools Conference

The Art of Asking Questions: Two Classes That Changed My Teaching Life

Ken Donelson looks back on two classes that taught him that students are willing to share ideas when teachers are honest and reveal their biases and when classroom experiences are based on trust. Additionally, he recalls how important free reading and thematic units became to inciting authentic student responses to literature.

How To Advance Open International Scientific Exchange

How To Advance Open International Scientific Exchange

Peer–Peer Interaction between L2 Learners of Different Proficiency Levels: Their Interactions and Reflections

Abstract: This study draws on sociocultural theory to explore how adult ESL learners interact with either a higher- or a lower-proficiency peer during pair problem solving, and how they each perceive the interactions with their partners. Three ESL learners engaged in a three-stage task: pair writing; pair noticing; and individual writing with two learners, one with a higher and one with a lower L2 proficiency level than their own. These three learners engaged in stimulated recall sessions and were interviewed after all the tasks were completed. Each pair's pattern of interaction and attitude towards the interactions were analyzed. Data showed that the higher- and the lower-proficiency peers could both provide opportunities for learning when they worked collaboratively. Moreover, all three learners preferred to work with a partner who ‘shared many ideas,’ regardless of their proficiency level. These findings suggest that proficiency differences are not the decisive factor affecting the nature of peer assistance. Rather, the pattern of interaction co-constructed by learners may have greater impact.

Evolutionary algorithms to simulate the phylogenesis of a binary artificial immune system

Four binary-encoded models describing some aspects of the phylogenetics evolution in an artificial immune system have been proposed and analyzed. The first model has focused on the evolution of a paratope’s population, considering a fixed group of epitopes, to simulate a hypermutation mechanism and observe how the system would self-adjust to cover the epitopes. In the second model, the evolution involves a group of antibodies adapting to a given antigenic molecules’ population. The third model simulated the coevolution between antibodies’ generating gene libraries and antigens. The objective was to simulate somatic recombination mechanisms to obtain final libraries apt to produce antibodies to cover any possible antigen that would appear in the pathogens’ population. In the fourth model, the coevolution involves a new population of self-molecules whose function was to establish restrictions in the evolution of libraries’ population. For all the models implemented, evolutionary algorithms (EA) were used to form adaptive niching inspired in the coevolutionary shared niching strategy ideas taken from a monopolistic competition economic model where “businessmen” locate themselves among geographically distributed “clients” so as to maximize their profit. Numerical experiments and conclusions are shown. These considerations present many similarities to biological immune systems and also some inspirations to solve real-world problems, such as pattern recognition and knowledge discovery in databases.

The security culture of the ECOWAS: origins, development and the challenge of child trafficking

This article explores the relationship between the security culture of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and how it has responded to transnational challenges in West Africa. To do so, it provides an overview of how the ideas, norms and principles that constitute the embryonic security culture of ECOWAS have evolved historically. Against this backdrop the article focuses on how the regional organisation has dealt with a specific contemporary security challenge: child trafficking. The concluding part of the article seeks to explain ECOWAS's collective action on child trafficking with reference to the region's different threat perceptions and security priorities. This article argues that although the decisions and policies of ECOWAS on child trafficking are influenced by certain shared ideas, norms and principles, a breakdown of collective political will and continuing differences on the key security referents and appropriate approaches to the security of individuals have led ECOWAS member states to fail in effectively addressing this particular transnational security challenge.

Writing for Connection: Cross-Cultural Understanding in James Welch’s Historical Fiction

Writing for ConnectionCross-Cultural Understanding in James Welch’s Historical Fiction Joseph L. Coulombe (bio) In Fools Crow and The Heartsong of Charging Elk, James Welch examines the social and cultural links between Natives and non-Natives, demonstrating how different peoples and cultures intersect in both positive and negative ways. While current scholarship tends to privilege autonomous tribal knowledge systems, this essay explores an equally important trend that Welch helped to inaugurate.1 In his historical fiction, Welch emphasizes connections between cultures—lessening differences between cultural groups and fostering mutual respect in the process—without losing sight of the historical outrages committed upon Native peoples. His earlier novel, Fools Crow (1986), recreates the period of first contact between Blackfeet tribes and Euro-Americans to illuminate the alliances and conflicts, the treaties and wars, and the cultural exchanges and political inequities that nearly destroyed a way of life over 130 years ago. The latter novel, The Heartsong of Charging Elk (2000), begins where Fools Crow left off, focusing on the shift to reservation life among the Oglala Sioux after white America stole their lands. In both novels Welch compels readers to reevaluate common versions of U.S. history. He initially places most readers in the role of outsider, but he ultimately invites them into distinct tribal cultures to deepen their understanding and expand their awareness of similarities between ostensibly different peoples. Although Welch’s fiction appeals to all types of readers—Native, non-Native, academic, and general—this essay considers the ways in which Welch targets a popular audience interested in [End Page 1] but not fluent in Native studies or specific tribal cultures. In a 1995 interview Welch said: I feel the need to present Indians in a way that would be educational to readers, and I hope it would be entertaining, and really to bring some sort of understanding to the outside community of what life is like for Indians on reservations and Indians in historical times. (Bellinelli) A sizable portion of his intended audience seems to be readers in the “outside community,” and he addresses this audience in a manner that highlights the links between people of different cultural backgrounds. His presentation of Native words and near-translations, his descriptions of cultural practices, his recounting of tribal stories, his use of humor, and his emphasis upon the importance of community all offer insight into the shared qualities of a common humanity. By demonstrating similarities as well as showcasing differences, Welch’s historical novels serve to empower and liberate Native people and communities, a stated goal of indigenous scholar-activists Devon Abbott Mihesuah and Angela Cavender Wilson, among others.2 Fools Crow and Heartsong treat racial issues and relationships in a manner that defines the present as much as the past, effectively dismantling many misconceptions and stereotypes that support discrimination today. Although clearly intent upon correcting the historical record, Welch also offers hope for the future, and he targets a general readership to influence popular attitudes. He uses fiction to break down barriers, showing readers that intersections of belief and practice between people makes assaults on one group essentially an attack on the self. James Clifford argues, “‘Cultural’ difference is no longer a stable, exotic otherness; self-other relations are matters of power and rhetoric rather than of essence” (14). Harnessing the power of literature, Welch challenges rigid racial and cultural categories—while still honoring differences—and he reveals shared motivations, doubts, and ideas in order to break down constructed divisions in our past, present, and future. [End Page 2] His focus on connections between people does not prevent Fools Crow and Heartsong from acting also as resistance literature.3 Both novels explicitly subvert prevailing stereotypes about Natives. While writing Fools Crow, Welch himself said: “I’m trying to write from the inside-out, because most historical novels are written from the outside looking in. [. . . From the perspective of Fools Crow] the white people are the real strangers. They’re the threatening presence out there all the time” (McFarland 4–5). Welch’s Native-centered approach in Fools Crow decenters many readers, compelling them to rethink conventional attitudes regarding the expansion of the United States and the social...

Quality function deployment implementation based on Fuzzy Kano model: An application in PLM system

Product lifecycle management (PLM), a strategic business system allows more effective communication among different groups at dispersed locations to share ideas and access information needed for developing new products and executing innovative processes. The main function of PLM is to develop an attractive system which ensures customer satisfaction. Therefore, one of the important topics of the PLM system developments is to take customer requirements into consideration. Quality function deployment (QFD) has been widely used for numerous years; it is one of the structured methodologies that are used to translate customer needs into specific quality development. However, in the traditional QFD approach, each element’s interdependence and customer requirements are usually not systematically treated. Additionally, the Kano model can effectively classify customer demand attributes, but to make Kano model more objective in the course of weighing, we have also included Fuzzy mode in our discussion. This study presents an integrative approach by incorporating the Kano model with Fuzzy mode into the matrix of QFD and adjusting customer requirement weights. This approach can fulfill two objectives, First, through the Kano model with the Fuzzy mode, it will not only discriminate out options for the required attributes in much more breadth but also simultaneously render the discretions on the linguistic implications much more accurate with the aid of the ambiguous questionnaire response method. Second, combining the Kano model and QFD, can not only provide a new way to optimize the product design but can also enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, and minimize dissatisfaction. The proposed methods can be useful to both practitioners and researchers. To illustrate our findings, we have incorporated an example which suggests that the proposed approach can contribute to the creation of attractive PLM attributes and PLM innovation.

Constructing Meaning and Metaphor for Cultural Pedagogy

Looking out at the sea of faces in the classroom, it was clear that there was no spontaneous interaction occurring between the ‘Australian’ and ‘international’ students. It was as if they were invisible to each other. An opportunity for them to interact with each other and learn from the richness of each other’s cultures was being wasted. A learning environment was created that sought to value difference and to encourage students to share knowledge and ideas from their different cultural perspectives. The outcome was at best problematic, at worst disastrous. Contributing to the development of pedagogy that explicitly values the cultural diversity of the classroom is the focus of research that explores the practice and wisdom of lecturers experienced in multicultural classroom teaching using a phenomenographic approach enriched by metaphor analysis. The imperative to internationalise Australia’s tertiary education system, encouraging overseas students to come to study at Australian universities being one strategy, is now well-established. Lecturers’ experiences of multicultural classes, now with increasing numbers of international students, have been largely missing from studies of internationalisation in tertiary education. The way that lecturers understand and approach tertiary learning and teaching in this changing, multicultural environment will assist in developing a cultural pedagogy that contributes to cultural democracy and equips students for global citizenship.

Setting Boundaries: Can International Society Exclude "Rogue States"?1

This essay addresses a prominent post-Cold War issue to which political scientists have paid relatively little attention: the status of so-called rogue states in international politics. The war in Iraq crystallized transatlantic disagreement over whether “rogue states” exist and how they should be treated, but the debate raged throughout the 1990s. This essay brings international relations theory to bear on the issue of “rogue states,” but it does so with a theoretical twist. It argues that we must first identify the entity from which these states are allegedly excluded as well as who gets to set the membership criteria. If we stipulate that the international system includes all states, then international society can be defined according to various shared ideas and many realizations of international society are possible. Powerful states may try to act as “norm entrepreneurs,” promoting their ideas as the basis of international society. But states, including great powers , may genuinely disagree over the basis and boundaries of this society. It is thus vital not only to take both power and shared ideas seriously, but also to describe the origins and limits of shared ideas. The limits to shared ideas can be termed “bounded intersubjectivity.” This essay uses the debate over “rogue states” and the transatlantic crisis over confronting Iraq to underscore these theoretical issues.

A Genius of OurTheatre: In Praise of Paul Bettis (1940-2005)

Way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Paul Bettis and I were among the many engaged in the sometimes joyful, sometimes excruciating process of making original Canadian Theatre in Toronto. (Later, Paul would describe that era — dismissively? or with respect? — as “spadework.”) From 1974, when he first sounded me about working together, Paul and I supported, questioned and challenged each other, shared ideas and opinions, sometimes celebrated and, very often, commiserated over some alcoholic beverage.

Evaluating the impact on practice of a west of Berkshire protected learning time initiative in primary care

WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN IN THIS AREA• Research indicates that Protected Learning Time (PLT) events in primary care enable professionals to network and share ideas.• A variety of educational techniques have been shown to improve performance of: individual practitioners in other settings.• Beyond one-off examples, there is little published evidence that PLT helps to improve practice.WHAT THIS WORK ADDS• It describes a range of ways in which PLT has impacted on practice at the level of the individual, the team and the wider organisation.• It highlights the main benefits of large event PLT according to participants at a Berkshire initiative. The benefits include increased awareness of services, increased understanding of illnesses and improved treatment.SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH• Do large PLT events have different outcomes from practice-based PLT?• How does PLT impact on the development of a learning culture?• How can large; learning events best meet the needs of different groups of professionals?• What impact, if any, does the closure of surgeries for PLT have on use of out-of-hours services or subsequent workload?

A day for CS education

For this column, I'd like to share a few ideas that came out of Bay Area CSE Day 2005. Bay Area CSE day was one-day gathering of CSE people, started with a simple invitation on the SIGCSE list. The event was not elaborately prepared --- I just asked a few people to give 15-minute presentations about topics of interest, and then left a lot of time in between for discussion. The regular SIGCSE conference has a lot of high quality prepared material in the presentations, but there never seems to be enough time discussion and interaction. As a low-effort gathering, CSE Day gave us a few interesting presentations and then lots of time to go around the table and share ideas. At a basic level, I find it refreshing and energizing just to be in a room with other people who care about the same things that I care about, so I encourage others who are thinking about organizing one-day events.

Trust-creating practices for marketing managers

This paper deals with trust-creating and maintaining practices from the point of view of marketing managers. It shows how they can introduce trust into their customers and organizations. It is emphasized that successful business is based on trust between participants. In complex, turbulent and volatile environments trust brings about significant benefits to companies. It lowers transactions costs, promotes innovations and efficiency, and furthers people's willingness to share their experiences and insights. Mistrust, in turn, makes conflict-solution difficult for them and creates extra costs for all. People who mistrust each other are unwilling to share ideas, collaborate, and help each other.