Theoretical Coherence Research Articles

Ending the microfoundations hegemony

The New Classical Counter Revolution changed macromodelling methodology and ushered in the hegemony of microfounded models. Yet, in reality, at any particular point in time there is a trade-off between data coherence and theoretical coherence, and insisting that all academically respectable modelling should be at one extreme of this trade-off is a major mistake. The paper argues that if more traditional structural econometric models (SEMs) had been developed alongside microfounded models, links between finance and the real economy would have been more thoroughly explored before the financial crisis, allowing macroeconomists to respond better to the Great Recession. Just as microfoundations hegemony held back macroeconomics on that occasion, it is likely to do so again. Macroeconomics will develop more rapidly in useful directions if microfounded models and more traditional SEMs work alongside each other, and are accorded equal academic respect.

Conceptualizing world society

Despite Barry Buzan’s significant attempt to conceptualize world society, a set of questions pertaining to world society remain highly debated and are taken as central concerns to our investigation in this special issue. For example, what is the relationship between international and world society? Does the idea of world society promote or undermine international society? Does international society provide the basis for the development of world society and under what conditions? In which areas could we observe the development of a world society? Are there primary world society institutions? What is the distinct contribution of an English School conception of a world society to the study of international relations? Is world society thinking related to other theoretical approaches to the study of international relations and how? Can the normative, historical, and analytical approaches to the concept of a world society be reconciled? Is the concept of a world society the key to resolving the pluralist–solidarist debate and can this debate illuminate the concept of a world society? Do the different senses of a world society in the literature of the English need to be terminologically distinguished? These questions need to be revisited in order to advance the English School world society debate and tighten the English School’s theoretical coherence and to maintain its relevance.

Current directions in laboratory studies of personality pathology: Examples from borderline personality disorder, psychopathy, and schizotypy.

Much of the earliest research on personality pathology was observational and descriptive in nature, drawing heavily on subjective self-reports, however, the last 20 years have seen a surge of interest in laboratory-based studies. Laboratory research offers a number of benefits for researchers interested in personality disorders and personality pathology including the opportunities to use objective performance-based and behavioral measures, reveal the neuropsychological and biobehavioral processes that may help shape the experience and behavior of individuals with personality disorders, and create experimental designs that allow researchers to systematically explore the effect of context on emotional, behavioral and cognitive responding. Along with these benefits, laboratory research on personality disorders has its share of methodological and interpretive challenges and raise several key questions, including (a) How should we interpret findings that diverge from theory-driven predictions? (b) How do we reconcile discrepant results from subjective and performance-based assessments? and (c) Are these discrepancies due to methodological artifact, a hallmark of the disorder, or cause for theoretical reconsideration? The goal of this article is to review studies aimed at answering a key research question in the domains of borderline personality disorder, psychopathy, and schizotypy. Our review highlights significant progress in laboratory research on personality disorders, and identifies challenges that must be addressed to capitalize on the promise of laboratory methods. It is our hope that future experimental work proceeds with an eye toward theoretical coherence, methodological rigor, ecological validity, and clinical utility. (PsycINFO Database Record

Construcción y validación de una escala de asertividad en la relación paciente-médico

The objective of this study was the construction and validation of an instrument to evaluate patients’ assertiveness with the medical personnel. Two hundred and sixteen patients with chronic degenerative diseases (Mage=42.74, SD=8.76), from a public hospital in Mexico City participated in this study, selected through a non probability haphazard sampling. In order to validate this instrument, an analysis was carried out evaluating the discriminative power of the items, the reliability and the factorial structure were obtained. The final scale contains 21 items, that explain 44.29% of the total variance and the theoretical coherence of the structure distributed on 4 factors: Non Assertiveness-Passivity, Non Assertiveness-Insecurity, Positive-Assertiveness and Aggressiveness, this instrument has a reliability level of α=.816, so it is concluded that this scale complies with the reliability and validity criteria to measure the assertiveness on clinic practice and investigation, with the limitation regarding its validation in the hospitalary population of Mexico City.

An Integrative Approach Toward Biology, Organisms, and Cancer.

Over the last two decades, we have challenged the hegemony of the somatic mutation theory of carcinogenesis (SMT) based on the lack of theoretical coherence of the premises adopted by its followers. We offered instead a theoretical alternative, the tissue organization field theory (TOFT), that is based on the premises that cancer is a tissue-based disease and that proliferation and motility is the default state of all cells. We went on to use a theory-neutral experimental protocol that simultaneously tested the TOFT and the SMT. The results of this test favored adopting the TOFT and rejecting the SMT. Recently, an analysis of the differences between the Physics of the inanimate and that of the living matter has led us to propose principles for the construction of a much needed theory of organisms. The three biological principles are (a) a default state, (b) a principle of variation, and (c) one of organization. The TOFT, defined as "development gone awry," fits well within the principles that we propose for a theory of organisms. This radical conceptual change opened up the possibility of anchoring mathematical modeling on genuine biological principles. By identifying constraints to the default state, multilevel biomechanical explanations become as legitimate as the molecular ones on which other modelers that adopt the SMT rely. Expanding research based on the premises of our theory of organisms will enrich a comprehensive understanding of normal development and of the one that goes awry.

The Constructivist Integrative Model: A New Proposal


 
 
 This work presents the epistemological and theoretical foundations of a recently developed model of psychotherapy: the constructivist integrative model (CIM). Rather than being another integrative model among the variety of available proposals, CIM is aimed at offering a methodology that allows constructivist therapists to integrate different elements of work, derived from constructivist and social constructionist diverse models, insuring epistemological, theoretical, and technical coherence. From explaining the foundations of the model, their clinical applications are derived: case formulation and general guidelines for psychotherapeutic practice. Finally, new potential developments and future applications are discussed. 
 
 

Coherence of simulated atmospheric boundary-layer turbulence

The coherences in a plane perpendicular to incoming flow are measured in wind tunnel simulations of atmospheric turbulent flow. The measured coherences are compared with analytical expressions tailored to field measurements and with theoretical coherence models which assume homogeneous turbulence and the von Kármán’s spectrum. The comparison indicates that the simulated atmospheric boundary layer flow is approximately horizontally homogeneous turbulence. Based on the above assumption and the systematic analysis of lateral coherence, it can be concluded that the lateral coherences of simulated atmospheric boundary turbulence can be determined accurately using the von Kármán spectrum and the turbulence parameters measured by a few measurement points. The measured results also show that the spatial characteristics of vertical coherences are closely related to the dimensionless parameter The vertical coherence at two heights can be roughly estimated by the ratio to The relationship between the phase angles of u-, v- and w-components and the vertical separation distance and the height from the ground is further analyzed. Finally, the roles of the type of land surface roughness, the height from the ground, the turbulence intensity and the integral length scale in lateral and vertical coherences are also discussed in this study.

Spectral analysis and coherence of aerodynamic lift on rectangular cylinders in turbulent flow

The goal of the present work is to derive the closed-form expressions of coherence and admittances to describe the spatial distribution of lift on rectangular cylinders in turbulent flow, which can be used to investigate the three-dimensional effects of turbulence. The coherence of the three-dimensional aerodynamic admittance (3D AAF), which takes into full account the spanwise variations in the vertical velocity fluctuations, is introduced to assess the validity of the strip assumption. A theoretical coherence model expressed in a double-exponential form is derived starting from the two-wavenumber spectral tensor of the lift on a thin aerofoil in Fourier space, providing us with explicit insight into the coherence of the lift force. Notably, it is an intrinsic property that the lift force on the structure is more strongly correlated than the oncoming flow and 3D AAF. This coherence model is extended to rectangular cylinders by the introduction of three floating parameters into the decay parameters of the 3D AAF. Based on theoretical and experimental investigations, it is shown that the three-dimensional effects of turbulence grow more prominent as the difference between the decay parameters of the 3D AAF and vertical velocity fluctuations decreases. A generalized approach for rapidly deriving the closed-form expressions of the admittances is proposed to study the unsteady behaviour of the lift force and the distortion of the free stream passing through the rectangular cylinders.

Estimating the sound speed of a shallow-water marine sediment from the head wave excited by a low-flying helicopter.

The frequency bandwidth of the sound from a light helicopter, such as a Robinson R44, extends from about 13 Hz to 2.5 kHz. As such, the R44 has potential as a low-frequency sound source in underwater acoustics applications. To explore this idea, an experiment was conducted in shallow water off the coast of southern California in which a horizontal line of hydrophones detected the sound of an R44 hovering in an end-fire position relative to the array. Some of the helicopter sound interacted with seabed to excite the head wave in the water column. A theoretical analysis of the sound field in the water column generated by a stationary airborne source leads to an expression for the two-point horizontal coherence function of the head wave, which, apart from frequency, depends only on the sensor separation and the sediment sound speed. By matching the zero crossings of the measured and theoretical horizontal coherence functions, the sound speed in the sediment was recovered and found to take a value of 1682.42 ± 16.20 m/s. This is consistent with the sediment type at the experiment site, which is known from a previous survey to be a fine to very-fine sand.

Partitioning wind and ship generated sound using vertical noise coherence

Continuous ambient noise data were recorded during April and May 2016, using a four-element vertical array deployed near the continental shelf break south of Martha’s Vineyard. A technique for classifying and partitioning ambient noise using the vertical noise coherence function is proposed. Time series analysis of the noise power spectrum reveals the presence wind, distant shipping, and near-field individual ship noise in the region. The noise coherence (directionality) due to wind, distant shipping, and individual ships is analytically modeled using environmental inputs such as the time varying sound speed profile and sediment properties from the measurement site, and compared with the observation. The impact of noise due to ship traffic in the region is estimated by subtracting the best-fit theoretical coherence for wind-generated noise from the measurement. Since the wind generated vertical coherence is stable and independent of source spectrum level, it can be used to quantify the relative contributions of distant shipping and wind noise to the marine environment. Additionally, the time varying vertical coherence from near-field individual ships can be used for estimating their range and speed. [Research supported by ONR.]

Workplace bullying in emergency nursing: Development of a grounded theory using situational analysis

BackgroundThe Institute of Medicine recognizes that the workplace environment is a crucial factor in the ability of nurses to provide safe and effective care, and thus interactions that affect the quality and safety of the work environment require exploration. ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to use situational analysis to develop a grounded theory of workplace bullying as it manifests specifically in the emergency care setting. MethodsThis study used a grounded theory methodology called situational analysis. 44 emergency RNs were recruited to participate in one of 4 focus group sessions, which were transcribed in their entirety, and, along with field notes, served as the dataset. ResultsThis grounded theory describes the characteristics of human actors and their reactions to conditions in the practice environment that lead to greater or lesser levels of bullying, and the responses to bullying as it occurs in U.S. emergency departments. DiscussionWorkplace bullying is a significant factor in the dynamics of patient care, nursing work culture, and nursing retention. The impact on patient care cannot be overestimated, both in terms of errors, substandard care, and the negative effects of high turnover of experienced RNs who leave, compounded by the inexperience of newly hired RNs. An assessment of hospital work environments should include nurse perceptions of workplace bullying, and interventions should focus on effective managerial processes for handling workplace bullying. Future research should include testing of the theoretical coherence of the model, and the testing of bullying interventions to determine the effect on workplace environment, nursing intent to leave/retention, and patient outcomes.

A Reconsideration of Hofstede’s Fifth Dimension: New Flexibility Versus Monumentalism Data From 54 Countries

Hofstede’s “long-term orientation” (LTO) may be one of the most important dimensions of national culture, as it highlights differences on a continuum from East Asia to Africa and Latin America, strongly associated with differences in educational achievement. However, LTO’s structure lacks theoretical coherence. We show that a statistically similar, and theoretically more focused and coherent, dimension of national culture, called “flexibility versus monumentalism,” or vice versa, can be extracted from national differences in self-enhancement and self-stability or self-consistency, as well as a willingness to help people. Using data from nearly 53,000 respondents recruited probabilistically from 54 countries, we provide a new national flexibility-versus-monumentalism index that measures key cultural differences on the world’s East–West geographic axis and predicts educational achievement better than LTO or any other known dimension of national culture.

The coherence function model of ground motion in engineering sites based on physical mechanism

Based on the random physical model of seismic ground motion field on local engineering site, this paper suggests a theoretical coherence function model of ground motion in engineering sites based on physical mechanism; probability density evolution method (PDEM) is used to solve this theoretical model. The comparison between the theoretical model and the Harichandran-Vanmarcke model as well as Hao model has proved the rationality of the suggested model. Then the model is used to study the characteristics of the coherence function in four kinds of seismic engineering sites and the non-uniform sites in lateral direction. When compared with the traditional empirical or semi empirical models, the model suggested in this paper provides a new perspective to understand the coherence in earthquake field, which means to determine the earthquake field coherence based on different kinds of physical factors and the physical mechanism of seismic wave propagation. This can be a new method to analyze and determine the earthquake field coherence.

Working Toward a System for Measuring Dynamic Knowledge

Knowledge is inherently intangible, invisible and resistant to quantification, particularly when in dynamic motion. This makes it a considerable and persistent challenge to understand, visualize and measure. The research described in this article builds upon emerging knowledge measurement techniques and well-established knowledge flow theory to develop a system for measuring dynamic knowledge in the organization. This measurement capability is developed judiciously and analogically from the author's understanding of dynamic physical systems. As a background, the key literature on knowledge measurement and knowledge flow theory is reviewed. Then this system for measuring dynamic knowledge is conceptualized, and its use, utility and theoretical coherence are illustrated through practical application. This research makes a theoretical contribution by advancing a coherent approach to dynamic knowledge measurement, and it makes a practical contribution through illustration in the organization context. A related goal is to stimulate considerable thinking, discussion, debate and continued research.

Policy design: Its enduring appeal in a complex world and how to think it differently

Policy design has re-appeared on the scholarly agenda. This special issue investigates the assumptions of the policy design concept, questioning its theoretical coherence and relevance for practitioners. The conventional idea of policy design implies an instrumental-rational theoretical model which is out of place in contemporary governance arrangements. While the concept appeals to academic sensibilities, it has less utility in practice. It can also become caught up in the political aspect of policymaking by being used to generate legitimacy for the actions of public managers via rationalising accounts. Contributors to this issue argue that the design idea should be reconsidered from the ground up. An alternative orientation is put forward, which regards policy design as something that emerges from policymaking practice.

Head wave inversion technique using the low-frequency sound from a Robinson R44 helicopter

A series of underwater acoustic experiments using a Robinson R44 helicopter and an underwater receiver station has been conducted in shallow (16.5 m) water. The receiver station consisted of an 11-element nested hydrophone array with a 12 m aperture configured as a horizontal line (HLA) 0.5 m above the seabed. A microphone was located immediately above the surface. The main rotor blades of the helicopter produce low-frequency harmonics, the fundamental frequency being ~13 Hz. The tail rotor produces a sequence of harmonics six times higher in frequency. An analytical solution for the horizontal coherence for the head wave has been developed using a 3-layer (atmosphere-ocean-sediment) acoustic propagation model. By comparing the theoretical coherence with the coherence function from the data the sediment sound speed is recovered. The results from the theoretical model and an experiment conducted north of Scripps Pier off the coast of southern California are presented. [Research supported by ONR, SMART(DOD), NAVAIR, and SIO.]

A Diagnostic Marker to Discriminate Childhood Apraxia of Speech From Speech Delay: III. Theoretical Coherence of the Pause Marker with Speech Processing Deficits in Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Previous articles in this supplement described rationale for and development of the pause marker (PM), a diagnostic marker of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), and studies supporting its validity and reliability. The present article assesses the theoretical coherence of the PM with speech processing deficits in CAS. PM and other scores were obtained for 264 participants in 6 groups: CAS in idiopathic, neurogenetic, and complex neurodevelopmental disorders; adult-onset apraxia of speech (AAS) consequent to stroke and primary progressive apraxia of speech; and idiopathic speech delay. Participants with CAS and AAS had significantly lower scores than typically speaking reference participants and speech delay controls on measures posited to assess representational and transcoding processes. Representational deficits differed between CAS and AAS groups, with support for both underspecified linguistic representations and memory/access deficits in CAS, but for only the latter in AAS. CAS-AAS similarities in the age-sex standardized percentages of occurrence of the most frequent type of inappropriate pauses (abrupt) and significant differences in the standardized occurrence of appropriate pauses were consistent with speech processing findings. Results support the hypotheses of core representational and transcoding speech processing deficits in CAS and theoretical coherence of the PM's pause-speech elements with these deficits.

Are We Speaking the Same Language? Finding Theoretical Coherence and Precision in "Mindfulness-Based Mechanisms" in Chronic Pain.

Over the past 50 years, the field of chronic pain has witnessed an evolution of psychological approaches with some notable success. Some of this evolution has included "mindfulness-based interventions" (MBIs), now regarded as having encouraging partial support for their effectiveness. However, several theoretical challenges remain that may inhibit the progress of MBIs. These challenges include a lack of clarity surrounding the mindfulness construct itself, the proliferation of purported underlying mechanisms arising from different theories, and limited evidence for the mechanisms through which MBIs work. The current conceptual review provides a critique of existing theoretical models of mindfulness that have been applied to understanding and treating chronic pain. A conceptual narrative review was conducted. Treatment programs for people with chronic pain. Individuals with any type of chronic pain. MBIs for chronic pain. Mindfulness-based mechanisms explored in relation to several domains of functioning. Based on this assessment, a summary of available evidence for a particular contextual behavioral theory of "mindfulness"-psychological flexibility-is outlined. Findings show the need for further integration of existing mindfulness constructs to better guide development and evaluation of mindfulness-based treatment methods in the future.

Placing Petrarch’s Legacy: The Politics of Petrarch’s Tomb and Boccaccio’s Last Letter

AbstractIn readings of orations, letters, and poems about Petrarch’s death composed in Paduan and Florentine intellectual circles, this article shows that the well-known praise of Petrarch in these texts is a function of a political competition over Petrarch’s remains and, with them, over the rightful location of his legacy. Boccaccio’s last letter, which stands out for its rhetorical sophistication and cultural sensitivity, intervenes in this largely provincial debate with farsighted theoretical coherence and cosmopolitan political ambition. Animated by a familiar vernacular poetics, Boccaccio theorizes an intellectual entombment of Petrarch in Florence that is consonant with Boccaccio’s ongoing cultural project.

Research on Social Networking Sites and Social Support from 2004 to 2015: A Narrative Review and Directions for Future Research.

The article presents a narrative review of scholarship on social support through social networking sites (SNSs) published from 2004 to 2015. By searching keywords related to social support and SNSs in major databases for social sciences, we identified and content analyzed directly relevant articles (N = 88). The article summarizes the prevalence of theory usage; the function of theory usage (e.g., testing a theory, developing a theory); major theories referenced; and methodologies, including research designs, measurement, and the roles of social support and SNS examined in this literature. It also reports four themes identified across the studies, indicating the trends in the current research. Based on the review, the article presents a discussion about study sites, conceptualization of social support, theoretical coherence, the role of social networks, and the dynamic relationships between SNS use and social support, which points out potential avenues for shaping a future research agenda.