Today's Complex World Research Articles

The food-water-energy nexus governance model: A case study for Iran

As the world's population grows, food and energy supply will be one of the most important challenges. Agriculture, as the most important food producer, is not only a consumer of water and energy but also a major supplier of energy. Consequently, a balance must be struck between the harvest and utilization of production resources and the amount of agricultural production. The UN's Third Millennium Goals are on the agenda of achieving sustainable long-term development of human societies and ensuring food, water, and energy availability for future generations. To accomplish these goals, researchers have developed numerous interdisciplinary and specialized frameworks and approaches to achieve a dynamic and optimal balance of production and resource utilization, one of which being water, energy, and food. The water, energy and food Nexus approach is an overall vision of sustainability that strives to balance the various goals, interests, and needs of people and the environment by quantifying water, energy and food relationships through qualitative and quantitative modeling as well as advancing research for Integrate modeling and management to deliver important sustainable development strategies in today's dynamic and complex world. Given the environmental and water crises that threaten the Iranian nation's food and energy security, water, energy, and food, Nexus management can bring about change and balance in different sectors, depending on the needs and participation of all stakeholders. In this paper, a novel model for the Nexus approach governance model using the multi-layer visionary is being developed for the Iranian region for the water and food crisis the country is facing today.

Cardiology Clinic Access: How Does RN Supervised Stress Testing Affect Cardiology Clinic Access Appointment Wait Times, and the Number of Rescheduled Appointments?

Access to clinical care in specialty services is challenging in today's ever-changing and complex world of health promotion. Typically, physicians (MD) and nurse practitioners (NP) provide many specialty cardiology services at the Veterans Health Administration (VA) where the study was conducted, while the registered nurses (RN) remain underutilized. These healthcare providers are tasked with supervising cardiac stress tests, which decreases appointment availability for new consults and follow-up visits in the cardiology clinic. Delegating the cardiac stress test supervision to nurses may improve access to cardiac care. The purpose of this study was to determine if RN supervised stress testing affects access to cardiology care. The study utilized a quantitative, comparative design to evaluate if a change in the role of the cardiology RN affected access to cardiology care. The number of cardiology appointments before the intervention were compared to those after the intervention. The appointments were divided into four categories for analysis: 1) appointments scheduled greater than 30 days, 2) appointments referred to community physicians, 3) the number of rescheduled appointments, and 4) the total number of appointments scheduled. The results indicate the number of appointments scheduled over the 30-days was significantly reduced (p = .02) and the total number of appointments (p = .04), but community referrals and rescheduled appointments were not (p =.26, p =.36, respectively). During the data collection, one of the healthcare providers was no longer available to provide care for two out of the three months included in the study. Therefore, the number of appointments after the intervention were not a reflective comparison of cardiology clinic access. Despite the discrepancy in the number of healthcare providers, delegating the stress test supervision to nurses significantly reduced the number of patients scheduled over 30-days and the total number of scheduled appointments. Increasing the skill set of the cardiology RN in the procedural setting can amplify the benefits of team-based care, safe delivery of care, the development of best practices, and most importantly access to cardiology care.

Learning to look from different perspectives - what can dental undergraduates learn from an arts and humanities-based teaching approach?

By its nature, clinical teaching involves supporting small groups of dental students at the chairside as they treat their own patients. Scaffolding their learning in this way enables observation at close quarters of the various stages of development from early novice, just commencing clinical treatment of patients, to those approaching qualification. The students' main concerns throughout are not primarily with the technical skills required, which they have already been taught in the clinical skills laboratories, but dealing with the complex realities and ambiguities of clinical practice; the 'hidden curriculum' of decision making, judgement calls, issues of communication and what it actually means to be professional. Yet, in an already packed curriculum little time is spent helping the students develop these higher order skills. In an effort to improve clinical reasoning and interpretative skills, many medical schools in the US and a number of leading medical schools here in the UK now incorporate arts and humanities-based initiatives into their curricula. This allows for a greater balance between the objectivity of evidence-based medicine and the pluralism and subjectivity of the arts and humanities, providing a more holistic, patient-centred education that promotes a tolerance of ambiguity. In this paper, we describe a pilot programme which sought to explore the value of this approach in the context of dental education, and share early indicators that balancing interventions of this type with clinical sciences can enhance dental students' capabilities in their professional and personal development. We conclude that in today's complex world we must educate not just for competence, but for capability and that the interdisciplinarity afforded by the 'clinical humanities' is both a promising area for further educational research and potentially a valuable addition to the curriculum.

Internationalization for an Uncertain Future: Tensions, Paradoxes, and Possibilities

As higher education is increasingly called upon to play a central role in addressing the challenges and crises of today's complex, uncertain, and volatile world, internationalization efforts are intensifying. Emphasizing higher education as a space for critically-informed, socially accountable, and open-ended conversations about alternative futures, in this paper I reframe common approaches to complexity, uncertainty, and critique by offering a social cartography of three critical approaches to internationalization: soft, radical, and liminal. Mapping and historicizing diverse perspectives can complicate existing analyses, interrupt the prescriptive tendencies of critique, and illuminate new possible horizons of thought and action in higher education.

The crisis in legal education: embracing ethnographic approaches to law

ABSTRACTThere is general consensus amongst many laws schools around the world that legal education is in crisis and needs to be reformed. This crisis is very evident in the United States where the cost of legal education and the concurrent decline in law firm employment has placed pressures both on law students and law schools. Some legal educators argue that legal education needs to teach vocational and technical skills applicable to the current job market. Others argue legal education should be more attentive to transnational legal processes and should be training global citizens. In this essay I argue that whatever particular reformist trajectory, an ethnographic approach underscores the connections between laws, skills and values that is said to be lacking in much legal education. Drawing primarily on the US legal system and an illustrative case study within it, I argue that all legal training, be it in family law or corporate law, and be it for practising at local, national, regional, international or transnational levels, could benefit from a bottom-up grounded ethnographic approach. An ethnographic approach makes legal education more relevant and applicable in today's complex world that involves, amongst other things, increasing multi-ethnic and multi-religious tensions and various forms of legal pluralism. I contend that ethnographic approaches provide one pedagogical strategy to better train and prepare young lawyers to deal with the pressing legal challenges of the twenty-first century that are manifesting in interconnected ways at home and abroad. I conclude with some recommendations for legal educators to think about in shaping a more inclusive, rich and relevant law school curriculum that also concurrently underscores the integrity of the legal profession and the democratic institutions and principles of social justice that lawyers supposedly uphold.

Religious marital style of women and men: differences and similarities

In today's complex world, many and varied human problems are for human, families and communities that seem to be a part of them because of lack of belief or underestimating the differences that God is determined between men and women of wisdom. Islam religion is considered family the most important and most basic social units and investigating the differences and similarities of men and women in Islam is particularly important. In this study, using Islamic texts and two religious marital scales of wives and husbands, the similarities and differences between women and men has been studied and the causes of the similarities or the differences are explained

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Using Social Constructivist Pedagogy to Implement Liberal Learning in Business Education

ABSTRACTThis article outlines how decision sciences instructors, by pairing Liberal Learning (LL) philosophy with Social Constructivist Pedagogy (SCP), can lead the way in transforming business education. It outlines how these educators can cultivate more critical thinking and creativity in their classrooms in order to prepare students for the ‘real problems’ they will face in today's complex and global world. Instructors can accomplish this when they adjust ‘how’ they teach (rather than ‘what’ they teach) so that students become active learners rather than passive listeners. The purpose of the article is to outline the outcomes advocated by the LL philosophy (Colby, Ehrlich, Sullivan, & Dolle, 2011), and describe how SCP, a pedagogical process, can help decision sciences instructors achieve these outcomes (Vygotsky, 1978). Instructors essentially become facilitators of discussion and dialogue rather than the sole distributor of knowledge in the classroom. Two sample implementations of SCP and LL are also discussed.

Translation as Relation and Glissant's Work

In her article "Translation as Relation and Glissant's Work" Sandra Bermann proposes that in today's complex world of migration, war, and globalization, translation among languages and cultures is everywhere evident. Indeed, as citizens of the twenty-first century, we inevitably think in and through translation. Yet we have only begun to explore its contemporary modes of operation, its challenges, and its promise for study. Bermann suggests ways to think about translation — its difficulties, as well as its promise. Looking first to some traditional views of translation, Bermann then turns to particular ways in which it might be recast in terms of relation, dialogue, and analogy. She considers the potential of this more pragmatic way of "thinking translation" for contemporary ideas about language and literary dissemination. Important to this perspective is the work of the Caribbean poet, novelist, and theorist Edouard Glissant. Bermann examines a few of Glissant's salient insights and their pertinence to the questions she raises in her study. Bermann argues that Glissant's ideas can expand our understanding of the role translation might play in the world today and in the future.

O impacto das novas tecnologias midiáticas na cidadania e na educação / The impact of the media’s new technologies on citizenship and education

New tecnologies cause a relevant social impact, especially in the performance of citizenship and education in today's complex world permeated by electronic and digital culture. This is the subject analised here. This paper intends to do a literature review based on the concepts of media, citizenship and education proposed by communication theorists like McLuhan, Pierre Levy, Michel Meffesoli, Edgar Morin, Jesus Barbero and Garcia Canclini, as democratic practice, that was also estudied by other authors.

Peixin Yang's Economic thought and its Outcomes in the 1980s, Early in China's Reform, and China's Reform Miracle

During the initial period of reform, China's prudent handling of the money—price relationship while simultaneously bringing inflation and unemployment under control had a far-reaching influence on economic theory as well as practical significance. The country's successful experience constituted a miracle beyond the dreams of authoritative international financial authorities and experts. The famous American Nobel Prize winner, the economist Milton Friedman, once said that anyone who could explain China's success could win the Nobel Prize. In today's complex world, with its recurrent financial turmoil and intensified threat of war, China's successful experience in the early phases of reform has important significance for developing socialism with Chinese characteristics and maintaining the country's economic and financial security and the interests of the great mass of the people. We should sum up this experience to strengthen confidence in our institutions, our path, and our theory.

A New Landscape Perspective- Human Exercises through Time in Environmental Perception

Abstract In the last years of urban planning and landscape design practice, new technologies have evolved and become significant per formative attitude that have transformed the ways in which we conceive and configure the space we live. The interaction between necessity, desire and nature born new cultural paradigm who suggests that technology and nature need not to be mutually exclusive but can help each other. This interaction became a crucial tool of comprehension for today's complex world defined by gradients or intensities of values, with no physical boundaries. Nature arranged on different levels provides a natural extension of existing, but also a symbol should its artificiality. To build environmental awareness of our living space requires the architect/urban planner/landscape architect to think about the relationship between building/place ecological and climatologically system that building/place works. This paper, in a broader sense, define the perspective of human responsibility on the relationship between nature and culture. Opposing nature against culture will never get sustainable solutions for environmental problems, so we need to look deep symbiosis and to different types of functional and flexible, permeable and responsive patterns that saves space and dilates, while saving energy, time, water, infrastructure, a mini-ecosystem. Leaving from this theoretical approach and life reality, the paper attempt to reveal the real pressure for the changes of usual technology to the new one that in the landscape education. Is this a result of a change attitude to the sustainable development and a attitude to envision an territorial tissue that could flexibly respond to all local input factors as well as accommodate desired (planned) goals through new landscape development? To do this we must abandon the viewpoint of the spectator, and to ask the question which is the interest of human beings for living within these new landscapes perspective making the territory fabric.

Ranking Managerial Consciousness Based on Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP): A Case Approach

Consciousness affects managerial decision making in the real world. In today's dynamic and complex world, managers have to evaluate multiple criteria and various constraints associated with them. An attempt is made in this paper to rank managers into various consciousness levels based on the decisions they have taken.This paper has been developed based on the views from a diverse group involving entrepreneurs, executives, management students and faculty. The research methodology involves first identification of the attributes in consultation with the diverse groups. Secondly based on Analytical Hierarchy process (AHP) developing weights for these attributes and also the ranking of managers based on these attributes. The managerial decisions considered were based on the real cases which we have come across while counseling Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) at Dayalbagh, Agra, India.Analysis of the results was done to identify the weights associated with various attributes and the ranking of managers. Using AHP we have identified ethical consciousness as an important attribute and accordingly the fractals honesty, equal opportunity and Differentiation between Right and Wrong were ranked higher than the rest. We used Consistency Ratio (CR) to validate the results.

An “IGERT” Model for Interdisciplinary Doctoral Education in Water‐Related Science and Policy

AbstractMost doctoral programs in the U.S. remain “stove‐piped” in traditional single‐discipline fields, while scientific progress increasingly occurs at the boundaries between multiple disciplines. In response, the U.S. National Science Foundation has been funding projects in Integrative Graduate Education, Research, and Training (IGERT) to train a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists. The IGERT Ph.D. program in “Watershed Science and Policy” at Southern Illinois University (SIU) builds each year's student class as a diverse “cadre” who work intensively together on one hot‐button river basin. The structure of these projects, and other program elements, are reviewed here along with successes and challenges to date. One challenge is the seeming tradeoff between (1) the development of tightly focused expertise versus (2) the breadth that characterizes interdisciplinary research. We conclude that interdisciplinary scientists must have disciplinary depth, but so too should they be trained in collaboration and integrating their results to address the challenges that face today's complex world.

A survey of scientific production and collaboration rate among of medical library and information sciences in ISI, scopus and Pubmed databases during 2001-2010

Background:Research is essential for development. In other words, scientific development of each country can be evaluated by researchers’ scientific production. Understanding and assessing the activities of researchers for planning and policy making is essential. The significance of collaboration in the production of scientific publications in today's complex world where technology is everything is very apparent. Scientists realized that in order to get their work wildly used and cited to by experts, they must collaborate. The collaboration among researchers results in the development of scientific knowledge and hence, attainment of wider information. The main objective of this research is to survey scientific production and collaboration rate in philosophy and theoretical bases of medical library and information sciences in ISI, SCOPUS, and Pubmed databases during 2001-2010.Materials and Methods:This is a descriptive survey and scientometrics methods were used for this research. Then data gathered via check list and analyzed by the SPSS software. Collaboration rate was calculated according to the formula.Results:Among the 294 related abstracts about philosophy, and theoretical bases of medical library and information science in ISI, SCOPUS, and Pubmed databases during 2001-2010, the year 2007 with 45 articles has the most and the year 2003 with 16 articles has the least number of related collaborative articles in this scope. “B. Hjorland” with eight collaborative articles had the most one among Library and Information Sciences (LIS) professionals in ISI, SCOPUS, and Pubmed. Journal of Documentation with 29 articles and 12 collaborative articles had the most related articles. Medical library and information science challenges with 150 articles had first place in number of articles. Results also show that the most elaborative country in terms of collaboration point of view and number of articles was US. “University of Washington” and “University Western Ontario” are the most elaborative affiliation from a collaboration point.Conclusion:The average collaboration rate between researchers in this field during the years studied is 0.25. The most completive reviewed articles are single authors that included 60.54% of the whole articles. Only 30.46% of articles were provided with two or more than two authors.

Rich environments for active learning in action: problem-based learning

In today's complex world of rapid change, of increasing innovation and of proliferating knowledge, employers and employees must be able to apply tools and knowledge to new situations with increasing frequency to remain productive and competitive (see Nash, 1994). Because we face an environment in which knowledge and skills become rapidly obsolete, people need to know how to be involved in a continual process of 'retooling' their knowledge and skill base (see Swanson et al, 1993). Consequently, learning to think critically, to analyse and synthesize information to solve technical, social, economic, political, and scientific problems, and to engage in lifelong learning, are crucial for successful and fulfilling participation in our competitive society. Learning environments which prepare learners for the complexities of the professional world utilize instructional activities reflecting the problemsolving and challenge-meeting process professionals use on their jobs. Learners need to: • determine for themselves what issues need to be addressed when facing a new problem; • identify knowledge and skills they already possess that can be applied to the situation; • determine which skill and knowledge areas are deficient, arid create learning plans to address those deficiencies; • create timelines, manage resources, and monitor their progress; • apply what they know to problems that may change substantially from one moment to another; and • assess their performance and make changes in personal processes for use to meet subsequent challenges.DOI:10.1080/0968776970050202

Rich environments for active learning: a definition

In today's complex world, simply knowing how to use tools and knowledge in a single domain is not sufficient to remain competitive as either individuals or companies. People must also learn to apply tools and knowledge in new domains and different situations. Industry specialists report that people at every organizational level must be creative and flexible problem solvers (Lynton, 1989). This requires the ability to apply experience and a definition knowledge to address novel problems. Consequently, learning to think critically, to analyse and synthesize information to solve technical, social, economic, political, and scientific problems, and to work productively in groups are crucial skills for successful and fulfilling participation in our modern, competitive society.DOI:10.1080/0968776950030202

Beyond Interdisciplinarity in Peace Studies: The Role of System Thinking

Different ideas of peace lead to rather different approaches to Peace Studies research and curricula. After briefly reviewing the different meaning of the word peace in the past and different definitions of peace today, we attempt to provide a different understanding of peace which construction is seen as encompassing the main challenges we face in today complex world, from those related to the outrageous inequalities at global level to those related to environ­mental stresses and sustainability. From a pedagogical point of view, this implies a shift in Peace Studies curricula, from the “skill and information” paradigm to the knowledge and under­standing, in the spirit of Paulo Freire pedagogy. In this view, we argue that an approach to Peace Studies characterized by a high level of interdisciplinarity is necessary but not sufficient. Given the complexities and inter-linkages of the issues that Peace Studies has to address, we thus propose a holistic approach, going under the name of system thinking. A detailed discussion on the concepts of interdisciplinarity and of system thinking, as well as the possible implications on Peace Studies curricula, is finally presented.

ASSET queries

Today's complex world requires state-of-the-art data analysis over truly massive data sets. These data sets can be stored persistently in databases or flat files, or can be generated in realtime in a continuous manner. An associated set is a collection of data sets, annotated by the values of a domain D. These data sets are populated using a data source according to a condition θ and the annotated value. An ASsociated SET (ASSET) query consists of repeated, successive, interrelated definitions of associated sets, put together in a column-wise fashion, resembling a spreadsheet document. We present DataMingler, a powerful GUI to express and manage ASSET queries, data sources and aggregate functions and the ASSET Query Engine (QE) to efficiently evaluate ASSET queries. We argue that ASSET queries: a) constitute a useful class of OLAP queries, b) are suitable for distributed processing settings, and c) extend the MapReduce paradigm in a declarative way.

Algorithmic Tools for Interpreting Vital Signs

Today's complex world of nursing practice challenges nurse educators to develop teaching methods that promote critical thinking skills and foster quick problem solving in the novice nurse. Traditional pedagogies previously used in the classroom and clinical setting are no longer adequate to prepare nursing students for entry into practice. In addition, educators have expressed frustration when encouraging students to apply newly learned theoretical content to direct the care of assigned patients in the clinical setting. This article presents algorithms as an innovative teaching strategy to guide novice student nurses in the interpretation and decision making related to vital sign assessment in an acute care setting.