Context Of Transition Research Articles

Challenging the Rule of Law Universalism: Why Marxist Legal Thought Still Matters

The primary aim of this article is to present the rule of law universalism as a relevant theoretical and socio-political issue that critical legal thought needs to contend with. In order to do so, this issue is described through a Marxist theoretical framework, which aids in identifying the consequences of this universalism. Furthermore, the Marxist theoretical framework is suggested as a countermeasure that allows for going beyond it. The rule of law universalism is analysed as a process connected to establishing hegemony and status quo that affects both the way the law is thought of and practiced. The post-communist context serves in fleshing out some of these consequences. Although the transition is not the main subject of inquiry, it is a starting point to a set of philosophical questions directed towards the rule of law universalism, mainly regarding historical embeddedness and socio-political dependency of the rule of law. The transitional context illustrates the tension between the rule of law treated as a generalized blueprint and the reality it is introduced to. The method of approach to this tension argued for in this paper is Marxian theorization of concept as an interplay between concrete and abstract that underlies historical materialism. This movement within concept is juxtaposed to the universalism. The philosophical investigations are followed by findings from Marxist legal theory that pinpoint the importance of concrete interventions into the legal theory that abate its ever-growing abstractness. In particular, the import of knowledges and practices divorced from the capitalist system is brought into focus. The paper concludes with a brief assessment of the possibility of overturning the rule of law universalism and a discussion on the emancipatory potential of law.

Policy Context for Transitions to Adulthood Experienced by Young People with Complex Support Needs: Australian Federal and State Perspectives

Young people with disability and complex support needs are often marginalized and have poor post-school outcomes. These youth often experience disability combined with mental health and behavioral issues, family dysfunction, and involvement with out-of-home care and/or juvenile justice. They often have difficulty accessing support services, such as primary health, mental health, and disability services. These difficulties are likely to increase as they transition to adulthood, potentially resulting in significant social and economic costs. Supported transition planning to adulthood that considers the interaction and relationships a young person has with all of their environments and support services has been shown to increase the likelihood of positive adult outcomes. The current policy mapping study aimed to examine how multisystemic transitions for young people with complex support needs are addressed in current Australian policy. National and state policies were located and qualitatively analyzed. The analysis identified a need for clarity around the terms transition and complex support needs, as well as greater awareness and action in the area of transition planning for young people with complex support needs.

What does it take to study learning in transitions? A case of citizen energy in Finland

Learning is commonly presented as one of the key premises of transitions governance. Empirical literature on learning in a sustainability transition context often remains on a generic level, without an in-depth analysis of what is learned and by whom. In this article, we address the study of learning in transition-related multi-party processes. We analyze a transition arena specifically designed to support the participants’ learning and the possibilities to study it. Its focus was on urban citizen energy, increasing renewable energy production via solar panels, heat pumps, and other on-site solutions in detached apartment buildings. We investigate the process through the learning levels (learning loops) framework within which we were able to examine if and what kind of learning can be inferred to have happened and show what kind of data and analysis such inferences minimally require. Our results demonstrate that all participants reported learning from the arena process. This learning was predominantly first-order learning within participants’ already pro-transition orientation. Half of the participants also reported some second-order learning, changing one’s interpretative framing about citizen energy. Overall, the multi-party envisioning process supported participants’ ongoing transformation efforts more than it resulted in transformative learning. Our results provide a basis for further development of a learning-sensitive approach enabling identification and consideration of methodological challenges involved in inferring learning in transitions research.

Punishing Atrocity Crimes in Transitional Contexts: Advancing Discussions on Adequacy of Alternative Criminal Sanctions Using the Case of Colombia.

Criminal trials and proportional prison sentences are generally seen as the most suitable way to deal with perpetrators of atrocity crimes. Notwithstanding, traditionally conceived criminal penalties, such as imprisonment, may discourage active responsibility-taking by offenders, disaffect victims by not meeting their needs and impede meaningful engagement between perpetrators and survivors. Arguably, alternative criminal sanctions may be appropriate punishment even for atrocity crimes when tried in transitional societies. Using the case of Colombia, this article analyses the justifications of punishment for atrocities in transitional contexts and discusses the adequacy of alternative criminal sanctions as penalties for atrocity crimes. It concludes that under certain conditions, alternative sanctions can be a viable punishment option that may promote active responsibility-taking and contribute to repairing harm, reintegrating offenders into the community and (re)constructing relationships while serving expressive rationales.

Transition life cycle assessment: A new method to face ecological transition

Transition can be defined as deep-structural changes in interrelated economic sectors. Climate change issue calls for a transition in which all actors can be involved and where the aim is the global interest rather than individual ones. LCA should be used to assess the environmental impacts of transition solutions, however, existing LCAs are not adapted mainly because they are conducted at product-level and rely upon economic assumptions that are unsuitable for a transition context. First typologies of LCAs are redefined, based on general system theory, according to the object under study and their model structures. A new type of LCA, called transition LCA is conceptually described. It aims at studying transition scenarios in a geographical context, and that can be relied to various technological paths. Differences with existing LCAs is that several functional units with varying amounts can be included, and that its results concern the changes of the system itself rather than the individual impacts of products. Transition LCA is also related to a specific geographical context in order to account for existing limits of resources and especially constraint resources such as waste, and to account for the match of flows between production and demand which determines the size of the geographical area. This type of modeling can be reached by coupling LCA with MFA at the suitable geographical scale. Transition LCA also requires specific interpretation steps dedicated to the identification of preferable scenarios and action levers hold by each involved actor. This interpretation requires integrating actors' identification and their decision models as mechanisms inside the system model. It also requires additional methods to systematically generate all actions possibilities and to conduct suitable sensitivity analysis. This method has presently been applied by parts but not as a whole and not as a single numerical tool. These parts are currently being developed in a single computing Python language, in order to become compatible with Brightway 2.

Strategizing from the Middle: Sensemaking of Change Process in the Public Sector

The theoretical dispositions exclude the criticality of turbulent and transitional contexts in constructing sensemaking of change process. The paper demonstrates how middle managers create meaning to ambiguous and ambivalent cues but also provides legitimacy for acting as sensemakers of change, strategically. A framework is developed that demonstrates two interlinked processes to be critical to the accomplishment of middle managers’ strategizing sensemaking in the public sector. Strategizing sensemaking is understood closely with the need for engagement in tactical action of change where sensemaking is not momentary or episodic, but rather it is a process that continuously covers specific moments and episodic events. Also, developing horizontal and vertical dialogues has been considered a structural boundary for strategizing sensemaking in the public sector. It is well elaborated that understanding sensemaking as a discursive process alleviates the burden of structural boundary for middle managers, as unplanned events, cues, frames and accounts are deliberated a trigger of shared meanings and understandings of practices encountered. This is a pioneering research on middle managers’ strategizing sensemaking in the public sector in a transition context and therefore theoretical and practical implications are thoroughly elaborated.

Corporate Governance Reforms, Ownerships and Innovation Strategies

Institutional changes such as market reforms transform concentrated governance structures, which prevail in emerging economies, to distributed governance structures, which are popular in developed economies. Within this context of transition, this study investigates how different types of ownership structures motivate distinctive technological capabilities and how increased ownership competition resulting from institutional changes influence firm performance. Our findings suggest that CEO, affiliated, and foreign types of ownership are negatively associated with technological exploration (i.e., positively associated with technological exploitation), whereas domestic institutional and individual ownership is positively associated with technological exploration (i.e., negatively associated with technological exploitation). Furthermore, we find that ownership competition has a U-shaped relationship with firm performance, showing that firm performance immediately decreases as more shareholders become involved because of potential goal conflicts. However, firm performance will eventually improve as the mechanism of checks and balances between major shareholders begins to work.

Do Historical Imprints Lead to Corporate Transgressions? A Study of Regulatory Transition in India

In this paper, we investigate the impact of history of an organization on its practices of corporate misconduct. Using the context of institutional transitions in India, we hypothesize that the protectionist and constraining economic policy regime of the closed economic era lead to a competitive deficit for incumbent firms and inscribe imprints in the form of organizational routines of rent-seeking and corruption. By virtue of the stamping of these routines, we find support that the degree of imprinting of incumbent firms positively impacts corporate misconduct of earnings manipulations in the post-liberalization period. By utilizing the historical data of the Indian economy during 1956-1991 and analyzing a sample of 2396 listed Indian manufacturing firms during 1994-2007, we find support for our baseline hypothesis. Furthermore, we find that this effect diminishes by the moderating effect of international exposure and internal innovation development by the focal firms. By foregrounding the effect of history on a firm’s contemporary actions, this study aims to contribute to the literature of determinants of corporate misconduct of emerging economies’ firms.

A Transitions Perspective on Circular Business Models: Towards a Conceptual Framework

The concepts ‘circular business models’ and ‘transitions towards a circular economy’ became modern-day buzzwords. Yet, an understanding of the interplay between these two concepts remains rather uncertain. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that illustrates the innovation processes of circular business models emerging within the structural context of transitions towards a circular economy. The paper follows a three-step methodology. First, a priori definitions of the core concepts are given. Second, a deductive conceptualization is proposed by adopting theoretical insights from transition studies, specifically from perspectives of technological innovation systems and strategic niche management. Third, a systematic literature review is employed. The review scrutinizes and synthesizes the selected literature to illustrate if and how the proposed conceptualization was reflected within the previously published research. Finally, based on the integration of deductive reasoning and systematic literature review, a conceptual framework is proposed. This framework proposes future lines of research to illustrate its plausibility. Moreover, it offers prescriptive help to managers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers, and other social actors enabling them to make informed decisions about and take innovative actions for circular business models.

Micro-Level Sustainability Transition Pathways of Institutional Food Services in France

Very few studies have dealt with sustainability transitions in the agrifood sector, especially in institutional food services (IFS), and notably at a micro level. Based on 29 interviews with head cooks in France, we characterized the micro-level sustainability transition pathways that institutional catering units have been following, taking essentially four sustainable practices into consideration: organic food use, ultra-processed food use, vegetarian meals and waste management. We identified four transition pathways according to the speed, size, dimensionality and time-period of changes in those practices. We showed how these pathways are linked to the diversity of transition contexts; internal (e.g., skills) and external (e.g., local suppliers) resources and constraints. This original empirical study revealed the diversity and feasibility of sustainability transition pathways in IFS. It also showed that they do not require unreasonable increases in resources. Positive narratives on transitions need developing, together with diagnosis tools to guide them.

School and community drivers of child diets in two Arab cities: The SCALE protocol and innovative tools to assess children's food environments.

BackgroundIn the context of the rapid nutrition transition experienced by middle-income countries of the Arab region, children and adolescent’s food choices and dietary behaviors are early risk factors for the development of non-communicable diseases. Assessment of factors influencing food choices among this age group is challenging and is usually based on self-reported data, which are prone to information and recall bias. As the popularity of technologies and video gaming platforms increases, opportunities arise to use these tools to collect data on variables that affect food choice, dietary intake, and associated outcomes. This protocol paper describes the SCALE study (School and community drivers of child diets in Arab cities; identifying levers for intervention) which aims to explore the environments at the level of households, schools and communities in which children’s food choices are made and consequently identify barriers and enablers to healthy food choices within these environments.MethodsField studies are being conducted in primary schools, among children aged 9–12 years, in Greater Beirut, Lebanon and Greater Tunis, Tunisia. A stratified random sample of 50 primary schools (public and private) are selected and 50 children are randomly selected from grades 4-5-6 in each school. The study includes surveys with children, parents/caregivers, school directors, teachers, and nutrition/health educators to assess individual diets and the contextual factors that influence children’s food choices. Innovative locally adapted tools and methods such as game-based choice experiments, wearable cameras and neighborhood mapping are used to describe the environments in which children’s food choices are made.DiscussionThe SCALE study will generate contextual knowledge on factors in school and neighborhood environments that influence child dietary behaviors and will inform multi-level interventions and policies to address childhood malnutrition (under-and over-nutrition). By integrating methods from various disciplines, including economics, data science, nutrition, and public health and by considering factors at various levels (home, school, and neighborhood), the study will identify levers for intervention with the potential to improve children’s dietary behaviors. This will help fill existing gaps in research on food systems and consequently guide positive change in Lebanon and Tunisia, with the potential for replicability in other contexts.

Regulation of Tissue Factor by CD44 Supports Coagulant Activity in Breast Tumor Cells

Simple SummaryMetastasis and thromboembolic complications are the main cause of cancer-associated death. An overexpression of coagulation factors, and particularly Tissue factor, by tumor cells is a key event implicated in this observed hypercoagulability. Tissue Factor is indeed a cellular initiator of the coagulation cascade which has been associated with aggressive tumor phenotypes such as those characteristic of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transitions (EMTs) and Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs). Understanding molecular mechanisms controlling Tissue Factor overexpression in those tumor phenotypes is thus an important aspect of cancer research. We show here that CD44 (a transmembrane marker of CSC and EMT phenotypes) contributes to regulate TF expression at a transcriptional level, thereby supporting procoagulant properties in tumor cells that facilitate their metastatic spread.Previous work identified Tissue Factor (TF), a key activator of the coagulation cascade, as a gene induced in cellular contexts of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transitions (EMTs), providing EMT+ Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) with coagulant properties that facilitate their metastatic seeding. Deciphering further molecular aspects of TF regulation in tumor cells, we report here that CD44 and TF coexpress in EMT contexts, and that CD44 acts as a regulator of TF expression supporting procoagulant properties and metastatic seeding. A transcriptional regulatory mechanism bridging CD44 to TF expression was further evidenced. Comparing different TF –promoter luciferase reporter constructs, we indeed found that the shortest -111 pb TF promoter fragment harboring three Specificity Protein 1 (Sp1) binding sites is still responsive to CD44 silencing. The observation that (i) mutation within Sp1 binding sites decreased the basal activity of the -111 pb TF promoter construct, (ii) CD44 silencing decreased Sp1 protein and mRNA levels and (iii) Sp1 silencing diminished TF expression further points to Sp1 as a key mediator linking CD44 to TF regulation. All together, these data thus report a transcriptional regulatory mechanism of TF expression by CD44 supporting procoagulant activity and metastatic competence of CTCs.

Assessing patients' attitudes towards telepsychotherapy: The development of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology-patient version.

This study presents the development of a self-report measure of patients' attitudes towards telepsychotherapy. The measure is based on a well-researched model of attitudes towards using technology, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework (Venkatesh et al., 2003). We examined the psychometric properties of the UTAUT adapted for psychotherapy patients (UTAUT-P) in a sample of 107 psychotherapy patients who received telepsychotherapy via video conferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 14-item UTAUT-P version, with four factors-(1) Therapy Quality Expectancy, (2) Convenience, (3) Ease of Use, and (4) Pressure from Others-and was further corroborated by the results of the confirmatory factor analysis. Our results indicated the four-factor model's adequate fit to the data and demonstrated adequate construct validity and reliability of the UTAUT-P factors. All factors, except for Ease of Use, were significantly and positively associated with intention to use telepsychotherapy technology in the future. This study complements the research on therapists' attitudes towards telepsychotherapy, based on the therapist version of the UTAUT. The developed 14-item UTAUT-P might be a helpful, brief self-report tool in clinical practice, which might give the patient a voice around the potential use of telepsychotherapy technology in their care. This initial application of the UTAUT-P patients during the COVID-19 pandemic offers a building block for future research on patients' attitudes towards telepsychotherapy, outside the context of a forced transition.

The economics of power generation and energy storage via Solid Oxide Cell and ammonia

Green hydrogen finds its vital role in bridging the intermittent supplied renewable energy and fossil fuel infrastructure in a broad energy transition context. The bottleneck still lies in hydrogen's low volumetric energy density, prohibiting long-distance, large-scale, and cost-effective transportation. As a promising hydrogen carrier, ammonia possesses mature production, storage, transportation, and distribution supply chains. These advantages of ammonia enabled the possibility of transforming the renewable hydrogen at a minimum initial cost. This paper investigates the technological and economic feasibility of green ammonia utilization in the Solid Oxide Cells for power generation and energy storage. The result shows that the cost of Ammonia induced energy (183.75 US$/MWh) is significantly higher than that of natural gas power plants (81.77 US$/MWh). The main contributor is the fuel cost. In the optimum case, with fuel costs substantially dropping, the conceptual plant can be highly feasible, and the generated energy (97.40 USS$/MWh) is comparable to the conventional power plant.

Identity in ESL-CSL Career Transition: A Narrative Study of Three Second-Career Teachers

ABSTRACT Through a narrative study of three second-career teachers who started their professional lives as English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers and then became Chinese-as-a-second-language (CSL) teachers, we examine how the participants constructed their professional identities across their trans-professional experiences. In this study, we define trans-professional experience as the occupational change when one switches from teaching one subject area to another. This study details how the participants experienced the career transitions from teaching English to Chinese and how their trans-professional experience contributed to their professional growth. Findings from narrative interviews with the participants reveal that the teachers’ second-career identities were constructed through brokering, which involved meaning negotiation when they moved across boundaries of schools, subject areas, and pedagogical systems. This study sheds light on a broader context of career transition and trans-professional practice among second language teachers.

Residual State Ownership and Firm Performance: A Case of Vietnam

Privatization has played an important role in national economic reform in Vietnam. However, unlike other transitional countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Vietnam has chosen a partial and gradual privatization where the government still holds significant ownership in most privatized firms. Whether partial privatization can enhance privatized firms’ performance or full privatization should have been implemented is a critical question that needs to be answered. This paper utilizes semiparametric regressions to study the relationship between residual state ownership and firm performance. The results indicate an inverted U relationship between state ownership and firm performance. We show that the performance of privatized firms improves with an increase in the level of state ownership until around 40%, after which the effect of state ownership on firm performance tends to decline. This demonstrates that in a transitional context, relinquishing governmental control via privatization can significantly benefit privatized firm performance. However, further reduction of state ownership may decrease the performance of privatized firms. Overall, the study contributes significantly to the growing body of evidence on the nonlinear effects of state ownership. This suggests that in the transitional context of Vietnam, due to weak corporate governance and limited protection of minority shareholders, there could be a temporary optimal position where state and private investors hold balanced ownership to simultaneously supervise operations and promote the performance of privatized firms.

A socio-technical lens on security in sustainability transitions: Future expectations for positive and negative security

A transition to net-zero carbon energy systems, imperative to combat climate change, is unfolding around the world. Other socio-technical systems also face the need to transition to become more environmentally and socially sustainable. We argue that such transitions will have both positive and negative security implications on numerous issues which deserve attention but have been little addressed in transition studies. We take a socio-technical lens and propose that these security implications can be ex-ante analysed via three elements of socio-technical systems: technology, actors, and institutions. We provide an illustration of such analysis in the energy transition context and use this to create a categorisation framework for expectations analysis. Regarding the technology dimension, expectations concerning, e.g., resource and technology dependencies, risk for technical system disruptions, and effects on interconnected systems can be analysed as relevant security issues. For the actor dimension, issues such as geopolitical uncertainties, regional (in)stability, internal tensions, and diffusion of power are identified. For institutions, e.g., influence on democratic institutions, peace building and structural violence can be assessed. We argue there is a need for improved and forward-looking policy coordination across domains and for academic studies that utilise foresight approaches to assess different security expectations more concretely.

Behavior change versus stability during the college-to-work transition: Life course and the "stickiness" of alcohol misuse at career entry.

To what extent and under what conditions do college graduates disengage from employment-incompatible behaviors during the college-to-work transition? Drawing from the life course perspective, we proposed a model highlighting considerable stability of employment-incompatible behaviors during initial months of organizational socialization. Our model predicted that maturing out of such behaviors, which is expected by employers and beneficial to career adjustment, would be more likely to occur given a conducive transition context. Using a large dataset tracking graduates from their last semester in college to up to approximately 1.5 years after graduation and with alcohol use as our empirical referent, we demonstrated that a pattern of high-risk drinking behavior may remain even after the transition into full-time employment. We further showed that lower levels of perceived cohort drinking norms and higher levels of mentoring were associated with a higher probability of maturing out, manifesting in a transition from a high-risk drinking profile before graduation to a moderate drinking profile after starting full-time employment. Finally, we found that maturing out was associated with lagged outcomes including lower levels of sleep problems and depression and fewer work days lost to absenteeism, thus underscoring the consequential nature of behavior profile shifts during the college-to-work transition.

Environmental health inequities at COVID-19 pandemic times: challenges and perspectives

Negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic appear to disproportionately affect different population groups by outweighing the risks in socially and environmentally marginalized segments of society. The aim of the current study is to review on how environmental health inequities have negatively impacted the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as on challenges and perspectives in the post-pandemic transition context. The saturation of health services at tertiary level, difficulties in getting access to treatment for chronic morbidities, as well as the centuries-old unequal supply of essential environmental sanitation services are determining factors for inequity and pandemic severity levels. Strategies used to minimize disparities in the access to healthcare services have been directed towards integrating primary healthcare services to the health surveillance sector, as well as further developing digital health actions. It is possible concluding that the multidimensionality of the pandemic crisis must be understood based on the socio-environmental systemic perspective, with emphasis on its potential to worsen pre-existing environmental health inequities and to produce new inequities in the future in regions and populations affected by health and environmental vulnerability.

The stressing life of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus in soy milk

Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus is a beneficial lactic acid bacterium and constitutes one of the most used, and thus consumed, dairy starters, worldwide. This homofermentative bacterium was the first lactobacillus described and is involved in the fermentation of yogurt and of diverse other fermented products, including cheeses. It has a long history of safe use, as well as documented probiotic lato sensu effects, including alleviation of lactose intolerance. Plant-based fermented products presently experience a considerable development, as a result of evolution of consumers' habits, in a general context of food transition. This requires research and development, and thus scientific knowledge, to allow such transition, including the development of fermented soy milks. These last indeed offer an alternative source of live and active bacteria. The yogurt starters L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, together with Streptococcus thermophilus, have been implemented to generate yogurt-type fermented soy milks worldwide. While the adaptation of these starters to the dairy environment has been extensively studied, little is known about L. delbrueckii adaptation to the soy environment. We therefore investigated its adaptation to soy milk and compared it to cow's milk. Surprisingly, it did not grow in soy milk, neither alone, nor in co-culture with S. thermophilus. Acidification of soy milk was however faster in the presence of both species. In order to deepen such adaptation, we then compared L. delbrueckii growth and survival in soy milk ultrafiltrate (SUF, the aqueous phase of soy milk) and compared it to cow's milk ultrafiltrate (MUF, the aqueous phase of cow milk). This comparison revealed major differences in terms of cell morphology and proteome composition. Lactobacilli appeared deformed and segmented in soy. Major differences in both the surface and the cellular proteome indicated upregulation of stress proteins, yet downregulation of cell cycle and division machinery. Altogether, these results suggest that soy milk may be a stressing environment for the yogurt starter L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus.