Wider Context Research Articles

Gates’ bidding model (revisited)

Gates’ (1967) bidding model was one of the earliest proposed for construction bidding. Its most celebrated formula allows for calculating the probability of any bidder submitting the lowest bid when competing against several known competitors. This model has been shown to outperform many recent bidding models. However, it also suffers from important limitations that keep it from being applied in wider contexts. In this paper, we overcome two of such limitations. First, we extend Gates’ model to calculate the probability of a bidder ending in any position other than the first (lowest). Second, we propose an approach for extrapolating the probabilities of all bidders underbidding each other, even in those situations of limited access to historical bidding information. Overcoming these limitations significantly enhances Gates’ model in two ways. First, it allows anticipating the probabilities of winning an auction in best value auctions where bidders who submitted a competitive but not necessarily the lowest bid can still win. Second, our extension allows applying Gates’ formula in situations of incomplete information. This is especially interesting when some bidders have not met in previous auctions and there is no information from them individually underbidding each other.

Patient priority setting in HIV ageing research: exploring the feasibility of community engagement and involvement in Tanzania

ObjectiveThe chronic complications of ageing with HIV are not well studied in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where general healthcare resources are limited. We aimed to collaborate with individuals living with HIV aged ≥ 50 years, and community elders (aged ≥ 60 years) living with non-communicable diseases in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania in a health research priority-setting exercise.MethodsWe conducted structured workshops based on broad questions to aid discussion and group-based patient priority setting, alongside discussion of the feasibility of future community research engagement. Participant priorities were tallied and ranked to arrive at core priorities from consensus discussion.ResultsThirty older people living with HIV and 30 community elders attended separate priority setting workshops. Both groups reported motivation to participate in, conduct, and oversee future studies. In this resource-limited setting, basic needs such as healthcare access were prioritised much higher than specific HIV-complications or chronic disease. Stigma and social isolation were highly prioritised in those living with HIV.ConclusionsCommunity engagement and involvement in HIV and ageing research appears feasible in Tanzania. Ageing and non-communicable disease research should consider the wider context, and lack of basic needs in low-income settings. A greater impact may be achieved with community involvement.

The mutual configuration of affordances and technological frames: Content creators in the Chilean influencer industry

Examining the case of the Chilean influencer industry, this paper argues for situating affordances within a wider context in which the features of platforms acquire meanings. Our analysis focuses on two dynamics. On the one hand, we examine how the Chilean influencer industry is shaped by a ‘technological frame’ that structures the valence of affordances. We show that affordances are neither ‘naturally’ nor ‘neutrally’ imagined by actors but rather culturally located within technological frames that shape the discourses, values, and practices from which they obtain cultural meaning. On the other hand, we analyze how affordances provide a material support for the temporal and spatial expansion of these technological frames. Thus, cultural contexts and platforms’ features mutually configure each other in ways that have not always been recognized in the scholarly literature about affordances. We situate negotiations about what it means to be an influencer in Chile, the role of intermediaries (eg branding agencies), communication with followers, and the global influencer industry as part of this mutually constitutive relationship.

Narrating science: Can it benefit science learning, and how? A theoretical review

AbstractNarrative texts have been advocated as tools to tackle science learning challenges, and there is even the proposal of a “narrative effect” on learning. We believe it is necessary to examine previous evidence on this effect, as well as to characterize the process of learning through science narrative texts more broadly. In this article, we offer a theoretical review drawing on three frameworks, namely on pedagogical aspects of text learning, linguistic features of texts, and cognitive aspects of text comprehension. Based on that, we analyzed two complementary questions. First, we reviewed 36 studies to ask if science narrative texts can benefit learning and memory outcomes at different educational levels (i.e., the “If” question). We found encouraging evidence for the use of science narrative texts at various educational levels, especially in delayed assessments and longer‐lasting interventions. Second, we gathered and linked ideas, hints, and evidence on how the process of learning with science narrative texts takes place, namely on conditions and underlying processes (i.e., the “How” question). There are many features from conditions (texts, learners, activities, wider context) and underlying processes (integration with prior knowledge, affective dispositions, and cognitive abilities) that can help to account for variability in outcomes; yet, ideas and evidence are not always tightly connected. We suggest that education and research should focus on specific narrative effects, that specify with what (texts), with whom (learners), when and where (activities and wider context) these effects occur, as well as “why” (underlying processes). We believe the proposed framing can help both make sense of previous evidence and inform future educational practices and research and provide some recommendations in this regard.

The Importance of Context for Determining Causal Mechanisms in Program Evaluation: The Case of Medical Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention Among the Luo in Western Kenya

The importance of considering wider contexts when evaluating the success or failure of programs has been increasingly acknowledged with the shift towards culturally responsive evaluation. But one of the important advantages of contextual approaches has been mostly overlooked—that they can provide more “realist” evaluations for why programs fail or succeed. The careful identification of causal mechanisms involved in program delivery is important for avoiding spurious conclusions about the effectiveness of programs. Drawing on findings from a mixed-methods study conducted in Western Kenya among the Luo to evaluate the impacts of a HIV prevention program involving voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC), it is shown that the VMMC program was one of several variables that contributed to the desired outcome, being not so much the cause but a catalyst for accelerating the desired behavioral change that the surrounding context was already amenable to and contributing to, even before the program was introduced. The need for context evaluations is particularly obvious when programs are part of broader campaigns involving scale-up from one context to another.

Seconded? Using micro-secondments to enable central and departmental staff to work together on a system improvement project

ABSTRACT This article explains how UCL used micro-secondments to enable central registry and departmental staff to work together in the context of an on-going project to improve the student system, specifically to improve the processing of assessment results and calculation of progression and award outcomes and to improve module selection processes. This also provided development opportunities for both the departmental secondees, who learned about the wider context, and registry staff who gained understanding of how systems operated in practice at departmental level. It concludes that if planned carefully, the use of micro-secondments can be beneficial for both the project, which gains valuable user input and a group of active user advocates and the secondees, who gain new skills and build their networks without leaving their substantive role. A checklist for those considering micro-secondments is included.

Spiritual Diversity in Personal Recovery from Mental Health Challenges: A Qualitative Study from Chinese-Australian Service Users' Perspectives.

Spiritual diversity and the positive role of spirituality in personal recovery have received growing attention in mental health literature. However, the spiritual experiences and views of service users from cultural communities, particularly the Chinese community, are understudied in Australia. This research explores Chinese service users' spiritual identities and their views and perspectives on the roles of spirituality in their mental health recovery and attempts to provide inspiration for practitioners to engage with service users' spirituality in non-clinical mental health practice. A qualitative exploratory approach guided this study. Semi-structured interviews were employed with four Chinese participants with spiritual identities, who were recruited through the community Psychosocial Support Service in Victoria. The template analysis method supported the data analysis. The results indicate that spirituality has a positive impact on the mental health recovery of participants, primarily through coping, self-regulatory, and social support mechanisms. The findings also present that Chinese service users' understanding and approaches to spirituality are shaped by both original and Australian Cultures. These findings suggest that practitioners should provide a creative understanding and cultural awareness when discussing with service users their spiritual identities, perspectives, and spirituality in the wider context. The research fills a gap in the spiritual views and perspectives of service users accessing a non-clinical mental health service from the Chinese community.

Menimbang Komunikasi Spiritual: Sebuah Tinjauan Konseptual

The discourse on the relationship between religion and spirituality with communication studies has attracted the interest of many researchers, including Indonesian researchers. However, the literature produced by Indonesian researchers on the discourse, including those that investigate the relationship of communication and Islam, appear to be detached from the wider context. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide a more theoretical background to this discourse. The conceptual review method is applied to enable the researcher to explore the literature and develop conceptual maps to produce theoretical syntheses, develop new theories, or encourage attention to areas of study that have been underdeveloped so far. This article emphasizes the development of the Spiritual Tradition in communication studies and describes the dialogical and dialectical junctures with other communication theory traditions in Craig's (1997, 2007) metamodel. With such a theoretical background, the discourse on the study of communication and Islam in Indonesia can be directed to more contextual studies that is related to a wider discourse.

Three-Dimensional Digitization of Archaeological Sites—The Use Case of the Palace of Knossos

Modern digitization technologies have created an increasing number of possibilities for capturing the physical dimensions and appearance of archaeological artifacts and sites in 3D. The usage of such data is usually targeted to the research, study, and documentation of our cultural heritage. At the same time, the increasing quality of the produced digitizations has opened new possibilities for the further exploitation of digitization outcomes in a wider context than initially expected. A pioneer in this direction was the gaming industry, where photogrammetry has been recently employed to achieve extreme photorealism. Of course, challenges still exist, especially when digitization accuracy is of importance, such as in the case of large-scale archaeological sites. Further challenges regard the need to combine indoor and outdoor scenes that pose requirements in the selection of the appropriate digitization modalities and post-processing strategies. In more detail, the challenges relate to the appropriate usage of existing technologies, organization issues in terms of digitization visits, the combination and registration of data, data acquisition, and data processing methodologies, etc. In this paper, we demonstrated a methodology for the digitization of archaeological sites that can be used for creating digital assets suitable for various scenarios including research, education, and entertainment.

Precise physical conditions for the warm gas outflows in the nearby active galaxy IC 5063

ABSTRACT Active galactic nucleus (AGN)-driven outflows are now routinely used in models of galaxy evolution as a feedback mechanism; however, many of their properties remain highly uncertain. Perhaps the greatest source of uncertainty is the electron density of the outflowing gas, which directly affects derived kinetic powers and mass outflow rates. Here we present spatially resolved, wide spectral-coverage Xshooter observations of the nearby active galaxy IC 5063 (z = 0.001131), which shows clear signatures of outflows being driven by shocks induced by a radio jet interacting with the ISM. For the first time, we use the higher-critical-density transauroral (TR) [S ii] and [O ii] lines to derive electron densities in spatially resolved observations of an active galaxy, and present evidence that the lines are emitted in the same spatial regions as other key diagnostic lines. In addition, we find that the post-shock gas is denser than the pre-shock gas, possibly due to shock compression effects. We derive kinetic powers for the warm ionized outflow phase and find them to be below those required by galaxy evolution models; however, other studies of different gas phases in IC 5063 allow us to place our results in a wider context in which the cooler gas phases constitute most of the outflowing mass. We investigate the dominant ionization and excitation mechanisms and find that the warm ionized outflow phase is dominated by AGN-photoionization, while the warm molecular phase has composite AGN-shock excitation. Overall, our results highlight the importance of robust outflow diagnostics and reinforce the utility of the TR lines for future studies of outflows in active galaxies.

The Private Lives of Pictures: Art at home in Britain, 1800–1940

‘How many people kissed their pictures in private?’ asks Tromans in this affectionate and astonishingly detailed study of art in domestic spaces. Thomas De Quincey admitted puckering up – on a print after Van Dyck’s Duchess of Somerset, if you must know – but the wider context is the evolving role of the image, from devotional to secular, shrine to sofa, exhibition to bedroom – often encompassing multiple meanings simultaneously. This is a book about pictures framed by the home rather than the gallery. As such, Tromans embraces the changing and often contradictory meanings of home, moving effortlessly between the public and the private, bridged by the figure of the collector and complicated by the role of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. This is deliberately not a book about painting – although there is much said about the medium – but focuses on the role of the image in the creation of a thinking, feeling domestic interior. Chromo-kitsch hovers over the thesis with both threat and opportunity, bound up with notions of style, taste and identity.

Compassion-Focused Therapy and People with Intellectual Disabilities: A Renewed Focus

Compassion-Focused Therapy is an integrative therapeutic model with a wealth of evidence behind its efficacy. Its accessibility leads it to be a helpful therapeutic modality for the intellectual disability population. Its ability to aid the understanding of the person, us as clinicians, and the wider context around us give a depth of understanding not prioritised across all therapeutic models. This article explores Compassion-Focused Therapy in the context of working alongside people with intellectual disabilities. It focuses on how understanding archetypal and social mentality processes can aid understanding in people with intellectual disabilities as well as exploring some of the clinical implications and practical applications. It ends with a call to consider more readily, the use of Compassion-Focused Therapy in people with intellectual disabilities.

“Witch-hunt in Washington”: Ronald Prain, Robert F. Kennedy, the McClellan Committee, and the Investigation of International Business in the Cold War

In February 1956, Ronald Prain–chairman of the Rhodesian Selection Trust group of mining companies, and a significant figure in postwar international business—was subpoenaed and appeared before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation of the U.S. Senate Committee of Government Operations as it sought to determine whether British international business was exporting copper to the Soviet Union. Following the seemingly contrived nature of the proceedings, and because of a hostile interrogation by Robert F. Kennedy, Prain was later to describe his appearance as a “witch-hunt”—a conscious reference to the political paranoia of the period. Using a microhistorical approach, this article examines how Prain understood and narrated his role in an event to which he was a minor actor, drawn into a larger narrative of the political and economic conflict of the Cold War. It evaluates the historical veracity of Prain’s testimony and discusses the limits of memoir and archival sources. It discusses the implications of the event to the historiography of international business, in particular with reference to debates about the “nationality of the company” and the decline of the “Free-Standing Company.” And by examining one personal experience in a wider context, the article also shows that the history of international business and its relationship to the politics of the Cold War should not be seen as remote, monolithic, impersonal, or abstract but as individually lived and suffused with emotion, memory, and personal meaning.

Energy Poverty and Low Carbon Energy Transition

In the recent two decades of recorded literature, energy poverty is increasingly understood as a multi-dimensional issue caused by the low-carbon energy transition. In this study, a literature review was performed, the outcome of which confirmed the contentious nature of energy poverty at the regional and international levels of analysis. Furthermore, the collected literature enabled the identification of those domains under which energy poverty is prevailing. The impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war on energy prices and energy poverty were also considered key issues of interest in recently published studies (published within the last five years). While all the collected studies in the literature review covered a wide geographical context worldwide, a comprehensive analysis of nurturing energy poverty sources and their consequences was primarily and foremost understood in the household sector, which was the research focus of this study, accordingly. Moreover, future research guidelines that should be drawn regarding energy poverty alleviation were also proposed.

Corruption as state -corporate crime: the example of the health sector in Greece

The study analyses the relations and processes underpinning grand corruption in the health sector in Greece. Viewed from a systemic-structural perspective, corruption is examined as a phenomenon emerging from the interactions and interconnections between the organized structures of venture capital and the state apparatus. Applying an integrated theoretical model of state-corporate crime and drawing on extensive empirical qualitative research, this paper traces the processes of normalization and institutionalization of corruption within the context of social networks and organizations. It is argued that corruption is not a deviant response to a normal system but a normal response to a system fostering illicit practice in accordance with capitalist ethos, profiteering, and the distribution of economic resources. In this wide political economy context, existing power relations and structures within the health sector are being reproduced.

How evidence, implementation, policy, and politics come together within evidence systems: Lessons from South Africa

SummaryMotivationAlthough the field of evidence‐informed policy‐making has grown significantly in the last 20 years, little is written about how it manifests within government policy, and whether it makes a meaningful difference to development outcomes. This article seeks to fill that gap.PurposeThrough reflection and analysis of shifts in the wider evidence ecosystem, and developments in South Africa specifically, the article describes how in South Africa the political and policy spheres come together with changes in production and use of evidence to increase the potential to improve the lives of millions of people.Methods and approachThis article is based on structured reflection and analysis of 20 years of contributions to the evidence ecosystem in low‐, lower‐middle, and upper‐middle income countries (L&MICs), in particular in Africa. It includes analysis of documentation of initiatives, policies, and practices relating to the production and use of evidence, with a focus on South Africa.FindingsThere are clear shifts within evidence‐informed decision‐making (EIDM) systems over time in the production of evidence and in the implementation of evidence approaches. The varied experiences documented in South Africa and across L&MICs highlight valuable lessons for others. In South Africa the policies underpinning evidence use, and the political context in which evidence‐informed decision‐making takes place, combine to contribute to increasing use of evidence in the country. Reflecting on the system developments across Africa and further afield reveals how one country's system is both influenced by these wider contexts and has potential to influence the wider system with clear policy implications.Policy implicationsRoutine use of evidence in decision‐making requires new practices to become standard across not only policy systems, but also evidence systems. Changes are needed across a range of actors, organizations, and institutions. There are lessons to be learnt from varied experiences including those in L&MICs, to inform advances towards the institutionalization of evidence use in policy. This case study highlights the importance of synergistic developments in both evidence production and use, of genuine partnerships at all levels, and of the policies and frameworks that underpin change.

The Middle East: Seeking a New Security Architecture in a Changing World

The article focuses on one of the global problems of international relations — creation of a regional security system in the Middle East. There is no multilateral process in the region aimed at the regional stability maintenance, as well as effective mechanisms for controlling conflict and crisis zones. The authors put forward the goal of identifying new trends and prospects for ensuring security in the region. They analyze the accumulated experience, in particular, such security initiatives as the Damascus Declaration, “Peninsula Shield”, “Interpol of the Gulf ”, “Arab NATO”. The weaknesses and strengths of these projects are noted, and significant processes and events in the implementation of these initiatives are highlighted. Particular emphasis is placed on the Gulf sub-region. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by necessity to examine and understand new processes and phenomena at the level of interstate interaction in the region and in the field of security as a whole. The provisions of the concept of regional security complexes by B. Buzan and O. Weaver turned out to be useful for the discourse on security threats and their dynamics in the region. They conclude that the establishment of an inclusive security system in the Middle East appears to be a long-term and multi-layered process. It is necessary to consider the declared problem in a wide context, affecting not only military security issues, but also political, social, economic stability, taking into account the totality of the national interests of all states of the region and the participation of extra-regional actors in this process as well.

‘I do enjoy the work, but I think the wages in the jails are shocking’: Analysing prisoner wages as a pain of imprisonment using Foucault's artifice

Until now, wages in prison and the meanings associated with them have been relatively overlooked within penology. This study analyses findings from a research project conducted between 2019 and 2021 that explores multiple meanings attached to prisoner wages. Through the analysis of 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cohort of purposely selected people in custody across three prisons in Scotland, this study provides unique and rich insights into prison wages. Themes analysed include comments relating to wage rates and what emerges as a particularly tenuous link between wages within and outside prison. Receiving a weekly wage close to the hourly UK minimum wage was seen as an integral part of the life in prison and compounded feelings of detachment to life outside of prison. Our findings also indicate that sentiments associated with prison wages are significantly shaped by pre-prison experience of wages. The impact of imprisonment in relation to prison wages are stratified by income, given the differences in experience related to pre-prison employment and wage levels. Our paper also situates prison wages within a wider context through engaging with Foucault's notion of ‘artifice’ which served to develop an understanding of the logic behind the low levels of remuneration for prison work. Our study has relevance in all prison jurisdictions where people in custody receive wages significantly less than local minimum wage legislation or sectoral tariffs would normally dictate.

Teaching crystal structures in undergraduate courses: a systematic review from a disciplinary literacy perspective

Teaching engineering students how to effectively communicate using the language, representations, and tools specific to their discipline is important to their development as practitioners in their respective fields. This article describes a literature review of learning activities intended to teach crystal structure and crystallography and explores the extent to which educators implement elements of disciplinary literacy. We categorized the purpose of the paper, what the students are asked to do, the representations used in the activities, and the learner roles that the activities support. We observe that a majority of the papers engage students in disciplinary practices and support many, but not all aspects of disciplinary literacy. Instructors use a variety of representations in presenting concepts and ask students to interact with the learning activities to recount information or interpret results. However, we find that the activities rarely ask students to synthesize new information or evaluate their information in any wider context. We suggest that instructors should aim to implement the entire range of learning roles, and employ more critical socio-cultural approaches when designing learning activities to make the sciences accessible to a more diverse population of learners.

Evaluating the implementation and impact of a new model of care for integrating children and young people’s acute mental healthcare in a paediatric setting: a protocol for a realist, mixed-methods approach

IntroductionThe mental health of children and young people in the UK has been declining and has continued to worsen throughout the pandemic, leading to an increase in mental health-related emergencies....