Working with robots: Trends and future directions

Robots are taking on a prominent role in driving organizational evolution toward industrial revolutions. While research on the role of robots in human resource management (robot-HRM) is proliferating, the literature falls short in providing a state-of-the-art overview of the progress and ways forward for the field. Hence, this study aims to review and consolidate the extant literature on robot-HRM into a unified framework and provide pragmatic ways forward. To do so, this study conducts a framework-based systematic literature review by adopting the SPAR-4-SLR protocol to guide its assembling, arranging, and assessing of theories, contexts, characteristics, and methods (TCCM) of robot-HRM studies identified and retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science. In doing so, this study contributes a seminal overview of the research trends and ways forward for robotHRM, as well as the implications for professionals to manage the embedding of robots and the interaction with employees in the workplace

Extending the Genuine Savings estimates with natural capital and poverty at the regional and national level in Italy

Efforts to improve the Genuine Savings, a widely accepted index to assess the weak sustainability of an economy's development, have led to the creation of a broad body of literature that aims to produce more robust macroeconomic indicators for policy decision making. However, the various approaches to natural capital welfare accounting results in conflicting indicators of change. It is also the case that the inclusion of natural and social capital components is still scant. This paper addresses this gap by extending the traditional Genuine Savings methodology by including some natural capital components (e.g. flood protection, water purification) and the poverty dimension through a deontological approach. Although not offering a silver bullet solution, our approach proposes a pluralist and pragmatic improvement from ‘weak’ towards ‘stronger’ sustainability indicators. Results highlight the availability of data and information produced by different initiatives including the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting guidelines. The empirical application provides Genuine Savings estimates for Italy from 2006 to 2012 and from 2012 to 2015, shedding the light on the importance of natural capital and social considerations at national and regional level

Supporting farmers dealing with climate change: The impact of Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) on smallholder lead farmers in Malawi

Motivation The climate crisis threatens the livelihoods and welfare of farmers in the global south. Increasing variability of weather makes it ever more important to get forecasts to farmers and help them make best use of this information. Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) is an approach that gives farmers better weather forecasts and, in lockstep with agricultural extension workers, supports farmers in interpreting forecasts to make appropriate decisions for their own farms. It has been implemented across more than 20 countries of the global south, including Malawi. Reviews and evaluations of PICSA have been positive, although it has not previously been rigorously evaluated using impact evaluation techniques. Purpose We estimate the impacts of PICSA training and meetings on lead farmers in Malawi, taking farmers in four districts where PICSA operated, and farmers in four other districts where the programme was not present. Methods We compare outcomes in farming practice, yields obtained, livelihood decisions and food security between lead farmers who participated in PICSA and those who did not. Because selection into the programme was not random, we use propensity score matching and regression adjustment to correct for potential selection bias. Findings PICSA lead farmers used seasonal forecasts to plan farm decisions, change crop activities, increase maize yields, and improve their food security. Differences between them and the control group were, in most cases, significant. Our results confirm the potential of PICSA to help farmers adapt to climate change. Policy In similar contexts, the PICSA approach could effectively support smallholders to make informed agricultural decisions, in participatory discussions, based on climate and weather information. For Malawi, the evidence suggests the programme or something similar should be continued

Pragmatics in the Health Sciences

This Element aims to address a gap in the literature at the intersection of linguistics, particularly pragmatics, and health sciences, such as speech and language pathology. The first section introduces the application of pragmatics concepts in healthcare and neuroscience. Section 2 discusses the development of pragmatic abilities in childhood, focusing on pragmatic communication disorder. Section 3 reviews studies on pragmatic abilities in adolescents, adults, and clinical populations, including assessments of pragmatic skills in ageing. Section 4 broadens the scope by exploring pragmatic impairments in new populations. The final section reflects on the importance of pragmatics in healthcare practice, introducing studies on mental health and intercultural pragmatics. Each section proposes discussion points to contextualise the research within debates on health pragmatics. The Element also includes a glossary (available as online supplementary material) to assist interdisciplinary audiences in understanding clinical pragmatics terminology

The offender personality disorder (OPD) pathway for men in England and Wales: A qualitative study of pathway user views about services, perceived impact on psychological wellbeing, and implications for desistance

The offender personality disorder (OPD) Pathway is a network of services across prison, health and community settings in England and Wales providing psychological support for high-risk people who have offended and are thought to have a personality disorder. As part of a national evaluation of the Pathway, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 36 Pathway users to determine their views about their experiences in these services; and whether and how these impacted on their psychological wellbeing. Framework analysis was used to analyze the data. Participants reported positive therapeutic relationships with staff; improved psychological wellbeing; and for some, a shift away from antisocial toward more pro-social identities. They also described a negative impact of staff turnover and uncertainty about the role of prison officers and psychologists within prison services. Pathway services are able to engage individuals who have not previously engaged with services. Constancy of staff is fundamental to the Pathway

Understanding the role qualitative methods can play in next generation impact assessment

Since its inception, impact assessment (IA) has been perceived by many to be a largely technical, quantitative exercise. However, as jurisdictions shift towards a more sustainability-oriented IA that accounts for a wider range of social, cultural, economic, health and well-being, and equity implications of proposed projects and strategic initiatives, values and subjectivity come more to the fore. Making predictions now needs innovative, and rigorous applications of qualitative methods that enable meaningful inclusion of diverse knowledges, values, and information sources, whilst at the same time giving confidence to decision makers and other stakeholders about the evidence base. Adopting such qualitative methods in practice is hindered by a lack of clarity of the role of qualitative methods in the delivery of sustainability-oriented IA. Guided by findings from a thematic analysis of primary data gathered through an international survey supplemented by semi-structured interviews and a workshop, the novel contribution of this paper is to clarify how and why qualitative methods can best contribute to the effective delivery of next generation IA

Taking a step back: Parents' experiences of the decision-making process for elective orthognathic surgery in cleft lip and palate (IPA)

Objective: This study explored parents’ experiences of the transition of responsibility to their child for healthcare decisions relating to their cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P). Methods: Online semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 participants (six females and five males, aged 41 to 60 years). They were parents of young people who had decided whether to undergo orthognathic surgery. The data were transcribed and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results: A responsibility shift from participants to their children was identified in 2 main themes ‘A natural process (or not)’ and ‘It has to be their decision’. Conclusion: The process of shifting responsibility for decision-making to the child comprised a spectrum of experiences from a relief to a shock and upset. Participants went through sometimes difficult negotiating of their ongoing involvement while supporting their child. Innovation: The importance of addressing psychological aspects of the family system as well as the young person is highlighted here. Addressing the familial complexities of the transition may contribute to the success of the whole process. Clinicians need careful consideration of the potential emotional impact on parents which is not always shared

Path partitions of phylogenetic networks

In phylogenetics, evolution is traditionally represented in a tree-like manner. However, phylogenetic networks can be more appropriate for representing evolutionary events such as hybridization, horizontal gene transfer, and others. In particular, the class of forest-based networks was recently introduced to represent introgression, in which genes are swapped between species. A network is forest-based if it can be obtained by adding arcs to a collection of trees, so that the endpoints of the new arcs are in different trees. This contrasts with so-called tree-based networks, which are formed by adding arcs within a single tree. We are interested in the computational complexity of recognizing forest-based networks, which was recently left as an open problem by Huber et al. It has been observed that forest-based networks coincide with directed acyclic graphs that can be partitioned into induced paths, each ending at a leaf of the original graph. Several types of path partitions have been studied in the graph theory literature, but to our best knowledge this type of ‘leaf induced path partition’ has not been directly considered before. The study of forest-based networks in terms of these partitions allows us to establish closer relationships between phylogenetics and algorithmic graph theory, and to provide answers to problems in both fields. More specifically, we show that deciding whether a network is forest-based is NP-complete, even on input networks that are tree-based, binary, and have only three leaves. This shows that partitioning a directed acyclic graph into a constant number of induced paths is NP-complete, answering a recent question of Fernau et al. We then show that the problem is polynomial-time solvable on binary networks with two leaves and on the recently introduced class of orchards, which we show to be always forest-based. Finally, for undirected graphs, we introduce unrooted forest-based networks and provide hardness results for this class as well

On the Politics of the Living:Foucault and Canguilhem on Life and Norms

Today's global health crisis acts as a stark reminder that life is at the core of our political debates and dilemmas. We can no longer think of forms of political organization, citizenship and participation without considering the materiality and precarity of our own organic life. Ours is a politics of the living. Within this context, this book examines Foucault's work on the politicization of life and biopolitics through the lens of Canguilhem's notion of norms. Testa extracts from Canguilhem's philosophy the conceptual tools to re-interpret Foucault's ideas on power, and reconceptualises normativity as a process of the creation of norms that provide tools for political and social analysis and for thinking resistance. In so doing, he uncovers new and important possibilities for biopolitical resistance. Demonstrating not only Canguilhem's underexplored social and political concerns but also the intellectual osmosis between the two thinkers, On the Politics of the Living is an urgent examination of the ever-increasing significance of the concepts of life, care and health in today's political discourse