Vicarious Trauma via the Observation of Extremist Atrocities: A Rapid Evidence Assessment

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): Members of the DHS workforce and terrorism researchers are systematically exposed to the propaganda, ideologies, and psychologies of actors who seek to launch terrorist attacks. This content is inherently value-laden and possibly personally troubling, causing these individuals to confront potential violations of their “sacred” or “protected” values such as the preservation of life (e.g., Tetlock et al., 2000). Here we present the result of a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) which sought to review research across multiple fields of work in which individuals are exposed to traumatic imagery, or events. This REA found that there is a small body of extant research focused on a few key domains (namely digital forensic and Internet child sex abuse prevention) that has explored the significant psychological trauma caused by exposure to extreme content. This body of literature emphasizes the importance of gaining clarity on the nature of trauma that is caused and the role of different forms of media on traumatic outcomes (e.g., observing Reddit forums vs., watching beheading videos). However, this review also identifies a series of factors that can impact the degree of harm caused by exposure to this content. These factors include the nature of the content, individual traits, and the individual’s social and work environment. Overall, this REA has identified a range of immediate research needs to extend, or apply, this research to the DHS workforce. These include: 1. Disaggregating the relationship that exists between the various possible forms of trauma and the specific forms of media that are consumed. 2. Exploring the degree to which cognitive resilience strategies, such as those identified within Crime Scene Investigator (CSI) staff are effective. 3. Validate the degree to which organizational dynamics can negatively or positively impact the manifestation of trauma in the workforce. These include issues of culture and workload. The presence of these organizational barriers within DHS needs to be explored, and if present, mitigated. 4. While largely untested, several articles included suggestions for interventions that could increase resilience. These largely center on the importance of debriefing. Future research should investigate how effective debriefs can be structured and implemented within the DHS workforce to support the development of resilience by those who are exposed to such harmful content online. Impact on DHS capabilities: Research identified as part of this REA outlines the negative implications of individual trauma, and the important role of the organization in mitigating trauma. Specifically, factors at the organizational level such as workload management, job rotation, and organizational culture were identified as playing a potentially important role in protecting employees from trauma. Furthermore, some studies showed that experiences of secondary trauma stemming from exposure to traumatic imagery was correlated with turnover intentions. As such, to maintain a safe and effective workforce in the face of such extreme pressures, it is important that DHS emphasize the need to protect workers from the negative impacts of exposure to traumatic content and imagery

Feature Papers "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives"

The "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: States of the Art and Future Perspectives" publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities

Algorithmic Reason

Are algorithms ruling the world today? Is artificial intelligence making life-and-death decisions? Are social media companies able to manipulate elections? As we are confronted with public and academic anxieties about unprecedented changes, this book offers a different analytical prism to investigate these transformations as more mundane and fraught. Aradau and Blanke develop conceptual and methodological tools to understand how algorithmic operations shape the government of self and other. While disperse and messy, these operations are held together by an ascendant algorithmic reason. Through a global perspective on algorithmic operations, the book helps us understand how algorithmic reason redraws boundaries and reconfigures differences. The book explores the emergence of algorithmic reason through rationalities, materializations, and interventions. It traces how algorithmic rationalities of decomposition, recomposition, and partitioning are materialized in the construction of dangerous others, the power of platforms, and the production of economic value. The book shows how political interventions to make algorithms governable encounter friction, refusal, and resistance. The theoretical perspective on algorithmic reason is developed through qualitative and digital methods to investigate scenes and controversies that range from mass surveillance and the Cambridge Analytica scandal in the UK to predictive policing in the US, and from the use of facial recognition in China and drone targeting in Pakistan to the regulation of hate speech in Germany. Algorithmic Reason offers an alternative to dystopia and despair through a transdisciplinary approach made possible by the authors’ backgrounds, which span the humanities, social sciences, and computer sciences

The IPBES regional assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services for Europe and Central Asia

The Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Europe and Central Asia produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides a critical analysis of the state of knowledge regarding the importance, status, and trends of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people. The assessment analyses the direct and underlying causes for the observed changes in biodiversity and in nature’s contributions to people, and the impact that these changes have on the quality of life of people. The assessment, finally, identifies a mix of governance options, policies and management practices that are currently available to reduce the loss of biodiversity and of nature’s contributions to people in that region. The assessment addresses terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal biodiversity and covers current status and trends, going back in time several decades, and future projections, with a focus on the 2020-2050 period

Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement recognizes the need for effective and progressive responses to the urgent threat of climate change, through mitigation and adaptation measures, while taking into account the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems. The inclusion of adaptation measures in the fisheries and aquaculture sector is currently hampered by a widespread lack of targeted analyses of the sector's vulnerabilities to climate change and associated risks, as well as the opportunities and responses available. This report provides the most up-to-date information on the disaggregated impacts of climate change for marine and inland fisheries, and aquaculture, in the context of poverty alleviation and the differential dependency of countries on fish and fishery resources. The work is based on model projections, data analyses, as well as national, regional and basin-scale expert assessments. The results indicate that climate change will lead to significant changes in the availability and trade of fish products, with potentially important geopolitical and economic consequences, especially for those countries most dependent on the sector

Managerial Decisions: A Discursive Analysis

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/2777 on 28.02.2017 by CS (TIS)Decision making activity is at the heart of organisations and, as an essential managerial function, it has been the subject of an immense body of literature. As the majority of research has been undertaken within the disciplines of economics and psychology, studies have tended to emphasise economic rationality as the basis for cognitive reasoning, decision processes and judgement and as the analytic paradigm. However, in the face of new problems, and in times of profound change, conventional forms of thought may be problematic in themselves. This project suggests and assesses a Foucaultian framework as an alternative approach to the study of managerial decision making. Within a multiple case-study strategy, evidence has been collected from three manufacturing companies in Devon and Cornwall, using a range of qualitative methods; derived from ethnography, historiography, and grounded theory. A major decisional theme emerged in each case study: employee participation, linked to the nonrecognition of trade unions; Japanese managerial techniques (Kaizen); and product quality. A Foucaultian approach to discourse analysis was used to assess the trajectories of systems of management thought; nature and influence of changes in management discourse, and the resulting vacillation in power/knowledge relations within these three organisations. Genealogical assessment of alterations in organisational culture reveals shifts in the power relations which produce and maintain those decision outcomes; which, in their turn, establish and affirm the power relations. Among them are stereotypes that are problematised by non-unionism; the historical possibilities giving rise to the discourse and practices of Kaizen; discursive motifs on quality, and the formation of new discourses. Comparative archaeology of the various concepts of quality, as apprehended within the study, has identified two major currents of discourse. Neither discourse is inherently advantageous or harmful to an organisation but, where discourses are both present, and in competition, the resulting dichotomy is disorientating for organisational actors and potentially lethal to business performance