How do regions diversify over time? Industry relatedness and the development of new growth paths in regions

The question of how new regional growth paths emerge has been raised by many leading economic geographers. From an evolutionary perspective, there are strong reasons to believe that regions are most likely to branch into industries that are technologically related to the preexisting industries in the region. Employing a new indicator of technological relatedness between manufacturing industries, we analyze the economic evolution of 70 Swedish regions during the period 1969-2002 using detailed plant-level data. Our analyses show that the long-term evolution of the economic landscape in Sweden is subject to strong path dependencies. Industries that were technologically related to pre-existing industries in a region had a higher probability to enter the region, as compared to unrelated industries. And unrelated industries had a higher probability to exit the region. Moreover, we found that industrial profiles of Swedish regions showed a high degree of technological coherence. Despite substantial structural change, this coherence was very persistent over time. Our methodology also proved useful when focusing on the economic evolution of one particular region. Our analysis showed that the Linkˆping region increased its industrial coherence during 30 years, due to the entry of industries that were closely related to its regional portfolio on the one hand, and the exit of industries that were technologically peripheral to its regional portfolio on the other hand. In sum, we find systematic evidence that the rise and fall of industries is strongly conditioned by industrial relatedness at the regional level.technological relatedness, related variety, regional branching, regional diversification

Repetition of contaminating question types when children and youths with intellectual disabilities are interviewed

Background The present study examined the effects of repeating questions in interviews investigating the possible sexual abuse of children and youths who had a variety of intellectual disabilities. We predicted that the repetition of option-posing and suggestive questions would lead the suspected victims to change their responses, making it difficult to understand what actually happened. Inconsistency can be a key factor when assessing the reliability of witnesses. Materials Case files and transcripts of investigative interviews with 33 children and youths who had a variety of intellectual disabilities were obtained from prosecutors in Sweden. The interviews involved 25 females and 9 males whose chronological ages were between 5.4 and 23.7 years when interviewed (M = 13.2 years). Results Six per cent of the questions were repeated at least once. The repetition of focused questions raised doubts about the reports because the interviewees changed their answers 40% of the time. Conclusions Regardless of the witnesses' abilities, it is important to obtain reports that are as accurate and complete as possible in investigative interviews. Because this was a field study, we did not know which responses were accurate, but repetitions of potentially contaminating questions frequently led the interviewees to contradict their earlier answers. This means that the interviewers' behaviour diminished the usefulness of the witnesses' testimony

Supportive Resources: Mastering the Art of Making Sense

This paper questions the nature of qualitative user studies as currently applied in the context of experience-centered design. We suggest that conceiving knowledge as if it were an entity that can be captured in some form and transferred unchanged oversimplifies the situation in the case of design, and, for the purpose of opening a dialogue on the topic is problematic. We put forward an alternative perspective, that of supportive resources, which go beyond social science-based approaches, such as user studies, to focus on the forming of knowledge by designers. Supportive resources are intended to inspire, but equally they are intended to help frame, guide and support the design process in a non-prescriptive way. Designers can apply them as needed to support existing approaches. In order to better describe supportive resources and their role in design, the authors present four examples from projects currently being undertaken by the authors; storytelling, language and touch, material knowledge, and video

Assessment and learning outcomes: the evaluation of deep learning in an on-line course

Using an online learning environment, students from European countries collaborated and communicated to carry out problem based learning in occupational therapy. The effectiveness of this approach was evaluated by means of the final assessments and published learning outcomes. In particular, transcripts from peer-to-peer sessions of synchronous communication were analysed. The SOLO taxonomy was used and the development of deep learning was studied week by week. This allowed the quality of the course to be appraised and showed, to a certain extent, the impact of this online international course on the learning strategies of the students. Results indicate that deep learning can be supported by synchronous communication and online meetings between course participants.</p

Food as Experience A Design and Evaluation Methodology

This research, conducted for Frito Lay-North America, Inc, demonstrates how new product designs, package designs, concepts, and prototypes can be created based on the social, emotional, cognitive, and sensory information gathered through a combined methodology based on activity theory, Kansei Engineering and the ZMET process. The study examines how activity theory can be used to observe situational settings mediated by products for the purpose of collecting significant social and behavioral data. It also examines how Kansei methods can be used to evaluate sensory experiences and how the ZMET process can be used to gather demographic and marketing data. The outcome of this research concludes that activity theory, Kansei engineering, and ZMET are each useful, however, none of these methods used in isolation are sufficient to inform all aspects of marketing, new product development, and package design decisions. However, as a combined design and evaluation methodology they can provide more useful data for these processes. Keywords: Experience Design, Kansei Assessment, Food, Activity Theory</p

Echo, not quotation: what conversation analysis reveals about classroom responses to heard poetry

This article applies conversation analysis to classroom talk-in-interaction where pupils respond to poetry they have heard. The phenomenon of repeating in discussion details from the poem, including patterns of delivery, is considered and named echo to distinguish it from quotation in writing. The phenomenon is significant to the pedagogy of literary study given the existing tacit and unexamined assumption that when pupils repeat textual details verbally this has equivalence with quotation in writing. Three episodes drawn from a single sequence of classroom interaction are presented together with a transcript of the stimulus heard poem. Each is accompanied by an interpretive commentary. It appears that echo in classroom discussions of poetry performs actions distinct from quotation in writing, for example that the acts of presenting and analysing textual detail occur simultaneously. The innovation of the research lies in the inclusion of the transcript-rendered poem as a turn in the sequence of interaction: as a verbally oriented method, conversation analysis provides an apt means of rendering response to poetry presented in the oral mode. More broadly, the discussion is consistent with the emergent popularity of conversation analysis as a method for considering classroom interactions with a view to reflecting on subtle aspects of learning

Re-examination of Oostenbroek et al. (2016): evidence for neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion

The meaning, mechanism, and function of imitation in early infancy have been actively discussed since Meltzoff and Moore's (1977) report of facial and manual imitation by human neonates. Oostenbroek et al. (2016) claim to challenge the existence of early imitation and to counter all interpretations so far offered. Such claims, if true, would have implications for theories of social-cognitive development. Here we identify 11 flaws in Oostenbroek et al.'s experimental design that biased the results toward null effects. We requested and obtained the authors’ raw data. Contrary to the authors’ conclusions, new analyses reveal significant tongue-protrusion imitation at all four ages tested (1, 3, 6, and 9 weeks old). We explain how the authors missed this pattern and offer five recommendations for designing future experiments. Infant imitation raises fundamental issues about action representation, social learning, and brain–behavior relations. The debate about the origins and development of imitation reflects its importance to theories of developmental science

Academic ‘boundary work’ in a regionally engaged university

Widening discussion of the role of universities in regional development has shifted the strategic attention of European higher education institutions towards their regional impact and the production of knowledge in cooperation with regional partners, thereby ‘stretching’ core university missions and the boundaries of academic work. This stretch created tensions between the norms and practices of the academy and the surrounding community. The study explores how academics in a Swedish regionally engaged university process these tensions through ‘boundary work’ against the background of their professional trajectories and roles. Drawing on 26 narrative interviews, it identifies four scenarios: researchers with standard academic training combine scientific rigour with local relevance without significantly altering their core identities; researchers with a more diversified professional background pursue ‘excellence with impact’ prioritising collaborative knowledge production over career progression; academics with standard training invested in non-research tasks divide their time between the university and the region without subordinating relevance to excellence; and academics with mixed backgrounds and role portfolios fuse the boundaries, giving preference to the ‘real world’ over the campus and exhibiting a greater variety of identity choices