846 research outputs found

    Harmonious Living: Sustainability, Ecology, and Eco-Islam in Wales

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    This thesis is an in-depth examination of Eco-Islam in Wales. Eco-Islam refers to the conceptual intersection of Islamic principles with environmental and ecological concerns. It is not necessarily a formalised movement with a centralised structure but rather a broader concept that explores the compatibility between Islamic teachings and environmental stewardship. It emphasises the idea that Islamic values and ethics can be applied to address contemporary environmental challenges. This dissertation addresses the question of the normative influence of Islamic environmental principles and their implementation within Welsh Muslim communities and Welsh society. More generally, this thesis is embedded in the academic discourse on the normative role and agency of religions in motivating their members to engage in proenvironmental behaviour. Given the urgency of the environmental crisis facing humanity, which requires a concerted effort from all sectors of society, the research question of this thesis is particularly relevant. Furthermore, despite the growing body of literature on ecology and Islam, there has been little research on the practical implementation of Islamic teachings on nature. Therefore, whilst giving a comprehensive overview of Islamic environmental ethics based on a literature review, the thesis also provides research data on the Eco-Islam movement based on fieldwork conducted in Wales. Particular attention is paid to the social and power structures that contribute to or hinder the development of a Muslim environmental movement. The study provides practical recommendations for better cooperation between faith communities and the (still) predominantly secular environmental movement, with particular attention to the challenges faced by minority communities such as the Muslim communities in Wales

    Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law

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    This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics – and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Children and Youth at Risk in Times of Transition: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

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    Children and youth belong to one of the most vulnerable groups in societies. This was the case even before the current humanitarian crises around the world which led millions of people and families to flee from wars, terror, poverty and exploitation. Minors have been denied human rights such as access to education, food and health services. They have been kidnapped, sold, manipulated, mutilated, killed, and injured. This has been and continues to be the case in both developed and developing countries, and it does not look as if the situation will improve in the near future. Rather, current geopolitical developments, political and economic uncertainties and instabilities seem to be increasing the vulnerability of minors, especially in the wars and armed conflicts currently being waged not only in Europe, but on almost every continent. How can risks children and youth are exposed to in times of transition be reduced? Which role do state agencies, non-governmental organisations, as well as children's coping strategies play in mitigating the vulnerabilities of minors? This volume addresses risks to which children and young people are exposed, especially in times of transition. The focus is on different groups of children in the European wartime and post-war societies of the Second World War, 'occupation children' in Germany, teenage National Socialist collaborators in Norway, and more recent cases such as child soldiers, refugee children, and children of European "Islamic State" fighters. The contributions come from international scholars and different academic disciplines (educational and social sciences, humanities, law, and international peace and conflict studies) and are based on historical, quantitative, and/or qualitative analyses.Kinder und Jugendliche gehören zu den am meisten gefĂ€hrdeten Gruppen einer Gesellschaft. Dies war auch schon vor den aktuellen humanitĂ€ren Krisen in der Welt der Fall, die Millionen von Menschen und Familien zur Flucht vor Kriegen, Terror, Armut und Ausbeutung veranlassten. MinderjĂ€hrigen wurden Menschenrechte wie der Zugang zu Bildung, Nahrung und medizinischer Versorgung verweigert. Sie wurden entfĂŒhrt, verkauft, manipuliert, verstĂŒmmelt, getötet und verletzt. Dies war und ist sowohl in den Industrie- als auch in den EntwicklungslĂ€ndern der Fall, und es sieht nicht so aus, als wĂŒrde sich die Situation in naher Zukunft verbessern. Dieser Band befasst sich mit Risiken, denen Kinder und Jugendliche vor allem in Zeiten des Übergangs ausgesetzt sind. Im Mittelpunkt stehen verschiedene Gruppen von Kindern in den europĂ€ischen Kriegs- und Nachkriegsgesellschaften des Zweiten Weltkriegs, "Besatzungskinder" in Deutschland, jugendliche NS-Kollaborateure in Norwegen und neuere FĂ€lle wie Kindersoldat*innen, FlĂŒchtlingskinder und Kinder von europĂ€ischen "Islamischen Staat"-KĂ€mpfer*innen. Die BeitrĂ€ge stammen von internationalen Wissenschaftler*innen und verschiedenen akademischen Disziplinen (Erziehungs- und Sozialwissenschaften, Geisteswissenschaften, Rechtswissenschaften und internationale Friedens- und Konfliktstudien) und basieren auf historischen, quantitativen und/oder qualitativen Analysen

    Talking about personal recovery in bipolar disorder: Integrating health research, natural language processing, and corpus linguistics to analyse peer online support forum posts

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    Background: Personal recovery, ‘living a satisfying, hopeful and contributing lifeeven with the limitations caused by the illness’ (Anthony, 1993) is of particular value in bipolar disorder where symptoms often persist despite treatment. So far, personal recovery has only been studied in researcher-constructed environments (interviews, focus groups). Support forum posts can serve as a complementary naturalistic data source. Objective: The overarching aim of this thesis was to study personal recovery experiences that people living with bipolar disorder have shared in online support forums through integrating health research, NLP, and corpus linguistics in a mixed methods approach within a pragmatic research paradigm, while considering ethical issues and involving people with lived experience. Methods: This mixed-methods study analysed: 1) previous qualitative evidence on personal recovery in bipolar disorder from interviews and focus groups 2) who self-reports a bipolar disorder diagnosis on the online discussion platform Reddit 3) the relationship of mood and posting in mental health-specific Reddit forums (subreddits) 4) discussions of personal recovery in bipolar disorder subreddits. Results: A systematic review of qualitative evidence resulted in the first framework for personal recovery in bipolar disorder, POETIC (Purpose & meaning, Optimism & hope, Empowerment, Tensions, Identity, Connectedness). Mainly young or middle-aged US-based adults self-report a bipolar disorder diagnosis on Reddit. Of these, those experiencing more intense emotions appear to be more likely to post in mental health support subreddits. Their personal recovery-related discussions in bipolar disorder subreddits primarily focussed on three domains: Purpose & meaning (particularly reproductive decisions, work), Connectedness (romantic relationships, social support), Empowerment (self-management, personal responsibility). Support forum data highlighted personal recovery issues that exclusively or more frequently came up online compared to previous evidence from interviews and focus groups. Conclusion: This project is the first to analyse non-reactive data on personal recovery in bipolar disorder. Indicating the key areas that people focus on in personal recovery when posting freely and the language they use provides a helpful starting point for formal and informal carers to understand the concerns of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder and to consider how best to offer support

    How to Collaborate and Not Just Coexist: An Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Study on the Impact of a Physician and Nurse Interprofessional Education Program on the Development of Early Career Pediatrician Communication Skills and Collaborative Behaviors Once in Practice

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    Healthcare organizations are challenged to build and develop interprofessional (IP) teams capable of delivering effective patient care (Tang et al., 2018). Historically, these multiple professional roles are not formally educated together but are all expected to work in unison once they enter practice (El-Hanafy, 2018). This lack of relational foundation has led to age-old conflict between the physician and nurse roles on the care team (Stein et al., 1990). This conflict has been attributed to a lack of role definition or an overemphasis on hierarchical structures, poor communication, and the inability of physicians to collaboratively work with their nurse counterparts (Crawford et al., 2012). These barriers can lead to ineffective patient care planning and management, decreased work satisfaction, and workplace tension between essential roles (Wang et al., 2018). The problem is that no standard curriculum currently exists in the literature that is being actively used in U.S. based graduate medical education programs that uniformly places importance on IP collaboration between nurses and physicians, yet there is an identified need in the clinical care setting (Allenbaugh et al., 2019; Looman et al., 2020, Wang et al., 2018). This explanatory sequential mixed methods study aimed to determine the impact that participation in an interprofessional education (IPE) program had on graduates’ perceptions of collaborative behaviors and effective communication skills once in practice by answering the following research questions: Is there a difference in the participants’ perceived abilities across the six domains as they recall them on the Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Survey (revised; ICCASr) pre and post-assessment? Is there a difference between factor outcomes on the ICCASr pre/posttest between nurses’ and physicians’ professional roles? Is there a correlation between posttest factors for each participant group (nurses and physicians)? How do nurses and physicians describe their communication and collaboration with each other after participation in the program? The quantitative questions were answered using the ICCASr and the qualitative question was answered using open-ended survey questions and interviews. This mixed methods explanatory sequential design was divided into two distinct phases. Phase 1 involved the collection and analyses of quantitative data via the ICCASr and Phase 2 used qualitative methods derived from open-ended questions and a semi-structured interview. In Phase 1, quantitative data were gained by distributing the ICCASr to 53 graduates from an IPE program, representing the first three cohorts with a return of 22 responses. The ICCASr underwent paired t-tests, independent t-tests, and correlational statistics that were calculated to determine if there was a difference in the participants’ perceived abilities across the six designated domains: communication, roles and responsibilities, conflict management/resolution, team functioning, collaboration, and collaborative patient-family centered approach pre and postintervention. In Phase 2, qualitative data were collected using responses from the open-ended questions on the ICCASr to reveal how the program impacted the participants’ perceived abilities to communicate and collaborate postintervention to offer better patient care. These initial data led to the development of 12 semi-structured interview questions. Virtual interviews were conducted with eight survey participants who volunteered to share their experiences. The qualitative data utilized multilevel descriptive, holistic, and In Vivo coding for analysis to locate significant themes from the position of the participants’ own experiences in relation to the overall study aim. The ICCASr survey results showed a statistically significant difference in participants’ perceptions on all areas of the IP domains from pre to postintervention. There was no significant correlation between patient-family centered approach associated with conflict management/resolution or communication or team functioning associated with communication for the nurse role. The results of the descriptive statistics and comparative and correlation analyses supported the focused interview questions. The qualitative data generated four essential thematic interpretations as to the intervention’s impact: foundational deficits, construction of perspectives, development of relationship and organizational influence. Each essential theme was influenced through the discovery of categorizing data obtained from the participants’ narratives. The quantitative results were supported by qualitative insights, allowing for a more robust picture from the perspective of the learner as to how the intervention impacted their learning and why this type of programming is important. Using a mixed methods study design and sequential process aimed to determine perceptional behavior change and gain a deeper understanding of how participation in one institution’s early intervention program impacted communication skills and nurse–physician collaborative relationships. At the conclusion of the study, it was determined that the ICCASr was an effective assessment tool in identifying perceived changes in behavior as it relates to IP programming even years after an intervention. The statistical improvement identified between pre and post-learning surveys supports the effectiveness of this specific program to provide IPE knowledge long term. The themes that emerged from the interviews provided an in-depth look at how this specific program impacted the participants and revealed areas needing attention when developing future IPE programs, such as moving away from modules and simulation. There was a comprehensive belief that the deficit in IPE training in formal healthcare education created the most significant barrier to providing team care. IPE interventions should fill these gaps by providing the necessary job-related soft skills to ensure the positive collaboration between roles in the clinical care setting. Intervention activities should provide a pathway for participants to reflect on their own paradigms as they learn to see the “other” as a human instead of a role, which has not previously been role modeled but will change practice approaches immensely. Having a well-developed early career intervention will improve IP relationships immediately but also provide transferable skills to teach others as providers advance their careers. Finally, to truly support IPE education in the clinical care setting, there must be organizational support to maintain positive relationships and build trust among employees. Mixed methods designs are a novel approach to healthcare education research and provide a deeper dive into the lived experience and shared meaning of learners. The results of this study are meaningful for healthcare education as no other study has assessed the impact of a longitudinal IPE intervention between physicians-in-training and nurses. This study supports the importance of developing a standard IPE curriculum using interactive, relationship-driven activities as a meaningful and necessary part of training to preventatively reduce conflict and proactively develop effective IP communication and collaboration skills to meet healthcare organization and patient needs once in practice

    An empirical investigation of the relationship between integration, dynamic capabilities and performance in supply chains

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    This research aimed to develop an empirical understanding of the relationships between integration, dynamic capabilities and performance in the supply chain domain, based on which, two conceptual frameworks were constructed to advance the field. The core motivation for the research was that, at the stage of writing the thesis, the combined relationship between the three concepts had not yet been examined, although their interrelationships have been studied individually. To achieve this aim, deductive and inductive reasoning logics were utilised to guide the qualitative study, which was undertaken via multiple case studies to investigate lines of enquiry that would address the research questions formulated. This is consistent with the author’s philosophical adoption of the ontology of relativism and the epistemology of constructionism, which was considered appropriate to address the research questions. Empirical data and evidence were collected, and various triangulation techniques were employed to ensure their credibility. Some key features of grounded theory coding techniques were drawn upon for data coding and analysis, generating two levels of findings. These revealed that whilst integration and dynamic capabilities were crucial in improving performance, the performance also informed the former. This reflects a cyclical and iterative approach rather than one purely based on linearity. Adopting a holistic approach towards the relationship was key in producing complementary strategies that can deliver sustainable supply chain performance. The research makes theoretical, methodological and practical contributions to the field of supply chain management. The theoretical contribution includes the development of two emerging conceptual frameworks at the micro and macro levels. The former provides greater specificity, as it allows meta-analytic evaluation of the three concepts and their dimensions, providing a detailed insight into their correlations. The latter gives a holistic view of their relationships and how they are connected, reflecting a middle-range theory that bridges theory and practice. The methodological contribution lies in presenting models that address gaps associated with the inconsistent use of terminologies in philosophical assumptions, and lack of rigor in deploying case study research methods. In terms of its practical contribution, this research offers insights that practitioners could adopt to enhance their performance. They can do so without necessarily having to forgo certain desired outcomes using targeted integrative strategies and drawing on their dynamic capabilities

    Measuring the impact of COVID-19 on hospital care pathways

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    Care pathways in hospitals around the world reported significant disruption during the recent COVID-19 pandemic but measuring the actual impact is more problematic. Process mining can be useful for hospital management to measure the conformance of real-life care to what might be considered normal operations. In this study, we aim to demonstrate that process mining can be used to investigate process changes associated with complex disruptive events. We studied perturbations to accident and emergency (A &E) and maternity pathways in a UK public hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-incidentally the hospital had implemented a Command Centre approach for patient-flow management affording an opportunity to study both the planned improvement and the disruption due to the pandemic. Our study proposes and demonstrates a method for measuring and investigating the impact of such planned and unplanned disruptions affecting hospital care pathways. We found that during the pandemic, both A &E and maternity pathways had measurable reductions in the mean length of stay and a measurable drop in the percentage of pathways conforming to normative models. There were no distinctive patterns of monthly mean values of length of stay nor conformance throughout the phases of the installation of the hospital’s new Command Centre approach. Due to a deficit in the available A &E data, the findings for A &E pathways could not be interpreted

    Church technological growth and sustainability: insight from system dynamics

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    Religious organisations that have realised the importance of ICTs are increasingly adopting and using various technologies to spread evangelism while seeking to grow membership. Currently, a few studies evaluating the use of ICTs in religious organisations through systems dynamics approach to focus primarily on sustainability and a growth perspective. Very little is said in such studies about the use of the adopted ICTs and their impact on these religious organisations. This study addresses the knowledge gap identified by assessing the impact of ICTs on the sustainability and growth of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) churches across South Africa. Data collection involved interviews with church leaders, a questionnaire survey of church members, a document analysis of the Book of Acts, and Facebook posts from the SDA churches. The qualitative data were analysed thematically using Atlas-ti 8. The questionnaire survey data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 25, while data from Facebook were analysed using sentiment analysis. The findings showed a high level of ICT usage among church leaders and members. The study found that church leaders use ICTs to create online communities for their congregations, which were essential in addressing the communication and informational needs of church leaders. However, there were reports of misuse of ICT, such as the circulation of inappropriate content, and scams. Nonetheless, the gains to the church were more worth it than the concerns as the church leaders managed to come up with corrective measures. The study further found that lack of proper data integration from distributed departments and poor consolidation of reports from the church departments caused church leaders to make wrong decisions that affected the operations of the church. For improved decision making, the study proposed the development of a pastoral analytics-based dashboard that uses a single screen for data consolidation and reporting. The study contributes to scientific knowledge by addressing the existing gap in the impact of ICT on the sustainability and growth of modern churches by developing a pastoral dashboard for church leaders. This study recommends further data collection from other religious organisations.Information SciencePh. D. (Information Systems
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