Construals as a complement to intelligent tutoring systems in medical education

This is a preliminary version of a report prepared by Meurig and Will Beynon in conjunction with a poster paper "Mediating Intelligence through Observation, Dependency and Agency in Making Construals of Malaria" at the 11th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS 2012) and a paper "Construals to Support Exploratory and Collaborative Learning in Medicine" at the associated workshop on Intelligent Support for Exploratory Environments (ISEE 2012). A final version of the report will be published at a later stage after feedback from presentations at these events has been taken into account, and the experimental versions of the JS-EDEN interpreter used in making construals have been developed to a more mature and stable form

Inclusive business models? How SMEs are developing inclusive value chains and combating social exclusion in bottom-of-the-pyramid markets

Research suggests that private firms can contribute to addressing poverty by prioritising the inclusion of bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) communities in global financing, commerce and consumption value chains. However existing evidence have focused on large multinationals. An understanding of how small firms incorporate the inclusion of BoP communities in their value chain is critical remains under-researched. Drawing on the literature integrating entrepreneurship, inclusion and business model this article develops a qualitative study of how three agribusiness in Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Kenya. The findings highlight opportunities and challenges facing entrepreneurs in pursuing inclusive business opportunities African economies

COVID-19 Booster Vaccine Acceptance in Ethnic Minority Individuals in the United Kingdom: a mixed-methods study using Protection Motivation Theory

Background: Uptake of the COVID-19 booster vaccine among ethnic minority individuals has been lower than in the general population. However, there is little research examining the psychosocial factors that contribute to COVID-19 booster vaccine hesitancy in this population.Aim: Our study aimed to determine which factors predicted COVID-19 vaccination intention in minority ethnic individuals in Middlesbrough, using Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, in addition to demographic variables.Method: We used a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data were collected using an online survey. Qualitative data were collected using semi-structured interviews. 64 minority ethnic individuals (33 females, 31 males; mage = 31.06, SD = 8.36) completed the survey assessing PMT constructs, COVID-19conspiracy beliefs and demographic factors. 42.2% had received the booster vaccine, 57.6% had not. 16 survey respondents were interviewed online to gain further insight into factors affecting booster vaccineacceptance.Results: Multiple regression analysis showed that perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 was a significant predictor of booster vaccination intention, with higher perceived susceptibility being associated with higher intention to get the booster. Additionally, COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs significantly predictedintention to get the booster vaccine, with higher conspiracy beliefs being associated with lower intention to get the booster dose. Thematic analysis of the interview data showed that barriers to COVID-19 booster vaccination included time constraints and a perceived lack of practical support in the event ofexperiencing side effects. Furthermore, there was a lack of confidence in the vaccine, with individuals seeing it as lacking sufficient research. Participants also spoke of medical mistrust due to historical events involving medical experimentation on minority ethnic individuals.Conclusion: PMT and conspiracy beliefs predict COVID-19 booster vaccination in minority ethnic individuals. To help increase vaccine uptake, community leaders need to be involved in addressing people’s concerns, misassumptions, and lack of confidence in COVID-19 vaccination

Culture's influence : towards understanding stakeholder interactions in rural water, sanitation and hygiene promotion projects

Variations frequently occur between the intended and actual outcomes of rural water, sanitation and hygiene promotion projects, even projects that exhibit best practice. As a result, the intended impact of poverty reduction through sustained health improvements is diminished. This thesis establishes that inadequate consideration of culture in interactions between and within project stakeholders is a major reason for these unintended project outcomes. Aspects of individual and group behaviour that are influenced by culture are examined, and an initial conceptual framework of established cultural dimensions developed. This framework is then applied to a broad variety of stakeholder groups: seven end user groups and two implementing agencies in Ethiopia and Uganda; national Governments and international donor organisations. As a result, two new cultural dimensions are proposed. Firstly, concern for public selfimage, defined as ‘the degree to which an individual expresses interest in how others perceive him/herself, and the manner in which the individual seeks to influence that perception’. Secondly, spirituality, defined as ‘the nature and degree of people’s beliefs and practices concerning the existence, nature, and worship of, and connectedness to God, a god, gods, or a greater spiritual whole, and involvement of the divine or greater spirit in the universe and human life’. Aspects of these dimensions that need to be measured are identified. Hierarchies of cultural dimensions are identified where a certain combination of individual or group orientations causes the suppression or even reversal of behaviour in a dimension. Modifications to established cultural dimensions are recommended, especially long-term orientation which the author proposes renaming to ‘resistance to change’. A multidisciplinary approach that reflects the complexities of group behaviour and converges research findings is recommended, including utilising software that simulates complex systems. Recommendations are made for development practitioners, especially to enhance participation, promote femininity and achieve lasting change through training.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The Role of Self-Regulation in Environmental Behavior Change

A rapid and global transition is needed to prevent catastrophic climate change. This transition requires, amongst other, profound behavioral changes to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses and other environmental impacts. Within psychology, researchers have studied the psychological constructs that predict the performance of environmentally friendly behaviors and how utilizing and manipulating these constructs can bring about behavioral changes. Limited research has, however, studied the dynamics of the behavior-change process itself to uncover the processes that determine the success or failure of environmental behavior change. To address this research gap, the dissertation investigates the role of self-regulation in behavior change that is voluntarily undertaken to limit environmental impacts. Studying self-regulation—the processes that enables humans to guide their behavior over time and builds on the capacity to influence, modify, and control their own behavior—can help identify key self-regulatory problems and strategies to overcome them

Water aid and trade contradictions: Dutch aid in the Mozambican waterscape under contemporary capitalism

In 2013, the Dutch government adopted its ‘aid, trade and investment agenda’, commonly known as the ‘aid and trade agenda’. This thesis examines the application of this agenda and its forerunner in the Mozambican waterscape and how it has reproduced and transformed the Mozambican-Dutch water aid relationship. The aid and trade agenda is a consensual agenda, in which state- and aid-driven approaches to water management were presented as complementary and compatible with trade- and market-based approaches. In contrast, this thesis argues that this agenda and its implementation in Mozambique can be better understood dialectically, in terms of ‘water aid and trade contradictions’. The dissertation distinguishes between a primary water aid and trade contradiction that is constitutive of the bilateral water aid relationship as a whole, and secondary contradictions. The primary contradiction is explained in terms of the territorial and capitalistic logics of liquid power. These refer to the politics revolving around water’s multiple use values and place-based waters on the one hand, and the subjection of water(-related processes) to market mechanisms and market imperatives such as competition on the other. I trace the rise of the capitalistic logic throughout the bilateral relationship’s history, as it developed in tandem with contemporary capitalism since the 1980s. I argue that this capitalistic logic has come to contradict with territorial logics of liquid power, in particular by the water politics of the government and central state of Mozambique. This primary water aid and trade contradiction is derivative of and manifests itself in various contradictory realities, or in what I call ‘secondary contradictions’. Firstly, the capitalistic logic translated in the will and attempts to apply market mechanisms in the bilateral relationship and in the Mozambican waterscape. However, these attempts were often negated by central state and bureaucratic power in Mozambique—the very power that these mechanisms sought to weaken. Secondly, a capitalistic logic underpinned a water access mechanism that Dutch and Mozambican actors jointly implemented in small towns in Mozambique, but this logic clashed with territorial logics in power struggles unfolding at the national and local scales. Finally, the capitalistic logic was expressed in exclusionary events, events that narrowed down imaginaries and pathways for hydrosocial development. These were therefore contested events and countervailed by agents based on social, political and environmental, rather than economic, grounds. The thesis argues that the aid and trade course followed in Mozambique has deepened rather than eased the primary water aid and trade contradiction. This has led to intensified power struggles and has complicated the governance and management of (Dutch) water (aid) in Mozambique. Moreover, rather than leading to inclusive and equitable hydrosocial development, it is argued that this agenda has left the root causes of uneven development in Mozambique and its waterscape by and large unaffected

Mediating intelligence through observation, dependency and agency in making construals of malaria

Achieving co-adaptation in building an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) involves integrating machine and human perspectives on ‘knowledge’ and ‘intelligence’. We address this integration by using Empirical Modelling (EM) principles to make construals: interactive environments in which human agents acting as model-builders can explore the observation, dependency and agency that underpins their understanding of the subject domain. This approach is well-suited to domains such as medicine where reasoning draws both on scientific knowledge and evolving human experience and judgement. We illustrate this by developing construals of malaria using a web-based variant of the principal EM tool that enables many agents to participate in the process of adaptation

Henry James and the Work of Responsibility

This is a study of responsibility, its meaning and implications, in the criticism and fiction of Henry James. Grounded in close reading, but situating itself at the intersection of philosophy and literature, the thesis begins by exploring how one type of responsibility, defined by the accountability of the free agent, has overly informed critical interpretations of the author’s novels. The project probes the limitations of these readings by remarking upon the idiosyncratic connotations of the word in James’s lexicon and the unusual experiential contours of the concept in the novels and non-fiction. Engaging with the crucial role that response plays in James’s consideration of responsibility, initial chapters propose to catalyse a re-examination of this subject by placing it in proximity to the work of philosophers for whom responsiveness is comparably central to their mapping of responsibility. In subsequent chapters, the thesis turns to investigate the ways in which James’s work is marked by misgivings regarding the relocation of the concept on to grounds far more ambiguous than those provided for it by a metaphysics of sovereignty and self-rule. This project addresses itself to a pivotal and omnipresent subject in James; accordingly, it considers an extensive range of texts, but with particular attention given to the essays on Honoré de Balzac (1875–1913), the Prefaces to the New York Edition (1907–1909), Roderick Hudson (1875), The Bostonians (1886), and The Awkward Age (1899). These texts, their aesthetics and the dramas they delineate, are shaped, I argue, in hitherto uncharted ways by the possibilities and discontents inherent to a responsibility signaling a relational process of receiving and answering another

PSA 2018

These preprints were automatically compiled into a PDF from the collection of papers deposited in PhilSci-Archive in conjunction with the PSA 2018