The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions attendees have of Professional Development meetings. In addition, attendees were asked to state their preferences for PD follow-up. Data were analyzed in terms of attendee assignment, and career stage (based on Huberman, 1989). Results indicated that both assignment and career stage were not significantly related to perception. Follow-up preferences were varied, indicating individual needs. This information is important for PD providers, who must be kept accountable to attendees for relevant information.

Racism is not some static conception reflecting merely xenophobic feelings or hierarchical mindsets among individuals (Miles and Brown 2003). The term “racism,” in association with questions of democracy and individual opportunity, has risen into the primary weltanschauung of the American political and social psyches as represented by the September 12, 2019 Democratic Debate, political organizations, and political media. Given this weltanschauung, the purpose of this article is to seek additional knowledge toward coming to understand the perceptions of young adult Black men’s perceptions and political activations when prompted by the phenomenon of racism. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was engaged in the study of the YABMs to gain their reflective meaning-making and to protect against researcher biases. Key findings established that references to matters political involved the participants experiences with their communities, concerns with helping others in that community in a reciprocal manner, and the exclusionary practices found that challenges said community. These characteristics occur simultaneously as a meaning” of “the political” for each of the participants (Miller 1980). Theoretically, the extent to which these characteristics played into their perceptions of the political in-turn affect their decision-making and activations of political perceptions and behaviors. This theoretical conception was carried forward toward gaining knowledge of young adult Black men’s perceptions of political experiences serve as a source of data for this article; specifically, the data referencing matters of race (Crayton 2019).

A major current in recent scholarship has drawn on Machiavelli’s writings to articulate a non-sovereigntist conception of popular power. However, such interpretations have not generally offered a rigorous analysis of conceptions of sovereignty that were available in Machiavelli’s own time. In this paper, I focus on Machiavelli’s discussion of a historical episode which played a central role in classical and humanist discussions of sovereign power: the Decemvirate of 451-450 BC, an extraordinary commission created for the drafting and enactment of Rome’s legal code. Through a close reading of the Discourses on Livy, I argue that Machiavelli’s chapters on the Decemvirate comprise a miniature “treatise” on the perils of “absolute authority.” I also show that Machiavelli’s account of the decemvirs’ election contains a web of allusions to the lex regia, the “royal law” by which the Roman people was thought to have transferred all its imperium and potestas to the emperors. By illustrating the destructive consequences of the decemvirs’ grant of authority, Machiavelli poses a challenge to absolutist juridical theories built on the lex regia; moreover, he illustrates that electoral institutional arrangements can readily give rise to tyrannical power.

Theories are mostly invented and built to address questions relating to “why” things happen the way they do. this paper therefore discusses the nature of theory in qualitative and quantitative research approaches.

This paper emphasizes the consequences of economic inequality, the roots of which lie at the heart of capitalism. It was explained by Marx (1867), and a modern interpretation was offered by Harvey (1982, 1985, 1987, 2013b) through the term spatial fix, which connects the development of capitalism and urbanization. In this global process, inequalities arise that can be illustrated numerically: the net worth of the world’s 358 wealthiest people in 1996 was equal to the total income of the poorest, which makes up 45% of the world’s population or 2.3 billion people. This fact of economic inequality, most convincingly written about by Piketty (2016) and Chancel (2020), became even more critical during the Covid-19 pandemic. The gap between the richest and the poorest widened. The period in which several significant changes in global economic policy took place was called neoliberalism (Harvey, 1989, 2013a; Dušanić, 2016) and led to the establishment of a new economic system that significantly determined the further directions of geography. Understanding these processes implies an interactive approach to their study because the capital/labor relationship defines the global framework for developing urbanization and demography, and thus geography (Mutabdžija, 2020, 2021).

This paper critically examines Australia's Demand-Driven Funding System and its impact on student participation in higher education. It explores the shift from a centrally-controlled allocation of university places to one where universities exercise autonomy and bear financial responsibility. Employing Foucault's governmental technology, the study reveals how universities navigate this new funding model through strategic calculation and risk management. Utilising semi-structured interviews and policy document analysis, it highlights the transformation from a totalising governance approach to an individuating one, where universities use financial data and calculative practices to make informed decisions about university place allocation, ensuring financial sustainability and competitive positioning.

A document by Kentaro Sumi. Click on the document to view its contents.

Through narrative analysis the present research traces the range and genesis of negative emotions that three English as Foreign Language (EFL) researchers experienced in different research sites. The method of narrative analysis helps depict and interpret the lived experiences of the researchers. This study draws on autobiographical and narrative data to illustrate how negative emotions evolve during fieldwork, a research aspect that is absent in the existing literature (Bondi, 2007). Findings suggest that the researchers experience a wide range of negative emotions namely ethical dilemma, anger, anxiety, guilt, and shame. Thus the study carries implications for establishing theoretical concepts and informing policy decisions. The theory level implication is that the researchers’ negative emotions evolve through and within emotionally charged phases such as ethical dilemma, anger, anxiety, guilt, and shame. As regards policy level implication, the study reinforces the appeal of previous research works that the IRB requirements should be made flexible according to specific contexts.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether e-governance measures such as implementing common service centers (CSCs) helped in contributing to the technological knowledge, advancement, and awareness of the rural population especially in the case of rural Kerala. This research uses a qualitative approach for collecting primary data by using questionnaire from respondents belonging to the study. Also, the study uses secondary data from government reports on e-governance, journals, books, websites, and others as main sources to define e-governance and to familiarize in what ways and how the ICT-driven e-governance initiatives are providing services to rural populations. This paper focuses on CSCs and its contribution to technological advancement in rural Kerala.

Although humanity is at the height of technology and the scope of knowledge crosses infinite boundaries, some people are deprived of even the most basic freedoms.Regarding the fact that without freedom, no meaning can imagine for human life, and none of the human talents will find a place to flourish, removing the obstacles to human freedom is vital. The current research aims to introduce the three doctrines of the social contract, resistance, and natural law, which have a libertarian capacity to discredit ideological and intellectual barriers to freedom.

The purposes of the present study were to determine the psychometric properties of the self-regulatory climate questionnaire among an Iranian sample and comparing the self-regulating climate between gifted and public schools.The findings showed that self-regulatory climate questionnaire had proper internal consistency for subscales and total scale. Also, the fitness indices obtained from confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the scale had proper construct validity and all items had an appropriate load factor. Also, our results showed the gifted schools have a higher self-regulation climate. In general, the results of the present study supported the usefulness of the self-regulatory climate questionnaire among the Iranian sample and provided some evidence of the role of characteristics of the gifted schools in the self-regulatory climate.

Existing scholarship ignores relational interdependencies when attempting to understand the behaviour of non-state armed groups during civil war. This paper investigates the in- terconnected web of alliances and rivalries in the Yemen Civil War to answer the following question: why do armed groups fight each other? We employ a network approach to investigate determinants of intergroup violence. This emphasises the role of identity, arguing that operating in salient cleavages necessitates that groups align or distinguish themselves from each other. We further argue that informal cooperation incentivises violence the longer the war continues. These arguments are tested using pooled Exponential Random Graph Models to account for endogenous structures over time. Results indicate that shared identity is a significant driver of hostilities, moderating cooperation and amplifying the effects of group attributes. Robustness checks and simulations demonstrate that network models more accurately capture the underlying mechanisms to predict fighting in this case.

Does constant connectivity have an impact on the development of social skills? If so, how? Child development is defined as the physical, mental, social, and emotional development of an individual throughout the life span (University of Washington Department of Education, n.d.). Individuals whose constant connectivity influences behaviors will be compared and contrasted to the development continuum. Using a combination of past literature, observation (anecdotal evidence), deductive and inductive reasoning, along with verbatim translation of the participants’ words to the interview questions; the authors will explore the impact of digital connectivity on the normative development continuum. Seven individuals were interviewed before data saturation occurred. The participants were recruited via a convenience sample accessed using internet recruitment. In addition to demographic data, interview questions focused on a range of topics including interpersonal relationships, vacation, work, sleep, and entertainment. All of the participants spent more than five hours a day accessing the internet for non-work-related activity. Responses confirmed that constant connectivity was ubiquitous in the participants’ daily lives and influenced their daily activities. Some participants were more affected by their connectivity than others. The participants in this qualitative study would be considered fully developed adults. The influence constant connectivity had on these adults’ daily lives infers that children, with less developed mental faculties, will be affected to an even greater extent.

This paper is a proposal for the nurse to patient ratio policymaking. Aiming to reach policymaker to step for the change in national rules and standardization of the policy on national levels.

How can we nudge people to not engage in unethical behaviors, such as hoarding and violating social distancing, during Covid-19? As past research on antecedents of unethical behavior did not provide a clear answer, we turned to machine learning to generate novel hypotheses. We trained a deep learning model to predict whether or not World Values Survey respondents perceived unethical behaviors as justifiable, based on their responses to 708 other questions. The model identified optimism about the future of humanity as one of the top predictors of unethicality. A pre-registered correlational study (N=218 US-residents) conceptually replicated this finding. A preregistered experiment (N=294 US-residents) provided causal support: participants who read a scenario conveying optimism about the Covid-19 pandemic were less willing to justify hoarding and violating social distancing guidelines. The findings suggest that optimism can help reduce unethicality, and document the utility of machine learning methods for generating novel hypotheses. Accepted for COVID-19 fast-track publication in Psychological Science.

Understanding language is crucial to psychological research, as it is the basis for almost all psychological measurements. Following previous works, we conducted a pre-registered replication study, analyzing 876 unique terms generated by 187 participants in a free response format. These terms were rated on social desirability, observability, importance, abstractness, base rate, and stability by approximately 15 raters each (n = 456). Key findings were replicated, including a bimodal distribution of social desirability, a greater number of negative vs. positive terms, and a u-shaped relationship between importance and social desirability. Using a Large Language Model (LLM) to derive synthetic social desirability estimates, we observed a moderate correlation (r = .65) with human ratings, but did not replicate all predicted effects. LLM-based item property estimates are not yet entirely equivalent to ratings by human participants but hold much promise for future research.

The assessed how banks effectively managed the new capital requirement implementation in 2017-2018 and the effect of the change management mechanism on the performance of the banks. The study administered a structured questionnaire to 302 Branch Managers of 23 banks and interview 13 General Managers of some of the banks. The study used mean and standard deviation to analyze the effectiveness of change management practices during the new capital requirements. Structural Equation Model (SEM) was used to estimate the impact of change management mechanisms on the performance of the banks. The study found that the listed banks effectively applied the change management mechanisms during the new capital requirement implementation. Change management mechanism as a whole has a statistically significant positive impact on the performance of the banks. MAD Statement This article aims to Make a Difference (MAD) by positioning the notion of change management mechanisms at the core of management of regulatory changes in banks in Ghana. This is done by assessing how banks managed the new capital requirement introduced by Bank of Ghana in 2018 and how the change management affect operational and financial performance of the banks. The study may help inform management of banking sector about which change management mechanism significantly contribute to improving the financial and operational performance of banks to effectively inform management of regulatory changes in the future.

Abstract Healthcare rationing during pandemics has been widely discussed in global bioethics literature. However, existing scenarios and analyses have focused on high income countries, except for very few disease areas such as HIV treatment where some analyses related to African countries exist. We argue that the lack of scholastic discourse, and by extension, professional and democratic engagement on the subject constitute an unacceptable ethical omission. Not only have African governments failed to develop robust ethical plans for pandemics, ethicists in this region have been unable to ignite public discourse on rationing. Therefore, we aim to initiate a debate on how rationing health and social goods could be done ethically in Ghana during the current and future pandemics. The paper discusses and critiques some moral considerations (utilitarian, equity, equal worth, urgent need, and the prioritarian principles) for rationing and their relevance in the Ghanaian context. This contribution may facilitate ethical decision-making during COVID-19 in Ghana and other African settings where hardly any rationing guidelines exist