Academic literature on the topic 'Thematic analyses of key concerns'
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Journal articles on the topic "Thematic analyses of key concerns"
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Poortinga, Ype H. "Cultural Bias in Assessment: Historical and Thematic Issues." European Journal of Psychological Assessment 11, no. 3 (1995): 140–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.11.3.140.
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In this introductory article the development of ideas on cultural bias in tests since the sixties is briefly reviewed and three approaches are mentioned. A distinction is made between the tradition of culture fair use of tests that is directed more towards selection in a multicultural society and the tradition of cross-cultural comparison that is concerned more with theoretical questions about cultural differences in behavior. The concerns of the former tradition have formed the main impetus for the development of psychometric analysis techniques. It is argued that some key problems of bias cannot be solved by further sophistication of statistical procedures, suggesting that a broadening of perspective in the field of bias analysis is desirable. Directions in which this can be achieved are indicated.
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Labarrete, Rufo A. "A Thematic Analyses of the Researches Conducted in the Alternative Learning System (ALS) Across Programs." European Journal of Education and Pedagogy 2, no. 3 (2021): 46–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ejedu.2021.2.3.46.
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Researches in the ALS vary in scope and themes. This academic undertaking examines published researches in ALS to determine common themes and identify implications on the implementations of its various programs. Thematic analysis is utilized in identifying the patterns of such researches as they were coded based on key words. Findings reveal that studies involving the ALS were focused on programs impact to the learners, development of instructional resources, and on concerns pertinent to teaching and learning. Thus, it can be concluded that there is enough empirical-based data that may serve as bases by the policy makers in the ALS to further improve the implementation of its various programs in the field and set direction on research engagement in this learning system.
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Isaac, Sami, Andrew McLachlan, and Betty Chaar. "Australian pharmacists’ perspectives on physician-assisted suicide (PAS): thematic analysis of semistructured interviews." BMJ Open 9, no. 10 (2019): e028868. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028868.
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ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate Australian pharmacists’ views about their role in physician-assisted suicide (PAS), their ethical and legal concerns and overall thoughts about PAS in pharmacy.DesignSemistructured interviews of pharmacists incorporating a previously validated vignette and thematic analysis.SettingAustralia (face to face or phone call).Participants40 Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency registered pharmacists, majority women (65%) with varied experiences in community, hospital, industry, academia, government and other fields.ResultsEmergent themes from the interviews were:legal and logistical framework,ethical framework,training and guidanceandhealthcare budget. More than half the participants supported the role of pharmacists in the supply of medicines for PAS, while less than half were either against or unsure of the legislation of PAS in Australia. Shared concerns included transparency of prescribing practices and identification of authorised physicians involved in PAS, which were consistent with existing literature. Religious faith, emotion and professional autonomy were key indicators for the implementation of conscientious objection to the supply of medicines in PAS. Re-evaluation of current guidelines, pharmacist training and government reimbursement was also of significance from participants’ perspectives.ConclusionThis study revealed current concerns of practising pharmacists in Australia, including previously undocumented perspectives on the pharmacoeconomic impact of and barriers relating to PAS. The need for training of all healthcare professionals involved, the provision of clear guidelines, including regulation around storage, administration and disposal of medicines dispensed for PAS and the updating of current therapeutic guidelines around end-of-life care were all issues delineated by this study. These findings highlighted the need for current and future policies to account for all stakeholders involved in PAS, not solely prescribers.
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Volkov, Andriy, and Oleg Popik. "Comprehensive analysis of advantages and disadvantages of estimation methods of land conservation (using GIS)." Visnyk of the Lviv University. Series Geography, no. 47 (November 27, 2014): 42–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.30970/vgg.2014.47.815.
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The research includes generalization and compilation of the information which concerns spatial distribution of Ukraine conservation areas. The vital problems concerned to ineffective usage of conservation areas were discussed. The existing criteria and indexes which are used for assessing of natural conservation areas were discussed. The main advantages and disadvantages of the indexes were analyzed. The database and the thematic maps of conservation areas spatial distribution were designed utilizing geoinformational application MapInfo. Ukraine’s regions were compared by different conservation area indexes. Comprehended approach to estimation of conservation areas was implemented based on cluster analysis. Complex zoning of Ukraine based on spatial distribution of conservation areas was offered. Key words: conservation area indexes, geographic informational systems, cluster analysis.
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Vanclooster, Stephanie, Johan Bilsen, Lieve Peremans, et al. "Attending school after treatment for a brain tumor: Experiences of children and key figures." Journal of Health Psychology 24, no. 10 (2017): 1436–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359105317733534.
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Reintegration into school is a milestone for childhood brain tumor survivors, as well as for their parents, teachers, and healthcare providers. We explored their experiences following the school re-entry by conducting semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis resulted in four main themes: “school performance,” “psychosocial well-being,” “support and approach,” and “communication and collaboration.” Children were pleased to return to school despite confrontation with adverse outcomes. Parents, teachers, and healthcare providers identified current and future concerns and challenges, as well as opportunities for academic and personal development. Their experiences highlight the importance of coordinated and systematic follow-up in close collaboration with healthcare providers.
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White, Antoinette D., and Marilyn Fleer. "Early childhood educators’ perceptions of the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF): Engaged professional learners." Australasian Journal of Early Childhood 44, no. 2 (2019): 124–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1836939119832083.
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Educational change is dependent on the practices and perceptions of educators. Yet efforts to sustain teacher’s adoption and implementation of reform packages often deteriorate over time. Monitoring educators’ engagement across the reform process, and making adaptions to reflect key findings, is central to successful implementation. This cultural–historical study explored trends in early childhood educators’ perceptions of an Australian nation-wide educational reform, making recommendations based on the findings. Results from the Baseline Evaluations of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) represented the initiation phase, whilst an online questionnaire explored educators’ attitudes and concerns four years on. Data analysis included a thematic and content analysis where the dialects of everyday concepts and scientific concepts helped give meaning to the clusters found. Whilst findings show an overall positive orientation towards the EYLF, concerns are evident at both moments in time. Although this initially suggests educators have not progressed in their implementation of the framework, a theorisation of the results suggests educators are seeking effective means of transforming professional concepts of the EYLF into practice.
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Piotrowski, Igor. "Warszawska piosenka z adresem (około 1930 r.). Książka adresowa i plan miasta." Kultura Popularna 3, no. 53 (2018): 21–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0010.8263.
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The article concerns the analysis of a special kind of the twentieth-century song described by ZbigniewAdrjański as a "Warsaw song with an address", its genesis and genre links. A key point is the reference to the city from the songs to the knowledge gathered in the Warsaw address books and city plans, the aim was to sketch a few thematic maps of the capital, which emerged from the analysis.
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Muzzetto, Luigi. "Introduction to the problem of relevance." SOCIOLOGIA E RICERCA SOCIALE, no. 124 (May 2021): 5–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3280/sr2021-124001.
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The author's aim is to provide some key introductory points to the reading of the topic of relevance. First, it should be stressed that the system of relevance provides access to all the «places» of Schutz's analyses, from the world of life to the theory of action, whether they concern the methodological, theoretical or «applied theory» dimensions. Moreover, the system of relevance can be understood as the pivot on which the entire Schutz's interpretative paradigm rotates. The system of relevance contains, at various degrees of articulation, the mechanism of the construction-interpretation of experience based on the principle of the «selective character of the spirit». Although the system (and the process that concerns it) is always understood as unitary, it is distinguished, for heuristic reasons, in three sub-systems: thematic, interpretative, motivational. Each of these, in turn, is articulated dichotomously into imposed versus intrinsic or «voluntary» relevance. The system thus manages to fathom deeply the different traits of the constitutive of experience.
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Vigurs, Carol, Chris Maidment, Michael Fell, and David Shipworth. "Customer Privacy Concerns as a Barrier to Sharing Data about Energy Use in Smart Local Energy Systems: A Rapid Realist Review." Energies 14, no. 5 (2021): 1285. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en14051285.
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The purpose of this review is to investigate the nature of privacy concerns in the context of smart local energy systems (SLES) to understand how SLES providers can minimize both user concerns, and cause for concern, around privacy. We conducted a rapid realist review and thematic framework analysis against Bronfenbrenner’s socio–ecological model to understand privacy concerns in different contexts. A common privacy concern was that sharing detailed energy use data had the potential to reveal information about home life, and to intrude upon people’s sense of autonomy, choice, and control. Evidence suggests that people are willing to accept new data sharing technologies if the benefits of doing so are clear, anticipated, and mutually beneficial. Building trust, through increasing knowledge and understanding, was a mechanism for overcoming privacy concerns, but this was mediated by the organization providing the information. Non-profit organizations were more trusted to ensure appropriate safeguards to privacy were in place. One key barrier to participation with good supporting evidence was that people could resist perceived intrusions on their privacy. This could be actively resisted by refusing to install data collection technologies or passively by non-participation in adapting energy use behaviours: both of which are necessary for SLES to achieve their goals of managing energy demand and building resilience in smart grids.
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Yelamos, Gerard Masdeu, Sarah Carney, Catherine Carty, and Malcom MacLachlan. "A Thematic Analysis of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (crc) State Party Reporting Mechanisms Related To Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport." International Journal of Children’s Rights 29, no. 3 (2021): 765–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718182-29030011.
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Abstract The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (crc) is the most ratified human rights treaty. In this article, three intimately connected concepts will be explored in relation to the framework of the State Party reporting mechanism related to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: physical education, physical activity and sport (pepas). A documentary analysis of three key document types from the Treaty Body reporting mechanisms was undertaken, including State Parties Reports (n = 104), List of Issues (n = 126) and Concerns/Observations and Recommendations (n = 797). There was a very low prevalence of the concepts of physical education, physical activity and, to a greater extent, sport, in these three reports. Seven themes emerged after the qualitative analysis: sport programmes, school-based sport, legislation and policies, key agents, interdisciplinary approach, enablers of sport and miscellaneous. Increased questioning of States with regards to their implementation of the right to sport, the issuance of pepas-based recommendations and guidance on how to achieve these rights from the Treaty Bodies would assist in solidifying understanding of sport as a human right and increase the impetus on States to act for pepas provision.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Thematic analyses of key concerns"
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Dorros, Sybilla M. "A Content Analysis of the Counseling Sessions of Dyads with Breast and Prostate Cancer: Linguistic Predictors of Psychosocial Adjustment and Thematic Analysis of Key Concerns." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195682.
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The purpose of this investigation was to explore how participants' language use during counseling (overall emotional expression, positive emotional expression, and communal coping, or "we-talk") was associated with superior adjustment, as measured by four psychosocial outcome variables (depression, positive affect, negative affect, and relationship satisfaction); as well as to identify the key concerns of dyads with cancer, how concerns differed by role and sex, and if they were associated with participants' well-being. The present study was a content analysis of the counseling sessions of 43 dyads (N = 86) with breast and prostate cancer. Using a multi-method approach, the audio recordings of 228 counseling sessions were transcribed and analyzed linguistically (quantitatively) and thematically (qualitatively).Results of the linguistic analyses revealed that participant's use of "we-talk" had the most consistent and beneficial effect on outcomes; specifically improved depression, negative affect, and relationship satisfaction. These findings suggest that it might not be as important how much a person expresses themselves emotionally, but rather, whether they have a close relational partner that they see as an instrumental part of their coping process and significantly intertwined in their life, which is reflected in their language use of communal coping.Results of the thematic analyses revealed that survivors' concerns were more focused on cancer and treatment related issues, whereas partners' concerns centered on the well-being of their spouse/partner with cancer, and what they were doing to help their loved one cope with his/her illness. The overarching key concern that was intertwined in participants' discourse was frequent discussion of relationship maintenance, negotiation, and communication issues. In addition, discussion of these concerns showed greatest benefits for women with breast cancer.The findings of this study has implications for counselors and clinicians in that language use and topics discussed during counseling have the potential to increase psychosocial adjustment for dyads coping with cancer. The general discourse of survivors mirrored that of their partners, which indicates that helping to modify or change how one person speaks, has the potential to influence how their partner talks as well; which has implications for the well-being of both dyad members.
Books on the topic "Thematic analyses of key concerns"
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Harford Vargas, Jennifer. Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190642853.003.0001.
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This introduction lays out the book’s key terms and methodologies. First it asserts that there is a subgenre of Latina/o fiction that depicts the aftermath of Latin American authoritarian regimes alongside authoritarian structures and discourses of power that minorities and migrants face in the United States and that these novels dramatize these linkages at the levels of both content and form. It then outlines how these novels broaden the thematic concerns, character types, and stylistic features of this subgenre through their development of a Latina/o counter-dictatorial imaginary and deployment of narrative form to critically represent forms of dictatorial power. Furthermore, it positions these novels as postdictatorship and postmemory novels to mark their geographic, historical, generational, thematic, and conceptual distance and difference from Latin American political regimes and novels. It ends by laying out the conceptual utility of its pan-ethnic and transnational Latina/o literary analyses. It thus demonstrates how genre provides a means to understanding shared formal strategies and political concerns across Latina/o groups, at the same time demonstrating how to unpack hemispheric relations through the aesthetic forms and transnational subjectivities that constitute the imaginative horizon of the Latina/o dictatorship novel.
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Vivian, Bradford. Conclusion. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190611088.003.0007.
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The Conclusion reiterates the main conceit of the book: that witnessing is rhetorically commonplace in modern public culture in a twofold sense—culturally commonplace and rhetorically commonplace. It also defends the basic methodology and key concepts deployed throughout the analysis, including the emphasis on principles of rhetorical invention, salient dimensions of modern and late modern public culture, and a capacious understanding of witnessing maintained in each chapter. In doing so, the Conclusion reviews the fundamental thematic connections among all the chapters. It closes by considering the degree to which commonplace witnessing helps to facilitate an emergent form of social, political, or moral community.
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Martin-Fiorino, Víctor, Carlos Arturo Ospina Hernández, María Victoria Cadavid-Claussen, et al. Persona y felicidad: aportes desde la educación, la filosofía, la historia, la ética, la política, el derecho y la bioética. Edited by Dalia Jaqueline Santa Cruz-Vera. Editorial Universidad Católica de Colombia, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.14718/9789585133679.2021.
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The book includes a collection of articles resulting from research carried out by teachers of the Department of Humanities and whose thematic center is the relationship between people and happiness. Each chapter provides answers from a specific disciplinary field, through a qualitative methodology, the anthropological and ethical problem of achievement of happiness or personal human fulfillment. From education and ethics, the transition from some informative humanities to other performative ones is proposed, which integrate moral formation and values that advocate empathy and solidarity as a human path to happiness. From the anthropological keys of Leonardo Polo, the person can give meaning to their presence in the world, beyond the satisfaction of happiness itself, since human beings has a personal sense capable of manifesting themselves in the hopeful task. Likewise, from the personalistic anthropology, happiness is studied as a life project, moving from the conflict towards spirituality and proposing chose political educational transformations. In the field of historical sciences, the use of the concepts of person and happiness in the Magisterium of John xxiii underlines the perspectives suggested by the Pope and collected by successive pontiffs. From the law, the relationship is analyzed between justice and happiness, applied to the so-called “right to die with dignity”; and from the bioethics, reflections on procreation and happiness are raised based on the current debate on surrogacy.
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Church, David. Post-Horror. Edinburgh University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474475884.001.0001.
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Horror’s longstanding reputation as a popular but culturally denigrated genre has been challenged by a new wave of films mixing arthouse minimalism with established genre conventions. Variously dubbed “elevated horror” and “post-horror” in popular film criticism, texts such as The Babadook, It Follows, The Witch, It Comes at Night, Get Out, The Invitation, Hereditary, Midsommar, A Ghost Story, and mother! represent an emerging nexus of taste, politics, and style that has often earned outsized acclaim from high-minded critics and populist rejection by wider audiences. Post-Horror is the first full-length study of one of the most important and divisive movements in twenty-first-century horror cinema. It argues that the affect produced by these films’ minimalist aesthetic has fueled taste-based disagreements between professional film critics, genre fans, and more casual viewers about whether the horror genre can or should be upheld as more than a populist entertainment form, especially as the genre turned away from the post-9/11 debates about graphic violence that consumed the first decade of the twenty-first century. The book thus explores the aesthetic qualities, historical precursors, affective resonances, and thematic concerns of this emerging cycle by situating these texts within revived debates between over the genre’s larger artistic, cultural, and entertainment value. Chapters include thematic analyses of trauma, gaslighting, landscape, existential dread, and political identity across a range of films straddling the line between art-horror and multiplex fare since approximately 2013.
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Durch, William, Joris Larik, and Richard Ponzio. Just Security in an Undergoverned World. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198805373.003.0001.
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This chapter offers the context for the book, introducing its overarching theme of the need to address security and justice concerns simultaneously and with equivalent weight and urgency when facing the major threats, challenges, and opportunities for global governance in the present era. It looks at the history of international organizations in the last century and at the role of the United Nations, and summarizes the book’s chief research questions and arguments and how they also informed the choice of the book’s three main thematic baskets (violent conflict and state fragility, climate governance, and managing the hyperconnected global economy). It concludes by highlighting key points from the remaining chapters.
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Karol, David. Political Parties in American Political Development. Edited by Richard Valelly, Suzanne Mettler, and Robert Lieberman. Oxford University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199697915.013.33.
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This article examines the role of political parties in America’s political development, with emphasis on parties as institutions. It considers three developments in American politics: the emergence of mass parties that flourished during the so-called Party Period in the mid-nineteenth century; the decline and increasing regulation of traditional parties since the Progressive Era; and the revival of parties in a new form since the 1970s. It also analyses how parties have influenced—and have been influenced by—major institutions such as Congress, the Presidency, the national bureaucracy, and interest groups. The article concludes by discussing two key concerns of scholars of American political development: development and exceptionalism.
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Oldfield, Paul. Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198717737.003.0001.
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The introduction establishes the importance of works of urban panegyric as sources for understanding urban transformation in the period 1100 to 1300. It details how the study categorizes and identifies works of panegyric, demonstrating that praise of cities appears in many and diverse textual forms and does not conform to a formulaic template. The introduction also provides an overview of the scholarship on urban panegyric and establishes some of the study’s key criteria (definitions of a city, geographical and chronological coverage). It also provides a contextual overview of the sociopolitical development of the medieval city in the Central Middle Ages as initial background for the thematic analyses that will follow in subsequent chapters. Finally, it provides an overview plan of the arrangement of the book and the content of its chapters.
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Lai, Karen. Financialization of Everyday Life. Edited by Gordon L. Clark, Maryann P. Feldman, Meric S. Gertler, and Dariusz Wójcik. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198755609.013.29.
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This chapter identifies three key research themes for investigating the financialization of everyday life, whereby individual subjectivity, aspiration, and forms of conduct at the level of individuals and households are increasingly tied to financial structures and logics. The first theme analyses how new intermediaries of finance have increased the influence and pervasiveness of financial instruments and solutions in everyday life. The second examines the discourse of risk taking and self-management that has shaped the formation of financial subjects. The third concerns the role of the state in financialization and considers whether it is a distant or reactionary agent in ‘context’ or a strategic actor who mobilizes financialization scripts for political–economic purposes. A research agenda is put forward that highlights the household as a key site from which to explore the constructions and practices of financialization and proposes specific areas for future research.
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Yoshino, Naoyuki, Pornpinun Chantapacdepong, and Matthias Helble, eds. Macroeconomic Shocks and Unconventional Monetary Policy. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198838104.001.0001.
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Barely two decades after the Asian financial crisis Asia was suddenly confronted with multiple challenges originating outside the region: the 2008 global financial crisis, the European debt crisis, and, finally developed economies’ implementation of unconventional monetary policies. Especially the implementation of quantitative easing (QE), ultra-low interest rate policies, and negative interest rate policies by a number of large central banks has given rise to concerns over financial stability and international capital flows. One of the regions most profoundly affected by the crisis was Asia due to its high dependence on international trade and international financial linkages. The objective of this book is to explain how macroeconomic shocks stemming from the global financial crisis and recent unconventional monetary policies in developed economies have affected macroeconomic and financial stability in emerging markets, with a particular focus on Asia. In particular, the book covers the following thematic areas: (i) the spillover effects of macroeconomic shocks on financial markets and flows in emerging economies; (ii) the impact of recent macroeconomic shocks on real economies in emerging markets; and (iii) key challenges for the monetary, exchange rate, trade, and macroprudential policies of developing economies, especially Asian economies, and suggestions and recommendations to increase resiliency against external shocks.
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Shandler, Jeffrey. Yiddish. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190651961.001.0001.
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This book provides an introduction to Yiddish, the foundational vernacular of Ashkenazi Jews, both as a subject of interest in its own right and for the distinctive issues that Yiddish raises for the study of languages generally, including language diaspora, language fusion, multilingualism, language ideologies, and postvernacularity. By approaching the study of Yiddish through the rubric of a biography, rather than following a more conventional chronological, geographical, or ideological approach, this book examines the story of Yiddish thematically. Each chapter addresses a different “biographical” topic concerning the character of the language and how it has been conceptualized, ranging across time, space, and speech communities. These chapters interrelate discussions of the language’s origins, characteristics, and development with the dynamics of its implementation in Ashkenazi culture from the Middle Ages to the present. These thematic chapters also examine the symbolic investments that Jews and others have made in Yiddish over time, which are key to understanding both general perceptions and scholarly analyses of the language, especially in the modern period.
Book chapters on the topic "Thematic analyses of key concerns"
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Graumann, Thomas. "Introduction." In The Acts of the Early Church Councils. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198868170.003.0001.
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The Introduction outlines the key aims of the study, discusses relevant scholarship, and develops the methodology to be employed. In scholarship, council acts have often been used simply as source material for thematic studies, or their examination has been determined principally by editorial concerns. By contrast, the present study analyses the importance of council records as fundamental expression of the councils’ purposes and claims to legitimacy. It brings into scholarly focus the regularly neglected work of administrators and textual practitioners in ancient church councils responsible for the creation of such records, and relates their efforts to practices and concerns in the sphere of civil and legal administration. Council acts need to be understood as the products of distinct practices, in view of their underlying intentions and objectives, and with respect to the material reality of the documents created and handled. Discussions and examinations of conciliar documents, and instructions for their making in the councils themselves, provide the starting points for this investigation.
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Morin, Jean-Frédéric, Christian Olsson, and Ece Özlem Atikcan. "Thematic Analysis." In Research Methods in the Social Sciences: An A-Z of key concepts. Oxford University Press, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/hepl/9780198850298.003.0066.
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This chapter evaluates thematic analysis (TA), which is one of the oldest and most widely used qualitative analytic method across the social sciences. TA is a flexible method for identifying and analysing patterns of meaning — ‘themes’ — in qualitative data, with wide-ranging applications. The method has a long, if indeterminate, history in the social sciences, but seems likely to have evolved from early forms of (qualitative) content analysis. TA is now more likely to be demarcated and acknowledged as a distinct method; however, confusion remains about what TA is. The popularity of TA as a distinct method received a considerable boost from the publication of Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology by social psychologists Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke in 2006, which has become one of the most cited academic papers of recent decades.
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Helyer, Laura. "Patterns of Time and the Maternal in the Short Stories of Elizabeth Bishop and Katherine Mansfield." In Reading Elizabeth Bishop. Edinburgh University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421331.003.0016.
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This chapter discusses aspects of rhythm, poetic form, time and the archival in Bishop’s prose and is organised around a discussion of the ethics of the mother-daughter relationship in the autobiographical story, ‘In the Village.’ Bishop’s short stories are analysed in terms of poetic prose and as prose poems. This resonates with Katherine Mansfield’s lyrical, impressionistic experiments in the short story and her ideas about form and formlessness in narrative. Bishop’s interest in representations of time, memory and a modernist aesthetic in narrative prose are persuasively articulated in her key critical essays (‘Time’s Andromedas’, ‘Dimensions for a Novel’). The chapter ultimately proposes that Mansfield can be understood as a significant influence on Bishop’s prose style, helping her to determine her own original fictional ‘voice’ as well as her structural and thematic concerns in prose.
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Mendes, Kaitlynn, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller. "Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Studying Digital Feminist Activism." In Digital Feminist Activism. Oxford University Press, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190697846.003.0002.
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In this chapter, we outline our conceptual framework, addressing key theories that underpin our analysis, including, affect and related concepts, including affective solidarity, networked affect, and affective publics. We also introduce key terms from critical technology studies, including platform vernacular and other concepts relevant to the political economy of social media. After providing further information on the six case studies described in the Introduction, including their reason for selection and methods used, the chapter details our unique methodological approach, which draws insights from a range of interdisciplinary tools, including feminist ethnographic methods, thematic textual analysis, semi-structured interviews, surveys, and online observations.
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Castrucci, Emanuele. "On the Origins of Conventionalist Political Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century." In On the Idea of Potency. Edinburgh University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411844.003.0007.
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At the basis of any consideration about the modern state of experience lie concepts of great theoretical and practical import, such as the dialectic between private and public, ‘internal’ and ‘external’, essence and appearance, which only a historiographic-philosophical investigation into the origins of the new conventionalistic concept of political order allows us to clarify. I will endeavour, therefore, in the following notes, to focus on the theoretical elements that the new political anthropology injected into the circuitry of sixteenth-century Europe, thanks especially to key thinkers such as Montaigne and Charron, convinced as I am of their thematic relevance in the context of a closer analysis of that phenomenon of primary importance now called, to use Benjamin’s term, the ‘crisis experience’....
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Grove, David R., Gilbert J. Greene, and Mo Yee Lee. "Evidence-Based Trauma Treatments." In Family Therapy for Treating Trauma. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190059408.003.0002.
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A review of the major evidence based, manualized trauma treatments, including eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, and exposure therapy is offered. Common treatment characteristics are identified and listed. Meta-analyses of their comparative effectiveness and overall efficacy are provided. Serious concerns related to real world treatment dropout rates reported by several meta-analyses are identified. Lack of flexibility by all of the approaches is identified as a key driver producing dropouts.
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Mratschek, Sigrid. "The Letter Collection of Sidonius Apollinaris." In Late Antique Letter Collections. University of California Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520281448.003.0021.
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Sidonius is a highly allusive author. The design for his collection of 147 letters explicitly recalls the earlier models of Pliny the Younger and Symmachus, yet Sidonius’s letters are more creative than has been recognized. His letters are less concerned with retelling events than with recalling thematic motifs of the inspiring reign of the emperor Trajan. His evocation of literary role models prompts his audience to engage in discourse with past voices that are made relevant in the present. However, the collection’s fundamental ordering principle is not chronological but aesthetic. It shows the writer using prose letters to present himself in the competing roles of lyric poet and dignified bishop. Literary-epistolographical analysis of Sidonius’ art and coded communication then provide the key to understanding both the collection of letters and the construction of Sidonius’s ‘self’ within them.
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Hogan, Patrick Colm. "Literary Style." In Style in Narrative. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197539576.003.0002.
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Style has often been understood both too broadly and too narrowly. In consequence, it has not defined a psychologically coherent area of study. In this chapter, Hogan first defines style so as to make possible a consistent and systematic theoretical account of the topic in relation to cognitive and affective science. This definition stresses that style varies by both scope and level—thus, the range of text or texts that may share a style (from a single passage to a historical period) and the components of a work that might involve a shared style (including story, narration, and verbalization). This chapter also addresses a second question—what purposes are served by style? There are three key functions of style: 1) the shaping of story understanding, 2) the communication of thematic concerns (i.e., concerns that extend beyond the work to values in the world), and 3) the arousal and modulation of emotion. Hogan illustrates the main points of this chapter by reference to literary works, prominently Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.
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Rogers, Jeffrey C., and Julie A. Winkler. "Climate." In Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Oxford University Press, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198233923.003.0012.
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Public awareness of climate and its societal impact has substantially increased in the recent decade. An extraordinarily persistent El Niño from 1992–5 followed by another strong event in 1997–8 have been particularly newsworthy. Severe storms, both on the mesoscale and synoptic scale, and extreme events such as cold waves, heat waves, flooding, and regional droughts regularly continue to draw attention. Concern about anthropogenic climate warming has engendered considerable public debate over its detection, potential impacts, and public policy issues. In keeping with the importance of climatic issues, American geographer-climatologists are contributing extensively to the climate research literature and the understanding of both the physical aspects and impacts of the climate system. We have elected to use this forum to demonstrate the remarkable breadth of climatic research interests among American geographers during the past decade, rather than to focus on a few key contributions. A thematic approach is used to organize the large body of literature. This approach eschews the more traditional definitions of the subfields of climatology (e.g. physical, dynamic, synoptic, and applied climatology), which we felt did not accurately reflect the integrative and innovative nature of much of the current research by geographer-climatologists. We found that a large portion of the recent contributions of geographer-climatologists can be organized around the thematic areas of atmospheric circulation, surface–atmosphere interactions, hydro-climatology, and climatic change. In addition, we identified a substantial research effort focused on the evaluation of climatological observations and the development of analytical techniques appropriate for climatological research. A small number of papers by geographer-climatologists whose explicit intention was the formulation of policy for the private and public sectors was also identified. Atmospheric circulation has been a major research focus in the last decade. Geographer-climatologists have been concerned with the frequency, spatial and temporal variability, and physical causes of extratropical and tropical circulation systems. Climatological analysis of atmospheric circulation has traditionally fallen within the subfields of dynamic and synoptic climatology. Dynamic climatology encompasses the largest scales of atmospheric circulation with emphases on theoretical and modeling approaches to climate analysis (Rayner et al. 1991). Synoptic climatology incorporates more regional scales, often with application of circulation and synoptic weather types to explain local climate variability (Harman and Winkler 1991; Yarnal 1993).
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Rivera, David Maldonado. "The Letter Collection of Synesius of Cyrene." In Late Antique Letter Collections. University of California Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520281448.003.0015.
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With its 156 letters Synesius’s collection is modest in size when compared with other late antique collections, and there is no doubt that the extant letters are only a fraction of the letters that Synesius wrote in the course of his lifetime. As usual, the letters are not ordered chronologically, but key proposographical dossiers are easily identified. Among the forty recipients addressed in the collection, pride of place goes to Synesius’s brother Evoptius, who received a total of forty-one. An anonymous compiler – perhaps his brother Evoptius or another figure close to Synesius – seems to have organized and published Synesius’s letters along with his other works during the second half of the fifth century or early in the sixth century. The traditional stance on Synesius’s epistolary collection characterizes it as a chaotic assemblage, but the existence of thematic currents such as legal concerns, the responsibilities of the nobility, and epistolary style) can be traced.
Conference papers on the topic "Thematic analyses of key concerns"
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Salzano, Rachel, Hazel Hall, and Gemma Webster. "The relationship between culture and public library use: non-Western students in Scotland." In ISIC: the Information Behaviour Conference. University of Borås, Borås, Sweden, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.47989/irisic2035.
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Introduction: Individuals’ cultural backgrounds influence their use of societal resources, including those offered in public libraries. Well-established in library research are explorations of the benefits of public library use to new-comer communities, including migrant workers, immigrants, forced migrants, and international students. However, to date no research has been completed on why these communities use particular resources. Methods: The project outlined in this poster concerns international students from non-Western countries in Scotland. Using a mixed methods approach, the study presented will explore why international students from non-Western countries use specific public library resources, and the cultural factors that influence this use. Analyses: Findings will derive from thematic analysis of participant responses in interview and questionnaire data. Conclusion: An understanding of the perceived value of certain resources can assist in the effective tailoring of resources to serve new community members.
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Surma-aho, Antti, Claudia Chen, Katja Hölttä-Otto, and Maria Yang. "Antecedents and Outcomes of Designer Empathy: A Retrospective Interview Study." In ASME 2019 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/detc2019-97483.
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Abstract A growing body of research suggests that to uncover key needs and create successful designs, designers must holistically and empathically understand end-users. However, despite the existence of empathy frameworks and guides in design, little empirical work has investigated what influences and results from empathy, i.e. its antecedents and outcomes, at the project level. Further, the distinct roles of affective and cognitive empathic processes are rarely recognized in design, even though they are commonly addressed in psychology research. To begin filling these research gaps, this paper presents a thematic analysis of 10 semi-structured interviews with product and service designers. The designers described a variety of techniques and situations that had enabled them to cognitively understand their users’ perspectives and that had caused affective reactions, ranging from consciously searching for analogous experiences in the designer’s own life to feeling concern for users after observing difficulties in their everyday lives. While cognitive empathy and the resulting accuracy of user understanding was perceived to motivate design changes and thus the creation of more beneficial designs, affective empathy was connected to increased acknowledgement of user problems and motivation to help users. The results describe empathy in a design context and highlight differences between distinct components of empathy.
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Teslya, Svetlana. "Fundamental approach to building a holistic concept of security psychology at Sochi state university." In Safety psychology and psychological safety: problems of interaction between theorists and practitioners. Materials of the X All-Russian Scientific Conference. «Publishing company «World of science», LLC, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.15862/53mnnpk20-01.
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Relevance of the problem: the need to develop a new field of knowledge-security psychology, which could rely on the basic philosophical and psychological concept of security, methodologically, theoretically and practically able to provide a new field of knowledge integrative character. The purpose of the research: development of security psychology as a direction of fundamental socio-philosophical and psychological research. Hypothesis: it is possible to substantiate the psychological status of the concepts of "danger" and "security", which will give grounds to talk about their interdependence and as an experience-living; the "subjectivity model", "psychological model of subjectivity of a social subject", and "psychological model of security", which have never appeared before, can be introduced into the scientific plan of consideration, and set as the Central theme for the entire basic concept of security. Discussion of the results is divided into three blocks: (1) Deepening the methodological foundations of security psychology as a direction of socio-psychological research: approaches, principles, methods; (2) Formation of the conceptual framework of security psychology as a new field of knowledge; (3) Major problems that have been put forward and justified throughout the research. Conclusions: based on axiological, cultur-antropological, contextual, subjective, and synergetic approaches, a theoretical scheme of security psychology and its basic concept is constructed; seventeen key concepts were developed, with the help of which a thematic correction was made concerning the security issues and the formalization of security psychology; the diagnostic tools are developed that allow to conclude about the state of psychological security model of the social subject; a method of self-diagnosis of the ratio of their resources with the resources of significant others has been developed; a frame analysis of local variable functions of 4 subjectivity codes is presented; a model for diagnosing the content of the psychological model of subjectivity at the stage of acquiring a specific professional identity is presented; a resource concept of security and its empirical application to the problem of professional burnout is developed.
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Carolan, Michael, Michelle Muhlanger, Benjamin Perlman, and David Tyrell. "Occupied Volume Integrity Testing: Elastic Test Results and Analyses." In ASME 2011 Rail Transportation Division Fall Technical Conference. ASMEDC, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/rtdf2011-67010.
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The Office of Research and Development of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the Volpe Center have been conducting research into developing an alternative method of demonstrating the occupied volume integrity (OVI) of passenger rail equipment through a combination of testing and analysis. This research has been performed as a part of FRA Office of Research and Development’s Railroad Safety Research and Development program, which provides technical data to support safety rulemaking and enforcement programs of the FRA Office of Railroad Safety. Previous works have been published on a series of full-scale, quasi-static tests intended to examine the load path through the occupant volume of conventional passenger cars retrofitted with crash energy management (CEM) systems. This paper reports on the most recent testing and analysis results. Before performing any tests of proposed alternative loading techniques, an elastic test of the passenger car under study was conducted. The elastic test served both to aid in validating the finite element (FE) model and to verify the suitability of the test car to further loading. In January, 2011, an 800,000 pound conventional buff strength test was performed on Budd Pioneer 244. This test featured arrays of vertical, lateral, and longitudinal displacement transducers to better distinguish between the deformation modes and rigid body motions of the passenger car. Pre-test car repairs included straightening a dent in one side sill and installing patches over cracks found in the side sills. Additionally, lateral restraints were added to the test frame due to concerns in previous tests associated with lateral shift in the frame. As a part of this testing program, a future test of a passenger car is planned to examine an alternative load path through the occupied volume. In the case of Pioneer 244, this load path places load on the floor and roof energy absorber support structures. Loading the occupant volume in this manner more closely simulates the loading the car would experience during a collision. FE analysis was used in conjunction with full-scale testing in this research effort. An FE model of the Pioneer car was constructed and the 800-kip test was analyzed. The 800-kip test results were then compared to the analysis results and the model was adjusted post-test so that satisfactory agreement was reached between the test and the model. In particular, the boundary conditions at the loading and reaction locations required careful attention to appropriately simulate the support conditions in the test. Because the 800-kip load was applied at the line of draft, this test results in significant bending as well as axial load on the car. To ensure that both the axial and bending behaviors are captured in the model, the key results that were compared between test and model are the longitudinal force-displacement behavior and the vertical deflections at various points along the car. The post-test model exhibited good agreement with the compared test results. The validated model will be used to examine the behavior of the occupant volume when loaded along the alternative load path.
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Rydlewicz, Maciej, and Wojciech Rydlewicz. "Experiences in Developing a Practical Algorithm of Identification and Attenuation of Pressure Pulsation and Piping Vibration in Gas Reciprocating Compressor Plants and Other Systems." In ASME 2018 Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/pvp2018-84565.
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This paper presents results of research on practical engineering solutions to suppress pressure pulsation and mechanical vibrations in piping systems. It concerns both new build and retrofitted plants. Analyses were performed according to ASME B31, EN-13480 and API 618 codes. Solutions were considered for natural gas reciprocating compressor stations (gaseous media) and liquid hydrocarbons plant with various pumps. Pressure pulsation in a piping system is a source of dynamic forces. Unbalanced pressure layout in the piping system results in the presence of dynamic forces that may excite mechanical vibrations [1,7, 22, 23, 24]. In industrial applications, mechanical vibrations are present mostly in resonant conditions. Since hundreds of eigenvalues can characterise the piping system, it is crucial to identify the key ones, which are likely to be excited to vibrate. Therefore, it is necessary to allow adequate modelling and subsequent analysis of the fluid-structure interaction with available engineering tools.
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Rhee, Bo W., H. T. Kim, and Y. M. Song. "Reconsideration of a Scaling Study of CANDU-6 Moderator Tank Scaled-Down Test Facility." In 2014 22nd International Conference on Nuclear Engineering. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/icone22-30315.
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According to the literature survey, several scaling studies have been performed to derive a set of scaling criteria which were thought to be suitable for reproducing the major thermal-hydraulic phenomena in a scaled-down CANDU moderator tank similar to that in a prototype power plant during a full power steady state condition [1,2,3]. The objective of building this scaled-down moderator tank is to generate the experimental data necessary to validate the computer codes which are used to analyze the accident analysis of CANDU-6 plants. The major variables of interests in this paper are moderator flow velocity and temperature of the moderator which is D2O inside the moderator tank during a steady state and transient conditions. The reason is that the local subcooling of the moderator is found to be a critical parameter determining whether the stable film boiling can sustain on the outer surface of the calandria tube if the contact of overheated pressure tube and cold calandria tube should occur due to pressure tube ballooning during LBLOCA with ECC injection failure[4]. The key phenomena involved include the inlet jet development and impingement, buoyancy force driven by the moderator temperature gradient caused by non-uniform direct heating of the moderator, and the pressure drop due to viscous friction of the flow across the calandria tube array. In this paper, the previous researches are reviewed, some concerns or potential problems associated with them implied by comparing CFD analyses results between the CANDU-6 moderator tank and 1/4 scaled-down test facility are described, and as a way to examine the assumption of the scaling analysis is true an order-of-magnitude analyses are performed. Based on the results of these analyses the assumption of neglecting (∇*)2V* .and (∇*)2T* terms cannot be justified for the power of 0.5 MW and 1.566 MW for the 1/4 scaled-down facility. Further investigation is thought to be necessary to confirm this result, i.e. if the scaling of the previous work1 is justifiable by some other independent analyses.
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Franklin, Paul. "Risk Management for Rail Transportation Projects." In 2010 Joint Rail Conference. ASMEDC, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/jrc2010-36137.
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Risk management is the subject of increasing attention in recent years. In the US, when Federal funds are committed to projects, risk management is a required programmatic activity. Even when it is not mandated by law or regulation, risk management is prudent for expensive, long-duration projects. Frequently, risk management is based on a risk register, and often captures as a list of typical problems with design and construction that a contractor has experienced. Risk registers vary in quality and usefulness. Some contractor submissions appear to be more “pro-forma” documents, while more useful risk registers will include anticipated risks tailored to the complexity of the scope of work and the contractor’s anticipated solution. This qualitative approach can develop a reasonable view of key risks and work to mitigate them. Recent experience at Arup has shown that this approach, while valuable as an initial approach, is limited by its quantitative nature. This paper will explore some of the key lessons learned and emerging practices that have been successfully used in recent work in detail. Key topics include: • While the essential elements of risk management apply across a wide range of markets, the planning and construction of risk management for due diligence, privately funded and partnership funded (both government and PPP) projects require different emphases and tailored approaches. • Appropriate risk structuring is required to identify key project risks that may be unrelated or marginally related to design and construction. Developing clear and effective ancillary risk statements (e.g., for marketing, finance, permitting and regulatory requirements) is important to successful risk management. • Where partnering is used for funding, there is a greater need for clarity and good communication. Planning documents require special consideration to minimize difficulties. Planning documents also need to be efficient and effective. • Large, sometimes geographically diverse, teams benefit from alternative approaches to risk workshops. • Large, expensive and long duration projects benefit by shifting risk analysis toward a more quantitative approach. Modeling techniques such as Monte Carlo simulation require special software (@Risk or Primavera) and sound input. Analyses that move risk statements from the essentially qualitative (such as severity of 4 and likelihood of 3) to agreed quantitative inputs are important. • Cost and schedule contingency are key concerns for funding agencies, whether in-house or external. The underlying structure for effectively constructing contingency depends on the contracting structure, sequencing of work, unit price allowances and other factors, in addition to the analysis of the contingency requirements of technical and other specific risks. • Special analyses for items of particular concern, for instance, the adequacy of escalation allowances or geotechnical risks, can also be helpful, particularly in the context of emerging technologies such as HSR. Risk management is coming of age, and is more than a risk register. Projects benefit from a more qualitative approach. Not every technique applies to every project, of course, but most projects, small and large, can benefit from a more structured, quantitative approach to risk management.
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Bidaut, Yves, and Urs Baumann. "Identification of Eigenmodes and Determination of the Dynamical Behaviour of Open Impellers." In ASME Turbo Expo 2012: Turbine Technical Conference and Exposition. American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/gt2012-68182.
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Whenever an open bladed impeller (without shroud) is implemented in a centrifugal compressor a key issue regarding the reliability of the compressor concerns the dynamical behaviour of this impeller. Due to the absence of the shroud this impeller can be operated at high tip speeds, hence allowing for higher volume flow. However the impeller reacts very sensitive to excitations leading to large blade vibrations with potential considerable dynamic stresses. In order to avoid resonance caused by fluctuating pressure distributions due to rotor-stator interactions special attention must be paid to the natural frequencies of the impeller which shall be determined with the highest accuracy possible. Therefore this paper focuses on the identification of the natural frequencies of the impeller first. To validate the finite-element (FE) model extensive measurements of the natural frequencies are performed at standstill. Especially the set-up and results obtained with the Shaker-Laser vibrometer-tests are described in detail and compared to other measurement methods such as the Laser-Scaning-Vibrometry (LSV) and strain gauges. Furthermore the prediction of the dynamic behaviour of the impeller is of considerable importance in the design of turbo compressors. For this purpose comprehensive measurements of the dynamic stress are carried out on the author’s company’s test rig. The paper describes the test arrangement including numerous strain gauges installed in different positions of the blades. The last part of this paper describes a simplified approach for the evaluation of the dynamic stresses in the impeller blade. A substantial list of comprehensive lectures about coupled CFD–structural analysis to determine the dynamic behaviour of impeller blades is available. However, despite of considerable improvement in software and calculation methods in the last years, such analyses are still expensive and require very large capacities. The presented alternative calculation method is based on a harmonic analysis which is calibrated to the measurements and is the base for a further estimation of the life time of the impeller.
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Leue, Michael, and Carlo Luzzi. "San Pedro Bay Ports Rail Enhancement Program: 2010 Update." In 2011 Joint Rail Conference. ASMEDC, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/jrc2011-56069.
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The San Pedro Bay Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles continue to provide vital rail connections to the rest of the country. The Rail Enhancement Program sets forth the rail improvements necessary to maintain performance as cargo volumes grow through the year 2035. Implementation of the Rail Enhancement Program has faced hurdles including environmental permitting, funding and competing stakeholder concerns. Cargo growth eased in the years approaching 2010, but the timing of proposed improvements to the rail infrastructure remains critical and challenging. The Rail Enhancement Program is the result of work over the past ten years. Conditions affecting the program have continued to change since the original Rail Master Planning Study of 2000. Updates to the Master Plan have been performed in 2005 and 2010. These documents provide analyses and recommendations for rail improvements to maintain adequate rail service on the Alameda Corridor and through the Port to its rail yards. In developing the Rail Enhancement Program, simulation is used to understand the impacts of increasing cargo volumes on the rail system and to investigate infrastructure and operating improvements required to address deficiencies and to determine improvements to efficiently handle projected traffic. This paper describes the development process with a summary of the analysis methods, resulting proposed rail projects, implementation process and current status of implementation. The steps of the rail system development process include the following: • Evaluation of existing and proposed rail operations; • Conceptual design of over forty potential rail improvement projects; • Analysis of the capacity of existing and proposed facilities; • Scheduling of project development to meet demand; • Estimation of environmental, community and regional impacts and benefits; • Determination of schedule including environmental permit requirements; • Development of project funding plans; and • Preparation of engineering designs and construction documents. The paper will conclude with a summary of the status of key projects from the Rail Enhancement Program. Implementation of the Rail Enhancement Program has included permitting, funding and design efforts on individual projects. The projects currently under development total $1B out of the overall $2B program. The Rail Enhancement Program provides significant benefits to operating efficiencies, environmental impacts and economic impacts. Implementation has been a challenging effort and illustrates the myriad obstacles facing public infrastructure development.
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Rieg, Claude, Ralf Ahlstrand, Michel Bieth, et al. "Neutron Embrittlement of VVER 1000 and 440/213 RPVs: Learning From EC Projects on RPV Integrity." In ASME/JSME 2004 Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference. ASMEDC, 2004. http://dx.doi.org/10.1115/pvp2004-2970.
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Since 1991 the European Commission has financed a significant number of Technical Assistance Projects to the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS) and EURATOM R&D actions addressing the main safety issues on RPV material embrittlement and integrity assessment. Since the VVER 440 reactors of the reference series 213 are made from recognised neutron embrittlement resistant materials and include comprehensive surveillance programmes, a standard plant life management procedure can be applied to address long-term concerns, mostly aiming at reducing uncertainties in the assessment techniques. Therefore, the open issues (flux effect, upgrading of surveillance results, implementation of toughness measurements and relevant acceptance criteria, behaviour of the cladding) are quite universal. The efficiency of late annealing (at fast [E>0.5 MeV] neutron doses over 1020n/cm2) and the re-embrittlement after annealing remain key issues for any final decision for their operational lifetime. The more recently developed VVER 1000 reactors have some well-known features arising from the original design and manufacturing process (high nickel content in the core weld, location of the surveillance specimens), which have to be carefully considered if appropriate mitigation measures are to be implemented during operation. A precise identification of the issues related to the surveillance programme has been achieved thanks to research on dosimetry evaluation, representativeness (temperature and flux effect) of the specimens and optimisation of the evaluation of their results. Nickle, just as copper and phosphorus, is now recognised as having a detrimental effect on neutron embrittlement in synergy with other elements (e.g. manganese). The analyses of available data for CrNiMn steels do not show a significant effect for fast [E>0.5 MeV] neutron doses below 7.1019n/cm2, but their consistency and relevance might be questionable. A way has already been pioneered which shows how valuable results can be obtained using the existing surveillance programmes specimens. A systematic application on the Russian & Ukrainian plants is now planned in order to get updated figures on design end of life (EOL) integrity assessment. This includes updated dosimetry assessment, multiple specimen testing (reconstitution, impact and static toughness tests) and advanced integrity analyses. An optimised database of representative surveillance results (up to the design end of life) is expected, which should provide a sound basis for further understanding and setting up of relevant prediction tools, considering at the same time any other specific R&D results. The global integrity assessment will also provide for preparing and implementing adequate mitigation measures in due time, if necessary. The paper will report about the knowledge on RPV embrittlement effects, providing evidence of recent contributions to solve shortcomings of the VVER 440/213 and 1000 units. The current state-of-the-art and the remaining open issues have been assessed recently by a group of international experts. The planned R&D activities and the detailed scope of the latest TACIS projects are described.
Reports on the topic "Thematic analyses of key concerns"
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Phillips, Jake. Understanding the impact of inspection on probation. Sheffield Hallam University, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.7190/shu.hkcij.05.2021.
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This research sought to understand the impact of probation inspection on probation policy, practice and practitioners. This important but neglected area of study has significant ramifications because the Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation has considerable power to influence policy through its inspection regime and research activities. The study utilised a mixed methodological approach comprising observations of inspections and interviews with people who work in probation, the Inspectorate and external stakeholders. In total, 77 people were interviewed or took part in focus groups. Probation practitioners, managers and leaders were interviewed in the weeks after an inspection to find out how they experienced the process of inspection. Staff at HMI Probation were interviewed to understand what inspection is for and how it works. External stakeholders representing people from the voluntary sector, politics and other non-departmental bodies were interviewed to find out how they used the work of inspection in their own roles. Finally, leaders within the National Probation Service and Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service were interviewed to see how inspection impacts on policy more broadly. The data were analysed thematically with five key themes being identified. Overall, participants were positive about the way inspection is carried out in the field of probation. The main findings are: 1. Inspection places a burden on practitioners and organisations. Practitioners talked about the anxiety that a looming inspection created and how management teams created additional pressures which were hard to cope with on top of already high workloads. Staff responsible for managing the inspection and with leadership positions talked about the amount of time the process of inspection took up. Importantly, inspection was seen to take people away from their day jobs and meant other priorities were side-lined, even if temporarily. However, the case interviews that practitioners take part in were seen as incredibly valuable exercises which gave staff the opportunity to reflect on their practice and receive positive feedback and validation for their work. 2. Providers said that the findings and conclusions from inspections were often accurate and, to some extent, unsurprising. However, they sometimes find it difficult to implement recommendations due to reports failing to take context into account. Negative reports have a serious impact on staff morale, especially for CRCs and there was concern about the impact of negative findings on a provider’s reputation. 3. External stakeholders value the work of the Inspectorate. The Inspectorate is seen to generate highly valid and meaningful data which stakeholders can use in their own roles. This can include pushing for policy reform or holding government to account from different perspectives. In particular, thematic inspections were seen to be useful here. 4. The regulatory landscape in probation is complex with an array of actors working to hold providers to account. When compared to other forms of regulation such as audit or contract management the Inspectorate was perceived positively due to its methodological approach as well as the way it reflects the values of probation itself. 5. Overall, the inspectorate appears to garner considerable legitimacy from those it inspects. This should, in theory, support the way it can impact on policy and practice. There are some areas for development here though such as more engagement with service users. While recognising that the Inspectorate has made a concerted effort to do this in the last two years participants all felt that more needs to be done to increase that trust between the inspectorate and service users. Overall, the Inspectorate was seen to be independent and 3 impartial although this belief was less prevalent amongst people in CRCs who argued that the Inspectorate has been biased towards supporting its own arguments around reversing the now failed policy of Transforming Rehabilitation. There was some debate amongst participants about how the Inspectorate could, or should, enforce compliance with its recommendations although most people were happy with the primarily relational way of encouraging compliance with sanctions for non-compliance being considered relatively unnecessary. To conclude, the work of the Inspectorate has a significant impact on probation policy, practice and practitioners. The majority of participants were positive about the process of inspection and the Inspectorate more broadly, notwithstanding some of the issues raised in the findings. There are some developments which the Inspectorate could consider to reduce the burden inspection places on providers and practitioners and enhance its impact such as amending the frequency of inspection, improving the feedback given to practitioners and providing more localised feedback, and working to reduce or limit perceptions of bias amongst people in CRCs. The Inspectorate could also do more to capture the impact it has on providers and practitioners – both positive and negative - through existing procedures that are in place such as post-case interview surveys and tracking the implementation of recommendations.