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A critical race analysis of structural and institutional racism: rethinking overseas registered nurses' recruitment to and working conditions in the United Kingdom
Get PDFLanguage tests for overseas registered nurses (ORN) working outside their home country are essential for patient safety, as communication competency needs to be established in any workforce. We argue that the current employment of existing language tests is structurally and institutionally racist and disadvantages ORNs from non‐European Union (EU) and non‐White countries seeking to work in the United Kingdom. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT), we argue that existing English language tests for ORNs seeking registration in the United Kingdom are discriminatory due to the UK's racist migration policies and a regulatory body for nursing and midwifery that fails to acknowledge and understand its own institutionally racist practices
Empathy, caring and compassion: toward a Freudian critique of nursing work
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to summarise key psychoanalytic concepts first developed by Sigmund Freud and apply them to a critical exploration of three terms that are central to nursing’s self-image—empathy, caring and compassion. Looking to Menzies-Lyth’s work I suggest that the nurse’s strong identification as carer can be understood as a fantasy of being the one who is cared for; critiques by Freud and others of empathy point to the possibility of it being, in reality, a form of projective identification; reading Lacan and Žižek I propose that repeated research into caring and repeated complaint about barriers to caring can be understood as manifestations of the death drive first posited by Freud. I conclude that psychoanalytic insights suggest that caring roles can raise profoundly ambivalent issues for those who care but they can also point the way to freedom from painful and self-destructive symptoms inherent in such work
Surviving the COVID-19 pandemic: the antecedents of success among European SMEs
Get PDFWe research the antecedents of relative success among SMEs in avoiding temporary or permanent closure during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigate the roles of firm-specific resources and state support policies in influencing SME fortunes, in a sizeable group of European countries covered in the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES). Using resource dependency, Varieties of Capitalism and Systems theories, we find that innovative capacities, institutional connectedness, governance and management experience were major antecedents of success across all SMEs. Significant differences in outcomes were found between SMEs operating in old and new EU member states, and non-EU countries
Transdisciplinary practice: being, doing, knowing
Get PDFWe present a case for facilitating the transdisciplinary practice (TDP) of experienced professionals through a doctoral research programme for whom the research focus is their world of work. Dissemination of transdisciplinary ideas through the individual practitioner as an effective agent of change has been under-represented in transdisciplinary discourses. Our TDP research pedagogy supports the practitioner in identifying and articulating complexity to bring about collaborative shifts in rapidly changing environments on the wild frontier of the uncertain and unpredictable. We demonstrate how TDP can enhance existing theories and epistemologies of practice, and also offer an effective alternative to a process driven management approach to complexity. We confront the gravitational pull of classification that can fuel resistance to new ideas and inhibit much needed cultural shifts. We propose that the frontline experiences of the individual decision-making professional as a TDP researcher can contribute to re-imagining transdisciplinary thinking and practices. TDP is not about the creation of knowledge but new ways of being in the world. We aim to encourage more higher education institutions to develop TDP as a response to the needs of complex practice cultures
A user-guided personalization methodology to facilitate new smart home occupancy
Get PDFSmart homes are becoming increasingly popular in providing people with the services they desire. Activity recognition is a fundamental task to provide personalised home facilities. Many promising approaches are being used for activity recognition; one of them is data-driven. It has some fascinating features and advantages. However, there are drawbacks such as the lack of ability to providing home automation from the day one due to the limited data available. In this paper, we propose an approach, called READY (useR-guided nEw smart home ADaptation sYstem) for developing a personalised automation system that provides the user with smart home services the moment they move into their new house. The system development process was strongly user-centred, involving users in every step of the system’s design. Later, the User-guided Transfer Learning (UTL) approach was introduced that uses an old smart home data set to enhance the existing smart home service with user contributions. Finally, the proposed approach and designed system were tested and validated in the smart lab that showed promising results
Age and processing effects on perceptual and conceptual priming
Get PDFExplicit (declarative) memory declines with age, but age effects on implicit (nondeclarative) memory are debated. Some studies have reported null changes in implicit memory (e.g., priming in word-fragment completion, perceptual identification, category exemplar generation) with age, while others have uncovered declines. One factor that may account for these discrepancies is processing. Evidence suggests that conceptual and perceptual processes are not equally affected by aging, yet processing requirements have varied greatly between studies. Processing may moderate age effects on priming, but no study has systematically examined this issue. This registered report presents an experiment to manipulate processing (conceptual / perceptual) during incidental encoding of words, prior to measures of perceptual (perceptual identification) and conceptual (category verification) priming. The perceptual and conceptual priming tasks were matched on all characteristics except processing, making them highly comparable. The four orthogonal conditions (perceptual encoding, perceptual test [PP]; conceptual encoding, perceptual test [CP]; perceptual encoding, conceptual test [PC]; conceptual encoding, conceptual test [CC]) were designed to clarify situations in which age effects on implicit memory emerge, which holds important practical and theoretical implications. Significant effects of Age, Test and an Age x Processing interaction emerged. Priming was greater in young than older adults and on the perceptual than the conceptual test, but in contrast to the predictions, the age difference was only significant when prior encoding was perceptual (i.e., in the PP and CP conditions)
Institutional duality and human resource management practice in foreign subsidiaries of multinationals
Get PDFWe examine how institutional context affects the decisions that subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs) make in pursuing particular human resource management (HRM) practices in response to institutional duality. Drawing on Varieties of Capitalism, along with the concept of intermediate conformity, we argue that the use of particular HRM practices by MNC subsidiaries will differ depending on both the combination of home and host institutional contexts, and on the nature of the particular practice under consideration. Using data from a survey of HRM practices in 1196 firms across ten countries, we compare HRM practices in subsidiaries located and headquartered in different combinations of liberal and/or coordinated market economies. Our study suggests MNC subsidiaries conform only to the most persuasive norms, while exercising their agency to take advantage of the opportunities presented by institutional duality to adopt practices that distinguish them from indigenous competitors
The case against narrative
Get PDFThe recent experience of a global pandemic offered a massive opportunity for humans to rethink their existences with reference to systemic occurrences, events at the level of populations rather than the level of the individual, outcomes on the basis of statistical probability rather than short-term local or individual heuristics and planning based on proper assessment of the mass of foreseeable contingencies instead of bids for popularity. Nevertheless, the demotic reliance on narrative comprehension still seems to remain a dominant impulse among humans presented with evidence that contradicts narrative interpretations. This paper discusses that condition with reference to Kahneman’s (2011) Systems 1 and 2, Clarke’s (2008, 2022) distinction of the systemic contingencies of communication and intelligence, Kahneman et al’s (2021) discussion of noise, plus recent discussions of narrative and complexity. It concludes that the proliferation of narrative and the decline in its larger progressive social functions, has provoked a crisis of the real, developed a tendency to disembodiment, lost its ambition to communicate while purporting to do, and increasingly carries an individual rather than a social rationale
IoT-based emergency vehicle services in intelligent transportation system
Get PDFEmergency Management System (EMS) is an important component of Intelligent transportation systems, and its primary objective is to send Emergency Vehicles (EVs) to the location of a reported incident. However, the increasing traffic in urban areas, especially during peak hours, results in the delayed arrival of EVs in many cases, which ultimately leads to higher fatality rates, increased property damage, and higher road congestion. Existing literature addressed this issue by giving higher priority to EVs while traveling to an incident place by changing traffic signals (e.g., making the signals green) on their travel path. A few works have also attempted to find the best route for an EV using traffic information (e.g., number of vehicles, flow rate, and clearance time) at the beginning of the journey. However, these works did not consider congestion or disruption faced by other non-emergency vehicles adjacent to the EV travel path. The selected travel paths are also static and do not consider changing traffic parameters while EVs are en route. To address these issues, this article proposes an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) guided priority-based incident management system to assist EVs in obtaining a better clearance time in intersections and thus achieve a lower response time. The proposed model also considers disruption faced by other surrounding non-emergency vehicles adjacent to the EVs’ travel path and selects an optimal solution by controlling the traffic signal phase time to ensure that EVs can reach the incident place on time while causing minimal disruption to other on-road vehicles. Simulation results indicate that the proposed model achieves an 8% lower response time for EVs while the clearance time surrounding the incident place is improved by 12%
World’s first sovereign war bonds – issued by Mediterranean state of Venice
No full textVenice’s important financial contribution is prestiti: bonds first issued in 1172 to fund wars, the first Eurobonds (and AAA government bonds, if ratings existed then). Venice was first to issue bonds to citizens just as governments issue bonds now. Before prestiti, even after, rulers borrowed for wars; when unable to repay, they defaulted. Venice however was Athens’ medieval equivalent, a democracy for elites; by late 13th century, it was Europe’s most prosperous city, having 36,000 sailors operating 3,300 ships, dominating Mediterranean commerce. Defence meant wars, and borrowing. Subscriptions were obligatory on citizens proportionate to their wealth; forced loans were preferable to tax. The outstanding capital paid 5% per annum. Prestiti were perpetuities, with no maturity date, and no physical bonds, but registered through Loan Officers, and sold and transferred with all rights of original purchasers. Government repaid principal when possible. Defaults were low, as Venetian elites in government owned prestiti