30472 research outputs found
Sort by
Perceptions underlying addictive technology use patterns: insights for Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy
Get PDFCognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is considered the ‘gold standard’ in the treatment of addictive disorders related to excessive technology use. However, the cognitive components of problematic internet use are not yet well-known. The aim of the present study was to explore the cognitive components, that according to problematic users, can lead to potential internet addiction. A total of 854 European adults completed an online survey using a mixed-methods design. Internet problems and attachment styles were assessed, prevalence rates estimated, correlations, chi-squared automatic interaction detection, and content analysis were performed. Self-reported addictions to social networking, internet, and gaming had a prevalence between 1.2% (gaming) to 2.7% (social networking). Self-perception of the addiction problem and preoccupied attachment style were discriminative factors for internet addiction. In an analysis of qualitative responses from self-identified compulsive internet users, a sense of not belonging and feeling of disconnection during life events were perceived as causes for internet addiction. The development depended on a cycle of mixed feelings associated with negative thoughts, compensated by a positive online identity. The severity of this behaviour pattern produced significant impairment in various areas of the participants’ functioning, suggesting a possible addiction problem. It is suggested that health professionals administering CBT should target unhealthy preoccupations and monitor mixed feelings and thoughts related to internet use to support coping with cognitive distortions
Time for the ancients: measurement, theory, experience
Get PDFBook synopsis: The book presents the author's latest research on ancient perceptions of time; it centres on medical discussions, especially of the doctor-philosopher Galen, while also contextualizing his work within Graeco-Roman evidence and discussions – archaeological, medical, technological, philosophical, literary – more broadly. The focus is on questions of medical or experiential significance: life cycles, disease cycles, daily regimes for mind and body, clinical assessment, including the vital area of diagnosis through the pulse, technologies of time measurement. But the philosophical background is also examined: questions of the nature and definition of time and its relationship to space and motion. Galen offers original contributions in all these areas, at the same time as shedding important light on both contemporary attitudes and previous discussions.
The book thus offers an accessible and vivid overview of key issues in ancient time perception and awareness, while also offering the first in-depth exploration of the insights that the Galenic texts add to this picture.
Five thematic chapters – Time Measurement, Year and Life Cycles, Biography, Medical Cycles – consider a wide range of evidence and of recent scholarship, while highlighting the contribution of medical texts.
Accessible overview of ancient attitudes to and conceptions of time
Original research on the basis of previously unexplored medical texts
Summarizes recent scholarship in diverse area
Helping EAL academics navigate asymmetrical power relations in co-authorship: research-based materials for ERPP workshops
Get PDFThis paper presents, discusses, and evaluates research-based materials for English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) teaching, based on a study conducted with exiled academics supported by CARA (Council for At-Risk Academics) and their UK-based co-authors who provided textual interventions on their texts. Using data from interviews with exiled academics and their UK-based co-authors/mentors as well as their article drafts and textual interventions, we present teaching materials for ERPP workshops aimed at raising the participants’ awareness of issues that may arise in co-authorship involving asymmetrical power relations, such as those between exiled academics and their UK-based co-authors/mentors. The materials take the shape of data-based scenarios which ask workshop attendees to consider experiential co-authorship narratives involving (i) the issue of ‘parochialism’, i.e., failure to indicate the relevance of one’s research to a larger audience, (ii) issues with the type and amount of feedback regarding writer development and text production, (iii) blurred lines of co-authorship roles and (iv) authority issues in interdisciplinary collaborative writing. Each scenario is followed by a research informed discussion. We argue that scenario-based awareness-raising activities can sensitize all parties in asymmetrical co-authorship pairs/groups to common challenges that arise in such collaborations, help them navigate collaborative writing successfully, and encourage them to reflect on their own co-authorship practices. We conclude by discussing the merits of the scenario-based approach to developing materials for ERPP teaching
Three decades of research on innovation and inequality: causal scenarios, explanatory factors, and suggestions
Get PDFPrompted by rising income inequality (in short, inequality) in advanced economies, a
rapidly growing number of studies across various fields and disciplines of social science
have, since the 1990s, sought to find out how innovation (as the main engine of economic progress) affects the distribution of income in modern-day capitalist societies.
Using the systematic literature review method, this paper provides the first critical review of 166 studies on innovation and inequality published in 114 journals in the last
three decades (1990-2019). It is shown that while the great majority of studies under
review concur that innovation induces inequality, this finding is subject to the disciplinary origins of research (e.g., development studies, economics, etc.) and the country
under investigation (e.g., United States, United Kingdom, etc.). Furthermore, guided
by an original causally holistic analytical framework, the analysis demonstrates that the
relationship between innovation and inequality is significantly more causally complex
than the most popular theoretical perspective (i.e. skill-biased technological change account) has let us believe; in particular, it is subject to five causal scenarios and a range
of explanatory factors (i.e. skill premiums, technological unemployment, international
trade, declining union membership, spatial aspects, changing employment conditions,
policy, horizontal inequalities, sectoral composition and types of innovation). The paper ends by discussing findings, policy implications and knowledge gaps, one of which
concerns the following under-researched question: how, and under what conditions do
publicly-funded innovation policies reduce (or increase) inequality
Double exposure to capitalist expansion and climatic change: a study of vulnerability on the Ghanaian coastal commodity frontier
Get PDFJason Moore's theory of the commodity frontier serves as a useful framework for demonstrating the socio-ecological upheaval that occurs in the 'frontier' spaces to which capitalism must expand in search of uncommodified 'cheap' nature. Work to date however has failed to consider how the impacts of frontier expansion interact with climate change despite the two phenomena being closely linked in both causes and effects, and largely impacting most severely upon rural communities in the Global South. This article seeks to address this gap with a focus on the coastal commodity frontier: socio-ecological systems within which marine and terrestrial frontier expansion can occur concurrently, while being impacted by climatic change. The research was conducted using an ethnographic, case study approach, centred on an eight-month research visit to Aboadze, a small-scale marine fishing community in the Western Region of Ghana. This community is subject to terrestrial frontier expansion in the form of a thermal power station, marine frontier expansion in the form of industrial overfishing, and is also exposed to the impacts of climate change. The article finds, through a double exposure vulnerability framework, that frontier expansion and climatic change interact to exacerbate food, water and livelihood insecurities in the case study
community, whilst simultaneously reducing the community's capacity to adapt to its changing environment and perpetuating harmful global changes through feedback exposures. This research makes an important conceptual contribution by galvanising a conversation between two thus far disparate fields and invites further research to provide more nuanced analyses of the intersectional vulnerabilities impacting coastal communities
Integrating climate smart agri-innovative technology adoption and agribusiness management skills to improve the livelihoods of smallholder female Cocoa farmers in Ghana
Get PDFEnvironmental and climate change issues combined with low income and productivity for female cocoa farmers has highlighted gender equality gap in Ghana’s cocoa industry with negative implications for livelihoods. This research focuses on how harvesting cocoa waste enabled the creation of a sustainable micro enterprise to offer alternative employment, reverse inequality, improve climate resilience and soil fertility and encourage further adoption of shaded cocoa production to generate biomass (waste) for organic compost production. The study followed a prescribed training programme for female cocoa farmers who practice shaded cocoa farming in Ghana on organic compost production and agribusiness managing skills by a combined team of climate, agroforestry, agribusiness, cocoa research and extension experts. Results from the analysis of project notes during training and field construction and management of compost chambers in the two selected communities as well as the follow up observation records and interviews indicate that the knowledge and skills provided engendered motivation for a continuous and expanded adoption of climate smart agri-innovation of shaded cocoa production. Further, the results show evidence of a positive social and environmental, cultural and economic impacts and favourable prospects of improved livelihoods for female cocoa farmers. These insights have implications for climate action (SDG13) and gender equity (SDG5) scholarship, climate mitigation and adaptation strategy and policy and agroforestry and cocoa production practice
Post-error slowing: large scale study in an online learning environment for practising mathematics and language
Get PDFThe ability to monitor and adjust our performance is crucial for adaptive behaviour, a key component of human cognitive control. One widely studied metric of this behaviour is post-error slowing (PES), the finding that humans tend to slow down their performance after making an error. This study is a first attempt at generalizing the effect of PES to an online adaptive learning environment where children practise mathematics and language skills. This population was of particular interest since the major development of error processing occurs during childhood. Eight million response patterns were collected from 150,000 users aged 5 to 13 years old for six months, across 23 different learning activities. PES could be observed in most learning activities and greater PES was associated with greater post-error accuracy. PES also varied as a function of several variables. At the task level, PES was greater when there was less time pressure, when errors were slower, and in learning activities focusing on mathematical rather than language skills. At the individual level, students who chose the most difficult level to practise and had higher skill ability also showed greater PES. Finally, non-linear developmental differences in error processing were found, where the PES magnitude increased from 6 to 9-years-old and decreased from 9 to 13. This study shows that PES underlies adaptive behaviour in an educational context for primary school students
Problematic online behaviors among gamers: the links between problematic online gaming, gambling, shopping, pornography use, and social networking
Get PDFThe aim of the current study was to investigate how problematic online gaming, problematic online gambling, problematic online shopping, problematic online pornography use, and problematic online social networking are associated with each other in bivariate and multivariate, network analytic analyses in an international gamer population. The effective sample comprised 4,416 gamers (age M = 23.31, SD = 6.72; 94% male). Participants filled out the specific problematic Internet use scales on gaming, gambling, shopping, pornography, and social networking. The results showed that problematic online gaming yielded small-to-medium positive bivariate correlations with other problematic behaviors. However, the exploratory graph analysis showed that all Internet-based problematic behaviors were separate entities. Finally, problematic online gaming yielded the highest scores, followed by problematic online social networking, gambling, and pornography. While gaming was the most prevalent Internet-based problematic behavior among gamers, the results further suggested that the other Internet-based problematic behaviors investigated may co-occur despite being considered separate entities
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Birkbeck Institutional Research Online? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!