The 3 per cent Barcelona Target: A Critical Appraisal of the Failure of the Lisbon Strategy’s Knowledgebased Economy and Society Project

Ten years after the unanimous approval of the Lisbon Strategy at a special meeting of the European Council on 23-24 March 2000 in Lisbon, it will be inevitable for the European Council, the European Commission and the majority of the EU member states to face with its fi asco and to account for the reasons of their fundamental policy, governance and economic failures in 2010. The recent turbulence of the global economy offers some excuses for the underperformance of the main objectives of the Lisbon Strategy in the essential social and economic domains, like job creation, economic growth, and environmental sustainability. Negative growth rates, macroeconomic and fi nancial instability, the contraction of the internal and external markets of the European economy, drop in demand for capital investment, goods and services, sinking corporate revenues, depreciation of corporate assets, increasing private and public indebtedness, falling rate of employment, weakening social cohesion, widening social inequality, and so forth not only deprive the majority of the EU member states of fulfi lling the main objectives of the Lisbon Strategy but also drive them into worse social and economic conditions in many policy domains than they were in 2000.

The Significance of Critical Theory for Restorative Justice in Education

Restorative Justice (rj), a distinctive philosophical approach that seeks to replace punitive, managerial structures of schooling with those that emphasize the building and repairing of relationships (Hopkins 2004) has been embraced in the past two decades by a variety of school systems worldwide in an effort to build safe school communities. Early studies indicate rj holds significant promise, however, proponents in the field identify that theoretical and evidence-based research is falling behind practice. They call for further research to deepen the current understanding of rj that will support its sustainability and transformative potential and allow it to move from the margins to the mainstream of schooling (Braithwaite 2006; Morrison & Ahmed 2006; Sherman & Strang 2007).

The critical role of intracavity dynamics in high-power mode-locked fiber lasers

We present a theoretical description of the generation of ultra-short, high-energy pulses in two laser cavities driven by periodic spectral filtering or dispersion management. Critical in driving the intra-cavity dynamics is the nontrivial phase profiles generated and their periodic modification from either spectral filtering or dispersion management. For laser cavities with a spectral filter, the theory gives a simple geometrical description of the intra-cavity dynamics and provides a simple and efficient method for optimizing the laser cavity performance. In the dispersion managed cavity, analysis shows the generated self-similar behavior to be governed by the porous media equation with a rapidly-varying, mean-zero diffusion coefficient whose solution is the well-known Barenblatt similarity solution with parabolic profile. © 2010 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering.

Intensive care survivors’ experiences of ward-based care: Meleis’ theory of nursing transitions and role development among critical care outreach services.

Aims and objectives. To explore the psychosocial needs of patients discharged from intensive care, the extent to which they are captured using existing theory on transitions in care and the potential role development of critical care outreach, follow-up and liaison services. Background. Intensive care patients are at an increased risk of adverse events, deterioration or death following ward transfer. Nurse-led critical care outreach, follow-up or liaison services have been adopted internationally to prevent these potentially avoidable sequelae. The need to provide patients with psychosocial support during the transition to ward-based care has also been identified, but the evidence base for role development is currently limited. Design and methods. Twenty participants were invited to discuss their experiences of ward-based care as part of a broader study on recovery following prolonged critical illness. Psychosocial distress was a prominent feature of their accounts, prompting secondary data analysis using Meleis et al.’s mid-range theory on experiencing transitions. Results. Participants described a sense of disconnection in relation to profound debilitation and dependency and were often distressed by a perceived lack of understanding, indifference or insensitivity among ward staff to their basic care needs. Negotiating the transition between dependence and independence was identified as a significant source of distress following ward transfer. Participants varied in the extent to which they were able to express their needs and negotiate recovery within professionally mediated boundaries. Conclusion. These data provide new insights into the putative origins of the psychosocial distress that patients experience following ward transfer. Relevance to clinical practice. Meleis et al.’s work has resonance in terms of explicating intensive care patients’ experiences of psychosocial distress throughout the transition to general ward–based care, such that the future role development of critical care outreach, follow-up and liaison services may be more theoretically informed.

Ethos and Ideology of Knowledge Organization: Toward Precepts for and Engaged Knowledge Organization Drawing on The Arts and Crafts Movement, Critical Theory, and Žižek

Ethos is the spirit that motivates ideas and practices. When we talk casually about the ethos of a town, state, or country we are describing the fundamental or at least underlying rationale for action, as we see it. Ideology is a way of looking at things.It is the set of ideas that constitute one’s goals, expectations, and actions. In this brief essay I want to create a space where we might talk about the ethos and ideology in knowledge organization from a particular point of view; combining ideas and inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement of the early Twentieth Century, critical theory in extant knowledge organization work, the work of Slavoj Žižek, and the work of Thich Nhat Hahn on Engaged Buddhism.I will expand more below, but we can say here and now that there are many open questions about ethos and ideology in and of knowledge organization, both its practice and products. Many of them in classification, positioned as they are around identity politics of race, gender, and other marginalized groups, ask the classificationist to be mindful of the choice of terms and relationships between terms. From this work we understand that race and gender requires special consideration, which manifests as a particular concern for the form of representation inside extant schemes. Even with these advances in our understanding there are still other categories about which we must make decisions and take action. For example, there are ethical decisions about fiduciary resource allocation, political decisions about standards adoption, and even broader zeitgeist considerations like the question of Fordist conceptions (Day, 2001; Tennis 2006) of the mechanics of description and representation present in much of today’s practice.Just as taking action in a particular way is an ethical concern, so too is avoiding a lack of action. Scholars in Knowledge Organization have also looked at the absence of what we might call right action in the context of cataloguing and classification. This leads to some problems above, and hints at larger ethical concerns of watching a subtle semantic violence go on without intervention (Bowker and Star, 2001; Bade 2006).The problem is not to act or not act, but how to act or not act in an ethical way, or at least with ethical considerations. The action advocated by an ethical consideration for knowledge organization is an engaged one, and it is here where we can take a nod from contemporary ethical theory advanced by Engaged Buddhism. In this context we can see the manifestation of fourteen precepts that guide ethical action, and warn against lack of action.

Devotional reading and dissolving the self: a critical reading of the late medieval Scottish Legendary using Kristevan theory

The Scottish Legendary is a fourteenth century collection of saints’ lives in Older Scots. The prologue describes the lives as ‘merroure’ (mirror) to readers from which ‘men ma ensample ta’ (people may take example). Thus, the Legendary sets out to reveal how the reader is (mirror) thereby moving her to wish to become how she should be (exemplarity). This dissertation argues that, rather than encouraging devotion to saints along purely dogmatic lines, the Legendary transforms the reader’s selfhood by engaging her affectively, i.e. on an emotional and somatic level. By provoking the reader affectively, the text puts the reader into what Julia Kristeva has described as a ‘semiotic state’ which harks back to the reader’s or listener’s pre-cultural, pre-subjective self (Kristeva, 1984). Thus, the text disrupts the reader’s conception of herself as a complete, hermetic subjectivity, thereby dissolving the boundaries of the reader’s self. The Legendary most powerfully infiltrates the reader’s sense of self along these lines in the moments in which female saints’ bodies are tortured and dismembered. These scenes foreground the permeability of human flesh as well as its powerful influence over selfhood. Such images of abjection are, in Kristeva’s words, ‘opposed to I’; by confronting the reader with the disintegration of subjectivity in abjection, the text incites the reader to likewise experience herself as abject, i.e. disintegrable and permeable (Kristeva 1982). As I shall demonstrate, Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory of the formation of the self offers a fruitful framework for understanding the processes of self-knowledge through reading that these saints’ lives inspire.

Autoethnography : critical appreciation of an emerging art

In this article, the author discusses how she applied autoethnography in a study of the design of hypermedia educational resources and shows how she addressed problematic issues related to autoethnographic legitimacy and representation. The study covered a 6-year period during which the practitioner’s perspective on the internal and external factors influencing the creation of three hypermedia CD-ROMs contributed to an emerging theory of design. The author highlights the interrelationship between perception and reality as vital to qualitative approaches and encourages researchers to investigate their reality more fully by practicing the art of autoethnography.

Tests of the elaborated intrusion theory of craving and desire : features of alcohol craving during treatment for an alcohol disorder

Objectives. We tested predictions from the elaborated intrusion (EI) theory of desire, which distinguishes intrusive thoughts and elaborations, and emphasizes the importance of imagery. Secondarily, we undertook preliminary evaluations of the Alcohol Craving Experience (ACE) questionnaire, a new measure based on EI Theory. Methods. Participants (N ¼ 232) were in correspondence-based treatment trials for alcohol abuse or dependence. The study used retrospective reports obtained early in treatment using the ACE, and daily self-monitoring of urges, craving, mood and alcohol consumption. Results. The ACE displayed high internal consistency and test – retest reliability and sound relationships with self-monitored craving, and was related to Baseline alcohol dependence, but not to consumption. Imagery during craving was experienced by 81%,with 2.3 senses involved on average. More frequent imagery was associated with longer episode durations and stronger craving. Transient intrusive thoughts were reported by 87% of respondents, and were more common if they frequently attempted to stop alcohol cognitions. Associations between average daily craving and weekly consumption were seen. Depression and negative mood were associated with more frequent, stronger and longer lasting desires for alcohol. Conclusions. Results supported the distinction of automatic and controlled processes in craving, together with the importance of craving imagery. They were also consistent with prediction of consumption from cross-situational averages of craving, and with positive associations between craving and negative mood. However, this study’s retrospective reporting and correlational design require that its results be interpreted cautiously. Research using ecological momentary measures and laboratory manipulations is needed before confident inferences about causality can be made.

Are organ donation communication decisions reasoned or reactive? A test of the utility of an augmented Theory of Planned Behaviour with the Prototype/Willingness Model

Objectives: To explore whether people's organ donation consent decisions occur via a reasoned and/or social reaction pathway. --------- Design: We examined prospectively students' and community members' decisions to register consent on a donor register and discuss organ donation wishes with family. --------- Method: Participants completed items assessing theory of planned behaviour (TPB; attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control (PBC)), prototype/willingness model (PWM; donor prototype favourability/similarity, past behaviour), and proposed additional influences (moral norm, self-identity, recipient prototypes) for registering (N=339) and discussing (N=315) intentions/willingness. Participants self-reported their registering (N=177) and discussing (N=166) behaviour 1 month later. The utility of the (1) TPB, (2) PWM, (3) augmented TPB with PWM, and (4) augmented TPB with PWM and extensions was tested using structural equation modelling for registering and discussing intentions/willingness, and logistic regression for behaviour. --------- Results: While the TPB proved a more parsimonious model, fit indices suggested that the other proposed models offered viable options, explaining greater variance in communication intentions/willingness. The TPB, augmented TPB with PWM, and extended augmented TPB with PWM best explained registering and discussing decisions. The proposed and revised PWM also proved an adequate fit for discussing decisions. Respondents with stronger intentions (and PBC for registering) had a higher likelihood of registering and discussing. --------- Conclusions: People's decisions to communicate donation wishes may be better explained via a reasoned pathway (especially for registering); however, discussing involves more reactive elements. The role of moral norm, self-identity, and prototypes as influences predicting communication decisions were highlighted also.

Critical analysis of high particle number emissions from accelerating compressed natural gas buses

Compressed natural gas (CNG) engines are thought to be less harmful to the environment than conventional diesel engines, especially in terms of particle emissions. Although, this is true with respect to particulate matter (PM) emissions, results of particle number (PN) emission comparisons have been inconclusive. In this study, results of on-road and dynamometer studies of buses were used to derive several important conclusions. We show that, although PN emissions from CNG buses are significantly lower than from diesel buses at low engine power, they become comparable at high power. For diesel buses, PN emissions are not significantly different between acceleration and operation at steady maximum power. However, the corresponding PN emissions from CNG buses when accelerating are an order of magnitude greater than when operating at steady maximum power. During acceleration under heavy load, PN emissions from CNG buses are an order of magnitude higher than from diesel buses. The particles emitted from CNG buses are too small to contribute to PM10 emissions or contribute to a reduction of visibility, and may consist of semivolatile nanoparticles.

Challenging the assumptions of positivism : an analysis of the concept of society in Sampi on behalf of the Bardi and Jawi people v Western Australia [2010] and Bodney v Bennell [2008]

The requirement to prove a society united by a body of law and customs to establish native title rights has been identified as a major hurdle to achieving native title recognition. The recent appeal decision of the Federal Court in Sampi on behalf of the Bardi and Jawi People v Western Australia [2010] opens the potential for a new judicial interpretation of society based on the internal view of native title claimants. The decision draws on defining features of legal positivism to inform the court’s findings as to the existence of a single Bardi Jawi society of ‘one people’ living under ‘one law’. The case of Bodney v Bennell [2008] is analysed through comparitive study of how the application of the received positivist framework may limit native title recognition. This paper argues that the framing of Indigenous law by reference to Western legal norms is problematic due to the assumptions of legal positivism and that an internal view based on Indigenous worldviews, which see law as intrinsically linked to the spiritual and ancestral connection to country, is more appropriate to determine proof in native title claims.

A communitarian theory of the education rights of students with disabilities

There is a lack of writing on the issue of the education rights of people with disabilities by authors of any theoretical persuasion. While the deficiency of theory may be explained by a variety of historical, philosophical and practical considerations, it is a deficiency which must be addressed. Otherwise, any statement of rights rings out as hollow rhetoric unsupported by sound reason and moral rectitude. This paper attempts to address this deficiency in education rights theory by postulating a communitarian theory of the education rights of people with disabilities. The theory is developed from communitarian writings on the role of education in democratic society. The communitarian school, like the community within which it nests, is inclusive. Schools both reflect and model the shape of communitarian society and have primary responsibility for teaching the knowledge and virtues which will allow citizens to belong to and function within society. Communitarians emphasise responsibilities, however, as the corollary of rights and require the individual good to yield to community good when the hard cases arise. The article not only explains the basis of the right to an inclusive education, therefore, but also engages with the difficult issue of when such a right may not be enforceable.