Societal transformation in response to global environmental change: a review of emerging concepts

The study of societal transformation in response to environmental change has become established, yet little consensus exists regarding the conceptual basis of transformation. This paper aims to provide structure to the dialog on transformation, and to reflect on the challenges of social research in this area. Concepts of transformation are identified through a literature review, and examined using four analytical criteria. It is found that the term ‘transformation’ is frequently used merely as a metaphor. When transformation is not used as a metaphor, eight concepts are most frequently employed. They differ with respect to (i) system conceptualization, (ii) notions of social consciousness (deliberate/emergent), and (iii) outcome (prescriptive/descriptive). Problem-based research tends to adopt concepts of deliberate transformation with prescriptive outcome, while concepts of emergent transformation with no prescriptive outcome tend to inform descriptive-analytical research. Dialog around the complementarities of different concepts and their empirical testing are priorities for future research.

The influence of serifs on 'h' and 'i': useful knowledge from design-led scientific research

The typographical naivety of much scientific legibility research has caused designers to question the value of the research and the results. Examining the reasons underlying this questioning, the paper discusses the importance of designers being more accepting of scientific findings, and why legibility investigations have value. To demonstrate how typographic knowledge can be incorporated into the design of studies to increase their validity, the paper reports on a new investigation into the role of serifs when viewed at a distance. The experiment looks into the identification of the lowercase letters ‘j’, ‘i’, ‘l’, ‘b’, ‘h’, ‘n’, ‘u’, and ‘a’ in isolation. All of the letters originate in the same typeface and are presented in one version with serifs and one version without serifs. Although the experiment found no overall legibility difference between the sans serif and the serif versions, the study showed that letters with serifs placed on the vertical extremes were more legible at a distance than the same letters in a sans serif. These findings can therefore provide specific guidance on the design of individual letters and demonstrate the product of collaboration between designer and scientist on the planning, implementation, and analysis of the study.

Towards (more) integrity in academia: transcending neo-liberal assumption of research and knowledge creation and the “rules” supressing academic freedom

European researchers across heterogeneous disciplines voice concerns and argue for new paths towards a brighter future regarding scientific and knowledge creation and communication. Recently, in biological and natural sciences concerns have been expressed that major threats are intentionally ignored. These threats are challenging Europe’s future sustainability towards creating knowledge that effectively deals with emerging social, environmental, health, and economic problems of a planetary scope. Within social science circles however, the root cause regarding the above challenges, have been linked with macro level forces of neo-liberal ways of valuing and relevant rules in academia and beyond which we take for granted. These concerns raised by heterogeneous scholars in natural and the applied social sciences concern the ethics of today’s research and academic integrity. Applying Bourdieu’s sociology may not allow an optimistic lens if change is possible. Rather than attributing the replication of neo-liberal habitus in intentional agent and institutional choices, Bourdieu’s work raises the importance of thoughtlessly internalised habits in human and social action. Accordingly, most action within a given paradigm (in this case, neo-liberalism) is understood as habituated, i.e. unconsciously reproducing external social fields, even ill-defined ways of valuing. This essay analyses these and how they may help critically analyse the current habitus surrounding research and knowledge production, evaluation, and communication and related aspects of academic freedom. Although it is acknowledged that transformation is not easy, the essay presents arguments and recent theory paths to suggest that change nevertheless may be a realistic hope once certain action logics are encouraged.

Expert consensus document: the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics consensus statement on the scope and appropriate use of the term probiotic.

An expert panel was convened in October 2013 by the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) to discuss the field of probiotics. It is now 13 years since the definition of probiotics and 12 years after guidelines were published for regulators, scientists and industry by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the WHO (FAO/WHO). The FAO/WHO definition of a probiotic—“live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host”—was reinforced as relevant and sufficiently accommodating for current and anticipated applications. However, inconsistencies between the FAO/WHO Expert Consultation Report and the FAO/WHO Guidelines were clarified to take into account advances in science and applications. A more precise use of the term 'probiotic' will be useful to guide clinicians and consumers in differentiating the diverse products on the market. This document represents the conclusions of the ISAPP consensus meeting on the appropriate use and scope of the term probiotic.

Time-dependent gel to gel transformation of a peptide based supramolecular gelator

A dipeptide with a long fatty acid chain at its N-terminus gives hydrogels in phosphate buffer in the pH range 7.0–8.5. The hydrogel with a gelator concentration of 0.45% (w/v) at pH 7.46 (physiological pH) provides a very good platform to study dynamic changes within a supramolecular framework as it exhibits remarkable change in its appearance with time. Interestingly, the first formed transparent hydrogel gradually transforms into a turbid gel within 2 days. These two forms of the hydrogel have been thoroughly investigated by using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopic (FE-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopic (HR-TEM) imaging, FT-IR and rheometric analyses. The SAXS and low angle PXRD studies substantiate different packing arrangements for the gelator molecules for these two different gel states (the freshly prepared and the aged hydrogel). Moreover, rheological studies of these two gels reveal that the aged gel is stiffer than the freshly prepared gel.

Transformation through translation: translation policies at Amnesty International

International non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are powerful political players who aim to influence global society. In order to be effective on a global scale, they must communicate their goals and achievements in different languages. Translation and translation policy play an essential role here. Despite NGOs’ important position in politics and society, not much is known about how these organisations, who often have limited funds available, organise their translation work. This study aims to contribute to Translation Studies, and more specifically to investigating institutional translation, by exploring translation policies at Amnesty International, one of the most successful and powerful human rights NGOs around the world. Translation policy is understood as comprising three components: translation management, translation practices, and translation beliefs, based on Spolsky’s study of language policy (2004). The thesis investigates how translation is organised and what kind of policies different Amnesty offices have in place, and how this is reflected in their translation products. The thesis thus also pursues how translation and translation policy impact on the organisation’s message and voice as it is spread around the world. An ethnographic approach is used for the analysis of various data sets that were collected during fieldwork. These include policy documents, guidelines on writing and translation, recorded interviews, e-mail correspondence, and fieldnotes. The thesis at first explores Amnesty’s global translation policy, and then presents the results of a comparative analysis of local translation policies at two concrete institutions: Amnesty International Language Resource Centre in Paris (AILRC-FR) and Amnesty International Vlaanderen (AIVL). A corpus of English source texts and Dutch (AIVL) and French (AILRC-FR) target texts are analysed. The findings of the analysis of translation policies and of the translation products are then combined to illustrate how translation impacts on Amnesty’s message and voice. The research results show that there are large differences in how translation is organised depending on the local office and the language(s), and that this also influences the way in which Amnesty’s message and voice are represented. For Dutch and French specifically, translation policies and translation products differ considerably. The thesis describes how these differences are often the result of different beliefs and assumptions relating to translation, and that staff members within Amnesty are not aware of the different conceptions of translation that exist within Amnesty International as a formal institution. Organising opportunities where translation can be discussed (meetings, workshops, online platforms) can help in reducing such differences. The thesis concludes by suggesting that an increased awareness of these issues will enable Amnesty to make more effective use of translation in its fight against human rights violations.

Experimental evidence for proposed transformation pathway from the inverse hexagonal to inverse diamond cubic phase from oriented lipid samples

A macroscopically oriented inverse hexagonal phase (HII) of the lipid phytantriol in water is converted to an oriented inverse double diamond bicontinuous cubic phase (QIID). The initial HII phase is uniaxially oriented about the long axis of a capillary with the cylinders parallel to the capillary axis. The HII phase is converted by cooling to a QII D phase which is also highly oriented, where the cylindrical axis of the former phase has been converted to a ⟨110⟩ axis in the latter, as demonstrated by small-angle X-ray scattering. This epitaxial relationship allows us to discriminate between two competing proposed geometric pathways to convert HII to QIID. Our findings also suggest a new route to highly oriented cubic phase coatings, with applications as nanomaterial templates.

Probabilistic wind power forecasts with an inverse power curve transformation and censored regression

Forecasting wind power is an important part of a successful integration of wind power into the power grid. Forecasts with lead times longer than 6 h are generally made by using statistical methods to post-process forecasts from numerical weather prediction systems. Two major problems that complicate this approach are the non-linear relationship between wind speed and power production and the limited range of power production between zero and nominal power of the turbine. In practice, these problems are often tackled by using non-linear non-parametric regression models. However, such an approach ignores valuable and readily available information: the power curve of the turbine's manufacturer. Much of the non-linearity can be directly accounted for by transforming the observed power production into wind speed via the inverse power curve so that simpler linear regression models can be used. Furthermore, the fact that the transformed power production has a limited range can be taken care of by employing censored regression models. In this study, we evaluate quantile forecasts from a range of methods: (i) using parametric and non-parametric models, (ii) with and without the proposed inverse power curve transformation and (iii) with and without censoring. The results show that with our inverse (power-to-wind) transformation, simpler linear regression models with censoring perform equally or better than non-linear models with or without the frequently used wind-to-power transformation.

Economic Transformation in Ghana: Where Will the Path Lead?

In the context of the Ghanaian government’s objective of structural transformation with an emphasis on manufacturing, this paper provides a case study of economic transformation in Ghana, exploring patterns of growth, sector transformation, and agglomeration. We document and examine why, despite impressive growth and poverty reduction figures, Ghana’s economy has exhibited less transformation than might be expected for a country that has recently achieved middle-income status. Ghana’s reduced share of agriculture in the economy, unlike many successfully transformed countries in Asia and Latin America, has been filled by services, while manufacturing has stagnated and even declined. Likely causes include weak transformation of the agricultural sector and therefore little development of agro-processing, the emergence of “consumption cities” and consumption-driven growth, upward pressure on the exchange rate, weak production linkages, and a poor environment for private-sector-led manufacturing.