The Politics of Pension Reform:An Actor-Centred Explanatory Framework

2005 ◽  
pp. 59-88
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Framework

Distinguishing The Cognitive Processes Of Mindfulness: Developing A Standardised Mindfulness Technique For Use In Longitudinal Randomised Control Trials

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Isbel ◽  
Mathew J Summers
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Mindfulness Training ◽  
Mindfulness Practice ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Cognitive Faculty ◽  
Metacognitive Processes ◽  
Capacity Model ◽  
Developmental Progression ◽  
Open Monitoring ◽  
Randomised Control Trials

A capacity model of mindfulness is adopted to differentiate the cognitive faculty of mindfulness from the metacognitive processes required to cultivate this faculty in mindfulness training. The model provides an explanatory framework incorporating both the developmental progression from focussed attention to open monitoring styles of mindfulness practice, along with the development of equanimity and insight. A standardised technique for activating these processes without the addition of secondary components is then introduced. Mindfulness-based interventions currently available for use in randomised control trials introduce components ancillary to the cognitive processes of mindfulness, limiting their ability to draw clear causative inferences. The standardised technique presented here does not introduce such ancillary factors, rendering it a valuable tool with which to investigate the processes activated in this practice.

Toward a Nonidealist Evolutionary Synthesis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart A. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Living Systems ◽  
Evolution Of Development ◽  
Search Process ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Material Systems ◽  
Modern Physics

The received model of evolution sees all inherited features resulting from deterministic networks of interacting genes, implying that living systems are reducible to information in genetic programs. The model requires these programs and their associated phenotypes to have evolved by an isotropic search process occurring in gradual steps with no preferred morphological outcomes. The alternative is to recognize that clusters and aggregates of cells, the raw material of evolution, constitute middle-scale material systems. This implies the necessity of bringing the modern physics of mesoscale matter into the explanatory framework for the evolution of development. The relevant, often nonlinear, physical processes were mobilized at the inception of the phyla when their signature morphological outcomes first appeared and remain as efficient causes, albeit transformed, in present-day embryos. This physicogenetic perspective reengages with concepts of saltation, orthogenesis, and environment-induced plasticity long excluded from evolutionary theory.

scholarly journals Postcolonial theory and Canada’s health care professions: bridging the gap

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Wilmot
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Professional Knowledge ◽  
Healthcare Personnel ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Training Context ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Health Care Professions

AbstractIn recent years there have been several calls in professional and academic journals for healthcare personnel in Canada to raise the profile of postcolonial theory as a theoretical and explanatory framework for their practice with Indigenous people. In this paper I explore some of the challenges that are likely to confront those healthcare personnel in engaging with postcolonial theory in a training context. I consider these challenges in relation to three areas of conflict. First I consider conflicts around paradigms of knowledge, wherein postcolonial theory operates from a different base from most professional knowledge in health care. Second I consider conflicts of ideology, wherein postcolonial theory is largely at odds with Canada’s political and popular cultures. And finally I consider issues around the question of Canada’s legitimacy, which postcolonial theory puts in doubt. I suggest ways in which these conflicts might be addressed and managed in the training context, and also identify potential positive outcomes that would be enabling for healthcare personnel, and might also contribute to an improvement in Canada’s relationship with its indigenous peoples.

Autopoiesis and evolution: the role of organisms in natural drift

2021 ◽  
pp. 105971232110306
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Raimondi
Keyword(s):  
Living Systems ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Alternative Framework ◽  
Natural Drift ◽  
Genetic Reductionism ◽  
Development And Evolution

Genetic reductionism is increasingly seen as a severely limited approach to understanding living systems. The Neo-Darwinian explanatory framework tends to overlook the role of the organism for an understanding of development and evolution. In the current fast-changing theoretical landscape, the autopoietic approach provides conceptual distinctions and tools that may contribute to building an alternative framework. In this article, I examine the implications of the theories of autopoiesis and natural drift for an organism-centered view of evolution. By shifting the attention from genes to ontogenetic organism-niche configurations and their transformations over generations, this approach presents a compelling perspective on the role of organismal behavior in guiding phylogenetic drift.

scholarly journals The Health Belief Model as an Explanatory Framework in Communication Research: Exploring Parallel, Serial, and Moderated Mediation

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 566-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina L. Jones ◽  
Jakob D. Jensen ◽  
Courtney L. Scherr ◽  
Natasha R. Brown ◽  
Katheryn Christy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Belief Model ◽  
Health Belief ◽  
Moderated Mediation ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Belief Model ◽  
The Health Belief Model

Democracy and Dictatorship in Interwar Western Europe Revisited

1998 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ertman
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
International System ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
The World ◽  
Entire Universe ◽  
Western European ◽  
Methodological Advance

Almost none of the conditions that, according to the latest research, favor democratic durability were present in Western Europe between the world wars. Yet only four Western European states became dictatorships during this period, whereas the others remained democratic despite economic crisis, an unhelpful international system, and the lure of nondemocratic alternatives. Several recent works offer new explanations for this pattern of interwar outcomes. Insofar as these works analyze the entire universe of Western European cases, they represent an important methodological advance. However, they remain too wedded to a class-coalitional framework to provide both a parsimonious and a historically accurate account of why democracy collapsed in some states but not in others. This article proposes an alternative explanatory framework that focuses on how political parties can shape association life in such a way as to support or undermine democracy.

scholarly journals Cultural Perspectives of Financial and Non-Financial Incentives

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Kyriaki Kafka ◽  
Anna Maria Kanzola ◽  
Panagiotis E. Petrakis
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Economic Action ◽  
Cultural Perspectives

The present paper delineates an explanatory framework for the defining factors of incentives, both financial and nonfinancial, through the theory of human economic action and that of personality traits, which shape human goals and, ultimately, social identity. It is ascertained that three types of variables affect incentives: basic conditions (cultural change, etc.), basic values and needs (tradition, external values, etc.) and the dynamism of social identity, which includes the goals that are set. More specifically, the two basic variables that shape the incentives for human action and imbue dynamism in behavior relate to megalothymia—i.e., the need for acknowledgement of a person’s integrity along with the predisposition to be thought superior to others as well as the aspiration to a certain level of quality in life.

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