Scale-up of prevention programmes: sustained state-wide use of programme delivery software is explained by normalised self-organised adoption and non-adoption

Background Population-level health promotion is often conceived as a tension between “top-down” and “bottom-up” strategy and action. We report behind-the-scenes insights from Australia’s largest ever investment in the “top-down” approach, the $45m state-wide scale-up of two childhood obesity programmes. We used Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) as a template to interpret the organisational embedding of the purpose-built software designed to facilitate the initiative. The use of the technology was mandatory for evaluation, i.e. for reporting the proportion of schools and childcare centres which complied with recommended health practices (the implementation targets). Additionally, the software was recommended as a device to guide the implementation process. We set out to study its use in practice. Methods Short-term, high-intensity ethnography with all 14 programme delivery teams across New South Wales was conducted, cross-sectionally, 4 years after scale-up began. The four key mechanisms of NPT (coherence/sensemaking, cognitive participation/engagement, collective action and reflexive monitoring) were used to describe the ways the technology had normalised (embedded). Results Some teams and practitioners embraced how the software offered a way of working systematically with sites to encourage uptake of recommended practices, while others rejected it as a form of “mechanisation”. Conscious choices had to be made at an individual and team level about the practice style offered by the technology—thus prompting personal sensemaking, re-organisation of work, awareness of choices by others and reflexivity about professional values. Local organisational arrangements allowed technology users to enter data and assist the work of non-users—collective action that legitimised opposite behaviours. Thus, the technology and the programme delivery style it represented were normalised by pathways of adoption and non-adoption. Normalised use and non-use were accepted and different choices made by local programme managers were respected. State-wide, implementation targets are being reported as met. Conclusion We observed a form of self-organisation where individual practitioners and teams are finding their own place in a new system, consistent with complexity-based understandings of fostering scale-up in health care. Self-organisation could be facilitated with further cross-team interaction to continuously renew and revise sensemaking processes and support diverse adoption choices across different contexts.

Platform Worker Organising at Deliveroo in the UK: From Wildcat Strikes to Building Power

It has been five years since the first strikes of Deliveroo workers in London in 2016. Since then, workers have continued to organise. The campaigns have involved five different aspects: first, wildcat strike action; second, networks and internationalisation; third, union organising with the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (iwgb); fourth, legal campaigning; and fifth, wider leverage campaigns. What is less understood so far is the different strengths and weaknesses of these aspects, and how they have contributed to the build of workers’ self-organisation and power at Deliveroo. This article explores the different aspects and considers the effectiveness of each. It concludes by considering what can be learned from these struggles for the understanding of platform work and trade union organising today.

The Relevance of Agile Change Management in a Dynamic Business Environment

Conventional change management approaches are increasingly reaching their limits in a business environment characterised by volatility, dynamics and complexity. In other contexts, attempts are often made to counter these aspects with agile approaches. The extent to which this also makes sense in the field of change management has not been frequently investigated to date. The aim of this paper is therefore to examine the extent to which agile change management contributes to the successful handling of changes in a dynamic business environment. For this purpose, 30 interviews were conducted with change management and organisational development experts from various small, medium-sized, and large companies in Germany. The data obtained was primarily analysed qualitatively, using a structuring content analysis according to Mayring (2015). The results of the research show that change management can strongly benefit from agility. In particular, this is the case with respect to self-organisation, iteration, and experimentation. Agile change management makes sense even in more conventional, hierarchical organisations. However, there are indeed organisation-, project- or context-specific characteristics that speak particularly in favour of the use of agile change management approaches or make more conventional change management approaches seem more reasonable. Often, it is even advisable to use a clever mixture of both.

Digital Twins, Virtual Devices, and Augmentations for Self-Organising Cyber-Physical Collectives

The engineering of large-scale cyber-physical systems (CPS) increasingly relies on principles from self-organisation and collective computing, enabling these systems to cooperate and adapt in dynamic environments. CPS engineering also often leverages digital twins that provide synchronised logical counterparts of physical entities. In contrast, sensor networks rely on the different but related concept of virtual device that provides an abstraction of a group of sensors. In this work, we study how such concepts can contribute to the engineering of self-organising CPSs. To that end, we analyse the concepts and devise modelling constructs, distinguishing between identity correspondence and execution relationships. Based on this analysis, we then contribute to the novel concept of “collective digital twin” (CDT) that captures the logical counterpart of a collection of physical devices. A CDT can also be “augmented” with purely virtual devices, which may be exploited to steer the self-organisation process of the CDT and its physical counterpart. We underpin the novel concept with experiments in the context of the pulverisation framework of aggregate computing, showing how augmented CDTs provide a holistic, modular, and cyber-physically integrated system view that can foster the engineering of self-organising CPSs.

Current-induced self-organisation of mixed superconducting states

Small-angle neutron scattering is used in combination with transport measurements to investigate the current-induced effects on the morphology of the intermediate mixed state domains in the inter-type superconductor niobium. We report the robust self-organisation of the vortex lattice domains to elongated parallel stripes perpendicular to the applied current in a steady-state. The experimental results for the formation of the superstructure are supported by theoretical calculations, which highlight important details of the vortex matter evolution. The investigation demonstrates a mechanism of a spontaneous pattern formation that is closely related to the universal physics governing the intermediate mixed state in low-κ superconductors.

Subjective well-being of psychological-pedagogical students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction. With the development of humanistic attitudes in society, the importance of issues related to the subjective well-being of the individual increases. It is important not only how successful a person is at work or in educational activities, but also how well he/she feels. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the learning environment for university students. The study of the factors of subjective well-being of students expands the instrumental capabilities of psychological support during the pandemic. In the case of a repetition of a similar situation, this knowledge will be useful for helping students, and potentially a wider circle of people, to maintain subjective well-being.Aim. The present research aimed to investigate the subjective well-being of students of psychological and pedagogical directions of universities during the pandemic with an emphasis on its emotional component.Methodology and research methods. The research methodology is based on the subjective approach, which considers a student as an active subject, capable of successfully adapting to the changed conditions of an educational activity. In the course of the research, the authors identified the interrelationships of subjective well-being, its semantic markers and self-organisation to expand the possibilities of diagnosing subjective well-being and maintaining it during the periods of extreme social situations, as well as to use semantic markers for self-analysis. To assess subjective well-being, three methods were applied. Self-assessment of satisfaction with one’s condition on a 10-point scale was carried out according to the following parameters: sleep, food, communication with family, communication with friends, studies, hobbies, and mood. The authors employed the scale of subjective well-being (by А. Perrudet-Badoux, G. Mendelsohn, J. Chiche, adapted by M. V. Sokolova) and psychosemantic characteristics of the subjective attitude to the situation of distance learning at the university due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess the ability of students to organise themselves in the changed learning conditions, the questionnaire of self-organisation of activities (N. T. Feather и M. J. Bond, adapted by E. Yu. Mandrikova) was used. The study involved 406 students between the ages of 18 and 45 years (383 women and 23 men) studying in the areas of psychology and pedagogy at the University of Tyumen and State Kurgan State University. For statistical analysis of the research data, the Mann-Whitney U Test and correlation analysis were used.Results. It was found that the ability to self-organise leads to higher subjective well-being, and this, in turn, stimulates self-organisation. Semantic markers of subjective well-being associated with educational activities during the pandemic, such as comfortable and uncomfortable, interesting and uninteresting, tired and vigorous, were highlighted. The authors revealed objective parameters associated with self-organisation and subjective well-being, namely sleep disturbances. This can lead to the fact that there is not enough daytime and the student works at night, thereby resulting in the disturbance of night sleep, and consequently – poor self-organisation.Scientific novelty. The parameters of subjective well-being and self-organisation of students in a new, extreme social situation, during the COVID-19 pandemic are considered.Practical significance. The data obtained can be used to develop a strategy for teaching students in a pandemic situation and forced self-isolation, as well as to increase subjective well-being in a new social situation. The research results can be applied in psychodiagnostics for a more complete interpretation of the parameters of subjective well-being, as well as for the use of the identified relationships in the programmes of psychological support for students of psychological and pedagogical specialities. Semantic markers of subjective well-being that have received empirical justification can be employed to create a diagnostic scale.

Białoruski protest z 2020 r. w sieci

The development of information technologies and social networks makes it possible to significantly increase the effectiveness of the mechanisms of social self-organisation and politicisation of wider social masses, thus influencing the processes of democratisation of societies and political systems. This particularly applies to post-Soviet states. The development of the socio-political crisis that began in Belarus in August 2020 can be a very valuable subject for research into the impact of modern digital tools (messengers, social networks, crowdfunding, and so on) on the dynamics of changes in post-Soviet transforming systems. The main objective of this article is to systematise and present the impact and influence that modern digital tools have had on the nature and dynamics of the ongoing Belarusian political crisis and social protest.

Gibt es eine Gestalttheorie der Emotionen? Ein Diskussionsvorschlag

An emotional episode consists of psychological, physiological, motor and expressive components that are tied together. Present theories and previous contributions by gestalt theorists to emotions are discussed. It is shown that the synergetic system theory represents a fruitful model for emotional processes, in which self-organisation plays a central role. Also, a selection of neuropsychological findings in this context is taken into account.