Clarifying the role of belief-motive explanations in multi-stakeholder realist evaluation

In realist evaluation, where researchers aim to make program theories explicit, they can encounter competing explanations as to how programs work. Managing explanatory tensions from different sources of evidence in multi-stakeholder projects can challenge external evaluators, especially when access to pertinent data, like client records, is mediated by program stakeholders. In this article, we consider two central questions: how can program stakeholder motives shape a realist evaluation project; and how might realist evaluators respond to stakeholders’ belief-motive explanations, including those about program effectiveness, based on factors such as supererogatory commitment or trying together in good faith? Drawing on our realist evaluation of a service reform initiative involving multiple agencies, we describe stakeholder motives at key phases, highlighting a need for tactics and skills that help to manage explanatory tensions. In conclusion, the relevance of stakeholders’ belief-motive explanations (‘we believe the program works’) in realist evaluation is clarified and discussed.     

Reclaiming the aesthetic of women: de-colonizing land ownership

ABSTRACT

This paper engages with the study of the aesthetic as an embodied form and offers a critique of the study of value and commodification that emerges in the global spatial imagination. I explore the neglected interrelationship between cultural-spatial reconstruction and land ownership as a sign of livelihood by way of a critique of development and through an investigation of the multiple traces of colonialism in Indonesia in contemporary times, after the massacres. First, land is taken from communities to be used for state and corporate industrialization, and then aesthetic acts of resistance and remembrance by members of these communities, via artistic productions and protest, are commoditized as touristic attractions by the state as a form of nationalism and fetishism of the indigenous, and by corporations as a form of corporate cultural responsibility. This new method of capitalist inclusion of the survivor in a globalized project of aestheticizing space is a neoliberal tactic in which the commoditized reappearance of the aesthetic creations of the marginalized is not, in fact, a sign of inclusion but rather of further displacement. My study follows the focus of this special issue to analyse cultural production within the complexity of multiple and converging colonial forms in historical and contemporary contexts considering the relationality, contradictions and incommensurabilities generated within converging structures of colonial and racialized violence. I locate the ways in which artistic projects within this schema may be used as acts of resistance but also possibly co-optation/ domination. Aesthetic creations intended as means of archiving may also bring insurrections into the paradigm of globalization and to its attention. This paper is an attempt to look at how the creative urge negates and also creates the possibility of resistance, inviting us to urgently rethink aesthetic projects and their representation through a genealogy of global participation.     

Scientists in the Resistance

In her recent piece, MacKendrick (2017) asks whether we are experiencing a “new wave of science activism” and outlines various visible and vocal forms of political action taken by scientists in recent months. Coming from a slightly different perspective, this piece looks at scientists as part of the broader Resistance—people working individually and in collectivities to challenge the Trump agenda. Building on analysis of data collected from a random sample of participants from the Washington, DC , March for Science, which took place in April 2017, I explore how participants at the March for Science compare to a broader sample of participants in the Resistance. Although they have some unique characteristics, my findings show that there are few statistically significant differences between participants in the March for Science and others participating in the Resistance. I conclude this piece by discussing the implications of these findings on scientists in the Resistance and science activism more generally.     

Risk Ranking of Antimicrobial‐Resistant Hazards Found in Meat in Switzerland

Human exposure to bacteria resistant to antimicrobials and transfer of related genes is a complex issue and occurs, among other pathways, via meat consumption. In a context of limited resources, the prioritization of risk management activities is essential. Since the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) situation differs substantially between countries, prioritization should be country specific. The objective of this study was to develop a systematic and transparent framework to rank combinations of bacteria species resistant to selected antimicrobial classes found in meat, based on the risk they represent for public health in Switzerland. A risk assessment model from slaughter to consumption was developed following the Codex Alimentarius guidelines for risk analysis of foodborne AMR. Using data from the Swiss AMR monitoring program, 208 combinations of animal species/bacteria/antimicrobial classes were identified as relevant hazards. Exposure assessment and hazard characterization scores were developed and combined using multicriteria decision analysis. The effect of changing weights of scores was explored with sensitivity analysis. Attributing equal weights to each score, poultry‐associated combinations represented the highest risk. In particular, contamination with extended‐spectrum β‐lactamase/plasmidic AmpC‐producing Escherichia coli in poultry meat ranked high for both exposure and hazard characterization. Tetracycline‐ or macrolide‐resistant Enterococcus spp., as well as fluoroquinolone‐ or macrolide‐resistant Campylobacter jejuni , ranked among combinations with the highest risk. This study provides a basis for prioritizing future activities to mitigate the risk associated with foodborne AMR in Switzerland. A user‐friendly version of the model was provided to risk managers; it can easily be adjusted to the constantly evolving knowledge on AMR.     

Authoritarian neoliberalism: trajectories of knowledge production and praxis

ABSTRACT

This introduction to the special issue takes as its point of departure three centres of gravity that have shaped the study of neoliberalism but have also established barriers to further progress in these debates. By promoting an intersectional materialist research agenda which challenges extant ideational, modernist and empiricist tendencies in scholarship on neoliberalism, the essay contextualizes the special issue articles by outlining and clarifying key aspects of our understanding of authoritarian neoliberalism. In particular, we reflect on themes related to conceptualization and periodization, which are of importance for both this special issue but also for broader questions of knowledge production and praxis. Through doing so, we argue that there are two distinct yet connected trajectories within the research agenda on authoritarian neoliberalism: one which focuses on the intertwinement of authoritarian statisms and neoliberal reforms; and another which traces various lineages of transformation of key societal sites in capitalism (e.g. states, households, workplaces, urban spaces). Recognition of this spectrum of authoritarian neoliberal practices is important as it helps us uncover how inequalities of power are produced and reproduced in capitalist societies, and pushes us to consider more fully how other worlds can be made possible. Nevertheless, it is affirmed that we must remain open to what an emancipatory society might look like, and what struggles would be most appropriate, in and across various socio-spatial contexts.     

阻力墙参数对转向节锻件充填影响的神经网络分析

为研究阻力墙结构参数对转向节锻件长叉充填的定量影响,设计了广义回归( GR)人工神经网络模型。用“舍一法”训练了模型,并采用3个样本对模型进行预测检验,散点表明预测值和实验值拟合较好。统计学指标为：均方误差M1为0. 898 0,相对均方误差M2为0.167 0%,拟合分值V为1.973 9,说明人工神经网络具有较高的预测精度。最后用 神经网络分析阻力墙关键参数对锻件长叉充填的定量影响,结果表明：长叉侧边桥部宽度和阻力墙斜度的增加对长叉充填作用不明显;阻力墙间隙的加大不利于长叉充填;阻力墙宽度对长叉充填的影响呈抛物线关系,先增大后减小,存在一个极大值。GR人工神经网络模型能够定量预测各阻力墙参数对长叉充填的影响。     

电站锅炉过热器阻力特性研究及布置优化

流体力学理论和实测数据的比较,分析了影响亚临界大容量锅炉过热器系统流动阻力压降的诸因素,并提出了过热器系统布置的优化方法和具体方案,以降低过热器系统的流动阻力。     

考虑空气阻力和地球自转的高次效应的落体运动

运用逐次逼近理论 ,通过反复迭代求得了在线性阻力和科氏力作用下落体运动的高次近似解     

预氧化对多孔碳化硅陶瓷抗氧化及抗热震性的影响

考察了多孔碳化硅陶瓷的抗氧化性及抗热震性,探讨了不同制造工艺对多孔碳化硅陶瓷抗氧化性及抗热震性的影响。研究了SiC陶瓷在热处理过程中SiC颗粒表面氧化形成的SiO_2在不同热处理温度的状态变化及其对试样抗热震性的影响。     

在“文字游戏”停止的地方

郜元宝认为,今天仍然弥漫着鲁迅与之搏斗的各种文字游戏;只有在文字游戏停止的地方,我们才可能与鲁迅真实相遇,才会发现,原来他是怎样的无法绕过。孙郁认为,浙东文化对鲁迅早期思想和精神底色有多方面的辐射,而鲁迅的现代眼光则颠覆了这一传统并赋予浙东文化另一种隐含。刘绪源认为,《两地书》是仅次于《野草》的、最能反映本真的鲁迅的书,那种把对虚无与黑暗的反抗作为生命本体的实践,和察见渊鱼者不祥的自省,是理解鲁迅的一把重要钥匙。袁盛勇认为,鲁迅思想及其话语实践中的正面和负面因素是难以分割地联系在一起的,应采取一种辩证的态度,回到一个复杂而完整的鲁迅那里。张钊贻则认为,鲁迅早期反民主言论有其历史原因,并非反对民主的理念,他对目前的民主制度能否真正实现确有怀疑,根源在于两种现代性的矛盾理念。