In the study of civil society, Tocqueville-inspired research has helped illuminate important connections between associations and democracy, while corporatism has provided a robust framework for ...understanding officially approved civil society organizations in authoritarian regimes. Yet neither approach accounts for the experiences of ostensibly illegal grassroots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in an authoritarian state. Drawing on fieldwork in China, I argue that grassroots NGOs can survive in an authoritarian regime when the state is fragmented and when censorship keeps information local. Moreover, grassroots NGOs survive only insofar as they refrain from democratic claims-making and address social needs that might fuel grievances against the state. For its part, the state tolerates such groups as long as particular state agents can claim credit for any good works while avoiding blame for any problems. Grassroots NGOs and an authoritarian state can thus coexist in a "contingent symbiosis" that-far from pointing to an inevitable democratization-allows ostensibly illegal groups to operate openly while relieving the state of some of its social welfare obligations. Adapted from the source document.
Sustainable soil management is indispensable for achieving the UN Sustainable Development goals and soil carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation has gained importance in recent years, yet ...there are few examples of projects carried out to this purpose, and protocols that facilitate this task. Here we present a monitoring system that relies on sampling soils in the field, as opposed to a modeling approach. The high spatial variability of SOC was addressed by requiring that the participating farms divide their land according to management zones, based on soil type, slope position and land use history, and the sampling density was established as one sampling point per one hundred hectares, while for environments smaller than 500 ha minimum of five points must be used. These points are georeferenced and will be revisited for annual monitoring of sustainable soil management, and every five years for soil sampling for SOC, texture, bulk density, pH, electric conductivity (if indicated), and available phosphorus determinations. The monitoring of sustainable soil management will be carried out through a visual evaluation of 12 soil quality parameters, as described in the handbook published by the AGSUS group. The data obtained from the visual evaluation and the soil analyses (bulk density, particle size fractions, C content, and pH) in the baseline monitoring of Argentinean and Brazilian farms during 2022 were analyzed for the relation between visual evaluation score and the means of these soil parameters. The organic matter indicator (OMI)was calculated by the formula OMI = OM/clay plus silt*100. The data base contained visual soil evaluation scores at 80 georeferenced sampling points, representing 12 farms located in different agroecological zones of the Argentinean Pampas, and 47 sampling points on two farms in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Our results showed a relationship between the VE (Visual Evaluation) score and SOC contents of the soils, especially when these were expressed in relation to their fine mineral particles as with the OMI for the soils of the Argentinean Pampa and the Brazilian Mato Grosso. The OMI showed differences between the three VE scores ranging from 4.7 to 6.7 and from 3.1 to 5.1 in the 0–0.1 m and 0.1–0.2 m depths, respectively. Relationships between the VE score and SOC, OMI, Sand, Silt and Clay plus Silt were only found for the 39 cases of VE “moderate” score in Pampas soils, whereas for the 39 cases of “good” scores no significant relations were encountered. These soils had high SOC and OMI, indicating that they are healthy soils, near saturation level, with low C sequestration potential.
•A monitoring and sampling protocol for carbon sequestration project is presented.•Protocol includes on-site soil sampling and visual evaluation of soil health.•Results of on-going projects indicate good agreement between visual evaluation and soil carbon data.•Organic matter indicator suggests that some sites are near carbon saturation.
Bovine digital dermatitis (DD) is classified into M stages, ranging from M0 (Healthy), M1, M2, M3, M4 and M4.1 and is prone to recurrence. In this study, we recorded the M-stage classification of DD ...at 504 limbs in 126 Holstein-Friesian dairy cattle in April 2020 at a freestall dairy farm in Hokkaido, during regular foot trimming. We analyzed the data to reveal the occurrence of DD and to take preventive measures. As the method, we determined the prevalence of active DD (aDD). Then, the objective variable was set at each M-stage classification of DD by binomial logistic regression analysis, while the explanatory variables were the observation places, the number of calving, and the last three observations during hoof trimming up to February 2019. The results showed that prevalence of aDD cattle was 24.6%, and a high ratio of aDD was observed in a herd consisting mainly of first lactation cattle. Further, aDD was more common where it had been recorded in the past. Our study, in which hoof trimming information was recorded and analyzed according to M-stage classification, provided useful information for herd management and was believed to be the first report of its kind in Japan.
Methodological fit, an implicitly valued attribute of high-quality field research in organizations, has received little attention in the management literature. Fit refers to internal consistency ...among elements of a research project--research question, prior work, research design, and theoretical contribution. We introduce a contingency framework that relates prior work to the design of a research project, paying particular attention to the question of when to mix qualitative and quantitative data in a single research paper. We discuss implications of the framework for educating new field researchers.
Although playing a crucial role for the prevention of long‐term health impairment, interventions aiming at the improvement of employees' recovery processes are still scarce. In this study, we ...therefore investigated the effectiveness of a low‐dose mindfulness intervention for recovery from work. In addition, differential responding to the treatment in terms of treatment‐by‐baseline interactions was studied. A sample of 140 employees participated in a randomized field experiment with a self‐training and a wait‐list control group. Three central recovery processes (psychological detachment, sleep quality, and sleep duration) were assessed with event‐sampling methodology involving daily measurements over 10 workdays. Growth curve analyses revealed intervention effects on sleep quality and sleep duration. No effects were found for psychological detachment after work and for the proposed treatment‐by‐baseline interactions. Our findings are discussed in the context of occupational health promotion in general and mindfulness‐based interventions in specific.
Practitioner points
Although daily recovery from the demands of work has been shown to be vital for employee well‐being and performance, research on how workplace interventions can help improve recovery is still scarce.
This study investigated the effectiveness of a brief, economic mindfulness intervention on processes that are vital for recovery – psychological detachment, sleep quality, and sleep duration.
Findings revealed positive effects of the intervention on sleep quality and duration, but not on psychological detachment.
Implementation of Field Work Practice (FWP) for Vocational High School (VHS) students is one of the programs planned as a means for students to improve competence in both soft skills and hard skills, ...besides that by carrying out FWP students get learning and training bythe world of work. Every student supervisor or teacher has difficulty evaluating the results of street vendors, due to the lack of references obtained by student supervisors in implementing the street vendors program at VHS. This study aims to identify and analyze various approaches and evaluation models that have been used in the implementation of street vendors in VHS students. This research method uses a systematic literature review (SLR) with a descriptive explanatory type of research to gain a comprehensive understanding of the evaluation of the street vendors program implementation. This study found 50 articles on the topic of street vendors from various disciplines, but 15 research articles that were appropriate to the topic of Technology and Engineering came from various literary sources or based on the database found on Google Scholar. This study produced three evaluation models, namely the Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) model with 15 articles, the discrepancy model with 3 articles, and the goal-oriented model with 2 articles. The contribution of this research is expected to increase understanding of the evaluation of the implementation of the street vendors program for VHS students and to lay a strong basis for the development of better evaluations in the future.
Descriptions of runoff generation processes continue to grow, helping to reveal complexities and hydrologic behavior across a wide range of environments and scales. But to date, there has been little ...grouping of these process facts. Here, we discuss how the “fill‐and‐spill” concept can provide a framework to group event‐based runoff generation processes. The fill‐and‐spill concept describes where vertical and lateral additions of water to a landscape unit are placed into storage (the fill)—and only when this storage reaches a critical level (the spill), and other storages are filled and become connected, does a previously infeasible (but subsequently important) outflow pathway become activated. We show that fill‐and‐spill can be observed at a range of scales and propose that future fieldwork should first define the scale of interest and then evaluate what is filling‐and‐spilling at that scale. Such an approach may be helpful for those instrumenting and modeling new hillslopes or catchments because it provides a structured way to develop perceptual models for runoff generation and to group behaviors at different sites and scales.
Key Points
Runoff is at the scale of the beholder. We need to move from a notion of uniqueness of place to uniqueness of scale
Fill‐and‐spill, together with its components is common to all event runoff systems
Fill‐and‐spill as a framework is perhaps a guide for field hydrologists on what to measure, in what order and why
By providing feedback to customers on home electricity and natural gas usage with a focus on peer comparisons, utilities can reduce energy consumption at a low cost. We analyze data from two ...large-scale, random-assignment field experiments conducted by utility companies providing electricity (the Sacramento Municipal Utility District SMUD) and electricity and natural gas (Puget Sound Energy PSE), in partnership with a private company, Opower, which provides monthly or quarterly mailed peer feedback reports to customers. We find reduction in energy consumption of 1.2% (PSE) to 2.1% percent (SMUD), with the decrease sustained over time (7 months PSE and 12 months SMUD).
We examine organizational field change instigated by activists. Contrary to existing views emphasizing incumbent resistance, we suggest that collaboration between incumbents and challenger movements ...may emerge when a movement's cultural and relational fabric becomes moderately structured, creating threats and market opportunities but remaining permeable to external influence. We also elucidate how lead incumbents' attempts at movement cooptation may be deflected through distributed brokerage. The resulting confluence of cultural and relational "structuration" between movement and field accelerates the pace but dilutes the radicalness of institutional innovation, ensuring ongoing, incremental field change. Overall, this article contributes to the emergent literature on field dynamics by uncovering the evolution and outcomes of collaborative work at the intersection of social movements and incumbent fields.
Slippery Law, John; Lien, Marianne Elisabeth
Social studies of science,
06/2013, Letnik:
43, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper explores empirical ontology by arguing that realities are enacted in practices. Using the case of Atlantic salmon, it describes a series of scientific and fish-farming practices. Since ...these practices differ, the paper also argues that different salmon are being enacted within those different practices. The paper explores the precarious choreographies of those practices, considers the ways in which they enact agency and also work to generate Otherness. Finally it emphasises the productivity of practices and notes that they generate not simply particular realities (for instance particular salmon), but also enact a penumbra of not quite realised realities: animals that were almost but not quite created.
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