bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Impacted Canines Utilizing Three Radiographic Methods in Orthodontic Patients in Benin City, Nigeria
Authors: Ize-Iyamu IN  , Otaren JN
Published: September 2023

Background: Impacted canines are one of the most commonly missing teeth in the oral cavity and traditionally, two dimensional (2-D) radiographic views have been utilized in localizing such teeth. The introduction of the 3-D Cone Beam Computed Tomography was to enable localization in three dimensions. A reliable and concise radiographic technique will enable proper diagnosis of the type and extent of impaction and aid in choosing the proper treatment and also monitor treatment progression.

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate impacted canines in orthodontic patients utilizing three radiographic methods in Benin City, Nigeria.

Methods: In this prospective study, 34 pre-orthodontic patients (30 with unilateral and 4 with bilateral impactions) and a total number of 38 impacted canines were selected. The Lateral Cephalometric radiograph was used to determine the patients’ orthodontic problem. Three groups of participants were selected and identified based on the radiographic method utilized; with group 1, the periapical / Occlusal group (POCC, n=13); group 2, the Orthopantomogram group (OPG, n=13). The third group was the Cone Beam Computed Tomography group (CBCT, n=12). Impacted canines were detected and the position assessed and classified utilizing three radiographic methods into classes I to VI. The differences between groups and correlations between variables were determined with the student’s t-test and the Spearman correlation coefficient respectively. Significant values of P<0.05 were applied.

Results: The mean age of participants was 18.29±6.15 years. A total number of 30(78.9%) impactions were seen in the upper jaw and 8(21.1%) in the lower jaw. Bilateral impactions were seen in the upper jaw of 3(7.9%) patients and 1(2.6%) in the lower jaw respectively. The position of the canines could only be identified clearly in classes I and II from group 1. Group 2 (OPG) was the least definite in identifying accurately the position of the canines. The CBCT (Group 3) did not record any impaction in the lower jaw. Consecutive paraxial cuts at 1.5mm interval on the CBCT showed the position of the canines to be in Class I in 6(50%), class II in 3(25%) and classes III in 2(16.7%) and VI in 1(8.3%) respectively in the upper jaw.

Conclusion: The CBCT appears to be the most reliable method of identifying the position and depth of impacted canines.
Adverse drug reactions reporting by community pharmacists in Lagos State
Authors: Olugbake OA  , Rufus AC  , Joda A  , Balogun M
Published: September 2023

Background: Spontaneous Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) reporting is the cornerstone of Pharmacovigilance. It is very important that pharmacists are alert to potential adverse drug reactions and drug interactions. The contribution of community pharmacists towards ADR reporting in four regions of Lagos state, Nigeria was studied.

Objective: The main aim of the study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of community pharmacists to ADR and its reporting.

Method: This questionnaire based survey was conducted over a period of four months in 30 community pharmacies each (120 respondents) in four areas of Lagos state (Ikorodu, Victoria Island, Surulere and Ikeja). The developed questionnaire contained sections on the demographic details of the pharmacists, knowledge, perception and evaluation of the pharmacists on ADR and its reporting, and factors influencing ADR reporting. The data obtained was entered unto Microsoft Excel and analysed using frequency and percentage.

Results: Over 96% agreed that the spontaneous reporting of suspected ADRs is necessary for pharmacovigilance. The analysis showed that the pharmacists had good knowledge of ADRs but the reporting rate was only 24.2%. This means that though the pharmacists were knowledgeable about ADRs, they were not putting its reporting into practice due to several reasons.

Conclusion: The knowledge of ADRs and its reporting by community pharmacists in Lagos state needs to be improved upon. Continuous education, training and integration of ADR reporting into the clinical activities of the pharmacists by the Pharmacovigilance centre and other relevant personnel would improve reporting.
Thyroidectomy refusal and long-term anti-thyroid use in toxic multi-nodular goitre
Authors: Uwanuruochi K  , Uwanuruochi V
Published: September 2023

Background: Definitive management for most patients with toxic goitres comprise thyroidectomy or radioiodine ablation.

Method: We report a middle aged woman who refused surgery on personal grounds, and in the absence of radioiodine was managed long-term with oral anti-thyroid.

Results: The clinical outcome was fair.

Conclusion: Our study, the first report of long-term anti-thyroid use from our centre, highlight the peculiarities of management under this scenario.
120 TC
Authors: Félix Julián
Published: September 2023

En este tributo por el aniversario 120 de las ideas basales que dieron origen a la teoría de los cuanta, reunimos a cuatro autores, académicos, profesionales de la física y sus fundamentos para que expongan, por separado, sus exploraciones de la teoría del quantum. Hacemos un recuento de las ideas que llevaron a la formulación de la teoría cuántica por Max Planck, y su posterior aplicación. Queremos conmemorar la publicación de la teoría cuántica, pues es una marca indeleble en la historia del pensamiento científico y tecnológico universales; establece un antes y un después en la concepción del devenir de la naturaleza y es la base e inicio de la revolución científica y de pensamiento más importante de nuestros tiempos. Recalcar y ejemplificar la importancia de aprender a hacer ciencia, de seguir metodologías en el estudio de la naturaleza, y conseguir resultados nuevos, sean también objetivos de este producto bibliográfico.
Book Review - eLearnings: Implementing a national strategy for ICT in education, 1998-2010
Authors: Sudlow Darren
Published: September 2023

In 2010 Core Education released a book entitled, Elearnings: Implementing a national strategy for ICT in Education, 1998-2010 which outlines the journey various stakeholders have been on during that period.This review examines the value of the book for a teacher working in a fully online or 'blended' context.
Keynote: What is the State of E-Learning? Reflections on 30 Ways Learning is Changing
Authors: Bonk Curtis J.
Published: September 2023

This paper is based on a keynote talk delivered at the biannual DEANZ Conference, at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand in April 2016. As highlighted in that talk, we have entered Education 3.0; an age filled vast resource abundance and extensive opportunities for learner empowerment. During the past decade, there have emerged at least 30 different ways in which learning in changing; for instance, it is becoming increasingly collaborative, global, mobile, modifiable, open, online, blended, massive, visually-based, hands-on, ubiquitous, instantaneous, and personal. These 30 learning and technology-related changes reflect three distinct “mega-trends;” namely, (1) learner engagement, (2) the pervasive access to learning, and (3) the customisation and personalization of learning.
Digital Fluency in Open, Flexible and Distance Learning
Authors: Fields Alison J , Hartnett Maggie
Published: September 2023

Digital fluency affects us all – as our world becomes more online, our skills to be able to navigate in this world may determine how well we participate, contribute and succeed. In this Editorial we look at the Digital Technologies Hangarau Matihiko Curriculum being introduced to primary and secondary schools in New Zealand and ask what this means for the open, flexible and distance learning sectors. We also celebrate the JOFDL Best Paper Awards for 2018 which were presented at the biennial FLANZ Conference in Palmerston North earlier this year. The Editorial is rounded off with an overview of the articles in this issue.
Engaging learner support: An investigation of faculty-library collaboration to provide live course-specific learner support within the online classroom environment
Authors: Fields Alison J
Published: September 2023

Collaboration between faculty and learner support can create platforms for delivering seamless services for e-learners. Providing access to learning materials and activities with collocated tailored learner support creates an environment where e-learners are able to easily access everything needed for an enhanced, supported and more focussed learning experience.The emerging practice of embedding live librarians within online tertiary classrooms provides a new avenue for such learner support, and forms a natural extension of the library links and resources which are routinely found in online campuses, library websites and some online course pages. Embedded librarians can actively direct students to tailored library resources and tutorials and assist students directly, often in a library discussion forum, with their specific information and referencing questions.This paper reports on research in progress into the nature and effectiveness of using embedded librarians within online classrooms in New Zealand. It takes a multi-faceted view of this emerging practice, investigating the experience of students, faculty and the embedded librarians within the online classroom setting, and also considers how the library forum discussions operate and evolve over a trimester and what value they may have to the students in that class.Embedded librarians have been appearing in a small but growing number of online classrooms around the globe for the past decade, and in New Zealand are still the exception rather than the rule. Best practice has not yet been standardised globally and in the New Zealand environment has not yet been identified. There is opportunity to maximise the benefits of this new form of e-learner support and avoid potential pitfalls to enhance the learners’ experience and achievement by increasing engagement with relevant and pertinent information resources to support their learning.
Computational Thinking in Junior Classrooms in New Zealand
Authors: Irons Jeanette Marie Margaret , Hartnett Maggie
Published: September 2023

From 2020, the New Zealand technology curriculum will include computational thinking. The new curriculum content is being introduced to students from five-years-old onwards. In preparation for its introduction, online resources have been developed for teachers, including junior teachers (who teach new entrants to year three), that contain progress outcomes, lesson plans, exemplars and assessments. However, it is unclear whether New Zealand junior teachers are sufficiently prepared to teach computational thinking and what factors influence their preparedness to teach the new curriculum. This research explored the experiences of a small group of junior school teachers in the year prior to the official introduction of the technology curriculum. Research findings highlight that factors including professional development, assessment, schoolwide support, and time availability influence the uptake of the computational thinking curriculum by teachers in New Zealand junior classrooms.
Connecting Past and Future Educational Practice: A Post-COVID-19 Present
Authors: Atkinson Simon Paul , Fields Alison
Published: September 2023

The challenges of supporting learners at a distance are enduring. But the nature of these challenges is changing, and this change has been particularly notable since the beginning of the pandemic and the rapid worldwide move to distance and online learning. A brief look is taken at the evolving nature of the distance-student experience under the theme of “Time is the new distance”. This is complemented with four papers in this issue, each of which is concerned with an aspect of meeting the challenges of supporting distance learners. Hartline et al. draw attention to the importance of the teacher’s presence in decreasing student anxiety. Forbes explores the effectiveness of asynchronous communication as an effective learner support. Cameron et al. share a national perspective from a wider international study, concluding that clear communication by institutions and other authorities can reduce uncertainty for students and is necessary to mitigate the negative effects of future disruptions to study. And finally, Adebisi and Olatunji round off the set of articles with findings that the key psychosocial experience of students revolves around the flexibility and cost of distance learning, work–life pressures, and the availability of faculty.
Parents’ Experience with Remote Learning during COVID-19 Lockdown in Zimbabwe
Authors: Chitanana Lockias
Published: September 2023

The closure of primary schools during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rapid shift to remote learning, placing more responsibility for learning on parents and guardians. This study sought to explore parents’ experience while engaging in their children’s remote learning during that period. The study is particularly timely in light of a dramatic growth in remote learning due to the continued disruption of face-to-face learning in schools. A study of parents’ experience may yield useful data and identify trends to inform the development of programmes and policies targeting parental needs and support in this emerging form of learning. A descriptive qualitative design was used to conduct this study so that relevant responses could be sought to get insights into parents’ experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Questionnaires and online interviews were used to collect data from a purposive sample of 25 parents, whose selection was based on their involvement in their children’s home learning and access to internet connectivity in the home. The results revealed that parents found the sudden closure of schools extremely disturbing, and they were concerned about their children’s routines. Parents highlighted that they had difficulties with balancing responsibilities, adjusting to remote learning, children’s lack of motivation to learn, poor accessibility of learning material, lack of capacity to assist multiple children, and finding appropriate space for learning. The results of the study have important implications for policy, and generated strong recommendations for teachers, school authorities, and policymakers.
Post-pandemic Trends
Authors: Fields Alison , Atkinson Simon Paul
Published: September 2023

Post-pandemic trends can be seen in journals in two ways: readership and research. This editorial looks at both, beginning with a report on the readership statistics of the Journal over the past 12 months, followed by identification of readership preference, with a list of the most frequently accessed items in the Journal in 2022. A steadily higher journal readership has continued after the sudden growth in demand for information in open, flexible, and distance learning during the pandemic. This is followed with a list of papers in this fulsome issue, showing movement away from experiences in the sudden and enforced shift to online and distance learning, to the emerging era of changing perspectives and broader reflections.
Teaching, Engaging, and Motivating Learners Online Through Weekly, Tailored, and Relevant Communication
Authors: Kenah Andy , Nash Catherine
Published: September 2023

Engaging and motivating learners to successfully complete their studies are crucial elements for the success of distance educators around the world. The researchers’ AIM newsletter, which is formatted in accordance with motivational learning theory, has been delivered to first-year learners in economics at Open Polytechnic of New Zealand from 2010 to 2022. AIM is an acronym for Academic content, Information for the course, and Motivation— three critical elements that are required to meet the challenges of effective online course facilitation. This paper uses Keller’s IMMS to evaluate the learner’s perspective of the AIM newsletter. Results show that learners consider AIM newsletter attracts the learner’s attention and provides relevant links between theory and current world examples, linking the learner’s own experiences, increasing their confidence in the course, and providing overall satisfaction with the learning experience. In essence, AIM newsletter provides an effective and efficient method of delivering and motivating learners throughout their studies.
Adult Students’ Perceptions of a Synchronous Distance Education Teacher Training Programme Using Microsoft Teams
Authors: Sarma Anna Marina , Gkila Pinelopi , Armakolas Stephanos
Published: September 2023

This qualitative survey studies the perceptions of adult students enrolled in a teacher training programme in Greece. It examines synchronous distance education, the Microsoft Teams platform, and the prospect of strengthening and establishing this type of education after the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey used the semi-structured interview as a basic tool to gather students’ perceptions of the teacher training programme, “EPPAIK”. The results show that the benefits to the user of synchronous distance education, and the possibilities provided by the Microsoft Teams platform, are many. Most respondents consider it necessary to evaluate contemporary education, to establish a combination of both traditional and contemporary educational practices (hybrid learning/education), to achieve the best results in the future.
Substitution of Boiled Purple Sweet Potato in Making Purple Doughnut
Authors: Wijaya Hengki , Ramsaleh Jeffly , Patandi Griselda Prisilia
Published: September 2023

This paper is the outcome of food products from entrepreneurship lessons. This part becomes fascinating because the essential ingredients of doughnuts are made from purple sweet potato, which substitutes wheat flour. Purple sweet potato provides health benefits. The method is qualitative with an organoleptic test approach for purple doughnut products and a SWOT test to evaluate the product before it is marketed. The availability of raw materials is the strength of this doughnut product. The organoleptic test assessment stands out in the doughnut colour and texture category with a preference level of 95.44% and 90.9%, respectively. This innovation produces doughnuts with the preferred purple filling colour.
Investigation of Cryptocurrency-Centered Money Laundering Scenarios in terms of Digital Forensics
Authors: KÜÇÜK Düzgün , ÇAKAR Emre , YAKUT Ömer Faruk , ERTAM Fatih
Published: September 2023

One of the biggest innovations brought by the digitalized world is undoubtedly the invention of crypto money, which is decentralized, anonymous and complex, and connected to blockchain technology. This relatively new technology has attracted the attention of many people with its revolutionary changes in payment systems and great price movements in the market, as well as the economic balances it has changed around the world. In addition to this interest, it also attracted the attention of crime and crime organizations in a short time, and over time it turned into a tool used by illegal organizations such as laundering the proceeds of crime. Although this structure was initially exposed to the reaction of some states at the level of nation states, on the other hand, it managed to get the support of many states. However, although the spread of blockchain-based money laundering methods is an undeniable problem for all states, a significant cooperation has not been achieved by international collaborations and organizations to prevent this situation. On the other hand, it is of great importance for law enforcement and forensic analysts to clarify this situation and to fight against these structures in order to protect national interests. In this study; In this study, an approach that will detect money laundering is tried to be presented through sample scenarios by bringing a broad perspective to crypto money-based money laundering methods, which are very difficult to trace due to their nature. In addition, it is expected that the difficulties in implementation of the proposed approach will be clearly addressed and will shed light and inspire further study.
Effects of Flow Parameters on Heat Transfer and Temperature Distribution of a Thermoelectric Module
Authors: KILIÇ Furkan , KILINÇ Enes
Published: September 2023

The effects of the hot air inlet velocity and hot air inlet temperature on the hot side temperature, the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides, and the heat transfer rate on the hot side of a thermoelectric module (TEM) were investigated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyzes. As a result of CFD analysis, the maximum hot side temperature, the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides, and the average heat transfer rate on the hot side of the TEM are found to be 274.9 °C, 70.4 °C, and 33.8 W, respectively, at 15 m/s of hot air inlet velocity. Besides, the maximum hot side temperature, the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides, and the average heat transfer rate on the hot side of the TEM are determined to be 432.8 °C, 114.9 °C, and 55.1 W, respectively, for 800 °C of hot air inlet temperature at 15 m/s of hot air inlet velocity. As a result, increasing the hot air inlet velocity and inlet temperature increases the hot side temperature, the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides, and the heat transfer rate on the hot side of the TEM.
La Noche Triste, o cómo Hernán Cortés posiblemente modificó la narración sobre la batalla perdida
Authors: Pisula Anna
Published: September 2023

El artículo abarca las descripciones de la batalla desencadenada por la huida de los españoles de Tenochtitlán en la noche del 30 de junio al 1 de julio del año 1520, un episodio históricamente conocido como la Noche Triste. Se analizan las Cartas de Relación (1521) de Hernán Cortés, el jefe de la expedición, y la Historia de la conquista de México (1552-1553) de Francisco López de Gómara. El segundo de los autores no participó en la batalla pero tiene una gran importancia en relación del tema, dado que desde su crónica viene el nombre del acontecimiento. Asimismo, fue el primero al mencionar en la escritura el supuesto llanto de Cortés después de la batalla. Tomando en cuenta la influencia que tuvo el conquistador sobre ese cronista, se puede suponer que fue el mismo Cortés quien intentaba modificar la narración sobre este acontecimiento histórico, añadiendo el aspecto emocional para mejorar su imagen ante el hecho de las muertes de los soldados. Gracias a la comparación de estos dos textos, se puede observar cómo un acontecimiento histórico se convirtió en un mito.
MDverse: Shedding Light on the Dark Matter of Molecular Dynamics Simulations
Authors: Tiemann Johanna K. S. , Szczuka Magdalena , Bouarroudj Lisa , Oussaren Mohamed , Garcia Steven , Howard Rebecca J. , Delemotte Lucie , Lindahl Erik , Baaden Marc , Lindorff-Larsen Kresten , Chavent Matthieu , Poulain Pierre
Published: September 2023

The rise of open science and the absence of a global dedicated data repository for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations has led to the accumulation of MD files in generalist data repositories, constituting the
dark matter of MD
- data that is technically accessible, but neither indexed, curated, or easily searchable. Leveraging an original search strategy, we found and indexed about 250,000 files and 2,000 datasets from Zenodo, Figshare and Open Science Framework. With a focus on files produced by the Gromacs MD software, we illustrate the potential offered by the mining of publicly available MD data. We identified systems with specific molecular composition and were able to characterize essential parameters of MD simulation, such as temperature and simulation length, and identify model resolution, such as all-atom and coarse-grain. Based on this analysis, we inferred metadata to propose a search engine prototype to explore collected MD data. To continue in this direction, we call on the community to pursue the effort of sharing MD data, and increase populating and standardizing metadata to reuse this valuable matter.
Reims
Authors: Fine Richard
Published: September 2023

This chapter details how the United Press's (UP) notorious misreporting of the World War I armistice weighed on the minds of many in the press and in the government. The UP in Paris had cabled on November 7, 1918, that an Allied commander negotiated an armistice with German military envoys, however, it soon became clear that the cable was false, and the supposed general armistice was actually just a temporary ceasefire. The chapter highlights how the UP grudgingly admitted its mistake after the British and French conceded that no armistice had been agreed. The chapter covers Washington's decision to designate the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) as the controlling authority on announcements about peace to avoid a repeat of the UP mishap. A reporter of the Associated Press dispatched that the war in Europe was over, but later apologized as President Harry Truman confirmed that the Germans had not actually surrendered.
Empire in the East
Authors: Eaton Nicole
Published: September 2023

This chapter follows the rise and fall of the Nazi revolution in Königsberg. It shows how Nazi leaders in the city developed an agrarian populist variant of National Socialism within Germany's borders and extended it into the border regions of Poland and Lithuania at the start of the Second World War and to Nazi-occupied Ukraine in 1941. It also highlights Königsberg's Nazis who asserted East Prussia's central role as a vanguard in the Nazi experiment to transform the German national community. The chapter discusses how the contours of the national community became ambiguous as Nazi racial scholars struggled to determine who among East Prussia's polyglot population was a German, a Lithuanian, or a Pole. It then details how Königsberg's Nazis extended their rule to the wartime German occupations of Eastern Europe and exported their rule to a vast stretch of territory from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Crouching Tiger, Running Commentary
Authors: Borenstein Eliot
Published: September 2023

This chapter discusses Doug Moench's use of first-person narrative captions. In comics, a first-person narrator has some advantage over certain other narrative forms prevalent at Marvel in the 1960s and 1970s. For reasons that might have to do with habit or tradition, Marvel characters who narrate aloud usually do so in a melodramatic mode, tossing around exclamation marks as though they were trying to meet a punctuation quota. In captions, the tone tends to be more subdued. In Moench's hands, first-person narration does double duty, bringing the reader into the hero's head while also setting a mood that is more contemplative and detached.
Blood Will Tell
Authors: Borenstein Eliot
Published: September 2023

This chapter focuses on Marv Wolfman's Tomb of Dracula. Part of Marvel's post-1971 horror boom, it is commonly acknowledged as one of Marvel's best publications of the decade. The series devotes a significant amount of narrative effort to conveying the effects the vampire has had on those he encounters. Not only did Tomb of Dracula constitute a step away from the genre that had defined Marvel for the past decade, but also it was one of the first attempts in the era of the Comics Code to publish a series centered on a villain rather than a hero. While this is obviously a problem of genre, it also has serious ramifications for the question of subjectivity. For years, Stan Lee and his collaborators told stories about characters who looked like monsters but whose inner nobility made them admirable. Now Tomb of Dracula introduced monsters who were truly monstrous through and through. The chapter thus considers how a writer can humanize a monster without humanizing him too much and how the writer can get inside the head of someone evil without holding him up to the reader for admiration.
How Do You Decide?
Authors: Einhorn Cheryl Strauss
Published: September 2023

This chapter notes that knowing about ourselves as decision makers can help us understand how we approach problem-solving, our strengths, and potential pitfalls. The chapter stresses that this will help us to understand why we come to certain conclusions and allow us to evaluate whether the conclusion may be valid or not. The chapter also looks at what we value as human beings, and examines how it can help us set the guardrails that guide our decision-making. It then argues that working well with other stakeholders involved in our decisions is the lynchpin that makes our decisions successful. To bring others along with us and give our decisions a holistic chance to succeed, the chapter employs an inclusive and fact-based process that allows us to effectively gather information, scrutinize its quality and meaning to us, and control for, and counter, the natural mental mistakes that we make due to unconscious bias. The chapter discusses the different Problem Solver Profiles: Adventurer, Detective, Listener, Thinker, and Visionary. It explores their implications and how they can provide us with a more open mindset to make decisions that foster positive relationships and promote nurturing environments that increase belonging and inclusion.
Lexicon, Situationality, and Community
Authors: Einhorn Cheryl Strauss
Published: September 2023

This chapter reviews how self-knowledge guides us on how to think or behave differently so that the decisions we make are both thought out and satisfying. The chapter highlights that the Problem Solver Profile is practical and actionable and provides us with a basic overview of our go-to decision-making strategies and habits. It then elaborates on the behavioral and decision-making strengths of our profiles and the thinking mistakes and shortcuts associated with each problem-solving style; the cognitive biases that can inhibit good decision-making. It also demonstrates some examples of Problem Solvers like us in action and the models of famous decision makers who may share your profile. It ultimately concludes by examining the three distinct and different benefits to understanding and being familiar with all five decision-making archetypes: discerning situationality, creating a shared lexicon, and building an effective community.
Using PSPs to Bolster Strengths
Authors: Einhorn Cheryl Strauss
Published: September 2023

This chapter argues that being in touch with our values helps us understand how we judge people and situations. It elaborates on how identifying our own values gives us important information about ourselves and can also give us insight into our own thinking and assumptions. The chapter then looks at the other side of the “bias” coin: what we frame as biases can just as easily be seen as strengths. Using the language of strength, the chapter revisits the four most common relationships we all find ourselves in and how to lean into the strengths of the different Problem Solver Profiles so that the actions we each take can result in stronger, better decisions with a likely chance of success. To do that we need to be received positively by our decision-making partners. The chapter presents some scenarios to help the reader to figure out how they might better work with their PSP strengths in combination with the strengths of those with whom they are working.
How PSPs Color Our Relationship with Data
Authors: Einhorn Cheryl Strauss
Published: September 2023

This chapter highlights that the Problem Solver Profile (PSP) strengths and biases don't just play out in how we engage with people; they also interfere with how we locate, identify, understand, and use data. It notes that each PSP has a unique lens on the world, and this lens colors how decision makers gather, understand, and organize incoming information. The chapter also stresses that being aware of how we as problem solvers prefer to engage with data is a necessary precursor to using data more effectively. The chapter then narrates how the author began working with people who wanted to learn and apply the AREA Method. It chronicles how the author constructed AREA as a perspective-taking system that would guide users to separate out and categorize information according to the source of that information. By separating information sources into four categories, each representing a different point of view, the chapter reveals that users can more easily understand each one and identify disagreements or disparities between them.
Empedocles in Auckland
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter recounts the author's second year at university, which he found memorable for the friendships he formed with people who shared his passion for literature and ideas. It mentions Denis Taylor and Gerard Macdonald, who, like the author, were unsure of their directions in life and how they could reconcile a desire to change the world with an equally strong desire to understand it. It also discusses how Jackson and his friends lamented the narrowness of the social circle and how dependent they were on English literature, European films, and American jazz. The chapter describes Herman Gladwin's vitality that belied his age, which left the author to wonder what shape-shifting secret had allowed him to move from country to country, wife to wife, and trade to trade so effortlessly. The chapter points out how Herman had an older person's intolerance of youth's egoism and impetuosity.
Blue Notes
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter recounts the author's first experience of flight and lack of any knowledge of phenomenology, wherein he scribbled notes on the tension between objective facts and subjective experience. It talks about the author's position with the Aboriginal Welfare Board and assignment to the Mildura region in the northwest of the state to evaluate the housing needs of Aboriginal families living in riverbank humpies or on local rubbish dumps. It also describes the people the author met at an Aboriginal station at Lake Tyers, where parents and grandparents had been settled there forcibly at a time when it was believed that Aboriginals were doomed to extinction. The chapter mentions the author's attendance to the Magistrate's Court to plead on behalf of an Aboriginal boy charged with car conversion. The author was kicked out of the court for smoking and was forced to leave even after he claimed to be a welfare officer who was there to speak for the Aboriginal boy.
A Storyteller’s Story
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter talks about the author's experiences in Manawatu, which were among the happiest of his life as he explored the hill country to the north and the Pohangina Valley to the east. It recounts how the author wrote the Allegories of the Wilderness, which is a study of Kuranko ethics and storytelling. While writing, the author came across several transcribed conversations he had with the famed storyteller Keti Ferenke Koroma in 1970 and 1972. The chapter highlights that adversity came to Ferenke in two ways: the loss of his parents when he was a small boy, and his lineage's loss of the chieftaincy in Diang. The chapter mentions Ferenke's view that the gift of intelligence or storytelling came from Allah, it was his choice whether he used it to support or subvert the social weal.
Barawa and the Ways Birds Fly in the Sky
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter explores issues that the author wanted to broach with Saran Salia Sanoh but had not pursued because they touched on some of the most secretive and sensitive aspects of Kuranko life. It details the death of Saran Salia's parents not long after his initiation, which marked a tragic turning point in his life, leaving him fearful and uncertain. Saran Salia explains how the initiation teaches how to master fears and master one's emotions, such as acquiring fortitude (yuse gbele) and bravery (kerenteye). The chapter discusses how free will is often more apparent than real and is not a plan formulated and followed but a series of minor adjustments. It invokes Saran Salia's image of the myriad ways birds fly in the sky, noting that a single bird's tendency to align and remain close to peers can create a swirling flock that appears to be moving with a collective mind.
The Philosopher Who Would Not Be King
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter determines whether ethnography, as Barawa implied, is simply an oblique projection of one's own intellectual and cultural predispositions or could it help one get beyond oneself and think or see differently. The chapter talks about the author's essays on Kuranko ethnohistory, ontological metaphor, and embodiment. It also describes the hatha yoga practice that had inspired Jackson's explorations of body consciousness and had turned him into an obnoxious fundamentalist who believed that the respiratory and psycho-physical disciplines of yoga enabled one to achieve a cleaner relationship with the world. The chapter explores a philosophical argument against foundationalism that could not be transferred to the real world, since all human beings have recourse to notions of firstness, foundations, and fundamentals in their everyday lives. It highlights the realization of the limits of thought that enabled Jackson to yield to the natural processes of grieving after his wife, Pauline, died.
Indiana
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter talks about the author's mixed feelings when he went to the United States as he was apprehensive about being separated from his daughter and his close Canberra friends. It mentions the author's first impression of the United States when he arrived during Halloween, which was that the country was a work of fiction. It also describes Kassim Kone, a young African man who taught students elementary Bambara and inadvertently came to the author's rescue in 1989. The chapter cites the author's At Home in the World, where he explored both the ways in which the world into which people are born becomes a world they call their own. It recounts how the Warlpiri impressed the author on how quickly the neutral and anonymous space of the world gets transformed into a place thought of as one's own.
Return to Sierra Leone
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter talks about the author on the days before he flew back to Sierra Leone, describing how his mind was filled with images of renewal. It takes note of the fantasies of a new beginning that are reconciled with the reality of the world of which people are already and inescapably a part of. It also describes the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone that had laid waste to the country whose soul it ostensibly had set out to save, killing, raping, and maiming tens of thousands of innocent people. The chapter addresses the question of why some need to believe there is some overarching or implicate order in the world that rewards virtue, punishes evil, and reveals meaning. It explores the acceptance of the arbitrariness of fate or renouncing of the possibility of divining its hidden workings.
Migrant Imaginaries
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter looks at the author's reflections on revolution, violence, and initiatory rebirth that led him to think more deeply about migration as not only being caused by the civil war. It recounts Sewa Magba Koroma, who shared his experiences that brought the connections between self-transformation and social transformation into sharp relief. It also mentions the Hitler Youth, whose organizers successfully harnessed the energy of youthful rebelliousness and replaced filial bonds with blood brotherhood and loyalty to an absolute leader. The chapter discusses how Sewa, like other migrants, could feel uneasy about the fact that he could find his way to England while his peers, were obliged to farm or languished in Freetown with no real future. It highlights Sewa's experience as someone whose validity was constantly in doubt as he lives in imminent danger of being picked up by the police and deported due to a mistake.
The Limitrophe
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter reveals the author's academic goal, which was to approach religion as one of the many ways in which human beings imagine and ritualistically manage relations between worlds within and worlds without. It describes that the literary works of the author involve a deconstruction of the concepts of religion and spirituality that had emerged in Abrahamic traditions and the Western academy. It also mentions the author's fieldwork in West Africa and Aboriginal Australia, where he used their perspectives to critique prevailing paradigms in the academic study of religion. The chapter considers the contrast between darkness and light as the most universal metaphor of the relationship between human beings and the encompassing fields of being and non-being. It highlights the author's use of the penumbral as an image to describe a hazy and indeterminate region between a world in which people experience themselves as actors and a world where people experience themselves as acted upon.
On the Work and Writing of Ethnography
Authors: Jackson Michael
Published: September 2023

This chapter reviews the author's juxtaposed descriptions of persons, records of events, and interpretive passages that reflect his lifelong search for a way of integrating literary, philosophical, and ethnographic writing. It discusses the interruption of one's discursive prose with anecdotes from everyday life that is a strategy for reminding oneself that interpretations are always provisional and artificial. It also emphasizes how understanding is a form of imagining in which people displace themselves from a familiar context to see from an unfamiliar vantage point. The chapter considers hospitality as the precondition for doing ethnography as it involves temporarily forgetting oneself in order to accommodate the expectations and protocols of someone else's world. It explains how ethnographic fieldwork and writing raise the ethical question of how personal or cultural preunderstandings may be reconciled with the often radically different preunderstandings of interlocutors.
Stalinist Monuments in Context
Authors: Kalashnikov Antony
Published: September 2023

This chapter discusses the purported self-commemorative mission of Stalinist monuments that stood out markedly from both preceding and succeeding Soviet monument-building practices. It points out how Stalinist monuments either lacked a pronounced prospective orientation or gravitated toward memorializing the increasingly distant past. It also investigates the pursuit of the Stalinist regime of self-commemoration, which verbally recodified its construction projects as monuments to the era. The chapter outlines a broad set of requirements by the Stalinist regime for construction projects, indicating that objects must be constructed durably, while remaining understandable, distinctive, and appealing to future viewers. It reviews the theory of prospective monument design by art professionals, which are reconstructed from their writings in trade journals and key pronouncements at conferences and meetings.
Synthetic Composition
Authors: Kalashnikov Antony
Published: September 2023

This chapter reveals how synthetic monuments could express the specificity of the Stalinist era on the canvas of a powerful, timeless, but ultimately indistinctive architecture. It talks about how sculpture and art could imbue monuments with a romantic, emotional character that would ensure their enduring appeal. It also describes compositional devices that substantiated key features of Stalinist monuments and paralleled design practices beyond Soviet borders. The chapter demonstrates how romanticizing the memorialized subject in order to heighten aesthetic appeal could dissolve the monument's historical specificity. It mentions the neo-totalitarian model that reifies a Stalinist regime directed by leaders with competing visions and interests and sidelines the context in which political functionaries constructed their goals and reacted to wider developments.
Introduction
Authors: Avila Maria
Published: September 2023

This chapter reviews projects that built collective leadership and contributed to creating more collaborative and organizing cultures both in academic institutions and in community. It discusses specific skills and practices participants used and developed in the projects in which they participated, as well as stories about their work and experience. It also relates work experiences about shifting from in-person to online delivery due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and about the ways in which the anti-racist movement that took force in the summer of 2020 influenced their work. The chapter covers the integration community engagement in anthropology and participation in a national project focusing on math as a social justice issue. It mentions the creation of a civic engagement minor integrated into general education and of a student-based organization at a research institution to counter the feeling of isolation and lack of community.
Discovering Collaborative Research in Action
Authors: Chai Kathleen Tornow , Ortega Enrique
Published: September 2023

This chapter discusses the project that introduced collaborative research methodologies, the need to have more democratic, collaborative spaces on the campus, and the value of narratives as educators. The project was a collaboration with the Kettering Foundation, which focuses on exploring the ways in which various disciplines engage with the larger community and underpins the process with community-organizing practices. It covers collaboration, the use of personal narratives, narrative reflection, and research in action. The chapter reviews reflections that denote the culture change and transformation that resulted from exposure to the project's methodology and goals. It looks at lessons learned from the project, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Igniting a Culture of Relationships and Collective Power in an Elected Office
Authors: Rivera Aixle Aman , López-Chang Ray
Published: September 2023

This chapter emphasizes the belief that the art of organizing is the most powerful tool someone is born with, as it is built on human connection, grounded in vulnerability and trust, and fueled by love. The chapter details the creation of a community-organizing culture with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board District 5 (BD 5) team between 2016 and 2019. It also points out the overall purpose of the project, which was to teach the staff how to build civic leadership in BD 5 through community-organizing practices. The chapter describes the transformation of the office culture and the outcomes that are hoped to be achieved with certain constituents. It examines narratives that directly informed how community-organizing training was received and how the implementation of the organizing was approached.
The Dynamics of Partisan Closure and the 2016 Presidential Campaign
Authors: Luttig Matthew D.
Published: September 2023

This chapter discusses the relationship between the need for cognitive closure (NFCC) and group-centric partisanship, which has become stronger over time in the United States in response to polarization among political elites. The chapter assesses claims that campaigns have been shown to be one of the forces driving the rising tide of partisan antagonism in society in the context of the 2016 US presidential campaign. It considers the 2016 presidential campaign as one of the most vicious political campaigns in recent memory due to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump being polar opposites in many respects. The chapter highlights the use of panel data to evaluate whether the psychological need for cognitive closure (NFCC) precedes partisan polarization. It investigates whether high NFCC was associated with changes in levels of partisan polarization over the course of the 2016 campaign.