A unifying theoretical framework for conservation flagships

A synthesised review of pandemic-driven consumer behaviours and applied theories: Towards a unified framework

Continuing medical education (CME) emerged at the start of the 20th century as a means of maintaining clinical competence among health care practitioners. However, evidence indicates that CME is often poorly developed and inappropriately used. Consequently, there has been increasing interest in the literature in evaluating wider contexts at play in CME development and delivery. In this article, the authors present a unified theoretical framework, grounded in learning theories, to explore the role of contextual factors in public health CME for health care practitioners. Discussion with pedagogical experts together with a narrative review of learning theories within medical and social science literature informed the framework's development. The need to consider sociocultural theories of learning within medical education restricted suitable theories to those that recognized contexts beyond the individual learner; adopted a systems approach to evaluate interactions between contexts and learner; and considered learning as more than mere acquisition of knowledge. Through a process of rigorous critical analysis, two theoretical models emerged as contextually appropriate: Biggs principle of constructive alignment and Bronfenbrenner bioecological model of human development. Biggs principle offers theoretical clarity surrounding interactive factors that encourage lifelong learning, whereas the Bronfenbrenner model expands on these factor's roles across multiple system levels. The authors explore how unification into a single framework complements each model while elaborating on its fundamental and practical applications. The unified theoretical framework presented in this article addresses the limitations of isolated frameworks and allows for the exploration of the applicability of wider learning theories in CME research.

Relative thermal pleasure model: A unified framework for understanding and predicting thermal comfort in dynamic environments

Phase transition usually consumes or releases energy to produce cooling or heating within different materials, providing a generalized framework for temperature regulation in practical applications. Because of the strong coupling between the enthalpy change in thermodynamics and heat-mass transfer kinetics, unveiling the mechanism of temperature regulation via the phase transition remains a great challenge. Here, we develop a new theoretical method by establishing a connection of enthalpy change from thermodynamics to phase transition dynamics to study evaporation-induced cooling as an example. Our new approach can spontaneously generate evaporative cooling at interfaces, and the predicted results are consistent with recent experiments. The evaporation-induced steady vapor is dictated by an anomalous cold-to-hot mass transfer through temperature-dependent chemical potentials, which enables temperature regulation inside liquids via a thermodynamic-kinetic interplay. Moreover, we show that a simple prohibition of heat exchange between liquids and reservoir can greatly enhance the cooling magnitude by a factor of 2∼4, which is highly dependent on the thermodynamics and kinetic coefficients of liquids. Our new method paves the way for exploration of cooling or heating induced by different phase transitions, such as evaporation, sublimation, or condensation, in a unified framework, which can significantly promote the development of temperature regulation by phase transitions.

To orchestrate behaviors for survival, multiple psychological components have evolved. The current theories do not clearly distinguish the distinct components. In this article, we provide a unified theoretical framework. To optimize survival, there should be four components; (1) "need", an alarm based on a predicted deficiency. (2) "motivation", a direct behavior driver. (3) "pleasure", a teacher based on immediate outcomes. (4) "utility", a teacher based on final delayed outcomes. For behavior stability, need should be accumulated into motivation to drive behavior. Based on the immediate outcome of the behavior, the pleasure should teach whether to continue the current behavior. Based on the final delay outcome, the utility should teach whether to increase future behavior by reshaping the other three components. We provide several neural substrate candidates in the food context. The proposed theoretical framework, in combination with appropriate experiments, will unravel the neural components responsible for each theoretical component.

With the advent of the Internet, we have seen existing markets transform and new ones emerge. We contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon by developing a unified theory about the role that IT plays in affecting market information, transparency and market structure. In particular, we introduce a new theoretical framework which uncovers the process and the forces that, together with IT, facilitate or inhibit the emerging dominance of transparent electronic markets. Transparent electronic markets offer unbiased, complete, and accurate market information. Our effort to develop a unified theoretical framework begins with a thorough assessment of the prior literature. It also uses an inductive approach involving the case study method, in which we contrast and compare the forces that have led the air travel and financial securities markets to become increasingly transparent. Building on the electronic markets and electronic hierarchies research of Malone, Yates and Benjamin (1987), our findings suggest that IT alone does not explain a move to transparent electronic markets. Instead, we argue that enhanced electronic representation of products, and competitive and institutional forces have also played an important role in the process by which most sellers have come to favor transparent markets.

A hierarchical multiple plate models theory for laminated composites including delamination and geometrical nonlinear effects

Social entrepreneurship has received substantial general attention, though formal research interest in the concept has been more limited. I propose using the capabilities approach as a unifying theoretical framework in comprehending the concept. This approach is useful in evaluating and then linking the causal, motivational, behavioural and directive dimensions of social entrepreneurship. Consequently, an illustrative theoretical framework is developed to guide future research that is cognizant of the similarities and differences between conventional and social entrepreneurship.

The exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials, referred to as object-oriented play (OOP), is one of the most prominent activities children engage in during early childhood. Especially within early childhood education, it is important to be able to assess and understand OOP, its developmental trajectory, and developmental value. This can support early childhood educators to successfully guide or enrich children’s OOP, so it becomes a context in which learning can take place. During the past decades, three dominant theoretical perspectives have explained and assessed certain (developmental) aspects of OOP: (1) genetic epistemology, (2) cultural historical psychology, and (3) evolutionary psychology. After reviewing the literature concerning OOP according to each theoretical perspective, this paper aims to synthesize these existing theories into a unified theoretical framework. This theoretical framework can be a starting point for future research on OOP in early childhood (education). We answer the following research questions: Q1. What are the defining labels and features of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?; Q2. What is the developmental trajectory of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?; Q3. What is the developmental value of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?

Now that we have a framework for understanding organizational configurations and the manner in which they change over time, we need to unite this with the forces that drive those configurational changes. To that end, this chapter introduces the concept of organizational change motors, as articulated by Van de Ven and Poole (1995), and then serves to synthesize the two historically distinct domains of organizational configurations and organizational change motors into a unified theoretical framework, using the basic constructs of evolution and revolution as a conduit for this theoretical integration. This new synthesized framework offers a fundamentally enhanced approach to examine the long-term transformation of organizations and to understand the motors that form and reconstitute organizational configurations throughout their development.

From cost and management perspectives, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent countermeasures adversely affected labor-intensive construction companies owing to the restrictive guidelines. Following a systematic literature review, this study developed a theoretical framework to assess the impacts of COVID-19 and its countermeasures on construction sites. Based on a developed framework reflecting abroad cases, we explored the Republic of Korea (ROK) situation. Questionnaires were utilized to detect this impact, and were then analyzed using the relative importance index. Through interviews with site managers in the ROK, combined with text-mining and network analysis, this study aimed to pinpoint effective countermeasures and validate the framework. Results revealed that despite policy changes, construction sites in the ROK were not seriously affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, while foreign investment remained steady owing to robust financial contracts, labor shortages and cooperative challenges hindered productivity. Additionally, beyond telecommuting and inspections, changing hygiene regulations prompted the adoption of smart technologies. Further, site managers requested the optimization of worker management and smart systems with governance, hygiene, and quarantine policies. Although impacts from other countries have been studied, the experiences of industries in the ROK remain unanalyzed. In addition, the existing literature has only examined the economic viability of the construction industry; therefore, this study assessed the impacts and countermeasures of COVID-19 from the perspective of managers using a unified theoretical framework.

A robust system is one that can ensure essential services in spite of faults and failures in useful but non-essential components. Unless we can ensure that critical services can only USE but not depend on less critical components, a seemingly minor fault can propagate along complex and implicit dependency chains and bring down the system. Modern real time systems are often developed concurrently by multiple teams. A team typically only knows the dependency relations between their components and neighboring components. In addition, dependency relations will change as software components and their interactions are being modified. Therefore, how to automatically track and analyze the system wide dependency from local information is important for the development of robust real time systems. This paper presents dependency algebra - a unified theoretical framework plus a prototype toolkit for dependency management in real-time systems

This paper reflects critically on challenges and opportunities associated with developing a theoretical framework for an interdisciplinary Framework Programme 6 research project funded by the European Commission in the area of digital ecosystems. The paper first provides a description of the interdisciplinary structure of the research agenda of the project and the areas of digital ecosystem research prioritised by each discipline. Second, it discusses the challenging questions of epistemology that arose in the context of theorising interdisciplinary research and provides a summary of how these were dealt with in order to outline a theoretical framework for digital ecosystems research by the end of the project. Finally, it discusses the lessons that can be extrapolated from the project experience, arguing that it is impossible to develop a unified interdisciplinary theoretical framework due to irreconcilable epistemological differences, yet it is possible and very worthwhile for those adhering to various disciplinary perspectives to collaborate towards the achievement of a practical joint endeavour. These lessons, which are considered valuable to the broader research community, are summarised in a model of the (im)possibility of interdisciplinarity.

Free vibration of the complex cable system − An exact method using symbolic computation

The acquisition and use of military power are perhaps the most studied subjects in the field of international relations, mainly because they have been common occurrences throughout history. It is surprising, then, that the concepts of militarism and militarization are not sufficiently well defined to command a consensus among scholars as to their meaning, let alone their causes and consequences. And as other chapters in this volume clearly document, militarism and militarization are concepts that are relevant to social relations in realms other than formal inter-state relations, which has made conceptual clarity that much more difficult to achieve. But my focus in this chapter is indeed inter-state relations, with special attention to the impact of the global arms trade on the militarization of developing states and on those states’ use of military force – behaviour that may, in some cases, derive from state policies fairly described as outgrowths of militarism.