Search results for "Experts"

Instrumental calculation, cognitive role-playing, or both?: self-perceptions of Seconded National Experts in the European Commission

2011

This is the authors’ final, accepted and refereed manuscript to the article Most work studying micro-processes of integration – i.e. how agents develop identities and decision-making behaviours within a particular institution – offers explanations based on either instrumental rationality or socialisation. This article proposes a two-dimensional framework that allows analysing under which conditions both logics of social action co-exist. Our empirical analysis employs a unique dataset from a 2011 survey of all 1098 currently active Seconded National Experts (SNEs) in the European Commission. We find that a) instrumental cost-benefit calculation and cognitive role-playing (as semi-reflexive s…

Warm experts for elderly users : who are they and what do they do?

2018

This paper examines “warm experts”—that is, nonprofessional persons who help inexperienced users come to terms with digital devices—and their significance for the use of digital media in everyday life by elderly Swedes. We analyze data from a national survey (N = 1264) and from qualitative, semistructured interviews with 18 elderly Swedes (aged 65+). Our data reveal that the warm expert usually is a closelyrelated person, often a child or grandchild, who is strongly involved in nearly every stage of technology domestication, from appropriation (i.e., identifying the need, buying the item, and installing and adjusting it) to incorporation (i.e., choosing and downloading suitable apps, teachi…

‘The will to not be empowered (according to your rules)’: Resistance in Finnish participatory social policy

2018

Participation has increasingly become a means and an end for successful and ‘empowering’ social policy. Building on previous governmentality critiques of participatory initiatives, this article investigates practices of resistance in the context of Finnish participatory social policy. I adopt a Foucauldian counter-conducts approach as my lens to study critical speech as a form of resistance in initiatives that invite marginalised people as ‘experts-by-experience’ in social welfare organisations. I illustrate how practices of governing and resistance are intertwined and mutually dependent in a much subtler and more practical manner than allows the often-used analytical dichotomy between domi…

Representative Bureaucracy and the Role of Expertise in Politics

2015

This is an open access journal from Cogitatio http://www.cogitatiopress.com The vast majority of existing studies on bureaucratic representation focus on bureaucracies’ permanent and internal staff. Yet, the rising sophistication of modern democracies and the technocratization of political life are gradually inducing an increased reliance on external experts to assist in the development and implementation of policy decisions. This trend, we argue, raises the need to extend studies of bureaucratic representation to such external and non-permanent experts in governmental affairs. In this article, we take a first step in this direction using seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Com…

Development and validation of the SIMPLE endoscopic classification of diminutive and small colorectal polyps

2018

Abstract Background Prediction of histology of small polyps facilitates colonoscopic treatment. The aims of this study were: 1) to develop a simplified polyp classification, 2) to evaluate its performance in predicting polyp histology, and 3) to evaluate the reproducibility of the classification by trainees using multiplatform endoscopic systems. Methods In phase 1, a new simplified endoscopic classification for polyps – Simplified Identification Method for Polyp Labeling during Endoscopy (SIMPLE) – was created, using the new I-SCAN OE system (Pentax, Tokyo, Japan), by eight international experts. In phase 2, the accuracy, level of confidence, and interobserver agreement to predict polyp hi…

Forensic Inspections in the Time of Covid-19

2021

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has impacted the entire world in ways that were unimaginable months ago. It has changed how professionals work and interact with one another. To ensure the safety of experts and attorneys, also forensic inspection procedures must evolve, while still providing a reliable foundation for an expert testimony, relevant to the task at hand. Traditional field inspections require attendees to be physically present and generally in close proximity. Inspecting artifacts may also require that individual components be serially examined by multiple experts, which increases the risk of transmitting the disease. The authors propose a new approach to forensic inspections aim…

The effects of movement and spatial activities on real and imagined spatial updating: Poster

2021

¿Quién decide qué y cómo? el conflicto en torno a la participación ciudadana en el contexto del desarrollo de la iniciativa urbana: Cuenca-San Antón …

2018

This article describes the main results of an ethnographic study on citizen participation carried out in the context of the development of the Urban Initiative (2007-2015): Cuenca-Barrio de San Antón. Managed by the City Council of Cuenca and financed by the European Regional Development Funds (FEDER) under the Ministry of Economy and Finance at the Government of Spain The results of the research show how in the context of the application of neoliberal policies, citizen participation becomes the trigger for new conflicts between institutions and citizens. In this sense, it is worth noting how, in practice, institutions in their capacity as experts and not willing to dis-empower themselves, …

Using concept mapping in the development of the EU-PAD framework (EUropean-Physical Activity Determinants across the life course): a DEDIPAC-study

2016

International audience; Background: A large proportion of European children, adults and older adults do not engage in sufficient physical activity ( PA). Understanding individual and contextual factors associated with PA behaviours is essential for the identification and implementation of effective preventative environments, policies, and programmes that can promote an active lifestyle across life course and can potentially improve health. The current paper intends to provide 1) a multi-disciplinary, Pan-European and life course view of key determinants of PA behaviours and 2) a proposal of how these factors may cluster. Methods: After gathering a list of 183 potential PA behaviours-associa…

Protons for Jehovah’s Witnesses? How press coverage of Ashya King’s case brought proton beam therapy to the public arena

2018

The case of Ashya King, the child brain tumour patient whose parents took from a British hospital so he could be treated with Proton Beam Therapy (PBT) abroad, contributed to popularize that technology among a general audience. Through the content analysis of British and Spanish press coverage (N=329), our research shows that proton therapy enjoyed scarce coverage in the analysed media before Ashya King’s case. His story, magnified due to the fact that his parents were Jehovah’s witnesses was a cause both for public concern and media sensationalism. We show that the case brought PBT into the public sphere and, consequently, contributed to create a demand for facilities that offered this the…