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In recent years, interest in critical thinking(CT) has grown considerably. An evaluation of this research field and its challenges are provided in this paper. A bibliometric study was performed to analyse 1,295 papers on CT published in the last 50 years. The data were obtained from the WOS Core Collection database. The findings of this study improve the understanding of the CT domain by showing key studies, the main studies developing the field, key past studies and their influence in subsequent publications, emerging trends and potentially transformative ideas. Most publications and citations are from the last decade, reflecting the momentum of this concept over the period examined. The topic has also expanded geographically. Although the University of Iowa and the University of Alberta are the most prolific institutions, Asian universities have gained in prominence in recent years, as shown by the number of papers published. According to the analysis, the increase in the number of authors, publications and journals in this field and the rise in the number of publications written in collaboration with authors from different parts of the world are two trends that reflect the interest in CT as a way to understand the development of thinking skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an Accounting and Valuation (AV) method within the scope of Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) to analyze social impacts when implementing new energy resources. The method is based on a critical analysis from existing assessments regarding the IRP and its design is based on algorithms that convert qualitative information of social attributes into absolute values. These values feed the subsequent stages of the IRP to select the best energy resource (among available options) to be implemented. The method has been applied and tested as a pilot case in a rural region in Peru. This work provides extremely valuable information for decision-makers to assess, with real and quantitative data, investment decisions regarding energy planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of Indian media. Utilizing the Propaganda Model formulated by Herman and Chomsky in the book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media (1988), the paper aims to critically assess the news patterns and media performance of the mainstream Indian media. The contribution of the paper will be the application of the propaganda model in the context of Indian media. For this study, we have analyzed the media coverage of two events – India's ban on Chinese apps and the Pulwama attack. We focus on how Indian Media has helped the Government to establish the propaganda of nationalism during both events, which is explained by Herman and Chomsky in the five filters of news production. We investigate how the anti-China sentiment and the Pulwama attack have been used by the Government to divert attention from their failure of governance, and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. The corporate media is playing its part in the machinations of the ruling BJP party. We conclude that the plurality of voices amongst journalists is in decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative engineering is not a new subject but it assumes a new importance in the Industry 4.0 (I4.0). There are other concepts frequently mismatched with collaboration. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to put forward a collaborative engineering concept, along its sub concepts, supported by an extensive systematic literature review. A critical analysis and discussion about the fundamental importance of learning, and the central human role in collaboration, in the I4.0, is presented, based on the main insights brought through the literature review. This study also enables to realize about the importance of collaboration in the current digitalization era, along with the importance of recent approaches and technology for enabling or promoting collaboration. Main current practices of human centered and autonomous machine-machine approaches and applications of collaboration in engineering, namely in manufacturing and management, are presented, along with main difficulties and further open research opportunities on collaboration.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the most commonly used methods to identify industry clusters by applying them to Brussels' media industry data. The results are compared and benefits as well as limitations are highlighted. The resulting implications for industry cluster research and policy-making are subsequently discussed. It is found that a mixed-methods approach (compared with the application of a single method) can reveal important patterns of industry cluster formation, and that future research should make purpose-driven choices on methods based on known limitations and benefits within the research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education students are expected to develop critical analysis and creative thinking skills, where plagiarism can damage the development of these skills in addition to damaging the whole education process and experience. Furthermore, plagiarism undermines the trust between the lecturers and students and the reputation of the academic institutions can be affected if plagiarism is not considered seriously, where the degrees offered by these institutions can be devalued. In this paper, two plagiarism prevention techniques followed by two plagiarism detection techniques used in the engineering education in the University of Southampton are presented. The plagiarism prevention techniques presented are based on assigning individual coursework specifications to students and the use of individual presentation of coursework findings. Then, the plagiarism detection techniques are based on detecting the writing styles of students and testing the student' codes in different configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to show that even when integrating the findings of behavioral economics, agency theory’s conception of interactions at work does not actually account for cooperative behavior. The paper draws on the distinction between the concepts ofindividualandpersonto critically examine this conception and show that, while work is mostly organized on the assumption that workers are self-interestedindividuals, management rhetoric addresses workers aspersonsin an attempt to prompt their cooperation and personal commitment. This managerial paradox may partly be due to the prevalent influence of agency theory’s prescriptions and has been contributing to a severe deterioration of the quality of working life. But it also indicates that agency theory has to confront serious theoretical and prescriptive dilemmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuroeconomic multiple-self models describe individuals’ choices as the equilibrium of the interaction amongst neural sites modelled as economic agents. This approach aims at explaining some inter-temporal inconsistency problems and the rejection of unfair offers in ultimatum games. However, the experiments on these models do not provide replicable results. The standard view interprets this problem as due to inadequate econometric techniques. Conversely, this paper shows that the non-replicability problem arises from a conundrum of multiple-self models’ (MSMs) theory. It illustrates how the assumption of neuroeconomic agents is deduced from the revealed preferences theory applied to the neuro-level. Therefore, the paper shows how experiments on MSMs cannot test the assumption of neuroeconomic agents but only the empirical hypotheses that derive from it. This entails that the assumption of neuroeconomic agents is a tautology, which might generate hypotheses that do not robustly identify the neural correlates of behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A graduate profile benchmark developed by a higher education organisation is subject to scrutiny. This occurs through the numerical parameterisation of text collected through surveys and the use of basic concepts drawn from Information Technology. The process uses data processing, analysis and evaluation to show the degree to which established an academic practice at the host institution correlates to pre-conceived professional outputs. The paper discusses standard practices including traditional and innovative teaching methods, in the light of achieved results. To conclude that postgraduate students require further engagement with the industry and exposure to the public whilst showing that the scientific and technical components of the subject courses are highly rated by stakeholders. Mitigation measures for the identified gaps include further curriculum development and inter-disciplinary work, reinforced with industrial liaison plus engagement with learned organisations and the public, via educational enhancement activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different grouping efficiency measures have been used to evaluate block-diagonal forms in group technology. One of the well-known measures is grouping efficacy. Many grouping efficiency measures were developed in the literature are based on or derived from grouping efficacy. One of these measures is called modified grouping efficacy (MGE). The limitation of MGE measure is that the case of zero efficiency can’t be determined. Moreover, the efficiency of the system is close to zero or very low compared with other measures in the case, where the number of voids is greater than number of exceptions inside the cell. To overcome these limitations, a new measure called weighted modified grouping efficacy is developed in this paper. This measure is tested against some problems from the literature and the results demonstrate the ability of this measure to be used in the evaluation of all types of Structure data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of financial frictions is at the core of the Financial Frictions Approach (FFA) which underlines that to explain the financial crisis of 2007–2008 it is sufficient to add the financial system to the New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (NK-DSGE) model. Many economists have cited Hyman Minsky among those who "emphasized the importance of financial frictions." The aim of this work is: 1) to show that Minsky cannot be considered the precursor of the FFA and that FFA does not allow for a solid explanation of financial crises; and 2) to present a sound explanation of the financial instability affecting capitalist economies based on two teachings characterizing Minsky's work. The first consists in Minsky's interpretation of John Maynard Keynes's General Theory, which recovers the revolutionary elements of Keynes's thought neglected by the Neoclassical Synthesis. The second teaching consists in underlining the need to integrate Keynes's and Joseph Schumpeter's theoretical frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a critical analysis of some of the key theories and assumptions that underpin prevailing approaches to the concept of ‘information user’ in contemporary information research and professional practice, suggesting that they continue to reflect a tacitly systems-oriented focus. The author draws on the Sense-Making theories of Brenda Dervin and the discourse analytic work of Michel Foucault, as well as his own research, to outline a more holistic approach to understanding the complex relationship between people, information, and their social context. This recommendation includes a greater focus on context, on long-term relationships, and the complex role of emotion and embodiment in people’s sense-making.AARL March 2009 vol 40 no 1 pp 22–35 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to address the challenges and strategies to determine the critical rate of CO2 injection into a carbonate depleted gas field. In this research, the critical rate is the maximum allowable injection rate before formation damage initiation. The cause of formation damage could be due to in-situ mobilization or trapping of migratory fines resulting in plugging the flow path. This study performed a thorough investigation of a different rock-fluid system to evaluate the safe injection limit, as the critical rate is different for each rock-fluid system. The geochemical effect of CO2 injection toward carbonate formation was also investigated in this research. Other than that, the porosity and permeability changes due to CO2-brine-rock multiphase flow characteristics were considered to understand the feasibility of CO2 sequestration into carbonate formation. This research discussed experimental design to mimic the CO2 injection scenario of CO2 into carbonate depleted gas field. Therefore, several core flooding experiments were conducted under reservoir conditions using representative native cores, CO2, and synthetic formation brine. Abrupt changes in differential pressure (ΔP), analysis of effluent collected after CO2 multi-rate flow, and pH reading are the key indicators to consider that the condition has reached a critical rate. The experimental result demonstrated the existence of fines migration, scale formation, and salt precipitation after the core was subjected to supercritical CO2 multi-rate flow. Considering these issues and challenges associated with injectivity, this study recommended a maximum injection rate prior to field scale injection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden aspires to become 'the best in the world at utilizing the opportunities of digitalization' and is internationally recognized for its digital performance. Education has been identified as instrumental for the digital transformation of Swedish society, and efforts are made to accelerate the digitalization of the educational system. As governments' demands for digitalization get increasingly loud and persuasive, it is important to critically explore what values and ideologies are embedded in the argumentation. In this study, we use Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the Swedish Digitalization Commission's report 'For digitalization with the times'. Our results demonstrate that the policy argumentation, despite being anchored in traditional Swedish welfare values, is characterized by a coherent and reductionist neoliberal framing of education. Students are represented as self-managing entrepreneurial citizens with a moral obligation to renew their human capital and adapt to market demands, while the educational system is constructed as a flexible, largely automated, infrastructure for 'life-long learning', in which teaching is reduced to 'facilitating'. We suggest that such discourses around education in Swedish policy rest upon three preconditions: digitalization as an interconnective policy object, Swedish digitalization policy making as soft governance, and the Swedish welfare model as susceptible to discursive drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hodgson's recent book Is there a Future for Heterodox Economics? presents a serious critical analysis of the development of heterodox economics and offers diagnosis of why it has mostly failed to attain its early revolutionary hopes, but instead has become something of an intellectual backwater. Hodgson proposes several possible pathways back into the mainstream. I argue here in support of Hodgson's diagnosis but propose a specific way forward with heterodox economics as the study of the evolution of economic rules and focused on analysis of a digital economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is often a limiting factor for getting drugs in the brain. Bypassing the BBB by intranasal (IN), or also called nose to brain (NTB), route is an interesting and frequently investigated concept for brain drug delivery. However, despite the body of evidence for IN drug delivery in literature over the last decades, reproducibility and interpretation of animal data remain challenging. The objective of this project was to assess the feasibility and value of a standardized IN screening model in rats for the evaluation of direct brain delivery. A chemically diverse set of commercial and internal small molecules were tested in the in vivo model with different doses and/or formulations. Data were analyzed using different ways of ratio calculations: blood concentration at time of sacrifice, total exposure in blood (area under the curve, AUC) and the brain or olfactory bulb concentrations. The IN route was compared to another parenteral route to decide if there is potential direct brain transport. The results show that blood and tissue concentrations and ratios are highly variable and not always reproducible. Potential direct brain delivery was concluded for some compounds, however, sometimes depending on the analysis: using blood levels at sacrifice or AUC could lead to different conclusions. We conclude that a screening model for the evaluation of direct brain transport of small molecules is very difficult to achieve and a conclusion based on a limited number of animals with this variability is questionable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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