This research scrutinises the fear-driven management of Arabs. It conceptualises fear as a structural component of Arab society through a sociological lens and, by drawing upon the reflections of 28 Arab experts, philosophises on the potential of fear to develop into a well-configured managerial system (‘feararchy’) that regulates public and private lives. This research finds this system to rest upon a foundation of three forms of fear: ontological , epistemological (the utilisation of fear to shape knowledge) and axiological (the influence of fear on acceptability). This article makes five contributions. First, it shows how, through turning fear into a collective status, Arab managers exploit fear for social control. Second, it demonstrates the institutional nature of Arabs’ fear, making it worthy of attention from the field of management. Third, it investigates fear as an individually internalised, socially constructed feeling that is psychologically manipulative. Fourth, it presents fear as not merely a natural psychological sensation but a managerially distorted contextual frame within which current (and future) members think and operate. Fifth and finally, it exposes the contextuality of fear: sources of fear in one context may not be sources of fear in another. This research examines the incorporation of fear into Arab organisations under a philosophical microscope. Fear was chosen as the subject of this research to investigate whether fear is the predominant management technique utilised in Arab institutions . The curThis article addresses components of Arab culture related to the emotional state of fear and examining the manifestations of fear-based management and showing how this managerial style manifests itself in Arab regions. It documents the far-reaching influence of fear in the management of Arabs and philosophises on the potential of fear to develop into a well-configured managerial system (‘feararchy’) that regulates public and private lives. Virilio and Richard  agree thExisting Arab literature seems essentially skewed to psychological theories, viewing fear predominantly through psychological lenses . Yet, thArab literature is uncomfortable with the promotion of innovative approaches to fear, refusing to think otherwise and challenge academic configurations and conventions . In compThis research is structured around the following research question: in what ways are Arabs managed through fear? This question is supplemented by three sub-questions: (1) in what ways is fear normalised? (2) to what extent is fear utilised to shape knowledge? and (3) in what ways does fear influence what is acceptable? In this work, the authors strive to bring the domination of institutional fear in Arab society to the fore, radically questioning this system of fear-based management, as they see critique and analysis of this domination as tools to deconstruct and dismantle the system. This research is intended as both an academic and political intervention to raise not only the public’s but also academics’ consciousness about the utilisation of fear to control Arab society. A conceptual framework for this study, deemed necessary by the authors, was established by those few Arab academics, journalists and critical users of social media conscious of the use of fear for social control who, through invitation and interview, lent their support to such an intervention. The current manuscript aims to foster a process of depoliticisation, through which individuals are encouraged to see for themselves how their emotional system is manipulated for the sake of politics.The authors searched for potential interviewees in various domains: academic literature, the journalistic field and social media. Twenty were identified, contacted and asked to recommend others also aware of fear-based control, resulting in an additional 19 possible interviewees. With both purposeful and snowballing sampling techniques, 39 subjects were found for this investigation and invited to participate, of which six declined and five ignored the invitation, resulting in a total of 28 interviewees. Of these participants, all were over the age of 25, 19 were PhD holders, 27 were married, and four were women. This research runs across the Arab world, with these participants from Jordan, Syria and Lebanon in the Levant, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in the Arabian Peninsula, and Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia in Africa.The interviews were designed to be unstructured, encouraging interviewees to speak freely about the fear-based management of Arabs, conducted using a videoconferencing system  and lasted more than one hour. The interviews were not recorded to give the interviewees peace of mind, wherein they could express their views openly (and without fear). That said, exhaustive notes were taken during each interview, and a subsequent report was written up. The report was sent to the interviewees to verify its content and clarify misunderstandings. Interviews were not the only data source for this study; documents, including textbooks and policies, were also analysed to comprehend institutional fear.The norm in Arab academic literature is for authors to idealise, support and sing the praises of Arab society. Criticisms of Arab society, especially by Arabs themselves, are not only undocumented but also suppressed and repressed. As a response to this non-academic condition of the literature, this study was crafted to expose those experiences within Arab regions that are profoundly and purposefully unexplored and unrepresented. Accordingly, a key criterion for inclusion in this study was that the participant was known for speaking against this hegemonic positivity. Politically motivated, this investigation seeks not to reflect Arabs’ conventional, diplomatic views of their own society but rather to explicitly feature critics who are ready and confident to oppose and ‘trouble’ the mainstream. Put differently, destabilisation of this kind, regardless of the outcome, is a goal in itself. Accordingly, the authors solicited critics’ reflections on the managerial status of Arab regions and, through applied snowball sampling, enabled participants to suggest other suitable critics. In this way, interobserver reliability was ensured even before data collection, as the observers were selected specifically for their shared beliefs concerning the existing fear-based management of Arab society and its organisations.This research applied the grounded-theory approach, an academically recognised systematic methodology mostly utilised for qualitative enquiries . This apThe sample size of this research can be justified in two ways. First, the research is not intended to make generalisations but rather to build a conceptual framework for a management style . Hence, what is essential is not the quantity of interviewees, but rather the quality of interviews,  so as to establish a rich conceptual framework. Second, saturation in grounded theory exceeds the concentration upon sample size as the justification of sampling adequacy, given that ‘sample size in grounded theory cannot be determined a priori as it is contingent on the evolving theoretical categories’ ( p. 3). TThis article endeavours to be a philosophical unravelling of the underlying dimensions of feararchy, rather than an empirical contribution to research, for two main reasons. First, because Arab academics tend to avoid engaging in the philosophisation of Arab society, a vacuum is left inevitably filled by Western academics. Hence, this study is a wake-up call to Arab academics, who habitually perceive themselves as ‘empirical researchers’, reminding them to philosophise and develop a philosophical worldview comprised of wholly ‘domestic’, non-imitative theoretical constructs. Second, this research is designed to construct a theory to act as a ‘start-up’ of the parameters on which future studies will be able to rely to empirically enquire into the role of fear in the management of Arab society.Emerging from the data analysis is a clear picture: while the human brain naturally has a database of matters that represent psychological fear, some societies and cultures intervene and ‘hack’ into this database to insert new fear-representing matters . As a consequence of such an intervention, the human brain becomes alarmed by matters that are psychologically and naturally non-fearful and even healthy and beneficial. This societal intervention, as evidenced in the data analysis, endeavours to patronise three forms of fear . The first meso-vision is ontological fear, which normalises fear to be internalised into individuals’ inner worlds and objectified into policies, strategies and practices. The second is epistemological fear, which uses fear to shape the relationship between individuals and knowledge and to control access to knowledge. The third is axiological fear, which transmutes fear into a value and uses it to influence individuals’ understanding of what is acceptable. By drawing upon the insights gained from the interviews, in the following sections, we make an account of meso-visions, micro-visions, and their marks in great detail to build a solid foundation for the macro-vision.In what ways is fear normalised? The answer to this sub-question explicates the meso-vision of ontological fear by laying out the ways in which fear is actualised, standardised and institutionalised and unpacking this meso-vision into its two micro-visions: ‘fear as a system’ and ‘fear as a norm’.This micro-vision draws from two marks: ‘fear as power’ and ‘fear as a tool’. A mark is fear as power. When experiencing fear, ‘humans hit their weakest point and become more obedient’ (VI:17); hence, fear is often exploited, as an institutional power and managerial system (‘feararchy’), to ease social control and cultivate submissive mindsets (XX:11). Institutional fear is fear integrated into policies, strategies and practices, that is, ‘making institutions haunted by fear’ (X:6). Forming policies of fear, as noticed by some participants, mutually feeds into and feeds off the action of developing strategies of fear. Similarly, establishing strategies of fear both results in and results from undertaking practices of fear. Expressed differently, ‘the relationship amongst approaches, procedures and actions of fear is dialectic’ (XXVIII:16). Ergo, it is not straightforward to figure out whether institutional fear comes from above or below. Nevertheless, what is easily established is whether or not ‘a whole community [is living] in a position of managerial fear’ (XIV:38). One symptom of an institution managed by fear  is that affiliates are at the same time victims and producers of fear, playing a dual role. Fear is embedded into affiliates at all levels, generating a permanent state of fear throughout the institution (‘feardom’). When fear exists as both ‘a norm and part of members’ character’ (XXVIII:32), members ‘live with fear and by fear and possess it as a habit’ ( p. 3). TA mark is fear as a tool. A straightforwardly one-way political relationship also exists between ‘the fearee’ and ‘the feared’, with the former using their political power to exert fear over the latter. While technological advances have destabilised and unbalanced this relationship, depoliticising feararchical systems by encouraging the feared to be less afraid , technolThis micro-vision draws from two marks: ‘fear as a pattern’ and ‘fear as a habit’. A mark is fear as a pattern. Once institutional fear reaches its tipping point, it achieves a process of progressive self-generation, that is, ‘it generates itself, making members live in a loop and circle of fear’ (XIX:39). It takes on a life of its own, coming from above, from below and from every direction, supported by managers and members themselves . BrainwaA mark is fear as a habit. In a feararchical society, individuals exhibit fear responses—even in the absence of fear stimuli—because being fearful has become a habit. Individuals take pleasure in being fearful and continually alarmed, regarding this as something positive and something that makes them look awake . This ouTo what extent is fear utilised to shape knowledge? The answer to this sub-question explicates the meso-vision of epistemological fear by clarifying how fear is applied to reconfigure the relationship between individuals and knowledge and to control access to knowledge and unpacking this meso-vision into its two micro-visions: fear of authority and fear of knowledge.This micro-vision comes from three marks: fear of religion, fear of teachers and fear of schooling. A mark is fear of religion. It is the view of advocates of feararchicalism that humans are fearing creatures and, as such, fearing is a value and faith . They trA mark is fear of teachers. In the land of the fearful, teachers are held in high esteem, even to the extent that a dominant saying is ‘teachers are almost prophets’. However, such high esteem for teachers translates into fear for students, who so fear their teachers that, ‘when they come across [them] on streets, they run away out of subconscious fear even though they are not guilty of anything’ (XXVII:31). One interviewee contends that, in feararchical schooling, ‘teachers have, or at least appear to have, almost unlimited power over students, making students feel fearful about how far teachers may go when punishing them’ (XIX:19). This fear of teachers has evident negative effects on students and their learning; for example, they may be too afraid to participate in classroom discussions or, as one participant deems, they do homework not for the sake of knowledge and cognitive development but because ‘they fear being punished by teachers for not doing homework’ (XV:26). On the first day of school, parents customarily tell teachers the predominant  saying ‘this is our child. Take him in his meat form and return him in his bone form’, with the father granting the teacher permission to harm the child in any way for the sake of education. In feararchical schooling, it is not only students, however, who suffer; it is reported that teachers teach not out of a sense of community service but rather because they fear their headteachers. In this vein, teachers play a dual role: ‘the fearee’ and ‘the feared’, yet it is not only teachers who do so: headteachers, as another participant opines, only do their job because they fear the higher authorities. Feararchy is named thus because it is a hierarchy based on fear; every link in the chain of fear represents another member held captive in a state of fear from above and below.A mark is fear of schooling. Feararchical schooling boosts and sustains an army mentality. In the data, we found five key examples to support this claim. Example 1 concerns discipline. To enforce militaristic discipline, students begin their day by dressing in uniforms, queuing up for inspection, exercising outdoors—no matter the weather conditions—and walking in orderly queues to their first class of the day. Example 2 concerns naming. In addition to discipline, academic institutions use militaristic jargon to further instil fear and control among students. For example, one student per class is assigned to the role of ‘corporal’ to ‘ensure that his fellow students behave and remain fearful in the absence of their teacher’ (XX:3). Likewise, some feararchical organisations have committees called ‘the High Committee for Punishing Undisciplined Students’. Over and above this, the phrase ‘class management’ is replaced in Arab regions with ‘class controlling’. In institutions of the feared, wording is well articulated to instil fear in individuals: day-to-day discourse, sayings, decisions and writings all overflow with institutional fear-inducing language. Example 3 concerns punishment. Extreme punishments for minor mistakes are another measure schools to enforce fear. For instance, if a student is just a few minutes late, ‘they are punished by making them stand in the sun for hours’ (V:5). Disobedient students may be hit on their palms and legs with sticks. More cruelly, at the beginning of each semester, with a new batch of students to ‘discipline’, the teacher is advised to ‘kill the cat’ (an oft-repeated phrase); the words almost speak for themselves: the teacher punishes one student very severely in order to establish their dominance and instil institutional fear in all other students. Example 4 concerns surveillance. Students’ personal effects and privacy are repeatedly violated by authoritative figures. Feararchical management instils fear in members by frequently checking their mobile phones and auditing their residence to ensure no content is out of line, that is, socially and culturally inappropriate. Example 5 concerns grading. From a feararchicalistic perspective, the truth has been wholly and unerringly preserved in textbooks; obtaining the truth, therefore, is not a matter of interpretation or perspective but of accuracy, which can be tested, assessed and graded, making one’s failure indisputable and inescapable. Each grade, in this view, precisely measures the quantity of the truth one has managed to gain. Receiving a low grade lets down not only one’s parents but one’s entire family or tribe, further worsening the fear of failure.This micro-vision draws from three marks: fear of self-exploration, fear of learning and fear of mistakes. A mark is fear of self-exploration. In a fear-normalised society, knowledge is a source of fear, not of exploration. Religious education ‘endorses the idea that knowledge comes from the sky, which humans cannot reach out to but is delivered to them through go-betweens, for instance, prophets, preachers and the like’ (XXVIII:12). Phrased another way, one can access knowledge only through an intermediary, making people fearful of going out into the world and exploring knowledge on their own. As a powerful influence over how individuals think and perceive the world, religious education makes them regard knowledge, be it religious or non-religious, as inaccessible or accessible only through intermediaries, such as teachers, supervisors, advisors, medical doctors and trainers. This implies that the ‘self-exploration of knowledge is not part of these societies and is a cause of fear’ (VII:9). Moreover, despite digital technology maximising accessibility to knowledge as never before seen, members of feararchical societies do not take advantage of this and continue to expect someone superior to deliver and serve knowledge to them. In other words, self-learning is not part of a feararchical culture. Given that digital technology constitutes a potential threat to feararchical societies, it is banned, whether totally or partially, for instance, through ‘a well-designed and well-sponsored system that filters out certain information that is available on the Internet, making members fear this type of information’ (VI:13). Nevertheless, individuals in feararchical societies who believe in free access to knowledge can use techniques such as VPNs to access this ‘filtered-out’ content, in an act that rebalances the power relationship between the fearee and the feared. As an instrument of the fearee to strengthen the feararchical nature of their communities and a means to push back against such social control, ‘technology is both a curse and blessing’ (XXI:31).Moreover, members perceive life as a source of fear and, thus, danger. They do not see life as an opportunity to explore but rather as a territory infused with explosives to avoid and enemies to run away from. To illustrate, they view job hunting not as an opportunity for growth and success but as a necessary but fearful stop, from which they wish to board the next train as soon as possible. One interviewee claimed that, in feararchical schooling, ‘hope and optimism have no space in the ways through which members see life’ (XXXII:28). Members live as sad and fearing creatures with no concept of fun and entertainment; ‘for fun’, in their eyes, is something that comes from ‘the devil’. A widely reciprocated saying is ‘youth, free time and wealth corrupt individuals dreadfully’, bringing to light how opportunities  are turned by feararchical schooling into fearful hazards.A mark is fear of learning. Feararchical schooling is beset with standardisation, systematisation, examination and restriction. For instance, it is typical for four exam invigilators to be assigned to supervise a room of 40 students; their ever-presence and determination ‘to act particularly unfriendly … make [sure] students fear cheating’ (XIV:10). Students have to show their ID during the exam to confirm their identity; if they do not bring it, they are punished, even if their own teacher can verify their identity. If students need to visit the bathroom, ‘they are accompanied by teachers to the restroom so as to ensure that they do not cheat’ (XII:14). The committee responsible for organising and managing the exam period is called ‘the Control Committee’; such use of the term ‘control’ instils fear in the hearts of students.Moreover, individuals are encouraged to learn not for the sake of learning but to avoid the social stigma of being ignorant. A child must bear the demeaning label of ‘the ignorant’, and, for the illiterate adult, such labelling means that they are portrayed as stuck in childhood and unable to mature and embrace adulthood. In this way, ‘one is encouraged to learn out of fear’ (XI:18). A widespread perception is that one learns to avoid evil (or ignorance), not that one learns to gain good (or knowledge). An additional cultural rule is that there is a minimum quantity of knowledge that one is punished for not gaining, making one learn out of fear, not to gain this minimality. ‘I learn because I fear’ forms the essence of feararchical schooling. One participant argues that members are criminalised for thinking for themselves or thinking critically. Put simply, whereas education is, theoretically, supposed to nurture critical thinking, feararchical schooling turns education into a ‘dis-educational’ system, which punishes criticality and, moreover, creativity and giftedness.A mark is fear of mistakes. During participation in class activities, the simple making of a mistake fates ‘learners [to be] punished bodily or psychologically, not least … shamed in front of other students’ (XXIII:15). Due to this feararchicalistic attitude towards mistakes, practices such as apprenticeship and learning by doing (a way of learning through one’s mistakes) are regarded by members with fear and are, therefore, not part of feararchicalistic culture. Instead, members go for the safest methods of learning, given that such methods as being passively taught and learning through memorisation involve fewer mistakes and, consequently, less fear. When one makes a mistake, ‘punishment is severe and unethical, whether physically or psychologically, via symbolic and verbal violence towards the mistaken’ (XIV:3).In feararchical organisations, the ‘walls have reporting ears’, as a well-cited phrase goes, capturing the hesitancy of members to express themselves in an environment of institutional fear. This fear of expression has a gendered dimension, deeply affecting women, who are ‘ashamed of publishing and circumvent this shameful practice by writing using pen names’ (XV:22). Nonetheless, the ramifications are society-wide, as discussions become ineffective cognitive tools in a feararchical society because members fear to express themselves freely and genuinely engage in discourse. Members of feararchical communities are held emotionally captive and stuck in a defensive position, ‘attempting to defend themselves against the influx of socially and traditionally perceived fear in their daily life’ (XXV:23).In a climate of fear, if exposed to criticism, one reacts out of fear and insecurity, defensively pushing back against the criticism to avoid any possibility or potentiality of being punished. One interviewee expressed that a deficit of motivation, coupled with the intensity of institutional fear, discourages members from taking risks and the initiative and, therefore, from moving oneself and the whole community forward. As a corollary, members of these communities tend to be risk-averse, echoing the familiar proverb ‘any door that brings you wind, just shut it and enjoy peace of mind’. They avoid taking the initiative because they see the act as inviting more wind, so to speak. As a result of their permanent feardom, they, as remarked by one interviewee, ‘trust no one and regard others as a source of fear’ (XXXV:12) and repeat the saying ‘beware of your enemy once and beware of your friend a thousand times’. If one is institutionally fearless, one is criticised and perceived as reckless.In what ways does fear influence what is acceptable? The answer to this sub-question explicates the meso-vision of axiological fear by bringing into focus how fear evolves into a value and is used to influence acceptability and unpacking this meso-vision into its two micro-visions: fear as a value and fear as an attitude.This micro-vision draws from two marks: fear as a blessing and fear as a reward. A mark is fear as a blessing. An alarmist view is that humans, feararchically speaking, ‘behave only in the presence and reinforcement of fear, calling for managerial systems that are primarily configured around fear’ (XXXVI:24). Fear is not a sign of something wrong but rather, as feararchicalists would have us believe, ‘a healthy way of taming the wild essence of humans’ (XXVII:23), who will ‘misbehave if [they] know of no subsequent punishment’ (Arabic saying). Fear is thus necessary, for, in its absence, humans will ‘have no concept of goodness, [be] savage and do everything to one another, but nothing good’ (XXXI:25). In the eyes of feararchicalists, ‘humans are naturally disgusting and egotistical unless fear is imposed upon them to control and tame their essential wickedness’ (XXIII:19). In other words, humans need to permanently fear punishment because, otherwise, they will unveil their true nature, which, according to feararchicalists, is violent and destructive. Feararchicalists fear the institutionally fearless, as such humans are embracing ‘their damaging, cruel and insensitive side’ (XXX:20). Moreover, feararchicalists fear humans themselves; after all, in their worldview, ‘war is innate to the human species’ (XXVIII:1), ‘revenge is something that makes people extraordinary’ (XIX:22), and ‘human creatures have no choice but to pollute the environment and be killers of other creatures’ (XXIV:5). Therefore, it is no surprise that, according to feararchicalists, ‘throughout history, human society has become progressively more violent and experienced a gradual increase in the overall degree of brutality’ (XIV:5).For feararchicalists, humans are not only innately violent; at their core, they are evil; ‘they are the only organisms capable of elaborate lying and of covering their tracks and concealing evidence’ (XXXI:4). Moreover, in a fearless and, therefore, dog-eat-dog world, ‘individuals would have unrestricted desire to do evil and express their full wish for malevolence’ (XXIV:39). Another interviewee made reference to the Arabic proverb ‘an adulteress would like all other women to experience the hell that she endures’ to highlight the feararchicalistic view that a human being ‘has the evil tendency to want other human beings to share the pain that they experience’ (VI:1). It is most evident that the faith of feararchicalists lies in ‘dark philosophy’, a philosophy that only sees tragedy and ascribes such tragedy to human nature; accordingly, a strategy is needed to manage the dark nature of humans, and fear represents an ideal such strategy. Feararchical societies do not conceal their methods of social control but rather, proudly and explicitly, reinforce fear at the same time as they are driven by fear.A mark is fear as a reward. Feararchical schooling uses fear  over motivation  to induce socially and culturally desired behaviours, overturning the carrot-and-stick principle. Fear-oriented pedagogies are seen to have the advantages of being ‘more effective, more enduring, less expensive and easily implemented’ (XXXV:8). Nevertheless, because schooling focuses on the stick, rather than the carrot, members lack motivation and only do the bare minimum. Educational institutions committed to developing students’ personal identities through self-confidence bear little resemblance to feararchical schooling, which seeks to fearify members, encouraging them to revert to a self-protection mode, and dysfunctionalise their psychological qualities. In feararchical schooling, considerable effort is made to crush any psychological concept  that could challenge the feararchical nature of society. After such schooling, institutional fear continues to closely follow and ‘chase individuals’ [30: 172]; all members of feararchical communities develop the mind and soul of the feared and feel encircled by triggers of fear. In other words, fear has become their fated companion and ‘permanent friend’ (XXXVI:20).This micro-vision draws from three marks: fear of family, fear of others and fear of art. A mark is fear of family. Fear-dominated communities preserve a fear of family, namely a fear of one’s parents and a fear of dishonouring one’s family. One is expected to respect and obey one’s parents: the father expects their children to sit, speak and laugh in a particular manner in his presence, and neither parent tolerates any form of confrontation from their children. Parents are not sources of comfort but, instead, of fear, as children whose parents hit them for misbehaving well know. One is to also fear for family, namely one’s family honour, which is a highly respected value and is, notably, associated with the female members of the family in particular. Certain actions and behaviours are to be avoided by all, but especially by women. A woman’s misconduct, however minor, can harm the honour and reputation of the whole family, potentially making not only her but all her male family members unmarriageable. As a consequence, male family members fear for female family members, resulting in overprotective behaviour by men to prevent women’s ‘misbehaviour’.A mark is fear of others. The fear of others takes two forms in a feararchical society: fear of other cultures and fear of the other gender. The first form, that is, fear of ‘the different’ or ‘the stranger’, is so well engrained that travelling and the Internet, some or all of its contents, can be made culturally inappropriate or even illegal. Different schools of thought are repeatedly described in textbooks as ‘destructive’. Feararchical schooling implants ‘conspiracy’ ( p. 28) aA mark is fear of art. A feararchical society further implants institutional fear into the arts. Perceptions are turned upside down to support feararchicalisation: what was once beautiful becomes fearful. In the data, we found four key examples to support this claim. Example 1 concerns clothing. Dress codes are enforced to instil a sense of fear, for example, if individuals are not dressed in traditionally defined precise ways, they are vulnerable to punishment, humiliation, shaming and social exclusion. Fashion is converted into a dress code: from a source of beauty to a source of fear. If individuals are not dressed in traditionally defined and precise ways, they are vulnerable to punishment, humiliation, shaming and social exclusion. One participant remarked that, ‘even in higher education institutions, there can be a precise dress code for students, support staff and staff’ (XXXIII:28). Moreover, ‘junior managers seek to follow the same style of clothing and shaving as senior managers, fearing punishment if they act differently in terms of clothing and shaving’ (XXXIV:28). Example 2 concerns visual art. Feararchical Arab society eschews any photos, statues, mannequins and dolls in the likeness of humans because of teachings against human creation attempting to simulate God’s creation. Thus, heads are either grotesquely cut off or tastelessly crossed out. Example 3 concerns music. Music is another domain in which feararchicalist societies use and control. They teach people that music and dancing are immoral, contradict spirituality and prevent one from real happiness, as the lyrics and rhythms are so memorable that they distract from spiritual matters. Given that music is disallowed in public, feararchically disobedient members use headsets to listen to music. In doing so, they are taking advantage of the liberative potential of technology, going under the feararchicalistic radar and bypassing societal rules.This article has shed light on the regressive features of Arab fear-based management. It has discovered various types of this fear, which are outlined in This article has elucidated the characteristics of Arab fear-based management. It should be said, however, that fear-oriented management does not necessarily exist in all Arab institutions. Instead, it merely constitutes a management style and managerial culture that exist in some Arab countries and organisations and yet are absent in other Arab countries and organisations. Put simply, not all Arab organisations are subject to the influence of fear. There could be a countervailing love through which some Arab institutions are managed see ,33). Lov. Lov33])This article has shed light on the regressive features of Arab fear-based management. It should be said, however, that fear-oriented management is not necessarily an exclusive feature of Arab culture. Rather, it is merely a management style and managerial culture that can exist beyond the Arab context. In this case, Arab culture is not alone in possessing elements and having institutions that exercise fear-driven management. Put in another way, fear-driven management is not a distinction between the Arab and the non-Arab domains. For instance, a reading of the Western literature can demonstrate how previous eras of the West  share various aspects of Arab fear-based management . One exThe target groups of this study are anyone who has been subject to any form of fear, i.e., who have been managed through fear. That said, one may argue that all humans have at some point in their life managed through fear and encountered fear-based management whether in small, moderate or extreme quantities. A further argument could be that humans spontaneously play two roles, at times and in certain situations being the fearee and at other times and in other situations being the fearer. The acts of both exercising fear on others and being a victim to fear can be assumed to be the norm in human society. To take it to the extreme, it could be argued that, in all various human (and perhaps non-human) societies, fear-oriented management, inevitably, existed in their past, exists in their present and will exist in their future, but to different degrees. The intensity of fear-oriented management can be high in one country and yet low in another. Some societies are worse and more explicit than others when it comes to administration through fear. The total elimination of fear-driven management could be claimed to be merely a utopian concept. To link this article to recent global events, it could be reasoned that the COVID-19 pandemic is an appropriate occasion for managerial reforms that are intended to lessen the elevated intensity of fear in some workplaces, given the very obvious role that the pandemic has played in deeply reconfiguring many well-established norms, regulations, values and practices despite the disapproval of employers. Working from home has remarkably reduced the control  that employers may exert over employees.


Background: Being a parent of a child with a developmental disability  comes with great challenges and apprehensions. Mothers and fathers of children with DD are experiencing heightened levels of psychological distress, physical health problems, financial difficulties, social isolation, and struggles with respect to traditional parenting roles. In relation to the latter, the involvement of fathers in caregiving in today's society is increasing and is highlighted by its importance and positive contribution to the development of their children. However, fathers of children with DD report feeling excluded and marginalized by healthcare providers (HCPs) when arranging for and getting involved in healthcare services for their children. Currently, there is limited evidence as to what factors influence those experiences. We aimed to explore barriers to and facilitators of positive and empowering healthcare experiences, from the perspectives of fathers of children with DD and HCPs.Methods: A mixed-method approach, such as quantitative (survey) and qualitative (semi-structured interview) strategies, was used. Participants were fathers of children with DD and HCPs working in childhood disability. Data analysis consisted of using descriptive statistics and an inductive-thematic analysis of emergent themes.Results: Fathers (n = 7) and HCPs  participated. The fathers indicated that while they were moderate to very much satisfied with their interactions with HCPs, they reported that HCPs were only sometimes attentive to them during interactions. Fathers also revealed that positive interactions with HCPs in relation to their children had multiple benefits. Several themes related to barriers and facilitators of optimal interactions and parent–professional relationships emerged. These included session factors , personal factors , and family dynamics. The participants offered several insights into the different strategies that can be implemented to promote optimal interactions between fathers and HCPs.Conclusion: We identified several barriers, facilitators, and improvement strategies for optimal interactions and enhanced parent–professional relationships from the perspectives of fathers and HCPs. These can be integrated by existing clinical settings in efforts to enhance current clinical practices and improve child- and parent-related outcomes. Becoming a parent, in itself, is a stressful life event. Becoming a parent of a child with a disability imposes even greater challenges and concerns, as parents now need to adjust to provide care for a child with emergent and frequently changing healthcare needs [reviewed in ]. Both mHowever, despite the increasing involvement of fathers in caregiving, as well as its important and positive contribution to child development, research in the field of childhood-onset disability is still primarily focused on mothers –12. For Communication of parents with healthcare professionals in relation to their child with disability reveals a great deal. For example, a pilot study examining a coping intervention for parents of children with disabilities determined that the amount and the quality of the communication with HCPs were a primary predictor of how fathers managed condition-related stress levels . SimilarWith the aim to promote beneficial and helpful interactions and experiences for fathers of children with developmental disabilities, the goal was to explore the barriers to and facilitators of positive interactions and empowering parent-healthcare professional relationships, from the perspectives of fathers of children with developmental disabilities and healthcare professionals (HCPs).Where,children with developmental disabilities are children (0–18 years old) with primary motor impairments  and/or with developmental behavioral conditions .…father is the male parent in relation to the child .…healthcare service experiences include interactions with HCPs for diagnostic, treatment or medical follow-up purposes related to the disability of the child, in different healthcare settings .…HCPs include all-specialty physicians and surgeons, nurses, occupational and physical therapists, speech language pathologists, social workers, special educators, etc.…A mixed-method study design was used, including quantitative  and qualitative (semi-structured interview) methods. In addition, we adopted a patient-oriented research methodology. This was achieved by recruiting two parent advisors to be part of the research team prior to protocol development (DC & FG). They are both fathers of children with disabilities. The parent advisors were involved in the following activities in relation to the project: development of study protocol, development of measurement tools (survey and structure of the interview), data interpretation, and review of ensuing knowledge translation material .Populations of interest included HCPs and fathers of children with DD. The inclusion criterion for HCPs was to be a licensed HCP, working in the field of childhood-onset developmental disability for ≥6 months, and providing direct assessment and/or intervention for a minimum of 50% of their working time. The exclusion criterion was (1) research or medical assistant personnel  who are not directly involved in procedures related to diagnostics and/or treatment and follow-up of children with DD. For fathers of children with DD, the inclusion criteria were (1) male gender and (2) being a father  for ≥6 months of a child with a diagnosed DD . All the participants needed to be fluent in English or in French.We aimed to recruit a sufficient number of participants to achieve data saturation. An effort was made to recruit HCPs from different disciplines and fathers of children with different disabilities and various age groups.The participants were recruited using word-of-mouth/snowball/convenience sampling techniques at the collaborative healthcare services points. These included the Montreal Children's Hospital, Shriners Hospital for Children , and the BC Children's Hospital, Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children . Recruitment was performed via wall-mounted/email/web-posted advertisements. Ethical approval was obtained from all participating clinical sites and informed consent was provided by all the recruited participants prior to their engagement with the study.First, the participants were asked to fill out a demographic form and a short Likert-scale based survey that was developed in-house and reviewed by all team members, including patient advisors . For theDemographic variables for HCPs included their discipline and degree, practice clinical setting, amount of experience in the field of childhood disability, age, gender, race/ethnicity, population served, and time spent on continuing education. Demographic variables for fathers of children with disabilities included their age, race/ethnicity, relation to the child , marital status, education level, employment status, and information about the child with a disability .Main variables collected (from the perspectives of both study groups) included (1) the perception of involvement of fathers in healthcare of their child; (2) satisfaction and comfort level in interactions between HCP and fathers of children with disabilities; (3) influential factors (barriers and facilitators) impacting experiences/interactions of fathers of children with disabilities with HCPs; (4) effects of involvement of fathers (from the perspective of HCPs only) and effects of interactions with HCPs (from the perspective of fathers of children with disabilities only) on personal, child-related, and family-related outcomes; and (5) strategies and recommendations to enhance interactions and parent–professional relationships and promote family-centered care.Descriptive statistics were used to summarize demographic data. Audio data from the interviews were transcribed verbatim. The NVivo® software  was used for data management. Triangulation methods were used for data analysis . More spn = 7) fathers of children with disabilities were recruited. The father-participants were 42.6 ± 8.2 years old, 100% Caucasian, all biological parents to their children, all fulltime workers, four (n = 4) were married, and three (n = 3) were single. Their education level ranged from a college professional diploma (n = 3), Bachelor (n = 3) to Masters (n = 1). Their children with disability  were on average 9.4 ± 5.3 years old (range: 18 months−15 years) with the following conditions: epilepsy, anxiety, cognitive and language delay, trisomy 21, cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, developmental coordination disorder, behavioral challenges, and globoid cell leukodystrophy.Seven (n = 13) HCPs were recruited. HCPs  were 37.8 ± 13 years old. Degrees obtained included Bachelor (n = 1), Masters (n = 8), Medical doctor (n = 1), and PhD (n = 2), with diplomas obtained anywhere from 1982 to 2017. The HCPs were from the following disciplines: Occupational Therapy (n = 6) Speech Language Pathology (n = 2); Neuropsychology (n = 2), Pediatrics , Social Work (n = 1), and Nursing (n = 1). Most of them were working fulltime (n = 10) in the field of childhood disability for an average of 11.5 ± 9.7 years. Fields of practice included general neurodevelopment and autism spectrum disorder (n = 7), orthopedics (n = 2), neurotrauma (n = 2), intellectual disability (n = 1), and complex care (n = 1). Clinical settings included university teaching hospitals (n = 5), rehabilitation centers (n = 3), community or private clinics (n = 3); and a mix of clinical settings (n = 2). On average, the recruited HCPs spent 10.2 ± 12.3 h per month on continuing education.Thirteen (Father-participants reported that 57.1 to 85.7% of them were “Moderately (Often)” to “Very much (All the time)” involved in the healthcare of their child, such as organizing services, taking the child to their appointments and medical visits, being present during medical visits, and advocating for the healthcare of their child. All of them (100%) reported that, at all times, they are taking part in applying treatment recommendations that their child receives. In terms of their satisfaction and comfort level in interactions with HCPs, father-participants reported that 71.3 to 85.7% of them are “Moderately” to “Very much” satisfied with the interactions they have had with HCPs in the past, where they conveyed feeling comfortable, understood, and supported by HCPs. However, 57.1% reported that HCPs are only “Sometimes” attentive to them during interactions. All of them reported that they were able to form a good relationship with HCPs and had a positive/good experience/helpful interaction(s). Only 28.5% of them reported having frequent negative experiences in interacting with HCPs in relation to the care of their child.On the other hand, 92.3 to 100% of the HCPs reported that fathers are only “Slightly (Sometimes)” to “Moderately (Often)” involved in advocating for the healthcare needs of their child, implementing and applying the recommendation/treatment regiments, getting involved in setting up healthcare services for their child, taking the child to medical visits, and being present during appointments. On average, 83.1% of the HCPs reported that they are satisfied with the interactions they have had with fathers of children with disabilities. HCPs reported that fathers are generally attentive to them and understand them, and that they (the HCPs) were comfortable in those interactions and were able to form good relationships. However, a lower percentage of the HCPs (69.2%) conveyed that fathers of children with a disability felt “Moderately” (30.7%) to “Very much” (38.4%) supported by them.The initial agreement between the two independent coders of the semi-structured interviews was high at 96.6%. The few discrepancies in coding were resolved through discussion to reach a 100% consensus.Four main themes emerged from the semi-structured interviews:Impacts of the interactions between fathers of children with disabilities and HCPs (from the perspectives of the father-participants).Impacts of fathers in the healthcare of their child with a disability (from the perspectives of the HCPs).Barriers and facilitators to optimal and empowering interactions between fathers of children with disabilities and HCPs.Solutions to optimize: (a) interactions between fathers of children with disabilities and HCPs and (b) involvement of fathers in the healthcare of their child.Those four themes and their respective subthemes are described below, along with the most salient utterances from the study participants.n = 6 subthemes, n = 14 utterances) and negative  interactions with HCPs in relation to their child. Impacts of positive interactions included “Gaining a better perception and awareness of child's needs, challenges and strengths” (n = 7 utterances):Father participants (FP) reported several impacts of positive  and “Bringing the family closer together” (n = 1 utterance):The participants also reported that positive interactions allowed them to “Focus on what is important” , “Relationship with their child” (n = 1 utterance) and their “Overall mood” (n = 1 utterance) were also conveyed:Improvements to their “Role as a father” , “Assertive” (n = 2 utterances) and “Vigilant” (n = 1 utterance):Impacts of negative interactions with HCPs included fathers becoming more “Protective” :One participant also reported that negative interactions with HCPs had the potential to “Affect subsequent relations with their partner and/or their child” . The most commonly described effect is that fathers have the potential to “Contribute to the child's development, recovery and well-being” when they are involved and engaged in the healthcare of the child (n = 11 utterances):The HCPs reported that the involvement of fathers in the healthcare of their child with a disability had numerous positive impacts .Second, the HCPs convey that when fathers are involved, this leads to a “Relief in burden of care for the mother and promotes mother's well-being”  and “Can be very innovative” (n = 2 utterances):Several participants mentioned that fathers can promote “Therapy through play and fun”  and enhanced “Family dynamics and overall functioning” (n = 1 utterance).The involvement of fathers can also lead to more “Compliance in therapy”  utterances were classified in barriers  and facilitators .n = 34 utterances, accounting for 39.1% of all barriers) was found to be associated with Father-related factors. Predominantly, accounting for 76.5% of barriers, these factors included fathers who were uninvolved or disengaged; rigid working schedule and high stress level of fathers; certain personality traits ; and being in denial with regard to condition and challenges of their child:The most commonly reported barrier to optimal and empowering interactions between fathers and HCPs ; Factors related to the healthcare and child-care system ; and Time limitation  were also reported as barriers:FP02: “Every time the physiotherapist sees me [the father], she has this face: ‘Oh okay, it's the father…' as if I were there to be mean, to see how you do your job. I have the impression that it looks like when they see the father [at the medical visit], they think it is because there is something wrong.”FP03: “One thing that always bothers me is when I sense that there is a rush on the meeting, if there is a rush on the interaction we are having, and if there's not enough thought going into a suggestion. You have just met my kid, you are telling him this thing right here, and it is like hang on, there can be an impact there on me, where I feel like, you know you are more apt to follow someone's advice or hear what they have to say if you believe that they know what you are dealing with, they know your particularities. Going to any HCP where they are trying to rush you out of the office it's not a good situation for any positive interaction.”Factors related to HCPs also emerged as obstacles and included: HCPs who are focusing on negative aspects and on disability; those lacking attention to fathers in their interactions; the lack of knowledge about cultural factors and how to bridge them; and being early in their career :Lastly, certain FP03: “I feel like it's just important to remind [HCPs] that we as parents can really use a dose of positivity, and it feels good when they, I think starting out on a foot of positivity has been great and too often people jump straight into ‘Okay, here's what I'm seeing that's wrong with your son.' […] it's all about what he's sort of failing at, really, and that can be really stressful actually.”HCP13: “I've seen professionals that are great at coaching moms […] but in other situations, just totally stone-wall dad. What are you doing? He came to the appointment, like you might hook him!”HCP13: “I have a child on my list right now who, they speak [another language]. During one of my feeding visits, dad is very polite and very quiet, just kind of smiles and nods. And in one of my feeding visits, I said ‘I like seeing you, I like seeing you here, I'd love to see you, you know for communication visits, you are so invited, you could come if you wanted to, we'd have fun together,' and then he came to some subsequently which really made [me happy]. But I do not always know how to build that bridge, especially if I do not meet dad in the clinic area in the first place. I don't always know how to build that bridge.”HCP10: “When I was new, I was probably intimidated talking to anyone, I felt like an imposter, like I didn't know what I was doing.”Factors related to fathers were reported 48.3% of the time and included: engagement of father; ability to see the overall picture and practicality; acceptance of the condition of child, strengths and weaknesses; knowledge of the condition of the child; positive personality traits ; sharing of responsibilities; ability to prioritize; openness to learn; ability to share feelings; and flexible working conditions:In terms of facilitators, HCP10: “The [experiences and interactions] that are positive are [with] the involved dads. They are the ones who are asking me questions who seem to know their child quiet well, they are aware of their child's strengths and weakness.”HCP11: “So the father would come to some appointments and the positive interaction was [that] he was always [sharing] with me how he felt about the kid. He was always very happy when he came back and he had put into place the recommendations I had given him.”HCP01: “[Fathers] still care for their child very-very much, but they aren't caught up in their insecurities, and their guilt, and their anxieties. They are able to take a step back and really see objectivity what is important in this moment for their child.”HCP12: “…Father's openness and willingness to receive information will have a play on how comfortable I am too. So, with the fathers who are really interested and want to know why we are doing certain activities, [the interaction] is really not a problem.”Factors related to HCPs emerged as enablers and included: providing explanations; taking their time in the interactions; using a family-centered approach; level of experience; intent to involve fathers; reporting improvements and focus on positive aspects; advocating for needs of the family; grabbing on the opportunity when the father shows interest; engaging fathers; and having a positive father role model in their lives. Seventy percent (70%) of all the utterances of the father-participants in the theme “Facilitators” were found to be in this category :Several FP04: “I would more say was the one where we did the occupational therapy where the HCP was actively engaged with the parents, they showed us the techniques to do at home in order to help Jackson when he is at home not just at the therapy sessions, so for me they were engaged with us.”FP03: “[One facilitator to optimal interactions is to] try as best as you can to give time to the interaction, to provide knowledge in the meeting itself for when it's needed, like if, I mean it's definitely not on them to educate us every time, but it's helpful and I appreciate it.”FP02: “[In the best interactions], we [father and mother] were considered both as parents of equal value, and not ‘the mother and the father who is on the side.”'Communication strategies were reported as positive (100% by HCPs) and included: the use of everyday examples; visual supports; and humor; and concreteness, where the HCP can emphasize how a father can help using clear suggestions and explanations as to why it is beneficial.Further, HCP09: “So a lot of the good interaction that I find is when we do teach or we're trying to solve issues, they are very engaged in that. So, to give them concrete explanations, to give them concrete things to do, like, that's what they like, and that's what they're engaged into.”HCP07: “I use humor a lot with fathers, they get on well. Sometimes when we use a little bit with humor, it creates good interactions.”Long-lasting relationship with the same HCP; Following-up with fathers when they are absent from the medical visit; and Accommodating father's schedule in attempt to have them present during healthcare visits.The remaining facilitators included having a n = 70) utterances  were categorized into the theme of Solutions to optimize interactions between fathers of children with disabilities and HCPs and overall father's involvement in the healthcare of their child. Changes to communication strategies; assessment, treatment and follow-up; Appointments and scheduling; Fair consideration of both parent figures; and consideration of cultural differences and values.Seventy  to alleviate the stress related to the presence of HCP during an assessment conducted via observation . Considering both parents' agendas and Accommodating fathers' schedules to promote their presence at medical visits was also reported as one solution. The HCPs also suggested the need to be Sensitive to cultural differences and values during interactions and adjust their approach accordingly.Several suggestions on how the process of Education and awareness were reported by the HCPs only (100%) and included developing and launching: (1) formal education curriculum for trainees with a focus on family-centered care and particularities related to fathers; (2) continuing education material for practicing HCPs in the field of childhood disability, outlining current issues and how to bridge them; and (3) material targeting fathers of children with disability, with an aim to increase their awareness about potential positive outcomes of their involvement and engagement in the healthcare and upbringing of their child.Solutions related to Healthcare services at large  were proposed entirely by the father-participants (100%). In addition, modifications to how fathers are portrayed in the media and in the healthcare system  were recommended:Changes to HCP13: “So I think also that when we see children represented in the media, they are with mums, and then when we see children with disabilities represented in the media they are with mums and then like if we even manage to get a representation of a dad, we don't often see pictures and videos of dads with kids with disabilities. And if we do, we do not see a spectrum of dad abilities – we get hero- dad. We do not see ordinary dads doing the ordinary things that come with kids with disabilities. I think representation matters and representation of dads who maybe are not superheroes, maybe they are just regular dads who play in regular ways. When dads exist in the media with kids, they are either amazing at that play or they are described as amazing even when they are just doing their jobs. I think we hit both sides of that so I think dads can either get intimidated, like if I am not YouTube worthy, I best not jump in. Or yeah just they don't know that people that look like them can be a part of the picture.”HCP12: “[What was helpful is] for example, our toddler group is called ‘Moms and Tots' and recently we changed it to ‘Parents and Tots.' I find it makes a difference, the fathers that started to get included they kept asking: Why it is called ‘Moms and Tots,' and so little things like that…”Targeting fathers emerged and included: increasing engagement and awareness of fathers about their potential impacts of engagement in the healthcare of their child.Lastly, solutions To enhance healthcare-related interactions and experiences for fathers of children with developmental disabilities, the goal was to explore the barriers to and facilitators of positive and empowering interactions and parent–professional relationships, from the perspectives of fathers of children with developmental disabilities and HCPs. The participants of this study reported numerous impacts of positive interactions and involvement of fathers in the healthcare of their children. Also, we determined several influential factors (obstacles vs. enablers) that are at play during parent–professional interactions. We also outlined practical solutions that can be implemented in various clinical settings with the aim of improving interactions and parent–professional relationships, as well as promoting family-centered care.In this study, the fathers reported to be moderate to very much involved in the healthcare of their child  and other activities . This is congruent with results from previous qualitative studies on fathering children with disabilities –21. NonePersonal factors related to fathers  accounted for most of the obstacles or enablers to optimal interactions and parent–professional relationships. Those factors may originate from and be further exacerbated by the high stress levels and mental health issues potentially experienced by fathers of children with disabilities. For example, Giallo et al.  demonstrFurther, the father's denial vs. acceptance of the child's condition, strengths, and challenges was identified as an important influential factor by both study groups. Comparatively, a recent study explored experiences of fathering children with autism spectrum disorder . In thisSimilar to previous findings, where fathers report feeling overwhelmed and overshadowed during interactions with HCPs , 24, we Finally, in line with identified barriers and facilitators, several practical solutions emerged. These solutions can be easily implemented in the clinical settings of today to enhance the experiences of fathers of children with disabilities and promote helpful and empowering interactions between fathers and HCPs. The majority of the suggestions pertain to communication strategies , changes in clinical practices related to evaluation, treatment, administrative system (scheduling), family-centered care , and consideration of cultural differences. Access to information and services, as well as how fathers are portrayed vs. not portrayed in the media and within the healthcare system should also be evaluated and adjusted as needed. We propose that future research should focus on promoting the development and launch of knowledge translation tools to include educational materials to increase knowledge and awareness of trainees, practicing clinicians, and parents about fathers of children with disabilities.There are limitations in this study, such as the small sample size of father-participants, potentially limiting the generalizability of the findings. Nonetheless, the data analysis showed saturation of ideas with the included participants. To the advantage of the authors, the sample also included fathers of children from a wide age range and variability in diagnoses, single and married individuals, and of different educational backgrounds. The use of surveys and interviews enabled us to triangulate perspectives through mixed methods, allowing a richer understanding of the experiences of fathers and HCPs. In addition, given the use of patient-oriented research strategy, the study greatly benefited from the inclusion of two father-advisors on the research team, boosting the relevance and suitability of measurement strategies and interpretation of findings.The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors upon request, without undue reservation.The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by The Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center and University of British Columbia. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.TO drafted the first version of the manuscript. All the authors developed the study protocol, reviewed the manuscript, provided modifications, and suggestions where appropriate.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


With the great success of machine learning, nowadays, more and more practical tasks, particularly those involving open-environment scenarios where important factors are subject to change, called open-environment machine learning in this article, are present to the community. Evidently, it is a grand challenge for machine learning turning from close environment to open environment. It becomes even more challenging since, in various big data tasks, data are usually accumulated with time, like streams, while it is hard to train the machine learning model after collecting all data as in conventional studies. This article briefly introduces some advances in this line of research, focusing on techniques concerning emerging new classes, decremental/incremental features, changing data distributions and varied learning objectives, and discusses some theoretical issues.Conventional machine learning studies generally assume  Open Environment Machine Learning, where important factors of the machine learning process are subject to change, as occurring in many practical tasks.This article briefly introduces  In machine learning, typically, a predictive model optimizing a specific objective is learned from a training data set composed of training examples, each corresponding to an event/object. A training example consists of two parts: a feature vector  describing the appearance of an event/object, and a label indicating the corresponding ground-truth output. In classification, the label indicates the class to which the training instance belongs; in regression, the label is a real-value response corresponding to the instance. This article mainly focuses on classification, though most discussions are also applicable to regression and other machine learning tasks. Formally, consider the task of learning Machine learning has achieved great success in various applications, particularly in close-environment scenarios, where important factors of the learning process hold invariant. For example, all the class labels to be predicted are known in advance, the features describing training/testing data never change, all data are from an identical distribution and the learning process is optimized towards an unchangeable unique objective. Figure It is noticeable that current successes in machine learning mostly involve tasks that assume changes in important factors of the learning process. We call this open-environment machine learning, or open learning or open ML for short. Note that the name ‘open-world machine learning’ was used to refer to machine learning with unseen class [known in advance, and related to the section ‘Emerging New Classes’ if the unseen class is unknown. OOD is related to the section ‘Changing Data Distributions’, though concerning only a different distribution is simpler than distribution changing with time.The close-environment assumptions offer a simplified abstraction that enables complicated tasks to be handled in an easier way, leading to the prosperous development of machine learning techniques. With the great achievements attained by these techniques, nowadays, more and more challenging tasks beyond the close-environment setting are present to the community, requesting new generation of machine learning techniques that are able to handle en class  or out-oen class . In factstream. It is impossible to train a machine learning model after we get all data at hand as in conventional studies; a more reasonable way is to enable the trained model to be refined/updated according to the newly received data. Unfortunately, it is well known that catastrophic forgetting [continual learning [There seems a straightforward solution: to artificially generate many training examples by mimicking the possible changes in advance, and then feed these data to a powerful machine learning model such as a deep neural network. Such a solution, however, is only applicable when users have knowledge about, or at least can estimate, what changes and how the changes will occur. Unfortunately, it is not the case in most practical tasks. It becomes even more challenging when we consider the fact that data in real big data tasks are usually accumulated with time, e.g. instances are being received one by one, like a rgetting  can occulearning  trying tDespite the grand challenges, recently, there have been considerable research efforts on open ML. This article briefly introduces some advances in this line of research, focuses on techniques concerning emerging new classes, decremental/incremental features, changing data distributions and varied learning objectives. Some theoretical issues will also be discussed.Close-environment machine learning studies generally assume that the class label of any unseen instance NewClass in the following) might occur, whereas training a model accommodating all possible classes is impossible or unbearably expensive.It might be thought that we can artificially generate some virtual training examples for the new classes, just like popular training tricks employed in adversarial deep neural networks. Here, the difficulty lies in the fact that we can hardly imagine what unknown class  would be required to avoid catastrophic forgetting, with huge computational and storage costs. It would be ideal to do local refinement only for accommodating NewClass rather than doing global changes that may seriously affect known classes. One solution is to exploit the advantage of tree/forest models through refining only tree leaves involving NewClass in an incremental way , which dMulti-label learning with emerging new classes is more challenging because in this scenario the NewClass instances may also hold known class labels, and may even appear in dense regions of known classes, where the key is to detect significant changes in feature combinations and/or label combinations [If there is more than one new class, the clustering structure of NewClass data can be exploited . Note thinations . A relevinations .There are situations where some NewClass instances appeared in the training data but were misperceived as known class instances, possibly due to an insufficiency in the feature information. This is even more challenging, with only one very preliminary study having been carried out .Close-environment machine learning studies generally assume that all possible instances, including unseen ones, reside in the same feature space, i.e. all data received.Consider the following setting of learning with decremental/incremental features. A machine learning model is trained from some initial training data and then deployed to handle unseen data being received like a stream, with decremental and/or incremental features. For incoming testing data, the model should be able to make correct predictions; for incoming additional training data, the model should be able to be refined accordingly. Ideally, it is desirable that the whole process does not require retraining based on storage of 1 data \docu1 learning to be helpful to phase2, in particular, when feature increment occurs earlier than feature decrement [2 with features of 1 learned in phase1 can still be exploited by feeding it with 2 prediction can be made by combining model1 with model2 trained from Interestingly, even when ecrement , e.g. neThe training of these models can be accomplished by online learning techniques such as online gradient descent, and thus the above strategies can be naturally applied to stream data. It is noticeable that the above strategies can be naturally extended to more phases, and predictions can be made by the combination of multiple models from different feature spaces. Thus, the performance of later phases can even be enhanced by exploiting ensemble learning .Recently, there have been studies of learning with feature decrement/increment at the unpredictable phase , along wi.i.d. samples). Unfortunately, this does not always hold. Taking, for example, the forest disease monitor mentioned in the section entitle ‘Emerging New Classes’ again, the model may be built in summer based on sensor signals received in that season, but it is hoped to work well in all seasons. Figure Close-environment machine learning studies generally assume that all data, including both training and testing data, are independent samples from an identical distribution (i.e. prior probability shift and covariate shift [Ptrain(y) ≠ Ptest(y) and concept drift [There have been plenty of studies concerning the training/testing data distribution change. For example, for the te shift , we havept drift , we haveaptation  or transaptation . Note thcurrent observation has a close relation to recent observations; in other words, the current instance and the most recent ones are usually from similar or even identical distributions, and the far the dissimilar. Thus, we can try to exploit some recent data in the stream to help.In general, learning with changing data distributions is not always possible, e.g. if the data distribution can change arbitrarily in every moment without knowledge about how it could change. Fortunately, in many real tasks it is reasonable to assume that the sliding window, forgetting or ensemble mechanisms. Sliding-window-based approaches hold recent instances and discard old ones falling outside the window, with a fixed or adaptive window size [General approaches are often based on dow size ,47. Forgdow size ,49. Ensedow size  approachdow size .Most sliding-window- or ensemble-based approaches need to scan data multiple times. In real big data tasks, it is often hoped that the stream data can be scanned only once and the storage size required by the learning process is independent from the data volume that could not be known before the stream ends. Recently, a simple yet effective approach based on the forgetting mechanism was proposed to tackle this issue . The appbag-level changes as well as instance-level changes [Data distribution change can occur in more complicated situations, such as on data with rich structures. There are studies on this issue in multi-instance learning , where t changes .Mf, such as accuracy, the F1 measure and Area under ROC Curve (AUC). Learning towards different objectives may lead to different models with different strengths. A model that is optimal on one measure does not mean that it can also be optimal on other measures. Close-environment machine learning studies generally assume that the Mf that will be used to measure the learning performance should be invariant and known in advance. Unfortunately, this does not always hold. Taking, for example, the sensor dispatch task, initially many sensors are to be dispatched to pursue a high accuracy of monitoring, whereas after a relatively high accuracy has been achieved, other sensors are to be dispatched to ensure that the system continues to work with energy consumption as low as possible. To be able to handle varied objectives is desired for open ML.The performance of learning model reuse [Learning with varied learning objectives has rarely been studied. Here, the great challenge is to enable a trained machine learning model to switch smoothly from one objective to another, without requiring recollecting data to train a totally new model. There are studies on adapting a trained model to a new objective, based on the observation that many performance measures are relevant ,56; indeel reuse ,59.Pareto optimization. Formally, the goal is to optimize min , where the Mi are the objectives; the smaller, the better. There usually does not exist a single model that is optimal on all objectives; instead, the goal is to seek the Pareto front consisting of solutions never inferior to other solutions on all objectives simultaneously. Figure X and Y are not inferior to any other solution on both objectives simultaneously, so they reside in the Pareto front.In addition to switching from one objective to another, learning with varied learning objectives can also be accomplished by pursuing multiple objectives simultaneously, if these objectives are explicitly known in advance. This resorts to Evolutional algorithms, such as genetic algorithms, have been commonly used for Pareto optimization in practice, though they are often criticized as they appear to be pure heuristics. It is worth mentioning that efforts have recently been made to try to establish a theoretical foundation for evolutionary learning , i.e. mu1 is better for me than model2.’ It has been shown [bag of words [Besides explicit multiple objectives, implicit multiple objectives also require attention for open ML. For example, there are situations where users cannot express their objectives clearly, but can provide preference feedbacks like ‘modelen shown  that effof words , assuminOpen ML is a new research direction and, therefore, too many theoretical issues are to be explored.all data are at hand, there are some theoretical results, e.g. when NewClasses exist in unlabeled data [emerges in stream. There are some theoretical analyses on the proposed algorithms for learning with decremental/incremental features [i.i.d. assumption [Among the four threads shown in Fig. led data ,63; howefeatures ,36,38, bfeatures , but thefeatures , and somfeatures , stabilifeatures , generalfeatures , etc. Thsumption .Open ML is challenging mostly because we can hardly know what changes and how the changes will occur in advance. This is quite different from typical scenarios handled by reinforcement learning ,73 whereweakly supervised learning [majority examples and thus generally assume a normal distribution, in open ML the minority of examples or even those that have never been observed are much more important, though at the meantime a good performance on the majority is still demanded. Thus, instead of a normal distribution, it would be more favorable to consider heavy-tailed distributions  where the tails are not exponentially bounded, as illustrated in Fig. Technically, in open ML one does not have data reflecting unknown changes in the initial training set, while an adequate model update must be conducted after receiving a few instances upon changes occur as soon as possible. From this aspect, open ML is somewhat relevant to learning . Howeveri ∈ {1, 2}, y is the ground-truth output of 1 ≤ ε2 ≤ ε, δ1, δ2 < 1. Intuitively, this reveals that the desired model should achieve excellent performance in the 1 with a high probability), and satisfactory performance in the 2 must not be larger than ε, though it can be larger than ε1). The rigid threshold ε ensures that the worst performance is bearable to the user no matter what changes occur. This is relevant to safe learning [optimizing the worst-case performance after achieving a good average performance can be helpful. Consequently, the total error isE is bounded by (1 + γ)ε according to . These issues must be considered in open ML. For example, if the input and output spaces are heavy tailed, empirical risk minimization becomes invalid, since empirical risk is no longer a good approximation of risk . This porestart mechanism [Considering data accumulated with time, the performance measure requires attention. Here, the concern is that no matter what changes occur, the learning process is running as online learning ,80. In cechanism  with a sechanism , which iOpen ML is also related to learning with noisy data, for which there are many theoretical studies, e.g. . Note thThis article briefly introduces some research advances in open-environment machine learning. It can hardly be a thorough review of all the relevant work, and is mostly a brief summary of the author’s and his colleagues’s exploration along this direction, emphasizing general principles and strategies rather than specific learning algorithms. Many strategies and ideas mentioned in this article can be realized with various learning techniques, possibly with different strengths to be explored in the future. Note that the varied issues are discussed separately in this article, while in real practice they often occur simultaneously. It is fundamentally important to enable machine learning models to achieve excellent performance in the usual case, while keeping satisfactory performance no matter what unexpected unfortunate issues occur. This is crucial for achieving robust artificial intelligence ,94, and