Disease-related challenges are often associated with perceived uncertainties in individuals, triggering attempts to cope with the situation. Our study aims to understand patients’ coping strategies regarding health information-seeking behaviors (HISBs). It is guided by the Uncertainty Management Theory, and seeks to grant insights into multi-channel HISB by describing how uses of interpersonal and media channels interact to cope with uncertainties, and how trust influences the process of multi-channel HISB. Patients diagnosed with osteoarthrosis (N = 34) participated in qualitative semi-structured interviews, (...) from which five patterns of multi-channel HISB, ranging from a focus on the physician to a focus on the internet, were identified. These patterns are distinguished by underlying functions of trust – including trust serving as an additional coping strategy, and as an important influencing factor for perceiving information as meaningful – and by whether information needs remain and patients turn to multiple sources. These findings form the basis for further theory development considering the iterative nature of HISB and the role of trust. (shrink)

As it has become more and more urgent to solve the problems of environmental protection, we consider it necessary to conduct multilevel studies to examine the impact of business strategy on both employees’ and firms’ performances in environmental protection. Synthesizing the perspectives of strategic orientation, corporate strategy, and firm performance, we propose a comprehensive theoretical model linking market orientation and environmental performance. Based on a survey of 134 matched chief executive officers, senior marketing managers and frontline workers from Chinese firms, (...) we found that market orientation positively affects environmental strategy which, in turn, influences both environmental product quality and employees’ environmental involvement. These latter two variables consequently have a positive influence on environmental performance. At the same time, environmental commitment moderates the link between market orientation and environmental strategy. (shrink)

We now move to the demonstration of the left-to-right direction of the equivalence result. Let us assume that there is a winning $$\mathbf {P}$$ P -strategy in the dialogical game for $$\varphi $$ φ.

Drawing on the natural-resource-based view, we propose that employee stakeholder integration is linked to environmental performance through firms’ proactive environmental strategies, and that this link is contingent on shared vision. We tested our model with a cross-country and multi-industry sample. In support of our theory, results revealed that firms’ proactive environmental strategies translated employee stakeholder integration into environmental performance. This relationship was pronounced for high levels of shared vision. Our findings demonstrate that shared vision represents a key condition for advancing (...) the corporate greening agenda through proactive environmental strategies. We discuss implications for the CSR and the environmental management literatures, with a particular focus on the NRBV and stakeholder integration debates. (shrink)

PurposeThis study aimed to apply “multi-criteria decision approach and attitude-change theory” to examine post-COVID-19 impact on entrepreneurial mindset by investigating the link between entrepreneurs social capital and entrepreneurial success. Specifically, this study analyzed entrepreneurs' dispositional factor as an underlying mechanism to bridge trust and entrepreneurial success. Furthermore, it also analyzed entrepreneurs' situational factor as boundary condition.Design/methodology/approachWe applied time-lagged data collection from 505 industrial entrepreneurs. Survey method was used for data collection. A 7-point Likert scale was used for the respondent response. (...) Hayes developed PROCESS models 4 and 7 were used to test the hypothesis.FindingsThe direct impact of trust on three elements of the ecosystem was found significantly positive on both startup behavior and entrepreneurial success. The direct impact of startup behavior on entrepreneurial success is also significantly positive. The impact of startup behavior on indirect mediation between trust and entrepreneurial success is visibly positive. The moderated and moderated mediation impact of entrepreneurial strategy found positively significant at low and medium values. However, this study found an insignificant moderated impact at high values of entrepreneurial strategy between trust on media and startup behavior. Furthermore, this study also found insignificant moderated mediation impact at high values of entrepreneurial strategy by interacting with two elements of ecosystem through startup behavior on entrepreneurial success.Originality/valueThe authors suggested that startup behavior is an underlying mechanism through which industrial entrepreneurs trust achieved desired entrepreneurial success. The authors also suggested that the influencing role of “low level of entrepreneurial strategy” in comparison with “high level entrepreneurial strategy” is more helpful to achieve entrepreneurial success.ImplicationsThis study contributed to the literature on entrepreneurial strategy for its conditional indirect moderated impact on startup behavior and moderated mediation impact on firm entrepreneurial success. It also contributed to owners of the manufacturing industry for their startup behavior as an underlying mechanism through which trust influences entrepreneurial success. (shrink)

This paper investigates how country-specific political institutions affect patterns of business political behavior. In particular, we focus on how firms developpolitical resources, what kinds of strategies they use and how the resources and strategies affect a firm’s performance in various country environments. Drawing on the institutional perspective, we posit that political institutional arrangements in a country are a central determinant for business political behavior. Survey data from two countries (the Netherlands and Finland) are utilized in order to test our hypotheses.

ABSTRACTAdults use a variety of strategies to reason about fraction magnitudes, and this variability is adaptive. In two studies, we examined the relationships between mathematics anxiety, working memory, strategy variability and performance on two fraction tasks: fraction magnitude comparison and estimation. Adults with higher mathematics anxiety had lower accuracy on the comparison task and greater percentage absolute error on the estimation task. Unexpectedly, mathematics anxiety was not related to variable strategy use. However, variable strategy use was linked to more accurate (...) magnitude comparisons, especially among adults with lower working memory performance or those who use mathematics less frequently, as well as lower PAE on the estimation task. These findings shed light on the role of strategy variability in fraction problem solving and demonstrate a link between mathematics anxiety and fraction magnitude reasoning, a key predictor of general mathematics achievement. (shrink)

BackgroundPrognostic uncertainty is a challenge for physicians in the neuro intensive care field. Questions about whether continued life-sustaining treatment is in a patient’s best interests arise in different phases after a severe traumatic brain injury. In-depth information about how physicians deal with ethical issues in different contexts is lacking. The purpose of this study was to seek insight into clinicians’ strategies concerning unresolved prognostic uncertainty and their ethical reasoning on the issue of limitation of life-sustaining treatment in patients with minimal (...) or no signs of neurological improvement after severe traumatic brain injury in the later trauma hospital phase.MethodsInterviews with 18 physicians working in a neurointensive care unit in a large Norwegian trauma hospital, followed by a qualitative thematic analysis focused on physicians’ strategies related to treatment-limiting decision-making.ResultsA divide between proactive and wait-and-see strategies emerged. Notwithstanding the hospital’s strong team culture, inter-physician variability with regard to ethical reasoning and preferred strategies was exposed. All the physicians emphasized the importance of team—family interactions. Nevertheless, their strategies differed: (1) The proactive physicians were open to consider limitations of life-sustaining treatment when the prognosis was grim. They initiated ethical discussions, took leadership in clarification and deliberation processes regarding goals and options, saw themselves as guides for the families and believed in the necessity to prepare families for both best-case and worst-case scenarios. (2) The “wait-and-see” physicians preferred open-ended treatment (no limitations). Neurologically injured patients need time to uncover their true recovery potential, they argued. They often avoided talking to the family about dying or other worst-case scenarios during this phase.ConclusionsDepending on the individual physician in charge, ethical issues may rest unresolved or not addressed in the later trauma hospital phase. Nevertheless, team collaboration serves to mitigate inter-physician variability. There are problems and pitfalls to be aware of related to both proactive and wait-and-see approaches. The timing of best-interest discussions and treatment-limiting decisions remain challenging after severe traumatic brain injury. Routines for timely and open discussions with families about the range of ethically reasonable options need to be strengthened. (shrink)

Alexithymia and emotion regulation are closely related to internet addiction. However, no research has examined how the different components of alexithymia are associated with cognitive emotion regulation in the context of multi-strategy use in internet addiction. The current study aimed to investigate the relation between alexithymia and cognitive emotion regulation in individuals with internet addiction via network analysis. Participants included 560 students with Young’s Internet Addiction Test scores greater than 50 points; they were also asked to complete the Toronto Alexithymia (...) Scale and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. The results revealed two bridge nodes emerging within the combined alexithymia and cognitive emotion regulation network model: “catastrophizing” and “externally oriented thoughts.” These findings indicate a more specific relation between alexithymia and cognitive emotion regulation and provide empirical evidence for targeted prevention and targeted interventions for internet addiction. (shrink)

Agribusiness corporations primarily involved in providing livestock feed—colloquially known as the “ABCD” (Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill, and the Louis Dreyfus Company)—have begun to enter the fishing industry around the world. I argue that this recent entry of agribusiness multinationals in aquaculture, focusing particularly on Cargill, arises to take advantage of strategic opportunities to proliferate, or create links with respect to feed production and development within value chains. Concerning such opportunities, as I document, Cargill first leveraged its access to (...) cheap, overproduced grains in the 1990s, developing ways to insert corn and soy into what it calls “aquafeed.” Next, the multinational firm began proliferating links within fishing industry value chains in the form of introducing new technical assistance services, as well as creating feed supplements and additives. As I explain, these efforts to proliferate links in the supply chain exist as opportunities to charge rents, or surplus profits, which is possible because Cargill retains the right to control the new products and services. An additional link in the chain includes how the corporation has expanded its role in the global food system from its past as an intermediary, to engaging consumers in direct ways by attempting to create their preferences. I conduct my analysis of Cargill’s corporate strategy by focusing on reporting from the fishing industry publication, Aquafeed News, detailing developments from 2000 through 2023. (shrink)

The integration of biomedical terminologies is indispensable to the process of information integration. When terminologies are linked merely through the alignment of their leaf terms, however, differences in context and ontological structure are ignored. Making use of the SNAP and SPAN ontologies, we show how three reference domain ontologies can be integrated at a higher level, through what we shall call the OBR framework (for: Ontology of Biomedical Reality). OBR is designed to facilitate inference across the boundaries of domain ontologies (...) in anatomy, physiology and pathology. (shrink)

In this article I generalize ecological theory by developing the notion of separate but linked ecologies. I characterize an ecology by its set of actors, its set of locations, and the relation it involves between these. I then develop two central concepts for the linkage of ecologies: hinges and avatars. The first are issues or strategies that "work" in both ecologies at once. The second are attempts to institutionalize in one ecology a copy or colony of an actor in another. (...) The article investigates the first of these concepts using two detailed examples of hinge analysis between the professional and political ecologies. Both concern medical licensing, the first in 19th-century New York and the second in 19th-century England. For the avatar concept, the article analyzes four less detailed cases linking the professional and university ecologies: computer science, criminal justice, clinical psychology, and applied economics. (shrink)

_Factory of Strategy_ is the last of Antonio Negri's major political works to be translated into English. Rigorous and accessible, it is both a systematic inquiry into the development of Lenin's thought and an encapsulation of a critical shift in Negri's theoretical trajectory. Lenin is the only prominent politician of the modern era to seriously question the "withering away" and "extinction" of the state, and like Marx, he recognized the link between capitalism and modern sovereignty and the need to destroy (...) capitalism and reconfigure the state. Negri refrains from portraying Lenin as a ferocious dictator enforcing the proletariat's reappropriation of wealth, nor does he depict him as a mere military tool of a vanguard opposed to the Ancien Régime. Negri instead champions Leninism's ability to adapt to different working-class configurations in Russia, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. He argues that Lenin developed a new political figuration in and beyond modernity and an effective organization capable of absorbing different historical conditions. He ultimately urges readers to recognize the universal application of Leninism today and its potential to institutionally--not anarchically--dismantle centralized power. (shrink)

Husserl’s theories, which systematise the role of reflection and consciousness, can be used to give an alternative view of organisational evolution as the flow of presence punctuated by absence. This perspective adopts a contrasting approach to that of the poststructuralist. A synthesis of the Identity metaphor with the theory of strategy allows us to contextualise an application of Husserl’s theory of the epoche (the intentional reduction) and link both ontological and epistemic dimensions in a theory of organisation. The firm is (...) seen as acquiring a temporal dimension through the consciousness of strategic policy and its successive images are modelled as analogous with the epoche. This modelling process also links in with the collective belief system of the organisational paradigm, which is represented to the organisation and unfolded extrinsically as a series of images which are the discernible face of Strategic policy. This facilitates a modified social-constructivism which is better able to accommodate the actuality of organisational development than more extreme process-orientated accounts of organisation. A debate is re-opened on these themes which have influenced organisation studies from a philosophical slant. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to offer insights that can help researchers to link ontology, epistemology and research methodology. This paper outlines the links among ontology, epistemology and research methodology by exploring ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives in the research. It discusses how ontological and epistemological issues influence research methodology by providing a clear understanding for different research methodologies based on ontology and epistemology. Furthermore, attention is given to research aspects such as the elements of research process, research philosophy, (...) research approach, research strategy, the choice of method, and research design. (shrink)

Imprinted genes are monoallelically expressed in a parent‐of‐origin‐dependent manner and can affect brain and behavioural phenotypes. The X chromosome is enriched for genes affecting neurodevelopment and is donated asymmetrically to male and female progeny. Hence, X‐linked imprinted genes could potentially influence sexually dimorphic neurobiology. Consequently, investigations into such loci may provide new insights into the biological basis of behavioural differences between the sexes and into why men and women show different vulnerabilities to certain mental disorders. In this review, we summarise (...) recent advances in our knowledge of X‐linked imprinted genes and the brain substrates that they may act upon. In addition, we suggest strategies for identifying novel X‐linked imprinted genes and their downstream effects and discuss evolutionary theories regarding the origin and maintenance of X‐linked imprinting. BioEssays 28:35–44, 2006. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Background: Previous research has identified a link between the loss of a significant person, grief complications, and substance abuse. People with substance use disorder are more vulnerable to complicated grieving symptoms following loss. From sociocognitive theories, the model of coping with stress assumes that substance use is one of the responses used to cope with traumatic life events. The main objective of this study is to identify the coping strategies of people with SUD and to analyze their relationship to complicated (...) grief.Methods: A sample of 196 bereaved drug-dependent patients was assessed, after providing written consent, in sociodemographic variables, drug and bereavement related characteristics, CG symptomatology and coping strategies.Results: There are differences in relation to the coping strategies used among patients with CG, using more those focused on emotional expression, social withdrawal, wishful thinking, and self-criticism.Conclusion: We can conclude that, in general, CG in patients with SUD is more associated with the use of less adaptive coping strategies. This data can contribute to a better understanding of the different variables involved in the grieving process among people with SUD. It is important to point out the clinical implications of addressing what the coping strategies associated with improved grief outcomes among people with addiction problems are. (shrink)

Priority setting (also known as resource allocation or rationing) occurs at every level of every health system and is one of the most significant health care policy questions of the 21st century. Because it is so prevalent and context specific, improving priority setting in a health system entails improving it in the institutions that constitute the system. But, how should this be done? Normative approaches are necessary because they help identify key values that clarify policy choices, but insufficient because different (...) approaches lead to different conclusions and there is no consensus about which ones are correct, and they are too abstract to be directly used in actual decision making. Empirical approaches are necessary because they help to identify what is being done and what can be done, but are insufficient because they cannot identify what should be done. Moreover, to be really helpful, an improvement strategy must utilize rigorous research methods that are able to analyze and capture experience so that past problems are corrected and lessons can be shared with others. Therefore, a constructive, practical and accessible improvement strategy must be research-based and combine both normative and empirical methods. In this paper we propose a research-based improvement strategy that involves combining three linked methods: case study research to describe priority setting; interdisciplinary research to evaluate the description using an ethical framework; and action research to improve priority setting. This describe-evaluate-improve strategy is a generalizable method that can be used in different health care institutions to improve priority setting in that context. (shrink)

Health research has been identified as a vehicle for advancing global justice in health. However, in bioethics, issues of global justice are mainly discussed within an ongoing debate on the conditions under which international clinical research is permissible. As a result, current ethical guidance predominantly links one type of international research (biomedical) to advancing one aspect of health equity (access to new treatments). International guidelines largely fail to connect international research to promoting broader aspects of health equity – namely, healthier (...) social environments and stronger health systems. Bioethical frameworks such as the human development approach do consider how international clinical research is connected to the social determinants of health but, again, do so to address the question of when international clinical research is permissible. It is suggested that the narrow focus of this debate is shaped by high-income countries' economic strategies. The article further argues that the debate's focus obscures a stronger imperative to consider how other types of international research might advance justice in global health. Bioethics should consider the need for non-clinical health research and its contribution to advancing global justice. (shrink)

In this article, we apply the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to the private equity (PE) business model. PE firms often adopt a controversial, ‘value extractive’, business model based on high debt and extreme cost-cutting to generate investor returns. PE firms own large numbers of companies, including in many rights-related sectors. The model is linked to increased human rights risks to workers, housing tenants, and in privatized health and social care. We map these risks and analyse the (...) human rights responsibilities of PE firms. Our analysis has major implications for understandings of human rights responsibility. We argue that value extractive methods are the root cause of eventual harm to human rights, even though they may not harm rights directly. To respect human rights, PE firms must mitigate the risks of these value extractive methods. We define how human rights due diligence (HRDD) could achieve this and argue that given the extent of harm and the lack of a business case for adopting such a view of human rights responsibility, business strategy level HRDD should be a core component of forthcoming HRDD laws. (shrink)

In search for the “missing links” of queer posthumanist discourses, some nonhuman animals play a crucial role in setting up new possible ontologies of sexual diversity. However, the desire to trace “natural” evidence for sexual diversity and a non-binary gender system that goes beyond the simplistic “social constructionism” vs. “biological essentialism” dichotomy in the nonhuman world should be critically examined. In this article I analyze both the scientific and popular representations of “wild and weird” nonhuman animals that became rich semiotic-material (...) referents to human sexuality and gender diversity in order to propose “transpecies intimacies” as a strategy for overcoming the deadlock present in naturalizing and essentializing discourses. This essay focuses on the case of the spotted hyena, because this nonhuman animal functions as an important signifier and material resource for sexual differences on multiple levels of power relations – institutional, scientific, educational, somatic, discursive, and even affective. I consider how biomedical narratives on sexualized nonhuman animals employ hegemonic economies of sexual difference to build stories of a naturalized sexuality and an embodied gender difference wherein some chemical substances, like hormones, and some body parts, like genitals, serve as primary actors in this semiotic-material system. (shrink)

Voluntary simplicity (VS) refers to a minimalistic lifestyle of conscious, ecological, and ethical consumption, which is conducive to individual, societal, and environmental well-being. For policymakers and business managers, a key to leveraging this consumer shift is to promote persuasive appeals effectively. This research theorizes that the two forms of VS appeals are systematically associated with distinct temporal landmarks. In particular, we demonstrate that consumers are more likely to engage in biospheric voluntary simplicity (BVS) when priming a temporal landmark as the (...) start of a time period. In contrast, consumers are more likely to participate in egoistic voluntary simplicity (EVS) when priming a temporal landmark as the end of a time period. Notably, the matching effects are driven by distinct mechanisms, such that the effect of a match between a start temporal landmark and BVS appeals is driven by self-transcendence, whereas the effect of a match between an end temporal landmark and EVS appeals is motivated by self-enhancement. Beyond their substantive theoretical significance, our findings provide marketing campaigns with tools to enact strategies that support voluntary simplicity. (shrink)

Regional planning for improved agricultural capacity to supply produce, legumes, and whole grains has the potential to improve population health as well as the local food economy. This case study of Waterloo Region (WR), Canada, had two objectives. First, we estimate the quantity of locally grown vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains needed to help meet the Region of Waterloo population’s optimal nutritional requirements currently and in 2026. Secondly, we estimate how much of these healthy food requirements for the WR (...) population could realistically be produced through local agriculture by the year 2026. Results show that a shift of approximately 10% of currently cropped hectares to the production of key nutritious foods would be both agriculturally feasible and nutritionally significant to the growing population. We supplement our findings with some agronomic considerations and community-level strategies that would inform and support such change. The methodology of this study could be applied to other regions: more such analyses would create a broader picture of the diverse qualitative and quantitative agricultural shifts that could synchronize optimal land use with dietary recommendations, thus informing coordinated policy and planning. (shrink)

As physical exercise benefits both physical and psychological health of college students, it is important to promote the habit of physical exercise among them. This study adopted the Health Action Process Approach model to understand the exercise intention–action link and determine the moderating role of self-efficacy. We recruited 242 students from a university in China and asked them to complete a six-wave survey. The survey results indicated that exercise intention was positively related to both coping planning and action planning, which (...) pave the way to performing the action of exercise. However, such mediation effects varied under conditions of self-efficacy. Participants with high self-efficacy exhibited stronger relationships between intention and planning, and between planning and action. The study results suggest that planning has a time-lagged mediation effect in the relationship between intention and action. Additionally, the findings shed light on the moderating role of self-efficacy, which can be useful in developing health-promotion strategies for college students. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

Joaquin Segura. Untitled (fig. 40) . 2007 continent. 1.2 (2011): 117-124. The interview that follows is a dialogue between artist and gallerist with the intent of unearthing the artist’s working strategies for a general public. Joaquin Segura is at once an anomaly in Mexico’s contemporary art scene at the same time as he is one of the most emblematic representatives of a larger shift toward a post-national identity among its youngest generation of artists. If Mexico looks increasingly like a foreclosed (...) home burning to the ground, Segura could likely be the one walking away, charred matchstick between thumb and forefinger and shit-eating grin on his face. His corrosive attacks on institutions, ideologies, and power reflect a deep general distrust of authority, increasingly evident within the work of younger Mexican artists. It is perhaps most directly the result of President Calderon’s deeply unpopular war against the cartels but no doubt equally the product of decades upon decades of rampant corruption and errant policy within Mexico. Brett W Schultz (BWS): A recurring—if not dominant—theme within your current work and investigation explores ideological extremism in reaction to some perceived political and economic disenfranchisement, especially that espoused and practiced by right-wing groups in United States. That's exactly why I thought of you when I was approached to contribute a piece to an issue on the subject of the moraine—taken metaphorically here to signify a certain set of beliefs that have resurfaced within mainstream American culture in the wake of a probably over-exaggerated political sea-change, marked by Obama's election. You're a Mexican artist who now lives and works in Guadalajara, far from the border cities where such concerns would seem more likely to be relevant to a contemporary artist; of course, you're even farther from the culture that birthed this nature of extremism. What interests you so intensely about this movement, if we can call it that? Joaquin Segura (JS): I think there are several seminal points that you touch on in this particular question. There's a very specific set of interests that make me address the socio-political issues I've been dissecting through my practice in the last few years. First of all, I don't really consider myself a 'mexican' artist. As I've made clear in the past, I don't really believe in the notion of 'identity' or the idea of 'nation', which I find totally laughable and heartwarmingly passé. I'm convinced that these are totally outdated models of understanding our differences and similarities, expanding our already immense and irreconcilable cultural abysses instead of bringing them together, thus resulting in their total dispersion among the complex and extremely arbitrary weaving of contemporary social nucleii. Pretty much a frankly bad joke, if I may say so. The fact that I live and work in Mexico is a completely random geographical and temporal factor, which of course affects what I think and what I do, but I've chosen not to be limited by this specific circumstance. In the past, while working abroad, I've taken advantage of this preconception of Mexico—to be more exact, pretty much all of Latin America—as one of the last barbaric bastions of western civilization. Totally amusing, if you ask me about it. I consider my practice to be, among other things, a gonzo strategy of deceit: there are quite a few roles you can adopt in this approach that may actually reveal themselves to be a privileged vantage point. In my experience, the gentle savage is one of the most effective ones to establish my standing position. Thus, I'm a mexican artist if I need it to prove my point. If it's not necessary in a specific circumstance, I'm not. Quite simple, I think. Said in other words, it's just an ace I can play to win a particular match. It has worked so far, at least for me. L: Hey, America… , 2009. R: The Inaugural Address , 2009. I am interested in the nature of power and the rise and fall of totalitarian ideological and political apparatuses nowadays. But I guess, going even further, I'm essentially fascinated by the fissures and contradictions that have made these structures spectacularly crumble to the ground. I do believe extreme ideologies have played a crucial role in the globalization of socio-political crisis. In the end, our world is nothing more than a fading monument to all things gone wrong—the inspiring triumph of failure, in every sense. I see this as an exciting parable. And of course, it is an undeniable fact that the US, through their influence in world economy, international policies and general attitude towards the rest of the planet is the largest structure waiting to collapse. I think we are all secretly awaiting that moment of splendor, even americans. It'll be disastrous and as nasty as it can get, but it will also be liberating and incredibly inspirational. Not just because it’s the US but because it'll prove that absolutely everything is susceptible to fall. And not only that, most importantly, it would confirm that radical change may actually be possible and not just one more of the unfulfilled promises modernity has left us to struggle with on our own. BWS: I want to talk first about two of your works in particular: Hey, America... and The Inaugural Address . I feel like your more recent work has a subtle —or even hidden—sinisterness, but these two works are perfect examples of how brutally confrontational your earlier work has been. When we showed Hey, America... at Mexico City's Zona Maco art fair in 2010, there were at least a couple visitors to our stand who were absolutely ready to punch me in my gringo face for having done so. Certainly the shock value of these works is crucial to their central ideas, but can you tell me more about your intentions and how these works relate to your general oeuvre? JS: So funny. Perhaps we do deserve to be punched in the face. I think that's what I'm sometimes looking for, but I hardly ever get it. I do think of such works as some sort of logical trap, a somewhat perverse ambush waiting for someone to walk into head-on. I think what I tried to do with those two specific works, as well as some other past projects, is just emphasize issues or themes that do disturb or make me uneasy and restless. I consider my essential intention a need to make clear that we do not have to look the other way, ignore or forget. We must address, understand and solve these manifestations of senseless violence and absurdity because if we don't confront them this way, they'll end up consuming us. In other words, I do consider these works as a personal need of coming to terms with the nonsense of the world we all are living in. I don't particularly consider myself to be someone with a clear set of beliefs. Perhaps my only certainty would be that everything is there to be denied, demolished and obliterated—even my supposed unquestionability of that particular 'dogma.' My practice is a reflection of that paradox, and I do think that's how these two pieces relate to a wider body of work. Every democratic system and so-called developed contemporary society is deeply flawed on the inside, and that is because each has swept things under the rug. Of course, there's tolerance, good will and eagerness to make a difference but there's also hatred, pain and fear lingering all around. We must learn to relate to both sides of the spectrum. In a way, I approach the themes behind these particular works in what I think to be a non-biased, somewhat 'neutral' way. I do think there's an encryption process going on in the way I work, some sort of formal refinement of this somewhat outrageous content. A digest of infamy, if we can refer to it that way. It is up to the individual experiencing the work to decide which way these pieces lean. They can easily be seen from both positions and I'm ok with that. If you look closely at these works, there's nothing that establishes an unrelenting position—neither support nor rejection. I don't want my personal political views to directly set an agenda for the spectator as that’s essentially propaganda, which is one of the things I absolutely despise. To sum it up, I strive for the spectator to complete the piece in that sense. The work then becomes a reflection of his or her own contradictions, a playground of the mind. I'm interested in achieving a deadpan and deadlock state in the observer. So, in a way, those visitors threatening to beat the shit out of you unconsciously became that particular issue the work is alluding to. Just blind and senseless reaction to god knows what people feel must be defended, the overwhelming virtue of ambiguity. Beautiful. Perhaps you can also think of my practice as a uber-sophisticated and snobbish version of Punk'd. And you wouldn't be far from what I'm trying to convey. Untitled (Disturbance Scenarios #2) . 2010. BWS: To me, an important transitional marker in the overall trajectory of your work is the series, Disturbance Scenarios , which evokes a similar generalized state of panic, paranoia, and impending doom through its incorporation of sensationalist newspaper headlines, yet also suggests this slyly mysterious meta-narrative via the context in which the newspaper itself is placed. How did you arrive at this series and why did you choose photorealistic painting as the medium for it? JS: I consider this series to be a by-product of the process I follow when making work. I spend an important part of my time just doing research, going through documentation and accumulating visual or historical references for the themes or episodes I'm interested in, in that particular moment. These are, of course, valuable assets that connect among themselves in a mysterious and almost undetectable manner, sometimes a few years between one and the other. I've employed similar production strategies in the past, in ongoing series like Random Moments of Urban Decay , in which I document what I consider to be physical traces of ethnic, religious or ideological violence in the form of text graffiti, invisibly scattered in different cities of the world, mostly in the US. Disturbance Scenarios was started in early 2010, following a particularly intense period of traveling here and there that lasted for most of the year. I've always felt compelled by text, as I find quite intriguing the idea of how words can create equally intense evocations of what I call a mental panorama of uneasiness than those produced by aesthetically-charged imagery; of course, if handled right. I have a close relationship to print media—due both to my academic background and to my attraction to its ubiquity and almost unlimited influence, which in the end, is nothing else but power—so I found myself with a growing archive of newspaper headlines snapshots from cities like Melbourne, Auckland, London, and LA. Going through them, I noticed that they had in common a very specific thematic slant: they were all about some sort of conflict: energy crisis, political unrest, local episodes of domestic violence, you name it. So as you very well put it, I felt they all connected through this feeling of anxiety and anguish and I decided to start thinking of them as a body of work. Basically, I felt an interest in creating what I think of as my personal fragmented prefigurements of the end of civilization. There were few elements on the shots that could give away its actual location, geographically speaking, and I liked that. I find this sensation of vagueness and uncertainty quite alluring. The more subtle, the more perverse. The formal resolution of the series—as photo-realistic painting—is linked to my intention of creating distance between me as the artist and the themes I work with. I rarely execute my own work, and that is more a personal choice as I'm more interested in the ideas I mingle with than in the actual outcome of that process, understood as an "art-object" with certain market value. I did some tests with light-jet prints of those snapshots and I found them devoid of that nightmarish, disturbing indistinctness that I felt was so important for them to be able to project the turmoil I experienced upon encountering them and in conceiving of them as a series. So I thought that photorealistic painting would be an interesting resource to play with, as I hardly had worked with that medium before because of my lenient animosity toward painters and their craft. So they were executed like that and I think it turned out to be just right. Homemade (Napalm #2) . 2010. BWS: Though Disturbance Scenarios remains ongoing, it's an interesting contrast to another series of yours, Homemade, which are these beautifully banal photographs of the ingredients used to make improvised explosives. Whereas Disturbance Scenarios still confronts the viewer aggressively with its visual emphasis on loaded texts, in Homemade , you've dropped the surface-level bravado entirely. They're pieces that require explanation to someone not already versed in the fine art of amateur explosive-making. You weren't known for subtlety in your past work; why this change in direction? JS: I'm personally convinced that these are just two angles of the same conceptual preoccupation. I mentioned before my obsession with the idea of encryption. I'm quite enticed by how these processes of translation can politically and semantically alter and deviate purportedly subversive materials such as the ones these works allude to. I do think subversion is futile. I was really troubled by that thought for some time, but I think now I understand that it's not really that important. What is really significant is to elaborate on these alternate views, to envision and refine possible escape routes. It doesn't really matter if they go nowhere, but that is because nothing really matters. A "mute" artwork is a notion that captivates me. When you look at the works you mention, you know there's something off, but it's not fully clear how and why that is. I rely on that insecurity—on that moment of hesitation. And that can also be achieved through an approach like the one I'm now interested in. Let's just call it a smoke screen, a surrogate ruse to get to the same point: to talk about impotence and defeat in contemporary life. The notion that readily accessible information is actually a weapon is a double-edged fallacy: sure, you can make use of whatever resources you can lay your hands on, but that doesn't set you free because freedom is impossible. Still, that doesn't mean you can't blow up stuff during the process, metaphorically or not. I didn't understand the nature of subtlety before. I used to think that you needed to be loud and manifest anger and unconformity in the most aggressive manner possible. Then I finally realized that you can actually permeate and rarify a battleground—because after all, this is low-intensity war—if you actually aim at silently building up the contradictions and making the symbolic value of ideas and acts clash within themselves. Or perhaps it is that I am just getting old. I guess I used to be an angry kid until recently. Now I think of myself as a disenchanted post-teenager, and of course that reflects in my work and my approach to art-making. Kind of a rite of passage and I laugh at it because, overall, it has been overwhelmingly fun. And that doesn't mean that I'm not ready to stick it in someone or something's face again if I feel like it. BWS: You're now taking the subtlety of the Homemade series even further with your newest series, Definitive Reader For a Botched Revolution , in which you photograph a series of politically-charged books side-on, negating their content entirely—essentially reducing them to purely aesthetic objects in which the subject matter is only revealed in the title of the work. Can you talk about the ideas behind this series? Furthermore, is your recent interest in this idea of the "botched revolution" an indication of a general attitudinal or philosophical shift you've since adopted? JS: This new series of works is the logical outcome of a brief period I went through. Probably the last couple years, in which due to a number of circumstances that don't really have to do with my art-making, I was forced to renegotiate my ideas, my beliefs and practically everything that surrounds me. It was quite distressful and turbulent, but in the end, I think it was also almost epiphanic. I came to terms with myself and now I'm calm and serene. That is, of course, my personal take on it but I mention it because I do think it's important to address this shift you mention. The idea of an artwork as a container for latent revelations enthralls me quite a bit. That's how I see these particular works: art as an incendiary agent. It's up to the artist and the spectator to do whatever they please with it. I think the detachment and almost surgical cleanliness from the Definitive Reader series is also my take at poking fun of the way some art is totally innocuous and uncompromising. These images may be pleasing to the eye, but there's something twisted and rotten within them, well hidden beneath. You'll either see it or not, but without a doubt, it will not cancel its presence. This series is intrinsically linked to Homemade . I'm pretty much horsing around with similar ideas and statements here. And well, yes, I do think any revolution is a botched one. There's nothing too heavy about their own downfall. Decay and breakdown are here and will not go away. Perhaps we must learn to embrace them in one way or another, for our own sake. L: Untitled (T.A.Z.). R: Untitled (United States Marine Guidebook of Essential Subjects) . 2011. BWS: Finally, let's discuss the near future. You've got an upcoming solo show at the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros [SAPS] in Mexico City this summer. What can we expect from that? What else do you have planned? JS: I'll go and get seafood as soon as I'm done with this interview. It's pretty good here in Guadalajara. That's my top priority at this very moment. About my solo project at SAPS, it's due to open in late July. I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm still closely working with the curator on the general feel for the show but I can say that it'll be more of a revision of past works that have not been shown in Mexico City except for a couple pieces. It definitely won't be a showcase for new projects, although we may include one or two previously unseen works. What you can expect is a rereading of what I've been working on during the past few years. In a way, that's exciting to me because for some reason I don't really care about, I'm not that active in Mexico City even though that's where I lived and work for years. I've hardly shown there after my solo project at Yautepec in February of 2010. It'll be nice to see how it all comes together and I'm more thrilled about it because I totally love the space and I think they're doing an excellent job with their programming and its direction. And in a certain way it feels like going back home. About everything else, I need a period to reflect and fully understand what I've been thinking and working on. I've got a few group shows here and there: New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne are the ones happening soon. I will present my censored project Untitled ( Gringo Loco ) as part of the programming of the Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, two years after being escorted at gunpoint from the installation site by police sent by the extreme right-wing mayor of the city, which I found pretty amusing for an otherwise typical Saturday afternoon. I'm also involved in a couple "curatorial" projects. In my case, "curatorial" means that I help put together stuff I like and I'm interested in. One of them will open in late September of 2011 at Arena Mexico Arte Contemporaneo, and I will work with three of whom I consider to be some of the best artists in a lively and active scene such as the one here in Guadalajara. But most importantly, I've been doing heavy research so there are also a number of projects that I've yet to finalize. That'll be my main focus during the rest of the year, even though I really enjoy procrastination. There'll be time for that later. Or maybe not. We'll see. About Joaquin Segura The action, installation, intervention and photographic work of Joaquin Segura (b. Mexico City, 1980) has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Some spaces that have featured his work include La Panaderia, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Centro de la Imagen and Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City; El Museo del Barrio and apexart, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain; National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; and Palace Adria in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2008 and 2009, Segura was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, NY and at the 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA. He is represented YAUTEPEC in Mexico City and by Arena Mexico Arte Contemporáneo in Guadalajara. Further Reading Joaquin Segura’s website YAUTEPEC artist page for Joaquin Segura Capps, Kriston. “ID-ENTITY: Washington, DC.” ART PAPERS . 2009. (shrink)

It has often been asserted that burnout is primarily linked to occupational-context factors, and only secondarily to individual-level and non-work factors. We evaluated the validity of this view by examining the links between burnout and an array of 22 work-situated, work-unrelated, dispositional, and intersecting variables. The study involved schoolteachers from three different countries: France, Spain, and Switzerland. Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators. Most of our predictors were assessed based on widely used measures. In order to (...) assess sentimental accomplishment and familial accomplishment, we created two self-reported measures, namely, the Sentimental Accomplishment Inventory and the Familial Accomplishment Inventory. The SAI and the FAI both showed strong reliability and high factorial validity. Exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis and Mokken scaling suggested that both instruments could be considered essentially unidimensional. The study results showed that neuroticism, job strain, skill development, security in daily life, and work–non-work conflict were consistently associated with burnout across the three samples. Sample-specific predictors of burnout included sex, age, unreasonable work tasks, weekly working hours, job autonomy, support in work life, sentimental accomplishment, leisure activities, support in personal life, and non-work–work conflict. Relative weight analysis indicated that neuroticism was the best predictor of burnout in each sample. Our findings suggest that burnout’s nomological network may not be primarily job-related. We conclude that the tendency to de-emphasize individual-level and non-work factors in burnout research is unwise. This tendency may constitute a roadblock in the development of effective interventional strategies. The implications of our findings for burnout’s conceptual status are discussed. The neuroticism-burnout link should be further examined in longitudinal studies. (shrink)

Pickering & Garrod (P&G) explain dialogue dynamics in terms of forward modeling and prediction-by-simulation mechanisms. Their theory dissolves a strict segregation between production and comprehension processes, and it links dialogue to action-based theories of joint action. We propose that the theory can also incorporate intentional strategies that increase communicative success: for example, signaling strategies that help remaining predictable and forming common ground.

Entrepreneurship education is increasingly becoming a focal strategy for promoting entrepreneurship, particularly to foster entrepreneurial intentions and startups. However, learning and support are equally important after startup for novice entrepreneurs to gain a good level of confidence to manage their business and achieve the desired outcomes. Using a sample of 189 young self-employed individuals in Uganda, this study examines the differential impact of mentoring and self-efficacy on the achievement of intangible outcomes of entrepreneurship including satisfaction of need for autonomy, work (...) satisfaction and the intention to stay in self-employment. We found self-efficacy to mediate the effects of mentoring on these intangible outcomes. In addition, the results showed substantial gender differences. Whereas women’s satisfaction of the need for autonomy and intention to stay in self-employment were strongly associated with the direct effects of mentoring, their male counterparts seemed to benefit more if mentoring resulted in increased self-efficacy. Overall, our findings suggest that whereas mentoring improves the competence of small business owners and consequently achievement of superior outcomes, mentoring should also focus on boosting self-efficacy which in turn is essential for the application of the entrepreneurial competencies. (shrink)

How can a just peace be built in sites of genocide, massive civil war, dictatorship, terrorism, and poverty? In Strategies of Peace, the first volume in the Studies in Strategic Peacebuilding series, fifteen leading scholars propose an imaginative and provocative approach to peacebuilding. Today the dominant thinking is the "liberal peace," which stresses cease fires, elections, and short run peace operations carried out by international institutions, western states, and local political elites. But the liberal peace is not enough, the authors (...) argue. A just and sustainable peace requires a far more holistic vision that links together activities, actors, and institutions at all levels. By exploring innovative models for building lasting peace-a United Nations counter-terrorism policy that also promotes good governance; coordination of the international prosecution of war criminals with local efforts to settle civil wars; increasing the involvement of religious leaders, who have a unique ability to elicit peace settlements; and many others--the authors advance a bold new vision for peacebuilding. (shrink)

herent and rational way. Several proposals have been made for information merging in which it is possible to encode the preferences of sources (Benferhat, Dubois, Prade, & Williams, 1999; Benferhat, Dubois, Kaci, & Prade, 2000; Lafage & Lang, 2000; Meyer, 2000, 2001; Andreka, Ryan, & Schobbens, 2001). Information merging has much in common with social choice theory, which aims to define operations reflecting the preferences of a society from the individual preferences of the members of the society. Given this connection, (...) frameworks for information merging should provide satisfactory resolutions of problems raised in social choice theory. We investigate the link between the merging of epistemic states and two important results in social choice theory. We show that Arrow’s well-known impossibility theorem (Arrow, 1963) does not hold in merging frameworks when the preferences of sources are represented in terms of epistemic states. This is achieved by providing a consistent set of properties for merging from which Arrow-like properties can be derived. Similarly, by extending these to a consistent framework which includes properties corresponding to the notion of being strategy-proof, we show that results due to Gibbard and Satterthwaite (Gibbard, 1973; Satterthwaite, 1973, 1975) and other (Benoit, 2000; Barber´a, Dutta, & Sen, 2000) do not hold in merging frameworks. (shrink)

The article examines the social dimensions of poverty in the context of gender, dalit, tribal and Muslim minorities in the country. Reviewing the process of globalisation in the country, it notes that the largest section of workers continue to work in the unorganised sector. The shifting of global capital to the South and particularly to India has increased opportunities for women to work in the garment export industry. Characterised by low pay and poor working conditions, the industry exploits women. The (...) fear of job loss has led to new forms of resistance by women workers not only at the workplace but within the community linking with social movements for protection and advancement. Small and marginal farmers including women agricultural workers are impacted by global markets leading to destruction of rural livelihoods. Dalit women have demonstrated how to create household food security by internalising inputs and creating alternative markets. Policy planners need to learn from these experiences and upscale at a national level. Regenerating commons and promoting non-chemical agriculture are other means to restore ecological balance and economic health of the agriculture sector. Tribal, dalit and Muslim minority socio-economic rights are eroded further due to the process of globalisation. To move towards more inclusive growth, public spending on education and health has to increase. Responding to people's movements the state needs to implement pro-people policies and programmes. Mobilising women into SHGs is seen as a panacea to ensure women's development. Currently, it has created a debt burden on women. An alternative agenda for empowerment is outlined for action. (shrink)

Research in school success in contemporary China has argued that market reforms have reproduced the advantages for children from the cadre and the professional families while simultaneously creating new opportunities for children of the new arising economic elites. However, it has performed less for traditional peasant families. This book places a special emphasis on how rural parents from different social backgrounds use _guanxi_ to maintain the interconnectedness between their families and schools to create advantages for their children in school success. (...) It investigates, by an ethnographic study in a rural county in middle China, how families from different social backgrounds within rural society get involved in the schooling of their children and how this contributes to different patterns of school success. The book argues that schools provide few formal and routine channels for rural parents to become involved in their children’s schooling. This raises the importance of family strategic initiatives to employ _guanxi_ in the creation of advantages for their children’s school success. It concludes with discussions about _guanxi_ as an important mechanism for social exclusion in post-socialist China. Chapters include: Family Strategies, Parental Involvement, and School Success The Roles of Parents: Voices of Parents in Zong Regarding School Involvement Policy Discourses: Missing the Link between Family and School Peasants: Family and Kinship The Blurring Division between Home and School This concise and comprehensive book is a qualitative study that will appeal to researchers and advance students in Chinese education and society. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory scholars have recently addressed two crucial calls: the first is for the integration of strategy and ethics, of stakeholder theory and strategic management, and the second call is for the development of a dynamic approach to stakeholder management. I have attempted to answer these calls by developing a theoretical framework that links together stakeholder management, stakeholder commitment to cooperate with the firm, key decision makers’ ethical commitment, and firm strategy. Starting from the basic assumption that managers cannot meet (...) all stakeholders’ demands immediately and in a tailored manner, I contend, first, that an ambidextrous approach to stakeholder management is conducive to stakeholders’ commitment to cooperate for the sustainable well-being of the firm and, second, that firm strategy and key decision makers’ ethical commitment moderate the relationship between an ambidextrous stakeholder management and stakeholder commitment to cooperate. Furthermore, drawing on this theoretical framework, I attempt to address the call for the integration of strategy and ethics by proposing a three-level conceptual model that distinguishes the objectives, the field, and the levers of integration. Finally, I outline a set of propositions that, taken together, represent a first attempt to develop a dynamic approach to stakeholder management. (shrink)

Biogenic approaches investigate cognition from the standpoint of evolutionary function, asking what cognition does for a living system and then looking for common principles and exhibitions of cognitive strategies in a vast array of living systems—non-neural to neural. One worry which arises for the biogenic approach is that it is overly permissive in terms of what it construes as cognition. In this paper I critically engage with a recent instance of this way of criticising biogenic approaches in order to clarify (...) their theoretical commitments and prospects. In his critique of the biogenic approach, Fred Adams uses the presence of intentional states with conceptual content as a criterion to demarcate cognition-driven behaviour from mere sensory response. In this paper I agree with Adams that intentionality is the mark of the cognitive, but simultaneously reject his overly restrictive conception of intentionality. I argue that understanding intentionality simpliciter as the mark of the mental is compatible with endorsing the biogenic approach. I argue that because cognitive science is not exclusively interested in behaviour driven by intentional states with the kind of content Adams demands, the biogenic approach’s status as an approach to cognition is not called into question. I then go on to propose a novel view of intentionality whereby it is seen to exist along a continuum which increases in the degree of representational complexity: how far into the future representational content can be directed and drive anticipatory behaviour. Understanding intentionality as existing along a continuum allows biogenic approaches and anthropogenic approaches to investigate the same overarching capacity of cognition as expressed in its different forms positioned along the continuum of intentionality. Even if all organisms engage in some behaviour that is driven by weak intentional dynamics, this does not suggest that every behaviour of all organisms is so driven. As such, the worry that the biogenic approach is overly permissive can be avoided. (shrink)

Global health research partnerships are increasingly taking the form of consortia. Recent scholarship has proposed what features of governance may be necessary for these consortia to advance justice in global health. That guidance purports three elements of global health research consortia are essential — their research priorities, research capacity development strategies, research translation strategies — and should be structured to promote the health of the worst-off globally. This paper adopted a reflective equilibrium approach, testing the proposed ethical guidance against the (...) experience of a global health research consortium with equity objectives. Case study research was performed with Future Health Systems, a health systems research consortium funded over two phases. Data on FHS Phase-2 were gathered through in-depth interviews with steering committee members and junior researchers and collection of consortium-related documents. Thematic analysis of the data for consistency with the proposed guidance generated recommendations for how the guidance might be better articulated and identified areas where it could usefully be expanded. Factors facilitating FHS alignment with the ethical guidance were also identified, including early engagement and partnership with low and middle-income country stakeholders, the learning developed during FHS Phase-1, and aspects of the grant program funding it. (shrink)

Bottom of the Pyramid strategies recognize for the first time that global companies can contribute to the alleviation of worldwide poverty by adopting non-traditional and mostly non-Western models of business involvement. It is now widely accepted that poverty and hunger arise not because there are no goods or food, but because billions of people lack income to purchase them. It is also a common belief that the private sector can play a significant role in lifting the poor from the margins (...) of the market system. This would require strategic and mindset shifts in global companies leading to a very different path where their operations intersect with the greater good of communities, societies, and nations. Successful engagement in the untapped market space at the base of the global income pyramid calls for completely new capabilities, responsibilities, and values. Alliance building with local and non-traditional partners, promoting bottom-up solutions and understanding social sustainability are some of these new managerial challenges. This article reflects on some of the critical challenges of global companies and global managers in their strategic engagement at the BOP and explores how large firms can become involved in the pursuit of social capital acquisition and how new approaches of public–private partnerships in reformulating the profit-performance links, the downscaling of products or services without compromising their quality and integrity, the bridging of the information and infrastructure gap, educating, and empowering the poor, together with innovations through technological adaptations can be managed through the embracing of new mindsets. A number of frameworks are presented with a view to contributing to the debate and outlining new value objectives for global companies. (shrink)

_Factory of Strategy_ is the last of Antonio Negri's major political works to be translated into English. Rigorous and accessible, it is both a systematic inquiry into the development of Lenin's thought and an encapsulation of a critical shift in Negri's theoretical trajectory. Lenin is the only prominent politician of the modern era to seriously question the "withering away" and "extinction" of the state, and like Marx, he recognized the link between capitalism and modern sovereignty and the need to destroy (...) capitalism and reconfigure the state. Negri refrains from portraying Lenin as a ferocious dictator enforcing the proletariat's reappropriation of wealth, nor does he depict him as a mere military tool of a vanguard opposed to the Ancien Régime. Negri instead champions Leninism's ability to adapt to different working-class configurations in Russia, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. He argues that Lenin developed a new political figuration in and beyond modernity and an effective organization capable of absorbing different historical conditions. He ultimately urges readers to recognize the universal application of Leninism today and its potential to institutionally -- not anarchically -- dismantle centralized power. (shrink)

We propose a signaling pathway in which cell‐extracellular matrix (ECM) adhesion components PINCH‐1 and kindlin‐2 sense mechanical signals from ECM and link them to proline biosynthesis, a vital metabolic pathway for macromolecule synthesis, redox balance, and ECM remodeling. ECM stiffening promotes PINCH‐1 expression via integrin signaling, which suppresses dynamin‐related protein 1 (DRP1) expression and mitochondrial fission, resulting in increased kindlin‐2 translocation into mitochondria and interaction with Δ1‐pyrroline‐5‐carboxylate (P5C) reductase 1 (PYCR1). Kindlin‐2 interaction with PYCR1 protects the latter from proteolytic degradation, (...) leading to elevated PYCR1 level. Additionally, PINCH‐1 promotes P5C synthase (P5CS) expression and P5C synthesis, which, together with increased PYCR1 level, support augmented proline biosynthesis. This signaling pathway is frequently activated in fibrosis and cancer, resulting in increased proline biosynthesis and excessive collagen matrix production, which in turn further promotes ECM stiffening. Targeting this signaling pathway, therefore, may provide an effective strategy for alleviating fibrosis and cancer progression. (shrink)

This book introduces a new form of argumentative analysis: rhetorical heuremes. The method applies the concepts of heuristic thinking, probability, and contingency in order to develop a better understanding of complex arguments in classical oratory. A new theory is required because Greek and Roman rhetoric cannot provide detailed answers to problems of strategic argumentation in the analysis of speeches. Building on scholarship in Ciceronian oratory, this book moves beyond the extant terminology and employs a concept of heuristic reasoning derived from (...) the psychology of decision making and mathematical problem solving. The author analyses selected passages from Cicero's forensic speeches where arguments of probability are deployed, and shows that the Sophistic concept of probability can link ancient rhetoric and modern theories of argumentation. Six groups of heuremes are identified, each of which represents a form of probabilistic reasoning by which the orator plays upon the perception of the jurors. (shrink)

Timothy Morton insists that ecology requires intimacy between ecosystems and organisms, living and non-living beings. Paradoxically, Morton suggests that intimacy incurs a sense of strangeness between things. In a similar vein, Michel Foucault, as a predecessor of queer theory, commends human intimacy as an act of resistance against institutionalized sexuality. Such intimacy, Foucault suggests, enhances our sense of strangeness to ourselves. In this essay, I not only grant that queer theory and ecology share an emphasis on intimacy but I argue (...) this intimacy must be defined as the transmutation of distance, a drawing close that simultaneously estranges. Through Gaston Bachelard, I link this account to a poetics of intimate space. (shrink)

This study aims to look at the role of the practice of excellence strategies in education in achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the Higher educational institutions of the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, a model, and the study considered the competitive advantage of educational institutions stems from the impact on the level of each student, employee, and the institution. The study was based on the premise that the development of strategies for excellence in education, (...) and its implementation is a vital important prerequisite to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in higher educational institutions. The study followed a systematic exploratory descriptive methodology through review of the theoretical literature, and the adoption of the experience of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as a model for its unique experience in the field of excellence in education. The study results showed that the most important are: There is a strong correlation between the level of exercising excellence strategies in education and the achievement of higher educational institutions to the sustainable competitive advantage. The results include a general required number of important sub results on the subject of the model - Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as follows: - The student considered the academic focus of the operation in the development process of the workers’ skills, particularly academics at the university helps to distinguish students and increase the employment rate after graduation. - The existence of consistency in development efforts and quality improvement for all three levels (student, employee, and the university), and this contributes to the Faculty excellence. - The Faculty has been able to achieve competitive advantages by offering excellent services without harming the efficiency, and this alone is a great success because improving service properties requires great investments, which negatively affect the continued institutional development. The study also reached a set of recommendations as follows: - The need to exercise excellence strategies in education, excellence reward at the national level, and those higher educational institutions follow the criteria for measuring the competitive advantages of its institutions always. - There is a need to increase efforts to implement programs of excellence, the allocation of adequate time, reward outstanding efforts as well. There is a necessity for each faculty to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability, using the general philosophies of competitive advantage, but with a different strategically content from what is in the private commercial sector, it reflects the Faculties mission and objectives, depending on making improvements and excellence in processes that ensure the safety of its outputs. As well as the need to find a balance between the work of teaching and research work of the faculty members, this has important implications regarding the criteria used in the process of excellence evaluation. The study recommended the adoption of strategies for excellence in education on a national public policy level mainly in the processes of change in higher education institutions. The need to support the existence of a common understanding of the efforts of excellence to create a general culture that appreciates excellence in faculties and universities. This underlines the need for transparent, fair rewards systems, to encourage innovation in education. The need to conduct a comprehensive surveys on the graduates of faculties and universities including the areas of employment and skills, because that will give accurate indications of the graduates and will help to establish a link to a more precise about the relationship of excellence strategies with the competitive advantages. (shrink)