Ambiguous Terminology Research Articles

Does “adaptation to climate change” mean resignation or opportunity?

It has been widely acknowledged that people’s beliefs and perceptions influence implementation of climate change adaptation. Regarding perception barriers, some authors keep highlighting the confused definition of adaptation and its various interpretations. Our research contributes to this area by exploring how adaptation to climate change is perceived through 83 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (public and municipal organizations, ENGO, private sector) from Montreal and Paris. Our results demonstrate a mirror opposition in the perception of adaptation to climate change. Indeed, while several respondents interpreted adaptation as a resignation, many interviewees perceived adaptation as an opportunity. The analysis showed that adaptation referring to resignation includes the ideas of a non-action and detrimental to mitigation; an excuse for not changing; anxiety about climate change; fatalism; and human failure. Adaptation perceived as an opportunity is divided into a source of creativity; toward sustainable development; led by the emergency; and awareness and making society of its responsibilities. Our findings confirm that terminological ambiguity of the term “adaptation” has to be considered in the decision-making process, which can be influenced by the perception of stakeholders.

On the reception of the concept of the death drive in Germany: Expressing and resisting an ‘evil principle’?

With Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud attempted ‘to describe and to account for the facts of daily observation in our field of study’ (1920, p. 7), in particular concerning destructive clinical phenomena that confront us in the analytic situation: traumatic neuroses, melancholic states, negative‐therapeutic reactions, masochism, repetition compulsion and so on. The author demonstrates in the first section how Freud's own resistance – later self‐diagnosed – to recognizing these unwelcome facts was expressed in the terminological and conceptual ambiguities of the death drive hypothesis then introduced, ambiguities that to some extent continue to impede the reception of its clinical usefulness to this day. As soon as Freud had demonstrated the connection with clinical practice more directly in The Ego and the Id (1923), some contemporaries adopted it as a helpful clinical concept, while others believed that they could (and must) refute it. The second part outlines its reception in the 1920s and 1930s, which was part of an international discussion that was, of course, initially conducted mainly in German. The beginnings of an important further development of the death drive hypothesis are described in a separate section because it originated from Melanie Klein's earliest experiences in analysing children in Berlin in the early to mid‐1920s. She referred at that time to an ‘evil principle’, and in 1932 published her view of the death drive hypothesis, which was further developed in subsequent decades by her and her followers in London. In this period, conditions changed dramatically: in Germany Freud's books (among others) were burnt, crimes against humanity were instigated and psychoanalysis ceased to exist in this country. Almost all the analysts who published on the death drive had to emigrate. From then on, entirely different discourses took place in the various regions. In Germany, the death drive hypothesis was (largely) disregarded or rejected for decades after the Holocaust. Frank demonstrates how the uncritical recourse in relevant works to this day to an article by Brun in 1953 that considered the death drive to have been comprehensively refuted on the basis of (apparently) comprehensive literature research can be understood as a symptom. Pursuing some reflections by Beland (1988) and Cycon (1995), the author expounds her thesis that in Germany the clinical usefulness of the death drive hypothesis could not be considered as long as destructive impulses were still an immediate social reality. According to the author's observations, in stating that there had been a ‘definite reaction formation against death drive hypotheses’, Brun had unintentionally made an accurate diagnosis. It was not until the realization of inevitable perpetrator identifications (‘Hitler in us’) in this country became (more widely) possible that a concern with the death drive hypothesis could also resume. In the final section, the author takes up one line of this development and traces how some German analysts in the 1980s came into contact with Kleinian developments that had since occurred and how these found and find their way into their analytic working. She closes by asking whether it might be appropriate to consider Melanie Klein's concept of an evil principle – along with the pleasure and reality principles – as a less ambiguous one for the phenomena under consideration.

Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine: semantic considerations for an evolving paradigm.

Tissue engineering (TE) and regenerative medicine (RM) are rapidly evolving fields that are often obscured by a dense cloud of hype and commercialization potential. We find, in the literature and general commentary, that several of the associated terms are casually referenced in varying contexts that ultimately result in the blurring of the distinguishing boundaries which define them. “TE” and “RM” are often used interchangeably, though some experts vehemently argue that they, in fact, represent different conceptual entities. Nevertheless, contemporary scientists have a general idea of the experiments and milestones that can be classified within either or both categories. Given the groundbreaking achievements reported within the past decade and consequent watershed potential of this field, we feel that it would be useful to properly contextualize these terms semantically and historically. In this concept paper, we explore the various definitions proposed in the literature and emphasize that ambiguous terminology can lead to misplaced apprehension. We assert that the central motifs of both concepts have existed within the surgical sciences long before their appearance as terms in the scientific literature.

Grand challenges in evolutionary developmental biology

EVO-DEVO’S IDENTITY There is a widespread consensus on the view that evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is the discipline eventually borne to fill the gap between evolutionary biology and developmental biology, following a divorce between these two fields that extended over more than half a century (Amundson, 2005). On closer inspection, however, this broadly acceptable perspective discloses a wealth of questions, if looked at retrospectively, and of potentially divergent possibilities, if looked at prospectively. The slow pace of integration between the different threads that were converging into evo-devo was well expressed by Raff (2000) in a survey of the main issues in this field. Some 15 years ago Raff, one of the discipline’s founding fathers, remarked that “What constitutes the fundamental problems for a science of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) depends on whether the scientist is a developmental biologist, a paleontologist or an evolutionary biologist” and drafted a list of at the time hot issues. Evo-devo has answered these questions only in part. However, this discipline is now mature for addressing a number of more precise, and more challenging questions, as I will argue in this article. To date, two sets of problems have been primarily floated in discussions about the identity and research targets of evo-devo. On the one hand are those centered around the (controversial) notions of evolvability, robustness and constraint in connection with the increasing appreciation of the intricacies of the genotype→phenotype map (Alberch, 1991; Altenberg, 1995; West-Eberhard, 2003; Pigliucci, 2010; Wagner and Zhang, 2011). On the other hand are those centered around the notions of origination, innovation, and novelty, the so-called “innovation triad.” To Hendrikse et al. (2007), for example, evolvability is the key issue that justifies recognizing evo-devo as an autonomous discipline. Others, e.g., Muller and Newman (2005), focus instead on the innovation triad. Unfortunately, for all these candidates to core concept of evo-devo, too many alternative definitions have been proposed (or, more dangerously, implicitly assumed), thus adding new items to the dramatically increasing series of biological terms on whose definition there seem to be more and more disagreement. Eventually, we should probably learn to accept that multiple notions associated with each of these terms deserve to be retained and perhaps recognized by adjectival specifications. Similar terminological refinement is applied to other biological terms such as species (e.g., Claridge et al., 1997), homology (e.g., Minelli and Fusco, 2013a), and gene (e.g., Beurton et al., 2000). In discussing the concept of gene in historical perspective, Muller-Wille and Rheinberger (2009) have sensibly recalled Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1887; second essay, para. 13) dictum, that “all concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated elude definition; only that which has no history is definable.” In addition to terminological ambiguity, there is an another problem with the “innovation triad”—the problem that these terms are all framed in terms of “origins.” Framing definitions in terms of origin requires splitting the evolutionary sequence in two contiguous segments, “before” and “after” the origination of a new feature. This splitting is a natural consequence if origination indeed “refers to the specific causality of the generative conditions that underlie both the first origins and the later innovations of phenotypes” and especially “the very first beginnings of phenotypes, e.g., the origin of multicellular assemblies, of complex tissues, and of the generic forms that result from the self-organizational and physical principles of cell interaction (Newman, 1992, 1994). In contrast, innovation [evolutionary modes and mechanisms] and novelty [their phenotypic outcome] designate the processes and results of introducing new characters into already existing phenotypic themes of a certain architecture (bodyplans)” (Muller and Newman, 2005, p. 490). This separation, however, is artificial. The better we know a process, the less we are able to identify its exact origins, these instead being determined by arbitrary choice. In science, and especially in biological disciplines with a strong historical dimension such as evolutionary biology and developmental biology, we should frame questions in terms of transitions rather than origins.

Wandering Greeks: The Ancient Greek Diaspora from the Age of Homer to the Death of Alexander the Great by Robert Garland

184 PHOENIX difficult to verify elsewhere. Teegarden’s underlying concept thus bears the risk of the results already being predetermined from the outset. Finally, Teegarden’s thesis is not able to explain why the laws would be promulgated in the first place: there would have been no tyrant-killing legislation in the fifth century without previous anti-tyranny discourses throughout the Greek world and there would have been no “Hellenistic democratic revolution” (214) without Alexander the Great. Despite these objections, the study offers an important contribution to the research of ancient anti-tyranny legislation. Julius-Maximilians-UniversitÈ at WÈ urzburg Maria Osmers Wandering Greeks: The Ancient Greek Diaspora from the Age of Homer to the Death of Alexander the Great. By Robert Garland. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. 2014. Pp. xxi, 319. This is a timely book, as the global headlines in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015 have made all too apparent in a very dramatic way the human toll exacted upon displaced persons and migrants, along with the reluctance of many western governments to allow a mass influx of desperate immigrants within their borders. But population displacement, along with the negative reaction that would-be immigrants can evoke, is a phenomenon by no means unique to modern society, but instead one that was frequent, often large-scale, and that arguably played a central role in the social and cultural development of the Greek city-states in the classical period. Nevertheless, the lived experience of displaced people in ancient Greece has not previously received scholarly attention, an omission now remedied in this fascinating study by Robert Garland, who, as the author of numerous books on social history, is ideally positioned to take on this topic. With the exception of certain high-profile individuals, refugees and migrants rarely play a role in the military and political events covered in ancient historical works (generally written by and for the elite) beyond the initial event which provoked their departure; as Garland aptly comments (7): “To the extent that we can build up a picture of the dispossessed at all, the data must be culled primarily from the marginalia of history.” In addition to the silence of the sources, the imprecision and ambiguity of the relevant Greek terminology often make it impossible to ascertain whether migrants abandoned their original homes voluntarily or under compulsion. It is therefore difficult both to categorize and to distinguish the various types of Greek migrants, which inevitably results in a certain amount of overlap in Garland’s discussion. He begins with an overview of how the “wanderer,” a useful neutral term (hence the title of the book), is depicted in a variety of literary genres, in order to assess, to the extent that we can, the physical and psychological impact of the experience of deracination. He proceeds to examine the full range of these wandering Greeks through the evocativelynamed categories into which he has grouped them: “the settler,” “the portable polis” (by which he means the relocation of the population of a city or its merging with one or more formerly independent communities), “the deportee,” “the evacuee,” “the asylum-seeker” (including the institutions of xenia and proxenia, which arose out of the same desire for protection that motivated those who sought refuge in a sanctuary), “the fugitive” (a category which encompasses political exiles, runaway slaves, and the Athenian institution of ostracism), “the economic migrant,” and “the itinerant” (a broad category BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 185 including celebrity specialists such as seers, performers, sophists, writers, and artists, as well as traders, pirates, mercenaries, and casual labourers). Of course, as is familiar to all readers of Homer’s Odyssey, no discussion of wanderers would be complete without a glance at the question of repatriation, the subject of the final chapter, which covers not only the migrant’s nostalgia while displaced from his native polis, but also the legal, political, economic, social, and logistical problems often inherent upon homecoming. Despite the hardship and misery doubtless experienced by the many thousands who were displaced from their homes, Garland concludes that ubiquity of wandering in the ancient Greek world was not always necessarily a negative thing. Instead, the relentless...

What constitutes a ‘Manifest Failing’? Ambiguous and inconsistent terminology and the Responsibility to Protect

Paragraph 139 of the World Summit Outcome Document (WSOD) stipulates that the international community is prepared to respond on a ‘case-by-case basis’ in a ‘timely and decisive manner’ when ‘national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations’ from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. But what constitutes a ‘manifest failing’? Ten years on from the WSOD, it is evident that there is a large amount of ambiguity and inconsistency in how this term is interpreted and applied. This article highlights the confusion and complexity within the discourse prior to putting forward five policy prescriptions. In so doing, it argues that a more informed understanding of the concept will, primarily, rectify the problems of ambiguity and inconsistency and, secondarily, may help address fears of Great Power manipulation and assist in delegitimising misuse of the R2P.

You Say Tomato, I Say “Tomahto”: the Semantics of Blended Learning

The notion of a “flipped classroom” has garnered considerable attention in medical education in recent years. Unfortunately, many medical educators find the term confusing. Multiple definitions exist, and instructors across multiple disciplines and education levels (e.g., K-12 to higher education) use the term inconsistently. Further, there is no single authoritative definition of a flipped classroom. Many educators use something similar to the following as their working definition: School work is done at home and home work is done at school. In actuality, the flipped classroom is very similar to other education models including reverse instruction, inverted classroom, hybrid learning, and blended learning; however, the flipped classroom has become the most recognized term. All of these education models are closely related because they share a common feature: students are required to prepare for class through the use of text, videos, or other educational materials. Ambiguous terminology presents three major problems for medical educators. First, it imposes unnecessary and undesirable constraints on an instructor. Adhering to a single pedagogical approach limits an instructor’s ability to adapt content delivery to the learner’s needs and nature of the content. Specialized terms often compel faculty to think of instructional approaches as a strict dichotomy, as opposed to a continuum that offers maximum flexibility to meet learners in a variety of ways. Second, many medical educators find terms such as reverse instruction, inverted classroom, hybrid learning and flipped classroom to be vague. This results in many medical educators erroneously assuming that these techniques ask students to acquire and understand large volumes of information independently and/or asynchronously and without any oversight. Third, ambiguous terminology makes the implementation and study of these concepts difficult. Specifically, educators will find it difficult to aptly characterize their instructional approaches when discussing with others, and researchers will find it difficult to conduct comparative and replication studies given the ambiguity. These issues could potentially impede our understanding of these concepts, result in confusion among colleagues, and waste researchers’ time. Margulieux and colleagues [1] have recognized similar problems with ambiguous terminology and produced a twodimensional taxonomy that attempts to clarify the distinctions between the terms hybrid, blended, flipped, and inverted learning.While the taxonomy appears promising, it is unlikely that the typical medical educator with minimal formal educational training will use such a taxonomy without considerable faculty development. Thus, even potentially promising solutions for understanding these issues as they are currently framed have substantial limitations in the context of medical education in which most medical educators are medical content experts and practitioners first and educators second. We believe making a semantic distinction is critical for purposes of objectivity. Given that medical schools have historically relied primarily on lectures to convey instruction, many medical educators have deeply rooted opinions that lectures are the “right” or preferred method of instruction. Terms such as flipped, reverse, and inverted imply a significant deviation from the norm, which could potentially invoke negative emotions among skeptical faculty. Given the complex and ambiguous terminology, associated instructional constraints, and potential for adverse emotional responses, we believe the term “blended learning” is more appropriate. Graham [2] and Osguthore and Graham [3] precisely define blended learning as “combining online and faceto-face instruction.” Because combining instructional methodologies is not new, this definition acknowledges the K. D. Royal (*) North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA e-mail: kdroyal2@ncsu.edu

The Psychology of Encouragement

Despite the frequent use of encouragement in everyday social life, encouragement remains an understudied topic in positive psychology and counseling psychology. To address this gap, this article resolves ambiguity in terminology and synthesizes diverse streams of theorizing and research to propose an integrative psychological science of encouragement. The author offers a definition of encouragement, delineates its conceptual boundaries, and proposes a conceptual model that provides a taxonomy of encouragement processes. Known as the Tripartite Encouragement Model (TEM), this model charts the foci, features, and levels of encouragement. Encouragement is conceptualized, at different levels, as an act of interpersonal communication, a character strength, as well as an ecological group norm. The author explains how encouragement can enhance the quality of counseling practice as well as practical applications in other areas of psychology. Finally, the author delineates how the TEM can guide future research on the psychology of encouragement.

Diversity-aware retrieval of medical records

The widely adoption of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) causes an explosive growth of the medical and clinical data. It makes the medical search technologies become critical to find useful patient information in the large medical dataset. However, the high quality medical search is a challenging task, in particular due to the inherent complexity and ambiguity of medical terminology. In this paper, by exploiting the uncertainty in ambiguous medical queries, we propose a novel semantic-based approach to achieve the diversity-aware retrieval of EMRs, i.e., both the relevance and novelty are considered for EMR ranking. With the support of medical domain ontologies, we first mine all the potential semantics (concepts and relations between them) from a user query and consume them to model the multiple query aspects. Then, we propose a novel diversification strategy, which considers not only the aspect importance but also the aspect similarity, to perform the diversity-aware EMR ranking. A real-world pilot study, which utilizes the proposed medical search approach to improve the second use of the EMRs, is reported. We believe that our experience can serve as an important reference for the development of similar applications in a medical data utilization and sharing environment.

Benefits and Costs of Alcoholic Relationships and Recovery Through Al-Anon

Background: Codependence is an ambiguous and disputed term often used to characterize both those who maintain relationships with alcoholics and those who seek help through resources such as Al-Anon Family Groups. Objectives: The purpose of this article is to better understand non-pathological reasons for maintaining alcoholic relationships and for help-seeking by detailing the costs and benefits of those choices. Methods: The costs and benefits both of remaining in an alcoholic relationship and of seeking help in Al-Anon were identified through a review of available research on alcoholic family systems, Al-Anon, and other mutual-support groups. Results: Alcoholic relationships may benefit concerned others by preserving self-identity, social identity, values, security, stability, and hope. Costs of alcoholic relationships include physical symptoms, injury, mental problems, financial difficulty, legal troubles, and relational distress. Al-Anon is perceived beneficial for six primary reasons: Al-Anon philosophy, format, social support, accessibility, effectiveness, and potential to change the drinker's behavior. Possible costs of Al-Anon include marginalization of the concerned other, blame, codependent pathology, sexist stereotyping, substitute dependency, and perpetuating victimization. Conclusions/Importance: The identified costs and benefits of alcoholic relationships and help-seeking in Al-Anon can help to model decision-making processes using existing behavioral health frameworks without defaulting to the stigmatized and ambiguous codependence terminology.

Terminology and quantification of environmental heterogeneity in species-richness research.

Spatial environmental heterogeneity (EH) is an important driver of species diversity, and its influence on species richness has been analysed for numerous taxa, in diverse ecological settings, and over a large range of spatial scales. The variety and ambiguity of concepts and terminology, however, have hampered comparisons among studies. Based on a systematic literature survey of 192 studies including 1148 data points, we provide an overview of terms and measures related to EH, and the mechanisms that relate EH to species richness of plants and animals in terrestrial systems. We identify 165 different measures used to quantify EH, referred to by more than 350 measure names. We classify these measures according to their calculation method and subject area, finding that most studies have analysed heterogeneity in land cover, topography, and vegetation, whereas comparatively few studies have focused on climatic or soil EH. Overall, elevation range emerged as the most frequent measure in our dataset. We find that there is no consensus in the literature about terms (such as 'habitat diversity' or 'habitat complexity'), their meanings and associated quantification methods. More than 100 different terms have been used to denote EH, with largely imprecise delimitations. We reveal trends in use of terms and quantification with respect to spatial scales, study taxa, and locations. Finally, we discuss mechanisms involved in EH-richness relationships, differentiating between effects on species coexistence, persistence, and diversification. This review aims at guiding researchers in their selection of heterogeneity measures. At the same time, it shows the need for precise terminology and avoidance of ambiguous synonyms to enhance understanding and foster among-study comparisons and synthesis.

Challenges of Governing Second-Growth Forests: A Case Study from the Brazilian Amazonian State of Pará

Despite the growing ecological and social importance of second-growth and regenerating forests across much of the world, significant inconsistencies remain in the legal framework governing these forests in many tropical countries and elsewhere. Such inconsistencies and uncertainties undermine attempts to improve both the transparency and sustainability of management regimes. Here, we present a case-study overview of some of the main challenges facing the governance of second-growth forests and the forest restoration process in the Brazilian Amazon, with a focus on the state of Pará, which is both the most populous state in the Amazon and the state with the highest rates of deforestation in recent years. First, we briefly review the history of environmental governance in Brazil that has led to the current system of legislation governing second-growth forests and the forest restoration process in Pará. Next, we draw on this review to examine the kinds of legislative and operational impediments that stand in the way of the development and implementation of a more effective governance system. In particular, we highlight problems created by significant ambiguities in legal terminology and inconsistencies in guidance given across different levels of government. We also outline some persistent problems with the implementation of legal guidance, including the need to understand local biophysical factors in order to guide an effective restoration program, as well as difficulties presented by access to technical assistance, institutional support and financial resources for the establishment and monitoring of both existing secondary forests and newly regenerating areas of forest. Whilst we focus here on a Brazilian case study, we suggest that these kinds of impediments to the good governance of second-growth forests are commonplace and require more concerted attention from researchers, managers and policy makers.

Palliative care nurses’ recognition and assessment of patients with delirium symptoms: A qualitative study using critical incident technique

BackgroundDelirium is prevalent in palliative care inpatient settings and management is often challenging. Despite nurses’ integral patient care role, little is known about palliative care nurses’ capacity to recognise, assess and respond to patients’ delirium symptoms. ObjectiveTo explore the experiences, views and practices of inpatient palliative care nurses in delirium recognition and assessment. Settings and participants30 nurses from nine Australian specialist palliative care inpatient services. Design and methodsCritical incident technique (CIT) guided a series of semi-structured interviews. Prior to interviews participants were given a vignette of a palliative care inpatient with an unrecognised hypoactive delirium, to prompt their recollection and recounting of a similar clinical incident. Clearly recalled and described incidents were analysed using thematic content analysis. Findings20 of 30 participants recalled and described 28 relevant delirium incidents. Two themes and six sub-themes provide a general description of participants’ experiences, views and practice in delirium recognition and assessment. Participants experience distress related to caring for patients with delirium and express compassion and empathy for delirious patients. Enhancing their delirium knowledge, strengthening collaborative multidisciplinary team relationships and better communication are important supports. Some participants, usually those in advance practice roles, describe more comprehensive assessment capabilities that incorporate clinical expertise with whole person awareness, yet systematic and structured delirium screening and assessment processes and application of the delirium diagnosis criteria are largely missing. Use of ambiguous terminology to describe delirium symptoms contributes to ineffective practice. ConclusionsThe findings of this study expands our understanding of how palliative care nurses’ capacity to recognise and assess patients’ delirium symptoms in the inpatient setting could be strengthened.

Morphologic and molecular description of Metopus fuscus Kahl from North America and new rDNA sequences from seven metopids (Armophorea, Metopidae)

Most species in the large ciliate genus Metopus Claparède & Lachmann, 1858 lack detailed descriptions based on modern morphologic and molecular methods. This lack of data for the vast majority of species hampers application of a morphospecies approach to the taxonomy of Metopus and other armophorids. In this report we redescribe the large species, Metopus fuscusKahl, 1927 based on in vivo observation, silver impregnation, scanning electron microscopy, and single-cell 18S rDNA sequencing of a freshwater North American (Idaho) population. Metopus fuscus invariably has a perinuclear envelope of endosymbiotic bacteria not found in other species. Unlike the original description of a single row of coarse granules between ciliary rows, the Idaho population has five loose rows of small interkinetal granules. We discuss the possible importance of this character in metopids. We also provide a phylogenetic analysis including seven other new metopid 18S rDNA sequences: Brachonella spiralis, B. galeata, Metopus laminarius, M. setosus, M. striatus, M. violaceus, Palmarella lata. Metopus fuscus and M. setosus form a fully supported clade, challenging previous morphospecies groupings. We discuss some ambiguities of armophorid morphologic terminology in the earlier literature. Our phylogenetic analysis of Idaho metopids indicates that the genera Metopus and Brachonella are both nonmonophyletic.

'Texts' and 'signs': Criteria for choosing an analytical approach

At least for two and a half decades the concepts 'narrative' and 'narrative analysis', 'discourse' and 'discourse analysis', 'text', 'context', 'signs' and 'semiotic analysis' have become extremely popular in humanities and social sciences but still have not received precise definitions and are interpreted quite arbitrary based on the conceptual and methodological preferences of the researcher, as well as the goals and objectives of the particular applied or fundamental sociological research project. The author proposes a way to structure the field of textual analysis in sociology that goes far beyond even the broadest interpretations of the content analysis method. Undoubtedly, we need to develop clear criteria for at least the correct naming of different formats of analytical work with textual data; otherwise, we run the risk of writing not scientific articles but rather 'original discursive collages' skillfully juggling an ambiguous and diverse terminology of textual analysis. Key words:.

Inter-Religion Hate Speech in India: A Sociological Study on the Ambiguous Terminology of Secularism

Inter-Religion Hate Speech in India: A Sociological Study on the Ambiguous Terminology of Secularism

WATER PRODUCTIVITY IN AGRICULTURE: CHALLENGES IN CONCEPTS, TERMS AND VALUES

ABSTRACTThe concept of irrigation efficiency firstly defined by Israelsen in 1950. His definition remained fundamentally unchanged for more than 40 years, until from the 1970s the definition was moderately changed and modifications suggested. In recent decades the irrigation efficiency concept has gradually been replaced, both in the literature and in practice, with the introduction of crop water use efficiency (WUE) and later on with agricultural water productivity (WP).The issue of water management and interventions for its improvement runs across sectors. Different users and beneficiaries of water have legitimate interests in how water is allocated and used in their own as well as in competing sectors. The language and terminology of the debate is of importance to the value that analysis can add to knowledge. Even expert discussions can be confused by ambiguous terminology, while the water‐dependent sectors have no consistent terminology to distinguish between consumptive and non‐consumptive uses, or recoverable and non‐recoverable return flows.This paper provides an overview of the concepts of WP and its predecessors E and WUE, with a focus on WP for better planning and efficient use of water in the agricultural sector. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introducing a new risk communication paradigm

Risk communication and crisis communication differ in many aspects and there is terminological and epistemological ambiguity in international fora and discussions regarding definitions and approaches. As a working definition we use time, method and content to distinguish between risk communication and crisis communication. Risk communication differs from crisis communication as risk communication starts before a crisis, is less directive, has more time to explain even difficult and contradicting …

Quality-Assured Initialization Optimizes the Value of Reservoir Simulation

This article, written by Senior Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 160248, ’Optimizing the Value of Reservoir Simulation Through Quality- Assured Initialization,’ by Paul F. Worthington, SPE, Gaffney, Cline & Associates, and Shane K.F. Hattingh, SPE, ERC Equipoise, prepared for the 2012 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Perth, Australia, 22-24 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Initializing a reservoir simulator requires populating a 3D dynamic-grid-cell model with subsurface data and fit-for-purpose interrelational algorithms. In practice, these prerequisites rarely are satisfied fully. Implementation of four key points has enhanced the authentication of reservoir simulators through more-readily attainable history matches with less tuning required. This outcome is attributed to a more-systematic initialization process with a lower risk of artifacts. These benefits feed through to more-assured estimates of ultimate recovery and, hence, hydrocarbon reserves. Introduction Initialization is the process of rendering a subsurface-rock/fluid model into a representative starting point for reservoir simulation within the constraints introduced by imposing a 3D-grid array. The effectiveness of a hydrocarbon-reservoir simulator depends on the reliability of its initialization, which, in turn, is governed by the quality of the underpinning reservoir description. The classical view of initialization establishes the correct volumetric distributions of fluids within the grid cells that represent the subsurface reservoir when it is at initial conditions of an assumed hydrostatic equilibrium. Yet a functional reservoir must store fluids and allow them to flow. Therefore, an initialization process that is based on static data must render these data dynamically conditioned so that the ensuing dynamic model can have the greatest possible meaning. It is prerequisite that the reservoir description be realistic and representative and that its conditioning for simulation be carried out in a manner that retains reservoir character in a workable format. These requirements are rarely satisfied in practice. Shortcomings can be traced to ambiguous terminology, inconsistent definitions of reservoir properties, inappropriate parameter selection, incomplete data sampling, inconsistent scaling up, cross-scale application of interpretative algorithms, erroneous identification of net reservoir, unrepresentative fluid analyses, and incorrect application of software options. The objective is to improve the synergy between static and dynamic reservoir models. The subject matter is derived from the authors’ studies of challenging field situations (i.e., from real solutions). The proposed refinements are directed at obviating the shortcomings stated previously. They are restricted to water-wet systems within which intergranular flow predominates. Pivotal Role of Porosity Analysis of core-calibrated well logs usually delivers total or effective porosity according to the adopted petrophysical model. Therefore, if total porosity is imported from a static model, as is common practice, knowledge of either the shale-volume fraction or the electrochemically-bound-water saturation is needed to convert total porosity to effective porosity. Porosity is used in dynamic simulation as part of a term in the fluid-flow equations, to estimate fluid volumes in place, to indicate rock type, or to indicate permeability.

Ischemic Mitral Regurgitation: An Intraoperative Echocardiographic Perspective

SEQUEL OF MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION (MI), ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR), can present acutely as cardiogenic shock (papillary muscle rupture), insidiously with symptoms of congestive heart failure (CHF), or as an incidental finding on a clinical or echocardiographic examination. 1,2 Irrespective of presentation, IMR poses a clinical challenge in terms of diagnosis and treatment. 3 Because of the ambiguity in terminology, there is considerable variation in the diagnosis and management. The incidence of IMR has been postulated to be as high as 1.2 to 2.1 million patients, with a significant proportion having moderate or severe mitral regurgitation (MR). 4 Furthermore, almost one third of the patients presenting for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery have concomitant IMR. 5,6 Although clinical and intraoperative decision making is straightforward in cases of mild and severe MR, those with moderate MR present a predicament. The benefits to the patient have to be weighed against the risks associated with