Basic Tension Research Articles

Muscular tension in ear surgeons during cochlear implantations: does a new microscope improve musculoskeletal complaints?

Musculoskeletal complaints and fatigue are commonly described symptoms in daily work of ear nose and throat surgeons using a microscope. Long ear surgical procedures are associated with prolonged microscope use, which can lead to unconsciously tense and uncomfortable body posture. The digital microscope RoboticScope® allows visualization of surgical site through a Head-Mounted Display, independent from camera head and is therefore much easier on the back, as the sitting position can be adjusted flexibly. Aim of the prospective study was to investigate to what extent the use of a RoboticScope® changes the tension of neck and shoulder muscles of the surgeons in comparison to a conventional tripod microscope. For this purpose, the electric activity of neck and shoulder muscles of surgeons was recorded using surface electromyography during cochlear implantations. Electrical potentials were derived via electrodes on neck and shoulder muscles. The basic tension of those muscles was measured in relaxed position before and after surgery. During microscope use the tension was continued to be measured. A questionnaire recorded parameters such as level of difficulty of operation as well as patient data. Results from 58 operations, 33 of which were performed using a conventional microscope and 25 using a Head-Mounted Display, show a significant reduction in muscular tension during surgery by 40% (p < 0.001) in experienced ear surgeons when using a RoboticScope®, regardless of the surgeon. Our results are in line with the relevance of preventive measures to avoid acute and chronic work-related illnesses/symptoms described in literature.

Limits of inter-American cooperation: large dams and urban planning in Latin America after 1945

ABSTRACT Large dams are crucial sites for urban planning because they normally require the construction of relocated settlements, industrial towns, and workers’ camps. After 1945, Latin America emerged as one of the important centres for dam-building. The planning of urban structures built in this context represents a basic tension of inter-American cooperation. Whereas the initial model of such settlements was the U.S. company town and some countries like Venezuela even contracted urban planners from the United States, Latin American countries used urban planning to prove their planning capabilities. Even though they adapted Western lifestyle and housing, they were eager to keep out direct influence from abroad. On the other hand, dam towns were manifestations of the pitfalls of modern urban planning since they produced socially segregated spaces and strengthened social inequality. Engineers and middle-class inhabitants enjoyed a certain comfort, but resettled people and workers often faced difficult living conditions and protested against the urban planning policy.

Asian Paints Company Limited: post-merger and acculturation challenges

Learning outcomes The case has the following learning objectives: to understand the dilemmas that an emerging market MNC faces during pre-and post-acquisition scenarios; understand and appreciate the basic tensions that arise when two different companies with different cultural setups are integrated; understand the importance of creating a culture integration road map to leverage the synergies of two successful companies; and understand the role of leadership in leading and managing change. Case overview/synopsis Asian Paints Ltd. has been a market leader in the Indian paint market for over five decades (since 1967). Over the years, starting in 1978, the company has steadily spread its footprint in the international arena as well. As of 2017, Asian Paints was a leader in 10 overseas markets, one of the top 3 paint companies in the Middle East, the largest paint manufacturing company in South Asia, and served 60 markets across the world. The international business contributed to around 12% of the company’s group turnover. In line with its long-term vision and to consolidate its presence in emerging markets, the company acquired Causeway Paints, a leading paint company in Sri Lanka, in April 2017. Asian Paints had a presence in Sri Lanka since 1999. Mr. Jatin Upadhyay, International Business Unit Head for Asian Paints, had played significant roles in the past in such acquisitions and was well aware of the impending challenges that came with such acquisitions. How would the integration of the two distinct entities be made possible without losing the overarching objective? How would the transition be managed? How would the cultural transition take place? What and how would the role be handled by the General Manager (GM) of Causeway Lanka? How would the new organisational structure support the transition? The case illustrates the complex management challenges that arise when a leading enterprise from a different country (Asian Paints) acquires a leading company in a different country, in this case, Causeway Paints, Sri Lanka. Complexity academic level The target audience for this case study is the students pursuing a post-graduate programme in management or an executive post-graduate programme in management. The case can also be used for management development programmes for experienced participants who are interested in understanding the possible scenarios that may arise after an acquisition when managing an international subsidiary in a different cultural setting. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Reinterpreting the Tension between Dīn and Dunyā: The Naqshbandī Ṭarīqah as Experienced and Shaped by its Mujaddidī and Khālidī Shaykhs

In his article “Did Premodern Muslims Distinguish the Religious and Secular?,” Rushain Abbasi convincingly demonstrates how pre-modern Muslim thinkers had made an array of meaningful distinctions between dīn (‘religion’) and dunyā (‘the world’) approximating the religious-secular dyad. This paper explores a fourth typology, a latent opposing attitude toward the dīn-dunyā binary, by expanding Abbasi’s analytical trajectory to include both a discursive and pragmatic framework – the former involving scrutiny of the content and substance of rationally thought-out arguments, the latter demanding a closer look at how ideas have informed and shaped practical forms of reasoning and their application in the real world. Therefore, beyond the conceptual and epistemological signification of the dīn-dunyā binary in Islamic thought as surveyed by Abbasi, an attempt will be made to show how Muslims have also reasoned in both theoretical and practical terms to bridge the tension between the two spheres. The overarching objective is to consider how the dīn-dunyā binary fares in the Islamic mystical tradition through a case study analysis of five prominent Naqshbandī shaykhs: Aḥmad Sirhindī, Khālid al-Shahrazūrī, Aḥmad Gümüşhānevī, Zahid Kotku, and Mahmud Esad Coşan. The dialectical method developed by Shmuel Eisenstadt, which supposes a basic tension between the transcendental and mundane orders, will be applied to examine how each individual shaykh experienced, interpreted, and bridged the opposition between dīn and dunyā in both their doctrinal teachings and life-practices. The study aims to show how the shaykhs applied certain ethico-mystical principles like khalwat dar anjuman (‘solitude within society’) in a way that saw them engaging in a constant and concerted effort at bridging the unbridgeable in their worldly and other-worldly pursuits.

Ban on religious symbols in the public service: Quebec’s Bill 21 in a global pluralist perspective

AbstractBill 21 is a highly contested law adopted in Quebec that bans certain civil servants from wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their duties. Rather than analyse Bill 21 on its merits, the article treats it as a test case for global legal pluralism, examining how the validity of the law from an international perspective depends on the frames one uses to analyse it. It finds that a basic tension permeates the entire debate between a universalist vision of rights and a vision of rights as anchored in particular political configurations that demand a constant process of adaptation. That tension is visible in the dualist opposition between Canadian and international law; in the role of federalism as a significant mediating factor in the implementation of constitutional and international rights; and in the kind of majoritarian check on rights that manifests itself in the Canadian Charter of Rights’ ‘notwithstanding clause’. Throughout, the article explores how these tensions might be mediated in ways that do not simply oppose international and domestic law but seek to make the most of their interaction.

Guided by data: A logistical approach to tourism in the platform economy

Logistics is a relatively hidden subject in tourism studies. This theoretical article advances a logistical approach to the study of tourism in the platform economy. It is argued that the platform economy rests on logistical accumulation, which means that human practices are not just predicted but ultimately steered in order to generate profitable digital data streams. At the same time, “smart”, mobile media platforms provide unprecedented logistical affordances to people to navigate and manage various flows. Tourism is thus taken as a logistical intersection, where the steering mechanisms of the platform economy entangle with the needs and capacities for orientation, coordination and orchestration among travellers. The social expansion of logistical accumulation raises questions of human agency, especially in relation to tourism, as well as a need to study how the basic tension between “steering” and “being steered” unfolds in different sociocultural settings. The article provides a critical account of the logistical frictions, conflicts and inequalities characterizing digital tourism geographies. It also actualizes the need for further exchanges between media studies, tourism studies, and critical geographical research on logistics.

Matching Pragmatic Lithic Analysis and Proper Data Architecture

AbstractThe documentation and analysis of archaeological lithics must navigate a basic tension between examining and recording data on individual artifacts or on aggregates of artifacts. This poses a challenge both for artifact processing and for database construction. We present here an R Shiny solution that enables lithic analysts to enter data for both individual artifacts and aggregates of artifacts while maintaining a robust yet flexible data structure. This takes the form of a browser-based database interface that uses R to query existing data and transform new data as necessary so that users entering data of varying resolutions still produce data structured around individual artifacts. We demonstrate the function and efficacy of this tool (termed the Queryable Artifact Recording Interface [QuARI]) using the example of the Stelida Naxos Archaeological Project (SNAP), which, focused on a Paleolithic and Mesolithic chert quarry, has necessarily confronted challenges of processing and analyzing large quantities of lithic material.

Pendampingan Pertolongan Pertama Bagi Masyarakat Korban Banjir Di Kota Pekalongan

Activities to anticipate natural disaster management through first aid assistance for flood victims in Pekalongan City are very applicable and needed by flood-affected communities. So that the urgency of first aid in health service efforts for flood victims in Pekalongan City cannot be doubted. This community service aims to describe the form of first aid assistance for flood victims in Pekalongan City. This community service method is carried out through several stages, namely planning and preparation, implementation, and evaluation of activities. The results of this service show that first aid assistance for flood victims in Pekalongan City has been carried out by the community service team together with UKK-KSR PMI Unit IAIN Pekalongan. Planning and preparation before undertaking a community service program. The implementation of the community service program which consists of several activities, namely mental recovery of children affected by flooding, conducting basic tension medical treatment to residents affected by the flood, distributing aid to refugee camps for flood victims, conducting assessments in refugee camps, and evacuating flood victims. Finally, the process of evaluation and improvement for further service activities.

The End of Human Rights Dynamism? Judgments of the ECtHR on ‘Hot Returns’ and Humanitarian Visas as a Focal Point of Contemporary European Asylum Law and Policy

Abstract Two controversial rulings of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) deserve global attention, since they declined to scrutinize on human rights grounds the prevalent move towards enhanced border controls and externalization practices that define European asylum law and policy at this juncture. In ND and NT, judges deemed the Spanish policy of ‘hot returns’, without access to basic procedural guarantees, of those climbing border fences to be compatible with human rights. A few weeks later, the Grand Chamber thwarted enduring hopes for judicial innovation in MN when it reasserted a ‘primarily territorial’ understanding of State jurisdiction and declared inadmissible the claim of a Syrian family from the war-torn town of Aleppo to a humanitarian visa. While the decision on humanitarian visas means that ‘non-arrival’ policies cannot usually be challenged, critical inspection of the ND and NT judgment displays a confounding combination of restrictive arguments and dynamic elements beneath the surface of a seemingly clear-cut outcome. This lack of judicial precision, which was bound to cause heated debate about the practical implications of the judgment, reflects the basic tension between the prohibition of refoulement and the absence of a right to asylum in classic accounts of international refugee law. It will be argued that the judicial vindication of the Spanish ‘hot returns’ policy does not call into question non-refoulement obligations; it aims at identifying graded procedural standards for different categories of refugees and migrants. By contrast, the novel insistence on the abstract availability of legal channels of entry presents itself as a humanitarian fig leaf for the acceptance of strict control practices. At an intermediate level of abstraction, the two rulings mark a watershed moment, indicating the provisional endpoint of an impressive period of interpretative dynamism on the part of the ECtHR, which has played a critical role in the progressive evolution of international refugee and human rights law over the past three decades. Experts in asylum law who have become accustomed to supranational courts advancing the position of individuals will benefit from the insights of constitutional theory and the social sciences to rationalize why the former vigour has given way to a period of hesitation and potential standstill, at least in Europe. This analysis employs the perspective of strategic litigation to discuss contextual factors hindering the continued dynamism of human rights jurisprudence in Europe at this juncture.

The Wisdom of a Confused Crowd: Model-Based Inference

``Crowds'' are often regarded as ``wiser'' than individuals, and prediction markets are often regarded as effective methods for harnessing this wisdom. If the agents in prediction markets are Bayesians who share a common model and prior belief, then the no-trade theorem implies that we should see no trade in the market. But if the agents in the market are not Bayesians who share a common model and prior belief, then it is no longer obvious that the market outcome aggregates or conveys information. In this paper, we examine a stylized prediction market comprised of Bayesian agents whose inferences are based on different models of the underlying environment. We explore a basic tension---the differences in models that give rise to the possibility of trade generally preclude the possibility of perfect information aggregation.

CORRELAÇÃO ENTRE COBERTURA DA ATENÇÃO BÁSICA E TAXA DE IMUNIZAÇÃO: EVIDÊNCIAS PARA AS CAPITAIS DO NORDESTE.

A atenção básica de saúde e a estratégia de saúde da família ganharam força a partir da criação do Sistema Único de Saúde – SUS e foram ampliadas paulatinamente através da adesão dos municípios. São políticas que se propõem a garantir uma maior proximidade com as populações envolvidas, acolhendo suas necessidades e definindo estratégias com bases epidemiológicas. O presente artigo busca analisar a correlação existente entre cobertura da atenção básica e taxa de imunização no âmbito das capitais dos Estados da região nordeste do Brasil. Para isso, foi realizado um estudo descritivo, exploratório e documental, através da utilização de dados disponíveis nos sistemas de informação do ministério da saúde, DATASUS e o e-Gestor AB dos quais foram coletados as variáveis relativa à cobertura da tenção básica, a cobertura da estratégia da saúde da família, a taxa de imunização e de abandono vacinal do período de 2016 a 2019. Com isso, verificou-se que nas cidades avaliadas existe uma baixa correlação entre a cobertura da atenção básica e a taxa de imunização. No entanto, nos munícios onde a atenção básica esteve mais presente a taxa de abandono do programa vacinal foi menor. Isso mostra uma correlação negativa entre as duas variáveis e vem reforçar a importância da busca pelos municípios por uma cobertura total do programa aos usuários, facilitando o acesso aos serviços e, principalmente com equipes de estratégia de saúde da família, por buscar ativamente as pessoas que iniciaram a programação vacinal com vistas a cumprir o protocolo de imunização.

Die Fragilität von Ordnungen als Preis der Freiheit

Abstract The Fragility of Orders as the Price of Freedom. From the Ordo Thought of the Middle Ages to the Modern Order Concepts The basic tension between order and freedom, which still lies behind today’s talk of the fundamental fragility of all orders, results from the superficial immediacy of medieval order thinking and modern freedom thinking. In close connection to the concept of reason and its instances of attribution, God (›absolute reason‹), the world (›objective reason‹) and man (›subjective finite reason‹), the epochal transitions in the history of the dialectic of freedom and order can be interpreted as a coherent problem connection up to modernity. In modernity, the recognized legitimacy of orders presupposes their constitution by freedom. The price that must be accepted if concrete political, economic and social orders are to be called ›orders of freedom‹ is the fragility of all finite orders.

Extended Tension Chord Model for Boundary Elements of RC Walls Accounting for Anchorage Slip and Lap Splices Presence

This paper presents a mechanical model for the simulation of reinforced concrete (RC) wall boundary elements with lap splices, which builds on the tension chord model. The model is composed of an assembly of components, each one accounting for a different source of deformation. Namely: (i) an anchorage-slip element accounting for the strain penetration of the longitudinal reinforcement into the foundation; (ii) a basic tension chord element evaluating the response outside the lap splice zone; and (iii) a lap splice element describing the behaviour within the lap splice region. For an imposed global displacement, the model provides the steel and concrete stress and strain distributions, the crack distribution and opening, as well as the global resisting axial force. For spliced members, the ultimate displacement is computed through a semi-empirical relationship providing the average lap splice strain at failure. Validation is carried out against a series of uniaxial cyclic tests on RC wall boundary elements featuring both continuous and spliced reinforcement; different lap splice lengths and confining reinforcement are considered. Overall, a good match is obtained between numerical and experimental results in terms of crack width, rebar strain distribution along the splices and ultimate displacement.

Comparative vs. Hagiology: Two Variant Approaches to the Field

There is a basic tension within the idea of Comparative Hagiology, because the two terms that constitute its name are incongruous. To formulate a comparative hagiological project, we must choose at the outset which term will take priority. Prioritizing the comparative in comparative hagiology orients us to focus more on the basic disciplinary approaches to gather compare-able data, leaving hagiology as a placeholder whose content will be defined by the results of the comparison. Prioritizing hagiology requires first defining hagio- and reckoning with the European and Christian baggage that it brings to cross-cultural and inter-religious comparison. Holding that definition in mind, we then locate examples to compare by whatever approach seems fruitful in that case. Different choices of priorities lead to potentially different results. I argue that a path that prioritizes comparative is more likely to inspire experimental and innovative groupings, unconventional definitions of hagiology, and new perspectives in the cross-cultural study of religion. An approach that prioritizes hagiology runs a greater risk of repeating the same provincial and conceptual biases that doomed much of 20th-century comparative religion scholarship.

Science-religion compatibility beliefs across Middle Eastern and American young adult samples: The role of cross-cultural exposure.

Research shows that people in predominantly Christian cultures tend to perceive a basic tension between science and religion, which is not reflected in predominantly Muslim cultures. In this cross-cultural study comparing Christian university students in the United States and Muslim university students in the United Arab Emirates, we examined time spent in Western countries (for UAE students) or overseas (for American students) as predictors of perceived religion-science compatibility. Drawing upon the notion that science is viewed as more secular in Christianity than in Islam, we hypothesized and found that among UAE students, number of weeks per year spent in the West correlated negatively with religion-science compatibility beliefs. This relationship held even when controlling for science knowledge, suggesting that it results not from epistemological opposition to science but from an increasing exposure to the idea that science should be seen as a secular institution. Among American students, number of weeks per year spent overseas and religion-science compatibility beliefs were not associated. Implications for perceptions of science among different religious groups and in different cultural contexts are discussed.

The Powers in PowerPoint: Embedded Authorities, Documentary Tastes, and Institutional (Second) Orders in Corporate Korea

ABSTRACTMicrosoft PowerPoint is both the bane and banality of contemporary South Korean office work. Corporate workers spend countless hours refining and crafting plans, proposals, and reports in PowerPoint that often lead to conflicts with coworkers and overtime work. This article theorizes the excessive attention to documents in modern office contexts. Where scholars have been under the impression that institutional documents align with institutional purposes, I describe a context in which making documents for individual purposes and making them for work exist under a basic tension. Based on fieldwork in corporate Korea between 2013 and 2015, I describe how Korean office workers calibrate documents to the tastes of superiors who populate the managerial chain. These practices leave little trace of real “work” on paper, but they are productive for navigating complex internal labor markets and demonstrating a higher order value of attention toward others. These findings suggest that institutional and individual authorities are not competing projects inside organizations but become entangled in increasingly complex participatory encounters, even as they are channeled through a seemingly simple software like PowerPoint. [documents, expertise, authority, technology, South Korea]

Kant, Chakrabarty, and the Crises of the Anthropocene

Dipesh Chakrabarty has identified Immanuel Kant’s distinction between the human’s moral and animal dimensions as an underlying source of the failure of the humanities to respond to the ecological crises of the Anthropocene. Although relevant for the environmental humanities generally, Chakrabarty’s critique is especially germane to contemporary environmental philosophy. It shows how the reality of anthropogenic climate change renders central aspects of Kant’s influential conception of human nature untenable. While closer examination of Kant’s writings corroborates the core of Chakrabarty’s reading, there nonetheless remain positive resources in Kant’s philosophy for contemporary environmental thinking, for, although Kant does regard the human’s moral and animal dimensions as conceptually separable, he also understands them to be inextricably bound within the nature of human beings. Attending to the interplay between these Kantian commitments, a new critical insight into one of the basic tensions of the Anthropocene era can be attained.

Bursting Bubbles? QALYs and Discrimination

The use of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) in healthcare allocation has been criticized as discriminatory against people with disabilities. This article considers a response to this criticism from Nick Beckstead and Toby Ord. They say that even if QALYs are discriminatory, attempting to avoid discrimination – when coupled with other central principles that an allocation system should favour – sometimes leads to irrationality in the form of cyclic preferences. I suggest that while Beckstead and Ord have identified a problem, it is a misdiagnosis to lay it at the feet of an anti-discrimination principle. The problem in fact comes from a basic tension between respecting reasonable patient preferences and other ways of ranking treatment options. As such, adopting a QALY system does not solve the problem they identify.

Effects of Fengliao-Changweikang in Diarrhea-predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome Rats and Its Mechanism Involving Colonic Motility.

Background/AimsThis study was designed to investigate the effect of Fengliao-Changweikang (FLCWK) in diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) rats and explore its underlying mechanisms.MethodsIBS-D model rats were induced by neonatal maternal separation (NMS) combined with restraint stress (RS). In in vivo experiments, the model rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: NMS + RS, FLCWK (low dose, middle dose, and high dose), and pinaverium bromide. The normal control (no handling) rats were classified as the NH group. The therapeutic effect of FLCWK was evaluated by fecal characteristics, electromyographic response and abdominal withdrawal reflex scores. In in vitro experiments, the model rats were randomly divided into 2 groups: NMS + RS, FLCWK (middle dose), and no handling rats were used as the NH group. The differences in basic tension and ACh-induced tension of isolated colonic longitudinal smooth muscle strips (CLSMs) among the 3 groups were observed. In addition, different inhibitors (nifedipine, TMB-8, L-NAME, methylene blue, and 4-AP) were pretreated to explore the underlying mechanisms.ResultsIn in vivo experiments, fecal characteristics, electromyographic response, and abdominal withdrawal reflex scores significantly improved in the FLCWK group, compared with the NMS + RS group. In in vitro experiments, the basic tension and ACh-induced tension of CLSMs in IBS-D rats were significantly inhibited by FLCWK. After pre-treatment with different inhibitors, the ACh-induced tension of CLSMs in each group showed no significant difference.ConclusionsFLCWK manifested curative effect in IBS-D rats by inhibiting colonic contraction. The underlying mechanisms may be related to regulatory pathway of nitric oxide/cGMP/Ca2+ and specific potassium channels.

Spatial Imaginaries and Tech Cities: Place-branding East London’s digital economy

We explore place branding as an economic development strategy for technology clusters, using London’s ‘Tech City’ initiative as a case study. We site place branding in a larger family of policies that develop spatial imaginaries and specify affordances and constraints on place brands and brand-led strategies. Using mixed methods over a long timeframe, we analyse Tech City’s emergence and the overlapping, competing narratives that preceded and succeeded it, highlighting day-to-day challenges and more basic tensions. While a strong brand has developed, we cast doubt on claims that policy has had a catalytic effect, at least in the ways originally intended.