Circular Relationship Research Articles

Creation of investor confidence: The top-level drivers for reaching maturity in marine energy

Electricity generation by tidal current and wave power arrays represents a radical innovation and is confronted by significant technological and financial challenges. Currently, the marine energy sector finds itself in a decisive transition phase having developed full-scale technology demonstrators but still lacking proof of the concept in a commercial project environment. After the decades-long development process with larger than expected setbacks and delays, investors are discouraged because of high capital requirements and the uncertainty of future revenues. In order to de-risk the technology and to accelerate the commercialisation process, we identified stakeholder-wide balanced and realisable strategic targets. The objective is to name the top-level drivers for facilitating technology maturation and thus achieving market acceptance. Our analysis revealed that the two major risks for multi-megawatt projects (funding and device performance) are directly interlinked and that co-ordinated action is required to overcome this circular relationship. As funding is required for improving device performance (and vice-versa), showcasing an “array-scale success” was identified as the interim milestone on the way towards commercial generation. By this game-changing event, both mentioned risk complexes will be simultaneously mitigated. We observed that system dynamics modelling is appropriate for an unbiased analysis of complex multi-level expert interview data. The applied research model was found to be efficient and allows a regular re-assessment of the strategic alignment thus supporting the adaptation to a complex and continuously changing socio-technical environment.

역량기반 간호교육과정을 위한 핵심역량 모델링

The purpose of this study is modeling nursing competencies and reasoning out the core competencies, the ability for 20% of important actions for nursing jobs which can manage the rest 80% so that the competency-based nursing curriculum can be developed. A literature review of the vast studies regarding competencies was done to understand the concepts of competency-based curriculum, competency, and nursing competencies, identifying the relationships among each nursing competency categorized in accordance with those concepts. An exemplified concept map of core competencies for the competency-based nursing curriculum is suggested based on a thorough review of various competency modeling methodologies. The core competencies consist of base competency (theoretical/practical nursing knowledge and skills), practical competency (clinical judgment, patient education, communication, etc.), and personality competency (leadership, sense of responsibility, cooperation, etc.). The circular relationship among them can remain consistent through self-directed learning and critical thinking. Therefore, a nurse who have those core competencies is a knowledge worker, a self-directed learner, and also an effective, professional communicator. Further studies which solidify the concept of nursing competencies should be done, as well as the feedback procedures which evaluate the program outcomes and then reflect the evaluation results in the curriculum should be followed continuously.

Surviving in the Journalistic Field

This paper explores Catholic journalist Walter Hagemann's freedom of action during the Third Reich and seeks to provide insight into the history of journalism in Germany, especially regarding its autonomy. It refers to Pierre Bourdieu's sociology, which presumes a circular and dynamic relationship between individual practice and social structures. Accordingly, Hagemann's social position in the Nazi era (his “space of possibles”) is examined by revealing the interaction of his habitus and capital as well as the structures of the journalistic field at that time. The case study shows that despite his national thinking and his search for joint views with National Socialist ideology, Hagemann did not escape the stigma of being an opponent of the regime. After a brilliant journalistic career during the Weimar Republic, he did not garner any political influence, even though he served as chief editor of the Germania, the famous Catholic daily newspaper, and edited the news service Vox Gentium. As a consequence, his national emphasis only proved useful to survive at the edge of the journalistic field. This study draws on Walter Hagemann's most important publications (among them more than 100 editorials), extensive archive material from 10 institutions, and two interviews with Hagemann's son.

The circular relationship between matrix metalloproteinase-9 and inflammation following myocardial infarction.

Matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) regulates remodeling of the left ventricle after myocardial infarction (MI) and is tightly linked to the inflammatory response. The inflammatory response serves to recruit leukocytes as part of the wound healing reaction to the MI injury, and infiltrated leukocytes produce cytokines and chemokines that stimulate MMP-9 production and release. In turn, MMP-9 proteolyzes cytokines and chemokines. Although in most cases, MMP-9 cleavage of the cytokine or chemokine substrate serves to increase activity, there are cases where cleavage results in reduced activity. Global MMP-9 deletion in mouse MI models has proven beneficial, suggesting inhibition of some aspects of MMP-9 activity may be valuable for clinical use. At the same time, overexpression of MMP-9 in macrophages has also proven beneficial, indicating that we still do not fully understand the complexity of MMP-9 mechanisms of action. In this review, we summarize the cycle of MMP-9 effects on cytokine production and cleavage to regulate leukocyte functions. Although we use MI as the example process, similar events occur in other inflammatory and wound healing conditions.

Antecedents and consequences of intention to quit the organisation and the profession

Intention to quit is a widely researched phenomenon. Intention to quit has been here studied in two folds: intention to quit organisation and profession separately. Individual, organisational, external determinants and outcomes for these two are identified from existing literature. It is posited that job satisfaction and organisational commitment have a circular relationship with intention to quit organisation and profession and these two phenomena relate to intention to quit invariably through almost all determinants and outcomes. Hence, it is proposed that by tactically inducing satisfiers and commitment boosters, organisations can benefit by handling if not eliminate such intentions completely that have severe effects on individual as well as organisational performance.

Crime, fear and continuous traumatic stress in South Africa: What place social cohesion?

International literature on crime and violence suggests that social cohesion may play a key role in facilitating prevention at community level. It is argued that in South Africa high levels of crime entailing interpersonal violation not only reflect ruptures in the social fabric but also contribute to social disorganization. In exploring the traumatic impact of exposure to fairly pervasive criminality via the constructs of Fear of Crime (FoC) and Continuous Traumatic Stress the article explores some of the linkages between responses to crime and the facilitation or erosion of potentialities for social cohesion. It is argued that the common responses of fearfulness, suspicion and social withdrawal (as well as defensive aggression in some instances) are counter-productive to attempts to build pro-social organization. Consequently a rather intractable circular relationship may ensue in which the conditions that enable criminality are not challenged because indirect and direct exposure to violation, alongside perceived and actual deficits in formal state interventions, have eroded the motivation and capacity of citizens to tackle such conditions, leaving spaces open for violation to continue unchecked, Some of the complexities of thinking about forms of social cohesion as a route to challenge crime and its impact in South Africa are elaborated. It is emphasized that collective efficacy appears to be the aspect of social cohesion that is most pivotal in addressing this feature of society.

CIRCULAR NEIGHBOR REPLICATION

Distributed system rely on replication techniques t o tolerate data failure and site disconnection thus ensur-ing flexibility of the system so as to preser ve its dependability. The idea of replication is ro bust however practical implementation of the replication techniques is often rigid that would bring down system’s de-pendability and performance. This study intended to evaluate existing techniques and then develop a new technique which later will be compare d with the existing with the goal of to achieve better fault tolerance, dependability and performan ce in distributed systems. The new technique is constructed based on circular neighbor relationship and quorum-based protocol. The consistency and integrity of the replicated data that involved writ e and read operations on the replicas is ensured us ing Replica maintenance protocol. This techniques focus ed on synchronous solution as for its quorum execution or commitment protocol showed higher reliability and convenience to avoid conflicts compared to asynchronous solution.

Acting to understand and understanding to act

Purpose – To establish the essential centrality of a circular relationship between acting and understanding, and a role learning plays in this circularity, with special reference to Aristotle's phronesis and sophia. The purpose of this paper is to establish a position. Design/methodology/approach – The argument is made through critical, cybernetic analysis and argument. Findings – The argument reconceptualises key relationships in the approach to understanding the world, and in education. Research limitations/implications – Research implications are not explored: the argument attempts to lay groundwork for other and later work. Originality/value – The argument establishes a cybernetic circular causality to replace the currently preferred linear causality.

Feeding unrest

While both academics and politicians have long acknowledged the connection between food price shocks and so-called ‘food riots’, this article asks whether rising domestic consumer food prices are a contributing cause of sociopolitical unrest, more broadly defined, in urban areas of Africa. In order to unravel the complex and circular relationship between rising food prices and unrest, an instrumental approach with country fixed effects is used to isolate causality at the country-month unit of analysis for the period 1990 through 2012. Two instrumental variables, changes in international grain commodity prices and local rainfall scarcity, are evaluated and used individually and jointly as instruments for changes in domestic food prices. The main finding is that a sudden increase in domestic food prices in a given month significantly increases the probability of urban unrest, especially spontaneous events and riots, in that month. Undeniably, more fundamental economic and political grievances are also drivers of such events and are likely to determine how the unrest ultimately manifests, even when triggered by rising food prices. Although more research is necessary to determine why people choose particular protest methods and targets, the findings of this research provide evidence that sociopolitical unrest of different types is driven, or at least triggered, by a consumer response to economic pressure from increasing food prices regardless of the cause of the increase.

선교적 교회론과 예배

Missional ecclesiology is a theology emphasizing that the churches should recover the missional nature to overcome the problems such as enfeeblement of the church itself and its influence on the world. This theology contributes to stimulate the churches to do a role of missional people in the world. However, as of now it is a little difficult to measure the accomplishment of it, though the theology itself has a propriety. Also, it shows a tendency that its strategy lacks actuality. In relation to this, this paper tries to stress that the missional ecclesiology needs to consider the ministry of worship to make the theology be more active. One important factor of missional ecclesiology is no other than ‘lay people’ who should live the life of witness in the world. If they are not empowered and trained well, there is no agents to carry out the missional duty outside the wall of the church. In this situation, this paper supposes that the ministry of worship is the most crucial ministry of empowering and training God’s missionary people. So this paper emphasizes that worship is the major source and goal of mission at the same time, and there is an intimate relationship between the missional church and worship. For this purpose, this paper investigated the background and emphases of the missional church, and considerations needed to be pursued in the theology. One major concern of missional ecclesiology is to recover the public influence of the gospel in the world. For this purpose the missional ecclesiology needs to consider the ministry of fostering the church members. Due to this reason, this paper found out that the ministry of worship is the most suitable place where the people are trained for missional work. Also it found out that there is an intimate circular relationship between mission and worship which orients towards each other. This paper does not provide the detailed ways of carrying out worship. Rather, it provides the following basic directions for effective worship for the missional church. First of all, worship needs to become a place where worshippers can encounter God and empowered by Him. Furthermore, during the time of worship they should be trained to become the missionary people in the world. Then they can live a life of witness revealing the reign of God as light and salt. In conclusion, the missional church would be actualized effectively when it pursues and carries out the ministry of worship in which people are empowered to live a life of witnesses. This study is expected to contribute to help the missional ecclesiology have a more balanced view of the church.

Towards Dynamic Social Security in South Korea

AbstractSince the 1997 economic crisis, the Republic of Korea has seen considerable progress in its social security system along with relatively high economic growth. The social security system has been reformed to become more redistributive and comprehensive. Nevertheless, the country has experienced growing income inequality and poverty, raising future concerns about the sustainable growth of the national economy. The deterioration in welfare outcomes can be explained as a result of socioeconomic structural changes, including globalization, post‐industrialization and an ageing society. Another important reason is that the social security system has not effectively addressed increasing income inequality reflecting the dualism of the labour market: there are many irregular and self‐employed workers who are not covered by social security programmes. With the social security system faced with institutional difficulties in coping with increasing social risks driven by the impacts of socioeconomic and structural changes, reform is necessary to enhance social cohesion against growing labour market inequality. There is a need for “Dynamic Social Security” to provide an institutional foundation which supports the virtuous circular relationship between economic growth and distribution.

Will the Bail-in Break the Vicious Circle Between Banks and their Sovereign?

In December 2013 the European Commissioner Barnier, presenting the Single Resolution Mechanism for the resolution and recovery of banking crises, said it will "break the vicious circle between banks and their sovereigns". But is there any vicious circle? And if so, will resolution tools be able to break it? In literature, the circular nature of the relationship between banking and sovereign debt crises has not yet been properly addressed. Indeed, most papers exclusively focus on one channel of transmission, either quantifying the effects that banking crises have on public finances or analyzing when banking crises may cause sovereign debt crises (or vice-versa). In this paper we propose a computational approach to quantify the effects of this circular relationship and to highlight how sovereign and bank riskiness may increase because of their interconnection. We quantify the effects of bank distress on the banking system itself, passing through the higher public deficit induced by State support, and the subsequent haircut in government bonds. We then test the effectiveness of the bail-in tool proposed in the Single Resolution Mechanism context. The method is tested on four European countries. Results show that, while limited crises tend to be absorbed by the system, serious crises tend to exacerbate at each turn, so that it becomes impossible to stop them without external intervention. Moreover, results show that a bail-in of 8 % of total bank balance sheet can be really effective in breaking the vicious circle and preventing contagion between banks and public finances. This finding supports the bail-in as a valid instrument to avoid taxpayers paying the bill of banking crises.

Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics ed. by Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams (review)

Reviewed by: Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics ed. by Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams Anthony Celano Tobias Hoffmann, Jörn Müller, and Matthias Perkams, editors. Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. x + 275. Cloth, $95.00. The main question addressed in this volume is to what extent did Thomas Aquinas “deal with and depend on Aristotle’s Ethics” (1). The editors and contributors discuss the setting and intent of Thomas’s commentary (Sententiae supra libros Ethicorum) on the text of Aristotle, which was likely completed during his magisterial activity at Paris in 1271–72. They consider various scholarly opinions on the commentary, including those concerning its date of composition and whether Thomas expresses his own views, or merely provides a careful exposition of Aristotle’s text. An important topic for all contributors is the consideration of the commentary in light of Thomas’s theological treatises, especially the Summa theologiae, in order to understand how Thomas’s reading of Aristotle’s moral philosophy contributes to his own understanding of important issues in ethics. The first two articles by Terrence Irwin and Michael Pakaluk discuss the accuracy and general approach of Thomas toward Aristotle. Both rightly indicate that Thomas does not approach Aristotle in the manner of a modern scholar who seeks faithfully to explain the text, but rather as a way to discover truth. Although Thomas always attempts to comprehend Aristotle’s thought thoroughly, he does not hesitate to indicate its limits when compared to religious belief. Thomas is generally reluctant to criticize Aristotle directly and often provides a charitable reading for controversial ideas. When discussing the question of the possibility of perfect beatitude, Thomas claims that Aristotle refrained from such a discussion in Ethics, because the fate of the separate soul belongs to a different science. Irwin concludes that we ought to take Thomas seriously as a historically accurate interpreter of Aristotle, even if he does introduce un-Aristotelian topics, such as the will, into his understanding of Aristotle (30). Jörn Müller’s article builds upon his earlier work on Albert the Great on the relation between happiness and beatitude. Müller claims that Aristotle offers “not one unified account of happiness, but rather a ‘two-fold happiness’” (55). Albert did indeed accept the notion of two distinct types of happiness (duefelicitates), but Thomas rejects this interpretation in favor of one that views Aristotelian eudaimonia as the single perfection of human beings within a lifetime. Müller indicates the importance of the qualification by Aristotle that human beings can only be beati ut homines for Thomas’s view that perfect beatitude may be attained in the afterlife (62). Here Müller believes that Thomas seems brazenly to ignore Aristotle’s designation of the contemplative life as perfect happiness. Thomas, however, did not have so much difficulty in showing that the philosophical life does not meet the criterion for ultimate finality and self-sufficiency, since he finds support in Aristotle’s own [End Page 376] text. In book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle does indeed find human contemplation lacking in comparison to the perfect continuous activity of divine beings. Human beings cannot engage in perfect activity since they always must tend to biological and social needs. Contemplation is perfect in that it actualizes the supreme potential within the human soul (nous), but it is not perfect without qualification. Eight of the remaining nine articles consider individual virtues and their treatment in Thomas’s commentary and in his more systematic theological works. The contributors agree that Thomas’s astute interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy does not unduly limit his ability to draw upon various sources to arrive at his own conclusions. A particularly important essay concerns the virtue of prudence (phronesis), which Tobias Hoffmann discusses clearly and accurately. Hoffmann correctly identifies synderesis, the innate habit of recognizing universal moral principles, as an important element in Thomas’s own thought. Through synderesis, Thomas anchors prudence in natural reason, rather than in the moral virtues themselves, and thereby avoids a circular causal relationship between desire and reason (174). Hoffmann emphasizes the importance of particular judgments, or the minor premises, in the...

Representational Practices at the International Criminal Court: The Gap between Juridified and Abstract Victimhood

They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented. (1) Karl Marx I REPRESENTATIONAL PRACTICES AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT Representation is one of most ingrained practices at International Criminal Court (ICC). (2) ICC defense counsel engage in probably best known practice of representation by directly representing interests of accused. But prosecutor and chambers also represent: The prosecutor prosecutes and chambers adjudicate on behalf of--at minimum--all states that have ratified Rome Statute of International Criminal Court (Rome Statute). (3) If court has jurisdiction over a situation pursuant a UN Security Council referral, prosecutor and chambers also act on behalf of all member states of United Nations. This article focuses on a more novel practice of representation in criminal law: practice of speaking, directly or indirectly, for of crimes. Like other practices, practice of representation produces effects. (4) Political and social theorists have studied effects of practice of political representation. As this article will show, some of their insights illustrate effects of legal representation as well, despite formal differences in representational practice. One such insight is that, as Hanna Pitkin explains, representation is re-presentation, a present again that is not merely a literal bringing into presence but a making present in some sense of something which is nevertheless not present literally or in fact. (5) For Pitkin, representational practice is characterized by absence of object of representation: Some other entity carries out this act of making present, introducing a rhetorical space where claims are made on behalf of absent constituents. (6) In field of law, practices of representation also allow various actors stand in for others and make claims on their behalf. Unlike defendant, a disembodied concept such as the state or the community is not physically present in courtroom. When constituents are absent, representation produces what Pierre Bourdieu refers as an effect: A spokesperson gives voice group in whose name he speaks, thereby speaking with all authority of that elusive, absent phenomenon. (7) In politics, Bourdieu writes, a whole series of symbolic effects ... rest on this sort of usurpatory ventriloquism, which consists in giving voice those in whose name one is authorized speak. (8) The oracle effect that is produced through representational practices of speaking on behalf of others thus entails an appropriation or usurpation of voices (and indeed authority) of represented. This oracle effect is evident at ICC as well. When prosecutor prosecutes or judges adjudicate crimes--whether they do so on behalf of states that have ratified Rome Statute, or on behalf of member states of United Nations, or even on behalf of the victims of crimes--these actors simultaneously give voice to and appropriate voices and authority of those they claim represent. But relationship between representative and represented is more dynamic than one in which representative merely usurps authority from represented: The relationship is mutually constitutive. As Bourdieu argues, representative is both constituted by and constitutes represented group: It is because representative exists, because he represents (symbolic action), that group that is represented and symbolized exists and that in return it gives existence its representative as representative of group. (9) This circular relationship between representative and represented exists in law as well. While representative relies upon represented entity confer representative's authority, represented entity--whether a defendant, a victim, crown, or international community--relies upon representative make it present. …

Kant and the Subject of Critique: On the Regulative Role of the Psychological Idea by Avery Goldman (review)

Reviewed by: Kant and the Subject of Critique: On the Regulative Role of the Psychological Idea by Avery Goldman Apaar Kumar Avery Goldman. Kant and the Subject of Critique: On the Regulative Role of the Psychological Idea. Bloomington-Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2012. Pp. xii + 249. Paper, $27.95. The general concern of Avery Goldman’s thought-provoking study is to investigate whether Kant’s epistemology rests on metaphysical claims regarding the subject and the object. More specifically, the question is: Kant presumes a “seemingly uncritical” (27) conception of experience in order to articulate the subjective conditions that make such a notion of experience possible; but does he ever justify his initial assumption? Contra Hamann and Hegel, who deny that Kant provides such a justification, Goldman claims to “unlock the presuppositions of [Kant’s] celebrated analysis of the cognitive faculties” (3) by showing that such an analysis presupposes the metaphysical idea of the subject taken as a regulative principle. In tandem with Kant interpretations that take the Critique of Judgment as completing the project of the Critique of Pure Reason, Goldman argues that the boundary between the noumena and the phenomena, which limits finite cognition to the sensible and enables the critique of illusory metaphysics, is given not in an a priori necessary way by determinate judgment, but by “reflective judgment … directed by a regulative principle” (185). According to Goldman, Kant says in §76 of the third Critique that possibility differs from actuality only in finite cognition and “implies” (50) that our finite cognition may be dependent upon a regulative idea of reason. Pursuing this implication further, Goldman finds somewhat indirect evidence in the first Critique (A683/B711, A771–72/B799–800) to suggest that the psychological idea—the hypothetical but non-contradictory concept of the self as a “simple substance that can distinguish spatial appearances from the merely temporal activity of its thinking” (171)—serves as the regulative basis for the analysis of finite cognition. It performs this task by providing the act of transcendental reflection with the distinction between spatial objects and non-spatial thought, which then allows the speculative philosopher to explicate her faculties of cognition by “orienting” herself “in relation to her varied powers” (163–64). Goldman views this regulatively employed psychological idea that emerges from the “speculative inquiry into the soul” (171) as a response to what, in his judgment, is a circular relationship between Kant’s pursuit of metaphysics and his epistemology. The circularity lies in the fact that the psychological idea, or the unified subject as opposed to the object, forms the basis for the analysis of the faculties, even though this psychological idea itself arises out of a critique of metaphysics that follows from the analysis of the faculties (174). Goldman views this circularity as representing the “overarching methodology of Kant’s transcendental inquiry” (20), and opines that Kant himself embraces rather than denies it (179). This leads Goldman to conclude that while Kant’s theoretical system does not allow for an objective justification of its own starting point (180), it can nevertheless offer a “reflective systematization of the totality of our thought” including both empirical objects and metaphysical ideas that indeterminately guide the “unified account of the faculties of finite cognition” (184). Although Goldman’s argument is undoubtedly ingenious, his construal of circularity as the “key to understanding Kant’s elusive transcendental method” (2) could be considered problematic. As Heidegger points out, Kant is certainly open to the charge of circularity—the category of possibility is supposed to demarcate the realm of experience even when it is experience that enables the derivation of this category. Goldman, however, focuses on the circular relationship between understanding and reason (121–23, 132), and makes this relationship the occasion for arguing that the hypothetical use of the psychological idea of reason “directs the analysis of the understanding” (168). The problem with this argumentative trajectory is that no such circularity may exist between reason and understanding. One could argue that, in the first Critique, Kant starts by asking about the viability of metaphysics (Axii), and subsequently resolves this question through a critique of pure reason based on a new Copernican strategy in which we must “assume...

Music as Propaganda of Fascist Italy (1922–43)

Music and politics are both expressions of a given society, whose values they reflect and translate into action. This society's ideals are taken on in music theory and politics, and put into practice in music products and in the formulation and enforcement of laws and administrative measures. However, artists and politicians may also grasp in advance the social change in preparation, identifying important goals, and promoting them through their works. In doing so, they encourage and lead artistic and/or political movements that aspire to guide the evolution of society towards the desired goals. Because of the effect that music and politics have on society, and circularly suffer from it, I hypothesized and proved a circular relationship among them: 1) influencing the emotions of individuals and groups, music can stimulate them to take a specific political behavior, and 2) politics may affect the behavior of those who make music or listen to it, favoring or opposing the production and dissemination of certain styles or genres. Methodology: the research used either primary sources (writings, music pieces, and theatrical plays published by politicians, cultural exponents, and musicians) or secondary sources (works of historians, politicians, and musicologists).

The circular relationship between geographical and product diversification in Spanish MNEs

Diversification as a strategic response to global opportunities has become increasingly important for firms. Drawing on the Resource Based View of the Firm, this paper investigates these strategies by analysing a circular relationship between product and geographical diversification. The results, obtained from a sample of leading Spanish multinational firms, suggest that adaptation to a wide range of different countries hinders the necessary coordination of activities that related product diversification requires and vice-versa. In contrast, unrelated diversification strategies can provide financial synergies, experience and flexibility, which help the process of internationalisation. Simultaneously, greater geographical diversification allows each subsidiary to behave as an independent unit and to develop more efficient internal control systems and resource allocation.

Representations of women in music: what difference does difference make?

This article focuses on the interaction between feminist debates and music. It explores the way in which two musical texts, representing different musical genres and different racial and social contexts, confront issues of gender and sexuality by redefining instances of gender stereotyping. The argument is put forward that music may offer poignant insights into feminine subjectivity, reflecting the challenge and transformation of gender-related boundaries. It is argued that the musical text, in all its richness and ambiguity, is often a contested site of constructing meaning, and deserves close and critical scrutiny. The two musical texts discussed in this paper bring to the fore a circular relationship between ideology and representation in which each can create and reinforce the other. This means that musical texts have the potential to ‘speak back’, and to work against the grain of the power relations they unmask. Taking this position as a point of departure in a more general discussion of female resistance in recent forms of African popular music, difference is read as a source of power, which can function in musically nuanced ways as a form of public struggle against male domination – even though this may not always be obvious on first hearing. The paper culminates with a consideration of a long-standing trope in both European and African culture in which music is understood to be ‘a woman’.

The prospective relationship between role stressors and new cases of self-reported workplace bullying.

In line with the "Work environment hypothesis," role stressors have been proposed as important antecedents of bullying in the workplace. Only a few longitudinal studies on the relationship between role stressors and bullying exist, however, and earlier studies have largely been cross-sectional. The aim of the present prospective study was to determine whether role stressors at baseline predict new cases of workplace bullying at follow-up. A total of 2,835 Norwegian employees participated at both baseline and follow-up, with an interval of two years between the measurements. The study supports the hypotheses that role ambiguity and role conflict, independently, contribute to subsequent new reports of workplace bullying. However, there was a weak reverse effect: reporting being bullied at work at baseline predicted reporting increased levels of role ambiguity and role conflict at follow-up. Even though the results may indicate a circular relationship between the variables at hand, the weak reverse relationship seems to have little practical impact compared to the stronger relationship from role stressors to bullying. Hence, the results mainly support the hypotheses stating that role ambiguity and role conflict, independently, predict subsequent exposure to workplace bullying.

Introduction: Beyond the centrality of media and the centrality of space

Starting from the middle of the twentieth century human geography has allowed social sciences to escape the prison of Euclidean, abstract space. In that prison, social actors performed within an empty, static container known as “space,” which was more or less a background to their actions. This liberation had many fathers. We could quote Henri Lefebvre’s writings on spatial production (Lefebvre, 1991), Michel de Certeau’s notion of “space as practiced place” (de Certeau, 1984), and Yi–Fu Tuan’s (1976) treatment of “humanistic geography” among the most known “co–conspirators” of this escape. Breaking free of the notion of abstract space, meant to develop the powerful theoretical tool of socio–spatial production. Space emerged as a product of human interaction and at the same time as a context structuring those practices. By the mid–1980s, Massey expressed the circular relationship between space and the social in no ambiguous terms. “Space is a social construct ... [but] the spatial is not only an outcome: it is also part of the explanation [of social processes]” (Massey, 1984). Producing the space we inhabit meant that the more people were in a space, the more rapidly and often unpredictably it changed. And the more diverse the people, the more diverse the way they thought, and what they did in space. Therefore, the more rapid and unpredictable were the changes.