Literal Description Research Articles

The function of contextual knowledge: A videotaped class session in France

This paper concerns seeing; specifically, what should and what can be seen in a classroom situation in a progressive school in Paris. It focuses on a lesson given in a foreign cultural context and the possibility of documenting it and reconstructing it: first, as far as possible, unaffectedly and out of context, to achieve comparative and interpretative classroom research. The emphasis will be on the way the subject matter is set up and the role the learners assume. It will become apparent that technical recordings, which are helpful in allowing literal transcriptions and descriptions, tempt us into abandoning objectiveness, thereby overlooking certain facts and circumstances. Only contextual information that is subsequently acquired, and repeated considerations of the actions/practices of individual participants, will allow for a new perspective of observations. It is the possibility of videography that renders actions and reactions ‘visible’, revealing that which had formerly gone unnoticed.

Time-based modifications to process theory illustrations through a corporate rebranding case study

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop the lifecycle and teleology process theory illustrations by uniting processes and their outcomes based on their being bounded in time.Design/methodology/approach– The study combines objective and subjective ontological approaches to organisational development and change processes. The narrative data of corporate rebranding among small B2B companies were gathered through a multiple case study and analysed in relation to flow of time. The illustrations of teleology and lifecycle process theory are modified based on empirical data.Findings– The underlying logic of the lifecycle and teleology illustrations is found to be the same. The historical processes follow the logic of the lifecycle processes and emphasise the outcomes; the lifecycle process theory illustration is modified by adding outcomes. The current processes are in line with the literal description of the teleology. Teleology processes are illustrated using double-headed arrows between all processes.Research limitations/implications– Employing the objective and subjective ontological view in the same study might be questioned. The modifications to the process theory illustrations are only one view on the issue and the study does not take a stand on how the imagined future processes might be described.Practical implications– The study helps researchers and managers better understand the lifecycle and teleology process theory and the role of outcomes in process research. The study should encourage researchers and managers to incorporate the role of process outcomes into their future (business) planning more efficiently, and combine different ontological views.Originality/value– The study is a rare attempt to develop process theory illustrations.

An illustrated heuristic prototype facilitates scientific inventive problem solving: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Many scientific inventions (SI) throughout history were inspired by heuristic prototypes (HPs). For instance, an event or piece of knowledge similar to displaced water from a tub inspired Archimedes' principle. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this insightful problem solving are not very clear. Thus, the present study explored the neural correlates used to solve SI problems facilitated by HPs. Each HP had two versions: a literal description with an illustration (LDI) and a literal description with no illustration (LDNI). Thirty-two participants were divided randomly into these two groups. Blood oxygenation level-dependent fMRI contrasts between LDI and LDNI groups were measured. Greater activity in the right middle occipital gyrus (RMOG, BA19), right precentral gyrus (RPCG, BA4), and left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG, BA46) were found within the LDI group as compared to the LDNI group. We discuss these results in terms cognitive functions within these regions related to problem solving and memory retrieval.

Exploring the radio spectrum [Spectral Lines

In ancient times, before the Internet, the terms "print media" and "broadcast media" were pretty literal descriptions of the two main kinds of news organization. But journalism's steady migration to the World Wide Web has blurred the lines considerably. Nowadays, traditional broadcasters are putting up text stories and blogs on their websites. And <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IEEE Spectrum</i> and other historically print-centric media are producing videos, podcasts, slideshows, and radio shows. Each of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Spectrum's</i> radio segments, in fact, is being broadcast to some 4 million listeners across the United States via stations syndicated through the country's NPR network.

A Beaked and Feathered God

A Beaked and Feathered God

Partitioning of Amino Acids into a Model Membrane: Capturing the Interface

Energetics of protein side chain partitioning between aqueous solution and cellular membranes is of fundamental importance for correctly capturing the membrane binding and specific protein–lipid interactions of peripheral membrane proteins. We recently reported a highly mobile membrane mimetic (HMMM) model that accelerates lipid dynamics by modeling the membrane interior partially as a fluid organic solvent while retaining a literal description of the lipid head groups and the beginning of the tails. While the HMMM has been successfully applied to study spontaneous insertion of a number of peripheral proteins into membranes, a quantitative characterization of the energetics of membrane–protein interactions in HMMM membranes has not been performed. We report here the free energy profiles for partitioning of 10 protein side chain analogues into a HMMM membrane. In the interfacial and headgroup regions of the membrane, the side chain free energy profiles show excellent agreement with profiles previously reported for conventional membranes with full-tail lipids. In regions where the organic solvent is prevalent, the increased dipole and fluidity of the solvent generally result in a less accurate description, most notably overstabilization of aromatic and polar amino acids. As an additional measure of the ability of the HMMM model to describe membrane–protein interactions, the water-to-membrane interface transfer energies were analyzed and found to be in agreement with the previously reported experimental and computational hydrophobicity scales. We discuss strengths and weaknesses of HMMM in describing protein–membrane interactions as well as further development of model membranes.

The dialogics of metaphor and simile in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September

Metaphors and similes characterise Elizabeth Bowen’s writing. Despite frequent claims that this contributes to the lexical, grammatical and syntactic irregularities of her style and hence makes her writing difficult to understand, I show that her metaphors, similes and literal descriptions in a selected passage from The Last September function within conventional linguistic structures. While my analysis of metaphors and similes is conducted with reference to Bakhtin’s essay “Discourse in the Novel”, I use Martin and Rose’s model of Discourse Analysis (2007) and Steen’s study of metaphor in literature (1999) as practical tools for my analysis of the text. I discuss how ‘dialogic’ linguistic and pragmatic processes (in a Bakhtinian sense) influence the emergence of metaphorical meaning in Bowen’s novel and examine how the linguistic structures governing literal and metaphorical elements of description give rise to cognitive patterns which in turn serve to establish the novel’s theme by connecting the protagonist with her fictional setting in a meaningful way.

Plastic: A Toxic Love Story. By Susan Freinkel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. 324 pp.)

Everyday histories bear the stamp of the schools of history from which they originate. They can span a whole horizon reaching from material to social history to culture histories with their construction of the popular mind. Material histories must introduce the tools, goods, clothing, and dwellings of a people, they must place things in the context of values, customs, fashions, and sensibilities which determine their use and value. Likewise, material histories must describe the makers of goods but also identify the localities, regions, and commerce that exchanged them. Essential to everyday history is a literal description of the materials from which things were made and by which they were assessed in value. We need, for instance, to acknowledge in antiquity the role of bronze, which outfitted Goliath in his meeting with David and equipped Homer's heroic Achaeans before the walls of Troy in the eleventh century B. C. The source and the prestige of material is crucial for sorting out who is who, what is associated with what, and how places are tied together. This is all well done in a 2011 work, Robert Finlay's The Pilgrim Art, on cultures of porcelain in world history and the prestige Chinese ceramics, which lit the royal hearts and kilns of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe. If we are to touch, feel, and see everyday life, say in a nineteenth-century city, we must recognize the growing role of iron and steel, glass, cement and rubber.

New bencaological studies of traditional Chinese medicine after name "Doukou"

Lots of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shares the same Chinese common names "Doukou". Because of similar Chinese names, appearances, functions and original plants, there are still no compromise on the original plants of "Doukou" up to now. Moreover, "Doukou" referred to more than one source of species, that is, it might refer to the Chinese crude drug derived from different plants during different historical periods. In order to identify the original botanical plants of "Doukou" during different historical periods and the relationship between these "Doukou", new bencaological studies of TCM under the name "Doukou" were carried out, which included the studies on literal description, image description, market investigation and systematic botanical research. A suggestion was made to change the Chinese name "Doukou" (Amomi Fructus Rotundus) to "Baidoukou".

Prediction with Misspecified Models

The assumption that one of a set of prediction models is a literal description of reality formally underlies many formal econometric methods, including Bayesian model averaging and most approaches to model selection. Prediction pooling does not invoke this assumption and leads to predictions that improve on those based on Bayesian model averaging, as assessed by the log predictive score. The paper shows that the improvement is substantial using a pool consisting of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, a vector autoregression, and a dynamic factor model, in conjunction with standard US postwar quarterly macroeconomic time series.

Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian Art World (review)

Reviewed by: Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian Art World Anne Anderson, FSA (bio) Catherine Phillips, Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Victorian Art World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. xiii + 303, £75 cloth. As an art historian with a PhD in English, I was pleased to encounter an English scholar prepared to grapple with art history. But interdisciplinary studies are fraught with danger, and Phillips’s volume on Hopkins suffers serious flaws. Despite being “probably the world’s foremost Hopkins texts-cholar” according to Daniel Brown, Phillips does not engage with the critical approaches of art history or appreciate its conventions. Artists are cited without their full names, or birth and death dates; indeed, you would have to be well-versed in the art of the period to follow Philips, who fails to define adequately Pre-Raphaelitism, Aestheticism, or Realism. Rather than being Brown’s “accessible study,” both literary scholars and art historians would struggle with a densely packed text smothered by extraneous detail. Did we need to know that Gerard’s mother’s next youngest sister, Maria, married Gorge Giberne? Although Phillips demonstrates the wide artistic circles that Hopkins moved within, including his family, the mass of detail is overwhelming. Literal descriptions of works of art are not developed as critical analysis; for example, in reviewing the influence of his father, Manley Hopkins, we are given an account of a work entitled “W. Harvey/STORY without an END, March 184[3]?” While noting that the “work fits into Victorian interest in fairies,” Philips seems unaware that this is an illustration from Fredrich Wilhelm Carové’s The Story Without an End, translated by Sarah Austen (1834), which extols the endless beauty of Creation. Hopkins’s awareness of Carové’s story could provide valuable insight into the formation of both the poet and the artist. [End Page 446] Although the book’s structure is clearly laid out, progressing through headings including “Art Criticism,” “Gerard, Arthur and the Illustrated Press,” and finally “Theories of Vision,” Philips fails to provide an adequate introduction mapping out her purpose or progression. The Preface offers some biographical background, but we are not told of Hopkins’s tutoring by Walter Pater in 1866, at a time when Hopkins was most intensely interested in fine art, until much later. For the nonliterary specialist, Hopkins’s unique artistic vocabulary, which shows a concern with patterning and composition, is hard to comprehend; his interest in scales of colour and tonality clearly relate to contemporary aesthetic theory, but Philips does not expand on this. Instead, under Art Criticism we have Hopkins’s journals and letters juxtaposed with quotes from professional “journalistic” art critics Francis Palgrave, J.B. Atkinson of the Saturday Review, and Tom Taylor of the Times; we only discover the purpose of this exercise in the last paragraph of the chapter, when Phillips tells us that comparing what “Hopkins saw, read and wrote with some of the most widely read criticism of the day” shows “he was far more knowledgeable and his criticism far more complex and ‘professional’ than has been thought” (188). But surely a thorough understanding of Hopkins’s criticism or art appreciation could only be gleaned by casting a wider net, by including F.G. Stephens or the vitriol of Harry Quilter and Frederick Wedmore? Given Hopkins’s interest in Dante Gabriel Rossetti, he must have read Stephens, who did so much to promote Rossetti’s brand of Pre-Raphaelitism. In “Gerard, Arthur and the Illustrated Press,” we are given a comprehensive list of the periodicals that Hopkins read, digressions into the history of the Illustrated London News, and a résumé of Arthur Hopkins’s career as an illustrator. Phillips dismisses the Graphic as the purveyor of “gory pictures of war” and “upper-class social occasions,” failing to recognise in the importance of the periodical in the emergence of Social Realism. Ironically, Phillips goes on to position The Wreck of the Deutschland, Hopkins’s first major poem, within the context of the market for journalistic realism, concluding “the poem was . . . not just an account using the facts but also caught the emotion and attitudes expressed towards the catastrophe in the press” (218). [End Page...

Workplace-based assessment: effects of rater expertise

Traditional psychometric approaches towards assessment tend to focus exclusively on quantitative properties of assessment outcomes. This may limit more meaningful educational approaches towards workplace-based assessment (WBA). Cognition-based models of WBA argue that assessment outcomes are determined by cognitive processes by raters which are very similar to reasoning, judgment and decision making in professional domains such as medicine. The present study explores cognitive processes that underlie judgment and decision making by raters when observing performance in the clinical workplace. It specifically focuses on how differences in rating experience influence information processing by raters. Verbal protocol analysis was used to investigate how experienced and non-experienced raters select and use observational data to arrive at judgments and decisions about trainees’ performance in the clinical workplace. Differences between experienced and non-experienced raters were assessed with respect to time spent on information analysis and representation of trainee performance; performance scores; and information processing––using qualitative-based quantitative analysis of verbal data. Results showed expert-novice differences in time needed for representation of trainee performance, depending on complexity of the rating task. Experts paid more attention to situation-specific cues in the assessment context and they generated (significantly) more interpretations and fewer literal descriptions of observed behaviors. There were no significant differences in rating scores. Overall, our findings seemed to be consistent with other findings on expertise research, supporting theories underlying cognition-based models of assessment in the clinical workplace. Implications for WBA are discussed.

IP services and professional standards

How do you know if a firm of patent or trade mark attorneys, or any given member of those professions, is any good? Clients need an answer to this question, but they are not always sure who can tell them. Terms such as ‘leading firm’, ‘leading edge’, ‘respected practice’, ‘first-class service’, ‘exceptional value for money’, and ‘we address the individual needs of each client’ are more or less par for the course and, while truth in advertising is a value to which we all subscribe, through legislative provisions and case law, such terms are generally regarded as marketing puffs rather than as precise and literal descriptions. So if clients need more information, to whom should they turn? Many firms quote polls or awards in which they have been identified as Best Firm in some category or other, but anecdotal evidence derived from discussions with the firms in question suggests that they generally treat them with mild amusement rather than as precious accolades, probably since the statistical reality is that, in any year, Top Dog status is generally likely to be bestowed on one’s competitors. Ideally, a business in need of good IP representation should be

Senders, receivers, and genetic information: comments on Bergstrom and Rosvall

It is tempting to say that genes contain messages or instructions of some kind. For many, ‘‘tempting’’ is not the right word; this is something that modern biology has discovered and described. But the boundary between literal and metaphorical description is hard to work out in cases like this. Some of those who would insist on the enormous value of symbolic and computational description of genetic systems may find themselves adding that the goodness here is ultimately a goodness of metaphor. As I understand them, Bergstrom and Rosvall (‘‘B&R’’) are quite literalminded in their approach. They see their information-theoretic analysis as describing real features of genetic systems. They argue that the previous literature on this topic has failed to see these features because it has not approached the question in the right way. The right approach is decision-theoretic: ‘‘information theory is a decision theory of how to package information for transport, efficiently’’ (Bergstrom and Rosvall this issue). Within that framework, B&R assert the following view:

The education economics developing path in China: a study of mapping knowledge domains on the paper in Education and Economy from 1985 to 2008

It is a distinct trend in the development of education economics (EE) that accurate quantitative analyses are replacing vague literal description. In this paper, we studied 1,600 papers which were published on Education and Economy from 1985 to 2008, and analysed the 5,773 keywords of those papers based on multi-statistics. And the visible knowledge domain is first used to show the development track of EE in China vividly.

The role of theory‐constitutive metaphor in nursing science

The current view of theoretical statements in science is that they should be literal and precise; ambiguous and metaphorical statements are useful only as pre-theoretical, exegetical, and heuristic devices and as pedagogical tools. In this paper we argue that this view is mistaken. Literal, precise statements apply to those experiential phenomena which can be defined either conventionally by criterial attribution or by internal atomic constitution. Experiential phenomena which are defined relationally and/or functionally, like nursing, in virtue of their nature, require metaphorical description and explanation. In such cases, metaphor is theory-constitutive. Using insights from the philosophies of language and mind, and examples from nursing practice, education, and our own empirical research, we explore the nature of metaphor and its role in theory constitution. We argue that the apparent resistance of certain experiential phenomena to literal description and explanation is not necessarily indicative of pre-theoretic linguistic imprecision. We suggest, rather, that such resistance provides useful insights into the nature of such experiential phenomena. We also suggest that the aim of scientific theory should be methodological or epistemological precision and not merely linguistic precision.

Romantic Cosmopolitanism: Novalis’s “Christianity or Europe”

German Romanticism is commonly associated with nationalism rather than cosmopolitanism. Against this standard picture, I argue that the early German romantic author, Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772–1801) holds a decidedly cosmopolitan view. Novalis’s essay “Christianity or Europe” has been the subject of much dispute and puzzlement ever since he presented it to the Jena romantic circle in the fall of 1799. On the basis of an account of the philosophical background of Novalis’s romanticism, I show that the image of the Middle Ages sketched in “Christianity or Europe” plays a symbolic role and should not be taken as a literal description of the historical past or as a blueprint for the future. Rather, the romantic picture of medieval Europe serves to evoke poetically the ideal of a cosmopolitan re-unification of humanity.

Letter

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article LetterFull AccessLetterNissim Mizrachi Ph.D.Nissim Mizrachi Ph.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Mar 2008https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2008.59.3.329AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Special-Needs Soldiers in Israel: Another ViewTo the Editor: In a column in the November issue, "Efforts to Support Special-Needs Soldiers Serving in the Israel Defense Forces," Bodner and colleagues ( 1 ) claimed that "providing treatment and support to special-needs populations can decrease psychopathology and suicide rates." Their argument is based on a case study of MACAM (the acronym for the title in Hebrew of the Center for the Advancement of Special Populations). MACAM is a unique program for "special populations" recruited into the Israeli army. Bodner and colleagues' column draws heavily on my own work, which explores what I term "institutional ethnopsychology" in Israel ( 2 ). My use of the term ethnopsychology follows its use by Gaines ( 3 ), which should be distinguished from its more common usage in psychological literature as folk psychology (see Lillard [ 4 ]). As I apply it, "institutional ethnopsychology" refers to rehabilitation programs that are directed at managing selected ethno-class groups. In contrast, the psychological rationale for ethnopsychological models is fused with popular wisdom and cultural beliefs about social difference. Standard ethnopsychological programs treat sociocultural attributes "as cognitive, emotional, behavioural and structural characteristics of the individual … abstracted from the individual's social, economic, cultural and political context" ( 2 ). The models are normally applied by teachers, social workers, youth counselors, and others rather than by psychologists or psychiatrists. However, by focusing on an individual's disorders and pathologies, the models obscure the role of socioeconomic, cultural, and political forces in shaping social difference and hierarchies. My article showed how culturally ingrained beliefs about the Mizrahi population (Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin) are integrated into the therapeutic discourse and the logic of practice applied in the MACAM program ( 1 ). In my case, over 95% of MACAM participants were of Mizrahi origin and from disadvantaged neighborhoods. My analysis of ethnopsychology in the MACAM program thus referred to a set of beliefs about soldiers rather than to literal descriptions of the soldiers' condition. As presented in the column by Bodner and colleagues, my analysis has been substantially misread and misinterpreted, with these authors depicting MACAM soldiers as a group of random individuals suffering from mental disorders rather than a distinct ethno-class group suffering from social exclusion and marginalization. Bodner and colleagues' omission of the soldiers' ethnicity from their text is particularly striking given that their subject—suicide rates among special populations—has been closely linked to ethnicity ( 5 ). This blind spot raises interesting and relevant issues for readers of Psychiatric Services. One issue is the relevance of class, ethnicity, and social context to suicide rates. A second is the denial of ethnicity in a national therapeutic discourse and the resulting therapies. Third, ethnicity's absence provides an intriguing case of what happens when knowledge crosses disciplinary boundaries. In this instance, salient sociopolitical dimensions were filtered out. These issues hint at how much my work has been distorted in the transition. The impact of such issues on theory and practice deserve, I believe, further attention in Psychiatric Services.Dr. Mizrachi is with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

The White Mantle of Churches. Architecture, Liturgy, and Art around the Millennium (review)

The White Mantle of Churches. Architecture, Liturgy, and Art around the Millennium. Edited by Nigel Hiscock. [International Medieval Research, Volume 10: Art History Subseries 2.] (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers. 2003. Pp. xix, 283. Paperback.) One intriguing issue facing medieval historians is whether the passing of the millennium in the year 1000 had any connection with the birth of Romanesque architecture. Nobody can deny that the early years of the eleventh century brought a new and more ambitious approach to building, something that the contemporary chronicler Rodulf Glaber appeared to sense in his famous comment about the world shrugging off the burden of the past and cladding itself everywhere in a mantle of churches. But was the chronicler providing a literal description of church building or was the phrase white mantle of churches merely a metaphor for a new world order, brought about by monastic reform and political stability? The interpretation of Glaber's comments lies at the heart of several of the essays in this impressively produced collection, nine out of fourteen of which were delivered as papers at the Leeds medieval conference in a session designed to mark the year 2000. Several contributors review the nature of architectural activity on either side of the year 1000, the general thrust of the arguments being to emphasize continuity rather than sudden change. But the arguments are not really conclusive either way. Most of the key monuments have been destroyed or reconstructed, and precise evidence for building chronologies is rare. We are reminded that evidence is elusive, problems are notorious, interpretation is difficult, and questions are complex. It is perhaps inevitable, therefore, that the conclusions reached in some chapters are not as impressive as the display of learning (of 264 pages of text and illustrations, some fifty-nine are occupied by footnotes). Refreshing in its clarity is Carolyn Malone's study of St. Benigne at Dijon, that extraordinary building designed by Glaber's mentor, William of Volpiano, around the year 1000-01. As well as providing a succinct account of the design, the author deconstructs Glaber's text in a subtle and plausible way. The three levels of the rotunda, she argues, afforded access to God, expressed as light descending through its oculus while at the same time providing an anagogical framework for worshipers ascending upward through the various storeys to the light and altar of the Trinity. …

Unfinished Work

The cyborg that Donna Haraway appropriated in ‘Manifesto for Cyborgs’ as a metaphor for political action and theoretical inquiry has ceased to have the potency it did 20 years ago. While Haraway has turned from a central focus on technoculture to companion species, much important cultural work remains to be done, especially in networked and programmable media. Problems with the cyborg as a metaphor include the implication that the liberal humanist subject, however problematized by its hybridization with cybernetic mechanism, continues as a singular entity operating with localized agency. In a word, the cyborg is not networked enough to encompass the emergent possibilities associated with the Internet and the world-wide web and other phenomena of the contemporary digital era. Instead I propose the idea of the cognisphere. As operational concept and suggestive metaphor, the cognisphere recognizes that networked and programmable media are not only more pervasive than ever before in human history but also more cognitively powerful. It is closely associated with what many researchers regard as a major insight: the idea that the physical world is fundamentally computational. While these scientists regard computation as a physical process, the cultural critic is apt to see it as an over-determined metaphor. The binary choice between seeing the computational universe as a literal description of the physical world and reading it as an over-determined metaphor misses a crucial aspect of contemporary cultural dynamics: the interaction between means and metaphor, technology and cultural presupposition. Taking this dynamic into account leads to a more complete understanding summed up in the aphorism, ‘What we make and what (we think) we are co-evolve together.’