Messy Situation Research Articles

The Role of the Cosimpol Simulator in Mediating Dialogue for the Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has created widespread turbulence. We have witnessed how the lockdowns in South Africa negatively impacted the economy, resulting in unemployment and loss of livelihoods. Various sectors, including the education and tourism sectors, have been severely impacted and we are now seeing the myriad economic and social issues that are coming to the fore. It is clear that we are faced with a complex, messy situation, characterised by multiple stakeholders who hold diverse mental models and perspectives. The main aim of this chapter is to draw lessons for consideration by policy-makers in South Africa dealing with the pandemic, by understanding how the CoSimPol simulator model can be used in mediating dialogue for the COVID-19 pandemic. The model caters for multiple factors including bed capacity, hospital care, use of Personal Protective Equipment and non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing. From a conflict and peace perspective, a key contribution of this chapter is to demonstrate how models such as CoSimPol may be applied not only for predictive capacity in formulating policy, but more significantly ought to be used as transitional objects for dialogue between contending parties and positions.

Antipsychotics, Antiepileptics, and Fabrication: Are We Making It or Faking It?

Antipsychotics, Antiepileptics, and Fabrication: Are We Making It or Faking It?

Mirroring Corruption Epidemic in Nigeria via the Biblical Lens: The Role of the Church

Undeniably, the menace of corruption is perceived to have eaten deep into several phases of nations of the world; meanwhile, Nigeria is not an exception. The scope of this study is channeled basically towards the Nigerian context. The reality and actuality of corruption in Nigeria nation suggests that Nigeria still retains its popular known notch as the ‘giant of Africa’, being shortchanged for ‘giant of corruption’. Although, it can be argued that Nigeria is not the most corrupt country in Africa; its uniqueness being part of the corrupt countries is obviously glaring. It is not in any way an overstatement to say that corruption is the middle-name of Nigeria itself; with the fact that there seems to be no dailies in Nigeria media without a trending issue on corruption. With several religions in Nigeria (Islam, Christianity, African Religion); it is logical to ask why do corruption still prevails? Although ‘corruption’ is not a system of belief, it persists as a trending entity with many devotees, followers and disciples, having ingrained their mindset that the nation cannot function properly without corruption. The observed menace spurred the interest of this study, with specific attention to the Christian perspective. Christianity is one of the prevailing religious movements in Nigeria; therefore, the sphere of this research is in the Christian direction; how the Church can step in to help the messy situation. The temple of God (which is the Church) must be clean to restore the sanctity of the society. Observably, several Christians and Church leaders are with silence-syndrome approach and standing aloof mechanism to eradicate corruption; but worse is the case in the country. The fact that abstinence from secular activities (while trying to uphold Christian values as against corruption) is of no good effect is glaring; therefore, this research posits that the Church must exhaust all her platforms in speaking against corruption with Church leaders and Christians as worthy ambassadors of the Church.

Dark Side Case: No Smoke without Fire? The Power Play Between Employee Autonomy and Employer Authority

This case is the a story of a family-owned small- and medium-sized (SME) company “Steel Ltd”, which was founded around 30 years ago and employs approximately 100 people. The new generation of management has concentrated on developing processes, technologies and productivity extensively in the company during the last decade. One of their missions has been to improve employees’ productivity by pushing end enabling them to develop their physical condition and health. As part of their strategy, they launched strict smoking restrictions as the first step towards a smoke-free company. Unfortunately, disagreements between employees and management has increased alongside these actions. Many of the workers smoke, and as a result, smoking restrictions implemented by top management were one of the last nails on the coffin that inflamed the atmosphere in the company. This case leads us to examine the dynamics behind the chasm between owners & top management and employees and to consider different approaches and managerial practices that could mitigate the tensions and contradictions in the case company. Pedagogically, it particularly develops competencies that students need in working life: critical thinking, analyzing skills, communication skills, and problem-solving capabilities. It is an application of an in-basket exercise, where students need to gain understanding of a messy situation with contradicting views. In the assignments, students will consider ethical paradoxes, power structures and dilemmas of inclusiveness.

Structuring a System Dynamics Model using Group Model Building: Case Study on Flight Test Human Resources

This paper presents a method that allows capture and organization of mental models of all levels of Stakeholders in order to elaborate a System Dynamics Model closer to the reality and more effective on Strategy proposition. This is done through information raised on the application of Group Model Building (GMB), and using PSM specific tools, like Mental Maps and Cognitive Maps. All these tools allow merge opinions and elicitate knowledge from many stakeholders involved on the process. In order to demonstrate the method’s suitability, it was applied on a Case Study to develop a System Dynamics Model for the Flight Test Specialized Human Resources Career Flow. The method has five stages: first, recognize the Messy Situation; second, identify process Stakeholders; third, conduct Workshops and interviews applying Cognitive Maps and, then, GMB; forth, build collective maps presenting a collective point of view for all parts; fifth, build a System Dynamics Model effective and recognizable for all involved Stakeholders, ready to be used as a tool to Strategy proposition to solve the Messy Situation. Flight Test Specialized Human Resources Case Study results show both the model’s effectiveness and stakeholder commitment, based on the proposed method, proving its adequacy.

Immigration and Libertarianism: Open Borders versus Directionalism

To explain the correct libertarian approach to immigration, a thought-experiment posits a minimal-state libertarian UK and then the introduction of several relevant anti-libertarian policies with their increasingly disastrous effects. It is argued that the reverse of these imagined policies, as far as is politically possible, must be the correct way forward. This framing is intended to counter the tendency for many articles to misapply libertarian principles to the current messy situation on the mistaken assumption that a state need only stop interfering without rectifying or adjusting for its previous interferences. The relevant parts of various open-border texts are then criticised in light of this and for other errors, in particular for overlooking the likely huge scale of immigration as indicated by Gallup surveys. Additional criticisms are addressed in footnotes throughout. The conclusion outlines three broad options on immigration and suggests that directionally-libertarian policies are both more libertarian and practical than having states open their borders. The readers that might be interested in this subject matter include those engaging in libertarian philosophy, economics, and political theory.

Calibrating indices of avian density from non‐standardized survey data: making the most of a messy situation

SummaryThe analysis of large heterogeneous data sets of avian point‐count surveys compiled across studies is hindered by a lack of analytical approaches that can deal with detectability and variation in survey protocols.We reformulated removal models of avian singing rates and distance sampling models of the effective detection radius (EDR) to control for the effects of survey protocol and temporal and environmental covariates on detection probabilities.We estimated singing rates andEDRfor 75 boreal forest songbird species and found that survey protocol, especially point‐count radius, explained most of the variation in detectability. However, environmental and temporal covariates (date, time, vegetation) affected singing rates andEDRfor 73% and 59% of species, respectively.Unadjusted survey counts increased by an average of 201% from a 5‐min, 50‐m radius survey to a 10‐min, 100‐m radius survey (n= 75 species). This variability was decreased to 8·5% using detection probabilities estimated from a combination of removal and distance sampling models.Our modelling approach reduced computation when fitting complex models to large data sets and can be used with a wide range of statistical techniques for inference and prediction of avian densities.

Thinking with the Animal-Hacker


 
 
 In the depths of the Cumbria hills a dairy cow changes its route to stare deep into the camera lens of the ‘Environmental Virtual Observatory’ (EVO) (www.evo-uk.org). Downstream at 15 minute intervals organic matter is pushed through turbidity probes, sometimes causing the computation to glitch and upload its own movement into a data storage warehouse. In this muddy, messy situation of the EVO there is something lurking, something which might be described as the ‘Animal-Hacker’ the non-human animal, an entity that exploits the computational ecology, reconfigures it in an act of what Donna Haraway would describe as “worlding”.
 
 

The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction

The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction

Responsible recreation planning in Gatineau Park, Québec

Outdoor recreation management increasingly occurs in messy situations that are typified by contested or ambiguous goals and lack of agreement on cause–effect relationships. In Gatineau Park, Canada, a shift in park purpose from a nature park as presented in the 1990 Master Plan to a conservation park as presented in the 2005 Master Plan has created a dichotomy between park visitation and conservation and it has sparked significant discord about how to manage recreation in the park. In response to this messy situation, a recreation management planning process was initiated in 2008 and a modified rational/transactive planning approach was developed to guide phase one of the planning and public consultation process. Using Gatineau Park as a case study, the purpose of this article is to critically assess its utility for recreation management. The results provide lessons related to satisfying the dimensions of successful planning, increasing shared ownership, collecting negative feedback, testing proposed management actions and fulfilling Canada's public service bilingual requirements.

Living in the shadow of fear

Correspondence: Dr. Gurinder Bedi, Senior Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon, Fortis Flt. Lt. Rajan Dhall Hospital, Sector B, Pocket 1 Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi – 110070. E-mail: gbedi24@aol.com doi: 10.1016/S0976-5662(11)60046-5 position while putting a femoral prosthesis in, has most likely lost his argument not to mention his composure. The case will eventually finish, but what he really ends up with is an immense amount of ill-will from his co-workers and a frozen group of people who will eventually never endeavor to help him out in a messy situation or point out any obvious flaws when the time comes. No suggestions will be forthcoming, no extra assistance will be made to ease the job, no nurturing of a fertile mind will happen in that kind of environment. Indifference will eventually creep in with a “WHY SHOULD I BOTHER?” attitude. With a lack of environment which allows praise and criticism in balanced amount, no progress or new learning will take place. The payback will happen when the same people will subsequently build a culture akin to this with their own junior colleagues when they are in a position of authority. Then there are also familiar cases of postgraduate students cringing to finish their thesis on subjects in which they have no interest but have been told by their guides to do so for various reasons. The threat of thesis rejection looms large on their heads everyday if they annoy their guides. All these are very common scenarios. Why should a postgraduate student not pick up a thesis of his or her choice, obviously in consultation with the guide? The lack of professional appreciation is endemic in our culture. The appreciation that a one time resident can be respected as a colleague seems totally lost. We are possibly fortunate that things are improving in our region but from tales coming from other regions we have a long way to go. It is time we realized that not having a scissor which cuts well, not having another bone clamp or not having a broad dynamic compression plate is not the fault of the scrub nurse. These issues need to be discussed at the time of indenting material the next time material is being procured, and submitting lists of instruments well in time so that the issues are not repeated. Have the courage to raise these issues with the owner of the nursing home or the director of your hospital rather than the poor nurse who has no say in the matter. Why do we keep hauling up residents for system failure in a hospital establishment, instead of addressing the administrative staff? Unless we realize this and start appreciating other professionals and the job they do, we will never build a good work environment which is mutually beneficial to all of us. It is neither befitting nor appropriate that any person coming to work should be abused either verbally or physically. Is it not reasonable to expect that they be granted a certain standard of respect and work appreciation, which they deserve? Being a junior should not put any person at a disadvantage or make them vulnerable to abuse. It is up to the team leaders, Senior Consultants, Heads of Departments to condone such behavior and if not able to, then there should be another option for the victim to get redressal. In most cases it just involves discussion with the perpetrator. If there is a valid reason for reprimanding an individual, it needs to be done in a civilized manner, and definitely not by shouting at them in the middle of a ward. We must develop the confidence in our colleagues to deliver a certain level of Living in the shadow of fear

Multilateralising regionalism: what role for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?

The Asia-Pacific region is home to a large and rapidly growing number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). These agreements differ widely in design, scope and purpose. The “noodle bowl” that has resulted runs the risk of distorting investment and trade. Neither global institutions (the WTO) nor regional institutions such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping have successfully addressed these issues. Amidst this increasingly messy situation, the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement stands out for a range of important economic and political reasons, not least of which is its potential to take existing PTAs in the Asia-Pacific region in a new direction. The aim of the TPP negotiators is to produce a comprehensive, high quality, multi-party agreement to tame the tangle of PTAs and be a potential stepping stone to achieving the goal of liberalizing regional trade on a non-discriminatory basis. The economic gains from removing border barriers among the countries involved in the initial TPP negotiations are likely to be limited, however, given the small size of many of the economies and the existing PTAs among them. To date, the US has been unwilling to offer a single set of arrangements for all TPP partners, preferring to build on existing bilateral agreements. Pessimism about the immediate results from the TPP should be tempered, however, by considerations of the dynamics that it might set in train; on the other hand, it has the potential to divide the region and exacerbate China's concerns about “containment”.

Corporate America Still Doesn’t Get it

America is facing the worst economic debacle since the Great Depression of the 1930s. She is, however, not alone in this journey. Most countries, tied up in our global economy today, are also feeling the Tsunami effect of this financial crisis. In this paper, the root causes leading up to this messy situation are studied. Some short term measures to fix such problems are also discussed.

After-Hours Lessons in Democracy

Billy Wilder's 1948 film A Foreign Affair portrays the messy situation of the U.S. occupation in Germany in its early stages as a love-triangle with an American army captain caught between a Nazi siren and a congresswoman from Iowa, the latter on a mission to expose just such incidents of moral-political corruption among the occupation forces. The captain's superior explains to the congressional delegation the challenges of civilizing a country in which the U.S. Army at first found only “open graves and closed hearts” as well as the dilemmas of asking the same generation of soldiers to both defeat and restore a country. In One, Two, Three (1961), Wilder's tale of the Cold War troubles of a Coca-Cola manager in Berlin, the corporate approach to advertising American values and beating the Russians is sufficiently authoritarian for the manager's wife to refer to him as “ mein Führer” and for his German employers to know just what to do. The Germans in Wilder's films are converted to American ideals less by the offerings of democracy than by consumer goods.2

Medicine as a corporate enterprise, patient welfare centered profession, or patient welfare centered professional enterprise?

There is an alarming trend in the field of medicine, whose portents are ominous but do not seem to shake the complacency and merry making doing the rounds.The wants of the medical man have multiplied beyond imagination. The cost of organizing conferences is no longer possible on delegate fees. The bottom-line is: Crores for a Conference Millions for a Mid-Term. However, the problem is that sponsors keep a discreet but careful tab on docs. All in all, costs of medicines escalate, and quality medical care becomes a luxury. The whole brunt of this movement is borne by the patient.Companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, Schering-Plough, Abbott Labs, TAP Pharmaceuticals, Wyeth and Merck have paid millions of dollars each as compensation in the last few years. The financial condition of many pharmaceutical majors is not buoyant either. Price deflation, increased Rand D spending, and litigation costs are the main reasons. In the future, the messy lawsuits situation would no longer be restricted to industry. It would involve academia and practising doctors as well. Indian pharma industry captains, who were busy raking in the profits at present, would also come under the scanner. If nothing else, it means industry and docs will have to sit down and do some soul searching.Both short and long-term measures will have to be put into place. Short-term measures involve reduction in i) pharma spending over junkets and trinkets; ii) hype over ‘me too’ drugs; iii) manipulation of drug trials; iv) getting pliant researchers into drug trials; iv) manipulation of Journal Editors to publish positive findings about their drug trials and launches; v) and for Indian Pharma, to conduct their own unbiased clinical trial of the latest drug projected as a blockbuster in the West, before pumping in their millions.The long-term measures are related to the way biomedical advance is to be charted. We have to decide whether medicine is to become a corporate enterprise or remain a patient welfare centered profession. A third approach involves an eclectic resolution of the two. Such amount of patient welfare as also ensures profit, and such amount of profit as also ensures patient welfare is to be forwarded. For, profit, without patient welfare, is blind. And patient welfare, without profit, is lame. According to this approach, medicine becomes a patient welfare centered professional enterprise.The various ramifications of each of these approaches are discussed in this monograph.

Current status of the proposals for unification of notations and guidelines for data presentation in the EMR Area: Blueprint for future actions

The tremendous development of the electron magnetic resonance (EMR), i.e., electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), electron spin resonance (ESR), and related spectroscopic techniques, and their applications in a number of fields is accompanied by a rather messy situation in the underlying theoretical framework. This is especially true concerning the EPR of transition ions in crystals, where an abundance of notations and lack of widely accepted clear definitions of the basic theoretical concepts characterize the current situation. As a consequence, proliferation of a number of terminological misconceptions and incorrect relations for the zero-field splitting parameters has taken place. Major problems detrimental for the future of EMR as well as the efforts aimed at alleviating these problems are reviewed. Rationales for coordinated activities in three major directions are outlined. This includes unification of spin Hamiltonian notations, unification of EMR nomenclature, and making better use of the various categories of data generated during EMR studies.

Current Status of the Proposals for Unification of Notations and Guidelines for Data Presentation in the EMR Area. Blueprint for Future Actions

AbstractFor Abstract see ChemInform Abstract in Full Text.

Situations and Interpretations: Explorations in Interpretive Practice

Interpretation has long been a central problem for linguistic and cultural analysis. Given that conceptual categories never completely fit the messy situations of everyday life, how do people make sense out of situations in ways that make sense to others? How do they articulate the meanings they derive from the streams of experience around them? Much of the literature that has focused on these issues has emphasized the ways in which interpretation is overdetermined by the political, economic and social contexts in which it takes place. Such analyses often run counter to the life experiences of the interpreters themselves. On the other hand, analytic approaches that reduce interpretation to pre-established rules, routines and frames often emphasize the notion of shared norms of interpretation. They hence fail to address the fact that acts of interpretation take place within situations that are experienced sometimes as routine, sometimes as unique and unrepeatable, but which are always bound by local histories and social relations. One way to examine such problems is to look into the lives of those actors socially charged with responsibilities for interpretation: diviners whose proclamations articulate cultural meanings and reproduce social structures, journalists who must turn strips of experience into reportable and consumable events, healers who must convert visual signs and oral reports of subjective experiences into diagnoses and treatments, bureaucrats who must translate the life experiences of clients into legalistic categories. This collection of articles is an initial effort to engage with practice, the ways that routine procedures, cultural categories, and social positions come together in particular instances of interpretation. By paying special attention to the discourses through which actors articulate their own experiences, the authors of these articles explore ways anthropology can understand practices of interpretation as habitual but indeterminate, strategic and situational. They thus seek to present insights into the lives of those charged with the task of interpretation, to offer an ethnography of interpreting which reveals insights into not only the process of interpretation itself, but also into the cultural fault lines that are exposed by the interpretation process. Interpretation as Practice The role of interpretation as central to anthropology has its roots in Weber's notion of verstehen, and his insistence on the centrality of the hermeneutic tradition in the analysis of social interaction (Weber 1949, 1968). But it is also rooted in the pragmatic linguistics of Bronislaw Malinowski. Malinowski's efforts to discover the meanings of magical formulae led him to the realization that interpretation is a process that subsumes translation; indeed, he argued, mere translation is, in fact, impossible. In order to translate anything one must recreate the social and cultural context in which the item to be translated exists, and this requires considerable rhetorical work (Malinowski 1966). For anthropologists writing ethnographic accounts, it is often easier to use untranslated vernacular terms unapologetically, hoping that the reader will come to an understanding of what they mean once they have completed the monograph, and assimilated the broad context in which these materials live. However, the focus on interpretation in the social sciences has tended to center on the role of scholars in people's actions ex post facto. The process of constructing causal narratives and structural models for explaining human action often sidesteps the issue of how these patterns are realized in everyday life. A central problem for anthropology involves exploring how people make sense of the world around them from messy situation to messy situation, managing ambiguity, repairing misunderstandings and negotiating meanings. The articles in this collection address this problem by studying people who do kinds of interpretive work-ethno-interpretive work, if one likes. …

Dorothy Quick: Mark Twain's 'Little Fish'

Dorothy Quick (1900-1962) was one member of Mark Twain's small group of young girls that he called his little fish and Club. He especially liked being with these pre-pubescent girls and amusing and teaching them. Of all these little fishes and members of a two-person Aquarium Club, Dorothy seemed in many ways be the most satisfying and promising of all Twain. He taught her all he could about becoming an author, as she did with some success. Though she did not become a major authorwas really only a minor one-her career and accomplishments in their own right and especially because of her relationship with Twain should be of collateral interest Twain scholars, those interested in minor figures in American literature, and especially those students of crime fiction. Her association with Twain was nicely catalogued in her book Enchantment: A Little Girl's Friendship with Mark Twain (1961), published near the end of her life when she had the advantage of looking back over her career and its association with her mentor, and subsequently republished as Mark Twain and Me (1999). In her reminiscences Dorothy was eager say that Twain had been a major influence on her: From SLC [as she liked call him], I learned reading and writing; but I learned even more than that, for I learned, too, the simplicity that goes with greatness and it was a lesson I never forgot. Twain's influence seems have been in a general way, with genuine love on her part for the older man she almost worshipped but going on her own way as author and person thinking about life. There is no mention of Mark Twain, or a person like him, in any of her writings other than a line or two in her poetry which might loosely be likened him. She may have developed similar interests because of her association with the older man but she surely developed her own ideas about the Hereafter and the pleasures of Heaven. She was self-reliant and pragmatic, apparently devoid of any of Twain's humor or cynicism but with a strong will which drove her speak her mind as she pleased. This personality resulted in pleasing and interesting books in poetry, crime fiction, and drama. Early on in their relationship Twain stirred Dorothy's desire write and told her that she had the talent if she had the determination. He shared his writing with her, got her involved in it as co-author and participant, and in so doing ignited a spark that might otherwise not have flamed. Once, he had written, or half-written, a story in the tradition of Frank Stockton's Lady or the Tiger, in which the hero is about open a door and be rewarded with a beautiful lady or eaten by a ravenous tiger. In his story Twain's hero had been held up by a robber in the woods as he was on his way see his fiancee and had had his trousers stolen. Seated in his carriage with his lap robe covering his nakedness, the hero looked respectable. But as he drove, his carriage came upon his impatient fiancee earlier than expected, and she insisted that since they were in a beautiful spot they should picnic where they had met. The hero was reluctant get out of the carriage and horrify his fiancee but felt he could not explain his unwillingness. The hero had worked himself into such a messy situation that there seemed no way out for him. Twain read the story Dorothy and asked how they might get the hero out of his predicament. Dorothy pondered the situation a minute, then wrote the solution. She had the hero reach over and prick the horse in the flank and then the horse ran away. Before he came back, the hero secured new trousers, returned his fiancee and thus saved his love affair and fortune. Twain was delighted with the solution and told Dorothy: There's no doubt about it, Dorothy. . . . Anyone with that much imagination would have be [an author]. At that point Twain formed the Author's League of two-himself and Dorothy. He was teach her what he knew about writing and she instruct him in what she knew-which was, to be young, as Twain said (74-75). …

On Muscle and Joint Viscosity

A rather messy situation exists in the motor control literature with the notion of muscle and joint viscosity. The source of the confusion lies in attempts to study human movement using a simple mechanical concept that was proposed for uncomplicated objects such as a gel or gas. Although A.V. Hill (1938) wrote, “The 'viscosity' hypothesis must be dismissed” (p. 193), the concept of muscle/joint viscosity is still very popular in the literature. Distressingly, the reported values of muscle/joint viscosity differ greatly. Eleven dissimilar “viscosities” are briefly discussed. They represent disparate characteristics of the human motion system. It seems that the concept of viscosity is inadequate for describing motor control phenomena.