Reciprocal Dialogue Research Articles

Hyperacetylation of Microtubules in Mesenchymal Cells Increases Cytokeratin 14–Positive Epithelial Progenitors in Developing Salivary Glands

Cells engage in bidirectional communication with their surroundings. This reciprocal dialogue between cells and their cellular microenvironments often governs the maintenance and differentiation of stem/progenitor cells. Here, the authors present evidence that in developing salivary gland explants, a single posttranslational change in microtubules in mesenchymal cells alters the mesenchymal microenvironment and promotes the maintenance and differentiation of a subset of epithelial progenitor cells that impairs branching morphogenesis. Specifically, the authors report that hyperacetylation of microtubules in mesenchymal cells increased cytokeratin 14–positive (K14+) progenitors and their differentiated progeny, myoepithelial cells, in epithelial basal and suprabasal layers in the distal endbud region of developing salivary glands. Mechanistically, this process engages the transforming growth factor β1 protein and Notch signaling pathways. This report establishes that a simple posttranslational change in the cytoskeletal system of mesenchyme dictates the maintenance and differentiation of adjacent epithelial progenitor cells to alter branching morphogenesis of the epithelium.

Axial and limb muscle development: dialogue with the neighbourhood.

Skeletal muscles are part of the musculoskeletal system which also includes nerves, tendons, connective tissue, bones and blood vessels. Here we review the development of axial and limb muscles in amniotes within the context of their surrounding tissues in vivo. We highlight the reciprocal dialogue mediated by signalling factors between cells of these adjacent tissues and developing muscles and also demonstrate its importance from the onset of muscle cell differentiation well into foetal development. Early embryonic tissues secrete factors which are important regulators of myogenesis. However, later muscle development relies on other tissue collaborators, such as developing nerves and connective tissue, which are in turn influenced by the developing muscles themselves. We conclude that skeletal muscle development in vivo is a compelling example of the importance of reciprocal interactions between developing tissues for the complete and coordinated development of a functional system.

The Public Hearing and Law-Making Procedures

This article examines the institution of the public hearing in contemporary constitutional systems. After considering the public hearing in light of the concept of deliberative democracy, the authors present various normative and practical measures implemented in selected countries. It is claimed that public deliberation affects the quality of legislation and makes it more legitimate. The public hearing as a stage in the legislative procedure requires a mature reciprocal dialogue between individuals and the state authorities as well as a readiness to reach appropriate decisions. The authors argue that to make the public hearing more effective, the law-maker or its organs should have a duty to inform the opinion about the extent to which the public proposals have been taken into account.

Genetically Modified (GM) Mosquito Use to Reduce Mosquito-Transmitted Disease in the US: A Community Opinion Survey.

Introduction: Mosquito-borne infectious diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, and now Zika, pose a public health threat to the US, particularly Florida, the Gulf Coast states, and Hawaii. Recent autochthonous transmission of dengue and chikungunya in Florida, the recent dengue outbreak in Hawaii, and the potential for future local spread of Zika in the US, has led to the consideration of novel approaches to mosquito management. One such novel approach, the release of sterile genetically modified mosquitoes, has been proposed as a possible intervention, and a trial release of GM mosquitoes is being considered in one Florida community. However, this proposal has been controversial. The objective of this research was to increase understanding of community knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding mosquito control and GM mosquitoes. Methods: An 18-question self-administered survey was mailed to all households in the identified Key West, Florida neighborhood where a GM mosquito trial has been proposed. This survey was fielded between July 20, 2015 and November 1, 2015. The main outcome variable was opposition to the use of GM mosquitoes. Measures included demographic information and opinions on mosquitoes, mosquito control, and vector-borne diseases. Results: A majority of survey respondents did not support use of GM mosquitoes as a mosquito control method.Discussion: Reasons for opposition included general fears about possible harmful impacts of this intervention, specific worries about human and animal health impacts from the GM mosquitoes, and environmental concerns about potential negative effects on the ecosystem. Residents were more likely to oppose GM mosquito use if they had a low perception of the potential risks posed by diseases like dengue and chikungunya, if they were female, and if they were less concerned about the need to control mosquitoes in general. These findings suggest a need for new approaches to risk communication, including educational efforts surrounding mosquito control and reciprocal dialogue between residents and public health officials.

Expression of microRNAs and isomiRs in the porcine endometrium: implications for gene regulation at the maternal-conceptus interface.

BackgroundEmbryo implantation is a complex, synchronized process that requires establishment of a reciprocal dialogue between a receptive endometrium and developing blastocysts. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs), known to modulate gene expression through post-transcriptional mechanisms, were implicated in regulation of early pregnancy events including maternal recognition of pregnancy and implantation. To characterize complex transcriptomic changes, expression of miRNAs in pregnant and cyclic endometria collected on days 12, 16 and 20 was analyzed using Illumina deep sequencing and analyzed with bioinformatic pipeline. Moreover, expression profiles of ten genes related to miRNA synthesis and transport such as DROSHA, DGCR8, XPO5, DICER, TARBP2, TNRC6A, and AGO1-4 were determined.ResultsAmong genes involved in miRNA transport and synthesis DROSHA, XPO5, DICER1, TARBP, and AGO1 expression was affected by the reproductive status. Moreover, DICER1 and AGO2 proteins were localized in luminal and glandular epithelium with immunofluorescence staining. Several hundred mature, canonical and non-canonical miRNAs were found to be expressed in the endometrial samples. Detailed analysis revealed that miRNA length variants, isomiRs, accounted for the vast majority of defined sequences. Both miRNA and isomiR of miR-140-3p were shown to affect expression of putative targets in endometrial stromal cells in vitro. Computational analysis of putative target genes for miRNAs differentially expressed (DE) between pregnant and cyclic animals resulted in lists of biological processes and regulatory pathways indicating their role in cellular development, cell cycle, immunological response and organismal development. Among predicted target genes for DE miRNAs, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), progesterone and estradiol receptors (PGR, ESR1) and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) were found.ConclusionsThis research revealed a repertoire of pregnancy-related miRNAs in porcine endometrium during initial stages of conceptus implantation and during the estrous cycle, and sheds light on mechanisms regulating miRNA-mediated gene expression at the maternal-conceptus interface.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-2172-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Dialogic interactions in the cooperative classroom

Attention in recent years has turned to the key role talk plays in mediating students’ learning when they work cooperatively together. There is no doubt that talk, albeit by the teacher or peers, has the capacity to stimulate and extend students’ thinking and advance their learning. Teachers do this when they encourage students to engage in reciprocal dialogues where they exchange information, explore issues, interrogate ideas, and tackle problems in a cooperative environment that is supportive of these discussions. In turn, students learn to listen to what others have to say, consider alternative perspectives, and engage critically and constructively with each other's ideas by learning how to reason and justify their assertions as they cooperate together. This study involved three Year 7 teachers and 17 groups of students (3–5 students per group) from their classes. The teachers had agreed to teach two units of cooperative, inquiry-based science across two school terms. All three teachers had been trained to use a dialogic approach to teaching designed to challenge children's thinking and learning. This paper presents examples of both teachers’ and students’ dialogic interactions and discusses the complementarity of these discourses even though the teachers used slightly different dialogic approaches in interacting with their students.

Evaluating Citizens’ Participation in the Urban Heritage Conservation of Historic Area of Shiraz

Abstract Today, citizen participation (CP) has become a global issue for mobilizing untapped human resources, and it has spread across the field of Urban Heritage Conservation (UHC). This study aims to examine an indicator-based approach for the subjective evaluation of CP practice in UHC initiatives in Shiraz. It employs a questionnaire survey of 384 residents who engaged in the UHC initiatives. Finding, particularly, demonstrated that participants desire to attend in a group discussion when the discussions are: respectful; possess mutual trust; respect to different points of view; equal opportunity to speak; offer common good; reciprocal dialogue; have a feedback communication.

Reciprocal Dialogue Between Educational Decision Makers and Students of Color

Purpose: This article explores the possibilities for reciprocal dialogue between educational decision makers and Students of Color. Such dialogue—defined as interactions in which participants build on each other’s words—may provide the means to develop creative ways to address manifestations of systemic racism in education. The article uses the concept of Third Space to investigate how educational decision makers responded to a group of high school Students of Color advocating for change. Research Method: The data for the article come from two studies investigating the influence of the students in the group, who were engaged in youth participatory action research. The analysis focuses on interviews conducted with decision makers who attended the group’s presentations. Findings: The analysis revealed that many educational decision makers responded to the group’s presentations in ways that limited the potential for future reciprocal dialogue with students. These decision makers’ responses most often focused on aspects of the students’ performance at presentations. In contrast, the responses that promoted reciprocal dialogue, which were rare, focused on the content of the presentations. Implications for Research and Practice: The study identifies discursive preconditions of reciprocal dialogue—an aspect of Third Spaces—and demonstrates the potential of such dialogue in challenging systemic racism in education. In light of these insights, future research should examine (a) the relationship of reciprocal dialogue to possibilities for shared decision making and (b) the ways that such decision making may challenge or fail to challenge aspects of systemic racism in education.

What Henry Gave to William

What Henry Gave to William Hannah Wells Upon reading William James’s Pragmatism in 1907, Henry James wrote to his brother, “I was lost in the wonder of the extent to which all my life I have unconsciously pragmatised” (qtd. in Perry 428). Expressing more adoration than consent, Henry’s praise of his brother’s work seems to outpace his comprehension of it. “I can’t now explain,” he writes, “save by the very fact of the spell itself (of interest and enthrallment) that the book cast upon me; I simply sank down, under it, into such depths of submission and assimilation that any reaction, very nearly, even that of acknowledgment, would have had almost the taint of dissent or escape.” Noting this correspondence, Ralph Barton Perry provides a pithy summation of the intellectual relationship between the two brothers: “Henry let William do his philosophizing for him” (429). Two years later, after reading William’s A Pluralistic Universe, Henry would again write to his brother: “It may sustain and inspire you a little to know that I’m with you, all along the line—and can conceive of no sense in any philosophy that is not yours!” (qtd. in Perry 428). Suffused with awe, Henry’s praise is both an affectionate act and a statement of submission, a gift of himself that also gives philosophy to his brother. This confessional stance is a consistent feature of Henry’s work. The younger brother communicates with the elder less through reciprocal dialogue than through narratives given, stories of the self. Appropriating Henry’s most affirming statements about William’s philosophical work, a number of scholars read the fiction of Henry in the light of William’s pragmatist philosophy. Framing pragmatism as a formative impulse for literary innovations of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, these critics tend to present Henry’s fiction as a practical extension of William’s pragmatism. Ross Posnock’s The Trial of Curiosity, most notably, identifies a pragmatist aesthetic exemplified by The American Scene.1 In addition to this work’s groundbreaking reading of Henry’s late prose, Posnock’s study provides a critical lens through which the praxis of pragmatism might itself be understood as an aesthetic. The result (in Posnock’s work and [End Page 34] elsewhere) is an increasingly refined description of Henry’s aesthetic engagement with modernity that doubles as a description of the liberatory potential associated with pragmatist philosophy. Extending this logic, more recent scholarship incorporates work by writers as diverse as Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Wallace Stevens, finding in pragmatism a philosophical matrix that is especially useful for isolating formal continuities in American literary history while dispensing with those older models of literary inheritance that seek to streamline and consolidate national and cultural traditions through the implication of homogeneity.2 Emphasizing pragmatism’s embrace of the particular as a mode of resistance to ideological certainty, identity politics, and imperialist aggression, these projects tend to elaborate on Posnock’s original claims. Henry, the argument goes, is a more pragmatic pragmatist than his elder brother, fulfilling William’s call by abandoning William’s nostalgia for a willful, cohesive self. What if we were to reverse this narrative, focusing instead on what Henry gave to William? Rather than reading Henry’s most experimental prose as fulfillment of the impulse that inspired philosophical pragmatism, what if we were to find in Henry’s prose a more self-conscious, even critical, response to the philosophical conclusions of his brother? To do so is to raise questions about pragmatism and its legacy as well as the younger brother’s aesthetic practices. Rather than using one to account for the other, this line of inquiry places Henry’s prose and William’s philosophy in contemporaneous and generative relation to one another. It also makes visible the extent to which many of the protagonists of Henry’s late short stories, particularly the ones he wrote in the decades before and after The American Scene, have at least as much resemblance to William as they do to Henry. Posnock’s reading of Henry’s embrace of modernity is masterful, particularly its emphasis on the...

Words that Fly Back and Forth Between Two Mutually Oblivious Worlds: What is the Legal Meaning of an “Indigenous Way of Life”?

This article highlights the trajectory of indigenous peoples’ territorial claims when they appear before certain international and regional authorities that protect human rights. It demonstrates that the right of indigenous peoples to have their ways of life respected is a misguided and hollow response to their claims, at best approximate and ambiguous. However, the right to communal property of ancestral lands and essential resources entrenched by international courts, even if it directly echoes back to indigenous claims, is formulated in a specific language and vocabulary and according to categories defined by the dominant society. As a consequence, rights derived from this process are confined to an intrastate pluralism, since they are shaped by sources of law defined by member states that have signed regional charters and conventions protecting human rights. In the absence of a reciprocal intercultural dialogue that would facilitate a mutual circulation of ideas in the language and based on the beliefs held by indigenous and non-indigenous peoples – the only real tool for effective decolonization – the initial hypothesis, that the communal right to ownership facilitates the decolonization process, is partially invalidated.

In the Name of Comparative Constitutional Jurisprudence: The Consideration of German Precedents by South African Constitutional Court Judges

Judges involved in constitutional adjudication often engage in comparative analyses of foreign cases. The judges of South Africa's Constitutional Court [hereinafter Constitutional Court] do so, too. The phenomenon has been given many names such as “transjudicialism,” “transjudicial communication,” “constitutionalist dialogue,” “judicial globalization,” “constitutional cross-fertilization,” “transnational contextualization,” “globalization of judgment,” “globalization of national courts,” “constitutional borrowing,” “constitutional comparativism,” and “judicial comparativism.” All these terms have merit, especially within their appropriate context, but for the purposes of this contribution we will use the term “comparative constitutional jurisprudence” to name the phenomenon we wish to describe and discuss. First, in the South African context, the terms “dialogue,” “cross-fertilization,” and “globalization” do not reflect the true nature of the exercises in drawing comparisons in the South African Constitutional Court. These terms imply a reciprocal dialogue between two or more courts from different jurisdictions. It is evident, however, that the South African Constitutional Court has been considering far more foreign jurisprudence than any non-South African constitutional court has been considering South African jurisprudence—in other words, this has largely been a case of one-way traffic.S v. Makwanyane, in many ways the inaugural decision of the Constitutional Court, contains 220 foreign case citations from 11 countries and three supranational courts. To our knowledge no other foreign court can boast a comparable statistic.

Myelin-based inhibitors of oligodendrocyte myelination: clues from axonal growth and regeneration

The differentiation of and myelination by oligodendrocytes (OLs) are exquisitely regulated by a series of intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms. As each OL can make differing numbers of myelin segments with variable lengths along similar axon tracts, myelination can be viewed as a graded process shaped by inhibitory/inductive cues during development. Myelination by OLs is a prime example of an adaptive process determined by the microenvironment and architecture of the central nervous system (CNS). in this review, we discuss how myelin formation by OLs may be controlled by the heterogeneous microenvironment of the CNS. Then we address recent findings demonstrating that neighboring OLs may compete for available axon space, and highlight our current understanding of myelin-based inhibitors of axonal regeneration that are potentially responsible for the reciprocal dialogue between OLs and determine the numbers and lengths of myelin internodes. Understanding the mechanisms that control the spatiotemporal regulation of myelinogenic potential during development may provide valuable insight into therapeutic strategies for promoting remyelination in an inhibitory microenvironment.

Cinema and Contact: The Withdrawal of Touch in Nancy, Bresson, Duras, and Denis by Laura McMahon

in a chef’s coat and toque made for him by his grandmother foreshadow his destiny. But is it easier to start from scratch, as Michel did, or to inherit an empire and try to stay on top? Entre les Bras is divided into seasons, a fitting and logical setting for a film about food and life. The story comes full circle, in the course of a year, from spring to spring, showing four generations of family interact with one another around food. Sébastien works on his own signature dishes, telling his own story, built on the time spent with his grandparents on their farm. One touching scene shows Sébastien alone in the kitchen creating a dessert that he later calls his own chemin, or pathway, using elements from his childhood: bread (his dad), milk skin and chocolate (his mom), and blackberry jam and Laguiole cheese (his grandmother ). He seems truly at peace with the completion of this dish. He must find his own way. He knows this and his dad knows this. The changing of the guard occurs as the viewer watches Michel take down his photos and mementos and put away his notebooks filled with recipes and drawings. Sébastien’s notebooks and a final scene of Alban, Sébastien’s son, cooking in the kitchen with his grandfather , wearing a miniature chef’s coat and toque, replace them. Michel’s work is not yet finished. From one of the first scenes, showing the plating of Michel Bras’s signature dish, Gargouillou, to the beauty of the Aubrac sunrises and sunsets , this is a stunningly beautiful and poignant story of the humans behind the creation of legendary food. Durham Academy (NC) Teresa Bell Engebretsen MCMAHON, LAURA. Cinema and Contact: The Withdrawal of Touch in Nancy, Bresson, Duras, and Denis. London: Legenda, 2012. ISBN 978-1-907975-03-5. Pp. xi + 176. $89.50. McMahon joins the conversation among film scholars who argue to include senses other than sight, in particular that of touch, in theories of film viewing. Generally speaking this group holds the common objective of moving beyond the traditional psychoanalytic model of spectatorship that emphasizes vision, identification , and fusion. In her introductory remarks McMahon details her agreements and disagreements with other theorists of embodied spectatorship and suggests that her approach brings a new element to the discussion by bringing cinema into a reciprocal dialogue with philosophy. Following the observation that although film always invites a sense of touch, it also simultaneously refuses viewers the physical act of touching, McMahon turns to philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy in whose writings (a number of which concern film) she finds an elaboration of the nature of touch that resonates with the relationship between viewer and film. In Nancy’s view of the world, touch can be understood as a mode of contact that exists solely as “interruptive contiguity”— simultaneously being both in touch with, and separated from, ourselves and others—entities being with each other, side by side, but never fused. Bringing together these reflections leads McMahon to her central contention that “cinema offers a privileged space for understanding touch as a figure of withdrawal, discontinuity , and separation rather than [...] as a marker of immediacy, continuity, and presence” (2). 1250 FRENCH REVIEW 86.6 Chapter 1 examines more closely Nancy’s desire, like that of the filmmakers examined here, to “untie cinema from the realm of representation in favor of a logic of exposure, and a paradoxical thought of the (un)touchable” (33). McMahon devotes a chapter each to reading Nancy “in tandem” with selected films of Robert Bresson, Marguerite Duras, and Claire Denis. These cineastes differ stylistically— modernist ascetic (Bresson), avant-garde counter-cinema (Duras) and synesthetic formalism (Denis)—but all “combine an emphasis on touch, materiality, and sensation with anti-representational forms of cinema which privilege visual ellipsis and narrative discontinuity,” elements which in turn emphasize “psychological illegibility” (3–4). In short, this trio utilizes techniques that cause disruption of touch/contact between onscreen entities as well as between film and viewer. McMahon deploys touch as a motif of separation (disruption) to scrutinize the treatment of key themes in each director (the logic of incarnation in...

Mobilising high-quality knowledge through dialogic environmental governance: a comparison of approaches and their institutional settings

An increasing tendency to classify environmental issues as ‘wicked’ has seen a wavering confidence in models of ‘resource management’ in favour of models of ‘environmental governance’. This has come with an attendant shift in epistemological perspectives for the mobilisation of knowledge in support of society’s collective deliberation and decision-making, with governance fields increasingly espousing a ‘dialogic’ approach. Looking through an ‘interactive governance’ lens, this article reveals a diversity of different forms of dialogue for the mobilisation of knowledge, before focusing on those forms that: a) are inclusive of all knowledge systems; b) bring together knowledge through reciprocal dialogue; c) allow for the negotiation of knowledge quality in terms of ‘credibility, salience and legitimacy’. To this end, it unpacks and compares three specific approaches for the dialogic mobilisation of knowledge; deliberative democracy, collaborative learning and post-normal science.

Nature of Conflicts, Tensions and Exploitation in Sharecropping in Rural Sindh

This paper explains the causes of conflicts and tensions in sharecropping relationships, the nature and level of exploitation. It explains the immediate as well as root causes of conflicts that emerge between sharecroppers and landlords. Life-world of peasants of Sindh has been explored at village, sub-regional and regional level. It was found that the historical systemic structures of exploitation still exist in its refined form in peasant life-world. Peasant life within village and among village peasants is relatively peaceful. Conflicts emerge or take serious turn when outside systemic agents get involved in issues related to sharecropper and landlord. Historically property rights given to big landlords and feudal lords by imperialistic forces while snatching the indigenous right of peasants to self-cultivation, is the root cause that has spawned several sub-systemic pathologies in the life-world of peasants. Absentee landlordism, Kamdaari system, debt bondage, social bondage, system of Kann, landlessness, adulterated hybrid seeds, and issues of Sanad are some of the sub-systemic evils that have emerged over the years. All such sub-systemic structures put bigger and influential landlords into strategic advantage over the sharecroppers, particularly landless peasants; the imbalance that perpetuates “permanent liminality” suppresses reciprocal dialogues and discourages mutual negotiations. Outside systemic factors like SHO-Landlord nexus or Feudal-Police-Tapedar troika play central role in conflict creation and exacerbation in landlord-sharecropper relationship leading to bloody conflicts, caste wars, tribal feuds and honor-killings, thus, further differentiating and alienating life-world and the system rural Sindh.

Prototype Design of a Coloured Primary School (Sichuan - China)

Primary schools play a key role for the educational and emotional growth of the children through playing. Nowadays, educational systems tend often to complicate formative procedures by piling activities over activities with not so encouraging results, trying to help children grow prematurely, in the hope to boost human intelligence beforehand by fostering competition as a value for society's growth. More often than not, the result is that the act itself of playing is no longer a chance to discover the surrounding world and to gain further consciousness of things by direct experience, because it is accounted as an activity for “diversion” and escape. This dynamics lead children to be treated as miniatures of adults and their daily lives to be shaped like imitations of those of grown-ups, at the risk of producing work stress and fostering education ineffectiveness. The key ideas in the here presented project are conceived to enable children to live, experience and shape their own world and to encourage them to gain knowledge by first-hand experience. This objective has been pursued through a suitable integration between service architecture and adjacent exteriors. With this aim, the buildings layout has been designed featuring parallel bars of different lengths and depths. The idea here is to let buildings and space adjust themselves to different necessities by enabling them to assume different forms, lengths, widths, and even mutual relations within the lot. Exteriors and built forms challenge one another and fall into a reciprocal dialogue, thanks to specific spaces at their intersections further outlined by different heights. This principle brings consequences to both urban integration and sustainability. One reason for this is that mechanical and technological systems are assumed to be at the very center of contemporary design and thus to require to be embodied in the visual composition, in order to enable architecture to radiate its own light and colors and dialogue

Cross-Talk between Tumor Cells and the Microenvironment at the Metastatic Niche

This review presents recent information about the cross-talk between the tumor cells and the microenvironment in the target organ of metastasis at the premetastatic and metastatic stage. The development of metastatic foci is driven not only by the tumor cells intrinsic properties, but also by the interplay with resident and foreign cells located at particular niches in the target organ. The primary tumor modulates the metastatic target through the production of soluble factors that mobilize cells from distant organs like the bone marrow, which in turn localize in the metastatic niche. There is also strong evidence indicating that some primary tumors induce a fertile ground for the tumor cell at the target organ even before the arrival of the disseminated tumor cell (premetastatic niche). The relationship between the players of the metastatic setting is dynamic and shows a high degree of plasticity. Tumor cells change through the acquisition of genetic and/or epigenetic alterations that provide adaptive advantages and the metastatic niche is remodeled by incoming cell types or newly secreted soluble mediators, as a result a reciprocal dialogue is established that invokes new levels of molecular and cellular complexity. Unraveling the mechanisms that sustain the metastatic niche will allow a better understanding of the biology of the disseminated tumor cell, the design of new therapeutic approaches and, hopefully, the improvement of cancer patients' survival.

Esmail Khoi: The Poet as Observer and Creative Explorer

This article focuses on how Esmail Hkoi poetically inhabits the world of his poetry as an observer and visionary explorer. Its aim is to make manifest how he engages his readers in reciprocal poetic dialogues to communicate his unique vision of the lived world. The dialogic function of his poetry is then examined as the ground of emergence of an experiential poetic mode of knowledge of the human condition. The article also considers Khoi's poetry as work done in the fields of language, alchemically transmuting everyday language of communication into poetic discourse. Finally, an analysis of his poem “To the Aged Mulberry Branch” explicates how Khoi can create a world of imagination whole and entire unto itself by his minimalist approach to poetry.

INTER‐ETHICS: TOWARDS AN INTERACTIVE AND INTERDEPENDENT BIOETHICS

Since its origin bioethics has been a specialized, academic discipline, focussing on moral issues, using a vast set of globalized principles and rational techniques to evaluate and guide healthcare practices. With the emergence of a plural society, the loss of faith in experts and authorities and the decline of overarching grand narratives and shared moralities, a new approach to bioethics is needed. This approach implies a shift from an external critique of practices towards embedded ethics and interactive practice improvement, and from a legal defence of rights towards fostering interdependent practices of responsibility. This article describes these transitions within bioethics in relation to the broader societal and cultural dynamics within Western societies, and traces the implications for the methodologies and changing roles of the bioethicist. The bioethicist we foresee is not just a clever expert but also a relationally sensitive person who engages stakeholders in reciprocal dialogues about their practice of responsibility and helps to integrate various sorts of knowledge (embodied, experiential, visual, and cognitive-scientific). In order to illustrate this new approach, we present a case study. It concerns a project focusing on an innovation in elderly care, based on the participation of various stakeholders, especially older people themselves.

Beyond the Story Itself: Narrative Inquiry and Autoethnography in Intercultural Research in Higher Education

STENHOUSE's (1981) differentiation between research on education and research in education contributed much to the development of practitioner research in educational settings, yet exemplars of university teachers researching their own practice are rare. Even rarer, in spite of pleas from international for reciprocal dialogue with local academics and students to recognise the value of many different realities and knowledges (KOEHNE, 2006), are practitioners who reflect critically on the personal and professional impact of cultural diversity in higher education (BRUNNER, 2006). In this article, I critique how a narrative inquiry paradigm supported and challenged me to explore different realities and knowledges about learning and teaching in a UK higher education context in my doctoral research with postgraduate students from many different cultures. Practitioner research is, inevitably, an iterative process—research and practice are inextricably linked and continuously evolving. Thus, the autoethnographic exploration of my own practice, my subject positions, social locations, interpretations, and personal experiences continue to be examined through the refracted medium of narrators' voices (CHASE, 2005, p.666), glimpses of which will be seen as the article unfolds. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901308