Richer View Research Articles

Learning throughout a continuum, an innovative and feasible educational agenda!

In this new special medical education issue of Military Medicine, we find a wide array of interesting and timely research about challenging topics in medical education. One of the themes that immediately emerge is the interest, the exploratory effort, and the curiosity to further investigate clinical reasoning and its multifaceted aspects from a variety of dimensions such as preclerkship assessment, neuroimaging, and various educational methods. The research performed in such an area certainly contributes to the current literature but more importantly, paves the way to new thinking in learning and assessing clinical reasoning skills. We can appreciate the longitudinality of the research presented in this special issue. In a time where the Association of American Medical Colleges 1 and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education are stressing the importance of developing a true medical educational continuum, the series of articles in this edition that link the educational journey before, during, and after medical school contribute a great deal to show how building knowledge on pre-existing knowledge, stemming from a constructivist approach, 2 is a key educational, effective yet feasible paradigm. Exploring premedical school measures and their association with board certification is a clear effort by Durning et al to investigate in depth new aspects of such educational continuum. The variety of educational methods that span from the use of CIP by Capaldi et al to the multistep examination by Hemmer et al applied to clinical reasoning to the innovative use of concept maps in TBL by Knollmann-Ritschel provides a quick yet rich view of a research agenda aiming at the investigation of new collaborative, active learning tools to foster learners’ growth. The innovation and the breadth of learning strategies utilized and described in this issue are testimony to the continuous exploration of active and new learning strategies. One key issue I wonder about is whether some of the results or learning methods described in this issue can be generalizable to other schools. We are all aware that learning is contextual and that context plays a major role in all aspects of learning. Research about learning tools such as CIP, multistep examination, or concept maps, under the guidance of experienced educators, can certainly be implemented in other institutional environments. It might be argued that the organizational structure of Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) may facilitate the follow-up and longitudinality of these studies related to career outcomes; however, other institutions can certainly work on developing a robust system to follow the educational path of their graduates, perform rigorous studies, and obtain long-term career outcomes. Such outcomes can then be compared across institutions and may assist the educational community to make important curricular decisions. Furthermore, the USU experience can serve as a motivation and as an example for many other educational institutions to systematically design and accomplish more studies aimed at career development and outcomes. Finally, the continuous pursuit of innovation in the use of learning methods in crucial areas of medical education, for example, clinical reasoning, coupled with assessment of long-term career outcomes, is a core and integral part of this issue and is a testimonial to the commitments of USU educational researchers and leadership to pursue the road less traveled while furthering true discovery and growth.

Understanding artefacts related to human aspects: The case of information technology and systems

This article has two aims. One is to critique and expand Stafleu's ideas about artefacts. The other, which may be seen as a demonstration of this expansion, is an outline of a rich view of the type of artefact that is information and communication technology (ICT) and its use in human life as information systems (IS). ICT is a kind of artefact that is more complex than those covered by Stafleu’s idea, and it has been considered in at least five ways: the artificial intelligence question of what is the computer, the computer question of the generation of software libraries, the question of how to develop good information systems, the question of benefits and harm when using ICT, and the question of impact that ICT and society have on each other. An important sixth question is about the varied nature of research into all the above, which goes beyond Stafleu’s idea of scientific research to include design, interpretive and critical research. For each of these questions, a brief outline of mainstream approaches is followed by an approach based on various parts of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. The final two sections consists of a discussion of the assistance that Dooyeweerdian philosophy can offer in these six areas and, in turn, how research in these areas might contribute to Dooyeweerdian philosophy.

Explicating the Reverse Internationalization Processes of Firms

ABSTRACTReverse internationalization (RI) is a crucial phenomenon in a world of globalization; however, research on RI remains scarce. In light of the 2008–2009 economical global crises, many internationalizing firms worldwide have deinternationalized. Given that scholars and functionaries have been sending warning signals about imminent global crisis, revisiting the RI domain and its drivers is a timely and important research area.This study uses a qualitative approach with a prime objective of exploratory work and theory development of RI. The study explicates the RI phenomenon further, proposes a broader RI conceptualization and an operational definition, and develops propositions and a model to direct future research and assist managers. Grounded in data emerged from field in-depth interviews of senior managers, findings show that RI emerges as a multifaceted formative construct reflecting a reduction in firms’ activities on one or more explicit dimensions. Various internal and external factors foster RI. Since firms apply sophisticated forms of international involvement, RI domain should address its wide-ranging forms with a clearer and richer view that facilitates its conceptualization. Managers learn to pay attention to likely scenarios where episodes in internationalization may arise and lead to RI and of ways to approach them.

Introduction: Psychology and Culture

Although there might seem to be a natural continuity and interplay between the cognitive sciences and the social sciences, the integration of the two has, on the whole, been fraught with difficulties. In some areas the transition was relatively smooth. For instance, political psychology is now a well-recognized branch both of psychology and of political science. In economics, things have been more difficult, with the entrenched assumption of a perfectly rational homo economicus, but behavioral economics is now well recognized, and one of the founders of the field, Daniel Kahneman, went on to win a Nobel Prize. Social and cognitive sciences have proven more difficult to bridge in anthropology and sociology. Most of the efforts have been pursued—and resisted—in anthropology (although, for sociology, see Clement and Kaufmann 2011). At first, scholars attempted to import the methods of evolutionary biology straight into the study of culture (Dawkins 1976; Lumsden and Wilson 1981). This prompted a severe backlash from anthropologists and other social scientists. Later, and partly as a result of the formation of the field of evolutionary psychology, methods and results from cognitive science were brought to bear on the topic of cultural evolution. One of the most influential attempts to understand cultural phenomena using these new tools is the Gene-Culture Coevolution (or Dual Inheritance Theory) model of Boyd and Richerson (1985). To understand the spread of cultural elements, this framework chiefly relies on simple social psychological biases, such as the tendency to preferentially imitate the behaviors of the majority, or of the most prestigious individuals. The framework also incorporates other psychological mechanisms under the umbrella of content biases: these mechanisms only affect the transmission of particular cultural contents, from representations of faces to knowledge about poisonous plants. However, in order to build tractable models, the Gene Culture Coevolution framework has mostly investigated the effects of simple social biases and has stayed away from the reliance on more complex cognitive mechanisms. The framework of the epidemiology of representation, developed by Sperber (1996; Claidiere and Sperber 2007), may offer a more promising perspective to integrate a rich view of psychology and culture. This model starts from the observation that most cultural transmission is extremely noisy. For instance, when someone says something, the interlocutor might not understand her exact meaning, he is likely to forget some of what was said, and to transform the content again in the process of retelling. As a result, the elements that are most likely to become widespread, or to survive across generations, are not only those that best withstand noisy transmission, but also those towards which noisy transmission converges. Psychological mechanisms are one of the factors that influence which element is more likely to be robust enough, or attractive enough, to become widespread. For instance, a recent study has argued that the strong psychological reaction elicited by direct eye-gaze helps explain why the art of portraiture tends to converge on subjects that gaze right at the viewer (Morin 2013). On the whole, cognitively informed approaches to culture have had a limited impact on mainstream cultural anthropology, in large part, it seems, because of fundamental disagreements about methods or even ontology. In psychology, by contrast, there is much less resistance to the idea that culture ought to be taken into account. For instance, in 2010 Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan H. Mercier (&) Centre de Science Cognitives, Universite de Neuchâtel, Neuchatel, Switzerland e-mail: hugo.mercier@gmail.com

TheHerschel/HIFI spectral survey of OMC-2 FIR 4 (CHESS)

Broadband spectral surveys of protostars offer a rich view of the physical, chemical and dynamical structure and evolution of star-forming regions. The Herschel Space Observatory opened up the terahertz regime to such surveys, giving access to the fundamental transitions of many hydrides and to the high-energy transitions of many other species. A comparative analysis of the chemical inventories and physical processes and properties of protostars of various masses and evolutionary states is the goal of the Herschel CHEmical Surveys of Star forming regions (CHESS) key program. This paper focusses on the intermediate-mass protostar, OMC-2 FIR 4. We obtained a spectrum of OMC-2 FIR 4 in the 480 to 1902 GHz range with the HIFI spectrometer onboard Herschel and carried out the reduction, line identification, and a broad analysis of the line profile components, excitation, and cooling. We detect 719 spectral lines from 40 species and isotopologs. The line flux is dominated by CO, H2O, and CH3OH. The line profiles are complex and vary with species and upper level energy, but clearly contain signatures from quiescent gas, a broad component likely due to an outflow, and a foreground cloud. We find abundant evidence for warm, dense gas, as well as for an outflow in the field of view. Line flux represents 2% of the 7 L_Sol luminosity detected with HIFI in the 480 to 1250 GHz range. Of the total line flux, 60% is from CO, 13% from H2O and 9% from CH3OH. A comparison with similar HIFI spectra of other sources is set to provide much new insight into star formation regions, a case in point being a difference of two orders of magnitude in the relative contribution of sulphur oxides to the line cooling of Orion KL and OMC-2 FIR 4.

MISTIC: mutual information server to infer coevolution

MISTIC (mutual information server to infer coevolution) is a web server for graphical representation of the information contained within a MSA (multiple sequence alignment) and a complete analysis tool for Mutual Information networks in protein families. The server outputs a graphical visualization of several information-related quantities using a circos representation. This provides an integrated view of the MSA in terms of (i) the mutual information (MI) between residue pairs, (ii) sequence conservation and (iii) the residue cumulative and proximity MI scores. Further, an interactive interface to explore and characterize the MI network is provided. Several tools are offered for selecting subsets of nodes from the network for visualization. Node coloring can be set to match different attributes, such as conservation, cumulative MI, proximity MI and secondary structure. Finally, a zip file containing all results can be downloaded. The server is available at http://mistic.leloir.org.ar. In summary, MISTIC allows for a comprehensive, compact, visually rich view of the information contained within an MSA in a manner unique to any other publicly available web server. In particular, the use of circos representation of MI networks and the visualization of the cumulative MI and proximity MI concepts is novel.

Does Direct Moral Judgment Have a Phenomenal Essence?

Moral phenomenology has enjoyed a resurgence lately, and within the field, a trend has emerged: uniform rejection of the idea that the experience of making ‘direct’ moral judgments has any phenomenal essence, that is, any phenomenal property or properties that are always present and that distinguish these experiences from experiences of making non-direct-moral judgments. This article examines existing arguments for this anti-essentialism and finds them wanting. While acknowledging that phenomenological reflection is an unstable pursuit, it is maintained here that phenomenological essentialism about a certain domain of direct moral judgment, namely direct judgment of obligation and prohibition, is more credible than has been recognized. The positive proposal is to rehabilitate something close to Maurice Mandelbaum’s essentialism, specifically to maintain that direct moral judgment’s phenomenal essence is arguably its felt categorical demand. The key to making this argument is to assume a ‘rich view’ of moral consciousness, the view that phenomenal features of moral judgment might be present even when they are not attended to. This assumption is controversial, but it is warranted by two considerations. First, though controversial, the rich view is intuitively plausible. Second, it reveals that the existing arguments against the kind of essentialism defended here appear to tacitly presuppose an equally controversial – and arguably less intuitive – rejection of the rich view.

Perceived Benefits Of Remote Data Capturing In Community Home-Based Care: The Caregivers’ Perspective

Community home-based care (CHBC) is encouraged in developing countries due to the increasing burden on their health care systems. Paper-based recordkeeping practices are the norm in these resource-poor settings. This paper aims to understand the CHBC environment, the daily work activities of caregivers and problems they face with paper-based systems. The paper provides a rich descriptive view of the daily lives of caregivers who volunteer at a CHBC service point in South Africa. Based on this understanding, the paper explores the caregivers' notions of the perceived benefits (and disadvantages) of using mobile phones for data collection at the point of care.

Cognitive neuropsychology has been, is, and will be significant to aphasiology

Background: In recent years some critical voices have been raised in regard to the significance of cognitive neuropsychology (CNP) to the study of brain and mind. Given the central role of language disorders in CNP research, it is time to consider the relevance of this research approach in aphasiology. Aims: We analyse the main points of criticism raised against the CNP research approach, evaluate the significance of this approach to the study of acquired language disorders, and make some suggestions concerning further development of the field. Main Contribution: The main points of criticism against CNP (reliance on single-case studies; single-minded hunt for dissociations; emptiness of theorising) have been important long-term concerns but do not take into account the fact that, during its history of circa four decades, the CNP approach has diversified. There are thus CNP studies that rely on case series analyses, focus on error analyses rather than mere dissociations, or employ computational modelling rather than the “boxes-and-arrows” models of the mental architecture. The CNP approach to cognition and its disorders is thus applicable to different research questions and theoretical stances, providing experimental rigour to single-case patient studies. With regard to clinical applications in aphasia diagnostics and treatment, the CNP approach provides a richer view on the strengths and weaknesses of a patient's cognitive-linguistic abilities. Conclusions: We believe that CNP case studies continue to be an important source of information for generating hypotheses and providing converging evidence for research on the mind and on the brain. However, there is a need for further research development especially in computational modelling of language processes, their impairments, and recovery. This research is expected to provide further benefit to clinical diagnostics and treatment of aphasia.

One episode, two lenses

A deep understanding of students’ learning processes is one of the core challenges of research in mathematics education. To achieve this, different theoretical lenses are available. The question is how these different lenses compare and contrast, and how they can be coordinated and combined to provide a more comprehensive view on the topic of study. To investigate this, one single episode is analyzed with two theoretical lenses, the instrumental genesis perspective and the onto-semiotic approach. The results from this joint analysis provide a rich view on the observed phenomena and help to identify the affordances and constraints of each of the two theoretical approaches and to articulate them. This way, the networking of theories proves to affect theoretical advancements.

Nursing intuition: a valid form of knowledge

An understanding of the nature and development of nursing intuition can help nurse educators foster it in young nurses and give clinicians more confidence in this aspect of their knowledge, allowing them to respond with greater assurance to their intuitions. In this paper, accounts from philosophy and neurophysiology are used to argue that intuition, specifically nursing intuition, is a valid form of knowledge. The paper argues that nursing intuition, a kind of practical intuition, is composed of four distinct aspects that include: (1) embodied knowledge rather like that knowledge we have when we have learned to ride a bicycle; (2) well-trained sensory perceptions attentive to subtle details of complex, often rapidly changing situations; (3) a significant store of pertinent conceptual knowledge; and (4) a history of habitual actions intentionally directed towards achieving the best outcomes for our patients. Contemporary neurophysiology research strongly suggests that human persons experience other persons such that they directly understand the meaning of a variety of different human actions, intentions, emotions, and sensations in immediate, non-reflective, and non-conceptual perceptions. This research is supported by the philosophical theories of Jacques Maritain and Yves R. Simon found in their accounts of practical knowledge. Together, these accounts offer us a rich view of the reality of nursing intuition that helps us understand why we find intuitive actions in some but not all nurses and gives us some specific information about how to develop intuition in young nurses. Finally, this research shows us a path for further research.

Farewell (review)

Reviewed by: Farewell D.B. Jones Farewell (2009). Written and directed by Ditteke Mensink. Distributed by NeoClassics Films. www.neoclassicsfilms.com; 90 minutes; English with Dutch subtitles. An intriguing cross between documentary and fiction, Farewell tells a multilayered story of the first around-the-world flight of the German-built Graf [End Page 76] Zeppelin in 1929. For visuals, the film relies entirely on chronologically arranged archival footage, all but a tiny portion of it documentary in nature. For narration, the film describes the journey from the point of view of the Graf’s only female passenger, the journalist Lady Grace Drummond-Hay. Interwoven with Lady Hay’s enthusiastic reports on the flight is her account of a rekindled love affair between her and another journalist aboard the Graf. The title of the film works for both story lines: the film is a kind of envoi for the excitement surrounding the historic flight and the promise invested in it for cheap travel; and it bids goodbye to the romance of the journey and the affair. The Graf's circumnavigation of the globe began and ended in Lakehurst, New Jersey (not New York, as both the film and a contemporary newsreel excerpted in it state). The trip took twenty-one days, a little over half of which was actual flying time. The Graf made just four stops: Friedrichshafen, Germany; Tokyo; Los Angeles; and Lakehurst. Commanded by its chief developer, Dr. Hugo Eckener, the airship was longer than two football fields and higher than a ten-storey building. It was kept aloft by 70,000 cubic meters of gas. It carried a little over two tons of food for its twenty passengers and crew of forty-one. To lighten the ship’s load and conserve fuel, water was tightly rationed—no showers for the men––and the weight limit for baggage was very low. But the dining service was elegant, comparable to that of a passenger train of that era, and there seems to have been plenty of booze available. The trip began, continued, and ended with a degree of public hoopla that is seldom seen in our less innocent age. Largely funded by William Randolph Hearst, in whose employ Lady Hay wrote her dispatches, the journey was reported on and photographed profusely. Among the passengers was a newsreel cameraman, providing footage of the crew and passengers and point of view shots from the ship. At each of the four stops, huge throngs welcomed and celebrated the ship, its crew, and its passengers. Scores of cameramen on the ground photographed take-offs and arrivals. Cameramen on small aircraft escorting the Graf at various points in its journey provided additional perspectives. At the three interim stops, numerous social events and public appearances became material for the press and the newsreels. The shots selected for Farewell from all this footage are superb, and some of them spectacular. The opening sequence, for instance, shows a zeppelin in the process of construction. Its intricate skeletal frame looks like something fashioned from a giant erector set. A worker on a catwalk appears tiny. An insanely tall ladder reaches almost to the top of the structure. Two dozen men carry the nose cone frame. Footage of New York City (just sixty miles from Lakehurst and where most of the pre-flight partying took place) reminds us that the flight took off in the heyday of the roaring twenties, the jazz age, and prohibition. Arial shots of the city are almost startling: in 1929, [End Page 77] this was a city of stone, concrete, and steel. No glass skyscrapers, no suspension bridges. The high quality of archival footage is sustained for most of the film. In the air, we get a rich view of life aboard the ship. When the airship flies over Siberia, stretches of which had not been charted at the time, we see a wilderness that is scary in its cold vastness. But some of the most interesting footage is of events on the ground, especially in Germany. For most Germans, humiliated by their defeat in the First World War and the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the Graf Zeppelin was a source of...

“Manly-Hearted Women”: Gender Variants in Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House Books

Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House books feature strong female characters, two of whom are gender variants. Their parallel stories provide rich views of the varieties of gender expression in Native societies, yet also suggest that, even in an accepting and nurturing community, gender variants may still be misunderstood and marginalized.

GOVERNO DELL’ECONOMIA E TEORIA DELLA POLITICA ECONOMICA

Governance of the economy and theory of economic policy. This essay explores the views on economic policy of two of the most important thinkers of the Lombard enlightenment (Beccaria and Verri). The focus of the essay is on their theoretical contributions, so that the influence of Beccaria’s and Verri’s proposals on the actual course of Lombard economic reforms will not be discussed. In Beccaria and Verri, the theory of political economy is based on a rich view of societal interdependencies and the way they operate. Beccaria and Verri developed their views within the larger context of the European economic enlightenment. Their contributions partly reflect the theories of French, English and Scottish writers. However, they were able to build on other writers’ contribution in an independent and original way, often making important and influential contributions to the social theory of the European enlightenment (a standard instance is the influence Beccaria had on the development of criminal law and the formation of the utilitarian tradition). Beccaria and Verri were convinced that reforms were possible and that the force of reason could promote solutions suitable for the improvement of society. This was not an easy task, but mainly in the first period of their intellectual activities they were hopeful to achieve important results. They were convinced that economic policy should be able to free the natural capacities of individuals so that the whole society’s potential could be used to improve economic welfare. This belief comes from a very complex view of the behaviour and interaction among human beings. Society (but by no means all social conventions and institutions) was conceived as the outcome of a deliberate covenant. People agree to live together because otherwise they would live in constant insecurity for their lives and property, and because only under that covenant they would be able to enjoy a minimum degree of individual liberty. To secure this liberty the state must respect the division of powers between the legislative, executive and judiciary branches. This model obviously derives from Montesquieu and Locke, but Beccaria and Verri develop it in an original way especially with regard the judicial power. For they believe that to give judges the power to interpret the law is to give them normative power, which would not be admissible in a system of division of powers. Therefore they believed that, in order to avoid this breach of the model, laws and statutes should be very simple and clear. In this case only, that is, only when the normative framework is certain, individuals can act in an environment of security and full liberty. From this the need derives not only to have a simple legislation but also a somewhat limited role of the state in managing the economy, without resorting to an extensive regulatory system. Beccaria is the one who chiefly develops this part of the model. His ideas on the judiciary exerted an important influence in the following years, starting with the French Convention (1791), in which his contributions were extensively discussed. Beccaria’s views continued to attract the attention of prominent constitutional scholars (such as Laband) in the following decades and exerted a considerable influence on the drafting of a number of constitutional charts during the nineteenth century.

Lessons learned from advanced intracoronary imaging in patients with acute myocardial infarction

The use of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) as a primary treatment for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has contributed to save lives. But, in addition to this, it has generated new opportunities to study the culprit and non-culprit arteries with intracoronary imaging during and after reperfusion treatments, and thus to get a richer view of this syndrome. From this perspective, intracoronary imaging has contributed to our knowledge of AMI in a number of ways: it has complemented the available information on the substrate of AMI with in-vivo observations, reinforcing the current pathophysiological paradigm on this entity; it has allowed longitudinal documentation on the reparative vascular processes at the culprit lesion over the months and years following the acute event; it has generated valuable observations on the vascular responses to interventions performed during primary PCI, such as implantation of drug eluting stents (DES); it has been used to guide or monitor specific interventions, either pharmacological agents like antithrombotics or devices like thrombectomy catheters or stents, at the culprit stenosis of AMI; and it has revealed the characteristics of concomitant atheromatosis in non-culprit vessels. In this article, we review the available literature on these different aspects.

High Content Pharmacophores from Molecular Fields: A Biologically Relevant Method for Comparing and Understanding Ligands

The question of how and why a small molecule binds to a protein is central to ligand-based drug discovery. The traditional way of approaching these questions is pharmacophore analysis. However, pharmacophores as usually applied lack quantitation and subtlety. An improvement is to consider the electrostatic and steric fields of the ligand directly. Molecular fields provide a rich view of the potential interactions that a molecule can make and can be validated through experimental data on molecular interactions and through quantum mechanics calculations. A technique is presented in this review for comparing molecules using molecular fields and assigning similarity scores. This high information content method can be used to align molecules for SAR analysis, to determine the bioactive conformation from ligand data, and to screen large libraries of compounds for structurally unrelated actives. An extension to allow interactive exploration of chemistry space via bioisostere analysis is also reviewed. Examples from the literature showing the success of these methods are presented, and future directions discussed.

Method and tools for building maintenance plan arbitration

PurposeBuildings maintenance is a complex activity: importance of issues, scales crossing, diversity of civil engineering domains … The key point of this activity is the elaboration of the maintenance. This paper seeks to present a method and the associated tools to elaborate a building maintenance plan considering the complexity of the facility management.Design/methodology/approachThe risk notion can be a solution to handle the complexity. Specialists may specify each decision in terms of risk form in order to purchase (reflecting the probability and the associated consequences) a rich view about the global situation. The principle is to use a simulation logic, to compare the situation in terms of risk, with or without the realization of an action (work, equipment replacement, formation, etc.). This simulation logic must be based on efficient software tools, which enable one to manage the risk database ergonomically.FindingsThe method took the form of an experiment in a leading French company. The experiment's results and plan were highly beneficial. Although the method was based on personal choices rather than on a mathematical function, the final maintenance plan was considered sound and seemed to correspond to the expectations of all the participants.Originality/valueMost facilities management methods and tools find answering the complexity problem difficult. They ignore the complexity by focusing only on the technical aspect. The work takes place at the highest facility management level, therefore shedding new light on this domain. The risk notion enables one to consider the complexity of the maintenance and to formalize it into an understandable form for the decision‐maker.

Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio beyond the Networks (review)

Reviewed by: Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio beyond the Networks Kathleen Battles (bio) Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio beyond the Networks. By Alexander Russo. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2010. Pp. xi+278. $84.95/$23.95. For over a decade, a growing number of scholars have turned their focus to exploring the unique history of our first broadcast medium, radio. While enriching our understanding of the medium, this work is built on an accepted chronology neatly divided into a pre-network period, the Golden Age of network dominance, and the post-network era. Points on the Dial offers a significant revision of the long-accepted truism that the industry practices of network radio underwent a radical overhaul with the coming of television. Drawing on a range of meticulously detailed archival research, Alexander Russo takes direct aim at many of our central assumptions about radio’s Golden Age, including its presumed national orientation, the primacy of live programming, the dominance of national advertisers, and scheduling practices that were based on discrete, identifiable “programs.” Russo forcibly demonstrates that counter to promotional discourses of national reach, network coverage was limited in practice by both technological barriers and the interests of advertising agencies who simply did not want to pay to reach certain parts of the nation. Russo examines a range of practices and technologies that filled in the geographic and temporal gaps left by the actual practices of the radio networks and advertisers, including station representatives, regional networks, sound-on-disc transcriptions, spot broadcasting, and DJ-based block programming. Brokering between individual radio stations and advertisers, station representatives identified and took advantage of the gaps in national network coverage by developing new markets for radio and constructing alternative conceptions of the audience as segmented. Between local stations and national networks emerged a flourishing number of regional networks throughout the United States. A case study of New England–based Colonial and Yankee networks [End Page 654] offers a fascinating look at the ways that regional networks developed programming types often shunned by the national networks, while at the same time clearly articulating a specifically New England form of identity. While the networks consistently forwarded “liveness” as the ontological condition of radio, Russo examines how companies like World Broadcasting Service used sound-on-disc transcriptions to create alternative definitions of networking for both stations and advertisers. Of particular interest is how WBS promoted the concept of perceptual fidelity as a marker of quality over and against the major networks’ promotion of “liveness.” Key to the success of WBS was the growing market for “spot ads,” a term which referred to a range of advertising practices that existed alongside the network’s emphasis on national, single sponsorship. Spot ads challenged a whole set of assumptions about the relationship between sponsors and audiences and about the relationship between advertising and modes of listening. Finally, Russo examines the increasing use of car radio during the pre-war years. In reconsidering the spaces of reception and the work of radio stations and advertisers to address mobile listeners, including the development of block-based DJ programming, Russo provocatively suggests that the development of distracted modes of listening usually attributed to post-television radio have firm roots in the network era. The key strengths of this book include Russo’s rich view of radio specifically and broadcasting more generally. Drawing from SCOT scholars and James Lastra, he examines broadcast radio as an assemblage of practices, institutions, discourses, and technologies. The work therefore nicely balances questions related to radio’s technology with questions related to industrial and cultural practices. Where the book sometimes falters is in the scope of its claims, some of which might have been explored more fully. For example, Russo’s decision to read “against the grain” of the presentism of his sources might have been extended to think about the current state of television historiography. The book largely focuses on the industrial aspects of radio without linking these practices to broader cultural, social, and political changes. There are others times, however, where the claims do not seem quite supported by the evidence. This is especially the case regarding the audience. For example...

Autonomy and dementia Part II: Autonomy and representation: a possible combination?

This paper, based on a critical review of the medico-social literature, questions the representation of patients with dementia in relation to the autonomy perspectives presented in a previous article. In the canonical perspective of autonomy (defined as a rational decision-making by a stand alone self), the surrogate is the spokeperson of the subject's wills when he was competent because he knows these wills through advance directives or assuming them via substituted judgment. Best patient's interest is then depreciated because it is focused on the present incompetent self. In the relational perspective, where autonomy is constructed through a dialogue with others, the surrogate is the present interlocutor, making the decisions with the patient and care-givers in a way varying with the disease process. He represents the subject with dementia as he was before the disease but also as he has become. Therefore, there is a continuum between autonomy and representation. Autonomy and well being are both the surrogate aims. The relational perspective allows care continuity of patients with dementia even when considered as incompetent. It offers a more balanced perspective on the patient autonomy since it is embedded in all others, and opens a richer view on what good life is, untill the end of dementia.

Cultural resources of minority and marginalised students should be included in the school science curriculum

This paper responds to Schademan’s “What does playing cards have to do with science? A resource—rich view of African American young men”, and takes a resource-rich view to explore the notion of agency and elements of cultural resources that minority and marginalised students bring to the classroom. The paper examines the deficit model, the need to adopt capacity building perspective, and a classroom study, which sought to contextualise capacity building with a group of Australian indigenous students in a science class. As science educators, we need to reject the deficit model by developing capacity building pedagogies that affirm minority and marginalised students’ lived languages, experiences and knowledge in their learning.