Sort Of Action Research Articles

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Afghanistan Historiography and Pashtun Islam: Modernization Theory's Afterimage

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Afghanistan Historiography and Pashtun Islam: Modernization Theory's Afterimage

Nominalizing and de-nominalizing: a reply

In this article, the author replies to the comments made by Van Dijk, Fairclough and Martin on 'The Language of Critical Discourse Analysis'. The author also discusses at greater length the background to his concerns with current styles of academic writing. The author suggests that the problems with 'nominalization' and 'passivization' are wider than particular cases of abuse as Van Dijk suggests. The author discusses how analysts typically use 'nominalization' imprecisely, employing this same word to denote linguistic entities as well as processes of very different kinds. In replying to Fairclough, the author also points out that some linguists use 'nominalization' to refer to supposed linguistic 'processes' which are not, in fact, processes at all. In consequence, the use of technical terminology, far from leading to greater precision, has led to imprecision and to analysts avoiding basic issues. The author argues that it is important to understand what speakers/writers do with language. Technical nominals, which turn actions into 'things', are often poorly equipped for this task, especially when analysts use technical nouns in place of examining precisely what sorts of actions speakers/writers are performing. The author discusses why the current economic conditions of academic life encourage jargon-filled, technical writing and why, for ideological reasons, academics should resist the pressure to use heavy, nominal-based jargon.

A systemic approach to operational risk measurement in financial institutions

This paper presents an implementational systemic approach framework for operational risk (SAFOR), where the operational risk (OR) management’s target is to manage and mitigate the risk-around-loss causes. The guiding method is general systems theory used for describing essential system features of a complex domain. The important implications of the general systems theory for our work are that an organization, such as a bank, should be seen as a system, interacting with other systems through its boundaries. In order for this system to function efficiently, it needs to implement control structures, for example for giving feedback. While this is not new to organizational efforts, but the feedback in a setting of OR should be considered on two levels. The first level is the most immediate with feedback given more or less automatically when something goes wrong or is clearly less optimal than desired. This is, to a large extent, already present in most well-functioning banking institutions of today. The other level, feedback through a deliberation filter (such as a formal decision), is not as well covered. This paper considers deliberation feedback through investigating models for decision making under uncertainty and looking at suitable input data from OR measurements. Our OR framework for banks is surveyed as a systemic–holistic approach. A holistic treatment of the problem emphasizes the environment and the ongoing administration of the system in the implementation. Therefore, in the SAFOR model we propose an implementational guidance system that takes the whole bank’s organization, including its environment, into account. This means that a systemic–holistic approach may avoid a large fraction of the operational mistakes and errors that have their origin in the design of the systems, eg, people, machines, plant/environment and management. Moreover, to meet the mission of the bank’s safety and security, overall systems effectiveness must result in an efficiently operating control. Our SAFOR framework not only considers and discusses the OR models, it also includes a method for decision making. We emphasize its importance because reasoning about OR is often scenario based. For each scenario, value-at-risk (VaR) and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR), or other computational models, yield OR prediction intervals. Therefore, a decision must be made that takes into consideration what sort of actions that has to be taken to reach reasonable OR levels. However, for a small number of scenarios, there has to be a discriminating principle and methods and processes for its approach.

Body language: representation in action

An argument that activity provides a useful template for thinking about representation and that deeds are themselves representational: our representing of the world consists, in part, in certain sorts of deeds that we perform in the world. In Body Language, Mark Rowlands argues that the problem of representation-how it is possible for one item to represent another-has been exacerbated by the assimilation of representation to the category of the word. That is, the problem is traditionally understood as one of relating inner to outer-relating an inner representing item to something extrinsic or exterior to it. Rowlands argues that at least some cases of representation need to be understood not in terms of the word but of the deed. Activity, he claims, is a useful template for thinking about representation; our representing the world consists, in part, in certain sorts of actions that we perform in that world. This is not to say simply that these forms of acting can facilitate representation but that they are themselves representational. These sorts of actions-which Rowlands calls deeds-do not merely express or re-present prior intentional states. They have an independent representational status. After introducing the notion of the deed as a preintentional act, Rowlands argues that deeds can satisfy informational, teleological, combinatorial, misrepresentational, and decouplability constraints-and so qualify as representational. He puts these principles of representation into practice by examining the deeds involved in visual perception. Representing, Rowlands argues, is something we do in the world as much as in the head. Representing does not stop at the skin, at the border between the representing subject and the world; representing is representational all the way out.

Prevalencia de la enfermedad celiaca en donantes de sangre de la Comunidad de Madrid

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of celiac disease among the adult population of Madrid by measuring antibodies against tissue transglutaminase as serologic screening method. 2,215 subjects participated voluntarily in this study. All of them completed a clinical questionnaire. We determined the levels of total IgA and antibodies to tissue transglutaminase (tTG). An intestinal biopsy by endoscopy was proposed to all subjects who were tTG-positive. The histologic lesion was classified in accordance to Marsh. Three known CD cases were identified by the questionnaire. Eleven donors with tTG positivity were detected, all of them asymptomatic. Four subjects rejected the intestinal biopsy. Seven out of 11 positive subjects consented to undergo a duodenal biopsy -3 had villous atrophy and 4 had increased intraepithelial lymphocyte counts with normal villi. In our study the number of donors with biopsy-proven CD was 6, and the prevalence was 1/370. If we include the subcategories of gluten sensitive enteropathy (Marsh I), the prevalence would be 1/222. When we considered antibody positivity the prevalence of gluten sensitivity was 1 in 201, and it reached 1 in 158 when the three known CD cases were included. Data on CD prevalence in this study confirm that CD is a first-line healthcare problem that may warrant universal screening. We detected a high number of lymphocytic enteritis cases, and thus some sort of action is mandatory.

How can you conserve species that haven't been found?

How can you conserve species that haven't been found?

How Images Think (review)

Reviewed by: How Images Think James Elkins (bio) Ron Burnett. How Images Think MIT Press 2004. xxi, 253. US $34.95 This is a book about the kinds of human experience that images engender. It is a good, wandering, meditative book. Unfortunately it has completely the wrong title. First, thinking isn't really at issue. What Ron Burnett cares about is subjectivity, collectivity, sense of self, sense of community, links and networks and societies; for him images are woven into each of them. It does not really matter if images think. They prompt us, and they respond to what we do; they have agency and roles to play in our lives. How Images Work might have been better, or even How Images Work with Us, perhaps with a subtitle like The Interdependence of Humans and Their Images. Thinking is nearly the worst word he could have chosen for a title, because he is concerned with all sorts of actions and effects in the world that are much more effective, that do more, than just hanging on a wall and thinking. On the very last page of his book, under a heading called 'So, Do Images Think?' the first thing Burnett says is that 'intelligence has become a distributed interaction.' He cares about the distribution, the sharing, the collaboration, and not the generation of thought per se. That is one reason why Burnett's title is wrong. It is also wrong because there is a tradition of theorizing how images think, and readers might think his book has something to do with it. That tradition comes mainly from Hubert Damisch, and is now being investigated by scholars such as Hanneke Grootenboer. Damisch, in turn, got it from Wittgenstein, for whom pictures seemed at one point to be a way of thinking about propositions in general. Grootenboer calls her research program 'The Pensive Image.' For Damisch, paint and other artists' materials could actually produce thought apart even aside from the things the paint depicted. Those are fascinating ideas, but they have nothing to do with what interests Burnett. The book has a very different intellectual lineage. Burnett reads widely – who doesn't, these days? – and picks some authors that are unusual in visual studies. There is Brian Cantwell Smith, whose book On the Origin of Objects has made some very dedicated converts even though it has still not reached a large audience. Other sources of inspiration are Marshall [End Page 315] McLuhan and John Berger, but (pointedly, I think), not Jean Baudrillard. (Simulacra are just too one-way.) And there is Bruno Latour, whose books give Burnett his sense of how images and people both have agency, how subjectivities include images as well as people. Incidentally, in case you are still wondering whether to read the book: it is also instructive about the possibilities of new interactions on the internet. Here you'll read about AlphaWorld, seti@Home, muds, moos, and sites like Gnutella. The book rambles in a benign way. Argument isn't Burnett's strong point: the book is rich in connections. Isn't it often the case that an author provides the best description of himself? At one point Burnett says: 'The viewer of images is potentially a raconteur of daydreams, visions, thoughts, and insights.' James Elkins James Elkins, Department of Art History, University of Cork Copyright © 2007 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

Free will from the viewpoint of teleological behaviorism

A teleological and behavioral view is presented of the concept of free will. Free will is not something people essentially have or do not have. Instead, the following question is asked: Why does society find it useful to label some actions free and some actions not free? It is argued that the function of such labels is to aid in assigning responsibility to people for their actions. Responsibility in turn is useful in assigning rewards and punishments. The sort of actions that are typically seen as free are the same as those seen as self-controlled. Such actions are responsive to environmental contingencies of relatively wide temporal extent.

SUD-PTT unionists: moral entrepreneurs?

Since its founding in 1988, the SUD-PTT union [Solidarité, Unité, Démocratie at the Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone] has made using the courts a frequent mode of action in its dealings with the two French public-sector companies in which it is present, La Poste and France Télécom. Legal action is now fully part of SUD-PTT practices. This is surprising for a union so strongly attached to the protest tradition and hostile in both practice and discourse to any form of institutionalization. After considering possible explanations for SUD-PTT's heavy use of legal institutions, the article looks at how the type of conflict it engages in, which may be called “ conflit de règles ” [conflict about and by means of rules] can be linked to a major trend in contemporary social conflictuality: the fact that the “antagonistic posture” is no longer limited to collective action but is now operative in a more institutionalized approach. The thesis is that this sort of action is not just technical or instrumental but aims to exert pressure on norms, and thereby on the codification of social relations and ways of “living together”.

Stability and Complexity in Asia-Pacific Security Affairs

ASIANPERSPECTIVE, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2006, pp. 179-192. Commentary STABILITY AND COMPLEXITY IN ASIA-PACIFIC SECURITY AFFAIRS* Robert Ayson Understanding "Stability" This commentary offers a preliminary assessment of whether contemporary theories of complexity can help us understand leading security issues in the Asia-Pacific. In particular it focuses on the relevance of thinking about complexity for approaches to stability in the Asia-Pacific. With its variety of great and rising powers experiencing sometimes difficult interstate relations, a changing regional balance of power, a series of still embryonic institutions, a mixture of strong and weak states, and a combina­ tion of economic vibrancy and fragility, the Asia-Pacific is nothing less than a laboratory for some of the most important stability questions of the day. Can the understanding of stability in theo­ ries of complex systems help us better understand these stability issues? Can it enhance our appreciation of the dynamics that can cause dangerous, even life threatening, instability and the sorts of actions that might prove possible to avoid such harmful out­ comes? Can such an approach also allow us to make sense of the possibility of thinking about the stability of the Asia-Pacific in overall terms—to help us come to grips with the problematic notion of Asia-Pacific regional stability? These are the types of questions that guide this research. This article is a revised version of the author's presentation to the 2006 International Studies Association Convention in San Diego, California. 180 RobertAyson My earlier work found that Asia-Pacific stability could be understood in terms of at least five stability categories.1 These categories are: stability in the sense of the avoidance of war between states in the Asia-Pacific; the stability of the balance of power between these same states; the stability of institutions formed by countries in the Asia-Pacific (including norms of behavior as well as formal arrangements); domestic political sta­ bility within Asia-Pacific countries; and the degree of financial and economic stability that these countries enjoy. For each of these five types, the concept of stability was found to have two main reference points. First, stability can be understood as a given system's tendency toward equilibrium. This means understanding stability as a condition of something. Stability here can be the capacity to retain an already existing equilibrium—e.g., an existing regional balance of power among major contributors to the security environment in East Asia (including the U.S.-China balance) or existing political arrange­ ments within particular Asia-Pacific countries (including, for example, South Korea's own form of democratic governance). Or, stability can be the capacity to shift to a new equilibrium. This might involve movement toward a new balance of power in the region that recognizes a major alteration in relative capac­ ities (for example one that incorporates India's rise). Or, it might involve the transition from an autocratic to a democratic form of politics, as seen in Indonesia after the Suharto era or in the Philippines after Marcos. It is this capacity to find a new equilibrium in circumstances of significant change that is the real test of a system's stability. This holds whether the system consists of the domestic political arrangements within a particular Asian country, the institutions that help bind Asia-Pacific countries together in convergent behavior, or the balance of power in a changing Asia-Pacific of rising powers. The second reference point for stability is the avoidance of major harm: This means approaching stability as the aim or out­ come of a particular process. Examples here might include the 1. Robert Ayson, "Regional Stability in the Asia-Pacific: Towards a Con­ ceptual Understanding," Asian Security, vol. 1, No. 2 (April, 2005), pp. 190-213. Stability arid Complexity in Asia-PacificSecurityAffairs 181 avoidance of major violence between states as they adjust to a new power balance—the capacity, for instance, of the United States and Japan to accommodate China's reemergence as a regional great power in a reasonably peaceful manner. It could mean the capacity of regional countries to cope with substantial economic changes without incurring major harm—an important question for a modernizing China given the pace...

Experiences of Racism Among African American Parents and the Mental Health of Their Preschool-Aged Children

We examined the relationship between parents' experiences of racism and children's well-being and the influence of the residential neighborhood characteristics on this relationship. African American families were recruited from Baltimore neighborhoods. Parental measures included racism experiences and coping. Neighborhood measures included demographic characteristics, social cohesion, and social climate. Children's mental health was assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist. Analysis was performed with multilevel modeling. Parents who denied experiences of racism also reported higher rates of behavior problems among their preschool-aged children. For families living in neighborhoods characterized by fear of victimization, parents who actively coped with racism experiences by confronting the person involved or taking some sort of action in response to racism reported lower rates of anxiety and depression for their preschool-aged children. Experiences of and responses to racism among African American parents have important effects on the well-being of their young children.

Metrics of Nonpositive Curvature on Graph-Manifolds and Electromagnetic Fields on Graphs

A 3-dimensional graph-manifold consists of simple blocks that are products of compact surfaces with boundary by the circle. Its global structure may be as complicated as desired and is described by a graph, which can be an arbitrary graph. A metric of nonpositive curvature on such a manifold, if it exists, can be described essentially by a finite number of parameters satisfying a geometrization equation. In the paper, it is shown that this equation is a discrete version of the Maxwell equations of classical electrodynamics, and its solutions, i.e., metrics of nonpositive curvature, are critical configurations of the same sort of action that describes the interaction of an electromagnetic field with a scalar charged field. This analogy is established in the framework of the spectral calculus (noncommutative geometry) of A. Connes. Bibliography: 17 titles.

"Rude Mechanicals and the Specters of Marx"

Brecht, in the poem, indicates that conventional theatre is built on pretense and illusion. The word moreover, is often a sign for the idea of phantasmic spectacle even if not all theatre, following Brecht, engages in the pretenses of illusion or mimetic representations of an imaginary world. The phantoms in the heart of theatre are difficult to displace no matter how many actual theatrical practices dispel them. They return to haunt even the most self-conscious or presentational modes of practice simply because the act of representation itself is constituted by a division that distinguishes it from other sorts of actions. With or without the sense of mimesis, representation is a kind of repetition that generates the phantom of a double. Explicit or implicit, the space marked out as theatre frames a difference and duplicity that is, apparently, distinctly different from the work of the stage hands. The act of represent ing in theatre, regardless of technique, generates questions about the double because that double is something both there, present, and not there. In his essay, Street Scene, Brecht talks about the actor demonstrating not identifying with an accident victim; even there that victim is in a sense quite visible but is also not really there. By contrast, a stage hand, even when, for example, demonstrating how to pull a curtain, does not exhibit such a double.

Explaining expressions of emotion

The question is how to explain expressions of emotion. It is argued that not all expressions of emotion are open to the same sort of explanation. Those expressions which are actions can be explained, like other sorts of action, by reference to a belief and a desire; however, no genuine expression of emotion is done as a means to some further end. Certain expressions of emotion which are actions can also be given a deeper explanation as being expressive of a wish. Expressions of emotion which are not actions cannot be given a belief-desire explanation: no belief is involved, and a desire is involved only in an honorific sense of desire. The distinction amongst expressions of emotion between those which are actions and those which are not is not a precise one, and the paper concludes with some speculative remarks about borderline cases such as jumping for joy.

Agency And Consciousness

In Intentionality and other works, John Searle establishes himself as a leading defender of the view that consciousness of what one is doing is always a component of one’s action. In this paper I focus on problems with Searle’s view to establish that there are actions in which the agent is not at all aware of what she is doing. I argue that any theory that misses this sort of action keeps us from important insights into autonomy, self-knowledge and responsibility.

The Pro-Life Maternal-Fetal Medicine Physician A Problem of Integrity

During the course of professional practice, health care providers may find themselves in situations where they are called upon to perform actions that they cannot in good conscience do, or to omit actions that conscience dictates. Conscientious objection in such cases may be understood as motivated by a concern for one's integrity, but integrity is a complex concept and there are different ways of interpreting its requirements so as to yield different answers to the question of what sorts of actions are or are not consistent with the preservation of one's integrity. In this paper, we will focus on a particular problem of integrity that arises for certain medical specialists. The problem is whether or how a physician with pro-life, antiabortion views can maintain personal integrity in the practice of maternal-fetal medicine. To what extent, we will ask, can individual with strong pro-life religious or moral convictions do the work that specialists in maternal-fetal medicine typically do without betraying these convictions? If the job of the maternal-fetal medicine physician is to help women and their fetuses with high-risk pregnancies, and if as part of this care women do and should have the option of terminating their pregnancy, should individual with pro-life views enter the field in the first place? Now it may seem self-evident to some what the answer should be: individual who is profoundly opposed to abortion on moral or religious grounds cannot be a maternal-fetal medicine specialist without losing his or her integrity, and only through self-deception or the like could such a person think otherwise. But while we believe that attempts to reconcile these personal convictions with professional practice are open to question, we do not think that the failure of this project is a foregone conclusion. A number of reconciliation strategies are possible, and at least some of these warrant careful attention. We will explore five such strategies in the course of this paper: the I'm only providing information strategy, the foreseeing versus intending strategy, the Better me than someone else strategy, the preventing unnecessary abortions strategy, and last and perhaps most promisingly, the harmonization of values strategy. We believe that physician integrity is a value of fundamental importance in the practice of medicine.[1] Although as professionals, physicians naturally identify with, feel responsible for, and take pride in the proficiency, skill, and technique with which they perform medical tests and administer treatments, these functions are not value free or value neutral. Physicians have moral responsibility for actions, recommendations, and counseling offered to patients. If the physician were only to attend to the technical aspects of professional behavior, he or she would be no more than an engineer, a plumber making repairs, connecting tubes and flushing out clogged systems, with no questions asked.[2] This is a deeply unsatisfying and disturbing conception of the physician's role, for even if the doctor could refrain from bringing moral and other values to bear on the assessment of professional activities, this would hardly absolve the physician of moral responsibility for those activities. Moreover, by dissociating from personal values in this way - at least those values that reflect what one takes to be most important - one only succeeds in creating deep divisions within the self. If the physician has moral responsibility for actions and recommendations to patients, how can we expect professional practice to require the physician to set aside deeply held religious or moral convictions in the conduct of professional life? It would constitute assault on physician integrity to require moral accountability and yet insist on value neutrality. To be sure, the possession of integrity by physicians still leaves much room for the moral criticism of their characters and actions. But integrity is not for this reason a matter of no moral consequence, and forcing physicians to act against their values and principles is deeply problematic. …

Stress, distress, and immunity.

Since psychoimmunology is now 10 to 20 years of age, it seems appropriate to expect a certain maturity in the field. It seems reasonably well established that there really is neuroimmunomodulation. The biological and medical importance of this is the possible influence of psychological factors on immune competence. Inasmuch as it is reasonably well established that psychological factors do have such an influence, the field must now endeavor to establish how important this influence is. It no longer suffices to show that some sort of stressor has some sort of action on some part of the immune cascade of responses. "Stressors" do not act indiscriminately; they are filtered and interpreted by the brain following psychological principles that again are reasonably well known. The distinction between "stress" and "distress" is important for the health consequences of how and with what success an individual is handling a stressful situation. Concepts such as coping, control, helplessness, and hopelessness are required to understand how immune responses are influenced by the brain and to establish the extent to which these mechanisms have clinical validity in man and animals.

Alprazolam in All Sorts of Action

Alprazolam in All Sorts of Action

APL in quality business management

Companies monitor their processes so that they can identify actions that need to be taken. Measures such as monthly sales, expenses by category, inventory levels, days debt and computer service availability are recorded and reported. This paper introduces the application of quality control techniques to help you determine whether a process needs intervention. You will want to identify when a short term fluctuation becomes significant, when a longer term trend appears and most important, determine what sort of action is appropriate. There are many potential pitfalls in presentation techniques even when the correct information is being used. Some are mentioned, but are not the prime purpose of this paper. There are good examples in reference 1.

Working Group 1, Adapting Theories of Public Administration to the Emerging Role of Citizens

ROHR: We decided there are at least four models that guided our pleasant and somewhat meandering discussion. One was institutional/structural, the second was system design, the third was organizational learning, calling on Argyris in particular, and the fourth was values and ethics. We did not take up one model after the other in an orderly fashion. Rather, the models surfaced at the end of our discussion when we tried to reflect on what we had done. Early in our discussion we agreed on two points which might serve as our recommendations. They are: (1) Increased public participation in a given program or policy does not necessarily mean there has been increased citizen involvement. Public participation may simply be a legitimate expression of self-interest. This is not the sort of action that is distinctive of citizens. It does not necessarily order the polity or look to the common good. Resident aliens can also participate. (2) We should be cautious about overstating a long-lost golden age of citizenship in American history. There were moments ot widespread civic virtue, but some of the discussion at the conference may have gone too far in idealizing the past. Midway through our discussion Chairman Bill Dunn tried to impose some order on the chaos and offered the following summary of the central themes we were dealing with. One was that current theories of administration lead to an impoverished practice of citizenship. This is because administrative theories do not deal with system design. When systems are designed, they should amplify the variety of choices people can make. The system designer sees the public interest, but part of the public interest is that people should be able to pursue their personal interests. The theory group agreed that it was difficult to reach any kind of general conclusion because of the complexity of the subject matter. This comment is not as bland as it might seem, however, if one considers the following causes of the complexity. (1) Public administration and citizenship are rooted in two very different and perhaps antithetical traditions. One tradition centers on management and the other centers on personal initiative. There are serious problems in trying to put these two traditions together, although one need not despair of practical ad hoc arrangements that hold the two principles together in some kind of tension. (2) The high/ low distinction in citizenship was looked upon favorably, but certain difficulties were noted. One is that the question of who is high and who is low could become quite nasty. An important caveat must be that we do not equate low with bad. Low citizenship is self-interested, but a legitimate pursuit of self-interest needs no apology. Perhaps we should use active/passive or classical/modern to avoid any misunderstanding about high and low. Another difficulty is that the high/low distinction presumes that high is not for everyone. Just how restrictive the term might be was left unresolved, but we agreed we would not want to live in a nation with 200,000,000 high-ethical citizens. On the other hand, we surely would want to live in a nation with 200,000 or 2,000,000 such persons. A third difficulty is that the high/low distinction may be too stark and severe. Perhaps there should be a gradation within high and low. The gradation could be linked to various civic roles. One might be more active on a local issue, such as county roads, than on a national environmental policy issue, for example. Perhaps the chair would allow me at this point to ask some of my colleagues in the working group if they would care to amend or flatly contradict some of the points I have made.