Specific Tensions Research Articles

Aspects of Psychologism: Reply to Critics

FARID MASROUR’S PENETRATING COMMENTS, focussing mainly on my essays The Given and Intentional Objects, fall into two parts. The first part describes three theses that characterise my views – (1) the non-relational character of intentionality; (2) content pluralism; and (3) phenomenal intentionalism – and argues that there are three specific tensions between all or some of (1)-(3). The second part questions whether I can hold that concrete particular objects are the intentional objects of mental states, compatible with my internalism about the mind. First, the tensions between (1)-(3). The first tension relates to (1) and (2). Masrour claims that a pluralism about content ought to eliminate the motivation for anti-realism about content, and he takes the non-relational view of intentionality to be a form of anti-realism about content. Just as Davidson’s pluralism about meaning removes the disagreement between different moral systems (since they must be interpreted as meaning different things with their evaluative words) and can lead to a kind of realism about morality; so Chalmers’s content pluralism removes the disagreement between Russellianism and Fregeanism about propositions, and leaves room for a genuine “relationism” about intentionality:

Sustainability-driven entrepreneurship and high-growth SMEs: how to combine Davids' and Goliaths' worlds?

This paper aims to explore how sustainability-driven SMEs experiencing high growth can succeed in combining the best of the Davids’ and Goliaths’ worlds. An in-depth case study was conducted within a French SME, a pioneer in organic vegetable distribution that has succeeded in evolving from an ‘idealistic David’ to a ‘high-growth David’. Research findings reveal two sets of key actions successfully carried out by this firm: the development of a hybrid organisation through a staff representing the skills of both Davids’ and Goliaths’ worlds, and of a learning organisation through exploration and exploitation. They also illustrate some challenges facing most high-growth SMEs and identify some specific tensions that can arise due to the coexistence of these two worlds, in particular value diversity within the top management team.

Framing a crisis: exceptional democracy in Dutch infrastructure governance

This article presents an analytics of crisis politics to critically examine crisis discourses. Crises are understood differently by different scholarships, resulting in diverging accounts of crisis politics. After distilling five conceptual frames of crisis politics, the article aims to unravel their points of convergence. Before we conceptualize crisis politics alternatively, we present and analyze an empirical context of a crisis discourse in the domain of infrastructure governance (in the Netherlands). This specific crisis discourse illustrates how politics of an economic crisis puts pressure on public values, citizenship and even create its own democratic crisis. We translate the points of convergence between the five crisis frames in terms of an analytics of crisis politics, based on two principles: (1) crisis problematization (framing a phenomenon in terms of a crisis); and (2) crisis governance (managing this manufactured crisis tactically). This analytics enables us to reframe ‘a crisis’ as a multi-layered political category. We argue that critical research on (contemporary) crises illuminates how crisis discourses operate and the specific governmental tensions they produce.

The ‘Biophilic Organization’: An Integrative Metaphor for Corporate Sustainability

This paper proposes a new organizational metaphor, the ‘Biophilic Organization’, which aims to counter the bio-cultural disconnection of many organizations despite their espoused commitment to sustainability. This conceptual research draws on multiple disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and architecture to not only develop a diverse bio-cultural connection but to show how this connection tackles sustainability, in a holistic and systemic sense. Moreover, the paper takes an integrative view of sustainability, which effectively means that it embraces the different emergent tensions. Three specific tensions are explored: efficiency versus resilience, organizational versus personal agendas and isomorphism versus institutional change. In order to illustrate how the Biophilic Organization could potentially provide a synthesis strategy for such tensions, healthcare examples are drawn from the emerging fields of Biophilic Design in Singapore and Generative Design in the U.S.A. Finally, an example is provided which highlights how a Taoist cultural context has impacted on a business leader in China, to illustrative the significance of a transcendent belief system to such a bio-cultural narrative.

Creative tensions in youth ministry in a congregational context

Since the recognition of youth as a social category, several approaches to youth ministry developed. One of the approaches, namely the inclusive congregational approach to youth ministry, will be critically reflected on in this article. The aim of this article is to indicate what the implications of this approach are for congregational ministry. It is argued that the inclusive congregational approach to youth ministry could lead to certain creative tensions in youth ministry as an integral part of congregational ministry. Therefore the article identifies and discusses specific creative tensions that could be present in youth ministry where the inclusive congregational approach to youth ministry is taken as the point of departure. Creative tension is here understood as a source of creative energy that informs and guides ministry. Although the different tensions may cause uneasiness, with the spontaneous response to release them, it is argued that it should rather be kept intact in order to inform and maintain a creative process of ministry.

Re/thinking Narrative Productions as a feminist methodological approach: research experiences on romantic love

Drawing from our experience in a research project about young feminist women meanings and experiences on romantic love conducted with Narrative Productions, our aim in this article is to summarize some methodological considerations held on the process. First, we contextualize the research project where these questions emerge, considering aspects related to the topic of study and the methodological design. Secondly, we deepen over four elements that are key for both feminist epistemological discussion and our own research process: 1) reflexivity, 2) articulation, 3) power relationships and 4) social transformation. For each of them, we assess potentialities and boundaries in Narrative Production methodology, illustrating some specific tensions we found in our research practice.

Prolonged Administration of Pyridostigmine Impairs Neuromuscular Function With and Without Down-Regulation of Acetylcholine Receptors

Richtsfeld, Martina*†; Yasuhara, Shingo*; Fink, Heidrun‡; Blobner, Manfred‡; Jeevendra Martyn, J. A.* Author Information

Gestão de empreendimentos criativos e culturais: estudo de uma organização de ensino e difusão de ritmos afro-brasileiros em São João Del-Rei (MG)

Indústrias criativas caracterizam-se pela produção de bens simbólicos e artísticos, cujo consumo é de natureza interpretativa, estética, experiencial. Isso as diferencia de indústrias cujos produtos/serviços são voltados ao consumo funcional e/ou instrumental, foco mais usual de estudos da Administração. O objetivo do artigo é descrever e analisar um empreendimento criativo e cultural em São João del-Rei (MG), buscando entender organização, gestão, produtos, objetivos e, conforme reporta a literatura, existência de tensões específicas. Adotou-se metodologia de estudo de caso, com abordagem interpretativista, envolvendo coleta e análise de dados da organização, obtidos via: (1) entrevistas em profundidade com membros e parceiros; (2) observação não participante a eventos públicos realizados pela organização; e (3) informações organizacionais disponíveis no website. Os resultados obtidos evidenciam existência, no empreendimento, de dilemas típicos descritos na literatura, particularmente, tensão entre "arte versus negócio", com aceitação parcial do modelo gerencial, tendência ao improviso, ausência de planejamento de longo prazo e ênfase em/ou idealização de objetivos educativos.

Relational Tensions and Optimal Listening in the Communication Relationships of American and Finnish Legal Professionals

Drawing on relational dialectics, this study examines definitions of optimal listening, the tensions affecting it, cultural differences in both of these and strategies for managing tensions. The participant sample (N = 101) consists of 76 American attorneys and 25 Finnish judges. The results suggest that differences in national communication cultures and the requirements of professional communication affect the definitions of optimal listening. The American participants perceived this as a people-oriented and the Finns as a fact-oriented activity. Both groups experienced reported tensions between real and ideal listening, autonomy and connection, the public and the private, and also between equality and inequality. Culturally, specific tensions were also reported.

Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky (eds): In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means

I teach a multilingual translation workshop at my university. Students translate from any language into English and in any given semester there are usually at least six languages represented in a class of twelve students. In the past I have made a great effort to gather engaging essays on translation by literary translators for the students and still was neither completely content with the hodgepodge of material I gave them or the electronic format in which I delivered it. In exchanges with colleagues, I learned that more than a few leaders of translation workshops or practice-based translation courses find themselves in a similar situation. It is for this reason and countless others that the translation community enthusiastically welcomes In Translation: Translators on Their Work and What It Means edited by Esther Allen and Susan Bernofsky. The book’s two parts, ‘‘The Translator in the World’’ and ‘‘The Translator at Work,’’ provide a unified collection of 18 essays by some of today’s most fascinating translators plus an introduction by the editors. Every single contribution irresistibly invites readers to consider broader issues that explore what it means to be a literary translator in the twenty-first century, or ‘‘the age of translation’’ (xix). Although particular cases regarding Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish are especially interesting to those with knowledge of these languages, in no way do these chapters ignore a larger audience. The specific challenges, solutions, and persistent tensions of certain language pairs never exclude the global conversation that highlights translation as its own language throughout the volume’s pages. Thus, the chapters can be read and taught together effortlessly. In Translation, is a celebration of the absolute necessity of translation since, as Allen and Bernofsky state, ‘‘translation not only brings us the work of those who write in other languages; it simultaneously reveals the limits of our own language

Anti‐Semitism and the American Racial Context: A Historical Inquiry

AbstractThis essay reacts to the observation that (1) the vast literature on anti‐Semitism virtually ignores the United States and that (2) American scholarly writing on the topic of race and racism has little to say about Jews and anti‐Semitism. This essay tries to bridge both gaps by arguing, first, that anti‐Semitism should not be studied as an ideology or as a social virus but as a marker of specific tensions in the cultures where it becomes a public issue. Second, in the United States, a civic nation rather than a European nation‐state, Jews have always been included as citizens, have never challenged a national identity based on democratic political values, and have nevertheless been perceived ambiguously. Third, Race has defined the basic fissures in our social and political history, and groups stigmatized as racially alien have faced systematic discrimination. At the turn of the 20th century, East European Jews were perceived as members of an immigrant proletariat encased – like other immgrants – in a racial ideology and faced discrimination on that critical but largely class‐related basis. Fourth, other Jews before and after that era were marginal to America's basic tensions, and different groups of Jews were treated differently according to the various class positions and geographic locations that they often shared with others. Anti‐Semitism marked the shifting kaleidoscope of America's endless process of economic growth and social mobility.

Optimizing irrigation efficiency through the consideration of soil hydrological properties – examples and simulation approaches

Climate change is connected with a global increase in the use of irrigation. But irrigation is often practiced on very variable soils with the consequence of overor under-irrigation. The efficiency of irrigation techniques is closely connected with soil hydrological and soil physical interactions in the main root zone. In irrigation practice the deciding and often site-specific soil properties are usually not taken into consideration. This paper will emphasize the importance of soil texture in terms of improving irrigation by summarizing some results of longtime studies about soil water dynamic under the influence of irrigation. Furthermore, the paper presents possibilities of optimizing irrigation on the basis of two simulation approaches. In the first simulation approach a multi-agent-based tool calculates soil specific and corresponding water tensions by using pedotransfer functions. This makes possible a quantification of the need for irrigation and the control of the irrigation system. By integrating the physical concept of soil water potentials, temporal and spatial soil water fluxes are used to schedule dynamic and precision trickle-irrigation. The second simulation approach calculates a field-irrigation with simultaneous consideration of the horizontal variability of soil properties. The irrigation is carried out in a site-specific way with high precision. Both approaches show that precision and soil specific irrigation is accompanied by a significant reduction of irrigation water and an improvement of irrigation efficiency.

Sweet Property O'Mine

ABSTRACTSince the change of regimes in 1989, private property has become the symbol of the new era in the postsocialist part of Europe—an ideological tool as well as a vessel for creating and realizing identities. For young people in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, buying an apartment is the most common way to secure one's housing. However, it is accompanied by personal sacrifices and debt, resulting in uncertainties for many years to come. Therefore, the decision whether to buy or rent significantly influences young people's modes of life. Nevertheless, securing one's housing is not solely an economic question, but also a part of an intimate process of creating a personal space. To feel at home means to make it one's own, hence to dive into the process of constant re-negotiation. The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between property relations and the process of creating a home. The research data originates from intensive year-long qualitative fieldwork with thirty-five informants in Bratislava. As the results show, in a postsocialist society of uncertainties, private property is conceptualized as a personal goal and point of stability, but it also adds specific tensions and dilemmas to the notion of home. In relation to this, both home and property are parts of the same ongoing process of appropriation—influenced by preferences in taste, ideal notions, and social aspirations, as well as by broader social and economic factors.

Molecular dynamics analysis on wetting and interfacial properties of water-alcohol mixture droplets on a solid surface.

Molecular dynamics simulations of single water, water-methanol, or water-IPA (isopropyl-alcohol) mixture droplets on a solid surface were performed with various mixture ratios. An increase in alcohol fraction generally gave an increase in droplet wettability. Both methanol and IPA molecules showed a strong preference to gather at various interfaces, with methanol molecules also showing a tendency to diffuse into the droplet bulk. Specific interfacial tensions were investigated using quasi-one-dimensional simulation systems, and liquid-vapor and solid-liquid interfacial tensions were found to decrease greatly due to the presence of interfacial alcohol, while solid-vapor interfacial tensions were proved to have little influence on wettability. Young's relation was found to hold quantitatively well for both water-methanol and water-IPA droplets. The validity of using Bakker's equation on solid-liquid interfaces was also investigated, and it was shown that for tightly spaced crystal surfaces, the introduced uncertainly is small.

Exploring the Tensions of Collaboration among International Public Agencies

Drawing upon interagency collaboration literature, the paper investigates the specific tensions faced by international public organizations called to deliver jointly while characterized by significant institutional diversity and substantial autonomy. The empirical analysis of Delivering as One, the most tangible and visible response to the request of system-wide coherence in development activities undertaken by the United Nation System, is based on 79 semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis and direct observations that we obtained both in the Headquarters (Geneva and New York) and in the field (UN Delivering as One Country team in Tirana, Albania). The findings show that collaboration among international agencies is characterized by four collaborative tensions (integration vs specialization, unity vs diversity, vertical accountability vs horizontal accountability, support versus double standards), thus contributing to the nascent stream of research that conceptualizes international organizations qua public organizations. Furthermore, it advances the literature on public sector collaboration by (i) enriching the understanding of the complex nature of vertical accountability; (ii) improving the knowledge of the role of external stakeholders in interagency collaborations.

Linking Internet Texts and Practices: Challenges and Opportunities of Interdisciplinarity in an Ethnographically Inspired Study of ‘Local Content’

Ethnographic and ethnographically inspired approaches are becoming increasingly popular in studies of digital media and digital culture, and are being used by scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as in interdisciplinary projects. Nonetheless, specific methodological tensions and dilemmas can arise in the encounter between different research traditions. One area of such tension relates to how texts are approached, and how they are linked to other types of data. This article reports on related methodological questions which arose in interdisciplinary research into how residents of a favela, or shantytown, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil used the internet, and particularly blogs, to represent the area where they lived. Overall the article argues that the interdisciplinary nature of the research provided an opportunity to adapt and develop methodological concepts and approaches from different traditions (including anthropology, internet ethnography, new literacy studies and internet studies) in response to the characteristics of the field site. These were brought together in the idea of ‘following the content’, which also included the concept of the ‘content event’, inspired by new literacy studies and employed to connect texts and practices.

London's shadow legacies: security and activism at the 2012 Olympics

When London organisers bid on the 2012 Summer Olympics, they promised an array of legacies, from economic and environmental to cultural and sport-related. In bid materials, Lord Sebastian Coe and his colleagues put forth a four-pronged vision for the Games: providing an unforgettable experience for athletes; forging a British sport legacy; regenerating East London economically and socially; and championing the Olympic Movement and the International Olympic Committee. But the 2012 London Olympics tendered a legacy not touted in bid materials: a revamped security state and riled-up activist communities. This article examines the dialectics of restriction and resistance: the ever-present dance between security forces and activists as they jockey for position and advantage in the public sphere. Drawing from government documents, media accounts, ethnographies and interviews with activists and security practitioners, we analyse these dialectics as played out in London in the run-up to, during and after the Olympics. First, we analyse literatures on repressive and coercive state policies and on the dissent and activism they inspire, giving special attention to specific Olympic processes. We then consider the urban setting that not only stages the Games, but also animates specific tensions on which security agencies and activists converge. This discussion is developed in the following section where we consider the measures adopted by state and private security forces for the London Games and examine the activist response to the Olympic juggernaut and how campaigners were replying to – sometimes tacitly and at other times explicitly – the state's actions. The paper concludes by considering how security practices, activism and their interrelationships contribute towards a range of less-visible legacies.

Morality, Responsibility and Risk: The Importance of Alternative Perspectives in Vaccination Research

The four papers presented in this special section together provide a striking example of the importance of eliciting people's understandings and meanings of vaccinations, from parents and children to health and medical professionals. This commentary reflects on the findings of the papers in this special section and considers them within a broader sociocultural view on vaccination research. The four papers in the special section were integrated with previous research and scholarship on public health and vaccinations. The studies demonstrate how both uptake of vaccinations and their meanings vary by cultural context, most notably across Eastern and Western Europe, and the fundamental role that political, economic and healthcare systems play. Nevertheless, there are many similarities across seemingly diverse contexts. Three specific tensions are apparent across the findings (and within other vaccination research). These tensions revolve around (1) responsible citizen versus responsible individual, (2) scientific knowledge versus lay understandings and (3) uncertainty and risk versus certainty and trust. Threaded through these tensions are discourses around citizenship, trust, morality, gender and power that are important to consider in research on vaccinations.

Integrated Care: Wellness-Oriented Peer Approaches: A Key Ingredient for Integrated Care

People with lived experience of mental illness have become leaders of an influential movement to help the mental health system embrace the notion of whole health and wellness in the areas of advocacy, policy, and care delivery. Wellness-oriented peer approaches delivered by peer-support whole-health specialists and wellness coaches can play an important role in integrated care models. This column examines the wellness definitions and peer models and some specific benefits and tensions between the peer-oriented wellness approach and the medical model. These models can work in unison to improve health and wellness among people with mental and substance use disorders.

Prolonged Administration of Pyridostigmine Impairs Neuromuscular Function with and without Down-regulation of Acetylcholine Receptors

The acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, pyridostigmine, is prophylactically administered to mitigate the toxic effects of nerve gas poisoning. The authors tested the hypothesis that prolonged pyridostigmine administration can lead to neuromuscular dysfunction and even down-regulation of acetylcholine receptors. Pyridostigmine (5 or 25 mg·kg·day) or saline was continuously administered via osmotic pumps to rats, and infused for either 14 or 28 days until the day of neuromuscular assessment (at day 14 or 28), or discontinued 24 h before neuromuscular assessment. Neurotransmission and muscle function were examined by single-twitch, train-of-four stimulation and 100-Hz tetanic stimulation. Sensitivity to atracurium and acetylcholine receptor number (quantitated by I-α-bungarotoxin) provided additional measures of neuromuscular integrity. Specific tetanic tensions (Newton [N]/muscle weight [g]) were significantly (P < 0.05) decreased at 14 (10.3 N/g) and 28 (11.1 N/g) days of 25 mg·kg·day pyridostigmine compared with controls (13.1-13.6 N/g). Decreased effective dose (0.81-1.05 vs. 0.16-0.45 mg/kg; P < 0.05) and decreased plasma concentration (3.02-3.27 vs. 0.45-1.37 μg/ml; P < 0.05) of atracurium for 50% paralysis (controls vs. 25 mg·kg·day pyridostigmine, respectively), irrespective of discontinuation of pyridostigmine, confirmed the pyridostigmine-induced altered neurotransmission. Pyridostigmine (25 mg·kg·day) down-regulated acetylcholine receptors at 28 days. Prolonged administration of pyridostigmine (25 mg·kg·day) leads to neuromuscular impairment, which can persist even when pyridostigmine is discontinued 24 h before assessment of neuromuscular function. Pyridostigmine has the potential to down-regulate acetylcholine receptors, but induces neuromuscular dysfunction even in the absence of receptor changes.