Sticking Points Research Articles

Are Species Social Objects? Some Notes

Although biological species might seem paradigmatic natural objects, several objections can be advanced against their independence from taxonomic activities and from scientific and social practices in general. Darwin himself, in the second chapter of the Origin, claimed to be looking «at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other». In this contribution, I sketch the sticking points of the issue whether species are natural or social objects in the light of two of the main accounts of social objects, namely Searle’s, on the one hand, and Ferraris’ on the other.

Does AFAS have bite? Comparing services trade commitments with actual practice

The paper reviews the commitments achieved so far in selected sectors under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS), and compares these commitments with actual regulatory practice. The aim is to identify whether significant services trade liberalization has been achieved in reality, rather than merely on paper. The paper also identifies the sticking points, and assesses whether current services trade restrictions remain uncommitted because of sectoral sensitivities, features of the negotiating framework, or gaps in the broader regulatory environment. In each of the sectors examined, there are examples of all three problems. The paper concludes with suggestions for additional directions that could be taken and negotiating strategies that could be employed to deal with these problems, and thus accelerate the reform process towards an ASEAN Economic Community.

P.5.f.002 Psychometric properties of the mini-mental state examination – Korean version

Developing and understanding, both verbally and experientially, the flexible use of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in real-world application may pose challenges for both therapists new to the intervention and seasoned ACT therapists alike. Some of the subtleties of distinguishing the content of behavior from the function of behavior and developing facility with ACT core processes in these areas may, at times, prove difficult. Clinical supervision with proficient ACT therapists can assist in addressing some of these issues. Although there are a number of ‘sticking points’ that therapists new to ACT may encounter, we explore several of the most common here. Each clinical sticking point can serve as a ‘heads up’ to therapists new to ACT, followed by possible ACT consistent paths designed to support the therapist in overcoming common barriers. Although targeted to new ACT therapists, the reminders are appropriate for ACT practitioners of all levels of clinical experience, as well as supervisors providing training in ACT.

The window of opportunity for indoor tanning legislation.

As of August 2014, 11 states in the USA have passed under-age-18 bans on indoor tanning. The Society of Behavioral Medicine, the American Academy of Dermatology, and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all issued statements in support of an under-age-18 ban. The World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration have both declared indoor tanning devices as carcinogenic, and this year, the Surgeon General for the first time issued a warning on the dangers of UV radiation and indoor tanning. This essay highlights how the awareness of the risks of indoor tanning, effective policies, and a conducive political atmosphere have aligned to create a window of opportunity for further under-age-18 indoor tanning legislation. The rising number of preventable skin cancers and mortalities is an issue that transcends political party lines, and now, there is a need for support from health professionals and advocates to motivate legislators to push new under-age-18 bills past their sticking points.

Terminological debate over language impairment in children: forward movement and sticking points.

BackgroundThere is no agreed terminology for describing childhood language problems. In this special issue Reilly et al. and Bishop review the history of the most widely used label, ‘specific language impairment’ (SLI), and discuss the pros and cons of various terms. Commentators from a range of backgrounds, in terms of both discipline and geographical background, were then invited to respond to each lead article.AimsTo summarize the main points made by the commentators and identify (1) points of consensus and disagreement, (2) issues for debate including the drivers for change and diagnostic criteria, and (3) the way forward.Conclusions & ImplicationsThere was some common ground, namely that the current situation is not tenable because it impedes clinical and research progress and impacts on access to services. There were also wide-ranging disagreements about which term should be adopted. However, before debating the broad diagnostic label it is essential to consider the diagnostic criteria and the systems used to classify childhood language problems. This is critical in order to facilitate communication between and among clinicians and researchers, across sectors (in particular health and education), with the media and policy-makers and with families and individuals who have language problems. We suggest four criteria be taken into account when establishing diagnostic criteria, including: (1) the features of language, (2) the impact on functioning and participation, (3) the presence/absence of other impairments, and (4) the language trajectory or pathway and age of onset. In future, these criteria may expand to include the genetic and neural markers for language problems. Finally, there was overarching agreement about the need for an international and multidisciplinary forum to move this debate forward. The purpose would be to develop consensus regarding the diagnostic criteria and diagnostic label for children with language problems. This process should include canvassing the views of families and people with language problems as well as the views of policy-makers.

Doing close-relative research: sticking points, method and ethical considerations

Doing insider research can raise many problematic issues, particularly if the insiders are also close relatives. This paper deals with complexities arising from research which is participatory in nature. Thus, this paper seeks to describe the various sticking points that were encountered by the researcher when she decided to embark on insider research which focused on close relatives with a particular disability. These sticking points were encountered when the researcher had to decide about which methods of data collection should be used; when she had to see which criteria were to be taken into consideration when selecting participants; when dealing with issues of anonymity and informed consent; and when dealing with issues regarding representation and dissemination. Although such sticking points seemed to be insurmountable at times, by virtue of being aporetic, the researcher will discuss decisions taken in order to deal with these difficult situations while also keeping in mind ethical considerations.

Critiques de la notion d’art africain: approches historiques, ethno-esthétiques et philosophiques by Babacar Mbaye Diop

Reviews 215 within the text, or in footnotes, in order to promote readability. More often than not, however, frustration rather than ease results from this lack of specificity. In a similar vein, the brief critical bibliography that rounds out the volume is general in nature and disappointingly uninformative. Dénier is at her best in drawing conclusions from her thematic review of the persistent,dispersed allusions to British culture in Stendhal’s life and writings.Far from being the object of a systematic,didactic discourse,Stendhal’s England is constantly evolving, fluid enough to encompass inconsistencies and contradictions . More than a mirror of reality, it is an intellectual construct. Although Count Stendhal may be of limited use to scholars who want to further explore the topic, it brings together facets of British culture that make England, in his writings and life, the counterpoint and complement of his imaginary creation of Italy. Smith College (MA) Mary Ellen Birkett Diop, Babacar Mbaye. Critiques de la notion d’art africain: approches historiques, ethno-esthétiques et philosophiques. Paris: Connaissances et Savoirs, 2011. ISBN 978-2-7539-0190-2. Pp. 292. 22 a. The genius of Diop’s text lies in its simple organizing premise: continuity. Though not an earth-shattering claim in the study of other subjects, Diop’s assertion for African arts tackles head-on a firmly-entrenched intellectual tradition. In seeking unity, he frequently returns to important sticking points (the question of utility, craftsmanship, contact, and spirituality) in relation to the text’s three main divisions. The first section, “Approches historiques de la création artistique en Afrique noire,” enriches our understanding of the categories in which African arts have been typically divided—ancient, traditional, and contemporary. Rather than rejecting the classifications , the author proposes a rereading of such art critics as Apollinaire, Matisse, Cheikh Anta Diop, and Senghor in order to weave connections. For the ancient period, Diop revitalizes the links between Sub-Saharan Africa and Egyptian antiquity.He reexamines the aesthetic framework that has been used to evaluate African artisanship in the traditional arts category. The author shows how critics have overemphasized European contact. At the same time, he exposes the amplification of utility and the underappreciation of the role of beauty. According to Diop, contemporary art in Africa suffers at the hands of critics who habitually disconnect it from its own historical roots simply because Western art categorizes works as contemporary based on the break of the postwar period. The second part,“Critique des différentes lectures des Arts négroafricains ,” examines the evolution of Eurocentric aesthetics as it has been applied to the study of African plastic arts. Diop demonstrates how value has slowly been assigned to African art production, as evidenced by the labels “art nègre”, “art primitive,” and “art tribal”—each carrying with its aesthetic classification a network of philosophical biases. Following Jean-Godefroy Bidima’s argument in L’art négro-africain, Diop then underscores the fanciful perception of elements that had suddenly given African arts an aesthetic status in the West, thanks to their association with modern themes of “dehumanization ,”“alienation,”and“authenticity.”He deftly leads the reader to“l’analyse ethnoesthétique,” which examines the question of beauty and utility through Kant, Senghor, Mauss, and Delange. Diop ends the second part on Eurocentric aesthetics with an inquiry into the formalist approach by connecting Baumgarten, Hume, and Hegel to Alassane Ndaw, Roger Somé, and Iba Ndiaye Diadji. The third section of the text investigates African aesthetic theories by Senghor, Mveng, and Bidima. Each of the three chapters in this final unit treats the standard themes of “Négritude,”“crossings,” “marginalization,”and“globalization,”with the goal of developing a unified aesthetic theory. While Diop frequently returns to the past, he just as often looks to the contemporary arts scene within and outside the continent. This study speaks with clarity on a subject whose sources are complex and varied.As each chapter peels away layers of culturally biased criticism, the natural links between the ancient-traditionalcontemporary periods do indeed emerge. Not only does Diop’s study serve as an excellent introduction to African plastic arts, it provides insight into all its arts traditions. Mount...

National and Regional Obligations, the Metaphor of Two‐Level Games, and the ASEAN Socio‐Cultural Community

This article draws on ideas associated with “two‐level games” to focus on the continuing difficulty within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) of reconciling national responsibilities and regional commitments. Using this perspective to examine three areas included in the remit of the ASEAN Socio‐Cultural Community—migrant workers, “haze”, and disaster management—it disaggregates some of the complex domestic and international pressures that can lead to varying regional outcomes. Whereas problems with regional cooperation are often simply laid at the door of recalcitrant governments or inadequate regional institutions, this lens foregrounds a different source of difficulties, in which significant domestic constituencies severely constrain what governments can offer to the region. Conceptualizing the national/regional interface in this way, however, also suggests ways through some of the sticking points. This lens therefore has implications for policy, advocacy, ASEAN's communication efforts, and its routine collaborative undertakings.

In the Name of VAWA

It may at first seem curious that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would be the topic of an editorial 9 months after its 2013 reauthorization and before we have the opportunity to examine its impact, since it takes effect in fiscal year 2014. Nonetheless, advocates can revel in their victory of a battle hard fought, particularly after the failure of Congress to reauthorize VAWA in 2012. For some of us, the true curiosity was that there was a battle at all. Surely, we can agree that interpersonal violence is socially undesirable, if not tragic. In her blog, Bea Hanson (2013), acting director of the Office of Violence Against Women, reported, ‘‘The week that VAWA was reauthorized, at least 15 women and 4 men were killed by intimate partners. A 9-year-old boy was killed by a hatchet by his father, who had previously served time in jail for domestic violence and fought for custody after his release. A 17-year-old boy was arrested for stabbing his 16-year-old girlfriend to death. And a 22-year-old pregnant woman was shot in the head and her body burned—her boyfriend has been arrested.’’ Notwithstanding these tragedies, the curiousness begins to fade when the sticking points of the reauthorization become transparent; three provisions for previously unaddressed or underaddressed groups were included: (1) protections for intimate partner violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT); (2) the sovereignty of Native tribal courts; and (3) extended access to U visas for immigrant victims (Eichelberger, 2013; VAWA: Udall Celebrates Senate Reauthorization of VAWA, 2012). These ‘‘sticking points’’ allow us to use multiple theoretical lenses to contextualize our cultural acceptance of violence against women in the United States (because surely no theoretical lens helps us understand that this violence is appropriate).

Europe Debates Ethics Reviews, Data Release

Among the sticking points are changes in the requirements for ethics reviews and a proposal that the results of all clinical trials in the European Union be made publicly accessible.

Who's afraid of sex at school? The politics of researching culture, religion and sexuality at school

This paper explores the methodological politics of researching at the intersections of sexuality, culture and religion in secondary schools. It draws on experiences during a project concerned with how to address cultural and religious diversity in sexuality education in Australia and New Zealand. The paper focuses on two methodological sticking points, one occurring inside academia and the other outside, in schools. The first coheres around the process of gaining ethics approval from multiple institutional committees and the second accesses schools for participation. These sticking points are conceptualized as effects of a set of discursive and material constraints which are idiosyncratic to school-based sexualities research. We argue that discourses of sexuality and young people are mobilized in both spaces and intersect with a social moment of ‘risk anxiety’ in ways that shape the methodological possibilities of the research. These discourses serve to constitute sexualities research as ‘risky’ and ‘controversial’, an image which impedes the generation of new knowledge in the field. By rendering challenges of this research visible and discursively deconstructing the reasons for them, we refuse to dismiss school-based sexualities research as ‘too hard’. Instead, we aim to keep this topic firmly on the educational research agenda by alerting researchers to its challenges so they may prepare for them.

Lurking, Distilling, Exceeding, Vibrating

This paper addresses two main questions: (1) What has theory been doing? and (2) What might theory be doing? The first question is addressed historically, and the second question is addressed imaginatively. In between those two topics, I have inserted a brief interval to raise some sticking points pertaining to the question, “What is properly educational about educational theory?”

The Funding of Political Parties

Despite attempts over the last decade to bring an end to what has become an ‘arms race’ between political parties, party funding in the UK continues to defy resolution. Drawing on the experience of the committee charged by the last Labour administration to put party funding and electoral spending on a more sustainable footing, this article examines the issues and the main sticking points. It outlines the basis on which the negotiations were undertaken, and the main hurdles they sought to overcome. It highlights the disagreement between the parties on the definition of the central issue, the problems associated with the main funding sources for each of the parties, and the viability of state funding. It discusses why success proved elusive, but also why a solution is necessary, since in the absence of robust rules, parties and therefore the UK political system more broadly, are ‘a hostage to the next scandal’.

English

The paper applies Habermas’ theory of deliberative democracy to argue for an objective, non-partisan and non-evil outcome in the Zimbabwean constitution-making process. Habermas’ deliberative democracy is particularly useful because it emphasizes rational discourse and it tries to put away prejudices and egoistic tendencies in constitutional making. For Zimbabweans, non-partisan thinking assumes political equality between human beings as moral persons who have a conception of rationality. In the current constitution-making process, main political parties [(Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Movement for Democratic Change-Morgan Tsvangirai Faction (MDC-T)] have bargained and campaigned for favoured positions concerning the sticking points of the constitution. The said political parties have used a calculus of party interests to influence public opinion on controversial issues in the constitution such as, among others, executive powers, land, war veterans, media and citizenship. Habermas’ deliberative democracy entails that Zimbabweans should not be disadvantaged by partisan thinking. It is immoral for political parties to tailor principles so as to fit into their existing power structures. Party inclinations and aspirations should not override the views of the grassroots people. The opinion rival of the two main political parties, as the paper argues, creates a slippery slope scenario whereby the media, student unions, trade unions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have flanked behind either MDC-T or ZANU PF perceptions. From a logical point of view, such thinking has created a false dichotomy thereby silencing and ignoring a wide range of alternative viewpoints which transcend partisan views. Further, the paper argues that the future of Zimbabwe, as enshrined in the proposed constitution, ought not to be sacrificed in the attempt to achieve political domination since the future of Zimbabwe is great, and lies beyond party politics. What is constitutionally desirable for Zimbabweans must be reasonable rather than just party inclined and manipulated.   Key words: Habermas, deliberative democracy, constitution-making, Zimbabwe, rationality.

Agriculture and Trade: Issues in the Climate Change Negotiations

This paper is one of a series of five outputs produced under the Food Security and Climate Change Initiative of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). It surveys the key trade issues in the ongoing negotiations addressing agriculture as a sectoral approach to mitigation in the international climate change regime. While there is widespread agreement on the potential benefits of bringing agriculture into the regime, a number of important sticking points need resolution before such a step will be possible. Trade-related issues are some of the most significant. This paper starts by briefly laying out the background, noting the rationale and negotiating history to date. It then surveys the state of play, unpacking and analyzing the key issues and bringing to bear the history of trade law and policy to explain the lack of progress to date. It finishes by considering where we might go from here.

“Eco Innovative Refitting Technologies and Processes for Shipbuilding Industry: Project Overview”

This paper summarizes the key characteristics of the three year duration Collaborative R&D Project named “Eco innovative refitting technologies and processes for shipbuilding industry promoted by European Repair Shipyards”, in short “Eco-REFITEC”, which is being funded from the European Union's RTD 7th Framework. The project started in January 2011 with the purpose of develop and implement Eco-innovative Retrofitting processes and Life Cycle Strategies in Repair Shipyards to Strength European competitiveness of the Shipbuilding Industry and to reduce the environmental footprint of waterborne transport and operations. Within the paper insights are given concerning the so called “sticking points”: The Value Analysis Methodology adopted to develop and identify alternative and eco-innovative ways to perform future retrofitting jobs, the data base of eco-innovation practices, the repair shipyard model and the LCA tool; which will be developed and that will be used as a basis to test both the environmental shipyards and ships performance, and assess the pertinence of eco-innovative solutions.

Optimal effort investment for overcoming the weakest point: new insights from a computational model of neuromuscular adaptation

The occurrence of so-called sticking points in a lift is pervasive in weight training practice. Biomechanically complex exercises often exhibit multi-modal variation of effective force exerted against the load as a function of the elevation and velocity of the load. This results in a variety of possible loci for the occurrence of sticking points and makes the problem of designing the optimal training strategy to overcome them challenging. In this article a case founded on theoretical grounds is made against a purely empirical method. It is argued that the nature of the problem considered and the wide range of variables involved limit the generality of conclusions which can be drawn from experimental studies alone. Instead an alternative is described, whereby a recently proposed mathematical model of neuromuscular adaptation is employed in a series of computer simulations. These are used to examine quantitatively the effects of differently targeted partial range of motion (ROM) training approaches. Counter-intuitively and in contrast to common training practices, the key novel insight inferred from the obtained results is that in some cases the most effective approach for improving performance in an exercise with a sticking point at a particular point in the ROM is to improve force production capability at a different and possibly remote position in the lift. In the context of the employed model, this result is explained by changes in the neuromuscular and biomechanical environment for force production.

Special Divine Action and How to Do Philosophy of Religion

Any notion of a god that is of relevance to us must show how it makes a difference in the world. But this idea of an interventionist god doesn’t make sense for a secular and scientific mentality such as ours. I take Brenda de Wet’s five sticking points for any religious believer that seem to fail to make the grade of intellectual integrity (2008), and argue that starting from creedal and popular formulations of the notion of a god, as she does along with most standard textbooks in the philosophy of religion, reveals an oversight of self-knowledge characteristic of much modern philosophy. Uncovering similar inadequacies in the secularized Deist account of god (which has given rise to the problem of the relevance of the god) opens up questions to do with the contingent intersubjective conditions of possibility for the development of the power of knowing and acting in the sense implied in the notion of intellectual integrity. But, I argue, free self-determination, and the contingency of its actualization, suggests the reality of a non-finite source of this freedom, and indeed this being manifest in an unavoidably historical, particularistic way. Along these lines I argue for an intellectually coherent notion of particular divine action but in a non-interventionist model.

Positive Relationships: Rewards - Sticking points

The pitfalls of using rewards such as stickers to guide behaviour are examined by Jennie Lindon.

The Next Generation Becomes the Now Generation

In recent years, several so-called next-generation DNA sequencing platforms have begun to challenge the well-established Sanger sequencing method. In two important ways—cost and speed—these next-gen technologies provide improvements over Sanger sequencing. Several technical drawbacks (short read length, lack of paired end reads, and quality problems, particularly with homonucleotide stretches [1]), however, render assembly difficult and limit the use of post-Sanger sequencing. These obstacles limited the effective use of next-generation sequencing to the sequencing of prokaryotes [2], the resequencing of individuals [3], and transcriptomics studies, recently termed RNA-Seq [4] and effectively precluded de novo eukaryotic sequencing. Realizing the shortcomings of next-generation technology, manufacturers have continued to improve the read length and have recently implemented paired end methods. Capitalizing on these improvements, the publication by Nowrousian et al. describes the team's success in completely bypassing Sanger sequencing to produce a de novo assembly (to draft quality) of a complete genome, that of the filamentous fungus Sordaria macrospora [5], using Solexa sequencing-by-synthesis and 454 pyrosequencing. The technical merits of this publication make it an excellent starting point for future genome sequencing using post-Sanger platforms. The assembly phase has been a particular sticking point for de novo genome sequencing in eukaryotes, as the complexity of the genomes makes it difficult to correctly place short reads. By sequencing to high depth (nearly 100 times the length of the genome), the authors were able to pull the assembly together in large pieces (contigs) and obtain a reasonable N50 = 117 kb (defined as the smallest length of the longest contigs that cover 50% of the genome). The authors also experimented with different levels of coverage and different combinations of reads to produce assemblies of various qualities. They determined that the depth to which S. macrospora was sequenced may not be necessary, and that closing gaps with 454 reads resulted in a large improvement. Interestingly, this is similar to the blend of long- and short-insert libraries that were used for the whole genome shotgun version of the human genome project [6]. By leveraging the short inexpensive Solexa reads for the bulk of the genome, the longer 454 reads can add valuable contig order and orienting information and vastly improve quality while dramatically reducing the associated cost. Nowrousian et al. [5] have provided the assembly statistics for various depths and platforms, paving the way for future studies using high throughput sequencing. The researchers also showed that post-Sanger sequencing technologies can be used to reliably assemble difficult areas of the genome. One region of the genome, that which controls nonself recognition, could have been a particularly troublesome stumbling block. Anastomosis is a process by which hyphae, the thread-like projections of filamentous fungi, fuse and bring genetically distinct nuclei into contact. Fungi from the same species with different het (heterokaryon incompatibilty) loci will fuse, but the resulting heterokaryotic cells are subject to either severely restricted growth or cell death. This process has benefits that the authors describe briefly. Although incompatibility has never been observed in S. macrospora, the investigators report that the genome contains apparent heterokaryon incompatibility genes, with the twist that the region is inverted and contains duplications of key genes near the ends of the inversion. Such a duplication might be difficult to resolve with short Solexa data and even the longer 454 reads. However, the authors used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify across the boundaries of the inverted and duplicated region, and end-sequenced the PCR products to confirm the genome structure predicted by the genome assembler Velvet [7]. Given this demonstrated success in resolving a difficult region containing duplicate genes, researchers and physicians can consider the previously unfeasible next-gen sequencing technologies when deciding whether to sequence an entire genome. The quality of sequence produced, and ability to compare the Sanger and post-Sanger sequence scores, were additional sticking points to relying completely on the lower cost next-gen technologies. On this front, Nowrousian's team gave us a glimpse of the error rate and how it compares to that of Sanger sequencing by choosing several possible frame shifts in predicted coding regions for resequencing. The outcome of this investigation, although based on a small (21 kb total) sample, shows that the next-gen technologies can achieve error rates similar to those of Sanger sequencing. This leaves no obvious reason to use any Sanger sequencing for future whole genome sequencing projects.