Getting Real: Interactive Fieldwork

The Getting Real: Interactive Fieldwork walking tour is one of the CCW Graduate School's Year of Resilience events. It explores what happens when research and teaching take place outside the academic institution through engaging directly with a situation, place or space. How might this direct experience engage with our understandings of embodied (physically understood) proximity, and through this allow us to empathise with diverse situations. Taking ‘fieldwork’, i.e. when we leave our (enclosed) laboratories, be they the overall college or studios/workshops as a starting point, the walking tour invites us to makes connections with each other and the world beyond Wimbledon College of Arts. The day is led by artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey - Heather also has a background in theatre and performance, so it is an opportunity to talk across the Fine Art and Theatre programmes and levels. They have innovative insights into both research techniques and making processes, which in turn connects with their resilient approach to living and engaging with space and place. They have worked on many occasions with Cape Farewell, who are currently in residence at the CCW Graduate School

High country river processes : a technical discussion of results from research on the Kowai River system, Springfield, Canterbury

A sub-catchment (Torlesse Stream) of the Kowai River, Canterbury, has been the site of an interdisciplinary study of the relationships between erosion and stream sedimentation (Hayward 1975). It was logical to extend the stream sediment investigation of that study (Hayward 1978) into the Kowai system proper in order to establish changes in the nature and distribution of the stream sediments with distance downstream. The sediment sampling study, comprising Part I of Paper A in this volume, analyses the changes in size, distribution, form and rock type of the river gravels from ahead water mountain stream to the wide braided river beds of the middle reaches of the Kowai River. Part 2 of Paper A discusses the possible implications for the management that these sediment studies have for this and other similar river systems. It is believed that if thought necessary it is possible to design a river training programme to guide the river towards a more manageable pattern. Paper B of this volume compares the results of the present river gravel survey with those from a sedimentological analysis of fluvio-glacial outwash gravels deposited several thousand years ago within the lower reaches of the Kowai system. This comparative study is used to indicate differences in the hydrologic environment prevailing at their respective times of deposition, and aids in our understanding of the processes at work in hill and high country rivers today. Both Papers A and B relate to the Kowai River system, but the authors wish to emphasise that the findings from these studies are believed to have application to other similar gravel bed river systems

Designing pre-bariatric surgery education: The value of Patients' experiences

Within the field of bariatric surgery, preoperative education to empower patients to adapt to the postoperative lifestyle and get the best outcomes in terms of health and quality of life is not standardised across the UK and is based mainly on clinical experience. In this study, the authors used qualitative research and a structured framework to design a preoperative psychosocial education course for people undergoing surgery. Qualitative interviews were performed to determine issues that previous surgery recipients felt were missing from their preoperative education, and the current educational course was redesigned to include this content. The study provides a template from which other Trusts could evaluate and improve their education

Organizational professionalism in globalizing law firms.

Are the challenges of globalization, technology and competition exercising a dramatic impact on professional practice whilst, in the process, compromising traditional notions of professionalism, autonomy and discretion? This paper engages with these debates and uses original, qualitative empirical data to highlight the vast areas of continuity that exist even the largest globalizing law firms. Whilst it is undoubted that growth in the size of firms and their globalization bring new challenges, these are resolved in ways that are sensitive to professional values and interests. In particular, a commitment to professional autonomy and discretion still characterises the way in which these firms operate and organize themselves. This situation is explained in terms of the development of an organizational model of professionalism, whereby the large organization is increasingly emerging as a primary locus of professionalization and whereby professional priorities and objectives are increasingly supported by organizational logics, systems and initiatives

Transgenic Rescue of the LARGEmyd Mouse: A LARGE Therapeutic Window?

LARGE is a glycosyltransferase involved in glycosylation of α-dystroglycan (α-DG). Absence of this protein in the LARGEmyd mouse results in α-DG hypoglycosylation, and is associated with central nervous system abnormalities and progressive muscular dystrophy. Up-regulation of LARGE has previously been proposed as a therapy for the secondary dystroglycanopathies: overexpression in cells compensates for defects in multiple dystroglycanopathy genes. Counterintuitively, LARGE overexpression in an FKRP-deficient mouse exacerbates pathology, suggesting that modulation of α-DG glycosylation requires further investigation. Here we demonstrate that transgenic expression of human LARGE (LARGE-LV5) in the LARGEmyd mouse restores α-DG glycosylation (with marked hyperglycosylation in muscle) and that this corrects both the muscle pathology and brain architecture. By quantitative analyses of LARGE transcripts we also here show that levels of transgenic and endogenous LARGE in the brains of transgenic animals are comparable, but that the transgene is markedly overexpressed in heart and particularly skeletal muscle (20–100 fold over endogenous). Our data suggest LARGE overexpression may only be deleterious under a forced regenerative context, such as that resulting from a reduction in FKRP: in the absence of such a defect we show that systemic expression of LARGE can indeed act therapeutically, and that even dramatic LARGE overexpression is well-tolerated in heart and skeletal muscle. Moreover, correction of LARGEmyd brain pathology with only moderate, near-physiological LARGE expression suggests a generous therapeutic window

What lies beneath? The role of informal and hidden networks in the management of crises

Crisis management research traditionally focuses on the role of formal communication networks in the escalation and management of organisational crises. Here, we consider instead informal and unobservable networks. The paper explores how hidden informal exchanges can impact upon organisational decision-making and performance, particularly around inter-agency working, as knowledge distributed across organisations and shared between organisations is often shared through informal means and not captured effectively through the formal decision-making processes. Early warnings and weak signals about potential risks and crises are therefore often missed. We consider the implications of these dynamics in terms of crisis avoidance and crisis management

La Lógica de los trabajadores : un estudio sobre la racionalidad, la autonomía y la coherencia de las prácticas y los significados de los trabajadores

En parte de la literatura reciente sobre sociología del trabajo y de las organizaciones, el reconocimiento del papel de los obreros como agentes ha venido de la mano de una concepción de la subjetividad de los trabajadores como un "efecto" contradictorio e inconsistente de las relaciones de poder. Frente a esta concepción, y a partir del análisis de dieciocho entrevistas realizadas a trabajadores de una multinacional automovilística de Barcelona, se pondrá de manifiesto en este artículo el carácter innovador, autónomo, lógico y coherente del conjunto de los significados que guían las acciones cotidianas de los trabajadores. En el caso analizado, los trabajadores guían sus acciones cotidianas bajo la idea de la necesidad de respetar un código ético de comportamiento compuesto por una serie de principios morales bien trabados. Las acciones de compromiso y resistencia, que algunos autores presentan como contradictorias, aparecen aquí como acciones coherentes con una serie de principios éticos, y por tanto, como racionalmente ajustadas a valores.While some of the recent literature addressing the sociology of work and organizations recognizes the role of workers' agency, it always includes the concept of workers' subjectivity as a contradictory and inconsistent "effect" of power relations. In contrast to this approach, using the analysis of eighteen interviews conducted with workers of an automotive multinational in Barcelona, it will be shown in this article the innovative, autonomous, logical and coherent character of the set of meanings guiding workers' everyday actions. In this case study, the everyday actions of the workers are guided by a belief in the necessity of an ethical code of behavior. This code is composed of a set of congruent moral principles. The actions of resistance and commitment, presented by several authors as contradictory, appear being consistent with a set of ethical principles, and therefore, as value-rational action

Responding to class theft: Theoretical and empirical links to critical management studies

Redrafted submission for inclusion in Remarx Section of Rethinking MarxismThis paper suggests closer linkages between the fields of Postmodern Class Analysis (PCA) and Critical Management Studies (CMS)2 are possible. It argues that CMS might contribute to the empirical engagement with the over-determined relations between class and non-class processes in work organizations (this appears to have received relatively little attention in PCA) and that PCA's theoretical and conceptual commitments may provide one means for CMS to engage in class analysis. CMS's focus on power and symbolic relations has led to the relative neglect of exploitation and class, in surplus terms. Both fields share similar although not identical political and ethical commitments