Creativity in Social Networks: A Core-Periphery Perspectiv

Building on socio-structural explanations, this article elaborates on the tension between individual actors’ positions along the core-periphery continuum of the social field and their ability to gain legitimacy for their creative work. Peripheral actors are less constrained by the field’s normative pressures and free to experiment with un- conventional ideas and solutions, but they may struggle to mobilize attention and harness the symbolic and material resources needed to legitimate their work. By contrast, core players are more effective at leveraging networks to build consensus, but they often exhibit a propensity toward more incremental work due to their higher levels of assimilation into the conventions of the field. To resolve this tension this article advances a strategy which we term optimal network structuration strategy . This strategy implies forming ties that link the two ends of the core-periphery spectrum, in the attempt to increase the likelihood of generating novelty while also enhancing the ability to make such novelty manifest and visible to the field. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed

Communicative and linguistic development in preterm children: a longitudinal study from 12 to 24 months.

BACKGROUND: Research conducted on preterm children's linguistic skills has provided varying pictures, and the question of whether and to what extent preterm children are delayed in early language acquisition remains largely unresolved. AIMS: To examine communicative and linguistic development during the second year in a group of Italian children born prematurely using the 'Primo Vocabolario del Bambino' (PVB), the Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. The primary goal was to compare action/gesture production, word comprehension, and word production, and the relationship between these three domains in preterm children and to normative data obtained from a large sample of Italian children born at term. A second aim was to address the longstanding debate regarding the use of chronological versus corrected gestational age in the assessment of preterm children's abilities. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Parents of twelve preterm children completed the PVB questionnaire at five age points during the children's second year, and scores were compared with those from a normative sample of full-term children and those of 59 full-term children selected as a control group from the normative sample for the PVB. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Preterm children exhibited a delay in all three aspects of communication and language. In particular, communicative-linguistic age tended to lag approximately 3 months behind chronological age when children were between the ages of 12 and 24 months. When chronological age was used, preterm children's percentile scores for all three components of communication and language fell within the lower limits of the normal range, while scores calculated using corrected age either fell at or above the 50th percentile. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: Findings suggest that despite the significant biological risk engendered by premature birth, early communicative and linguistic development appears to proceed in a relatively robust fashion among preterm children, with tight relations across communicative domains as in full-term children. Employing both chronological and corrected gestational age criteria in the evaluation of preterm children's abilities may provide important information about their progress in language acquisition. This may be especially important during the initial stages of communicative and linguistic development, inasmuch as comparisons of the two sets of scores may provide clinicians with a way to distinguish children who may be at risk for language problems from those who may be expected to progress normally

Effects of water extracts from chicory and BHT on the in vitro rumen degradation of feeds.

Effects of Butyl-Hydroxyl-Toluene (BHT) and of Red Chicory Extract (RCE) on kinetics of gas production (GP) and rumen degradability values (OMd, NDFd and in vitro true OM degradability - IVTOMD) of two feeds (meadow hay and corn meal) were evaluated using an in vitro automatic batch system. For each feed 2 increasing dosages (0.15 and 1.5 mg/g of feed) of BHT and RCE and a Control (C) were tested in 4 replications and 2 incubations. First incubation lasted 72h, the 2nd one was stopped at the times on which half of GP was produced (t½), which were 9 and 16 h for corn and hay, respectively. From the supernatants of the 2nd incubation, VFA, NH3, N content of the residual NDF were analysed and the microbial N balance was computed. The 2 feeds significantly affected rumen fermentation parameters; BHT significantly increased asymptotic GP, t½ and IVTOMD (P<0.01), decreased the proportion of butyrate (P<0.01) but did not affect microbial N balance; RCE did not influence any of the parameters measured with respect to C, except for a significant increase of the estimated N available for microbes at the higher dosage

Consideration of Reaction Forces of Holonomic Constraints as Generalized Coordinates in Approximate Determination of Lower Frequencies of Elastic Systems

A new method for determination of lower frequencies of mechanical systems consisting of elastic bodies connected to each other is offered. The conditions of connection of bodies are written as holonomic constraints, the reactions of which are considered as generalized coordinates. Therefore the number of degrees of freedom proves to be equal to the number of constraints