136 research outputs found

    Eiland\u27s Theory of Musical Composition: Part One

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    https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/crs_books/1315/thumbnail.jp

    Transport and reduction of nitrate in clayey till underneath forest and arable land.

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    Transport and reduction of nitrate in a typically macroporous clayey till were examined at variable flow rate and nitrate flux. The experiments were carried out using saturated, large diameter (0.5 m), undisturbed soil columns (LUC), from a forest and nearby agricultural sites. Transport of nitrate was controlled by flow along the macropores (fractures and biopores) in the columns. Nitrate reduction (denitrification) determined under active flow mainly followed first order reactions with half-lives (t1/2) increasing with depth (1.5–3.5 m) from 7 to 35 days at the forest site and 1–7 h at the agricultural site. Nitrate reduction was likely due to microbial degradation of accumulated organic matter coupled with successive consumption of O2 and NO3− in the macropore water followed by reductive dissolution of Fe and Mn from minerals along the macropores. Concentrations of total organic carbon measured in soil samples were near identical at the two study sites and consequently not useful as indicator for the observed differences in nitrate reduction. Instead the high reduction rates at the agricultural site were positively correlated with elevated concentration of water-soluble organic carbon and nitrate-removing bacteria relative to the forest site. After high concentrations of water-soluble organic carbon in the columns from the agricultural site were leached they lost their elevated reduction rates, which, however, was successfully re-established by infiltration of new reactive organics represented by pesticides. Simulations using a calibrated discrete fracture matrix diffusion (DFMD) model could reasonably reproduce the denitrification and resulting flux of nitrate observed during variable flow rate from the columns

    Self-care Barriers Reported by Emergency Department Patients With Acute Heart Failure: A Sociotechnical Systems-based Approach

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    Study objective We pilot tested a sociotechnical systems-based instrument that assesses the prevalence and nature of self-care barriers among patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with acute heart failure. Methods A semistructured instrument for measuring self-reported self-care barriers was developed and administered by ED clinicians and nonclinician researchers to 31 ED patients receiving a diagnosis of acute heart failure. Responses were analyzed with descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis. Feasibility was assessed by examining participant cooperation rates, instrument completion times, item nonresponse, and data yield. Results Of 47 distinct self-care barriers assessed, a median of 15 per patient were indicated as “sometimes” or “often” present. Thirty-four specific barriers were reported by more than 25% of patients and 9 were reported by more than 50%. The sources of barriers included the person, self-care tasks, tools and technologies, and organizational, social, and physical contexts. Seven of the top 10 most prevalent barriers were related to patient characteristics; the next 3, to the organizational context (eg, life disruptions). A preliminary feasibility assessment found few item nonresponses or comprehension difficulties, good cooperation, and high data yield from both closed- and open-ended items, but also found opportunities to reduce median administration time and variability. Conclusion An instrument assessing self-care barriers from multiple system sources can be feasibly implemented in the ED. Further research is required to modify the instrument for widespread use and evaluate its implementation across institutions and cultural contexts. Self-care barriers measurement can be one component of broader inquiry into the distributed health-related “work” activity of patients, caregivers, and clinicians

    Putting into Question the Imaginary of Recovery: A Dialectical Reading of the Global Financial Crisis and its Aftermath

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    In this article we put into question the discourses that emerged during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and that coalesced around a particular socio-economic imaginary of ?recovery? over the period 2009-2012. Our reading of these discourses is very much guided by the notion of the dialectic as developed by Fredric Jameson, and as such this paper can be read as attempt to put his theoretical ideas to work. Through our dialectical reading we aim to create a certain estrangement effect that makes the imaginary of recovery seem very odd and unnatural. In order to achieve such an effect we postulate four theses which are deliberately antagonistic: first, that there has been no ?crisis of capitalism?; second, that we must change the valence of the GFC from negative to positive; third, that the relationship between finance capitalism and ?free markets? is deeply contradictory; and fourth, that we must resist the regulation discourse

    Ideologies of time: How elite corporate actors engage the future

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    Our paper deals with how elite corporate actors in a Western capitalist-democratic society conceive of and prepare for the future. Paying attention to how senior officers of ten important Danish companies make sense of the future will help us to identify how particular temporal narratives are ideologically marked. This ideological dimension offers a common sense frame that is structured around a perceived inevitability of capitalism, a market economy as the basic organizational structure of the social and economic order, and an assumption of confident access to the future. Managers envisage their organization?s future and make plans for organizational action in a space where ?business as usual? reigns, and there is little engagement with the future as fundamentally open; as a time-yet-to-come. In using a conceptual lens inspired by the work of Fredric Jameson, we first explore the details of this presentism and a particular colonization of the future, and then linger over small disruptions in the narratives of our interviewees which point to what escapes or jars their common sense frame, explore the implicit meanings they assign to their agency, and also find clues and traces of temporal actions and strategies in their narratives that point to a subtly different engagement with time

    Adorno?s Grey, Taussig?s Blue: Colour, Organization and Critical Affect

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    In this article we seek to open up the study of affect and organization to colour. Often simply taken for granted in organizational life and usually neglected in organizational thought, colour is an affective force by default. Deploying and interweaving the languages of affect theory, critical theory, and organization studies, we discuss colour as a primary phenomenon for the study of ?critical affect?. We then trace colour?s affect in conditioning the unfolding of organization in two particular ?colour/spaces? ? Adorno?s grey and Taussig?s blue of our title ? and discuss both its ambiguity and critical potential. Finally, we ponder what colour might do to the style of an organizational scholarship attuned to affect, where sentences blur with things and forces more than they seek to represent them

    Ostriches Sleep like Platypuses

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    Mammals and birds engage in two distinct states of sleep, slow wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. SWS is characterized by slow, high amplitude brain waves, while REM sleep is characterized by fast, low amplitude waves, known as activation, occurring with rapid eye movements and reduced muscle tone. However, monotremes (platypuses and echidnas), the most basal (or ‘ancient’) group of living mammals, show only a single sleep state that combines elements of SWS and REM sleep, suggesting that these states became temporally segregated in the common ancestor to marsupial and eutherian mammals. Whether sleep in basal birds resembles that of monotremes or other mammals and birds is unknown. Here, we provide the first description of brain activity during sleep in ostriches (Struthio camelus), a member of the most basal group of living birds. We found that the brain activity of sleeping ostriches is unique. Episodes of REM sleep were delineated by rapid eye movements, reduced muscle tone, and head movements, similar to those observed in other birds and mammals engaged in REM sleep; however, during REM sleep in ostriches, forebrain activity would flip between REM sleep-like activation and SWS-like slow waves, the latter reminiscent of sleep in the platypus. Moreover, the amount of REM sleep in ostriches is greater than in any other bird, just as in platypuses, which have more REM sleep than other mammals. These findings reveal a recurring sequence of steps in the evolution of sleep in which SWS and REM sleep arose from a single heterogeneous state that became temporally segregated into two distinct states. This common trajectory suggests that forebrain activation during REM sleep is an evolutionarily new feature, presumably involved in performing new sleep functions not found in more basal animals

    The effects of juvenile stress on anxiety, cognitive bias and decision making in adulthood:a rat model

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    Stress experienced in childhood is associated with an increased risk of developing psychiatric disorders in adulthood. These disorders are particularly characterized by disturbances to emotional and cognitive processes, which are not currently fully modeled in animals. Assays of cognitive bias have recently been used with animals to give an indication of their emotional/cognitive state. We used a cognitive bias test, alongside a traditional measure of anxiety (elevated plus maze), to investigate the effects of juvenile stress (JS) on adulthood behaviour using a rodent model. During the cognitive bias test, animals were trained to discriminate between two reward bowls based on a stimulus (rough/smooth sandpaper) encountered before they reached the bowls. One stimulus (e.g. rough) was associated with a lower value reward than the other (e.g. smooth). Once rats were trained, their cognitive bias was explored through the presentation of an ambiguous stimulus (intermediate grade sandpaper): a rat was classed as optimistic if it chose the bowl ordinarily associated with the high value reward. JS animals were lighter than controls, exhibited increased anxiety-like behaviour in the elevated plus maze and were more optimistic in the cognitive bias test. This increased optimism may represent an optimal foraging strategy for these underweight animals. JS animals were also faster than controls to make a decision when presented with an ambiguous stimulus, suggesting altered decision making. These results demonstrate that stress in the juvenile phase can increase anxiety-like behaviour and alter cognitive bias and decision making in adulthood in a rat model
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