Empathy and Affect: what can empathied bodies do?

While there has been much interest in the apparent benefits of empathy in improving outcomes of medical care, there is continuing concern over the philosophical nature of empathy. We suggest that part of the difficulty in coming-to-terms with empathy is due to the modernist dichotomies that have structured Western medical discourse, such that doctor and patient, knower and known, cognitive and emotional, subject and object, are situated in oppositional terms, with the result that such accounts cannot coherently encompass an emotional doctor, or a patient as knower, or empathy as other than a possession or a trait. This paper explores what, by contrast, a radical critique of the Cartesian worldview, in the form of a Deleuzian theoretical framework, would open up in new perspectives on empathy. We extend the framework of emotional geography to ask what happens when people are affected by empathy. We suggest that doctors and patients might be more productively understood as embodied subjects that are configured in their capacities by how they are affected by singular ‘events’ of empathy. We sketch out how the Deleuzean framework would make sense of these contention and identify some possible implications for medical education and practice

Evaluating management standards: empirical research into the Scottish Quality Management System

Managers today are faced with a bewildering choice of Management Standards that are being promoted to improve personal and organisational performance by a wide range of Standards-setting bodies. Standards-based management is a well-researched field, but all the research concentrates on individual Standards such as ISO 9000 and 14000 without identifying the influences of other Management Standards. This research seeks to extend the debate about Standards-based management and to encourage other researchers to consider it as both an entity and a phenomenon and to note its divergence from other management theories. A taxonomy of Management Standards is presented to enable the principal Standards to be categorised and a definition of a Management Standard is proposed to enable the distillation of the considerable body of literature into more manageable proportions. A chronology of Management Standards development is tabled and compared with the evolution of Quality Management and Total Quality Management (TQM) and the possible future development of Management Standards is examined. The literature research confirmed that Standards-based management approaches had increased very significantly, despite a lack of empirical research to show that this method of management yielded uniform improvements. It identified a trend for integrating Management Standards and creating a “super” Management Standard that would incorporate all the functions of management within an organisation. The Scottish Quality Management System (SQMS) is an integrated Management Standard that incorporates many of the key functions of management within an audited Management Standards framework that its architects claim is based on the principles of TQM. While originally developed for the Scottish training provider network in 1993, it has spread internationally and is currently in use by circa 600 organisations in several countries. It is the only example of a Management Standard of this kind, and despite its longevity, extensive coverage and significant public investment, it has not attracted any previous research interest. The SQMS project was ambitious, seeking to impose a major new Standard on a diverse and predominately unsophisticated population of organisations within a tight time frame. The field research surveyed the entire SQMS registered organisation population using a questionnaire that was based upon the principles of ISO 9004: 1994 and some preliminary research. The questionnaire was designed to examine attitudes and motivation, as well as gauging the effectiveness of the SQMS Standard as determined by an analysis of the improvements that could be directly associated with its implementation. The survey achieved over 70% response rate and the resulting data set was comprehensive and the analysis robust. An additional element of the research compared the results of the questionnaire response analysis with the perceptions of the SQMS Auditors who had audited a majority of the respondent organisations. The field research showed that the SQMS population was very experienced and had been working with SQMS for well over three years. This is a period that the literature research indicated was the minimum time required for the benefits of quality improvement initiatives to become measurable. In the absence of any clear published objectives for the implementation of SQMS, a number of likely objectives were postulated and these objectives were measured against the results of the research. The results of the research suggest an attitude of compliance, rather than improvement as the underlying mind-set of the SQMS organisations and an absence of quality improvement planning or measurement of key performance indicators. This attitude was no different among organisations that had also adopted ISO 9000 and IiP. SQMS accreditation had not shown to provide any marketing or promotional benefit in the same way as ISO 9000 and it had not led to increased market share or profitability. Few of the possible benefits of applying a Standard of this nature had been realised by the majority of organisations and there was little evidence of tangible organisational improvement. The Standard could not be deemed to have met its proposed objectives and a comparison with an accepted model of TQM did not find sufficient compatibility to designate SQMS as a tool for TQM implementation. The interviews with SQMS Auditors identified major discrepancies between their perceptions and the views of the organisations that they audited. The admission by over half of the respondent organisations that they produced evidence purely to satisfy audits raised questions about the effectiveness of the Standard and its audits and the competence of auditors to audit “super” Standards. The novelty of the research is examined and suggestions for future research proposed

Providence and Progress: Richard Price\u27s Idea of Progress

This study examines the idea of historical progress of the eighteenth-century English theologian and revolutionary thinker Richard Price. Although Price has received only passing notice in the standard histories of the belief in progress, the popular English philosopher made a significant (and in some respects unique) contribution to the history of the eighteenth-century idea. Price was one of the most illustrious members of a small circle of English progressives--all Christian thinkers-- which also included the Anglicans David Hartley and William Paley and the Unitarian Joseph Priestley. These writers gave the idea of progress a strongly spiritual (Christian) imprint missing in the standard secular French formulations of the belief. Of these English theorists, none has suffered more from the neglect of past histories than the Unitarian Price. Except for an occasional reference in a scholarly article, no full-scale study has been attempted on Price or the other members of his circle. This study analyzes Price\u27s idea of progress, emphasizing in what respects he held ideas in common with the predominant French school from Fontenelle to Comte, and in what ways his conception made significant departures from that interpretation. While Price\u27s earlier writings provided the intellectual foundation for his idea of progress, the most comprehensive statement of his belief was contained in an essay, The Evidence for a Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind (1787). While the standard works appear not to have known of the existence of this essay, Price\u27s contemporaries--most notably the Marquis de Condorcet--knew of and admired the work. It was probably from a reading of the Evidence, that Condorcet affirmed that Price was one of the most illustrious apostles of the eighteenth-century belief in progress. What emerges from a reading of this essay is a distinctively Christian interpretation that breaks with the standard French idea of progress. From whatever vantage point Price\u27s idea is examined, the essential Christian features are apparent. In his view past history was little more than the record of a grand progress controlled and directed by divine Providence, which for the Unitarian minister would culminate in what Christians understood as the Millennium. The strong spiritual dimension of Price\u27s belief broke with the narrow eudaemonist theories of the French, anticipating the spiritual progressivism of the German school from Lessing to Hegel

Constraint and creative decision making in the composition of concert works, film and video-game soundtracks

This PhD research investigates the types, implications and origins of constraint within the contexts of various music composition projects. It then presents the practical value of this deeper understanding as a contemporary music composer.To explore the topic of constraint, the doctorate contains a portfolio of original music compositions and a reflective commentary on those compositions. The music spans a wide range of purposes, including works for concert hall, film and videogame. This breadth, across 33 musical works for 17 different projects of both collaborative and independent types, facilitates the extension of our understanding of constraint and its role in the process of music-making. The commentary, focussing on each composition individually or in small groups, extrapolates how constraint emerges within different circumstances.Analysing the music, in tandem with an account of their contextual backgrounds, demonstrates how different constraints influence music composition. The result of this research is that one can start to generalise the creative challenges a contemporary composer faces in the form of constraint. The research does this by proposing a series of labels: intrinsic, extrinsic, functional and aesthetic. These categories emerged through the creative practices of the portfolio, delineating and searching for constraint as a means of grounding creative decisions. The commentary and portfolio, taken together, will offer insights into the four proposed categories of constraint while explicating my compositional practice

Removal of Carboxylic Acids and Water from Pyrolysis Oil

Over 70% of the world’s energy consumption is provided by fossil fuels and with those reserves depleting at a fast rate, alternative energy sources or methods are needed to support the world’s energy needs. This research was done in an attempt to make it more economically feasible to produce fuel products, such as bio-diesel, from the upgrading of bio-oil obtained from the pyrolysis of biomass waste material such as sawdust. The high water and oxygenated compound content of bio-oil make it undesirable for fuel use; however, two methods involving surface modified commercial membranes were utilized in hopes of overcoming these problems: electrodialysis and a pressure-driven system. Nafion 117 membrane pores were expanded and then the membrane was subjected to bio-oil at pressures up to 700 psi with the goal of removing the water. Although the pores were enlarged, removing water through this method was unsuccessful. Electrodialysis was used in an effort to remove carboxylic acids from bio-oil, which are known to cause storage instability. The membranes used for this separation were Neosepta CMX and AMX commercial membranes. Modifications to the AMX membrane surface were made by adding crosslinked polyethylenimine groups to the surface of the membrane and its performance was compared to that of the unmodified one. A XPS and FTIR analysis proved the modified membrane to be more resistant to bio-fouling

A numerical study of nonlinear cascading of atmospheric baroclinic and barotropic flow with a two-layer quasi-geostrophic model

The conversion and nonlinear triad exchanges of energy is investigated in a quasi-geostrophic two-layer channel atmospheric model. The two vertical (barotropic and baroclinic) and longitudinal (Fourier) normal modes are used to expand the quasi-geostrophic energy and potential enstrophy equations. The quasi-geostrophic zonal and eddy (and zonal wave number) barotrophic and baroclinic equations are noted to be different than those derived previously (Wiin-Nielsen and Drake, Mon. Wea. Rev. 94:221, 1966; Chen and Tribbia, Dept. Earth Sci., ISU, 1981) for the primitive equation model. These differences are used to explain some previous primitive equation calculations. Because of these differences, some conversions are calculated for the first time;Five experiments were performed based on expectations from linear baroclinic instability theory and inferred finite amplitude behavior. Some expectations from linear baroclinic instability theory are not found. Reasons for this failure are proposed, including the barotropic-baroclinic triad behavior (Marshall and Chen, Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn. 22:21, 1982). Increases in friction produce steeper power laws of energy and potential enstrophy. The cascades for these different power laws are compared;A three-dimensional index is formed by the decomposition of kinetic energy into barotropic and baroclinic vertical subdivisions and into meridional and zonal wave numbers. It is argued that the spectra of all energies and enstrophies, for this two-level model, can be inferred from the three-dimensional index of kinetic Oil, Gas, and Energy;The schematic cascading diagram of Salmon (Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn., 10:25, 1978), which is based on related oceanic cascading theory of Rhines (In The Sea, John Wiley, 1977), for the two-layer model is evaluated by a direct calculation in the zonal wave number index. Some modifications in the diagram of Salmon are found necessary from derivations and calculations. The tendency of the cascades to redistribute energy away from the source wave numbers is found to overpower other previously noted tendencies found in initialization experiments (Rhines, 1977). The conversion from baroclinic to barotropic energy occurs not only between the same wave number but between different ones as well, which results (from calculation) in a net upscale cascade of energy. A modified barotropic and baroclinic cascading diagram is proposed. These modifications may also relate to the original ocean cascading theory of Rhines