Theories of practice and geography

Recent developments in theories of practice have seen place and space taken explicitly into account. In particular, THEODORE SCHATZKI’s ‘site ontology’ offers distinctive but as yet under-explored means of engaging with human geographies. By giving ontological priority to practices as constitutive of the social, this kind of practice theory provides an integrative conceptual framework that enables the analysis of diverse phenomena in relation to each other, over space and time, as they are constituted through practices. This article develops an outline agenda for bringing theories of practice, and particularly SCHATZKI’s ‘site ontology’, together with geographical inquiry. We elucidate this agenda through consideration of three contemporary preoccupations in human geography, comprising emotion, materiality and knowledge

Chromogranin A in neurons of the rat cerebellum and spinal cord: quantification and sites of expression

Chromogranin A (CGA) is an abundant protein of dense-cored secretory vesicles in endocrine and neuronal cells. The present study, for the first time, compares CGA of neurons of the central nervous system with the CGA of adrenal origin. By S1 nucleus protection assay, we found that the 3' part of the CGA mRNA between exons 5-8 of the cerebellum and the spinal cord of the rat is homologous to that of the adrenal. In situ hybridization histochemistry revealed that CGA mRNA in the cerebellar cortex is present in cell bodies of Purkinje cells and in neurons of the deep cerebellar nuclei. The perikarya of these cells also exhibit CGA-like immunoreactivity. CGA mRNA and CGA-like immunoreactivity are also present in the motoneurons of the ventral, lateral, and dorsal horns of the rat spinal cord. The amounts of CGA, as determined by radioimmunoassay in cerebellum and spinal cord, were about one tenth of the amounts detected in the adrenal, adenohypophysis, or the olfactory bulb. The sites of CGA expression suggest that CGA may be involved in signal transduction in the motor system

Establishing a Conscience of Connection: The Individual Conscience and the National Soul in the Sermons of Pauli Murray

Interest in Pauli Murray appears to be on the rise with the recent publication of Patricia Bell-Scott’s study of Murray’s friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt and with Rosalind Rosenberg’s 2017 biography of the first African American woman ordained an Episcopal priest. This is not surprising for scholars who have long insisted that Murray’s life and work represent significant intersections of the defining movements of the twentieth century, especially the civil rights and women’s rights movements. The typewriter, the law, and the sermon were all instruments that Murray utilized to promote her vision of inclusivity, and this paper will argue that Murray’s sermons thematically revealed her mission to build bridges both inside and outside her faith community. She did this by working to cultivate individual consciences alongside a collective, national conscience in her sermons and speeches. The individual and national consciences were not incompatible for Murray, and her sermons often celebrated the individual while urging Americans to live up to the country’s democratic and egalitarian promise

Aggregation of ecological indicators for mapping aquatic nature quality : overview of existing methods and case studies

Indicators for aquatic nature quality are calculated using ecological monitoring data from individual sampling stations. For reporting purposes, these results need to be aggregated and scaled up to higher levels (catchment area, country). This report provides an overview of different existing spatial aggregation methods for this purpose, including an evaluation of their suitability for aquatic ecological indicators. So-called „model-based„ methods, consisting of some sort of „kriging¿ step followed by calculation of the arithmetic mean, appeared to be the most appropriate. Application of these methods to multimetric indicators of aquatic macroinvertebrates in two Dutch subcatchment areas confirmed their suitability. However, the methods that were used were based on aggregation (using kriging) over Euclidian (straight), distances. It is recommended to conduct further research on the suitability of interpolation through stream networks, i.e., through the waterways themselves

Intensive Geographien – die Versorgung von extremen Frühgeburten in Deutschland aus praxistheoretischer Perspektive

In Germany each year, more than 65&thinsp;000 children are born prematurely as ‚preterm infants‘ (or ‚preemies‘). Some 4500 of these are born extremely premature. Despite being sites of enormous human suffering und huge financial costs, the places of treatment of these babies are almost non-existent in societal discourse. Therefore, the aim of this article is to understand this place, the so-called ‚NICUs‘ – Neonatal Intensive Care Units, places that seem isolated from the rest of society, but are tightly connected to it.In order to reach this aim, a ‚dense description‘ of a single NICU in Germany will be given, based on a stay of 5 months by the author. The underlying perspective of that dense description is the practice theoretical approach of social philosopher Theodore Schatzki.The description of the NICU shows that corporeality, materiality, and not least emotionality are important aspects of social phenomena. As will be seen, the underlying practice theory is a relational ontology that resists the urge to draw on micro-macro-dichotomies to understand these phenomena.</p

An improved test for earnings management using kernel density estimation

This paper describes improvements on methods developed by Burgstahler and Dichev (1997, Earnings management to avoid earnings decreases and losses, Journal of Accounting and Economics, 24(1), pp. 99–126) and Bollen and Pool (2009, Do hedge fund managers misreport returns? Evidence from the pooled distribution, Journal of Finance, 64(5), pp. 2257–2288) to test for earnings management by identifying discontinuities in distributions of scaled earnings or earnings forecast errors. While existing methods use preselected bandwidths for kernel density estimation and histogram construction, the proposed test procedure addresses the key problem of bandwidth selection by using a bootstrap test to endogenise the selection step. The main advantage offered by the bootstrap procedure over prior methods is that it provides a reference distribution that cannot be globally distinguished from the empirical distribution rather than assuming a correct reference distribution. This procedure limits the researcher's degrees of freedom and offers a simple procedure to find and test a local discontinuity. I apply the bootstrap density estimation to earnings, earnings changes, and earnings forecast errors in US firms over the period 1976–2010. Significance levels found in earlier studies are greatly reduced, often to insignificant values. Discontinuities cannot be detected in analysts’ forecast errors, while such findings of discontinuities in earlier research can be explained by a simple rounding mechanism. Earnings data show a large drop in loss aversion after 2003 that cannot be detected in changes of earnings

Developing an ML pipeline for asthma and COPD: The case of a Dutch primary care service

A complex combination of clinical, demographic&nbsp;and lifestyle parameters determines the correct diagnosis and the most effective treatment for asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease patients. Artificial Intelligence techniques help clinicians in devising the correct diagnosis and designing the most suitable clinical pathway accordingly, tailored to the specific patient conditions. In the case of machine learning (ML) approaches, availability of real-world patient clinical data to train and evaluate the ML pipeline deputed to assist clinicians in their daily practice is crucial. However, it is common practice to exploit either synthetic data sets or heavily preprocessed collections cleaning and merging different data sources. In this paper, we describe an automated ML pipeline designed for a real-world data set including patients from a Dutch primary care service, and provide a performance comparison of different prediction models for (i) assessing various clinical parameters, (ii) designing interventions, and (iii) defining the diagnosis

Are Microbes Fundamentally Different Than Macroorganisms? Convergence and a Possible Case for Neutral Phenotypic Evolution in Testate Amoeba (Amoebozoa: Arcellinida)

This study reveals extensive phenotypic convergence based on the non-monophyly of genera and morphospecies of testate (shelled) amoebae. Using two independent markers, small subunit ribosomal DNA (ssu-rDNA) and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI), we demonstrate discordance between morphology and molecules for ‘core Nebela’ species (Arcellinida; Amoebozoa). Prior work using just a single locus, ssu-rDNA, also supported the non-monophyly of the genera Hyalosphenia and Nebela as well as for several morphospecies within these genera. Here, we obtained COI gene sequences of 59 specimens from seven morphospecies and ssu-rDNA gene sequences of 50 specimens from six morphospecies of hyalosphenids. Our analyses corroborate the prior ssu-rDNA findings of morphological convergence in test (shell) morphologies, as COI and ssu-rDNA phylogenies are concordant. Further, the monophyly of morphospecies is rejected using approximately unbiased tests. Given that testate amoebae are used as bioindicators in both palaeoecological and contemporary studies of threatened ecosystems such as bogs and fens, understanding the discordance between morphology and genetics in the hyalosphenids is essential for interpretation of indicator species. Further, while convergence is normally considered the result of natural selection, it is possible that neutrality underlies phenotypic evolution in these microorganisms