Editorial. Clinical pragmatics: an emergentist perspective

[First Paragraph] Clinical pragmatics has been a major growth area in clinical linguistics and speech and language pathology over the past two decades. Its scope is vast: if we define pragmatics in broad terms, there are no communicative disorders which do not involve pragmatic impairment at least to some degree (Perkins, 2003). Early work in the area tended to focus on the application of pragmatic theory in the analysis of pragmatic impairment (e.g. speech act theory (Hirst, LeDoux, & Stein, 1984), conversational implicature (Damico, 1985) and, more recently, relevance theory (Leinonen & Kerbel, 1999)) and on the development of pragmatic assessments, tests and profiles which included a theoretically eclectic range of items drawn from both pragmatic theory and elsewhere (e.g. Bishop, 1998; Penn, 1985; Prutting & Kirchner, 1983). In more recent years there has been an increasing interest in the neurological and cognitive bases of pragmatic impairment (e.g. Paradis, 1998; Perkins, 2000; Stemmer, 1999) and in the use of interactional approaches such as conversation analysis (e.g. Goodwin, 2003). This special issue of Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics draws on all of these areas but focuses on a particular aspect of pragmatic impairment which has often been overlooked – namely, that the behaviours we describe as pragmatic impairments are in fact the outcome of very varied and highly complex processes. This neglect is partly due to a common tendency to see pragmatics as a separate ‘level’ or even ‘module’ of language, on a par with syntax and semantics. Influenced on the one hand by speech act theory, with its distinction between language structure and communicative acts, and on the other hand by clinical populations who were either able to communicate well despite being linguistically impaired or else were poor communicators despite having good linguistic ability, clinicians assumed there to be a clear dissociation between linguistic and pragmatic competence. Although there is still considerable neurological evidence for a broadly modular view in terms of the lateralisation of linguistic and pragmatic functions, there is also compelling evidence for seeing pragmatic impairment as a more complex, non-unitary phenomenon. Non-modular, or ‘interactional’, views of pragmatic impairment have been influenced by connectionist and functional models of linguistic and cognitive processing (e.g. Bates, Thal, & MacWhinney, 1991), by a growing awareness of the role played in pragmatics by cognitive capacities such as inference, theory of mind and executive function (Martin & McDonald, 2003), and by approaches such as Conversation Analysis (e.g. Damico, Oelschlaeger, & Simmons-Mackie, 1999) which focus on those features of pragmatics which can only be accounted for in terms of interpersonal, collaborative activity. All of these interactional approaches share a view of pragmatic impairment as ‘emergent’, or ‘epiphenomenal’ (Perkins, 1998), rather than as a stand-alone, monadic entity

Pragmatic ability and disability as emergent phenomena

A holistic approach to pragmatic ability and disability is outlined which takes account both of the behaviour of individuals involved in the communicative process, and also of the underlying factors which contribute to such behaviour. Rather than being seen as resulting directly from a dysfunction in some kind of discrete pragmatic ‘module’ or behavioural mechanism, pragmatic impairment and also normal pragmatic functioning are instead viewed as the emergent consequence of interactions between linguistic, cognitive and sensorimotor processes which take place both within and between individuals

Stability of an electroweak string with a fermion condensate

A solution of the standard electroweak theory with a single lepton family is constructed, consisting of a cosmic string and a fermion condensate within its core. The stability of this system to small perturbations is examined, and it is found that stability is not enhanced relative to the bare electroweak string. The presence of quark zero modes is shown to violate the existence criteria for embedded defects.Comment: 13 pages, preprint DAMTP 94-9, SWAT/2

Physical Well-being and Healthy Lifestyle Options

Background The AANA has identified stress management or wellness as a priority for all CRNA programs. The Health and Wellness Initiative put in place by the AANA in 2004 is a model designed for all SRNA programs and intended to address students’ participation in wellness events in order to combat stressors. The primary purpose of this project was to gain information about the stress faced by SRNAs enrolled at a Midwestern University and to evaluate strategies that could help students properly deal with stress. Methods and Evaluation Fifty-five students participated in the survey, data were compared by year in the program. All students reported an increase in stress levels once they entered the CRNA program. The average change in reported stress from prior to anesthesia program entry to during school was a 29% increase for baseline stress levels and a 32% increase for peak stress levels. Students indicated the current Health and Wellness Program was “not very helpful”. The results indicated that the SIUE Wellness Events were most effective. Students would prefer not to have writing assignments, or other learning modules assigned to them which they view as merely “busy work”. Conclusion The immediate impact for this project will be to present the findings to the CRNA Program Administrators, it will be recommended that the Health and Wellness Program be revised to a format more conductive to students’ wellness with changes implemented consistent with students’ survey responses such as a self-guided wellness program

Affine toda field theories on a half-line

This thesis is primarily concerned with the reflection factors of affine Toda field theories on the half-line x ≤ 0. First, we consider the classical background configurations of low rank a,(^(1)) affine Toda theories with a boundary, constructed by the analytic-continuation of soliton solutions of the corresponding imaginary-coupling theories. We show that only a small subset of such solutions provide acceptable vacuum configurations. These are classified according to the integrable boundary conditions they obey and their classical reflection factors are considered. We next consider the quantum theories, where we aim to provide evidence for or against exact reflection factors proposed in the literature. We do this by explicit calculation of the low-order coupling dependence of the reflection factors via perturbation theory. Two particular examples are considered in detail. The first is the O(β(^2)) calculation for a(_2)(^1) affine Toda field theory with the boundary condition. This will be a good example to study since it is the subject of many conjectured exact reflection factors and also demonstrates the renormalisation of the boundary potential required to retain quantum integrability. The second example will be the O(β(^4)) calculation for sinh-Gordon theory. In light of the added complexity of the higher-order calculation we consider only the Neumann boundary condition. Finally we look at the renormalisation of sinh-Gordon theory and its duality properties

Factors External to the Individual Encouraging Idea Generation in SME Contexts

This thesis sets out to explore factors external to the individual that encourage creative idea generation in SME environments, understanding their importance in a variety of organisational contexts. The original contribution to knowledge made by this thesis is the creation of a framework which aids understanding by splitting the various factors into those responsible for initiating and sustaining idea generation. Literature concerning creative idea generation is continuously developing and contains a broad spectrum of topics and understandings. Key amongst these are leadership, the nature of creative idea generation, theories such as the ‘strength of weak ties’, collective creativity and the concept of ‘flow’. Fieldwork followed a primarily qualitative, inductive approach, using exploratory surveys, semi-structured interviews and participant observation to develop rich narrative ‘stories’ of idea generation for ten different organisations. Data was analysed in accordance with the principles of grounded theory and resulted in numerous novel findings such as the importance of internal organisational contacts to the development of ideas, the notion that organisational visions can be used to guide idea generation and the effect that physical distance has on the development of interpersonal ties. Leadership also featured heavily within the analysis process with it being found that a combination of transformational and servant qualities best enables idea generation in SME contexts. These and other findings were reflected in the final framework produced by this thesis. From a practical perspective findings from this study arguably have implications for both organisational and leadership development in SME contexts, although overall generalisability is hindered by the chosen sample. Future studies could potentially focus on applying quantitative methodologies to verify the final framework or extend understandings by interlinking organisational factors discussed by this thesis with individual characteristics, mental process and/or experiences that are also known to drive creative idea production

UofU Tree Identification Tour

Trees on the University of Utah (UofU) campus are very diverse. As a designated State Arboretum the UofU values its urban forest resources and readily shares them with the public. Here we highlight some of the most interesting trees in the western part of campus, including key identifying characteristics for each species