Experiencing uncertainty – on the potential of groups and a group analytic approach for making management education more critical.

This document is the Accepted Manuscript. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Management Learning, November 2017, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507617697868. Published by SAGE Publishing. All rights reserved.This article points to the potential of methods derived from group analytic practice for making management education more critical. It draws on the experience of running a professional doctorate for more experienced managers in a university in the UK over a 16 year period. Group analysis is informed by the highly social theories of S.H. Foulkes and draws heavily on psychoanalytic theory as well as sociology. First and foremost, though, it places our interdependence at the heart of the process of inquiry, and suggests that the most potent place for learning about groups, where we spend most of our lives, is in a group. The article prioritises three areas of management practice for which group analytic methods, as adapted for research environment, are most helpful: coping with uncertainty and the feelings of anxiety which this often arouses; thinking about leadership as a relational and negotiated activity, and encouraging reflexivity in managers. The article also points to some of the differences between the idea of the learning community and psychodynamic perspectives more generally and the limitations of group analytic methods in particular, which may pathologise resistance in the workplace.Peer reviewe

The Temporal Development of Fatty Infiltrates in the Neck Muscles Following Whiplash Injury: An Association with Pain and Posttraumatic Stress

Radiological findings associated with poor recovery following whiplash injury remain elusive. Muscle fatty infiltrates (MFI) in the cervical extensors on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with chronic pain have been observed. Their association with specific aspects of pain and psychological factors have yet to be explored longitudinally.44 subjects with whiplash injury were enrolled at 4 weeks post-injury and classified at 6 months using scores on the Neck Disability Index as recovered, mild and moderate/severe. A measure for MFI and patient self-report of pain, loss of cervical range of movement and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were collected at 4 weeks, 3 months and 6 months post-injury. The effects of time and group and the interaction of time by group on MFI were determined. We assessed the mediating effect of posttraumatic stress and cervical range of movement on the longitudinal relationship between initial pain intensity and MFI. There was no difference in MFI across all groups at enrollment. MFI values increased in the moderate/severe group and were significantly higher in comparison to the recovered and mild groups at 3 and 6 months. No differences in MFI values were found between the mild and recovered groups. Initial severity of PTSD symptoms mediated the relationship between pain intensity and MFI at 6 months. Initial ROM loss did not.MFI in the cervical extensors occur soon following whiplash injury and suggest the possibility for the occurrence of a more severe injury with subsequent PTSD in patients with persistent symptoms

Birds of Two Oceans? Trans-Andean and Divergent Migration of Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger cinerascens) from the Peruvian Amazon

We are grateful for assistance from John Terborgh, Antonio Guerra Rosas, Marcos Maguiña, Inés Nole, John Takekawa, Lisa Ferguson, Juan Kapeshi, Nikanor Kapeshi, Cathy Bykowsky, Chi (Tim) Lam, Scott Robinson, Fabrice Schmitt, and Cesar Flores. Alex Jahn, Ugo Mellone, Sergio Lambertucci and one anonymous reviewer provided comments that helped improve the manuscript.Seasonal flooding compels some birds that breed in aquatic habitats in Amazonia to undertake annual migrations, yet we know little about how the complex landscape of the Amazon region is used seasonally by these species. The possibility of trans-Andes migration for Amazonian breeding birds has largely been discounted given the high geographic barrier posed by the Andean Cordillera and the desert habitat along much of the Pacific Coast. Here we demonstrate a trans-Andes route for Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger cinerascens) breeding on the Manu River (in the lowlands of Manu National Park, Perú), as well as divergent movement patterns both regionally and across the continent. Of eight skimmers tracked with satellite telemetry, three provided data on their outbound migrations, with two crossing the high Peruvian Andes to the Pacific. A third traveled over 1800 km to the southeast before transmissions ended in eastern Paraguay. One of the two trans-Andean migrants demonstrated a full round-trip migration back to its tagging location after traveling down the Pacific Coast from latitude 9° South to latitude 37° S, spending the austral summer in the Gulf of Arauco, Chile. This is the first documentation of a trans-Andes migration observed for any bird breeding in lowland Amazonia. To our knowledge, this research also documents the first example of a tropical-breeding waterbird migrating out of the tropics to spend the non-breeding season in the temperate summer, this being the reverse pattern with respect to seasonality for austral migrants in general.Yeshttp://www.plosone.org/static/editorial#pee

Extreme nomadism in desert waterbirds: flights of the banded stilt

In contrast to well-studied Northern Hemisphere birds with spatially and temporally predictable seasonal migrations, waterbirds in desert biomes face major challenges in exploiting stochastic, rich, yet short-lived resource pulses in vast arid landscapes, leading to the evolution of nomadic behaviour. An extreme example is the banded stilt (Cladorhynchus leucocephalus), an opportunistic colonial breeder at remote inland salt lakes after infrequent rain events. Using satellite telemetry on 21 birds (tracked for a mean of 196.2 days), we reveal extensive, rapid and synchronized movement among individuals to and from salt lakes. Two birds left coastal refugia for the inland following rain, flying 1000-2000 km, while 12 others rapidly moved a mean of 684 km (range 357-1298 km) away from drying inland sites to the coast. Two individuals moved longitudinally across the continent, departing and arriving at the same points, yet travelling very different routes; one bird moving more than 2200 km in less than 2.5 days, the other more than 1500 km in 6 days. Our findings reveal movements nearly twice as long and rapid as recorded in other desert waterbirds. We reveal capability to rapidly detect and exploit ephemeral wetland resource pulses across the stochastic Australian desert

Shifts in bacterial community composition associated with increased carbon cycling in a mosaic of phytoplankton blooms

Marine microbes have a pivotal role in the marine biogeochemical cycle of carbon, because they regulate the turnover of dissolved organic matter (DOM), one of the largest carbon reservoirs on Earth. Microbial communities and DOM are both highly diverse components of the ocean system, yet the role of microbial diversity for carbon processing remains thus far poorly understood. We report here results from an exploration of a mosaic of phytoplankton blooms induced by large-scale natural iron fertilization in the Southern Ocean. We show that in this unique ecosystem where concentrations of DOM are lowest in the global ocean, a patchwork of blooms is associated with diverse and distinct bacterial communities. By using on-board continuous cultures, we identify preferences in the degradation of DOM of different reactivity for taxa associated with contrasting blooms. We used the spatial and temporal variability provided by this natural laboratory to demonstrate that the magnitude of bacterial production is linked to the extent of compositional changes. Our results suggest that partitioning of the DOM resource could be a mechanism that structures bacterial communities with a positive feedback on carbon cycling. Our study, focused on bacterial carbon processing, highlights the potential role of diversity as a driving force for the cycling of biogeochemical elements