In praise of negation

Der Autor entwickelt eine kulturanthropologische und soziolinguistische Würdigung der Negation. Neinsagen gehört zu jeder aktiven Auseinandersetzung mit sozialen und sprachlichen Ordnungsmustern, die hierdurch für neue Erfahrungsmöglichkeiten geöffnet werden können. An Beispielen aus der Eheberatung, der Hausaufgabenbetreuung sowie der Lehrerbildung wird gezeigt, dass Affirmation und Negation, Lob und Tadel sprachlichen Äußerungen nicht unmittelbar abzulesen sind, sondern erst in einem komplexen sozialen Zusammenhang identifizierbar werden, auf den sprachliche Äußerungen reagieren und den sie zugleich mitkonstituieren. Eine solche Sichtweise ermöglicht auch einen veränderten Blick auf Schulleistungen und die Instrumente zu ihrer immer engmaschigeren Erfassung. Bessere und schlechtere Leistungen sind stets auch als diagnostische Zuschreibungen in einem komplexen Handlungszusammenhang anzusehen, der Erfolg und Versagen sowie ihre statistische Verteilung laufend mitproduziert. Eine Bildungspolitik, die einseitig auf die Fortschritte pädagogischer Leistungsdiagnostik setzt, könnte vergessen machen, dass Erziehung nicht allein ein Prozess der Einführung in kulturelle Ordnungen ist, sondern eben dabei auch den Sinn dafür öffnen muss, was wir nicht sind oder was wir - auch jenseits etablierter Ordnungen - sein könnten. (DIPF/Orig.

Promising Practices: Massachusetts Association of Benefits Specialists

The Massachusetts Association of Benefits Specialists (MABS) was formed in 2001 by three SSA funded organizations in Massachusetts: Project Impact, BenePlan and the Disability Law Center. The Massachusetts Benefits Planning, Assistance and Outreach and Protection and Advocacy for Beneficiaries of Social Security grantees banded together to provide efficient, high quality planning and legal assistance to disabled and blind social security recipients attempting to return to, or enter, the work force. MABS has allowed for cooperative training and resource development in a manner to allow the three participating organizations to stretch limited resources to provide services to a significant number of individuals. The hows, whats and whys are explored in this Promising Practice Brief

More Than Memories? Schema Transference from Media Characters to Real People

This study focused on whether personality traits and evaluations of television personalities are used to make inferences about new Social interaction partners. It tested the hypothesis that priming schemas of television personalities will bias inferences made about a stranger. The results were mixed. Participants in the experimental condition made more biased inferences about a stranger than did participants in the control condition. This transference was not influenced by participants\u27 parasociability, and methodological limitations prevented conclusive study of the influence of affective evaluations in this effect. Future studies should attempt to increase methodological control and introduce a diverse set of measures to test for possible mediating and moderating variables

Candidates for anti-de Sitter Horizons

We find, from the toric description of the moduli space of D3-branes on non-compact six-dimensional singularities \C^3/\Z_3 and \C^3/\Z_5 in the blown-down limit, the four-dimensional bases on which these singular spaces are complex cones, and prove the existence of K\"ahler-Einstein metrics on these four-dimensional bases. This shows, in particular, that one can use the horizons obtained from these base spaces by a U(1)-foliation as compact parts of the target space for Type-IIB string theory with \ads{5} in the context of the AdS-CFT correspondence.Comment: 16 pages, LATEX2e. Uses times, eepic, amsmath and amssym

Efficient use of animal manures within an upland organic system (OF0187)

This is the final report of Defra project OF0187. The attached report starts with a detailed Executive Summary, from which this text is a short extract. The aim of this experiment (1999-2001) was to investigate the agronomic effects of applying treated and untreated farmyard manure and slurry to an organically managed, upland clover/ryegrass pasture. Seven main treatments were imposed in a split plot, randomised complete block design, simulating inputs from organic and conventional systems at ADAS Redesdale. The main treatments were; composted (Treatment A) and uncomposted (B) FYM; aerated (C) and unaerated (D) cattle slurry; ammonium nitrate (E); and a zero nitrogen control (F). A further control treatment (G), to which slurry was applied only in 1996, was added to provide a common control treatment during an earlier phase of the experiment. Target application rates were 150 kg total N/ha for untreated slurry and FYM treatments. Following aeration, the same volume of slurry as for the unaerated slurry treatments was applied. Allowing for losses, composted FYM was applied at a rate calculated to supply 80% (120 kg/ha) of total N compared to the untreated FYM treatment. Ammonium nitrate was used as a conventional control treatment, applied at an annual rate of 240 kg/N/ha. To determine the effect of phosphate and potash, one half of the plots were supplemented when soil levels of these nutrients fell below theoretically optimum levels. Highland Slag and Seagreen K were used as organic sources of P and K, while muriate of potash and superphosphate were used on the conventionally managed plots. Application rates were based on the results of soil analysis, according to standard recommendations for organic (Glenside Organics, Ltd) and conventional (Anon. 2000) production. Overall, the results indicate that high clover swards and the return of major nutrients in slurry and FYM can support a high level of productivity from an organically managed pasture, without the requirement for exogenous fertiliser inputs. Under a conservation system of management, it was clear that soil potassium could be a major limiting factor to herbage yield. However, FYM/slurry maintained an acceptable concentration of herbage K, despite a Soil Index of 0/1. The information generated on nutrient cycling, on output and other measures of productivity raises questions as to the optimum level of soil nutrients required for organic production, the role of soil microbial activity and the potential to better exploit composted FYM. The balance of crop offtake from more modest yields, with nutrients released from the soil, may dictate that high levels of extractable nutrients in the soil may not be a prerequisite for good performance from an organic system