The Doctor and the Charlatan

We all know, in fact we are sure, that our medical practices are very different from those in the times of Molière or of Louis XVI. In one way or another medicine has today become ‘modern’ in the same way as the whole set of knowledges and practices that call themselves rational. This is obvious, but I would like to interrogate this obviousness. Not to debunk it so as to show that beyond these appearances nothing has changed, but in order to focus in a slightly clearer way on ‘what’ has changed. To be even more precise, I would like to focus on ‘what’ has changed for the doctor, the one who practises medicine

An interpreter advantage in executive functions? A systematic review

The aim of this systematic literature review was to answer the question of which executive function is most affected by interpreter training and experience. We used the 'unity and diversity' framework of executive functions to distinguish between three executive components: Response and Distractor Inhibition, Shifting, and Updating. Among the seventeen studies included in the review, we only found evidence for an interpreter advantage on Shifting and Updating, but with a different pattern for each of these. With regard to Updating, groups of interpreters scored better than comparison groups, but general trend in longitudinal studies did not show an improvement for interpreter trainees. In contrast, for Shifting, scores improved as a result of interpreting training. Our systematic review stresses the importance of understanding the diversity of executive processes when investigating the relationship between interpreting and cognitive performance

Does copying idioms foster their recall?

This paper describes an experiment that was set up to measure the relative mnemonic effects of enhanced attention to form versus attention to meaning during the acquisition of L2 figurative idioms. Intermediate L2 English students were presented with online exercises on a set of 25 English idioms that they were unfamiliar with. In the first series of exercises, all participants were invited to elaborate on the meaning of the idioms. Afterwards, half of the participants were requested to copy the idioms, the other group of participants was asked to rate the usefulness of the idioms, an activity relying mainly on semantically-oriented processing. Recall was measured after the treatment by means of a gap-fill exercise in which each idiom was presented in context with a keyword missing. The results of the experiment are discussed in light of the levels-of-processing theory (Craik & Lockhart 1972), the transfer appropriate processing theory (TAP)(Morris et al. 1977) and Barcroft’s transfer-of-processing-resources-allocation (TOPRA) model for lexical learning (2000). We also show that cognitive-style variables may enhance or constrain the proposed mnemonic effects

The mutation of writing habits and what it means for word learning

Although applied linguists agree that developing phonological and orthographic representations of new words is key to recalling word form and underpins the ability to process new language, research on the mnemonic benefits of writing down target words during L2 vocabulary acquisition has produced mixed results [1, 2, 3]. In addition, writing is facing increasingly keen competition from typing in the digital age. Today, paper-and pencil communication has had to make room for key-to-screen communication in educational as well as professional contexts. From research in educational psychology we know that taking notes on laptops instead of writing longhand involves shallower information processing which negatively affects performance on knowledge tests [4]. In the case of L2 word learning the phonological and orthographical processing that takes place when noting down new words might be sensitive to variations in the conditions under which this processing takes place, i.e. writing versus typing. In our study a classroom experiment was set up to look into the differential impact of writing or typing new words on immediate and delayed receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge as compared to a word learning condition that involved no production of output. The main goal of the study is to verify findings concerning the trade-off relation between semantic and structural processing when learning new words. A second research question is to investigate whether the structural elaboration processes that take place when writing new words lead to similar learning gains than when typing new words. Thirdly, we want to explore whether learners had a preferred learning condition. The main results of this study show that the words that had been typed showed less attrition in the delayed test than the words that had been written. This will be explained in light of the multimodality of the output condition

Is it possible to formulate least action principle for dissipative systems?

A longstanding open question in classical mechanics is to formulate the least action principle for dissipative systems. In this work, we give a general formulation of this principle by considering a whole conservative system including the damped moving body and its environment receiving the dissipated energy. This composite system has the conservative Hamiltonian $H=K_1+V_1+H_2$ where $K_1$ is the kinetic energy of the moving body, $V_1$ its potential energy and $H_2$ the energy of the environment. The Lagrangian can be derived by using the usual Legendre transformation $L=2K_1+2K_2-H$ where $K_2$ is the total kinetic energy of the environment. An equivalent expression of this Lagrangian is $L=K_1-V_1-E_d$ where $E_d$ is the energy dissipated by the friction from the moving body into the environment from the beginning of the motion. The usual variation calculus of least action leads to the correct equation of the damped motion. We also show that this general formulation is a natural consequence of the virtual work principle.Comment: 11 pages, no figur

Care, laboratory beagles and affective utopia

A caring approach to knowledge production has been portrayed as epistemologically radical, ethically vital and as fostering continuous responsibility between researchers and research-subjects. This article examines these arguments through focusing on the ambivalent role of care within the first large-scale experimental beagle colony, a self-professed ‘beagle utopia’ at the University of California, Davis, (1951-1986). We argue that care was at the core of the beagle colony; the lived environment was re-shaped in response to animals ‘speaking back’ to researchers, and ‘love’ and ‘kindness’ were important considerations during staff recruitment. Ultimately, however, we show that care-relations were used to manufacture compliancy, preventing the predetermined ends of the experiment from being troubled. Rather than suggesting Davis would have been less ethically troubling, or more epistemologically radical, with ‘better’ care, however, we suggest the case troubles existing care theory and argue that greater attention needs to be paid to histories, contexts, and exclusions

On equal temperament

In this article, I use Stengers’ (2010) concepts of ‘factish’, ‘requirements’ and ‘obligations’, as well as Latour’s (1993) critique of modernity, to interrogate the rise of Equal Temperament as the dominant system of tuning for western music. I argue that Equal Temperament is founded on an unacknowledged compromise which undermines its claims to rationality and universality. This compromise rests on the standardization which is the hallmark of the tuning system of Equal Temperament, and, in this way, it is emblematic of Latour’s definition of modernity. I further argue that the problem of the tuning of musical instruments is one which epitomizes the modern distinction between the natural and the social. In turn, this bears witness to what Whitehead calls the ‘bifurcation of nature’. Throughout this article, using the work of Stengers and Latour, I seek to use tuning as a case study which allows social research to talk both of the natural and of the social aspects of music and tuning, without recourse to essentialism or simple social construction. In this way, my argument seeks to avoid bifurcating nature

Online drug scenes and harm reduction from below as phronesis

This article presents a theoretical critique of notion of harm reduction on the basis of an empirical investigation of a variety of online manifestations of drug culture. Taking a multi-case study approach to drug use related forums, blogs and ‘story sites’ focused on NPS/’legal high’ use and non-medicinal prescription drug use, our analysis of data leads us to describe the culture of ‘harm reduction from below’ it reveals in terms the Aristotelian concept of phronesis. We argue that peer-to-peer co-creation of knowledge, sharing and support constitutes an emergent and constantly evolving form of ‘practical wisdom’ with respect to drugs. Drawing on Flyvbjerg’s (2001, 2007) accounts of phronetic social science as a practice, which proposes a permeable boundary between theoretical and practical inquiry, and Stenger’s (2005) account of the ‘collective voice from below’ as always embedded within an ‘ecology of practices’, we offer an interpretation of the online dimension of drug taking in terms of drug users’ shared aim of ‘doing drugs well’. The investigation of online life in terms of the multiple contexts of drug-related communicative exchange thus allows us to identify harm reduction from below as an ethical practice inherent to a variety of online drug scenes themselves

Examining work – education intersections: the production of learning reals in and through practice

Working within an assemblage analytic, this paper examines work – education intersections using the notion of learning reals. The learning real examined is learning as mastery and skills development. The concepts of embodiment and performativity guide the exploration. The paper draws on interview and observational data collected during a three year research project exploring the everyday learning (of employees) in a post-secondary education institution in Australia. The project was an industry-university collaboration between a group of professional developers from the organisation and a group of workplace learning academics. The assemblages making up learning as mastery are traced through examining the enactment of this real by a group of trade teachers, one of the workgroups participating in the project. I propose that this learning real was produced and made durable in and through the practices of the trade teachers. Furthermore, the ongoing performing of mastery produced particular effects, including the separation of theory and practice in the trade school. The notion of learning reals enables an exploration of the way particular ways of conceiving learning are made durable in particular workplaces as well as opening up the space to examine the partial connections between workplaces and educational institutions

Ethics, space, and somatic sensibilities: comparing relationships between scientific researchers and their human and animal experimental subjects

Drawing on geographies of affect and nature-society relations, we propose a radical rethinking of how scientists, social scientists, and regulatory agencies conceptualise human and animal participants in scientif ic research. The scientific rationale for using animal bodies to simulate what could be done in human bodies emphasises shared somatic capacities that generate comparable responses to clinical interventions. At the same time, regulatory guidelines and care practices stress the differences between human and animal subjects. In this paper we consider the implications of this differentiation between human and animal bodies in ethical and welfare protocols and practices. We show how the bioethical debates around the use of human subjects tend to focus on issues of consent and language, while recent work in animal welfare reflects an increasing focus on the affectual dimensions of ethical practice. We argue that this attention to the more-than-representational dimensions of ethics and welfare might be equally important for human subjects. We assert that paying attention to these somatic sensibilities can offer insights into how experimental environments can both facilitate and restrict the development of more care-full and response-able relations between researchers and their experimental subjects. <br/