“As it’s our last exchange next time…”. The closure initiation in email counseling

This paper reports from an interpersonal pragmatics perspective on the negotiation of closure of the counseling process in five naturally occurring email counseling exchanges between one counselor and five different clients. I focus on three aspects: who initiates closure, in what form, and in which interpersonal context. A mixed methodology consisting of a discourse-analytic approach combined with a participant interview serves to examine the closure initiation from multiple perspectives. Results show that extensive collaborative work (e. g. relational strategies such as showing empathy or praising) is carried out to create a “closure-relevant” environment in which the initiation of closure can occur. The counselor, who initiates all five closures, tailors the initiation according to clients’ progress so far and elicits specific relational work (e. g. self-praise) from clients that aims to position them as active self-helpers. It is the collaborative work by counselor and clients that facilitates the closure initiation of the counseling process. The analysis of the collaborative work from an interpersonal pragmatics perspective provides further empirical evidence of the link between relational work and identity construction

Rechtliches Gehör in Administrativuntersuchungen, Kommentar zum Zwischenentscheid des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts A-7102/2017 vom 14. Mai 2018, zum Urteil des Bundesgerichts 1C_297/2018 vom 28. Mai 2019, zum Urteil des Bundesverwaltungsgerichts A-7102/2017 vom 27. August 2019 sowie zum Urteil des Bundesgerichts 1C_527/2019 vom 14. April 2020

Im Rahmen der Beurteilung der Rechtmässigkeit der Bearbeitung von Personendaten bzw. eines Informationszugangsgesuchs hatte das Bundesverwaltungsgericht Gelegenheit, sich zur Geltung des verfassungsrechtlichen Gehörsanspruchs (Art. 29 Abs. 2 BV) in Administrativuntersuchungen zu äussern. Mit der Anerkennung eines Gehörsanspruchs zugunsten der von einer Administrativuntersuchung Betroffenen stärkt es deren verfahrensrechtliche Position. Zudem leistet es damit einen Beitrag zur Überwindung des herkömmlichen, auf Verfügungen bzw. Entscheide beschränkten Verfahrensverständnisses

Interpersonal pragmatics and the therapeutic alliance : the collaborative work in email counseling

Online communication has become ever more present in our lives and has encompassed the personal as well as the professional sphere. This expansion has continued into the professional workspace of mental healthcare workers who conduct counseling online. Special emphasis needs to be given on how mental healthcare workers utilize online communication to work collaboratively with clients. Previous research has shown that the quality of the therapeutic alliance significantly impacts the outcome of counseling. In this book, the therapeutic alliance is examined from an interpersonal pragmatic perspective. Using a mixed methods approach, five naturally occurring email counseling threads are scrutinized to shed light on how the counselor and her clients work collaboratively to improve the clients' well-being. The content analysis reveals the specific topics that are dealt with in the counseling exchanges. The subsequent discursive moves analysis uncovers systematic discursive patterns that occur within the exchanges. Zooming in on specific aspects through a discourse-analytic approach finally allows for an in-depth description of three captivating phenomena: the use of a metaphor to combat unhelpful thoughts, the use of narratives to construct varying identities, and the intricate process of exiting the actual counseling process once clients have improved. By employing two notions from interpersonal pragmatics - relational work and identity construction - empirical evidence is provided to show how they are linked. Thereby, the book adds to research on interpersonal pragmatics, but also on online and mental health communication. Importantly, it serves as a guide to mental health practitioners by demonstrating how language in online counseling can be analyzed and utilized to negotiate the therapeutic alliance and support clients in their endeavor to improve their well-being. Franziska Thurnherr is a researcher in the public health sector in Switzerland. She has published on interpersonal pragmatics, (online) mental health and computer-mediated communication

Hydrography and flow in the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Slow-spreading mid-ocean ridges such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge are characterized by deep axial rift valleys which are isolated from the water on the ridge flanks. Topographic effects therefore have a significant impact on the rift-valley hydrography and dynamics but little is known about the details. Known processes of global importance acting near the axes of midocean ridges include high rates of diapycnal mixing associated with the rough topography and high-temperature hydrothermal circulation, a major source for a number of chemical constituents of the ocean.Physical data sets from the rift valley of two connected segments of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which include the largest known hydrothermal vent field of the Atlantic, were analyzed to investigate the segment-scale hydrography, dynamics and geothermal fluxes. The data include two quasi-synoptic hydrographic and particle plume surveys (one year apart) and one-year-long records from an array of moored current meters.The hydrographic properties of the rift-valley water were similar during the two surveys, suggesting a stable state characterized by inflow from the eastern ridge flank, unidirectional along-segment flow (directly observed during an entire year), and monotonic along-valley hydrographic gradients consistent with high rates of diapycnal mixing. Geothermal processes do not appear to contribute significantly to these patterns. The data contain signaturesof a range of dynamical processes consistent with high rates of diapycnal mixing, including hydraulically controlled sill flows, topographic lee waves and high-energy tidal flows.The spatial distribution of the light-scattering anomalies associated with the dispersing hydrothermal particle plume are consistent with the dynamical observations. Close to the vent field the particle distribution is highly inhomogeneous but density-averaged profiles indicate that the mean plume is Gaussian in depth. To quantify the fluxes associated with the hydrothermal plume the corresponding hydrographic anomalies were determined. The complexity of the hydrography within the rift valley precludes the application of "standard" methods ho that a new method had to be developed resulting in the first quantitative hydrographic anomaly measurements of an Atlantic hydrothermal plume. The hydrographic and particle anomalies of this plume are linearly correlated, indicating that the particles behave conservatively in the near field.Estimates for the heat flux associated with the hydrothermal plume were derived using two established methods, one based on plume-rise modeling and the other on the advection of heat anomalies away from the vent field. Height-of-rise modeling yields values which are an order of magnitude too low because the plume model relies on a point-source assumption which is violated by the geometry of the vent field. The uncertainties associated with the advection method are particularly small at the site studied because of the uni-directionality of the flow field, the small uncertainties of the hydrographic anomaly measurements, and the Gaussian shape of the averaged near-field plume. The resulting estimate for the heat flux associated with the particle plume is 2.5 GW.Mass and heat budgets of the rift valley indicate that high diapycnal diffusivities are required to account for the hydrographic observations and suggest that a portion of the water flowing along the rift valley may be lost to the overlying water column. Inspired by the observations a simple analytical and numerical model for the flow within the rift valley was developed. The results indicate that the rift valley acts as an efficient low-pass filter with characteristic time scales of weeks to months, providing a plausible explanation for the persistence of the along-segment flow

Disentangling the impact of air-sea interaction and boundary layer cloud formation on stable water isotope signals in the warm sector of a Southern Ocean cyclone

Stable water isotopes in marine boundary layer water vapour are strongly influenced by the strength of air–sea fluxes. Air–sea fluxes in the extratropics are modulated by the large-scale atmospheric flow, for instance by the advection of warm and moist air masses in the warm sector of extratropical cyclones. A distinct isotopic composition of the water vapour in the latter environment has been observed over the Southern Ocean during the 2016/2017 Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE). Most prominently, the secondary isotope variable deuterium excess (d=δ2H–8⋅δ18O) shows negative values in the cyclones’ warm sector. In this study, three mechanisms are proposed and evaluated to explain these observed negative d values. We present three single-process air parcel models, which simulate the evolution of δ2H, δ18O, d and specific humidity in an air parcel induced by decreasing ocean evaporation, dew deposition and upstream cloud formation. Simulations with the isotope-enabled numerical weather prediction model COSMOiso, which have previously been validated using observations from the ACE campaign, are used to (i) validate the air parcel models, (ii) quantify the relevance of the three processes for stable water isotopes in the warm sector of the investigated extratropical cyclone and (iii) study the extent of non-linear interactions between the different processes. This analysis shows that we are able to simulate the evolution of d during the air parcel's transport in a realistic way with the mechanistic approach of using single-process air parcel models. Most importantly, we find that decreasing ocean evaporation and dew deposition lead to the strongest d decrease in near-surface water vapour in the warm sector and that upstream cloud formation plays a minor role. By analysing COSMOiso backward trajectories we show that the persistent low d values observed in the warm sector of extratropical cyclones are not a result of material conservation of low d. Instead, the latter Eulerian feature is sustained by the continuous production of low d values due to air–sea interactions in new air parcels entering the warm sector. These results improve our understanding of the relative importance of air–sea interaction and boundary layer cloud formation on the stable water isotope variability of near-surface marine boundary layer water vapour. To elucidate the role of hydrometeor–vapour interactions for the stable water isotope variability in the upper parts of the marine boundary layer, future studies should focus on high-resolution vertical isotope profiles.publishedVersio

Typing yourself healthy: Introduction to the special issue on language and health online

This chapter functions as an introduction to the special issue on Language and Health Online, which features 10 original research papers. It reviews the results of the papers and the joint emerging themes: the impact of technical and social affordances of computer-mediated interaction; discovering an emic perspective of health issues, uncovering health ideologies, and the theme of patient empowerment; the construction of identities, the construction of shared experiences, and the use of narratives. The diverse methodologies that are employed are introduced and a case is made for an open, versatile and mixed methodology when researching language and health online

Changes in bottom water physical properties above the mid-Atlantic ridge flank in the Brazil Basin

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2018. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 123 (2018): 708–719, doi:10.1002/2017JC013375.Warming of abyssal waters in recent decades has been widely documented around the global ocean. Here repeat hydrographic data collected in 1997 and 2014 near a deep fracture zone canyon in the eastern Brazil Basin are used to quantify the long-term change. Significant changes are found in the Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) within the canyon. The AABW in 2014 was warmer (0.08 ± 0.06 inline image), saltier (0.01 ± 0.005), and less dense (0.005 ± 0.004 inline image) than in 1997. In contrast, the change in the North Atlantic Deep Water has complicated spatial structure and is almost indistinguishable from zero at 95% confidence. The resulting divergence in vertical displacement of the isopycnals modifies the local density stratification. At its peak, the local squared buoyancy frequency ( inline image) near the canyon is reduced by about 20% from 1997 to 2014. Similar reduction is found in the basinwide averaged profiles over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge flank along 25 inline imageW in years 1989, 2005, and 2014. The observed changes in density stratification have important implications for internal tide generation and dissipation.NSF Grant Number: OCE-12350942018-07-3

Representativeness of meridional hydrographic sections in the western South Atlantic

Many studies of the oceanic circulation are based on data collected during quasi-synoptic hydrographic surveys. After spatial averaging, to filter out the effects of mesoscale variability, it is often explicitly or implicitly assumed that the synoptic hydrographic gradients are representative of a quasi-steady mean state. Climatological tracer fields and float data at the depth of the North Atlantic Deep Water in the western South Atlantic (Brazil Basin) support the notion of a quasi-steady mean circulation characterized by alternating bands of primarily zonal flow with meridional scales of several hundreds of km. Visually, the mean circulation appears to dominate three samples of the large-scale meridional-density-gradient field taken between 1983 and 1994. A quantitative comparison reveals, however, that the baroclinic temporal variability of the zonal velocities is of the same magnitude as the mean and is associated with similar spatial scales. The synoptic geostrophic flow field is, therefore, only marginally representative of the mean state. Thus, the data do not support one of the central assumptions of reference-velocity methods, such as linear box-inverse models and the β-spiral, because baroclinic temporal variability renders the equation systems underlying these methods inconsistent. A modal decomposition of the temporally varying baroclinic zonal velocity field in the Brazil Basin indicates that the first two dynamical modes dominate, accounting for ≈90% of the rms velocities. The residual flow field that remains after removing the first two baroclinic modes from the three synoptic samples is dominated by the mean circulation. However, its magnitude is not sufficient to account for the float and tracer observations. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the projection of the mean zonal velocities onto the barotropic and the first two baroclinic modes in order to diagnose fully the mean zonal circulation in the western South Atlantic. There is evidence that the representativeness of synoptic hydrographic sections in other regions may be similarly marginal

Turbulence observations in a buoyant hydrothermal plume on the East Pacific Rise

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 25, no. 1 (2012): 180–181, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2012.15.Hot vent fluid enters the ocean at high-temperature hydrothermal vents, also known as black smokers. Because of the large temperature difference between the vent fluid and oceanic near-bottom waters, the hydrothermal effluent initially rises as a buoyant plume through the water column. During its rise, the plume engulfs and mixes with background ocean water. This process, called entrainment, gradually reduces the density of the rising plume until it reaches its level of neutral buoyancy, where the plume density equals that of the background water, and it begins to spread along a surface of constant density.The data presented here were collected in the context of National Science Foundation grants OCE-0425361 and OCE-0728766