Immanent Anthropology: A Comparative Study of 'Process' in Contemporary France

This paper presents a comparative critique of the ‘processual temporalities’ which infuse both social-scientific theorizing and selected Western cultural practices. Through study of a public-private partnership which emerged from a biotechnology project devised for producing ‘self-cloning’ maize for resource-poor farmers, I analyse how processual temporalities were central to re-gearing knowledge practices towards market-orientated solutions. In a study of characterizations of the ‘state of flux’ which affects life in a French peri-urban village, I explore how processualism is identified as a component of a metropolitan hegemony which villagers ‘resist’ through idealizing ‘enduring temporalities’ of cultural practice. Drawing on Arendt and Deleuze, I analyse processualism as a dominant contemporary chronotope, mediating and disciplining conflictive temporalities and practices, underwriting economic projects of deterritorialization and restructuring – whose idiom is also prominent in social-scientific paradigms. I substitute an ‘immanent anthropology’, which advocates a non-transcendental ontology of cultural practice and analysis – displacing anthropological analysis onto a polychronic temporal foundation

Challenging nurse student selection policy: using a lifeworld approach to explore the link between care experience and student values

Aim: This study uses a lifeworld perspective to explore beginning students’ values about nursing. Internationally, increasing care demand, a focus on targets and evidence of dehumanized care cultures have resulted in scrutiny of practitioner values. In England, selection policy dictates that prospective nursing students demonstrate person-centred values and care work experience. However, there is limited recent evidence exploring values at programme commencement or the effect of care experience on values. Design: Mixed method study. Methods: A total of 161 undergraduate nursing students were recruited in 2013 from one English university. Thematic content analysis and frequency distribution to reveal descriptive statistics were used. Results: Statistical analysis indicated that most of the values identified in student responses were not significantly affected by paid care experience. Five themes were identified: How I want care to be; Making a difference; The value of learning; Perceived characteristics of a nurse; and Respecting our humanity. Students readily drew on their experience of living to identify person-centred values about nursing

Authentic Leadership: A Historical Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to interpret the historical meanings conveyed by Barnard's classic works and use them for theorizing about authenticity of leaders in executive roles. Our analysis employs an interpretative logic for meanings of historical ideas proposed by Bevir. As an outcome of this analysis, we identify the conditions that contribute to the failure, crisis, tragedy, and/or success of leader authenticity. In addition, we discuss practical and research implications of the proposed framework.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Comprehensive characterization of the prostate tumor microenvironment identifies CXCR4/CXCL12 crosstalk as a novel antiangiogenic therapeutic target in prostate cancer

Background: Crosstalk between neoplastic and stromal cells fosters prostate cancer (PCa) progression and dissemination. Insight in cell-to-cell communication networks provides new therapeutic avenues to mold processes that contribute to PCa tumor microenvironment (TME) alterations. Here we performed a detailed characterization of PCa tumor endothelial cells (TEC) to delineate intercellular crosstalk between TEC and the PCa TME. Methods: TEC isolated from 67 fresh radical prostatectomy (RP) specimens underwent multi-omic ex vivo characterization as well as orthogonal validation of both TEC functions and key markers by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF). To identify cell-cell interaction targets in TEC, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in four PCa patients who underwent a RP to catalogue cellular TME composition. Targets were cross-validated using IHC, publicly available datasets, cell culture expriments as well as a PCa xenograft mouse model. Results: Compared to adjacent normal endothelial cells (NEC) bulk RNA-seq analysis revealed upregulation of genes associated with tumor vasculature, collagen modification and extracellular matrix remodeling in TEC. PTGIR, PLAC9, CXCL12 and VDR were identified as TEC markers and confirmed by IF and IHC in an independent patient cohort. By scRNA-seq we identified 27 cell (sub)types, including endothelial cells (EC) with arterial, venous and immature signatures, as well as angiogenic tip EC. A focused molecular analysis revealed that arterial TEC displayed highest CXCL12 mRNA expression levels when compared to all other TME cell (sub)populations and showed a negative prognostic role. Receptor-ligand interaction analysis predicted interactions between arterial TEC derived CXCL12 and its cognate receptor CXCR4 on angiogenic tip EC. CXCL12 was in vitro and in vivo validated as actionable TEC target by highlighting the vessel number- and density- reducing activity of the CXCR4-inhibitor AMD3100 in murine PCa as well as by inhibition of TEC proliferation and migration in vitro. Conclusions: Overall, our comprehensive analysis identified novel PCa TEC targets and highlights CXCR4/CXCL12 interaction as a potential novel target to interfere with tumor angiogenesis in PCa

Phenomenology as a political position within maternity care

In this article the authors use the context of childbirth to consider the power that is endemic in certain forms of evidence within maternity care research. First, there is consideration of how the current evidence hierarchy and experimental-based studies are the gold standard to determine and direct women’s maternity experiences, although this can be at the detriment of care and irrespective of women’s needs. This is followed by a critique of how the predominant means to assess women’s experiences via satisfaction surveys is of limited utility, offering impartial and restricted insights to assess the quality of care provision. A counter position of hermeneutic phenomenology as research method is then described. This approach offers an alternative perspective by penetrating the taken-for-granted ordinariness of an event (such as childbirth) to elicit rich emic meanings. While all approaches to understanding maternity care have a place, depending on the question(s) being asked, the contribution of phenomenology is how it can uncover a depth of contextual understanding into what matters to women and to inform and transform care delivery

Challenges in outdoor tourism explorations: an embodied approach

Methodological challenges are rarely discussed in depth among outdoor adventure tourism scholars. Despite the prevailing quali- tative approaches in this field, and the recognition that the fleet- ingness of the human experience and the non-linearity and unpredictability of the more-than-human world have the power to influence the research process, the messy, negotiated and often contested researcher’s role has been less considered. In addressing this, the aim here is to critically discuss the methodo- logical approach to explorations of the outdoor experiences through deconstructing the researcher’s role. Through renderings of the existentialist propositions of being in the world and a post- structuralist philosophy of fluidity and flux, the attention is granted to embodied experiences as a way of generating knowl- edges. Being situated in the research setting, space is created for interrogation of the processual dimensions of commodified out- door journeys from an emic, researcher-as-tourist perspective. Research in the outdoor scenaria is by no means a linear process but rather a messy, complex and often ruptured journey, further complicated by the ethical concerns, struggles and idiosyncrasies of the researcher. I thus discuss the nuances and complexities of doing the embodied research and the haphazard ways of data collection. In shifting attention to more existential aspects of being in the outdoors through the process of post-experiential reflections, discomfort emerged as a critical quality of the outdoor experience. I thus illuminate the significance of embodied research and epiphenomenal discoveries in the production of new knowledges, to which greater attention, both in theoretical and methodological conversations, should be paid in the future

Transportations of space, time and self: the role of reading groups in managing mental distress in the community

Background: The practice of reading and discussing literature in groups is long established, stretching back into classical antiquity. Although benefits of therapeutic reading groups have been highlighted, research into participants’ perceptions of these groups has been limited. Aims: To explore the experiences of those attending therapeutic reading groups, considering the role of both the group, and the literature itself, in participants’ ongoing experiences of distress. Method: Eleven participants were recruited from two reading groups in the South-East of England. One focus group was run, and eight individuals self-selected for individual interviews. The data were analysed together using a thematic analysis drawing on dialogical theories. Results: Participants described the group as an anchor, which enabled them to use fiction to facilitate the discussion of difficult emotional topics, without referring directly to personal experience. Two aspects of this process are explored in detail: the use of narratives as transportation, helping to mitigate the intensity of distress; and using fiction to explore possibilities, alternative selves and lives. Conclusions: For those who are interested and able, reading groups offer a relatively de-stigmatised route to exploring and mediating experiences of distress. Implications in the present UK funding environment are discussed

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum