Embodiment and social structure: a response to Howson and Inglis

Howson and Inglis' paper is both timely and thought provoking. However, it is my contention that their argument is fundamentally flawed. They make five claims. The first two concern the emergence of sociological interest in 'the body' and are sound in my view. The third is that the work of Merleau-Ponty, which has been central to many forms of 'corporeal sociology', lacks an account of social structure and is insufficiently sociological in focus to be of use t o sociology. The fourth suggests that the work of Pierre Bourdieu, which might be deemed a corrective to Merleau-Ponty, cannot serve this purpose without generating a form of social structural determinism which would undermine the benefits of Merleau-Ponty's contribution. The fifth speculates on whether cultural studies might not provide a more fruitful avenue for those who wish either to avoid determinism or to rejoin Merleau-Ponty. My main contention is with the third and fourth of these claims, though my view also necessarily has implications for the fifth.     

Leadership research and cognitive neuroscience: The state of this union

Advances in cognitive neuroscience and other approaches to understanding human behavior from a biological standpoint are only now beginning to filter into leadership research. The purpose of this introduction to the Leadership Quarterly Special Issue on the Biology of Leadership is to outline the organizational cognitive neuroscience approach to leadership research, and show how such an approach can fruitfully inform both leadership and neuroscientific research. Indeed, we advance the view that the further application of cognitive neuroscientific techniques to leadership research will pay great dividends in our understanding of effective leadership behaviors and as such, a future symbiosis between the two fields is a necessity.     

Some characteristics of moral problems in evaluation practice

In order to understand better the nature of moral problems in evaluation, an actual incident from evaluation practice is examined. Based on the incident, six characteristics of moral problems are identified and briefly discussed. The types of research needed on moral aspects of evaluation practice are presented, and ways in which the evaluation profession can aid practitioners in dealing with moral problems are outlined.     

Using Surveys in Public Participation Processes for Risk Decision Making: The Case of the 2003 British GM Nation? Public Debate

This article takes as its case study the “GM Nation?” public debate, a major participation process on the commercialization of agricultural biotechnology, which occurred in Britain during the summer of 2003. We investigate possible self‐selection biases in over 36,000 open questionnaire responses on the risks and benefits of genetically modified crops and food obtained during GM Nation? A comparison sample of equivalent responses from a statistically representative sample (n= 1,363) of the British general public obtained shortly after the conclusion of the debate is reported. This comparison shows that the GM Nation? open responses were indeed not fully representative of British “public opinion” regarding agricultural biotechnology. Rather, such opinion is not a unitary whole, but fragmented, with considerable ambivalence coexisting alongside outright opposition to GM agriculture. The methodological implications for multistage participation processes are discussed: in particular, the need to anticipate outcomes of complex design decisions, and to include representative public surveys as standard where measures of broader public attitudes to risk are an important objective.     

Research Review: Risk and protection in the context of services for children in need

The paper summarizes the evidence and provides definitions of risk, protective factors, resilience, coping strategies and need in the context of children in need. Definitions are offered for children in need and children's services. The way in which individual interpretation can alter objective assessment of risk is explored. A method for recording evidence relevant to clinical practice on behalf of children in need is offered. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Quantifying urban forest structure,function, and value: the Chicago Urban Forest Climate Project

This paper is a review of research in Chicago that linked analyses of vegetation structure with forest functions and values. During 1991, the regions trees removed an estimated 5575 metric tons of air pollutants, providing air cleansing worth 9.2 million. Each year they sequester an estimated 315 800 metric tons of carbon. Increasing tree cover 10% or planting about three trees per building lot saves annual heating and cooling costs by an estimated 50 to 90 per dwelling unit because of increased shade, lower summertime air temperatures, and reduced neighborhood wind speeds once the trees mature. The net present value of the services trees provide is estimated as 402 per planted tree. The present value of long-term benefits is more than twice the present value of costs.     

Consumer awareness and sustainability-focused value orientation as motivating factors of responsible consumer behavior

Consumers are put in the driver seat on the road to a sustainable development. Following a consumer-centric approach, this paper explores the dimensionality and the antecedents of responsible consumption from a psychological perspective. Concerning the dimensionality, the study proposes that responsible consumption should comprise a societal as well as an individual dimension. The data (N = 339) supported this two-dimensional approach, differentiating between societal responsibilities of consumers (doing good) and consumers’ responsibilities for their personal well-being (doing well). Moreover, the results indicate that both consumer awareness and sustainability-focused value orientation have a direct positive influence on responsible consumer behavior. In addition, the hypothesized mediating role of consumer awareness is confirmed, with mediations for societal or personal responsible consumer behavior by the respective consumer awareness dimension. Consequently, it is crucial for organizations to flank their sustainable offers with appropriate communication activities in order to motivate consumers to engage in more responsible consumption.     

Spreading the word ... hospice information systems

The rapid spread of Saunders' thinking across the world has been facilitated by the Hospice Information service and library at St Christopher's Hospice which she helped to create and further enhanced by Help the Hospices. We have set this article in the context of the Web and other information systems as they are developing today. "Connecting people" and "collecting people's experiences" were terms often used by Cicely Saunders when she described the work of Hospice Information, a service that has in some measure contributed to the rapid spread of her thinking across the world and which is currently in close contact with palliative care workers in over 120 countries. Connecting--or networking--putting people and organizations in touch with each other for mutual benefit and collecting and disseminating people's experiences are central to our work as a U.K. and international resource on hospice and palliative care for professionals and the public. Add to these the crucial role of information provision and advocacy for patients, carers, and health professionals alike and we hope that you may begin to appreciate how our respective organizations have contributed to the spread of Cicely Saunders' vision.     

Efficient Algorithms for Local Alignment Search

We present efficient algorithms for local alignment search in biological sequences. These algorithms identify maximal segment pairs (MSPs). Our algorithms have the potential of performing better than BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) and also are efficiently parallelizable. We employ Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs). Though several attempts have been made in the past to employ FFTs in sequence analysis, they fail to capture local similarities. Our algorithms employ FFTs in a novel way to identify local similarities. FFT-based techniques have the attractive feature of benefiting from ultrafast special purpose hardware available for digital signal processing.