scholarly journals Handling power-asymmetry in interactions with infants

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolin Demuth

Interaction between adults and infants by nature constitutes a strong powerasymmetry relationship. Based on the assumption that communicative practices with infants are inseparably intertwined with broader cultural ideologies of good child care, this paper will contrast how parents in two distinct socio-cultural communities deal with power asymmetry in interactions with 3-months old infants. The study consists of a microanalysis of videotaped free play mother-infant interactions from 20 middle class families in Muenster, Germany and 20 traditional farming Nso families in Kikaikelaki, Cameroon. Analysis followed a discursive psychology approach. The focus of analysis is on how mothers handle and negotiate power-distance in these interactions and what discursive strategies they draw on. Mothers in both groups used various forms of directives and control strategies. The Muenster mothers, however, mainly used mitigated directives that can be seen as strategies to reduce the competence gap between mother and child, while the Nso mothers mainly used upgraded directives to stress the hierarchical discrepancy between mother and child. The different strategies are discussed in light of the prevailing broader cultural ideologies and the normative orientations that they reflect. Finally, the findings are discussed with regard to possible developmental consequences of these distinct cultural practices for the child. Keywords: power-asymmetry; mother-infant interaction; discursive psychology; culture; Nso farmers; Muenster middle class families

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.M. Torres ◽  
S.A. Palacios ◽  
N. Yerkovich ◽  
J.M. Palazzini ◽  
P. Battilani ◽  
...  

With 744 million metric tons produced in 2017/2018, bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) and durum wheat (Triticum durum) are the second most widely produced cereal on a global basis. Prevention or control of wheat diseases may have an enormous impact on global food security and safety. Fusarium head blight is an economically debilitating disease of wheat that reduces the quantity and quality of grain harvested, and may lead to contamination with the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol, which affects the health of humans and domesticated animals. Current climate change scenarios predict an increase in the number of epidemics caused by this disease. Multiple strategies are available for managing the disease including cultural practices, planting less-susceptible cultivars, crop rotation, and chemical and biological controls. None of these strategies, however, is completely effective by itself, and an integrated approach incorporating multiple controls simultaneously is the only effective strategy to limit the disease and reduce deoxynivalenol contamination in human food and animal feed chains. This review identifies the available tools and strategies for mitigating the damage that can result from Fusarium head blight.


Plant Disease ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. L. Caruso

Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.) vines (cv. Howes) from a commercial cranberry bed on Nantucket Island displayed typical symptoms of rose bloom disease in June, 1997. The affected area (1.5 × 30.0 m) consisted of less than 1% symptomatic uprights and was not covered by sprinkler heads of the chemigation system. The same area that did not receive insecticides or fungicides was damaged by black-headed fireworm (Rhopobota naevana) feeding during the 1996 growing season. The surface of the leaves on the abnormal branches displayed the typical white, powdery external appearance, which consisted of basidia and basidiospores of the pathogen Exobasidium oxycocci Rostr. ex Shear that were hyaline, fusiform with a slight curvature, and measured 14 to 18 × 2 to 3 μm, matching a previous description (2). Plants showing symptoms had been infected during 1996. Abnormal lateral shoots with swollen pink leaves grew from infected axillary buds on the previous year's wood (3). Cranberry plants were inoculated with basidiospores but symptoms may take longer than 1 year to develop. Rose bloom was formerly a common disease affecting cranberry in Massachusetts and control strategies were addressed in the disease management recommendations sent out by the Cranberry Experiment Station to growers through 1954. Bergman (1) reported that the disease was found almost every year before 1945, but since then there were no serious outbreaks, possibly due to changes in cultural practices. The fungicide ferbam (ferric dithiocarbamate) largely replaced Bordeaux mixture as a fungicide to combat fruit rot in the late 1940s. The disease was not brought in with imported vines from the Pacific Northwest, where the disease is common, because the vines in this bed were planted in 1910. The disease has not been observed in either wild or abandoned cranberry beds that have not received fungicide applications. This is the first report of this disease in Massachusetts in nearly 50 years. References: (1) H. F. Bergman. 1953. Yearbook of Agriculture, p. 792. (2) F. L. Caruso and D. C. Ramsdell, eds. 1995. Compendium of Blueberry and Cranberry Diseases. American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN. (3) C. L. Shear et al. 1931. U.S. Dep. Agric. Tech. Bull. 258.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-185
Author(s):  
Jesse Aberbach

This article considers how the children's books written by two nineteenth-century female writers, Eliza Tabor and Mary Martha Sherwood, when they accompanied their husbands to India, enabled them to navigate this new environment and their position as respectable middle-class women while revealing how India was deemed a place where British childhood was impossible. Just as many women took up botanical study to legitimise their ‘otherwise transgressive presence in imperial spaces’ (McEwan 219), writing for children enabled others to engage with the masculine world of travelling and earning money without compromising their femininity. Addressing their work to children also seems to have helped both writers to deal with the absence of their own children: the Indian climate made it impossibly challenging for most British infants and children. In this way their writing gives expression to what might be termed a crisis of imperial motherhood. Underlying the texts is an anxiety relating to British settlement and an attempt to comprehend and control a place that threatened their maternal roles.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Poremski ◽  
Sandra Henrietta Subner ◽  
Grace Lam Fong Kin ◽  
Raveen Dev Ram Dev ◽  
Mok Yee Ming ◽  
...  

The Institute of Mental Health in Singapore continues to attempt to prevent the introduction of COVID-19, despite community transmission. Essential services are maintained and quarantine measures are currently unnecessary. To help similar organizations, strategies are listed along three themes: sustaining essential services, preventing infection, and managing human and consumable resources.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-130
Author(s):  
Pavithra Nagarajan

This article explores how a single-sex school for boys of color intentionally and unintentionally (re)defines masculinity through rules and rituals. The school’s mission posits that boys become men through developing three skills: selfregulation, self-awareness, and self-reflection. Drawing from qualitative research data, I examine how disciplinary practices prioritize boys’ ability to control their bodies and image, or “self-regulate.” When boys fail to self-regulate, they enter the punitive system. School staff describe self-regulation as integral to out-of-school success, but these practices may inadvertently reproduce negative labeling and control of black bodies. This article argues for school cultural practices that affirm, rather than deny, the benefits of boyhood.


1989 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-477
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Nutt

Abstract Based on discussions in workshop sessions, several recurring themes became evident with respect to the optimization and control of petroleum refinery wastewater treatment systems to achieve effective removal of toxic contaminants. It was apparent that statistical process control (SPC) techniques are finding more widespread use and have been found to be effective. However, the implementation of real-time process control strategies in petroleum refinery wastewater treatment systems is in its infancy. Considerable effort will need to be expended to demonstrate the practicality of on-line sensors, and the utility of automated process control in petroleum refinery wastewater treatment systems. This paper provides a summary of the discussions held at the workshop.


Author(s):  
Ivan Herreros

This chapter discusses basic concepts from control theory and machine learning to facilitate a formal understanding of animal learning and motor control. It first distinguishes between feedback and feed-forward control strategies, and later introduces the classification of machine learning applications into supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning problems. Next, it links these concepts with their counterparts in the domain of the psychology of animal learning, highlighting the analogies between supervised learning and classical conditioning, reinforcement learning and operant conditioning, and between unsupervised and perceptual learning. Additionally, it interprets innate and acquired actions from the standpoint of feedback vs anticipatory and adaptive control. Finally, it argues how this framework of translating knowledge between formal and biological disciplines can serve us to not only structure and advance our understanding of brain function but also enrich engineering solutions at the level of robot learning and control with insights coming from biology.


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