Synchronization and Coordination of Art Performances in Highly Competitive Contexts: Battle Scenes of Expert Breakdancers

In the performing arts, such as music and dance performances, people actively interact with each other and show their exciting performances. Some studies have proposed that this interaction is a social origin of the performing arts. Some have further investigated this phenomenon based on the synchronization and coordination theory. Though the majority of these studies have focused on the collaborative context, several genres of the performing arts, such as jazz sessions and breakdance battles, have a competitive context. Several studies have suggested that, in this competitive context, performers actively interact with each other and construct some correspondence. Moreover, a few recent studies focusing on competitive conversations, such as debates, have shown that, compared to people's interactions in collaborative conversations, people in competitive contexts frequently coordinate their behaviors in complicated ways. However, the interaction and coordination among performers in these competitive contexts have not been sufficiently investigated. Therefore, we investigated the coordination of expert breakdancers in battle scenes and measured their rhythmic movements using a motion capture system. We calculated the relative phase of the rhythmic movements between two dancers to investigate their coordination. The results showed that the dancers' rhythmic movements tended to synchronize in an anti-phase fashion, which means that there were similarities as well as differences between the two dancers' rhythmic movements. Furthermore, this pattern of coordination changed dynamically as time elapsed, from an in-phase synchronization or leader-follower relationships to an anti-phase synchronization and then leader-follower relationships.

Institutional logics of service provision: The national and urban governance of activation policies in three European countries

Labour market activation policies aimed at those with multiple barriers to employment require inter-agency collaboration between local organizations providing social and employment services. This local collaborative context is shaped by different institutional logics (state, markets, professions and community) that are crucial for policy implementation. Using case studies of nine German, UK and Swedish cities, it is argued that different institutional logics help shape the form and operation of local collaboration between different agencies and actors and thus the concrete support for service users at the local level. Although all three countries are characterized by centralized employment policies, each city shows a prevalence, but not exclusivity, of certain institutional logics over others. These differences, partly reflecting the local context, are likely to lead to local variations in understandings of solidarity, policy implementation, inter-agency collaboration and networks of actors and national–local tensions. The paper suggests that an institutional logics approach provides a useful framework for helping to understand local variations and potential national–local policy conflicts.

Toward Environmental Justice in Civic Science: Youth Performance and Experience Measuring Air Pollution Using Moss as a Bio-Indicator in Industrial-Adjacent Neighborhoods

This article reports on an interdisciplinary evaluation of the pilot phase of a community-driven civic science project. The project investigates the distribution of heavy metals in air pollution using moss growing on street trees as a bio-indicator in two industrial-adjacent neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington (USA). One goal of the ongoing project is to meaningfully engage local urban youths (eighth to twelfth grade) in the scientific process as civic scientists, and teach them about environmental health, environmental justice, and urban forestry concepts in a place-based, urban-oriented environmental research project. We describe the collaborative context in which our project developed, evaluate the quality of youth-collected data through analysis of replicate samples, and assess participants’ learning, career interests, and overall appraisal of the pilot. Our results indicate that youth scientists collected usable samples (with acceptable precision among repeated samples), learned project content (with statistically significant increases in scores of test-style survey questions; p = 0.002), and appraised their engagement favorably (with 69% of participants reporting they liked the project). We observed few changes in career interests, however. We discuss our intention to use these preliminary insights to further our community-driven education, research, and action model to address environmental injustices.

Advancing complexity-informed health promotion: a scoping review to link health promotion and co-creation

Summary A complexity-informed approach has recently been proposed as a hopeful revolution for health promotion (HP), requesting appropriate ways of tackling the complexities of health, equity and well-being. In addition, co-creation has gained traction as an approach to tackle complexity. HP and co-creation are established concepts that have long been enacted in practice. Although each concept is premised on similar approaches to value-creation such as participation and collaboration, little has been done to link the two approaches. To advance complexity-informed HP, this scoping review presents findings from peer-reviewed articles, published in English, between 2009 and March 2020. Articles were identified through searches of academic databases. Twenty-seven articles met the inclusion criteria, explicitly linking HP and co-creation. Included articles were charted by descriptive information and main focus, and advanced by a thematic analysis. Four themes suggest a potential avenue for advancing complexity-informed HP: (i) dealing with complexity, (ii) value creation, (iii) the value of the values and (iv) benefits and challenges. While current links between HP and co-creation are scarce they are increasing and promising. Based on the findings from the review, propositions to advance complexity-informed HP is outlined and discussed. Overall it is argued that co-creation and HP are mutually beneficial concepts, providing a framework for participative, collaborative, context-sensitive and knowledge-based practice that reflects the complex nature of health. More research is needed to highlight potential and challenges of integrating co-creation in HP, especially related to health equity and sustainable development.