A specialized spinal circuit for command amplification and directionality during escape behavior

In vertebrates, action selection often involves higher cognition entailing an evaluative process. However, urgent tasks, such as defensive escape, require an immediate implementation of the directionality of escape trajectory, necessitating local circuits. Here we reveal a specialized spinal circuit for the execution of escape direction in adult zebrafish. A central component of this circuit is a unique class of segmentally repeating cholinergic V2a interneurons expressing the transcription factor Chx10. These interneurons amplify brainstem-initiated escape commands and rapidly deliver the excitation via a feedforward circuit to all fast motor neurons and commissural interneurons to direct the escape maneuver. The information transfer within this circuit relies on fast and reliable axo-axonic synaptic connections, bypassing soma and dendrites. Unilateral ablation of cholinergic V2a interneurons eliminated escape command propagation. Thus, in vertebrates, local spinal circuits can implement directionality of urgent motor actions vital for survival.

EXPRESS: Watered Down: Market Growth, Authenticity, and Evaluation in Craft Beer

Research in organizational theory suggests that category-spanning organizations typically suffer penalties in evaluations, as consumers downgrade producers they see as violating authenticity norms. We challenge this view by linking two heretofore separate insights: first, that categorical boundaries erode as categories become taken-for-granted and, second, that consumers in a given category tend to become more heterogeneous as their numbers increase. We argue that newer consumers employ diverse evaluative schemata and rely less on established conceptions of authenticity than do veterans, leading to more generous evaluations as the ranks of consumers grow. Using the canonical case of craft beer, we test the effect of audience growth on consumer evaluations, particularly when producers violate categorical authenticity norms. Our analysis of an original dataset of more than 45,000 ratings of craft beers from a popular online forum finds both that overall beer ratings increase and that penalties to authenticity norm violations attenuate as the number of new reviewers participating in the evaluative process rises. These results refine our understanding of shifting demands for categorical purity, conceptions of authenticity, and consumer evaluations as functions of market growth.

Dance History and Digital Humanities Meet at the Archives: An Interim Project Report on Dunham's Data

This interim project report addresses the ongoing work of Dunham's Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Inquiry. The project centres choreographer Katherine Dunham's transnational circulation, and takes a critical mixed methods approach informed by feminist and anti-racist discussions in the digital humanities in order to explore the questions and problems that make data analysis and visualization meaningful for dance history. Dunham's Data sits on robust datasets that we have manually curated from currently undigitized sources – an iterative and evaluative process that approaches these archives and the histories that they contain from a granular perspective. This update contextualizes our particular conjunction of archival and digital methods within dance history's precedents for curating data, and talks through our own datasets as tools for dance historical analysis in terms of Dunham's global legacy.

A Distracted Scientist: The Life and Contributions of John Senders

Objective To provide an evaluative and personal overview of the life and contributions of Professor John Senders and to introduce this Special Issue dedicated to his memory. Background John Senders made many profound contributions to HF/E. These various topics are exemplified by the range of papers which compose the Special Issue. Collectively, these works document and demonstrate the impact of his many valuable research works. Method The Special Issue serves to summarize Senders’ collective body of work as can be extracted from archival sources. This introductory paper recounts a series of remembrances derived from personal relationships, as well as the products of cooperative investigative research. Results This collective evaluative process documents Senders’ evident and deserved status in the highest pantheon of HF/E pioneers. It records his extraordinary life, replete with accounts of his insights and joie de vivre in exploring and explaining the world which surrounded him. Applications Senders’ record of critical contributions provides the example, par excellence, of the successful and fulfilling life in science. It encourages all, both researchers and practitioners alike, in their own individual search for excellence.

How can critical deliberative theory help to solve the methodological challenges of evaluating from a gender + perspective?

This article explains why and how it is possible to give greater democratic meaning to an evaluative process by bringing into dialogue the Gender + perspective and a critical approach to deliberative theory within its design. Furthermore, it identifies the methodological challenges of using this intersectional approach to create more inclusive evaluative procedures. Taking into account the experience of the evaluation of Law 4/2005 for Equality between Women and Men in the Basque Country (Spain, 2015–2016), the text explains that the enclave deliberation praxis proposed by critical deliberative theory helps to resolve the challenges that emerge from the implementation of the Gender + perspective in the evaluation of public policies. These challenges include the incorporation of the empowerment perspective into the evaluation, and guaranteeing dialogue between expert knowledge on gender and other more ‘intuitive’ types of knowledge.

Affective Soundscapes in Thucydidean Battle Narrative

Thucydides’ History is deeply committed to the conventional correlation in Greek thought between sight and knowledge. In the Methodology chapters (1.20-3), the histo- rian grounds his investigative project in visual metaphor: it is a work that has been construc- ted ‘out of the most manifest evidence’, which promises to reveal the ‘least visible’ but ‘truest cause’ of this war. In contrast, Thucydides is suspicious of the epistemological value of hearing, repeatedly denigrating the ‘alluring’ sounds of poetic and hearsay accounts of Greek history. In this paper, I argue that this critique extends also to other sounds in the History, and that Thucydides’ anxieties over audition are directly related to the prob- lematic relation he sees between sound, knowledge, and emotion. While visual perception provides the normative pathway to cognitive evaluation and rational emotional response, sounds have the capacity to short-circuit the evaluative process by circumventing cognition and eliciting unmediated affective responses in hearing subjects.

The value of mediator soft skills to modern commercial practice

This paper explores the nature of change in modern economies due to their growing interconnectedness and implications this has for the way professions such as mediation and legal services carry out their business. It argues that the biggest upheaval has been the rise in the commercial value of trust over that of competitive and adversarial behaviours and that this requires, in turn, that dealing with conflict takes account of the inherent human complexity found in trusting relationships. It contrasts the role of mediators in dealing with complexity and ambiguity with that of other professions, notably in the legal sphere. It notes attempts within the legal profession to rebadge itself away from litigation to dispute resolution and to promote evaluative mediation and semi-determinative processes as the pre-eminent conflict resolution process. It argues that the traditional non-evaluative ‘process’ approach to mediation is far more in tune with the modern collaborative economy and concludes that the legal profession should seek to learn from it and seek to adopt the soft skills of the mediator.

Decisiones en evaluación: ambientes virtuales de posgrado, un estudio ex post-facto.

La investigación se realizó sobre la toma de decisiones en evaluación en ambientes virtuales de aprendizaje. Se tomaron dos materias o cursos ofrecidos en programas en línea a nivel de posgrado, que incluyó el aspecto instruccional y la retroalimentación de las actividades evaluables. Un diseño ex post-facto y la Nueva Taxonomía de Marzano y Kendall (2007) que permitió emitir una serie de juicios sobre el diseño y la retroalimentación, análisis de tareas, actividades asignadas y los objetivos o competencias para el cumplimiento de las metas generales. Los resultados arrojaron que, el proceso evaluativo está ligado a la toma de decisiones desde el diseño dado que permite conducir a progresos en el desempeño del estudiante, por otro lado, las actividades evaluables se diseñaron para conducir a los estudiantes en la realización de procesos de análisis, reflexión, interpretación y comprensión. Sin embargo, esta misma solidez no se reflejó en la retroalimentación. This research was carry out about the decisions in evaluation in virtual learning environments.Two subjects or courses offered on the online modality for graduate level included the instructional aspect and the feedback given to assessable activities. An ex post-facto study and The New Taxonomy (Marzano and Kendall, 2007) that permitted the emission of a series of judgments on design and feedback, the analysis of tasks, assigned activities and objectives or competencies to fulfill the overall goals.The results showed that the evaluative process is link with the decisions making from the desing, when it allows to lead to progress in the student's performance, on the other hand, the evaluation is related to the level of objectives or competences to be worked. In fact, the evaluative activities were designed with the intention to lead students in performing process analysis, reflection, interpretation, and understanding