Our Humanity

Neurobiological research highlights the significance of our physical existence as feeling, conscious, and purposeful beings. Antonio Damasio describes the core self as a witness to one’s own purposeful existence—a possible location for the notion of human dignity. In contrast to the notion of the isolated individual, Damasio defines the self as a conductor created by an orchestra. Daniel Siegel sees the self as a composite entity determined by the flow of information and energy among internal and external events and responses. He also points out the significance of Attachment theory is revealing our need, like other primates, of a secure base; grounded in social relationships with others.

Fuses igniting in the consulting room

This article on fuses igniting in the consulting room is entirely based on clinical experiences without reference to any theoretical positions. Three clinical vignettes will be described to illustrate situations when the therapist realised there was a sudden unexpected rise in “temperature” of a patient’s mind and/or in her own mind, and why this may have occurred. A fuse was lit but was it a slow or a quick one? A slow match is a very slow-burning fuse presenting only a small glowing tip whereas a quick match is one, which once ignited, burns at top speed. I will relate this ignition to the possibility of premature interpretations, or a failure to realise how anxious the patient was in the presence of the terrifying object–therapist and also, unexpected situations arising during and outside of sessions. I will describe how these situations unfolded during sessions and how, upon reflection, these could have been diffused differently. The emphasis will be on how best to maintain a psychoanalytic stance but also how to clinically judge when a session must be terminated in order to protect patient and therapist from exploding “bombs” inadvertently ignited by patient, therapist, or external events. The importance of supervision and consultation with colleagues will be stressed.

Local Sport Event Policies and Sustainability: A Puzzle Approach

As demands for more sustainable ways of living increase, organisers of sport events have come under increasing pressure to adapt. At the same time, more and more national and local event policies increase the demand for events. These two trends raise the question of how policy makers can combine the demand for events with a sustainable way of living; a question that so far has been subject to little research. The present paper analyses the conceptualisation of sustainability in all local policies relating to events in Norwegian municipalities. The paper is based on the analysis of policies covering 22 municipalities and includes both general development plans and more specific policies on events in its analysis. The analysis shows that all the municipalities have adopted a “broad” conceptualisation of sustainability, i.e., pursued a development, which should not limit the possibilities of future generations, in their general development plans. Although the general development plans serve as a basis for every other policy, the paper also shows that the municipalities in the specific policies for events often had “narrow” conceptualisation of sustainability, i.e., focusing on making local events reoccurring and/or increasing the capacity for hosting external events. The findings emphasise the relevance of looking at the local level when conducting future studies on events and sustainability and suggest that the practitioners acknowledge the complexity of reconciling demands for more events and increased sustainability.

Positions of Boeing and Airbus in the global civil aircraft industry: comparative analysis

There is a duopoly in the global civil aircraft industry. The market for the production of passenger aircraft is mainly divided between companies such as Boeing and Airbus. This work describes the history of the creation and activities of both companies throughout their existence, as well as the trends in their activities today, related to external events. Competition between these companies is quite high and exists due to a number of certain factors. The results of this competition are the position of each of the companies in the market, which is reflected in their production and financial indicators and reflects the overall situation in the market for the production of civil aircraft. Also, this work allows us to identify future trends in the activities of these manufacturers, and, accordingly, the entire industry as a whole.

An Analysis of the Effect of Saturday Home Football Games on Physical Use of University Libraries

Objective – Library science literature lacks studies on the effect of external events on the physical use of libraries, leaving a gap in understanding of would-be library patrons’ time use choices when faced with the option of using the library or attending time-bound, external events. Within academic libraries in about 900 colleges and universities in the US, weekend time use may be affected by football games. This study sought to elucidate the effect of external events on physical use of libraries by examining the effect of Saturday home football games on the physical use of the libraries in a large, academic institution. Methods – This study used a retrospective, observational study design. Gate count data for all Saturdays during the fall semesters of 2013-2018 were collected for the two primary libraries at East Carolina University (main campus’ Academic Library Services [ALS] and Laupus, a health sciences campus library), along with data on the occurrence of home football games. The relationship between gate counts and the occurrence of home football games was assessed using an independent samples t-test. Results – Saturday home football games decreased the gate count at both ALS and Laupus. For ALS, the mean physical use of the library decreased by one third (34.4%) on Saturdays with a home game. For Laupus, physical use of the library decreased by almost a quarter (22%) on Saturdays with a home game. Conclusion – Saturday home football games alter the physical use of academic libraries, decreasing the number of patrons entering the doors. Libraries may be able to adjust staffing based on reduced use of library facilities during these events.

Coopetition in a failed merger project: why two French companies called it quits

Purpose Coopetition includes cooperation and competition, sometimes simultaneously, among firms from a specific industry involved in a merger and acquisition (M&A) operation. However, despite their high number, most mergers end in failure. Therefore, looking at how firms cooperate and compete when planning a merger operation can be a key to better understand post-merger integration, set achievable synergies for both parties and better understand the organizational culture of both companies. Also, external events in a rapidly changing environment can affect the global strategy of organizations and impact the desire for firms to engage in mergers and acquisitions. Design/methodology/approach The author investigates how merger negotiations were conducted and influence coopetition among two firms engaged in such an operation. The author describes the project merger of two French companies using longitudinal data. Findings This in-depth case study provides new insights into coopetition dynamics during merger negotiations and the influence of a global crisis on the overall strategy of two firms. The authors specifically detail how cooperation and competition were present in M&A negotiations and how the rapidly changing environment influenced the planned operation. First, cooperation was privileged as companies enhanced information sharing and communication for their joint strategy. Then, with the evolution of the environment, new opportunities were given to the target company, which decided to quit the merger project. Therefore, both firms engaged in a competitive context as the crisis helped the target company (in difficulty at the beginning of negotiations) to develop new projects and to become a real rival of the acquiring company in its local ecosystem. Research limitations/implications The limitations are those concerning a single case study. Practical implications The study highlights the complexity of merger negotiations and the unexpected events faced by integration stakeholders. The analysis, thus, contributes to an inclusive and integrative view of the challenges in the merger process. The study questions coopetition issues in regional clusters as both firms operate in the same industry in the same region. For practitioners, the study questions how to balance the risks and rewards of coopetition activities over time. The case addresses information sharing in coopetition projects and the fear that the data and information revealed during negotiations will affect the company’s competitive advantage once the merger plan is abandoned. In the context of the rapidly changing environmental crisis, managers will reflect on continuing to cooperate with their competitors or pursuing their activities on their own. Social implications Despite their high number, M&A failures remain surprisingly high. This study explores how stakeholders deal with merger negotiations and how external events impact such negotiations and merger projects by raising coopetitive tensions among firms. Originality/value The case provides a vivid illustration of firms’ adaptation to a rapidly evolving context due to a global crisis. The research questions coopetition in business ecosystems and the unexpected in merger processes. The study addresses critical risks in knowledge exchange during merger negotiations and coopetitive dynamics among stakeholders over time. Theoretical concepts and empirical findings from the literature are combined to present a single consistent picture.

Attention to a Moment in Time Impairs Episodic Distinctiveness during Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Human attention is limited in the ability to select and segregate relevant distinct events from the continuous flow of external information while concurrently encoding their temporal succession. While it is well-known that orienting attention to one external target stimulus impairs the encoding of ensuing relevant external events, it is still unknown whether orienting attention to internally generated events can interfere with concurrent processing of external input. We addressed this issue by asking participants to identify a single target embedded among distractors in a non-spatial rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream and to indicate whether that target appeared before or after an internally estimated midpoint of the stream. The results indicate that (a) such an internally generated temporal benchmark does not interfere with the identification of a subsequent physical target stimulus but (b) the two events cannot be accurately segregated when the physical target immediately follows the internally generated temporal event. These findings indicate that the asymmetrical distribution around the midpoint of order reversals reflects an impaired temporal discrimination ability. Orienting attention to a moment in time reduces episodic distinctiveness as much as orienting attention to external events.

Acquiring infection: the challenges of collecting epidemics and pandemics, past, present and future

Curators of the history of medicine are now facing one of the greatest challenges of their careers—how to collect and preserve objects that convey the impacts of COVID-19 on science, medicine and wider society, while that same pandemic rages around them. But in such a rapidly changing situation, might looking back help us in going forward? Using the world-famous Medicine collections at London's Science Museum, we will explore how both presences and absences in the museum record can shed light on the challenges and dynamics of collecting around pandemic and infectious diseases, as well as the broader field of public health. Most strikingly, we examine why the 1918–19 Spanish flu pandemic left little material culture behind, in sharp contrast with other epidemic diseases. In recent years, so-called ‘rapid response’ collecting has become a tool used frequently by museums to capture ongoing developments and current research. To collect COVID-19 presents unique challenges, both practical and ethical, not least because to collect with a view to posterity is an action that remains highly subjective and is dependent on the decisions and personal interests of the curator as well as the influence of major external events.

Topic Modeling of Committee Discussions in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies

Ensuring that civil society can monitor and supervise the actions of its representatives is essential to build strong democracies. Despite significant advances in transparency, Brazilian National Congress committees are presently complex to follow and monitor due to the lack of open structured data about their discussions and the sheer volume of activity in these committees. This work presents two contributions to this context. First, we create and present an open dataset including structured speeches of the 25 Chamber of Deputies' standing committees over the last two decades. Second, we use Natural Language Processing techniques - especially Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) - to identify themes addressed on these committees. Based on these latent topics, we explore similarities and differences between the standing committees, their relationships, and how their debates change over time. Our results show that committees accommodate conversations - including their main topic and opposing agendas - and describe how the topics discussed in the committees reverberate external events.

“WAKE-UP CALL FOR THE WHITE RACE”: HOW STORMFRONT FRAMED THE ELECTIONS OF OBAMA AND TRUMP

We investigate how users on a prominent forum for white supremacists interpreted and framed two seminal events for the far-right in the U.S., the elections of Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. These cases precipitated dramatic shifts in the far-right alliance and conflict structure. We combine computational methods and qualitative analysis on a corpus of over ten million posts on Stormfront.org to show how movement actors framed institutional changes and constructed them as opportunities for action. We highlight grassroots framing, the collective and contested bottom-up processes through which external events are framed and reframed by online activists and thus shaped into opportunities for action. Our research demonstrates how users shifted from framing Obama’s election as a threat, to framing it as a “victory in disguise,” creating new opportunities for political action through extraparliamentary methods. Similarly, users framed Trump's election as creating possibilities for radical change through the established political system.