Current Debates in Action Research

Some of the academic debates pertaining to action research have been identified and specified in this paper. These have been traced through the history of development of alternative (action-oriented) research thinking in a number of research areas, namely, the study of human relations, social and organizational studies, educational change, policy studies, psychology, geography, and physics. A number of prevailing approaches to what is generally referred to as action research have been described in a variety of application domains to identify the present home of the current debates in action research as well as the participants in these debates. This excursion has yielded a number of insights pertaining to the problems that constitute the core of the current debates in action research. Some of the proposed solutions available in these debates have been critically examined. A number of open issues have been identified. A speculative section relates the possible futures of action research to possible ways of dealing with these open issues.     

The malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax exhibits greater genetic diversity than Plasmodium falciparum

We sequenced and annotated the genomes of four P. vivax strains collected from disparate geographic locations, tripling the number of genome sequences available for this understudied parasite and providing the first genome-wide perspective of global variability in this species. We observe approximately twice as much SNP diversity among these isolates as we do among a comparable collection of isolates of P. falciparum, a malaria-causing parasite that results in higher mortality. This indicates a distinct history of global colonization and/or a more stable demographic history for P. vivax relative to P. falciparum, which is thought to have undergone a recent population bottleneck. The SNP diversity, as well as additional microsatellite and gene family variability, suggests a capacity for greater functional variation in the global population of P. vivax. These findings warrant a deeper survey of variation in P. vivax to equip disease interventions targeting the distinctive biology of this neglected but major pathogen.     

Ascorbate content of foliage of eucalypts and conifers utilized by some Australian and North American mammals

Summary Ascorbate content of foliage of five species of Australian eucalypts and 10 species of North American conifers exhibited similar seasonal variation within the range of 100–350 mg per 100 g fresh weight.     

Difference in direct charge-parity violation between charged and neutral B meson decays

Equal amounts of matter and antimatter are predicted to have been produced in the Big Bang, but our observable Universe is clearly matter-dominated. One of the prerequisites for understanding this elimination of antimatter is the nonconservation of charge-parity (CP) symmetry. So far, two types of CP violation have been observed in the neutral K meson (K(0)) and B meson (B(0)) systems: CP violation involving the mixing between K(0) and its antiparticle (and likewise for B(0) and ), and direct CP violation in the decay of each meson. The observed effects for both types of CP violation are substantially larger for the B(0) meson system. However, they are still consistent with the standard model of particle physics, which has a unique source of CP violation that is known to be too small to account for the matter-dominated Universe. Here we report that the direct CP violation in charged B(+/-)-->K(+/-)pi(0) decay is different from that in the neutral B(0) counterpart. The direct CP-violating decay rate asymmetry, (that is, the difference between the number of observed B(-)-->K(-)pi(0) event versus B(+)-->K(+) pi(0) events, normalized to the sum of these events) is measured to be about +7%, with an uncertainty that is reduced by a factor of 1.7 from a previous measurement. However, the asymmetry for versus B(0)-->K(+)pi(-) is at the -10% level. Although it is susceptible to strong interaction effects that need further clarification, this large deviation in direct CP violation between charged and neutral B meson decays could be an indication of new sources of CP violation-which would help to explain the dominance of matter in the Universe.     

New distribution record for the social parasitic ant Anergates atratulus (Schenck, 1852) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): an ICUN red-listed species

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources red-lists a number of ant species. One species is Anergates atratulus (Schenck, 1852), a rarely collected social parasite introduced from Europe. The known distribution in North America is along the Atlantic seaboard. This note reports a huge range expansion in North America, to include Colorado. This finding is important because it provides useful information about the conservation and dispersal patterns of a rare, introduced, socially parasitic ant species.