Interlevel Dynamics in Systemic Action Research

Levels of analysis are commonly used as frameworks for researching, understanding, and intervening in organizational systems. Levels of analysis typically refer to the identification of issues at units of complexity, such as the individual, the group, the intergroup, and the organization. The construct of levels of analysis is traditionally an important dimension of action research. This article reviews the traditional use of levels of analysis as the focus of action research and extends the notion to levels of aggregation or interlevel dynamics. It illustrates how interlevel dynamics are important both as the focus of action research and to the action research process itself.     

Developing Managers as Healing Agents in Organizations: A Co-Operative Inquiry Approach

This action research examines how a health service manager, with a clinical background, sought to develop his clinical skills in a management context. When asked to undertake an evaluation of an addiction counseling service, he found that there was evidence of systemic ill-health expressed through feelings of powerlessness, hurt, and alienation among the staff of the service. The article describes how the manager used action research, and in particular co-operative inquiry, to become an agent of healing in his own place of work. It illustrates how the co-operative inquiry process can be used to help individuals or groups to overcome feelings of alienation and powerlessness in organizations. By dealing with these feelings through a process of co-operative inquiry the conditions necessary to improve systemic health can be created to help develop a service and meet service objectives It explores the neglected subject of how managers can be agents of healing in organizations.     

The characteristic blue spectra of accretion disks in quasars as uncovered in the infrared

Quasars are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes accreting surrounding gas. Central to this picture is a putative accretion disk which is believed to be the source of the majority of the radiative output. It is well known, however, that the most extensively studied disk model-an optically thick disk which is heated locally by the dissipation of gravitational binding energy-is apparently contradicted by observations in a few major respects. In particular, the model predicts a specific blue spectral shape asymptotically from the visible to the near-infrared, but this is not generally seen in the visible wavelength region where the disk spectrum is observable. A crucial difficulty has been that, towards the infrared, the disk spectrum starts to be hidden under strong, hot dust emission from much larger but hitherto unresolved scales, and thus has essentially been impossible to observe. Here we report observations of polarized light interior to the dust-emitting region that enable us to uncover this near-infrared disk spectrum in several quasars. The revealed spectra show that the near-infrared disk spectrum is indeed as blue as predicted. This indicates that, at least for the outer near-infrared-emitting radii, the standard picture of the locally heated disk is approximately correct.     

Guidelines for a constructivist approach: Steps toward the adaptation of ideas from family therapy for use in organizations

Constructivist family therapy offers a model for the application of Maturana's theories to practice. This paper describes key concepts of a constructivist approach and draws on family therapy to provide guidelines for applying them in an organizational setting. It offers a view of the organization as a network of conversations in which change occurs through the coconstruction of new conversations which widen or change the rational domain in which a problem occurs.     

Effects of turbidity on feeding rates of Lahontan cutthroat trout ( Oncorhynchus clarki henshawi ) and Lahontan redside shiner ( Richardsonius egregius )

The spawning of Lahontan cutthroat trout ( Oncorhynchus clarki henshawi ) in Summit Lake, Nevada, has reportedly declined since the early 1970s, coincident with the appearance of Lahontan redside shiner ( Richardsonius egregius ) in the lake. We investigated the relative predatory abilities of the 2 fish species foraging on live Daphnia magna in turbidity conditions commonly observed in Summit Lake. Experiments were performed under controlled light and temperature condition. In separate trials we fed trout and shiner 1 of 3 size classes of D. magna (1.7 mm, 2.2 mm, and 3.0 mm) at 6 levels of turbidity ranging from 3.5 to 25 NTU. Feeding rates for both species varied inversely with turbidity for all prey sizes. Feeding rates of shiner were greater than trout at all turbidity levels. In low turbidity (5 TNU), shiner consumed approximately 3% more prey during 2-h feeding trials. However, at high turbidity levels, the difference in feeding rates between species was proportionally higher (10%). At high turbidity levels (≥ 20 NTU) trout predation rates were relative insensitive to prey size. However, shiner continued to consume more, larger prey at the highest turbidity levels. These results indicate that Lahontan redside shiner may be superior to Lahontan cutthroat trout as zooplankton predators at high turbidity levels, and may explain the recent success of shiner in Summit Lake.     

Lung cancer: intragenic ERBB2 kinase mutations in tumours

The protein-kinase family is the most frequently mutated gene family found in human cancer and faulty kinase enzymes are being investigated as promising targets for the design of antitumour therapies. We have sequenced the gene encoding the transmembrane protein tyrosine kinase ERBB2 (also known as HER2 or Neu) from 120 primary lung tumours and identified 4% that have mutations within the kinase domain; in the adenocarcinoma subtype of lung cancer, 10% of cases had mutations. ERBB2 inhibitors, which have so far proved to be ineffective in treating lung cancer, should now be clinically re-evaluated in the specific subset of patients with lung cancer whose tumours carry ERBB2 mutations.