Rhetorics and Realities in Public Service Organizations: Systemic Practice and Organizational Learning as Critically Reflexive Action Research (CRAR)

This article sets out to develop an argument and theory-in-practice related to organizational learning and systemic practice as critically reflexive action research (CRAR). It explores principles and concepts associated with CRAR, in the context of different emphases in understandings of and approaches to managing or working with change. The notion of epistemologies of practice is developed, as the basis for introducing on-site and off-site CRAR as interweaving cycles of managerial and organizational learning. A multilayered illustration of an improvisational CRAR environment, using principles of dialectical enquiry and critical learning theater, is offered. A diagrammatic analysis provides the framework for describing and reflecting critically on key CRAR processes. This is expanded with a consideration of possibilities for documentation that can assist with the validation of quality in CRAR processes and outcomes. This has relevance in the context of postpositivist action research at postgraduate levels or within project-based CRAR partnerships. This leads to a further discussion of principles and concepts, in the context of other literature and pressures on public services.     

The knockout mouse project

Mouse knockout technology provides a powerful means of elucidating gene function in vivo, and a publicly available genome-wide collection of mouse knockouts would be significantly enabling for biomedical discovery. To date, published knockouts exist for only about 10% of mouse genes. Furthermore, many of these are limited in utility because they have not been made or phenotyped in standardized ways, and many are not freely available to researchers. It is time to harness new technologies and efficiencies of production to mount a high-throughput international effort to produce and phenotype knockouts for all mouse genes, and place these resources into the public domain.     

Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property

Globally, soil organic matter (SOM) contains more than three times as much carbon as either the atmosphere or terrestrial vegetation. Yet it remains largely unknown why some SOM persists for millennia whereas other SOM decomposes readily--and this limits our ability to predict how soils will respond to climate change. Recent analytical and experimental advances have demonstrated that molecular structure alone does not control SOM stability: in fact, environmental and biological controls predominate. Here we propose ways to include this understanding in a new generation of experiments and soil carbon models, thereby improving predictions of the SOM response to global warming.     

Geobacter metallireducens accesses insoluble Fe(III) oxide by chemotaxis

Microorganisms that use insoluble Fe(III) oxide as an electron acceptor can have an important function in the carbon and nutrient cycles of aquatic sediments and in the bioremediation of organic and metal contaminants in groundwater. Although Fe(III) oxides are often abundant, Fe(III)-reducing microbes are faced with the problem of how to access effectively an electron acceptor that can not diffuse to the cell. Fe(III)-reducing microorganisms in the genus Shewanella have resolved this problem by releasing soluble quinones that can carry electrons from the cell surface to Fe(III) oxide that is at a distance from the cell. Here we report that another Fe(III)-reducer, Geobacter metallireducens, has an alternative strategy for accessing Fe(III) oxides. Geobacter metallireducens specifically expresses flagella and pili only when grown on insoluble Fe(III) or Mn(IV) oxide, and is chemotactic towards Fe(II) and Mn(II) under these conditions. These results suggest that G. metallireducens senses when soluble electron acceptors are depleted and then synthesizes the appropriate appendages to permit it to search for, and establish contact with, insoluble Fe(III) or Mn(IV) oxide. This approach to the use of an insoluble electron acceptor may explain why Geobacter species predominate over other Fe(III) oxide-reducing microorganisms in a wide variety of sedimentary environments.     

Connecting Internal and External Representations: Spatial Transformations of Scientific Visualizations

Many scientific discoveries have depended on external diagrams or visualizations. Many scientists also report to use an internal mental representation or mental imagery to help them solve problems and reason. How do scientists connect these internal and external representations? We examined working scientists as they worked on external scientific visualizations. We coded the number and type of spatial transformations (mental operations that scientists used on internal or external representations or images) and found that there were a very large number of comparisons, either between different visualizations or between a visualization and the scientists’ internal mental representation. We found that when scientists compared visualization to visualization, the comparisons were based primarily on features. However, when scientists compared a visualization to their mental representation, they were attempting to align the two representations. We suggest that this alignment process is how scientists connect internal and external representations.     

Acknowledgment of priority

Acknowledgment of priority     

Effect of high lipid diet on circadian rhythms of tissue glycogen

Summary The well defined circadian rhythms of glycogen content in heart, diaphragm and liver of the rat are drastically altered by a high lipid diet as shown by changes in amplitude, phase and tissue glycogen levels. If sampling times had been restricted to certain hours of the day the profound effect of the high fat diet on tissue glycogen would not have been apparent.Supported by USPHS grants HL 16041-03 and HL 07094-03.