Economies of violence: An autobiographical account

This paper uses autobiographical stories to explore various aspects of institutional violence. The stories are taken from a range of institutional settings including schools, academia and commercial enterprises. Each story is used in a dynamic interplay with extant theories and explanations of violence in a mutually explorative and informing manner. Each tale intersects with a different set of issues relating to organisations and violence. The stories and the analysis cohere around the central notion that there exist economies of violence in which violence is exchanged, transacted and within which it circulates. Such economies are constituted and legitimated by discourses, the economy shifts and alters as the surrounding discourses change.

The role of context in producing item interactions and false memories

Cued recall with an extralist cue poses a challenge for contemporary memory theory in that there is a need to explain how episodic and semantic information are combined. A parallel activation and intersection approach proposes one such means by assuming that an experimental cue will elicit its preexisting semantic network and a context cue will elicit a list memory. These 2 sources of information are then combined by focusing on information that is common to the 2 sources. Two key predictions of that approach are examined: (a) Combining semantic and episodic information can lead to item interactions and false memories, and (b) these effects are limited to memory tasks that involve an episodic context cue. Five experiments demonstrate such item interactions and false memories in cued recall but not in free association. Links are drawn between the use of context in this setting and in other settings.

Working with involuntary clients: Perceptions and experiences of outreach social workers in Hong Kong

The outreach social work service is one of the dominant youth work approaches in dealing with delinquents and youths 'at-risk' in Hong Kong. Yet this approach presents particular challenges. Outreach social workers usually play an active role in initiating and establishing contacts with young people, yet young people are reluctant to engage with the outreach social workers and are resistant towards therapeutic change. To date, little is known about what strategies and techniques are most effective in dealing with client resistance in this context. The aims of this paper are to gain a better understanding of the common resistant behaviours that outreach social workers usually encounter in their day-to-day practice, and to investigate how the outreach social workers respond to their clients' resistance with reference to case examples given in the in-depth interviews. The findings of this study provide evidence that whilst client resistance is common in the outreach social work setting, social workers' patience as well as sensitivity are essential in resolving resistance and building up a rapport with clients.

Involuntary glottal closure during inspiration in muscle tension dysphonia

Objective/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to examine respiratory function in a group of patients with muscle tension dysphonia (MTD) Design: Cross-sectional analytical study. Methods: Participants included 15 people with a diagnosis of MTD referred to speech pathology for management of their voice disorder, fiberoptic evidence of glottal or supraglottic constriction during phonation with or without posterior chink, or bowing combined and deviation in perceptual voice quality. A second group of 15 participants with no history of voice disorder served as healthy controls,. Baseline pulmonary function test measures included forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1), FVC, FEF25 to 75, FIF50, FEV1/FVC, ratio and FEF50/FIF50 ratio. Hypertonic saline challenge test measures included FEV1 and FIF50 after provocation, close response slope, and provocation dose. Results: Compared with healthy controls, participants with MTD demonstrated a higher prevalence of glottal constriction during inspiration after provocation with nebulized hypertonic saline as demonstrated by a reduction in FIF50 after the hypertonic saline challenge. There was no significant difference between the MTD and healthy control groups in baseline pulmonary function testing. Participants with MTD demonstrated a higher prevalence than healthy controls of abnormal glottic closure during inspiration similar to paradoxical vocal fold movement (PVFM). This suggests that they either had previously undiagnosed coexisting PVFM or that the condition of MTD could be expanded to include descriptions of aberrant glottic function during respiration. This study enhances the understanding of PVFM and MTD by combining research advances made in the fields of otolaryngology and respiratory medicine.