Sense of Coherence : Determinants and consequences

ABSTRACT Sense of coherence (SOC) is a core concept within Antonovsky s salutogenic theory and is argued to be a psychological determinant of health. The present social-epidemiological study explores the associations between a wide range of generalized resistance resources of SOC among Finnish- and Swedish-speaking women and men with a view to gaining deeper insight into its developmental circumstances and determinants. Secondly, a five-year follow-up study was conducted in order to assess the stability of SOC in difficult life events. Finally the role and effect of SOC in the intentions to retire early was investigated in a prospective study. The above studies were based on two data sets: the Finnish 'Survey on Living Conditions' (ELO-94) conducted in 1994 by means of personal face-to-face interviews (N=6506), and a prospective postal survey of the 15-year Health and Social Support (HeSSup) study for which the baseline data was collected in 1998 (N=25 898) and the follow-up in 2003. The present study reveals that the level of SOC in adulthood is strongly dependent on close and successful social relationships during both childhood and adulthood, and that there is a strong association with qualitative work features. Not having a partner as well as being unable to use one s skills at work proved to threaten men s SOC in particular, whereas a lack of social support did the same for women. Otherwise, the association with generalized resistance resources turned out to be quite similar in both genders. Swedish-speaking Finns appear to have a slightly stronger SOC due to the better psycho-emotional circumstances in the childhood home and work circumstances in adulthood, in other words higher levels of generalized resistance resources compared to Finnish speakers. These language group differences did not concern any social-life factors included in the present study. The results of the five-year follow-up study suggest that SOC is not stable, and that the level clearly decreases after a negative life event. Even a strong SOC decreased during the follow-up period and, furthermore, was no more stable than a mediocre or weak SOC. There seems to be a clear and independent association with the intentions to retire early among both men and women following full adjustment. Swedish speakers appear to be less inclined to retire early than Finnish speakers. In the light of the present study, it seems that SOC is determined not only by socio-economic factors but also by close and successful social relationships during both childhood and adulthood. This applied to both genders and language groups. Interventions aimed at promoting the health of the disadvantaged should therefore focus on families with children, and extend later also to other than socio-economic spheres of life. SOC theory could also be applied in efforts to inhibit early retirement: management practices aimed at providing employees with a work environment and tasks that are comprehensible, manageable and meaningful could potentially decrease the intentions to retire early.

Making sense of a transnational merger: Media texts and the (re)construction of power relations

In this study of symbolic power relations in a transnational merger, we suggest that the popular media can provide a significant arena for (re)constructing national identities and power in this kind of dramatic industrial restructuring, and are an under-utilized source of empirical data in research studies. Focusing on the press coverage of a recent Swedish-Finnish merger, we specify and illustrate a particular feature of discursive (re)construction of asymmetric power relations; superior (Swedish) and inferior (Finnish) national identities, which, we argue, are embedded in the history of colonization and domination between the two nations. The findings of the present study lead us to suggest that a lens taken from post-colonial theory is particularly useful in understanding the wider symbolic power implications of international industrial restructuring.

Fuzzy Coherence: Making Sense of Continuity in Hypertext Narratives

Hypertexts are digital texts characterized by interactive hyperlinking and a fragmented textual organization. Increasingly prominent since the early 1990s, hypertexts have become a common text type both on the Internet and in a variety of other digital contexts. Although studied widely in disciplines like hypertext theory and media studies, formal linguistic approaches to hypertext continue to be relatively rare. This study examines coherence negotiation in hypertext with particularly reference to hypertext fiction. Coherence, or the quality of making sense, is a fundamental property of textness. Proceeding from the premise that coherence is a subjectively evaluated property rather than an objective quality arising directly from textual cues, the study focuses on the processes through which readers interact with hyperlinks and negotiate continuity between hypertextual fragments. The study begins with a typological discussion of textuality and an overview of the historical and technological precedents of modern hypertexts. Then, making use of text linguistic, discourse analytical, pragmatic, and narratological approaches to textual coherence, the study takes established models developed for analyzing and describing conventional texts, and examines their applicability to hypertext. Primary data derived from a collection of hyperfictions is used throughout to illustrate the mechanisms in practice. Hypertextual coherence negotiation is shown to require the ability to cognitively operate between local and global coherence by means of processing lexical cohesion, discourse topical continuities, inferences and implications, and shifting cognitive frames. The main conclusion of the study is that the style of reading required by hypertextuality fosters a new paradigm of coherence. Defined as fuzzy coherence, this new approach to textual sensemaking is predicated on an acceptance of the coherence challenges readers experience when the act of reading comes to involve repeated encounters with referentially imprecise hyperlinks and discourse topical shifts. A practical application of fuzzy coherence is shown to be in effect in the way coherence is actively manipulated in hypertext narratives.

Making Sense of Value and Value Co-Creation in Service Logic

In order to further develop the logic of service, value creation, value co-creation and value have to be formally and rigorously defined, so that the nature, content and locus of value and the roles of service providers and customers in value creation can be unambiguously assessed. In the present article, following the underpinning logic of value-in-use, it is demonstrated that in order to achieve this, value creation is best defined as the customer’s creation of value-in-use. The analysis shows that the firm’s and customer’s processes and activities can be divided into a provider sphere, closed for the customer, and a customer sphere, closed for the firm. Value creation occurs in the customer sphere, whereas firms in the provider sphere facilitate value creation by producing resources and processes which represent potential value or expected value-in use for their customers. By getting access to the closed customer sphere, firms can create a joint value sphere and engage in customers’ value creation as co-creators of value with them. This approach establishes a theoretically sound foundation for understanding value creation in service logic, and enables meaningful managerial implications, for example as to what is required for co-creation of value, and also further theoretical elaborations.

Diel variation in fig volatiles across syconium development: making sense of scents

Plants produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a variety of contexts that include response to abiotic and biotic stresses, attraction of pollinators and parasitoids, and repulsion of herbivores. Some of these VOCs may also exhibit diel variation in emission. In Ficus racemosa, we examined variation in VOCs released by fig syconia throughout syconium development and between day and night. Syconia are globular enclosed inflorescences that serve as developing nurseries for pollinating and parasitic fig wasps. Syconia are attacked by gallers early in their development, serviced by pollinators in mid phase, and are attractive to parasitoids in response to the development of gallers at later stages. VOC bouquets of the different development phases of the syconium were distinctive, as were their day and night VOC profiles. VOCs such as alpha-muurolene were characteristic of the pollen-receptive diurnal phase, and may serve to attract the diurnally-active pollinating wasps. Diel patterns of release of volatiles could not be correlated with their predicted volatility as determined by Henry's law constants at ambient temperatures. Therefore, factors other than Henry's law constant such as stomatal conductance or VOC synthesis must explain diel variation in VOC emission. A novel use of weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) on the volatilome resulted in seven distinct modules of co-emitted VOCs that could be interpreted on the basis of syconium ecology. Some modules were characterized by the response of fig syconia to early galling by parasitic wasps and consisted largely of green leaf volatiles (GLVs). Other modules, that could be characterized by a combination of syconia response to oviposition and tissue feeding by larvae of herbivorous galler pollinators as well as of parasitized wasps, consisted largely of putative herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs). We demonstrated the usefulness of WGCNA analysis of the volatilome in making sense of the scents produced by the syconia at different stages and diel phases of their development.

In the Sense of Transcription Regulation by G-Quadruplexes: Asymmetric Effects in Sense and Antisense Strands

G-Quadruplexes occupy important regulatory regions in the genome. DNA G-quadruplexes in the promoter regions and RNA quadruplexes in the UTRs (untranslated regions) have been individually studied and variously implicated at different regulatory levels of gene expression. However, the formation of G-quadruplexes in the sense and antisense strands and their corresponding roles in gene regulation have not been studied in much detail. In the present study, we have elucidated the effect of strand asymmetry in this context. Using biophysical methods, we have demonstrated the formation of stable G-quadruplex structure in vitro using CD and UV melting. Additionally, ITC was employed to demonstrate that a previously reported selective G-quadruplex ligand was able to bind and stabilize the G-quadruplex in the present sequence. Further, we have shown using reporter constructs that although the DNA G-quadruplex in either strand can reduce translation efficiency, transcriptional regulation differs when G-quadruplex is present in the sense or antisense strand. We demonstrate that the G-quadruplex motif in the antisense strand substantially inhibits transcription, while when in the sense strand, it does not affect transcription, although it does ultimately reduce translation. Further, it is also shown that the G-quadruplex stabilizing ligand can enhance this asymmetric transcription regulation as a result of the increased stabilization of the G-quadruplex.

Multilingual Nomenclature of Place and Oceanographic Names in the Region of the Okhotsk Sea

clarify the multilingual problem of place and oceanographic names in the region of the Okhotsk Sea, especially in Southern Sakhalin (Minami Karafuto) and in the Kuril Islands (Chishima Islands) areas. (PDF contains 61 pages)