The metamorphosis of medical discourse and embedded cultural rationality: a content analysis of health reporting for neurasthenia and depressive disorder in China

Neurasthenia (shenjing shuairuo) and depressive disorder are medical issues that have given rise to disputes in China for more than 20 years. Since the 1980s, the once ubiquitous diagnosis of neurasthenia in China was rapidly substituted by depressive disorder in the clinical context. Globally, the metamorphosis from neurasthenia to depressive disorder heralded the triumph of scientific rationality, which identifies neurasthenia as a categorical fallacy. In China, however, neurasthenia retained social and cultural significance; thus, it has become a contestable discourse in relation to depressive disorder. By examining the health reporting of both discourses over a decade, this study explicated how neurasthenia and depressive disorder were represented in a popular health newspaper in China. The content analysis showed that neurasthenia is a more culturally and everyday embedded discourse closely associated with Chinese medicine and laymen’s discourse, while depressive disorder is more associated with Western medicine and the professional discourse. The differentiation of two sets of medical discourse evinces that despite the ostensibly prevailing scientific rationality in media health reporting, cultural rationality is deeply embedded in communicating mental health issues with the lay public. It further suggests the significance of investigating the social and cultural expression of mental illnesses in China.     

How U.S. and Chinese journalists think about plagiarism

A comparison of 1,096 professional journalists in China and the United States on attitudes toward attribution and plagiarism reveals Chinese journalists were more likely to see attribution as a practice to be embraced regardless of career longevity and culture, suggesting journalistic norms are more important than a collectivist orientation. Attribution was more likely to be embraced by those who see principles as more important than expediency, affirming research that plagiarism is hardly a monolithic concept. Overall, journalists in the two nations did not vary significantly in their attitudes toward plagiarism, despite vast differences in culture and politics as well as evidence that in some other fields China is more accepting of reusing material without attribution. The data show that among journalists, attitudes toward plagiarism are shared across national boundaries, reinforcing related research showing that a journalism culture exists and is shared at least in part across national boundaries.     

The Changing Research Data Landscape and the Experiences of Ethics Review Board Chairs: Implications for Library Practice and Partnerships

Academic libraries have to a large extent taken the lead in facilitating new approaches to research data management, but changes to the research data landscape have had an impact on numerous areas of academic work, including ethics review. Using interpretive phenomenological analysis of interviews with chairs of Canadian research ethics boards, this study explores how ethics review boards have experienced changes to data policy and related technologies in order to describe the ethical implications of new approaches to data management and to explore ways in which the library, ethics review boards, and other campus partners might harmonize efforts to support emerging data practices. While ethics review boards in Canada are keenly aware of open data policies, data publishing in practice is still nascent. There is uncertainty about the adoption of changing technologies for research and their impacts on privacy protection. Where responsibility lies for addressing these uncertainties is often unclear. Academic libraries and research ethics boards are well-suited to engage in mutual knowledge transfer and to integrate data management planning and ethics review processes. Institutional-level oversight that includes all campus departments impacted by changes to the research data landscape may facilitate improved communication and reduce role ambiguity.     

A different type of dirty work: Hidden taint,intersectionality, and emotion management in bureaucratic organizations

This study explores the intersectionality among identity markers, such as gender, race, and class, and emotion management in two bureaucratic organizations – municipal courtrooms and airport security checkpoints. We name and explore a new type of dirty work called “hidden taint,” which we describe as a larger, encompassing category of dirty work that involves the experience and dynamic co-construction of taint. Utilizing qualitative methods including participant observation and interviews, we compare how hidden taint is experienced in each bureaucratic context. The results focus on the relationship between (1) hidden taint and the co-construction of emotion norms and (2) hidden taint and power dynamics. This study extends communication theory by naming and describing hidden taint as a new type of dirty work, extending literature on emotion management and intersectionality by exploring their connection to dirty work in occupations with varying levels of prestige, and detailing how emotion management is co-constructed between employees and patrons in bureaucratic contexts.     

Health science libraries in Sweden: new directions,expanding roles

Librarians in Sweden are facing huge challenges in meeting the demands of their organisations and users. This article looks at four key areas: coping with open science/open access initiatives; increasing demands from researchers for support doing systematic reviews; understanding user experiences in Swedish health science libraries; and the consequences of expanding roles for recruitment and continuing professional development. With regard to changing roles, there is an increasing shift from the generalist towards the expert role. The authors raise the issue as to how to prepare those new to the profession to the changing environment of health science libraries.     

Strength in Numbers: Encouraging Every Staff Member to Work to Capacity

Libraries play a critical role in enhancing the learning landscape of the schools they support. In order for any library to become a powerhouse and a community meeting place, all library team members need to align with the library's vision, own it and begin to add their own strengths and talents purposefully. This article explores practical strategies for developing a visionary team, including supportive leadership, daily stand-up meetings, weekly staff meetings, special-focus teams, rostering and the “five conversations” approach. These effective strategies can be implemented across a broad range of library workforce contexts in order to ensure the most effective workforce teams are built.     

The IR Has Two Faces: Positioning Institutional Repositories for Success

This article describes the ongoing efforts at University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Libraries to evolve the role of the institutional repository (IR) and to effectively position it within the context of the Libraries’ collections, research support, and scholarly communication services. A major component of this process is re-examining the fundamental aims of the IR and aligning it to the Libraries and the campus strategic goals. The authors situate UNLV Libraries’ experience within the context of the current literature to provide background and reasoning for our decision to pursue two, at times conflicting, aims for the IR: one for scholarly communication and another for research administration.     

Worn Grooves

Drawing from visual, material and written archival sources, this article critically explores some of the functions, uses and perceived values of recorded sound during the First World War and in its aftermath. An instrument of communication as well as commemoration, the gramophone helped bridge geographical (and, in some cases, cultural) distances between the home front and the rear, providing civilians with the fleeting illusion of presence, proximity, or even sentimental communion with the front. The article analyses (a) the affective and connective, but also propagandist, values of commercial wartime recordings as they circulated between the home and the front, (b) the popular notion of gramophones as regulatory instruments of civilisation, (c) the commemorative exploitations of recorded sound in the interwar period. The article focuses on the British experience, contrasting it with examples drawn from French and German experiences.     

英国高等教育内部管理体制运行模式研究

英国高等教育经过800余年的不断改革与发展,已经在自主、自治的独立体系下形成了自主运行机制。英国高等教育发展的经验告诉我们:如果不允许各大学采取发展它们自己的基本政策,不允许它们有决定如何履行它们对社会的责任的余地,那么结果就是愚钝和平庸。这种观点对我们高等教育改革不无启迪作用。