The control of visual representation: American art policy in occupied Germany, 1945–1949

The development of the fine arts in post-war West Germany was influenced by the Office of Military Government for Germany, US (OMGUS). In mid-1946, a small group of OMGUS officers proposed the development of a fine arts policy aimed at neutralizing the Soviet cultural offensive. They were also interested in overcoming the cultural isolationism inherited from the Third Reich, and in strengthening the link between Western Germany and the democratic West. In 1947 the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Branch (MFA&A) of OMGUS began to develop an active fine arts policy. Its officers organized art exhibitions, provided exhibition space, established art contests, invited international speakers to lecture on art, created art appreciation groups, purchased work by German artists, channeled funds to German artists, and connected German artists with American museums, universities, and art patrons. Formal and informal, overt and covert networks were established to develop German-American artistic relations in the context of a cultural policy emphasizing collaboration.     

The significance of signs

In Camera Lucida, Barthes makes a distinction between a semiological approach and a phenomenological approach to the sign. While semiotic theory has usually focused on signs that work through mediation and representation, in this article we investigate the possibility of a sign that is immediate, experienced as a presence. This is not a sign of, or even the impossibility of a sign of; rather, it is a sign that just is, without an elsewhere to refer or defer to. This form of sign means nothing and is gratuitous, yet it has significance ? or, more accurately, it is significance. We investigate these ideas through Buber's account of the religious sign.     

Traumatic Brain Injury Among Mothers Identified as Having a High Risk of Child Maltreatment: A Pilot Study

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs frequently and may result in deficits in concentration, fatigue, attention, aggression and emotion regulation; significantly impacting an individual’s ability to function. This study examined reports of TBI among mothers identified as having high risk for child abuse/maltreatment. Participants were 206 Mothers referred to a child abuse prevention programme (The Family Help Trust, Christchurch, New Zealand) between 2003 and 2010 (n?=?206); TBI prevalence of 36.4 % (n?=?75). One-third had experienced multiple TBI (n?=?24), and 58.7 % (n?=?44) of those reporting TBI had experienced their first injury prior to age 16. TBI in at-risk mothers was more than three times the TBI found in community samples, with many injuries occurring in childhood. Given the increased prevalence of TBI among mothers at high risk of child abuse, there is a need for greater information regarding the long-term outcomes of TBI, particularly for vulnerable groups requiring assistance to manage life roles.     

Evaluating academic technology transfer performance by how well access to knowledge is facilitated––defining an access metric

Why should research institutions engage in technology transfer? Some say it is about the money. Others say it is about public service and benefit. In the end, we measure what we value. If we only measure money, we confound the non-profit mission of the research institution. If we measure economic impact, the non-profit technology transfer office is often expected to become the economic developer, confusing real estate and business development with technology transfer, often without additional funding. These mission strains lead to overwhelm, fatigue, service shortcomings, and unhappy customers across all classes of stakeholders. This article suggests a return to center for academic technology transfer offices (TTOs) by focusing on a most important question for drivers of our present global knowledge economy––how well does a TTO facilitate access to knowledge protected by intellectual property of its faculty and institution? This article proposes that academic technology transfer performance should be evaluated by how well a TTO avails access to knowledge. Given that performance measures are also referred to as “metrics,” we call this preferred outcomes orientation an access metric.     

“My forest, my kingdom”—Self-referentiality as a strategy in the case of small forest owners coping with government regulations

Social research that informs the implementation of natural resource policies is frequently driven by the logic of the policy system itself. A prevailing concern with achieving policy outcomes can lead, however, to lack of attention to equally important aspects, for example the challenges the policy instruments present to those they are targeting and the consequences this might have for government–citizen relationships. To help guide research into these issues we have developed a situational–interactional approach to interpretive policy analysis that seeks to examine the processes involved when people collectively make sense of government instruments. The theoretical basis is provided to a large extent by Luhmann’s theory of self-referential social systems. In addition, we operationalise the concepts of interactional framing and resemiotisation to capture the active work of the citizens in sense-making processes. We then apply our situational–interactional analysis to small-scale forest ownership in Flanders. Analysis of data from focus groups with forest owners reveals how interactions build on each other in the co-development of particular strategies to cope with government intervention. Finally, we discuss two future directions for research. First, the forest owners find themselves in an inescapable relationship with the government, and feel their autonomy is threatened. Government intervention, therefore, will almost necessarily lead to resistance. Second, forest groups enhance compatibility between the government system and the forest owners, but rather than narrowing the gap between the two worlds they tend to emphasise it.