The Illusion of Leadership

This paper reports experiments which examine attributions of leadership quality due to differences in situations. Subjects played an abstract coordination game which is analogous to some organizational situations. Previous research showed that when large groups play the game, they rarely coordinate on the Pareto-optimal (efficient) outcome, but small groups almost always coordinate on a Pareto-optimal outcome. After two or three periods of playing the game, one subject who was randomly selected from among the participants to be the "leader" for the experiment was instructed to make a speech exhorting others to choose the efficient action. Based on previous studies with small and large groups, we predicted that small groups would succeed in achieving efficiency and large groups would fail. Based on research on the fundamental attribution error in social psychology, we predicted that the leaders would be credited for the success of the small groups, and blamed for the failure of the large groups. The effects of the leaders in improving coordination were, as predicted, overshadowed by the situational variable (group size). Nonetheless, there was an "illusion of leadership": subjects attributed differences in outcomes between conditions to differences in the effectiveness of leaders. In a second experiment, subjects in both large and small groups coordinated efficiently, but gave less credit to the second leader than the first

Nation-Work: A Praxeology of Making and Maintaining Nations

This article bridges the literatures on nationalist projects and everyday nationhood by elucidating a repertoire of actions shared by both. Analysis of such “nation-work” contributes to the cognitive turn in ethnicity and nationalism research by showing how ethnonational categorization operates. The author distinguishes three types of categorization processes at play: (1) we-they distinctions are made across ethnonational groups, (2) these ethnonational distinctions are further specified by linking them with non-ethnonational categories such as gender and class, and (3) differentiations are made within the same ethnonational category by distinguishing exemplary from less exemplary members of the category. Through historical and ethnographic analyses of the tea ceremony in Japan, the author shows how distinctions drawn across national boundaries help select the characteristics of national membership. Yet while nationalism may project an image of a homogeneous “we,” internal heterogeneity is crucial for refining the experience and performance of membership in the nation

Complexity and nationalism

Classic theories of nationalism, whether modernist or ethnosymbolist, emphasise the role of elites and spread of a common imagined community from centre to periphery. Recent work across a range of disciplines challenges this account by stressing the role of horizontal, peer-to-peer, dynamics alongside top-down flows. Complexity theory, which has recently been applied to the social sciences, expands our understanding of horizontal national dynamics. It draws together contemporary critiques, suggesting that researchers focus on the network properties of nations and nationalism. It stresses that order may emerge from chaos, hence 'national' behaviour may appear without an imagined community. Treating nations like complex systems whose form emerges from below should focus research on four central aspects of complexity: emergence, feedback loops, tipping points and distributed knowledge, or 'the wisdom of crowds'. This illuminates how national identity can be reproduced by popular activities rather than the state; why nationalist ideas may gestate in small circles for long periods, then suddenly spread; why secession is often contagious; and why wide local variation in the content of national identity strengthens rather than weakens the nation’s power to mobilise

VDA, a Method of Choosing a Better Algorithm with Fewer Validations

The multitude of bioinformatics algorithms designed for performing a particular computational task presents end-users with the problem of selecting the most appropriate computational tool for analyzing their biological data. The choice of the best available method is often based on expensive experimental validation of the results. We propose an approach to design validation sets for method comparison and performance assessment that are effective in terms of cost and discrimination power

Concert de l'Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona amb Bruno Gelber, dirigits per Yuval Zaliouk

Programa dels quatre concerts que van dur a terme l'Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona amb el pianista B. Gelber i amb Y. Zaliouk al capdavant, I la New Philharmonia Orchestra de Londres, sota la direcció de Z. Mácal amb D. Bradley com a concertino. Al primer concert de l'Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona es va interpretar l'obertura "Oberon" de C. M. v. Weber, el "Concert núm. 2 per a piano i orquestra en si bemoll major, Op. 19" de L. v. Beethoven, el "Concert núm. 1 per a piano i orquestra en sol menor, Op. 25" de F. Mendelssohn i les "Danses de Galanta" de Z. Kodaly. Durant el segon concert van tocar l'obertura de "Le nozze di Figaro" i el "Concert núm. 9 per a piano i orquestra en mi bemoll major, k.271" de W. A. Mozart, el "Concert núm. 1 per a piano i orquestra en mi menor, Op. 11" de F. Chopin i la "Simfonia núm. 4 en la menor - Italiana" de F. MendelssohnDurant el seu primer concert, la New Philharmonia Orchestra va interpretar "Don Juan" de R. Strauss, la "Simfonia núm. 4" de R. Schumann, "Quadres d'una exposició" de M. Mussorgski amb orquestració de M. Ravel. Al segon concert van tocar "Egmont" de L. v. Beethoven, la "Simfonia núm. 91" de F. J. Haydn i la "Simfonia núm. 5" de P. I. TxaikovskiOrquestra Ciutat de Barcelona dirigida per Y. Zaliouk i New Philharmonia Orchestra de Londres dirigida per Z. Máca

Understanding the micro and macro politics of health: Inequalities, intersectionality & institutions-A research agenda

This essay brings together intersectionality and institutional approaches to health inequalities, suggesting an integrative analytical framework that accounts for the complexity of the intertwined influence of both individual social positioning and institutional stratification on health. This essay therefore advances the emerging scholarship on the relevance of intersectionality to health inequalities research. We argue that intersectionality provides a strong analytical tool for an integrated understanding of health inequalities beyond the purely socioeconomic by addressing the multiple layers of privilege and disadvantage, including race, migration and ethnicity, gender and sexuality. We further demonstrate how integrating intersectionality with institutional approaches allows for the study of institutions as heterogeneous entities that impact on the production of social privilege and disadvantage beyond just socioeconomic (re)distribution. This leads to an understanding of the interaction of the macro and the micro facets of the politics of health. Finally, we set out a research agenda considering the interplay/intersections between individuals and institutions and involving a series of methodological implications for research - arguing that quantitative designs can incorporate an intersectional institutional approach