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Local Community Foundations
ACT is providing you with a map of 48 different local community foundations. These Community Foundations are a great way for projects to build long term partnerships with local investors that want to fund local projects. Many local community funds focus their investments on specific neighborhoods, cities, or other communities. Developing partnerships with these foundations is optimal because competition for grant funding is limited to the scope of your geography. In other words, you may have a better chance of being mission-aligned with a local community foundation’s investment goals. For a map of community foundations in California, please click here: Local Community Foundations.
California has many robust statewide foundations that support countless CBOs and organizations such as the ones you run. Understanding a statewide funder’s mission and current priorities may help you in linking what funds are available in the State of California to what you are doing on the ground. This list could be quite lengthy, but we’ve chosen to identify and give you a brief look at just 4 of California’s notable statewide foundations that are most relevant to the needs and missions of ACT’s partnering community-based organizations.
- The California Endowment’s mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians. The Endowment invests in projects that address the social determinants of health. These include public spaces, reliable food sources, affordable schools, and equitable conditions inside schools (e.g. affordable school lunches). Grants are by invitation only. For current projects please see: https://www.calendow.org/grants/
- Sierra Health Foundation is a private philanthropic organization that funds projects involved in health, racial equity, and racial justice. The foundation is “committed to reducing health disparities through convening, educating and strategic grantmaking”. SHF believes that every person in California should be able to live a healthy life. SHF primarily serves Northern California. SHF has created the Responsive Grants Program, as well as investing in local funds including the Hope and Heal Fund and others. For current grant programs please see: https://www.sierrahealth.org/programs/responsive-grants-program/
- The Kaiser Community Foundation gives grants to nonprofits furthering socio-economic security, health care access, and mental health and wellness. Each request for funding must be accompanied by an application, follow a duly diligent review process and undergo consideration by a committee. Two grant rounds take place, in the Spring and in the Fall. The foundation aims to ensure equitable access to Kaiser Permanente’s grant resources for non-traditional applicant organizations, in addition to those with longevity and traditional structures. Opportunities are by invitation only. For current programming please see: https://community.kp.org/grants-and-volunteering/funding-opportunities
- The Wells Fargo Foundation prioritizes causes related to “financial health, housing affordability, small business growth, and sustainability to address these complex societal issues and help create a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable future”. Applicant organizations must have tax-exempt status. They must also demonstrate fiscal and administrative stability and deliver services addressing critical community needs, as well as a broad reach. Opportunities are by invitation only. For current programming please see: Grant application portal: https://www.cybergrants.com/pls/cybergrants/ao_login.login?x_gm_id=1958&x_proposal_type_id=71190.
Regional Community Foundations
The following are three regional foundations that you may find useful.
- California Community Foundation: Los Angeles County, CA is an exceptional resource for Californian nonprofits. The CCF mission is to lead positive systemic change that strengthens Los Angeles communities: “We envision a future where all Angelenos have the opportunity to contribute to the productivity, health and well-being of our region.” These include nonprofits that work on immigration, housing, health and education. They also offer NonprofitConnect, which connects the nonprofit community and allows you to search funding opportunities. Present Opportunities include the following funds: Health – Integration, Collaboration, Advocacy; Centinela Valley Medical & Community Funds – Integration, Collaboration, Advocacy. For more see: https://www.calfund.org/nonprofits/open-grants/
- Central Valley Community Foundation covers Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, and Tulare Counties of California. Bills itself as doing “whatever it takes to create a just and thriving Central Valley”. CVCF has given over 900 grants so far to community and social justice nonprofit initiatives. It’s also the only accredited community foundation in the region. So far, this foundation has funded projects related to city economic development/small businesses, parks and recreation, food security, and more. Projects previously funded: https://centralvalleycf.org/community-impact/
3 Silicon Valley Community Foundation covers Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Well-funded and extensive grants in the Silicon Valley area. Core impact areas include Black and Indigenous liberation, policy change, housing, early childhood development, financial stability, and emergency response to health and environmental crises. Current opportunities: https://www.siliconvalleycf.org/nonprofits/grants


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St. Paul’s opens new Parish Hall
MURFREESBORO – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church will have its first community event Saturday in the newly constructed Parish Hall located on the East Main Street campus.
Set for 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., the annual White Elephant Sale will unveil the facility to the public as well as raise funds for women’s missions, said event organizer Claire Bradford.
“We’re trying to raise the bar this year. We don’t want a rummage sale. ... There’s a lot of really nice things. We have a full gamut, from somebody’s cast-offs to some really ‘wow’ things,” Bradford said. “There are thousands of items. We have more than we’ve ever had before.”
Also, a silent auction featuring higher-end items will be going on in conjunction with the sale.
With the addition of the Parish Hall, St. Paul’s has a lot more facility space, too, said the Rev. James K. Polk Van Zandt.
And it’s been a long time coming, he added.
The old Parish Hall was built in the late 1940s to accommodate around 100 people. Today, the membership at St. Paul’s hovers around 1,000, Van Zandt said.
A decision was made in the late 1990s to build a new church with the idea that a new Parish Hall would eventually be erected, he said. The nave or sanctuary currently in use at the corner of East Main and North Academy streets was opened in 2002.
Shortly after Van Zandt arrived in 2008, a strategic group began long-term planning for expanding the campus using growing demographics of the community.
“One thing becames clear was ... God was calling us to build a building that was going to be used to empower people for God’s service. That’s what’s on the cornerstone of the building, ‘Empowering for God’s Service.’ It’s not a building just for members,” Van Zandt said.
Earlier this month, the 13,900-square-foot building was opened for use and includes a fellowship hall that seats nearly 300 people, a full-size commercial kitchen, nine Christian-education classrooms, and a choir rehearsal room.
While the building is finished, St. Paul’s is still growing its reach into the community, Van Zandt said.
“Our mission statement is to worship God and bring all into a loving relationship with Jesus Christ. Everyone we do here is centered on that. ... We are a welcoming community to everyone and everyone is welcome here because this is God’s house,” Van Zandt said.
Contact Nancy De Gennaro at 615-278-5148 or firstname.lastname@example.org, or follow her on Twitter @NDJMama

domain: news


The City of Little Rock is resurfacing Pleasant Forest Dr. from N. Rodney Parham Rd. to Hinson Rd. and is considering including bike lanes in the street design. Pleasant Forest residents have cited hi… Read More
February 20, 2018
January 01, 0001
City Board of Directors Meeting
Start: February 20, 2018at 6:00 PM
End: January 01, 0001
6:00 PM: Regular Board Meeting.
500 West Markham St.
Little Rock, AR 72201
Categories: City Manager,Mayor's Office,Board of Directors


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An Interview with Peter Delaney
Peter Delaney won the Animal Portrait category of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2017
A Quiet Power - GFX 50S + Lexus
Patrick La Roque shoots Lexus LC500 with the GFX
How I Use My Cameras
X-Photographer Xyza Cruz Bacani tells how she uses GFX and X Series cameras.
My Favorite X
X-Photographer Stefan Finger tells why he uses X-Pro2 as his main camera
X-Photographer Chris Upton reviews the X100F
Working with the GFX
David A. Williams tells his hands-on experience with the GFX for his portrait works
Headshots – The Behind-the-Scenes Story
German commercial photographer Thorsten Rother tells how he approached his project "Headshot"
Portrait Photography with the X-T20
X-Photographer Saraya Cortaville from UK tells her experience on using the X-T20 for her portrait works!
Impressions of the FUJIFILM GFX 50S by Sara Lando
Italian commercial photographer Sara Lando tells her experience with the GFX
Capturing American Landscapes
Elia Locardi traveled across America with the GF23mmF4 lens to capture the various scenery.
Explore inspiring photos, connect with other enthusiasts and learn more about photography.
Belgian X-Photographer Tom Museeuw shoots studio portraits with GFX system
GFX로 촬영한 TOILETPAPER 매거진의 작업 현장을 만나보세요.
싱가폴의 X-포토그래퍼 Ivan Joshua Loh가 GF110mmF2의 다양한 세팅을 테스트 하였습니다.
Photographer Nonami Hiroshi tests the GF110mmF2 R LM WR in studio.
일본의 사진가 HASEO가 GFX 50S와 초광각렌즈 GF23mmF4로 자신만의 세계를 표현하였습니다.
Pål Laukli는 스튜디오에서 X-T2를 테스트합니다.
Bert Stephani와 Tom Museeuw는 스튜디오에서 X-T2와 EF-X500을 사용합니다.

domain: artistic


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For Maine’s 68 Lighthouses, the Future is Looking Up
Here’s everything you need to impress houseguests with your knowledge of the state’s signature landmarks.
When Mainers were asked to choose a design for the state’s official commemorative quarter last year, the image they selected was of a lighthouse standing guard over a rocky shore. It was an apt choice. Maine’s sixty-four working lighthouses are more then just navigational beacons for mariners (most of whom now use Global Positioning Systems); they are icons symbolizing the state’s maritime heritage and the stoic character of its people. In their lonely isolation, these sentinels of the coast conjure a feeling of romance and heroism. It’s no wonder tourists are crazy for lighthouses — and no wonder Maine merchants have sought to capitalize on their popularity by plastering the ancient towers on everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs to . . . magazine covers. Like lobsters and moose, lighthouses strike some Mainers as the worst Vacationland clichés. But to truly understand the curious place these coastal beacons hold in the state’s culture, you need to embrace both the romance and the kitsch.
Rescuing the Lights
In June 1998, twenty-eight Maine lighthouses received new leases on life when Senator Olympia Snowe turned over their deeds to more than two-dozen separate owners — state agencies, local towns, and nonprofit organizations — as part of the Maine Lights Program. In the years since, the modern keepers have protected the coastal beacons from vandals and souvenir hunters and transformed some of them into tourist attractions and living history centers. They have also created a model for lighthouse conservation that has attracted the attention of congressional leaders and local preservationists across the country and the world.
The program rose from the ashes of a fire that, in 1991, severely damaged Heron Neck lighthouse on Green Island, off the southern tip of Vinalhaven in Penobscot Bay. The Coast Guard announced plans to demolish the lighthouse. Outraged Vinalhaven residents, who saw the light not only as part of the landscape but also a dependable beacon among the bay’s rocks and shoals, asked Peter Ralston, executive vice-president of the Rockland-based Island Institute, to help them save the tower.
“We jumped in and saved the light,” Ralston explains. “It would be a hole in the ground today otherwise.” Saving the lighthouse took three years and an act of Congress, because that was the only way the title could be transferred from the Coast Guard to the institute.
Along the way, Ralston learned that Heron Neck wasn’t the only Maine lighthouse that needed help. By the early 1990s the Coast Guard had automated every light on the coast. Money was tight for tower upkeep and practically nonexistent for ancillary structures — the keepers’ houses, boat sheds, and storage buildings that often surrounded lighthouses. “We were seeing increasing deterioration and neglect,” Ralston explains. “We knew we had to come up with a way to stop that and preserve public access.”
Ralston emphasizes that the Coast Guard “isn’t the bad guy here. From the commandant to the guys working on the lights, there was and is a real sense of responsibility and a deep regret that they didn’t have the budget to maintain the light stations.”
Lighthouses weren’t really on the Island Institute’s list of things to do when Ralston took up the cause. “But from day one we recognized the logistical and spiritual significance lighthouses have for the people on the coast,” Ralston offers. “I can list several handfuls of people who have had family, friends, or themselves saved by lighthouses. People feel very strongly about them.”
Ralston devised the Maine Lights Program to transfer lighthouse properties to local agencies and organizations with a more personal interest in the structures’ survival, with the Coast Guard retaining responsibility only for the lights themselves. In 1996, with help from then-Senator George Mitchell and Senator Olympia Snowe, the program won congressional approval.
“We got an enormous amount of publicity about the project,” recalls Anne Webster, who served as the administrative director for Maine Lights. “People called from all over the United States and even from other countries, thinking they were going to get their very own lighthouse.”
The selection committee — chaired by a former commandant of the Coast Guard, Richard I. Rybacker — set strict standards and stuck to them. Four lights went to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, three were transferred to state agencies, and twenty-one were given to nonprofit organizations and municipalities who promised to maintain the lights under the supervision of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. “It’s been a very good experience,” notes Kirk Mohney, the commission’s assistant director. “People have been very committed to keeping the lighthouses in good shape and historically accurate.”
The results have been impressive, from the residency program at Sequin Light at the mouth of the Kennebec River — each summer a couple lives on the island to act as tour guides and caretakers — to the living history program created by the Maine Department of Conservation at Burnt Island Light in Boothbay Harbor. “I can’t imagine a program having worked better,” Webster comments.
In 2000 Congress passed a Lighthouse Preservation Act creating a similar program on a national scale under the auspices of the National Park Service.
As successful as the Maine Lights Program appears today, Ralston refuses to declare victory — yet. “We have a terrific set of stewards for these lights,” he allows, “and on one level it has been a great success, with wonderful stories about the work recipients have done. Everything I’ve dreamed of has come to pass. But I’ve said throughout the process that this won’t be a success until we can look back on it twenty or thirty years from now and be confident we did the right thing because those lighthouses are still standing and still working.”
Year of the Lighthouse The number of lighthouses in southern Maine has increased by sixty-six this year — but only for a few months. As part of a promotional campaign called “Lighthouses on Parade,” dozens of ten-foot-tall, artfully adorned lighthouses have popped up on street corners throughout Greater Portland. The idea is that the goofy lighthouses — which don’t light, incidentally — will be beacons for tourists this summer and then auctioned off in the fall to benefit local charities.
A Kiss in the Dark
“A lighthouse, seen from a distance, on a calm and clear day is like a congratulatory pat on the back: like saying, ‘Your navigation was on the nose! You held your compass course true through all the chop and tide!’
“At night, the sight of a lighthouse beacon is like a loving kiss in the dark. You had been hoping for it, but when it came it was a lovely surprise.”
—Bill Caldwell, The Lighthouses of Maine
Lights Through The Ages
290 B.C. — Egyptian ruler Ptolemy Soter begins building the Lighthouse of Alexandria at Pharos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The lighthouse stands until the fourteenth century.
50 A.D. — The Roman Emperor Claudius commissions the construction of the Tower of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber River and modestly crowns it with a statue of himself.
1602 — During his exploratory voyage along the coast of Maine, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold holds a parley with Indians at a place he calls Savage Rock — future home of Cape Neddick Light.
1710 — The British ship Nottingham Galley is wrecked off Maine’s Boon Island, and the survivors resort to cannibalism to stay alive; a lighthouse is eventually constructed in 1811 to guard the treacherous ledges.
1791 — President George Washington appoints the first keeper of Portland Head Light, at the entrance of Casco Bay.
1807 — Ellis Dolph, the first keeper of Whitehead Light, at the entrance to Penobscot Bay, is fired for covertly selling whale oil meant for the lighthouse to merchants in nearby Thomaston.
1822 — Physicist Auguste Jean Fresnel is commissioned by the French government to devise a better lighting system for lighthouses; the Fresnel lens he invents becomes the standard for beacons around the world.
1856 — During a fierce January blizzard, seventeen year-old Abbie Burgess keeps
the light burning at Matinicus Rock while her father, the lighthouse keeper, is trapped ashore in Rockland.
1864 — Forty people die when the Bohemian runs aground on Alden’s Rock off Portland Head Light; the ship is carrying bolts of wool, silk, and satin, which wash ashore and are scavenged by local women for clothing material.
1896 — Wood Island Light, at the mouth of the Saco River, acquires a reputation for being cursed after a deputy sheriff is murdered there by a local lobsterman who then commits suicide.
1927 — At Saddleback Ledge Light, keeper W.W. Wells is startled after dinner by a barrage of blows against the tower. Rushing outside, he discovers that 124 flying ducks, attracted by the light, have crashed into the lighthouse. He reports the event “as the weirdest experience I have had since being in the service.”
1929 — Artist Edward Hopper paints the Lighthouse at Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth; in 1970 the painting is featured on the 6¢ stamp, the first time an American lighthouse ever appears on U.S. postage.
1934 — Pemaquid Light becomes the first lighthouse to be automated in Maine.
1935 — Clinton “Buster” Dalzell, keeper of Egg Rock Light, at the mouth of Frenchman’s Bay, leaves his wife and two children behind to go ashore for supplies and never returns.
1939 — Coast Guard takes over responsibility for lighthouses from the U.S. Lighthouse Service.
1942 — Portland Head Light temporarily goes dark during World War II as a precaution against the lighthouse becoming a homing marker for German submarines operating in the Gulf of Maine.
1971 — Actor Gary Merrill, ex-husband of Bette Davis, purchases the west tower at Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth for $28,000 with the intention (never realized) of turning it into a six-story home with an all-glass bedroom at the top.
1977 — The Voyager spacecraft is launched toward Jupiter, carrying three photos identifying prominent man-made and natural structures on Earth: the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon, and Maine’s Nubble Light.
1977 — Two teenaged vandals set fire to and destroy the St. Croix River Light.
1977 — Seventies chanteuse Helen Reddy performs the song “Candle on the Water,” an inspirational tribute to lighthouses and steadfast friendship, in the children’s movie Pete’s Dragon set in fictional Quoddy, Maine. It does not reach the top of the music charts.
1982 — A U.S. Army Special Forces team “infiltrates” Moose Peak Light station under cover of darkness and uses the keeper’s house and outbuildings for demolition practice. (Outbuildings at Two Bush Light had suffered a similar fate in the early 1970s.) The explosions damage the lighthouse itself and spark a public outcry that ends the practice.
1990 — The last official lighthouse family in Maine, Coastguardsman Brad Culp, with his wife, Lisa, and their two children, leaves Goat Island Light off Cape Porpoise.
1991 — A fire at Heron Neck lighthouse, on Green Island off Vinalhaven, leads to the establishment of the Maine Lights Program.
1994 — In the Academy Award-winning film of the same name, Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks, completes his cross-country jog at Marshall Point Light in St. George.
2001 — After merging with Tennessee-based Provident, insurance giant Unum gets rid of its familiar Maine lighthouse logo. Coincidentally, financial setbacks begin plaguing the formerly prosperous company.
2001 — A law passed by the Maine legislature requires Governor Angus S. King and all future governors to issue proclamations that set aside the third full week of June as Lighthouse Week in Maine.
2003 — The U.S. Mint issues an official commemorative quarter honoring the state of Maine; the composite image includes an impressionistic rendering of Pemaquid Light in Bristol.
Loopy for Lighthouses
Tim Harrison hasn’t blurred the line between his personal and professional life. He’s obliterated it.
As cofounder of the Lighthouse Depot, a booming mail order and retail business in Wells selling exclusively lighthouse merchandise, and chairman of the nonprofit preservation group American Lighthouse Foundation, Harrison lives, breathes, and profits off Maine’s coastal beacons.
A transplanted Midwesterner, but becoming more a Mainer each day, he’s coy about his business’ financial success, saying only that he and his partner, Kathy Finnegan, send out six million catalogs per year and greet about 1,500 people each summer day at their store, which has grown from a converted farmstead that opened in 1993 to include a separate building dedicated to lighthouse-themed home furnishings, as well as a new 35,000-square-foot catalog and call center. From lighthouse dog biscuits, lighthouse ashtrays, and, of course, lighthouse T-shirts, to lighthouse chandeliers and lighthouse furniture, the Lighthouse Depot has capitalized on Maine’s best-known landmarks.
“Maine has the three Ls: L.L. Bean, lobsters, and lighthouses,” Harrison says. “The state has done a very poor job of promoting our lighthouses as tourist attractions, so we’ve become almost our own tourism bureau promoting this stuff.”
But Harrison hasn’t rested on his financial success. Instead he has formed the American Lighthouse Foundation as a way to raise funds for and awareness of lighthouses in Maine and elsewhere. Through donations, corporate sponsorships, and a steady supply of volunteer hours, the foundation has been actively restoring and helping to fund the restoration of several Maine lighthouses, including Pemaquid Light, Rockland Breakwater Light, and the Little River Light in Cutler, which, along with its fifteen-acre island, the foundation now owns.
Harrison says the Lighthouse Depot and the American Lighthouse Foundation satisfy the two cravings lighthouse lovers have: the desire for knowledge and a passion for anything with a lighthouse on it.
“The quest for knowledge leads to books, and then they get hooked, and they want to decorate their house with lighthouse stuff, and they start wearing lighthouse clothing,” he says. “Lastly — after they’ve bought their lighthouse lawn furniture — they join the foundation.”
Harrison’s store isn’t for everyone. But for those who see Maine’s coastal beacons as more than just stone, mortar, and paint, his Wells emporium is more than just a collection of kitsch and lighthouse information. It is home.
The Lighthouse Depot and the American Lighthouse Foundation Museum of Lighthouse History are located on Route 1 in Wells. 207-646-0608 or www.lighthousedepot.com
“Our Kids Think We’re Nuts”
Call them what you want — pilgrims, sojourners, even junkies — but the thousands of people who come from across Maine and the U.S. to seek out the Pine Tree State’s coastal beacons each year have one thing in common — an obsession with Maine’s lighthouses.
“Our kids think we’re nuts, but there is something about a lighthouse,” says Judi Kearney, who faithfully makes the trek from her home in Ambler, Pennsylvania, to the lighting of the holiday lights at Nubble Light each Thanksgiving weekend. For Kearney, who refers to lighthouses as “she” and keeps a diary of her lighthouse visits, the towers represent a portal into a childhood spent visiting lighthouses on Long Island and elsewhere in New England.
“Memories just come flooding back when I go to a lighthouse,” Kearney says. “To sit on the rocks at Pemaquid is magic — there’s music in the ocean, there’s tranquility in the tower, there’s magic all around.”
Kearney is not alone in her passion. While retirees comprise the largest group of visitors to Maine’s sixty-four coastal light stations — a few stations have two towers, so the total number of lighthouses can be as high as sixty-eight — families, newlyweds, and singles are among the throngs contemplating the surf at Pemaquid Point Light or circumambulating Portland Head Light. These starry-eyed visitors come for different reasons. For some, like Kearney, the visit is a way to relive childhood memories of these unchanging landmarks, while for others it may be a life-changing event. Some claim that seeing the bold towers has imbued them with a new perspective on their own personal situation. But whatever the reaction — nostalgia, enlightenment, inspiration — it often leads to full lighthouse-junkie status.
“You don’t really know that it’s becoming an obsession until you start buying more lighthouse stuff, and people start giving you lighthouse gifts, and you start wearing lighthouse clothing, and then you suddenly realize that it’s become an obsession,” explains Kearney, who says she even dreams of becoming a keeper at one of these shoreside sentinels.


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2 Bedrom Villa In Legian , Bali Jl Pandawa 1 Legian , Bali Indonesia , 80361 , ID . 081234567890
With quick access and not too far from the capital Indonesia city, it is not surprising if 2 Bedrom Villa In Legian is one of the favorite holiday destinations for people. Aside from offering many interesting attractions, various lodging in Indonesia is also simple to find. Starting from cheap lodging in Indonesia to starred ones available to meet the accommodation needs. While if you're looking for a place to stay which is more beautiful and far from towns, you may choose hotels in Indonesia as an alternative.
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Book Now! 2 Bedrom Villa In Legian

domain: travel


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Download Full Text (5.1 MB)
8 pages + 1 envelope
Letter home discussing new clothing, attending performance of the play "Common Clay," possible job next year, class grades, beautiful weather, and attending poetry reading by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay.
Wellesley (Mass.); Montour Falls (N.Y.)
Academics; Arts, Theater and Music; Athletics and Physical Education; Dress; Student Life
Theater; Money; Examinations; Lindsay, Vachel, 1879-1931; Grading and marking (Students)
Blair, Eleanor and Wellesley College Archives, "Letter from Eleanor Blair, Wellesley, Massachusetts, to Mrs. D.C. Blair, Montour Falls, New York, 1915 February 20" (1915). Eleanor Blair letters (6C1917). 120.

domain: library


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PGA TOUR - TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP, East Lake It's finally down to the final 30 to determine the FedExCup champion.
The PGA Tour Playoffs culminate this week in Atlanta. What began in Hawaii in January, ends in Georgia.
Webb Simpson is in the driver's seat. The Deutsche Bank Champion is No. 1 on the Playoff points list and controls his own destiny. A win and the Simpson clan is $10 million richer, but he's not the only one who wins the FedExCup with a Tour Championship victory.
The top five on the list -- Simpson, The Barclays winner Dustin Johnson, Sunday's BMW Championship victor Justin Rose, world No. 1 Luke Donald and local favorite Matt Kuchar -- can claim FedExCup gold with a win on Sunday at East Lake.
If nothing else, we're assured a new Tour Champion and a new FedExCup champion. Last year's winner of both, Jim Furyk, did not qualify for East Lake.
The biggest mover at Cog Hill was Geoff Ogilvy. He began the week in the second-to-last spot on the points list, 69th, but his third-place finish got him into the Tour Championship and on to the International Presidents Cup team.
Rose and John Senden, the runner-up to the Englishman on Sunday, also played their way into the field this week. In order to have three golfers make it in, three had to fall out of the top 30.
No case was more interesting than that of Masters champion Charl Schwartzel. He took off the first Playoff event, The Barclays, to go hunting and decompress. Turned out, it cost him a place in the Tour Championship field.
It could be costly for Sabbatini on more levels than the $10 million. Greg Norman, the International Presidents Cup captain, and Fred Couples, the American leader, will make their picks on Tuesday following the Tour Championship.
Sabbatini didn't finish in the top 10 automatic qualifiers and would need a pick from Norman. Couples already announced he asked Tiger Woods to take one of the spots.
Golf Channel has four days of action, but NBC will take it home over the weekend.
The American team is led by captain Rosie Jones. Cristie Kerr, Stacy Lewis, Morgan Pressel, Angela Stanford, Paula Creamer, Michelle Wie, Brittany Lincicome, Brittany Lang, Juli Inkster and Christina Kim made the team on points. Jones finalized her roster with Vicky Hurst and Ryan O'Toole.
Alison Nicholas is the home captain as she returns to duty after guiding the 2009 European squad. Laura Davies, Melissa Reid, Christel Boeljon, Suzann Pettersen, Sophie Gustafson, Catriona Matthew, Anna Nordqvist and Maria Hjorth automatically qualified, then Nicholas rounded out her team with Azahara Munoz, Sandra Gal, Caroline Hedwall and Karen Stupples.
The U.S. has won the last three Solheim Cups and, two years ago, won eight of the 12 singles points to cruise to a 16-12 victory. It was the eighth time the U.S. won the singles and the eighth time the Americans held the Cup.
There will be four foursomes matches and four four-ball matches on Friday and Saturday, then all 12 ladies hit the course in singles on Sunday. The U.S. needs 14 points to keep the Cup, while Europe will need 14 1/2 to wrestle it back.
Golf Channel has the action live this week.
AUSTRIAN GOLFOPEN - Diamond Country Club, Atzenbrugg, Austria - This week's European Tour stop is all about the future of the tour in the form of two new professionals.
The two were given sponsor's exemptions into the field. They can have six more sponsor invites until the end of the season and in that time, they will try to amass enough money to get a 2012 European Tour card and avoid the dreaded Q School.
Spaniard Jose Manuel Lara won last year's Austrian GolfOpen thanks to a final- round 64 and a playoff victory over David Lynn. Lara missed nine straight cuts heading into Austria, but he secured his playing privileges for this season.
Golf Channel has the broadcast all week.
Next week is the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, which was won last year by Martin Kaymer.
SOBOBA GOLF CLASSIC - Country Club at Soboba Springs, San Jacinto, California - The Nationwide Tour season is winding down, so the time is now to make a move up the money list.
J.J. Killeen leads the money list and he and Mathew Goggin, who is second on the list, can both earn immediate promotions to the PGA Tour with a third victory this season.
Steven Bowditch is on hand to try and make it two in a row and he can become the first player in Nationwide Tour history to successfully defend a title if he can win on Sunday.
There is no television coverage this week.
Next week is the WNB Golf Classic, which was won last year by Nate Smith.


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DNA sequenced in space for first time
DNA has been successfully sequenced in space for the first time.
Nasa astronaut Kate Rubins carried out the test on the International Space Station (ISS) at the weekend.
She was using a compact DNA sequencing device called Minion, which was developed in the UK.
The device, which was sent up to the space station in July, could help astronauts diagnose illness in space and allow them to identify disease-causing microbes on the ISS.
DNA sequencing is the process used to determine the order of the four chemical building blocks that make up the genetic information from a given living organism.
While Dr Rubins carried out her work on the orbiting outpost, researchers were simultaneously sequencing identical test samples on the ground.
The experiment was set up to attempt to make spaceflight conditions, particularly microgravity, the only variables that could account for differences in the results.
Using the Minion in a weightless environment introduces several challenges including the formation of air bubbles in fluid used in the test.
Bubbles rise to the top of a liquid solution and can be removed by centrifuge. But in space, bubbles are less predictable.
Sarah Castro-Wallace, project manager for the experiment, said: "Onboard sequencing makes it possible for the crew to know what is in their environment at any time.
"That allows us on the ground to take appropriate action - do we need to clean this up right away, or will taking antibiotics help or not?
"We can resupply the station with disinfectants and antibiotics now, but once crews move beyond the station's low Earth orbit, we need to know when to save those precious resources and when to use them."


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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
Volume 11 - 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02140
Meshed Architecture of Performance as a Model of Situated Cognition
- 1Philosophy, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, United States
- 2School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- 3Department of Philosophy and the History of Ideas, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
In this paper, we engage in a reciprocal analysis of situated cognition and the notion of “meshed architecture” as found in performance studies (Christensen et al., 2016). We start with an account of various conceptions of situated cognition using the distinction between functional integration, which characterizes how an agent dynamically organizes to couple with its environment, and task dependency, which specifies various constraints and structures imposed by the environment (see Slors, 2019). We then exploit the concept of a meshed architecture as a model that provides a more focused analysis of situated cognition and performance. Through this analysis, we show how the model of meshed architecture can be enhanced through (1) the involvement of a more complex set of cognitive processes, (2) a form of intrinsic control, (3) the influence of affective factors, and (4) the role of factors external to the performer. The aim of this paper, then, is twofold: first to work out an enhanced conception of the model of meshed architecture by taking into consideration a number of factors that clarify its situated nature, and second, to use this model to provide a richer and more definitive understanding of the meaning of situated cognition. Thus, we argue that this reciprocal analysis gives us a very productive way to think about how various elements come together in skilled action and performance but also a detailed way to characterize situated cognition.
What’s the Situation?
Embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive approaches to cognition comprise a loose-knit group of research endeavors that endorse the view that the organism’s body and parts of its environment actively participate in the execution of cognition. They differ in their views about how mind and world are entangled. For example, some endorse epistemological inseparability (i.e., no full understanding of cognitive processes is possible by studying exclusively what is occurring inside the head) while others also endorse ontological inseparability (i.e., the realizers of cognitive processes can sometimes include parts of the body and the environment) (Varga, 2019). Most would agree that such approaches can be grouped along these two claims, but some have argued that the distinctions in the literature are muddled (Rowlands, 2010). For example, some maintain that work in situated cognition investigates cognitive extensions (Clark and Wilson, 2009) while others consider extended cognition as a distinct class of situated cognition (Robbins and Aydede, 2009, p. 3).
Situated cognition, however, can be considered a broad umbrella term that covers all of these various approaches. As such, it is multifaceted. We might think of it in terms of how environmental features both constrain and enable our cognitive processes. On the constraint side, we can think of various material and structural features as directing us to a specific set of affordances, not only for our perceptions and actions, but also for our deliberations and imaginings. At the same time, these same affordances are enabling of our actions and cognitive activities. It is possible to think of these relations in terms of extended or distributed cognition. Various instruments allow us to engage in epistemic actions (Kirsh and Maglio, 1994), and for some cognitive tasks, we require the use of such instruments. To do the math, we may need paper, pencil, abacus, or some form of machine. To solve a problem, we may rely not only on such tools but also on other people or team members with whom to interact, as well as on normative practices and institutions (understood as cognitive institutions – see Gallagher, 2013; Slaby and Gallagher, 2015). At the same time, these practices and institutions may define specific tasks and place limitations on how we approach a problem or on our style of problem solving.
Thinking of situated cognition in this way, we can define our cognitive engagements as spanning a range between functional integration and task dependency. Marc Slors (2019) has recently clarified these concepts in his analysis of cognitive institutions. We think they can generalize to situated cognition more broadly. Following Slors, for example, we can distinguish between (1) the extended mind approach which starts from the single agent and explains how institutions extend the agent’s cognition (Clark and Chalmers, 1998) and (2) the distributed cognition or systems-based approach that shows how cognitive systems emerge from the integration of individual agents (Hutchins, 2014). In this context, Slors defines functional integration as “the extent to which the execution of tasks involves coupling with items external to the brain and body” (Slors, 2019, p. 1189). A high degree of functional integration means that the cognitive process is constituted by this coupling such that without the external resource, we would be unable to engage in the particular activity, while low functional integration signifies an enabling relation such that the external resource simply facilitates our activity. In contrast, task dependency
is the extent to which the intelligibility of a task depends on a larger whole of coordinated tasks. Task dependency is a notion that is connected with coordination and planning. It is a normative notion in the sense that high task dependency means that tasks play specific roles in the overall organization of a cognitive system or a cultural cognitive ecosystem, roles that can be played properly or improperly (Slors, 2019, p. 1190).
The legal system, for example, understood as a cognitive institution (Gallagher, 2013) is characterized by high task dependency. Accordingly, to understand what an attorney does requires an understanding of how that role is linked to the roles played by other people, such as judges and clerks, as well as to a codified body of laws and customs. What one might accomplish in this system will depend upon the structure of the particular situation that constitutes a social-normative or institutional practice.
Situated cognition, then, can be categorized by varying degrees of functional integration and task dependency (Table 1).
Table 1. Forms of situated cognition (from Slors, 2019, p. 1191).
Embedded cognition is defined by a low functional integration with various resources that nonetheless enables the performance of cognitive activities and where such activities are intelligible without reference to the institutional structure (low task dependency). Distributed cognition, in contrast, involves the right coupling between distributed components, such as artifacts or other agents in a highly functionally integrated system that also requires high task dependency such that the action of any one individual cannot be understood without reference to others’ activities. Extended cognition (in Clark and Chalmers’ sense) involves high functional integration. Otto, for example, is tightly coupled with his notebook, which allows an extension of his cognitive processes, even if writing and consulting a notebook are not processes that necessarily depend on the roles or tasks of others to be intelligible. “Symbiotic cognition,” as Slors terms it, is found in cognitive institutions. In symbiotic cognition, characterized by high task dependency, an individual’s cognitive processes acquire meaning only in a matrix of interrelationships with the activities of others but do not require a high degree of functional integration.
Every participant in a symbiotic system profits from whatever the system as a whole offers (e.g., education, justice, social coordination) while contributing only a small part. The tasks, jobs and roles of others in the system co-define and enable one’s own task, but one does not have to perform them or even think about them, while nevertheless benefiting from the overall outcome of the system (Slors, 2019, p. 1198).
Although this is a productive analysis, it is an oversimplification to think of cognitive institutions as strictly symbiotic or characterized specifically in terms of high task dependency (see Gallagher et al., 2019; Petracca and Gallagher, 2020). As Slors (2019, p. 1190) rightly indicates, “both functional integration and task-dependency come in degrees,” and it seems right to think that a cognitive institution, or situated cognition more generally, will always involve varying degrees of task dependency and functional integration (also see Slors, 2020). Furthermore, how one understands a system will depend on where in the system one is looking or perhaps from what epistemic perspective one is looking. Specifically, the distinction between agent-centered and systems-based perspectives involves different epistemological perspectives that may serve different research agendas but does not necessarily define particular institutional processes. From a systems perspective, a system may involve high task dependency. But from an agent-centered perspective, one may see a significant degree of functional integration that defines that agent’s work.
To motivate our strategy of looking at performance studies to provide some detail in this regard, consider that the notion of task dependency, where action may be defined by a particular role in the performance, is clearly relevant to different types of performance. Of course, task dependency will vary across different types of performance, but different tasks or roles, performed by specific participants, may still be clearly defined, for example, when one is playing football, dancing or acting on stage, or playing a concert in the Sydney Opera House or in the local pub. Specifically, one will find variations in the proportion of functional integration versus task dependency. In a standard tonal jazz performance, for example, task dependency may take the lead. There is a structure to the performance – first, playing the “head,” a statement of the main melodic line; then solos where each performer takes turns following rules concerning harmonic and relatively consistent chord changes; and then, after each performer has taken one or two choruses, the group plays the outro, to end the piece. If one is performing a solo improvisation, without an ensemble, team, or musical group, then task dependency may approach zero, and functional integration may be everything. The latter is a different kind of situation from performing with others; but in each case, the performance and the cognition that goes with it are situated within some variable proportion of functional integration and task dependency.
Functional integration defines how individual agents engage with the various elements of the system and, in so doing, enact the system, which loops back to define performance in specific tasks. An explanation that simply highlights the distinction between functional integration and task dependency, however, remains a somewhat abstract account of situated cognition and is not sufficient to account for how situated agents actually couple to environments or how tasks that are institutionally or more broadly socially, culturally, or normatively defined actually shape that environment. At best, it is an initial specification that requires a more detailed account of how it all works. That is, even if an analysis in terms of functional integration and task dependency provides a productive way to categorize different conceptions of situated cognition, it does not explain precisely how an agent functionally couples with the environment or enters into task-related processes. For example, an adequate concept of functional integration needs to include more than just an account of organism–environment coupling; it also needs to explain how the agentive organism itself is integrated so as to facilitate this coupling.
In the remainder of the paper, we want to provide an account of what it is to be a situated agent engaged in some task or performance that involves varying degrees of task dependency and functional integration. To do this, we turn to the model of a meshed architecture developed in performance studies. We propose that by going into some detail about this model, we can flesh out some of the important aspects of situated cognition. In this respect, we argue that there can be a reciprocal or mutual enlightenment between studies of performance and the theory of situated cognition.
Meshed Architecture in Performance
As long as an agent is not simply a cog in the machine (an indifferent functional part of the system), one can think of her as a skilled performer or as someone who practices some degree of skilled activity. As we will see, this is one way to characterize functional integration, and it involves something more than simply fulfilling a predefined task in an automatic way, although from a systems perspective, this may sometimes appear to be what is happening. In this respect, we want to rule out the idea of a zero-intelligence agent (see Gode and Sunder, 1993) – that is, an agent who, to perform a task, acts in a purely automatic way and whose performance would involve no cognitive contribution. Functional integration is something more than this and involves a process that is both more complex and more subtle. To make this clear, we turn to a debate in performance theory and the specific model of a meshed architecture to clarify the perspective of a situated agent.
In the area of performance studies, Hubert Dreyfus’ well-known analysis of expertise would come close to the zero-intelligence agent. Dreyfus argued that expert performance involves being mindlessly in the flow, since any form of reflective cognition would be disruptive of performance. He regards subjectivity as a lingering ghost of the mental and denies that there is any awareness in absorbed coping (Dreyfus, 2007, p. 373). On this model, as long as things go smoothly, the agent can be on automatic pilot; there is no need for self-consciousness – the latter is called into action only when the agent detects something going wrong (Dreyfus, 2007, p. 377; see Dreyfus, 2005). At the extreme, this view suggests that expert performance is simply a mindless being in the flow. The elite Sri Lankan cricketer Kumar Sangakkara expresses this view: “Basically in batting, you have to be mindless. You’ve done all the practice, you have your muscle memory and your reflexes are more than quick to deal with any kind of delivery. You’ve got to let your body do all those things by itself without letting your mind take control” (Sadikot, 2014).
In contrast, empirical and phenomenological studies of athletics, dance, theater, and musical performance suggest that performance is not mindless; there is always a cognitive element in performance. Moreover, the cognition involved is always a situated cognition. For example, John Sutton et al. (2011) develop a mindful conception of expert skilled performance. It is not just trained habit that allows an expert player of cricket or baseball to hit a hard fastball (which may be traveling at 140 km/h). In order to hit the ball with precision to a particular location, the batter must draw on current context and the conditions that are relevant to the game. Her performance is “fast enough to be a reflex, yet it is perfectly context-sensitive. This kind of context sensitivity requires some forms of mindedness – [an] interpenetration of thought and action exemplified in open skills” (Sutton et al., 2011, p. 80). The expert batter cannot be on automatic pilot; being on automatic pilot would reduce functional integration to being just one piece of machinery fit to task. Batting skill within the context of a game, for example, involves some mindful strategic sense of where the batter will hit the ball in any particular instance.
Skill is not a matter of bypassing explicit thought, to let habitual actions run entirely on their own, but of building and accessing flexible links between knowing and doing. The forms of thinking and remembering which can, in some circumstances, reach in to animate the subtle kinesthetic mechanisms of skilled performance must themselves be redescribed as active and dynamic (Sutton et al., 2011, p. 95).
Automaticity, therefore, cannot address variability or differences in the agentive situation. Skill and innovative performance require flexibility – the expert batter is aware of the specifics of the situation (including his own skills) and is capable of on-the-fly, explicit, considered awareness which allows for strategic decision making in the flow of performance. This includes elective “target control for some features, such as goal, one or more parameters of execution, like timing, force, a variation in the sequence, and so on” (Christensen et al., 2016, p. 50). In this respect, “expert performers precisely counteract automaticity, because it limits their ability to make specific adjustments on the fly…. Just because skillful action is usually pre-reflective, it does not have to be mindless” (Sutton et al., 2011, p. 95).
To say that functional integration is something more than automaticity in the context of skilled performance, then, motivates several questions. First, what are the cognitive processes involved, and second, how precisely do they “reach in” to the basic body-schematic processes of skilled performance?
Christensen et al. (2016) offer a helpful answer to the second question, developing the concept of a meshed architecture to explain the integration of perceptual and cognitive elements with body-schematic motoric processes. On this view, performance is neither fully automatic nor fully cognitive. They develop a hybrid view according to which “cognitive control reduces during skill learning as automatic control comes to play an increasing role, but cognitive control continues to make a substantial positive contribution at advanced levels of skill” (Christensen et al., 2016, p. 41). They propose a meshed functioning which involves “a broadly hierarchical division of control responsibilities” along a vertical axis, with top-down cognitive control “focused on strategic aspects of performance and [bottom-up] automatic processes more concerned with implementation” (Christensen et al., 2016, p. 43). Control is mediated, not by explicit inferences, but by “situated awareness,” an awareness that is “constructed” over time with the help of attentional control.
To help us understand how the notion of a meshed architecture can generalize more broadly to situated cognition and contribute to an explanation of functional integration and task dependency discussed above, we propose the following clarifications. First, we suggest that the cognitive processes involved in performance are complex and varied and can include a full register that goes from explicit conscious control to implicit pre-reflective consciousness. Second, we argue that control is not just top-down but can also be intrinsic to bottom-up processes. Third, we argue for the importance of affective factors in modulating intrinsic control features. And fourth, especially in regard to situated cognition, it is even more important to consider that the mesh is complicated by a form of horizontal integration. The horizontal axis of integration includes ecological, social, and cultural/normative factors that extend beyond the performing agent but nonetheless constrain or contribute to performance. By making these clarifications, we hope to provide a more adequate view of how functional integration and task dependency work in situated cognition.
The notion of a meshed architecture has been applied to various types of performance, from athletic performance to the performing arts of acting, dance, and music. Different interpretations of a meshed architecture are possible, however, depending on how we answer the first question about how to understand the cognitive processes involved. Some theorists think of these processes in terms of high-order cognition. For example, in his discussion of theatrical acting, Cohen (2013, p. 33) refers to the actor’s “preparatory thinking as she readies herself for the role, and in-performance thinking, which, in an ideal situation, is ‘aligned’ with the [performer’s] action.” For Cohen, when the actor’s thinking is “properly aligned, her tasks are integrated” (Cohen, 2013, p. 16). This, as Tribble (2016) indicates in her discussion of the meshed architecture, would be a top-down process for Cohen, where low-order processes of embodied coping are modulated by higher-order, reflective cognitive aspects.
Likewise, Montero (2010, 2015) challenges the idea that expert performance is somehow effortless or thoughtless. She argues, in opposition to Dreyfus, that for expert dancers, reflection and body awareness are typically not detrimental to the performance. For Montero (2016, p. 38), optimal performance often coincides with reflective, thoughtful performance, where thoughtful means “self-reflective thinking, planning, predicting, deliberation, attention to or monitoring of … actions, conceptualizing … actions, control, trying, effort, having a sense of the self, and acting for a reason.” Montero (2015, p. 90) pointed to qualitative studies in athletics where a more detailed type of conscious monitoring improves performance (also see Shusterman, 2008 for a similar account).
One could think of this as a type of vertical alignment between higher-order cognitive processes and lower-order motor control processes, with different degrees of integration between the higher- and lower-order processes. This is similar to what Christensen et al. (2016, p. 43) have in mind as they describe the mesh as a combination of cognitive (control-related) and automatic processes: thus, “controlled and automatic processes are closely integrated in skilled action, and … cognitive control directly influences motor execution in many cases.” This divides the vertical into two poles: cognitive at the top, descending to do its job in a “smooth,” “adaptive,” or “effortful” fashion (Christensen et al., 2016, p. 52), and automatic bodily processes at the bottom.
It is possible, however, that there are different degrees of vertical integration in the meshed architecture. Again, this goes back to how one answers the first question about the nature of the cognitive processes involved. The answer shifts between a phenomenology that involves a reflective monitoring and one that involves a more minimal pre-reflective awareness. For phenomenologists, pre-reflective self-awareness does not take the body as an intentional object; it rather involves a “performative awareness … that provides a sense that one is moving or doing something, not in terms that are explicitly about body parts, but in terms closer to the goal of the action” (Gallagher, 2005, p. 73). Legrand (2007, p. 512) described this self-awareness in the context of dance performance: “while dancing [a dancer] is intensively attending to [his body]. But he is not attending to it reflectively as an object. Rather, his [prereflective] awareness of his body as subject is heightened” (see Legrand and Ravn, 2009). The expert dancer keeps this awareness “at the front” of his experience without turning his action or his body into an explicit intentional object (Legrand, 2007, p. 512).
In these various accounts, it seems that what Christensen et al. (2016) call situated awareness can be a matter of degree, ranging from thoughtful, reflective consciousness to a thin performative pre-reflective awareness, with different gradations in between, allowing for such variations as selective target control, conscious monitoring, a sense of one’s rightly configured body, performative awareness, and pre-reflective awareness. The phenomenology of performance may thus be complex and varied. Performers are able to shift across a full register, from explicit conscious control to implicit pre-reflective consciousness and to spontaneous body-schematic processes, adjusting their attunement to changing conditions through improvisation.
One important question for clarifying the notion of functional integration, as we indicated above, is whether we should consider body-schematic processes as fully automatic. Christensen et al. (2016) mentioned this issue with reference to Fitts and Posner (1967, p. 14) who thought that component processes may automate and Jonides et al. (1985) and Logan (1985) who argued that motor control processes overall do not automate. Christensen, Sutton, and McIlwain seemed to treat body-schematic processes as fully automatic and therefore in need of cognitive control in the performance situation (see Stanley, 2011 for a similar view).
Evidence from kinematics, however, suggests that body-schematic processes are not fully automatic and instead are situation specific, adaptive, and highly dynamical, which facilitates movement in particular situations and for specific intentions. A particular action intention or goal requires the alignment of lots of moving parts in a controlled integration, across varying timescales, many of which are too fast for conscious control. In this respect, however, body-schematic processes are neither fully automatic (blindly doing the same thing in each circumstance and therefore requiring propositional guidance) nor “perfectly general” (Stanley, 2011) but rather include a specificity that depends on an “enormous number (which often reaches three figures) of degrees of freedom” (Bernstein, 1984), as well as a complex temporal organization involving anticipatory processes across skeletal geometry, kinematic phase constraints, muscular geometry, and the dynamics that characterize the relationship between kinematics and geometry (Berthoz, 2000; Gallagher and Aguda, 2020). These complex processes come to align with a particular intention, not automatically but in heedful attunement with the particularities of the situation.
Functional integration within such constraints may tune motoric organization to the point where it can become habitual – which may mean close to automatic, or automatic in some aspects, but not fully automatic. Merleau-Ponty (2012, p. 143) argued that a habit is formed when the body “acquires the power of responding with a certain type of solution to a certain form of situation.” Habit involves an intelligent response, characterized by openness and adaptivity, so that in familiar or unfamiliar situations, the body learns to cope. As such, intelligence is built into the movement. Instead of blind automatic repetition, habit is intrinsically intelligent. John Dewey likewise distinguished between intelligent and routine habit.
Repetition [i.e., automaticity] is in no sense the essence of habit.… The essence of habit is an acquired predisposition to ways or modes of response…. Habit means special sensitiveness or accessibility to certain classes of stimuli, standing predilections and aversions, rather than bare recurrence of specific acts (Dewey, 1922, p. 42).
On this view, performance involves not simply a top-down integration of cognition constraining or guiding automatic processes. Motoric processes in expert performance are already context sensitive, anchored in the situation, but at the same time smart, open, and adaptive, such that they elicit or shape or enable the cognitive elements required for performance. Not only are such cognitive elements, as already noted, complex, including heedful and goal-oriented forms of (attentive, perceptual) consciousness, selective target control, conscious monitoring of action, a sense of one’s rightly configured body, and/or a heightened pre-reflective awareness, but also in such cases, mindfulness is not simply imported from the top; it is already built into the bottom, and again in some cases, such habitual processes may be what guides any need for more reflective cognitive processes. We can call this a kind of intrinsic control.
To summarize, for Christensen et al. (2016), the meshing involves a vertical axis of top-down cognitive control that introduces guidance for bodily processes that remain, at the bottom, automatic. This particular conception of the hybrid mesh, as Høffding and Satne (2019) suggested, is similar to the hybrid car that combines two different elements, battery and fuel. In contrast, they suggested that the mesh may be closer to a fusion – more like an okapi (a unique animal born of zebra and giraffe) than a hybrid car that alternates between the current of automaticity and the fuel of high-octane cognition1. An okapi-style mesh, on our view, has a more integrated structure. Practiced and habitual movements (which are neither straightforwardly nor fully nor necessarily automatic) play an important role in an intrinsic control process. Variations in heedful and targeted (attentive, perceptual) awareness are constrained and enabled by a consolidation of fine, detailed motor control (body-schematic) processes, which are not perfectly general or automatic but attuned to the specifics of the situation.
Affect and Horizontal Meshing
We can get a better idea of what other factors contribute to the meshed architecture by considering an example of musical performance. Simon Høffding’s (2019) study of the Danish String Quartet provided some evidence that the meshed architecture involves both a complex vertical and horizontal integration. Thus, for example, concerning the vertical axis, we find considerations, similar to those above, about the role of thoughtful performance ranging from explicit reflective thinking to pre-reflective awareness and, in some cases, a form of deep absorption where close to automatic processes of the body schema do most of the work. Along this line, Høffding and Satne (2019) interpreted the notion of a meshed architecture as focused on mediating processes rather than the all-or-nothing “automatic” versus “full cognitive” control (also see Salice et al., 2017).
The other factors that Høffding’s analysis considers, in addition to the reciprocal vertical integration of cognition and body-schematic attunement, include affect but also the music itself and intersubjectivity, i.e., the other players. We conceive of the latter two factors as clearly on a horizontal axis which reaches aspects that most theorists would consider as constitutive of the agent’s situation. Affectivity, however, is central and may define the vertical–horizontal intersection.
Affect in the broadest sense includes emotion processes but also more general and basic bodily states such as hunger, fatigue, and pain. Affect, or what Michelle Maiese (2018) calls “affective framing,” shapes our ability to cope with the surrounding world (Ratcliffe, 2012; Colombetti, 2014) and, along with skills and habits, introduces possible modulations of functional integration with that world. Affect may work differently in different types of skilled actions, for example, in various athletic performances and in the different performing arts. The important differences may have to do with the way that affective factors are integrated with motoric/agentive factors – the kinetic and kinesthetic feelings associated with body-schematic processes and how all of these processes functionally integrate with environmental constraints and affordances. Affect/emotion may involve expressive movement, as in dance – movement that is like gesture and language but nonetheless depends on motor control – although it goes beyond simple motor control or instrumental action. There are different mixes or integrations of expressive and instrumental movements in the different contexts of performance – in athletics, dance, or musical performance, for example.
The body schema does not work independently to deliver technically proficient movement, to which an expressive style is then added as something motivated by specific and perhaps occasion-relative emotions. Affective processes directly shape body-schematic processes, slowing them or speeding them or leading them to a certain initial posture that may influence performance or change how agents are functionally situated. Accordingly, affect modulates functional integration. Affect and body-schematic processes are part of the vertical mesh in expert performance – but they also allow for an integration attuned to targets and environmental features in the performance situation.
In the context of musical performance, once we start to think about the music itself and the other performers, for example, we come to an enriched conception of the meshed architecture that incorporates a form of horizontal integration. In this respect, ecological, normative, cultural, and intersubjective aspects of the physical and social environments, including physical and social affordances, play a role and contribute to task-dependent structures in performance. For example, in Høffding’s analysis, the musical instruments, the performance space, and the music itself shape the musical performance. The style of music, whether one is playing from a score, or whether improvisation occurs – these factors establish different roles and tasks and specify different possible dynamics in performance. All of this, in line with embodied-enactive conceptions of affordance-based action and cognition, as well as ecological psychology’s conception of resonance, helps to show that what makes performance what it is is not entirely inside the performer, whether she be musician, dancer, athlete, or expert in everyday affairs. For example, the individual performer affectively resonates with and through the music. Playing the musical notes initiates a resonance between the sounds one creates and the musical sounds in the environment made by other musicians.
This resonance may be driven by (1) consciously anticipated, and sometimes planned, notes and/or (2) feedback from awareness of the sounds that are actually created during performance. On one hand, as the music unfolds, the performance environment is constituted as a niche of musical affordances. The sounds that a musician produces could thus successfully or unsuccessfully resonate with the affordances in the environment. On the other hand, anticipatory processes and any short-term planning involved while playing suggest intraorganism resonant loops constantly underlying the performance (Ryan and Gallagher, 2020).
The combination of these respective elements is the mesh between anticipatory control, practiced/skilled bodily movements, and the affordances presented by the music and the environment more generally.
As one engages in a particular performance, one’s agency (or sense of agency) may be modulated (causally influenced) by affect but also by the quality and quantity of affordances available. When, for example, the performer “can ‘feel’ that her motor system has the right configuration” (Christensen et al., 2016), this configuration is just the right one to mesh with the specifics of the performer’s physical and social environments. Høffding (2019, p. 244) called this “interkinaesthetic affectivity” (see Salice et al., 2017; Høffding and Satne, 2019). Neither body-schematic processes nor affective processes are isolated from the agent’s environment; rather, they are attuned to both stabilities and variations in environmental factors, including other agents. The performance and the cognition involved in it are situated, i.e., functionally integrated with the environment. Likewise, environmental factors, including music and interpersonal relations, can facilitate emotion regulation or regulation of affect more generally (Krueger, 2014, 2019).
The environment where performance takes place is not only physically but also socially, culturally, and normatively defined. Performance in a concert hall or in a church may be quite different from performance in a stadium or a pub or in the open air. That we are playing music with others, and who those others are, how skilled they are, and how long we have interacted with them – all of these factors can impact performance (Clarke et al., 2015). If one is playing music with others, there will be an intersubjective and affective resonance between an individual’s performance and the performance of other musicians. This may be mediated by the music itself, by conscious, non-conscious, and/or non-verbal perceptual cues in the others’ embodied performance (see Høffding, 2019; Høffding and Satne, 2019). In some cases, there may also be resonance between the musical group and the audience. These different situations do not entail autonomous high-church cognitive processes – as if what is required is a thinking or reflective contemplation. The performer does not think: “I’m in the concert hall playing with my quartet; therefore I should play in this style.” It is rather that the concert hall and the people I am making music with elicit a specific feeling and style.
In some cases, a strong functional integration can be found in a form of musical joint attention, a shared sense of the music, a kind of entrainment and sensorimotor synchronization with the other players that produces a joint musical experience that approaches Merleau-Ponty’s notion of intercorporeity.
The intercorporeal inclusion of the other musician can be said to alter and expand the sense of agency, such that I no longer primarily attend egoically to my agency, my movements, my interpretation but see the entire setting, music, body, instrument, and even fellow musicians as one large agent. This is an affective and bodily we-intentionality: a musical intercorporeity or musical interkinesthetic affectivity (Høffding, 2019, p. 244).
The meshing of the horizontal and vertical axes may also involve “joint body schemas” in practices that have been shown to extend an individual’s peripersonal space to include the other person, evidenced in changes to neuronal and behavioral processes (Soliman and Glenberg, 2014). As Soliman and Glenberg showed, these body-schematic effects are not simply modulated top-down by cultural practices, but rather, such social and cultural factors are incorporated into body-schematic processes which, in turn, express them in motoric performance. The situation of performance thus involves distributed and temporally extended processes that include all relevant variables – embodied, ecological, intersubjective/social, and cultural. These are not the accomplishments of narrow processes taking place just in-the-head, or strictly on a vertical axis, but are processes that extend into the world, meshed with the structures of our intercorporeal and material engagements.
Accordingly, there are multiple complex factors that extend on the horizontal axis and that shape the situation in which the agent is embedded. The notion of task dependency, where action may be defined by a particular role in the performance, is clearly relevant at this point, although it varies across different types of performance. Returning to the example of the standard tonal jazz performance mentioned in the first section, we find there clear normative task-dependent constraints that specify performance. Such constraints will vary across some proportion of functional integration and task dependency defining both vertical and horizontal meshing. Accordingly, how the “head,” the solos, and the outro actually play out will in varying degrees depend on not just the vertical mesh of cognitive and intrinsic body-schematic control for each individual player but also on our interactions with co-players, on the music itself, and on affective modulations that may permeate the entire situation.
Conclusion: Performance and Situated Cognition as Mutually Enlightening
We have argued that the notion of a meshed architecture can generalize beyond performance studies and contribute more broadly to an understanding of situated cognition. Once we understand that performance is not mindless, the model of a meshed architecture allows us to specify not only how cognition plays a role in performance but also how other factors situate performance. In regard to this model, we proposed four clarifications: (1) that the cognitive processes involved in performance are complex and varied and can include a full register that goes from explicit conscious control to implicit pre-reflective consciousness; (2) that control is not just top-down but can also be intrinsic to bottom-up processes; (3) that the mesh is complicated by the horizontal integration of ecological, social, and cultural/normative factors that extend beyond the performing agent but nonetheless constrain or contribute to performance; and (4) that affective factors are central for both modulating intrinsic control features and integrating the vertical and horizontal axes of the mesh. By making these clarifications, we have provided a more adequate view of how functional integration and task dependency work in situated cognition.
Accordingly, we think that the meshed architecture model of performance provides a way to explicate various processes involved in situated cognition and helps to make the concepts of functional integration (the coupling of agent and world) and task dependency (most typically defined by social, cultural, and normative factors on the horizontal axis) less abstract. At the same time, notions of situated cognition that involve functional integration and task dependency help to enrich the conception of a meshed architecture.
Data Availability Statement
All datasets generated for this study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
SG’s research was supported by an Australian Research Council grant, Minds in Skilled Performance, DP170102987.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
- ^ Christensen and Sutton (2019) seemed to move closer to the okapi model. They relaxed the strong dualism between cognition and automaticity (an either–or arrangement), opting for more hybrid or pluralist (both–and) arrangements: “in which there are multiple levels of control, including lower-level, fast perception-action loops and higher-level loops that integrate more widely and process more abstract information, with the loops functioning in intimate interaction” (Christensen and Sutton, 2019, p. 160).
Christensen, W., and Sutton, J. (2019). “Mesh: cognition, body, and environment in skilled action – a new introduction to “cognition in skilled action.”,” in Handbook of Embodied Cognition and Sport Psychology, ed. M. L. Cappucio (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 157–164.
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Krueger, J. W. (2019). “Music as affective scaffolding,” in Music and Consciousness II, eds R. Herbert, D. Clarke, and E. Clarke (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 55–70. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198804352.003.0004
Robbins, P., and Aydede, M. (2009). “A short primer on situated cognition,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition, eds P. Robbins and M. Aydede (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 3–10. doi: 10.1017/cbo9780511816826.001
Sadikot, S. (2014). Mindlessness is Crucial in Batting: Sangakkara. BCCI: Board of Controlfor Cricket in India, 9 November. Hyderabad. Available online at: http://www.bcci.tv/news/2014/features-and-interviews/8893/mindlessness-is-crucial-in-batting-sangakkara (accessed January 15, 2015).
Sutton, J., McIlwain, D., Christensen, W., and Geeves, A. (2011). Applying intelligence to the reflexes: embodied skills and habits between Dreyfus and Descartes. J,. Br. Soc. Phenomenol. 42, 78–103. doi: 10.1080/00071773.2011.11006732
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Keywords: situated cognition, performance, task dependency, body schema, functional integration, meshed architecture
Citation: Gallagher S and Varga S (2020) Meshed Architecture of Performance as a Model of Situated Cognition. Front. Psychol. 11:2140. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02140
Received: 08 May 2020; Accepted: 31 July 2020;
Published: 21 August 2020.
Edited by:Achim Stephan, University of Osnabrück, Germany
Reviewed by:Matthew Ratcliffe, University of York, United Kingdom
Wendy Wilutzky, University of Bergen, Norway
Copyright © 2020 Gallagher and Varga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Shaun Gallagher, firstname.lastname@example.org

domain: literature


text:
I’ve seen The King’s Speech twice since it came out in theaters. The first time I really liked it, but my enthusiasm has quickly died down for the movie over the past few years. Part of that reason is that it won Best Picture over a stronger field of contenders. But really, there’s really nothing too special about The King’s Speech. It’s a good movie but doesn’t achieve the greatness that the awards handed to it indicate.
The King’s Speech is about Prince Albert (Colin Firth), the second son of King George V (Michael Gambon). At the 1925 British Empire Exhibition, Albert gives a speech where he stumbles upon his own words really, really badly (when I saw this in theaters the sound was off sync with the picture, which made Albert sound even worse). He is embarrassed and humiliated by his failure at the podium and seeks multiple therapists to help him. Albert eventually comes across Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Austalian who believes he could cure Albert.
Much of the movie is made up of Logue’s attempts to cure Albert. Logue tries doing so by making him do muscle relaxation stretches, practice breath control techniques, and, in the film’s most infamous scene, tell him to shout all the swear words he knows (which I suspect was done for the movie to secure an R rating).
Meanwhile, Albert faces problems at the throne. The movie spans to World War II, and a lot changes for the British Throne. Once his father dies, his brother Edward becomes king but leaves the throne when he decides to marry an American. As Albert rises to the throne he grows worried about how he can be king with his horrible speaking skills.
One thing I noticed of The King’s Speech is how conventional it was. It feels like it could have come out fifty years ago. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but shows that the movie lacks much ambition. The King’s Speech isn’t too different from an every day historical biopic. It doesn’t really makes us examine or challenge its subject in a way, it’s just showing him trying to accomplish a goal throughout the years.
Compare that to Lawrence of Arabia, which gave its subject more life. Like Albert, Lawrence is trying to accomplish a goal but the movie is exciting, energetic, and beautiful. David Lean allows the audience to enter the scenery and understand the characters.
Which brings me to the greatest problem of The King’s Speech: director Tom Hooper. I remember reading a quote from a newspaper article that The King’s Speech looked like it was filmed out of a fish bowl, which I agree to. Many shots feel awkwardly placed, such as one where Albert is sitting on the side of a couch. Instead of centering on Albert, Hooper places him to the side of the shot with the couch at the center. This forces the viewer to turn their eyes to the side of the screen. Why? This is a completely unnecessary and distracting shot. The King’s Speech should be a fairly simple to direct. 95% of the movie takes place indoors. Yet Hooper cannot operate the camera properly throughout the movie, which hurts it.
But while there are flaws, there are also many strengths about The King’s Speech. If I had to say what the movie’s strongest element is, it’s Colin Firth. Firth does a strong job as Albert and gives a solid performance. Geoffrey Rush is good as well. And while the story, as I said before, lacks ambition, it actually isn’t that bad and has some wit put into it.
Still, The King’s Speech lacks the criteria to become a great film. In 2010, three films came out that were all much better, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, and Inception. The Oscars gave their top prize to The King’s Speech over these three, which is rather typical of the Academy. The King’s Speech is an audience pleaser, a feel-good old fashioned movie that the Oscar voters love. The Oscars probably thought it was more likable than The Social Network, more grown up than Toy Story 3, and more simple than Inception. But that doesn’t make it a deserving Oscar winner. I wouldn’t consider The King’s Speech win as bad as some of the Oscar’s biggest blunders like Dances with Wolves over GoodFellas, but it certainly isn’t very acceptable either.
So while I can recommend The King’s Speech, don’t expect it to be as good as the awards indicate. It’s enjoyable but not a great film.


text:
Exosomes are important intercellular communication vehicles, secreted into body fluids by multiple cell types, including tumor cells. They contribute to the metastatic progression of tumor cells through paracrine signalling. It has been recently discovered that blood circulating exosomes contain distinguishable fractions of free and cell-surface-associated vesicles. We evaluated the influence of protein cargoes from exosomes from plasma, and exosomes from the total blood of healthy females (HFs) and breast cancer patients (BCPs), on cell motility. We conducted a mass spectrometric analysis of exosomal contents isolated from samples using ultrafiltration and ultracentrifugation approaches and verified their nature using transmission electron microscopy, nanoparticle tracking analysis and flow cytometry. We observed that malignant neoplasm-associated proteins in exosomes from BCP total blood were detected more often than in plasma (66% vs. 59%). FunRich analysis to assess Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment revealed that proteins with catalytic activities, transporter functions and protein metabolism activities were increased in exosomes from BCP blood. Finally, GO analysis revealed that proteomic profiles of exosomes from HF total blood were enriched with proteins inhibiting cell migration and invasion, which explains the low stimulating activity of exosomes from HF total blood on SKBR-3 cancer cell migration velocity. This allows exosomes to act as intermediaries providing intercellular communications through horizontal transfer of RNA and functionally active proteins, potentially affecting the development of both primary neoplasms and distant metastases.
Предметные области OECD FOS+WOS
- 1.06.CQ БИОХИМИЯ И МОЛЕКУЛЯРНАЯ БИОЛОГИЯ

domain: biology


text:
Bristol union announces first Christmas postal strike
Union representatives have announced the first in a series of planned strikes by postal workers in south Bristol ahead of Christmas.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) said it had informed Royal Mail of its intention to take industrial action on Monday 10 December.
Bristol CWU area official David Wilshire said the decision came after a break-down in negotiations over workload issues.
Royal Mail said it was "disappointed".
The 24-hour walk-out will mean no deliveries by postal workers at the depot in Mead Street, Bedminster between 00:01 and 23.59 on that date.
Bristol CWU area official David Wilshire said: "Management still fail to grasp the extent of the problem they have caused and continue to bury their heads in the sand.
Rounds too large
"We will be meeting our members at the depot on Tuesday morning to prepare for the strike."
Last week about 80% of workers at the depot voted to stage walkouts over workload issues.
Delays in getting post from the Bedminster office to the BS4 (Knowle) and BS14 (Hengrove) areas began at the start of November.
Thousands of items of mail were left undelivered, which Royal Mail said was due to staff sickness, but the CWU said was because delivery rounds were too large for workers.
Royal Mail said: "We are urging staff based at Mead Street to continue working as normal and to allow the nationally agreed process for resolving issues of concern to continue.
"We are disappointed they have decided to take industrial action on a peak day in the run-up to Christmas, which is our busiest period as we deliver customers' Christmas items."
But it said it had contingency plans in place to maintain services.


text:
My daughters got me a very unusual gift this year, Kopi Luwak coffee. It's the most expensive coffee in the world and has a total harvest of only a few hundred pounds each year.
You see the beans have been through the digestive tract of the palm civet, a small wild cat that lives in the jungles of Sumatra and Malaysia. They eat the coffee berries, but don't digest the beans, so the beans... um... pass... and are collected. They get chemically changed when they pass through [the animal] and become this heavenly coffee. They bought it from a company called Cat's Ass Coffee.
I haven't tried it yet. I'm planning on sharing it with my co-workers -- at least those who are adventurous enough to try it.
From cashmere to comforters, the discounts may seem good now, but just wait until the holidays are over.
|First U.S. penny sold for $1.2 million|
|More than half of middle-class kids fail to earn bachelor's degrees|
|It's official: Kleiner Perkins wins gender bias case|
|Apple's Tim Cook 'deeply disappointed' in Indiana's anti-gay law|
|19 stocks Goldman Sachs says to buy now|

domain: food


text:
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domain: chemistry