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When it comes to health(-risk) behaviors, researchers are apt to consider how to change behaviors from a top-down approach (i.e., using the conscious, reflective, deliberate system) even though much of human behavior is determined by bottom-up processes (i.e., the nonconscious, reflexive, impulsive system). Given that researchers have proposed that interventions that target nonconscious processes underlying health(-risk) behaviors may prove to be more effective than interventions that target conscious processes, we argue that understanding the ways in which mimicking and modeling affect health(-risk) behaviors is a critical—albeit largely unexplored—domain. In this paper, we review existing evidence that people mimic and model a broad range of health(-risk) behaviors: specifically, the cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking, (un)healthy eating, and physical activity of others. We then discuss the neural and psychological mechanisms underlying these effects. Next, we outline moderators: specifically, we discuss when mimicking and modeling are more likely to occur, who is more likely to mimic and model, as well as who is more likely to be mimicked and modeled. Finally, we consider how mimicry and modeling could be used to leverage healthy behavioral change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts sociomateriality as a theoretical lens to further our understanding of how imitation acts to support the use of objects, and in doing so, constitutes a sociomaterial practice. Within a sociomaterial perspective we aimed to perform the analysis of imitation as a powerful way to learn how to use objects embedded into the practices within which the objects are constituted. The contribution of this approach is illustrated using the findings of the application of the quasi-ecological Day in the Life (DITL) methodology to the everyday lives of two 6-year-old children. Within a case-study frame, we traced the children's imitation behaviors focused on the use of objects during an entire day of their life, the various people and practices with which they were associated, the multiple sociomaterial configurations that the objects assume, and the social and material consequences of their use. Imitation appears to be is a complex activity, involving multiple stakeholders who interact in order to facilitate the understanding of various artifacts across diverse knowledge domains, and enhance their interpretive flexibility across communities of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an introduction to the sociology of Gabriel Tarde and to the papers in this special issue. The first part of the paper examines how Tarde conceived of the relations between sociology and the natural sciences, including astronomy and physical geography. It also discusses Tarde's account of the significance and value of statistics and archaeology as sociological methods. The second part of the paper focuses on the importance of the concepts of imitation and suggestion in Tarde's economic psychology, and discusses the contemporary relevance of his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper, we developed an alternative perspective on product imitation and innovation. In this paper, we explore some of our research questions using empirical data gathered in China. While we do not condone counterfeit activities, we explore the role of counterfeiting, imitation and learning from the perspective of Chinese manufacturers and provide insight from a small number of key informants about the motives and incentives for non-consensual acquisition of technology and their views on what Western firms should be doing to counteract the threat to their technological advantage. In this paper, we argue that where companies use the technology property of others to develop their own technology capability without the consent of the other party (non-consensual acquisition of technology), firms should consider whether there are opportunities for collaboration before resorting immediately to the legal tools at their disposal to enforce intellectual property rights and seek financial recompense from infringers without due consideration of the learning, new product development and innovation context. We believe that the findings from our case studies can make a significant contribution towards a better understanding of non-consensual acquisition of technology in an innovation context. In particular, the information gained from the key informants provides their perspective on the causes of non-consensual acquisition of technology and their views and recommendations of how companies affected by this behaviour might be able to better handle this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PGM congestion control (pgmcc), a single-rate multicast congestion control scheme, is one of the most promising schemes which aim to solve the problem of multicast fairness with TCP. However, by deep investigation, we find that there exist two inappropriate mechanisms in this scheme, which are the fixed slow start threshold (ssthresh) and the mechanism of changing a group representative (acker). Our experiments have revealed the fact that these mechanisms can lead to the unfairness of pgmcc under some network conditions. In this paper, two new mechanisms have been proposed to replace the original ones. One mechanism is to make the sender adapt the value of ssthresh to the network conditions to mimic the action of TCP, and in order to avoid being more aggressive than TCP, the other one is to make the sender reduce the congestion window by half when the acker changes. Our experiment results, parts of which are discussed in this paper, show that the modified pgmcc can achieve better performance than the original one. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imitation offers a gateway to relationship. This paper seeks to explore that capacity by describing the therapeutic approach of ‘Intensive Interaction’. The research literature on imitation contains relatively little about imitation used in an intervention capacity, concentrating instead on the emergence of imitative abilities during infant and child development. The paper therefore describes the case of a young man with severe autism, for whom Intensive Interaction was successful in bringing him into interpersonal engagement with others. The author provides an account as to why imitation should be so effective in this regard. Overall, the paper aims to stimulate questions about how imitation can best be conceived and studied. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the local stability of the steady slate of the generalized Lai (1995) model, i.e. the Shimizu and Okamoto (2004) model. Lai is a modified version of Grossman and Helpman (1991a, 1991b: Ch. 11) by assuming that there are two types of labour: skilled and unskilled labours. Shimizu and Okamoto (2004) generalize the Lai model by assuming that Southern knowledge stock depends not only on Southern cumulative experience but also on the number of products the North manufactures. This paper shows that the stability of steady state in the generalized Lai model has (he saddle point properly. Thus, this paper also establishes the stability of the Grossman and Helpman (1991a, 199lb: Ch. 11) model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper acts as a commentary on and an extension to the preceding papers. It argues that time can be fully taken into account in organization studies only by understanding temporal fields as processes of progressive practical imitation, in the manner of tarde. this argument is illustrated by considering various management innovations of the past century or so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers an imitation dynamic in the context of Cournot oligopoly. The pure "imitate-the-best" behavior can lead to an outcome inconsistent with Cournot-Nash equilibrium. The paper extends purely imitative behavior to imperfect imitation in the two-stage model with capacities and prices. This variation in the imitative behavior improves efficiency and makes the Cournot-Nash equilibrium a possible outcome of the dynamic imitation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imitation is an important learning mechanism of widespread utility and common occurrence. This article presents a theory and working computational model of the detailed mechanisms of imitation. The model is in the restricted domain of the learning of pencil and paper procedures. The task that is modelled is of a teacher demonstrating the steps of a procedure, such as long division to a student by means of one or more examples. Such a task can be learned by an imitation-learning mechanism, but the mechanism has a much wider range of application. Imitation is treated as a four-stage process: the events performed by the teacher are segmented by the learner; the events are encoded and explained in terms of spatial relations between objects; repeated patterns in the events are recognized; and finally, different examples are merged together. This model is implemented as a computer program learning algorithms from worked examples (LAWE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is believed that trading agents often imitate the behaviour of those around them. In its excessive form this imitation can help lead to large increases or decreases in asset-prices over a small time, often described as bubbles and crashes. In this paper we examine a model in which rational agents repeatedly trade one asset whose price is influenced by supply and demand together with a stochastic noise term. Each agent is able to observe and remember the actions of her nearest neighbours. Furthermore the agents receive private information about the asset-price. We find that profit-maximization implies that agents should to some extent imitate the behaviour of the people around them allowing the use of the Ising Spin Model to investigate agent-agent interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the seminal conceptualisation and operationalisation studies of the early 1990s, research into market orientation has blossomed. Studies abound of the plethora of antecedents and the myriad of potential consequences. However, although a greater understanding of the barriers and performance implications of market orientation has been developed, inexplicably empirical research into management approaches to developing market orientation is neglected. With the exception of a limited number of management prescriptions and an even smaller number of conceptual contributions, little is known of the different approaches, strategies or tactics management employs to improve market orientation. The current study is designed to explore these issues and to provide empirical insights into the nature of differences in management approaches. After reviewing relevant literature and describing the methods employed, the results of twelve case studies involving over 260 field interviews are presented. The results indicate that management approaches to developing market orientation differ along five main dimensions, with each firm tending to stress one of these emphases. After defining and describing the main characteristics of these differences in emphasis, the paper concludes with implications for theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the dynamics of social influence in the choices of securities analysts to initiate and abandon coverage of firms listed on the NASDAQ national market. We show that social proof--using the actions of others to infer the value of a course of action--creates information cascades in which decision makers initiate coverage of a firm when peers have recently begun coverage. Analysts that initiate coverage of a firm in the wake of a cascade are particularly prone to overestimating the firm's future profitability, however, and they are subsequently more likely than other analysts to abandon coverage of the firm. We thus find evidence for a cycle of imitation-driven choice followed by disappointment and abandonment. Our account suggests that institutionalization rooted in imitation is likely to be fragile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the paper “Economic growth with imperfect protection of intellectual property rights,” by Horii Ryo and Iwaisako Tatsuro which appeared in the 2007 issue of “Journal of Economics.” The paper analyzes the effects of intellectual property right (IPR) protection on a quality-ladder model of endogenous growth. It mentions that stronger IPR protection increases the reward for innovation and reduces the imitation probability.

As typical artifacts of the Ba-Shu culture, bronze dagger-axes have always been highly valued by academia. Underneath-blade bronze dagger-axes were utilized widely in both the Central Plains and southwest China. However, opinions differ on whether these underneath-blade bronze dagger-axes which excavated from Ba-Shu culture were produced locally. Combined with archaeological typology study, p-XRF and MC-ICP-MS were used to analyze 12 underneath-blade bronze dagger-axes unearthed from Shuangyuan Village Site, an Eastern Zhou cemetery in Chengdu city, Sichuan Province, Southwest China in order to investigate the cultural exchange and integration centered on the Shu culture. The composition results show that the majority of samples were made from copper, tin, and lead ternary alloy. The data on lead isotopes indicate that underneath-blade bronze dagger-axes have different mineral sources. The lead isotope ratio 206Pb/204Pb of 18.3 can draw the conclusion to be used as one of the bases for judging that underneath-blade bronze dagger-axes originated in the Chengdu Plain or the Central Plains which was consistent with the typology. The southern China lead materials of underneath-blade bronze dagger-axes in the Ba-Shu and Central Plains style probably came from southern Sichuan; while the rest of underneath-blade bronze dagger-axes in the Central Plains style might use lead materials in the western Hunan-western Hubei area. The Shu culture which was represented by Shuangyuan Village Site in Chengdu Plain during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty had close cultural communication with the Central Plains and Chu cultures. This study reveals that Ba-Shu had a direct exchange of minerals or metal products with the Central Plains and Chu, as well as an imitation based on the identification of the foreign culture and the belief in the local Shu cultural traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans tend to spontaneously imitate others' behavior, even when detrimental to the task at hand. The action observation network (AON) is consistently recruited during imitative tasks. However, whether automatic imitation is mediated by cortico-cortical projections from AON regions to the primary motor cortex (M1) remains speculative. Similarly, the potentially dissociable role of AON-to-M1 pathways involving the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) or supplementary motor area (SMA) in automatic imitation is unclear. Here, we used cortico-cortical paired associative stimulation (ccPAS) to enhance or hinder effective connectivity in PMv-to-M1 and SMA-to-M1 pathways via Hebbian spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) to test their functional relevance to automatic and voluntary motor imitation. ccPAS affected behavior under competition between task rules and prepotent visuomotor associations underpinning automatic imitation. Critically, we found dissociable effects of manipulating the strength of the two pathways. While strengthening PMv-to-M1 projections enhanced automatic imitation, weakening them hindered it. On the other hand, strengthening SMA-to-M1 projections reduced automatic imitation but also reduced interference from task-irrelevant cues during voluntary imitation. Our study demonstrates that driving Hebbian STDP in AON-to-M1 projections induces opposite effects on automatic imitation that depend on the targeted pathway. Our results provide direct causal evidence of the functional role of PMv-to-M1 projections for automatic imitation, seemingly involved in spontaneously mirroring observed actions and facilitating the tendency to imitate them. Moreover, our findings support the notion that SMA exerts an opposite gating function, controlling M1 to prevent overt motor behavior when inadequate to the context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imitation learning through self-exploration is essential in developing sensorimotor skills. Most developmental theories emphasize that social interactions, especially understanding of observed actions, could be first achieved through imitation, yet the discussion on the origin of primitive imitative abilities is often neglected, referring instead to the possibility of its innateness. This paper presents a developmental model of imitation learning based on the hypothesis that humanoid robot acquires imitative abilities as induced by sensorimotor associative learning through self-exploration. In designing such learning system, several key issues will be addressed: automatic segmentation of the observed actions into motion primitives using raw images acquired from the camera without requiring any kinematic model; incremental learning of spatio-temporal motion sequences to dynamically generates a topological structure in a self-stabilizing manner; organization of the learned data for easy and efficient retrieval using a dynamic associative memory; and utilizing segmented motion primitives to generate complex behavior by the combining these motion primitives. In our experiment, the self-posture is acquired through observing the image of its own body posture while performing the action in front of a mirror through body babbling. The complete architecture was evaluated by simulation and real robot experiments performed on DARwIn-OP humanoid robot.

This study aimed to discover whether 2-year-olds can socially learn to think divergently. Two-year-olds (N = 22) who saw an experimenter model a high level of divergent thinking on the Unusual Box Test (modelling 25 different actions, once each) went on to demonstrate a higher level of divergent thinking themselves than (N = 22) children who saw a low level of modelling (five different actions, once each), where divergent thinking was measured by the number of different actions children produced that had not been modelled by the experimenter. Additionally, all children in both High and Low Divergence conditions had higher divergent thinking than imitation scores, where imitation involved copying the experimenter's previous actions. This is the first experiment to show that 2-year-olds' divergent thinking can be increased, and that 2-year-olds do so by socially learning to think more divergently. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject Recent research found that children as young as 1 year can think divergently, and that this is influenced by parents' own divergent thinking. What does this study add? This paper is important as it provides the first method to increase divergent thinking in toddlers. It also shows that social learning can directly affect individual learning processes, which suggests current theories of social and individual learning should be revised to be more iterative., (© 2017 The British Psychological Society.)

An Erratum to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119722440037 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image narrative was long regarded as imitation of a story already told in word narrative rather than as direct imitation of real life. In the connection between imitation and medium, there are the phenomena of the medium's own position and "Anders-streben." The former emphasizes the medium following its own nature, and the latter means not only following its own nature but transcending itself to pursue another aesthetic effect. "Inter" in intermedia narrative goes beyond the nature or strengths of an artistic work and its medium, resulting in a narrative form that showcases the characteristics of other literary works or media rather than giving full play to its own strengths. Of course, the so-called "laws of imitation" outlined by French sociologist Tarde must be followed: (i) imitation from within to without and (ii) imitation of the superior by the inferior. Whether in the former or the latter, word is a more advantageous medium, since it serves more easily as the model for images or other media to imitate in lyric expression or narrative activities. The laws of imitation are the underlying cause why image, as a spatial narrative medium, manages to achieve the corresponding temporal effect by imitating word narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay engages Idan Dershowitz's recent attempt to rehabilitate the Deuteronomy fragments Moses Wilhelm Shapira offered for sale in 1883. After summarizing the contents of Dershowitz's volume, this paper evaluates Shapira's fragments in relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Moabitica and other forgeries connected to Shapira. It considers the implications of Shapira's transcription of the text, which Dershowitz uses to demonstrate Shapira's innocence. To counter Dershowitz's hypothesis regarding the "proto-biblical" origin of the fragments, it is proposed that the composition is better understood as a post-biblical pastiche. Dershowitz has endeavored to sever the text from the possibilities allowed by 19th century European scholarship; the present article contextualizes the find within the religious world of 19th century Jerusalem. While the allure of significance can encourage scholars to overcome doubts and accept the authenticity of suspicious objects, Shapira's fragments remain very dubious indeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Guided by the Vygotskian concepts of mimicry , emulation , and imitation , this study examines how eight Chinese EFL students modeled from genre exemplars when composing their first academic papers in university. The students were enrolled in a "Cultural Tourism Studies" course at a university in south China. The course was delivered in a co-teaching approach with an embedded six-week EAP workshop. Given the short time frame of the workshop, an ESP genre-based approach was adopted, and genre exemplars were used to scaffold the students' understanding of two focal genre features (i.e., citation and organization). At the end of the course, text-based interviews were conducted to understand how the students made sense of and used the genre exemplars in the composing process. The analysis of students' term papers revealed a varying amount of mimicry, emulation, and imitation of the target genre features. The introspective and retrospective accounts of students' engagement with the exemplars suggested that imitative learning was multifaceted, dynamic, and varied within and between individuals. These findings challenge the dichotomous characterization of exemplars as either an enabling scaffold or a constraining shackle. The paper also discusses how the tripartite Vygotskian framework is a useful heuristic for EAP instructors to assess the extent to which genre exemplars are attuned to students' zone of proximal development, and how genre exemplars offer fluid affordances in the process of object-, other-, and self-regulation. • This study focuses on novice EFL students' imitative learning of genre exemplars. • Mimicry, emulation, and imitation of genre features are examined. • Affordances of exemplars are perceived and acted upon differently within and between individuals. • Imitative learning is multifaceted and dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We contribute to the economic literature on patent litigation by taking a new perspective. In the past, scholars mostly focused on specific litigation cases at the patent level and related technological characteristics to the event of litigation. However, observing intellectual property (IP) disputes suggests that not only technological characteristics may trigger litigation suits, but also the market positions of firms, and that firms dispute not only over single patents but often over portfolios. This paper examines the occurrence of IP litigation cases in Belgian firms using the 2013 Community Innovation Survey with supplemental information on IP litigation and patent portfolios. The rich survey information regarding firms' general innovation strategies enables us to introduce market-related variables such as sales with new products, as well as sales based mainly on imitation and incremental innovation. Our results indicate that when controlling for firms' IP portfolios, the composition of sales in terms of innovation and imitation has additional explanatory power regarding litigation propensities. Firms with high sales from innovations are more likely to become plaintiffs in court. Contrastingly, firms with high sales from incremental innovation and imitation are more likely to become defendants in court and, moreover, are more likely to negotiate settlements outside of court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the centrality of imitation in relation to British coin-trees, which are exactly what their name suggests: trees which have been embedded with coins. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the custom of coin insertion was observed for folk-remedial purposes; depositors were hoping for cures to certain ailments through the process of "contagious transfer". However, the custom has experienced a recent resurgence, with many coin-trees dating to the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. The modern-day depositors of coins do not cite folk-remedies as the purpose behind their participation; instead, the majority refer to imitation as the primary motivating factor. Simply put, people insert coins into trees because they have witnessed other people doing so. The paper considers imitation as a dissemination mechanism of the coin-tree custom; as the process which not only ensures the continuation of the custom but also influences how it is observed. The aesthetics of imitation, for example, refers to the distributions of the actual coins within the coin-trees, which often follow neat geometric patterns, testifying to the depositors' inclination to maintain a broader design. This paper aims to demonstrate the central role of imitation in the "why" and "how" of participation in this contemporary custom, and to consider the broader archaeological implications of such a demonstration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes whether herding and skillful managers may coexist. When herding appears, managers tend to present poor timing abilities; however, a weak herding level (a result commonly found in pension funds) may evidence a mixed scenario, where some managers develop skills, and others follow the herd. Additionally, when informational cascades emerge, some managers may act as leaders, anticipating others’ movements. Nonetheless, this anticipatory skill does not mean that leaders also anticipate market movements and present timing skills. Our results show herding and inter-temporal herding in a sample of Spanish pension funds, though the imitation behavior is not strong. We also find evidence of a mixed scenario, in which some non-herding managers present timing skills, while herding funds are not able to develop these abilities. Finally, we find successful timing for certain leaders, showing that the anticipation of others’ movements does not show real timing abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how imitators in services acquire capabilities and the kinds of know-how they seek. It argues that imitators exploit a wide range of largely 'informal' sources of know-how. A central part of this search process is the effort of imitators to acquire managerial know-how. Managers structure most of the social arrangements by which product or process innovations become profitable. Although a neglected category of research, the concept of managerial know-how can help to extend our understanding of appropriability, intra-industry heterogeneity in performance and the challenges associated with integrating product innovations with an organization's prevailing routines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines organizational ecology and neoinstitutional theory to explain the process of diversification, specifically, how the structure of markets affects rates of market entry. I extend the density-dependence model of competition and legitimation, which has been used to study organizational founding and failure, to the process of organizational change through entry into new markets. I argue that the number of organizations operating in a particular market will have an inverted-U-shaped relationship with the rate of entry into that market. I also examine propositions, drawn from neoinstitutional theory, that organizations will follow similar and successful organizations into new markets. I assess the link between entry into new markets and (1) the number of organizations operating in those markets similar to a potential entrant and (2) the number of successful organizations in those markets. I also explore whether these two mimetic processes act in concert by examining whether successful potential entrants to a market are influenced by the presence of other successful organizations. I test these hypotheses on a population of savings and loan associations. I find that these firms imitate large and profitable organizations, but I find only limited evidence of imitation of similarly sized organizations, as large organizations copy the actions of other large organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its lifetime, a robot should be able to autonomously understand the semantics of different tasks to effectively perform them in different situations. In this context, it is important to distinguish the meaning (in terms of the desired effect) of a task and the means to achieve that task. Our focus is those tasks in which one agent is required to perform a task for another agent, such as give, show, hide, make-accessible, etc. In this paper, we identify that a high-level human-centered combined reasoning, based on perspective taking, efforts and abilities analyses, is the key to understand semantics of such tasks. By combining these aspects, the robot infers sets of hierarchy of facts, which serve for analyzing the effect of a task. We adapt the explanation based learning approach enabling the task understanding from the very first demonstration and continuous refinement with new demonstrations. We argue that such symbolic level understanding of a task, which is not bound to trajectory, kinematics structure or shape of the robot, facilitates generalization to novel situations as well as ease the transfer of acquired knowledge among heterogeneous robots. Further, the knowledge of tasks at such human understandable level of abstraction will enrich the natural human-robot interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Devotional images in Renaissance Italy often compare divine visions to an enlivened statue or work of art, thereby heightening the effect of divine immediacy. Yet the early modern period also saw the emergence of another kind of picture that is much less studied. This alternative model favoured the apparent stoniness or emptiness of artistic simulacra – as seen in Cerano's painted representation of the Virgin in the guise of a marble statue rendered in grisaille. It is a striking departure from Catholic reformers' insistence on the mimetic naturalism of true images. As this paper shows, Cerano's work went against the predominant paradigm of imitation, whereby artistic replicas acted as potent transmitters of divine presence inherent in the original cult image. The work presents an alternative to the true 'living' image by defending the artistic copy as an efficacious, but also inanimate, substitute for the divine prototype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author discusses the need of teaching a large course on contemporary fiction. Topics discussed include internal political reasons, many departments want to have some courses with big enrollments; American bourgeois culture, and to help students understand that culture through their reading of the novels and questions, in a literature course, must be through the novels themselves.

SUMMARY This paper investigates the problem of global output stabilization for a family of uncertain nonlinear systems, which are dominated by a triangular-type condition. The distinguishing feature of such a class of systems is the presence of unmeasured states growth with growth rate polynomial of output-input multiplying an unknown constant. We show by an example that the power of the input in the growth rate seems to be optimal.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the general approach to Kierkegaard's engagement with imitation, which privileges a strictly religious reading. Heretofore imitation has been apprehended as a coherent concept shaped within the context of imitatio Christi in the devotio moderna. I locate Kierkegaard's writings in the broader context of mimesis. Analyzing particular mimetic structures woven into the text, I show that a plurality of imitative models that are different from Christ occurs therein. Addressing the distinction between the religious and the aesthetic in Kierkegaard, I inquire into the status of these imitative models. Referring to the term 'Mellembestemmelserne' and 'ekphrasis'-the rhetorical device of aesthetics-I show that the other models of imitation exhibit supportive roles to the highest type of prototype (Christ) and therefore question the solely religious rendering of mimesis and the aesthetic confines of Kierkegaard's concept of aesthetics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s Multilateral Development Banks created accountability mechanisms (AMs) that allowed people affected by development projects redress. Currently undertheorized, this paper examines how and why the Asian Development Bank (ADB) created an AM, and whether the AM serves its purpose to hold the ADB to account and to provide ‘fair hearing of the views of the affected group’. This article argues that the ADB created anewAM because of institutional isomorphism,borrowingthe idea of the AM from the World Bank as a result of coercive and mimetic isomorphic processes. Further, that the ADB introduced a mechanism ill-suited to the pre-existing (old)organizational culture of the ADB, which is based on consensus and hierarchical rule-following in the context of ADB operations to further economic growth while upholding state sovereignty. Despite its restructure and recent review, the mechanism's weakness was revealed through a stand-off between China and the AM over an investigation begun in 2009 (creating something ‘blue’). The paper concludes that the AM's ability to serve its purpose will remain hampered as long as ADB maintains consensus around economic growth and state sovereignty over providing recourse to affected people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research in humanoid robotics aims to develop autonomous systems that are able to assist humans in the performance of everyday tasks. Part of the robotics community claims that the best solution to guarantee the maximum adaptability of robots to the majority of human tasks is mimicry. Based on this premise both the structure of the human body and human behavior have been the focus of studies, with the aim of imitating and reproducing on robotic systems the results of millennia of human evolution. The research presented in this paper aims (i) at transferring the features of human locomotion to the COmpliant huMANoid (COMAN) robot, by means of kinematic motion primitives (kMPs) extracted from human subjects, and (ii) at improving the energetic performance of the walk of COMAN by exploiting its intrinsic compliance: it will be shown that, when the robot is walking at a gait frequency that is close to one of the main resonance frequencies of the mechanism, the springs contribute to tracking the human-like kMPs-based trajectories imposed, providing at the right time about 15 % of the energy required for locomotion, and that was previously stored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imitation, the replication of observed behaviors, has been proposed as the crucial social learning mechanism for the generation of humanlike cultural complexity. To date, the single published experimental microsociety study that tested this hypothesis found no advantage for imitation. In contrast, the current paper reports data in support of the imitation hypothesis. Participants in 'microsociety' groups built weight-bearing devices from reed and clay. Each group was assigned to one of four conditions: three social learning conditions and one asocial learning control condition. Groups able to observe other participants building their devices, in contrast to groups that saw only completed devices, show evidence of successive improvement. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that imitation is required for cumulative cultural evolution. This study adds crucial data for understanding why imitation is needed for cultural accumulation, a central defining feature of our species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore some of the psychic processes at work with patients whom I identify as the 'trauma child'. The term is a metaphor rather than a diagnosis of 'traumatisation', to indicate patients particularly resistant to maturational processes. They feel blocked and thereby find it difficult to evolve as creative adults. As opposed to the 'traumatised' child no particular distressing event can be identified as a cause for emotional suffering. The malaise is often 'low key' or silent but functions as a saboteur, undermining satisfactory existence. The trauma child is constantly seduced by regressive functioning and bound by numerous strategies of resistance of reality and often incapable of relinquishing the boundless pleasure of omnipotence. On the basis of my clinical work with the 'trauma child', I will explore the different processes of introjection in transference and counter transference, paying particular attention to the dynamics of identification between analyst and patient and its implications for object relations. Instead of 'healthy' identification with the other, taking account of difference and reality, the mode of object relations can be that of 'pathological imitation' based on fantasies of oral incorporation. A kind of regressive defense against 'mature' relationships; it is an attempt to acquire a substitute identity through magical imitation. Analytical listening, associative work and interpretation stimulate maturational processes within the patient and help him/her to let go of immature relational modes fixated in childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]