Resisting wh-questions in business coaching.

Introduction: This study investigates clients' resisting practices when reacting to business coaches' wh-questions. Neither the sequential organization of questions nor client resistance to questions have yet been (thoroughly) investigated for this helping professional format. Client resistance is understood as a sequentially structured, locally emerging practice that may be accomplished in more passive or active forms, that in some way withdraw from, oppose, withstand or circumvent various interactional constraints (e.g., topical, epistemic, deontic, affective) set up by the coach's question. Procedure and methods: Drawing on a corpus of systemic, solution-oriented business coaching processes and applying Conversation Analysis (CA), the following research questions are addressed: How do clients display resistance to answering coaches' wh-questions? How might these resistive actions be positioned along a passive/active, implicit/explicit or withdrawing/opposing continuum? Are certain linguistic/interactional features commonly used to accomplish resistance?. Results and discussion: The analysis of four dyadic coaching processes with a total of eleven sessions found various forms of client resistance on the active-passive continuum, though the more explicit, active, and agentive forms are at the center of our analysis. According to the existing resistance 'action terminology' (moving away vs. moving against), moving against or 'opposing' included 'refusing to answer', 'complaining' and 'disagreeing with the question's agenda and presuppositions'. However, alongside this, the analysis evinced clients' refocusing practices to actively (and sometimes productively) transform or deviate the course of action; a category which we have termed moving around.

Agenda-setting in first sessions of business coaching-a focus on coaches' practices to manage the agenda and establish the working alliance.

Introduction: Agenda-setting is a central communicative task for professionals and a joint activity of all participants particularly at the onset of helping interactions such as coaching. Agreeing on goal(s) and assigning tasks alongside establishing a trustful bond prepare the ground for the success of the interaction. The professional agent initiates and sets the agenda as part of their professional role and responsibility, i.e., based on their professional epistemic and deontic authority. Concurrently, by orienting to clients' epistemic authority and by yielding power, control, and agency to clients to co-manage the ensuing interaction, agenda-setting is the first opportunity for client-centeredness, which is a central characteristic and success factor for the working alliance in coaching. Procedure and Methods: We take first steps in filling a research gap by providing a first analysis of the interactional unfolding of agenda-setting in coaching and by showcasing that and how agenda-setting as a joint activity of coach and client contributes to their working alliance. More precisely, we investigate agenda-management practices in five first sessions of business coaching to (1) document and analyze how the joint activity 'agenda-setting' is implemented via various (coach-initiated) social actions, (2) detail their contribution to establishing the working alliance, and (3) to interpret the emerging practices of agenda-management against the concept of 'client-centeredness'. For the analysis, we draw on conceptual and methodological resources from interactional linguistics alongside linguistic pragmatics and conversation analysis. Results: We found 117 instances of 'agenda-setting' in our data which can be assigned to the seven social actions "Delivering Agenda Information", "Requesting Agenda Information", "Requesting Agenda Agreement", "Requesting Agenda Action", "Suggesting Agenda Action", "Offering Agenda Action" and "Proposing Agenda Action". Discussion: The social actions display that agenda-setting serves to establish a common ground regarding goals, tasks and the relational bond of coach and client, and (after this has been achieved) to negotiate future coaching actions. Thus, the joint activity of 'doing' agenda-setting can be shown to be 'doing' working alliance at the same time.

Functional modulation of the transient outward current Ito by KCNE beta-subunits and regional distribution in human non-failing and failing hearts.

OBJECTIVES: The function of Kv4.3 (KCND3) channels, which underlie the transient outward current I(to) in human heart, can be modulated by several accessory subunits such as KChIP2 and KCNE1-KCNE5. Here we aimed to determine the regional expression of Kv4.3, KChIP2, and KCNE mRNAs in non-failing and failing human hearts and to investigate the functional consequences of subunit coexpression in heterologous expression systems. METHODS: We quantified mRNA levels for two Kv4.3 isoforms, Kv4.3-S and Kv4.3-L, and for KChIP2 as well as KCNE1-KCNE5 with real-time RT-PCR. We also studied the effects of KCNEs on Kv4.3+KChIP2 current characteristics in CHO cells with the whole-cell voltage-clamp method. RESULTS: In non-failing hearts, low expression was found for KCNE1, KCNE3, and KCNE5, three times higher expression for KCNE2, and 60 times higher for KCNE4. Transmural gradients were detected only for KChIP2 in left and right ventricles. Compared to non-failing tissue, failing hearts showed higher expression of Kv4.3-L and KCNE1 and lower of Kv4.3-S, KChIP2, KCNE4, and KCNE5. In CHO cells, Kv4.3+KChIP2 currents were differentially modified by co-expressed KCNEs: time constants of inactivation were shorter with KCNE1 and KCNE3-5 while time-to-peak was decreased, and V(0.5) of steady-state inactivation was shifted to more negative potentials by all KCNE subunits. Importantly, KCNE2 induced a unique and prominent 'overshoot' of peak current during recovery from inactivation similar to that described for human I(to) while other KCNE subunits induced little (KCNE4,5) or no overshoot. CONCLUSIONS: All KCNEs are expressed in the human heart at the transcript level. Compared to I(to) in native human myocytes, none of the combination of KChIP2 and KCNE produced an ideal congruency in current characteristics, suggesting that additional factors contribute to the regulation of the native I(to) channel.

Expression and function of dipeptidyl-aminopeptidase-like protein 6 as a putative beta-subunit of human cardiac transient outward current encoded by Kv4.3.

Dipeptidyl-aminopeptidase-like protein 6 (DPPX) was recently shown in the brain to modulate the kinetics of transient A-type currents by accelerating inactivation and recovery from inactivation. Since the kinetics of human cardiac transient outward current (I(to)) are not mimicked by coexpression of the alpha-subunit Kv4.3 with its known beta-subunit KChIP2, we have tested the hypothesis that DPPX may serve as an additional beta-subunit in the human heart. With quantitative real-time RT-PCR strong mRNA expression of DPPX was detected in human ventricles and was verified at the protein level in human but not in rat heart by a DPPX-specific antibody. Co-expression of DPPX with Kv4.3 in Chinese hamster ovary cells produced I(to)-like currents, but compared with expression of KChIP2a and Kv4.3, the time constant of inactivation was faster, the potential of half-maximum steady-state inactivation was more negative and recovery from inactivation was delayed. Co-expression of DPPX in addition to Kv4.3 and KChIP2a produced similar current kinetics as in human ventricular myocytes. We therefore propose that DPPX is an essential component of the native cardiac I(to) channel complex in human heart.

Cholinergic and purinergic responses in isolated human detrusor in relation to age.

PURPOSE: We investigated whether the contractility of isolated human detrusor muscle, responsiveness to commonly used spasmolytic drugs, and expression of selected muscarinic and purinergic (P2X) receptor subtypes (M2, M3, P2X1 and P2X3) change with age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Tissues were taken from 63 patients 37 to 84 years old undergoing radical cystectomy. Specimens from 49 patients were used for contractility studies and those from 50 were used for mRNA analysis. RESULTS: Propiverine, oxybutynin, tolterodine and atropine decreased contractions evoked by electric field stimulation to different degrees. However, neither the efficacy nor potency of the drugs showed age related changes. Since human detrusor muscle shows atropine resistant noncholinergic responses, we also studied the putative age dependence of concentration-response curves to the muscarinic agonist carbachol, and the purinergic agonists adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and alpha-beta-methylene-ATP. Sensitivity to alpha-beta-methylene-ATP increased with age, while the efficacy and potency of spasmolytic drugs did not depend on age. In addition, mRNA detected for M2, M3, P2X1 and P2X3 receptors did not change with age. CONCLUSIONS: Our results do not provide evidence for age related contractile deterioration in human detrusor muscle strips, nor do they suggest that responses to anticholinergic spasmolytic drugs change substantially with age.