Slashing the slayer: a thematic analysis of homo-erotic Buffy fan fiction

This essay reports the research that I have carried out on Internet slash fiction based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. I became interested in this area when I stumbled across slash fiction on the web myself and found that I enjoyed it. As someone who studies sexuality I was intrigued by this new (to me) form of erotic fiction and began to read the academic literature in the area. As I became familiar with the main theories, I wondered how they would relate to slash fiction written about Buffy, since this series differs from many of the programmes that have been slashed in the past. There are strong female and gay characters in Buffy, emotional and relationship-based themes are directly addressed, and the interaction between vampires and humans adds an additional dimension to the plot. In my study, I analysed both slash stories and my e-mail correspondence with the authors of Buffy slash. I come at the topic as both a slash reader and a psychologist, and I hope that I achieve a good balance between the position of mutual knowledge (as a fan) and critical distance (as a researcher) as recommended by Tulloch and Jenkins (1995). In the past, slash authors have been stigmatised by other fans and by convention organizers (Jenkins, 1992), and several of my participants felt that they had been misrepresented in previous research. I hope to be accountable in my research (Bannister et al., 1995) and to give a respectful and realistic portrayal of Buffy slash and its writers

FARMER EDUCATION AND ADOPTION OF SLASH AND BURN AGRICULTURE

Education can play a critical role in moving farmers in developing countries away from environmentally harmful slash and burn agriculture. The present research examines the extent to which extension education can promote adoption of cropping systems other than slash and burn. Choice of cropping system by farmers in Cameroon, whether slash and burn, multiple crops, or mono-cropping, is modeled as a function of farm size, farmer educational level, and visits by extension personnel. Results indicate that higher visitation rates by extension personnel reduce not only the likelihood of farmers choosing slash and burn agriculture, but also promotes movement into mono-cropping. Since mono-cropping represents a move toward export-oriented agriculture in Cameroon, this movement may assist in promoting greater economic development across western Africa. Continued efforts in extension education are, therefore, critical in both reducing the environmental damage from slash and burn agriculture and promoting adoption of more profitable cropping systems.conservation, slash and burn, production technology, economic development, Farm Management,

The impact of shifting cultivation in the forestry ecosystems of timor-leste

Every year thousands of hectares of forest are destructed as a result of the practice of swidden agriculture, shifting cultivation or "slush and burn" causing changes in forest ecosystems. In Timor- Leste shifting cultivation is still practiced nowadays as a form of subsistence agriculture. Swidden agriculture is characterized by slash and burn clearing, by a rotation of fields rather than of crops, and by short periods of cropping (1-3 years) alternating with long fallow periods. Based on the characterization of shifting cultivation in two Sucos of Bobonaro district, a reflection is made on the impact of this practice in the sustainable development of forest ecosystems of Timor- Leste. Primary data collection was performed using a questionnaire survey of farmers practicing shifting cultivation. The questionnaire characterized shifting cultivation, and asked farmers’ opinion on slash and burning of forest areas and on the importance of forests. According to the results obtained, in most situations the existing vegetation before the slash was composed of dense forest, the slash is made by the family group, the majority of farmers have been doing the “slush and burn” for more than ten years and the size of the plots where slash is made is less than 2 hectares. The materials resulting from the slash are used for firewood, building materials and fencing. The burning of vegetable residues is done before planting and soil preparation and sowing is done with a lever. Land and forest, despite having an individual use, have a tenure regime of ownership and access in which its nature of common pool good prevails. Every year thousands of hectares of forest are destructed as a result of the practice of swidden agriculture, shifting cultivation or "slush and burn" causing changes in forest ecosystems. In Timor-Leste shifting cultivation is still practiced nowadays as a form of subsistence agriculture

Wounding patterns and human performance in knife attacks: optimising the protection provided by knife-resistant body armour

Stab attacks generate high loads,1 and to defeat them, armour needs to be of a certain thickness and stiffness.2,3 Slash attacks produce much lower loads and armour designed to defeat them can be far lighter and more flexible.Methods and subjects: Phase 1: Human performance in slash attacks: 87 randomly selected students at the Royal Military College of Science were asked to make one slash attack with an instrumented blade on a vertically mounted target. No instructions on how to slash the target were given. The direction, contact forces and velocity of each attack were recorded. Phase 2: Clinical experience with edged weapon attacks: The location and severity of all penetrating injuries in patients attending the Glasgow Royal Infirmary between 1993 and 1996 were charted on anatomical figures.Results Phase 1: Two types of human slash behaviour were evident: a ‘chop and drag’ blow and a ‘sweep motion’ type of attack. ‘Chop and drag’ attacks had higher peak forces and velocities than sweep attacks. Shoulder to waist blows (diagonal) accounted for 82% of attacks, 71% of attackers used a long diagonal slash with an average cut length of 34 cm and 11% used short diagonal attacks with an average cut length of 25 cm. Only 18% of attackers slashed across the body (short horizontal); the average measured cut length of this type was 28 cm. The maximum peak force for the total sample population was 212 N; the maximum velocity was 14.88 m s−1. The 95 percentile force for the total sample population was 181 N and the velocity was 9.89 m s−1. Phase 2: 431 of the 500 patients had been wounded with edged weapons. The average number of wounds sustained by victims in knife assaults was 2.4. The distribution of wounds by frequency and severity are presented.Conclusions Anti-slash protection is required for the arms, neck, shoulders, and thighs. The clinical experience of knife-attack victims provides information on the relative vulnerabilities of different regions of the body. It is anticipated that designing a tunic-type of Police uniform that is inherently stab and slash resistant will eventually replace the current obvious and often bulky extra protective vest. Attempts at making a combined garment will need to be guided by ergonomic considerations and field testing. A similar anatomical regional risk model might also be appropriate in the design of anti-ballistic armour and combined anti-ballistic and knife-resistant armour

An HPSG approach to Welsh unbounded dependencies

Welsh is a language in which unbounded dependency constructions involve both gaps and resumptive pronouns (RPs). Gaps and RPs appear in disjoint sets of environments. Otherwise, however, they are quite similar. This suggests that they involve the same mechanism, and in HPSG that they involve the SLASH feature. It is possible to provide an analysis in which RPs are associated with the SLASH feature but are also the ordinary pronouns which they appear to be

Periodic solutions of nonlinear wave equations with general nonlinearities

We prove the existence of small amplitude periodic solutions, with strongly irrational frequency \om close to one, for completely resonant nonlinear wave equations. We provide multiplicity results for both monotone and nonmonotone nonlinearities. For \om close to one we prove the existence of a large number N_\om of 2 \pi \slash \om -periodic in time solutions $u_1, ..., u_n, ..., u_N$: N_\om \to + \infty as \om \to 1 . The minimal period of the $n$-th solution $u_n$ is proved to be 2 \pi \slash n \om . The proofs are based on a Lyapunov-Schmidt reduction and variational arguments.Comment: 29 page

Survival of pines on droughty soils: two-year results

Three species of pines (loblolly, slash and longleaf) were planted with four treatments (loblolly and slash = bareroot, clay dip slurry and TerrasorH ; longleaf = containerized) to test survival on droughty, typic quartzipsamments soils. At the end of the first season, survival~s significantly better for the containerized longleaf and Terrasoro treated loblolly pine (81 and 85%) followed by untreaRed loblolly pine (51%), clay-treated loblolly (50%), then Terrasorb treated slash (48%), untreated slash (41%) and clay-treated slash (36%). At the e~of the second growing season, longleaf had 56% survival, Terrasor~ treated loblolly (51%), clay-dip slurry loblolly (31.9%), Terrasoro treated slash (21%), untreated loblolly pine (20%) and clay-treated slash and untreated slash (17%). Pest management recommendations and management considerations are presented