28,267 research outputs found
The Devil's Colors: A Comparative Study of French and Nigerian Folktales
This study, largely based on five separate published collections, compares French and Nigerian folktales - focusing mainly on French Dauphine and Nigerian Igboland - to consider the role color plays in encounters with supernatural characters from diverse color background. A study in black, white/red and green, the paper compares the naming of colors in the two languages and illustrates their usage as a tool to communicate color-coded values. Nigeria's history, religious beliefs, and language development offer additional clues to what at first appears to be fundamental differences in cultural approach. Attempting to trace the roots of this color-coding, the study also considers the impact of colonization on oral literature and traditional art forms
Perceptions of gender balance of IS journal editorial positions
An analysis of 18,854 editorial positions on IS journals was undertaken to examine the perceived gender balance of those positions as an indication of their contribution towards a positive role model for females considering an IS academic career. The nature and extent of perceived gender balance is examined in terms of overall composition of editorial positions, journal prestige and the specific area within IS covered by a journal. The results indicate that perceived gender balance of editorial positions reflects that of ICT academia generally, and that female representation appears to be concentrated in journals covering areas that are traditionally seen as female occupations, e.g., health, education, librarianship. As such, little or no encouragement is given to females considering an IS academic career.<br /
The Human Right to Water and Unconventional Energy
Access to water, in sufficient quantities and of sufficient quality is vital for human health. The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (in General Comment 15, drafted 2002) argued that access to water was a condition for the enjoyment of the right to an adequate standard of living, inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and thus a human right. On 28 July 2010 the United Nations General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking water and sanitation a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. This paper charts the international legal development of the right to water and its relevance to discussions surrounding the growth of unconventional energy and its heavy reliance on water. We consider key data from the country with arguably the most mature and extensive industry, the USA, and highlight the implications for water usage and water rights. We conclude that, given the weight of testimony of local people from our research, along with data from scientific literature, non-governmental organization (NGO) and other policy reports, that the right to water for residents living near fracking sites is likely to be severely curtailed. Even so, from the data presented here, we argue that the major issue regarding water use is the shifting of the resource from society to industry and the demonstrable lack of supply-side price signal that would demand that the industry reduce or stabilize its water demand per unit of energy produced. Thus, in the US context alone, there is considerable evidence that the human right to water will be seriously undermined by the growth of the unconventional oil and gas industry, and given its spread around the globe this could soon become a global human rights issue
DA white dwarfs from the LSS-GAC survey DR1: the preliminary luminosity and mass functions and formation rate
Modern large-scale surveys have allowed the identification of large numbers
of white dwarfs. However, these surveys are subject to complicated target
selection algorithms, which make it almost impossible to quantify to what
extent the observational biases affect the observed populations. The LAMOST
(Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope) Spectroscopic
Survey of the Galactic anti-center (LSS-GAC) follows a well-defined set of
criteria for selecting targets for observations. This advantage over previous
surveys has been fully exploited here to identify a small yet
well-characterised magnitude-limited sample of hydrogen-rich (DA) white dwarfs.
We derive preliminary LSS-GAC DA white dwarf luminosity and mass functions. The
space density and average formation rate of DA white dwarfs we derive are
0.83+/-0.16 x 10^{-3} pc^{-3} and 5.42 +/- 0.08 x 10^{-13} pc^{-3} yr^{-1},
respectively. Additionally, using an existing Monte Carlo population synthesis
code we simulate the population of single DA white dwarfs in the Galactic
anti-center, under various assumptions. The synthetic populations are passed
through the LSS-GAC selection criteria, taking into account all possible
observational biases. This allows us to perform a meaningful comparison of the
observed and simulated distributions. We find that the LSS-GAC set of criteria
is highly efficient in selecting white dwarfs for spectroscopic observations
(80-85 per cent) and that, overall, our simulations reproduce well the observed
luminosity function. However, they fail at reproducing an excess of massive
white dwarfs present in the observed mass function. A plausible explanation for
this is that a sizable fraction of massive white dwarfs in the Galaxy are the
product of white dwarf-white dwarf mergers.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures and 5 tables. Accepted for publication by MNRA
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Me, not you: the trouble with mainstream feminism
Phipps argues that the mainstream movement against sexual violence embodies a political whiteness which both reflects its demographics and limits its revolutionary potential
Thresholds of memory: Birch and Hawthorn in the poetry of Robert Burns
Robert Burnsâs status as a poet sufficiently close to rural poverty to be able to represent himself as its product, and sufficiently distant from it to be able to manipulate that product, is increasingly being realized. In this essay, Burnsâs use of the country lore associated with the birch and hawthorn trees in Scotland and indeed in Europe more generally, is analyzed in terms of its deceptively simple representation of emotion, and the manner in which it acts as a point of access for Burnsâs view of the tragic status of being human, caught between the cyclical natural world and our own narratives of being, which demand a linear time ending in a âforeverâ which on earth can only become loss
The Enlightenment: A Beginner's Guide
Blamed for the bloody disasters of the 20th century: Auschwitz, the Gulags, globalisation, Islamic terrorism; heralded as the harbinger of reason, equality, and the end of arbitrary rule, the Enlightenment has been nothing if not divisive. To this day historians disagree over when it was, where it was, and what it was (and sometimes, still is). Kieron OâHara deftly traverses these conflicts, presenting the history, politics, science, religion, arts, and social life of the Enlightenment not as a simple set of easily enumerated ideas, but an evolving conglomerate that spawned a very diverse set of thinkers, from the radical Rousseau to the conservative Burke
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May 1968, Sartre and Sarkozy
This article begins by analysing the impact of May â68 on Sartre. The article then attempts to show similarities and then differences between Sartre wanting to be a "new intellectual" and Sarkozy a "new type of politician," based on Sarkozyâs (in)famous speech given in Bercy in April 2007 prior to the second round of voting in the French Presidential elections when he launched into a most virulent attack on the spirit of May â68. Finally, I argue that Sarkozy wants to go back to the time of colonialism in the 1950s and 1960s, reclaiming in the process de Gaulleâs heritage
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