‘They Called Them Communists Then … What D'You Call ‘Em Now? … Insurgents?’. Narratives of British Military Expatriates in the Context of the New Imperialism

This paper addresses the question of the extent to which the colonial past provides material for contemporary actors' understanding of difference. The research from which the paper is drawn involved interview and ethnographic work in three largely white working-class estates in an English provincial city. For this paper we focus on ten life-history interviews with older participants who had spent some time abroad in the British military. Our analysis adopts a postcolonial framework because research participants' current constructions of an amorphous 'Other' (labelled variously as black people, immigrants, foreigners, asylum-seekers or Muslims) reveal strong continuities with discourses deployed by the same individuals to narrate their past experiences of living and working as either military expatriates or spouses during British colonial rule. Theoretically, the paper engages with the work of Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. In keeping with a postcolonial approach, we work against essentialised notions of identity based on 'race' or class. Although we establish continuity between white working-class military emigration in the past and contemporary racialised discourses, we argue that the latter are not class-specific, being as much the creations of the middle-class media and political elite

Tissue culture of ornamental cacti

Cacti species are plants that are well adapted to growing in arid and semiarid regions where the main problem is water availability. Cacti have developed a series of adaptations to cope with water scarcity, such as reduced leaf surface via morphological modifications including spines, cereous cuticles, extended root systems and stem tissue modifications to increase water storage, and crassulacean acid metabolism to reduce transpiration and water loss. Furthermore, seeds of these plants very often exhibit dormancy, a phenomenon that helps to prevent germination when the availability of water is reduced. In general, cactus species exhibit a low growth rate that makes their rapid propagation difficult. Cacti are much appreciated as ornamental plants due to their great variety and diversity of forms and their beautiful short-life flowers; however, due to difficulties in propagating them rapidly to meet market demand, they are very often over-collected in their natural habitats, which leads to numerous species being threatened, endangered or becoming extinct. Therefore, plant tissue culture techniques may facilitate their propagation over a shorter time period than conventional techniques used for commercial purposes; or may help to recover populations of endangered or threatened species for their re-introduction in the wild; or may also be of value to the preservation and conservation of the genetic resources of this important family. Herein we present the state-of-the-art of tissue culture techniques used for ornamental cacti and selected suggestions for solving a number of the problems faced by members of the Cactaceae family

Drinking to ease the burden: a cross-sectional study on trauma, alcohol abuse and psychopathology in a post-conflict context

Ertl V, Saile R, Neuner F, Catani C. Drinking to ease the burden: a cross-sectional study on trauma, alcohol abuse and psychopathology in a post-conflict context. BMC Psychiatry. 2016;16(1): 202.Background It is likely that alcohol use and abuse increase during and after violent conflicts. The most prominent explanation of this phenomenon has been referred to as self-medication hypothesis. It predicts that psychotropic substances are consumed to deal with conflict-related psychic strains and trauma. In northern Uganda, a region that has been affected by a devastating civil war and is characterized by high levels of alcohol abuse we examined the associations between war-trauma, childhood maltreatment and problems related to alcohol use. Deducing from the self-medication hypothesis we assumed alcohol consumption moderates the relationship between trauma-exposure and psychopathology. Methods A cross-sectional epidemiological survey targeting war-affected families in post-conflict northern Uganda included data of male (n = 304) and female (n = 365) guardians. We used standardized questionnaires in an interview format to collect data on the guardians’ socio-demography, trauma-exposure, alcohol consumption and symptoms of alcohol abuse, PTSD and depression. Results Symptoms of current alcohol use disorders were present in 46 % of the male and 1 % of the female respondents. A multiple regression model revealed the unique contributions of emotional abuse in the families of origin and trauma experienced outside the family-context in the prediction of men’s alcohol-related symptoms. We found that alcohol consumption moderated the dose-effect relationship between trauma-exposure and symptoms of depression and PTSD. Significant interactions indicated that men who reported more alcohol-related problems experienced less increase in symptoms of PTSD and depression with increasing trauma-exposure. Conclusions The gradual attenuation of the dose-effect the more alcohol-related problems were reported is consistent with the self-medication hypothesis. Hence, the functionality of alcohol consumption has to be considered when designing and implementing addiction treatment in post-conflict contexts

From sustainable to systemic development: an inquiry into transformations in discourse and praxis

This paper, through a systemic inquiry, explores the context of, and makes the case for systemic development rather than sustainable development. Systemic development is a form of praxis and thus a process rather than an end state. The move from sustainable to systemic development contains conceptual and practical transformations involving discourse (based on changes in understanding) and praxis. In our systemic inquiry we start by analyzing some of the contributions from the 2006 ANZSYS conference that elucidate constraints and possibilities for the transformation we seek. As part of this overall transformation, issues of building institutional and relational capital have to be addressed. We present three vignettes based on our own praxis to elucidate what might be done under the rubric of systemic development, and to highlight the sorts of capacities that need to be built

Aquifer monitoring and community engagement in groundwater management for water security in northern Sri Lanka

A paper presented on 16 December 2022 during a Technical Session relating to the sub-theme 'Water Management, Cooperation and Partnership'. Groundwater (GW) in monsoonal rain-dependent Northern Sri Lanka is stressed. Seasonal shortage and saline intrusion are serious issues in seven islands off Jaffna. Aquifer monitoring with well owners involved was done in Karainagar Island. Deteriorating water quality in recent times led to drinking water being transported from the mainland. Thirty-six multi-purpose wells were sampled weekly during wet and monthly during dry seasons. Results from the water year November 2020 to October 2021 are presented. Water levels (WL), Electrical Conductivity (EC), and pH were measured. Water from most wells was then unsuitable for consumption. pH value of all wells was within the recommended range (6.5-8.5). Few wells were significant outliers. Several owners were competent in aquifer monitoring, aware of the vulnerability of water supply, the importance of rainwater infiltration and the need to stop deepening wells, a rising trend in the mainland. New knowledge of local water dynamics, citizen engagement, and involvement of government agencies would enhance the community's quality of life, lowering the possibility of further out-migration of people

A heuristic for scheduling two-machine no-wait flow shops with anticipatory setups

We consider a problem of scheduling jobs in two-machine no-wait flow shops for which the objective is to minimize the makespan. Each job, upon completion of its processing on the first machine, must be transferred immediately to the second machine due to a no-wait in process constraint. Every job requires a setup time on each machine before it is processed. The setup on the second machine is anticipatory, since it can be performed in advance of an arriving job, and consists of two parts. During the first part of the setup, the job should not be present in the machine, while the second part of setup can be done in the presence or absence of the job. A heuristic algorithm is proposed, and its worst-case performance ratio of 4/3 is established