Critical Ultrasonics Near the Superfluid Transition : Finite Size Effects

The suppression of order parameter fluctuations at the boundaries causes the ultrasonic attenuation near the superfluid transition to be lowered below the bulk value. We calculate explicitly the first deviation from the bulk value for temperatures above the lambda point. This deviation is significantly larger than for static quantities like the thermodynamic specific heat or other transport properties like the thermal conductivity. This makes ultrasonics a very effective probe for finite size effects.Comment: 10 pages (LaTeX), 1 figure (PostScript

Using XML and XSLT for flexible elicitation of mental-health risk knowledge

Current tools for assessing risks associated with mental-health problems require assessors to make high-level judgements based on clinical experience. This paper describes how new technologies can enhance qualitative research methods to identify lower-level cues underlying these judgements, which can be collected by people without a specialist mental-health background. Methods and evolving results: Content analysis of interviews with 46 multidisciplinary mental-health experts exposed the cues and their interrelationships, which were represented by a mind map using software that stores maps as XML. All 46 mind maps were integrated into a single XML knowledge structure and analysed by a Lisp program to generate quantitative information about the numbers of experts associated with each part of it. The knowledge was refined by the experts, using software developed in Flash to record their collective views within the XML itself. These views specified how the XML should be transformed by XSLT, a technology for rendering XML, which resulted in a validated hierarchical knowledge structure associating patient cues with risks. Conclusions: Changing knowledge elicitation requirements were accommodated by flexible transformations of XML data using XSLT, which also facilitated generation of multiple data-gathering tools suiting different assessment circumstances and levels of mental-health knowledge

Baddies in the classroom: media education and narrative writing

When teachers allow pupils to write stories that include elements of popular media, we must ask what to do with media once it has entered the classroom. This article relates findings from a classroom study which focuses on children’s media-based story writing. The study looks at children as producers of new media texts and describes their activities as a form of ‘media education’. The research shows that through their production of media-based stories, children are reflecting on their consumption of media. Furthermore, children’s media-based stories make explicit some of their implicit knowledge of new media forms. Finally, children’s stories provide ample opportunities for teachers to engage in important discussions about media within the framework of existing writing programmes

“I'm from Europe, but I'm not European”: Television and children's identities in England and Bulgaria

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Children and Media on 5/11/2012 available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17482798.2012.740416This article examines the role television (TV) plays in the development of primary school children's European knowledge and identities in England and Bulgaria. It compares the media coverage on Europe and the European Union with pupils' European perceptions and identities. The article reports data from 174 qualitative interviews with children and the content analysis of seven TV programmes. It concludes that TV plays a strong role in collective identities when a topic is salient on the agenda. TV raises awareness and knowledge and sets the direction of understanding. Yet, despite the higher salience of Europe on the Bulgarian media agenda, Bulgarians feel less European than English children. The article provides an explanation to this phenomenon, thus filling an important gap in the literature about the media's role in collective identities formation from an early age. It also adopts an innovative approach in the study of agenda-setting theory by investigating its application among children

Quantum Vacuum Contribution to the Momentum of the Dielectric Media

Momentum transfer between matter and electromagnetic field is analyzed. The related equations of motion and conservation laws are derived using relativistic formalism. Their correspondence to various, at first sight self-contradicting, experimental data (the so called Abraham-Minkowski controversy) is demonstrated. A new, Casimir like, quantum phenomenon is predicted: contribution of vacuum fluctuations to the motion of dielectric liquids in crossed electric and magnetic fields. Velocities about $50nm/s$ can be expected due to the contribution of high frequency vacuum modes

What do people do with porn? qualitative research into the consumption, use and experience of pornography and other sexually explicit media

This article reviews qualitative research into the consumption of pornography and other sexually explicit media emerging from a range of subject areas. Taking a critique of quantitative methods and a focus on measuring sexual effects and attitudes as a starting point, it considers the proposition that qualitative work is more suited to an examination of the complex social, cultural and political constructions of sexuality. Examining studies into the way men, women and young people see, experience, and use explicit media texts, the article identifies the key findings that have emerged. Qualitative work shows that sexuality explicit media texts are experienced and understood in a variety of ways and evoke strong and often contradictory reactions, not all of which are represented in public debates about pornography. These texts function in a range of different ways, depending on context; as a source of knowledge, a resource for intimate practices, a site for identity construction, and an occasion for performing gender and sexuality. The article reviews these studies and their findings, identifying what they suggest about directions for future research, both in terms of developing methodology and refining approaches to sexuality and media consumption.</p

Pleasure and pedagogy: the consumption of DVD add-ons among Irish teenagers

This article addresses the issue of young people and media use in the digital age, more specifically the interconnection between new media pleasures and pedagogy as they relate to the consumption of DVD add-ons. Arguing against the view of new media as having predominantly detrimental effects on young people, the authors claim that new media can enable young people to develop media literacy skills and are of the view that media literacy strategies must be based on an understanding and legitimating of young people's use patterns and pleasures. The discussion is based on a pilot research project on the use patterns and pleasures of use with a sample of Irish teenagers. They found that DVDs were used predominantly in the home context, and that, while there was variability in use between the groups, overall they developed critical literacy skills and competences which were interwoven into their social life and projects of identity construction. The authors suggest that these findings could be used to develop DVDs and their add-on features as a learning resource in the more formal educational setting and they go on to outline the potential teaching benefits of their use across a range of pedagogical areas

The structure of fluid trifluoromethane and methylfluoride

We present hard X-ray and neutron diffraction measurements on the polar fluorocarbons HCF3 and H3CF under supercritical conditions and for a range of molecular densities spanning about a factor of ten. The Levesque-Weiss-Reatto inversion scheme has been used to deduce the site-site potentials underlying the measured partial pair distribution functions. The orientational correlations between adjacent fluorocarbon molecules -- which are characterized by quite large dipole moments but no tendency to form hydrogen bonds -- are small compared to a highly polar system like fluid hydrogen chloride. In fact, the orientational correlations in HCF3 and H3CF are found to be nearly as small as those of fluid CF4, a fluorocarbon with no dipole moment.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure