Niche Publications and Subcultural Authenticity: The case of Stealth Magazine

Authenticity is often constructed as an absolute subcultural value. Within the field of subcultural studies, a relatively small amount of literature exists regarding the relationship between different forms of media and subcultural notions of authenticity. Even less literature examines the relationship that individual media texts foster with subcultural niche markets or the internal techniques such publications utilise to discuss authenticity. This thesis aims to address these gaps by performing an in-depth analysis of a Sydney-based hip hop publication, Stealth magazine. The analysis explores how subcultural authenticity is constructed within this publication. In doing so, the nature of authenticity is called into question

Niche Publications and Subcultural Authenticity: The case of Stealth Magazine

Authenticity is often constructed as an absolute subcultural value. Within the field of subcultural studies, a relatively small amount of literature exists regarding the relationship between different forms of media and subcultural notions of authenticity. Even less literature examines the relationship that individual media texts foster with subcultural niche markets or the internal techniques such publications utilise to discuss authenticity. This thesis aims to address these gaps by performing an in-depth analysis of a Sydney-based hip hop publication, Stealth magazine. The analysis explores how subcultural authenticity is constructed within this publication. In doing so, the nature of authenticity is called into question

The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery

Fascination with Failure Lost wars inform collective memory Why is defeat often more interesting than victory? Why is tragedy sometimes more compelling to the historical imagination than success by arms or economic prowess? Why or how does failed heroism, when fashioned into th...

Understanding Australia’s Human Rights Obligations in Relation to Transsexuals: Privacy and Marriage in the Australian Context

This article examines recent European jurisprudence on the rights of transsexuals to privacy and marriage. The authors argue that Australia’ s obligations under the ICCPR should be understood in light of this jurisprudence. On this basis, Australia is obliged to ensure that its authorities: (a) legally recognise the changed gender of post-operative transsexuals; and (b) permit the marriage of post-operative trans- sexuals to persons of the opposite gender to their re-assigned gender. The authors note the continuing uncertainty around the extension of these rights to transsexuals who have not had ‘surgery’ but argue in favour of extending ICCPR rights in this way. The authors also consider the legal situation regarding privacy and marriage for transsexuals in Australia. Like the international jurisprudence, Australian laws have not dealt with the situation of transsexuals who have not had surgery. The authors argue that legal distinctions based on the surgical model are more about providing certainty than they are about ensuring the rights and dignity of the people affected. Given Australia’s human rights obligations, it would be more appropriate for consideration to be given to the full range of social and cultural factors that affect whether a person is considered to be a man or a woman

The First Home Buyer Grant and house prices in Australia

Australia’s First Home Buyer Grants (FHBG) was designed to assist first home buyers into the market through a range of measures, grants and assistance packages. From the year 2000 there has been a strong increase in house price resulting in house prices nearly doubling between 2000 and 2008, well above the CPI or normal investment growth rate. This paper sets out that the FHBG was a main driver of these increases and attempts to measure by how much. We have considered if the FHBG is a direct driver of increasing median house prices and an indirect driver through increased borrowing ability. Due to the combination of the FHBG, the ability to borrow more, and an inelastic supply, we have concluded that the FHBG did increase the median price of houses in Australian by approximately $57,321

Intrinsic and extrinsic factors drive ontogeny of early-life at-sea behaviour in a marine top predator

Young animals must learn to forage effectively to survive the transition from parental provisioning to independent feeding. Rapid development of successful foraging strategies is particularly important for capital breeders that do not receive parental guidance after weaning. The intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of variation in ontogeny of foraging are poorly understood for many species. Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) are typical capital breeders; pups are abandoned on the natal site after a brief suckling phase, and must develop foraging skills without external input. We collected location and dive data from recently-weaned grey seal pups from two regions of the United Kingdom (the North Sea and the Celtic and Irish Seas) using animal-borne telemetry devices during their first months of independence at sea. Dive duration, depth, bottom time, and benthic diving increased over the first 40 days. The shape and magnitude of changes differed between regions. Females consistently had longer bottom times, and in the Celtic and Irish Seas they used shallower water than males. Regional sex differences suggest that extrinsic factors, such as water depth, contribute to behavioural sexual segregation. We recommend that conservation strategies consider movements of young naïve animals in addition to those of adults to account for developmental behavioural changes

Prevalence of Local Immune Response against Oral Infection in a Drosophila/Pseudomonas Infection Model

Pathogens have developed multiple strategies that allow them to exploit host resources and resist the immune response. To study how Drosophila flies deal with infectious diseases in a natural context, we investigated the interactions between Drosophila and a newly identified entomopathogen, Pseudomonas entomophila. Flies orally infected with P. entomophila rapidly succumb despite the induction of both local and systemic immune responses, indicating that this bacterium has developed specific strategies to escape the fly immune response. Using a combined genetic approach on both host and pathogen, we showed that P. entomophila virulence is multi-factorial with a clear differentiation between factors that trigger the immune response and those that promote pathogenicity. We demonstrate that AprA, an abundant secreted metalloprotease produced by P. entomophila, is an important virulence factor. Inactivation of aprA attenuated both the capacity to persist in the host and pathogenicity. Interestingly, aprA mutants were able to survive to wild-type levels in immune-deficient Relish flies, indicating that the protease plays an important role in protection against the Drosophila immune response. Our study also reveals that the major contribution to the fly defense against P. entomophila is provided by the local, rather than the systemic immune response. More precisely, our data points to an important role for the antimicrobial peptide Diptericin against orally infectious Gram-negative bacteria, emphasizing the critical role of local antimicrobial peptide expression against food-borne pathogens

Multidecadal changes in coastal benthic species composition and ecosystem functioning occur independently of temperature-driven community shifts

Funding: The authors sincerely appreciate the support and contributions of two European Horizon Projects: ‘Ecological Tipping Cascades in the Arctic Seas’ (ECOTIP), Grant No 869383 and ‘Advancing understanding of Cumulative Impacts on European marine biodiversity, ecosystem functions and services for human wellbeing’ (ACTNOW), Grant No 101060072.Rising global temperatures are often identified as the key driver impacting ecosystems and the services they provide by affecting biodiversity structure and function. A disproportionate amount of our understanding of biodiversity and function is from short-term experimental studies and static values of biodiversity indices, lacking the ability to monitor long-term trends and capture community dynamics. Here, we analyse a biennial dataset spanning 32 years of macroinvertebrate benthic communities and their functional response to increasing temperatures. We monitored changes in species' thermal affinities to examine warming-related shifts by selecting their mid-point global temperature distribution range and linking them to species' traits. We employed a novel weighted metric using Biological Trait Analysis (BTA) to gain better insights into the ecological potential of each species by incorporating species abundance and body size and selecting a subset of traits that represent five ecosystem functions: bioturbation activity, sediment stability, nutrient recycling and higher and lower trophic production. Using biodiversity indices (richness, Simpson's diversity and vulnerability) and functional indices (richness, Rao's Q and redundancy), the community structure showed no significant change over time with a narrow range of variation. However, we show shifts in species composition with warming and increases in the abundance of individuals, which altered ecosystem functioning positively and/or non-linearly. Yet, when higher taxonomic groupings than species were excluded from the analysis, there was only a weak increase in the measured change in community-weighted average thermal affinities, suggesting changes in ecosystem functions over time occur independently of temperature increase-related shifts in community composition. Other environmental factors driving species composition and abundance may be more important in these subtidal macrobenthic communities. This challenges the prevailing emphasis on temperature as the primary driver of ecological response to climate change and emphasises the necessity for a comprehensive understanding of the temporal dynamics of complex systems.Peer reviewe