Untangling Gender Divides Through Girly and Gendered Visual Culture

The rise of girly culture has brought new dimensions and challenges to art education. As art educators, we are concerned about what we can do to meaningfully understand and educate children—girls and boys—growing up with girly culture. To this end, this paper presents our exploratory study, utilizing the methods of literature review, focus group discussion, and classroom observation, and findings on the following: (1) discourses of girly (visual) culture specifically related to age metaphor, visual representations of sexuality, and girly aesthetics; (2) postfeminist conceptualizations, critiques, and justifications of gender divides manifested through girly visual culture; (3) preadolescent children’s perceptions of gendered visual culture and gender divides; and (4) gendered visual culture projects and pedagogical strategies for fostering gender-inclusive, playful, and empowering learning

History on Mona Island Long-term Human and Landscape Dynamics of an 'Uninhabited' Island

The history of Mona Island and her transitory and permanent communities provides an interesting perspective on the role this small island has played over the long-term in spheres of maritime interaction in the Caribbean and further afield. In particular, we examine the role that the extraordinary cave systems have played in attracting people to the island and into the subterranean realm within. Through a recent study of the extant historical sources and archaeological evidence for past human activity on the island, we trace this historical landscape and seascape in order to review the importance of Mona in wider regional dynamics through time.Fieldwork was made possible by support from the British Academy, the British Museum Research Council, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research DM McDonald Grants and Awards Fund, the British Cave Research Association CSTRI grant, Mr Herb Allen III and Monica de la Torre, Mr Daniel Shelley, the Center for Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Lastly, we wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for improving the manuscript. Any errors remain our own.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Brill via http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134360-0890105

Does the Oxygen Content of Tolkien’s Middle Earth Allow for Greater Endurance?

The Lord of The Rings is a quintessential fantasy trilogy in which human men perform many seemingly unachievable feats of heroism and athleticism. One such example would be Aragorn’s tireless defence of Helms Deep for an entire night. This paper investigates whether it is a feasible hypothesis to suggest that Middle Earth must have a higher oxygen content in order for the men of Rohan and Gondor to perform such physical tasks. Through using the gas exchange equation, estimating a 10% increase in atmospheric O2 concentration in Middle Earth when compared to Earth and using Aragorn as a test subject, this hypothesis could be true

Is a ‘Cast Iron Stomach’ Really That Strong?

The term ‘cast iron stomach’ is reserved for people who never seem to succumb to the ill effects of bad food or drink. This paper assesses the credibility of having a cast iron stomach with respect to corrosion caused by gastric juices leading to potentially fatal symptoms. This point was taken to be when the cast iron stomach retained only 63% of its original mass whereby it is reasoned the stomach would rupture and likely lead to gastric juices leaking into the peritoneum. Through modelling the stomach to be a hollow sphere of stainless steel the time taken for corrosion to lead to gastric juices was found to be 34 days on average

Could Frodo Have Survived Moria?

In the film ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’, Frodo the hobbit manages to survive a cave-troll spear attack in the mines of Moria, however in the books this stab is delivered by a goblin-chieftain. Frodo is relatively unharmed due to wearing an impenetrable Mithril shirt of chain mail. This paper discusses whether it would be possible for Frodo to survive such an impact force from either the cave-troll or the goblin-chieftain without fracturing his sternum, irrespective of the finely wrought chain mail and therefore still be able to flee further from a Balrog shortly after. The conclusion of the model used is that Frodo may have been unharmed by the goblin-chieftain attack but the cave-troll attack would impart a force of 64,300 N to Frodo’s chest and irrespective of dissipation of the force across his chest; this impact force is great enough to result in sternal fracture, a debilitating injury which would have made escape impossible.

“You don’t immediately stick a label on them”: a qualitative study of influences on general practitioners’ recording of anxiety disorders

Objectives: Anxiety is a common condition usually managed in general practice (GP) in the UK. GP patient records can be used for epidemiological studies of anxiety as well as clinical audit and service planning. However it is not clear how General Practitioners (GPs) conceptualise, diagnose and document anxiety in these records. We sought to understand these factors through an interview study with GPs. Setting: United Kingdom (UK) NHS General Practice (England and Wales) Participants: 17 UK GPs Primary and Secondary Outcome Measures: Semi-structured interviews used vignettes to explore the process of diagnosing anxiety in primary care and investigate influences on recording. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Results: GPs chose 12 different codes for recording anxiety in the two vignettes, and reported that history, symptoms and management would be recorded in free text. GPs reported on four themes representing influences on recording of anxiety: “anxiety or a normal response”, “granularity of diagnosis”, “giving patients a label”, and “time as a tool”; and three themes about recording in general: “justifying the choice of code”, “usefulness of coding” and “practice specific pressures”. GPs reported using only a regular selection of codes in patient records to help standardise records within the practice and as a time saving measure. Conclusions: We have identified a coding culture where GPs feel confident recognising anxiety symptoms, however due to clinical uncertainty, a long term perspective and a focus on management they are reluctant to code firm diagnoses in the initial stages. Researchers using GP patient records should be aware that GPs may prefer free text, symptom codes and other general codes rather than firm diagnostic codes for anxiety

The Grounded Model of Communication Savoring: Theory Development and Age Cohort Study

Savoring contributes to human flourishing by enabling individuals to optimize, enhance, and prolong pleasurable moments. One unique dimension of savoring, communication savoring, refers to the practice of mindfully attending to and elevating pleasurable or meaningful moments that are experienced in language and social interaction. The grounded model of communication savoring identified the types and phenomenological experiences of communication savoring. The purpose of this study is to continue grounded theoretical development of the communication savoring model by adding new cases to build and refine the model and by applying the model to a novel setting. Using a priori and emergent coding, we analyzed 268 communication savoring narratives from 107 emerging adults and 161 mature/older adults. Our findings demonstrate high fidelity across groups and suggest a refinement to one communication savoring type (i.e., extraordinary communication). Our novel application of the model also revealed generational similarities within the contexts for communication savoring (e.g., people and events) and generational differences regarding the valence (i.e., savoring the bittersweet) and target of communication savoring (i.e., giving vs. receiving). Our paper advances qualitative theory-building in positive social science and offers new insight into age differences in communication savoring

Morphologies of Galaxies in and around a Protocluster at z=2.300

We present results from the first robust investigation of galaxy morphology as a function of environment at z>1.5. Our study is motivated by the fact that star-forming galaxies contained within a protocluster at z=2.3 in the HS1700+64 field have significantly older ages and larger stellar masses on average than those at similar redshifts but more typical environmental densities. In the analysis of HST/ACS images, we apply non-parametric statistics to characterize the rest-frame UV morphologies of a sample of 85 UV-selected star-forming galaxies at z=1.7-2.9, 22 of which are contained in the protocluster. The remaining 63 control-sample galaxies are not in the protocluster but have a similar mean redshift of ~2.3. We find no environmental dependence for the distributions of morphological properties. Combining the measured morphologies with the results of population synthesis modeling, we find only weak correlations, if any, between morphological and stellar population properties such as stellar mass, age, extinction and star-formation rate. Given the incomplete census of the protocluster galaxy population, and the lack of correlation between rest-frame UV morphology and star-formation history at z~2 within our sample, the absence of environmental trends in the distribution of morphological properties is not surprising. Additionally, using a larger sample of photometric candidates, we compare morphological distributions for 282 UV-selected and 43 near-IR-selected galaxies. While the difference in the degree of nebulosity between the two samples appears to be a byproduct of the fainter average rest-frame UV surface brightness of the near-IR-selected galaxies, we find that, among the lowest surface brightness galaxies, the near-IR-selected objects have significantly smaller angular sizes (abridged).Comment: 25 pages including 16 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Version with full resolution figures available at http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~apeter/LBG/papers/peter2007_fullres.ps.g

Integrating mental health into primary health care in Zambia: a care provider's perspective

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite the 1991 reforms of the health system in Zambia, mental health is still given low priority. This is evident from the fragmented manner in which mental health services are provided in the country and the limited budget allocations, with mental health services receiving 0.4% of the total health budget. Most of the mental health services provided are curative in nature and based in tertiary health institutions. At primary health care level, there is either absence of, or fragmented health services.</p> <p>Aims</p> <p>The aim of this paper was to explore health providers' views about mental health integration into primary health care.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A mixed methods, structured survey was conducted of 111 health service providers in primary health care centres, drawn from one urban setting (Lusaka) and one rural setting (Mumbwa).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There is strong support for integrating mental health into primary health care from care providers, as a way of facilitating early detection and intervention for mental health problems. Participants believed that this would contribute to the reduction of stigma and the promotion of human rights for people with mental health problems. However, health providers felt they require basic training in order to enhance their knowledge and skills in providing health care to people with mental health problems.</p> <p>Recommendations</p> <p>It is recommended that health care providers should be provided with basic training in mental health in order to enhance their knowledge and skills to enable them provide mental health care to patients seeking help at primary health care level.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Integrating mental health services into primary health care is critical to improving and promoting the mental health of the population in Zambia.</p