High altitude climbers as ethnomethodologists making sense of cognitive dissonance: ethnographic insights from an attempt to scale Mt Everest

This ethnographic study examined how a group of high altitude climbers (N = 6)drew on ethnomethodological principles (the documentary method of interpretation, reflexivity, indexicality, and membership) to interpret their experiences of cognitive dissonance during an attempt to scale Mt. Everest. Data were collected via participant observation, interviews, and a field diary. Each data source was subjected to a content mode of analysis. Results revealed how cognitive dissonance reduction is accomplished from within the interaction between a pattern of self-justification and self-inconsistencies; how the reflexive nature of cognitive dissonance is experienced; how specific features of the setting are inextricably linked to the cognitive dissonance experience; and how climbers draw upon a shared stock of knowledge in their experiences with cognitive dissonance

On Schwarzschild's Topology in Brane-Worlds

The topological structure of Schwarzschild's space-time and its maximal analytic extension are investigated in context of brane-worlds. Using the embedding coordinates, these geometries are seen as different states of the evolution of a single brane-world. Comparing the topologies and the embeddings it is shown that this evolution must be followed by a signature change in the bulk.Comment: 6 page

Analysis of the relationship between quality and price of yam in Ghana - second round (NRI report no. 2428)

In 1997, NRI staff and officers from the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture conducted two quantitative surveys of yam trading in Techiman market. The aim was to establish the importance of financial losses caused by poor yam quality and to measure the relationships between price and a series of quality defect variables. This report summarises the analysis of data gathered during the second survey. Data was analysed using multiple regression. Of the nine quality variables measured in the market, only "rotting" could be proved to have a significant influence on price. This result should not be interpreted to mean that other quality variables do not have an impact on price, merely that there was insufficient variation in quality for the statistical techniques to prove the existence of other price quality relationships. Moreover, at the time of the survey, these findings suggest that the financial losses caused by quality defects were slight. The report concludes with suggestions for improving the data gathering methodology for future surveys. In particular, it recommends extensive qualitative surveys to establish the incidence of quality defect related financial losses throughout the year. If these surveys indicate high financial losses, the research should attempt to establish the quantitative nature of price quality relationships using biased sampling techniques

Integrating multiple representations: fighting asthma

This paper seeks to engage debates about integrating pluralisms regarding multiple forms/representations and how they might function smoothly if they are closely aligned. This paper offers, narrative poetry with an artistic impression aimed at seeing how these might interact with each other. Like poetry, visual images are unique and can evoke particular kinds of emotional and visceral responses. By offering narrative poetry together with an artistic representation it is not meant to de-value the importance of either, but it is aimed at seeing how these arts-based methods and creative analytical practices might unite as a narrative to offer knew ways of ‘knowing’ and ‘seeing

Everyday envisionings: running pleasures and pains

The precise ways in which we go about doing the mundane, often repetitive, actions of everyday life are central concerns of ethnographers and theorists working within the traditions of the sociology of the mundane, sociological phenomenology and ethnomethodology. In this article, we utilize insights derived from Schützian phenomenology and its operationalization via ethnomethodology to provide a novel perspective on a particular, mundane and embodied social practice: training for distance running - in specific places: our favoured running routes. Despite a growing corpus of ethnographic studies of sports and physical cultures, relatively scant analytic attention has been devoted to investigating the actual, mundane, everyday practices of “doing” or “producing” physical cultural activity, particularly from a sensory auto/ethnographic perspective (Allen-Collinson & Hockey, 2009; Sparkes, 2009). Here we seek to “mark” (Brekhus, 1998) the everyday activity of training for distance running, in particular analysing how terrain is habitually seen, evaluated and experienced on the run

Distance running as joint accomplishment: an ethnomethodological perspective

Whilst there exists a substantial literature focused upon abstract theorizations of sport, at present there is little ethnographic work within the sociology of sport on the mundane practices of actually ‘doing’ sport. In sum, the phenomenological ground of ‘how’ sport is accomplished remains largely uncharted territory for researchers (Allen-Collinson 2009, Haldrup & Larsen 2006, Hockey & Allen Collinson 2007, Sparkes 2009). This lacuna applies both to the phenomenology of the lived sporting body and to the embodied interaction that occurs between participants as they do sport. In order to address this lacuna, this presentation offers an in-depth analysis of how training together for the sport of distance running constitutes a joint accomplishment by us as distance runners. Here we focus specifically upon the sensory and interactional work, which, for us, are essential components in the experience of ‘doing’ running. The theoretical foundation of the presentation lies in the social phenomenology of Alfred Schütz (1967), which focused upon how individuals sustain routine social life using a ‘stock of knowledge at hand’, in particular the mundane use of typfications, the common sense constructs that individuals use to order their social world on a moment to moment basis. In applying Schützian insights to the study of members’ methods for producing and reproducing everyday social order, Harold Garfinkel (1967) developed ethnomethodology, the study of members’ methods, their mundane practices for managing the social world. Adopting an ethnomethodological stance, our presentation portrays ‘how’ joint distance running training sessions are habitually accomplished

Prolonging disuse in aged mice amplifies cortical but not trabecular bones’ response to mechanical loading

Objective: Short-term neurectomy-induced disuse (SN) has been shown to restore load responses in aged mice. We examined whether this restoration was further enhanced in both cortical and trabecular bone by simply extending the SN. Methods: Following load: strain calibration, tibiae in female C57BL/J6 mice at 8, 14 and 20 weeks and 18 months (n=8/group) were loaded and bone changes measured. Effects of long-term SN examined in twenty-six 18 months-old mice, neurectomised for 5 or 100 days with/without subsequent loading. Cortical and trabecular responses were measured histomorphometrically or by micro-computed tomography. Results: Loading increased new cortical bone formation, elevating cross-sectional area in 8, 14 and 20 week-old (p <0.05), but not 18 month-old aged mice. Histomorphometry showed that short-term SN reinstated load-responses in aged mice, with significant 33% and 117% increases in bone accrual at 47% and 37%, but not 27% of tibia length. Cortical responses to loading was heightened and widespread, now evident at all locations, following prolonged SN (108, 167 and 98% at 47, 37 and 27% of tibial length, respectively). In contrast, loading failed to modify trabecular bone mass or architecture. Conclusions: Mechanoadaptation become deficient with ageing and prolonging disuse amplifies this response in cortical but not trabecular bone