“On me bed, son”: The (re)presentation of (emphasised) femininity in English ‘tabloid’ newspaper coverage of Euro 2016

This study explores the gendered narratives constructed in the coverage of the 2016 UEFA European Championship football tournament in selected English newspapers. Using qualitative textual analysis, the study tests the efficacy of three established classifications and draws them together with a new, fourth classification thereby creating a typology of the (re)presentations of emphasised femininity. The analysis suggests that despite the increasing prevalence of female sports journalists and the increasing coverage of female athletes in a variety of sports, including football, the reporting of men’s football in the English popular Press continues to cast women in subordinate and sexualised roles. Furthermore, women who challenge these roles, particularly those who establish their own voice within the event’s discursive space, are criticised

“The other side of the net”: (Re)presentations of (emphasised) femininity during Wimbledon 2016

This article examines how the British popular Press articulated notions of femininity during the 2016 Wimbledon Championships. Copies of the Daily Mail and The Sun and their sister Sunday papers were collected during the tournament and subsequently analysed using textual analysis (McKee, 2001) and drawing on Connell’s neo-Gramscian concept of gender power relations (1987, 2000b, 2002) for theoretical insight. The analysis suggests that although the women’s and men’s competitions were held concurrently and female tennis players gained a greater share of the overall cover-age (when compared to their male counterparts) than female athletes in other sports, long-standing gendered discursive strategies were still evidenced within the reportage of the tournament. In paricular, the media image of white female players, and the white partners of male players was constructed in accordance with traditional subordinate, passive and sexualised roles. At the same time black female tennis players were cast in the role of ‘other’ through their representation as extra-ordinary ‘superwomen’

Flow duration curves from surface reflectance in the near infrared band

Flow duration curve (FDC) is a cumulative frequency curve that shows the percent of time a specific discharge has been equaled or exceeded during a particular period of time at a given river location, providing a comprehensive description of the hydrological regime of a catchment. Thus, relying on historical streamflow records, FDCs are typically constrained to gauged and updated ground stations. Earth Observations can support our monitoring capability and be considered as a valuable and additional source for the observation of the Earth’s physical parameters. Here, we investigated the potential of the surface reflectance in the Near Infrared (NIR) band of the MODIS 500 m and eight-day product, in providing reliable FDCs along the Mississippi River. Results highlight the capability of NIR bands to estimate the FDCs, enabling a realistic reconstruction of the flow regimes at different locations. Apart from a few exceptions, the relative Root Mean Square Error, rRMSE, of the discharge value in validation period ranges from 27–58% with higher error experienced for extremely high flows (low duration), mainly due to the limit of the sensor to penetrate the clouds during the flood events. Due to the spatial resolution of the satellite product higher errors are found at the stations where the river is narrow. In general, good performances are obtained for medium flows, encouraging the use of the satellite for the water resources management at ungauged river sites

Flood Detection and Monitoring with EO Data Tools and Systems

A timely identification and monitoring of flood events by means of Earth Observation (EO) data is, nowadays, increasingly feasible thanks to recent advances achieved in remote sensing and hydrological process simulations. Despite the notable progress in these fields, a considerable effort will still be required to reduce the intrinsic inaccuracies of these types of approaches. The coarse spatial and temporal resolution of satellite measurements (compared to the one that characterizes in-situ instruments), in fact, continues to require a local-scale validation. Taking into account pros and cons of the approaches based on remotely-sensed data, this chapter reviews some of the most relevant open-access techniques, products, and services that research and academic institutes are currently providing for the detection and the near real-time monitoring of extreme hydrometeorological events

Unraveling Long-Term Flood Risk Dynamics Across the Murray-Darling Basin Using a Large-Scale Hydraulic Model and Satellite Data

River floods are one of the most devastating extreme hydrological events, with oftentimes remarkably negative effects for human society and the environment. Economic losses and social consequences, in terms of affected people and human fatalities, are increasing worldwide due to climate change and urbanization processes. Long-term dynamics of flood risk are intimately driven by the temporal evolution of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. Although needed for effective flood risk management, a comprehensive long-term analysis of all these components is not straightforward, mostly due to a lack of hydrological data, exposure information, and large computational resources required for 2-D flood model simulations at adequately high resolution over large spatial scales. This study tries to overcome these limitations and attempts to investigate the dynamics of different flood risk components in the Murray-Darling basin (MDB, Australia) in the period 1973–2014. To this aim, the LISFLOOD-FP model, i.e., a large-scale 2-D hydrodynamic model, and satellite-derived built-up data are employed. Results show that the maximum extension of flooded areas decreases in time, without revealing any significant geographical transfer of inundated areas across the study period. Despite this, a remarkable increment of built-up areas characterizes MDB, with larger annual increments across not-flooded locations compared to flooded areas. When combining flood hazard and exposure, we find that the overall extension of areas exposed to high flood risk more than doubled within the study period, thus highlighting the need for improving flood risk awareness and flood mitigation strategies in the near future

Three essays on the Egyptian economy

In questo lavoro si presentano i risultati di tre studi empirici condotti sull\u2019economia egiziana. L\u2019obiettivo \ue8 di aggiungere un contributo ad alcuni settori della ricerca in cui il dibattito \ue8 ancora aperto ed i risultati non sono definitivi. Infatti, secondo la teoria economica, incrementi nel livello di educazione e di apertura internazionale dovrebbero produrre effetti positivi sul PIL. Gli studi econometrici, per\uf2, non sempre supportano la teoria e per di pi\uf9 riportano risultati tra loro contraddittori. L\u2019applicazione di tecniche econometriche pi\uf9 sofisticate evidenzia i limiti delle ricerche precedenti, suggerendo cos\uec che l\u2019indeterminatezza dei risultati raggiunti potrebbe derivare dalla scelta di modelli econometrici non appropriati. Considerando tali critiche, i capitoli 2 e 3 di questo lavoro trattano gli effetti dell\u2019apertura internazionale sul PIL ed applicano due moderni approcci alla cointegrazione sviluppati da Luetkepohl e da Pesaran et al, rispettivamente. Nel capitolo 1, si sono invece studiati gli effetti dell\u2019educazione sul PIL nell\u2019ambito di una funzione di produzione standard, includendo quindi anche un termine di correzione di errore per tener conto degli effetti di lungo periodo. Questo lavoro appartiene al settore di studi relativi alle serie storiche, e si focalizza quindi su un singolo Paese con l\u2019obiettivo di tener conto delle variabili tipiche del Paese stesso o di eventi che non si potrebbero includere lavorando con dati cross-country. Nonostante l\u2019Egitto ed i Paesi confinanti appartenenti alla cosiddetta regione MENA (Middle East and North Africa) siano piuttosto trascurati dalla ricerca, negli ultimi decenni hanno applicato riforme significative, anche in collaborazione con organizzazioni internazionali quali il Fondo Monetario Internazionale. Per questo, riteniamo che l\u2019Egitto sia un ottimo caso di studio per verificare l\u2019efficacia delle politiche raccomandate dalla teoria economica. La prima riforma in ordine cronologico fu adottata negli anni Sessanta con l\u2019obiettivo dell\u2019 \u201ceducazione accessibile a tutti\u201d. Fu successivamente ampliata negli anni Ottanta con l\u2019introduzione dell\u2019istruzione media obbligatoria. Negli anni Novanta il Governo cerc\uf2 di orientare la scelta degli studenti verso le iscrizioni negli istituti professionali, per assecondare le richieste di forza lavoro delle imprese. Queste due ultime riforme sembrano avere incrementato la produttivit\ue0 in termini di PIL per lavoratore. Infatti dalla presente ricerca risulta che il miglioramento della qualit\ue0 del capitale umano espressa in anni medi di istruzione abbia avuto un effetto positivo sul PIL per lavoratore. Si deve riconoscere tuttavia che tali risultati non sarebbero stati possibili senza la prima riforma degli anni Sessanta che prepar\uf2 la strada alle riforme successive. Ancora negli anni Novanta, il Fondo Monetario Internazionale support\uf2 in Egitto la realizzazione di un programma di riforme strutturali (ERSAP) che, tra l\u2019altro, introdusse una progressiva liberalizzazione nel commercio internazionale e maggiori incentivi per gli investimenti diretti esteri (IDE). Anche se probabilmente sarebbe possibile identificare un effetto positivo del commercio estero sul PIL utilizzando una serie storica pi\uf9 estesa, al momento i risultati suggeriscono l\u2019ipotesi opposta di un export supportato dalla crescita economica. L\u2019analisi focalizzata sul commercio con l\u2019Unione Europea mostra invece una relazione causale bidirezionale. Inoltre, le importazioni sono fondamentali per supportare tale risultato. Ci\uf2 suggerisce che l\u2019Egitto potrebbe avvantaggiarsi se riuscisse a rafforzare il suo ruolo di trasformatore di semilavorati. Riguardo agli investimenti esteri (IDE), la ricerca non ha individuato alcuna significativa relazione tra investimenti e PIL. L\u2019Egitto ha introdotto importanti riforme per attrarre investimenti esteri, in particolare ha semplificato la legislazione sul lavoro e le procedure per la creazione di nuove imprese. In realt\ue0, il Paese appare gi\ue0 pronto ad attrarre investimenti esteri, ed infatti questi sono cresciuti sensibilmente negli ultimi anni. Sfortunatamente, si sono concentrati perlopi\uf9 nel settore petrolifero (per l\u201980% circa, secondo i dati della Banca Centrale Egiziana), che \ue8 sotto stretto controllo governativo e dove gli investitori sono rappresentati principalmente da multinazionali. In tale contesto, gli investimenti esteri non sembrano apportare gli attesi benefici in termini di miglioramento delle capacit\ue0 manageriali o maggior produttivit\ue0 della forza lavoro locale. Inoltre, il Paese \ue8 ancora caratterizzato da alti livelli di corruzione e poca trasparenza e responsabilit\ue0 del settore pubblico. Nonostante siano stati esclusi dall\u2019analisi, i recenti eventi politici a partire dal 2011 hanno certamente introdotto ulteriori elementi di instabilit\ue0 percepiti dagli investitori, e probabilmente avranno ricadute negative sugli investimenti esteri nei prossimi anni.In the present work, we show the results of three empirical studies conducted on the Egyptian economy. Our aim is to add a contribution to some fields of research where the debate is still open and the results are yet inconclusive. Indeed, according to the economic theory, higher levels of education and openness should have a positive effect on GDP. Surprisingly, the econometric studies do not always support the theory and furthermore give contradictory results. The implementation of more sophisticated econometric techniques sheds lights to the limits of previous works, thus suggesting that one of the main causes for unconvincing results may be the choice of an inappropriate econometric approach. Following such critics, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of this work deal with the effects of openness on GDP and implement two recent approaches to cointegration developed by Luetkepohl and by Pesaran et al respectively. In Chapter 1 we have instead studied the effects of education on GDP within the framework of a standard production function, though including an error correction term to account for long term effects. This work belongs to the field of studies conducted on time series, and therefore focuses on a single country with the purpose of accounting for country-specific variables or events that otherwise could not be included when dealing with cross-country data. Although Egypt and the neighbouring countries belonging to the so-called MENA region are quite ignored, in the recent decades they have implemented significant reforms, also with the support of international organization such as the IMF. Thus, we think that Egypt is an excellent case study to assess the effectiveness of the policies recommended by the economic theory. The first reform in chronological order was adopted in the 1960s to reach the goal of \u201cfree basic education for all\u201d. It was then improved in the 1980s with the introduction of compulsory attendance at the preparatory level. In the 1990s the Government supported the shift of enrollments towards the vocational secondary school, in order to meet the firms\u2019 needs. These two latter reforms seem to have reached the goal of increasing the productivity expressed as GDP per worker. Sure enough, we have found that the improvement of the quality of human capital in terms of average years of education had a positive effect on GDP per worker. It must be recognized that such result would not have been achieved without the first reform of the 1960s that paved the way to the subsequent reforms. Again in the 1990s, the IMF supported Egypt in a Structural Reforms Programme (ERSAP) that called for a progressive liberalization of trade and for more incentives to FDI. Although we might be able to assess a positive effect of trade on GDP when the time series is extended to a longer time period, at present our results support the opposite Growth-led Export (GLE) hypothesis. The analysis focused on trade with the European Union shows instead a bidirectional relationship. Yet, imports are fundamental for the assessment of such causal relationships. This suggests that Egypt could gain if she will be able to enhance her role of transformer of intermediate goods. With regard to FDI, we have not been able to detect any significant positive relationship from FDI to GDP. Egypt implemented important reforms in order to attract foreign investments, particularly she eased the legislation on labour and the bureaucratic procedures needed to establish a new enterprise. Thus, the country seems to be already prepared to attract FDI, and indeed they have increased significantly in the recent years. Unfortunately, they are mainly concentrated in the oil sector (about 80% of total FDI according to recent data from the Egyptian Central Bank), that is under strict governmental control, while the investors are multinational firms. In such a situation, the foreign investments do not seem to provide the expected widespread effects in terms of inflows of managerial skills or higher productivity of the local workforce. Yet, the country still has to deal with high levels of corruption, little transparency and accountability of the public sector. Although excluded by the analysis, the recent political events since 2011 have introduced an additional element of perceived instability, that will probably further affect negatively the attractiveness of the country for foreign investments in the coming years

Paradigms, values and education

The text draws the epistemological and socioanalytic profiles of the paradigmatic question. Mauss evinced the moule affectif of the scientific notions of force and cause. Later, Baudouin would speak of the archetypical induction of the notions, and Durand's anthropology of the imaginary would conclude for the archetypical induction of the concept by the image. That was the unveiling of the unconscious substrate of ideations, of a substrate governed by the vectorialized cathexis translated into values as the kernel of ideations. It is the famous emotive a priori. The text therefore questions two myths, mainstays of classical science: the myth of scientific objectivity, and that of axiological neutrality. It brings forward the fallacy of the existence of an epistemological rupture between science and ideology. Henceforth, ideations become ideologies, particularly in the sciences of Man and in the sciences of education which, in addition to that, are made to give support to a hidden ideological struggle in which the knowledge strategies, in a "cognitive colonialism", conceal those of prejudice. At any rate, assuming the reality of this phantasmanalytic and ideological support allows a salutary educative task: paradigms become fantasies and, in this critical relativization, can be used as a field of collective transitional objects in a cultural and educative gameness. In the polyculturalism of contemporary society, Weber's "polytheism of values" becomes an "epistemological polytheism" governed by Feyerabend's "ontological relativism" and by an ethics of pragmatism. Articulating culture, organization and education, the anthropology of educational organizations and the group culturanalysis of Paula Carvalho represent the heuristics of this transitional dialectics.O texto levanta os perfis epistemológico e socianalítico da questão paradigmática. Mauss evidenciara o moule affectif das noções científicas de força e causa. Posteriormente Baudouin falaria na indução arquetípica das noções e a antropologia do imaginário de Durand concluiria pela indução arquetipal do conceito pela imagem. Chegava-se, assim, ao desvendamento do substrato inconsciente das ideações, de um substrato regido pela catexis vetorializada, traduzindo-se nos valores como cerne das ideações. É o famoso a priori emotivo. Portanto, no texto, questionam-se dois mitos, esteios da ciência clássica: o mito da objetividade científica e o da neutralidade axiológica. Destaca, assim, a falácia da existência de uma ruptura epistemológica entre ciência e ideologia. A partir daí, as ideações tornam-se ideologias, sobretudo nas ciências do homem e nas ciências da educação que, ademais, tornam-se suporte de uma disfarçada luta ideológica, na qual, num "colonialismo cognitivo", as estratégias de conhecimento dissimulam as de preconceito. Entretanto, assumir a realidade desse suporte fantasmanalítico e ideológico propicia uma tarefa educativa salutar: os paradigmas tornam-se fantasias e, nessa relativização crítica, podem ser usados como um campo de objetos transicionais coletivos num ludismo cultural e educativo. No policulturalismo da sociedade contemporânea, o "politeísmo de valores" de Weber transforma-se num "politeísmo epistemológico", regido pelo "relativismo ontológico" de Feyerabend e por uma ética do pragmatismo. Articulando cultura, organização e educação, a antropologia das organizações educativas e a culturanálise de grupos de Paula Carvalho traduzem as heurísticas dessa dialética transicional

Investigation of the potential molecular recognition sites of two human vitamin C transporters.

Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid), a cofactor for numerous mammalian enzymes and a well- known antioxidant, is renowned for its range of health advantages and protective capabilities against degenerative disorders. The mechanisms regulating the cellular movement of ascorbic acid signify a primary aspect for recognising the roles played by vitamin C in human biology. The ability for this nutrient to be absorbed and occupied in cells is accomplished via the two sodium-coupled proteins, hSVCT1 and hSVCT2. The two transporters have varying roles in relation to ascorbate, nevertheless they are both rely on certain membrane targeting to achieve their essential functions. If the correct localisation for the two proteins is not found they are unable to complete their functions, leading to reduced transport capabilities. Deficiency of vitamin C in humans is fatal and has been linked with an increased chance of cancer and other degenerative diseases, therefore the two protein carriers are crucial for human health. Despite numerous studies evaluating vitamin C’s benefits for humans, detailed knowledge on the membrane targeting of the two transporters is still limited. It is unclear how these proteins react to the interaction and presence of new substances entering the human body and how this will affect their functionality. Consequently, the aim of this research is to modify the potential molecular recognition sites on the hSVCT1 and hSVCT2 genes through site directed mutagenesis. This study could therefore indicate regions on the amino acid sequences which could be fundamental for functionality for the two carriers. This knowledge would assist the growth of therapeutic strategies in fighting certain conditions and even in the production of new drugs

On the same team: the football media’s role in the formation and contestation of social identity discourses in contemporary English culture

This submission for a PhD by publication consists of four sole-authored studies published between 2014 and 2019—a monograph, Publication (a), and three articles all published in peer-reviewed journals of international renown, Publications (b), (c) and (d). The publications are located in the discipline of sociology of sport and also draw on a wide range of disciplines—including journalism studies, gender studies, media and sports history—for theoretical and methodological support. Two related arguments run through the submission. The first is that football and the media in England have been increasingly functionally dependent since their modern inception in the late 19th Century. The resulting rivalries between median functionaries, and the organisations of which they were a part, led to intensifying competition and in turn the evolution of, and innovation within, football journalism. This underpins the second, which is that the result(s) of this socially constructed professional practice are discourses of social identity which both reflect and re encode long-held norms and values within English society. Thus, this submission makes an original contribution in three key areas: It: (1) addresses gaps in disciplinary knowledge, in particular by providing a coherent, longitudinal history of English football media previously absent from research in the area; (2) shows how the practices of sports journalism are socially constructed; (3) unpacks the way in which the outcomes of such practice have led to the discursive strategies that (re)present and reinforce notions of national identity and gender in contemporary English society. Following a personal statement and introduction, the appraisal of research will be divided into three sections in which I will: (i) discuss the publications’ methodological and theoretical underpinnings as well as researcher positionality, (ii) provide a summary of the research, and (iii) articulate the original contribution of the submission, outline limitations and contextualise the submission within my ongoing research in the area