A two-fluid model describing the finite-collisionality, stationary Alfvén wave in anisotropic plasma

The stationary inertial Alfvén (StIA) wave (Knudsen, 1996) was predicted for cold, collisionless plasma. The model was generalized (Finnegan et al., 2008) to include nonzero values of electron and ion collisional resistivity and thermal pressure. Here, the two-fluid model is further generalized to include anisotropic thermal pressure. A bounded range of values of parallel electron drift velocity is found that excludes periodic stationary Alfvén wave solutions. This exclusion region depends on the value of the local Alfvén speed VA, plasma beta perpendicular to the magnetic field β⊥ and electron temperature anisotropy

Analysing the impact of iron dysmetabolism on regional metal ion distribution in the brain

An Iron Overload and an H-Ferritin Deficient Mouse Model were used to examine the impact of disrupted iron metabolism on the brain. Brain sections were imaged and compared using Synchrotron μXRF spectroscopy. Quantitative measurement of the relative metal ion concentrations for iron, copper and zinc were made across selected regions of interest in the brain. It was generally found that metal ion concentrations of iron and zinc decreased in specific regions in the Iron Overload condition compared with the control, with copper increasing in only one region. Few regions differed in metal ion concentration between the H-Ferritin Deficient Model and the control. The three conditions exhibited similar / identical results for metal ion concentrations in many brain regions, indicating the validity of the method used for comparison between samples. It is clear that there exists a complex relationship between these trace metal

Unsettling play: perceptions of Agonistic Games

In this article, we propose Agonistic Games (AGs) as a serious games subcategory that can stimulate critical reflection on topics of dark heritage through multiperspectivity and unsettling play. We first discuss the emerging topic of agonism in memory studies, and then how games can be used to support its objectives. We then discuss the development of two original AGs: Endless Blitz and Umschlagplatz ’43. We explore whether these two AGs were perceived as capable of stimulating critical reflection by collecting data from visitors to the exhibition “Krieg. Macht. Sinn” at the Ruhr Museum in Germany where the games were installed, and from participants in an online course describing the games. From analysing data collected, we outline four factors inhibiting the capacity of AGs to stimulate critical reflection (topic, context, design, and assumptions about games) and propose strategies for overcoming these inhibitors. Our findings are valuable to scholars, game researchers, and designers, strengthening the foundations for the design and development of future AGs

Glaciological and marine geological controls on terminus dynamics of Hubbard Glacier, southeast Alaska

An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright (2015) American Geophysical Union.Hubbard Glacier, located in southeast Alaska, is the world's largest nonpolar tidewater glacier. It has been steadily advancing since it was first mapped in 1895; occasionally, the advance creates an ice or sediment dam that blocks a tributary fjord (Russell Fiord). The sustained advance raises the probability of long-term closure in the near future, which will strongly impact the ecosystem of Russell Fiord and the nearby community of Yakutat. Here, we examine a 43 year record of flow speeds and terminus position to understand the large-scale dynamics of Hubbard Glacier. Our long-term record shows that the rate of terminus advance has increased slightly since 1895, with the exception of a slowed advance between approximately 1972 and 1984. The short-lived closure events in 1986 and 2002 were not initiated by perturbations in ice velocity or environmental forcings but were likely due to fluctuations in sedimentation patterns at the terminus. This study points to the significance of a coupled system where short-term velocity fluctuations and morainal shoal development control tidewater glacier terminus position

The density of anthropogenic features explains seasonal and behaviour-based functional responses in selection of linear features by a social predator

Anthropogenic linear features facilitate access and travel efficiency for predators, and can influence predator distribution and encounter rates with prey. We used GPS collar data from eight wolf packs and characteristics of seismic lines to investigate whether ease-of-travel or access to areas presumed to be preferred by prey best explained seasonal selection patterns of wolves near seismic lines, and whether the density of anthropogenic features led to functional responses in habitat selection. At a broad scale, wolves showed evidence of habitat-driven functional responses by exhibiting greater selection for areas near low-vegetation height seismic lines in areas with low densities of anthropogenic features. We highlight the importance of considering landscape heterogeneity and habitat characteristics, and the functional response in habitat selection when investigating seasonal behaviour-based selection patterns. Our results support behaviour in line with search for primary prey during summer and fall, and ease-of-travel during spring, while patterns of selection during winter aligned best with ease-of-travel for the less-industrialized foothills landscape, and with search for primary prey in the more-industrialized boreal landscape. These results highlight that time-sensitive restoration actions on anthropogenic features can affect the probability of overlap between predators and threatened prey within different landscapes

Pressure-induced bcc-rhombohedral phase transition in vanadium metal

Vanadium is reported to undergo a pressure-induced bcc-rhombohedral phase transition at 30–70 GPa, with a transition pressure that is sensitive to the hydrostaticity of the sample environment. However, the experimental evidence for the structure of the high-pressure phase being rhombohedral is surprisingly weak. We have restudied vanadium under pressure to 154 GPa using both polycrystalline and single-crystal samples, and a variety of different pressure transmitting media (PTM). We find that only when using single-crystal samples does one observe a rhombohedral high-pressure phase; the high-pressure diffraction profiles from the polycrystalline samples do not fit a rhombohedral lattice, irrespective of the PTM used. The single-crystal samples reveal two rhombohedral phases, with a continuous transition between them, and distortions from cubic symmetry are much smaller than previously calculated

Understanding Anthropological Understanding: for a merological anthropology

In this paper I argue for a merological anthropology in which ideas of ‘partiality’ and ‘practical adequacy’ provide a way out of the impasse of relativism which is implied by post-modernism and the related abandonment of a concern with ‘truth’. Ideas such as ‘aptness’ and ‘faithfulness’ enable us to re-establish empirical foundations without having to espouse a simple realism which has been rightly criticised. Ideas taken from ethnomethodology, particularly the way we bootstrap from ‘practical adequacy’ to ‘warrants for confidence’ point to a merological anthropology in which we recognize that we do not and cannot know everything, but that we can have reasons for being confident in the little we know

The Capaciousness of No: Affective Refusals as Literacy Practices

© 2020 The Authors. Reading Research Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Literacy Association The authors considered the capacious feeling that emerges from saying no to literacy practices, and the affective potential of saying no as a literacy practice. The authors highlight the affective possibilities of saying no to normative understandings of literacy, thinking with a series of vignettes in which children, young people, and teachers refused literacy practices in different ways. The authors use the term capacious to signal possibilities that are as yet unthought: a sense of broadening and opening out through enacting no. The authors examined how attention to affect ruptures humanist logics that inform normative approaches to literacy. Through attention to nonconscious, noncognitive, and transindividual bodily forces and capacities, affect deprivileges the human as the sole agent in an interaction, thus disrupting measurements of who counts as a literate subject and what counts as a literacy event. No is an affective moment. It can signal a pushback, an absence, or a silence. As a theoretical and methodological way of thinking/feeling with literacy, affect proposes problems rather than solutions, countering solution-focused research in which the resistance is to be overcome, co-opted, or solved. Affect operates as a crack or a chink, a tiny ripple, a barely perceivable gesture, that can persist and, in doing so, hold open the possibility for alternative futures