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Changing positions: The Sexual Politics of A Women’s Field Hockey Team 1986-1996
Despite a huge expansion in the literature on individual aspects of sexual identity and sexuality, and the growth of studies on women in sport, there are still relatively few investigations into women’s sporting and sexual subcultures. In addition, practical difficulties frequently preclude the adoption of longitudinal research designs when studying sport groups. This research describes the micro-dynamics of a particular women’s field hockey team, tracing the shifting composition of the team from predominantly heterosexual to almost entirely lesbian over the ten year period 1986-1996. A retrospective, longitudinal design was used: data from semi-structured interviews with 26 players were matched against data depicting the changing distribution of heterosexual and lesbian players during the ten year period. Two major findings emerge: first, that the women’s sexual identities were more fluid and complex than most of the literature on women in sport implies. Secondly, the status system of the club was more strongly influenced by organisation sexuality than it was by structural tradition. Consequently the status system changed from one based on structure (i.e. years of experience in the club) to one based on culture (i.e. identity as a lesbian organisation) as the number of self-identified lesbians increased beyond 38%
Nuclear weak interaction rates in primordial nucleosynthesis
We calculate the weak interaction rates of selected light nuclei during the
epoch of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), and we assess the impact of these
rates on nuclear abundance flow histories and on final light element abundance
yields. We consider electron and electron antineutrino captures on 3He and 7Be,
and the reverse processes of positron capture and electron neutrino capture on
3H and 7Li. We also compute the rates of positron and electron neutrino capture
on 6He. We calculate beta and positron decay transitions where appropriate. As
expected, the final standard BBN abundance yields are little affected by
addition of these weak processes, though there can be slight alterations of
nuclear flow histories. However, non-standard BBN scenarios, e.g., those
involving out of equilibrium particle decay with energetic final state
neutrinos, may be affected by these processes.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Deer reduce habitat quality for a woodland songbird: evidence from settlement patterns, demographic parameters, and body condition.
Understanding avian responses to ungulate-induced habitat modification is important because deer populations are increasing across much of temperate Europe and North America. Our experimental study examined whether habitat quality for Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) in young woodland in eastern England was affected by deer, by comparing Blackcap behavior, abundance, and condition between paired plots (half of each pair protected from deer). The vegetation in each pair of plots was the same age. The Blackcap is an ideal model species for testing effects of deer on avian habitat quality because it is dependent on dense understory vegetation and is abundant throughout much of Europe. We compared timing of settlement, abundance, age structure (second-year vs. after-second-year), and phenotypic quality (measured as a body condition index, body mass divided by tarsus length) between experimental and control plots. We used point counts to examine Blackcap distribution, and standardized mist netting to collect demographic and biometric data. Incidence of singing Blackcaps was higher in nonbrowsed than in browsed plots, and singing males were recorded in nonbrowsed plots earlier in the season, indicating earlier and preferential territory establishment. Most Blackcaps, both males and females, were captured in vegetation prior to canopy closure (2–4 years of regrowth). Body condition was superior for male Blackcaps captured in nonbrowsed plots; for second-year males this was most marked in vegetation prior to canopy closure. We conclude that deer browsing in young woodland can alter habitat quality for understory-dependent species, with potential consequences for individual fitness and population productivity beyond the more obvious effects on population density
Support of ASTP/KOSMOS fundulus embryo development experiment
Results from the Kosmos Biosatellite 782 flight are presented. Experiments with fish hatchlings are discussed along with postflight observation and testing. The preparation of fertilized eggs for the experiments is described
The genealogy of judgement: towards a deep history of academic freedom
The classical conception of academic freedom associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt and the rise of the modern university has a quite specific cultural foundation that centres on the controversial mental faculty of 'judgement'. This article traces the roots of 'judgement' back to the Protestant Reformation, through its heyday as the signature feature of German idealism, and to its gradual loss of salience as both a philosophical and a psychological concept. This trajectory has been accompanied by a general shrinking in the scope of academic freedom from the promulgation of world-views to the offering of expert opinion
Absence of a Lower Limit on Omega_b in Inhomogeneous Primordial Nucleosynthesis
We show that a class of inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis models exist
which yield light-element abundances in agreement with observational
constraints for baryon-to-photon ratios significantly smaller than those
inferred from standard homogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis (HBBN). These
inhomogeneous nucleosynthesis models are characterized by a bimodal
distribution of baryons in which some regions have a local baryon-to-photon
ratio eta=3*10e-10, while the remaining regions are baryon-depleted. HBBN
scenarios with primordial (2H+3He)/H<9*10e-5 necessarily require that most
baryons be in a dark or non-luminous form, although new observations of a
possible high deuterium abundance in Lyman-alpha clouds may relax this
requirement somewhat. The models described here present another way to relax
this requirement and can even eliminate any lower bound on the baryon-to-photon
ratio.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures (available upon request by email), plain te
Weak Interaction Rate Coulomb Corrections in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
We have applied a fully relativistic Coulomb wave correction to the weak
reactions in the full Kawano/Wagoner Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) code. We
have also added the zero temperature radiative correction. We find that using
this higher accuracy Coulomb correction results in good agreement with previous
work, giving only a modest 0.04 percent increase in helium mass fraction over
correction prescriptions applied previously in BBN calculations. We have
calculated the effect of these corrections on other light element abundance
yields in BBN and we have studied these yields as functions of electron
neutrino lepton number. This has allowed insights into the role of the Coulomb
correction in the setting of the neutron-to-proton ratio during the BBN epoch.
We find that the lepton capture processes' contributions to this ratio are only
second order in the Coulomb correction.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Artificial atmosphere control system
Two-gas control system has been developed which uses existing hardware. Three systems are used for control, monitoring, and safety backup. Pure oxygen will be supplied to maintain safe pressure level should something go wrong
The Influence of Nuclear Composition on the Electron Fraction in the Post-Core-Bounce Supernova Environment
We study the early evolution of the electron fraction (or, alternatively, the
neutron-to-proton ratio) in the region above the hot proto-neutron star formed
after a supernova explosion. We study the way in which the electron fraction in
this environment is set by a competition between lepton (electron, positron,
neutrino, and antineutrino) capture processes on free neutrons and protons and
nuclei. Our calculations take explicit account of the effect of nuclear
composition changes, such as formation of alpha particles (the alpha effect)
and the shifting of nuclear abundances in nuclear statistical equilibrium
associated with cooling in near-adiabatic outflow. We take detailed account of
the process of weak interaction freeze-out in conjunction with these nuclear
composition changes. Our detailed treatment shows that the alpha effect can
cause significant increases in the electron fraction, while neutrino and
antineutrino capture on heavy nuclei tends to have a buffering effect on this
quantity. We also examine the effect on weak rates and the electron fraction of
fluctuations in time in the neutrino and antineutrino energy spectra arising
from hydrodynamic waves. Our analysis is guided by the Mayle & Wilson supernova
code numerical results for the neutrino energy spectra and density and velocity
profiles.Comment: 38 pages, AAS LaTeX, 8 figure
The art of being human : a project for general philosophy of science
Throughout the medieval and modern periods, in various sacred and secular guises, the unification of all forms of knowledge under the rubric of ‘science’ has been taken as the prerogative of humanity as a species. However, as our sense of species privilege has been called increasingly into question, so too has the very salience of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’ as general categories, let alone ones that might bear some essential relationship to each other. After showing how the ascendant Stanford School in the philosophy of science has contributed to this joint demystification of ‘humanity’ and ‘science’, I proceed on a more positive note to a conceptual framework for making sense of science as the art of being human. My understanding of ‘science’ is indebted to the red thread that runs from Christian theology through the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment to the Humboldtian revival of the university as the site for the synthesis of knowledge as the culmination of self-development. Especially salient to this idea is science‘s epistemic capacity to manage modality (i.e. to determine the conditions under which possibilities can be actualised) and its political capacity to organize humanity into projects of universal concern. However, the challenge facing such an ideal in the twentyfirst century is that the predicate ‘human’ may be projected in three quite distinct ways, governed by what I call ‘ecological’, ‘biomedical’ and ‘cybernetic’ interests. Which one of these future humanities would claim today’s humans as proper ancestors and could these futures co-habit the same world thus become two important questions that general philosophy of science will need to address in the coming years
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