Researching the construction of a formbild

This paper is a presentation and a discussion of the research methods used in the author’s research project at Oslo School of Architecture and Design (Gulliksen, 2006). The aim of the research was to describe how a group of people, in this case: students and teaches, come to agree upon what a good quality form is. The chosen way of explaining the notion of form quality in design engaged a socio-constructivistic approach, based in the theories of Bourdieu and Foucault and others. It rendered form quality as something constructed by the individual in interaction with artefacts and other individuals. The object of the study was to explore the mechanisms of this construction, separated into dynamical aspects (the actual construction) and the hierarchical aspects (the restrictions) of the constructive mechanisms. Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis of communication (verbal, visual and more) about form was the methodology chosen. This paper discusses certain fundamental methodological questions concerning the use of this perspective and this methodology in a design process. It asks in what way it is convenient to study something as material as an artefact’s form as something as immaterial as construction, communication and text. The paper is based on specific examples from the thesis presenting the research, ending with a short conclusive discussion concerning the opportunity this perspective gave to avoid a dichotomist basis (in the artefact it self or in the eyes of the beholder) for theories concerning form quality, and to sustain a focus on the communicational and relational aspects of the designing process. Keywords: Form Quality, Formbild, Socio-Constructivism, Discourse Analysis, Methodological Considerations</p

Radiological dating of a floating dendrochronology from Bryggen in Bergen

Recently a floating dendrochronology of c. 300 years from the Medieval wooden warehouses at »Bryggen» in Bergen, Norway, has been established by crossdating building materials. Absolute dating must be extremely precise in order to add significant chronological information to that available from historical sources. Radiocarbon dating is attempted by wiggle matching of precise dates on the Bryggen chronology to a high precision calibration curve. Results indicate frequent re-use of building materials

Involving users in OPAC interface design: Perspective from a UK study

This is the post-print versoin of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2007 SpringerThe purpose of this study was to determine user suggestions for a typical OPAC (Online Public Library Catalogue) application’s functionality and features. An experiment was undertaken to find out the type of interactions features that users prefer to have in an OPAC. The study revealed that regardless of users’ Information Technology (IT) backgrounds, their functionality expectations of OPACs are the same. However, based on users’ previous experiences with OPACs, their requirements with respect to specific features may change. Users should be involved early in the OPAC development cycle process in order to ensure usable and functional interface

Is comparability of C-14 dates an issue?: A status report on the fourth international radiocarbon intercomparison

For more than 15 years, the radiocarbon community has participated in a series of laboratory intercomparisons in response to the issue of comparability of measurements as perceived within the wider user communities (Scott et al. 1990; Rozanski et al. 1992; Guiliksen and Scott 1995; Scott et al. 1997).&lt;br/&gt; In this report, we provide an update on the current C-14 laboratory intercomparison and reflect on future issues linked to the laboratory intercomparison program, not least those resulting from a significant growth in the number of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) facilities providing routine dating of small samples (milligram size)

The curve of lines on a prime Fano threefold of genus 8

We show that a general prime Fano threefold X of genus 8 can be reconstructed from the pair $(\Gamma,L)$, where $\Gamma$ is its Fano curve of lines and $L=O_{\Gamma}(1)$ is the theta-characteristic which gives a natural embedding \Gamma \subset \matbb{P}^5.Comment: 24 pages, misprints corrected, to appear in International Journal of Mathematic

Asymptotic Behavior of Ext functors for modules of finite complete intersection dimension

Let $R$ be a local ring, and let $M$ and $N$ be finitely generated $R$-modules such that $M$ has finite complete intersection dimension. In this paper we define and study, under certain conditions, a pairing using the modules \Ext_R^i(M,N) which generalizes Buchweitz's notion of the Herbrand diference. We exploit this pairing to examine the number of consecutive vanishing of \Ext_R^i(M,N) needed to ensure that \Ext_R^i(M,N)=0 for all $i\gg 0$. Our results recover and improve on most of the known bounds in the literature, especially when $R$ has dimension at most two

IVF-induced pregnancy and early motherhood among women with a history of severe eating disorders

BackgroundThere is a higher prevalence of eating disorders among women seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF). Women with a history of eating disorders may be particularly vulnerable to eating disorder relapse during IVF, pregnancy, and early motherhood. The experience of these women during this process has hardly been studied scientifically, despite its high clinical relevance. The overall aim of this study is to describe how women with a history of eating disorders experience the process of becoming a mother through IVF, pregnancy, and the postpartum period.MethodsWe recruited women with a history of severe anorexia nervosa who had undergone IVF (n = 7) at public family health centers in Norway. Semi-openly, the participants were interviewed extensively first during pregnancy, and then 6 months after birth. The 14 narratives were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analyses (IPA). All participants were required to complete the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and were diagnosed (DSM-5) by using the Eating Disorder Examination (EDE), during both pregnancy and postpartum.ResultsAll participants experienced a relapse of an eating disorder during IVF. They perceived IVF, pregnancy, and early motherhood to be overwhelming, confusing, a source of severe loss of control, and a source of body alienation. There were four core phenomena that were reported that were strikingly similar across all participants: “anxiousness and fear,” “shame and guilt,” “sexual maladjustment,” and “non-disclosure of eating problems.” These phenomena persisted continuously throughout IVF, pregnancy, and motherhood.ConclusionWomen with a history of severe eating disorders are highly susceptible to relapse when undergoing IVF, pregnancy, and early motherhood. The process of IVF is experienced as extremely demanding and provoking. There is evidence that eating problems, purging, over-exercising, anxiousness and fear, shame and guilt, sexual maladjustment, and non-disclosure of eating problems continue throughout IVF, pregnancy, and the early years of motherhood. Therefore, it is necessary for healthcare workers providing services to women undergoing IVF to be attentive and intervene when they suspect a history of eating disorders

Decompactifications and Massless D-Branes in Hybrid Models

A method of determining the mass spectrum of BPS D-branes in any phase limit of a gauged linear sigma model is introduced. A ring associated to monodromy is defined and one considers K-theory to be a module over this ring. A simple but interesting class of hybrid models with Landau-Ginzburg fibres over CPn are analyzed using special Kaehler geometry and D-brane probes. In some cases the hybrid limit is an infinite distance in moduli space and corresponds to a decompactification. In other cases the hybrid limit is at a finite distance and acquires massless D-branes. An example studied appears to correspond to a novel theory of supergravity with an SU(2) gauge symmetry where the gauge and gravitational couplings are necessarily tied to each other.Comment: PDF-LaTeX, 34 pages, 2 mps figure

Future needs and requirements for AMS C-14 standards and reference materials

C-14 measurement uses a number of standards and reference materials with different properties. Historically the absolute calibration of C-14 measurement was tied to 1890 wood, through the 'primary' standard of NBS-OxI (produced by the National Bureau of Standards, now NIST - National Institute of Standards and technology) subsequently replaced by NBS-OxII. These are both internationally calibrated and certified materials, whose C-14 activities are known absolutely. A second tier of materials, often called secondary standards or reference materials, and including internationally recognised materials such as ANU-sucrose (now also IAEA-C6), Chinese - sucrose and the IAEA C1-C6 series, augmented by additional oxalic acid samples are also used routinely. The activity of these materials has been estimated from large numbers of measurements made by many laboratories. Recently, further natural materials from the Third and Fourth International Radiocarbon Inter- comparisons (TIRI and FIRI) have been added to this list. The activities of these standards and reference materials span both the applied C-14 age range and the chemical composition range of typical samples, but this is not achieved uniformly and there is a continuing need for reference materials for laboratory quality control and measurement-traceability purposes. In this paper, we review the development of C-14 Standards and reference materials and consider the future requirements for such materials within the C-14 AMS community