Sport stereotypes in the 21st century “brought to you by” Media Corporations

Since its formative years sport has had a commercial component to its operation, however, in no previous time period have we seen the type of growth in the current commercialization of sport that we have seen in the last two decades. Today, sport is big business and as argued in this paper, big businesses heavily involved in sport are mostly concerned with the preservation of established privileges (gender) and priorities (promotion) such as maintaining hierarchical control and generating profit uncritically and unwillingly inclined to take action upon the world in order to transform

A new look at microlensing limits on dark matter in the Galactic halo

The motivation for this paper is to review the limits set on the MACHO content of the Galactic halo by microlensing experiments in the direction of the Large Magellanic Cloud. This has been prompted by recent measurements of the Galactic rotation curve, which suggest that the limits have been biassed by the assumption of an over-massive halo. The paper first discusses the security of the detection efficiency calculations which are central to deriving the MACHO content of the Galactic halo. It then sets out to compare the rotation curves from various halo models with recent observations, with a view to establishing what limits can be put on an all-MACHO halo. The main thrust of the paper is to investigate whether lighter halo models which are consistent with microlensing by an all-MACHO halo are also consistent with recent measures of the Galactic rotation curve. In this case the population of bodies discovered by the MACHO collaboration would make up the entire dark matter content of the Galactic halo. The main result of this paper is that it is easy to find low mass halo models consistent with the observed Galactic rotation curve, which also imply an optical depth to microlensing similar to that found by the MACHO collaboration. This means that all-MACHO halos cannot be ruled out on the basis of their observations. In conclusion, limits placed on the MACHO content of the Galactic halo from microlensing surveys in the Magellanic Clouds are inconsistent and model dependent, and do not provide a secure basis for rejecting an all-MACHO halo.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Antigone in the London office: documentary film, creativity and female agency

In this paper, the authors explore female creativity and agency through the means of documentary filmmaking. Husband and Wife is an experimental documentary concerning one woman’s journey from Poland to London, England to reclaim the body of her husband after his death. The authors/directors discuss the process of creating a space where the life of the characters and the life of the camera merge. This creative, feminist space is one of mutual influence between themselves, the protagonist and their documentary film. In their investigation of the protagonist’s journey from her Polish hometown to the city of London, they all become affected by the process of filmmaking itself and by the widow’s relentless resourcefulness in her mission to reclaim the body of her husband. To understand the widow’s tenacious approach of dealing with UK institutions, as well as her mourning, the authors refer to the feminist theories of Luce Irigaray, and Judith Butler, who offer different conceptualisations of female identity and ethical agency. Drawing upon Irigaray, and Butler’s analysis of Antigone (Sophocles, 441BC), the cinematic picture of the Polish widow’s commitment to her husband’s post-mortem civic dignity is compared to the commitment of Sophocles’ heroine, who transgressed the patriarchal order attributed only to proper, male citizens. The authors of the paper discuss the definition of otherness, as a mode of creative and ultimate resistance that both Antigone and the Polish widow embody, as women acting in the patriarchal world. In their documentary, the authors-directors articulate Polish Antigone’s act of resistance through the angle of female interiority, as defined by Lucy Bolton, which in cinema is more characteristic of male protagonists. In that way they reflect the incomprehensible agency of a woman that is gained through her gendered performance, her creativity and her everyday existence in the world of men

Time Dilation and Quasar Variability

The timescale of quasar variability is widely expected to show the effects of time dilation. In this paper we analyse the Fourier power spectra of a large sample of quasar light curves to look for such an effect. We find that the timescale of quasar variation does not increase with redshift as required by time dilation. Possible explanations of this result all conflict with widely held consensus in the scientific community.Comment: 6 pages including 3 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

The Regulatory Roles of the Galactose Permease and Kinase in the Induction Response of the GAL Network in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The GAL genetic switch of Saccharomyces cerevisiae exhibits an ultrasensitive response to the inducer galactose as well as the "all-or-none" behavior characteristic of many eukaryotic regulatory networks. We have constructed a strain that allows intermediate levels of gene expression from a tunable GAL1 promoter at both the population and the single cell level by altering the regulation of the galactose permease Gal2p. Similar modifications to other feedback loops regulating the Gal80p repressor and the Gal3p signaling protein did not result in similarly tuned responses, indicating that the level of inducer transport is unique in its ability to control the switch response of the network. In addition, removal of the Gal1p galactokinase from the network resulted in a regimed response due to the dual role of this enzyme in galactose catabolism and transport. These two activities have competing effects on the response of the network to galactose such that the transport effects of Gal1p are dominant at low galactose concentrations, whereas its catabolic effects are dominant at high galactose concentrations. In addition, flow cytometry analysis revealed the unexpected phenomenon of multiple populations in the gal1{Delta} strains, which were not present in the isogenic GAL1 background. This result indicates that Gal1p may play a previously undescribed role in the stability of the GAL network response

Hydrogeochemistry of the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed

Bedrock of the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed dissolves incongruently with a first-order rate constant of about 5 x 10-6 day-1 at 5° C. The resulting solution is potassium-calcium-magnesium rich. The soil-plant environment acts on this solution through sorption of potassium and by evapotranspiration to yield a solution that is relatively depleted in potassium and enriched in calcium and magnesium, but with the same molar ratio of Ca:Mg as the fluid from the rock dissolution. This fluid from the soil-plant reservoir is the dominant contributor of ions to stream waters. Using the discriminant functions obtained by multiple discriminant analysis DPKR = 0.572Si02 + 0.240Ca + 2.89Mg - 0.384Na + 0.452N03 - 9.18 DCRB = 0.913Si02 + 0.042Ca + 1.28Mg + 1.17Na + 4.63N03 - 7.27, the waters of Caribou Creek and Poker Creek can be distinguished on the basis of chemical composition. In general, Poker Creek waters are slightly more concentrated than Caribou Creek waters. On the average, 1.4 x 10^13g H20/year leaves the watershed as surface water. At an average calcium concentration of 14 ppm for the water, 0.1% for the bedrock, and a watershed area of 46 mi^2, this flow corresponds to a maximum loss of about 17 metric tons of rock per hectare per year