On the identification of normal modes of oscillation from observations of the solar periphery

The decomposition of solar oscillations into their constituent normal modes requires a knowledge of both the spatial and temporal variation of the perturbation to the Sun's surface. The task is especially difficult when only limited spatial information is available. Observations of the limb darkening function, for example, are probably sensitive to too large a number of modes to permit most of the modes to be identified in a power spectrum of measurements at only a few points on the limb, unless the results are combined with other data. A procedure was considered by which the contributions from quite small groups of modes to spatially well resolved data obtained at any instant can be extracted from the remaining modes. Combining these results with frequency information then permits the modes to be identified, at least if their frequencies are low enough to ensure that modes of high degree do not contribute substantially to the signal

Corporal diagnostic work and diagnostic spaces: Clinicians' use of space and bodies during diagnosis

© 2015 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness © 2015 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.An emerging body of literature in sociology has demonstrated that diagnosis is a useful focal point for understanding the social dimensions of health and illness. This article contributes to this work by drawing attention to the relationship between diagnostic spaces and the way in which clinicians use their own bodies during the diagnostic process. As a case study, we draw upon fieldwork conducted with a multidisciplinary clinical team providing deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat children with a movement disorder called dystonia. Interviews were conducted with team members and diagnostic examinations were observed. We illustrate that clinicians use communicative body work and verbal communication to transform a material terrain into diagnostic space, and we illustrate how this diagnostic space configures forms of embodied 'sensing-and-acting' within. We argue that a 'diagnosis' can be conceptualised as emerging from an interaction in which space, the clinician-body, and the patient-body (or body-part) mutually configure one another. By conceptualising diagnosis in this way, this article draws attention to the corporal bases of diagnostic power and counters Cartesian-like accounts of clinical work in which the patient-body is objectified by a disembodied medical discourse.The Wellcome Trust (Wellcome Trust Biomedical Strategic Award 086034

STS in management education: connecting theory and practice

This paper explores the value of science and technology studies (STS) to management education. The work draws on an ethnographic study of second year management undergraduates studying decision making. The nature and delivery of the decision making module is outlined and the value of STS is demonstrated in terms of both teaching method and module content. Three particular STS contributions are identified and described: the social construction of technological systems; actor network theory; and ontological politics. Affordances and sensibilities are identified for each contribution and a discussion is developed that illustrates how these versions of STS are put to use in management education. It is concluded that STS has a pivotal role to play in critical management (education) and in the process offers opportunities for new forms of managin

Scraping the Social? Issues in live social research

What makes scraping methodologically interesting for social and cultural research? This paper seeks to contribute to debates about digital social research by exploring how a ‘medium-specific’ technique for online data capture may be rendered analytically productive for social research. As a device that is currently being imported into social research, scraping has the capacity to re-structure social research, and this in at least two ways. Firstly, as a technique that is not native to social research, scraping risks to introduce ‘alien’ methodological assumptions into social research (such as an pre-occupation with freshness). Secondly, to scrape is to risk importing into our inquiry categories that are prevalent in the social practices enabled by the media: scraping makes available already formatted data for social research. Scraped data, and online social data more generally, tend to come with ‘external’ analytics already built-in. This circumstance is often approached as a ‘problem’ with online data capture, but we propose it may be turned into virtue, insofar as data formats that have currency in the areas under scrutiny may serve as a source of social data themselves. Scraping, we propose, makes it possible to render traffic between the object and process of social research analytically productive. It enables a form of ‘real-time’ social research, in which the formats and life cycles of online data may lend structure to the analytic objects and findings of social research. By way of a conclusion, we demonstrate this point in an exercise of online issue profiling, and more particularly, by relying on Twitter to profile the issue of ‘austerity’. Here we distinguish between two forms of real-time research, those dedicated to monitoring live content (which terms are current?) and those concerned with analysing the liveliness of issues (which topics are happening?)

The golden circle: A way of arguing and acting about technology in the London ambulance service

This paper analyses the way in which the London Ambulance Service recovered from the events of October 1992, when it implemented a computer-aided despatch system (LASCAD) that remained in service for less than two weeks. It examines the enactment of a programme of long-term organizational change, focusing on the implementation of an alternative computer system in 1996. The analysis in this paper is informed by actor-network theory, both by an early statement of this approach developed by Callon in the sociology of translation, and also by concepts and ideas from Latour’s more recent restatement of his own position. The paper examines how alternative interests emerged and were stabilized over time, in a way of arguing and acting among key players in the change programme, christened the Golden Circle. The story traces four years in the history of the London Ambulance Service, from the aftermath of October 1992 through the birth of the Golden Circle to the achievement of National Health Service (NHS) trust status. LASCAD was the beginning of the story, this is the middle, an end lies in the future, when the remaining elements of the change programme are enacted beyond the Golden Circle

Comparing Performance Category Criteria for U.S. Navy Alternate Physical Readiness Tests

The current Navy Physical Readiness Test (PRT) allows for several alternative methods, in lieu of the 1.5-mile run, with which to assess aerobic fitness. Two of these methods (elliptical trainer and stationary bike) and two additional devices (2-Km rower and 5-Km bike) were evaluated to determine if maximal effort on all devices produced the same performance category as the 1.5-mile run. One hundred thirty-two active-duty military and midshipmen were recruited from the United States Naval Academy and Naval Support Activity Annapolis. Subjects participated in six testing sessions over a six-week period. Subjects performed a 1.5-mile run (n = 118), 12-minute elliptical trainer test (n = 108), 12-minute stationary bike test (n = 115), 2-Km rower test (n = 115), and 5-Km bike test (n = 114). Each performance category attained from the alternate aerobic test device was compared to the performance category attained for the 1.5-mile run. None of the aerobic testing devices performance categories matched well to the 1.5-mile run. The results of the testing sessions support the mandated use of the 1.5-mile run as the sole method of assessing aerobic fitness. Additionally, if an alternate method must be used, the 12-minute stationary bike test using the revised Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) performance categories might be the best option because it has the largest number of performance matching categories. Finally, the results do not support the use of the 12-minute elliptical test, as an authorized alternative, due to its minimal number of matching categories

Effet d'une expérimentation de brassage artificiel epilimnique par aération sur les poussées cyanobactériennes dans la retenue hypereutrophe de Grangent (France)

Dans la retenue hypereutrophe de Grangent, le phytoplancton estival est dominé par la cyanobactérie Microcystis aeruginosa. Dans le but de lutter contre la formation de ces blooms cyanobactériens, une expérimentation de brassage artificiel épilimnique par aération a été réalisée en 1997-1998. Ce dispositif avait pour but de créer des turbulences supprimant l'avantage adaptatif que constitue, chez M. aeruginosa, la faculté de réguler sa flottabilité. Il devait également permettre l'homogénéisation des teneurs en oxygène dissous, la réduction des pics de pH, de la turbidité des eaux superficielles et des teneurs en ammonium.Les résultats escomptés ont été vérifiés pour les paramètres physicochimiques. Les valeurs se sont révélées plus homogènes, mais seulement à proximité des lignes de brassage et uniquement jusqu'à 10 m de profondeur. En revanche, les blooms cyanobactériens n'ont pas été réduits. Il apparaît même au contraire que, sous l'influence du mélange, les cyanobactéries ont eu à leur disposition une plus grande quantité de nutriments qu'elles ont utilisés pour constituer des réserves glucidiques. Ainsi, en aval de la zone brassée, ces réserves ont permis une synthèse protéique plus importante.Sur la retenue de Grangent, le dispositif de brassage peut offrir une solution palliative du point de vue touristique en limitant l'accumulation de cyanobactéries en surface, mais il ne permet pas d'éliminer, ni même de diminuer, les proliférations de M. aeruginosa en période estivale.In the reservoir of Grangent, a highly eutrophic lake located on the upper part of the Loire River, about 10 miles south of Saint-Étienne (France), Microcystis aeruginosa usually dominates the phytoplankton community in late summer and early autumn for many years. Mass developments of this cyanobacterium led to serious difficulties in multi-purpose usage. In order to fight against blooms, an epilimnic artificial mixing was experimented. M. aeruginosa is adapted to stable stratification of the water column. Therefore, partial destratification or bubbling with air are employed to replace M. aeruginosa by better grazable, non- " blooming " and non-toxic species. This cyanobacterium is supposed to lose its advantage of buoyancy and to reduce his growth. This system was also employed to reduce peaks of pH, turbidity of surface waters and concentration of NH4 and to homogenize the dissolved oxygen concentration inside the water column. Three lines of mixing were tested in 1998: one located at "Châtelet", upstream of reservoir, measuring 700 m at 11 m depth; one near the beach of Saint-Victor, with the same length and immersed to 15 m depth and, finally, a line of 400 m, near the port, at 16 m depth (figure 1).Data were collected from representative sites, upstream, near and downstream the artificial mixing. They were sampled weekly since April to November 1998. At each site the vertical profiles of temperature and dissolved oxygen were measured (figure 2). For each sample, the parameters following were analyzed: pH, NO3, NH4, PO4, carbohydrates, proteins, chlorophyll a and phytoplankton enumeration.Concerning the physicochemical parameters, the assumptions were checked: the values appeared more homogeneous near the lines of mixing than at the other stations. For example, the average temperatures varied between 20,6°C (at 10 m depth) and 21,3°C (at 0,5 m depth) at Saint-Victor. This variation reached 1,3°C at the station Camaldules. On the other hand, this effect was perceived only up to 10 m of depth and at a limited distance of mixing.In the same way, the colonies of M. aeruginosa were mixed in the water column but only up 10 m depth and near mixing. Moreover, their growth has not decreased on the whole of reservoir. In period of bloom (August 25), G/P ratio was higher in the mixing zone than in the neighbourhoods, primarily because of an increase in carbohydrates (figure 3). In the mixed zone, M. aeruginosa seemed to benefit greater quantity of mineral elements it could use to constitute carbohydrates reserves (figure 4). In this way, when the conditions that became less favourable, like downstream, cyanobacteria were able to follow their development by synthesizing proteins starting from their reserves in carbohydrates.In the reservoir of Grangent, artificial mixing did not allow to fight effectively against blooms of cyanobacteria. Colonies of M. aeruginosa were simply diluted in the water column near mixing but did not reduce their growth