THE SOLITUDE OF THE STANCE: THE BODILY AUTOLOGY OF GYM-WORK AND BOXING IN AN ESSEX TOWN

Contemporary accounts of masculinity in Britain have tended to focus on the politics of body image: how and why young men aspire to appear a certain way through forms of body modification. Drawing on ethnography carried out amongst young British males in Essex, this paper homes in on the technical processes of body modification itself, arguing that what is at stake in practices such as working out at the gym is not only the transformation of appearance. Rather than seeing practices such as weight-lifting as failed acts of resistance, where men attempt to craft themselves as physically powerful individuals while ultimately conforming to gender stereotypes and norms, what follows is an argument that posits the body as a locus of sensory self-enunciation. Drawing upon the praxeological method of Jean-Pierre Warnier, I advance a sensorylogical analysis of weight-lifting practices to show how young men quite literally embody themselves as capable and agentive persons. I further explore these questions of embodied self-enunciation at the Billericay Boxing Hut where I analyse forms and logics of sensory experience that allow men to render themselves persons defined by the capacity to overcome pain from within. I argue that boxing training and weight-lifting in the gym instantiate a local principle of male personhood, autology: the sense young men have of being individual, self-determining and agentive persons. Gym-work and boxing are thus re-interpreted as acts of bodily autology: practical acts that elicit a singular and capable self

Soil phosphorus status in organic and conventional vegetable farms in Southeast Queensland, Australia

The soil phosphorus (P) status (0-10 cm) of two farming systems (organic (OF) and conventional (CF) vegetable farms) at two locations (Gatton and Stanthorpe) was examined amongst a suite of soil fertility indicators. The P status was similar between farming systems, in contrast to some broad-acre organic systems. Examination of farm management records revealed substantial overlap between P inputs at both localities with CF systems also receiving organic inputs, e.g. green manure and composts. A statistical analysis of the effects of different inputs also indicated that P fertility did not vary significantly between farms. Soil P levels were medium to high across farm types indicating a potential environmental risk for vegetable producers particularly in sandy well drained soils. The three methods of extraction Colwell, Olsen and Resin were well correlated with each other and produced similar results indicating the similar nutrient pools exist between farming system

Synthesized size-sound sound symbolism

Studies of sound symbolism have shown that people can associate sound and meaning in consistent ways when presented with maximally contrastive stimulus pairs of nonwords such as bouba/kiki (rounded/sharp) or mil/mal (small/big). Recent work has shown the effect extends to antonymic words from natural languages and has proposed a role for shared cross-modal correspondences in biasing form- to-meaning associations. An important open question is how the associations work, and particularly what the role is of sound-symbolic matches versus mismatches. We report on a learning task designed to distinguish between three existing theories by using a spectrum of sound-symbolically matching, mismatching, and neutral (neither matching nor mismatching) stimuli. Synthesized stimuli allow us to control for prosody, and the inclusion of a neutral condition allows a direct test of competing accounts. We find evidence for a sound-symbolic match boost, but not for a mismatch difficulty compared to the neutral condition

Quantum confinement in Si and Ge nanostructures: Effect of crystallinity

We look at the relationship between the preparation method of Si and Ge nanostructures (NSs) and the structural, electronic, and optical properties in terms of quantum confinement (QC). QC in NSs causes a blue shift of the gap energy with decreasing NS dimension. Directly measuring the effect of QC is complicated by additional parameters, such as stress, interface and defect states. In addition, differences in NS preparation lead to differences in the relevant parameter set. A relatively simple model of QC, using a `particle-in-a-box'-type perturbation to the effective mass theory, was applied to Si and Ge quantum wells, wires and dots across a variety of preparation methods. The choice of the model was made in order to distinguish contributions that are solely due to the effects of QC, where the only varied experimental parameter was the crystallinity. It was found that the hole becomes de-localized in the case of amorphous materials, which leads to stronger confinement effects. The origin of this result was partly attributed to differences in the effective mass between the amorphous and crystalline NS as well as between the electron and hole. Corrections to our QC model take into account a position dependent effective mass. This term includes an inverse length scale dependent on the displacement from the origin. Thus, when the deBroglie wavelength or the Bohr radius of the carriers is on the order of the dimension of the NS the carriers `feel' the confinement potential altering their effective mass. Furthermore, it was found that certain interface states (Si-O-Si) act to pin the hole state, thus reducing the oscillator strength.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1111.201

Nairobi Becoming:Security, Uncertainty, Contingency

Echoing the edgy, disjunctive, ever-emergent city of Nairobi that it explores, Nairobi Becoming: Security, Uncertainty, Contingency strives to be several things-in-the-making. It is a historically and anthropologically minded examination of a shifting cityscape, an experimental, collaborative exercise in curated juxtaposition and assemblage, and an interdisciplinary, subjunctive urban ethnography. It brings together curated interventions by twenty-seven artists, scholars, and writers to trace Nairobi’s becoming. Methodologically experimental and multimodal, it seeks to balance an appreciation of Nairobi’s fragmented character while also recognizing its contingent coherency

Visceral Leishmaniasis in Traveler to Guyana Caused by Leishmania siamensis, London, UK.

The parasite Leishmania siamensis is a zoonotic agent of leishmaniasis; infection in animals has been documented in Europe and the United States. Reported authochthonous human infections have been limited to Thailand. We report a case of human visceral Leishmania siamensis infection acquired in Guyana, suggesting colonization in South America

Flexibility and efficiency in university soil science education: The Oz Soils 3.0 CD-ROM

Based on a 1997 CUTSD grant, we have developed 18 teaching modules for a CD-ROM based interactive multimedia program, called Oz Soils, which is integrated into the teaching curriculum of internal and external undergraduate units at The University of New England to assist students in understanding the fundamental concepts and processes of soil science. Oz Soils incorporates a flexible self-directed learning structure to help achieve this understanding. Other unit resources include a study guide, a practical workbook, and on-line quiz modules conducted through WebCT. Oz Soils makes use of interactive animations, still graphics, and text, and includes interactive selfassessment questions. The program can be readily integrated into a range of study areas which require a basic understanding of soil science including agriculture, forestry, ecosystems management, natural resources, ecology, engineering, mine site rehabilitation, geology, geography and biology. Oz Soils has been extremely well received by students and has been adopted by many Australian university departments which require teaching aspects of soil science. A brief rationale for developing the Oz Soils resource is presented, together with some outcomes of student questionnaires and research on a learning strategies study