Particle acceleration in the presence of weak turbulence at an X-type neutral point

We simulate the likely noisy situation near a reconnection region by superposing many 2D linear reconnection eigenmodes. The superposition of modes on the steady state X-type magnetic field creates multiple X- and O-type neutral points close to the original neutral point and so increases the size of the non-adiabatic region. We study test particle trajectories of initially thermal protons in these fields. Protons become trapped in this region and are accelerated by the turbulent electric field to energies up to 1 MeV in time scales relevant to solar flares. Higher energies are achieved due to the interaction of particles with increasingly turbulent electric and magnetic fields

Rape and respectability: ideas about sexual violence and social class

Women on low incomes are disproportionately represented among sexual violence survivors, yet feminist research on this topic has paid very little attention to social class. This article blends recent research on class, gender and sexuality with what we know about sexual violence. It is argued that there is a need to engage with classed distinctions between women in terms of contexts for and experiences of sexual violence, and to look at interactions between pejorative constructions of working-class sexualities and how complainants and defendants are perceived and treated. The classed division between the sexual and the feminine, drawn via the notion of respectability, is applied to these issues. This piece is intended to catalyse further research and debate, and raises a number of questions for future work on sexual violence and social class

Gender, war and militarism: making and questioning the links

The gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of ‘masculinity’ that occurs in the training and use of men's capacity for violence in the armed services. However, women's relation to both war and peace has been varied and complex. It is women who have often been most prominent in working for peace, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. In addition, more women than ever are serving in many of today's armies, with feminists rather uncertain on how to relate to this phenomenon. In this article, I explore some of the complexities of applying gender analyses to militarism and peace work in sites of conflict today, looking most closely at the Israeli feminist group, New Profile, and their insistence upon the costs of the militarized nature of Israeli society. They expose the very permeable boundaries between the military and civil society, as violence seeps into the fears and practices of everyday life in Israel. I place their work in the context of broader feminist analysis offered by researchers such as Cynthia Enloe and Cynthia Cockburn, who have for decades been writing about the ‘masculinist’ postures and practices of warfare, as well as the situation of women caught up in them. Finally, I suggest that rethinking the gendered nature of warfare must also encompass the costs of war to men, whose fundamental vulnerability to psychological abuse and physical injury is often downplayed, whether in mainstream accounts of warfare or in more specific gender analysis. Feminists need to pay careful attention to masculinity and its fragmentations in addressing the topic of gender, war and militarism

Transport via a quantum shuttle

Published versio

‘The Coaching Needs of High Performance Female Athletes within the Coach-Athlete Dyad’

Within the research literature there is little work that has examined how coaches (and coaching) can positively influence female athletes’ continued participation and development in performance sport. With this in mind, utilising a grounded theory approach, this study focused on what are the coaching preferences of female athletes within the elite coachathlete dyad. Through interviews with 27 current high performance female athletes, four major coaching needs were found. These were: to be supported as person as well a performer, coaching to be a joint endeavour, the need for positive communication and finally, recognition of the salience of gender within the coach-athlete dyad. The findings provide evidence that the relational expertise of coaches is at the forefront of these women’s coaching needs. This study also demonstrates that for the participants, the coach-athlete relationship is at the heart of improving athletic training and performance, and that gender is an important influence on this relationship. Furthermore, the research highlights the strength of using an interpretive-qualitative paradigmatic approach to athlete preferences through foregrounding the women’s voices and experiences

Gendering the Politics of Alienation: Arab Revolution and Women’s Sentiments of Loss and Despair

The article suggests that from the start of the revolutions in the Arab region in late 2010 a connection between the law, state, political economy, gender norms and orientalist ideology has formed the foundation of women’s systematic exclusion from politics. As a consequence, women’s alienation from politics – a necessity for the restoration of old regimes of power – took on various forms, including: externalising, exceptionalising, and celebrating women’s revolutionary acts and contributions to revolutions. This article examines these processes that created the ideological and material conditions of women’s alienation, estranging their political involvement and exposing them to various forms of violence The article suggests that alienation of women from revolutions relied on gender normative ideology to create women’s supposedly unique and distinct interests; according to this ideology, women attempt to satisfy such interests through dancing, nikah al-jihad or the desire to be sexually harassed. Women’s power and needs were moulded as distinctly different from those of men. Hence, forms of alienation diminished women’s roles as initiators, producers of revolutions, rendering women apart. This article shows that, whilst forms of alienation differed in various political phases and often contradicted each other, the intent of each form of alienation was to show a defect, a mistake in women’s acts, and thus establish the supposedly ‘correct’ characteristics of women protesters based on women’s intrinsic nature. Through this, gender normativity was reproduced to serve the political class(s)’s specific interests, 2 determining the linkages between the alienation of women from politics, the alienation of the revolution from its people, and the entire sphere of politics. The sphere of politics not only relates to political activism and conflict between revolutions and counterrevolutions, it is also a battlefield for the (re)production of knowledge

Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995-2009: analysis of individual data for 25,676,887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2)

BACKGROUND: Worldwide data for cancer survival are scarce. We aimed to initiate worldwide surveillance of cancer survival by central analysis of population-based registry data, as a metric of the effectiveness of health systems, and to inform global policy on cancer control. METHODS: Individual tumour records were submitted by 279 population-based cancer registries in 67 countries for 25·7 million adults (age 15-99 years) and 75,000 children (age 0-14 years) diagnosed with cancer during 1995-2009 and followed up to Dec 31, 2009, or later. We looked at cancers of the stomach, colon, rectum, liver, lung, breast (women), cervix, ovary, and prostate in adults, and adult and childhood leukaemia. Standardised quality control procedures were applied; errors were corrected by the registry concerned. We estimated 5-year net survival, adjusted for background mortality in every country or region by age (single year), sex, and calendar year, and by race or ethnic origin in some countries. Estimates were age-standardised with the International Cancer Survival Standard weights. FINDINGS: 5-year survival from colon, rectal, and breast cancers has increased steadily in most developed countries. For patients diagnosed during 2005-09, survival for colon and rectal cancer reached 60% or more in 22 countries around the world; for breast cancer, 5-year survival rose to 85% or higher in 17 countries worldwide. Liver and lung cancer remain lethal in all nations: for both cancers, 5-year survival is below 20% everywhere in Europe, in the range 15-19% in North America, and as low as 7-9% in Mongolia and Thailand. Striking rises in 5-year survival from prostate cancer have occurred in many countries: survival rose by 10-20% between 1995-99 and 2005-09 in 22 countries in South America, Asia, and Europe, but survival still varies widely around the world, from less than 60% in Bulgaria and Thailand to 95% or more in Brazil, Puerto Rico, and the USA. For cervical cancer, national estimates of 5-year survival range from less than 50% to more than 70%; regional variations are much wider, and improvements between 1995-99 and 2005-09 have generally been slight. For women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005-09, 5-year survival was 40% or higher only in Ecuador, the USA, and 17 countries in Asia and Europe. 5-year survival for stomach cancer in 2005-09 was high (54-58%) in Japan and South Korea, compared with less than 40% in other countries. By contrast, 5-year survival from adult leukaemia in Japan and South Korea (18-23%) is lower than in most other countries. 5-year survival from childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is less than 60% in several countries, but as high as 90% in Canada and four European countries, which suggests major deficiencies in the management of a largely curable disease. INTERPRETATION: International comparison of survival trends reveals very wide differences that are likely to be attributable to differences in access to early diagnosis and optimum treatment. Continuous worldwide surveillance of cancer survival should become an indispensable source of information for cancer patients and researchers and a stimulus for politicians to improve health policy and health-care systems