Making music, making money : informal musical production and performance in Venda, South Africa

This paper presents an ethnographic analysis of the popular economy of informal musical production in the Venda region of South Africa. It focuses on the activities surrounding the Burnin‟ Shak Studio; a recording house that specializes in reggae music. Reliant on second-hand computers, pirated software, borrowed instruments, networks of trust and cycles of debt, musicians and producers in the Burnin‟ Shak occupy a distinctly peripheral position in South Africa‟s music industry. Unlike artists in the formal sphere of musical production, who sign deals with specific record labels, musicians in the informal sector seek out sponsors – usually young local businessmen – to fund their recordings with local producers. Marketing and distribution is the sole responsibility of the artist and their sponsor, who often develop a „patron/client‟ relationship. And yet whilst their artistic entrepreneurial activity often earns them significant airplay on local radio stations, and associated cultural capital, the financial benefits are slim. In order to convert their cultural capital into cash, musicians in the informal sector must compete in the market for performances at government-sponsored shows. These shows are well funded by lucrative tenders, but they present musicians with a double-edged sword. To secure a contract with tender holders – or to entertain hopes of regular paid performances – musicians must ensure that their performances do not express critical political sentiment. As purveyors of a genre renowned for its critical social commentary, reggae musicians are particularly affected by this expectation of self-censorship. Informal musical production in the post-apartheid era thus affords musicians little artistic freedom. Rather, whilst the products of this culture industry may appear to be part of a „secondary‟ economy, removed from the spheres of formalized production and control, they are in fact regulated and standardized through the process of tender allocation.Cet article présente une analyse ethnographique de l’économie populaire de la production musicale informelle dans la région de Venda en Afrique du Sud. Il s’intéresse aux activités qui entourent le studio d’enregistrement Burnin’ Shak, spécialisé dans la musique reggae. Les musiciens et les producteurs du Burnin’ Shak, qui ont recours à des ordinateurs d’occasion, logiciels piratés, instruments empruntés, réseaux de confiance et cycles de dette, occupent une position distinctement périphérique au sein de l’industrie de la musique en Afrique du Sud. Contrairement aux artistes qui évoluent dans la sphère formelle de la production musicale et s’engagent par contrat auprès de labels spécifiques, les musiciens du secteur informel recherchent des sponsors (généralement de jeunes entrepreneurs locaux) pour financer leurs enregistrements réalisés avec des producteurs locaux. L’artiste et son sponsor, qui développent souvent une relation patron-client, assurent entièrement la commercialisation et la distribution. Pourtant, et alors que l’activité entrepreneuriale des artistes leur vaut de passer souvent sur les ondes des radios locales et leur rapporte le capital culturel associé, les avantages financiers sont maigres. Pour convertir leur capital culturel en argent, les musiciens du secteur informel entrent en concurrence sur le marché pour passer dans les spectacles parrainés par l’État. Ces spectacles sont financés par des offres lucratives, mais constituent pour les musiciens une arme à double tranchant. Pour décrocher un contrat auprès des adjudicateurs ou entretenir l’espoir de donner régulièrement des spectacles rémunérés, les musiciens doivent dépouiller leurs spectacles de toute expression de sentiment politique critique. Cette exigence d’autocensure affecte particulièrement les musiciens reggae dont le genre musical est réputé pour le commentaire social critique. La production musicale informelle ne laisse donc que peu de liberté artistique aux musiciens de l’ère post-apartheid. Et alors même que les produits de cette industrie culturelle peuvent sembler appartenir à une économie « secondaire », à l’écart des sphères de la production formalisée et du contrôle, ils sont en fait régulés et normalisés par le processus d’adjudication par appel d’offres.http://www.euppublishing.com/journal/afrcp201

Imaging of hydrothermal altered zones in Wadi Al-Bana, in southern Yemen, using remote sensing techniques and very low frequency–electromagnetic data

© 2019, Saudi Society for Geosciences. Economic mineralization and hydrothermally altered zones are areas of great economic interests. This study focusses on hydrothermal altered zones of high mineralization potentials in Wadi Al-Bana, in southern Yemen. An azimuthal very low frequency–electromagnetic (AVLF-EM) data acquisition was conducted in search for mineralization in the study area. The study integrated observations from geophysical field data with others extracted from object-oriented principal component analysis (PCA) to better map and understand mineralization in the investigated area. This technique was applied to two data sets, ASTER and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) imagery. The results of PCA revealed high accuracy in detecting alteration minerals and for mapping zones of high concentration of these minerals. The PCA-based distribution of selected alteration zones correlated spatially with high conductivity anomalies in the subsurface that were detected by VLF measurements. Finally, a GIS model was built and successfully utilized to categorize the resulted altered zones, into three levels. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Playwork goes to School:Professional (mis)recognition and playwork practice in primary school.

The article considers some of the key contemporary challenges facing playwork professionals in England when working in interagency and inter-professional contexts, specifically in English primary schools. This paper is based on a small-scale qualitative evaluation of a pilot play project situated within a primary school in a large English town. By drawing on broader debates within sociological literature and interview and observational data, this paper provides insights into the gendered, classed and interprofessional discourses that are in play within a new phase of the austere economic and occupational public sector landscape. Drawing on concepts of ‘misrecognition’, the authors’ explore issues of professional power, the process of professionalisation and how aspects such as gender and status shape contemporary inter-professional dynamics in schools and playwork contexts

Physical activity, sedentary time and physical capability in early old age: British birth cohort study.

PURPOSE: To investigate the associations of time spent sedentary, in moderate-to-vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) and physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE) with physical capability measures at age 60-64 years. METHODS: Time spent sedentary and in MVPA and, PAEE were assessed using individually calibrated combined heart rate and movement sensing among 1727 participants from the MRC National Survey of Health and Development in England, Scotland and Wales as part of a detailed clinical assessment undertaken in 2006-2010. Multivariable linear regression models were used to examine the cross-sectional associations between standardised measures of each of these behavioural variables with grip strength, chair rise and timed up-&-go (TUG) speed and standing balance time. RESULTS: Greater time spent in MVPA was associated with higher levels of physical capability; adjusted mean differences in each capability measure per 1 standard deviation increase in MVPA time were: grip strength (0.477 kg, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.015 to 0.939), chair rise speed (0.429 stands/min, 95% CI: 0.093 to 0.764), standing balance time (0.028 s, 95% CI: 0.003 to 0.053) and TUG speed (0.019 m/s, 95% CI: 0.011 to 0.026). In contrast, time spent sedentary was associated with lower grip strength (-0.540 kg, 95% CI: -1.013 to -0.066) and TUG speed (-0.011 m/s, 95% CI: -0.019 to -0.004). Associations for PAEE were similar to those for MVPA. CONCLUSION: Higher levels of MVPA and overall physical activity (PAEE) are associated with greater levels of physical capability whereas time spent sedentary is associated with lower levels of capability. Future intervention studies in older adults should focus on both the promotion of physical activity and reduction in time spent sedentary.This work was supported by the UK Medical Research Council (U120063239, U123092720, MC_UU_12019/1, MC_UU_12019/4, MC_UU_12015/3, and MC_UU_12015/4).This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0126465

Towards an Embodied Sociology of War

While sociology has historically not been a good interlocutor of war, this paper argues that the body has always known war, and that it is to the corporeal that we can turn in an attempt to develop a language to better speak of its myriad violences and its socially generative force. It argues that war is a crucible of social change that is prosecuted, lived and reproduced via the occupation and transformation of myriad bodies in numerous ways from exhilaration to mutilation. War and militarism need to be traced and analysed in terms of their fundamental, diverse and often brutal modes of embodied experience and apprehension. This paper thus invites sociology to extend its imaginative horizon to rethink the crucial and enduring social institution of war as a broad array of fundamentally embodied experiences, practices and regimes

Syphilis at the Crossroad of Phylogenetics and Paleopathology

The origin of syphilis is still controversial. Different research avenues explore its fascinating history. Here we employed a new integrative approach, where paleopathology and molecular analyses are combined. As an exercise to test the validity of this approach we examined different hypotheses on the origin of syphilis and other human diseases caused by treponemes (treponematoses). Initially, we constructed a worldwide map containing all accessible reports on palaeopathological evidences of treponematoses before Columbus's return to Europe. Then, we selected the oldest ones to calibrate the time of the most recent common ancestor of Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum, T. pallidum subsp. endemicum and T. pallidum subsp. pertenue in phylogenetic analyses with 21 genetic regions of different T. pallidum strains previously reported. Finally, we estimated the treponemes' evolutionary rate to test three scenarios: A) if treponematoses accompanied human evolution since Homo erectus; B) if venereal syphilis arose very recently from less virulent strains caught in the New World about 500 years ago, and C) if it emerged in the Americas between 16,500 and 5,000 years ago. Two of the resulting evolutionary rates were unlikely and do not explain the existent osseous evidence. Thus, treponematoses, as we know them today, did not emerge with H. erectus, nor did venereal syphilis appear only five centuries ago. However, considering 16,500 years before present (yBP) as the time of the first colonization of the Americas, and approximately 5,000 yBP as the oldest probable evidence of venereal syphilis in the world, we could not entirely reject hypothesis C. We confirm that syphilis seems to have emerged in this time span, since the resulting evolutionary rate is compatible with those observed in other bacteria. In contrast, if the claims of precolumbian venereal syphilis outside the Americas are taken into account, the place of origin remains unsolved. Finally, the endeavor of joining paleopathology and phylogenetics proved to be a fruitful and promising approach for the study of infectious diseases

Regenerative agriculture in Aotearoa New Zealand - research pathways to build science-based evidence and national narratives.

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Species Delimitation in Taxonomically Difficult Fungi: The Case of Hymenogaster

False truffles are ecologically important as mycorrhizal partners of trees and evolutionarily highly interesting as the result of a shift from epigeous mushroom-like to underground fruiting bodies. Since its first description by Vittadini in 1831, inappropriate species concepts in the highly diverse false truffle genus Hymenogaster has led to continued confusion, caused by a large variety of prevailing taxonomical opinions.In this study, we reconsidered the species delimitations in Hymenogaster based on a comprehensive collection of Central European taxa comprising more than 140 fruiting bodies from 20 years of field work. The ITS rDNA sequence dataset was subjected to phylogenetic analysis as well as clustering optimization using OPTSIL software.Among distinct species concepts from the literature used to create reference partitions for clustering optimization, the broadest concept resulted in the highest agreement with the ITS data. Our results indicate a highly variable morphology of H. citrinus and H. griseus, most likely linked to environmental influences on the phenology (maturity, habitat, soil type and growing season). In particular, taxa described in the 19(th) century frequently appear as conspecific. Conversely, H. niveus appears as species complex comprising seven cryptic species with almost identical macro- and micromorphology. H. intermedius and H. huthii are described as novel species, each of which with a distinct morphology intermediate between two species complexes. A revised taxonomy for one of the most taxonomically difficult genera of Basidiomycetes is proposed, including an updated identification key. The (semi-)automated selection among species concepts used here is of importance for the revision of taxonomically problematic organism groups in general

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta