The Influence of Television Commercials on Clothing in India

In this article I aim to show that there are some major changes in India because of television regarding clothing. Whilst there is cultural fusion of Indian and western style clothing, this fusion is happening in different ways for different groups. Status in clothing (Campbell 49) is also reflecting other divides. The way that people respond to what they see on television commercials may depend on their gender, age, class or whether they live in a rural or urban context. The research is based on a ten year project which began with in-depth ethnography conducted in India. Most of the research was conducted in the North East of India, though some was conducted in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore. The ethnography included living with Indian families for long periods of time (ranging from six weeks to six months). Other research methods were also used including questionnaires, interviews and focus discussion groups

Celestial compass sensor mimics the insect eye for navigation under cloudy and occluded skies

Insects use the sun’s position (even when concealed) as a compass for navigation by filtering celestial light intensity and polarisation through their compound eyes. To replicate this functionality, we present a sensor that imitates essential aspects of insect eyes, particularly the fan-like arrangement of polarised light receptors in their dorsal rim area. Our sensor comprises a ring of eight pairs of photodiodes (evaluating two orthogonal orientations of polarised light) to analyse the skylight coming from different directions. Because the layout of our sensor aligns with the polarised light pattern in the sky, a circular-mean model that integrates information spatially across the analysers can estimate the solar azimuth. When using the same sensor design, our model achieves lower compass errors than alternative (and computationally more complex) algorithms, especially under cloudy and occluded skies. Thus, the morphology and processing of the insect celestial compass provide an efficient and robust directional input for navigation

Decoherence window and electron-nuclear cross-relaxation in the molecular magnet V 15

Rabi oscillations in the V_15 Single Molecule Magnet (SMM) embedded in the surfactant DODA have been studied at different microwave powers. An intense damping peak is observed when the Rabi frequency Omega_R falls in the vicinity of the Larmor frequency of protons w_N, while the damping time t_R of oscillations reaches values 10 times shorter than the phase coherence time t_2 measured at the same temperature. The experiments are interpreted by the N-spin model showing that t_R is directly associated with the decoherence via electronic/nuclear spin cross-relaxation in the rotating reference frame. It is shown that this decoherence is accompanied with energy dissipation in the range of the Rabi frequencies w_N - sigma_e < Omega_R < w_N, where sigma_e is the mean super-hyperfine field (in frequency units) induced by protons at SMMs. Weaker damping without dissipation takes place outside this dissipation window. Simple local field estimations suggest that this rapid cross-relaxation in resonant microwave field observed for the first time in SMMV_15 should take place in other SMMs like Fe_8 and Mn_12 containing protons, too

Gendering Worcester News

This research explores gender and gender stereotypes in a local newspaper, focusing on issues such as whose voice is accessed as a news source, as well as whether female and male journalists dominate soft news or hard news articles. Using the local newspaper, Worcester News, detailed content analysis was conducted for six months (Monday to Saturday for the same week each month). The analysis highlighted that gender biases continue in Worcester News and that this has implications for training journalists. Male journalists tended to write far more articles about Politics (Political articles were written by 89% of male journalists compared with 11% of female journalists). Similarly, male journalists were more likely to write about Crime and Business (73% of these articles were written by male journalists compared with 27% of female journalists). Female journalists also wrote more about Family issues (36% male journalists compared with 64% of female journalists) and Leisure (34% male journalists compared with 66% female journalists). These differences reinforce hard news/soft news gendered perceptions, as well as providing the readership with role models that tend to strengthen gender stereotypes, such as women being discouraged from engaging in politics and the public sphere. The sole authoritative voices used also tended to be male (49% were male compared with 14% that were solely female). Female sources were often placed alongside a male (this constituted 29% in Worcester News) – and although these figures tended to be better than the findings from Cochrane (2011), it is suggested that such gender disparities are continuing to reinforce hegemonic masculinity as the dominant norm for journalists and the news they produce