Differential access to the state: white farmers in the Natal Midlands, 1900 - 1930

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid, 6-10 February, 199

“Pipping a little game in the bud” - Pixley Isaka ka Seme, land purchase and rural differentiation in the Eastern Transvaal

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: The Making of Class, 9-14 February, 198

Corporal punishment in South African schools : a neglected explanation for its Existence

The South African education system historically has used corporal punishment to maintain discipline. Criticism of its effects led, in 1996, to the banning of this form of punishment. But this legislative intervention did not end the use of corporal punishment in schools. This article offers an explanation for the ongoing use of corporal punishment. It is based on a survey of 16 Durban schools in September and October 1998. Corporal punishment has effectively disappeared from middle-class, formerly white, schools, but is still relatively common in township schools. Reasons for the persistent and illegal use of corporal punishment include the absence of alternatives, the legacy of itarian education practices and the belief that corporal punishment is necessary for orderly education to take place. A neglected explanation is that corporal punishment persists because parents use it in the home and support its use in school. There is a tension between the prohibition of corporal punishment in schools and the increase in parent involvement in the affairs of schools. (South African Journal of Education: 2001 21(4): 292-299

The behaviour of the edible winkle, littorina littorea l. in rock pools on shores differing in their degree of pollution

The variability in distribution and behaviour of the Edible winkle, Littorina littorea L, in rock pools has been examined on an unpolluted shore. The influence of physio-chemical fluctuations in the pool environment is discussed. Two stretches of polluted coast were then investigated to discover any differences in distribution and behaviour which might be attributable to pollution. A number of experiments were conducted on the shore to observe the response of winkles in pools to the introduction of various noxious chemicals

The Prison Fix: Race, Work, and Economic Development in Elmira, New York

Based on more than a year of ethnographic and archival research in Elmira, New York and, to a lesser extent, New York City, this dissertation analyzes the social, economic, and political processes through which Elmira, New York was transformed by the construction of the Southport Correctional Facility in 1988 as a project of economic development during a period of massive expansion of the New York State prison system. It focuses on the unfolding of the project of mass incarceration and its impact on the lives of Elmira\u27s citizens and workers, as well as the men incarcerated in Elmira\u27s prisons and their families. Through ethnographic work with prison guards, formerly incarcerated men and women and their families, and a broad cross section of Elmirans, I trace the tensions of constructing and maintaining two prisons that incarcerate nearly 2,500 men. I show how the project of prison expansion into Elmira was an attempt to solve the social, economic, and political crises of deindustrialization and economic restructuring with a prison fix. By using the prison town as a unit of analysis, I argue in this dissertation that the prison is part of a regime that extends beyond the prison\u27s walls. I demonstrate that despite increasingly intricate fences and barriers aimed at maintaining the separation between the incarcerated men and free Elmira, ideas, money, and relationships circulate between increasingly connected places. An ethnographic focus on the prison town, as opposed to the prison as a distinct institution or an arbiter of ghetto relationships, allowed me to delineate the ways in which the prison leaks into the everyday life of the city of Elmira. Thus, the Elmira Correctional Facilities and the Southport Correctional Facilities are a part of a carceral state, equally political and economic, that makes use of Elmira as a place of confinement

Design considerations for flight test of a fault inferring nonlinear detection system algorithm for avionics sensors

The modifications to the design of a fault inferring nonlinear detection system (FINDS) algorithm to accommodate flight computer constraints and the resulting impact on the algorithm performance are summarized. An overview of the flight data-driven FINDS algorithm is presented. This is followed by a brief analysis of the effects of modifications to the algorithm on program size and execution speed. Significant improvements in estimation performance for the aircraft states and normal operating sensor biases, which have resulted from improved noise design parameters and a new steady-state wind model, are documented. The aircraft state and sensor bias estimation performances of the algorithm's extended Kalman filter are presented as a function of update frequency of the piecewise constant filter gains. The results of a new detection system strategy and failure detection performance, as a function of gain update frequency, are also presented

Handedness in fiddler crab fights

Asymmetric weapons are common in bilateral animals and, in some species, they can occur on either the left- or the right-hand side of the body (lateralization). Fiddler crabs (Uca spp, Decapoda: Ocypodidae) have an enlarged claw that is used in male–male combat over territories and in courtship displays. Males can be either right- or left-handed, and most species have a 1:1 ratio. Past studies have found little effect of handedness on fighting success, fight duration or other measures of combat. Here we show that, while handedness per se, does not affect fighting, handedness matching has a significant effect. In Uca mjoebergi, fights between different-handed males were more likely to escalate to grappling, suggesting that it is harder for the combatants to determine the winner. We suggest that the positioning of the claws during fighting creates distinct forces that result in different outcomes for same- versus different-handed fights. This can represent a strong selective pressure in populations with an uneven handedness distribution where the handedness minority will often engage in different-handed fights. We discuss these results in light of the selective forces that may act on handedness distribution in fiddler crabs