Ballet body belief: perceptions of an ideal ballet body from young ballet dancers

This paper explores what is perceived and believed to be an ideal ballet body by young ballet dancers. Such bodily belief becomes, in Pierre Bourdieu’s terms, a core part of a ballet dancer’s habitus. A four year longitudinal, ethnographic, empirical study of the experiences of 12 young ballet dancers, six boys and six girls, aged between 10 and 15 years at the start of the study, examined processes of bodily construction and ‘becoming’ a ballet dancer in non-residential ballet schooling. Data was generated via a multi-method approach although only individual and focus group interview data are used here. Findings suggest that the 12 young ballet dancers’ attempted to replicate and position themselves within what is perceived and believed to be an ideal ballet body shape and size. Ballet is a social practice which shapes the activity of the young dancer but is also shaped by that young dancer through a process of incorporation of the social into the body. The ballet dancer’s body and habitus is produced and maintained as the young ballet dancers’ accepted their bodies as an aesthetic project. It is argued that there is a strong connection between the size, shape and aesthetic of the ballet body and identity

Young, talented dancers in contemporary dance training: widening participation and fair access, rhetoric or reality?

Socio-economic disadvantage can be a significant barrier to accessing high quality dance training for young, talented dancers. Government policy and strategy relating to widening participation and talent development in the UK are premised on raising aspirations and meritocracy. This article uses Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual framework of field, capital and habitus to examine social variations, that can act as barriers to talent identification and talent development in dance. An interview study was undertaken with 33 talented, contemporary dancers, between the ages of 13-16 years, from a variety of backgrounds, about their experiences prior to and during their participation in a dance Centre of Advanced Training programme. Findings suggest the dancers’ have experienced barriers to access, but also capital gain, symbolic exchange and transformative potential

A First Principles Theory of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance J-Coupling in solid-state systems

A method to calculate NMR J-coupling constants from first principles in extended systems is presented. It is based on density functional theory and is formulated within a planewave-pseudopotential framework. The all-electron properties are recovered using the projector augmented wave approach. The method is validated by comparison with existing quantum chemical calculations of solution-state systems and with experimental data. The approach has been applied to verify measured J-coupling in a silicophosphate structure, Si5O(PO4)6Comment: 9 page

Nonlocal pseudopotentials and magnetic fields

We show how to describe the coupling of electrons to non-uniform magnetic fields in the framework of the widely used norm-conserving pseudopotential appro ximation for electronic structure calculations. Our derivation applies to magnetic fields that are smooth on the scale of the core region. The method is validated by application to the calculation of the magnetic susceptibility of molecules. Our results are compared with high quality all electron quantum chemical results, and another recently proposed formalism.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Low-energy tetrahedral polymorphs of carbon, silicon, and germanium

Searches for low-energy tetrahedral polymorphs of carbon and silicon have been performed using density functional theory computations and the ab initio random structure searching (AIRSS) ap- proach. Several of the hypothetical phases obtained in our searches have enthalpies that are lower or comparable to those of other polymorphs of group 14 elements that have either been experimentally synthesized or recently proposed as the structure of unknown phases obtained in experiments, and should thus be considered as particularly interesting candidates. A structure of P bam symmetry with 24 atoms in the unit cell was found to be a low energy, low-density metastable polymorph in carbon, silicon, and germanium. In silicon, Pbam is found to have a direct band gap at the zone center with an estimated value of 1.4 eV, which suggests applications as a photovoltaic material. We have also found a low-energy chiral framework structure of P 41 21 2 symmetry with 20 atoms per cell containing fivefold spirals of atoms, whose projected topology is that of the so-called Cairo-type two- dimensional pentagonal tiling. We suggest that P41 21 2 is a likely candidate for the structure of the unknown phase XIII of silicon. We discuss Pbam and P41 21 2 in detail, contrasting their energetics and structures with those of other group 14 elements, particularly the recently proposed P42 /ncm structure, for which we also provide a detailed interpretation as a network of tilted diamond-like tetrahedra.AM acknowledges the financial support of the Ministerio de Educaci´on, Cultura y Deporte (MECD, Spain) through its Programa de Movilidad de Recursos Humanos (Plan Nacional de I+D+i), grant PRX12/00335, and of project MAT2010-21270-C04-03. Access to the MALTA computer cluster (Universidad de Oviedo, Project CSD2007-00045) and the High Performance Computing Service of the University of Cambridge are gratefully acknowledged. RJN and CJP were supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK.We thank Keith Refson for useful discussions.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from APS at http://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.214104

Modelling the structure of Zr-rich Pb(Zr1-xTix)O-3, x=0.4 by a multiphase approach

Solid solution perovskite Pb(Zr1−xTix)O3 (PZT) is an industrially important material. Despite the long history of experimental and theoretical studies, the structure of this material is still under intensive discussion. In this work, we have applied structure searching coupled with density functional theory methods to provide a multiphase description of this material at x = 0.4. We demonstrate that the permutational freedom of B-site cations leads to the stabilisation of a variety of local phases reflecting a relatively flat energy landscape of PZT. Using a set of predicted local phases we reproduce the experimental pair distribution function (PDF) profile with high accuracy. We introduce a complex multiphase picture of the structure of PZT and show that additional monoclinic and rhombohedral phases account for a better description of the experimental PDF profile. We propose that such a multiphase picture reflects the entropy reached in the sample during the preparation process

Comparison of health-related quality of life measures in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aims of this study were: (1) to compare the discriminative ability of a disease-specific instrument, the St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ) to generic instruments (i.e., EQ-5D and SF-36); and (2), to evaluate the strength of associations among clinical and health-related quality of life (HRQL) measures in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyzed data collected from 120 COPD patients in a Veterans Affairs hospital. Patients self-completed two generic HRQL measures (EQ-5D and SF-36) and the disease-specific SGRQ. The ability of the summary scores of these HRQL measures to discriminate COPD disease severity based on Global Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage was assessed using relative efficiency ratios (REs). Strength of correlation was used to further evaluate associations between clinical and HRQL measures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mean total scores for PCS-36, EQ-VAS and SGRQ were significantly lower for the more severe stages of COPD (<it>p </it>< 0.05). Using SGRQ total score as reference, the summary scores of the generic measures (PCS-36, MCS-36, EQ index, and EQ-VAS) all had REs of <1. SGRQ exhibited a stronger correlation with clinical measures than the generic summary scores. For instance, SGRQ was moderately correlated with FEV₁(<it>r </it>= 0.43), while generic summary scores had trivial levels of correlation with FEV₁(<it>r </it>< 0.2).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The SGRQ demonstrated greater ability to discriminate among different levels of severity stages of COPD than generic measures of health, suggestive that SGRQ may provide COPD studies with greater statistical power than EQ-5D and SF-36 summary scores to capture meaningful differences in clinical severity.</p