Defamiliarizing heavy-contact sports: A critical examination of rugby, discipline, and pleasure

Pleasure can be regarded as a productive force in the constitution of the social sig-nificance of sport and desiring sport subjects. The organization and use of sport plea-sure has been a relatively marginalized topic of examination. To promote and examine sport pleasure, I conducted semistructured interviews with seven passionate rugby players. Transcripts were analyzed via Foucauldian theorizing and revealed the inter-twined workings of technologies of dominance and self in the constitution of rugby pleasures. As a strategy to defamiliarize and disrupt habitual and uncritical accep-tance of rugby aggression, I argued that rugby pleasures were akin to sadomasochism. Rugby can be understood as a taboo-breaking game associated with transparent rela-tions of power connected with the pleasure induced from physical domination and the fear of pain

Fear and loathing on the sport field: Masculinities, social transformation and creative teaching strategies

The apparent links between sport and masculinities has generated critical concern from a number of educationalists, feminists and sport sociologists. These concerns have inspired the development of various pedagogical strategies for transforming understandings and practices of gender within educational settings. This paper reviews the connections between sport and masculinities, and contributes to the development of a critical pedagogy by illustrating how the creative arts can be used within tertiary educational settings to raise awareness of the gendering influence of sport. I detail how I drew on Foucauldian theorizing and the work of Laurel Richardson to develop a teaching strategy, involving the use of dance and a 'collective story', to promote marginalised knowledge and stir political emotions. I present a shortened version of the collective story and discuss its impact on tertiary students. I conclude by encouraging other educators to draw on the creative arts as tools for promoting discussion, legitmating the voice of the 'other' and to encourage an empathetic response

Negotiating masculinities via the moral problematization of sport

Researchers have raised concerns about the construction of dangerous/problematic masculinities within sporting fratriarchies1. Yet little is known about how male sport enthusiasts&mdash;critical of hypermasculine performances&mdash;negotiate their involvement in sport. Our aim was to examine how males negotiated sporting tensions and how these negotiations shaped their (masculine) selves. We drew on Foucault (1992) to analyze how interviewees problematized their respective sport culture in relation to the sexualization of females, public drunkenness and excessive training demands. Results illustrated how the interviewees produced selves, via the moral problematization of sport, that rejected the values or moral codes of hypermasculinity in attempts to create ethical masculinities. We suggest that a proliferation of techniques of self that resist hypermasculine forms of subjection could be one form of ethical response to the documented problems surrounding masculinities and sport.<br /

Doing the damage? An examination of masculinities and men's rugby experiences of pain, fear and pleasure

Rugby union's prominent and historic link with males, within Aotearoa/New Zealand, has helped constitute it as a key signifier of masculinity. Feminist-inspired research suggests, however, that heavy-contact sports, like rugby, help (re)produce a problematic form of masculinity that marginalises other masculinities, contributes to health problems and facilitates male privilege in society. Despite these points of view, there have been relatively few empirical examinations of relationships between sport, pain and masculinities. This thesis provided such an examination. The prime research question, that underpinned this study, was: "How do men's rugby experiences of fear, pain and/or pleasure articulate with discourses of masculinities?" The research approach used to examine this question was based on semi-structured interviews with a purposeful sample of fourteen men, and differed from previous such research in three key ways. Firstly, I interviewed men with abroad range of rugby experiences and did not specifically examine the experiences of elite sportsmen. Secondly, I analysed the men's rugby experiences of pain and injury, as well as their emotional experiences of fear and pleasure. Thirdly, I used Foucauldian theory to analyse the men's interview accounts rather than drawing on the Gramscian inspired concept of masculine hegemony. The results suggested that rugby was typically linked to dominating discourses of masculinities, through promoting belief that males should be tough, relatively unemotional, tolerant of pain, competitive and, at times, aggressive. This linkage was particularly influential during the men's school years. At this time, rugby acted as a normalising practice for males, a dividing practice between males and females, and as a producer of pleasure, but also, at times, tension, fear and pain. Rugby's pervasive influence provided a discursive space within which the men negotiated understandings of masculinities and self. However, these negotiations did not result in the simple affirmation and reproduction of dominating discourses of masculinity. In contrast, these negotiation processes were often undertaken with varying degrees of tension. The dominance of rugby in the men's schools, for example, resulted in many of the men experiencing tensions between fears of pain, skill limitations and the knowledge that participation in rugby was normal, and expected, for all males. These tensions encouraged many of these men to quit participation in rugby at a young age and for some, when older, to develop resistant readings of rugby and masculinities. These resistant readings positioned rugby players as uncritical thinkers, weak in character and foolish for risking injury. Yet, the men's relationships with rugby were not only complex and divergent but also, at times, paradoxical: many of the men performed an inconsistent range of practices in relation to rugby that simultaneously disturbed and supported dominating discourses of masculinities. Despite nearly all of the interview participants expressing some concerns about aspects of rugby with respect to violence, risk of injury and/or its links to masculinities, the men reported that they rarely disclosed their concerns in public. The dominating discourses of rugby, that positioned rugby as 'our national sport' and as a 'man's game', made it a formidable task to publicly critique rugby. The technologies of domination associated with rugby and masculinities still exerted considerable influence over the adult men. However, many of the men, including some who had been passionate adult rugby players, did exercise power against rugby and dominant masculinities. This resistance was exercised primarily through discouraging others, typically their sons, from playing rugby. Although not revolutionary, this micro-level form of resistance, if repeated on a grander scale, would contribute a challenge to rugby's state of dominance. The dominance of rugby provided a discursive space that produced, challenged and resisted dominating discourses of masculinities. My research findings, therefore, support the recognition that sport does not consistently or unambiguously produce culturally dominant conceptions of masculinities. In contrast to researchers who have examined institutionalised heavy-contact team sports through a lens filtered by hegemony theory, my results question the extent to which sports like rugby can be primarily regarded as producers of dominant and problematic masculinities. Although this finding could be regarded as a more optimistic reading of sport/masculinity relationships, my results reveal that concern about rugby's dominant social position within Aotearoa/New Zealand is still warranted

Accretion discs models with the "beta"-viscosity prescription derived from laboratory experiments

We examine under which conditions one may apply, to steady state keplerian accretion discs, the "beta"-viscosity prescription which has been derived from rotating shear flow experiments (Richard & Zahn 1999). Using a vertically averaged model, we show that this law may be suitable for all three families of known systems: in young stellar objects, evolved binary stars and Active Galactic Nuclei discs (except in their outer gas pressure dominated regions where turbulence becomes hypersonic). According to the standard criterion for viscous stability, "beta"-discs are always stable throughout. Using realistic opacities and equation of state, we demonstrate that these discs are thermally unstable in the temperature domain where hydrogen recombines, when they are optically thick, and this could lead to limit cycle behavior. Radiation pressure dominated regions are thermally stable, in contrast with "alpha"-discs. This results in a fully stable solution for the innermost parts of AGN discs.Comment: 8 pages, PostScript. accepted in Astron. & Astrophy

Rhenium Complexes Bearing Tridentate and Bidentate Phosphinoamine Ligands in the Production of Biofuel Alcohols via the Guerbet Reaction

We report a variety of rhenium complexes supported by bidentate and tridentate phosphinoamine ligands and their use in the formation of the advanced biofuel isobutanol from methanol and ethanol. Rhenium pincer complexes 1–3 are effective catalysts for this process, with 2 giving isobutanol in 35% yields, with 97% selectivity in the liquid fraction, over 16 h with catalyst loadings as low as 0.07 mol %. However, these catalysts show poorer overall selectivity, with the formation of a significant amount of carboxylate salt solid byproduct also being observed. Production of the active catalyst 1d has been followed by 31P NMR spectroscopy, and the importance of the presence of base and elevated temperatures to catalyst activation has been established. Complexes supported by diphosphine ligands are inactive for Guerbet chemistry; however, complexes supported by bidentate phosphinoamine ligands show greater selectivity for isobutanol formation over carboxylate salts. The novel complex 7 was able to produce isobutanol in 28% yield over 17 h. The importance of the N–H moiety to the catalytic performance has also been established, giving further weight to the hypothesis that these catalysts operate via a cooperative mechanism

BDNF val66met polymorphism is associated with modified experience-dependent plasticity in human motor cortex.

Motor training can induce profound physiological plasticity within primary motor cortex, including changes in corticospinal output and motor map topography. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, we show that training-dependent increases in the amplitude of motor-evoked potentials and motor map reorganization are reduced in healthy subjects with a val66met polymorphism in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene (BDNF), as compared to subjects without the polymorphism. The results suggest that BDNF is involved in mediating experience-dependent plasticity of human motor cortex

Contribution of Surface Leaf-Litter Breakdown and Forest Composition to Benthic Oxygen Demand and Ecosystem Respiration in a South Georgia Blackwater River

Many North American blackwater rivers exhibit low dissolved O2 (DO) that may be the result of benthic respiration. We examined how tree species affected O2 demand via the quantity and quality of litter produced. In addition, we compared areal estimates of surface leaf-litter microbial respiration to sediment O2 demand (SOD) and ecosystem respiration (ER) in stream and swamp reaches of a blackwater river to quantify contributions of surface litter decomposition to O2 demand. Litter inputs averaged 917 and 678 g m−2 y−1 in the swamp and stream, respectively. Tree species differentially affected O2 demand via the quantity and quality of litter produced. Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) contributed most litter inputs because of its dominance and because it produced more litter per tree, thereby making greater relative contributions to O2 demand in the swamp. In the stream, water oak (Quercus nigra) produced litter supporting lower fungal biomass and O2 uptake rates, but produced more litter than red maple (Acer rubrum). Breakdown rates in the swamp were faster, whereas standing stock decreases were lower than in the stream, indicating greater organic matter retention. Surface litter microbial respiration accounted for 89% of SOD (6.37 g O2 m−2 d−1), and 57 to 89% of ER in the swamp. Our findings suggest that surface litter drives the majority of O2 demand in some blackwater swamps, and tree species with higher rates of litterfall may make larger contributions to ER. Forested swamps may be hotspots of O2 demand in blackwater rivers because low water velocities enhance retention

Direct cost of pars plana vitrectomy for the treatment of macular hole, epiretinal membrane and vitreomacular traction: a bottom-up approach

Purpose The direct cost to the National Health Service (NHS) in England of pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) is unknown since a bottom-up costing exercise has not been undertaken. Healthcare resource group (HRG) costing relies on a top-down approach. We aimed to quantify the direct cost of intermediate complexity PPV. Methods Five NHS vitreoretinal units prospectively recorded all consumables, equipment and staff salaries during PPV undertaken for vitreomacular traction, epiretinal membrane and macular hole. Out-of-surgery costs between admission and discharge were estimated using a representative accounting method. Results The average patient time in theatre for 57 PPVs was 72 min. The average in-surgery cost for staff was £297, consumables £619, and equipment £82 (total £997). The average out-of-surgery costs were £260, including nursing and medical staff, other consumables, eye drops and hospitalisation. The total cost was therefore £1634, including 30 % overheads. This cost estimate was an under-estimate because it did not include out-of-theatre consumables or equipment. The average reimbursed HRG tariff was £1701. Conclusions The cost of undertaking PPV of intermediate complexity is likely to be higher than the reimbursed tariff, except for hospitals with high throughput, where amortisation costs benefit from economies of scale. Although this research was set in England, the methodology may provide a useful template for other countries

Leaf litter nutrient uptake in an intermittent blackwater river : influence of tree species and associated biotic and abiotic drivers

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2014. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of British Ecological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Functional Ecology 29 (2015): 849-860, doi:10.1111/1365-2435.12399.Organic matter may sequester nutrients as it decomposes, increasing in total N and P mass via multiple uptake pathways. During leaf litter decomposition, microbial biomass and accumulated inorganic materials immobilize and retain nutrients, and therefore both biotic and abiotic drivers may influence detrital nutrient content. We examined the relative importance of these types of nutrient immobilization and compared patterns of nutrient retention in recalcitrant and labile leaf litter. Leaf packs of water oak (Quercus nigra), red maple (Acer rubrum) and Ogeechee tupelo (Nyssa ogeche) were incubated for 431 days in an intermittent blackwater stream and periodically analyzed for mass loss, nutrient and metal content, and microbial biomass. These data informed regression models explaining temporal changes in detrital nutrient content. Informal exploratory models compared estimated biologically-associated nutrient stocks (fungal, bacterial, leaf tissue) to observed total detrital nutrient stocks. We predicted that (1) labile and recalcitrant leaf litter would act as sinks at different points in the breakdown process, (2) plant and microbial biomass would not account for the entire mass of retained nutrients, and (3) total N content would be more closely approximated than total P content solely from nutrients stored in leaf tissue and microbial biomass, due to stronger binding of P to inorganic matter. Labile litter had higher nutrient concentrations throughout the study. However, lower mass loss of recalcitrant litter facilitated greater nutrient retention over longer incubations, suggesting that it may be an important long-term sink. N and P content were significantly related to both microbial biomass and metal content, with slightly stronger correlation to metal content over longer incubations.This work was funded by the USDA-CSREES Integrated Research, Education, and Extension Competitive Grants Program’s National Integrated Water Quality Program (Award No. 2004-5113002224), Hatch & State funds allocated to the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Stations, USDA-ARS CRIS project funds, and a Student Research Grant awarded to Andrew Mehring from the Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia.2016-01-2