Overview study of Space Power Technologies for the advanced energetics program

Space power technologies are reviewed to determine the state-of-the-art and to identify advanced or novel concepts which promise large increases in performance. The potential for incresed performance is judged relative to benchmarks based on technologies which have been flight tested. Space power technology concepts selected for their potentially high performance are prioritized in a list of R & D topical recommendations for the NASA program on Advanced Energetics. The technology categories studied are solar collection, nuclear power sources, energy conversion, energy storage, power transmission, and power processing. The emphasis is on electric power generation in space for satellite on board electric power, for electric propulsion, or for beamed power to spacecraft. Generic mission categories such as low Earth orbit missions and geosynchronous orbit missions are used to distinguish general requirements placed on the performance of power conversion technology. Each space power technology is judged on its own merits without reference to specific missions or power systems. Recommendations include 31 space power concepts which span the entire collection of technology categories studied and represent the critical technologies needed for higher power, lighter weight, more efficient power conversion in space

Introduction. Public Health Genomics: anthropological interventions in the quest for molecular medicine

We introduce this special issue of Medial Anthropology Quarterly on public health genomics by exploring both the unique contribution of ethnographic sensibility that medical anthropologists bring to the study of genomics and some of the key insights offered by the essays in this collection. As anthropologists, we are concerned with the power dynamics and larger cultural commitments embedded in practices associated with public health. We seek to understand, first, the broad significance of genomics as a cultural object and, second, the social action set into motion as researchers seek to translate genomic knowledge and technology into public health benefits

Comments on ion-acoustic solitary waves in plasmas

Analysis of conceptual difficulties associated with ion-acoustic plasma wave equation derivation

'An Apotheosis of Well-Being': Durkheim on austerity and double-dip recessions

This article is an attempt to contribute a view on the economic crisis from classical sociology, a voice often missing from the sociological response to the crisis. The work of Émile Durkheim provides a unique perspective here centred on morality and inequality produced in a historical context akin to our neoliberal times. It is argued there are four key points to take from Durkheim’s work. Firstly, that the initial credit crunch can be more fully understood with reference to the economic anomie which Durkheim sees as ‘chronic’ in a time of marketization. Secondly, that this creates an antagonistic relationship between a supposedly self-dependent rich and lazy poor. Thirdly, this conception of self-dependency and individual initiative makes any attempt to regulate the economy akin to sacrilege. Finally, the state is unwilling to intervene due to the emergence of ‘pseudo-democracies’. Therefore, Durkheim’s theory accounts for the initial crisis, austerity and double-dip recessions in a sociological framework. The article concludes by returning to the centrality of morality to the crisis for Durkheim and highlighting the omission of this in contemporary debates

Counterparts: Clothing, value and the sites of otherness in Panapompom ethnographic encounters

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Anthropological Forum, 18(1), 17-35, 2008 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00664670701858927.Panapompom people living in the western Louisiade Archipelago of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea, see their clothes as indices of their perceived poverty. ‘Development’ as a valued form of social life appears as images that attach only loosely to the people employing them. They nevertheless hold Panapompom people to account as subjects to a voice and gaze that is located in the imagery they strive to present: their clothes. This predicament strains anthropological approaches to the study of Melanesia that subsist on strict alterity, because native self‐judgments are located ‘at home’ for the ethnographer. In this article, I develop the notion of the counterpart as a means to explore these forms of postcolonial oppression and their implications for the ethnographic encounter

Evaluation expérimentale de stratégies de déploiement de gènes de résistance pour la gestion durable des nématodes à galles

Dans le cadre de projets soutenus par l'ANR Systerra et le GIS PICLeg (projets "Sysbiotel" et "Neoleg") menés en collaboration entre l'INRA PACA, l'IRD, l'APREL, la Chambre d'Agriculture du 06 et des entreprises privées de sélection de semences, plusieurs stratégies de déploiement de gènes de résistance ont été évaluées pendant 3 ans sur le terrain en conditions agronomiques pour mettre au point une gestion raisonnée des cultivars résistants permettant de gérer de manière durable les problèmes de nématodes à galles des racines. L'alternance des gènes de résistance dans la rotation et le "pyramiding" de gènes dans un même cultivar se sont révélés extrêmement efficaces pour supprimer l'émergence de populations virulentes et réduire les taux d'infestation du sol de plus de 80% en 3 ans. Un nouveau projet INRA "Gedunem", mis en place dans le cadre du Métaprogramme INRA SMaCH (Sustainable Management of Crop Health), vise maintenant à associer ces innovations variétales aux autres méthodes de lutte disponibles (gestion de l'interculture, plantes non hôtes, prophylaxie) afin de maintenir une pression parasitaire faible, tout en évaluant ces nouveaux systèmes de culture du point de vue agronomique et socio-économique