The effect of agricultural management on Collembola communities in agroecosystems

Collembola are soil dwelling arthropods that are beneficial for soil health, contributing to rates of decomposition and nutrient cycling. They exhibit different life forms living within different soil niches, and make up an important component of soil mesofauna and can indicate overall soil biodiversity community.Agroecosystems are environments managed for production of resources for human benefit, with interventions such as agrochemical application and ploughing (tillage) of soil, using specialised agricultural vehicles. Management intensity can vary with the frequency of interventions and effects of each intervention onsoil.The effect of agricultural management on Collembola and the wider mesofauna community was investigated in three ways.Firstly with surveys of Collembola and mesofauna in fields of different management intensity, secondly by sampling Collembola and mesofauna in an experiment on the effects different tillage and traffic regimes and thirdly by sampling Collembola in an experiment on the effects of tillage and no tillsystems.Management intensity did not affect Collembola abundance and species richness or mesofauna abundance and taxonomic order richness overall. Sampling date and soil moisture had a significant effect the abundance and species richness of the soil mesofauna. Collembola of different life forms showed different responses related to their life history traits.Different traffic and tillage regime combinations did not affect Collembola abundance and species richness or mesofauna abundance and taxonomic order richness overall.Sampling date did significantly affect Collembola abundance and diversity and Collembola of different life forms showed different responses.Tillage system had a significant effect on Collembola abundance and species richness and mesofauna abundance and taxonomic order richness one month after tillage treatment,but numbers recovered to pre-treatment levels after six months. Collembola of different life forms showed different responses to tillage system and sampling date.Results are discussed in relation to wider research and future focus within soil biodiversity

The Ghostularity

What will be the fate of ME in the realm of digital ME-ness

Best Practices to Address Security Concerns with Employee Wearable Technologies

63 PagesThe great popularity of wearable computers offers many benefits and opportunities to businesses, but widespread use of wearables in the workplace creates serious security challenges for employers. Thus, managers of both civilian and military operations need a heightened awareness of these issues and of best practices for addressing them. This annotated bibliography, intended for employers and managers, explores relevant literature from 2010- 2016 about the nature of these security problems and best practices for addressing them

Community and Communion Radio: Listening to Evangelical Programmes in a Brazilian Favela

According to academics and regulators, Evangelical and community radio belong to different sectors. Yet, in the favela, the urban environment and set of airwaves were saturated with religious sounds and programmes. On the basis of an ethnographic study of community radio in the everyday life of a favela, this research indicates that the two are often one and the same as the community radio stations would frequently broadcast Evangelical programming. This article argues that rather than trying to discover community radio's functions a priori, it is more helpful do so organically, step by step. What emerges is that such functions are multiple—religious, commercial, political—and not necessarily perceived as being paradoxical by their listeners

The letters of an English lady to her father 1837-1842

The eight letters which are reproduced here are part of the correspondence between Fanny Liddell, nee Sconce, and her father Robert Sconce . During most of these years , he appears to have lived in Malta and these letters were written to him whilst Fanny, her husband John, her sons Johnny and later Bobby, were travelling in Europe or at home in England. One letter was written by her in Malta when her father was in Switzerland . They are interesting because of the warmth, attractiveness, and spontaneity of the writer's personality which still comes very much alive after the world has seen tremendous changes in the last century and a half. They also give a fascinating insight into the business of European travelling at that time. The various references to packet boat sailing and the times taken then for various journeys may be useful to postal historians. Unfortunately, these eight letters have now been dispersed. However , I am glad that before this happened, I had the opportunity to record this little vignette of life in the Europe of 140 years agonon peer-reviewe

Development of a novel Nordic hamstring exercise device to measure and modify the knee flexors’ torque-length relationship

The Nordic hamstring exercise (NHE) has been shown to reduce hamstring injury risk when employed in training programs. This study investigates a novel device to modify the NHE torque-length relationship of the knee flexors, as targeting the hamstrings at a more extended length may have benefits for hamstring strain injury prevention and rehabilitation. 18 recreational male participants completed 3 bilateral NHE repetitions at a conventional 0° flat position, a 10° incline and a 10° decline slope on a novel device (HALHAM°). Measures of peak torque and break-torque angle explored the effect of inclination on the knee flexors’ length-tension relationship. Relative thigh-to-trunk angle and angular velocity of the knee joint were used to assess influence of inclination on technique and exercise quality. Break-torque angle increased when performed at an incline (134.1+8.6°) compared to both the decline (112.1+8.3°, p<0.0001, g=2.599) and standard flat NHE positions (126.0+9.8°, p=0.0002, g=0.885). Despite this, altering inclination did not affect eccentric knee flexor peak torque (decline=132.0+63.1Nm, flat=149.7+70.1Nm, incline=148.9+64.9Nm, F=0.952, p=0.389), angular velocity of the knee joint at break-torque angle (decline=23.8+14.4°, flat=29.2+22.6°, incline=24.5+22.6°, F=0.880, p=0.418) or relative thigh-to-trunk angle at break-torque angle (decline=20.4+10.4°, flat=16.7+10.8°, incline=20.2+11.2°, F=1.597, p=0.207). The report recommends the use of arbitrary metrics such as break-torque angle that can be replicated practically in the field by practitioners to assess proxy muscle length changes i.e. the angular range over which the torque can be produced. Inclination of the Nordic hamstring exercise leads to hamstring muscle failure at longer muscle lengths without reductions in the maximal force exuded by the muscle. Therefore, the NHE performed on an incline may be a more effective training intervention, specific to the proposed mechanism of hamstring strain injury during sprinting that occurs whilst the muscle is rapidly lengthening. Using a graded training intervention through the inclinations could aid gradual return-to-play rehabilitation

Agreement between methods and terminology used to assess the kinematics of the Nordic hamstring exercise

The Nordic hamstring exercise (NHE) is employed as a component of preventative training programmes to minimise hamstring strain injury risk. Variation in the methods and terminology used to assess the NHE makes comparison between studies difficult. We aimed to compare the utility of kinetic and kinematic metrics by comparing several collected concurrently. 18 male recreational rugby union participants completed 3 bilateral NHE repetitions on a hamstring device equipped with in-line strain gauge load cells, integrated with a 3-dimensional motion tracking system. Mean break-point angle occurred after the angle at first acceleration (121.5 ± 10.4° vs. 119.2 ± 7.1°) whereas break-torque angle (BTA) occurred later in the NHE action (126.0 ± 9.8°) showing highest correlation to the angle at greatest acceleration (123.9 ± 7.9°, r = 0.85). Future research should consider movement quality as the angular velocity of the knee joint at BTA demonstrated large variation (range = 3.6–93.4 deg·s1), with high intrasubject variability of relative trunk-to-thigh angle at peak-torque (range = 0.4–44.7°). This study proposes standardisation of methods and terminology used to define the NHE. Measuring BTA is recommended to represent the point at which hamstring muscle failure occurs, specific to the proposed injury mechanism during high-speed running

The Passing of Print

This paper argues that ephemera is a key instrument of cultural memory, marking the things intended to be forgotten. This important role means that when ephemera survives, whether accidentally or deliberately, it does so despite itself. These survivals, because they evoke all those other objects that have necessarily been forgotten, can be described as uncanny. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first situates ephemera within an uncanny economy of memory and forgetting. The second focuses on ephemera at a particular historical moment, the industrialization of print in the nineteenth century. This section considers the liminal place of newspapers and periodicals in this period, positioned as both provisional media for information as well as objects of record. The third section introduces a new configuration of technologies – scanners, computers, hard disks, monitors, the various connections between them – and considers the conditions under which born-digital ephemera can linger and return. Through this analysis, the paper concludes by considering digital technologies as an apparatus of memory, setting out what is required if we are not to be doubly haunted by the printed ephemera within the digital archive

Development of a novel Nordic hamstring exercise device to measure and modify the knee flexors’ torque-length relationship

The Nordic hamstring exercise (NHE) has been shown to reduce hamstring injury risk when employed in training programs. This study investigates a novel device to modify the NHE torque-length relationship of the knee flexors, as targeting the hamstrings at a more extended length may have benefits for hamstring strain injury prevention and rehabilitation. 18 recreational male participants completed 3 bilateral NHE repetitions at a conventional 0° flat position, a 10° incline and a 10° decline slope on a novel device (HALHAM°). Measures of peak torque and break-torque angle explored the effect of inclination on the knee flexors’ length-tension relationship. Relative thigh-to-trunk angle and angular velocity of the knee joint were used to assess influence of inclination on technique and exercise quality. Break-torque angle increased when performed at an incline (134.1+8.6°) compared to both the decline (112.1+8.3°, p<0.0001, g=2.599) and standard flat NHE positions (126.0+9.8°, p=0.0002, g=0.885). Despite this, altering inclination did not affect eccentric knee flexor peak torque (decline=132.0+63.1Nm, flat=149.7+70.1Nm, incline=148.9+64.9Nm, F=0.952, p=0.389), angular velocity of the knee joint at break-torque angle (decline=23.8+14.4°, flat=29.2+22.6°, incline=24.5+22.6°, F=0.880, p=0.418) or relative thigh-to-trunk angle at break-torque angle (decline=20.4+10.4°, flat=16.7+10.8°, incline=20.2+11.2°, F=1.597, p=0.207). The report recommends the use of arbitrary metrics such as break-torque angle that can be replicated practically in the field by practitioners to assess proxy muscle length changes i.e. the angular range over which the torque can be produced. Inclination of the Nordic hamstring exercise leads to hamstring muscle failure at longer muscle lengths without reductions in the maximal force exuded by the muscle. Therefore, the NHE performed on an incline may be a more effective training intervention, specific to the proposed mechanism of hamstring strain injury during sprinting that occurs whilst the muscle is rapidly lengthening. Using a graded training intervention through the inclinations could aid gradual return-to-play rehabilitation

(G)hosting television: Ghostwatch and its medium

This article’s subject is Ghostwatch (BBC, 1992), a drama broadcast on Halloween night of 1992 which adopted the rhetoric of live non-fiction programming, and attracted controversy and ultimately censure from the Broadcasting Standards Council. In what follows, we argue that Ghostwatch must be understood as a televisually-specific artwork and artefact. We discuss the programme’s ludic relationship with some key features of television during what Ellis (2000) has termed its era of ‘availability’, principally liveness, mass simultaneous viewing, and the flow of the television super-text. We trace the programme’s television-specific historicity whilst acknowledging its allusions and debts to other media (most notably film and radio). We explore the sophisticated ways in which Ghostwatch’s visual grammar and vocabulary and deployment of ‘broadcast talk’ (Scannell 1991) variously ape, comment upon and subvert the rhetoric of factual programming, and the ends to which these strategies are put. We hope that these arguments collectively demonstrate the aesthetic and historical significance of Ghostwatch and identify its relationship to its medium and that medium’s history. We offer the programme as an historically-reflexive artefact, and as an exemplary instance of the work of art in television’s age of broadcasting, liveness and co-presence