758 research outputs found
Hijacked by the Project? Research Which Demands to be Done
This paper discusses how a commitment to follow C. Wright Millsâs (1959) imperative to engage the sociological imagination ethically and critically and in such a way that âthe personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issuesâ (1970: 11â12) can have the effect of shaping research agendas. I tell two stories from my career about research that I didnât so much choose to do but which, rather, seemed to choose me to do it
Hijacked by the project? Research which demands to be done
This paper discusses how a commitment to follow
C. Wright Millsâs (1959) imperative to engage the
sociological imagination ethically and critically
and in such a way that âthe personal uneasiness
of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles
and the indifference of publics is transformed into
involvement with public issuesâ (1970: 11â12) can
have the effect of shaping research agendas. I tell
two stories from my career about research that I
didnât so much choose to do but which, rather,
seemed to choose me to do it
âItâs just limbolandâ : parental dementia and young peopleâs life courses
Drawing on narrative interviews from a study exploring the perceptions and experiences of children and young people who have a parent with young onset dementia, this article explores the ways in which the condition impacted their life courses. Dementia is degenerative, terminal and has an unpredictable timeframe that affected young peopleâs time perspectives, life planning and the ways they conceptualized their lives. This article contributes to the literature around young peopleâs life courses by illustrating how the concept of liminality can inform understandings of the impact of parental illness on the life course. Using a constructionist perspective we explore the impact of parental dementia on life planning in relation to education/career, mobilities and personal lives. For some, the future was a source of deep anxiety, whilst others were preoccupied with the present and unable to contemplate life beyond their parentsâ illness. On the whole, participants felt their lives were in âlimboâ until their parentsâ death. The data indicate that nuanced approaches towards the life course are required in order to better understand âbeing in limboâ and to inform support
Community structure of soil fungi in a novel perennial crop monoculture, annual agriculture, and native prairie reconstruction
The use of perennial crop species in agricultural systems may increase ecosystem services and sustainability. Because soil microbial communities play a major role in many processes on which ecosystem services and sustainability depend, characterization of soil community structure in novel perennial crop systems is necessary to understand potential shifts in function and crop responses. Here, we characterized soil fungal community composition at two depths (0â10 and 10â30 cm) in replicated, long-term plots containing one of three different cropping systems: a tilled three-crop rotation of annual crops, a novel perennial crop monoculture (Intermediate wheatgrass, which produces the grain KernzaÂź), and a native prairie reconstruction. The overall fungal community was similar under the perennial monoculture and native vegetation, but both were distinct from those in annual agriculture. The mutualist and saprotrophic community subsets mirrored differences of the overall community, but pathogens were similar among cropping systems. Depth structured overall communities as well as each functional group subset. These results reinforce studies showing strong effects of tillage and sampling depth on soil community structure and suggest plant species diversity may play a weaker role. Similarities in the overall and functional fungal communities between the perennial monoculture and native vegetation suggest KernzaÂź cropping systems have the potential to mimic reconstructed natural systems
"It was then that I thought 'whaat? This is not my Dadâ: the implications of the âstill the same personâ narrative for children and young people who have a parent with dementia
This research used auto/biographical interviews to explore the experiences of 19, 8 to 31 year olds who had a parent with dementia. Thematic analysis revealed challenges occasioned by the master narrative that people with dementia are âstillâ the same person they were prior to the onset of their condition. While this notion is â rightly â at the heart of person-centered care in dementia services, the âstillâ discourse conflicts with the experiences of young people. Their accounts suggest that the construction of their parent as the same person is not helpful and that, furthermore, expectations that they will behave and feel towards that parent as they did before are a source of distress in what is already a challenging situation. This paper highlights the need to equip young people with support that acknowledges that their parent may well be drastically different to the Mum or Dad they previously âknew
Abiotic and biotic context dependency of perennial crop yield
A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.Perennial crops in agricultural systems can increase sustainability and the magnitude of ecosystem services, but yield may depend upon biotic context, including soil mutualists, pathogens and cropping diversity. These biotic factors themselves may interact with abiotic factors such as drought. We tested whether perennial crop yield depended on soil microbes, water availability and crop diversity by testing monocultures and mixtures of three perennial crop species: a novel perennial grain (intermediate wheatgrassâThinopyrum intermedium-- that produces the perennial grain KernzaÂź), a potential perennial oilseed crop (Silphium intregrifolium), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Perennial crop performance depended upon both water regime and the presence of living soil, most likely the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi in the whole soil inoculum from a long term perennial monoculture and from an undisturbed native remnant prairie. Specifically, both Silphium and alfalfa strongly benefited from AM fungi. The presence of native prairie AM fungi had a greater benefit to Silphium in dry pots and alfalfa in wet pots than AM fungi present in the perennial monoculture soil. Kernza did not benefit from AM fungi. Crop mixtures that included Kernza overyielded, but overyielding depended upon inoculation. Specifically, mixtures with Kernza overyielded most strongly in sterile soil as Kernza compensated for poor growth of Silphium and alfalfa. This study identifies the importance of soil biota and the context dependence of benefits of native microbes and the overyielding of mixtures in perennial crops.Perennial Agricultural Project sponsored by the Malone Family Land Preservation FoundationNational Science Foundation (DEB-1556664, DEB- 1738041, OIA 1656006
Temperature dependent transport in suspended graphene
The resistivity of ultra-clean suspended graphene is strongly temperature
dependent for 5K<T<240K. At T~5K transport is near-ballistic in a device of
~2um dimension and a mobility ~170,000 cm^2/Vs. At large carrier density,
n>0.5*10^11 cm^-2, the resistivity increases with increasing T and is linear
above 50K, suggesting carrier scattering from acoustic phonons. At T=240K the
mobility is ~120,000 cm^2/Vs, higher than in any known semiconductor. At the
charge neutral point we observe a non-universal conductivity that decreases
with decreasing T, consistent with a density inhomogeneity <10^8 cm^-2
Conductivity of graphene: How to distinguish between samples with short and long range scatterers
Applying a quasiclassical equation to carriers in graphene we found a way how
to distinguish between samples with the domination of short and long range
scatterers from the conductivity measurements. The model proposed explains
recent transport experiments with chemically doped as well as suspended
graphene.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, some references have been corrected and revise
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