1,586 research outputs found

    Barbaetis: A New Genus of Eastern Nearctic Mayflies (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae)

    Get PDF
    The new genus Barbaetis Waltz and McCafferty, and new species Barbaetis benfieldi Kennedy are described from larvae collected from the New River, Virginia. Barbaetis is easily told from Baetis by the presence of procoxal osmobranchia. Cladistics of B. benfieldi, related Pseudocloeon species, and the lutheri and pavidus complexes of Baetis are presented and indicate the need for further taxonomic revision. The habitat of B. benfieldi is described in terms of several ecological parameters. The new species demonstrates a univoltine life history with postembryonic development restricted to a short springtime period

    How is rape a weapon of war?: feminist international relations, modes of critical explanation and the study of wartime sexual violence

    Get PDF
    Rape is a weapon of war. Establishing this now common claim has been an achievement of feminist scholarship and activism and reveals wartime sexual violence as a social act marked by gendered power. But the consensus that rape is a weapon of war obscures important, and frequently unacknowledged, differences in ways of understanding and explaining it. This article opens these differences to analysis. Drawing on recent debates regarding the philosophy of social science in IR and social theory, it interprets feminist accounts of wartime sexual violence in terms of modes of critical explanation – expansive styles of reasoning that foreground particular actors, mechanisms, reasons and stories in the formulation of research. The idea of a mode of critical explanation is expanded upon through a discussion of the role of three elements (analytical wagers, narrative scripts and normative orientations) which accomplish the theoretical work of modes. Substantive feminist accounts of wartime sexual violence are then differentiated in terms of three modes – of instrumentality, unreason and mythology – which implicitly structure different understandings of how rape might be a weapon of war. These modes shape political and ethical projects and so impact not only on questions of scholarly content but also on the ways in which we attempt to mitigate and abolish war rape. Thinking in terms of feminist modes of critical explanation consequently encourages further work in an unfolding research agenda. It clarifes the ways in which an apparently commonality of position can conceal meaningful disagreements about human action. Exposing these disagreements opens up new possibilities for the analysis of war rape

    Globalising assessment: an ethnography of literacy assessment, camels and fast food in the Mongolian Gobi

    Get PDF
    What happens when standardised literacy assessments travel globally? The paper presents an ethnographic account of adult literacy assessment events in rural Mongolia. It examines the dynamics of literacy assessment in terms of the movement and re-contextualisation of test items as they travel globally and are received locally by Mongolian respondents. The analysis of literacy assessment events is informed by Goodwin’s ‘participation framework’ on language as embodied and situated interactive phenomena and by Actor Network Theory. Actor Network Theory (ANT) is applied to examine literacy assessment events as processes of translation shaped by an ‘assemblage’ of human and non-human actors (including the assessment texts)

    Security governance and networks: New theoretical perspectives in transatlantic security

    Get PDF
    The end of the Cold War has not only witnessed the rise of new transnational threats such as terrorism, crime, proliferation and civil war; it has also seen the growing role of non-state actors in the provision of security in Europe and North America. Two concepts in particular have been used to describe these transformations: security governance and networks. However, the differences and potential theoretical utility of these two concepts for the study of contemporary security have so far been under-examined. This article seeks to address this gap. It proposes that security governance can help to explain the transformation of Cold War security structures, whereas network analysis is particularly useful for understanding the relations and interactions between public and private actors in the making and implementation of national and international security policies

    Comportement mécanique d'une structure multicouches obtenue par co-laminage de tÎles nanostructurées par smat

    Get PDF
    Le but de cette étude consiste au développement de structures multicouches à hautes caractéristiques mécaniques obtenues par co-laminage de tÎles en acier inoxydable 316L préalablement nanostructurées à travers le procédé SMAT (Surface Mechanical Attrition Treatment), puis à la modélisation par éléments finis de ces structures composites. Afin de quantifier l'influence de certains paramÚtres expérimentaux et d'évaluer la réponse mécanique des structures nanostructurées et co-laminées, un certain nombre d'essais ont été menés. Des mesures de dureté Vickers et de rugosité nous ont permis de caractériser la surface des matériaux traités. De plus, pour pouvoir suivre l'évolution de la microdureté des échantillons et pour pouvoir évaluer la taille de grains, des essais de nanoindentation ont été réalisés sur une section transverse des échantillons. Des essais de traction combinés aux mesures de dureté et microdureté ont permis de remonter aux caractéristiques mécaniques des différentes sous-couches et ainsi de simuler le comportement de la structure multicouche obtenue

    Do international institutions matter? Socialization and international bureaucrats

    Get PDF
    A key component of (neo-)functionalist and constructivist approaches to the study of international organizations concerns staff socialization. Existing analyses of how, or indeed whether, staff develop more pro-internationalist attitudes over time draw predominantly on cross-sectional data. Yet, such data cannot address (self-)selection issues or capture the inherently temporal nature of attitude change. This article proposes an innovative approach to the study of international socialization using an explicitly longitudinal design. Analysing two waves of a large-scale survey conducted within the European Commission in 2008 and 2014, it examines the beliefs and values of the same individuals over time and exploits exogenous organizational changes to identify causal effects. Furthermore, the article theorizes and assesses specified scope conditions affecting socialization processes. Showing that international institutions do, in fact, influence value acquisition by individual bureaucrats, our results contest the widely held view that international organizations are not a socializing environment. Our analysis also demonstrates that age at entry and gender significantly affect the intensity of such value change

    Liberal intervention in the foreign policy thinking of Tony Blair and David Cameron

    Get PDF
    David Cameron was a critic of Tony Blair’s doctrine of the international community, which was used to justify war in Kosovo and more controversially in Iraq, suggesting caution in projecting military force abroad while in opposition. However, and in spite of making severe cuts to the defence budget, the Cameron-led Coalition government signed Britain up to a military intervention in Libya within a year of coming into office. What does this say about the place liberal interventionism occupies in contemporary British foreign policy? To answer this question, this article studies the nature of what we describe as the ‘bounded liberal’ tradition that has informed British foreign policy thinking since 1945, suggesting that it puts a distinctly UK national twist on conventional conservative thought about international affairs. Its components are: scepticism of grand schemes to remake the world; instinctive Atlanticism; security through collective endeavour; and anti-appeasement. We then compare and contrast the conditions for intervention set out by Tony Blair and David Cameron. We explain the similarities but crucially also the vital differences between the two leaders’ thinking on intervention, with particular reference to Cameron’s perception that Downing Street needed to loosen its control over foreign policy-making after Iraq. Our argument is that policy substance, policy style and party political dilemmas prompted Blair and Cameron to reconnect British foreign policy with its ethical roots, ingraining a bounded liberal posture to British foreign policy after the moral bankruptcy of the John Major years. This return to a patient, pragmatic and ethically informed foreign policy meant that military operations in Kosovo and Libya were undertaken in quite different circumstances, yet came to be justified by similar arguments from the two leaders

    Evidence for Neutrino Oscillations from Muon Decay at Rest

    Get PDF
    A search for nu_bar_mu to nu_bar_e oscillations has been conducted at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility using nu_bar_mu from mu+ decay at rest. The nu_bar_e are detected via the reaction (nu_bar_e,p) -> (e+,n), correlated with the 2.2 MeV gamma from (n,p) -> (d,gamma). The use of tight cuts to identify e+ events with correlated gamma rays yields 22 events with e+ energy between 36 and 60 MeV and only 4.6 (+/- 0.6) background events. The probability that this excess is due entirely to a statistical fluctuation is 4.1E-08. A chi^2 fit to the entire e+ sample results in a total excess of 51.8 (+18.7) (-16.9) (+/- 8.0) events with e+ energy between 20 and 60 MeV. If attributed to nu_bar_mu -> nu_bar_e oscillations, this corresponds to an oscillation probability (averaged over the experimental energy and spatial acceptance) of 0.0031 (+0.0011) (-0.0010) (+/- 0.0005).Comment: 57 pages, 34 figures, revtex, additional information available at http://nu1.lampf.lanl.gov/~lsnd
    • 

    corecore