Territoriality and playground disturbances : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Education

The concept of 'territoriality' has become a fairly common term within social scientific literature - and yet its application in the analysis of human behaviour appears to have been made with little reference to, or regard for, the concept's original form. The present investigation serves two purposes - first, to attempt to use the concept in the description and explanation of the etiology of social disturbances in school settings; and second, to look closely at the concept and assess its general worth in the analysis of human behaviour. Before investigating the possibility of a correlation between disturbances and the manifestation of territoriality, observations were made of the school pupil population during intervals to establish whether or not the pupils tended to occupy specific locations for protracted lengths of time - perhaps the most basic requisite of territorial behaviour. Observers gathered data in terms of the specific activities occurring and the sex and number of players. Time sampling was used, and the data confirmed that pupils do tend to return to the same geographical location to perform the same activity over a period of time. The stability of the pupil activity groups over time provided the foundation for a participant observer subsequently to investigate a second feature of territoriality - that territories are defended. The observer's task was to interview those involved in identified disturbances, and attempt to establish the etiology of the disturbance. The hypothesis was that the disturbances would be a function of the territorial behaviour of the groups. In so far as territorial behaviour can be defined in terms of Barker's (1968) 'maintenance mechanisms', the hypothesis was supported. 83% of disturbances were deemed to involve at least one feature of territoriality - be it membership, equipment, space, boundaries, or a combination of these. A further feature of the concept of 'territoriality' within animal behavioural research is that the territorial group members recognise each other on the basis of certain membership criteria. Within the pupil activity groups observed to investigate this feature among humans, membership criteria were also found to exist. These criteria were identified as being sex, class level, the amount of space available, family relationships, and physical size. On the basis of these criteria pupils were observed to be accepted or rejected from activity groups during school intervals. The findings of these initial investigations into the existence of three features of animal territoriality within human group behaviour, lend weight to an acceptance of the concept of territoriality as an adequate unit of analysis in the explanation of human group behaviour. However, throughout the investigations certain assumptions which underlie the concept tended to surface from time to time and raise doubts about the concept's applicability in human behavioural analysis. These assumptions included the idea that the territorial behaviour was manifested by members of both sexes; that territorial groups were family groups only; and that territorial behaviour was designed to repel intruders. All of these were shown in the present study to be not accurate. Added to these assumptions, the ethological literature reflects two crucial points of dissention. Ethologists, it seems, can not agree whether or not man is a territorial species. Again, among those who do accept that man is a territorial species, there is an argument over whether the territorial behaviour manifested by man is learned or instinctive. There are apparent problems in transferring a unit of analysis of animal behaviour to cover human behaviour as well. The problems are accentuated in the assumptions and debates outlined above, and compounded by the fact that within the social sciences there already exists a number of other theories and concepts which serve to explain the same human behaviour as territoriality attempts to do. While not completely rejecting the applicability of the concept of territoriality within human behavioural analysis, the conclusion arrived at was that the concept was of limited utility to the social scientist

Chirality Changes in Carbon Nanotubes Studied with Near-Field Raman Spectroscopy

We report on the direct visualization of chirality changes in carbon nanotubes by mapping local changes in resonant RBM phonon frequencies with an optical resolution of 40 nm using near-field Raman spectroscopy. We observe the transition from semiconducting-to-metal and metal-to-metal chiralities at the single nanotube level. Our experimental findings, based on detecting changes in resonant RBM frequencies, are complemented by measuring changes in the G-band frequency and line shape. In addition, we observe increased Raman scattering due to local defects associated with the structural transition. From our results, we determine the spatial extent of the transition region to be Ltrans 40−100 nm

Nanoscale Vibrational Analysis of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

We use near-field Raman imaging and spectroscopy to study localized vibrational modes along individual, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with a spatial resolution of 10−20 nm. Our approach relies on the enhanced field near a laser-irradiated gold tip which acts as the Raman excitation source. We find that for arc-discharge SWNTs, both the radial breathing mode (RBM) and intermediate frequency mode (IFM) are highly localized. We attribute such localization to local changes in the tube structure (n, m). In comparison, we observe no such localization of the Raman active modes in SWNTs grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The direct comparison between arc-discharge and CVD-grown tubes allows us to rule out any artifacts induced by the supporting substrate

Subsurface Raman Imaging with Nanoscale Resolution

We report on chemically specific, subsurface imaging with high spatial resolution. Using tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, we probe carbon nanotubes buried beneath a host dielectric media. We demonstrate our ability to map and resolve specific vibrational modes with 30 nm spatial resolution for dielectric layers with different thicknesses

Proceedings of the 8th QS-APPLE Conference Bali, 14th -16th November, 2012

This volume is a post-conference publication containing the refereed papers from the QS-APPLE Conference held in Bali from 14th-16th November, 2012. You will note some variation in referencing styles since the conference draws from academics who work in all discipline areas across tertiary institutions

INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE CAUSES OF THE DECLINE OF THE BLACK-HEADED GULL (Larus ridibundus) COLONY AT RAVENGLASS, CUMBRIA

In the late 1970's, declines were noticed in the breeding populations of Black-headed Gulls and various tern species on the Ravenglass Local Nature Reserve, Cumbria. By 1983, terns were extinct as breeding species and Black-headed Gull numbers had fallen from 10,000 breeding pairs in 1976 to only 2,290.The annual cycle of Black-headed Gulls was examined and a number of hypotheses constructed as to possible causes of the declines. These hypotheses were tested using historical information and field data collected at Ravenglass and a number of other Cumbrian Black-headed Gull colonies.Historical data from Ravenglass suggest that Black-headed Gull breeding success was poor in a number of years. The reasons for this poor breeding success are not known but disturbance, predation and food shortage caused by agricultural change, vegetation change or weather factors appear to have been important. In 1984 the 1,514 pairs of gulls that settled at Ravenglass produced no young, probably as a result of predation by foxes on eggs and small chicks. No gulls settled to breed at Ravenglass in 1985 and none have done so since.Studies at other Cumbrian colonies since 1985 revealed different causes of reduced breeding success at different sites in different years. This may have been important in reducing the number of potential recruits to Ravenglass from other colonies. Other ground-nesting birds breeding at Ravenglass (except She1duck which breed in rabbit burrows) suffered fox predation in 1984-87.Gulls from both inland and coastal gulleries fed predominantly inland. Levels of heavy metal and radionuclide contaminants in gulls are below those recorded to be harmful.It is concluded that the decline was probably caused by a combination of a number of factors (see above). A number of changes in the colonial behaviour of Black-headed Gulls at Ravenglass were noted in the later stages of the decline suggesting ways In which the gulls responded to the reduction in colony size

Lugar, silencio e memoria local en Todo é silencio de Manuel Rivas

This article addresses issues of local memory in Manuel Rivas’s novel Todo é silencio (2010) and takes as its starting point Pierre Nora’s twin notions of lieu de mémoire and milieu de mémoire. By focusing on a specific site portrayed in the novel —the escola de indianos, a building that once housed a progressive school— we analyze the ways in which the author deploys the building not merely as a setting, but also as aestheticization of the interstices between history, memory, and forgetting.Este artigo examina cuestións de memoria local na novela Todo é silencio (2010) de Manuel Rivas, tomando coma punto de partida as nocións parellas de lieu de mémoire e milieu de mémoire propostas por Pierre Nora. Centrámonos nun espazo concreto represen- tado na novela —a escola de indianos, un edificio que nun momento histórico determinado acolleu un modelo escolar progresista— para analizar os diferentes xeitos en que o autor fai uso dese espazo non só coma un escenario senón tamén coma unha estética das físgoas en- tre a historia, a memoria e o esquecemento