News discourses on distant suffering: A critical discourse analysis of the 2003 SARS outbreak

News carries a unique signifying power, a power to represent events in particular ways (Fairclough, 1995). Applying Critical Discourse Analysis and Chouliaraki's theory on the mediation of suffering (2006), this article explores the news representation of the 2003 global SARS outbreak. Following a case-based methodology, we investigate how two Belgian television stations have covered the international outbreak of SARS. By looking into the mediation of four selected discursive moments, underlying discourses of power, hierarchy and compassion were unraveled. The analysis further identified the key role of proximity in international news reporting and supports the claim that Western news media mainly reproduce a Euro-American centered world order. This article argues that news coverage of international crises such as SARS constructs and maintains the socio-cultural difference between 'us' and 'them' as well as articulating global power hierarchies and a division of the world in zones of poverty and prosperity, danger and safety

Flu viruses a lucky community and cosine graphs: the possibilities opened up by the use of a socio-political perspective to study learning in an undergraduate access course in mathematics

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in African Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education on 20 August 2013 available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10288457.2009.10740656.In this paper I present a perspective of mathematics education and learning, termed a 'sociopolitical perspective'. Classroom mathematical activity, in which certain ways of acting, behaving and knowing are given value, is located in a wider network of socio-political practices. Learning in mathematics is regarded as coming to participate in the discourse of the community that practises the mathematics. I argue that the use of a socio-political perspective allows the researcher and teacher to view classroom mathematical activity as a product of the network of socio-political practices in which it is located, rather than as a product of individual cognitive ability. I illustrate the use of this perspective by drawing on a study of learning in a first-year university access course in Mathematics at a South African university. Fairclough's method for critical discourse analysis, supplemented with work by Sfard and Morgan in mathematics education, was used to analyse both the text of a 'real world' problem in mathematics and a transcript representing the activity as a group of five students solved the problem. This analysis suggests that, despite containing traces of discourses from outside of mathematics, the problem text constructs the activity as solving a mathematical problem with features of a school mathematical word problem. When solving the problem the students draw on practices associated with school mathematics and their university mathematics course, some of which enable and others constrain their participation. For example, they refer to named functions learned at school, they have difficulty making productive links between the mathematical functions and the 'real world' context, and they have varied opportunities for mathematical talk in the group. The study identifies as key to the students' progress the presence of an authority (in this case a tutor) who can make explicit the ways of thinking, acting, and talking that are valued in the discourse of undergraduate mathematics, and who provides opportunities for mathematical talk

A comparative study of the effects of milling and abrasive water jet cutting on flexural performance of CFRP

Machining of carbon fibre reinforced polymers is part of the production process that introduces several challenges due to inherent characteristics of CFRPs such as non-homogeneity of their mechanical properties. A comparative analysis of conventional milling and abrasive water jet (AWJ) cutting is performed to quantify the effects of machining induced damage on flexural strength of woven CFRP laminates. The machined surfaces quality is characterized using optical and scanning electron microscopy methods prior to flexural mechanical testing. High-speed Digital Image Correlation technique is also used to measure deformation evolutions and determine fracture mechanisms in relation to the applied machining operation and produced machined surfaces. The effect of machining induced damage on strength of milled samples was less than expected with the AWJ processed samples having the least mechanical properties. The surface morphology analysis revealed that the entry and exit point of the water jet introduced severe surface and subsurface damage across the full thickness. The failure initiation sites were determined by strain distribution maps indicating that machining induced damage promotes failure of the tested CFRPs away from maximum compressive stress observed under the loading points

Epifluorescent microscopy of edge-trimmed carbon fibre-reinforced polymers : an alternative to computed tomography scanning

X-Ray computed tomography (XCT) can be used to detect edge-milled carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) defects. Significantly this method is able to show subsurface defects that cannot be captured by traditional methods such as stylus-based or more novel areal methods of surface quality measurement. While useful, this method can be prohibitive due to high equipment cost, scanning time and image resolution. XCT can often produce artefacts which falsely predict damage or obscure damage and depending on machine X-ray power often cannot resolve damage to fibre diameter which is critical when observing milled quality of the surface/subsurface. This study utilises epifluorescent (EF) optical microscopy to provide high-quality optical images as an alternative to XCT to observe through-depth damage of CFRP materials. The method of computing the novel damage criteria is presented, as well as the validation of the method which compares EF to XCT. Subsurface damage of fabric and unidirectional (UD) materials in 0°, 45°, 90° and −45° orientations to the cutting edge is observed to demonstrate typical defects. A novel metric resulting from the EF method provides a total area of damage when compared to a theoretically straight cut across the face of the edge-milled CFRP. The method shows that different subsurface damage exists for different fibre orientations to the cutting edge, highlighting the clear need for through-depth analysis of machined edges. In addition, the method is shown to be a suitable alternative to XCT with scope for further development of industrial aerospace and automotive quality control of machined CFRP parts

Where constructionism and critical realism converge: interrogating the domain of epistemological relativism

The paper interrogates the status, nature and significance of epistemological relativism as a key element of constructionism and critical realism. It finds that epistemological relativism is espoused by authorities in critical realism and marginalized or displaced in the field of management and organization studies, resulting in forms of analysis that are empirically, but not fully critically, realist. This evaluation prompts reflection on the question of whether, how and with what implications epistemological relativism might be recast at the heart of critical realist studies of management and organization

Building professional discourse in emerging markets: Language, context and the challenge of sensemaking

Using ethnographic evidence from the former Soviet republics, this article examines a relatively new and mainly unobserved in the International Business (IB) literature phenomenon of communication disengagement that manifests itself in many emerging markets. We link it to the deficiencies of the local professional business discourse rooted in language limitations reflecting lack of experience with the market economy. This hampers cognitive coherence between foreign and local business entities, adding to the liability of foreignness as certain instances of professional experience fail to find adequate linguistic expression, and complicates cross-cultural adjustments causing multi-national companies (MNCs) financial losses. We contribute to the IB literature by examining cross-border semantic sensemaking through a retrospectively constructed observational study. We argue that a relative inadequacy of the national professional idiom is likely to remain a feature of business environment in post-communist economies for some time and therefore should be factored into business strategies of MNCs. Consequently, we recommend including discursive hazards in the risk evaluation of international projects

Challenging Social Cognition Models of Adherence:Cycles of Discourse, Historical Bodies, and Interactional Order

Attempts to model individual beliefs as a means of predicting how people follow clinical advice have dominated adherence research, but with limited success. In this article, we challenge assumptions underlying this individualistic philosophy and propose an alternative formulation of context and its relationship with individual actions related to illness. Borrowing from Scollon and Scollon’s three elements of social action – “historical body,” “interaction order,” and “discourses in place” – we construct an alternative set of research methods and demonstrate their application with an example of a person talking about asthma management. We argue that talk- or illness-related behavior, both viewed as forms of social action, manifest themselves as an intersection of cycles of discourse, shifting as individuals move through these cycles across time and space. We finish by discussing how these dynamics of social action can be studied and how clinicians might use this understanding when negotiating treatment with patients

The Structure of IR Luminous Galaxies at 100 Microns

We have observed twenty two galaxies at 100 microns with the Kuiper Airborne Observatory in order to determine the size of their FIR emitting regions. Most of these galaxies are luminous far-infrared sources, with L_FIR > 10^11 L_sun. This data constitutes the highest spatial resolution ever achieved on luminous galaxies in the far infrared. Our data includes direct measurements of the spatial structure of the sources, in which we look for departures from point source profiles. Additionally, comparison of our small beam 100 micron fluxes with the large beam IRAS fluxes shows how much flux falls beyond our detectors but within the IRAS beam. Several sources with point- like cores show evidence for such a net flux deficit. We clearly resolved six of these galaxies at 100 microns and have some evidence for extension in seven others. Those galaxies which we have resolved can have little of their 100 micron flux directly emitted by a point-like active galactic nucleus (AGN). Dust heated to ~40 K by recent bursts of non-nuclear star formation provides the best explanation for their extreme FIR luminosity. In a few cases, heating of an extended region by a compact central source is also a plausible option. Assuming the FIR emission we see is from dust, we also use the sizes we derive to find the dust temperatures and optical depths at 100 microns which we translate into an effective visual extinction through the galaxy. Our work shows that studies of the far infrared structure of luminous infrared galaxies is clearly within the capabilities of new generation far infrared instrumentation, such as SOFIA and SIRTF.Comment: 8 tables, 23 figure

Rotating Nuclear Rings and Extreme Starbursts in Ultraluminous Galaxies

New high resolution interferometer data of 10 IR ultraluminous galaxies shows the molecular gas is in rotating nuclear rings or disks with radii 300 to 800 pc. Most of the CO flux comes from a moderate-density, warm, intercloud medium rather than self-gravitating clouds. Gas masses of ~ 5 x 10^9 Msun, 5 times lower than the standard method are derived from a model of the molecular disks. The ratio of molecular gas to dynamical mass, is M_gas/M_dyn ~ 1/6 with a maximum ratio of gas to total mass surface density of 1/3. For the galaxies VIIZw31, Arp193, and IRAS 10565+24, there is good evidence for rotating molecular rings with a central gap. In addition to the rotating rings a new class of star formation region is identified which we call an Extreme Starburst. They have a characteristic size of only 100 pc., about 10^9 Msun of gas and an IR luminosity of ~3 x 10^11 Lsun. Four extreme starbursts are identified in the 3 closest galaxies in the sample Arp220, Arp193 and Mrk273. They are the most prodigious star formation events in the local universe, each representing about 1000 times as many OB stars as 30 Doradus. In Arp220, the CO and 1.3 mm continuum maps show the two ``nuclei'' embedded in a central ring or disk and a fainter structure extending 3 kpc to the east, normal to the nuclear disk. There is no evidence that these sources really are the pre-merger nuclei. They are compact, extreme starburst regions containing 10^9 Msun of dense molecular gas and new stars, but no old stars. Most of the dust emission and HCN emission arises in the two extreme starbursts. The entire bolometric luminosity of Arp~220 comes from starbursts, not an AGN. In Mrk231, the disk geometry shows that the molecular disk cannot be heated by the AGN; the far IR luminosity of Mrk~231 is powered by a starburst, not the AGN. (Abridged)Comment: 97 pages Latex with aasms.sty, including 29 encapsulated Postscript figures. Figs 18 and 23 are GIFs. 31 figures total. Text and higher quality versions of figures available at http://sbastk.ess.sunysb.edu/www/RINGS_ESB_PREPRINT.html To be published in Ap. J., 10 Nov. 199