Petyarra and Moffatt: 'Looking from the sky'

Moffatt’s Up in the Sky series draws attention to the relation between sky and earth, through the content and camera angles of the images. Similarly, Kathleen Petyarre’s Central Desert acrylic dot painting evokes this relation representing country and Dreaming from a celestial perspective—as she says ‘looking from the sky’. Yet here any association between these artists seems to end with the urban artist refusing to engage Aboriginal tradition and the desert artist focused on Dreaming, country and heritage. However, a further connection between these disparate works may also be discerned as each, in differing ways, transforms our conventional perceptions of space and time. Reading these images in relation to Walter Benjamin’s concepts of the auratic and of messianic time, I suggest that each restructures dimension and duration putting in question the (post)modern calibrations of our space/time experience. This paper stages an engagement between these artists’ works and Benjamin’s concepts exploring the variations and modifications of the spatial and the temporal that hybrid cross-cultural exchanges require and facilitate

Interrupting Mythic Community

If nation is increasingly perceived as a less than honourable institution formed through war, invasion and geo-political territorialisation, and government is widely denounced as the site of political intrigue and the means of subjectification of citizen–voters, community appears to escape this critique and to be viewed as an idyllic formation based on bonds of affinity. However, this romancing of community is disrupted by trans-cultural and sub-cultural formations that expose the fantasy of a harmonious, homogenous community. While community is often conceived as arising organically from familial, tribal or cultural similarity, or as constituted through a common history and shared cultural institutions, this totalising conception of community is interrupted by the demands of difference and heterogeneity and by a questioning of the idyll of community authenticated in myths of archaic origin

Petyarre and Moffat: 'Looking from the Sky'

Moffatt’s Up in the Sky series draws attention to the relation between sky and earth, through the content and camera angles of the images. Similarly, Kathleen Petyarre’s Central Desert acrylic dot painting evokes this relation representing country and Dreaming from a celestial perspective—as she says ‘looking from the sky’. Yet here any association between these artists seems to end with the urban artist refusing to engage Aboriginal tradition and the desert artist focused on Dreaming, country and heritage. However, a further connection between these disparate works may also be discerned as each, in differing ways, transforms our conventional perceptions of space and time. Reading these images in relation to Walter Benjamin’s concepts of the auratic and of messianic time, I suggest that each restructures dimension and duration putting in question the (post)modern calibrations of our space/time experience. This paper stages an engagement between these artists’ works and Benjamin’s concepts exploring the variations and modifications of the spatial and the temporal that hybrid cross-cultural exchanges require and facilitate

Mechanics of blood flow in capillaries

This paper was presented at the 2nd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2009), which was held at Brunel University, West London, UK. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IPEM, the Italian Union of Thermofluid dynamics, the Process Intensification Network, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.Blood is a concentrated suspension of red blood cells (RBCs). Motion and deformation of RBCs can be analyzed based on knowledge of their mechanical characteristics. Models for single-file motion of RBCs in capillaries yield predictions of apparent viscosity in good agreement with experimental results for diameters up to about 8 μm. In living microvessels, flow resistance is also strongly influenced by the presence of a ~ 1-micron layer of macromolecules bound to the inner lining of vessel walls, the endothelial surface layer. Two-dimensional simulations, in which each RBC is represented as a set of interconnected viscoelastic elements, predict that off-center RBCs take asymmetric shapes and drift toward the center-line. Predicted trajectories agree closely with observations in microvessels of the rat mesentery. Realistic simulation of multiple interacting RBCs in microvessels remains as a major challenge for future work.This work was supported by NIH Grant HL034555

Introduction

Introduction to the 'Affective Community' section of the issue

Training adaptations in lower-body muscle structure and physical performance capacities of competitive surfing athletes

The overall aim of this thesis was to increase strength and conditioning coaches, and sport scientists’ understanding of the lower-body muscle structures related to enhanced lower-body physical capacities, and how to best evoke desirable training-specific adaptations. To address this aim, three successive steps of research were evaluated: (1) analysis of the factors related to increased performance in competitive surfing, (2) relationships between lower-body muscle structures and factors associated with enhanced physical performance, and (3) comparison of the training-specific adaptations evoked from various training methods. Whilst this research specifically focused on competitive surfing athletes, these results may benefit the training practices of athletes from a wide range of sports. The comprehensive conclusion of the research studies in this thesis suggest that competitive surfing is highly reliant on lower-body force producing capabilities, with specific vastus lateralis and lateral gastrocnemius muscle structures significantly related to these lower-body physical performance capacities. Additionally, the separation of strength and, gymnastics and plyometric training may not be best practice for adolescent athletes. However, a short duration combined strength, plyometric and gymnastics training intervention appears to provide a significant stimulus to evoke desirable adaptations in lower-body muscle structure and physical performance capacities for athletes that have limited opportunities for training between major competitions. Therefore, this thesis has provided descriptive, predictive and determinant findings associated with the physical preparation of surfing athletes, and iii therefore, provides strength and conditioning coaches, and sport scientists with an enhanced understanding of how best to evoke desirable adaptations in lower-body muscle structure and physical performance capacities

The Heart and Guts of Cultures

A review of Jean-Luc Nancy's A Finite Thinking (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2003)

Microcirculatory blood flow: Functional implications of a complex fluid

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute

Influence of dynamic strength index on countermovement jump force-, power-, velocity-, and displacement-time curves

The dynamic strength index (DSI), often calculated as the ratio of countermovement jump (CMJ) propulsion peak force to isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP) peak force, is said to inform whether ballistic or maximal strength training is warranted for a given athlete. CMJ propulsion peak force is highly influenced by jump strategy, however, which is not highlighted by the DSI alone. This study aimed to quantitatively compare CMJ force-, power-, velocity-, and displacement-time curves between athletes who achieved high versus low DSI scores. Fifty-three male collegiate athletes performed three CMJs and IMTPs on a force platform. Athletes were ranked based on DSI score and the CMJ kinetic and kinematic-time curves of the bottom and top twenty athletes were compared. The low DSI group (0.55 ± 0.10 vs. 0.92 ± 0.11) produced greater IMTP peak force (46.7 ± 15.0 vs. 31.1 ± 6.6 N·kg−1) but a larger braking net impulse in the CMJ, leading to greater braking velocity and larger countermovement displacement. This strategy resulted in a similar CMJ propulsion peak force (25.9 ± 2.2 vs. 25.4 ± 3.1 N·kg−1) to the high DSI group. These results, taken together with those of previous studies, support the notion of ballistic versus maximal strength training likely being better suited to low versus high DSI scorers, respectively

Editorial

In this issue of Cultural Studies Review we have been joined by Linnell Secomb as co-editor and facilitator of the special section ‘Affective Community’, which also provides us with the issue’s tag. The essays in this section, introduced by Linnell in the following pages, originate from the Hybridity/Community Conference held at the University of Sydney in March 2002