Load stress; carrier strain: implications for military and receational backpacking

This paper reviews a growing literature on the stress of backpacking, particularly in military situations. Conceptual issues are raised and the implications for recreational backpackers are addressed. Under moderate to fairly heavy loading the energy cost, per kg total load carried, per hour, relates almost linearly to walking speed. Empirical data from studies in this unit are presented as benchmark indicators for use by recreational backpackers

Replication of maximal work output levels in able-bodied workers and candidates for disability assessments: benchmark data and guidelines

[From the introduction]: Injured-at-work employees, when the impairments are musculo-skeletal, and the injury beyond dispute, may be faced with formal rehabilitation or informal recuperation, sometimes preceded by surgical intervention, or they may be exposed to a process of application for compensation, part of which may involve medico-legal assessments. Questions that need to be addressed somewhere in this process will determine whether the impairment is of short duration, chronic or irreparable, and will involve determination also of the severity of the impairment and the issue of the workers’ capacity to return to the former occupation versus the need to find a new employment niche commensurate with the disabled workers’ capabilities. Inevitably in this process, if it is formal, someone will need to assess the musculoskeletal strength of the injured employee and make pronouncements as to physical capacity and work-readiness. In the absence of clinical ergonomists in South Africa this task falls to a variety of professionals, some well and others poorly trained to make these determinations. Most often the assessments of work-readiness are crude, amounting to little more than unsubstantiable value judgements of supervisors or health professionals not well versed in human performance capabilities. Increasingly however, better qualified professionals are making themselves available to meet the growing demands of a more employee-centred working ethos in this country. This paper is targeted at those medical, paramedical and ergonomics professionals who already have the facilities and the expertise to make use of the technique outlined herein, to further enhance their already sound means of job-related disability assessment

How Hyperpolarization and the Recovery of Excitability Affect Propagation through a Virtual Anode in the Heart

Researchers have suggested that the fate of a shock-induced wave front at the edge of a “virtual anode” (a region hyperpolarized by the shock) is a key factor determining success or failure during defibrillation of the heart. In this paper, we use a simple one-dimensional computer model to examine propagation speed through a hyperpolarized region. Our goal is to test the hypothesis that rapid propagation through a virtual anode can cause failure of propagation at the edge of the virtual anode. The calculations support this hypothesis and suggest that the time constant of the sodium inactivation gate is an important parameter. These results may be significant in understanding the mechanism of the upper limit of vulnerability

Compound-specific amino acid ¹⁵N stable isotope probing of nitrogen assimilation by the soil microbial biomass using gas chromatography/combustion/isotope ratio mass spectrometry

RATIONALE: Organic nitrogen (N) greatly exceeds inorganic N in soils, but the complexity and heterogeneity of this important soil N pool make investigations into the fate of N‐containing additions and soil organic N cycling challenging. This paper details a novel approach to investigate the fate of applied N in soils, generating quantitative measures of microbial assimilation and of newly synthesized soil protein. METHODS: Laboratory incubation experiments applying (15)N‐ammonium, (15)N‐nitrate and (15)N‐glutamate were carried out and the high sensitivity and selectivity of gas chromatography/combustion/isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC/C/IRMS) exploited for compound‐specific (15)N stable isotope probing ((15)N‐SIP) of extracted incubation soil amino acids (AAs; as N‐acetyl, O‐isopropyl derivatives). We then describe the interpretation of these data to obtain a measure of the assimilation of the applied (15)N‐labelled substrate by the soil microbial biomass and an estimate of newly synthesised soil protein. RESULTS: The cycling of agriculturally relevant N additions is undetectable via bulk soil N content and δ (15)N values and AA concentrations. The assimilation pathways of the three substrates were revealed via patterns in AA δ (15)N values with time, reflecting known biosynthetic pathways (e.g. ammonium uptake occurs first via glutamate) and these data were used to expose differences in the rates and fluxes of the applied N substrates into the soil protein pool (glutamate > ammonium > nitrate). CONCLUSIONS: Our compound‐specific (15)N‐SIP approach using GC/C/IRMS offers a number of insights, inaccessible via existing techniques, into the fate of applied (15)N in soils and is potentially widely applicable to the study of N cycling in any soil, or indeed, in any complex ecosystem. © 2016 The Authors. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Seven great ways to connect with students during snap lockdowns

This is the final version. Available from the Australian Association for Research in Education via the link in this recordBlog postThis research might be about students with added learning needs but could easily apply to all students. The snap school lockdowns required to combat the Delta variant of Covid-19 disproportionately affect different cohorts of students and teachers. When the first school lockdowns were implemented in NSW in 2020, a group of researchers undertook a study to explore teachers’ perspectives of the impact of the COVID-19 distance learning requirements on the education of students with additional educational needs. We asked teachers about: the issues they experienced in the education of children with a disability during COVID 19; how they viewed their students’ connections with their peers; and any changes they made to the ways they teach because their students missed school. We now know that earning preferences, the strength of existing social networks, and access to digital technologies and WIFI can impact students’ ability to successfully navigate distance learning. Teachers may grapple with modes of delivery, pedagogical structures, and the need to establish effective systems of communication (Hood, 2020)

The interaction of class and gender in illness narratives

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2008 BSA Publications Ltd.Perspectives on gender and identity that emphasize variability of performance, local context and individual agency have displaced earlier paradigms.These are now perceived to have supported gender stereotypes and language ideologies by emphasizing gender difference and homogeneity within genders. In a secondary analysis of health and illness narratives we explore the interaction of class and gender in individuals' constructions of gendered identity. High social class men perform gender in particularly varied ways and we speculate that this variable repertoire, including the use of what was once termed `women's language', is linked to a capacity to maintain social distinction and authority. Men's performance of conventional masculinity is often threatened by both the experience of illness and being interviewed about personal experience. Lower social class women in particular demonstrate an intensification of a pre-existing informal family and support group culture, marking successful members by awarding them the accolade of being `lovely'.ESR

Seven great ways to connect with students during snap lockdowns

Published online August.19.2021Abstract unavailableAngela Page, Jennifer Charteris, Joanna Anderson and Christopher Boyl

European spaces and the Roma: Denaturalizing the naturalized in online reader comments

With the entry of several Eastern European nations into the European Union (EU), a “third” space has developed in the discourse for nations perceived as not fully integrated “inside” the EU system. This article investigates the construction of this “third space” in the resultant “moral panic” about undesired immigration from other EU countries and its potential drain on the social services of the United Kingdom and links it to Euroskeptic discourse in British media. The article uses construal operations from cognitive linguistics combined with critical discourse studies as a way of denaturalizing the discourse in online comments that focus on the Bulgarian/Romanian immigration issue which we then connect to anti-Roma discourse. Results reveal a view of the United Kingdom as contaminated by Roma and underscore the need for novel metaphors to be countered before they become entrenched and used as tools for political propaganda

Activating metaphors:exploring the embodied nature of metaphorical mapping in political discourse

In this unit activity, I explore how students can make use of the principles of embodied cognition and meaning, and specifically the embodied nature of metaphor to explore political discourse and communication. Work in cognitive linguistics has highlighted the fact that humans construct a view of reality that is informed by our species-specific capacities and limitations, and our interaction with the social and physical world (Tyler, 2012). In these terms, language itself can be viewed as derived from conceptualizations that are based on physical and sensory images (Holme, 2012). Together these comprise a theory of embodied cognition that can be utilised in an educational context (Giovanelli 2014)