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Dystopian Fiction: Can it Enable us to Think Critically about Gendered Violence and Power?
Get PDFThis article discusses the issues of power sex, gender, and the law with regard to identifying and controlling violence against women. It discusses these concepts within dystopian works of fiction and their application, both actual and potential, to real life. The novels and films below have been selected for their perceived relevance to the author as examples of dystopian fiction, but importantly they engage with Gadamer’s concept of language and socially and historically affected consciousness. Hence, the themes, but also their reception, are products of their time and place.
The central themes of the novels will be those typical for dystopian fiction, such as power, governmental control and loss of individualism. However, other themes particularly pertinent to feminist dystopian fiction are also investigated, such as imagining a matriarchal society, misogyny and misandry, sexual violence, and the limitations upon the behaviour of individuals, usually female, but not always. Feminist theory has engaged with ‘essentialism’, both arguing for an essential difference between ‘males’ and ‘females’, but also disputing essentialism for limitations upon the sexes. One criticism of such works is that they are based upon biological sex and as such promote a dichotomous essentialism. However, since this article is discussing violence against women, biological or gendered, it is not engaging with the subtlety of multi-faceted ‘gendered’ identities, except in the stereotyping of such ‘attributes’.
The selected novels have enabled different interpretations over time, due to the diversity of readers, and of social norms, values, and beliefs. Whether we can distance ourselves from our socially and historically embedded understandings through these works of fiction, to critique the contemporary world is discussed. Arguably, for Attwood the critique and change potential is not guaranteed, for: “Humanity is so adaptable. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.” This article argues that, crucially, with what, and with whom, we identify, are influential in our interpretations
Automated detection and analysis of coronal active region structures across Solar Cycle 24
Get PDFObservations from the NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory Atmospheric Imaging Assembly were employed to investigate targeted physical properties of coronal active region structures across the entirety of Solar Cycle 24 (dates). This is the largest consistent study to date which analyses emergent trends in structural width, location, and occurrence rate by performing an automatic and long-term examination of observable coronal limb features within equatorial active region belts across four extreme ultraviolet wavelengths (171, 193, 211, and 304 angstroms). This has resulted in over thirty thousand observed coronal structures and hence allows for the production of spatial and temporal distributions focused upon the rise, peak and decay activity phases of Solar Cycle 24. Employing a self-organized-criticality approach as a descriptor of coronal structure formation, power law slopes of structural widths versus frequency are determined, ranging from -1.6 to -3.3 with variations of up to 0.7 found between differing periods of the solar cycle, compared to a predicted Fractal Diffusive Self Organized Criticality (FD-SOC) value of -1.5. The North-South hemispheric asymmetry of these structures was also examined with the northern hemisphere exhibiting activity that is peaking earlier and decaying slower than the southern hemisphere, with a characteristic "butterfly" pattern of coronal structures detected. This represents the first survey of coronal structures performed across an entire solar cycle, demonstrating new techniques available to examine the composition of the corona by latitude in varying wavelengths at selected altitudes
The Prevalence of the α-bimodality: First JWST α-abundance Results in M31
Get PDFWe present initial results from our JWST NIRSpec program to study the α-abundances in the M31 disk. The Milky Way has two chemically-defined disks, the low-α and high-α disks, which are closely related to the thin and thick disks, respectively. The origin of the two populations and the α-bimodality between them is not entirely clear, although there are now several models that can reproduce the observed features. To help constrain the models and discern the origin, we have undertaken a study of the chemical abundances of the M31 disk using JWST NIRSpec, in order to determine whether stars in M31's disk also show an α-abundance bimodality. Approximately 100 stars were observed in our single NIRSpec field at a projected distance of 18 kpc from the M31 center. The 1-D extracted spectra have an average signal-to-noise ratio of 85 leading to statistical metallicity precision of 0.016 dex, α-abundance precision of 0.012 dex, and a radial velocity precision 8 km/s. The initial results indicate that, in contrast to the Milky Way, there is no α-bimodality in the M31 disk, and no low-α sequence. The entire stellar population falls along a single chemical sequence very similar to the MW's high-alpha component which had a high star formation rate. While this is somewhat unexpected, the result is not that surprising based on other studies that found the M31 disk has a larger velocity dispersion than the MW and is dominated by a thick component. M31 has had a more active accretion and merger history than the MW which might explain the chemical differences
Attentional Processing of preserved Face and Scrambled Face Distractors in Preschool Children with Autism Spectrum Condition
Get PDFThe current study investigated attentional processing of preserved neutral face and scrambled neutral face distractors at both involuntary and voluntary orienting levels in children with and without autism spectrum condition (ASC). The findings suggest similar influences of face configuration on reflexive orienting in both groups but reveal group differences in voluntary disengagement from face-related distractors. The ASC group exhibited difficulties in disengaging from the central neutral faces, and the TD group showed longer latencies for scrambled faces. These group differences suggest inefficiency in adopting a global face processing strategy at the voluntary attentional level in ASC. We discuss how the observed effects might impact upon the development of social communication skills in ASC
Introduction to the Special Section: Can Criminal Justice Responses Empower Women? A Case Study of Domestic Abuse Disclosure Schemes
Get PDFThis paper introduces the Special Section Can Criminal Justice Responses Empower Women? A Case Study of Domestic Abuse Disclosure Schemes. It locates the case study of Domestic Abuse Disclosure Schemes in a wider trend of expanded criminal justice responses to domestic abuse. It then outlines the introduction and format of the Domestic Abuse Disclosure Scheme in England and Wales in 2014, followed by schemes introduced in other jurisdictions. It goes on to discuss the development, uptake and wider contextualisation of the schemes, as well as the emerging body of academic research. Finally, the contributions of the four substantive papers in this Special Section are detailed
How can we achieve a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle?
Get PDFDealing with spent nuclear fuel is key if nuclear fission is to be used more widely going forward. Nuclear power is close to carbon neutral, but spent nuclear fuel has a storage lifetime of ~300,000 years. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is carried out on large scale using the PUREX “Plutonium Uranium Reduction and Extraction” process. The spent nuclear fuel is reduced to 15% of its original weight and the separated uranium and plutonium reused as “Mixed Oxide Fuel”. In the civil sector, this was carried out by the UK at Sellafield (now curtailed) and continues in France at La Hague. A plant in Rokashamura in Japan has been mothballed after the Fukushima accident. The residual waste must be stored for ~9,000 years with most of the remaining radiotoxicity due to traces of the minor actinides, neptunium, americium and curium, constituting just 0.1% of the original spent fuel. Separation of these minor actinides from the chemically very similar lanthanides (rare earths) in the last 15% of waste remaining after PUREX is the key step for future reprocessing. If separated, the minor actinides can be used as fuel in the next generation of nuclear reactors and converted into benign products, but lanthanides will cause the fission process to shut down if introduced into the reactor pile as they absorb neutrons efficiently. Removing the minor actinides from post PUREX waste will mean that the final residue need only be stored for 300 years. The highly challenging separation of the chemically very similar minor actinides from the lanthanides has been achieved using nitrogen-bearing organic ligands developed at Reading University. This can lead to significantly improved handling of spent nuclear fuels and means that waste nuclear fuel need not be a long-term storage liability but a source of yet more clean power
‘Do no harm’? Rethinking risk and harm narratives in abuse-focused research with children
Get PDFDespite increasing recognition of children’s right to have a say about matters that affect them (Article 12, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), this right is often denied in the context of child abuse research. This article explores the ways in which ethical decision-making can contribute to the denial of this right and the negative implications of this at both an individual and societal level.
Ethical decision-making that stymies the conduct of abuse-focused research with children is usually justified with reference to protecting participants from risk of harm. Whilst in no way suggesting that this is not a critical consideration, the authors question the simplistic and deterministic ways in which this can be understood within ethical decision-making, and the unnecessarily risk-averse decisions that can ensue.
Sharing examples from their cumulative 30 years’ experience of engaging children and young people in abuse-focused research, the authors stress the need for a more holistic, nuanced and dynamic approach to assessing and managing risk of harm. This would consider risks of both inclusion and exclusion. Understanding that risk and harm are neither static nor universally experienced concepts, it would recognise the implausibility of the ‘do no harm’ guarantees often expected of social researchers. Instead, informed by rights-respecting and trauma-informed perspectives, it would focus on holistically promoting participant wellbeing in, and through, research. Key to this is permitting, and supporting, researchers to exercise contextually-informed, collaborative decision-making in the field; something the authors share their emerging practice framework for
The consequences of the new European reclassification of non-invasive brain stimulation devices and the medical device regulations pose an existential threat to research and treatment: An invited opinion paper
No full textA significant amount of European basic and clinical neuroscience research includes the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and low intensity transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), mainly transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Two recent changes in the EU regulations, the introduction of the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) (2017/745) and the Annex XVI have caused significant problems and confusions in the brain stimulation field. The negative consequences of the MDR for non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) have been largely overlooked and until today, have not been consequently addressed by National Competent Authorities, local ethical committees, politicians and by the scientific communities. In addition, a rushed bureaucratic decision led to seemingly wrong classification of NIBS products without an intended medical purpose into the same risk group III as invasive stimulators. Overregulation is detrimental for any research and for future developments, therefore researchers, clinicians, industry, patient representatives and an ethicist were invited to contribute to this document with the aim of starting a constructive dialogue and enacting positive changes in the regulatory environment. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2024 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.