42 research outputs found
Bibliographics for the 983 eprints in the live archives of E-LIS : trends and status report up to 7th July 2004, based on author-self-archiving metadata
No full textThe priority for ideas and philosophy related to "Network Theory" have been traced back and documented by Braun(2004),and credit goes to Karinthy(1929).The IT has empowered to realise it, as the most practical phenomena and it is no more a humour. The OAI (Open Archives Initiatives)and ACIS (Academic Contributor Information System)are progressive in the direction ,which may lead to realise the "Collective Genius" at global level. Focus of present study is on Author-Self-Archiving (A-S-A)Metadata of the 983 Eprints in the Live Archives of the E-LIS (EPrints of Library and Information Science),which were approved till 7th July 2004.The A-S-A Metadata was used for librametric analysis. Self-explanatory bibliographics are illustrated.The highlights include: Conference papers (34%); highest approval, June 2004 (28%); published archives (76%);not refereed (52%); not in public domain (60%); highest self-archiving-author (De Robbio, Antonella).The Nos. of EPrints having single JITA domain specifications were: Theoretical and general aspects of libraries and information(27); Information use and sociology of information(80);Users,literacy and reading(13);Libraries as physical collections(30);Publishing and legal issues(57);Management(13);Industry, profession and education(36);Information sources, supports, channels(113) ; Information treatment for information services, Information functions and techniques (101); Technical services libraries, archives and museums(25); Housing technologies(1); Information technology and library technology(92); and Inter-domainery (395) i.e. having specifications of two or more than two JITA classes
Molecular tools for bathing water assessment in Europe : balancing social science research with a rapidly developing environmental science evidence-base
No full textThe Working Group and associated workshop series were funded by the Natural Environment Research Council as part of the Delivering Healthy Water project (NE/I022191/1). LF received funding in part by the European Regional Development Fund Programme and the European Social Fund Convergence Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of ScillyThe use of molecular tools, principally qPCR, versus traditional culture-based methods for quantifying microbial parameters (e.g., Fecal Indicator Organisms) in bathing waters generates considerable ongoing debate at the science–policy interface. Advances in science have allowed the development and application of molecular biological methods for rapid (~2 h) quantification of microbial pollution in bathing and recreational waters. In contrast, culture-based methods can take between 18 and 96 h for sample processing. Thus, molecular tools offer an opportunity to provide a more meaningful statement of microbial risk to water-users by providing near-real-time information enabling potentially more informed decision-making with regard to water-based activities. However, complementary studies concerning the potential costs and benefits of adopting rapid methods as a regulatory tool are in short supply. We report on findings from an international Working Group that examined the breadth of social impacts, challenges, and research opportunities associated with the application of molecular tools to bathing water regulations.Peer reviewe
Identity and consumption practices of Northamptonshire Caribbeans c.1955-1989
No full textThe objective of this thesis is to delineate and analyse Northamptonshire Caribbeans' consumption c.1955-1989. Author-collected and other oral histories alongside complementary primary and secondary references dovetail to unearth and analyse aspects of Post-War Caribbean consumption in a British provincial location that have been significantly unexplored previously. Central to the argument is the contention that identity is fundamentally significant in comprehending and analysing Northamptonshire Caribbeans' consumption. Various conceptualisations of identity facilitated development of consumer materialisations and aspirations. This thesis explores how multiple forms of identity as Caribbean, Black and British people were significant in shaping local Caribbeans' consumption. The succeeding pages address and analyse how these multiple identities influenced consumption and how provincial consumer behaviour was shaped by Caribbeans' relative co-ethnic isolation in Northamptonshire. Chapter 3 delineates and analyses consumer practices and practicalities of Northamptonshire Caribbeans. Integral within these consumer practices and practicalities are changes in consumption over time, intergenerational differences in consumption, as well as aspects of consumption that could be considered 'typical' and/or 'atypical' Northamptonshire Caribbean consumption; all of which are incorporated within this chapter. Chapter 4 connects identity and consumption through enhancing understanding of Northamptonshire Caribbeans' consumer networks. These networks interacted with the combination of identities local Caribbeans psychologically felt part of within various Caribbean, Black and British permutations. Furthermore, such identities varied more widely amongst the younger generation than their co-ethnic elders, a concept which is also addressed. Education and cultural currency are two novel strands through which to analyse connections between consumption and identity. The final two chapters deploy these concepts in an innovative manner creating and developing greater understanding of Northamptonshire Caribbeans' consumption. Chapter 5 expounds on the concept that education can be used as consumption whilst shaping future consumer behaviour, both ideas significantly under-explored previously. Chapter 6 introduces the theory of cultural currency, the idea that aspects of culture have finite, but changing, values and must be shared to have value similar to monetary currencies having exchange values for other monetary currencies. This chapter demonstrates how Northamptonshire Caribbeans shared aspects of Caribbean culture as cultural currency, fostering co-ethnic strength whilst gaining inter-ethnic respect for Caribbeans. Through comprehending Caribbean identity, correlations between empirical and social history, local consumption, as well as educational and cultural circumstances that stimulated and inspired Northamptonshire Caribbeans, this thesis distinctively illuminates how local Caribbeans' consumption interacted with various permutations of Afro-Caribbean, Black and/or British identities whilst representing idiosyncratic local nodes within these larger amalgamations
Climate Change Impacts on Global Agriculture
No full textBased on predicted changes in the magnitude and distribution of global precipitation, temperature and river flow under the IPCC SRES A1B and A2 scenarios, this study assesses the potential impacts of climate change and CO2 fertilization on global agriculture. The analysis uses the new version of the GTAP-W model, which distinguishes between rainfed and irrigated agriculture and implements water as an explicit factor of production for irrigated agriculture. Future climate change is likely to modify regional water endowments and soil moisture. As a consequence, the distribution of harvested land would change, modifying production and international trade patterns. The results suggest that a partial analysis of the main factors through which climate change will affect agricultural productivity lead to different outcomes. Our results show that global food production, welfare and GDP fall in the two time periods and SRES scenarios. Higher food prices are expected. Independently of the SRES scenario, expected losses in welfare are marked in the long term. They are larger under the SRES A2 scenario for the 2020s and under the SRES A1B scenario for the 2050s. The results show that countries are not only influenced by regional climate change, but also by climate-induced changes in competitiveness.Computable General Equilibrium, Climate Change, Agriculture, Water Resources, River Flow
Developing a critical theory of child abuse : a discussion of the nature of child abuse as a manifestation of the social order
No full textThis thesis is an exploration into the nature and the prevalence of
child abuse. It incorporates in this investigation how children
understand abuse, and how the child may reject or oppose it. Its
origins lie in the experiences and observations I made as a local
authority social worker where children were silent, where child
abuse was seen as an event, a distinct moment within family life,
and with apparently little recognition of its relationship with the
social order. Arising from this observation, I consider how the
care of children may be a manifestation of the social order. This
thesis is therefore also a critique of the present theory and
practice of working within the field of childcare.
The premise taken here is that in order to understand abuse, there
must be an account of the individual's sense of being, as this
relates to wider issues of the political economy. Thus this
investigation uses the perspective of critical theory, since
critical theory can incorporate an analysis of both structure and
the experiential. It enables the researcher to shift perspective
and to focus on different levels and aspects of being.
Therefore, since child abuse is situated within the family, an
analysis based on the perspectives of critical theory is used to
examine family relationships. This includes an examination of the
relationships between parents, as well as of those between them and
the child. Three different facets of family life are explored:
that of gender construction from the viewpoint of feminist
psychoanalysis; the relationship between the social order and
interpersonal behaviour from the perspective of Marx and radical
feminism; and parental authority, drawing on the work of Laing.
Derived from this exploration, the key concepts of patriarchy,
alienation and mystification inform the direction of the empirical
investigation.
The empirical investigation, using firstly autobiographies of
childhood and then direct interviews with children, explores
further these concepts'. The autobiographies are used as a way of
sensitising oneself to the issues for the child, and as a means of
categorising experiences for the subsequent interviews with
children. From this reading, an alternative understanding of child
abuse is developed, one which differs from the narrow definition
used by organisations. Hence abuse can be seen as the experience
of hurt and pain, either emotional or physical, and which takes
place in a relationship based on the parental domination, control
and exploitation of the child. This understanding of abuse
situates the subjective experience within an interpersonal dynamic
of power and subordination.
Using this definition in analysing the interviews with children, it
was apparent that all children expedrience a form of abuse to some
degree. Abuse is not, therefore, the property of a small number of deviant families. Additionally it is argued that children are
silenced and rendered powerless within the family by three
mechanisms: firstly by the 'privacy control mechanism', secondly by
the 'ideology of paternalism', and thirdly by mystification. These
can be interpreted as also reinforcing the social order, since this
also depends for its maintenance on domination, powerlessness, and
mystification of the mechanisms of control.
The thesis concludes with a number of proposals for further
exploring these concepts in terms of developing sociological theory
and social work practice. The report on the death of Jasmine
Beckford is subjected to an alternative analysis, and derived from
this critique, ways of confronting violence, mystification and
privacy are discussed. Finally the thesis stresses the importance
of understanding child abuse as a personal as well as a social
phenomenon, and that it has ultimately, a political significance
LPS stimulates dynamic changes in B cell metabolism to promote proliferation
No full textFollowing activation, naïve B cells exit quiescence and enter a proliferative phase before becoming mature antibody-producing or memory B cells. One method of activation is to use Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a well-established B cell mitogen that can drive proliferation ex vivo. Using quantitative proteomics, we identify an upregulation of proteins following LPS stimulation involved in metabolic pathways including amino acid uptake and cholesterol biosynthesis. We highlight the large, neutral amino acid transporter SLC7A5 as a target of LPS-induced activation, and by utilising SLC7A5 conditional knockout mice, we demonstrate the requirement of this transporter for B cell proliferation ex vivo. LPS stimulation increased cellular cholesterol levels and inhibition of the rate-limiting enzymes HMG-CoA-reductase (HMGCR) and Squalene monooxygenase in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway significantly reduced proliferation. The critical role of the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway was not limited to LPS. Stimulation via TLR7, TLR9, CD40 and the B Cell Receptor also increased cholesterol levels and inhibition of HMGCR reduced proliferation. Together these results suggest a common requirement for metabolic rewiring in B cells to allow proliferation in response to activation
Engaging the manuscript: new editions and reading the 'whole book' in Chetham's Library MS 8009
No full textThis thesis considers the intersection of the manuscript and its literature through an examination of the late fifteenth century manuscript, Chetham’s Library 8009 (Mun. A.6.31) and provides four diplomatic editions. This manuscript contains fourteen texts in Middle English including romance, hagiography, courtesy literature, and a comic text. This thesis argues for the importance of reading medieval literature in its manuscript context. Although there is a growing trend to consider the ‘whole book’ and integrate analysis of the material artefact with interpretation, much work remains to be done.
In Part I, this thesis presents a new paradigm for reading medieval literature, and argues that the manuscript forms a very literal community of texts, and that each text acts as a co-creator of meaning with the others. It then demonstrates four brief contextual readings that may be made within Chetham 8009 across generic boundaries, and that produce a shift in interpretive focus .
Part II provides four diplomatic editions from Chetham 8009: the Life of St Katherine, the Liber Catonis, John Russell’s Book of Carving and Nurture, and the Book of the Duke and Emperor.
This thesis aims to contribute to the study of medieval literature by arguing for a methodological shift in the way the literature is approached and by providing access to four texts either previously unedited or not easily accessible
Returning culture to peacebuilding : contesting the liberal peace in Sierra Leone
No full textThis thesis investigates the advantages and limitations of applying culture to the analysis of violent conflict and peacebuilding, with a particular focus on liberal peacebuilding in Sierra Leone. While fully aware of the critique of the concept of culture in terms of its uses for the production of difference and ‘otherness,’ it also seeks to respond to the critique of liberal peacebuilding on the account of its low sensitivity towards local culture, which allegedly undermines the peace effort. After a careful examination of the terms of discussion about culture enabled by theoretical approaches to conflict in Chapter 2, the thesis presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of cultural aspects of conflict and peace based on the processes and effects of meaning-generation (Chapter 3), developing the conceptual apparatus and vocabulary for the subsequent empirical study. Instead of bracketing out the recursive nature of cultural theorising, the developed approach embraces the recursive dynamics which arise as a result of cultural ‘embeddedness’ of the analyst and the processes which s/he seeks to elucidate, mirroring similar dynamics in the cultural production of meaning and knowledge. The framework of ‘embedded cultural enquiry’ is then used to analyse the practices of liberal peacebuilding as a particular culture, which shapes the interaction of the liberal peace with its ‘subjects’ and critics as well as framing its reception of the cultural problematic generally (Chapter 4). The application of the analytical framework to the case study investigates the interaction between the liberal peace and ‘local culture,’ offering an alternative reading of the conflict and peace process in Sierra Leone (Chapter 5). The study concludes that a greater attention to cultural meaning-making offers a largely untapped potential for peacebuilding, although any decisions with regard to its deployment will inevitably be made from within an inherently biased cultural perspective
Timescales for the development of methanogenesis and free gas layers in recently-deposited sediments of Arkona Basin (Baltic Sea)
No full textArkona Basin (southwestern Baltic Sea) is a seasonally-hypoxic basin characterized by the presence of free methane gas in its youngest organic-rich muddy stratum. Through the use of reactive transport models, this study tracks the development of the methane geochemistry in Arkona Basin as this muddy sediment became deposited during the last 8 kyr. Four cores are modeled each pertaining to a unique geochemical scenario according to their respective contemporary geochemical profiles. Ultimately the thickness of the muddy sediment and the flux of particulate organic carbon are crucial in determining the advent of both methanogenesis and free methane gas, the timescales over which methanogenesis takes over as a dominant reaction pathway for organic matter degradation, and the timescales required for free methane gas to form. © 2012 Author(s).SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
