193 research outputs found
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A twice-daily barometric pressure record from Durham Observatory in north-east England, 1843-1960
No full textThis dataset consists of twice-daily observations of barometric pressure from Durham Observatory (54.768 °N, 1.584 °W, barometer cistern 107.3 m above mean sea level, MSL) from 23 July 1843 to 31 December 1960. The Durham record, which is 98.7% complete, is by far the longest digital barometric pressure series in northern England, and fills a very large temporal and spatial gap in the International Surface Pressure Database (ISPD).
A paper describing the data series has been submitted to Geoscience Data Journal, April 2021; prior to acceptance/publication, a copy is available from the author at [email protected]
BOOK CHAPTER Substantially the same information will appear as Appendix 5 in Durham Weather and Climate since 1841, by Tim Burt and Stephen Burt, to be published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2022.
If you use the data, please include a citation as follows:
Burt, T and Burt, S (2021) Durham Weather and Climate since 1841. Oxford University Press, Appendix
A South African perspective on prohibited substance testing in humans : a proposed regulatory framework
No full textThesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2019.Substances have been used for medicinal, recreational, and enhancement purposes by numerous population groups since ancient times. This practice is as old as humankind itself with alcohol use in South Africa for instance dating back 70 000 years. Regulation of some substances has now become standard practice due to their harmful and deleterious effects, increasing the risk to the user and society, which includes the educational, workplace and sports environment. Regulation involves enlisting of substances and testing for these prohibited substances in humans to assess compliance. Such a program has to be ethically sound, legally correct and scientifically accurate.
Prohibited substance regulation and testing in humans can be seen as a biomedical intervention on an individual which may violate the right to privacy, dignity, autonomy and freedom to use substances for medicinal, recreational and enhancement purposes. The field is flawed with ethical dilemmas that can be solved by employing the principalism approach, which involves respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and justice. The obtainment of voluntary free informed consent, as a prerequisite for respect for autonomy is essential before a prohibited substance test on an individual is initiated.
The author suggests that ethical oversight be instituted by statute, at a standard equivalent to that of ethical clinical research which is aligned with the Nuremberg code. It was also suggested that the professionals involved in the administration of prohibited substance regulation and testing programs should be registered with a professional council to comply with minimum standards of education and professionalism.
International prohibited substance regulation and testing programmes related to the workplace as an example of foreign law (SAMHSA), and sports doping (WADA) as an example of international law, were studied and evaluated against the relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (CSA) and statutes such as the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Protection of Personal Information Act. The relevant sections in the CSA revolved mainly around respect for privacy, dignity, autonomy, freedom and equality. It was found that the prohibited substance regulation and testing policy was essential in all settings to provide legal certainty for subjects and administrators. The constitutional right to just administrative action is of vital importance for these policies which have to function in a quasi-judicial environment, also based on the principle of “separation of powers”.
The legal implications of the recent legalisation of cannabis on the workplace and other safety-sensitive environments were assessed and it was concluded that organisations still had an obligation to regulate, and to test for the active constituent (_9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) in their employees, due to its impairment potential that increases the risk to the health and safety of others. It was also suggested that the relevant legislation, such as the Occupational Health Act be changed to include threshold concentrations or cut-off concentrations in biofluids which mark the onset of impairment. A cut-off concentration of 2 ng/mL in blood was suggested for THC, and the use of oral fluid and urine as matrices for testing was discussed due to the invasiveness of blood sampling.
Current issues in South Africa is addressed from a forensic toxicology perspective. The use of the hypergeometric distribution, based on sampling without replacement was suggested as a means to obtain the minimum number of subjects to be selected from a group within a specified level of confidence. Observational and chemical strategies to identify drug users were reviewed. A strategy to evaluate drug screening devices was proposed and applied to typical devices currently on the market in South Africa.Public LawDPhilUnrestricte
Adapting authoritarianism: institutions and co-optation in Egypt and Syria
No full textThis PhD thesis compares Egypt and Syria’s authoritarian political systems. While the tendency in social science political research treats Egypt and Syria as similarly authoritarian, this research emphasizes differences between the two systems with special reference to institutions and co-optation. Rather than reducibly understanding Egypt and Syria as sharing similar histories, institutional arrangements, or ascribing to the oft-repeated convention that “Syria is Egypt but 10 years behind,” this thesis focuses on how events and individual histories shaped each states current institutional strengthens and weaknesses. Specifically, it explains the how varying institutional politicization or de-politicization affects each state’s capabilities for co-opting elite and non-elite individuals.
Beginning with a theoretical framework that considers the limited utility of democratization and transition theoretical approaches, the work underscores the persistence and durability of authoritarianism. Chapter two details the politicized institutional divergence between Egypt and Syria that began in the 1970s. Chapter three and four examines how institutional politicization or de-politicization affects elite and non-elite individual co-optation in Egypt and Syria. Chapter five discusses the study’s general conclusions and theoretical implications.
This thesis’s argument is that Egypt and Syria co-opt elites and non-elites differently because of the varying degrees of institutional politicization in each governance system. Rather than view one country as more politically developed than the other, this work argues that Syria’s political institutions are more politicized than their Egyptian counterparts. Syria’s political arena is, thus, described as politicized-patrimonialism. Syria’s politicized-patrimonial arena produces uneven co-optation of elites and non-elites as they are diffused through competing institutions. Conversely, the Egyptian political arena remains highly personalized as weak institutions and individuals are manipulated and molded according to the president’s ruling clique. This is referred to as personalized-patrimonialism. As a consequence, Egypt’s political establishment demonstrates more flexibility in ad hoc altering and adapting its arena depending on the emergence of crises.
This study’s theoretical implications suggest that, contrary to modernization and democratization theory’s adage that institutions lead to a political development, politicized institutions within a patrimonial order actually hinder regime adaptation because consensus is harder to achieve and maintain. It is within this context that Egypt’s de-politicized institutional framework advantages its top political elite. In this reading of Egyptian and Syrian politics, Egypt’s personalized political arena is more adaptable than Syria’s. These conclusions do not indicate that political reform is a process underway in either state
Musikstädte as real and imaginary soundscapes: urban musical images as literary motifs in twentieth-century German modernism
No full textPhDThis study examines German literary images of musical life as part of the wider sound identity of the modern German city at the turn of the twentieth century. Focussing on a forty-year period from 1890 to 1930, synonymous with the emergence of the modern German metropolis as an aesthetic object, the project assesses, compares and contrasts how musical life in the Musikstädte was perceived and portrayed by writers in an increasingly noisy urban environment. How does urban musical life influence and condition city writings? What are the differences and similarities between the writings on various musical cities? Can an urban textual sound identity be derived from these differences and similarities? The approach employed to answer these questions is a new, cross-disciplinary one to urban sound in literature, moving beyond reading the key sounds of the urban soundscape using urban musicology, sensorial anthropology and cultural poetics towards a literary contextualisation of the urban aural experience.
The literary motifs of the symphony, the gramophone and urban noise are put under the spotlight through the analysis of a wide range of modernist works by authors who have a special relationship with music. At the centre of this analysis are the Kaffeehausliteratur authors Hermann Bahr, Alfred Polgar and Peter Altenberg, the then Munich-based author Thomas Mann and the lesser known René Schickele. The analysis of these particular works is framed in the music-geographical context of the Musikstadt and literary underpinnings of this topos, ranging from Ingeborg Bachmann to Hans Mayer and, once again, Thomas Mann. In analysing these texts, the methodological approach devised by Strohm, who identifies the blending of a range of urban sounds as a definition of urban space and identity, is applied. His ideas combine historical literary
analysis, musical history and urban sociology. They are rarely used in the analysis of the auditory environment.Arts and Humanities Research Council
Westfield TrustWestfield Trust Studentship
Arts and Humanities Reseach Council (AHRC
The ethics of globalisation, free trade and fair trade
No full textIn this thesis I take a broadly consequentialist normative position and argue that because fair
trade is an inefficient method of aiding the poor, we should not support it and prefer free trade
goods with an appropriate and equal donation to a charity, designed to aid the poor and
encourage development in the undeveloped and developing world, instead. I also argue that
globalisation is the best means of development and we should support it as well. The thesis
progresses first by considering consequentialism, which I argue is especially suited to the
problem of analysing poverty in applied ethics, and some objections to it, which I briefly attempt
to answer. Following that, I consider fair trade and both some theoretical and practical problems
that it faces which my alternative does not. Then I briefly consider how globalisation results in
development and why it should be supported. Finally, I conclude with a brief chapter where I
respond to a few pertinent objections which arise on the periphery of my discussion that could be
seen as damaging to my position
The history and politics of liberation archives at Fort Hare
No full textIncludes bibliographical references.This thesis, the first of its kind on liberation historiography, seeks to put the liberation movements archives housed at the University of Fort Hare in context. The thesis focuses mainly on the 1990s, when the repatriation of struggle material by Fort Hare working hand in glove with the liberation movements, mainly the African National Congress ANC), the Pan Africanist Congress(PAC) and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), was at its height
The jingling Geordie: community arts and the regional culture of the North East of England
No full textIn the light of the massive economic and social changes which have affected the North East of England over the last 25 years, the author assesses the vitality of the indigenous culture and reflects upon current cultural trends and the North East’s future, particularly in relation to a regional Europe. He traces the folk-tradition of the region and looks at ways in which this can be drawn upon to develop a meaningful link between past and present. He looks closely at the changing nature of class-relationships in the North East and reflects upon how a valid local culture can survive in a multi-cultural society. He draws upon his own extensive experience in Community Arts, looking at definitions of the term in the new political climate and arguing for its positive contribution to the cultural debate. He dwells on the issue of regionalism and devolution in a new Europe, comparing the situation in the North East of England with political and cultural changes in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom
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