45 research outputs found
Exonerated pleasures: how women experience the relationship between pleasure and power
No full textPleasure is a complex word, with a complex history. It encompasses a variety of different meanings, depending on its context and usage. Through time, it has been riddled with cultural connotations, and even moral forbodings. Classical writings and Christian scriptures cast a suspicious overtone to the pursuit of pleasure. American advertising has used the concept of pleasure to sell everything from cigarettes to college educations. The mass media have developed rigid ideals dictating who is worthy of experiencing pleasure, and who is worthy of being an object of another's pleasure. More specifically, double standards have developed in American culture concerning men's and women's pleasure. Men are expected to pursue pleasure; women who pursue pleasure become morally suspect.
While feminist writers have deconstructed patriarchal constructs of pleasure, as well as the power dynamics involved with pleasure among men and women, one critical voice seems to be missing in literature, in the media, and in the church: what are women's experiences of pleasure? Is pleasure a powerful experience for women? How are pleasure and power related? How is it that, underneath the complex layers of suspicion built up around the word, pleasure sometimes describes, in a reverently sacred manner, the very essence of what it means to be alive; what it means to be human?
This research illustrates how many of society's ideas—and fears—regarding pleasure have been constructed in response to men's experiences of pleasure, and men's behaviors regarding pleasure. Men have traditionally been conditioned to experience power as being pleasurable; the more power one has, the more pleasure one will experience. Such power, defined by the ability to control others or to control one's environment, to hold unilateral authority over others, or to use force or coercion to affect one's will, has historically been oppressive to marginalized members of society. This danger, along with the projection of sexual and immoral temptations onto women, resulted in the historical demonization of both pleasure and women, and especially women's pleasure.
The true "danger" of women experiencing pleasure may well have been (and may still be) direct access to embodied epistemological information, or a woman's way of knowing. This phenomenological research project draws on the interviews often women to develop new definitions of pleasure and power that benefit both the individual and the larger community; which differ significantly from mainstream definitions. It offers insight into how the different genders may experience these two phenomena differently. These women describe pleasure as an experience of comfort, emotional stimulation, alleviation of everyday stress, self-realization, and connecting with another. They describe power as an experience of self-determination, improving a relationship, accomplishment, and the ability to surrender to something beyond the self. What in either of these descriptions could possibly be. construed as being dangerous or suspect?
In exploring women's experiences of pleasure and power, we begin to recognize the need for exoneration of some pleasures and their pursuits. We begin to question why pain—in the form of menstrual pain, birthing pain, emotional pain, pain from uncomfortable clothes, etcetera—has become an expected norm for us, and why "indulging" in "guilty" pleasures requires justification. We begin to perceive how these marginalized experiences and perceptions of pleasure and power have the potential to change the world for the better—much, much better
Intertextual Episodes in Lectures: A Classification from the Perspective of Incidental Learning from Reading
No full textIn a parallel language environment it is important that teaching takes account of both the languages students are expected to work in. Lectures in the mother tongue need to offer access to textbooks in English and encouragement to read. This paper describes a preliminary study for an investigation of the extent to which they actually do so. A corpus of lectures in English for mainly L1 English students (from BASE and MICASE) was examined for the types of reference to reading which occur, classifi ed by their potential usefulness for access and encouragement. Such references were called ‘intertextual episodes’. Seven preliminary categories of intertextual episode were identifi ed. In some disciplines the text is the topic of the lecture rather than a medium for information on the topic, and this category was not pursued further. In the remaining six the text was a medium for information about the topic. Three of them involved management, of texts by the lecturer her/himself, of student writing, or of student reading. The remaining three involved reference to the content of the text either introducing it to students, reporting its content, or, really the most interesting category, relativizing it and thus potentially encouraging critical reading. Straightforward reporting that certain content was in the text at a certain point was the most common type, followed by management of student reading. Relativization was relatively infrequent. The exercise has provided us with categories which can be used for an experimental phase where the effect of different types of reference can be tested, and for observation of the references actually used in L1 lectures in a parallel-language environment
The effect of the quorum sensing systems on biofilm formation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa
No full textEmbargo status: Restricted to TTU community only. To view, login with your eRaider (top right). Others may request the author grant access exception by clicking on the PDF link to the left
Stimulus Sheets for Neuroscience Critical Consumer workshop
No full textThese stimulus sheets are to use as part of the workshop Critical Consumers of Neuroscience for trainee teachers.This resource is an outcome of a wider project: Enhancing the Learning Sciences in Initial Teacher Education.The academic paper describing the original research on which the use of the stimulus sheet is based is: Weisberg, D. S., Keil, F. C., Goodstein, J., Rawson, E., & Gray, J. (2008). The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(3), 470-477. The stimulus sheets are used with the permission of the lead author.</div
Attitude of Farmers towards Kisan Mandals and Kisan Seva Kendra. Indian Res.
No full text1 . As s t t . P r o f . ( A g . E x t . ) , K. V. K. , T a b i j i , A j me r , 2 . Dy . Di r e c t o r , Di r e c t o r a t e o f E x t e n s i o n S KR A U, B i k a n e r ( R a j . ) , 3 . S r . S c i e n t i s t , ( Ag . E x t . ) , DR MR , B h a r a t p u r Corresponding author e-mail: r s r a ma k a n t 7 @g ma i l . c o m wh o v o l u n t a r i l y o r g a n i z e d f o r t h e i r o v e r a l l a g r i c u l t u r a l d e v e l o p me n t . At e v e r y Vi l l a g e E x t e n s i o n Wo r k e r l e v e l , e i g h t s u c hKi s a nMa n d a l sa r ef o r me d . T h eVi l l a g e E x t e n s i o nWo r k e ri sd e s i g n a t e da sAg r i c u l t u r e s u p e r v i s o r . T h e Ki s a nMa n d a l me e t i n g i s s c h e d u l e dt o b eh e l do n c ei naf o r t n i g h t a t as c h e d u l e dd a ya n da t f i x e d p l a c e i n wh i c h Ki s a n Ma n d a l me mb e r s s h a r e t h e i r e x p e r i e n c e sa n dp r o b l e mswi t he x t e n s i o nwo r k e r . B e s i d e st h i saKi s a nS e v aKe n d r ai se s t a b l i s h e da t e v e r y Vi l l a g e E x t e n s i o n Wo r k e r ' s h e a d q u a r t e r t o s o l v e t h eu r g e n tp r o b l e mso ff a r me r sr e g a r d i n gi n p u t a r r a n g e me n t s , i n s e c t a n dp e s t c o n t r o l e t c . T h e c o n c e p t o f Ag r o -c l i n i c / Ki s a nS e v a Ke n d r a h a s b e e na u n i q u e i n n o v a t i o n p u t i n t o t r i a l i n R a j a s t h a n . I t i s a l s o d e s i g n e d t oh o l dawe e k l yc l i n i c f o r d i a g n o s i s a n dp r o g n o s i s o f f a r me r ' sp r o b l e msa n dp r e s c r i p t i o no ft r e a t me n t me a s u r e s . I nt h e s eKi s a nS e v aKe n d r a s ,e v e r y T h u r s d a yf a r me r s a r ea p p r i s e dwi t hk n o w-h o wa b o u t l a t e s t s c i e n t i f i cc u l t i v a t i o np r a c t i c e s , s o i l a n dwa t e r c o n s e r v a t i o nt e c h n i q u e sa n df a r me r ' sp r o b l e ms In d i a nAg r i c u l t u r a l s c e n a r i oh a s ma n yc o n t r a s t s r a n g i n gf r o mi mp r o v e dt e c h n o l o g yv e r s e st r a d i t i o n a l t e c h n o l o g y a l o n g wi t h t r a d i t i o n a l a t t i t u d e o f f a r me r ' s v / s mo d e r a t e l y t e c h n i c a l l y l i t e r a t e e x t e n s i o n wo r k e r s . T h e T&Vs y s t e mh a s b e e ns u c c e s s f u l u pt os o mee x t e n t t omi n i mi z et h eg a pb e t we e nt e c h n o l o g ya v a i l a b l ea t l a ba n di t s r e a l a d o p t i o nu pt ot h e f i e l dl e v e l . T a k i n ga s t e pa h e a dR a j a s t h a nGo v e r n me n t mo d i f i e dt h i s s i n c e 1 s t J a n u a r y1 9 9 3a n dr e n a me di t a s Ki s a nMa n d a l s a n d Ki s a nS e v a Ke n d r a . T h i s mo d i f i e ds y s t e mh a s a ne d g e o v e r t h e T &Vs y s t e mb yo v e r c o mi n gt h e l i mi t a t i o no f i n d i v i d u a lc o n t a c ta p p r o a c hi nT &V s y s t e m a n d a d v o c a t e d f o r g r o u p a p p r o a c h b y s u g g e s t i n g f o r t n i g h t l y me e t i n go f Vi l l a g eE x t e n s i o nWo r k e rwi t hKi s a n Ma n d a l wh i c hc o n s i s t e do f ag r o u po f 2 0p r o g r e s s i v e f a r me r s . T h ea n o t h e ra s p e c t o ft h i ss y s t e m wa st o p r o v i d et e c h n i c a l c o n s u l t a n c yo ne v e r yT h u r s d a yt o f a r me r s b y Vi l l a g e E x t e n s i o n Wo r k e r o n a w e l l e q u i p p e d c e n t r e k n o wna s Ki s a nS e v a Ke n d r a / Ag r oC l i n i c . ABSTRACT Ki s a n Ma n d a l i s a g r o u p o f 2 0 p r o g r e s s i v e f a r me r s PDF Creator -PDF4Free v3.
Chronic wound microbiomes: complex communities shaped by microbe-microbe and host-microbe interactions which influence healing outcomes
No full textThe wound microbiome refers to a collection of microorganisms, primarily bacteria and fungi, which colonize wounds, form biofilm, and cause harmful infection. Recognition of these infectious microbial communities and their role in delayed wound healing has led to increased research efforts in understanding how to model the complex interactions between multiple infecting species, understanding how various ecological factors can contribute to different types of microbes establishing infectious communities, and understanding the role of the microbiome in wound healing. To model complex polymicrobial communities, it was hypothesized that microbial communities could be isolated from patient wound infections, cryogenically preserved, and then transferred to a surgical model to replicate patient infections for study. It was discovered that the transfer of complex communities tended to disrupt bacterial profiles regardless of cryopreservation and only relatively simple communities dominated by fastidious pathogens could be readily transferred. Following this, research focused instead on the hypothesis that human genetics and climatological variation act as selective factors exogenous to the wound microbiome. Concerning genetics, a set of paired bacterial sequence profiles from wounds and human genomes were compared to discover a novel association between wound microbiome diversity and genomic loci. The primary genetic locus with the greatest association was located within an intronic region of TLN2, which encodes a protein with functions related to wound healing and the loci of interest was found to be related to alternative transcription in TLN2. Moreover, wound diversity and additionally linked bacterial species were discovered to be associated with wound healing prognosis. In the last major component, a large scale retrospective analysis was conducted for wound specimens submitted for bacterial and fungal sequencing from 43 states and over nearly 2 years. The composition of these 9,241 samples was summarized into six discrete community types, which were found to be differentially abundant across patient demographic factors such as sex and wound location. Moreover, these types explained considerable variation in the diversity of bacteria, bacterial load, proportion of anaerobes detected, and even fungal positivity. Lastly, it was discovered that climatological variation in temperature, humidity, and wind was associated with the likelihood of encountering different types of wound microbiomes. Work presented here thus describes previously unrecognized factors, genetics and climate, as being potentially important risk factors for wound microbiome composition, which is related to chronic wound healing.Embargo status: Restricted until 06/2024. To request the author grant access, click on the PDF link
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PESI - a taxonomic backbone for Europe
No full textThis is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
RAPID AND ACCURATE CALCULATION OF THE VOIGT FUNCTION
No full textAuthor Institution: Department of Physics, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795A new algorithm for computation of both the real and imaginary parts of the Voigt (complex error) function is presented. This algorithm sacrifices a small amount of memory space for a considerable gain in speed and accuracy. Changes in the order of computation that take advantage of typical use in spectroscopy provide some of the gain in speed. For Lorentz widths greater than about five times the Doppler width and for points more than about five Doppler widths from the center of the spectral line, Gauss-Hermite quadrature is employed in a manner similar to many published algorithms. For most other cases a third order Taylor series expansion about the nearest point in a precomputed table is used. This technique is more efficient than it would seem due to some relationships among the various derivatives. In some cases where the Doppler width is more than an order of magnitude larger than the Lorentz width, Lagrange interpolating polynomials are used with a table of precomputed points. The accuracy is one part in 10 of the value of the function itself for Doppler widths less than about 50 000 times the Lorentz width and always accurate to an absolute value of 10. In addition, the derivative of the function with respect to the distance from line center and the derivative of the function with respect to the ratio of Lorentz to Doppler halfwidths are computed. The algorithm is significantly faster than the Drayson} \underline{\textbf{16}}, 611 (1976).} or Humlicek} \underline{\textbf{27}}, 437 (1982).} algorithms and about two orders of magnitude more accurate. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ATM-0338475
OPTIMIZED CALCULATION OF A QUADRATIC MODEL FOR SPEED DEPENDENT LINESHAPES
No full textAuthor Institution: Department of Physics, The College of William and Mary,; Williamsburg, VA, 23187-8795A new algorithm for computation of a speed dependent lineshape function is presented. The lineshape that is calculated is based upon a quadratic model for the Lorentz width as a function of velocity. The calculation includes both real and imaginary parts of the lineshape for applications to line mixing and Dicke narrowing. This algorithm sacrifices a small amount of memory space for a considerable gain in speed and accuracy and employs methods similar to the techniques used to calculate the Voigt Profile as described by Letchworth and Benner} In Press.}. For Lorentz widths greater than about five times the Doppler width and for points more than about five Doppler widths from the center of the spectral line, Gauss-Hermite quadrature is employed. For most other cases, a Taylor series expansion about the nearest point in a precomputed table is used. In some cases where the Doppler width is more than an order of magnitude larger than the Lorentz width, Lagrange interpolating polynomials are used with a table of precomputed points. The accuracy is one part in 10 of the value of the function itself. Optionally, derivatives with respect to certain lineshape parameters are also returned. The algorithm provides a good approximation for speed dependent lineshapes with a calculation time which is not significantly larger than the time required to calculate the Voigt Profile using the Drayson} \underline{\textbf{16}}, 611-614, 1976.}, Humlicek} \underline{\textbf{27}}, 437-444, 1982.}, and Letchworth and Benner routines. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ATM-0338475
