88 research outputs found
Combustion and Society: A Fire-Centred History of Energy Use
No full textFire is a force that links everyday human activities to some of the most powerful energetic movements of the Earth. Drawing together the energy-centred social theory of Georges Bataille, the fire-centred environmental history of Stephen Pyne, and the work of a number of ‘pyrotechnology’ scholars, the paper proposes that the generalized study of combustion is a key to contextualizing human energetic practices within a broader ‘economy’ of terrestrial and cosmic energy flows. We examine the relatively recent turn towards fossil-fuelled ‘internal combustion’ in the light of a much longer human history of ‘broadcast’ burning of vegetation and of artisanal pyrotechnologies – the use of heat to transform diverse materials. A combustion-centred analysis, it is argued, brings human collective life into closer contact with the geochemical and geologic conditions of earthly existence, while also pointing to the significance of explorative, experimental and even playful dispositions towards energy and matter. © 2014, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved
East of the Wind and West of the Rain
No full textabstract: There are places that rest tangibly on the Earth's surface, and places that flourish only in the imagination, and places that site their existence within a moral geography, and a few places, not many, Bor Island among them, that manage to fuse all these settings together. In truth, Bor belongs with that long tradition of island Arcadias that have attracted Western thinkers since well before Thomas More in 1516 gave them the name they now have: Utopia. What makes Bor Island unique is that its informing theme is fire.This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in ISLE-INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENT following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version & Pyne, Stephen J. (2015). East of the Wind and West of the Rain. ISLE-INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND ENVIRONMENT, 22(1), 155-163. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv001 is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/isle/isv00
Preparing a High-Quality and Impactful Sport Science Manuscript
No full textResearch impact can be defined in the context of sports performance and physiology as the contribution to both the research/academic (knowledge discovery) and sporting (real-world application) communities. Practical application has always been a hallmark of the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (IJSPP), with articles that clearly identify how and why study outcomes can be implemented in training and competition to enhance performance. Some outcomes apply to a broad range of sports, while others are more specific to a sporting discipline, such as aquatic sports, court or field sports, individual time-based sports, or otherwise just meet the requirements of a single sport, discipline, or event. Strengthening the practice and reporting of sport and exercise science research is the responsibility of every author.1 Three key areas in ensuring a high-quality manuscript are project formulation and design; methodology and analytical issues; and style, clarity, and quality of the written presentation
Bibliometric analysis of a controversial paper on predatory publishing
No full textPurpose – In 2017, one study (Derek Pyne; Journal of Scholarly Publishing; DOI: 10.3138/jsp.48.3.137; University of Toronto Press) in the “predatory” publishing literature attracted global media attention. Now, over three years, according to adjusted Google Scholar data, with 53 citations (34 in Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science), that paper became that author’s most cited paper, accounting for one-third of his Google Scholar citations.
Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors conducted a bibliometric analysis of the authors who cited that paper.
Findings – We found that out of the 39 English peer-reviewed journal papers, 11 papers (28%) critically assessed Pyne’s findings, some of which even refuted those findings. The 2019 citations of the Pyne (2017) paper caused a 43% increase in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing 2019 Journal Impact Factor, which was 0.956, and a 7.7% increase in the 2019 CiteScore.
Originality/value – The authors are of the opinion that scholars and numerous media that cited the Pyne (2017) paper were unaware of its flawed findings.Peer reviewedarticlefinal article publishedbibliometricscitationsJournal Impact Factorpopularitypredatory publishin
Identity and dislocation in Caribbean women's literature: a study of the writings of Velma Pollard
No full textJamaican-born Velma Pollard has been publishing poetry and short stories for nearly
thirty years. Her first poems appeared in the 1970s, her first volume of short stories in
1989, and her first novel in 1994. Despite this considerable literary output, in the evergrowing
critical literature on Caribbean women's writing Pollard's work has not attracted
any of the scholarly treatment accorded to other writers. Given this lack of critical
attention to Pollard's considerable body of work, this thesis aims to provide the first
detailed and contextualised study of her writings (excluding the majority of her poetry
and of her writings on linguistics), and to accord Pollard the recognition her work
deserves.
Chapter 1 of this thesis situates Pollard's writings in the context of Caribbean
(women's) literature, and writings on identity, dislocations and (Caribbean) migration. I
argue that Pollard's principal contribution to Caribbean literature is found in her
engagement with two main subjects, return migration and relationships (male-female and
female-female), within a wider context of debates on identity and dislocation.
Chapter 2 introduces Pollard's work by way of a general discussion of her novella
Karl, which won the Casa de las Americas literary award in 1992. I consider Karl to be
central to Pollard's work, not least because it features many of the themes explored by
her later writings, including her novel, Homestretch, which is the subject of Chapter 3.
Pollard's first novel, Homestretch, which was published in 1994, explores the themes
of identity and dislocation through the experiences of 'return migrants' and 'repeat
migrants' and their comparison of life in England, the United States and Jamaica. The
novel chronicles how these migrants come to reconnect with and accept their cultural
heritage.
In chapters 4 and 5 I discuss selected stories taken from Pollard's two collections
of short stories, Considering Woman ('Cages', 'My Sisters', 'My Mother', and 'Gran') and
from Karl and Other Stories ('A Night's Tale', 'Miss Chandra', 'Betsy Hyde', and 'Altamont
Jones'). In these stories Pollard explores male-female relationships and the lives of
several generations and a wide range of Caribbean women and men. Pollard utilises the
West Indian setting, speech, situations and conflicts in these stories to graphically
describe familiar Caribbean role models and to provide a narrative and literary
examination of the frustrations and conflicting desires of women in the region.
In my conclusion, I address the ethnographic quality and significance of her work,
and its contribution to an understanding of the Caribbean
Habituation of penguins in high traffic tourist destinations and scientific research areas – causes and effects.
No full textSince the discovery of Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic regions, man has been fascinated
with the nature and biology of the family Spheniscidae (Chester, 1996). It is this
fascination that has led us to study the behaviours, reproduction and physical activities of
the penguin. Although all of the 17 species of penguins are found in the southern
hemisphere, only a handful of them actually occur on the continent of Antarctica itself
(Sitwell & Ritchie, 2002). The four species that actually breed on the continent being the
Adelie, Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Emperor penguins (Mcgonigal & Woodworth, 2002).
Because of its relatively higher temperature than the rest of the Antarctic continent (Pyne,
2003), the Peninsula offers an exquisite breeding ground for these birds (McGonigal &
Woodworth, 2002). However, the higher temperature also means that access to the
peninsula is reasonably uncomplicated. This creates a situation ideal for tourists to view
wildlife in it’s natural habitat, and for scientific work to be carried out on the species
Habituation of penguins in high traffic tourist destinations and scientific research areas – causes and effects.
No full textSince the discovery of Antarctica and the Sub-Antarctic regions, man has been fascinated
with the nature and biology of the family Spheniscidae (Chester, 1996). It is this
fascination that has led us to study the behaviours, reproduction and physical activities of
the penguin. Although all of the 17 species of penguins are found in the southern
hemisphere, only a handful of them actually occur on the continent of Antarctica itself
(Sitwell & Ritchie, 2002). The four species that actually breed on the continent being the
Adelie, Gentoo, Chinstrap, and Emperor penguins (Mcgonigal & Woodworth, 2002).
Because of its relatively higher temperature than the rest of the Antarctic continent (Pyne,
2003), the Peninsula offers an exquisite breeding ground for these birds (McGonigal &
Woodworth, 2002). However, the higher temperature also means that access to the
peninsula is reasonably uncomplicated. This creates a situation ideal for tourists to view
wildlife in it’s natural habitat, and for scientific work to be carried out on the species
A sermon, preached in the chapel of St. Peters' church, New York, on Thursday, the 10th of December, 1835; being a day appointed by authority as a day of public Thanksgiving.
No full textMode of access: Internet
Contributors
No full textFlora Kimmich translates from French and German. Her translation of Gustav Droysen’s monumental nineteenth-century classic History of Alexander the Great [Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen]—the first into English—was published in 2012 by the American Philosophical Society. Lionel Gossman, M. Taylor Pyne Professor emeritus of Romance Languages at Princeton University, is the author of books on Edward Gibbon, Augustin Thierry, Jacob Burckhardt, J.J. Bachofen, and the eighteenth-century French m..
A systematic review of the quality and fit of local spirometry studies to the Global Lung Initiative (GLI) and global chronic respiratory disease burden
No full textEarly diagnosis and treatment are vital to combatting the global rise in chronic respiratory diseases (CRD). Spirometry can reliably support a CRD diagnosis when reference equations (RE) represent the target population. Multi-ethnic representation in Global Lung Initiative (GLI) RE has been a significant advance. However, the GLI lacks data from many global population groups, thus its diagnostic sensitivity may be reduced in local or ethnically diverse populations. We aimed to analyse global trends in PFT studies comparing the applicability (fit) of GLI RE to local populations and their geospatial relationships with CRD burden.
A systematic search was conducted using PubMed® and Medline. In the resulting 46 studies, the fit of each local population’s normative PFT data (relative to GLI) was determined using standardized criterion (mean Z-score=0 & -1.64 & <+1.64) and article quality was evaluated using a modified GRADE criterion. Geospatial relationships were modelled in R statistics.
Only 56% of reviewed studies met the applicability criterion and 60% rated low or very low in quality. Evidence of acculturation (post migration) was found in 18% and evidence of longitudinal changes in 31% of studies. A geospatial mismatch was found between CRD burden and the normative data used to construct the GLI RE.
We demonstrate a compelling need for normative spirometry data targeted to populations which are both underrepresented in the GLI and have the highest CRD burden. Improved quality in future studies could be facilitated with the adoption of a standardised protocol for normative PFT data collection and analysis
- …
