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Cultural Practices (cultural + practice)
Selected AbstractsAnthropological Knowledge and Native American Cultural Practice in the Liberal PolityAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2002Professor James P. Boggs U.S. Indian policy is caught between two incommensurable theories or paradigms. First, liberal theory extended the worldviewof early physical science to understand human nature. Providing the conceptual foundation for liberal polities, it largely underwrote U.S. Indian policy into the mid-20th century. Liberal theory recently has been superceded, as theory, by anthropological culture theory, which better accounts for variations between peoples and the realities of human life. The advent of culture theory marks a major paradigm shift within science and public consciousness. Liberal theory, however, remains the foundation for the powerful ideology of liberalism and the institutional practices of Western capitalism and democracy. Thus arise uncomfortable disjunctions,first, between incommensurable theories that both remain vital forces in public life, and, secondarily, between knowledge and practice. This article explores these contending theoretical formations, disjunctions between them, and illustrates how these disjunctions translate into contemporary argument in U.S. Indian policy. [source] Authors' Response: Politics as Cultural PracticePOLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 2 2008Mark Bevir First page of article [source] Two-year oscillation cycle in abundance of soybean aphid in IndianaAGRICULTURAL AND FOREST ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 3 2010Marc Rhainds 1The present study evaluated the population dynamics of the heteroecious soybean aphid Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae) during an 8-year period in Indiana, shortly after its detection in North America. Sampling conducted at multiple locations revealed that A. glycines exhibited a 2-year oscillation cycle that repeated itself four times between 2001 and 2008: years of low aphid abundance were consistently followed by years of high aphid abundance. 2Similar patterns of abundance of A. glycines and coccinellids (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in soybean fields, both within and between-years, suggest that late season predation by coccinellids plays a role in the oscillatory cycle of aphids. Insidious flower bugs Orius insidiosus (Say) (Hemiptera: Anthocoridae) were numerically more abundant than coccinellids, although the lack of synchrony between aphids and predatory bugs suggests that O. insidiosus has a limited influence on between-year variations in aphid density. 3The inverse relationship between aphid densities before and after the start of the autumn migratory period changes direction in alternate years. High aphid density on soybean in the summer is associated with a reduced number of alate migrants produced in the autumn. Conversely, years with low density aphids on soybean in the summer are characterized by high numbers of alates that migrate to the primary host in the autumn. 4From a pest management perspective, the 2-year oscillation cycle of A. glycines is a desirable attribute with respect to population dynamics because it implies that aphids cause significant economic damage only in alternate years (as opposed to every year). Cultural practices enhancing the conservation biological control of Coccinellidae may help to preserve the periodicity of aphid infestation and restrict the pest status of A. glycines. [source] Knightly Complements: The Malcontent and the Matter of WitENGLISH LITERARY RENAISSANCE, Issue 2 2010Ian Munro This essay uses John Marston's play The Malcontent to explore the social understanding and cultural practice of wit in the early modern period. Through the interactions between its various versions, The Malcontent charts the linguistic, stylistic, and cultural boundaries of early modern wit as both intrinsic class marker and promiscuous commodity. This duality of wit helps the play negotiate the complexities of its own theatrical genealogy that not only inform the larger context of wit in the period, but also inflect, in significant ways, the play's modern reception. (I.M.) [source] Stop female genital mutilation: appeal to the international dermatologic communityINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DERMATOLOGY, Issue 5 2002Aldo Morrone MD Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a traditional cultural practice, but also a form of violence against girls, which affects their lives as adult women. FGM comprises a wide range of procedures: the excision of the prepuce; the partial or total excision of the clitoris (clitoridectomy) and labia; or the stitching and narrowing of the vaginal orifice (infibulation). The number of girls and women who have been subjected to FGM is estimated at around 137 million worldwide and 2 million girls per year are considered at risk. Most females who have undergone mutilation live in 28 African countries. Globalization and international migration have brought an increased presence of circumcised women in Europe and developed countries. Healthcare specialists need to be made aware and trained in the physical, psychosexual, and cultural aspects and effects of FGM and in the response to the needs of genitally mutilated women. Health education programs targeted at immigrant communities should include information on sexuality, FGM, and reproduction. Moreover, healthcare workers should both discourage women from performing FGM on their daughters and receive information on codes of conduct and existing laws. The aim is the total eradication of all forms of FGM. [source] Health Literacy for Improved Health Outcomes: Effective Capital in the MarketplaceJOURNAL OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2009NATALIE ROSS ADKINS Improving consumers' health literacy addresses many of the rising problems in healthcare. We empirically support a reconceptualization of health literacy as a social and cultural practice through which adults leverage a range of skills as well as social networks to meet their needs. Pierre Bourdieu's "theory of practice" guides this reconceptualization and facilitates articulation of the array of strategies used in the complex healthcare marketplace. We focus on the low literate consumers' alternative forms of capital and the providers' recognition and support. The findings, from an emergent research design consisting of depth interviews with low literate consumers and healthcare providers, suggest a critical, reflective approach that enhances health literacy, empowers consumers to become partners in their own healthcare programs, and improves health outcomes. [source] Comparing the epistemological underpinnings of students' and scientists' reasoning about conclusionsJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 6 2001Kathleen Hogan This study examined the criteria that middle school students, nonscientist adults, technicians, and scientists used to rate the validity of conclusions drawn by hypothetical students from a set of evidence. The groups' criteria for evaluating conclusions were considered to be dimensions of their epistemological frameworks regarding how knowledge claims are justified, and as such are integral to their scientific reasoning. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that the responses of students and nonscientists differed from the responses of technicians and scientists, with the major difference being the groups' relative emphasis on criteria of empirical consistency or plausibility of the conclusions. We argue that the sources of the groups' differing epistemic criteria rest in their different spheres of cultural practice, and explore implications of this perspective for science teaching and learning. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 663,687, 2001 [source] Skin bleaching: highlighting the misuse of cutaneous depigmenting agentsJOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY & VENEREOLOGY, Issue 7 2009OE Dadzie Abstract Hydroquinone and other cutaneous depigmenting agents are widely used by dermatologists to treat pigmentary disorders. On 29 August 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a monograph in the US Federal Register proposing to ban all hydroquinone products that have not been approved via a New Drug Application process. Reports in the scientific literature on the occurrence of exogenous ochronosis, in relation to the use of hydroquinone, was one of the concerns expressed by the FDA in relation to this agent. However, a review of the English-language scientific literature reveals that most of the reported cases of hydroquinone-induced exogenous ochronosis occurs in Africa, where the cultural practice of skin bleaching is highly prevalent. Skin bleaching is the practice of applying hydroquinone and/or other depigmenting agents to specific or widespread areas of the body, the primary function being to lighten normally dark skin. This practice typically occurs in men and women with Fitzpatrick skin phototypes IV to VI. It is a dangerous practice associated with a diverse range of side-effects, including mercury poisoning. Thus, this current discussion within the dermatological community on the safety of hydroquinone provides a unique opportunity to raise awareness about skin bleaching. [source] Spatio-temporal variation in the genetic composition of wild populations of pearl oyster (Pinctada margaritifera cumingii) in French Polynesia following 10 years of juvenile translocationMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 7 2004S. Arnaud-Haond Abstract The genetic impact of the cultural practice of spat collection and translocation between genetically distinct stocks of black-lipped pearl oyster, Pinctada margaritifera cumingii, was studied by comparing samples collected in the 1980s and 2000s from seven atolls in French Polynesia. An amova revealed homogenization of the previously genetically distinct wild stocks of Tuamotu-Gambier and Society archipelagos (the indices of genetic differentiation among archipelagos and among populations within archipelagos, respectively, ,CT and ,ST, decreased from 0.032* and 0.025*, respectively, to 0.006NS and 0.007NS). These results suggest high success of spontaneous reproduction in farms, probably due to the very high density of cultivated pearl oysters, and underline the importance of genetic monitoring of future hatchery produced stocks. [source] Timepass: Youth, class, and time among unemployed young men in IndiaAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2010DR. CRAIG JEFFREY ABSTRACT Unemployment among educated young men has become a central feature of globalization. In this article, I examine the experiences and strategies of unemployed young men in the north Indian city of Meerut. Many of these men complain that they are "just passing time" (doing "timepass") in run-down government universities. But they also use this idea of themselves in limbo to fashion novel cultures of masculinity that partially bridge caste divides. I use a discussion of these young men's predicament to argue for an ethnographically sensitive political-economy approach to the study of youth, culture, and neoliberal transformation, one attuned to both the durability of social inequalities and counterintuitive cultural practice. [source] Friendship in practice: Girls' work in the Indian HimalayasAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2010JANE DYSON ABSTRACT In this article, I examine the relationship between friendship, cultural production, and social reproduction through reference to the everyday practices of girls working in the Indian Himalayas. I build on 15 months of ethnographic research in the village of Bemni, Uttarakhand. Focusing especially on girls' work collecting leaves, I stress the importance of contextualizing friendship with reference to lived everyday actions and environments. Friendship among girls in Bemni is a contradictory resource: a medium through which girls reproduce gendered norms and a basis for improvised cultural practice and effective cooperation. [source] The time of the interval: Historicity, modernity, and epoch in rural FranceAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 1 2010MATT HODGES ABSTRACT With recognition that historical consciousness, or "historicity," is culturally mediated comes acknowledgment that periodization of history into epochs is as much a product of cultural practice as a reflection of historical "fact." In this article, I examine popular "modernist" invocations of epoch in rural France,those positing traditional pasts against fluid presents with uncertain futures,which scholars frequently subordinate to analyses of collective memory and identity politics. Submitting this "response" to French modernity to temporal analysis reveals an additional critique in this periodization, one that valorizes enduring social time over processual temporalities, with implications for the temporal frameworks and ideology of anthropologists. [source] Divination, media, and the networked body of modernityAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 2 2009C. NADIA SEREMETAKIS ABSTRACT In this article, I shed light on linkages among neoliberalism, technology, modernity, postmodernity, and cultural practice. I analyze divination, for example, evil-eye exorcism and coffee-cup reading, and related involuntary gestures of the body as practices of holistic, embedded, multisensory exchange in Greece. I show how involuntary gestures refract and register the impact of the social nervous system on the individual and become the media that, in turn, enable the reading of that nervous system. The concept of the "nervous system" originated with Michael Taussig as the sensorial somatic registration of both everyday life and the effects of the social structure. In this study, it is descriptive of involuntary gestures of the body as a form of intersubjective communication that is not part of the mass media apparatus or of dominant public culture. [divination, (post)modernity, media, body, involuntary gestures, sensory exchange, remediation] [source] Remaking the Anglophilic city: Visual spectacles in suburbiaNEW ZEALAND GEOGRAPHER, Issue 1 2009Julie Cupples Abstract:,, In the late 1990s, the residents of the Christchurch suburb of Halswell began to extensively engage in the practice of adorning their homes with Christmas lights. While the lights attract many visitors from other parts of the city, many Christchurch people are highly critical of them on grounds of taste. An exploration of the diverse attitudes toward this cultural practice demonstrates the complex ways in which local urban identities are articulated. While the Christmas lights reproduce processes of suburban social conformity and normativity, they also constitute a more postmodern site in which the established heritage meanings of Christchurch based on notions of Englishness are disrupted. [source] To what extent are soil amendments useful to control Verticillium wilt?PEST MANAGEMENT SCIENCE (FORMERLY: PESTICIDE SCIENCE), Issue 8 2009Nieves Goicoechea Abstract The genus Verticillium includes several species that attack economically important crops throughout the world. The control of Verticillium spp. becomes especially difficult when they form microsclerotia that can survive in the field soil for several years. It has been common practice to fumigate soil with chemicals such as methyl bromide and/or chloropicrin to control soil-borne fungal pathogens. Other chemicals that are used against Verticillium spp. are the antifungal antibiotic aureofungin, the fungicides benomyl, captan, carbendazim, thiram, azoxystrobin and trifloxystrobin and the plant defence activator acibenzolar- S -methyl. However, the potential risks involved in applying phytochemicals to crop plants for both the environment and human health, together with their limited efficacy for controlling Verticillium -induced diseases, support the need to find alternatives to replace their use or improve their efficacy. Soil amendment with animal or plant organic debris is a cultural practice that has long been used to control Verticillium spp. However, today the organic farming industry is becoming a significant player in the global agricultural production scene. In this review, some of the main results concerning the efficacy of several soil amendments as plant protectors against Verticillium spp. are covered, and the limitations and future perspectives of such products are discussed in terms of the control of plant diseases. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry [source] From Warrior to Wife: Cultural Transformation in the Gamo Highlands of EthiopiaTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 1 2002Dena Freeman This article focuses on cultural transformation in the Gamo Highlands of Ethiopia and seeks to explain the way in which certain initiation rituals have transformed over time. The article begins by considering two structural variants of the initiation ritual that exist in two neighbouring communities, Doko Gembela and Doko Masho, and argues that one is an historical transformation of the other. After comparing the contemporary form of these two variants, the article then moves to consider the macro-level forces of change that have impinged on the two communities over the past two hundred years or so. It then seeks to bring ethnography and history together by considering how the macro-level changes might have been experienced in the interpersonal relations of individuals. It explores the new types of situations that would have arisen and discusses how these new situations would have put strains on particular interpersonal relations, leading in many cases to conflict and dispute. After describing the local methods of conflict resolution, it is shown that on some occasions solutions are found which involve communal decisions to make a small change in cultural practice. In some cases these small changes have a knock-on effect leading to overall structural change. The article ends with a hypothetical reconstruction of the way in which the Doko Masho initiation rituals might have transformed. [source] Running to the Moon: The Articulation and Construction of Self in Marathon RunnersANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 2 2001Erica L. Reischer In this essay, I will consider how individuals engage the marathon in the service of a project of self-transformation. To that end, I will examine cultural meanings and symbols associated with the marathon, and the way in which those meanings interact with the self-system of the runners who choose to participate in the marathon. In addition, since the marathon is ultimately a cultural practice centered on the body, I will also explore the physical and material dimension of the marathon experience. This paper thus provides an account that begins to elucidate the way in which culturally-situated individuals symbolically and physically engage the marathon as a means to actively and intentionally promote self-development. [source] Trepanations from Oman: A case of diffusion?ARABIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND EPIGRAPHY, Issue 2 2006Judith Littleton Trepanations have been described from various locations around the world leading to a suggestion that this is a cultural practice that has widely diffused from one or two centres (1). In the UAE the earliest trepanations date to the Neolithic, significantly earlier than trepanations in surrounding areas. The discovery of at least two crania in Oman, dating apparently to the early third millennium and resembling in technique and placement trepanations from north India may be evidence of the diffusion of a therapeutic practice from the Gulf to the subcontinent. However, the lack of any trepanation among the numerous contemporary skeletons from Bahrain suggests that any diffusion has distinct limits and that, as anthropological work from the South Pacific (2) indicates, practices like trepanation are often heavily embedded in broader, culturally located explanatory models. [source] Transatlantic Cultural Politics in the late 1950s: the Leaders and Specialists Grant ProgramART HISTORY, Issue 4 2003Nancy Jachec Using recently declassified US State Department documents from the Leaders and Specialists Grant Program (LSGP), this article examines American Abstract Expressionism's success in Western Europe within the context of Euro-American foreign policy, and specifically the promotion of the European Union in the late 1950s. Our current understanding of the politics of Abstract Expressionism tends to assume that Europeans were passive in the face of American cultural expansion, as well as to overlook the specific policy objectives that may have been pursued by the individuals and governments involved in the international cultural exchanges which yielded the exhibitions Jackson Pollock 1912,1956 and The New American Painting, which are widely held to mark the emergence of a world-class American culture. This article argues that the success of these shows was in fact the result of the efforts of European and American cultural figures involved in the LSGP, an educational exchange programme administered by the State Department and working through the pro-American European Movement to promote gesture painting as an Atlanticist cultural practice. [source] THE CROSS-CULTURAL IMPORTANCE OF SATISFYING VITAL NEEDSBIOETHICS, Issue 9 2009ALLEN ANDREW A. ALVAREZ ABSTRACT Ethical beliefs may vary across cultures but there are things that must be valued as preconditions to any cultural practice. Physical and mental abilities vital to believing, valuing and practising a culture are such preconditions and it is always important to protect them. If one is to practise a distinct culture, she must at least have these basic abilities. Access to basic healthcare is one way to ensure that vital abilities are protected. John Rawls argued that access to all-purpose primary goods must be ensured. Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum claim that universal capabilities are what resources are meant to enable. Len Doyal and Ian Gough identify physical health and autonomy as basic needs of every person in every culture. When we disagree on what to prioritize, when resources to satisfy competing demands are scarce, our common needs can provide a point of normative convergence. Need-based rationing, however, has been criticized for being too indeterminate to give guidance for deciding which healthcare services to prioritize and for tending to create a bottomless-pit problem. But there is a difference between needing something (first-order need) and needing to have the ability to need (second-order need). Even if we disagree about which first-order need to prioritize, we must accept the importance of satisfying our second-order need to have the ability to value things. We all have a second-order need for basic healthcare as a means to protect our vital abilities even if we differ in what our cultures consider to be particular first-order needs. [source] Geschichte und Evolution der Lactose(in)toleranz.BIOLOGIE IN UNSERER ZEIT (BIUZ), Issue 6 2009Das Erbe der frühen Viehzüchter Abstract Die Fähigkeit, auch im Erwachsenenalter noch Lactose verarbeiten zu können, basiert auf Punktmutationen in einem dem Lactase-(LPH-)Gen vorgelagerten Sequenzbereich, der Bindestellen für Regulatorproteine enthält. Die Ursache für die weltweit sehr uneinheitliche Verteilung der Lactase-Persistenz liegt in der europäischen Menschheitsgeschichte: Im Verlauf des 8. vorchristlichen Jahrtausends entwickelte sich im Nahen Osten innerhalb einer größtenteils lactoseintoleranten Population eine Tradition der Milchviehzucht und des Milchverzehrs. Durch den starken Selektionsdruck auf die Lactosetoleranz verbreiteten sich die mutierten Allele sehr schnell. Während des 7. Jahrtausends v. Chr. begannen etliche dieser Populationen sukzessiv Europa zu besiedeln. Auch im nordöstlichen Afrika und auf der arabischen Halbinsel entstand eine Milchwirtschaft, die jedoch auf anderen Mutationen basiert. The ability to digest lactose in adulthood is baised on point mutations within an upstream region of the lactase-(LPH-)gene. This region contains multiple binding sites for different transcription factors. The heterogenous distribution of the lactase persistence all over the world originates from the European history of humanity: in the course of the eighth millennium BC among a mainly lactose-intolerant population in the Near East evolved a cultural practice of dairy farming and milk consumption. As a result of the strong and positive selection the mutated alleles spread out rapidly. In the course of the seventh millennium BC many of these populations gradually settled Central Europe. The beginning of dairy farming in the north east of the African continent and on the Arabian Peninsula are based upon different point mutations. [source] GETTING BY THE OCCUPATION: How Violence Became Normal during the Second Palestinian IntifadaCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2008LORI ALLEN ABSTRACT The second Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation, which began in September 2000, saw Palestinian areas repeatedly invaded and shelled by Israeli forces. A long history of war and targeted cities is told along the thoroughfares of Palestinian towns; memories of past battles and defeats inscribed in street signs recall massacres in places like Tel Al-Za'atar and Deir Yasin. But recent events were more important than any official marker and formed the most relevant base by which Palestinians organized their lives. Commemorative cultural production and basic acts of physically getting around that became central to the spatial and social practices by which reorientation and adaptation to violence occurred in the occupied Palestinian territories. This article analyzes the spaciotemporal, embodied, and symbolic aspects of the experience of violence, and the political significance of cultural practices whereby violence is routinized. Such an approach provides a lens onto the power of violence in Israel's colonial project in the occupied territories that neither necessitates an assumption that violence is all determining of Palestinian experience, nor a championing of every act of Palestinian survival as heroic resistance. Memorialization that occurs in storytelling, in visual culture, in the naming of places and moving through spaces is one way in which this happens. The concept of "getting by" captures the many spatial and commemorative forms by which Palestinians manage everyday survival. The kind of agency that is entailed in practices whereby people manage, get by, adapt, and the social significance of getting used to it may be somewhat nebulous and unobtrusive as it develops in the shadow of spectacular battles and bloodshed. I demonstrate that this routinization of violence in and of itself, the fact of getting by, just existing in an everyday way, is socially and politically significant in Palestine. [source] THEORIZING THE UNIVERSITY AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM: DISTINCTIONS, IDENTITIES, EMERGENCIESEDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 3 2006Mark Considine In this essay, Mark Considine argues that the prospect of such changes requires us to reflect carefully upon the theoretical and normative underpinnings of universities and to delineate the structures and processes through which they might seek to negotiate their identities. Considine re-theorizes the university as a higher education system composed by distinctions and networks acting through an important class of boundary objects. He moves beyond an environmental analysis, asserting that systems are best theorized as cultural practices based upon actors making and protecting important kinds of distinctions. Thus, the university system must be investigated as a knowledge-based binary for dividing knowledge from other things. This approach, in turn, produces an identity-centering (cultural) model of the system that assumes universities must perform two different acts of distinction to exist: first, they must distinguish themselves from other systems (such as the economy, organized religion, and the labor market), and, second, they must operate successfully in a chosen resource environment. Ultimately, Considine argues that while environmental problems (such as cuts in government grants) may generate periodic crises, threats within identities produce emergencies generating a radical kind of problematic for actor networks. [source] ,No goats in the mother city': using Symbolic Objects to help students talk about diversity and changeENGLISH IN EDUCATION, Issue 1 2007Dr Arlene Archer Abstract This paper reports on a first year project in a South African engineering foundation programme which attempted to bring a cultural studies perspective to teaching academic literacy. Students identify and investigate everyday objects that have symbolic meanings in their communities. Objects are seen as catalysts for enabling student narratives to emerge, and are a way of exploring the tensions between convention and change in cultural practices. A project such as this breaks disciplinary frames, working across diverse contexts such as engineering and cultural studies. The aim is to begin to explore some of the complexities around ,development' in contexts of diversity and change, globalization and relocalization. [source] Mobile phones, communities and social networks among foreign workers in SingaporeGLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 3 2009ERIC C. THOMPSON Abstract Transnational mobility affects both high-status and low-income workers, disrupting traditional assumptions of the boundedness of communities. There is a need to reconfigure our most basic theoretical and analytical constructs. In this article I engage in this task by illustrating a complex set of distinctions (as well as connections) between ,communities' as ideationally constituted through cultural practices and ,social networks' constituted through interaction and exchange. I have grounded the analysis ethnographically in the experiences of foreign workers in Singapore, focusing on domestic and construction workers from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh. I examine the cultural, social and communicative role that mobile phones play in the lives of workers who are otherwise constrained in terms of mobility, living patterns and activities. Mobile phones are constituted as symbol status markers in relationship to foreign workers. Local representations construct foreign workers as users and consumers of mobile telephony, reinscribing ideas of transnational identities as well as foreignness within the context of Singapore. Migrant workers demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the various telephony options available, but the desire to use phones to communicate can overwhelm their self-control and lead to very high expenditures. The research highlights the constraints , as well as possibilities , individuals experience as subjects and agents within both social and cultural systems, and the ways in which those constraints and possibilities are mediated by a particular technology , in this case, mobile phones. [source] A review of the kinetics of degradation of inosine monophosphate in some species of fish during chilled storageINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, Issue 4 2006Peter Howgate Summary A literature search was made for data on the concentrations of inosine monophosphate (IMP) and its degradation products, inosine (Ino) and hypoxanthine (Hx), in the flesh of vertebrate fish during storage in ice. Twenty-one publications containing data for forty-five species were selected for review. A mathematical model was developed for analysing the data by assuming that the kinetics of degradation of IMP could be modelled as consecutive first order reactions. The model was fitted to the data and in about half of the cases examined in the review the data suggested that IMP and degradation products were lost by leaching and the kinetic model was extended to allow for this loss. In all of the cases reviewed the mathematical model was a good fit to the experimental data and the reaction rates for the reactions are tabulated in the paper. In all species the concentration of IMP decreased as a first order reaction, but for thirteen of the species examined the enzyme model of IMP to Ino to Hx did not fit the data in that either Ino or Hx did not accumulate in the muscle. There were only a few examples of replications of storage trials within species and comparison of the outcomes of these replications suggested that season or, in the case of farmed fish, genetic stock or cultural practices might influence initial IMP concentrations or reaction rates. [source] Occlusal grooves in anterior dentition among Kovuklukaya inhabitants (Sinop, northern Anatolia, 10th century AD)INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2008Y. S. Erdal Abstract Mesiodistally directed grooves have been observed on the occlusal surfaces of nine incisors of five females in a small skeletal population from Kovuklukaya (Sinop, northern Anatolia, 10th century AD). There is no archaeological evidence to explain the cultural practices that must have caused such unusual abrasions of the anterior dentition. Investigations of the geographical characteristics of the region and data gathered on the traditional lifestyles of Çulhal, inhabitants enables us to reach meaningful conclusions about the Kovuklukaya people. According to the direction of the grooves, ecological characteristics of the region, and ethnographic data, it is proposed that the unusual abrasion observed in the Kovuklukaya population may be linked to passing yarn between the anterior teeth to wet it. The grooves in the Kovuklukaya population were found only in female skeletons, indicating the existence of a sex-based division of labour in yarn production. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Studying Contemporary Constitutionalism: Memory, Myth and HorizonJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 1 2010HANNES HANSEN-MAGNUSSON This article proposes to apply a praxeological approach to study contemporary constitutionalism. The approach is conceptualized following critical constructivist research on constitutionalism that focuses on experience and expectation when studying the contested meaning of norms in international relations. It argues that the concept of memory offers an important view on the language-based concept of experience which extends beyond the confines of behavioural approaches that study habitual change with regard to norms. The article offers a conceptual discussion of approaches to constitutionalism, emphasizing the distinction between modern and contemporary constitutionalism and their respective foci on regulatory versus cultural practices, introduces a praxeological dimension of horizons and elaborates on political memory and myth as concepts of functional memory. [source] Effects of Plant Population Density and Intercropping with Soybean on the Fractal Dimension of Corn Plant Skeletal ImagesJOURNAL OF AGRONOMY AND CROP SCIENCE, Issue 2 2000K. Foroutan-pour Three-year field experiments were conducted to determine whether the temporal pattern of fractal dimension (FD) for corn (Zea mays L.) plant structure is altered by plant population density (PPD) or intercropping with soybean [Glycine max. (L.) Merr.], and how changes in the FD are related to changes in other canopy characteristics. Plants in monocropped corn and intercropped corn,soybean plots were randomly sampled and labelled for later identification. Corn plant structure was photographed from the side that allowed the maximum appearance of details (perpendicular to the plane of developed leaves) and from two fixed sides (side 1: parallel to the row and side 2: perpendicular to the row). Images were scanned and skeletonized, as skeletal images provide acceptable information to estimate the FD of plant structure two-dimensionally by the box-counting method. Differences in the FD estimated from images taken perpendicular to the plane of developed leaves were not significant among competition treatments. An adjustment of corn plants to treatments, by changing the orientation of the plane of developed leaves with respect to the row, was observed. Based on overall FD means, competition treatments were ranked as: high > normal , intercrop , low for side 1 and intercrop > low , normal > high for side 2. Leaf area index (LAI) and plant height had a positive correlation with FD. In contrast, light penetration had a negative correlation with FD. In conclusion, FD provides a meaningful and effective tool for quantifying corn plant structure, measuring the structural response to cultural practices, and modelling corn plant canopies. Zusammenfassung Folgende Ziele der Untersuchungen wurden berücksichtigt: 1) Eine geeignete Methode für die Abschätzung der Anteile (FD) 2-dimensional für Pflanzen mit einer einfachen dreidimensionalen Vegetationsstruktur wie z. B. Mais (Zea mays L.) zu bestimmen; 2) der Frage nachzugehen, ob die zeitlichen Muster von FD bei der Maispflanzenstruktur durch die Bestandesdichte verändert wird (PPD: low, normal und hoch) oder in Mischanbau mit Sojabohnen (Glyzine max. L.) Merr.); und 3) in welcher Beziehung Änderungen in der FD in der Maispflanzenstruktur zu Änderungen in anderen Bestandeseigenschaften stehen. Pflanzen im Reinanbau von Mais und im Mischanbau in Mais-Sojabohnen-Parzellen wurden randomisiert gesammelt und für die spätere Identifikation gekennzeichnet. Die Maispflanzenstruktur wurde von der Seite fotografiert, so dai eine maximale Darstellung der Details (perpendiculär zu der Ebene der entwickelten Blätter) und von zwei festgelegten Seiten (Seite 1: parallel zur Reihe und Seite 2 perpendikulär zur Reihe) verfügbar war. Die Abbildungen wurden gescannt und skelettiert; Skelettabbildungen geben eine akzeptierbare Information zur Abschätzung von FD Pflanzenstrukturen in zweidimensionaler Form über die Box-counting-Methode. Unterschiede in der FD, die sich aus Bildern mit einer perpendikulären Aufnahme zu der Ebene der entwickelten Blätter ergaben, waren nicht signifikant innerhalb der Konkurrenzbehandlungen. Eine Anpassung der Maispflanzen an die Behandlungen durch Änderungen der Orientierung zur Ebene der entwickelten Blätter im Hinblick auf die Reihe, wurde beobachtet. Auf der Grundlage von gesamt FD-Mittelwerten ergab sich, dai Konkurrenzbehandlungen in folgender Reihe auftraten: Hoch (1,192) > (1,178) , zu Mischanbau (1,177) , zu gering (1,170) für Seite 1 und bei Mischanbau (1,147) > gering (1,158) , (1,153) > hoch für Seite 2. Der Blattflächenindex (LAI) und die Pflanzenhöhe hatten eine positive Korrelation zu FD. Im Gegensatz dazu wies die Lichtpenetration eine negative Korrelation zu FD auf. Es kann festgestellt werden, dai FD eine aussagekräftige und zweckmäiige Methode ist, die Maispflanzenstruktur zu quantifizieren, Strukturreaktionen zum Anbauverfahren zu messen und Maispflanzenbestände zu beschreiben. [source] Women's human rights violations: Cameroonian students' perceptionsJOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2009Raul Kassea Abstract Cameroonian university students (N,=,666) assessed whether certain different societal positions that the law grants to women and men (the husband chooses the marital home, the husband wields parental power, a married woman cannot freely engage in trade, the husband administers his wife's personal property) and certain cultural practices (female genital mutilation, parents arranging their children's marriage) were seen as violations of women's human rights. Justifications for the choices were also analysed. Female genital mutilation was most often seen as a violation of women's human rights, and the husband selecting the marital home was least often seen as a violation. These differences were explained by cultural specificities. Women more often than men saw the cases as violations of rights. Respondents coming from the North saw the cases less often as violations of rights than respondents from other geocultural areas, which was in accordance with their previously observed higher collectivism. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||