Bringing the real world into the biology curriculum

This study followed a small but diverse group of biology teachers through the first two years of the pilot for a new Advanced Level Biology course - Salters-Nuffield Advanced Biology. SNAB aims to modernise A-level Biology using real world contexts and examples as the starting point, promoting conceptual understanding rather than factual recall, encouraging active learning and developing a capacity for critical thinking and reflection. If the teachers were to implement this new curriculum as intended they would have to change some of their usual practices. The challenges which they encountered and the ways in which they responded were identified through a series of semi-structured interviews with each teacher, supported by lesson observations and interviews with students and technicians. A major constraint on changing practice was uncertainty about how to manage new approaches effectively.     

He Votes or She Votes? Female and Male Discursive Strategies in Twitter Political Hashtags

In this paper, we conduct a study about differences between female and male discursive strategies when posting in the microblogging service Twitter, with a particular focus on the hashtag designation process during political debate. The fact that men and women use language in distinct ways, reverberating practices linked to their expected roles in the social groups, is a linguistic phenomenon known to happen in several cultures and that can now be studied on the Web and on online social networks in a large scale enabled by computing power. Here, for instance, after analyzing tweets with political content posted during Brazilian presidential campaign,we found out that male Twitter users, when expressing their attitude toward a given candidate, are more prone to use imperative verbal forms in hashtags, while female users tend to employ declarative forms. This difference can be interpreted as a sign of distinct approaches in relation to other network members: for example, if political hashtags are seen as strategies of persuasion in Twitter, imperative tags could be understood as more overt ways of persuading and declarative tags as more indirect ones. Our findings help to understand human gendered behavior in social networks and contribute to research on the new fields of computer-enabled Internet linguistics and social computing, besides being useful for several computational tasks such as developing tag recommendation systems based on users'' collective preferences and tailoring targeted advertising strategies, among others.     

Bangladeshi migrant associations in Italy: transnational engagement,community formation and regional unity

Referring to the case studies of two cities in Northern Italy, this article seeks to understand how Bangladeshi migrants use associations to seek transnational “ways of belonging” and “ways of being”. It analyses how this transnational attachment to their home country has played an important role in building their own “community”. The findings reveal that Bangladeshi migrant organizations work to maintain “transnational ways of belonging” by enabling migrants to retain their cultural roots; this is reflected in their observation of festivals, national days, and other practices and rituals. Although, as a relatively new migrant community, they do not share as many economic links through these associations as many other “diasporic” organizations, migrants widely express a sense that these economic connections are with their country of origin. However, there is competition within the community based on regional origin, as well as have many ambivalences and contradictions.     

Networking our science to characterize the state,vulnerabilities, and management opportunities of soil organic matter

Soil organic matter (SOM) supports the Earth's ability to sustain terrestrial ecosystems, provide food and fiber, and retains the largest pool of actively cycling carbon. Over 75% of the soil organic carbon (SOC) in the top meter of soil is directly affected by human land use. Large land areas have lost SOC as a result of land use practices, yet there are compensatory opportunities to enhance productivity and SOC storage in degraded lands through improved management practices. Large areas with and without intentional management are also being subjected to rapid changes in climate, making many SOC stocks vulnerable to losses by decomposition or disturbance. In order to quantify potential SOC losses or sequestration at field, regional, and global scales, measurements for detecting changes in SOC are needed. Such measurements and soil‐management best practices should be based on well established and emerging scientific understanding of processes of C stabilization and destabilization over various timescales, soil types, and spatial scales. As newly engaged members of the International Soil Carbon Network, we have identified gaps in data, modeling, and communication that underscore the need for an open, shared network to frame and guide the study of SOM and SOC and their management for sustained production and climate regulation.     

The Right Kind of Women Things: Changing Compositions of Gendered Subjectivity in New Caledonia

Drawing upon life histories compiled in New Caledonia, this article examines the ways in which some women inscribed and contested their gendered subjectivities. Anchored in the perception that ‘gender’ can be recognised as historically and culturally constituted in contingent human practices, it proffers testimonies to reason that women's composition and expression of their lived experience can be understood as modes of embodied consciousness. By situating each woman's discursive strategy into the complex interplay of historical processes, structured social organisations, and the anomalies, ambiguities and contradictions revealed through their conversations, the relationships and practices which inscribed the self-making of some Kanak and Caledonienne women are explored.     

Options for a rational dialogue on the acceptance of biotechnology

This paper explores how framing discussions about biotechnology in different ways influences how scientists, policy makers, and members of the public communicate with each other, to either inhibit or promote acceptance. It argues for the use of new techniques to create a rational dialogue with the public, based on scientific knowledge, that allows them to fully participate as informed stakeholders in debates about new technologies. Several different outlooks on the role of science in society are presented. Effectively communicating these different positions to the public requires innovative approaches. Drawing on advances in scientific communication practices, we briefly describe four principles that consider not only the scientific content, but also its delivery. New views need to be delivered with confidence, to be sensible within existing frameworks of understanding and not overwhelming, to reveal both potentially positive and negative aspects, and to promote interactive discussion with stakeholders. The authors conclude using the regional initiative in Southern Africa--the African Policy Dialogues on Biotechnology--as an illustration of this approach, where discussions started by first seeking agreement about establishing a process for dialogue, rather than initially trying to achieve consensus on any substantive points.     

Diurnal Activity Pattern of Golden Jackal (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis aureus</Emphasis> Linn.) in an Urban Landscape of Kolkata,India

The Golden jackal is known to have a wide distribution range and has been put under “Least Concern” category in the IUCN (ver 3.1) Red Data Book. However, the species once quite common along with the Bengal Fox in the eighteenth and nineteenth century of Kolkata has faced serious challenge due to land use and land cover changes in their urban habitats. As such, the Golden jackal has become “locally endangered” in the city of Kolkata, India. Kolkata, one of the largest cities in India, with population density of 14,112,536 is one such example where the land use change is profound. The Tollygunge Club, Kolkata is a social club with restricted entry at the heart of the city of Kolkata and harbours a healthy breeding population of the Golden jackal (Canis aureus Linn.). The present study focuses on the adaptability of the jackals to human proximity and its capacity to switch to natural food (fruits and leaves of available plants in the club, molluscs etc.) present in the club when the club refuse is not available. Their diurnal activity has been studied. These animals show diurnal activity in the open terrains of the club as they are least threatened by the humans. Only few intraspecific and interspecific (with the stray dogs in the club premises) conflicts have been noticed. In is interesting to note that at the heart of a city, in an urban area, such social clubs with restricted entry can provide suitable habitat to sustain a healthy breeding populations of the animals which are showing constant decline in their population due to change in land use pattern.     

Strategic ethnicity: The construction of multi-racial/multi-ethnic religious community

This article highlights through one case the ways in which religious organizations provide an exploratory space for maintaining, reclaiming, and altering aspects of racial and ethnic identity within a racially and ethnically integrated community. Utilizing data from in-depth interviews and participant observation in Southern California, I suggest that within the organizational culture of the congregation, church leaders and individual members recursively construct an integrated identity through 1) the public framing and articulation of goals, 2) their religious organizational structure and resources, and, 3) the lived experiences of members. I argue that a perceived reciprocal legitimacy emerges in this process through which religious claims affirm integration goals while, at the same time, observable integration within the congregation strengthens the acceptance of religious doctrine. I offer strategic ethnicity as a useful way of thinking about the transformation of racial experience and ethnicity into collective and individual tools within American Protestant congregations.     

Hate groups targeting unauthorized immigrants in the US: discourses,narratives and subjectivation practices on their websites

The narratives and images on websites of US hate groups that oppose undocumented immigrants represent and reproduce discourses that contribute to the subject formation of group members, who feel ethically obliged to counter unauthorized immigration. Left alone by the government, which is seen as unreliable and uncaring of patriotic values, they position themselves as heroic saviours of the nation. We argue that these hate groups’ ‘games of truth’ develop in response to the perception that irregular immigration threatens specific social orders and values, for instance about citizenship, national identity and otherness. This article helps to understand the ways in which anti-immigrant narratives serve the functions of countering these threats and of asserting the group members’ ethical obligation as a form of care of the self. In other words, from a Foucaultian viewpoint, we interpret the problematizations of ‘illegal’ immigration as discursive practices for the subject formation of hate group members.     

The role of cultural practices in the emergence of modern human intelligence

Innate cognitive capacities are orchestrated by cultural practices to produce high-level cognitive processes. In human activities, examples of this phenomenon range from everyday inferences about space and time to the most sophisticated reasoning in scientific laboratories. A case is examined in which chimpanzees enter into cultural practices with humans (in experiments) in ways that appear to enable them to engage in symbol-mediated thought. Combining the cultural practices perspective with the theories of embodied cognition and enactment suggests that the chimpanzees' behaviour is actually mediated by non-symbolic representations. The possibility that non-human primates can engage in cultural practices that give them the appearance of symbol-mediated thought opens new avenues for thinking about the coevolution of human culture and human brains.     

Transgressing community: the case of Muslims in a twenty-first-century British city

Abstract

This paper draws on ethnographic research carried out in Birmingham, UK – a city significant for its sizeable Muslim population and its iconic role in the history of minority ethnic settlement in Britain – to consider how associations of place and ethnicity work in different ways to inform ideas about ‘Muslim community’ in twenty-first-century Britain. The paper charts happenings around a local event in an area of majority Asian settlement and how representations of the area as a place of Muslim community were used to implicate it in the ‘war on terror’. The paper goes on to show how this sensibility is disrupted by Muslims themselves through alternative engagements with space and ethnicity. The paper argues that these offer a ground for making Muslim community in ways that actively engage with histories and patterns of ethnic settlement in the city rather than being determined by them.     

WHAT IS IT TO BE A DAUGHTER? IDENTITIES UNDER PRESSURE IN DEMENTIA CARE

This article concentrates on the care for people who suffer from progressive dementia. Dementia has a great impact on a person’s well‐being as well as on his or her social environment. Dealing with dementia raises moral issues and challenges for participants, especially for family members. One of the moral issues in the care for people with dementia is centred on responsibilities; how do people conceive and determine their responsibilities towards one another? To investigate this issue we use the theoretical perspective of Margaret Walker. She states that ideas about identity play a crucial role in patterns of normative expectations with regard to the distribution of responsibilities in daily practices of care. The results of this study show how the identity of a family‐member is put under pressure and changes during her loved one’s illness that leads to difficulties and misunderstandings concerning the issue of responsibility. These results offer an insight into the complexities of actual practices of responsibility and highlight the importance for those caring for people with dementia of attending carefully to how they see themselves and how they see other people involved (Who am I? Who do I want to be for the other?). Answers to such questions show what people expect from themselves and from one another, and how they, at any rate, are distributing responsibilities in a given situation. Professional caregivers should take into account that family members might have different ideas about who they are and consequently about what their responsibilities are.     

‘No caps,no coconuts,no all-male groups’ … the regulation of Asians in London clubs

Abstract

Until now, British Asian popular music culture and leisure spaces have attracted little sociological investigation. This article redresses the lack of attention paid to this area by focusing on an ethnographic study of the ‘desi’ South Asian club scene in London. It explores the relationship between contemporary discourses of Asianness as they are constructed within an East London desi club space and made to matter through embodied social practices. Asian bodies are disciplined in the making of normative ethnic, gendered and sexual subjectivities, which demonstrates how discourses of difference create complex subjectivities and practices that theories of diaspora and cultural studies have not fully explored. It offers a rethinking of diasporic identities as lived and embodied experiences that are ambivalently constructed and performative projects, neither entirely resistant to white, dominant discourses nor wholly complicit with its existing norms.     

Epidermal club cells and the innate immune system of minnows

Thousands of fish species belonging to the Superorder Ostariophysi possess specialized club cells in their epidermis. Damage to the cells, as would occur during a predator attack, releases chemical substances that evoke antipredator responses in nearby shoalmates. These chemical substances have often been referred to as alarm substances and the cells that release them as alarm cells. Understanding the evolution of the cells in an alarm context has been difficult. The fish needs to be captured prior to the chemicals being released, hence the benefit to the receiver is unclear. Recent studies have suggested that the club cells are part of the immune system and are maintained by natural selection owing to the benefits that they confer against pathogens, parasites, and general injury to the epidermis. In the present study, we gave fathead minnows intraperitoneal injections of cortisol, a known immunosuppressant, or injections of a control substance (corn oil). We found that fish exposed to cortisol had suppressed immune systems (as measured by a respiratory burst assay) and that they also reduced their investment in club cells. This is the best evidence to date indicating that the club cells of Ostariophysan fishes are part of the innate immune system and that the alarm function of the cells evolved secondarily. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 98 , 891–897.     

Attaining the mystical body: Indian Sufi ascetic practices

While anthropologists have carefully documented various Sufi orders, the bulk of these studies focus on socio‐historic and organisational aspects of Sufism. This has been especially the case of Sufis in India. There is an apparent lack of examining experiential aspects Sufi mystical practices. In India, many Sufi orders are intrinsically linked with Muslim shrines. Muslim shrines are viewed by Sufi as being invested with barkat (divine blessedness, sacred power), a power generally assumed to be a gift conferred upon the saint by Allah. Consequently, Sufis often engage in their mystical practices in the proximity of Muslim shrines. The shrine of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, located in Delhi, is a renowned thaumatological shrine which is a centre for Sufi activities. Sufis spend many years engaged in a rigorous regimen of ascetic and mystical practices. These form a central part of their daily lives at the Nizamuddin shrine. In this article, I explore the notion of mystical mastery among Indian Sufis and ways in which their ascetic practices seek to attain a mystical body. I contend that mystical mastery is a form of re‐authoring the self, in that Sufis’ mystical complexes permit them to transform and modify themselves through various operations on their bodies.     

Sheep farming business in Uşak city of Turkey: Economic structure,problems and solutions

The current study was conducted to reveal the current states, structural features and primary problems of the sheep raising businesses in the city of U?ak. The study group of the current study is comprised of 429 sheep raising businesses selected through stratified sampling (provinces) and a questionnaire consisted of 112 items was administered to these businesses. Through the items in the questionnaire, data were collected about the general features of the businesses and their owners, the state of grazing lands, mating of sheep, birth, milking, clipping, health protection, marketing of animals and the states of tools and equipments in the businesses.The findings of the study have revealed that 82.2% of the owners of the sheep raising businesses are elementary school graduates, their average time of being involved in the activity of sheep raising is 9.8?years, 90% of their shepherds are from the family members, 23.5% of them practice additional feeding before mating and the most preferred method for mating is free insemination with 89%.Of the owners of the businesses, 81.1% learned sheep raising from their elders; for 54% of them sheep raising is the sole source of income and 25.6% of them are engaged in sheep raising to support their families. The main problems of the sheep raisers were found to be the high cost of feed, the low prices paid for their products, inadequate and poor quality grazing lands and animal diseases. In order to make sheep raising more attractive, the prices of the products should be increased, grazing lands should be improved, the genetic structure of the herd should be enhanced, the amount of land area where feed crops are cultivated should be extended and suitable credit conditions should be provided. On the other hand, they need to be informed about sheep mating, lamb growing, stock, milking hygiene, general sheep feeding practices and marketing.     

Dieting,Exercise, or Disordered Eating Does Not Account for Extremes of Body Weight within Families

Objective : Families having both members with obesity and thin members should contain substantial information for genetics studies, provided measured phenotype is an accurate indicator of genetic predisposition. We assessed the impact of potentially complicating behavioral factors on obesity phenotypes of family members selected for a long-term project to identify genes for human obesity. Research Methods and Procedures : Ninety-nine Caucasian families were selected for study because they contained both extremely obese and average-weight family members. Family members (n = 492) were queried about their diet and exercise habits, their psychiatric histories as they pertained to eating disorders, and for a subset of subjects (n = 329), a lifetime dieting history and a lifetime maximum weight were recorded. Results : Subjects with average body weights in these families did not appear to be maintaining their weight by dieting and <4% of the average-weight subjects had ever been obese in the past. Discussion : Although dieting and other weight loss practices potentially could either mask or complicate the genotype-phenotype relationship, we found little evidence for this possibility in the families studied.     

New World primates,new frontiers: Insights from the woolly spider monkey,or muriqui (Brachyteles arachnoides)

Despite over 25 years of intensive research, much of our knowledge of primate behavior has been limited to a small number of Old World, semiterrestrial species. With the exception of chimpanzees, these species share consistent patterns of behavior, including aggressive competition between males, male dominance over females, male dispersal and female kin groups, that have come to characterize the Order Primates. However, as research has expanded to include a number of newly studied species, such generalizations about primate behavior are no longer appropriate. Data presented on the wooly spider monkey, or muriqui (Brachyteles arachnoides), provide examples of the ways in which traditional views of primate behavior are being reconsidered. In muriquis, and in several other New World monkeys, female kin groups do not occur because females disperse from their natal groups. In addition, aggressive competition between males is virtually absent; and, female muriquis appear to be codominant with males. Constraints on sexual dimorphism may help to explain why muriquis (and other New World primates) differ so fundamentally from the better known semi-terrestrial Old World monkeys.Logo of the 1988 International Primatological Society.