bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Victorian Estate Housing on the Yarborough Estate, Lincolnshire
Authors: Mitson Anne , Cox Barrie
Published: October 2008

One of the legacies of the great landed estates in England is the large number of distinctive estate cottages which are scattered throughout the countryside. These are, of course, more in evidence in some counties than others, particularly in those where a considerable proportion of land was owned by the elite. Estate cottages survive in some numbers from the eighteenth century, but the greatest number was built in the nineteenth. Research on estate buildings has tended to highlight the model village, built largely during the first half of the nineteenth century and created for aesthetic reasons. A well-known example is Somerleyton in Suffolk, designed in the 1840s for the then owner of Somerleyton Hall. Here, the cottages, built in a variety of styles – some with mock timber-framing, others with thatched roofs – surround the village green. Ilam in Staffordshire is another example, where cottages which were designed by G.G. Scott in 1854 display a range of styles and materials, many alien to the local area. A third example is Edensor on the Duke of Devonshire's Derbyshire estate, where the stone buildings exhibit distinctive Italianate features. The list could be extended, but these examples were clearly designed to impress, to provide aesthetic pleasure for the owners and, in the case of Ilam, to create a picturesque image of idyllic contentment among the labouring population as much as to provide good, spacious, sanitary accommodation for employees. In each of these examples, the cottages are generally of individual design and thus expensive to build.
Rural Society and Agricultural Development in Japan, 1870–1920: An Overview
Authors: Tomlinson B. R.
Published: October 2008

In 1868, when the Meiji emperor had his powers ‘restored’ by the political revolution that destroyed the old feudal system of the Tokugawa shoguns, Japan was a predominantly agricultural economy. By the time of the emperor's death in 1912 Japan had achieved significant industrialisation and in 1920, after a further boom during the First World War, she was well advanced along the road to a distinctive type of industrial development based on textile goods for export, heavy industry for domestic civilian and military capital investment, and considerable state intervention in economic and social organisation. In the mid 1880s, about 70% of the gainfully-employed population were engaged in agriculture, producing well over 40% of the gross national product. Farmers derived about three-quarters of their total income from agricultural activities, although agriculture probably absorbed only about 60% of total work hours for the labour force as a whole, with another 2% each for fishing and construction, and a further 16% or so for traditional mining and manufacturing. By 1920, the GDP of the Japanese economy had grown almost three-fold, but the share supplied by agriculture was under 30%, while just over 50% of workers were employed there.1.
The Alchemy of Waste: The Impact of Asian Farming on the British Organic Movement
Authors: Conford Philip
Published: October 2008

When Jean Valjean, the hero of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, evades captivity by disappearing into the Paris sewers, the author relaxes the narrative tension for nearly twenty pages in order to reflect on the harm caused by that city's waste-disposal methods. In doing so, he identifies what were to become, several decades later, central issues of concern for the British organic husbandry movement. With an artist's insight Hugo recognised that the Parisian sewage system was doubly wasteful: ‘the land impoverished and the water infected’ (Hugo, 1909: 532). A ‘restitution of the mire to the land’ (Hugo, 1909: 548) was required, and he suggested the creation of a tubular arrangement, ‘a system of elementary drainage, as simple as the lungs of man’, which would ‘bring into our cities the pure water of the fields and send back into our fields the rich water of the cities’ (Hugo, 1909: 532). The alternative – the road being taken – was to squander potentially precious fertility and emaciate the population.
Hampshire Women as Landholders: Common Law Mediated by Manorial Custom
Authors: Seeliger Sylvia
Published: October 2008

The traditional idea of a landowner is inextricably bound up with concepts of maleness. The most frequently used word for a landowner is simply ‘landlord’, with the corresponding feminine form ‘landlady’ carrying quite different connotations. The law with regard to inheritance and marriage lends weight to this interpretation, since common law, until the mid-nineteenth century, decreed that married women could not own property or make contracts as individuals, in theory leaving only spinsters and widows as potential landowners. Yet scrutiny of manorial, enclosure, tithe and land tax documentation reveals that women commonly held land either as owners or occupiers.
Sustaining the Countryside: A Welsh Post-War Perspective
Authors: Sheail John
Published: October 2008

In October 1994, the Environment Secretary and Agriculture Minister announced their intention to publish, for the first time, a joint White Paper, setting out Government policy for the economic, social and environmental well-being of the English countryside. It stimulated a further flurry of interest in how such policy agenda are drawn up and implemented. Although ostensibly, ministers sought fresh policies under the banner of sustainable development, some commentators discerned an even greater concern as to the growing sense of deprivation felt by the 12 million voters who lived in the countryside. Although there had been much rural debate and research in the late 1970s and early ’80s, Cloke and Little have contended it laboured under two deficiencies. Not only was there minimal Government interest, but it did little more than highlight the inadequacies of a simple positivist approach. This time round, much greater use might be made of a political-economy perspective, that took fuller cognisance of the connections that prevailed between economic change, restructuring of society, and the role of the state.
Governing the Highlands: The Place of Popular Protest in the Highlands of Scotland after 1918
Authors: Robertson Iain
Published: October 2008

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between agencies of government and crofting tenantry in the Highlands of Scotland, as manifested in events of popular protest after 1914. These events seem to have received little attention when compared to disturbance of earlier periods, which have been extensively documented, and the period after 1918 in particular has been under represented in the literature. Furthermore the actions of agencies of government were significantly different in this later period. Where before the Great War government actions were wholly reactive, this paper will demonstrate that during the war and after, the Board of Agriculture made significant attempts to be proactive in the face of incipient protest. Yet, conflict, and the resultant acts of protest, continued to be a characteristic element of social relations in the Highlands in the post-war period. This paper seeks to show that whilst the actions of the land-working population were of central significance, this conflict was not solely between the tenantry and landowners or agencies of government but was also within those various groupings. Consequently, it is argued that protest attests to a complex nexus of conflict on both regional and national levels.
Economy, Environment and Environmental History: Case Notes from Agriculture
Authors: Turner Michael
Published: October 2008

In 1956 in an international symposium at Princeton on the themeMan's role in changing the face of the Earth, one of the principal contributors, Carl Sauer, reflected that as much as anything it was a festival of remembrance to George Perkins Marsh. Marsh was perhaps the inspiration for viewing man within his natural world, within his ecological setting, but a setting which had evolved as much as anything by the actions of his own hand as it had been by natural agents. Marsh's great workMan and Nature, has been dubbed ‘the fountainhead of the conservation movement.’ Thus Sauer suggests that this study is based on man's:
The Scottish Highlands as a Special Policy Area, 1886 to 1965
Authors: Cameron Ewen A.
Published: October 2008

This paper has two objectives. The first is to explore the creation of a Highland policy area in the 1880s. Emphasis will be placed on the use of historical arguments by the government in the course of the construction of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act of 1886, especially in the attempt to justify confining the operation of that statute to the Highlands. The second theme, explored in the latter parts of the paper, concerns the strategies which succeeding governments have used to justify the perpetuation of a distinct Highland policy area. An element of continuity in Highland history in the twentieth century has been the special treatment of the area by governments. On the occasions when this has caused resentment in other rural areas of Britain, the Scottish Office response has been to argue that the Highlands are a special case because of the existence of the crofting counties with their special code of legislation. Clearly, this is a tautological argument and it is hoped that this paper, by exploring the period from the creation of the crofting legislation in the 1880s, to the late twentieth century, will shed some light on its origins. It will be argued that this has created a climate of fear in the Highlands and particularly the crofting community, but also, on occasion in the Lowlands. Further, there are occasions when the existence of a special Highland policy area has served to marginalise Highland policy. The paper falls into five main sections: the first will briefly review the literature about the Highland/Lowland division in Scotland, the second will look at the origins of the Crofters' Act of 1886, the third will examine the period from 1906 to 1911 when aspects of crofting legislation were extended to the rest of Scotland; the fourth section will identify the inter war period as an era when Highland policy became more diverse and the final section will scrutinise the impact of that more diverse approach in the years after the Second World War.
The Making of a New Landscape: Town Councils and Water in the Kingdom of Aragon during the Sixteenth Century
Authors: Mateos Royo Jose Antonio
Published: October 2008

From the beginning of time human settlement has depended on water; its proximity being indispensable not only for the development of agriculture but also for the maintenance of stable settlements. The presence of water has promoted the development of civilisations, its absence has undermined their continuity. Getting hold of water has been the source of many confrontations in which at issue was not just the acquisition of more and better territories but nothing less that the community's own survival. The intrinsic social value of water has influenced social structures through the community rules for the distribution of this collective good.
Ask the Fellows who Lop the Hay: Leaf-Fodder in the Mountains of Northwest Greece
Authors: Halstead Paul
Published: October 2008

As recently as the first half of this century, leaf- and twig-fodder cut from trees played a major role in animal husbandry across most of Europe and, in many areas, stored leafy hay was of critical importance to the survival of stalled livestock over winter (e.g. Brockmann-Jerosch, 1936; Radley, 1961; Spray, 1981; Salvi, 1982; Sigaut, 1982; Haas and Rasmussen, 1993). In addition to its importance to livestock, leaf- and twig-foddering also played a major role in shaping the cultural landscapes of the continent, and in particular the structure and composition of vegetation cover (e.g. Moreno, 1982; Austad, 1988). During this century, the use of arboreal fodder has declined dramatically to the point of almost total abandonment and, in consequence, this once important practice is both poorly understood and largely ignored by historians, geographers and ecologists alike.
Animal Husbandry and Agricultural Improvement: The Archaeological Evidence from Animal Bones and Teeth
Authors: Davis Simon J. M. , Beckett John V.
Published: October 2008

Agricultural historians have long been aware that a major increase in productivity and output characterised the so-called ‘agricultural revolution’. Usually, however, this has been measured by indirect means: the fact, for example, that English farmers were able to feed some 3 million more people in 1700 than in 1540, and almost 20 million more in 1880 than in 1750. Since mouths were fed without recourse to massive imports -which would have had significant economic implications for the industrial revolution -and since these increases in output were achieved while the agricultural labour force was in steep relative decline, the obvious implication is that productivity was increasing. Measuring such changes has proved complex, partly because data were not collected in a systematic fashion prior to the 1870s, and partly because such evidence as we have relating to prices and rents hardly represents an adequate proxy for productivity. In general terms, the best material has been for the grain acreage, particularly for wheat and barley.
The Rural ‘Middling Sort’ in Early Modern England, circa 1640–1740: Some Economic, Political and Socio-Cultural Characteristics
Authors: Kent Joan
Published: October 2008

A middle class ‘did not begin to discover itself (except perhaps in London) until the last three decades of the [eighteenth] century’. So wrote E. P. Thompson in the 1970s in a now-famous analysis which divided English society into patricians and plebeians, and which, along with J. H. Hexter's ‘The Myth of the Middle Class in Tudor England’, largely eliminated ‘middle class’ from the vocabulary of early modern English historians. During the past decade, however, there has been renewed focus on the middle ranks in early modern England, now commonly labelled ‘the middling sort’, and such studies explicitly or implicitly call into question Thompson's polarized portrayal of English society. A number of earlier works analyzed the middling in the countryside, particularly in the period 1540 to 1640; but recent discussions focus largely on townsmen, and most are concerned with a later period, the second half of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Even in a volume such asThe Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England 1550–1800, a collection of essays presenting recent scholarship on the subject, the rural middling sort receive very little attention (a fact acknowledged by one of the editors). This essay will draw upon detailed evidence from several parishes to consider characteristics of the middling in the countryside during the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
English Emigration, Kinship and the Recruitment Process: Migration from Melbourn in Cambridgeshire to Melbourne in Victoria in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Authors: Hudson Paul , Mills Dennis
Published: October 2008

There are still comparatively few investigations which look, in detail, at who the rural English emigrants of the nineteenth century were, the villages and communities they came from, and the rural kinship and recruitment networks which supported their decision. Deficiencies in the published statistical returns, and the fact that good historical data about the English is mainly concerned with the first half of the nineteenth century, have not helped further emigration research. This has led to the situation whereby English emigration has been largely disregarded by some historians or, because British governments were initially preoccupied with emigration as a means of relieving distress, interpretations have tended to rest, precariously, on generalisations that English emigration was the product of economic dislocation. The dearth of historical studies is most striking if we note that, between 1853 and 1930, the English contributed over nine million emigrants to the European diaspora, that numerically they dominated Britain's non-Irish (English, Scottish and Welsh) emigration to most of the destinations available to them, and that the English have proved to be some of the most mobile and persistent of all international migrants.
G.D.H. Cole and William Cobbett
Authors: Griffiths Clare
Published: October 2008

William Cobbett was, during his own lifetime, a highly controversial figure who often found it necessary to defend himself against supposed misrepresentation. His historical persona remains no less controversial. The complexities of Cobbett's career and character have supported a variety of interpretations, and many writers this century have felt the need to define ‘the real Cobbett’. Modern misrepresentations have arisen less from false stories invented to damn him than from the misleading emphases employed to praise him, with both Left and Right seeking in their different ways to appropriate what they see as his legacy. For conservatives, he has been an essentially timeless figure, standing for Old England and all that may have made such a place great. Writers on the Left have treated him rather as a figure of the past, rationalised to fit into the rise of working-class consciousness and organisation, and divested of some aspects unseemly in an early representative of ‘the cause’. Cobbett has been adopted as an important figure for the Left, but readings based on the assumptions about working-class radicalism held by the modern British Labour movement have often found it necessary to exclude aspects of his writings as inconsistent, or at least idiosyncratic.
From Great Wen to Toad Hall: Aspects of the Urban-Rural Divide in Inter-War Britain
Authors: Moore-Colyer R. J.
Published: October 2008

Towards the end of his bittersweet novelVile BodiesEvelyn Waugh has his heroine Nina Blount flying across England en route for her disastrous honeymoon. Attempting to make what passed with him for conversation, her stupid and rather boorish husband managed lamentably to misquote John of Gaunt's ‘Sceptered isle’ speech from Richard II. Then, as Waugh wrote:
Nostalgia, Gender, and the Countryside: Placing the ‘Land Girl’ in First World War Britain
Authors: Grayzel Susan R.
Published: October 2008

In December 1917, an article in the Daily Chronicle, entitled ‘The New Land Lady’, stated that:

One of the good things which may issue from this war is a revival of the old English countryside.

The happy village may be born again.

If this reformation should come, it will be the work of the women.

The nostalgia evident in this call for women's wartime ‘return’ to the land to restore a lost, pastoral idyll during an event more usually associated with modernity raises several questions. What meanings can be attached to the ways in which women agricultural workers were seen as the key to a ‘rural revival’ and thus as crucial to a revitalized nation during the First World War? And what are we to make of the seemingly contradictory appeal to women radically to leave their presumably urban and suburban homes and conservatively to restore the countryside?

As Raymond Williams pointed out, this emblematic English countryside has always been placed in a more ideal past, and the desires to return to or to preserve the allegedly unchanging patterns of land and the lives attached to it are integral to the problem of modernization itself. More recently, Alun Howkins has argued that the ideology and ‘ideal’ of England and Englishness have remained essentially ‘rural,’ and that in 1914 this was the vision of Englishness that ‘went into battle'. However, one might certainly be forgiven for assuming that the creation of the Women's Land Army and the resulting appearance of urban women in trousers, breeches and puttees in villages throughout Britain would herald something more like a ‘transformation’ than a ‘revival’.
Landscape Preservation, ‘advertising disfigurement’, and English National Identity c. 1890–1914
Authors: Readman Paul
Published: October 2008

In the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, anxieties developed about the impact of advertisements on the English landscape. Large posters and hoardings in rural areas were increasingly seen as having a damaging effect on the scenic beauties of the country, and a campaign to have their use restricted was started up in the 1890s. This article focuses on that campaign, and on the activities and ideology of the organisation (the National Society for Checking the Abuses of Public Advertising — SCAPA) which spearheaded it. In doing so, it seeks to engage with the wider historiographical debate about the nature of ‘Englishness’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through an examination of the agenda of SCAPA and other preservationist bodies (such as the National Trust), it suggests that it is misleading to conclude that English culture in this period was pervaded by backward-looking ‘rural-nostalgic’ obsessions. However, it also emphasises that English national identity was nonetheless to an important extent related to ideas about land and landscape. It does not do to write off phenomena like opposition to the ‘disfigurement’ of picturesque English scenery as insignificant, the concern only of a very marginal section of elite culture.
Imagining the Fishing: Artists and Fishermen in Late Nineteenth Century Cornwall
Authors: Deacon Bernard
Published: October 2008

The focus of postmodernist historians on language and representation clashes with the more traditional approach of the social historian to material structures and processes. This article adopts the suggestion of Wahrman that a ‘space of possibilities’ exists where these apparently competing perspectives might be connected. The concept of a ‘space of possibilities’ is pursued through a case study of a marginal group, the fishing communities of west Cornwall in the late nineteenth century. The article explores points of contact and contrast between the artistic and the fishing communities, between the painterly gaze and the subjects of that gaze. It is proposed that, while the artistic colonies and their representations might be explained as a result of discourses reproduced in the centre, their specific choice of location in Cornwall can also be related to the local economic and social history that granted them a space of possibilities.
Ghazali's Chapter on Divine Power in the Iqtiṣād
Authors: Marmura Michael E.
Published: October 2008

The theological foundations of Ghazali's causal theory are fully expressed in the chapter on the attribute of divine power in his al-Iqtiṣād fi al-I'tiqād (Moderation in Belief). The basic doctrine which he proclaims and argues for is that divine power, an attribute additional to the divine essence, is one and pervasive. It does not consist of a multiplicity of powers that produce a multiplicity of effects, but is a unitary direct cause of each and every created existent. In a defense of the doctrine of kasb (acquisition), Ghazali argues (a) that power in all animate creatures is created directly (i.e. without intermediaries) by God and (b) that there is created with it the object of power, normally, but erroneously regarded as its effect: the object of power is in fact directly created by God. It exists with the created power, but not by it. In his critique of the Mu'tazilite theory of the generated act he again denies that created power has any causal efficacy and denies that inanimate things have any causal efficacy. What one normally regards as the effects of inanimate causes are in reality their concomitants, directly caused by divine power.

The discussion of kasb, the longest in the chapter, includes Ghazali's spirited defense of it against possible objections. The defense, however, as will be shown, is not immune against criticism. At the same time, the discussion of kasb, central as it is, has to be understood in the context of the chapter as a whole, whose intricate arguments remain integrated and unified. Hence a brief exposition of the chapter's arguments will first be given, followed by a critical comment on some aspects of Ghazali's defense of kasb. This is then followed by an annotated translation of the entire chapter, a chapter so very basic for the study of Ghazali's position on causality.
Alexander of Aphrodisias in the Kindī-Cricle and in Al-Kindī' Cosmology
Authors: Fazzo Silvia , Wiesiner Hillary
Published: October 2008

How do the heavenly bodies physically affect the sublunary world? On this topic, the few fragmentary statements by Aristotle were refined and expanded by his Greek commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias. In the Kindī-circle, particular attention was paid to Alexander's treatises on this very topic. They were not simply translated but were rather reworked in terms of an astrological interpretation. Typically, such reworking was attributed directly to Aristotle by the addition of a number of references and pseudo-references to Aristotle's genuine and spurious works. The article demonstrates this phenomenon, and examines the circular relationship between the Kindī-circle adaptations of Alexander and al-Kindī's own works. The Kindī-circle's Alexander was closely followed by al-Kindī on certain points, while al-Kindī himself exerted a reciprocal influence on the Arabic Alexander, who was largely the product of his own group of translators. The appendix contains English translations from Arabic of two adapted Alexander's treatises.
Abraham Ibn Daud's Definition of Substance and Accident
Authors: Eran Amira
Published: October 2008

The focus of this study is the definitions of substance and accident as expressed and outlined in Ibn Daud's book The Exalted Faith. The original Arabic text of Ibn Daud's book, completed in 1160, is lost. However the work survives through two Hebrew translations (both date from the late 14th century). In this study I suggest a hypothetical reconstruction of the Arabic text based on a wide comparison with Ibn Daud's Muslim predecessors, such as Alfarabi, Avicenna and Alghazali, on the one hand, and the Hebrew translations on the other. By returning to Ibn Daud's direct sources, I hope to shed more light on two subjects: (1) Ibn Daud's dependance on non-Jewish sources in his attempt to establish a philosophical synthesis between Aristotelism and traditional faith; and (2) to clarify the true philosophical meaning embodied in professional terminology, such as the definitions of substance and accident.
Richtig kommunizieren in der Geburtshilfe
Authors: Gairing Bürglin Anja , Tschudin Sibil
Published: October 2008

Wir sind in der Geburtshilfe in vielen unterschiedlichen Situationen kommunikativ gefordert. Dies einerseits im Gespräch mit der Schwangeren bzw. den werdenden Eltern. Andererseits ist in der Geburtsabteilung eine gute interdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit mit Hebammen, Neonatologen und Anästhesisten für die Patientenzufriedenheit aber auch für die Patientensicherheit ganz entscheidend. In einem Aufklärungsgespräch etwa vor einer geplanten Sectio caesarea ist es wichtig, die Information in eine verständliche Sprache zu bringen, herauszufinden, wie viel Information eine Patientin in diesem Moment braucht und sich zu vergewissern, wie die Patientin mit der Information umgeht. Immer wieder werden wir vor die Aufgabe gestellt sein, mit Emotionen umgehen zu müssen, im einfachsten Fall mit großer Freude und Erleichterung, dass alles gut gegangen ist. Aber oft auch mit Enttäuschung, Ärger, Unsicherheit und Trauer. Ist eine belastende Emotion deutlich wahrnehmbar, hilft es der Patientin diese anzusprechen, dafür Verständnis zu zeigen und Unterstützung anzubieten. Als Mitglied eines Teams gilt es Rapporte so zu halten, dass Informationen korrekt und vollständig an alle weitergegeben werden. Wichtig ist ebenfalls, schwierige Situationen vorzubesprechen und, wenn etwas nicht gut gelaufen ist, konstruktiv nachzubesprechen. Natürlich ist eine reibungslos verlaufende Kommunikation auch in Notfallsituationen entscheidend für die erfolgreiche Bewältigung der Situation. Praxisnah wird anhand verschiedener Gesprächssituationen gezeigt, wie man seine kommunikative Kompetenz verbessern kann.
Simulation in der Geburtshilfe – eine neue Methode zur Verbesserung des Managements geburtshilflicher Notfälle?
Authors: Blum Ronja , Gairing Bürglin Anja , Gisin Stefan
Published: October 2008

In anderen Fachbereichen wie z.B. der Anästhesie hat der Einsatz der Simulation in den letzten 15 Jahren stark zugenommen. Die Simulation ermöglicht die Darstellung von klinischen Situationen zum risikolosen Üben von komplexen Abläufen oder einzelnen Handgriffen. Es ist eine praktische und sichere Möglichkeit, um neue Fähigkeiten zu erlernen oder bereits gelerntes zu verbessern. Das Üben von kritischen Situationen mit Hilfe der Simulation ist in der Geburtshilfe jedoch noch wenig verbreitet. Um eine medizinische Notfallsituation korrekt einzuschätzen und anschließend die richtigen Maßnahmen zu treffen sind Erfahrung und Routine notwendig. Es ist in schwierigen Situationen wichtig, ruhig zu bleiben, damit keine Fehler passieren. Der Geburtshelfer benötigt also eine Mischung aus manuellen und kommunikativen Fähigkeiten, auch muss er in Notfallsituationen schnell handeln und die richtigen Entscheidungen treffen können. Die Simulation kann uns helfen, diese verschiedenen Fähigkeiten zu erlangen und zu trainieren, da auch in der Geburtshilfe die Erwartungen und Ansprüche der Patientinnen an die Ärzte und Hebammen stetig zunehmen: eine Geburt soll ohne Risiko für Mutter und Kind ablaufen. Wir beschreiben in diesem Artikel die Auswertung eines von uns konzipierten und durchgeführten Postenlaufes mit vier geburtshilflichen Notfallszenarien zur Aus- und Weiterbildung von Ärzten und Hebammen. Unsere Resultate zeigen, dass die Simulation auch in der Geburtshilfe eine akzeptierte Methode ist, um Notfallszenarien im Team zu üben. Ob sich durch den regelmäßigen Einsatz solcher Kurse die Patientensicherheit erhöht, können wir nicht abschließend beurteilen, dies muss in weiteren Studien geklärt werden.
Anomalous enhancement of ionospheric electron content in the Asian‐Australian region during a geomagnetically quiet day
Authors: Zhao B. , Wan W. , Liu L. , Igarashi K. , Nakamura M. , Paxton L. J. , Su S.‐Y. , Li G. , Ren Z.
Published: October 2008

We investigate an event of anomalous enhancement in ionospheric electron content on 28 June 2002 from a network of 70 GPS receivers and a chain of ionosondes distributed around the Asian‐Australian sector. After local sunset, the low‐latitude peak electron density of the F2 layer (NmF2) was observed to increase by 200% compared to the 27‐day median value. Geomagnetic environment was quiet during 27–28 June as the SYM‐H index was larger than −20 nT and AE was less than 200 nT under conditions of a constant northward interplanetary magnetic field Bz. A continuously enhanced eastward electric field has been identified as the main cause of this effect, though it is not fully consistent with the prediction of Scherliess and Fejer (1997) for wind disturbance dynamo model. Our observations show that the ionosphere was very disturbed in the Northern Hemisphere during summer even under low geomagnetic activity. The large ionospheric disturbance may be caused by the combination of the effects due to auroral activity and tides, a combination that still needs further investigation. This work suggests that studying very large day‐to‐day variability under quiet geomagnetic conditions could reveal more about the coupling processes between the ionosphere and lower atmosphere.
Sensitivity of June near‐surface temperatures and precipitation in the eastern United States to historical land cover changes since European settlement
Authors: Strack John E. , Pielke Roger A. , Steyaert Louis T. , Knox Robert G.
Published: October 2008

Land cover changes alter the near surface weather and climate. Changes in land surface properties such as albedo, roughness length, stomatal resistance, and leaf area index alter the surface energy balance, leading to differences in near surface temperatures. This study utilized a newly developed land cover data set for the eastern United States to examine the influence of historical land cover change on June temperatures and precipitation. The new data set contains representations of the land cover and associated biophysical parameters for 1650, 1850, 1920, and 1992, capturing the clearing of the forest and the expansion of agriculture over the eastern United States from 1650 to the early twentieth century and the subsequent forest regrowth. The data set also includes the inferred distribution of potentially water‐saturated soils at each time slice for use in the sensitivity tests. The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System, equipped with the Land Ecosystem‐Atmosphere Feedback (LEAF‐2) land surface parameterization, was used to simulate the weather of June 1996 using the 1992, 1920, 1850, and 1650 land cover representations. The results suggest that changes in surface roughness and stomatal resistance have caused present‐day maximum and minimum temperatures in the eastern United States to warm by about 0.3°C and 0.4°C, respectively, when compared to values in 1650. In contrast, the maximum temperatures have remained about the same, while the minimums have cooled by about 0.1°C when compared to 1920. Little change in precipitation was found.
Measuring soil moisture content non‐invasively at intermediate spatial scale using cosmic‐ray neutrons
Authors: Zreda Marek , Desilets Darin , Ferré T. P. A. , Scott Russell L.
Published: October 2008

Soil moisture content on a horizontal scale of hectometers and at depths of decimeters can be inferred from measurements of low‐energy cosmic‐ray neutrons that are generated within soil, moderated mainly by hydrogen atoms, and diffused back to the atmosphere. These neutrons are sensitive to water content changes, but largely insensitive to variations in soil chemistry, and their intensity above the surface is inversely correlated with hydrogen content of the soil. The measurement with a portable neutron detector placed a few meters above the ground takes minutes to hours, permitting high‐resolution, long‐term monitoring of undisturbed soil moisture conditions. The large footprint makes the method suitable for weather and short‐term climate forecast initialization and for calibration of satellite sensors, and the measurement depth makes the probe ideal for studies of plant/soil interaction and atmosphere/soil exchange.
Effects of Peclet number on pore‐scale mixing and channeling of a tracer and on directional advective porosity
Authors: Tartakovsky Alexandre M. , Neuman Shlomo P.
Published: October 2008

Field tracer tests indicate that advective porosity, the quantity relating advective velocity to Darcy flux, may exhibit directional dependence. Theory (S. P. Neuman, 2005) suggests that directional variations in advective porosity could arise from incomplete mixing of an inert tracer between directional flow channels within a sampling volume of soil or rock that may be hydraulically isotropic or anisotropic, rendering advective porosity a function of Peclet number. Whereas Neuman was able to quantify the process for idealized intersecting fracture sets, his theory is too abstract to allow doing so for more complex systems of fractures or pores. We use Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (e.g., A. M. Tartakovsky and P. Meakin, 2005, 2006) to simulate advective‐diffusive transport of a passive tracer in the interior of an idealized pore space between impermeable circular or elliptical solid grains of random size, arranged randomly within a square domain. Our numerical experiments reveal a transition from complete mixing of tracer at small Peclet numbers to the gradual evolution of pore‐scale channels of tracer which allow less and less mixing as Peclet numbers grow. Advective porosity, computed as the ratio between total water flux across the domain boundaries and migration rate of the tracer center of mass, is found to diminish asymptotically from a value close to the total porosity at small Peclet numbers to a constant dominated entirely by advection at large Peclet numbers. When total porosity is kept constant, channeling is less pronounced and mixing more prominent when flow takes place parallel to the longer axes of elliptical grains as compared to when the grains are circular. On the other hand, channeling is more pronounced and mixing less so when flow takes place perpendicular to the longer elliptical grain axes. Correspondingly, the rate at which advective porosity diminishes with increasing Peclet number is slower and the asymptote is larger when flow takes place parallel to the longer axes of elliptical grains than when the grains are circular. However, the rate is faster and the asymptote smaller when flow takes place perpendicular to the longer elliptical grain axes.
Appraisal of the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) method
Authors: Stedinger Jery R. , Vogel Richard M. , Lee Seung Uk , Batchelder Rebecca
Published: October 2008

Recent research documents that the widely accepted generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) method for describing forecasting precision and the impact of parameter uncertainty in rainfall/runoff watershed models fails to achieve the intended purpose when used with an informal likelihood measure. In particular, GLUE generally fails to produce intervals that capture the precision of estimated parameters, and the difference between predictions and future observations. This paper illustrates these problems with GLUE using a simple linear rainfall/runoff model so that model calibration is a linear regression problem for which exact expressions for prediction precision and parameter uncertainty are well known and understood. The simple regression example enables us to clearly and simply illustrate GLUE deficiencies. Beven and others have suggested that the choice of the likelihood measure used in a GLUE computation is subjective and may be selected to reflect the goals of the modeler. If an arbitrary likelihood is adopted that does not reasonably reflect the sampling distribution of the model errors, then GLUE generates arbitrary results without statistical validity that should not be used in scientific work. The traditional subjective likelihood measures that have been used with GLUE also fail to reflect the nonnormality, heteroscedasticity, and serial correlation among the residual errors generally found in real problems, and hence are poor metrics for even simple sensitivity analyses and model calibration. Most previous applications of GLUE only produce uncertainty intervals for the average model prediction, which by construction should not be expected to include future observations with the prescribed probability. We show how the GLUE methodology when properly implemented with a statistically valid likelihood function can provide prediction intervals for future observations which will agree with widely accepted and statistically valid analyses.
Predictors of Body Size Stigmatization in Hispanic Preschool Children
Authors: Rich Shannon S. , Essery Eve V. , Sanborn Charlotte F. , DiMarco Nancy M. , Morales Lauren K. , LeClere Sonia M.
Published: October 2008

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to verify the occurrence of body size stigmatization in Hispanic preschoolers who are “at risk” for obesity and to examine potential predictors of body size stigmatization.

Methods and Procedures: At a local preschool, 70 lower‐socioeconomic, Hispanic caregivers and their preschoolers participated. Preschoolers completed an attribution task including positive and negative adjectives to assess body size stigmatization. Child's perceived size and caregiver's body dissatisfaction were assessed using a line drawing ranging in size from very underweight figures to very overweight figures. Adult and child body indices were then assessed.

Results: Body size stigmatization in child participants was observed. Stepwise multiple regressions revealed that child BMI was the only significant predictor of the number of positive adjectives the child assigned to the overweight picture. As child BMI increased, the number of positive adjectives assigned to the overweight picture decreased. Two predictors, caregiver body dissatisfaction with self and caregiver BMI, significantly predicted the number of negative traits the child assigned to the overweight figure. Caregivers with higher BMIs and increased body dissatisfaction were most likely to have children who showed negative body size stigmatization.

Discussion: Increasing rates of obesity have not led to greater acceptance of the obese and even children who are at greater risk for obesity show body size stigmatization at early ages. Caregivers are influential in the development of body size stigmatization in children and must be considered in the development of programs aimed at reducing stigmatization and obesity.
The Impact of Weight‐related Victimization on Peer Relationships: The Female Adolescent Perspective
Authors: Griffiths Lucy J. , Page Angie S.
Published: October 2008

Objective: Obesity is associated with undesirable psychological and social consequences. This qualitative study examined the relationship between obesity and victimization, and the impact this has on peer relationships.

Methods and Procedures: Five obese female adolescents participated in multiple, semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews. Interview transcriptions were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).

Results: Weight‐related victimization experiences were common and their impact on peer relationships was complex. Low self‐confidence, isolation, and peer anxiety were all identified as resulting from victimization and were all barriers to developing peer relationships. Participants sought protection from victimization by seeking the “ideal” nonjudgmental empathetic best friend(s) and supportive family members to shield them from negative experiences. However there was also evidence that, while they were guarded with their own feelings, the experience of victimization increased empathy in these obese female adolescents.

Discussion: Social and psychological consequences of obesity in female adolescents are widespread, suggesting the importance of listening to those affected. Peer relationships have the opportunity to both amplify and reduce the psychological impact of living with obesity and victimization. Greater understanding of the social networks of obese adolescents and their impact on well‐being is needed, as well as methods to reduce negative experiences through childhood obesity treatment and school‐based prevention programs.
Fighting Fat: How Do Fat Stereotypes Influence Beliefs About Physical Education?
Authors: Greenleaf Christy , Martin Scott B. , Rhea Debbie
Published: October 2008

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine college students’ beliefs about youth obesity, the roles of schools and physical education in addressing obesity, and the training they receive to work with overweight youth.

Methods and Procedure: Physical education–related (n = 212) and nonphysical education–related (n = 218) majors completed a demographic questionnaire, a Modified Fat Stereotypes Questionnaire (M‐FSQ), and a Perceptions of Physical Education Questionnaire. On the basis of M‐FSQ scores, participants were identified as endorsing stereotypes (n = 360) or not endorsing stereotypes (n = 70).

Results: The importance of youth being normal weight was rated most highly among participants in physical education–related majors and among those who endorsed fat stereotypes. Participants who endorsed fat stereotypes, compared to those who did not, were more likely to believe that all school professionals should be involved in treating childhood obesity. Participants who endorsed fat stereotypes, compared to those who did not, more strongly agreed that physical educators should be role models by maintaining normal weight and educating parents on childhood obesity, and PE classes should focus on lifelong fitness. No group differences in perceived competencies to develop exercise, weight loss, nutritional, and educational programs for overweight youth were found.

Discussion: Future research is needed to determine the extent to which these types of differences result from educational curricula that link weight and health and, possibly, reinforce negative stereotypes of overweight children. Methods for effectively intervening in educational training environments to reduce fat stereotypes among preprofessionals need to be investigated.
Teasing, Disordered Eating Behaviors, and Psychological Morbidities Among Overweight Adolescents
Authors: Libbey Heather P. , Story Mary T. , Neumark‐Sztainer Dianne R. , Boutelle Kerri N.
Published: October 2008

Objective: To assess whether weight‐related teasing is associated with weight control behaviors, disordered eating thoughts and behaviors, and psychological comorbidities in overweight adolescents.

Methods and Procedures: A sample of 46 male and 84 female adolescents completed a survey assessing teasing frequency, sources of teasing (peers and family), weight control behaviors, disordered eating thoughts and behaviors, depression, anxiety, anger, and self‐esteem.

Results: Frequent teasing by both family and peers was associated with greater disordered eating thoughts and behaviors, depression, anxiety, anger, and decreased self‐esteem. The more that adolescents were bothered by peer and family teasing, the more often they reported a greater value on thinness, higher levels of anxiety, lower self‐esteem, and their self‐assessment was influenced by their weight and shape. Higher levels of teasing frequency and being bothered by teasing were related to greater odds of adolescents endorsing severe levels of binge eating behaviors and depressive symptomolgy.

Discussion: Overweight adolescents teased about their weight are at risk for disordered eating thoughts and behaviors and psychological morbidities. Health‐care providers should involve parents and youth in discussing teasing concerns. Furthermore, parents, schools, and communities should consider enacting policies to decrease or prohibit teasing. Future research is needed to further explore relationships between teasing and psychological functioning.
Do Antifat Attitudes Predict Antifat Behaviors?
Authors: O'Brien Kerry S. , Latner Janet D. , Halberstadt Jamin , Hunter John A. , Anderson Jeremy , Caputi Peter
Published: October 2008

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate discrimination against obese job candidates, and to examine whether widely used measures of implicit and explicit antifat attitudes are related to or predict antifat discrimination.

Methods and Procedures: One hundred university students made job candidate suitability ratings of resumes submitted for a bogus managerial position. Photos attached to each resume portrayed the job candidate as either obese or normal weight, by using pre‐ and postprocedure photos of individuals who had undergone bariatric surgery. To assess discrimination, job candidates' ratings were compared between obese and normal‐weight targets. Implicit and explicit antifat attitudes were also assessed.

Results: Participants rated obese job candidates as having less leadership potential, as less likely to succeed, and as less likely to be employed than normal‐weight candidates. Obese candidates were also given a lower starting salary and ranked as less qualified overall than candidates portrayed as normal weight. Neither implicit nor explicit antifat attitude measures were significantly related to antifat discrimination.

Discussion: This study found strong evidence of employment‐related discrimination against obese individuals. Commonly used measures of antifat attitudes do not appear to be adequate predictors of antifat discrimination. Improved questionnaire measures may be needed to better predict actual prejudiced behavior.