Would the 'real' girl gamer please stand up? Gender, LAN cafes and the reformulation of the 'girl' gamer.

In this paper we consider the significance of cyber 'LAN' cafeacutes as sites where on and off-line practices meet in way that complicates binary notions of the gendered gamer. Existing research into computer games culture suggests a male dominated environment and points to girls' lower levels of competence and participation in games. Building on recent studies interested in the constitution of gender through engagement with online technologies, we draw on Judith Butler's politics of performative resignification, and conceptualise digital culture as a resource through which 'girl' gamers are mobilised and potentially reformulated, experiencing their gaming identities in contradictory ways, and fragmenting the category 'girl' in the very act of articulating their place in a male dominated gaming culture. It is argued that through the meeting of on and off-line practices, LAN cafeacutes operate as a location that is particularly amenable to reformulative work in relation to gendered gaming identities.

Disrupting girls in virtual communities of practice: discursive performativity as agency

In line with the work of feminists ‘post-linguists’ (Threadgold, 1997; Poynton, 1989; Lee, 1994) who seek to produce readings of texts which indicate the ways individuals are positioned to take up positions within discourses and thus come to constitute themselves as subjects of those discourses, this paper reports on how adolescent girls’ hypermedia design works to alter the conceptual repertoire of the individual and in doing so alters the individual’s subjectivity. By examining girls hypermedia design that challenges/resists male domination, I discuss their acts of uploading and hypermedia design in terms of Butler’s theorization of discursive performativity. I believe the adolescent girls employ a form of “linguistic agency” or “discursive agency” (Butler, 1997) that allows them to make use of a wide range of discursive practices that are nonlinguistic or not entirely linguistic. Because the girls were involved in a set of relationships over time, both inside and outside of school in both virtual and real time, within their communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), they engage with particular areas of curricular knowledge—differently than boys—by showcasing their re-representations online. Consequently, this presents the possibility they may possess a joint enterprise and similar sense of identity. This paper puts forth the idea that within virtual communities of practice, new contexts emerge when disrupting girls/women can work in transgressive modes.

Incorporation of a molecular hinge into molecular tweezers by using tandem gycloadditions onto 5,6-Dimenthylenenorbornene

Site-selective 1,3-dipolar coupling at the norbornene p-bond of 5,6-dimethylenenorbornene 1 yields cycloadducts with an end-fused 1,3-diene system which have been reacted with N=N (or C=C) dienophiles to produce ribbon molecules, in which the internal diazacyclohexene (or cyclohexene) subunits are capable of acting as conformational hinges. Direct coupling of 5,6-dimethylenenorbornene with 1,3,4-oxadiazoles or dual coupling with bis(cyclobutene epoxides) afforded bis(1,3-dienes) that diastereoselectively react with dienophiles to produce new, conformationally mobile, molecular tweezers.

syn-Facial hetero-bridged [n]polynorbornanes : a new class of polarofacial framework molecules composed of fused 7-oxa- and 7-azanorbornanes

New oxygen-bridged norbornane-fused cyclobutene epoxides and bis-(cyclobutene epoxides) are described and shown to react stereoselectively with 7-azanorbornenes to produce syn-facial N,O-bridged polynorbornanes and stereorandomly with 7-oxanorbornenes to produce O,O-bridged polynorbornanes as mixtures of syn-facial and anti-facial products.[1] Polarofacial systems containing up to six syn-facial norbornane bridges are described, while systems with seven co-facial oxygen atoms have been prepared by incorporating terminal epoxide rings to O5-[5]polynorbornanes. Ester-substituted 1,3,4-oxadiazoles are shown to be useful reagents for coupling 7-oxanorbornanes and produce predominantly syn-facial O-bridged polarofacial systems together with their anti-facial isomers.

Climate change and human health: what can GPs do?

In recent months articles in the most respected peer reviewed medical journals in Australia, the USA and Britain have called for urgent action to reduce climate change.1–4 The chief scientist of the United Kingdom has described climate change as ‘the most severe problem that we are facing today – more serious even than the threat of terrorism’.5 Yet, many of you will wonder if this is really such an urgent issue, and – even if it is – what on earth has it got to do with general practice?

Action on climate change : the health risks of procrastinating

Objective: The world's climate will continue to change because of human influence. This is expected to affect health, mostly adversely. We need to compare the projected health effects in Australia arising from differing climate change scenarios to inform greenhouse gas emission (mitigation) policy.

Methods: We estimated health effects in Australia (heatwave mortality, dengue transmission regions) around 2100 under various greenhouse gas scenarios: "strong policy action" (efforts made now to reduce emissions) and "no policy action" (emissions continue at present high levels with no climate change-specific policies).

Results: Compared with no policy action, mitigation could reduce the number of deaths caused by hot temperatures among older Australians by 4,000–7,000 a year (range reflects likely population size at 2100). Under a scenario of "no action", the zone of potential transmission of dengue fever expands 1,800 kilometres (km) south, as far as Sydney. In contrast, by markedly constraining greenhouse gas emissions now, this southward extension could be limited to 600 km (to Rockhampton). The number of displaced people within the Asia-Pacific region could increase (by orders of magnitude) under the "no action" scenario because of adverse socioecological circumstances aggravated by climate change.

Conclusions: Additional health effects will accrue as a result of the projected climate change throughout this century, and individuals and health systems should be prepared for some level of adaptation. However, timely and strong policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would diminish the extent and severity of estimated future health effects.

Global change and health - the good, the bad, and the evidence

Debates over the merits and demerits of globalisation for health are increasingly polarised. Conclusions range from globalisation being essentially positive for health, albeit with a need to smooth out some rough edges, to one of utter condemnation, with adverse effects on the majority of the world's population. Anyone wading into this debate is immediately confronted by seemingly irreconcilable differences in ideology, opinion and interests. Both camps agree that global changes are occurring, and with them many of the determinants of population health status. While some skepticism persists about whether “globalisation” has value beyond being a fashionable buzzword, most agree that we need better understanding of these changes. Two difficult questions arise: (i) What are the health impacts of these changes; and (ii) how can we respond more effectively to them? To move beyond the stand-offs that have already formed within the health community, this paper reviews the main empirical evidence that currently exists, summarises key points of debate that remain, and suggests some ways forward for the research and policy communities. In particular, there is need for an informed and inclusive debate about the positive and negative health consequences of globalisation.

Inter-annual rainfall variations and suicide in New South Wales, Australia, 1964-2001

The suicide rate in New South Wales is shown to be related to annual precipitation, supporting a widespread and long-held assumption that drought in Australia increases the likelihood of suicide. The relationship, although statistically significant, is not especially strong and is confounded by strong, long-term variations in the suicide rate not related to precipitation variations. A decrease in precipitation of about 300 mm would lead to an increase in the suicide rate of approximately 8% of the long-term mean suicide rate.