Towards the Breaking Day : An Ethnography of Belian Curing Rituals among the Luangans of Indonesian Borneo

Towards the Breaking Day is an ethnography of belian, an exceptionally lively tradition of curing rituals performed by the Luangans, a politically marginalized population of swidden cultivators of Indonesian Borneo. The principal purpose of the study is to explore the significance of belian rituals in practice. It asks what belian rituals do socially, politically, and existentially for particular people in particular circumstances. Departing from conventional conceptions of rituals as ethereal liminal or insulated traditional domains, it demonstrates the importance of understanding rituals as emergent within their specific historical and social settings, and highlights the irreducibility of lived reality to epistemological certainty. Each chapter of the book represents an analysis of a concrete ritual performance, exemplifying a diversity of ritual genres, stylistic modalities and sensual ambiences, ranging from low-keyed, habitual affairs to drawn-out, crowd-seizing community rituals and innovative, montage-like cultural experiments. The study is based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in non-Christian Central Luangan communities in which ritual and everyday life are complexly intermixed. It is intended as a contribution to the anthropological study of ritual and to the ethnography of Borneo religion in which the study of shamanistic life rituals has been overshadowed by a long-standing fascination with death and funerary rites.

Scaling analysis of momentum, heat, and mass transfer in binary alloy solidification problems

A systematic approach is developed for scaling analysis of momentum, heat and species conservation equations pertaining to the case of solidification of a binary mixture. The problem formulation and description of boundary conditions are kept fairly general, so that a large class of problems can be addressed. Analysis of the momentum equations coupled with phase change considerations leads to the establishment of an advection velocity scale. Analysis of the energy equation leads to an estimation of the solid layer thickness. Different regimes corresponding to different dominant modes of transport are simultaneously identified. A comparative study involving several cases of possible thermal boundary conditions is also performed. Finally, a scaling analysis of the species conservation equation is carried out, revealing the effect of a non-equilibrium solidification model on solute segregation and species distribution. It is shown that non-equilibrium effects result in an enhanced macrosegregation compared with the case of an equilibrium model. For the sake of assessment of the scaling analysis, the predictions are validated against corresponding computational results.

SHU assessment journey programme OMA approach

An overall view of the Sheffield Hallam University approach to the electronic management of assessment, developed as part of their Assessment Journey Programme.

EMA podcast transcript: the assessment and feedback lifecycle

The text transcript for a Jisc podcast on the assessment and feedback lifecycle. One of a series on the topic of the electronic management of assessment (EMA).

EMA podcast transcript: making use of our resources

The text transcript for a Jisc podcast on how universities have made use of the Jisc electronic management of assessment (EMA) resources. One of a series of podcasts on EMA.

The assessment journey programme

An overall view of the Sheffield Hallam University approach to the electronic management of assessment, developed as part of their Assessment Journey Programme

Visual retrieval of concrete crack properties for automated post-earthquake structural safety evaluation

The safety of post-earthquake structures is evaluated manually through inspecting the visible damage inflicted on structural elements. This process is time-consuming and costly. In order to automate this type of assessment, several crack detection methods have been created. However, they focus on locating crack points. The next step, retrieving useful properties (e.g. crack width, length, and orientation) from the crack points, has not yet been adequately investigated. This paper presents a novel method of retrieving crack properties. In the method, crack points are first located through state-of-the-art crack detection techniques. Then, the skeleton configurations of the points are identified using image thinning. The configurations are integrated into the distance field of crack points calculated through a distance transform. This way, crack width, length, and orientation can be automatically retrieved. The method was implemented using Microsoft Visual Studio and its effectiveness was tested on real crack images collected from Haiti.

The Implications of Philosophical Foundations for Knowledge Representation and Learning in Agents

N.J. Lacey and M.H. Lee, ?The Implications of Philosophical Foundations for Knowledge Representation and Learning in Agents?, Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence, Vol 2636 on Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 2002.

The Cambrian Muse: Welsh Identity and Hanoverian Loyalty in the Poems of Jane Brereton (1685-1740)

Prescott, S. (2005). The Cambrian Muse: Welsh Identity and Hanoverian Loyalty in the Poems of Jane Brereton (1685-1740). Eighteenth -Century Studies. 38(4), pp.587-603. RAE2008

Pink Worlds and Blue Worlds: A Portrait of Intimate Polarity

Griffiths, Merris, 'Pink Worlds and Blue Worlds: A Portrait of Intimate Polarity', In: 'Small Screens: television for children', D. Buckingham (Ed.), (London: Leicester University Press), pp. 159-184, 2002 RAE2008

Victimisation of street children in Addis Ababa: factors of resilience and susceptibility

Cross-cultural variations in conceptions of childhood are discussed, particularly with regard to child abuse and child labour. Regardless of cultural background, a universal minimum standard of child rearing is required. The street child literature is reviewed, culminating in an analysis of Ethiopian street children. Theoretically this work is informed by victimology. Concepts shared by victimology and rational choice perspective are discussed, after Fattah (1993a). Victim surveys are described, highlighting their accuracy of crime estimates. Juvenile prostitution, runaways and rape are examined, particularly with regard to their relevance in Addis Ababa. Fifty five male and 135 female street children were interviewed. Interviews with boys focused on delinquency. An age-related pattern emerged, with younger boys less likely to drink, chew khat, steal or be sexually active. Interviews with street girls focused on the differences between girls living on the streets (girls of the street), girls working on the streets (girls on the street) and a sample of homebased girls. Girls of the street come to the street come to the streets for many reasons. Conflicts with a parent or guardian account for almost 50%. They are highly vulnerable to sexual assaults, particularly those 43% who have worked as prostitutes. Girls on the street experience considerably less victimisation. Urban poor girls live in socio-economic circumstances akin to girls on the street but enjoy almost universal protection from victimisation because they do not spend time on the streets. Unprotected by the stability which a family provides, girls of the street experience high victimisation levels. Such victimisation is often the result of reliance on types of work, such as prostitution, which brings the girls into contact with exploitative adults. Resistance to such victimisation is provided by a secure place to sleep, companions, and relatively safe types of work. Such protective factors are more readily available to family based children as compared to those living independently.

An investigation of implicit measurement techniques amongst low risk and forensic samples

There are difficulties with utilising self- report and physiological measures of assessment amongst forensic populations. This study investigates implicit based measures amongst sexual offenders, nonsexual offenders and low risk samples. Implicit measurement is a term applied to measurement methods that makes it difficult to influence responses through conscious control. The test battery includes the Implicit Association Test (IAT), Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), Viewing Time (VT) and the Structured Clinical interview for disorders. The IAT proposes that people will perform better on a task when they depend on well-practiced cognitive associations. The RSVP task requires participants to identify a single target image that is presented amongst a series of rapidly presented visual images. RSVP operates on the premise that if two target images are presented within 500milliseconds of each other, the possibility that the participant will recognize the second target is significantly reduced when the first target is of salience to the individual. This is the attentional blink phenomenon. VT is based on the principle that people will look longer at images that are of salience. Results showed that on the VT task, child sexual offenders took longer to view images of children than low risk groups. Nude over clothed images induced a greater attentional blink amongst low risk and offending samples on the RSVP task. Sexual offenders took longer than low risk groups on word pairing tasks where sexual words were paired with adult words on the IAT. The SCID highlighted differences between the offending and non offending groups on the sub scales for personality disorders. More erotic stimulus items on the VT and RSVP measures is recommended to better differentiate sexual preference between offending and non offending samples. A pictorial IAT is recommended. Findings provide the basis for further development of implicit measures within the assessment of sexual offenders.

Revising Justice: Punitory Thought and Action in the Work of Atwood, Jordan, and Oates

*Designated as an exemplary master's project for 2015-16*

Ethnomathematical research and drama in education techniques: developing a dialogue in a geometry class of 10th grade students

Ethnomathematical research, together with digital technologies (WebQuest) and Drama-in- Education (DiE) techniques, can create a fruitful learning environment in a mathematics classroom—a hybrid/third space—enabling increased student participation and higher levels of cognitive engagement. This article examines how ethnomathematical ideas processed within the experiential environment established by the Drama-in-Education techniques challenged students‘ conceptions of the nature of mathematics, the ways in which students engaged with mathematics learning using mind and body, and the ̳dialogue‘ that was developed between the Discourse situated in a particular practice and the classroom Discourse of mathematics teaching. The analysis focuses on an interdisciplinary project based on an ethnomathematical study of a designing tradition carried out by the researchers themselves, involving a search for informal mathematics and the connections with context and culture; 10th grade students in a public school in Athens were introduced to the mathematics content via an original WebQuest based on this previous ethnomathematical study; Geometry content was further introduced and mediated using the Drama-in-Education (DiE) techniques. Students contributed in an unfolding dialogue between formal and informal knowledge, renegotiating both mathematical concepts and their perception of mathematics as a discipline.

Some issues on assessment methods and learning in mathematics and statistics

This paper looks at the application of some of the assessment methods in practice with the view to enhance students’ learning in mathematics and statistics. It explores the effective application of assessment methods and highlights the issues or problems, and ways of avoiding them, related to some of the common methods of assessing mathematical and statistical learning. Some observations made by the author on good assessment practice and useful approaches employed at his institution in designing and applying assessment methods are discussed. Successful strategies in implementing assessment methods at different levels are described.