Men in Black: Fashioning Masculinity in Nineteenth-Century Spain

Clothes offer us a commentary on the individual who wears them, and one of those comments deals with gender. Clothing is fundamental to gender, turning male and female bodies into men and women. In the nineteenth century the preoccupation with appear- ances was greater than in previous periods thanks to changes in the social system and a reformulation of gender roles, as well as the popularity of physiognomic theory. Given this increased sensitivity to the gaze, it is curious that men would uniformly adopt the black suit as their garment of choice. This revolution in male fashion was born from contradic- tory motives. On the one hand, the man in black attempted to avoid the gaze so as not to be anyone’s object of desire. An exception to this rule was the elegante, for whom fashion was a way of life. The elegante became a frequent target of the satirical press, which ques- tioned his masculinity. On the other hand, the black suit came simbolize the power of the ascendant middle class because it recalled Spain’s most important monarchs, such as Carlos V and Felipe II. The black suit thus became a polysemic signifier, and the man who wore it attempted, impossibly, to be both the subject and object of the gaze.

Differentiation in Male and Female Speech Styles

From the moment of their birth, a person's life is determined by their sex. Ms. Goroshko wants to know why this difference is so striking, why society is so concerned to sustain it, and how it is able to persist even when certain national or behavioural stereotypes are erased between people. She is convinced of the existence of not only social, but biological differences between men and women, and set herself the task, in a manuscript totalling 126 pages, written in Ukrainian and including extensive illustrations, of analysing these distinctions as they are manifested in language. She points out that, even before 1900, certain stylistic differences between the ways that men and women speak had been noted. Since then it has become possible, for instance in the case of Japanese, to point to examples of male and female sub-languages. In general, one can single out the following characteristics. Males tend to write with less fluency, to refer to events in a verb-phrase, to be time-oriented, to involve themselves more in their references to events, to locate events in their personal sphere of activity, and to refer less to others. Therefore, concludes Ms Goroshko, the male is shown to be more active, more ego-involved in what he does, and less concerned about others. Women, in contrast, were more fluent, referred to events in a noun-phrase, were less time-oriented, tended to be less involved in their event-references, locate events within their interactive community and refer more to others. They spent much more time discussing personal and domestic subjects, relationship problems, family, health and reproductive matters, weight, food and clothing, men, and other women. As regards discourse strategies, Ms Goroshko notes the following. Men more often begin a conversation, they make more utterances, these utterances are longer, they make more assertions, speak less carefully, generally determine the topic of conversation, speak more impersonally, use more vulgar expressions, and use fewer diminutives and more imperatives. Women's speech strategies, apart from being the opposite of those enumerated above, also contain more euphemisms, polite forms, apologies, laughter and crying. All of the above leads Ms. Goroshko to conclude that the differences between male and female speech forms are more striking than the similarities. Furthermore she is convinced that the biological divergence between the sexes is what generates the verbal divergence, and that social factors can only intensify or diminish the differentiation in verbal behaviour established by the sex of a person. Bearing all this in mind, Ms Goroshko set out to construct a grammar of male and female styles of speaking within Russian. One of her most important research tools was a certain type of free association test. She took a list comprising twelve stimuli (to love, to have, to speak, to fuck, a man, a woman, a child, the sky, a prayer, green, beautiful) and gave it to a group of participants specially selected, according to a preliminary psychological testing, for the high levels of masculinity or femininity they displayed. Preliminary responses revealed that the female reactions were more diverse than the male ones, there were more sentences and word combinations in the female reactions, men gave more negative responses to the stimulus and sometimes didn't want to react at all, women reacted more to adjectives and men to nouns, and that, surprisingly, women coloured more negatively their reactions to the words man, to love and a child (Ms. Goroshko is inclined to attribute this to the present economic situation in Russia). Another test performed by Ms. Goroshko was the so-called "defective text" developed by A.A. Brudny. All participants were distributed with packets of complete sentences, which had been taken from a text and then mixed at random. The task was to reconstruct the original text. There were three types of test, the first descriptive, the second narrative, and the third logical. Ms. Goroshko created computer programmes to analyse the results. She found that none of the reconstructed texts was coincident with the original, differing both from the original text and amongst themselves and that there were many more disparities in the male than the female texts. In the descriptive and logical texts the differences manifested themselves more clearly in the male texts, and in the narrative texts in the female texts. The widest dispersal of values was observed at the outset, while the female text ending was practically coincident with the original (in contrast to the male ending). The greatest differences in text reconstruction for both males and females were registered in the middle of the texts. Women, Ms. Goroshko claims, were more sensitive to the semantic structure of the texts, since they assembled the narrative text much more accurately than the other two, while the men assembled more accurately the logical text. Texts written by women were assembled more accurately by women and texts by men by men. On the basis of computer analysis, Ms. Goroshko found that female speech was substantially more emotional. It was expressed by various means, hyperbole, metaphor, comparisons, epithets, ways of enumeration, and with the aid of interjections, rhetorical questions, exclamations. The level of literacy was higher for female speech, and there were fewer mistakes in grammar and spelling in female texts. The last stage of Ms Goroshko's research concerned the social stereotypes of beliefs about men and women in Russian society today. A large number of respondents were asked questions such as "What merits must a woman possess?", "What are male vices and virtues?", etc. After statistical manipulation, an image of modern man and woman, as it exists in the minds of modern Russian men and women, emerged. Ms. Goroshko believes that her findings are significant not only within the field of linguistics. She has already successfully worked on anonymous texts and been able to decide on the sex of the author and consequently believes that in the future her research may even be of benefit to forensic science.

Language Construction of Reality in the German Tabloid Press/on Materials of BILD Newspaper/

From the moment of their birth, a person's life is determined by their sex. Goroshko wanted to find out why this difference is so striking, why society is so determined to sustain it, and how it can persist even when certain national or behavioural stereotypes are erased. She believes there are both social and biological differences between men and women, and set out to analyse these distinctions as they are manifested in language. Certain general characteristics can be identified. Males tend to write with less fluency, to refer to events in a verb phrase, to be time-oriented, to involve themselves more in their references to events, to locate events in their personal sphere of activity, and to refer less to others. Goroshko therefore concludes that the male is more active, more ego-involved in what he does and less concerned about others. Women were more fluent, referred to events in a noun-phrase, were less time-oriented, tended to be less involved in their event references, located events within their interactive community, and referred more to others. They spent much more time discussing personal and domestic subjects, relationship problems, family, health and reproductive matters, weight, food and clothing, men, and other women. Computer analysis showed that female speech was substantially more emotional, using hyperbole, metaphor, comparisons, epithets, ways of enumeration, interjections, rhetorical questions and exclamations. The level of literacy was higher in female speech, and women made fewer grammatical and spelling mistakes in written texts. Goroshko believes that her findings have relevance beyond the linguistic field. When working on anonymous texts she has been able to decide on the sex of the author and so believes that her research may even be of benefit to forensic science.

Effects of Standard Labor-Wear on Swimming and Treading Water

We tested the hypothesis that occupational clothing would impair performance during swimming. The sub questions included: (1) Will the standard work wear of a railway worker or laborer impede swimming ability? (2) Will this clothing impact the individual’s ability to tread water? We addressed the research questions with three hypotheses. Analysis showed statistically significant p-values and all three null hypotheses were rejected in favor of the three research hypotheses, showing strong evidence that standard labor wear had adverse effects on 11.43 meter/12.5 yard swim time, water treading time and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) during water treading. The mean swim time more than doubled when the subjects wore standard labor-wear and their average rate of perceived exertion increased from 11.6 in standard swim wear to 17.1 in standard laborwear. It may be beneficial for those workers who work near water to be exposed to educational programs that allow in-water experiences so they develop an understanding of their abilities in, and respect for, the water.

An Evaluation of Potential Occupational Exposure to Asbestiform Amphiboles near a Former Vermiculite Mine

Amphibole asbestos (AA) has been detected on the surface of tree bark in forests neighboring an abandoned vermiculite mine near Libby, Montana. In the present study, simulations were performed to assess potential AA exposure associated with United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (FS) occupational activities. Bark samples were collected prior, and personal breathing zone (PBZ) and Tyvek clothing wipe samples were collected during and immediately after trials that simulated FS activities. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses revealed AA bark concentrations up to 15 million structures per square centimeter (s/cm2). AA was detected in 25% of the PBZ TEM samples. AA was detected on wipe samples collected from all activities evaluated. This research demonstrates the potential for airborne exposure and transport of AA in the Kootenai National Forest. These findings are especially relevant to those that work in the area and to the general public who may conduct recreational activities.

An Empirical Study of Non-Rigid Surface Feature Matching of Human from 3D Video

This paper presents an empirical study of affine invariant feature detectors to perform matching on video sequences of people with non-rigid surface deformation. Recent advances in feature detection and wide baseline matching have focused on static scenes. Video frames of human movement capture highly non-rigid deformation such as loose hair, cloth creases, skin stretching and free flowing clothing. This study evaluates the performance of six widely used feature detectors for sparse temporal correspondence on single view and multiple view video sequences. Quantitative evaluation is performed of both the number of features detected and their temporal matching against and without ground truth correspondence. Recall-accuracy analysis of feature matching is reported for temporal correspondence on single view and multiple view sequences of people with variation in clothing and movement. This analysis identifies that existing feature detection and matching algorithms are unreliable for fast movement with common clothing.

Reflectance Transfer for Material Editing and Relighting

We present a new approach to diffuse reflectance estimation for dynamic scenes. Non-parametric image statistics are used to transfer reflectance properties from a static example set to a dynamic image sequence. The approach allows diffuse reflectance estimation for surface materials with inhomogeneous appearance, such as those which commonly occur with patterned or textured clothing. Material editing is also possible by transferring edited reflectance properties. Material reflectance properties are initially estimated from static images of the subject under multiple directional illuminations using photometric stereo. The estimated reflectance together with the corresponding image under uniform ambient illumination form a prior set of reference material observations. Material reflectance properties are then estimated for video sequences of a moving person captured under uniform ambient illumination by matching the observed local image statistics to the reference observations. Results demonstrate that the transfer of reflectance properties enables estimation of the dynamic surface normals and subsequent relighting combined with material editing. This approach overcomes limitations of previous work on material transfer and relighting of dynamic scenes which was limited to surfaces with regions of homogeneous reflectance. We evaluate our approach for relighting 3D model sequences reconstructed from multiple view video. Comparison to previous model relighting demonstrates improved reproduction of detailed texture and shape dynamics.

Application and comparison of UTCI and PET in temperature climate conditions

The assessment of the thermal bioclimate is based on the human energy balance and derived indices such as Physiologically equivalent temperature (Pet) or Universal thermal Climate index (UtCi). These two indices were compared over a period often year based on hourly data in a middle european city with a temperate climate. The analysis performed shows that the differences obtained result from the different thermo-physiological settings of clothing insulation. For conditions with extremely high vapour pressure values, UtCi yields higher values than Pet, which could describe the thermo-physiological stress more appropriately.

Veil: Mirror of Identity

The Islamic headscarf has become the subject of heated legal and political debate. France and Germany have legislated against it, and even the UK, long a champion of multiculturalism, has recently restricted the veil proper. Ever since home-grown Islamic terrorism struck Europe, these debates have become even more prominent, impassioned and wide-ranging, with vital global importance. In this concise and beautifully written introduction to the politics of the veil in modern societies, Christian Joppke examines why a piece of clothing could have led to such controversy. He dissects the multiple meanings of the Islamic headscarf, and explores its links with the global rise of Islam, Muslim integration, and the retreat from multiculturalism. He argues that the headscarf functions as a mirror of identity, but one in which national and liberal identities overlap, exposing the paradox that while it may be an affront to liberal values, its suppression is equally illiberal.

Productivity and Market Integration in American Communal Dairying, 1830-1875

In our late twentieth century experience, survival of an economy seems critically dependent on well established rights to private property and a return to labor that rewards greater effort. But that need not be so. History provides examples of micro-socialist economies that internally, at least, allow for little private property for participants and a constant return to labor that is independent of effort. Some such economies may even be termed 'successful,' if success is taken to mean survival over several generations. If these communities survived without conditions that are generally thought to be necessary for success, a question worth asking is how this occurred, for we can then shed some light on what really is necessary for economic survival. Addressing this issue emphasizes the critical role of time, for even if the microsocialist economies that we study here eventually became the merest shadow of their former selves, the fact that they did flourish for so long makes them a valuable counterexample, and hence, a phenomenon in need of explanation. We consider here the dairy industry of the Shakers, which was characterized by intensive efforts to increase productivity, in part through the use of market signals, but efforts that were also limited by the ideological goals of the community. The Shakers were (and are, but since it is the historical Shakers that concern this paper, the past tense will be used) a Christian communal group. Some of their distinctive beliefs included the existence of a male and female Godhead, from which followed sexual equality, and active communication between Believers (a Shaker term for members of the sect) and denizens of the spirit world. Practices of the Society (their official name is the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, the second appearing being in the body of their foundress, an illiterate Englishwoman named Ann Lee) included pacifism, celibacy, confession of sins to elders, and joint or communal ownership of the Society's assets. Each Shaker received the same return for his or her labor: room, board, clothing, and the experience of divine proximity in a community of like minded Believers (Stein 1992).

Psychosocial measures reported by parents in studies of skin cancer prevention

Background. Because it is important to minimize children's sun exposure to reduce skin cancer risk, much of the extensive skin cancer prevention literature consists of studies of children's sun protection, sun avoidance and ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure. Little attention has been focused on the measurement of psychosocial constructs in these studies. Identification of the psychosocial correlates or determinants of children's skin cancer risk or risk-reduction behavior is critical to more fully understand and predict behavior. Furthermore, psychosocial variables may be influenced by interventions to reduce risk. Thus, it is important to examine the psychosocial measures used in studies of children's skin cancer prevention. Information on the validity and reliability of psychosocial measures may increase confidence in study findings based on these measures. In particular, self-efficacy and barriers are key constructs in several major theoretical frameworks and parental measures have been associated with children's sun protection. However, there is conceptual overlap of self-efficacy and barriers measures and little is known about the psychometric properties of these measures.^ Study Aims and Methods. The overall goal of this dissertation was to examine the measurement of psychosocial constructs relevant to children's skin cancer prevention. Because children depend primarily on their parents for skin cancer prevention, measures of parents' psychosocial constructs are the focus. Study 1 was a systematic review of parental psychosocial measures used in studies of children's sun protection, sun avoidance and UVR exposure. The specific aims of Study 1 were to (1) describe psychosocial measures reported by parents, including available information on the psychometric properties of these measures and their use in analyses and (2) provide recommendations for the development, refinement and standardized reporting of measures. ^ Study 2 examined the psychometric properties of measures of parental self-efficacy and barriers regarding children's sun protection. Melanoma patients (N=205) who were parents of children ≤ 12 years of age completed a telephone interview that included self-efficacy and barriers measures specific to sunscreen, clothing, shade and limiting time outdoors. The specific aims of Study 2 were to (1) use a confirmatory factor analytic approach to examine the factorial validity of parental self-efficacy and barriers measures, (2) examine the convergent and discriminant validity of behavior-specific measures of self-efficacy and barriers and (3) assess the reliability of item and scale measures.^ Results. In Study 1, a search of standard databases yielded 48 eligible studies. Most studies assessed only one or two psychosocial constructs. Knowledge was measured most frequently. There was little discussion of measure source, development, theoretical background or psychometric properties, besides internal consistency reliability. There was conceptual overlap of some measures. In Study 2, confirmatory factor analytic findings supported the factorial validity of the self-efficacy and barriers measures. When all eight self-efficacy and barriers measures were included in the same model, a modified eight-factor model adequately fit the data, providing preliminary evidence that the measures are distinct. Measure associations supported the convergent validity of all measures and the discriminant validity of most measures. The self-efficacy and barriers measures were reliable.^ Conclusions. Recommendations based on the literature review include developing and refining psychosocial measures based on theory. Describing a measure's theoretical basis and psychometric properties would facilitate critical evaluation. Standardized reporting of source, development, theory, construct, items and analytic role would facilitate comparison of findings, continual refinement and future applications of measures. In the validation study, self-efficacy and barriers measures were examined in a sample of parents with a personal history of melanoma. Findings suggested that these measures are valid and reliable for use in studies of children's sun protection. There was preliminary evidence that these measures are distinct but additional study is needed. ^

Change in permeation rates of acids and bases through limited use protective fabrics after repeated wash cycles

The primary objective of this study was to determine if there is a change in permeation rates when limited use protective fabrics undergo repeated exposure and wash cycles. The null hypothesis of this study was that no substantial change in permeation takes place after the test material is subjected to repeated contact with a strong acid or base and has undergone repeated wash cycles. ^ The materials tested were DuPont Tychem® CPF 3 and CPF 4 fabrics. The challenge chemicals in this study were ninety-eight percent sulfuric acid and fifty percent sodium hydroxide. Permeation testing was conducted utilizing ASTM designation F739-99a Standard Test Method for Resistance of Protective Clothing Materials to Permeation by Liquids or Gases Under Conditions of Continuous Contact. ^ In this study, no change in permeation rates of either challenge chemical was detected for CPF 3 or CPF 4 limited use protective fabrics after repeated exposure and wash cycles. Certain unexposed areas of the fabric suffered structural degradation unrelated to exposure and which may be due to multiple washings.^

Discursos de poder en el fitness : El comercio de los entrenamientos que duelen

Investigar las prácticas del fitness puede suponer adentrarse en un camino incierto. La configuración histórica de este puzzle se constituye a partir de la comercialización de la gimnasia aeróbica. A partir de este modo de hacer gimnasia se construye un negocio en torno a diferentes productos, vestimentas, equipamientos, etc. Asimismo, para legitimar estas prácticas fue necesario utilizar los estudios e investigaciones que realizan las ciencias médicas. A través de estas ciencias la gimnasia aeróbica, y años más tarde, las clases de fitness grupal, se consideran válidas en el imaginario social de los clientes. Las empresas encargadas de comercializar estas clases pre-coreografiadas de fitness grupal, a través de estudios de marketing y de la veracidad de los estudios de las ciencias legitimadoras, intentan posicionarse en el mercado, aumentar el capital y continuar desplegando el negocio