The Spanish social tariff and renewable energy cooperatives: situation and perspectives

Social tariffs are, along with transfer payments and energy efficiency measures, an instrument to alleviate energy poverty. The name of the Spanish social tariff is “bono social”, and it was established in 2009. To qualify for bono social, the electricity consumer should meet any of the socioeconomic requirements stipulated by law and contract the electricity supply with a “comercializadora de referencia”, companies that are required to offer the bono social by law.Renewable energy cooperatives, a recent phenomenon in Spain, are not comercializadoras de referencia, so they are not obliged to offer the bono social. This does not mean there are no cooperative members at risk of energy poverty or vulnerable consumers.This study has two objectives. The first is to sketch the socioeconomic profile of members of the renewable energy cooperatives. The second is to analyze if these members are entitled to the bono social, or would be to other subsidized prices with different requirements to those of the bono social.For this purpose, we conducted a survey to members of the largest renewable energy cooperative in Spain, Som Energia. The results show that the members of renewable energy cooperatives are exposed to energy poverty risk, although its reach depends on the definition of vulnerable consumer.

Balancing deceit and disguise: How to successfully fool the defender in a 1 vs. 1 situation in rugby

Suddenly changing direction requires a whole body reorientation strategy. In sporting duels such as an attacker vs. a defender in rugby, successful body orientation/reorientation strategies are essential for successful performance. The aim of this study is to examine which biomechanical factors, while taking into account biomechanical constraints, are used by an attacker in a 1 vs. 1 duel in rugby. More specifically we wanted to examine how an attacker tries to deceive the defender yet disguise his intentions by comparing effective deceptive movements (DM+), ineffective deceptive movements (DM-), and non-deceptive movements (NDM). Eight French amateur expert rugby union players were asked to perform DMs and NDMs in a real 1 vs. 1 duel. For each type of movement (DM+, DM-, NDM) different relevant orientation/reorientation parameters, medio-lateral displacement of the center of mass (COM), foot, head, upper trunk, and lower trunk yaw; and upper trunk roll were analyzed and compared. Results showed that COM displacement and lower trunk yaw were minimized during DMs while foot displacement along with head and upper trunk yaw were exaggerated during DMs (DM+ and DM-). This would suggest that the player is using exaggerated body-related information to consciously deceive the defender into thinking he will run in a given direction while minimizing other postural control parameters to disguise a sudden change in posture necessary to modify final running direction. Further analysis of the efficacy of deceptive movements showed how the disguise and deceit strategies needed to be carefully balanced to successfully fool the defender. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Michel Foucault and Dorothy Smith in Case File Research: Strange Bedfellows or Complimentary Thinkers?

The aim of this article is to provide an exploration how the work of two theorists with notably different stances could be used effectively to enhance critical research methods in relation to the history of child welfare social work. The design and implementation of child welfare policies, practices and discourses could considerably benefit from a more historically well grounded scholarship that enables actors to connect their present concerns with the broader historical dynamics of social regulation. The article reports on how the work of Michel Foucault and Dorothy E. Smith might be considered in parallel as two different perspectives to the same scene in time and place. The differences and similarities in their approaches are explored with an emphasis on concepts most relevant to researching child welfare archives including discourse, text, the subject and power-knowledge. The article concludes with a commentary on further development to take forward this methodological analysis.

'Strange Visitor From Another Planet': Genre, Corporate Identity and the Arrival of American Telefantasy on British Television

While the BBC had been broadcasting television Science Fiction productions from as early as 1938, and Horror since the start of television in 1936, American Telefantasy had no place on British television until ITV’s broadcast of Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) in 1956. It would be easy to assign this absence to the avoidance of popular American programming, but this would ignore the presence of Western and adventure serials imported from the US and Canada for monopoly British television. Similarly, it would be inaccurate to suggest that these imports were purely purchased as thrilling fare to appease a child audience, as it was the commercial ITV that was first to broadcast the more adult-orientated Science Fiction Theatre (1955-7) and Inner Sanctum (1954). This article builds on the work of Paul Rixon and Rob Leggott to argue that these imports were used primarily to supply relatively cheap broadcast material for the new channel, but that they also served to appeal to the notion of spectacular entertainment attached to the new channel through its own productions, such as The Invisible Man (1958-1959) and swashbucklers such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-60). However, the appeal was not just to the exciting, but also to the transatlantic, with ITV embracing this conception of America as a modern place of adventure through its imports and its creation of productions for export, incorporating an American lead into The Invisible Man and drawing upon an (inexpensive) American talent pool of blacklisted screenwriters to provide a transatlantic style and relevance to its own adventure series. Where the BBC used its imported serials as filler directed at children, ITV embraced this transatlantic entertainment as part of its identity and differentiation from the BBC.

Every Situation has its Rhythm: Acoustic Mimesis and Sonic Exoticism in Tambours Sur La Digue.

This article examines the soundscapes of Ariane Mnouchkine’s Tambours Sur La Digue and explores the concept of acoustic mimesis located in the performance as a dramaturgical strategy to create, aurally, an imagined Far East. In Tambours, mimesis is the performative principle exemplified by the presentation of the mise en scène, and most distinctly Mnouckine’s decision to adapt the Japanese performance tradition of Bunraku through a process of 'reversed' mimicry (in which human bodies simulate the wooden marionettes of the Japanese style). Mimesis pervades the acoustemologies of the performance as it is heard in the extracted sounds, styles, and rhythms of Asian musical modes and movements that consequently become dislocated from context; the sounds become imitated, iconicised and exoticised as sonic signatures as they reify the Orientalist spectacle. The 'oriental' soundscape, reverberating with exotic overtones, becomes the means by which the production creates an imaginary Orient – one in which the Orient Other is silenced, and is resounded only through the musical sensibilities of the Occidental Self.