James and Nancy Duncan look at how the aesthetics of physical landscapes are fully enmeshed in producing the American class system. Focusing on an archetypal upper class American suburb-Bedford in ...Westchester County, NY-they show how the physical presentation of a place carries with it a range of markers of inclusion and exclusion.
James Duncan is a University Lecturer in Geography at Cambridge University, and Nancy Duncan is Affiliated Lecturer of Geography at Cambridge University.
This article examines the aestheticization of the politics of exclusion in a suburban American community. The research for this study focuses on the relationships among landscapes, social identity, ...exclusion, and the aesthetic attitudes of residents of Bedford, New York. By being thoroughly aestheticized, class relations are mystified and reduced to questions of lifestyle, consumption patterns, taste, and visual pleasure. Landscapes become possessions that play an active role in the performance of elite social identities. As such, social distinction is achieved and maintained by preserving and enhancing the beauty of places such as Bedford. This aestheticizing of place is managed through highly restrictive zoning policies for residential land and by "protecting" hundreds of acres of undeveloped land as nature preserves. This article explores the role of romantic ideology, localism, antiurbanism, antimodernism, and a class-based aesthetic in the construction of "wild" nature in these preserves. We argue that, in places such as Bedford, the celebration of localism, environmental beauty, and preservation mask the interrelatedness of issues of aesthetics and class identity on the one hand and residential land shortages in the New York metropolitan region on the other. The seemingly innocent pleasure in the aesthetic appreciation of landscapes and the desire to protect nature can act as a subtle but highly effective mechanism of social exclusion and the reaffirmation of elite class identities.
How do landscapes work as class codes? In Landscapes of Privilege , James and Nancy Duncan look at how the aesthetics of physical landscapes are fully enmeshed in producing the American class system. ...Focusing on an archetypal upper class American suburb - Bedford in Westchester County, NY - they show how the physical presentation of a place carries with it a range of markers of inclusion and exclusion. Landscapes are very important in conveying social distinction and hierarchy - even while they make the ordering of a place appear 'natural' to everyone. Landscapes essentially act as cultural codes. If they encode affluence, residents work to reproduce them through stringent aesthetic rules, zoning restrictions, and slow growth coalitions. In full, this process has produced the physical form of the contemporary upper middle-class American suburb. Genuinely innovative, Landscapes of Privilege is one of the first books to apply critical landscape theory to the social production of American elites.
Culture unbound Duncan, Nancy G; Duncan, James S
Environment and planning. A,
03/2004, Volume:
36, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The key concept of culture has recently been undergoing critical reassessment, and in some cases replacement, by cultural theorists in a number of fields. Some commentators have argued that the ...concept of culture is too elusive and all encompassing to be of use and that it can be politically dangerous. We will argue instead that the problem is not inherent in all concepts of culture, but in the specific political uses to which particular concepts of culture have been put. We think there is a need to rethink the concept of culture. In fact, cultural coherence in the face of heterogeneity and porous boundaries, complexity, and complicity across far-reaching networks are some of the most challenging and intriguing issues in cultural theory today. Thus we explore alternative conceptions of culture that might hold some promise for cultural geography. Our view is that no one conception holds the answer. Rather, cultural geographers need to develop a critically eclectic mix of culture theories and allow sufficient time for these to be empirically grounded.
Information technology (IT) infrastructure has been identified in recent years in some businesses as having a critical impact on the firm's ability to use IT competitively. Although a flexible ...infrastructure is considered highly valuable under certain circumstances, it is difficult to plan and to measure because there is no common, operational definition. This paper addresses the problem at two levels. First, it presents and explores various efforts to define or describe infrastructure flexibility in the literature. It identifies basic components of IT infrastructure and previously proposed characteristics of flexibility. The discussion considers concepts of IT resource management, including technological architecture, alignment of planning, and human resource skills, all of which have also been linked to definitions of infrastructure flexibility. Second, the paper explores how the concept of infrastructure flexibility is viewed among IT executives. The characteristics of infrastructure may vary with firm resources and industry characteristics such as information intensity; consequently, we may expect flexibility to be either developed or thwarted in a great number of ways. An informal study of IT executives' experience with and opinions of infrastructure flexibility results in a view of the practical issues of infrastructure flexibility. Based on the outcome of this study, a framework is presented for developing tools for future efforts to evaluate infrastructure flexibility. Methods by which the framework may be used to develop individualized infrastructure benchmarking tools are proposed.
Acute pain control after cranial surgery is challenging. Prior research has shown that patients experience
inadequate pain control post-craniotomy. The use of oral medications is sometimes delayed ...because of postoperative nausea, and the use of narcotics can impair the evaluation of brain function and thus are used judiciously. Few nonnarcotic intravenous (IV) analgesics exist. The authors present the results of the first prospective study evaluating the use of IV acetaminophen in patients after elective craniotomy.
The authors conducted a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled investigation. Adults undergoing
elective, supratentorial craniotomies between September 2013 and June 2015 were randomized into two groups. The experimental group received 1000 mg/100 ml IV acetaminophen every 8 hours for 48 hours. The placebo group received 100 ml of 0.9% normal saline on the same schedule. Both groups were also treated with a standardized pain control algorithm. The study was powered to detect a 30% difference in the primary outcome measures: narcotic consumption (morphine equivalents, ME) at 24 and 48 hours after surgery. Patient-reported pain scores immediately postoperatively and 48 hours after surgery were also recorded.
A total of 204 patients completed the trial. No significant differences were found in narcotic consumption
between groups at either time point (in the treatment and placebo groups, respectively, at 24 hours: 84.3 ME 95% CI 70.2–98.4 and 85.5 ME 95% CI 73–97.9; and at 48 hours: 123.5 ME 95% CI 102.9–144.2 and 134.2 ME 95% CI 112.1–156.3). The difference in improvement in patient-reported pain scores between the treatment and placebo groups was significant (p < 0.001).
Patients who received postoperative IV acetaminophen after craniotomy did not have significantly decreased
narcotic consumption but did experience significantly lower pain scores after surgery. The drug was well tolerated and safe in this patient population.
The Internet has made music more widely available and increased the convenience with which we can listen to music. We increasingly recognize that recorded music can take the form of digital files. ...The Internet and related technologies for music delivery have been made viable by advances in compression, data storage, and transmission technologies. To provide greater value to consumers, music labels need to make greater use of retrieval and selection technologies.
An 11-year mixed-methods, cross-sectional longitudinal study began with a group of 121 children, identified as gifted, and followed them until high-school graduation. Parents annually identified ...negative life events experienced by child and family, and, at graduation, students completed an open-ended retrospective questionnaire, focusing on events, impact of events, supports, and hindrances during the school years. As a result of attrition, participants became increasingly homogeneous over time. School data were available for 59 students (of 63 family units who sustained involvement) at the end. The students had experienced many negative events and situations during the school years. However, they usually cited academic challenges, school transitions, peer relationships, and overcommitment as their most challenging experiences, not life events. Almost without exception, they maintained high achievement.
Putting the Research to Use:
Gifted students may not communicate their distress to adults who are invested in their achievement or non-achievement. Significant adults therefore might wisely keep the findings in this study in mind as they interact with them. Inquiring casually about how the students are feeling or how they are managing high-stress times in the academic or extra-curricular year might be appreciated and potentially helpful. Though habits of achievement may help them to maintain high grades and high levels of extra-curricular performance, achievers might quietly experience high levels of stress from their heavy involvements in or outside of school. Low achievement and a high number of absences may also reflect personal stress in gifted students. Showing non-voyeuristic, holistic interest in gifted students as complex individuals, gently commenting when they seem “flat,” not fueling ultra-competitive attitudes, and offering credible comments about personal strengths and resilience might offer crucial support at a time of vulnerability.
Sensorineural hearing loss is found in many inherited forms of muscular dystrophy. We investigated the
dy mouse model, which has congenital muscular dystrophy due to a defect in laminin α2, for ...evidence of cochlear dysfunction. Auditory brainstem response (ABR) audiometry to pure tones was used to evaluate 3-month-old homozygous
dy/
dy and age-matched C57 control mice. The average ABR thresholds to tone-burst stimuli for four frequencies (4, 8, 16, and 32
kHz) were determined and statistically compared by ANOVA. The
dy/
dy mice demonstrated elevated auditory thresholds ranging from 25 to 27
dB at each frequency tested (
p<0.0001). Anatomic evaluations of the ears revealed pathology ranging from extensive connective tissue infiltration within the inner ear to possible minor defects in the cells of the organ of Corti. These anatomic and physiologic observations suggest that the extracellular matrix protein laminin plays a crucial role in normal cochlear function. Furthermore, the
dy congenital muscular dystrophy mouse offers a novel model for evaluation of sensorineural hearing loss associated with muscular dystrophy.
Positive Life Experiences Peterson, Jean Sunde; Canady, Kate; Duncan, Nancy
Journal for the education of the gifted,
03/2012, Volume:
35, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
At the culmination of an 11-year qualitative, cross-sectional study of life events, 48 high-ability high school graduates fitting common stereotypes associated with giftedness completed an open-ended ...questionnaire, part of which focused on positive life experiences and sources of support. Findings included that intense investment in academics, activities, and service contributed to new perspectives, vision and direction, confidence in competence, social connections, spiritual growth, and additional opportunities. Some experiences were considered life-changing. Participants’ language reflected individual accomplishment, a dominant-culture value, but the main themes reflected fulfillment, validation, satisfaction, and, unexpectedly, many values associated with nonmainstream cultural groups. Findings are presented within a core-values framework associated with positive psychology.
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