Territoriality and playground disturbances : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Education

The concept of 'territoriality' has become a fairly common term within social scientific literature - and yet its application in the analysis of human behaviour appears to have been made with little reference to, or regard for, the concept's original form. The present investigation serves two purposes - first, to attempt to use the concept in the description and explanation of the etiology of social disturbances in school settings; and second, to look closely at the concept and assess its general worth in the analysis of human behaviour. Before investigating the possibility of a correlation between disturbances and the manifestation of territoriality, observations were made of the school pupil population during intervals to establish whether or not the pupils tended to occupy specific locations for protracted lengths of time - perhaps the most basic requisite of territorial behaviour. Observers gathered data in terms of the specific activities occurring and the sex and number of players. Time sampling was used, and the data confirmed that pupils do tend to return to the same geographical location to perform the same activity over a period of time. The stability of the pupil activity groups over time provided the foundation for a participant observer subsequently to investigate a second feature of territoriality - that territories are defended. The observer's task was to interview those involved in identified disturbances, and attempt to establish the etiology of the disturbance. The hypothesis was that the disturbances would be a function of the territorial behaviour of the groups. In so far as territorial behaviour can be defined in terms of Barker's (1968) 'maintenance mechanisms', the hypothesis was supported. 83% of disturbances were deemed to involve at least one feature of territoriality - be it membership, equipment, space, boundaries, or a combination of these. A further feature of the concept of 'territoriality' within animal behavioural research is that the territorial group members recognise each other on the basis of certain membership criteria. Within the pupil activity groups observed to investigate this feature among humans, membership criteria were also found to exist. These criteria were identified as being sex, class level, the amount of space available, family relationships, and physical size. On the basis of these criteria pupils were observed to be accepted or rejected from activity groups during school intervals. The findings of these initial investigations into the existence of three features of animal territoriality within human group behaviour, lend weight to an acceptance of the concept of territoriality as an adequate unit of analysis in the explanation of human group behaviour. However, throughout the investigations certain assumptions which underlie the concept tended to surface from time to time and raise doubts about the concept's applicability in human behavioural analysis. These assumptions included the idea that the territorial behaviour was manifested by members of both sexes; that territorial groups were family groups only; and that territorial behaviour was designed to repel intruders. All of these were shown in the present study to be not accurate. Added to these assumptions, the ethological literature reflects two crucial points of dissention. Ethologists, it seems, can not agree whether or not man is a territorial species. Again, among those who do accept that man is a territorial species, there is an argument over whether the territorial behaviour manifested by man is learned or instinctive. There are apparent problems in transferring a unit of analysis of animal behaviour to cover human behaviour as well. The problems are accentuated in the assumptions and debates outlined above, and compounded by the fact that within the social sciences there already exists a number of other theories and concepts which serve to explain the same human behaviour as territoriality attempts to do. While not completely rejecting the applicability of the concept of territoriality within human behavioural analysis, the conclusion arrived at was that the concept was of limited utility to the social scientist

Subsurface Raman Imaging with Nanoscale Resolution

We report on chemically specific, subsurface imaging with high spatial resolution. Using tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, we probe carbon nanotubes buried beneath a host dielectric media. We demonstrate our ability to map and resolve specific vibrational modes with 30 nm spatial resolution for dielectric layers with different thicknesses

Chirality Changes in Carbon Nanotubes Studied with Near-Field Raman Spectroscopy

We report on the direct visualization of chirality changes in carbon nanotubes by mapping local changes in resonant RBM phonon frequencies with an optical resolution of 40 nm using near-field Raman spectroscopy. We observe the transition from semiconducting-to-metal and metal-to-metal chiralities at the single nanotube level. Our experimental findings, based on detecting changes in resonant RBM frequencies, are complemented by measuring changes in the G-band frequency and line shape. In addition, we observe increased Raman scattering due to local defects associated with the structural transition. From our results, we determine the spatial extent of the transition region to be Ltrans 40−100 nm

Nanoscale Vibrational Analysis of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

We use near-field Raman imaging and spectroscopy to study localized vibrational modes along individual, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) with a spatial resolution of 10−20 nm. Our approach relies on the enhanced field near a laser-irradiated gold tip which acts as the Raman excitation source. We find that for arc-discharge SWNTs, both the radial breathing mode (RBM) and intermediate frequency mode (IFM) are highly localized. We attribute such localization to local changes in the tube structure (n, m). In comparison, we observe no such localization of the Raman active modes in SWNTs grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The direct comparison between arc-discharge and CVD-grown tubes allows us to rule out any artifacts induced by the supporting substrate

When good bugs go bad: Epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance profiles of Corynebacterium striatum, an emerging multidrug-resistant, opportunistic pathogen

ABSTRACT Infections with Corynebacterium striatum have been described in the literature over the last 2 decades, with the majority being bacteremia, central line infections, and occasionally, endocarditis. In recent years, the frequency of C. striatum infections appears to be increasing; a factor likely contributing to this is the increased ease and accuracy of the identification of Corynebacterium spp., including C. striatum , from clinical cultures. The objective of this study was to retrospectively characterize C. striatum isolates recovered from specimens submitted as part of routine patient care at a 1,250-bed, tertiary-care academic medical center. Multiple strain types were recovered, as demonstrated by repetitive-sequence-based PCR. Most of the strains of C. striatum characterized were resistant to antimicrobials commonly used to treat Gram-positive organisms, such as penicillin, ceftriaxone, meropenem, clindamycin, and tetracycline. The MIC 50 for ceftaroline was &gt;32 μg/ml. Although there are no interpretive criteria for susceptibility with telavancin, it appeared to have potent in vitro efficacy against this species, with MIC 50 and MIC 90 values of 0.064 and 0.125 μg/ml, respectively. Finally, as previously reported in case studies, we demonstrated rapid in vitro development of daptomycin resistance in 100% of the isolates tested ( n = 50), indicating that caution should be exhibited when using daptomycin for the treatment of C. striatum infections. C. striatum is an emerging, multidrug-resistant pathogen that can be associated with a variety of infection types. </jats:p

Differential effects of food availability on minimum and maximum rates of metabolism

Metabolic rates reflect the energetic cost of living but exhibit remarkable variation among conspecifics, partly as a result of the constraints imposed by environmental conditions. Metabolic rates are sensitive to changes in temperature and oxygen availability, but effects of food availability, particularly on maximum metabolic rates, are not well understood. Here, we show in brown trout (Salmo trutta) that maximum metabolic rates are immutable but minimum metabolic rates increase as a positive function of food availability. As a result, aerobic scope (i.e. the capacity to elevate metabolism above baseline requirements) declines as food availability increases. These differential changes in metabolic rates likely have important consequences for how organisms partition available metabolic power to different functions under the constraints imposed by food availability

Duty of care in sport: time for a sports ombudsman?

Discusses the proposal, made in the report "The Duty of Care in Sport" published by the Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport in April 2017, for a Sports Ombudsman to be established with powers to hold national sports governing bodies to account for the duty of care they provide to sportspersons and others associated with sport. Examines four possible models for the operation of this Ombudsman, and suggests aspects of its mandate