Optical Propagation and Communication

Contains research objectives and summary of research on four research projects.National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Grant NGR 22-009-013)U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-76-C-0605)Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAB07-76-C-1400)National Science Foundation (Grant ENG74-00131-AO2)U. S. Air Force - Electronic Systems Division (Contract F19628-76-C-0054)National Science Foundation (Grant ENG74-03996-A1

Historical wealth accounts for Britain : progress and puzzles in measuring the sustainability of economic growth

We thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding this research under the project ‘History and the Future’.Estimates of Britain's comprehensive wealth are reported for the period 1760-2000. They include measures of produced, natural, and human capital, and illustrate the changing composition of Britain's assets over this time period. We show how genuine savings, GS (a year-on-year measure of the change in total capital and a claimed indicator of sustainable development) has evolved over time. Changes in total wealth are compared to alternative, investment-based measures of GS, including variants augmented with the value of exogenous technology. Additionally, the possible effects of population change on wealth, and the implications of including carbon-dioxide emissions in natural capital are considered.PostprintPeer reviewe

Optical Propagation and Communication

Contains research objectives and reports on two research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant ENG78-21603)U.S. Army Research Office - Durham (Contract DAAG29-80-C-0010)Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAG29-78-C-0020

Firewood consumption and energy transition: A survey of sources, methods and explanations in Europe and North America

This article surveys current literature on historical wood fuel use in North America and Europe. It focuses in particular on the quality of national-level data, highlighting and examining the different methods employed by official bodies to collect this; and in turn, the different assumptions used by historians to use partial data in models to estimate overall consumption. Problematic differences are revealed, along with the likely over-estimation of commonly-used data on the United States in the nineteenth century. It is shown that generally aggregate firewood consumption did not decline in many countries until after World War Two, and remained significant especially in rural domestic uses. The article concludes with a discussion of drivers for different levels of consumption and transition to substitute fuels, highlighting the limitations of price data and the importance of local labour markets for understanding the propensity to use wood fuel or switch to alternatives</jats:p

Supplementing food for health: Practices amongst French adults aged 60 to 75 years

The use of food supplements continues to grow in France, even though it is being discouraged by the main health and medical authorities. The ambiguous definitions surrounding these products make it difficult to measure their consumption. Using a qualitative survey based on interviews (n = 31) of consumers aged 60 to 75 years, this paper explores the ways in which this consumption is increasing. It traces the adoption of food supplementation in this age group back to life-course events, relating to health in particular. Using the practice theory, three forms of supplementation are identified according to the norms, products, sources of medical prescription and purposes at play. The first form is dependent on orthodox medical prescription having been taken; the supplements are prescribed by a doctor and considered by the consumer to be almost like medicinal products. The second form is linked to heterodox 'natural' therapies; products are most often based on plants and considered to be traditional remedies. The third form is related to a heterodox micronutritional approach, claiming to be scientifically advanced; products are identified as food supplements, and their consumption reflected a strategy of prevention, or even health optimisation in ageing. The affinities between these supplementation forms and the individuals' social characteristics are discussed. Results suggest that common consumer categories should be better integrated in the measurement of food supplement consumption

Prime beef cuts : culinary images for thinking 'men'

The paper contributes to scholarship theorising the sociality of the brand in terms of subject positions it makes possible through drawing upon the generative context of circulating discourses, in this case of masculinity, cuisine and celebrity. Specifically, it discusses masculinity as a socially constructed gender practice (Bristor and Fischer, 1993), examining materialisations of such practice in the form of visualisations of social relations as resources for 'thinking gender' or 'doing gender'. The transformative potential of the visualisations is illuminated by exploring the narrative content choreographed within a series of photographic images positioning the market appeal of a celebrity chef through the medium of a contemporary lifestyle cookery book. We consider how images of men 'doing masculinity'are not only channelled into reproducing existing gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in the service of commercial ends, but also into disrupting such enduring stereotyping through subtle reframing. We acknowledge that masculinity is already inscribed within conventionalised representations of culinary culture. In this case we consider how traces of masculinity are exploited and reinscribed through contemporary images that generate resources for rethinking masculine roles and identities, especially when viewed through the lens of stereotypically feminised pursuits such as shopping, food preparation, cooking, and the communal intimacy of food sharing. We identify unsettling tensions within the compositions, arguing that they relate to discursive spaces between the gendered positions written into the images and the popular imagination they feed off. Set against landscapes of culinary culture, we argue that the images invoke a brand of naively roughish "laddishness" or "blokishness", rendering it in domesticated form not only as benign and containable, but fashionable, pliable and, importantly, desirable. We conclude that although the images draw on stereotypical premeditated notions of a feral, boisterous and untamed heterosexual masculinity, they also set in motion gender-blending narratives

Optical Propagation and Communication

Contains reports on four research projects.National Science Foundation (Grant ENG78-21603)U.S. Army Research Office - Durham (Contract DAAG29-80-K-0022)U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-81-K-0662)U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-80-C-0941

Insects are not 'the new sushi': theories of practice and the acceptance of novel foods

Food geographies have long grappled with the interplay between production and consumption. Theories of practice offer productive new ways of conceptualising the mutual implication of supply and demand in shaping food consumption, yet little work has approached the subject of novel foods from this perspective. This paper applies practice-theoretic analysis to two novel foods, aiming to demonstrate the utility of the approach for a number of substantive areas and to extend conceptual and theoretical debates within food geographies. The paper compares sushi (a novel food successfully established in the US in the 1960s) and insects (a novel ‘sustainable’ protein source for Western markets, which to date has been relatively unsuccessful). Many accounts portray sushi’s success as the result of marketing efforts and the role of a ‘gateway dish’, arguing that insects – as ‘the new sushi’ – can follow this model to achieve widespread acceptance. It is argued that sushi’s initial Western establishment was instead due to pre-existent practices ‘carried’ to a new location, where the practices’ relevant constituent elements were also present. Conversely, European food insects are not clearly assimilable within pre-existing practices; instead, integration into existing food practices has been attempted. Such efforts are demonstrably problematic

Problematizing Choice: Responsible consumers and sceptical citizens

About the book: Governance, Consumers and Citizens is the first book to bring together a study of governance with consumption, examining the changing place of the consumer as citizen in recent trends in governance, the tensions between competing ideas and practices of consumerism and the active role consumers play in the construction and practice of governance. Radically pushing forward the debate on consumers and governance, this collection outlines new conceptions and posits new policy agendas. Bringing together international experts from political science, history, geography, social policy and media studies, this study shows how governance and consumption are intertwined in crucial aspects of public policy and contemporary politics