Learning about bodies and the lived consequences

From the perspective of a final year physical education and sport and exercise science undergraduate student, this paper explores the relationship between learned and lived experiences related to the body. The research uses an autoethnographic approach that focuses on the educational and social issues that the first author faced as his physical identity changed. The author reflects on the ways in which his once acceptable body experienced declining capital (Bourdieu 1984) as his body became too ‘fat’ within the spaces that he was connected to. In an attempt to resist institutionalised understandings that imply that larger bodies are a result of neglect and poor lifestyle choices, this research demonstrates the impact of cultural understandings on the everyday life of a university student seeking an ‘acceptable body’

Extreme energetic electron fluxes in low Earth orbit: Analysis of POES E > 30, E > 100 and E > 300 keV electrons

Energetic electrons are an important space weather hazard. Electrons with energies less than about 100 keV cause surface charging while higher energy electrons can penetrate materials and cause internal charging. In this study we conduct an extreme value analysis of the maximum 3-hourly flux of E> 30 keV, E> 100 keV and E> 300 keV electrons in low Earth orbit as a function of L∗, for geomagnetic field lines that map to the outer radiation belt, using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) from July 1998 to June 2014. The 1 in 10 year flux of E> 30 keV electrons shows a general increasing trend with distance ranging from 1.8×107 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 3.0 to 6.6×107 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 8.0. The 1 in 10 year flux of E> 100 keV electrons peaks at L∗= 4.5 - 5.0 at 1.9×107 cm−2s−1sr−1 decreasing to minima of 7.1×106 and 8.7×106 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 3.0 and 8.0 respectively. In contrast to the E> 30 keV electrons, the 1 in 10 year flux of E> 300 keV electrons shows a general decreasing trend with distance, ranging from 2.4×106 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗ = 3.0 to 1.2×105 cm−2s−1sr−1 at L∗= 8.0. Our analysis suggests that there is a limit to the E> 30 keV electrons with an upper bound in the range 5.1×107- 8.8×107 cm−2s−1sr−1. However, the results suggest that there is no upper bound for the E> 100 keV and E> 300 keV electrons

Electron flux models for different energies at geostationary orbit

Forecast models were derived for energetic electrons at all energy ranges sampled by the third-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). These models were based on Multi-Input Single-Output Nonlinear Autoregressive Moving Average with Exogenous inputs methodologies. The model inputs include the solar wind velocity, density and pressure, the fraction of time that the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) was southward, the IMF contribution of a solar wind-magnetosphere coupling function proposed by Boynton et al. (2011b), and the Dst index. As such, this study has deduced five new 1 h resolution models for the low-energy electrons measured by GOES (30–50 keV, 50–100 keV, 100–200 keV, 200–350 keV, and 350–600 keV) and extended the existing >800 keV and >2 MeV Geostationary Earth Orbit electron fluxes models to forecast at a 1 h resolution. All of these models were shown to provide accurate forecasts, with prediction efficiencies ranging between 66.9% and 82.3%

Sporting equality and gender neutrality in korfball

This paper explores the extent to which korfball can be considered egalitarian. The intention of this research was to use ethnographic methods to discover the ways in which gender was negotiated, challenged or recreated in a junior korfball setting and examine to what extent korfball provided an opportunity to promote gender egalitarianism. Analysis of the data incorporated a broad Foucauldian lens and subsequently revealed that sex equality was visible to some degree in the junior korfball space. From observations and interviews it was clear that male domination was rarely evident when considering the vocal nature of the game, the physicality and competitiveness of players, or their general ability and skill, yet when interviewed players still constructed gender in traditional ways. Nevertheless, korfball was seen to offer a space where there were possibilities for sporting equality although the influence that the sport had beyond the court was less apparent

Gendered performances in sport: an embodied approach

Despite significant advances in recent years, gender inequalities remain apparent within the context of sport participation and engagement. One of the problems, however, when addressing gender issues in sport is the continued assumption by many sport practitioners that the experiences of women and men will always be different because of perceived physiological characteristics. Adopting a focus based solely upon perceived gendered differences often overlooks the importance of recognising individual experience and the prevailing social influences that impact upon participation, such as age, class, race and ability. An embodied approach, as well as seeking to move beyond mind/body dualisms, incorporates the physiological with the social and psychological. Therefore, it is suggested that while considerations of gender remain important, they need to be interpreted alongside other interconnecting and influential (at varying times and occasions) social and physical factors. It is argued that taking the body as a starting point opens up more possibilities to manoeuvre through the mine field that is gender and sport participation. The appeal of an embodied approach to the study of gender and sport is in its accommodation of a wider multi-disciplinary lens. Particularly, by acknowledging the subjective, corporeal, lived experiences of sport engagement, an embodied approach offers a more flexible starting point to negotiate the theoretical and methodological challenges created by restrictive discourses of difference

Computer numerical control programming for complex curve machining

The Bridgeport Interact 412 Vertical machining center is supported by the language developed by Heidenhain. The language is a modified version of the conventional G-codes with added features. The machining center has the facility to use either the G-codes or the modified language. The modified language also has the facility of using functional parameters within a program by substituting them with variables which are either entered at a later stage or calculated by the controller. When executing the program, the control then uses the numerical values generated. The functions that can be used are Assign, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Square Root, Sine, Cosine, Root Sum of Squares, If Equal, If Unequal, If Greater Than and If Less Than. This work involves making use of these functional parameters to program complex curves. By defining the part geometry with the help of equations and mathematical definitions other functions such as Exponential, Logarithmic to any Base and Hyperbolic functions can be machined. The use of the mathematical equations and parametric functions in defining the part geometry while programming reduces the tedious computations required for calculating the locations of each point on the curve. The human errors while computing are reduced and also human errors in defining the coordinate values in the program is eliminated. The time required for programming is reduced and the prior knowledge of either programming or high level language is not required. The central idea of this thesis is to implement the above complex curves with no loss in accuracy for commercial applications

Heat transfer model of a small size satellite on geostationary orbit

The purpose of the study is to compute an approached satellite thermal model to be able to estimate the heat transfer and the maximum temperature through the harmonic gear for small size geostationary satellite. We use finite element method using known data with Nastran In-CAD FEM software. The presented results show temperature gradients compatible with experimental information. Though the results are not correlated with dedicated tests, they seems to be in line with what can be found in literature. The paper use these information in dedicated analysis related to impact of temperature gradient in precision mechanism. The second purpose of the study is to show that simplified tools and methods allows to reach results sufficient for preliminary analysis. The space business is changing fast with growing private companies that are challenging conservative space standards. A simplified analysis allowing to reduce cost and increase competitiveness is presented