When men become “women”: Gender antagonism and the changing sexual geography of work in Newfoundland

In the traditional Newfoundland maritime division of labor, men worked at sea on boats and women worked on the land in their households. Patterns of gender identity, work, and gender relations were characterized by an ethos of complementarity. Present declines in the fishery make it impossible to earn a living at sea and men have become landbound. The resulting infringement by unemployed men into the spaces and prerogatives traditionally allotted to women has come to generate a gender antagonism that permeates, if not dominates, contemporary gender relations in a southwest coast Newfoundland fishing community. Ethnographic analysis incorporates data collected during two periods of anthropological fieldwork: 1977–1978 and 1989–1990. Comparative assessment of economic, psychological, and cultural constructionist theories of gender relations inform the qualitative analysis of ethnographic data.The original period (1977–1978) of anthropological fieldwork was funded by a grant from the United States National Institute of Child and Maternal Health, which was administered through the Population Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The second period (1989–1990) of fieldwork was funded by grants from Memorial University of Newfoundland's Institute of Social and Economic Research, the Canadian Embassy's Canadian Studies Program, and the University of South Dakota's General Research Fund.     

The effects of temporal modulation and spatial location on the perceived spatial frequency of visual patterns

The perceived spatial frequency of a visual pattern can increase when a pattern drifts or is presented at a peripheral visual field location, as compared with a foveally viewed, stationary pattern. We confirmed previously reported effects of motion on foveally viewed patterns and of location on stationary patterns and extended this analysis to the effect of motion on peripherally viewed patterns and the effect of location on drifting patterns. Most central to our investigation was the combined effect of temporal modulation and spatial location on perceived spatial frequency. The group data, as well as the individual sets of data for most observers, are consistent with the mathematical concept of separability for the effects of temporal modulation and spatial location on perceived spatial frequency. Two qualitative psychophysical models suggest explanations for the effects. Both models assume that the receptive-field sizes of a set of underlying psychophysical mechanisms monotonically change as a function of temporal modulation or visual field location, whereas the perceptual labels attached to a set of channels remain invariant. These models predict that drifting or peripheral viewing of a pattern will cause a shift in the perceived spatial frequency of the pattern to a higher apparent spatial frequency.     

Behavior at 10 and 13 years of age for children with low birth weight

This study was based on data from a longitudinal research program. The cohort consisted of 874 normal children in an entire school grade in a Swedish community. The aim of the study was to investigate the relation between birth weight and behavior at school, for all children and for each sex separately. The results identified specific aspects of behaviour disorder significantly related to low birth weight (LBW) for children at the age of 10 but not at the age of 13. When the sexes were separated, there were no relations between birth weight and deviant behaviour for boys of low birth weight as compared to boys of normal birth weight, while girls of low birth weight showed specific behavioural disorders at age 10 as compared to girls of normal birth weight. For girls reared in families of low parental socioeconomic status, aggressiveness and motor restlessness at age 10 but not at age 13 was also present. Further analyses showed that girls born small-for-gestational age showed lack of school motivation and concentration difficulties both at age 10 and age 13.     

Sense and counter-sense--on the deconstruction of histories

Today historiography (the writing of stories) presented as nothing but a search for truth merits the charge of naiveté. Since Freud we must understand any story told about life as a rationalization, that is, as a strategy of conducting one's life. The author argues the proposition that historiography can only fulfill its function of giving sense to life if it simultaneously admits its deconstruction, its counter-sense.     

Dealing with (bypassing) the difference

The author presents different psychoanalytic conceptualizations of gender difference. She reviews the controversy between Freud and Jones and discusses in detail the views put forward by Montrelay, a student of Lacan, who relates early linguistic development to gender-specific differences in closeness between the child and the "mother's body".     

Aspects of family-oriented diagnosis in compulsory legal family expert assessment

In forensic psychology, recommendations that courts request when granting one of the parents the right of child upbringing after a divorce pose a problem for the person who is required to give such expert judgment. The authors describe the difficult situation he faces when having to decide for and, at the same time, against one of the parents. A good knowledge of family psychology and pathopsychology is essential, and for drawing up the expertise and stating his reasons, the expert requires methodical resources. The authors describe four procedures of relational diagnosis and recommend the combined use of these in conjunction with methods that have been employed so far.     

Effects of a forced institutional relocation on the mortality and morbidity of nursing home residents

Residents of a county nursing home underwent a forced, mass relocation. Gerontologists advised on preparation of staff and residents. No increase in residents' mortality or morbidity was found after the relocation. The highest death rate was in the anticipatory period, the year prior to the move.     

The number of active sweat glands (PSI, palmar sweat index) in stress caused by blood donation

The number of active sweat glands (PSI), heart rate, systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were assessed every 2 minutes in 109 male blood donors. Three measurements were taken at the beginning (adaptation phase), three later but before blood donation (baseline), one during the venous puncture (phase 3), three thereafter but still during donation (phase 4), and four after removal of the cannula (phase 5). Analysis of variance yielded significant differences between phases; PSI and SBP behaved similarly, decreasing from adaptation to baseline, rising during puncture, and decreasing again thereafter. Mean within-subject correlations between variables were significantly above 0. Between-subjects correlations were significantly negative for PSI and DBP. This is best explained by the influence of age on both variables. Correlations of PSI values as determined by three raters had a mean of 0.90. The study shows that the PSI is a very sensitive indicator of stress that is easily accessible also in field studies.     

A kinematic analysis of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of anterior aphasic subjects using electromagnetic articulography

An investigation was made into the extent and time course of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of two normal and two anterior aphasic, German-speaking subjects. Both labial and velar coarticulation gestures were investigated. Subjects produced sentences containing target words contrasting in postconsonantal vowel rounding (e.g., [geli:ge]/[gely:gel]) and in nasality (e.g., [ti:de]/[ti:ne]). Speech kinematics were monitored by means of electromagnetic articulography. The data revealed that for correct productions, aphasic speakers' coarticulatory patterns were more highly variable than those of control subjects. These differences, however, were found chiefly for spatial displacement characteristics, while the temporal aspects of articulator movement necessary for anticipatory coarticulation appeared largely intact. Articulator mistiming did not appear to explain a small corpus of stop/nasal substitution errors produced by one of the aphasic speakers.