Slow Scholarship: Propositions for the Extended Curriculum Programme

Higher education has been deeply affected by neoliberalism and corporatisation, with their emphasis on efficiency, competitiveness and valorisation of quantity over quality. This article argues that in the context of South African higher education, and in the Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) more particularly, such commodification of education is problematic. The article explores what the Slow movement has to offer ECP in terms of scholarship. It seeks to answer the question: How might ECP be reconfigured using Slow imaginaries? Various academic disciplines and practices have incorporated Slow philosophy to develop alternative ways of doing academia; however, it has hitherto not been considered for programmes such as ECP. This article approaches Slow pedagogy for ECP using posthuman and feminist new materialist sensibilities that are predicated on a relational ontology. The article puts forward the following 10 propositions for a Slow scholarship in ECP using ideas from posthumanism and feminist new materialism: practice attentiveness through noticing, engage in responsible relations, diffract rather than reflect (thinking together affirmatively), render each other capable, enable collective responsiveness, explore creatively, making thoughts and feelings possible, enact curiosity, ask the right questions politely, foreground process rather than product, and create conditions for trust by wit(h)nessing. It is argued that by practising Slow scholarship with these propositions, ECPs might resist market-driven imperatives that characterise contemporary academia.

Physical Modeling of Snow Gliding: A Case Study in the NW Italian Alps

Snow gliding, a slow movement downhill of snow cover, is complex to forecast and model and yet is extremely important, because it drives snowpack dynamics in the pre-avalanching phase. Despite recent interest in this process and the development of some studies therein, this phenomenon is poorly understood and represents a major point of uncertainty for avalanche forecasting. This study presents a data-driven, physically based, time-dependent 1D model, Poli-Glide, able to predict the slow movement of snowpacks along a flow line at the daily scale. The objective of the work was to create a useful snow gliding model, requiring few, relatively easily available input data, by (i) modeling snowpack evolution from measured precipitation and air temperature, (ii) evaluating the rate and extent of movement of the snowpack in the gliding phase, and (iii) assessing fracture (i.e., avalanching) timing. Such a model could be then used to provide hazard assessment in areas subject to gliding, thereby, and subsequent avalanching. To do so, some simplifying assumptions were introduced, namely that (i) negligible traction stress occurs within soil, (ii) water percolation into snow occurs at a fixed rate, and (iii) the micro topography of soil is schematized according to a sinusoidal function in the absence of soil erosion. The proposed model was then applied to the “Torrent des Marais-Mont de La Saxe” site in Aosta Valley, monitored during the winters of 2010 and 2011, featuring different weather conditions. The results showed an acceptable capacity of the model to reproduce snowpack deformation patterns and the final snowpack’s displacement. Correlation analysis based upon observed glide rates further confirmed dependence against the chosen variables, thus witnessing the goodness of the model. The results could be a valuable starting point for future research aimed at including more complex parameterizations of the different processes that affect gliding.

Classification and Approach to Movement Disorders

Movement disorders are conventionally divided into 2 major categories. Hyperkinetic movement disorders (also called dyskinesias) are excessive, often repetitive, involuntary movements that intrude into the normal flow of motor activity. This category includes chorea, dystonia, myoclonus, stereotypies, tics, and tremor. Hypokinetic movement disorders are akinesia (lack of movement), hypokinesia (reduced amplitude of movement), bradykinesia (slow movement), and rigidity. Parkinsonism is the most common hypokinetic movement disorder. In childhood, hyperkinetic disorders are common, whereas hypokinetic movement disorders are relatively uncommon.

Ciri-ciri akustik tuturan gagap: Kajian fonetik akustik

This study aims to formulate the acoustic characteristics of stuttering speech through the acoustic phonetic approach. The parameters used to determine the acoustic characteristics of stuttering speech are the duration of speech and silence, the speech tone contours, and the intensity contours of the speech. The data used in this research is a documentary data taken from the website www.youtube.com. The research data is in the form of stuttering speech with phonetic transcription [bəbəbəp bəbəp bəbəbəp bəlaki]. The data were analyzed using Praat 1.6.26 software. The results show that the analyzed stuttering speech has some acoustic characteristics as follows: (1) it has a different duration per sound segment and tends to increase in the last sound segment which is influenced by the length of the lexical strands and the slow movement of the speakers articulator; (2) it has silences with varying duration between one sound segment and another, which indicates that a stuttering speech is spoken haltingly and often stops suddenly; (3) it has a fairly flat tone contour in the first, second, and third segments, and has a significant increase in tone contour in the last sound segment; and (4) it is spoken louder in the last sound segment compared to the previous sound segment which is characterized by a high increase in sound intensity in the last sound segment.

February 16, 2005—Seeking Witness

The main theme of this dialogue is Nell’s slow movement toward death and her frustration at the delay. Her physical status is declining and she is visibly deteriorating. Since it is difficult for her to travel by car, we decided to meet in her home. She is frightened by her appearance changes and declares she looks like a beetle, with a bloated body and sticklike appendages. She longs for a witness to her bodily changes and yet is reluctant to ask her spouse Al to look at her. She is disappointed there is nowhere she can find the comfort of someone’s witness to her physical changes. She has met with her medical oncologist and come away frustrated because he has said death is not imminent and yet she is ready. Even so, Nell’s sense of humor is intact and she laughs about completing her income taxes: “Now I can die!” She has had an initial negative encounter with hospice and expresses her concern about their competence. She finds comfort in guided imagery introduced to her by her dear friend Mary, geographically distant but regularly present via phone call.

“To Have Done Again”

This essay is a genetic manuscript study of Beckett’s self-translation process. This study will examine how Beckett preserved the still-life attributes of Still in self-translation, and how he maintained the tension between motion and stillness in his translation of Pour finir encore. In Still, readers realise that the figure is not entirely still because of the rise and fall of its chest and the slow movement of its hand. Neither can Beckett impose stillness upon his world in Pour finir encore. By examining manuscripts, patterns of translation will emerge, giving readers a better understanding of the creative processes of self-translation.

Similar improvements in cognitive inhibitory control following low-intensity resistance exercise with slow movement and tonic force generation and high-intensity resistance exercise in healthy young adults: a preliminary study

This study compared the effects of low-intensity resistance exercise with slow movement and tonic force generation (ST-LRE) and high-intensity resistance exercise (HRE) on post-exercise improvements in cognitive inhibitory control (IC). Sixteen young males completed ST-LRE and HRE sessions in a crossover design. Bilateral knee extensor ST-LRE and HRE (8 repetitions/set, 6 sets) were performed with 50% of one-repetition maximum with slow contractile speed and 80% of one-repetition maximum with normal contractile speed, respectively. The IC was assessed using the color–word Stroop task at six time points: baseline, pre-exercise, immediate post-exercise, and every 10 min during the 30-min post-exercise recovery period. The blood lactate response throughout the experimental session did not differ between ST-LRE and HRE (condition × time interaction P = 0.396: e.g., mean ± standard error of the mean; 8.1 ± 0.5 vs. 8.1 ± 0.5 mM, respectively, immediately after exercise, P = 0.983, d = 0.00). Large-sized decreases in the reverse-Stroop interference scores, which represent improved IC, compared to those before exercise (i.e., baseline and pre-exercise) were observed throughout the 30 min post-exercise recovery period for both ST-LRE and HRE (decreasing rate ≥ 38.8 and 41.4%, respectively, all ds ≥ 0.95). The degree of post-exercise IC improvements was similar between the two protocols (condition × time interaction P = 0.998). These findings suggest that despite the application of a lower exercise load, ST-LRE improves post-exercise IC similarly to HRE, which may be due to the equivalent blood lactate response between the two protocols, in healthy young adults.