A material thought surfaces in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing

Background. In recent decades, the evolution of female athletes’ physical characteristics in women’s tennis has sparked interest, particularly regarding the influence of stature on success in Grand Slam tournaments. Objectives. This study aimed to analyze the evolution of the height of the finalists and winners of the women’s Grand Slam tournaments in order to evaluate whether height is a determining factor for success and whether this impact varies according to the playing surfaces. Materials and methods. A retrospective analysis of the heights of the finalists and winners from 2000 to 2024 in the four major Grand Slam tournaments was conducted: Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon and U.S. Open. The data were compared between tournaments on fast surfaces (Australian Open and U.S. Open) and tournaments on slower surfaces (Roland-Garros and Wimbledon). Results. The findings revealed a significant increase in the average height of the finalists and winners in tournaments on fast surfaces, with a clear increase in the average height starting from 2021. In tournaments on slower surfaces, the average height showed more stable or slightly declining trends, suggesting that other physical qualities, such as mobility and endurance, may be key to success. In particular, the average height of the Australian Open and U.S. Open finalists indicated a continuous increase, while at Roland-Garros and Wimbledon the fluctuations were more contained. Conclusions. This study confirms that stature has a significant impact on success in Grand Slam tournaments, but this effect is mediated by the playing surface. In tournaments on fast surfaces, greater stature seems to give a competitive advantage, while on slower surfaces other physical factors can play a role. Future perspectives include exploring other anthropometric variables and analyzing their evolution in relation to the needs of modern gaming.

Physical activity is known to relieve the metabolic complications of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and exercise is also associated with telomere biology. We investigated the changes induced by progressive resistance training (PRT) in telomere content and metabolic disorder in women with PCOS and controls. Forty-five women with PCOS and 52 healthy women aged 18 to 37 years were submitted to PRT. A linear periodization of PRT was prepared based on a trend of decreasing volume and intensity throughout the training period. The volunteers performed PRT 3 times a week for 4 months. The participants' physical characteristics and hormonal concentrations were measured before and after PRT, as telomere content that was measured using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Briefly, Progressive resistance training reduced waist circumference, body fat percentage, plasma testosterone and sex hormone-binding globulin concentrations, glycemia, and free androgen index. Fasting insulin and insulin resistance index were greater in women with PCOS. Androstenedione and homocysteine increased after PRT. There were no differences in telomere content between controls (0.96 ± 0.3 before vs 0.85 ± 0.21 after) and women with PCOS (0.94 ± 0.33 before vs 0.88 ± 0.39 after). Adjusted analysis showed telomere shortening after PRT in all women (0.95 ± 0.31 before vs 0.86 ± 0.31 after; P = .03). In women with PCOS, increased homocysteine levels were related to telomere reduction and increased androstenedione was positively correlated with telomere content after PRT. Progressive resistance training had positive effects on the hormonal and physical characteristics of women with PCOS and controls, but telomere content was reduced and homocysteine level increased in all participants.

Women play an important role in post-harvest operations of millets and being labor-intensive using traditional methods leads to drudgery. The study examines drudgery and the impact of the adoption of selected improved practices based on ergonomic parameters over traditional practices. A purposive random sampling method was followed and a total of 112 women farmers of on millets were selected from Chalki and Gangapur villages in Sangareddy district of Telangana state. Data were collected directly from the farm women using pre-tested interview schedules and analysed using suitable statistical tools. There was a significant correlation found between the drudgery index in traditional practices and with physical profile of the women like age, height, and body mass index. With the increase in the age of the farm women, their strength in performing traditional practices becomes weak. Fifty percent of women felt that it was very easy to prepare flatbread using a power-operated flatbread machine. The drudgery in flatbread making was found to be reduced to moderate (58.51) and minimum (less than 50) levels and the same was in the four operations. Increased work output, reduced drudgery (35-88%) and time (31-90%), and minimized postural discomfort (moderate to very light pain) were recorded while using improved practices by them. Reduction in drudgery and time due to the use of improved practices resulted in postural comfort and reduced health issues concurrently, while leading to an increase in their income, millet consumption, and overall livelihood status. Designing improved tools, equipment, or work methods that should take the ergonomic and physical characteristics of women into account can help to lessen drudgery, especially in traditional millet production areas.

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the value of callanetics exercises in enhancing some aspects of the health fitness of women with osteoporosis and to determine how callanetics exercises affect elderly women with osteoporosis in terms of enhancing certain aspects of health fitness. The sample included women with osteoporosis of the Department of Physiotherapy at Baghdad Hospital, aged 45–55 years, during the period from 1/3/2022 to 9/8/2022. The callanetics exercises applied produced a decrease in the percentage of fat, with a decline in the values of hip and thigh circumferences.

No compelling evidence that more physically attractive young adult women have higher estradiol or progesterone

People represent social groups by their trajectories through time, producing dynamic stereotypes. To the extent that these stereotypes derive from observations of group members’ behaviors in their typical roles, change in the roles of women and men over time should fuel beliefs that the sexes adopt traits associated with their new roles. Thus, earlier studies have found that stereotypes about the past, present, and future traits of women and men are consistent with beliefs about changes in their social roles. To examine such dynamic stereotypes in an African context, 150 participants from Ghana rated the likelihood of gender-stereotypic personality, cognitive, and physical characteristics of women or men of the past, present, or future in their society. Among the major findings were perceptions of increases over time in women’s masculine characteristics and men’s feminine characteristics. Also, both sexes increased in masculine and feminine cognitive characteristics. Comparison of these Ghanaian findings with those obtained earlier from five other countries revealed both similarities and differences.

Feminine physical characteristics in women are positively correlated with markers of their mate quality. Previous research on men’s judgments of women’s facial attractiveness suggests that men show stronger preferences for feminine characteristics in women’s faces when their own testosterone levels are relatively high. Such results could reflect stronger preferences for high quality mates when mating motivation is strong and/or following success in male-male competition. Given these findings, the current study investigated whether a similar effect of testosterone occurs for men’s preferences for feminine characteristics in women’s voices. Men’s preferences for feminized versus masculinized versions of women’s and men’s voices were assessed in five weekly test sessions and saliva samples were collected in each test session. Analyses showed no relationship between men’s voice preferences and their testosterone levels. Men’s tendency to perceive masculinized men’s and women’s voices as more dominant was also unrelated to their testosterone levels. Together, the results of the current study suggest that testosterone-linked changes in responses to sexually dimorphic characteristics previously reported for men's perceptions of faces do not occur for men's perceptions of voices.

Descriptive cohort study. This study aims to further elucidate the differences in physical characteristics of women with severe pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain (PGP). There is increasing interest in pelvic girdle pain (PGP). To our knowledge, this is the first study on a large population of patients with severe PGP, after pregnancy, based on high cutoff scores on diagnostic PGP tests. Two hundred five patients were selected from the outpatient clinic of a rehabilitation center. Patients were divided in 3 inclusion groups based on the total number of positive scores on 5 diagnostic tests; i.e., active straight leg raise test, posterior pelvic pain provocation test, long dorsal sacroiliac ligament test, and hip abduction and adduction strength tests. These inclusion groups were related to the data on trunk strength test, general provocation tests, Quebec Back Pain Disability Scale (QBPDS) and activities of daily living. A typical pattern of PGP emerges from this study. The mean group score on the active straight leg raise, posterior pelvic pain provocation, and long dorsal sacroiliac ligament tests became higher when more than 3 inclusion tests were positive. Hip abduction and adduction strength became lower with more positive tests. The QBPDS score was overall high and significantly higher for 5 positive tests compared with 3 and 4 positive tests. This shows that the number of positive tests, the individual score on the diagnostic tests, and the QBPDS could all be an indicator for severity of PGP. Among the general pain provocation tests, both the passive hip flexion test and the upper and middle sacral thrust test scored high. The maximal isometric strength of trunk muscles was below the 10th percentile compared with women without complaints and was even less for 5 positive inclusion tests. It is confirmed that there is a typical order for difficulties with daily activities for PGP patients as follows (most difficult first): standing still, cycling, walking, sitting, and lying. The study shows that the level of severity in PGP can be adequately assessed by a combination of specific tests.

When assessed in terms of gender roles, cooking and the other tasks related to kitchen are regarded as the duty of women. It is seen that these duties attributed to women by the society are mostly performed by women in private areas. However, it is observed that when cooking and other Works which are related to the kitchen in public areas, are usually performed by men. From the researches in the literature the purpose of this, designed in an exploratory style, is to investigate the reasons why the women are/aren’t employed in Professional kitchens in the hotels. As a result of the analysis of qualitative data gathered by semistructured interview technique in April-May 2017 from 60 cooks working in the five-star resort and the city hotels in the Mediterranean region, women's employment is usually not preferred in the professional kitchens in the hotels. Reasons why women are not employed in professional kitchens in the hotels are grouped under women not fit for work in professional kitchens, inadequate professional kitchen experience of women, gender roles-related work and day-off problems, male dominant environment in professional kitchens, women's character/personality/emotional and etc. features, women's gender roles, career barriers that women face before they are hired, physical characteristics of women, absence of career goals related to professional kitchens heading. Findings have been discussed with the results of studies done by different researchers on key concepts covering the thesis topic in the current literature. Today, there are many studies that examine the general employment problems women face in the work life. However, existence of the limited/indirect studies of the specific employment problems faced by female cooks in work life point to the original value and the theoretical contribution of the thesis. Notifying the inadequacy of women employment in Professional kitchens in the hotels to senior managers, human resources managers and chefs in the hotels and underlining the basic problems expressed by the chefs are in fact over table will be beneficial in reaching the desired equality (in work life in general and in the professional kitchens in particular) of men and women. In the future; to contribute to the literature, investigation of why fewer women are employed in city hotels than at resort hotels is suggested.

Medicine uses body fluids for the construction of medical knowledge in the laboratory and at the same time considers them as potentially infectious or dirty. In this model, bodies are in constant need of hygienic discipline if they are to adhere to the ideal of the closed and clean organism without leakage of fluids. In contrast, psychoanalytical feminist body theory by Julia Kristeva (1982), Elisabeth Grosz (1989) and Margrit Shildrick (1999) has deconstructed the abject body and its fluids in Western culture and medicine. While postmodern feminism has often focused on discourses about bodies and illness to the neglect of their materiality, more recently, material feminism has drawn particular attention to lived material bodies with fluid boundaries and evolving corporeal practices (Alaimo and Hekman 2007). Stacy Alaimo has developed a model of the trans-corporeal body that is connected with the environment through fluid boundaries and exchanges (2010, 2012). Influenced by these trends in feminist body theory, illness narratives, often based on autobiographical experiences of female patients or their caregivers, have increased in recent decades in the West (Lorde 1980; Mairs 1996; Stefan 2007; Schmidt 2009; Hustvedt 2010). Such narratives often describe explicitly the material and affective aspects of intimate bodily experiences. In this article, I analyze two German quest narratives of illness: Charlotte Roche’s pop novel Feuchtgebiete (2008) and Detlev Buck’s German-Cambodian film Same Same But Different (2010) that is based on the memoir Wohin Du auch gehst by German journalist Benjamin Prüfer (2007). In both narratives, the protagonists and their partners struggle in their search for love and identity with illness or injury in relation to body fluids, including hemorrhoids and HIV. I argue that Feuchtgebiete and Same Same But Different not only critique medical and cultural discourses on body (fluids) and sexuality but also foreground a feminist trans-corporeal concept of the body and of body fluids that is open to fluid identities and material connections with the (global) environment. At the same time, the conventional and sentimental ending of these quest narratives undermines the possibilities of the trans-corporeal body and its fluid exchanges.

Measurements in calcium-supplemented athletes during and after hypokinetic and ambulatory conditions

ABSTRACT. The aim of this article is twofold. First, it examines whether devolution fosters the rise of dual identities – regional and national. Second, it considers whether devolution encourages secession or, on the contrary, it stands as a successful strategy in accommodating intra-state national diversity. The article is divided into three parts. First it examines the changing attitudes towards Quebec's demands for recognition adopted by the Canadian government from the 1960s to the present. It starts by analysing the rise of Quebec nationalism in the 1960s and the efforts of the Canadian government to accommodate its demands within the federation. It then moves on to consider the radically new conception of Canadian unity and identity embraced by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and its immediate impact upon Quebec. The paper argues that Trudeau's ‘nation-building’ strategy represented a retreat from the pro-accommodation policies set in place to respond to the findings of the 1963 Royal Commission on Biculturalism & Bilingualism (known as the B&B Commission). Trudeau's definition of Canada as a bilingual and multicultural nation whose ten provinces should receive equal treatment alienated a significant number of Quebeckers. After Trudeau, various attempts were made to accommodate Quebec's demand to be recognised as a ‘distinct society’– Meech Lake Accord, Charlottetown Agreement. Their failure strengthened Quebec separatists, who obtained 49.4 per cent of the vote in the 1995 Referendum. Hence, initial attempts to accommodate Quebec in the 1960s were replaced by a recurrent confrontation between Canada's and Quebec's separate nation-building strategies. Second, the article explores whether devolution fosters the emergence of dual identities – regional and national – within a single nation-state. At this point, recent data on regional and national identity in Canada are presented and compared with data measuring similar variables in Spain and Britain. The three modern liberal democracies considered here include territorially circumscribed national minorities – nations without states (Guibernau 1999) – endowed with a strong sense of identity based upon the belief in a common ethnic origin and a sense of shared ethnohistory – Quebec, Catalonia, the Basque Country and Scotland. Third, the article examines whether devolution feeds separatism by assessing support levels for current devolution arrangements in Canada, Spain and Britain. The article concludes by examining the reasons which might contribute to replacing separatist demands with a desire for greater devolution.

Hypokinesia (HK) (diminished movement) induces significant electrolyte changes, but little is known about the effect of periodic hypokinesia (PHK) on minerals. The aim of this study was to measure the effect of PHK and continuous hypokinesia (CHK) on urinary and serum electrolytes. Studies were done during a 30-d period of prehypokinesia (HK) and during 364 d of PHK and CHK periods. Thirty male athletes aged 24.6 +/- 7.7 yr were chosen as subjects. They were equally divided into three groups: unrestricted ambulatory control subjects (UACS), continuously hypokinetic subjects (CHKS), and periodically hypokinetic subjects (PHKS). The UACS group experienced no changes in the daily activities and regular training and they were maintained under an average running distance of 11.7 km/d. The CHKS group was limited to an average walking distance of 0.7 km/d; and the PHKS group was limited to an average walking distance of 0.7 and running distance of 11.7 km/d for 5 d and 2 d/wk, respectively, for a period of 364 d. Urinary and serum phosphate (P), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na) and potassium (K), serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), calcitonin (CT), plasma renin activity (PRA) and aldosterone (PA) levels, food and water intakes, and physical characteristics were measured. Urinary P, Ca, Na, and K loss, serum Ca, P, Na, and K, and PRA and PA values increased significantly (p < or = 0.01), whereas serum iPTH and CT levels decreased significantly (p < or = 0.01) in the PHKS and CHKS groups when compared with the UACS group. However, significant (p < or = 0.01) differences were observed between PHKS and CHKS groups regarding urinary and serum electrolytes, serum and plasma hormones. Food and water intakes, body weight, body fat, and peak oxygen uptake decreased significantly (p < or = 0.01) in the CHKS group when compared with PHKS and UACS groups. Food and fluid intakes, body fat, and body weight increased significantly (p < or = 0.01), whereas peak oxygen uptake remained significantly (p < or = 0.01) higher in the PHKS group when compared with the CHKS group. Serum and urinary minerals, serum hormones, food and fluid intakes, and physical characteristics did not change significantly (p > 0.01) in the UACS group when compared with their baseline control values. It was shown that both PHK and CHK induce significant serum and urinary electrolyte changes. However, urinary and serum electrolyte changes were significantly (p < or = 0.01) greater during PHK than CHK. It was concluded that the greater the stability of muscular activity, the smaller the serum and urinary electrolyte changes during prolonged HK.

The paper argues that the Canadian media’s representations of National Hockey League (NHL) player Alexander Ovechkin work to locate Canadian national identity through its contrasts with the hockey superstar. Even though the press celebrates Ovechkin as a challenge to Cold War understandings of Soviet hockey players as lacking passion and heart as well as physical play, they also present Ovechkin as a ‘dirty’ hockey player who is wild and out of control. By assessing reports from two Canadian national newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the National Post, from 2009 to 2012, and comparing these documents to reports on two Cold War hockey contests, the 1972 Summit Series and the 1987 World Junior Hockey Championships, this article demonstrates how the Canadian media’s paradoxical representations of Ovechkin break with and rearticulate Cold War understandings of Russian/Soviet athletes. Furthermore, when the press characterizes Ovechkin and other Russian hockey players as wild, unpredictable and out-of-control, they produce Canadian players as polite, disciplined and well-mannered. Through these opposing representations, the media helps to locate Canadian national hockey identity within a frame of appropriate masculine expression.

Some scholars claim that identifying with religious groups leads to a greater inclination toward violence than identifying with secular groups and we test this proposition in a unique experimental threat paradigm. We examine the possibility that threats toward individuals’ religious identities will result in greater aggression relative to threats toward individuals’ national identity. Additionally, we extend research on the direct association between religious fundamentalism and aggression by examining whether fundamentalism interacts with the experience of a threatened religious identity to exacerbate aggression. Among 120 self-identified religious Canadians, we examined aggression as a response to threats toward participants’ religious or national identity. Participants engaged in a live instant messaging conversation with a confederate, in which the confederate denigrated participants’ religious identity in the religious identity threat condition, denigrated participants’ Canadian national identity in the national identity threat condition, or did not denigrate either identity in the control condition. Following, participants’ self-reported aggression was measured. Participants in the national identity threat condition reported higher levels of aggression relative to those in the religious identity threat condition or the control condition. Additionally, the effect of religious fundamentalism on aggression was moderated by threat such that the positive association between religious fundamentalism and aggression was eliminated when national identity was threatened.