The horror of death: A Foucauldian reading of power relations in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899) addresses the brutality underlying Europe’s colonisation of Africa. Its film adaptation, Apocalypse Now (1979), shows the US Army’s radical practices in the Vietnam War. A comparative study of power relations on both works will help understand the workings of power in extreme sociopolitical circumstances devoid of a democratic environment. This article analyses both cultural products under the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault’s writings on power. Three conceptual nuclei where power relations emanate are scrutinised independently: imperialism and the resulting local resistance; internal hierarchies in colonial organisations; and the role of gender. The analysis shows that absolute power is intolerable, death its ultimate limit, and confession its main liberating mechanism.

Variation in Neurophysiological Function and Evidence of Quantitative Electroencephalogram Discordance: Predicting Cocaine-Dependent Treatment Attrition

PURPOSE: To assess the effect of age and sex on absolute and relative knee extensor peak torque (PT), power (PW), and time to peak torque (TTP) at multiple velocities. METHODS: 61 women and 87 men completed 3 maximal knee extensions at 60, 120, and 180°/s on an isokinetic dynamometer. Data were analyzed as absolute values and relative to FFM. Volunteers were grouped by sex and age (YW=young women (20 yr); YM=young men (21 yr); OW=old women (71 yr); OM=old men (73 yr)). FFM was estimated with bio-impedance. ANOVAs were conducted to locate differences between groups. RESULTS: Absolute and relative PT (60 °/s) were different between sex (absolute PT: YM=236.3 vs. YW=148.8; OM=137.2 vs. OW=85.4 Nm) and age groups (YW>OW; YM>OM). Absolute and relative PT (120 °/s) were different between sex (absolute PT: YM=187.0 vs. YW=117.0; OM=108.1 vs. OW=65.9 Nm) and age groups (YW>OW; YM>OM). Absolute and relative PT (180 °/s) were different between sex (absolute PT: YM=155.8 vs. YW=97.5; OM=90.7 vs. OW=56.1 Nm) and age groups (YW>OW; YM>OM). Absolute and relative PW (60 °/s) were different between sex (absolute PW: YM=157.6 vs. YW=101.2; OM=91.1 vs. OW=57.4 W) and age groups (YW>OW; YM>OM). Absolute and relative PW (120 °/s) were different between sex (absolute PW: YM=256.3 vs. YW=159.9; OM=150.2 vs. OW=89.2 W) and age groups (YW>OW; YM>OM). Absolute and relative PW (180 °/s) were different between sex (absolute PW: YM=311.2 vs. YW=189.2; OM=171.7 vs. OW=102.5 W) and age groups (YW>OW; YM>OM). Absolute TTP (60 °/s) was not different between sex (absolute TTP: YM=0.27 vs. YW=0.37; OM=0.31 vs. OW=0.27 s) and age groups. Relative TTP was different between sex (YM=0.004 vs. YW=0.006; OM=0.005 vs. OW=0.007 s) but not age groups. Absolute TTP (120 °/s) was not different between sex (absolute TTP: YM=0.18 vs. YW=0.21; OM=0.18 vs. OW=0.19 s) and age groups. Relative TTP was different between sex (YM=0.0008 vs. YW=0.001; OM=0.003 vs. OW=0.004 s) but not age groups. Absolute TTP (180 °/s) was not different between sex (absolute TTP: YM=0.13 vs. YW=0.13; OM=0.11 vs. OW=0.13 s) and age groups. Relative TTP was different between sex (YM=0.002 vs. YW=0.003; OM=0.002 vs. OW=0.003 s) but not age groups. CONCLUSION: Older adults had reduced absolute and relative PT and PW compared to young adults. YM had faster relative TTP than YW; and OM had faster relative TTP than OW. Supported by NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (1R15 AT003938-01) and the BU Foundation

This article discusses genocide and mass violence in Africa during the colonial period. While European colonial rule lasted only several decades, it had a profound impact on Africa. The history of European colonialism in Africa is of unprecedented socio-economic, political, and cultural change, mass violence, and exploitation. Until recently, the historiography of colonialism and genocide has portrayed the Africans as passive and apathetic victims of European power and violence. But Africa did not degenerate into a graveyard because of the Europeans' attempt to transform the continent and its inhabitants according to their ideas. European colonialism did not succeed in completely destroying African cultures and identities. Africans always found ways to preserve their cultures and to reconstitute their social organizations, however totalitarian and coercive the colonizers' policies and fantasies about absolute power were confirmed.

The power production is force-velocity related. We hypothesized that speed-based training of lower limb using half-squat can lead to absolute and relative power improvements in concentric movement with the same external load. One group of 19 soccer players (age = 24.4 years, SD = 3.7 years) participated in a pretest-posttest power training protocol, consistent in 2 training sessions per week during 10 weeks, targeted to work the leg power by performing half-squat with a fixed external load (mean = 71.7, SD = 5.4) at 65% of 1 repetition maximum. Measurements of power (absolute [in watt] and relative [in watt per kilogram]), force (in newton), and velocity (in meter per second) (mean and peak) were made from a concentric movement of a half-squat exercise with a fixed external load. The training protocol increased relative power (mean = 47.5, SD = 47.5, p < 0.001) and absolute power (mean = 169.2, SD = 95.5, p < 0.001). Also, number of repetitions (mean = 2.9, SD = 2.4, p < 0.01), force (mean = 66.6, SD = 36.7, p < 0.001), and velocity (mean = 0.1, SD = 0.1, p < 0.001) were increased. However, only improved velocity was related to the changes in absolute (r = 0.939, p < 0.001) and relative (r = 0.757, p < 0.001) power. The speed-based training combined with moderate to high external load can lead to an improvement of absolute and relative power in concentric phases of half-squat in soccer players. This could be important for improving the performance of the players in the field.

The purpose of this study was to determine if significant relationships exist between absolute and relative lower-body power and selected measures of speed among male and female collegiate basketball players. Archived performance testing data from 29 (male = 14; female = 15) NCAA division II collegiate basketball players were used for this analysis. These measures included lane agility, 10-yard sprint, and shuttle run time (sec). A Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to determine if significant relationships existed between measures of lower-body power and linear sprint time, change of direction speed (CODS), and shuttle performance. Statistical significance was set a priori at p ≤ 0.05. A significant large correlation was found between absolute power and lane agility (r = 0.54, p = 0.05) among male players. No significant correlations were found between absolute or relative power for 10-yard sprint times, lane agility, or shuttle run performance (p > 0.05). Females showed no significant correlations between relative power and lane agility (r = -0.25, p = 0.37) or 10-yard sprint (r = -0.47, p = 0.08), but did show a significant large correlation (r = -0.64, p = 0.01) between relative power and shuttle run performance. Generating high amounts of relative power is vital in intermittent team sports such as basketball. In particular, this study provided evidence that relative power in female collegiate basketball players is significantly related to shuttle run ability.

The underlying mechanisms of alpha/theta neurofeedback training have not been fully determined. Therefore, this study aimed to test the changes in the brain state feedback during the alpha/theta training. Twenty-seven healthy participants were trained during a single session of the alpha/theta protocol, and the resting quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) was assessed before and after training. QEEG was recorded at eight scalp locations (F3, F4, C3, C4, T3, T4, O1, and O2), and the absolute power, relative power, ratio of sensory-motor rhythm beta (SMR) to theta (RST), ratio of SMR-mid beta to theta (RSMT), ratio of mid beta to theta (RMT), ratio of alpha to high beta (RAHB), and scaling exponent of detrended fluctuation analysis by each band were measured. The results indicated a significant increase of absolute alpha power, especially the slow alpha band, at all electrodes except T3 and T4. Moreover, the relative alpha power, especially the slow alpha band, showed a significant increase at all electrodes. The relative theta power showed a significant decrease at all electrodes, except T3. A significant decrease in relative beta power, relative lower beta power and relative mid beta power was observed at O1. RST (at C4, O1, and O2), RSMT and RMT (at F4, C4, O1 and O2), and RAHB (at all electrodes) showed significant increase. Scaling exponents at all electrodes except T3 showed a significant decrease. These findings indicate that a one-time session of alpha/theta training might have the possibility to enhance both vigilance and concentration, thus stabilizing the overall brain function.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between maximal oxygen uptake (V̇O2max) and anaerobic power in Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team members of law enforcement. METHODS: Fourteen healthy men and one healthy woman (age: 33 ± 6 y, height: 179.6 ± 6.7 cm, body mass: 89.6 ± 10.4 kg) performed a graded exercise test to measure V̇O2max and a Wingate Anaerobic Test to measure anaerobic power on two separate occasions. V̇O2max was determined with a graded exercise test on a motorized treadmill using the Costill-Fox protocol. Anaerobic power was determined using the Wingate Anaerobic Test where participants cycled against a resistance of 9% of body mass (8 ± 1 kg) on a Wingate cycle ergometer. Pearson’s r correlations were conducted to analyze the relationship between absolute V̇O2max and absolute power as well as relative V̇O2max and relative power. RESULTS: Absolute V̇O2max was significantly positively correlated to absolute peak power (r = 0.60; p = 0.02) and absolute average power (r = 0.75; p < 0.01). Moreover, relative V̇O2max was significantly positively correlated to relative peak power (r = 0.56; p = 0.03) and relative average power (r = 0.64; p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: There are moderate-to-strong positive correlations between V̇O2max and anaerobic power. It is possible that adaptations that occur with high intensity anaerobic exertions might be related to changes in aerobic metabolism. Future research might consider examining the effectiveness of anaerobic power training on aerobic fitness among the tactical athlete populations.

The novel Heart of Darkness is regarded as one of Joseph Conrad's highly skilled works and seen as an important tale written between the years of 1898 - 1899, and also viewed as an assault on imperialism and unethical behaviors of the European colonizers in Africa in the nineteenth century. The novel displays the author's humanity towards the crimes of the colonists and imperialists throughout the world. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad shows the cruelty of colonialism in Africa through his major character, Charlie Marlow, who realizes the cruel manners of Belgian colonialism during his journey to the Congo looking for the European ivory agent, Kurtz. This novel is a combination of two opposite things. It exposes the author's viewpoint regarding the ethics of the Europeans and the Africans.&#x0D; This research concentrates on the binary oppositions in Heart of Darkness through Marlow's journey to Africa and exposes Marlow's struggle between his human nature and his beliefs and replies whether his conflict will be effective and bring good results or negative.

Conrad’s <i>Heart of Darkness</i> and Salih's <i>Season of Migration to the North</i> are about Man’s journey into his self, and the discoveries to be made there about the 'other'. Both novels present the unpleasant and painful experience of colonialism in Africa which has great effects on almost all faces of life such as language, education, religion, popular culture and the like. If Salih's <i>Season of Migration to the North</i> (1966) deals with the perceptions of people in the third world to the West, Conrad's <i>Heart of Darkness</i> deals with the perceptions of Europeans to the third world in Africa. The two novels illustrate that the clashes between East and West are not only external but they are internal too, forcing one to question one's place in a new culture. Marlow's self-concept consists of mental images he has of himself: physical appearance as a white, accomplishments, skills, social talents, roles, intellectual traits, and emotional states. Thus, he feels superior to other Africans. Mustafa Sa’eed's self-concept is that he is intelligent but black and inferior to the Europeans. When he talks about himself Saied sees that he has a wonderful ability for understanding and his mind is like a sharp knife. But he never made use of his intelligence as it should be. Sa’eed emerges as a person who has abused the colonial system because he was abused and destroyed by it, and who has returned to the Sudan, bearing with him the rot and destruction he has come to embody. In both novels the 'self' and the 'other' can be compared in terms of the past colonial experience. The colonial 'other' in Conrad's <i>Heart of Darkness</i> is presented as a vital, alive, wild, superior, triumphant and has an identity, a face, and a personage. But in <i>Season of Migration to the North</i>, the narrator and Mustafa Sa’eed are presented as inferior, passive and degraded. If the narrative of <i>Season</i> expresses a concern about future relations between Arabs and English and asks the question of whether or not Arabs and English can ever truly co-exist, the narrative of <i>Heart of Darkness</i> investigates the same theme but at large. Both novels are based mostly on the cultural and imperial background.

Research shows that the theta rhythm in infant electroencephalogram indexes learning processes and is a promising candidate for a marker of early cognitive development. However, a scarcity of studies investigating the stability of individual differences in theta activity in infancy, and a large variability in analytical approaches in existing research constrain the interpretations of research findings. In our large longitudinal study, we related three different indices of frontocentral theta activity (absolute and relative power, and an index of theta modulation by novel content) at 6 and 12 months to cognitive development level, language skills, and visual attention at 24 months. We found an increase in theta power over the course of novel information encoding at 6 and 12 months, replicating prior studies. Both absolute and relative theta power, but not theta modulation index, showed a large degree of stability in individual differences from 6 to 12 months. Finally, absolute theta power at 6 and 12 months was a positive predictor of the general cognitive level, but not of specific skills (selective attention, language) at 24 months. Of note, we observed similar effects for absolute power in the alpha frequency band, suggesting that the effects are not specific to the theta frequency band. Our results support the involvement of the theta rhythm in cognitive development in infancy and point to absolute power as the potentially most sensitive index of individual differences in theta activity.

EEG power spectra in normal and dyslexic children. I. Reliability during passive conditions

deplorable experience in Vietnam overshadows American thinking about guerrilla insurgency. --Anthony James Joes (1) Fools say they learn from experience; I prefer to learn from the experience of others. --Otto von Bismark (2) 'n 1961, Bernard Fall, a scholar and practitioner of war, published a book entitled The Without The book provided a lucid account of why the French Expeditionary Corps failed to defeat the Viet Minh during the Indochina War, and the book's title derived from the French soldiers' sardonic moniker for Highway 1 on the coast of Indochina--Ambush Alley, or the Street without Joy. In 1967, while patrolling with US Marines on the Street without Joy in Vietnam, Bernard Fall was killed by an improvised explosive mine during a Viet Cong ambush. In 2003, after the fall of Baghdad and following the conventional phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, US and Coalition forces operating in the Sunni Triangle began fighting a counter-guerrilla type war in which much of the enemy insurgent activity occurred along Highway 1, another street exhibiting little joy. Learning from the experience of other US counterinsurgencies is preferable to the alternative. The US military has had a host of successful experiences in counter-guerrilla war, including some distinct successes with certain aspects of the Vietnam War. However, the paradox stemming from America's unsuccessful crusade in the jungles of Vietnam is this--because the experience was perceived as anathema to the mainstream American military, hard lessons learned there about fighting guerrillas were neither embedded nor preserved in the US Army's institutional memory. The American military culture's efforts to expunge the specter of Vietnam, embodied in the mantra No More Vietnams, also prevented the US Army as an institution from really learning from those lessons. In fact, even the term seemed to become a reviled and unwelcome word, one that the doctrinal cognoscenti of the 1980s conveniently transmogrified into foreign internal defense. Even though many lessons exist in the US military's historical experience with small wars, the lessons from the Vietnam War were the most voluminous. Yet these lessons were most likely the least read, because the Army's intellectual rebirth after Vietnam focused almost exclusively on a big conventional war in Europe--the scenario preferred by the US military culture. (3) Since the US Army and its coalition partners are currently prosecuting counter-guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is useful to revisit the lessons from Vietnam and other counterinsurgencies because they are germane to the wars of today and tomorrow. Capturing all or many of these lessons is beyond the scope of this article and is most likely beyond the scope of a single-volume book. However, this article aims to distill some of the more relevant counterinsurgency lessons from the American military's experiences during Vietnam and before. A bigger goal of this article, however, is to highlight some salient studies for professional reading as the US Army starts to inculcate a mindset that embraces the challenges of counterinsurgency and to develop a culture that learns from past lessons in counterinsurgency. This analysis also offers a brief explanation of US military culture and the hitherto embedded cultural obstacles to learning how to fight guerrillas. To simplify and clarify at the outset, the terms counterinsurgency, counter-guerrilla warfare, small war, and asymmetric conflict are used interchangeably. It is a form of warfare in which enemies of the regime or occupying force aim to undermine the regime by employing classical guerrilla tactics. (4) The US Army and the broader American military are only now, well into the second decade after the end of the Cold War, wholeheartedly trying to transform their culture, or mindset. Senior civilian and military leaders of the defense establishment realize that military cultural change is a precondition for innovative and adaptive approaches to meet the exigencies of a more complex security landscape, one in which our adversaries will most likely adopt unorthodox strategies and tactics to undermine our technological overmatch in the Western, orthodox, way of war. …

necessarily supported by clinical research, and opinions expressed regarding the effectiveness or efficacies of these techniques are solely those of the authors.

Exploring task-related variability in fMRI data using fluctuations in power spectrum of simultaneously acquired EEG