Urine trouble: a social history of bedwetting and its regulation

Bedwetting has confounded the presumed boundaries of the human body, existing in a fluid space, between the normal and pathological, its treatment has demanded the application of a wide array of different technologies, each based on a distinct conception of the relationship between the body and personality, human organs and personal conduct. In tracing the social history of bedwetting and its regulation, this article examines the ontological assumptions underpinning the treatment of bedwetting and how they have changed over the past two centuries. Through the analysis of medical journals, newspaper articles and magazine advertisements, different topologies are identified which redefine the boundaries of the human body and its capacities. From 16th-century naturalism, in which the human body is subordinated to a cosmic totality, to the circumscribed space of 19th-century paediatrics and the expansive circuits of behavioural psychology and modern psychoanalysis, the body has become multiplied, differently enacted through the application of diverse technologies. It was be shown how coordinating the messy and divergent conceptions of the human body has posed an endemic problem for the human sciences, and how the enduring tension between object enactment and subject constitution is an expression of modern "baroque" subjectivity.     

Estimating original flake mass from 3D scans of platform area

This study confirms the increased capacity to predict flake mass that arises from more accurately measuring surface area in three dimensions using a digital scanner. We also reveal the existence of significantly different relationships between platform area and flake mass for flakes with different platform types and ventral and dorsal morphologies. These different relationships between platform surface area and mass have not been previously identified, and reveal the complexity of platform/mass relationships. Using multivariate regression of 3D platform surface area and external platform angle we improve the accuracy of predictions of original flake mass. We propose a method for studying reduction intensity on retouched flakes, based on comparing predictions of the initial mass of the flake with measurements of the mass following retouching to estimate the amount of mass removed through retouching. We name this approach the Initial-/Terminal-Mass Comparison, or ITMC. Our experiments demonstrate that the capacity of the 3D platform scans to predict flake mass, and by implication the capacity of the ITMC to estimate mass loss, rivals or exceeds the capacity demonstrated for existing reduction measures.