Bax and the 'Celtic North'

A feature of scholarship on Arnold Bax is his indebtedness, in his early works, to the Irish literary revival (particularly in the mythology-suffused works of 'AE' and early Yeats) and, in his later works, to the music of Jean Sibelius, and the relationship between these periods. I argue that this relationship, which I summarize by using Bax's portmanteau term of 'Celtic North', is underpinned by the stimulus of landscape, which, as well as being a means by which to return to the Romantic idea of the sublime, also provides a means by which Bax critiques the more modernist relationship with landscape that underpins the English pastoral school of the 1920s. Thus the 'Celtic North' is the antithesis to the English 'south land' of Vaughan Williams and others.

Resource pressure and environmental change on the North African littoral: Epipalaeolithic to Roman gastropods from Cyrenaica, Libya.

This paper discusses the marine and terrestrial shell on Epipalaeolithic to Classical-period sites in the Cyrenaican coastlands, northeast Libya, with particular reference to the Haua Fteah, with parallel studies at a late-Roman farmstead and two small caves. Together they provide evidence for coastal and terrestrial environments and for the continued nutritional importance of gastropods to humans during the Holocene. Land snail evidence is consistent with regional vegetation in coastal Cyrenaica becoming increasingly open through the Holocene, as a result of some combination of climate change and human impact. Marine species suggest that the coastline near the Haua had been rocky throughout the Holocene. At Hagfet al-Gama, changing faunas provide evidence for sand encroachment onto a previously rocky shoreline in Hellenistic times. A biometric study of Osilinus turbinatus shows that in the archaeological sites these shells are systematically smaller than modern specimens, providing evidence for long-term dietary stress in the human populations around the Haua Fteah, with particularly severe stress in parts of the Epipalaeolithic. A biometric study of Patella spp. provided evidence for size selection, but also seems to show evidence for resource pressure. It is unlikely that variations in resource pressure seen in the mollusc biometrics are the result of climatic stress or natural ecological factors and explanations must be sought in society-environment dynamics.

A controlled trial of early interventions to promote maternal adjustment and development in infants born with severe congenital heart disease

Background: Congenital heart disease can have a negative impact on both infant development and maternal adjustment. This study considered the impact of a new programme of early psychosocial interventions on such outcomes, following the birth of a child with severe congenital heart disease.
Methods: Seventy infants and their mothers were assigned to an intervention or control group based on order of presentation to the unit. Interventions aimed at bolstering mother–infant transactions, through psychoeducation, parent skills training and narrative therapy techniques were implemented.
Results: Clinically and statistically signi?cant gains were observed at 6-month follow-up on the mental (but not the psychomotor) scale of the Bayleys-II. Positive gains were also manifested on feeding practices, maternal anxiety, worry and appraisal of their situation.
Conclusions: A programme of generalizable psychosocial interventions is shown to have a positive impact on the infant with severe congenital heart disease and the mother.