NATO's security discourse after the Cold War: representing the West

This book provides a critical investigation into the discursive processes through which the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)reproduced a geopolitical order after the end of the Cold War and the demise of its constitutive enemy, the Soviet Union.

Selfishness and altruism can coexist when help is subject to diminishing returns

Altruism and selfishness are 30–50% heritable in man in both Western and non-Western populations. This genetically based variation in altruism and selfishness requires explanation. In non-human animals, altruism is generally directed towards relatives, and satisfies the condition known as Hamilton's rule. This nepotistic altruism evolves under natural selection only if the ratio of the benefit of receiving help to the cost of giving it exceeds a value that depends on the relatedness of the individuals involved. Standard analyses assume that the benefit provided by each individual is the same but it is plausible in some cases that as more individuals contribute, help is subject to diminishing returns. We analyse this situation using a single-locus two-allele model of selection in a diploid population with the altruistic allele dominant to the selfish allele. The analysis requires calculation of the relationship between the fitnesses of the genotypes and the frequencies of the genes. The fitnesses vary not only with the genotype of the individual but also with the distribution of phenotypes amongst the sibs of the individual and this depends on the genotypes of his parents. These calculations are not possible by direct fitness or ESS methods but are possible using population genetics. Our analysis shows that diminishing returns change the operation of natural selection and the outcome can now be a stable equilibrium between altruistic and selfish alleles rather than the elimination of one allele or the other. We thus provide a plausible genetic model of kin selection that leads to the stable coexistence in the same population of both altruistic and selfish individuals. This may explain reported genetic variation in altruism in man.

The first international workshop on the role and impact of mathematics in medicine: a collective account

The First International Workshop on The Role and Impact of Mathematics in Medicine (RIMM) convened in Paris in June 2010. A broad range of researchers discussed the difficulties, challenges and opportunities faced by those wishing to see mathematical methods contribute to improved medical outcomes. Finding mechanisms for inter- disciplinary meetings, developing a common language, staying focused on the medical problem at hand, deriving realistic mathematical solutions, obtaining

Marguerite Duras and colonialist discourse: an intertextual reading of 'L'Empire français' and 'Un barrage contre le Pacifique'

This article examines the intertextual relationship between Marguerite Duras' pro-colonialist, propagandist text, L'Empire français (1943), and her seemingly anti-colonialist novel, Un barrage contre le Pacifique (1950). It explores both the transformative and the emulative uses to which descriptive elements, borrowed from the precursor text, are put in the novel's depictions of colonial Indochina. Going against prevalent critical readings of Barrage, the article highlights the ambivalent and ultimately only partial nature of Duras' apparent ideological volte-face

The child and the letter: Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

This essay engages with the question of childhood in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Despite narrating a conflict concerning child custody, childhood is a subject rarely broached by the critics of the text. Indeed, the only instance of the child being addressed in criticism grants it the power to enclose potentially subversive narrative. This is a function attributed to the framing structure of the novel by other critics. This essay returns the child to Brontë’s text as a disruptive rather than containing force. Through a detailed close analysis of the novel I track such disruptions, and the extent to which these point to wider theoretical or methodological difficulties in critical accounts of childhood and absence in literature. The essay makes interventions into psychoanalysis, childhood studies, and the discourse of ‘framing’ within C19th literature.

Limit operators, collective compactness, and the spectral theory of infinite matrices

In the first half of this memoir we explore the interrelationships between the abstract theory of limit operators (see e.g. the recent monographs of Rabinovich, Roch and Silbermann (2004) and Lindner (2006)) and the concepts and results of the generalised collectively compact operator theory introduced by Chandler-Wilde and Zhang (2002). We build up to results obtained by applying this generalised collectively compact operator theory to the set of limit operators of an operator (its operator spectrum). In the second half of this memoir we study bounded linear operators on the generalised sequence space , where and is some complex Banach space. We make what seems to be a more complete study than hitherto of the connections between Fredholmness, invertibility, invertibility at infinity, and invertibility or injectivity of the set of limit operators, with some emphasis on the case when the operator is a locally compact perturbation of the identity. Especially, we obtain stronger results than previously known for the subtle limiting cases of and . Our tools in this study are the results from the first half of the memoir and an exploitation of the partial duality between and and its implications for bounded linear operators which are also continuous with respect to the weaker topology (the strict topology) introduced in the first half of the memoir. Results in this second half of the memoir include a new proof that injectivity of all limit operators (the classic Favard condition) implies invertibility for a general class of almost periodic operators, and characterisations of invertibility at infinity and Fredholmness for operators in the so-called Wiener algebra. In two final chapters our results are illustrated by and applied to concrete examples. Firstly, we study the spectra and essential spectra of discrete Schrödinger operators (both self-adjoint and non-self-adjoint), including operators with almost periodic and random potentials. In the final chapter we apply our results to integral operators on .

Robust pole assignment in systems subject to structured perturbations

The problem of robust pole assignment by feedback in a linear, multivariable, time-invariant system which is subject to structured perturbations is investigated. A measure of robustness, or sensitivity, of the poles to a given class of perturbations is derived, and a reliable and efficient computational algorithm is presented for constructing a feedback which assigns the prescribed poles and optimizes the robustness measure.

‘That’s definite discrimination’: practice under the umbrella of inclusion

Inclusive practice is well embedded across society and has developed over time. However, although policy and public view have moved forward, the way organisations address the agenda for inclusion often represents a superficial interpretation of this concept. Qualitative data were gathered using new ethnography to explore the experiences of a library-based reading group for visually impaired readers. The voices of the individuals shed light on the individual and collective experience of reading. These insights challenge the traditional views of distinct provision that are designed to address targets for inclusion of individuals with disabilities. We argue for a clearer focus on the unintentional consequences of practice in the name of inclusion that leave individuals feeling marginalised. This paper suggests the alternative focus on social justice as offering a discourse that focuses on society and away from the individual.

The vulnerable subject of negligence law

The approach taken by English courts to the duty of care question in negligence has been subject to harsh criticism in recent years. This article examines this fundamental issue in tort law, drawing upon Canadian and Australian jurisprudence by way of comparison. From this analysis, the concept of vulnerability is developed as a productive means of understanding the duty of care. Vulnerability is of increasing interest in legal and political theory and it is of particular relevance to the law of negligence. In addition to aiding doctrinal coherence, vulnerability – with its focus on relationships and care – has the potential to broaden the way in which the subject of tort law is conceived because it challenges dominant assumptions about autonomy as being prior to the relationships on which it is dependent.

“Ce n’est pas elle qu’on voit”: the photograph in the work of Annie Saumont

The incorporation of ekphrastic evocations of photographs into fictional works is a growing trend charted by (mostly) literary and (occasionally) art critics interested in the effect of their inclusion in a narrative. What has emerged as a veritable affinity of photography with literature has produced a fertile interdisciplinary critical discourse around areas of intersection between visual and verbal. With regard to short fiction, the photograph is often subject to investigation as analogy, the photograph and the short story being considered metonymically related with regard to form and effect. This notion of a structural equivalence between short story and photograph is one stressed by author/photographer Julio Cortàzar, concerned to highlight the quality of intensity he ascribes to both forms, which he saw as ‘cutting out a piece of reality’ in order to ‘breaking out’ into a wider one. Given Annie Saumont’s oft-cited admiration of Cortàzar’s work it is unsurprising that in her own writing – of stories themselves often classed, in their elliptical density, as verbal snapshots – she should take an interest in photographs and/or photographers. This article seeks to explore and analyse different values Saumont ascribes to what was paradoxically described by Barthes as ‘invisible’, in that what we see when viewing a photograph is, (often treacherously), ‘ pas elle qu’on voit’: never, or never solely, the actual object itself …

An Examination of the factors that shape the subjectivities of female art students in Initial Teacher Training

The school subject of Art and the profession of the primary school teacher are gendered female and both are considered low status within the field of Education and other professional areas of society. A number of sociological studies have examined the impact of gendered socialisation and habitus on females’ career choices and various educational initiatives have been put in place over the years to encourage females to select subjects and/or pursue career paths normally associated with males. Yet Art and primary school teaching continue to be a popular choice with middle class girls. Based on a critical ethnographic study of female BAED Art students, who are training to be primary school teachers, this study is an examination of the many factors, historically and contemporaneously that have shaped and continue to shape the subjectivities of females and frame their aspirations and ambitions. Within this discourse significant aspects of the history of Art and Art Education that have contributed to and influenced the construction of the female artist, and their consequent impact on artistically talented females’ personal identity as artists, are also examined.