Letterforms for handwriting and reading: print script and sanserifs in early twentieth-century England

This essay is about letterforms and typography in reading books for young children and how they were influenced by the teaching of handwriting in the early decades of the twentieth century. I examine the contributions made by infant teachers to typography and book design and draw particular attention to the print script movement and the gradual introduction of sanserif typefaces in reading books. I suggest that the use of sanserifs in reading books for young children is one of their first appearances for continuous text. Although the influence of print script on the teaching of handwriting may have had some undesirable effects, I suggest that it indirectly contributed to some innovations in book design.

Replication enhancer elements within the open reading frame of tick-borne encephalitis virus and their evolution within the Flavivirus genus

We provide experimental evidence of a replication enhancer element (REE) within the capsid gene of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV, genus Flavivirus). Thermodynamic and phylogenetic analyses predicted that the REE folds as a long stable stem–loop (designated SL6), conserved among all tick-borne flaviviruses (TBFV). Homologous sequences and potential base pairing were found in the corresponding regions of mosquito-borne flaviviruses, but not in more genetically distant flaviviruses. To investigate the role of SL6, nucleotide substitutions were introduced which changed a conserved hexanucleotide motif, the conformation of the terminal loop and the base-paired dsRNA stacking. Substitutions were made within a TBEV reverse genetic system and recovered mutants were compared for plaque morphology, single-step replication kinetics and cytopathic effect. The greatest phenotypic changes were observed in mutants with a destabilized stem. Point mutations in the conserved hexanucleotide motif of the terminal loop caused moderate virus attenuation. However, all mutants eventually reached the titre of wild-type virus late post-infection. Thus, although not essential for growth in tissue culture, the SL6 REE acts to up-regulate virus replication. We hypothesize that this modulatory role may be important for TBEV survival in nature, where the virus circulates by non-viraemic transmission between infected and non-infected ticks, during co-feeding on local rodents.

Land re-use, complexity and actor-networks: a framework for research

This paper will present a conceptual framework for the examination of land redevelopment based on a complex systems/networks approach. As Alvin Toffler insightfully noted, modern scientific enquiry has become exceptionally good at splitting problems into pieces but has forgotten how to put the pieces back together. Twenty-five years after his remarks, governments and corporations faced with the requirements of sustainability are struggling to promote an ‘integrated’ or ‘holistic’ approach to tackling problems. Despite the talk, both practice and research provide few platforms that allow for ‘joined up’ thinking and action. With socio-economic phenomena, such as land redevelopment, promising prospects open up when we assume that their constituents can make up complex systems whose emergent properties are more than the sum of the parts and whose behaviour is inherently difficult to predict. A review of previous research shows that it has mainly focused on idealised, ‘mechanical’ views of property development processes that fail to recognise in full the relationships between actors, the structures created and their emergent qualities. When reality failed to live up to the expectations of these theoretical constructs then somebody had to be blamed for it: planners, developers, politicians. However, from a ‘synthetic’ point of view the agents and networks involved in property development can be seen as constituents of structures that perform complex processes. These structures interact, forming new more complex structures and networks. Redevelopment then can be conceptualised as a process of transformation: a complex system, a ‘dissipative’ structure involving developers, planners, landowners, state agencies etc., unlocks the potential of previously used sites, transforms space towards a higher order of complexity and ‘consumes’ but also ‘creates’ different forms of capital in the process. Analysis of network relations point toward the ‘dualism’ of structure and agency in these processes of system transformation and change. Insights from actor network theory can be conjoined with notions of complexity and chaos to build an understanding of the ways in which actors actively seek to shape these structures and systems, whilst at the same time are recursively shaped by them in their strategies and actions. This approach transcends the blame game and allows for inter-disciplinary inputs to be placed within a broader explanatory framework that does away with many past dichotomies. Better understanding of the interactions between actors and the emergent qualities of the networks they form can improve our comprehension of the complex socio-spatial phenomena that redevelopment comprises. The insights that this framework provides when applied in UK institutional investment into redevelopment are considered to be significant.

Reading Derrida on mathematics

This article engages with the claims of Anne Brubaker that “[n]ow that the dust has settled after the so-called ‘Science Wars’ […] it is an opportune time to reassess the ways in which poststructural theory both argues persuasively for mathematics as a culturally embedded practice – a method as opposed to a metaphysics – and, at the same time, reinscribes realist notions of mathematics as a noise-free description of a mind independent reality.” Through a close re-reading of Jacques Derrida’s work I argue, in alliance with Vicki Kirby’s critique of the work of Brian Rotman, not only that Brubaker misunderstands Derrida’s “writing” but also that her argument constitutes a typical instance of much wider misreadings of Derrida and “poststructuralism” across a range of disciplines in terms of the ways in which her text re-institutes the very stabilities it itself attributes to Derrida’s texts.

Effect of phonetic complexity on word reading and repetition in deep dyslexia

This investigation moves beyond the traditional studies of word reading to identify how the production complexity of words affects reading accuracy in an individual with deep dyslexia (JO). We examined JO’s ability to read words aloud while manipulating both the production complexity of the words and the semantic context. The classification of words as either phonetically simple or complex was based on the Index of Phonetic Complexity. The semantic context was varied using a semantic blocking paradigm (i.e., semantically blocked and unblocked conditions). In the semantically blocked condition words were grouped by semantic categories (e.g., table, sit, seat, couch,), whereas in the unblocked condition the same words were presented in a random order. JO’s performance on reading aloud was also compared to her performance on a repetition task using the same items. Results revealed a strong interaction between word complexity and semantic blocking for reading aloud but not for repetition. JO produced the greatest number of errors for phonetically complex words in semantically blocked condition. This interaction suggests that semantic processes are constrained by output production processes which are exaggerated when derived from visual rather than auditory targets. This complex relationship between orthographic, semantic, and phonetic processes highlights the need for word recognition models to explicitly account for production processes.