The National Museum of Scotland : a symbol for a new Scotland?

The National Museum of Scotland (forthwith 'Museum') opened to critical acclaim on St Andrew's Day 1998 (see McKean 2000). The timing of the opening was culturally and politically symbolic, taking place on the patron saint of Scotland's day, whilst falling between the devolution referendum for, and the opening of, the reinstated Scottish Parliament. The museum offers a representation of Scotland, one which is negotiated by its creators and visitors alike. Given that national identity is a slippery concept subject to fluidity and change (Hall 1992), the image of stability and authority of a museum, which has been compared to the reification of a church (Horne 1984), offers us an interesting site for developing our understanding of how national identity is constructed.

Sveta Bogorodica (The Church of the Holy Mother), Zavoj, Macedonia : writing about an insignificant vernacular building

Sveta Bogorodica (Church of the Holy Mother), Zavoj, is a small church built in 1934 in a village in the Republic of Macedonia. It presented a quintessential architectural division between a richly ornamented interior and a pure white formal exterior. The paper will examine the question of tradition in relation to architecture. What of the formal Byzantine architectural tradition is inherited in this folk vernacular church building? Secondly, tradition as an inherited liturgical ritual and ceremony. How are these two forms of tradition autonomous or intertwined, and how the question about transcendence in architecture pursued in the 2005 paper on Hagia Sofia might be understood within the parameters offered by this church building, will be explored in the paper .

Picturing the nation : The Celtic periphery as discursive other in the archaeological displays of the museum of Scotland

Using the archaeological displays at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, this paper examines the exhibition as a site of identity creation through the negotiations between categories of same and Other. Through an analysis of the poetics of display, the paper argues that the exhibition constructs a particular relationship between the Celtic Fringe and Scottish National identity that draws upon the historical discourses of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland as a place and a time 'apart'. This will be shown to have implications for the display of archaeological material in museums but also for contemporary understandings of Scottish National identity.

Constructing the identity of a nation : the tourist gaze at the Museum of Scotland

In an era of global instability and crises of national identity, the role of heritage tourism in creating images of national identity has become an important area for research. This article considers the role of heritage tourism in constructing national identity in the nation of Scotland through the lens of the Museum of Scotland. It describes the findings of qualitative research undertaken with potential and actual target consumers to the Museum of Scotland. Three research questions were addressed: Does the Museum of Scotland construct (1) a vision of a `new' Scotland? (2) a symbol of a `real' Scotland? (3) a collective identity of Scotland? The findings suggest that heritage visitors actively identify through their gaze, constructing multifarious meanings of national identity that are dynamic rather than static.

Defining national identity? Visiting the architectural spaces of the Museum of Scotland

National Cultures construct identities by producing meanings about the nation with which we can identify, meanings which are contained in the stories which are told about it, memories which connect its present within its past, and images which are constructed of it. A museum, the repository of a nation’s culture, which connects the past to the present through recounting stories about the artefacts of past cultures is clearly significant in representing the culture of a nation.

This paper explores the architectural spaces of the new Museum of Scotland, which opened in Edinburgh in November 1998. The museum has opened at a crucial time in Scottish history. The Scottish cultural renaissance is manifested in the increase in cultural production and call for Scottish cultural institutions. Parallel to this renaissance are political developments with the re-creation of a Scottish Parliament in 1999. When the idea of ‘Scotland’ is itself in a state of flux, the stories of the nation told in the museum, which attempt to give a sense of location, a connection between the individual and the nation are especially important.

Thus, issues of identity and ‘self’ are crucially important in understanding the contemporary museum. Within this, the relations between the production of these narratives and their consumption by the public are little understood. The majority of studies have concentrated, although not exclusively, on the production of museum displays, primarily with the "politics and poetics" of display. This paper analyses the relationship between producer and consumer within the Museum of Scotland, attempting to reconnect the forces of production and consumption. In doing so, it focuses primarily on the differing conceptions of the ability of the Museum to be able to narrate the nation.

Based on interviews both with museum staff and with visitors to the museum, it argues that an understanding of the relationship between the museum and Scottish national identity can only be considered through an understanding of the tension between the producers’ intentions and the way in which consumers conceptualise the museum as a space for "telling the nation".

The allometric relationship between mean fibre diameter of mohair and the fleece-free liveweight of Angora goats over their lifetime

As mean fibre diameter (MFD) is the primary determinant of mohair price we aimed to quantify the lifetime changes in mohair MFDas Angora goats aged and grew. Measurements were made over 12 shearing periods on a population of Angora goats representing the current range and diversity of genetic origins including South African, Texan and interbred admixtures of these and Australian sources. Records of sire, dam, birthweight, birth parity, liveweight, fleece growth and fleece quality were taken for does and castrated males (wethers) (n = 267 animals). Fleece-free liveweights (FFL_wt) were determined for each goat at shearing time by subtracting the greasy fleece weight from the liveweight recorded immediately before shearing. A restricted maximum likelihood growth curve model was developed for relating MFD to FFL_wt, age and other measurements.Asimple way of describing the results is:MFD= k (FFL_wt)b E; where k is a parameter that can vary in a systematic way with shearing(age), breed, weaning weight, sire, dam and individual; b is a parameter that is the same for nearly the whole study; and E are independent errors from a log-normal distribution. The analysis shows that ^b = 0.34, with s.e. (^b) = 0.021. Thus, mohair MFD was allometrically related to the cube root of FFLwt over the lifetime of Angora goats. However, the allometric proportionality constant differed in a systematic way with age at shearing, genetic strain, weaning weight, sire, dam and individual. For Texan-breed goats, MFD decreased as weaning weight increased (P = 0.00016). The findings indicate that management factors that affect liveweight and weaning weight have lifetime effects on mohair fibre diameter and therefore the value of mohair and the profitability of the mohair enterprise.

The allometric relationship between clean mohair growth and the fleece-free liveweight of Angora goats is affected by liveweight change

Clean fleece weight (CFWt) is affected by liveweight and change in liveweight in Merino sheep, Angora and cashmere goats. However, how these relationships progress as animals age has not been elucidated. Measurements were made over 12 shearing periods on a population of Angora goats representing the current range and diversity of genetic origins including South African, Texan and interbred admixtures of these and Australian sources. Records of breed, sire, dam, date of birth, dam age, birthweight, birth parity, weaning weight, liveweight, fleece growth and fleece quality were taken for does and castrated males (wethers) (n = 267 animals). Fleece-free liveweights (FFLwt) were determined for each goat at shearing time by subtracting the greasy fleece weight from the liveweight recorded immediately before shearing. The average of the FFLwt at the start of the period and the FFLWt at the end of the period was calculated (AvFFLwt). Liveweight change (LwtCh) was the change in FFLwt over the period between shearings. A restricted maximum likelihood model was developed for CFWt, after log10 transformation, which allowed the observations of the same animal at different ages to be correlated in an unstructured manner. A simple way of describing the results is: CFWt = κ (AvFFLwt)β, where κ is a parameter that can vary in a systematic way with shearing age, shearing treatment and LwtCh; and β is an allometric coefficient that only varies with LwtCh. CFWt was proportional to FFLwt0.67 but only when liveweight was lost at the rate of 5–10 kg during a shearing interval of 6 months. The allometric coefficient declined to 0.3 as LwtCh increased from 10 kg loss to 20 kg gain during a shearing interval. A consequence is that, within an age group of Angora goats, the largest animals will be the least efficient in converting improved nutrition to mohair.

Gram-scale and template-free synthesis of ultralong tin disulfide nanobelts and their lithium ion storage performances

Ultralong SnS2 nanobelts with a high production yield up to _98% were synthesized via a gram-scale and template-free solvothermal route. The synthetic mechanism of these intriguing ultralong nanobelts was proposed to be from the synergetic effect of the layered CdI2-type structure of SnS2 and surfacemodification of the capping reagent dodecanethiol. The resulting SnS2 nanobelts showed a high specific capacity of 640 mA h g_1 and stable cycling ability (560 mA h g_1 after 50 cycles), which is much better than a graphite anode.

Parameter-free search of time-series discord

Time-series discord is widely used in data mining applications to characterize anomalous subsequences in time series. Compared to some other discord search algorithms, the direct search algorithm based on the recurrence plot shows the advantage of being fast and parameter free. The direct search algorithm, however, relies on quasi-periodicity in input time series, an assumption that limits the algorithm's applicability. In this paper, we eliminate the periodicity assumption from the direct search algorithm by proposing a reference function for subsequences and a new sampling strategy based on the reference function. These measures result in a new algorithm with improved efficiency and robustness, as evidenced by our empirical evaluation.