The “Great Queen of Lightninge Flashes”: the transmission of female-voiced burlesque poetry in the early seventeenth century

The essay uncovers evidence for the construction of the ‘woman author’ in the largely male vogue for bawdy burlesque poetry by tracing the circulation of a pair of verses through seventeenth-century manuscript and print miscellanies. It argues that just as these verses are reworked and recontextualised through the process of transmission, so to their ‘authors’ are re-embodied and ascribed different identities in different publication contexts. Female-voiced bawdy poetry raises particular problems for authorial attribution, rather than searching for the real woman behind the text, the essay examines how the ‘authors’ of female-voiced bawdy poetry were produced and reproduced through shifting formal frameworks and socioliterary networks.

Rapid evolution of the cerebellum in humans and other great apes

Humans’ unique cognitive abilities are usually attributed to a greatly expanded neocortex, which has been described as “the crowning achievement of evolution and the biological substrate of human mental prowess” [1]. The human cerebellum, however, contains four times more neurons than the neocortex [2] and is attracting increasing attention for its wide range of cognitive functions. Using a method for detecting evolutionary rate changes along the branches of phylogenetic trees, we show that the cerebellum underwent rapid size increase throughout the evolution of apes, including humans, expanding significantly faster than predicted by the change in neocortex size. As a result, humans and other apes deviated significantly from the general evolutionary trend for neocortex and cerebellum to change in tandem, having significantly larger cerebella relative to neocortex size than other anthropoid primates. These results suggest that cerebellar specialization was a far more important component of human brain evolution than hitherto recognized and that technical intelligence was likely to have been at least as important as social intelligence in human cognitive evolution. Given the role of the cerebellum in sensory-motor control and in learning complex action sequences, cerebellar specialization is likely to have underpinned the evolution of humans’ advanced technological capacities, which in turn may have been a preadaptation for language.

Small states, great power? Gaining influence through intrinsic, derivative, and collective power

In recent years, scholars have devoted increased attention to the agency of small states in International Relations. However, the conventional wisdom remains that while not completely powerful, small states are unlikely to achieve much of significance when faced by great power opposition. This argument, however, implicitly rests on resource-based and compulsory understandings of power. This article explores the implicit connections between the concept of "small state" and diverse concepts of power, asking how we should understand these states' attempts to gain influence and achieve their international political objectives. By connecting the study of small states with additional understandings of power, the article elaborates the broader avenues for influence that are open to many states but are particularly relevant for small states. The article argues that small states' power can be best understood as originating in three categories: “derivative,” collective, and particular-intrinsic. Derivative power, coined by Michael Handel, relies upon the relationship with a great power. Collective power involves building coalitions of supportive states, often through institutions. Particular-intrinsic power relies on the assets of the small state trying to do the influencing. Small states specialize in the bases and means of these types of power, which may have unconventional compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive aspects.

The political economy of bovine tuberculosis in Great Britain

A brief history of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) and its control in Great Britain is presented. Numerous diverse policies to control the disease in man, cattle and wildlife have been pursued over the last 100 years and many millions of pounds have been spent. After notable success in reducing the incidence and prevalence of bTB in cattle in GB from the 1950s to the mid-1980s, the number of cattle slaughtered has increased with increased geographical spread continually since that time with a high point of bTB incidence in 2008. This increase appeared to coincide with changing policy regarding the control of the disease in badgers with a more humane approach adopted and with strengthened protection for badgers through legislation. Indeed, much controversy has been involved in the debate on the role of badgers in disease transmission to cattle and the need for their control as vectors of the disease with various commissioned research projects, trials, public consultations and media attention. The findings of two social science investigations presented as examples showed that citizens generally believed that bTB in cattle is an important issue that needs to be tackled but objected to badgers being killed, whilst cattle farmers were willing to pay around £17/animal/year for a bTB cattle vaccine. It is noted that successes regarding the control of bTB in other countries have combined both cattle and wildlife controls and had strong involvement from industry working with government.

Free groups in central simple algebras without Tits` theorem

Let R be a noncommutative central simple algebra, the center k of which is not absolutely algebraic, and consider units a,b of R such that {a,a(b)} freely generate a free group. It is shown that such b can be chosen from suitable Zariski dense open subsets of R, while the a can be chosen from a set of cardinality \k\ (which need not be open).

Do Different Models of Integration Affect Actual Integration? The Cases of France and Great Britain Revisited

Britain and France adapted two different integration models, namely assimilationist and multiculturalism to integrate their immigrants. These two big models of integration have distinctive characteristics to integrate immigrants. There is a general claim that multiculturalism model is the best for integrating immigrants in terms of actual integration, however, some argue the opposite, that French assimilationist model is ‘better off.’ This study examines these controversial claims by looking at the level to which immigrants are integrated in economic, social, political, cultural dimensions of integration and attitudes towards immigrants in Britain and France. Within a given theoretical framework, this study compares the overall competency level of immigrants’ integration in terms of actual integration between British multiculturalism model and French assimilationist model and validate that both these two big models of integration have reached a comparable level of integration and they do not have any decisive impact on actual integration.

Factors influencing tourism sustainability : The case of the World Heritage Falun Great Copper Mountain

This thesis focuses on identifying hindrances of achieving a sustainable tourism development on a base of a World Heritage Site. Using a case study of the World Heritage Site Falun Great Copper Mountain, the thesis assesses the situational context by using qualitative methods. Five semi- structured interviews with influential stakeholders were conducted to get an inside view of the current situation and to identify site-specific issues. The thesis identifies a number of factors that determine the successful implementation of measures leading towards sustainable tourism in the long-run; the most important being the lack of clear guidelines for the whole destination and no holistic planning approach within the municipality. The thesis concludes that despite the increased pressures towards establishment of sustainable tourism, the concept remains challenging to operationalize for the World Heritage Site without frameworks and tools from UNESCO.

June 2005: June is Great Outdoors Month

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