Denial of change: the 'Military Revolution' as seen by contemporaries

Writers on military matters from the 14th century until the late 18th century either regretted the decadence of their times compared with Antiquity, or they saw no great change in military affairs since Antiquity. Few saw a revolutionary change ushered in by gunpowder, although this number increased since the great "querelle" about the Ancients and the Moderns under Louis XIV. In the early 19th century, the balance tipped, and few would have denied that technology had profoundly changed warfare. All this is a far cry, however, from any contemporary perception of a "Military Revolution" in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Student teachers’ perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading: the implications for teacher education

This article reports on research which identified perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading held by trainee teachers and the impact on my provision as a teacher educator. It found that students’ past and present experiences of learning to read and being a reader influenced their perceptions of what reading is and of what it means to teach reading. As a teacher educator, I am not able to give students long experience of seeing children becoming readers, but I am able to give them richer experiences of reading in personally and culturally relevant contexts. This has implications for the nature of subject knowledge required by a student teacher of reading and the curriculum and practice of teacher education.

In the shadow of Grexit: the Greek election of 17 June 2012

This article provides an overview and analysis of the Greek June 2012 elections. Placing the elections within the broader framework of the Greek socio-political and economic context, it discusses the electoral campaign and results, juxtaposing them to the 6 May electoral round. The election results confirmed many of the trends of the previous round, including electoral volatility, the fragmentation of the party system and the rise of anti-establishment forces. The main difference was the entrenchment of the pro- versus anti- bailout division and the prominence of the question of Greece’s continued Eurozone membership.

Assessing the impact on chronic disease of incorporating the societal cost of greenhouse gases into the price of food: an econometric and comparative risk assessment modelling study

Objectives To model the impact on chronic disease of a tax on UK food and drink that internalises the wider costs to society of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to estimate the potential revenue. Design An econometric and comparative risk assessment modelling study. Setting The UK. Participants The UK adult population. Interventions Two tax scenarios are modelled: (A) a tax of £2.72/tonne carbon dioxide equivalents (tCO2e)/100 g product applied to all food and drink groups with above average GHG emissions. (B) As with scenario (A) but food groups with emissions below average are subsidised to create a tax neutral scenario. Outcome measures Primary outcomes are change in UK population mortality from chronic diseases following the implementation of each taxation strategy, the change in the UK GHG emissions and the predicted revenue. Secondary outcomes are the changes to the micronutrient composition of the UK diet. Results Scenario (A) results in 7770 (95% credible intervals 7150 to 8390) deaths averted and a reduction in GHG emissions of 18 683 (14 665to 22 889) ktCO2e/year. Estimated annual revenue is £2.02 (£1.98 to £2.06) billion. Scenario (B) results in 2685 (1966 to 3402) extra deaths and a reduction in GHG emissions of 15 228 (11 245to 19 492) ktCO2e/year. Conclusions Incorporating the societal cost of GHG into the price of foods could save 7770 lives in the UK each year, reduce food-related GHG emissions and generate substantial tax revenue. The revenue neutral scenario (B) demonstrates that sustainability and health goals are not always aligned. Future work should focus on investigating the health impact by population subgroup and on designing fiscal strategies to promote both sustainable and healthy diets.

The art of shooting the moving goal - explorative study of EA pilot

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has been recognised as an important tool in modern business management for closing the gap between strategy and its execution. The current literature implies that for EA to be successful, it should have clearly defined goals. However, the goals of different stakeholders are found to be different, even contradictory. In our explorative research, we seek an answer to the questions: What kind of goals are set for the EA implementation? How do the goals evolve during the time? Are the goals different among stakeholders? How do they affect the success of EA? We analysed an EA pilot conducted among eleven Finnish Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in 2011. The goals of the pilot were gathered from three different stages of the pilot: before the pilot, during the pilot, and after the pilot, by means of a project plan, interviews during the pilot and a questionnaire after the pilot. The data was analysed using qualitative and quantitative methods. Eight distinct goals were recognised by the coding: Adopt EA Method, Build Information Systems, Business Development, Improve Reporting, Process Improvement, Quality Assurance, Reduce Complexity, and Understand the Big Picture. The success of the pilot was analysed statistically using the scale 1-5. Results revealed that goals set before the pilot were very different from those mentioned during the pilot, or after the pilot. Goals before the pilot were mostly related to expected benefits from the pilot, whereas the most important result was to adopt the EA method. Results can be explained by possibly different roles of respondents, which in turn were most likely caused by poor communication. Interestingly, goals mentioned by different stakeholders were not limited to their traditional areas of responsibility. For example, in some cases Chief Information Officers' goals were Quality Assurance and Process Improvement, whereas managers’ goals were Build Information Systems and Adopt EA Method. This could be a result of a good understanding of the meaning of EA, or stakeholders do not regard EA as their concern at all. It is also interesting to notice that regardless of the different perceptions of goals among stakeholders, all HEIs felt the pilot to be successful. Thus the research does not provide support to confirm the link between clear goals and success.

'Context' in Durham, E., 'Symbols of power: The Silchester Bronze Eagle and eagles in Roman Britain'

Those who study Roman art and religion in Britain will know that there are a relatively small number of pieces in stone and bronze which are regularly used to illustrate arguments on Romanization, provincialism and identity. However, while these objects become familiar through such use, they are, in fact, often little studied as pieces in their own right and the only description of their appearance and context are some fifty or more years old. Re-excavation of the context from which the Silchester eagle was recovered has raised questions about the date of its deposition, as well as its origin and use, and indeed the nature of its deposition at Silchester. This paper examines the figurine in detail, the role of the eagle at Silchester and explores the significance of the eagle more widely in Roman Britain.

France and the memories of ‘others’: The case of the Harkis

Historical narratives help construct social identities, which are maintained through differentiation between in-groups and "others." In this article, we contend that Fatima Besnaci-Lancou's texts, as well as her reconciliation work—in which she enjoins Beurs and Harkis' offspring to write a new, inclusive, polyphonic narrative of the Algerian War—are an example of the positive use of textually mediated identity (re)construction. Her work suggests the possibility of implementing a moderate politics of empathetic recognition of the (often migration-related) memories of "others" so as to reinforce French national belongingness.

"Just as fragments are part of a vessel": a translation into medieval Occitan of the life of Alexander the Great

This article examines a 14th-c. translation into Old Occitan prose of a late-antique life of Alexander the Great: Justin’s Epitome of the 'Historia Philippicae' of Pompeius Trogus. The article argues that it is the work of translators whose knowledge of pagan Latin materials was incomplete and whose use of their native tongue rested on non-literary bases. This text has not been edited before, and examining its uneven treatment of its source provides important new insights into the work of translators in the later Middle Ages. In conclusion, the article suggests some new approaches to the understanding of translation as a process of reconstruction and adaptation.

The long-run performance of IPOs: the case of the Stock Exchange of Mauritius

This study examines the long-run performance of initial public offerings on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius (SEM). The results show that the 3-year equally weighted cumulative adjusted returns average −16.5%. The magnitude of this underperformance is consistent with most reported studies in different developed and emerging markets. Based on multivariate regression models, firms with small issues and higher ex ante financial strength seem on average to experience greater long-run underperformance, supporting the divergence of opinion and overreaction hypotheses. On the other hand, Mauritian firms do not on average time their offerings to lower cost of capital and as such, there seems to be limited support for the windows of opportunity hypothesis.

Impacts of increasing the aerosol complexity in the Met Office global numerical weather prediction model.

The inclusion of the direct and indirect radiative effects of aerosols in high-resolution global numerical weather prediction (NWP) models is being increasingly recognised as important for the improved accuracy of short-range weather forecasts. In this study the impacts of increasing the aerosol complexity in the global NWP configuration of the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) are investigated. A hierarchy of aerosol representations are evaluated including three-dimensional monthly mean speciated aerosol climatologies, fully prognostic aerosols modelled using the CLASSIC aerosol scheme and finally, initialised aerosols using assimilated aerosol fields from the GEMS project. The prognostic aerosol schemes are better able to predict the temporal and spatial variation of atmospheric aerosol optical depth, which is particularly important in cases of large sporadic aerosol events such as large dust storms or forest fires. Including the direct effect of aerosols improves model biases in outgoing long-wave radiation over West Africa due to a better representation of dust. However, uncertainties in dust optical properties propagate to its direct effect and the subsequent model response. Inclusion of the indirect aerosol effects improves surface radiation biases at the North Slope of Alaska ARM site due to lower cloud amounts in high-latitude clean-air regions. This leads to improved temperature and height forecasts in this region. Impacts on the global mean model precipitation and large-scale circulation fields were found to be generally small in the short-range forecasts. However, the indirect aerosol effect leads to a strengthening of the low-level monsoon flow over the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal and an increase in precipitation over Southeast Asia. Regional impacts on the African Easterly Jet (AEJ) are also presented with the large dust loading in the aerosol climatology enhancing of the heat low over West Africa and weakening the AEJ. This study highlights the importance of including a more realistic treatment of aerosol–cloud interactions in global NWP models and the potential for improved global environmental prediction systems through the incorporation of more complex aerosol schemes.