Access and excess in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Much is made of the viscerally disturbing qualities embedded in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - human bodies are traumatised, mutilated and distorted – and the way these are matched by close and often intense access to the performers involved. Graphic violence focused on the body specifically indicates the film as a key contemporary horror text. Yet, for all this closeness to the performers, it soon becomes clear in undertaking close-analysis of the film that access to them is equally characterised by extreme distance, both spatially and cognitively. The issue of distance is particularly striking, not least because of its ramifications on engagement, which throws up various aesthetic and methodological questions concerning performers’ expressive authenticity. This article considers the lack of access to performance in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, paying particular attention to how this fits in with contemporaneous presentations of performance more generally, as seen in films such as Junior Bonner (Sam Peckinpah, 1972). As part of this investigation I consider the affect of such a severe disruption to access on engagement with, and discussion of, performance. At the heart of this investigation lie methodological considerations of the place of performance analysis in the post-studio period. How can we perceive anything of a character’s interior life, and therefore engage with performers who we fundamentally lack access to? Does such an apparently significant difference in the way performers and their embodiment is treated mean that they can even be thought of as delivering a performance?

Institutional pressures on financial services firms: the role of information systems in regulatory compliance

The financial crisis of 2008 led to new international regulatory controls for the governance, risk and compliance of financial services firms. Information systems play a critical role here as political, functional and social pressures may lead to the deinstitutionalization of existing structures, processes and practices. This research examines how an investment management system is introduced by a leading IT vendor across eight client sites in the post-crisis era. Using institutional theory, it examines changes in working practices occurring at the environmental and organizational levels and the ways in which technological interventions are used to apply disciplinary effects in order to prevent inappropriate behaviors. The results extend the constructs of deinstitutionalization and identify empirical predictors for the deinstitutionalization of compliance and trading practices within financial organizations.

New animals, new landscapes and new worldviews: the Iron Age to Roman transition at Fishbourne

Anthropologists and cultural geographers have long accepted that animals play an important role in the creation of human cultures. However, such beliefs are yet to be embraced by archaeologists, who seldom give zooarchaeological data much consideration beyond the occasional economic or environmental reconstruction. In an attempt to highlight animal remains as a source of cultural information, this paper examines the evidence for the changing relationship between people and wild animals in Iron Age and Roman southern England. Special attention is given to ‘exotic’ species — in particular fallow deer, domestic fowl and the hare — whose management increased around AD 43. In Iron Age Britain the concept of wild game reserves was seemingly absent, but the post-Conquest appearance of new landscape features such as vivaria, leporaria and piscinae indicates a change in worldview from a situation where people seemingly negotiated with the ‘wilderness’ and ‘wild things’ to one where people felt they had the right or the responsibility to bring them to order. Using Fishbourne Roman Palace as a case study, we argue that wild and exotic animals represented far more than gastronomic treats or symbols of Roman identity, instead influencing the way in which people engaged with, traversed and experienced their surroundings.

Stakeholder interpretations of design: Semiotic insights into the briefing process

Briefing phase interactions between clients and designers are recognized as social engagements, characterized by communicative sign use, where conceptual ideas are gradually transformed into potential design solutions. A semiotic analysis of briefing communications between client stakeholders and designers provides evidence of the significance and importance of stakeholder interpretation and understanding of design, empirical data being drawn from a qualitative study of NHS hospital construction projects in the UK. It is contended that stakeholders engage with a project through communicative signs and artefacts of design, referencing personal cognitive knowledge in acts of interpretation that may be different from those of designers and externally appointed client advisers. Such interpretations occur in addition to NHS client and design team efforts to ‘engage’ with and ‘understand’ stakeholders using a variety of methods. Social semiotic theorizations indicate how narrative strategies motivate the formulation of signs and artefacts in briefing work, the role of sign authors and sign readers being elucidated as a result. Findings are contextualized against current understandings of briefing communications and stakeholder management practices, a more socially attuned understanding of briefing countering some of the process-led improvement models that have characterized much of the post-Egan report literature. A stakeholder interpretation model is presented as one potential method to safeguard against unforeseen interpretations occurring, the model aligning with the proposal for a more measured recognition of how designs can trigger interpretations among client stakeholders.

The influence of anisotropic F region ion velocity distributions on ionospheric ion outflows into the magnetosphere

The contribution to the field-aligned ionospheric ion momentum equation, due to coupling between pressure anisotropy and the inhomogeneous geomagnetic field, is investigated. We term this contribution the “hydrodynamic mirror force” and investigate its dependence on the ion drift and the resulting deformations of the ion velocity distribution function from an isotropic form. It is shown that this extra upforce increases rapidly with ion drift relative to the neutral gas but is not highly dependent on the ion-neutral collision model employed. An example of a burst of flow observed by EISCAT, thought to be the ionospheric signature of a flux transfer event at the magnetopause, is studied in detail and it is shown that the nonthermal plasma which results is subject to a hydrodynamic mirror force which is roughly 10% of the gravitational downforce. In addition, predictions by the coupled University College London-Sheffield University model of the ionosphere and thermosphere show that the hydrodynamic mirror force in the auroral oval is up to 3% of the gravitational force for Kp of about 3, rising to 10% following a sudden increase in cross-cap potential. The spatial distribution of the upforce shows peaks in the cusp region and in the post-midnight auroral oval, similar to that of observed low-energy heavy ion flows from the ionosphere into the magnetosphere. We suggest the hydrodynamic mirror force may modulate these outflows by controlling the supply of heavy ions to regions of ion acceleration and that future simulations of the effects of Joule heating on ion outflows should make allowance for it.

Changes in fire regimes since the Last Glacial Maximum: an assessment based on a global synthesis and analysis of charcoal data

Fire activity has varied globally and continuously since the last glacial maximum (LGM) in response to long-term changes in global climate and shorter-term regional changes in climate, vegetation, and human land use. We have synthesized sedimentary charcoal records of biomass burning since the LGM and present global maps showing changes in fire activity for time slices during the past 21,000 years (as differences in charcoal accumulation values compared to pre-industrial). There is strong broad-scale coherence in fire activity after the LGM, but spatial heterogeneity in the signals increases thereafter. In North America, Europe and southern South America, charcoal records indicate less-than-present fire activity during the deglacial period, from 21,000 to ∼11,000 cal yr BP. In contrast, the tropical latitudes of South America and Africa show greater-than-present fire activity from ∼19,000 to ∼17,000 cal yr BP and most sites from Indochina and Australia show greater-than-present fire activity from 16,000 to ∼13,000 cal yr BP. Many sites indicate greater-than-present or near-present activity during the Holocene with the exception of eastern North America and eastern Asia from 8,000 to ∼3,000 cal yr BP, Indonesia and Australia from 11,000 to 4,000 cal yr BP, and southern South America from 6,000 to 3,000 cal yr BP where fire activity was less than present. Regional coherence in the patterns of change in fire activity was evident throughout the post-glacial period. These complex patterns can largely be explained in terms of large-scale climate controls modulated by local changes in vegetation and fuel load

Palaeoenvironmental evidence for the impact of the crusades on the local and regional environment of medieval (13th–16th century) northern Latvia, eastern Baltic

This paper evaluates the impact of the crusades on the landscape and environment of northern Latvia between the 13th–16th centuries (medieval Livonia). The crusades replaced tribal societies in the eastern Baltic with a religious state (Ordenstaat) run by the military orders and their allies, accompanied by significant social, cultural and economic developments. These changes have previously received little consideration in palaeoenvironmental studies of past land use in the eastern Baltic region, but are fundamental to understanding the development and expansion of a European Christian identity. Sediment cores from Lake Trikāta, located adjacent to a medieval castle and settlement, were studied using pollen, macrofossils, loss-on-ignition and magnetic susceptibility. Our results show that despite continuous agricultural land use from 500 BC, the local landscape was still densely wooded until the start of the crusades in AD 1198 when a diversified pattern of pasture, meadow and arable land use was established. Colonisation followed the crusades, although in Livonia this occurred on a much smaller scale than in the rest of the Ordenstaat; Trikāta is atypical showing significant impact following the crusades with many other palaeoenvironmental studies only revealing more limited impact from the 14th century and later. Subsequent wars and changes in political control in the post-medieval period had little apparent effect on agricultural land use.

Increases in the longevity of desiccation-phase developing rice seeds: response to high temperature drying depends on harvest moisture content

• Background and Aims Earlier studies have suggested that the drying conditions routinely used by genebanks may not be optimal for subsequent seed longevity. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of hot-air drying with low temperature drying on subsequent seed longevity for 20 diverse rice accessions and to consider how factors related to seed production history might influence the results. • Methods Seeds were produced according to normal regeneration procedures at IRRI. They were harvested at different times (harvest date and days after anthesis (DAA), once for each accession) and dried either in a drying room (DR; 15% RH, 15°C), or in a flat-bed heated-air batch dryer (BD; 45°C, 8 h d-1) for up to 6 daily cycles followed by drying in the DR. Relative longevity was assessed by storage at 10.9% moisture content (m.c.) and 45°C. • Key Results Initial drying in the BD resulted in significantly greater longevity compared with the DR for 14 accessions (seed lots): the period of time for viability to fall to 50% for seeds dried in the BD as a percentage of that for seeds dried throughout in the DR varied between 1.3 and 372.2% for these 14 accessions. The seed lots that responded the most were harvested earlier in the season and at higher moisture content. Drying in the BD did not reduce subsequent longevity compared with DR drying for any of the remaining accessions. • Conclusions Seeds harvested at a m.c. where, according to the moisture desorption isotherm, they could still be metabolically active (>16.2%), may be in the first stage of the post-mass maturity, desiccation phase of seed development and able to increase longevity in response to hot-air drying. The genebank standards regarding seed drying for rice and, perhaps, for other tropical species should be reconsidered.

The neoliberal way of war: a critical analysis of contemporary British security in policy and practice.

Dominant paradigms of causal explanation for why and how Western liberal-democracies go to war in the post-Cold War era remain versions of the 'liberal peace' or 'democratic peace' thesis. Yet such explanations have been shown to rest upon deeply problematic epistemological and methodological assumptions. Of equal importance, however, is the failure of these dominant paradigms to account for the 'neoliberal revolution' that has gripped Western liberal-democracies since the 1970s. The transition from liberalism to neoliberalism remains neglected in analyses of the contemporary Western security constellation. Arguing that neoliberalism can be understood simultaneously through the Marxian concept of ideology and the Foucauldian concept of governmentality – that is, as a complementary set of 'ways of seeing' and 'ways of being' – the thesis goes on to analyse British security in policy and practice, considering it as an instantiation of a wider neoliberal way of war. In so doing, the thesis draws upon, but also challenges and develops, established critical discourse analytic methods, incorporating within its purview not only the textual data that is usually considered by discourse analysts, but also material practices of security. This analysis finds that contemporary British security policy is predicated on a neoliberal social ontology, morphology and morality – an ideology or 'way of seeing' – focused on the notion of a globalised 'network-market', and is aimed at rendering circulations through this network-market amenable to neoliberal techniques of government. It is further argued that security practices shaped by this ideology imperfectly and unevenly achieve the realisation of neoliberal 'ways of being' – especially modes of governing self and other or the 'conduct of conduct' – and the re-articulation of subjectivities in line with neoliberal principles of individualism, risk, responsibility and flexibility. The policy and practice of contemporary British 'security' is thus recontextualised as a component of a broader 'neoliberal way of war'.

Use of TD-GC-TOF-MS to assess volatile composition during post harvest storage in seven accessions of rocket salad (Eruca sativa)

An important step in breeding for nutritionally enhanced varieties is determining the effects of the post-harvest supply chain on phytochemicals and the changes in VOCs produced over time. TD- GC-TOF-MS was used and a technique for the extraction of VOCs from the headspace using portable tubes is described. Forty-two compounds were detected; 39 were identified by comparison to NIST libraries. Thirty-five compounds had not been previously reported in Eruca sativa. Seven accessions were assessed for changes in headspace VOCs over 7 days. Relative amounts of VOCs across 3 time points were significantly different - isothiocyanate-containing molecules being abundant on 'Day 0'. Each accession showed differences in proportions/types of volatiles produced on each day. PCA revealed a separation of VOC profiles according to the day of sampling. Changes in VOC profiles over time could provide a tool for assessment of shelf-life.

Training on the use of a bespoke continuing professional development framework improves the quality of CPD records

BACKGROUND: Using continuing professional development (CPD) as part of the revalidation of pharmacy professionals has been proposed in the UK but not implemented. We developed a CPD Outcomes Framework (‘the framework’) for scoring CPD records, where the score range was -100 to +150 based on demonstrable relevance and impact of the CPD on practice. OBJECTIVE: This exploratory study aimed to test the outcome of training people to use the framework, through distance-learning material (active intervention), by comparing CPD scores before and after training. SETTING: Pharmacy professionals were recruited in the UK in Reading, Banbury, Southampton, Kingston-upon-Thames and Guildford in 2009. METHOD: We conducted a randomised, double-blinded, parallel-group, before and after study. The control group simply received information on new CPD requirements through the post; the active intervention group also received the framework and associated training. Altogether 48 participants (25 control, 23 active) completed the study. All participants submitted CPD records to the research team before and after receiving the posted resources. The records (n=226) were scored blindly by the researchers using the framework. A subgroup of CPD records (n=96) submitted first (before-stage) and rewritten (after-stage) were analysed separately. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Scores for CPD records received before and after distributing group-dependent material through the post. RESULTS: Using a linear-regression model both analyses found an increase in CPD scores in favour of the active intervention group. For the complete set of records, the effect was a mean difference of 9.9 (95% CI = 0.4 to 19.3), p-value = 0.04. For the subgroup of rewritten records, the effect was a mean difference of 17.3 (95% CI = 5.6 to 28.9), p-value = 0.0048. CONCLUSION: The intervention improved participants’ CPD behaviour. Training pharmacy professionals to use the framework resulted in better CPD activities and CPD records, potentially helpful for revalidation of pharmacy professionals. IMPACT: • Using a bespoke Continuing Professional Development outcomes framework improves the value of pharmacy professionals’ CPD activities and CPD records, with the potential to improve patient care. • The CPD outcomes framework could be helpful to pharmacy professionals internationally who want to improve the quality of their CPD activities and CPD records. • Regulators and officials across Europe and beyond can assess the suitability of the CPD outcomes framework for use in pharmacy CPD and revalidation in their own setting.

Il realismo di un nuovissimo medio evo: Boccaccio in the age of neorealism

After the war Italian artists and intellectuals saw a significant and necessary confluence between their political desire to create a "new." Italy and their cultural ambition to re-invigorate the study of medieval Italy. This tendency is particularly evident, I argue, in the post-war scholarly and critical focus on Boccaccio, and especially Boccaccio’s Decameron. Not only within the academy but also in the popular press, Boccaccio was granted pride of place in the canon, venerated as the pioneer of socially conscious vernacular literary realism, the archetype for the pursuit of artistic truth in the face of social upheaval. As a result, I wish to suggest, Italian neorealism, which rose to prominence in the first years after the Second World War, was in a significant sense imbued with and realised through a profound engagement with the work of Boccaccio. In turn, the cultural currents affiliated with neorealism influenced Boccaccio studies, whose operative notions of medieval «realism» were to a perhaps surprising degree stimulated by approaches to the neo-realist poetics at work in the Italian films, novels, and criticism of the 1940s and ’50s. Situating the critical discourse surrounding Boccaccio within the post-war Italian context can therefore serve to shed unexpected light on both the cultural affirmation of neorealism and the disciplinary configuration of Italian medieval studies.

Examining the relationships between Holocene climate change, hydrology, and human society in Ireland

This thesis explores human-environment interactions during the Mid-Late Holocene in raised bogs in central Ireland. The raised bogs of central Ireland are widely-recognised for their considerable palaeoenvironmental and archaeological resources: research over the past few decades has established the potential for such sites to preserve sensitive records of Holocene climatic variability expressed as changes in bog surface wetness (BSW); meanwhile archaeological investigations over the past century have uncovered hundreds of peatland archaeological features dating from the Neolithic through to the Post-Medieval period including wooden trackways, platforms, and deposits of high-status metalwork. Previous studies have attempted to explore the relationship between records of past environmental change and the occurrence of peatland archaeological sites reaching varying conclusions. More recently, environmentally-deterministic models of human-environment interaction in Irish raised bogs at the regional scale have been explicitly tested leading to the conclusion that there is no relationship between BSW and past human activity. These relationships are examined in more detail on a site-by-site basis in this thesis. To that end, testate amoebae-derived BSW records from nine milled former raised bogs in central Ireland were produced from sites with known and dated archaeological records. Relationships between BSW records and environmental conditions within the study area were explored through both the development of a new central Ireland testate amoebae transfer function and through comparisons between recent BSW records and instrumental weather data. Compilation of BSW records from the nine fossil study sites show evidence both for climate forcing, particularly during 3200-2400 cal BP, as well as considerable inter-site variability. Considerable inter-site variability was also evident in the archaeological records of the same sites. Whilst comparisons between BSW and archaeological records do not show a consistent linear relationship, examination of records on a site-by-site basis were shown to reveal interpretatively important contingent relationships. It is concluded therefore, that future research on human-environment interactions should focus on individual sites and should utilise theoretical approaches from the humanities in order to avoid the twin pitfalls of masking important local patterns of change, and of environmental determinism.

The fractured lives of German Bohemian children, born 1933-40 in the area known as Sudetenland: a memory study, Nablonz-Neugablonz

At the Paris Peace Conferences of 1918-1919, new states aspiring to be nation-states were created for 60 million people, but at the same time 25 million people found themselves as ethnic minorities. This change of the old order in Europe had a considerable impact on one such group, more than 3 million Bohemian German-speakers, later referred to as Sudeten Germans. After the demise of the Habsburg Empire In 1918, they became part of the new state of Czechoslovakia. In 1938, the Munich Agreement – prelude to the Second World War – integrated them into Hitler’s Reich; in 1945-1946 they were expelled from the reconstituted state of Czechoslovakia. At the centre of this War Child case study are German children from the Northern Bohemian town and district, formerly known as Gablonz an der Neisse, famous for exquisite glass art, now Jablonec nad Nisou in the Czech Republic. After their expulsion they found new homes in the post-war Federal Republic of Germany. In addition, testimonies have been drawn upon of some Czech eyewitnesses from the same area, who provided their perspective from the other side, as it were. It turned out to be an insightful case study of the fate of these communities, previously studied mainly within the context of the national struggle between Germans and Czechs. The inter-disciplinary research methodology adopted here combines history and sociological research to demonstrate the effect of larger political and social developments on human lives, not shying away from addressing sensitive political and historical issues, as far as these are relevant within the context of the study. The expellees started new lives in what became Neugablonz in post-war Bavaria where they successfully re-established the industries they had had to leave behind in 1945-1946. Part 1 of the study sheds light on the complex Czech-German relationship of this important Central European region, addressing issues of democracy, ethnicity, race, nationalism, geopolitics, economics, human geography and ethnography. It also charts the developments leading to the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after 1945. What is important in this War Child study is how the expellees remember their history while living as children in Sudetenland and later. The testimony data gained indicate that certain stereotypes often repeated within the context of Sudeten issues such as the confrontational nature of inter-ethnic relations are not reflected in the testimonies of the respondents from Gablonz. In Part 2 the War Child Study explores the memories of the former Sudeten war children using sociological research methods. It focuses on how they remember life in their Bohemian homeland and coped with the life-long effects of displacement after their expulsion. The study maps how they turned adversity into success by showing a remarkable degree of resilience and ingenuity in the face of testing circumstances due to the abrupt break in their lives. The thesis examines the reasons for the relatively positive outcome to respondents’ lives and what transferable lessons can be deduced from the results of this study.