Spatial patterns and trends in abundance of larval sandeels in the North Sea: 1950-2005

Early recruitment indices based on larval fish data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) have the potential to inform stock assessments of Ammodytes marinus in the North Sea. We evaluate whether the CPR data are reliable for sandeel larvae. Spatially, CPR larval data were comparable with catches by dedicated larval samplers (Gulf and bongo nets) during ICES coordinated surveys in 2004 and 2009. ICES data are also used to explore environmental influences on sandeel distributions. Temporally, CPR data correlate with larval data from plankton surveys off Stonehaven (1999–2005), with sandeel 0-group trawl data at the east Fair Isle ground (since 1984), and with recruitment data (since 1983) for the Dogger Banks stock assessment area. Therefore, CPR data may provide an early recruit index of relative abundance for the Dogger Banks assessment area, where the majority of the commercial catch of A. marinus is taken, and the Wee Bankie area that is particularly important for seabird foraging. While warm conditions may stimulate the production of sandeel larvae, their natural mortality is typically greater, in the Dogger Banks and Wadden Sea areas, when the larvae are hatched in warm years and/or with abundant 1-year-old sandeel that are likely to be cannibalistic.

History of Child Welfare and Protection Social Work in Northern Ireland: Finding Continuity amongst Discontinuity in Case Files from 1950-1968

This article reports on research carried out on 200 child welfare files from the largest welfare authority in Northern Ireland from 1950-1968. The literature review provides a commentary on some of the major debates surrounding child welfare and protection social work from the perspective of its historical development. The report of the research which follows offers an insight into one core, and less well-known period of child welfare history in Northern Ireland between the two Children and Young Persons Acts (1950 & 1968). Using a method of discourse analysis influenced by Michel Foucault, a detailed description of the nature of practice is offered. This paper is offered as a work in progress, with further work being planned for dissemination of more detailed analysis of the method and outcomes. The research seeks to ask a few core questions based on problems identified in the present with our current understandings of child welfare and protection histories. While recognising the limitations of this study and the need for broader analysis of the wider context surrounding child welfare practice at the moment, it is argued that some salient conclusions can be drawn about continuity and discontinuity in practice which are of interest to practitioners and students of child welfare social work.

The Perils of Moviegoing in America, 1896-1950

The Perils of Moviegoing in America is a film history that examines the various physical and (perceived) moral dangers facing audiences during the first fifty years of film exhibition.

Chapter 1: “Conflagration”
As early as 1897, a major fire broke out at a film exhibition in San Francisco, with flames burning the projectionist and nearby audience members. From that point until the widespread adoption of safety stock in 1950, fires were a very common movie-going experience. Hundreds of audience members lost their lives in literally thousands of theatre fires, ranging from early nickelodeons to the movie palaces of the thirties and forties.

Chapter 2: “Thieves Among Us”
Bandits robbed movie theatres on hundreds of occasions from the early days of film exhibition through the end of the Great Depression. They held up ticket booths, and they dynamited theatre safes. They also shot theatre managers, ushers, and audience members, as a great many of the robberies occurred while movies were playing on the screens inside.

Chapter 3: “Bombs Away”
Bombings at movie theatres became common in small towns and large cities on literally hundreds of occasions from 1914 to the start of World War II. Some were incendiary bombs, and some were stench bombs; both could be fatal, whether due to explosions or to the trampling of panicked moviegoers

Chapter 4: “It’s Catching”
Widespread movie-going in the early 20th century provoked an outcry from numerous doctors and optometrists who believed that viewing films could do irreparable harm to the vision of audience members. Medical publications (including the Journal of the American Medical Association) published major studies on this perceived problem, which then filtered into popular-audience magazines and newspapers.

Chapter 5: “The Devil’s Apothecary Shops”
Sitting in the dark with complete strangers proved worrisome for many early filmgoers, who had good reason to be concerned. Darkness meant that prostitutes could easily work in the balconies of some movie theatres, as could “mashers” who molested female patrons (and sometimes children) after the lights were dimmed. That was all in addition to the various murderers who used the cover of darkness to commit their crimes at movie theatres.

Chapter 6: “Blue Sundays”
Blue laws were those regulations that prohibited businesses from operating on Sundays. Most communities across the US had such legislation on their books, which by the nickelodeon era were at odds with the thousands of filmgoers who went to the movies every Sunday. Theatre managers were often arrested, making newspaper headlines over and over again. Police sometimes even arrested entire film audiences as accomplices in the Blue Law violations.

Chapter 7: “Something for Nothing”
In an effort to bolster ticket sales, many movie theatres in the 1910s began to hold lotteries in which lucky audience members won cash prizes; by the time of the Great Depression, lotteries like “Bank Night” became a common aspect of the theatre-going enterprise. However, reception studies have generally overlooked the intense (and sometimes coordinated) efforts by police, politicians, and preachers to end this practice, which they viewed as illegal and immoral gambling.

The Bonds of Brotherhood: New Evidence of Sino-North Korean Exchanges, 1950-1954

Drawing on recently declassified documents from the archive of the Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), this article looks at China’s relationship with North Korea during and immediately after the Korean War. Although previous scholarship has touched on PRC–North Korean military ties during the war, this article is the first in-depth analysis of issues that are less well understood, notably China’s efforts to cope with a huge influx of refugees from North Korea, the PRC’s economic assistance during the war and in the early postwar reconstruction, and Chinese educational and ideological support for North Korean professionals and party cadres. The article shows that the extensive military coordination between Beijing and Pyongyang was only one way in which the war brought North Korea and the PRC into a closer relationship