bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction
Authors: Haffenden John
Published: November 2023

Somebody had poor Julian Bell’s great gushing Life and Letters [Essays, Poems and Letters (London: The Hogarth Press, 1938)], it would have offended him rather I think. But my word how he did write letters. And what is this business of keeping letters? Do you keep letters? It must be a widespread practice judging from biographies. Rather an ugly one I think. It certainly couldn’t be done in my mother’s house, where any writing left about (including two complete plays of mine some time ago) gets immediately destroyed.
In the Blood: Sir Richard Empson, Professor William, and John Henry
Authors: Haffenden John
Published: November 2023

When the Reverend John Empson (1787–1861)—best known as the famous ‘Flying Parson’, because of his insatiable and nerveless passion for hunting—set himself to compose some verses to grace a memorial to his parents, he very slightly adapted a pair of couplets from William Cowper’s poem ‘On the Receipt of My Mother’s Picture’ (1790). The resulting tribute might have amused the most literary of his descendants with its unwonted ambiguity:
Siege and Liberation
Authors: Haffenden John
Published: November 2023

‘We have had a certain amount of distraction here, ‘ Empson wrote on 19 November, just a few weeks after returning to the fray of Peiping. Inflation had soared throughout the summer; food supplies plunged. As more and more government soldiers surged into Peiping, professors had to live ‘cramped together in crowded compounds, almost penniless, too proud to speak of their destitution to the outer world, ‘ as Derk Bodde (a Fulbright Fellow) noted in his journal.
Changes in China; and Kenyon Again
Authors: Haffenden John
Published: November 2023

However happy the Empsons felt that the United Kingdom had recognized the PRC, their pleasure was dampened when the Chi-nese chose not to reciprocate. The British Government hoped that diplomatic ties would serve to protect valuable trade exchanges, but the People ‘s Republic declined to regularize full relations on the basis of such a patently self-interested gesture. As Peter Townsend later explained, ‘China ‘s hesitation to establish full diplomatic relations until, among other points, Britain voted in favour of seating China in the United Nations Assembly, was probably designed to force Britain to declare whether, in the final analysis, she was prepared to allow her commercial
The Road to Retirement
Authors: Haffenden John
Published: November 2023

[in Ohio and Indiana], the sweating teacher can keep awake all right without it, but not the class ‘—one was allocated to him (though the summer in BuValo is not very humid). Furthermore, when Daniel Seltzer, Director of the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University, arranged (at I. A. Richards ‘s express suggestion) to invite him to give a lecture there late in July, Empson asked BuValo to allow him the necessary time out: and permission was promptly granted for such an excursion. ‘What a lot of patience it must require to meet so many people ‘s demands, ‘ he graciously allowed at his own expense.
Roamings in Retirement: from Toronto to Miami
Authors: Haffenden John
Published: November 2023

To the analysis of a literary work. It was his old pitch: he had published it many times. Of a fellow-panellist [GeoVrey Hartman] he wrote some Wve years later: ‘I liked Hartman when I met him, and wish we could have talked more, but I feel sure we could have done one another no good. He is a good man someone tricked into Yale, and now languishes there, Yaled for life. He really does, fairly often, know what an author felt or intended, but his principles forbid him to mention it. ‘ There is no question but that Empson had come to feel radically out of sympathy, and largely out of touch, with recent critical theory; for years he had been disdainful of New Critical dogmatics, and of late he had set himself against all theory, especially any theory putatively informed by philosophy.
The Development of Plato’s Political Theory
Authors: Klosko George
Published: November 2023

Since its publication twenty years ago, the first edition of this work has been the closest thing to a standard book on Plato's political theory. Like the first edition, this edition of The Development of Plato's Political Theory provides a clear, scholarly account of Plato's political theory in the context of the social and political events of his time, and draws connections between the development of his political theory and other aspects of his philosophy, especially his moral psychology. Special attention is paid to the political nature of Plato's political theory, to how his lifelong concern with questions of moral and political reform evolved along with other aspects of his theory, and to both Socrates' and his own efforts to reform actual cities. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to take into account scholarly developments during the last twenty years. Major changes from the first edition include reworking central aspects of chapters on the Statesman and Laws and detailed discussion of questions of interpretation, how Plato's dialogues should be read. Among other subjects receiving increased attention are Plato's alleged totalitarianism and racism and the place of the nocturnal council in the political theory of the Laws.
The Ideal State
Authors: Klosko George
Published: November 2023

In the last chapter we saw something of Plato’s concern with education and its crucial role in moral reform. What remains to be seen is its role in shaping the institutional structure of the ideal state. Plato argues that education is not only the central institution of the state but also the key to the proper functioning of its other institutions. But difficult requirements must be met before education can work. The significance of education to the smooth functioning of the state is discussed in Book IV (423c–27a). Having outlined many important features of the state, Socrates considers what remains to be done. He declares that further legislation is unnecessary. If the all-important programme of education is adhered to, all will be well; if not, there is little hope. Education is the means through which the public spirit necessary for a successful state is created. Good education and good upbringing, if preserved, will produce citizens who will improve with each generation (424a–b).
The Shifting International Context: From Post-War Universal Human Rights to Post-Cold War Minority Rights
Authors: Kymlicka Will
Published: November 2023

The recent wave of international activity in the field of minority rights rests on a simple but striking assumption—namely, that issues regarding the treatment of minorities are ‘matters of legitimate international concern and consequently do not constitute exclusively an internal affair of the respective State ‘. This assumption has been stated explicitly by several international organizations since 1990 to justify the formulation of new norms and monitoring mechanisms. I will discuss the details of some of these norms and mechanisms below, but the first task is to explore this underlying assumption.
Evaluating Liberal Multiculturalism in Practice
Authors: Kymlicka Will
Published: November 2023

In the previous chapter, I described the optimistic origins of liberal multiculturalism in the West, emerging as part and parcel of a larger human rights revolution, and committed to attacking inherited hierarchies and expanding individual freedom. But this story about the genealogy of liberal multiculturalism is primarily a story about beliefs, intentions, and aspirations, and doesn ‘t tell us how things have worked out in practice.
Unpacking Production: The Small Arms Industry
Authors: Evans Gareth
Published: November 2023

The inaugural edition of the Small Arms Surveynotes that ‘the small arms industry is the most widely distributed sector of the global defence industry’ (Small Arms Survey, 2001, p. 7). It determines that the number of firms producing small arms and light weapons has increased since the end of the cold war. The three subsequent editions of the Surveyassess the overall size of the industry by listing companies known to engage in production; considering trends in production across regions; and demonstrating how market changes affect the entire industry (Small Arms Survey, 2002; 2003; 2004). Yet research to date indicates that ‘global trends’ have diverse impacts on firms that comprise the small arms industry. The production chapter in the Small Arms Survey 2004is a case in point. Entitled ‘Continuity and Change’, it describes both great shifts affecting the industry and, concurrently, continuity in the production and use of a number of basic weapons across the globe.
Locking onto Target: Light Weapons Control Measures
Authors: Evans Gareth
Published: November 2023

This chapter begins with a review of international measures: first, those that apply to a broad range of small arms and light weapons, then those that specifically target the transfer of MANPADS. The last part of the chapter shifts the focus to the national level and enquires whether important exporting countries have in place the laws and regulations necessary for the effective implementation of the new MANPADS measures. As the normative framework needed to address the MANPADS problem takes shape at the international level, the key challenges increasingly reside at the national level—with the national implementation of the new international standards.
Managing ‘Post-Conflict’ Zones: DDR And Weapons Reduction
Authors: Evans Gareth
Published: November 2023

The end of war does not necessarily signal a return to security. The introduction of a ceasefire, a peace agreement, or even discrete interventions that seek to disarm warring parties do not guarantee tangible improvements in the safety of either civilians or former combatants. In fact, in 2004, many so-called post-conflict environments presented more direct and indirect threats to civilians than the armed conflicts that preceded them. This raises an important question: what constitutes ‘post-conflict’? Does it necessarily begin with a signed peace accord? When does it end? The expression has become so ubiquitous that its very meaning is rarely questioned.
The Central African Republic: A Case Study Of Small Arms And Conflict
Authors: Evans Gareth
Published: November 2023

In the past ten years, the Central African Republic (CAR) has hosted four international peacekeeping operations and witnessed conflicts in neighbouring states that have routinely made international headlines. Yet, relatively little literature exists on the country. As will be shown, this study has relevance far beyond the troubled, landlocked nation that is its subject. It challenges many widely held assumptions about security-sector reform (SSR) that have continental and global implications. The study also provides a richer context for acquiring a better understanding of continuing threats to peace and security throughout the region. It underscores how conflicts are interrelated and how progress in one country can harm that of another if proper attention is not paid.
Weymouth Amusements
Authors: Barrell John
Published: November 2023

At the end of February 1789 George III recovered from the most serious episode so far of the porphyria that was understood by his contemporaries as madness. The Regency Bill, which had produced deep divisions within parliament, the nation, and the king’s own family, was abandoned, and his recovery was greeted with effusive demonstrations of loyalty, ‘the most brilliant, as well as the most universal exhibition of national loyalty and joy, ever witnessed in England’. London was illuminated from Hampstead to Tooting, from Kensington to Greenwich. In April the king was driven in procession through cheering crowds to attend a three-hour service of thanksgiving in St Paul’s.
‘MacSimmittoon’
Authors: Clark Heather
Published: November 2023

The Ulster Renaissance is ultimately best understood through the wheels that set it in motion—not through the exaggerations of British or Irish journalists, but through the Belfast Group workshop, the Belfast Festival, the Northern Review, Festival poetry pamphlets, the Honest Ulsterman, poetry tours, first publications, successful reviews, and literary awards. It was not the Dublin or London reviewers who imposed the ‘Belfast Group’ identity upon the poets from on high; journalists could only publicize what the poets themselves had achieved. That identity was, to a large degree, invented and sustained by the poets themselves. Their achievements gave them the confidence to conceive of Ulster poetry as a distinct category, and to engage in a dialogue among themselves, as well as with the London and Dublin literati, about what shape that poetry ought to take. By the 1970s, the tone of the conversation would change as the term ‘Ulster poetry’ bore new burdens, yet it is important to recognize that the poets had already established a viable Northern identity— one centred around the idea of a local literary community which shared aesthetic principles and claimed kinship with Ulster poetic father-figures—before the onset of violence.
Conclusion
Authors: Lunn-Rockliffe Katherine
Published: November 2023

This study has traced the increasingly complex ironic techniques used by Corbière. His style is based on vocal multi-layering, which is used variously to build up a kaleidoscopic picture of the world, to expose speakers as comic personae, and to evoke the convolutions of consciousness. Complex rhetorical situations are used to convey selfdivision, and this aesthetic culminates in the rondels. Irony is generated by a wide range of variations on the writer–reader relationship, such as insinuating a distance between author and speaker, or using multiple voices which force the reader to question who is speaking. This is an indirect way of expressing personal experience, since poems play out comic scenes for the benefit of the reader, rather than confiding directly in him or her.
Quantifying Policy Emphases in Texts Using the CMP Approach: Comparisons with Alternative Aproaches
Authors: Klingemann Hans-dieter , Volkens Andrea , Bara Judith L , Budge Ian , McDonald Michael d.
Published: November 2023

Chapter 5 worked down from macro-level assessments of the quality of our main policy indicator to agreement estimates for sub-sets of scores. These are useful for comparing two scores (say for different parties in 1992 or the same party between 1942 and 1997), and deciding whether they are really different or whether their basic identity is masked by error. As the figures show, our measurements are generally reliable, so most differences can be taken as telling us something about real-life politics.
Models And Least Squares
Authors: Atkinson A C , Donev A N , Tobias R D
Published: November 2023

The plots in Chapter 4 illustrate some of the forms of relationship between an m-dimensional factor x and the true response η(x), which will often be written as η(x, β) to stress dependence on the vector of p unknown parameters β. For a first-order model p = m + 1. Measurements of η(x) are subject to error, giving observations y.
Blocking Response Sur Face Designs
Authors: Atkinson A C , Donev A N , Tobias R D
Published: November 2023

This chapter, like Chapter 14, is concerned with the design of experiments when the response depends on both qualitative and quantitative factors. However, we now focus on the case when the experimenter is not interested in the model parameters corresponding to the levels of the qualitative factors. These factors may be included in the study because this is convenient or even unavoidable, or because their inclusion ensures the required experimental space and, hence, range for the validity of the results. Such qualitative variables are called blocking variables and the groups of observations corresponding to their levels, blocks. Examples of experimental situations requiring blocking were given in Chapter 1.
Compound Design Criteria
Authors: Atkinson A C , Donev A N , Tobias R D
Published: November 2023

An experimenter rarely has one purpose or model in mind when planning an experiment. For example, the results of a second-order response surface design will typically be used to test the terms in the model for significance as well as being used to test for goodness of fit of the model. The significant terms will then be included in a model, the estimated response from which may be used for prediction at one or several points not necessarily within In previous chapters we have found designs optimum for these individual tasks. However, a design that is optimum for one task may be exceptionally inefficient for another.
The population and the landscape
Authors: Samways Michael J , New Tim R , McGeoch Melodie A
Published: November 2023

Organisms, the places in which they live, and the resources they need, occur across landscapes (or waterscapes in the case of aquatic species). The term ‘dispersion’ is used to describe the distribution of individuals within and across their habitat or the landscape, and organisms are commonly unevenly or patchily distributed (aggregated). The major concerns for the well-being of many insects come about from changes to the structure (especially of plant types), species composition (ecological integrity), and quality (ecosystem health) of these landscapes. Extensive human-induced changes have led to loss and fragmentation of habitats, and hence reduced quality or loss of critical resources.
Ex-situ conservation: captive rearing and reintroduction programmes
Authors: Samways Michael J , New Tim R , McGeoch Melodie A
Published: November 2023

Ex situ conservation refers to conservation undertaken outside the natural habitat. It is usually applied to the process of taking organisms into captivity to enhance their security, through breeding from this foundation stock, and, in due course, by releasing them or their offspring, perhaps after many generations, into the wild. This process becomes necessary (1) when populations in the wild have declined to such low levels that they may not be self-sustaining, (2) where threats to populations and/or their habitats are so severe that extinction is deemed likely, and/or (3) where captive individuals and their offspring can be protected from natural enemies or other factors causing high mortality, so that numbers can be built up either to augment source populations or to found new populations by translocation or other controlled release.
Studying insects in the changing environment
Authors: Samways Michael J , New Tim R , McGeoch Melodie A
Published: November 2023

The major drivers of global environmental change, and which affect biodiversity, include habitat loss and alteration, invasive alien species, pollution, and climate change. The catalyst for much of today’s insect ecology and conservation research is rapid global environmental change, combined with the recognized importance and functional significance of insect biodiversity. In the context of global change, insects are studied to understand (1) the impact of environmental change on insect biodiversity, and (2) the consequences of a change in insect biodiversity on overall biodiversity and ecosystem functioning as we know it, as well as (3) to examine the possibility of using insects to provide some sort of early warning system or indication of the extent, rate, and nature of environmental change.
Key questions for insect conservation in an era of global change
Authors: Samways Michael J , New Tim R , McGeoch Melodie A
Published: November 2023

It is beyond the scope and objective of this book to provide the theoretical back-ground to each form of environmental change and our current understanding of their impacts on insect biodiversity (see work by T. Tscharntke and colleagues for extensive work on insect conservation in fragmented agricultural landscapes, e.g. Tscharntke et al. 2007). Needless to say there is a vast literature and well-established theory on topics such as habitat fragmentation, biological invasion, and climate change. Rather, the aim of this section is to provide a brief overview of some of the important questions and variables, sampling, and measurement considerations in studies of insect and; environmental change. Several of the techniques mentioned in this chapter as being appropriate for application to study a particular form of environmental change are dealt with in detail in previous chapters.
Assumed knowledge
Authors: Casse Rey
Published: November 2023

As mentioned in the Foreword, Chapter 1 is devoted to the listing of some basic facts about fields and linear algebra. It is expected that a third year university student is more familiar with the material on linear algebra than the material on fields. A reader who is not familiar with fields is recommended to Proceed with the study, and learn about fields on a ‘needs’ basis, as not all of the properties are immediately needed Seek proofs and further information from an appropriate algebra book.
Introduction to axiomatic geometry
Authors: Casse Rey
Published: November 2023

In the last chapter, we constructed the extended Euclidean plane, and as a consequence, obtained a powerful tool, namely the ‘Principle of Duality’. It seems logical to investigate whether extending the Euclidean three-dimensional space ℝ3 leads to a similar situation.
Coordinatising a projective plane
Authors: Casse Rey
Published: November 2023

There are many ways to coordinatise a projective plane. The most popular one is to attempt to make the plane look as close to a field plane as possible. Consider the plane PG(2,F ). Let O, X, and Y be any three non-collinear points of PG(2,F ). Without loss of generality, we may take the homogeneous coordinates of O, X, and Y to be (0, 0, 1), (1, 0, 0), and (0, 1, 0), respectively. Any point A on OX, with A ≠ X, has homo geneous coordinates (a, 0, 1), a ϵ F . Similarly, let B = (0, b, 1) be any point of OY , distinct from Y .
Facing East Islam and Identity in West African Literature
Authors: Newell Stephanie
Published: November 2023

What I would like are large lines, large navigational canals across the desert. Wearing the desert out, denying it, gathering Africa together, creating the continent. A vibrant, multicultural patchwork of Muslim communities can be found in West Africa, living in countries ranging from the wholly Islamic Mali to countries such as Benin and Ghana in which Christian, Islamic, and customary religious communities coexist side by side, often within the same village or extended family group.
Oral Literatures
Authors: Newell Stephanie
Published: November 2023

European-language writers like Senghor, Kane, Achebe and Soyinka are not the only professional authors in West Africa. The region is also dense with ‘ >griots> ’, who fulfill vital social and cultural roles as performers and interpreters, as praise-singers, oral historians, storytellers, singers, dancers, and drummers. Alongside these professional >griots , ordinary people also frequently participate in oral performances, singing a person’s praises, or, as we will see, publicly abusing an individual for bad behaviour.
Experimental Writing by the ‘Third Generation’
Authors: Newell Stephanie
Published: November 2023

In 1996, Femi Osofisan remarked upon a ‘new kind of writing which is astonishingly different’ in West Africa, manifesting ‘a violent rupture with the goals of literature as understood and interpreted by my generation’ (1996: 25). In place of the themes and styles developed by second-generation writers, authors since the 1980s have produced ‘metanarratives without authors, without plot . . . in which the protagonist’s identity (or, more correctly, identities) has become unstable, and inconstant, splintered into plural heteroglossic, and sometimes even conflictual phantoms’ (Osofisan, 1996: 25).
Justice and Reparations in World Politics
Authors: Lu Catherine
Published: November 2023

War and other forms of political violence, at domestic and international levels, tear or stain the fabric of individual lives, as well as the moral, political, and social fabrics of communities. Such depictions of the consequences of war naturally invoke the image of repair. The project of moral regeneration can be understood to entail numerous kinds of repair. One might, for example, characterize the aim of moral regeneration as the repair of morally defective or damaged norms, institutions, and social relationships. Effecting ‘reparation’ so understood could entail several components, including recognition, retribution, and restitution, since moral repair might require a public accounting of events, punishment of the guilty, material compensation for losses suffered by victims, public acknowledgment and remembrance of the wrong, and legal and other institutional transformations to legitimize a new political, social, and economic order. Used in this way, the concept of repair or reparation is basically synonymous with the entire project of moral regeneration.2
Reparations as Symbol: Narratives of Resistance, Reticence, and Possibility in South Africa1
Authors: Hamber Brandon
Published: November 2023

In South Africa there is clearly the need to address its history of colonialism, labor exploitation akin to slavery, internal oppression largely by the white minority, as well as a litany of human rights violations committed during the struggle for independence. This task, however, cannot only be backwardlooking or simply about recognizing past hurts; it needs to reckon simultaneously with a legacy of profound racially based socioeconomic inequalities that continue to weigh heavily on the present. This chapter considers the place for reparations in this task.
Atomic Collisions
Authors: Budker Dmitry , Kimball Derek F , Demille David P
Published: November 2023

Suppose we have a volume containing gas of molecules at density n with collisional cross-section σ. What is the mean free path of a molecule between collisions and the average time between collisions? Now suppose we add some gas of another sort (buffer gas) into the volume.
Miscellaneous Topics
Authors: Budker Dmitry , Kimball Derek F , Demille David P
Published: November 2023

If a paramagnetic atom is oriented in a direction which is not collinear with the direction of an applied magnetic field, the magnetic moment of the atom precesses around the direction of the magnetic field at the Larmor frequency ΩL . For a needle of a magnetic compass, a very different behavior is usually observed. Assuming that the needle can freely rotate around its central pivot point, once released at rest at an angle to the magnetic field, the needle will undergo oscillations with respect to its equilibrium orientation (where the needle’s magnetic moment is aligned with the field).
Street-Corner Vision
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

Among the under-estimated attractions of Dalston Junction is a street corner full of forgotten municipal services. The public lavatories are of the attended Victorian variety with wrought-iron railings, descending steps and lunettes in the pavement; and, on good days at least, they still function as originally intended—unlike many of their equivalents in more right-thinking and fortunately placed London boroughs, which have been sold into private use as wine bars, pool halls and design consultancies. There’s a distinctly village-like Public Notice Board provided by the council but now only used by the fly-posting militants of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the exiled Turkish Communist Party.
Around the World in Three Hundred Yards
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

What is to be done about Dalston Junction? Successive governments have pondered this question. Their advisers take one look and quickly propose a road-widening scheme or, better still, a really ambitious new motorway that will obliterate the whole area. Ministers pretend to be surprised when carping residents come out against these generously offered ‘improvements’, and the blight settles a little deeper. In the most recent case it was Peter Bottomley, then Conservative Minister for Roads, who provided local campaigners with their best quotation.
Down in the Dirt
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

Anthropologists have produced elegant theories about dirt. Mary Douglas has described dirt as an idea that defines the outside of a culture, a conceptual domain in which all differences disappear and only the threat of defilement remains: as dirt, so the argument goes, everything is the same. We know about defilement on Dalston Lane too, but here the filth in the streets is far from undifferentiated. Indeed, it calls for discrimination of the closest kind. Children know better than to play in the autumn leaves without at first poking about in them with a stick to see what exotic content they might mask.
Abysmal Heights
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

A few hundred yards from Dalston Lane, due south of the hoarding on which the Araldite poster appeared, stands a sawn-off Victorian pub. The Grange Tavern bears Charrington’s name, along with the meaningless inaugural date of 1757 and a sign that struggles to lend a Palladian air to the neighbourhood: it shows a large and classical looking ‘grange’ with horses, carriages, and the predictable collection of gentlefolk gathered in the open space before it. Designed like so many pubs of its time, to command the corner at the end of a terraced street, the Grange Tavern is now an amputated stump, a relic stranded in the midst of the famously awful Holly Street Estate, built by Hackney Council in the early Seventies.
Rodinsky’s Place
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

I have been spared the fatal romance of growing up in an English country house, but England is full of ancestors and I can’t visit Spitalfields without thinking of a distant one of my own. Thomas Fowell Buxton is remembered for his opposition to capital punishment and, above all, for his collaboration with Wilberforce in pressing for the abolition of slavery. In his later years he came to be known as Buxton the Liberator.
Drinking Water in a Toxic State
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

In 1966 Hackney Council joined the London Boroughs Association in demanding the compulsory fluoridation of London’s drinking water. It was promptly denounced by the members of ‘Hackney Against Fluoridation’, a local campaign which accused the council of seeking to infringe on ‘a fundamental freedom of the individual’. But this was the age of state reform and it was with unswerving confidence that a properly elected champion of the public good, Labour Councillor Lou Sherman, OBE, Chairman of Hackney’s Public Health Committee, ran a bulldozer over their upstart objection: ‘If we rely on voluntary methods, children’s teeth will be falling out of their heads before fluoride is introduced.’
Remembering London’s War
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

A motorist driving along Richmond Road at about 11.15 on the morning of Sunday, 11 November 1990, would have passed a small gathering by the pavement, just north-east of the Holly Street Estate. A vicar was presiding, but there was no sign of a church. Indeed, the small band was gathered in front of a modest block of six-storey council flats, ornamented with the usual mess of satellite dishes. Had our motorist slowed a little, he might have noticed that the congregation was gathered around a small and damaged war memorial.
Down Among the Gentrifiers
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

There was no wedge of lime jammed into its neck but the label’s vaguely Toltec sun, emitting old-fashioned rays from behind a cloud, left no doubt that this was a bottle of Sol, the fashionable Mexican beer. I came across this unexpected import from the land of the plumed serpent one recent Saturday morning: half-empty but still upright on the disillusioning pavement of Dalston Lane. It was putting up a good stand against the drifting litter and the greasy strutting pigeons, but it still looked as implausible as Canary Wharf, that other tall beacon of the Renewal that suddenly went into reverse.
Don Giovanni (and Business Planning) Come to the Hackney Empire
Authors: Wright Patrick
Published: November 2023

It was, as the organizers freely admitted, a budget production. The Wren Chamber Orchestra had been cut down to nine players and the set was ‘unassertive’. A plywood door featured prominently and anyone suffering a momentary failure of imagination in the closing scene might have wondered why Don Giovanni’s banqueting hall looked like the space between two pillars of a motorway flyover. Mozart’s opera had been trimmed, sheared of its chorus and squeezed into three hours to ensure that the musicians didn’t run into overtime.
Pygmy Mammoths and Mysterious Islands
Authors: McCarthy Dennis
Published: November 2023

Although the thirteen finches and two groups of iguanas of Galápagos were among the first creatures to submit to evolutionary explanations and serve today as symbols of Darwin’s great discovery, each group has harbored its own evolutionary mystery that has not been fully explicated until recently. Before discussing their closely guarded secrets and the evolutionary forces that govern islands in general, it is important to clarify the two mechanisms at work in evolution—heredity and natural selection—which, in turn, unite the two elements of biogeography: biology and the environment.
The Volcanic Ring That Changed the World
Authors: McCarthy Dennis
Published: November 2023

If I had to point to a single geological feature of the Earth that had the greatest biogeographical consequences on the post-dinosaur world, that is, on our entire global ecosystem as encountered today, I would choose the chain of seafloor spreading ridges that presently encircles Antarctica. This little-known ring of cracks in the ocean bottom has drastically influenced the geographical positioning of continents and oceans around the Earth, which in turn, has forever altered the flora and fauna of each of the biogeographical realms.
Writing Partition
Authors: Gopal Priyamvada
Published: November 2023

In June 1946, one year before formal Independence from British rule, plans were announced to partition colonial India along religious lines into what would become the sovereign nation-states of India and Pakistan. The division would mainly affect Punjab in the north-west and Bengal in the east, both of which regions had large Muslim populations. Partition was the (for many people, unexpected) culmination of several years of political manoeuvring or a ‘triangular game plan’ of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and the colonial government (Mushirul Hasan cited in Francisco 2000: 381). The hardening of divisions between Hindus and Muslims was itself a product of the colonial policy of divide et impera, or ‘divide and rule’.
The basic mortality model
Authors: Pitacco Ermanno , Denuit Michel , Haberman Steven , Olivieri Annamaria
Published: November 2023

Some elements of the basic mortality model underlying life insurance, life annuities and pensions have been already introduced in Chapter 1, while presenting the structure of life annuities; see in particular Sections 1.2 and 1.3. In Chapter 2, we consider the mortality model in more depth. We adopt a more structured presentation of the fundamental ideas, which means that some repetition of elements from Chapter 1 is unavoidable.
Forecasting mortality: applications and examples of age-period models
Authors: Pitacco Ermanno , Denuit Michel , Haberman Steven , Olivieri Annamaria
Published: November 2023

As explained in Chapter 4, actuaries working in life insurance and pension have been using projected life tables for some decades. But the problem confronting actuaries is that people have been living much longer than they were expected to according to the life tables being used for actuarial computations. What was missing was an accurate estimation of the speed of the mortality improvement: thus, most of the mortality projections performed during the second half of the 20th century have underestimated the gains in longevity. The mortality improvements seen in practice have quite consistently exceeded the projected improvements. As a result, insurers have, from time to time, been forced to allocate more capital to support their inforce annuity business, withadverse effects on free reserves and profitability. From the point of view of the actuarial approach to risk management, the major problem is that mortality improvement is not a diversifiable risk. Traditional diversifiable mortality risk is the random variation around a fixed, known life table. Mortality improvement risk, though, affects the whole portfolio and can thus not be managed using the law of large numbers (see Chapter 7 for a detailed discussion of systematic and non-systematic risks). In this respect, longevity resembles investment risk, in that it is non-diversifiable: it cannot be controlled by the usual insurance mechanism of selling large numbers of policies, because they are not independent in respect of that source of uncertainty.
The longevity risk: actuarial perspectives
Authors: Pitacco Ermanno , Denuit Michel , Haberman Steven , Olivieri Annamaria
Published: November 2023

The assessment of longevity risk requires a stochastic representation of mortality. Possible approaches are described in Section 7.2, which is also devoted to an analysis of the impact of longevity risk on the risk profile of the provider. In Section 7.3 and 7.4 we take a risk management perspective, and we investigate possible solutions for risk mitigation. In particular, risk transfers as well as capital requirements for the risk retained are discussed. Policy design and the pricing of life annuities allowing for longevity risk are dealt with in Section 7.5 and 7.6; such aspects, owing to commercial pressure and modelling difficulties, are rather controversial. We do not develop an in-depth analysis, but we instead remark on the main issues. To reach a proper arrangement of the policy conditions of a life annuity, the possible behaviour of the annuitant in respect of the planning of her/his retirement income has to be considered. In Section 7.7 we describe possible choices available to the annuitant in this respect.
Towards a European Electorate: One Electorate or Many?
Authors: Brug Wouter van der , Franklin Mark , Popescu Marina , Tóka Gábor
Published: November 2023

The previous two chapters focused on the practice of political representation in the European Union (EU) from the perspective of the ‘supply side ‘ of the electoral market: parties and their political programmes and how the media communicate what is at stake at the elections. In this chapter we focus on the ‘demand side ‘: the electorates of the different European countries. Thomassen argued in the introductory chapter that the behaviour of voters should meet a number of requirements for them to be represented meaningfully. In the first place, voters should base their choice on policy considerations. It is very unlikely that political parties represent the opinions of their voters if these opinions do not guide electoral choice.
Legitimacy and Electoral Abstention in European Parliament Elections
Authors: Eijk Cees van der , Schmitt Hermann
Published: November 2023

Levels of abstention in European Parliament (EP) elections have been high ever since they were held for the first time in 1979. This was also clearly the case in 2004, the first year in which the ten new member states of the 2004 enlargement took part in these elections. The elections in 2004 showed unprecedented low turnout, particularly in some of the new member states. In five of the formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, less than 30 per cent of eligible citizens cast their votes, with Slovakia and Poland registering the lowest levels of turnout of all member states – 17.0 per cent and 20.9 per cent respectively (see Table 10.1, below, which presents turnout at EP elections since 1979, per country).
chapter 3
Authors: Wu Duncan
Published: November 2023

‘Do you like Sterne?’ asked William. ‘Yes, to be sure. I should be hanged if I didn’t!’ He was talking to Joseph Fawcett, ‘almost the first literary acquaintance I ever made’. Twelve years his senior, Fawcett was an energetic, excitable Unitarian preacher. A decade before, he started to give his Sunday evening lectures at the Old Jewry Meeting House in London, and became the most popular dissenting clergyman of the day. Crowds flocked to hear him, including Sarah Siddons, the Kembles, and Wordsworth. But Hazlitt did not meet him until introduced by Godwin in early 1795, shortly before Fawcett resigned to become a farmer at Edge Grove, near Aldenham in Hertfordshire. As Hazlitt recalled, ‘the conversations I had with him on subjects of taste and philosophy (for his taste was as refined as his powers of reasoning were profound and subtle) gave me a delight such as I can never feel again.’
Chapter 5
Authors: Wu Duncan
Published: November 2023

Coleridge eventually finished speaking and gazed expectantly round the table. Godwin, whose house it was, turned to his guests. The man in the frock coat, Charles Lamb, leant forward: his former school friend had just discoursed on ‘man as he was, or man as he is to be’—one of the catchphrases of the moment, often in the mouths of those inclined to radical causes.
chapter 8
Authors: Wu Duncan
Published: November 2023

O this is cruel! This is base!’ Coleridge shook his head, his skin ashen. Basil Montagu had just told him of Wordsworth’s admonition: never to take Coleridge into his house, for his presence would be ‘a serious injury’ to him and his family, as Coleridge had been an ‘absolute nuisance’ to his.
chapter 13
Authors: Wu Duncan
Published: November 2023

The Times, Hazlitt declared on 22 December 1816, was a ‘patent water closet for the dirty uses of legitimacy: a leaden cistern for obsolete prejudices and upstart sophistry “to knot and gender in” ‘. Not the kind of thing designed to curry favour with anyone on its staff, least of all its editor John Stoddart, who happened also to be Hazlitt’s brother-in-law. Towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Stoddart distinguished himself for vigorously anti Bonapartist leaders which opposed the making of peace with the man he denounced as ‘a Corsican upstart’, ‘the discomfited Tyrant’, and ‘a monster redeemed from vice by no single virtue’.
chapter 15
Authors: Wu Duncan
Published: November 2023

Hazlitt still needed money. Patmore booked him into the Surrey Institution in October for a second series of lectures, this time on the English comic writers—a crowd-pleaser if ever there was one—while Hazlitt arranged publication rights with Taylor and Hessey who agreed to pay him £200 (‘That is an improvement’, he told Constable). Now all he had to do was write them. It was July. London was sweltering, in the grip of a heatwave, said to be the hottest since 1779. He decided to go to Winter slow—on his own, a sign that his marriage had all but broken down. Sarah was leading an independent social life, turning up at the homes of such friends as Godwin and Lamb without him, and may already have moved out of York Street.
chapter 19
Authors: Wu Duncan
Published: November 2023

Full of anticipation, Hazlitt returned to Edinburgh. His wife would soon arrive and legal proceedings could begin. He wanted to get it over with so he could return to London to propose to Sarah, and was in buoyant mood. Two unwelcome pieces of news awaited him, however. The first was that his wife was delayed: William Jr’s half-term was within sight, and she would not come north until it was over—mid-April at the earliest. The entire thing was originally to have concluded in six weeks; he realized with a sinking heart he would be in Scotland for at least another month on top of that. He had to find work, if only to meet his expenses, and wrote to Taylor and Hessey, offering reviews for the London Magazine.
Tanzania: A Genuine Case of Recipient Leadership in the Aid System?
Authors: Harrison Graham , Holtom Sarah Mulley with Duncan
Published: November 2023

Tanzania is often held up as the poster child of the new partnership model of aid set out in the Rome and Paris Declarations from the OECD Development Assistance Committee. The Tanzanian government, it is claimed, exercises a high degree of ownership of the development agenda and is supported by donors who are effectively aligned to Tanzanian priorities and systems, and harmonized among themselves. This claim is expressed by donors in the language of good governance which has come to constitute a keystone for Tanzania’s aid architecture. Governance provides a normative language to promote ownership through partnerships and participation.
Introduction: Developing Countries in a Networked Global Order
Authors: Martinez-Diaz Leonardo , Woods Ngaire
Published: November 2023

Networks have become a buzzword among academics and policymakers alike. Scholarship on networks has multiplied almost as fast as the networks of regulators, legislators, corporations, activists, criminals, technical experts, and lawyers described by the literature. Much of this research came initially from sociologists and anthropologists, as well as from scholars in the hard sciences. More recently, economists and political scientists have turned their attention to networks, and today, the study of these informal institutions is seen as particularly promising among students of international relations and global governance.
Reaching for Randomly Located Targets
Authors: Weiskrantz Lawrence
Published: November 2023

The general method (with one exception, see below) was always the same as that reported in our earlier study (Weiskrantz et al. 1974). D.B. was seated in the standard position for the Aimark perimeter, using the chin rest. He was asked to maintain constant fixation within each trial on the fixation mark, and never to move his head. He was told that, following a verbal ‘ready’ signal, a spot of light would be flashed in the blind field and afterwards, on a verbal signal, he was to reach with his forefinger to the guessed location of the spot without shifting his fixation. The duration of the target was two seconds, except (see below) when it was made much shorter for control purposes. The location of the teaching responses was measured by moving the target to the response position and reading directly from the scale. For any test run, the size and brightness of the stimulus was held constant, and its position randomly varied among a number of fixed positions (usually six positions, from 15° to 90° in 15° intervals).
Movement Thresholds
Authors: Weiskrantz Lawrence
Published: November 2023

While typically D.B. resolutely denied ‘seeing’ in response to visual stimuli, even though he might sometimes have a ‘feeling’, we discovered early in our investigations one exception: a very vigorously moving stimulus would elicit a response of genuine ‘seeing’ in many regions of his field defect. The experience was, however, not veridical: instead of describing a moving stimuli, he spoke instead of complex patterns of radiating lines and grids (see below). Clearly, it was desirable to examine more closely his sensitivity to movement and the conditions under which he would acknowledge ‘seeing’.
Detection With Slow Rate of onset
Authors: Weiskrantz Lawrence
Published: November 2023

As has been noted, there were conditions under which D.B. spoke of a feeling of ‘movement’, ‘something coming in from screen’, when a stimulus was turned on, at least in certain locations in the visual field. It occurred to us, therefore, to see whether this type of experience would be reported when the stimulus was turned on gradually rather than abruptly, in order to reduce the strength of activity in the ‘transient’ visual pathways — especially as we have seen patients in whom detection of a stimulus does, indeed, depend upon its onset being very sharp (Weiskrantz 1980). We first tested this very informally with D.B. by mounting an adjustable diaphragm in the path of the light source in the Aimark perimeter.