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The Rhyme of the Ancient Labourer:Working-class Poets and the Classics
No full textThis chapter focuses on the classicism of several ‘worker poets’ of the 18th century, including: the shoemaker James Woodhouse (ca. 1735–1820), the thresher Stephen Duck (ca. 1705–1756), the washerwoman Mary Collier (1688–1762), the blind son of a bricklayer Thomas Blacklock (1721–1791), and the milkwoman Ann Yearsley (1753–1806). It examines their poetical works, their relationships with patrons, publishers, readers and critics, and their engagement with ancient Greek and Latin literature
Symbols and Things: Material Mathematics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries by Lambert, Kevin.
No full textExploring the privacy and security challenges faced by migrant domestic workers in Chinese smart homes
No full textThe growing use of smart home devices poses considerable privacy and security challenges, especially for individuals like migrant domestic workers (MDWs) who may be surveilled by their employers. This paper explores the privacy and security challenges experienced by MDWs in multi-user smart homes through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 26 MDWs and 5 staff members of agencies that recruit and/or train domestic workers in China. Our findings reveal that the relationships between MDWs, their employers, and agencies are characterized by significant power imbalances, influenced by Chinese cultural and social factors (such as Confucianism and collectivism), as well as legal ones. Furthermore, the widespread and normalized use of surveillance technologies in China, particularly in public spaces, exacerbates these power imbalances, reinforcing a sense of constant monitoring and control. Drawing on our findings, we provide recommendations to domestic worker agencies and policymakers to address the privacy and security challenges facing MDWs in Chinese smart homes
How do EU banks’ funding costs respond to the CRD IV?:An assessment based on the banking union directives database
No full textThe establishment of the European Banking Union constitutes a major change in the regulatory framework of the banking system. Main parts are implemented via directives that show staggered transposition timing across EU member states. Based on the newly compiled Banking Union Directives Database, we assess how banks’ funding costs responded to the Capital Requirements Directive IV (CRD IV). We find evidence of a weak increase in funding costs that results from an increase in cost of equity which is mostly offset by a decline in cost of debt. The diverging trends stem from countries with an ex-ante lower regulatory capital stringency and an ex-post quicker activation of capital buffers, which is in line with banks’ short-run adjustment needs but longer-run benefits from increased financial stability.</p
Unveiling asymmetric topological photonic states in anisotropic 2D perovskite microcavities
No full textPhotonic Rashba-Dresselhaus coupling in anisotropic microcavities offers a compelling platform for realizing unconventional topological states with non-zero Berry curvature. In this study, we explore a self-assembled two-dimensional hybrid structure composed of anisotropically oriented organic/inorganic halide perovskite layers confined within a microcavity. The strong optical anisotropies of these perovskite systems, driven by significant refractive index contrasts and robust excitonic resonances at room temperature, enable the emergence of synthetic magnetic fields that mediate photonic and polaritonic interactions. The interplay between polarization-dependent modes and spatial inversion symmetry breaking gives rise to strong photonic Rashba-Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling, leading to distinct modifications in band topology and energy dispersions. These effects result in the formation of unconventional topological features, including non-zero Berry curvature and off-axis diabolical points, within the photonic and polaritonic bands at room temperature. Our findings reveal the critical role of optical and geometric anisotropies in engineering synthetic gauge fields for light, providing a versatile approach for designing photonic systems with novel topological properties. By leveraging the unique properties of halide perovskites and their ability to support both room-temperature excitons and large birefringence, this work advances the development of polaritonic platforms for applications in topological photonics and spinoptronics
Constraining the timing and climate forcing of the Long Island (Papua New Guinea) and Tarumae (Japan) eruptions and other 17<sup>th</sup> century volcanic eruptions
No full textThe 17th century was a period when several major (VEI > 5) tropical and extratropical volcanic eruptions occurred. Amongst these is the VEI 6 eruption of Long Island (Papua New Guinea), which is suggested to have occurred between 1665 and 1668 CE based on historical accounts, radiocarbon dating constraints, and an ice-core record from South Pole. Accepting such an attribution on the basis of this ice-core chronology would imply a hitherto undiagnosed dating error of up to 6 years during the 17th century within all ice-core records from Antarctica. Here we constrain the timing of the Long Island eruption through tephrochronology and high-resolution glaciochemical measurements from an array of records from Antarctica and Greenland. We identify cryptotephra glass shards in association with the Greenland 1667 CE sulfate peak and geochemically attribute them to the historic Japanese Tarumae (Shikotsu) eruption. This attribution shows that the ice-core records are not misaligned during this period and refines the timing of the Long Island eruption to two candidate dates: 1654 ±1 CE and 1662 ±1 CE. Both candidate dates are within previous best age estimates based on radiocarbon dating (1651 and 1671 CE, 95.4 % probability). However, here we tentatively use 1662 ±1 CE as the timing of the Long Island eruption, as previous radiocarbon constraints suggest a 68.2 % probability of occurrence between 1655 and 1665 CE. With a higher confidence in the dating, we revised volcanic stratospheric sulfur injection (VSSI) estimates across the 17th century. Using these alongside paleo-proxy records, we explored the Northern Hemisphere climate response to the Long Island and Tarumae eruptions and found them to be more limited compared to other major (VEI >5) eruptions during this century. Ultimately, this study has highlighted the accuracy of ice core chronologies, having wider implications for volcanic forcing reconstructions and detection and attribution studies of natural climate variability
“I think office environments aren't really conducive to physical activity”:a qualitative interview study with participants of a workplace physical activity programme
No full textBackground: There is a wealth of evidence surrounding the positive impacts of exercise on health and wellbeing, however, sedentary behaviour is still prevalent, particularly in the workplace. This has led to the development and popularity of workplace programmes intended to increase activity levels. An example is Step Count Challenge (SCC) available to all workplaces nationwide across Scotland. In SCC, teams of five colleagues attempt to complete as many steps as possible during either a four- or eight-week period in Autumn and Spring. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore SCC participants’ experiences and the impact of participation on exercise behaviours, using the COM-B model. Methods: Previous SCC participants (n=15) took part in one-to-one semi-structured interviews via Microsoft Teams or phone call, with conversation particularly centred around activity behaviours, both during the SCC and beyond the challenge. The interview schedule was structured such that each element of the COM-B model was addressed, and responses were analysed using a hybrid deductive-inductive analytic approach to reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Five salient themes (and subthemes) were generated to represent the data, each mapped to an element of the COM-B Model. These overarching themes were: 1) Beliefs about capability impacted by experiences and performance, both personal and those of others, 2) SCC presents the opportunity for a Physical Activity behaviour change, 3) General physical activity barriers, 4) SCC impacting Physical Activity Motivation, and 5) Why do we do it? Conclusions: Participants believed that they benefitted from the SCC, and that their physical activity levels were positively impacted as a result of their participation. This positive impact seemed to be largely affected by the notions of competition and team driving motivation to exercise, and therefore these should be considered when designing future programmes. As well as the positive influence of the Motivational aspects of SCC, Capability and Opportunity were also impactful, but these were also labelled as being prone to uncontrollable barriers to activity. Flexible workplace physical activity programmes like SCC have the potential to be effective at changing behaviours and increasing physical activity levels
MAC-Gaze:motion-aware continual calibration for mobile gaze tracking
No full textMobile gaze tracking faces a fundamental challenge: maintaining accuracy as users naturally change their postures and device orientations. Traditional calibration approaches, like one-off, fail to adapt to these dynamic conditions, leading to degraded performance over time. We present MAC-Gaze, a Motion-Aware continual Calibration approach that leverages smartphone Inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors and continual learning techniques to automatically detect changes in user motion states and update the gaze tracking model accordingly. Our system integrates a pre-trained visual gaze estimator and an IMU-based activity recognition model with a clustering-based hybrid decision-making mechanism that triggers recalibration when motion patterns deviate significantly from previously encountered states. To enable accumulative learning of new motion conditions while mitigating catastrophic forgetting, we employ replay-based continual learning, allowing the model to maintain performance across previously encountered motion conditions. We evaluate our system through extensive experiments on the publicly available RGBDGaze dataset and our own 10-hour multimodal MotionGaze dataset (481K+ images, 800K+ IMU readings), encompassing a wide range of postures under various motion conditions including sitting, standing, lying, and walking. Results demonstrate that our method reduces gaze estimation error by 19.9% on RGBDGaze (from 1.73 cm to 1.41 cm) and by 31.7% on MotionGaze (from 2.81 cm to 1.92 cm) compared to traditional calibration approaches. Our framework provides a robust solution for maintaining gaze estimation accuracy in mobile scenarios