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A Brief History of Record Management at the National Archives
No full textThis paper is a much abridged version of a section of the opening chapter of the official history of criminal justice between 1959 and 1997 which David Downes, Tim Newburn and Paul Rock were formally commissioned to write some six and a half years ago. Their work has been based on numerous archives, secondary sources and interviews, but the principal resource, and the principal archive, the repository of government records, the ‘strong box of the Empire’, is the National Archive at Kew, and the focus of this article is on record management there
SLS/BIALL Academic Law Library Survey 2014/2015
No full textReport outlining the activities and funding of academic law libraries in the UK and Ireland in the academic year 2014/2015. The figures have been taken from the results of a survey questionnaire undertaken by Academic Services staff at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies on behalf of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL). The Annual Academic Law Library Survey provides a snapshot of the staffing, expenditure on acquisitions, subscriptions to databases and range of services provided in the academic year 2014/2015 by 93 university and college libraries in the UK and Ireland. It is the only survey of its kind and provides data which academic law library managers use to bench-mark their own services and law course validation bodies note when appraising the provision of institutions seeking to run law courses. The survey report includes a summary of key findings, graphical representation of statistical analysis and list of academic law libraries in the UK and Ireland that returned a completed 2014/2015 survey questionnaire
Only Connect? Network analysis and religious change in the Roman World
No full textThe emergence during the Roman Empire of new religious forms and groups alongside the collective cults of the city and ruler worship invites analysis in terms of various kinds of network theory. Some of the main version of network theory currently in use are examined, and their applicability to ancient material is discussed and assessed. Network thinking turns out to be very useful, but the problems in conducting a more formal network analysis are formidable. Network theory does allow us to approach religious change from new directions and two models of change in current use – conversion as contagion, and religious change as the spread of idea – are examined. Thinking about religious change in these terms forces historians to formulate more precise descriptions of change as a process that involves socialization and the routinization of new habits and rituals, as well as a process of learning a new way of imagining and describing the cosmos
Touch uses frictional cues to discriminate flat materials
No full textIn a forced-choice task, we asked human participants to discriminate by touch alone glass plates from transparent polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) plastic plates. While the surfaces were flat and did not exhibit geometric features beyond a few tens of nanometres, the materials differed by their molecular structures. They produced similar coefficients of friction and thermal effects were controlled. Most participants performed well above chance and participants with dry fingers discriminated the materials especially well. Current models of tactile surface perception appeal to surface topography and cannot explain our results. A correlation analysis between detailed measurements of the interfacial forces and discrimination performance suggested that the perceptual task depended on the transitory contact phase leading to full slip. This result demonstrates that differences in interfacial mechanics between the finger and a material can be sensed by touch and that the evanescent mechanics that take place before the onset of steady slip have perceptual value
Writing Displacement, Demythologising Violence: Discourses of Violence in Contemporary Colombia and Laura Restrepo's La multitude errante
No full textThis article explores and analyses the representation of violence in contemporary Colombian culture. Violence has come to characterise Colombian society since the onset of the current armed conflict, with devastating consequences for its population. Within this context, this article examines tendencies in contemporary literary representations of violence, with a focus on La multitud errante (2001) by Laura Restrepo, one of Colombia’s foremost writers. It begins with an outline of the origins and evolution of violence in Colombia in the twentieth century, and draws links with the contemporary crisis. It then goes on to explore the ways in which violence in contemporary Colombian society has been narrativized in political, media and cultural discourses before focusing on Restrepo’s text to reveal a recent shift in cultural
representations of violence. Framing the analysis in the recent findings of narratological and cultural studies of the discourse of violence, notably those of Sara Cobb, Yeny Serrano and Juana Suárez, this article argues that Restrepo offers new tools for understanding the origins and impact of Colombia’s now endemic violence by shifting the focus of representation from a contemporary trend towards the mythologization of violence and its actors
Means testing vs. universal targeting: Assumptions of efficiency and affordability
No full textWhether social protection benefits should be assigned to all (universal) or kept only for those who meet certain criteria (targeting) remains one of the most contentious questions in social policy research. The purpose of this brief is to revisit two social policy assumptions around basic concerns of efficiency, affordability and sustainability of universal social pensions. Contrary to what many international organisations and scholars have argued, this brief forwards that universal social pensions are economically viable and efficient strategies to produce welfare and alleviate older-age income deprivations. The world clearly has the resources to implement basic social pensions on a global scale; the question is if there is also the political will to do it
Less Empathic and More Reactive: The Different Impact of Childhood Maltreatment on Facial Mimicry and Vagal Regulation
No full textFacial mimicry and vagal regulation represent two crucial physiological responses to others' facial expressions of emotions. Facial mimicry, defined as the automatic, rapid and congruent electromyographic activation to others' facial expressions, is implicated in empathy, emotional reciprocity and emotions recognition. Vagal regulation, quantified by the computation of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA), exemplifies the autonomic adaptation to contingent social cues. Although it has been demonstrated that childhood maltreatment induces alterations in the processing of the facial expression of emotions, both at an explicit and implicit level, the effects of maltreatment on children's facial mimicry and vagal regulation in response to facial expressions of emotions remain unknown. The purpose of the present study was to fill this gap, involving 24 street-children (maltreated group) and 20 age-matched controls (control group). We recorded their spontaneous facial electromyographic activations of corrugator and zygomaticus muscles and RSA responses during the visualization of the facial expressions of anger, fear, joy and sadness. Results demonstrated a different impact of childhood maltreatment on facial mimicry and vagal regulation. Maltreated children did not show the typical positive-negative modulation of corrugator mimicry. Furthermore, when only negative facial expressions were considered, maltreated children demonstrated lower corrugator mimicry than controls. With respect to vagal regulation, whereas maltreated children manifested the expected and functional inverse correlation between RSA value at rest and RSA response to angry facial expressions, controls did not. These results describe an early and divergent functional adaptation to hostile environment of the two investigated physiological mechanisms. On the one side, maltreatment leads to the suppression of the spontaneous facial mimicry normally concurring to empathic understanding of others' emotions. On the other side, maltreatment forces the precocious development of the functional synchronization between vagal regulation and threatening social cues facilitating the recruitment of fight-or-flight defensive behavioral strategies
