1,442 research outputs found
Alf Leslie: the skeptical forest economist
© 2006 Alf Leslie and Ian FergusonThis book reflects a critical review and synthesis of economic and related literature pertaining to forestry and forest management by a long-time forester, teacher of forest economics, UN administrator, and forest policy advisor and consultant to many governments, agencies and companies. To quote the author 'After playing around in the field of forest economics for the best part of sixty years, I wanted to sort out my ideas on the subject'
'Death and Doctor Hornbook' by Robert Burns: A view from medical history
Robert Burns's poem, Death and Doctor Hornbook, 1785, tells of the drunken narrator's late night encounter with Death. The Grim Reaper is annoyed that ‘Dr Hornbook’, a local schoolteacher who has taken to selling medications and giving medical advice, is successfully thwarting his efforts to gather victims. The poet fears that the local gravedigger will be unemployed but Death reassures him that this will not be the case since Hornbook kills more than he cures. Previous commentators have regarded the poem as a simple satire on amateur doctoring. However, it is here argued that, if interpreted in the light of the exoteric and inclusive character of 18th century medical knowledge and practice, the poem is revealed to have a much broader reference as well as being more subtle and morally ambiguous. It is a satire on 18th century medicine as a whole
A general purpose programming framework for ubiquitous computing environments
It is important to note that the need to support ad-hoc and potentially mobile arrangements of devices in ubiquitous environments does not fit well within the traditional client/server architecture. We believe peer-to-peer communication offers a preferable alternative due to its decentralised nature, removing dependence on individual nodes. However, this choice adds to the complexity of the developers task. In this paper, we describe a two-tiered approach to address this problem: A lower tier employing peer-to-peer interactions for managing the network infrastructure and an upper tier providing a mobile agent based programming framework. The result is a general purpose framework for developing ubiquitous applications and services, where the underlying complexity is hidden from the developer. This paper discusses our on-going work; presenting our design decisions, features supported by our framework, and some of the challenges still to be addressed in a complex programming environment
Nerve Damage
An anthology of poems written in response to JoelPeter Witkin's photograph 'The Poet'. The booklet includes new work by Paul Sutton, John Mingay, Mike Ferguson, Sheila E. Murphy, Carrie Etter, Peter Finch, Martin Stannard, H.L. Hix, Aaaron Kent, Ian Seed, John Gimblett, Daniel Y Harris, Alan Halsey, David Grubb, M.A. Duxbury-Hibbert, A.C. Evans, George Ttouli, Robert Sheppard, Sarah cave, John Phillips, Annabel Banks and Rupert Loydell, who initiated the project
Depression and Gender: The Expression and Experience of Melancholy in the Eighteenth Century
This thesis investigates the life and work of six eighteenth-century writers, two male and four female. It explores their experience of depression through their letters and other autobiographical material, and examines the ways in which they represent melancholy in their poetry and prose. The subject of Chapter Two is Thomas Gray, whose real life persona as the lonely intellectual is also identifiable in his poetry. The Scottish poet Robert Fergusson is studied in Chapter Three. Fergusson’s lively and vigorous mind was shattered in the months leading up to his death, during which time some of his writing became darkly nihilistic. Chapter Four looks at Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, a lifelong depressive who often wrote about her feelings of despair in her poetry. Chapter Five explores Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She was a courageous and controversial figure, but despite her resilience, on occasion in her letters she reveals her vulnerability and susceptibility to low spirits, a mood which is sometimes expressed in her creative writing. Sarah Scott, whose life and work have not yet been considered in relation to the subject of melancholy, is examined in Chapter Six. Her novel includes several low-spirited and depressed female characters who are continually seeking asylum from a hostile world. Chapter Seven analyses Charlotte Smith, a mother of twelve children whose unhappy marriage ended in separation. Smith wrote extensively about her depression in her letters, prefaces, poetry and novels.
This study shows that the women in particular use their writing on melancholy and depression to express their discontent with the confined way in which they are often expected to live out their lives
SpaceSemantics: an architecture for modeling environments
The notion of modeling location is fundamental to location awareness in ubiquitous computing environments. The investigation of models and the integration with the myriad of location sensing technologies makes for a challenging discipline. Despite notable development of location models, we believe that many challenges remain unresolved. Complexity and scalability, diverse environments coupled with various sensors and managing the privacy and security of sensitive information are open issues. In this paper we discuss our previous experience combining location sensing with mobile agents and how the lessons learnt have lead to the conception of SpaceSemantics, an open architecture for modeling environments
Middle Palaeolithic occupation of the southern North Sea: evidence from the sandscaping sediments emplaced on the beach between Bacton and Walcott, Norfolk, UK
Book Review: The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age
Author: Michael P. Ferguson and Ian Worthington
Reviewed by Jason W. Warren, PhD
The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age focuses on three themes—inspirational physical presence, Alexander’s army’s professionalism, and the speed with which he campaigned. The reviewer notes there are many useful observations, overall, he sees the book as a “mixed bag.” For those newer to studies “on Alexander or lessons-learned methodology, Legacy may prove a useful primer.”https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters_bookshelf/1091/thumbnail.jp
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The Significance of Heritage Value: From Historic Properties to Cultural Resources
Throughout history, the direct or indirect choice of preservation has resulted in the successful incorporation of tangible products of the human past into modern cultural environments. Within the current American historic preservation system, "significance" is used as a delimiter for identifying historic properties that are determined beneficial to the heritage of the American people. As defined under U.S. law, however, "significance" is attributed only to places and objects whose importance is limited within an historical or scientific framework. This thesis proposes that the significance of historic properties transcends the boundaries of these limited frameworks of importance, and demonstrates that the public benefits of preservation are maximized when history is reified through the modern-use of these places and objects as cultural resources for the current and future generations of the American people
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