762 research outputs found
Medieval conceptions of reason and the modes of thought in Piers Plowman
No full textThis thesis is an attempt to shed light on the related questions of how we should read Piers Plowman and of what kind of book its author was trying to write. In the first chapter it is argued that feminine line-endings are an important feature of Langland's metre, and consideration is given to how they affect our reading of the verse. It is suggested that the verse demands a slow and meditative reading, and that Langland's text emerges as a list of items not easily related to each other; the reader is challenged to work out connexions and thus in a sense to compose his own poem. The second chapter is an examination of the medieval conceptions and modes of thought that are associated with the word "reson". The term "reasonable" is later used to refer to these. In the last part of the chapter it is argued that Langland's aim is to make his readers seek salvation, and that he is aware of certain difficulties with the traditional, "reasonable" approaches of other moralists. His own book is "unreasonable"; its mixture of modes of thought, and hence of the thought-worlds they project, makes narrative consistency and definiteness of argument impossible. In the rest of the thesis some of the juxtapositions between modes of thought are examined. The. third chapter deals with "positive” juxtapositions, which create in the reader's mind a sense of satisfying, but nevertheless "unreasonable", illumination; the speech of Wit and the vision of the Passion and Crucifixion are discussed in detail. The fourth chapter deals with "negative" juxtapositions, which provoke a sense of bewilderment and dissatisfaction; discussion centres on Ymaginatiyf's speech in the C text, Need's speech, and the confessions of the Seven Deadly Sins
Deception and Britain's road to war in Iraq
No full textEver since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there has been a widely shared public perception in the UK and beyond that the British government lied in making the case for war. One major theme has been the view that the Blair government lied about the strength of the intelligence about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the extent of the WMD capabilities claimed by that intelligence. A second theme that has received less attention has been the view that the Blair government lied in claiming that its actions at the United Nations (UN) were aimed at securing peaceful Iraqi compliance with its disarmament obligations. Instead, most think that the UK was actually committed to a policy of regime change by force and did not want the ‘UN route’ to produce a peaceful outcome. The article argues that the conceptual focus of the discussion needs to be broadened from lying to also considering deception by omission and deception by distortion as part of a campaign of organized political persuasion. It argues that, on the WMD intelligence, it is now apparent that a campaign of deceptive organized political persuasion was conducted by UK officials. With respect to the UN route, there is mounting evidence that the Blair government ran a campaign of deception on this issue as well to pave Britain’s road to war in Iraq
Online Appendix -Supplemental material for Human behaviour and economic growth: A psychocultural perspective on local and regional development
No full textSupplemental material, Online Appendix for Human behaviour and economic growth: A psychocultural perspective on local and regional development by Robert Huggins, Piers Thompson and Martin Obschonka in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space</p
Coming out of an economic crisis: the role of entrepreneurship in fostering innovation in times of greater uncertainty
No full text
Producing Piers Plowman to 1475: author, scribe, and reader
No full textMy doctoral thesis, "Producing Piers Plowman to 1475: Author, Scribe, and Reader," charts a new material history of William Langland's fourteenth-century dream vision, Piers Plowman, from its earliest composition to the onset of print in England. The study is divided into three sections, which examine the production of Piers from three perspectives: textual history, manuscript circulation, and medieval reception. The first section of the thesis conducts a study of Langland's revisionary process, presenting a new theory of authorial revision from the A to B version that has important implications for our understanding of authorship in Piers Plowman and for the future editing of the poem. The second section transitions into an examination of the early circulation of the Piers manuscripts in various geographical and social milieux. It examines two case studies of manuscript circulation in the Southwest Midlands and East Anglia, linking them to regionalized networks of scribes and patrons. Finally, Section III moves into a discussion of the literary contexts in which Piers circulates, particularly in multi-text manuscripts, examining how the poemâs reception by a medieval audience affected its development as a literary text. This section treats production from a more theoretical standpoint, investigating the relationship between the poem's audience and the "production" of meaning in a social and historical context. As I will argue, each of these sections acts as an important frame of reference for understanding the multifaceted formation of Piers Plowman as a literary text and cultural landmark. In particular, the thesis emphasizes the importance of Piers's various contexts, from its textual genesis in the author's composition and revision to its circulation and reception in an unstable manuscript culture. It suggests that the people and the places that surrounded Piers Plowman in its early development fundamentally shaped the poem we have today.</p
An Illustrated Guide for Monitoring and Protecting Bridge Waterways Against Scour - Project TR-515 - Final Report, March 2006
No full textThis report is a well illustrated and practical Guide intended to aid engineers and
engineering technicians in monitoring, maintaining, and protecting bridge
waterways so as to mitigate or prevent scour from adversely affecting the
structural performance of bridge abutments, piers, and approach road
embankments. Described and illustrated here are the scour processes affecting
the stability of these components of bridge waterways. Also described and
illustrated are methods for monitoring waterways, and the various methods for
repairing scour damage and protecting bridge waterways against scour.
The Guide focuses on smaller bridges, especially those in Iowa. Scour processes
at small bridges are complicated by the close proximity of abutments, piers, and
waterway banks, such that scour processes interact in ways difficult to predict
and for which reliable design relationships do not exist. Additionally, blockage
by woody debris or by ice, along with changes in approach channel alignment,
can have greater effects on pier and abutment scour for smaller bridges. These
considerations tend to cause greater reliance on monitoring for smaller bridges.
The Guide is intended to augment and support, as a source of information,
existing procedures for monitoring bridge waterways. It also may prompt some
adjustments of existing forms and reports used for bridge monitoring. In accord
with increasing emphasis on effective management of public facilities like
bridges, the Guide ventures to include an example report format for quantitative
risk assessment applied to bridge waterways. Quantitative risk assessment is
useful when many bridges have to be evaluated for scour risk and damage, and
priorities need to be determined for repair and protection work. Such risk
assessment aids comparison of bridges at risk.
It is expected that bridge inspectors will implement the Guide as a concise,
handy reference available back at the office. The Guide also likely may be
implemented as an educational primer for new inspectors who have yet to
become acquainted with waterway scour. Additionally, the Guide may be
implemented as a part of process to check whether existing bridge-inspection
forms or reports adequately encompass bridge-waterway scour
Behavioural profiling and entrepreneurial ecosystems: a psychocultural analysis of entrepreneur type in deprived areas
No full textLateral strength Of urm piers: comparison between codified criteria and in-plane test results
No full textThe lateral resistance represents one of the most significant wall parameters to be used in the seismic analyses for the design/assessment of masonry buildings. In this article, an investigation on in-plane lateral strength of URM piers has been proposed thorough a comparison between the results from codified criteria and the outcomes of several experimental in-plane cyclic tests on masonry walls. In this context, a new database collecting the results of in-plane cyclic tests on unreinforced masonry piers, carried out within different research projects, has been devel-oped. The database consists of walls with bricks and blocks with different masonry materials (clay, lightweight aerated concrete, AAC, calcium silicate), bed-and head-joint typologies, di-mensions, boundary conditions, vertical applied loads and horizontal loading history. This source of information of consistent and reliable test results represents a necessary step into the process of definition of shared rules in the European context.Accepted Author ManuscriptApplied Mechanic
Modification of nektonic fish distribution by piers and pile fields in an urban estuary
No full textLarge urban piers degrade habitat value for several estuarine benthic fish species by shading, but their effects on mobile nektonic species is less well understood due to sampling challenges. Dual Frequency Identification Sonar (DIDSON) allowed equal access to sampling in the water column of structured shaded and unshaded vs. open environments in both dark and light conditions by methods similar to video but without light. Sampling (n = 228, 5-minute transects) occurred under and around four large municipal piers of varying dimensions in the Hudson River estuary during day and night from summer and fall in 2007 - 2009. The distribution of small (5 - 25 cm in length) and large (25 – 850 cm) fishes were analyzed separately in recognition of functional guild differences. Small fishes occupied open water, shaded under-pier, and un-decked relict piling habitats, but were significantly more abundant during the day in open unshaded water than under adjacent piers or in piling habitats.. Small fish occurred under 3 of 4 piers of varying size and configuration at 10 - 20% of the median abundances of adjacent open water. However, while schools were rare under piers they could be very large, so that abundance greatly exceeded mean open water abundance variance so as to preclude confidence in differences among piers. The differences among habitats was not significant at night, and the difference among piers was also not significant at night. School membership for small fish appeared to mitigate adverse effects of shading and may influence scaling of their response to shading and could therefore influence pier design. Large (>25 cm) predatory fish were uncommon but responded similarly to habitat effects as did small fish. Habitats did not segregate fish by guild as small forage fish co-occurred in 65.8% of samples with large piscivores. Studies that provide species-specific and mechanistic interpretation of dynamic habitat use as well as further quantification of scaling effects could improve our understanding of how fishes respond to piers and other structures on urban shorelines.Peer reviewed
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