Behavioural reactions of harbour porpoises (<i>Phocoena phocoena</i>) to startle-eliciting stimuli:movement responses and practical applications

Acoustic deterrent devices are frequently used as a mitigation method to exclude harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena from areas of potential harm, such as wind farm construction sites. However, there is increasing evidence that the devices themselves have the capacity to cause hearing damage. Here, we investigated the response of harbour porpoises to a 15 min sequence of 200 ms sounds (peak frequency 10.5 kHz, range 5.5 to 20.5 kHz, 27 sounds total) which elicit the acoustic startle reflex. We used a duty cycle (0.6%) and sound exposure level that was significantly lower than in conventional acoustic deterrent devices. Harbour porpoises were exposed to startle sounds from a small vessel and groups were visually tracked during 13 sound exposure sequences and 11 no-sound control trials. Porpoises showed a significant avoidance reaction during exposure travelling to a mean distance of 1.78 km (maximum 3.21 km). In all cases, they left the area within 1 km of the sound source in the first 15 min after the start of the startle sequence. No avoidance was exhibited during control trials. Results are consistent with the startle reflex mediating this behaviour at low response thresholds. Our method can be used for mitigating collision risk and the risk of hearing damage from renewable energy installations, their construction and the deterrence device itself

Towards understanding financial decisions in informal microbusinesses:evidence from a developing country

Through an integrative perspective, we extend the literature on capital structure of informal microbusinesses. Our approach considers the financing decision and the various financial decisions and their impact on cash generation for personal purposes. A dataset of 892 Colombian informal microbusinesses were explored to identify various business configurations using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Hierarchical Clustering Method. Through a logistic regression, we regressed the probability of early cash generation for personal purposes on business configurations and initial financing. Four microbusiness configurations emerged: Typical informal, owner-oriented, over-indebted, and informal lenders. Results show that informal microbusinesses are distinctive in terms of their financial decisions. Initial financing provided by formal lenders and payday lenders delay early cash generation. The contrary occurs when initial financing is provided by private informal lenders and to typical informal microbusinesses. Results indicate that different configurations require customized initiatives rather than a “one-size fits all” approach for informal microbusinesses

Giovanni Dario's scripted legacies:textual self-presentation in Renaissance Venice

Growing critical interest in the Cretan-Venetian ducal secretary, polyglot diplomat, confraternity warden and palace builder Giovanni Dario has thrown important light on his biography and career, especially on his outstanding diplomatic work in successive spells brokering peace between Venice and the courts of Mehmet II and Beyazid II. The best known of his surviving writings, his 22 diplomatic letters (1484-1485) from Ottoman Turkey, are referred to, and occasionally excavated, by historians of Venice and the Levant. Dario’s texts are striking for their high degree of self awareness, with consistent foregrounding of a curated image which has no parallel among Venetian public servants of the Quattrocento. They have never been considered together in this performative light, and the precise nature of the language and lettering they deploy has been overlooked. The present essay is the first attempt at rectifying this situation. My guiding contention is that Dario’s letters, wills and lapidary inscription were crafted, in both message and medium, to project a carefully controlled legacy persona to their respective audiences: the political elite of the Serenissima; executors and beneficiaries; Venice and posterity. All evidence for this from Dario’s written inheritance has been transcribed anew in the study. Particular scrutiny is reserved for three representative primary sources: the dispatch of December 6th 1484 from Adrianople, the will of 1492 and the Ca’ Dario epigraph from the late 1480s. These are offered in philological first editions, with translations, illustrations and contextual analysis

More to the picture than meets the eye:ecocinema, landscape, and James Benning's Deseret

A central conceit of theories of ecocinema is that moving-image works can provide immersive experiences of place that cultivate more ecologically attuned forms of life. It has recently been argued, however, that such experience also tends to prompt viewers to master the places viewed by ascribing specific meaning and value to them. This perspective is tied to the persistent assertion that landscape is inherently ideological in ways that confound attempts to use it to model care for the natural world and critique ecologically destructive activities. Against this position, this article argues that work at the intersection of ecocinema and the landscape film can maintain a commitment to providing an instructive experience of place while also making space for 15 viewers to reflect on encultured responses to landscape and human histories that have shaped and defined the places pictured. It also cautions against making overly broad claims about landscape’s embodiment of utilitarian vision, while affirming the need to situate ecocinema and the landscape film within a lineage of visual culture beyond the moving image. These arguments are 20 pursued through a case study of James Benning’s Deseret (1995), which is situated against the history of landscape photography in the American West

‘Una desenfrenada danza irlandesa’:Brendan Behan’s <i>The Hostage</i> in Spain

Drawing on Irish and Spanish theatre scholarship, translation studies and the censorship files held at the Archivo General de la Administración in Alcalá de Henares, this article considers the case of Irish writer Brendan Behan and the staging of his play The Hostage/El rehén by various independent theatre groups in Spain in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were attracted to Behan because of his subversive themes and his notoriety as a working-class militant republican. The reception of his work by critics and authorities, however, was not always as harsh as might be expected. This case study, though focused on a single play and author, contributes to our understanding of the place of foreign drama in the history of Spanish political theatre

A woman's work:women soldiers, masculinities and binary panic in documentaries of the East German army

The East German National People's Army employed women in uniformed and civilian roles from its inception, yet in its self-presentation it strongly associated military service with masculinity and cis male bodies. Documentaries and newsreels from the military's own Army Film Studio, the DEFA documentary 'Gabi - Switchboard Position 12' (Uwe Belz, 1985) and the amateur film 'Trying and Prevailing' (Dietmar Schürtz, 1988) provide insights into women's negotiations of gender in the East German armed forces. Army Film Studio productions position women's military jobs as work like any other. To avoid disrupting the link between the military, masculinities and cis male bodies, though, these films overemphasise and stereotype women's femininity to minimise unsettling effects on military masculinities. These documentaries and newsreels constantly foreground and reinforce binary gender in ways that reveal it to be under pressure: I call these reactions to women's presence in uniform a form of 'binary panic'. Both 'Gabi' and 'Trying and Prevailing', by contrast, make space for women soldiers' own words and show how their presence in military training influenced their male comrades. The films show the work that goes into reinforcing binary gender and demonstrate how women embodied military masculinities and forced cis male comrades to reflect on what masculinity meant to them and to the army

Israel, as hurt-geography

In this autobiographical narrative, Nigel Rapport recounts how his time as a volunteer at Kibbutz Yas'ur in Israel in 1975 profoundly affected his identity and sparked a deep emotional connection to the country. Despite initial reluctance to visit Israel and engage with his Jewish heritage, Rapport's experiences living and working on the kibbutz - including labouring in the citrus groves, bonding with the kibbutz youth and being embraced by the community - instilled in him a strong sense of belonging, pride, and loyalty to Israel. The essay conveys Rapport's newfound understanding of the precariousness and preciousness of life in Israel, constantly under threat of war and violence. It also expresses his anxiety and protective concern for the country's survival against what he perceives as the hatred and prejudice of its enemies. Rapport's connection to Israel is further cemented by the normalcy of Jewish life there, a stark contrast to the marginalization he felt growing up in Britain. The recent Hamas attacks in 2023, with their devastating loss of life, underscore the enduring ‘hurt geography’ of Rapport's relationship with Israel. The essay ultimately presents a highly personal account of the author's transformative encounter with Israel and Zionism and the complex emotions and loyalties it engendered

Generation of iterated wreath products constructed from alternating, symmetric and cyclic groups

Let G1, G2, … be a sequence of groups each of which is either an alternating group, a symmetric group or a cyclic group. Let us construct a sequence (Wi) of wreath products via W1 = G1 and, for each i ≥ 1, Wi+1 = Gi+1 wr Wi via the natural permutation action. We determine the minimum number d(Wi) of generators required for each wreath product in this sequence

Two years in the making:co-learning insights from the CSEAR’s Education Community of Practice

As the imperative to address unsustainability grows, higher education institutions, individual academics, scholarly networks, and professional bodies are calling for sustainability to be (more prominently) embedded in curricula. Over the past 30 years, a strong body of work has been published related to social and environmental accounting education such as textbooks, academic articles, and teaching cases. Yet, the individual and collective endeavours scholars undertake to develop and embed social and environmental accounting education within their respective institutional contexts often remain invisible. Insights may be gleaned thanks to corridor conversations, informal networks, one-off workshops, or panel discussions. To further strengthen capacity to undertake such education, a community of practice approach might help connecting individuals and sharing experiences. This commentary outlines the aims of the CSEAR Education of Community of Practice, the process of establishing and running this community, and offers preliminary reflections following the first two years of its existence. Finally, we consider the next steps in the development of this initiative as means to enhance collective efforts to mobilize social and environmental accounting education to enable a more sustainable society.</p

Dominating experiences:psychic and symbolic violence against Romani women in Hungary

This chapter explores violence against Romani women in Hungary, not as individual discrimination or institutional racism, but as unconscious aggression that socializes and legitimizes violence. The chapter builds on the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu, who argued that there are forms of violence beyond the physical, including symbolic violence, which normalizes structural and physical violence in the repetitions of everyday speech. Through an application of theoretical contributions of the Hungarian psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi, the chapter introduces an additional form of violence: psychic violence, which is the unconscious denial of the subjective experiences of those imagined to be targets, imagined to be “other”. The chapter concludes with Ferenczi’s argument that in order to overcome such violence, each of us must reflect on the ways in which we might act out aggression on others, not only in terms of physical violence, but also the in ways that we speak and think