8 research outputs found
Snow and Dickens: The Victorian âInconvenient Truthâ
Scientistsâ investigations into environmental issues often fail to promote political change unless those investigations are popularised in the public consciousness. We will illustrate this thesis through the work of Dickens and the pioneering physician, Dr John Snow. In Victorian London, Snow challenged the deeply held theory that miasmas caused diseases such as cholera. However, his investigations, now considered the foundation of modern epidemiology, were dismissed by the medical establishment. By 1884, his work had been verified. Contemporaneously, Dickens worked with early advocates of public health, Edwin Chadwick and his brother-in-law, Henry Austin, to promote and then defend the landmark 1848 Public Health Act. By 1850, however, the Public Health Act was being eviscerated, and Dickens attacked the vested interests he saw as opposed to public health. Fast forward to the present, and we see this history repeating itself in the issue of global warming. The science of global warming has been developing since the 1820s and is now well accepted, but serious political debates continue in North America over scientific uncertainty and the economic costs of tackling the problem
Intellectual Property and the Prisoner's Dilemma: A Game Theory Justification of Copyrights, Patents, and Trade Secrets
Dickens in the New Millennium
This special issue of the Cahiers victoriens et Ă©douardiens initially published in 2012 means to celebrate Charles Dickensâs bicentenary of his birthday and offers a selection of articles derived from the yearly conference of the Dickens Society which took place in Aix-en-Provence. The aim of this volume is to consider how Dickensâs fiction is understood, interpreted and taught nowadays, and whether it answers twenty-first-century concerns. The essays collected here also examine how todayâs public views the mid-Victorian period through Dickensâs writing. The editors would like to thank all the authors for their contributions to the present volume as well as the research centres which made this publication possible : the LERMA (Laboratoire dâĂtudes et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone â UniversitĂ© dâAix-Marseille 1), EMMA (Ătudes MontpelliĂ©raines du Monde Anglophone â UniversitĂ© de Montpellier 3), CECILLE (Centre dâĂtudes en Civilisations, Langues et LittĂ©ratures ĂtrangĂšres â UniversitĂ© Charles de Gaulle Lille 3), the PULM (Presses Universitaires de la MĂ©diterranĂ©e), the Dickens Society and the Dickens Museum for their kind permission to use Robert William Bussâs âDickensâs Dreamâ. The volume consists of six sections. âMaking a Start on Dickensâ contains three essays focusing on teaching Dickens or stressing the relevance of Dickensâs work in the information age. âIconic and Cinematic Dickensâ is about the visual potentialities of Dickensâs work in book illustrations or cinematic adaptations. âReading Dickensâ reviews the value of reading itself in the Victorian authorâs fiction as well as his recourse to sentimentality or to a double narrating stance. The articles in âScientific Dickensâ show the contribution that science and the history of science still bring to the interpretation of his work today. âHypo/Hyper Dickensâ explores another contribution to his legacy in the form of Dickensian doubles, either in his own fiction or as post-Dickens neo-Victorian rewritings. Finally âMetafictional, Prototypical and Archetypal Dickensâ studies a selection of metanarratives (mythological, apocalyptic, geological), which Dickens used to decipher the signs of his times. Ce numĂ©ro hors sĂ©rie des Cahiers victoriens et Ă©douardiens entend cĂ©lĂ©brer le bicentenaire de la naissance de Charles Dickens (1812-1870). Il rĂ©unit une sĂ©lection dâarticles dĂ©rivĂ©s du CongrĂšs de la Dickens Society qui sâest tenu Ă Aix-en-Provence en 2012. Le but de cette publication est dâĂ©valuer la façon dont la fiction de Dickens est comprise, interprĂ©tĂ©e et enseignĂ©e aujourdâhui, et de voir si cette fiction rĂ©pond aux prĂ©occupations du XXIe siĂšcle. Les articles regroupĂ©s ici examinent Ă©galement la maniĂšre dont le public dâaujourdâhui considĂšre la pĂ©riode victorienne Ă travers les Ă©crits de Charles Dickens. Les rĂ©dacteurs en chef remercient les auteurs des contributions de ce volume ainsi que les centres de recherche qui en ont permis la publication : le LERMA (Laboratoire dâĂtudes et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone â UniversitĂ© dâAix-Marseille 1), EMMA (Ătudes MontpelliĂ©raines du Monde Anglophone â UniversitĂ© de Montpellier 3), CECILLE (Centre dâĂtudes en Civilisations, Langues et LittĂ©ratures ĂtrangĂšres â UniversitĂ© Charles de Gaulle Lille 3), les PULM (Presses Universitaires de la MĂ©diterranĂ©e), la Dickens Society et le Dickens Museum pour leur autorisation de faire usage du tableau de Robert William Buss, âDickensâs Dreamâ, comme couverture. Le volume se compose de six sections. âMaking a Start on Dickensâ regroupe trois articles qui se concentrent sur lâenseignement des oeuvres de Dickens dans un contexte secondaire ou universitaire ou sur leur pertinence dans le monde numĂ©rique et connectĂ© dâaujourdâhui. âIconic and Cinematic Dickensâ se concentre sur les potentialitĂ©s visuelles de ses Ćuvres par le biais des illustrations publiĂ©es dans des Ă©ditions posthumes ou des adaptations cinĂ©matographiques. âReading Dickensâ considĂšre la valeur quâattribuait lâauteur victorien Ă la lecture au travers de ses fictions, son recours au sentimentalisme ou Ă une double instance narrative. Les articles de la section intitulĂ©e âScientific Dickensâ montre la contribution que la science et lâhistoire de la science continuent dâapporter Ă lâinterprĂ©tation de ses oeuvres aujourdhui. âHypo/Hyper Dickensâ explore une autre contribution Ă son patrimoine sous la forme des doubles dickensiens, soit au sein de ses Ćuvres, soit dans le domaine des rĂ©Ă©critures nĂ©o-victoriennes. Enfin, âMetafictional, Prototypical and Archetypal Dickensâ aborde un ensemble de mĂ©ta-rĂ©cits (mythologique, apocalyptique, gĂ©ologique), auxquels Dickens a eu recours pour dĂ©chiffrer les signes de son temps
Design and phenotyping procedures for recording wool, skin, parasite resistance, growth, carcass yield and quality traits of the SheepGENOMICS mapping flock
A major aim of the research program known as SheepGENOMICS was to deliver DNA markers for commercial breeding programs. To that end, a resource flock was established, comprehensively phenotyped and genotyped with DNA markers. The flock of nearly 5000 sheep, born over two consecutive years, was extensively phenotyped, with more than 100 recorded observations being made on most of the animals. This generated more than 460 000 records over 17 months of gathering information on each animal. Here, we describe the experimental design and sample-collection procedures, and provide a summary of the basic measurements taken. Data from this project are being used to identify collections of genome markers for estimating genomic breeding values for new sheep industry traits.Jason D. White... Philip Hynd... et al