The Performance of Melancholy: Understanding the Humours through Burton, Jonson, and Shakespeare

This thesis aims to explore the relationships between dramatic texts and the Elizabethan topic of the humours. It covers Burton\u27s Anatomy of Melancholy, Jonson\u27s plays Every Man Out of His Humour and Every Man in His Humour, and Shakespeare\u27s plays Hamlet and As You Like It. Each of these works provides a glimpse into society and its opinions specifically on melancholy, from its most basic and complex definitions to how it is perceived and addressed

Analytical sun synchronous low-thrust manoeuvres

Article describes analytical sun synchronous low-thrust manoeuvres

Game Drives of the Aralo-Caspian Region

Game drives of the Aralo-Caspian region is a translated and revised edition of Yagodin’s Strelovidnye Planirovki Ustyurta, originally published in Tashkent in 1991. Based on extensive fieldwork, the volume investigates arrow-shaped structures used for hunting in remote areas of Central Asia between the seventh and 14th centuries AD. This classic study of game drives remains one of the most significant works in Ustyurt archaeology and one of the few that integrates geoarchaeological, ecological and ethnographic data. This first English edition of Game drives of the Aralo-Caspian region has been amended with new material, including the study of satellite imagery, and enriched with many new illustrations

The personal and social impact of non-accredited music education in prison: a transformative mixed methods approach to research in custodial settings

In recent years there has been a shift in the focus of prison education, from treatment interventions and learning that centres around employability skills building, to opportunities that support personal and social development, with the aim to position education in custodial settings as a structure that supports processes of desistance. Against this background, I set out to explore the impact of my new, non-accredited music course on learners in prison, framing music-making activity in prisons within the context of social and criminal justice. I was interested in understanding why impact is or isn’t experienced in my classroom, whether it’s a direct result of the music, or if instead impact is a response to the pedagogical style to teaching music that I implement. A transformative mixed methods research approach was adopted in order to practice cultural competence, uncover multiple perspectives, build trusting relationships with the participants and address the diverse needs of the prison population. Data was collected from one cohort of learners on a four-week music course (n=6) at HMP/YOI Portland, using methods based on learning activities that are a normal part of the music course, thereby ensuring ecological validity. Data analysis was conducted using grounded theory guidelines to sharpen the thematic analysis of qualitative data, ensuring a close relationship with the data and critical self-reflection of my privileged positionality as a white, free woman. Based on concepts of Convict Criminology, interviews with two classroom peer mentors were also collected. The peer mentors were positioned as ‘insider’ research commenters in this study, situated to give a broader analysis of the research topics, to establish routes to the representation of authentic narratives of learners in prison. This research found that music-making activities in prison can have a positive impact on participants' mood, self-confidence and motivation, leading to positive; changes in personal and social development; and shifts in self-evaluation and lower-order self-concept. There was strong evidence that impact was experienced by the participants, not as a result of the music alone, but because the pedagogy created the conditions for a space that contrasted the wider prison environment. Recommendations for practice are made, including the need for a pedagogy for prison education which recognises the value of social learning experiences and ensures that within the contrasting wider prison environment, spaces can be created that support positive mood states, alternative social reinforcement and the development of autonomy supportive relationships

Re-thinking flexibility in higher education: A shared responsibility of students and educators

In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of flexibility in higher education as a key factor that can contribute to enhancing student learning and accessibility. However, flexibility has previously been investigated through an institutional lens that fails to consider those directly involved—students and educators. Moreover, the majority of current research regarding flexibility is based on anecdotal evidence and theoretical frameworks; therefore, evidence-based research is lacking. This plenary session is presented from a student perspective, who found that often, the parts of her identity that she took pride in—middle eastern background, gender, and hearing loss—were also the cause of her struggles. In conversations with other students, it was revealed that their diversity or life circumstances hindered their ability to pursue education. Flexibility was identified as key to enhancing their academic experience. Thus, the presenter decided to focus her fourth year thesis on a project that investigated students’ and educators’ experiences surrounding flexibility to inform future policies about effective flexible practices that accurately represent both groups. This session will highlight similarities and differences between students’ and educators’ experiences, barriers educators face when implementing flexibility, and a current misalignment in perceptions of flexibility between students and educators. Engaging in transparent and reciprocal open conversations can enhance the student-educator bond and solidify both groups’ sense of belonging. This study was approved by Western’s Non-Medical Research Ethics Board

Interaction effects and quantum phase transitions in topological insulators

We study strong correlation effects in topological insulators via the Lanczos algorithm, which we utilize to calculate the exact many-particle ground-state wave function and its topological properties. We analyze the simple, noninteracting Haldane model on a honeycomb lattice with known topological properties and demonstrate that these properties are already evident in small clusters. Next, we consider interacting fermions by introducing repulsive nearest-neighbor interactions. A first-order quantum phase transition was discovered at finite interaction strength between the topological band insulator and a topologically trivial Mott insulating phase by use of the fidelity metric and the charge-density-wave structure factor. We construct the phase diagram at $T = 0$ as a function of the interaction strength and the complex phase for the next-nearest-neighbor hoppings. Finally, we consider the Haldane model with interacting hard-core bosons, where no evidence for a topological phase is observed. An important general conclusion of our work is that despite the intrinsic nonlocality of topological phases their key topological properties manifest themselves already in small systems and therefore can be studied numerically via exact diagonalization and observed experimentally, e.g., with trapped ions and cold atoms in optical lattices.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures. Published versio