Meteorological impacts of the total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017

A solar eclipse presents many opportunities for examining the impact of the reduction in solar radiation upon meteorological conditions, particularly so as accurate predictions of the circumstances and extent of the eclipse well before the event enable bespoke observing programmes to be set out in advance. The total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017 traversed the United States from north-west to south-east (Figure 1) and a partial eclipse (at least) was visible in every state. According to news reports, the path of totality was lined with more than 10 million people, making this probably the largest audience for any total solar eclipse in human history. The time of year and time of day was favourable for both good viewing conditions along much of the eclipse path, and for the detection of eclipse-related impacts on surface meteorological variables

Junior Recital: Darius Botley, Saxophone; Thaddeus Tukes, Piano; Jameel Stephens, Drums; John St. Cyr, Bass; March 7, 2024

Kemp Recital HallMarch 7, 2024Thursday Evening8:30 p.m

Lifestyle behaviours associated with type 2 diabetes risk in Australian construction workers

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a global problem with many unfavourable consequences. Obesity is the single largest predictor of T2DM. Additional modifiable risk factors include lifestyle behaviours such as poor diet and physical inactivity have also been identified to be key determinants of the disease, and are therefore key in delaying or preventing progression, as proven by many systematic reviews. The incidence of T2DM is increasing, despite efforts to reverse this trend, so barriers need to be identified and solutions proposed to aid individuals to achieve positive lifestyle behaviours. Habitual lifestyle behaviours can be determined by occupation and particular work stresses. The construction industry is a large working population in Australia whose health outcomes have not been fully explored in relation to T2DM risk. It is unknown if specific unfavourable lifestyle behaviours are adopted within this population which increase the risk of progression of this disease. This review will discuss the associated risk factors and how they can be modified to prevent progression of T2DM. A rationale will be proposed for further investigation of T2DM and its potential specific risk factors within the Australian construction industry

'Proximal' and 'distal' in language and cognition: Evidence from deictic demonstratives in Dutch

In this paper we examine the differences in use between distal and proximal demonstrative terms (e.g., singular '�this�' and '�that�', and plural '�these�' and '�those�' in English). The proximal–distal distinction appears to be made in all languages and therefore promises to be an important window on the cognitive mechanisms underlying language production and comprehension. We address the problem of accounting for the distinction through a corpus-based quantitative study of the deictic use of demonstratives in Dutch. Our study suggests that the distal–proximal distinction corresponds with use of the proximal for intensive/strong indicating (i.e., directing of attention) and the distal for neutral indicating. We compare our findings with empirical findings on the use of English demonstratives and argue that, despite some apparent differences, Dutch and English demonstratives behave roughly similarly though not identically. Finally, we put our findings into context by pulling together evidence from a number of converging sources on the relationship between indicating and describing as alternative modes of reference in the use of distal and proximal demonstratives. This will also lead us to a new understanding of the folk-view on distals and proximals as distinguishing between nearby and faraway objects

Social Class

Discussion of class structure in fifth-century Athens, historical constitution of theater audiences, and the changes in the comic representation of class antagonism from Aristophanes to Menander

After Peter Burke: the popularity of ancient historians, 1450-1600

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this record.The histories of ancient Greece and Rome are part of a shared European heritage, and a foundation for many modern Western social and cultural traditions. Their printing and circulation during the Renaissance helped to shape the identities of individual nations, and create different reading publics. Yet we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the forms in which works of Greek and Roman history were published in the first centuries of the handpress age, the relationship between the ideas contained within these texts and the books as material objects, and thus the precise nature of the changes they effected in early modern European culture and society. This article provides the groundwork for a reassessment of the place of ancient history in the early modern world. Using new, digital resources to reappraise existing scholarship, it offers a fresh evaluation of the publication of the ancient historians from the inception of print to 1600, revealing important differences that alter our understanding of particular authors, texts, and trends, and suggesting directions for further research. It also models the research possibilities of large-scale digital catalogues and databases, and highlights the possibilities (and pitfalls) of these resources

The Critique of Scholastic Language in Renaissance Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy

This article studies some key moments in the long tradition of the critiqueof scholastic language, voiced by humanists and early-modern philosophers alike. It aims at showing how the humanist idiom of “linguistic usage,” “convention,” “custom,” “common” and “natural” language, and “everyday speech” was repeated and put to new use by early-modern philosophers in their own critique of scholastic language. Focusing on Valla, Vives, Sanches, Gassendi, Hobbes, and Leibniz, the article shows that all these thinkers shared a conviction that scholastic language, at least in its more baroque forms, was artificial, unnatural, uninformative, ungrammatical, and quasi-precise. The scholastics were accused of having introduced a terminology that was a far cry from the common language people spoke, wrote, and read. But what was meant by “common language” and such notions? They were not so easy to define. For the humanists, it meant the Latin of the great classical authors, but this position, as the article suggests, had its tensions. In the later period it became even more difficult to give positive substance to these notions, as the world became, linguistically speaking, increasingly more pluralistic. Yet the attack on scholasticlanguage continued to be conducted in these terms. The article concludes that the long road of what we may call the democratization of philosophical language, so dear to early-modern philosophers, had its roots – ironically perhaps – in the humanist return to classical Latin as the common language