Foretelling pathology: The poetics of prognosis

This paper examines a number of French middle-brow novels, usually called at the time romans de murs, from the period 1880-1910. It shows how, in these stories, doctors are shown to foretell the course of narrative through the diagnosis of certain pathologies, especially psychosexual ones. These pathologies are thus represented as implacable narrative programmes. In effect, most of these novels renounce the standard fictional resources of intrigue and suspense in favour of the relentless working out of their initial prognosis. The authority of medical discourse is therefore not just confirmed and disseminated: it is elaborated as fatality in the very terms of the novel. Copyright © SAGE Publications

Towards a risk register for natural capital

1. Natural capital is essential for goods and services on which people depend. Yet pressures on the environment mean that natural capital assets are continuing to decline and degrade, putting such benefits at risk. Systematic monitoring of natural assets is a major challenge that could be both unaffordable and unmanageable without a way to focus efforts. Here we introduce a simple approach, based on the commonly used management tool of a risk register, to highlight natural assets whose condition places benefits at risk. 2. We undertake a preliminary assessment using a risk register for natural capital assets in the UK based solely on existing information. The status and trends of natural capital assets are assessed using asset–benefit relationships for ten kinds of benefits (food, fibre (timber), energy, aesthetics, freshwater (quality), recreation, clean air, wildlife, hazard protection and equable climate) across eight broad habitat types in the UK based on three dimensions of natural capital within each of the habitat types (quality, quantity and spatial configuration). We estimate the status and trends of benefits relative to societal targets using existing regulatory limits and policy commitments, and allocate scores of high, medium or low risk to asset–benefit relationships that are both subject to management and of concern. 3. The risk register approach reveals substantial gaps in knowledge about asset–benefit relationships which limit the scope and rigour of the assessment (especially for marine and urban habitats). Nevertheless, we find strong indications that certain assets (in freshwater, mountain, moors and heathland habitats) are at high risk in relation to their ability to sustain certain benefits (especially freshwater, wildlife and climate regulation). 4. Synthesis and applications. With directed data gathering, especially to monitor trends, improve metrics related to asset–benefit relationships, and improve understanding of nonlinearities and thresholds, the natural capital risk register could provide a useful tool. If updated regularly, it could direct monitoring efforts, focus research and protect and manage those natural assets where benefits are at highest risk

A British Legacy?: The Empire Press Union and Freedom of the Press, 1940-1950

This paper aims to identify and analyse, in the first instance, those key developments that contributed to a resurgence of international debate over freedom of the press in the aftermath of the Second World War. For this purpose, the focus will be on the Empire/Commonwealth Press Union and its postwar conferences at London (1946) and Ottawa (1950) respectively. The renewed prominence given to issues of press freedom at these gatherings was not only a response to censorship and war-time changes, but reflected the onset of a new world order. The Empire Press Union, established in 1909, had previously held five major imperial conferences during the first half of the century. The Press Union enjoyed ongoing success in lobbying governments and companies to reduce high press cable rates across the Empire. Its conferences, normally convened at five year periods, were established forums for the discussion of ongoing imperial communication issues and were attended by British and Dominion delegations, comprising metropolitan proprietors and editors. Freedom of the press emerged as a conference issue in the wake of censorship by governments during World War One, albeit without the complexity or divisions which characterised the sustained debate of the 1946 and 1950 conferences. This article will argue that, during the latter gatherings, Australian conference delegates, rather than their British counterparts, emerged as the most vocal proponents of freedom of the press, reinforcing in the process a cultural divide between British-speaking empire loyalists like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada on one hand, and those member countries in which nationalist and independence movements were becoming prominent, most notably on the subcontinent

Intercultural ethics: questions of methods in language and intercultural communication

This paper explores how questions of ethics and questions of method are intertwined and unavoidable in any serious study of language and intercultural communication. It argues that the focus on difference and solution orientations to intercultural conflict has been a fundamental driver for theory, data collection and methods in the field. These approaches, the paper argues, have created a considerable consciousness raising industry, with methods, trainings and ‘critical incidents’, which ultimately focus intellectual energy in areas which may be productive in terms of courses and publications but which have a problematic basis in their ethical terrain. Dieser Artikel untersucht wie ethische und methodische Fragen nicht nur ineinander greifen, sondern in keiner ernstzunehmenden Studie ueber Sprache und interkulturelle Kommunikation ausgelassen werden duerfen. Es wird hier argumentiert, dass der Schwerpunkt auf Verschiedenheit und Problemorientierung im interkulturellen Konflikt einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf theoretische Entwicklungen, Datenerhebung und Methoden in diesem Bereich hatte. Dieser Artikel legt auch dar, wie diese Ansaetze eine betraechtliche ‘Bewusstseinsbildungs – Branche' erzeugt haben, mit Methoden, Trainings, und ‘kritischen Interaktionssituationen’, welche letztendlich allen intellektuellen Arbeitseifer auf Bereiche konzentriert hat, die zwar ertragreich sind in Bezug auf Kurse und Publikationen, jedoch eine problematische Grundlage im ethischen Bereich aufweisen

Coulomb explosion imaging of small organic molecules at LCLS.

Fragmentation of small organic molecules by intense few-femtosecond X-ray free-electron laser pulses has been studied using Coulomb explosion imaging. By measuring kinetic energies and emission angles of the ionic fragments in coincidence, we disentangle different fragmentation pathways, for certain cases can reconstruct molecular geometry at the moment of explosion, and show how it depends on LCLS pulse duration