Symbols of protection : the significance of animal-ornamented shields in early Anglo-Saxon England

The significance of shields with animal ornament on the boss and/or board in early Anglo-Saxon society is sought in the coincidence of artefactual, stylistic and iconographic symbolism. Twenty shields buried in the 6th to earliest 7th century, together with seventeen further mounts which were probably originally designed for shields, form the basis of a systematic typological review; decoration in Salin's Style I is emphasised. Analysis of dating, distribution and use in burial establishes cultural and social contexts. The meaning of the ornamental repertoire is sought through iconographic analogies, notably with Scandinavian bracteates and their putative association with a cult of Óðinn/Woden. It is proposed that the animal ornament invested the shields with a specific apotropaic quality, which emphasised, and amplified, the protective role of select adult males, and hence their authority over kin, community and even kingdo

The Anthropocene Lyric: An Affective Geography of Poetry, Person, Place by Tom Bristow

Review of Tom Bristow\u27s The Anthropocene Lyric: An Affective Geography of Poetry, Person, Place

Changing the Course of AIDS: Peer Education in South Africa and Its Lessons for the Global Crisis

[Excerpted from the Foreward by Charles Deutsch, Sc.D.] David Dickinson asks the question: How can we inject into the busy, distracted, difficult lives of the least educated and poorest among us the opportunity, and eventually the habit, to think critically about their social norms and behaviors; that is, about how to keep themselves and their loved ones healthy in a terribly dangerous environment? The answer is: Purposefully, persistently, with system and intent, through judicious infiltration of the social networks people live and act in. It requires intensive, sustainable face-to-face social strategies in which trusted people listen to what is being said and believed, and respond with stories that are not only accurate but also memorable and credible, and can compete successfully with the myths and beliefs that support dangerous norms. In some settings, such as schools, churches, mosques, and sports programs, peer education can be structured and scheduled. In other contexts, such as most workplaces, it is more informal and impromptu, but with many predictable opportunities to be prepared for. It is the why, what, and how of these latter contexts that Dickinson so ably addresses. He is especially eloquent about the need to work below the surface and behind the scenes, where peer education has few rivals. He documents aspects of the struggle against AIDS that are not usually subject to disciplined scrutiny. He culls from the experiences and wisdom of hundreds of dedicated adult peer educators across South Africa, reconciling and contrasting their insights with theories that have been the basis of social strategies to contain and control new infection and test and treat those currently infected. This book rests on a confidence in horizontal learning and a respect for what people who don\u27t have much formal education can know and do for one another. Those beliefs are not widely and deeply owned by decision makers in the United States or South Africa. As we cast about for more realistic ways to approach prevention, and settle on strategies that help people think and talk together about what they believe and what they do, these insights into peer education at the workplace will remind us that we have the resources in our midst to change our conversations, our norms, and our behavior

Translating animal art: Salin’s Style I and Anglo-Saxon cast saucer brooches

Saucer brooches are actually the most frequent bearers of Salin’s Style I in England, but have been overlooked because of perceptions of the derivative nature of their ornament. This paper seeks to rectify the inbalance by accepting that translation (in a physical and linguistic sense) is the key to understanding both the form which Style I took on saucer brooches and potentially its meanings. The study is based on 281 cast saucer brooches (almost half the total corpus of the type): half feature zoomorphic decoration on its own and half combine zoomorphic and geometric motifs. The animal art is characterised in terms of motifs, presentation and composition. While ‘coherent’ motifs, recognisable from the classic, early repertoire of Style I, are reasonably well represented, attention is mostly given to the way motifs and designs were transformed, involving both established principles of Style I design (abbreviation, addition, re-assembly and ambiguity) and adaptation to the pre-existing, geometric-based, saucer-brooch tradition. Although calibrating the pace of change (devolution?) is difficult, the process can be shown to have endured throughout the 6th century and to have been most practised in western Anglo-Saxon districts. Explaining the meaning and role of this transformed animal art is obviously hard, but it is argued that it was the result not of ignorance or carelessness, but a deliberate choice. By adopting images from Northern Germanic mythology and blending them with other (Roman and Saxon) symbols, meanings were both perpetuated and subtly altered, enabling important kindred outside Kent and the main Anglian areas to negotiate their own identity and affiliations

Observations of Anomalous Microwave Emission from HII regions

In this brief review, I give a summary of the observations of Anomalous Microwave Emission (AME) from HII regions. AME has been detected in, or in the vicinity of, HII regions. Given the difficulties in measuring accurate SEDs over a wide range of frequencies and in complex environments, many of these detections require more data to confirm them as emitting significant AME. The contribution from optically thick free-free emission from UCHII regions may be also be significant in some cases. The AME emissivity, defined as the ratio of the AME brightness to the 100 micron brightness, is comparable to the value observed in high-latitude diffuse cirrus in some regions, but is significantly lower in others. However, this value is dependent on the dust temperature. More data, both at high frequencies (>5 GHz) and high resolution (~1 arcmin or better) is required to disentangle the emission processes in such complex regions.Comment: Published in Advances in Astronomy. Final manuscript can be downloaded from http://www.hindawi.com/journals/aa/2013/162478

Property Musings at the U.S.-Mexico Border

President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Order calling for “a physical wall on the southern border” of the United States in January, 2017. In his address before Congress, the President stated, “[W]e will soon begin the construction of a great wall along our southern border.” The political response to the Executive Order has been swift. Representative Lamar Smith of Texas views the Executive Order as a testament to the President “honoring his commitment” to immigration enforcement. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin favorably compares the border mandates in Israel and Egypt as successful examples of how to mitigate illegal immigration. Opponents focus on the cost and financing of the wall. Some estimate that Congress needs to appropriate $20 billion to cover the costs for construction. Representative Will Hurd of Texas stated that a physical wall is “the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.” The California state legislature is seeking to halt state contracts for builders seeking to profit from the wall. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California threatened to shut down the government if demands for funding the project continued from the Trump Administration. Then-Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) John Kelly noted that the agency could not prepare an all-inclusive cost estimate related to longer-term border security initiatives until an analysis was conducted and other variables, such as land acquisition, were addressed, and that a wall, in and of itself, would not be enough. The controversy over the wall goes beyond the U.S. borders. Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto responded that “Mexico will not pay for any wall.” While the physical construction of the wall will, inevitably, come down to whether Congress appropriates sufficient funds for the project, the biggest obstacles for the wall may not necessarily be the money, but acquiring the land to build the wall

Properties of High Redshift Cluster Ellipticals

Cluster ellipticals are often thought to be among the oldest galaxies in the universe, with the bulk of their stellar mass formed at early cosmic epochs. I review recent observations of color evolution in early-type cluster galaxies at high redshift, which show remarkably little change in the color-magnitude relation out to z = 1. Spectra of elliptical galaxies from 1.15 < z < 1.41 demonstrate the presence of a dominant old stellar population even at these large lookback times, although there is some evidence for a tail of later star formation. The Kormendy relation, a photometric/morphological scaling law for elliptical galaxies, is used to extend fundamental plane investigations to z = 1.2 and to test for luminosity evolution. While the evidence, overall, is consistent with simple and mild passive evolution, I review some caveats and briefly consider the data in the light of hierarchical galaxy formation models.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the ESO/VLT meeting ``Galaxy Scaling Relations: Origins, Evolution and Applications'' (ed. L. da Costa; Springer-Verlag), held in Garching, Germany, on November 18-20, 1996. 11 pages (Latex) with 6 postscript figures; uses lamuphys.sty style file (included

Technology enhanced learning in 21st century mass higher education. Aspects of design, practice and strategy for a necessary step change

Modern day mass higher education presents challenges for both learners and teachers. Whilst digital resources, Web 2.0 technologies and online connectivity can add significantly to the learning opportunities of 21st century students, many cross programme Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) provisions remain collections of somewhat disconnected and basic materials. In its early development, organised e-learning has generally been the province of specialist programmes and individuals championing the new technologies. However along with the adoption of technology enhanced learning, there is a growing need to develop, design and embed more fundamental and far reaching strategic approaches that embrace the core of traditional university learning and teaching programmes. This paper focuses upon a large undergraduate core module and discusses the implications of a practice based case study which explored how traditional campus based undergraduate learning and teaching could be redesigned and enhanced by the addition of online technology and e-pedagogy. It considers aspects of both pedagogical and technological design and examines how a VLE can support learners and teaching teams. Findings showed that students were extremely positive about the mix of onsite and online learning. They saw anytime, anywhere access as fundamental, and valued the flexible access and collaborative opportunities offered by Web 2.0 and mobile resources. Considerable operational benefits arose in supporting teaching teams and student marks increased. Drawing upon lessons learned from practice, and feedback gained from students and teachers, the paper examines how the approach may inform future curriculum delivery and programme specification. It considers the contribution that blended learning may make in addressing the needs of 21st century learners in mass higher education, and reflects on the implications of the case study in terms of aspects of design, practice and strategy

An early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Quarrington, near Sleaford, Lincolnshire : report on excavations, 2000-2001

[FIRST PARAGRAPH] The early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in the Kesteven part of Lincolnshire form two distinct distribution patterns (Fig.1): a north-south line along, or just to the west of, the limestone edge between the former Roman towns of Lincoln and Ancaster, of which the best known is an outlier near its southern tip, the large mixed-rite site at Loveden Hill; and a cluster in the south-east, of which the best known are Ruskington and Sleaford, essentially inhumation cemeteries but with a handful of cremations each (Leahy 1993; 1999). This paper reports on the excavation of a small inhumation burial site just 2.5km west-south-west of the Sleaford cemetery and now in the civil parish of Sleaford, but formerly in the parish of Quarrington (Fig.2). An Anglo-Saxon burial site has been known from near here since the early nineteenth century, when urned cremations and accompanying inhumations were discovered during gravel digging (Yerburgh 1825; Trollope 1872, pp.98-100; Meaney 1964, pp.160-61; Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record, no.60375). Recently, an Anglo-Saxon settlement of the sixth to eighth centuries has been excavated at Town Road, Quarrington, 1.1km to the east (Taylor 2003). The interrelationship of these three Anglo-Saxon sites is a matter for discussion (below), but it is proposed that the nineteenthcentury discoveries now be known as Quarrington I and the new burial area as Quarrington II