'Spectacles within doors': panoramas of London in the 1790s

Edinburgh University Press allows authors to retain the right to post the definitive version of the contribution, as published by EUP, in the Institutional Repository or in a disciplinary repository one year following publication in print. This article was originally published in ROMANTICISM [VOL 14, ISSUE 2, (2008)] and is available at

Fictions of science in Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein'

In recent years, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has often been described as the first science fiction novel. Brian Aldiss, himself a writer of science fiction, amongst others identified Frankenstein as ‘the Origin of the Species’ of science fiction. Such a description of course can only be true for a generation of readers who are comfortable with the expectations of science fiction, and Mary Shelley can have had no such expectations. However, in its representation of the creature’s creation through the reanimation of disparate dead body parts, the novel is clearly about science. This essay, which focuses particularly on Shelley’s representation of Victor’s education as a man of science, and his subsequent experiment with the creature, demonstrates how the novel establishes distinct kinds of experimental investigation into the meaning of life, some associated with science, others with alchemy. Such concerns reflect Shelley’s interest in the radical political culture of her time and the recent past. The novel negotiates the relations of dependence and disjunction between these concerns of science and politics in its language and plot. The form of the novel offers itself as a useful intellectual tool, allowing these disparate forms of thought to jostle up against each other, not in resolution but in colloquy. The novel form, and in particular the gothic mode adopted by Shelley, allows for the contradictions, confusions and errors of the science to be overlooked and underplayed, incorporated into the creative act of reading

Goldilocks Forgetting in Cross-Situational Learning

Given that there is referential uncertainty (noise) when learning words, to what extent can forgetting filter some of that noise out, and be an aid to learning? Using a Cross Situational Learning model we find a U-shaped function of errors indicative of a "Goldilocks" zone of forgetting: an optimum store-loss ratio that is neither too aggressive nor too weak, but just the right amount to produce better learning outcomes. Forgetting acts as a high-pass filter that actively deletes (part of) the referential ambiguity noise, retains intended referents, and effectively amplifies the signal. The model achieves this performance without incorporating any specific cognitive biases of the type proposed in the constraints and principles account, and without any prescribed developmental changes in the underlying learning mechanism. Instead we interpret the model performance as more of a by-product of exposure to input, where the associative strengths in the lexicon grow as a function of linguistic experience in combination with memory limitations. The result adds a mechanistic explanation for the experimental evidence on spaced learning and, more generally, advocates integrating domain-general aspects of cognition, such as memory, into the language acquisition process

Stable isotope analysis provides new information on winter habitat use of declining avian migrants that is relevant to their conservation

Winter habitat use and the magnitude of migratory connectivity are important parameters when assessing drivers of the marked declines in avian migrants. Such information is unavailable for most species. We use a stable isotope approach to assess these factors for three declining African-Eurasian migrants whose winter ecology is poorly known: wood warbler Phylloscopus sibilatrix, house martin Delichon urbicum and common swift Apus apus. Spatially segregated breeding wood warbler populations (sampled across a 800 km transect), house martins and common swifts (sampled across a 3,500 km transect) exhibited statistically identical intra-specific carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in winter grown feathers. Such patterns are compatible with a high degree of migratory connectivity, but could arise if species use isotopically similar resources at different locations. Wood warbler carbon isotope ratios are more depleted than typical for African-Eurasian migrants and are compatible with use of moist lowland forest. The very limited variance in these ratios indicates specialisation on isotopically restricted resources, which may drive the similarity in wood warbler populations' stable isotope ratios and increase susceptibility to environmental change within its wintering grounds. House martins were previously considered to primarily use moist montane forest during the winter, but this seems unlikely given the enriched nature of their carbon isotope ratios. House martins use a narrower isotopic range of resources than the common swift, indicative of increased specialisation or a relatively limited wintering range; both factors could increase house martins' vulnerability to environmental change. The marked variance in isotope ratios within each common swift population contributes to the lack of population specific signatures and indicates that the species is less vulnerable to environmental change in sub-Saharan Africa than our other focal species. Our findings demonstrate how stable isotope research can contribute to understanding avian migrants' winter ecology and conservation status

Organizational Communication and Individual Behavior: Implications for Supply Chain Risk Management

Risk is a significant issue for supply chain managers. Not only must they contend with multiple dimensions of risk in decision‐making, they must reconcile decision‐making with broader organizational interests. This study examines the influence of organizational communication regarding supply chain risk on individual decision‐making strategies and the perceptions of risk. A multi‐stage experimental design is applied, in which decision‐makers make decisions across three dimensions of risk and adjust their risk‐taking behavior after being presented with organizational communication regarding supply chain risk levels. The relationship between organizational communication and the perceptions of supply chain risk is then explored after decision‐makers are allowed to adjust their supply chain strategies. The results suggest that decision‐makers adapt sourcing strategies in response to organizational communication regarding supply chain risk. Specifically, they make riskier decisions when the organization communicates improvements in supply chain risk levels. However, when given specific instructions to reduce risk, they do not adjust their supply chain strategies