The monic integer transfinite diameter

We study the problem of finding nonconstant monic integer polynomials, normalized by their degree, with small supremum on an interval I. The monic integer transfinite diameter t_M(I) is defined as the infimum of all such supremums. We show that if I has length 1 then t_M(I) = 1/2. We make three general conjectures relating to the value of t_M(I) for intervals I of length less that 4. We also conjecture a value for t_M([0, b]) where 0 < b < 1. We give some partial results, as well as computational evidence, to support these conjectures. We define two functions that measure properties of the lengths of intervals I with t_M(I) on either side of t. Upper and lower bounds are given for these functions. We also consider the problem of determining t_M(I) when I is a Farey interval. We prove that a conjecture of Borwein, Pinner and Pritsker concerning this value is true for an infinite family of Farey intervals.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figure

Intrapersonal positive future thinking predicts repeat suicide attempts in hospital-treated suicide attempters

Objective: Although there is clear evidence that low levels of positive future thinking (anticipation of positive experiences in the future) and hopelessness are associated with suicide risk, the relationship between the content of positive future thinking and suicidal behavior has yet to be investigated. This is the first study to determine whether the positive future thinking–suicide attempt relationship varies as a function of the content of the thoughts and whether positive future thinking predicts suicide attempts over time. Method: A total of 388 patients hospitalized following a suicide attempt completed a range of clinical and psychological measures (depression, hopelessness, suicidal ideation, suicidal intent and positive future thinking). Fifteen months later, a nationally linked database was used to determine who had been hospitalized again after a suicide attempt. Results: During follow-up, 25.6% of linked participants were readmitted to hospital following a suicide attempt. In univariate logistic regression analyses, previous suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, hopelessness, and depression—as well as low levels of achievement, low levels of financial positive future thoughts, and high levels of intrapersonal (thoughts about the individual and no one else) positive future thoughts predicted repeat suicide attempts. However, only previous suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, and high levels of intrapersonal positive future thinking were significant predictors in multivariate analyses. Discussion: Positive future thinking has predictive utility over time; however, the content of the thinking affects the direction and strength of the positive future thinking–suicidal behavior relationship. Future research is required to understand the mechanisms that link high levels of intrapersonal positive future thinking to suicide risk and how intrapersonal thinking should be targeted in treatment interventions

Shanty singing and the Irish Atlantic: Identity and hybridity in the musical imagination of Stan Hugill

In three major book-length contributions to the field during the 1960s and 1970s, leading folklorist Stan Hugill developed a peculiar understanding of the role of Ireland and Irish music in the international shanty tradition. Born on the Wirral peninsula, 15 miles from Liverpool, Hugill was deeply influenced by the port's experience as a hub for the Irish diaspora. This article will examine Hugill's characterisation of 'Irish' elements (lyrical, musical and performative) within selected examples, and will suggest that this representation of Irish music as central to the shanty repertoire engages with a range of insights emerging from Liverpool's status as a key location within the spatial imagination of the Atlantic archipelago. © 2017 International Maritime Economic History Association

'You understand what domestic architecture ought to be, you do': Finding Home in 'The Wind in the Willows'

This essay offers an analysis of the classic children’s novel The Wind in the Willows (1908) by English writer Kenneth Grahame in two aspects of its engagement with domestic space. The first concerns the representation of house and home within the text itself, and discusses how this representation is linked both to Grahame’s biography and to the wider politico-cultural condition in which he was living and writing. The second concerns the ability of fiction to assume a quasi-architectural presence in the perception of the reading subject, and examines the manner in which The Wind in the Willows became a sort of reading ‘home’ (with all the ambivalent values and associations that such a concept implies) for the author of the essay. The contribution concludes by suggesting a link between the image of home as represented in the text and that assumed by the text itself in the perception of the reading subject

'The Orchestra of Memory': Music, Sound and Silence in Dermot Healy's 'A Goat's Song'

An analysis of the role of music, sound and silence in an influential modern Irish nove

'Join Us': Musical Style and Identity in Bernard MacLaverty's 'My Dear Palestrina'

An analysis of the role of music in a short story by a celebrated Irish autho

Column: What’s the point of our national anthem today? [Sing when you're winning: the national anthem debate]

A 'think-piece' for an online controversialist Irish journa

The Representation of Dublin in Story and Song

Dublin is a complex, multi-faceted city-region which has in turn generated a complex, multi-faceted culture traversing a wide array of genres and narratives. Literary Dublin is widely known and celebrated; but the popular arts – cinema and music, for example – are likewise implicated in the imaginative representation of the city. Of these, the latter possesses an especially rich genealogy: a reservoir of images and associations accumulated over an extended period of time, itself based on an older ballad tradition in which the city functioned as an imaginative spatial resource for a diverse array of discourses (class, gender, nation, community, profession, etc.). Given the city’s continuing centrality to the economic, cultural and political organisation of Ireland as a whole, it is likely that Dublin’s significance will only grow as the country endeavours to come to terms with the extinction of the Celtic Tiger

'Trust not appearances': Political and personal betrayal in James Joyce's Ulysses

Literary historians such as Tony Tanner have speculated that adultery, with its assault upon the patriarchal institution of marriage and its potential for family drama, is the principal theme of the bourgeois novel that evolves in Europe during the nineteenth century. Joyce's famous work was heir to the great nineteenth-century novel of adultery - a tradition which includes the likes of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1873-77), Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857), and Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1867). An act of marital betrayal lies at the heart of the story, an act which Joyce explores in all its emotional and moral complexity. Other critics (such as David Lloyd) have argued that his condition as an Irish writer obliged Joyce to develop an 'adulterated' form of writing - one which refused the precepts of patriarchal authorship, and in so doing contributed significantly to the emergence of the cultural sensibility known as Modernism. This article addresses Joyce's imagination of personal and political betrayal as explored in both the thematic and formal aspects of Ulysses

Preliminary Candidate Advanced Avionics System (PCAAS)

Specifications which define the system functional requirements, the subsystem and interface needs, and other requirements such as maintainability, modularity, and reliability are summarized. A design definition of all required avionics functions and a system risk analysis are presented