The Wife’s Administration of the Earnings’? Working-Class Women and Savings in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

King and Tomkins (2002) in their study of the ‘economy of makeshifts’1 of the poor in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries identify a network of different ‘sources and benefits’ from which ‘poor households cobbled together incomes’.2 Poor people, they argue, used complementary resources which included wages, self-help and family support, as well as charity and parish benefits and research has not yet adequately explored the strategies by which these resources were combined. More needs to be known, they argue, about the effects on these strategies of a variety of factors, which include different gender roles, and more use needs to be made of a wide variety of sources whose ‘full potential has yet to be explored’,3 such as parish minutes, begging letters, wage accounts, and the records of pawnbrokers. The paper examines the role played in the makeshift economy by workingclass women’s use of the savings banks that were founded in Britain as resources for the poor at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It begins with a brief survey of the history of savings banks and of their relationship with working-class and women savers, and an overview of previous studies of UK savings banks, before outlining the results of surveys of two Yorkshire banks: the Sheffield and Hallamshire Savings bank and the Huddersfield Penny Savings Bank

There is no such thing as an audit society

[First Paragraph] Any discussion of Power’s Audit Society paper of 1994 has to start by acknowledging that it has enjoyed an extraordinary degree of success for an academic paper, let alone for an academic paper about audit. His terms audit society and audit explosion have gained very wide currency within the social sciences and on the wider stages of quality journalism and serious-minded websites. Some of this is, admittedly, due to Power’s own copious output on the topic (Power, 1994a,1994b, 1997, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2000d, 2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2005a, 2005b), some to exegeses of it (see for instance Bowerman et al 2000, Humphrey and Owen 2000 and Courville, Parker, and Watchirs 2003)) but a great deal to admirers from all sorts of disciplines

Celebrity worship and incidence of elective cosmetic surgery: evidence of a link among young adults.

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to explore among young adults whether celebrity worship predicted the incidence of elective cosmetic surgery within the period of 8 months after controlling for several known predictors of elective cosmetic surgery. Methods: A total of 137 young adults completed questionnaire measures of attitudes toward a celebrity whose body image they admired, previous and vicarious experience of elective cosmetic surgery, attitudes toward cosmetic surgery, and a range of psychological and demographic measures at time 1. Participants were then asked to report whether they had undergone elective cosmetic surgery 8 months later. Results: After controlling for several known predictors of elective cosmetic surgery, intense-personal celebrity worship of a celebrity whose body shape was admired by the participant predicted the incidence of elective cosmetic surgery within an 8-month period. Conclusions: The current findings suggest that the type of para-social relationship that young adults form with celebrities, particularly with those whose body shape is admired, may need to be considered by those when speaking to, and educating, young people about their choices around elective cosmetic surgery

ROLE OF DOPAMINE D2 RECEPTORS IN THE NEURAL CIRCUITRY UNDERLYING SEASONAL REPRODUCTION IN THE SHEEP

Seasonal reproduction in sheep is determined by changes in the responsiveness of GnRH neurons to the negative feedback action of estradiol, mediated by dopaminergic afferents and dopamine D2 receptors (D2R). It is not known whether this influence acts directly onto GnRH neurons or indirectly via interneurons such as KNDy cells. In anestrous ewes, immunocytochemistry revealed D2R expression in ~50% of GnRH neurons independent of region. In contrast, using dynorphin as a marker, D2R colocalized \u3e80% of KNDy cells and \u3c10% of dynorphin cells of the POA. No seasonal variation was found in D2R expression in GnRH cells; however colocalization significantly increased in KNDY cells ¡h anestrous vs. breeding season. Immunochemistry found that kisspeptin fibres contact GnRH neurons synaptically. Results suggest that seasonal changes in this circuit are mediated by dopaminergic afferents contacting D2R-containing KNDy neurons, which in turn decreases expression of the stimulatory neuropeptide kisspeptin, inhibiting GnRH in seasonal anestrous

Capability in the digital: institutional media management and its dis/contents

This paper explores how social media spaces are occupied, utilized and negotiated by the British Military in relation to the Ministry of Defence’s concerns and conceptualizations of risk. It draws on data from the DUN Project to investigate the content and form of social media about defence through the lens of ‘capability’, a term that captures and describes the meaning behind multiple representations of the military institution. But ‘capability’ is also a term that we hijack and extend here, not only in relation to the dominant presence of ‘capability’ as a representational trope and the extent to which it is revealing of a particular management of social media spaces, but also in relation to what our research reveals for the wider digital media landscape and ‘capable’ digital methods. What emerges from our analysis is the existence of powerful, successful and critically long-standing media and reputation management strategies occurring within the techno-economic online structures where the exercising of ‘control’ over the individual – as opposed to the technology – is highly effective. These findings raise critical questions regarding the extent to which ‘control’ and management of social media – both within and beyond the defence sector – may be determined as much by cultural, social, institutional and political influence and infrastructure as the technological economies. At a key moment in social media analysis, then, when attention is turning to the affordances, criticisms and possibilities of data, our research is a pertinent reminder that we should not forget the active management of content that is being similarly, if not equally, effective

Religion and health : the application of a cognitive-behavioural framework

The empirical examination of the relationship between religion and health has often lacked theoretical direction. The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between dimensions of religiosity and health within the context of James and Wells’ cognitive-behavioural framework of religion. A community sample of 177 UK adults completed measures of religious orientation, religious coping, and prayer activity alongside the SF-36 Health Survey. Consistent with the cognitive-behavioural framework of religion, intrinsic religiosity and meditative prayer scores accounted for unique variance in both physical and mental health scores over a number of religious measures. These findings suggest the potential usefulness and importance of a cognitive-behavioural framework to understand the relationship between religion (as measured by meditative prayer and intrinsic religiosity) and health

Interaction between a fast rotating sunspot and ephemeral regions as the origin of the major solar event on 2006 December 13

The major solar event on 2006 December 13 is characterized by the approximately simultaneous occurrence of a heap of hot ejecta, a great two-ribbon flare and an extended Earth-directed coronal mass ejection. We examine the magnetic field and sunspot evolution in active region NOAA AR 10930, the source region of the event, while it transited the solar disk centre from Dec. 10 to Dec. 13. We find that the obvious changes in the active region associated with the event are the development of magnetic shear, the appearance of ephemeral regions and fast rotation of a smaller sunspot. Around the area of the magnetic neutral line of the active region, interaction between the fast rotating sunspot and the ephemeral regions triggers continual brightening and finally the major flare. It is indicative that only after the sunspot rotates up to 200$^{\circ}$ does the major event take place. The sunspot rotates at least 240$^{\circ}$ about its centre, the largest sunspot rotation angle which has been reported.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, ApJ Letters inpres

Erythrocytes in multiple sclerosis: forgotten contributors to the pathophysiology?

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease characterised by lymphocytic infiltration of the central nervous system and subsequent destruction of myelin and axons. On the background of a genetic predisposition to autoimmunity, environmental triggers are assumed to initiate the disease. The majority of MS research has focused on the pathological involvement of lymphocytes and other immune cells, yet a paucity of attention has been given to erythrocytes, which may play an important role in MS pathology. The following review briefly summarises how erythrocytes may contribute to MS pathology through impaired antioxidant capacity and altered haemorheological features. The effect of disease-modifying therapies on erythrocytes is also reviewed. It may be important to further investigate erythrocytes in MS, as this could broaden the understanding of the pathological mechanisms of the disease, as well as potentially lead to the discovery of novel and innovative targets for future therapies

Students’ concern about indebtedness: A rank based social norms account

This paper describes a new model of students' concern about indebtedness within a rank-based social norms framework. Study 1 found that students hold highly variable beliefs about how much other students will owe at the end of their degree. Students' concern about their own anticipated debt – and their intention of taking on a part-time job during term time – was best predicted not by the size of the anticipated debt, but by how they, often incorrectly, believed their debt ranked amongst that of others. Study 2 manipulated hypothetical debt amounts experimentally and found that the same anticipated debt was rated as 2.5 times more concerning when it ranked as the second highest being considered than when it was the fifth highest. Study 3 demonstrated that the model applies to evaluation of different types of debt (income contingent loans versus general debt)