The Business of Smuggling in south-east Scotland. John and David Nisbet and their associates c. 1740 -1790

Research into the career of the merchant-smuggler John Nisbet of Gunsgreen House, Eyemouth has led to a ‘bottom up’ analysis in this thesis of the North Sea smuggling business in the second half of the eighteenth century. Building on previous work, but supplemented by a range of new material, this thesis challenges some assumptions, notably about direct links between smaller Scottish ports and Gothenburg and highlighted the role of the merchant-smuggler in managing the import of tea from Sweden. It has also highlighted the significance of ‘Gottenburgh Teas’ as a brand, extensively advertised in newspapers in Scotland and the north of England. As well as this important addition to our understanding of the northern smuggling world, the thesis examines in detail the activities of the small port of Eyemouth, developing a knowledge of the methods adopted by smugglers and their relationships with each other and with the customs. It will also review the North Sea timber trade of the period, challenging earlier preconceptions about both the source of much of the timber that came to Scotland and how the business was managed. What it shows is that it is now possible to undertake micro historical research of a small port with, apparently, minimal local records, by combining a wider range of material, including much now available online, such as family history resources and the British Newspaper Archive. In this case, too, evidence is provided by Gunsgreen House itself, its physical fabric – the so-called tea chute, for example – and its symbolic importance for John Nisbet. The result is a detailed analysis of northern smuggling, including the importance of the role of Scottish merchants in Gothenburg, some of whom were Jacobite exiles, and of the business processes involved in smuggling which were essentially those of regular merchants

Beyond ‘ignorance’: using the cultural stereotypes of Americans studying in the UK as a resource for learning and teaching about British culture

A course introducing British culture is a standard component of many study abroad programmes running in this country that are aimed at international students who will be spending a limited amount of time in the United Kingdom. However, it is not often acknowledged that such students possess a range of strong pre-conceptions about British culture and society prior to their arrival. Conventional teaching strategies assume student ignorance of the subject. However, an alternative approach which makes us of pre-arrival stereotypes can be more productive in terms of engaging students in active processes of comparative analysis of their new and existing knowledge. A case study of American student stereotypes of the British monarchy is presented and it is suggested that these can be used as the basis for refining student understanding of cultural politics in the United Kingdom. International students, therefore, should not be treated as being culturally ignorant of Britain in the sense of having no knowledge or opinions at all. Rather, it should be understood that they possess a culturally mediated state of subjectivity which I refer to as ‘ignorance’ and that this can become a valuable resource for teaching and learning

Experiments on the injection and containment of electron clouds in a toroidal apparatus

Injection and containment of electron clouds in azimuthally symmetric, toroidal apparatu

Phase and amplitude scintillations of microwave signals over an elevated atmospheric path

Phase and amplitude scintillations of microwave signals over elevated atmospheric path for obtaining atmospheric density profile

Statistical Methods for Evaluating and Comparing Biomarkers for Patient Treatment Selection

Despite the heightened interest in developing biomarkers predicting treatment response that are used to optimize patient treatment decisions, there has been relatively little development of statistical methodology to evaluate these markers. There is currently no unified statistical framework for marker evaluation. This paper proposes a suite of descriptive and inferential methods designed to evaluate individual markers and to compare candidate markers. An R software package has been developed which implements these methods. Their utility is illustrated in the breast cancer treatment context, where candidate markers are evaluated for their ability to identify a subset of women who do not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy and can therefore avoid its toxicity

An Innovative Dynamic Test Method for Piles

The system described involves using solid propellant fuels to accelerate a reaction mass of the test pile. The force required to accelerate the reaction mass upwards acts equally downward on the pile. Very high forces be may applied to the pile in a controlled, linearly increasing manner. The duration of the applied load is approximately 100 milliseconds. This rate of loading is slow enough to allow the pile and soil to react together as a composite rigid body. The effects combine to produce pile and soil response no longer dominated by the transfer of force via stress pulse (as with impact). State of the art instrumentation systems are used to obtain test data. Displacement is monitored directly using a laser datum and integrated receiver located at the center axis of the pile. Force is also monitored directly using a calibrated load cell