Weaving words: Law and performance in early Nordic tradition

The reference to malrunar or 'speech runes' in Sigrdrifumal suggests a performative aspect to the practice of early Germanic law that transcends the swearing of oaths and the reciting of law codes attested to by literary sources. Indeed early runic texts often feature alliteration, much as do the old Scandinavian legal tracts. This parallelism suggests that early Northern legal language was not stylised merely for mnemonic purposes, but instead reflects an oral-performative praxis similar to that which appears to be reflected in early Irish sources. But the relationship between performance and memorisation has not always been demarcated clearly in recent scholarship. Oralperformative theory is often called upon today without reference to explanations of social action. The privileging of generative performance over pre-literate memory culture seems to represent only an awkward victory of the medievalistic 'anthropological turn' over other key expressions of socio-cultural theory

Industrial democracy and corporate governance: two discourses of reform in liberal-market economies

Industrial democracy and corporate governance are intertwined discourses. In present-day use, however, the two expressions seem to represent as different perspectives as two related discursive traditions could become. At a time when calls have emerged for the intersection of the two narratives to be revisited, how the separation of these two related discourses occurred historically and what that separation has entailed seems of particular importance. The received corporate governance approach has become so dominant that it appears to have assumed the status of an ideology - an established way of thinking about the governance of corporations that is largely just assumed (rather than argued) in much financial and legal discourse. Seeking to understand why mainstream corporate governance scholarship has failed to engage with the historically key issue of industrial democratisation is the main purpose of this paper

Gauging CSO groups in N=4 Supergravity

We investigate a class of CSO-gaugings of N=4 supergravity coupled to six vector multiplets. Using the CSO-gaugings we do not find a vacuum that is stable against all scalar perturbations at the point where the matter fields are turned off. However, at this point we do find a stable cosmological scaling solution.Comment: 21 page

Industry superannuation funds: a new kind of mutual

At the time of the founding of the industry superannuation funds, the Australian retirement-savings market was dominated by insurance mutuals. In the early 1980s, less than half the workforce was covered by occupational superannuation and unions saw the insurance mutuals, created in the nineteenth century, as part of the problem in this widespread market failure. When establishing industry-wide schemes, union leaders largely eschewed the language associated with the "old" mutuals that had become key pillars of the established financial sector. In framing their appeal to members, the trustees and managers of the industry funds appealed instead to new expressions, such as "all profit to members." Industry funds also developed a model of 50/50 employer/employee trusteeship or "equal representation" not as an ideological prescription, but as a pragmatic way of dealing with opposition to the schemes by employers. The trustees and managers of industry superannuation funds contrasted rather than associated themselves with the "old mutuals" which, at the time, were not seen as reflecting the unions' ideal of an industrial partnership. However, with the decline and demutualisation of the largest old insurance mutuals in the 1990s, the industry funds began to appropriate the language of mutualism. This appropriation took place within the context of a perceived need to maintain a collective identity and purpose in the changing superannuation marketplace

Group Manifold Reduction of Dual N=1 d=10 Supergravity

We perform a group manifold reduction of the dual version of N=1 d=10 supergravity to four dimensions. The effects of the 3- and 4-form gauge fields in the resulting gauged N=4 d=4 supergravity are studied in particular. The example of the group manifold SU(2)xSU(2) is worked out in detail, and we compare for this case the four-dimensional scalar potential with gauged N=4 supergravity.Comment: 22 pages, revised section 3, typos corrected. Published versio

Factors influencing fish and macrocrustacean communities in the surf zone of sandy beaches in Belgium: temporal variation

Monthly samples were taken in the surf zone of sandy beaches along the Belgian coast from May 1996 until July 1997 at four selected stations. Temporal patterns of the macrocrustacean and fish species residing the surf zone were investigated, as well as the abiotic variables structuring the community. In total 34 species were recorded belonging to caridean shrimps (3), anomuran and brachyuran crabs (5), cephalopods (2) and fish (24). The brown shrimp Crangon crangon dominated almost all samples (>80%). Total densities often exceeded 400 ind per 100 m², and if C. crangon was excluded 10 ind per 100 m². Notwithstanding the harsh hydrodynamic conditions, the surf zone of Belgian sandy beaches is used intensively by a number of epibenthic macro-crustaceans and demersal fish species. Seven resident and ten migrant species were identified. As mainly juvenile fishes were present, the surf zone of the Belgian sandy beaches may act as a nursery for longer (e.g. plaice Pleuronectes platessa) or shorter (e.g. brill Scophthalmus rhombus) periods. However, its nursery function should be studied in more detail, since the highly dynamic circumstances and more specifically wave height and wind speed may be important structuring factors for the epibenthic communities. The surf zone of Belgian sandy beaches also seems to function as a transient area to other nurseries (e.g. bass Dicentrarchus labrax) or between a nursery and the true marine environment (e.g. dab Limanda limanda). Temporal variation in community structure was greatly masked by spatial differences between sites. Although variables such as salinity and hydrodynamic factors may have influenced the data, clear temperature-related, seasonal patterns occur. Most likely, extreme winter conditions and subsequent migration of organisms to deeper waters caused a decline in winter in both density and diversity

The Mainz internet database of Names on Terra Sigillata (samian ware), Portugal and Spain and the collaborative samian research network

The digital research resource 'Samian Research' offers access to a quarter of a million recorded Samian (Terra Sigillata) stamps found within the Roman Empire and its barbarian borderlands. It comprises the main corpora 'Names on Terra Sigillata', 'Corpus Vasorum Arretinorum' and 'Gestempelte Südgallische Reliefsigillata' and thousands of new finds from various sites added after the printed publication of these books. The resource also offers tools for data exploration, generating dating curves for find-sites, weighted distribution maps and statistical tools to analyse the internal structures of Samian potteries.O recurso de pesquisa digital “Samian Research” oferece acesso a um quarto de milhão de marcas de terra sigillata (“Samian”) registadas e encontradas no Império Romano e nas suas fronteiras “bárbaras”. Compreende os principais corpora “Names on Terra Sigillata”, “Corpus Vasorum Arretinorum” e “Gestempelte Südgallische Reliefsigillata” e milhares de novas descobertas de vários sítios, adicionadas após a publicação impressa desses livros. O recurso também oferece ferramentas para exploração de dados, gerando curvas de datação para locais de consumo, mapas de distribuição ponderada e ferramentas estatísticas para analisar as estruturas internas das olarias de terra sigillata.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Organisational resilience and emergency management

The concept of resilience figures prominently in discussions of disaster risk reduction, emergency management and community safety. Overwhelmingly, such discussions view resilience as a highly desirable characteristic of communities. Policies and practices of emergency services organisations imply that a major role of such organisations is to promote and foster community resilience. Yet there is little appreciation of the importance of resilience as a necessary characteristic of emergency services organisations. In this paper we argue that emergency services organisations need to address their own resilience issues in order to properly fulfil their community protection responsibilities. The concept of organisational resilience in relation to Australia's volunteer-based emergency services organisations is discussed and the importance of organisational climate and organisational culture in relation to organisational resilience is stressed