Book review: the architecture chronicle: diary of an architectural practice by Jan Kattein

Andrew Molloy finds The Architecture Chronicle to be a fascinating and provocative book which challenges the traditional approach to writing about and describing architecture. It dispels the myth of the individual genius, while at the same time describing in detail what architects do, revealing the genuine value they bring to the construction process. This volume would be a great read for new students of the profession, allowing them through the doors and making them acutely aware of their responsibilities and potentials

Book review: general intellects: twenty-one thinkers for the twenty-first century by McKenzie Wark

In General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century, McKenzie Wark reworks the figure of the public intellectual through the notion of the ‘general intellect’, showcasing 21 key thinkers including Donna Haraway, Amy Wendling and Kojin Karatani. With these bite-sized introductions adding up to more than the sum of their parts, this is a book filled with minor revelations that provides subtle shifts on known works and identifies new paths for understanding the contemporary world, writes Andrew Molloy

Book review: Walter Benjamin and the media by Jaeho Kang

In Walter Benjamin and the Media, Jaeho Kang strikes a near perfect balance between biographical narrative and theoretical analysis. In doing so, Benjamin’s media critique is fully contextualised, removing any notion of obsolescence which may arise from a contemporary reading, writes Andrew Molloy

An Irish Missionary in France, Thomas Gould (1657-1734), Irish Migrant, Catholic priest and Missionnaire du Roi

Thomas Gould (1657-1734) was a native of Cork who achieved an impressive, although not unusual level of success as an Irish man in the employ of the French state and Catholic Church during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-centuries in France. As well as being an Irish migrant on the Continent, Gould was an ecclesiastic, a Catholic missionary and religious polemical writer, and above all as this study will highlight, an agent of the Bourbon monarchy, a uniquely titled Missionnaire du Roi. Leaving his bridled Catholic life in Ireland Gould became involved and indeed achieved a high level of renown in the proscription of the religious lives of Protestants in Bourbon France. His missionary activities to the Protestants in Poitou formed part of the French state’s final attempt to impose religious unity upon its religious dissenting community, the Huguenots. The hermeneutical merit in focusing on Gould in this period is evident in the dynamism of his life, the study of which allows one to weave together the many differing contextual fabrics of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that constituted the many backdrops to Gould’s activities in Poitou. Centrally placed as he was in Poitou at the vanguard of the Bourbon state’s advance against the Huguenots, Gould provides an insight, not just into the complex workings of the relationship that existed between the Bourbon monarchy and its ecclesiastical allies, the Catholic Church, but more importantly, and that which forms the central thesis of this study, how both institutions attempted to subdue and convert its Protestant Huguenot community to Catholicism

New Professionals on tap? The human resource challenges in developing a new generation of municipal and local government managers in Nova Scotia

Canadian governments are facing significant human resource management challenges due to pending retirements, projected labour market shortages and the workplace expectations of New Professionals. This paper explores human resource recruitment planning initiatives, which have been undertaken by Nova Scotia municipalities, in order to attract and retain a new generation of municipal government managers. We will argue, in line with a recent Association of Municipal Administrators (AMA) of Nova Scotia municipal report that Nova Scotia municipalities must take intergenerational issues into account, for management succession planning to be successful. Our exploration of municipal succession planning will take place in the context of a larger study, which we have done on “New Professional” recruitment, retention and development initiatives in Canad

Party competition and emotive rhetoric

When do parties use emotive rhetoric to appeal to voters? In this article, we argue that politicians are more likely to employ positive affect (valence) in their rhetoric to appeal to voters when parties are not ideologically distinct and when there is uncertainty about public preferences. To test these propositions, our article uses well-established psycholinguistic affect dictionaries to generate scores from three time series of political text: British party manifestos (1900-2015) and annual party leaders’ speeches (1977-2014) as well as U.S. Presidents’ State of the Union addresses (1880-2016). Our findings corroborate our expectations and have important implications for the study of party competition by illuminating the role of valence in the way politicians communicate their policies

Adiabatic Coarse Wavelength De/Multiplexing for Optical Systems

A novel approach to the simultaneous multiplexing or de multiplexing of 3 wavelengths for coarse wavelength channel separation is based on the geometrical evolution and transformation of the modes of a single few-mode planar device. An input fundamental mode is transformed into a particular higher-order mode, depending on its wavelength, and then is transformed directly into the fundamental mode of a particular output port. The functionality of the device is quantified and its performance optimised through appropriate design. The device overall size is minimised, taking into account core spacing requirements for a fibre pigtailing, i.e. connecterisation of the input and output device arms to optical fiber

Anaemia and the development of depressive symptoms following acute coronary syndrome: longitudinal clinical observational study

OBJECTIVE: Depressive symptoms are common following acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and predict subsequent cardiovascular morbidity. Depression in acute cardiac patients appears to be independent of clinical disease severity and other cardiovascular measures. One factor that has not been considered previously is anaemia, which is associated with fatigue and adverse cardiac outcomes. This study assessed the relationship between anaemia on admission and depressive symptoms following ACS. DESIGN: Longitudinal clinical observational study. SETTING: Coronary care unit. PATIENTS: 223 patients with documented ACS. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Depressive symptoms measured with the Beck Depression Inventory 3 weeks after admission. RESULTS: Anaemia was defined with WHO criteria and was present in 30 (13.5%) patients. Anaemia predicted raised depression scores 3 weeks later independently of age, gender, marital status, educational attainment, smoking, Global Registry of Acute Cardiac Events (GRACE) risk scores, negative mood in hospital and history of depression (p=0.003). The odds of a Beck Depression Inventory score ≥10 among anaemic patients were 4.03 (95% CIs 1.48 to 11.00), adjusted for covariates. Sensitivity analyses indicated that effects were also present when haemoglobin was analysed as a continuous measure. Anaemia also predicted major adverse cardiac events over the subsequent 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: Anaemia appears to contribute to depression following ACS and is associated with future cardiac morbidity. Studies evaluating the effects of anaemia management will help delineate the role of this pathway more precisely