Customary law before the Conquest

An article on early English legal history and customary law by Professor Derek Roebuck (Associate Senior Research Fellow, IALS). The article is taken from a lecture given by the author at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies on February 1, 2006 and was published in Amicus Curiae – Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by SALS at the IALS (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London)

Opening up Spaces to Support Rural Business in Scotland

The Open University has a commitment to releasing core curriculum openly, while we have always edited for “the open” tailoring has been minor. Rural Entrepreneurship in Scotland is a different model. It is based on material to develop your business idea from across our academic programme. However, the material has been revised significantly to place it in a rural Scottish context. Setting up a business or social enterprise is a complex and personal undertaking. It is about more than knowing the right steps, it is about applying that knowledge in context. The module materials are designed around “real” case studies developed with key stakeholders within rural Scotland. One of the benefits of releasing curriculum in this way is the ability to evaluate how it works in the world and adapt it accordingly. For example, we are using the analytics to track topics of particular interest and looking at how we can enhance and improve those components. One of the benefits of low cost reversioning content for less populated curriculum areas is the ability to invest resources in supporting and understanding how resources are used in practice. Through these workshops with rural entrepreneurs we are able to assess how open education operates in practice for practice. We have learnt from working in the open, our analytics suggest the finance component is of crucial, while our outreach work suggests we need to develop a new component on generating entrepreneurial ideas

Integrated mobility measurement and notation system

System for description of movements and positions facilitates design of space suits with more mobility. This measurement and notation system gives concise and unequivocal descriptions, compatible with engineering analysis and applicable to specific needs

Null Geodesics and Wave Front Singularities in the Godel Space-time

We explore wave fronts of null geodesics in the Godel metric emitted from point sources both at, and away from, the origin. For constant time wave fronts emitted by sources away from the origin, we find cusp ridges as well as blue sky metamorphoses where spatially disconnected portions of the wave front appear, connect to the main wave front, and then later break free and vanish. These blue sky metamorphoses in the constant time wave fronts highlight the non-causal features of the Godel metric. We introduce a concept of physical distance along the null geodesics, and show that for wave fronts of constant physical distance, the reorganization of the points making up the wave front leads to the removal of cusp ridges

Dancing against the grain: new visions of masculinity in dance.

The last quarter of the twentieth century witnessed an important development in contemporary theatre dance practice and its study. Since the early 1970s an increased level of concern with'masculinily' has directed dance makers and scholars alike, resulting in a number of new and challenging dance works alongside a significant growth in publications devoted to gender and identity politics. This activity has led to a change in a cultural practice that had previously been dominated by women practitioners and of critical interest mainly to feminist scholars. The impact of this shift towards a concern with 'masculinity' directs this studys exploration into the ways in which selected contemporary dance works represent forms of male identity that resist being categorised according to established models. Set within a framework of current thought on gender drawn from debates in the visual arts, dance literature and other non-dance sources, this research project investigates the extent to which these alternative models contribute to the development of a greater understanding of what it means to be a man in todays society. Furthermore, by paying close attention to the ways in which meaning is articulated in individual works, and setting subsequent findings against a historical perspective, this study questions some of the essentialist rhetoric used in dance scholarship and other critical disciplines which describe representations of masculinity. Through an interdisciplinary approach that is sensitive to how aspects of masculinity are articulated in dance, this study uncovers a diversity of representations hitherto unacknowledged by other analytical models. Moreover, this project raises awareness of how dance not only reflects cultural norms of gender and sexuality but resists them and presents new ones. This is the visionary capability of dance wherein works can be read as working'against the grain' of old-fashioned and essentialist attitudes about men in dance and in society

Human spontaneous gaze patterns in viewing of faces of different species

Human studies have reported clear differences in perceptual and neural processing of faces of different species, implying the contribution of visual experience to face perception. Can these differences be manifested in our eye scanning patterns while extracting salient facial information? Here we systematically compared non-pet owners’ gaze patterns while exploring human, monkey, dog and cat faces in a passive viewing task. Our analysis revealed that the faces of different species induced similar patterns of fixation distribution between left and right hemi-face, and among key local facial features with the eyes attracting the highest proportion of fixations and viewing times, followed by the nose and then the mouth. Only the proportion of fixation directed at the mouth region was species-dependent and could be differentiated at the earliest stage of face viewing. It seems that our spontaneous eye scanning patterns associated with face exploration were mainly constrained by general facial configurations; the species affiliation of the inspected faces had limited impact on gaze allocation, at least under free viewing conditions

Being well, being musical: Music composition as a resource and occupation for older people

Introduction: Participatory music making for older people has tended to focus on singing and performance. In a community music project undertaken by Manchester Camerata (a chamber orchestra), Blacon Community Trust and a small group of older adults, participants were given the opportunity to compose individual pieces of music interactively with professional musicians. This paper reports the findings of the research project. Method: An arts-based research method was adopted and incorporated action research and interpretive interactionism to articulate the experiences and perceptions of participants. Participants and Manchester Camerata musicians also worked together to represent the thematic findings of the research in a group composition. Findings: The findings demonstrate that individual and group music composition contributed to a sense of wellbeing through control over musical materials, opportunities for creativity and identity making, validation of life experience and social engagement with other participants and professional musicians. Conclusion: The results emphasised occupation as essential to health and wellbeing in the later stages of life. The findings also highlight the particularly innovative aspects of this research: (i) the use of music composition as a viable arts-in-health occupation for older people and (ii) the arts-based research method of group composition

The Common Man and the Rise of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster, 1534-1535

This essay studies the causes of the rise of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster, with special emphasis on the actions and agency of the common people. The analysis begins with the two main primary sources, Hermann von Kerssenbrock and Henry Gresbeck, whose accounts provide firsthand knowledge of how events in Munster led to the Anabaptist takeover. Care is taken to read beyond some of the biases and assumptions made by those authors to gain the clearest insight for what really happened. The essay looks at Anabaptism itself, including what it meant to be Anabaptist from the perspectives of participants and their opponents. This includes relatively modern writers and how historians’ take on the topic has changed over time. Important to this study is the way that 16th century Anabaptism was not “normalized” until centuries later, effectively pushing out and ignoring some of the early trends in the faith. The discussion then turns to the city of Munster itself in the decade before the establishment of the Anabaptist Kingdom, relying on Kerssenbrock to provide details that provide some powerful insight on what role the common people of Munster played in city government and major events. Finally, I attempt to place Munster and its revolt in the proper context of the larger German empire at the time. I make comparisons to other, well-known peasant and common citizen uprisings around Germany, especially the Peasants’ War of 1525. These other events provide context for how common people used their ability to influence change in their local society. The examples also show that none of these events happened without the influence of others, including Munster and their list of demands made in 1525. The paper concludes that there is evidence to support the idea that the Anabaptists rose to power in Munster through the intentional actions of the common citizens, despite the traditional narrative that puts all the blame on the shoulders of a select few. While a few individuals drove policy once the Anabaptist Kingdom was in power, evidence suggests that those individuals didn’t gain power through coercion or tricks, but rather they were representatives of the changes the common people hoped to see in their city

Predictions of the Effect of Wetland-type Soil on Water Chemistry in the Lake Sunapee Watershed, NH

Understanding the ecosystem controls on the production and accumulation of methylmercury (MeHg) is a pressing issue for both environmental and public health. Certain landcover characteristics affect water chemistry in a watershed, thus predisposing it to MeHg contamination. Of these factors, wetlands have been found as the primary characteristic in predicting concentrations of MeHg in a stream. It is not clear, however, whether 1) total area or 2) percentage of wetland soils in a watershed or 3) the proximity of wetland soils to the sampling site matter most in predicting associated stream water chemistry. GIS modeling was applied to test each of these scenarios in the Lake Sunapee Watershed by overlaying information on the delineation of the Lake\u27s major watersheds, stream sampling sites, soil data from the NRCS, and summarized water chemistry data from each site. Soil composition of each watershed and streamwater data on dissolved oxygen (DO), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), turbidity, and sulfate concentrations were analyzed for correlations and relationships