Shakespeare and Heliodorus

The object of this study is to examine the relationship between Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and the Aithiopika of Heliodorus, a complex romance composed in late Antiquity which was widely admired in Shakespeare's age. It argues that, while an indirect Heliodoran influence was exerted upon The Winter's Tale through Greene's novels, the direct influence of the Aithiopika also shows itself, most notably in the substitution of the tragic conclusion of the play's chief source, Greene's Pandosto, with a joyous outcome heralded by the appearance of a work of art (albeit a fictional one). The important role played by the Perseid in the Aithiopika is considered and it is argued that ancient and Renaissance treatments, in literature and art, of Danae’s impregnation by the 'shower of gold' provide a key to understanding how the Renaissance would have interpreted Heliodorus’ novel. The phenomenon of maternal impression employed by Heliodorus and by Tasso in Gerusalemme liberata is discussed as is the presence of the motif of imaginative interference in reproduction in other examples drawn from the genre of Accused Queen tales. This study concludes that both the Aithiopika and The Winter's Tale explore the same idea, that the creation of a new life in a mother's body is analogous to the mind receiving a powerful visual 'impression'. The plot, and subplots, of the Aithiopika elaborate this central idea, and the instances of seeing and pregnancy which dominate The Winter's Tale can also be seen to be aspects of a single theme of conception

The first-mover advantage in scientific publication

Mathematical models of the scientific citation process predict a strong "first-mover" effect under which the first papers in a field will, essentially regardless of content, receive citations at a rate enormously higher than papers published later. Moreover papers are expected to retain this advantage in perpetuity -- they should receive more citations indefinitely, no matter how many other papers are published after them. We test this conjecture against data from a selection of fields and in several cases find a first-mover effect of a magnitude similar to that predicted by the theory. Were we wearing our cynical hat today, we might say that the scientist who wants to become famous is better off -- by a wide margin -- writing a modest paper in next year's hottest field than an outstanding paper in this year's. On the other hand, there are some papers, albeit only a small fraction, that buck the trend and attract significantly more citations than theory predicts despite having relatively late publication dates. We suggest that papers of this kind, though they often receive comparatively few citations overall, are probably worthy of our attention.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

ECOSENSUS: developing collaborative learning systems for stakeholding development in environmental planning

ECOSENSUS *(Electronic/Ecological Collaborative Sensemaking Support System) investigates the socio-technological issues around developing collaboration tools for participatory environmental decision making amongst (a) marginalised natural resource users, (b) professional 'experts' from different countries, and (c) key decision makers associated with managing ecosystems. An integral activity is the production of open content learning resources to support stakeholders in facilitating distributed environmental decision making. This involves the integrated use of three open source software tools: Moodle (online course management), Compendium (dialogue mapping) and uDig (user friendly desktop/internet GIS). In the first ECOSENSUS-1 phase, the pilot collaborative effort has been focused on supporting stakeholders in developing adaptive management plans for the Rupununi Wetlands in southern Guyana, a region rich in flora and fauna but also under intense pressure to expand the exploitation of its natural resources, including timber, gold, and commercially viable fish species. Results of the ECOSENSUS-1 are briefly described along with some preliminary notes on the current ECOSENUS-2 phase of associated research in Guyana supported by an additional grant from DEFRA. The paper prompts questions on how ECOSENSUS can feed into wider open source course development using the LabSpace on the OpenLearn project

Extreme radio-wave scattering associated with hot stars

We use data on extreme radio scintillation to demonstrate that this phenomenon is associated with hot stars in the solar neighbourhood. The ionized gas responsible for the scattering is found at distances up to 1.75pc from the host star, and on average must comprise 1.E5 distinct structures per star. We detect azimuthal velocities of the plasma, relative to the host star, up to 9.7 km/s, consistent with warm gas expanding at the sound speed. The circumstellar plasma structures that we infer are similar in several respects to the cometary knots seen in the Helix, and in other planetary nebulae. There the ionized gas appears as a skin around tiny molecular clumps. Our analysis suggests that molecular clumps are ubiquitous circumstellar features, unrelated to the evolutionary state of the star. The total mass in such clumps is comparable to the stellar mass.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Ap

Complexity in de Sitter space

We consider the holographic complexity conjectures for de-Sitter invariant states in a quantum field theory on de Sitter space, dual to asymptotically anti-de Sitter geometries with de Sitter boundaries. The bulk holographic duals include solutions with or without a horizon. If we compute the complexity from the spatial volume, we find results consistent with general expectations, but the conjectured bound on the growth rate is not saturated. If we compute complexity from the action of the Wheeler–de Witt patch, we find qualitative differences from the volume calculation, with states of smaller energy having larger complexity than those of larger energy, even though the latter have bulk horizons

The ECOSENSUS Project: Co-Evolving Tools, Practices and Open Content for Participatory Natural Resource Management

ECOSENSUS (Electronic/Ecological Collaborative Sensemaking Support System)[www.ecosensus.info] is an ESRC e-Social Science pilot project, using a Participatory Action Research methodology to evolve tools and work practices for collaborative work in environmental and natural resource management between a European-based team, and stakeholders involved in the region of concern, the North Rupununi District of Guyana. To promote long term capacity building in the region and beyond, the project's outputs will be disseminated as open source learning resources. Given the disparities in knowledge and power in such a project, central to our work are issues of stakeholder empowerment in the geographical modelling, interpretation and decision making practices that constitute environmental management. We argue that in e-Science, such factors have yet to receive much attention. This paper reports work accomplished to date: progress towards an environment which integrates GIS modelling with participatory deliberation about the implications of the models, and reactions from the indigenous Amerindians to this tool

Observational Constraints on Kicks in Supernovae

The absence or presence of extremely wide binaries with a radio pulsar and an optical counterpart imposes a strong constraint on the existence and magnitude of kicks in supernova explosions. We search for such systems by comparing the positions of radio pulsars which are not known to be in binaries with the positions of visible stars, and find that the number of associations is negligible. According to the performed population synthesis, this implies that kicks must occur, with a lower limit of at least 10 to 20 km/s.Comment: 4 pages including 2 figs., LaTeX. To appear in A&A letter