Bodily Surfaces and Coverings in Shakespeare

Although the early modern body in Shakespeare has received a lot of critical attention, the significance of the skin envelope has not been the subject of much study. This research attempts to contribute to the larger discourse on early modern skin by exploring the role of bodily surfaces and coverings in Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Macbeth in the textualisation of early modern bodies. It theorises a relationship between the legibility and the vulnerability of the skin envelope, arguing that both factors mutually reinforce each other. Being pierced and ‘read’ are both symptomatic of defencelessness, so characters attempt to protect their skin from both by using coverings. The early modern theory of the closed body posited that the skin was a definitive and defensive barrier between the body and its environment. The interior of the body thus became a place of mystery, so early modern anatomy theorised that this was the location of ‘truth’. However, in the three plays, the notion of ‘truth’ is completely destabilised due to the volatile surfaces of the body. Truths are not discovered, but are constructed, dissolved and reconstructed on the outermost layer of the body, instead of the bodily interior. Further, bodily surfaces and coverings are often conflated, creating complex ‘layered bodies’ that tell multiple, often paradoxical narratives, none of which are the objective truth. Disguises tell the narratives of inviolability that the character would have others believe. The inherent vulnerability of the skin also feeds into these narratives, creating the desire for a body that is armoured to protect the character from being pierced and/or read. However, the superficial nature of the skin envelope encourages engagement and interpretation, thus exposing the desired dermal inviolability and illegibility as a fantasy

Impact of soil moisture-atmosphere coupling on European climate extremes and trends in a regional climate model

Processes acting at the interface between the land surface and the atmosphere have a strong impact on the European summer climate, particularly during extreme years. These processes are to a large extent associated with soil moisture (SM). This study investigates the role of soil moisture-atmosphere coupling for the European summer climate over the period 1959-2006 using simulations with a regional climate model. The focus of this study is set on temperature and precipitation extremes and trends. The analysis is based on simulations performed with the regional climate model CLM, driven with ECMWF reanalysis and operational analysis data. The set of experiments consists of a control simulation (CTL) with interactive SM, and sensitivity experiments with prescribed SM: a dry and a wet run to determine the impact of extreme values of SM, as well as experiments with lowpass-filtered SM from CTL to quantify the impact of the temporal variability of SM on different time scales. Soil moisture-climate interactions are found to have significant effects on temperature extremes in the experiments, and impacts on precipitation extremes are also identified. Case studies of selected major summer heat waves reveal that the intraseasonal and interannual variability of SM account for 5-30% and 10-40% of the simulated heat wave anomaly, respectively. For extreme precipitation events on the other hand, only the wet-day frequency is impacted in the experiments with prescribed soil moisture. Simulated trends for the past decades, which appear consistent with projected changes for the 21st century, are identified to be at least partly linked to SM-atmosphere feedback

Variability of soil moisture and sea surface temperatures similarly important for warm-season land climate in the community earth system model

Both sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and soil moisture (SM) can influence climate over land. This paper presents a comprehensive comparison of SM versus SST impacts on land climate in the warm season. The authors perform fully coupled ensemble experiments with the Community Earth System Model in which they prescribe SM or SSTs to the long-term median seasonal cycles. It is found that SM variability overall impacts warm-season land climate to a similar extent as SST variability, in the midlatitudes, tropics, and subtropics. Removing SM or SST variability impacts land climate means and reduces land climate variability at different time scales by 10%-50% (temperature) and 0%-10% (precipitation). Both SM- and SST-induced changes are strongest for hot temperatures (up to 50%) and for extreme precipitation (up to 20%). These results are qualitatively similar for the present day and the end of the twenty-first century. Removed SM variability affects surface climate through corresponding variations in surface energy fluxes, and this is controlled to first order by the land-atmosphere coupling strength and the natural SM variability. SST-related changes are partly controlled by the relation of local temperature or precipitation with the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. In addition, in specific regions SST-induced SM changes alter the "direct" SST-induced climate changes; on the other hand, SM variability is found to slightly affect SSTs in some regions. Nevertheless a large level of independence is found between SM-climate and SST-climate coupling. This highlights the fact that SM conditions can influence land climate variables independently of any SST effects and that (initial) soil moisture anomalies can provide valuable information in (sub)seasonal weather forecasts

Propagation of soil moisture memory to streamflow and evapotranspiration in Europe

As a key variable of the land-climate system soil moisture is a main driver of streamflow and evapotranspiration under certain conditions. Soil moisture furthermore exhibits outstanding memory (persistence) characteristics. Many studies also report distinct low frequency variations for streamflow, which are likely related to soil moisture memory. Using data from over 100 near-natural catchments located across Europe, we investigate in this study the connection between soil moisture memory and the respective memory of streamflow and evapotranspiration on different time scales. For this purpose we use a simple water balance model in which dependencies of runoff (normalised by precipitation) and evapotranspiration (normalised by radiation) on soil moisture are fitted using streamflow observations. The model therefore allows us to compute the memory characteristics of soil moisture, streamflow and evapotranspiration on the catchment scale. We find considerable memory in soil moisture and streamflow in many parts of the continent, and evapotranspiration also displays some memory at monthly time scale in some catchments. We show that the memory of streamflow and evapotranspiration jointly depend on soil moisture memory and on the strength of the coupling of streamflow and evapotranspiration to soil moisture. Furthermore, we find that the coupling strengths of streamflow and evapotranspiration to soil moisture depend on the shape of the fitted dependencies and on the variance of the meteorological forcing. To better interpret the magnitude of the respective memories across Europe, we finally provide a new perspective on hydrological memory by relating it to the mean duration required to recover from anomalies exceeding a certain threshold

Organizational cynicism and employee performance: evidence from a Sri Lankan audit sector

Purpose: This study examined the relationship between organizational cynicism and employee performance at diverse hierarchical levels in big four audit firms in Sri Lanka. Research methodology: By adopting quantitative research methodology, questionnaires were used as a primary data collection method from audit trainees, audit supervisors, and audit managers in big 4 audit firms in Sri Lanka. This was conducted by deploying a convenient sampling technique, and regression models are used by applying SPSS. Results: The study found a significant negative relationship between organizational cynicism and employee performance at audit firms and that each dimension of organizational cynicism. Limitations: Organizational cynicism was analyzed based on employee perception, although there are other influencing factors for organizational cynicism. Contribution: This study's findings are expected to support audit supervisors in avoiding the discovered negative effect instead by lessening the degree of psychological contract violation and organizational politics. Keywords: Organizational cynicism, Employee performance, Audit firms, Affective cynicism, Cognitive cynicism, Behavioral cynicis

Role of soil moisture versus recent climate change for the 2010 heat wave in western Russia

The severe 2010 heat wave in western Russia was found to be influenced by anthropogenic climate change. Additionally, soil moisture-temperature feedbacks were deemed important for the buildup of the exceptionally high temperatures. We quantify the relative role of both factors by applying the probabilistic event attribution framework and analyze ensemble simulations to distinguish the effect of climate change and the 2010 soil moisture conditions for annual maximum temperatures. The dry 2010 soil moisture alone has increased the risk of a severe heat wave in western Russia sixfold, while climate change from 1960 to 2000 has approximately tripled it. The combined effect of climate change and 2010 soil moisture yields a 13 times higher heat wave risk. We conclude that internal climate variability causing the dry 2010 soil moisture conditions formed a necessary basis for the extreme heat wave

Inferring soil moisture memory from streamflow observations using a simple water balance model

Soil moisture is known for its integrative behavior and resulting memory characteristics. Soil moisture anomalies can persist for weeks or even months into the future, making initial soil moisture a potentially important contributor to skill in weather forecasting. A major difficulty when investigating soil moisture and its memory using observations is the sparse availability of long-term measurements and their limited spatial representativeness. In contrast, there is an abundance of long-term streamflow measurements for catchments of various sizes across the world. The authors investigate in this study whether such streamflow measurements can be used to infer and characterize soil moisture memory in respective catchments. Their approach uses a simple water balance model in which evapotranspiration and runoff ratios are expressed as simple functions of soil moisture; optimized functions for the model are determined using streamflow observations, and the optimized model in turn provides information on soil moisture memory on the catchment scale. The validity of the approach is demonstrated with data from three heavily monitored catchments. The approach is then applied to streamflow data in several small catchments across Switzerland to obtain a spatially distributed description of soil moisture memory and to show how memory varies, for example, with altitude and topography

Environmental management accounting and waste management practices: A case of a manufacturing company

Purpose: This study examines how Environmental Management Accounting practices are related to waste management practices and how the organization in the case study is influenced in adopting the waste management practices Research methodology: The case study method was used in examining the applicability of Environmental Management Accounting to waste management in one large manufacturing company. Interviews, observations and archival documents were used as data collection methods. Results: The study observed that the company had reinvigorated environmental management and waste management practices due to the influence of the major stakeholders. These motivations can be categorized into three main pillars including coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphisms.  Limitations: As the research is directed towards the selection of in-depth inquiry of specific settings infused with culture, values, beliefs, stories, language, perception, politics and ideology, it might cause to diminish the researcher's analytical objectivity and independence of the research. Contribution: Policies, practices and motivations promote the future development of environmental management accounting and waste management practices in the Sri Lankan context

A submonthly database for detecting changes in vegetation-atmosphere coupling

Land-atmosphere coupling and changes in coupling regimes are important for making precise future climate predictions and understanding vegetation-climate feedbacks. Here we introduce the Vegetation-Atmosphere Coupling (VAC) index which identifies regions and times of concurrent strong anomalies in temperature and photosynthetic activity. The different classes of the index determine whether a location is currently in an energy-limited or water-limited regime, and its high temporal resolution allows to investigate how these regimes change over time at the regional scale. We show that the VAC index helps to distinguish different evaporative regimes. It can therefore provide indirect information about the local soil moisture state. We further demonstrate how the index can be used to understand processes leading to and occurring during extreme climate events, using the 2010 heat wave in Russia and the 2010 Amazon drought as examples

The power circuits, the duality of controls and performance appraisal: evidence from a Sri Lankan private university

Purpose: The study investigates the impacts stemming from the interplay between episodic, dispositional and systemic power circuits through which organisational agents influence or transform the coercive and enabling aspects ingrained in the performance appraisal process in a university setting. Research methodology: The paper uses a single case study method based on a private university. Data was collected using interviews, documentary evidence and observations. Results: We found that coercive controls become dominance over enabling controls of performance appraisal as an outcome of the ongoing implicit struggle between internal agents who pursue diverse interests and power relations in the private university setting. Limitations: As the research is directed towards the selection of in-depth inquiry of specific setting infused with culture, values, and ideology, it might cause to diminish the researcher’s analytical objectivity and independence of the research. Contribution: The study suggests that the realizing of power remained with the agent’s discretion within day-to-day interrelations. Therefore, the agents’ power relations are significant in deciding the intensity of dual controls in the performance appraisal practice. Keywords: Performance appraisal, Power circuits, Enabling controls, Coercive controls, Universit