Britain's Second Embassy to China

Lord Amherst's diplomatic mission to the Qing Court in 1816 was the second British embassy to China. The first led by Lord Macartney in 1793 had failed to achieve its goals. It was thought that Amherst had better prospects of success, but the intense diplomatic encounter that greeted his arrival ended badly. Amherst never appeared before the Jiaqing emperor and his embassy was expelled from Peking on the day it arrived. Historians have blamed Amherst for this outcome, citing his over-reliance on the advice of his Second Commissioner, Sir George Thomas Staunton, not to kowtow before the emperor. Detailed analysis of British sources reveal that Amherst was well informed on the kowtow issue and made his own decision for which he took full responsibility. Success was always unlikely because of irreconcilable differences in approach. China’s conduct of foreign relations based on the tributary system required submission to the emperor, thus relegating all foreign emissaries and the rulers they represented to vassal status, whereas British diplomatic practice was centred on negotiation and Westphalian principles of equality between nations. The Amherst embassy’s failure revised British assessments of China and led some observers to believe that force, rather than diplomacy, might be required in future to achieve British goals. The Opium War of 1840 that followed set a precedent for foreign interference in China, resulting in a century of 'humiliation’. This resonates today in President Xi Jinping’s call for ‘National Rejuvenation’ to restore China’s historic place at the centre of a new Sino-centric global order

We are but Shadows: Stories of Immigration in London's East End

Catalogue essay produced for Lucy Orta's exhibition 'Traces: Stories of Migration'at Bow Arts Trust, June 1 - August 27, 2023. The essay explores histories of migration in the East End of London, and uses auto-ethnography to discuss the mutable identity of the immigrant

‘Woman Writing’ as a Curatorial Method: Narratives of Belonging in the Art Practices of Chantal Peñalosa and Bridget Smith

This chapter traces the contemporary art practices of Chantal Peñalosa (1987, Tecate, Mexico) and Bridget Smith (1966, Essex, England) through a conversation between the artists and the author, a curator. The chapter draws on Kristeva’s (1978) concept of ‘Woman Writing’ and feminist histories of curating to propose a feminist approach to curating that relies on ‘vulnerable listening’ through sustained correspondence and exchange. Through documenting and writing with and through these artists’ practices, their processes of understanding home, place and belonging emerge as ‘epistemic locations’ (Meskimmon, 2020: p 2) – or places of knowing, with their own particular politics

Lord Amherst's Embassy to the Jiaqing Emperor, 1816

The Amherst Embassy to the Qing court in 1816 remains little researched in comparison with the earlier Macartney Embassy (1792-94). This dissertation offers the first comprehensive account of the Embassy and reassesses its importance for Anglo-Chinese relations in the period before the First Opium War of 1839-42. It addresses why the British thought the Amherst Embassy would succeed where the Macartney Embassy had failed and how the latter’s legacy led the British to misjudge the response of the Jiaqing court. Largely ignored primary sources, in addition to the East India Company records, have provided important new insights into British motivations for dispatching the Embassy and for assessing Amherst’s role as the leader of the mission. The popular view that Amherst was indecisive and overly influenced by the Second Commissioner, George Staunton, in refusing to kotow before the Jiaqing emperor thereby consigning the Embassy to its premature dismissal, is rejected. Amherst emerges as an effective leader whose options were constrained by earlier flawed assumptions about British standing in China, ambiguous and conflicting instructions and an uncompromising Qing court determined to reinforce the protocols of the tributary system. The intense diplomatic encounter endured by the Amherst Embassy is examined within a traditional historical approach of causes, responses and outcomes although aspects of the resulting cultural clash lend themselves to an anthropological and sensory analysis. A revised British assessment of China arose from the diplomatic ashes of the Embassy’s failure. Views of the Qing emperor changed from a civil and enlightened despot to a degenerate potentate ruling over a decaying empire whose arrogance and ignorance rendered futile any further British diplomatic overtures. It was already apparent to some officials that force might be required in future to achieve British aims in China

Load oriented order release (LOOR) revisited:bringing it back to the state of the art

In the workload control literature, the Load-Oriented Order Release (LOOR) approach has been neglected since its robustness was questioned at the end of the 1990s. This paper revisits LOOR and evaluates whether its performance can be improved in two ways. First, an intermediate pull release mechanism is added to avoid starvation between periodic release events. This mechanism was recently shown to be effective at improving the performance of a state-of-the-art release method known as LUMS COR. Second, an integer linear programming model is used to manage the trade-off between the timing and load balancing functions of order release. The two refinements are assessed using simulations of different shop configurations, which allow us to evaluate robustness. Results demonstrate that the refinements contribute to improving the performance of LOOR such that it can even outperform LUMS COR. Perhaps counter-intuitively, putting more emphasis on load balancing than on the urgency of individual orders is shown to lead to a lower percentage of tardy orders. Overall, the improvements mean that concerns about LOOR’s robustness are no longer valid – it now appears suitable for a wide range of shops found in practice

981-52 Six-minute Walk Compared to Peak and Low-level Aerobic Capacity in 302 Patients with Heart Failure

Distances walked spontaneously during 6 min may reflect peak exerc capacity, the ability to sustain 6 min of low exercise without anaerobic metabolism, and non-metabolic factors such as stride. To determine how well 6-min walks in 302 heart failure patients reflected aerobic capacity at peak exercise (pkVO2) and/or R (VCO2/VO2) after 6min of low-level exercise similar to walking, 6-min walks were measured within 48 hrs of bicycle exercise with gas exchange during 6min 20-watt riding and then during incremental exercise.Although 6 min walk correlated with extremes of pkVO2, it varied widely (r=0.25) when pkVO2 was 10–20ml/kg/min (generally Class II-III). Although 6 min 20W ride required VO2 9 ±2ml/kg/min, similar to 3 METS estimated for walking, 6-min 20W R did not correlate well inversely with 6 min walk distance except at very short and long walks.In moderate heart failure, 6 min walk reflects factors other than aerobic capacity at peak or during 6 min of sustained low-level exercise

Viral glycoprotein gp150 promotes sexual transmission of Murid Herpesvirus-4

Gammaherpesviruses are important pathogens in human and veterinary medicine. During co-evolution with their hosts, they developed many strategies allowing them to shed infectious particles in presence of immune response. Understanding these strategies is likely to be important to control infection. Interestingly, we recently observed that Murid herpesvirus 4 (MuHV-4), a gammaherpesvirus infecting laboratory mice, could be sexually transmitted between mice. This model offers therefore the opportunity to understand the mechanisms underlying natural transmission. Some of these mechanisms could rely on the glycoprotein 150 (gp150), which could limit virus neutralization and promote the release of infectious particles from cells. In this study, we tested therefore the importance of gp150 in the context of MuHV-4 sexual transmission. Briefly, female mice were infected with WT or gp150- strains expressing luciferase. They were imaged with an in vivo imaging system to follow infection. When lytic replication was observed in the genital tract, infected females were mated with naïve males to compare the capacity of transmission of the two strains. Our results show that, while the gp150- strain has no deficit in reaching and replicating in the female genital tract, it displays a major deficit of sexual transmission in comparison with WT virions. Interestingly, this deficit appears to reflect a deficit of virions release from vaginal epithelial cells. Altogether, our results show that, while gp150 is not required for efficient dissemination and maintenance of MuHV-4 within its host, it is essential for efficient transmission, by promoting the releasing of infectious particles from the mucosal cells

Social Services Will Not Touch us with a Barge Pole’: Social Care Provision for Older Prisoners

Older prisoners are the fastest growing subgroup in the English and Welsh prison estate. Older prisoners have high levels of health and social care needs. This mixed method study involved the distribution of a questionnaire examining the availability of health and social care services for older prisoners to all prisons housing adult males in England and Wales, followed by qualitative telephone interviews with representatives from eight prisons. Over half of establishments had some contact with external social care services but reported significant difficulties in arranging care for individuals. A professional lead for older prisoners had been identified in 81% of establishments; however the value of this role to positively affect practice appeared questionable. Statutory social care was often non-existent in prison due to the lack of understanding of what it constituted and who was responsible for its provision