Icons of desire : the classical statue in later Victorian literature

The sculptural trope enjoyed a revival in later Victorian literature, especially the classical sculptural nude. These ancient figures retain their function as mediators between the gods and their human votaries for their Victorian admirers, but they also represent an art that excites desire that is aesthetic and troublingly sensual — sometimes aberrant. In Henry James's 'The Last of the Valerii'; Vernon Lee's Miss Brown and 'Dionea', and Thomas Hardy's 'Barbara of the House of Grebe' classical and neoclassical statues serve as a focus for a critique of the petrifying effects of prevailing attitudes to gender and sexuality

Business Investment and Employment Tax Incentives to Stimulate the Economy

[Excerpt] According to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the U.S. economy has been in recession since December 2007. Congress passed and the President signed an economic stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-5), in February 2009. The $787 billion package included$286 billion in tax cuts to help stimulate the economy. Among the tax reductions, many were tax incentives directed to business. The preliminary estimate of third quarter real gross domestic product (GDP) growth is 2.8%; the unemployment rate, a lagging indicator, averaged 9.6% in the third quarter and 10.0% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke expects the economy to continue growing at a modest pace, but predicts that bank lending will remain constrained and the job market will remain weak into at least 2010. To further assist unemployed workers, help business, and stimulate housing markets, Congress passed the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-92). The Obama Administration has advocated further business tax incentives to spur investment and employment, especially for small business. The two most common measures to provide business tax incentives for new investment are investment tax credits and accelerated deductions for depreciation. The evidence, however, suggests that a business tax subsidy may not necessarily be the best choice for fiscal stimulus, largely because of the uncertainty of its success in stimulating aggregate demand. If such subsidies are used, however, the most effective short-run policy is probably a temporary investment subsidy. Permanent investment subsidies may distort the allocation of investment in the long run. Employment and wage subsidies are designed to increase employment directly by reducing a firm’s wage bill. The tax system is a frequently used means for providing employment subsidies. Most of the business tax incentives for hiring currently under discussion are modeled partially on the New Jobs Tax Credit (NJTC) from 1977 and 1978. Evidence provided in various studies suggests that incremental tax credits have the potential of increasing employment, but in practice may not be as effective in increasing employment as desired. There are several reasons why this may be the case. First, jobs tax credits are often complex and many employers, especially small businesses, may not want to incur the necessary record-keeping costs. Second, since eligibility for the tax credit is determined when the firm files the annual tax return, firms do not know if they are eligible for the credit at the time hiring decisions are made. Third, many firms may not even be aware of the availability of the tax credit until it is time to file a tax return. Lastly, product demand appears to be the primary determinant of hiring

Digital, material and networked: some emerging themes for SET education

Boundaries between the digital and material worlds are becoming blurred as the internet increasingly connects us to things as well as people and information. This is increasingly relevant to education as initiatives which significantly combine digital and material elements in networks are becoming a reality for Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) learning. Our paper reports on the initial findings of a project to carry out a ‘state of the art’ review of literature to establish the key themes, opportunities and obstacles that are emerging from the development and use of these ‘hybrid’ systems in learning. We wanted to explore the extent to which this new domain of study is being reported in the literature and to identify work representative of this area. Our aim was to investigate the depth of research in this area by going beyond the technologically descriptive to focus on pedagogical and organisational issues raised in the literature. To identify the state of current research in the area we carried out a systematic search of databases of Science, Engineering and Technology education literature. We found 808 papers relating to the hybrid learning initiatives we are interested in, of which the majority, 81%, involved the Engineering and Technology disciplines while 6.8% related to Science. The vast majority of papers referred to remote laboratories and most of these were concerned with describing the technologies involved. In order to explore issues emerging from the research, we carried out an in-depth text review of a particular subset of the papers found that focussed on pedagogical issues. The three main themes that emerged were: the importance of real data and authenticity in learning; the importance of a sense of presence (e.g. telepresence, social presence and/or immersion) and the locus of control in, and responsiveness of, a hybrid system. We conclude that these new digital ‘hybrid’ pedagogies offer a lens with which to view both the more traditional material pedagogies, e.g. laboratory-based learning, and purely digital pedagogies, e.g. virtual labs. Finally, issues of authenticity, presence and control/responsiveness will be of increasing pedagogical importance to other ‘hybrid’ systems, such as those involving ubiquitous computing

Business Writing in History: What Caused the Dictamen's Demise?

Many of the earliest business and administrative letters written in English fol lowed a set of rules called the ars dictaminis, a formal and complex model that prescribed a certain writing style and organization. The necessary pattern of organization was the following: address, salutation, notification, exposition, dispo sition, valediction, and attestation and date. The dictamen almost completely dis appears in the sixteenth century. Did the dictamen disappear suddenly? If so, why? In this paper, I argue that the dictamen disappeared slowly by attrition over the hundred years previous, and further, that it was never universal, as previous scholars have argued. The evidence for the claim that the dictamen was widely used and suddenly disappeared consists mostly of Chancery and government docu ments. When we take into account the mass of business documents involving ordi nary business people, including the largest surviving collection of business docu ments in English before 1500, the Cely papers, we see that by the late fifteenth century, ordinary business people were not following the dictamen's conventions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68754/2/10.1177_002194369903600102.pd

Rocky Mountain Mutual: Promoting Fun or Fitness?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67323/2/10.1177_108056999806100103.pd

Discourse in the Marketplace: The Making of Meaning in Annual Reports

This paper reviews linguistic structures in a series of management messages in the annual reports of Cross & Trecker, a machine tool manufacturer. The docu ments cover the years 1984-1988, which began with prosperity and ended with severe losses. An analysis of how the company communicated this information to its shareholders offers some insights into the motivation and priorities of the Cross & Trecker management. This analysis suggests that a company's public communications are more complex than has been thought. Specific methodology used is based on systemic theory, developed by Halli day (1976, 1978, 1985a, 1985b) and others and employs the systems of transitivity (verb structures), thematic structure (subjects), context and cohesion, and condensations. Verb structures show a predictable increase in passive constructions as the years pass and profits decrease. Regarding other verb structures, however, the results were more complex, including an increase in the use of verbs of "being." Combined with the analysis of thematic structures, which show an increase in nonhuman agents, and contextual features shown by cohesion and condensa tions, the conclusion is that, as the news becomes more negative, linguistic structures suggest a factual, "objective" situation caused by circumstances not attributable to any persons who might otherwise be thought responsible.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68963/2/10.1177_002194369703400103.pd

The mower, the sower, and the mayor: Thomas Hardy and Hamo Thornycroft, encounters and affinities

This essay explores the intellectual and creative friendship between Thomas Hardy and Hamo Thornycroft, who met in 1883 when they were engaged upon works that were to define their respective careers. Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge and Thornycroft’s The Mower testify to the concern of both artists to dignify with the permanence of art fleeting moments of collision between the old world and the new whilst striving to balance the desire to idealize with the imperatives of the real

The use of a family agency in relocation for urban renewal.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit