Lewis Coastal Chapel-Sites Survey: Topographic Survey 2005

This report describes the results of topographic surveys undertaken for the second year of the Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites Survey (LCCS) on four chapel-sites on the Isle of Lewis in 2005. Desktop study undertaken in the first year (2004) of the LCCS identified thirty-seven recorded and five potential chapel-sites in Lewis and its outlying islands, and this was followed up with walkover survey of sixteen sites and plane table survey of three sites. However, further, more detailed topographic survey was recommended for eight sites, and this prompted the work in 2005. In February detailed topographic survey of three sites was undertaken: Teampall Pheadair, Suainebost (Site no 4), Teampall Mhealastadh, Uig (Site no 20) and Tigh na Cailleachan Dubha, Uig (Site no 21). In May - June 2005 topographic survey of the chapel-site of St Mary’s on Eilean an Tighe, Shiant Islands (formerly known as Eilean na Cille) on the Shiant Islands (Site no 32) was also undertaken with joint funding from the Shiants Island Project (SHIP)

Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE): Emergency support

The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) will conduct a survey of the entire celestial sphere in the extreme ultraviolet (UV) spectrum, 100 to 1000 angstrom units. This survey will be accomplished using four grazing incidence telescopes mounted on a spinning spacecraft whose spin axis is along the Sun line. Data is taken only when the spacecraft is in the Earth's shadow. The EUVE will be placed in a near circular orbit by a Delta expendable launch vehicle. The design orbit is circular at an altitude of 550 km by 28.5 degrees for a period of 96 minutes. The EUVE will be flown on a standardized Explorer Platform (EP) which will be reused for followup Explorer missions. Coverage will be provided by the Deep Space Network (DSN) for EUVE emergencies that would prevent communications via the normal channels of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). Emergency support will be provided by the 26-meter subnet. Data is presented in tabular form for DSN support, frequency assignments, telemetry, and command

No way as way: Towards a poetics of Martial Arts cinema

This essay explores the history and evolution of academic film studies, focusing in particular on the development of an admirably interdisciplinary branch of inquiry dedicated to exploring martial arts cinema. Beginning with the clash between the auteur theory and the development of a psycholinguistic model of film theory upon film studies’ academic entrenchment and political engagement in the 1960s and 1970s, this essay continues past the Historical Turn in the 1970s and 1980s into the Post-Theory era in the 1990s and beyond, by which time studies of martial arts cinema, thanks in large part to the ‘cultural studies intervention’, began to attract scholars from various academic disciplines, most notably cultural studies. At once diagnostic and prescriptive, this essay seeks to historically contextualize the different modes of thinking that have informed past engagements with the cinema in general while also offering a polemical metacriticism of exemplars in an effort to highlight deficiencies in the current interpretive orthodoxy informing contemporary engagements with martial arts cinema in particular. This essay endeavors to find a way to allow the larger enterprise of ‘Martial Arts Studies’ to compliment, rather than colonize and cannibalize, the study of martial arts cinema, and this polemic offers as a model for scholars both in and out of film studies a ‘poetics of martial arts cinema’ committed to dialectical, ‘alterdisciplinary’ scholarship

Dialogue. Conquest of reality: Response to Paul Bowman's 'Instituting reality in Martial Arts practice'

In this Dialogue, Kyle Barrowman responds to Paul Bowman’s article ‘Instituting Reality in Martial Arts Practice' and poses questions pertinent to future development of martial arts studies

'English, motherfucker, do you speak it?': Pulp Fiction and the future of film-philosophy

In recent years, film scholars have been increasingly preoccupied with questions as to how films can ‘be’ or ‘do’ or ‘be used for’ philosophy. From the ‘be used for’ position, films are seen as mere examples or jumping-off points to philosophy ‘proper’; from the ‘be’ position, films are seen as philosophy, as simply another form of philosophical argumentation; and from the ‘do’ position, films are seen as examples or illustrations of preexisting philosophical positions/protocols. In this essay, I will operate primarily from the ‘do’ position and explore how Quentin Tarantino ‘does’ ordinary language philosophy. Renowned for his innovative and influential dialogue, I intend to shine a light on a neglected aspect of Tarantino’s writing style and examine, with reference to the work of ordinary language philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, and Stanley Cavell, the argumentative protocols discernible in Pulp Fiction (1994). More specifically, I will analyze the famous ‘foot massage argument’, utilizing such concepts as ‘projective imagination’ and ‘explaining the syntactics’ versus ‘demonstrating the semantics’, in the hopes of indicating the fecundity of the continued study of Tarantino’s justly famous dialogue. I also intend to broaden my investigation to consider, in light of responses to this material during the IFVCR Network conference and in light of current discussions within film studies, the disciplinary implications vis-à-vis film-philosophy of conducting such ordinary language investigations of dialogue and communication in film

The Recovery of Shipwrecks in International Waters: A Multilateral Solution

This Note will examine the current state of international law concerning property rights to all types of wrecks discovered in international waters. It will show that a multilateral convention is needed to establish an international framework for property rights to shipwrecks of historical and archaeological value, to wrecks of military vessels, and to wrecks of commercial ships such as the Titanic. There may be obstacles to the establishment of a multilateral convention, but the international community must provide certainty to ownership questions, furnish protection for submarine antiquities, and prevent disputes arising from the wrongful salvage of military vessels

Chapel-sites on the Isle of Lewis: Results of the Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites Survey

The Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites Survey undertook research and fieldwork, the latter between 2004 and 2008, to explore and record the known chapel-sites on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland. There is a scarcity of surviving contemporary historical documentation relating to Lewis in the medieval period, but archaeology has great potential to further investigate these fascinating and diverse sites. Research linked together previous antiquarian and local historical research, with walkover survey and description of each site on the ground. This was followed by targeted topographic and geophysical surveys of particular sites. At the end of the project it was possible to assess the cultural and research potential of this remarkable group of sites, and to identify gaps where further work was needed. More than 40 sites were identified and the remains recorded at each site were varied, some associated with old settlements, or traditionally linked with other chapel-sites nearby, others alone and isolated. The chapels themselves ranged from upstanding buildings still used for worship, to low grassy banks only just discernible beneath the turf or unlocated and kept alive only in oral tradition. This publication reports on the results of the survey work with a brief conclusion of the main findings

Surface lithic scatters as an archaeological resource in South and Central Scotland

This work starts with a brief history of interpretation, bringing the reader up to date with how lithic studies have been conducted over the past three centuries. The disparate knowledge concerning scatters in Scotland led to the creation of the Scottish Lithic Scatters Project, which is outlined in chapter one. Of specific concern is the Lithic Scatters Database, and its analysis. Descriptions of each field give an intriguing insight into the extent of bias which is incorporated into the final data. It is also made clear that much information concerning the lithic scatters resource which can be related to a social landscape is gained through the creation of the database, rather than any final analysis of the data. Chapter two turns to the processes whereby lithic scatters are created in south and central Scotland, as it is through a study of these that an understanding of the information contained within the database can be gained. The creation of the lithic scatters resource is intimately bound to the practices and routines of individuals, as well as to the natural occurrences across the country today. These range from the farmer ploughing his field, to the movement of sand dunes in storms. Ultimately, it is the fieldwalker him/herself who creates the recorded scatter. The fieldwalkers who have created the scatter resource, are described in chapter three, and the extent of the resource across south and central Scotland is given. The people mentioned in the previous chapter are described more intimately, and it is possible to gain a glimpse of the faces responsible for the scatter resource. The discussion also centres on the fact that the information within the database is not necessarily representative of prehistoric activity; rather the activity of collection and recording in recent history. By looking at the database alone, and ignoring the background information given in this chapter, only an apparently polished set of data would be seen. The way data is often accepted in archaeology today can be seen as a major problem. Chapter four considers this problem in more detail and shows that personal experience must be documented to place the data within a social, historical and cultural context. Recent thinking in theoretical archaeology has led to similar strands of thought, especially where the recording of the process of fieldwork is considered

The continuous smooth hockey stick: a newly proposed spawner-recruitment model

Spawner-recruit relationships are important components of fisheries management. The two most widely used models have been criticized for unsatisfactory fits and biologically unreasonable extrapolations. A simple hockey stick model has been shown to provide more robust predictions, however, this model is not widely used, possibly because the abrupt change from density-dependence to density-independence is unrealistic and the piecewise model is difficult to fit. Here I present a continuous two-parameter model that resembles a smoothed hockey stick and provides parameter estimates similar to the piecewise hockey stick. The new model is easily parameterized with regular curve-fitting routines