The statutes of Iona : the archipelagic context

In recent decades, understanding of the historical development of Britain and Ireland has benefited significantly from the adoption of integrated approaches to the history of Britain and Ireland. While traditional national histories laid the foundation, the new British and Irish historiography has teased out many of the nuances arising from the interaction between the three kingdoms or four nations of Britain and Ireland. This approach has produced much scholarly work for both the medieval and early modern periods, although modern historians are still grappling with attempts to write a genuinely British history.1 For the early modern period in particular, the "three kingdoms" debate of the seventeenth century has advanced awareness of the complexity of regal union and the problems associated with one king ruling three distinct kingdoms. It is within this wider British context that James VI and I's efforts to integrate his three kingdoms need to be viewed. Although James's "earnist dispositioun to perfyte that Union"- brought about by his succession to the English throne on 1603-was thwarted by both the English and Scottish parliaments, James could not afford to govern either kingdom in isolation

In search of isoglosses: continuous and discrete language embeddings in Slavic historical phonology

This paper investigates the ability of neural network architectures to effectively learn diachronic phonological generalizations in a multilingual setting. We employ models using three different types of language embedding (dense, sigmoid, and straight-through). We find that the Straight-Through model outperforms the other two in terms of accuracy, but the Sigmoid model's language embeddings show the strongest agreement with the traditional subgrouping of the Slavic languages. We find that the Straight-Through model has learned coherent, semi-interpretable information about sound change, and outline directions for future research

Flower-shaped nanoparticles improve sensitivity of chemical detection

What you need to know: Raman spectroscopy can be enhanced to be more sensitive in detecting chemicals through the use of nanoparticles with sharper edges and cavities. Silver nanoparticle “flowers” developed at Laurier show the most promising results for the optimal enhancement of this diagnostic testing

The forgotten '45 : Donald Dubh's rebellion in an archipelagic context

The final rebellion of Donald Dubh, heir to the forfeited MacDonald lordship of the Isles, is usually examined within the context of Highland rebellions that occurred in the half century after forfeiture. However, the factors that motivated the Islesmen to rise in rebellion in 1545 are multi-faceted and can only be fully understood by placing the rising in a wider context, which considers national and archipelagic events. The discussion that follows explores the reasons why the Islesmen, almost unanimously, entered into agreement with Henry VIII to attack Scotland from the west and why this endeavour failed. At the same time, the article highlights Henry’s recognition of the strategic importance of the west which led him into alliance with Donald Dubh and his supporters

Between Ally and Partner: China-South Korea Relations

Review of Jae Ho Chang 'Between Ally and Partner: China-South Korea Relationships'