A commentary on and edition of the shorter poems of William Browne of Tavistock in British Library MS Lansdowne 777

The aim of this thesis is to provide an annotated edition of the manuscript poetry of William Browne of Tavistock. Apart from The Inner Temple Masque, and the facsimile edition of Britannias Pastorals Books I-II published by Scolar in 1969, Browne's poetry has not been edited since 1894. My edition is based on the Lansdowne 777 manuscript of Browne's poetry held by the British Library, and also draws on all the available miscellany copies of his poems, both manuscript and print, as listed in the Index of English Literary Manuscripts. A detailed introduction discusses the Browne manuscripts in the light of recent research into seventeenth-century manuscript transcription and transmission. The introduction begins with a biographical section, which updates the still standard essay by Bullen in the 1894 edition of Browne's poetry to take account of the findings of twentieth-century research. In my 'Manuscript Poetry' section, I note that most criticism of Browne's work focuses on his main published poems, Britannias Pastorals and The Shepherds Pipe, and addresses only those few of his manuscript poems which fall within the main critical categories applied to his printed poetry; treating him as a pastoral, Spenserian poet, nostalgic to the point of anachronism, or - especially in recent studies - as a political writer disaffected with the Jacobean government. I argue that attention to the range of Browne's manuscript verse discloses an oeuvre more varied and with closer affinities to contemporary poetry than has often been supposed, and suggest that recent research into seventeenth-century manuscript poetry provides an appropriate critical context for considering the extent of Browne's unprinted work. While questioning some of the claims of recent scholarship about the disjunction between print and manuscript in the early seventeenth century, I consider how an enhanced understanding of the role of manuscripts in this period can help to account for some curious aspects of Browne's poetic career, such as his comparative neglect of print-publication after 1616, and his popularity within the system of manuscript transmission

Narratives of Hope, Fear And Expectations: Young People With Cochlear Implants

Introduction: Research including cochlear implant users is slowly developing since their introduction in the treatment of deafness. Current gaps in research point to the inclusion of young people who have received paediatric cochlear implants. Method: This qualitative study sought to collect the perspectives of young people (aged 16-18) with cochlear implants in relation to their hopes, fears and expectations for the future. The eight participants were of equal gender mix (four females, four males) and were on average 17 years old; they had been using a cochlear implant for an average of 14 years. Data was gathered via one-to-one topic focused interviews with holistic narratives being analysed for content, form, and performative elements. Results: Overall narratives of hopes were thicker than those of fears and especially those of expectations. Narratives of hopes included: achievement through education/career; acceptance of deafness from self and others; a greater desire for fluidity between communication partners and improvements in cochlear implant technology. Interestingly how participants framed fears seemed to vary; yet this pointed to concerns over the visibility of deafness and non-acceptance from others (i.e. friendships and relationships), particularly with hearing people. Expectations, linked with narratives of hopes, however were framed in more vague terms. Conclusion: The study highlighted commonalities and disparities in the participants’ future narratives. To conceptualise the psychological consequences of being a young person with a cochlear implant, models of adjustment and life transition were used. The study calls for a greater awareness of deaf issues within professional settings and the wider society. Through their practice, Clinical Psychologists ought to be deaf aware and take a critical stance towards negative social narratives of competence. Through research, Clinical Psychologists should aim to represent the idiosyncrasies of deaf lives. The study supports a paradigm shift towards a fluid sense of identity in promoting a greater sense of acceptance

Specsim: The MIRI Medium Resolution Spectrometer Simulator

MIRI, the Mid-InfraRed Instrument, is one of four instruments being built for the James Webb Space Telescope, and is developed jointly between an EuropeanConsortium and the US. In this paper we present a software data simulator for one of MIRI's four instruments: the Integral Field Unit (IFU) Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MIRI-MRS), the first mid-infrared IFU spectrograph, and one of the first IFUs to be used in a space mission. To give the MIRI community a preview of the properties of the MIRI-MRS data products before the telescope is operational, the Specsim tool has been developed to model, in software, the operation of the spectrometer. Specsim generates synthetic data frames approximating those which will be taken by the instrument in orbit. The program models astronomical sources and generates detector frames using the predicted and measured optical properties of the telescope and MIRI. These frames can then be used to illustrate and inform a range of operational activities, including data calibration strategies and the development and testing of the data reduction software for the MIRI-MRS. Specsim will serve as a means of communication between the many consortium members by providing a way to easily illustrate the performance of the spectrometer under different circumstances, tolerances of components and design scenarios.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; A high resolution version is available at http://www.roe.ac.uk/~npfl/Publications/lgw+06.ps.gz (Changed URL of high-res version

The Impact of Neighborhoods on Intimate Partner Violence and Victimization

Research on intimate partner violence (IPV) and victimization is widespread across disciplines. To date, the majority of research underscores the importance of individual-level factors to explain IPV, thereby neglecting the significance of macro-level elements. Nevertheless, research suggests that the characteristics of the neighborhood where an individual lives are important for fully understanding IPV. This review focuses on the effects of neighborhoods and macro-level context on violence between intimate partners, specifically identifying empirical studies that have examined contextual predictors of IPV utilizing the major tenets of social disorganization theory. The authors note consistencies and differences across research results and describe study features that may influence the patterns of these findings. Finally, the authors provide both theoretical and methodological recommendations for future research

Body mass index and incident coronary heart disease in women: a population-based prospective study

BACKGROUND A high body mass index (BMI) is associated with an increased risk of mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD); however, a low BMI may also be associated with an increased mortality risk. There is limited information on the relation of incident CHD risk across a wide range of BMI, particularly in women. We examined the relation between BMI and incident CHD overall and across different risk factors of the disease in the Million Women Study. METHODS 1.2 million women (mean age=56 years) participants without heart disease, stroke, or cancer (except non-melanoma skin cancer) at baseline (1996 to 2001) were followed prospectively for 9 years on average. Adjusted relative risks and 20-year cumulative incidence from age 55 to 74 years were calculated for CHD using Cox regression. RESULTS After excluding the first 4 years of follow-up, we found that 32,465 women had a first coronary event (hospitalization or death) during follow-up. The adjusted relative risk for incident CHD per 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI was 1.23 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.22 to 1.25). The cumulative incidence of CHD from age 55 to 74 years increased progressively with BMI, from 1 in 11 (95% CI 1 in 10 to 12) for BMI of 20 kg/m2, to 1 in 6(95% CI 1 in 5 to 7) for BMI of 34 kg/m2. A 10 kg/m2 increase in BMI conferred a similar risk to a 5-year increment in chronological age. The 20 year cumulative incidence increased with BMI in smokers and non-smokers, alcohol drinkers and non-drinkers, physically active and inactive, and in the upper and lower socioeconomic classes. In contrast to incident disease, the relation between BMI and CHD mortality (n=2,431) was J-shaped. For the less than 20 kg/m2 and ≥35 kg/m2 BMI categories, the respective relative risks were 1.27 (95% CI 1.06 to 1.53) and 2.84 (95% CI 2.51 to 3.21) for CHD deaths, and 0.89 (95% CI 0.83 to 0.94) and 1.85 (95% CI 1.78 to 1.92) for incident CHD. CONCLUSIONS CHD incidence in women increases progressively with BMI, an association consistently seen in different subgroups. The shape of the relation with BMI differs for incident and fatal disease.The Million Women Study is funded by Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, and the NHS Breast Screening Programme. The funding organizations were not involved in the study design or conduct, data analysis or interpretation, manuscript preparation or review, final version approval, or decision to submit the manuscript

Neighborhoods and Intimate Partner Violence: A Decade in Review

We consider the broad developments that have occurred over the past decade regarding our knowledge of how neighborhood context impacts intimate partner violence (IPV). Research has broadened the concept of “context” beyond structural features such as economic disadvantage, and extended into relationships among residents, collective “action” behaviors among residents, cultural and gender norms. Additionally, scholars have considered how the built environment might foster (or regulate) IPV. We now know more about the direct, indirect, and moderating ways that communities impact IPV. We encourage additional focus on the policy implications of the research findings

Consumer Reaction to Food and Health. A longitudinal study of U. K. consumer behaviour and attitudes towards health, with particular reference to food purchasing and consumption habits, product quality, nutritional composition, ingredients and production methods.

Consumers have increasing choice in food products and within the social environment of today's consumer, the factors of demand are increasingly complex. Food is no longer simply a primary necessity for survival, it is a leisure and family activity, the participation in which, takes up a considerable amount of time. Today, food is a social and a political issue - something about which people have opinions, be it food quality, healthiness, or the food supply itself. It is also central to consumer's self-image. There is a large sector of the economy which supplies food demand, and this sector is itself now under considerable scrutiny from the consumer. This thesis examines consumer behaviour and attitudes towards food, with particular reference to the health aspects of food issues. It describes a programme of qualitative and quantitative research - group discussions, personal interviews and postal questionnaires. The programme examines milk (particularly low fat milk) as a diet and health case study; knowledge about food; attitudes towards food; the food industry and related issues; shopping behaviour and eating habits. It is important to both the consumer and the supplier of food, that consumer behaviour and attitudes are understood as fully as possible. This research highlights the misunderstandings between consumer and producer, emphasises the mistrust of the consumer for the producer and concludes with the need for communication between them. The thesis discusses the background to diet and health as an issue, describes the development of the current consumer environment and gives a profile of today's consumer. It then goes on to detail the research - two quantitative surveys, each undertaken over two years and a series of group discussions. The final section summarises the findings of each individual piece of the programme as a whole for various groups: food Oroducers; food manufacturers; food retailers; advertisers; the media; health professionals; the consumer; consumer organisations and government