Coleridge's Malta

In 1809 when Coleridge was prompted to write about his time in Malta by the death of Sir Alexander Ball, the late Civil Commissioner whom he so much admired, he recorded that he regarded his stay on the Island as “in many respects the most memorable and instructive period of my life”. As those familiar with Coleridge’s history recall, Coleridge had arrived on Malta in May 1804 predominantly to liberate himself from opium dependency. Coleridge impressed Ball, whom he met shortly after his arrival. Given the staffing problems confronting him, Ball eventually made Coleridge the offer of Edmund Chapman’s post as under-secretary during the latter’s absence from Malta on the speculative corn mission, about which more will be ventured below. After an assurance that the work would be “nominal” Coleridge accepted the post because the salary would defray the expenses of his planned journey to Sicily. Coleridge thus began his official tasks as under-secretary to Ball. However, following the death of the Public Secretary and Treasurer, Alexander Macaulay, on 18th January 1805, Coleridge was appointed as a temporary replacement pending Chapman’s return to the Island, albeit that he declined to act as Treasurer. As Acting Public Secretary he assumed a post second in civil dignity to that of the Civil Commissioner, and found himself at the heart of government. The purpose of this article is to outline the legal, political, administrative and economic challenges encountered by the British administration in the period 1800-1809 in which Coleridge had assumed an important role, as well as to venture some comments about the coherence of British policy. Some limited observations on Coleridge’s contribution to the success of British rule at this time will also be advanced

The British Claim to rule Malta 1800-1813

The question of the nature of the legal authority exercised in Malta by British officials prior to 1813 has been a rich source of debate and controversy. The moment at which the British officials had a legal power to exercise full legislative and executive authority is elusive, despite its prominence as a seminal moment in Maltese constitutional history. Whether legal authority arose because of cession or conquest matters because, as we shall discover, the events on which these alternative possibilities are founded occurred at different times. If, for example, cession explains the legal and constitutional authority of the British Crown in Malta, we need an explanation of the legal source of that authority prior to cession. This is the question upon which this article focuses

Sodium Bentonite, Sodium Bicarbonate and Limestone Supplementation in High-Concentrate Diets for Ruminants

In the past several years, there has been increased interest in what has been referred to by some as the two-phase feeding of ruminants. This includes backgrounding, when animals are fed diets high in roughage during a growing period, followed by high-grain feeding during a relatively short finishing period. An interim period of grain adaptation, usually 2 to 3 weeks in length, is necessary in this feeding system to avoid the deleterious effects of the rumen acidosis associated with abrupt changes from predominantly roughage diets to high-grain diets. Feedlot performance during this adaptation phase is generally lower than desired. The feeding of low levels of alkaline materials and other inorganic mineral substances such as bentonite has shown some benefit in the past in maintaining normal gains during abbreviated adaptation periods. The objectives of the experiments reported herein were to: 1. Evaluate various materials in terms of protection that they may provide from rumen acidosis associated with an abrupt change in diets, 2 to combine sodium bentonite and sodium bicarbonate to determine if there are possible synergistic actions, and 3 to determine effects of these materials on overall performance when fed to ruminants throughout the feeding period

Interaction between anglers and coarse fish populations in two gravel-pit lakes

The population biology of the coarse fish species in two gravel-pit fisheries (A and B) in Suffolk were studied from 1974 to 1977. Simultaneously the fish caught by anglers and their angling technique were monitored by census. Environmental factors were recorded on each census occasion and the crustacean zooplankton in lake A assessed in 1975 and 1976. … Recommendations for the management of standing-water coarse fisheries are discussed and the application of census methods evaluated

Quantum states prepared by realistic entanglement swapping

Entanglement swapping between photon pairs is a fundamental building block in schemes using quantum relays or quantum repeaters to overcome the range limits of long-distance quantum key distribution. We develop a closed-form solution for the actual quantum states prepared by realistic entanglement swapping, which takes into account experimental deficiencies due to inefficient detectors, detector dark counts, and multiphoton-pair contributions of parametric down-conversion sources. We investigate how the entanglement present in the final state of the remaining modes is affected by the real-world imperfections. To test the predictions of our theory, comparison with previously published experimental entanglement swapping is provided.Comment: 44 pages, 7 figures, Published with minor changes in Phys. Rev.

Dysfunctional eating behaviours, anxiety and depression in Italian boys and girls: the role of mass media

Objective: Extensive research has implicated identification with characters in mass media in the emergence of disordered eating behavior in adolescents. We explored the possible influence of the models offered by television (TV) on adolescents’ body image, body uneasiness, eating-disordered behavior, depression, and anxiety. Methods: Three hundred and one adolescents (aged 14-19) from southern Italy participated. They completed a questionnaire on media exposure and body dissatisfaction, the Eating Disorder Inventory-2, the Body Uneasiness Test, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory – Form Y. Results: The main factors contributing to females’ eating-disordered behaviors were their own desires to be similar to TV characters, the amount of reality and entertainment TV they watched, and the discrepancy between their perceptions of their bodies and those of TV characters. Friends’ desire to be similar to TV characters contributed most to depression, anxiety, body uneasiness, and eating disorders for both males and females. Conclusion: Our data confirm that extensive watching of reality and entertainment TV correlates with eating-disordered behavior among females. Moreover, the well-known negative effects of the media on adolescents’ eating-disordered behaviors may also be indirectly transmitted by friends who share identification with TV characters

Radar measurements of the total cislunar electron content technical report no. 8

Radar measurement of total cislunar electron conten

Writing in your own voice: An intervention that reduces plagiarism and common writing problems in students' scientific writing.

In many of our courses, particularly laboratory courses, students are expected to engage in scientific writing. Despite various efforts by other courses and library resources, as instructors we are often faced with the frustration of student plagiarism and related writing problems. Here, we describe a simple Writing in Your Own Voice intervention designed to help students become more aware of different types of plagiarism and writing problems, avoid those problems, and practice writing in their own voice. In this article, we will introduce the types of plagiarism and writing problems commonly encountered in our molecular biology laboratory course, the intervention, and the results of our study. From the evaluation of 365 student reports, we found the intervention resulted in nearly 50% fewer instances of plagiarism and common writing problems. We also observed significantly fewer instances of severe plagiarism (e.g. several sentences copied from an external source). In addition, we find that the effects last for several weeks after the students complete the intervention assignment. This assignment is particularly easy to implement and can be a very useful tool for teaching students how to write in their own voices. © 2019 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 47(5):589-598, 2019