Reading, Trauma and Literary Caregiving 1914-1918: Helen Mary Gaskell and the War Library

This article is about the relationship between reading, trauma and responsive literary caregiving in Britain during the First World War. Its analysis of two little-known documents describing the history of the War Library, begun by Helen Mary Gaskell in 1914, exposes a gap in the scholarship of war-time reading; generates a new narrative of "how," "when," and "why" books went to war; and foregrounds gender in its analysis of the historiography. The Library of Congress's T. W. Koch discovered Gaskell's ground-breaking work in 1917 and reported its successes to the American Library Association. The British Times also covered Gaskell's library, yet researchers working on reading during the war have routinely neglected her distinct model and method, skewing the research base on war-time reading and its association with trauma and caregiving. In the article's second half, a literary case study of a popular war novel demonstrates the extent of the "bitter cry for books." The success of Gaskell's intervention is examined alongside H. G. Wells's representation of textual healing. Reading is shown to offer sick, traumatized and recovering combatants emotional and psychological caregiving in ways that she could not always have predicted and that are not visible in the literary/historical record

Location, location, location? Analysing property rents in medieval Gloucester

Although medieval rentals have been extensively studied, few scholars have used them to analyse variations in the rents paid on individual properties within a town. It has been claimed that medieval rents did not reflect economic values or market forces, but were set according to social and political rather than economic criteria, and remained ossified at customary levels. This paper uses hedonic regression methods to test whether property rents in medieval Gloucester were influenced by classic economic factors such as the location and use of a property. It investigates both rents and local rates (landgavel), and explores the relationship between the two. It also examines spatial autocorrelation. It finds significant relationships between urban rents and property characteristics that are similar to those found in modern studies. The findings are consistent with the view that, in Gloucester at least, medieval rents were strongly influenced by classical economic factors working through a competitive urban property market

Man of Letters, Literary Lady, Journalist or Reporter?

The enormous changes wrought in the British newspaper industry during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought about a revolution in newspaper reading habits, financing and influence, all aspects of which have been well-documented by historians of the press. But what of the contributor, particularly the freelance whose millions of words formed, mostly anonymously, the content of the new mass market press? How did writers negotiate changes in the literary marketplace during this time as editors demanded more ‘news’ and less in the way of whimsical paragraphing, and sketches, the traditional newspaper output of the professional man, or woman, of letters? Through the study of memoirs, correspondence and the fictional output of contributors to the press during this time, it is possible to discern the often fraught relations between writers and their most lucrative market

Future developments in standardisation of cyber risk in the Internet of Things (IoT)

In this research article, we explore the use of a design process for adapting existing cyber risk assessment standards to allow the calculation of economic impact from IoT cyber risk. The paper presents a new model that includes a design process with new risk assessment vectors, specific for IoT cyber risk. To design new risk assessment vectors for IoT, the study applied a range of methodologies, including literature review, empirical study and comparative study, followed by theoretical analysis and grounded theory. An epistemological framework emerges from applying the constructivist grounded theory methodology to draw on knowledge from existing cyber risk frameworks, models and methodologies. This framework presents the current gaps in cyber risk standards and policies, and defines the design principles of future cyber risk impact assessment. The core contribution of the article therefore, being the presentation of a new model for impact assessment of IoT cyber risk

Immigration and the Common Profit: Native Cloth Workers, Flemish Exiles, and Royal Policy in Fourteenth-Century London

Drawing on a wide variety of published and unpublished sources, this article reconstructs a crucial episode in the relationship between the English Crown, its native subjects and the kingdom’s immigrant population during the later Middle Ages. Determined that their presence would boost the development of the local textile industries, Edward III encouraged high numbers of skilled Flemish cloth workers who had been exiled from their home county at the start of the 1350s to settle in the realm. Most of them took up residence in London, where they produced higher-quality cloth for the domestic market and, probably, for export. Soon, however, the immigrants’ activities conflicted with the privileges that had structured the capital’s economic life for centuries. Their work was contested by London’s native weavers who, since the middle of the twelfth century, had enjoyed the sole right to produce cloth in the city. Hoping that the control over the immigrants’ activities would help them to overcome the crisis in the market for lower-quality textiles they were struggling with, the natives petitioned the king to obtain the incorporation of the Flemish weavers into their guild for over twenty-five years. Yet, arguing that the Flemings’ contribution benefited the common profit of the whole kingdom in a way that transcended the interests of any particular group, the Crown rejected all their requests and avoided every attempt at discussion. Each time political communication broke down, the native weavers took out their frustrations by physically attacking their Flemish counterparts. These incidents became increasingly violent during the years leading up to the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381 and came to a dramatic conclusion during the rebellion itself

Evidence for models of diagnostic service provision in the community: literature mapping exercise and focused rapid reviews

Background Current NHS policy favours the expansion of diagnostic testing services in community and primary care settings. Objectives Our objectives were to identify current models of community diagnostic services in the UK and internationally and to assess the evidence for quality, safety and clinical effectiveness of such services. We were also interested in whether or not there is any evidence to support a broader range of diagnostic tests being provided in the community. Review methods We performed an initial broad literature mapping exercise to assess the quantity and nature of the published research evidence. The results were used to inform selection of three areas for investigation in more detail. We chose to perform focused reviews on logistics of diagnostic modalities in primary care (because the relevant issues differ widely between different types of test); diagnostic ultrasound (a key diagnostic technology affected by developments in equipment); and a diagnostic pathway (assessment of breathlessness) typically delivered wholly or partly in primary care/community settings. Databases and other sources searched, and search dates, were decided individually for each review. Quantitative and qualitative systematic reviews and primary studies of any design were eligible for inclusion. Results We identified seven main models of service that are delivered in primary care/community settings and in most cases with the possible involvement of community/primary care staff. Not all of these models are relevant to all types of diagnostic test. Overall, the evidence base for community- and primary care-based diagnostic services was limited, with very few controlled studies comparing different models of service. We found evidence from different settings that these services can reduce referrals to secondary care and allow more patients to be managed in primary care, but the quality of the research was generally poor. Evidence on the quality (including diagnostic accuracy and appropriateness of test ordering) and safety of such services was mixed. Conclusions In the absence of clear evidence of superior clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, the expansion of community-based services appears to be driven by other factors. These include policies to encourage moving services out of hospitals; the promise of reduced waiting times for diagnosis; the availability of a wider range of suitable tests and/or cheaper, more user-friendly equipment; and the ability of commercial providers to bid for NHS contracts. However, service development also faces a number of barriers, including issues related to staffing, training, governance and quality control. Limitations We have not attempted to cover all types of diagnostic technology in equal depth. Time and staff resources constrained our ability to carry out review processes in duplicate. Research in this field is limited by the difficulty of obtaining, from publicly available sources, up-to-date information about what models of service are commissioned, where and from which providers. Future work There is a need for research to compare the outcomes of different service models using robust study designs. Comparisons of ‘true’ community-based services with secondary care-based open-access services and rapid access clinics would be particularly valuable. There are specific needs for economic evaluations and for studies that incorporate effects on the wider health system. There appears to be no easy way of identifying what services are being commissioned from whom and keeping up with local evaluations of new services, suggesting a need to improve the availability of information in this area. Funding The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme

"Looking all lost towards a Cook's guide for beauty”: the art of literature and the lessons of the guidebook in modernist writing

This article explores the impact of the guidebook, especially the Baedeker series, on modernist literary culture. It argues that the guidebook is a literary phenomenon in its own right and that, as such, it attracts special attention from those engaged in defending and/or extending the category of literature as part of a modernist agenda. In particular, modernist writers are concerned as to whether the guidebook counts as a form of literature and, if so, what this means for the more familiar forms seen in their own essays, fiction and travelogues. What might the invention of the star system to rank scenes and monuments mean for the future of art criticism? How might the guidebook help or hinder the traveller in his/her pursuit of the beautiful or the picturesque? What does recourse to the guidebook reveal about the taste and education of the traveller? And, more pointedly still, what kind and quality of writing is the guidebook itself? This article surveys the extent of modernism's interest in the guidebook, both as a noteworthy new form and as a form modernist writers adapted for use in their own books, before turning in detail to commentary on the guidebook by E.M. Forster, Ernest Hemingway, H.D. and Virginia Woolf. In conclusion, it finds that the guidebook in modernism is very rarely just that. Instead, the guidebook finds unexpected affinities with modernism in its attempt to “modernise” literature – to make it more rational, more totalising and, in the eyes of its critics, less able to discriminate.This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Studies in Travel Writing on 4th March 2015, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13645145.2014.994924