How many people are in the Ragman Roll?

In the previous two features of the month, John Reuben Davies explained the process by which the Ragman Rolls were produced and discussed the nature of the oaths taken by the men and women who submitted to King Edward I’s rule. In this feature and the features to follow, we will examine the people themselves whose names are recorded in this unique document. We will start by asking the question of just how many people are ‘in’ the Ragman Rolls. In this feature, we will focus on trying to ascertain exactly how many men and women swore fealty, and in some cases also performed homage, to King Edward in the Ragman Roll. Of course, it is worth keeping in mind that those swearing fealty were not the only people mentioned in the rolls – there were also the men acting as witnesses to their fealties. These witnesses could include ‘Scottish’ nobles like the earls of Angus and Dunbar or March, but most of them were Englishmen in the retinue of King Edward

Instant Replay as a Tool for Correcting Human Error in College Basketball: A Historical Analysis

Sport has grown into one of the largest and most profitable businesses in the United States. With gambling now coming onto the scene more than ever before on top of player salaries in professional leagues and collegiate head coaches’ salaries sky-rocketing, there is more pressure than ever being put on officials to get things right and ensure the integrity of games. A tool utilized in most major competition at the professional and collegiate level is instant replay. Instant replay is something officials can use to analyze a previous ruling to determine if the right call was made or if something needs to be changed. Many fans of sport are aware of replay, but few know of the about some of its intricacies of its historical development. Thus, the purpose of this investigation was to highlight major developments of instant replay in collegiate basketball: 1) where did instant replay come from and why is it important?, 2) how is instant replay administered in games and what is the process?, and 3) how can technology in sport such as instant replay limit human error

A prosopographical analysis of society in East Central Scotland, circa 1100 to 1260, with special reference to ethnicity

This thesis seeks to examine the Europeanizing themes of the spread of charters, the adoption of common European names and the interaction of the chivalric ‘aristocratic diaspora’ with local landholding society through the methodology of prosopography. The role of aristocratic landholders as grantor, witnesses and recipients of charters was studied, based on an analysis of the texts of over 1500 aristocratic, royal and ecclesiastical documents relating to Scotland north of Forth, dating from circa 1100 to circa 1260. The Appendix is a list of all non-royal, non-ecclesiastical (or ‘private’) charters, agreements, brieves and similar documents, catalogued herein for the first time. The results of this study are two-fold. First, the thesis involves a degree of reappraisal, in which phenomena which were seen previously as pertaining to either ‘native’ or ‘Norman’ trends are instead examined as part of a single Scottish society. Second, this thesis offers several new findings based on the prosopographical analysis of the charter material, which help to hone our understanding for how Europeanization worked in Scotland. It is now clear that, while the adoption of charters should certainly be seen as a Europeanizing trend, their use by aristocratic landholders followed several stages, none of which adhered to any ethnic bias. This study reveals the prominence of networks in spreading charter use, including one focused around Countess Ada and other related countesses, in the early stages of aristocratic charter use. Furthermore, the important component of Europeanization, whereby ‘peripheral’ peoples took up common European personal names, can be qualified in the case of Scotland north of Forth, where the society was already characterised by a diverse intermixing of Gaelic, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon names, and where certain Gaelic names were not only maintained by ‘native’ families, but also adopted by immigrant knights. This thesis shows that the practice of using personal names as evidence for ethnicity does not hold up to close scrutiny. Moreover, the aristocratic diaspora for Scottish earls was a two-way street, and some earls and other Scottish nobles married into some of the most powerful families in western Europe. On the other hand, immigration of knights into Scotland north of Forth resulted in the creation of a new baronial class, one which also incorporated various types of ‘native’ Scottish landholder. Indeed, even in regions like the Mearns, where the king had a free hand, landholding was balanced between local and immigrant families. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, this study has verified that the notion that Scotland had ‘no institutionalised apartheid’ was not merely a legal technicality, but a fundamental characteristic of the society. Landholding patterns reveal no evidence of ethnic separation; neither does analysis of assemblies, courts, civil legal proceedings and processes of perambulation. Instead, power was exercised by a diverse aristocratic class. The nature of Europeanization in Scotland is distinct and special, and serves as a fascinating case study of an aristocratic society that was transformed, but in some ways on its own terms

Square Dance

SQUARE DANCE is a collection of nine short fiction stories. The first eight are connected thematically and the ninth story is intended to simulate a “bonus track” like one would find in a musical album. The collection follows mostly male characters as they each react to the curveballs life throws at them in their twenties, and explore the tests, formation, and bonds of friendship. This project is a commentary on modern society and incorporates elements of dark humor, science fiction, and absurdity as a means of expanding the scope of social commentary. The emphasis on humor and orchestrated arrangement of this project is a conscious rhetorical attempt at creating a lasting impression on the reader the way music and comedy impact its listeners. This project was most heavily influenced by the work of Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, George Saunders, Raymond Carver, and Ernest Hemingway; who as a group taught me how to appreciate minimalism, respect the economy of language, and the importance of style

Regulatory Feasibility Analysis for the Ablacor CircumBlator

Medical device registration for class three devices, such as a catheter ablator, can be a long and difficult process. The regulatory requirements vary greatly by country and potentially overlap and benefit one another. Determining the order in which to enter specific countries greatly depends on the size of the potential market and the costs and time needed for regulatory approval. Prior approval on major facets such as clinical trials may greatly reduce the costs of entering a particular country if the data from an outside source is deemed acceptable. This creates a complex problem where start-ups who cannot afford to pursue regulatory approval in all major markets simultaneously must carefully chose and enter individual markets a few at a time

Impact of a toxic single-use bio-process container film leachable on Chinese hamster ovary cells

A high-throughput cell-based assay (HT-CBA) was developed to investigate the impacts of the polymer films used to construct single-use bio-processing equipment such as bio-process containers (BPCs) and single-use bioreactors (SUBs) on the growth and health of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. Cell growth media were incubated in BPCs constructed from several different films, and the media thus treated was used to culture CHO cells in 24 deep-well plates. Multiple films negatively impacted culture growth and viability. The compound bis(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl)phosphate (bDtBPP) which leaches at low levels from these films was shown to be highly detrimental to cell growth. The toxic compound is derived from the breakdown of tris(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl)phosphite (trade name Irgafos 168®), a common antioxidant additive present in many formulations of polyethylene (one of the polymers commonly used as the fluid contact layer of BPCs). Cell growth experiments with multiple recombinant protein-expressing CHO cell lines show a 50% reduction in culture growth at bDtBPP concentrations below the parts-per-million range for all cell lines. Cell specific productivity was not impacted. Cellular response to bDtBPP is rapid with a significant decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential within minutes of compound spiking. The CHO cells recover growth and health when returned to culture medium free of bDtBPP

Citing Renewable Energy Sources for the Montachusett Region

This project provided the Montachusett Regional Planning Committee with recommendations for renewable technologies feasible in the Montachusett area. This project concentrated on renewable energy technologies for residential use only. The report analyzed current energy consumption patterns and assessed payback periods. The project used geographical evidence, and historical energy costs to make these assessments. A method was devised to determine payback period for each device. Using payback period and monthly savings, we suggest the best technologies we feel MRPC should promote in the area

Hydroperoxide generation in irradiation-sterilized SUS and potential risks of protein oxidation

Oxidation in polymeric medical implants sterilized by ionizing radiation is by now a well-studied phenomenon. One byproduct of the multitude of oxidative pathways initiated during irradiation of polymers is the generation of hydroperoxide groups bound to polymer chains or fragments (see Figure 1 and reference below). We have discovered that exposure to irradiation-sterilized SUS containers has the potential to induce measurable amounts of oxidation in some protein therapeutics, especially in the context of stability studies having high surface area to volume conditions and/or low protein concentration formulations. This presentation will discuss efforts in our laboratories to quantify the oxidizing species (e.g. hydroperoxides) in SUS containers and explore the parameters that could lead to variability in the amounts present and available to react with product molecules. Using the information gained, we provide a strategy to assess potential risk of protein oxidation in commercial manufacturing operations. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Sub-shot-noise shadow sensing with quantum correlations

The quantised nature of the electromagnetic field sets the classical limit to the sensitivity of position measurements. However, techniques based on the properties of quantum states can be exploited to accurately measure the relative displacement of a physical object beyond this classical limit. In this work, we use a simple scheme based on the split-detection of quantum correlations to measure the position of a shadow at the single-photon light level, with a precision that exceeds the shot-noise limit. This result is obtained by analysing the correlated signals of bi-photon pairs, created in parametric downconversion and detected by an electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD) camera employed as a split-detector. By comparing the measured statistics of spatially anticorrelated and uncorrelated photons we were able to observe a significant noise reduction corresponding to an improvement in position sensitivity of up to 17% (0.8dB). Our straightforward approach to sub-shot-noise position measurement is compatible with conventional shadow-sensing techniques based on the split-detection of light-fields, and yields an improvement that scales favourably with the detector’s quantum efficiency