Dietary patterns of households in Scotland : Differences by level of deprivation and associations with dietary goals

Funding This work was supported by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) Division.Peer reviewedPostprin

Folkestone futures : an elevated excursion

The town of Folkestone on the south Kent coast in the UK once enjoyed a thriving identity as both seaside resort and gateway to Europe. From the 1960s onwards a gradual decline set in with the advent of mass global travel, culminating in the deathblow that was dealt by the nearby Eurotunnel’s inauguration towards century’s end, which signalled the end of the town’s ferry link to the continental mainland. A concerted attempt has been underway for a decade now to revitalise the town using the arts, creative industries and education as the drivers of regeneration. One of the main initiatives in this endeavour was the introduction in 2008 of the Folkestone Triennial, a three-month summer event in which high-profile international artists were commissioned to produce sited artworks for the town. Focusing on the third triennial in 2014, this article analyses some of the ways in which artists have sought to engage and identify with notions suggested by its title, Lookout. In particular it will outline a curated constellation of artworks – or complex – that implicitly inscribes itself into the townscape and is characterised by installations that are sited in elevated locations, from whose respective vantage points they contemplate what the future holds for Folkestone

Majorana algebras and subgroups of the Monster

Majorana theory was introduced by A. A. Ivanov as an axiomatisation of certain properties of the 2A axes of the Griess algebra. This work was inspired by that of S. Sakuma who reproved certain important properties of the Monster simple group and the Griess algebra using the framework of vertex operator algebras. The objects at the centre of Majorana theory are known as Majorana algebras and are real, commutative, non-associative algebras that are generated by idempotents known as Majorana axes. To each Majorana axis, we associate a unique involution in the automorphism group of the algebra, known as a Majorana involution. These involutions form an important link between Majorana theory and group theory. In particular, Majorana algebras can be studied either in their own right or as Majorana representations of finite groups. The main aim of this work is to classify and construct Majorana algebras generated by three axes such that the subalgebra generated by two of these axes is isomorphic to a 2A dihedral subalgebra of the Griess algebra. We first show that such an algebra must occur as a Majorana representation of one of 26 subgroups of the Monster. These groups coincide with the list of triangle-point subgroups of the Monster given by S. P. Norton. In particular, our result reproves the completeness of Norton's list. This work builds on that of S. Decelle. Next, inspired by work of A. Seress, we design and implement an algorithm to construct the Majorana representations of a given group. We use this to construct a number of important Majorana representations which are independent of the main aim of this work. Finally, we use this algorithm along with our first result to construct all possible Majorana algebras generated by three axes, two of which generate a 2A-dihedral algebra. We use these constructions to show that each of these algebras must be isomorphic to a subalgebra of the Griess algebra. This is our main result and can equivalently be thought of as the construction of the subalgebras of the Griess algebra which correspond to the groups in Norton's list of triangle-point groups.Open Acces

Road rumour : ground plans for the sky blue city

This item, which will combine artist’s pages and an essay form, will appear as a commissioned piece in the June 2018 centenary edition of Performance Research journal. That edition has been organised to cover all 99 themes featuring since the journal’s inauguration in 1996 and “Road Rumour” specifically addresses ‘On the Road’ as a theme. It is effectively a fictional piece which presents an anonymous document – a text + image montage – entitled ‘Bare City: We’ll Live and Die in These Towns’. This envisages the utopian fantasy of Coventry’s ring-road being converted into a traffic-free pedestrian eco-zone, incorporating pop-up facilities, open markets, artworks etc. – above all somewhere that would not only lure suburban citizens into the centre but encourage them to interact and relish being there, and therefore linger (in the best tradition of the architect and urban theorist Jan Gehl). The dual form, which presents a thought-provoking item on the one hand and an interpretative framing of that provocation on the other, permits the author in effect to have two voices (not unlike the Brechtian actor): that of the anonymous proposal (a masked performance on the page) and its interpretation. Thus the author creates the privilege for himself of being the critical interpreter of his own fiction. The device functions to enable a ‘prepostorous proposal’ or rumour to begin to be accorded credibility in the hope of provoking urban change. The montage takes into account the structural morphology of Coventry’s ring-road, focusing on its phenomenological presence as a brutal(ist) structure. In particular, it will adopt as its paradigmatic point of departure, first, the fact that it is in itself inaccessible for the pedestrian, yet occupies a prime position within the built environment of the city centre. And, second, that it represents a form of barrier in the mental image that the pedestrian has of the city, rudely blocking the way between the outlying residential city surrounding it and the civic centre, which, in an era of internet shopping, increasingly struggles to sustain its purpose as a functioning, populated public location. In the same way as Walter Benjamin saw the 19th century metropolitan arcade, with its promises of the fulfilment of urban dwellers’ desires, as being effectively in radical decline – the epitome of the transiency and inherent ‘will to decay’ of a ‘phantasmagorical capitalism’ – so the Coventry ring-road represents a mistaken 20th century investment in a dehumanising ‘cars and concrete’ policy of urban living. In the 21st century the city centre threatens, in a fulfilment of Situationist predictions, to be rendered ‘naked’