Processes acting to produce glacial detritus

The traditional view of attrition and abrasion as the major agents producing glacial debris is considered in the light of recent work by engineering geologists and geomorphologists. The decomposition of certain rock types when affected by frost action leads to the concept of rock deterioration within the body of the glacier. It seems that differing rock types with varying responses to low temperature conditions would produce a heterogeneous mixture of particle size such as is usually termed glacial till. Observations in recent work on rock stability emphasise the importance of clay minerals and their mode of occurrence. It is considered that a detailed study of the stability of rocks forming the source region of a glacier should give considerable insight into the nature of the till produced

Mediating between practitioner and developer communities: the Learning Activity Design in Education experience

The slow uptake by teachers in post‐compulsory education of new technological tools and technology‐enhanced teaching methods may be symptomatic of a general split in the e‐learning community between development of tools, services and standards, and research into how teachers can use these most effectively (i.e. between the teaching practitioner and technical developer communities). This paper reflects on the experience of transferring knowledge and understanding between these two communities during the Learning Activity Design in Education project funded by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee. The discussion is situated within the literature on ‘mediating representations’ and ‘mediating artefacts’, and shows that the practical operation of mediating representations is far more complex than previously acknowledged. The experience suggests that for effective transfer of concepts between communities, the communities need to overlap to the extent that a single representation is comprehensible to both. This representation may be viewed as a boundary object that is used to negotiate understanding. If the communities do not overlap a chain of intermediate representations and communities may be necessary. Finally, a tentative distinction is drawn between mediating representations and mediating artefacts, based not in the nature of the resources, but in their mode and context of use

Review of Czech Refugees in Cold War Canada by Jan Raska

Review of Czech Refugees in Cold War Canada by Jan Rask

Like Vessels: Giorgio Morandi and the porticoes of Bologna

A lecture presented at the Modern Interiors Research Centre, Kingston University, as part of the FLOW Conference 2011. The lecture is part of a larger mixed media project ‘Like Vessels’ (2011 – ongoing) exploring ideas around abstraction and interiority, and taking the architecture of Bologna as a starting and reference point. Abstract: An interior/exterior duality is implicit in any discussion of Giorgio Morandi’s work. On the one hand, a collection of domestic objects was the artist’s primary source of subject-matter for most of his career, during which time he worked, from 1910 to 1964, in an apartment on Bologna’s Via Fondazza, in a small studio bedroom facing onto a rear courtyard. Morandi’s images of bottles, vases and containers, however, were architectonic ‘constructions’ as much as still-life studies – their umber volumes and tower-like forms suffused with the atmosphere of the city. But Morandi’s work has never been discussed, in English, with specific and detailed reference to the architectural feature so unique to Bologna: the 37 km matrix of colonnaded streets, or portici, that likewise participate in a very particular and striking dialogue between interior space and exterior urban fabric. In disrupting the usual division of private and public, the portici set up a quasi-theatrical space between, reconfiguring boundaries and physical proximities. The obscuring of a ‘frontal’ view of the cityscape ahead also directs a shift in perspective – a sideways pan, through the arches and into the passage that adjoins the far side of the street. And, in functioning as conjunction between one interior space and another, the portici interact with the imaginative experience of the individual traversing the city. The continuous – at times barely perceptible – re-configurations of plastic vocabulary (vault, support, decoration), coupled with the contrasts and modulations of changing light, trace a multivalent and unfolding space in which to project and ‘abstract’. This paper will explore some of the interior/exterior relationships in operation in Morandi’s work, his home and recently reconstructed studio, and the architectural landscape in which both are contained. The paper will interweave discussion of relevant texts with a descriptive (and visual) account of a visit to the city

Creating Canada’s Peacekeeping Past (Book Review) by Colin McCullough

Review of Creating Canada’s Peacekeeping Past by Colin McCullough

Some undisclosed points of remove

Journal article discussing 'some undisclosed points of remove', an exhibition in Chelsea College of Arts' Old College Library. The exhibition showed new, site-responsive artworks by Melanie Counsell, Sara MacKillop, Anne Tallentire, Sabine Tholen and Joëlle Tuerlinckx, as well as artists' books from Chelsea Library's collections by all five artists. The exhibition was curated by Vicky Falconer

Heterochronic Representations of the Fall : Bakhtin, Milton, DeLillo

Bakhtin argues that each literary genre codifies a particular world-view which is defined, in part, by its chronotope. That is, the spatial and temporal configurations of each genre determine in large part the kinds of action a fictional character may undertake in that given world (without being iconoclastic, a realist hero cannot slay mythical beasts, and a questing knight cannot philosophize over drinks in a café). Recent extensions of Bakhtin’s theory have sought to define the chronotopes of new and emergent genres such as the road movie, the graphic novel, and hypertext fiction. Others have challenged Bakhtin’s characterization of certain chronotopes, such as those of epic and lyric poetry, arguing that these genres (and their chronotopes) are far more dynamic and dialogic than Bakhtin’s analysis seems at first glance to allow. Rather than taking issue with Bakhtin’s characterization of particular genres here, however, I wish to argue that we should pay closer attention to the heterochrony, or interplay of different chronotopes, in individual texts and their genres. As Bakhtin’s own essay demonstrates, what makes any literary chronotope dynamic is its conflict and interplay with alternative chronotopes and world-views. Heterochrony (raznovremennost) is the spatiotemporal equivalent of linguistic heteroglossia, and if we examine any of Bakhtin’s readings of particular chronotopes closely enough, we will find evidence of heterochronic conflict. This clash of spatiotemporal configurations within a text, or family of texts, provides the ground for the dialogic inter-illumination of opposing world-views

Hydrologic Studies in the Lake Ontario Basin Using High Altitude and ERTS-1 Imagery

Hydrologic studies of Lake Ontario basin using high altitude and ERTS-1 imager

The Assouad dimensions of projections of planar sets

We consider the Assouad dimensions of orthogonal projections of planar sets onto lines. Our investigation covers both general and self-similar sets. For general sets, the main result is the following: if a set in the plane has Assouad dimension $s \in [0,2]$, then the projections have Assouad dimension at least $\min\{1,s\}$ almost surely. Compared to the famous analogue for Hausdorff dimension -- namely \emph{Marstrand's Projection Theorem} -- a striking difference is that the words `at least' cannot be dispensed with: in fact, for many planar self-similar sets of dimension $s < 1$, we prove that the Assouad dimension of projections can attain both values $s$ and $1$ for a set of directions of positive measure. For self-similar sets, our investigation splits naturally into two cases: when the group of rotations is discrete, and when it is dense. In the `discrete rotations' case we prove the following dichotomy for any given projection: either the Hausdorff measure is positive in the Hausdorff dimension, in which case the Hausdorff and Assouad dimensions coincide; or the Hausdorff measure is zero in the Hausdorff dimension, in which case the Assouad dimension is equal to 1. In the `dense rotations' case we prove that every projection has Assouad dimension equal to one, assuming that the planar set is not a singleton. As another application of our results, we show that there is no \emph{Falconer's Theorem} for Assouad dimension. More precisely, the Assouad dimension of a self-similar (or self-affine) set is not in general almost surely constant when one randomises the translation vectors.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Proc. Lond. Math. So