Editorial : Poverty and mobility in England, 1600–1850

Within these pages you will find a ‘jovial crew’: rogues and vagabonds, the ‘mad’ and insane, gypsies, peddlers, poets, playwrights, pilgrims, rioters, convicts, constables, thieves, beggars, landed gentlemen, magistrates, and historians. When parliamentarians and projectors set out to proscribe mobility and legislate poverty in early modernity, a list of untrustworthy trades and professions not at all unlike this one frequently found its way into print and the statute book. The punishment for crimes of vagrancy could be severe, but thankfully ‘historians’ were not counted among the undeserving and mobile, nor would you find magistrates and landed gentlemen taken up, imprisoned, and whipped for a crime of movement. However, all three groups may well deserve some of John Locke's brand of draconian ‘improvement’; historians in particular have taken little account of the lived experiences of the mobile poor until relatively recently. Once we finally took a hard look at our inherited, literature-driven typologies of ‘rogues’ and ‘beggars’, they disappeared in ‘a storm of dust and lies.’ However, the literary, visualised vagabond still has much to tell us, and interdisciplinary approaches to vagrancy in the past have emerged as the strongest method yet of reconstructing the character, history, and cultural perception of the mobile poor. These are methods which the articles in this collection use to full effect

A Deficiency Problem of the Least Squares Finite Element Method for Solving Radiative Transfer in Strongly Inhomogeneous Media

The accuracy and stability of the least squares finite element method (LSFEM) and the Galerkin finite element method (GFEM) for solving radiative transfer in homogeneous and inhomogeneous media are studied theoretically via a frequency domain technique. The theoretical result confirms the traditional understanding of the superior stability of the LSFEM as compared to the GFEM. However, it is demonstrated numerically and proved theoretically that the LSFEM will suffer a deficiency problem for solving radiative transfer in media with strong inhomogeneity. This deficiency problem of the LSFEM will cause a severe accuracy degradation, which compromises too much of the performance of the LSFEM and makes it not a good choice to solve radiative transfer in strongly inhomogeneous media. It is also theoretically proved that the LSFEM is equivalent to a second order form of radiative transfer equation discretized by the central difference scheme

Effects of rate and duration of loading on the strength of aircraft structures

The effects of rate and duration of loading on the structural strength of aircraft have been investigated by comparing the failing loads of both wooden and metal tailplanes when tested at different rates of loading, the duration of test varying from about 6 seconds to 3¾ hours. With wooden structures, differences in strength due to rate of loading were much less than those predicted from the results of American tests on wood. With metal structures neither rate of loading nor sustained high loading had any appreciable effect on the failing load

A qualitative, participatory study of the process of becoming an advocate for nonhuman animals

This thesis begins with an overview of some published works concerning oppression, its alleviation and the interconnectedness of its various forms, as they relate to the diverse area which is loosely referred to as ‘animal rights’. In general terms, the ultimate goal of choosing to do this thesis in the area of animal rights is to further the defence of nonhuman animals. The purpose of this specific project is to document, compare, and contrast a range of examples of the process of changing relationships and becoming an advocate for other animals. These examples, the experiences and life stories of five members of an animal rights group were shared through in-depth, semi-structured, conversational-style interviews. Because animal advocates come from all walks of life, yet are so often stereotyped, this project does not involve a representative sample from which one expects findings that can be generalized to the larger population (e.g., the ‘typical’ animal advocate). On the contrary, the focus is particular, diverse examples. The project was carried out in collaboration with members of an informal, local-level animal rights group to which I belong. All interview participants were also Research Advisory Committee (RAC) members and were involved in guiding this project from its earliest beginnings of choosing a topic within the area of animal rights. While the experiences and process of change were unique to each individual, similarities were found regarding the direction and on-going nature of change, and its positive, pervasive impact on their lives. Many benefits were derived from the participants’ efforts to recall and reflect on their own life stories, suggesting that such a formal undertaking might benefit others as well. I conclude the thesis with a discussion of some relevant works from the literature and an outline of plans for utilization of the findings

Ion flow in a zeolitic imidazolate framework results in ionic diode phenomena

Ionic transport (for applications in nanofluidics or membranes) and “ionic diode” phenomena in a zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) are investigated by directly growing the framework from aqueous Zn2+ and 2-methylimidazole as an “asymmetric plug” into a 20 ?m diameter pore in a ca. 6 ?m thin poly-ethylene-terephthalate (PET) film

The Need for a New Generation of Substructure Searching Software

Advances in synthetic chemistry mean that the molecules now synthesized include increasingly complex entities with mechanical bonds or extensive frameworks. For these complex molecular and supramolecular species, single-crystal X-ray crystallography has proved to be the optimal technique for determining full three-dimensional structures in the solid state. These structures are curated and placed in structural databases, the most comprehensive of which (for organic and metallo-organic structures) is the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). A question of increasing importance is how users can search such databases effectively for these structures. In this Opinion we highlight some of the classes of complex molecules and supramolecules and the challenges associated with searching for them. We develop the idea of substructure searches that involve topological searches as well as searches for molecular fragments, and propose significant enhancements to substructure-search programs that are both achievable and highly beneficial for both the database user community and the broader chemistry community