scholarly journals “Weary for the Heather and the Deer”: R. L. Stevenson Depicts the Scottish Diasporic Experience

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christy Danelle Di Frances

Robert Louis Stevenson is well known as a writer of popular Victorian adventures, yet much of his fiction is steeped in the cultural and historical preoccupations of Scotland. Texts such as Kidnapped (1886), The Master of Ballantrae (1889), and Catriona (1893) hinge upon culturally significant events such as the Jacobite Rising of 1745 and the Appin Murder. These works also allude to the Highland Clearances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the Battle of Culloden with its ensuing disarming acts—all occurrences which contributed to or comprised significant catalysts for the large-scale expulsion of Scots from their homeland. Certainly, themes of exile pervade Stevenson’s Scottish work and maintain a more liminal presence in his later South Seas fiction, and many of the author’s finest characters can be read as enactments of temporary or permanent expatriates whose real-life counterparts form a fascinating cross-section of the diasporic movement. This paper focuses on several of these characters, whose adventures are encoded into their corresponding texts as fictional re-constructions of a broader experience common to displaced Scots in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some are driven from Scotland as a direct result of economic hardship or domestic conflict, while others leave (at least temporarily) as a means of avoiding the political corruption and intrigue characteristic of the historical struggle for Scottish independence. Through characters like David Balfour, Alan Breck Stewart, James Durie, and Archie Weir, Stevenson explores the psychological ramifications of politically enforced and self-imposed exile, thus providing fictional extrapolations of the Scottish diasporic experience. These portrayals, infused with a the author’s own experiences abroad, offer fascinating microcosms which gesture towards the collective experience of a wide-scale network of displaced Scots in the Victorian world. An early version of this paper was presented at the NAVSA 2012 “Victorian Networks” conference hosted by the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Author(s):  
Daniel Pritchard ◽  
Edward A. Beimborn

Results are reported of the implementation of an engineer-in-residence concept in the Department of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee College of Engineering and Applied Science. This concept brings an experienced practitioner to campus specifically to mentor students and faculty in the application of engineering and management principles to real-life problems and to provide additional relevancy to the education process. Success of the concept is measured by evaluations completed by students and faculty. On the basis of the findings of these evaluations, the concept is a promising way to provide expanded relevancy to a transportation education program.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Krause ◽  
Nikolaos Kogias ◽  
Martin Krentz ◽  
Michael Luehrs ◽  
Rainer Goebel ◽  
...  

It has recently been shown that acute stress affects the allocation of neural resources between large-scale brain networks, and the balance between the executive control network and the salience network in particular. Maladaptation of this dynamic resource reallocation process is thought to play a major role in stress-related psychopathology, suggesting that stress resilience may be determined by the retained ability to adaptively reallocate neural resources between these two networks. Actively training this ability could hence be a potentially promising way to increase resilience in individuals at risk for developing stress-related symptomatology. Using real-time functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the current study investigated whether individuals can learn to self-regulate stress-related large-scale network balance. Participants were engaged in a bidirectional and implicit real-time fMRI neurofeedback paradigm in which they were intermittently provided with a visual representation of the difference signal between the average activation of the salience and executive control networks, and tasked with attempting to self-regulate this signal. Our results show that, given feedback about their performance over three training sessions, participants were able to (1) learn strategies to differentially control the balance between SN and ECN activation on demand, as well as (2) successfully transfer this newly learned skill to a situation where they (a) did not receive any feedback anymore, and (b) were exposed to an acute stressor in form of the prospect of a mild electric stimulation. The current study hence constitutes an important first successful demonstration of neurofeedback training based on stress-related large-scale network balance - a novel approach that has the potential to train control over the central response to stressors in real-life and could build the foundation for future clinical interventions that aim at increasing resilience.


2019 ◽  
Vol 214 ◽  
pp. 08005
Author(s):  
Stefan Nicolae Stancu ◽  
Adam Lukasz Krajewski ◽  
Mattia Cadeddu ◽  
Marta Antosik ◽  
Bernd Panzer-Steinde

Network performance is key to the correct operation of any modern data centre infrastructure or data acquisition (DAQ) system. Hence, it is crucial to ensure the devices employed in the network are carefully selected to meet the required needs. Specialized commercial testers implement standardized tests [1, 2], which benchmark the performance of network devices under reproducible, yet artificial conditions. Netbench is a network-testing framework, relying on commodity servers and NICs, that enables the evaluation of network devices performance for handling traffic-patterns that closely resemble real-life usage, at a reasonably affordable price. We will present the architecture of the Netbench framework, its capabilities and how they complement the use of specialized commercial testers (e.g. competing TCP flows that create temporary congestion provide a good benchmark of buffering capabilities in real-life scenarios). Last but not least, we will describe how CERN used Netbench for performing large scale tests with partial-mesh and full-mesh TCP flows [3], an essential validation point during its most recent high-end routers call for tender.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matin Qazi

The purpose of this case study was to understand the lived experiences of faculty members as they transitioned into the academic leadership role of chair. The case study design was used to provide an intensive bounded analysis of the real-life transition experiences of new chairs. Seven new chairs provided data through two interviews each and documents including their resumes, calendars, and appointment letters. By bounding the case study to the University of Missouri, the data provided a rich dataset which captured the collective experience of transitioning into academic leadership, the complexities of their transitions, and how they navigate the transitional challenges. Three primary themes emerged from the data: Theme I: Transition is a Multifaceted Departure, Theme II: Leadership is Interpersonal, and Theme III: Chairs are Finding their Way. I delineated the collective experience of chairs at the University of Missouri to leadership. I reflected their strategies to navigate this path and discussed the resources that are provided to support them along the way. This increased understanding of the transition process and its associated challenges will improve the policy and practice in the appointment of department chairs, and it will inform perspective chairs of the obstacles that other chairs have experienced. The major policy implications of this study are that earlier appointment of chairs provides more time to prepare for the role and allows greater time to design a succession plan with collaborating predecessors. In addition, the leadership should provide need-based support system on the required competency areas for incoming chairs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Mahsa Rahimi Siegrist ◽  
Francesco Corman

Disruption in public transport networks has adverse implications for both passengers and service managers. To evaluate the effects of disruptions on passengers’ behaviour, various methods, simulation modules, and mathematical models are widely used. However, such methods included many assumptions for the sake of simplicity. We here use multiagent microsimulation modules to simulate complex real-life scenarios. Aspects that were never explicitly modelled together are the capacity of the network and the effect of disruption to on-board passengers, who might need to alight the disrupted services. In addition, our simulation and developed module provide a framework that can be applied for both transport planning and real-time management of disruption for the large-scale network. We formalize the agent-based assignment problem in capacitated transit networks for disrupted situations, where some information is available about the disruption. We extend a microsimulation environment to quantify precisely the impact and the number of agents directly and indirectly affected by the disruption, respectively, those passengers who cannot perform their trip because of disrupted services (directly affected passengers), and those passengers whose services are not disrupted but experience additional crowding effects (indirectly affected passengers). The outcomes are discussed both from passengers’ perspective and for extracting more general planning and policy recommendations. The modeling and solution approaches are applied to the multimodal public transport system of Zürich, Switzerland. Our results show that different information dissemination strategies have a large impact on direct and indirect effects. By earlier information dissemination, the direct effects get milder but larger in space, and indirect negative effects arise. The scenarios with the least information instead are very strongly affecting few passengers, while the less negative indirect effect for the rest of the network.


10.28945/3088 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Davey ◽  
Arthur Tatnall

This article describes a study that examined the lifelong learning of information systems academics in relation to their normal work. It begins by considering the concept of lifelong learning, its relationship to real-life learning and that lifelong learning should encompass the whole spectrum of formal, non-formal and informal learning. Most world governments had recognised the importance of support for lifelong learning. Borrowing ideas and techniques use by Livingstone in a large-scale 1998 survey of the informal learning activities of Canadian adults, the study reported in this article sought to uncover those aspects of information systems academics’ lifelong learning that might lead policy setters to understand the sources of learning valued by these academics. It could be argued that in the past the university sector was a leader in promoting the lifelong learning of its academic staff, but recent changes in the university environment around the world have moved away from this ideal and academics interviewed from many countries all report rapidly decreasing resources available for academic support. In this environment it is important to determine which learning sources are valued by information systems academic so that informed decisions can be made on support priorities.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Frail

Marshall, Rita, and Etienne Delessert. I Hate to Read! Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1992. Print. As you might guess from the title, this book invites reluctant readers to discover the wondrous adventures that can be accessed through turning the pages of a book, as opposed to tuning into TV programs.  The cover features the narrator—third-grader Victor Dickens—on a dragon’s back, with flames licking out of the pages of a stack of books.  Readers are told that Victor is a “really good kid” “most of the time,” and many children will be able to relate to his academic difficulties: “Victor got As in math and Bs in science, but Fs when it came to the ABCs”.  He calls himself a “victim of the hate to read syndrome”. One night, Victor is visited by a series of storybook creatures, including a crocodile in a white coat, a field mouse carrying gold coins, a pirate parrot, and a white rabbit in black barn boots; all of whom attempt to convince him to read. He repeats his usual mantra, “I hate to read,” until gradually he begins turning pages, and his imagination takes over. Fictional characters morph into people from his real life: Sleeping Beauty turns into Natalie Nickerson, on whom Victor appears to have a bit of a crush. The turning point comes when one of the characters whispers: “It’s fun to read even when you’re not supposed to.” This thought appeals to his sense of juvenile rebellion, and he continues in his literary reverie, even missing his favourite TV program.  He imagines his teacher as a witch, throwing books into a cauldron, and his classmates, led by Natalie, shouting, “We hate to read!” Instead of joining in, however, Victor thinks of how sad he would be to lose all of his new friends, so he looks for them in his book: “And as he read each page, he just hated…to come to the end.” Writer and designer Rita Marshall and illustrator Etienne Delessert have each been awarded numerous literary prizes for their work. The large-scale drawings of the storybook creatures are whimsical and inviting.  They also contain small details that might not be noticed on the first reading. For example, the toes and talons of the dragon on the cover also form crow-like birds with pointy beaks. In another image, letters of the alphabet are hidden in animal tracks.  On the other hand, the book includes some literary references that would likely be lost on a typical third-grader.  For example, Victor’s parents are said to have bought all 56 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica to help pique his interest in reading. It is unlikely that many families would have this set in their homes, nor would a child normally encounter one in an elementary school library. However, these details will perhaps prompt questions from curious readers.  On the whole, “I hate to read” is highly likely to achieve its principal goal. Much like Victor, most children will probably hate to see it come to an end. Not to fear, they can continue to follow Victor’s adventures in “I Still Hate to Read,” which was published in 2007. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Kim Frail Kim is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. Children’s literature is a big part of her world at work and at home. She also enjoys gardening, renovating and keeping up with her two-year old.


Author(s):  
Hans Ris

The High Voltage Electron Microscope Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin has been in operation a little over one year. I would like to give a progress report about our experience with this new technique. The achievement of good resolution with thick specimens has been mainly exploited so far. A cold stage which will allow us to look at frozen specimens and a hydration stage are now being installed in our microscope. This will soon make it possible to study undehydrated specimens, a particularly exciting application of the high voltage microscope.Some of the problems studied at the Madison facility are: Structure of kinetoplast and flagella in trypanosomes (J. Paulin, U. of Georgia); growth cones of nerve fibers (R. Hannah, U. of Georgia Medical School); spiny dendrites in cerebellum of mouse (Scott and Guillery, Anatomy, U. of Wis.); spindle of baker's yeast (Joan Peterson, Madison) spindle of Haemanthus (A. Bajer, U. of Oregon, Eugene) chromosome structure (Hans Ris, U. of Wisconsin, Madison). Dr. Paulin and Dr. Hanna are reporting their work separately at this meeting and I shall therefore not discuss it here.


Author(s):  
Patricia N. Hackney

Ustilago hordei and Ustilago violacea are yeast-like basidiomycete pathogens ofHordeum vulgare and Silene alba respectively. The mating type system in both species of Ustilago is bipolar, with alleles, A,a, (U.hordei) and a1, a2 (U.violacea) at a single locus. Haploid sporidia maintain the asexual phase by budding, while the sexual phase is initiated by conjugation tube formation between the mating types during budding and conjugation.For observation of budding, sporidia were prepared by culturing the four types on YEG (yeast extract glucose) broth for 24 hours. After centrifugation at 5000g cells were either left unmated or mated in a1/a2,A/a combinations. The sporidia were then mixed 1:1 with 4% agar and the resulting 1mm cubes fixed in 8% gluteraldehyde and post fixed in osmium tetroxide. After dehydration and embedding cubes were thin sectioned with a LKB ultratome and photographed in a Zeiss 9s transmission electron microscope or in an AE1 electron microscope of MK11 1MEV at the High Voltage Electron Microscopy Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


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