Essex Rock

All landscapes are built on rock: from hard stone for building with, to the softest clay or sand. Each piece of rock is a storehouse of prehistorical information; even a simple pebble from the garden has its own complex tale to tell. Geology is the great detective science that can unlock these secrets. In this entertaining and eye-opening book, the authors take a deep dive – quite literally – into their home county of Essex. We are all living in an ice age, an ongoing event that has hugely affected Essex over the last 3 million years. Yet this county was born more than 500 million years ago. Our story begins when the land we know as Essex was part of a large continent close to the South Pole, tracing the geological processes that continue to shape the countryside around us. The form of the land, boulders on village greens, road cuttings, cliffs, stones in church walls – they can all bring geology to light in unexpected and fascinating ways. Aimed at a general readership with no scientific background, chapters progress from fundamentals to intricate details of geological investigations and cutting-edge research. Richly illustrated with photographs and colour diagrams, here the geology of a county is visualised and brought to life as never before, along with pertinent environmental insights in the light of climate change that is happening now.

The Structure and Contents of the Institutio oratoria

This chapter offers an introduction to the Institutio oratoria for a general readership. A brief synopsis of each of the twelve books of the Institutio is followed by some observations on the structure and contents of the work. The prefatory letter to Trypho shows that Quintilian wrote the work for his friend Marcus Vitorius Marcellus and his son, and later decided to send it for publication to Trypho. Though written in segments, the work was carefully planned in its entirety at the outset, but it was not intended as an exhaustive treatment of the subject matter. Quintilian probably used writing tablets before a scribe transferred the text to papyrus rolls. Quintilian used different methods for treating his subject, according to whether he wrote as a veteran teacher, as an experienced legal pleader, or as a historian and theorist of rhetoric. He aimed at a varied group of audiences: teachers of rhetoric, their pupils, and the educated elite of Rome.

Biomedical Microtechnologies beyond Scholarly Impact

The recent tremendous advances in medical technology at the level of academic research have set high expectations for the clinical outcomes they promise to deliver. To the demise of patient hopes, however, the more disruptive and invasive a new technology is, the bigger the gap is separating the conceptualization of a medical device and its adoption into healthcare systems. When technology breakthroughs are reported in the biomedical scientific literature, news focus typically lies on medical implications rather than engineering progress, as the former are of higher appeal to a general readership. While successful therapy and diagnostics are indeed the ultimate goals, it is of equal importance to expose the engineering thinking needed to achieve such results and, critically, identify the challenges that still lie ahead. Here, we would like to provoke thoughts on the following questions, with particular focus on microfabricated medical devices: should research advancing the maturity and reliability of medical technology benefit from higher accessibility and visibility? How can the scientific community encourage and reward academic work on the overshadowed engineering aspects that will facilitate the evolution of laboratory samples into clinical devices?

The changing face of MedEdPublish

MedEdPublish has come a long way since it was launched in 2016 by AMEE as an independent academic e-journal that supports scholarship in health professions education. Beginning as a relatively small, in-house publication on a web platform adapted for the purpose, we invited members of our community of practice to submit articles on any topic in health professions education, and encouraged a wide range of article types. All articles were published so long as they met editing criteria and where within scope. Reviews were welcomed from both members of our Review panel and the general readership, all published openly with contributors identified. Many articles attracted several reviews, responses and comments, creating interactive discussion threads that provided learning opportunities for all. The outcome surpassed our expectations, with over 500 articles submitted during 2020, beyond the capacity of our editing team and platform to achieve our promise of rapid publishing. We have now moved to a much larger and powerful web platform, developed by F1000 Research and within the Taylor and Francis stable, the home of AMEE’s other journal, Medical Teacher. Most of our innovations are supported by the new platform and there is scope for further developments. We look forward to an exciting new phase of innovation, powered by the F1000 platform.

6. The Aunt Josephine Paradox

‘The Aunt Josephine Paradox’ begins by highlighting the legacy and impact of James Joyce’s works on the legalization of same-sex marriages in Ireland, the rejection of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and nationalism. It then considers the Aunt Josephine paradox. The Aunt Josephine paradox refers to when Joyce sent a copy of Ulysses to his aunt, Josephine Murray, and she found the book incomprehensible. This provides perhaps the most telling example of the fact that Joyce hoped for a very general readership and underestimated wildly the difficulties that Ulysses posed to the reader. However, these difficulties are not specific to Joyce; they are common to all modernist texts.

Canadian Urological Association guideline: Erectile dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction (ED) impacts the wellness and quality of life of millions of Canadians. An evaluation focused on the identification of reversible and irreversible underlying factors is recommended for patients presenting with ED. Through a shared decision-making model framework, the goal of ED treatment is to improve functional outcomes and enhance sexual satisfaction while minimizing adverse effects associated with treatment. Given that ED is assessed and treated by multiple different types of health practitioners, the purpose of this guideline is to provide the best available evidence to facilitate care delivery through a Canadian lens. After a narrative review of ED assessment and treatment for general readership, five key clinical questions relating to priority areas of ED are assessed using the GRADE and Evidence to Decision making frameworks.

Living in Counterpoint

This chapter provides a deep description of William Forsythe’s One Flat Thing, reproduced and the choreographic structures and dramaturgy used to create it. The dance is presented as an example of physical thinking that can be taken up by readers as (1) a portal into understanding William Forsythe’s creative process and body of work; (2) a generative collection of compositional structures useful in composing new work in contemporary ballet and other fields; and (3) a resource for recognizing pattern amid complexity and thriving in the uncertainty and entanglement of contemporary life. The chapter builds on collaborative research with Forsythe and weaves together selections from interviews and texts originally published in interactive media interfaces and other resources not previously available to a general readership.

From the handshake to the kiss: Visual motifs of affect in representations of politics in the Spanish press

In the last few years, affect has entered the field of politics through both the media and political actors themselves. This article is based on the hypothesis that the images of affect that illustrate contemporary political narratives in the media reflect different visual motifs which are linked to an iconographic tradition that began in the art world. Through the iconographic analysis of images published in the three newspapers in Spain with the largest general readership (El País, El Mundo, and La Vanguardia) from 2011 to 2017, this article identifies three visual motifs of affect: the handshake, the hug, and the kiss. The study of these motifs highlights the survival of certain forms of emotion that are easily recognisable and engage with a longstanding iconographic tradition. At the same time, the article inquiries into the meanings derived from these iconographies and their implications on the representation of politics and of political leaders. The proliferation of motifs of affect in politics then connects with both the mediatisation of politics and an affective turn, which invites us to re-examine the role of emotion in the contemporary public sphere.

Henrietta Crawford: Radical Black Evangelist in Post-Civil War New Jersey

Representing Black feminisms of the so-called, “First Wave era of American feminism,” forgotten icon Henrietta Crawford impacted Black political representation in southern New Jersey during the post-Civil War decades. As a noted evangelist, universal suffragist, Black community organizer, Civil Rights activist, homemaker, and intergenerational caregiver for minor dependents, Crawford crafted an intersectional legacy worthy of commemorative re-remembrance. Collectively, scattered bits and pieces of information recorded over the past eighty years in newspapers and in recent scholarly accounts offer an incoherent combination of disparate hints at Henrietta’s historical significance. Buttressed, however, by historical insight, contemporary newspaper accounts, Civil War pension file records, real estate deed transactions, federal and state census records, vital statistics data, the evidentiary record sheds light on Crawford’s important role in the operation of historically significant Mt. Pisgah [U.A.M.E.] Church in Vineland and her associated development and implementation of important social justice initiatives. In 1948, a fifty-year commemorative notation about James and Henrietta Crawford’s 1898 departure from Vineland was published in the Daily Journal newspaper. Twenty-five years later “New Jersey Mother of the Year Award” recipient Rebecca Lassiter noted the Crawfords' important role in her life as foster parents. In year seventy-three since the Daily Journal’s acknowledgement, this essay conveys Henrietta Crawford’s legacy to students, scholars, and the general readership for current and future generations. As the present confluence of national political and economic crises resolves within an encapsulating global pandemic that is exacerbating socio-economic inequalities, Crawford’s life and record offers a critical example of faith-based social-justice activism and the seamless role of African American women in American history.

Book review on Jody C. Baumgartner and Peter L. Francia (2020). Conventional Wisdom and American Elections: Exploding Myths, Exploring Misconceptions (Fourth Edition)

Eleven common topics are discussed in this book by the authors. Very detailed research is reviewed. This helps the read understand that some topics have some degree of consensus among professors of American political science. Furthermore, those topics that do not have a firm consensus of opinion are described, so that the reader can see where more research is needed and is indeed happening. This book is good for general readership as well as for undergraduate and graduate courses.