The Usurer's Daughter: Male Friendship and Fictions of Women in Sixteenth-Century England

This article uses a case-study of the relationship between the British suffrage organization, the Women's Social and Political Union, and its equivalent on the Irish side, the Irish Women's Franchise League, in order to illuminate some consequences of the colonial relationship between Britain and Ireland. As political power was located within the British state, and the British feminist movement enjoyed superior resources, the Irish movement was at a disadvantage. This was compounded by serious internal divisions within the Irish movement - a product of the dispute over Ireland's constitutional future - which prevented the Franchise League, sympathetic to the nationalist demand for independence - from establishing a strong presence in the North. The consequences of the British movement organizing in Ireland, in particular their initiation of a militant campaign in the North, are explored in some detail, using evidence provided by letters from the participants.British intervention was clearly motivated from British-inspired concerns rather than from any solidarity with the situation of women in Ireland, proving to be disastrous for the Irish, accentuating their deep-rooted divisions.The overall argument is that feminism cannot be viewed in isolation from other political considerations. This case-study isolates the repercussions of Britain's imperial role for both British and Irish movements: ostensibly with a common objective but in reality divided by their differing response to the constitutional arrangement between the two countries. For this reason, historians of Irish feminist movements must give consideration to the importance of the ‘national question’ and display a more critical attitude towards the role played by Britain in Irish affairs.     

Nocturnal Oviposition Behavior of Forensically Important Diptera in Central England

Timing of oviposition on a corpse is a key factor in entomologically based minimum postmortem interval (mPMI) calculations. However, there is considerable variation in nocturnal oviposition behavior of blow flies reported in the research literature. This study investigated nocturnal oviposition in central England for the first time, over 25 trials from 2011 to 2013. Liver-baited traps were placed in an urban location during control (diurnal), and nocturnal periods and environmental conditions were recorded during each 5-h trial. No nocturnal activity or oviposition was observed during the course of the study indicating that nocturnal oviposition is highly unlikely in central England.     

Viewing The Biggest Loser: modes of reception and reflexivity among obese people

This article builds on previous reception research and scholarship on makeover TV through an analysis of obese people's views of The Biggest Loser (TBL). TBL involves obese people competing to lose weight as personal trainers push them through dietary and physical activity regimes. We articulate four themes characterizing responses to TBL: “That's not reality,” “Public ownership and judgment of the fat body,” “The lure of the transformation,” and “A guilty pleasure.” We consider how these themes are reflected in participants' movement between mediated, discursive, transparent, and referential modes of reception. While some were adamant in their rejection of the program, others were ambivalent in accepting and identifying with the desire for weight loss but questioning TBL's aesthetic dimensions and moralizing undertones. We argue that the reflexivity of viewers complicates appraisals of TBL as governing at a distance and offer some alternative readings of the impact and appeal of the program.     

Nature,art and artfulness

[E]cosocialism entails different and more complex judgments of value than first-epoch socialism. It demands of us that we take into account a kind of valuation distinct from those values, attached to use and exchange, that enter into economic calculation. Once we open ourselves to the ecosphere, a realm of intrinsic value opens as well, a value inhering in ecosystemic being …. What is called an “ecocentric ethic” is essentially ethics in defense of intrinsic value. Simply put, it is the refusal to reduce the world to cash, and to knuckle under to the lords of economic calculation. … This perspective becomes necessary in the overcoming of the ecological crisis, and therefore the climate crisis as well. It is the deepest level of the resistance to capital, and the foundation of all others.1 ¹Joel Kovel, “Ecosocialism, Global Justice, and Climate Change,” Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 19, No. 2, June 2008, p. 9.      

The effect of cleaning agents on the ability to obtain DNA profiles using the Identifiler™ and PowerPlex® Y multiplex kits

Abstract: A year after the introduction of Identifiler? into the forensic DNA laboratories of the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Limited (ESR), increasing occurrences of dropout of the three loci, D7S820, D18S51, and FGA, were observed in samples where the DNA was not degraded and sufficient DNA was present that full DNA profiles were to be expected. The dropout was either partial or complete at these loci. Full profiles could sometimes be obtained by reamplification of samples using the same input amount of DNA. After a thorough investigation of the methods and procedures used in the laboratory, the cause of this inhibition was identified as the cleaning agent TriGene? ADVANCE. This was determined after the deliberate addition of varying amounts of different cleaning reagents into the DNA amplification reactions. At concentrations of 0.004% TriGene? ADVANCE caused inhibition resulting in tri‐loci dropout. At concentrations of 0.04% and higher, complete inhibition was observed. An effect was also seen on the amplification of samples using the Y STR profiling system PowerPlex^®Y. This work highlights the importance of checking all reagents and chemicals prior to use, even those with no apparent direct influence on the DNA profiling process.