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Simple Summary: This study investigates the effectiveness of a novel genetics-based biopesticide, miR-184 agomir, against the English grain aphid, Sitobion avenae, a major wheat pest. miR-184 agomir interference significantly reduced aphid survival rates, particularly during their early developmental stages. Life table analysis demonstrated that the application of miR-184 agomir resulted in adverse effects on multiple vital parameters essential for the expansion of the aphid population. Population projection models predicted a substantial decline in the aphid population size at 60 days post-treatment. These findings underscore the potential of genetics-based biopesticides in the effective management of grain aphid populations, thereby contributing to wheat crop protection and environmental sustainability. The investigation of genetics-based biopesticides has become a central focus in pesticide studies due to their inherent advantages, including species specificity, environmental safety, and a wide range of target genes. In this study, a mixture of miR-184 agomir and nanomaterial star polycation (SPc) was used to treat the nymphs of the English grain aphid, Sitobion avenae (F.). The life parameters of the aphids at various developmental stages were analyzed using an age–stage two-sex life table to assess the effect of miR-184 agomir on the experimental population. The results indicated that miR-184 agomir had a significant negative effect on four key life parameters, including the intrinsic rate of increase, the finite rate of increase, the net rate of increase, and the mean generation time. The population prediction revealed a substantial reduction (91.81% and 95.88%) in the population size of S. avenae at 60 d after treatment with miR-184 agomir, compared to the control groups. Our findings suggest that the miR-184 agomir has the potential to reduce the survival rate and mean longevity of S. avenae, highlighting its potential as a promising candidate for the development of an effective genetics-based biopesticide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lost Meteorites of Antarctica project was the first UK‐led Antarctic meteorite recovery expedition. The project has successfully confirmed two new high‐density meteorite stranding zones in the Hutichison Icefield and Outer Recovery Icefields areas and investigated the geology of three previously unvisited Antarctic nunataks (Turner Nunatak, Pillinger Nunatak, Halliday Nunatak). The project undertook meteorite searching on the ice surface via skidoo reconnaissance and systematic searching and developed a novel pulse induction metal detection system to search for englacial iron‐rich meteorites trapped within the upper one meter of ice. In total, 121 meteorites have been recovered from the ice surface searching activities, which are now curated in the United Kingdom at the Natural History Museum London and are available for scientific analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burke intervened in a very significant way at various moments in the political history of the England of his time. Although being considered by some commentators to be a utilitarian, in fact, it is Burke's fidelity to the principles of natural law that makes all his political interventions coherent. The aim of this paper is to analyze the subordination of positive law to natural law and original justice in Burke's thought, and we will achieve that by perusing his works through different periods of his career. In order to better understand his position, we will call to the conversation John Locke, from whom he departs, and Francisco de Vitoria, with whom he shares the notion of a society-dependent human nature. From the prophetic views of Burke and Tocqueville about the future, and as a kind of conclusion, we will question if the reference to natural law makes sense in present times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on Zuleika, a young black inhabitant of Roman Londinium, and her uncanny relationship with her various homes and homelands in Evaristo's The Emperor's Babe. It also argues that the novel may provoke a sense of the uncanny in the reader, leading them to question traditional views of classical and British history as "all-white". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With increasing demand for sustainable underground infrastructure and pressure to reduce embodied carbon (EC), microtunneling (MT) has become an increasingly popular trenchless method of installing buried utility tunnels. Life-cycle analyses have shown that trenchless methods cause lower emissions than traditional open-cut construction. However, existing literature specifically considering MT is limited and fails to consider the impact of the entire construction process. In this paper, an approach for calculating the EC of MT is presented. The proposed approach is applied to three recent case histories in the United Kingdom through the development of a bespoke MT EC database in collaboration with industry partners. Total emissions across all three projects (870 m of pipeline) total 1,005 tCO2e. Production of materials and components is shown to account for an average of 68.5% of EC across the three projects, with most of these emissions coming from the key structural materials, namely concrete and steel. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate that the source and production method of steel products have a significant impact on EC. Site activities also make a significant contribution, accounting for an average of 20.5% of total EC. Normalization of the results suggests that MT produces less EC than open-cut pipeline installation and highlighted how increasing drive lengths and reducing the number of shafts can significantly reduce EC. One of the case studies is then used as an example to quantify how the reduction of intermediate launch/reception shafts can reduce overall EC. In this paper, an approach for calculating the embodied carbon (EC) of microtunneling (MT) is presented, defining a scope that will enable fair comparison of future projects. The presented methodology also provides a useful reference for readers to find sources for EC factors. The proposed approach is applied to three recent case histories in the United Kingdom through the development of a bespoke MT EC database in collaboration with industry partners. The presented results provide insights into the EC of MT projects in five key areas: (1) the relative contribution of different materials and different construction phases to overall EC, (2) the sensitivity of EC to the method of steel production, (3) the influence of on-site emissions, (4) the comparison of MT to traditional open-cut pipeline construction, and (5) quantifying the environmental benefits of minimizing the number of shafts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper deals with the short history of the English jury in the modern age. The main goal of the author is completing a historical research and finding the most important features concerning legal institutions of the Anglo-Saxon type of lay jurisdiction in England and Ireland. The historical perspective gives a chance to examine the institutions of the jury as a court of citizens integrated into the jurisdiction of the state for a brief period of time. The author takes the view in several periods from the early 19th century up to the end of the 20th century. It is not the procedure but the organisational rules which are under discussion here with special attention to the conditions which determined the role of the jury as a part of county courts and sessions as well as the central tribunals in London. The literature was collected in the British Library during research intervals to have the opportunity to work from special sources not cited by Central-European scholars yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gambling in British history and the way in which the country has approached this multi-faceted phenomenon may be divided into different moments, each marked by their own social and political attitude in terms of the way in which the activity was perceived socially and how it should be tackled by the government. The following article makes a historical and legal-dogmatic analysis of the various types of legislation, doctrines, and policies on gambling to present, analyze, and catalogue these different moments, exposing the general attitude to the activity at the time, as well as the social, political, and economic shifts that conditioned them and the impact these had on the norms and policies of each era. In the end, we observe that, despite the discrepancies between the legal situation and the social reality of gambling throughout the United Kingdom's history, it is possible to point to three different systems applied to gambling. These are: the prohibitionist system, the restrictive system of social regulation, and the liberal system of economic regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This crucial period saw Britain unsuccessfully pressure Ireland to ease its strict neutrality policy. Garner does not rush to judge the U.K.-U.S. frustration with Irish neutrality policy, nor does she dismiss de Valera's insistence that a strict neutrality policy was essential for the development of an independent Irish identity. Much has been written on Ireland's wartime neutrality, but in I Friends and Enemies i , Karen Garner examines the trilateral relationship between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland during the war. [Extracted from the article]

There is a document from my first book, I Sex and the Family in Colonial India i , that continues to haunt me because it represents an important omission in how I explained sexuality in colonial India. 10 Neeti Nair, "A Historian's Fears", I Indian Express i , June 12, 2021, https://epaper.indianexpress.com/c/61072759; Dinyar Patel in the I New York Times i blog I India Ink i : "In India, History Literally Rots Away", March 20, 2012; "Repairing the Damage at India's National Archives", March 21, 2012; "India's Archives: How Did Things Get This Bad?" In retrospect, I realize that it is not entirely surprising that a legal document is the only trace we have of Elizabeth's life, since death and marriage were two of the few occasions when women in this era appear in the colonial archives of India. [Extracted from the article]

Caroline Elkins' book, "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire," presents a critical examination of the British empire as a civilizing project. Elkins highlights the contradictions between the liberal rhetoric of England's "civilizing mission" and the systemic violence that established and maintained imperial rule. The book traces the development of liberal imperialism from the 1880s to the 1960s, exploring events such as the Boer War, the Amritsar massacre, and the conflicts in Ireland and Palestine. Elkins also discusses the legacy of empire and the ongoing debate over its portrayal, particularly in relation to national identity and attitudes towards minorities. The reviewer notes that while the book focuses on the British experience, it acknowledges that other empires, such as the French and American, have also been marked by violence and contradictions. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines how British imperial historians of the early twentieth century, the zenith of the colonial era, approached the writing of British colonial women into their histories. In the early nineteenth century, hundreds of British women went out to the British colonies in Southeast Asia, yet to date, their stories and experiences have largely been neglected by historians. In general, the nature of the imperial project, with its emphasis on masculinist values of conquest, territorial expansionism and despotic administration, left little scope for the inclusion of women's experiences and contributions in its histories. This article focuses closely on how British historians of the period of high imperialism approached writing about two prominent women, the wives of an imperialist hero, Stamford Raffles. It shows how conventional assumptions about women were entangled with prevailing gendered ideologies, such as the madonna/whore stereotypes, which in turn were enmeshed with notions concerning Orientalism, class and race. The result was a deeply ambivalent portrayal of these colonial women, which awkwardly brought together divergent elements of sexual scandal, wifely devotion, literary achievement, delicate health, career promotion, emotional care taking and judgments about beauty. These positionings tell us more about contemporary cultural discourses than they do about the women themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article summarizes the book "English in the German-Speaking World" by Raymond Hickey. The book discusses the history and influence of the English language in Germany and other German-speaking countries. It contains 19 contributions divided into four parts: The status of English, the transfer of English, areas and characteristics of English, and the perspective beyond Germany. The authors discuss topics such as the status of English as a lingua franca, the influence of English on the German education system, and the role of English in the European Union. The book provides a comprehensive representation of the influence and significance of the English language in the German-speaking region. [Extracted from the article]

The Salters' Hall controversy (1719) was a watershed event in the history of English Dissent. Some historians have interpreted the controversy as an early sign of the theological demise of the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians. Conversely, the controversy has also been used to demonstrate the theological steadfastness of the English Particular Baptists and Congregationalist in the eighteenth century. Yet some of the earliest accounts of the Salters' Hall controversy maintain that the controversy was not about the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather the requirement of subscription to extrabiblical words and phrases. This was the view of the revered divine Edmund Calamy, who refused to be involved in the controversy, even at the potential expense of his reputation. Edward Wallin, a Particular Baptist subscriber at Salters' Hall, held a similar view of the controversy. While some historians acknowledge these accounts, they seem to ultimately doubt their truthfulness. This hesitancy is likely due, in part, to the fact that there were a few anti-Trinitarians among the nonsubscribers at Salters' Hall. Furthermore, the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians did deviate from theological orthodoxy later in the century. However, those who question the motives of the Non-subscribers at Salters' Hall fail to take into account a theologically orthodox, nonsubscribing tradition among the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians found in the writings of Thomas Grantham and Richard Baxter. In sum, one's orthodoxy at Salters' Hall cannot be determined solely on the basis of one's view of subscription. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accurate estimation of the jacking forces likely to be experienced during microtunnelling is a key design concern for the structural capacity of pipe segments, the location of intermediate jacking stations, and the efficacy of the pipe-jacking project itself. This paper presents a Bayesian updating approach for the prediction of jacking forces during microtunnelling. The proposed framework was applied to two pipe-jacking case histories completed in the United Kingdom: a 275-m drive in silt and silty sand, and a 1,237-m drive in mudstone. To benchmark the Bayesian predictions, a classical optimization technique, namely genetic algorithms, is also considered. The results show that predictions of pipe-jacking forces using the prior best estimate of model input parameters provided a significant overprediction of the monitored jacking forces for both drives. This highlights the difficulty of capturing the complex geotechnical conditions during tunnelling within prescriptive design approaches and the importance of robust back-analysis techniques. Bayesian updating was shown to be a very effective option, in which significant improvements in the mean predictions and associated variance of the total jacking force are obtained as more data are acquired from the drive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That Hideous Strength, the third novel of C. S. Lewis's The Space Trilogy, called by its author "a modern fairy-tale for grown-ups", was written at the end of the Second World War; it is set in some indefinable time "after the war". Nevertheless, the culture and history of England plays a significant role in the novel, not only as the source of images and storylines, but also as a topic of scientific research inside the author's world. The characters' attitude towards this topic is meaningful. The cultural and historical context of the novel is complex: we can see there is the legendary history of England (Arthurian tales, Merlin as the legendary person and literary character) and its real history (certain features of English colleges dating back to the Middle Ages, real characters such as Henry Bracton, the famous lawyer of the 13th century, Cromwell, etc.). Both real and legendary histories intertwine in the world of the novel, sometimes within a single paragraph or scene, for example when the narrator speaks of his visit to Bragdon Wood (chapter 1, part 3), where a real historical figure (Bracton), an imaginary locus (the wood) and "the medieval song" of the 14th century made up by Lewis himself are put together, or when Mr. Dimble (chapter 1, part 5) talks about the historical origins of Arthurian legends. It makes the world of the novel multidimensional and atemporal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Theo Farrell's book Unwinnable is a semi-official British Army history of the Afghan war and reflects the 'dominant military narrative'. The book's argument is contradictory, it suggests that NATO was 'learning, adapting and winning' the war but the politicians stabbed the military in the back by withdrawing just as a turning point had been reached in 2009-11. This was Farrell's optimistic analysis when the war was ongoing. But Unwinnable also argues that the war was unwinnable from 2001. This implies that it was the military elite that blundered because of their enthusiasm for the escalation of Britain's involvement in an unwinnable and, therefore, futile war. Unwinnable tries to rescue 'counterinsurgency' by trying to claim, implausibly, that it was only properly implement during 2009-11. Farrell champions the empowerment of the military elite and is unconcerned that the politicians struggled to exert democratic control over the military. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominance of the King James Version (1611) began to fade in the late 19th century, when its language became too remote from standard English, leading to various revisions in both Britain and the United States. However, numerous English translations that are independent of the King James Version tradition and its revisions also emerged, specifically with the goal of producing translations in contemporary, accessible English. This article provides a historical narrative of the Bible translations in English, by focusing on the most important (authoritative, influential, or innovative) translations, independent of the continuing King James Version tradition, in order to explain how and why they were produced. Special attention is paid to the translational context within which the translations are produced, the translation process, and the strategies for rendering the cultural terms of the source texts in contemporary English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims initially to trace back the European carnival celebrations which emerged out only after the mid-twentieth century within the British culture. A cultural phenomenon that has its roots in the festivals of the pre-Christian times, carnival was a series of rituals associated with the arrival of spring at the time. In time it was adopted and appropriated by Christianity in the western world and it thus spread all around Europe as a religious rite. Carnivals opened up a space for unruliness and excess before the period of fasting and abstinence started for Lent. As opposed to the rest of Europe, in Britain carnival could not be established as a tradition, the reason of which remains ambiguous to this day. In this essay, the potential reasons behind this cultural exclusion are laid out and examined with reference to the views and discussions of other scholars. The particular focus of this essay is the possible relations between carnival and the act of masking as masking constitutes one of the most defining aspects of the carnival. As stripping off one's identity by means of performance is essential to both masks and the carnival, it could be argued that these two omissions in the British culture are somehow related. Besides, it is a fact that there has never been an authentic mask tradition in the history of British theatre. This essay tackles the question: can the lack of carnivals in the cultural history of Britain be connected with the lack of an authentic mask tradition there? In answering this question, examples of masking traditions in theatre from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are discussed particularly with regard to the reception of the audiences and authorities. As masking practices were banned in the social arenas by authorities, they seem to have disappeared in the culture. The final part of the essay provides information about the state of carnivals in contemporary Britain. The curious incident of carnivals eventually finding a place in the British culture of the twentieth century is explained through developments regarding immigration, racism and multiculturalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thinking back, it could be argued that Britain was preparing to leave the European Union almost as soon as it joined in 1973. Within two years, opposition to membership led Prime Minister Harold Wilson to call a referendum. The public voted overwhelmingly to stay. But the honeymoon was short-lived. For Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brexit was all about getting sovereignty back. The United Kingdom would take back control of its money, borders, laws and waters. But as the detail of the recent treaty is examined, his claims may turn out to be as vacuous as Chamberlain's 'peace in our time' proclamations. Cracks are already appearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Britain, mindfulness practice has increasingly been incorporated into preventative healthcare as a support for psychological resilience. An awareness practice originating in Buddhism, mindfulness is framed as a scientifically verified way of cultivating a skilful engagement with life to support mental health. What has led to this unprecedented interest in mindfulness? And how have British people come to think of cultivating a kindly relationship with their own minds as a constituent aspect of the "good life"? In this paper, I explore the specifically British history that informs the association between mindfulness and psychological resilience today. I show that the association between psychological resilience and mindfulness practice is the result of broader historical concerns about the nature of modern society and psychology. Taking a genealogical approach, I argue that changing patterns in British psychology and Buddhism, while framed in universalist registers, are constituted in and constitutive of a broader historical and political context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred the Great is, without a doubt, an important figure not only in English history, but also in that of the European Middle Ages. His policies for dealing with the Nordic invasion of England, as well as his cultural, educational and legal reforms, have made this king a revered figure in English intellectual circles, especially in the 19th century. It is striking that, in spite of his popularity, this monarch does not have a more prominent presence within audiovisual media, which is the artistic mass media par excellence of the twentieth and twenty-first century. The objective of the present work is to investigate the historical popularity and audiovisual trajectory of this king, as well as to analyze his representation in the cinema and television productions that have dealt with him. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the different evolution of the English preposition (P) to and the Romanian P la "at/to" which can be observed in the history of English and Romanian ditransitives. In Modern English (ModE), the preposition to can occur in configurations with (i) ditransitive predicates and (b) unaccusative predicates. Within ditransitives, the English to only functions in the prepositional frame and it has a narrow distribution; the to-dative is a genuine Goal or a Recipient with certain verb classes. The first focus of this paper is to investigate the presence of the to-dative in Old English (OldE). The investigation will reveal that the to-dative construction was neither rare nor restricted, but already present in OldE. By way of contrast, Romanian la has a richer distribution (Possessor Goal, Beneficiary, Maleficiary and Source) and it has shifted from a case marker to a [Person] marker and it has moved in the direction of inflectional dative. The second focus of the paper is to investigate the presence of la in OldR. I will show that Romanian la evolved from the Latin P ad; diachronically, Romanian has kept the analytical marking of the Dative which is realized through the P la "at/to". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, scholars have begun to pay attention to the presentation of women in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the main source for the early history of Britain (from the first century BC to the eighth century AD). Vastly different conclusions have been drawn, ranging from positivist approaches which saw the period as a golden age for women to rather more negative assessments, which argue that Bede suppressed the role of women. By analyzing the concept of communicability and relevance of certain nodes in complex networks, we show how Bede's Ecclesiastical History affords women complex and nuanced social roles. In particular, we can show the independent importance of certain abbesses, which is a significant result and challenges much of the existing scholarship on Bede's attitude to female power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital age and recent developments in historical lexicography bring exciting new possibilities for the study of metaphor, in relation to both the scale of analysis and the identification of linguistic and conceptual patterning that was previously hidden from view. This article illustrates this by using the "Metaphor Map of English" to investigate metaphor in the semantic field of moving water. The Metaphor Map offers an unparalleled overview of the place of metaphor in the recorded language history of English and across semantic space, as it takes as its source of data the entire Historical Thesaurus of English, itself largely based on the Oxford English Dictionary. This semantic field (labelled 'Tides, waves and flooding' in the Metaphor Map) is a productive source of metaphor, and has been since the Old English period, and is also, though less commonly, the target of metaphor. It reveals a clear picture of the complex interrelationships between semantic categories and the ripples of metaphor development over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the issue of how successfully have historians made use of the concept of masculinity in relation to the British Atlantic world. It does so in three parts. The first part unfolds the history of the research of masculinity in Great Britain and her North American colonies. The second part presents the key anthropological and sociological concepts: masculinity and masculinities. In the third part, light is shed on historians who used the term(s) when studying the British Atlantic world. The author claims that historians, hitherto, have not used all the sociological tools to its fullest potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the formation of the prefixal and onomasiological category of Negation in Old English, Middle English, Early New English and New English. The work represents basic lexico-semantic groups of verb and noun bases, which actively participate in the formation of the onomasiological category of Negation across different periods in the history of the English. It includes a complex diachronical study of the English prefixal derivatives from the point of view of their word-formation potential within the onomasiological category of Negation. It presents an analysis of the considerable changes in the semantic and onomasiological structures within the frame of the onomasiological category of Negation in the history of the English language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about Elizabeth I and issues of sex, gender, and political power. This article focuses on an underexplored dimension to this debate, Elizabeth's dealings with "scandalous" sexual liaisons among those members of the social and political elite who were her courtiers. For a female sovereign whose own mother had been put to death on charges of treasonous adultery and incest, such affairs were an indicator of the moral tone of her court and an important test of her princely authority. Throughout her reign, Elizabeth responded to these episodes with swift and sometimes harsh punishment. However, the 1590s witnessed a remarkable number of such incidents, which seems to reflect both a marked generational change among Elizabeth's courtiers and a decline in her personal authority as queen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]