Single Tier Research Articles

Exploring Chinese university EFL students’ perceptions of formative assessment: A qualitative study

Formative assessment (FA) has gained increasing prominence in the field of L2 education. However, how L2 students actually perceive FA has remained underexplored, and this is a critical gap because students' perceptions of assessment can exert a significant impact on their approaches to learning and learning outcomes. Situated within a college English course at a single Tier One university in southwestern China, this study investigated students' perceptions of the benefits and challenges of FA. Five major FA activities were integrated into the course, including writing learning journals, clarifying assessment criteria, conducting peer assessment of course essays, conducting self-assessment of course essays, and providing teacher feedback on course essays. These activities were designed on the basis of Black and Wiliam's (2009) framework for effective formative assessment. Adopting a qualitative approach, the researchers collected semi-structured written reflections from 47 students at the end of the course. The study provides insights into the potential of FA in improving EFL students' self-regulation and English language proficiency, as well as enabling students to develop new perspectives on language assessment. It also reveals an array of challenges faced by the EFL students, pertaining to their own characteristics, the assessment tasks, and school and systemic issues.

Exploiting the untapped functional potential of Memento aggregators beyond aggregation

AbstractWeb archives capture, retain, and present historical versions of web pages. Viewing web archives often amounts to a user visiting the Wayback Machine homepage, typing in a URL, then choosing a date and time significant of the capture. Other web archives also capture the web and use Memento as an interoperable point of querying their captures. Memento aggregators are web accessible software packages that allow clients to send requests for past web pages to a single endpoint source that then relays that request to a set of web archives. Though few deployed aggregator instances exist that exhibit this aggregation trait, they all, for the most part, align to a model of serving a request for a URI of an original resource (URI-R) to a client by first querying then aggregating the results of the responses from a collection of web archives. This single tier querying need not be the logical flow of an aggregator, so long as a user can still utilize the aggregator from a single URL. In this paper, we discuss theoretical aggregation models of web archives. We first describe the status quo as the conventional behavior exhibited by an aggregator. We then build on prior work to describe a multi-tiered, structured querying model that may be exhibited by an aggregator. We highlight some potential issues and high-level optimization to ensure efficient aggregation while also extending on the state-of-the-art of memento aggregation. Part of our contribution is the extension of an open-source, user-deployable Memento aggregator to exhibit the capability described in this paper. We also extend a browser extension that typically consults an aggregator to have the ability to aggregate itself rather than needing to consult an external service. A purely client-side, browser-based Memento aggregator is novel to this work.

Optical switching will innovate intra data center networks [Invited Tutorial

Reflecting the recent slow-down in Moore’s law and the proliferation of artificial intelligence/machine learning workloads, the performance and energy consumption of networks are becoming barriers in high-performance computing (HPC) and data centers. Optical switches are expected to break these barriers, and indeed their introduction has recently commenced in data centers. This paper discusses how optical switching technologies can innovate future intra data center networks. Hyperscale data centers are much bigger in scale, and network requirements are slightly different from those of HPC. This paper focus on data center networks, since the impact of optical technologies will be more significant in data centers than in HPC. In addition to the scale issue, important metrics to be considered for network design are traffic characteristics and latency, both of which are highlighted in this paper. For hybrid (electrical packet and optical circuit) switching networks, the target latency for the optical circuit switch network (connection setup/teardown time) is shown to be around 10 µs, and the needed technologies are clarified and verified by experiments. The optical switch can simplify the present multi-tier switching network above tier-1 switches into a single tier configuration, which is possible with the development of efficient large port count optical switches. Among the different switching architectures, combining the different dimensions of space and wavelength is shown to be one of the best solutions. Fast switching needs fast device response time. Si photonics devices using Mach–Zehnder interferometers or ring-resonator-based switches and tunable filters are the most promising candidates; they offer cost-effective mass-production and fast operation and so are excellent candidates for the optical switches envisaged. Another critical technology to maximize the benefits of optical switches is a simple and low-latency control mechanism. Different approaches have been suggested as summarized in this work. Among them, harnessing optical switch parallelism is a unique technique that matches recent advances in electrical switch chips. A fast control network is realized by using a fully decentralized and asynchronous control mechanism. A hyperscale data center offers a wide variety of services, and no one system fits all needs. Optimization of parameters is an important task for maximizing the impact of optical switching in different kinds of data centers.

Identification of opioid use disorder using electronic health records: Beyond diagnostic codes

BackgroundWe used structured and unstructured electronic health record (EHR) data to develop and validate an approach to identify moderate/severe opioid use disorder (OUD) that includes individuals without prescription opioid use or chronic pain, an underrepresented population. MethodsUsing electronic diagnosis grouper text from EHRs of ~1 million patients (2012–2020), we created indicators of OUD—with “tiers” indicating OUD likelihood—combined with OUD medication (MOUD) orders. We developed six sub-algorithms with varying criteria (multiple vs single MOUD orders, multiple vs single tier 1 indicators, tier 2 indicators, tier 3 and 4 indicators). Positive predictive values (PPVs) were calculated based on chart review to determine OUD status and severity. We compared demographic and clinical characteristics of cases identified by the sub-algorithms. ResultsIn total, 14,852 patients met criteria for one of the sub-algorithms. Five sub-algorithms had PPVs ≥0.90 for any severity OUD; four had PPVs ≥0.90 for moderate/severe OUD. Demographic and clinical characteristics differed substantially between groups. Of identified OUD cases, 31.3% had no past opioid analgesic orders, 79.7% lacked evidence of chronic prescription opioid use, and 43.5% lacked a chronic pain diagnosis. DiscussionIncorporating unstructured data with MOUD orders yielded an approach that adequately identified moderate/severe OUD, identified unique demographic and clinical sub-groups, and included individuals without prescription opioid use or chronic pain, whose OUD may stem from illicit opioids. Findings show that incorporating unstructured data strengthens EHR algorithms for identifying OUD and suggests approaches limited to populations with prescription opioid use or chronic pain exclude many individuals with OUD.

Uplink CoMP Transmission for Cellular-Connected UAV Networks

In this letter, we study the coordinated multipoint (CoMP) scheme in the uplink cellular-connected UAV network. By considering the LoS and NLoS components in air-to-ground (A2G) transmission, we adopt the strongest average received signal strength (RSS)-based CoMP scheme. We then develop an analytical framework to evaluate the network performance in terms of coverage probability and area spectral efficiency (ASE) for the case of two cooperative base stations (BSs), followed by an extension to a generalized number of cooperative BSs. Compared to the CoMP scheme with single UAV tier and Non-CoMP baseline, the considered CoMP scheme is able to leverage favored Line-of-Sight (LoS) transmission, lower path loss and BS cooperation gain.

Tiered escalation response systems in practice: A post hoc analysis examining the workload implications

ObjectiveMany rapid response systems now have multiple tiers of escalation in addition to the traditional single tier of a medical emergency team. Given that the benefit to patient outcomes of this change is unclear, we sought to investigate the workload implications of a multitiered system, including the impact of trigger modification. DesignThe study design incorporated a post hoc analysis using a matched case–control dataset. SettingThe study setting was an acute, adult tertiary referral hospital. ParticipantsCases that had an adverse event (cardiac arrest or unanticipated intensive care unit admission) or a rapid response team (RRT) call participated in the study. Controls were matched by age, gender, ward and time of year, and no adverse event or RRT call. Participants were admitted between May 2014 and April 2015. Main outcome measuresThe main outcome measure were the number of reviews, triggers, and modifications across three tiers of escalation; a nurse review, a multidisciplinary review (MDT—admitting medical team review), and an RRT call. ResultsThere were 321 cases and 321 controls. Overall, there were 1948 nurse triggers, of which 1431 (73.5%) were in cases and 517 (26.5%) in controls, 798 MDT triggers (660 [82.7%] in cases and 138 [17.3%] in controls), and 379 RRT triggers (351 [92.6%] in cases and 28 [7.4%] in controls). Per patient per 24 h, there were 3.03 nurse, 1.24 MDT, and 0.59 RRT triggers. Accounting for modifications, this reduced to 2.17, 0.88, and 0.42, respectively. The proportion of triggers that were modified, so as not to trigger a review, was similar across all the tiers, being 28.6% of nurse, 29.6% of MDT, and 28.2% of RRT triggers. Per patient per 24 h, there were 0.61 nurse reviews, 0.52 MDT reviews, and 0.08 RRT reviews. ConclusionsLower-tier triggers were more prevalent, and modifications were common. Modifications significantly mitigated the escalation workload across all tiers of a multitiered system.

Design and analysis of a two-tier stretcher frame

In the current market, commercial aircraft carry stretchers in single tiers. This requires approximately three seat rows to be rendered unusable, which can be costly for airlines, resulting in fewer airlines providing the service. An alternative mode of transport for stretcher bound patients is to travel via air ambulances, which is not only costly, but with distance limitations. In this paper, a solution to this is explored by the introduction of a two-tier stretcher frame, capable of carrying two stretcher bound patients on a selected commercial aviation stretcher. Three conceptual designs are generated and modelled on solidworks. The stress analysis of the design is simulated via Abaqus CAE and validated with theoretical calculations. Furthermore, a design failure modes and effects analysis and cost analysis of the design are carried out. It is concluded that all the requirements identified for the design are met and it is fit for use on the aircraft.

Evaluating Vector Representations of Short Text Data for Automating Recommendations of Maintenance Cases

Nuclear power is a carbon-free source of energy, and features as a key component in the mix of energy towards meeting ambitious decarbonization goals. However, as it currently stands, nuclear power generation is orders of magnitude more expensive when compared to fossil energy sources. Recently, there has been a significant push, by both the US government and the power industry, towards identifying and addressing opportunities for cost reductions in nuclear power generation. While capital costs are being addressed through innovative Smart Modular Reactor (SMR) designs, reductions in Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs is an equally important opportunity. Enhanced methods for remote monitoring and health management-based maintenance optimization has been recognized as a key element for reducing preventive and corrective maintenance costs. Beyond sensor data and signal processing, there is also significant potential for reducing manual efforts and improving productivity in maintenance scheduling and planning activities. By utilizing state-of-the-art Technical Language Processing (TLP) methods to analyze large volumes of historical maintenance case data, there is the potential to automate the generation of maintenance recommendations to reduce human effort and accelerate maintenance processes. This paper presents our efforts towards developing a prescriptive maintenance system that integrates with and enhances state-of-the-art asset performance management software available in the industry. The goal of prescriptive maintenance is to analyze the behavior of an asset, assess its condition, and recommend specific actions to maximize the utility of that asset. Specifically, this work evaluates three approaches of different complexities for vectorization of short-text maintenance case titles for kNN-based recommendation of cases relevant to a new input case title. Industrial text must first be vectorized to build automated and/or machine learning-based prediction and recommendation models. The choice of vectorization methods heavily dictates how the language gets modeled and consequently impacts the performance of downstream prediction and recommendation models. The objective of the nearest neighbor case recommendations is to reduce manual Subject Matter Expert (SME) effort and increase consistency of recommended maintenance actions on industrial assets by reusing actions performed on the identified nearest neighbor cases from past maintenance work. Four models based on three text vectorization approaches are evaluated, quantitatively and qualitatively, using real data from a large variety of utility customers from the energy domain. A single tier (WVEC-1tier) and a three-tier (WVEC-3tier) approach that represent case titles in word-based vector spaces each significantly outperform a more complex bag-of-phrases topic vector space-based approach (TVEC-K-topics). We present our findings and challenges identified so far in building such a recommendation system.

HOSS: Hybrid Object Storage System for Performance Acceleration

In this article, we propose a novel architecture for the object storage system in order to improve PUT object throughput without degrading availability and durability performances. Our proposed architecture resolves networking and/or processing resource bottlenecks of an arbitrary cloud infrastructure by flexibly performing erasure encoding of the object data in the following two tiers: first, application programming interface (API) gateway and second, storage servers. Simulation results demonstrate that our hybrid object storage system increases the PUT object throughput up to 2× compared to the state-of-the-art object storage systems where data encoding is performed in static, i.e., only a single tier among API gateway and storage servers can encode object data.

Robotic Sorting Systems: Performance Estimation and Operating Policies Analysis

Many distribution centers use expensive, conveyor-based sorting systems that require large buildings to house them. In areas with tight space, robotic sorting systems offer a new type of solution to sort parcels by destination. Such systems are highly flexible in throughput capacity and are now gradually being introduced, particularly in express companies. This paper studies robotic sorting system with two layouts. The first layout has two tiers: robots drive on the top tier and sort parcels by destination on spiral conveyors connected to roll containers at the lower tier. The second layout has a single tier with input and output points located at the perimeter, connected by robots. For each layout, we consider both the shortest path topology via dual-lane aisles and the detour path topology via single-lane aisles. We build closed queueing networks for performance estimation, design an iterative procedure to investigate robot congestion in the two-tier layout, and use a traffic flow function to estimate robot congestion in the single-tier layout. Random, closest, dedicated, and shortest-queue robot-to-loading-station assignment rules are examined. We validate analytical models by both simulation and a real case of Deppon Express and analyze the optimal system size and operating policies for throughput capacity and operating cost. The results show that the system throughput capacity is significantly affected by robot congestion in the single-tier layout with the detour path topology, but it is only slightly affected in the other systems. A square layout fits the shortest path and a rectangular layout fits the detour path. Both the random assignment rule and the shortest-queue assignment rule are superior for a large number of robots, whereas the dedicated assignment rule is superior for a small number of robots. We apply these insights at Deppon Express for different allocations in peak and off-peak hours. Our analysis shows that a robotic sorting system typically has lower overall annual cost than a traditional cross-belt sorting system when the required throughput capacity is not too large.

Cascaded Multicore Vapor Chambers for Intrapackage Spreading of High-Power, Heterogeneous Heat Loads

A cascaded multicore vapor chamber (CMVC) is designed for dissipating heat from high-flux hotspots simultaneously with a high-total-power background. Current thermal management strategies rely on spreading high local heat fluxes by conduction in the lid of electronics packages. Embedding vapor chambers (VCs) within the lid is an attractive option to directly address intrapackage hotspots. We investigate the design of intralid VCs, for a generic device having a total heat load of 476 W having a background heat flux of 0.75 W/mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> , with hotspots of 8 W/mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> over a 1-mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> area. A conventional VC design, having a single vapor core, will require a thick evaporator wick to avoid the capillary limit for large total power. The necessity for a thick wick then imposes a large thermal conduction resistance when the VC is exposed to high heat flux hotspots. The proposed CMVC architecture aims to address this limitation. The cascaded architecture comprises a bottom-tier VC having an array of multiple small vapor cores for spreading heat from the small hotspots. These small vapor cores have short paths of liquid return to the evaporator, such that they can handle their footprint heat load while using thin wicks, resulting in a low hotspot thermal resistance. Furthermore, local dampening of the hotspots by the bottom tier then reduces the thermal conduction resistance across the necessarily thick wick in the top tier. Hence, the cascaded architecture has the potential to significantly reduce the overall thermal resistance, relative to a single tier. To substantiate this design rationale, experiments are performed to illustrate that the resistance of a commercial VC can be significantly reduced by interfacing the heat source with an intermediate heat spreader. Reduced-order models are then used to understand the effect of the wick properties (porosity and particle size) and geometric parameters on the thermal performance of the CMVC for the representative power map. The optimal CMVC design offers a thermal resistance (0.66 K/W) that is significantly lower compared to a conventional single-core VC (1.76 K/W) owing to a reduction in the conduction resistances across the internal wicks. That parametric optimization results demonstrate that the thermal resistance of the CMVC is more sensitive to the wick porosity compared to the particle diameter. Furthermore, there exists a wide range of wick properties and vapor core sizes for which near-optimum thermal performance can be attained, which is particularly attractive from the standpoint of flexibility in design and manufacturing.

Two-tier Grading System for NPDR Severities of Diabetic Retinopathy in Retinal Fundus Images

Background: Diabetic Retinopathy is the leading cause of vision impairment and its early stage diagnosis relies on regular monitoring and timely treatment for anomalies exhibiting subtle distinction among different severity grades. The existing Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) detection approaches are subjective, laborious and time consuming which can only be carried out by skilled professionals. All the patents related to DR detection and diagnoses applicable for our research problem were revised by the authors. The major limitation in classification of severities lies in poor discrimination between actual lesions, background noise and other anatomical structures. Methods: A robust and computationally efficient Two-Tier DR (2TDR) grading system is proposed in this paper to categorize various DR severities (mild, moderate and severe) present in retinal fundus images. In the proposed 2TDR grading system, input fundus image is subjected to background segmentation and the foreground fundus image is used for anomaly identification followed by GLCM feature extraction forming an image feature set. The novelty of our model lies in the exhaustive statistical analysis of extracted feature set to obtain optimal reduced image feature set employed further for classification. Results: Classification outcomes are obtained for both extracted as well as reduced feature set to validate the significance of statistical analysis in severity classification and grading. For single tier classification stage, the proposed system achieves an overall accuracy of 100% by k- Nearest Neighbour (kNN) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) classifier. In second tier classification stage, an overall accuracy of 95.3% with kNN and 98.0% with ANN is achieved for all stages utilizing optimal reduced feature set. Conclusion:: 2TDR system demonstrates overall improvement in classification performance by 2% and 6% for kNN and ANN respectively after feature set reduction, and also outperforms the accuracy obtained by other state of the art methods when applied to the MESSIDOR dataset. This application oriented work aids in accurate DR classification for effective diagnosis and timely treatment of severe retinal ailment.

On Single and Two-Tiered Approaches to Control

In his most recent work, Landau suggests that control in impersonal passive constructions is cross-linguistically limited to attitude verbs and argues that this universal restriction offers convincing support for his two-tiered theory of control (TTC) over his earlier “single tier” Agree-based model. This paper further examines sentences involving control and passivization and argues that improved empirical coverage is achieved in this area by a single-tier Agree approach to control, one fundamentally different from Landau’s earlier analysis in its extension to control Reuland’s proposals reducing binding phenomena to Agree.

Area-Efficient Extended 3-D Inductor Based on TSV Technology for RF Applications

An extended model of through-silicon via (TSV)-based solenoid inductor is proposed to save on-chip areas for 3-D radio frequency (RF) ICs and package integration. To achieve a high inductance density, the nested topology consists of high-density TSVs in high-resistivity silicon substrate and multilayers of metals in compatible CMOS process. Then, an analytical inductance model, considering the mutual inductance of TSVs and complicated metal traces, is established and verified. The inductance variation in physical dimensions is studied based on the modeled and simulated results of a TSV solenoid inductor in single tier. The proposed TSV solenoid typology gets better performance at inductance density and quality factor around some frequencies through analytical model and full-wave simulations. Further studies are directed toward RF application overview according to broadband and low power consumption.

Developing a framework for adopting environmental manufacturing practices: learning from breweries

There is a growing desire to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing operations through implementing new practices. There is a reasonable literature on environmental practices and the benefits they can bring. However, the literature is weak in two respects: firstly, it is heavily reliant on practices of leading firms; secondly, there is little focus on understanding the conditions that foster the adoption of such practices. This paper addresses these shortfalls by presenting evidence of how any firm can start to improve their resource efficiency using new practices. Studying organizations with similar market conditions and production systems allows us to look at a breadth of firms in a single supply chain tier, with a range of environmental maturity. A grounded approach employing interviews, workshops and observation uncovers the conditions that help and hinder adoption of new ways of working. Specifically, the motivations for cost reduction through resource efficiency, aided by communities of practice but hindered by organisational barriers. Combining this with learning from theory, this paper advances environmental practice in manufacturing through learning from the experiences of UK brewers. The work contributes to knowledge by framing how companies of all shapes and sizes within a sector (not just the leading companies) can advance by adopting practices and avoiding barriers.

Abnormalities on Perfusion CT and Intervention for Intracranial Hypertension in Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.

The role of invasive intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring in patients with severe traumatic brain injury (STBI) remain unclear. Perfusion computed tomography (CTP) provides crucial information about the cerebral perfusion status in these patients. We hypothesised that CTP abnormalities would be associated with the severity of intracranial hypertension (ICH). To investigate this hypothesis, twenty-eight patients with STBI and ICP monitors were investigated with CTP within 48 h from admission. Treating teams were blind to these results. Patients were divided into five groups based on increasing intervention required to control ICH and were compared. Group I required no intervention above routine sedation, group II required a single first tier intervention, group III required multiple different first-tier interventions, group IV required second-tier medical therapy and group V required second-tier surgical therapy. Analysis of the results showed demographics and injury severity did not differ among groups. In group I no patients showed CTP abnormality, while patients in all other groups had abnormal CTP (p = 0.003). Severe ischaemia observed on CTP was associated with increasing intervention for ICH. This study, although limited by small sample size, suggests that CTP abnormalities are associated with the need to intervene for ICH. Larger scale assessment of our results is warranted to potentially avoid unnecessary invasive procedures in head injury patients.

The Legitimation of Planning Processes as a Challenge to Metropolitan Governance

This study identifies three types of legitimation from the literature that can be applied within metropolitan governance in the contested sphere of spatial planning: input legitimation, throughput legitimation, and output legitimation. The reason for discussing different forms of legitimation within metropolitan governance is that, globally, only a relatively few metropolitan regions are governed directly through a single elected tier of government such as a regional council. Thus, governance mechanisms in most metropolitan regions involve some form of joint working or cross border governance initiatives that have to be legitimized in the absence of a single overarching elected council covering the whole metropolitan area. The main question discussed in this paper is, therefore, whether all three types of legitimation identified are utilized to legitimize governance mechanisms at the metropolitan scale with a specific focus—as a core part of metropolitan governance—on spatial planning processes and projects. In conceptual terms, our typology structures fuzzy lines of legitimation across the three (the “how”, “who” and “what”) suggested aspects of metropolitan governance in the literature. From this point, we draw on cross-case reviews of variables involved in the design, application, and outcome of input, throughput, and output legitimation in Germany and England, chosen because neither has a formal tier of metropolitan-wide government despite their differences in terms of their highly regionalised and highly centralised national government contexts respectively. This relational methodology helps us to learn about the contextual dynamics of how the three types of legitimation might reinforce one another in different international settings, leading to the overall conclusion that they will work best in combination, although output legitimation has a distinctive capacity to work in less formal settings.

UAV-Assisted Networks Through a Tunable Dependent Model

In existing works of performance analysis of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assisted networks, the location dependence between macro base stations (MBSs) and UAVs has not been considered. Considering UAV's particular agility, this letter proposes a tunable model for dependent deployment, and analyzes the performance of the setup via stochastic geometry. Specifically, to avoid the strong mutual interference between UAVs and MBSs, UAVs are only deployed in the macro cell boundaries, of which area fraction can be adjusted. In addition, we obtain a lower bound on the coverage probabilities (CPs) of MBS users and CP expression of UAV users. The results show that the CPs of UAV users in cell boundaries are significantly increased about 51% by the selective addition of UAVs, when signal to interference ratio (SIR) threshold equals 0dB, compared with the scenario of a single MBS tier network.

Buckling severity measurement of axially compressed cylindrical structures with periodic buckling pattern

We introduced a simplified method to measure the buckling severity of the cylindrical structures subjected to axial compression. The method is intended for the cylindrical structures with a buckling mode comprising a repetition of similar single tiers, and estimates an upper bound of the deformed surface shape of the structure from measurements of a few data points. Moreover, this method helps monitor the magnitude of surface distortion of the large-sized buckled cylindrical structures with full-field surface shapes that are usually problematic for measurement. The discussion of classical buckling theory reveals that the point-to-point variation of radial displacements on cylindrical structures with periodic buckling pattern is similarly distributed even when the buckling mode changes depending on the structure’s size. A fundamental probability distribution model governing the point-to-point variation of the radial displacements is established from the results. A computation procedure for the conservative upper bound (CUB) of radial displacements from measurements at a few data points is proposed. A buckling experiment on cylindrical structures under axial compression demonstrated that the CUB from the proposed method appropriately envelopes the radial displacement of the buckled cylindrical structure within a designated probability, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed method. The study offers a novel method to compute the magnitude of the surface distortion of buckled cylindrical structures from a few measurements.

Jane Austen Goes to Drury Lane: Identifying Individuals in a Late Georgian Audience

This essay identifies the theatre box where the novelist, Jane Austen (1775–1817), sat in 1814 to watch Edmund Kean in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. The Folger Shakespeare Library’s Drury Lane Box Book enables calendar analysis of box occupancy with names, titles and, occasionally, addresses. Critical practice has tended to treat audiences as undifferentiated groups. Assemblage theory makes it possible to conceptualise individuals in audiences as equivalent to audiences in their entirety. Sitting in the same box as Austen was Lady Cecil Copley (1770–1819), the divorced 1st Marchioness of Abercorn. Amongst the other boxes were parties formed by wives of army and naval personnel and a British consul to Brazil. A few boxes away sat Jane Akers, née Ramsay (1772–1842), the wife of a St Kitts slave owner. Akers later claimed compensation under the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act. That weekend Austen had with her the manuscript of Mansfield Park (1814), a novel recognised as a critique of a fictional parkland estate sustained by slavery. Given the steep cultural differentials evident in this single box tier, it is argued theatrical performance, even in Kean’s re-evaluation of Shylock, may have been only tangential in altering the behaviour of that night’s audience.