Streets Of London Research Articles

Interdependent energy relationships between buildings at the street scale

ABSTRACTRegulated energy loads of buildings are typically explored at the scale of individual buildings, often in isolated (and idealized) circumstances. By comparison, little research currently exists on the performance of building groups that accounts for the interactions between buildings. Consequently, the energy efficiency (or penalty) of different urban configurations (such as a city street) is overlooked. The present paper examines the energy demand of a city street in London, UK, which is comprised of typical office buildings with internal energy gains associated with daytime occupancy. Simulations are performed for office buildings placed in urban canyons that are defined by the ratio of building height (H) to street width (W). The results show the annual energy demand is dominated by the cooling load, which can be significantly reduced through street design that provides shading by increasing H/W. However, the ‘best’ street design for modern office buildings may be incompatible with that for residences or, for that matter, outdoor climates.

Dionysus Meets the Caribbean: A Study of London Notting Hill Carnival in the Light of Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners

Samuel Selvon’s iconic novel The Lonely Londoners (1956) captures the struggles of black Caribbean immigrants in the eponymous megacity. The setting of his novel is around the neighborhood of Notting Hill which has become synonymous with the Notting Hill Carnival that takes place in London every summer. This extravaganza, though has financial benefits for its participants, is an opportunity of social inclusion for the immigrants and subversion of British authority. This paper will trace the historical background of the London Notting Hill Carnival and the role of its main organizers, the Caribbean immigrants, in the light of Selvon’s novel which is based on fictional representations of this marginalized group. In doing so, the paper will refer to Richard Lehan’s argument of how the marginalized embody the Dionysian spirit in urban spaces, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical explanation of the age-old conflict between rationality and sensuality symbolized by the Apollonian and Dionysian myths in Western tradition. The purpose of this paper is to show how the black Caribbean immigrants of Selvon’s work embody the spirit of Dionysius in this modern-day Bacchanalia which takes place on the streets of London, and in extension, make an argument for the contribution of all marginalized immigrants in the repressed but vital spirit of Dionysus in the city.

Why topology matters in predicting human activities

Geographic space is better understood through the topological relationship of the underlying streets (note: entire streets rather than street segments), which enables us to see scaling or fractal or living structure of far more less-connected streets than well-connected ones. It is this underlying scaling structure that makes human activities predictable, albeit in the sense of collective rather than individual human moving behavior. This topological analysis has not yet received its deserved attention in the literature, as many researchers continue to rely on segment analysis for predicting human activities. The segment analysis-based methods are essentially geometric, with a focus on geometric details of locations, lengths, and directions, and are unable to reveal the scaling property, which means they cannot be used for the prediction of human activities. We conducted a series of case studies using London streets and tweet location data, based on related concepts such as natural streets, and natural street segments (or street segments for short), axial lines, and axial line segments (or line segments for short). We found that natural streets are the best representation in terms of human activities or traffic prediction, followed by axial lines, and that neither street segments nor line segments bear a good correlation between network parameters and tweet locations. These findings point to the fact that the reason why space syntax based on axial lines, or the kind of topological analysis in general, works has little to do with individual human travel behavior or ways that humans conceptualize distances or spaces. Instead, it is the underlying scaling hierarchy of streets – numerous least-connected, a very few most-connected, and some in between the least- and most-connected – that makes human activities predictable.

Urban Interventions in a Global City: Dissensus, Consensus and Ambivalence in The Streets of London

In this article I analyze urban interventions as communicative practices that can become visual “scenes of dissensus”, i.e. political disruptions made by emerging voices. In three of the cases I present, activists use a variety of tactics and techniques to make their claims be seen on the surfaces of the city. These actions can generate diverse meanings and have different impacts. One of the cases confirmsthat corporate discourses can appropriate urban interventions, showing that important contemporary urban expressions such as graffiti and street art might turn into consensus, as part of the increasing phenomenon of the commodification of urban space. I will conclude by stressing the importance of approaching urban interventions as creative practices that reflect and (re)produce the movement, the complexity, the ambivalence, and the contradictions that are inherent to everyday life in global cities.

Seamus O’Fawkes and other characters

On 8 March 1973, the violence of Belfast spread to the streets of London as the IRA launched their bombing campaign in England. This article examines the cartoon coverage of IRA bomb attacks on English cities published in the British press during the early 1970s. By investigating political cartoons from leading national newspapers, this article sheds new light on reactions to the violence and explores how this affected the lived experiences of the Irish in Britain. It highlights how newspapers used symbols of Britishness and WWII iconography to (re)construct an imagined British community in the face of the IRA threat. The cartoons also indicate a more ambiguous image of the Irish in Britain, one of both harbourers and victims of terrorists. This focus on pictorial representations reveals the complexity of press attitudes towards IRA bombings as the humour inherent in cartoons enables them to allude to ideas journalists could not.

Discussing the impact of air pollution on heart disease

Discussing the impact of air pollution on heart disease

Pollution Exposure Counteracts Exercise Benefits: Exercise in Green Spaces, Pollution Reductions Recommended.

Consistent evidence shows that exposure to air pollution contributes to heart disease. A recent study published in the Lancet adds a few new wrinkles to the storyline. The authors found that high levels of air pollution dampen the benefits of exercise for healthy individuals and people with heart disease. This new study suggests that where someone exercises may affect how much of a benefit they receive. In the randomized, crossover study, scientists compared the physiological effects of a 2-hour stroll along a traffic-congested London street or in the city’s leafy Hyde Park. The 135 participants included 40 healthy individuals, 40 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 39 patients with ischemic heart disease. Researchers measured air pollution in real time in both settings. Benefits seen while walking in the cleaner environment in terms of pulmonary function and pulse wave velocity were significantly attenuated when walking in more polluted environments. Cardiovascular medications may offer some protection against the ill effects of air pollution. Furthermore, even healthy individuals benefit more from exercise in areas with cleaner air. Although the primary finding is unsurprising, the study adds some academic rigor to commonsense advice. “It suggests avoiding areas of high pollution to fully reveal the benefits of walking and exercise,” …

EDITORIAL

Thirty years ago on a London street, an excited young teenager stood in a queue the likes of which he had never previously seen. The wait, however, was worth it, for the reward was the opportunity to see a small detachment of warriors from the Terracotta Army on their first visit to the city. For this particular young archaeologist, it was a glimpse of a foreign civilisation that made the local Roman ruins look desperately provincial by comparison. But it was not just I who was impressed; public interest in the event was extraordinary. With hindsight, it is easy to overlook the novelty that the warriors represented at that time. Fewer than 15 years had passed between the discovery of an army guarding the tomb of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang, large-scale excavations at the mausoleum complex and its inscription as a World Heritage Site, and the arrival of the exhibition in London at the start of an endless global tour as the new face (or faces) of Chinese cultural heritage.

MP40-18 TITLE: PIRADS 3 RADIOLOGIC “GREY ZONE” - WHAT PROPORTION OF MEN WHO HAVE PIRADS 3 LESIONS REPORTED ON MP-MRI HAVE PROSTATE CANCER?

You have accessJournal of UrologyProstate Cancer: Detection & Screening III1 Apr 2018MP40-18 TITLE: PIRADS 3 RADIOLOGIC “GREY ZONE” - WHAT PROPORTION OF MEN WHO HAVE PIRADS 3 LESIONS REPORTED ON MP-MRI HAVE PROSTATE CANCER? Daniel Costello, Paul Cathcart, Cameron Parkin, Mark Frydenberg, Daniel Moon, Justin Peters, Oussama El Hage, Ben Challacombe, and Anthony Costello Daniel CostelloDaniel Costello More articles by this author , Paul CathcartPaul Cathcart More articles by this author , Cameron ParkinCameron Parkin More articles by this author , Mark FrydenbergMark Frydenberg More articles by this author , Daniel MoonDaniel Moon More articles by this author , Justin PetersJustin Peters More articles by this author , Oussama El HageOussama El Hage More articles by this author , Ben ChallacombeBen Challacombe More articles by this author , and Anthony CostelloAnthony Costello More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2018.02.1285AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Multiparametric MRI (MP-MRI) of the prostate is used regularly in evaluation prior to prostate cancer biopsy. MRI can identify targetable areas in the prostate for biopsy to enhance diagnostic yield. A risk grading scale PIRADS I & II has superseded the Likert scale assessment for imaging prostatic abnormality suggestive of cancer. A scale of PIRADS 1 to 5 is used and the higher the PIRADS score the more likely that the abnormality on MRI harbours significant cancer. Uncertainty exists with management of men with PIRADS 3 scores, which represent radiographic lesions where the presence of clinically significant cancer is equivocal. Does a report of PIRADS 3 mandate a prostate biopsy? What is the likelihood of a significant cancer diagnosis if PIRADS 3 is identified? As a rider to this quandary what is the most appropriate definition of significant prostate cancer? Some authors (PROMIS) discount low volume Gleason 3 + 4 cancer as clinically significant and suggest those men are appropriate for an active surveillance program. Some Gleason 3 + 4 cancers do not have MRI identifiable abnormality. Some 3 + 4 disease however, harbours lethal phenotype. METHODS 2767 prostate MP-MRIs performed on men presenting with elevated PSAs at Guys and St Thomas Hospital London and Melbourne Bridge Road Radiology between 2014 and 2017 were reviewed (856 from London, 1911 from Melbourne). We identified 196 patients with a PIRADS 3 abnormality with confirmatory histology on prostate biopsy. Data obtained:- PSA density.- Demographic data.- Prostate biopsy result (transrectal or transperineal route) with maximum cancer core length and gleason grade. RESULTS - 196 men (104 London, 92 Melbourne) with PIRADS 3 scores underwent prostate biopsy from 2005 - 2017.- Mean PSA 6.67 ng/ml (7.12 ng/ml London, 6.16 ng/ml Melbourne).- Mean prostate volume 43.41 cc assessed by MRI (40.58 cc London, 46.61 cc Melbourne).- Mean PSA density 0.19 ng/ml/cc (0.22 ng/ml/cc London, 0.16 ng/ml/cc Melbourne).- Mean maximum cancer core length 4.3mm (3.1 mm London, 5.5 mm Melbourne).- Biopsy results detailed in table 1. CONCLUSIONS It would seem prudent with our present knowledge to consider biopsy for all men with a PIRADS 3 report. The significance of gleason 3 + 4 disease on biopsy needs further assessment. © 2018FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 199Issue 4SApril 2018Page: e526 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2018MetricsAuthor Information Daniel Costello More articles by this author Paul Cathcart More articles by this author Cameron Parkin More articles by this author Mark Frydenberg More articles by this author Daniel Moon More articles by this author Justin Peters More articles by this author Oussama El Hage More articles by this author Ben Challacombe More articles by this author Anthony Costello More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...

Trends of atmospheric black carbon concentration over the United Kingdom

The continuous observations over a period of 7 years (2009–2016) available at 7 locations show declining trend of atmospheric BC in the UK. Among all the locations, the highest decrease of 8 ± 3 percent per year was observed at the Marylebone road in London. The detailed analysis performed at 21 locations during 2009–2011 shows that average annual mean atmospheric BC concentration were 0.45 ± 0.10, 1.47 ± 0.58, 1.34 ± 0.31, 1.83 ± 0.46 and 9.72 ± 0.78 μgm−3 at rural, suburban, urban background, urban centre and kerbside sites respectively. Around 1 μgm−3 of atmospheric BC could be attributed to urban emission, whereas traffic contributed up to 8 μg m−3 of atmospheric BC near busy roads. Seasonal pattern was also observed at all locations except rural and kerbside location, with maximum concentrations (1.2–4 μgm−3) in winter. Further, minimum concentrations (0.3–1.2 μgm−3) were observed in summer and similar concentrations in spring and fall. At suburban and urban background locations, similar diurnal pattern were observed with atmospheric BC concentration peaks (≈1.8 μg m−3) in the morning (around 9 a.m.) and evening (7–9 p.m.) rush hours, whereas minimum concentrations were during late night hours (peak at 5 a.m.) and the afternoon hours (peak at 2 p.m.). The urban centre values show a similar morning pattern (peak at 9 a.m.; concentration - 2.5 μgm−3) in relation to background locations but only a slight decrease in concentration in the afternoon which remained above 2 μgm−3 till midnight. It is concluded that the higher flow of traffic at urban centre locations results in higher atmospheric BC concentrations throughout the day. Comparison of weekday and weekend daily averaged atmospheric BC showed maximum concentrations on Friday, having minimum levels on Sunday. This study will help to refine the atmospheric BC emission inventories and provide data for air pollution and climate change models evaluation, which are used to formulate air pollution mitigation policies.

Victorian Dogs, Victorian Men: Affect and Animals in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture by Keridiana W. Chez

Reviewed by: Victorian Dogs, Victorian Men: Affect and Animals in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture by Keridiana W. Chez Emily Bell Keridiana W. Chez. Victorian Dogs, Victorian Men: Affect and Animals in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2017. Pp. 212. $69.95. Our relationship with animals, Keridiana W. Chez suggests, poses "the ethical problem of our age" (153), invested as we are in pets as emotional tools for human wellbeing. Modern anxieties around animal sentience, their experience of pain, and the rights they should have are traced back to the nineteenth century in this compelling study of human-dog relations in the Victorian period. Chez draws on the central concerns of Animal Studies (the difficulty of representing animals as more than symbolic, or mirrors of our own humanity, rather than as fully realized individuals – and what exactly recognizing that individuality means, when we can only ever convey animality in human terms) in arguing that the Victorian dog acted [End Page 164] as an emotional "prosthesis." Through a series of chapters tightly focused on English and American novels of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, she traces a shift in human-dog relations in the Victorian period that laid the groundwork for many of today's anxieties around man's best friend. At the beginning of the Victorian period dogs were agents of the working-class, used to draw carts and run on treadmills. By the end of the century, they "posed for portraits, wore boots, rode on carriages, and left cartes de visite at their neighbor's homes" (1). This movement from working-class to bourgeoisie, from useful to useless, from physical labor to emotional, is central to Chez's work. This positing of the dog as emotional prosthesis emphasizes the intimacy with the Other at play in the various representations explored in this study. The chapters chart a movement from pets as connecting family members together, to the dog as a specifically masculine tool used to demonstrate its owner's humanity. Fears around dogs' capacity for rebellion then arose, culminating in the belief that the "ideal" pet was one who was wild, tamed only by a "worthy" owner. Chez's argument is based on a close reading of Victorian novels chosen to illustrate the role dogs play in the lives of families. Her thesis challenges the understanding of Victorians as repressing and restraining emotion, instead suggesting that the concern was how best to deal with a lack of emotion in a changing, anxiety-inducing world. This concern was partly addressed through human relationships with canine companions. The first chapter focuses on family relationships in David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, using the common Victorian image of "happy families" (animals trained to cohabit peacefully rather than act as predator and prey) as a framework. These happy families, seen in zoos and circuses, often included dogs who kept the peace in such unnatural groupings through their playfulness. Chez argues that dogs in Dickens serve a similar function: David Copperfield's Jip and Oliver Twist's Bulls-Eye both belong to unhappy families but work to create affective bonds between family members. In David Copperfield, Jip's bad behavior is a sign that things are fundamentally wrong within the family. David's problematic treatment of Dora is mirrored in her treatment of Jip: David buys his wife a cookery book to train her to be a better homemaker, and she in turn uses it to train Jip to perform tricks. In Oliver Twist, Bulls-Eye is aligned with Sikes, but also with Nancy: the dog is a victim of Sikes's abuse, just as she is. Bulls-Eye's death mirrors his master's, but in leading the mob to the guilty man Bulls-Eye is also an extension of the accusatory eyes of the dead woman, pursuing Sikes through the London streets. Chapter 2 charts a shift to dogs as personal prosthesis rather than family-oriented, exploring George Eliot's Adam Bede and Middlemarch. Chez suggests that Adam's dog Gyp is key to his moral development, centering on [End Page 165] interactions between Adam, his mother Lisbeth and the dog. In Middlemarch, by contrast, it is Dorothea...

Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution and the British Labour Movement by Geoffrey Bell

Reviewed by: Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution and the British Labour Movement by Geoffrey Bell Patrick Smylie Geoffrey Bell, Hesitant Comrades: The Irish Revolution and the British Labour Movement (London, Pluto Press 2016) Mainly focusing on the period between the 1916 Easter Rising and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, this is one of a spate of books concerned with the Irish revolution one hundred years on. The book is unique in that it cogently analyses the response of the British left to the revolution, rather than the participants in Ireland or the British government. It partly follows on from the author's earlier works (also published by Pluto) including The Protestants of Ulster (1976) and Troublesome Business: The Labour Party and the Irish Question (1982). These works along with The British in Ireland: A Suitable Case for a Withdrawal (1984) were probably shaped by Bell's socialist activism during the recent "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Hesitant Comrades, based on a PhD, is less polemical. Bell's prologue begins with an account of Trafalgar Square's "Bloody Sunday" of November 1887, a demonstration against British coercion in Ireland ending with violence on London streets, to introduce "the history of British radicalism identifying with the cause of Ireland." (x) The opening chapter discusses the Rising's gestation and the unsympathetic response of the British left, exemplified by the Socialist Labour Party's failure to provide an obituary for James Connolly, a former prominent member, following his execution. A further contextual chapter outlines Sinn Féin's electoral eclipsing of the Home Rule Party on a republican platform, and it places the increasingly deadly "Irish Question" in the context of the Russian Revolution, growing working-class consciousness, and industrial militancy in Britain. Subsequent thematic chapters provide a detailed account of the British left's hesitant response to the tumultuous events in Ireland. Bell devotes two chapters to the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress (tuc), while "Alternatives" deals with Communists, Fabians, and the Independent Labour Party. Other chapters incorporate "voices from below" or workers' perspectives; address contemporary debates about how socialists should respond to Irish nationalism, the Ulster question, and the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ultimately recognized the partition of Ireland. Hesitant Comrades emphasizes that the labour movement was critical of government policy and Bell disassociates it "from Britain's side in the Irish War of Independence. This was not their war." [End Page 300] (216) Nevertheless, Bell's main argument is that whilst large sections of the British working class were disturbed by their government's treatment of Ireland, the labour movement, with a few exceptions, failed even to attempt to provide leadership that could give voice to this sentiment. Rather, equivocation, confusion, and ultimately a disinclination actively to support Irish independence typified attitudes and approaches. Why? Bell convincingly points to ambivalence about the utility of Irish nationalism, limited comprehension of Irish complexities, and a strong desire that the issue would simply disappear. The Labour Party did actually move from support for Home Rule to advocating unconditional Irish self-determination. However, in 1920, the party's Executive backed away from the idea, since independence would make Ireland a military or naval menace to Great Britain. As Bell points out the "implication was that if the potential Irish 'menace' was not sorted out Labour would oppose any settlement." (72) This imperialist thinking had a left-wing corollary in the idea that since the Irish revolution was not "socialist," it deserved only qualified support. One communist organ observed that the "nationalist aspirations of the Irish workers … are dangerous illusions" (112) and Bell notes that leading Bolsheviks felt obliged to rebuke their British comrades for such sentiments. Bell outlines how discontinuity carried over into thinking on the "Ulster Question." Arguments for the region's exclusion from a Home Rule settlement, most forcibly made by the "reactionary" figure of Sir Edward Carson, were deemed as economic in basis by the British left and supportive Ulster protestant workers were the dupes of Belfast's capitalists. There was in fact little understanding of Ulster worker mentalities, and when anti-Catholic violence was brought to the attention of the tuc, their response was feeble. In 1920...

T. S. Eliot’s Poetics in Urban Alienation of Cityscape

This essay attempts to redefine the value of Romantic solitude in William Wordsworth’ works, contrasting rural landscape and cityscape. Romantic solitude disappears in T. S. Eliot’s poems such as “Rhapsody on a Windy Night,” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and The Waste Land in which “solitude” is replaced with modern urban alienation. A daytime rural landscape gives us not sadness but a spiritual pleasure by virtue of solitude while a nighttime cityscape makes us feel alienated from the environment; to the extent that Romantic solitude comes from nature, modern urban alienation is brought out by cityscape. This essay explores how landscape produces the solitude and cityscape leads us to the alienation in terms of Romantic and modern poetics, contrasting Eliot’s and William Wordsworth’s works. The former portrays the speaker as a wanderer in the streets of London or Paris and the latter lets the speaker observe and meditate on the landscape. Whether or not both poets succeed in describing alienation or solitude, they attempt to reflect their mind-scape with rural or urban environment. Modern urban people suffer from spiritual instability, showing us physical mobility. Modern citizens’ alienation reflects spiritually bereft individuals, who can feel only the sense of emptiness and ennui in the cityscape.

Respiratory and cardiovascular responses to walking down a traffic-polluted road compared with walking in a traffic-free area in participants aged 60 years and older with chronic lung or heart disease and age-matched healthy controls: a randomised, crossover study

SummaryBackgroundLong-term exposure to pollution can lead to an increase in the rate of decline of lung function, especially in older individuals and in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), whereas shorter-term exposure at higher pollution levels has been implicated in causing excess deaths from ischaemic heart disease and exacerbations of COPD. We aimed to assess the effects on respiratory and cardiovascular responses of walking down a busy street with high levels of pollution compared with walking in a traffic-free area with lower pollution levels in older adults.MethodsIn this randomised, crossover study, we recruited men and women aged 60 years and older with angiographically proven stable ischaemic heart disease or stage 2 Global initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) COPD who had been clinically stable for 6 months, and age-matched healthy volunteers. Individuals with ischaemic heart disease or COPD were recruited from existing databases or outpatient respiratory and cardiology clinics at the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and age-matched healthy volunteers using advertising and existing databases. All participants had abstained from smoking for at least 12 months and medications were taken as recommended by participants' doctors during the study. Participants were randomly assigned by drawing numbered disks at random from a bag to do a 2 h walk either along a commercial street in London (Oxford Street) or in an urban park (Hyde Park). Baseline measurements of participants were taken before the walk in the hospital laboratory. During each walk session, black carbon, particulate matter (PM) concentrations, ultrafine particles, and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations were measured.FindingsBetween October, 2012, and June, 2014, we screened 135 participants, of whom 40 healthy volunteers, 40 individuals with COPD, and 39 with ischaemic heart disease were recruited. Concentrations of black carbon, NO2, PM10, PM2.5, and ultrafine particles were higher on Oxford Street than in Hyde Park. Participants with COPD reported more cough (odds ratio [OR] 1·95, 95% CI 0·96–3·95; p<0·1), sputum (3·15, 1·39–7·13; p<0·05), shortness of breath (1·86, 0·97–3·57; p<0·1), and wheeze (4·00, 1·52–10·50; p<0·05) after walking down Oxford Street compared with Hyde Park. In all participants, irrespective of their disease status, walking in Hyde Park led to an increase in lung function (forced expiratory volume in the first second [FEV1] and forced vital capacity [FVC]) and a decrease in pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation index up to 26 h after the walk. By contrast, these beneficial responses were attenuated after walking on Oxford Street. In participants with COPD, a reduction in FEV1 and FVC, and an increase in R5–20 were associated with an increase in during-walk exposure to NO2, ultrafine particles and PM2.5, and an increase in PWV and augmentation index with NO2 and ultrafine particles. In healthy volunteers, PWV and augmentation index were associated both with black carbon and ultrafine particles.InterpretationShort-term exposure to traffic pollution prevents the beneficial cardiopulmonary effects of walking in people with COPD, ischaemic heart disease, and those free from chronic cardiopulmonary diseases. Medication use might reduce the adverse effects of air pollution in individuals with ischaemic heart disease. Policies should aim to control ambient levels of air pollution along busy streets in view of these negative health effects.FundingBritish Heart Foundation.

Impact of London's road traffic air and noise pollution on birth weight: retrospective population based cohort study

Objective To investigate the relation between exposure to both air and noise pollution from road traffic and birth weight outcomes.Design Retrospective population based cohort study.Setting Greater London and surrounding counties...

Bernard Shaw, W.T. Stead, and the New Journalism: Whitechapel, Parnell, Titanic, and the Great War

Bernard Shaw, W.T. Stead, and the New Journalism: Whitechapel, Parnell, Titanic, and the Great War

Before Infrastructure: The Poetics of Paving in John Gay's Trivia

Infrastructuralism denotes an emerging field of critical inquiry dedicated to understanding the facilities, equipment, and personnel that deliver civilization's most basic amenities, including water, light, heat, waste disposal, and transportation. How did writers portray infrastructure before it became a word and concept? In his 1716 mock-georgic poem Trivia; or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London, John Gay depicted one element of eighteenth-century society's built underpinnings, the street, as an assemblage of decaying but reparable matter, a site for disparately institutionalized forms of labor, and an array of moral and navigational possibilities called ways. Listening to Trivia's representation of road making can yield both an early modern idea of the city as object of upkeep and a historicized poetics of infrastructure able to make meaning of civic enterprise present and past.

Putting People on the Page: Material Culture as a Way in to Everyday Life behind the Facades of Tallis’s London Street Views

AbstractTallis’s Street Views describe London as a commercial and professional centre but the visual representation of the street elevations gives an impression of quiet emptiness; it is hard to get a sense of the activity in and around the businesses portrayed. The household inventory of one of Tallis’s advertisers, a dentist who died in 1850, suggests a way of redressing this. An interpretive reading of the list of the dentist’s belongings, disposed around the different spaces of the premises, which housed his residence, his business and other households, gives some sense of the complexity and struggle at a daily level behind Tallis’s apparently orderly professional and commercial facades. This indicates that we can look more generally to material culture – whether in textual and visual representations or as actual artefacts – to provide a deeper understanding of people’s everyday life in a developing city.

Introduction: Roundtable on John Tallis’s London Street Views (1838–1840)

John Tallis’s London Street Views (1838–1840) offers a striking and a distinctive account of the early Victorian metropolis. This introduction outlines its significance and contextualizes the essays included in this roundtable.

Mad-Doctors in the Dock: Defending the Diagnosis, 1760–1913by Joel Peter Eigen. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, 224 pp., $40.00 (hardcover).

Mad-Doctors in the Dock: Defending the Diagnosis, 1760–1913by Joel Peter Eigen. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016, 224 pp., $40.00 (hardcover).