The Numerical Basis of Roman Camps

Roman camps are based on rectangles with sides in whole number ratios and their areas are proportional to the size of the force encamped. The data given by Polybius and Hyginus suggests the area was surveyed in actus and indicates that it was calculated by simply adding up the space required by each unit from a standard allocation and then increasing that sum by a certain factor to allow for roads and other quarters. This gave the area within the intervallum , which was then added to define the inner face of the rampart. The paradigm can be simplified to the rule that two actus quadrati were allowed per cohort, with a turma counting as 1/8th cohort. The intervallum width was 1/8th the sq. root of the area it enclosed. Permanent forts also seem to have been laid out with the actus of the unit of measurement. The paradigm enabled use of a computer spreadsheet to investigate the possible composition of the forces associated with particular camps. This suggested that in the Mons Graupius campaign Agricola had two legions and built the 63-acre camps in NE Scotland.     

Plantation and village in coastal Guyana, 1887–1969: conflict or complementarity?

This study of livelihood patterns in a single rice village of coastal Guyana from 1887 to the present stresses economic and ecological linkages between the village and nearby sugar cane plantations. In the village of Bush Lot, typically populated by descendants of indentured plantation labourers from India, problems of maintaining drainage and irrigation canals have been compounded by a lack of village labour coordination. Varying yields from the community's ricefields have been affected by recurring drought and flood, so the villagers have never been full-time subsistence farmers. Rather, they have worked seasonally on the nearby plantations to supplement village farming activities. This part-time estate work has tended to inhibit social and political solidarity within Bush Lot. The plantations have coped better with water control than have villages. Nevertheless, the cane estates have depended upon nearby villages for seasonal labour. Although agricultural technology and scale of production have changed dramatically during the psst century, plantations and villages of the Guyanese coastal plain remain closely interlinked.     

The robot intermediary: Mechanical analogies and autism

The article explores the use of social robots as therapeutic agents for helping children with autism. I explore the circulation and use of mechanical analogies to describe autism, extended by psychiatrists and autism experts and adopted by robotic scientists interested in developing robots as social agents and in developing robots as therapeutic agents.     

Parliament as Viewed Through a Woman's Eyes: Gender and Space in the 19th‐Century Commons

The 19th‐century house of commons is traditionally viewed as a masculine space overlooking the presence of female tourists, waitresses, housekeepers, servants, spectators, and residents. This essay demonstrates that, even when formally excluded from the Commons, women were determined to colonize spaces to witness debates. In the pre‐1834 Commons they created their own observation gallery in an attic high above the chamber, peeping through a light fitting to listen to parliamentary sessions. After 1834, they were accommodated in their own galleries in the temporary and new house of commons, growing increasingly assertive and protective of their rights to attend debates and participate in parliamentary political culture. Far from being exclusively male, parliament was increasingly viewed through women's eyes.