Welsh

Fodd bynnag, yng Ngholofn y Merched ym mhapur Plaid Cymru, Y Ddraig Goch, yn 1929, â Kate Roberts ati i ddarlunio Ysgol Haf Machynlleth yn 1976, gan fentro i diroedd dyfodolaidd am yr ail dro. Ar yr olwg gyntaf, nid yw'r Ysgol Haf ffuglennol yn wahanol iawn i'r hyn a ddisgwyliem, er ei bod hi bellach, yn 1976, yn dathlu hanner can mlwyddiant ers yr Ysgol Haf gyntaf. 23 Gwelwn yr un wynebau cyfarwydd, sef Lewis Valentine a D. J. Williams, 'er eu bod ill dau mewn gwth o oedran,' 24 a chyfeirir hefyd at Saunders Lewis, sydd bellach yn llywydd y Blaid ac yn llywydd y Wladwriaeth yn y Gymru Rydd a ddarlunia Kate Roberts. Yn y stori, nodir, mai 1970 yw'r 'flwyddyn fythgofiadwy pan gafodd Cymru ei Senedd ei hunan,' 25 a gwelwn, bellach, mai dod ynghyd i ddathlu'r fuddugoliaeth honno yw pwrpas yr Ysgol Haf, yn hytrach na mynd ati i gynllwynio a chyflwyno tactegau gwleidyddol. Mae yna naws lawer mwy cartrefol i'r Ysgol Haf hon yn y dyfodol. 'Nid oedd papurau na darlithiau i fod yn yr Ysgol Haf hon. Dyfod yma i adrodd profiadau ac i siarad atgofion yr oedd pawb.' 26 Â Lewis Valentine a D. J. Williams ati i rannu eu profiadau, ac maen nhw ill dau yn cyfeirio at y 1920au fel cyfnod cymharol lwm yng nghyd-destun cefnogaeth i Blaid Cymru. Disgrifir y cyfnod gan Lewis Valentine fel 'dyddiau drain mwyaduron [sic] diffrwyth a phryfed llwydion,' 27 ond bod y Blaid wedi ffynnu ers hynny. Yn yr un modd, cymhara D. J. Williams y Blaid i fochyn 'nad oedd dim byd yn likely yndo [sic],' 28 a dyfodd maes o law yn fochyn cryf. Mae Kate Roberts yn darogan bod dyfodol addawol iawn i'r Blaid, er bod pethau'n edrych yn ddiobaith ar y pryd.

The overall aim of this evaluation is to assess the impact of the RSA and SFIE Schemes in light of their objectives. In particular, a critical aspect of the evaluation is to assess whether changing the scheme in 2004, from RSA to SFIE, has increased the impact of the scheme. The specific research objectives set out by BERR were to: Test the validity of the key assumptions underlying the rationale for the old RSA Scheme and, more specifically, the new SFIE Scheme; Assess the outcomes of funded projects against objectives with the ...

This paper examines the evolution and impact of the 2025 UK-EU policy reset on economic and business relations, with a focus on Food & Drink, Professional Services, and Energy/ETS sectors. Utilizing an integrated framework combining trade economics, international political economy, and policy implementation theory, the study evaluates sectoral outcomes, SME implications, and economy-wide trajectories. Scenario analysis projects potential outcomes under best-case, moderate, and worst-case conditions, highlighting the importance of regulatory alignment, political commitment, and effective implementation. The findings suggest that the reset creates tangible opportunities for economic growth, trade expansion, and investment, contingent on sustained governance and sectoral responsiveness. The study contributes to the understanding of post-Brexit UK-EU relations and provides policy-relevant insights for business strategy and economic planning.

When the late S. C. Thompson was gathering material for the first edition of his Official Encyclopedia of Baseball, he asked me to track down Quinn's correct data, and I was able to obtain a baptismal certificate from his church showing that he was born at Jeansville, Pa., July 5, 1884.

This article is an effort to understand how healing of body was used by the Christian missionaries as an important tool for evangelisation with special reference to the Welsh Christian missionaries in North Cachar Hills from 1905 to 1961. The Welsh missionaries opened their mission in this Hill on 1905 with multiple endeavours such as opening schools, churches and dispensaries. North Cachar Hills was a sub division of Cachar district during the colonial period and was inhabited mainly by different indigenous peoples such as the Dimasas, Zeme Nagas, Angami Nagas, old and new Kukis, Khasis, Karbis, etc. The missionaries regarded the local people as ‘heathen’ which means physically and morally ill and their traditional practices of appeasing the evil spirits for their ailments as a primitive act. Moreover the missionaries were not free from euro centrism and regarded their ideas and practices as superior than the traditional beliefs and practices of the natives. It is the intention of ...

In May 2011, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama is to open significant new facilities for teaching and performance on their campus in Cardiff. These include a 450 seat concert hall, a 160 seat training theatre and four movement and drama studios. Since 1949, the college has been providing specialist practical and performance-based training in music, acting, theatre design and stage management. The college has nearly 600 students with previous alumni including Sir Anthony Hopkins,Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon. The new facilities will raise the profile of the college as an international conservatoire as well as enhancing opportunities for local professional and amateur groups that contribute to Cardiff's vibrant cultural life. This paper presents the acoustic design of the concert hall and the theatre for both performance and rehearsal, including the integration of a variable absorption system.

Patient experience teams in NHS Wales' Health Boards and Trusts are working across the country to collect patient experience feedback from members of the public who access health care services. Although this work is advanced in many areas, there is currently no way of benchmarking across organisations, reducing opportunities for shared learning. We aimed to work with patients and colleagues across Wales to agree a set of universal Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) questions. Working with patient experience teams, patient groups and Welsh Government, the NHS Wales Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) and Effectiveness Programme team has agreed a national set of PREMs questions for use across Wales. This process led on from previous work and included patient focus groups, patient experience leads and clinical input. Patients using secondary care services in Wales will be invited to complete the agreed PREMs survey along with patient outcome measures, via an electronic platform. This will provide a consistent method of data collection which will allow us to benchmark across hospitals and organisations in NHS Wales, identifying areas of good practice, as well as areas where patients report poorer experiences. This will allow local patient experience teams to target more in-depth experience gathering initiatives and carry out appropriate improvement programmes, making better use of resources. Identifying and sharing good practice will allow NHS Wales to advance patient experience, while triangulation with patient and clinical outcomes will drive the Prudent Healthcare agenda.

Thomas of Canterbury has very particular associations for the the Venerable English College in Rome, the Roman Catholic Seminary originally founded in the sixteenth century in the properties of the medieval pilgrim hospice. The archbishop came to have physical, spiritual and political associations with the institution as a result of his exile from England and royally sanctioned murder, so much so that the English and Welsh national church in the papal city is now dedicated to him. In the context of the Protestant Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Britain, students and exiled priests studying at the Roman college looked to Thomas's example of resistence to secular interference which was reinforced by means of relics and depictions of Thomas in a highly charged pictorial scheme in the College church.

The focus of this article is community supported agriculture (CSA) as an alternative food movement and a bottom-up response to the problems of the dominant food systems. By utilizing social innovation approach that explores the relationship between causes for human needs and emergence of socially innovative food initiatives, the article examines how the CSA projects emerge and why, what is their innovative role as part of the social economy and what is their transformative potential. Based on qualitative data from four different models of CSA case studies in different regions of Wales, UK, and by using concepts from an alternative model for social innovation (ALMOLIN) as analytical tool, the article demonstrates that the Welsh CSA cases play distinctive roles as part of the social economy. They satisfy the needs for ecologically sound and ethically produced food, grown within communities of like-minded people and they empower individuals and communities at micro level, while at the ...

Background and Objectives: Multilevel statistical models represent the existence of hierarchies or clustering within populations of subjects (or shapes in this work). This is a distinct advantage over single-level methods that do not. Multilevel partial-least squares regression (mPLSR) is used here to study facial shape changes with age during adolescence in Welsh and Finnish samples comprising males and females. Methods: 3D facial images were obtained for Welsh and Finnish male and female subjects at multiple ages from 12 to 17 years old. 1000 3D points were defined regularly for each shape by using "meshmonk" software. A three-level model was used here, including level 1 (sex/ethnicity); level 2, all "subject" variations excluding sex, ethnicity, and age; and level 3, age. The mathematical formalism of mPLSR is given in an Appendix. Results: Differences in facial shape between the ages of 12 and 17 predicted by mPLSR agree well with previous results of multilevel principal components analysis (mPCA); buccal fat is reduced with increasing age and features such as the nose, brow, and chin become larger and more distinct. Differences due to ethnicity and sex are also observed. Plausible simulated faces are predicted from the model for different ages, sexes and ethnicities. Our models provide good representations of the shape data by consideration of appropriate measures of model fit (RMSE and R 2 ). Conclusions: Repeat measures in our dataset for the same subject at different ages can only be modelled indirectly at the lowest level of the model at discrete ages via mPCA. By contrast, mPLSR models age explicitly as a continuous covariate, which is a strong advantage of mPLSR over mPCA. These investigations demonstrate that multivariate multilevel methods such as mPLSR can be used to describe such age-related changes for dense 3D point data. mPLSR might be of much use in future for the prediction of facial shapes for missing persons at specific ages or for simulating shapes for syndromes that affect facial shape in new subject populations.

Recent studies have revealed remarkable interactions between language and emotion. Here, we show that such interactions influence judgments made regarding cultural information. Balanced Welsh-English bilinguals categorized statements about their native Welsh culture as true or false. Whilst participants categorized positive statements as true when they were true, they were biased towards categorizing them as true also when they were false, irrespective of the language in which they read them. Surprisingly, participants were unbiased when categorizing negative statements presented in their native language Welsh, but showed a reverse bias -categorizing sentences as false, even when they were true -for negative statements when they read them in English. The locus of this behavior originated from online semantic evaluation of the statements, shown in corresponding modulations of the N400 peak of event-related brain potentials. These findings suggest that bilinguals perceive and react to cultural information in a language-dependent fashion.

In this chapter, based on , an update to the META-NET White Paper (Evas 2014), we present Language Technology (LT) for the Welsh language, providing an overview of the status of Welsh in Wales and a summary of the Welsh writing system and typology. We describe key tools and our recommendations for Welsh LT and associated resource development.

Cynhadledd Myrddin / The Welsh Merlin Conference

A paper detailing the 'additional' stanzas to 'Merlin's Woes' ('Oianau Myrddin') found in later manuscript copies. These are the stanzas that are not found in the oldest and longest copy, the Black Book of Carmarthen.

This research stems from the poem's new edition, created for merlinpoetry.wales.

Teaching Science is aided, throughout the educational system, by the study of appropriate textbooks. The content of the textbook used for a specific course plays a considerable role to the degree of the assimilation of the topics addressed by it; however, the actual way it is viewed by the readers/students is also expected to be a major factor. In the current study a double-page spread text is introduced to students of Chemistry. The topic described concisely is related to catalysis and the text is accompanied by a variety of visual aids (graph, algebraic equations, 2D chemical formula, diagram, table). The fifty students participating in the survey are covering the whole range from first-year undergraduates to postgraduates and they are tested for their comprehension of the text provided. The extent of this comprehension is correlated to their logical thinking, field dependence/independence and prior knowledge of the topic as they emerge from assessment of separate preliminary tests they have taken in advance.

Teaching Science is aided, throughout the educational system, by the study of appropriate textbooks. The content of the textbook used for a specific course plays a considerable role to the degree of the assimilation of the topics addressed by it; however, the actual way it is viewed by the readers/students is also expected to be a major factor. In the current study a double-page spread text is introduced to students of Chemistry. The topic described concisely is related to catalysis and the text is accompanied by a variety of visual aids (graph, algebraic equations, 2D chemical formula, diagram, table). The fifty students participating in the survey are covering the whole range from first-year undergraduates to postgraduates and they are tested for their comprehension of the text provided. The extent of this comprehension is correlated to their logical thinking, field dependence/independence and prior knowledge of the topic as they emerge from assessment of separate preliminary tests they have taken in advance.

Gwelir cynnydd sylweddol yng nghyfraddau Anhwylder Diffyg Canolbwyntio a Gorfywiogrwydd (ADCG) mewn dosbarthiadau yn ystod y blynyddoedd diwethaf. Mewn llenyddiaeth, cydnabyddir arwyddocâd agweddau athrawon tuag at ADCG wrth iddynt wneud penderfyniadau am atgyfeirio ac ymyrraeth (Anderson et al., 2012) a sut mae eu hagweddau yn effeithio ar ymddygiad a chanlyniadau disgyblion (Rush a Harrison 2008). Mae angen i athrawon ddarparu cefnogaeth i'r plant yma ond yn aml, teimlant yn amwys tuag at ADCG oherwydd diffyg gwybodaeth ddigonol (Alkahtani 2013), gwybodaeth anghyson ynghylch yr anhwylder (Dryer, Kiernan a Tyson 2013), gwahanol ddisgwyliadau diwylliannol (Moon 2012) a systemau addysgol (Timimi a Radcliffe 2005). Mae'r papur hwn yn darparu adolygiad o'r llenyddiaeth ynghylch agweddau athrawon tuag at ADCG, yn archwilio cyfyngiadau yn y llenyddiaeth gyfredol a'r pryderon ynghylch mesur agweddau athrawon tuag at ADCG. Mae'r papur yn gorffen gydag argymhellion ar gyfer y dyfodol.

Gwelir cynnydd sylweddol yng nghyfraddau Anhwylder Diffyg Canolbwyntio a Gorfywiogrwydd (ADCG) mewn dosbarthiadau yn ystod y blynyddoedd diwethaf. Mewn llenyddiaeth, cydnabyddir arwyddocâd agweddau athrawon tuag at ADCG wrth iddynt wneud penderfyniadau am atgyfeirio ac ymyrraeth (Anderson et al., 2012) a sut mae eu hagweddau yn effeithio ar ymddygiad a chanlyniadau disgyblion (Rush a Harrison 2008). Mae angen i athrawon ddarparu cefnogaeth i'r plant yma ond yn aml, teimlant yn amwys tuag at ADCG oherwydd diffyg gwybodaeth ddigonol (Alkahtani 2013), gwybodaeth anghyson ynghylch yr anhwylder (Dryer, Kiernan a Tyson 2013), gwahanol ddisgwyliadau diwylliannol (Moon 2012) a systemau addysgol (Timimi a Radcliffe 2005). Mae'r papur hwn yn darparu adolygiad o'r llenyddiaeth ynghylch agweddau athrawon tuag at ADCG, yn archwilio cyfyngiadau yn y llenyddiaeth gyfredol a'r pryderon ynghylch mesur agweddau athrawon tuag at ADCG. Mae'r papur yn gorffen gydag argymhellion ar gyfer y dyfodol.

This report reviews published literature on the way that countries around the globe have organised and systematised professional learning for teachers in a time of curriculum change. It first reviews country specific literature and then presents evidence on the organisation of professional learning from more general literature, which is more concerned with improvements in practice. All literature used is either from peer-reviewed journals or from academic books. The literature was found by using scholarly search engines, searching under various terms indicating professional learning. In this way literature was uncovered that will be used to support or to question the approach that the Welsh Government takes towards professional learning in education.

Birth weight is an early correlate of disease later in life, and animal studies suggest that low birth weight is associated with reduced activity and increased sedentary time. Whether birth weight predicts later sedentary time in humans is uncertain. We examined the relation between birth weight and sedentary time in youth and examined whether this association was mediated by central adiposity. We used pooled cross-sectional data from 8 observational studies conducted between 1997 and 2007 that consisted of 10,793 youth (boys: 47%) aged 6-18 y from the International Children's Accelerometry Database. Birth weight was measured in hospitals or maternally reported, sedentary time was assessed by using accelerometry (<100 counts/min), and abdominal adiposity (waist circumference) was measured according to WHO procedures. A mediation analysis with bootstrapping was used to analyze data. The mean (±SD) time spent sedentary was 370 ± 91 min/d. Birth weight was positively associated ...

The first volume of Schlegel's two-volume work on Russian verbal aspect is conceived as a textbook and provides the theoretical bases that underlie the practical language exercises contained in the companion volume. It begins with an indispensable index of numerous terminological abbreviations as well as explanations of signs and symbols to which the reader or language learner must constantly refer, if only to justify their role as graphic explanations of the complex relations described in the work. Unfortunately, the abbreviations and explanations are arranged topically rather than alphabetically and are grouped by theoretical concept. The abbreviations-both German and Russian-reflect a very broad spectrum of concepts common to both traditional aspectology (e.g., terminativity/aterminativity, perfective/imperfective aspect, Aktionsarten, and so on) and the particular theory propounded here, including: differential semantic traits; temporal and aspectual reference points; "event," "speech," and "reference" as understood in the framework of Reichenbach's temporal logic; and "state of affairs" (aktionale Situation), i.e., actions, states, and events. Terminativity (telicity) also plays an important role in the application of graphic symbols alongside such concepts as "duration" (Dauer), "iterativity"/"repetition" (Wiederholung), "sequence of actions" (Handlungskette), "parallelism of actions" (Parallelität von Handlungen), "incidence" (Inzidenz), etc. An appendix, which brings together the definitions of the principal aspectological concepts (pp. 307-313), also serves as a doubtless necessary aid to users of this work. The textbook is intended primarily for use at the university level. Given the complexity of the grammatical category of aspect, the book's stated goal is to provide-by means of a "multimodal and multidimensional approach"-a theory with sufficient "explanatory force" for practical language use (p. 17). As presented in chapter 2 (pp. 21-34), the basic mechanisms of aspect use are understood as interactions between verbs and the context(s) in which they occur, verbs being defined basically by actionality (lexical aspect) and "terminativity" (i.e., telicity), with context(s) similarly classified according to "terminativity." The aspectual system is viewed as a projection of the temporal system onto individual time intervals (p. 31), a kind of temporal microsystem whereby any given action is situated relative to an "aspectual reference point," i.e., a point in time to which the speaker refers or at which the speaker mentally situates her/himself (this stands in contrast to tense, whereby any given action is situated relative to the moment of speech). Chapter 3 is devoted to the formal expression of the category of aspect in Russian (pp. 35-98), including Aktionsarten (both in the narrow sense of lexical derivation and in the broader sense of lexical semantics) as well as correlative pairs of verbs of motion and their delineation vis-à-vis aspectual pairs per se. While recognizing as "true" aspectual pairs those whose imperfective members are derived through stem suffixation, Schlegel also acknowledges so-called "functional aspectual pairs" like pisat'/napisat' 'write', which are formed "pleonastically" by means of a semantically redundant verbal prefix (an appropriate view from the standpoint of both theory and actual language use; see summarizing table, p. 98). The remaining chapters are devoted to the functions of the verbal aspects and the uses made of them, beginning with a broad range of meanings in the indicative mood (pp. 99-

In the work of Cynthia Cruz and Fran Lock, two poets and political commentators from working class backgrounds, trauma is conceived as an inevitability for the always poor, but also a constant psychic threat for the socially mobile. Both also make links between poverty and being working class. Although poverty is rarely conceptualised in class terms, poverty has always been a class issue. Working class histories have inevitably been overshadowed by the spectre of poverty and destitution. The paper considers the role of neoliberalism in both the pathologizing of the poor, and the increasing immiseration of the working classes. Drawing on the work of Cruz and Lock, who make powerful links in both their poetry and prose between poverty, the flight from poverty, and trauma, and also Arline Geronimus' book on weathering, it seeks to develop a counter-narrative of poverty as traumatic that works with both personal tales and structural explanations.

The voluntary and community sector (VCS) is a key player in the support of prisoners and ex-prisoners in the English and Welsh criminal justice system. Organisational learning and innovation is urgently required in this sector to adapt to the current political and economic environment. The chapter describes exploratory efforts to introduce participatory methods drawn from Change Laboratory Methods and Clinics of Activity within a local VCS organisation that would help (re)build dialogue between stakeholders with the aim of promoting organisational learning and innovation. The intervention comprised an ethnographic phase of observing the staff, interviews with 19 key stakeholders, and a final developmental workshop with the staff. The analysis of these data by the researcher (first author) provided insight into the experience of mentors working in the voluntary sector as well as providing a trigger for dialogue in a subsequent workshop that used these data to establish dialogue betwe...

Parenting support services and programs develop and strengthen existing parenting skills. However, in the UK and despite the 2010 UK Equality Act’s provisions, these programs are generally not accessible for Deaf parents whose first and/or preferred language is British Sign Language (BSL) because the medium of instruction is typically spoken and written English. This small-scale qualitative interview study gauged North Walian Deaf parents’ needs and preferences for accessing parenting classes. A structured interview assessed a small group of North Walian Deaf parents’ language practices, their perceptions of parenting support and accessibility, and their needs and preferences when it comes to parenting classes. An additional case study of a Deaf parent’s experience of participating in an 11-week-long parenting course with an English-BSL interpreter provides further insight into how such classes can be made accessible to Deaf parents. The main interview findings were that the partici...

The glacial transport theory for Stonehenge's bluestones and sarsens, which posits that glaciers conveyed these megaliths to Salisbury Plain, has been a longstanding and contentious hypothesis. Dr. Brian John has been its principal advocate for bluestones, with Hancock et al. (2025) tentatively extending the idea to sarsens. This paper synthesizes recent research by Bevins et al. (2025) and Nash and Ciborowski (2025), among others, to critically evaluate the theory's validity. Petrographic and geochemical analyses demonstrate that the Newall boulder-a key piece of evidence for glacial transport-is a human-transported rhyolite fragment from Craig Rhos-y-Felin, not a glacial erratic. Likewise, robust geochemical sourcing of the sarsens to West Woods, coupled with the absence of glacial deposits on Salisbury Plain, refutes glacial movement. Archaeological evidence, including Neolithic quarrying sites and parallels in long-distance megalith transport, further substantiates human agency. The glacial transport theory is thus rendered untenable, leaving its remaining proponents the choice to seek improbable new evidence or to contribute to the refinement of human transport models, in alignment with the current scientific consensus.

The paper assigns, in a ‘pointillistic’ structural profile, narrative functions to dyma and dyna, formal presentatives, in syntactic detail and macrosyntactic patterning, on the database of Kate Roberts’s short stories and novellas.1 The extensive distribution and rich functional range of these elements matches their formal complexity and narratological significance. This presentative pair, expanded by verbal, substantival or pronominal presentates, form six narrative tenses, distinct formally and functionally, in complex interplay with their environment. In fact, however, dyma and dyna comprise doubly two homonyms: dyma/ dyna presentatives, and dyma/dyna referential pronouns, typically rhematic or focal. Following a descriptive breakdown of the syntactic properties of the presentatives, the Presentative Narrative Tenses (PNTs) I to VI are discussed. Functionally striking and statistically prevalent is (PNT I) # dyma + noun phrase/personal pronoun + yn-converb2#, where we encounter ...

adviser for five years of my stay here a t Ohio State University (OSU). Throughout these years he guided me with his keen insights into linguistic phenomena. He helped me look at linguistic fads precisely in a broader perspective. As my dissertation adviser he directed me to pay attention to the constructions containing "degree expressions" as well when I first showed an interest in tough-and related constructions. His influence throughout this dissertation is tremenaous, reflecting our discussions of so many hours. I also express my thanks to other dissertation committee members, David Dowty and Robert Levine. Their comments and suggestions on earlier versions, especially on Ch. VIII and Ch. V, respectively, were invaluable for the.development of the dissertation. Needless to say, all remaining faults are of my own. Comments from Carl Pollard on earlier papers which became parts of the dissertation are also appreciated. Comments &om Robert Kasper and Philip Miller on Ch. IV were very helpful in elucidating facts about formal 7 I bothered several fellow students with English data from time to tune: Gayle

The recent ‘Liberty and Livelihood’ March in London highlights how the issue of hunting with dogs, which directly involves only a small minority of people in the British countryside and, opinion polls indicate, is opposed by the majority of the British population, can still dominate national political and media agendas. A key tactic of the March organisers, the Countryside Alliance, was to present hunting as an embedded part of rural life, emphasising important connections between natural discourses of rurality, hunting and broader rural social issues.It is these claimed embedded natures of hunting in rural areas that form the focus of this paper. Drawing on recent research in four case‐study hunting areas in the English and Welsh countryside, the paper positions hunting within a broader rural socio‐cultural context. It explores community understandings of and interactions with hunting, and considers the broader sociocultural role of hunting in these rural spaces. The case‐studies i...

In this paper we suggest that understandings of social and cultural recomposition in areas of rural Wales need to consider issues of interacting and competing identities. We explore notions of cultural identity, change, and conflict in four areas of rural Wales, based on recent research involving interviews with around 1000 households. Attention is focused on the interplay between different scales of identity constructs: national-scale constructs of English and Welsh identities; regional constructs of Welsh identity; and more localised identity constructs. In the context of the first of these identity constructs, we consider Cohen's notions of significant ‘others’ and symbolic boundaries as a means of understanding processes of English in-movement to areas of the Welsh countryside.

This study draws on material first presented in my PhD thesis (Rees 2013). Another three phonological features were also analysed in this study, namely the high central vowels [ɨ(ː)] / [ɪ], the fronted and raised low vowel [ae(ː)], and the palatalised velar plosives [kj] / [gj], and are discussed in detail in Rees (2013: 246-389) and Rees (2015). I am greatly indebted to Dr Gwenllian M. Awbery, not only for her supervision of this thesis, but also for her comments on previous versions of this article. I would also like to express my gratitude to my colleagues, Prof. Diarmait Mac Giolla Chríost, Dr Dylan Foster Evans and Prof. Glyn E. Jones, for their helpful comments, to Dr Jonathan Morris for assisting me greatly with some statistical analyses, and to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

Nella critica letteraria, l'intuizione umana è fondamentale. Tuttavia, un'era nuova sta emergendo dove l'applicazione dell'Intelligenza Artificiale permette di svelare le architetture meno palesi dentro le narrazioni più amate. Questo studio si immerge nel mondo magico di Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale, impiegando una sofisticata analisi di rete guidata dall'AI per quantificare l'intimo legame tra i suoi personaggi. Partendo da un dataset di 57 personaggi e 115 interazioni, l'AI ha trasformato il romanzo in una rete dinamica, un sistema complesso dove ogni nodo è un'anima narrativa e ogni arco una connessione vitale. Attraverso il calcolo di metriche di centralità avanzate (Betweenness, Closeness, Eigenvector), l'algoritmo disvela la supremazia relazionale di Harry Potter come nexus assoluto attraverso cui scorre il destino della storia. Ma l'AI non si è fermata qui. Ha identificato la rete in comunità coese, riflettendo con chiarezza le dinamiche di Hogwarts, i legami familiari e le fazioni in lotta, trasformando le intuizioni narrative in evidenza stimabile algoritmicamente. La rivelazione più eclatante è stata la conferma della proprietà "Small-World" della rete: un tessuto connettivo in cui, nonostante la presenza di gruppi intimi, ogni personaggio è a pochi passi da ogni altro, garantendo una fluidità narrativa e una propagazione di eventi di una brillantezza strutturale sorprendente. Attraverso l'introduzione di legami pesati, l'AI ha poi quantificato l'intensità emotiva e narrativa delle relazioni dei protagonisti: la forza schiacciante dei legami di Harry, la densità familiare e amicale di Ron, la centralità intellettuale di Hermione che, pur con meno connessioni, la rende cruciale per la risoluzione della trama, e il ruolo di Hagrid come ponte insostituibile tra mondi e mentori. Questo lavoro non è solo un'analisi, ma una prova lampante del potenziale trasformativo dell'AI nell'arte della narrazione. Dimostra come la tecnologia possa non solo decifrare, ma anche amplificare la nostra comprensione delle opere letterarie, rivelando la maestria inconscia dell'autore e inaugurando una nuova frontiera nella critica testuale. L'AI, lungi dal sostituire l'interpretazione umana, ne diventa il più potente alleato, offrendo uno strumento senza precedenti per ammirare la perfezione complessa di mondi narrativi che credevamo di conoscere. Introduzione Con Gemini AI possiamo costruire la rete dei personaggi di Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale, come anche la rete sociale presente negli altri libri della seria scritta da J.K. Rowling, ed in generale di qualsiasi novella o dramma. Per costruire la rete AI chiede il testo del romanzo, ma, in questo caso, ci potrebbero essere problemi di copyright. Se questi non esistessero, agendo in modo del tutto simile a quanto fatto per Alessandro Manzoni (https://zenodo.org/records/15767554) e per William Shakespeare (https://zenodo.org/records/15760921), si potrebbe procede con:

Two hydrographic cruises have been carried out in the Irish Sea during the winters of 1965 and 1966. It has been found that near the Welsh Coast reactive silicate concentrations were remarkably constant and lower than expected. In contrast, near the Irish coast there were marked variations in reactive silicate concentrations and the values found were considerably higher than those for the Welsh coast. It has been possible to correlate areas of high reactive silicate along the Irish coast with regions of high fresh water run-off from the Irish mainland. In general, the values found for temperature and salinity are in agreement with those obtained by previous workers. Some evidence was found for a residual northward flowing current close to the Irish coast from Wexford to the southern end of the North Channel.

What does it mean for waters, places, and people to resist their absorption by the expansive logics of capital and the state? This paper interrogates the politics of unabsorbed life and matter through the case of the Tryweryn valley in North Wales, whose flooding to create a reservoir supplying Liverpool entailed the drowning of the Welsh-speaking village of Capel Celyn in 1965. This became a touchstone in Welsh cultural memory and British hydropolitics, but its relevance extends far beyond, revealing the enduring mobilities of water, resistance, and memory, leaking across times and geographies. Focusing on three key moments of activism-the 1956 'Hands Off Tryweryn' march, the militant campaign of bombings and sabotage in the 1960s, and the creation and persistence of the 'Cofiwch Dryweryn' ('Remember Tryweryn') mural-I trace the mobilisation of water's meanings and materialities to contest the extractive logics behind the reservoir. Following Raymond Williams' statement that such movements emerged from 'unabsorbed' places and subjects, I take seriously this aqueous framing of incorporation (or not) by capital and the state, to ask how the Tryweryn campaigns expressed the 'politics of the unabsorbed', extending this through a political-ecological framework informed by Deleuze and Guattari's theory of assemblage. In addition to its close analysis of the case, and its demonstration of water as a constitutive feature of political formations, the article therefore contributes a novel framework for analysing and evaluating territorial resistance politics, as complex, open processes centred on dismantling the material and poetic assemblages of absorption. The seasonal reappearance of Capel Celyn's ruins in drought-stricken summers reveals that absorption is never total. As climate crisis redraws global hydrosocial relations, Tryweryn's waters continue to unsettle, resonating beyond their local context, and offering both a warning and a resource for imagining solidarity in a drowning world.

This paper argues that teacher learning is not reducible to lists of 'performative' standards. Funded by the Society for Educational Studies, we used 'lesson study' as a vehicle to develop new teacher expertise, following which we concluded that conceptualising 'learning to teach' as acquisition of standards is insufficient for understanding the process of teacher growth. We propose an alternative holistic vision.

Devolution has been the most notable feature of the Labour government's plan to modernize the constitution. Principal consideration is given to Wales and to events since the formation of the National Assembly, which are examined by recourse to theoretically informed analysis on territorial politics and the nature of governance. The central question concerns the extent to which the Assembly can develop an autonomous policy position. Contemporary theories argue that internal and external developments have left central government in a less powerful position, which potentially can further augment the prospects for devolution. Events prior to and after the formation of the Assembly question whether government has moved into a new phase of development. Central government still commands an extensive range of resources and powers, especially over territorial bodies. At the same time, comparative analysis shows that such institutional parameters need not remain fixed. There is institutio...

Technology has become an integral part of our educational systems, and its importance in our schools cannot be overstated. However, digital skills, unlike other literacy skills, such as reading, writing, and numeracy, still have many discontinuities between how children use them at home versus in school. Therefore, in Wales (UK), digital skills are being promoted as part of the Digital Competence Framework (DCF) and feature highly in the new Curriculum for Wales (2022). Moreover, the new Digital Technology General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in Wales has been introduced to provide learners with the opportunity to gain a qualification that builds digital skills, knowledge, and understanding. However, this also brings many challenges for teachers, such as a lack of confidence, knowledge, and training, as well as a lack of resources and fear of change, to name a few. These challenges, in turn, have an impact on pupils' motivation and performance, as well as parents' ability to support their children. This paper presents a qualitative case study on the development of a new digital technology learning community for primary and secondary school pupils, their teachers, and parents in Blaenau Gwent, Wales (UK). Firstly, the paper will provide insight into what was required to establish an effective learning community, including ensuring engagement and buy-in from all stakeholders. Secondly, through the description, analysis, and interpretation of findings from two studies, the paper will highlight the impact of the DTLSN learning community on teachers and pupils in Blaenau Gwent, especially in terms of their learning and teaching.

Technology has become an integral part of our educational systems, and its importance in our schools cannot be overstated. However, digital skills, unlike other literacy skills, such as reading, writing, and numeracy, still have many discontinuities between how children use them at home versus in school. Therefore, in Wales (UK), digital skills are being promoted as part of the Digital Competence Framework (DCF) and feature highly in the new Curriculum for Wales (2022). Moreover, the new Digital Technology General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in Wales has been introduced to provide learners with the opportunity to gain a qualification that builds digital skills, knowledge, and understanding. However, this also brings many challenges for teachers, such as a lack of confidence, knowledge, and training, as well as a lack of resources and fear of change, to name a few. These challenges, in turn, have an impact on pupils’ motivation and performance, as well as parents’ abili...

In this paper we outline the philosophy and research foundations underpinning the development of CaBan – an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Partnership developed for the purpose of educating the teachers of tomorrow for North Wales. CaBan represents an ambitious 'learning partnership' of five partners consisting of regional schools, Bangor University, University of Chester, the regional school improvement service (GwE), and the Collaborative Institute for Education Research, Evidence and Impact (CIEREI). Each partner plays a key role in fulfilling our ambitions to contribute to Our National Mission and achieve our vision of 'Growing Tomorrow's Teachers Together.' At its core, the goal of CaBan is to support our new Associate Teachers (ATs) to become creative, inspiring and highly skilled teachers who will contribute to the delivery of A curriculum for Wales – a curriculum for life (Welsh Government, 2015). In this paper we outline: (i) our basic vision and missio...

While subtle yet discrete clusters of genetic identity across Ireland and Britain have been identified, their demographic history is unclear. Methods: Using genotype data from 6,574 individuals with associated regional Irish or British ancestry, we identified Irish-like and British-like genetic communities using network community detection. We segregated Identity-by-Descent (IBD) and Runs-of-Homozygosity (ROH) segments by length and approximated their corresponding time periods. Through this, we inferred the regional Irish and British demographic histories in these time periods by (1) estimating genetic relatedness between communities, (2) estimating changes in effective population sizes, (3) inferring recent migration rates across Ireland and Britain, and (4) estimating changing affinities to regional European populations. For a subset of the Irish communities, we determined the enrichment/depletion of surnames within the genetic communities. Results: Through patterns of IBD-sharing and ROH, we find evidence of recent population bottlenecks in the Orcadian, Manx and Welsh communities. While the structure in Ireland is subtler, the communities share relatively more IBD segments that are shorter in length, and the genetic differences between the Irish communities are more subtle on average, when compared to the British communities. Regional effective population size trajectories indicate a similar demographic history throughout the island of Ireland. Further, we observe a stable migration corridor between north-east Ireland and south-west Scotland while there is a recent migration barrier between South-Eastern Ireland and Western Ireland. We observed an enrichment of Anglo-Norman and English surnames in the Wexford community while within the West Ulster-Argyll community, we saw an enrichment of Gallowglass and Scottish surnames. Conclusions: Using well-annotated Irish and British reference genotypes, we observed temporal changes in genetic affinities within and between genetic communities in Ireland and Britain. In addition, using effective population size estimates and levels of haplotype-sharing, we detected varying degrees of genetic isolation in some Irish and British genetic communities across time. Using these new insights into the regional demographic history of Ireland and Britain across different time periods, we hope to understand the driving forces of rare allele frequencies and disease risk association within these populations. .

Excavated by Leslie Alcock in the 1950s, the inland promontory fort of Dinas Powys is widely cited as a type site for elite settlements of post-Roman western Britain. Alcock's interpretation and dating of the main defences as a Norman-period castle were effectively disproven in the 1990s, but the excavator's original chronology continues to be cited. Here, the authors present a revised chronology, integrating new radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic analysis to re-evaluate the history of occupation. The new phasing redates the main defences to the early medieval period, which aligns with the site's notable early medieval assemblage. The findings contribute to understanding of post-Roman western Britain and the (re)occupation of late antique hilltop sites more generally.