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The worldwide environmental crisis has also influenced the field of literary studies. Posthumanism and ecocriticism is a new way of reading in which the anthropocentric approach and the binary oppositions such as human/non-human, wild/tame and natural/cultural are overcome. Posthumanism pays attention to all sorts of non-human life, animals, for sure, but aliens and robots are included too, while ecocriticism is concerned with the role and function of nature in literary texts. The chapter offers an ecocritical approach of Robinson Crusoe (Defoe) and Friday (Tournier). Rereading these novels we see that nature, or the elements, make up an ‘actant’ equal to the human characters and a special interest is created in the mutual conflicts which arise between nature and the human characters.

Robinson Crusoe (Defoe, 1719) is considered by many as an appropriate book to allow pupils to escape from or be shielded from the negative influence of civilization. Like Robinson on his island pupils should learn from experience. Defoe’s work was so popular it inspired a whole series of imitations called ‘Robinsonnades’ and many of them were edited specifically for children. But is Robinson Crusoe a valuable book from an ecological point of view? How does Robinson relate to nature? Does the novel focus on nature or rather on the human hero seeking to control and tame the environment?

In 1967, the French author Michel Tournier reworked the Crusoe myth in Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique (Friday or the Pacific Rim), followed by a parallel text for children Vendredi ou la vie sauvage (Friday or the Wild Life, 1971). In both novels Robinson’s black servant, Friday, initiates his colonial master into alternative ways of living, dismantling civilization and restoring nature. That same deconstruction of the idea of Western superiority fits well with the postcolonial philosophy that attacks the logic of domination and its hierarchical dichotomy: white above coloured.

What does anthropology have to contribute to the study of family enterprise and entrepreneurship? The answer to this question seems obvious: lots. As an anthropologist who has written on kinship and money, I applaud any effort to disseminate the insights my discipline offers on these topics (see Rutherford, 1998, 2001). We anthropologists certainly have poached shamelessly from other fields of inquiry, and we should be willing to give back. But my enthusiasm for this exchange comes with a proviso: anthropology is often not the enterprise that others imagine it to be. Anthropologists these days have a tendency to roam widely, off leash, exploring all sorts of unlikely nooks and crannies. As a result, anthropology's role in this emerging field, based mostly in business schools to date, may prove unpredictable. Anthropologists would be as interested in the value accorded to entrepreneurship as they are in its role in family enterprise. They would be as interested in the fact that scholars at business schools are seeking to unsettle assumptions about the relationship between kinship and capital as they are in this relationship per se. But one thing is for certain: if we are going to further this conversation, we have to include the right interlocutors. In this brief essay, I would like to offer some reflections on recent work by anthropologists who speaks to the study of family enterprise and entrepreneurship.

This paper describes the stages in the construction of sensors implemented in thick film technology. The use of CAD facilities greatly reduces the time required for development, and automatic design rule checking minimises errors. Steps in the fabrication from layout to finished mask(s) are detailed and specific examples given. Strain gauges using piezoresistive properties of thick film resistor inks with various sheet resistivities (Du Pont HS80 series) printed on insulated stainless steel substrates were examined under strains ranging from 0 to ±1000 microstrain. Results show gauge factors to be dependent on the ink's sheet resistivity and range from 2 to 12. The temperature coefficients of resistance were determined over temperatures of +20°C to +140°C, revealing good tracking and reproducibility.

The University of Southampton has been active in the area of thick‐film sensors since their initial conception through to the present. Recent research at the university has concerned the use of thick‐film sensor arrays for the discrimination of chemical species in both gaseous and dissolved form. In addition, the detection of many physical parameters is now being addressed through the use of arrays of sensing elements with a view to improving on factors such as noise immunity, environmental cross‐sensitivity and long‐term accuracy. In the area of chemical sensing, extensive use has been made of thick‐film technology to allow low‐cost arrays of chemical sensors to be fabricated. The lack of specificity exhibited by the individual sensing elements has been demonstrably overcome through the use of signal processing techniques applied to the outputs of the array of sensors. Thick‐film chemical sensor research currently under way at Southampton includes a UK DTI/SERC funded LINK project concerning dissolved species monitoring for water quality assessment. Additionally, gas sensor arrays for the detection of toxic and flammable gases are being explored as part of a well established ongoing research programme. The use of thick‐film technology for the fabrication of physical sensors has been extensively documented. Current research at the University of Southampton includes an industrially sponsored project involving the use of thick‐film strain sensing resistors in the design of an accelerometer. The use of Z‐axis piezoresistivity and an array approach to solving noise and drift problems is seen as a significant novelty in this work.

The University of Southampton Thick‐Film Unit (TFU) was originally established in the Department of Electronics in 1985 to service the requirements of a transducer research group. This group originally pioneered the concept of the intelligent transducer and the thick‐film unit was initially used to explore the opportunities for fabricating low‐cost miniature and robust electronic interface circuits suitable for incorporation within transducers. The benefits to be derived from these thick‐film fabrication techniques soon become evident and the unit rapidly grew in stature with the commencement of several research programmes in the area of thick‐film sensors. The 1989 review of advanced sensor technologies undertaken by the DTI reported that the Southampton group was emerging as a centre of expertise in a technology offering significant short to medium‐term scope for commercial exploitation. This prediction is rapidly being fulfilled with an ever increasing number of thick‐film sensors being made commercially available.

The purpose of this paper is to report thick film environmental and chemical sensor arrays designed for deployment in both subterranean and submerged aqueous applications.

Various choices of materials for reference electrodes employed in these different applications have been evaluated and the responses of the different sensor types are compared and discussed.

Results indicate that the choice of binder materials is critical to the production of sensors capable of medium term deployment (e.g. several days) as the binders not only affect the tradeoff between hydration time and drift but also have a significant bearing on device sensitivity and stability. Sensor calibration is shown to remain an issue with long‐term deployments (e.g. several weeks) but this can be ameliorated in the medium term with the use of novel device fabrication and packaging techniques.

The reported results indicate that is possible through careful choice of materials and fabrication methods to achieve near stable thick film reference electrodes that are suitable for use in solid state chemical sensors in a variety of different application areas.

Killing Eve (BBC 2018–2022) has been hailed as a feminist television show. Its cinematic production values call upon a history of espionage on screen, encompassing international intrigue and glamorised hyperviolent action sequences. Is this violent aesthetic a cathartic reference to newly visible feminist discourse or are we just being sold a new version of old fantasies?

In this chapter Killing Eve is examined in relation to a history of violent women spies on screen, from Emma Peel (The Avengers 1961–1969) to Sydney Bristow (Alias 2001–2006). While Villanelle (Jody Comer) appears to present an amoral account of postfeminist ‘empowerment’, Eve (Sandra Oh) carries echoes of second-wave feminist concerns with community, morality and ethics. With each season the differences between Villanelle and Eve unravel, raising questions about what constitutes ‘quality’ television and how that might intersect with old-fashioned ideas about women's liberation. While the show depicts each character as ‘liberated’ in some respects, they are both entangled in corporate nets which repeatedly put them in danger and pull them back into violence as a form of labour.

Young people’s attachment to their smartphones is well-documented, with smartphones often described as prostheses. While prior studies typically assume a clear human/machine divide, this paper aims to build on posthuman perspectives, exploring intercorporeality, the blurring of human/technology boundaries, between emerging adults and their smartphones. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Drawing on assemblage theory, this interpretive study uses smartphone diaries and friendship pair/small group discussions with 27 British emerging adults.

Participants in this study are characterized as homo prostheticus, living with and through their phones, treating them as extensions of their mind and part of their selves as they navigated between their online and offline, private and social lives. Homo prostheticus was part of a broader assemblage or amalgamation of human and non-human components. As these components interacted with each other, the assemblage could be strengthened or weakened by various technological, personal and social factors.

These qualitative findings are based on a particular sample at a particular point in time, within a particular culture. Further research could explore intercorporeality in human–smartphone relationships among other groups, in other cultures.

Although other studies have used prosthetic metaphors, this paper contributes to understanding of smartphones as a prostheses in the lives of emerging adults, highlighting intercorporeality as a key feature of homo prostheticus. It also uses assemblage theory to contextualize homo prostheticus and explores factors strengthening or weakening the broader human–smartphone assemblage.

Strain gauges can be realised by printing and firing thick‐film resistors on ceramic substrates that are usually based on alumina. However, sensing elements made on some other substrates – tetragonal zirconia or stainless steel – would exhibit some improved characteristics, either due to a lower modulus of elasticity or a higher mechanical strength. As thick‐film resistors are developed for firing on alumina substrates their compatibility and possible interactions with other kinds of substrates have to be evaluated. The sheet resistivities and noise indices of the resistors were comparable, whereas the gauge factors were lower for the dielectric‐on‐steel substrates. The temperature coefficients of resistivity (TCR) of the resistors on the ZrO₂ and dielectric‐on‐steel substrates were higher than the TCRs on the alumina substrates, which was attributed to the higher thermal expansion coefficient of the tetragonal zirconia and the stainless steel.