The IAEA is currently preparing a new Technical Reports Series (TRS) Handbook on the Transfer of Radionuclides to Wildlife. Key deficiencies have been identified and one is the lack of data for birds. In this study we measured the transfer of a range of elements measured by neutron activation analysis (NAA) and gamma analysis in four Barn owls (Tyto alba) and one Tawny owl (Strix aluco) from archived samples available from the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme, http://pbms.ceh.ac.uk. Transfer was quantified as the whole organism concentration ratio (CRwo-soil) and values for Co, Fe, Rb, Sc, Zn and 137Cs are presented. The work demonstrates the potential for existing sample archives to be exploited for radioecological purposes. They represent a cost effective means to derive CRwo-media values for organism-radionuclide combinations relevant to radiological assessments without the requirement of field sampling.

Contemporaries saw the educational legislation of Tsar Alexander I (1801–25) as a sign that the new emperor intended to raise the cultural and material well-being of his countrymen. The establishment in 1802 of a ministry of public education and the division of the country into six great educational districts to administer a network of schools—elementary, intermediate, secondary, and university—extended the initial reforms of Catherine II (1762–96). Her grandson Alexander employed some of her advisers and looked to other reformers, who shared the two monarchs' interest in the intellectual fashions of the Enlightenment. Russian educators, who reflected the ideals of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, and their followers, saw public education as a means whereby advanced European thought would contribute to native virtues and lead to national progress. If the creation of schools did not match the publicity for public education, there was at least no doubt that the government encouraged the formation of an educated population. However, that mood changed after the Napoleonic wars when, in fear of revolution, educational authorities saw the school system primarily as a means for inculcating obedience and Christian pietism. Obscurantism decimated the staffs of universities and darkened schools on every level.

The role of nutrition in determining the reproductive performance of sows is still controversial. Much of the dispute arises because in many published experiments there were very few sows in each treatment group. In addition, there have been substantial changes In the husbandry of sows over recent years, and these include the much earlier weaning of the litter at as little as three weeks of age, the breeding of the gilt at a younger age since she reaches 100 kg very much more quickly, and the development of facilities which allow each sow to be treated as an individual. A further change has been in the genotype of the breeding female which means that quite often she enters the reproductive phase of her life carrying very much less adipose tissue than hitherto. The recent development of equipment and techniques to monitor the backfat thickness of sows during life has introduced a new management tool, for which guidelines are readily given, but for which hard experimental evidence is often lacking. The purpose of the coordinated experiment reported here was to attempt to establish critical factors in the history of the sow which put her reproductive performance at particular risk and to evaluate widely recommended practices of Increasing the feed Intake at over the terminal phase of pregnancy, The work was jointly funded by the Department of Agriculture for Scotland and each of the centres.

Under the influence of liberal mentors such as his former tutor the Swiss republican F.C. La Harpe, Tsar Alexander I of Russia set out to follow his grandmother Catherine II as an “enlightener” through developing her program of national education. He created a ministry of public education and promulgated laws to provide schools for all classes of the population from the level of the primary parish school to supply the most elementary educational needs of all children, to the more senior elementary district school in each county, to the gymnasium (the advanced provincial secondary school) and finally to the university. The successes and failures of his reform provide excellent measures of the aspirations, as well as the practices, of imperial Russia. Whatever differences may exist among historians on aspects of educational policy, there has been nearly unanimous agreement that while gains were made on the secondary and university levels, the results were dismal on the elementary levels. The village or parish schools especially were failures because the government did not fund them and local initiative was lacking. Adam B. Ulam has asserted that “public education was as yet on so small a scale that it could contribute little, whether good or bad, to national life.”

None of the many riddles in the reign of Tsar Alexander I is so intriguing as that of the position of the heir apparent, the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich. His secret renunciation of his right to the throne cast doubt on Nicholas I's succession and contributed to the opportunity of the Decembrist conspirators. Moreover, as commander of the armed forces in Poland he was the chief figure in its government. The uprising of November 1830 signified the failure of Alexander's Polish plans, but it was also a personal tragedy for Constantine, who had so thoroughly identified himself with the new kingdom. His role in history was important; by his own choice it had not become much greater, but neither his contemporaries nor historians have agreed as to his qualifications to rule an empire.

Accounts differ even as to his capacity to manage the Polish army, or indeed to govern himself. A British historian in the nineteenth century described him as “a savage prince whose conduct and character made him more like a brute than a man.” This opinion was an extreme version of a common view of Constantine in the last century; the attitude is reflected by some writers of our own age, although few have gone so far as one modern author who pictured the Tsesarevich as “that insane hyena.” Polish writers, to further their justification of the 1830 revolt, assigned much of the discontent in that country to Constantine's “despotic” conduct, but even Russian and other historians have agreed that his explosive temperament and dislike for the Polish Constitution contributed to the uprising.