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It wasn't so long ago that histories of China's rocky transition to modernity featured a small and entirely male cast of characters. In the works of the first generation of American Sinologists, from John King Fairbank to his most famous students such as Joseph Levenson, a few men, from late Qing statesman Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 to reformers and revolutionaries like Kang Youwei 康有為, Sun Yatsen 孫中山, and Liang Qichao 梁啟超, loomed large over the narrative of the Chinese revolution. Into this lacuna Mary Rankin's rediscovery of the late Qing female martyr Qiu Jin 秋瑾 came as a thunderbolt. Her work opened up the possibility that perhaps the problem wasn't the absence of women in China's revolution but the failure of scholars to look for their contribution. Rankin's 1968 article on “The Tenacity of Tradition,” and her subsequent bookEarly Chinese Revolutionariespaved the way for a far more nuanced and complicated new social history of modern China.

Background: Previous research has shown that tendencies to tenaciously pursue goals and flexibly adapt goals independently relate to well-being in adults in mid-to-late life, but research has not tested whether these tendencies interact. For example, tenacity may only predict well-being in combination with flexibility. This research tests whether these tendencies interact to predict changes in health-related outcomes.Methods: A large cohort of people (n = 5,666), initially aged 55–56, completed measures of flexibility, tenacity, health-related outcomes (physical health, depression, hostility), as well as demographics. Participants provided follow-up data on all measures ten years later. Moderation analysis was used to test whether flexibility and tenacity interacted to predict changes in the health-related outcomes over the period.Results: The interaction between tenacity and flexibility significantly predicted changes in depression, hostility, and physical ill-health symptoms over ten years, such that highly flexible and tenacious individuals experienced the largest decreases in symptoms of depression, hostility, and physical ill-health.Conclusions: The interaction between flexibility and tenacity predicts greater well-being, such that one is most protective when an individual also scores highly on the other. The combination of flexibility and tenacity in the pursuit of personal goals may mean individuals can enjoy gains associated with goal pursuit without the detrimental effects of persevering in blocked goals.

Christopher Munn has written a scholarly book of 460 pages, with detailed endnotes that will be of considerable value to researchers in Hong Kong studies. The long endnotes and bibliography reveal the author as a man of great drive, energy, tenacity and intellectual commitment. Extraordinarily well-researched, the book contains great wealth of information on Hong Kong during the first four decades of British rule from the 1840s to the 1870s.

The tenacity of cypris larvae of the barnacles (Crustacea: Cirripedia)Balanus perforatus(Bruguiere) andElminius modestusDarwin was measured on multispecies biofilms developed under contrasting shear regimes. For both species, relatively thin, dense biofilms associated with high shear (83 s-1) afforded increased tenacity over relatively thick, less dense films associated with low shear (15 s-1). Although both species showed reduced tenacity on low-shear films compared to high-shear films,E. modestuscyprids attached as strongly to low-shear films as they did to unfilmed surfaces.Balanus perforatuscyprids, however, attached less strongly to low-shear films than to unfilmed surfaces. The results show thatB. perforatusand E.modestusmay appreciate differences in bacterial communi-ties grown under different shear conditions and highlight the potential for biofilms as one of the many cues to barnacle settlement.

The attachment capabilities of a brown seaweed,Sargassum muticum(Yendo) Fensholt were investigated in the laboratory on both smooth and rough substrata and in surging water motion reaching flow velocities of 57 cm s and 90 cm s.Newly released zygotes have no means of adhesion until they develop rhizoids, which can adhere on contact with the substratum. Attachment tenacity, as measured by the germling's ability to withstand dislodgement at a given velocity of water flow, is slight at first, but increases with time. This is not simply a function of time spent in residence on the substratum, for germlings cultured suspension stick very quickly and tenaciously when allowed to settle. Tenacity of adhesion seems to be a reflexion of the amount of mucopolysaccharide adhesive present. This increases gradually during the first few days of the germling's life, regardless of whether it is attached or not.Once secure attachment is achieved it is not weakened even by the death of the germling. A film of bacteria and micro algae on the surface of the substratum is not a requirement for germling adhesion, but its presence enhances the tenacity of adhesion.Smooth substrata are the least favourable for germling survival in flowing water. On rough substrata the ‘peaks’ of the microtopography and surfaces facing into the current are much less favourable than the troughs between the ‘peaks’, or surfaces in the lee of ‘peaks’. Germling survival increases with increasing substratum roughness up to an optimum rugosity at which the mean depth of the depressions on the surface is 420 μm, and the vast majority are deeper than the height of the germlings.

The tenacity of the barnacle cyprids ofBalanus balanoides(L.) during temporary adhesion to a variety of modified Perspex surfaces was tested using a sensitive microbalance. The Perspex panels were painted on the undersides with five colours of cellulose paint. Control measurements of the magnitude of temporary adhesion to clean slate panels were of the order of 2 × 10 N m. Untreated smooth Perspex panels and panels coated with an adsorbed layer of bovine serum albumen gave low figures of tenacity of the order of 0·8 × 10 N m. Roughening the panels with carborundum or treating with an adsorbed layer of barnacle extract protein resulted in higher tenacity measurements (1·0–1·8 × 10 N M), whereas the highest measurements were obtained when roughened Perspex panels were coated by an adsorbed layer of barnacle extract protein (1·6–2·2 × 10 N M). When the surfaces were made more attractive to barnacle cyprids by roughening or coating in barnacle protein the forces measured on dark coloured panels were higher than on lighter coloured panels. The results of the temporary adhesion measurements were closely paralleled by the numbers of cyprids found exploring the various surfaces during preference settlement experiments.

Students interested in the concepts of cause and consideration must, surely, have been struck by two things. The first is the extraordinary tenacity which has enabled these concepts to survive the attacks of eloquent critics who have doubted their utility. The second is their equally remarkable ability to accommodate the most divergent comparative theories. For the study of the two notions has led some to argue that they are, in reality, the same; others to insist that they are totally different; while yet another school of thought could be taken to doubt whether there is “any point in comparing cause and consideration, even to contrast the two.”The study of the legal systems of many countries—notably of the systems of West Germany, and Switzerland—reveals that there can be built a theory of contract which ignores the concepts of cause (as the French understand it) or consideration (as the Common lawyers have come to apply it over the years).

The study of history in Germany differs from its counterparts in other lands in that from the very beginning it possessed a unique theoretical and methodological conception, called “historicism,” to which German historians held with great tenacity until the 1960s. This point, which is hardly controversial, has recently been reinforced by Georg G. Iggers.

In a little over 400 pages Robert T. Handy's volume of the Oxford History of the Christian Church surveys more than four hundred years, two countries of vast geographical extent, almost 300 million people, fifteen churches claiming over two million members each, innumerable smaller churches, denominations and sects. One cannot but admire the tenacity with which he has carried out this daunting task, and be grateful for a critical bibliography of over 30 pages which will be invaluable for anyone who requires a quick guide to the literature on almost any aspect of American or Canadian Church history. The presentation is clear, and the stream—or torrent—of information is handled with skill.

In a large class of engineering structures it is essential that the materials employed should be both strong and ductile, so that not only shall the structure be able to resist heavy loads, but that if by any chance it is overloaded it shall not collapse suddenly. In order to ascertain whether a metal is suitable for a particular structure, its strength and ductility are determined experimentally. The test most commonly in use consists in applying a gradually increasing pull to a bar of the metal until fracture takes place. The maximum load supported per unit of the original cross-sectional area of the bar is called the tensile strength or tenacity of the metal, and the elongation of an initial measured length, expressed as a proportion of that length, is called the extension, and is used as an index of the ductility of the metal.

On returning from a collecting tour, one day in last June, I emptied my larvæ box, putting in a collar box for a short time a larvæ of C. Silvatica, one of the Geometrid and one other Lepidopterous larva: the two last I could not identify, but they were all, Lepidopterous, I did not open the box until three or four hours afterwards, when I found a decided change in the appearance of my larvæ, The C. Silvatica larva was bitten entirely apart, the head and three first segments being in one piece, the three last abdominal segments in another; the remaining segments were in an indistinguishable mass on the bottom of the box. The geometrid larva was in almost as bad condition, but was not bitten apart; the third was uninjured.