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"Gillespie, Richard"
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Barcelona, the left and the independence movement in Catalonia
\"Created by social movement activists and left-wing parties during years of austerity, Barcelona en Comâu, or the Comuns (as they are known in Catalan), won control of the city council of Barcelona in May 2015. The ensuing municipal government gave the city its first ever female mayor in the form of former housing rights campaigner Ada Colau. The Comuns administration proceeded to undertake ambitious initiatives, attempting to regenerate democracy by changing the relationship between municipal authority and citizen, addressing social inequality issues and seeking to curb the hitherto unbridled tourist expansion in the name of improving the environment for those who live in the Catalan capital. This book examines the extent to which the political project of the Comuns has brought radical change in Barcelona, where it has faced opposition from revolutionary anti-capitalists, traditional Catalan nationalists and independentistas, as well as conservative political and economic forces. It also considers the Comuns' relationship to Podemos and their prospects of growing beyond the city, in the metropolitan area of Barcelona and across Catalonia\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Climate change not to blame for late Quaternary megafauna extinctions in Australia
Late Quaternary megafauna extinctions impoverished mammalian diversity worldwide. The causes of these extinctions in Australia are most controversial but essential to resolve, because this continent-wide event presaged similar losses that occurred thousands of years later on other continents. Here we apply a rigorous metadata analysis and new ensemble-hindcasting approach to 659 Australian megafauna fossil ages. When coupled with analysis of several high-resolution climate records, we show that megafaunal extinctions were broadly synchronous among genera and independent of climate aridity and variability in Australia over the last 120,000 years. Our results reject climate change as the primary driver of megafauna extinctions in the world’s most controversial context, and instead estimate that the megafauna disappeared Australia-wide ∼13,500 years after human arrival, with shorter periods of coexistence in some regions. This is the first comprehensive approach to incorporate uncertainty in fossil ages, extinction timing and climatology, to quantify mechanisms of prehistorical extinctions.
Global megafaunal extinctions took place in the late Quaternary, yet the relative impact of climate and humans in the faunal collapse is unclear. Here, the authors show that megafaunal extinctions in Australia were independent of climate variability and took place approximately 13,500 years after human arrival.
Journal Article
A Novel Cellulose-Preparation Method
The radiocarbon (14C) dating of contaminated old wood has been seen as a challenge requiring many lengthy procedures, often using strong alkali extractions and carbon-containing solvents. Introduced here is a novel protocol called 2chlorOx, a twice-repeated sequence of alkaline hypochlorite and acidic chlorite oxidations, which is shown to work well for 14C and 13C measurements on both <5000 BP and >50,000 BP wood samples, producing results superior to those from conventional acidic chlorite or acidic dichromate oxidations. The 2chlorOx method employs only inorganic reagents, many samples can be completed in less than one day under normal laboratory conditions, and cellulose prepared in this way is usually paper-white in color.
Journal Article
Georg Neumayer and Melbourne Observatory: an institutional legacy Paper in special issue: Special Centenary Anniversary Symposium issue commemorating Georg von Neumayer: his Australian, German and polar scientific achievements and legacies. Morton, Anne M. (ed.)
This paper assesses Georg Neumayer’s impact on the Victorian scientific community, and especially his role in the establishment of Melbourne Observatory as a major scientific institution in colonial Australia. Neumayer’s arrival in Melbourne to pursue his own scientific project triggered a chain of events that would lead to the creation of Melbourne Observatory and the integration of Neumayer’s geomagnetic and meteorological research into the ongoing program of the observatory. The location of the observatory in South Yarra was a direct result of Neumayer’s insistence that the site was the most suitable for geomagnetic measurement. Most critically, Neumayer’s attempts to get approval for his project highlighted the need for local scientists to establish political and scientific alliances that would ensure endorsement by international, notably British, scientists, and that would persuade local elites and government of the practical value of their research.
Journal Article
secessionism and the eu
A review essay covering a book by Glenn M.E. Duerr, Secessionism and the European Union: The Future of Flanders, Scotland, and Catalonia (2015).
Journal Article
Temporal Changes in Soil Surface Elevation under Different Tillage Systems
Conventional, fixed-depth sampling may lead to errors in quantifying temporal changes in C stocks if soil bulk density (BD) changes. When surface elevation is altered due to a change in BD, sampling depth should be adjusted so that the sampled soil mass remains constant. We evaluated the ability of a topographic survey method (precise level) to quantify temporal changes (2000–2007) in surface elevation following conversion of long-term pasture to arable cropping using conventional tillage (plowing to 20 cm), minimum tillage, or no-till. Measured elevations were compared with values estimated from BD determined for fixed-depth increments (0–7.5, 7.5–15, 15–25, and 25–30 cm). In the first season, soil mass to 25 cm decreased by ?270 Mg/ha under conventional cultivation (relative to precultivation mass of 3345 Mg/ha) as BD decreased in the 7.5- to 15- and 15- to 25-cm layers. This represented an upward movement of the soil surface by an estimated 22 mm. Minimum tillage and no-till treatments moved 9 and 2 mm upward, respectively. Subsequently, the soil consolidated and surface elevation declined by an estimated 8 mm in all cultivated treatments. Elevation changes measured by the precise level were very similar to these BD-based estimates. Changes in elevation in conventional, minimum tillage, and no-till treatments averaged 13, 1.5, and −6 mm, respectively (positive values indicate upward movement, negative values subsidence). Corresponding BD-estimated values were 17, 1.1, and −3 mm. Using topographic survey information, sampling depth can be adjusted so that a constant mass is sampled from soils where BD has been changed by tillage or natural processes.
Journal Article
The Rise and Fall of Cork Model Collections in Britain
Commencing in the late 1760s, cork models of classical monuments in Italy were purchased by wealthy British collectors while on their Grand Tour. Initially commissioned by tourists with specific antiquarian and architectural interests, the models were an expression of the collector's knowledge of classical history and of their Neoclassical sensibility. Models soon appeared in the Society of Antiquaries of London and the British Museum, in the private displays of Charles Townley and John Stuart, Earl of Bute, and in George III's royal collection. In the early 1800s, architect John Soane began purchasing models from the secondary market for his house museum. Interest in cork architectural models waned during the Nineteenth Century. Descendants of the original owners transferred them to public institutions, while museums that had at first enthusiastically welcomed the donations or made their own purchases, relegated the models to storage. In the twentieth century the majority of the models were discarded or lost. This paper explores the reasons for the enthusiastic acquisition of architectural cork models and their subsequent demise.
Journal Article
The Great Melbourne Telescope
Erected at Melbourne Observatory in 1869, the telescope was the second largest in the world, designed to explore the nature of the nebulae in the southern skies.Richard Gillespie, head of the History and Technology department at the Melbourne museum has written an entertaining account of the telescope's extraordinary history and tells the story.
eBook