Health hazards of floods: hospital admissions for Lismore

Severe unprecedented flooding of unprepared and inexperienced communities adversely affects community health, but the effect of severe flooding on well-prepared and experienced communities is less certain. An answer was sought for the New South Wales coastal town of Lismore. Parts are flooded every year with the last major flood occurring in 1974. Hospital admission and death certificates were analysed for the years before and after that flood. Using this data and information from an earlier survey two types of analysis were undertaken: a comparison of mortality and hospital admissions before and after the flood; and a comparison of health effects between different levels of flooding, including residents whose properties were located outside the flood plain. Although the flood did not appear to increase the number of hospital admissions or deaths, the ratio of male to female admissions showed a significant change. For those severely flooded, male admissions doubled while female admissions halved. Analysis of the data in relation to flood risk showed that for both pre-and post-flood periods hospital admissions were closely related to the degree of flood risk. Those whose dwellings were subject to a metre or more offloodwater over floor level are twice as likely to be admitted to hospital as residents of the flood free areas.     

论科学发展观的时代性与前瞻性

科学发展观具有正确的哲学前提、科学的理论渊源、坚实的实践基础和广阔的应用前景,完全符合人类发展的共同意愿,是指引中国未来发展的重要指导思想。     

Political theorising: Four conceptions of the nature of theory

This paper is focused upon the issue of the nature of political theorising. The paper presents four different conceptions of political theorising derived from literature on the subject written by those concerned with the nature of political theory or philosophy. These four different conceptions constitute alternative practices for those who designate themselves political theorists. They constitute alternative practices because they are based upon different understandings of the nature of thinking, the role of the intellectual, the function of language or the character of social science. The intention behind this paper is to map the intellectual terrain occupied by those who engage in political theorising. The final recommendation is that each of the four conceptions be accepted as legitimate alternative practices and any temptation toward designating one conception as true political theorising be resisted.     

浅析雷电的危害和防护

<正>雷电是伴有闪电和轰鸣的一种雄伟壮观而又有点令人恐惧的放电现象。雷电通常产生于较强对流的积雨云中,因此常伴随着大风和大雨,甚至伴随着冰雹     

Engaging with nature: nature affords well-being for families and young people in Finland

ABSTRACT

Contact with nature is increasingly being recognized as contributing to humans’ mental and physical health. This study explores how Finnish children, young people and families engage with nature during outdoor recreation. We apply a relational approach with the concept of affordance to understand better how engagement with nature affects their well-being. The study is based on thematic writings of 15- to 21-year-olds and on an ethnographic study of camping. Findings indicate that engagement with nature enables young people to calm down and to get away from the pressures of everyday life and affords close interaction for families. The relational approach makes visible that the more young people and families spend time in nature, the more they are able to perceive affordances that enhance their well-being. In future research and policy, the focus should be on how to support families’ engagement with nature by securing time and places for encountering nature.     

Inscribing nature: Archaeological metaphors and the formation of new sciences

Abstract

Ghanaian authorities restored Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle as memorials to the transatlantic slave trade in order to draw African Americans to Ghana. While this was a positive development for a travel industry that rarely caters to diaspora African needs, the Ghanaian initiative has evoked strong criticisms from concerned African Americans who feel that the restoration has erased the monuments' associated images of slavery and has removed the desired experiential effect. I focus on the complex interplay of these concerns, African Americans' previous attempts to preserve some of these monuments and the history of structural changes to the monuments. These complex issues require several layers of analysis. I situate my discussion within the debate of whether there is any such thing as original monuments and whether there is a necessary correlation between monuments per se and the experience of historical reality. For African Americans, such a strong relationship can be established. The preservation of these monuments, of global significance, calls for an international dialogue based on respect, tolerance and sensitivity.     

On the nature of the beast: Re-charting political geographies of the European Union

This review paper begins with the premise that since the European Union remains a process of construction with no agreed or pre‐designated end‐point, its power structure is open to a diverse range of interpretations. Moreover, the apparent novelty of the EU renders it hard to characterize according to familiar taxonomies. The novelty lies in part in the complex territorial configurations of authority in the EU. Different conceptualizations of the EU are varied readings of the structure, balance and scales of authority — which thereby invoke different actions and spaces of possibility.     

Human nature: The perspective from sociobiology

Edward O. Wilson. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975. ix + 697 pp. Illustrations, figures, tables, glossary, bibliography and index. $20.00     

Tomboy Tales: The rural,nature and the gender of childhood

By following and connecting certain well-trodden routes through constructions of childhood, it is possible to arrive at a point at which the 'natural' gender of childhood is apparently male. This is indicated by the fact that girls are often termed 'tomboys' in both popular and lay discourses, even when they are partaking in what are seen to be the purest, most ideal childhoods which are present in notions of country childhood idylls. Children, nature, and the countryside as surrogate nature, are all seen as innocent, and thus notions of idyllic 'natural' country childhoods become a powerful force. Heavily influenced by romantic constructions of, and connections between, childhood, nature and the countryside, such views, it will be shown, leave little space for girl children to adopt female identities. The author suggests that this ideal association of male children and nature, and the accompanying notion that it is the development of female sexuality which in particular marks a departure from the natural state of childhood, and thus ends childhood, merits consideration. This is particularly so in the contexts of various discourses, such as romanticism, feminism and ecofeminism, which have explored links between the female and the natural. The aim is not to challenge these constructions and theorisations of gender and nature directly, but rather to show how the introduction of the notion of childhood might cross-cut, problematise and even illuminate them to some degree.     

再论方志属性与方志学学科建设

文章认为,目前越来越多的方志工作者已经认识到方志的专门性和方志学的独立性,编纂专门的地方志书,建立独立的方志学科体系,正逐渐成为人们的共识。文章重点谈了如何建设和发展方志学科:一、应深入开展方志学理论研究,理论研究要和志书编纂结合起来。二、建设一支精干的方志学理论队伍。三、尽快进行方志学学科立项。四、围绕方志学理论体系的建设组织重大项目攻关。最后指出当前方志理论研究存在的问题。     

Water wizards: reshaping wet nature and society

The article investigates how humans ‘networked’ wet nature and how this affected the shaping of Dutch society. First, it takes a grand view of Dutch history and describes how wet network building intertwined with the shaping of the Dutch landscape, its economy and its polity. Second, it investigates the specific challenges of wet network building—integrating potentially conflicting uses of water into one design—for the case of the national fresh water supply network (1940–1971). Finally, it discusses ecological damage, emerging new risks and cultural patterns related to wet network building.     

对商誉本质的探讨

<正>商誉是一种构成复杂、不可辨认的无形资产,目前学术界对于商誉没有一个统一的定义。基于实务处理的需要,现行商誉的概念已经被外购商誉所混淆,以至于疏离了商誉的本质。     

Natural hazards and religion in New Orleans: Coping strategies and interpretations

Socially disadvantaged people are more vulnerable and exposed to the effects of extreme natural events and the social disasters which follow. This article presents the coping strategies and cultural creativity of the most vulnerable (non‐conformist African American religious/spiritual) communities in New Orleans today and in the aftermath of Katrina. Rituals and religious practices play an important role in resilience‐building and for relief and recovery from disasters. Case studies are presented to demonstrate how these devotions, and the community‐building and mutual support that take place as a result (as well as individual practices), have assisted practitioners in their struggle for survival during Katrina and the yearly hurricane season. The article also examines how natural hazards are perceived and reflected in religious explanations and expressions, as well as in spiritual arts, and how they lead to change and adaptations. Here, affected people are not regarded as ‘passive victims’ but as creative and active agents.