First record of fossil woods from the Mariño Formation (Miocene), Mendoza,Argentina and their palaeobiogeographical implications

The first Miocene records of silicified fossil woods from the Mariño Formation, Potrerillos area, Andes Precordillera, Mendoza province, Argentina are described. Rhaphithamnoxylon artabeae gen. et sp. nov. is described as the first fossil wood referable to Verbenaceae from Argentina. This new fossil species is related to extant Rhaphithamnus Miers, sharing the following anatomical features: diffuse porosity, distinct growth ring boundaries, numerous small to very small vessels, commonly in radial multiples, 1–3 seriate rays, and heterocellular and scarce paratracheal axial parenchyma. Rhaphithamnus contains only two extant species: R. spinosus (A.L. Juss.) Moldenke, which occurs in the Valdivian forests of Chile and Argentina, and R. venustus (Philippi) Robinson, which is endemic to the Juan Fernández Islands. Representatives of Verbenaceae are distributed predominantly in the Americas from Patagonia (Argentina) to Canada, and they are inferred to have originated in South America. The fossil wood described herein provides new age and geographical constraints on the raphithanoid lineage within Verbenaceae. Other fossil woods recorded from the Mariño level are retained under open nomenclature, as they possess a combination of mostly solitary broad vessels, and smaller vessels in radial multiples or in clusters, with numerous, vasicentric to confluent axial parenchyma, and heterocellular, high rays. Thus, they have features akin to dicotyledonous lianas or vine-like or small shrub species.     

Transnational Capital, Urban Globalisation and Cross-Border Solidarity: the Case of the South African Municipal Workers

The article discusses the redefinition of strategies of international solidarity and action in South African organised labour, with particular regard to the South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU). SAMWU has recently been challenged by the pervasive penetration of global capital and multinational corporations in schemes of "PublicÐPrivate partnership" in the delivery of municipal infrastructures. These developments carry potential dangers for trade union organisation and for public services in a context of extreme inequality. SAMWU has identified international action against global capitalism as a decisive terrain of struggle for workers' and citizens' rights. However, the union's difficulties in articulating an effective confrontation at this level reflects broader problems in internationalist approaches adopted by South African labour. These refer primarily to a problematic conceptualisation of new subjects of opposition and of alliances with emerging global social movements.     

Chinese Refugee Children and Empires: The Politics of International Adoptions in Cold War Hong Kong

With the support of new sources from British and Hong Kong archives, this study casts new light on the post-war international adoptions of Chinese refugee children in the British colony of Hong Kong. It argues that while children were ‘saved’ and found families overseas, they were also used as pawns in a bigger political game. A way to delegate welfare for the Hong Kong government, a symbolic humanitarian concession vis-à-vis a strict anti-immigration policy for Britain, and an anti-communist propaganda tool for the United States, these adoptions also convey the competing power and population politics played over subject children by two multiracial empires: one in decline (the rapidly decolonising Britain), the other on the rise (the new cold war superpower).     

Friedrich Ratzel and the nature of (political) geography

It is impossible to understand Ratzel's Politische Geographie without placing the figure of its author in the perspective of the critical bourgeois geography of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. From this point of view, Ratzel is the last representative of this bourgeois movement born in the first part of the eighteenth century in Germany with the name of “pure geography” or “natural geography”, and developed in the following century thanks to the great works of Karl Ritter and Alexander von Humboldt. The purpose of bourgeois critical geography was to create a geographical discourse (a reasoning) able to transcend the identification between geographic knowledge and cartographic representation that was maintained by the Staatsgeographen—that is by the state geographers who defended the feudal aristocratic regime. But it is precisely this identification that German bourgeois geographers appropriated in the second half of the nineteenth century, after the bourgeoisie came into power through a compromise with its ancient political opponent. Only Ratzel, direct heir of the Erdkunde tradition of Ritter and von Humboldt, was an exception by opposing the new bourgeois state geography with his own state-based geography.     

Passive Control of Steel Storage Racks for Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese under Seismic Accelerations

Recent earthquakes in Italy resulted in the collapse of steel storage racks for aging Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, damaging a huge number of cheese wheels. In order to improve the seismic performance of surviving racks with low-budget solutions, when replacement cannot be considered, we investigate the possibility of using viscous dampers that connect the racks to a surrounding structure. Time-history analyses with natural and spectrum-compatible artificial accelerograms allow one to determine the optimal damping factor that reduces both the stress in the rack and the actions transmitted to the constraining structure. Results confirm the noteworthy benefits of the proposed retrofitting system.