Public open space exposure measures in Australian health research: a critical review of the literature

Numerous studies have shown associations between public open space and a variety of health outcomes. Yet the extent to which firm conclusions and planning policy recommendations can be drawn from this body of work depends on how public open space availability has been measured and reported. Other researchers have highlighted potential issues with the way that public open space has been measured but have not systematically assessed the extent of this problem. This paper provides a comprehensive critical review of studies of public open space and health conducted in Australia to identify and compare public open space measurement and data treatment. Our analysis showed wide variation in how public open space was measured, as well as a lack of consistency in reporting public open space exposure measures and under‐reporting of measurement methods. We find that such tendencies limit how much these studies can be compared and contrasted with each other. The corollary of that finding is that without more detailed reporting of exposure measures, it will be difficult to establish an evidence base that informs planning for healthy, liveable environments. In response, we develop and present a checklist for reporting public open space exposure to address this challenge.     

Filling the Void?: Anglo-American Strategic Relations,Philippine Independence,and the Containment of Japan, 1932–1937

The declaration in 1932 of the United States to allow Philippine independence in March 1934 was an act that had a number of unintended consequences for the stability of the Far Eastern balance of power system. Given the state of tension existing in the international system between the major actors in the region: Japan, China, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States, any movement in the existing boundaries of the international spheres of influence between them could generate a significant destabilizing reaction. The American proposal to allow Philippine independence was such an act. If America surrendered its position and interests in the Philippines, who would replace it? What would happen if it was not replaced? Was it realistic, given the nature of the international competition for resources and strategic position, all linked to the creation and use of maritime power, that the Philippines could exist ‘on its own..’. This essay will analyse how the United States and Great Britain dealt with this instability, as well as how those interactions allowed a closer and more harmonious Anglo-American informal strategic relationship to be developed. That relationship would thereafter evolve into a collaborative alliance aimed at deterring further Japanese expansion.     

A seventeenth-century trade gun and associated collection from Pine Island,Alabama

A set of artifacts, apparently associated with human remains (one tooth), from Pine Island, Alabama, was donated to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in 1915. In preparation for repatriation, this collection was investigated extensively by a volunteer team. This paper reports the results of this analysis, focusing especially on a new type of trade gun and the glass beads. The goal of the research is to provide an accurate date for the collection to assist in identifying the Native American group represented.     

Losing—and Salvaging?—the Rural Landscape of Graeco-Roman Philadelphia

Between Biblical ‘Ammon’ and Early Umayyad ‘Amman’ lie a thousand years of Graeco-Roman Philadelphia. During this period the population of the classical city and its hinterland reached a peak not seen again until the 20^th century. During the Middle Ages, however, the population shrank dramatically, the city was abandoned, an island of crumbling grandeur, surrounded by an equally depopulated landscape—the skeleton of a once thriving network of roads, villages, farms, monasteries, and field-systems. Even after re-settlement began at Amman in the 1870s, population in city and hinterland was thin and scattered, the abundant ruins often well-preserved. Development throughout the Belqa—the extensive fertile hinterland of Amman, was evident but relatively slow for some 70 years. After 1948, the impact of successive waves of refugees on top of a region-wide population explosion, began to transform the landscape and devastate the archaeological record. The process is accelerating and spreading. Even in the city, many substantial buildings captured on 19^th century photographs have been lost to development; in the hinterland, the vital rural context of a great Classical city has been extensively overwhelmed. Nevertheless, much can yet be salvaged. Beginning with Seetzen in 1806, westerners began to explore ‘east of Jordan’. Many recorded their observations and some mapped, painted, drew, and increasingly photographed—including from the air. Collectively, the corpus of evidence is considerable, ranging from the observations of scores of early western visitors to the more recent archaeological surveys of the 1970s. Appropriately for present purposes, outstanding amongst such visitors and explicitly scientific and systematic were the PEF surveys of Warren in 1867 and Conder in 1881.     

Neutron Activation Analysis of Metal Artefacts from the Moche Site,North Coast of Peru

Neutron activation analysis has been used to characterize 60 metal objects from the Moche site, of which four are associated with the Chimú Period, two with the Early Chimú Period and the others with various Moche IV contexts. Different types of utilitarian and non‐utilitarian objects were analysed to identify the metals present, and to investigate their chemical composition and their eventual source. The results clearly indicate the distinction between Chimú and Moche artefacts and confirm the generalized opinion that arsenic bronze was popular after ad 900. They also indicate that gilding copper objects with gold was already a common practice during the Moche era.