Successive Earthquake-Tsunami Analysis to Develop Collapse Fragilities

Over the last half century, scientists and engineers have developed methods to better understand and mitigate the damage caused by tsunamis. According to U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) P646, buildings in many regions, including the U.S. Pacific Northwest, will experience substantial ground shaking from an offshore earthquake that precedes a tsunami and then experience the tsunami forces themselves. Thus, both hazards should be considered in computing the damage and collapse risk to buildings. This article summarizes a basic approach to numerically consider the successive seismic and tsunami risk to buildings in near-field tsunami regions such as the U.S. Pacific Northwest.     

After the Nicaraguan Non‐Payment Crisis: Alternatives to Microfinance Narcissism

This article argues against ‘microfinance narcissism’ and calls for a re‐politicization of the microfinance paradigm. The dominant verdict on microcredit has undergone a damning transformation, from ‘magic bullet for poverty reduction’ to ‘cause of suicide’. Nowadays, both radical critics and mainstream voices deplore microcredit's negative impact on micro‐entrepreneurs. They argue for a reorientation where credit is targeted at established small and medium‐sized enterprises, particularly in rural areas. The crisis in microfinance worldwide, including burgeoning protests, are viewed as proof of the commercial derailment and/or misplaced faith in microfinance's positive social and economic impact on the poor. This article engages with this debate through a study of the Nicaraguan micro‐finance crisis. It challenges existing analyses that pin the crisis on agricultural over‐indebtedness, lack of due diligence, or Sandinista populist politics. Illustrating the dangers of neglecting the diverse nature of microfinance, it reveals the paradoxical outcomes of the crisis: a refocus on the urban at the expense of agricultural credit for small and medium enterprises and a consolidation of the power of national processing elites. Nicaragua's Non‐Payment Movement is also shown to be both a product of elite manipulation and an expression of legitimate resistance to an industry that turns a blind eye to the manner in which markets and politics constrain clients’ potential.     

Retracted: A Possible Case of Hypopituitarism in Neolithic China

A human skeleton with a possible case of hypopituitarism is reported. The individual (burial M53) is from the site of Guanjia, a Neolithic settlement in northern China, dated to the Late Yangshao period (6000–5500 bp ). On the basis of the fully erupted third permanent molars and moderate occlusal dental wear resulting in substantial exposure of dentine, the initially estimated age‐at‐death was placed between 26 and 33 years. However, dimensions of the postcranial skeleton fall significantly below and outside the range from contemporaneous adult populations, and along with delayed epiphyseal fusion present throughout the skeleton, the postcranial age is concordant to that of an 11‐ to 13‐year‐old child. Most long bone epiphyses display incomplete fusion or are entirely unfused, but a lack of microporosity in the metaphyseal areas near growth plates indicates a cessation of longitudinal bone growth. Because no signs of porotic hyperostosis, cribra orbitalia, periosteal lesions or linear enamel hypoplasia are observed, the restricted growth of this individual is likely caused by a growth hormone disorder and is unrelated to nutritional deficiencies or systemic infection. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Watermills: The Origin of the Use of Renewable Hydraulic Energy in Spain

The use of renewable hydraulic energy sources by mankind most likely has its origins in the development of the watermills. To understand the functioning of these mills, this article first reviews, through the analysis of different bibliographical sources, the technical evolution of the machinery used since the appearance of the first watermills to grind cereal grain in the 1st century bc.

Secondly, a particular area of the south-west of Spain, Alcalá de Guadaíra, has been selected for study, whose strategic location as well as its hydrological characteristics gave rise, firstly, to an intensive milling industry, and, later, a famed baking industry, from the late Middle Ages until recent decades. The huge development of these two industrial activities has made Alcalá de Guadaíra an exceptional example in Spain, with 40 watermills in the early 18th century.

Extensive work on site allowed the analysis of the state and types of watermills that still exist in this area, identifying their similarities and differences. Unfortunately, after they fell into disuse, only 28 of these mills remain today; 12 of them are in a relative good state of preservation, seven in an alarming state of ruin and, of the other nine, only some unrecognisable vestiges remain. Some of these mill buildings have been restored recently, although their machinery is missing. Only from old photographs or by visiting mills restored in other areas is it possible to determine how these watermills worked.

Due to the lack of financial resources to carry out physical restoration of the industrial heritage missing in these flour mills, a virtual model of one of them has been developed. This work provides, at least virtually, a reconstruction of the traditional mills which helps promote technological studies and shows how they worked, as part of virtual exhibitions. In addition, a computer application of augmented reality has been developed that any visitor can install on a mobile device to display the virtual reality of the machinery, generated by 3D models, so they can visualise the physical reality that they would have found in the mill.     

Portugal’s Declaration During the Negotiation of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: International Protection and Cooperation versus Possession

Portugal was the second country in Western Europe to ratify the 2001 UNESCO Convention, a pivotal step that occurred on September 21, 2006. In 2000 the Portuguese delegation presented a statement in the UNESCO meeting for the draft Convention, the substance of which emphasises the protection and cooperation principles concerning the underwater cultural heritage rather than the issue of its possession. In 2008, the discovery of a sixteenth century Portuguese shipwreck near Oranjemund, Namibia, confirmed that the referred statement opened a premonitory strategic window for the conciliation of interests of States around such examples of common heritage.     

UNDERSTANDING LOCAL CONTENT DECISIONS: ECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND AN APPLICATION TO THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY*

ABSTRACT In industrializing regions, foreign investments often generate spillovers through regional backward links. This situation may create a gap between private and social valuations of resources, resulting in a level of local content below what would be optimal for the economy. This situation creates an opportunity for the enactment of domestic content regulations. This paper presents a model to understand how these policies condition the decisions of the economic agents and affect economic welfare. Then, it simulates the model using a case study of the automotive sector. Results suggest that, in certain conditions, this local content regulation can be welfare enhancing.     

Urban Systems of Accumulation: Half a Century of Chilean Neoliberal Urban Policies

We analyse a half‐century of Chilean urban reforms to explain the introduction of a system of urban accumulation by dispossession of public resources and opportunities. Three stages have been conceptualised in the imposition of a neoliberal creative‐destructive process: proto‐neoliberalism, roll‐back and roll‐out periods. Empirical studies have traditionally analysed this process by examining a single urban policy's evolution over time. In this paper, we go beyond these types of studies by performing a systemic analysis of multiple urban policy reforms in Santiago, Chile. We use a genealogical thematic analysis to track changes in laws, government programmes and planning documents from between 1952 and 2014. Our analysis identifies different “urban systems of accumulation” by looking at the interplay of four urban policies: (1) urban planning deregulation; (2) social housing privatisation; (3) devolution of territorial taxes; and (4) decreased public service provision. Moreover, our multidimensional policy analysis in Santiago characterises a more radical, fourth expression in the creative destruction process of “accumulation by dismantling”. Consequently, we advocate for more multidimensional urban policy research that goes beyond a three‐period analysis in order to gain a deeper understanding of contemporary neoliberal creative‐destructive processes in variegated geographies.