Evolving Location Analytics for Service Coverage Modeling

Among the wide range of geographic analysis methods are service coverage models. These location analytic approaches have been invaluable for better understanding existing (and past) conditions, deriving creative plans, and developing policy for addressing associated societal problems. Increasingly sophisticated spatial information and better knowledge about interrelated mechanisms of process and behavior have made it possible to enhance coverage models, enabling more nuanced formalizations to be devised. This has proven both important and essential in many ways. Mathematical details associated with service coverage models are derived to highlight evolving capabilities. Empirical results are presented in order to illustrate the significance and substantive importance of advanced location analytics capabilities.     

Moving stories: precarious work and multiple migrations

According to the United Nations over 3% of the global population or 232 million people currently live outside their country of birth. Their significance as a growing proportion of the labour force in many European countries is widely known. It is also evident that women – many of them young – are increasingly represented among economic migrants and asylum seekers. However, the longer term contribution of women, as migrants and as workers, is less well recorded. Here, I explore the connections between migration and employment, through the lens of oral histories undertaken with women who moved to the UK. Their life stories illustrate the growing diversity among female migrants as well as the changing nature of women’s employment. My key focus is, however, not on the work these women migrants undertook in the UK, but on precarious forms of waged work engaged in during the migration journey itself. I also reflect on oral history as a method and the problems of writing difference for feminist scholars working with and on women migrants.     

Assessing Australia’s options in the context of Brexit: engaging with the UK and the European Union

ABSTRACT

The Brexit vote will fundamentally transform the European Union (EU) and will change how the UK relates to Europe and the rest of the world. What are the implications for Australia at this critical juncture? The UK has been a major player in the Australia–EU relationship, and Australia will now need to recalibrate its approach to both the UK and the EU across a range of policy areas. This article examines the future of Australia–UK and Australia–EU relations in the wake of Brexit, and assesses Australia’s options going forward. The authors advance three considerations. Firstly, Australia’s national interests are best served by adopting a pragmatic rather than nostalgic approach towards future relations with the UK and the EU. Secondly, Australia should avoid pursuing one relationship at the expense of the other and creating a zero-sum dynamic. Finally, Australia’s future strategy must consider broader global developments, such as events within its own region and the US presidency.     

Heritage Monitoring Scouts: Engaging the Public to Monitor Sites at Risk Across Florida

ABSTRACT

Along Florida’s nearly 13,000 km of shoreline, nearly 4000 archaeological sites and over 600 recorded historic cemeteries are at risk from climate change impacts including coastal erosion and a 2-metre rise in sea level. In 2016, the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN) created the Heritage Monitoring Scouts (HMS Florida) programme to engage the public in monitoring sites at risk. The programme grew quickly during the first year of operation to include 233 volunteers who submitted 312 monitoring forms. The programme exists beyond the singular act of a volunteer reporting site conditions; across Florida, varied combinations of local partnerships present unique opportunities for programmes, for example, the pilot program at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. Preliminary outcomes from the first year of HMS Florida and the pilot indicate the programme is effective in public engagement and a powerful management tool for tracking change to sites over time.     

Identifying a technological style in the making of lime plasters at Teopancazco (Teotihuacan,México)

The aim of this article is to focus on the technology of archeological plasters at Teotihuacan (Central Mexico), from the Classic Period (200–650 A.D.), focusing in the study of Teopancazco, a neighborhood center in the city. Petrographic and chemical analyses by OM, SEM-EDS, and LA-ICP-MS were conducted to characterize samples from different constructive phases and sectors of the neighborhood center, to determine the provenance of the raw materials employed in the manufacturing (e.g., volcanic glass shards) and to assess whether a shift occurred in the manufacturing of plasters and in the procurement strategies of raw materials during the different phases. The results of the analyses show that almost no changes occurred in the making of the plaster during more than four centuries and allow us to consider the presence of a technological style in their manufacture, which is characterized by the making of plaster by mixing lime with volcanic glass shards, which in the case of Teopancazco were derived from the Altotonga (Veracruz) magmatic system. The data at our disposal suggest that this style was developed in Teopancazco and later introduced throughout the city of Teotihuacan in the Early Xolalpan phase (A.D. 350), although we still do not know whether the provenance of the raw materials is the same. The wide distribution of this technological tradition could be due to the technological properties of the materials and/or the influence of the intermediate elite who ruled over Teopancazco. The paper confirms that the study of material culture and technology sheds light on broader cultural aspects of ancient societies.     

City and region in the credit market of late colonial Guadalajara,Mexico

Regional studies of colonial Mexico have focused on economic, sociological and political themes that largely neglect developing relationships between urban centers and their regions. Understanding these relationships is necessary for a clearer determination of the beginning of dependency and underdevelopment. Data for this study come from loan and mortgage documents contained in the Libros de Hipotecas for Guadalajara, Mexico from 1721 through 1820. The records show that most of the credit necessary for rural economies to function came from creditors in the capital city of Guadalajara. Credit flows through the countryside corresponded to the distributional patterns of population, economic activities, and social networks. Districts with larger populations consumed greater amounts of credit in part because of the presence of many potential borrowers. Those areas involved primarily in trade and agriculture also needed much urban credit, particularly at critical stages in their economic development. Districts in which the region's wealthiest families resided also received more credit through the system of personal and business contacts which channelled the distribution of credit. The net flow of credit from city to region, however, does not necessarily indicate unilateral dependence of rural districts on the capital city. An analysis of the relative benefits to creditor and debtor indicates that the relationship between city and region was characterized by mutual dependence rather than urban exploitation of rural districts.