Towards a nuanced understanding of health‐supportive place using composite research methods

Chronic non‐communicable diseases comprise a major challenge for health in contemporary Australia and across the globe and, while various factors are at play, personal choices in behaviour and lifestyle are significant. The physical make‐up and ongoing management of the places where we live positively and negatively influences these lifestyle choices and subsequent health outcomes. However, responses—in research, policy, built environment design, construction, and management—frequently fail to recognise the intricacies of this people‐place‐behaviour nexus largely because those responses are highly focused and empirical. Rather, the health‐supportive environments needed to address the current chronic disease epidemic also require additional—networked, nuanced, and intuitive—understandings. Responding to that need, the study described in this paper took a comprehensive view of what constitutes a health‐supportive built environment. We detail the composite methods employed—built environment audits, interviews, and focus groups—all of which are available for use by others in similar situations. Then, using two case study examples, we reflect upon how our methodology revealed otherwise hidden aspects of the extent to which the study sites supported or hindered health‐supportive behaviours and responses. These results suggest intervention actions for policy makers and practitioners that will help them respond to the complex needs of communities in creating a health‐supportive environment.     

Nonlinear Multivariate Spatial Modeling Using NLPCA and Pair‐Copulas

A novel geostatistical modeling approach is developed to model nonlinear multivariate spatial dependence using nonlinear principal component analysis (NLPCA) and pair‐copulas. In spatial studies, multivariate measurements are frequently collected at each location. The dependence between such measurements can be complex. In this article, a multivariate geostatistical model is developed that can capture both nonlinear spatial dependence across locations and nonlinear dependence between measurements at a particular location. Nonlinear multivariate dependence between spatial variables is removed using NLPCA. Subsequently, a pair‐copula based model is fitted to each transformed variable to model the univariate nonlinear spatial dependencies. NLPCA and pair‐copulas, within the proposed model, are compared with stepwise conditional transformation (SCT) and conventional kriging. The results show that, for the two case studies presented, the proposed model that utilizes NLPCA and pair‐copulas reproduces nonlinear multivariate structures and univariate distributions better than existing methods based on SCT and kriging.     

The Lusitania Riots in Pietermaritzburg 13–14 May 1915

During the Great War the sinking of the British liner Lusitania by a German submarine off the Irish coast on 7 May 1915, with the loss of 1198 lives, evoked a strong popular reaction throughout the English-peaking world, and included violent outbursts against Germans in many urban centres of the British Empire. In South Africa these riots resulted in great damage to property and pressure on the Union government to enforce harsh restrictions on enemy subjects and businesses. This is an account of the riots and their consequences in Pietermaritzburg, Natal, one of the most ‘British’ of South African cities.     

‘Man can’t give birth,woman can't fish’: gender dynamics in the small-scale fisheries of Bangladesh

Going beyond the myths prevalent in the socio-cultural embeddedness of rural Bangladesh, this article examines the diverse visible and invisible roles of fisherwomen in small-scale fisheries. This research considered two ethnic groups situated in two different ecosystems: the floodplain freshwater ecosystem is represented by new-entrant Muslim fishers ‘Maimal’ and the coastal ecosystem is represented by caste-based Hindu fishers ‘Jaladas’. From the basic ontological worldview of human dignity, moral individualism, and the social recognition of women’s rights, we argue that fisherwomen’s roles need to be recognized, focused, and valued to develop a horizontal understanding that is a prerequisite to the process of democratization, and the proper functioning of a just society. In the rural societies, a host of attributes, such as the deep-rooted socio-cultural constructions of the motherly myth, extreme tolerance, family teaching, religious antagonism, poverty, lack of education, internalization of a subordinate position, lack of supportive institutions, and fear of loss of societal patronage, profoundly undermine the capacity of women to aspire and raise their voice. Fisherwomen are accrued an inferior social position although they perform unique roles in the areas of childcare, household upkeep, livelihoods, and psycho-social support for the seafaring fishers. Conducive to the ecotone of marine fisheries, this article also portrays how a rigid patriarchal form of society is seasonally transformed to matrifocality when fishermen are away for fishing for half the year.     

Dog in the Night: The Limits of European Nationalism, 1789–1895

Abstract. The article questions the widely held view that nationalism was a significant feature of modem civilisation and particularly of nineteenth-century Europe. Two groups of events are chosen for examination: reputedly classic instances of nationalism (the French Revolution, German responses to Napoleon, the Italian and German revolutions of 1848, Italian and German unification and the Eastern crisis of 1875-8), and important international events which in an age of nationalism should reflect it (the Crimean War, Bismarck's alliances and the Franco-Russian alliance). Defined as the effort of nation/peoples to defend/extend their power, nationalism is evaluated specifically for its breadth of support and its influence on decision-makers which prove to be limited. This conclusion has implications not only for these events but also brings into question the established system of historical periodisation which presumes the distinctiveness of the nineteenth century and modem civilisation precisely because of their distinguishing features such as nationalism.     

Luminescence dating of anthropogenic deposits from Tall Zarʿa in the Jordan Valley

This study uses quartz-based optically stimulated luminescence dating to determine when a massive fortification wall (W11186) was constructed in the archaeological site of Tall Zarʿa in the Jordan Valley. A total of 11 samples of sediments were taken from a trench on the north side of the wall (extramuros). The extracted quartz grains had good luminescence characteristics and were identified as well bleached by comparison with feldspar infrared-stimulated luminescence (IRSL) ages. The optical ages showed that the deposition against the wall occurred in two different periods. The first was around 3.20 ± 0.07 ka ago (Iron Age), and the second was around 2.28 ± 0.08 ka (Hellenistic period). Human activity was evident because of the intermixing of cultural material with the presumed naturally deposited units.