Famines past, famine's future

Famine, like poverty, has always been with us. No region and no century has been immune. Its scars — economic, psychological and political — can long outlast its immediate impact on mortality and health. Famines are a hallmark of economic backwardness, and were thus more likely to occur in the pre-industrialized past. Yet the twentieth century suffered some of the most devastating ever recorded. That century also saw shifts in both the causes and symptoms of famine. This new century's famines have been "small" by historical standards, and the threat of major ones seemingly confined to ever-smaller pockets of the globe. Are these shifts a sign of hope for the future?     

U-Pb zircon age of the youngest magmatic activity in the High Tatra granites (Central Western Carpathians)

Detailed cathodoluminescence (CL) imaging of zircon crystals, coupled with Laser Ablation Multi-Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) U-Pb zircon dating was used to develop new insights into the evolution of granitoids from the High Tatra Mountains. The zircon U-Pb results show two distinct age groups (350±5 Ma and 337±6 Ma) recorded from cores and rims domains, respectively. Obtained results point that the last magmatic activity in the Tatra granitoid intrusion occurred at ca. 330 Ma. The previously suggested age of 314 Ma reflects rather the hydrothermal activity and Pb-loss, coupled with post-magmatic shearing.     

Lights and Shadows: The Inquisitorial Process Against the Jesuit Congregation of Nuestra Señora de la Luz on the Mariana Islands (1758–1776)

This article focuses on the controversy over the charges of sexual impropriety made against Father Franz Reittemberger within the context of worship of Nuestra Señora de la Luz (Our Lady of Light) in the mid‐eighteenth century Mariana Islands. As is well known, this cult began to spread around the Americas and the Philippines (via New Spain) starting in 1740, and it became a cohesive force in a multiethnic society perched on the outskirts of Spain's overseas empire. The Society of Jesus arrived in the Marianas' archipelago in 1668 to found a mission with the economic support of Queen Mariana de Austria, Philip IV's widow and regent of Spain. In 1758 Father Reittemberger founded the Marian devotion to Our Lady of Light. After the expulsion of the Jesuit order from the Spanish islands of the Pacific (1769), the Augustinian commissaries of the Holy Office accused the congregation's founder of the crime of sollicitatio ad turpia. In examining this Inquisition trial Jesuit and Augustinian rivalries come to the fore, revealing the larger anti‐Jesuit sentiments that drove public censure of the colonial church in the Spanish overseas possessions.     

Exactly As People Tell,or an Ethnography of the (In)Visible Things of Mayajigua

This paper explores some of the consequences of using archival materials produced by an anthropologist's informants. What happens when a resident from a rural area of Cuba is hired to write about the “world”, a term used by Carl L. Withers, in which he, his relatives and his neighbours live? By reading letters and other papers sent during the late 1940s, and kept by Withers for more than thirty years, my hypothesis is that his informants took seriously their capacity to create something other than a simple “testimony”. Withers's principal informant, created himself, his neighbours, strange beings and the world in which they cohabited as a certain type of artefact, as “data”.     

Systematic position of two Early Devonian sinistral heterostrophic gastropods from the Garra Limestone,New South Wales

Two Early Devonian gastropod genera, Garraspira gen. nov. and Anoriostoma from the GarraLimestone, with sinistrally heterostrophic shells, share several shell features and are placed in the new tribe Anoriostomatini within the subfamily Agnesiinae. In contrast to the other members of the latter subfamily these genera represent a lineage in which the apertural slit was lost during evolution. This fact supports the opinion that the presence or absence of the apertural slit does not necessarily have significance for high-level taxonomy. Morphology of the gerontic whorl in Anoriostoma sinistra and Garraspira imtsitata suggests their limited mobility during the last ontogenetic stage.     

Efficiency of Innovation Systems in Europe: An Institutional Approach to the Diversity of National Profiles

Globalization did not create convergence to a unique economic model among countries. Even in developed countries, the answers to the pressures of markets underline the existence of a variety of capitalisms. The analysis of innovation systems, in particular at the national level, is adequate as a preliminary approach to understand the diversity of profiles and institutional architectures. The article benefits from the broader notion of national innovation system to understand the profiles of 15 European countries. By analysing central building blocks and institutional complementarities through the creation of indexes based on 64 variables and a cluster analysis, it was possible to understand the different levels of institutional efficiency in the analysed dimensions for the selected groups of countries.     

Better a Broader Diagnosis Than a Misdiagnosis: The Study of a Neoplastic Condition in a Male Individual who Died in Early 20th Century (Coimbra,Portugal)

The paleopathological record of neoplastic conditions in the past is considered scarce. The detection of tumours in ancient populations is hindered by the quality and quantity of signs visible on the skeleton, the methodological approach, the preservation of remains, and by difficulties of differential diagnosis. The aims of this paper are to report the extensive and multiple osteolytic lesions observed in an adult male and to discuss the possible etiology of these lesions. The individual, a 71‐year‐old male who died in 1932, is part of the Coimbra Identified Skeletal Collection. Records indicate that he died of a ‘heart lesion’. The present study used macroscopic, radiological, and computerized tomography examinations to analyse the skeletal remains of the individual number 439. The type and pattern of the lesions detected, which were most prominent on the skull, were compared with both clinical and paleopathological diagnostic criteria for different nosologic groups. The differential diagnosis addresses problems expressed both in clinical and in paleopathological literature with regard to the difficulties in distinguishing metastatic tumours from multiple myeloma. The nature of the lesions represented by this individual precludes an exact diagnosis. Therefore, we employed a broader category, neoplastic condition, instead of choosing a more specific diagnosis that would likely have resulted in a misdiagnosis due to overlapping features on this individual's condition. Further investigations are necessary to establish more replicable indicators and to improve confidence in retrospective diagnosis of these types of conditions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Italy and the politics of European defence: playing by the logic of multi‐level networks

The article looks at the role of Italy in the decision‐making arena of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), analysing the initiatives it put in place to address and influence the construction of a common defence. The article aims to explain the ability or inability of Italy to build up a consensus around its proposals. By studying two initiatives in the field of European defence and security, it seeks to determine the factors which resulted in the differing outcomes of Italian actions at the European level.     

Divided sisterhood? Nationalist feminism and feminist militancy in England and Ireland

ABSTRACT

The generally accepted story is that British militant suffragists performed an unexpected and abrupt move away from the feminist movement and towards a fiercely jingoistic nationalist campaign once the war began in 1914. Yet, given the nature of exchanges between Irish and British militant feminists, Irish feminists should not have been surprised by this turn from gender solidarity to English nationalism. In this article, I argue that Irish-British militant feminist entanglements worked to expose the powerful role that English nationalism played in suffrage politics at a time when nearly all the focus was on the disruptive influence of Irish nationalism.     

Fox Palaces: the playful occupation of a Johannesburg city park

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the playful occupation of an inner-city park in Johannesburg, South Africa, by the Hummingbird Play Association. Playful occupation emerged as a strategy to create and demand spaces for children’s play, demonstrating through practice the possibilities for public play provision. Children’s play is read as a form of folklore, through which children’s and adult’s spatial experiences and imaginings of the city can be viewed. It considers how opportunities for play facilitated with Playwork Principles in mind can co-create safe spaces for children which could act as tools for social transformation and justice in the urban public realm.