Promoting multiculturalism and tolerance: Expanding the meaning of “unity through diversity” in the United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has sought to establish a national identity among its nationals since its inception in 1971. Contrary to the pessimism in its first few years, the UAE was able to create a national identity among its nationals despite their initially differing loyalties. The UAE has now embarked on a phase of creating a new national identity that includes non-nationals, encompassing migrants and expats. This study argues that this new identity aims to include, at least discursively, non-nationals, presenting them as an integral part of society. It should be noted that this new identity does not seek to standardize or assimilate the whole population, in contrast to the first identity, which aimed to standardize the nationals. Its primary aim is rather to express its appreciation of the migrant population through the notions of tolerance, diversity, and multiculturalism, while also preventing complaints from the nationals. This study analyses the ways of including non-nationals in a new national identity through national gatherings (national days), institutional activities (heritage festivals, cultural gatherings, cultural center visits and activities), media analyses (state-sponsored media), and foreign policy initiatives that emerged (or presented) due to domestic diversity, such as Pope's visit.     

Analyzing the association of policy narratives with problem tractability in the implementation of EU decisions: Evidence from the phytosanitary policy area

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) suggests that narratives can be employed to define and contest policy problems. Yet, few NPF studies have explicitly addressed the narrative portrayal of problem intractability. What role do narratives play in a situation of uncertainty about the causes and solutions of the problem, when strong divergences regarding the values and interests of the policy actors exist? The article anchors the NPF to the literatures on problem definition and implementation to advance two propositions about (a) how differences in the use of narrative elements can be suggestive of the degree of problem (in-)tractability; and (b) whether other elements of tractability, namely the presence of a valid causal theory, are associated with the usage of narrative strategies. I test the propositions by analyzing media commentaries surrounding the implementation of European decisions to tackle a tree-killing epidemic in Italy. The findings suggest that narratives can helpfully illustrate the intractability inherent in the policy debate. However, narratives can also develop independently of factors that the implementation literature understands as conducive to lowering intractability, namely knowledge accumulation. The NPF may represent a promising alternative to understand policy implementation processes.     

Mixed messages & bounded rationality: The perverse consequences of real ID for immigration policy

Policies concerning undocumented immigrants are inevitably ambivalent, creating uncertainty and confusion in the implementation process. We identify a clear example of this ambivalence —U.S. law setting standards for determining the credibility of asylum seekers—that resulted in an increase in asylum grants despite policymakers' intention to make it harder for individuals to obtain the status. We argue that this law, The REAL ID Act of 2005, sent mixed messages to immigration judges (IJs), street-level bureaucrats who implement immigration policy. It increased IJ discretion, but set vague limits. We theorize that IJs, behaving in a bounded rationality framework, use their professional legal training as a short-cut and look primarily to the courts for guidance. Our evidence supports our argument. After the passage of the REAL ID Act, IJ decision-making is more closely aligned with the preferences of their political and legal principals, and, in the final score, the federal circuit courts are the winners.     

En tiempos del condestable Dávalos: Enrique de Aragón,poeta quejoso en Crónica. Año de 1420, de Jerónimo de la Escosura

Infants of Aragon are very important figures in the history and literature of the nineteenth century, but it is rare that one of them, Don Enrique, is the protagonist. This work analyzes the romantic story Cronica. Año de 1420, published by Jerónimo de la Escosura in 1839. In it, Enrique de Aragón is a cunning courtier and a poet in love, and he manages to change history because he changes the story with his verses.     

The hinc et nunc of moral theology: Francisco de Vitoria’s lesson and the missionary experience*

In the sixteenth century, as moral theology was being consolidated as an autonomous academic discipline, theologians at the University of Salamanca, including the Dominican Francisco de Vitoria, began to incorporate current moral and political issues into their teaching agendas. Prominent among these issues were those arising out of the conquest of the Americas. Their students, a generation of university-trained missionaries, then went to work in Spanish possessions in the Americas and the Philippines. These missionaries and men of learning included the Augustinians Alonso de la Veracruz (in Mexico) and Martín de Rada (in the Philippines and China). As their world expanded, Vitoria's teachings were rendered fully intelligible in the confusing reality of the colonial enterprise, and these missionaries struggled to apply his lessons to the questions of conscience they encountered. The result can be considered a new chapter in the relationship between theological knowledge, the production of facts, and moral certainty, all against the backdrop of the territorial and economic expansion of Spain.     

Revision of the Early Devonian tabulate coral Pleurodictyum bifidum from New South Wales

Plusquellec, Y. &; Wright, A.J., October 2017. Revision of the Early Devonian tabulate coral Pleurodictyum bifidum from New South Wales. Alcheringa 41, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518.

The tabulate coral Pleurodictyum bifidum Jones, 1944 Jones, O.A., 1944. Tabulata and Heliolitida from the Wellington district, N.S.W. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 77, 33–39. [Google Scholar], from the Early Devonian (Pragian or lower Emsian) Garra Formation of central New South Wales, Australia is revised on the basis of the holotype and three other specimens. It is selected as the type species of the new monotypic genus Bifidomeria (Family Roemeriidae), which differs from Roemeria in its strictly cerioid corallum, its bifid septal spines and aspects of its microstructure. Study of the detailed microstructure of two other tabulate corals from the Devonian of New South Wales has led to the following revised generic assignments: Michelinia progenitor Chapman, 1921 Chapman, F., 1921. New or little known fossils in the National Museum. Part XXV—some Silurian tabulate corals. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 33, 212–225. [Google Scholar], previously assigned to Roemeripora, is assigned to Roemeria, and Holacanthopora clarkei Wright &; Flory, 1980 Wright, A.J. &; Flory, R.A., 1980. A new Early Devonian tabulate coral from the Mount Frome Limestone, near Mudgee, New South Wales. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 104, 211–219. [Google Scholar] is assigned to Michelinia.

Yves Plusquellec [yves.plusquellec@univ-brest.fr], Université de Bretagne Occidentale, CNRS-UMR 6538 ‘Domaines océaniques’, Laboratoire de Paléontologie, UFR Sciences et Techniques, 6 avenue Le Gorgeu, CS 98837, F-29283 Brest, France; Anthony Wright [tony.wright@optusnet.com.au], GeoQuEST Research Centre, School of Earth &; Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW 2522, Australia.     

A probable ankylosaurian (Dinosauria,Thyreophora) from the Early Cretaceous of New South Wales,Australia

Bell, P.R., Burns, M.E. & Smith, E.T. October 2017. A probable ankylosaurian (Dinosauria, Thyreophora) from the Early Cretaceous of New South Wales, Australia. Alcheringa 42, 120–124. ISSN 0311-5518.

We describe an isolated osteoderm from the Albian Griman Creek Formation where it is exposed near the town of Lightning Ridge in central-northern New South Wales, Australia. Several lines of evidence allow referral of this element to the Ankylosauria—a group that epitomises body armour and ubiquitous osteodermal coverage among dinosaurs. Despite the abundant record of fossil vertebrates from this interval, ankylosaurians have not been previously reported, although, they have been described from penecontemporaneous deposits in western Queensland and Victoria. This discovery, therefore, provides an important link between the northerly faunas (including the Griman Creek Formation) that flourished at the edge of the epeiric Eromanga Sea, with those from the sub-polar rift-valley system of Victoria during the mid-Cretaceous.

Phil R. Bell [pbell23@une.edu.au], School of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale 2351, NSW, Australia; Michael E. Burns [mburns3@jsu.edu], Department of Biology, Jacksonville State University, 700 Pelham Rd N., Jacksonville, AL 36265-2138, USA; Elizabeth T. Smith [elizabethtsmith@exemail.com.au], Australian Opal Centre, Lightning Ridge 2834, NSW, Australia.     

Revised conodont and fusuline biostratigraphy of the Bamchi Formation (Pyongan Supergroup) at the Bamchi section,Yeongwol and the Carboniferous–Permian boundary in South Korea

Wang, Q., Wang, Y., Qi, Y., Wang, X., Choh, S.J., Lee, D.C. & Lee, D.J., November 2017. Yeongwol and the Carboniferous–Permian boundary in South Korea. Alcheringa 42, 245–258. ISSN 0311-5518

Six conodont and one fusuline zones are recognized on basis of a total of 25 conodont and 13 fusuline species (including seven unidentified species or species given with cf. or aff. in total) from the Bamchi Formation, Yeongwol, Korea. The conodont zones include the Streptognathodus bellus, S. isolatus, S. cristellaris, S. sigmoidalis, S. fusus and S. barskovi zones in ascending order, which can be correlated with the conodont zones spanning the uppermost Gzhelian to Asselian Age of the Permian globally. The fusuline zone is named the Rugosofusulina complicata–Pseudoschwagerina paraborealis zone. The co-occurrence of the conodont Streptognathodus isolatus (the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point index for the base of Permian) and Pseudoschwagerina (a Permian inflated fusuline) indicates that the Carboniferous–Permian boundary can be placed in the lower part of the Bamchi Formation in South Korea.

Qiulai Wang* [qlwang@nigpas.ac.cn] CAS Key Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 39, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Yue Wang* [yuewang@nigpas.ac.cn] LPS, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 39, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Yuping Qi* [ypqi@nigpas.ac.cn] Xiangdong Wang* [xdwang@nigpas.ac.cn] CAS Key Laboratory of Economic Stratigraphy and Palaeogeography, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, East Beijing Road 39, Nanjing 210008, PR China; Suk-Joo Choh [sjchoh@korea.ac.kr] Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Republic of Korea; Dong-Chan Lee [dclee@chungbuk.ac.kr] Department of Earth Sciences Education, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Republic of Korea; Dong-Jin Lee [djlee@andong.ac.kr] Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Andong National University, Andong 36729, Republic of Korea. *Also affiliated with: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Shijingshan District, Beijing 100049, PR China.     

A late Miocene–early Pliocene baleen whale assemblage from Langebaanweg,west coast of South Africa (Mammalia,Cetacea, Mysticeti)

Govender, R., Bisconti, M. & Chinsamy, A., June 2016. A late Miocene–early Pliocene baleen whale assemblage from Langebaanweg, west coast of South Africa (Mammalia, Cetacea, Mysticeti). Alcheringa 40, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

Knowledge of post-Eocene cetaceans from Africa is very poor with almost nothing known about this group from southern Africa except for the diverse trawled ziphiids. Langebaanweg, a locality yielding prolific Miocene–Pliocene fossils on the southwestern Cape coast of South Africa, preserves terrestrial and marine biotas in juxtaposition. Palaeoenvironments vary from a marine shoreline to a lagoon and estuary and later a shallow marine environment and include several microhabitats. Fragmentary preservation of the cetacean skeletons suggests that they were transported before burial. This first detailed analysis of the Mio-Pliocene mysticete fossils from Langebaanweg uses the petrotympanic region to taxonomically identify specimens. Three un-named species of balaenopterid Mysticeti represent a Plesiobalaenoptera-like form, but it is premature to erect a new taxon based on this fragmentary material. The remaining material is too poorly preserved to be identified with confidence.

Romala Govender [rgovender@iziko.org.za], Natural History Department, Iziko Museums of South Africa, PO Box 61, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa; Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rhodes Gift, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa, Michelangelo Bisconti [michelangelobisconti@gmail.com], Natural History Museum of San Diego, California, 1788 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101, USA; Anusuya Chinsamy [anusuya.chinsamy-turan@uct.ac.za], Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rhodes Gift, 7701, Cape Town, South Africa.