scholarly journals The belief in mining: How imageries of other mines may brighten Arctic minescapes

Polar Record ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiina Lovisa Solbär

Abstract The article discusses how promising outlooks and favourable memories of past and distant mining ventures are employed in the view of a mine in spe. The study utilises interview quotes and written narratives pertaining to a case of mine development in Swedish Pajala and neighbouring Finnish Kolari (the Northland project 2004–2014), located above the Arctic Circle, for explicating this. Its theoretical framework includes the concept of minescape and the ideas of past presences and anticipated futures, which support capturing (the temporality of) the sociocultural and discursive dimensions of mining alongside with its physicality. Previous and distant experiences with mines appeared readily abstracted and brought into the current debate, forgetting about contexts, that is, about any historical or geographical contingencies. This kind of temporal and spatial referencing is seen to represent an imaginative practice which, as it is argued, gains an enhanced role in tandem with the increasing market dependency and volatility of the extractive business. By attending to the meaning-making based on remembering, and forgetting, in the context of experiences made with mining in the past or elsewhere, the article contributes to our understanding of the present-day role of mining heritage.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle D. Kittelberger ◽  
Solomon V. Hendrix ◽  
Çağan Hakkı Şekercioğlu

Due to the increasing popularity of websites specializing in nature documentation, there has been a surge in the number of people enthusiastic about observing and documenting nature over the past 2 decades. These citizen scientists are recording biodiversity on unprecedented temporal and spatial scales, rendering data of tremendous value to the scientific community. In this study, we investigate the role of citizen science in increasing knowledge of global biodiversity through the examination of notable contributions to the understanding of the insect suborder Auchenorrhyncha, also known as true hoppers, in North America. We have compiled a comprehensive summary of citizen science contributions—published and unpublished—to the understanding of hopper diversity, finding over fifty previously unpublished country and state records as well as dozens of undescribed and potentially undescribed species. We compare citizen science contributions to those published in the literature as well as specimen records in collections in the United States and Canada, illuminating the fact that the copious data afforded by citizen science contributions are underutilized. We also introduce the website Hoppers of North Carolina, a revolutionary new benchmark for tracking hopper diversity, disseminating knowledge from the literature, and incorporating citizen science. Finally, we provide a series of recommendations for both the entomological community and citizen science platforms on how best to approach, utilize, and increase the quality of sightings from the general public.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nyankomo Marwa ◽  
Stephen Zhanje

Abstract The finance growth-nexus debates have been contentious over the past three decades both empirically and theoretically. To contribute to this debate, the current paper presents a concise review of finance-growths nexus theoretical development and the current debate around growth-finance nexus theories. Then, it extends the current theoretical debate to include development finance within the broader scheme of finance-growth discourse. The key emerging trend is that, most of the contemporary theories trying to explain finance growth nexus have been exclusively focusing on the standard finance in general. Little attention has been devoted to understand the role of development finance on finance-growth nexus. It concludes that, for a more comprehensive understanding of the finance growth nexus, the role of development finance should be integrated in theory of finance-growth nexus. The paper demonstrates that conventional model of finance-growth nexus is more likely to underestimate the magnitude of the impact of finance on economic growth especially for less developed countries. The paper suggests that, a model which breakdown the finance into standard finance subgroup and development finance subgroup may provide more accurate and insightful findings.


Tempo Social ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-85
Author(s):  
Massimo Moraglio

In the transport debate, policy makers seem to be under the spell of a technological determinism, in which innovation Tand novelty are the key concepts. Obsessed with westernised regimes and systems, the current debate misses the relevance of forgotten, peripheral and silent mobilities. In this regard, looking to those peripheral mobilities is not only important for reconstructing our memory, but can also offer tools to build socially and environmentally sustainable transport regimes. I suggest using Walter Benjamin’s Angelus Novus to address the past and future of infrastructural systems and the role of “old” regimes. This paper relies on David Edgerton’s work, but I push the argument further, claiming that an innovation-prone debate today creates the (social and environmental) failures of tomorrow. While electric cars and driver-less vehicles can be useful tools, we should consider that peripheral mobilities could better address the issue of socially and environmentally sustainable transports systems. Long-term vision can bridge the past and future of transport policies and offer hints to social science, humanity and governance.


Author(s):  
Sophie Di Francesco-Mayot

CESAA 17TH ANNUAL EUROPE ESSAY COMPETITION 2009 - Honours winner: Sophie Di Francesco-Mayot, Monash UniversityOver the past decades, the European Union has witnessed an increasing apathy among European citizens’ vis-à-vis EU institutions. In 1993, EU elites formally introduced the idea of a ‘European citizenship’ in an attempt on the one hand, to reactivate the European integration project, and, on the other hand, to foster greater consciousness of the European identity which the EU is supposed to represent. What opportunities and challenges would Turkey’s accession to EU membership have on our idea of ‘European citizenship’ and ‘identity’? An analysis on the current debate regarding Turkey’s possible accession in the EU raises significant questions on the EU’s identity and on the role of the EU in the international community.


Author(s):  
Aaron Clauset ◽  
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch

Contending arguments on the causes of war often have divergent implications for trends and the possibility for change. Many argue that we observe a decline in conflict and violence, contrary to traditional conceptions of warfare as a fundamentally inescapable problem. Critics challenge whether conflict is in decline, our ability to make inferences about trends from existing data, and to what extent we can learn from the past about the present and the future. We provide a non-technical overview of the contending positions and the concepts necessary to understand the current debate. We review trends in common measures such as the number of conflicts and severity of wars, plausible models for distributions and the timing of conflicts, as well as the role of theory and assessing uncertainty. We conclude with some thoughts on how to advance research on trends in conflict and how to assess change at particular points in history.


Author(s):  
Robert A. Berner

The term "carbon cycle" is normally thought to mean those processes that govern the present-day transfer of carbon between life, the atmosphere, and the oceans. This book describes another carbon cycle, one which operates over millions of years and involves the transfer of carbon between rocks and the combination of life, the atmosphere, and the oceans. The weathering of silicate and carbonate rocks and ancient sedimentary organic matter (including recent, large-scale human-induced burning of fossil fuels), the burial of organic matter and carbonate minerals in sediments, and volcanic degassing of carbon dioxide contribute to this cycle. In The Phanerozoic Carbon Cycle, Robert Berner shows how carbon cycle models can be used to calculate levels of atmospheric CO2 and O2 over Phanerozoic time, the past 550 million years, and how results compare with independent methods. His analysis has implications for such disparate subjects as the evolution of land plants, the presence of giant ancient insects, the role of tectonics in paleoclimate, and the current debate over global warming and greenhouse gases


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (01) ◽  
pp. 74-80
Author(s):  
Dana Michael Harsell

AbstractRecent efforts to cut public funding for the arts and culture sectors in the United States are couched in the need for balanced budgets and fiscal discipline. Lawmakers who support cuts question whether artistic pursuits such as “cowboy poetry” or artistic endeavors that offend or shock some viewers are an appropriate use of public monies in a depressed economy. While the current debate is grounded in a need for balanced budgets and reduced deficits, long-standing unresolved legacies fragment arts and culture policy and leave arts and culture funding vulnerable to additional cuts. The normative implications for the role of the arts and culture sectors in a democratic society need to be considered.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 786-799
Author(s):  
Markus I. Eronen ◽  
Jan-Willem Romeijn

One of the original aims of this journal was to promote theory in psychology. Nowadays more and more psychological researchers are calling for more theory development, and articles on the “theory crisis” have also found their way into mainstream journals. In this article, we provide a further perspective to this theory debate. Over the past century, philosophy of science has staged extensive discussions on the mathematization of nature and on the role of mathematics in the development of theory and the connection of theory to empirical facts. We show that these discussions are highly relevant for the current debate in psychology. In particular, we emphasize the importance of conceptual work in the process of mathematization, and the role of mathematics in co-ordinating theory and observations. We then discuss the implications that these points have for statistically oriented psychology in general and for the recent theory debate in psychology.


1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1082-1083
Author(s):  
Robert L. Price ◽  
Thomas E. Thielen ◽  
Thomas K. Borg ◽  
Louis Terracio

Over the past several years the central roles of several different growth factors in the normal development of the embryonic heart have been identified through a variety of techniques involving microscopy. Initially, most studies consisted of descriptions of gross changes in cardiac morphology associated with naturally occurring mutations that affected growth factor function. More recently the development of specific probes for growth factor receptors that can be used in confocal microscopy have aided in the identification of changes in the temporal and spatial distributions of receptors at various stages of development. The correlation of these changes with developmental events such as valve formation and trabeculation in the heart, in conjunction with biochemical studies and blocking agents for the growth factors have significantly increased our understanding of growth factor function in cardiac development.


2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
SLAYMAKER Olav

The emphasis on the understanding of contemporary geomorphic processes that has dominated Anglophone geomorphological literature over the past 50 years has seen huge progress but also some set-backs. We now have reliable measurements of mean rates of operation of all subaerial processes responsible for modification of landforms and landscapes and have made good progress in estimating the role of human activities as compared with “natural” processes. Some limited progress has been achieved in understanding the scale problem but problems remain. Perhaps the single most surprising development has been the recognition of the ubiquity of disconnectivity in geomorphic systems, the need to calculate virtual velocities of whole geomorphic systems and the relevance of this understanding to the general spatio-temporal scale problem. We have always known that most geomorphic processes operate intermittently but we have continued to depend on models that imply that mass and energy move freely through geomorphic systems and that conservation of mass and energy occurrs uninterruptedly at all temporal and spatial scales.


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