scholarly journals History, Colonialism, and Archival Methods in Socio-Hydrological Scholarship: A Case Study of the Boerasirie Conservancy in British Guiana

World ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-215
Author(s):  
Joshua Mullenite

In this article, I review a cross-section of research in socio-hydrology from across disciplines in order to better understand the current role of historical-archival analysis in the development of socio-hydrological scholarship. I argue that despite its widespread use in environmental history, science and technology studies, anthropology, and human geography, archival methods are currently underutilized in socio-hydrological scholarship more broadly, particularly in the development of socio-hydrological models. Drawing on archival research conducted in relation to the socio-hydrology of coastal Guyana, I demonstrate the ways in which such scholarship can be readily incorporated into model development.

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (02) ◽  
pp. 531-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Hendley

The literature on the role of law in countries with so‐called hybrid regimes that are stuck somewhere between democracy and authoritarianism tends to dwell on the politicization of law and the courts. This has the effect of discounting the importance of the vast majority of cases that are decided in accord with the law. Taking Russia as a case study, this essay reviews a cross‐section of the literature on its courts in order to document this tendency and explore why alternative narratives of law have failed to gain traction: Burbank's Russian Peasants Go to Court (2004); Feifer's Justice in Moscow (1964); Kaminskaya's Final Judgment (1982); Ledeneva's Can Russia Modernise? (2013); McDonald's Face to the Village (2011); Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia (2004); Popova's Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies (2012); and Romanova's Butyrka (2010).


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2(7)) ◽  
pp. 57-71
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Suświłło

This study aims to show the role of musical involvement in developing the musicality of a pre-school child. The first part of the text discusses the aspects of the child's musicality development (perceptual, conceptual, affective, vocal and motor and motoric) that form the basis for music-making activities conducted with young children. In the further part of the text, the research and their results in the field of engagement in music carried out by Diana Dansereau in three American kindergartens are presented. There are also selected examples of the description of engagement in music as part of a case study. The article ends with the proposition of a model development of musicality of a child in kindergarten.


2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subodh Dave ◽  
Nisha Dogra ◽  
Stuart J. Leask

SummaryUniversities are the main provider of medical student education in the UK; however, its delivery, especially the clinical years but increasingly also the pre-clinical years, often takes place in National Health Service hospitals. Trusts are paid for this privilege through service increment for teaching (SIFT). Developments in clinical governance structures have meant that there is now increased scrutiny and transparency in the funding of clinical services. Lack of similarly robust educational governance structures has led to the risk of educational funds being used to deliver clinical services. This paper examines the current role of SIFT funding and the possible ways forward, using a case study.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES POSKETT

AbstractLogbooks and sea charts may appear rather straightforward evidence to present at a naval court martial. However, their introduction into proceedings in the early nineteenth century reveals an important shift. Measuring the depth of water soon became a problem both of navigation and of discipline. Indeed, Captain Newcomb's knowledge of the soundings taken at the Battle of the Basque Roads proved crucial at Lord Gambier's court martial in June 1809. Through a case study of Edward Massey's sounding machine, this paper reveals the close connection between disciplinary practices on land and at sea. The Board of Longitude acted as a key intermediary in this respect. By studying land and sea together, this paper better explains the changing make-up of the British scientific instrument trade in this period. Massey is just one example of a range of new entrants, many of whom had little previous experience of the maritime world. More broadly, this paper emphasizes the role of both environmental history and material culture in the study of scientific instruments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-152
Author(s):  
André Brett ◽  

Historians are becoming alert to the large role of railways in environmental history. To date, many studies in Australasia focus on a specific industry, such as timber. It is now worth turning to the distinctive local or regional effects of railways beyond a single industry or commodity, so to better understand the links between technology, environment, and place. Illawarra presents a valuable case study. The environmental history of the first decades of rail transport exposes how Wollongong and its region industrialised and the ways in which this process affected everything from primary producers to the sounds of daily life. This article takes in the 1850s through to the start of World War I (WWI), a period when rail transport grew from being the adjunct of a few coal mines into an essential common carrier. It progresses through a series of themes that show the economic, social, and cultural attributes that shaped and were shaped by the railway environment. It begins with the railway as a carrier: the extent to which trains fulfilled their intended role to transport Illawarra’s natural resources to Sydney and other markets. It then moves on to the railway as a consumer, putting the local environment to work for its benefit and requiring materials made from resources of distant lands. Railways did more than carry or consume resources; they created their own environment and provided new perspectives on nature. Trains brought people closer to nature, carried them into new—and dangerous—environments in tunnels, and transformed the sonic landscape. Rail travel differed significantly to horseback or sea voyages in capacity and speed, and by WWI it was enmeshed in Illawarra’s environment.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Dal Molin ◽  
Mario Schirmer ◽  
Massimiliano Zappa ◽  
Fabrizio Fenicia

Abstract. The development of semidistributed hydrological models that reflect the dominant processes controlling streamflow spatial variability is a challenging task. This study addresses this problem by investigating the case of the Thur catchment (Switzerland), an alpine and pre–alpine catchment that, while having a moderate (1702 km2) extension, presents a large spatial variability in terms of climate, landscape, and streamflow (measured at 10 subcatchments). The methodology for model development consists of a two–stages approach. In a first stage, we use correlation and regression analysis to identify the main influencing factors on the spatial variability of streamflow signatures. Results of this analysis show that precipitation (rainfall or snow) controls signatures of seasonality and water balance, while landscape characteristics (especially geology) control signatures of hydrograph shape (e.g. baseflow index and flashiness index). In a second stage, we use the results of the previous analysis to develop a semidistributed hydrological model that is consistent with the data. Model experiments confirm that only hydrological models that account for the heterogeneity of precipitation and geology produce hydrographs that have signatures similar to the observed ones. These models provide consistent results in space–time validation, which is promising for prediction in ungauged conditions. The presented methodology can be transferred to other case studies, since the data used in this work (meteorological variables, streamflow, morphology and geology maps) is available in many regions around the globe.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 10535-10563 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. V. Babel ◽  
D. Karssenberg

Abstract. Despite the increasing role of models in hydrological research and decision-making processes, only few accounts of the nature and function of models exist in hydrology. Earlier considerations have traditionally been conducted while making a clear distinction between physically-based and conceptual models. A new philosophical account, primarily based on the fields of physics and economics, transcends classes of models and scientific disciplines by considering models as "mediators" between theory and observations. The core of this approach lies in identifying models as (1) being only partially dependent on theory and observations, (2) integrating non-deductive elements in their construction, and (3) carrying the role of instruments of scientific enquiry about both theory and the world. The applicability of this approach to hydrology is evaluated in the present article. Three widely used hydrological models, each showing a different degree of apparent physicality, are confronted to the main characteristics of the "mediating models" concept. We argue that irrespective of their kind, hydrological models depend on both theory and observations, rather than merely on one of these two domains. Their construction is additionally involving a large number of miscellaneous, external ingredients, such as past experiences, model objectives, knowledge and preferences of the modeller, as well as hardware and software resources. We show that hydrological models convey the role of instruments in scientific practice by mediating between theory and the world. It results from these considerations that the traditional distinction between physically-based and conceptual models is necessarily too simplistic and refers at best to the stage at which theory and observations are steering model construction. The large variety of ingredients involved in model construction would deserve closer attention, for being rarely explicitly presented in peer-reviewed literature. We believe that devoting more importance to identifying and communicating on the many factors involved in model development might increase transparency of model building.


Author(s):  
Xudong Weng ◽  
Peter Rez

In electron energy loss spectroscopy, quantitative chemical microanalysis is performed by comparison of the intensity under a specific inner shell edge with the corresponding partial cross section. There are two commonly used models for calculations of atomic partial cross sections, the hydrogenic model and the Hartree-Slater model. Partial cross sections could also be measured from standards of known compositions. These partial cross sections are complicated by variations in the edge shapes, such as the near edge structure (ELNES) and extended fine structures (ELEXFS). The role of these solid state effects in the partial cross sections, and the transferability of the partial cross sections from material to material, has yet to be fully explored. In this work, we consider the oxygen K edge in several oxides as oxygen is present in many materials. Since the energy window of interest is in the range of 20-100 eV, we limit ourselves to the near edge structures.


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