Nineteenth and twentieth century sea-level changes in Tasmania and New Zealand

Positive deviations from linear sea-level trends represent important climate signals if they are persistent and geographically widespread. This paper documents rapid sea-level rise reconstructed from sedimentary records obtained from salt marshes in the Southwest Pacific region (Tasmania and New Zealand). A new late Holocene relative sea-level record from eastern Tasmania was dated by AMS(14)C (conventional, high precision and bomb-spike), Cs-137, Pb-210, stable Pb isotopic ratios, trace metals, pollen and charcoal analyses. Palaeosea-level positions were determined by foraminiferal analyses. Relative sea level in Tasmania was within half a metre of present sea level for much of the last 6000 yr. Between 1900 and 1950 relative sea level rose at an average rate of 4.2 +/- 0.1 mm/yr. During the latter half of the 20th century the reconstructed rate of relative sea-level rise was 0.7 +/- 0.6 mm/yr. Our study is consistent with a similar pattern of relative sea-level change recently reconstructed for southern New Zealand. The change in the rate of sea-level rise in the SW Pacific during the early 20th century was larger than in the North Atlantic and could suggest that northern hemisphere land-based ice was the most significant melt source for global sea-level rise. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

European Law and New Health Technologies

Health is a matter of fundamental importance in European societies, both as a human right in itself, and as a factor in a productive workforce and therefore a healthy economy. New health technologies promise improved quality of life for patients suffering from a range of diseases, and the potential for the prevention of incidence of disease in the future. At the same time, new health technologies pose significant challenges for governments, particularly in relation to ensuring the technologies are safe, effective, and provide appropriate value for (public) money.

To guard against the possible dangers arising from new health technologies, and to maximize the benefits, all European governments regulate their development, marketing, and public financing. In addition, several international institutions operating at European level, in particular the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the European Patent Office, have become involved in the regulation of new health technologies. They have done so both through traditional 'command and control' legal measures, and through other regulatory mechanisms, including guidelines, soft law, 'steering' through redistribution of resources, and private or quasi-private regulation.

This collection analyses European law and its relationships with new health technologies. It uses interdisciplinary insights, particularly from law but also drawing on regulation theory, and science and technology studies, to shed new light on some of the key defining features of the relationships and especially the roles of risk, rights, ethics, and markets. The collection explores the way in which European law's engagement with new health technologies is to be legitimized, and discusses the implications for biological or biomedical citizenship.

Notes from Some Small Countries: A Study of the 'New Punitiveness' in Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand

In recent years there has been a remarkable surge of interest in the concept of punitiveness in theoretical criminology. Accounts serve to emphasise rupture over continuity, drawing attention to the increased focus on managerialism, risk and expressive penal policies in countries such as England and the US. Criticisms of these accounts have drawn attention to the weak empirical base for such assertions and the continued relevance of local cultural, historical and political conditions in mediating the effect of more punitive trends. In light of the relative neglect of smaller jurisdictions in this literature it was decided to locate these debates in three small common law jurisdictions, namely, Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand over the period 1976-2006 with a view to assessing the empirical evidence for penal change. This was done using a broader definition of punitiveness than normally employed incorporating indices relating to the ‘front end’ (eg police powers) as well as the ‘back end’ (eg prison and probation) of the criminal justice system. Data were collected on the three case studies using a multi-method approach involving examination of extensive quantitative data, interviews with key criminal justice stakeholders and documentary analysis. The data provide some support for the ‘new punitiveness’ thesis in these countries through a pattern of increased legislative activity aimed at controlling violent and sexual offenders and significant increases in the lengths of sentences imposed. However, analysis of qualitative data and a larger number of variables reveals distinctly different patterns of punitiveness over the thirty year period in the three countries. It is argued that the study holds important lessons for comparative criminology into the ‘new punitiveness’. There is a need for qualitative as well as quantitative data; for multiple rather than singular indices across a wide range of areas (juvenile justice, prison conditions, etc); and for ‘front end’ as well as ‘back end’ indices.

Review: G. De Búrca and J. Scott (eds.), Law and New Governance in the EU and the US (Hart, 2006)

Review of edited collection.

Assessing and measuring impact of a digital collection in the humanities: An analysis of the SPHERE (Stormont Parliamentary Hansards: Embedded in Research and Education) Project

Although a substantial corpus of digital materials is now available to scholarship across the disciplines, objective evidence of their use, impact, and value, based on a robust assessment, is sparse. Traditional methods of assessment of impact in the humanities, notably citation in scholarly publications, are not an effective way of assessing impact of digital content. These issues are problematic in the field of Digital Humanities where there is a need to effectively assess impact to justify its continued funding and existence. A number of qualitative and quantitative methods exist that can be used to monitor the use of digital resources in various contexts although they have yet to be applied widely. These have been made available to the creators, managers, and funders of digital content in an accessible form through the TIDSR (Toolkit for the Impact of Digital Scholarly Resources) developed by the Oxford Internet Institute. In 2011, the authors of this article developed the SPHERE project (Stormont Parliamentary Hansards: Embedded in Research and Education) specifically to use TIDSR to evaluate the use and impact of The Stormont Papers, a digital collection of the Hansards of the Stormont Northern Irish Parliament from 1921 to 1972. This article presents the methodology, findings, and analysis of the project. The authors argue that TIDSR is a useful and, critically, transferrable method to understand and increase the impact of digital resources. The findings of the project are modified into a series of wider recommendations on protecting the investment in digital resources by increasing their use, value, and impact. It is reasonable to suggest that effectively showing the impact of Digital Humanities is critical to its survival.

Prospective control of manual interceptive actions:comparative simulations of extant and new model constructs

Two prospective controllers of hand movements in catching-both based on required velocity control-were simulated. Under certain conditions, this required velocity control led to overshoots of the future interception point. These overshoots were absent in pertinent experiments. To remedy this shortcoming, the required velocity model was reformulated in terms of a neural network, the Vector Integration To Endpoint model, to create a Required Velocity Integration To Endpoint model. Addition of a parallel relative velocity channel, resulting in the Relative and Required Velocity Integration To Endpoint model, provided a better account for the experimentally observed kinematics than the existing, purely behavioral models. Simulations of reaching to intercept decelerating and accelerating objects in the presence of background motion were performed to make distinct predictions for future experiments.