Il valore del voto: Italia e Spagna nel dibattito sulla rappresentanza politica liberale (1860-1870)

During the 1860's and 1870's, Spain and Italy experienced a convergence of debates on the significance of political representation in the framework of Liberal State. Spain suffered a political and social crisis, ending with the Revolution of 1868 and the adoption of male universal suffrage in 1878. Its coeval Italy began to build its new Kingdom, anxious about state building, as well as the relevance of electoral processes in the Constitutional scheme. Although members of parliament and essayists of both countries well knew their neighbour's political reality, a dialogue on representation didn't occur. Nonetheless, we believe it is useful to analyse the survey drawn by the Italian publicist in the light of current knowledge of the opinions that prevailed in Spain. What sense did they give to the general election? How did they understand the value of the vote? Who were considered eligible voters? These questions comprise the main subjects of the essay.

Feministas y ciudadanas. Las aportaciones del feminismo español a la construcción del Estado democrático

El feminismo de la Transición contribuyó de manera decisiva a la extensión de los principios igualitarios en la sociedad española, replanteó el concepto de política para integrar en ella a las mujeres como sujetos activos y nuevos derechos vinculados a lo personal, y se movilizó en campañas muy influyentes en demanda de reformas legales que consolidaron la naturaleza democrática del Estado. En este texto se propone partir de la paradoja de la igualdad y la diferencia para reflexionar sobre las relaciones entre feminismo y política en la Transición, abordando tanto el debate de la doble y la única militancia, como las principales interpretaciones sobre el alcance de los logros del feminismo en la configuración del Estado democrático.

Seeding a Profession: The Intersection of the State, International Interests, and the Early Development of Brazilian Nursing

State and international entities can have profound effects on the development of a country’s nursing profession. Through a global health governance lens, this paper explores the development of nursing in Brazil during the early twentieth century, and its intersections with national and international interests. Accordingly, we will show how state policies established an environment that fostered the institutionalization of nursing as a profession in Brazil and supported it as a means to increase the presence of females in nation building processes. The State focused on recruiting elite women for nursing, in part due to the Rockefeller Foundation’s involvement in the country. Nurses who worked for Rockefeller came from well-educated classes within US society with specific ideas about who should be a nurse and the roles of nurses in a healthcare system. These women served as the primary vehicles for interacting with Brazilian health authorities responsible for health system development. Their early efforts did not, however, ensure a system capable of producing nursing human resources at a rate that, in present day Brazil, could meet the health needs of the country. Findings from this paper offer new avenues for historians to explore the early roots of professional nursing through a global health governance lens, improve the understanding of the intersection between international politics and professionalization, and highlight how these factors may impact nursing human resources production in the long term.

Colour changes by laser irradiation of reddish building limestones

We have used X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) as a novel method to investigate the causes of colour changes in a reddish limestone under irradiation by a Q-switched Nd:YAG 1064 nm laser. We irradiated clean dry and wet surfaces of Pidramuelle Roja, a building stone frequently used in the Asturian heritage, at fluences ranging from 0.12 to 1.47 J cm−2. We measured the colour coordinates and undertook XPS analysis of the state of oxidation of iron both before and after irradiation. Visible colour changes and potential aesthetic damage occurred on dry surfaces from a fluence of 0.31 J cm−2, with the stone showing a greening effect and very intense darkening. The colour change on dry surfaces was considerably higher than on wet surfaces, which at the highest fluence (1.47 J cm−2) was also above the human visual detection threshold. The use of XPS demonstrated that the change in colour (chroma and hue) is associated with a reduction in the iron oxidation state on dry surfaces during laser irradiation. This points out to a potential routinary use of XPS to analyse causes of colour changes during laser cleaning in other types of coloured building stones.