Depression to decolonization:Berclays Bank (DCO) in the West Indies, 1926-1962. By Kathleen E.A. Monteith. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2008. xvi + 355pp. Illustrations, tables. figures, appendix, bibliography, notes, index. $30.00. ISBN: 879-976-640-198-6.

Book review

Resistance Performances: (Re)constructing Spaces of Resistance and Contention in the 2010-2011 University of Puerto Rico Student Movement

On the night of April 20, 2010, a group of students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Río Piedras campus, met to organize an indefinite strike that quickly broadened into a defense of accessible public higher education of excellence as a fundamental right and not a privilege. Although the history of student activism in the UPR can be traced back to the early 1900s, the 2010-2011 strike will be remembered for the student activists’ use of new media technologies as resources that rapidly prompted and aided the numerous protests. This activist research entailed a critical ethnography and a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of traditional and alternative media coverage and treatment during the 2010 -2011 UPR student strike. I examined the use of the 2010-2011 UPR student activists’ resistance performances in constructing local, corporeal, and virtual spaces of resistance and contention during their movement. In particular, I analyzed the different tactics and strategies of resistance or repertoire of collective actions that student activists used (e.g. new media technologies) to frame their collective identities via alternative news media’s (re)presentation of the strike, while juxtaposing the university administration’s counter-resistance performances in counter-framing the student activists’ collective identity via traditional news media representations of the strike. I illustrated how both traditional and alternative media (re)presentations of student activism developed, maintained, and/or modified students activists’ collective identities. As such, the UPR student activism’s success should not be measured by the sum of demands granted, but by the sense of community achieved and the establishment of networks that continue to create resistance and change. These networks add to the debate surrounding Internet activism and its impact on student activism. Ultimately, the results of this study highlight the important role student movements have had in challenging different types of government policies and raising awareness of the importance of an accessible public higher education of excellence.

Annotated record of the detailed examination of ferromanganese concretions from the Bothnia Gulf, the Baltic Sea and the Barents sea collected by Boström, K. and Ingri, J. (Technical University of Lulea)

The collection of ferromanganese nodules at Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden has been donated by Pr. Boström, K. and Ingri, J. from the Technical University of Lulea. They have been collected in the Bothnia Gulf, the Baltic Sea anfd the Barents sea from 1976 until 1985. In 1997 it is was put to the care custody of the Laboratory for Isotope Geology (LIG) of NRM. As part of the Access Project at LIG, Curt Boman has gone through the collection and established a database with detailed information about the samples it contains. Ferromanganese nodules typically display a rounded shape and are formed by redox processes at the interface between the seabed sediment and water. In addition to iron and manganese they also contain other metal elements. Nodules chemical composition reflects the substances found in the sediment to which they are associated. Since the nodules grow continuously, they reflect changes in the sedimentary environment chemistry on a yearly basis, which makes them very interesting as environmental archives. The nodules can be found locally in large quantities and due to their metal content they are also economically interesting as a source of raw materials.

The Affordable Care Act and the Transformation of US Health Care

The neoliberal period was accompanied by a momentous transformation within the US health care system.  As the result of a number of political and historical dynamics, the healthcare law signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 ‑the Affordable Care Act (ACA)‑ drew less on universal models from abroad than it did on earlier conservative healthcare reform proposals. This was in part the result of the influence of powerful corporate healthcare interests. While the ACA expands healthcare coverage, it does so incompletely and unevenly, with persistent uninsurance and disparities in access based on insurance status. Additionally, the law accommodates an overall shift towards a consumerist model of care characterized by high cost sharing at time of use. Finally, the law encourages the further consolidation of the healthcare sector, for instance into units named “Accountable Care Organizations” that closely resemble the health maintenance organizations favored by managed care advocates. The overall effect has been to maintain a fragmented system that is neither equitable nor efficient. A single payer universal system would, in contrast, help transform healthcare into a social right.

“Animanazo”. Song and memories. Cultural expressions and movements in the reconstruction of the past inside a north Argentinian town

This article analyses the context of production and local situations of appropriation and resignification related to the folk song “Fire on Animaná” as well as the request and mobilization (“The animanazo”) provoked by this song in order to examine different mechanisms and foundations by which a population connect with an event from its community past, identifying with this and taking it in a specific way. In this article we combine discourse analysis of the song and of interviews to participants in this event with the reconstruction —through ethnographic observation— of how to use this song.

What is the Point of Copyright History?:Reflections on Copyright at Common law in 1774 by H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui

Copyright history has long been a subject of intense and contested enquiry. Historical narratives about the early development of copyright were first prominently mobilised in eighteenth century British legal discourse, during the so-called Battle of the Booksellers between Scottish and London publishers. The two landmark copyright decisions of that time – Millar v. Taylor (1769) and Donaldson v. Becket (1774) – continue to provoke debate today. The orthodox reading of Millar and Donaldson presents copyright as a natural proprietary right at common law inherent in authors. Revisionist accounts dispute that traditional analysis. These conflicting perspectives have, once again, become the subject of critical scrutiny with the publication of Copyright at Common Law in 1774 by Prof Tomas Gomez-Arostegui in 2014, in the Connecticut Law Review ((2014) 47 Conn. L. Rev. 1) and as a CREATe Working Paper (No. 2014/16, 3 November 2014).

Taking Prof Gomez-Arostegui’s extraordinary work in this area as a point of departure, Dr Elena Cooper and Professor Ronan Deazley (then both academics at CREATe) organised an event, held at the University of Glasgow on 26th and 27th March 2015, to consider the interplay between copyright history and contemporary copyright policy. Is Donaldson still relevant, and, if so, why? What justificatory goals are served by historical investigation, and what might be learned from the history of the history of copyright? Does the study of copyright history still have any currency within an evidence-based policy context that is increasingly preoccupied with economic impact analysis?

This paper provides a lasting record of these discussions, including an editorial introduction, written comments by each of the panelists and Prof. Gomez-Arostegui and an edited transcript of the Symposium debate.

The Importance of Learning History and Philosophy of Computing

Computers have invaded our offices, our homes, cars and coffee-pots; they have become ubiquitous. However, the advance of computing technologies is associated with an increasing lack of “visibility” of the underlying software and hardware technologies. While we use and accept the computer, we neither know its history nor functionality. In this paper, we argue that this is not a healthy situation. Also, recruitment onto UK Computing degree courses is steadily falling; these courses are appearing less attractive to school-leavers. This may be associated with the increasing ubiquity. In this paper we reflect on an MSc. module of instruction, Concepts and Philosophy of Computing, and a BSc. module Computer Games Development developed at the University of Worcester which address these issues. We propose that the elements of these modules form a necessary part of the education of all citizens, and we suggest how this may be realized. We also suggest how to re-enthuse our youth about computing as a discipline and halt the drop in recruitment.

The Importance of Learning History and Philosophy of Computing

Computers have invaded our offices, our homes, cars and coffee-pots; they have become ubiquitous. However, the advance of computing technologies is associated with an increasing lack of “visibility” of the underlying software and hardware technologies. While we use and accept the computer, we neither know its history nor functionality. In this paper, we argue that this is not a healthy situation. Also, recruitment onto UK Computing degree courses is steadily falling; these courses are appearing less attractive to school-leavers. This may be associated with the increasing ubiquity. In this paper we reflect on an MSc. module of instruction, Concepts and Philosophy of Computing, and a BSc. module Computer Games Development developed at the University of Worcester which address these issues. We propose that the elements of these modules form a necessary part of the education of all citizens, and we suggest how this may be realized. We also suggest how to re-enthuse our youth about computing as a discipline and halt the drop in recruitment.

Yellow perch population assessment in southwestern Lake Michigan, including the identification of factors that determine yellow perch year-class strength April 1, 2001 - March 31, 2002

Issued June 2002 F-123-R-8; NOTE: Two different reports numbered 02/06 were issued from the CAE.