‘A system that works for the sea’? Exploring Stakeholder Engagement in Marine Spatial Planning

This paper aims to contribute to the current debate on Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) by exploring the issue of stakeholder engagement. MSP is an emergent policy field that is subject to an increasing body of research, yet the role, scope and nature of participatory engagement within the process remains a neglected topic. This paper briefly reviews the nature of the ‘marine problem’, to which MSP is seen to be the response and describes the emergence of MSP policy in the UK with specific emphasis on participatory aspects. Drawing on the experience of terrestrial planning it discusses the potential benefits of stakeholder engagement in MSP and highlights some of the key issues that need to be taken into account when shaping stakeholder input into the process. It then goes on to describe the findings from a series of interviews with key stakeholders in the Irish Sea Region, which suggest that we need to develop a more critical and deeper understanding of how various interests frame the ‘marine problem’, and how they see their role in shaping the form of the MSP process. This highlights the importance of encouraging stakeholder involvement in MSP, the need to develop a shared vision of a ‘sea interest’. Priorities are then set for research to support this important policy agenda.

Some thoughts on Juan Antonio Ramírez´s iconologic-paranoid method for the study of Dali´s works

In 1990, Juan Antonio Ramírez made known his iconological paranoiac method to the academic world. It is a system devised to study Dalí´s work, born of happy matrimony between the catalonian artist´s critical paranoiac method and the first iconographic school of Warburg and Panofsky. What, at first sight, seemed to be an extravagant methodology with little academic credibility, turned out to be, by going forward in time, an effective research method when analyzing Dali´s initial works. It is no wonder that, at the beginning of XXI century, this hybridization between Dalí´s and Panofsky’s methods, were regarded as a strange and nonsensical idea. Nevertheless, twenty years after, blatant examples have been noted, which endorse the advantages of this new system for “iconographic” study. As usual, this new contribution by Juan Antonio Ramirez to art history methodology is called upon to have a successful future survival, in forthcoming generations. This article, attempts to analyze this method, inquiring into the validity, effectiveness and practical utility.

GERMAN WORKS COUNCILS AND THE ANATOMY OF WAGES

Using matched employer-employee data from the German LIAB for 2001, the authors found that German works councils are in general associated with higher earnings, even after accounting for establishment- and worker heterogeneity. Works Council wage premia exceed those of collective bargaining and are higher, in fact, where both institutions are present in the workplace. The authors also found evidence indicating that works councils benefit women relative to men and appear to favor foreign, east-German, and service-sector workers as well. Separate evidence from quantile regressions suggests that the conjunction of works council presence and collective bargaining is important to the narrowing process. In smaller plants even the presence of a works council markup depends on the coexistence of the works council entity With the machinery of collective bargaining.

The Representation of the Female Body in the Multimedia Works of Regina José Galindo

The female body is central to the performance art, poetry and blog site interventions of Guatemalan Regina José Galindo. While Galindo is best known for her performance work, this article compares the hereto overlooked, distinctive and often shocking representations of the female body across her multimedia outputs. We first consider the ways in which, in all three media, Galindo presents an ‘excessive’, carnivalised, grotesque and abject female body. Second, we analyse representations of the female body that has been subjected to violence at a private and public level. In so doing, we show how Galindo not only contests hegemonic visions of gender and (national) identity but also challenges the viewer/reader to engage with, rather than look away from, the violence to which women are subjected in patriarchal society.

Epistolarum Familiarium Liber Unus in The Complete Works of John Milton: Volume XI (672pp.)

This edition of Milton’s Epistolarum Familiarium Liber Unus and of his Uncollected Letters, will appear as 672 pp. of The Complete Works of John Milton Volume XI, eds. Gordon Campbell and Edward Jones (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2016). A diplomatic Latin text and a new facing English translation are complemented by a detailed Introduction and commentary that situate Milton’s Latin letters in relation to the classical, pedagogical and essentially humanist contexts at the heart of their composition. Now the art of epistolography advocated and exemplified by Cicero and Quintilian and embraced by Renaissance pedagogical manuals is read through a humanist filter whereby, via the precedent (and very title) of Epistolae Familiares, the Miltonic Liber is shown to engage with a neo-Latin re-invention of the classical epistola that had come to birth in quattrocento Italy in the letters of Petrarch and his contemporaries. At the same time the Epistolae are seen as offering fresh insight into Milton’s views on education, philology, his relations with Italian literati, his blindness, the poetic dimension of his Latin prose, and especially his verbal ingenuity as the ‘words’ of Latin ‘Letters’ become a self-conscious showcasing of etymological punning on the ‘letters’ of Latin ‘words’. The edition also announces several new discoveries, most notably its uncovering and collation of a manuscript of Henry Oldenburg’s transcription (in his Liber Epistolaris held in Royal Society, London) of Milton’s Ep. Fam. 25 (to Richard Jones). Oldenburg’s transcription (from the original sent to his pupil Jones) is an important find, given the loss of all but two of the manuscripts of Milton’s original Latin letters included in the 1674 volume. The edition also presents new evidence in regard to Milton’s relationships with the Italian philologist Benedetto Buonmattei, the Greek humanist Leonard Philaras, the radical pastor Jean Labadie (and the French church of London), and the elusive Peter Heimbach.

Use of recycled demolition aggregate in precast products, phase II: Concrete paving blocks

A study undertaken at the University of Liverpool has investigated the potential for using construction and demolition waste (C&DW) as aggregate in the manufacture of a range of precast concrete products, i.e. building and paving blocks and pavement flags. Phase II, which is reported here, investigated concrete paving blocks. Recycled demolition aggregate can be used to replace newly quarried limestone aggregate, usually used in coarse (6 mm) and fine (4 mm-to-dust) gradings. The first objective, as was the case with concrete building blocks, was to replicate the process used by industry in fabricating concrete paving blocks in the laboratory. The compaction technique used involved vibration and pressure at the same time, i.e. a vibro-compaction technique. An electric hammer used previously for building blocks was not sufficient for adequate compaction of paving blocks. Adequate compaction could only be achieved by using the electric hammer while the specimens were on a vibrating table. The experimental work involved two main series of tests, i.e. paving blocks made with concrete- and masonry-derived aggregate. Variables that were investigated were level of replacement of (a) coarse aggregate only, (b) fine aggregate only, and (c) both coarse and fine aggregate. Investigation of mechanical properties, i.e. compressive and tensile splitting strength, of paving blocks made with recycled demolition aggregate determined levels of replacement which produced similar mechanical properties to paving blocks made with newly quarried aggregates. This had to be achieved without an increase in the cement content. The results from this research programme indicate that recycled demolition aggregate can be used for this new higher value market and therefore may encourage demolition contractors to develop crushing and screening facilities for this. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Concrete building blocks made with recycled demolition aggregate

A study undertaken at the University of Liverpool has investigated the potential for using recycled demolition aggregate in the manufacture of precast concrete building blocks. Recycled aggregates derived from construction and demolition waste (C&DW) can be used to replace quarried limestone aggregate, usually used in coarse (6 mm) and fine (4 mm-to-dust) gradings. The manufacturing process used in factories, for large-scale production, involves a “vibro-compaction” casting procedure, using a relatively dry concrete mix with low cement content (˜100 kg/m3). Trials in the laboratory successfully replicated the manufacturing process using a specially modified electric hammer drill to compact the concrete mix into oversize steel moulds to produce blocks of the same physical and mechanical properties as the commercial blocks. This enabled investigations of the effect of partially replacing newly quarried with recycled demolition aggregate on the compressive strength of building blocks to be carried out in the laboratory. Levels of replacement of newly quarried with recycled demolition aggregate have been determined that will not have significant detrimental effect on the mechanical properties. Factory trials showed that there were no practical problems with the use of recycled demolition aggregate in the manufacture of building blocks. The factory strengths obtained confirmed that the replacement levels selected, based on the laboratory work, did not cause any significant strength reduction, i.e. there was no requirement to increase the cement content to maintain the required strength, and therefore there would be no additional cost to the manufacturers if they were to use recycled demolition aggregate for their routine concrete building block production.