Suchergebnisse

Fiorenza Micheli . et al. -- 17 páginas, 7 figuras, 3 tablas ; Spatial prioritization in conservation is required to direct limited resources to where actions are most urgently needed and most likely to produce effective conservation outcomes. In an effort to advance the protection of a highly threatened hotspot of marine biodiversity, the Mediterranean Sea, multiple spatial conservation plans have been developed in recent years. Here, we review and integrate these different plans with the goal of identifying priority conservation areas that represent the current consensus among the different initiatives. A review of six existing and twelve proposed conservation initiatives highlights gaps in conservation and management planning, particularly within the southern and eastern regions of the Mediterranean and for offshore and deep sea habitats. The eighteen initiatives vary substantially in their extent (covering 0.1–58.5% of the Mediterranean Sea) and in the location of additional proposed conservation and management areas. Differences in the criteria, approaches and data used explain such variation. Despite the diversity among proposals, our analyses identified ten areas, encompassing 10% of the Mediterranean Sea, that are consistently identified among the existing proposals, with an additional 10% selected by at least five proposals. These areas represent top priorities for immediate conservation action. Despite the plethora of initiatives, major challenges face Mediterranean biodiversity and conservation. These include the need for spatial prioritization within a comprehensive framework for regional conservation planning, the acquisition of additional information from data-poor areas, species or habitats, and addressing the challenges of establishing transboundary governance and collaboration in socially, culturally and politically complex conditions. Collective prioritised action, not new conservation plans, is needed for the north, western, and high seas of the Mediterranean, while developing initial information-based plans for the south and eastern Mediterranean is an urgent requirement for true regional conservation planning ; The workshop in which this work was initiated was funded by The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (www.ceed.edu.au). The Greek television channel SKAI (www.skai.gr/tv/) covered workshop participants' accommodation. The Biodiversity Research Group provided the workshop with consumables. FM acknowledges the support of the Pew Marine Trust and the Oak Foundation. SG was supported by the project "NETMED" cofinanced by the European Union and the Greek State. MC was funded through the Ramon y Cajal fellowship program of the Spanish Government. DK was funded through the MedPAN Network (www.medpan.org). SF was also supported by the European Community's 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 287844 for the project 'Towards COast to Coast NETworks of marine protected areas (from the shore to the high and deep sea), coupled with sea-based wind energy potential (COCONET)'. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript ; Peer reviewed

The consumption of alcohol is embedded in the Australian culture where it is widely enjoyed as a means of socialisation and celebration. However, alcohol also brings with it an array of social and health harms to consumers and the community. One way of addressing the harms associated with alcohol has been through the implementation of community impact assessments in liquor licensing legislation. These Community Impact Schemes (CIS) aim to ensure that the decision maker considers the impact that a licence proposal will have on the community. However, the NSW CIS fails to adequately protect against alcohol related harms and maximise community benefits. The objects of the Liquor Act 2007 (NSW) contain conflicting interests with no harm minimisation objective meaning that industry interests are normally preferred. The NSW CIS is also overly complicated and difficult to use alienating average community members from participating in the process. Consequently the process often favours industries that have the necessary financial resources and expertise to administer the CIS. The inadequacy of the NSW Community Impact Scheme to protect against alcohol related harms is a function of discretionary administrative powers and a regulatory framework that assumes that a licence approval is not detrimental to the public interest unless proven otherwise. Thus the onus is placed on objectors to demonstrate the probable realisation of potential harms to the public interest. Given the resources available to the well - funded commercial industries that are seeking liquor licences as opposed to local community interests who oppose them, there is an inherent bias in the system in favour of those seeking liquor licences. The standard of evidence that an objector must produce to form an argument is also extremely high. The Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA) has no legal obligation to actually investigate further then evidence placed before them and check whether the form has been completed thoroughly. This further frustrates the effectiveness of the aim of the CIS. These problems highlight that there is a need for practical reform of the CIS to ensure its effectiveness in achieving its aim of minimising alcohol related harms and maximising community benefits. The following changes should be made. • NSW CIS should learn from the WA equivalent of a CIS scheme in their liquor Act and reverse the burden of proof. WA places the burden on the applicants to prove to the Authority that the licence application is beneficial to the community rather than simply containing no detriment. • NSW CIS should also encourage a more central role for public health bodies and public agencies in the decision making process. For example, the UK liquor Act empowers public health bodies to participate in the process, supported by an objective in the Scottish Act to promote and maintain public health. This supports the CIS by ensuring that harm minimisation is considered. • The NSW CIS needs to adopt a more rigorous approach, similar to the NSW Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process that is more accessible and easier to navigate. • ILGA needs to have a legal obligation to ensure that community impacts are detailed and that considerations such as outlet density are considered.

In April, the School of Social and Political Sciences, in collaboration with the Justice and Inequality research priority of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, will be hosting Mike Savage, Martin White Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. He has a longstanding interest in the social and historical sources of inequality, within and across nations. From 2015 to 2020 Mike was Director of the LSE's International Inequalities Institute, and his most recent book is The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past (Harvard University Press, 2021), praised by Thomas Piketty as a "major sociological contribution to the ongoing global debate on inequality and the return of social class".

During Mike's visit, we will be holding two public events: a public lecture on ‘The Racial Wealth Divide’ and a forum on ‘The Eternal Return of the Rentier? How Our Past Weighs on Our Future’ (details below). In addition, we will be holding two closed workshops: one on the hold of finance on public policy (and how to loosen or break it) (April 4-5) and another on the methodological and theoretical challenges facing inequality researchers at a time of escalating inequality (April 16). These events are invitation-only, but spaces are available – please contact martijn.konings@sydney.edu.au for further information.
Forum: The Eternal Return of the Rentier? How Our Past Weighs on Our Future
Wednesday 3 April, 3:30-5 pm
A02 Social Sciences Building, Room 650, The University of Sydney
Please register to attend
Over the past decade, a certain strain of intellectual pessimism has migrated from social theory to popular culture. Our ability to make better futures, it advises, is hamstrung by the sheer weight of the past, resulting in economic stagnation, escalating inequality, generational rifts, and political instability. In political economy, that weight of the past has often been identified with the figure of the rentier, and Piketty's work has documented the return of this morally questionable character, living off the return on property. But today's rentiers are no longer top-hatted financiers, and whether owning a second home represents moral turpitude or a middle-class survival strategy is actively debated in the op-ed pages of Australian newspapers. Nor is it clear that we can account for the full extent of inequity in contemporary society by continuing to rely on existing definitions of wealth. As suggested by the current popularity of concepts such as "technofeudalism", the production of speculative claims on imagined futures shape what appear to be anachronistically exploitative forms of work.
The disorienting ways in which old and new combine to produce unfamiliar forms of inequality demands that we open up our concepts and reconsider our methods. One of the most ambitious and compelling attempts to do so has been advanced by Mike Savage in his recent book The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past (Harvard University Press, 2021). Professor Savage will be visiting the University of Sydney in April, and, taking its cue from the subtitle of his book, this panel invites leading scholars to reflect on how the past weighs on [...]
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We're going to do that unattractive thing again. Prance our egos around as we say we told you so. Core Lithium has stopped mining and has warned of a big write-down on the value of its assets as the collapse in the battery material's prices takes a heavy toll on Australian producers.The Northern Territory's only lithium producer told investors on Friday that it would revert to processing stockpiled ore and suspend operations at its Grants open pit mine.There's nothing particularly wrong with this Finniss mine. New, well made, decent deposit, they've been producing, the material is up to specification. It's a fine lithium mine in fact. It's also, as you can see, now closed. For the lithium price is now below production costs. Which is one of those really pretty big signals that there's no lithium shortage. As we said back in September in fact. There's a list out there of some 300 would be lithium mining companies. For that's what the market response has been - the lithium price rises, men with hammers go out to tap the world. And, amazingly, given that lithium is not in short supply, only in currently short extraction, they find it. The value of lithium in the ground falls further and faster than this 75% fall in the purified stuff too. The share prices of those would be lithium miners are falling - globally and near in unison. Because we've found enough and it only took a couple of years. It was also done without politics or even subsidy.And a year ago. And 18 months ago.It simply is not true that there's a shortage of these critical minierals - not in any real sense of there not being enough atoms around. Nor in the sense of there not being enough mineable atoms around. There can be, sometimes is, a shortage of open holes in the ground that people are currently extracting them from. But we've a system to deal with that - prices. Prices go up more people dig holes. Supply increases, prices come back down. As the man said, the cure for high prices is high prices.Now, if that were all then it wouldn't be worth remarking upon. But every government and non-government is mithering about supplies of critical minerals. The UK govt, the one you and we pay for, has taskforces and ministerial reports about them. Of less than, as one of says elsewhere, sensible activity. The US, the EU and everyone else we've noted have similar wastes of bureaucratic egghead time and effort. The WEF and any number of NGOs have teams working on this same non-existent problem. There is no shortage of minerals and the shortage of holes is cured by prices. There, we're done.So, could we please disband all these task forces? Gralloch the bureaucracies and ignore the NGOs? We don't have a problem and we've solved it anyway - with that old one of liberty, markets and prices. As so many problems can be and as so many bureaucratic structures adamantly fail to recognise.That last is at least understandable, you know, Upton Sinclair. But that's no reason for us all to allow them to get away with it. So, let's not.

The possibility of Asia-Pacific nations going to war within the current regional security environment is a distant one. Despite fiery territorial disputes, the exchange of sharp rhetoric and even gunfire across borders, the opportunity costs of war at this stage render stability a collective interest for regional prosperity. Bilateral and multilateral relationships and institutions have been established in political, economic and social spheres of engagement and help to stabilise a region witnessing a turbulent restructuring of its power order. The Asia-Pacific is nonetheless host to a diverse collection of conflict. Development on a grand scale has pushed states like China and India into the limelight of the international political economy, and has delivered domestic legitimacy and political clout to their governments. The pressure on China to fuel growth of this kind, while maintaining their hold on a population of some 1.37 billion, has directed attention to its energy supply in the interests of national security. China's energy security policies have real economic and diplomatic resonance in the security framework of the Asia-Pacific. While the argument that increased reliance on trade relationships is acting as a successful proxy for diplomacy, China's aggressive pursuit of energy security in its trade relationships with producers is not mitigating conflict. It has been suggested that energy resource policy has enhanced the relationships between key stakeholders in state and corporate echelons, but has not translated to peaceful engagement on the domestic and civil levels. Dr Edward Aspinall, political analyst at the Australian National University, has suggested that China's behaviour in the energy sector has exacerbated existing conflict and endangered the livelihoods of regional populations. By widening gaps in wealth distribution and drastically altering the environment through mining and associated infrastructure, the quest for energy security is aggravating other sources of regional instability. There are four facets of economic diplomacy currently at use that directly impact on the Asia-Pacific energy sector: trade, investment, acquisition and markets/finance. When considered collectively, they map out the security concerns and future directions of the region's most influential powers, namely the governments of China, Japan, India, the Koreas and the United States. They also illustrate the burgeoning role energy corporations have in the relationships between importer and producer countries, and their influence on economic diplomacy. China's current behaviour in the energy sector and its effects are inseparable from the security of the region. Concordantly, this paper focuses on how China's economic diplomacy presents in the four facets above, and what this means for the region's stability. It is important for Australia and other Asia-Pacific powers to activate forethought in their engagement with China within the energy sector. They must balance short and medium-term economic interests with energy scarcity, market instability and domestic interests. Australia in particular, must maximise its position as a primary energy resource exporter to the region, to effectively diversify energy dependence and bring the region back from the consequences of a looming energy shortage. Without a change of course, the flame of peace and prosperity enjoyed for so long in the Asia-Pacific is setto burn out, or be extinguished. If this occurs, there will be scant light to shed on the future security of the region.

A case study on coastal planning and management in Australia was selected to undertake an analysis of governance problems and/or solutions. The case study is the Augusta-Margaret River Shire1 in the southwest coast of Western Australia located at 290 km from Perth, the State capital. This case study has been selected from a series entitled ?Case Studies from Coastal Councils? presented by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA). The case study of Augusta-Margaret River was written in 2005 (Trail J., 2005). In order to update it, local authorities were contacted who kindly provided additional documentation as well as very valuable comments. In parallel, a review of the latest documentation from public sources was undertaken. All information presented in this paper is in the public domain. Useful contacts are included in the footnotes and the reference material. The objective of the paper is to review and analyze the case study on the basis of a conceptual model used for governance studies (Olsen, S.B., Page, G., Ochoa, 2009). This model has been applied in the study of governance in different countries. The model allows for the examination and integrated analysis of the main sources/mechanisms of governance (market, government and civil society) and the interrelationships between them. The model also allows for the review of governance responses to different human interventions along a sequence of time (past-present), and whether they have produce positive or negative impacts. The paper is divided into four parts (See ?Paper?s Road Map? in Annex 1. Part I presents a summary version of the case study as well as a chronology of events associated to coastal management in the Augusta Margaret River Shire through time. On the basis of this information an analysis of the trajectory of change is undertaken. Part II presents a brief review of the conceptual model. Special attention is given to the objectives and benefits of the model as well as its key features, particularly why it is based on the analysis of the past (trajectory of change) as the basis to build up future scenarios, as well as the assessment of governance responses to ecosystem changes through time. The discussion also includes the ?how to?, of measuring the governance process and outcomes. Part III focuses on the analysis of the main sources and mechanisms of governance (government, market and civil society) in Augusta Margaret River. To set the stage for analysis, an due to the complexity of the planning system in Australia, an overview of Australia?s three-tier coastal management system is provided, in order to facilitate the analysis of governance issues within this unique planning scenario. Part III discusses and reflects on the most critical governance issues, weather they are rooted in the government, the market or the civil society, that affect and had affected Augusta-Margaret River Shire through time. Part IV reflects on the applicability and uniqueness of this case study as well as the predominance of different sources of governance, It also discuss the degree of integration in the responses of the governance system and the existence of the necessary pre-conditions for implementation of a plan of action directed to the effective governance of the coastal areas.

Das Dissertationsprojekt befasst sich mit der australischen Autorin Dymphna Cusack, deren Popularität in Ost und West zwischen 1955 und 1975 ihren Höhepunkt erreichte. In diesem Zeitraum wurde sie nicht nur in den westlichen Industriestaaten, in Australien, England, Frankreich und Nord Amerika viel gelesen, sondern auch in China, Russland, der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik und in vielen Sowjetrepubliken. Im Verlauf ihres Schaffens wurde ihr grosse Anerkennung für ihren Beitrag zur australischen Literatur zuteil; sie erhielt die "Commonwealth Literary Pension", die "Queen′s Silver Jubilee Medal" und 1981 den "Award of her Majesty". Trotz dieser Unterstützung durch den Staat in Australien und England äusserte Cusack immer wieder feministische, humanistisch-pazifistische, und anti-faschistisch bzw. pro-sowjetische Sozialkritik. Sie war auch für ihren starken Nationalismus bekannt, plädierte dafür, eine "einheimische" Literatur und Kultur zu pflegen. Besonders das australische Bildungssystem war das Ziel ihrer Kritik, basierend auf ihren Erfahrungen als Lehrerin in städtischen und ländlichen Schulen, die sie ihrer Autobiographie beschrieb. 'Weder ihr Intellekt, noch ihre Seele oder ihre Körper wurden gefördert, um ganze Männer oder ganze Frauen aus ihnen zu machen. Besonders letztere wurden vernachlässigt. Mädchen wurden ermutigt, ihren Platz dort zu sehen, wo deutsche Mädchen ihn einst zu sehen hatten: bei Kindern, Küche, Kirche.' Cusack engagierte sich stark für Bildungsreformen, die das Versagen australischer Schulen, das erwünschte liberal-humanistische Subjekt zu herauszubilden, beheben sollten. Der liberale Humanismus der Nachkriegszeit schuf ein populäres Bedürfnis nach romantischem Realismus, den man in Cusacks Texten finden kann. Um verstehen zu können, wie Frauen sich zwischen "Realismus und Romanze" verfingen, biete ich eine Dekonstruktion von Geschlecht innerhalb dieses "hybriden" Genres an. Mittels feministischer Methodik können Einblicke in die konfliktvolle Subjektivität beider Geschlechter in verschiedenen historischen Perioden gewonnen werden: die Zeit zwischen den Kriegen, während des Pazifischen Krieges und den Weltkriegen, während des Kalten Krieges, zur Zeit der Aborigine-Bewegung, des Vietnamkrieges, sowie zu Beginn der zweiten feministischen Bewegung in den siebziger Jahren. Eine Rezeptionsanalyse des romantischen Realismus und der Diskurse, die diesen prägen, sind in Kapitel zwei und drei untersucht. Die Dekonstruktion von Weiblichkeit und eines weiblichen Subjekts ist in Kapitel vier unternommen, innerhalb einer Diskussion der Art und Weise, wie Cusacks romantischer Erzählstil mit dem sozialen Realismus interagiert. Nach der Forschung von Janice Radway, werden Cusacks Erzählungen in zwei Tabellen unterteilt: die Liebesgeschichte versagt, ist erfolgreich, eine Parodie oder Idealisierung (s. "Ideal and Failed Romances"; "Primary Love Story Succeeds or Fails"). Unter Einbeziehung von Judith Butlers philosophischem Ansatz in die Literaturkritik wird deutlich, dass diese Hybridisierung der Gattungen das fiktionale Subjekt davon abhält, ihr/sein Geschlecht "sinnvoll" zu inszenieren. Wie das "reale Subjekt", der Frau in der Gesellschaft, agiert die fiktionale Protagonistin in einer nicht intelligiblen Art und Weise aufgrund der multiplen Anforderungen an und den Einschränkungen für ihr Geschlecht. Demnach produziert die geschlechtliche Benennung des Subjektes eine Vielfalt von Geschlechtern: Cusacks Frauen und Männer sind geprägt von den unterschiedlichen und konfliktvollen Ansprüchen der dichotom gegenübergestellten Genres. Geschlecht, als biologisches und soziales Gebilde, wird danach undefinierbar durch seine komplexen und inkonsistenten Ausdrucksformen in einem romantisch-realistischen Text. Anders gesagt führt die populäre Kombination von Liebesroman und Realismus zu einer Überschreitung der Geschlechtsbinarität, die in beiden Genres vorausgesetzt wird. Weiterführend dient eine Betrachtung von Sexualität und Ethnie in Kapitel fünf einer differenzierteren Analyse humanistischer Repräsentationen von Geschlecht in der Nachkriegsliteratur. Die Notwendigkeit, diese Repräsentationen in der Populär- und in der Literatur des Kanons zu dekonstruieren, ist im letzten Kapitel dieser Dissertation weiter erläutert. ; In her lifetime, Dymphna Cusack continually launched social critiques on the basis of her feminism, humanism, pacificism and anti-fascist/pro-Soviet stance. Recalling her experi-ences teaching urban and country schoolchildren in A Window in the Dark, she was particularly scathing of the Australian education system. Cusack agitated for educational reforms in the belief that Australian schools had failed to cultivate the desired liberal humanist subject: 'Neither their minds, their souls, nor their bodies were developed to make the Whole Man or the Whole Woman - especially the latter. For girls were encouraged to regard their place as German girls once did: Kinder, Küche, Kirche - Children, Kitchen and Church.' I suggest that postwar liberal humanism, with its goals of equality among the sexes and self-realisation or 'becoming Whole', created a popular demand for the romantic realism found in Cusack′s texts. This twentieth century form of humanism, evident in new ideas of the subject found in psychoanalysis, Western economic theory and Modernism, informed each of the global lobbies for peace and freedom that followed the destruction of World War II. Liberal ideas of the individual in society became synonymous with the humanist representations of gender in much of postwar, realistic literature in English-speaking countries. The individual, a free agent whose aim was to 'improve the life of human beings', was usually given the masculine gender. He was shown to achieve self-realisation through a commitment to the development of "mankind", either materially or spiritually. Significantly, the majority of Cusack′s texts diverge from this norm by portraying women as social agents of change and indeed, as the central protagonists. Although the humanist goal of self-realisation seems to be best adapted to social realism, the generic conventions of popular romance also have humanist precepts, as Catherine Belsey has argued. The Happy End is contrived through the heroine′s mental submission to her physical desire for the previously rejected or criticised lover. As Belsey has noted, desire might be considered a deconstructive force which momentarily prevents the harmonious, permanent unification of mind and body because the body, at the moment of seduction, does not act in accord with the mind. In popular romance, however, desire usually leads to a relationship or proper union of the protagonists. In Cusack′s words, the heroine and hero become "whole men and women" through the "realistic" love story. Thus romance, like realism, seeks to stabilise gender relations, even though female desire is temporarily disruptive in the narrative. In the end, women and men become fully realised characters according to the generic conventions of the love story or the consummation of potentially subversive desire. It stayed anxieties associated with women seeking independence and self-realisation rather than traditional romance which signalled a threat to existing gender relations. I proposed that an analysis of gender in Cusack′s fiction is warranted, since these apparently unified, humanist representations of romantic realism belie the conflicting aims and actions of the gendered subjects in this historical period. For instance, when we examine women′s lives immediately after the war, we can identify in both East and West efforts initiated by women and men to reconstruct private/public roles. In order to understand how women were caught between "realism and romance", I plan to deconstruct gender within the paradigm of this hybrid genre. By adopting a femininist methodology, new insights may be gained into the conflictual subjectivity of both genders in the periods of the interwar years, the Pacific and World Wars, the Cold War, the Australian Aboriginal Movement at the time of the Vietnam War, as well as the moment of second wave Western feminism in the seventies. My definition of romantic realism and the discourses that inform it are examined in chapters two and three. A deconstruction of femininity and the female subject is pursued in chapter four, when I argue that Cusack′s romantic narratives interact in different ways with social realism: romance variously fails, succeeds, is parodic or idealised. Applying Judith Butler′s philosophical ideas to literary criticism, I argue that this hybridisation of genre prevents the fictional subject from performing his or her gender. Like the "real" subject - actual women in society - the fictional protagonist acts in an unintelligible fashion due to the multifarious demands and constraints on her gender. Consequently, the gendering of the sexed subject produces a multiplicity of genders: Cusack′s women and men are constituted by differing and conflicting demands of the dichotomously opposed genres. Thus gender and sex become indefinite through their complex, inconsistent expression in the romantic realistic text. In other words, the popular combination of romance and realism leads to an explosion of the gender binary presupposed by both genres. Furthermore, a consideration of sexuality and race in chapter five leads to a more differentiated analysis of the humanist representations of gender in postwar fiction. The need to deconstruct these representations in popular and canonical literature is recapitulated in the final chapter of this Dissertation.

Australian families are changing and parenthood is increasingly being seen as an individual choice. One important arena for exercising such choice is adoption, which can take place across national borders in the form of intercountry adoption. The report conducts research on country of origins as well as different voices of stakeholders in the intercountry adoption discourse. This ensures the complex and controversial nature of intercountry adoption is carefully understood. This also prevents a singular perspective on this phenomenon by intercountry adoption lobbyists and to make sure complex voices of adoptive parents, adoptees, first families as well as adoption professionals, and academics in Australia are equally heard. The key principle emphasised throughout the report, is that Intercountry Adoption is not a service for prospective adoptive parents and the best interests of the child needs to be protected. Research is conducted through case studies on countries of origins, examination of parliamentary documents, literature review on books, journals and newspaper articles, study of documentaries as well as semi-structured informal face-to-face interviews with adoptees, adoptive parents, adoption service providers and policy advisers. Results of findings shows that the declining Intercountry adoption rates in Australia is due to greater domestic regulation or ceasing of illegal and unethical practice in some countries of origins. To ensure best interests of the child are protected, there is also greater compliance with the minimum standards of The Hague Convention and the Subsidiarity Principle, which the author stresses as first priority, rejecting poverty as a legitimate reason for Intercountry Adoption on its own. Also, children's genuine adoptability needs to be assessed closely to ensure 'paper orphans' are not created. The next finding of the report is that the Abbott Government's introduction of a 'one shop stop' will not make a significant reduction on 'waiting time' as expanding time period for adoption processes is largely a result of processes in countries of origins. Australia's stringent eligibility and suitability assessment on prospective adoptive parents can be smoothened, but will not be reduced to ensure children are matched with the most suitable families. It is also important that prospective adoptive families are provided with domestic and overseas support beyond post adoption monitoring and they understand the full range of issues relevant to different stages of the child's life to provide the best outcome for the child. Another finding is that adoptees' best interest needs to be understood beyond adoption adjustment at a childhood level, especially with changing characteristics of adoptable children. The author discovers that post-adoption services for adoptees are deficient in Australia due to lack of funding and resources as well as not attaching sufficient importance to it. Lastly, to ensure each stakeholder has an equal say, contesting voices of first families are examined in the report to produce a fuller understanding of Intercountry Adoption and to ensure that singular perspective of adoption lobbyists, mainly prospective adoptive parents does not dominate the discourse. In conclusion, the author suggests that Australia's current ICA processes be delivered through a mixed model including accredited bodies, especially with considerable dissatisfactions with the current model. The author acknowledges that the analysis is incomplete due to the fact that extensive investigations of all stakeholders are limited due to temporal and fiscal restraints. The balanced collection of viewpoints provided is also hindered by the outspokenness of particular stakeholders. Lastly, stakeholder experiences mentioned are not experienced by all and only highlight common challenges.

Defence procurement is big business. Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent annually world wide on acquisitions that consist mostly of cutting edge technology. Australia, like other western countries, procures these novel acquisitions experiencing much variance in regard to time schedule and price. What differentiates Australia from other western democracies in regard to procurement are not these unwanted side-effects, but its geo-political location, its huge territorial scope, the small population and most importantly, the modest military budget. Just like its military budget Australia' s domestic defence industries are also modest in size. Despite contrary promises by the Government of the day, most of the Commonwealth owned defence industries were sold off during the late 1990s to a private, foreign consortium. The Australian Submarine Corporation represents the final remnant of the Commonwealth owned defence industry that is also going to be offered for sale in the near future. This trend of privatization is in line with the dominance. The western European countries have embraced the unification as a possibility to strengthen their defence industries and subsequently, are producing high quality systems. Currently western European countries have the option to integrate further within the EU defence industries, pursue their own interest, which is what France excels at, or tum towards an Atlantic market, which is UK's preference. The small Middle Eastern country Israel, on the other hand, benefits greatly from US subsidies and actively fosters its home-grown defence industries that have evolved into the country's main employer. Obviously, defence industries can be developed into lucrative, highly productive businesses providing they are given adequate support. The trend of globalization has narrowed the armaments market to a view major players that excel in innovation as well as production. Competing with these established industries is difficult but, Australia's national interest should not equate to narrow profit margins pursued by these multinational corporations. The ability to maintain the acquired platforms and systems, job creation and a degree of independence from foreign suppliers is what Australia needs to take into consideration primarily. For Australia, the unique nation of the South-Pacific, the changing strategic and socio-economic situation presents challenges which imply that there are substantial benefits in maintaining domestic industries and expanding on the R&D effort. present dynamics of globalization, but questions regarding national interest have been raised. Whether total privatisation is in Australia's best national interest has been debated at length and financial matters, so it appears, are at the centre of these arguments. Rising costs are unavoidable when procuring the latest, high-tech military acquisitions regardless of whether these platforms and systems are purchased from overseas or are locally manufactured. An accomplished defence industry that is kept sharp with competition and buoyant with government grants in regard to R&D, is going to have a high level of proficiency and consequently, will be able to produce products of excellence. However, that is not the direction Australia has chosen to take. Despite the talent, the need and the ability of the work force the Government has turned to overseas suppliers and prefers to play the role of a consumer only. Other western countries do not readily play the passive consumer role. The superpower United States of America has made its defence industry a vital part of its economy and its defence industry stands as a substantial pillar in supports of its

2016 will mark 25 years since the final Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) report was tabled. In the RCIADIC report, the disproportionately high levels of aboriginal deaths in custody were attributed to the significant over-representation of indigenous people in custody (Hammond et al. 1991, Nat Reports Vol 1, Ch. 1, 1.3). In the intervening years, despite significant government resources being allocated to the problem, the indigenous incarceration rate has continued to rise, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) people '15 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-indigenous Australians' (AHRC 2014, p100). The effects of the high level of indigenous incarceration are numerous, including but not limited to health impacts (PHAA 2010, p3), intergenerational impacts (Weatherburn 2014, p 8), a higher risk of recidivism ((Weatherburn 2014, p 8) and other socio economic impacts (Weatherburn 2014, p 8). The logical response to the continuing high rates of indigenous incarceration is to seek further information and perhaps alternative insights into why the problem continues to get worse. This research project seeks to add to the body of knowledge about the problem of indigenous incarceration through harnessing the opinions and expertise of those at the coal face, with a particular focus on state and Federal public policy options. The professionals that work in or in relation to the criminal justice system were identified as having significant 'coal face' expertise and insights regarding indigenous incarceration issues. Whilst it appears that this group has some opportunities to provide their expert opinions regarding public policy approaches to indigenous incarceration to government such as via Parliamentary enquiries or similar, the consultation process appears to be fairly ad-hoc, focusing on a specific issue rather than a broader public policy approach. The research design adopted was semi-structured interviews with the participants, coupled with secondary research via sources such as academic literature and government reports. Seven professionals from or working in relation to the criminal justice field were interviewed, with a focus on public policy responses. Their insights were collated into key findings (see Chapter 3) and analysed to produce a number recommendations for consideration (noting the small sample size significantly reduced the ability to make definitive conclusions). The resulting recommendations were: 1. A national forum be established to garner the opinions and expertise of those working within or in relation to the criminal justice system to inform state, territory and Federal government on a regular rather than ad-hoc basis and covering a broad public policy approach, rather than only looking at specific issues at any one time . 2. Indigenous people be supported (including appropriate training and resourcing) to participate more in attempts to address indigenous incarcerations . 3. Federal government adopts a leadership role regarding public policy approaches to indigenous incarceration. 4. 'Justice targets' be added to the existing 'Closing the Gap' Framework. 5. A Royal Commission or similar broad ranging investigation of indigenous incarceration issues be considered to investigate what the issues are, what the impediments are to addressing the issues, and provide recommendations for future action. 6. Long term funding (not linked to election cycles) be provided to agencies to provide certainty and allow the agencies to develop and evaluate strategies that work over time. 7. Consideration be given to establishing a statutory authority to oversee the funding and implementation of policies seeking to address key indigenous issues. 8. Alternatives to 'standard' criminal justice responses be provided (and resourced), allowing greater options for courts, the defendants and others affected to find alternative and more appropriate solutions.

The challenges of negotiating Brexit are daunting. As such, it does not bode well that Britain's post-referendum politics have been so bitter, polarised and volatile. An irony may be Britain's undoing. The country was asked a clear question ('Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?') and gave a clear answer ('Leave'), and yet has no clear idea of what to do next. The process of leaving a union with which British politics, law and society has been intertwined for some 40 years is deeply complex. For one thing, the jilted party, the EU, must agree to the terms of separation, and do so in the two years allotted by Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which Prime Minister Theresa May intends to invoke in the first quarter of 2017. But first, Britain must work out what it wants, and doing so is proving to be a bitter and divisive process. The problem with the EU referendum was that, in distilling so many issues into a single choice, it meant that people with different and sometimes contradictory interests could unite around the opposing poles This is a normal feature of democratic elections: not everyone supports a candidate or party for the same reasons. But in an election, candidates and parties produce policy statements and manifestos. For the referendum on Scottish independence, the Holyrood government published a 670-page White Paper on the shape of an independent Scotland, with the Scottish National Party speaking as the overwhelming favourite to govern that future country. In Britain's EU referendum, there was no such guide to the meaning of a vote to leave. The UK Independence Party (UKIP), though influential in some ways, remained a fringe concern. The campaign organisation given official recognition from the electoral commission, Vote Leave, was not a party, and produced no manifesto for negotiating Brexit save for a brief memo published eight days before the vote. Prior to that, Vote Leave had offered promises about the supposedly beneficial effects of leaving the EU, and the supposedly detrimental effects of remaining. At least one of each category - 'We will be able to save £350 million a week', and 'Turkey is one of five new countries joining the EU' - was false. To make things more complicated, Vote Leave was joined by the noisier and more radical Leave.eu, which had unsuccessfully campaigned for the electoral-commission designation. The net effect was that the Leave campaign as a whole was free to use whatever collection of arguments were tactically useful in winning the vote, whether or not they added up to a coherent position. It did so ruthlessly. When the economic case for leaving the European Union appeared to be unsupportable, the Leave campaign shifted to a focus on controlling immigration. Even here, there was room for incoherence: Leave campaigners, including Michael Gove (then the education secretary) and Boris Johnson (now foreign secretary) called for the introduction of an Australian-style points-based immigration system, even though Australia's per capita net immigration is higher than that of the UK. Regardless, much as Donald Trump's early and relentless focus on immigration served as a rallying point for his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in the United States, this was an issue around which Leave voters could gather. Polling prior to the referendum campaign had shown that hostility to immigration was one of the best predictors of support for leaving the EU; 79% of those in favour of leaving agreed with the proposition that immigration is bad for the British economy, for example, compared with 21% of those in favour of remaining. The Leave campaign combined this energy with what were essentially spoiling tactics on the economic front - confronted with a list of British allies and domestic and global institutions opposed to Brexit, for example, Gove responded that 'people in this country have had enough of experts - and won a narrow, shocking but decisive victory. (Survival / SWP)

A combined search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC using datasets corresponding to integrated luminosities from 1.04 fb-1 to 4.9 fb-1 of pp collisions collected at s=7TeV is presented. The Higgs boson mass ranges 112.9-115.5 GeV, 131-238 GeV and 251-466 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level (CL), while the range 124-519 GeV is expected to be excluded in the absence of a signal. An excess of events is observed around mH~126GeV with a local significance of 3.5 standard deviations (σ). The local significances of H→γγ, H→ZZ(z.ast;)→ℓ+ℓ-ℓ'+ℓ'- and H→WW(z.ast;)→ℓ+νℓ'-ν- the three most sensitive channels in this mass range, are 2.8σ, 2.1σ and 1.4σ, respectively. The global probability for the background to produce such a fluctuation anywhere in the explored Higgs boson mass range 110-600 GeV is estimated to be ~1.4% or, equivalently, 2.2σ ; ANPCyT ; YerPhl, Armenia ; Australian Research Council ; BMWF, Austria ; Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) ; SSTC, Belarus ; National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) ; Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) ; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada ; NRC, Canada ; Canada Foundation for Innovation ; CERN ; Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) ; Chinese Academy of Sciences ; Ministry of Science and Technology, China ; National Natural Science Foundation of China ; Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion Colciencias ; Ministry of Education, Youth & Sports - Czech Republic ; Czech Republic Government ; DNRF, Denmark ; Danish Natural Science Research Council ; Lundbeckfonden ; European Union (EU) ; European Union (EU) European Research Council (ERC) ; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) ; CEA-DSM/IRFU, France ; GNAS, Georgia ; Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) ; German Research Foundation (DFG) ; HGF, Germany ; Max Planck Society ; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation ; Greek Ministry of Development-GSRT ; Israel Science Foundation ; MINERVA, Israel ; German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development ; DIP, Israel ; Benoziyo Center, Israel ; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) ; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT) Japan Society for the Promotion of Science ; CNRST, Morocco ; FOM (The Netherlands) Netherlands Government ; Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Netherlands Government ; RCN, Norway ; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland ; GRICES, Portugal ; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology ; MERYS (MECTS), Romania ; Russian Federation ; JINR ; MSTD, Serbia ; MSSR, Slovakia ; Slovenian Research Agency - Slovenia ; MVZT, Slovenia ; DST/NRF, South Africa ; Spanish Government ; SRC, Sweden ; Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden ; SER, Switzerland ; Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) ; Canton of Bern, Switzerland ; Canton of Geneva, Switzerland ; National Science Council of Taiwan ; Ministry of Energy & Natural Resources - Turkey ; Leverhulme Trust ; United States Department of Energy (DOE) ; National Science Foundation (NSF) ; Royal Society of London ; Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC) PP/E000347/1 ST/H001093/1 ST/H001026/2 ST/H00100X/2 ST/I000186/1 ST/K001361/1 MINOS/MINOS+ ST/K001361/1 ATLAS Upgrades ST/K003658/1 ST/L001004/1 ST/I006080/1 ST/I003142/1 ST/H001026/1 ST/M001474/1 ST/K001248/1 ATLAS ST/K001310/1 LHCb Upgrades ST/K001310/1 ATLAS Upgrades ST/I003525/1 ST/K001361/1 LHCb Upgrades ST/F007337/1 PP/E003699/2 ST/K00073X/1 ST/K001310/1 LHCb ST/K001337/1 ST/K000705/1 ST/J004928/1 ST/I005803/1 ST/I003517/1 PP/E003699/1 ST/K001310/1 ST/K001361/1 ATLAS ST/H00100X/1 ST/J005576/1 ST/K003658/1 GRIDPP PP/E003087/1 ST/L000970/1 ATLAS Upgrade ST/L001195/1 ST/K001264/1 ATLAS ST/K001361/1 ATLAS ST/L000970/1 ST/K001337/1 ATLAS ST/J002798/1 ST/H001093/2 GRIDPP PP/E000355/1 ST/I005803/1 GRIDPP ST/L001144/1 ST/H001069/2 ST/K001418/1 ST/K001329/1 ATLAS ST/J004944/1 ST/G502320/1 ST/J004928/1 ATLAS Upgrade ST/K001310/1 ATLAS ST/K001361/1 LHCb ST/K001248/1 ST/M001431/1 ; ICREA

Technics, Memory and the Architecture of History December 17, 2011 In the light of massive catastrophes – the earthquakes near Sendai and Christchurch, the tsunamis of Acheh and Katrina's devastation of New Orleans – the question of urban and architectural reconstruction invokes the question of remembering. What is this 'past' that we remember and on which we base our future reconstructions? What images of the past do we call upon in our decisions to build or not to build – and how do they negotiate the terrain between memory and history, nature and culture, technology and sustainability, planning and responding, tradition and innovation, foundations and interstices? Albrecht Duerer 1514 Melancholia I. (detail) To Bernard Stiegler, the image that we recall in/as history is not an "image in general". Rather it is an image with an irreducible materiality, inscribed in a technical history. That is to say, the image-object of history is given to us; we inherit it and make it our own. History has therefore a technicity and its own historicity: the architecture of its images contains technical traces of their construction. The task of the historian becomes more complex in the light of such mnemotechnics. In recalling the past, no transcendental signified or image precedes the image-object. The event of memory calls for an imagination that does not separate mental images from image-objects and their associated technics of construction and dissemination. As Lebbeus Woods says, the inventions and radical reconstructions that make survival possible under extreme, catastrophic conditions provide new ways of living in a paradoxical state of perpetual destruction and construction. Here, the image-object of the past maintains a dynamics of simultaneous political, technological, epistemological and personal change. The practices of architecture, design and art – when treated as images with technicities that produce an artificial already-there of the past that is not lived but imposed – become useful strata to identify and render problematic civic values and democratic processes. What are some of the key image-objects that architecturalise historiography, particularly the historiographies of architecture, design and art? What are the ontological conditions surrounding these historical image-objects, their construction and dissemination? What alternative topologies of memorialising the past are imaginable: narratival, conversational, oral and gestural? What images are inherited by the historian, and how does the interior (psychic) condition of the historian assimilate (or not) the otherness of the image-objects that arrive from the outside? Taking seriously the metaphor of the cinematic, the temporalisation of the image-object and its absorption into the sphere of production, and the indeterminacy of images that carry the technics of interhuman relations, this issue of Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts [1] invokes the theatre of the historian's individuation alongside history's mnemotechnics that organize the images which appear whenever memory is invoked. We invite you to contribute to the forthcoming issue – either in the refereed or non-refereed part. Interstices accepts both academic and practice oriented, fully written as well as visual, contributions for double blind refereeing and welcomes articles related to the issue theme. For the refereed part, we welcome submission of 5000 word papers and visual submissions with an accompanying text of approximately 500 words. For the non-refereed part, we welcome papers up to 2500 words and project reports and reviews of up to 1000 words. Please visit our website and check out the Notes for Contributors for details about the reviewing process, copyright issues and formatting: http://www.interstices.ac.nz/. Please send your submission to Andrew Douglas (adouglas@aut.ac.nz) by 28 February 2012. Authors accepted for the reviewing process will receive confirmation and a schedule in early March and the journal will go to publication in November 2012. We look forward to your contribution! [1] Interstices: A Journal of Architecture and Related Arts received an "A" rating in the 2009 and 2010 Australian Research Council's Journal Ranking Exercise. See also http://www.2020publication.info/

The successful installation, commissioning, and operation of the Pierre Auger Observatory would not have been possible without the strong commitment and effort from the technical and admin-istrative staff in Malargtie. We are very grateful to the following agencies and organizations for financial support: Argentina - Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica; Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientffica y Tecnologica (ANPCyT) ; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientfficas y Tecnicas (CONICET) ; Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza; Municipalidad de Malargtie; NDM Holdings and Valle Las Leas; in gratitude for their continuing cooperation over land access; Australia - the Australian Research Council; Brazil - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvi-mento Cientffico e Tecnologico (CNPq) ; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (FINEP) ; FundacAo de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; SAo Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Grants No. 2019/101512, No. 2010/07359-6 and No. 1999/054043; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia, Inovacoes e Comunicacoes (MCTIC) ; Czech Republic - Grant No. MSMT CR LTT18004, LM2015038, LM2018102, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001402,CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/18_046/0016010 and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_049/0008422; France - Centre de Calcul IN2P3/CNRS; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) ; Conseil Regional IledeFrance; Departement Physique Nucleaire et Corpusculaire (PNCIN2P3/CNRS) ; Departement Sciences de l'Univers (SDUINSU/CNRS) ; Institut Lagrange de Paris (ILP) Grant No. LABEX ANR-10-LABX-63 within the Investissements d'Avenir Programme Grant No. ANR11IDEX000402; Germany - Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) ; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) ; Finanzministerium BadenWurttemberg; Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP) ; Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren (HGF) ; Min-isterium fur Innovation, Wissenschaft und Forschung des Landes NordrheinWestfalen; Minis-terium fur Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst des Landes BadenWurttemberg; Italy - Isti-tuto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) ; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) ; Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR) ; CETEMPS Center of Excellence; Minis-tero degli Affari Esteri (MAE) ; Mexico - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT) No. 167733; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) ; PAPIIT DGAPAUNAM; The Netherlands - Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Netherlands Organisation for Sci-entific Research (NWO) ; Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of SURF Cooperative; Poland-Ministry of Science and Higher Education, grant No. DIR/WK/2018/11; National Sci-ence Centre, Grants No. 2013/08/M/ST9/00322, No. 2016/23/B/ST9/01635 and No. HARMONIA 5-2013/10/M/ST9/00062, UMO2016/22/M/ST9/00198; Portugal - Portuguese national funds and FEDER funds within Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade through Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (COMPETE) ; Romania - Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, the Program Nucleu within MCI (PN19150201/16N/2019 and PN19060102) and project PNIIIP11.2PCCDI20170839/19PCCDI/2018 within PNCDI III; Slovenia - Slovenian Research Agency, grants P10031, P10385, I00033, N10111; Spain - Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (FPA2017-85114-P and PID2019104676GBC32, Xunta de Galicia (ED431C 2017/07) , Junta de Andalucia (SOMM17/6104/UGR, P18-FR-4314) Feder Funds, RENATA Red Nacional Tematica de Astroparticulas (FPA2015-68783-REDT) and Maria de Maeztu Unit of Excel-lence (MDM20160692) ; U.S.A. - Department of Energy, Contracts No. DEAC0207CH11359, No. DEFR0204ER41300, No. DE-FG02-99ER41107 and No. DESC0011689; National Sci-ence Foundation, Grant No. 0450696; The Grainger Foundation; Marie CurieIRSES/EPLANET; European Particle Physics Latin American Network; and UNESCO. ; FRAM (F/Photometric Robotic Atmospheric Monitor) is a robotic telescope operated at the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina for the purposes of atmospheric monitoring using stellar photometry. As a passive system which does not produce any light that could interfere with the observations of the fluorescence telescopes of the observatory, it complements the active monitoring systems that use lasers. We discuss the applications of stellar photometry for atmospheric monitoring at optical observatories in general and the particular modes of operation employed by the Auger FRAM. We describe in detail the technical aspects of FRAM, the hardware and software requirements for a successful operation of a robotic telescope for such a purpose and their implementation within the FRAM system. ; Argentina - Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica ; ANPCyT ; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET) ; Australian Research Council ; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPQ) Fundacao de Apoio a Pesquisa do Distrito Federal (FAPDF) ; Financiadora de Inovacao e Pesquisa (Finep) ; Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio De Janeiro (FAPERJ) ; Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) 2019/101512 2010/07359-6 1999/054043 ; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia, Inovacoes e Comunicacoes (MCTIC) ; Czech Republic Government ; Ministry of Education, Youth & Sports - Czech Republic LTT18004 LM2015038 LM2018102 CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001402 CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/18_046/0016010 CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_049/0008422 IN2P3/CNRS ; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) ; Region Ile-de-France PNCIN2P3/CNRS ; Institut Lagrange de Paris (ILP) ; LABEX ANR-10-LABX-63 ANR11IDEX000402 ; Federal Ministry of Education & Research (BMBF) ; German Research Foundation (DFG) ; Helmholtz Alliance for Astroparticle Physics (HAP) ; Helmholtz Association ; Min-isterium fur Innovation, Wissenschaft und Forschung des Landes NordrheinWestfalen ; Minis-terium fur Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst des Landes BadenWurttemberg; Italy - Isti-tuto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) ; Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) ; CETEMPS Center of Excellence ; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACyT) 167733 ; Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico ; Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigacion e Innovacion Tecnologica (PAPIIT) Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico ; Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) DIR/WK/2018/11 ; National Science Centre, Poland 2013/08/M/ST9/00322 2016/23/B/ST9/01635 HARMONIA 5-2013/10/M/ST9/00062 UMO2016/22/M/ST9/00198 ; Portugal - Portuguese national funds ; FEDER funds within Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade through Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (COMPETE) ; Romania - Romanian Ministry of Education and Research ; Program Nucleu within MCI PN19150201/16N/2019 PN19060102 PNIIIP11.2PCCDI20170839/19PCCDI/2018 ; Slovenian Research Agency - Slovenia P10031 P10385 I00033 N10111 FPA2017-85114-P PID2019104676GBC32 ; Xunta de Galicia European Commission ED431C 2017/07 ; Junta de Andalucia SOMM17/6104/UGR P18-FR-4314 ; European Commission ; RENATA Red Nacional Tematica de Astroparticulas FPA2015-68783-REDT ; Maria de Maeztu Unit of Excel-lence MDM20160692 ; United States Department of Energy (DOE) DEAC0207CH11359 DEFR0204ER41300 DE-FG02-99ER41107 DESC0011689 ; National Science Foundation (NSF) 0450696 ; Grainger Foundation ; European Particle Physics Latin American Network ; UNESCO

Materiality has recently claimed centre stage in architectural discourse and practice, yet its critical meaning is ever receding. Tropes like material honesty, digital materiality, material responsiveness and dematerialisation mark out an interdisciplinary field where scientific fact and artistic experimentation interact, and where what in fact constitutes materiality and immateriality is constantly re-imagined. Interstices14 invites contributions that address the thematic strands: Immateriality; Atmosphere+Experience; Interactivity; Material Politics; Material Technology+Aesthetics; Material Referents. Immateriality: As a reaction to developments in science, materiality came under scrutiny with the emergence of nineteenth century German aesthetics (Vischer, Schmarsow) and the early avant-garde projects (Lissitzky, van Doesburg). Initiating an epistemic shift in art and architecture, these works pointed point to the connection between the concrete material properties of objects and their interaction with the inhabitant through psycho-physiological effects. From one of these early projects, this publication borrows its title – Immaterial Materialities – a term invented by El Lissitzky to describe the dynamics of our spatial conception, which could be explored through the design of imaginary spaces – possibilities pioneered by film and modern mass media. The inclusion of ephemeral elements such as light, line, colour, and media, reconceptualised materiality as an entirely dynamic category, a kind of 'materialised energy' (Vesnin). These ideas re-emerged transformed in the work of the Neo-avant-garde of the 1960s and 70s, and surfaced again in contemporary architectural debates. Atmosphere + Experience: Gernot Böhme thematizes the idea of 'materialized energy' under the heading of 'atmospheres,' which he sees as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics in architecture. Questioning the primacy of vision, Böhme asks "is seeing really the truest means of perceiving architecture? Do we not feel it even more? And what does architecture actually shape – matter or should we say space?" Böhme points to the architecture of Herzog & de Meuron and Peter Zumthor whose works build upon material experimentation and foreground sensory qualities. "Atmospheres", notes Böhme "are something that defines the human-in-the-world as a whole, i.e. his relationship to the environment, to other people, to things and works of art". Interactivity: Considerations on our relationship with atmosphere and weather have informed recent projects, which deploy materials as mediators or activating agents that probe the relationship between audience/user and the physical environment: Spatial investigations with phenomena-producing materials such as water, light, colour and temperature experiment with the viewer's experience (Eliasson); responsive high-tech materials interact with audiences (Spuybroek); 'weather architectures' (Hill), or 'atmo architectures' (Sloterdijk) technologically re-create nature as spatial experience and spectacle (Diller and Scofidio). Material Politics: Traditional materials such as timber and concrete have been re-imagined through the rediscovery of forgotten methods and connect us to the material traditions of historic regional architecture. Through the use of low-cost materials such as corrugated metal, Australian architects connect the beach house, the wool-shed, and industrial estates educing trans-historical, cross-cultural, and climatic associations by fusing the Australian vernacular with international modernism. In East Germany, architect Ulrich Müther's material experimentation with cast concrete generated an aura of cosmopolitanism that stood in stark contrast to the visual monotony of the iconic 'Plattenbauten' (pre-cast concrete towers) promoted by the government; whereas in 1950s Bosnia, Juraj Neidhardt argued that a systematic re-arrangement of architectural elements could facilitate an interactive relationship between the heritage built fabric and the new Communist society. Material Technology + Aesthetics: Architectural experiments in material-oriented computational design explore the design potential of conventional construction materials. Waste material and natural materials are fused chemically, or mechanically-fixed, providing imaginative design solutions for technological problems. New composites with changed material and aesthetic properties are suitable for an extended variety of applications. The traditional visual language of tectonics gives rise to a plastic aesthetic that rejects discrete structural elements in favour of homogeneity and gradient – a language that is just beginning to be explored. Material Referents: In contemporary art, Liam Gillick uses materials and architectural elements that reference the universal modernism favoured in corporate architecture; plexiglas, steel, and colour aluminium connect "the project of emancipation of the avant-gardes and the protocol of our alienation in a modern economy"; these material fragments prompt the viewer to reflect on a range of, at times conflicting, environments, which can be read "as partial images that call to mind a range of other moments and environments" (Verhagen). It is precisely this "calling to mind of other moments and environments" that Philip Ursprung detects in Hans Danuser's photographic representations of Peter Zumthor's architecture. Danuser's images evoke seemingly incompatible associations by revealing unexpected links between Zumthor's atmospheric concrete spaces and the problematic, post-industrial spaces of Alpine power plants and cooling towers. Photography, as Barthes argues, entails a frictional encounter with the reality of an image; an invisible disturbance of the photographic surface. All these approaches probe boundaries – between material and immaterial, art and science, practice and theory, representation and experience, tradition and innovation, and producer/object/user, giving rise to the following concerns: – What is the validity of different approaches to materiality in relation to the vital problems of our time? – Where do materials allow us to cross disciplinary, cultural, or other boundaries? – Can materials be deployed to create environments which predict user behaviour and control social relations and experiences? – Which trans-historical correspondences can be detected in contemporary approaches to materiality, and how do these challenge, imitate and expand on previous thinking? Submissions: Interstices: Journal of Architecture and Related Arts 14, "Immaterial Materialities: Materiality and interactivity in art and architecture", invites critical investigations of theoretical and historical content from academics, as well as practice-oriented contributions from content providers such as architects, artists and curators, that redress imbalances and missing links in the portrayal and debate of matters concerning materiality and interactivity in art and architecture from the 1920s onward. For the refereed part, we welcome submission of 5000 word papers and visual submissions with an accompanying text of approximately 500 words. For the non-refereed part, we welcome papers up to 2500 words and project reports and reviews of up to 1000 words related to the issue theme. Please check out the Notes for Contributors for details about the reviewing process, copyright issues and formatting for written and visual submissions. Please send your submission to Sandra Karina Löschke (sandra.loschke@uts.edu.au) by 3 March 2013. Authors accepted for the reviewing process will receive confirmation and a schedule of production in mid-March and the journal will go to publication in October/November 2013.