The city-text in post-communist Budapest: street names,memorials, and the politics of commemoration

As in most parts of Central and Eastern Europe, there is a tradition in Hungary of changing street names and memorials in the wake of major political transitions. This article focuses on the change of street names and memorials, i.e. the city-text, in Hungary’s political capital, Budapest, between 1985 and 2001. The city-text in Budapest became a locus of dispute between different political authorities, including the nation state, the metropolitan municipality, and the district, each bearing different political ideals during and after the fall of communism. Discursive changes in the post-communist city-text emerged expressing specific conceptions of national sovereignty, but the direction of the changes were debated. Different levels of administration in Budapest and Hungary had divergent visions of what the new discourse on national sovereignty should be. The changes, therefore, did not express a simple transition to an agreed-upon post-communist value system, but were the result of a symbolic struggle between different levels of administration over what should be commemorated in the city-text.     

EPR investigation of the methyl radical,the hydrogen atom and carbon oxide radicals in Maxixe-type beryl

The EPR spectra of Maxixe-type beryl contain a large number of overlapping signals. The angular dependence of the 1:3:3:1 signal typical for the CH₃ radical shows that this radical is located at the center of the channel cavity with its symmetry axis parallel to the crystal c-axis and is rotating around this axis. Its EPR spectrum is axially symmetric with g _// = 2.00263, g _⊥ = 2.00249 and A_// = 2.288 mT, A_⊥ = 2.256 mT. These anisotropies have the opposite signs of those found for surface-adsorbed methyl radicals. Hydrogen atoms are located at position 2a at the center of the beryl cavity and the EPR parameters of the narrow doublet signal are A ₀ = 1,407 MHz and g = 2.00230. Another doublet signal, which is broader and has axial symmetry with g _// = 2.00265, g _⊥ = 2.00625 and A_// = 0.895 mT, A_⊥ = 0.885 mT, could come from a HCO₃ radical. One narrow and easily saturated signal with g _// = 2.00227 and g _⊥ = 2.00386 is interpreted to arise from a carbon monoxide radical in the beryl channel, oriented with its axis parallel to the crystal c-axis. Additional weak doublet lines, which have similar g values as the carbon monoxide radical, are created by nearby hydrogens. A powder spectrum with g _// = 2.0017 and g _⊥ = 2.0004 appears upon UV irradiation of the single crystal and is easily saturated. This spectrum is interpreted to arise from a carbon dioxide radical, which rotates around its symmetry axis.     

Peace Parks and jaguar trails: transboundary conservation in a globalizing world

An increasingly utilized strategy for expanding conservation in the developing world has been the promotion of protected areas that supersede national borders. Alternatively known as transfrontier biosphere reserves, transfrontier or transboundary conservation areas, or Peace Parks, these protected areas are aggressively advanced by conservation agencies for their purported ecological and economic benefits. This article provides a comparative assessment of two case studies to understand the various impacts of transboundary conservation. The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which unites protected areas in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, is contrasted with efforts to protect jaguars along the United States–Mexico border. We argue that while these cases are promising for the purposes of biodiversity protection, they demonstrate that transboundary conservation can minimize political context, contributes to the hegemony of international conservation agendas, and remains closely linked to economic neoliberalism and decentralization in the developing world.

The spatial implications of the functional proximity deriving from air passenger flows between European metropolitan urban regions

Until recently the traditional spatial configuration of the European geography was based upon the core-periphery model. The ‘pentagon’, broadly defined as lying between London, Paris, Milan, Munich and Hamburg, was seen as the core area characterised by having the highest concentration of economic development in the European Union (EU), with the remainder of the European territory viewed as peripheral, albeit to varying degrees. In a number of cases such peripheral areas equated with clear regional disparities. The elaboration of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) (CEC, European spatial development perspective, towards balanced and sustainable development in the territory of the European Union, 1999) challenged this core-periphery model. European spatial planning policies, aimed at encouraging social and economic, and with ever increasing importance, territorial cohesion, seek amongst other aspects to encourage the development of a balanced and polycentric urban system. This paper adopts a network analysis approach to the analysis of air passenger flows between some 28 principal European metropolitan urban regions. The evaluation of these flows contributes to an enhanced comprehension of the spatial dynamics of the European metropolitan territory which goes beyond that deriving from the more standard analyses of the individual components of the urban system. Several indicators are used, deriving from gravitational modelling techniques, to analyse the complexity of the air passenger flows. A multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique is introduced in order to interpret and visualise the resulting spatial configuration and positioning of the different metropolitan centres within the conceptual European ‘space of air passenger flows’, thereby contrasting with the more traditional map-based geographical image of Europe, based upon Cartesian coordinates.

Urban consolidation and house prices: a case study of Melbourne 1990–2004

This paper explores the links between a strategic policy, urban consolidation, and house prices by examining the changes in the mix of housing and in house price for the period 1991–2004. We contend that urban consolidation could be seen as a source of additional supply, (which might be expected to be felt in lower prices and so contribute to a local policy objective) but also as a stimulus to demand (by developers who could bid up the price of lots where it was understood more housing could be built). Analyses were carried out at the metropolitan and sub-regional scales using correlation tests. The research finds very weak statistical connections, and concludes that this policy has not been associated with price changes.     

Numerical estimation of REV and permeability tensor for fractured rock masses by composite element method

The Monte Carlo method is used to generate parent stochastic discrete fracture network, from which a series of fractured rock samples of different sizes and orientations are extracted. The fracture network combined with a regular grid forms composite element mesh of the fractured rock sample, in which each composite element is composed of sub‐elements incised by fracture segments. The composite element method (CEM) for the seepage is implemented to obtain the nodal hydraulic potential as well as the seepage flow rates through the fractured rock samples. The application of CEM enables a large quantity of stochastic tests for the fractured rock samples because the pre‐process is facilitated greatly. By changing the sizes and orientations of the samples, the analysis of the seepage characteristics is realized to evaluate the variation of the permeability components, the existence of the permeability tensor and the representative element volume. The feasibility and effectiveness are illustrated in a numerical example. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Euro-politics of scale: competing visions of the region in eastern Germany

As John Agnew (Political geography: a reader, 1997) has argued, political and economic change often occasions competing visions of the scales that are appropriate for organizing particular political and economic activities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the European Union, and eastern Germany offers compelling evidence of the contested nature of contemporary scalar politics. Yet a recent debate in human geography (see, e.g. Marston et al., Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 30:416–432, 2005) calls into question the very concept of scale and rejects its hierarchical conceptualization. In light of this debate, it is appropriate to draw on real-world case studies to examine the ways in which geography figures into policy. Drawing on field work in Saxony, evidence is offered in the form of competing visions of regionalism in the EU context. The evidence presented complicates both hierarchical and flat notions of scale. The current process of querying space to identify those scales that are best-suited for the globalized economy offers insights into both the socially constructed nature of scale as well as the ways in which scalar lenses help to illuminate the geographical aspects (and consequences) of strategies for coping with structural changes.     

Biogeochemical characteristics of the Hetai goldfield, Guangdong Province, China

In the Hetai goldfield, Guangdong Province, China, samples including rocks, soils and leaves of four plants (Pinus massoniana, Rhodomyrms tomenlosa, D. linearis var. dichotoma and Embelia laeta) collected from the gold mineralization zone and the background area were analyzed for Au, Ag, Cu, Pb, Zn, Hg, As and physiological parameters. The objective of this investigation is to study the geochemical and biogeochemical characteristics of studied plants, aiming at biogeochemical methods in Au exploration. The goldfield region shows geochemical and biogeochemical anomalies. Abundances of Au in rocks, soils, plants and the leaf pigments in the mineralized area are much higher than those in the surrounding region. The plants display unhealthy physiological and ecological characteristics in the Hetai goldfield area. The cell structures of the goldfield plants were anomalous and aberrant, and there were many nano-metal particles diffused in mitochondria and chloroplasts. Macro- and microscopic evidences of the vegetation in the goldfield areas are distinctly different from the background regions. The strongly anomalies in responses to Au are profound in further geochemical and botanic exploration studies.     

Wenchuan Earthquake： Way of thinking is changed

On 12 May, 2008, at 14：28：04 local time, an Ms 8.0 earthquake struck the Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, in southwest China （Figure 1）. This quake left about 70,000 people dead, 18,000 missing and over 370,000 injured. In the 75 days after the main shock, 20,000 aftershocks were recorded, which included 241 with Ms≥4.0, 205 with 4.0≤M≤4.9, 30 with 5.0≤Ms≤5.9, and 6 with Ms≥6.0. The largest aftershock took place 13 days after the main shock, in Qingchuan County, 110 km northeast of the epicenter of the quake （Chen, 2008）. The losses from the quaketriggered geological disasters accounted for over a third of the total quake losses, which is extremely rare in the history of earthquake disasters. Secondary disasters, such as landslides, rockslides, landfalls, debris flows, etc., were widely distributed. Large numbers of buildings collapsed, including ones with steel reinforcing in the area of the epicenter. Infrastructure was badly damaged. In many areas, communications, and power and water supplies were cut off. The earthquake left over 35 large quake-dammed lakes, which threatened further disasters in the catchment areas.