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I wish this book had been published in 2009. Then, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd infamously called those facilitating the journeys of asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia ‘the absolute...

This study focuses on the link between precipitation, the bacteriological characteristics, and the physical parameters of drinking water sources from 2016 to 2018 in the Sagarmatha National Park (Mt. Everest region), Nepal. Surface water shows a positive correlation between bacteria content, altitude and corresponding temperature, whereas water from springs shows no correlation between bacteria content and altitude and corresponding temperature. Correlation between precipitation data and both pH and conductivity suggests a link between drinking water quality and precipitation whereby high precipitation rates result in increased contamination of both surface water and springs used for drinking water. This data also indicates that during periods of low precipitation, water handling is likely to contribute to water contamination. These results highlight vulnerability to climate change as melting glacial ice and changing precipitation patterns are key factors for safe drinking water.

On 22 April 1980, Australian Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock announced that East German ballet dancer Heidrun Giersch had been granted political asylum. His announcement came as a surprise, because it made Giersch become one of only a handful of people ever to be granted political asylum in Australia. This article explores the circumstances that led to Peacock's decision. We argue that it was not informed by considerations about any persecution faced by Giersch, nor was it the outcome of attempts to shore up support for an Australian boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games, as variously claimed at the time. Rather, it has to be seen in the context of different policies governing the granting of political asylum and the granting of protection following the determination of refugee status, and of conflicts between the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his department, on the one hand, and the Immigration Minister and the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, on the other, about their respective responsibilities for Australia's refugee and asylum seeker policies.

In 2019, after almost a decade of working on water quality in the Himalayas, we submitted a proposal to Geoscientists Without Borders® (GWB) titled “Understanding high mountain aquifers to source drinking water in Sagarmatha National Park.” The project involves a combination of water-quality and quantity measurements, geologic mapping, and an electrical resistivity tomography survey. The goal of the project is to help two communities (Phortse and Lobuche within Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal) minimize their water vulnerability to climate change and earthquakes. The project team includes researchers and students from the United States and Nepal, as well as nongovernmental organizations, government agencies, and community councils. In the proposal, we identified physical health and altitude as the primary risks that could hinder the success of the project. Like everyone else in early 2019, we had no way to foresee the events of 2020, which would almost completely derail our project. Health has turned out to be the major hinderance. The irony of the global pandemic is how much it has impacted the work of the U.S.-based team and how little it has impacted the necessity of the project.

In this paper, we compare two seemingly very similar instances in which individuals and organizations within the borders of the global North have memorialized the deaths of irregular migrants at sea: the SIEV X memorial in Australia’s national capital Canberra, and the Giardino della memoria (Garden of Remembrance) on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Unlike ephemeral manifestations of grief, potentially these memorials have effects that reach well beyond their creation. We relate the differences between the memorials to the contexts within which they were created: an immediate local response involving people directly affected by the disaster’s aftermath, on the one hand, and a delayed nation-wide response involving people removed from the deaths at sea, on the other. We also discuss the difference between a memorial that names and thereby individualizes victims, and one that does not, and between one that celebrates an alternative, hospitable society, and one that does not. peerReviewed

Das Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS) ist die wichtigste internationale Fachzeitschrift im Bereich der Fluchtlingsforschung. Seine Grundung im Jahr 1988 trug masgeblich zur Konsolidierung der Fluchtlingsforschung als eigenstandiges Forschungsfeld bei. In diesem Aufsatz reflektiere ich die 29jahrige Geschichte des JRS. Ich interessiere mich insbesondere fur den Anspruch des JRS, facherubergreifend zu sein, fur seine Reputation als Forum fur politikrelevante, angewandte Forschung und fur die Rolle, die Fluchtlingen in der Zeitschrift eingeraumt wurde. Ausgehend von der Uberlegung, dass heute im JRS in erster Linie uber Fluchtlinge geschrieben wird, schlage ich vor, ein Experiment aus den Anfangsjahren des JRS zu wiederholen und Fluchtlinge (wieder) selbst zu Wort kommen zu lassen. Ausgehend von meiner Lekture der letzten 29 Jahrgange des JRS gebe ich der Hoffnung Ausdruck, dass in einer neugegrundeten Fachzeitschrift wie der Z’Flucht theoretisch ambitionierten Aufsatzen, deren Erkenntnisse auf einer breiten empirischen Basis beruhen, gebuhrend Platz eingeraumt wird, und dass AutorInnen zu einer rigoros selbstkritischen Herangehensweise an ihre Themen ermutigt werden.

Urban geochemistry is a unique discipline that is distinguished from general geochemistry by the complex infrastructure and intense human activities associated with concentrated population centers. As stated by Thornton (1991) “This subject is concerned with the complex interactions and relationships between chemical elements and their compounds in the urban environment, the influence of past and present human and industrial activities on these, and the impacts or effects of geochemical parameters in urban areas on plant, animal and human health.” Urban areas present special challenges to geochemists attempting to understand geochemical states and fluxes. On the 5–6 of August, 2014, the first meeting of the reorganized Urban Geochemistry Working Group of the International Association of GeoChemistry (IAGC) was held in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Two goals of the meeting were to develop the overall scope, and a general definition of urban geochemistry. Five grand themes were developed: 1) recognizing the urban geochemical signature; 2) recognizing the legacy of altered hydrologic and geochemical cycles in urban environments; 3) measuring the urban geochemical signature; 4) understanding the urban influence on geochemical cycles from the continuous development and erosion of physical infrastructure and episodic perturbations; and 5) relating urban geochemistry to human and environmental health and policy. After synthesizing the discussion of these themes we offer the following perspective on the science of urban geochemistry building on the work of Thornton (1991): Urban geochemistry as a scientific discipline provides valuable information on the chemical composition of environments that support large populations and are critical to human health and well-being. Research into urban geochemistry seeks to 1) elucidate and quantify the sources, transport, transformations, and fate of chemicals in the urban environment, 2) recognize the spatial and temporal (including legacies) variability in these processes, and 3) integrate urban studies into global perspectives on climate change, biogeochemical cycles, and human and ecosystem health. We hope that this discussion will encourage other geochemists to engage in challenges unique to urban systems, as well as provide a framework for the future of urban geochemistry research.

In April 2017, Pope Francis courted controversy when he referred to Greek migrant holding centres as concentration camps. In this chapter, I first briefly chart the history of the concentration camp as an institution and as a term, then discuss instances in which contributors to public debate have likened refugee camps and immigration detention facilities to concentration camps, mount a qualified defence of the concentration camp analogy and argue that the Pope’s use of the term ought to be seen against the backdrop of his condemnation of indifference towards the plight of refugees and other migrants.

The Australian government’s 2017 Multicultural Statement implies that migrants are absorbed into a fully formed Australian nation. Their memories are to confirm that the process of absorption has been successful.

Kurt Imhof hat zeit seines Lebens unermudlich und zunehmend mahnend betont, dass die Qualitat der offentlichen Kommunikation die Qualitat der demokratischen Verfassung unserer Demokratien bestimmt und spiegelt. Er ist in seiner Monografie «Krise der Offentlichkeit» (2011) zum einen auf die Geschichte der Medien eingegangen, um die Verankerung der offentlichen Kommunikation und letztlich des Qualitatsjournalismus in der Aufklarung hervorzuheben; zum anderen hat er die vier zentralen Funktionen der burgerlichen Offentlichkeit, namlich deren Forums-, Legitimations-, Kontroll- sowie Integrationsfunktion, herausgearbeitet. Die in der Tradition der Kritischen Theorie stehende Konstruktion dieses Idealtypus der Offentlichkeit wurde von Kurt Imhof kontinuierlich mit Daten zur empirischen Wirklichkeit dieser Offentlichkeit(en) konfrontiert.

Drawing on Australian examples, this chapter explores twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about the right to grant asylum (referred to here as the ‘right of asylum’) and the right to seek, enjoy and be granted asylum (the ‘right to asylum’). It argues that in many countries, including Australia, the right to asylum—as contemplated, for example, by the drafters of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights—no longer features in public debate. Instead, the rights of asylum seekers are discussed in terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention, and discussions about asylum tend to be informed by international refugee law, rather than by international human rights law.

Dislocation of the epicardial pacemaker into the peritoneal cavity is an uncommon but potentially life-threatening complication. We report a case of a 74 year old with an abdominally implanted epicardial pacemaker that migrated through the peritoneum to the excavatio rectovesicalis. The laparoscopic approach was chosen because of the increased risks of perioperative morbidity and decreased survival. The generator was implanted into a pocket beneath the anterior rectus sheath and the lead was peritonalized with a running suture. In conclusion, a laparoscopic retrieval is feasible and safe in the treatment of a displaced pacemaker in the rectovesical pouch.

In 2014 we began the first systematic study of water quality, specifically fecal contamination of drinking water in the Khumbu Valley, Sagarmatha National Park (SNP, Mt. Everest region), Nepal. Our goal was to identify coliform bacteria and E. coli in drinking water and groundwater-fed springs to generate a data set that will function as a base for potable water supplies and further monitoring. Sampling occurred in May (pre-monsoon summer) and early November (post-monsoon early winter) 2014. Sample sites were selected based on proximity to villages and primary use as a drinking water source. Overall, the data presented a predictable correlation between fecal contamination and both elevation and increasing population/tourist traffic. Drinking water within the study area met current World Health Organization drinking water standards for the physical properties of temperature (2.8°C - 13°C), pH (5.27 - 7.24), conductivity (14.5 - 133 mS) and TDS (7.24 - 65.5 ppm). Samples from the more populated, lower altitude areas had higher levels of E. coli. Samples collected and analyzed in May (pre-monsoon summer) had a higher level of E. coli and coliform bacteria than samples collected in November (post-monsoon early winter) suggesting a seasonal dependence overlaid on the population signature. Surface water typically had higher E. coli values than groundwater-fed springs. Temperature, total dissolved solids and conductivity generally decreased with increasing elevation, whereas pH increased with increasing elevation. There appears to be significant presence of fecal contamination of water sources due to a combination of tourism, elevation and seasons.

In June 2015 Leica Geosystems launched the first large format aerial mapping camera using CMOS sensor technology, the Leica DMC III. This paper describes the motivation to change from CCD sensor technology to CMOS for the development of this new aerial mapping camera. In 2002 the DMC first generation was developed by Z/I Imaging. It was the first large format digital frame sensor designed for mapping applications. In 2009 Z/I Imaging designed the DMC II which was the first digital aerial mapping camera using a single ultra large CCD sensor to avoid stitching of smaller CCDs. The DMC III is now the third generation of large format frame sensor developed by Z/I Imaging and Leica Geosystems for the DMC camera family. It is an evolution of the DMC II using the same system design with one large monolithic PAN sensor and four multi spectral camera heads for R,G, B and NIR. For the first time a 391 Megapixel large CMOS sensor had been used as PAN chromatic sensor, which is an industry record. Along with CMOS technology goes a range of technical benefits. The dynamic range of the CMOS sensor is approx. twice the range of a comparable CCD sensor and the signal to noise ratio is significantly better than with CCDs. Finally results from the first DMC III customer installations and test flights will be presented and compared with other CCD based aerial sensors.

Statistische und maschinelle Lernverfahren extrahieren Regelmasigkeiten aus Daten. Sie ermoglichen die effiziente Abbildung von Wirkzusammenhangen in komplexen technischen Systemen, welche nur schwer oder gar nicht durch klassische Modellierungsansatze abgebildet werden konnen. Im Selbstoptimierungsprozess sind maschinelle Lernverfahren besonders fur die Online-Analyse des Betriebszustands, sowie fur die Modellbildung zur Regelung relevant. Durch den Einsatz von Lernverfahren eroffnen sich neue Perspektiven fur die Automatisierung und Optimierung technischer Systeme. In dieser Anwendungsdomane stehen allerdings oft nur relativ wenige Daten zur Verfugung, da die Datenakquisition in komplexen technischen Systemen meist hohe Kosten verursacht. Von entscheidender Bedeutung ist auch die zuverlassige Generalisierung der gelernten Modelle in technischen Systemen. Dieses Kapitel stellt Arbeiten im Rahmen des Spitzenclusters it?s OWL vor, welche diese Herausforderungen adressieren. Es umfasst eine kurze Einfuhrung zum Hintergrund maschineller Lernverfahren und ausgewahlter Verfahren, die Integration von Vorwissen in den Lernprozess, sowie Leitfaden zur Anwendung maschineller Lernverfahren in technischen Systemen. Die entwickelte Methodik wird an mehreren Anwendungsfallen aus dem Spitzencluster demonstriert.

In audiovisuellen Medienprodukten werden komplexe Sinnstrukturen in unterschiedlichen Bild-Text-Ton-Bezugen hergestellt. Mit der Web-Applikation trAVis kann das Zusammenspiel von Bild, Text und Ton/Musik differenziert transkribiert und auf dieser Basis umfassend analysiert und interpretiert werden. Musik kann als Notation festgehalten, Sprache und Gesang im Metrum der Musik notiert und die Montage der Bilder markiert werden. Am Beispiel von Musikvideos wird gezeigt, wie mit trAVis die Einzelebenen und die wechselseitigen audiovisuellen Korrespondenzen umfassend transkribiert und visualisiert werden konnen.

Review of ' The Home Front: Australia During the First World War ' , Joanne Bach and Jono Lineen, curators, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, From 3 Apri 2015.

A retrospective view which conceives of the past primarily as a pre-present tends to focus on the arrival in Australia of 843 displaced persons (DPs) aboard the General Heintzelman in November 1947 as a paradigmatic starting point of mass immigration, refugee resettlement and the end of monoculturalism. Here, I focus on two seemingly inconsequential episodes from 1947 – the admission of Polish refugees from India in August, and the arrival of hundreds of Jewish survivors aboard the Hwa Lien , in January – which could further our understanding of the immigration of International Refugee Organization (IRO)-sponsored DPs, and unsettle genealogies that shore up the present.

Arno Mayer and Charles Maier are concerned about an “addiction to memory” as well as about the attention devoted to memory by their colleagues. Not too long ago, most academic historians had been dismissive of memory. History's justice is no longer administered only by historians, but by judges and politicians, artists and memorial activists, through tribunals and truth commissions, and via memorials, museums, and commemorations. Twenty years after Mayer and Maier articulated their irritation about the preeminence of memory, the phenomenon that troubled them can be seen much more clearly. They assumed that the memory boom had nothing to do with them as practitioners of history. Historians' claims that their project is universal rather than particular, that it rises above other, culturally and historically specific, forms of remembering and rendering the past, have largely been discredited. Historians could play a key role in attempts to remember historical injustice.

Since 1947, Australia has formally resettled more than 750,000 refugees. During that time, researchers have successfully completed more than 150 Masters and doctoral theses and published more than 900 articles, books and reports about issues of refugee settlement in Australia, with about half of them being published in the past 10 years. In this paper, we discuss the development of the production of knowledge about refugee resettlement. We identify trends in the literature, such as the emergence of an ethno-specific focus, and the concern with settlement's psychological and emotional impact, and relate them to policy changes. We suggest that scholars need critically to take stock of the knowledge produced so far and be more cognisant of the international scholarly debate.

The yearning for historical justice has become a defining feature of our age. The article discusses the extent and manifestations of this yearning for the redress of the wrongs of the past. It notes that, paradoxically, historians have not had a major influence on debates about historical justice. Referring to the seven other contributions to this themed issue of Rethinking History, the article suggests that historians have, however, made contributions in five crucial respects. They have provided critical analyses of processes of memorialising and historicising historic wrongs, highlighted silences and absences in representations of past injustices, drawn attention to pasts that have been largely forgotten, engaged with seemingly unbidden intrusions of the past into the present and identified and analysed the motives and desires of individual actors. Sketching promising future directions for relevant historical scholarship, the article proposes that historians problematise the idea that all historic wrong...

The McMurdo Dry Valleys region of Antarctica is the largest ice-free region on the continent. This study reports the first C stable isotope measurements for dissolved inorganic C present in ephemeral streams in four dry valleys that flow for four to twelve weeks during the austral summer. One of these valleys, Taylor Valley, has been the focus of the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research (MCM-LTER) program since 1993. Within Taylor Valley, numerous ephemeral streams deliver water to three perennially ice-covered, closed-basin lakes: Lake Fryxell, Lake Hoare, and Lake Bonney. The Onyx River in the Wright Valley, the longest river in Antarctica, flows for 40 km from the Wright Lower Glacier and Lake Brownworth at the foot of the glacier to Lake Vanda. Streamflow in the McMurdo Dry Valley streams is produced primarily from glacial melt, as there is no overland flow. However, hyporheic zone exchange can be a major hydrogeochemical process in these streams. Depending on landscape position, these streams vary in gradient, channel substrate, biomass abundance, and hyporheic zone extent. This study sampled streams from Taylor, Wright, Garwood, and Miers Valleys and conducted diurnal sampling of two streams of different character in Taylor Valley. In addition, transect sampling was undertaken of the Onyx River in Wright Valley. The δ 13 C PDB values from these streams span a range of greater than 14‰, from −9.4‰ to +5.1‰, with the majority of samples falling between −3‰ and +2‰, suggesting that the C stable isotope composition of dissolved C in McMurdo Dry Valley streams is largely inorganic in character. Because there are no vascular plants on this landscape and no groundwater input to these streams, atmospheric exchange is the dominant control on δ 13 C-DIC.

Total dissolved mercury concentrations (HgT) were measured in groundwaters collected along a flow path within a deep, confined aquifer (i.e., the Carrizo Sand) in southeastern Texas, USA, along with major solutes, pH, and redox sensitive parameters that include dissolved iron species [Fe(II), Fe(III)] and sulfide [S(-II)] concentrations. Mercury concentrations range from below detection (

The articles in this Special Issue of Time & Society provide a fascinating panorama of the range of factors responsible for the acknowledgement and remembrance of historical wrongs. The authors explore some of the means by which historical injustices are addressed, including apologies and reparations, and discuss how memories of ‘unquiet pasts’ (Torpey, 2003) are kept alive or revived – for example, in museums or through commemorative ceremonies. In what follows I do not revisit these issues in any detail. Instead, I draw attention to questions that could arise out of the conclusions drawn in the six articles and in the introduction, and query some of the implicit assumptions that underlie arguments made in this Special Issue. In other words, rather than concluding a discussion, I am trying to open it up by pointing towards potentially productive avenues for further research. The focus on why and when a historical wrong is addressed, acknowledged and/or remembered, which is common to most of the articles in this Special Issue – and indeed to much of the recent scholarship on issues of public memory and historical justice – has tended to entail close critical attention to the modalities and performance of redress and remembrance. The question of what qualifies a past to be considered a historical wrong in the first place has informed comparatively few scholarly analyses. There are two parts to an answer: the first has to do with the nature of the past, and the second with its relative distance. I do not intend to engage in any detail with the former, except by noting that wrongs are considered historical because of their symbolic purchase: an historical wrong is one of proportions that are either significant in themselves or considered exemplary, standing in for something bigger. The case study presented by Rommel Curaming and Syed Khairudin Aljunied provides a good example. The execution of Muslim recruits by their instructors on Corregidor Island in 1968, an event that became known as the Jabidah Massacre, has become a symbol for the suffering of Moro at the hands of the Philippines government, even though the number of victims was comparatively small. There is no objective scale that determines the effects a particular atrocity may have.