6,044 research outputs found

    Tourism and heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone

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    Tourism and Heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) uses an ethnographic lens to explore the dissonances associated with the commodification of Chornobyl's heritage. The book considers the role of the guides as experience brokers, focusing on the synergy between tourists and guides in the performance of heritage interpretation. Banaszkiewicz proposes to perceive tour guides as important actors in the bottom-up construction of heritage discourse contributing to more inclusive and participatory approach to heritage management. Demonstrating that the CEZ has been going through a dynamic transformation into a mass tourism attraction, the book offers a critical reflection on heritagisation as a meaning-making process in which the resources of the past are interpreted, negotiated, and recognised as a valuable legacy. Applying the concepts of dissonant heritage to describe the heterogeneous character of the CEZ, the book broadens the interpretative scope of dark tourism which takes on a new dimension in the context of the war in Ukraine. Tourism and Heritage in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone argues that post-disaster sites such as Chornobyl can teach us a great deal about the importance of preserving cultural and natural heritage for future generations. The book will be of interest to academics and students who are engaged in the study of heritage, tourism, memory, disasters and Eastern Europe

    Balancing the urban stomach: public health, food selling and consumption in London, c. 1558-1640

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    Until recently, public health histories have been predominantly shaped by medical and scientific perspectives, to the neglect of their wider social, economic and political contexts. These medically-minded studies have tended to present broad, sweeping narratives of health policy's explicit successes or failures, often focusing on extraordinary periods of epidemic disease viewed from a national context. This approach is problematic, particularly in studies of public health practice prior to 1800. Before the rise of modern scientific medicine, public health policies were more often influenced by shared social, cultural, economic and religious values which favoured maintaining hierarchy, stability and concern for 'the common good'. These values have frequently been overlooked by modern researchers. This has yielded pessimistic assessments of contemporary sanitation, implying that local authorities did not care about or prioritise the health of populations. Overly medicalised perspectives have further restricted historians' investigation and use of source material, their interpretation of multifaceted and sometimes contested cultural practices such as fasting, and their examination of habitual - and not just extraordinary - health actions. These perspectives have encouraged a focus on reactive - rather than preventative - measures. This thesis contributes to a growing body of research that expands our restrictive understandings of pre-modern public health. It focuses on how public health practices were regulated, monitored and expanded in later Tudor and early Stuart London, with a particular focus on consumption and food-selling. Acknowledging the fundamental public health value of maintaining urban foodways, it investigates how contemporaries sought to manage consumption, food production waste, and vending practices in the early modern City's wards and parishes. It delineates the practical and political distinctions between food and medicine, broadly investigates the activities, reputations of and correlations between London's guild and itinerant food vendors and licensed and irregular medical practitioners, traces the directions in which different kinds of public health policy filtered up or down, and explores how policies were enacted at a national and local level. Finally, it compares and contrasts habitual and extraordinary public health regulations, with a particular focus on how perceptions of and actual food shortages, paired with the omnipresent threat of disease, impacted broader aspects of civic life

    Assessing the water quality of selected public swimming pools within the Johannesburg area of the Gauteng province, South Africa

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    Abstract: A number of contaminants in public swimming pools have been recognised globally, all of which are detrimental to the quality of such amenities as well as to human health. Thus, swimming pool water may serve as a medium for the transmission of waterborne pathogens amongst swimmers unless appropriate preventive measures are properly implemented. Moreover, at certain times various researchers have linked the poor quality of swimming pool waters to pathogenic outbreaks. Despite such negative health impacts, studies focusing on the water quality of swimming pools are limited in South Africa. Even so, the quality of drinking water in most African countries is alarming, let alone the quality of public swimming pool water. As a result, the present study was carried out to assess the water quality of selected public swimming pools within the CoJ Metropolitan Municipality, in the Gauteng province in South Africa. The swimming pool water’s pH, electrical conductivity, temperature, free available chlorine, total chlorine, alkalinity, water hardness, and cyanuric acid were measured on site while the collected water samples were analysed at the laboratory for the presence microbiological agents (i.e. E. coli and total faecal coliforms). The results showed different degrees of unsatisfactory and non-compliance across all selected public swimming pools. The findings also indicated the presence of waterborne pathogens largely due to inadequate disinfection. It has also been established that the existing recirculation-filtration systems are not always working optimally (due to electrical load shedding) and water chemical imbalances, thus resulting in water quality non-compliance. Unfortunately, surrounding communities use such facilities for recreation and leisure time, despite their health and hazard potential. Based on the results of this study, it is recommended that the swimming pool waters must be effectively treated to inactivate and kill microbes, therefore providing chemically balanced water. Furthermore, water quality testing kits and water quality sensors can be used to measure multiple physical and chemical water quality parameters simultaneously and to provide instant results.M.Sc. (Environmental Management

    Modeling and Implementation of Digital Twins for the Analysis of Transportation Systems

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    Transport engineers, authorities, companies, stakeholders, and all experts involved on transportation planning work every day to improve the trip experience of people, and to reduce the impacts on the collectivity. Traffic congestion, pollution and energy consumption are core problems for the transportation system. On the one hand a congested road causes an exponential increase in the energy consumption and waiting times, while a not-congested road can be more attractive and slowly become congested over time; on the other hand, the environmental capacity of road links is not perceived, thus generating high emission and distribution of pollutants. In fact, the ability of transportation planners is to avoid traffic congestion but offer at the same time pleasant, accessible and sustainable trips. This may include several planning techniques which may involve traffic calming and limitations, lane reservation, changing in the road network and geometry, as well as apply new technologies, services and means of transportation. It is worth noting that trying these features directly on a city can be very expensive and produce irreparable damages to the transportation system; also, traditional transport models are not able to adeguately simulate most of these features. Recently, it has been recently introduced the digital twin, a digital reproduction of a city to be used as a test platform for ’what if’ scenarios. In fact, transport digital twin is not just a digital reproduction of the transportation system, but consider reaction of humans to the changes applied to the system, in order to make a comparison between different scenarios. The present document studies large-scale digital twins, which are able to consider the spatial propagation of effects, and particularly focuses on advanced and time-dependent models able to simulate the door-to-door trip experience of all users and adequately model the transport features of the future

    Perth’s Wartime Catalinas, 1942–1945: How the United States Navy and Qantas Catalina Flying Boats Protected Western Australia, Broke the Japanese Air Blockade, and Created a Post-War Legacy

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    This thesis analyses and assesses the wartime roles of Qantas’ Indian Ocean Service and the United States Navy’s Patrol Wing 10 from1942 to 1945. Throughout this period both operators faced extraordinary challenges in establishing and completing their missions. Flying from the Pelican Point area on the Swan River both Qantas and the US Navy contributed greatly to Australia’s wartime defence, protecting Perth and Western Australia until war’s end in 1945

    Safety and security in and through practice: tensions at the interface

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