Environmental Funding by European Foundations: Volume 3

This publication is the third volume published by the European Environmental Funders Group (EEFG), a Thematic Network of the EFC (European Foundation Centre). The report features a detailed analysis of the environmental grants of 75 European public-benefit foundations, as compared to 62 in the previous edition. These 75 foundations include many of Europe's largest providers of philanthropic grants for environmental initiatives, although there are undoubtedly additional foundations that could be included in a report of this kind. It should be noted that only foundations that have a defined environmental programme or mission were contacted for this project. The report focuses on the 2014 calendar year as this is the latest year for which comprehensive grants data could be obtained for all 75 foundations. Statistical data are included

Running on the treadmill: practitioner experiences of mass supervision

This article explores the impacts that the addition of individuals serving short sentences has had on daily practice and working culture for probation workers. These practitioner perspectives are explored through the lens of ‘mass supervision’, providing a new insight into the harms and implications for its inherent deskilling qualities and constraints. This empirical research underlines three main themes related to the harms caused by mass supervision: firstly, that it inhibits innovative practice; secondly, that it necessitates a more limited model of supervision that undermines practitioner autonomy and the reach and scope of the supervisory relationship; and thirdly, that mass supervision corrodes the values of probation staff, leaving many experienced practitioners struggling ethically, practically and emotionally. The experience of mass supervision is compared to a treadmill by several practitioners and employed as a metaphor to analyse practice in the confines of mass supervision as generic, monotonous and relentless

Catchment-based gold prospectivity analysis combining geochemical, geophysical and geological data across northern Australia

The results of a pilot study into the application of an unsupervised clustering approach to the analysis of catchment-based National Geochemical Survey of Australia (NGSA) geochemical data combined with geophysical and geological data across northern Australia are documented. NGSA Mobile Metal Ion (R) (MMI) element concentrations and first and second order statistical summaries across catchments of geophysical data and geological data are integrated and analysed using Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). Input features that contribute significantly to the separation of catchment clusters are objectively identified and assessed. A case study of the application of SOM for assessing the spatial relationships between Au mines and mineral occurrences in catchment clusters is presented. Catchments with high mean Au code-vector concentrations are found downstream of areas known to host Au mineralization. This knowledge is used to identify upstream catchments exhibiting geophysical and geological features that indicate likely Au mineralization. The approach documented here suggests that catchment-based geochemical data and summaries of geophysical and geological data can be combined to highlight areas that potentially host previously unrecognised Au mineralization.The NGSA project was part of the Australian Government’s Onshore Energy Security Program 2006 – 2011, from which funding support is gratefully acknowledged

Height, Crime and Colonial History

Since the 1970s historians interested in the impact of changing social and economic conditions on health outcomes have studied record collections that contain information about adult stature. Fluctuations in mean height by year of birth are potentially informative because they should reflect conditions encountered in utero and during the early years of life. Yet, like all historical records, surviving height series are not necessarily representative of the population as a whole. They are also subject to factors that might change over time. This article uses Tasmania nineteenth century criminal record series to explore these issues in greater depth. It is particularly interested in the relationship between recorded height and conviction history. The article examines ways in which digital humanities techniques can be used to shed light this complex and often puzzling relationship