Plio-Pleistocene Drainage Evolution of The Vera Basin, SE Spain

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/1289 on 14.03.2017 by CS (TIS)The Vera Basin is used as a case study to examine the structural evolution and sedimentary response of a basin undergoing uplift and inversion during the Plio-Pleistocene. Particular emphasis is placed on the drainage evolution during that period. Located within the Internal zone of the Betic Cordilleras, the Vera Basin is defined within a large left-lateral shear zone and has evolved as a reponse to isostatic uplift from nappe emplacement during the Oligocene, and by regional compressive tectonics. Since basin formation during the Seravallian, sedimentary fill has been dominantly marine. During the Plio-Pleistocene a switch from marine to continental conditions occurred. These sediments (Cuevas, Espiritu Santo and Salmcr6n Formations) represent the final stages of basin fill and form the focus of this study. The Cuevas Formation represents an early Pliocene marine transgression within the Vera Basin. Early sedimentation infilled a pronounced submarine topography produced by a rapid laie Miocene fall in sca- level. A broad, shallow shelf platform area existed which opened out to the Pliocene Mediterranean Sea towards the east. Along the northern and western basin margins, wave dominated shorelines were formed. Structural activity was confined to low amounts of basin subsidence and limited left lateral strike-slip movement along the Palomares Fault Zone. The Espiritu Santo Formation marks a major palaeogcographic reorganisation and the final marine phases of the Vera Basin during the mid to late Pliocene. Unsteady strike-slip movement along the Palomarcs fault zone on the eastern basin margin partially enclosed the Vera Basin by northwards movement of a structurally detached landmass. Gilbert-type fan-delta bodies prograded westwards from the landmass (Sierra Almagrera), infilling the central region of the basin. Early fan-delta sediments were reworked into shoreline areas along the western and northern basin margins. Western margin shorelines retreated northwards as a response to partial enclosure and a gradual lowering of sea-level. Late stages of the Espiritu Santo Formation, saw a fan-delta body prograde from the northern basin margins. Interaction between the basinal and marginal fan-delta bodies enclosed the northern region of the Vera Basin. A swamp/mangrove environment developed within the enclosed northern basin area suggesting a humid, sub-tropical climntc. Continental conditions were established during Salmer6n Formation times in the late Pliocene. Along the western and northern basin margins, the retreating Pliocene shorelines provided a topography onto which the primary consequent drainage network developed. Three separate drainage systems can be identified on the basis of clast assemblages, palaeocurrents, depositional style and morphological expression. Early deposition was characterised by the progradation of alluvial fans of two drainage systems (Cuevas & Jauro), sourced from the northern and western basin margins. Distal areas of the northern fan system intercalated with an evaporitic playa lake. A third drainage system in the northwest of the basin (Salmeron) developed within a topographic low between the two fan systems. An increase in structural activity towards the end of the Salmeron Formation was characterised by a basin wide phase of north-south compression. Uplift and extensional faulting lead to abandonment of the primary drainage network. Fan entrenchment and minor rerouting of sediment supplies marked the establishment of a new secondary consequent drainage network during the Pleistocene. The Pleistocene drainage network records the progressive dissection of the Vera Basin as a response to ongoing regional epeirogenic uplift. During this post-inversion phase the Rios Antas, Almanzora and Aguas developed respectively along the western, northern and southern basin margins as a series of braided streams. Distal, coastal areas of this drainage network are recorded by a series of Pleistocene shoreline sequences which developed as a response to fluctuating sea-level during the Pleistocene glacial and inlerglacial periods. Early Pleistocene proximal parts of the drainage network are well preserved. Distal parts of the Pleistocene fluvial system display limited evidence for interaction between the drainage network and shoreline sequences. This lack of preservation relates to the high energy, wave dominated deposilional setting of the Pleistocene shoreline areas which reworked fluvial sediment inputs into the shoreline environment. The Plio-Pleistocene evolution of the Vera Basin, and in particular the development of the fluvial system during this period has been highly complex. Despite the importance of sea-level and climatic controls, tectonic activity during this period of basin inversion has been the dominant control on the positioning of the drainage networks, depositional styles and sediment supply

AN ANALYSIS OF BANK CONSOLIDATION TRENDS IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA

U.S. banking markets have undergone important structural and institutional changes. Overall, the sector has experienced steady consolidation through mergers and acquisitions that have resulted in fewer banks holding a greater value of the total assets. Despite consolidation, new branch offices and the growth of alternative providers has increased the access to banking-type services. This paper documents and describes trends in the banking industry in Pennsylvania, with special emphasis on rural areas. The first section shows that while the number of "bricks and mortar" offices in the state's rural counties has grown, the distribution of the growth has been quite uneven. As a result, access has potentially declined for some of the state's rural residents. In the second section the analysis shows that consolidation is dramatically reducing the number of banks headquartered in Pennsylvania. The analysis shows that, should current trends continuethe loss of 1.25 banks per quarterthen there will be no banks headquartered in rural Pennsylvania in 2025. Consolidation appears to be having an effect on the competitiveness of rural banking markets. While the analysis suggests that urban county banking markets remain fairly competitive, it also suggests that the state's rural banking markets may have less competition.Financial Economics,

‘Smart Cities’ – Dynamic Sustainability Issues and Challenges for ‘Old World’ Economies: A Case from the United Kingdom

The rapid and dynamic rate of urbanization, particularly in emerging world economies, has resulted in a need to find sustainable ways of dealing with the excessive strains and pressures that come to bear on existing infrastructures and relationships. Increasingly during the twenty-first century policy makers have turned to technological solutions to deal with this challenge and the dynamics inherent within it. This move towards the utilization of technology to underpin infrastructure has led to the emergence of the term ‘Smart City’. Smart cities incorporate technology based solutions in their planning development and operation. This paper explores the organizational issues and challenges facing a post-industrial agglomeration in the North West of England as it attempted to become a ‘Smart City’. In particular the paper identifies and discusses the factors that posed significant challenges for the dynamic relationships residents, policymakers and public and private sector organizations and as a result aims to use these micro-level issues to inform the macro-debate and context of wider Smart City discussions. In order to achieve this, the paper develops a range of recommendations that are designed to inform Smart City design, planning and implementation strategies

Creativity, Globalization and Music

La théorie de la globalisation a été – bien qu’implicitement – fortement concernée par la question de savoir dans quelle mesure la globalisation accroît ou, à l’inverse, entrave la créativité culturelle. Les débats sur la world music relèvent de la même préoccupation. Ces débats – groupés ici autour des trois notions d’« Impérialisme culturel », d’« Hybridité » et d’« Authenticité » et des études de cas provenant d'Afrique du Nord et d’Afrique de l'ouest – montrent une anxiété persistante face à ce qui relèverait de « la vraie créativité » par opposition à « l'imitation », « la traduction », « la grisaille culturelle », ou « la bureaucratisation ». Ces catégories élaborées pour décrire les diverses sortes de transmission culturelle sont idéologiquement connotées, et reposent de manière assez évidente sur des valeurs esthétiques occidentales. Mais elles sont remises en question par de nombreuses nouvelles pratiques culturelles associées à la globalisation. Dans ce texte, je montre que la tâche du discours sur la world music consiste pour l’essentiel à exercer une contre-pression, dans le sens où il entretient certaines des caractéristiques essentielles de l’idéologie esthétique occidentale. Ma dernière étude de cas – une brève discussion de Charles Perrault dans le Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes – nous rappelle que ce je décris ici comme « le discours de la world music » a une longue histoire.Globalization theory has been – however implicitly – highly concerned with the extent to which globalization either enhances or inhibits cultural creativity. Debates about “World Music” exhibit the same concern. These debates – grouped here under the three broad headings of “cultural imperialism”, “hybridity” and “authenticity”, and dealing briefly with case-studies from West and North Africa – imply a persistent anxiety about what might count as “true creativity” as opposed to “imitation”, “translation”, “cultural greyout”, or “bureaucratization”. These categories for describing various kinds of cultural transmission are ideologically-laden, obviously enough, and enshrine western aesthetic values. But they are under pressure from many of the new cultural practices associated with globalization. The task of much “World Music” discourse, I argue, is one of exerting a counter-pressure, of maintaining some of the essential lineaments of western aesthetic ideology. My final case study – a brief discussion of Perrault's Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes – reminds us that what I am describing here as “World Music discourse” has a long history

Anomalous dynamics of cell migration

Cell movement, for example during embryogenesis or tumor metastasis, is a complex dynamical process resulting from an intricate interplay of multiple components of the cellular migration machinery. At first sight, the paths of migrating cells resemble those of thermally driven Brownian particles. However, cell migration is an active biological process putting a characterization in terms of normal Brownian motion into question. By analyzing the trajectories of wildtype and mutated epithelial (MDCK-F) cells we show experimentally that anomalous dynamics characterizes cell migration. A superdiffusive increase of the mean squared displacement, non-Gaussian spatial probability distributions, and power-law decays of the velocity autocorrelations are the basis for this interpretation. Almost all results can be explained with a fractional Klein- Kramers equation allowing the quantitative classification of cell migration by a few parameters. Thereby it discloses the influence and relative importance of individual components of the cellular migration apparatus to the behavior of the cell as a whole.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Musique, identité et “ville-monde”

RésuméLa mondialisation a vu la formation moderne de l’«identité» se complexifier et les débats à la fois politiques et acadé-miques à propos de sa catégorisation s’intensifier. La position centrale de ce concept a récemment fait l’objet de critiques, en anthropologie autant qu’en musicologie: beaucoup suggèrent, de manière convaincante, que nous malmenons notre compréhension de l’égo contemporain et des processus culturels en insistant sur le fait qu’ils se résument à la «construction de l’identité» et à la production de différence. Cette article émet l’idée que la construction de l’identité et la «production de différence» doivent effectivement être considérées comme des processus culturels centraux de la vie urbaine moderne, mais cherche des moyens d’intégrer ces processus à la vie quotidienne des communautés, des corporations et des villes. Cette approche fait ressortir les identités culturelles comme des processus contestés, en constante construction et dissolution. L’activité musicale, dont les significations sont souvent particulièrement difficiles à établir, fournit un point de référence très utile. L’étude de cas entreprise dans cette article concerne Cartel, un groupe de hip-hop germano-turc, dont les propos identitaires très contestés nécessitent une interprétation mêlant plusieurs contextes - la migration dans l’Europe d’après 1989, la world music dans l’industrie musicale, l’islamisme turc et la transformation d’Istanbul en ville-monde.AbstractGlobalization has complicated modern ways of configuring identity, and intensified both political and scholarly struggles over the category of «identity». The centrality of the term has recently been subject to criticism, both in anthropology and musicology, where many argue, persuasively, that we do a violence to our understanding of contemporary selves and cultural processes by insisting that they are only about «identity construction» and the production of difference. This article suggests that identity construction and «difference producing» still need to be understood as central cultural processes in modern urban life, but seeks ways of embedding these processes in the everyday life of communities, corporations and cities. Cultural identities, in this view of things, will appear as contested processes constantly under construction and dissolution. Musical activity, whose meanings are often particularly hard to fix, provides a useful vantage point. The case study in this article concerns Cartel, a German-Turkish hip-hop group, whose self-conscious and highly contested identity politics need to be understood in the intersecting contexts of migrancy in Europe post 1989, world music in the recording industries, Turkish Islamism, and «global» refashioning of Istanbul