Climate Techniques Research Articles

Die Hygiene der Stadtfische und das wilde Leben in der Wasserleitung. Zum Verhältnis von Aquarium und Stadt im 19. Jahrhundert

AbstractHygienic Domestication of Urban Fish and the Wild Life in the Water Pipes. Home Aquaria and the City in the Nineteenth Century. The paper focuses on the interrelations between the domestic aquarium and its urban environment in the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the city plays a crucial role in the invention and history of the aquarium. Not only is the material culture of the aquarium a product of urban technologies and infrastructure; the aquarium's early definition as a confined and closed, self‐contained and purified space can be seen as a response to increasing environmental problems, particularly urban water and air pollution. The paper describes how the aquarium and the city together form a laboratory for the exploration of new sanitary and climatic techniques in terms of ventilation and water supply. Furthermore, the paper stresses the crucial role that early amateur aquarium‐keeping plays in the practical construction and regulation of artificial environments as well as in the historical and theoretical reformulation of fundamental notions such as dynamic balance and models of circulation. Getting more and more intertwined on a material and discursive level, the aquarium and its urban environment not only provide specific habitats where the living conditions of humans and animals can be studied. In fact, both become objects and simultaneously media of sanitarian programmes in the name of public health.

Interactional value theory: An interpretation

The imperatives of organization, technology, and planning operate similarly in both capitalist and Marxist systems. Differences in behavioural outputs (such as organizational productivity, industrial relations behaviour, or the outcomes of different health services systems) can be explained by adopting a framework of an interactional value theory which accepts convergence of different value systems and points out and analyzes differences in outputs in light of interactions between available “climatic techniques and preferred values”. The interactional approach links together “ethical theory and various issues in social philosophy, especially in the context of the resolution of conflict among values. The dynamics of economic and social change stem from differing values held by key actors in society - government, business and the public. Values are not categorical but integrative, and values held by various parties converge. Further research should be focussed to clarify “value-beliefs” of government, business and other key players in identifying the interactional characteristics of public policy issues.

Growth of pasture species in controlled environment

Summary Controlled climate techniques were used to examine the effects of representative winter temperatures on the growth of plants of some important New Zealand pasture species. Growth of plants in climate cabinets was followed in all combinations of three day temperatures—60°F, 52.5°F, and 45°F, and three night temperatures—45°F, 40°F, and 35°F. The plants received 12 h of light per day at an intensity of approximately 2,700 ft candles and with a spectral composition similar to daylight. Lower day temperatures gave a much greater relative reduction in growth of individual tillers than did lower night temperatures. In contrast a lowering of day temperatures had a relatively small influence on the rate of tillering of most species but in some cases lower night temperatures resulted in substantially higher rates of tillering.