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A network discourse has emerged during the last two decades, representing networks as self–organizing, collaborative, nonhierarchical, flexible, and topological. Progressive scholars initially embraced networks as an alternative to markets and hierarchies; neoliberal thinkers and policymakers have reinterpreted them in order to serve a neoliberal agenda of enhanced economic competitiveness, a leaner and more efficient state, and a more flexible governance. The European Commission and the German state have initiated and financially supported interurban network programs, broadly framed within this neoliberal network discourse, despite their long traditions of regulated capitalism. Really existing interurban networks depart, however, from these discourses. Embedded within pre–existing processes of uneven development and hierarchical state structures, and exhibiting internal power hierarchies, really existing networks are created, regulated, and evaluated by state institutions, and often exclude institutions and members of civil society, making them effective channels for disseminating a neoliberal agenda. At the same time, they create new political spaces for cities to challenge existing state structures and relations and are of unequal potential benefit to participating cities, both of which may catalyze resistance to neoliberalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Techniques of mural painting in middle and northern Europe differ from those of the classic type of Italian fresco. After a brief comparison of documentary evidence with actual alterations in colours on thirteenth- to eighteenth-century murals, the first complete reconversion of darkened lead white on northern secco painting is described. The vault at Castle Strechau in Styria was painted in fine secco colours over a priming layer of lead white and chalk in about 1580. The lead pigments have altered progressively over the last 120 years. The reasons for the chemical reactions are discussed and the results of reconversion using the Florentine method are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Although nation-states assume territorial, political and cultural boundedness, their boundaries are not uniform barriers, but rather are characterized by varying degrees of openness and closure to international migrants. The manipulation of the permeability of these boundaries constitutes the politics of admission and exclusion.... This paper provides a discussion of the complex economic, political and social forces impinging on the politics of admission and exclusion and an analysis of how these forces have been operating in a particular historical and geographical context to determine the admission of international migrants into national territory and community.... There are signs that the integration of nation-states into regional blocs such as the EC is shifting the politics of admission and exclusion practised by the dominant member countries to the supra-national scale.", (excerpt)