An American Controversy about the Localization of Cutaneous Sensory Regions and their Relation to Motor Regions

Three American neurologists (C. K. Mills, C. L. Dana, and M. A. Starr) explored the anatomical limits of the motor and tactile systems in the brain from 1884 to 1895. Their papers and critiques of one another show contemporary knowledge, limits of their thinking, and difficulties deciding between alternatives. The issue for them was whether there were separate sensory and motor regions or whether there was a combined sensory-motor region. They based their localization arguments on clinical and laboratory findings and on the conclusions of H. Munk and D. Ferrier. There is a discussion about why differences were unresolved.     

Internal borders and external factors in outermost island regions. The case of the Canary Islands

The defining element of island regions is their isolation, the separation of the islands from the mainland; there is an inherent notion of natural border. This condition has preserved ecosystems and protected against outside threats, stimulating ‘coevolution’ between man and the environment, a fundamental ingredient of sustainability. But insularity also means the evident added costs of access to markets which, together with territorial limits and the scarcity of basic resources, especially on small islands, hinders their socioeconomic development. These costs are even greater in the case of outlying islands, which suffer from a ‘double insularity’ in the form of both external and internal borders. For this reason, it is common for governments to establish various forms of support, from tax exemptions to the creation of permanent aid funds, like those implemented by the European Union for the outermost regions. This article discusses these aspects in the case of the Canary Islands, an example of a European outermost island region. The findings show that the support measures have not always been favourable for all the islands.     

Could Cities in De-Industrialized Regions Become Hot Spots for Attracting Cultural Businesses? The Case of Media Industry in Halle an der Saale (Germany)

Policy-makers from many regions where old industrial structures in the field of manufacturing have collapsed are trying to stimulate entrepreneurial activities of businesses in the cultural industry. The question is whether this strategy could be successful. This article examines the strategy of supporting the sector of media industry (“MI”) by policy-makers in the region of Halle in East Germany, where a strong de-industrialization has taken place after the German reunification. Stimulated by the policy-makers' support measures, there actually was a remarkable development of MI. However, the number of MI firms and their employees did not further increase in recent years, after having reached a certain level. This illustrates the limits of political measures for turning a city's path of industrial development voluntarily.     

New approaches to economic development in peripheral rural regions

This paper explores new approaches to economic development in peripheral regions in the context of constraints on public expenditure, declining employment in traditional natural resource based industries, and globalisation of the economy. Three conceptual pairs ‐resource mobility and immobility; tangible and intangible factors; and global‐local interrelations — underpin three ideas about these new approaches, and their impact on differential economic performance observed in otherwise similar localities and regions. A case study is given to illustrate the role played by less mobile cultural, social and environmental assets in these strategies. However, a key feature of the cases is the importance of both local and extra‐local linkages, often at international level, whether this has to do with market or non‐market activity. The conclusions raise questions for research about the root causes of differences in economic performance between rural localities, whether local initiatives will suffice to counter further likely declines in public subventions and natural resource based employment and also about the focus of policy in such regions.     

The Foramina Transversaria of The Sunghir 2 and 3 Cervical Vertebrae

The Mid Upper Paleolithic immature Sunghir 2 and 3 skeletal remains exhibit non-closure and doubling of several of their cervical vertebral foramina transversaria. Both exhibit non-closure of the atlas (C1) foramina. Sunghir 3 also exhibits foraminal non-closure in her C4 to C5. Sunghir 2 has doubling of the foramen on C4 and C6, whereas Sunghir 3 has it on C4 to C6. The anatomical distribution of these variants places Sunghir 2 and 3 at the limits of recent human cervical vertebral morphological variation. The correspondence between these variants and vascular pathways is unclear, and therefore their implications remain uncertain.     

Limits to climate action - Narratives of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage

In recent years, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been awarded a key role in climate mitigation scenarios explored by integrated assessment models and referenced in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because a majority of scenarios limiting global warming to 2 °C or 1,5 °C include vast deployment of BECCS, a critical discussion has emerged among experts about the moral implications of thus introducing an unproven technology into the policy realm.In this paper, we analyse this discussion as it has played out between 2013 and 2019, with a focus on how expert narratives are constructed in the mass media about the possibilities for decarbonisation within the current political-economic order. We find there are almost no narratives that support massive deployment of BECCS, and that all narratives presuppose limits to decarbonisation imposed by the current political-economic system. The perception of such limits lead some to argue, through deterministic and apolitical narratives, for the necessity of negative emissions technologies, while others argue instead that “degrowth” is the only solution. Thus, there is a distinct lack of positive narratives about how capitalism can bring about decarbonisation.     

Ethical consumption? There's an app for that. Digital technologies and everyday consumption practices

Ethical consumption mobile phone apps are increasingly popular. These apps allow consumers to scan the barcodes of products they are considering purchasing and determine whether or not they align with their ethics. App technologies are often applauded for their potential to provide consumers with targeted, crowd-sourced information about products while shopping and to foster more political, and less individualistic, consumption practices by connecting users to one another and to campaigns. There is a growing field of scholarship conceptually examining the role of information and digital technologies in ethical consumption. However, there is little empirical research on how consumers engage with ethical consumption apps in everyday ways. Drawing on an in-depth study with 21 participants, this paper explores how app use mediates people's experiences of ethical consumption. We contend that the app design structures and limits how individuals engage in ethically motivated consumption and influences their conceptualizations of ethical consumption as a political practice. We conclude by illustrating that critically examining what it means to be “ethical” in a digital world is a crucial area of research for geographers, particularly as these ethics play out through the everyday use of mobile technologies.     

The Personal or the Partisan? The Politics of House Appropriations Amendments, 1985-2016

Offering amendments represents an important tool for individual members to engage in behaviors that help them pursue reelection, like position-taking and credit claiming. When the House leadership limits the opportunities for rank-and-file members to offer amendments on most measures debated on the floor but leaves spending bills relatively open to amendment, we might expect that individual members will respond by redirecting their amendments to the appropriations process. In this article, I explore whether members use these opportunities to pursue personal goals and to enhance their party's collective reputation.     

Counterterrorism policy in liberal-democratic societies: locating the ethical limits of national security

This article considers the moral limits to national security policies. While it may seem self-evident that there are, and ought to be, limits to counterterrorism policies, there is an increasingly widespread public opinion that political leaders can, and must, do everything they can to protect against terrorist acts. Liberal-democratic societies are facing the threat of domestic terrorism, and for a political leader to say that ‘we cannot stop all terrorist acts and, indeed, neither should we’ would sound the death knell for their career. This article seeks to specify the limiting conditions around counterterrorism policy by reference to policymakers’ public justifications offered for counterterrorism policy. This article presents three normative elements that underpin counterterrorism policy to show that there are important reasons to limit counterterrorism policy, and to suggest that these limits ought to be recognised by political leaders and citizens alike in liberal-democratic societies. Having set out three limiting factors on counterterrorism policy, the article then shows that these factors do indeed play a role in UK counterterrorism policy development—that is, in recognising the justificatory apparatus for national security policies, limiting conditions ought to be found that are sensible to, and accepted by, the proponents of such policies.     

Reflections on the historical origin of regions and pays

This paper examines the historical origin of two related but distinct types of country-side or pays in England: those based on early-settled river-valleys and those associated with areas of wold. W. G. Hoskins has pointed out that in Devon early places like Tawton and Taviton derived their names from rivers and were associated with outlying stocks or cattle-farms—Tawstock and Tavistock—which originally formed distinct but related parts of the same river-estate.A similar association is found in many areas. Two examples in Kent, where the evidence for early settlement is unusually abundant, are examined in detail: the estates of the Darenth people and the Bourne people. In both cases settlement pressed inland from the river itself, far up into the wooded Downland or wold. As well as their original river communities they thus developed an outlying area of summer pasture based on isolated forest shielings. The former may have originated before the English invasions and were certainly very early. The development of the shielings into permanent farms occurred later, mainly in the middle- or later-Saxon period.The Kentish evidence is significant for three reasons. First, there can be no doubt that in the county as a whole the wold region or Downland originated as the outlying summer pasture of the river-estates. Secondly, as the isolated shielings evolved into permanent farms, the region developed an independent life of its own, with distinct characteristics from those of the parental river-settlements. Thirdly, the word wold occurs widely in the Downland place-names of East Kent, where it definitely denotes woodland or forest, and not simply the “elevated stretch of open country” which it is often said to signify. Did other areas of wold, now largely woodless, such as the Cotswolds and Lincolnshire Wolds, also originate as the outlying wood-pasture of early river-peoples?     

Debates over Palaeolithic chronology – the reliability of C is confirmed

The debate about the complex issues of human development during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition period (45–35 ka BP) has been hampered by concerns about the reliability of the radiocarbon dating method. Large ¹⁴C anomalies were postulated and radiocarbon dating was considered flawed. We show here that these issues are no longer relevant, because the large anomalies are artefacts beyond plausible physical limits for their magnitude. Previous inconsistencies between ¹⁴C radiocarbon datasets have been resolved, and a new radiocarbon calibration curve, IntCal09 (Reimer et al., 2009), was created. Improved procedures for bone collagen extraction and charcoal pre-treatment generally result in older ages, consistent with independently dated time markers.     

Hardwood ash nixtamalization may lead to false negatives for the presence of maize by depleting bulk δC in carbonized residues

Among the multiple proxies for detecting maize in precontact economies is the use of δ¹³C analysis of carbonized residues from ceramic cooking vessels. Although maize horticulture was widely established in Eastern North America (ENA) by A.D. 1000, there are carbonized residues from ceramic assemblages after this date that lack the elevated δ¹³C values indicative of the presence of maize. This may be due to the true absence of maize, or other factors including the masking of maize. Prior experimental research by Hart et al. demonstrated that the addition of C₃ plants or consumers to two part mixes with maize can mask maize presence even when maize is the dominant ingredient. Here we investigate the effect of alkali processing of maize (nixtamalization) on δ¹³C using the widespread ENA process of boiling maize kernels with wood ash, a C₃ product, to create hominy. Our experiments test whether or not the process of hardwood ash nixtamalization can mask the presence of maize in adhering carbonized residues by depleting δ¹³C values, and whether there is a reciprocal δ¹³C enrichment effect on the hardwood ash employed in nixtamalization. Overall, there is substantial δ¹³C depletion of residues when maize is cooked with hardwood ash, and hardwood ash cooked with maize shows the reciprocal enrichment. Therefore, the depleted values after the adoption of maize may be false negatives due to the nixtamalization process.     

Obsidian hydration dating: accuracy and resolution limitations imposed by intrinsic water variability

Obsidian hydration dating typically yields a range of ages for a single chronometric measurement, even after controlling for source chemistry and effective hydration temperature. Previously published data suggest that this range is due to hydration rate variations caused by variability in the concentration of intrinsic water, and specifically hydroxyl ions, in the obsidian. Such variability exists within any given obsidian source, and even within any particular specimen. This paper analyzes the effect on age estimates of intrinsic water variability and concludes that if a controlled sample of obsidian yields a range of ages, there is no way to tell whether the range is due to long site use or to variations in hydroxyl concentration. At present there is no robust and cost-effective protocol for measuring hydroxyl concentration. Suggested guidelines for obsidian hydration dating are developed using a case study. These findings do not invalidate obsidian hydration as a chronometric technique, but they do suggest limits to the temporal resolution achievable.     

The incommensurability of psychoanalysis and history

This article argues that, although psychoanalysis and history have different conceptions of time and causality, there can be a productive relationship between them. Psychoanalysis can force historians to question their certainty about facts, narrative, and cause; it introduces disturbing notions about unconscious motivation and the effects of fantasy on the making of history. This was not the case with the movement for psychohistory that began in the 1970s. Then the influence of American ego-psychology on history-writing promoted the idea of compatibility between the two disciplines in ways that undercut the critical possibilities of their interaction. The work of the French historian Michel de Certeau provides theoretical insight into the uses of incommensurability, while that of Lyndal Roper demonstrates both its limits and its value for enriching historical understanding.     

Archaeological Site or Natural Marine Community? Excavation of a Submerged Shell Mound in Ninigret Pond,Rhode Island

ABSTRACT

Submerged shell midden sites and natural shell deposits can have similar characteristics and can be difficult to distinguish archaeologically. We excavated two test units from a large (at least 35 m×70 m) submerged shell mound in Fort Neck Cove in southern Rhode Island to assess whether it was natural or cultural in origin. This mound had been recognized as a potential archaeological feature as early as the 1970s. Excavation, radiocarbon dating, and subsequent laboratory analysis of excavated materials suggest that the mound was a natural oyster reef rather than a submerged archaeological site. No artifacts were found; there was no clear evidence for human modification of any shells; small species that would not have been targeted as food were present; and δ¹³C values of oyster shells from the mound were consistent with freshwater input into their growth environment, suggesting that they grew in an estuarine environment that did not exist prior to the inundation of the ponds. The stratigraphically oldest radiocarbon date we could obtain (430–190 cal BP, 2σ range), from 70 cm below the pond floor, placed deposition of shells at least 3,000 years after the inundation of the pond. The excavation methods that we used and the process of testing, irrespective of whether the feature is cultural, are valuable contributions to the methodological literature on submerged site archaeology and help provide insight for other researchers working to discern natural from cultural shell midden sites.     

Re-thinking non-core regions: planning strategies and practices beyond growth

ABSTRACT

Periods of ongoing growth in the economy and demographics have come to a halt for many European regions for various reasons, challenging their economic development prospects. Despite the heterogeneous nature of stagnation, decline, peripheralization or even stigmatization to be found there, these configurations ‘beyond growth’ have in common that short-term ‘fire-fighting’ policy approaches aiming to foster regional economic growth face some important limitations. We argue that this has to do, among other things, with the overall direction of established and orthodox planning approaches that are predominantly based on growth-oriented paradigms and implicitly or explicitly work with dichotomous categories such as core–periphery and metropolitan versus non-metropolitan spaces; these do, however, not capture local realities in these cases. Using the notion of non-core regions, we plead for conceptualizing non-core regions and their regional economic development trajectories in different ways: thinking ‘beyond growth’. Such alternative ideas should be informed by alternative understandings of growth, development and sustainability in order to influence theories and concepts, but also to support new approaches to planning practice. To this aim, we discuss non-core regions from a social constructivist perspective, elaborating some points of departure for conceptualizing and practising regional planning ‘beyond growth’.     

Diffusion of Electrical Current in the Experiments of Fritsch and Hitzig and Ferrier Failed to Negate Their Conclusion of the Existence of Cerebral Motor Centers

This paper explores the implications of an early criticism of the stimulation studies of Fritsch and Hitzig and Ferrier for localized brain functions. Fritsch and Hitzig and Ferrier concluded that motor centers reside in the cortices of the hemispheres. Their studies were replicated, but their conclusions were not generally accepted initially. The most salient, laboratory-based criticism was that the electrical current used for stimulation diffused well beyond the cortex making their conclusion of cerebral motor centers unacceptable. The diffusion argument was essentially a French suggestion. Ferrier's and American research and interpretations provided data and arguments against it.     

‘The Materialls for the Building’: Reuniting Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum and New Atlantis

Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum and his New Atlantis both appeared soon after his death, edited by his chaplain, Rawley. The works are, on the face of it, dissimilar, and have been treated as unrelated, on the assumption that Rawley was merely attempting to rush out (in the wake of his employer’s death) two works that had occupied his last years. In order to establish just what their relation is, we need to establish, first, whether New Atlantis was simply a last‐minute addition to the Sylva volume; second, what Rawley says about their association and how he effects it; and third, whether the two works have other concerns in common that would have led Bacon himself to consider them as companion pieces. Such an examination shows that there were intrinsically connected pieces, and can be used to throw light on the aims of both works.     

The Right Tool for the Job: The Canalization of Presidential Policy Attention by Policy Instrument

This article investigates how presidential policy attention is allocated across policy tools and whether there is a channeling of tool use by policy area. I also examine whether there is evidence of disproportionate information processing within presidential policy attention allocation and whether it is common across presidential policy tools. Presidential messages, hearings on administrations' legislative proposals, amicus briefs, and executive orders are employed to capture presidential policy tools. The allocation of attention via these four instruments is examined from 1957–2007 in the policy areas of defense and foreign affairs, macroeconomics, banking and commerce, civil rights, law and crime, and labor and immigration. I find that there is a canalization of presidential policy attention by instrument, and that the opportunity structure of policy tools shapes attention allocation. Additionally, I find evidence for punctuated equilibrium theory in the allocation of presidential policy attention via these four tools. When presidents do shift their attention to an issue area, they often attack the issue with some coordination of their policy instruments.     

The limits of oral history: ethics and methodology amid highly politicized research settings

In recent years, oral history has been celebrated by its practitioners for its humanizing potential, and its ability to democratize history by bringing the narratives of people and communities typically absent in the archives into conversation with that of the political and intellectual elites who generally write history. And when dealing with the narratives of ordinary people living in conditions of social and political stability, the value of oral history is unquestionable. However, in recent years, oral historians have increasingly expanded their gaze to consider intimate accounts of extreme human experiences, such as narratives of survival and flight in response to mass atrocities. This shift in academic and practical interests begs the questions: Are there limits to oral historical methods and theory? And if so, what are these limits? This paper begins to address these questions by drawing upon fourteen months of fieldwork in Rwanda and Bosnia-Hercegovina, during which I conducted multiple life history interviews with approximately one hundred survivors, ex-combatants, and perpetrators of genocide and related mass atrocities. I argue that there are limits to the application of oral history, particularly when working amid highly politicized research settings.