The Cost of a Commute: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Osteoarthritis in New Kingdom Egypt

This article evaluates rates of osteoarthritis of the lower limb in human remains from Deir el‐Medina in order to compare the health of the residents of Deir el‐Medina with previous studies on other ancient Egyptian and Nubian populations. This study focuses on osteological observations from the commingled New Kingdom human remains documented during the 2012–2014 field seasons of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale. This is the first publication of osteoarthritis for the human remains at Deir el‐Medina, a dataset which complements comparable populations at sites such as Amarna, Giza, and Tombos. It demonstrates that men in the village of Deir el‐Medina experienced significantly higher rates of osteoarthritis in the ankle and knee in comparison to women at Deir el‐Medina. Rates of osteoarthritis in the lower limb at Deir el‐Medina generally fall between workers' cemeteries and middle‐class or elite cemeteries. This study also includes data from Deir el‐Medina's detailed textual record and intact landscape in order to determine how occupation influenced these higher rates of osteoarthritis. The duration, intensity, and frequency of the workmen's hikes are reconstructed based on the surrounding landscape and 42 texts recording work days. This study compares rates of osteoarthritis with these datasets in order to document how the strain, duration, and frequency of the workmen's hikes may have impacted overall rates of osteoarthritis. Consequently, data from the texts and landscape surrounding Deir el‐Medina not only corroborate osteoarthritis patterns, but offer detailed daily life activity which can be used as a comparison for broader studies on osteoarthritis in ancient and modern populations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lucayan–Taíno burials from Preacher's cave,Eleuthera, Bahamas

In March 2007, three prehistoric skeletons were excavated and analysed from Preacher's Cave on the northern aspect of the island of Eleuthera in the Bahama archipelago. The human skeletal remains represent two males and one female dating to AD 800–1300. The first is a female in the 30s with mild osteoarthritis of the joints and spine and several healed fractures who may have been an important community elder. The second is a male in the 20s with Schmorl's nodes who may have been a shaman or even a victim of interpersonal violence. The third is a male in the mid to late 20s also with marginal osteoarthritis of the joints and spine who may have been a ceremonial leader and village headman. The high incidence of carious lesions implies a cariogenic diet possibly rich in starchy foodstuffs or even fructose. The presence of grave goods and plaited mats suggest that at least two individuals may have been of high status. This study emphasises the significance of caves to Lucayan–Taíno mythology, cosmology and mortuary practice. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Dnieper Trade Route in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A Note

Abstract

The reconsideration of Arthur J. Marder's evaluation of the date at which the admiralty recognized the threat to Britain from the Germany navy has implications for others of Marder's arguments that have been the subject of extensive revisionist critique. This article reexamines the revisionists's most important conclusion, namely that Marder misunderstood the origins of Admiral Sir John Fisher's revolutionary new warships, HMS Dreadnought and HMS Invincible. Despite the revisionists's criticism, not only do many of Marder's claims withstand close scrutiny but also some that have been largely ignored need to be given greater prominence.     

Foreign Trade in China's Electronics Industry

Three Taiwan-based economists examine the effects of GDP, per capita GDP, geographic distance, FDI outflows and inflows, openness to trade, bilateral investment treaties, and other factors on the volume of bilateral trade between China and 40 of its trading partners in the up-, mid- and downstream segments of the country's electronics industry. Pooled cross-section and time-series data are employed in an empirical estimation for the period 1995-2005, which indicate that the Chinese electronics sector's import/export volumes have grown substantially alongside China's economy. The authors address a specific set of issues questioning whether FDI inflows have created a trade effect in the electronics industry, whether they have lead to a measure of import substitution in China's electronics industry, and whether the net impact of opening the market has been positive or negative on the sector's foreign trade. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F14, F21, L63, O53, P33. 6 tables, 23 references.     

Wintering at Little Island Rock: A Fur Trade Site on Grand Island

Abstract

Research conducted by Hiawatha National Forest personnel in 2000–2002 investigated the well-preserved archaeological remains of a circa 1820s fur trader’s wintering post located on Grand Island, near the south shore of Lake Superior. The most likely occupant of this post was Henry A. Levake, a trader from Sault Sainte Marie (St. Mary’s Falls) who was accompanied by his Native American wife. Both archaeological and historical information show that the Little Island Rock Post is an example of a specialized cold-climate adaptation developed in the boreal forests of North America and in the northern portion of the temperate forests to the south. Key elements of this adaptation include: location near a late fall or winter fishery, use of large amounts of clay for chimney construction, and the presence of ample storage facilities, especially pits. Features associated with this adaptation at the Little Island Rock Post also reflect the multiethnic occupational subculture of the fur trade. This site fills a large gap in the known distribution of wintering post archaeological sites across North America.     

Russia's Accession to the World Trade Organization

A prominent specialist on the Russian economy presents a timely assessment of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. The author discusses the reasons that prompted Russia to seek membership and scrutinizes the major obstacles, such as complexities of the accession process and the country's institutional malaise. An analysis of the effects of possible membership on the Russian economy is followed by a focus on Putin's first term (2000-2003) when he supported entry, and the second (2004-2007) when he lost interest. Also presented are two scenarios projecting reinvigorated pursuit of Russian membership, or abandonment of the goal. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F13, F40, O19. 1 table, 46 references.     

The Two Social Philosophies of Ostroms' Institutionalism

The article argues that Ostroms' institutionalism has a dimension that is complex and profound enough to deserve to be considered a “social theory” or a “social philosophy.” The article pivots around the thesis that the “social philosophy” behind the Bloomington School's research agenda has in fact two facets that may or may not be consistent with each other. The article describes the main features of the two facets, offers a brief overview of the development of these ideas, and clarifies their relationship to Public Choice theory and alternative visions of public goods analysis, public administration, and governance. The argument goes further to raise the provocative question whether the two “social philosophies” involved in the approach undertaken by Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom are necessarily and inseparably connected with the rest of their research program.     

Schooling the Quantum Generations: Textbooks and Quantum Cultures from the 1910s to the 1930s

Ever since Thomas Kuhn's influential The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), textbooks have suffered a bad reputation. They have been accused of distorting—at times purportedly—history and of feeding students with an unacceptably simplified and optimistic view of science. This attitude started to change only in recent times. With the increase of attention paid not only to how theories are conceived, but also how they are practiced, disseminated, and appropriated, historians have rehabilitated textbooks as a legitimate site of knowledge production. In this paper, I adopt textbooks as an instrument to unfold multiple facets of the culture that allowed quantum physics to flourish between 1900 and the early 1930s. I organize the article around two stories about two major textbooks, i.e., Sommerfeld′s Atombau und Spektrallinien and Dirac′s Principles of Quantum Mechanics. I explore the complex pedagogical cultures underlying these two masterpieces and how they intersect local agendas.     

Roller derby's publicness: toward greater recognition of diverse genders and sexualities in the Bible Belt

While scholars have considered the various meanings of roller derby for participants and discussed how roller derby critiques and stabilizes gender and sexuality normativity, their investigation into how a larger public is impacted by roller derby's public performances has received less attention. Here, we begin to address this oversight. Employing both participant and spectator data, we examine facets of publicness in the discursive and material spatial practices associated with roller derby in the US Bible Belt, specifically Oklahoma. While some scholars doubt that there is much social impact from roller derby, we suggest that the specific spatial qualities in roller derby's public performances, in both the sporting and playful senses, contribute to a change in cultural norms – that of greater recognition of diverse genders and sexualities in this region. Such validation increases the social stability of individuals who do not neatly reside within heteronormativity.     

Trade and peace: the EU and Gaddafi's final decade

This article examines the effectiveness of the EU's use of trade to induce peace in Libya during Gaddafi's final ten years in power, between 2001 and 2011. During this period, the EU implored and reiterated through rhetoric, policy and the exchange of goods and services that trade was to be used as a tool to maintain peace and prevent conflict. Indeed, this peace‐through‐trade assumption is at the heart of the EU, which was founded on the notion that economic interdependence ameliorates potential causes of conflict. Initially, this article embeds its argument in the theory concerned with the relationship between trade and peace, followed by tracking the development of the EU's policy. The main body of the article then provides evidence which goes against the assumption that the trade–peace relationship is positively correlated. Specifically, it is argued that the EU's peace‐through‐trade policy failed in this instance due to the fact that it failed to take into account the Libyan context: namely, the Middle Eastern state's ethnographic and historical makeup; the weapons of mass‐destruction programme and the subsequently induced sanctions; Gaddafi's rule and attempts at reform; as well as the 2011 conflict. All these factors amalgamated to ongoing conflict in Libya during Gaddafi's final decade in power despite EU–Libyan trade continuing to take place during this timeframe.     

A ‘New’ Commonwealth for Britain? Negotiating Ghana's Pan-African and Asian Connections at the End of Empire (1951–8)

This article examines to what extent Nkrumah's Pan-African ambitions and Asian connections altered the meaning of the ‘new’ Commonwealth for British policy-makers. It discusses India's influence on British political options in the Gold Coast during the negotiations for independence and Commonwealth membership and assesses the impact of Ghana's Pan-Africanism on two major facets of Commonwealth politics: Britain's ability to balance its relations with the Commonwealth and France, the other main European actor in Africa; and Britain's capacity to maintain the idea of a common heritage, which Pan-African projects like the Ghana–Guinea Union threatened to disrupt.     

Hegemony,rebellion and history: Flodoard's Historia Remensis ecclesiae in Ottonian perspective

This article considers the growth of Ottonian hegemony through a close examination of Flodoard's Historia Remensis ecclesiae. Specifically, it scrutinises Flodoard's laconic account of a property dispute between the church of Rheims and Conrad the Red, Otto the Great's powerful duke of Lotharingia. Reading Flodoard's testimony alongside diplomatic evidence and Ottonian narratives, this study argues that the controversy was a factor in Conrad's rebellion against Otto in 953. Both the central role of Rheims' property in an Ottonian political conflict and Flodoard's silence on numerous aspects of the affair reveal that the church was deeply enmeshed in Ottonian politics. The Historia therefore offers an unrecognised angle on the expansion of Ottonian power, while further investigation of its content suggests that this emergent hegemony may indeed have been welcomed by Flodoard and his superiors at Rheims.     

Seventeenth-Century Glass Trade Beads from La Salle's Fort St. Louis and the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia

Abstract

Glass trade beads are described here from two seventeenth-century sites located in the upper Illinois Valley, La Salle's 1682–1691 Fort St. Louis and the nearby Grand Village of the Kaskaskia, destroyed during an Iroquois raid in 1680. Simple monochrome drawn beads characterize both bead assemblages and each contains significant percentages of very small (<2 mm) and small (2–4 mm) size beads. Dominant colors are blue, white, and black. Turquoise-blue beads were a staple of the French trade at this time in the Illinois Country, particularly in transactions involving La Salle and his successors based at Fort St. Louis. Comparative treatment provided as part of this research indicates that there are significant similarities between the bead assemblage from Fort St. Louis and the beads recovered from the 1686 wreck of La Salle's ship Belle in Matagorda Bay off the Texas coast.     

The Impact of Energy,Transport, and Trade on Air Pollution in China

A team of U.S.- and China-based geographers examines the relationship between China's economic development and its environment by modeling the effects of energy, transport, and trade on local air pollution emissions (sulfur dioxide and soot particulates) using the Environmental Kuznets model. Specifically, the latter model is investigated using spatial econometrics that take into account potential regional spillover effects from high-polluting neighbors. The analysis finds an inverted-U relationship for sulfur dioxide but a U-shaped curve for soot particulates. This suggests that soot particulates such as black carbon may pose a more serious environmental problem in China than sulfur dioxide. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: C50, F10, Q43, R40. 4 figures, 3 tables, 47 references.     

How China Navigated the Dilemma of Trade Liberalization and Government Revenues

Many economists believe that in the long run, the aggregate performance of open economies is better than that of closed ones, and that open policies contribute significantly to economic development. At the same time, many political scientists and policy makers fear that, in the short run, one of the steps towards openness — trade liberalization — may harm government revenues. However, in the 1990s, China successfully navigated the dilemma of trade liberalization and government revenues. In this period, China decreased tariff and non‐tariff barriers for WTO accession, but has achieved dramatically increased tariff revenues since 1999. This study explores how China implemented trade liberalization and simultaneously increased tariff revenues in the 1990s. It demonstrates that a series of institutional arrangements, including a reform of Criminal Law, rigorous anti‐smuggling activities and a de facto tax imposed on the export sector, successfully curbed smuggling activities through the processing trade, and made foreign‐invested manufacturing enterprises the major contributors to the stability of customs revenue. China's case shows that a prosperous, export‐oriented and foreign‐invested manufacturing sector could potentially provide a developing country with a source of customs revenue.     

Plutarch's Death of Antony

This article maintains that there is actually no discrepancy between Plutarch's depiction of Antony's death at Antony 76-7 (which may seem positive with a superficial reading) and the negative evaluation of his suicide in the Synkrisis (6.2). In fact Plutarch carefully subverts the Roman at Antony 76f. and in the following chapters of that Life.     

Muhammad Abd al‐Rahman (Phillip) Barker: Bridging Cultural Divides through Fantasy/Science‐Fiction Role‐Playing Games and Fictional Religion

“Muslims” and “Dungeons & Dragons” are rarely discussed in the same sentence. However, one of the earliest fantasy role‐playing games, which left a lasting impact on the industry, was the brainchild of Muhammad Abd al‐Rahman (Phillip) Barker (1929‐2012), a professor of South Asian Studies, an expert in Native American languages, and an American convert to Islam. Like Tolkien, Barker created an enormous fantasy world; however, unlike Tolkien, his world was redolent with Native American and South Asian cultural and religious influences. Through this world, he shared with his fans a nuanced understanding of non‐Western societies, cultures, and beliefs – the facets of the human experience that truly constitute multiculturalism. While fictional religion in role‐playing games has been feared and condemned, fictional religion (and occultism) plays a pivotal role in Barker's work; an exploration of his approach towards fictional religion also sheds more light on the question of why fantasy role‐playing games came across as competitors towards religion. Barker's fantasy world brought people of diverse backgrounds together in a beautiful demonstration of how fantasy and science fiction can bring about intercultural and interreligious tolerance in an otherwise intolerant world. Given the centrality of games such as Dungeons & Dragons to American popular culture, an exploration of Barker's legacy can also be seen in the light of the study of the history and contributions of Muslims in America.     

Schmorl's nodes in a post‐medieval skeletal sample from Klostermarienberg,Austria

The prevalence and distribution pattern of Schmorl's nodes (SNs) were studied in a post‐medieval skeletal sample (n = 473) from the 16^th–18^th century cemetery of Klostermarienberg, Austria. The reasons for the prevalence and distribution pattern of SNs in this sample are discussed with regard to their aetiology. SNs were correlated with age and sex as well as with degenerative spinal joint disease such as vertebral osteophytosis (VO) and apophyseal osteoarthritis (OA). SNs were most commonly found in the lower thoracic region, in agreement with other studies. Males were more affected than females by SNs, especially in the lower thoracic region. SNs show a completely different distribution pattern to VO and OA. Additionally, there was no relationship found between SNs and ageing. Observed differences in the prevalence of SNs in the vertebral column and between the sexes suggest that mechanical factors may be responsible. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Geographical Product Differentiation Model of Trade Competition in Third Markets

Product differentiation trade models have been developed in order to account for some contemporary patterns of international trade that are inexplicable under the theory of comparative advantage. This paper presents the case for the geographical differentiation of products. A generalized geographical product differentiation model of trade competition in industrial third markets is outlined within a discrete choice framework. The model treats product price and quality, as determined by country of origin, as distinct variables in export competition. An indirect empirical test of the model's validity, using the cases of export competition between the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States and Japan, indicates that the generalized model is worthwhile in its ability to account for successful trade competition.