Urban Regeneration and Socio-economic Sustainability: A Role for Established Small Food Outlets

In recent years, the challenges of urban regeneration and sustainability have been brought together in discourses concerning the re-shaping of inner-city districts of large cities. Currently, sustainable development in regeneration policies is mostly dominated by the environmental dimension and qualities of the built environment, with some focus on the more easily quantifiable aspects of social and economic dimensions. There is, however, limited discussion about integrating socio-economic aspects of sustainable regeneration in the literature. This paper presents a critical exploration of the role of the existing small business base in facilitating more sustainable urban re-development from a socio-economic standpoint. Indigenous food outlets in Birmingham's Eastside district—a re-development initiative branded as exemplar of sustainable urban development—are used to illustrate the role of small businesses in the day-to-day life of districts undergoing regeneration. The paper reflects on challenges and benefits from retaining and supporting established businesses throughout the re-development process and concludes with some reflections on lessons learnt from the case study. It argues that planners, policy-makers and developers should accord greater attention to the role of established businesses to foster urban districts that strive towards integrating aspects of socio-economic sustainability.     

民主的悖论——英国议会选举制度改革

英国1832年前的议会选举制度是贵族控制的,具体体现在选区、选举权、选举活动和议员结构等方面。1832—1918年的英国选举制度改革客观上促进了英国的民主发展,但这不是英国决策者的意图。对于英国统治精英来说,改革的宗旨是为了保持贵族的统治和避免真正的民主。英国的议会选举制度改革在民主问题上形成了一个悖论:反民主的举措却促进了民主的发展。     

Explaining A Paradox: The Alberta-California Natural Gas Trade Dispute

For over 3 years the Alberta government and the California Public Utilities Commission engaged in a bitter dispute over the future of the Alberta-California natural gas trade. This article examines how both sides sought to use their regulatory authority to control the substance of gas trade restructuring. It assesses the dispute as an exercise in deregulatory policymaking and suggests the need for increased study of the role and motivations of subnational regulatory actors.     

The Implications of Parenting Standards in Child Protection: A Paradox in Disability Policy

Contemporary parenting standards in the field of child protection produce a paradox in disability policy. Focusing on the protections necessary for child safety, child protection workers are apt stereotypically to discount the abilities of parents with disabilities to raise their children. This situation runs a wide spectrum. It includes parents fully capable of parenting with no outside assistance who are nevertheless denied their children on the basis of completely baseless stereotypical assumptions. It includes parents who are mentally fully capable of parenting, but who are denied the necessary personal assistance services to perform the physical tasks of child care. This article, however, focuses on yet another situation: parents with mental, emotional, or cognitive disabilities who, without assistance to perform the cognitive tasks necessary for safely raising children, could neglect their children. It discusses this situation in light of the Americans with Disabilities Act and various state laws that protect the civil rights of persons with disabilities.     

Of Barriers to Entry for Medium and Large n Multiple Streams Applications: Methodological and Conceptual Considerations

Recent literature reviews on contributions applying the multiple streams framework (MSF) concluded that although the framework is prolific, there is a lack of contributions testing it in a larger sample size. By addressing which barriers to entry medium and large n MSF applications face and by suggesting ways to handle them, we aim at providing researchers with a benchmark contribution for developing MSF‐guided research designs based on a medium to a high number of cases. Building on an overview of the few existing medium and large n MSF studies, we address three challenges researchers must deal with: (1) choice of dependent variables and case selection; (2) operationalization and measurement of the framework's (predominantly figurative) key concepts; and (3) choice of a method that corresponds with the framework's research questions. In the latter regard, we focus on the pros and cons of employing regression analysis and qualitative comparative analysis. We conclude that although the barriers to entry are high for testing the MSF in a larger sample size, they are not insurmountable.     

A China Paradox: Migrant Labor Shortage amidst Rural Labor Supply Abundance

A U.S. geographer and noted authority on China's urbanization seeks to explain the apparent paradox between reported recent shortages of migrant labor in cities in eastern China's export-oriented manufacturing belt and the abundant supply of labor in China's rural areas. He examines important socioeconomic contexts often overlooked in the debate over whether China has reached the Lewis turning point (when dual rural-urban labor markets begin to merge and a labor surplus economy is transformed into a full-employment economy), which make possible the existence of such shortages over the short term and in local areas. These include the special characteristics of China's export industrialization (e.g., preference for workers in the age category 16-30); its immense migrant labor force, constrained under the hukou system; the short-term impacts of China's economic stimulus program launched in early 2009 in the wake of the global economic crisis; and cycles in the global economy that support or impede export production.     

Multiple Principals, Multiple Signals: A Signaling Approach to Principal-Agent Relations

This study suggests a key element of the principal-agent relationship involves communication between potential principals and their agents. We suggest communications often resemble a signaling process in which potential principals indicate their interest in policy matters through multiple venues. This study models changes in the levels of rulemaking activity by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as a function of increased salience in public, congressional and executive venues.     

Recent Progress in Bioarchaeology: Approaches to the Osteological Paradox

The publication of The Osteological Paradox (Wood et al., 1992, Current Anthropology, 33:343–370) a decade ago sparked debate about the methods and conclusions drawn from bioarchaeological research. Wood et al. (1992, Current Anthropology, 33:343–370) highlighted the problematic issues of selective mortality and hidden heterogeneity in frailty (susceptibility to illness), and argued that the interpretation of population health status from skeletal remains is not straightforward. Progress in bioarchaeology over the last few years has led to the development of tools that will help us grapple with the issues of this osteological paradox. This paper provides a review of recent literature on age and sex estimation, paleodemography, biodistance, growth disruption, paleopathology, and paleodiet. We consider how these advances may help us address the implications of hidden heterogeneity in frailty and selective mortality for studies of health and adaptation in past societies.     

Multiple osteochondromas in the archaeological record: a global review

Multiple osteochondromas is an inherited autosomal dominant condition of enchondral bone growth. The paper undertakes the first synthesis study of the 16 known cases of the condition that have been identified in the international palaeopathological record. It also includes information derived from two newly discovered cases of the disease in two adult male individuals recovered from the Medieval cemetery at Ballyhanna, Co. Donegal, Ireland. The formation of multiple osteochondromas is the best known characteristic of the disease but it also involves the development of a suite of orthopaedic deformities. These deformities, which include disproportionate short stature, inequality of bone length, forearm deformities, tibiofibular diastasis, coxa valga of the hip and valgus deformity of the knee and ankle, are discussed in relation to the archaeological cases. Numerous synonyms for the disease have been used within the various publications produced by palaeopathologists, and this can generate confusion among readers. As such, the paper recommends that in future palaeopathologists should follow the guidance of the World Health Organization and use the term multiple osteochondromas when discussing the disease.     

1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War

Shulamit Laskov, ed., Haim Hissin, Memoirs and Letters of an Early Pioneer (Hebrew), Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, 229 pp.

Ilan Schori, The Dream turned into a Metropolitan — The Growth of Tel Aviv, the First Hebrew City in the World, Tel Aviv, Avivim Publishers, 423 pp.

Ran Aaronsohn. Baron Rothschild and the Colonies; The Beginnings of the Jewish Colony of Eretz Israel, 1882–1890, Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, 322 pp.

Meir Avizohar, National and Social Ideals as Reflected in Mapai, 1930–1942, Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 447 pp.

Aviva Halamish, Exodus — The Real Story, Tel Aviv, The Association for the Study of Illegal Immigration in Memory of Shaul Avigur at Tel Aviv University and Am Oved, 325 pp.

Eli Shaltiel, Pinhas Rutenberg: 1879–1942, Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 2 vols., 703 pp.     

民主的悖论:20世纪40年代甘肃乡镇保长民选及其异化

抗战后国民政府迫于舆论压力,开始沿承总理遗教,实施"宪政"统治。为了使其宪政之治初备民主色彩,国民政府决定将乡镇保长的产生模式由委派制转变为选举制。甘肃乡镇保长民选亦在国民政府的一再催促下于1945年开始实施,然因其地僻处西陲,财力、人力均极缺乏,民众思想陈陋痼弊,乡镇保长民选一开始便举步艰难。加之内战的爆发和田赋兵役的持续加重进一步加剧了村民与乡镇保长的矛盾,乡镇保长职位不再成为乡村精英竞逐的对象,随选即辞或被迫就任者屡见不鲜,本欲借助选举以提高乡镇保长素质的民选制度却进一步加剧了乡村权力结构的失衡。面对乡镇保长群体性劣化和乡村秩序的紊乱,甘肃省政府在内战尾歇之际被迫将乡镇保长的产生模式再次由选举回溯为委派。乡镇保长民选的异化及最终失败的结局,宣告了国民政府在天时、地利、人和均处不利的时境下试图通过民主的幻象来挽救日趋消亡的政治声誉,其结果只能是一场民主的滥觞。     

Overlooked Husbands: The Paradox of Unfree Marriage in the Carolingian World

Unfree people in the Roman world could not legally marry, while they could in the Middle Ages. This paper explores the marriage of the unfree in the Carolingian empire (750–900 CE), a society with an intense moral concern about marriage. Carolingian churchmen wrote extensively about marriage, using a strongly gendered discourse focusing on how men should approach marriage and behave as husbands. However, these moral and legal texts rarely discussed unfree marriage, even though the practice was common. It is argued that this silence reflects the persistence of late antique class-based gender models, in which masculinity was reserved for married property holders. Although legal prohibitions on unfree marriages had ended, Carolingian moralists continued to be influenced by patristic assumptions that these were not valid relationships. These assumptions, combined with Frankish social practices that largely excluded unfree men from other key male roles, such as arms-bearing, meant that unfree husbands were not conceptualised as sufficiently ‘manly’ to have their marriages discussed. It is only from the tenth century onwards, when images of masculinity began to fragment more along lines of social status, that authors began explicitly to state that the Christian ideas of marriage applied to all, free and unfree.