The spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe: a phylogenetic analysis

Phylogenetic techniques are used to analyse the spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe as a branching process from a founding ancestor. The analyses are based on a database of c. 7500 records of plant taxa from 250 sites dated to the early Neolithic of the region in which they occur, aggregated into a number of regional groups. The analysis demonstrates that a phylogenetic signal exists in the data but it is complicated by the fact that in comparison with the changes that occurred when the crop agriculture complex expanded out of the Near East, once it arrived in Europe it underwent only limited further changes. On the basis of the analysis it has been possible to identify the species losses and gains that occurred as the complex of crops and associated weeds spread and to show the influence of geographical location and cultural affinity on the pattern of losses and gains. This has led to consideration of the processes producing that history, including some reasons why the dispersal process did not produce a perfect tree phylogeny, as well as to the identification of some specific anomalies, such as the unusual nature of the Bulgarian pattern, which raise further questions for the future.     

An assessment of the technology level and knowledge intensity of regions in Turkey

The paper investigates the patterns of technology and knowledge of the regions. The first aim of the paper is to determine cluster templates at the national level. The second aim of the paper is to investigate the technology and knowledge composition of the regional highpoint clusters. The paper identifies patterns of industrial linkages to define cluster templates and regional highpoints. The second part uncovers regional distributions of technology and knowledge. The data comes from Turkey’s 2012 input–output table. The location quotients use industrial employment statistics from the Turkish Statistical Institute. The technological and knowledge intensity classification follows Eurostat. The findings reveal 10 cluster templates in Turkey. Spatial distribution of the highpoint clusters reveals that most regions contain highpoint clusters with low technology and low knowledge-intensive sectors. The results reveal that highpoint clusters in Turkey’s regions contain industries whose technologies do not demand high skills, knowledge and sophistication. Limited existence of high-tech industries and low knowledge intensity in Turkey’s industry composition is a limiting factor for transition to high value-added manufacturing. Special emphasis should be directed towards constructing regional advantage, given the current levels of technology and knowledge intensity.     

A Study of the Role of Regionalization in the Generation of Aggregation Error in Regional Input –Output Models

Although the need for aggregation in input –output modelling has diminished with the increases in computing power, an alarming number of regional studies continue to use the procedure. The rationales for doing so typically are grounded in data problems at the regional level. As a result many regional analysts use aggregated national input –output models and trade –adjust them at this aggregated level. In this paper, we point out why this approach can be inappropriate. We do so by noting that it creates a possible source of model misapplication (i.e., a direct effect could appear for a sector where one does not exist) and also by finding that a large amount of error (on the order of 100 percent) can be induced into the impact results as a result of improper aggregation. In simulations, we find that average aggregation error tends to peak at 81 sectors after rising from 492 to 365 sectors. Perversely, error then diminishes somewhat as the model size decreases further to 11 and 6 sectors. We also find that while region – and sector –specific attributes influence aggregation error in a statistically significantly manner, their influence on the amount of error generally does not appear to be large.     

Medical Technology's Source of Innovation

This article presents research based on a case study of Bern University Hospital and the Greater Bern Area that analyses the hospital's influence on innovation in the regional medical device industry. The study draws upon the concept of sectoral innovation systems enlarged with a space-oriented model of agents' innovation-related behaviour. Its main data stem from semi-structured interviews with representatives from regional companies and the hospital. The findings confirm the systemic character of innovation in medical technology and the role of university hospitals as the main functional source of medical device innovation. At the inception of the medical device industry, innovations were implemented in a regional setting, but with the maturation of the industry, this setting has yielded to an almost global setting for innovation. This international setting became prevalent largely due to the marketing considerations of the industry, showing that from an industrial management point of view, product innovation and the diffusion of innovation are heavily interlinked activities. The article concludes that the hospital's relevant influence at a regional level lies not in the present but in the past, when timely innovative impulses from physicians enabled this regional industry's successful participation in the emerging medical device sector.     

From sustainable development to carbon control: eco-state restructuring and the politics of urban and regional development

The management of carbon emissions holds some prospect for challenging sustainable development as the organising principle of socio-environmental regulation. This paper explores the rise of a distinctive low-carbon polity as an ideological state project, and examines its potential ramifications for the regulation of economy–environment relations at the urban and regional scale. Carbon control would seem to introduce a new set of values into state regulation and this might open up possibilities for challenging mainstream modes of urban and regional development in a manner not possible under sustainable development. But low-carbon restructuring also portends intensified uneven development, new forms of state control and a socially uneven reworking of state–society relations. In order to explore these issues we start by setting out a framework for conceptualising environmental regulation based around the idea of eco-state restructuring. This idea is introduced to capture the conflicts, power struggles and strategic selectivities involved as governments seek to reconcile environmental protection with multiple other pressures and demands. Overall the paper seeks to make a distinctive contribution to theoretical work on state environmental regulation and the emerging spatial dimensions of climate policy.     

《明代驿站考》陕西驿站补正

本文对杨正泰《明代驿站考》"陕西部分"驿站中存在的一些设置时间空白、错误或不清楚等问题,在可能的范围内加以补正或辩正,对尚未列入《陕西驿站考》中的一些漏考驿站,加以补考。文中共补正或辩正驿站27个(含设置时间),除补正中考出相关驿站的设置时间外,又考出33个驿站设置的时间,补充漏考驿站26个。     

The classification of distorted-mirror reflections and its ionospheric modification due to the underlying ionization

A systematic classification of reflections from a sinusoidally distorted-mirror has led to the identification of three classes of rays: direct simple rays which hit the mirror once on reflection; direct complex rays which hit the mirror several times before reflection; indirect rays which leave from and return to the source at different angles. The conditions on the distortion amplitude, wavelength and height for the different classes to exist are obtained. A comparison of results is made with those from a Chapman layer with a sinusoidally varying height of peak density, in the absence of any magnetic field. The broad classification of solutions is preserved, but direct and indirect rays are no longer independent and at large scale heights the presence of underlying ionization removes some solutions. The construction of ionograms of these profiles shows that indirect and complex direct rays contribute significantly to the traces observed.     

A Typology of Regional Production Complexes

Soviet regional production complexes at the level of major economic regions are classified on the basis of a combination of two criteria: (a) regional specialization in terms of the energy-and-industry cycles proposed by N. N. Kolosovskiy (coke-based metallurgy, energy-intensive industries, etc.); (b) the developmental stage of the regional economy, in terms of five developmental phases (pioneering, the formation of industrial nodes, the formation of industrial cycles, a reconstruction phase, and achievement of a complex structure). The typological classification is viewed as a possible basis for more detailed breakdowns below the level of major economic regions.     

On a “Structural” and “Climatic” Geomorphology and a Critique of Certain Concepts

The separation of geomorphology into structural and climatic disciplines is challenged. Climate, rock properties, physical processes, and geological structure are considered to be so intimately intertwined in their effect on the formation of landforms that little basis is seen for a division of the discipline into climatogenetic and structural approaches. Contrary to Lester King's view, this does not mean that climate is not a significant factor. It must unquestionably be taken into consideration and be reflected in any genetic classification of landforms. There is no doubt, for example, that pediments, though likely to occur under a variety of climatic conditions, do find their most widespread development in Africa because of a combination of favorable climatic and structural conditions (arid or semiarid climate, the compliability of rocks to weathering, and the long duration of the cycle under shield conditions undisturbed by any significant tectonic uplifting).     

Coherence and Ambiguity in History

This article is about the logic of the concept of "coherence" as used by historians to justify an argument. Despite its effectiveness in historical arguments, coherence is problematic for epistemologists and some theorists of history. The main purpose of this article is to present some insights that bear upon the logical status of coherence. As will be demonstrated, this will also shed some light on the allegedly dubious epistemological position of coherence. In general I will argue that, logically seen, coherence is a property of a set of related beliefs that makes it possible to justify a choice out of different factually justifiable interpretations. Coherence disambiguates vague or ambiguous observations. As words lose their vagueness or ambiguity in contexts, so do contexts disambiguate historical facts. My argument will be based on some relatively recent findings about the cognitive processes underlying vision and reading. Research in the field of text linguistics is used to show what kinds of relationships exist between historical representations that might be considered to cohere.     

Best practice? Geography, learning and the institutional limits to strong convergence

According to many, we live in an age in which convergence betweenformerly distinct national ‘models’ is taking place.Central to this process is a learning dynamic in which bestpractices originating from within one model—Japan in the1980s, United States in the 1990s—are supposedly adoptedby firms elsewhere. This paper addresses two key questions concerningthis process. First, what are the actual mechanisms or processesthrough which this learning-driven convergence might occur?Second, what role do institutions play in shaping, influencing,or constraining firms' choice of practices and their abilityto ‘learn’? The paper examines eight specific channelsof convergence representing a continuum of opportunities forlearning-through-interacting. It then assesses critically arange of competing arguments about the role of institutionalinfluences at three different scales: the region, the nation-state,and the firm. It concludes that while regional and firm-levelarguments, on their own, do not provide an adequate explanatoryframework for understanding how firms' practices are determined,national level theory needs to be made supple enough to accommodatea significant role for regional institutions and the agencyof the firm.     

‘Classes of Labour’ at the Margins of Global Commodity Chains in India and China

This article deploys the concept of ‘classes of labour’ to map and compare non‐factory labour relations in the garment chain across Delhi and Shanghai metropolitan areas. It contributes to commodity studies by unpacking the great complexity of mechanisms of ‘adverse incorporation’ of informal work in global commodity chains and production circuits. Field findings reveal the great social differentiation at work in informalized settings in the two countries, and suggest that while the margins of garment work are characterized by high levels of vulnerability, they may also open up new possibilities for workers to resist or re‐appropriate some degree of control over their labour and reproductive time. While these possibilities depend on regional trajectories, informal labour arrangements do not only result from capital's quest for flexibility. Workers actively participate in shaping their own labour geography, even when exposed to high employment insecurity. The conclusions more broadly discuss the merits of comparative analysis to study labour in global production circuits.     

James Cowles Prichard and the Linguistic Foundations of Ethnology**

This article examines the English scholar James Cowles Prichard's attention to language and comparative philology within his wider project on the natural history of man. It reveals that linguistic evidence was among the most important elements for Prichard in his overarching scientific aim of investigating human physical diversity, and served as the evidential foundation for his ethnology. His work on Celtic comparative philology made him not only one of the earliest British adopters of German comparative grammar, but a comparative philologist of European stature in his own right. More generally, linguistic evidence helped Prichard to keep his magnum opus, Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, as logically ordered as possible, and therefore to turn ethnology into a discipline with analytical aspirations on a global scale.     

The Regional Embeddedness of Multinational Companies: A Critical Perspective

Multinational companies (MNC) face a constant tension between a regional orientation which entails regional embeddedness and their world-spanning activities. The relationship between MNCs and their regional surroundings is here analysed at two levels, the institutional level of the ‘fit’ between the regional environment and the MNC's activities, and the project-specific level in which direct, innovation-related interaction between the company and regional players takes place. It can be shown that these two levels may show very different characteristics with regard to one and the same company, and that selective and dynamic forms of regional embeddedness occur. Furthermore, regional embeddedness of innovation projects does not necessarily take place even if the region offers ample possibilities for cooperation and regional links of the MNC at the institutional level may be strong. A thorough understanding of an MNC's relationship to its region is hence dependent upon a process-oriented two-level analysis.     

The Greek University Stranded in the Policy of Establishing Regional Universities

The paper examines the policy implemented when it comes to establishing regional universities in a developed, yet semi-peripheral, EU country (i.e. Greece) and focuses on two central issues: whether regional universities contribute to local development and whether their location in the periphery harnessed their academic performance. The establishment of regional universities has become a widely used practice for facilitating regional development throughout the developed world, and the university's third role is quite widely accepted. The paper does not intend to question the policy of establishing regional universities itself, but rather the way these universities were established in Greece (as a case of a semi-peripheral regime) and possibly in other countries that are not in the forefront of international research. Regional universities in Greece were often established for clientelistic reasons; however, they do contribute in advancing local economic growth. These positive effects on the locality are often accompanied by a high cost for the Greek university and society itself, in the sense that regional universities have often been forced to operate under difficult conditions, thus undermining their fundamental mission (educational but primarily research).     

On the Imprecision of Boundaries

Imprecision of regional boundaries is subjected to a formal analysis within a fuzzy set theoretic framework. Regions are characterized by linguistic propositions which have precise mathematical translations. It is demonstrated that boundaries are generally fuzzy and exist as gradients rather than lines. Similarly, regions overlap to a certain extent. Though regional characterizations are imprecise, the extent of a fuzzy boundary can be exactly demarcated. Concepts of regional cores and edges are also examined. A simple climatic classification problem is employed to illustrate the theoretical arguments. The framework appears to be more natural, informative, and flexible. It comprises the conventional regional concepts as special cases.     

网络化时代中部崛起新思维

文章研究了网络化对区域发展的影响,网络化时代区域发展的主要模式,网络化时代中部地区经济发展的机遇和挑战。从交通邮政网络的输送能力和实际输送量研究了中部6省与广东在传统网络方面的差距,从现代通信网络的输送能力和网络使用状况研究了中部6省与广东省现代电子网络的差距。网络化时代中部崛起应特别注意以下几方面:重新认识资源优势并不等于经济优势,有选择地发展几个高新技术产业,重点培育优势产业,增强规模效益,优化区域发展空间结构,区域体制创新,建立现代化的物流中心,重视人才工程建设,加强基础设施建设。     

The Choir of Auxerre Cathedral and the Question of a Burgundian Gothic Architecture

Despite criticisms, the classification of the choir of Auxerre Cathedral as Burgundian persists in recent literature. Yet the cathedral’s choir, begun c. 1215, demonstrates the problematic nature of the existing regional categories for French medieval architecture. Based on the 19th-century idea of progress, the conceptual model that conceives Gothic France as consisting of ‘centre and periphery’ and notions such as regional styles or period styles are deeply at odds with medieval concepts of innovation as inclusive of tradition, as evidenced in the biography of Bishop William of Auxerre (1207–20). Indeed, 20th-century studies in support of the classification are contradicted by recent archaeological findings, and neither the historical evidence nor the architectural evidence support a Burgundian label for the choir. The architecture’s distinctly trans-regional character with a mixture of both traditional and up-to-date architectural elements as well as the fact that patronal identities were strongly based on local affiliations and not attached to the duchy of Burgundy, invite a profound reconsideration not only of the position of the choir in the architectural landscape of the early 13th century but also of Gothic architecture of north-eastern France in more general terms.     

Network Dynamics in Natural Resource Governance: A Case Study of Swiss Landscape Management

Structural characteristics of social networks have been recognized as important factors of effective natural resource governance. However, network analyses of natural resource governance most often remain static, even though governance is an inherently dynamic process. In this article, we investigate the evolution of a social network of organizational actors involved in the governance of natural resources in a regional nature park project in Switzerland. We ask how the maturation of a governance network affects bonding social capital and centralization in the network. Applying separable temporal exponential random graph modeling (STERGM), we test two hypotheses based on the risk hypothesis by Berardo and Scholz (2010) in a longitudinal setting. Results show that network dynamics clearly follow the expected trend toward generating bonding social capital but do not imply a shift toward less hierarchical and more decentralized structures over time. We investigate how these structural processes may contribute to network effectiveness over time.     

Regional Policy and the 'Regionalization' of University-Industry Links: A View from the English Regions

As several senior figures in UK Government have recently professed to want to promote the knowledge-driven economy across the nation, discussion of university-industry ties in less-favoured regions is particularly salient. This account documents how UK central government efforts to encourage greater university-industry links have increasingly taken on a regional dimension but then stresses that these efforts do not constitute a 'regional policy' (in the traditional sense of measures that seek to reduce interregional economic disparities). This activity is then set within the context of overall Government and European Union (EU) funding to universities which is also at odds with stated government aims of lessening regional economic disparities. The article goes on to highlight how mainstream regional policy, particularly that of the European Commission, has seen considerable support for university-industry activity in the regions but has faced an uncertain future due largely to the spectre of fund-draining EU expansion. The article concludes by asking what policies might be pursued for university-industry links to be increased in weaker regions. The underlying aim of the article is to contribute towards raising the profile of universities in debates about reducing interregional economic disparities (that must, in turn, be much higher on the public policy agenda).