Assessing a Computer-aided Instructional Strategy in a World Geography Course

An experiment was conducted to compare student achievement under two differing instructional strategies: a small-group and computer-aided strategy versus lecture instruction. Evaluation was extended in several ways beyond comparison of overall student scores. Results show significant improvements in student achievement produced by the computer-aided strategy with reference to gender, ethnicity and levels of cognitive learning. The study concludes that experimental evaluations of CAI serve best as formative tools to match instructional strategies to specific types of content material and different types of students, and that instructional media are best evaluated along with the instructional method in which they are embedded.     

A Ritual Spindle Whorl Deposit from the Late Classic Maya Site of E1 Pilar,Belize

Abstract

Excavations near the ceremonial precinct of El Pilar, an important Maya center in Belize, exposed a Late Classic period concentration of almost 200 broken limestone spindle whorls. A program of experimentation demonstrated that the whorls were purposely destroyed, possibly as part of a ritual event or events. Such rituals may have been part of a strategy to enhance the status of spinners by honoring deities associated with spinning.     

Paper 2: Climatic Study of the Underground Archaeological Site Coudenberg

Abstract

The excavation and valorization of subterranean archaeological remains, and eventually opening a site to the public, required a proper management and conservation strategy. This strategy was based on the evaluation of the delicate balance between the requirements for public health and safety, and the protection of the archaeological remains from future degradation. Controlling the climate can be essential for a preventive conservation strategy, which can be defined as an indirect action to increase the life expectancy of the archaeological remains, and by doing so keeping them in a preferred state of conservation to mitigate damage and/or deterioration.

Potential risks and possible interventions are outlined to avoid climatic conditions which are in conflict with the requirements for the visitors’ comfort while preventing damage phenomena to the materials.     

Typological Classification,Attribute Analysis,and Lithic Variability

Abstract

A typological research strategy can distort the analysis of Upper Paleolithic stone tools because it is ill-equipped to distinguish stylistic and functional similarity. This lack can make the significance of formal stone tool types in either culture-historical or behavioral analysis ambiguous. “Attribute analysis,” as it is being developed with French Upper Paleolithic materials, is introduced as an alternative strategy. The stylistic and functional analysis of burins in three Upper Paleolithic cultures, the Perigordian VI, the Proto-Magdalenian , and the Magdalenian II-III, is presented as an example indicating the advantages of one approach over the other.     

The DEEPSAL Project: Using the Past for Local Community Futures in Jordan

ABSTRACT

The Deep Past as a Social Asset in the Levant (DEEPSAL) project, conducted in 2015–16 by the Council for British Research in the Levant, examined two communities in southern Jordan, Beidha and Basta, who live near significant Neolithic archaeological sites. The project collected information on the communities’ current socioeconomic conditions, their relationship with local cultural heritage and how that cultural heritage currently benefits or hinders them. The information was used to inform nascent strategies to utilize the sites sustainably as development assets and suggest alternative strategies as necessary. The results showed that a tourism-based strategy is suitable for Beidha but there was a need to focus on basic business skills. For Basta a tourism-based strategy is currently unsuitable, and efforts should rather focus on supporting educational activities. The results of the project are presented here within the context of archaeology’s increasing interest to use archaeological resource to benefit local communities, and outlines lessons for that effort.     

Animal Resource Exploitation among the Virgin River Puebloans in the American Southwest

Abstract

A review of the literature documenting faunal remains recovered from 16 archaeological sites attributed to the Virjin River Puebloan (VRP) tradition (ca. 300 B.C.–A.D. 1200) of the American Southwest was conducted to identify the importance of wild animal resources to the subsistence strategy. The Number of Individual Specimens (NISP) was counted (NISP = 16,386) and sorted by taxa and animal size categories to explore differences in the distributions of faunal remains by archaeological recovery strategy, site type, physiographic location, and chronology. The most significant factor in the differential use of animal resources among the VRPs was physiographic location. Desert lowland sites had greater species diversity. Sites in the intermediate St. George Basin had more large mammals such as deer, and sites located on the higher plateau had more small mammals such as lagomorphs. These results indicate that the subsistence strategy varied across diverse environmental conditions, but animal resources were always an integral part of the VRP adaptation until their abandonment of the region in the early 13th century A.D.     

Connolly,Gandhi and anticolonial (non)violence

Abstract

This article examines the contrasting role of violence in the anticolonial struggles of India and Ireland. It turns to the early writing of Mohandas K. Gandhi to explicate how violence for Indian nationalists shaped by the writings of Gandhi, was configured as a European methodology and antithetical to Indian culture. In contrast, James Connolly anticipates the work of Frantz Fanon in advocating violence as a necessary means to purge the ideological influence of British Colonial Rule from the minds of colonised subjects. It concludes by looking at the legacy of the two approaches to suggest that, rather paradoxically, Gandhi’s utilisation of nonviolence as a strategy of resistance proved to be more disruptive to the workings of the British State.     

How to Handle a Liberated Woman

Abstract

In this article, the author presents a strategy for designing relational databases with the program FileMaker Pro (FileMaker) to study the histories of individuals and organizations. The approach facilitates efficiency in inputting data and flexibility for constructing statistical analyses from the raw data. The key feature of the strategy is to define the basic unit of observation in the database in terms of an agent, an event, and a date. Given that programs such as FileMaker can easily sort data by agent and date, once one structures the data correctly, he or she can construct well-ordered event histories for agents, even if the researcher enters the data in an unordered fashion. By using events that happened to an agent at a particular time as the basic unit of observation, one maintains maximum flexibility to do statistical analysis that aggregates basic data in different ways. This article illustrates the power of the approach by outlining ways to analyze changes in geographic distances between two events marking the life histories of chemists.     

China’s soft power conundrum,film coproduction,and visions of shared prosperity

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at China’s soft power strategy in relation to the film industry, which since the early 2000s has opened to international co-productions and investment. Despite many coproduction projects being endorsed by government, results have not added significantly to China’s film-making reputation. The paper shows that coproductions have a diplomatic function, which implies a more conventional understanding of soft power. The paper also considers the tension between artistic freedom and censorship that impacts on all coproduction projects in China and which undermines the efficacy of China’s soft power strategy. The paper advances the proposition that coproduction with countries in Eurasia under the cultural template of the Belt and Road Initiative might present new opportunities to blend China’s stories into a narrative of shared prosperity. In doing this, the advance of China’s economic power is supported by cultural policies that evoke a historical past as much as a shared future.     

The Archaeology of the Battle of Vuelta de Obligado,Buenos Aires Province,Argentina

Abstract

This paper presents the results of research carried out for more than a decade at Vuelta de Obligado, San Pedro, north-east of Buenos Aires province. The objectives were to understand the dynamics of the strategy followed on the 1845 battlefield by the two groups who fought (Anglo-French and Argentine), and to assess the impact of formation processes on the results produced. This has been achieved through the use of several sources of information: the archaeological record, written documents, Argentine and European plans and sketches, as well as data provided by the current population.     

Reconnecting tourism after COVID-19: the paradox of alterity in tourism areas

Abstract

One of the transformations induced by the almost complete halt of tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a turning of the tourism sectors to a greater orientation towards their host communities. The enclavic tendencies of tourism areas, along with a multilayered approach to alterity gives insight into ongoing changes in the Quebec, Canada, tourism industry that have been enhanced by the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes points to a relinking of tourism to the needs of the host communities as part of a survival strategy in a time when there are no tourists, and could become, in the long run, a resilience strategy. On the other hand, there is a possibility of a reinforcement of the alterity and a further delinking of tourism in a “6?foot-tourism world” where sanitary safety would be at the core of a closed and controlled tourism development.     

An account of cultural heritage and nature conservation in Mustang,Nepal

Abstract

This article was presented as a paper to ‘World Cultural Heritage: a global challenge’, an International Symposium at Hildesheim, Germany in February 1997. The paper outlines the problems of attempting to develop a combined heritage and tourism strategy for the small, remote, Himalayan kingdom of Mustang. The development of tourism brings both opportunities and threats to local people and their identity.     

War on the Mind

Abstract

The new biology, a formidable triad of the disciplines of biochemistry, genetics and cell biology, has given an entirely new insight into disease processes. It is forcefully argued here that this interdisciplinary approach should be applied to tropical diseases. The detailed strategy and possible engineering of a malaria vaccine, as developed at the author's Institute, are cited as an example. But finally, society must decide if the new biology is to be used for research on the diseases of the rich or the poor peoples of this planet.     

On Generalized Tian Ji’s Horse Racing Strategy

Abstract

Tian Ji’s horse racing strategy, a famous Chinese legend, constitutes a promising concept to be applied to important issues in today’s competitive environment; this strategy is elaborated on and analyzed by examining the general case. The mathematical formulation concerning the calculation of winning, drawing or losing combinations and probabilities is presented to illustrate the interesting insights on how ancient philosophies could promote thinking in business competitiveness, in particular, the wisdom behind sacrificing the part for the benefit of the whole or sacrificing the short-term objectives in order to gain the long-term goal.     

Holy mountain and supreme council: Mount Athos at the beginning of a new era

Abstract

The establishment of the Supreme Council of Judicious Ordinances, itself a product of modern Ottoman reform begun by Mahmud II (1808–39), added to the establishment of a new framework for an increasingly centralised concept of ‘Beneficient Re-Orderings’ (tanzimat-i hayriye) in the Ottoman Empire. Created on 27 Zilhicce 1253 (24 March 1838) as part of Mahmud's strategy to dismantle the Grand Vizirate and shift the locus of power closer to himself, the Meclis-i Vala-yi Ahkam-i Adliye consequently figured prominently also in the famous Hatt-i ?erif (imperial decree) of Gülhane of 3 November 1839, by which date the Tanzimat are usually understood to have begun 'officially’.     

Samuel Pepys’s Navy Preserved In Situ?

Abstract

This paper will focus on the wreck of the Stirling Castle, which was one of four ships of the line to perish on the Goodwin Sands during the Great Storm of 27 November 1703. The Goodwin Sands lies off the south-east coast of Kent between Dover and Ramsgate. These sands are famously known as the ‘Ship Swallower’. This paper will discuss what has been learnt from the site’s investigations, the heritage management issues of preservation in situ, and offer a strategy for the future management of the site.     

Environmental adjustment and private economic strategies in reindeer pastoralism: Combining game theory with participatory action research

The aim of this article is to suggest a research approach to be used in studies of common‐pool resource problems and the deterioration of reindeer pasture. A frequent strategy in such studies is game theory based on rational choice assumptions. This approach has been criticised, for instance, for the neglect of local knowledge concerning cultural preconditions and for the political implications damaging Saami reindeer‐ecology. Our contention is that such problems can be handled by combining game theory with participatory action research when studying the subject above.     

‘Hidden from view’?: an analysis of the integration of women’s history and women’s voices into Australia’s social history exhibitions

ABSTRACT

‘Women have mostly been left out of history’, boldly asserted Elizabeth Willis in her exhibition text for The Story of Victoria in 1985. Taking Willis’ statement as a starting point, this article aims to trace firstly how women have been rewritten into Australia’s social history exhibitions focusing on the use of voice as a strategy to do so, and secondly how these voices have changed historical master narratives – by allowing a shift from a big picture history to intimate and deeply personal stories that recast our understanding of the past in ways that are inclusive of gendered experiences. We investigate the use of the curatorial voice as reflected in Willis’ work, aligning it with the notion of curatorial activism, before exploring the changing curatorial practices that expanded the potential for an interpretive approach that incorporated the voice of the subjects themselves as a central component in the telling of history. We then analyse the impact of these strategies on traditional understandings of the past through three exhibitions developed by Melbourne Museum over 30 years: The Story of Victoria, a successor exhibition The Melbourne Story, and their Great War centenary exhibition, WWI: Love & Sorrow.     

Anti-Utopianism Among Arms Controllers

Abstract

[T]he President's embrace of the goal, both utopian and dangerous, of a world without nuclear weapons will inevitably weaken support for the strategy of nuclear deterrence upon which the defense of the West continues to rest.     

Culturally sustainable development: theoretical concept or practical policy instrument?

Abstract

This paper outlines the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development, and considers the evolution of efforts to integrate culture into sustainable development policy and practice over recent years. The specific concept of culturally sustainable development (CSD), first promulgated more than 20 years ago, is re-assessed in the light of contemporary circumstances as a theoretically plausible proposition and as a basis for application to cultural policy formation. The paper proposes a set of principles by which consistency of a cultural policy or cultural development strategy with CSD can be judged. The application of each of the principles is discussed, drawing illustrations from particular policy areas in both developed and developing countries. The paper argues that CSD is a concept that has both theoretical substance and potential for practical policy application.