Description of the Interior of a Chamber in a Castle

Excavation of a mound at the meeting place of Secklow Hundred, Bucks., suggested that it was built in the tenth century; the evidence from twelve other excavated meeting place mounds is discussed and it is suggested that mounds were often built specifically for that purpose.     

谋生在都市的边缘

这里纪录的,是那些从边远山区来到城市谋生的农民,他们处于城市的底层.     

从传道之师到大学教员：现代学术研究职业化趋向

近代知识人的学术研究出现了职业化趋向.所谓学术职业化,就是将学术研究作为一种谋生的职业,学术研究者成为职业学者.随着清末民初现代学术教育体制的建立、科学家群体的形成、专门科研机构的创建、科研成就的取得与科学交流系统的建成,近代学者的社会职业角色开始形成,学术研究逐渐呈现一种职业化趋向,不仅出现了以知识生产和传授为谋生手段的社会职业,而且这种学术研究职业为一定的制度所保障.学术职业化是现代学术体制的重要特征.职业化学者被纳入近代分科化、专门化之学术体制中.现代学术体制以有形之场地和无形之规范,直接限定着学者之学术活动,并间接影响着学者之学术思想.职业化之知识人多遵从现代学术体制从事知识生产,甚至将知识作为稻粱谋,而不再执着于思想之道.这是职业化体制下学术研究的特点及知识人的特色.     

Nuclear science and the story of a preserved leaf from a copy of the Great Bible

Three pressed leaves of Ulmus glabra (Wych Elm) were found within the pages of a copy of the Great Bible in the Library of the University of Western Australia. The Bible dates from AD 1540 and was originally housed at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire. A radiocarbon age on one of the leaves found it was about as old as the Great Bible itself, and stable C and N isotope and neutron activation analyses were carried out on the same leaf. The δ¹⁵N values were elevated and the content of iron, arsenic, bromine, silver, gold and mercury were relatively high. These analyses are consistent with an environment where water logging is present, as at Ely at the time, and the silver and gold content are probably consistent with the cathedral setting. The mercury was found to be associated with the red ink in the Bible. It is intriguing to ponder why Wych elm leaves were placed in the Bible, especially in the light that a copy of an original edition of the King James version of the Bible from Ely, also in the library in Perth has many dozens of U. glabra leaves also preserved within in its pages.     

Scurvy as a factor in the loss of the 1845 Franklin expedition to the Arctic: a reconsideration

In 1845, an expedition, commanded by Sir John Franklin, set out to discover the Northwest Passage. The ships entered the Canadian Arctic, and from September 1846 were beset in ice off King William Island. A note left by the expedition in May 1847 reported all was well, but by April 1848, 24 of the 129 men had died. The ice‐locked ships were deserted in April 1848, but the 105 survivors were so weakened that all perished before they could reach safety. The causes of the morbidity and mortality aboard the ships have long been debated, and many commentators have argued that scurvy was an important factor. This study evaluates the historical evidence for the likely effectiveness of anti‐scorbutic precautions taken on polar voyages at that time, and investigates whether the skeletal remains associated with the expedition provide evidence for scurvy. Skeletal remains available for study were carefully examined for pathological changes, and lesions potentially consistent with scurvy were subject to histological analysis. Where remains were no longer accessible, use was made of published osteological work. It is argued that the anti‐scorbutic measures customarily taken on mid 19^th century British naval polar voyages were such that there is no a priori reason to suppose that scurvy should have been a problem prior to the desertion of the ships. The analysis of the skeletal evidence provided little in the way of bony lesions consistent with the disease, and cannot therefore be used to support the presence of scurvy. Factors other than scurvy may been the main causes of morbidity and mortality in the 11 months prior to the desertion of the ships. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Approximating the Inertia of the Adjacency Matrix of a Connected Planar Graph That Is the Dual of a Geographic Surface Partitioning

This article addresses the calculation of the inertia of an adjacency matrix (i.e., the number of positive, zero, and negative eigenvalues) associated with a connected, undirected planar graph. A formula is derived that is an upper bound for the number of negative eigenvalues of this matrix, based upon standard matrix trace results, coupled with the use of nonextreme eigenvalue averages, and requiring calculations of the pair of extreme eigenvalues and the number of zero eigenvalues. The number of positive eigenvalues can be calculated easily from this specific result. Assessment of this formula is in terms of selected regular two‐dimensional tessellations and in terms of a set of empirical surface partitioning, commonly employed in spatial analyses. Proposed correction factors allow a modification of this formula to estimate more precisely the associated inertia of an adjacency matrix. Este artículo aborda el cálculo de la inercia de una matriz de adyacencia, (es decir, el número de valores propios (eigenvalues) positivos, cero y negativos) asociados a un grafo conexo plano no orientado (connected undirected planar graph). Se deriva una fórmula que es el límite superior del número de valores propios negativos de esta matriz basándose en los resultados estándar de la traza de la matriz (matrix trace) junto con el uso de los promedios de valores propios no extremos y que requiere cálculos del par de valores propios extremos y del número de valores propios cero. El número de valores propios positivos se puede calcular fácilmente a partir de este resultado. Se evalúa esta fórmula en términos de mosaicos regulares bidimensionales y en términos de un conjunto de superficies de partición (surface partitioning) empíricas comúnmente empleados en análisis espaciales. Los factores de corrección propuestos permiten modificar esta fórmula para estimar con mayor precisión la inercia de una matriz de adyacencia. 本文讨论了联通非有向平面图邻接矩阵的惯性逼近（即正的,零以及负的特征值的个数）问题。基于标准矩阵迹的结果,综合利用非极值特征值的平均值,通过计算极值特征值对和零特征值个数,构建了邻接矩阵中负特征值上界计算公式。正特征值的个数可以简单地从上述结果中直接计算。采用空间分析中常用的规则二维格网化选取,以及一系列的经验曲面剖分对该公式的评估。所提出的修正指数允许对该公式进行修正,从而更精确地估计邻接矩阵惯性。     

Kriging the Local Risk of a Rare Disease from a Register of Diagnoses

A substantial problem in studying the geographical epidemiology of rare noncontagious diseases is to estimate the risks of their development within populations. A geostatistical solution is described and illustrated by a case study of cancer among children in the West Midlands of England for the years 1980 to 1984 inclusive. Data consist of the numbers of diagnosed cases of cancer and of healthy children in each of 838 electoral wards, the centroids of which are known accurately. The rate of incidence or frequency, equal to the number of cases divided by the number of children, is a binomial variable and is treated as a realization of the underlying risk of a child's developing the disease that varies from place to place. The experimental variogram of the frequency was computed using the standard formulation. The variogram of the risk was obtained from it taking into account the numbers of children at risk and the error associated with each observed frequency. The variogram of the risk increased monotonically from 0 at zero lag to about 50 kilometers, and it was modeled as Whittle's two-dimensional elementary correlation function. The covariances of frequency and cross-covariances between the frequency and the risk were derived from it, and these were then used together with the data to krige the risk and map it. The risk of developing the disease is shown to have a patchy distribution, strongly autocorrelated at the regional scale of the investigation.     

Looking back: a quarter of a century after the Cold War

This special issue of Cold War History offers a retrospective on the end of the Cold War, 25 years after its peaceful conclusion. This peaceful conclusion is an achievement that cannot be celebrated enough, and we must continue to build international relations in conflict and co-operation on this awareness of our common humanity and our common human fallibility.     

When a pigmy acts as a giant: the role of the Italian representatives in the Brussels constitutional convention

The Italian representatives in the Brussels Constitutional Convention played a greater role than expected. The Italians, who many thought would be destined to a role as pigmies in the Convention because of ideological differences and the personal mistrust they carried from their domestic arena, acted mostly as giants in the contributions they provided to the final text. The representatives of both the government and the opposition identified a series of points upon which they agreed and which were introduced in the final document. These positions, although not federalist, were much more advanced than those described as ‘intergovernmental’ or ‘confederal’. There were many reasons for this. The deliberative method adopted in the Convention probably helped this convergence. Certainly, the Italians wanted to keep open the dialogue with the main EU member‐states at a moment when the war with Iraq was undermining it, and the Italian representatives in the Convention shared a pro‐European attitude, while this attitude was being called into question in the domestic arena by the Berlusconi government.     

Building a copy of the Gokstad Faering

This is the story of the building of a replica Viking craft. Being only 22 ft (6.7 m) long and having 4 ft 6 in (1.37 m) beam, the Gokstad faering does not conform to our usual image of a Viking boat. However, the smaller craft shows all the construction details found in the larger ships. A close examination can help us to see some of the principles the Vikings applied to their boatbuilding.