Evaluating the Risk of Plant Closure in the Automotive Industry in Spain

This study looks at the reorganization of production in the context of a multi-plant firm in the automotive industry. Changes in such firms may result in the closure of some plants and/or the opening of others. The article provides a method for assessing the risk of plant closure, and then applies that method to a specific case: the automotive plants located in the Spanish region of Navarre. This entails acknowledging the factors that increase what has come to be known as the “degree of vulnerability” of the plant, including sunk costs and relative productivity levels. This paper can also be understood as a source of information for designing developmental after-care programmes for foreign direct investors in the periphery of the European Union.     

LOCATION THEORY AND THE MULTI-PLANT FIRM: A FRAMEWORK FOR EMPIRICAL STUDIES

A model is presented to provide for the optimum distribution of manufacturing plants for a multi-plant firm in a market-oriented industry. Independent variables are production costs, transport costs, and density of demand; dependent variables are optimum plant size and market area. It is argued that the model provides a suitable framework for analysing changes over time in the distribution of a firm's plants. The applicability of the model is illustrated with short studies of spatial changes in the fluid milk industry in southern Ontario and the auto assembly industry in the United States.
Nous présentons ici un modèle fournissant la répartition optimale des manufactures pour une entreprise à usines multiples dans une industrie orientée sur les marchés. Nos variables indépendantes sont les coûts de production, les frais de transport, et la densité de la demande; nos variables dépendantes sont les marchés et la grandeur optimale des usines. Nous soutenons que ce modèle foumit un cadre d'analyse acceptable pour étudier les changements dans le temps dans la répartition des usines d'une entreprise. Pour illustrer Fapplicabilité du modèle, nous nous servons de brèves études de changements spatiaux dans l'industrie sud-Ontarienne du lait liquide et 1'industrie de montage des automobiles aux États-Unis.     

Comparing seeds/fruits and pollen from a Middle Bronze Age pit in Florence (Italy)

The recovery of a Middle Bronze Age pit in Florence offered the opportunity of studying seeds/fruits and pollen coming from the pit fill layers. Both datasets resulted similar in their mixed composition of cultivated, synanthropic, and wild plants. They represent different traces coming from the plants which were stored and voluntarily or involuntarily introduced into the structure. Foodstuff and fodder storage activities are testified in the pit. Particularly, plant gathering is better represented by seed/fruit remains, while fodder procurement is mainly clarified by pollen. In this study, the use of pollen as evidence of economic activity is validated by the hypothesis that the origin of the pollen in the pit is from the stored plant material more than from the pollen rain. Therefore, comparing these datasets proved to be useful to assess the sources of the plant remains found in the pit, to interpret the origin of the fill layers and make some inferences on the structure and its uses, and to attempt some palaeoethnobotanical considerations.     

Plant Communities and the Dynamics of Natural Systems

Plant communities are viewed as a factor of both stabilization and transformation of natural systems. Two categories of subdivisions of the plant cover are distinguished: phytocenomers, which are the object of vegetation classification, and phytocenochores, which are units of geobotanic regionalization. The two categories are compared at the planetary, regional, and topologic levels. A plant association is viewed as a dynamic system building up through a series of variable structures to the ultimate indigenous, invariant, climax structure. The evolution of an association is depicted in the form of a graph, in which the vertices designate the various states leading to the climax association, and the edges the probable transitions from one state to another. The graph is plotted on a system of coordinates reflecting both the time period of these transformations and their effect (in terms of increases or decreases of the total plant mass). The technique is illustrated with two specific associations: the forb-tyrsa association of the Transbaykal steppe, and the fir, low-grass, green-moss association of the southern tayga (boreal forest).     

PHOENICIAN UNGUENT FACTORIES IN DARK AGE GREECE: SOCIAL APPROACHES to EVALUATING the ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Several cases of overseas branches of Phoenician unguent factories have been hypothesized for Dark Age Greece. Efforts to evaluate the hypotheses to date have focused on technical and artistic characteristics of artifactual remains. This paper shifts that focus to examination of social and economic prerequisites and concomitants of foreign branch plants, and implications for archaeological testing. the economic structure of the problem is characterized as involving factory location and foreign direct investment; these concepts are examined for anachronisms. the size of establishment required to make the branch factory hypothesis plausible may not have been an insuperable problem, but the capacity to repatriate profits in the Greek Dark Age places more serious restrictions on the branch plant hypothesis. One of the more reasonable alternatives to the branch plant hypothesis is the immigrant craftsman, the implications of which are discussed.     

Lepidopteris callipteroides,an earliest Triassic seed fern of the Sydney Basin,southeastern Australia

Earliest Triassic shales in the Coal Cliff Sandstone, Caley Formation, Widden Brook Conglomerate and Dooralong Shale (all basal Narrabeen Group) of the Sydney Basin contain a low diversity fossil flora that survived the greatest mass extinction of all time at the Permian-Triassic boundary. Only one species of seed fern is known from this flora and its affinities were unclear until discovery of its reproductive organs and complete large leaves. An ovuliferous reproductive organ, Peltaspermum townrovii sp. nov., can be attributed to the same plant as the leaves because of their identical stomatal apparatus, which is cyclocytic with papillae overhanging the stomatal pit. Polleniferous organs, Permotheca helbyi sp. nov., may have belonged to the same plant, but are only linked by evidence of association on the same bedding plane yielding no other gymnosperms. Pollen masses found within the polleniferous organ include grains identified as Falcisporites australis (de Jersey) Stevens (1981) when found dispersed. The leaves of this plant have long been enigmatic and attributed to ‘Thinnfeldia’ callipteroides or ‘Dicroidium’ callipteroides; however, these genera had very different cuticular structure. Reassessment of the frond architecture of this plant, based on a large, nearcomplete specimen together with information from cuticles and ovuliferous organs, allows reassignment to Lepidopteris callipteroides (Carpentier) comb. nov. The remarkable cuticle thickness, small stomatal size and low stomatal index of these leaves reflect a time of unusually high atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. This plant was an invader of the Sydney Basin from northern Gondwana, spreading southward during the post-apocalyptic earliest Triassic greenhouse.     

鲁山望城岗冶铁遗址汉代植物大遗存浮选分析

2019年,在河南省鲁山县望城岗冶铁遗址发掘的汉代遗迹土样中,共浮选出炭化植物种子31粒,其中农作物遗存包括粟和小麦,杂草类种子涉及马齿苋、苋属、藜和蓼属.出土的炭化农作物遗存从一定程度上反映了从事生铁冶铸手工业者的饮食结构,以粟与小麦此类旱地作物为主,构成较为单一.     

Taphonomy and sample size estimation in paleoethnobotany

This paper investigates how to gain quantitative comparability of macroscopic plant remains by estimating sample sizes representative to each population. First, this study reviews taphonomic pathways of plant remains to clarify how far we can draw cultural implications from the retrieved remains. The target population is defined here as the deposited assemblage, that is, plants that were deposited into the soil matrix. Through time, the deposited assemblage becomes reduced to the fossil assemblage, which is subject to being sampled (sampled population). The relation between the sampled population and samples is a statistical issue. A systematic recovery and a well-designed sampling strategy can help maintaining the same degree of representativeness of samples to the sampled population. The paper thus focuses on a statistical measure that estimates the sample sizes, based on a relative error and a confidence level of a small number of pilot samples. Data for the test is the plant remains recovered from the Nam River sites in south-central Korea, dating to the Early and Middle Mumun periods (3400-2400 BP). This measure ensures that quantitative differences between the plant remains in the two samples were due to real differences between the populations from which they were drawn rather than due only to variation within a single population. Thus this method strengthens cultural interpretations on quantitative differences in plant remains.     

MAN-MADE LANDSCAPES FROM THE THIRD–SECOND MILLENNIA BC: THE EXAMPLE OF CASTELO VELHO (FREIXO DE NUMÃO, NORTH-EAST PORTUGAL)

Summary.   The analysis of charred plant material from Castelo Velho (north-eastern Portugal) yields information about the environmental background of a long-term architectural project. Work focuses on the physical characteristics of this sui generis site and on the interrelationships between human communities and their vegetal environment. Important vegetation changes are recorded despite the fact that site 'occupation' is considered to be sporadic and therefore causing only minor anthropogenic impact. Evergreen oaks (Quercus, evergreen) dominate during the first two stratigraphic layers but are replaced by the tree-strawberry (Arbutus unedo) during a third layer. This change may result from a premeditated woodland management, ensuring that the site remained visible in the distance. Special attention is given to the plant assemblage and broken pottery found in a sealed structure (layer 3) and thought to have served a 'ritual' purpose. Seeds of Triticum aestivum/compactum are largely predominant.     

What goes in does not always come out: The impact of the ruminant digestive system of sheep on plant material,and its importance for the interpretation of dung-derived archaeobotanical assemblages

Abstract

On archaeological sites where livestock dung was a major fuel source, plant material that survives digestion intact may well be preserved in the remnants of dung-fuelled fires. Preserved plant remains which were derived from dung relate to the diet of animals, and thus provide a way of investigating the agro-pastoral economies of the past. In order to improve our understanding of the taphonomic processes to which plant material is exposed to during digestion, we applied archaeobotanical methods to the analysis of dung from sheep fed a known diet of cereal and wild plant material. Two clear patterns emerge from these investigations. First, cereal material (grain or chaff) survives digestion poorly and was rarely found in the dung analysed. Second, large proportions of seeds of various wild species survive digestion in an identifiable form, probably due to their small size and/or protective coating. These findings are crucial for reliable interpretation of dung-derived plant material in archaeological settings.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 35, Number 2. April 2019

Front and back cover caption, volume 35 issue 2 Front cover You overlook them every day — sentient vegetative life forms in the cracks and crevices of urban worlds. Perhaps on a spring day you passingly notice ‘trees’ or ‘flowers’ as they bloom, but see nothing of their specificity, their agency, their sociality. Yet plants provide a basis for how we think — ‘roots’ and ‘branches’ structure our language and computational forms; as our thoughts ramify, they ‘sprout’ ideas that ‘stem’ in various directions. And they are the foundation upon which mammals have thrived on earth, so far. You should know more about them than you do. Stop for a moment now and give them your attention. Consider: indigenous communities, whose medicinal plants and knowledge circulate in global marketplaces; roots' and the capacity of roots and seeds to remake, regrow and re-establish themselves in new contexts; or the roles, statuses, channels, spatial-temporal scales and ontological frames required for engaging a plant's point of view. Ponder: taking position alongside botanists and indigenous sages to remake ethnobotanical knowledge; seed conservation as a generative experimental space from which new forms of human-plant relations might flourish; or how communicative phytochemicals differ from the signs and symbols anthropologists typically study. In this special issue we will learn how it is that we think with and through plants. Svalbard Global Seed Vault ( http://www.seedvault.no ) in Longyearbyen, February 2008. The vault provides a safe backup of seeds from food crops conserved by seed banks worldwide. This picture is from the day of the official opening. The entrance to the vault is well guarded from visiting polar bears. During the opening, the vault was guarded by an armed guard and an ice sculpture of a polar bear. Back cover ETHNOGRAPHY OF PLANTS Plants congregate and socialize, and they have long formed part of our publics. They are more than representations in human knowledge systems or world views. But knowing them is difficult and sometimes takes a lifetime. Ethnographers have long gathered and mulled over plant lore, often while partaking of them in various herbal or culinary renderings. This special issue on plant ethnography marks a shift in this contemplative listening stance, by bending closer, leaning over and studying their ways. The questions posed here are important: how do we address them? Can they thrive in the wake of habitat destruction? What can we learn from them before it's too late? Botanists identify and assess rare plant species in the Sonoran Desert in southern California in order to plan the collection of their seeds for long-term seed conservation at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden, a partner of the global Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP). The Sonoran Desert has more plant diversity than any other desert in the world, with over 2,000 native plant species which have developed fine balances and beautiful adaptations to life there. These species, however, are caught between two key pressures of the Anthropocene: the prospect of a changing climate, and the encroachment on their habitat by human development, in this case — ironically — by the earmarking of vast areas of the desert as prospective solar energy facility sites. MSBP partners, like Rancho Santa Ana BG, have conserved 13 per cent of the world's wild plant species. The banking of plant seeds insures against their extinction and provides resources for research and reintroduction which can support their conservation, but ultimately, the deserts cannot be conserved through seeds in freezers alone.     

Problems of Optimal Location of an Industrial Complex

Reverting to the problem of location of the next major iron and steel plant, based on ore from the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, the authors present the pro-Siberian view. They contend that advocates of a Central Russian location of such a steel plant ignore both the water and land costs in the construction of such a complex, which would tend to argue against a western location, and the effect of such a complex in promoting regional development, which would have a positive impact in the underdeveloped eastern regions. Cost calculations are presented to show that even if the Siberian plant is supplied by long-haul ore from the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, a Siberian location would be of greater benefit to the Soviet economy as a whole than a Central Russian location. The benefit would be even more marked if the design calculations involved not just the choice of site for one iron and steel plant, but the comparative costs of an iron and steel plant (an energy-intensive industry) in Siberia and a labor-intensive industry in Central Russia. For the pro-European view in the choice of a steel-plant site, see the Gladkevich article in Soviet Geography, November 1971.     

时间地理学的企划概念及其研究案例

企划是为完成任何意愿和目标而进行的一系列必要的简单或复杂的任务,即为达到某个个人或组织的长期或短期目标而实施的活动。企划研究旨在建立意图和实现之间的桥梁,从个体或组织主体意图的视角构建活动之间的关系,它不仅关注时空间行为的客观发生,还关注时空间行为的计划和时空间行为结果的影响反馈等主观方面。企划视角下的时间被看作将"未来"不断转换为"过去"的连续过程,一个完整的企划包括孕育计划、活动实现、影响反馈三个主要阶段,基于企划可以分析个体行为的闭环决策过程。个体企划与组织企划交织的情景分析有助于解释个体时空间行为以及个体企划与组织企划的关系。沃尔沃乌德瓦拉工厂"结构性变革"的案例为如何从组织企划与个体企划交织的视角探索组织管理变革及其综合效益评价提供了很好的启示。企划视角下的日常活动研究将极有可能推动时间地理学从主客观结合、能动被动结合的微观视角透视日常活动决策的黑箱,进而对时空间行为进行解释和预测,最终实现物质世界时空制约与人的时空意图的统一。     

Set-determined Process and the Growth of Spatial Structure

We present an analysis of the effects of different information flow patterns on the growth of spatial structure in a broad class of systems. Examples are drawn from plant and message diffusion processes, the growth of herding in animal populations and, in particular, the evolution of cities in human populations. We model the actions of an “individual” as a response to gradients in a transformation of the “real” space, this transformation being the individual's information map of the space. Interesting deductions occur as a result of allowing the individual's information map to vary from extremely local to extremely global. In the city growth model for example, if migration decisions are based upon extremely local information, then the system is characterized by instability and the lack of any well-defined spatial structure. As the localness of this information map decreases, the system is characterized by the development of well defined spatial structure with a characteristic distance separating the “cities.” In a particular case, we show that the wavelength of the dominant spatial structure is directly related to the size of an individual's information field. These effects are a consequence of interactions between individuals that arise from the nonlocalness of the information fields. We interpret the early growth stages in these models in terms of linear filters.     

Investigating crop processing using phytolith analysis: the example of rice and millets

The application of crop processing models to macro-botanical assemblages has traditionally been used to interpret past husbandry practices and organisation of labour involved in crop-processing. Phytoliths offer an alternative method of analysis because they are durable in most environments, regardless of whether plant parts are charred, and the identification of plant types and plant parts allows them to be used in much the same way as macro-botanical remains. Indeed macro-remains and phytoliths are complementary datasets for examining the input of plant parts, such as crop-processing waste, into archaeological deposits. We outline crop-processing models in relation to macro-remains and then develop the framework for their application to archaeological phytolith assemblages. Rice and millet processing models are explored in relation to patterns expected in both macro-remains and phytoliths. The utility of these models is demonstrated with archaeological evidence from the site of Mahagara, an early farming site in North-Central India. The results indicate a way to employ phytoliths in archaeology which complements the fragmentary evidence available from plant macroremains.     

Performance-based Seismic Design of a Pendulum Tuned Mass Damper System

The study implements the performance-based analysis and design methodology to assess the seismic vulnerability of a coal-fired power plant and to optimally design its equivalent pendulum-type tuned mass damper system such that the direct losses are minimized. A building-specific total loss ratio is developed to link the component level losses with the total repair cost of the original structure. The optimal system configuration is finally derived for cases with the minimum loss. The study demonstrates a systematic way of achieving the optimal pendulum-type tuned mass damper design with considerations of uncertainties in earthquake inputs and the combined component level damages.     

KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS,ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY,AND SKILL INTENSITY OF CHILEAN MANUFACTURING PLANTS*

ABSTRACT Knowledge spillovers are an important source of economic growth. In this study, we identify a mechanism through which knowledge spillovers occur among plants in the Chilean manufacturing industry. A plant‐level production function is estimated with the absorptive‐capacity hypothesis, that is, employment of skilled workers is a key channel through which knowledge is transmitted across plants. Results show that a plant's productivity from spillovers increases with its skill intensity, which is measured by the share of skilled workers in total employment. We also find that plants in a region with a large knowledge stock increase their skill intensity to benefit more from spillovers. Our results suggest that an increase in regional knowledge stock is the most effective policy to improve a plant's productivity. However, policies that encourage a plant to employ high skill‐intensive production also enhance its productivity.     

Holding the wild in the seed: Place,escape and liminality at the Millennium Seed Bank Partnership

The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership (MSBP), which conserves the seeds of wild plants, is the world's largest ex situ plant conservation project. Recourse to ex situ conservation, however, presents something of a paradox for the conservation of plants. Plant ecology often defies delineation into distinct units and is intricately rooted in place. ‘Plant-being’, therefore, has elicited attention within the ‘more-than-human’ turn for its entangled and relational nature. Yet, as the author considers here through reference to her research within the MSBP, in the context of seed conservation, survival for plant species is pursued precisely through escaping place and entanglement. By ‘thinking-with’ seed ecology, she proposes that a dialectic between plant and seed – and thus between entanglement and disentanglement – emerges, suggesting that rather than presenting a paradox, the practice of seed conservation might potentially foster a liminal, generative and experimental space within which new formations of human-plant relationships might be nurtured.     

Restructuring the automobile industry in Sweden: the emergence of a reflective production system

The two automobile producers operate in Sweden. Volvo is well known for its radical development of new production systems and work organization. In this paper, reasons behind the efforts to create more humanized work within Volvo are presented in a historic perspective, the point of departure being problems related to assembly line technology. After a successful introduction of new ideas, including ‘cutting off the assembly line in the Kalmar plant, Volvo took a radical step in the Uddevalla assembly plant. A completely new production system, the Reflective Production System, was developed. The process in which the reflective production system was developed is examined and the performance of the plant in Uddevalla is evaluated. Some potentials of the reflective production system for local production units are briefly discussed.     

DETERMINING THE SEASON OF MISSISSIPPIAN HOUSE CONSTRUCTION FROM PLANT IMPRESSIONS IN DAUB

Abstract

It has been suggested that Mississippian farmsteads in some parts of the Southeast were abandoned in the late fall/early winter, with concomitant population concentration in large, palisaded villages. This assertion is contradicted by published data on plant impressions in daub which indicate farmstead house construction during the fall. Missing from this debate has been information on the season of house construction at mound centers. Plant impressions in daub from a structure at the Lyon’s Bluff site (22OK520) in Mississippi indicate that house construction took place during early to midspring. When coupled with other data, year-round construction at this mound and village complex is suggested. Although these results do not solve the question of the season of house construction at farmsteads, they do suggest that house construction at mound sites was not confined to any particular season of the year, as might be expected with seasonal influxes of farmstead inhabitants.