The impact of gender,ethnic and cultural studies on colonial Latin American research

Mujer y cultura en la colonia hispanoamericana. Edited by MABEL MORAÑA. Pittsburgh: Biblioteca de América, 1996. Pp. 330.

Las colonias del Nuevo Mundo: Cultura y sociedad. Edited by CARMEN PIRILLI. Tucumán: Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, 1995. Pp. 190.

Amor y violencia sexual: Valores indígenas en la sociedad colonial. By WARD STAVIG. Lima: IEP/University of South Florida, 1996. Pp. 94.     

Actualistic research into dynamic impact and its implications for understanding differential bone fragmentation and survivorship

The relationship between bone mineral density and archaeological bone survivorship has played a critical role in zooarchaeological and taphonomic studies in recent decades. Numerous studies have suggested that higher-density skeletal element portions survive more frequently than lower-density element portions when archaeological assemblages are affected by some taphonomic processes. Interpretations of density mediated destruction have become commonplace in the archaeological literature, and are often used to explain the absence of certain bone elements and element parts in zooarchaeological assemblages. This study explores the effects of rockfall on bovid elements in varied environmental conditions and the differential survivorship of their element parts, and has implications for understanding the taphonomic processes through which bones are subjected to dynamic loading. Actualistic rockfall experiments conducted on twelve samples of frozen, fresh, and semi-dried bovid bones reveal that the generally low-density epiphyseal ends of bone elements resist fracture and analytical deletion with more frequency than the higher-density diaphyses. This evidence suggests that bone density does not correlate with likelihood of breakage or effective archaeological “destruction” when rockfall and other processes that result in dynamic impact are in action. While this research does not question the relationship between bone mineral density and the likelihood for archaeological survivorship as the result of some taphonomic processes, it presents one specific set of taphonomic processes that result in the differential survivorship of low density bone elements parts and the fragmentation and destruction of higher density element parts. This research presents evidence that shows that dynamic impact is a process capable of fragmenting and sometimes destroying high-density elements while low-density elements survive.     

The Maudsley Hospital and the Rockefeller Foundation: the impact of philanthropy on research and training

Opened in February 1923 to raise the status of academic psychiatry in the UK, the Maudsley Hospital struggled to secure grant income. Without a track record of published research and lacking internationally recognized clinicians, it failed to impress the British Medical Research Council. To challenge leading U.S. and German departments of neuropsychiatry, Edward Mapother, the medical superintendent, looked overseas for investment in an "institute of psychiatry." Intense lobbying and a modified strategy for research and training designed to meet the Rockefeller Foundation's prioritization of psychiatry and medical specialization ultimately led to a significant endowment. Alan Gregg and Daniel O'Brien at the Foundation played a pivotal role in re-defining the Maudsley's programs of research and teaching. Pressure on Mapother to attract funding was matched by that on administrators required to show that their philanthropy had yielded tangible gains in public health. While wealthy charities, like the Rockefeller, often had a vision of the direction that they wished to pull medical science, and they provided much needed income, the impact of their policy agenda was not without drawbacks. Institutions unwilling to embrace a charity's philosophy were unlikely to secure grants, while those that did might find themselves drawn into less optimal areas.     

中国版本学及其研究方法

一、版本学的脱胎与体现 中国版本学,迄今为止主要指的还是古书版本学,晚近图书的版本研究尚没有形成强劲的气候,所以我这里谈的仍是古书版本学. 关于什么是古书版本学,叶德辉在其<书林清话>卷一"板本之名称"中有过如下议论:"近人言藏书者,分目录、板本为两种学派.大约官家之书,自<崇文总目>以下,至乾隆所修<四库全书总目>提要,是为目录之学;私家之藏,自尤袤遂初堂、明毛晋汲古阁,及康、雍、乾、嘉以来各藏书家齗齗于宋元本、旧抄,是为板本学.然二者皆兼校雠,是又为校勘之学."①这段话说得模棱两可,谁从这里也难以归纳出科学的版本学概念.但有一点值得注意,这就是他把目录、版本、校勘三者的关系联系了起来,并谓:"本朝久治,超轶宋、元,皆此三者为之根柢."这三者为何?这三者就是版本学、目录学和校勘学.这对我们探讨什么是版本学有很大的启发.     

Economic interdependence and international interactions: the impact of country size on political conflict and cooperation

The trade–conflict model claims that one state, designated as the ‘actor’, is deterred from initiating conflict against a trading partner, designated as the ‘target’, for fear of losing the welfare gains associated with trade. This article extends the trade–conflict model to examine the effect of country size on the trade gains among countries. We derive three propositions with regard to international interactions that pertain to the links between trade, conflict and country size. These hypotheses all imply that a country with an improvement in its terms of trade with a large country will decrease conflict more than it would with an improvement in its terms of trade with a small country. A 30‐country sample from the Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) is used for empirical tests. The empirical analyses support the derived hypotheses. The model predicts that a country's ability to influence domestic consumption in a trading partner is an important determinant of international interactions.     

The impact of the opening of Tianjin on economic changes in its hinterland

Although the opening of Tianjin was forced, it actually accelerated the connection of Tianjin and its hinterland with the international market. The opening brought great changes to the structure of agriculture, animal husbandry, and industry and commerce in the hinterland; encouraged the development of market orientation and international orientation in the hinterland’s economy; and greatly improved the occupational organization and income of most farmers and herdsmen. The opening resulted in great progress for the whole modern economy of the hinterland and thereby provided an exemplary case for the study of problems related to the economic modernization process of China. __________ Translated from: Shixue Yuekan 史学月刊 (Journal of Historical Science), No. 1, 2004     

Monoamine theories of depression: historical impact on biomedical research

Monoamine theories associate depression with reduced brain monoamine levels. These theories achieved broad popularity in the mid-1960s. The present article reviews the historical development of monoamine theories and their subsequent impact on biomedical research. Alleged divisions between West European and US researchers over competing versions of the theories are investigated using bibliometrics. Subsequently, the application of monoamine theories in the NIMH Collaborative Program on the Psychobiology of Depression is covered. The article argues that the impact of monoamine theories is best explained by the ability of researchers, governmental agencies, and pharmaceutical companies to invoke theories that advance various projects and agendas.     

The Character of Demographic Processes and their Impact on City Growth in Moscow Oblast

The character of demographic processes (population growth, natural increase, migration, age-sex structure) is analyzed for cities of Moscow Oblast both by size classes and by their location in three concentric rings around Moscow. The demographic indicators tend to be particularly negative in cities of the outer zone of Moscow Oblast, mainly one-industry textile towns, in which the high female component of the labor force tends to create an unbalanced demographic situation. Positive demographic processes are most evident in middle-size cities (20,000 to 100,000) in the green belt and suburban zone around Moscow that arose or developed mainly during the Soviet period. They are largely associated with heavy industry and scientific research and development. The analysis suggests the need for greater development of outer-zone towns, which have been lagging in growth, and a need for avoiding the existence of one-industry towns, even as part of a cluster of places.     

The Heat Balance of Forests and its Role in the Formation of the Microclimate of Wooded and Treeless Landscapes of the Moscow Region

The author describes the results of a field study designed to measure the relative effect of differences in the heat balance of wooded and treeless areas on the microclimate of these two vegetation types. Microclimatic differences are found to reflect the screening effect of tree vegetation with regard to solar radiation. The methodology of measurements is described and the additional factor of dissected relief is taken into consideration.     

对从面包中筛选酵母菌及其发酵特性的研究

目的 从野生酵母筛选出对可溶性糖产生既可氧化又可还原、并发生反式反应的酵母菌株,使其能应用于相关物质的生物合成.方法 对从面包中滋生出多种的野生菌落采用依形态、使易糖氧化为主要特征筛选出野生酵母菌落.结果 从3株野生菌株(JM1、JM2、JM3)中筛选出JM1,该菌株能使体内发生反式催化的氧化反应.结论 该菌株适宜的生长条件为:pH 5.5,温度28 ℃,最适碳源为葡萄糖,最佳氮源为蛋白胨,发酵时间36 h.在最适条件下,最终酒精度能达到9.8°.     

Syria's mutating civil war and its impact on Turkey,Iraq and Iran

Recent trends in the Syrian civil war have caused important shifts in alignment among neighbouring states. The conflict has exhibited a sharp turn towards ethno‐sectarian violence, fighting among rival factions of the opposition and loss of central command over peripheral districts. In conjunction with the rise of the radical Islamist movement called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, these developments precipitated a raging, multisided battle that spread across Syria's northeastern provinces, and sparked renewed sectarian conflict inside Turkey and Iraq. Turkey and Iran responded to the growing ethno‐sectarianization of the civil war by taking steps to conciliate the largely autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as well as one another. Rapprochement with the KRG alienated Turkey and Iran from Iraq, prompting Iraqi officials to step up military operations along the Syrian frontier. These moves set the stage for large‐scale intervention in Iraq by ISIL, which further weakened Iraq's positon in regional affairs. The resulting reconfiguration of relations accompanied a marked increase in belligerence by non‐state actors, most notably the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which buttressed Turkey's newfound ties to the Kurdistan Regional Government and Iran.     

The geographical and ethical origins of neoliberalism: The Walter Lippmann Colloquium and the foundations of a new geopolitical order

Observers tend to overlook the early neoliberalism that derived from the “Lippmann Colloquium” organised in Paris in 1938. Analysis of the discourse produced and books published at this founding moment shows that neoliberalism was then presented as a geopolitical doctrine aimed at redressing the spatial fragmentation of the world into States. The means to achieve this, according to this first neoliberalism, was by implementing what, in 1978, M. Foucault called “governmentality”: a multiscalar political system based on the submission of territories to the transnational discipline of a multilateral free division of labour. This thinking was very similar to the convictions of a number of political leaders who, from the 1940s onwards, were involved in creating a new international order uniting Western Europe and the United States, the foundations of which had many similarities with the principles of the first neoliberalism.     

Representation and identity - convergence of brain research and mind-brain philosophy

The localization or representation of mental abilities in the brain have always been considered as key questions for understanding the organization of the human nervous system. Particularly with the advent of modern electrophysiological and imaging techniques that provide maps of electromagnetic fields and metabolic processes on the living central nervous system, the representation theory is experiencing a scientific renaissance in neurology, but is only one theory, however, in the succession of a long philosophical tradition dealing with the possible identification of mental phenomena and brain processes. This dichotomy was formulated at the latest in the Cartesian dualism of res cogitans and res extensa of the mind-body problem. Nowadays philosophical discussion, on the contrary, is dominated by monistic concepts that attempt to explain the mental realm on an organic foundation in order not to succumb to the problem of a psychophysical dualism. Of these, the identity theory offers a philosophically plausible concept postulating that the identity of brain conditions and mental phenomena is based on organic foundations. In this theory, the efforts of brain research converge on the representations of mental phenomena in the human nervous system. In a comprehensive approach, both concepts could complement each other.     

The Impact of Economic Activity on Climate

The effect of human activity on climate is examined against the background of a rapid increase in the production of man-made heat, which is likely to reach a magnitude of the order of the natural radiation balance on the earth's surface. The microclimate of cities is particularly affected by the production of industrial heat and by the heating of buildings in winter. Deforestation of large areas in conjunction with the expansion of agriculture has an impact on climate. The impact of shelterbelts is analyzed in detail, together with the effect of irrigation, swamp drainage and the creation of large reservoirs.     

The little ice age in the Scottish Highlands and Islands: Documenting its human impact

This paper examines the Little Ice Age in the Scottish Highlands and Islands and uses documentary evidence to show its impact on the farm economy. It has three sections. The first examines how Highland climate may have changed during the Little Ice Age, and notes that increased storminess was probably as much a factor as lower annual mean temperatures. The second takes the most severe phase of the Little Ice Age, the Maunder Minimum, 1645–1715, and uses rests or eases of rent to show how it stressed the farm economy. The third examines evidence for the abandonment of land during the Maunder Minimum. As well as arguing that we need to see abandonment in its social as well as physical setting, it highlights the role played by the temporary abandonment of land and suggests that such abandonment along the western seaboard probably indicates the impact of increased storminess.