The Borda Count and its real-world alternatives: Comparing scoring rules in Nauru and Slovenia

This article examines strategic elements of voter behaviour in parliamentary elections where the voting method is a scoring rule other than plurality: the Borda Count, which is used for the election of ethnic minorities in Slovenia, and the Dowdall rule, which is used in the Pacific island state of Nauru in multi-seat districts. After first examining the general properties of scoring rules, and generating theoretical differences between the two rules, we look at empirical evidence from Nauru and Slovenia. This casts a doubt on predictions based simply on a voting rule's mathematical properties and on the accuracy of assumptions of sincere rank ordering.

本文研究了议会选举投票者行为的策略因素。议会选举中的投票方法是一个有别于多数法的计分法则：斯洛文尼亚少数族群选举使用的波达计数法;太平洋岛屿国家瑙鲁多席位选区使用的斗多尔法则。作者首先分析了计分法则的一般属性,并对两种法则做了理论区分。然后研究了瑙鲁和斯洛文尼亚的实证资料。作者对仅仅基于投票规则数学属性的预测以及有关纯粹排行假设的精确性表示了质疑。     

Between religion and nationalism in the Palestinian diaspora

This article examines Palestinian refugee articulations of the Palestinian homeland and struggle in relation to religion and nationalism. My contention is that the impact of Hamas's electoral victory in Palestine is visible within the discourse of Palestinians in Jordan. This discourse suggests a transformation of the meaning of Palestinian nationalism in which religion is taking an important albeit complex role in nationalism. Using the concept of intertwining, this article considers how Islam has been intertwined with Palestinian nationalism in ways that have privileged particular ideas about the national homeland and fight for liberation. While many suggest that Islamist politics is incompatible with nationalism, this article takes the local discourse of refugees and argues that Hamas and its supporters have yet to abandon the framework of nationalism, although certain tensions exist.     

Sequence Analysis of Grip and Manipulation During Tool Using Tasks: a New Method to Analyze Hand Use Strategies and Examine Human Specificities

Different factors may have coevolved with hand dexterity such as bipedalism, brain enlargement, language, and the production and use of stone technology. Prehistoric stone tools are thus probably one of the key elements to examine the origin and evolution of these essential functions during human evolution. To gain a better understanding of the variability of traces resulting from use found on stone tools or on the body of the user, to better infer past archaeological tools, and to assess what the tool-using human hand specificities are, it is essential to investigate and describe tool manipulation itself. Studies investigated this question but either focused on static finger postures during grasping, or involved complex kinematic model of the coordination of the fingers necessitating the pose of many markers on the hand excluding the application of the method on non-human species. Here, we propose a new method to describe and quantify the dynamic strategies of tool grip and manipulation without the need of markers. We tested this method on five human subjects who had to make bamboo points using flint flakes. Time-based sequence analysis allowed identifying and describing both consistency and variation among users and types of use depending on the observed variable (e.g., hand contact areas, repositioning). The method proved to be efficient and, to our knowledge, is the only available method to describe and quantify with such detailed level grip and manipulation as dynamic process in both human and non-human primates without high technical constraint.     

Polychromy Analysis on Cypriot Archaic Statues by Non‐ and Micro‐Invasive Analytical Techniques

The polychromy of limestone and terracotta statues from Cyprus attributed to the sixth to fifth centuries bc is analysed using non‐ and micro‐invasive techniques in order to shed light on the use of pigments during the studied period. The strengths and limitations of these methods for the present application are discussed. The identified pigments are iron‐containing compounds (red, yellow, green earths and iron–manganese black). No copper‐containing compounds were detected on the studied objects, despite the wide availability of copper minerals in Cyprus.