The Foreign Policymaking Role of Congress in the 1990s: Remote Sensing Technology and the Future of Congressional Power

In the midst of a period of Congressional assertiveness on foreign policy, a new technology has emerged for commercial use with the potential for enhancing Congress' information-gathering processes and agenda-setting role. The effect may alter the balance of power in the relationship between Congress and the President. Congress' access to news media stories of imagery may provide an independent information source on U.S. or foreign military installations and activities. Such a source could be utilized to assess issues such as Pentagon appropriations, treaty compliance, and foreign aid funding. The thesis of this article is that when interest groups and the news media use remote sensing imagery on foreign policy issues, the foreign and national security policymaking process will be transformed by enhancing the information status and the public agendasetting role of previously excluded segments such as interest groups, the news media, and the general public. The expanded role of these groups will decentralize decisionmaking by fragmenting power and likely restructure the relationship between the Congress and the executive over these policy areas during the 1990s.     

Spatial Distribution of Trees and Landscapes of the Past: A Mixed Spatially Correlated Multinomial Logit Model Approach for the Analysis of the Public Land Survey Data

Public Land Survey (PLS) data have been widely used in landscape studies of forest and woodlands in the pre‐ and early‐European‐settled Midwestern and Western United States. We aim to reconstruct presettlement forest vegetation at a finer spatial resolution than available from the PLS data using environmental covariates (slope, aspect, geology, and soil type) and the spatially correlated structure of witness tree data. To accommodate various data obtained from multiple sources while explicitly taking into account their spatial structures, we adopt a mixed spatially correlated multinomial logit model within the framework of a generalized linear mixed model. The application of the proposed model is illustrated using the three most abundant tree taxa from PLS data in the Arbuckle Mountains of south‐central Oklahoma. To assess the influence of each source of information on the spatial prediction, we considered four variant multinomial/spatial models and evaluated their relative predictive power using a validation technique. The probabilistic information about the spatial distribution of tree species obtained from different models reveals the need to integrate information about witness tree data as well as environmental covariates, and the nature of tree species; that is, a tendency to cluster in space to share environmental conditions in the reconstruction of the presettlement forest vegetation surface. Los datos sobre el uso y cobertura de tierras del Public Land Survey (PLS) han sido utilizados ampliamente en estudios de paisaje de bosques y de bosques históricos para periodo previo al asentamiento de migrantes europeos en el medio oeste y oeste de los Estados Unidos. Nuestro objetivo es reconstruir la vegetación forestal previa al asentamiento europeo a una resolución espacial más fina que la disponible actualmente en base a datos del PLS, usando covariables ambientales (pendiente, orientación, geología y tipo de suelo) y la estructura de correlación espacial de los datos de los árboles testigos. Para dar cabida a los diversos datos obtenidos de fuentes múltiples, y a la vez teniendo en cuenta explícitamente sus estructuras espaciales, adoptamos un modelo logit multinomial espacial mixto dentro del marco de los modelos mixtos lineales generalizados (GLMM). La aplicación del modelo propuesto es ilustrada con los tres tipos más abundantes de árboles según los datos del PLS para las montañas de Arbuckle en el centro‐sur de Oklahoma, EEUU. Para evaluar la influencia de cada fuente de información sobre la predicción espacial, se consideraron cuatro variantes de los modelos multinomial y espaciales. El poder predictivo de dichos modelos fue evaluado en relación con una técnica de validación. La información probabilística acerca de la distribución espacial de las especies de árboles obtenidos a partir de los diferentes modelos revela que para la reconstrucción de la superficie de la vegetación forestal histórica, es necesario integrar la información sobre los datos de árboles testigos así como las covariables ambientales y la naturaleza de las especies de árboles: es decir, la tendencia de los arboles a agruparse en el espacio para compartir las mismas condiciones ambientales. 公共土地调查(PLS)数据在欧洲人定居美国中西部和西部地区之前以及早期的森林和林地景观研究中得到广泛应用。本文旨在利用环境协变量（坡度、坡向、地貌和土地类型）证据树数据的空间关联结构,重建比PLS数据中更有效的更精细空间分辨率的前殖民期森林植被。为集成多种来源的各类数据,并明确地考虑数据间的空间结构,本文在广义线性混合模型(GLMM)框架下提出了混合空间关联多项Logit模型。以俄克拉荷马州中南部的阿尔布克尔山脉为研究区,提取PLS数据中三种最丰富的树种对模型进行验证。为估计每种信息来源对模型空间预测准确性的影响,本文考虑了4种变异的多项/空间模型并运用验证技术评估它们的相对预测能力。从不同模型获得的树种空间分布的概率信息表明,需要对证据树数据、环境协变量和树种自然属性信息进行集成,也就是说,在重建前殖民期森林植被曲面时,空间上的集聚趋势共享了环境条件。     

On Salisbury Cathedral

Abstract

In his last will and testament, dated January 1514, Sir Henry Vernon detailed his intent that a chapel should be founded at the collegiate church of St Bartholomew at Tong, as a final resting place for himself and his wife, and as a chantry for the souls of his family. Completed, it seems, by early 1519, the form of the chapel and its decoration indicates that Sir Henry was commemorated in the artistic language of the very finest contemporary chantry projects. Indeed, a number of the chapel's features are directly copied from the most illustrious of all late medieval chantries: Henry VII's chapel at Westminster Abbey. The chapel, physically and institutionally, also offers insight into the nature of late medieval piety. Unusually, the foundation makes no explicit charitable provision, long established as a central element of the contemporary doctrine of salvation. Yet the chantry-chapel was a physical and institutional appendage to a 'family' mausoleum, whose collegiate function had a strong charitable element. As such, the chapel suggests that, although chantries and tombs were themselves intensely personal, spiritual legacies were viewed in the same way as territorial interests: as inherited familial institutions, which could and should be augmented, rather than enterprises by, and limited to, individuals. In short, through its location, form and decorative scheme, the chapel demonstrates that, whilst numbering in their hundreds by the Reformation, such chapels were far from simply formulaic expressions of piety. Rather, they could serve as the vehicle for the creation of a very specific identity for the chapel's founder.     

Archaeology advances?

Michael B. Schiffer, ed. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, New York: Academic Press, 1981, 1982, 1983. Vol. IV, xii + 443 pp., $38.00; Vol. V, xiii + 478 pp., $42.00; Vol. VI, xiii + 359 pp., $37.50; Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory: Selections for Students from Volumes 1 through 4, New York: Academic Press, 1982, xiv + 690 pp., $19.95