An Evolutionary View of Policy Network Management

This paper examines successful policy network (henceforth PN) practices in the Basque Country over an 18-year period, in relation to Cluster Associations, Quality Promotion and Local Agenda 21 Promotion. Basing our work on the Basque experience and on previous multi-disciplinary knowledge regarding learning processes, networking management and marketing, we contribute new insights that help to understand how PN management evolves. The need to analyse PN from an evolutionary perspective has been pinpointed by the various traditions of network research as one of the main gaps in the study of networking. Our research shows that expertise in PN management is generated through a long, performance-oriented dilemma-solving process that takes place in time and space. The first experiences provide initial knowledge and absorptive capacity, both of which improve through new and diverse experiences of increasing complexity. Step by step, a quantity of tacit and codified knowledge is created and shared, mainly through face-to-face contact, within the territory. Finally, the knowledge achieved is substantially similar to the normative knowledge that, though sparse, can be found in various networking literatures and needs to be brought together. But we also suggest that more emphasis on PN marketing is needed.     

Concordant <Superscript>210</Superscript>Pb and <Superscript>137</Superscript>Cs ages of black sea anoxic unconsolidated sediments

Two independent geochronologic radiometric methods: ¹³⁷Cs and ²¹⁰Pb were used to determine the sedimentation rate and subsequently to date the oldest sediments of a 50 cm core containing unconsolidated sediments collected at a depth of 600 m below sea surface in the anoxic zone of the Western Black Sea, off the Romanian town of Constanta. Both methods gave coincident value within experimental uncertainties of 0.42±0.20 mm·y⁻¹ for ¹³⁷Cs and 0.49±0.03 mm·y⁻¹ in the case of ²¹⁰Pb, within the Constant Initial Concentration model, which gave for the lower most sediments an age of 1.00±0.01 ka. The constant sedimentation model as well as the possible causes of observed discrepancy between experimental uncertainties are discussed.     

Trees and shrubs: the use of wood in prehispanic Teotihuacan

Charcoal recovered from different archaeological excavations carried out in the Teotihuacan Valley, México was used to evaluate whether significant changes in the use of wood took place through time (approx. 400 B.C.–A.D. 1500). Sixteen taxa of trees and shrubs characteristic of the Basin of Mexico were identified (including Pinus, Quercus, Arbutus, Cupressaceae, Alnus, Prunus, Taxodium, Salix, Baccharis and Buddleia, among others). Variations in the proportions of taxa are interpreted as a reflection of the intensity of use rather than an indicator of deforestation. The analysis of the data shows a pattern of continuity in the utilization of taxa throughout the occupation. This includes the use of different vegetative parts (trunk and branches), genera and species with different life forms (trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants) and primary (Pinus and Quercus) as well as secondary taxa (Prunus and Arbutus). We propose that the inhabitants of the Teotihuacan Valley implemented practices to manage vegetation in order to assure resource availability in the region.     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.     

Environmental Performance of the Assembly Plants Industry in the North of Mexico

The northern border of Mexico, a region with great tradition and rooting of the assembly plants industry, outstands by its specialization in the processing of electronic products and automobile parts. Also, this industry outstands by restructuring its techno‐productive capabilities derived from its integration with North America, which has aroused the interest about the resulting environmental problems. As depository of direct foreign investment, this region demands to design efficient mechanisms for an environmental management actively involving all the local actors. The deepness of liberalization of the Mexican economy has not been a condition for Mexico to specialize itself in “dirty” industries because since the North America Free Trade Agreement has taken effect, it is favoring less polluting industries as this is compliant of the environmental regulations, which are determined by the cooperation among companies and government through inspection and promotion of voluntary self‐management programs and through the environmental policy imposed by the corporation to its affiliates by means of quality and environmental international certifications (ISO 9001, 9002, 14001, and 14002). The objective of this work is to analyze the environmental performance of foreign companies operating under the assembly plants industry regime, considering the relationship between industrial upgrading and environmental performance.     

Regional Network for Quality Promotion: A Case-study of the Basque Country

Quality promotion as a means of improving competitiveness is a major objective in many countries. This paper examines successful practices in the Basque Country over an 11-year period, with a view to shedding light on the theoretical literature. Research on policy networks has produced useful results but we are still some way from a plausible, consensus-based theory of policy networks. Based on experience in the Basque Country, an integrated approach to understanding the antecedents and consequences of a regional knowledge-driven network for quality promotion is offered. Other regions in developing countries could use this approach to achieve successful policy networks. Although Total Quality Management implementation in public sector entities has been studied before, evidence about Regional Quality Promotion experiences is scarce.     

Spatial Patterns in the Association between the Prevalence of Asthma and Determinants of Health

The World Health Organization endorses the study of diseases from the perspective of the Determinants of Health (DH), that is, the circumstances in which people are born and raised, the environment in which they grow up and age and their lifestyle. The aim of this study is to analyze the spatial behavior of the prevalence of asthma in Aragon, a Mediterranean region in Spain, under the DH approach. The methodological process entailed building a spatial database collating asthma prevalence as dependent variable, and lifestyle, socioeconomic, and climate indicators as explanatory factors, and then evaluating the spatial variability of the relationships by combining the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) models and cartographic design techniques. MGWR evidenced spatially varying relationships operating at different scales. Lifestyles seem closely tied to the prevalence of asthma in most of the study area while urban functionality and local climate patterns seem to boost prevalence rates in some specific enclaves. Consequently, the social and environmental conditions that characterize the study area translate into several DH scenarios modulating the spatial distribution of asthma. This differential DH behavior detected by local regression models is relevant to guiding and refining public health decision-making.     

The Landscape Archaeology of Southwest Sardinia Project: New Data and Method from the Insular Mediterranean

Sardinia has played a vital integrative role in the Holocene Mediterranean, most notably—although not only—as a key locus in emergent maritime “Mediterraneanization” and as an object of contestation among mainland polities over the last three millennia. Yet, despite the florescence of Mediterranean survey archaeology, this standard method has only been sparsely employed in Sardinia, with a pronounced focus on large, urban, coastal sites. Accordingly, we have little understanding of the ebb and flow of human settlement in the Sardinian interior. This represents a significant lacuna in the study of Mediterranean archaeology and history. Here, we report data from the first two seasons of the Landscape Archaeology of Southwest Sardinia (LASS) Project, a multidisciplinary project designed to correct this bias and to investigate how episodic integration into—but also disintegration from—larger economic and political structures drove sociocultural and socioeconomic change in southwestern Sardinia over the Mid-Late Holocene.     

Dealing with Sustainability Trade-Offs of the Compact City in Peri-Urban Planning Across European City Regions

The compact city has become a leading concept in the planning of peri-urban areas. The compact city concept is often advocated as “sustainable” because of claims that include lower emissions and conservation of the countryside. The literature shows, however, that there are certain trade-offs in striving for compaction, especially between environmental and social aspects of sustainability. In this article, we describe expressions of the compact city concept in the planning practice of several European urban sample regions, as well as policies and developments that contradict the compact city. We look at examples of positive and negative impacts of the compact city that were observed in the sample regions. Further, we discuss attempts by planners to deal with sustainability trade-offs. Being aware that developments in the peri-urban areas are closely connected to those in the inner city, we compare the sample regions in order to learn how the compact city concept has been used in planning peri-urban areas across different contexts in Europe: in Western, Central and Mediterranean Europe, and with growing, stable or declining populations. We conclude with recommendations with respect to balance in applying the compact city concept.