Noninferior Bandwidth Line Simplification: Algorithm and Structural Analysis

Digital line simplification operators are an important preprocessing component of a spatial data handling system. Simplification operators are used to generalize digital line files because these files are encoded at one scale but the objects they represent can be displayed at many other scales. Most line simplification algorithms are heuristics that caricaturize lines by eliminating points representing redundant data or conversely retaining the characteristic points of a line that have a high informational content. This paper presents a noninferior simplification algorithm that produces an optimal caricature of an encoded line with respect to the bandwidth criterion that all deleted points must be within a prespecified distance of the simplified line. Results show that it is a practical alternative to existing bandwidth heuristics.     

Book reviews

Australian politics

L.F. Crisp, Federation Fathers (ed. John Hart: Studies in Australian Federation) (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1990) pp.xv + 484. $48.00 ISBN 0 522 84399 3.

I.M. Cumpston, Lord Bruce of Melbourne (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1989) pp.xviii + 291. $n.p. ISBN 0582 71274 2.

John Forster and John Wanna (eds.), Budgetary Management and Control (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1990) pp.vii + 206. $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 0332 7.

Hal L. Kendig and John McCallum (eds.), Grey Policy: Australian Policies for an Ageing Society (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1990) pp.xiii + 226. $19.95 ISBN 0 04 442129 X.

Chandran Kukathas, David W. Lovell and William Maley, The Theory of Politics: an Australian Perspective (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1990) pp.210 + vii. $15.99 ISBN 0 582 86806 8.

Scott Prasser, Rae Wear and John Nethercote (eds.), Corruption and Reform: The Fitzgerald Vision (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1990) pp.xvi + 267. $26.95 ISBN 0 7022 2234 8.

Kosmas Tsokhas, Markets, Money and Empire: The Political Economy of the Australian Wool Industry (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1990) pp.viii + 235. $29.95 ISBN 0 522 84417 0.

Comparative and international politics

Abdullahi Ahmed An‐Na'im and Francis M. Deng (eds.), Human Rights in Africa: Cross‐Cultural Perspectives (Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990) pp.xv + 399. $36.95 ISBN 0 8157 1796 2.

Thomas A. Baylis, Governing by Committee. Collegial Leadership in Advanced Societies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989) pp.236. $n.p. ISBN0 88706 944 4.

George C. Edwards III with Alec M. Gallup Presidential Approval: A Sourcebook (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1990) pp.viii + 214. $US40.50 ISBN 0 8018 4085 6.

Kristian Gerner and Stefan Hedlund, Ideology and Rationality in the Soviet Model: A legacy for Gorbachev (London: Routledge, 1989) pp.xii + 455. $n.p. ISBN 0 415 02142 1.

John A. Hall (ed.), States in History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) pp.vi + 317. $39.95 ISBN 0 631 17136 3.

M.D. Hancock, West Germany: The Politics of Democratic Corporatism (N.J.: Chatham House, 1989) pp.v + 186. $US12.95 ISBN 0 934540 54 3.

Christine Jennett and Randal G. Stewart (eds.), Politics of the Future: the role of social movements (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1989) pp.xi + 471. $34.95 ISBN 0 333 50222 1.

Peter Jennings, The Armed Forces of New Zealand and the Anzus Split: Costs and Consequences (Aukland: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988) pp.xi + 108. $NZ12.00 ISBN 0 908772 04 1.

Ihor Kamenetsky (ed.) The Tragedy of Vinnytsia; materials on Stalin's policy of extermination in Ukraine during the great purge, 1936–1938 (Toronto: Ukrainian Historical Association, 1989) pp.xviii + 265. $n.p.

Martin Laffin, Managing Under Pressure (Hampshire and London: Macmillan, 1989) pp.xvi + 207. $24.95 ISBN 0 333 44660 7.

Brij V. Lal, Power and Prejudice: The Making of the Fiji Crisis (Auckland: New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, 1988)

Garry Rodan, The Political Economy of Singapore's Industrialisation: National State and International Capital (London: Macmillan, 1989) pp.266. £35.00 ISBN 0 333 47079 6.

Richard Scase (ed.), Industrial Societies: Crisis and Division in Western Capitalism and State Socialism (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989) pp.xi + 260. $29.95 ISBN 0–04–301303–1.

G.A. Wood, Governing New Zealand (Auckland: Longman Paul, 1988) pp.ix + 164. $NZ16.95 ISBN 0 582 71822 8.

Political theory and methodology

J.M. Barbalet, Citizenship: Rights, Struggle and Class Inequality (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1988) pp.119. £5.95 ISBN 0 335 15570 7.

Peter Calvert, Revolution and Counter‐Revolution (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990) pp.vi + 90. $24.95 ISBNO 335 15397 6.

Cynthia Farrar, The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The invention of politics in classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp.x + 301. $42.50 ISBN 0 521 37584 3.

Norman Geras, Discourses of Extremity: Radical Ethics and Post‐Marxist Extravagances (London: Verso, 1990) pp.xiii + 171. $29.95 ISBN 0 86091 980 3.

Barry Hindess (ed.), Reactions to the Right (London: Routledge, 1990) pp.viii + 193. $32.95 ISBN 0 415 03385 3.

Margot Light, The Soviet Theory of International Relations (Brighton: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1988) pp.vi + 376. $n.p. ISBN 0 7450 0556 X.

Joseph McCarney, Social Theory and the Crisis of Marxism (London: Verso, 1990) pp.x+217. $29.95 ISBN 0–86091–948‐X.

John Morrow, Coleridge's Political Thought: Property, Morality and the Limits of Traditional Discourse (London: Macmillan, 1990) pp. xi + 215. £29.50 ISBN 0 333 51192 1.

Peter P. Nicholson, The Political Philosophy of the British Idealists: Selected Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) pp.x + 359. $135.00 ISBN 0 521 37102 3.

Stuart Schram, The Thought of Mao Tse‐tung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) pp.242. $30.50 ISBN 0 521 32549 8.

Arthur Seldon, Capitalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990) pp.xiii + 419. $45.00 ISBN 0 631 12558 2.     

British Students at the International Lenin School: The Vindication of a Critique

This paper is a response to the rejoinder by Gidon Cohen andKevin Morgan to a critique of their article on British studentsat the International Lenin School (ILS) in Moscow which appearedin a recent issue of Twentieth Century British History. It developsthe criticism of their data and research methods, and the revisedresults and conclusions they derive from them, while takingissue with their approach to historical argument. It demonstratesthat the presence of ILS graduates in leading positions in theCommunist Party of Great Britain and in the apparatus of theparty did not, as they insist, disappear after 1943, but persistedinto the 1950s.     

Civiliser en Grèce Ancienne Adoucir la Nature et Naturaliser la Force

Ancient Greeks had neither a single notion nor a single word to express the idea of civilization. As a process of living since the origins, civilization appears as a serie of acquisitions or losses that lead to an ambivalent human condition. As a state, it is a blend of three factors: a diet and an education that tame nature; a legal political system and just foreign politics. But in the Greek language, the same word expresses a political system and domination (archê). Dionysius of Halicarnassus by speaking of the Roman domination as a just and natural phenomena, makes it a civilizing power.     

Resource Intensification and Resource Depression in the Pacific Northwest of North America: A Zooarchaeological Review

In the Pacific Northwest of North America, researchers routinely suggest changes in human use of animals explain hunter-gatherer organizational changes and development of cultural complexity. For example, most models developed to explain developing cultural complexity invoke salmon in some fashion. Yet until recently, fish remains were not carefully studied and more generally, zooarchaeological evidence has not been systematically used to test models of culture change. This study reviews the 10,000-year-old faunal record in the Pacific Northwest to test predictions drawn from models of resource intensification, resource depression and hunter-gatherer organizational strategies. The records from two subareas, the South-Central Northwest Coast (Puget Sound/Gulf of Georgia) and the Northern Columbia Plateau, are examined in detail, representing 63 archaeological sites. While minor changes in animal use are evident, the overall record is characterized by stability rather than change.