Assessing efforts to mitigate the impacts of drainage on wetlands in Ontario, Canada

The protection of wetlands through the Ontario Drainage Act has been the subject of much debate. While seen as essential for increasing production and/or productivity of agricultural areas, drainage schemes have been usually approved at the expense of wetlands. Despite the presence of a referral process in Ontario's Drainage Act that is supposed to prevent the significant loss of wetland area, incremental losses continue to occur. The referral process allows landowners, drainage engineers, Drainage Superintendents, local conservation authorities and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resource officials to participate in the decision-making process. This research examines the recommended mitigation measures and wetland gains/losses in Zorra Township between 1978 and 1997. Data sources included drainage files, wetland evaluation files, aerial photography and interviews with government officials. The results indicate that while recommended mitigation measures of drainage schemes in the vicinity of wetlands have increased, incremental losses continue to occur. The negotiated settlements among drainage engineers and the referral agencies appear to be inadequate to maintain the spatial extent of wetlands. The regulatory approach fails to motivate changes in land-use management practices. This supports the need to include nonregulatory incentives in the effort to protect wetlands.     

Third Wave Evangelism and the Politics of the Global in Papua New Guinea: Spiritual Warfare and the Recreation of Place in Telefolmin

Third Wave pentecostalist theology envisages a global struggle against satanic forces as ‘spiritual warfare.’ Here I examine an instance of spiritual warfare that targeted the village of Telefolip as part of a national campaign. Embracing evangelical doctrines of the dependence of ‘physical development’ on ‘spiritual development,’ villagers burned ancestral relics and purport to have found ‘uranium gas’ on the site of a former spirit house. This discovery is held to be full of promise for the future: as a valuable (if imaginary) resource in Israel's struggles, uranium gas offers villagers wealth and a means of asserting local centrality in global terms. I conclude by arguing that an understanding of the conjunction of spiritual warfare's aims with villagers' hopes for a place in the world beyond the village is crucial to analyzing the dynamics of pentecostalist world‐breaking and world‐making.     

Bayesian Estimation of Regional Production for CGE Modeling

Abstract Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models are often criticized for using restrictive functional forms and relying on external sources for parameter values in their calibration. CGE modelers argue that in many instances reliable econometric estimates of important model parameters are unavailable because they must be estimated using small numbers of time‐series observations. To address these criticisms, this paper uses a Bayesian approach to estimate the parameters of a translog production function in a regional computable general equilibrium model. Using priors from more reliable national estimates, and parameter restrictions required by neoclassical production theory, estimation is done by Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. A stylized regional CGE model is then used to contrast policy responses of a Cobb‐Douglas specification with those from the estimated translog equation.     

城郊开发区建设对东道区域地方性消解的影响研究——以长沙经济技术开发区为例

我国的城郊开发区普遍缺乏地方特色,在招商引资中易陷入低水平恶性竞争的困境,急需通过增强地方性来促进开发区的持续健康发展。基于空间生产的相关理论和对长沙经济技术开发区的实地调研,本文初步探讨了城郊开发区建设对东道区域地方性消解的机理。研究表明,城郊开发区建设主要是资本主导下的空间生产过程,主要生产可复制、可交换的同质空间,因而会消解东道区域的地方性,这在调研中突出表现为当地居民对新的空间缺乏深厚的认同和依恋。为此,有必要尊重当地人的发展需求,更好保护东道区域独特的自然环境和地方文化,从而把开发区塑造成具有地方特色的"宜业宜居"空间,以增强开发区的特色竞争力和持续发展能力。     

地名变迁中的文化政治阐释——以从化温泉为例

最近三十年出现的地名研究的批判性转向,使地方命名的政治过程成为地名研究的核心议题。在此背景下通过从化温泉这一著名旅游地的地名变更过程的研究,对我国地名变迁的政治进行探讨。研究发现,一个地方的命名是一场复杂的政治经济角力过程。"从化温泉"这一地名在历史的演变中拥有了令人瞩目的"符号资本"价值,成为中国政治体制中不同尺度行动者积极争取的对象。处于上层尺度的行动者通过政治事件与营销不断累积"从化温泉"的政治符号意义,使其成为国家尺度的地方范畴。而处于下层的地方政府则通过地名转移使用赋予"从化温泉"以新的地方意义。在这场围绕地名的争夺中,地方社区与地名的历史联系被边缘化甚至消除。     

THE RELIGION—the Gthen Way of Exessian of the Human,Ghast and Dininity

In the outer circle of the Barkor Street,Lhasa City of Tibet,a gallery named as＂Art Gallery of Traditional Handcrafts＂is located,specializing by making clay sculptures and masks. Surprisingly,two artisans have the same name as Penpa who are working for this gallery.For the sake of easily identifying them, people are used to calling the elder one as senior Penpa,and the young one as junior Penpa.Their common perspective might be that they both have already worked for making masks for 12 years.They,by     

明代"九边"镇守内官考论

"镇守内官"是明代边疆军事管理体制的独特现象.永乐朝内官出镇边地,具有复杂的历史背景.虽然内官久已经营一地,但"镇守"的名义则可能自仁宗始,这是对前朝内官"理边"旧制的一种承认与固定.到宣德时,除了设立较晚的延绥镇,其他八边都已差派内官镇守,但镇守内官的职权却大大收缩.由于内官身份的特殊性,其腐败对边镇造成的负面影响也更强烈.随着文官势力的扩张以及"九边"完善的统治体系的建立,内官存在的政治基础也逐渐消失.在经历了正德朝的动荡之后,这项制度最终没能逃脱被裁革的命运.     

A multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental investigation of the findspot of an Iron Age bog body from Oldcroghan,Co. Offaly,Ireland

In 2003, the remains of an Early Iron Age bog body, known as ‘Oldcroghan Man’, were recovered during the cutting of a drainage ditch in a bog in the Irish Midlands. Only some fingernails and a withe fragment remained undisturbed in situ in the drain face, providing the sole evidence for the original position of the body. A detailed reconstruction of the depositional context of the body has been undertaken through multi-proxy analyses of a peat monolith collected at the findspot. The palynological record shows that the surrounding area was the focus of intensive human activity during the Later Bronze Age, but was largely abandoned during the Bronze Age–Iron transition in the mid-first millennium BC. In the mid-4th century BC, a bog pool developed at the site, evidenced in the stratigraphic, plant macrofossil, testate amoebae and coleopteran records. Plant macrofossil and pollen analysis of peat samples associated with the fingernails suggests that the body was deposited in this pool most likely during the 3rd century BC. The absence of carrion beetle fauna points to complete submergence of the body within the pool. Deposition occurred shortly before or around the time that the surrounding area again became the focus of woodland clearance, as seen in the extended pollen record from the peat monolith. This period corresponds to the Early Iron Age in Ireland, during which renewed cultural connections with Britain and continental Europe can be seen in the archaeological record and widespread forest clearance is recorded in pollen records from across Ireland. The palaeoenvironmental results indicate, therefore, that the demise of Oldcroghan Man took place at a pivotal time of socio-economic and perhaps political change.     

Woman and Violence in Artistic Discourse of the Russian Revolution and Civil War (1917–1922)

This article examines visual and literary representations of violence against women produced during the period. The image of a woman suffering from violence is presented from different points of view in literary art works of the Revolution and Civil War time. It was created and circulated among Red and White camps mainly in accordance with the task of propaganda bodies. Among the object of violence there are allegoric women's figures, symbolising Russia, revolution, freedom, well‐known heroines from literature, historic personages and contemporary women – ordinary victims of civil confrontation and direct participants of the Revolution and war. Men or symbols traditionally personifying masculine origin were nearly always the perpetrators of violence, and the image of the female victim was exploited for the strong emotions it evoked. In most cases physical violence against women was treated as anomaly. But the control of the regime over the woman's emotional sphere had become a standard everywhere.