Cross-Border M&As and the Changing Economic Geography of Europe

This study investigates the patterns of corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&As) involving firms located in the EU25 as well as in the four EFTA countries between 1998 and 2003. Against the background of a reflection on the concept of the firm in economic geography, it uncovers the cross-border balance of M&As across European states and identifies the factors that may explain the levels and patterns of corporate takeovers across Europe. The results indicate that the traditional motives of access to new and core markets, the effects of geographical proximity, and the internalisation of localised capabilities (proxied by a skilled and innovative labour pool) represent the key drivers of European M&As, while institutional factors, such as European integration or language barriers, appear to be less influential.     

Introduction: cultural policies in Ibero-America at the beginning of the XXI century

ABSTRACT

This editorial introduction presents the aims and contents of a special issue devoted to cultural policies in Ibero-America. The issue provides a wide-ranging overview about the subject. In addition to papers focused on the development of cultural policy in specific countries, it also includes articles analyzing particular cultural policies in a transnational perspective, paying attention to their multiple programmatic transferences. It also includes articles centred on the development of cultural diplomacy and institutional networks within this area. In this way, it intends to highlight the commonalities among countries and the relations between them, so offering a new and deeper vision of the development of cultural policies in the Ibero American region. In this introduction we offer some theoretical keys for analyzing this development, in particular the notion of family of nations proposed by Castle (1993) and we evaluate its applicability to the case and beyond.     

La Espiral Cave (Cuba): Guano and signs of Plant Substances Used as Paint Ingredients

At La Espiral cave, located in Bahia Honda municipality (Artemisa province, Cuba), there are several pictographs, including two of particular importance due to the design used: one of concentric circles and another of a spiral. We analyzed the pigments and binders used in one of these pictographs. The chemical ingredients of the paint are considered in this article, as well as the use of bat guano as a major pigment compound. The apparent presence of ellagic acid, ellagitannin, or anthocyanins would strengthen the hypothesis that artists used vegetable protein as a paint binder or solvent.     

Beyond Adornment: Cowry Use as Potter's Tool in the First Impressed Wares of the Southwestern Mediterranean Coast (Northern Morocco)

The use of seashells for the decoration of pottery from the sixth millennium cal BC is well known in the western Mediterranean, with the emergence of so-called Cardial Pottery. Actually, the most discussed issue up until now has been the use of bivalves for impressed decoration. However, the experimental approach followed in the present study provides for the first time clear evidence for the utilization of a very specific group of shells as tools for the decoration of some of the early pottery productions in northwest Africa. In particular, we propose the use of cowry, a gastropod family with a well-known ideological and symbolic role in many human cultures around the world. Also, it is suggested that cowry was used for making impressed wares on the opposite European shore. The implications for reconstruction of Neolithic diffusion along both the European and African coasts of the Mediterranean are of great significance.     

Chance,Creativity, and the Discovery of the Nerve Growth Factor

This essay analyzes the history of the Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) discovery, relating some of the principles of the theory of scientific creativity to the cognitive and personal qualities of the scientists that participated in the discovery, particulary Rita Levi-Montalcini and Viktor Hamburger. The discovery of NGF is especially attractive for the history of science as it involves chance, luck, creativity, and some extraordinary scientists.     

The cultural paradiplomacy of Barcelona since the 1980s: understanding transformations in local cultural paradiplomacy

This article seeks to explain the conditions for the emergence and institutionalization of the cultural paradiplomacy of the city of Barcelona and its local effects. The recognition of the city as an active participant on the international stage is based on its evolution from an industrial to a service economy. Against this backdrop, Barcelona’s city council, in common with many other city authorities operating in the world’s metropolises during the 1980s, initiated its own cultural paradiplomacy as a strategy for attracting capital and promoting local development. This policy became established as part of a new multilevel system of governance. This article analyzes the causes of the institutionalization of this activity from an intergovernmental perspective. It concludes that in the context of economic globalization, the emergence of cities’ cultural paradiplomacy is strongly related to the restructuring of the State and its external administration and to the intensification of the ‘cultural branding’ of cities as a tool for global competition.     

The Structure and Chemical Composition of Wall Paintings From Islamic and Christian Times in the Seville Alcazar

Wall paintings from the Islamic epoch (10th to 12th centuries) and the Christian monarchy (14th to 16th centuries) have been recovered in discarded materials and on walls after reconstruction works in the Seville Alcazar. These paintings have spent centuries underground or under a plaster coat. Portable X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) and combined XRF/X‐ray diffraction (XRD) were employed in situ, as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM–EDX), grazing angle incidence XRD and micro‐Raman spectroscopy, on cross‐section samples to fully characterize the materials in the wall paintings. Using these methods, the fresco technique was demonstrated, and many kinds of pigments were identified in accordance with the various periods of the history of the Alcazar, thus assessing the authenticity of all the wall paintings studied here.