Proximity and the trust formation process

Trust is a key mechanism for explaining the ease and frequency of knowledge spillovers within regions. While the importance of trust is virtually uncontested, there have been few attempts to rigorously disentangle the way in which trust formation is related to space and proximity. The aim of this paper is to advance the understanding of trust formation in terms of its main antecedents within the context of regional studies. This is done by reviewing the rich literature on trust formation from psychology, sociology, and organization studies and connecting it conceptually to different types of proximity. In doing so, the paper maps out a number of avenues for future research on trust and geography.     

Morphological Characteristics of Healthy and Osteoarthritic Joint Surfaces in Archaeological Skeletons

Osteoarthritis is a major health concern in living populations, as well as being one of the most common pathological lesions identified in the archaeological record. The aetiology of the disease remains unclear, with a multi‐factorial influence of physical strain, age, genetics, and obesity. Previous studies have identified a relationship between the presence of knee osteoarthritis on the distal femoral joint and the morphology of the intercondylar notch, patellar groove, and medial condyle. The current study expands this research to investigate the relationship between distal femoral, distal humeral, and proximal ulnar joint morphology and osteoarthritis with 3D shape analysis techniques. These methods provide a more detailed analysis of joint morphology in order to determine any relationship between 3D shape and osteoarthritis. The results indicate a complex relationship between joint shape and knee osteoarthritis, with eburnated right femora showing a statistically significant association. The shapes associated with eburnated or affected femoral joints can be explained by osteophyte development, and therefore likely represent systematic shape changes and not a particular joint shape predisposing individuals to the condition. There was no identifiable relationship found in the proximal ulna or distal humerus, indicating that joint shape is unlikely to influence the development of the condition in the elbow joint and that any shape changes produced by osteoarthritis are not systematic or quantifiable. The joints analysed in this study were highly influenced by asymmetry, sexual dimorphism, and allometry, resulting in a small sample size of affected joints in many datasets. Further analyses of large skeletal samples are needed to more thoroughly investigate the possible relationship of distal femoral joint shape and osteoarthritis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Eurasian Economic Union: the geopolitics of authoritarian cooperation

Understanding cooperation among authoritarian regimes remains a puzzle for researchers; in particular, those working in post-Soviet Eurasia. Research suggests that autocrats are becoming increasingly coordinated in their efforts to thwart democracy, with authoritarian-led regional organizations offering an effective vehicle to extend autocrat time horizons. In contrast, older studies, including insights from failed regional integration among former Soviet states, suggest that the absence of democracy limits cooperation, although in both cases there is a lack of detail on the mechanisms enabling or constraining relations between autocrats. This article addresses this shortcoming by developing a theoretical framework based around autocrat survivability or “regime security” and applying it to the important case of the newly formed Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), drawing on original interview data with experts and stake-holders in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The argument forwarded in this article is that concerns over regime security create antagonistic cooperation drivers. In the case of the EAEU, regime security provides a strong explanation for the inability of member states to coordinate policy. The implication is that future studies should pay close attention to the way the material and ideational aspects of authoritarian rule combine to drive, but also limit relations between autocrats.     

POSTMODERNISM,SOCIAL SCIENCE,AND HISTORY: RETURNING TO AN UNFINISHED AGENDA

Recognizing that the vogue of postmodernism has passed, Simon Susen seeks to assess whatever enduring impact it may have had on the social sciences, including historiography. Indeed, the postmodern turn, as he sees it, seems to have had particular implications for our understanding of the human relationship with history. After five exegetical chapters, in which he seems mostly sympathetic to postmodernism, Susen turns to often biting criticism in a subsequent chapter. He charges, most basically, that postmodernists miss the self‐critical side of modernity and tend to overreact against aspects of modernism. That overreaction is evident especially in the postmodern preoccupation with textuality and discourse, which transforms sociology into cultural studies and historiography into a form of literature. But as Susen sees it, a comparable overreaction has been at work in the postmodern emphasis on new, “little” politics, concerned with identity and difference, at the expense of more traditional large‐scale politics and attendant forms of radicalism. His assessment reflects the “emancipatory” political agenda he assigns to the social sciences. Partly because that agenda inevitably affects what he finds to embrace and what to criticize, aspects of his discussion prove one‐sided. And he does not follow through on his suggestions that postmodernist insights entail a sort of inflation of history or historicity. Partly as a result, his treatment of “reason,” universal rights, and reality (including historiographical realism) betrays an inadequate grasp of the postmodern challenge—and opportunity. In the last analysis, Susen's understanding of the historical sources of postmodernism is simply too limited, but he usefully makes it clear that we have not put the postmodernist challenge behind us.     

“Soldiers of Christ” from the Byzantine Perspective: Monks,Emperors, and Conflict in the Early Byzantine Empire

This article is an exploration of concept of monks as “soldiers of Christ” in Byzantine Anatolia during the late sixth and early seventh centuries CE. Through a case study of Theodore of Sykeon, this article will explore monks as agents of continuity in the Byzantine Anatolia of the late sixth and early seventh centuries through Theodore's conflicts with the emperors, imperial authorities, and the regional episcopal hierarchy. The conflicts Theodore had with various authority figures of his time were about helping them see the right path of supporting Catholic orthodoxy as the normative belief system of Byzantine society and integrating his rural community of Sykeon into the wider web of imperial and episcopal urban patronage. Thus, conflict in this context was a catalyst for social order and stability rather than a symptom of social collapse. This article also fits into the historiography of the holy man as local patron in Late Antiquity, suggesting an alternate interpretation of this phenomenon as first put forward in Peter Brown's seminal works on this subject.     

1500 Years of Pottery: Neutron Activation Analysis of Northern Chilean Domestic Ceramics from Caleta Vitor and Clay Samples from Nearby Valley,Coast and Highland Contexts

This paper presents the findings arising from neutron activation analysis (NAA) of northern Chilean domestic ceramic samples from Caleta Vitor (n = 38) and clay samples (n = 15) from nearby valley, coast and highland contexts. This study presents the first NAA data set of ceramics spanning a temporal period of 1500 years (c.2000 to c.476 bp ) from the Vitor Valley as well as the first attempt to use NAA to characterize potential clay sources in the region. On the basis of this study, we argue that the majority of domestic ceramics from Caleta Vitor share compositional similarities with clay samples collected from nearby valleys, allowing us to infer that the Caleta Vitor populations primarily procured their clay for domestic ceramics from local sources throughout a 1500‐year period. Thus, despite the fact that there were inter‐regional interactions during this period that included the influence of powerful Andean polities, it would appear that domestic ceramics continued to be produced locally, and by implication it can be argued that such interactions did not substantially affect this sphere of material culture production. Further, the apparent continuities in domestic ceramic production allow us to reflect on local decision‐making processes throughout the cultural phases considered in this research.     

Review and assessment of the potential of post-IR IRSL dating methods to circumvent the problem of anomalous fading in feldspar luminescence

Quartz has been the main mineral used for optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of sediments over the last decade. The quartz OSL signal, however, has been shown to saturate at relatively low doses of ～200–400 Gy, making it difficult to be used for dating beyond about 200 thou-sand years (ka), unless the environmental dose rate is low. The infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) from feldspars has been shown to continue to grow to higher dose levels than quartz OSL. The application of IRSL dating of feldspars, however, has long been hampered by the anomalous fading effect. Recent progress in understanding anomalous fading of the infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) signals in potassium-feldspar has led to the development of post-IR IRSL (pIRIR) protocols and also a multiple elevated temperature (MET) stimulation (MET-pIRIR) protocol. These procedures have raised the prospect of isolating a non-fading IRSL component for dating Quaternary deposits containing feldspars. In this study, we review the recent progress made on (1) overcoming anomalous fading of feldspar, and (2) the development of pIRIR dating techniques for feldspar. The potential and problems associated with these methods are discussed.     

Study and restudy of curated skeletal collections in bioarchaeology: A perspective on the UK and the implications for future curation of human remains

This paper considers the bioarchaeological study and restudy of human skeletal remains in museums and other institutions that curate human remains from archaeological sites. Papers published from 1990 to 2009 in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Paleopathology, American Journal of Physical Anthropology and International Journal of Osteoarchaeology were considered and contributions dealing with skeletal remains from UK archaeological sites were assessed. There were 258 papers published that matched these criteria and 352 instances when a skeletal collection had been analysed. Seventy‐nine per cent of the papers were based on skeletal samples curated in five geographic areas, London, Bradford, Portsmouth, Canterbury and York; the two sites that were most used were those of Wharram Percy, North Yorkshire, curated in Portmouth at English Heritage, and Christ Church, Spitalfields, curated at the Natural History Museum, London. Reasons for this concentration of research are suggested. It is recommended that the ‘use load’ should be better and more evenly spread around skeletal samples in other geographic areas of the UK in order that knowledge is not limited just to a few skeletal collections, and that a centralised database of skeletal collections curated by different institutions would contribute to this aim. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.