Depressions and elevations of the southern archipelagoes of chile

The post‐war employment changes on Clydeside: the continued decline of the traditional industries, the slow expansion of the new growth industries, and the relative lack of change in the employment .structure of the conurbation. The effect of the employment changes on the pattern of industrial distribution in the conurbation in the light of a number of factors such as the availability of land, the City of Glasgow's redevelopment and overspill policies, the immigration of new firms, the outward movement of population, ‘and the role of central government policy. The possibility of changing circumstances resulting from more recent increased levels of redevelopment and the availability in the “centre of the conurbation of larger amounts of developable land on privately operated industrial estates.     

Industrial districts and migrant enclaves: a model of interaction

So far, the relationship between Industrial Districts (IDs; clusters of interconnected local industries) and migrant enclaves (areas with a high concentration of international migrants from a single nationality) has been studied mostly by focusing on the emergence of ‘ethnic enclave economies’ within the district and/or by highlighting racist conflicts that achieved notoriety in the media. In this study, we contend that there is a more general and complex interaction between the two phenomena. This interaction is mediated by the local context, national regulations, and the organization of the international market, among other factors. By focusing on the case of the ceramic ID of Castelló de la Plana (Spain), we show how this ID with a high rate of job formality, combined with other job opportunities and a unique ‘institutional completeness’, set up the conditions for a non-conflictive Romanian migrant enclave that reached 14% of the town’s total population in 2012. Finally, and also considering another case study of ID and migrant enclave (Prato, and its Chinese enclave), we suggest a model of interaction that should be interpreted taking into account the general dynamics of the international organization of value and the requirements of flexibility and reduction of costs that frame IDs.     

The Political Economy of Housing Investment in the Short-Term Rental Market: Insights from Urban Portugal

Short-term rentals (STRs) emerged as holiday accommodations, disrupting the hospitality industry in the decade before COVID-19. Mainstream explanations for their growth revolved around digital tourism platforms like Airbnb as market disruptors and the sharing economy rationale. At the same time, critical scholars explored the capitalisation of greater rent gaps in urban central locations. However, these explanations are insufficient to explain the growth of STRs. We supplement them by building bridges between the urban political economy and the geographies of financialisation through the cases of Lisbon and Porto before the pandemic. The paper focuses on tourism-induced housing investment, taking a closer look at the profile of investors in association with STR property managers in the context of the late-entrepreneurial urban regime. We conclude that tourism development has allowed opportunities for housing financialisation through STR professionalisation, enhancing the allocation of interest-bearing capital in tourism-oriented real estate.     

Archaeological Quantification of Pottery: The Rims Count Adjusted using the Modulus of Rupture (MR)

Archaeological quantification is a recurrent issue in research about pottery, its typologies and its distribution. We accept the validity of other methods of quantification—sherd count, minimum number of individuals (MNI) or sherd weight—but the methodology that we have proposed for quantification of assemblages of archaeological contexts is the rims count, which has to be transformed into coefficients of reference through a correction using the modulus of rupture (MR). Such correctors are obtained through measuring the percentage of preserved rim of a significant number of sherds of each type and establishing the average of that percentage. This quantification method is easily applicable to all pottery types and it is also statistically reliable. Besides, it can be used in any study in which the gross number of rims is published. Finally, in the case of ceramic transport containers, a second correction can be applied by multiplying the corrected coefficient (number of rims × MR) by its average capacity (AC), another corrector that will allow us to gather statistics according to the litres of transported product. We believe that the rims count (the easiest part to classify) is a fast, relatively easy and very reliable method that needs to be corrected using the MR.     

Concrete Stories in Southern Europe: Financialisation and Inequality in the Construction Chain

This article seeks to tackle less researched areas of financialisation, namely class relations within the sphere of production. We ethnographically explore the trajectories of two small construction family-firms in Greece and Spain, traditionally perceived as the backbone of the Mediterranean economy but also lying at the very heart of the last financial bubble. Looking at the boom and bust of such ventures, we argue that the penetration of credit in this particular production structure, built through subcontracting chains, has reproduced and intensified deep inequalities: privileged position regarding financing enabled profit to be channelled upwards whereas risk and exploitation was transferred downwards. At the same time, rent-making or rent-extraction practices have become pervasive not only in the circulation and consumption spheres but also inside production.     

Archaeological implications of human-derived manganese coatings: a study of blackened bones in El Mirón Cave,Cantabrian Spain

The main interest in the study of taphonomic processes lies, from the archaeological point of view, in being able to draw conclusions about human behaviour from them. This paper analyzes the causes of a specific taphonomic alteration: the differential appearance across levels and among site areas of a black stain on bones from the Magdalenian levels in El Mirón Cave. From an understanding of these taphonomic agents, we aim to achieve a better comprehension of aspects of human use of the cave toward the end of the Late Glacial period. By determining the processes that stained many of the bones with manganese in the rear part of the cave vestibule, we are able to suggest some characteristics of the human occupation of the cave and its possible seasonal use.     

Does international recognition matter? Support for unilateral secession in Catalonia and Scotland

How much do the prospects of international recognition of a possible new state affect the domestic support for secession? To answer this research question, we adopted a most similar systems design and conducted a Web‐based survey experiment in Catalonia and Scotland. Respondents were presented with plausible scenarios regarding the international recognition of a hypothetical independent state by other countries and were subsequently asked whether they would support a unilateral declaration of independence. The results show that the prospects of international recognition as a sovereign and independent state influence the degree of support for a unilateral declaration of independence in both cases. This effect was moderated by the intensity of nationalist sentiment and the motivations for independence. Respondents with more outspoken nationalist sentiments were only marginally influenced by these scenarios or treatments. Moreover, participants whose preferences towards secession were driven by ethno‐political motivations were less influenced by international factors than those who wanted an independent state for economic or political reasons.     

The SAFE Experimental Research on the Frequency Dependence of Shear Wall Seismic Design Margins

The SAFE experimental programme consists of a series of 10 specimens of shear walls, with different reinforcement ratios, tested until their ultimate capacity under seismic input motion by the pseudo dynamic method. A unique input signal is used, calibrated for controlling the seismic demand. Its input central frequency is selected so that for some specimens it is lower than their eignenfrequency, while for other ones it is the opposite. In conclusion there is clear experimental evidence that design margins are much larger in the second case (input central frequency larger than structure eignenfrequency) than in the first one.     

Neanderthal Survival in the North of the Iberian Peninsula? Reflections from a Catalan and Cantabrian Perspective

In the debate over Western Europe??s Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition we need to consider the importance of both the chronology and the ecological context of the different techno-complexes, as well as the organization of production and consumption activities. In this article we study the adaptative strategies of Middle Palaeolithic human communities based on the information obtained from archaeological sites north of the river Ebro. This transition in the northern part of the peninsula presents a chronological and geographic dichotomy, with the appearance of the Upper Palaeolithic and survival of the Middle Palaeolithic. The geographic distribution appears to indicate intergroup competition and the existence of contact, albeit of an unverified nature. This competition would explain the time that elapsed before one of the cultural, and perhaps biological, groups triumphed over the other in a process culminating in the expansion of Upper Palaeolithic technology.