Meta-analysis of dendrochronological dating of mass movements

Absolute dating of mass movements is crucial for disentangling possible release factors and determining the frequency of events. Here, we present an overview of a recent approach to dendrochronological dating of rockfalls, flows, landslides and avalanches. The results, based on 69 casestudies, show that methodological approaches to sampling and material processing differ considerably for different types of mass movements. Landslides are usually detected through abrupt growth changes and changes in stem eccentricity, whereas high-energy events as avalanches and flows are mostly identified by the formation of traumatic resin ducts, reaction wood, growth injuries and eccentricity changes. Cross-dating of dead wood is applicable as well. The dating of most mass movements except landslides is common, even with sub-annual resolution. In comparison to other methods of absolute dating, the main benefit of dendrochronology still lies in the high temporal resolution of the results. If living material is accessible, on-going research progress makes absolute dating of most mass-wasting events possible with sub-annual precision.     

‘Between my Brow and the Stars ...’: Linkages Between the Categories of Subject,Space, and Time in Jan Zahradníček’s Verse of the Second Half of the 1930s

The study enquires how the functional relationship between the broader framework of Czech poet Jan Zahradní?ek’s vision of the world and the narrower, governing principle shaped by his declared adoption of a fixed, ideologically unambiguous (confessional) model for viewing life and the world is realized. The present author’s deliberation is based on an analysis of the categories of lyrical subject, space and time as rendered artistically in two collections of verse by Jan Zahradní?ek: ?íznivé léto (Thirsty Summer, 1935) and Pozdravení slunci (A Salute to the Sun, 1937). It is found that, rather than speaking of the mutually contingent effect of these two planes of reality, it would be better to think in terms of a colliding of fragments, each of which represents a part of its own reality — poetic truth and truth sprung from an ideology. The literary text becomes a specific locus that makes this intersection possible, and it expresses an entirely new form of reality. Motivated on the one hand by the experience of creative freedom and on the other by having voluntarily accepted certain external ideological considerations which perforce refine poetic freedom, or poetic output, with regard to the appreciation of its meaning, thereby giving it added force and depth, the poet fashions — with various degrees of success — the sundry fragments of this and that layer of reality into a two-way correlation that is reinforced by the dominant effect of the aesthetic function. He thus creates a specific, imaginary whole that opens man up to the world and adumbrates for the reader the idea of unity in diversity. However, at the same time he does not veil the sense of disillusionment that lies at the root of all modern poetry, arising from the notion that neither life, nor the world can be integrated into some ideal, harmonious form.     

Multiple multiculturalisms: insights from the Edinburgh Mela

This paper contributes to debates about the future of multiculturalism in Britain by exploring how it is conceptualized, constructed and experienced in contemporary Scotland. The work is grounded in Hall's (2000) important but commonly overlooked distinction between a ‘multicultural society’, which designates a condition of cultural diversity, and ‘multiculturalism’, which refers to processes and policies that attempt to fix the meaning of such diversity. As these definitions suggest, the abandonment of multiculturalism as a ‘policy failure’ cannot be a solution to problems arising from the complex composition of contemporary societies. The fact that all societies must make decisions about the significance of cultural diversity and its management—they must all practise some form of multiculturalism—is established through a review of how multiculturalism has been conceptualized and pursued to date. The paper then draws on the example of Edinburgh's South Asian Festival—the Mela—to explore the empirical complexities of these different applications in a Scottish context. An analysis of the Mela's changing organization and artistic programme over time reveals the coexistence of multiple conceptions of multiculturalism—in time, space and experience. This progressive reinterpretation of multiculturalism—as multiple—advances the goals of both cultural diversity and societal cohesiveness.     

The psychologization of humanitarian aid: skimming the battlefield and the disaster zone

Humanitarian aid's psycho-therapeutic turn in the 1990s was mirrored by the increasing emotionalization and subjectivation of fund-raising campaigns. In order to grasp the depth of this interconnectedness, this article argues that in both cases what we see is the post-Fordist production paradigm at work; namely, as Hardt and Negri put it, the direct production of subjectivity and social relations. To explore this, the therapeutic and mental health approach in humanitarian aid is juxtaposed with the more general phenomenon of psychologization. This allows us to see that the psychologized production of subjectivity has a problematic waste-product as it reduces the human to 'Homo sacer', to use Giorgi Agamben's term. Drawing out a double matrix of a de-psychologizing psychologization connected to a politicizing de-politicization, it will further become possible to understand psycho-therapeutic humanitarianism as a case of how, in these times of globalization, psychology, subjectivity and money are all interrelated.     

DECOMPOSING REGIONAL EFFICIENCY*

ABSTRACT Applying an outlier robust extension of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) followed by a geoadditive regression analysis, this study identifies and decomposes the efficiency of 439 German regions in using infrastructure and human capital. The findings show that the regions’ efficiency is driven by a spatial and a nonspatial, arguably structural factor. As a consequence, concrete regional funding schemes, shaped by best practice results, might not be appropriate for all regions. Instead, a more differentiated funding scheme that accounts for both spatial and structural factors seems more promising.     

Thinking with Montaigne: evidence, scepticism and meaning in early modern demonology

In 1612 the Bordeaux witchcraft inquisitor Pierre de Lancre (1556–1631), himself linked by marriage to Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), revealed that the essayist and sceptic was related on his mother’s side to a leading authority on magic and superstition, the Flemish-Spanish Jesuit Martin Delrio (1551–1608). De Lancre confounded historians' expectations by using the revelation to defend Montaigne against his cousin's criticism. This article re-evaluates the relationships of De Lancre, Delrio and Montaigne in the light of recent scholarship, which casts demonology as a form of "resistance to scepticism" that conceals deep anxiety about the existence of the supernatural. It explores De Lancre’s and Delrio’s very different attitudes towards Montaigne and towards evidence and scepticism. This, in turn, reveals the different underlying preoccupations of their witchcraft treatises. It hence argues that no monocausal explanation linking scepticism to witchcraft belief is plausible.