Animal palaeopathology: Possibilities and problems

A brief account of the range of pathological disorders affecting the skeleton and certain other tissues of animals (mainly mammals) is given to indicate a broad picture of the sort of lesions which might be encountered in archaeological contexts.Though palaeopathological bone specimens have been described since the 18th century, it is only recently that an interest in archaeozoological material has encouraged the tentative interpretation of such specimens. Despite the pessimism of some workers in the field, it has been shown that this material does persist in archaeological samples, and that while diagnosis is not always clear cut, some of the spectrum of bone changes induced by disease processes has been documented.As early as 4000 years ago an awareness of some of these diseases was recorded, with several early societies adopting preventive and therapeutic measures to deal with them. As advanced human communities came into more intimate contact with animals, transmission of infectious diseases was facilitated. Husbandry practices, too, are seen to be directly related to the incidence of certain conditions, the occurrence of which in archaeological material can yield an insight into animal keeping.Diverse data of archaeological significance is, in fact, retrievable not only from osteological remains, but from organic material which may be preserved under certain conditions. The impact of animal disease is far-reaching, with important implications not only for the economy but also for human health.     

Hume,Bishop Butler,and the Revival of Ritual in Anglophone Protestantism

A sweeping reassessment of the role of ritual, ceremony, and aesthetics took place in anglophone Protestantism between the late eighteenth and the late nineteenth centuries. While the nineteenth‐century developments themselves have been extensively studied, little scholarly attention has been paid to the importance of the earlier emergence of philosophical language capable of explaining and justifying, in a Protestant context, the ritual and aesthetic dimensions of religious practice. I argue that this language, paradoxically, grew out of a symbiosis of sceptical modernity, traditional religious apologetics, and the religious “enthusiasm” of the early eighteenth century. I approach the topic through the interconnected oeuvres (and careers) of David Hume and Joseph Butler, presenting the first synoptic account of their ideas about the psychological underpinnings of religious worship, and the use made of their ideas by later generations of anglophone Protestants. As mainstream Anglicans, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians confronted the challenges presented by Methodism and Evangelicalism, they found support in a synthesis of Butler's and Hume's ideas. Eventually, the beneficial role of ritual and aesthetics in religious worship came to be widely accepted throughout the anglophone Protestant world.     

Shared heritage,shared authority,shared accountability? Co-generating museum performance criteria as a means of embedding ‘shared authority’

Abstract

This New Zealand case study presents insights from the perspectives of Māori and non-Māori museum stakeholders. It aimed to understand which activities and responsibilities mattered to stakeholders, in order to develop more meaningful accountability for their shared heritage. Using a participatory mixed method, the research explored how museum stakeholders assess their museum’s performance. Māori and non-Māori generated, sorted and rated 'possible performance statements’. A cultural analysis, using proprietary software, produced concept maps which illustrate differently nuanced museum constructs with different relative importance for constituent elements. Pattern-matching revealed divergent priority accorded certain museum activities, but also commonalities. Both cultural groups prioritised factors not generally featured in compliance-driven approaches to accountability reporting. For Māori, greatest importance was placed on care of taonga (‘treasures’), Māori-specific practice and engagement with Māori, while collections and staff were the key assessment factors for non-Māori. Incorporating stakeholder perspectives in a museum performance framework provides opportunities to report performance on dimensions which matter to wider communities. Where shared authority is taken seriously and stakeholders are involved, accountability becomes meaningful. This collaborative approach to performance framework development offers a tool for embedding the realities of shared authority into planning and delivering the museum’s activities and responsibilities.     

Political Commitment,Policy Ambiguity,and Corporate Environmental Practices

A lack of clear political commitment together with confusing rules and enforcement often characterize the institutional context of policy implementation and regulatory compliance in developing countries. By connecting such contextual features to existing models of policy implementation and regulatory compliance, we examine how regulatory factors are related to basic and proactive corporate environmental management practices in the Pearl River Delta region in China. Drawing on data derived from both a survey and in‐depth interviews, we show that a perception of clear political commitment to environmental protection across multiple government levels and units is positively associated with business efforts in basic environmental practices, regardless of the specific enforcement intensity. Nevertheless, a perception of clear political commitment is not related to proactive environmental practices. Conversely, a perception of policy ambiguity, in the form of confusing regulatory standards and enforcement, is negatively associated with corporate efforts in both basic and proactive environmental practices; yet, intensive inspections mitigate these negative associations with policy ambiguity.     

Multiphase flow simulation through porous media with explicitly resolved fractures

Accurate simulation of multiphase flow in fractured porous media remains a challenge. An important problem is the representation of the discontinuous or near discontinuous behaviour of saturation in real geological formations. In the classical continuum approach, a refined mesh is required at the interface between fracture and porous media to capture the steep gradients in saturation and saturation‐dependent transport properties. This dramatically increases the computational load when large numbers of fractures are present in the numerical model. A discontinuous finite element method is reported here to model flow in fractured porous media. The governing multiphase porous media flow equations are solved in the adaptive mesh computational fluid dynamics code IC‐FERST on unstructured meshes. The method is based on a mixed control volume – discontinuous finite element formulation. This is combined with the P_N+1DG‐P_NDG element pair, which has discontinuous (order N+1) representation for velocity and discontinuous (order N) representation for pressure. A number of test cases are used to evaluate the method's ability to model fracture flow. The first is used to verify the performance of the element pair on structured and unstructured meshes of different resolution. Multiphase flow is then modelled in a range of idealised and simple fracture patterns. Solutions with sharp saturation fronts and computational economy in terms of mesh size are illustrated.     

Latent trajectory models for space‐time analysis: An application in deciphering spatial panel data

This article introduces latent trajectory models (LTMs), an approach often employed in social sciences to handle longitudinal data, to the arena of GIScience, particularly space‐time analysis. Using the space‐time data collected at county level for the whole United States through webpage search on the keyword “climate change,” we show that LTMs, when combined with eigenvector filtering of spatial dependence in data, are very useful in unveiling temporal trends hidden in such data: the webpage‐data derived popularity measure for climate change has been increasing from December 2011 to March 2013, but the increase rate has been slowing down. In addition, LTMs help reveal potential mechanisms behind observed space‐time trajectories through linking the webpage‐data derived popularity measure about climate change to a set of socio‐demographic covariates. Our analysis shows that controlling for population density, greater drought exposure, higher percent of people who are 16 years old or above, and higher household income are positively predictive of the trajectory slopes. Higher percentages of Republicans and number of hot days in summer are negatively related to the trajectory slopes. Implications of these results are examined, concluding with consideration of the potential utility of LTMs in space‐time analysis and more generally in GIScience.