Progress in the human geography of the Maghreb

Sutton and Lawless review a selection of the prolific literature on the Maghreb's human geography published from the late 1970s onward. The pedigree of the discipline in Maghreb was established by several notable geographers who lived, researched, and wrote there. Augustin Bernard's writings on rural settlement, his atlas, and study of Algeria are still cited. Jean Despois's regional study with Raynal and his work on Tunisia, together with the detailed rural research of Jean Poncet, provides a particularly rich coverage for that country. Jean Dresch's early work on Morocco exemplified an early critique of the contemporaneous uncritical colonial human geography. The Sahara's fascination also inspired pioneering studies by Robert Capot-Rey. The work of these notables and others provided a solid background of geographical literature on the Maghreb to be supplemented, criticized, and challenged by more recent researchers, sometimes pupils of the above individuals, and increasingly North African by birth. The tradition of general texts on the Maghreb has continued, though increasingly with systematic approaches replacing regional appraisals. The geography of the decolonization of the Maghreb by Isnard has been replaced by a study summarizing recent collaborative work by a team of French geographers. The Saharan extensions of the Maghreb states have often been linked in general works, sometimes being juxtaposed against the Maghreb as in the essays offered to Jean Despois. Lawless and Findlay's collaborative study juxtaposes geographical studies of each country's economic development with political scientists' evaluations of their sociopolitical development. This review limits itself largely to geographers and geographical journals, only occasionally including significant works from other subject areas, and to 1977-1978 publications, with a few notable exceptions. The spatial juxtaposition of contrasting approaches to economic development, liberal market economy approaches by Tunisia and Morocco arguably leading to dependency, and centrally-planned strategies by Algeria and Libya resulting in bureaucratic constraints serves to offer the Maghreb as a pertinent case-study region for the applied geographer of developing countries.     

OPTIMAL REGIONAL GROWTH MODELS: MULTIPLE OBJECTIVES, SINGULAR CONTROLS, AND SUFFICIENCY CONDITIONS

ABSTRACT We develop a generalized Harrod-Domar type of model for optimal regional growth which allows determination of the optimal allocation of regional public investments and which considers multiple growth objectives, as well as both normal and singular fiscal instruments. This general model is shown to include most of the previous optimal regional growth models as special cases. Necessary conditions for some special cases of the general model are analyzed in detail, and decision rules associated with derived optimal regional growth policies are articulated. These special cases verify that singular controls do exist in certain instances, and that they must be considered for the complete specification of optimal regional growth policies; this is significant because singular controls have not been previously analyzed in the literature. We conclude the paper with a discussion of sufficiency conditions for optimal regional growth models which is more general than that given by previous authors.     

RECREATIONAL TRAVEL: THE NEW MIGRATION*

Cet article est le texte d'une adresse presenté au Premier Seminaire international relatif à l'ekistique et à l'avenir des établissements Humains, tenu à Athènes, juillet 1965. Le tourisme est l'une des trois migrations caractéristiques de notre époque (les deux autres étant la migration de la campagne à la ville et celle du domicile au lieu de travail). Les restrictions sur le tourisme sont devenues progressivement moins impérieuses; continueront-elles dans ce sens, ou vont-elles s'imposer de nouveau? Sous plusieurs aspects, le tourisme se développe à un rythme qui atteint 25 pour cent par an. Ceci ne peut pas continuer, et ne devrait pas, puisque éventuellement l'accroisement de tourisme de masse doit avoir pour résultat une diminution du plaisir collectif. Ce phénomène se produit déjà avec l'automobile en particulier, maintenant que les nombres des voitures en circulation dans les autres parties du monde approchent de la densité existente en Amérique du Nord. Il est probable que la même déteriotation se produira pour les voyages outre-mer, que se font en majeure partie par avion. Pour les pays sous-developpés, le tourisme extérieur peut apporter des immenses bénéfices, comme le prouve l'exemple de l'Espagne. Mais, ces pays sont en fait exporteurs d'une resource naturelle—la beauté de leurs paysages—qui peut-être ne leur sera plus disponible quand ils auront en fin les moyens d'y prendre plaisir eux-même. Si, comme croit C. A. Doxiadis, le monde devient une immense ville—Ecumenopolis—les problèmes de tourisme pourront bien devenir insurmontables. En tout cas, si l'homogenéité du milieu urban continue à s'accroître, est-ce que les gens manifesteront la volonté de visiter un Paris, un Londres, un Peking, qui ont tous le même aspect, l'aspect bien connu de chez eux? Mais nous devons nous méfier des predictions sceptiques: quoi qu'il arrive il se peut que des standards différents permettent de trouver plaisir dans le tourisme à l'avenir, aussi bien qu'aujourd'hui.     

Static penetration assessment of stone weapon tip geometry metrics and comparison of static and dynamic penetration depths

Many factors governed the penetration efficacy of prehistoric projectile weaponry. Archaeologists broadly focus their efforts on understanding the effect of stone weapon tips because these specimens are often the only part of the weapon system that survives in the archaeological record. The tip cross-sectional area (TCSA) and perimeter (TCSP) of stone weapon tips have been shown to correlate with target penetration depth. Here, using results from both static and dynamic penetration testing, we compare TCSA and TCSP against other tip geometry metrics: lateral surface area (LSA) and volume (V). Our analyses broadly show that using a single-point geometry metric evaluated at multiple locations along the length of the point, or using multiple geometry metrics evaluated at a single location, better predicts required energy than using a single-point geometry metric evaluated at a single location. Our results also show that in the case where a single geometry metric evaluated at multiple locations is used LSA provided the most robust prediction models. Finally, our results show that for the case where all geometry metrics evaluated at a single location are used the location that provides the most robust prediction model is dependent on how far the point penetrated the target.