The Olympic legacy: Feeding London (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Over the last decades, the Olympic Games have increasingly claimed to deliver a social and economic ‘legacy’ to the host city. The 2012 Olympic Games in London have set out to deliver a legacy of better food for east London, an area perceived as ‘deprived’, with higher than average rates of obesity and significant ‘food deserts’ in its midst. Various Olympic organizations have considered the issue, resulting in the publication of a Food vision for the first time ever in Olympic history. However, with companies such as Coca‐Cola and McDonald's having been appointed official suppliers to the Games, and with an extremely limited time frame, will the Games be able to deliver on this promise?     

Raw materials for medieval to post-medieval Tuscan glassmaking: new insight from LA-ICP-MS analyses

LA-ICP-MS analyses were performed on a set of Tuscan (post) medieval archaeological glass finds dated to the 13–16th century in order to quantitatively determine the trace element contents. The results are used for defining and distinguishing several compositional groups. The trace element data are consistent with the distinctions obtained by considering the major element data determined via quantitative SEM-EDX, but allow to obtain new insights into the nature and quality of the silica sources employed and the presumed method of ash purification.     

A Roman Egyptian Painting Workshop: Technical Investigation of the Portraits from Tebtunis,Egypt

Roman‐period mummy portraits are considered to be ancient antecedents of modern portraiture. However, the techniques and materials used in their manufacture are not thoroughly understood. Analytical study of the pigments as well as the binding materials helps to address questions on what aspects of the painting practices originate from Pharaonic and/or Graeco‐Roman traditions, and can aid in determining the provenance of the raw materials from potential locations across the ancient Mediterranean and European worlds. Here, one of the largest assemblages of mummy portraits to remain intact since their excavation from the site of Tebtunis in Egypt was examined using multiple analytical techniques to address how they were made. The archaeological evidence suggests that these portraits were products of a single workshop and, correspondingly, they are found to be made using similar techniques and materials: wax‐based and lead white–rich paint combined with a variety of iron‐based pigments (including hematite, goethite and jarosite), as well as Egyptian blue, minium, indigo and madder lake to create subtle variations and tones.     

Saving Cuba from the Cubans

Book reviewed in this article:
Louis A. Pérez Jr., The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography     

Space–Time Sequential Similarity for Identifying Factors of Activity‐Travel Pattern Segmentation: A Measure of Sequence Alignment and Path Similarity

The article develops a new method that compares activity‐travel patterns in both terms of the sequential order of activities and the shape of activity‐travel trajectory in time and space. The similarity of the list of activities and their order between activity‐travel patterns are computed by a sequence alignment method. The shape of activity‐travel trajectory is compared between the patterns using a path similarity technique that captures the direction and speed of a movement from the current location and the duration of staying at each location. The comparison results, therefore capture how people move around in three‐dimensional space–time choreography that indicates how people conduct which activities in what order. A total of 1,000 individuals are sampled from the data of 2016 Household Travel Survey, South Korea. The data provide the information of individual activity‐travel behavior and personal characteristics. The suggested method computes the pairwise distance matrix, and Ward clustering algorithm segments the pattern groups of similar activity sequences and space–time trajectories. A CHAID analysis then associates personal and household characteristics with the pattern groups to identify important factors for the segmentation. The analysis provides a significant implication in both terms of research and practice in transportation.