Corpus cartographique pour l'histoire de Damas,Syrie, à la fin de la période ottomane (1760–1924)

Abstract

De manière générale, la cartographie des villes de l'empire ottoman est peu abondante. Au dix‐neuvième siècle, malgré plusieurs réformes administratives, l'autorité publique ne recourait pas à des documents cartographiques pour organiser les travaux d'édilité tandis que les étrangers rencontraient les plus grandes difficultés pour établir des représentations de ces villes. Damas constitue une exception à ce tableau. On dispose de plusieurs cartes antérieures à l'établissement du mandat français (1920) qui sont de qualité inégale. Les auteurs étrangers sont les plus nombreux et les plus fiables; le plus souvent archéologues ou historiens, ils ont dressé des documents partiels par toujours faciles à évaluer. Cependant, et malgré la faiblesse de son volume (sept documents), le corpus des premières cartes de Damas constitue une source essentielle pour l'histoire du développement spatial de la ville entre le milieu du dix‐neuvième siècle et l'établissement du pouvoir mandataire.     

Permian palynostratigraphy of the Claromecó Basin,Argentina

The first palynozonation for Permian strata of the Claromecó Basin (Argentina) is formally proposed, based on palynological assemblages recovered from the UTAL.CMM1 La Estrella.x-1 and UTAL.CMM1 Cruz de Sur.x-1 boreholes, drilled on the Argentinian Continental Platform and correlation with established zones from neighbouring basins. Fifty-five samples were analyzed and 131 species identified from two biozones. The lower Converrucosisporites confluens–Vittatina vittifera (CV) Zone occurs in the Piedra Azul and Bonete formations of both boreholes. This zone can be assigned a Cisuralian–Guadalupian age. The upper Tornopollenites toreutos–Reduviasporonites chalastus (TC) Zone registered in the Tunas Formation can be assigned a Guadalupian–Lopingian age. The CV Zone is dominated by diverse non-taeniate bisaccate, plicate and taeniate pollen. Monosaccate and monosulcate pollen, algae and acritarchs are poorly represented in both biozones. The composition of the TC Zone is broadly similar to the CV Zone, but bisaccate pollen grains are markedly more diverse and abundant in the former.     

Stochastic Efficiency of Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo in Spatial Econometric Models: An Empirical Comparison of Exact Sampling Methods

Spatial econometric specifications pose unique computational challenges to Bayesian analysis, making it difficult to estimate models efficiently. In the literature, the main focus has been on extending Bayesian analysis to increasingly complex spatial models. The stochastic efficiency of commonly used Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers has received less attention by comparison. Specifically, Bayesian methods to analyze effective sample size and samplers that provide large effective size have not been thoroughly considered in the literature. Thus, we compare three MCMC techniques: the familiar Metropolis‐within‐Gibbs sampling, Slice‐within‐Gibbs sampling, and Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. The latter two methods, while common in other domains, are not as widely encountered in Bayesian spatial econometrics. We assess these methods across four different scenarios in which we estimate the spatial autoregressive parameter in a mixed regressive, spatial autoregressive specification (or, spatial lag model). We find that off‐the‐shelf implementations of the newer high‐yield simulation techniques require significant adaptation to be viable. We further find that the effective sizes are often significantly smaller than nominal sizes. In addition, we find that stopping simulation early may understate posterior credible interval widths when effective sample size is small. More broadly, we suggest that sample information and stopping rules deserve more attention in both applied and basic Bayesian spatial econometric research.     

Properties of Tests for Spatial Dependence in Linear Regression Models

Based on a large number of Monte Carlo simulation experiments on a regular lattice, we compare the properties of Moran's I and Lagrange multiplier tests for spatial dependence, that is, for both spatial error autocorrelation and for a spatially lagged dependent variable. We consider both bias and power of the tests for six sample sizes, ranging from twenty-five to 225 observations, for different structures of the spatial weights matrix, for several underlying error distributions, for misspecified weights matrices, and for the situation where boundary effects are present. The results provide an indication of the sample sizes for which the asymptotic properties of the tests can be considered to hold. They also illustrate the power of the Lagrange multiplier tests to distinguish between substantive spatial dependence (spatial lag) and spatial dependence as a nuisance (error autocorrelation).     

THE MAX‐P‐REGIONS PROBLEM*

ABSTRACT In this paper, we introduce a new spatially constrained clustering problem called the max‐p ‐regions problem. It involves the clustering of a set of geographic areas into the maximum number of homogeneous regions such that the value of a spatially extensive regional attribute is above a predefined threshold value. We formulate the max‐p ‐regions problem as a mixed integer programming (MIP) problem, and propose a heuristic solution.     

Pigments from the Zuiddorp (Zuytdorp) ship sculpture: red,white and blue?

SUMMARY: The Dutch East India Company ship Zuiddorp (also known as Zuytdorp) met its demise in 1712 at the base of steep cliffs along the Western Australian coast. Material from the shipwreck includes an extraordinary example of a caryatid herm from the ship’s stern counter. A recent study of this sculpture and the pigments found on its surface demonstrates Zuiddorp’s archaic stern construction and adornment, which is more of a late 17th-century, than an early 18th-century, Dutch Indiaman. This paper discusses the results of this study and emphasizes how the smallest pieces of evidence can broaden our understanding of contemporaneous regional Dutch East India Company shipbuilding practices.     

SPATIAL DEPENDENCE AND SPATIAL STRUCTURAL INSTABILITY IN APPLIED REGRESSION ANALYSIS*

The stability of regression coefficients over the observation set (“regional homogeneity”) is typically assessed by means of a Chow test or within a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) framework. When spatial error autocorrelation is present in cross-sectional equations the traditional tests are no longer applicable. I evaluate this both in formal terms as well as empirically. I introduce a taxonomy of spatial effects in models for structural instability, and discuss its implication for testing. I compare the performance of traditional tests, robust approaches, maximum-likelihood procedures and pretest techniques by means of a series of simple Monte Carlo experiments.     

Strengthening Minds and Bodies Within the French School System. Physical Education for Boys and Girls Between 1936 and 1950

Physical education has been compulsory in France since 1880. Between 1936 and 1950, expansion intensified and extensive changes were made to course content. This article assesses the ramifications of these choices through an in-depth study of four variables that defined its instruction. Even if priority was given to generalisation and equal access to knowledge, research revealed an upsurge in the fight against real or presumed student vulnerability. At the time, a strong consensus emerged with the commitment to fight frailty. This was all the more the case for young girls as they belonged to a specific group with respect to their physical make-up. The school system stressed the relevance of instruction adapted to girls even if emphasis was placed on the cultural aspect of sport content. The pedagogical programmes put into effect for youths based on these guidelines confirmed this trend. This situation raised concerns as to the role of the school system in the development of social stereotypes through a discipline that would become the focus of the French education system.     

Local Indicators of Spatial Association—LISA

The capabilities for visualization, rapid data retrieval, and manipulation in geographic information systems (GIS) have created the need for new techniques of exploratory data analysis that focus on the “spatial” aspects of the data. The identification of local patterns of spatial association is an important concern in this respect. In this paper, I outline a new general class of local indicators of spatial association (LISA) and show how they allow for the decomposition of global indicators, such as Moran's I, into the contribution of each observation. The LISA statistics serve two purposes. On one hand, they may be interpreted as indicators of local pockets of nonstationarity, or hot spots, similar to the G_i and G*_i statistics of Getis and Ord (1992). On the other hand, they may be used to assess the influence of individual locations on the magnitude of the global statistic and to identify “outliers,” as in Anselin's Moran scatterplot (1993a). An initial evaluation of the properties of a LISA statistic is carried out for the local Moran, which is applied in a study of the spatial pattern of conflict for African countries and in a number of Monte Carlo simulations.