Spatial and environmental impacts on adverse birth outcomes in Ontario

This study assesses the overall spatial variations and neighbourhood‐level “hot spots” of low birth weight and preterm birth incidence within three public health units in Ontario, Canada. The analysis uses a stepwise approach of intra‐class correlation analysis, a spatial scan statistic, and multilevel spatial modeling. Results show that neighbourhood level variation accounts for only 2–3 percent of the total variation of adverse birth outcomes in the study area. However, strong spatial autocorrelation is observed at the neighbourhood level, and spatial clusters of relatively high adverse birth outcome rates exist in areas that are associated with environmental risks, including pollution sources and proximity to highways. Thus, although estimated neighbourhood impacts on adverse birth outcomes are small compared with those of individual‐level risks, local high potential environmental risk areas are identifiable. Environmental surveillance and spatial statistical analysis should be conducted regularly by local health authorities to identify and monitor the impact of environmental changes on health in general and on birth outcomes in particular. Specific community‐oriented health interventions may be required to reduce observed local health impacts.     

Unmanaging the past: Truth,data and the human being

Management systems in archaeology seek to impose the scientific objective‐reductionist paradigm on archaeologists and their data. This orthodoxy has been enshrined in English Heritage's document Management of Archaeological Projects (English Heritage 1991) which prescribes rigorous application of a standardized methodology. MAP II, as it is known, is based on a processual model in which ‘data’ enter at one end and valuable archaeology emerges at the other. Such a view not only lacks any appreciation of the distinctions between ‘data’ and ‘information’ but also fails to acknowledge the beliefs and values which underpin the decision‐making criteria crucial to the model. In this paper we argue for an approach which un‐manages the past — by building relativistic humans into our strategies for dealing with the past. Examples are given which demonstrate how such an approach might work in practice.     

Que Veut Dire Bachelard par « Rationalisme Appliqué »?

Bachelard was concerned with the processes whereby scientific knowledge is acquired, including the activity of knowing subjects. He did not equate reasoning with logic but rather argued that reasoning resulted from the use of mathematics in organizing both thought and experimental practices, which is why he conceived science as applied mathematics. This had material and technical implications, for Bachelard was concerned with the element of reason inherent in technical materialism as well as the concrete reality inherent in applied rationalism.     

Constituting "The People": National Identity Under William H. Taft and Richard M. Nixon

This project is focused on the long-term constitutive elements of presidential discourse; in other words, how rhetoric helps frame and determine national identity. Seemingly innocuous, and appearing in both ceremonial and policy addresses, presidential language concerning national identity helps shape the context, and thus sets the terms for more substantive, issue-laden debates. While one cannot measure the impact of this type of rhetoric in terms of specific issues and time frames, its influence is apparent in a broader and more diffuse perspective. This research compares the public rhetoric of presidents William H. Taft and Richard M. Nixon specifically in terms of their definitions of national identity. Both Republicans, albeit with very different political contexts and time periods, exhibited marked similarities in their strategies for defining the American polity, particularly with respect to their view of the president as the national representative, the idea that the nation is a unified whole, the belief that the nation follows the greatest good for the greatest number, the belief that each citizen occupies a natural place in the hierarchy of American society, and finally, the conviction that liberty is the most important foundational value of the country. The evidence suggests that rhetorical conceptions of national identity are important over time in the United States. Enjoying a broad audience, the president has the ability to shape national debate according to which groups and issues he includes or excludes from the polity.     

Some Evidence for 12th- and 13th-century Linen and Woollen Textile Processing

FLAX-RETTING POOLS, hitherto unrecognized, still survive in the landscape of NW. England, in close association with fulling-mill sites, tenter banks and simple potash pits. The retting-pool sites have common characteristics—usually on flat land; close to a river, but utilizing small streams which have been channelled to provide a controlled water supply; and raised banks for the drying of the retted flax. The field evidence occurs in documented contexts which show that a widespread linen industry was contemporary with, and often linked to, the 12th- and 13th-century demesne woollen industry.