Proximities and Embedding Effects

Clusters are supposed to enhance exchanges among firms or between firms and research institutions. This is termed “proximities effects” in this paper. There are many theories explaining proximities effects, but most of them lack a clear distinction between levels of action (individuals, social networks, firms, markets, etc.). This paper is focused on this issue, claiming that it is crucial to understand the shifts between levels of action. Embeddedness of economic activity in social networks is not viewed as a static situation, but rather as a process, with a reciprocal, decoupling. Two empirical studies on innovation in the south-west of France support this argument. One bears on the relations between academic laboratories and firms, the other on the creation of innovative companies. They show that proximity and embeddedness in local social networks are just a specific context for emergence of collaborations and access to resources in the emergence phases of new companies creation, but not necessarily a specific mode of regulation of professional or technologic relations.     

Quebec and Canada at the Crossroads: A Nation within a Nation

Abstract. I argue first that there are many different concepts of the nation, and advocate a certain conceptual pluralism. I also argue that a population as a whole cannot constitute a nation unless it has a certain national consciousness. I then show that we must adopt a fundamental principle of tolerance. I also try to attend to the complexities of the relations between Quebec and Canada, and argue that different populations represent themselves as nations in different ways and with different concepts. 1 show that Quebec constitutes a nation within a nation. I then wonder what it would mean for Canadians to accept a Quebec nation. Finally, I try to explain why a very large proportion of the population of Quebec has increasingly been favourable to sovereignty, and favourable to making a partnership proposal to Canada.     

Experimental Systems in the Co-Construction of Scientific Knowledge**

The publication of Toward a History of Epistemic Things 25 years ago was a landmark in science studies. Not only was the book a brilliant overview of new research trends, but it was also a personal and highly original contribution because of its emphasis on the major role of experimental systems in the construction of scientific knowledge. The paths that it opened have not yet been fully explored. More seriously, the ambition of the author to reinforce the value of scientific knowledge by the role of experimental systems in its construction has not been pursued.     

New evidence for Upper Palaeolithic small domestic dogs in South-Western Europe

Osteoarchaeology and genetics agree that the earliest dog domestications took place during the Upper Palaeolithic. However, they partially disagree about the process of domestication. The former indicated multiple origins, when some of the results of the latter suggested that dogs mainly came from a Chinese centre of domestication. In this study, we describe and discuss new evidence for Late Glacial small dogs in the South-West (Pont d’Ambon and Montespan) and North of France (Le Closeau). Special attention was paid to the possibility of miss-identification between small early dogs and dholes (Cuon alpinus), a middle-sized Canidae, the size of which can be similar to early small dogs. Detailed analyses of the archaeological contexts alongside that of taphonomy, morphoscopy, morphometry and pathology, identified 49 small canid remains from the three sites. They allowed us to exclude the presence of dholes and to conclude that they were all small Upper Paleolithic dogs. These, together with other more sparse discoveries, confirmed the presence of Western European Upper Paleolithic Small (WEUPS) dogs from, at least, the Middle Magdalenian to the end of the Epipaleolithic (i.e. 15,000–11,500 cal BP). As they are contemporaneous with the much larger Russian Upper Paleolithic dogs, they plea for several Euro-Asian origins for Late Palaeolithic dogs.     

Preserving Medieval Farm Mounds in a Large Stormwater Retention Area

The Netherlands has denoted large areas as stormwater retention areas. These areas function as temporary storage locations for stormwater when rivers cannot cope with the amount of water. A large area, the Onlanden — 2,500 hectares — was developed as such a storage area between 2008 and 2013. This peat area contains up to 300 medieval housing areas. These ‘peatmounds’, named after the current visible small mound, were explicitly mentioned as a preservation goal in the project. The preservation of the peatmounds during and after the project has been guaranteed by a combination of protective measures, research, and monitoring actions. At first a risk evaluation was performed, followed by a monitoring project focusing on the preservation of the organic part of the mounds. This evaluation showed that the rewetting of the mounds might improve the overall preservation. A total of fifteen monitoring stations were a-selectively distributed over the total area, covering the four main types of land use. The measured parameters at these stations focus on the desiccation/rewetting effects. The second threat, as determined in the risk evaluation, is the growth of deep penetrating plants. These roots might disturb the archaeological profile. Preventive coverage with plastic and up to a metre of soil could prevent root growth into the archaeology. An experimental coverage showed the effectiveness of this technique, but also the risks. This paper focuses on the lessons that can be learned from this six-year project, the monitoring results, and clearly shows the benefits of a combined approach in large-scale projects.     

A new Late Ordovician microdomatid gastropod genus from Seville,south west Spain,with a revision of Ordovician Microdomatoidea

A new microdomatid gastropod, Eopagodea sevillana gen. and sp. nov., is described from the Late Ordovician (pre-Hirnantian Ashgill) limestones of Seville, Ossa Morena Zone, Spain. Palaeozoic microdomatids lived in shallow-water environments and were restricted to warm-water regions. Occurrence of microdomatid gastropods in the pre-Hirnantian Ashgill limestones of the Cerrón del Hornillo syncline (Ossa Morena Zone, Spain) is interpreted as an example of an influx of warm-water faunal elements into the otherwise cool to cold climate of the Mediterranean region during a short-termed, pre-Hirnantian increase of palaeotemperatures. The Late Ordovician microdomatid genus Daidia Wilson, 1951, is revised and two new Late Ordovician (Ashgill) subspecies of Daidia cerithioides (Salter, 1859) are described: Daidia cerithioides sewardensis n. subsp. from the Don River area of the York Mountains, Seward Peninsula, western Alaska, and Daidia cerithioides wilsonae n. subsp. from the Little East Lake Formation of northwestern Maine.     

Religion And Technological Innovation: The steamboat in 1840s France

Summary

Looking beyond the reaction to and the discourses surrounding inventions, it may appear incongruous to link religion with technological innovation, especially considering the underlying religious motivations of the inventive act. Steamship propulsion and the search for an alternative to the paddle wheel in 1840s France implicates three inventors (Frédéric Sauvage, Augustin Normand, Achille de Jouffroy d'Abbans) and three inventions (the continuous propeller, the divided propeller, the flipper apparatus); only Normand's propeller would have a vertiable future. This contest also entails three different types of religious temperaments: a Romantic religiosity, a “bourgeois” or private Catholicism; and a clerical‐legitimist militancy. The question which will be considered here is: were these inventors influenced by the strength of their religious convictions; and if so, how did this affect their scientific reasoning ?     

L’e ´cologie en politique: Marginale hier,centrale aujourd’hui

Cate, C., André Malraux: A Biography (Hutchison, 1995), xvi + 451pp., £25, ISBN 0 09 174856 9

Raymond, G., André Malraux: Politics and the Temptation of Myth (Avebury, 1995), 212pp., £35, ISBN 1 85972 132X     

The collapse of memory: The case of farm workers (French Vexin,pays de France)

The two authors have carried out an oral survey on a group of retired farm labourers in the French Vexin and the Pays de France regions (north of the lle de France). This paper examines the means by which individual memory registers the collective downward trend of this social group. It is remarkable for instance that respondents tend to recall memories of the “life of yore”;, opposed to life nowadays, instead of describing precise stages of their career, or the social evolution of their group and of the region. Their vision of History is fatalistic, syncretical, motionless, with frequent reference to war, exodus, moments of horror. All these elements express indirectly how a social group was crushed. Fragments of oral litterature that were collected on the same occasion refer also to the theme of social failure.     

Human occupation in South America by 20,000 BC: the Toca da Tira Peia site,Piauí, Brazil

When and how did the first human beings settle in the American continent? Numerous data, from archaeological researches as well as from palaeogenetics, anthropological and environmental studies, have led to partially contradictory interpretations in recent years, often because of the lack of a reliable chronological framework. The present study contributes to the establishment of such a framework using luminescence techniques to date a Brazilian archaeological site, the Toca da Tira Peia. It constitutes an exemplary case study: all our observations and measurements tend to prove the good integrity of the site and the anthropological nature of the artifacts and we are confident in the accuracy of the luminescence dating results. All these points underline the importance of the Toca da Tira Peia. The results bring new pieces of evidence of a human presence in the north-east of Brazil as early as 20,000 BC. The Toca da Tira Peia thus contributes to the rewriting of the history of the peopling of the American continent.