Investigating links between ecology and bifacial tool types in Western Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum

We apply Eco-Cultural Niche Modeling (ECNM), using the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-Set Prediction, to reconstruct the ecological niches exploited by Middle Solutrean and Upper Solutrean populations during the latter stages of Heinrich Event 2 and the early part of the Last Glacial Maximum, respectively. We focus on the Upper Solutrean technocomplex and its regionally distinct styles of hunting weaponry to investigate whether regional cultural variability reflects a link between material culture and ecology. Our analytical approach uses archaeological and geographic data in conjunction with high-resolution paleoclimatic simulations and vegetation reconstructions for the two climatic phases in question. Our results indicate that cultural choices behind the production of specific projectile point types have at some level an ecological basis and are linked to particular environments. We also find that the identified pattern of Upper Solutrean territoriality has an ecological foundation, but that its stylistic expression in the variation of diagnostic armature types is likely a byproduct of cultural drift. We argue that ECNM is an effective means with which to evaluate the paleoecological pertinence of archaeologically defined artifact types and to identify the ecological and cultural mechanisms underlying material culture variability.     

Linguistic boundaries and geopolitical interests: the Albanian boundary commissions, 1878–1926

Since 1999, there has been much debate within the international community on what the future status of the autonomous province of Kosovo should be. However, there seems to have been little consideration as to why the Ottoman vilayet of Kosovo and the other majority Albanian-speaking areas (now parts of Montenegro, western Macedonia and north-western Greece) did not become either independent or part of an independent Albanian state, despite the legacy of these decisions. Focussing on British policy and perceptions, this article explores the role of the great powers in the delimitation of Albanian boundaries, particularly in two boundary commissions in 1913 and 1914: one determining the southern Albanian boundary with Greece and the other concerning the northern and north-eastern boundary with Serbia and Montenegro. The first part of the article considers the influences and interactions of two sets of factors in the boundary deliberations: the declared rationale of creating nation-states in south-eastern Europe based upon ethnographic criteria (linguistic boundaries) and the competing role of geopolitical interests in their decision-making, focussing particularly upon British interests. It illustrates that the decisions made to delimit the newly independent Albanian state primarily reflected the resulting great power conflicts and compensations, rather than the professed ethnographic rationale. The second part of the article explores some of the consequences of the decisions made to delimit Albanian boundaries, especially in ‘ethnic’ or national terms.     

Substituting for Families? Schools and Social Reproduction in AIDS‐affected Lesotho

Abstract: Families, the state and employers all have a broad if differentiated interest in securing the daily and generational reproduction of society. Whereas in Western countries, the past two decades have witnessed a progressive displacement of responsibility for social reproduction from the state to families, in southern Africa, day‐to‐day social reproduction has always remained overwhelmingly the preserve of families. Today, however, the AIDS pandemic is radically transforming family life for many children, and prompting concerns (arguably a moral panic) about the potential breakdown of social reproduction. Even in Africa, schools have long supplemented families in delivering generational reproduction, albeit geared around the transfer of “factual” knowledge and with a narrow focus on preparing new generations of workers. In light of the AIDS pandemic, a number of commentators have suggested ways in which schools could further substitute for the diminishing capacities of families. Based on interviews with decision‐makers and analysis of policy documents, I explore a number of interventions being enacted in Lesotho's schools. I argue that such initiatives remain small in scale and often justified in relation to retaining children in school. In practice both government and employers remain more interested in the generational reproduction of workers than in daily reproduction. If the welfare needs of AIDS‐affected children are to be met through schooling, there is a need for the education sector's role to be understood in relation to an ethics of care, rather than the functionalist production of a future workforce.     

On the Reuse of Multiscale LiDAR Data to Investigate the Resilience in the Late Medieval Time: the Case Study of Basilicata in South of Italy

The Middle Ages have been traditionally considered a crisis period due to the demographic decrease and economic deterioration occurred in Western Europe. Nevertheless, the historical reconsideration has been focused not only on decline and decay, but also on resilience and recovery which characterized the Europe of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. So, today the main open question is as follows: how can we explain the diverse attitude (namely recovery versus decline) and the reasons why some settlements were more (or less) resilient than others? To provide a contribution to this issue, we focused on two medieval villages which are located very close to each other (in the Basilicata Region Southern Italy) and selected because they are characterized by diverse vicissitudes: Irsi abandoned in the fourteenth century and Montepeloso (still “existing” and renamed Irsina) where the population of Irsi moved to. To improve our current knowledge on Irsi, we reused and integrated multiscale LiDAR datasets in order to cope with the lack of documentary source. The use of LiDAR data enabled (i) the reconstruction of the potential urban fabric of Irsi, along with its temporal development and the transformation of the surrounding landscape, and (ii) the definition of a hypothesis about the causes of its desertification based on the inter-site analysis between Irsi and Montepeloso. The main results from the LiDAR-based analysis were as follows: (i) the diachronic reconstruction of the building phases of the village and (ii) the identification of a significant indicator obtained as the ratio between the amount of cultivatable land (close to the settlement area) and the population to characterize the resilience behavior in hilly landscape. This approach has been also successfully applied to another similar case study. Outputs from our analyses pointed out that LiDAR data can fruitfully improve medieval archaeological investigations and facilitate knowledge improvement from intra to- inter-site scale analyses and from local up to a landscape perspective.

     

Livelihoods Limitations: The Political Economy of Urban Poverty in Dhaka,Bangladesh

Research in Bangladesh reveals the limitations of actor‐oriented frameworks for understanding urban poverty that assess household livelihoods on the basis of a household's portfolio of assets or capitals. The narrow focus of these frameworks on households and their depoliticized definition of social capital overlook the political roots of urban poverty. The informal systems of governance that dominate resource distribution within low‐income settlements ensure that the social resources necessary for long‐term household improvement are confined to a small elite. Only through extending our analysis beyond the household level, to explore their position within this local political economy of employment and enterprise, can we recognize the limitations placed on household efforts to improve their livelihoods.     

Earthquake-Induced Damage Detection in a Monumental Masonry Bell-Tower Using Long-Term Dynamic Monitoring Data

ABSTRACT

This work investigates the use of an advanced long-term vibration-based structural health monitoring tool to automatically detect earthquake-induced damages in heritage structures. Damage produced in a monumental bell-tower at increasing values of the Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) of the seismic input is predicted by incremental nonlinear dynamic analysis, using a Finite Element model calibrated on the basis of experimentally identified natural modes. Then, predicted damage effects are artificially introduced in the monitoring data to check for their detectability. The results demonstrate that a very small damage, associated to a low intensity and low return period earthquake, is clearly detected by the monitoring system.     

UNICEF ‘Child Poverty in Perspective’ Report: A View from the UK

In February 2007, UNICEF launched the latest in a series of reports comparing the conditions of young people's lives across the world's more industrialised countries. The report ranked the UK as the lowest of the countries investigated. We give a critical overview of the report, identifying its limitations as well as some of the trends it reveals. We also discuss the poor placing of the UK in relation to current broader political and public debates.     

Patterns of Participation and Representation in a Regional Water Collaboration

Regional collaboration has become a popular means to manage shared resources and address cross-jurisdictional boundary issues. The question of who participates in the process, who directly affects decisions, and who benefits from those decisions is critical for understanding the broader value created by regional collaborations. We apply a variety of text mining techniques to meeting minutes to measure how stakeholder participation evolved over nine years of an Integrated Regional Water Management collaboration. We observe that a diverse set of organizations representing differing interests participated to some extent in the process. However, a minority of organizations attended regularly, while most attended sporadically and/or only attended outreach events. Verbs used to describe interaction varied across meeting types, displaying egalitarian patterns of interaction among participants in core leadership meetings and more one-way interaction among attendees of outreach meetings. We then estimate whether participation affects the likelihood of receiving funding through the IRWM program. Participants who attended the core group meetings most regularly were most likely to receive funding for their projects, suggesting that uneven patterns of participation matter for the substantive value created by the collaboration.     

Railways and manufacturing productivity in Italy after unification

This paper contributes to the debate on the effects of transport infrastructure endowment on productivity by adding a historical perspective. This allows us to address the issue in a proving ground where the effects of the existing stock of infrastructure are negligible. At the time of unification, the Kingdom of Italy initiated a large infrastructure project to build railways. We find that railways had a positive effect on manufacturing productivity over the period 1871–1911. Railways also had strong spillover effects in neighboring provinces so that provinces that started with a higher endowment of railways benefited more than those who were newly endowed.     

Seismic Assessment of the Lima Cathedral Bell Towers via Kinematic and Nonlinear Static Pushover Analyses

ABSTRACT

The protection of cultural heritage against earthquake induced actions is one of the main challenges the earthquake engineering science and practice are facing. This article presents a seismic assessment study on one of the most ancient colonial buildings present in Peru, the Cathedral of Lima, focusing on its towers. A historical review highlighted how these structures, together with the whole Cathedral, suffered intense damage and partial collapse during previous earthquakes. In order to identify the structure main deficiencies, both linear kinematic analyses and nonlinear static analyses have been performed. Different nonlinear finite element models have been created to evaluate the influence of the adjacent walls. Different load distributions have been compared to evaluate how simplified patterns could provide results close to load distributions taken from a modal analysis of the complex. A simple retrofit strategy, consisting on the introduction of steel ties, has also been studied as a reference. Results show good correlation between kinematic and pushover analyses. The construction, when compared to the requirements of the national code for new buildings, results significantly vulnerable, pointing out the need to accept some structural damage even after seismic retrofit.