New Zealand parents' understandings of the intergenerational decline in children's independent outdoor play and active travel

Children's independent mobility and physical activity levels are declining in Western countries. In the past 20 years New Zealand children's active travel (walking and cycling) has dropped on average from 130 to 72 minutes per week, and those travelling by car to school have increased from 31% to 58%. This paper describes parents' understandings of why 9–11-year-old primary school children in suburban Auckland are less likely to walk to school and play unsupervised outdoors than they were as children. Data gathered in focus groups show understandings range from proximate neighbourhood explanations to downstream impacts of a neoliberal policy context.     

A palaeopathological investigation of the third intercondylar tubercle of Parsons

The third intercondylar tubercle of Parsons (TITP) is a bony protuberance which is sometimes present on the tibial plateau. It corresponds to the insertion of the anterior fibres of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Reasons why TITP is present in some knees and not others are at present unclear. TITP is studied in knee joints from 68 adult individuals from a medieval cemetery. Associations are investigated with age, sex, knee osteoarthritis, clinical and subclinical DISH, and skeletal signs of trauma, with the aim of evaluating existing ideas on the causation of TITP. Only trauma showed an association with the presence of TITP. The results offer support for the aetiology of trauma to the ACL in the formation of TITP. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The legacy of Atatürk: Turkish political structures and policy-making

Turkey occupies a peculiar position in both international relations and economic policy-making. On the international front, the country is still in many senses a frontier state defining a major part of its policy outlook in terms of a political metaphor that has as much to do with the Cold War of the past as the east/west divide of the present. In the economic arena, Turkey is still one of the increasingly rare emerging markets which has never really broken free from the high growth/high inflation spiral. This article seeks to explain these apparent anomalies in terms of political structures within Turkey. The problems facing Turkish policy-makers and their inability to triumph over them is related to the weakness of political institutions within Turkey itself. Turkish political parties lack the legitimacy, policy coherence or firm base of public support easily to embrace programmes which might be perceived to threaten either the historic international position of the state or the well-being of the clients of the large state-controlled part of the economy. This weakness derives from the manner in which modern Turkey was created in the first half of the last century, a process that produced flaws in political structures which the following fifty years of democratic experience has not entirely erased.     

The martyr, the matrona and the bishop: the matron Lucina and the politics of martyr cult in fifth- and sixth-century Rome

The present study attempts to build on the achievement of Pietri and Llewellyn in assessing the peculiarities and limitations of the gesta martyrum as a source for late ancient and early medieval Rome, while shifting interpretative stress away from the lay—clerical binary which has dominated recent treatments of the cult of the saints, and toward an emphasis on factional conflict among lay—clerical coalitions. Central is an analysis of the literary motif, which recurs across the gesta of Lucina, the aristocratic matrona or widow who sees to the burial of the martyr on her own lands. Though the stereotypical figure of Lucina warns us of the limitations of the gesta as a source for the patronage activity of the lay aristocracy, it is argued, her appearance in crucial texts such as the Passio Sebastiani can nonetheless help us to trace the role which the memory of the martyrs played in texts such as the gesta martyrum, the Symmachan Forgeries, or the Liber Pontificalis, as well as the role which martyr shrines such as the Vatican basilica and the memoria apostolorum on the Via Appia played in the contestation and consolidation of Roman episcopal authority.     

STATE REVENUE ELASTICITY AND EXPENDITURE GROWTH

Recent analyses and theories of public choice suggest faster public sector expansion in states with highly elastic revenue structures. This paper estimates the contribution of elasticity of tax revenues to the growth of expenditures in the 50 American states since 1960, based on elasticity measures for state revenue sources compiled by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, an index of state tax structural change, and controls for federal aid to states, population increase, and per capita growth in real income. Results for 1960-1970 show a small positive relationship between revenue elasticity and expenditure growth, but this becomes weak and negative for 1970-1976. Spending has increased most in states with the least elastic revenue sources; these states have made considerable changes in tax laws, while states with elastic revenue sources have been more likely to cut taxes than to increase spending. Federal aid, rather than tax elasticity, is the best predictor of state expenditure growth, while legislative changes in tax structure have enabled states to keep pace with rising demand for revenue due to growth in population and real income.     

Production and use of birch bark tar at the Neolithic pile-dwelling of Palù di Livenza (North-Eastern Italy) revealed by X-ray computed micro-tomography and synchrotron Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

Recent excavations at Palù di Livenza (northeastern Italy) revealed a multiphase Neolithic pile dwelling dated between ca. 4,300/4200 and 3,600 cal BC. Three lumps with teeth imprints and a larger amorphous piece from the Late Neolithic layers have been studied by X-ray computed micro-tomography (microCT) and synchrotron Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). FTIR spectra match well that of birch bark tar and microCT of the larger piece has revealed a rolled-up structure likely corresponding to bark rolls. The lumps of birch pitch were probably chewed to soften the tar prior to be used as hafting adhesive or therapeutic substance. The rolled-up inner structure of the larger piece and the remains of birch bark tar and abundant charcoals on its surface suggest it probably corresponds to a rare waste product from allothermic tar production.     

Poverty,Dependence and ‘Women’: Reading Autobiography and Social Policy from 1930s New Zealand

This essay explores the construction of ‘women’ in New Zealand during the 1930s, when the social legislation of the First Labour Government was being formulated and enacted. It examines the documentation produced by the legislative process in relation to the autobiographical texts of John A. Lee and Mary Isabella Lee, arguing that there are parallel conflicts in each set of texts. There is a series of double movements: the offer of the state’s protection to women is at the same moment a gesture of defence; ‘women’ are simultaneously constructed as ‘helpless’ and—not so overtly—as needing to be controlled.     

Unwritten Factors Affecting Structural Funds: The Influence of Regional Political Behaviours on the Implementation of EU Cohesion Policy

While EU regional policy has the ambitious objective of supporting lagging regions and promoting inter-regional convergence, its impact is dependent on the ability of regional policymakers to secure and use EU funding to meet the region's needs. This paper aims to show under which conditions politics has a defining influence on the distribution, allocation and utilization of structural funds (SF), specifically in Objective 1 regions. The empirical analysis focuses on the 2000–2006 programming cycle in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The results show that regions politically aligned with national governing coalitions tend to perform better in terms of received SF support and enjoy more flexibility in implementing SF. However, the influence of regional political behaviours on economic performances is very limited. The findings confirm the importance of politics in influencing SF implementation, but its limited influence on economic outcomes.