Developing and Applying a Disaggregated Retail Location Model with Extended Retail Demand Estimations

The spatial interaction model (SIM) is an important tool for retail location analysis and store revenue estimation, particularly within the grocery sector. However, there are few examples of SIM development within the literature that capture the complexities of consumer behavior or discuss model developments and extensions necessary to produce models which can predict store revenues to a high degree of accuracy. This article reports a new disaggregated model with more sophisticated demand terms which reflect different types of retail consumer (by income or social class), with different shopping behaviors in terms of brand choice. We also incorporate seasonal fluctuations in demand driven by tourism, a major source of non‐residential demand, allowing us to calibrate revenue predictions against seasonal sales fluctuations experienced at individual stores. We demonstrate that such disaggregated models need empirical data for calibration purposes, without which model extensions are likely to remain theoretical only. Using data provided by a major grocery retailer, we demonstrate that statistically, spatially, and in terms of revenue estimation, models can be shown to produce extremely good forecasts and predictions concerning store patronage and store revenues, including much more realistic behavior regarding store selection. We also show that it is possible to add a tourist demand layer, which can make considerable forecasting improvements relative to models built only with residential demand.     

Reply to the comments on analytical archaeology

A view of the Middle‐Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe is offered from the perspective of Americanist anthropological archaeology. After a brief consideration of how the transition seems to be perceived by many British and Continental workers, patterns in lithic typology and technology, raw material variability, reduction strategies and intensity of site use, blank frequencies; bone, antler and ivory technologies, paleolithic art, subsistence strategies and settlement patterns are reviewed. It is concluded that perceptions of pattern, and what it might mean, are (1) theory‐laden and paradigm dependent, and (2) are almost entirely determined by the relative importance of historicist biases in a particular research tradition, and (3) by preconceptions about the nature of the biological transition between archaic and modern humans.     

The Battle of Ashdown,A.D. 871

An examination of coin evidence from North Wales appears to show that coin ceased to reach the area in the middle of the last decade of the fourth century. The absence of sites from the Notitia Dignitatum in combination with the negative coin evidence is deployed to suggest that forces were withdrawn from the area by Arbogastes during the revolt of Eugenius (A.D. 392–95). The dating of clipped siliquae is reconsidered.     

Carnivores as zoonotic parasite reservoirs in ancient times: the case of the Epullán Chica archaeological cave (Late Holocene,northwestern Patagonia,Argentina)

Zoonoses are currently considered as one of the most important threats for Public Health worldwide. Numerous zoonoses known today have occurred since antiquity. Carnivores act as definitive hosts for many intestinal parasites; some of them are responsible for several zoonotic diseases. The aim of this work was to study the parasite remains found in coprolites assigned to carnivores from the archaeological site Epullán Chica (ECh) and to discuss the results from a zoonotic point of view. ECh is located in northwestern Patagonia, Argentina and was occupied since the end of the Late Holocene (～2200 years B.P.). Nine coprolites were examined for parasites. Samples were processed by rehydration in a 0.5 % water solution of trissodium phosphate, followed by homogenization, filtered and processed by spontaneous sedimentation. The macroscopic remains were separated and dried at room temperature and were examined for diet analysis. Six out of 9 coprolites examined were positive for parasites. Representatives of at least 10 parasite taxa were registered. Results are in line with the reconstruction of the scenario of zoonoses in the past and the diseases that the human populations and animals from Patagonia could be exposed. The present study provides the first palaeoparasitological report of carnivore coprolites recovered from the archaeological site Ech and reflects contamination of the cave used by hunter-gatherers with different parasites causative of zoonotic diseases.