The Sound of a Person

Konggap, sung melodic motifs that last only a few seconds embody the acoustic representation of a person among the Yupno people of Papua New Guinea and are a unique phenomenon in the Pacific. The konggap forms a very complex system of personal identification and expression of social relationships; at the same time it connects the singer to the ancestral world. Every person in Yupno society possesses his or her own konggap, and Yupno people are able to identify a large number of konggap, some men even up to three hundred. Nobody would sing his or her own konggap during the day. When crossing Yupno land, a person has to sing the konggap of the respective landowner to identify himself as an insider, a local person ? unlike strangers (and possible enemies) who remain silent. But at nightly dances each dancer sings his own konggap and during mourning at funerals groups of women simultaneously sing the konggap of the deceased person. An interdisciplinary ethnographic‐musicological‐cognitive fieldwork study was conducted in order to find out how it is possible that the Yupno are able to identify and distinguish between this staggering amount of very short sung motifs.     

David S. Bell and John Gaffney (eds.), The Presidents of the French Fifth Republic,Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xvi+219pp., £57.50, ISBN 9780230285224

Agir ici—Survie France Cameroun. Croisement dangereux Dossiers noirs de la politique africaine de la France, no. 7 L'Harmattan, 1996 95 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 2 7384 4458 X

ALDRICH, R. and MERLE, I. (eds) France Abroad: Indochina, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, Mayotte University of Sydney, 1997 168 pp., no price indicated, ISBN 1 86451 042 0

ALLEGRE, C. and JEAMBAR, D. Questions de France Fayard, 1996 355 pp., 120F., pbk, ISBN 2 213 59744 8

BADINTER, R. La Prison républicaine (1871–1914) Livre de poche, 1995 44F., ISBN 2 253 136 344

BARTRAM, G., SLAWINSKI, M. and STEEL, D. (eds) Reconstructing the Past Keele University Press, 1996 224 pp., £35, ISBN 1 85331 168 5

HARGREAVES, J. Decolonization in Africa Longman, 1996 298 pp., £14.99, ISBN 0 582 24917 1

Impression de la Convention Nationale, 1792 — an IV. Inventaire analytique des unarticles ADXVIII^e 208–357 Archives nationales, 1997 556 pp., 400F., ISBN 2 86000 255 3

LETERRIER, S.‐A. Le XIX^e siècle historien, Anthologie raisonnée Belin, 1997 352 pp., 125 F., ISBN 2 7011 2252 X

School of European Studies, University of Wales Cardiff New readings, vol, 2, 1996 87 pp., no price indicated, ISSN 1359 7485

NORA, P. Les Lieux de mémoire Collection ‘Quarto’, Gallimard, 1997 vol. 1, 1642 pp., 180F., ISBN 2 07 074902 9; vol. 2, 1372 pp., 180F., ISBN 2 07 074903 7; vol. 3, 1756 pp., 180F., ISBN 2 07 074904 5.

WOLOCH, I. (ed.) Revolution and the Meanings of Freedom in the Nineteenth Century Stanford University Press, 1996 447 pp., £40, ISBN 08 047 2748 1     

A General Misspecification Test for Spatial Regression Models: Dependence, Heterogeneity, and Nonlinearity

There is an increasing awareness of the potentials of nonlinear modeling in regional science. This can be explained partly by the recognition of the limitations of conventional equilibrium models in complex situations, and also by the easy availability and accessibility of sophisticated computational techniques. Among the class of nonlinear models, dynamic variants based on, for example, chaos theory stand out as an interesting approach. However, the operational significance of such approaches is still rather limited and a rigorous statistical-econometric treatment of nonlinear dynamic modeling experiments is lacking. Against this background this paper is concerned with a methodological and empirical analysis of a general misspecification test for spatial regression models that is expected to have power against nonlinearity, spatial dependence, and heteroskedasticity. The paper seeks to break new research ground by linking the classical diagnostic tools developed in spatial econometrics to a misspecification test derived directly from chaos theory—the BDS test, developed by Brock, Dechert, and Scheinkman (1987). A spatial variant of the BDS test is introduced and applied in the context of two examples of spatial process models, one of which is concerned with the spatial distribution of regional investments in The Netherlands, the other with spatial crime patterns in Columbus, Ohio.     

History as Moral Reflection

Book reviewed in this article:
The Degradation of American History , by David Harlan.