IMPERFECT INFORMATION,UNCERTAINTY AND OPTIMAL SAMPLING IN LOCATION THEORY: AN INITIAL REEXAMINATION OF HOTELLING,WEBER, AND VON THÜNEN*

ABSTRACT Sophisticated locational analysis should no longer proceed without examining (1) the feasibility of reducing uncertainty about the size and spatial spread of the market, prices and other elements and (2) the practicality of information generation through sampling. The present paper points out the methodology for Hotelling-, Weberian- and von Thünen- type location problems by examining simplified situations.     

A COMMODITY-REGIONAL MODEL OF WEST VIRGINIA*

This paper presents the specification, estimation, validation, and application of a modeling study which analyzes the possible impacts of a resource industry on a state economy. The Commodity Regional Econometric Annual Macro Model of West Virginia (CREAM model) is composed of a commodity model of the West Virginia coal industry and a macroeconometric regional model of the West Virginia state economy. The model describes the detailed interrelationship between the primary commodity sector and the rest of the economy of the region. The CREAM model utilizes the concept of engine of growth at the regional level and shows the impacts of market fluctuations in the demand for and value of coal on the economy of the state.     

Pebbles and Peregrinatio: The Taskscape of Medieval Devotion on Inishark Island,Ireland

SINCE 2008, the island of Inishark, Co Galway, Ireland, has been the subject of archaeological research by the Cultural Landscapes of the Irish Coast (CLIC) project, directed by Ian Kuijt of the University of Notre Dame. The CLIC project’s excavations have produced new evidence for the use of water-smoothed pebbles within monastic and pilgrimage practices on the island. Using a relational perspective centred on the concept of ‘taskscape’, this article traces the formation, acquisition, manipulation, and deposition of these pebbles by human and non-human agencies and suggests how the stones may have facilitated worshippers’ embodiment of penitential devotion — peregrinatio — by evoking the divine governance of hydrological forces. Relational theory, although inspired by non-Western indigenous perspectives, is shown to be effective in shedding light on the interplay of bodies, language, objects, and environmental phenomena in early medieval and medieval Irish Christian practice.     

The coastal landslides of Shetland

Little is known of hard-rock coastal landsliding in Scotland. We identify 128 individual coastal landslides or landslide complexes >50 m wide along the coasts of Shetland. Most are apparently translational slides characterized by headscarps, displaced blocks and/or debris runout, but 13 deep-seated failures with tension cracks up to 200 m inland from cliff crests were also identified. Thirty-one sites exhibit evidence of at least localized recent activity. Landslide distribution is primarily determined by the distribution of coastal cliffs >30 m high, and they are preferentially developed on metasedimentary rocks. Analysis of 16 landslides on Fetlar (NE Shetland) indicates that most are translational dip-slip failures; 3 represent deep-seated failures and several exhibit active frontal erosion attributable to basal sapping by storm waves. As these landslides terminate in shallow water, failure was probably initiated when rising sea level resulted in footslope erosion and upslope propagation of instability, causing downslope displacement of landslide blocks on upper slopes. ¹⁰Be exposure dating of two headscarps yielded ages of 4.8?±?0.2 ka and 4.4?±?0.2 ka, consistent with the onset of footslope erosion as sea level rose. Our results suggest that landslides have played a hitherto undocumented but important role in retreat of cliffed coastlines in Scotland.