Chinese manufacturing entrepreneurship capital: evidence from Italian industrial districts

The purpose of this paper is to obtain a better understanding of the presence of Chinese manufacturing entrepreneurship in industrial districts compared to other Italian local economies. Statistical data are used to uncover where Chinese manufacturing entrepreneurs localize their businesses and to what extent this localization is an innovation within the geographical pattern of industrial districts. Data on Chinese manufacturing micro-enterprises (i.e. with less than 10 persons employed) started up in years 2005–2007 and 2008–2010 are cross-tabulated by industrial districts and other local economies to investigate their change over time. The empirical findings show a dominance of industrial districts: those located in Tuscany are on top and Prato district ranks first.     

Anselm Kiefer: a study of his artistic materials

The style of the contemporary German artist Anselm Kiefer is highly innovative and unconventional and is characterized by the use of diverse materials that he selects and combines according to the emotions that they stir in him. The conservation and preservation of works by Kiefer are particularly difficult tasks because of the heterogeneity and, in some cases, the incompatibility of the materials used; therefore, a thorough characterization is crucial before any intervention is considered. In this paper, we report the results of an investigation on a fragment from a multimaterial work and on samples from the paintings Bohemia Lies by the Sea and Die Größe Fracht. The large fragment was cut by the artist himself from a work in progress and is considered destitute of any artistic value; therefore, it was possible to sample it extensively. This fragment and the samples from the Die Größe Fracht and Bohemia Lies by the Sea paintings were analyzed by ultraviolet (UV) fluorescence imaging, fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. This multitechnique approach allowed us to fully characterize and identify pigments, dyes, and organic components that reflect the diversity of the materials typically chosen by the artist. The results are evaluated in the context of the interview that Antonio Rava had with the Anselm Kiefer in 2000.     

The Roads of Andalusia and Valencia. A Spanish Transport Legacy of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Roads designed by civil or military engineers for animal-drawn vehicles before the arrival of the railways constituted an essential factor for the movement of goods and people and for the economy and trade in different countries. The improvement in road construction techniques over the 18th and 19th centuries, following the creation of the first civil engineering colleges and institutions, allowed greater transportation at diminishing cost. Despite its significance, this heritage has received comparatively little attention from industrial archaeologists. As such, the object of the present article is to provide an overview of the development in road planning and construction in Spain over the 18th and 19th centuries, in order to demonstrate the historical and technological value of these roads. The article also presents two sections of Spanish roads corresponding to the start and end of the study period, and identifies some of the main archaeological elements dating to their time of construction that prove the evolution in road technology. This process has made it possible to create an inventory which incorporates the main elements that characterise this type of infrastructure.     

The Non-Sense of an Ending

This article contributes to the scholarship on Portuguese writer José Cardoso Pires as well as the study of the neorealist short story in Portugal. It analyzes the ending of the neorealist short story as a moment of utopian projection and draws a comparison with Cardoso Pires's short story endings. This study demonstrates that Cardoso Pires displaces the ending of the story as a moment of concordance to a moment of continuing crisis. The author suggests that through the design of problematic narratorial voices that advance ambiguity and irony, Cardoso Pires requires from the reader an engagement with the text that mirrors the writer's engagement in society.     

Geography of belonging: nostalgic attachment,transnational home and global mobility among Romanian immigrants in Spain

This article explores how human global mobility is linked to a sense of home and belonging and outlines ways in which European Union (EU) enlargement could contribute to broader debates about migration, both empirically and theoretically. To accomplish this aim, I use the context of Romanian migration to Spain. Since EU enlargement in 2007, Spain has emerged as a major destination for Romanian migrants. The main argument of the paper is that transformations in the EU over the past 20 years through its open border policy have changed migrant workers into EU movers, and this change affects people's perceptions about sense of home. This analysis is prompted by a qualitative and narrative turn in migration studies, and an emphasis on new mobility pathways in accounting for the embodied dimensions of migration. Key to the paper is an analysis of how people can maintain a sense of home while being on the move. It attempts to demonstrate that migrants' experiences of belonging in their host country may vary greatly depending on the time of movement, the politics of EU borders, the nature of mobility and personal and individual circumstances.     

The Perineuronal Net: A Weapon for a Challenge

Theories and data do not always fit and sometimes are sources of conflicts among scientists. This is the case of a morphological structure, the perineuronal net, which was denied on the basis of an ideological conflict between two giants of neurosciences: Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal. The perineuronal net is a reticular structure enveloping many neurons. Originally reported by Golgi in 1893 and 1898 and confirmed by several authors before the turn of the century, the perineuronal net was used by Golgi to support the reticular theory of the organization of the nervous system. Ramón y Cajal, the paladin of the neuronal theory who had also observed this anatomical structure, denied its existence suggesting that it was a fixation artifact. After Cajal's statements, only a few Italian scientists continued to work in this field, and after the 1930s the perineuronal net was forgotten. Only the recent advances in histochemical and immunocytochemical technology confirmed the existence of this structure opening new fields in functional neuroanatomy and neuropathology.     

Sacred landscapes of the southern Brazilian highlands: Understanding southern proto-Jê mound and enclosure complexes

Fieldwork involving survey, detailed topographic mapping, and excavations in Pinhal da Serra, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, has revealed a highly-structured landscape revolving around funerary/ceremonial structures that began around A.D. 1000. This paper focuses on the results of detailed topographic survey of mound and enclosure complexes and their interpretation in light of southern Jê ethnohistorical and ethnographic data. We compare the architectural patterns of mortuary architecture from this study with fundamental spatial features of historic Kaingang’s social organisation, mortuary rituals and cosmogony myth. Our results suggest historical continuity in the organisation of space in cardinal directions (E–W), topography (low and high places), and in circular/concentric spatiality revealed in the southern proto-Jê mound and enclosure complexes. It is argued that small paired mound and enclosure complexes are associated with the material representation of a dual ranked opposition materialised in proto-Jê moiety cemeteries where important persona were buried.     

The cultural landscape near the ancient city of Tharros (central West Sardinia): vegetation changes and human impact

The evolution of the cultural landscape in coastal western Sardinia is investigated by means of pollen analysis in the Mistras Lagoon sediments, near the ancient city of Tharros, with particular attention to changes in evergreen vegetation and the impact of human activity. The pollen diagram, spanning the time interval from 5300 to 1600 cal BP, documents the influence of man, climate, and geomorphic dynamics on the evolution of a semi-open evergreen vegetation landscape and variations in extent of a salt-marsh environment. Anthropogenic indicators and microcharcoals concur in depicting increased land use coinciding with the Nuragic, Phoenician, Punic and Roman dominations. Pollen data, along with archaeobotanical evidence, suggest a prevailing arable farming economy, vocated to Vitis and cereals exploitation, during the Nuragic phase until 2400 cal BP, replaced since then by a prevailing stock rearing economy. Between 2050 and 1600 cal BP, a less intensive human impact on the landscape is profiled, consistently with the archaeologically documented abandonment of the rural villages in favour of a slow urbanization, experienced by the Sinis territory in Imperial times. The pollen record provides new insights into the history of important economic plants in the Mediterranean, such as Vitis, Olea and Quercus suber. The results of the pollen analysis reveal how the records of these taxa are primarily influenced by the cultural development of the Sinis region and secondarily by dynamics involving the natural companion vegetation.