A Spatial Economic Analysis of Urban Land Use and Obesity*

Abstract. We analyze an urban spatial model to examine the possible link between urban land use and obesity. Households maximize utility defined over housing, weight, and food subject to a fixed time budget allocated to commuting, calorie expenditure, and work. Our model explains the observed correspondence between high obesity rates and low development densities, but implies that these are determined endogenously in a spatial market equilibrium. We study the sorting of residents by attributes such as income, initial weight, and weight preferences, and examine the impacts on weight and density of urban design modifications that lower the costs of calorie expenditure.     

Dietary analysis of Piraino 1, Sicily,Italy: the role of archaeopalynology in forensic science

Pollen from intestinal contents of mummies, backed by macrofloral analysis, provides important clues to diet, medicines, and season of death. Intestinal contents were recovered from the Piraino 1 mummy from the “Sepulcher of the Priests”, Piraino Mother Church, in the province of Messina, Sicily. Using standard palynological methods and pollen concentration technique, we quantified the numbers of pollen grains per gram of coprolite. The pollen spectrum was dominated by Polygalaceae, the Milkwort Family. Polygalaceae pollen is rarely found in archaeological sites. Based on comparison to published keys, we determined that the pollen came from a species of Polygala. Polygala contains species with medicinal value. We found nine other pollen types. Traces of Potamogeton (pondweed) was observed in preliminary scans. Multiple grains of Brassicaceae (mustard family), cereal (cultivated grains), Typha (cattail) and Cheno-am were found. Single grains of Castanea (chestnut), Fabaceae (bean family), Salix (willow), and Solanaceae (tomato family) were found. The preservation of the pollen was poor except for Polygala and the cereal pollen. Brassicaceae and Cheno-am have been part of the natural pollen spectrum in Sicily since ancient times. Cereal grains were consumed with prepared food. Importantly, background arboreal pollen was nearly absent. This indicates that Piraino 1 died during months of low pollination. The absence of olive pollen is important since this plant in Sicily reaches its maximum pollination in May and June and tapers off rapidly by mid-June. Therefore, absence of the key warm season airborne pollen type suggests a post-June death. Macrofossils, especially residue from grape pulp, indicates a death in September to November. His cause of death was likely a result of multiple myeloma. The methodological differences between archaeopalynology and forensic palynology are summarized. We suggest that the palynological methods presented here should be adopted for human remains analysis in forensic palynology.     

The Revolution’s Neverending Stories: Liliana Heker’s El fin de la historia

This article considers the legacy of 1970s revolutionary thought and political action within Argentine cultural production. Liliana Heker’s 1996 novel El fin de la historia is a fictional depiction of Montonera ‘Lucy’ Carazo, who was taken as a political prisoner, fell in love with and seduced her captor, and went on to collaborate with the military regime. Similar stories continue to arise and generate a great deal of debate in present-day Argentina, at the same time that Heker's novel itself continues to elicit controversial critical and cultural responses. This close reading of the novel thus situates itself within present-day debates regarding the ethics and politics of 1970s armed struggle as well as ongoing debates concerning individuals who abjure or betray their commitment to 1970s revolutionary causes. The analysis focuses on seduction and sexuality as a means of leading the novel’s protagonist astray from the cultural topoi of revolutionary martyrdom and heroism.     

THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN URBAN SPRAWL AND OBESITY: IS IT A TWO‐WAY STREET?

ABSTRACT.  We empirically examine the relationship between obesity and urban development patterns where individuals reside. Previous analyses treat urban form as exogenous to weight, and find higher body mass indices (BMI) among residents of areas with sprawl patterns of development. Using samples of recent movers, we find that the causality runs in both directions. Individuals who move to denser locations lose weight. As well, BMI is a determinant of the choice of a dense or sprawling location. In sum, while moving to a dense area results in weight loss, such locations are unlikely to be selected by individuals with high BMI.     

The general will beyond Rousseau: Sieyès’ theological arguments for the sovereignty of the Revolutionary National Assembly

Cultural history's recent treatments of Sieyès’ political theory have understood his political writings in their convergences with and divergences from Rousseau's political theory. By sketching a thoroughgoing analogy between the ecclesiological arguments in Malebranche's Entretiens sur la Métaphysique et sur la Religion (1688) and the arguments that Sieyès offers on the floor of the National Assembly concerning the nature of representation, I suggest that we should recontextualize Sieyès’ speeches vis-à-vis the broader discourse of the ‘general will,’ which was theological at its root. That is, the arguments Sieyès offers for the sovereignty of the National Assembly, separately and in combination, appear to have been shaped by a malebranchiste ecclesiology that grew out of the particular context of the Jansenist challenge to the Church. This argument has ramifications not just for our understanding of Sieyès and revolutionary political theory but also for what have been called the “religious origins of the French Revolution.”     

Leadership in Absentia: Negotiating Distance in Centralized Solomon Islands

This article examines a tension at the heart of national leadership in Solomon Islands today: a conviction that national leaders need to spend more time in rural environments to better represent rural interests, needs and values, while having to be in town to access the individuals and organizations that, essentially, make them national leaders in the first place. Drawing on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in urban Honiara and the rural Lau Lagoon, Malaita, we are especially interested in how this tension shapes rural perceptions of the legitimacy of chiefs as national leaders. Given that development projects can only be negotiated in Honiara, where the required state institutions, international (N)GOs and major businesses are based, rural residents feel compelled to send their most important village leaders, especially clan chiefs, to town. However, the longer these leaders are away from their homes, the more they seem distracted by urban ‘luxuries’ and the less they appear committed to their rural homes. In particular, villagers complain about their chiefs' contributions to exchange relations. Villages, thus, find themselves in a double‐bind that exaggerates a broader ‘crisis of leadership’ alongside an urban‐rural divide which challenges the promise of chiefly leadership as solution to antipolitical sentiments and a centralized state.     

A History of von Recklinghausen's NF1

ABSTRACT

The ability to maintain human brain explants in tissue culture was a critical step in the use of these cells for the study of central nervous system disorders. Ross G. Harrison (1870–1959) was the first to successfully maintain frog medullary tissue in culture in 1907, but it took another 38 years before successful culture of human brain tissue was accomplished. One of the pioneers in this achievement was Mary Jane Hogue (1883–1962). Hogue was born into a Quaker family in 1883 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and received her undergraduate degree from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. Research with the developmental biologist Theodor Boveri (1862–1915) in Würzburg, Germany, resulted in her Ph.D. (1909). Hogue transitioned from studying protozoa to the culture of human brain tissue in the 1940s and 1950s, when she was one of the first to culture cells from human fetal, infant, and adult brain explants. We review Hogue’s pioneering contributions to the study of human brain cells in culture, her putative identification of progenitor neuroblast and/or glioblast cells, and her use of the cultures to study the cytopathogenic effects of poliovirus. We also put Hogue’s work in perspective by discussing how other women pioneers in tissue culture influenced Hogue and her research.