博物馆文物保存环境质量标准研究

我国大气污染严重,环境质量恶化使文物受损影响日益明显。上海、重庆、广州三市博物馆环境质量检测调查说明其现状与文物保护的要求还有相当距离,有些甚至还处于污染相当严重的地步。博物馆文物保存环境影响因素主要是温湿度、光线(可见光、紫外光)、污染气体(包括尘埃),不同材质的文物受各种环境因素影响在程度上是不同的。有的是起主要作用,有的则是起协同增效作用。研究其反应机理、反应速率,量化它们之间的关系,将是制定出文物保存环境质量标准的重要依据。 文物保存环境质量标准要求达到最大限度降低环境因素对文物所造成的损害,但受治理技术、监测技术、经济的许可、合理程度等方面的制约,制定分级标准将有利博物馆的环境治理实施和监测。     

Shared rivers and interstate conflict

“The previous war in the Middle East was about oil, the next war will be about water.” Such predictions have been made regularly, and particularly with reference to the possibility of upstream–downstream conflicts in major rivers which cross interstate boundaries. A good case can be made that competition over water resources may exacerbate conflict and contribute to interstate violence. More than 200 river systems are shared by two or more countries. Many rivers run between countries with a history of conflict, where water plays an important part in the economic life of the country. The dramatic statements about ‘water wars’, however, have a weaker foundation. As resource optimists have pointed out, there is an abundance of water where it is not subject to wasteful uses, human ingenuity can overcome water shortages, and nations can cooperate rather than fight to resolve international water issues. This study is built on newly generated data on boundary-crossing rivers, which have been added to the Correlates of War contiguity dataset. Our results indicate that a joint river does indeed increase the probability of militarized disputes and armed conflict over and above mere contiguity. This risk factor is comparable in size to standard control variables, but much smaller than the effect of contiguity itself. Water scarcity is also associated with conflict, and the upstream/downstream relationship appears to be the form of shared river most frequently associated with conflict. But these results are not very strong and we do not have any systematic data on the issues involved in the shared-river conflicts.     

Some chronological implications of a fossil molluscan assemblage from a neolithic site at Brook,Kent, England

The later post-glacial history of a valley in the chalk escarpment near Brook, Kent, is described, based on molluscan stratigraphy, archaeological evidence and radio-carbon dating. Differences in size and colour banding, respectively, of fossil and living representatives of two species of land snails, Pomatias elegans (Müller) and Cepaea nemoralis (L.), are correlated with climatic change during the post-glacial period. The problems of the use of fossil shells of these species as samples for radiocarbon dating are discussed.