CONVRT: A COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR THE CONVERSION OF FREE-FIELD DATA TO FIXED-FIELD DATA FORMAT

Abstract

Historians of the U.S. Congress often draw claims from interpretations of legislators’ rhetoric and the outcomes of key votes. In this article, the author tells a cautionary tale: Such strategies ignore the correspondence between roll-call voting on select issues and broader coalitional structures in Congress. He does so by examining contrary positions about a key issue during the New Deal: On the one hand, some researchers claim that reasoned congressional deliberation on the issue of administrative oversight was separate from the prevailing legislative concerns of the day. Other scholars, on the other hand, assert that the prevailing issue dimensions in Congress included administrative oversight. Using a Bayesian measurement method, Ordinary Least Squares, and probit regression, and a novel selection of roll-call data, the author tested these claims, concluding that broader coalitional structures subsumed issues of administration.     

Plainware ceramics from Sāmoa: Insights into ceramic chronology,cultural transmission,and selection among colonizing populations

The first people in Sāmoa produced a varied ceramic archaeological record including a single deposit with decorated Lapita ceramics on the island of ‘Upolu in the west of the archipelago and a nearly contemporaneous plainware deposit over 250 km to the east on Ofu Island. Post-Lapita ceramic change across Sāmoa is similar with almost no decoration, local ceramic production, limited vessel form diversity, and changing frequencies of thin- and thick-wares. This Sāmoan ceramic record is different from nearby Tonga and Fiji where early decorated Lapita ceramics are widely distributed, there are no thickness-defined ware types, and for Fiji, post-Lapita ceramics are more variable. Here we investigate the apparent uniqueness of the Sāmoan ceramic record through an analysis of early plainware ceramics, the second oldest after the Ofu deposits, from Tutuila Island in the center of the Sāmoan archipelago. Our assemblage-specific findings are similar to other Sāmoan plainware analyses, but we suggest the ceramic and other archaeological evidence from Sāmoa and the region indicates Sāmoa was colonized by a few isolated groups and that within the context of cultural transmission of ceramic variants, selection explains thickness variation and likely other aspects of Sāmoan ceramic change.     

The Moscow Colloquium on Electroencephalography of Higher Nervous Activity and Its Impact on International Brain Research

Late 1950s was a period of recognition of Russian neurophysiology by international neuroscience community and vice versa. This process of “opening windows in both directions” might be illustrated by the story of The Moscow Colloquium on Electroencephalography of Higher Nervous Activity.

The Colloquium took place on October 6–11, 1958 at the House of Scientists in Moscow. It was organized by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR under the initiative of the Institute for Higher Nervous Activity and focused on (a) EEG correlates of cortical excitation and inhibition; (b) electrophysiological study of different brain structures and their role in conditioned reflexes; and (c) EEG of higher nervous activity in humans.

At the final session it was suggested to launch an International Year for the Study of the Brain and to ask UNESCO for international coordination of brain research. This resulted into the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) founded in 1960.

This article is based on unpublished records of international contacts of Soviet neurophysiologists and organization of the Moscow Colloquium from the Archive of Russian Academy of Science (ARAN), reports in Soviet periodicals, publications in obscure Festschriften, etc.     

Asbj⊘rn F⊘lling and the Discovery of Phenylketonuria

In 1934, the Norwegian biochemist and physician Asbj?rn F?lling described an inherited metabolic disorder characterized by severe intellectual impairment, motor problems, and skin abnormalities. He found that affected individuals could be identified by the abnormal excretion of phenylpyruvic acid in their urine. The disorder, which F?lling initially termed imbecillitas phenylpyrouvica, would later come to be known as phenylketonuria or PKU. The present paper focuses on the story of F?lling's discovery and his subsequent contributions to the area of study. In the years that have followed, research on PKU has continued to play a major role in the neurosciences, shaping our understanding of genetic disorders, human metabolism, and brain development.     

Refining correspondence analysis-based ceramic seriation of regional data sets

Ceramic seriation is one of the primary tools used by archaeologists to create chronologies, especially for surface survey data. In this article, we outline a bootstrapped approach to correspondence analysis-based seriation designed to help assess and improve the stability of relative orderings produced through such analyses. This procedure systematically identifies and removes small samples and sites with unusual samples, such as those with multiple components, which are not handled well by seriation and require secondary interpretation. Our approach combines data from multiple projects in the Zuni region of the American Southwest in order to gauge the effects of intraregional variation in ceramic distributions and reexamine prior interpretations of demographic change based on individual projects. This analysis highlights two previously unknown regional trends, including variation in the distribution of multicomponent sites and potential short-term depopulation of a significant part of the region. Based on this example, we further suggest that our method may be particularly useful in situations where little prior chronological information is available.     

‘The best thing ever’: how children's popular culture matters

This paper reflects upon a popular cultural event which was, briefly, for a particular grouping of children in the UK, ‘the best thing ever’: namely the release of the CD-single Reach, by the British pop group S Club 7. I suggest that this event was illustrative of manifold cultural forms and practices which—being ostensibly banal, fun, faddish, lowbrow and ‘childish’—continue to go largely unheralded by many social/cultural geographers. Against this grain, this paper presents three apprehensions of S Club 7’s significance. First, I restate a particular case made via Anglo-American cultural studies that ‘children's popular culture’, ought to be taken more seriously in contexts salient to social/cultural geographers. Second, I detail how the S Club 7 phenomenon existed, practically and materially, and mattered, in some children's everyday lives. Third, refracting cultural geographers' recent apprehensions of affective, evental aspects of cultural practices, I suggest that the pop cultural phenomenon described herein mattered (to those children, there and then) in ways which elude and exceed canonical scholarly habits of writing/knowing popular cultural phenomena.     

Without Due Process: Albert E. Pillsbury and the Hoar Anti‐Lynching Bill

The United States has never passed a federal anti‐lynching bill. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries numerous petitions and protests against lynching called for federal intervention where states, particularly in the South, were failing to prosecute lynchers effectively. This essay looks at the most significant of these calls for anti‐lynching legislation, the anti‐lynching bill of 1901, drawn up by former Massachusetts Attorney General Albert E. Pillsbury. Sponsored by Senator George Frisbie Hoar (R, MA), the bill was the template for subsequent attempts to pass federal anti‐lynching legislation. This essay analyzes the bill, why it failed at the time and illustrates how it served as a template for future attempts to pass federal anti‐lynching legislation in the United States.     

历史要重演吗?——1948年的周鲠生、胡适之争及其意蕴

1948年初,周鲠生与胡适就国际局势问题爆发了一场争论。争论主要围绕两个问题展开。第一,如何看待"西方民主国家"的对德对日政策?第二,苏联是不是一个可怕的侵略势力?周鲠生认为,第二次世界大战结束后英、美的对德对日政策,可能会导致德、日两国军国主义的复活,从而重蹈第一次世界大战后西方民主国家对德政策的覆辙。胡适则认为西方民主国家并未放弃防制德、日侵略势力复活的政策,而苏联已成为一个可怕的侵略势力。从世界范围看,这场争论实际上是第二次世界大战结束后美国国内两种不同的外交主张的分歧在中国的反映,其思想根源则在于两种不同的自由主义理念,反映了战后中国自由主义的复杂走向。     

MOSAIC GLASS FROM ST PETER'S,ROME: MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES AND RAW MATERIALS EMPLOYED IN LATE 16TH‐CENTURY ITALIAN OPAQUE GLASS

A recent restoration of late 16th‐century mosaics in one of the vaults beneath the dome of St Peter's Basilica in Rome allowed sampling and analysis of a group of glass tesserae. The aim of this work is the characterization of opaque coloured glasses possibly produced in Rome. The characteristics of the glass from St Peter's were compared with those of Venetian and Tuscan production, in order to assess possible common origins. Chemical analysis of 30 samples was carried out by electron microprobe, while the nature and morphology of opacifiers were determined by X‐ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Almost all the opaque samples were characterized by the presence of SnO₂ crystals. In addition, depending on the colour of the glass, other crystalline phases were identified: lead‐tin oxide (PbSnO₃) in yellow glass, cuprite (Cu₂O) in orange glass and two calcium‐tin silicates with different stoichiometry (CaSnSiO₅ and Ca₃SnSi₂O₉) in the green‐yellow variety. A frame of reference for identifying raw materials and glass‐making techniques is provided by textual sources, here examined in comparison with the compositional characteristics of the tesserae from St Peter's.