The role of waterways in the spread of the Neolithic

The causes and implications of the regional variations in the spread of the incipient agriculture in Europe remain poorly understood. We use population dynamics models to study the dispersal of the Neolithic in Europe from a localised area in the Near East, solving the two-dimensional reaction-diffusion equation on a spherical surface. We focus on the role of major river paths and coastlines in the advance of farming, to model the rapid advances of the Linear Pottery (LBK) and the Impressed Ware traditions along the Danube–Rhine corridor and the Mediterranean coastline, respectively. We argue that the random walk of individuals, which results in diffusion of the population, can be anisotropic in those areas and hence lead to an effective advection. The standard reaction-diffusion equation is thus supplemented with an advection term, confined to the proximity of major rivers and coastlines. The model allows for the spatial variation in both the human mobility (diffusivity) and the carrying capacity, reflecting the local altitude and latitude. This approach can easily be generalised to include other environmental factors, such as the bioproductivity of landscapes. Our model successfully accounts for the regional variations in the spread of the Neolithic, consistent with the radiocarbon data, and reproduces a time delay in the spread of farming to the Eastern Europe, Britain and Scandinavia.     

1952～1954年湖北省农村私人借贷的历史考察

私人借贷在全国解放前一直是农村金融体系的重要组成部分.解放以后,从1952～1954年湖北省的调查材料来看,由于经济落后、家庭经济弱小、缺乏完善的社会保障和现代金融体系等原因,农村的私人借贷虽受到抑制但仍有一定的发展,与解放以前相比,这一时期的私人借贷形式较为简化,利率较低,功能上也以互助互济为主.国家银行业务在农村的延伸和农村信用社等现代金融组织的发展在一定程度上压缩了私人借贷的空间,但并不能完全替代私人借贷.     

国际油价波动对日本经济均衡的影响

2005年以来,国际原油价格剧烈震荡,除实体经济层面的供求因素外,能源作为金融商品的虚拟经济属性被放大,预期、投机、突发事件、汇率波动因素等都可能成为引燃油价波动的导火索。新的油价变动特点,使日本更加难以保持经济的内外均衡。从内部看,企业、行业间的收入分配效应分散了油价上涨的通货膨胀效果,具有技术垄断优势、善于利用金融工具避险及有效采取能源分散化和节能措施的企业与行业受油价波动的冲击更小。从外部看,进口成本增加和出口成本转嫁不完全引起了日本贸易条件恶化;石油美元通过贸易渠道和资本渠道的回流,对日本的国际收支产生一定影响;日元升值因素一定程度上缓和了高油价的冲击。日本政府、企业、居民的不懈努力创造了日本经济超低能耗的奇迹,这个奇迹将日本抵御油价波动的能力变成现实。．     

Kinetics of Stone Degradation of the Castle of Chambord in France

A multidisciplinary approach combining scientific and historical data is developed in order to identify the environmental factors that cause degradation of stones and to attempt to date the onset of degradation and assess the time needed for its development. The method is applied to the Castle of Chambord, a prestigious monument in the Loire Valley in France. The genesis of the two main types of degradation (spalling and flaking) and the kinetics of their development are identified and analysed. The correlation between the different mappings and iconographic documents reveal that flaking develops on any type of fine limestone and can appear less than 60 years after the stone is placed on the castle for Richemont limestone, and less than 10 years for tuffeau. The other main type of degradation, spalling, is limited to tuffeau, but it is more difficult to quantify the kinetics of its development.     

An elasticity analysis of the effectiveness of pronatalist measures in Taiwan

The total fertility rate (TFR) of Taiwan has remained below the replacement level 2.1 for past thirty years. Currently, 16 of its 22 counties and cities have TFRs below 1.3, with TFRs in middle and southern Taiwan even below 1. In the recent decade, various pronatalist policies have been adopted in Taiwan to cope with the low fertility issue. However, little is known about the effectiveness of these policies. In order to identify the group(s) of women that should be targeted to increase the TFR effectively, we have constructed a stochastic model to perform an elasticity analysis. The results show that changes in marriage rates among women aged 25–29 years would have the largest impact on the TFR, with an elasticity value of 0.32. This means that every 1 per cent increase in the marriage rate of women aged 25–29 may increase the TFR by about 0.32 per cent (i.e. an increase of about 2.6 children per 1000 women). The TFR is also very sensitive in responding to changes in the marriage rate and parity-1 fertility rate of 30–34-year-old women, with elasticities of 0.19 and 0.16 respectively. The divorce rate has a small but negative impact on the TFR. Also, the possible contribution of third- and higher-order births is insignificant. These findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing the marriage rate among women in their late twenties and early thirties, and supporting first births of women in their early thirties, are likely to raise Taiwan’s fertility rate effectively.     

地理学的基本规律

地理学有三个基本规律:一,地域分异规律,包括纬度地带性、经度地带性、垂直地带性和非地带性;二,地域综合规律,包括距离衰减规律和区域系统规律;三,地域发展规律,包括地理环境周期性发展和人地关系发展阶段性.这些规律既涉及自然过程,又涉及社会过程,许多重大的历史事件,如文明古国的出现,东亚经济起飞,我国开放政策,在地域上都受地理学基本规律的影响.     

Decomposing the crude divorce rate in five countries: Singapore,Taiwan, South Korea,the UK,and Australia

Over the past few decades, the level of divorce, measured by the crude divorce rate (CDR), has increased dramatically in both the East and the West, but has recently appeared to fall or level off in some countries. To investigate whether the recent decline or stabilisation of the CDRs reflects the real trends in divorce risk, a decomposition analysis was conducted on the changes in the CDRs over the past 20 years on two western and three East Asian countries, namely, the UK, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. The following is observed: the decline in the CDRs of the UK and Australia in the 1990s, and of Taiwan and Korea in the 2000s, was mainly due to shrinkage in the proportion of the married population rather than any reduction in divorce risk; only Australia experienced a genuine reduction in divorce risk between 2001 and 2011; and the continuous increase of Singapore’s divorce level between 1990 and 2010 may be is an unintentional effect of the government’s marriage promotion policies. The shift in the population age structure, and more importantly, the drastic decline in marriage, has seriously distorted the CDRs, making them unreliable indicators for monitoring divorce trends.     

Persistence and decay of the intestinal microbiota's DNA in glacier mummies from the Alps

The study of the DNA of ancient microorganisms in human remains represents one of the newest and most promising branches of molecular archaeoanthropology. Despite the growing number of papers addressing this subject, however, the analysis of ancient bacterial DNA is still a contentious issue. The indigenous microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract of man represents a community characterized by relative constancy in species composition and proportion. As a model system, we studied the preservation of the intestinal microbiota DNA in two naturally freeze-dried human mummies found on the Alps. This kind of mummy is an ideal subject for ancient DNA investigations. The first is a male body historically dated 1918 A.D. while the second is the famous Tyrolean Iceman (3.350–3.100 B.C.). The screening of bacterial 16S rRNA gene libraries from colon samples of the two mummies (49 clones for the 1918 mummy, 119 clones for the Iceman) showed that the characteristic composition of the intestinal microbiota of man (Alpha-, Beta-, Gammaproteobacteria, Bacteroides, Clostridia) is still kept in the library from the recent mummy while the Iceman's library is almost entirely composed by the DNA of clostridia. Comparison of the intestinal data with those from the literature describing the screening of 16S rRNA gene libraries from other parts of the Iceman's body and from permafrost specimens indicates that the changes in library composition may partly be attributed to the proliferation of clostridia inside the corpses, as described in forensic literature, and partly to the differential persistence of the DNA of gram-negative bacteria and endospore-former low-GC gram-positive bacteria. The present results contribute to the issue of the authentication of claims of pathogen DNA identification in archaeological human remains.     

The impact of language borders on the spatial decay of agglomeration and competition spillovers

There is now strong evidence that “soft” institutions are interrelated with the working of the economy. For example, in a geographical setting there is evidence that language borders affect interpersonal relationships, but there is no equivalent evidence regarding the effects of language borders on agglomeration or competition spillovers. This paper examines whether language affects the geographical extension of agglomeration and competition spillovers by observing the geography of employment patterns in a linguistically discontinuous setting. Our findings, for the first time, provide empirical evidence that language borders shape the distance decay of competition spillovers, independent of governance, and institutional issues.     

被“遗忘”的城市角落:对常熟历史街区衰败的思考

历史街区的保护已经受到我国城市政府的高度重视,然而在历史街区的保护中,街区衰败的现象屡见不鲜。为探究历史街区衰败的原因,本文以常熟市的历史街区为例,分析了物质空间衰落、基础设施匮乏及社会空间边缘化的街区衰败问题。研究也发现历史街区衰败的原因在于政府决策困境、产权关系复杂和多头管理带来价值差异等。为此,研究建议在今后的街区保护工作中,要考虑当地居民的需求,而社会舆论也应当对历史街区改造更加包容。同时,政府部门也要建立跨部门的协调机制,探索"接地气"的改造方案。