The astrolabe: Its uses and derivatives

Despite the technical means available for its diffusion, the information explosion is such that a diminishing proportion of geographical literature achieves the circulation that it deserves. The problem is illustrated by reference to a single country — Finland. In the case of such a country, even assuming familiarity with its languages, access to significant publication often proves impossible save on its home ground. Examples of three types of geographical literature are reviewed — 1) literature from the past which merits wider acquaintance because of its enduring value; 2) literature from the present which, on the score of methodology or theory independently of content, deserves attention, but which — not appearing in internationally familiar outlets — is unlikely to gain recognition; 3) similar literature directly relevant to the geography of Finland in the publications of cognate disciplines. The rate of change in the geographical scene and the volume of publication generated make it increasingly difficult for the would‐be specialist in even a relatively narrow field to keep up‐to‐date and to speed the circulation of information.     

广东入境旅游流西向扩散时空动态演变研究

广东入境旅游流的西向扩散是我国入境旅游流运动的一个缩影,其动态演变规律对了解我国入境旅游流运动模式具有重要意义。通过对扩散转移态、时间和空间分布集中指数及转移密度等的计算,对广东入境旅游流西向扩散的演变特征进行了定量描述和刻画。结论显示:广东入境旅游流西向扩散呈现随距离递减的特征,其动态扩散年际间变动不大,但空间集中性日益增强并流向旅游资源富集的省区,相应地这些省区入境游客的转移密度也较高。     

菲律宾史前文化与华南的关系

近百年的史前考古资料表明,菲律宾群岛是华南百越系统的土著文化沟通西南太平洋之南岛语族文化的主要纽带,在菲律宾史前文化序列中有来自华南大陆的文化因素,其旧石器、新石器和早期金属器时代考古学文化的主体内涵均表现出与华南大陆的密切关系。     

The Diffusion of Voluntary International Management Standards: Responsible Care,ISO 9000, and ISO 14001 in the Chemical Industry

This article analyzes the factors that explain the international diffusion of voluntary international management standards. We argue that international management standards should not be analyzed in isolation but in conjunction with other standards and their institutional environment. We present two opposite views explaining how the previous diffusion of management standards facilitates or hampers the adoption of new management standards. We test a comprehensive model of diffusion of international environmental management standards within the chemical industry using a panel of 113 different countries during the period 2000 to 2003. Our results show that the previous experience of businesses in voluntary standards such as the Chemical Industry's Responsible Care Program or ISO 9000, government commitment toward Environmental Management Systems Standards, and the level of activity of international nongovernmental organizations in the country of adoption, impact positively on the adoption of ISO 14001 by chemical firms. Unlike previous studies that focused mostly on cross industry analyses, we do not find trade‐related factors significant while explaining adoption in the chemical industry. Our results differ, therefore, from previous research and highlight the need to isolate industry effects to understand the diffusion of international standards.     

What Drives Charter School Diffusion at the Local Level: Educational Needs or Political and Institutional Forces?

While the number of charter schools has increased rapidly in the United States, few studies have examined whether charter schools are implemented in response to real and perceived educational needs or to political and institutional factors in the education policy arena. Unlike traditional policy adoption and diffusion studies that focus on the state level and use a dichotomous dependent variable—adoption or not—this article focuses on local school districts and uses the number of operating charter schools as the dependent variable. Accordingly, instead of applying event history analysis, this article conducts generalized event count regression to estimate models. Based on a data set that consists of Florida's 67 school districts across a six‐year time period, the results suggest that charter school diffusion is more heavily driven by political and institutional factors than by educational needs. The results also demonstrate a dynamic trend of charter school diffusion over time.     

考古学文化的传播与迁徙

文化传播和迁徙是导致考古学文化变迁的重要因素.我们既要审慎地对待考古学文化传播与迁徙的复杂状况,对具体问题作出具体的分析;又要从大量存在的文化传播和迁徙的历史事实中尽可能总结出一些普遍性和规律性的模式,并不断丰富和完善这些模式.     

Making waves: The Royal Navy's management of invention and innovation in steam shipping, 1815–1832 1

Abstract

This paper explores the sources of invention and innovation in steam shipping, the distribution of funding and risk between the state and the private sector, and the Royal Navy's management of innovation, during the experimental period of steam power's adoption at sea. It identifies two intersecting channels through which steam‐related innovations reached the Royal Navy. First, “packages” of innovations were embedded in the marine engines that were commissioned by the Navy from private engine‐making firms. Secondly, the Navy was spontaneously offered a gamut of ideas and inventions, which varied enormously both in potential importance and in degree of development. Although the mechanisms for dealing with these two channels were different, the end result was much the same ‐ in minimizing both the expense and the risk borne by the public sector. It was principally the private sector that was funding scientific and technological development in this sphere. Recognizing its own lack of expertise and consequent hazard, the Navy Board was developing a systematic yet flexible method of assessing steam‐related inventions ‐ which appears to have served it well.     

Diffusion patterns of violence in civil wars

Much of the current conflict literature attempts to explain the occurrence of violence as the result of determinants exogenous to the conflict process. This paper takes a different approach and analyzes how violence in civil wars spreads in space and time, drawing on earlier work on micro-diffusion of violence in criminology as well as high resolution conflict data. Two general scenarios are distinguished in our analysis: the relocation and the escalation of conflict. Relocation diffusion corresponds to a shift in the location of violence, whereas escalation diffusion refers to the spatial expansion of the conflict site. We argue that unconventional warfare in civil wars without demarcated front lines should primarily lead to the second type of pattern. We describe an extension to a joint count statistic to measure both diffusion types in conflict event data. Monte Carlo simulation allows for the establishment of a baseline for the frequency of contiguous conflict events under the assumption of independence, and thus provides a significance test for the observed patterns. Our results suggest that violence in civil wars exhibits patterns of diffusion, and in particular, that these patterns are primarily of the escalation type, driven by the dynamic expansion of the scope of the conflict.     

基于文化地理学视角的秦腔文化起源与扩散

秦腔起源于古代陕甘一带民间歌舞,流行于陕、甘、青、宁、新等地。本文从文化地理学的角度,采用文化扩散和整合的思维着重分析了秦腔文化形成的自然地理与社会原因,系统探讨了不同时期和地区秦腔文化的扩散类型、传播路径与整合特征。结果认为,秦腔文化扩散的主要方式是人口迁移与艺人游走,特点是多级化。秦腔文化景观反映当地发展史,是多种地域文化要素相互作用的产物,传播时的屏障作用具有正负双重影响。未来秦腔文化的发展要根植于群众并植入现代元素,以实现秦腔文化新的繁荣。     

A vector of high‐temperature paleo‐fluid flow deduced from mass transfer across permeability barriers (quartz veins)

Quartz veins acted as impermeable barriers to regional fluid flow and not as fluid‐flow conduits in Mesoproterozoic rocks of the Mt Painter Block, South Australia. Systematically distributed asymmetric alteration selvedges consisting of a muscovite‐rich zone paired with a biotite‐rich zone are centered on quartz veins in quartz–muscovite–biotite schist. Geometric analysis of the orientation and facing of 126 veins at Nooldoonooldoona Waterhole reveals a single direction along which a maximum of all veins have a muscovite‐rich side, irrespective of their specific individual orientation. This direction represents a Mesoproterozoic fluid‐flow vector and the veins represent permeability barriers to the flow. The pale muscovite‐rich zones formed on the downstream side of the vein and the dark biotite‐rich zones mark the upstream side. The alteration couplets formed from mica schist at constant Zr, Ga, Sc, and involved increases in Si, Na, Al and decreases in K, Fe, Mg for pale alteration zones, and inverse alteration within dark zones. The asymmetry of the alteration couplets is best explained by the pressure dependence of mineral–fluid equilibria. These equilibria, in combination with a Darcian flow model for coupled advection and diffusion, and with permeability barriers imposed by the quartz veins, simulate the pattern of both fluid flow and differential, asymmetric metasomatism. The determined vector of fluid flow lies along the regional foliation and is consistent with the known distribution of regional alteration products. The presence of asymmetric alteration zones in rock containing abundant pre‐alteration veins suggests that vein‐rich material may have generally retarded regional fluid flow.