Global aspirations and local (dis-)connections: A critical comparative perspective on tramway projects in Casablanca and Jerusalem

This article puts emphasis on the political representation of tramway projects in Casablanca, Morocco, and Jerusalem, Israel/the Palestinian territories. In this paper, we discuss both tramway projects as flagships of national worlding strategies that try to promote the respective city on global markets of attention, competing for international investors and tourists. As such, they are majorly driven by national political interests, fostering the hegemonic position of the central state in cooperation with private actors. The tramways are aimed at portraying modernity as well as political and economic stability, while aspiring to a supposed international urban world-class. At the same time, governments frame tramways as tools to promote socio-urban integration and to improve local transport systems. However, the paper shows that although governments are eager to stress the integrative role of tramways, they continue with violent politics of urban exclusion at the same time. Thus, the integrative wording behind tramway planning has to be understood against political (and economic) pressures to regain political legitimacy in a moment of crisis - both domestically and internationally. Consequently, the paper uses interview data and applies methods of discourse analysis to shed light on the worlding of tramways and its ambivalent practices of symbolic inclusion and exclusion.     

基于电阻率成像法的莫高108窟墙体内水盐运移过程分析

非均质的砂砾石层是莫高窟壁画的主要墙体,但砂砾石层的非均质性如何在水盐运移过程中发挥作用却还不清楚。为此,通过在108窟西壁面上1 m×1 m和2 m×2 m范围的三维高密度电阻率成像监测,发现在这些区域上,墙体电阻率的空间分布都是非均匀的,低阻值区域在空间位置、大小和形状上都会随时间而变化。这明确说明在构成墙体的非均质砂砾石层内存在着重要的水分饱和与非饱和过程(再分配过程),正是这一不断重复的饱和与非饱和过程促进了墙体内水分的运移和盐分在一些特定区域的聚集。研究成果对全面认识莫高窟墙体内的水盐运移机理,减轻和防治壁画盐害都具有重要意义。     

One for all,or all for oneself? Governance cultures in regional public transport planning

Due to the fragmented organizational landscape characterizing public transport, it is important to study and explore how regional governance of public transport adapts to national institutional reforms. By employing the term ‘governance cultures’ to a comparative case study of regional public transport planning in Sweden, we contribute to theories of governance by cultural sensitization. Combining governance theory with cultural analysis, we apply a cultural perspective to understand the two cases. We conclude that public transport planning in the Stockholm region is defined by ‘negotiations’ between stakeholders, whereas in the Västra Götaland region it is characterized by a governance culture of ‘collaboration’. The evidence from our case studies emphasizes the importance of understanding local governance practices as situated in cultural contexts as well as of viewing governance cultures as an important factor affecting the purpose, degree and outcomes of collaboration in planning practices.     

Busman’s stomach and the embodiment of modernity

This paper examines the relationship between the gastric illness, ‘busman’s stomach’ and the Coronation bus strike of May 1937 in which 27,000 London busworkers walked out for better working conditions and a seven-and-half-hour day. It explores the way in which new patterns of somatisation, gastroenterological techniques, psychological theories and competing understandings of time worked together to create new political institutions and new forms of political action in inter-war Britain.     

Early Evidence for Domestic Chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) in the Horn of Africa

Domestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus L. 1758) are one of the most valued farm animals in the world today. Chickens are widespread and economically and socially significant in Africa. Despite their importance, little is known about the nature of their introduction and subsequent integration into African economies. One reason for this is the morphological similarity of domestic chickens to wild galliform birds in Africa such as guineafowl and francolin. Here, we present direct dates and morphological evidence for domestic chickens recovered from Mezber, a pre‐Aksumite (>800–450 BCE) rural farming settlement in northern Ethiopia. Key morphological markers differentiated these domestic chickens from francolins. The Mezber direct chicken element accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates of cal 820–595 BCE and indirect/charcoal AMS dates of cal 921–801 BCE constitute the earliest osteological evidence for chickens in Africa. Chicken bones in the domestic food waste of an early rural settlement at Mezber and their presence in later Aksumite urban contexts show that chickens were integrated into diverse Ethiopian highland settings. The Mezber specimens predate the earliest known Egyptian chickens by at least 550 years and draw attention to early exotic faunal exchanges in the Horn of Africa during the early first millennium BCE. These findings support previous archaeological, genetics and linguistic data that suggest maritime exchange networks with South Arabia through ports along the African Red Sea coast constitute one possible early route of introduction of chickens to Africa. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing patterns of carnivore modification in a landscape bone assemblage, Amboseli Park, Kenya

This study compares the landscape-scale taphonomic signal of carnivore modification to the surficial bone assemblage in Amboseli Park, Kenya as it was in 1975 and 2002–2004. Change in predator abundances over time provides a means of assessing the taphonomic signal of carnivore-mediated bone consumption and destruction under differing ecological conditions and varying levels of conspecific competition for resources. The landscape assemblage indicates taxonomic variation in the patterning of carnivore modification to ungulates of different size classes as well as within equivalent size classes. Analyses of long bone elements indicate that the differential destruction of limb ends and the strength of the correlation between limb end abundance and bone mineral density provide an indication of the intensity of carnivore modification to a faunal assemblage. The ability to infer levels of carnivore modification based on limb elements can provide faunal analysts with the tools to determine whether the taphonomic signals in the fossil record relate to carnivore modification, hominin transport of appendicular elements, or both.     

Predicting the Fate of Artefacts in Energetic, Shallow Marine Environments: an Approach to Site Management

A poor understanding of the physical environment often hinders management of marine artefacts. A study was conducted of an early-18th-century shipwreck to test whether the wreckage could have settled through ∼3.5 m of substrate. Results indicate that the wreck could have settled via episodic scour processes driven by storms and tidal inlet migration. A numerical model, modified to include characteristics of the underlying geology, predicts continued scour under moderate waves. Scour processes appear to have been interrupted by an erosion-resistant underlying layer, so that the wreck now remains exposed, subject to degradation. A generalized approach to predict burial or exposure of other shallow-water artefacts is developed.
© 2006 The Authors     

Effects of distance from stone source on landscape-scale variation in Oldowan artifact assemblages in the Paleo-Olduvai Basin,Tanzania

Ongoing excavations at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, reveal tremendous variability among stone artifact assemblages across the Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Lake Basin during Bed I and lower Bed II times. Theoretically, stone artifact traces of Oldowan hominin land use are determined by the distribution of larger mammal carcasses and arboreal refuge from predation as well as proximity to stone material sources.     

吉田茂内阁对华政策的成因探析

吉田茂是日本现代著名的外交家,政治家,二战以后曾五次担任首相,掌日本政坛帅印达七年之久,吉田茂为战后日本民主政治的建立和发展,日本经济的腾飞做出了卓越贡献,本文从分析吉田内阁对华政策入,着重剖析其内外成因,了解和把握其对当代中日关系的制约和影响,并试图对作为政治家的吉田茂和作为外交家的吉田茂的不同与关联进行探讨。     

Bone frequencies: differential transport, in situ destruction,and the MGUI

Human transport of bones with high food values, and destruction of bones with low density values are the traditionally invoked explanations of the frequencies of bones in archeological contexts. The manner in which these two explanations have been used suggests archaeologists assume the explanations to be independent of one another. The transport explanation is operationalized as the modified general utility index (MGUI) of Binford, and the destruction explanation is operationalized with measures of bone density. Statistical correlation of the MGUI with bone density, while weak, indicates that many high utility bones have low density values while many low utility bones have high density values. Because low density bones tend to be destroyed more readily than high density bones, inferences of human utility strategies derived from bone frequencies and based on the MGUI may be inaccurate. The utility strategies suggested by three archaeofaunas are compared to bone density, and two of these faunas are shown to potentially be the result of differential destruction and not human transport as measured by the MGUI.