THE LOGIC OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF RURAL POLITICS: POLITICAL DISCOURSES ON RURALITY IN NORWAY

Two competing discourses emerge from a careful reading of parliamentary debates in Norway on rural development. One regards rural values as intrinsic, while the other regards the rural as an actor in a play about economic growth. The 'growth' discourse has economic growth as its nodal point and fo-cuses on the freedom of an individual to establish a business wherever he or she wishes, and to migrate to any preferred destination. The 'intrinsic value' discourse places the value of rural settlements and cultures as its nodal point and focuses on allegedly forced migration, a nature-based economy, and local freedom of action. During the neoliberal period, starting about 1980 the strength of the intrinsic value discourse has been increasingly displaced by the growth discourse. The latter seems to match general social changes such as neoliberalism and globalization more than the former. However, analysing the fight between these two discourses is not exhaustive. A broader analytic perspective is needed if we want to understand the logic of how the meaning of rurality comes about. The meaning of rurality in Norwegian politics is made through the way the competing discourses link up to 'nondiscursive' topics that originate and evolve outside the discourses on Norwegian rural politics. We claim that topics which include economic safety and national identity/nation-state are more or less fundamental to understanding the logic of the production of the concrete discourses of rurality in Norwegian politics. We provide evidence that rural change is contingent not only on the meaning-making process in parliamentary debates, but on the way truth claims made by politicians are linked to general national and global issues.     

The Sheep Project (1): determining skeletal growth,timing of epiphyseal fusion and morphometric variation in unimproved Shetland sheep of known age,sex, castration status and nutrition

The Sheep Project was designed to investigate the effects of castration, breeding age and nutritional plane on bone growth, epiphyseal fusion, tooth eruption and tooth wear in sheep. The project investigates a population of 356 unimproved Shetland sheep skeletons evenly distributed between females bred at different ages, males and castrates, raised on either high or low nutritional planes. This first instalment focuses on two aspects of our larger study, namely bone growth and epiphyseal fusion as affected by sex, castration and nutrition. Nutrition, sex and castration are shown to influence bone growth in ways that are often element-dependant and not consistent through time. We demonstrate that metric variability (variance) is strongest in males, with little difference between females and castrates, and that, in our sample, nutrition has little influence on variance in any sex cohort. Of importance to the development of models of past animal management this study demonstrates that the standard epiphyseal fusion ranges used by zooarchaeologists are too narrow in most instances and do not account for the large variation between sexes or the lesser variation between planes of nutrition. We recommend methods for recognizing castration and the presence of more than one sheep breed, or type, within the zooarchaeological record.     

CALIFORNIA IRREDENTA

Kevin Starr's Golden Dreams is the culmination to some forty years of scholarship on the unfolding theme of a “California Dream,” that imaginal component to the growth of the self‐identity and increasing international economic power of the most populous state in the American Union. Indeed, the period 1950–1963 that the book meticulously covers forms in many ways the most imposing manifestation of that Dream. This essay reviews the central features of Starr's account, particularly the infrastructural foundations in transportation, water supply, and higher education realized by a triumvirate of California governors, both Republican and Democrat, who regarded themselves as nonpartisan members of the “Party of California”; the expansion of California's major cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco; the characteristics of the Silent Generation and the culture of “cool Jazz” that dominated the period; as well as the rise of dissident elements among environmentalists, minorities, and Beats, that foretold the protest period of the 1960s. This essay then asks whether Starr has avoided the larger implications of his own narrative that California from this period on had become in most respects a putative nation‐state in its own right. From the global impact of its major media industry—Hollywood—to the continued advances of its economic clout throughout the rest of the century as at times the fifth largest economic entity in the world, California may need to be increasingly regarded as a world civilization in itself rather than as a regional civilization to which Starr's historical narrative has so far constricted it.     

Optical spectroscopy as a rapid and low-cost tool for the first-line analysis of glass artefacts: a step-by-step plan for Roman green glass

Archaeometric research on glass artefacts is continuously evolving and is converging towards a multidisciplinary research domain where different types of techniques are applied depending on the questions asked and the circumstances involved. The technique described in this work is optical spectroscopy. The benefit of this technique being the possibility of building up a knowledge database for a large amount of material in a relatively short period of time and with a relatively limited budget. This is of particular interest for the investigation of extensive and/or unexplored glass collections where a first-line analysis of artefacts could facilitate the selection of material needing further and more detailed examination.     

坚持以事业成就人 建设高素质的人才队伍

做好新形势下的人才工作,应遵循社会主义市场经济规律和人才成长规律,坚持科学发展观,牢固树立以事业成就人的理念;要搭建高起点的事业平台,以优秀的机制环境吸引和激励人才;构建高效、合理的人才功能结构,使其才尽其用、各得其所,推进事业的科学发展。同时,应注重发挥党组织在人才队伍建设中的作用,用科学理论指导人才工作、用科学制度保障人才工作、用科学方法推进人才工作,不断提高人才工作水平。     

Reflections on Ukraine's Current Economic Dilemma

A prominent specialist on economic transition in the former Soviet Union presents an overview of Ukraine's economic dilemma in the aftermath of the most recent elections in that country. The author, a former economic advisor to Ukraine's government and co-chair of the UN's Blue Ribbon Commission for Ukraine, relates his insights into the causes of three acute problems (inflation, corruption, and the lack of structural reforms). Focusing on the state of economic affairs in 2008, the paper, which includes data on economic growth and exchange rates, discusses inter alia the hryvnia's peg to the dollar and the potential consequences of rising food and commodity prices. Included in the analysis is a comparison with Russia. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E58, E60, O52, P26. 34 references.     

Practical surveying in schools

Analysis of detailed geomorphological mapping enables a sequence of glacial events to be established. An ice sheet whose source was to the west of the area of study is shown, by the suites of fluvioglacial landforms produced, to have down‐wasted in situ; meltwaters escaped beneath or through the ice, moving uphill across certain areas. Finally, a sub‐aerial drainage system was established and outwash terraces were spread down valley.     

基于综合可达性的北京城市增长模拟与管控模式优化

社会经济活动的空间重构与交通设施配置息息相关,可达性成为优化城市空间结构,调控城市空间开发的重要手段。在以矢栅一体化的综合可达性测度并构建城市增长模型的基础上,对北京城市增长进行了成功模拟,透视了基于综合可达性导向发展模式的基本特征与主要问题,并提出了基于综合可达性的城市增长调控模式优化方案。研究发现：①城市增长密集发生在建成区周围可达性优越的区域,随着与城市中心的距离增加,城市增长的概率降低,反映了北京单中心的城市发展模式;②受城市规划与交通设施规划失调影响,可达性提升程度越大的区域并不一定带来更高的城市增长开发概率,严重削弱了可达性对城市增长的引导作用;③基于综合可达性的城市增长调控模式的优化方案,要以交通设施规划为基础,并合理耦合空间规划,才能更为有效地引导城市空间良性增长并预防规划失效。基于综合可达性的城市增长模型建立与调控模式优化方案的提出,对于确立与提升交通引导城市增长的基础性地位,优化城市空间结构具有重要的理论和现实意义。     

人力资本结构、物质资本与经济增长

人力资本作为经济增长的一个重要因素,除了要考虑其总量与经济增长的关系外,还要考虑人力资本的结构对经济增长的影响。本文分析了我国不同层次的人力资本对经济增长的影响,并根据计量的结果和我国东、中、西部地区现有的人力资本结构情况,对各地区的人力资本培养战略和产业结构调整的方向给出了相应的政策、建议。