ON THE RESOLUTION OF H/V MEASUREMENTS TO DETERMINE SEDIMENT THICKNESS,A CASE STUDY ACROSS A NORMAL FAULT IN THE LOWER RHINE EMBAYMENT,GERMANY

In recent years, H/V measurements have been increasingly used to map the thickness of sediment fill in sedimentary basins in the context of seismic hazard assessment. This parameter is believed to be an important proxy for the site effects in sedimentary basins (e.g. in the Los Angeles basin). Here we present the results of a test using this approach across an active normal fault in a structurally well known situation. Measurements on a 50 km long profile with 1 km station spacing clearly show a change in the frequency of the fundamental peak of H/V ratios with increasing thickness of the sediment layer in the eastern part of the Lower Rhine Embayment. Subsequently, a section of 10 km length across the Erft-Sprung system, a normal fault with ca. 750 m vertical offset, was measured with a station distance of 100 m. Frequencies of the first and second peaks and the first trough in the H/V spectra are used in a simple resonance model to estimate depths of the bedrock. While the frequency of the first peak shows a large scatter for sediment depths larger than ca. 500 m, the frequency of the first trough follows the changing thickness of the sediments across the fault. The lateral resolution is in the range of the station distance of 100 m. A power law for the depth dependence of the S-wave velocity derived from down hole measurements in an earlier study [Budny, 1984] and power laws inverted from dispersion analysis of micro array measurements [Scherbaum et aL, 2002] agree with the results from the H/V ratios of this study.     

A METHOD FOR GROUPING POTTERY BY CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

A new similarity measure is proposed, the ‘dilution factor spread’ or, derived from it, a ‘goodness of fit’ parameter. This has the advantage that raw data without any transformation can be used, diluted samples are recognized and errors of individual concentration values can easily be included. The use of this similarity coefficient in multivariate cluster analyses to construct dendrograms is shown and compared with the use of the well-known similarity measure of Euclidian distance in attribute space and of the cos θ measure.     

A PRAGMATIST DEFENSE OF NON‐RELATIVISTIC EXPLANATORY PLURALISM IN HISTORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Explanatory pluralism has been defended by several philosophers of history and social science, recently, for example, by Tor Egil Førland in this journal. In this article, we provide a better argument for explanatory pluralism, based on the pragmatist idea of epistemic interests. Second, we show that there are three quite different senses in which one can be an explanatory pluralist: one can be a pluralist about questions, a pluralist about answers to questions, and a pluralist about both. We defend the last position. Finally, our third aim is to argue that pluralism should not be equated with “anything goes”: we will argue for non‐relativistic explanatory pluralism. This pluralism will be illustrated by examples from history and social science in which different forms of explanation (for example, structural, functional, and intentional explanations) are discussed, and the fruitfulness of our framework for understanding explanatory pluralism is shown.     

THERMOLUMINESCENT DATING OF BAKED CLAY BALLS OF THE POVERTY POINT CULTURE

Seven sites in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas have been dated. For six sites (Terral Lewis, Poverty Point, Jaketown, Teoc Creek, Shoe Bayou, and Claiborne) the results are not inconsistent with contemporaneity; excluding Claiborne the average date is 1000 b.c. , with an error limit in absolute terms of ± 200 years. The seventh site (Loggy Bayou), in which sherds and balls were found in association, gave a date some fifteen hundred years more recent.     

NEPALESE HISTORY IN A EUROPEAN EXPERIENCE: A CASE STUDY IN TRANSCULTURAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

In March 2013, a group of German, Nepalese, and Swiss historians, Indologists, and an architectural historian gathered for a workshop in Nepal to develop a new approach to the understanding of South Asian historiography, especially the Nepalese chronicles from the nineteenth century. The outcome is the present collaboratively written article. It is argued that, in the past, the analysis of South Asian historiography has been preoccupied by arguments based on an understanding of history that highlights facts and events. A transcultural and multidisciplinary approach, however, would overcome the common dichotomies of factuality and fictionality, history and myth, or evidence and truth. Recognizing the specificity of South Asian historiography, the article develops an approach to bridge asymmetries and entanglements in the academic use of the past in a way that also opens up a new perspective on Western historiography. By analyzing the religious, spatial, literary, and historical, and contemporary or context‐related aspects of a nineteenth‐century chronicle and by using “fieldwork” as a methodological tool for studying historiography, it is proposed to understand the framing of time and the making of sequences and historical periods as an open process that results in the constant and synchronic creation of chronological spaces.     

STAINING OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL GLASS FROM MANGANESE‐RICH ENVIRONMENTS*

It has been suggested that both internal and external sources of manganese may produce the black or brown staining that often occurs in buried archaeological glass. Modern potash glass of a manganese‐free medieval composition was scratched, etched and immersed in an aqueous solution containing dissolved manganese. After several weeks, immersion samples were sectioned and examined by SEM–EDX. Manganese was shown to be present in fissures and cracks within in the glass, where alkali had been depleted. Manganese from an external source is capable of blackening buried medieval potash glass.     

Dimensions of proximity in knowledge-based networks: The cases of investment banking and automobile design

The competitiveness of firms and regions is increasingly dependent on their capabilities to organise knowledge processes that unfold between different knowledge providers. In this article it is argued that this knowledge management in networks is a cognitive process that uses different dimensions of proximity. As much of the knowledge required is 'tacit' in character, 'embedded' social interaction becomes crucial. There are, however, conflicts of interest in business networks. The organisation of knowledge processes thus becomes a complex governance task that depends to a large extent on the characteristics of the learning processes of the sectors involved. This paper offers some empirical evidence from the service sector with the case of M&A activities and from the manufacturing sector with the case of automobile design.