Improving land readjustment practice. Application of management models to Portugal

Whilst the advantages of the application of Land Readjustment (LR) are well known, there are nevertheless numerous countries in which application of LR is difficult or has not been successful. In its analysis of land readjustment constraints, conditions and the international practice, this paper contributes to improving the implementation of an LR system, particularly with respect to the management process. At the international level, management models in seven countries were studied: Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Sweden. In Portugal, three case studies in the municipalities of Almada, Coimbra and Lisbon were selected, with semi-structured interviews being conducted with the respective managing entities. The management models are distinguished by the type of initiative and leadership processes, relations among stakeholders, managing entities and operating rules. It can be concluded that the role of the public authority as the process facilitator from the very initial stages, the existence of a managing entity and a board of specialists, and the legal conditions governing expropriation are key factors for the improvement of land readjustment management.     

Wild Boar (Sus scrofa) Teeth from a Female Burial in Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov,Northwestern Russia (c. 6200 cal BC) – Local Rarities or Transported Goods?

Tooth pendants of European elk, Eurasian beaver and brown bear are the most common artefact type in graves at Late Mesolithic Yuzhniy Oleniy Ostrov on Lake Onega, northwestern Russia. In one burial of a 20-35-year-old woman, 18 fragments of wild boar tooth pendants from at least five individuals were found. Wild boar was not a regular part of local fauna in the Mesolithic, and if these wild boars were hunted locally, they were very unusual game. These wild boar tooth pendants may also represent imported goods that came to Onega from a more southern area via exchange. It is also possible that the woman was not local but came from a region where wild boars were abundant and common game for Mesolithic people.     

The Potential Relationship Between Archaeological Artifact Exposure and Surface Geomorphic Processes: Northeastern Peloponnese,Greece

Complex interactions between topography, near-surface geology, active tectonics, climate, and human activity shape a landscape, conditioning archaeological deposits and making sediment deposits from surface erosion important archives. There is a potential relationship between the intensity of geomorphic processes and surface artifact distribution. This study assesses the potential relationship between soil erosion by water and the spatial distribution of archaeological surface artifacts in the Inachos River watershed, Greece. The mountainous, semi-arid Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable to soil loss. Soil erosion is quantified by applying the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation in a GIS framework. Estimates of soil loss vary spatially compared to surface artifact finds of the pedestrian survey of the Western Argolid Regional Project. A statistically significant relationship is identified between surface erosion rates and artifact density. Preferential topography for occupation suggests this is an associative rather than causative relationship. Knowledgeable interpretation of artifact distribution enables accurate reconstruction of human settlement history.     

Behavior Factor for Performance-Based Seismic Design of Plane Steel Moment Resisting Frames

Simplified expressions to estimate the behavior factor of plane steel moment resisting frames are proposed, based on statistical analysis of the results of thousands of nonlinear dynamic analyses. The influence on this factor of specific structural parameters, such as the number of stories, the number of bays, and the capacity design factor of a steel frame, is studied in detail. The proposed factor describes the seismic strength requirements in order to restrict maximum storey ductility to a predefined value. Interrelation studies between maximum storey ductility and the Park-Ang damage index are also provided for the damage-based interpretation of the performance levels under consideration. Realistic design examples serve to demonstrate the ability of the proposed factor to convert conventional force-based design to a direct performance-based seismic design procedure.     

The spatial scope of agglomeration economies in Brazil

This paper provides evidence about location and colocation patterns of manufacturing entrepreneurship and spatial scope of agglomeration economies in the context of a developing country. Using microgeographic data for all Brazilian manufacturing activities and distance-based measures, we find clear patterns of colocalization between entrants and existing establishments, and that these patterns occur mainly at short distances. For activities presenting colocalization between entrants and existing establishments, our results also indicate that a greater number of incumbent establishments in a given location positively affects the number of entrant establishments that decide to locate there, an effect that attenuates rapidly with distance (generally disappearing after 5 km). This pattern of attenuation is robust to both the inclusion of a comprehensive set of controls for observable and unobservable local characteristics and the use of instrumental variables to address remaining endogeneity concerns.     

Death and the Sacrifice of Signs: ‘Measuring’ the Dead in Tana Toraja

Suggesting the existence of an intrinsic connection between sacrifice and embodiment, this article considers the meaning and symbolism of traditional mortuary rituals among the Sa'dan Toraja of Indonesia. Manifesting different ways of being, these rituals engender different ways of dying. Focusing on the sacrificial patterns of their engenderment, I discuss these differences and the way in which they are thought to ‘emerge from the body’.     

IRSL and post-IR IRSL residual doses recorded in modern dust samples from the Chinese Loess Plateau

Using a set of modern/young (0 to about 200 years old) dust samples collected from the Chinese Loess Plateau the bleachability of IRSL measured at 50°C (IR₅₀) and post-IR₅₀ elevated temperature IRSL (measured at 225°C and at 290°C) is investigated by measuring the apparent (residual) doses recorded by these signals. Doses recorded by quartz OSL are used as a reference. Allowing for differences in dose rates it seems that both IRSL and post-IR IRSL signals yield residual doses that are significantly larger than the doses measured in quartz. These residual doses can be largely explained by thermal transfer caused by preheating. Nevertheless, we advise against the use of a low temperature preheat (<200°C) with IR₅₀ to date loess samples because, as has been reported before, the signal appears to be thermally unstable. In general, we conclude that it may not be advisable to apply post-IR IRSL dating to Chinese loess samples where residuals of up to ∼20 Gy are a significant fraction of the total dose. However, these residuals quickly become unimportant when dating older samples, and this is the age range in which post-IR IRSL dating is likely to be most useful.     

Assessment of the Permeability of Historical Defensive Systems: the Case of the Lines of Torres Vedras

As the largest part of military usage of the territory depends on a thorough analysis of its morphology, spatial analysis with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software reveals a great potential as a way for studying battlefields and/or other military buildings and scenarios from the past, while supporting interpretations of territorial occupation and related organization of military forces through event simulation. This paper presents a GIS-based method to model and assess the permeability of historical defensive systems from the period that preceded the mechanization of warfare of the late nineteenth century, i.e., based on artillery installed in fortifications. The method was applied to analyze the permeability of the Lines of Torres Vedras (LTV) defensive system, a multi-line fortification complex which was operational during the Peninsular War in the beginning of the nineteenth century and located north of Lisbon, Portugal. The structures of the LTV and local terrain were modelled in GIS using a set of proposed parameters that support territorial analysis, combined with the capability of contemporary weaponry. A methodical quantification and combination of these parameters enabled a better understanding of the systemic design of the defensive lines in terms of its permeability, contributing to a discussion of the LTV particular military setting based on the interpretation of these indicators. Global and sectorial analyses of the permeability of the LTV defensive system were conducted.     

Dictatorships and Revolutions in Portugal and Chile: Ethnography,Memory and Invisibilities

This article discusses the relation between ethnography and underexposure of memory. Displaying similar characteristics, the ethnographies we developed in Portugal and Chile dealt precisely with this thematic in different chronological periods. We are going to point out our fieldwork convergences, specifically in what concerns the data recollection process.