Access to culture in Croatian cultural policy: moving towards explicit policies

In this paper through the analysis of the access to culture issue in the Croatian cultural policy agenda, we illustrate the current cultural policy developments in Croatia in the broader European context. Taking the differentiation between explicit and implicit policies at both macro and micro level we analyse discourses on access to culture in the Croatian cultural policy at the constitutional level, parliamentary political parties’ level, the governmental level and the level of cultural organisations. On the one hand the policies regarding access to culture remain mostly implicit and revolve around traditional models connected to instruments dating back to socialism; while on the other selected cultural organisations develop instruments for fostering it where European projects have an influence. The orientation more towards cultural production issues and less to access to culture and cultural participation issues draws similarities of cultural policy developments in Croatia with the general European cultural policy framework.     

On the causes of perforations in archaeological domestic cattle skulls: New evidence

An example of ante‐mortem cranial perforations in the skull of a European wisent (Bison bonasus) from Armenia is presented. The implications for reinterpreting the possible causes of this condition in ancient domestic cattle (outlined in a previous paper) are briefly discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bone density studies in zooarchaeology

Accurate bone density data are essential for assessing the influence of destructive processes in archaeological faunal assemblages. Unfortunately, the diversity of methods employed by different researchers to derive density values has resulted in recent confusion. Two recent publications in this journal [J Archaeol Sci 29 (2002) 883; J Archaeol Sci 29 (2002) 979] exemplify this state of misunderstanding. Both studies argued that the role of bone density in shaping archaeological faunal assemblages has been largely overrated, but both based their conclusions on density values that were inaccurately derived. The former employed a method of calculating bone density that has been largely discredited over the past decade [J Archaeol Sci 29 (2002) 883]. Within a larger discussion of zooarchaeological methodology, the latter provided an assessment of the current state of bone density research that inappropriately characterized the discrepancies between available sets of density data as a reflection of the differences between two technologies—photon densitometry and computed tomography [J Archaeol Sci 29 (2002) 979]. The actual dichotomy exists—irrespective of the technology employed—between studies that account for variation in the shape of bone cross-sections and those that do not. The different sets of density data currently available to zooarchaeologists vary tremendously in their accuracy. We review and evaluate the different techniques employed in the research of bone density patterns of mammalian fauna. Computed tomography produces the most accurate density data. For elements without medullary cavities, photon densitometry may provide density values of similar accuracy but only if a method of cross-sectional shape-adjustment is applied.     

How Necessary are Intermediary Organizations in the Commercialization of Research?

As universities around the world are under pressure to produce commercial outputs of their research results, it is surprising how a few studies have been conducted about intermediary organizations and their role in this matter. The intermediaries’ basic roles to diminish market and system failures in innovation processes are targeted to respond to the challenges that may emerge in innovation processes, in general, especially in the commercialization of academic research. In this article, we analyse the roles of, and needs for, different kinds of intermediary organizations in two Finnish technology agglomerations from the perspective of the commercialization of new knowledge. We use the Triple Helix concept as a theoretical starting point for our empirical analysis. As many challenges in Triple Helix linkages prove that policy interventions to support the activities of intermediary organizations are justified up to certain point. However, the role of these “go-between” actors may also be irrelevant if networks between university–firm–government helices function well. In addition, many of the challenges in the commercialization of new knowledge originated from the failures of policy implementation concerning the public or semi-public intermediaries.     

Economic geography under postcolonial scrutiny

Because the economy is not found as an empirical object among other worldly things, in order for it to be 'seen' by the human perceptual apparatus it has to undergo a process, crucial for science, of representational mapping. This is doubling, but with a difference; the map shifts the point of view so that viewers can see the whole as if from the outside, in a way that allows them, from a specific position inside, to find their bearings. ( Buck-Morss 1995 , 440)