看不见的守护者

欢乐度假时,人们往往不会留意他们的存在。但没有他们,滑雪根本不可能成为一项娱乐。冰雪是他们的维生之道,也是他们的激情所在。他们是电工、压路工、机械师、驯狗师、救援人员、气象学家、雪地测量专家…一他们也是冰天雪地中的生命守护者。     

Natural Resources,Innovative Milieux and the Environmentally Sustainable Development of Regions1

Traditional economic theory views natural resources as production factors to be exploited for the benefit of society. However, for this exploitation to be sustainable it must take into account the conservation and/or renewal of the resource. Increasingly, development projects have come to regard natural resources as essential elements of the local environment that must be exploited in ways that ensure future generations can also benefit from them. This process has been termed “patrimonialization”. In this article it is shown that the constructive development of natural resources and the environmentally sustainable development of regions are closely linked and the role of innovative milieux in defining the nature of local development projects is examined.     

Multiple births in Graeco-Roman antiquity

In classical antiquity multiple births aroused ambivalent reactions, ranging from acceptance and valuation to rejection and elimination. This paper analyses the reception of twins and multiple births of a higher degree (triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets), healthy or physically abnormal, in Greek and Roman societies, and reviews ancient written and iconographic sources relating to medical, social and religious history.     

Anchoring of Firms in the Neighbourhood: Does Local Social and Physical Order Affect Local Firms' Investment Strategies?

An increasing number of small- and medium-sized firms, whose low relocation propensity seems to point to strong local anchors, have moved to residential neighbourhoods. On the one hand, the neighbourhood context, an attractive production milieu with rich social network potential, may enable entrepreneurs to increase investments in either human capital (personnel) or physical capital (premises, production goods). These investments further anchor firms in a neighbourhood, where they contribute to a thriving local economy. On the other hand, high crime rates, a deteriorated physical environment and a lack of social capital can discourage entrepreneurs from investing locally. In this study, we conducted a multilevel analysis on the relative contribution of neighbourhood characteristics to entrepreneurial investment strategies and controlled for firm and entrepreneur characteristics. We found that neighbourhood cohesiveness and liveability—but not local market characteristics—make a small but significant contribution to explaining local entrepreneurs' investments. This contribution is even stronger for the smallest firms. Therefore, a spatially targeted policy aimed at improving social cohesion and safety is likely to benefit both residents and small local firms.     

Characterization and origin of black and red Magdalenian pigments from Grottes de la Garenne (Vallée moyenne de la Creuse-France): a mineralogical and geochemical approach of the study of prehistorical paintings

Pigments sampled from wall paintings and from crayons taken on the floor, at the Grottes de la Garenne (Saint-Marcel – Indre, France) have been analyzed and characterized by infrared spectroscopy, Raman micro-spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, ICP/MS and analytical TEM. The red pigment used for the wall paintings is mainly composed by hematite, clays, carbon matter and carbonates. Results on the red pigments show that the compositions of the paintings are similar to that of some crayons. Regarding these analyses, their origin is compatible with local siderolithic facieses. Analysis of black pigments shows that they are made of cryptomelane, pyrolusite, clays, carbonates and carbon matter. It shows also that paintings and some crayons compositions are compatible. On the contrary of red pigments, the origin of black pigments is probably allochtonous. Indeed, the traces of thallium detected in cryptomelane, the cerium anomaly and the absence of iron are not compatible with local facieses or other sites from the French Massif Central.