A place to transform: creating caring spaces by challenging normativity and identity

Like all spaces, concrete caring places both shape and are shaped by understandings and constructions of normativity and identity. The traditional understanding of care for older people, imagining clearly demarcated dyadic roles, is firmly embedded in heterosexual logics of relationships within families, the own (family) home and institutional support. Social and residential places for older people thus both assume particular gender and sexual identities and contribute to a (re)production of the very normativity. But how can this interlinkage between the construction of caring spaces and the normativity of identities be understood and, possibly, challenged? In this article we discuss the transformative potential of the social (and partly residential) space of La Fundación 26 de Diciembre, in Madrid, Spain, which opened up to specifically support older LGBT people. Drawing on an in-depth case study we explore a space that allows visibility of different forms of living and caring practices of people with different genders, sexual preferences, origins, classes or political backgrounds. Through the daily life narratives of the people who work, volunteer or simply use the centre we discuss the potential of challenging the restricted notions, assumptions and constructions through which particular places gain both social and political meaning. The article highlights the transformative power of the active and collective making of caring spaces through which narratives of care, collective sexual and gender recognition and practices of caring relationships can replace both traditional/informal forms of living together and institutional spaces that provide professional care.     

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.     

《中华赤色邮政湘赣省总局》丝绸局牌的复制

根据对国家一级革命物的考证,确定它为手工束综提花机织成的提花丝织绫,从采集到的原始数据,结合传统的纺织工艺技术资料,设计复原织造手段及相关工艺,复制出物基体坯绸。按物做旧如旧的原则,先进行织物的老化处理,再做旧,使复制物尽量与原物相一致。     

Demographic Change,Differential Ageing,and Public Policy in Rural and Regional Australia: A Three‐State Case Study

This paper takes a differential demographic change in six rural settlement categories within rural and regional Australia as the starting point for the measurement of differential ageing using a Relative Ageing Index which compares ageing in sub‐populations with the national norm. The spatial units employed are 412 rural communities, approximated by social catchments each consisting of a country town and its surrounding dispersed population. The study covers the period from 1981 to 2006 and includes the rural areas of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, excluding major cities, peri‐urban areas, and the remote rangelands. It examines demographic change and differential ageing in a selection of the rural settlement categories recommended for further analysis in the report of the ‘Demographic Change and Liveability Panel’, one of three advisory panels established in 2010 by the then Commonwealth Government seeking to develop a sustainable population strategy for Australia. Ageing profiles are produced for the whole study area, for the individual rural settlement categories, and for the urban and rural components within each category separately. Results show that differential ageing is least advanced in the ‘regional cities’, most advanced in the ‘sea change’, but of most concern in the agriculture‐based rural settlement categories where it exacerbates the effects of overall population decline. In all categories, ageing in the dispersed rural population element exceeded that of the urban component. Results emphasise the vital role of the ‘regional cities’ category in future public policy development supported by ameliorative and collaborative measures for their surrounding agriculture‐based communities.     

Ageing well: the time–spaces of possibility for older female Latvian migrants in the UK

In this article, we explore the relationships between ageing, place and migration based on life history interviews with 37 female Latvian migrants in the UK. Reflecting an approach that sees migration as both embodied and emplaced, we conceptualise ageing and migration as entwined becomings that reconfigure the possibilities of a ‘better life’ in different time–spaces. Our approach combines time-geography with a well-being-based approach to migration constraints and outcomes. Our stress is on vitality – the ways in which migrants are able to mobilise resources and enact agency even in an environment where some aspects of life and working conditions are restrictive and exploitative. Hence, older Latvian women are able to transgress negative perceptions of ageing in their home country and achieve a measure of empowerment, both economic and psychosocial by moving to the UK.     

Absolute age and tooth eruption and wear sequences in sheep and goat: determining age-at-death in zooarchaeology using a modern control sample

This paper seeks to improve our understanding of the relationship between mandibular tooth eruption and wear sequences and absolute age in modern sheep and goat. While the relationship between tooth eruption and wear and absolute age has been investigated for primitive breeds in parts of the Old World, our pilot study extends the applicability of this research to modern breeds and to another geographic region (North America). A modern control sample of two species of domestic caprines – Ovis aries (sheep) and Capra hircus (goats) from Manitoba, Canada – are used to evaluate the two major systems for analyzing mandibular tooth wear and eruption (Payne and Grant) and for assigning an absolute age-at-death. In order to compare the two systems, an absolute age for Grant's Mandibular Wear Stages was established for the first time, previously demonstrated only for Payne's system. The analysis confirmed that there is a very high correlation between the known age and estimated age based on tooth eruption and wear. However, Payne's system generated far coarser age-at-death profiles, which lowers its utility in constructing harvest profiles. Grant's system is recommended for ageing be utilized since it can yield more sensitive age estimations. In conclusion, it is possible to utilize the modern caprine breeds to establish the relationship between tooth eruption and wear and absolute age to reconstruct age and season of death of archaeological samples.     

热老化模式对纸张性能的影响

为研究连续热老化与非连续热老化对不同纸张的pH值、机械性能和聚合度的影响,观察脱酸前后的纸张性能与老化方式的相关性,采用非连续热老化,老化8h后间隔16h继续老化,与连续热老化,研究酸性纸张与碱性纸张pH值、抗张强度和聚合度随时间变化情况,并用纤维断裂率计算各老化情况下纸张纤维断裂速率常数.实验结果表明,在非连续热老化方式下,纸张的pH值、抗张强度和聚合度下降均比连续热老化方式快;且各纸张在不同老化方式下的纤维断裂速率分别为KA=10.75×10-3,KB=16.78×10-3,Kc =3.75 ×10-3,KD =8.36×10-3.从而说明温度的波动对纸张老化具有一定的促进作用,图书保存中应注意环境条件的恒定.同时也进一步证实了碱残留对于降低纸张纤维降解速度具有非常重要的作用.     

A radiological and histological investigation into the mummification of cats from Ancient Egypt

An examination has been carried out on a series of wrapped mummified cats from Ancient Egypt that are held in the British Museum (Natural History). The cats, which were unprovenanced and undated, were presented by Sir Flinders Petrie at the beginning of this century, but they were not registered in the collections and have never been described. Radiocarbon dates have now been obtained for two of the cats and radiographs have been taken of each one to establish its identification and age at death. Attempts were made to reconstitute the skin tissue and samples of hair were studied by electron microscopy.     

Age estimation of children from prehistoric Southeast Asia: are the dental formation methods used appropriate?

Inter-population differences in skeletal and dental growth and maturation are acknowledged frequently in the biological anthropological literature. These growth differences have implications for the reliability of standards for the estimation of age at death of archaeological subadults. The number of archaeological projects that are recovering human burials from non-European contexts, including Southeast Asia, and the increasing interest in subadult bioarchaeological studies provides the impetus for investigating this issue of ageing subadult individuals from these populations. This paper aims to address some of the problems of the representativeness of ageing standards for non-European children in bioarchaeology. This is achieved through a literature review of the issue of growth variability and age estimation, and a basic comparison of the commonly applied age estimation method based on North American children with a dental formation study of modern Thai children. Although these studies do not employ similar methods the Thai study is the only comparable data available and therefore serves as a starting point to address these issues. The results raise an important question for bioarchaeologists of the appropriateness of available ageing methods. In addition this paper emphasises the need for the use of appropriate methodologies in the collection and presentation of dental formation data.