A Bayesian approach to rapid seismic vulnerability assessment at urban scale

The seismic vulnerability of city centers is commonly assessed by extending the study methods applied to single buildings to urban aggregations. This approach is not always applicable at territorial scale, as it is uneconomical in terms of time and costs. An innovative method provides reasonable large-scale a priori estimation of parameters not directly evaluable from the exterior of buildings by elaborating values which can be measured from the outside. Those parameters are treated as continuous variables, by assigning them a suitable probability density function. The Bayesian approach is adopted, which allows the update of initial hypotheses by using new data gathered during on-site surveys. In this regard, a rapid survey form for the on-site data collection is proposed. An example of its application to a façade of a building structural unit in Santo Stefano di Sessanio in L’Aquila province (Italy) is proposed, showing promising preliminary results for buildings belonging to Italian historical centers.     

Beyond the identification of formation processes: Behavioral inference based on traces left by cultural formation processes

Formation processes are generally considered as a negative factor for behavioral inference in archaeology. The concept of formation processes, however, can potentially be far more useful for behavioral inference in archaeology than simply identifying spurious variability in the archaeological record. Physical traces left by cultural formation processes convey a certain kind of behavioral information which may not be otherwise available. Variables related to site occupation, such as the occupation span, the number of occupation episodes, and the location of activities, can be inferred from characteristics of refuse deposits, or refuse structure.     

Simple strategies for improving inference with linked data: a case study of the 1850–1930 IPUMS linked representative historical samples

Abstract

New large-scale linked data are revolutionizing quantitative history and demography. This paper proposes two complementary strategies for improving inference with linked historical data: the use of validation variables to identify higher quality links and a simple, regression-based weighting procedure to increase the representativeness of custom research samples. We demonstrate the potential value of these strategies using the 1850–1930 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series Linked Representative Samples (IPUMS-LRS)—a high quality, publicly available linked historical dataset. We show that, while incorrect linking rates appear low in the IPUMS-LRS, researchers can reduce error rates further using validation variables. We also show how researchers can reweight linked samples to balance observed characteristics in the linked sample with those in a reference population using a simple regression-based procedure.     

Matched wake analysis: Finding causal relationships in spatiotemporal event data

This paper introduces a new method for finding causal relationships in spatiotemporal event data with potential applications in conflict research, criminology, and epidemiology. The method analyzes how different types of interventions affect subsequent levels of reactive events. Sliding spatiotemporal windows and statistical matching are used for robust and clean causal inference. Thereby, two well-described empirical problems in establishing causal relationships in event data analysis are resolved: the modifiable areal unit problem and selection bias. The paper presents the method formally and demonstrates its effectiveness in Monte Carlo simulations and an empirical example by showing how instances of civilian assistance to US forces changed in response to indiscriminate insurgent violence in Iraq.     

Old Wine in New Bottles: The Utility of Data Reanalysis in the Social Sciences

Abstract

The authors reconstruct processes of ethnic identification among residents of rural northeast China from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth through an analysis of naming behavior. They apply discrete-time event-history techniques to individual life histories compiled from longitudinal, nominative household-register data from state farms in what is now Liaoning Province to identify the individual and household circumstances associated with the adaptation of Han or Manchu names, focusing on the role of heredity and status. Ethnic identification in late imperial northeast China was potentially fluid. Many residents were descended from migrants from Shandong who became hereditary tenants on state land administered by a system of Manchu government known as the Eight Banners. As banner people, or qiren, these residents could legitimately claim to be Manchu. As descendants of Shandong migrants, they could also claim to be Han. They could express their choice of ethnic identity through their choice of names not just for their children but also for themselves. Names not only express ethnic self-identification, but their registration by state authorities in the analyzed data also implies official recognition and legitimacy. The authors' results demonstrate that ethnic identity was not hereditary but subject to individual and family choice.     

武威磨嘴子汉墓出土“印花绢袋”的修复研究

武威磨嘴子汉墓出土"印花绢袋",现藏于甘肃省博物馆。因存在残缺、污染、糟朽等严重病害,急需进行保护修复。本工作在参照修复方案中相关专业仪器检测分析结果的基础上,查阅文献,寻找线索,研究推断出了绢袋形制。采用支撑法,选用风格相近的现代面料作为背衬,表面应用绉丝纱加固技术,对绢袋实施了保护修复,并对关键环节的技术要点作了总结归纳。修复后的绢袋形制明确,纹理清晰,光泽协调,整体牢固度提高,观展效果增强,达到了理想的保护修复效果,对今后同类文物的保护修复具有借鉴意义。     

Under the one child policy regime in China: did having younger sibling(s) increase the risk of overweight and underweight status?

The implications of having any younger sibling(s) on child overweight and underweight status under China’s One Child Policy Regime are complicated by multiple factors, including potential resource dilution, the stage of economic development, changing child-rearing norm, mandated birth interval and parental son preference. Using the instrumental variable method and data from China Health and Nutrition Survey 1991–2006, we find that having younger sibling(s) generally does not affect a firstborn child’s risk of being overweight or obese, neither does it increase the risk of being underweight. The findings on underweight status suggest that the favourable effect of economic growth and child rearing practice have outperformed the resource dilution effect in basic nutrition needs through the years of the study. It implies that further relaxation of the One Child Policy should not increase the nutritional risk for children.     

ON THE ELUSIVENESS OF CONTEXT

How can we decide the pertinent context in which a given object of historical study should be examined? This question has long puzzled historians. In the field of intellectual history, the Cambridge contextual school represented by Quentin Skinner triggered a series of methodological debates, in part relating to its opaque notion of context; critics have argued that a satisfactory answer to the question—how to recover a relevant context—has yet to be given. This article tackles why the question has continued to elude us. The article demonstrates that it is simply impossible to propose a practical set of guidelines on how to reconstruct a correct context because the identification of the relevant context is presupposed in the logical structure of inference in historical inquiries; identifying a relevant context is logically antecedent to the inquiry. In order to show this, the article deploys Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of inference. Thus the article submits that Skinner conceptualized his method as what Peirce called “abduction,” which specifically seeks authorial intention as an explanatory hypothesis. This observation entails two ramifications in relation to the notion of context. One is that context in Skinner's methodology operates on two levels: heuristic and verificatory. Confusing the two functions of context has resulted in a futile debate over the difficulty of reconstructing context. The other ramification is that abduction always requires some sort of context in order to commence an inquiry, and that context is already known to the inquirer. Any attempt to reconstruct a context also requires yet another context to invoke, thus regressing into the search for relevant contexts ad infinitum. The elusiveness of context is thus inherent in the structure of our logical inference, which, according to Peirce, always begins with abduction.     

Mapping the possible occurrence of archaeological sites by Bayesian inference

Regional archaeological prospections are often done by field walking, where the location of the sampled fields is often determined by factors like feared disturbance or recent plowing. The resulting data configuration can be suboptimal for spatial prediction of the archaeological potential by geostatistical methods like kriging. As an alternative, we propose a Bayesian method to map the possible occurrence of archaeological finds and compare this to indicator regression kriging. Three types of predictive models were implemented in the Bayesian context following deductive, inductive and mixed approaches to use auxiliary geographical information in the mapping. After prediction of a validation set, it was concluded that the mixed approach gave the best results in terms of map quality, and that the kriging method performed poorly. Usage of data on the presence and the absence of archaeological finds is to be preferred above usage of presence data only. Furthermore, a method is presented that filters those parts of a predictive map that are not strongly supported by evidence.