Earthquakes,grants, and public expenditure: How municipalities respond to natural disasters

We analyze the response of municipalities to the occurrence of natural disasters in terms of spending behavior, use of upper-tier transfers and recovery, using balance sheet data of about 8,000 Italian municipalities for the period 2000–2015, and the universe of earthquakes events. We find evidence of increasing expenditure for about 12 years after the shocks, with asymmetric responses between earthquake-related and unconditional grants, and heterogeneous flypaper effects across the country. While in northern municipalities expenditure tends to regress to pre-earthquake levels, southern municipalities stick to higher expenditure levels when grants drop. This evidence is coupled with a faster recovery of private income and housing prices in northern municipalities.     

The colors of the Fontana di Trevi: an analytical approach

During the last restoration of the Fontana di Trevi -Rome (2014–2015), it has been performed a diagnostic investigation to characterize the materials used to build and obtain the colors of the surfaces of some architectural elements of this fountain. According to the restoration teamwork needs, we focussed our efforts on the dome over the central statue of Oceanus, on the bas-relieves on the sides of the dome, and on the cliff where the water flows. Several samples were collected from these elements and therefore, they were subjected to an analytical approach including infrared spectroscopy, optical and scanning electron microscopy. The achieved results indicated the use of red earth pigments on the dome. The same pigment has been revealed on the bas-relieves, although their colors have an additional contribution due to degraded layers. Samples taken from the cliff showed a complex stratigraphy, although a white scialbo has been identified as original layer, testifying the intentions of the authors in term of color rendering. This information was essential for the restores in order to choose the proper intervention procedure for each investigated surface. The research testified the importance of an integrated diagnostic analysis to preserve the original colours of monuments and building.     

Decentring international and institutional famine relief in late nineteenth-century China: in search of the local

This article uses rural gazetteer biographies to examine village and household-level famine relief during the great North China Famine of 1876–9 to deepen our understanding of past relief methods and dynamics at the most local level. Despite the appearance of major works recently on famine in modern China, particularly on the Great Leap Forward, knowledge of Chinese famine relief remains thin and scattered considering the enormity of the subject. Nineteenth-century China saw intensifying international relief activity as well as the emergence of a vibrant charity-relief sector based in China's major cities, leading to the rise of prominent relief institutions in the twentieth century, such as the Chinese Red Cross. But the increasingly intense disasters of China's modern period also saw a surprising persistence of local humanitarian traditions still barely covered by historians.     

ET SI C'ÉTAIT PAR LA FIN QUE TOUT COMMENÇAIT? PEN BEFORE PLOT,OR TRESCH ON POE'S REVERSALS

This brief comment offers some reflections on John Tresch's “Compositor's Reversal.” Contrasting his approach with Gaston Bachelard's, I situate Tresch in the tradition of reading Edgar A. Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym as a riddle to be decoded. I suggest that Tresch's analytical emphasis on material composition practices rather than Pym's content opens up insightful ways of reading both Pym itself in terms of its composition, style, and narrative voice, and also Poe's well‐known programmatic Philosophy of Composition. The key achievement of Tresch's article beyond its engagement with Poe scholarship is its contribution to the study of writing practices and media studies more broadly. By demonstrating the tight connection Poe forged between natural theology and the material practice of typography, Tresch inserts the typesetting process as an important step in the historiographical trajectory between pen and typewriter. He shows that the mid‐nineteenth‐century context of natural theology marks a decisive difference in connotation between Poe's compositional play with questions of authorship and plausibility, of truth and appearance both described in and performed by his narrative, and later concerns with the apparatus and its potential for the production of an écriture automatique.     

System of measurement of the severity of periodontal disease in past populations

This paper presents a review of the antiquity of periodontal disease, discussing past aetiological concepts in comparison to current research on the causes of this condition. As periodontal disease is analysable on dry bone specimens, it is possible to document its natural history. To date, little work has been done on an actual system of measurement for periodontal disease in such specimens. A new system of measurement is proposed, which is confined to evaluating the periodontal status of post-mortem skulls. The system is a modification of the Ramfjord index for periodontal disease (PDI) and can be adapted for both individual specimen measurement and for population studies. Seven skulls, ca. AD 500–700, from the Varden Site at Long Point, Ontario, were examined using the proposed system. Mean attachment loss was computed for each of the seven specimens. The results revealed one specimen with early periodontitis, four with moderate periodontitis and two with advanced periodontitis. This system provides a concise method for classification of the severity of periodontal disease in dry bone specimens that will be useful in documenting the history of this disease.     

The Science of Empire: Darwinism,Human Diversity,and Russian Physical Anthropology

Summary : The article explores deployment of the Darwinian narrative of the “natural history of humanity” in Russian physical anthropology in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. It traces two narratives developed by the leading Russian school of physical anthropology: one narrative advanced a universalist vision of collective scholarly enterprise working toward clarifying the missing links in the a priori accepted developmental evolutionary model. The other constructed a new language that undermined the idea of species/subspecies/races/nations/ as stable, externally bounded, and internally homogeneous units and attempted to rationalize imperial hybridity. The article's main focus is on the latter classificatory narrative, its relational methodology, and the protostructuralist units of comparison that it produced.