Microstructural, chemical and isotopic evidence for the origin of late neolithic leather recovered from an ice field in the Swiss Alps

Archaeological leather samples recovered from the ice field at the Schnidejoch Pass (altitude 2756 m amsl) in the western Swiss Alps were studied using optical, chemical molecular and isotopic (δ13C and δ15N of the bulk leather, and compound-specific δ13C analyses of the organic-solvent extracted fatty acids) methods to obtain insight into the origin of the leather and ancient tanning procedures. For comparison, leathers from modern native animals in alpine environment (red deer, goat, sheep, chamois, and calf/cow) were analyzed using the same approach. Optical and electron microscopically comparisons of Schnidejoch and modern leathers showed that the gross structure (pattern of collagen fibrils and intra-fibrils material) of archaeological leather had survived essentially intact for five millennia. The SEM studies of the hairs from the most important archaeological find, a Neolithic leather legging, show a wave structure of the hair cuticle, which is a diagnostic feature for goatskins. The variations of the bulk δ13C and δ15N values, and δ13C values of the main fatty acids are within the range expected for pre-industrial temperate C3 environment. The archaeological leather samples contain a mixture of indigenous (from the animal) and exogenous plant/animal lipids. An important amount of waxy n-alkanes, n-alkan-1-ols and phytosterols (β-sitosterol, sitostanol) in all samples, and abundant biomarker of conifers (nonacosan-10-ol) in the legging leathers clearly indicate that the Neolithic people were active in a subalpine coniferous forest, and that they used an aqueous extract of diverse plant material for tanning leather.

Geklibene šrifṭen : 1. band

L. Ṭolsṭoi. Judiš fun Peretz Hiršbain. Miṭ a forworṭ fun ...

Kozaken : a kawkazer gešichṭe

L. N. Ṭolsṭoi. Iberzeṭtzṭ fun rusiš durch Baʿal Maḥašāvôt

Oggi la storia. Geschichte(n) für ein Jahr

«Oggi, la storia» è un programma radiofonico della Radiotelevisione svizzera RSI che «mira a dare, seppur nel breve formato, profondità storico-filosofica a tematiche legate all’attualità o alle ricorrenze del calendario.» Le illustrazioni di Erik Dettwiler sono tratte dalla serie fotografica «Whiter ain't possible!» nata nel corso degli anni in diverse metropoli europee tra Roma, Bucarest e Berlino, ma anche nella città sudafricana di Johannesburg. L'amicizia tra lo storico e l'artista, sfociata in numerose successive collaborazioni, è nata negli anni 2004/2005 durante il loro soggiorno quali membri dell'Istituto Svizzero di Roma.

Identifying Individual and Group Effects in the Presence of Sorting: A Neighborhood Effects Application

Researchers have long recognized that the non-random sorting of individuals into groups generates correlation between individual and group attributes that is likely to bias naive estimates of both individual and group effects. This paper proposes a non-parametric strategy for identifying these effects in a model that allows for both individual and group unobservables, applying this strategy to the estimation of neighborhood effects on labor market outcomes. The first part of this strategy is guided by a robust feature of the equilibrium in the canonical vertical sorting model of Epple and Platt (1998), that there is a monotonic relationship between neighborhood housing prices and neighborhood quality. This implies that under certain conditions a non- parametric function of neighborhood housing prices serves as a suitable control function for the neighborhood unobservable in the labor market outcome regression. The second part of the proposed strategy uses aggregation to develop suitable instruments for both exogenous and endogenous group attributes. Instrumenting for each individual's observed neighborhood attributes with the average neighborhood attributes of a set of observationally identical individuals eliminates the portion of the variation in neighborhood attributes due to sorting on unobserved individual attributes. The neighborhood effects application is based on confidential microdata from the 1990 Decennial Census for the Boston MSA. The results imply that the direct effects of geographic proximity to jobs, neighborhood poverty rates, and average neighborhood education are substantially larger than the conditional correlations identified using OLS, although the net effect of neighborhood quality on labor market outcomes remains small. These findings are robust across a wide variety of specifications and robustness checks.

Human Capital Externalities and Private Returns to Education in Kenya

We use micro data to analyse the effect of human capital externality on earnings and private returns to education. The earnings equations are estimated using the OLS method for a sample of full-time workers. The results show that human capital has a positive effect on earnings, indicating that an increase in education benefits all workers. However, men benefit more from women's education than the women do from men's. The effects of human capital externality on private returns to schooling are shown to vary substantially between rural and urban areas and across levels of the education system.

Spatial analysis of cardiovascular disease mortality and air pollution in Harris County, Texas

The association between fine particulate matter air pollution (PM2.5) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality was spatially analyzed for Harris County, Texas, at the census tract level. The objective was to assess how increased PM2.5 exposure related to CVD mortality in this area while controlling for race, income, education, and age. An estimated exposure raster was created for Harris County using Kriging to estimate the PM2.5 exposure at the census tract level. The PM2.5 exposure and the CVD mortality rates were analyzed in an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model and the residuals were subsequently assessed for spatial autocorrelation. Race, median household income, and age were all found to be significant (p<0.05) predictors in the model. This study found that for every one μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 exposure, holding age and education variables constant, an increase of 16.57 CVD deaths per 100,000 would be predicted for increased minimum exposure values and an increase of 14.47 CVD deaths per 100,000 would be predicted for increased maximum exposure values. This finding supports previous studies associating PM2.5 exposure with CVD mortality. This study further identified the areas of greatest PM2.5 exposure in Harris County as being the geographical locations of populations with the highest risk of CVD (i.e., predominantly older, low-income populations with a predominance of African Americans). The magnitude of the effect of PM2.5 exposure on CVD mortality rates in the study region indicates a need for further community-level studies in Harris County, and suggests that reducing excess PM2.5 exposure would reduce CVD mortality.^

Analysis of life expectancy using linear and nonlinear models

Life expectancy has consistently increased over the last 150 years due to improvements in nutrition, medicine, and public health. Several studies found that in many developed countries, life expectancy continued to rise following a nearly linear trend, which was contrary to a common belief that the rate of improvement in life expectancy would decelerate and was fit with an S-shaped curve. Using samples of countries that exhibited a wide range of economic development levels, we explored the change in life expectancy over time by employing both nonlinear and linear models. We then observed if there were any significant differences in estimates between linear models, assuming an auto-correlated error structure. When data did not have a sigmoidal shape, nonlinear growth models sometimes failed to provide meaningful parameter estimates. The existence of an inflection point and asymptotes in the growth models made them inflexible with life expectancy data. In linear models, there was no significant difference in the life expectancy growth rate and future estimates between ordinary least squares (OLS) and generalized least squares (GLS). However, the generalized least squares model was more robust because the data involved time-series variables and residuals were positively correlated. ^

Influencia del manejo del suelo y las coberturas vegetales en el microclima de la canopia de la vid, la composición de la uva y el vino

Para determinar la influencia del manejo del suelo sobre la composición de la uva y el vino se estableció un experimento en un viñedo de Cabernet Sauvignon conducido en doble cordón de pitones en espaldero alto. Se aplicaron tres tratamientos: TR-suelo sin maleza; CVP-cobertura de suelo espontánea y control del desarrollo vegetativo por desbrozado y CA-cobertura de flora espontánea y control del desarrollo vegetativo con aplicación de herbicida de contacto desecante. En la uva se determinó el contenido de azúcar, acidez total, pH y la composición fenólica (índice de polifenoles totales (IPT), grado de polimerización, flavonoles, flavan-3-oles, antocianos y proantocianidoles). Se elaboraron vinos que fueron evaluados físico-química y sensorialmente por jueces expertos. CVP tuvo el mayor contenido de antocianas y TR el de flavonoles, flavan-3-oles, proantocianidoles, IPT y grado de polimerización; CA presentó valores intermedios. Los vinos del tratamiento TR tuvieron mayor contenido de alcohol y menor de acidez total, con el color rojo (DO520) más bajo y una intensidad colorante más pequeña. Los vinos de CA y TR resultaron más amargos, más astringentes y más ásperos, y los de CVP tuvieron mayor carácter varietal. Resultó útil el empleo de coberturas de raíces superficiales y permanentemente desbrozadas para provocar cierta disminución en los valores de radiación reflejada y de la temperatura de la canopia. Las elevadas temperaturas y alta radiación solar son perjudiciales para la uva, porque aumentan la producción de quercetina y afectan el metabolismo y la degradación de antocianos.

Economía e ideología en el franquismo : tensiones entre utopía y pragmatismo 1945 -1970

El presente trabajo enfoca desde una perspectiva comparativa y analítica algunos aspectos de la economía y la sociedad españolas durante años especialmente interesantes de la dictadura franquista. Se efectúa una revisión de la ideología con la que el régimen pretendió encarar, a través de un proyecto autárquico, inicialmente muy marcado por el modelo fascista, el despegue económico de España y los virajes posteriores originados en las tensiones surgidas en el seno de la sociedad y de los paradigmas externos que marcaban el rumbo hacia una integración de bloques. Como fecha límite de este estudio se presentan los últimos años de la década del '60, puesto que parecen constituir el cierre de un ciclo. En cuestiones ideológico-políticas ese cierre estuvo signado por el ascenso del almirante Carrero Blanco a una posición clave y la sustitución de los viejos falangistas por un grupo más homogéneo de "tecnócratas" del capitalismo moderno. En materia económica también se completó entonces un período de crecimiento sin precedentes en la economía española que hacia 1973/74 entró en una meseta, parte de la crisis cíclica compartida por la economía mundial.

Sedimentary lipids and palynomorphs of sediment core ABC26 from the Eastern Mediterranean

Selective degradation of organic matter in sediments is important for reconstructing past environments and understanding the carbon cycle. Here, we report on compositional changes between and within lipid classes and kerogen types (represented by palynomorph groups) in relation to the organic matter flux to the sea floor and oxidation state of the sediments since the early Holocene for central Eastern Mediterranean site ABC26. This includes the initially oxic but nowadays anoxic presapropelic interval, the still unoxidised lower part of the organic rich S1 sapropel, its postdepositionally oxidised and nowadays organic-poor upper part as well as the overlying postsapropelic sediments which have always been oxic. A general ~ 2.3 times increase in terrestrial and marine input during sapropel formation is estimated on the basis of the total organic carbon (TOC), pollen, spore, dinoflagellate cyst, n-alkane, n-alkanol and n-alkanoic acid concentration changes in the unoxidised part of the sapropel. The long-chain alkenones, 1,15 diols and keto-ols, loliolides and sterols indicate that some plankton groups, notably dinoflagellates, may have increased much more. Apart from the terrestrial and surface water contributions to the sedimentary organic matter, anomalous distributions and preservation of some C23-C27 alkanes, alkanols and alkanoic acids have been observed, which are interpreted as a contribution by organisms living in situ. Comparison of the unoxidised S1 sapropel with the overlying oxidised sapropel and the organic matter concentration profiles in the oxidised postsapropelic sediments demonstrates strong and highly selective aerobic degradation of lipids and palynomorphs. There seems to be a fundamental difference in degradation kinetics between lipids and pollen which may be possibly related with the absence of sorptive preservation as a protective mechanism for palynomorph degradation. The n-alkanes, Impagidinium, and Nematosphaeropsis are clearly more resistant than TOC. The n-alkanols and n-carboxylic acids are about equally resistant whereas the pollen, all other dinoflagellate cysts and other lipids appear to degrade considerably faster, which questions the practice of normalising to TOC without taking diagenesis into account. Selective degradation also modifies the relative distributions within lipid classes, whereby the longer-chain alkanes, alcohols and fatty acids disappear faster than their shorter-chain equivalents. Accordingly, interpretation of lipid and palynomorph assemblages in terms of pre- or syndepositional environmental change should be done carefully when proper knowledge of the postdepositional preservation history is absent. Two lipid-based preservation proxies are tested the diol-keto-ol oxidation index based on the 1,15C30 diol and keto-ols (DOXI) and the alcohol preservation index (API) whereby the former seems to be the most promising.

Sea surface temperature reconstruction from biomarker in sediments off Portugal

High resolution reconstructions of sea surface temperature (Uk'37-SST), coccolithophore associations and continental input (total organic carbon, higher plant n-alkanes, n-alkan-1-ols) in core D13882 from the shallow Tagus mud patch are compared to SST records from deep-sea core MD03-2699 and other western Iberian Margin cores. Results reveal millennial-scale climate variability over the last deglaciation, in particular during the LGIT. In the Iberian margin, Heinrich event 1 (H1) and the Younger Dryas (YD) represent two extreme episodes of cold sea surface condition separated by a marine warm phase that coincides with the Bølling-Allerød interval (B-A) on the neighboring continent. Following the YD event, an abrupt sea surface warming marks the beginning of the Holocene in this region. SSTs recorded in core D13882 changed, however, faster than those at deep-sea site MD03-2699 and at the other available palaeoclimate sequences from the region. While the SST values from most deep-sea cores reflect the latitudinal gradient detected in the Iberian Peninsula atmospheric temperature proxies during H1 and the B-A, the Tagus mud patch (core D13882) experienced colder SSTs during both events. This is most certainly related to a supplementary input of cold freshwater from the continent to the Tagus mud patch, a hypothesis supported by the high contents of terrigenous biomarkers and total organic carbon as well as by the dominance of tetra-unsaturated alkenone (C37:4) observed at this site. The comparison of all western Iberia SST records suggests that the SST increase that characterizes the B-A event in this region started 1000 yr before meltwater pulse 1A (mwp-1A) and reached its maximum values during or slightly after this episode of substantial sea-level rise. In contrast, during the YD/ Holocene transition, the sharp SST rise in the Tagus mud patch is synchronous with meltwater pulse IB. The decrease of continental input to the mud patch conflrms a sea level rise in the region. Thus, the synchronism between the maximum warming in the mid-latitudes off the western Iberian margin, the adjacent landmasses and Greenland indicates that mwp-lB and the associated sea-level rise probably initiated in the Northern Hemisphere rather than in the South.

Who Eats the Most? :Quantitative Analysis of Pork Barrel Distributions in the Philippines

Since a pork barrel is crucial in buying off voters, competition over the distributions among legislators has been considered as one of the main factors in producing congressional political dynamism and congressional institutions. This paper aims to test the theory of pork barrel distributions in the Philippines through OLS regression on the quantitative data of the 12th congress. The results show that some attributes of legislators are statistically significant in estimating pork barrel allocations, but, do not support the hypothesis that the legislators’ proximity to leaders is a determining factor in the distributions.