Analysis of spatial patterns in buildings (access analysis) as an insight into social structure: examples from the Scottish Atlantic Iron Age

Clearly the pattern of space in buildings can be expected to relate to the way that buildings are used to structure and reproduce social relations. As an archaeologist, wishing to infer social structure by its reflection in the building pattern, one may hope the relation may be reasonably direct. Here the formal geometrical method of spatial analysis is used to elucidate the pattern in a distinctive kind of prehistoric settlement form, and thence to elucidate the social structure which both produced it and was structured by it

Review of: West over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement Before 1300. A Festschrift in honour of Dr Barbara E. Crawford

No abstract available

Effect of heat treatment and surface oxidation on low-cycle fatigue life of Inconel

Test program involving specimens with different heat treatment, surface condition, and chemical composition yields low cycle fatigue data on Inconel 718

The role of age and gender in the retail service encounter

Research typically explores the service encounter in relation to the soft and hard skills of front line staff, yet has neglected the role the visible diversity of sales staff have on the interactions between the service deliverer and receiver. This paper therefore attempts to address this gap in knowledge by reporting on how the age and gender of customer facing staff can influence customer evaluations of the retail service encounter in a health and beauty retailer. An analysis of qualitative interviews with forty customers and twenty store staff propose that customers attempt to 'match' and 'mirror' the age and gender of sales staff with their expectations of who should deliver good retail service during the retail service encounter

Measuring the information content of customer foreign exchange orders

This paper investigates whether customer order flow conveys information about future foreign exchange (FX) prices. We use a unique data set from a leading Australian commercial bank that records every FX trade made by the bank in the spot Australian dollar/US dollar market between 2005 and 2010. We find little evidence in support of a cointegrating relation or a statistically significant correlation between customer order flow and FX returns. However, consistent with the liquidity provision role of non-financial customers in Evans and Lyons ((2002) Order flow and exchange rate dynamics. Journal of Political Economy 110: 170–180), we find a statistically significant negative correlation between order flow from the diversified economic sector and FX returns. A dynamic analysis suggests that order flow has little or no price impact on FX returns. These results suggest that the non-financial customer order flow of a commercial bank does not carry information about FX prices

The curatorial consequences of being moved, moveable or portable: the case of carved stones

It matters whether a carved stone is moved, moveable or portable. This influences perceptions of significance and of form and nature – is it a monument or an artefact? This duality may in turn affect understanding and appreciation of the resource. It has implications for how and if carved stones can be legally protected, who owns them, where and how they are administered, and by whom. The complexities of the legislation mean that all too often this is also a grey area. This paper explores these curatorial issues and their impact

Improving the supply and use of essential drugs in sub-Saharan Africa

Few people in sub - Saharan Africa have access to essential drugs. And where drugs are available, they are inequitably distributed and improperly used. Shortages of drugs in Africa are caused not only by lack of funds, although in many countries this is the major reason. Poor utilization and wastage of drugs in public and private sectors are also responsible and can be improved; and the wastage of available foreign exchange can be reduced. While the private sector has a role to play, it is important to be realistic about its ability to serve the whole population and about the quality of the service it provides. Producing local drugs would need to be evaluated in a realistic manner taking account of individual country circumstances. Specific measures to improve selection, quantification, procurement, storage and distribution, and prescription and use of drugs have been implemented in a number of African countries, resulting in significant improvements in the availability of drugs.Pharmaceuticals&Pharmacoeconomics,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Pharmaceuticals Industry,Adolescent Health,Markets and Market Access

Quantum Multicriticality near the Dirac-Semimetal to Band-Insulator Critical Point in Two Dimensions: A Controlled Ascent from One Dimension

We compute the effects of generic short-range interactions on gapless electrons residing at the quantum critical point separating a two-dimensional Dirac semimetal (DSM) and a symmetry-preserving band insulator (BI). The electronic dispersion at this critical point is anisotropic ($E_{\mathbf k}=\pm \sqrt{v^2 k^2_x + b^2 k^{2n}_y}$ with $n=2$), which results in unconventional scaling of physical observables. Due to the vanishing density of states ($\varrho(E) \sim |E|^{1/n}$), this anisotropic semimetal (ASM) is stable against weak short-range interactions. However, for stronger interactions the direct DSM-BI transition can either $(i)$ become a first-order transition, or $(ii)$ get avoided by an intervening broken-symmetry phase (BSP). We perform a renormalization group analysis by perturbing away from the one-dimensional limit with the small parameter $\epsilon = 1/n$, augmented with a $1/n$ expansion (parametrically suppressing quantum fluctuations in higher dimension). We identify charge density wave (CDW), antiferromagnet (AFM) and singlet s-wave superconductor as the three dominant candidates for the BSP. The onset of any such order at strong coupling $(\sim \epsilon)$ takes place through a continuous quantum phase transition across multicritical point. We also present the phase diagram of an extended Hubbard model for the ASM, obtained via the controlled deformation of its counterpart in one dimension. The latter displays spin-charge separation and instabilities to CDW, spin density wave, and Luther-Emery liquid phases at arbitrarily weak coupling. The spin density wave and Luther-Emery liquid phases deform into pseudospin SU(2)-symmetric quantum critical points separating the ASM from the AFM and superconducting orders, respectively. Our results can be germane for a uniaxially strained honeycomb lattice or organic compound $\alpha$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2\text{I}_3$.Comment: Published version: 33 Pages, 13 Figures, 7 Tables (Shortened abstract due to character limit for arXiv submission; see main text