FROM MANAGING BEES TO SCHEDULING LIFE VIA DAY SIGNS: THE LOG HIVE AS A WINDOW FOR COMMUNICATION IN PRE-HISPANIC MAYA SOCIETY

Mayas from the pre-Hispanic period documented important facts and life experiences via a writing system consisting of hieroglyphs. To timetable these events, they used time units such as the so-called day signs, whose origins are largely unknown. Classic Maya civilization included a tradition of keeping native stingless bees in horizontally oriented, hollowed-out logs for the production of honey and wax. The legacy and value of this stingless-bee keeping, also called meliponiculture, can be found in their culture and religion. The most commonly kept species was Melipona beecheii, which the Mayas knew by the name of Xunan-kab. The principal way for Mayan beekeepers to access nest interiors and extract honey and wax was via the ends of the rustic log hives. Here I argue that the day signs Imix, Kib’, Kab’an, Kawak and Ajaw represent cross sections of log hives that are visible when opened at their sides. The signs' interiors reflect extant but stylized bee nest elements that are important to beekeeping, such as food stocks, brood content, adult bees, and nest entrances. Similar to all other day signs and nearly all variants, their roundish, outer frames imitate a hollow log’s solid wall. In those cases where numerous hives were densely stacked together in bee sheds, Maya beekeeping must have become more complex in its organization. To tackle increasing complexity in bee management and sustain colony growth and optimize honey and wax production, Mayan beekeepers likely administered their work based on written figures related to beekeeping details. The five day signs were probably derived from a mnemonic system that originally was intended to identify individual log hives, to keep records of colonies and to share information with others involved in this activity

FROM NULL SIZE TO NUMERICAL DIGIT; THE BEHEADED QUEEN BEE AS A MODEL FOR THE MAYAN ZERO GLYPH T173, EXPLAINED THROUGH BEEKEEPING

The characteristic signs for natural numbers and zero that pre-Hispanic Maya scribes used to depict counting facts must have been developed based on daily life experience, although for several of them their origins remain unclear. One such case is the sculptured, three-sided or partially visible quatrefoil glyph, catalogued as affix T173. This glyph had several textual functions, but its scribal variations were most frequently used as a positional zero. In several cases of T173’s use, its syllabic reading has been recognized as mi, which can be translated into “lacking”. Yucatec Mayas kept stingless, meliponine bees for honey and wax production and trade, and the cultural value of this practice reveals itself through the worshipping of several bee and beekeeping gods. In species of the genus Melipona, queens are constantly produced. Worker bees eliminate superfluous and useless queens all year round, commonly by biting off their heads. These worker-controlled killings of excess queens allow colonies to perpetuate themselves but occasionally lead to irreversible colony loss, which would seriously undermine honey harvests. Beheaded queen bee figures in the Madrid Codex demonstrate that Mayan beekeepers knew from experience how the deaths of residing queen bees affected their beekeeping businesses. Here I propose that Maya artists sculpted beheaded queen bees and used them, among other things, as zero placeholders in counting, namely T173. If this rationale is correct, the presence of this glyph on Classic period monuments reinforces the idea that Maya beekeeping has a long-standing tradition and was more widespread than is generally acknowledged. In its zero position, glyph T173 may originally have embodied a pre-existing concept of “nothing” or “void” from beekeeping: a vacant beehive due to the permanent loss of the queen caste. Additionally, the effect of other aspects of adult lifecycles of Melipona queens on colony development could explain other textual applications of glyph T173

Multidimensional party competition: Stability and Change in European party systems

This dissertation develops a unified framework for studying political contestation in advanced industrial democracies. It contests a notion widely held in the literature that political parties continuously change their policy positions, arguing instead that parties are ideologically quite constrained at the dimensional level. Building on insights from a variety of literatures, including spatial modeling and sociology, it advances a novel theory that accounts for the role of salience for party change by distinguishing between a party’s primary and secondary dimension. The first study shows that a party’s reputation and long-term ideological commitments limit positional flexibility on its more salient dimension, while short-term strategic policy shifts are possible on issues outside of its core agenda. The second study explores a party’s incentives to obscure its policy preferences on certain issues. It analyzes how party leaders deliberately create uncertainty about where their party stands on the issue of European integration. It shows that three distinct blurring strategies—avoidance, ambiguity, and alternation—all increase expert uncertainty about party positions, but that their effectiveness is conditioned by party-level characteristics. The third study further enhances our understanding of second dimension politics by examining the variation in the economic positions of European regionalist parties. It uses a combination of public opinion and expert-level data on voter and party positions to analyze the constraints on the strategic behavior of these parties on the left-right dimension.Doctor of Philosoph

Facility for Industrial Technology and Power Generation

The University of Minnesota is currently among the top four leaders in the nation for industrial and mechanical engineering research. Their demand for innovative testing and research facilities grows as new discoveries are further being explored. The University is determined to utilize its ability to perform complex research, ultimately becoming one of the most advanced energy research elements in the world. The Facility for Industrial Technology and Power Generation will provide the essential means necessary to accomplish this goal. The 25 year 297 million dollar University facilities renovation project opened the door, allowing a facility of this typology to emerge. This development provides the University 55 million dollars in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. It also provides a federal grant that will fund research into developing and testing new fuel sources and make coal burning more efficient and clean. (Univ. of Minn., 2004, Steam Plant Facts Sheet) The importance of this research is invaluable to spatial environments, exterior/interior, natural environments, and the overall quality of life. This design thesis centers on solving the demand for larger, more adequate testing facilities, laboratories, and classrooms. These elements will support the advances in research along with the University?s need for fuel storage and transport. The solution will create positive connections and relationships while meeting the needs of the University and its industrial/mechanical engineering department on campus

Is the Message from Athens Being Heard?

The comment discusses the eight key priorities in EU biodiversity policy, their reception and application in both the EU nature directives and Member StatesJRC.H.1-Water Resource