Análisis tafonómicos de conjuntos arqueomalacológicos: concheros en la costa norte de Santa Cruz (Patagonia, Argentina)

En este trabajo se presenta una propuesta metodológica para el estudio de conjuntos arqueomalacológicos de concheros y su aplicación en el análisis de restos recuperados a partir de excavaciones sistemáticas en sitios ubicados al sur de la ría Deseado, en la costa norte de Santa Cruz, Patagonia argentina. Esta metodología se focaliza en el estudio de diferentes variables tafonómicas que afectan el registro arqueomalacológico para avanzar en la interpretación de los agentes y procesos involucrados en la formación de las estructuras de concheros y sobre las actividades humanas desarrolladas en los sitios. Además estos análisis son significativos para realizar interpretaciones paleoambientales, paleoecológicas, así como para evaluar la integridad de los conjuntos, interpretar las características estructurales y la variabilidad de los sitios.This paper proposes a method of studying archaeomalacological assemblages from shell middens, and describes an application of this method in the analysis of remains recovered from systematic excavations at sites located south of the Ría Deseado estuary (northern coast of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina). This methodology aims to isolate taphonomic variables affecting archaeomalacological records to aid identification of the agents and processes involved in shell midden formation and to improve interpretations of the human activities performed at the sites. These analyses are also relevant to paleoenvironmental and paleoecological reconstructions, and to interpretations of site variability through assessments of assemblage integrity and structure.Fil: Hammond, Heidi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Arqueología; Argentin

Safety, Security and Socio-Economic Wellbeing in Somaliland

This report documents the findings from a study on the relationship between safety/security and socio-economic wellbeing in Somaliland. The study was conducted for the Danish Demining Group (DDG) and Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining in twelve of DDG's project sites. It is based on a quantitative survey of 378 households and qualitative focus group interviews. Findings suggest a high degree of correlation between improvements in safety and security, many associated with the community safety work of DDG, and socio-economic benefits to communities. Reported benefits include fewer conflicts, more secure communities at night, fewer accidents involving small arms and explosive remnants of war, and better community-police relations. These are perceived to have contributed to improvements in access to markets, lengthening hours that businesses can remain open, improved opportunities for participating in savings activities, and generally increased household incomes. Recommendations for maximizing the benefits of improved security for socio-economic gains are provided

How many people are in the Ragman Roll?

In the previous two features of the month, John Reuben Davies explained the process by which the Ragman Rolls were produced and discussed the nature of the oaths taken by the men and women who submitted to King Edward I’s rule. In this feature and the features to follow, we will examine the people themselves whose names are recorded in this unique document. We will start by asking the question of just how many people are ‘in’ the Ragman Rolls. In this feature, we will focus on trying to ascertain exactly how many men and women swore fealty, and in some cases also performed homage, to King Edward in the Ragman Roll. Of course, it is worth keeping in mind that those swearing fealty were not the only people mentioned in the rolls – there were also the men acting as witnesses to their fealties. These witnesses could include ‘Scottish’ nobles like the earls of Angus and Dunbar or March, but most of them were Englishmen in the retinue of King Edward

What is an affordance and can it help us understand the use of ICT in education?

This paper revisits the concept of affordance and explores its contribution to an understanding of the use of ICT for teaching and learning. It looks at Gibson‟s original idea of affordance and at some of the difficulties long associated with the use of the word. It goes on to describe the translation of the concept of affordance into the field of design through the work, in particular, of Norman. The concept has since been translated into research concerning ICT and further opportunities and difficulties emerge. The paper locates key points of divergence within the usage of „affordance‟, as involving direct perception, invariant properties and complementarity. It concludes by arguing that affordance offers a distinctive perspective on the use of ICT in education because of its focus on possibilities for action

Phase separation in random cluster models II: the droplet at equilibrium, and local deviation lower bounds

We study the droplet that results from conditioning the subcritical Fortuin-Kasteleyn planar random cluster model on the presence of an open circuit Gamma_0 encircling the origin and enclosing an area of at least (or exactly) n^2. We consider local deviation of the droplet boundary, measured in a radial sense by the maximum local roughness, MLR(Gamma_0), this being the maximum distance from a point in the circuit Gamma_0 to the boundary of the circuit's convex hull; and in a longitudinal sense by what we term maximum facet length, MFL(Gamma_0), namely, the length of the longest line segment of which the boundary of the convex hull is formed. We prove that that there exists a constant c > 0 such that the conditional probability that the normalised quantity n^{-1/3}\big(\log n \big)^{-2/3} MLR(Gamma_0) exceeds c tends to 1 in the high n-limit; and that the same statement holds for n^{-2/3}\big(\log n \big)^{-1/3} MFL(Gamma_0). To obtain these bounds, we exhibit the random cluster measure conditional on the presence of an open circuit trapping high area as the invariant measure of a Markov chain that resamples sections of the circuit boundary. We analyse the chain at equilibrium to prove the local roughness lower bounds. Alongside complementary upper bounds provided in arXiv:1001.1527, the fluctuations MLR(Gamma_0) and MFL(Gamma_0) are determined up to a constant factor.Comment: 54 pages, 9 figures. Ann. Probab., to appear. A few typos have been correcte

Lifelong learning in Palestine

Palestine's universities are recognised as being involved in outstanding work in the difficult conditions of a belligerent occupation. Internal travel restrictions and over 600 checkpoints and barriers have unsuccessfully tried to atomise higher education. Lifelong Learning in Palestine (LLIP) is a Tempus project that sees universities as central influences in broader societal change. LLIP works on cooperating in formal and informal education and training that give the organic connections of a future learning society. This paper outlines the aims and objectives of the LLIP project that began in 2011 and runs up to October 2013. LLIP is exploring new student-centred pedagogies that create a learning culture that sees Palestinians determining their own future as any other people around the world and participating in the creation of a global knowledge based society