Bog Bodies: a brief Survey of Interpretations

Bog Bodies - a brief Survey of Interpretation

Trust and exchange : the production of trust in illicit online drug markets

Au cours de la dernière décennie, les marchés illicites en ligne sont passés de niches de marchés à plateformes économiques à part entière. L’un des aspects de cette expansion semble reposer dans l’abandon de l’articulation traditionnelle de la relation de confiance entre vendeurs et acheteurs pour l’adoption de transactions régies par les principes d’atomisation sociale et d’anonymat. Se situant au cœur d’une sociologie économique des marchés illicites encore émergente, cette thèse cherche donc à étudier l’élaboration de la confiance au sein des marchés de drogues illicites en ligne. En m’appuyant sur la notion d’institutions en tant que constructions sociales, j'avance la thèse selon laquelle ces marchés illicites modernisent les modalités de transaction des marchés licites traditionnels : des contrats sont proposés ; des tribunaux sont érigés; la sanction est formalisée ; et la gouvernance est transformée. Cette approche permet de révéler un schisme fondamental de la littérature et de ses postulats à l’égard de l'ordre social régnant au sein des marchés illicites en ligne -- rupture qui s’exprime notamment par l’opposition entre 1) une conception de ces marchés comme socialement atomisés et régis uniquement par la réputation ; et 2) l’idée selon laquelle les serveurs restent sous le contrôle des administrateurs. Afin de pallier cette discordance, je propose un modèle d’élaboration de la confiance notamment issu des approches cognitives et comportementales. Premièrement, je soutiens qu'un ensemble de mécanismes actifs de renforcement remplace fonctionnellement les principes sociaux traditionnels de la confiance. Deuxièmement, je soutiens que la confiance, aussi bien interpersonnelle qu’abstraite (à savoir, la confiance accordée aux institutions), est principalement produite selon un processus bayésien d'accumulation d'expériences. Dans cette perspective, l'article « Uncertainty and Risk » examine l'ensemble des mécanismes actifs de renforcement de la confiance -- première composante de ce modèle -- et révèle que les vendeurs ajustent les prix non seulement en fonction de la réputation, mais également des contrats et du statut. Dans les articles suivants, le processus bayésien d'accumulation d'expériences -- deuxième partie du modèle -- est abordé. L’étude menée dans l‘article « Building a case for trust » met ainsi en lumière une association entre les échanges répétés avec le vendeur et une tendance à effectuer des transactions de plus en plus importantes. Le troisième article (« A change of expectations? »), quant à lui, met en exergue le fait qu’un faible nombre d’expériences satisfaisantes suffit à augmenter la certitude de l’acheteur quant à la qualité du produit illicite. Dans leur ensemble, ces deux articles soutiennent l’idée selon laquelle le processus d'accumulation d'expériences favorise la coopération et les attentes. Enfin, ce travail s’achève par l’articulation des deux composantes de ce modèle et, de manière plus générale, par l’articulation de la thèse de la modernisation et d’une conception de la confiance dont l’élaboration repose sur un processus d’accumulation d’expériences sociales. L’apport unique d'une sociologie économique dans l’étude criminologique des marchés illicites est notamment souligné et des pistes de recherches futures sont discutées.During the last decade illicit online drug markets have grown from niche markets into full-fledged platform economies. It seems that over the course of a few years, sellers and buyers have left the social bases of trust behind preferring to exchange under conditions of social atomization and anonymity. Situated in an emerging economic sociological approach to illicit markets, this work examines the production of trust in illicit online drug markets. Drawing on economic sociology, namely, the notion of institutions as social constructions, I advance the thesis that these markets modernize the premodern exchange modes of traditional illicit markets: Contracts are implemented; courts are erected; sanctions are formalized; and governance transforms. This analysis reveals a fundamental schism in the literature and its assumptions about the social order of illicit online markets. Specifically, a conception of these markets as socially atomized and governed only by reputation, versus the recognition that servers remain under the control of administrators. Building off the modernization thesis and the schism, I propose a model for the production of trust that is sensitive to both cognitive and behavioral approaches to trust. First, I propose that a set of active trust producing mechanisms functionally replace the bases of trust that have eroded as illicit markets move online. Second, I argue that trust is primarily produced through a Bayesian process of accumulating experience, which produces both interpersonal and abstract trust. In the article Uncertainty and Risk I examine the first component, the active production of trust. I revisit a key debate in the literature, the pricing of illicit goods. We find that sellers set prices adjust prices not only with respect to reputation, but also contracts and status. In the following two articles, I examine the second part of the model, the bayesian process of experience accumulation. In the article Building a Case for Trust, I find that repeated exchanges with a seller are associated with a propensity towards larger transactions. In the third article, A Change of Expectations?, I find that even a few experiences increases expectations in the performance of the market institution. Thus, the two articles provide evidence that the process of experience accumulation promotes cooperation and expectation. I conclude the work by reconciling a tension between the two components of the model, the proposition that markets are modernized, but that trust is produced primarily through a process of experience accumulation. On this basis, I continue to highlight the contributions and analytical advantages of the economic sociological approach to illicit markets

Sow and piglet skin, claw and nipple lesions on two concrete flooring materials during lactation period

The aim of the study was to investigate the skin, claw and nipple lesions of sows and their piglets while they were kept on two different flooring materials: concrete cement and concrete covered with polyurethane and graveled with sand (particles 0.5-1.2 mm)

Revisiting Michael Bonell's work on humid tropical rainforest catchments: Isotope tracers reveal seasonal shifts in catchment hydrology

It has been almost 50 years since the foundational work at the Babinda catchments in North Queensland kickstarted the field of tropical hydrology globally. To expand upon this work and build a more generalized hydrological understanding of steep rainforest catchments, we studied the seasonal evolution of hydrological response from two catchments with broadly similar characteristics to the Babinda catchments. Both hydrometric and water stable isotope data were collected at relatively high frequencies during one wet season (Thompson Creek) and a 3-year period (Atika Creek). The longer dataset spans a wide range of environmental conditions experienced in the humid tropics, including events that cover the wetting-up transitional period of the wet season and tropical cyclones (TC). Both catchments displayed a fast streamflow response to rainfall with the shallow upper soil profile responding quickly to rainfall at Atika Creek. New findings from this study include the importance of pre-event water (>50% using the two component hydrograph separation technique) for overall event flows, especially when the catchment was wet. Rainfall, surface runoff and groundwater isotope and specific electrical conductivity (SEC) compositions varied between rainfall events with the most complex bivariate mixing plots observed for multi-peak events that occurred at the start of the wet season and after a dry period within the wet season. Two-tracer, 3 component hydrograph separations did not provide satisfactory results in identifying source water contributions to streamflow. These results highlighted the time-variant and non-conservative behaviour of the rainfall, surface runoff and shallow groundwater source waters over the seasonal timescale, with soil water being an important unidentified source contributor. Our findings highlight the need for high frequency multi-source sampling to accurately interpret catchment behaviour and the importance of soil water contributions to streamflow. We propose a framework to describe the seasonal evolution of streamflow response in steep tropical rainforest catchments experiencing seasonal rainfall activity