Prehistoric landscapes of the sonoran desert Hohokam

The Hohokam of southern Arizona are noted for greater duration of settlement than other major agricultural traditions in the archaeological record of the southwestern United States, including the Anasazi and Mogollon. The 40,000 square mile area inhabited by the Hohokam is marked by low elevation desert basins, but encompasses a range of topographic and climatic variability that shaped opportunities for prehistoric farming technologies. Irrigation from rivers was frequently associated with the longterm persistence of individual sites, while floodwater farming along ephemeral drainages was more often correlated with continuous occupation of hydrologically favored zones. Renewal of fields by waterborne nutrients and efficient practices in the use of natural resources countered the limited mobility options afforded by the Hohokam environment.In spite of a restrictive agricultural setting and an essentially static suite of productive technologies over many centuries, relationships among population, settlement, and landuse were redefined in evolving social and economic configurations. An example from the Tucson Basin illustrates differentiated patterns of settlement and agriculture arising in conjunction with increased levels of population and territorial integration in the late prehistoric period. Community organization among interrelated settlements incorporated a diversity of topographic zones and agricultural technologies in this high-risk context for prehistoric cultivators.     

Input-output evaluation of rural development: a forestry-centred application

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of forestry in the rural economy of Scotland. The Generation of Regional Input-Output Tables (GRIT) technique is applied to the estimation of input-output tables for rural Scotland. This is followed by a forestry-centred multiplier analysis. The results suggest that the forestry planting and harvesting sectors offer great potential for improving economic activity. However, their backward linkages with other rural industries seem to be limited. On the other hand, the backward linkages of wood-processing industries with the rest of the economy are strong. From this analysis, it is concluded that the joint development of forestry and wood-processing industries would promote economic development in rural Scotland.     

”Technisierung und Subjektivierung. Zur Veränderung des Arbeitshandelns in der Wissensgesellschaft“ Workshop der Akademie für Technikfolgenabschätzung in Baden-Württemberg, 28./29.11.2002

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

A Comparison of Partially Adaptive and Reweighted Least Squares Estimation

The small sample performance of least median of squares, reweighted least squares, least squares, least absolute deviations, and three partially adaptive estimators are compared using Monte Carlo simulations. Two data problems are addressed in the paper: (1) data generated from non-normal error distributions and (2) contaminated data. Breakdown plots are used to investigate the sensitivity of partially adaptive estimators to data contamination relative to RLS. One partially adaptive estimator performs especially well when the errors are skewed, while another partially adaptive estimator and RLS perform particularly well when the errors are extremely leptokur-totic. In comparison with RLS, partially adaptive estimators are only moderately effective in resisting data contamination; however, they outperform least squares and least absolute deviation estimators.     

Sources of family violence

This paper suggests a direction for the exploration of the causes of family violence. Explanatory models of family violence were considered in this regard, with the recommendation that a multi-determined model should be considered to ensure the most accurate explanation. We suggest that family violence will be best understood and prevented or alleviated, if a model is used that considers the interaction of structural violence and the personality features of all the family members.     

Sampling Strategies for Toxic Air Contaminants

Annual concentrations of toxic air contaminants are of primary concern from the perspective of chronic human exposure assessment and risk analysis. Despite recent advances in air quality monitoring technology, resource and technical constraints often impose limitations on the availability of a sufficient number of ambient concentration measurements for performing environmental risk analysis. Therefore, sample size limitations, representativeness of data, and uncertainties in the estimated annual mean concentration must be examined before performing quantitative risk analysis. In this paper, we discuss several factors that need to be considered in designing field-sampling programs for toxic air contaminants and in verifying compliance with environmental regulations. Specifically, we examine the behavior of SO2, TSP, and CO data as surrogates for toxic air contaminants and as examples of point source, area source, and line source-dominated pollutants, respectively, from the standpoint of sampling design. We demonstrate the use of bootstrap resampling method and normal theory in estimating the annual mean concentration and its 95% confidence bounds from limited sampling data, and illustrate the application of operating characteristic (OC) curves to determine optimum sample size and other sampling strategies. We also outline a statistical procedure, based on a one-sided t-test, that utilizes the sampled concentration data for evaluating whether a sampling site is compliance with relevant ambient guideline concentrations for toxic air contaminants.     

Minority Poverty in Nonmetropolitan Texas*

Abstract Despite a high prevalence of poverty among minorities in nonmetropolitan areas, research and policy concerns regarding poverty have continued focusing on metropolitan minorities. This study uses a model integrating individual, household, and structural factors to examine poverty among Latinos, blacks, and Anglos in nonmetropolitan and, for comparative purposes, metropolitan areas, using data from the 1985 Special Texas Census TDHS 1987. The findings show that minorities in nonmetropolitan areas tend to have the highest poverty rates. In addition, consistent as well as divergent patterns exist among the six ethnic-resident groups with respect to the relationships among the various individual, household, and structural factors and poverty.     

Job Insecurity and the Timing of Parenthood: A Comparison between Eastern and Western Germany

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the economic determinants of fertility behavior by addressing the role of job insecurity in couples’ intentions concerning parenthood and its timing. It starts from the hypothesis that cultural values moderate individuals’ reactions to job insecurity and the way it is related to family formation. With a systematic thematic content analysis of a set of semi-structured interviews with childless men and women around the age of 30 in eastern and western Germany, we are able to show that there are substantial differences in the consequences of job insecurity on intentions to have a first child. In western Germany, a relatively secure job career is expected to precede family formation, and this sequence of transitions is rather rigid, whereas in eastern Germany job security and family formation are thought of and practiced as parallel investments. We suggest that the lack of convergence in family formation patterns between eastern and western Germany after the unification of the country in 1990 is partially related to different attitudes toward job insecurity in the two contexts.