bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Gender and the Guild Order: The Garment Trades in Eighteenth-Century Paris
Authors: Coffin Judith G.
Published: September 2009

This article concerns female labor, guild organization, and eighteenth-century political economy. The first half of the article analyzes the changing relations between the major men's and women's guilds in the Parisian clothing trades, the norms that governed those relations, and the social and economic forces that reshaped them. The second half focuses on pre-revolutionary petitions from the guilds, which illustrate dramatically the different ways in which guildsmen and women interpreted the rules of gender in the corporate order. The guildswomen's distinctive perspective reflected their history, experience, and changing currents of economic thought.
Changes in the Cyclical Behavior of Real Wage Rates, 1870–1990
Authors: Hanes Christopher
Published: September 2009

A modern household's consumption bundle is more finished than that of a typical worker in the past: the average consumption good passes through more stages of production before purchase. This has affected the cyclical behavior of wages relative to the price of the consumption bundle because wages are more procyclical relative to prices of more-finished goods. Nowadays real consumption wages are procyclical. They were less procyclical before the Second World War, and they may have been acyclical or even countercyclical before the First World War.
The Effects of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 on the Southern Seamless Hosiery and Lumber Industries
Authors: Seltzer Andrew J.
Published: September 2009

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 imposed a binding minimum wage on the southern seamless hosiery and lumber industries. However, the process of adjusting to the new minimum differed across the two industries. Seamless hosiery firms substituted capital for labor and converted or replaced old machinery. Southern lumber firms employed fewer workers relative to northern and western firms, however, changes in their resource base and war-related government purchases prevented an absolute decrease in employment levels. Numerous southern lumber firms continued to pay less than minimum rates by illegally evading the act or taking advantage of the intra-stage exemption.
Endogenous Growth or “Big Bang”: Two views of the First Industrial Revolution
Authors: Greasley David , Oxley Les
Published: September 2009

The return of growth theory to center stage in mainstream economics provides opportunities for historians to reconsider the forces shaping longer-term economic development. A key motivation for developing new growth modeling strategies lay in the desire to reestablish contact between theory and the empirics of economic growth. By postulating diminishing returns to capital, the traditional neoclassical paradigm precludes the sustaining of per capita growth in the absence of exogenous technological progress. Since historical records of economic development offer scant evidence for declining per capita growth, disenchantment grew with a theoretical perspective that leaves the crucial part of the empirical record unexplained, prompting a search for alternative modeling strategies.
How Did the United States and Germany Overtake Britian? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative Productivity Levels, 1870–1990
Authors: Broadberry Stephen N.
Published: September 2009

A sectoral analysis of comparative labor productivity levels over the period 1870 to 1990 suggests mechanisms of catching-up and forging ahead that are rather different from those found in the conventional literature. Both Germany and the United States caught up with and overtook Britain in terms of aggregate labor productivity largely by shifting resources out of agriculture and improving their relative productivity position in services rather than by improving their position in manufacturing. Although capital played some role, the changes in comparative labor productivity also reflected changes in comparative total factor productivity, related to technology and organization.
Imperial Policy or World Price Shocks? Explaining Interwar Korean Consumption Trend
Authors: Cha Myung Soo
Published: September 2009

Japan vigorously enforced wide-ranging developmental policies in colonial Korea, including a “green revolution” and an industrialization drive. Why did then colonial per capita food availability decline? Simulations using a dynamic general equilibrium model indicate that tax raises, which financed expanding public investment, did not lower, but raised consumption levels over time by accelerating accumulation. Food consumption fell because these policy efforts were inadequate to defeat population explosion initiated by a health campaign. The interwar agricultural depression exacerbated this Malthusian situation. Nevertheless, interwar Korean consumption trend compares favorably with most other rice producers, where the level of government intervention appeared suboptimal.
Prices, Planners, and Producers: an Agency Problem in Soviet Industry, 1928–1950
Authors: Harrison Mark
Published: September 2009

Soviet planners developed the “unchanged prices of 1926/27” to facilitate the solution of an agency problem—the regulation of self-interested producers as they worked to fulfill plans for heterogeneous products denominated in rubles. The system limited but did not eliminate producers' opportunistic behavior, which took the form of inflating the plan prices of new products. Through the 1930s and 1940s the “unchanged” prices proved resistant to reform, and following their abolition in 1950 the system was soon afterwards reinstated with a new base year. The history of the “unchanged” prices illustrates the limits of command.
The Marginal Effect of New Deal Relief Work on County-Level Unemployment Statistics
Authors: Fleck Robert K.
Published: September 2009

This article uses 1937 and 1940 Census data to estimate the effect that hiring an additional relief worker in a county had on unemployment statistics for that county. The fundamental estimation problem arises because one cannot easily control for economic conditions that influenced both the number of individuals holding relief jobs and the number counted as jobless.
Heights of Native-Born Whites During the Antebellum Period
Authors: Margo Robert A. , Steckel Richard H.
Published: September 2009

This paper uses data on height by age drawn from Civil War muster rolls to analyze the nutritional status of the native-born white population during the antebellum period. Preliminary regression results reveal significant differences in adult heights across occupations, regions, urban-rural and migrant status, and birth cohorts. The economic and demographic implications of these findings are also explored.
The Distribution of the Income in the Great Depression: Preliminary State Estimates
Authors: Schmitz Mark , Fishback Price V.
Published: September 2009

State-level estimates of income shares for the top one and five percent of the population are presented for 1929, 1933, and 1939. Significant cross-sectional variation is found in 1929, but the range narrows as the shares fall dramatically to 1933. Analysis indicates that property incomes influence the shares but provides little evidence of a tradeoff between per capita income and inequality as measured by the shares.
Karl Polanyi and Markets in the Ancient Near East: The Challenge of the Evidence
Authors: Silver Morris
Published: September 2009

The essay challenges Karl Polanyi's position—that ancient Near Eastern economies knew state and temple administration but not price-making markets. It is found that the prerequisite functions of a market economy listed by Polanyi—the allocation of consumer goods, land, and labor through the supply-demand-price mechanism; risk-bearing organized as a market function; and loan markets—were all present in the ancient Near East. Although Polanyi criticized stage theories with their “predilection for continuity” he imposed his own version of continuity on history in lumping together many thousands of years under the rubric of “archaic society.” This perspective prevented him from recognizing that ancient Mesopotamia experienced lengthy and significant periods of unfettered market activity as well as periods of pervasive state regulation.
A New Interpretation of the Onset of the Great Depression
Authors: Field Alexander J.
Published: September 2009

Over the 1919–1929 period, fluctuations in the value of stock trading on the New York Stock Exchange exercised statistically significant and economically important impacts on the demand to hold cash balances. The marked post–1925 rise in the volume and value of stock trading led to a measurable increase in the transactions demand to hold cash balances, an increase in demand not recognized or seriously discussed by individuals inside or outside of the system. Had it been recognized, it is unlikely that the Fed would have persisted in its antispeculative policies in 1928–1929, policies associated with rises in interest rates and the beginnings of a downturn in real activity in the second quarter of 1929.
Southern Textile Mill Villages on the Eve of World War II: The Courtenay Mill of South Carolina
Authors: Phillips William H.
Published: September 2009

The southern textile mill village has received little empirical attention. I summarize the results of ongoing research using the records of the Courtenay Mill of Newry, South Carolina. There is evidence that stable family life was rewarded, mill housing was used to create dependence, and locally recruited workers recieved less pay than those from other areas. I conclude with a discussion of the possible causes of the local operative earnings differential and indicate other areas for future research.
Productivity and Labor Discipline in the Montgolfier Paper Mill, 1780–1805
Authors: Rosenband Leonard N.
Published: September 2009

The daily, weekly, and seasonal rhythms of production in the Montgolfier paper mill, one of the largest in eighteenth-century France, are examined here. Based on the comments of pioneer manufacturers, historians have been led to believe that early industrial work was irregular and unpredictable. The Montgolfiers as well complained of undependable workers. Yet their own output registers reveal a pattern of regular productivity unaided by advanced machinery or steam power.
The Determinants of Manorial Income in Domesday England: Evidence from Essex
Authors: McDonald John , Snooks G. D.
Published: September 2009

Despite its wealth of economic data, Domesday Book, complied almost nine hundred years ago, has been surprisingly neglacted by quantitative economic historians. In analyzing one of the central issues in Domesday book—namely the relationship between manorial resurces and income—we here provide a first step in the attempt to redress the balance, by employing recently developed statistical techiniques. The result of the analysis constitutes strong grounds for rejecting the traditional interpretation of the relationship. It also suggests that the English economy of 1086 can be reconstructed more completely than previously thought possible.
The Boll Weevil Versus “King Cotton”
Authors: Osband Kent
Published: September 2009

The boll weevil's impact on southern agriculture poses a dilemma. Micro-level evidence suggests the weevil triggered a transition out of cotton, but macro-level indicators fail to register much long-term impact. Econometric simulation of boll weevil impact—taking into account the low demand elasticity for southern cotton, differences between states in the timing and levels of infestation, and long-term supply and demand shifts independent of the weevil—shows that the two sets of evidence are not inconsistent.
British Slavers: A Comment
Authors: Drescher Seymour
Published: September 2009

In his essay J. E. Inikori argues that the British slavers “had freedom to carry as many slaves per ship as possible” to foreign colonies after 1788.1 He takes issue with my argument in Econocide that the British regulatory acts applied equally to those in the British direct trade to foreign colonies.2 In support of this he cites instances of British slave ships that undoubtedly loaded far more than the allowed slaves per ton in 1803.
Foreign Aid and Soviet Postwar Recovery
Authors: Linz Susan J.
Published: September 2009

This paper examines the economic consequences to the Soviet Union of not participating in proposed aid programs in the immediate postwar period. The cost of World War II to the Soviet Union is compared with the value of economic aid received in the postwar period and with aid potentially available. The traditional story—which suggests that had the USSR received some combination of the proposed aid prgorams, in lieu of reparations, the postwar impact would have been significantly reduced—is rejected.
Labor Mobility and Lengthy Jobs in Nineteenth-Century America
Authors: Carter Susan B. , Savoca Elizabeth
Published: September 2009

Extensive amounts of geographic mobility and high rates of labor turnover before World War I gave rise to the notion that the industrial labor force was “casual” and “impermanent.” But data from firms' payrolls and from nineteenth-century surveys conducted by state labor statistics bureaus show that male workers averaged about four years of experience in their current jobs. Data from an 1892 survey of San Francisco workers show that the average non-union male could expect to remain with his current employer almost 13 years.
Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
Authors: Humphries Jane
Published: September 2009

This article argues against the mainstream view that eighteenth-century common rights were of little significance to working people. Markets in common rights and in their products provide an index of value, and when neither common rights nor derived products were bought and sold, values are imputed from the market prices of similar goods. Since women and children were the primary exploiters of common rights, their loss led to changes in women's economic position within the family and more generally to increased dependence of whole families on wages and wage earners.
Getting a Foot in the Door: “Learning,” State Dependence, and the Racial Integration of Firms
Authors: Whatley Warren C.
Published: September 2009

Economists have emphasized supply-side learning when explaining long-term trends in racial income differences. This article demonstrates that learning also occurred on the demand side. Estimation of a state-dependence model of the sequence of racial employment outcomes of firms in Cincinnati, Ohio, during World War I shows that the introduction of black workers into a previously all-white firm generated new experiences within the firm, altering its future racial employment decisions.This suggests that more research should be done on how firms and labor markets processed information about workers and how that influenced worker opportunities.
Bull and Bear Markets in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Barsky Robert B. , Long J. Bradford De
Published: September 2009

The bull and bear markets of this century have suggested that large stock market swings reflect irrational “fads and fashions.” We argue instead that investors perceived shifts in the long-run rate of future growth and that stock prices are sufficiently sensitive to expectations about the future that these perceived shifts plausibly generated the swings of the twentieth century. We document that analysts often viewed as “smart money” assessed fundamentals, based on their perceptions of future economic growth, in a way that tracked decade-to-decade swings closely.
Regulating the Quebec Dairy Industry, 1905–1921: Peeling Off the Joseph Label
Authors: Dupré Ruth
Published: September 2009

From its beginning the Quebec dairy industry was characterized by many small factories producing butter and cheese of such a low quality that the British called all bad cheese coming from Canada “Joseph.” The Société d'industrie laitière, created in 1882 to promote the industry, asked the government to impose compulsory inspection, licensing, and grading. Between 1905 and 1921 the government finally but reluctantly responded.
American Economic Expertise from the Great War to the Cold War: Some Initial Observations
Authors: Bernstein Michael A.
Published: September 2009

The twentieth-century American economics profession was privileged and shaped by the federal government's need to direct resources and to call on experts. Bureaucratic tendencies to classify and count had an impact on the discipline's self-concept, subdisciplines, and multiple research agendas. A consensus of professional opinion and the standardization of graduate curriculums emerged out of the involvement of economists with governmental affairs. Moreover, American economists played an important role in the reconstitution of the profession overseas after World War II.
The Evolution of the Gold Standard in England
Authors: Redish Angela
Published: September 2009

In 1816 England officially abandoned bimetallism and made silver coins into tokens that were only limited legal tender. Earlier monetary authorities had lacked the ability to manage a subsidiary coinage, a necessary complement to the monometallic gold standard. A successful token coinage must be both costly to counterfeit and credibly backed to ensure that the tokens do not depreciate to their intrinsic value. These problems were solved in the nineteenth century through the introduction of steam-driven stamping presses and with the assistance of the Bank of England.
The Economic Crisis of 1619 to 1623
Authors: Kindleberger Charles P.
Published: September 2009

Various states in the Holy Roman Empire prepared for the Thirty Years' War by creating new mints and debasing the subsidiary coinage. The process spread through Gresham's Law: bad money was taken by debasing states to their neighbors and exchanged for good. The neighbor typically defended itself by debasing its own coin. The resulting hyperinflation was terminated early in the war by an agreement to return to the Imperial Augsburg Ordinance of 1559. TheKipper- und Wipperzeit, as the period is called, illuminates the geographic spread of financial crises, German hypennflations of this century, and current proposals for “free banking.”
All Things Reconsidered: The Life-Cycle Perspective and the Third Task of Economic History
Authors: Sutch Richard
Published: September 2009

I suggest that converting economic history from a topic to a discipline requires three steps: economic theory and quantitative methodology must be relevant and required for writing and teaching good economic history; economic history and historical statistics must be relevant and necessary for writing and teaching good economic theory; and economic history must be relevant and required for writing and teaching good history. Over the past 50 years the first task has been accomplished and the second nearly so. The third task remains, but incorporating the life-cycle perspective into economic history would hasten its successsful completion.
Burn Everything British but their Coal: the Anglo-Irish Economic War of the 1930s
Authors: O'Rourke Kevin
Published: September 2009

The Anglo-Irish Economic War of 1932 to 1938 was eventually settled on terms highly favorable to the Irish. This article uses a computational general equilibrium model of the interwar Irish economy to argue that the welfare costs of the war were not so great as has been thought, and that the dispute helped de Valera electorally. These considerations help explain the eventual Irish “victory” in the Economic War.
Beyond the Threshold: An Analysis of the Characteristics and Behavior of Early Reaper Adopters
Authors: Olmstead Alan L. , Rhode Paul W.
Published: September 2009

This article analyzes a large quantity of new data documenting the actual characteristics and behavior of early reaper adopters. It shows that a surprisingly large number of small-scale farmers were among the early purchasers and that institutional evolution—the emergence of local markets and cooperative exchanges for reaper services—encouraged rapid diffusion. These findings call into question the standard interpretation of northern farms as self-contained production units and, more specifically, challenge the usefulness of both the farm-specific-threshold model and the family-labor-constraint model.
Property Rights and Patent Litigation in Early Nineteenth-Century America
Authors: Khan B. Zorina
Published: September 2009

Economic development depends on the establishment of appropriate institutions, such as a patent system that defends property rights in inventions. Skeptics argue that patents in early America were unenforceable because judges arbitrarily ruled against patentees. I examine 795 patent cases to assess the role of the courts and find that judges protected patent rights because they believed that inventors were motivated by expected returns. Although changes occurred in the 1850s, the courts consistently upheld the view that the patent system fostered economic growth. If inventive activity indeed responded to material incentives, this finding implies that the legal system stimulated technical change by reinforcing the effectiveness of the patent system.

The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to the division of property.

—Alexis de Tocqueville,Democracy in America
How Fast and Why Did Early Capitalism Benefit the Majority?
Authors: Morris Cynthia Taft
Published: September 2009

How long did it take for early rapid capitalist transformations to benefit the majority of the population? This essay examines three presumed success cases, concluding that rapid capitalist development took at least five decades to benefit the majority. A neglected political force for success was the effectiveness of local public and quasi-public institutions in creating wide networks of transportation and other public investments responsive to changing market requirements. Economists today should pay close attention to distributional benefits and local government effectiveness before urging western brands of capitalism on countries where failures to benefit the majority threaten severe political instability.
Imperfect Competition and Anglo-German Trade Rivalry: Markets for Cotton Textiles before 1914
Authors: Brown John C.
Published: September 2009

This article reappraises export performance on international markets before World War I by examinnig the case of cotton textiles. The German industry expanded its market share from the 1850s to 1914 despite remaining a high-cost industry relative to Great Britain. Evidence from contemporary accounts and analysis of trade data from 1913 suggests that German success arose in part from the importance of monopolistic competition in export markets for finished cloth. Germany’s relative wealth, geographic position, and perhaps the intensive marketing efforts of its industry may have enabled it to counter the cost advantage of its British rival.

Their heads are still gay with crimson kerchiefs, but those kerchiefs do not come from Manchester.

—E. E. Williams
Mass Production Conquers the Pool: Firm Organization and the Nature of Competition in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Levenstein Margaret
Published: September 2009

This article uses the records of the Dow Chemical Company to analyze the role of distributors in facilitating collusion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It compares collusion in three closely related markets: salt, bromine, and bleach. Where national distributors with well-established reputations had facilitated the entry of small producers into integrated markets, distributors could also facilitate collusion. Mass-producing entrants, like Dow, joined collusive distribution arrangements while improving their innovative production processes. In the longer run, they integrated forward to escape the output restrictions and arms-length relationship with customers imposed by collusive agreements.
Exogenous or Endogenous Growth? The Industrial Revolution Reconsidered
Authors: Crafts N. F. R.
Published: September 2009

The British Industrial Revolution is reviewed in the light of recent developments in modeling economic growth. It is argued that ”endogenous innovation” models may be useful in this context particularly for understanding why total factor productivity growth rose only slowly. ”Macroinventions” were central to economic development in this period, however, and these are best seen as exogenous technological shocks. Although new growth theorists would easily identify higher growth potential in eighteenth-century Britain than in France, explaining the timing of the acceleration in growth remains elusive. A research agenda to develop further insights from new growth ideas is proposed.
Urban Disamenities, Dark Satanic Mills, and the British Standard of Living Debate
Authors: Williamson Jeffrey G.
Published: September 2009

What were the economic costs of the disamenities that the British worker incurred when migrating to the city in the last century? How important were these costs in accounting for the higher nominal wages for unskilled work in the cities? How much of the rise in wages during the Industrial Revolution might therefore be spurious mismeasurement? This paper supplies some answers. Like the results on mid-twentieth-century growth by contemporary economists, the nineteenth-century estimates also suggest the disamenities' effects to be trivial.
The Market and Massachusetts Farmers, 1750–1855
Authors: Rothenberg Winifred B.
Published: September 2009

This paper attempts to make a contribution, both in method and in substance, to the debate about the timing and extent of market orientation in pre-industrial New England agriculture. The method consists in testing five quantifiable hypotheses, with data from manuscript account books and daybooks. The results, in repeated trials, confirm the influence of the market on the rural economy of Massachusetts from very early on.
The Floating Dollar in the Greenback Period: A Test of Theories of Exchange-Rate Determination
Authors: Officer Lawrence H.
Published: September 2009

Some leading modern theories of exchange-rate determination are pitted against each other in explaining fundamental movements of the freely floating U.S. dollar in the foreign-exchange market during the greenback period, 1862–1878. A purchasing-power-parity theory augmented to incorporate interest-rate, and possibly income, effects provides the best explanation of the exchange rate. The standard works on the greenback period are subject to some amendments in light of the study.
Municipal Financing of the U.S. Fine Arts Museum: A Historical Rationale
Authors: Smolensky Eugene
Published: September 2009

Municipal involvement in the finance of fine arts museums raises the question: Just which market failure serves to rationalize this public subsidy? Two contenders are prominent in the literature: decreasing costs and education externalities. The relationship of price to marginal cost provides an operational test to distinguish among the two rationales. Scattered data from the 1880s and 1890s as well as contemporary discussion indicate that, implausible as it may seem now, education externalities constituted the operational justification for the public subsidy.
The Greek Hyperinflation and Stabilization of 1943–1946
Authors: Makinen Gail E.
Published: September 2009

The Greek hyperinflation started during the Axis occupation and was the result of an excessive reliance by the puppet government on the inflation tax. The inflation reached a peak in November 1944 after liberation. The Greek government undertook three stabilization efforts spread over eighteen months before price level stability was achieved. The final effort involved fiscal reform and the creation of an independent supracentral bank. Controversy surrounds the origin and nature of the transition costs involved in stabilizing an economy. The Greek stabilization cannot resolve all the issues raised.
Why Isn't the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills
Authors: Clark Gregory
Published: September 2009

In 1910 one New England cotton textile operative performed as much work as 1.5 British, 2.3 German, and nearly 6 Greek, Japanese, Indian, or Chinese workers. Input substitution, and differences in technology, management, and workers' training or inherent abilities do not explain this. Instead local culture seems to have determined worker performance. Such differences, if widespread, would explain much of the international variation in wages. They also have important consequences for understanding labor migration, the choice of technique, and the sources of economic growth.
Edison, Coolidge, and Langmuir: Evolving Approaches to American Industrial Research
Authors: Reich Leonard S.
Published: September 2009

This article considers how and why American industry has supported research and development during the last century. It examines the differences in methods and results of Thomas Edison (inventor-entrepreneur), William Coolidge (General Electric engineer-scientist), and Irving Langmuir (General Electric Nobel Prize winner). The article concludes that Edison's effective use of organized research and development paved the way for scientifically trained people to use varied methodologies to advance science, technology, and commercial interests together.
Was the Bank Holiday of 1933 Caused by a Run on the Dollar?
Authors: Wigmore Barrie A.
Published: September 2009

International, rather than domestic, causes of both the Bank Holiday of 1933 and the calm in the banking system that followed are emphasized here. New information on gold losses by the New York Federal Reserve, rather than domestic currency hoarding, serve to explain the Bank Holiday's specific timing. Expectations that Roosevelt would devalue the dollar stimulated much of the gold loss. I also argue that Roosevelt's restrictions on gold holdings and foreign exchange dealings and his devaluation of the dollar by 60 percent were more important to the stability of the banking system after the Bank Holiday than was deposit insurance.
The Technical Transformation of the Late Nineteenth-Century Gas Industry
Authors: Matthews Derek
Published: September 2009

This article analyzes, with particular reference to Britain, the technological transformation in coal gas manufacture around 1900. The timing of the innovation seems to be explained by the nature of the technology itself, by Rosenberg's “technical complementarity.” The rate of diffusion is analyzed by means of an inter-firm model which points to the importance of technical interrelatedness and the need to scrap old plant and of wage costs, which encouraged some firms to hasten scrapping. Different countries chose between the range of new technologies available largely on the basis of compatibility with existing plant and the cost of raw materials.
Do Migrants Rob Jobs? Lessons of Australian History, 1861–1991
Authors: Pope David , Withers Glenn
Published: September 2009

Historically, lands of recent settlement have had a thirst for immigrants, but one that has been procyclical (negatively related to unemployment rates). For a period in the early 1980s, Australia's major political parties supported high immigration in spite of rising unemployment. This article explores the long-run relationship between immigration and local unemployment, posing the question, “Do migrants rob jobs?” It also seeks to apply long-run historical analysis to recent economic debate: would Australia's unemployment rate have been lower in very recent timeswithoutso many immigrants?
The Banality of Death
Authors: Plant Bob
Published: September 2009

Notwithstanding the burgeoning literature on death, philosophers have tended to focus on the significance death has (or ought/ought not to have) forthe one who dies. Thus, while the relevance one's own death has for others (and the significance others' deaths have for us) is often mentioned, it is rarely attributed any great importance to the purportedrealphilosophical issues. This is a striking omission, not least because the deaths of others – and the anticipated effects our own death will have on those we leave behind – are normally of great importance outside the confines of academic philosophy. In this paper I want to do three things: (i) argue that philosophers' treatment of death tends to distort the issue (Sections I–III); (ii) outline some of the ways others' deaths figure in how we assess our own mortality (Sections IV–V); and (iii) raise some general questions about the value of ‘theorising’ death (Section VI).
Blu ̈ te und Frucht. Morphologie, Entwicklungsgeschichte, Phylogenie, Funktion, O ̈ kologie. 2nd, fully revised edition. Peter Leins & Claudia Erbar. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Na ̈ gele u. Obermiller).
Authors: Ronse De Craene L.
Published: September 2009

..
Dwindling groundwater resources in northern India, from satellite gravity observations
Authors: Tiwari V. M. , Wahr J. , Swenson S.
Published: September 2009

Northern India and its surroundings, home to roughly 600 million people, is probably the most heavily irrigated region in the world. Temporal changes in Earth's gravity field in this region as recorded by the GRACE satellite mission, reveal a steady, large‐scale mass loss that we attribute to excessive extraction of groundwater. Combining the GRACE data with hydrological models to remove natural variability, we conclude the region lost groundwater at a rate of 54 ± 9 km3/yr between April, 2002 (the start of the GRACE mission) and June, 2008. This is probably the largest rate of groundwater loss in any comparable‐sized region on Earth. Its likely contribution to sea level rise is roughly equivalent to that from melting Alaskan glaciers. This trend, if sustained, will lead to a major water crisis in this region when this non‐renewable resource is exhausted.
High Serum Levels of Growth Factors Are Associated with Good Outcome in Intracerebral Hemorrhage
Authors: Sobrino Tomás , Arias Susana , Rodríguez-González Raquel , Brea David , Silva Yolanda , de la Ossa Natalia Pérez , Agulla Jesús , Blanco Miguel , Pumar José M , Serena Joaquín , Dávalos Antoni , Castillo José
Published: September 2009

In experimental models, growth factors (GFs) such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), Angiopoietin 1 (Ang-1), or granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) mediate brain recovery after intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Our aim was to study the association between serum levels of GF and clinical outcome in patients with ICH. A total of 95 patients with primary ICH (male, 66.3%; mean age, 67.8±9.8 years) were prospectively included in the study within 12 h from symptoms onset. The main outcome variable was good functional outcome at 3 months (modified Rankin scale 2). Median serum levels of GF at 72 h from stroke onset were significantly higher in patients with good outcome ( n=39) compared with those with poor outcome (all P<0.0001). Serum levels of VEGF 330 pg/mL, G-CSF 413 pg/mL, and Ang-1 35 ng/mL at 72 h were independently associated with good functional outcome (odds ratio (OR), 11.2; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.9 to 43.0; OR, 19.6; 95% CI: 3.9 to 97.9; and OR, 14.7; 95% CI: 3.6 to 60.0, respectively), neurologic improvement (all P<0.0001) and reduced residual cavity at 3 months (all P<0.01). These results illustrate that high serum levels of GF are associated with good functional outcome and reduced lesion volume in ICH.
Eutrophication: Can nanophosphorous control this menace?
Authors: Bhalla Deepika , Mukhopadhyay Siddhartha
Published: September 2009

Eutrophication is a threat to quality of surface and ground water bodies (SWB) and to bio-diversity of the aquatic eco-system. One of the causes of P accumulation in SWB is its excess application as a fertilizer on agricultural lands. Phosphorus buffering also contributes to eutrophication and remains a major problem years after the release of P is brought under control. It could be discerned from many experiments conducted world over that addition of small amount of P can remove excess P from soils, provided the solution P is maintained in such a manner that productivity is sustained, and nano-P could possibly play a role in it. In such endeavours, P must be applied to soils in amount exact to the requirement of crop. Of course ecological cautions of use of nano-P must not be ignored. Nanoscience approach can deal with the twin contradictions – between low solubility and excess application by opening new avenues to improve nutrient use efficiency and reduce P build ups in soils and thereby reducing its load in SWB and checking contamination in drinking water. Many P fertilizers contain heavy metals, which can be eliminated by nano-P. The success of zeophonics demonstrates that a system can be made self-supporting, and can supply nutrients to plants for a long time. To comprehend P dynamics, land and SWB system must be treated holistically, and sub-divided into components, each with realistic independent system-variables coupled with the processes, which tie these system variables. In nano-P ventures high resolution imaging not only provides evidence of the changes that occur in various phases, but is also an indispensable tool to understand how P dynamics operate.
Seeking simultaneous improvements in farm profit and natural resource indicators: a modelling analysis
Authors: Robertson Michael , Bathgate Andrew , Moore Andrew , Lawes Roger , Lilley Julianne
Published: September 2009

Natural resource indicators are used by catchment management organisations as targets for land use management. However, the nature of the trade-off function between natural resource management (NRM) outcomes and whole-farm profit is ill-defined, and varies between regions and according to the particular NRM indicator considered. Defining this function will assist catchment management organisations and farmers to evaluate the achievability of particular targets, and help determine the size of economic incentives required to offset any expected loss in farm profit associated with meeting targets. We addressed this issue by modelling representative farm businesses in two mixed farming regions (southern New South Wales and the central wheatbelt of Western Australia). The Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) and GRAZPLAN farming systems models were linked and used to generate values of four NRM indicators (water leakage, nitrate leaching, groundcover and soil organic carbon change) for a wide range of crop–pasture rotations. The NRM indicator values were then incorporated into the Model of an Integrated Dryland System (MIDAS) whole-farm economic model to define the relationship with farm profit and farm cropping percentage. For some circumstances and indicators, the resulting trade-off functions were relatively flat; a wide range of enterprise mixes can lead to the same NRM outcomes but significant gains in the indicators may not be possible using current rotation options. For others, significant improvements could be achieved but at a substantial loss in whole-farm profit (through the selection of less profitable rotations). There were also examples where simultaneous gains in indicators and farm profit were possible. This analysis demonstrates an approach by which biophysical simulation models of the farming system can be linked to linear-programming representations of farming enterprises, and provides a method for deriving relationships between NRM targets and economic performance.
Feed gaps in mixed-farming systems: insights from the Grain & Graze program
Authors: Moore Andrew D. , Bell Lindsay W. , Revell Dean K.
Published: September 2009

A central concern of the Grain & Graze research, development and extension program has been improving the management of the feedbase on mixed farms through addressing ‘feed gaps’ – times of year during which the supply of forage is insufficient to meet livestock demand. In this review, we use the available data on pasture growth and quality, supplemented by modelling results, to describe the characteristic timing of feed gaps across the Australian cereal-livestock zone.
Feedbase interventions studied during the Grain & Graze program have mainly addressed the supply side of the feed balance equation. We review these studies, paying particular attention to the time scale of the variability in the feed balance that each intervention is intended to address. We conclude that grazing of cereals (either dual-purpose or forage crops) is the most promising means of alleviating winter feed gaps in regions where they are important. Reducing feed gaps in summer by relying on unpredictable summer rainfall events will increase year-to-year variability in forage production and will therefore require more flexible livestock management systems to exploit it. The use of forage shrubs offers a practical tool for increasing the predictability of summer and autumn feed supply, but given their moderate capacity for providing additional metabolisable energy it remains important to carefully manage livestock over autumn and to manage the herbaceous inter-row pasture.
Feed gaps mainly arise from an interaction between biology and economics. We find, however, that the options studied in the Grain & Graze program for addressing feed gaps require either greater complexity in pasture and grazing management or more opportunistic livestock trading; they therefore come at a cost to the manager’s limited decision-making time. Times with feed gaps are also times when particular natural resource management risks (especially erosion) need to be managed. Supply-side interventions to relieve feed gaps will generally use more soil water, which will often have positive effects on natural resource management outcomes.
Birds track their Grinnellian niche through a century of climate change
Authors: Tingley Morgan W. , Monahan William B. , Beissinger Steven R. , Moritz Craig
Published: September 2009

In the face of environmental change, species can evolve new physiological tolerances to cope with altered climatic conditions or move spatially to maintain existing physiological associations with particular climates that define each species' climatic niche. When environmental change occurs over short temporal and large spatial scales, vagile species are expected to move geographically by tracking their climatic niches through time. Here, we test for evidence of niche tracking in bird species of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, focusing on 53 species resurveyed nearly a century apart at 82 sites on four elevational transects. Changes in climate and bird distributions resulted in focal species shifting their average climatological range over time. By comparing the directions of these shifts relative to the centroids of species' range-wide climatic niches, we found that 48 species (90.6%) tracked their climatic niche. Analysis of niche sensitivity on an independent set of occurrence data significantly predicted the temperature and precipitation gradients tracked by species. Furthermore, in 50 species (94.3%), site-specific occupancy models showed that the position of each site relative to the climatic niche centroid explained colonization and extinction probabilities better than a null model with constant probabilities. Combined, our results indicate that the factors limiting a bird species' range in the Sierra Nevada in the early 20th century also tended to drive changes in distribution over time, suggesting that climatic models derived from niche theory might be used successfully to forecast where and how to conserve species in the face of climate change.
Reconstitution of phospholipid translocase activity with purified Drs2p, a type-IV P-type ATPase from budding yeast
Authors: Zhou Xiaoming , Graham Todd R.
Published: September 2009

Type-IV P-type ATPases (P4-ATPases) are putative phospholipid translocases, or flippases, that translocate specific phospholipid substrates from the exofacial to the cytosolic leaflet of membranes to generate phospholipid asymmetry. In addition, the activity of Drs2p, a P4-ATPase from
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
, is required for vesicle-mediated protein transport from the Golgi and endosomes, suggesting a role for phospholipid translocation in vesicle budding. Drs2p is necessary for translocation of a fluorescent phosphatidylserine analogue across purified Golgi membranes. However, a flippase activity has not been reconstituted with purified Drs2p or any other P4-ATPase, so whether these ATPases directly pump phospholipid across the membrane bilayer is unknown. Here, we show that Drs2p can catalyze phospholipid translocation directly through purification and reconstitution of this P4-ATPase into proteoliposomes. The noncatalytic subunit, Cdc50p, also was reconstituted in the proteoliposome, although at a substoichiometric concentration relative to Drs2p. In proteoliposomes containing Drs2p, a phosphatidylserine analogue was actively flipped across the liposome bilayer to the outer leaflet in the presence of Mg
2+
-ATP, whereas no activity toward the phosphatidylcholine or sphingomyelin analogues was observed. This flippase activity was mediated by Drs2p, because protein-free liposomes or proteoliposomes reconstituted with a catalytically inactive form of Drs2p showed no translocation activity. These data demonstrate for the first time the reconstitution of a flippase activity with a purified P4-ATPase.
La notion de ‘test syntaxique’ dans les grammaires de la première moitié du 20e siècle
Authors: Lauwers Peter
Published: September 2009

Summary

Since the dawn of structuralism and generativism, linguists have not ceased to criticize a lack of scientific rigour in «traditional» grammar. Nowadays, the scientific character of syntax crucially depends on the use of syntactic tests. It appears, however, that this concept was not completely absent in traditional grammar.

After a brief historical sketch of the emergence of the notion of syntactic test in modern linguistics, this contribution offers a typology of syntactic tests found in a corpus of 25 reference grammars of modern French, published in the first half of the 20th century. The bulk of syntactic tests cannot be separated from the notion of paraphrase, which in traditional grammar was partly used as a heuristic means, very often without the necessary control of linguistic form.

As the quantitative analysis of the phenomenon in this study shows, the typology should not suggest that the notion of syntactic test was a dominant concept in traditional grammar. In addition, the perception of the concept of ‘syntactic test’ by the grammarians themselves is rather negative, because of a strong tendency towards, on the one hand, a ‘semanticization’ of grammar, and on the other hand, to ‘didacticization’ of the syntactic description. These two tendencies run counter to the later evolution in syntax, which emphasizes the argumentative value of manipulating utterances in order to establish non-aprioristic syntactic categories.
Quelle(s) fonction(s) pour donc en français oral ?
Authors: Bolly Catherine , Degand Liesbeth
Published: September 2009

The article investigates the multi-functional status of the French connective donc (‘so’) showing on the basis of a corpus analysis that the connective may be used to structure the discourse at different levels. The study distinguishes four main functions for donc: consequential, recapitulating, reformulating, and discursive. In the discourse situation, donc may acquire properly discursive functions reaching beyond its primary consequential function. This functional evolution partially parallels a loss of the specific semantico-syntactic features of consequential donc.