Cultic resilience and inter-city engagement at the dawn of urban history: protohistoric Mesopotamia and the ‘city seals’, 3200-2750 BC

Within the context of early urbanism, elite groups developed the world’s earliest writing in Mesopotamia, 3200-2750 BC, comprising administrative documents in the form of inscribed clay tablets. How did these proto-literate urban communities engage with each other and what strategies did they employ to address major challenges to their survival? The ‘city seal’ evidence survives as seal impressions on clay bureaucratic artefacts, both inscribed tablets and impressed sealings. These impressions feature signs representing the names of Mesopotamian cities, many of them identifiable with known sites. The documents stand at the threshold of history, as the earliest evidence for inter-city engagement. Using an innovative methodology and interpretive framework of cultic resilience, we integrate archaeometric, iconographic, and functional analyses of the earliest stages of writing and sealing, to argue that the city seal evidence provides unique insights into inter-city cooperation by Mesopotamian cities during a critical episode of early urban development

Social Actors “to Go”:An Analytical Toolkit to Explore Agency in Business Discourse and Communication

We argue that language awareness and discourse analytical skills should be part of business communication curricula. To this end, we propose a three-step analytical model drawing on organizational and critical discourse studies, and approaches from systemic-functional linguistics, to explore agency and action in business communication. Focusing on language and discourse helps students to analyze texts more systematically, researchers to gain deeper insights into organizational discourse, and practitioners to reflect on communication processes and produce texts with more impact. We view discourse as central to organizational processes and render a specific approach accessible and easy to integrate into business communication curricula

Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environmental collapse, which I argue obscures recognition of the dynamic role of social processes that lie at the heart of human communities. These environmental discourses, together with confusion over terminology and the concepts of collapse, have created widespread aporia about collapse and resulted in the creation of mixed messages about complex historical and social processes

Pollutant effects on genotoxic parameters and tumor-associated protein levels in adults: a cross sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study intended to investigate whether residence in areas polluted by heavy industry, waste incineration, a high density of traffic and housing or intensive use of pesticides, could contribute to the high incidence of cancer observed in Flanders.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Subjects were 1583 residents aged 50–65 from 9 areas with different types of pollution. Cadmium, lead, p,p'-DDE, hexachlorobenzene, PCBs and dioxin-like activity (Calux test) were measured in blood, and cadmium, t,t'-muconic acid and 1-hydroxypyrene in urine. Effect biomarkers were prostate specific antigen, carcinoembryonic antigen and p53 protein serum levels, number of micronuclei per 1000 binucleated peripheral blood cells, DNA damage (comet assay) in peripheral blood cells and 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine in urine. Confounding factors were taken into account.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Overall significant differences between areas were found for carcinoembryonic antigen, micronuclei, 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine and DNA damage. Compared to a rural area with mainly fruit production, effect biomarkers were often significantly elevated around waste incinerators, in the cities of Antwerp and Ghent, in industrial areas and also in other rural areas. Within an industrial area DNA strand break levels were almost three times higher close to industrial installations than 5 kilometres upwind of the main industrial installations (p < 0.0001). Positive exposure-effect relationships were found for carcinoembryonic antigen (urinary cadmium, t,t'-muconic acid, 1-hydroxypyrene and blood lead), micronuclei (PCB118), DNA damage (PCB118) and 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine (t,t'-muconic acid, 1-hydroxypyrene). Also, we found significant associations between values of PSA above the p90 and higher values of urinary cadmium, between values of p53 above the p90 and higher serum levels of p,p'-DDE, hexachlorobenzene and marker PCBs (PCB 138, 153 and 180) and between serum levels of p,p'-DDE above the p90 and higher serum values of carcinoembryonic antigen. Significant associations were also found between effect biomarkers and occupational or lifestyle parameters.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Levels of internal exposure, and residence near waste incinerators, in cities, or close to important industries, but not in areas with intensive use of pesticides, showed positive correlations with biomarkers associated with carcinogenesis and thus probably contribute to risk of cancer. In some rural areas, the levels of these biomarkers were not lower than in the rest of Flanders.</p

Introduction: new research in monetary history - A map

This handbook aims to provide a comprehensive (though obviously not exhaustive) picture of state-of-the-art international scholarship on the history of money and currency. The chapters of this handbook cover a wide selection of research topics. They span chronologically from antiquity to nowadays and are geographically stretched from Latin America to Asia, although most of them focus on Western Europe and the USA, as a large part of the existing research does. The authors of these chapters constitute, we hope, a balanced sample of various generations of scholars who contributed to what Barry Eichengreen defined as "the new monetary and financial history" &#8211; an approach that combines the analysis of monetary aggregates and policies with the structure and dynamics of the banking sector and financial markets. We have structured this handbook in ten broad thematic parts: the historical origins of money; money, coinage, and the state; trade, money markets, and international currencies; money and metals; monetary experiments; Asian monetary systems; exchange rate regimes; monetary integration; central banking and monetary policy; and aggregate price shocks. In this introduction, we offer for each part some historical context, a few key insights from the literature, and a brief analytical summary of each chapter. Our aim is to draw a map that hopefully will help readers to organize their journey through this very wide and diverse research area

Persuasieve technieken en vuistregels

Contains fulltext : 61736.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)4 p

Exploring tensions between different levels of identity construction in the narratives of expatriates living and working in Hong Kong

Conference theme: Narrative pragmatics: Culture, Cognition, ContextPanel contributions session: contribution to narrative pragmatics organized by Norrick Neal R.In this paper we explore narratives as a site for constructing identities in a multicultural professional context. Our specific focus is the tensions that may arise between different levels of identity construction. In particular, we take as a starting point the assumption that identities are not created in isolation but are always to some extent influenced and shaped by other identities (such as collective identities), and we explore some of the discursive processes through which professional identities are created in the specific tension between the individual and the collective level (Van de Mieroop & Clifton 2012: 1). A lot of research has been done on narratives as sites of identity construction, since “the purpose of narrating is precisely the creation of an autonomous, unique self in discourse” (Johnstone 1996: 56). As Bruner (1991) observes, the uniqueness - or even exceptionality - of this self and of the story makes it tellable, but on the other hand, this happens against the backdrop of canonicity, thus shifting on the interplay between the individual and the ‘culture confirming’ social dimensions of narratives. It is especially interesting to study this interplay in institutional contexts, since here the individual and collective identities themselves are also closely intertwined (Jenkins 2008: 35). By constructing their professional identities , employees not only create their individual identities but at the same time they also portray themselves as a member of their workplace, thus relating themselves to other members and the wider organisation. Drawing on data from a corpus of interviews with professionals in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong, we provide an in-depth analysis of the ways in which two expatriate senior employees at a large international consulting corporation construct their professional identities in the narratives in their interviews in interaction with the interviewers. Although both interviewees are relatively similar in their seniority , the stances they take towards the company differ substantially and they portray themselves and their workplace very differently. However, in both cases the identity construction takes place in the tension between the interviewees’ individual and various collective identities. More specifically, the interviewees portray themselves as professionals not only by drawing on and putting themselves in relation to their institutional identities (e.g. being a member of the company) but also by evoking certain cultural identities which interact with dominant discourses on being Western expatriates in an Asian country. On this basis, we demonstrate the intricate ways in which the individual and the social feed off each other, both within the interviewees’ narratives and in the way they construct their identities. Bruner, J.S. (1991) Self-making and world-making. Journal of Aesthetic Education 25: 67-78. Jenkins, R. (2008) Social Identity. 3 rd edition. London: Routledge. Johnstone, B. (1996) The linguistic individual. Oxford University Press: New York/Oxford. Van De Mieroop, D., and J. Clifto. ( 2012) The interplay between professional identities and age, gender and ethnicity: Introduction. Pragmatics 22: 193-201