AMS

"The traditional date of 1595 BCE for the destruction of Babylon by the Hittite king Mursili I is accepted by most historians for many years despite notable controversies. This pivotal date is considered crucial to the various calculations of the early chronology of the ancient Near East. According to the Venus Tablet (Enuma Anu Enlil 63) which describes the rising and setting of Venus during the reign of Ammisaduqa, there are only four possibilities implying four dates for the destruction of Ur: 1912, 1944, 2004, 2064 BCE. However, a tablet of astronomical omens (Enuma Anu Enlil 20) mentions a lunar eclipse, dated 14/III/48, at the end of the reign of Shulgi and another (Enuma Anu Enlil 21) mentions a lunar eclipse, dated 14/XII/24, at the end of the reign of Ibbi-Sin. Over the period 2200-1850 BCE there are only three pairs of eclipses, spaced by 42 years, matching the description of astronomical omens but only one agreeing with the previous four dates. Despite the excellent agreement the date of 1499 BCE is considered too low compared to Kassite and Hittite chronologies.
The second way to check the date for the fall of Babylon is to rebuild the chronology of this period thanks to synchronisms dated by astronomy from Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Israelite chronologies which provide synchronisms that can be dated independently. The Mesopotamian chronology of this period is reconstructed using the number of Assyrian eponyms (one a year) and the length of Babylonian reigns combined with the set of synchronisms among Assyrian and Babylonian kings in Annals. Consequently, the reign of Kassite King Gandash" (1661-1635), obtained from average durations, coincides with the reign of the Assyrian king Samsu-iluna (1654-1616) and Sealand king Ilum-maz-ilî (1664- 1594). In addition, the reign of Kassite King Agum II (1503-1487) and Sealand King Ayadaragalama (1498-1482) are consistent with a fall of Babylon in 1499 BCE. During the reign of Assur-dân I (1179-1133) eponyms began on 1st Nisan instead of 1 Sippu, but Assyrian lunar years without intercalation remained the norm until Tiglath-pileser I. As the Babylonian year began on 1st Nisan (shortly after the spring equinox), Assyrian years coincided with Babylonian lunar years with intercalation, thus the period between Assur-dân I and Tiglath-pileser I was therefore transitional.
Owing to the Babylonian chronology and synchronisms it is possible to date other chronologies (Egyptian, Elamite, Hittite and Mitannian). As lunar day 1, called psdntyw "shining ones", has played a major role in Egyptian religious celebrations, it is regularly quoted in ancient documents, which sometimes also date it in the civil calendar. This double-dating then allows an absolute dating, on condition that provided proper identification of the moon phase for that particular day. Present specialists rely on the work of Parker (in 1950) who defined this day as a first invisibility, that is to say the day (invisible!) just before the first lunar crescent. However in the papyrus Louvre 7848 containing a double date, lunar and civil, in the year 44 of Amasis, the first date (II Shemu 13) is lunar and the second (I Shemu 15) is civil and as the civil date fell on 21 September 558 BCE the lunar date fell on 9 (= 21 – 12) September 558 BCE which was a full moon day according to astronomy, not first invisibility! The lunar calendar at Elephantine with its system of double dates (Egyptian and Babylonian) used by Persians officials and Jewish scribes from 500 to 400 BCE confirms that the Egyptian lunar day 1 was a full moon (see Dating the Reign of Xerxes and Artaxerxes)."

UPS AND DOWNS AT KANESH proposes a revised sequence of Old Assyrian eponyms and establishes a relative and an absolute chronology by way of linking textual evidence, dendrochronology and archaeological stratigraphy. This chronological framework is used to trace broader historical and social developments of political and territorial centralisation in Anatolia, as well as to offer new insights in the social and commercial history of the Old Assyrian trade.
A number of economic and social transformations in Assyrian society over the course of two centuries are identified by way of a statistical and prosopographical analysis. It is shown how the economic system that drove the well-known overland trade of the early Colony Period collapsed in a dramatic fashion after only thirty years (c. 1895-1865 BC), and that a series of changes in administrative organisation were created in immediate response. A primary vehicle in financing the trade – the joint-stock enterprise – was abandoned, and exchange came to be organised by way of venture trade. A distinct community of hybrid Assyrian-Anatolian households grew more prominent as mixed families came to be engaged mainly in local Anatolian trade and agriculture. In turn, a small and wealthy Assyrian elite functioned as permanently settled foreign trading agents, and a distinctive group of itinerant merchants continued to engage in the caravan trade and connect the Anatolian colonies to the mother city of Assur.

It is generally accepted that the primary goal of marketing, even conventional sustainable marketing, is to enhance organizations’ financial well-being, a view that is consistent with mainstream utilitarian ethics. However, this profit-first focus often inadvertently contributes to socio-ecological problems and undermines the ability of marketing to adequately address resulting challenges. This paper presents an approach to sustainable marketing that we call Social and Ecological Thought (SET) marketing, which is based on virtue ethics and aims to optimize social and ecological well-being while ensuring financial viability. We describe implications of SET marketing for each of the 4 Ps in the marketing-mix paradigm—product, price, place, and promotion—and compare them to conventional views based on mainstream utilitarian ethics. SET marketing is relevant for the growing number of consumers and businesses that willingly forgo the maximization of financial well-being in order to optim...

"The protocol of preparation of keratinized samples (e.g. hair, furs ...) for radiocarbon dating that we have developed is based on the selective extraction of keratin from the bulk part of the shaft (cortex). The aim of this method is to eliminate the cuticle which could contain exogenous carbon from external contaminations. The total treatment takes place as follows: a washing / dry cleaning, a soft treatment with diluted acidic and basic solutions (Acid/Alkali/Acid method) similar to the protocol used for vegetal samples, extraction of keratin by reduction using dithiothreitol (or DTT) and precipitation with sodium deoxycholate (DCO) and trichloroacetic acid (TCA).
This method was applied on a hair sample from an Andean mummy, conserved in the collections of the Anthropology Laboratory of the National Museum of Natural History (Musée de l’Homme) in Paris, France. The results of two runs reveal that the mummy is dated to a period between the XIth century and the first half of the XIIth century. It therefore belongs to the Late Intermediate period (900-1450 AD). The combination of historical research, the study of the body by Computed Tomography (CT) and analysis of mineral deposits on the surface of the body provides clues to identify the geographical origin of the mummy. These investigations led to determine that the mummy comes from the region of Tarapacá in Chile and belongs to the cultural complex Pica-Tarapacá."

As a powerful means of theory building, conceptual articles are increasingly called for in marketing academia. However, researchers struggle to design and write non-empirical articles because of the lack of commonly accepted templates to guide their development. The aim of this paper is to highlight methodological considerations for conceptual papers: it is argued that such papers must be grounded in a clear research design, and that the choice of theories and their role in the analysis must be explicated and justified. The paper discusses four potential templates for conceptual papers – Theory Synthesis, Theory Adaptation, Typology, and Model – and their respective aims, approach for using theories, and contribution potential. Supported by illustrative examples, these templates codify some of the tacit knowledge that underpins the design of non-empirical papers and will be of use to anyone undertaking, supervising, or reviewing conceptual research.

The GLOBE Madagascar Malaria Project is a new initiative whose objective is to involve students, teachers, and the community in learning more about malaria, collecting environmental data relevant to malaria, and educating the community to assist in combating this mosquito-borne disease. Madagascar schools, scientists, health department officials, government officials including the Minister of Education, and others, have given their support to this project that links GLOBE hydrology and atmospheric data with mosquito larval occurrence and identification. In the context of environmental/Earth science education, the issues related to malaria can be viewed as a unique opportunity for developing scientist/teacher/student partnerships that attack a real-world problem with the resources that only a widely dispersed network of participants, such as GLOBE educators, students and scientists can provide. Local identification of mosquito breeding/hatching sites is critical because mosquitoes te...

Different models of relation between flow and Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility axis have been postulated. The main models link the magnetic foliation with the dyke wall, where the magnetic lineation is parallel to the flow direction or where the magnetic foliation develops an imbrications disposition respect the dyke wall. At a first approximation the main differences resides in the turbulence caused by the dyke walls during the flow. In this work is presented a systematic sampling along different Quaternary dykes (Western Azores) that ...

This study focused on the effects of space weather on the ionosphere during geomagnetic storms for the period 17-28 February 2014 over the African low, latitude region. The Global Positioning System (GPS) data, derived from dual frequency receivers installed along the African low, latitude were analyzed to get Total Electron Content (TEC) and this was used to study the response of the ionosphere to the geomagnetic storms. Positive and negative ionospheric storm effects were observed during the period of study. These geomagnetic storm effects were discussed in terms of the Prompt Penetration Electric Field (PPEF) storm induced wind lifting effect and Disturbance Dynamo (DD) electric field. Although these storms occurred during the same period, their impacts and associated features on the ionosphere varied due to different contributing factors to their driving mechanisms. A shift in equatorial VTEC enhancement from one GPS station to another was observed, showing a longitudinal depend...

Despite a growing understanding of market infrastructures—the rules and socio-material arrangements that enable agreements on the properties of goods, and the calculation of value, equivalence and exchange—we know little of what lies beneath the arrangements that underpin and are implicated in exchange. The socio-material lens has done much to explain how specific assemblages circulate information and goods, but has done little to explain how different infrastructures configure relations between dispersed market practices. Using the history of the development of the market for market research we show how knowledge-based infrastructures constitute markets as knowledge objects: new expertise emerged through alliances between academia, government, and private actors form a new occupation embodied in specialist agencies that set themselves up in an infrastructural relation to marketing practices. Our conceptualization of markets as knowledge objects extends extant understandings of mark...

The Kapitan-Dimitrievo pluton was emplaced within the 15 km wide Maritsa shear zone during the Late Cretaceous. It has well-known U–Pb zircon age (78.54 ± 0.13 Ma) and appears as a late-syntectonic intrusion that marked the last ductile deformation in the Maritsa shear zone. Magnetite is believed to be the main carrier of the magnetic fabric in this pluton, and crystallized mainly late, after the main rock-forming minerals. Two fabrics are recorded, a visible syn-magmatic fabric (due to magma flow) and magnetic late-magmatic fabric (related to regional stresses). Although different, both are mainly related to the shearing along this shear zone. These results constrain in age the dextral strike-slip controlled emplacement and evolution of the Late Cretaceous plutons from Central Bulgaria.

Currently, the only high-quality, high-resolution temperature and precipitation data sets for the continental United States suitable for use on climatological time scales are for mean values. None yet exist that represent sequential monthly values over an extended historical ...

The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) is an UV/VIS nadir solar backscatter imaging spectrograph, which provides nearly global coverage in one day with a spatial resolution of 13;x;24 km2. OMI measures solar irradiance and Earth radiances in the wavelength range of 270 to 500 nm with a spectral resolution of about 0.5 nm. OMI is a new instrument, with a heritage from the European satellite instruments GOME, GOMOS and SCIAMACHY and was contributed to the Aura mission by The Netherlands and Finland. OMI's unique capabilities for measuring important trace gases with a small footprint and daily global coverage will make a major contribution to our understanding of the expected recovery of the ozone layer, the sources and transport of aerosols and trace gases that effect global air quality and the roles of tropospheric ozone and aerosols in climate change. The talk will give an overview of the performance of the instrument, first trace gas retrievals and their early validation results...

Innovation does not just involve the creation of new products, but also includes the need for new kinds of processes and organizations. Field theory can help us understand why some innovations are more piecemeal and others more revolutionary. It explicitly links innovation to the process of the emergence, adjustment, and transformation of markets (conceived of as fields). To illustrate this perspective, the case of the transition in the U.S. from a mortgage market dominated by savings and loan banks to the emergence of mortgage securitization dominated by the government sponsored enterprises and the largest private banks, is explicated. Field theory helps us understand the logic of this transition and the myriad players and innovations that helped produce a large part of what we consider to be modern finance. The case also shows the limits of economic theories of financial innovation and the sociology of finance. I end with a discussion of how field theory can inform subsequent rese...

This work deals with the magnetic fabric (AMS technique) of different lithotypes related to quaternary volcanism of Deception Island (South Shetland Islands). The studied rocks include lava flows from basaltic to basaltic-andesitic composition, mafic dykes and several types of pyroclastic deposits. By combining the analysis of parametric aspects of the magnetic ellipsoids and their directional pattern, four types of magnetic fabrics have been recognized. Type I fabrics are related to laminar magma flow in both lava flows and dykes. ...

This article takes stock of sustainability research in marketing and argues for developing a Strong Sustainability Research (SSR) program, led by a Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) approach. First, I define weak vs. strong sustainability and identify two main problems with continuing to research business with the weak sustainability approach. Second, I discuss past approaches to sustainability research in marketing, which primarily promote weak sustainability. Third, I use the agriculture industry to illustrate how an SSR program in marketing could be developed to bring insights to practitioners and policy makers and build new modes of production, consumption and exchange. Finally, I suggest that the SSR program facilitates collaboration between mainstream marketing and CCT researchers by providing a common ontological platform that can transform epistemological differences into complementary strengths. I argue SSR is a way that marketing research can gain broad impact and relevance.

This article takes stock of sustainability research in marketing and argues for developing a Strong Sustainability Research (SSR) program, led by a Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) approach. First, I define weak vs. strong sustainability and identify two main problems with continuing to research business with the weak sustainability approach. Second, I discuss past approaches to sustainability research in marketing, which primarily promote weak sustainability. Third, I use the agriculture industry to illustrate how an SSR program in marketing could be developed to bring insights to practitioners and policy makers and build new modes of production, consumption and exchange. Finally, I suggest that the SSR program facilitates collaboration between mainstream marketing and CCT researchers by providing a common ontological platform that can transform epistemological differences into complementary strengths. I argue SSR is a way that marketing research can gain broad impact and relevance.

The necessary climatological conditions for tropical cyclogenesis are generally agreed upon and can be summarized as sea surface temperatures above 26.5 °C overlaying a deep oceanic mixedlayer, deep convection within a region of moist lower and middle levels, positive lowlevel vorticity anomalies, and weak (or slightly easterly) vertical wind shear (Gray 1968, 1979). While the climatological conditions are wellknown, these conditions exist over a large portion of the tropics for extended time periods. Only a small percentage of potential disturbances develop into tropical storms. This suggests that there must be additional criteria for individual storms.. Despite the availability of advanced global observations and highresolution numerical models, the local conditions necessary for genesis remain somewhat of an enigma. Tropical cyclones form within preexisting convective regions which are often embedded in synopticscale cyclonic regions such as monsoon troughs, tropical waves, or cy...

Agricultural robots are promoted as a solution to satisfy a growing demand for products while minimizing resource use. Following the recent development of the industry of farming robotics, we question how these technologies transform agriculture in a critical way. We carried out a systematic review of literature questioning the transformations of work related to robot’s adoption in agriculture. The scope encompasses a wide range of disciplines of social science and farm engineering. We consider four aspects of work: i. the farm structures and the labour market; ii. the technical-economic performances; iii. the organization of work; iv. the meaning of work. We also have a particular focus on Automatic Milking System (AMS) and we discuss the vivid controversies about which farms adopt them. Concerning the relationship between labour time and the AMS adoption, we highlight a gap between measurements and perceptions by farmers. While economics studies indicate a significant reduction, f...

It has been estimated that strong winds off the US coasts can be used in Wind Energy (WE) projects to provide up to 4% of the country's electric generating capacity by 2030 (DOE Report, 2008). Development of wind farms even in shallow waters (< 30 m) requires higher investments and maintenance costs in the tougher environmental conditions compared to inland wind farms. But offshore wind farms have a number of advantages to defray these expenses. Due to stronger and less turbulent winds at higher altitudes, wind turbine arrays installed offshore worldwide have greater capacity and produce more energy per unit compare to inland installations. Detailed analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of offshore windproject developments are given in (Musial and Butterfield, 2004), where they listed positive factors such as considerable wind resources, reduced transmission costs due to closer location of wind farms to large load centers, minimal visual impact and land-use expenses. B...