Sidamo Generational Class Cycles. A Political Gerontocracy

Africa ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Hamer

IntroductionThis paper considers age organization as a political means of dealing with problems arising out of the dispersion of men and wealth in varying ecological zones among the Sidamo of south-west Ethiopia.The Sidamo inhabit an area shaped like a trapezoid beginning 169 miles below Addis Ababa, extending on a north-south axis from Lake Awasa to Lake Abaya, and on the east-west axis from the upper branches of the Loghita River to the Billate River (see Map I). Their cultural boundaries are with the Arusi on the north, Walamo on the west, southward with the Gugi and Darassa, and the Jamjam (Northern Gugi) on the east. On the basis of village census data and registration of the majority of Sidamo household heads for the 1965 parliamentary elections, I would estimate the population to be between 100,000 and 200,000 persons.


2007 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pete Hollings ◽  
Philip Fralick ◽  
Brian Cousens

The Mesoproterozoic 1108–1105 Ma Osler Group, a 3 km thick succession of basaltic flows and sedimentary units on the north shore of Lake Superior, is among the oldest expressions of the Midcontinent Rift. Basal sediments of the Simpson Island Formation (new name) deposited by braided fluvial systems record westward transport of debris eroded from local Archean and Proterozoic rock units. Strata deposited by this fluvial system are intercalated with, and overlain by, ocean-island basalt (OIB)-like basalts, which become increasingly contaminated up section (εNd(1100Ma) = +0.3 to –5.3). The light rare-earth element (LREE) enriched (La/Smn = 1.5–3.9) and heavy REE (HREE) fractionated (Gd/Ybn = 1.5–3.7) subaerial flows are divisible into two units that correlate with other sections of the Osler Group to the east, but simple correlations with more distant sequences are difficult. The volcanic rock dominated portion of the succession is overlain by a thin (25 m thick) conglomerate–sandstone assemblage representing southeast progradation of an alluvial fan in a semi-arid climatic setting. Clast lithologies and geochemistry indicate no extra-rift detritus was delivered from the hinterland of the fan. Various lines of evidence in both volcanic and sedimentary rocks support a scenario where early, pre-1108 Ma, subsidence along a north–south axis from the western arm of the rift to the Nipigon Embayment was replaced by subsidence along the east–west rift axis between 1108 and 1105 Ma.



2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (19) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta De Jesus Santos ◽  
Elmo Borges Azevedo Koch ◽  
Clarissa Machado Pinto Leite ◽  
Tiago Jordão Porto ◽  
Jacques Hubert Charles Delabie

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest has a rich biodiversity increasingly threatened by human activities. Since the colonial period, the coast of the state of Bahia is among the most affected regions of Brazil by anthropic pressure. Bahia encloses Atlantic Forest remnants distributed in an area reaching 100-200 km along the east-west axis, by 1,000 km along the north-south axis, parallel to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. We report hereafter the results of an intensive field survey of leaf litter and epigaeic ants realized in forest remnants of the Atlantic Forest landscapes within the original extension of the biome in 11 localities distributed along four degrees of latitude in the state of Bahia. In each site, 16 plots were collected using pitfall and eight using Winkler traps. We identified 391 ant species belonging to 71 genera and nine subfamilies. Among all species recorded, 21 were common to the whole 11 localities, while 98 species were recorded in a single locality. This study highlights the richness and diversity of epigaeic and leaf-litter ants living in the northern part of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, and is one of the most representative soil ants’ inventories ever done in this biome for a single state of Brazil.



1999 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn E. Tate

This article takes two new approaches to the “enigmas” of La Venta. First, it examines the form of the site in relation to the region from which the La Ventans procured their stone: primarily, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. La Venta's north–south axis pointed to the nearest high mountain south of the site. The bar-and-four-dots design on the Mosaic Pavements corresponded to the duality of the female earth and its four-directional maize plants crossed by the east–west path of the male sun. The Massive Offerings, previously interpreted as effigies of seas, are noted to be on the north of the ceremonial court and to correspond to the ocean a few kilometers north of the site. Second, this paper augments the current understanding of the ideological or spiritual motivations for the design and construction of La Venta's Massive Offerings and Mosaic Pavements by looking through the lens of contemporary Mixe ritual practice and shamanic cosmology. The Mixe are probably the linguistic descendants of the Gulf Coast Olmecs. Using these two lines of analysis, the paper advances several related proposals. It argues that the La Ventans planned Complexes A and C (the designations for the ceremonial court containing the Massive Offerings and other deposits and for the big mound) to replicate the topography of the region important to La Venta as a source of materials and food and, by extension, of knowledge. It specifically correlates the Massive Offerings, Mosaic Pavements, and almond-eyed supernaturals on stelae at the foot of Mound C to the principal “supernatural reality configurations” of the contemporary Mixe. Furthermore, it contextualizes the problem of shamanism by arguing that these supernaturals were not “gods” but sources of shamanic power and that the many buried offerings at La Venta are best seen as similar to aspects of Mixe ritual, which they call “work of the earth.” Finally, the paper reconsiders the existence of “gods” among the Olmecs, concluding that a more appropriate way to express their notions of the sacred is that they conceived supernaturals as meta-cosmological or meta-meteorological forces.



1970 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 271-273
Author(s):  
B. B. Jones ◽  
B. C. Boland ◽  
R. Wilson ◽  
S. T. F. Engstrom

A high-resolution solar spectrum in the range 2000–2200 Å was obtained in a recent flight of a sunpointing Skylark rocket. This was launched at 04.21 hr UT on April 22, 1969 from Woomera and reached an apogee of 178 km. An optical alignment system operating on the main vehicle pointing system gave a net stabilisation of ±3 arc sec in the position of the solar image relative to the spectrograph slit. The slit, of length 1.0 mm, was set in the north-east quadrant parallel to and 5 arc min from the north/south axis, its lower edge being 1 arc min from the equator. The roll control of ±2.5° was provided entirely by the standard Elliott Bros. type of vehicle stabilisation.



2002 ◽  
Vol 199 ◽  
pp. 25-31
Author(s):  
N. Udaya Shankar

The Mauritius Radio Telescope (MRT) is a Fourier synthesis instrument which has been built to fill the gap in the availability of deep sky surveys at low radio frequencies in the southern hemisphere. It is situated in the north-east of Mauritius at a southern latitude of 20°.14 and an eastern longitude of 57°.73. The aim of the survey with the MRT is to contribute to the database of southern sky sources in the declination range −70° ≤ δ ≤ −10°, covering the entire 24 hours of right ascension, with a resolution of 4' × 4'.6sec(δ + 20.14°) and a point source sensitivity of 200 mJy (3σ level) at 151.5 MHz.MRT is a T-shaped non-coplanar array consisting of a 2048 m long East-West arm and a 880 m long South arm. In the East-West arm 1024 fixed helices are arranged in 32 groups and in the South arm 16 trolleys, with four helices on each, which move on a rail are used. A 512 channel, 2-bit 3-level complex correlation receiver is used to measure the visibility function. At least 60 days of observing are required for obtaining the visibilities up to the 880 m spacing. The calibrated visibilities are transformed taking care of the non-coplanarity of the array to produce an image of the area of the sky under observation.This paper will describe the telescope, the observations carried out so far, a few interesting aspects of imaging with this non-coplanar array and present results of a low resolution survey (13' × 18') covering roughly 12 hours of right ascension, and also present an image with a resolution of 4' × 4'.6sec(δ + 20.14°) made using the telescope.



1977 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia J. Hallam

Following several discussions in recent numbers of Quaternary Research on the peopling of the Americas, this paper suggests that movements into the New World should be viewed in the wider context of subsistence, technology, and movement around the western littorals of the Pacific, resulting in the colonization not of one but of two new continents by men out of Asia. Specific points which have been raised by these recent papers are reviewed in the light of Australian, Wallacian, and East Asian data.(1) The earliness of watercraft is evidenced by chronology of the human diaspora through Wallacia and Greater Australia.(2) The simplistic nomenclature of chopper-flake traditions masks considerable complexity and technological potential, revealed in detailed Antipodean studies.(3) These traditions also have great potential for adapting to differing ecological zones, evidenced within Greater Australia; and for technological and economic innovation there, through Southeast Asia, and to Japan and the north Asian littoral.(4) The history of discovery and the nature of the evidence from Australia cannot validly be used to controvert early dates in the Americas.(5) Demographic data from Australia suggest that total commitment to a rapid-spread “bowwave” model for the peopling of new continents may be unwise.



2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-619
Author(s):  
Li Kong ◽  
Yunpeng Zhang ◽  
Zhijian Lin ◽  
Zhongzhu Qiu ◽  
Chunying Li ◽  
...  

Abstract The present work aimed to select the optimum solar tracking mode for parabolic trough concentrating collectors using numerical simulation. The current work involved: (1) the calculation of daily solar radiation on the Earth’s surface, (2) the comparison of annual direct solar radiation received under different tracking modes and (3) the determination of optimum tilt angle for the north-south tilt tracking mode. It was found that the order of solar radiation received in Shanghai under the available tracking modes was: dual-axis tracking > north-south Earth’s axis tracking > north-south tilt tracking (β = 15°) > north-south tilt tracking (β = 45) > north-south horizontal tracking > east-west horizontal tracking. Single-axis solar tracking modes feature simple structures and low cost. This study also found that the solar radiation received under the north-south tilt tracking mode was higher than that of the north-south Earth’s axis tracking mode in 7 out of 12 months. Therefore, the north-south tilt tracking mode was studied separately to determine the corresponding optimum tilt angles in Haikou, Lhasa, Shanghai, Beijing and Hohhot, respectively, which were shown as follows: 18.81°, 27.29°, 28.67°, 36.21° and 37.97°.



1925 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Hendrick ◽  
George Newlands

1. Previous investigations showed that certain Scottish soils were of glacial drift origin, that they were comparatively rich in unweathered silicates and therefore in reserves of plant-food, that they showed considerable variation in such silicates and were capable of classification accordingly. Some indication was also shown that the glacial drift, and hence the resulting soil, was sometimes of local origin, its character being determined by the underlying rock. In the present investigation a more extensive survey of Scottish soils has been made in order to discover to what extent these preliminary findings might be applicable generally.2. For this purpose soils have been collected from various localities in the north, north-east, west and south of Scotland, and have been analysed mechanically and the “fine sand” fraction examined mineralogically.



2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 808 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lv Zhou ◽  
Jiming Guo ◽  
Xuelin Wen ◽  
Jun Ma ◽  
Fei Yang ◽  
...  

Accurate dynamic characteristics of super high-rise buildings serve as a guide in their construction and operation. Ground-based real aperture radar (GB-RAR) techniques have been applied in monitoring and analyzing the dynamic characteristics of different buildings, but only few studies have utilized them to derive the dynamic characteristics of super high-rise buildings, especially those higher than 400 m and under construction. In this study, we proposed a set of technical methods for monitoring and analyzing the dynamic characteristics of super high-rise buildings based on GB-RAR and wavelet analysis. A case study was conducted on the monitoring and analysis of the dynamic characteristics of the Wuhan Greenland Center (WGC) under construction (5–7 July 2017) with a 636 m design height. Displacement time series was accurately derived through GB-RAR and wavelet analysis, and the accuracy reached the submillimeter level. The maximum horizontal displacement amplitudes at the top of the building in the north–south and east–west directions were 18.84 and 15.94 mm, respectively. The roof displacement trajectory of the WGC was clearly identified. A certain negative correlation between the temperature and displacement changes at the roof of the building was identified. Study results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective for the dynamic monitoring and analysis of super high-rise buildings with noninvasive and nondestructive characteristics.



2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (15) ◽  
pp. 2824-2839
Author(s):  
Naomi M Saville ◽  
Macharaja Maharjan ◽  
Dharma S Manandhar ◽  
Helen A Harris-Fry

AbstractObjective:To model the potential impact and equity impact of fortifying rice on nutritional adequacy of different subpopulations in Nepal.Design:Using 24-h dietary recall data and a household consumption survey, we estimated: rice intakes; probability of adequacy (PA) of eight micronutrients commonly fortified in rice (vitamin A, niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), cobalamin (B12), thiamin (B1), folate (B9), Fe and Zn) plus riboflavin (B2), vitamin C and Ca and mean probability of adequacy (MPA) of these micronutrients. We modelled: no fortification; fortification of purchased rice, averaged across all households and in rice-buying households only. We compared adequacy increases between population subgroups.Setting:(i) Dhanusha and Mahottari districts of Nepal (24-h recall) and (ii) all agro-ecological zones of Nepal (consumption data).Participants:(i) Pregnant women (n 128), mothers-in-law and male household heads; (ii) households (n 4360).Results:Unfortified diets were especially inadequate in vitamins B12, A, B9, Zn and Fe. Fortification of purchased rice in rice-purchasing households increased PA > 0·9 for thiamin, niacin, B6, folate and Zn, but B12 and Fe remained inadequate even after fortification (PA range 0·3–0·9). Pregnant women’s increases exceeded men’s for thiamin, niacin, B6, folate and MPA; men had larger gains in vitamin A, B12 and Zn. Adequacy improved more in the hills (coefficient 0·08 (95 % CI 0·05, 0·10)) and mountains (coefficient 0·07 (95 % CI 0·01, 0·14)) but less in rural areas (coefficient −0·05 (95 % CI −0·09, −0·01)).Conclusions:Consumption of purchased fortified rice improves adequacy and gender equity of nutrient intake, especially in non-rice-growing areas.



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