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Rusu, E., 2024. An assessment of the expected dynamics of the extreme storms in the Mediterranean Sea. In: Phillips, M.R.; Al-Naemi, S., and Duarte, C.M. (eds.), Coastlines under Global Change: Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2024 (Doha, Qatar). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 113, pp. 1006-1010. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. The climate changes are obvious and they often have very strong and unexpected effects. Such features include a significant enhancement of the frequency and intensity of extreme storms, particularly in the marine environment where the wind blows without obstacles over large geographical spaces. From this perspective, the objective of the present work is to assess the expected dynamics of the extreme storms in the Mediterranean Sea. This assessment is based on an analysis of the data provided by two regional climate wind models. These are RCA4, from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, and ALADIN, run by Météo-France. Two different periods, each of 30 years, are considered. These are the time intervals 1976-2005 for the recent past, and 2041-2070, which is denoted as the near future. Furthermore, three different climate scenarios have been considered for the analysis. They correspond to RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, for RCA4, and RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5 for ALADIN. For the recent past period, ERA5 data were also processed and compared with the results provided by the climatic wind models. Considering these datasets, for each time interval and climate scenario, the most significant storm events from the point of view of the maximum wind speeds were first identified. As a next step, the wave conditions corresponding to each storm are also assessed by performing simulations with the SWAN model. In this way, the expected dynamics of the extreme storms is assessed by comparing the corresponding wind and wave conditions from the past with those expected in the future. The results show that a slight increase is expected in the near future in the Mediterranean Sea, both as regards the maximum wind speeds and significant wave heights.

Environmental changes pose unprecedented risks to human societies worldwide. Over the past few decades, burgeoning academic literature argues or assumes that past societies’ responses to environmental impacts can provide valuable lessons to guide adaptation to contemporary environmental changes. The ancient Maya civilization, whose decline is often linked with historically unprecedented droughts, constitutes a major case study for extracting such lessons. To analyze these lessons, we conduct a meta-analysis of the discourse of learning from past Maya-environment interactions. We demonstrate that although studies often refer to learning from the Maya explicitly, the learning is primarily declarative and discursive rather than substantive, and lessons are often vague, misguided, or inapplicable. Only a few articles employ research designs conducive to learning from the past, and only a few reflect on the process of, or the problems associated with, learning from the past. On the other hand, many articles are content with reaching ‘inspirational’ lessons, calling, for example, for increasing resilience, while only a fifth of the papers drew more specific lessons that offer somewhat concrete recommendations and courses of action. Many studies also claimed that their findings are applicable to present-day societies far outside the core regions of Maya habitation, ignoring pertinent social and geographical differences. Although the paper does not preclude the theoretical possibility of learning from the past, it argues that such learning must undergo significant changes to achieve robustness and relevance for the present. This would also require a more open discussion between scholars of the past and adaptation practitioners.

This essay analyzes Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and shows that the past and the characters’ identities are recreated as stories in a postmodernist style. It points out that the characters rely on their memories to reconstruct their past, giving it their own interpretation and turning it into a story. Kathy, the narrator of the novel, and her interlocutors can understand their past by reflecting on their memories and drawing their conclusions in their stories. The way they interpret their past and its symbols in their subjective accounts offers suggestions about their identity which is also their story.

The Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) is the leading mode of decadal climate variability over the North Pacific. However, it remains unknown to what extent external forcings can influence the PDO’s periodicity and magnitude over the past 2000 years. We show that the paleo-assimilation products (LMR) and proxy data suggest a 20–40 year PDO occurred during both the Mediaeval Climate Anomaly (MCA, ~ 750–1150) and Little Ice Age (LIA, ~ 1250–1850) while a salient 50–70 year variance peak emerged during the LIA. These results are reproduced well by the CESM simulations in the all-forcing (AF) and single volcanic forcing (Vol) experiments. We show that the 20–40 year PDO is an intrinsic mode caused by internal variability but the 50–70 year PDO during the LIA is a forced mode primarily shaped by volcanic forcing. The intrinsic mode develops in tandem with tropical ENSO-like anomalies, while the forced mode develops from the western Pacific and unrelated to tropical sea surface temperature anomalies. The volcanism-induced land–sea thermal contrast may trigger anomalous northerlies over the western North Pacific (WNP), leading to reduced northward heat transport and the cooling in the Kuroshio–Oyashio Extension (KOE), generating the forced mode. A 50–70 year Atlantic multidecadal oscillation founded during the LIA under volcanic forcing may also contribute to the forced mode. These findings shed light on the interplay between the internal variability and external forcing and the present and future changes of the PDO.

Research Summary The last decade has witnessed an increasing interest in the use of history and historical research methods in strategy research. We discuss how and why history and historical research methods can enrich theoretical explanations of strategy phenomena. In addition, we introduce the notions of “history‐informed strategy research,” distinguishing between the dimensions of “history to theory” and “history in theory” and discussing various under‐utilized methods that may further work on history‐informed strategy research. We then discuss how contemporary research contributes to history‐informed research within the strategy field, examine key methodological and empirical challenges associated with such research, and develop an agenda for future research. Managerial Summary Firms are increasingly making use of their historical past as they reflect on their identities and how these can be used strategically. At the same time, strategy researchers are paying increasing to the use of historical research methods, as well as to how firms use history strategically. We take stock on the role of history in strategy research, outline the key strategic issues that can be informed by a historical way of doing research, discuss the available historical methods, and offer suggestions for future research in the history/strategy intersection.

Over the past decade, the documentation of Gyalrongic languages has shed light on grammatical phenomena which were poorly understood in Tangut, a language of critical importance in the field of Sino-Tibetan comparative linguistics. This paper provides an explanation for the last remaining unelucidated verbal alternation in Tangut ( -ɨ 1 /- i 2 ), which, as I will demonstrate, encodes a non-past/past distinction. By doing so, it also gives fresh arguments for placing Tangut and the Horpa languages together within one clade. Finally, methodologically speaking, it offers an example of grammatical reconstruction from above, i.e. employing sister languages to better understand the grammar of an extinct language through their common ancestor, revealing a rare example of complex distributional retention uncorrelated with regular phonetic correspondences. 1

In popular culture, such diverse characters as occultist Aleister Crowley, Doors musician Jim Morrison, and performance artist Joseph Beuys have been called shamans. In anthropology, on the other hand, shamanism has associations with sorcery, witchcraft and healing, and archaeologists have suggested the meaning of prehistoric cave art lies with shamans and altered consciousness. Robert J. Wallis explores the interface between 'new' and prehistoric shamans. The book draws on interviews with a variety of practitioners, particularly contemporary pagans in Britain and north America. Wallis looks at historical and archaeological sources to explore contemporary pagan engagements with prehistoric sacred sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury, and discusses the controversial use by neo-Shamans of indigenous (particularly native American) shamanism. List of illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Introduction A Native at Home: Producing Ethnographic Fragments of Neo-Shamanisms 1. 'White-Shamans': Sources for Neo-Shamans 2. Plastic Medicine Men? Appraising the 'Great Pretenders' 3. Taliesin's Trip, Wyrd Woden: Druid and Heathen Neo-Shamans 4. 'Celtic' and 'Northern' Shamanisms? Contesting the Past 5. 'Sacred' Sites? Neo-Shamans and Prehistoric Heritage 6. Waking Neolithic Ancestors: Further Controversies and 'Reburial' 7. Invading Anthros, Thieving Archos, Wannabe Indians: Academics, Neo-Shamans and Indigenous Communities Conclusion: Neo-Shamans in Post-modernity Appendix Resolution of the 5th Annual Meeting of the Tradition Elders Circle & AIM Resolution References Index

The literature on managerial style posits a linear relation between a chief executive officer's (CEOs) past experiences and firm risk. We show that there is a nonmonotonic relation between the intensity of CEOs' early-life exposure to fatal disasters and corporate risk-taking. CEOs who experience fatal disasters without extremely negative consequences lead firms that behave more aggressively, whereas CEOs who witness the extreme downside of disasters behave more conservatively. These patterns manifest across various corporate policies including leverage, cash holdings, and acquisition activity. Ultimately, the link between CEOs' disaster experience and corporate policies has real economic consequences on firm riskiness and cost of capital.