Airborne radio-echo sounding (RES) surveys are widely used to measure ice-sheet bed topography. Measuring bed topography as accurately and widely as possible is of critical importance to modelling ice dynamics and hence to constraining better future ice response to climate change. Measurement accuracy of RES surveys is influenced both by the geometry of bed topography and the survey design. Here we develop a novel approach for simulating RES surveys over glaciated terrain, to quantify the sensitivity of derived bed elevation to topographic geometry. Furthermore, we investigate how measurement errors influence the quantification of glacial valley geometry. We find a negative bias across RES measurements, where off-nadir return measurement error is typically −1.8 ± 11.6 m. Topographic highlands are under-measured an order of magnitude more than lowlands. Consequently, valley depth and cross-sectional area are largely under-estimated. While overall estimates of ice thickness are likely too high, we find large glacier valley cross-sectional area to be under-estimated by −2.8 ± 18.1%. Therefore, estimates of ice flux through large outlet glaciers are likely too low when this effect is not taken into account. Additionally, bed mismeasurements potentially impact our appreciation of outlet-glacier stability.

Forty years ago, Knut Fladmark (1979) argued that the Pacific Coast offered a viable alternative to the ice-free corridor model for the initial peopling of the Americas—one of the first to support a “coastal migration theory” that remained marginal for decades. Today, the pre-Clovis occupation at the Monte Verde site is widely accepted, several other pre-Clovis sites are well documented, investigations of terminal Pleistocene subaerial and submerged Pacific Coast landscapes have increased, and multiple lines of evidence are helping decode the nature of early human dispersals into the Americas. Misconceptions remain, however, about the state of knowledge, productivity, and deglaciation chronology of Pleistocene coastlines and possible technological connections around the Pacific Rim. We review current evidence for several significant clusters of early Pacific Coast archaeological sites in North and South America that include sites as old or older than Clovis. We argue that stemmed points, foliate points, and crescents (lunates) found around the Pacific Rim may corroborate genomic studies that support an early Pacific Coast dispersal route into the Americas. Still, much remains to be learned about the Pleistocene colonization of the Americas, and multiple working hypotheses are warranted.

Mancur Olson's The Rise and Decline of Nations raises intriguing questions about the ways in which various countries' economic fates have been affected by the activities of what he calls distributional coalitions and vested interests. According to Olson, the development of such strategically placed groups has often enabled relatively small segments of society to impede the workings of a country's productive and distributive processes by distorting their functions to serve essentially their own interests more than the broader community interest. This ensures the perpetuation of a beneficial position for themselves, but at the cost of creating rigidities in the economic system that, in the long run, bring about in-built resistance to change, loss of competitiveness, and ultimate stagnation (Olson 1982:74–81). In itself this is not an especially remarkable proposition, but Olson has developed it into an unusually rigorous and at the same time illuminating theoretical edifice. His data have been drawn mainly from studies of the developed nations, the theory being used to explain macro-level economic performance rather than the workings of microlevel institutions, firms, or industries. But there is no compelling reason why his theory cannot be used just as fruitfully to illuminate the situation in developing countries. It may also be applicable to the micro-level analysis of institutions or industries there as well as the macro-level of national economies. Here we propose essentially to apply it to both, using Olson's basic theory as an explanatory guideline in an investigation into the causes of declining productivity in a single industry-the sugar industry-in one developing country-Indonesia.

1. Normal “whole” blood and serum-leucocyte mixtures may exert a bactericidal effect when the serum (or plasma) is inactive in this respect, and may possess quantitatively greater bactericidal properties than serum (or plasma), when the latter is active per se, but such effects are relatively weak.

2. Leucocyte suspensions may exhibit an initial bactericidal action on certain bacteria, but this is usually weak and is followed by a pronounced growth-promoting influence on the surviving organisms.

3. Under certain conditions normal “whole” blood and serum-leucocyte mixtures are inferior to serum (or plasma) in bactericidal power. This is observed when the serum (or plasma) is strongly active per se and is due not merely to an inhibition of the bactericidal action of the leucocytes, but also to a lessened effect of the serum-bactericidins.

4. The comparative bactericidal power of normal “whole” blood or serumleucocyte mixtures on the one hand and serum or plasma on the other depends on the activity of the serum; when this is relatively weak, blood shows an enhanced action; when strong, blood is less active.

5. The above findings apply to a wide variety of bacteria irrespectively of biological species.

6. Bacterial extracts possess marked inhibitory properties on the bactericidal action of serum (or plasma), but not to any extent on the bactericidal properties of the leucocytes as evidenced by the approximately equal influence of such extracts on whole blood and serum respectively.

7. Dead bacteria in certain numbers produce inhibition of the bactericidal action of serum (or plasma), but exert a greater inhibitory influence on the reaction of “whole” blood.

8. It is suggested tentatively that when the serum is strongly bactericidal the killed organisms on being phagocyted along with living bacteria interfere with the intracellular destruction of the latter which at the same time are protected from the serum-bactericidins.

9. The paper also includes certain data regarding the time of maximum bactericidal action by serum towards various organisms and the occurrence of growth-promoting action following an initial bactericidal effect.

(1) Brilliant green exerts an inhibitory effect on the growth of bacilli of the coli group commonly occuring in faeces, which is in general more marked than its action on B.typhosus and paratyphiod bacilli.

(2) By taking advantage of this property of brilliant green a method has been devised is the inoculation B. typhosus from faeces. The procedure adopted is the inoculation of a series of tubes of peptone-water medium containing varying amounts of brilliant green, incubating for 20–24 hours, and then inoculation on a suitable solid medium from each tube.

(3) The reason for employing a series of concentrations of brilliant green is that the optium concentration for the growth and isolation of B. typhosus varies from case to case, depending probably both on the proportion of typhoid bacilli present and on the number and character of the accompnying bacteria as well as on the organie faecal material.

(4) The method is very easily and rapidly carried out.