content
stringlengths 71
484k
| url
stringlengths 13
5.97k
|
|---|---|
Only European peoples have made history and discovered the idea of time, and this is why the idea of progress is uniquely European: Only European history has been characterized by progress, and there can be no conception of historical time and no history without progression or without man becoming conscious of his role in the making of history, as well as the realization that only the mind can be the adjudicator of the truth. The peoples of the Axial Age (800-200 BC – the Israelites, the Indians, the Chinese, and possibly the Persians – are the only ones who experienced some history, achieved some developments, and engendered the first inklings of historical consciousness; but only Europeans, starting with the ancient Greeks, would continue to evolve culturally beyond the Axial Age.
The Axial Age was the peak of cultural development for non-Europeans, whereas it was only the beginning of European creativity and genius in all the spheres of human life. Human creativity dried up after the Axial Age outside Europe. Subsequent changes were mere extensions of existing technologies, new territories brought under despotic rule, or mere revisions of the original cultural outlooks. Outside Europe, history became cyclical, without progression. Is it any wonder that the Chinese conception of history never developed beyond the theory of dynastic cycles, and that only Europeans learned to write historical accounts – true conceptions of history with a sense of historical time from ancient to medieval to modern times? Europeans would indeed write the history of all the other peoples of the Earth, including the history of the Earth, the evolution of animals, and the history of the universe from the Big Bang to the present.
I agree with Robert Nisbet that the idea of progress, the idea of growth, and the conception of time as linear is singularly Western. Taken in its totality, beyond Nisbet’s preoccupation with human history, and beyond the common belief that this idea is inherently Christian, this idea maintains that development is intrinsic to the very nature of things. It holds that in the course of time, from the Big Bang to the modern world, we can detect a linear sequence characterized by a movement from simplicity to complexity, from the rise of elementary particles to the formation of the atomic structures of hydrogen and helium, from the rise of heavy elements to the rise of stars and planetary organizations of matter, from the emergence of prokaryotic cells to eukaryotes with complex chromosomes, from chordates to vertebrates, from fish to amphibians, from reptiles to mammals, from primates to hominids, from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, from the upper Paleolithic revolution to the origins of agriculture, from the Axial Age to the rise of “consciousness of consciousness.” This last stage was reached in Europe alone when men came to see themselves as the absolute ultimate for whom nothing external – not any material phenomena or religious tradition – could be deemed to be authoritative, insomuch as he had come to know that all authority can receive justification and be known through his thinking mind.
Rejection of the idea of progress
This idea of progress reached a high level of historical awareness in the nineteenth-century writings of Condorcet, Kant, Comte, Spencer, and – most profoundly – in the philosophy of Hegel. In the twentieth century, this idea was popularized by authors of world history texts, with their happy accounts of discoveries in science, innovations in technology, and democratic freedoms. There were always critics – Tocqueville, Burckhardt, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche – growing in numbers after the prolonged bloodbaths of the Second World War, but the incredible affluence of the post-war decades sustained this idea right into the 1970s.
Modernization theories with stages models enjoyed the greatest popularity during the 1950s and ‘60s, with their arguments that long-term trends were clearly evident in history, from traditional to modern societies, from relationships based on ascription to relationships based on personal effort and merit, from patrimonial adjudication and enforcement to universally applicable laws and rights. These theories were optimistic that Western nations could accelerate the modernization of poor societies through programs of population control, transfers of technology, investments, and diffusion of liberal attitudes and entrepreneurial skills.
But with the persistence of poverty in newly-independent countries in the Third World, the rise of dictatorial regimes rather than democracies, recurrent national and local wars, swelling populations, increasing inequalities and ethnic factionalism, modernization theories were roundly discredited. The academic world was soon taken over by a completely different outlook: Dependency Theory, or World Systems Theory. This school directly attacked notions of Western-led progression by claiming that the economic development of this civilization had been made possible through the pillage of Third World nations, the brutal enslavement of Africans, and the genocide of Amerindians. The celebrated industrial development of Europe had come along with the “underdevelopment” and destruction of Third World peoples.
This was only one school among numerous others. Soon the Frankfurt School swept the academic world, influencing the rise of the New Left, the environmental movement, and postmodernism. This school targeted Western science itself, claiming it was about the “instrumental domination” of the environment to serve the ends of capitalism. There was little to admire about the “progression” of the West, for it had entailed the reduction of heterogeneity to homogeneity, spontaneity to repetition, and individuality to sameness, all defined as the elimination of the Other. Combined with these schools and movements came a new anthropology, heavily influenced by the writings of Franz Boas, which rejected the earlier anthropological idea of stages of development in the name of the equal worth of primitive cultures, and against any grading of cultures in hierarchical systems that would have Western culture at the top.
The idea of progress would be turned on its head by the 1980s and ‘90s as new intellectual currents came to reinforce each other: post-colonial studies, history from below, third wave feminism, gay rights, deconstruction, and minority rights. Progress was an ethnocentric illusion of the Western mind. Throughout much of history, the standard of living, the quality of work, and the degree of equality had deteriorated for most of the peoples of the Earth. Hunting-and-gathering tribes were the “truest democracies” and the “original affluent societies,” the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins insisted, with better quality diets and shorter working days. While the standard of living in the advanced West had risen after the 1850s, the gap between the developed and less developed had steadily widened. According to this view, social evolution should be understood as a panorama of humans periodically being compelled to introduce new technologies in response to lowering living standards, resulting from demographic pressures on scarce resources. Europe’s high culture was a luxury for a parasitic elite without relevance for the vast majority. The moral and religious patterns that distinguished Europe’s elite were in truth ideologies of oppression which the rulers themselves disregarded, since their real interests were in plundering, taxing, and reaping profits unjustly. The real agents of history were not elites, but anonymous masses, peasants and workers, geographical factors, climatic change, infectious diseases, and ordinary humans seeking to satisfy their everyday needs.
Even those who continued to endorse the idea of scientific progress were adamant in their rejection of the idea that evolution could be equated with progress. Herbert Spencer’s observation that one could detect a progressive movement in evolution from simplicity to complexity, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, was dismissed. There was no pre-determined goal in evolution, no meaningful pattern or trend that could be interpreted as a movement from worse to better. The trend was toward increasing diversity of life-forms. Each life-form, announced Stephen J. Gould to millions of impressionable readers, was equally “successful.” If anything, the first organisms – bacteria – were the most successful in their adaptive capacities, “the organisms that were in the beginning, are now, and probably ever shall be . . . the dominant creatures on earth by any . . . evolutionary criterion . . . range of habitats, resistance to extinction.”
If there was to be improvement in the conditions of life, the idea of progress had to go, along with the ethnocentric notion that Western civilization was the culmination of progress. Indigenous peoples, it would be claimed, were more advanced in their ecological knowledge of nature, their egalitarian ethics, and their simplicity of life. The idea of progress was racist, propounded by the likes of Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and Madison Grant, with their claim that the Aryan race was the parent stock of the ethnic groups responsible for the progression of civilization: the Greeks, Romans, Germans, and Anglos. This idea was outrageous, responsible for the worst crimes in history.
Indeed, the conclusion would soon be reached that whites as such, on their own, with their own nations, are inherently inclined to think that their societies are better than African and Muslim societies, and thus to be racist. The only way to bring about true improvements and overcome this nasty, white arrogance would be to diversify all white nations through the integration of immigrants from diverse races, coupled with the implementation of multicultural programs celebrating the achievements of all peoples regardless of their level of cognition. Whites, with their “instrumental” mind set, would benefit from the “enrichment” of Third World cultures, with their authentic values, humbleness, and lack of racist attitudes.
“Progress” for a diverse & global humanity
The idea of progress did not disappear, however, but what remained of it was clearly demarcated from any identification with Western history. Conservatives retained a truncated version, arguing that “the West” should stand as a name for a civilization that was unique precisely in being a “universal civilization” without any ethnic identity, a civilization with values expressing the “natural” wishes of “man as man” for equal rights, the rule of law, freedom of expression, and private property. From this truncated version, it was but a small step for conservatives-turned-globalists to equate progress with a Western world open to the assimilation of immigrants to “universal” values.
But the globalist Left has been the one in charge of a totally revised idea of progress. Once they drove Eurocentrics out of academia, eliminated the teaching of Western civilization, and criminalized whites who affirmed their heritage, the globalist Left set up its own progressive shop. Leftists, after all, were supposed to be the real “improvers of humankind” since the radical Enlightenment. Some admitted there had been technological and scientific “development,” while emphasizing above all else the need for further progress in women and minority rights.
A number of discursive strategies were developed in this endeavor. From about the 1990s, world historians began promulgating a “historyforusall” – a “world history connected” – which now rules across all schools and universities in the United States aimed at viewing all developments, including the rise of modern science, the mapping of the world, the Industrial Revolution, and the Enlightenment as global affairs. Another interconnected discourse was the promotion of the idea of an “Axial Age” between 800 and 200 BC in which the major civilizations of the Old World were said to have experienced a “spiritual process” characterized by a common set of religious, psychological, and philosophical inquiries about what it means to be “specifically human.” The founding text of this idea, as I explained in “Discovering the European Mind,” was Karl Jaspers’ 1948 book, The Origin and Goal of History.
Feeling guilty about what the Germans had done in the Second World War, Jaspers, whose wife was Jewish, reached the view that any notion of European exceptionalism was tainted with supremacist impulses. The only way to overcome German supremacism was to promote the idea that European culture was rooted in a common source: the Axial Age. Europeans should see themselves as beings with a profound spiritual unity with humans across the world, and use the Axial concept to nurture a sense of “human solidarity.” Humanity, long before the Enlightenment, had posed universal questions about the meaning of life together, coming up with similar answers about the need to create polities based on the humane treatment of the population. Europeans did not carve out a unique historical path beginning with the achievements of the Greeks. Axial Age humans had developed a common cultural outlook at more or less the same time that would shape their histories along similar ethical trajectories, with the West only “rising” in recent times due to a combination of “unusual circumstances.”
The “Axial Age” is now a staple of world history texts taught in Western campuses. The beatific images of a common humanity marching together towards a racially-mixed future has proven too irresistible to credulous academics trained to believe uncritically that “diversity is our greatest strength.” Take a look at a recent workshop on “Testing the Axial Age” held at Oxford in 2017 by the Seshat Project, which claims to handle the “most current and comprehensive body of knowledge about human history in one place.”
Having examined some key texts about the Axial Age, in what follows I have decided to concentrate on the best, most researched effort defending the universal validity of this age: Robert N. Bellah’s Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age (2011). The concept of an Axial Age has substantial merits, or so I will argue, so long as it is delimited to the non-European world. This concept is inherently incapable of grasping the superior intellectual breakthrough of ancient Greece and the fact that non-Western Axial civilizations did not manage to produce any major novelties after this age, whereas this age was just the beginnings of an exponential outpouring of Western creativity and greatness.
The basic argument of Religion in Human Evolution
Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age is a highly referenced book of 608 small-print pages, with over a hundred pages of notes, which took Bellah twelve years to write. This sweeping book frames the Axial Age within the evolutionary history of living beings and the cultural history of primitive humans. It effectively shows that human cultural development was made possible only with the emergence of “relaxed fields” in which natural selection and the struggle for existence did not “have full sway,” and in which humans became free to develop cultural conditions for their own evolution. While there is no purpose in the blind selective processes of nature, and while natural selection remains the primary mechanism of evolution, Bellah argues that the emergence of parental care among mammals created a sheltered environment once their needs for nutrition were met, in which newborns were free to play. Human play, beginning with the play of children under parental care, would move to the level of “serious” cultural play among adults in their rituals, mythical stories, and their philosophies, wherein the “full spiritual and cultural capacities” of humans would be “given free reign.” The emergence of cultural capacities cannot be explained in evolutionary terms alone.
Using the work of Merlin Donald, Bellah identifies three stages of human culture: mimetic, mythic, and theoretic. Mimetic culture, which likely began with Homo erectus some 1-2 million years ago, consists in the ability to “use our bodies to enact past and future events as well as gesture for communication” (p. xviii), including perhaps the use of dance, music, and the beginnings of some linguistic capacities. Mythic culture, which began between 250,000 and 100,000 years ago with Homo sapiens, involves a new capacity for narrative and storytelling, combined with the use of “full grammatical language.” With mythic culture, humans raised themselves above “episodic consciousness,” with a new capacity to think beyond the present and tell stories with past, present, and future tenses, rather than being locked within the consciousness of the moment. Donald emphasizes the ability to use metaphorical language as a new cognitive capacity, and defines mythical thought as “a unified, collectively held system of explanatory and regulatory metaphors.” With this new cognitive capacity, “the mind has expanded its reach beyond the episodic perception of events, beyond the mimetic reconstruction of episodes, to a comprehensive modeling of the entire human universe” (p. 134).
The emergence of theoretic culture is what the Axial Age is about. For Donald, theoretic culture really emerged in ancient Greece, and it required a “fully alphabetic writing system” – more than the mathematics and calendrical astronomy witnessed, for example, in Babylonia. It involved a capacity for “second-order thinking”; that is, “thinking about thinking,” as is evident in the geometrical proofs the Greeks offered. Second-order thinking also involves a capacity to stand back and look beyond the conventions of the time and the accepted worldviews in the name of ideas based on argumentation. While Bellah quietly acknowledges a few times that “strict” second order thinking may have been lacking in some Axial civilizations, his overall argument is that all axial civilizations developed theoretic thinking: “The beginnings of science, of a critical view of the world, of knowledge for its own sake, can be found in all the axial civilizations” (p. 595). At the same time, he broadens the definition of a theoretic culture to include the rejection of old kinship hierarchies as well “in the name of ethical and spiritual universalism” (p. xix). Axial thinkers outside Greece also took a “critical, reflective questioning” of the old mythical stories and advocated new visions for humanity in general: transcendental morals for a better future. The call for new morals beyond kinship ties, beyond the present, and beyond the pragmatics of power entailed “a standing back and looking beyond” (p. 474), which, for him, equals “thinking about thinking.”
One-third of Religion in Human Evolution covers the pre-Axial Age, starting with the origins of the universe. Bellah’s implicit endorsement of the idea of progress, coupled with his argument that cultural developments can’t be explained solely in Darwinian terms, is most commendable. Humans developed new cultural capacities over and above their evolutionary needs. The chapters on ancient Israel, Greece, China, and India are possibly the most thorough attempts to defend the idea of an Axial Age. Each of these chapters, he says, took him a year to write, and the chapter on India two years. Since I believe that the peak of cultural development outside the West was reached in the Axial Age, these chapters may suffice to grasp (if you tend to agree with me) the highest intellectual achievement of non-Europeans.
Bellah, however, backs off from an explicit endorsement of the idea of progress. He accepts the Leftist argument that history cannot be seen as a progression “from worse to better” (p. xxii); and yet he clearly wants to argue that the Axial Age was the most important turning point in human history, the time when the highest values and ideas were expressed. The view coming from his book is that progress after the Axial Age can only be measured in terms of the degree to which people have lived up to Axial ideals. There were no major cultural developments in Europe after this age, other than efforts to actualize Axial ideals.
I believe that the Europeans who invented the idea of progress continued to develop new capacities after this age, whereas the rest of humanity stagnated. The Greeks were already far ahead in their cognitive capacities, and were the only ones who became conscious of consciousness (which I take to mean more than what Merlin Donald means). The aim of Bellah, which reflects the aim of an Axial Age, is to bring Europeans down to the Axial level of non-Europeans, and thus promote the idea that Europeans are not unique, but generic members of a common humanity without any kin identity.
Who is Robert N. Bellah?
He died two years after the publication of Religion in Human Evolution at the age of 86. He was an American sociologist and the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. A white man, he converted to Episcopalianism and was married to a Jewish woman. He was a serious scholar, the “most widely read sociologist of religion,” best known for his now classic essay, “Civil Religion in America,” published in 1967, and the book Habits of the Heart, written with four additional authors.
But we will see in this essay that Bellah is a prototypical white academic male without cultural backbone, always looking over his shoulder for fear that he may have been insensitive to non-whites, afraid to question the Cultural Marxist establishment, and sheepishly welcoming the day the United States becomes majority non-white. Listen to the interview he gave in Germany in 2012, right after Obama’s reelection. He joyfully says that the Republicans are a party of “old white males” who will likely never win an election because immigrants are replacing whites.
I am often accused of bringing politics into topics that should be judged strictly according to scholarly criteria. The reality, however, is that academic research for the last few decades has been driven by the unchallenged or inexplicit supposition that racial diversity inside the West is inherently good and superior to “white hegemony.” Ignorance of this unchallenged presupposition, of the fact that all academics today work within universities “committed” to racial equality and diversification, violates the principle of being conscious of one’s consciousness. We can’t understand the ideas of our major academics, including the ones who are not overtly political, without bringing up this supreme political presupposition permeating academic research. In the next parts, as we acknowledge Bellah’s significant contributions to the concept of an Axial Age, we will see that he can’t restrain himself from taking regular shots against “Eurocentrism” and paying homage to cultural diversity, even as he tries to defend the notion of progressive developments in history.
The fundamental flaws in Religion in Human Evolution are a result of his inability to acknowledge Western superiority due to his ingrained blindness to the very possibility that Western culture achieved far more “new developments,” because such a possibility would violate the sacrosanct, non-scholarly, purely political mandate of multiculturalism. Bellah is merely a peon in an academic world enslaved to diversity. You can be sure that the seemingly “scientific” and innocent-looking “scholarly” individuals photographed in the image above at the workshop on “Testing the Axial Age” are firm supporters of the racial diversification of England and the ethnocide of the British people. Some may have discomforting thoughts about this sinister plan, but most likely they are too afraid to question the mandates of diversification, too devoid of a critical capacity to understand it, or too opportunistically aware where the academic gravy train is moving.
This article was reproduced from the Council of European Canadians Website. | https://counter-currents.com/2019/07/the-european-idea-of-progress-supersedes-the-axial-age-part-i/ |
By Aidan Fitzsimmons
Philosophically, the concept of counterculture is more interesting and fundamental to human life than may originally be considered. Counterculture is defined as a subculture created in opposition to mass culture, middle class values, consumerism, mainstream media, the mores of a previous generation, the cultural hegemony of a dominant group, and other elements of “mainstream” culture. However, what is “mainstream” culture has always been contingent, and so has counterculture. Culture evolves over time in a process driven by the concept of counterculture.
Human freedom is a game of yes. Culture— in the form of language, concepts, social roles, recreation, art, and possible performances— is passed down from generation to generation. Culture is the given material humans have to work with: society, the law, the father, the gods, the possible pathways through which individuals can act. Crucially, individuals can only react to their given environment of culture, and use the tools it gives in order to react. If your mom tells you to clean your room, the mainstream answer is yes. But if you don’t want to clean your room, your possible negations are limited to what is possible, what paths exist to say yes to instead: you can say “No, I have to do my homework,” “No, I’m going to the mall with Kyle,” “Yes, but I will do it after my laundry,” “No, I will just stand here and not move ever.” The act of negation opens up immense freedom within given possibilities as the actor searches for an alternative path from the main one offered. There are only yesses; if you say no to a given power, you must say yes to an alternative power, and there are many alternatives.
The progress of human culture has been an exponential expansion of power, of possible yesses. The more words, cultural creations, and material functions we accumulate as a civilization, the more possible ways an individual can negate any given. Not only can we negate directly down an alternative path, but we can synthesize various possible powers into a new possibility which is other than the sum of its parts. There is no creation ex nihilo; only syntheses of previously existing elements can create any “new” cultural expression. T.S. Eliot makes this argument about poetry in his famous essay The Tradition and the Individual Talent, but it applies to all human cultural action. Culture evolves by an evolutionary process of reproduction, negation, and synthesis, and this evolution moves bottom-up using only the existing materials in new, ever-expanding ways. This is why “counterculture” is an essential driving force behind all culture, just as adversity between evolved organisms is essential to the progress of evolution itself. If there was only reproduction, we would still be making cave paintings. But through negation— through, for example, inventing free-verse, or calling a urinal fountain art— enormous new worlds of possibilities are opened up for people to extend, react to, or combine with something else. These “countercultural” developments are typically just called “culture.”
Take the Beat Generation, for example. The Beats were a famous early counterculture group in 1950s America whose ideas of freedom, adventure, sex, drugs, music, and rejection of settled consumerism helped to lay the seeds of what eventually sprouted into the famous 60s counterculture. But the Beats came from somewhere, too. The Beats felt something was wrong with existing mass culture and postwar conformity, and they reacted to it in their own individual ways, but these individual reactions were, like all negations of culture, yesses and syntheses of alternative cultural influences. The Beats synthesized what they learned from other countercultures in their classes at Columbia and in their cross-country travels; they learned about William Blake, Romanticism, Bohemianism, Walt Whitman, Dostoevsky, Eastern Mysticism, and Existentialism; they combined that with their exposure to drugs, African-American Jazz, the gay underground, crime culture in the West, and more. Perhaps most crucially, they had the material base ability to pursue countercultural activities, since the massive prosperity in postwar America meant they could get by with very little work for necessities, especially since they could eat the leftovers of their white middle class families. These influences, coupled with their deeper antipathy towards mainstream cultural values, gave them the cultural pathways they needed to craft an alternative path. Counterculture comes out of culture.
The modern world complicates this process, however. The problem is capital. Capitalist culture is the “ur-culture” of the West, and capital inheres itself in every cultural production, ensuring cultural reproduction in the service of capital creation. The reifying, commodifying, homogenizing effects of capital were more strongly than ever tied to what was called “mainstream” culture in the postwar period. Although counterculture as a concept has driven all cultural evolution, the actual term “counterculture” was invented in 1960 by John Milton Yinger. This is due to capital. Firstly, since consumerism was so successfully able to inhere itself to all culture, any anti-consumerist culture was not simply a normal aberration and evolution within culture, but a flat-out rejection of what, to everyone within capital, felt like the totality of culture. Thus, the hippies were literally counter-culture. Secondly, since capital had become so all-powerful by that time, and had effectively colonized all culture and all consciousness through the consumer behemoth supplemented by the culture industry (per Adorno), even this new “counterculture” had to be labelled as something marketable, something commodifiable. Every “hippie” Halloween costume attests to this helplessness. The relationship between counterculture and capital is always complicated, since many countercultures attempt to resist capital, but almost none can fully succeed— they must make concessions. These compromises aren’t all bad; I, for one, have an enormous soft spot for 2000s pop-punk, even though each band tended to get poppier with age.
One negative consequence for counterculture resulting from this interaction with capital is the urge towards reifying “counterculture” as an identity rather than a performance. When you adopt any countercultural pose, when you negate some dominant cultural ideology, you are making an existential statement that anyone else in your position with your possibilities ought to do the same, that the cultural expression you have chosen is preferable to the flawed one you rejected. There is a missionary aspect to this choice. But many who choose to live counterculturally end up isolating themselves in this choice. They make an identity out of being countercultural, enjoying the identity of “alternative” for its own sake, in a general sense, rather than for the sake of a specific cultural negation that they believe in and want to promote. It becomes an ego thing, an in-group thing, rather than a missionary endeavor to change culture itself. Thus, counterculture becomes content to remain as counterculture, and never completes the dialectic of cultural evolution, never is subsumed back into the set of possibilities for general human culture. In a twisted way, the invidious definition given to the major midcentury counterculture movements by consumerism, the identity of “counterculture,” is embraced and perpetuated by the very people who once sought to change general culture for the better. The rebellion becomes a segregated, sterile, commodified, and controlled subculture within the system of capital. If you feel countercultural in any way, that is a beautiful and powerful thing; make it your mission, not your badge. If possible (and in our world, maybe it isn’t), it should be something produced through individual recombination, rather than consumed wholesale.
Aidan ’20 (aidan_fitzsimons@college.harvard.edu) continues to ponder the true meaning of counterculture and how it impacts our lives today. | https://www.harvardindependent.com/2018/11/the-concept-of-counterculture/ |
We are offering positions for doctoral students with a strong background in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, evolutionary biology, computational linguistics or related discipline.
The Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution aims to answer big picture questions about human history. Our focus is on describing and explaining the major patterns of linguistic and cultural variation across the globe. We tackle these questions by developing novel language documentation methods, global linguistic and cultural databases, and analyses using evolutionary theories and computational methods.
As a doctoral student in the DLCE, you will have the chance to explore human prehistory, to actively assist the development of new methods for quantitative historical linguistics and typology, and to shed light on general processes of language change and evolution.
Possible topics include:
- Computational phylogenetic analysis of language families to infer human prehistory in the Americas or Asia-Pacific.
- Testing hypotheses about large-scale process shaping linguistic diversity.
- Developing new quantitative or phylogenetic methods for modelling, investigating, and understanding language evolution and human prehistory.
Selection Criteria:
- A master-degree (or equivalent) in either linguistics, biology, computer science, statistics or related field with an outstanding academic record.
- Strong proficiency in both spoken and written English.
- Strong analytical skills and the self-motivation to complete a PhD.
- Strong team player qualities (you will work in an interdisciplinary and international team where communication is crucial for the success of the project).
- Good computational skills with a knowledge of R, Python or Java is beneficial.
Please submit your application in English, including the following:
- Cover letter, explaining research experience and reason for interest in this project, along with a proposed research project (max. two pages).
- Your CV and copies of degree certificates (Bachelor’s/Master’s diplomas or transcripts).
- Names and contact information (including email and phone) for 2-3 referees. Note these individuals will be automatically contacted to provide a reference letter.
The students will be part of the newly founded International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Human history. The Max Planck Institute is not itself part of a university, but is affiliated to the Friedrich Schiller University, in Jena Germany. Doctoral degrees will be granted by the affiliated university.
Doctoral candidates enrol in a 3-year fully-funded graduate program that provides excellent research conditions. Graduate courses and all other degree requirements necessitate proficiency in English.
The Max Planck Society is committed to employing individuals with disabilities and especially encourages them to apply. The Max Planck Society seeks to increase the number of women in areas where they are underrepresented and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply.
For queries, please contact: Simon Greenhill (greenhill@shh.mpg.de)
For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below. | https://armacad.info/2018-08-13--phd-fellowships-in-phylogenetics-and-language-evolution-in-the-department-of-linguistic-and-cultural-evolution-2019-germany |
Cultural anthropology, a major division of anthropology that deals with the study of culture in all of its aspects and that uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world.
Etymologically, anthropology is the science of humans. In fact, however, it is only one of the sciences of humans, bringing together those disciplines the common aims of which are to describe human beings and explain them on the basis of the biological and cultural characteristics of the populations among which they are distributed and to emphasize, through time, the differences and variations of these populations. The concept of race, on the one hand, and that of culture, on the other, have received special attention; and although their meaning is still subject to debate, these terms are doubtless the most common of those in the anthropologist’s vocabulary.
Anthropologists today study more than just primitive societies. Their research extends not only to village communities within modern societies but also to cities, even to industrial enterprises. Nevertheless, anthropology’s first field of research, and the one that perhaps remains the most important, shaped its specific point of view with regard to the other sciences of man and defined its theme. If, in particular, it is concerned with generalizing about patterns of human behaviour seen in all their dimensions and with achieving a total description of social and cultural phenomena, this is because anthropology has observed small-scale societies, which are simpler or at least more homogeneous than modern societies and which change at a slower pace. Thus they are easier to see whole.
What has just been said refers especially to the branch of anthropology concerned with the cultural characteristics of man. Anthropology has, in fact, gradually divided itself into two major spheres: the study of man’s biological characteristics and the study of his cultural characteristics. The reasons for this split are manifold, one being the rejection of the initial mistakes regarding correlations between race and culture. More generally speaking, the vast field of 19th-century anthropology was subdivided into a series of increasingly specialized disciplines, using their own methods and techniques, that were given different labels according to national traditions. The Table shows the terminology current in North America and in continental Europe.
Thus two large disciplines—physical anthropology and cultural anthropology—and such related disciplines as prehistory and linguistics now cover the program that originally was set up for a single study of anthropology. The two fields are largely autonomous, having their own relations with disciplines outside anthropology; and it is unlikely that any researchers today work simultaneously in the fields of physical and cultural anthropology. The generalist has become rare. On the other hand, the fields have not been cut off from one another. Specialists in the two fields still cooperate in specific genetic or demographic problems and other matters.
Prehistoric archaeology and linguistics also have notable links with cultural anthropology. In posing the problem of the evolution of mankind in an inductive way, archaeology contributed to the creation of the first concepts of anthropology, and archaeology is still indispensable in uncovering the past of societies under observation. In many areas, when it is a question of interpreting the use of rudimentary tools or of certain elementary religious phenomena, prehistory and cultural anthropology are mutually helpful. “Primitive” societies that have not yet reached the metal age are still in existence.
Relations between linguistics and cultural anthropology are numerous. On a purely practical level the cultural anthropologist has to serve a linguistic apprenticeship. He cannot do without a knowledge of the language of the people he is studying, and often he has had to make the first survey of it. One of his essential tasks, moreover, has been to collect the various forms of oral expression, including myths, folk tales, proverbs, and so forth. On the theoretical level, cultural anthropology has often used concepts developed in the field of linguistics: in studying society as a system of communication, in defining the notion of structure, and in analyzing the way in which man organizes and classifies his whole experience of the world.
Cultural anthropology maintains relations with a great number of other sciences. It has been said of sociology, for instance, that it was almost the twin sister of anthropology. The two are presumably differentiated by their field of study (modern societies versus traditional societies). But the contrast is forced. These two social sciences often meet. Thus, the study of colonial societies borrows as much from sociology as from cultural anthropology. And it has already been remarked how cultural anthropology intervenes more and more frequently in urban and industrial fields classically the domain of sociology.
There have also been fruitful exchanges with other disciplines quite distinct from cultural anthropology. In political science the discussion of the concept of the state and of its origin has been nourished by cultural anthropology. Economists, too, have depended on cultural anthropology to see concepts in a more comparative light and even to challenge the very notion of an “economic man” (suspiciously similar to the 19th-century capitalist revered by the classical economists). Cultural anthropology has brought to psychology new bases on which to reflect on concepts of personality and the formation of personality. It has permitted psychology to develop a system of cross-cultural psychiatry, or so-called ethnopsychiatry. Conversely, the psychological sciences, particularly psychoanalysis, have offered cultural anthropology new hypotheses for an interpretation of the concept of culture.
The link with history has long been a vital one because cultural anthropology was originally based on an evolutionist point of view and because it has striven to reconstruct the cultural history of societies about which, for lack of written documents, no historical record could be determined. Cultural anthropology has more recently suggested to historians new techniques of research based on the analysis and criticism of oral tradition. And so “ethnohistory” is beginning to emerge. Finally, cultural anthropology has close links with human geography. Both of them place great importance on man either as he uses space or acts to transform the natural environment. It is not without significance that some early anthropologists were originally geographers.
All human societies have been curious about how their customs originated and what the differences between their own culture and that of neighbouring societies might mean. Thus, in a sense they have all constructed their own anthropologies. But the interpretations put forward, even when they were founded partly on accurate observation, most often remained on the level of myth. Embryonic scientific thought began to appear in only a limited number of centres of civilization: in the classical Mediterranean world, in China, in the medieval Arab world, and in the modern Western world. Only in the West, however, did various ideas converge to bring about the birth of scientific anthropology in the 19th century.
A characteristic common to all these centres of civilization was the control that they exercised over vast areas and the opportunity that they enjoyed—through their soldiers, merchants, pilgrims, and missionaries—to gather observations on a wide variety of populations. Such a gathering of data was necessary in order even to begin to understand how men adapted to their environments, how they used their various economic, social, and political institutions, and how mankind evolved from simple to complex societies. Historians and philosophers among the ancient Greeks, Arabs, and Chinese all asked such questions. To take only the example of western Europe, many pertinent questions were posed by the French philosophers Jean Bodin and Michel de Montaigne as early as the 16th century, by the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in the 17th, and by the French philosophers Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire in the 18th, to mention only those who are often placed among the precursors of modern anthropology.
Modern anthropology began to take shape before the middle of the 19th century because of a series of innovations in the Western world. The last great phase of the discovery of the world had begun at the end of the 18th century. At the same time, political and intellectual revolutions had facilitated the questioning of certain religious dogmas, thus opening the way to the discussion of hitherto half-forbidden subjects. The 19th century, therefore, soon saw a revival of interest in and study of the origin of man, the unity or plurality of the human species, and the fixity or mutability of animal species.
Thus, the science of anthropology developed as an outgrowth of contemporary studies of the classification of human races; of the comparative characteristics of human anatomy; of the history of human settlements; of the classification of languages and the comparison of grammars; of the comparison between primitive and ancient societies; and of the historical development of man’s economy and industry. Finally, about 1840, a principle for the study of human facts was proposed: the concept of evolution. This was even before Charles Darwin had published his celebrated Origin of Species (1859). This concept, arising in strong debates, provided the starting point for anthropology.
As it is undeniable that portions of the human family have existed in a state of savagery, other portions in a state of barbarism, and still other portions in a state of civilization, it seems equally so that these three distinct conditions are connected with each other in a natural as well as necessary sequence of progress (Ancient Society, 1877).
Other quotations from a Scotsman, John F. MacLennan, or an Englishman, Edward B. Tylor, would take the same position.
Cultural anthropology, then, set out to analyze the totality of human culture in time and space. But by assuming a linear conception of history, it too often neglected the discontinuities and interferences of concrete history. Morgan, and particularly Tylor, however, sometimes felt the necessity of introducing the concept of the “diffusion,” or spread, of cultural characteristics from one people to another—thus suggesting that characteristics could develop independently and converge and that a people could leap over “stages” of evolution by borrowing knowledge from others. Moreover, because it based itself on a theory that all mankind had a similar psychic outlook or that something called “human nature” was universal, anthropology also failed to take into account the fact that the same cultural trait can mean different things depending on the society in which it is found.
At the same time, in the second half of the 19th century another kind of evolutionism developed, that of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Partly independent of anthropological evolutionism (Marx’s Critique of Political Economy dates from 1859), partly linked to it (Engels’ most important work appeared after Morgan’s Ancient Society and made use of it), the Marxist theory laid stress on the causes of human evolution. A society was defined by its mode of production, on which its political, juridical, and ideological superstructures were allegedly based. These superstructures continued to exist after the mode of production had changed; and in the conflict that followed, this contradiction opened the way to a new type of society. Numerous anthropologists have taken the Marxist analysis into account, even if only to retain its historical view and to reject its economic determinism.
During this same period, especially toward the end of the 19th century, the tales of missionaries, traders, and travelling adventurers included an abundance of miscellaneous information that was collected in such works as Sir James Frazer’s Golden Bough (1890) and Ernest Crawley’s Mystic Rose (1902). These rather encyclopaedic collections of customs, religious and magical practices, and other curious data were read with relish by the intellectual community; the theories that accompanied the collections were equally appreciated by evolutionary-minded anthropologists, as the theories were meant to establish an evolutionary sequence of magical, religious, and scientific thought, using the data as evidence.
By the beginning of the 20th century, many cultural anthropologists had already begun to turn toward what might be called a more pluralistic viewpoint. To account for the variety of societies and cultures and the broadening of the differences that separated them, they suggested taking the total circumstances of each human group into account by considering the whole of its history, the contacts that it had had with other groups, and the favourable or unfavourable circumstances that had weighed on its development. Such a view was distinguished by a marked relativism: each culture represented an original development, conditioned as much by its social as by its geographical environment and by the manner in which it used and enriched the cultural materials that came to it from neighbours or others (through “diffusion”) or from its own creativity (through “invention” and “adaptation”).
Cultural anthropology was also diversifying its concepts and its areas of research without losing its unity. Franz Boas, a German-born American, for example, was one of the first to scorn the evolutionist’s search for selected facts to grace abstract evolutionary theories; he inspired a number of students—Ruth Benedict, Alfred L. Kroeber, Margaret Mead, and Edward Sapir—to go out and seek evidence of human behaviour among people in their natural environs, to venture into the field to gather facts and artifacts and record observable cultural processes. Consequently he is known as the founder of the so-called culture history school, which for much of the 20th century dominated American cultural anthropology.
the functional view, attempts to study the interrelation between the various elements, small and large, in a culture. Its object is essentially to achieve some expression of the unities in culture by indicating how trait and complex and pattern, however separable they may be, intermesh, as the gears of some machine, to constitute a smoothly running, effectively functioning whole (from Man and His Works, 1948).
Boas insisted upon this method of considering any single culture as a whole. Finally, by emphasizing the importance of collecting life histories, he drew attention to the problems posed by connections between culture and personality.
In a similar way, Marcel Mauss, in France, influenced the characteristic tendencies of a whole generation of European sociologists and cultural anthropologists, including Alfred Métraux and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and founded the Institute of Ethnology of the University of Paris; he also influenced such men as the noted British cultural (or social) anthropologists Bronisław Malinowski and Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown. In general it may be said that Mauss, like Boas, was insistent upon studying social phenomena as a system—but in a slightly different fashion. Like many others of his time he conceived of systems as self-regulating or equilibrium-seeking, composed of elements that operate to maintain the integration or adaptation of the system. Mauss gave impetus, in fact, to what was called structuralism or the structural approach, which focussed more on society as an indivisible social organism than on society as an interrelation of individuals (the functionalist’s emphasis). Like Boas, Mauss also tried to twin culture and personality—that is, cultural anthropology and psychology.
The large and influential American school of “culture history” anthropologists led by Boas should not be confused with a distinct and smaller group of Austro-German diffusionists, led by Fritz Graebner and Wilhelm Schmidt, who constituted what has been called the “culture-historical” school in Europe. These latter, too, rejected classical 19th-century evolutionism, but they were nevertheless inclined toward painting grand theories—principally the theory that out of a few ancient cultural centres or civilizations, born quite separately, there had developed the array of cultures existing today. Diffusion, or the spreading of culture traits, in their view, was the prime force of human development, and all cultural development could be traced to a few inventive centres. Because they termed these original centres Kulturkreise, (or “cultural clusters”), they were also known as the Kulturkreise school of cultural anthropology. This kind of pseudo-history was carried to even greater lengths by a British group of diffusionists, led by Grafton Elliot Smith and William J. Perry, who even named a single fountainhead of all cultural development—Egypt.
Some schools of research that began to develop between the two world wars more or less vigorously rejected the historical approaches, sometimes denying any interest in them whatever. According to the cultural functionalists, including the followers of Malinowski, the only way to explain facts was to define the function that they performed currently in a given culture. The aim of all cultural anthropological research, they held, should be to perceive the totality of a culture and the organic connection of all its parts. Consequently, comparison did not make sense: each culture was a unique reality. History, moreover, made no more sense; a culture was to be interpreted at one point in time, as if the age and the origin of the elements composing it were without importance. The only thing that counted was the function the elements performed now. Earlier cultural anthropologists had talked of “survivals,” customs or other cultural traits that survived from out of the past though no longer with any real function or meaning. But Malinowski would say, “There are no survivals”; everything current, according to the functionalists, has some function.
Whereas the name of Malinowski is supremely associated with the school of functionalism, the name of Radcliffe-Brown is known as one of the most important proponents of present-day structuralism. Relying on the concepts of formal mathematics and linguistics, Radcliffe-Brown and other structuralists tried to determine whether in cultural anthropology it was possible to reveal that which “suggests the character of a system” beyond empirical reality and which “alone is the true object of science” (Lévi-Strauss). A structure is not a sum of social relations, which are only the primary material from which the observer extracts “structural models.” A structure is a system of which the members of the society being studied are not aware or only partly so. The model that the cultural anthropologist constructs from the system is valid when the model’s operation can account for all the observed facts. This exacting approach has proved particularly useful in studying kinship and marriage relations as well as myths. The difficulties of using this approach in other fields, as well as the fact that historical changes are difficult to include in this sort of static analysis, strengthen the objections that many workers in the field have raised against it.
One development of the interwar period led certain cultural anthropologists to speak of a new subdiscipline, cultural psychology, or ethnopsychology, which is based on the idea that culture conditions the very psychological makeup of individuals (as opposed to the older notion of a universal psyche or human nature). In the 1930s, for instance, in her studies of the American Southwest, Ruth Benedict found that the ways in which the Pueblo Indians thought and reasoned were strikingly different from the ways in which their immediate neighbours thought and reasoned, even though their geographical environment was virtually identical. Her conclusion was that each culture over the ages had evolved and given to its members a unique “psychological set” or orientation toward reality and that this set actually determined how the members saw and processed information from the environment. Culture, in effect, affects the ways in which the mind works.
Studies in culture and personality have developed in many directions. Research into forms of child rearing, for instance, have called in question the universality of Freudian propositions concerning parent-child relationships. There have been many studies of value systems, which give a culture what has been called its “configuration,” or of the personality types prized or rejected by each culture, or of the “national characteristics” of certain modern societies. The results of these studies have, however, been uneven in quality.
Finally, certain theoretical tendencies of the 19th century came back into favour. For political reasons, Soviet cultural anthropologists conducted their research in the tradition both of Marxist analysis and of a fairly rigid evolutionism. Even their choice of subjects was sometimes linked to official ideology—as, for example, a program of religious anthropology aimed expressly at the “elimination of religious prejudice in the Russian population.” Elsewhere, in France, for example, a brand of neo-Marxism has influenced a new generation of cultural anthropologists to concentrate on analyses of primitive economies. Classical evolutionism, meanwhile, has been revived in the United States by some cultural anthropologists who speak of “multilinear evolutionism” or many paths to modernization. | https://www.britannica.com/science/cultural-anthropology |
Cave paintings in Indonesia have now been dated, revealing them to be the oldest such paintings in the world. Cave paintings are a fascinating part of human history - revealing the first attempts at artistic expression, and the things that were most important to our earliest ancestors. Cave paintings have been discovered all over the globe, and studying this primitive art has revealed surprising similarities worldwide.
Until recently, the common belief was the cave painting originated in Europe, where some of the best known and oldest examples of the form have been discovered. It was assumed that this skill then traveled around the globe, but a new discovery in Borneo may paint a very different story...
Related: Treasure Trove Of Deep Sea Animals Discovered Near Indonesia
The paintings in question had been discovered previously, however, they have only now been dated by researchers using uranium series analysis. The results of this analysis show that the oldest of these paintings dates back to at least 40,000 years ago - but may be even older, possibly up to 52,000 years ago. The oldest painting depicts a wild cow, with newer paintings in the same cave showing handprints and human figures. The cow is now the oldest known cave painting in the world.
This new information proves that these paintings were being created at the same time as the earliest known cave paintings in Spain, Italy and France - which casts doubt on the previously held theories that this kind of prehistoric art originated in Europe and spread across the world from there. It seems that this kind of painting actually began to emerge in different areas of the world around the same time, instead. The study of these paintings, published in Nature, doesn't speculate on how this art would emerge simultaneously in different places;
Whether this is a coincidence, the result of cultural convergence in widely separated regions, large-scale migrations of a distinct Eurasian population, or another cause remains unknown
It's clear that there is plenty left to discover about these early artists, here in Borneo and in the rest of the world. However, it's fascinating to think of the implications of the same style of art emerging around the globe at the same times in history. This study also shows that the Indonesian cave artists switched from painting animals to painting human stick figures around the same time that this shift in subject happened in Europe - another incredible coincidence. As technology continues to advance, we may see more discoveries made in existing painted caves to shed light on these fascinating concepts. | https://www.thetravel.com/archaeologists-have-found-40000-year-old-cave-paintings-in-indonesia/ |
Corruption and the private sector review[ edit ] One paper discusses some of the issues that arise in the relationship between private sector and corruption. The findings can be summarized as follows:
The dominant frameworks argue that culture is a set of values, beliefs, and actions that are learned through interactions with others.
From this perspective, culture is primarily transmitted to individuals through intimate peer groups and across generations to provide support or encouragement for actions that may be unacceptable in the larger society. In addition, cultural forces demonstrate what behaviors are valued and those that are perceived as unimportant or not supported.
Subcultures may form in opposition to the dominant culture and support behaviors that deviate from larger social norms, or stem from differences between social classes, gender, or geographic locations. In some perspectives, the dominant culture may define the behaviors of another culture as criminal or deviant in order to protect their interests or marginalize a minority group.
Thus, culture conflicts can lead to the identification or creation of criminal groups. Finally, societal responses to the media can foster the belief that a deviant behavior is rampant and force legislative action to identify and define an act as criminal. Regardless of the accuracy of media claims, larger cultural forces can stimulate the belief that criminal or deviant activities are a threat to safety.
Thus, cultural theories encompass a broad spectrum of thought about crime and criminality. General Overviews There are a number of general criminological theory texts that provide some discussion of cultural theories. A few popular options include Akers and Sellerswhich explores all manner of theory with some focus on social learning theories, while Lilly, et al.
The edited works of Cullen and Agnew and Adler and Adler also provide key insights into multiple theoretical frameworks and empirical research in this area. These sources can be used as a standalone text for undergraduate courses in either introductory criminology or as the anchor text in more specialized courses in criminological theory.
Social power, context, and interaction, 6th ed.
This work is an excellent reader for theory and general deviance classes. Introduction, evaluation, and application, 5th ed. Appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students. Comprehensive edited volume with fundamental readings in criminological research, including various cultural theories.
This text is an excellent option for theory courses at all levels of study. Cullen, and Richard A.
Context and consequences, 4th ed. Bernard, and Jeffrey B.
Theoretical criminology, 5th ed. Criminological theory, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ:The Positivist School of Criminology • Positivism - a method of inquiry that attempts to answers questions through the scientific method. – The researcher examines the "real world" of "empirical facts" through the testing of "hypotheses" with the main goal of arriving at the ultimate "truth" and deriving "laws" (e.g., the law of falling bodies, the law of relativity).
Cultural Deviance Definition Cultural Deviance is behavior that a considerable number of people in society view as reprehensible and beyond the limits of tolerance.
5 theories Anomie Theory Cultural Transmission. Deviance: Functionalist Explanations Deviance: Functionalist Explanations 3 3 What Happens if the Collective Conscience Fails The result according to Durkheim, was the development of .
TPSYCH Introduction to Psychology (5) I&S Surveys major areas of psychological science, including human social behavior, personality, psychological disorders and treatment, learning, memory, human development, biological influences, and research methods.
Related . Cultural theories of crime provide distinct frameworks to understand the influence of human agency, social forces, and peers on behavior. The dominant frameworks argue that culture is a set of values, beliefs, and actions that are learned through interactions with others.
From this perspective. Crime is Necessary. Crime is necessary; it serves a function in society. Although it is not preferable, with the progression and evolution of modernity and emphasis on monetary success, crime is inevitable because a perfectly stable, uniform, and able society is impossible. | https://kowopepahogibej.caninariojana.com/cultural-deviance-theory-37149qh.html |
Here you have a list of opinions about sociocultural evolution and you can also give us your opinion about it. You will see other people's opinions about sociocultural evolution and you will find out what the others say about it.
In the image below, you can see a graph with the evolution of the times that people look for sociocultural evolution. Thanks to this graph, we can see the interest sociocultural evolution has and the evolution of its popularity.
You can leave your opinion about sociocultural evolution here as well as read the comments and opinions from other people about the topic.
In the unilineal evolution model at left, all cultures progress through set stages, while in the multilineal evolution model at right, distinctive culture histories are emphasized.
Sociocultural evolution(ism) is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have developed over time. Most 19th century and some 20th century approaches aimed to provide models for the evolution of humankind as a whole, arguing that different societies are at different stages of social development. Virtually all anthropologists and sociologists assume that human beings have natural social tendencies and that particular human social behaviors have non-genetic causes and dynamics (i.e. Specific theories of social or cultural evolution are usually meant to explain differences between coeval societies, by positing that different societies are at different stages of development. Most 19th-century and some 20th-century approaches aimed to provide models for the evolution of humankind as a single entity. The 14th century Islamic scholar Ibn Khaldun, considered by some to be the father of sociology, concluded that societies are living organisms that experience cyclic birth, growth, maturity, decline, and ultimately death due to universal causes several centuries before the Western civilisation developed the science of sociology.
The Enlightenment thinkers often speculated that societies progressed through stages of increasing development and looked for the logic, order and the set of scientific truths that determined the course of human history.
While earlier authors such as Michel de Montaigne discussed how societies change through time, it was truly the Scottish Enlightenment which proved key in the development of sociocultural evolution.
The second process was the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism which allowed and promoted continual revolutions in the means of production.
Eventually, in the 19th century three great classical theories of social and historical change were created: the sociocultural evolutionism, the social cycle theory and the Marxist historical materialism theory. While sociocultural evolutionists agree that the evolution-like process leads to social progress, classical social evolutionists have developed many different theories, known as theories of unilineal evolution.
The term "Classical Social Evolutionism" is most closely associated with the 19th-century writings of Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer (who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest") and William Graham Sumner.
Both Spencer and Comte view the society as a kind of organism subject to the process of growth—from simplicity to complexity, from chaos to order, from generalisation to specialisation, from flexibility to organisation. August Comte, known as father of sociology, formulated the law of three stages: human development progresses from the theological stage, in which nature was mythically conceived and man sought the explanation of natural phenomena from supernatural beings, through metaphysical stage in which nature was conceived of as a result of obscure forces and man sought the explanation of natural phenomena from them until the final positive stage in which all abstract and obscure forces are discarded, and natural phenomena are explained by their constant relationship.
Herbert Spencer, who believed that society was evolving toward increasing freedom for individuals; and so held that government intervention ought to be minimal in social and political life, differentiated between two phases of development, focusing is on the type of internal regulation within societies. Regardless of how scholars of Spencer interpret his relation to Darwin, Spencer proved to be an incredibly popular figure in the 1870s, particularly in the United States. Emile Durkheim, another of the "fathers" of sociology, has developed a similar, dichotomal view of social progress. Theorists usually measured progression (that is, the difference between one stage and the next) in terms of increasing social complexity (including class differentiation and a complex division of labour), or an increase in intellectual, theological, and aesthetic sophistication. Lester Frank Ward developed Spencer's theory but unlike Spencer, who considered the evolution to be general process applicable to the entire world, physical and sociological, Ward differentiated sociological evolution from biological evolution. Edward Burnett Tylor, pioneer of anthropology, focused on the evolution of culture worldwide, noting that culture is an important part of every society and that it is also subject to the process of evolution. Ferdinand Tonnies describes the evolution as the development from informal society, where people have many liberties and there are few laws and obligations, to modern, formal rational society, dominated by traditions and laws and are restricted from acting as they wish. Although not usually counted as a sociocultural evolutionist, Max Weber's theory of tripartite classification of authority can be viewed as an evolutionary theory as well. The early 20th century inaugurated a period of systematic critical examination, and rejection of the sweeping generalisations of the unilineal theories of sociocultural evolution.
Later critics observed that this assumption of firmly bounded societies was proposed precisely at the time when European powers were colonising non-Western societies, and was thus self-serving. It equated evolution with progress or fitness, based on deep misunderstandings of evolutionary theory.
Because social evolution was posited as a scientific theory, it was often used to support unjust and often racist social practices—particularly colonialism, slavery, and the unequal economic conditions present within industrialised Europe. When the critique of classical social evolutionism became widely accepted, modern anthropological and sociological approaches changed to reflect their responses to the critique of their predecessor. In 1941 anthropologist Robert Redfield wrote about a shift from 'folk society' to 'urban society'.
The anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Elman Service wrote a book, Evolution and Culture, in which they attempted to synthesise White's and Steward's approaches. Some years ago now a team of Swedish scientists proposed an interesting framework for understanding planetary environmental problems. Estimates of how the different control variables for nine planetary boundaries have changed from 1950 to present.
First, though, I want to say that the identification of the nine interrelated environmental ‘boundaries’ has been unquestionably of great value (Planetary Boundaries).
What I am suggesting in this blog is that parallel to the environmental problems are a list of ‘sociocultural problems’, which as they say, are big slow changes that may (also) change everything. The sociocultural variables that I am considering are found in this diagram that I have published and discussed elsewhere.
The perceptive reader might notice in my diagram a hint of infrastructure, structure, and superstructure, a la Marx or Harris. The eight sociocultural problems that I name are related to these eight variables and are presented in my own ‘boundaries’ diagram.
Renewables – these are renewable energy sources that support the global systems of humanity. Slow-renewables – these are renewable energy sources that due to their slow production within global ecosystems and water cycles deserve a special designation. Non-renewables – These are the essential energy sources in use today that are emphatically not renewable. Population – global human population continues to grow towards a projected 9 billion by 2050. Assets and Technologies – this refers to the countless material products and machines and structures that we have created as part of our human adaptation.
Language – refers to language diversity, which provides alternative conceptual frameworks for understanding the world. Cultural Models – could be called symbolic culture, and refers to the many meaningful models of the world that we use in our reasoning and communication. As with environmental problems, interaction effects exist between the sociocultural variables. Another dramatic potential effect is with population, which due to its slow turnover time (people live 70 years!) and current momentum will continue inevitably for a time to draw resources away from the other storages. Perhaps the greatest dilemma exists in the contradiction between the requirements for the sociocultural variables, especially the burning of fossil fuels, and the source of human-induced global climate change, which is the burning of those very same fossil fuels. The last of my ‘dilemmas’ is more technical and refers to the scientific evaluation of the ‘net energy’ or ‘net emergy’ of renewable energy sources. With all this naysaying, you might wonder if I see a way out of our current environmental, and energy, and economic dilemmas. The intention of this post is certainly not to make light of the environmental problems identified by the ‘planetary boundaries’ research effort. Specific arguments aside, we should view our societies, economies, and cultures as composed of processes and variables that are no less tractable than the nine environmental problems identified by the Swedish scientists as planetary boundaries.
And below it, you can see how many pieces of news have been created about sociocultural evolution in the last years. Although such theories typically provide models for understanding the relationship between technologies, social structure, the values of a society, and how and why they change with time, they vary as to the extent to which they describe specific mechanisms of variation and social change.
At present this thread is continued to some extent within the World System approach (especially within its version produced by Andre Gunder Frank). Although such theories typically provide models for understanding the relationship between technologies, social structure, or values of a society, they vary as to the extent to which they describe specific mechanisms of variation and change.
These 19th-century unilineal evolution theories claimed that societies start out in a primitive state and gradually become more civilised over time, and equated the culture and technology of Western civilisation with progress. Most 20th-century approaches, such as multilineal evolution, however, focus on changes specific to individual societies. Nonetheless, theories of social and cultural evolution were common in modern European thought.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, for example, argued that social development was an inevitable and determined process, similar to an acorn which has no choice but to become an oak tree. After Scotland's union with England in 1707, several Scottish thinkers pondered what the relationship between progress and the 'decadence' brought about by increased trade with England and the affluence it produced. Emerging theories of sociocultural evolution reflected a belief that the changes in Europe wrought by the Industrial Revolution and capitalism were obvious improvements. Those theories had one common factor: they all agreed that the history of humanity is pursuing a certain fixed path, most likely that of the social progress. Sociocultural evolutionism was the prevailing theory of early sociocultural anthropology and social commentary, and is associated with scholars like August Comte, Edward Burnett Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, Benjamin Kidd, L.T. In many ways Spencer's theory of "cosmic evolution" has much more in common with the works of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and August Comte than with contemporary works of Charles Darwin.
They agreed that the process of societies growth can be divided into certain stages, have their beginning and eventual end, and that this growth is in fact social progress—each newer, more evolved society is better. Morgan, an anthropologist whose ideas have had much impact on sociology, in his 1877 classic Ancient Societies differentiated between three eras: savagery, barbarism and civilisation, which are divided by technological inventions, like fire, bow, pottery in savage era, domestication of animals, agriculture, metalworking in barbarian era and alphabet and writing in civilisation era. His key concept was social solidarity, as he defined the social evolution in terms of progressing from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. Tylor in England and Lewis Henry Morgan in the United States worked with data from indigenous people, whom they claimed represented earlier stages of cultural evolution that gave insight into the process and progression of evolution of culture. These 19th-century ethnologists used these principles primarily to explain differences in religious beliefs and kinship terminologies among various societies. He stressed that humans create goals for themselves and strive to realise them, whereas there is no such intelligence and awareness guiding the non-human world, which develops more or less at random.
He believed that societies were at different stages of cultural development and that the purpose of anthropology was to reconstruct the evolution of culture, from primitive beginnings to the modern state.
He also notes that there is a tendency of standardisation and unification, when all smaller societies are absorbed into the single, large, modern society. Weber distinguishes three ideal types of political leadership, domination and authority: charismatic domination (familial and religious), traditional domination (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism) and legal (rational) domination (modern law and state, bureaucracy).
Cultural anthropologists such as Franz Boas, and his students like Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, typically regarded as the leader of anthropology's rejection of classical social evolutionism, used sophisticated ethnography and more rigorous empirical methods to argue that Spencer, Tylor, and Morgan's theories were speculative and systematically misrepresented ethnographic data. Many anthropologists and social theorists now consider unilineal cultural and social evolution a Western myth seldom based on solid empirical grounds. Social Darwinism is especially criticised, as it led to some philosophies used by the Nazis. Modern theories are careful to avoid unsourced, ethnocentric speculation, comparisons, or value judgements; more or less regarding individual societies as existing within their own historical contexts. By the 1940s cultural anthropologists such as Leslie White and Julian Steward sought to revive an evolutionary model on a more scientific basis, and succeeded in establishing an approach known as the neoevolutionism. Other anthropologists, building on or responding to work by White and Steward, developed theories of cultural ecology and ecological anthropology. Raising awareness about the problems and emphasizing nonlinear feedbacks effects, and so the possible triggering of abrupt global environmental changes, are integral to a more sophisticated discussion of climate change and the other problems they highlight. The Swedish authors have called our times the ‘great acceleration’, a time of rapid growth of a number of environmental problems. I introduce them by first proposing three dilemmas of fossil fuels and sociocultural problems.
All components are supported by energy on the left, and each feeds-back to sustain and amplify energies when they are available. This is a simplified model of a ‘sociocultural system’ found anywhere in the world, or in the world as a whole.
There is also the intention to represent increasing average turnover times from left to right, though each storage is in fact also a hierarchy.
Values associated with the variables are not substantiated by research (and thus they are here in a blog and not in a journal), but are based on my intuitions.
They exist in usable forms that once consumed may take decades or centuries to be replenished by natural processes. It refers here to the maintenance or replacement of assets for transportation, housing, and industry. Cultural models are produced and cycled in distinct scales of communication that we know as discourse, social media, TV, ritual, art, education, research, economic markets, legal codes, and others. Unlike the environmental problems, all the sociocultural storages are ultimately dependent upon the three energy source variables. Human populations worldwide have grown to over 7 billion via the sociocultural innovations associated with fossil fuel energy capture and use. This refers to the fact that there is no guarantee, and current evidence suggests, that using renewable sources will actually ‘replace’ fossil fuel use. Renewable energy can only power the existing global society if it has a significant positive ‘net’. Solutions for our biospheric problems have been proposed by atmospheric, ocean, or other systems scientists. Many of the more recent 20th-century approaches focus on changes specific to individual societies and reject the idea of directional change, or social progress. Some forms of early sociocultural evolution theories (mainly unilineal ones) have led to much criticised theories like social Darwinism, and scientific racism, used in the past to justify existing policies of colonialism and slavery, and to justify new policies such as eugenics. Prior to the 18th century, Europeans predominantly believed that societies on Earth were in a state of decline. Likewise, it was assumed that societies start out primitive, perhaps in a Hobbesian state of nature, and naturally progress toward something resembling industrial Europe. In France authors such as Claude Adrien Helvetius and other philosophes were influenced by this Scottish tradition. Although imperial powers settled most differences of opinion with their colonial subjects with force, increased awareness of non-Western peoples raised new questions for European scholars about the nature of society and culture. Industrialisation, combined with the intense political change brought about by the French Revolution, U.S.
Thus, each past event is not only chronologically, but causally tied to the present and future events.
Thus progressivism became one of the basic ideas underlying the theory of sociocultural evolutionism. The earlier, more primitive military society has a goal of conquest and defence, is centralised, economically self-sufficient, collectivistic, puts the good of a group over the good of an individual, uses compulsion, force and repression, rewards loyalty, obedience and discipline.
In mechanical solidarity, people are self-sufficient, there is little integration and thus there is the need for use of force and repression to keep society together.
Morgan would later have a significant influence on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who developed a theory of sociocultural evolution in which the internal contradictions in society created a series of escalating stages that ended in a socialist society (see Marxism). He also notes that legal domination is the most advanced, and that societies evolve from having mostly traditional and charismatic authorities to mostly rational and legal ones.
Critical theorists argue that notions of social evolution are simply justifications for power by the elites of society. These conditions provided the context for new theories such as cultural relativism and multilineal evolution. White rejected the opposition between "primitive" and "modern" societies but did argue that societies could be distinguished based on the amount of energy they harnessed, and that increased energy allowed for greater social differentiation (White's law). I had what is undoubtedly a very unusual response to their framework, and while it is perhaps old news, it may still be useful to present it here. To list them, they are climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, nutrient fluxes, global freshwater use, land use change, biodiversity loss, aerosol loading, and chemical pollution. If the wedge exceeds the green space then it has already crossed its threshold and become a threat of flipping to a disastrous state for our human presence on the planet.
Notice further that (unlike Harris) population is just one of the supported ‘storages’ in the sociocultural system, it does not by itself ‘push’ cultural change; each of the storages have feedbacks that amplify the whole when energies are available, and each subtracts from the energy pie for maintenance. But it also includes the heat energies added by burning fossil fuels and greenhouse CO2, which result in the transformations we are witnessing in climate change, especially larger pulses of rainfall and drought and more powerful storms. The point is to raise these issues and suggest the possible levels of danger that we face from each. The nine variables identified by the Swedish team are particularly threatening to our renewable resources. Historically and presently important slow-renewables for our human adaptation are topsoil, groundwater, and forest timber.
Oil is the most important fossil fuel, as the source of motor fuels, plastics, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals. It refers to our many technologies, but especially today to the information technologies in finance, sales, data storage, and internet processing. This is a hierarchy, discourse is rapid and voluminous and small in spatial scale, while legal codes are few and slow to change, but have the greatest feedback influence. The difficulty is to move progressive ideas for peace and social justice to the higher scales of information cycles. Net decline in energy sources will lead to instabilities and fluctuations in the others, which may cascade feedbacks across all the storages. The majority of the world economies rely on fossil fuel energy sources or manufacturing techniques that release greenhouse gases at almost every stage of production, transportation, storage, delivery, and disposal. Human societies are apparently drawn to make use of potent energy sources when they are available.
That is, a renewable energy technology must produce much more energy than it takes to produce it. We should expect that sociocultural variables also have thresholds past which nonlinear change can be expected.
Global sociocultural systems are similarly complex systems dependent on energy and innerved with feedbacks, with negative, positive or amplifying potential for nonlinear change. Most archaeologists and cultural anthropologists work within the framework of modern theories of sociocultural evolution. European society held up the world of antiquity as a standard to aspire to, and Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome produced levels of technical accomplishment which Europeans of the Middle Ages sought to emulate. Authors such as Adam Ferguson, John Millar, and Adam Smith argued that all societies pass through a series of four stages: hunting and gathering, pastoralism and nomadism, agricultural, and finally a stage of commerce. Similarly, effective administration required some degree of understanding of other cultures. Constitution and Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791, which were paving the way for the dominance of democracy, forced European thinkers to reconsider some of their assumptions about how society was organised.
Those theories postulated that by recreating the sequence of those events, sociology could discover the laws of history. Sociocultural evolutionism represented an attempt to formalise social thinking along scientific lines, later influenced by the biological theory of evolution. In regard to social institutions, however, there is a good case that Spencer's writings might be classified as 'Social Evolutionism'.
Morgan and other thinkers of the gilded age all developed similar theories of social evolutionism as a result of their exposure to Spencer as well as Darwin.
In organic solidarity, people are much more integrated and interdependent and specialisation and cooperation is extensive. Tylor and Morgan elaborated the theory of unilinear evolution, specifying criteria for categorising cultures according to their standing within a fixed system of growth of humanity as a whole and examining the modes and mechanisms of this growth. Tonnies was also one of the first sociologists to claim that the evolution of society is not necessarily going in the right direction, that the social progress is not perfect, and it can even be called a regress as the newer, more evolved societies are obtained only after paying a high cost, resulting in decreasing satisfaction of individuals making up that society.
Additionally, they rejected the distinction between "primitive" and "civilised" (or "modern"), pointing out that so-called primitive contemporary societies have just as much history, and were just as evolved, as so-called civilised societies. Finally, the devastating World Wars that occurred between 1914 and 1945 crippled Europe's self-confidence. Steward on the other hand rejected the 19th-century notion of progress, and instead called attention to the Darwinian notion of "adaptation", arguing that all societies had to adapt to their environment in some way.
As an anthropologist, I see planetary problems from a cultural and evolutionary perspective that could offer a different take on the subject. In addition to the five sociocultural variables, three other variables in my diagram are the interactions with the three categories of energy that support our current global system, the renewable, slow-renewable, and non-renewable energy sources. For each of these variables, I will present a list of features and possible thresholds that threaten to be crossed or have arguably already been crossed. In our current production systems, fossil fuels are consumed at nearly every stage of production, transportation, storage, delivery, and disposal.
As models are regularly cycled in their use they may be selected and bumped up-scale, where added energies and durable carriers give them more influence in the larger society.
Simply reversing the trends in energy use could lead to destabilizing fluctuations throughout societies, with the potential for loss of life and assets.
Instead, renewable sources will simply be ‘added to’ existing fossil fuel sources, giving economies new energies to grow on, as argued by Ozzie Zehner in Green Illusions.
Bottom-up initiatives are social movements such as bioregionalism, permaculture, ecovillages, or transition towns. We should expect that sociocultural variables have interaction effects that can amplify the dangers presented by those variables taken individually. In my opinion, only when our human presence is better understood and incorporated into complex systems theorizing about global problems will we perhaps see some real solutions forward.
Solutions we can hardly admit to ourselves the scale of the problems much less adopt solutions.
Modern approaches to sociocultural evolution include neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernisation and theory of postindustrial society. At the same time, Christianity taught that people lived in a debased world fundamentally inferior to the Garden of Eden and Heaven. These thinkers thus understood the changes Scotland was undergoing as a transition from an agricultural to a mercantile society. August Comte in particular presented a coherent view of social progress and a new discipline to study it—sociology.
Emerging theories of sociocultural evolution allowed Europeans to organise their new knowledge in a way that reflected and justified their increasing political and economic domination of others: colonised people were less evolved, colonising people were more evolved. If organisms could develop over time according to discernable, deterministic laws, then it seemed reasonable that societies could as well. Although he wrote that societies over time progressed, and that progress was accomplished through competition, he stressed that the individual (rather than the collectivity) is the unit of analysis that evolves, that evolution takes place through natural selection and that it affects social as well as biological phenomenon.
Progress from mechanical to organic solidarity is based first on population growth and increasing population density, second on increasing "morality density" (development of more complex social interactions) and thirdly, on the increasing specialisation in workplace. They therefore argued that any attempt to use this theory to reconstruct the histories of non-literate (i.e. After millions of deaths, genocide, and the destruction of Europe's industrial infrastructure, the idea of progress seemed dubious at best.
As an example of dangerous interactions, loss of soil moisture, degradation of land to new land types, and biodiversity loss all reduce the ability of ecosystems to sequester CO2, and thus increase greenhouse effects.
Simplified models with aggregate variables are not realistic, but they may offer a way through the great complexity of society and nature to create a degree of understanding. This is the other reason that I did not place cultural models yet past their threshold, we are still living with more democratic legal models from earlier times. However, all renewable power technologies are built today with energies produced largely by fossil fuels.
All of these initiatives require a significant transformation away from the ‘business-as-usual’ solutions that are often proposed, solutions that keep the current global political-economic systems while tweaking energy sources or market mechanisms, for example. A collapse of food production due to loss of one of the super varieties of corn to disease, for instance, would exacerbate the problems of overpopulation, social inequality, topsoil and forest timber losses, and eventually the ability of financial technologies to service debt. Other contemporary approaches to social change include neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernisation and theory of postindustrial society.
During The Age of Enlightenment, however, European self-confidence grew and the notion of progress became increasingly popular. When the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described primeval man as living in conditions in which there are "no arts, no letters, no society" and his life as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short", he was very much proclaiming a popular conception of the "savage." Everything that was good and civilised resulted from the slow development out of this lowly state.
They developed analogies between human society and the biological organism and introduced into sociological theory such biological concepts as variation, natural selection, and inheritance—evolutionary factors resulting in the progress of societies through stages of savagery and barbarism to civilisation, by virtue of the survival of the fittest.
Nonetheless, the publication of Darwin's works proved a boon to the proponents of sociocultural evolution.
The nine environmental variables of the Swedish team are equally abstractions from our complex natural world. In my diagram, population size with its slow turnover time is important, it is the ‘variable’ most dear to us all, should only shrink by gradual and natural means, and so will stress all variables if energy sources contract quickly. Or inversely, another collapse of the financial system as in 2008, perhaps related to the current bubble of student loan debt or the trillions in national debt, could trigger a cascade of failures across most or all the other scales. It was during this period that what would later become known as "sociological and cultural evolution" would have its roots.
In the course of this effort they tried several highly divergent pathways, some suggested by methods and contents of other sciences, others invented outright by the imagination of the scholar. Even rationalistic philosophers like Voltaire implicitly assumed that enlightenment gradually resulted in the upward progress of humankind. The world of social science took the ideas of biological evolution as an attractive solution to similar questions regarding the origins and development of social behaviour and the idea of a society as an evolving organism was a biological analogy that is taken up by many anthropologists and sociologists even today. Finally, when society develops, so does sociogenesis, which is the science of shaping the society to fit with various political, cultural and ideological goals.
They observed that the postulated progression, which typically ended with a stage of civilisation identical to that of modern Europe, is ethnocentric. Also, fossil fuel use is critical, because the high net energies of fossil fuels have driven the existing global system.
In fact, it was arguably the oil price rise associated with global pressure on reserves that dragged the housing market down and popped the housing bubble that triggered the 2008 financial crisis that we are still suffering from.
Learn More Your Country United States Canada Mexico United Kingdom Australia Spain Hong Kong Taiwan Singapore eGifts Trends Shopping Advisor Gift Registry My Account Sign Out Sign In Enter search term Search All Departments Auto Baby Beauty Business Cameras Clothes Collectibles Computers Crafts Electronics Food and Drink Garden Health & Nutrition Home Store Jewelry Party Supplies Pet Supplies Posters Shoes Software Sports Fan Shop Sports and Fitness Tools Toys Travel Video Games Clothes Shoes Beauty Home Electronics Health & Nutrition Kids Stores Travel Groceries Shopping Essentials Deals Sociological Theory, Values, and Sociocultural Change: Essays in Hnor of Pitirim A. The Marquis de Condorcet listed 10 stages, or "epochs", the final one having started with the French Revolution, which was destined, in his eyes, to usher in the rights of man and the perfection of the human race.
They also pointed out that the theory assumes that societies are clearly bounded and distinct, when in fact cultural traits and forms often cross social boundaries and diffuse among many different societies (and is thus an important mechanism of change). What happens when fossil fuels are gone or declining, can these energy technologies continue to be built?
Rapid weaning from those energy sources could lead to dramatic destabilizing fluctuations, as occurred in 2008 when oil reached $148 per barrel. It is easily forgotten now that the US twice dipped into its strategic reserves of oil before 2008 to pump up supply and lower price pressures.
Some writers also perceived in the growth stages of each individual a recapitulation of these stages of society.
Boas introduced the culture history approach, which concentrated on fieldwork among native peoples to identify actual cultural and historical processes rather than speculative stages of growth. Instead, we should support a coordinated downsizing of sociocultural variables and new smaller scales of organization, together with the maintenance of (shrinking) fuel production and transportation in fair global markets, and with the proper use of renewable energies like geothermal and hydropower, if we are to reduce the chance of the cascades of collapse.
It was only the emergence of fracking technology that has temporarily boosted global and especially US oil production that has eased the energy pressure on the US economy. Strange customs were thus accounted for on the assumption that they were throwbacks to earlier useful practices.
This "culture history" approach dominated American anthropology for the first half of the 20th century and so influenced anthropology elsewhere that high-level generalisation and "systems building" became far less common than in the past. This also marked the beginning of anthropology as a scientific discipline and a departure from traditional religious views of "primitive" cultures.
|
Latex change normal font size|
How do i change my email address on groupon
How to change oil filter e30
The secret of love is to love without secrets
Comments to «Sociocultural change definition»
-
SimPle
And ease many health considerations, resembling hypertension , 6 depression.
-
SeNINLe_SeNSIz
Previous Australian woman who has been highway forty nine north to Grass.
-
Anastasia
Meditate For Inexperienced persons Cloud kid's.
-
Azeri
Stage of vitality manifestation rudell Seashore, and. | http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/pdfshaky/sociocultural-change-definition.html |
Big Question: What does cultural humility mean in theory and practice, and how can you strengthen your capacities for cultural humility in diverse contexts?
Time Commitment: 75 – 90 minutes
Personal Reflection:
5-minute, personal free write: What are your cultural identities and how have they shaped you to become the person who you are? Keep this in a nearby spot for an activity we’ll do later in this module.
Why this matters:
Developing, Understanding, and Strengthening Cultural Humility advances an important set of interrelated concepts and key practices utilized across a variety of fields (i.e., education, medicine, anthropology, social work, and other disciplines), through which individuals are encouraged to critically understand their own cultural assumptions, the cultural context in which they hope to operate successfully, and the ways in which institutional structures of power and privilege need to be reimagined to be more inclusive of all ways of being. Research in applied fields such as education, medicine, and social work demonstrates that the effort to operate with cultural humility is an ongoing, lifelong learning process for people of all identities.
Diving In, Part 1:
This 7-minute video by San Francisco State University Associate Professor of Health Education Vivian Chavez, physician and consultant Melanie Tervalon, and UC Davis nursing professor Jann Murray-García describes the three core commitments of cultural humility:
- Lifelong learning and critical self-reflection
- Recognizing and challenging power imbalances for successful partnerships
- Institutional accountability
Drawing from this and other influences, the authors of Community-based global learning: The theory and practice of ethical engagement at home and abroad define cultural humility as, “a commitment to critical self-reflection and lifelong reevaluation of assumptions, increasing one’s capacities for appropriate behaviors and actions in varying cultural contexts. The capacity for appropriate culturally relevant action is coupled with awareness of one’s positionality within systems of power and aligned in service of collaboratively reconsidering and reconstructing assumptions and systems to enact a deeper and broader embrace of human dignity, redressing historical inequities.”
Self-Reflection and, if possible, Small Group Discussion:
This all sounds great in theory, but how is it made real? Great question. When describing “lifelong learning and critical self-reflection” in the video, Melanie Tervalon said, “Every single one of us is a complicated multidimensional human being. Each one of us comes with our own histories and stories; our heritage, our point of view.” Now we explore our own histories by stepping into an activity to help with “critical self-reflection and lifelong reevaluation of assumptions.” The activity is called identity pie.
Reflection Exercise: Identity Pie
The primary purpose of this activity is to assist you in becoming more aware of your identities and worldview, the different aspects of the cultures you identify with, and, importantly, how culture and other social, political, economic, and spiritual elements of your worldview affect your beliefs, values, behaviors, and sense of self. The activity should help you better understand and articulate your identities, as well as dominant and marginalized norms and beliefs of your home culture(s).
Identity Pie (10 minutes):
- Pondering the question, “Who am I?,” write down 5 to 10 aspects of your culture and identity(-ies) (You could begin by returning to what you wrote in response to the free-write prompt at the top of this page).
- Reflect on the meanings of each dimension of your identity(-ies), life experiences that have shaped who you are, and the role and importance that each aspect plays in your life.
- Provide examples of visible and invisible aspects of culture and identity.
- Now, incorporating what you’ve written, create an identity pie that represents who you are. The pie can assist with describing elements of your identity that have greater or lesser significance by varying “slice” size, if that feels appropriate; larger slices of the pie represent more dominant aspects of your identity(-ies).
- A caveat: It is not necessary that you use a pie as a metaphor in your drawing. You may represent yourself in whatever way you are comfortable. For example, some people prefer a tree that shows their roots and various branches of their culture and identity. However you approach this activity, you do need to draw the things that you feel compose your culture and identities. You may choose to express/draw your cultural identities as equally significant in creating who you are.
Share with a partner: (10 minutes – NOTE: There is always the option not to share or share only certain items that you are comfortable sharing)
Next, partner with another person who has completed the identity exercise and share with each other the meanings you attach to 3 of the elements you drew. Hold your drawings up to your cameras and share them as you describe them if you’re doing this online. Take turns listening to each other and be sure to ask questions to probe more deeply into the meanings of each identity element, i.e.,
- What role does this element play in your life?
- What similarities or differences exist in the ways you describe and experience your identities in different contexts?
- What surprised you about what you wrote about your own identity(-ies)? What surprised you about your understanding of your partner’s identity(-ies)?
When you join a group debrief, you may want to share from your conversation with your partner, so ask your partner if that is okay.
Group Debrief: Identity Pie (30 minutes)
When you come back together for a group conversation with your cohort, it will begin by asking you to share something you learned through listening to your partner’s explanation. This could include things you realize you left off your identity pie or things you thought your partner articulated particularly well.
Page Completion – Outcomes:
Now that you have completed this page and the readings, videos, and activities within it, you should have strengthened your capacity to:
- articulate cultural humility as a three-pronged concept
- identify and articulate your own deeply held cultural assumptions, an essential component of exercising cultural humility through lifelong learning and critical self-reflection
However, two other components of cultural humility must be further explored: how do we challenge power imbalances across cultures, and advance institutional accountability? While institutional accountability is advanced in part through the kinds of civil society activism considered elsewhere in these modules, our next page focuses on power imbalances across contexts, and the extraordinary inequities that frequently result.
Next: Navigating power imbalances and holding institutions accountable – cultural humility and power
Citation for this page: Kiely, R., Zukerman, S., & Hartman, S. (2020). How can you strengthen your knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors to enact cultural humility in diverse contexts? In E. Hartman (Ed.). Interdependence: Global Solidarity and Local Actions. The Community-based Global Learning Collaborative. Retrieved from http://globalsolidaritylocalaction.sites.haverford.edu/cultural-humility/
Further Reading
Citations:
Hartman, E., Kiely, R., Boettcher, C., & Friedrichs, J. (2018). Community-based global learning: The theory and practice of ethical engagement at home and abroad. Sterling: VA: Stylus Publishing.
Video and pieces cited within the video: | http://globalsolidaritylocalaction.sites.haverford.edu/cultural-humility/ |
Why learn theory? “Theories are analytical tools for understanding, explaining, and making predictions about a given subject matter” (1). Theories help to direct our thinking and provide a common framework from which people can work. Oftentimes through the process of using a theoretical framework, we discover that it lacks explanatory abilities. When that happens, it is modified or even abandoned.
There are a number of theoretical approaches used in cultural anthropology. This page highlights some of the major theoretical approaches used in cultural anthropology. Not all of the theories reviewed are in use any more. Social evolutionism was abandoned early on in cultural anthropology. Culture and Personality, Cultural Ecology, and Cultural Materialism have all been jumping off points for more modern theoretical perspectives.
Social Evolution
Proposed in the 19th century, social evolution, which is sometimes referred to as Unilineal Evolution, was the first theory developed for anthropology. This theory claims that societies develop according to one universal order of cultural evolution, albeit at different rates, which explained why there were different types of society existing in the world. E. B. Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, and Herbert Spencer (a sociologist) were the most notable of the Nineteenth-century social evolutionists. They collected data from missionaries and traders; they themselves rarely went to the societies that they were analyzing. They organized these second-hand data and applied the general theory they developed to all societies.
Social evolutionists identified universal evolutionary stages to classify different societies as in a state of savagery, barbarism, or civilization. Morgan further subdivided savagery and barbarism into sub-categories: low, middle, and high. The stages were based primarily on technological characteristics, but included other things such as political organization, marriage, family, and religion. Since Western societies had the most advanced technology, they put those societies at the highest rank of civilization. Societies at a stage of savagery or barbarism were viewed as inherently inferior to civilized society. Spencer’s theory of social evolution, which is often referred to as Social Darwinism but which he called synthetic philosophy, proposed that war promoted evolution, stating that those societies that conducted more warfare were the most evolved. He also coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” and advocated for allowing societies to compete, thereby allowing the most fit in society to survive. With these ideas, Spencer opposed social policy that would help the poor. Eugenicists used Spencer’s ideas to promote intellectual and ethnic cleansing as a ‘natural’ occurrence.
There are two main assumptions embedded in social evolutionism: psychic unity and the superiority of Western cultures. Psychic unity is a concept that suggests human minds share similar characteristics all over the world. This means that all people and their societies will go through the same process of development. The assumption of Western superiority was not unusual for the time period. This assumption was deeply rooted in European colonialism and based on the fact that Western societies had more technologically sophisticated technology and a belief that Christianity was the true religion.
Nineteenth-century evolutionists contributed to anthropology by providing the first systematic methods for thinking about and explaining human societies; however, contemporary anthropologists view nineteenth-century evolutionism as too simplistic to explain the development of societies in the world. In general, the nineteenth-century evolutionists relied on racist views of human development that were popular at that time. For example, both Lewis Henry Morgan and E. B. Tylor believed that people in various societies have different levels of intelligence, which leads to societal differences, a view of intelligence that is no longer valid in contemporary science. Nineteenth-century evolutionism was strongly attacked by historical particularists for being speculative and ethnocentric in the early twentieth-century. At the same time, its materialist approaches and cross-cultural views influenced Marxist Anthropology and Neo-evolutionists.
~Notes
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
References
Darnell, Regna. “Historical Particularism.” In Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, edited by R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms, 397-401. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2013.
Francisconi, Michael J. “Theoretical Anthropology.” In 21st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Vol. 1, edited by H. James Birx, 442-452. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2010.
Frey, Rodney. “Historical-Particularism-as exemplified by Franz Boas (1858-1942).” University of Idaho. Accessed February 27, 2015.http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/220histpart.htm.
Graber, Robert Bates. “Social Evolution.” In 21st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook, Vol. 1, edited by H. James Birx, 576-585. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2010.
Turner, Jonathan. “Spencer, Herbert.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 8, edited by William A. Darity, 57-59. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. | https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/anthropological-theory/ |
What was Lewis Morgan theory?
Based on his observations, Morgan developed his theory of cultural evolution: a theory of unilineal evolution with three basic phases of development that all human societies went through—Hunter-gatherer (the “savage” stage), agriculture and metal-work (the stage of “barbarism”), and the highest stage beginning with …
What did Lewis Henry Morgan argue about culture?
In anthropology, Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) is considered a “classical cultural evolutionist,” believing that cultures evolved from simple to complex forms; except, instead of focusing on religion like Edward Tylor, Morgan focused on explaining how marriage and family systems led to the development of modern …
What are the stages of Lewis Henry Morgan’s theory of Unilinear cultural evolution?
Originally proposed by E.B. Tylor, unilineal evolution suggests that all cultures evolved through three sequential stages: savagery, barbarism, and, finally, civilization (Sidky 2004). Lewis Henry Morgan further subdivided savagery and barbarism into sub-categories: lower, middle, and upper (Sidky 2004).
Was Lewis Henry Morgan ethnocentric?
Cultural evolutionism clearly was ethnocentric, claiming that the traits possessed in this case by the United States were not only the best, but that all cultures would inevitably progress to be like us. In addition, there is no validity to Morgan’s list of traits.
What are the three stages of cultural evolution?
The typological system used by Morgan and Tylor broke cultures down into three basic evolutionary stages: savagery, barbarism and civilization.
What is Lewis Henry Morgan known for?
Lewis Henry Morgan, (born November 21, 1818, near Aurora, New York, U.S.—died December 17, 1881, Rochester, New York), American ethnologist and a principal founder of scientific anthropology, known especially for establishing the study of kinship systems and for his comprehensive theory of social evolution.
What are the 3 stages of cultural evolution?
What is cultural evolution theory?
“Cultural evolution” is the idea that human cultural change––that is, changes in socially transmitted beliefs, knowledge, customs, skills, attitudes, languages, and so on––can be described as a Darwinian evolutionary process that is similar in key respects (but not identical) to biological/genetic evolution.
What are the stages of cultural evolution?
What are the 3 stages of human cultural development?
Edward Tylor, one of the main scholars in the field of early cultural evolution, asserted that all cultures moved up almost a ladder of progression through three main stages of progression, which were savagery, barbarism, and civilization.
What was Tylor’s theory of the evolution of Culture?
Tylor maintained that culture evolved from the simple to the complex, and that all societies passed through the three basic stages of development suggested by Montesquieu: from savagery through barbarism to civilization. “Progress,” therefore, was possible for all.
Who are some famous people who believed in evolutionary theory?
Among these was Montesquieu, who proposed an evolutionary scheme consisting of three stages: hunting or savagery, herding or barbarism, and civilization. This tripartite division became very popular among the 19th century social theorists, with figures such as Tylor and Morgan adopting one or another version of this scheme (Seymour-Smith 1986:105).
Which is the best description of the evolution of human culture?
In his best-known work, Ancient Society, Morgan divided the evolution of human culture into the same three basic stages Tylor had suggested (savagery, barbarism, and civilization). But he also subdivided savagery and barbarism into upper, middle, and lower segments (Morgan 1877: 5-6), providing contemporary examples of each of these three stages.
What did the nineteenth century evolutionists contribute to anthropology?
The Nineteenth-century Evolutionists contributed to anthropology by providing the first systematic methods for thinking about and explaining human societies. Their evolutionary theory is insightful with regard to the technological aspect of societies. | https://bookriff.com/what-was-lewis-morgan-theory/ |
"Diversity spurs interaction among civilizations, which in turn promotes mutual learning and their further development," Xi told the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in May 2019.
by Wu Xia, Sun Ping
BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed the unique and important role of the world civilizations in his address at the 2019 Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations.
"To meet our common challenges and create a better future for all, we look to culture and civilization to play their role, which is as important as the role played by economy, science and technology," Xi told the audience.
Over the past two years, China's culture and civilization has played an important part in contributing to the world afflicted with COVID-19 and conflicts.
As the pandemic still rages and new challenges arise, people across the world need to come together to promote interaction among civilizations and make joint efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
PROMOTING PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT
As the international landscape undergoes profound changes, Xi's remarks on multiple international occasions, which demonstrate China's view on world civilizations, offer an insight.
File photo shows an Asian culture carnival being held during the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) at the National Stadium, or the Bird's Nest, in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2019. [Xinhua/Shen Bohan]
"Diversity spurs interaction among civilizations, which in turn promotes mutual learning and their further development," Xi told the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in May 2019.
"No two leaves in the world are identical, and no histories, cultures or social systems are the same," Xi told the World Economic Forum Virtual Event of the Davos Agenda in January 2021.
"Diversity is what defines our world and makes human civilization fascinating," Xi told the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in April 2021.
Russian sinologist Yuri Tavrovsky said he was impressed by Xi's remarks at the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations two years ago.
"The meaning of the speech goes far beyond the cultural scope. President Xi hopes that different civilizations will strengthen exchanges and mutual learning to promote world peace and development," he said.
As humanity has been battling COVID-19 over the past two years, regrettably, the debate of "clash of civilizations" resurges, with some countries forming values-based alliances to provoke ideological confrontation.
At this critical time, Xi's remarks may shed light upon how to understand and handle cultural and civilizational differences.
"The moderate tea drinker and the passionate beer lover represent two ways of understanding life and knowing the world, and I find them equally rewarding," Xi said, using a comparison of tea and beer to explain the diversity and inclusiveness of human civilization.
China's view of world civilizations is rooted in its traditional values of peace, harmony without uniformity, and harmonious coexistence, which have not only shaped its own action model but also added impetus to global efforts to promote world peace and development.
China's view of world civilizations is characterized by equality, mutual learning, dialogue and mutual accommodation. It calls for replacing mistrust with exchange, clashes with mutual learning, and a false sense of superiority with coexistence in order to safeguard world peace and development.
FACILITATING DIALOGUE AND COOPERATION
In March, significant discoveries were made at China's legendary Sanxingdui ruins, which show that the region's ancient Shu state civilization may bear similarities with the Maya in their perception of the universe.
People take a photo of an exhibit at the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan City, southwest China's Sichuan Province on April 3, 2021. [Xinhua/Liu Mengqi]
"At the end of the day, man is still man independent of time and space, and what we have is that, at this latitude, both that culture and the Maya looked at the same sky, they had the same stars on the horizon," said director of the Chichen Itza archaeological site, Marco Antonio Santos.
Cultural exchange and dialogue prompt the evolution of human civilization. The ancient Chinese Silk Road, for instance, has played a big role in connecting peoples and cultures over centuries. In this day and age, China's exchanges with other countries in culture, arts, archeology and education go far beyond the past.
As the president of a country with an ancient civilization, Xi has made personal efforts to promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations.
Xi has been fascinated by the diversity of civilizations during his overseas trips, including those to the ancient Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Mexico, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the Luxor Temple in Egypt, the ancient city of Bukhara in Uzbekistan and India's Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram.
His respect and admiration for other civilizations were also manifest in his frequent reference to foreign culture, ranging from world-famous classics to well-told stories and arts and crafts symbolizing intermingled cultures.
The COVID-19 outbreak, though dramatically reduced international travels, has not stopped cultural exchange. Chinese music, TV dramas and books continue to be staged and read on foreign soil, not to mention abundant resources of Chinese culture online.
WORKING FOR BETTER WORLD
On a nine-story Basantapur complex in Kathmandu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was badly damaged during the 2015 earthquake, Chinese conservation engineers are putting finishing touches on their meticulous restoration work.
The exquisite and sophisticated wood and brick structures damaged in the 7.9-magnitude earthquake were brought back to life by the Chinese team, who stayed in Nepal and worked around the clock despite difficulties imposed by the pandemic.
Wu Xianyan and college student Liang Qiongying promote local tourism via live streaming at Jiache Village, Jiabang Township in Congjiang County of southwest China's Guizhou Province, April 19, 2020. [Xinhua/Yang Wenbin]
Apart from cultural heritage conservation, China is also working with other countries in poverty reduction, environmental protection and other fields as part of its efforts to jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.
Rooted in traditional Chinese culture, the vision of building such a community is China's contribution to human civilization. Beijing has applied and enriched such a vision in developing bilateral and multilateral relations, and practised it in such areas as ocean, health and environment.
As a key platform for building a community with a shared future for mankind, the Belt and Road cooperation has won increasing popularity, eyeing further development in health, environment, digital growth and other areas.
In addition, China's anti-poverty cooperation continued despite the pandemic, with new pilot projects announced in Southeast Asian countries, and training programs expanding to help African farmers.
Civilization has a soft yet powerful influence. Learning from a different civilization can and should help build friendship between peoples, promote progress of human society and safeguard world peace for a better world for all. | http://en.qstheory.cn/2021-05/18/c_622477.htm |
There are many hypotheses of brilliance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive a confrontation with experiment. The human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious, and cultural lives.
-- Dr. Carl Sagan
Good Morning,
CompassionRise sometimes has a tone of certainty. In our articles we sometimes use the word "must" -- as in "Nature v. Nurture" we wrote:
A hopeful perspective is in itself valuable, but we must test it and follow our experiments and research to practical results, with an honest desire for greater good and an open mind about how it may be achieved.
In "Ignorance and Real Peace" we wrote:
Defeating ignorance to make peace means we must drain the swamps of prejudice, assumption, and misunderstanding. We must find facts to demystify disagreements. Where ignorance remains there is an equal instability in peace.
In "The Great Responsibility" we wrote:
With the scientific method, there are answers -- theories and lessons, policy recommendations, productive results -- but the answers must remain open to improvement.
A scientist claiming to have found an absolute, definite answer has violated the scientific method.
That is the line we walk with compassion and science: the certainty we have is: uncertainty. We offer some conclusive prescriptions for a more compassionate life and a more compassionate world, while we also embrace challenges, debates, and improvements to our conclusions. If you have research which disputes a conclusion of ours, then that is not a threat to us. We would welcome it and weigh it against comparable research, to improve our conclusions or possibly replace them.
Unlike a religion, we do not believe our conclusions, we offer them as our best understanding and we expect to know better in the future. In the article "Science and Humility" we wrote:
Jacob Bronowski wrote that science is "not a mechanism but a human progress, and not a set of findings but a search for them." The ideals of the scientific method can guide not only productive experiments, but also the ethical struggles in our daily lives. We must detach ourselves from our assumptions, our opinions, and our conclusions.
Some say science is devoid of compassion, but science and compassion are two expressions of the same idea. A more scientific approach, from personal ethics to civil society, is our most universal, rational, and practical means to the end of greater honesty, openness, and humility.
In his scientifically casual but socially serious book The Dragons of Eden -- Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, popular scientist Carl Sagan defined reason, which we equate for this purpose to science and compassion:
"Reason: a courageous working through of the world as it really is."
Doing the right thing requires humility and courage and hard work, whatever your word for it -- reason, science, compassion. We are not compassionate for the sake of compassion -- we are not compassionate because we believe it is right, we are compassionate because we have learned it is better. Compassion includes its own improvement; it is not perfect, and we continue to seek better still.
In closing "The Dragons of Eden," Sagan also quotes Jacob Bronowski:
Here Bronowski refers to knowledge, but not in the sense of unquestionable fact, instead in the general sense of knowing. That is the integrity of our knowledge -- that it can withstand infinite question.
We are a scientific civilization. That means a civilization in which knowledge and its integrity are crucial. Science is only a Latin word for knowledge. .... Knowledge is our destiny.
Compassion is like wisdom; to be wise is not to know. | http://brianglanz.net/compassionrise/2009/01/ |
Humans did not evolve from just one population in Africa
The widely accepted theory of human evolution depicts Homo sapiens as descending from a single ancestral population in one region of Africa around 300,000 years ago. However, an interdisciplinary team of researchers has found that early humans were more physically and culturally diverse, evolving from a subdivided pan-African meta-population.
Dr. Eleanor Scerri is a British Academy postdoctoral fellow in Archaeology at the University of Oxford and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
“In the fossil record, we see a mosaic-like, continental-wide trend toward the modern human form, and the fact that these features appear at different places at different times tells us that these populations were not well connected,” said Dr. Scerri. “This fits with a subdivided population model in which genetic exchanges are neither random nor frequent. This allows us to start detailing the processes that shaped our evolutionary history.”
The poor connectivity among populations is represented by a series of physical barriers highlighted in the ecological record such as shifting rivers, deserts, and forests that separated the subpopulations.
“These barriers created migration and contact opportunities for groups that may previously have been separated, and later fluctuation might have meant populations that mixed for a short while became isolated again,” explained Dr. Scerri.
The idea of isolated subpopulations from the southern tip to the northern coasts of Africa correlates better with existing fossil and genetic data compared to a model that represents a single population. For example, Homo sapiens fossils paired with information derived from modern DNA samples show levels of early human diversity that support a shifting, subdivided population model.
“For the first time, we’ve examined all the relevant archaeological, fossil, genetic, and environmental data together to eliminate field-specific biases and assumptions and confirm that a mosaic, pan-African origin view is a much better fit with the data that we have,” said Dr. Scerri. “To understand our genetic and cultural diversity or where being human comes from – our behavioral flexibility and biological plasticity – we have to look at an ancient history of population subdivision and diverse ecologies across Africa.”
The research will allow historical evolutionary models to be reshaped from a simple linear progression toward a history with more complexity and the acknowledgment of a pan-African origin of our species.
“In bringing together people from such diverse fields, we’ve arrived at a place where we can begin to address some key questions about our shared ancestry and even emerge with new questions we haven’t known to ask before,” said Dr. Scerri. “We are an evolving lineage with deep African roots, so to understand this history, we must re-examine evidence from diverse sources without a priori conceptions.”
The research is published by Cell Press in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution. | https://www.earth.com/news/humans-evolve-africa/ |
Micro-Foundations of Firm-Specific Human Capital: When Do Employees Perceive Their Skills to be Firm-Specific?
54 Pages Posted: 10 Sep 2014 Last revised: 25 Mar 2015
Date Written: December 31, 2014
Abstract
Drawing on human capital theory, strategy scholars have emphasized firm-specific human capital as a source of sustained competitive advantage. In this study, we begin to unpack the micro-foundations of firm-specific human capital by theoretically and empirically exploring when employees perceive their skills to be firm-specific. We first develop theoretical arguments and hypotheses based on the extant strategy literature, which implicitly assumes information efficiency and unbiased perceptions of firm-specificity. We then relax these assumptions and develop alternative hypotheses rooted in the cognitive psychology literature, which highlights biases in human judgment. We test our hypotheses using two data sources from Korea and the United States. Surprisingly, our results support the hypotheses based on cognitive bias – a stark contrast to the expectations embedded within the strategy literature. Specifically, we find organizational commitment and, to some extent, tenure are negatively related to employee perceptions of the firm-specificity. We also find that employer provided on-the-job training was unrelated to perceived firm-specificity. These findings suggest that firm-specific human capital, as perceived by employees, may drive behavior in ways not anticipated by existing theory – for example, with respect to investments in skills or turnover decisions. This, in turn, may challenge the assumed relationship between firm-specific human capital and sustained competitive advantage. More broadly, our findings may suggest a need to reconsider other theories, such as transaction cost economics, that draw heavily on the notion of firm-specificity and implicitly assume widely shared and unbiased perceptions. | https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2493511 |
This is a groundbreaking volume that provides informed, balanced yet frank discussion of US workplace diversity and diversity resistance issues. The chapters in this book put a name on behaviors and practices that have existed in the workplace for a long time, yet until recently have had no name. Further, the majority of the chapters innovatively link existing psychological and organizational factors such as fear, uncertainty, power, emotions, and organizational change and development. The book's editors and authors emphasize that we need to know more about diversity resistance, both in overt and covert forms. To guide us, we can draw on existing research and practice literature that have both theoretical and empirical depth.
This timely volume's first chapter deconstructs the growing prevalence of hangmen's nooses as a manifestation of resistance to diversity that is visibly overt, hostile, and interpersonal. The authors also shed light on how nooses surprisingly exemplify diversity resistance that is also frequently covert, subtle, and frequently silent.
The book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students in industrial and organizational psychology, human resources management, diversity management, sociology of work, organizational change, and cultural diversity within organizations. It provides a central resource for classes on prejudice and discrimination in organizations, emotions at work, personnel psychology, strategic human resources management and cultural issues in human resources management. Professionals and practitioners who increasingly interact with diverse employees will find this book essential to their work.
J. Cleveland, Series Foreword. K.M. Thomas, V. Plaut, The Many Faces of Diversity Resistance in the Workplace. D.C. Mason, R.H. Thomas, H. Wishik, Understanding and Defusing Resistance to Diversity Training and Learning. M. Lankau, C. Riordan, J. Holiday, It Is All in How You View It: Factors Contributing to Perceptions of a Hostile Work Climate. T. Probst, A.X. Estrada, J.W. Brown, Harassment, Violence, and Hate Crimes in the Workplace. M. Hebl, J. Madera, E. King, Exclusion, Avoidance, and Social Distancing. P. McKay, J. Davis, Traditional Selection Methods as Resistance to Diversity in Organizations. B. Ferdman, P.V. Gallegos, I.C. Wasserman, Dancing with Resistance: Leadership Challenges In Fostering A Culture Of Inclusion. W.R. Dobbs, M. Harrison, B. Roote, Cases in Organizational Resistance to Diversity. D. Avery, C.D. Johnson, Now You See It, Now You Don't: Mixed Messages Regarding Workplace Diversity. M. Davison, K. Proudford, Cycles of Resistance: How Dominants And Subordinates Collude To Undermine Diversity Efforts In Organizations. L. Sabattini, F. Crosby, Overcoming Resistance: Structures and Attitudes. L. Bierema, K. Thomas, Final Reflections: Resisting the Resistors.
"Kecia Thomas has assembled a stellar group of authors to tackle a cutting edge issue: the resistance to diversity. The elimination of diversity resistance is central to the evolution of a fair and satisfying workplace for all and this book will clearly contribute to that evolution" - Frank J. Landy, Landy LSG Sales
"Interest in how humans adapt to change spans centuries. The legacy of social science research on attitude change spans at least a quarter century if not longer. This research indicates that the resistance to change tends to be pervasive, persistent, and in some respects, intractable. This volume focuses on a specific case of adaptation to change or more specifically failure to adapt to change. The authors burrow down into the world of resistance to change within organizations and then further into resistance to diversity within organizations. The breadth and detail of the volume provides the reader a single resource for the latest theories and scientific research related to this topic. The goal of the volume is to shed light on the multiple and complex facets of diversity resistance and better understand its impact on worker and workforce well being and functioning. This objective is clearly accomplished and accomplished convincingly. The reader comes away not only with a better understanding of the many facets of diversity resistance, but also a deeper understanding of ways to overcome such resistance and move organizations toward greater overall effectiveness." - James L. Outtz, Outtz & Associates
We provide complimentary e-inspection copies of primary textbooks to instructors considering our books for course adoption. | https://www.crcpress.com/Diversity-Resistance-in-Organizations/Thomas/p/book/9780805859638 |
|Description||Synopsis: A program GALILEO was built that detected and repaired conflicts between theories of Physics and experimental results. It used Ontology Repair Plans (ORPs) to formalise common patterns of fault detection and repair in Physics and other domains.
|
Hypotheses: Automated ontology evolution via ORPs is computationally feasible and can account for the kinds of ontology evolution that are observed in human problem solving in the Physics domain. We show that desirable properties, e.g., coverage, efficiency, maintainability, high quality of the repairs, can be achieved.
Evaluation: The presentation, application and evaluation of three of GALILEO's Ontology Repair Plans provided empirical evidence of the value of our approach to ontology evolution. The ORP Where's My Stuff? was applied to the discovery of latent heat and to the postulation of dark matter; Inconstancy was applied to Modi?ed Newtonian Dynamics in the study of galaxies and to the observations that proved the speed of light to be ?nite; Unite was applied to the identification of the Morning and Evening Stars and to the assessment of the shape of the Earth.
|Exploitation Route||The domain-dependent techniques developed in this project has been generalised and formalised into the domain-independent reformation algorithm, whose development has been funded by our Platform Grant. The repair of faulty ontologies is a central focus of our SuReChoice proposal, with Aberdeen, Manchester and Heriot Watt, which is currently under consideration by EPSRC.
|
The techniques of theory repair are generic and can find application wherever ontologies, knowledge bases, databases or logic theories may be faulty, e.g., in formal verification, semantic web, knowledge representation, etc. The SuReChoice proposal will apply this to the construction of a tool to assist OWL ontology development. | https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FG000700%2F1 |
Cultural and economic negotiation : a new perspective on the Neolithisation of southern Scandinavia.
- History
- 2018
The diversity of archaeological evidence for the adoption of farming in Northern Europe has led to competing hypotheses about this critical shift in subsistence strategy. Through a review of the…
The world reshaped: practices and impacts of early agrarian societies
- Environmental Science
- 2014
Wild things in the north? Hunter-gatherers and the tyranny of the colonial perspective.
- Sociology
- 2013
The paper argues for a synthesis of Darwinian and Marxist theories of evolution. We challenge claims that hunter-gatherer societies evolve via a natural progression from simple to complex, arguing…
The Archaeological and Forensic Applications of Microfossils: A Deeper Understanding of Human History
- History
- 2017
The transition from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic agriculturalists was one of the most important turning points in human history. The economic base, material culture, population levels,…
Neolithic agriculture on the European western frontier: the boom and bust of early farming in Ireland
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 2014
The last hunter-gatherers of China and Africa: A life amongst pastoralists and farmers
- HistoryQuaternary International
- 2018
To Tame a Land: Archaeological Cultures and the Spread of the Neolithic in Western Europe
- Sociology
- 2011
This paper explores the significance of “archaeological cultures” for the investigation of the neolithisation of Europe (i.e. introduction of agriculture of livestock raising). Instead of resorting…
The Fabric of War: Wool and Local Land Wars in a Global Context
- HistoryTextile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
- 2019
During the nineteenth century, exponential growth in sheep pastoralism in Australia and New Zealand, and in less predictable locales such as the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and Rapanui (Easter Island),…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 176 REFERENCES
Neolithic Explanations Revisited : The Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in Britain and South Scandinavia
- Environmental Science
- 1988
The inception of the Neolithic has always been one of the more vexed questions of British prehistory. As an issue, it has been obscured by a number of conceptual difficulties. Not least amongst these…
A Variation on a Basic Theme: The Transition to Farming in Southern Central Europe
- Economics
- 1999
This paper attempts to summarize the past years of research on the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Central Europe and to review recent discussions about the origin and spread of the Early…
Coastal hunter-gatherers and social evolution: marginal or central?
- Environmental Science
- 2002
It is suggested that pre-existing conventions should be critically re-examined, that coastlines may have played a more significant, widespread and persistent role as zones of attractio...
The Origins of Agriculture: a Reconsideration
- HistoryAntiquity
- 1969
In recent years increasing attention has been focused on the economic aspects of the changes that took place in human groups in their evolution from 'Palaeolithic' to 'Neolithic' ways of life.…
Archaeology: Sharp shift in diet at onset of Neolithic
- Environmental ScienceNature
- 2003
It is found that there was a rapid and complete change from a marine- to a terrestrial-based diet among both coastal and inland dwellers at the onset of the Neolithic period, which coincided with the first appearance of domesticates. | https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/How-the-West-Was-Lost-Rowley-Conwy/4e7c38bcba4ac13c5aae78ae21f75cce9d4b17f8 |
Despite recent discoveries in human evolution, the origin of our species, Homo sapiens, and the process through which it expanded and became established around the globe remain murky. Increasingly, it is viewed as a dynamic process of population expansions and contact among human lineages, occurring in concert with the Pleistocene climatic oscillations, which influence the probability of human survival as well as the availability of land bridges enabling expansions. Dispersals and population contact, therefore, may have been the norm in human evolution and may have played a greater role in shaping our species than previously recognised. In such a model, South-East Europe emerges as a likely area of sustained and / or repeated contact, making this region critical for testing hypotheses about European deep prehistory. Despite this crucial role, however, paleoanthropological research there remains in its infancy, with little existing data and no overarching interpretive framework. FIRSTSTEPS aims to fill this research gap by applying inter-disciplinary cutting edge investigation to recover new and connect existing evidence across sites, periods and regions. Key sites / finds from South-East Europe (Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania) and Italy — whose better documented record has yet to be connected to its counterparts to the East and will provide a crucial comparative perspective — will be included. In-depth analysis of important fossil / cultural assemblages from specific chrono-cultural periods ca. 200-30 ka, will be conducted to identify patterns of biological and cultural variation. In parallel, regional and supra-regional perspectives will be constructed beyond individual sites /countries. By addressing this crucial research gap FIRSTSTEPS will take paleoanthropological research in this important region to the next level and squarely place it on the paleolithic map of Europe.
Project details
Unibo Team Leader: Stefano Benazzi
Unibo involved Department/s:
Dipartimento di Beni Culturali
Coordinator:
Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen (Ut)(Germany)
Other Participants: | https://www.unibo.it/en/research/projects-and-initiatives/research-projects-horizon-2020/586/685/9419 |
Abstract:
PubDate: 2020-01-24
DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2020.3
- Cultural group selection and human cooperation: a conceptual and empirical
review
Authors: Smith; Daniel
First page: 2
Abstract: Cultural group selection has been proposed as an explanation for humans’ highly cooperative nature. This theory argues that social learning mechanisms, combined with rewards and punishment, can stabilise any group behaviour, cooperative or not. Equilibrium selection can then operate, resulting in cooperative groups outcompeting less-cooperative groups. This process may explain the widespread cooperation between non-kin observed in humans, which is sometimes claimed to be altruistic. This review explores the assumptions of cultural group selection to assess whether it provides a convincing explanation for human cooperation. Although competition between cultural groups certainly occurs, it is unclear whether this process depends on specific social learning mechanisms (e.g. conformism) or a norm psychology (to indiscriminately punish norm-violators) to stabilise groups at different equilibria as proposed by existing cultural group selection models. Rather than unquestioningly adopt group norms and institutions, individuals and groups appear to evaluate, design and shape them for self-interested reasons (where possible). As individual fitness is frequently tied to group fitness, this often coincides with constructing group-beneficial norms and institutions, especially when groups are in conflict. While culture is a vital component underlying our species’ success, the extent to which current conceptions of cultural group selection reflect human cooperative evolution remains unclear.
PubDate: 2020-02-07
DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2020.2
- Field evidence for two paths to cross-cultural competence: implications
for cultural dynamics
Authors: Bunce; John A.
First page: 3
Abstract: Interaction between members of culturally distinct (ethnic) groups is an important driver of the evolutionary dynamics of human culture, yet relevant mechanisms remain underexplored. For example, cultural loss resulting from integration with culturally distinct immigrants or colonial majority populations remains a topic whose political salience exceeds our understanding of mechanisms that may drive or impede it. For such dynamics, one mediating factor is the ability to interact successfully across cultural boundaries (cross-cultural competence). However, measurement difficulties often hinder its investigation. Here, simple field methods in a uniquely suited Amazonian population and Bayesian item–response theory models are used to derive the first experience-level measure of cross-cultural competence, as well as evidence for two developmental paths: cross-cultural competence may emerge as a side effect of adopting out-group cultural norms, or it may be acquired while maintaining in-group norms. Ethnographic evidence suggests that the path taken is a likely consequence of power differences in inter- vs intra-group interaction. The former path, paralleling language extinction, may lead to cultural loss; the latter to cultural sustainability. Recognition of such path-dependent effects is vital to theory of cultural dynamics in humans and perhaps other species, and to effective policy promoting cultural diversity and constructive inter-ethnic interaction.
PubDate: 2020-02-07
DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2020.1
- Punishment: one tool, many uses – CORRIGENDUM
Authors: Raihani; Nichola, Bshary, Redouan
First page: 4
PubDate: 2020-02-10
DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2019.18
- Tracing population movements in ancient East Asia through the linguistics
and archaeology of textile production
Authors: Nelson; Sarah, Zhushchikhovskaya, Irina, Li, Tao, Hudson, Mark, Robbeets, Martine
First page: 5
Abstract: Archaeolinguistics, a field which combines language reconstruction and archaeology as a source of information on human prehistory, has much to offer to deepen our understanding of the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Northeast Asia. So far, integrated comparative analyses of words and tools for textile production are completely lacking for the Northeast Asian Neolithic and Bronze Age. To remedy this situation, here we integrate linguistic and archaeological evidence of textile production, with the aim of shedding light on ancient population movements in Northeast China, the Russian Far East, Korea and Japan. We show that the transition to more sophisticated textile technology in these regions can be associated not only with the adoption of millet agriculture but also with the spread of the languages of the so-called ‘Transeurasian’ family. In this way, our research provides indirect support for the Language/Farming Dispersal Hypothesis, which posits that language expansion from the Neolithic onwards was often associated with agricultural colonization.
PubDate: 2020-02-14
DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2020.4
- The demography of human warfare can drive sex differences in altruism
Authors: Micheletti; Alberto J. C., Ruxton, Graeme D., Gardner, Andy
First page: 7
Abstract: Recent years have seen great interest in the suggestion that between-group aggression and within-group altruism have coevolved. However, these efforts have neglected the possibility that warfare – via its impact on demography – might influence human social behaviours more widely, not just those directly connected to success in war. Moreover, the potential for sex differences in the demography of warfare to translate into sex differences in social behaviour more generally has remained unexplored. Here, we develop a kin-selection model of altruism performed by men and women for the benefit of their groupmates in a population experiencing intergroup conflict. We find that warfare can promote altruistic, helping behaviours as the additional reproductive opportunities winners obtain in defeated groups decrease harmful competition between kin. Furthermore, we find that sex can be a crucial modulator of altruism, with there being a tendency for the sex that competes more intensely with relatives to behave more altruistically and for the sex that competes more intensely with non-relatives in defeated groups to receive more altruism. In addition, there is also a tendency for the less-dispersing sex to both give and receive more altruism. We discuss implications for our understanding of observed sex differences in cooperation in human societies. | http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk/index.php?action=browse&subAction=pub&publisherID=250&journalID=43595&pageb=1&userQueryID=&sort=&local_page=&sorType=&sorCol= |
This project falls within the context of a broader research endeavor by CLUSTER, exploring the network of Cairo’s Downtown passages. These passageways offer an alternative framework for the development and revitalization of Downtown.
Cairo Downtown Passages aims to develop a pilot urban design and art project in the northern part of downtown Cairo, highlighting existing and emerging initiatives and activating underutilized public spaces. This passageway redevelopment project emerged from a design workshop held in April 2014, organized collaboratively by CLUSTER with DEDI and CKU, exploring art and design interventions in two passageways in Downtown Cairo: the Kodak and Phillips Passageways. CLUSTER has been working in the two passages over an extended period, undertaking mapping, interviews, and outreach as part of our larger project on Downtown passageways as an alternative framework for development. This pilot project seeks to promote a more diverse, inclusive, and accessible public space downtown.
The outcome of the design workshop selected by a juried review where the “Green Oasis” project for the Kodak Passage and the “Light Oasis” for the Philips Passage. CLUSTER has overseen the design development and implementation of these two schemes, emphasizing a more diverse, safer, and environmentally enhanced experience in the passageways. The “Green Oasis” transforms Kodak into a pedestrian park, while the “Light Oasis” in Philips brings marquee lighting and the possibility for film screenings to a previously dark and decaying space.
Kodak Passage is a linear space flanked by a U-shape building that is empty as many of the surrounding shops surrounding are either empty or have low street traffic. It is a linear passage that connects Adly Street to Abdel Khaleq Tharwat Street. The indoor spaces flanking Kodak offer an opportunity for pilot art and cultural programs that may potentially spill over the passage integrating all premises and engaging these programs with a wider public. | http://www.dedi.org.eg/blog/cairo-downtown-passages-kodak-passage/ |
Currently, different debates about very interesting issues, including whether the development of countries, nations, cultures is a linear process, whether all countries in their development are at one and the same stage, whether the path to economic prosperity and psychological well-being are similar for all that all countries, do not cease in a wide interdisciplinary discourse. The range of opinions is very large: starting from the recognition of the universality of stages of social development and ending with its rejection in favor of cultural diversity paths to achieve economic well-being and happiness. It is a truth that nowadays the culture is more often treated by researchers as an important variable, while practicing psychologists, psychotherapists and even professionals involved in advising large organizations are well aware of its impact on human behavior. Thus, the necessity of cross-cultural psychology is hard to overestimate in the frames of our reality. The thesis of the project is the following: cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of many variations of human behavior and mental processes because the science concerns both diversity and uniformity, dwelling on universal concepts in psychological development of all people.
In the past decade, we have witnessed an explosion of new researches, which include culture. Many of these studies continue to be cross-cultural comparison of a variety of psychological phenomena, noting similarities and differences in human behavior among different cultures. However, many recent studies go beyond simply documenting differences, starting the search of their causes. In general, the literature on these issues is critical to the acquisition of new knowledge and ideas, to the creation of new schemes and the development of new ways of thinking.
Indeed, psychology in both its forms (profiling and cross-cultural) is in a state of evolution of techniques, thinking and approaches. Ideas and knowledge are becoming more flexible and pluralistic, aiming to reach the variability of psychological truths that vary in time, space and context. Methods and concepts are increasingly borrowed from other disciplines, and researches, involving culture, become more complicated, complex and accurate than in the past. In such a way, these changes promise the further evolution of knowledge in psychology. Moreover, the notion cross-cultural psychology reflects the breadth, scope, depth, and understanding of the impact of culture on human behavior, and the close relationships between culture and psychology.
In continuation, it is necessary to define the term of “cross-cultural psychology” for the purpose to understand the topic better. Adler & Gielen (2001) said that “cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions. Its primary aims are to investigate (a) systematic relations between behavioral variables and ethnic-cultural variables, and (b) generalizations of psychological principles.” In other words, cross-cultural psychology is one of those disciplines that directly examine psychological phenomena in comparative cultural comparison. So, it is not surprising that cross-cultural psychology appeals to the study of social and psychological processes and phenomena in search of cultural universals and cultural specifics.
According to Shiraev & Levy (2010), the subject of cross-cultural psychology is the human behavior in the context of culture. This original definition accents our attention on two main aspects: the description of the diversity of human behavior in the world and attempt to link individual behavior to the cultural environment in which it is manifested. This definition is relatively simple and straightforward, while many other definitions reveal some new facets, and point to some difficulties: 1) cross-cultural research in psychology is an accurate, systematic comparison of psychological variables in different cultural settings, in order to determine the causes and circumstances of diverse behavior; 2) cross-cultural psychology focuses on the empirical study of representatives of various cultural groups with different experiences, which leads to predictable and significant differences in behavior. In most of these studies the groups speak different languages aˆ‹aˆ‹and belong to different political systems; 3) the aim of cross-cultural psychology, above all, is a comparative study of how culture and psyche are complementary; 4) cross-cultural psychology is the study of culture in the spiritual life of the people.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that in the previously mentioned set of definitions, a little attention is paid to some other aspects. For example, cross-cultural psychology concerns not only diversity, but also uniformity, answering the question about concepts which can be general or universal in psychological development for all people. In addition, there are other kinds of contextual changes (which are not necessarily included in the concept of culture), which are also considered a part of the cross-cultural approach. These changes include biological variables such as diet, genetic heredity and hormonal processes, which may differ from culture to culture, and also environmental variables based on the assumption that the population of people are in the process of adaptation to the environment, including factors such as economic activities (hunting, gathering, agriculture, etc.) and population density.
Finally, we are able to offer a general definition of cross-cultural psychology, which is used in this work: N?ross-cultural psychology is the science of the similarities and differences in individual psychological functioning in various cultural and ethnic, the science of cultural groups, the relationship between the psychological and socio-cultural, environmental and biological variables, as well as possible changes in these variables.
Being more detailed and exploring cross-cultural psychology from another perspective, we can note that the subject of cross-cultural psychology (in the frames of etic approach) is the study of the similarities and differences in psychological variables in different cultures and ethnic communities. Adler & Gielen (2001) said that “the etic approach aims to make valid cros-scultural comparisons and is characterized by the discovery of true universals in different cultures”. Although in this case are used the “objective” methods (psychological tests, standardized interviews, content analysis of the content of cultural products – myths, fairy tales, newspaper reports), which are considered to be free from the influence of culture; but even in this case, researchers are faced to great difficulties when they are trying to avoid gross human error. Of course, many cultural anthropologists have an extremely negative attitude to comparative cultural studies, arguing that it is impossible to find adequate data for comparison, as each culture is a closed and unique world. But even psychologists themselves are often not satisfied with the already conducted comparative cultural studies.
Observing the frames of cross-cultural psychology, we see that cross-cultural researches are conducted within different branches of psychology. For instance, general psychology studies the characteristics of perception, memory, thinking; industrial psychology explores the problems of the organization of labor and management, developmental psychology is interested in child-rearing practices in different nations. Moreover, social psychology occupies a special place in the range of the above mentioned sciences because comparison is made not only on the base of human behavior, which defines people’s inclusion in the ethnic communities, but also on the psychological characteristics of these very communities.
The most obvious of the challenges facing the cross-cultural psychology is a necessity to check the universality of existing psychological theories. This task was given the name of “transfer and validation,” as researchers seek the ways to move their hypothesis on all new ethnic groups to ensure that they are supported in many (and preferably all) cultural contexts. It is assumed that only solving this problem, the science can come to the ultimate goal – to try to collect and integrate the results, and compile them into a truly universal psychology.
In addition, basing on the definition of the term of “cross-cultural psychology”, it is possible to mention that increasingly, psychologists from different countries have set the task of cross-cultural study of socially significant events and processes, such as modernization, social change, the dynamics of values, social capital, corruption, innovation, etc., to understand the universal laws of development of human societies and cultural characteristics of the development. Matsumoto & van de Vijver (2010) stated that in the formulation and solution of these problems, science is in positions of universalism when the speech is going about the study of the psychological processes and phenomena, assuming that the basic psychological processes are common to all Homo sapiens, but culture affects their development and expression. This approach can detect not only the similarities (universals), but also the differences (cultural identity) in human behavior. Psychological measurements are based on a universal psychological phenomenon, but the evaluation criteria take into account the cultural values aˆ‹aˆ‹and the meaning of this phenomenon (e.g., there is a single questionnaire to measure values, but the same values aˆ‹aˆ‹have different priorities in different cultures). In this case, comparisons are made with caution, as the interpretation of the similarities and differences take into account alternatives to culturally constructed meaning of a phenomenon.
Thinking about the contribution that cross-cultural psychology can put in discussions about social change and social development, it is good to state that cross-cultural researchers can actively participate in at least three areas. According to Ratner (2006), these areas are: a) investigation of socially relevant processes; b) the development and implementation of culturally-sensitive programs and changes; c) cultural sensitive evaluation of existing programs of changes in order to make them more responsive to the needs of communities.
Perception, cognition and consciousness are the basis of many psychological constructs and cultural differences in these processes show different levels of psychology, subject to cultural influences. According to Matsumoto & van de Vijver (2010), as well as the consciousness reflects our subjective experience of the world, we think that it is normal to believe that all people have the same mind, however, various researches in this area showed that there can be great cultural and individual differences in the mind of any person.
There are doubts that these differences have important implications for cross-cultural interactions and the human environment. If people from different cultures may perceive things differently, like an optical illusion, it is not surprising that they perceive differently the rest of the world. When this information is combined with information relating to other basic psychological processes such as attribution, emotion and personality, then the culture has an amazing impact on human psychology. Likewise, cultural differences and similarities in the definitions and processes of mental development are to a large extent related to the situation in which people live.
In conclusion, we have explored cross-cultural psychology from different perspectives and proved that some of the psychological processes are the basis of other psychological constructs as much as atoms and molecules are the building blocks of matter. Moreover, making a research of the main components of cross-cultural psychology, we have also demonstrated the ways how culture affects the basic psychological processes of perception, cognition, consciousness, and intelligence, as well as talked about the possible impact of culture on the biological basis of behavior. And finally, cross-cultural understanding of the differences in definitions and processes of development of mental abilities should help to deepen appreciation and respect for cultures different from our own, and should help psychologists to find the similarities and differences among people. | https://savedelicious.com/the-cross-cultural-psychology-psychology-essay/ |
The Qazvin Plain, located in the Central Iranian Plateau, is ripe with historical artifacts, and significant investigations and excavations have been conducted there. Those efforts are notable for revealing pre-historic sites with cultural continuity, dispersed across the southern district of the Qazvin Plain and dating back from the Paleolithic Period to the Historic Period. However, some questions and ambiguities regarding the Iron Age sites still remained that led me to explore the region. The results of this investigation include identifying and introducing several sites from the Iron Age and the transitional era to the Historic Period, which shows that there are far more Iron Age sites in the region. Moreover, the identification of vast sites in that region suggests that centers of culture may have moved in the Iron Age. It also implies that as the Iron Age transitioned into the Historic Period and governments formed in the Central Iranian Plateau, the ways of communication between the settlements changed, and the communities expanded along a straight line and became of importance.
Keywords:Qazvin Plain; Bronze Age; Iron Age; Settlement Pattern
The southern district of the Qazvin Plain, constituting the Buin
Zahra County, stretches naturally along the Qazvin Plain, which is
located in the southern part of the Qazvin Province and covers an
area of 2323 sq. km, equal to 14.76% of the province area (Figure
1).
The first series of archeological investigations and excavations in Buin Zahra, specifically Sagz Abad, were conducted by Belgian and Japanese teams in the late 1960s . Later, in 1968, Amir Mahani, the then-president of the Qazvin Department of Culture and Art, made some archeological speculations regarding Teppe Sagz Abad . This was followed by a series of regular investigations by University of Tehran from August 1950 to 1979. After years of hiatus, the excavations were resumed and continue to this day (2016).
The periodical discovery of artifacts in the Sagz Abad site and the surrounding sites, along with the related reports, brought more attention to the region and led to further investigations and excavations in the nearby areas, which, in turn, distinguished different pre-historic ages there. Those efforts generated several reports and articles, including: An investigation of the Mohammad Abad site, by Houshang Sobouti ; Archeological investigations of the Qazvin Plain, by Hassan Fazeli Nashli ; Archeological investigations of Buin Zahra and Avaj ; An investigation of the ancient sites on the mountains of the southern Qazvin Plain (Buin Zahra) ; Gradual evolution of economic life in the Qazvin Plain ; Metallurgy technologies of the Bronze and Iron Ages in Teppe Sagz Abad ; Determining how metal objects were made in the Iron Age ; Radiocarbon dating of the Iron Age Sagz Abad, by Pollard and colleagues ; Excavations in and speculations about Teppe Sagz Abad, by Niknami [11, 12]. However, despite the existing reports, some ambiguities regarding the settlements in the Bronze and Iron Ages and also regional transformations still persisted, which called for a revisiting and further investigation of the region.
In order to do so, I took into consideration the existing findings and data, and revisited the region. In addition to revisiting the previously-discovered Iron Age sites, I identified several more. This investigation yielded interesting results.
The investigation in the southern district of the Qazvin Plain
(Buin Zahra County) identified 7 Iron Age sites, some of which were
previously introduced and some, including the sites Sakhs Abad
and Joharin, were identified and introduced for the first time .
The Teppe Sakhs Abad site contains earthenware dating back to the Iron Age phases 1-3 (1500-330 BC), suggesting that it was a residential area during the aforementioned time span. Also, the Yas Teppe Joharin site, constituting the northernmost of the Iron Age settlement sites in the region, exhibits earthenware from the Bronze, Iron, and Historic Ages, and seems to be the largest settlement site in Buin Zahra , which makes it immensely important for laying out the settlement pattern in the region. In the process, sites such as Doran Abad, which were previously explored only briefly, were investigated comprehensively. The cultural items and the surficial distribution of earthenware found in the region showed that, in line with Fazeli Nashli’s report, the Doran Abad site exhibits a cultural continuity from the Chalcolithic Period to the Iron Age (Figure 2).
In addition to the Iron Age sites, the investigations also revealed a number of Bronze Age sites, such as Doran Abad, Sagz Abad, and Yas Teppe, which refutes Talaee’s claim that there are no Bronze Age sites in the Qazvin Plain . The significance of this becomes clearer by a possible discovery of other Bronze Age sites in the region.
Considering that the existing theories about the region during the Bronze and Iron Ages are based on the findings and data generated by archeological investigations, excavations and tests performed in Sagz Abad, the discovery and introduction of the newfound sites, including such large sites as Yas Teppe Joharin, may bring about changes in theories about the state of the region during the Iron Age (Figures 3&4).
Figure 3 & 4: perspective and the aerial view of Yas Tepe site of the Bronze and Iron Ages and possibly the early historic age.
What my recent investigation revealed is that, generally, the
sites identified so far have gone through extensive leveling and
farming that was done in the region, and some of them are highly
likely to have even turned into agricultural lands through the
leveling. Therefore, if we consider the number of the identified
sites, it will become clear that because of its location and age as a
settlement, Teppe Sagz Abad was the central area, with clusters of
smaller sites encircling it at distances ranging from about 1-15 km.
Nevertheless, taking into account the competition theory, the fact
that the central sites may have moved, and also biological changes,
it is possible that the central district moved in different periods, and
it seems that a tendency to settle in regions further north appeared
in the transitional period from the Iron Age phase 3 to the Historic
Period.
The identification and introduction of Yas Teppe, a larger site that is located further north, showed a cultural continuity from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age and into the Historic Period. It also revealed that while the Sagz Abad and Doran Abad sites became less populated and eventually unpopulated in the Historic Period, the great Yas Teppe Joharin site remained a residential area. This is important for exploring the pattern of the Historic Period settlements in the Central Iranian Plateau (550 BC-652 AD).
As another conclusion that can be drawn from the investigations,
it seems that in the late Iron Age and the early Historic Period,
the residents of the southern district of the Qazvin Plain became
interested in living in the sites further north. According to the
observations, most of these sites, such as Sagz Abad, became less
populated or even abandoned from the late Iron Age to the early
Historic Period. Instead, the Yas Teppe site, a vast area located north
of the aforementioned areas, shows evidence of cultural continuity
in the Historic Period.
Identifying sites such as Sakhs Abad and, especially, Yas Teppe Joharin allow us to better explore the migration of nomadic peoples. The changes and innovations in earthenware, architecture, population composition as well as diet during the Iron Age are among the factors considered to have led a group of archeologists to raise the possibility that outsiders may have entered the region in the 2nd millennium BC, which is in contrast to the cultural continuation view held by another group. I personally agree with the former theory, and believe that since the newfound site Yas Teppe Joharin shows evidence of cultural continuity from the Bronze Age to the Historic Period, it can be considered as a rare settlement site in the Central Iranian Plateau that can shed light on the state of the region in the Iron Age and how its residents came into contact with itinerant newcomers.
Another finding of my investigation was that near the Yas Teppe
site, which is located north of the other Iron Age sites, there are
sites dating back to the Iranian Historic Period—the immediate
stage after the Iron Age—lined up from east to west. Previously
registered and reported by the Qazvin Province Department of
Cultural Heritage, these sites are considered to be important. The
importance of the east-west route, which passes by the Yas Teppe
settlement site, in the Historic period is suggested by the culturalhistorical
sites that have similar linguistic names and are lined on
both sides of that route. These sites include: Teppe Spervarin; the
city of Ardagh; the hills of Valazjerd; Brick Minaret in Khorramabad;
the villages Dastjerdak, Bazamjerd, and Kachaleh Gerd; the Historic-
Period hills of Nosratabad, the Historic-Period site of Hoseynabad,
Abyek; and the large site of Hezar Jolfa. The modern city of Qazvin,
which survives from the Historic Period, is located 20 km north of
the east-west route, and was built there because of the location’s
strategic advantage.
Khorramabad’s Brick Minaret serves as the marker of the eastwest route and leads to the great hill of Valazjerd. “Balashgerds,” also known as “valazjerds,” were a series of towns that could be used as settlements on main routes by governments to assert authority, control resources, maintain relative stability, and expand trade . The Iron-Age/Historic-Period great hill of Yas Teppe is next on the east-west route, less than 3 km away from Valazjerd to the east.
According to Diakonoff, Assyrian texts describe the Qazvin Plain, then a part of the Lesser Media, as “the land of the Rudaks.” The Plain also constituted a part of the Median province of Nishesha, which, Diakonoff notes, was located just outside of Qazvin. Studying Assyrian inscriptions, he also mentions different cities from the Median period, located in the Qazvin Plain, some of which may be identified.
Thus, considering what was discussed about the linear settlement pattern from the early Historic Period, it seems that the Sagz Abad site, which by then had gone through a transitional period from feudalism, had to not only survive environmental conditions, but also play a role to prove its presence and worth. In that period, strategic advantage in trade as well as war, communication, assisting the central government, and, in turn, receiving financial and military support from the central government played an influential role . It goes without saying that those cities and settlements which not only survived environmental changes, but also were able to communicate efficiently—to both fulfill their own needs and aid the central government—raised in importance; cities that were less involved in communications became less important. Looking at Yas Teppe Joharin, it appears that settlements dispersed and expanded in regions further north, in proportion to environmental conditions and their capacity to fulfill their needs and communicate; linearly arranged, they grew to become new cities.
As there were some ambiguities regarding the state of the
southern district of the Qazvin Plain during the Bronze and Iron
Ages, I conducted an investigation, which yielded intriguing results.
In the process of this investigation, a number of not-previouslyidentified Iron Age sites, such as Teppe Doran Abad, Teppe Sakhs Abad, and Yas Teppe Joharin, were introduced, which proved very helpful in clarifying the ambiguities and also laying out the settlement pattern in the region. However, the issue of extensive farming and leveling of the sites as well as deposition should also be taken into account.
Studying the transitional period from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age found some kind of cultural continuity in the sites Ghara Teppe Sagz Abad, Teppe Doran Abad, and especially the 14-hectare (~34.6-acre) Yas Teppe Joharin.
The settlement pattern seen in the identified sites shows that the sites dispersed in clusters in the Iron Age, while the central point of this pattern possibly moved between the sites Doran Abad, Sagz Abad, and Yas Teppe during that same period. In the late Iron Age, when the great civilizations of the Historic Period were soon to emerge, the residents of that region left those sites for regions further north and settled in a linear pattern.
Editorial Manager:
Email:
archaeology@lupinepublishers.com
archaeology@lupinejournals.org
Bio chemistryUniversity of Texas Medical Branch, USA
Department of Criminal JusticeLiberty University, USA
Department of PsychiatryUniversity of Kentucky, USA
Department of MedicineGally International Biomedical Research & Consulting LLC, USA
Department of Urbanisation and AgriculturalMontreal university, USA
Oral & Maxillofacial PathologyNew York University, USA
Gastroenterology and HepatologyUniversity of Alabama, UK
Department of MedicineUniversities of Bradford, UK
OncologyCirculogene Theranostics, England
Radiation ChemistryNational University of Mexico, USA
Analytical ChemistryWentworth Institute of Technology, USA
Minimally Invasive SurgeryMercer University school of Medicine, USA
Pediatric DentistryUniversity of Athens , Greece
The annual scholar awards from Lupine Publishers honor a selected number Read More...
We know the financial complexity of Individual read more...
The annual scholar awards from Lupine Publishers honor a selected number read more... | https://lupinepublishers.com/anthropological-and-archaeological-sciences/fulltext/identifying-the-newfound-sites-in-the-southern-district-of-the-qazvin-plain-and-its-implications.ID.000146.php |
Her research focuses on the relationship between language and thought in the early years of life. Carpendale, From Joint Activity to Joint Attention: A Relational Approach to Social Development in Infancy. Sie benötigen eine und die Software kostenlos. Written by highly respected theorists in psychology and philosophy, the chapters in this book explicate and address fundamental epistemological issues involved in the problem of the relationship between the individual and the collective. Many chapters also highlight similarities and differences between these alternative frameworks and Piaget's theory, and thus correct the misperception that Piaget had nothing to say about the social dimension of development.
He is on the board of directors of the Jean Piaget Society. Turiel, Individuals and Social Change. Müller, Social Interaction and the Development of Rationality and Morality: An Introduction. Buying eBooks from abroad For tax law reasons we can sell eBooks just within Germany and Switzerland. Wyman, Cultural Learning and Cultural Creation.
Many chapters also highlight similarities and differences between these alternative frameworks and Piaget's theory, and thus correct the misperception that Piaget had nothing to say about the social dimension of development. Her research focuses on the relationship between language and thought in the early years of life. Different theoretical viewpoints are presented on this relationship, as well as between the nature of rationality and morality, relativism and universalism, and enculturation and internalization. The website considers themselves a collection of peer community networks. Although Piaget's theory is presented and evaluated by some of the chapters in this collection, the authors remain critical and do not shy away from revising or extending Piaget's theory whenever it is deemed necessary. Boom, Individualism and Collectivism: A Dynamic Systems Interpretation of Piaget's Interactionism. He is on the board of directors of the Jean Piaget Society.
Racine, Wittgenstein's Internalistic Logic and Children's Theories of Mind. The current President of the Jean Piaget Society, Dr. Development psychology focuses on how social interaction influences the development of knowledge. . The Ontological and Developmental Emergence of the Person.
Parental Scaffolding and the Development of Executive Function 17 Maximilian B. Dunn, Relationships and Children's Discovery of Mind. The book benefits social scientists interested in fundamental epistemological issues, especially as these concern the relationship between the individual and the collective, with implications for the conceptualization of morality and rationality. His work focuses on social and moral development. The volume is aimed at a broad range of child and adolescent developmental researchers and practitioners interested in how parental scaffolding, family background, as well as educational and cultural processes are linked to the development of children's self-control and social understanding.
Being able to physically engage with the merchandise, to hold a title in your hands and gauge whether you want to see it, is another lost experience. Culture, Executive Function, and Social Understanding 69 Charlie Lewis, Masuo Koyasu, Seungmi Oh, Ayako Ogawa, Benjamin Short, Zhao Huang This chapter examines differences in the links between executive function and social understanding in four cultures in order to question current assumptions about their relationship. The Society was named in honor of the Swiss developmentalist, Jean Piaget, who made major theoretical and empirical contributions to our understanding of the origins and evolution of knowledge. His research focuses on the development of problem-solving and social understanding in infants and preschoolers. Meyer, In the Beginning is Relation and Then What? About the Jean Piaget Society The Jean Piaget Society, established in 1970, has an international, interdisciplinary membership of scholars, teachers and researchers interested in exploring the nature of the developmental construction of human knowledge. The book benefits social scientists interested in fundamental epistemological issues, especially as these concern the relationship between the individual and the collective, with implications for the conceptualization of morality and rationality. What are the processes and contexts within which these abilities develop? Mit dem amazon-Kindle ist es aber nicht kompatibel.
Although Piaget's theory is presented and evaluated by some of the chapters in this collection, the authors remain critical and do not shy away from revising or extending Piaget's theory whenever it is deemed necessary. Introduction: Links Between Social Interaction and Executive Function 1 Charlie Lewis, Jeremy I. Bickhard, The Social Ontology of Persons. Boom, Individualism and Collectivism: A Dynamic Systems Interpretation of Piaget's Interactionism. Psaltis, The Constructive Role of Asymmetry in Social Interaction.
In this new volume, leading researchers provide state-of-the-art perspectives on how social interaction influences the development of knowledge. Although Piaget's theory is presented and evaluated by some of the chapters in this collection, the authors remain critical and do not shy away from revising or extending Piaget's theory whenever it is deemed necessary. New Directions in Evaluating Social Problem Solving in Childhood: Early Precursors and Links to Adolescent Social Competence 51 Susan H. Hallpike, The Anthropology of Moral Development. Nancy Budwig is Associate Provost, Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, and Professor of Psychology at Clark University. Although Piaget's theory is presented and evaluated by some of the chapters in this collection, the authors remain critical and do not shy away from revising or extending Piaget's theory whenever it is deemed necessary. The book is intended for philosophers, primatologists, anthropologists, biologists, sociologists, and developmental and educational psychologists interested in social development, social cognition, and developmental psychopathology. | http://blueshirtsunited.com/social-interaction-and-the-development-of-knowledge-carpendale-jeremy-i-m-mller-ulrich.html |
The surge of contemporary interest in Vygotsky's contribution to child psychology has focused largely on his developmental method and his claim that higher psychological functions in the individual emerge out of social processes, that is, his notion of the "zone of proximal development." Insufficient attention has been given to his claim that human social and psychological processes are shaped by cultural tools or mediational means. This book is one of the most important documents for understanding this claim.
Making a timely appearance, this volume speaks directly to the present crisis in education and the nature/nurture debate in psychology. It provides a greater understanding of an interdisciplinarian approach to the education of normal and exceptional children, the role of literacy in psychological development, the historical and cultural evolution of behavior, and other important issues in cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and cultural and social anthropology.
Table of Contents
Contents: J.V. Wertsch, Foreword. Preface. J.E. Knox, Translator's Introduction. Authors' Introduction. Part I:Behavior of the Anthropoid Apes. Three Stages in the Development of Behavior. Kohler's Experiments. The Law of Structure and Ape Behavior. Intellect and the Natural Experience of Apes. Intellect as the Third Stage in the Development of Behavior. Use of the Tool as a Psychological Prerequisite for Labor. Part II:Primitive and His Behavior. Three Lines of Psychological Behavior. Three Theories of Cultural Historical Development. Primitive Man as a Biological Type. Memory in Primitive Man. Thinking in Connection with the Development of Language in Primitive Society. Numeric Operations and Primitive Man. Primitive Behavior. Part III:The Child and Its Behavior. Approaches to the Psychology of an Adult. Adult and Child: The Principle of Metamorphosis. The Infant and His World. Primitive Perception. Primitive Thinking. Steps to Culture. Acquisition of Tools. Cultural Development of Special Functions: Memory. Cultural Development of Special Functions: Attention. Cultural Development of Special Functions: Abstraction. Cultural Development of Special Functions: Speech and Thinking. The Stage of Cultural Development of a Child. Defectology and Psychology. Retardation and Giftedness. Evaluation of Giftedness and the Problems of Cultural Development.
View More
Reviews
"...an exemplary case of a scholarly translation-cum-commentary. The translators not only painstakingly rendered all original references, but also added valuable notes orienting the reader in the terms used by Vygotsky and Luria and illuminating the sources of their theoretical inspiration and empirical data. The match of translators is perfect -- Golod is a Russian psychologist fluent in English, and Knox is an American linguist fluent in Russian....of great interest to everyone concerned with the foundations of cultural-historical psychology and of great help to future students of Vygotsky's and Luria's ideas."
—Human Development
"Any library serving undergraduate and graduate students should have this volume of previously untranslated essays by these Soviet psychologists, which will interest developmental psychologists, anthropologists, educators, neurologists, and linguists."
—CHOICE
"...this is probably the best single source for psychologists seeking an English language introduction to Vygotsky's views....it is by far the most systematic and coherent presentation of cultural-historical theory yet to appear in English....Anyone with an interest in psychology as it was during the late 1920s or in Vygotsky's own intellectual development should read this book."
—Contemporary Psychology
"This book will be of great interest to everyone concerned with the foundations of cultural-historical psychology and particulary helpful to future students of the Vygotsky-Luria theory."
—Theory & Psychology
"It contains a wealth of ideas...stimulates definitely theorizing about development....represents an achievement that many present-day publications will not reach."
—Ethology
"To his contemporaries, Vygotsky was 'a visitor from the future'--a prophetic assessment, for only now are his early works finally being translated and republished, and his seminal importance to a dozen different disciplines appreciated. Though written more than sixty years ago, this book is strangely, even intensely, pertinent today--to anthropologists, cultural psychologists, educational psychologists and teachers, cognitive psychologists, neuropsychologists, and psychoanalysts and neurobiologists, who may find here some of the most cogent evidence ever assembled for how our minds develop in individual ways.
There is no scholar more versed in the original Vygotsky-Luria work, or its contemporary resonances, than Dr. Jane Knox, who now, with the late Dr. Victor Golod, has provided us with a brilliant and scholarly translation of the [book], which she has enriched with a richly detailed introduction and fascinating footnotes. The Studies speak to us in a peculiarly contemporary and personal voice--we seem to hear Vygotsky and Luria in every sentence--and this is beautifully conveyed in the present translation."
"...although some of the specifics of the claims of Vygotsky and Luria about culture may be outdated, this does not call into question the basic genetic approach that they were seeking to outline. We still have not come to grips with how one accounts for the complex structural properties of cultures and languages on the one hand and genetic transitions on the other....a critical text for understanding these and a host of other issues. By making such a work by two of the 20th century's greatest psychologists available to readers of English, the translators and editors have made a major contribution.
Furthermore, it should be noted that this is no ordinary translation. The knowledge of languages and the material that Golod and Knox brought to bear in completing their work make this book one of the best translations we have of Vygotsky's or Luria's writings. This is more than an accurate translation, it is an elegant one that retains much of the feel of the authors' own styles. Furthermore, thanks to their energetic and ingenious bibliographic sleuthing, Golod and Knox have provided us with insights into the sources of the authors' ideas that come to light here for the first time....This undertaking has resulted in an accurate, complete, and elegant translation of a very important work in psychology and its related fields."
—From the Foreword by James V. Wertsch, | https://www.routledge.com/Studies-on-the-History-of-Behavior-Ape-Primitive-and-Child/Vygotsky-Luria-Knox-Golod-Golod-Knox/p/book/9781138983311 |
The cosmologists from the University of Case Western Reserve in the USA and Catania University in Italy have created an accurate model of the evolution of the Universe with the help of a supercomputer. New simulations confirmed that the expansion of space with acceleration is not the error of the old models, but occurs under the influence of dark energy.
According to the researchers, the study helps to resolve a dispute about the accuracy of the simplified modeling. The General theory of relativity explains gravity as the curvature of space-time. According to the equations, gravity may be sufficient to close the Universe, in other words, compress it. In another case, the universe will expand forever.
However, the solution to the Einstein equations at the scale of the entire universe would not be possible without simplifications. For example, scientists previously assumed that the matter is uniformly distributed in the whole space, and not concentrated in the galaxies. Now cosmologists model the evolution of the Universe, starting with small areas in which under the action of gravity formed dense structures. Thus on a large scale the universe remains homogeneous.
Some scientists believe that such assumptions could lead to erroneous hypotheses, for example that the universe is expanding with acceleration under the action of dark energy.
In the new study, cosmologists decided to make assumptions about the uniformity of the Universe to a minimum. Scientists using supercomputers have modeled the expansion of the early Universe, when matter began to concentrate in the clusters, deforming the space around them and leaving a sparse region.
Through the simulation we found out that the region with high density do not influence significantly on the expansion of the Universe, and this effect can be neglected in future calculations. Scientists believe that the new method will not change the established views on the evolution of the cosmos. However, the work will help to shed light on the early stages of the Big Bang and the spatial distribution of elementary particles such as neutrinos.
Dark energy is a hypothetical energy that is introduced in the mathematical model of the Universe for the sake of explanation of the observed expansion with acceleration. | https://earth-chronicles.com/space/the-existence-of-dark-energy.html |
This preview shows pages 1-3. to view the full 50 pages of the document.
Psychological Science – Chapter 1: Introducing Psychological Science
1.1 The Science of Psychology
•Psychology is the scientific study of behavior, thought, and experience.
oPsychology is a vast discipline. Better yet, a collection of disciplines composed of many overlapping fields of study.
oTwo unifying qualities allow us to group all these fields into the category of psychological science.
First, psychology involves the study of behavior. This can include perceptions, thoughts, and emotions.
Second, psychologists employ the scientific method in their work.
•The scientific method is a way of learning about the world through collecting observations, proposing explanations for the
observations, developing theories to explain them, and using the theories to make predictions.
oWhether a field of study is a science, or a specific type of research is scientific, is based not on the subject but on the
use of the scientific method.
oIt involves a dynamic interaction between hypothesis testing and the construction of theories.
oTheory > Hypothesis > Test hypothesis > Confirm or reject hypothesis
•A hypothesis (plural: hypotheses) is a testable prediction about processes that can be observed and measured.
oA testable hypothesis is one that can be confirmed or rejected (you do not prove a hypothesis), and a scientific
hypothesis must be testable.
•Pseudoscience refers to ideas that are present as science but do not actually utilize basic principles of scientific thinking or
procedure.
oAstrology is a pseudoscience because unlike science, there is no scientific basis around it. Scientists are eager to
test hypotheses whereas astrologists would rather you just take their word for it.
•A theory is an explanation for a broad range of observations that also generates new hypotheses and integrates numerous
findings into a coherent whole.
oHypotheses are a major component of scientific theories.
oTheories are built from hypotheses that are repeatedly tested and confirmed; in turn, good theories eventually
become accepted explanations of behavior or other natural phenomena.
oSimilar to hypotheses, an essential quality of scientific theories is that they can be proved false with new evidence. In
fact, any scientific theory must be falsifiable. The process helps to ensure that science is self-correcting – bad ideas
typically do not last long in the sciences.
oTheories are not the same thing as opinions or beliefs.
oAll theories are not equally plausible. There are good theories, and there are not-so-good theories.
oA measure of a good theory is not the number of people who believe it to be true. For example, 39% of Americans
believe in the theory of evolution by natural selection, despite the fact that it is the most plausible, rigorously tested
theory of biological change and diversity.
•The biopsychosocial model is a means of explaining behavior as a product of biological, psychological, and sociocultural
factors.
oBiological influences on our behavior involve brain structures, chemicals, hormones, and drug effects. Your family,
peers, and immediate social situation also determine how you think, feel, and behave. Culture and gender can also
influence human behavior.
oBehavior can be fully explained only if multiple perspectives are incorporated.
•Scientific literacy is the ability to understand, analyze, and apply scientific information.
oScientific literacy has several key components, starting with the ability to learn new information.
oBeing scientifically literate is to be able to read and interpret new terminology, or know where to go to find out more.
Individuals should also be able to use their thinking skills to evaluate information and claims.
•Critical thinking involves exercising curiosity and skepticism when evaluating the claims of others, and with our own
assumptions and beliefs.
oFor psychologists, critical thinking means that we apply scientific methods carefully, examine our assumptions and
biases, and tolerate ambiguity when the evidence is inconclusive.
oCuriosity is essential to psychology because many of us think about the causes of behavior only when it affects us
negatively or when it strikes us as unusual. As psychologists, we are always curious and ask questions about all
kinds of behaviors – not just the unusual or problematic. Because we are curious, psychological theories should
provide meaningful explanations for all behaviors.
oSkepticism and curiosity is viewed as a means of raising important questions; both lead us to search for and evaluate
new evidence.
1
Only pages 1-3 are available for preview. Some parts have been intentionally blurred.
oBe curious. Examine the nature and source of the evidence; not all research is of equal quality. Examine assumptions
and biases. Avoid overly emotional thinking. Tolerate ambiguity. Consider alternative viewpoints and alternative
interpretations of the evidence.
1.2 How Psychology Became a Science
•Psychology’s Philosophical and Scientific Origins
oScience is a philosophy of knowledge that stems from two fundamental beliefs: empiricism and determinism.
oEmpiricism is a philosophical tenet that knowledge comes through experience.
Knowledge about the world is based on careful observation, not common sense or speculation. Whatever
we see or measure should be observable by anyone else who follows the same methods.
oDeterminism is the belief that all events are governed by lawful, cause-and-effect relationships.
The philosophical debate regarding whether or not we have control over our own actions is often referred to
as free will versus determinism.
Psychologists recognize that behavior is determined by both internal and external influences.
oZeitgeist refers to a general set of beliefs of a particular culture at a specific time in history.
It can be used to understand why some ideas take off immediately, whereas other perfectly good ideas may
go unnoticed for years.
oMaterialism is the belief that humans, and other living beings, are composed exclusively of physical matter.
Accepting this idea would mean that we are nothing more than complex machines that lack a self-conscious,
self-controlling soul. The opposing belief, dualism, is the belief that there are properties of humans that are
not material (a mind or soul separate from the body).
•Psychophysics is the study of the relationship between the physical world and the mental representation of that world.
oAn example of psychophysical research is one done by Gustav Fechner. He tested how people detect changes in
physical stimuli. In a situation where a 5 lb. weight would be placed in one hand, and a 1 lb. weight would be placed
in the other, and if ¼ lb. weights were added to each, he wondered which one would be perceived as heavier. He
found that it felt heavier when the additional weight was added to the existing 1 lb. versus the 5 lb.
•Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection
oBased on his observations that the genetically inherited traits that contribute to survival and reproductive success are
more likely to flourish within the breeding population.
oThis theory explains why there is such a diversity of life on Earth.
oDarwin found that emotional expressions and other behaviors were influenced by natural selection as well.
oArtificial selection is when humans selectively breed animals to behave in certain ways.
•Clinical psychology is the field of psychology that concentrates on the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
oAn interesting area of medical study was brain localization, the idea that certain parts of the brain control specific
mental abilities and personality characteristics.
oBroca’s area is the area of the brain where speech production is localized.
oWernicke’s area is the area of the brain where, when damaged, patients could speak in sentences that sounded
normal, but with unusual or made-up words.
oPsychosomatic medicine is used to refer to “cures” that work due to belief in the treatment. Franz Mesmer later
named the phenomenon hypnosis.
•Psychoanalysis is a psychological approach that attempts to explain how behavior and personality are influenced by
unconscious processes.
oSigmund Freud used hypnosis to treat his own patients and was particularly interested in how hypnosis seemed to
have cured several patients of hysterical paralysis – a condition in which an individual loses feeling and control in a
specific body part, despite the lack of any known neurological damage or disease. This led him to develop his famous
theory and technique, called psychoanalysis.
oFreud acknowledged that conscious experience includes perceptions, thoughts, a sense of self, and the sense that
we are in control of ourselves. He also believed in an unconscious mind that urges to fulfill self-serving sexual and
2
Only pages 1-3 are available for preview. Some parts have been intentionally blurred.
aggressive impulses. He believed that when a person is hypnotized, the psychoanalyst could have more direct
access into the individual’s unconscious mind.
oThe medical model is an approach involving the use of medical ideas to treat disorders of emotions, thought, and
behavior.
•Sir Francis Galton believed that heredity (genetics) explained psychological differences among people. It fit his beliefs about
social class. For example, he noticed that great achievement tended to run in families.
oTo support his beliefs, Galton developed ways of measuring what he called eminence, a combination of ability,
morality, and achievement.
oHe took on the question of nature and nurture relationships, the inquiry into how heredity (nature) and environment
(nurture) influence behavior and mental processes.
oGalton pursued scientific justification for eugenics, which literally means “good genes,” and promoted the belief that
only intelligent, talented individuals should have children.
oBiological psychology seeks to explain the underlying genetic, physiological, and brain basis for behavior.
•The Beginnings of Contemporary Psychology
oWilhelm Wundt’s primary research method was introspection, meaning, “to look within.” It required a trained volunteer
to experience a stimulus and then report each individual sensation he or she could identify through introspection. He
developed reaction time methods as a way of measuring mental effort. Wundt found that mental activity is not
instantaneous and requires a small amount of effort measured by the amount of time it takes to react.
•Structuralism was an attempt to analyze conscious experience by breaking it down into basic elements, and to understand
how these elements work together.
oEdward Titchener believed that mental experiences were made up of a limited number of sensations, which were
analogous to elements in physics and chemistry. According to Titchener, different sensations can form and create
complex compounds, just like hydrogen and water can combine to form water – H2O.
•Functionalism is the study of the purpose and function of behavior and conscious experience.
oThe incorporation of Darwin’s ideas can be found today in the modern field of evolutionary psychology, an approach
that interprets and explains human behavior in terms of forces acting upon our distant ancestors. According to this
approach, the physical and social environment that our ancestors encountered has shaped our brains and behaviors.
•Behaviorism is an approach that dominated the first half of the 20th century of American psychology and had a singular focus
on studying only observable behavior, with little to no reference to mental events or instincts as possible influences on
behavior.
oThe credit for discovering classical conditioning went to Ivan Pavlov who showed dogs could learn to salivate to a
tone if the tone has a history of sounding just prior to the delivery of food.
oCredit for the rise of behaviorism in the United States went to John B. Watson.
oB.F. Skinner was a behaviorist who had considerable influence over American psychology for several decades, and
believed that psychology was the study of behavior and not of the unobservable mind.
•Humanistic psychology focuses on the unique aspects of each individual human, each person’s freedom to act, his or her
rational thought, and the belief that humans are fundamentally different from other animals.
oPsychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow believed that humans strive to develop a sense of self and are
motivated to personally grow and fulfill their potential.
•The Cognitive Revolution
oHermann Ebbinghaus studied data on remembering and forgetting. The results of his studies produced “forgetting
curves,” which showed that most of what a person learns will be forgotten rapidly, but then forgetting slows to a crawl.
The forgetting curve is now a staple of modern psychology.
oFrederick Bartlett illustrated that memory is an interpretive process that involves cultural knowledge. He
demonstrated that, in a movie for example, we are more likely to remember the general storyline than details such as
exact words in the script or what the characters were wearing. Our cultural knowledge shapes what we find important
enough to remember.
oGestalt psychology is an approach emphasizing that psychologists need to focus on the whole of perception and
experience, rather than its parts. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
oCognitive psychology is a modern psychological perspective that focuses on processes such as memory, thinking,
and language.
oNorman Triplett investigated how other people influence individual behavior and observed that cyclists ride faster in
the presence of other people than when riding alone.
oThe field of social and personality psychology is the study of the influence of other people on our behavior along with
what makes each individual unique. | https://oneclass.com/study-guides/ca/utsc/psy/psya-01h3/297372-psya01-chapters-1-8-exam-mtuner-notes.en.html |
In the last issue of this magazine, it was pointed out by Todd Kliendienst (Organiser of the Karl Popper Philosophy Meetup Group, Brisbane), in a letter to the editor; that, while he enjoyed what I had written about Karl Popper, he felt obliged to point out that I was in error on a point of detail. I wrote, towards the end of the essay on Popper:
Popper did not venture into the arena of biology, but a similar story holds in that regard, of course. The bold conjecture by Charles Darwin that natural selection had driven a process of evolution and that the observable changes in the biological world were due to such selection pressures, opened up the biosphere and the human past to inquiry in a way that no creation myth had ever done.
The 20th century saw developments and refinements of this theory, with the integration of genetics into the picture and then the realization, only thirty years or so ago, that evolution had proceeded not through a gradual, progressive process, but via many changes and catastrophes of a quite haphazard nature – punctuated equilibrium. Little by little, our understanding had to be adjusted in the light of the refutation of assumptions or poor inferences embedded in the original conjecture.
All this was fine, Todd pointed out, except that Popper had ventured into the philosophy of biology.
This was freshly on my mind late last year when I got hold of the November/December issue of American Scientist, which features a story about new discoveries in palaeoanthropology that upend the conventional wisdom about the evolution of the human pelvis. What a happy coincidence, I thought, that on article in a serious magazine about conjectures and refutations in evolutionary biology – and human evolution, in particular – should appear in print even as I was being corrected on the matter of Popper and biology!
The article in question is titled ‘An Updated Prehistory of the Human Pelvis.’ It is by Caroline VanSickle, a specialist on anatomical sex differences in hominins base on the fossil record. It is a made to order case study not only in evolutionary biology, but in Popperian critical rationalism. The larger context for the piece, as she wrote is ‘The mystery of how humans came to be the only species of their kind on the planet.’ The problem, as she also points out, is that trying to figure this out is ‘a lot like working on a never-ending jigsaw puzzle without a box-lid for guidance and with most of the puzzle pieces missing.’ How could any intelligent person, at this point of her piece, not want to read on?
Here is her summary of what, in fact, passes for the box-lid – the up to date conjecture of specialists about the course of human evolution:
Sometime between 7 million and 13 million years ago, our lineage diverged form that of Pan troglodytes, the chimpanzee…At the end of the nineteenth century, when Charles Darwin was writing about human evolution, many scholars thought the evolutionary path to humans was a straight line. This conception seemed reasonable at a time when we hadn’t yet found many types of hominin fossils…Today, however, we have a lot more fossils to fit into the hominin lineage and what we’ve found is that evolution rarely proceeds in a straight line…This situation means that whenever fossil evidence of a new species is discovered, it has the potential to change the entire ‘map’ of human evolution. Lately, the map has begun to look less like a direct route than the roadways of a complex city, complete with dead ends, detours, roundabouts and side roads, representing both the fossils we know and the hominin species we haven’t discovered yet.
Having sketched this lid box out for us, she then cuts to the chase. Her own field is the evolution of the human pelvis. This, she hastens to advise the naïve reader, ‘is an important part of our evolutionary story, because the pelvis of hominins differs dramatically from that of the chimpanzee – and possibly, there, from that of our last common ancestor. ’
The conventional wisdom for some considerable time has been that the shape of the pelvis changed to accommodate the bipedal gait and upright posture that our ancestors adopted from well over three million years ago. The Laetoli footprints, from Tanzania, show that there were fully upright and bipedal hominins not less than 3.6 million years ago. The chimpanzee birth canal is elongated and spacious, allowing their small-brained infants an easy passage. The human birth canal is smaller and the infant’s brain larger, which results in the painful and difficult birth process for our species. It has long been assumed that as upright posture made birth more complex, the pelvis adapted to the emerging challenge. It just never quite adapted sufficiently to save human females the pangs of childbirth.
New evidence now suggests that this conjecture is false. Popper, I feel sure, would be fascinated. Up until about 15 years ago, VanSickle tells us, the available fossil evidence suggested that pelvic evolution had moved in only one direction, with the pelvis adapting imperfectly but steadily to accommodate bipedalism and upright posture. But in those past fifteen years, ‘a terrific sequence of fossil finds has provided enough additional evidence to change the picture.’ Here is the Popperian deductive process at work:
It now appears that paleoanthropologists need to find a different explanation for hominin pelvis variation than birth adaptations, because the old model does not fit the new evidence.
The most astounding such new evidence surfaced only in 2015, in the Rising Star Cave outside Johannesburg, where more than 1,500 human fossils were discovered; an extraordinary, even unprecedented abundance of matter.
As VanSickle remarks:
To find more than 1,500 fossils of the same species, representing nearly every part of the skeleton, including 41 pelvic fragments – often from multiple individuals of different ages – was like winning the paleoanthropological lottery. But there was a catch: What these new fossils told us about hominin evolution was confusing…Suddenly, it appears that mixing primitive and modern pelvic traits was relatively common in the past.
The scale of the find and its radical implications reminds me of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in Egypt in the 1940s, with its trove of gnostic gospels and their implications, which threw open the field of New Testament scholarship. But the Rising Star Cave finds takes us back a whole lot further than anything in the Bible ever did! And its holdings confront us with a beautiful Popperian question. In VanSickle’s words: ‘If birth constraints do not explain the pelvic variation of the past, that must mean we don’t really understand why human pelvises look the way they do today. In the absence of any simple answer…paleoanthropologists have started to consider more complicated possibilities.’
There are now several hypotheses being considered, one of which is that human pelvis shape has been shaped by diet and that a carbohydrate heavy diet, after the invention of agriculture, has been the main cause of problems with the birth canal. This, at least, ought to be fairly readily testable. In any case, as VanSickle observes, testing this and other hypotheses ‘will call for developing a better understanding of what causes variation in the shape of the modern human pelvis’. She adds a salutary comment about the nature of inquiry:
It seems to me very likely that we scientists have spent so much time focused on figuring out how birth explains the evolution of the hominin pelvis (only to realize belatedly that it might not), that the real explanation may be something we haven’t thought of yet.
So it goes when inquiry is open and scientific. This plays directly into Popper’s argument for critical rationalism and freedom of discussion. We need to revitalize that argument right now, because there are far too many parties abroad in the world whose approach to matters of knowledge is dogmatic, sectarian, partisan and anti-liberal.
As Popper wrote in 1963, in Conjectures and Refutations (p. 352):
Truth is not manifest; and it is not easy to come by. The search for truth demands at least
- Imagination
- Trial and error
- The gradual discovery of our prejudices by way of a and b and of critical discussion
The Western rationalist tradition, which derives from the Greeks, is the tradition of critical discussion – of examining and testing propositions or theories by attempting to refute them. This critical rational method must not be mistaken for a method of proof, that is to say for a method of finally establishing truth; nor is it a method which always secures agreements. Its value lies, rather, in the fact that participants in a discussion will, to some extent, change their minds, and part as wiser men.
It is striking that he wrote ‘men’, in 1963; but we can be confident that this was a linguistic convention, not a prejudice on his part. We might add, moreover, that it was too sweeping to say that critical rationalism derived from ‘the Greeks’, as if it had been a racial or cultural trait. It was not. It was the brainchild of a small subset of Greek thinkers, who (like Anaxagoras and Socrates) were at times persecuted for their critical rationalism.
Such thinking is a human possibility. Variations in its occurrence and practice, like variations in the shape of the pelvis across evolutionary time, call for careful analysis and explanation, not glib assumptions. The statement that the ‘Western’ rationalist tradition has the quality of considering and testing hypotheses is less narrowly racial than the claim that ‘the Greeks’ hold pride of place, but it has the same limitation. The great majority of people in the Western world have never been any more scientific or devoted to critical rationalism than human beings elsewhere. Those things have always been the work of a sub-culture and they require constant nourishment, institutional embodiment and active exercise in order to survive. That is as true now as ever and if we are to bring a viable new global economic and ecological order to birth in the 21st century, we will need to work hard at getting the cultural birth canal into shape. Let’s go to it. | http://www.paulmonk.com.au/popper-pelvis-essay-conjectures-refutations/ |
EC456 Dynamical Systems, Chaos and Fractals
Course Name:
EC456 Dynamical Systems, Chaos and Fractals
Programme:
Category:
Credits (L-T-P):
Content:
Preliminaries on linear equations, eigen values and eigen vectors, solutions of linear ODEs. dynamics of linear and nonlinear systems, solutions, attractors, equilibrium point, limit cycles, stability. Linear systems: solutions, stability of autonomous systems, BIBO stability, relation to frequency domain analysis. Nonlinear systems: large-scale notions of stability (Lyapunov functions), linearization. Vector fields of nonlinear systems, limit cycles, Lorenz and Rossler equation, Chua’s circuit, discrete dynamical systems, logistic maps, two dimensional maps, bifurcations, flows, phase plane analysis. Introduction to fractals, Mandlebrot and Julia sets, iterated function systems, strange attractors, fractal dimension, stable and unstable manifolds, analysis of chaotic time series, multifractals Applications in various fields that include, Control theory, Signal processing, Digital image modeling, synthesis and compression, Chaos communication and Cryptography. Other applications in engineering, natural and social sciences, medicine, economics, ecology, bio and life sciences, and environmental sciences. | https://ece.nitk.ac.in/course/ec456-dynamical-systems-chaos-and-fractals |
Lorenz received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1938 and a master's degree in mathematics from Harvard in 1940. He worked as a weather forecaster for the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, leading him to pursue graduate studies in meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned both a master's and doctoral degree in meteorology from MIT in 1943 and 1948.
His doctoral dissertation, titled "A Method of Applying the Hydrodynamic and Thermodynamic Equations to Atmospheric Models" and performed under advisor James Murdoch Austin, described an application of fluid dynamical equations to the practical problem of predicting the motion of storms.
Lorenz spent the entirety of his scientific career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1948, he joined the MIT Department of Meteorology as a research scientist. In 1955, he became an assistant professor in the department and was promoted to professor in 1962. From 1977 to 1981, Lorenz served as head of the Department of Meteorology at MIT. In 1983, the MIT Department of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography merged with the Department of Geology to become the current MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, where Lorenz remained a professor before becoming an emeritus professor in 1987.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Lorenz worked with Victor Starr on the General Circulation Project at MIT to understand the role the weather system played in determining the energetics of the general circulation of the atmosphere. From this work, in 1967, Lorenz published a landmark paper, titled "The Nature and Theory of the General Circulation of the Atmosphere," on atmospheric circulation from an energetic perspective, which advanced the concept of available potential energy.
In the 1950s, Lorenz became interested in and started work on numerical weather prediction, which relied on computers to forecast weather by processing observational data on such things as temperature, pressure, and wind. This interest was sparked, in part, after a visit to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he met Jule Charney, then head of the IAS's Meteorological Research Group and a leading dynamical meteorologist at the time. (Charney would later join Lorenz at MIT in 1957 as a professor of meteorology.) In 1953, Lorenz took over leadership of a project at MIT that ran complex simulations of weather models that he used to evaluate statistical forecasting techniques. By the late 1950s, Lorenz was skeptical of the appropriateness of the linear statistical models in meteorology, as most atmospheric phenomena involved in weather forecasting are non-linear. It was during this time that his discovery of deterministic chaos came about.
In 1961, Lorenz was using a simple digital computer, a Royal McBee LGP-30, to simulate weather patterns by modeling 12 variables, representing things like temperature and wind speed. He wanted to see a sequence of data again, and to save time he started the simulation in the middle of its course. He did this by entering a printout of the data that corresponded to conditions in the middle of the original simulation. To his surprise, the weather that the machine began to predict was completely different from the previous calculation. The culprit: a rounded decimal number on the computer printout. The computer worked with 6-digit precision, but the printout rounded variables off to a 3-digit number, so a value like 0.506127 printed as 0.506. This difference is tiny, and the consensus at the time would have been that it should have no practical effect. However, Lorenz discovered that small changes in initial conditions produced large changes in long-term outcome.
Lorenz's discovery, which gave its name to Lorenz attractors, showed that even detailed atmospheric modelling cannot, in general, make precise long-term weather predictions. His work on the topic culminated in the publication of his 1963 paper "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" in Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences , and with it, the foundation of chaos theory. He states in that paper:
"Two states differing by imperceptible amounts may eventually evolve into two considerably different states ... If, then, there is any error whatever in observing the present state—and in any real system such errors seem inevitable—an acceptable prediction of an instantaneous state in the distant future may well be impossible....In view of the inevitable inaccuracy and incompleteness of weather observations, precise very-long-range forecasting would seem to be nonexistent."
His description of the butterfly effect, the idea that small changes can have large consequences, followed in 1969.
Lorenz's insights on deterministic chaos resonated widely starting in the 1970s and 80s, when it spurred new fields of study in virtually every branch of science, from biology to geology to physics. In meteorology, it led to the conclusion that it may be fundamentally impossible to predict weather beyond two or three weeks with a reasonable degree of accuracy. However, the recognition of chaos has led to improvements in weather forecasting, as now forecasters recognize that measurements are imperfect and thus run many simulations starting from slightly different conditions, called ensemble forecasting.
Of the seminal significance of Lorenz's work, Kerry Emanuel, a prominent meteorologist and climate scientist at MIT, has stated:
"By showing that certain deterministic systems have formal predictability limits, Ed put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics."
Late in his career, Lorenz began to be recognized with international accolades for the importance of his work on deterministic chaos. In 1983, along with colleague Henry Stommel, he was awarded the Crafoord Prize from the Swedish Academy of Sciences, considered to be nearly equal to a Nobel Prize. He was also awarded the Kyoto Prize for basic sciences in the field of earth and planetary sciences in 1991, the Buys Ballot Award in 2004, and the Tomassoni Award in 2008. In 2018, a short documentary was made about Lorenz's immense scientific legacy on everything from how we predict weather to our understanding of the universe.
Lorenz is remembered by colleagues and friends for his quiet demeanor, gentle humility, and love of nature. He was described as "a genius with a soul of an artist” by his close friend and collaborator Jule Charney.
In 2011, The Lorenz Center, a climate think tank devoted to fundamental scientific inquiry, was founded at MIT in honor of Lorenz and his pioneering work on chaos theory and climate science.
In February 2018, The Lorenz Center and Henry Houghton Fund hosted a symposium, named MIT on Chaos and Climate, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lorenz and Charney. The two-day event featured presentations from world-renowned experts on the many scientific contributions that the two pioneers made on the fields of numerical weather prediction, physical oceanography, atmospheric dynamics, and experimental fluid dynamics, as well as the personal legacy they left behind of integrity, optimism, and collaboration. A video produced for the event highlights the indelible mark made by Charney and Lorenz on MIT and the field of meteorology as a whole.
Lorenz published many books and articles, a selection of which can be found below. A more complete list can be found on the Lorenz Center website: link
In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics focusing on the study of chaos—states of dynamical systems whose apparently-random states of disorder and irregularities are often governed by deterministic laws that are highly sensitive to initial conditions. Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary theory stating that, within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization. The butterfly effect, an underlying principle of chaos, describes how a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. A metaphor for this behavior is that a butterfly flapping its wings in China can cause a hurricane in Texas.
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences which includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics, with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw modest progress in the field after weather observation networks were formed across broad regions. Prior attempts at prediction of weather depended on historical data. It was not until after the elucidation of the laws of physics and more particularly, the development of the computer, allowing for the automated solution of a great many equations that model the weather, in the latter half of the 20th century that significant breakthroughs in weather forecasting were achieved. An important domain of weather forecasting is marine weather forecasting as it relates to maritime and coastal safety, in which weather effects also include atmospheric interactions with large bodies of water.
Meteorologists are scientists who study and work in the field of meteorology. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologist in research while those using mathematical models and knowledge to prepare daily weather forecast are called weather forecasters or operational meteorologists.
Bert Rickard Johannes Bolin was a Swedish meteorologist who served as the first chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), from 1988 to 1997. He was professor of meteorology at Stockholm University from 1961 until his retirement in 1990.
The Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal is the highest award for atmospheric science of the American Meteorological Society. It is presented to individual scientists, who receive a medal. Named in honor of meteorology and oceanography pioneer Carl-Gustaf Rossby, who was also its second (1953) recipient.
Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby was a Swedish-born American meteorologist who first explained the large-scale motions of the atmosphere in terms of fluid mechanics. He identified and characterized both the jet stream and the long waves in the westerlies that were later named Rossby waves.
Jule Gregory Charney was an American meteorologist who played an important role in developing numerical weather prediction and increasing understanding of the general circulation of the atmosphere by devising a series of increasingly sophisticated mathematical models of the atmosphere. His work was the driving force behind many national and international weather initiatives and programs.
Jacob Aall Bonnevie Bjerknes was a meteorologist.
Kerry Andrew Emanuel is an American professor of meteorology currently working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In particular he has specialized in atmospheric convection and the mechanisms acting to intensify hurricanes. He was named one of the Time 100 influential people of 2006. In 2007, he was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019.
Joseph Smagorinsky was an American meteorologist and the first director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL).
Francis Wilton Reichelderfer, also known as “Reich”, presided over a revolutionary era in the history of the Weather Bureau. From 1938 to 1963, Reich guided the organization through World War II and brought modern technology to weather forecasting. His greatest strengths were comprehending where meteorology should be going, acting to move in that direction, and then attracting and keeping the talent to make it happen.
Aksel C. Wiin-Nielsen was a Danish professor of meteorology at University of Copenhagen, University of Michigan, Director of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
James Murdoch Austin was a New Zealand-American meteorologist. He was notable for his pioneering modeling of the meteorology of air pollution, especially that of smokestack particulates. He is also notable as the doctoral advisor of the pioneer of chaos theory and early practitioner of numerical weather prediction, Edward Norton Lorenz.
Jagadish Shukla is an Indian meteorologist and Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University in the United States.
Eugenia Kalnay is an Argentine meteorologist and a Distinguished University Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park in the United States.
Andrei Sergeevich Monin was a Russian physicist, applied mathematician, and oceanographer. Monin was known for his contributions to statistical theory of turbulence and atmospheric physics. He served as the Director of the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was instrumental in developing the Shirshov Institute into one of the largest scientific centers for ocean and earth science studies.
Ragnar Fjørtoft was an internationally recognized Norwegian meteorologist. He was part of a Princeton, New Jersey team that in 1950 performed the first successful numerical weather prediction using the ENIAC electronic computer. He was also a professor of meteorology at the University of Copenhagen and director of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
The Jule G. Charney Award is the American Meteorological Society's award granted to "individuals in recognition of highly significant research or development achievement in the atmospheric or hydrologic sciences". | https://wikimili.com/en/Edward_Norton_Lorenz |
Today, a great trend of social science is developing. Known as experimental social science, it tries to combine various branches of social sciences with experiments as means. This book is one of the seven volumes of the series “Frontier Experimental Social Science,” being published by Keiso Shobo. The series reports the outcomes of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas “Experimental Social Sciences - Experiments Paving the Way to the Social Science of the 21st Century” (2007-2012). This project is a cross-disciplinary collaboration themed on social norms.
There are various rules in our society. These may be official written rules, such as laws and contracts; sets of beliefs tacitly shared among people about dos and dont’s; they may even be unspoken mutual expectations. Taking various forms, these rules dictate our behavior. They are also an indispensable component of social cohesion and collective operation. In social science terms, this system is called “social norms.” Social norms are fundamental cultural systems that allow human society to function, and at the same time hold the most important keys to distinguish from other mammalian societies, such as those of advanced primates like chimpanzees and gorillas, on an evolutionary scale.
While social norms are a theme common across the disciplines of social science, including law, political science, sociology, anthropology, and economics, very little effort has been made so far in collaborating cross-disciplinary studies that go beyond individual fields. However, the rise of game theory has given social sciences a common language, and the academic landscape has changed rapidly over the last decade. More recently, new collaborative efforts are being made between the social and natural sciences, such as behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology, through experimentation and model-building. This book describes the specific development of various inter-disciplinary studies that go beyond individual fields to explore the mechanisms of human behavior, cognition, and emotion, which are fundamental to the establishment and maintenance of social norms. It also presents the results of an empirical and theoretical collaborative study between researchers of social psychology and evolutionary biology beyond the wall of humanities and sciences, drawing on the concept of evolutionary game theory.
Experimental social science, as illustrated in this book, is the first ever attempt to create an academic “republic.” The author holds the opinion that individual disciplines in social sciences will need to overcome their “tribal” existence and collaborate with the republic meaningfully within a decade or so. The only way to achieve this is to continue working on its realization. As one of such efforts, the author is due to publish “The Origin of Morality: a Perspective of Experimental Social Science” (Iwanami Shinsho) in Spring 2017. | https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/biblioplaza/en/B_00068.html |
The EnvEast Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) was created in November 2013 with funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). It draws together expertise from the Universities of East Anglia, Essex and Kent, together with a number of UK research organisations. The DTP aims to address some of the grand challenges facing contemporary society by providing advanced training for a new generation of science and business leaders working in the broad field of environmental science.
Partners
Founded in 1967, The University of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences, which leads the EnvEast DTP, is recognised nationally and internationally for its pioneering approach to interdisciplinary environmental sciences, for its breadth and for the quality of its research. It is ground-breaking in the UK for its early integration of physical, chemical, biological and social sciences into the study of natural and human environments.
The School of Biological Sciences is a vibrant and friendly academic community firmly embedded in the internationally renowned Norwich Research Park. It boasts extensive state-of-the-art research facilities as well as modern teaching laboratories. The School's world-leading research covers the full spectrum of biology, from biomedicine and developmental biology to microbiology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, ecology and conservation.
The School of Mathematics has a strong international reputation for research with robust research links and co-operation with mathematicians in the rest of Europe, Israel, Russia, the United States and Australia. There are strong research groups in Applied Mathematics (fluid and solid mechanics, with biological, industrial, environmental, and physics applications) and in Pure Mathematics (group theory; representation theory; number theory; combinatorics; model theory; set theory and ergodic theory).
The School of International Development at the University of East Anglia is a leading global centre of excellence in research and teaching in international development. The School is renowned for its research on climate change, behavioural and experimental economics, environmental justice, social protection and wellbeing throughout the lifecourse.
The School of Biological Sciences conducts research on topics ranging from the structure and function of biomolecules to global environmental issues. Environmental and Plant Biosciences (EPB) at the University of Essex addresses global issues including climate change, ocean acidification, food security, the sustainability of agriculture and coastal ecosystems. EPB has a tradition of internationally recognized research excellence in the areas of marine primary productivity and biogeochemical cycling, coastal ecology, microbial ecology, microbial biotechnology, as well as photosynthesis and plant metabolism with allied molecular genetics applied to plant-environment interactions.
The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, is the largest academic institute dedicated to conservation in the UK and sets itself apart from more traditionally-minded academic institutions with its clear mission to break down the barriers between the natural and social sciences in conservation, build capacity with a focus in the biodiversity rich developing countries and to focus on scientific research which informs practical implementation.
The National Centre for Statistical Ecology is a joint venture between the Universities of Kent, Cambridge and St Andrews. It is a Centre of international repute for the development and application of novel statistical methods in population ecology, integrating the partner Universities' research programmes and activities in statistical ecology. The centre aims to develop novel statistical methodologies for the analysis of complex data sets, as well as training PhD and postdoctoral researchers to work as statistical ecologists.
Core Partners
British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
BAS has a long and distinguished history of carrying out research and surveys in the Antarctic and surrounding regions, undertaking most of the British research on the frozen continent.
The British Geological Survey (BGS)
The British Geological Survey is the world's oldest national geological survey and the United Kingdom's premier centre for earth science information and expertise. It is the UK's premier provider of objective and authoritative geoscientific data, information and knowledge for wealth creation, sustainable use of natural resources, reducing risk and living with the impacts of environmental change.
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO)
The BTO is an independent charitable research institute combining professional and citizen science aimed at using evidence of change in wildlife populations, particularly birds, to inform the public, opinion-formers and environmental policy- and decision-makers.
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH)
The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is the UK's Centre of Excellence for integrated research in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with the atmosphere.
Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas)
As the UK's most diverse applied marine science centre, Cefas help to shape and implement policy through internationally renowned science and collaborative relationships that span the EU, UK government, non-governmental organisations, research centres and industry.
The John Innes Centre (JIC)
The John Innes Centre is an independent, international centre of excellence in plant science and microbiology. Its mission is to generate knowledge of plants and microbes through innovative research, to train scientists for the future, to apply knowledge to benefit agriculture, the environment, human health and well-being, and engage with policy makers and the public.
The Marine Biological Association (MBA)
The Marine Biological Association aims to promote scientific research into all aspects of life in the sea, including the environment on which it depends, and to disseminate to the public the knowledge gained.
The Met Office
The Met Office is the UK's National Weather Service with a long history of weather forecasting and has been working in the area of climate change for more than two decades.
Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML)
Plymouth Marine Laboratory undertakes leading international research to respond to societal needs and to promote stewardship of the world ocean.
Plymouth University Marine Institute
Plymouth University Marine Institute represents all marine and maritime activity across Plymouth University. With a “hilltops to deep-sea” remit it represents all of the university’s NERC-relevant environmental research, but has a main focus on catchments and coasts.
The Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS)
SAHFOS is an international charity that operates the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey. The Foundation has been collecting data from the North Atlantic and the North Sea on biogeography and ecology of plankton since 1931. More recently, as the Foundation has become more involved in international projects, work has been expanded to include other regions around the globe.
Contributing Partners
ADAPT Low Carbon Group - The Adapt Low Carbon Group brings together a broad range of expertise and builds on the widely acknowledged successes of the University of East Anglia's business activities in the low carbon sector.
Birdlife International - BirdLife International is the world's largest nature conservation Partnership. Together they are 121 BirdLife Partners worldwide – one per country – and growing.
Chester Zoo - Wildlife conservation is at the heart of everything Chester Zoo does. The Zoo uses scientific evidence to help identify and address many of the challenges our natural world faces, and aims for its conservation research to help in decision making that improves the management of the animals and plants in their care, influences the sustainability of wild populations, and inspires others to join with them in the challenge to Act for Wildlife and protect the living world.
Earlham Institute - Earlham Institute (formerly The Genome Analysis Centre) is a research institute focused on the application of state of the art genomics and bioinformatics to advance plant, animal and microbial research to promote a sustainable bioeconomy. Earlham Institute is a hub for innovative bioinformatics founded on research, analysis and interpretation of multiple, complex data sets.
Forestry Commission - Forest Research are one of the world's leading centres of research into
woodlands and forestry.
Fudan Tyndall Centre - The Tyndall Centre has initiated a new partnership with the Research Institute for Global Environmental Change (RICE) at Fudan University, Shanghai, one of the big three Universities in China. This expansion of the Tyndall Centre to China creates new opportunities for collaborative research by bringing together UK and Chinese researchers from across the scientific, engineering, social science and economic communities.
Gardline Marine Sciences - Established in 1969, Gardline Shipping Limited (GSL) is the parent company of a diverse group of multi-disciplinary organisations involved in a range of activities that include satellite communications, marine sciences, security, ship building, dry dock engineering, geographical information systems, digital mapping and vessel charters.
National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) - The National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) is one of the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) research centres. The Centre increases knowledge of key environmental issues including: climate change, weather processes and atmospheric composition including air quality.
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - The RSPB is the country's largest nature conservation charity, inspiring everyone to give nature a home.
The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) - The Sainsbury Laboratory is a charitable company of approximately 70 research scientists and support staff and a world leader in plant science. TSL is dedicated to making fundamental discoveries about plants and how they interact with microbes and viruses.
The Satellite Applications Catapult is an independent innovation and technology company, created to foster growth across the economy through the exploitation of space. We help organisations make use of and benefit from satellite technologies, and bring together multi-disciplinary teams to generate ideas and solutions in an open innovation environment.
Weatherquest is a privately owned weather forecasting and weather analysis company based in Norwich and located on the University of East Anglia campus. They provide a wide variety of bespoke weather products to everyone from large corporations to individuals. | https://enveast.uea.ac.uk/our-partnership/ |
B.S. Earth Sciences, Environmental Emphasis
Overview:
The UNC Environmental Earth Science emphasis is a comprehensive environmental degree that prepares students in the sciences of biology, chemistry, ecology, geology, groundwater, mathematics, meteorology, oceanography, and statistics. Since 1998 the major has produced hundreds of students who either work for the environmental monitoring industry (environmental consulting firms or government agencies responsible for doing site surveys) or go on to graduate school for advanced training. Graduates are highly capable to undertake rigorous and comprehensive environmental work.
In addition to the natural sciences training, courses in scientific writing, microeconomics, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and a variety of specialty courses are required. Many students elect to do practical internships with companies or government agencies for credit outside the university, and quite a number elect to take a minor in environmental studies, mathematics, economics, geography, foreign language, or another science field.
Active student clubs in environment, meteorology, geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and other fields are available, and extra-curricular activities for student enrichment abound. Individual advising from one of our Ph.D. faculty ensures that students move efficiently through the course sequence and are prepared for the rigors of the workplace.
A Comprehensive Undergraduate Environmental Earth and Atmospheric Sciences program emphasizing:
- Small Class sizes for individualized instruction
- Rigorous coursework blending theory with applications
- Comprehensive Science training in many fields
- Extensive Laboratory and field experiences
- Preparation for graduate school and the job market
- Undergraduate research projects available
- Collaborations throughout the CO Front Range and Northeastern Plains
Activities and Resources:
- Cartography lab with 16 GIS work stations and large format plotter
- Internship placement programs, some paid
- Real time weather station, weather cam, and seismograph
- Nearby state and federal science laboratories for internships
Courses and Requirements:
Students will study sciences including chemistry, physics, mathematics, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and others. Lectures/discussions, laboratory exercise, field trips, internships and research efforts form a well–rounded educational experience as preparation for either postgraduate education or beginning a career related to Environmental Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. | https://www.unco.edu/nhs/earth-atmospheric-sciences/programs/undergraduate/environmental-sciences/ |
Booktitle:
From Chaos Theory to Non-Euclidian Geometry
The Basic Principles and Concepts of Fractal Engineering
LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing
(2015-07-28 )
eligible for voucher
ISBN-13:
978-3-659-62003-4
ISBN-10:
3659620033
EAN:
9783659620034
Book language:
English
Blurb/Shorttext:
In this collection, in addition to fractals and their particular characteristics, the future perspectives and applications as well as theories and fundamental concepts to fractals were discussed at length. Research shows that, if studied meticulously, each of these theoretical discussions could be applied to different practical areas in different fields of investigation. Also, in this collection, after discussing the philosophical foundations of chaos theory such as prostmoderinsm, rationality, and skepticism its effects on different domains of enquiry were elaborated on. In particular, after discussing such issues as order and disorder and the non-Euclidean geometry the characteristics of fractals were enumerated and discussed. In the final two chapters, more technical and advanced discussions as well as the future and current applications related to fractals were presented. This research shows that with studying and considering the characteristics of fractals we can move towards applying them in different domains.
Publishing house:
LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing
Website:
https://www.lap-publishing.com/
By (author) :
Hanif Kazerooni
,
Javad Iraji
,
Bahram Nasernejad
Number of pages:
228
Published on:
2015-07-28
Stock:
Available
Category:
Other
Price:
76.90 €
Keywords:
chaos theory
,
Complexity Theory
,
Euclidean geometry
Categories
Fiction
Children and Youth books
Humanities, Art, Music
Natural-, Medical- , Computer Sciences, Technology
Social sciences, law, economics
School and learning
Specialized book
Travel
Councellor
Other
Links
Publisher's overview
Group Deals
Bestsellers
Our Distributors
Newsletter
Contact form
Imprint
Data Protection Policy
Terms and conditions
Cancellation Form
LOGIN
Forgot password ? | https://www.morebooks.shop/store/gb/book/from-chaos-theory-to-non-euclidian-geometry/isbn/978-3-659-62003-4.html |
Multivariate calculus: functions of two or three variables, approximating functions, partial differentiation, directional derivatives, multiple integration. Vectors: dot and cross products, parameterized curves, line and surface integrals. Vector calculus: gradient, divergence and curl, Green's, divergence and Stokes' theorems. Complex numbers.
Linear algebra: matrices, vector spaces, linear maps, determinants, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, inner products, and singular values. Applications to ordinary differential equations, difference equations, Markov chains, least squares. Examples draw upon everyday experience, economics, engineering, natural science, and statistics.
This course covers a combination of linear algebra and multivariate calculus with an eye towards solving systems of equations and optimization problems. Students will learn how to prove some key results, and will also implement these ideas with code.
Linear algebra: matrices, vector spaces, bases and dimension, inner products, least squares problems, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, singular values, singular vectors.
Multivariate calculus: partial differentiation, gradient and Hessian, critical points, Lagrange Multipliers.
This course provides an introduction to the problems and issues of applied mathematics, focusing on areas where mathematical ideas have had a major impact on diverse fields of human inquiry. The course is organized around two-week topics drawn from a variety of fields, and involves reading classic mathematical papers in each topic. The course also provides an introduction to mathematical modeling and programming.
An individual project of guided reading and research culminating in a substantial paper or other piece of work which can be meaningfully evaluated to assign a letter grade; may not be taken on a PA/FL basis. Students engaged in preparation of a senior thesis ordinarily should take Applied Mathematics 99r instead.
Provides an opportunity for students to engage in preparatory research and the writing of a senior thesis. Graded on a SAT/UNS basis as recommended by the thesis supervisor. The thesis is evaluated by the supervisor and by two additional readers.
Introductory statistical methods for students in the applied sciences and engineering. Random variables and probability distributions; the concept of random sampling, including random samples, statistics, and sampling distributions; the Central Limit Theorem and its role in statistical inference; parameter estimation, including point estimation and maximum likelihood methods; confidence intervals; hypothesis testing; simple linear regression; and multiple linear regression. Introduction to more advanced techniques as time permits.
Introduces fundamental concepts for solving real-world problems and emphasizes their applications through motivational examples drawn from science, engineering and finance. Topics: special distribution functions; series expansions of functions and their convergence; functions of complex variables, Taylor and Laurent expansions; wave (Fourier) and wavelet expansions and transforms, and their uses in solving differential equations and in signal analysis; connections to machine learning (neural networks), probabilities, random numbers and stochastic optimization methods.
Ordinary differential equations: power series solutions; special functions; eigenfunction expansions. Elementary partial differential equations: separation of variables and series solutions; diffusion, wave and Laplace equations. Brief introduction to nonlinear dynamical systems and to numerical methods.
Introduction to abstract algebra and its applications. Sets, subsets, and partitions; mappings, operations, and equivalence relations; groups, rings, and fields, polynomials, encryption, computer coding, application of modular arithmetic, combinatorial designs, lattices, application of trellis representation of lattices, fast algorithms.
Topics in combinatorial mathematics that find frequent application in computer science, engineering, and general applied mathematics. Specific topics taken from graph theory, enumeration techniques, optimization theory, combinatorial algorithms, and discrete probability.
An introduction to nonlinear dynamical phenomena, covering the behavior of systems described by ordinary differential equations. Topics include: stability; bifurcations; chaos; routes to chaos and universality; approximations by maps; strange attractors; fractals. Techniques for analyzing nonlinear systems are introduced with applications to physical, chemical, and biological systems such as forced oscillators, chaotic reactions, and population dynamics.
Abstracting the essential components and mechanisms from a natural system to produce a mathematical model, which can be analyzed with a variety of formal mathematical methods, is perhaps the most important, but least understood, task in applied mathematics. This course approaches a number of problems without the prejudice of trying to apply a particular method of solution. Topics drawn from biology, economics, engineering, physical and social sciences.
Topics in linear algebra which arise frequently in applications, especially in the analysis of large data sets: linear equations, eigenvalue problems, linear differential equations, principal component analysis, singular value decomposition, data mining methods including frequent pattern analysis, clustering, outlier detection, classification, and machine learning including neural networks. Examples will be given from physical sciences, biology, climate, commerce, internet, image processing and more.
Introduction to basic mathematical ideas and computational methods for solving deterministic and stochastic optimization problems. Topics covered: linear programming, integer programming, branch-and-bound, branch-and-cut, Markov chains, Markov decision processes. Emphasis on modeling. Examples from business, society, engineering, sports, e-commerce. Exercises in AMPL, complemented by Maple or Matlab.
Introduction to methods for developing accurate approximate solutions for problems in the sciences that cannot be solved exactly, and integration with numerical methods and solutions. Topics include: dimensional analysis, algebraic equations, complex analysis, perturbation theory, matched asymptotic expansions, approximate solution of integrals.
Theory and techniques for finding exact and approximate analytical solutions of partial differential equations: characteristics, eigenfunction expansions, transform techniques, integral relations, Green functions, variational methods, perturbation methods and asymptotic analysis.
The course will familiarize the students with various applications of probability theory, stochastic modeling and random processes, using examples from various disciplines, including physics, biology and economics.
An examination of the mathematical foundations of a range of well-established numerical algorithms, exploring their use through practical examples drawn from a range of scientific and engineering disciplines. Emphasizes theory and numerical analysis to elucidate the concepts that underpin each algorithm. There will be a significant programming component. Students will be expected to implement a range of numerical methods through individual and group-based project work to get hands-on experience with modern scientific computing.
Many problems in science and engineering are inverse problems. Any experiment that requires an explanation can be couched thus - given the data, what is the theory/model that provides it - this is an inverse problem. In engineering, a given function (in a product/software …. ) requires a design - again an inverse problem. This course will introduce a wide array of features of inverse problems from science and engineering - from oil prospecting and seismology to cognitive science, from particle physics to engineering design. We will then introduce deterministic and probabilistic algorithms for solving these problems. Much of the class will be spent studying how the recent revolution in deep neural networks can (and cannot) be used to solve such inverse problems. The class will have a substantial computational component -- part of every class session will contain instruction and computer implementation of the algorithms in question. Students will carry out final projects in their own area of interest. Programming will be taught and carried out in Python and Tensorflow.
The topic for the course this year will be the dynamics of fluid flow, on scales that range from MHD in stars to active matter flows in cells to 2D electron gases, and of course fluid flows on the human scale, with which we will start. Specific content will include: Hydrodynamic Stability and Turbulence, Coherent Structures and Dynamical Systems, Methods for Numerical Simulation, Multiphase and Non-Newtonian Flows, Thin Film Flows, Biophysical, Geophysical and Astrophysical Flows, Active Matter Flows, Viscous Electronics. The course will meet for 150 minutes once a week, with 90 minutes devoted to lecture, and 60 minutes devoted to a discussion of 2-4 papers that build on the theory.
This is a graduate level course on optimization which provides a foundation for applications such as statistical machine learning, signal processing, finance, and approximation algorithms. The course will cover fundamental concepts in optimization theory, modeling, and algorithmic techniques for solving large-scale optimization problems. Topics include elements of convex analysis, linear programming, Lagrangian duality, optimality conditions, and discrete and combinatorial optimization. Exercises and the class project will involve developing and implementing optimization algorithms.
This course examines a variety of advanced numerical methods, with a focus on those relevant to solving partial differential equations that arise in physical problems. Topics include the finite volume method, finite element method, and interface tracking methods. Associated problems in numerical linear algebra and optimization will be discussed. The course will examine the mathematical underpinnings of each method, as well as look at their practical usage, paying particular attention to efficient implementations on modern multithreaded and parallel computer architectures.
In this Course, we shall familiarize with the main computational methods which permit to simulate and analyze the behavior of a wide range of problems involving fluids, solids, soft matter, electromagnetic and quantum systems, as well as the dynamics of (some) biological and social systems.
In Part I, we shall discuss the fundamentals of grid discretization and present concrete applications to a broad variety of problems from classical and quantum physics, such as Advection-Diffusion Reaction transport, Navier-Stokes fluid-dynamics, nonlinear classical and quantum wave propagation. Both regular and complex geometrical grids will be discussed through Finite Differences, Volumes and Elements, respectively.
In Part II we shall discuss mesoscale technique based on the two basic mesoscale descriptions: probability distribution functions, as governed by Boltzmann and Fokker-Planck kinetic equations, and stochastic particle dynamics (Langevin equations). The lattice Boltzmann method will be discussed in great detail, with applications to fluids and soft matter problems. Mesoscale particle methods, such as Dissipative Particle Dynamics will also be illustrated in detail.
Finally, in Part III, we shall present data analysis & learning tools of particular relevance to complex systems with non-gaussian statistics, such as turbulence, fractional transport and extreme events in general. An introduction to Physics-Aware Machine Learning will also be presented.
Mathematical analysis of decision making. Bayesian inference and risk. Maximum likelihood and nonparametric methods. Algorithmic methods for decision rules: perceptrons, neural nets, and back propagation. Hidden Markov models, Blum-Welch, principal and independent components.
This course introduces students to several fundamental notions and methods in statistical physics that have been successfully applied to the analysis of information processing systems. Discussions will be focused on studying such systems in the infinite-size limit, on analyzing the emergence of phase transitions, and on understanding the behaviors of efficient algorithms. This course seeks to start from basics, assuming just undergraduate probability and analysis, and in particular assuming no knowledge of statistical physics. Students will take an active role by applying what they learn from the course to their preferred applications.
Supervision of experimental or theoretical research on acceptable applied mathematics problems and supervision of reading on topics not covered by regular courses of instruction. | https://www.seas.harvard.edu/academics/courses/applied-mathematics |
Annals of Finance will, different from existing journals, cover all aspects of finance in one journal. In this way, the journal is different from the competition.The purpose of Annals of Finance is to provide an outlet for original research in all areas of finance and its applications to other disciplines having a clear and substantive link to the general theme of finance. In particular, innovative research papers of moderate length of the highest quality in all scientific areas that are motivated by the analysis of financial problems will be considered.
Recent times have seen an expansion of theoretical and empirical research on real estate using the paradigms and methodologies of finance and economics. Examples of this research include the working and structure of markets, the role of various …
Decisions in Economics and Finance is the official publication of the Association for Mathematics Applied to Social and Economic Sciences (AMASES). The journal provides a specialized forum for the publication of research in all areas of mathematics …
The Journal of Financial Services Research publishes high quality empirical and theoretical research on the demand, supply, regulation, and pricing of financial services. Financial services are broadly defined to include banking, risk management, capital markets, mutual funds, insurance, venture capital, consumer and corporate finance, and the technologies used to produce, distribute, and regulate these services.
Das Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistische Archiv ist eine Zeitschrift der Deutschen Statistischen Gesellschaft. Sie versteht sich als zentrales deutschsprachiges Organ für die Publikation wirtschafts- und sozialstatistischer Arbeiten.
The Journal of Quantitative Economics was established in 1983 as the official journal of The Indian Econometric Society (TIES) to promote research in the broad areas of Econometrics and Mathematical Economics. From the inception, the journal has …
The European Actuarial Journal (EAJ) publishes research articles and survey articles as well as papers engaging the mutual transfer between research and practical applications. Coverage includes such topics in classical actuarial mathematics as life and non-life insurance, pension funds and reinsurance.
Review of Managerial Science (RMS) provides a forum for innovative research from all scientific areas of business administration. The journal publishes original research of high quality and is open to various methodological approaches (analytical modeling, empirical research, experimental work, methodological reasoning etc.).
Jointly sponsored byGesellschaft fuer Operations Research - The German OR SocietyNederlands Genootschap voor Besliskunde - The Dutch OR Society
OR Spectrum publishes applied and theoretical papers which contribute to Operations Research as a scientific instrument for the development and application of quantitative approaches for problem-solving and decision-making in management.
The official publication of the Swiss Financial Analysts Association, Financial Markets and Portfolio Management (FMPM), addresses all areas of finance, including financial markets, portfolio theory and wealth management, asset pricing, corporate …
The official journal of the Japanese Association of Financial Econometrics and Engineering (JAFEE), is expected to provide an international forum for researchers and practitioners, who engage in empirical and/or theoretical research into the financial markets.
The proliferation of derivative assets during the past two decades is unprecedented. With this growth in derivatives comes the need for financial institutions, institutional investors, and corporations to use sophisticated quantitative techniques to take full advantage of the spectrum of these new financial instruments. Academic research has significantly contributed to our understanding of derivative assets and markets. The growth of derivative asset markets has been accompanied by a commensurate growth in the volume of scientific research.
The Journal of Economics and Finance is the official journal of the Academy of Economics and Finance. It publishes theoretical and empirical research papers in economics and finance and related fields, such as decision sciences, marketing and …
In the last twenty years mathematical finance has developed independently from economic theory, and largely as a branch of probability theory and stochastic analysis. This has led to important developments e.g. in asset pricing theory, and interest-rate modeling.
Demography presents the highest quality original research of scholars in a broad range of disciplines, including anthropology, biology, economics, geography, history, psychology, public health, sociology, and statistics. | https://www.springerprofessional.de/latest-journal-issues-insurance-risk/18807132 |
The Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) PhD program is a unique, new, multidisciplinary program at Caltech involving faculty and students from computer science, electrical engineering, applied math, economics, operations research, and even the physical sciences. The program sets high standards for admission and graduation, and boasts a broad collection of world-class faculty (any faculty at Caltech from any of the areas above can advise students).
Overview
Graduate Option Rep
Prof. Yisong Yue
Graduate Option Manager
Maria Lopez
mlopezcms.caltech.edu
Disciplines across the information sciences are experiencing an unprecedented convergence. As different areas interact, new fields are emerging. For example, combining Computer Science with...
...Optimization and Statistics has led to machine learning, "big data," and the field of data science.
...Control and Electrical Engineering has led to the smart grid, smart buildings, and the internet of things.
...Physics has led to quantum computing and quantum information theory.
...Economics has led to algorithmic game theory, privacy, and the field of network science.
...Biology and Electrical Engineering has led to bioinformatics, molecular programming, and biomolecular circuits.
Because of this convergence, a new intellectual core is emerging in the information sciences. The core contains material from a spectrum of disciplines: algorithms, networks, machine learning, statistics, optimization, signal processing, and the underlying mathematics. But each area is enriched by the broader context. For instance, the study of algorithms now encompasses the traditional discrete problems of computer science, the continuous problems of applied mathematics, as well as worst-case and average-case perspectives.
The CMS PhD program is designed around the new information science core. This core provides the ideal foundation for future applications across the sciences, engineering, and beyond. Our approach requires the mastery of the following ways of thinking about information science:
- Interpret "information" and "computation" broadly. We study mechanisms that communicate, store, and process information. These structures might be etched in silicon and called hardware or written in code and called software. But the same mechanisms may be expressed in nucleotides and called DNA. They also arise in our society, where they are called social networks or markets. Our view encompasses all of these manifestations.
- Algorithmic thinking is the foundation. The modern world demands the ability to think algorithmically. Algorithms are not just the basis for advanced computer systems, but they help us understand biological organisms and auction design and more.
- Data is central. Data is being collected at an unprecedented speed and scale. Every area of science and society will be transformed as researchers learn to use this data to develop and test new hypotheses. To unlock this potential, we need to develop reliable algorithms for extracting information and making decisions based on data.
- Seek rigor and relevance. The CMS Program focuses on the theoretical core of information science. We believe that principled and rigorous methods provide the only solid basis for progress. But we also insist on research that is relevant to applications, and we train students to work at the interface of information science and other disciplines.
Students may select a research adviser from any of the 30+ faculty affiliated with the CMS Department, including specialists in Applied & Computational Mathematics, Biological Engineering, Computation & Neural Systems, Computer Science, Control & Dynamical Systems, Economics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Philosophy, and Physics.
Who should apply?
The CMS program is meant for students who have interdisciplinary interests and do not want to be pigeonholed. Instead we are looking for students that want to be at the boundaries of disciplines, where ideas overlap and intersect and where new fields emerge. Many CMS students have studied more than one field during their undergraduate programs. Typically CMS students have undergraduate training in mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering, or economics, but some have completed programs in other parts of engineering or the mathematical sciences. The common factor in the students is that they are curious about how areas interact with and influence each other.
The CMS core requirement
The CMS program builds on a set of core classes that students take together during the first year. These classes teach foundational ideas in computer science, economics, electrical engineering, mathematics, and statistics that support research in a wide variety of other disciplines.
Fall: Mathematical Fundamentals
- CMS/ACM/IDS 107. Introduction to Linear Analysis with Applications
- CMS/ACM/IDS 113. Mathematical Optimization
- CMS/ACM/EE/IDS 117. Introduction to Probability and Random Processes
Winter: Computing Fundamentals
- CMS/CS/IDS 139. Analysis and Design of Algorithms
- CMS/CS/EE/IDS 144. Networks: Structure & Economics
- CMS/CS/CNS/EE/IDS 155. Machine Learning & Data Mining
Depth requirement: Research focus areas
In addition to the core classes, each CMS student is required to take three classes in a focus area, which is chosen in consultation with a faculty adviser. Example focus areas include:
- Algorithms & complexity: Approximation algorithms, online algorithms, complexity theory, and computability.
- Algorithmic economics: Auctions and mechanism design, algorithmic game theory, and privacy.
- Biological circuits: Organic substrates for computation, including neuronal computing and DNA computing.
- Feedback & control: Robust control, feedback, dynamical systems theory.
- Inference & statistics: Statistical decision theory, information theory, and adaptive signal processing.
- Information systems: Information theory, coding theory, communication, and signal processing.
- Machine learning & vision: Algorithmic, mathematical, and biological perspectives on computational models for learning and vision.
- Networked systems: The study of complex networks, in fields ranging from biology, social science, communications, and power.
- Optimization: Convex optimization, conic and discrete optimization, and numerical methods for largescale optimization.
- Quantum information theory: Quantum algorithms and complexity, convex optimization, and operator theory.
- Scientific computing: Computational methods for problems arising in the physical sciences, partial differential equations.
- Uncertainty quantification: Markov chains and martingales, stochastic system analysis, and convex optimization.
Other degree requirements
The CMS Graduate Program is a research oriented course of study leading to the PhD degree in Computing and Mathematical Sciences. The requirements are designed to train students to undertake transformational research in a range of application areas.
Advising. Incoming students will be paired with an academic adviser who will provide guidance on coursework and help students make the transition into research. During the first year, each student will choose a research adviser from CMS, Economics, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or an allied field.
Breadth requirement. In addition to the core courses and depth requirements above, students must complete three other graduate courses from mathematics, science, engineering, or economics.
CMS Colloquium. During their first year students are required to attend the CMS Colloquium (CMS 290abc), a biweekly technical seminar series featuring distinguished researchers from around the world who specialize in computing and mathematical sciences.
CMS preliminary examination. In the winter term of the first year, each student will complete an oral examination focused on his or her coursework in mathematics, computer science, and engineering.
CMS candidacy examination. By the end of the third year, each student will complete an oral candidacy examination designed to assess the breadth and depth of preparation for undertaking research in the chosen area.
The PhD dissertation. Each student will complete a PhD dissertation documenting independent research. To complete the degree, each student will given an oral presentation on the dissertation work to the thesis committee.
PhD thesis defenses consist of a public presentation with an opportunity for the audience to ask questions. This is followed by a private examination with only the thesis committee and the candidate present. Thesis defenses will be announced and the CMS community as a whole is encouraged to attend.
Complete details about the PhD requirements can be found in the Caltech Catalog. An overview of the typical progression through the program and advice for current students can be found in the Option Guidelines. | http://cms.caltech.edu/academics/grad_cms |
Philosophy may be broadly construed to be an inquiry into the most comprehensive or underlying principles and issues of any branch of knowledge or of knowledge in general. It is no small doubt, then, that when a Ph.d is conferred in any discipline, it means a 'doctor of philosophy.' A Ph.d in physics is a 'doctor of philosophy of physics' and a Ph.d in economics is a 'doctor of philosophy' of economics, etc... Philosophy, as contradistinguised from science, which studies particular organisms and objects, studies the whole and final significance of things, including the final significance of the results of science.
Philosophy is typically composed of five parts: epistemology, logic, ethics, aesthetics, and metaphysics. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with investigating the nature, grounds, limits, criteria, and validity of human knowledge, offer various theories of cognition. In this regard, epistemology bears some relation to modern psychology, which also offers various theories of cognition. Logic is the part of philosophy which studies the proper laws of thinking, of valid reasoning and correct inference, either in deductive or inductive reasoning. Modern logic is highly symbolic and is sometimes considered a branch of mathematics, but is typically taught in Philosophy departments. Ethics is the study of human conduct, particular of right and wrong conduct. Ethics bears a relation to disciplines such as the philosophy of law; law, under one interpretation may be considered a codification of ethical principles. Aesthetics is the study of the principles underlying beauty as in productions of art. And metaphysics, which has fallen into disrepute in modern philosophy, is the branch of philosophy that deals with principles underlying reality which transcend any particular science.
There are three basic ways to study Philosophy: first, the history of philosophy, i.e., particular philosophers, such as Kant or Aristotle; second, philosophical systems or schools (the -isms), such as rationalism or positivism, and finally, philosophical problems, such as the mind-body problem.
In colloquial usage, a 'philosophy' is an approach or method, such as a baseball manager's philosophy, a Texaco's corporate philosophy, or an automotive manufacturer's engineering philosophy (the approach they take to building cars). This represents the most common usage of the term 'philosophy' in modern language. An even more denigrated usage is "my philosophy," which amounts to "my set of opinions." But, this denigrated use of the word 'philosophy' only represents the true discipline of philosophy inasmuch as it designates the underlying principles or methods of an endeavor.
One view of modern philosophy is that it is to be meta-science, i.e, whereas the special sciences study particular phenomena, such as biology studies living things, and physics studies the laws governing inanimate objects, philosophy studies the principles and issues that underly biology and physics, giving rise to the disciplines of the philosophy of biology, and philosophy of physics, with such systems as animism and operationalism, and such problems as 'the definition of life' and 'reductionism.' It was once the case that science, including physics, WAS just a branch of 'natural philosophy;' Newton, for example, when he wrote his treatise on physics (mechanics) entitled it "The mathematical principles of natural philosophy." Whereas specialized sciences study particular domains of phenomena, some study, philosophy being the candidate, must study those issues, problems, and principles that span the specialized sciences, such as 'reductionism' (reductionism is the question whether one science can be 'reduced' to another, e.g. whether we can understand biological entities merely as physical objects, or whether principles of biology are 'irreducible' to physics). But, some philosophers argue that a 'meta-scientific' view of philosophy is too confining, and that philosophy has to concern itself with both the social sciences, and with macro-phenomenal experience as well. One certainly can argue that 'capitalism' is a philosophy of the way labor and goods should be organized, and that 'existentialism' is a philosophy of personal experience, as is 'phenomenology,' and that all of these as well as the philosophy of biology and physics are properly within the domain of philosophy. The philosophy of mathematics must be covered in the broad definition of philosophy as well.
Philosophy seems poised to be the only discipline that can bridge the gap between the sciences and humanities, as philosophy studies the principles that underlie ALL experience, be it personal or social (represented by the humanities), or scientific. This is especially true of epistemology, which is concerned with the question of "how do we know something" both in personal experience and in scientific experiment, but also in logic and metaphysics.
Part II: Philosophy and the Organization of Knowledge (please see the diagram attached)
To understand Philosophy, one must first understand the organization of all knowledge. Knowledge may be divided into practical knowledge and applied science (these are similar but not the same), the special sciences in their experimental aspect and theoretical aspects, and finally, general theoretical knowledge, such as math, logic, and philosophy, disciplines which have applications in ALL special sciences. Philosophy interprets the results of and analyzes and criticizes the theoretical apparatus of the special sciences. The experimental aspects of the special sciences, as well as the theoretical principles are used in applied sciences. Practical knowledge is in some sense macrophenomenal and pre-scientific, and the applied sciences often include a mix of practical knowledge and applied scientific knowledge. Knowledge, therefore, proceeds from the more particular, as in practical knowledge and applied science, to the more general, as in the theoretical special sciences, finally to the universal, as in math, logic, and philosophy. This is why philosophy then has the broadest principles and yet is most removed from practical application.
The Special Sciences:
The special sciences include: physical science (physics, chemistry, geology, meterology), biological science (including molecular biology, botany, zoology, anatomy, physiology, cellular and microbiology, genetics and evolutionary theory), psychology, and the social sciences (history, religion, economics, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics-1). Each of these sciences have both a theoretical aspect and an experimental (or more practical) aspect, although the experimental aspect of the social science is less clear than in the physical and biological, and even psychological sciences. The special sciences partially overlap, so between physical sciences and biology, there is biochemistry and biophysics; between biology and pyschology, there is biopsychology; and between psychology and the social sciences, there is social psychology. One note about mathematics: mathematics may be considered a general science or theoretical knowledge, with its primary application in physics and chemistry and economics, with primarily only statistics being used in the other sciences. Nonetheless, note it is the theoretical apparatus of science which uses mathematics.
Applied Sciences
Each of the special sciences have practical applications. Applied physics includes most of the inventions of modern industry (through the applied physics disciplines of mechanical and electrical engineering, e.g. creating washing machines and computers, etc...), as does applied chemistry (through chemical engineering, e.g. creating polymers such as plastics and polyesther fibres, as well as toothpaste and pharmaceuticals). Applied biology includes modern medicine, pharmacology (remember many pharmacological agents come from applied botany mixed with applied chemistry), and even modern agriculture. Applied psychology includes clinical psychology and psychiatry (although the latter includes applied biology and chemistry as well). Applied social sciences include business, which is really applied economics, a social science, and occaisionally such fields as applied social science and political science in government, police work, and legislation.
Philosophy and its relation to the Special Sciences
Each of the special sciences also has theoretical correlates in Philosophy. The philosophy of science is primarily concerned with the philosophy of physics and chemistry, as these are the sciences that exemplify science at its best, with such questions as reductionism, and such schools as postitivism and operationalism, but is also concerned with biology, for which there is the discipline of the philosophy of biology. There is also the discipline of the Philosophy of Mathematics which has as its object the general science of mathematics. Logic, a branch of philosophy, also relates heavily to mathematics. The philosophy of mind is primarily concerned with psychology, ranging from biological psychology (as in the mind-body problem) to cognitive psychology. The philosophy of language is concerned with the deeper aspects of linguistic processing, such as meaning and reference, and relates to semantics in the psychosocial discipline of linguistics. Political, social, and economic philosophies, such as capitalism and imperialism, relate to history, law, political science, economics, and sociology in the social sciences. And ethics relates strongly to the philosophy of law and to law. The five parts of philosophy mentioned in the begining of this note relate to the other parts of philosophy as follows. Logic is used in the whole of philosophy as a method to insure proper reasoning in the absence of evidence of the senses. Ethics is of primary use in political and social philosophy (even bio-ethics concerns questions of social policy and not of biology proper). Aesthetics is strictly concerned with the arts, which I have here included between psychology and the social sciences, as they are expressions of individual and social psychology. Epistemology is prior to all other types of philosophy, as it is concerned with the nature of knowledge per se and not applied to any special sciences (although it may be argued it bears some relation to psychology). And metaphysics is problematic for modern philosophy, but relates to all other parts of philosophy.
Philosophical Explanation
Here are some characterizations about what philosophy does:
1. Conceptual Analysis and Clarification
Philosophy studies conceptual issues in the sciences and clarifies conceptual confusions. In this way philosophy helps science as advances in science are often advances in scientific concepts. philosophers schooled in conceptual analysis help scientists avoid conceptual confusions and do conceptual clarification. In this way, philosophy analyzes and clarifies the conceptual apparatus of scientific theories.
As an example, in the philosophy of biology, philosophy may analyze the concepts of "adaptation, extinction, speciation, etc..." The philosophy of biology looks at how things are explained in biology and realizes that 'teleological explanations' are used as well as 'causal explanations,' and that the concept of 'teleology' needs to be further analyzed into 'teleomatic' and 'teleonomic.'
2. Analysis at one level more general than the sciences
Philosophy analyzes at one level more general than science. Science has scientific explanations for various sorts of phenomena, but philosophy is interested in what constitutes a scientific explanation IN GENERAL, not any particular scientific explanation, but ALL scientific explanations. There are different scientific theories, but philosophy is concerned with what constitutes and is the structure and function of A scientific theory IN GENERAL, ie. what is true of all scientific theories, not a particular one. It then takes these generic concepts and looks at their interrelations, such as ' what is a scientific explanation, prediction, postulate, model, hypotheses, and law, and how are these related,' constructing, as it were, a theory of scientific theories. Philosophy of science looks not at particular experiments and their results, but what is required for a 'scientific experiment' in general, such as repeatability, intersubjective verification, and operational definitions. It looks at 'paradigmatic shifts in science,' 'functional analyses,' themes which occur in many sciences and theories, not just particular ones. It looks at issues which cross several sciences such as reductionism (can psychology be given a biological explanation, can biology be given a physical-mechanistic explanation). It also looks at 'schools' or 'approaches' in science, such as operationism, logical empiricism, and positivism.
3. Philosophy applies its traditional branches of epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics to specific sciences. An example is in the philosophy of mathematics, there is an attempt to give a theory of knowledge or epistemology of how we come to know mathematical truths, which gets in trouble as most theories of knowledge require an knower and an object to be known, but what are the objects in mathematics? The question of ontology arises, ontology being related to metaphysics, a number doesn't exist in space time so what type of object is it, an abstract object, but what is an abstract object? And there have been several attempts by philosophers and mathematicians to reduce mathematics to logic or logic and set theory, for which there is a school, known as logicism. Ethical questions related to sciences exist, as should we develop nuclear power, given its dangers, and what are the rights of an unborn fetus, is stem cell research ethical, etc...
In this characterization, derived from a survey of philosphical questions and problems below, the question is whether what philosophy does is 'explanation?' Does philosophy look for 'causes,' or 'reasons?' It is clear that philosophy does do 'explanation' inasmuch as it 'clarifies concepts,' using one of the definitions of 'explanation.' But, is abstracting questions to a higher level of generality, such as asking what constitutes a theory a case of clarifying a concept or of explanation? Is providing a theory of knowledge for mathematical propositions or how we obtain meaning in language an explanation? If so, I need an explanation of your concept of 'explanation' that ties all of these philosophical activities together.
Below is a survey of some common questions and issues is different parts of Philosophy. :
Questions in the Philosophy of Science (predominantly physical science)
Some questions in the Philosophy of Science include the following. These questions are followed by various answers which constitute the domain of the philosophy of science. What is a 'scientific explanation?' What is a 'scientific law?' or law of nature? What is a 'probabilistic explanation?' Expanations, predictions, and laws - how are these related? What is Functional Analysis - how a part functions to support the system of which it is a part - used mostly in bio and socio sciences (what about a car, the water pump and the cooling system and the cooling system and the engine?) Paradigmatic shifts in science, how and why these occur in the history of science (e.g. Newtonian to relativity or to quantuum mechanics). Scientific Theories - their structure and function - what is a theory?, theories as partially interpreted formal systems, fictionalism, the ontological status of theoretic entities, the status of theoretic terms. Hypothesis - what is a hypothesis and how does it function in a theory? Postulates - what is a postulate and how does it function in a theory? Models - what is a model and how does it function in a theory, e.g. a model is a formalized or semi-formalized theory. What constitutes the confirmation of scientific hypotheses? What is the role of induction and deduction in the scientific enterprise? Are there value judgement made in science? Is there a logic of scientific discovery? Could that logic be discovered and programmed as by a computer (to do computer based discovery?)
Philosophy of science studies the various 'schools' of scientific thought including positivism, functionalism, operationalism, logical empiricism etc... Operationism - says scientific terms are defined by an operation, by an instrument or symbolically, e.g. 'harder than' means 'when x is drag across the surface of y, x makes a mark in y' then 'x is harder than y.' Positivism - sum human experience in a uniform picture so mutually consistent judgements are possible in all situations in life (what does this have to do with science?)
Logical Empiricism - statements in theories must imply statements that are testable by direct observation
Requirements for scientific experiments - e.g. repeatability, intersubjective verification, etc... operational defintions. Reductionism is a school in the philsophy of science that attempts to give a mechanistic explanation of organismic biology - it explores the question of whether all sciences can be reduced to physics.
Questions in the Philosophy of Biology:
is biology an autonomous science (related to the question of reductionism)
cause and effect in biology (causal explanation in biology)
should teleological explanation be used in biology, can biology get along without it? Conceptual clarification: teleologic = teleonomic, teleomatic,
indeterminancy in biology - law in physics and chemistry are deterministic, but those in biology appear indeterminate.
does natural selection give the reason for progressive evolution? why not just adaptive radiation?
the defintion of life or of 'living things.'
the question of the existence of extraterrestial intelligent life
Darwinian evolution and the evolution of human ethics
analysis of the concept of 'natural selection.' an analysis of 'adapation' and the relation between selection and adaptation, concept of 'species' concept of 'diversity' speciation, microevolution (intraspecies), and macroevolution (evolution of new species) - does microevolution explain macroevolution? phenotype, genotype, extinction, evolution, saltational evoution, transformational evolution, variational evolution, punctuated equilibria
evolution of sex - competing theories
evolution of life from inanimate matter - competing theories
Darwinism
Issues in biological classification - there are competing schools of classificationists (ways to classify living things) - the pheneticists, the taxonomists, the cladists
Questions and Issues in the Philosophy of Psychology (or of Mind)
whether psychology reduces to neurology and ultimately to physics
is psychology a natural science or is it a science of the mind and of society? my answer both: biopsych is a natural science, psychology proper is a science of the mind, and social psychology is a science of the mind and society
it studies schools of psychology such as behaviorism, physicalism, and functionalism.
functionalism: functional analysis - explains a system by its working parts and their interrelations; computation-representation functionalism - our mind is a program, it is fundamental composed of representations and computations on these representations.; functional state identity theories or metaphysical functionalism - is concerned with what types of mental states we have, they characterize mental states in terms of their causal roles, their causal relations to sensory stimulations, behavioral outputs, and other mental states. some types of functionalism may hold that the mind is a Turing machine.
functionalism could be said to reduce mentality to input-output structures.
behaviorism - defines mental events in terms of their stimuluses and responses
intentionality - a theory of mind, that it is composed of beliefs and desires. (as shown by an analysis of language)
Questions and Issues in Social Philosophy
Philosophy of Law: the concept of (moral) law, liberty and law, concepts of justice, the concept of responsibility (for our actions), the concept of punishment, issues in punishment like capital punishment.
The question of what is the best social or political organization. What should be the relationship between the rulers and the ruled? between members of the society, e.g. between men and women, between parents and children, etc...
What is the best way to organize goods and labor (consider the differences on this between marxist and capitalist theories).
Questions and Issues in the Philosphy of Mathematics
Can mathematics be reduced to logic (Frege's project) or logic and set theory (Russell), representing the school of logicism. Is mathematical intuition required for arriving at mathematical truths, representing the school of intuitionism. There is also the school of formalism. What is the nature of mathematical truth, mathematical propositions? What kind of knowledge is secured in mathematics and how do we come to have this knowledge (e.g. mathematics is about analytic statements, or synthetic a priori statements). What is the nature of mathematical objects (the ontology of mathematical objects like geometrical objects and numbers)? What is the nature of mathematical proof? Can proof be automated (as in attempts in computer science), i.e., is there a logic of mathematical proofs? What constitutes 'proof' in mathematics (e.g. evidence of the senses is not a candidate). What role does induction and deduction play in mathematics (are mathematical truths arrived at deductively or also inductively)?
Questions and Issues in the Philosophy of Language
The philosophy of language is concerned with such things as a theory of meaning, i.e., how do we construct meanings out of words and the rules of grammar? The philosophy of language is also concerned about the propositional nature of language, the use of analycity in language, language and truth, language and reference. But a universal question about language, whether there is an underlying universal grammar seems to be a subject of linguistics and not philosophy of language.
Questions and Issues in the Philosophy of Religion
The philosophy of religion done properly presupposes a study of comparative religion, i.e., ALL religious experience is to be explained, not just that of a particular religion, from Buddist, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Taoist, Zoroastrian, to the more unusual apsects of religions, such as totemism, animism, and pantheism and demonisms, agnosticism, and atheism. Central concepts concern the nature of deities, the definition of omniscience, omnipotence, etc... The nature of the after-life and its relation to the current life (e.g. nirvana, re-incarnation, heaven and hell, etc...). The relation between ethics and religion (i.e., the ethical imperative and precepts of religions). Arguments for the existence and non-existence of God. Mortality and immortality, the question of the persistence of mind after death. Causation and religion: e.g. the prime cause, teleology and the final cause. Natural law and devine law. Claims to knowledge of a supreme or ultimate reality. Epistemology, how do we know a supreme being (if there is one). The finite and the infinite. The question of the existence and nature of evil. Egoism and altruism. Church and state (the proper relationship?)
The Philosophy of Human Nature or Philosophical Anthropology
What is universal or essential in humans is a question of philosophical anthropology. Reasonable philosophical anthropology presupposes a study of comparative anthropology, both diachronic and synchronic, or of comparing cultures and even physical anthropology (e.g. races). That man is defined by and distinguished from the animals by the production of culture, or the acquisition of symbol systems, by rationality, abstract thought, or by some other attribute is a question of philosophical anthropology. What distinguishes a human mind from an animal mind or a computer program is equally a question for the philosophy of mind as it is a question of philosophical anthropology. Is this difference one in kind or a matter of degree? Are human beings inherently good or evil, or what is inherent in them? Is religion universal, is art universal, is tool-making and use universal, is the acquisition of a knowledge structure universal, is myth universal and definitive? What distinguishes modern man from ancient man, technological man from agricultural or hunter-gatherer man?
Notes:
1 - (Note, the categorization of linguistics as a social science is somewhat problematic, as language is also part of our mental or psychological makeup, and it is also a feature of general knowledge, especially in its deeper aspects of semantics and logic). Clearly language is a social phenomenon, and the study of different languages involves the study of different societies, but it is also an important aspect of our cognitive apparatus, that by which we describe the world, especially semantics, and in its deeper manifestations it is logical as well. For the purposes of this organization of knowledge, I have categorized language as a psycho-social phenomenon. | http://ericwasiolek.com/philos/PhilosPhilos.htm |
This list shows a selection of faculty members who are currently looking for new graduate students. They may have specified particular projects they wish to fill. Please ensure to review the departmental profile of each faculty member to learn more about their research interests and to ensure a good fit to your intended studies at UBC.
|Last name||First name||Research Interests||Desired start dates:||Project areas|
|Zhou||Youwen||Skin Cancer; Skin Disorders; Lymphoma; Gene Regulation and Expression; Genomics; Molecular Genetics; Transgenic Model; Immune Mediators: Cytokines and Chemokines; Biomarkers in cancer and inflammation; Genetics and genomics of skin diseases; Melanoma, vitiligo, hyperhidrosis, and skin lymphoma; Innovative therapeutic development||Any time / year round||
|
|Zhang||Jenny Li||Finance and Accounting; Financial reporting, corporate disclosure, restatements, pension||
|
Financial reporting, corporate disclosure, restatements, disclosure of foreign firms listed in the U.S.
|Zhang||Wei||Health Policies; Pharmacoeconomics; Health economics; Economic evaluation||Any time / year round, 2021||
|
Work productivity loss measurement;
Economic evaluation of health interventions
|Zhang||Gaoheng||Intercultural and Ethnic Relationships; Cultural Exchanges; Migrations, Populations, Cultural Exchanges; Media and Society; Media Ethics; Media and Democratization; Migration Studies; Mobility Studies; Postcolonial Studies; Gender and Masculinity Studies; Race Theory; Film and Media Studies; Rhetoric and Communication Studies; Cultural Theory; Italian-Chinese relations; Italy's global networks; Modern and contemporary Italian literature and culture||Any time / year round||
|
Migration, postcolonial, and tourism studies relating to Italy and Europe;
|Zhang||Yuelin||Plant biology; Plant immunity; Salicylic acid signaling; Systemic acquired resistance; ROS signaling; MAPK signaling; plant immune receptors||Any time / year round||
|
Systemic acquired resistance, SA signaling, ROS signaling, MAPK signaling, signal transduction pathways downstream of plant immune receptors
|Zerriffi||Hisham||Biomass (Energy); Energy Transformation and Energy Using; International Development; Environment and Society; Ideological, Political, Economical and Social Environments of Social Transformations; Social and Cultural Factors of Environmental Protection; energy poverty||Any time / year round||
|
I do not have current funding for additional graduate students or post-doctoral scholars but am generally interested in modeling of energy access in developing countries, assessment of socio-ecological linkages in energy use, household choice and welfare implications related to energy use, and synergies and tradeoffs in meeting sustainable development goals in forestry, energy and land-use. ... Read More
|Yoon||Dongwook||Computer Science and Statistics; Design; Educational Technologies; Human-computer interaction (HCI); Multimodal interaction; Interaction and interface design; computer supported cooperative work (CSCW); Educational technology; Virtual Reality; Augmented reality; Speech, touch, multitouch, stylus, gesture, mixed-reality, 3d interaction||Any time / year round||
|
My research lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), computer-mediated communication (CMC), and educational technology. My primary research focus is to build rich collaboration systems that offer expressive multimodal interactions, i.e., interactions through multiple communication channels (e.g., speech, gesture, and grasp). My... Read More
|Yip||Calvin||Gene Regulation and Expression; Genetic Diseases; Enzymes and Proteins; Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Molecular Structure and Sizing; Imaging; Regulation of autophagy degradation; Chromatin modification / epigenetic regulation; Molecular etiologies of rare diseases||2021||
|
|Yadav||Vikramaditya||Biotechnology; Bioinformatics; Biomass (Energy); Bioremediation; Bioactive Molecules; Biomaterials; Structural Tissue Engineering / Biomaterials; Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Synthetic biology; Metabolic engineering; Biocatalysis; Bioprocess engineering; Medical biotechnology; Tissue Engineering; drug delivery; Drug discovery & development; Technoeconomics; Vaccines||Any time / year round||
|
My research group utilizes metabolic & enzyme engineering to investigate and customize novel biosynthetic enzymes that can convert biomass-derived feedstocks into value-added chemicals. We have published highly acclaimed papers on model-guided enzyme engineering, process development, enzyme discovery using metagenomics and engineering metabolic control schemes that bridge with bioprocess... Read More
|Yada||Rickey||Enzymes (including kinetics and mechanisms, and biocatalyst); Other biological sciences; Food science; Food protein chemistry; Structure-function relationships; Enzymes; aspartic proteases||Any time / year round||
|
Current research interests include: the structure-function relationships of food and non-food related enzymes using molecular biology and various physico-chemical techniques (eg. circular dichroism spectroscopy, micro-calorimeter, small angle neutron scattering, ultracentrifugation, enzyme kinetics, etc.), carbohydrate metabolism in potatoes as it related to process quality as well as various... Read More
|Wylie||Alison||Philosophy, History and Comparative Studies; philosophy of science; philosophy of the social and historial sciences; feminist philosophy; philosophy of archaeology; research ethics (non-medical); science studies||Any time / year round||
|
Feminist standpoint theory; community based collaborative practice; Indigenous/science; content effects of systemic inequities in the sciences.
|Wu||Lyndia||Biomechanical engineering; Biomedical instrumentation (including diagnostics); Biomedical signal processing; Mechanical characterization (including modeling, testing, and monitoring); Injury biomechanics; Soft Tissue Biomechanics; Traumatic Brain Injury; Sleep Biomechanics; Sensors and Instrumentation; Data Mining and Machine Learning; Wearable Sensing||Any time / year round, 2021||
|
Please refer to simpl.mech.ubc.ca for project areas and opportunities.
|Wright||Handel||Transcultural Studies; Educational Approaches; (post)multiculturalism and multicultural education; Cultural Studies; Youth Studies; Critical Race Theory; identity, citizenship and belonging; Africana studies; postcolonialism and decolonization||Any time / year round||
|
(post)multiculturalism; youth identity and belonging; cultural studies and education; Africana identity; comparative and international education
|Woody||Sheila||Mental Health and Society; Anxiety; Cognition; Community Health / Public Health; Specific Social Services (Clientele); Hoarding||
|
The Centre for Collaborative Research on Hoarding, which I direct, has two lines of research that present opportunities for graduate students. One area of inquiry is in the cognitive underpinnings of hoarding disorder, and the other is on community-based interventions for hoarding.
|Withers||Stephen||Enzymes and Proteins; Blood Substitutes; Organic Molecules and Biomolecules; Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Diabetes; Drug development; enzyme inhibition; carbohydrates; glycobiology; metagenomics; directed evolution||
|
Development of novel therapeutics for diabetes and lysosomal storage diseases
|Winstanley||Catharine||Neuronal Systems; Mental Health and Society; Neuropharmacology; Trauma / Injuries; Behavioural neuroscience; Gambling disorder; Addiction; decision making; Impulsivity; Traumatic Brain Injury||
|
Exploring the neural, neurochemical and molecular basis of impulsivity and risky decision making, particularly as these cognitive traits relate to addiction disorders. Most of the work we do uses rat models of cognitive behaviour, but we are starting to translate our findings into human subjects.
|Wilton||Steven||Integrated Circuits; Computer Architecture; Computer Hardware; Field-Programmable Gate Arrays; Computer-Aided Design Algorithms; High-Level Synthesis||Any time / year round||
|
Debug for FPGAs FPGA Architectures CAD for FPGAs
|Williams||Thomas||Topology; Algebra; Algebraic topology; Motivic homotopy theory; A1 homotopy theory||2021||
|
The A1- and classical homotopy theory of algebraic groups, and their applications to algebra.
|Wellington||Cheryl Lea||Alzheimer's Disease; Neurodegenerative Diseases; Trauma / Injuries; Lipid/Lipoprotein analysis; Structural Tissue Engineering / Biomaterials; Traumatic Brain Injury; Tissue Engineering; Biomarkers; drug discovery; Apolipoprotein E; Cerebrovascular function||Any time / year round||
|
|Weis||Dominique||Earth Structure and Composition; Geodynamics; Chemical Pollutants; Earth Sciences; Geochemistry; Oceanic islands and mantle plumes; Environmental geochemistry; High-precision/sensitivity geochemical analyses; Indigenous studies||2021||
|
Geochemistry of the Hawaiian mantle plume - trace element modelling, time evolution and relation to the deep mantle geophysical anomalies.
Honey, salmon as bioindicators - see also UBC Excellence Research Cluster, BeeHIVE: https://beehive.ubc.ca/
Indigenous/Science - see also UBC Excellence Research Cluster, Indigenous/Science at UBC:... Read More
|Weijs||Steven||Water; Hydrological Cycle and Reservoirs; Drinking Water; Fresh Water; Information; Hydroelectricity; Ice and Snow; Hydrological Prediction; Hydrology; water resources management; information theory; uncertainty; experimental hydrology; sensors; mountain hydrology; droughts; floods; control of water systems||Any time / year round||
|
Projects regarding new measurement techniques for catchment hydrology
|Weidberg||Hilla||Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Cell Signaling; Genes; Genotype and Phenotype; Enzymes and Proteins; Nucleic Acids; Cell Biology; Genetics; Biochemistry; molecular biology; Organelle biology; Mitochondria; Mitochondrial stress; Protein quality control; Metabolism; Neurodegenerative diseases||Any time / year round||
|
|Wei||Juncheng||Mathematics; Nonlinear partial differential equations; applied and geometric analysis; reaction-diffusion systems; singular perturbations and concentration phenomena; Mathematical biology; singularity formations in fluids||Any time / year round||
|
De Giorgi conjectures, fractional equations, blow-ups in nonlinear parabolic and elliptic equations
|Webb||P. Taylor||Education systems; Philosophy; Education governance and education politics; Michel Foucault; Gilles Deleuze; Neoliberalism; Governmentality; Micropolitics; Biopolitics; Subjectivity||2022||
|
|Wasteneys||Geoff||Cell Signaling; Hormones and Growth Factors; Molecular Genetics; Plant Growth and Development; Microtubule Dynamics and Organization; Trafficking of Membrane Receptors and Transporters; Cellulose Biosynthesis; Plant Cell Walls in Cell Shape and Tissue Function; Plant Responses to Abiotic Stress||Any time / year round||
|
|Wasserman||Wyeth||Medical, health and life sciences; Medical and biomedical engineering; Creation of computational methods for the analysis of genome sequences (bioinformatics); Study of cis-regulatory elements controlling gene transcription; Applied analyses of genome sequences (genomics); Indigenous genomics||Any time / year round||
|
Gene Regulation
Amongst the most important challenges of this era of life science research is understanding the regulation of gene expression, a process that allows an incredible diversity of cells to be produced from the same genome sequence. During development and across physiological conditions, a set of proteins, called Transcription Factors (TFs), interact with the... Read More
|Wang||Fei||Education and Training Management; Leadership; Social Contract and Social Justice; Ideology and Social Policy; Educational administration and leadership; social justice and diversity; comparative policy studies; the role of the school principals||
|
My research lies in the areas of educational leadership and administration, social justice and diversity, “subversive” leadership, leadership in cross-cultural settings, and educational policy studies. I explore how principals negotiate policies and practices that they consider socially unjust to students and how they “creatively” cope with conflicts between moral and ethical obligations and... Read More
|Wachs||Anthony||Fluidization and fluid mechanics; Process control and simulation in chemical engineering; Numerical computation; Fluid mechanics; Particle-laden flows; Non Newtonian flows; Heat and mass transfer; Numerical simulation; High performance computing; Multi-scale modelling||Any time / year round||
|
|von Bergmann||HsingChi||Social sciences; assessment; PBL; Teacher Beliefs & Identity; Online Teaching and Learning; Professionalism||2022||
|
COVID-19 and Science Literacy
Online Teaching & Learning in Higher Education
population oral health
Health Sciences Education Assessment
Admission/Selection
|Vincent||Amanda||Marine Environment; Fishery Resources; Sustainable Development; Protected Areas; Biodiversity and Biocomplexity; Ecology and Quality of the Environment; ocean conservation; threatened marine species, especially seahorses and their relatives; marine protected areas; Small-scale fisheries; nonselective fisheries, especially trawling; wildlife trade; community-based conservation; citizen science; multilateral environmental agreements||Any time / year round||
|
|Victoriano||Ramon Antonio||Caribbean literatures; Latin American literatures; Contemporary literatures; Hispanic Caribbean Literatures and Cultures; Latin American Contemporary Novel and Short Story||Any time / year round||
|
Blackness in the Hispanic Caribbean.
Cultural History of Hispanic Caribbean printed media.
|Vedam||Saraswathi||Gestation / Parturition; Human Rights and Liberties, Collective Rights; Right and Access to Information; Home Care Services; Law and Health; Social Contract and Social Justice; Community Health / Public Health; Breast Feeding and Infant Nutrition; Family and Child Services; Home Birth; Place of Birth; Provider Attitudes; Respectful Maternity Care; Midwifery; Interprofessional relationships; Person-Centered Care; Patient Autonomy; Institutional Racism in Maternity Care; Maternal and Newborn Outcomes; Maternity care for diverse populations; Transdisciplinary engagement in health care; Mistreatment||Any time / year round||
|
Active analysis and knowledge translation projects: qualitative and quantitative data generated by participatory maternity care research: Changing Childbirth in BC, Giving Voice to Mothers - US (participatory research on experiences of maternity care and disparities), Access and Integration Maternity Care Mapping study (links between regulatory frameworks and disparities), Giving Voice to... Read More
|Vanderwal||Tamara||Functional Neuroimaging; child psychiatric disorders||Any time / year round||
|
|Van Raamsdonk||Catherine||Cancer Genetics; Developmental Genetics; Molecular Genetics; Human Cancer Genetics; Mouse Genetics and Transgenesis; Melanoma; Oncogenesis; Melanocytes; Pigmentation||2021||
|
Cancer cell metastasis. Neural crest cell development. Molecular analysis of melanocytes and melanoma cells from mouse models: transcriptomics, bioinformatics, proteomics. Primary cell culture, FACS, Immunohistochemistry/Immunofluorescence. Therapeutics and signaling pathways in melanoma.
|Van Petegem||Filip||Biological and Biochemical Mechanisms; Genetic Diseases; Ion channels; electrical signaling; Cardiac arrhythmia; Epilepsy; Calcium signaling; Structural Biology; electrophysiology||Any time / year round||
|
1) Muscle excitation-contraction coupling: How does an electrical signal in a muscle cell get transmitted into contraction? We investigate the membrane proteins involved in this process (L-type calcium channels, Ryanodine Receptors), as well as the various proteins that modulate these channels. Projects include solving crystal and cryo-EM structures of these channels in complex with the... Read More
|Van de Panne||Michiel||Computer Science and Statistics; Computer Sciences and Mathematical Tools; Robotics and Automation; simulation of human movement; computer animation; Robotics; deep reinforcement learning; motor control; computer graphics||Any time / year round||
|
simulation of agile human motion, robotics, motion planning, sensorimotor control, dexterous manipulation, computer animation, machine learning, computer graphics, novel interfaces
|Upham||David Chester||Energy Transformation and Energy Using; catalysis; Energy; Greenhouse gas mitigation||Any time / year round||
|
CO2-free conversion of greenhouse gases into chemicals, fuels, and products
|Turvey||Stuart||Immune System; Asthma; Immunodeficiencies; Microbiome cohort studies; Primary Immune Deficiencies; Precision Medicine||Any time / year round||
|
Genetics of Susceptibility to Childhood Infection Until very recently, clinical immunologists have focused most attention on patients with a ‘noisy clinical phenotype’—multiple, severe and recurrent infections. Indeed, the origin of primary immunodeficiencies is generally attributed to Bruton’s 1952 description of X-linked agammaglobulinemia in a boy whose repeated pneumococcal infections... Read More
|Tseng||Michelle||Ecology and Quality of the Environment; Ecology; Evolutionary Biology||2021||
|
1. How do species interactions mediate adaptation to new environments?
Global climate change is resulting in increases in mean and variation in temperature. Concurrently, organisms are experiencing novel environments via land-use change and eutrophication. Can organisms adapt fast enough to respond to these changing environments? Ongoing projects: How do species interactions such as... Read More
|Traboulsee||Anthony||Multiple Sclerosis; Imaging; multiple sclerosis; magnetic resonance imaging; neuromyelitls optica (NMO)||Any time / year round||
|
Image analysis
|Tessier||Anne-Michelle||Phonology; Language Acquisition; Constraint-based grammars; Lexical avoidance; U-shaped development; L2 production and perception in childhood; Prosodic processing with cochlear implants; Shitgibbons||Any time / year round||
|
Constraint-based approaches to phonological development
Phonological learnability
L1 morpho-phonological learning
|Taylor||Eric||Genomics; Evolutionary Genetics; biodiversity; speciation; fishes; conservation; biogeography||
|
Genetics of speciation in sympatric char; population genomics; conservation
|Taubert||Stefan||Molecular Genetics; Genomics; Genetics of Aging; Metabolism; Stress and Cancer; Stress; Gene Regulation and Expression; Toxin and Toxicant Metabolism; Transcription; Gene regulation; Stress responses; Hypoxia; Aging; Diabetes; C. elegans; Mouse; beta cells||Any time / year round||
|
We study how cells, tissues, and organisms adapt to stresses such as hypoxia, oxidative stress, starvation, heavy metal exposure, and others. We investigate these stresses and stress responses because they contribute to or even cause human pathologies, including cancers, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders. In this context, we are especially interested in gene regulation by the Mediator... Read More
|Taghipour||Fariborz||Clean Technologies; Solar and Wind Energy; Drinking Water; solar fuels; Artificial Photosynthetic Systems; UV Photoreactors; UV-LED Reactors; UV Microplasma; Modeling of Chemical and Biochemical Reactors; Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)||
|
Artificial Photosynthetic Systems: Artificial photosynthesis involves capturing energy from the sun and storing it in the form of chemical fuels. The focus of this research is to create engineered solar fuel generators for the photocatalytic production of hydrogen, a leading candidate for the fuel of the future. Our team develops photoelectrochemical cells and multifunctional photocatalysts... Read More
|Suttle||Curtis||Marine Environment; Microbial Diversity; Marine Microbiology; Environmental Virology; Biological Oceanography; Viral Discovery; Viruses; Phage||Any time / year round||
|
Generally students will need to be funded through external scholarships, or be funded through a University Graduate Fellowship, or other UBC Fellowship.
|Sunderland||Terence||Earth and related environmental sciences; Social and economic geography; biodiversity; Communications; Communities and Livelihoods; conservation; Conservation Biology; Ecosystem services; Environmental communication; Forest policy; Land-use Change; Landscape ecology; Natural Resource Management; social science; sustainability; Tropical Landscapes and Livelihoods; Developing countries; Forest management||2021, 2022||
|
Forests and food security; sustainable landscape management; biodiversity; rural livelihoods and markets; ecosystem services; non-timber forest products
|Subramaniam||Sriram||Medical, health and life sciences; cryo-EM; cryo-electron microscopy; Cryoelectron Microscopy; Scanning Electron Microscopy; Advanced Electron Microscopy; drug discovery; Drug-design; Focused ion beams; Electron tomography; Tomography; Single particle imaging; Single particle analysis; structural bioinformatics; Structural Biology; COVID-19 therapeutic design||2022||
|
|Stull||Roland||Meteorology and weather; weather; Meteorology; atmospheric science; numerical weather prediction; clean energy meteorology; storms; transportation weather; forest fire weather; weather disasters; atmospheric boundary layers; aviation meteorology||Any time / year round||
|
Weather forecasting for clean energy (wind, hydro, solar).
Weather forecasting for transportation (shipping, highways, railroads)
Weather forecasting for forest fires (fire-atmosphere interaction, smoke dispersion)
Forecasting for other weather-related disasters (landslides, debris flows, floods, avalanches, windstorms, air pollution, etc.)
Special projects (e.g.,... Read More
|Stephens||Christopher||philosophy of biology; philosophy of science; rationality; Why be rational?; scientific philosophy||Any time / year round||
|
philosophical debates about evolutionary biology, topics in philosophy of science concerning the nature of evidence, the nature and justification of rationality. Evolutionary approaches to philosophical topics. | https://www.grad.ubc.ca/prospective-students/research-projects?field_researcher_rec_level_value=All&sd=All&combine=&items_per_page=50&order=field_researcher_last_name&sort=desc |
Statistical Demography and Forecasting [electronic resource] / by Juha M. Alho, Bruce D. Spencer.
By: Alho, Juha M [author.]
Contributor(s): Spencer, Bruce D [author.] | SpringerLink (Online service)Material type: TextSeries: Springer Series in Statistics: Publisher: New York, NY : Springer New York, 2005Description: XXVIII, 412 p. 34 illus. online resourceContent type: text Media type: computer Carrier type: online resourceISBN: 9780387283920Subject(s): Social sciences | Epidemiology | Statistics | Population | Demography | Social Sciences | Demography | Epidemiology | Population Economics | Statistical Theory and MethodsAdditional physical formats: Printed edition:: No titleDDC classification: 304.6 LOC classification: HB848-3697Online resources: Click here to access online
|Item type||Current location||Collection||Call number||Status||Date due||Barcode||Item holds|
|eBook||
e-Library
|
Electronic Book@IST
|EBook||Available|
Sources of Demographic Data -- Sampling Designs and Inference -- Waiting Times and Their Statistical Estimation -- Regression Models for Counts and Survival -- Multistate Models and Cohort-Component Book-Keeping -- Approaches to Forecasting Demographic Rates -- Uncertainty in Demographic Forecasts: Concepts, Issues, and Evidence -- Statistical Propagation of Error in Forecasting -- Errors in Census Numbers -- Financial Applications -- Decision Analysis and Small Area Estimates.
Sustainability of pension systems, intergeneration fiscal equity under population aging, and accounting for health care benefits for future retirees are examples of problems that cannot be solved without understanding the nature of population forecasts and their uncertainty. Similarly, the accuracy of population estimates directly affects both the distributions of formula-based government allocations to sub-national units and the apportionment of political representation. The book develops the statistical foundation for addressing such issues. Areas covered include classical mathematical demography, event history methods, multi-state methods, stochastic population forecasting, sampling and census coverage, and decision theory. The methods are illustrated with empirical applications from Europe and the U.S. For statisticians the book provides a unique introduction to demographic problems in a familiar language. For demographers, actuaries, epidemiologists, and professionals in related fields, the book presents a unified statistical outlook on both classical methods of demography and recent developments. To facilitate its classroom use, exercises are included. Over half of the book is readily accessible to undergraduates, but more maturity may be required to benefit fully from the complete text. Knowledge of differential and integral calculus, matrix algebra, basic probability theory, and regression analysis is assumed. Juha M. Alho is Professor of Statistics, University of Joensuu, Finland, and Bruce D. Spencer is Professor of Statistics and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University. Both have contributed extensively to statistical demography and served in advisory roles and as statistical consultants in the field.
There are no comments for this item. | https://koha.app.ist.ac.at/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=369358 |
ISSN:
2164-6066
eISSN:
2164-6074
Journal of Dynamics & Games
Journal of Dynamics and Games: Special Issue
Advances in Dynamics and Games
at the occasion of
The 31th European Conference on Operational Research
EURO 2021
Athens, Greece, July 11-14, 2021
31th EURO Conference will be held in Athens, Greece, on 11-14 July, 2021. The Program and Organization Committees have the great pleasure of inviting the community of Operational Research (OR) to take part in this highlight in the OR life Europe and the world. The two committees are preparing a high quality scientific program and an exciting social program for the conference. They are convinced that the EURO 31th (EURO 2021) will be an excellent opportunity for the OR family to get together again in a pleasant atmosphere and, thus, they are looking forward to meeting many researchers and practitioners in Athens, in 2021. Several outstanding Plenaries and Tutorial Speakers have been selected and will present the state-of-the-art in OR, outlining pathways of its future developments.
Game theory is a mathematical framework developed to address problems with conflicting or cooperating parties who are able to make rational decisions. The theory primarily deals with the finding the optimal rational decision in various scenarios. Game theory is a relatively new discipline. The modern game theory was introduced in the works of John von Neumann in the 1920s. John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, and John Nash were the main contributors to the development of game theory. The theory offers a wide number of applications in different fields, including economics, political science, finance, psychology, biology, etc.
The guest of this special issue entitled ‘Advances in Dynamics and Games’, Journal of Dynamics and Games (JDG) is a pure and applied mathematical journal that publishes high quality peer-review and expository papers in all research areas of expertise of its editors. The main focus of JDG is in the interface of Dynamical Systems and Game Theory. It is devoted to the development and the diffusion of mathematical ideas and techniques that arise from the analysis and the modelling of systems where agents (whether they be rational players, markets, plants, animals, ecosystems, communication systems, etc.) interact dynamically over time.
We invite papers challenging mathematical questions occurring in such systems or provide a rigorous mathematical analysis of models where tools from dynamics and games prove to be useful. Areas covered include dynamic games, stochastic games, differential games, evolutionary games, models of learning and evolution, repeated games, mean field models, voting, auctions, matching, assignment games and other research areas of cooperative and non-cooperative game theory, preferentially where dynamics play a role, as well as the associated applications in social, economic, biology, life, physical and computer sciences.
The objective of this special issue is to explore latest development of mathematical ideas and techniques in modeling, and simulation related with Game Theory applied in economics, finance and biology. Papers in newly evolving topics are especially welcomed. We invite researchers and experts worldwide to submit high-quality innovative research papers and critical review articles on the subsequent potential topics.
Submission:
Topics of Interest:
Manuscripts submitted to this Special Issue should be original, unpublished, not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere and should present novel, in-depth, fundamental research contributions either from a methodological perspective or from an application point of view. Quality and originality of the contribution are the main acceptance criteria. Proposed submissions may include but are not limited to the following areas:
- Games in OR problems:
- o Game theory in epidemiology (e.g., Covid-19)
- o Game theory in the biology of neuroscience
- o Game theory in cancer research and treatment
- o Game theory in logistics, telecommunication and “smart cities”
- o Game theory in social and welfare systems, and humanitarian aid
- Theoretical contributions to game theory:
- o Mean-field games
- o Differential games
- o Repeated games
- o Cooperative games
- o Games with regime switches
- o Stochastic games
- Games in economics and finance:
- o Games in micro- and macro-economics
- o Prey-predator models in economics (and biology)
- o Game theory in environmental protection
- o Games on information spread in economics
- o Games under interval or ellipsoidal uncertainty
- o Games under grey or fuzzy uncertainty
- o Hybrid systems and applications
Submission of Manuscripts:
Authors should follow the Guidelines available at the Journal of Dynamics and Games website via the link
https://www.aimsciences.org/journal/2164-6066
and select the Special Issue “Advances in Dynamics and Games” within the process of submission.
In cases of any questions, please contact us via e-mail to stefan.wrzaczek@tuwien.ac.at, gerhard-wilhelm.weber@put.poznan.pl and andrea.seidl@univie.ac.at.
Important Dates:
Submission Deadline: October 15, 2021,
Notification of the Final Decision: August 15, 2022
Guest Editors:
Dr. Andrea Seidl, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, andrea.seidl@univie.ac.at.
Dr.Stefan Wrzaczek, Wittgenstein Centre (Univ. Vienna, IIASA, VID/OeAW), VID/OeAW, Vienna, Austria, stefan.wrzaczek@tuwien.ac.at.
Prof. Dr. Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber, Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland, and METU, Ankara, gerhard.weber@put.poznan.pl.
Prof. Dr. Cristinca Fulga, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania, fulga@csie.ase.ro.
Dr. Bruno Miguel Paz Mendes de Oliveira, University of Porto, Portugal, and LIAAD, INESC TEC, bmpmo@fcna.up.pt.
Prof. Dr. Patrizia Daniele, University of Catania, Italia, daniele@dmi.unict.it.
Prof. Dr. Vladimir Mazalov, Karelia Research Center of Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrozavodsk, Russia, vlmazalov@yandex.ru.
Prof. Dr. Guiomar Martin-Herran, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain, guiomar@eco.uva.es.
Prof. Dr. Leon Petrosyan , Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia, l.petrosyan@spbu.ru.
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Vetschera, University of Vienna, rudolf.vetschera@univie.ac.at.
Prof. Dr. Athanasios Yannacopoulos, Athens University of Economics and Business, ayannaco@aueb.gr.
Prof. Dr. Nikolay Zenkevich, Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia, zenkevich@gsom.pu.ru.
Readers
Authors
Editors
Referees
Librarians
Email Alert
Add your name and e-mail address to receive news of forthcoming issues of this journal: | http://www.aimsciences.org/journal/2164-6066/JDG_Special4 |
Probability is a beautiful and ubiquitous field of modern mathematics that can be loosely described as the mathematics of uncertainty. It has applications in all areas of pure and applied science, and provides the theoretical basis for statistics. Four of the last twelve Fields Medallists have been recognised for their work in probability.
Stochastic processes involves the study of systems that evolve randomly in time. The latter is a characteristic feature of the behaviour of most complex systems, for example, living organisms, large populations of individuals of some kind (molecules, cells, stars or even students), financial markets, systems of seismic faults etc. Being able to understand and predict the future behaviour of such systems is of critical importance, and this requires understanding the laws according to which the systems evolve in time. Discovering such laws and devising methods for using them in various applications in physics, biology, statistics, financial engineering, risk analysis and control is the principle task of researchers working in the area of stochastic processes. Computer simulations also play an important role in the field, and enable one to get insight into the behaviour of analytically intractable systems.
Research in our group covers a diverse range of theoretical and applied probability and stochastic processes, including: stochastic approximation, the theory of queues and stochastic networks, random walks, random graphs and combinatorial structures, reinforcement processes, interacting particle systems, stochastic dynamical systems, boundary crossing problems, and applications in epidemiology, healthcare, traffic management, risk modelling, financial engineering.
Students interested in pursuing a career in various fields such as mathematics, statistics, physics, biology, finance, economics etc. will benefit greatly by studying probability at a deep level. Stochastic Processes graduates work in research and development departments of leading financial and insurance institutions, defence organisations, as well as in the areas of bioinformatics, signal processing, technology and many others. | https://ms.unimelb.edu.au/research/groups/details?gid=14 |
JEL Classifications:
C5 -- Econometric Modeling
H -- Public Economics
R -- Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics
Keywords:
Full Text of JOE Listing:
The University of Tampa is a medium-sized comprehensive, private university that delivers challenging and high-quality educational experiences to a diverse group of learners. The University offers more than 200 areas of study, including majors in our colleges of Arts and Letters, Business, Natural and Health Sciences and Social Sciences, Math and Education and 11 master’s programs.
The Department of Economics within the Sykes College of Business at The University of Tampa seeks a highly qualified and experienced Ph.D. economist, starting fall 2016 at the Assistant/Associate level. Responsibilities would include developing a solid applied research program, teaching undergraduate and graduate students, and training students to build econometric forecasting models. Creating and maintaining local/regional economic forecasting models, and a willingness to contribute to the College’s efforts to engage the local business community through the biannual Tampa Bay Economy report would be a plus.
Ideal candidate will have excellent communication skills for both lay and professional audiences and excellent empirical capabilities. Demonstrated commitment to teaching excellence is required. Teaching load is 3 courses per semester. Applicant will also be expected to actively participate in student service and maintain an active record of relevant scholarship. Preferred fields include applied econometrics, forecasting and/or regional economics. Preference given to experienced candidates at Associate level.
To apply on-line go to: https://jobs.ut.edu
Applicants should be prepared to attach a cover letter, teaching philosophy statement, current curriculum vitae and one sample of written work. Copies of teaching evaluations are also required. Be sure to include a table that efficiently summarizes all of your teaching evaluation data (applications without a summary table will be given lower priority). Applicants will be requested to enter name and email address for three (3) reference providers.
To receive consideration for an interview at the 2016 ASSA meetings, applications should be submitted by November 17, 2015. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Priority will be given to those applications that are both received and completed by the deadline stated above.
The University of Tampa is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer dedicated to excellence through diversity and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, marital status, gender identity, veteran status or any other non-job related criteria. The University invites applications from underrepresented groups and those who have academic experiences with diverse populations.
Application Requirements: | https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing.php?JOE_ID=2015-02_111454508 |
Focus: Philoshophy/Social Theory
Critical realism is a philosophical movement born in the 1960s that acquired a reputation, firstly in the field of Philosophy of Science, due to its devasting criticism of positivism, using both the social and the natural sciences’ point of view. Although it has expanded into other fields, whether in philosophy (e.g. ethics and metaphysics) or other sciences (e.g. sociology, economics, biology, etc.), critical realism seems to be mostly confined to English-speaking countries, and even in them, it is not the mainstream. This course will address the topic of critical realism and it has a threefold objective: (1) to make a general introduction to the topic; (2) to foster its diffusion to a Brazilian audience, where the issue has been virtually unexplored and (3) to explore some of its possible contributions to the social sciences, in general, and to what is done in developing countries, in particular.
Professor: Thiago Duarte Pimentel (UFJF)
Language: English
Mode of instruction: online
Courseload: 10 hours
Date&Time: July 22-29, 9.30am-12pm
Target audience: undergraduate
Spots available: 25
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): | https://www2.ufjf.br/globaljuly/an-introduction-to-critical-realism/ |
Professors in Operations Research in the IDS department design optimization models and solving methods for decision problems (prescriptive analytics). A wide variety of applications are considered in business and other fields for strategic, tactical or operational decisions: transportation planning and vehicle routing, production planning, network design, facility location, assortment optimization, assignment problems, portfolio optimization, digital operations... Transportation, energy, telecom, healthcare, manufacturing are typical sectors where optimization methods bring value for making better decisions. The research team focuses on combinatorial optimization problems with binary decisions (select or not). The goal is to model these problems, analyze their complexity, and develop solution methods based on mathematical optimization, or approximation heuristics. Both empirical and theoretical validation is provided. The team has a strong expertise in decomposition methods (Branch-and-Price, Branch-and-Cut, Benders decomposition...), bilevel optimization, efficient heuristic or matheuristic methods, and also studies graph problems, choice models and robust and stochastic optimization to deal with data uncertainty, problems dealing with real data (like road networks) and techniques for handling big data, like machine learning.
Professors: Laurent Alfandari, Ivana Ljubic, Claudia Archetti
Econometric theory
Econometrics is concerned with the tasks of developing and applying quantitative or statistical methods to the study and elucidation of economic principles. It combines economic or financial theory with probability, statistics and computer sciences to analyze and test relationships. Theoretical econometrics considers questions about the statistical properties of estimators and tests, while applied econometrics is concerned with the application of econometric methods to assess or evaluate theories.
Econometric applications are wide-ranging in social and management sciences, generally when the data are observational rather than obtained via a controlled experiment.
Professors: Guillaume Chevillon, Jeroen Rombouts
Forecasting
Forecasting is the process of estimation in unknown future situations. Its purpose is to generate information, such as probable values, and a range of possible alternatives, depending on the chosen criteria for evaluation of the accuracy, in a context where the future is, potentially loosely, related to present and past. Forecasting techniques rely on probability, statistics, data sciences and time-series econometrics. The focus is on minimizing risk and uncertainty. Applications are wide ranging in economics and increasingly so in management.
Professors: Guillaume Chevillon, Jeroen Rombouts
High-dimensional statistics
Over the past decade, statistics and data analysis have undergone drastic changes with the development of high-dimensional statistical inference. The list of fields producing high-dimensional data includes finance, online advertising, genetics. In many of these applications, data analysis is performed under the property of sparsity, that is, assuming that only few variables in a high-dimensional collection of data are effectively relevant. This approach is common for several problems in data analysis such as high-dimensional linear regression, estimation of high-dimensional low rank matrices as well as network models.
Professor: Olga Klopp, Mohamed Ndaoud
Multivariate data analysis and collection
This research stream concentrates on collecting and analyzing huge masses of data where numerous variables are obtained for each properly chosen individual or statistical unit, e.g. answers of many respondents to a variety of questions on different themes in a survey, or different measurements of a company's performance in a study on the company's financial health. The challenge of disentangling complicated interrelationships among various measures and of interpreting both the analytical and the graphical results makes multivariate data analysis a rewarding activity for the investigator. Within the stream of multivariate data analysis, two main approaches are usually distinguished: exploratory and confirmatory. The exploratory, data-driven approach may help in discovering interesting and relevant correlations. It is appropriate when the objective is to identify the structure of the underlying factors that are responsible for co-variation in data with a focus on the variables (dimensionality reduction procedures), on the statistical units (clustering algorithms) or on both (e.g. tandem analysis). The confirmatory theory-driven approach, instead, adapts better to situations where the researcher has hypotheses to test on the number and nature of factors, the merging of available variables into blocks that are the expression of latent concepts, on their parameters and on a network of causal relationships connecting the different latent concepts in accordance with theoretical models. Tools for the modification, the improvement and the assessment of such models are provided in the light of interplay between theory and empirical data.
Professor: Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi, Olga Klopp, Mohamed Ndaoud
Computational statistics
The field of computational statistics concerns the computational realization of a statistical workflow such as inference and prediction. The development of novel and principled algorithms to support statistical routines has been the topic of intensive research in the past few decades. In the current age of big data and high-dimensional models, the need to efficiently perform computation and exploit new computing architectures and hardware becomes an all-important challenge. Specific application areas include state space modelling for financial econometrics and epidemiology, and Bayesian statistics for describing epistemological uncertainty.
Professors: Jeremy Heng, Pierre Jacob
Information Systems
IS/IT and strategy
A central theme in organizations concerns how they align their information systems strategy (including information and communications technology strategy) with the overall business strategy. Good alignment ensures, at least to some extent, that the information systems used support the organizational mission and goals. As a consequence, there is likely to be less conflict within organizations resulting from technology adoption and the success of the business strategy becomes feasible.
Professors: Jan Ondrus, Thomas Huber, Julien Malaurent, Thomas Kude
Processes of IS/IT Change
This research stream focuses on the managerial and societal opportunities and challenges related to modern information technology. We are particularly interested in understanding interactions and dynamics over time; often by taking a process-theoretic stance. We explore our interest in IT-related change processes in two main research areas. In the area “Managing Digital Transformation Processes”, we look at the role that modern information technologies such as digital platforms, AI, and digital collaboration tools play in the transformation of organizations and societies. In the second research area, we investigate the “Dynamics of Governance and Control” in Software development and software outsourcing projects. Here the focus is on the management of paradoxes and the dynamic balancing of contradictory tensions such as those between formal and informal management approaches or governing towards alignment and flexibility. While open to both qualitative and quantitative research approaches, the majority of research projects in both of these areas follow qualitative research methods aimed at building rather than testing theory.
Professors: Thomas Huber, Julien Malaurent, Thomas Kude
IS/IT evaluation, quality and security
Ever since the Chaos Report in the late 1990s, which suggested that many if not most information systems fail in practice at least to some extent, efforts have been made to improve the success rate of information systems in organizations. In one study of a telecommunications company carried out by researchers at ESSEC and elsewhere, an information systems failure is seen as causing the demise of the company. Evaluation research at ESSEC goes beyond narrow costs and benefits and into satisfying the needs of all stakeholders. In particular our research has shown the necessity of top management involvement. Through researching into the reasons for success and failure, the success rate of information systems has improved greatly over the last few years. Information systems need to be of excellent quality and have high security levels to be successful. We also develop quantitative approaches for assessing the quality of conceptual models, data, and more generally information systems.
Professors: Isabelle Comyn-Wattiau, Nicolas Prat.
IS/IT engineering and development
The development of information systems is often seen as the "core" of the discipline of Information Systems. The study of methodologies, techniques and tools for developing and maintaining information systems is therefore a central theme of practice as well as research. We have developed a deep understanding of how information is represented inside information systems through different forms: models, programs, and data. This allows us to define reverse engineering and evolution methodologies for information systems.
Professors: Isabelle Comyn-Wattiau, Jan Ondrus, Nicolas Prat, Thomas Kude
IS/IT adoption and diffusion
The study of IS innovation adoption is the investigation of how, why and at what rate the innovative ideas, technologies, and services are adopted through cultures and different demographic groups. The research is carried out at both the individual level (Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behavior model) and the organizational level (diffusion of innovation theory).
Professors: Yan Li.
E-business and m-business
This domain of research focuses on the business issues raised by the growth in the use of the World Wide Web and the penetration of mobile phones in today's organizations. Faculty interests currently focus on issues in the travel e-distribution and e-marketing fields, and on the area of mobile payments.
Professors: Jan Ondrus.
Knowledge management and decision support
This stream of research concentrates on systems that support managerial actions and decision-making. We conduct research on knowledge management, including the theory of knowledge management and specific technologies like mobile knowledge management. We have developed and are refining methodologies for designing data warehouses and multidimensional systems (OLAP-OnLine Analytical Processing). We have also applied multi-criteria analysis in the context of technology foresight.
Professors: Isabelle Comyn-Wattiau, Jan Ondrus, Nicolas Prat. | https://isds-department.essec.edu/research/themes-and-applications |
This textbook presents worked-out exercises on game theory with detailed step-by-step explanations. While most textbooks on game theory focus on theoretical results, this book focuses on providing practical examples in which students can learn to systematically apply theoretical solution concepts to different fields of economics and business. The text initially presents games that are required in most courses at the undergraduate level and gradually advances to more challenging games appropriate for masters level courses. The first six chapters cover complete-information games, separately analyzing simultaneous-move and sequential-move games, with applications in industrial economics, law, and regulation. Subsequent chapters dedicate special attention to incomplete information games, such as signaling games, cheap talk games, and equilibrium refinements, emphasizing common steps and including graphical illustrations to focus students’ attention on the most relevant payoff comparisons at each point of the analysis. In addition, exercises are ranked according to their difficulty, with a letter (A-C) next to the exercise number. This allows students to pace their studies and instructors to structure their classes accordingly. By providing detailed worked-out examples, this text gives students at various levels the tools they need to apply the tenets of game theory in many fields of business and economics. This text is appropriate for introductory-to-intermediate courses in game theory at the upper undergraduate and master’s level.
- About the authors
-
Felix Muñoz-Garcia is an Associate Professor in the School of Economic Sciences at Washington State University. His research focuses on the areas of microeconomics, industrial organization, and game theory, with applications to environmental regulation under incomplete information and firms’ entry-deterring practices in polluting industries. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008. He has published in the Canadian Journal of Economics, Theory and Decision, Journal of Regulatory Economics, International Journal of Industrial Organization, and Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, among others.
Daniel Toro-González is an Associate Professor in the School of Economic and Business at Universidad Tecnologica de Bolivar. His research is in industrial organization and econometrics, with applications to technology adoption, transportation, and the food industry. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from Washington State University in 2012. He has published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization, and The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics. | https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319814100 |
ACLU Calls for Senate to Back Strong Media Shield Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEWashington, DC – As negotiations continue on media shield legislation in the Senate, the American Civil Liberties Union once again voiced its support for a law that fiercely protects the public’s right to know. Last year, the House passed the Free Flow of Information Act – a bill that has real protections for journalists and their sources.
The following can be attributed to Terri Schroeder, ACLU Senior Lobbyist:
“As Congress weighs this important issue, the ACLU will continue to push for passage of a meaningful federal media shield law. In recent years, we have seen a troubling increase in the number of journalists who have been threatened with or served time in jail simply for doing their jobs. With historic stories revealing warrantless wiretapping and the CIA’s use of torture, it’s hard to imagine that our government would ever be held accountable for its actions if it weren’t for a free press and its confidential sources.
“Unfortunately, as we move closer and closer to getting a shield bill to the Senate floor, the bill is becoming weaker and weaker. Many agree that there are circumstances when a journalist holds confidential information that ought to be provided to the courts to protect the national security or prevent acts of terrorism. We believe those circumstances ought to be kept to a bare minimum to keep real protections in place for the kind of journalism that is essential to a free society. When determining whether or not to force a reporter to turn over confidential information or to name a source, courts should be required to balance the public’s right to know and the journalist’s rights against the government’s stated interest. We are concerned that proposed modifications to this bill will threaten the legitimacy and integrity of the balancing required.
“We continue to encourage the Senate leadership and the bill’s sponsors to stand firm against the administration’s relentless effort to gut significant protections in what will be the first federal shield law. No matter how much Senator Specter and others on both sides of the aisle fight for legitimate protections, some will not be happy until the shield bill is ‘compromised’ into an empty gesture.”
To read the ACLU’s report urging the passage of a federal shield law, go to:
Stay informed
Every month, you'll receive regular roundups of the most important civil rights and civil liberties developments. Remember: a well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
The latest in Free Speech
-
ACLU Warns of Harm to Free Speech Online if Congress Dismantles Section 230
-
This Law Could Criminalize Everyday Conversations About Immigration
-
How Officials in Georgia are Suppressing Political Protest as ‘Domestic Terrorism’
-
Congressional Efforts to Ban TikTok in the U.S. Remain a Danger to Free Speech
ACLU's Vision
The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America.
Learn More About Free Speech
Protecting free speech means protecting a free press, the democratic process, diversity of thought, and so much more. The ACLU has worked since 1920 to ensure that freedom of speech is protected for everyone. | https://wp.api.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-calls-senate-back-strong-media-shield-law |
Submission: Free and Equal, a conversation on human rights
NSWCCL has endorsed the Human Rights for NSW Alliance's submission to the Australian Human Rights Commission's national conversation on human rights in Australia - Free and Equal. The submission makes a number of recommendations and builds the case for a Human Rights Act in NSW.
NSWCCL is a founding member of Human Rights for NSW Alliance. Human Rights for NSW is an alliance of community, legal, rights-based and civil society organisations campaigning to ensure that the human rights of NSW citizens are expressed and guaranteed by law so we are all treated fairly, and with dignity, equality and respect.
This submission is endorsed by 33 member organisations, including Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, Human Rights Law Centre, Community Legal Centres NSW, Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT and the NSW Bar Association.
Everyone in NSW deserves to be treated fairly and equally. NSWCCL supports the campaign for a Human Rights Act for NSW.
NSW mobile phone detection bill seriously flawed
A NSW Parliamentary Committee has recommended the Legislative Council should proceed to consider the Transport Amendment (Mobile Phone Detection) Bill 2019, including any amendments in relation to the reverse onus of proof, the use of artificial intelligence and privacy.
NSWCCL agrees strongly that mobile phone use whilst driving is a serious issue which needs to be addressed to protect the safety of the community.
We do not, however, support this Bill on the basis that it unjustifiably reverses the onus of proof and fails to provide adequate protections to assure the public that the information captured by the cameras is used for the sole purpose of prosecuting mobile phone offences.
NSWCCL also has concerns about the inherent risks of using AI to identify criminal behaviour given the lack of transparency as to the underpinning algorithms driving the assessment.
We welcome the Committee’s recognition of these concerns in their report and single recommendation.
The Bill should be amended significantly to address these problems before the Legislative Council approves it.Read more
Review: 2019 Annual General Meeting
The 56th Annual General Meeting of the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) was held at the Sydney Town Hall Council Chamber, George Street Sydney on Wednesday 23rd October.
Read more
2019 AGM Policy Proposal - Press Freedom & Whistle Blowers
Press Freedom and Whistleblowers
Policy motion considered at the NSWCCL 2019 Annual General Meeting, 23rd October 2019
NSWCCL has for many years defended the rights of a free and uncensored press to ensure the public is sufficiently informed and able to hold those in power to account.
We support the statements of Ita Buttrose at our 2019 annual dinner that there are storm clouds gathering around the ways that information is controlled. Whistleblowers who bring stories to light must not be subjected to a public show of prosecution under the guise of national security, or be censored because their story may cause embarrassment or cost to those in power.
We believe that whistleblowers are not adequately protected in Australia. Particularly in the absence of a bill or charter of rights, specific protection should be enacted.
Read more
2019 AGM Policy Proposal - Religious Discrimination Bill
Religious Discrimination Bill 2019
Policy motion considered at the NSWCCL 2019 Annual General Meeting, 23rd October 2019
NSWCCL cannot support the Religious Discrimination Bill (the Bill) as currently drafted. It has too many negative aspects which will undermine current anti-discrimination protections and it fails to address pressing issues. NSWCCL strongly opposes the privileging of religious freedoms over other rights.Read more
Submission: Religious Discrimination Bills 2019
It is clearly important for Australia’s discrimination laws to work cohesively together and for no one right to be automatically privileged over another/others. The protection and balancing of human rights would be greatly assisted by the adoption of an Australian Charter of Human Rights and by a review of Australia’s state and federal human rights laws to ensure the appropriate coherence and consistency. The current Review by the Australian Law Reform Commission into The Framework of Religious Exemptions in Anti-Discrimination Legislation will contribute to this from the perspective of religious rights - but the broader exercise is necessary.
One of the major disappointments with this Bill is the failure to include much needed and explicitly promised protections for LGBTQI+ students in religious and private schools. This Bill has been hastily drawn up in advance of the report from the inquiry into The Framework of Religious Exemptions in Anti-Discrimination Legislation under way by the ALRC, but one of the most urgent and disturbing manifestations of inappropriate religious exemptions for otherwise unlawful discriminatory acts against children has deliberately not been addressed in the Bill and instead left to the ALRC review. Simultaneously the reporting date for the ALRC review has been pushed back to December 2020.
Submission: Health Legislation Amendment (Data Matching) Bill 2019
The New South Wales Council of Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) welcomes the opportunity to make submissions to the Department of Health on the Health Legislation Amendment (Data- matching) Bill 2019 (Bill) and the Health Legislation Amendment (Permitted Information Disclosure) Regulations 2019.
NSWCCL supports the integrity of the Medicare health payments system provided that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect sensitive information and the privacy of Australians is respected.
NSWCCL objects to the sharing of sensitive health information with other Commonwealth entities and opposes the Bill in its current form. NSWCCL has a number of recommendations detailed in this submission.
Bail conditions imposed on Sydney climate change activists a step too far
'Absurd' bail conditions prevent Extinction Rebellion protesters 'going near' other members
Civil liberties groups say bail conditions imposed on Sydney climate change activists are usually reserved for bikie gang members
Climate change protesters arrested for obstructing traffic have been given “absurd” bail conditions that ban them from “going near” or contacting members of 'Extinction Rebellion', which civil liberties groups say infringes on freedom of political communication. Some of those arrested were given a “wild” set of bail conditions that banned them from coming within 2km of the Sydney CBD or associating with Extinction Rebellion events.
“[You are] not to go near, or contact or try to go near or contact (except through a legal representative) any members of the group ‘Extinction Rebellion’,” the conditions say. “[You are] not to enter the Sydney City CBD or not go within 2km radius of the Sydney Town Hall.”
The president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Pauline Wright, labelled the conditions “patently unreasonable”, “absurd” and likely unlawful under the constitution. She said the ban was so broad and unclear it would affect thousands of people.
“Where there is a legitimate political issue such as seeking action on climate change, protesters shouldn’t be seen to be forfeiting their democratic rights including freedom of association, freedom of movement and the implied right to freedom of political expression.”
- NSWCCL President, Pauline Wright.
Read the full article in The Guardian.
Submission: Right to Farm Bill 2019
CCL is concerned by what would appear to be a ‘crackdown’ against free speech and basic principles of democratic governance.
The proposed legislation is draconian and disproportionate and might be said to infringe at least two of the four core principles of criminal law –
- that the criminal law should only be used to censure people who have committed substantial wrongdoing, and
- that laws be enforced with respect for proportionality.
This bill appears to be designed to discourage lawful demonstrations and protest contrary to the implied constitutional right to peaceful protest and its constitutionality is for that reason questionable.
NSW Council for Civil Liberties (CCL) joins with a number of other civil society organisations including unions, environment groups and civil liberties advocates in making the additional submission (set out in Annexure A). | http://www.nswccl.org.au/news?page= |
ACLU Statement on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Spending Bill
WASHINGTON — The House Appropriations Committee will consider today the annual spending bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The bill includes numerous provisions that would jeopardize access to reproductive health care and weaken civil rights protections.
“This funding bill would have a devastating impact on access to reproductive health care across the country,” said Faiz Shakir, national political director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It would cut off patients from receiving care at Planned Parenthood and from using critical family planning services, while tacking on discriminatory policies that undermine women’s ability to obtain safe and legal abortion care. The bill also weakens civil rights protections by hindering government oversight that ensures taxpayer dollars are not going to businesses that engage in discrimination. Congress should reject this bill.”
The bill would exclude Planned Parenthood from participation in any program funded by the bill, blocking millions of patients from accessing care at its clinics. It would also completely eliminate funding for the Title X family planning program and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, while increasing funding for abstinence-only programs that put young people at risk.
In addition, the bill contains several harmful policies that limit abortion access. This includes the Conscience Protection Act, a measure that would facilitate discrimination against women seeking abortion care because of unfounded religious liberty claims. The bill also perpetuates the discriminatory Hyde Amendment, which denies abortion coverage to low-income women enrolled in Medicaid.
The bill also proposes $11 million in cuts to the budget of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) within the Department of Labor. The OFCCP is a civil rights enforcement agency that is tasked with ensuring that taxpayer dollars, in the form of federal contracts, don’t go to businesses that engage in discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, and disability.
Stay informed
Every month, you'll receive regular roundups of the most important civil rights and civil liberties developments. Remember: a well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
ACLU's Vision
The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. | https://wp.api.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-labor-health-and-human-services-and-education-spending-bill |
To what extent does the codified constitution hinder or help liberty?
1 Introduction
For centuries, most nations have worked on establishing free countries. During these progressions, people’s liberties have been increasingly violated. The government today limits our political speech, subjecting us to more wiretapping than ever before. The narrowing of these liberties takes place gradually and is often introduced under the guise of nobility. The greatest threat to civil liberties is the increase in power of the government with the help of the constitution. Ironically, this supreme law was drafted by the founders to limit such power, and instead protect the rights of its citizenry. However, the assertion that written constitutions impede the protection of civil liberties is unfounded and does not stand up to scrutiny. Although it is true that citizens of some countries have suffered such infringements because of the establishment of a codified constitution, this is not the reason to completely deny the existence and value of this document.
2 Definition
2.1 codified constitution
An appropriate, stable, and adaptable structure of written constitutional form usually includes a concise constitutional code, many constitutional laws that make the content of the constitution concrete, and supplemented by constitutional interpretation, convention, precedent, and international treaties. While an unwritten constitution is not quite the opposite, although there are no simple laws and regulations in writing, they still based the unwritten constitution on the spirit of the constitution.
2.2 Liberty
As used in the Constitution, liberty is defined as the protection from arbitrary and unreasonable restraint upon individual freedom. These freedoms apply to physical restraints, as well as the freedom to act according to one's own will.
Augustine Christian’s doctrine proclaims everyone is born sinful, declaring that humans are born with impulses to do bad things and disobey God. For the Israelites to be freed from the bondage of sin, God offered the ten Commandments. In the New Testaments, Jesus acknowledged their validity and instructed his followers to go further, and he summarized the ten commandments into two “great Commandments”, which is the ancient version of a codified constitution. Like the hopeful messages mentioned in John 8:32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
3 Analysis of importance of written constitution
3.1 The hindering effect of the unwritten constitution on liberty
To clear up misunderstandings, it is first necessary to understand the difference between the codified and uncodified constitution. The main difference between the two is the existence of a higher body of law in which the law has greater validity than other general law. They expressed this body of law in a written, systematic form. Thus, the unwritten constitution is not an incomplete constitution. Some may interpret the opposition between an unwritten and written constitution as an opposition between order and liberty, a state with a written constitution imposes great restraints on its citizens, while an unwritten constitution encourages liberty. An uncodified constitution does not mean that such a legal system can be modified at will according to the citizens' own wishes but remains under the constraints of the spirit of the constitution. While a constitution needs to be adjusted to consider the changes and developments of the times, if it is allowed to be influenced by popular opinion, it could result not only in diminishing the protection of liberties, but detrimental to liberty itself. Indeed, no country's history and tradition can be a simple picture. In the United States, with its long constitutional traditions, there are varying understandings and interpretations of its own historical traditions. When the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have investigated American history and precedent to answer constitutional questions, they have often come to widely divergent conclusions. For example, in the 1986 case Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court denied the right to same-sex sexual conduct based on previous state laws of punishing consensual adult sodomy. However, in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, the Supreme Court overruled Bowers based on a different historical precedent and found that Texas criminal law punishing sex between homosexuals violated the freedoms protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Demonstrating the freedom to amend the Constitution may lead to contradictory decisions, which could undermine the fundamental rights of citizens.
3.2 The promoting effect of the written constitution on liberty
The most important feature of a written constitution is that there is a higher body of law in addition to the general force of law. Presented in written form, it is the most enforceable and often requires a complex and lengthy process when amended.These adjustments are time consuming and struggle to keep pace with societal changes. However, complexity of constitutional adjustment is not a sufficient reason for its impediment to civil liberties, nor is it fundamentally wrong to argue that written constitutions impede freedom of expression (WINETROBE, 2011).
First, constitutional adjustment is possible. Critics assert that the codification of the constitution reveals sovereignty, proclaiming that no one can question the validity of the constitution. A reigning government can make laws that future administrations cannot undo However, the American government works on protecting citizen’s liberty, amending the Constitution 27 times thus far. The most significant limitations to the government's power over the individual were added in 1791 in the Bill of Rights. The Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees the rights of conscience, freedom of religion, speech, and the press, and the right of peaceful assembly and petition.
After the American Civil War, three new amendments were adopted: the Thirteenth (1865), which abolished slavery; the Fourteenth (1868), which granted citizenship to those who had been enslaved; and the Fifteenth (1870), which guaranteed formerly enslaved men the right to vote. The Fourteenth Amendment placed an important federal limitation on the states by forbidding them to deny any person the right to “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and guaranteeing every person within a state’s jurisdiction “the equal protection of its laws.”
In fact, written constitutions have strict rules and regulations for citizens' freedom rights, and such a strict system does not undermine citizens' freedom, but rather allows for the stable protection of their basic rights in any social context.
3.3 Review the meaning of written constitution from the development of American written constitution
The United States was the first country in the world to have a written constitution. Adopted in 1787 and took effect in 1789. It had a short preamble and seven articles. They adopted Ten amendments at about the same time as the Constitution. These Bill of Rights defined the basic rights of citizens. Although Congress cannot make direct changes the U.S. Constitution itself, it can propose as much. Due to its complexity and procedural process, only 27 amendments have been approved in the constitutions 232 years of existence. The First Amendment provides for freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and petition. The first Constitution expressly states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof; abridging the liberty of speech, or of the press; or abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. After the federal constitution replaced the confederate constitution, many people expressed dissatisfaction that it did not include the bill of rights to guarantee the individual rights of citizens (King, 2018). They believed that citizens would inevitably be infringed upon by the government if there were not multiple barriers including the bill of rights between the government’s power and civil rights. Thus, the United States constitution is criticized not because it restricts liberty, but rather because it is not strict enough about protecting such liberties. The mechanism of guaranteeing civil liberties through the political system of the United States has a wide range of reference significance for the design and construction of the perfect political system. Many countries have stipulated various rights of citizens in the form of codified constitutions. If the mechanism to protect these rights from being infringed is not perfect, these rights may remain on paper forever and cannot enter the lives of ordinary people. The enactment of the written constitution not only means the promulgation of laws, but also means a set of more perfect legislative, judicial and law enforcement procedures which are different from the general judicial procedures.
3.4 The hindering effect of the written constitution on liberty
Historically, public power has often infringed on civil liberties more often than individuals. As an authoritative and powerful public power, the government represents the country to some extent, and it is easy to infringe citizens' liberty on issues related to national security and government authority. Although these violations are not necessarily intentional, it can result in the violation of civil liberties.
The first known case involving liberty of expression was Schenck-vs- United States in 1919. This case was to determine whether a law passed by Congress was unconstitutional through litigation in the judicial system. They charged Schenck with conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act of 1917 in the context of World War I. The Act prohibits any disrespect for the government of the United States, the federal Constitution, as well as the branches of military and the United States’ Flag. Punishing individuals who violate the Act with a fine up to $10,000 or up to 20 years in prison. Schenck, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of America, directed the printing and distribution of anti-war leaflets to Army conscripts in Philadelphia. Upon appeal, The Supreme Court upheld the Federal District’s decision, sighting that Espionage Act did not violate Schenck’s first amendment rights Concluding that speaking to the public against government policies can result in jail time, suggesting that freedom of speech is not completely guaranteed.
4 Why UK needs a written constitution
Currently, the United Kingdom is the most representative unwritten constitutional state in the world. Dating back 200 years, the uncodified system of the UK has met the needs of stable social and political development. . Therefore, in the eyes of the UK, the unwritten constitution is superior to the written constitution (BOGDANOR et al, 2007). It is widely believed that the advantage of the unwritten constitution is in its flexibility is its ability to be amended without a drawn-out formal process. Making it easier to adapt constitutional norms to the changes in social conditions and ideologies (Blick & Dickson, 2018).
However, the flexibility of the UK constitution has come under scrutiny with the rise of the human rights movement. There is a growing concern that the UK's unwritten constitution is not conducive to the protections of fundamental human rights. Whereas in the past, the pliability of the UK Constitution once considered an advantage, it is now viewed as a risk. The relevant provisions of the UK constitution make the government accountable to Parliament and the electorate, the government must obey the law, and parts such as the interests of individuals and minorities are inevitably modified, superseded, or abolished (Backer, 2014). UK law ostensibly tries to avoid rules and principles, believing that those human rights and procedures that should be protected have stability and continuity. Although the UK constitution could rely on traditional culture and maintain relative stability in the modern era, this stability, while increasing, was lacking in security. The stability of the UK constitution is based entirely on convention and custom, as citizens become accustomed to change, the constitution is bound to change as well. As noted above, the risk that the unwritten constitution of the United States has led to contradictory results because of changing perceptions is also present in the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom. Moreover, the configuration of power in society is not fixed and can be changed by deciphering constitutional conventions, greatly enhancing the function of modern government but also jeopardizing the protection of individual rights and weakening the function of constitutional conventions (Ackerman, 2018). Thus, changes in political values and attitudes have altered the understanding of the constitution, requiring us to revisit the meaning of the unwritten and written constitutions for the liberal power of UK citizens.
A written constitution does not in fact appear to undermine civil liberties because of its strict definition of rights. In fact, rather than impeding liberty, this strict codified definition of civil rights promotes liberty by protecting the stability of the judicial system. Allowing the changing perceptions of citizens to affect the understanding of the constitution actually increases the risk to the judiciary.
References
Ackerman, B. (2018). Why Britain Needs a Written Constitution—and Can’t Wait for Parliament to Write One. The Political Quarterly (London. 1930), 89(4), 584–590.
Backer, L. C. (2014). Jiang Shigong on “written and unwritten constitutions” and their relevance to Chinese constitutionalism. Modern China, 40(2), 119–.
BOGDANOR, V., KHAITAN, T., & VOGENAUER, S. (2007). Should Britain Have a Written Constitution? The Political Quarterly (London. 1930), 78(4), 499–517.
Blick, A., & Dickson, B. (2020). Why does the United Kingdom now need a written constitution? Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 71(1), 59–.
Chafetz, J. (2008). Democracy’s Privileged Few: Legislative Privilege and Democratic Norms in the UK and American Constitutions . Yale University Press.
King, J. (2019). The Democratic Case for a Written Constitution. Current Legal Problems, 72(1), 1–36.
Michelman, F. I. (2018). “Constitution (Written or Unwritten)”: Legitimacy and Legality in the Thought of John Rawls. Ratio Juris, 31(4), 379–395.
WINETROBE, B. K. (2011). Enacting Scotland’s “Written Constitution”: The Scotland Act 1998. Parliamentary History, 30(1), 85–100.
I. PALMER (2021, MAY 27). 23 Meaningful Bible Verses About Freedom.
Similar Articles
Naperville, Illinois
JOIN THE DISCUSSION
This article has 0 comments. | https://www.teenink.com/opinion/social_issues_civics/article/1136661/To-What-Extent-Does-The-Codified-Constitution-Hinder-Or-Help-Liberty |
# Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (French: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the Charter in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Charter guarantees certain political rights to Canadian citizens and civil rights of everyone in Canada from the policies and actions of all areas and levels of the government. It is designed to unify Canadians around a set of principles that embody those rights. The Charter was signed into law by Queen Elizabeth II of Canada on April 17, 1982, along with the rest of the Constitution Act, 1982.
The Charter was preceded by the Canadian Bill of Rights, enacted in 1960, which was a federal statute rather than a constitutional document. As a federal statute, the Bill of Rights could be amended through the ordinary legislative process and had no application to provincial laws. The Supreme Court of Canada also narrowly interpreted the Bill of Rights, showing reluctance to declare laws inoperative. The relative ineffectiveness of the Canadian Bill of Rights motivated many to improve rights protections in Canada. The movement for human rights and freedoms that emerged after World War II also wanted to entrench the principles enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The British Parliament formally enacted the Charter as a part of the Canada Act 1982 at the request of the Parliament of Canada in 1982, the result of the efforts of the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
The Charter greatly expanded the scope of judicial review, because the Charter is more explicit with respect to the guarantee of rights and the role of judges in enforcing them than was the Canadian Bill of Rights. The courts, when confronted with violations of Charter rights, have struck down unconstitutional federal and provincial statutes and regulations or parts of statutes and regulations, as they did when Canadian case law was primarily concerned with resolving issues of federalism. The Charter, however, granted new powers to the courts to enforce remedies that are more creative and to exclude more evidence in trials. These powers are greater than what was typical under the common law and under a system of government that, influenced by Canada's parent country the United Kingdom, was based upon Parliamentary supremacy. As a result, the Charter has attracted both broad support from a majority of the Canadian electorate and criticisms by opponents of increased judicial power. The Charter only applies to government laws and actions (including the laws and actions of federal, provincial, and municipal governments and public school boards), and sometimes to the common law, not to private activity.
## Features
Under the Charter, people physically present in Canada have numerous civil and political rights. Most of the rights can be exercised by any legal person (the Charter does not define the corporation as a "legal person"),: 741–2 but a few of the rights belong exclusively to natural persons, or (as in sections 3 and 6) only to citizens of Canada. The rights are enforceable by the courts through section 24 of the Charter, which allows courts discretion to award remedies to those whose rights have been denied. This section also allows courts to exclude evidence in trials if the evidence was acquired in a way that conflicts with the Charter and might damage the reputation of the justice system. Section 32 confirms that the Charter is binding on the federal government, the territories under its authority, and the provincial governments.
### Exceptions
Section 1 of the Charter, known as the limitations clause, allows governments to justify certain infringements of Charter rights. If a court finds that a Charter right has been infringed, it conducts an analysis under section 1 by applying the Oakes test, a form of proportionality review. Infringements are upheld if the government's objective in infringing the right is "pressing and substantial" in a "free and democratic society", and if the infringement can be "demonstrably justified". The Supreme Court of Canada has applied the Oakes test to uphold laws against hate speech (e.g., in R v Keegstra) and obscenity (e.g., in R v Butler). Section 1 also confirms that the rights listed in the Charter are guaranteed.
In addition, some Charter rights are subject to the notwithstanding clause (section 33). The notwithstanding clause authorizes governments to temporarily override the rights and freedoms in sections 2 and 7 through 15 for up to five years, subject to renewal. The Canadian federal government has never invoked it, and some have speculated that its use would be politically costly. In the past, the notwithstanding clause was invoked routinely by the province of Quebec (which did not support the enactment of the Charter but is subject to it nonetheless). The provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have also invoked the notwithstanding clause, to end a strike and to protect an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage, respectively. In 2021, the government of Ontario under Premier Doug Ford invoked the notwithstanding clause in order to push through Bill 307, the Protecting Elections and Defending Democracy Act, doubling the amount of time election advertisements could run to 1 year from 6 months. A Globe and Mail editorial claimed it was to silence critics of his government during the 12 months leading up to an election. "That means today , with just under a year to go before the next Ontario election, citizens are effectively barred from spending their own money to voice their opinion on any political issue." Canadian author Margaret Atwood commented, "Here comes 1984. What kind of Stalinist autocracy does this bunch have in mind?" In 2006, the territory of Yukon also passed legislation that invoked the notwithstanding clause, but the legislation was never proclaimed in force.
### Rights and freedoms
The rights and freedoms enshrined in 34 sections of the Charter include:
#### Democratic rights
Generally, the right to participate in political activities and the right to a democratic form of government are protected:
#### Legal rights
Rights of people in dealing with the justice system and law enforcement are protected:
#### Language rights
Generally, people have the right to use either the English or French language in communications with Canada's federal government and certain provincial governments. Specifically, the language laws in the Charter include:
#### Other sections
The remaining provisions help to clarify how the Charter works in practice.
## History
Many of the rights and freedoms that are protected under the Charter, including the rights to freedom of speech, habeas corpus, and the presumption of innocence, have their roots in a set of Canadian laws and legal precedents sometimes known as the Implied Bill of Rights. Many of these rights were also included in the Canadian Bill of Rights, which the Canadian Parliament enacted in 1960. However, the Bill of Rights had a number of shortcomings. Unlike the Charter, it was an ordinary Act of Parliament, applicable only to the federal government, and could be amended by a simple majority of Parliament. Moreover, the courts chose to interpret the Bill of Rights only sparingly, and only on rare occasions applied it to find a contrary law inoperative. Additionally, the Bill of Rights did not contain all of the rights that are now included in the Charter, omitting, for instance, the right to vote and freedom of movement within Canada.
The centennial of Canadian Confederation in 1967 aroused greater interest within the government in constitutional reform. Such reforms would not only improve the safeguarding of rights, but would also amend the Constitution to free Canada from the authority of British Parliament (also known as patriation), ensuring the full sovereignty of Canada. Subsequently, Attorney General Pierre Trudeau appointed law professor Barry Strayer to research a potential bill of rights. While writing his report, Strayer consulted with a number of notable legal scholars, including Walter Tarnopolsky. Strayer's report advocated a number of ideas that would later be evident in the Charter, including the protection of language rights; exclusion of economic rights; and the allowance of limitations on rights, which would be included in the Charter's limitation and notwithstanding clauses. In 1968, Strayer was made the director of the Constitutional Law Division of the Privy Council Office, followed in 1974 by his appointment as assistant deputy Minister of Justice. During these years, Strayer played a role in writing the bill that was ultimately adopted.
### Constitution Act, 1982
Meanwhile, Trudeau, who had become Liberal leader and prime minister in 1968, still very much wanted a constitutional bill of rights. The federal and provincial governments discussed creating one during negotiations for patriation, resulting in the Victoria Charter in 1971, which was never implemented. Trudeau continued his efforts, however, promising constitutional change during the 1980 Quebec referendum. He succeeded in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act 1982 in the British Parliament, which enacted the Constitution Act, 1982 as part of the Constitution of Canada.
The inclusion of a charter of rights in the patriation process was a much-debated issue. Trudeau spoke on television in October 1980, where he announced his intention to constitutionalize a bill of rights that would include: fundamental freedoms, such as the freedom of movement, democratic guarantees, legal rights, language rights and equality rights.: 269 However, Trudeau did not want a notwithstanding clause. While his proposal gained popular support,: 270 provincial leaders opposed the potential limits on their powers. The federal Progressive Conservative opposition feared liberal bias among judges, should courts be called upon to enforce rights.: 271 Additionally, the British Parliament cited their right to uphold Canada's old form of government.: 272 At a suggestion of the Conservatives, Trudeau's government thus agreed to a committee of senators and members of Parliament (MPs) to further examine the bill as well as the patriation plan. During this time, 90 hours were spent on the bill of rights alone, all filmed for television, while civil rights experts and advocacy groups put forward their perceptions on the draft charter's flaws and omissions and how to remedy them.: 270 As Canada had a parliamentary system of government, and as judges were perceived not to have enforced rights well in the past, it was questioned whether the courts should be named as the enforcers of the Charter, as Trudeau wanted. Conservatives argued that elected politicians should be trusted instead. It was eventually decided that the responsibility should go to the courts. At the urging of civil libertarians, judges could now exclude evidence in trials if acquired in breach of Charter rights in certain circumstances, something the Charter was not originally going to provide for.
As the process continued, more features were added to the Charter, including equality rights for people with disabilities, more sex equality guarantees, and recognition of Canada's multiculturalism. The limitations clause was also reworded to focus less on the importance of parliamentary government and more on the justifiability of limits in free societies; the latter logic was more in line with rights developments around the world after World War II.: 271–2
In its decision in the Patriation Reference (1981), the Supreme Court ruled there was a constitutional convention that some provincial approval should be sought for constitutional reform. As the provinces still had doubts about the Charter's merits, Trudeau was forced to accept the notwithstanding clause to allow governments to opt out of certain obligations. The notwithstanding clause was accepted as part of a deal called the Kitchen Accord, negotiated by the federal attorney general Jean Chrétien, Ontario's justice minister Roy McMurtry, and Saskatchewan's justice minister Roy Romanow. Pressure from provincial governments (which in Canada have jurisdiction over property) and from the New Democratic Party, also prevented Trudeau from including any rights protecting private property.
#### Quebec
Quebec did not support the Charter (or the Canada Act 1982), with conflicting interpretations as to why. The opposition could have owed to the Parti Québécois (PQ) leadership being allegedly uncooperative because it was more committed to gaining sovereignty for Quebec. This could have owed to the exclusion of Quebec leaders from the negotiation of the Kitchen Accord, which they saw as being too centralist. It could have also owed to objections by provincial leaders to the accord's provisions relating to the process of future constitutional amendment. The PQ leaders also opposed the inclusion of mobility rights and minority language education rights. The Charter is applicable in Quebec because all provinces are bound by the constitution. However, Quebec's opposition to the 1982 patriation package led to two failed attempts to amend the constitution (the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord) which were designed primarily to obtain Quebec's political approval of the Canadian constitutional order.
### Following 1982
While the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted in 1982, it was not until 1985 that the main provisions regarding equality rights (section 15) came into effect. The delay was meant to give the federal and provincial governments an opportunity to review pre-existing statutes and strike potentially unconstitutional inequalities.
#### Amendments
The Charter has been amended since its enactment. Section 25 was amended in 1983 to explicitly recognize more rights regarding Aboriginal land claims, while section 16.1 was added in 1993. There have also been a number of unsuccessful attempts to amend the Charter, including the failed Charlottetown Accord of 1992. The Charlottetown Accord would have specifically required the Charter to be interpreted in a manner respectful of Quebec's distinct society, and would have added further statements to the Constitution Act, 1867 regarding racial and sexual equality and collective rights, and about minority language communities. Though the Accord was negotiated among many interest groups, the resulting provisions were so vague that Trudeau, then out of office, feared they would actually conflict with and undermine the Charter's individual rights. He felt judicial review of the rights might be undermined if courts had to favour the policies of provincial governments, as governments would be given responsibility over linguistic minorities. Trudeau thus played a prominent role in leading the popular opposition to the Accord.
## Interpretation and enforcement
The task of interpreting and enforcing the Charter falls to the courts, with the Supreme Court of Canada being the ultimate authority on the matter.
With the Charter's supremacy confirmed by section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the courts continued their practice of striking down unconstitutional statutes or parts of statutes as they had with earlier case law regarding federalism. However, under section 24 of the Charter, courts also gained new powers to enforce creative remedies and exclude more evidence in trials. Courts have since made many important decisions, including R v Morgentaler (1988), which struck down Canada's abortion law, and Vriend v Alberta (1998), in which the Supreme Court found the province's exclusion of sexual orientation as a prohibited grounds of discrimination violated the equality rights under section 15. In the latter case, the Court then read the protection into the law.
Courts may receive Charter questions in a number of ways. Rights claimants could be prosecuted under a criminal law that they argue is unconstitutional. Others may feel government services and policies are not being dispensed in accordance with the Charter, and apply to lower-level courts for injunctions against the government. A government may also raise questions of rights by submitting reference questions to higher-level courts; for example, Prime Minister Paul Martin's government approached the Supreme Court with Charter questions as well as federalism concerns in the case Re Same-Sex Marriage (2004). Provinces may also do this with their superior courts. The government of Prince Edward Island initiated the Provincial Judges Reference by asking its provincial Supreme Court a question on judicial independence under section 11.
In several important cases, judges developed various tests and precedents for interpreting specific provisions of the Charter, including the Oakes test (section 1), set out in the case R v Oakes (1986); and the Law test (section 15), developed in Law v Canada (1999) which has since become defunct. Since Reference Re BC Motor Vehicle Act (1985), various approaches to defining and expanding the scope of fundamental justice (i.e., natural justice or due process) under section 7 have been adopted.
### Purposive and generous interpretation
In general, courts have embraced a purposive interpretation of Charter rights. This means that since early cases, such as Hunter v Southam (1984) and R v Big M Drug Mart (1985), they have concentrated less on the traditional, limited understanding of what each right meant when the Charter was adopted in 1982. Rather, focus has been given towards changing the scope of rights as appropriate to fit their broader purpose.: 722, 724–25 This is tied to the "generous interpretation" of rights, as the purpose of the Charter provisions is assumed to be to increase rights and freedoms of people in a variety of circumstances, at the expense of the government powers.
Constitutional scholar Peter Hogg (2003) has approved of the generous approach in some cases, although for others he argues the purpose of the provisions was not to achieve a set of rights as broad as courts have imagined.: 722, 724–25 The approach has not been without its critics. Alberta politician Ted Morton and political scientist Rainer Knopff have been very critical of this phenomenon. Although they believe in the validity of the living tree doctrine, which is the basis for the approach (and the tradition term for generous interpretations of the Canadian Constitution), they argue Charter case law has been more radical. When the living tree doctrine is applied correctly, Morton and Knopff (2000) claim, "the elm remained an elm; it grew new branches but did not transform itself into an oak or a willow." The doctrine can be used, for example, so a right is upheld even when a government threatens to violate it with new technology, as long as the essential right remains the same, but the authors claim that the courts have used the doctrine to "create new rights". As an example, the authors note that the Charter right against self-incrimination has been extended to cover scenarios in the justice system that had previously been unregulated by self-incrimination rights in other Canadian laws.: 46–47
### Other interpretations
Another general approach to interpreting Charter rights is to consider international legal precedents with countries that have specific rights protections, such as the U.S. Bill of Rights (which had influenced aspects of the Charter) and the Constitution of South Africa. However, international precedent is only of guiding value and is not binding. For example, the Supreme Court has referred to the Charter and the U.S. Bill of Rights as being "born to different countries in different ages and in different circumstances".: 232
Advocacy groups frequently intervene in cases to make arguments on how to interpret the Charter. Some examples are the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Mental Health Association, Canadian Labour Congress, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and REAL Women of Canada. The purpose of such interventions is to assist the court and to attempt to influence the court to render a decision favourable to the legal interests of the group.
A further approach to the Charter, taken by the courts, is the dialogue principle, which involves greater participation by elected governments. This approach involves governments drafting legislation in response to court rulings and courts acknowledging the effort if the new legislation is challenged.
## Comparisons with other human rights documents
Some Canadian members of Parliament saw the movement to entrench a charter as contrary to the British model of Parliamentary supremacy. Hogg (2003) has speculated that the reason for the British adoption of the Human Rights Act 1998, which allows the European Convention on Human Rights to be enforced directly in domestic courts, is partly because they were inspired by the similar Canadian Charter.
The Canadian Charter bears a number of similarities to the European Convention, specifically in relation to the limitations clauses contained in the European document. Because of this similarity with European human rights law, the Supreme Court turns not only to the United States Constitution case law in interpreting the Charter, but also to European Court of Human Rights cases.
### Canadian Charter vs. U.S. Bill of Rights
The core distinction between the U.S. Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter is the existence of the limitations and notwithstanding clauses. Canadian courts have consequently interpreted each right more expansively. However, due to the limitations clause, where a violation of a right exists, the law will not necessarily grant protection of that right.: 232–3 In contrast, rights under the U.S. Bill are absolute, thus a violation will not be found until there has been sufficient encroachment on those rights. The sum effect is that both constitutions provide comparable protection of many rights.: 232–3 Canada's fundamental justice (section 7) is therefore interpreted to include more legal protections than due process, which is the U.S. equivalent.
Freedom of expression (section 2) also has a wider-ranging scope than the freedom of speech guaranteed under the U.S. First Amendment (1A).: 232–3 For instance, a form of picketing, though involving speech that might have otherwise been protected, was deemed as disruptive conduct and not protected by the U.S. 1A, but was considered by the Supreme Court in RWDSU v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd. (1986). The Supreme Court would rule the picketing, including the disruptive conduct, as fully protected under section 2 of the Charter, after which section 1 would be used to argue the injunction against the picketing as just.
The limitations clause has also allowed governments to enact laws that would be considered unconstitutional in the U.S. For example, the Supreme Court has upheld some of Quebec's limits on the use of English on signs and has upheld publication bans that prohibit media from mentioning the names of juvenile criminals.
The un-ratified Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S., which garnered many critics when proposed, performs a similar function to that of the Charter section 28, which received no comparable opposition. Still, Canadian feminists had to stage large protests to demonstrate support for the inclusion of section 28, which had not been part of the original draft of the Charter.
### Comparisons to other documents
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has several parallels with the Canadian Charter, but in some cases the Covenant goes further with regard to rights in its text. For example, a right to legal aid has been read into section 10 of the Charter (right to counsel), but the Covenant explicitly guarantees the accused need not pay "if he does not have sufficient means".: 233–4
Canada's Charter has little to say, explicitly at least, about economic and social rights. On this point, it stands in marked contrast with the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. There are some who feel economic rights ought to be read into the rights to security of the person (section 7) and equality rights (section 15) to make the Charter similar to the Covenant. The rationale is that economic rights can relate to a decent standard of living and can help the civil rights flourish in a livable environment. Canadian courts, however, have been hesitant in this area, stating that economic rights are political questions and adding that as positive rights, economic rights are of questionable legitimacy.
The Charter itself influenced the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of South Africa. The limitations clause under section 36 of the South African law has been compared to section 1 of the Charter. Likewise, Jamaica's Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms was also influenced, in part, by Canada's Charter.
## The Charter and national values
The Charter was intended to be a source of Canadian values and national unity. As Professor Alan Cairns noted, "the initial federal government premise was on developing a pan-Canadian identity". Pierre Trudeau himself later wrote in his Memoirs (1993) that "Canada itself" could now be defined as a "society where all people are equal and where they share some fundamental values based upon freedom", and that all Canadians could identify with the values of liberty and equality.
The Charter's unifying purpose was particularly important to the mobility and language rights. According to author Rand Dyck (2000), some scholars believe section 23, with its minority language education rights, "was the only part of the Charter with which Pierre Trudeau was truly concerned".: 442 Through the mobility and language rights, French Canadians, who have been at the centre of unity debates, are able to travel throughout all Canada and receive government and educational services in their own language. Hence, they are not confined to Quebec (the only province where they form the majority and where most of their population is based), which would polarize the country along regional lines. The Charter was also supposed to standardize previously diverse laws throughout the country and gear them towards a single principle of liberty.: 704–5
Former premier of Ontario Bob Rae has stated that the Charter "functions as a symbol for all Canadians" in practice because it represents the core value of freedom. Academic Peter Russell has been more skeptical of the Charter's value in this field. Cairns, who feels the Charter is the most important constitutional document to many Canadians, and that the Charter was meant to shape the Canadian identity, has also expressed concern that groups within society see certain provisions as belonging to them alone rather than to all Canadians. It has also been noted that issues like abortion and pornography, raised by the Charter, tend to be controversial.: 704–5 Still, opinion polls in 2002 showed Canadians felt the Charter significantly represented Canada, although many were unaware of the document's actual contents.
The only values mentioned by the Charter's preamble are recognition of the supremacy of God and the rule of law, but these have been controversial and of minor legal consequence. In 1999, MP Svend Robinson brought forward a failed proposal before the House of Commons of Canada that would have amended the Charter by removing the mention of God, as he felt it did not reflect Canada's diversity.
Section 27 also recognizes a value of multiculturalism. In 2002, polls found 86% of Canadians approved of this section.
## Criticism
While the Charter has enjoyed a great deal of popularity, with 82 percent of Canadians describing it as a good thing in opinion polls in 1987 and 1999, the document has also been subject to published criticisms from both sides of the political spectrum. According to columnist David Akin (2017), while most Liberals support the Charter, most Conservatives, most New Democrats, most Indigenous people, and Québécois see the Charter as "problematic" and "something to be challenged in order to be Canadian".
One left-wing critic is professor Michael Mandel (1989), who wrote that, in comparison to politicians, judges do not have to be as sensitive to the will of the electorate, nor do they have to make sure their decisions are easily understandable to the average Canadian citizen. This, in Mandel's view, limits democracy.: 446 Mandel has also asserted that the Charter makes Canada more like the United States, especially by serving corporate rights and individual rights rather than group rights and social rights.: 446 He has argued that there are several things that should be included in the Charter, such as a right to health care and a basic right to free education. Hence, the perceived Americanization of Canadian politics is seen as coming at the expense of values more important for Canadians.: 446 The labour movement has been disappointed in the reluctance of the courts to use the Charter to support various forms of union activity, such as the "right to strike".
Conservative critics Morton and Knopff (2000) have raised several concerns about the Charter, notably by alleging that the federal government has used it to limit provincial powers by allying with various rights claimants and interest groups. In their book The Charter Revolution & the Court Party (2000), Morton and Knopff express their suspicions of this alliance in detail, accusing the Pierre Trudeau and Chrétien governments of funding litigious groups. For example, these governments used the Court Challenges Program to support minority language educational rights claims. Morton and Knopff also assert that crown counsel has intentionally lost cases in which the government was taken to court for allegedly violating rights, particularly gay rights and women's rights.: 95
Political scientist Rand Dyck (2000), in observing these criticisms, notes that while judges have had their scope of review widened, they have still upheld most laws challenged on Charter grounds. With regard to litigious interest groups, Dyck points out that "the record is not as clear as Morton and Knopff imply. All such groups have experienced wins and losses.": 448
Political philosopher Charles Blattberg (2003) has criticized the Charter for contributing to the fragmentation of the country, at both the individual and group levels. In encouraging discourse based upon rights, Blattberg claims the Charter injects an adversarial spirit into Canadian politics, making it difficult to realize the common good. Blattberg also claims that the Charter undercuts the Canadian political community since it is ultimately a cosmopolitan document. Finally, he argues that people would be more motivated to uphold individual liberties if they were expressed with terms that are much "thicker" (less abstract) than rights. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms |
About this Event
The Supreme Court ruling that the government’s proroguing of parliament was unlawful has reignited debate over the boundaries between law and politics. In recent years, many have welcomed an activist legal sector that often utilises human-rights law to protect rights and freedoms. By contrast, the historian and former Supreme Court justice, Lord Sumption, warned in his 2019 Reith Lectures that ‘law’s expanding empire’ is taking over the space once occupied by politics.
With Britain’s attempt to leave the EU raising a host of constitutional and rights questions, some say that a British Bill of Rights could help clarify our rights and protect our liberties.
Take the high-profile case of Harry Miller, the Humberside docker told by police that ‘we need to check your thinking’ after he retweeted a transgender-sceptical limerick. While Miller’s retweet did not constitute a crime, it was recorded as a ‘non-crime hate incident’ - which College of Policing guidelines state ‘is any incident that a police officer or another member of the public considers to be motivated by hate’. Under the guidelines, what constitutes a hate incident is subjective and police officers ‘should not directly challenge this perception’. With ‘non-crime hate incidents’ rocketing to 100,000 per annum, could a British Bill of Rights help provide clarity in such situations and protect individual freedoms?
One question is how effectively existing rights legislation protects freedoms. The 1998 Human Rights Act - which gives legal effect in the UK to the European Convention on Human Rights – aims to defend rights to life, liberty, security, a fair trial and freedom of expression for all UK citizens. Yet liberties such as detention without trial seem to have been eroded in recent years, while controversies over smacking bans, medical consent and consumer rights, like those raised by the ‘gay cakes’ case, suggest new constraints on choices and freedom. Indeed, some say recent extensions of ‘human rights’, for example around hate speech or data regulation, end up undermining vital civil liberties such as free speech and privacy. Would a British Bill of Rights add to such problematic conflicts, or bring clarity and a defence of freedom? Is such a defence necessary or are concerns overblown?
Some worry that decoupling our national legal system from an EU-inspired framework and institutions poses a threat to important safeguards such as migrant and labour rights and environmental protections. The risk, they say, is of diluting existing hard-won rights at the expense of priorities determined by UK politicians or powerful lobby groups with little interest in liberty. The absence of the British public in the process of deciding to revoke Shamima Begum’s UK citizenship is a case in point, raising questions as to the extent to which any new British Bill of Rights would be democratically inspired and determined, and if it would in fact deny the very freedoms that is supposed to restore.
Historically, Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Constitution of the United States and Bill of Rights of the United States of America have been considered progressive moments in furthering the cause of liberty. Could a new British Bill of Rights provide a similar leap forward? Or is there a danger in tearing up existing human rights and legal frameworks? What would a British Bill of Rights look like and who would - and should - get to define British rights? Is this a moment for brave new ambitions, or for protecting rights that we already have? | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-british-bill-of-rights-guarantee-or-threat-to-freedom-tickets-71647592879?aff=erelexpmlt |
In one hand, the Articles of Confederation had a weak central government, differing form the strong central government in the Constitution. The Constitution’s government had a structure of three different branches; the legislative, executive, and judicial branch; unlike the Articles of Confederation that had no structure whatsoever. The Articles of Confederation had many problems like, the poor international trade, poor foreign relations and a weak economy in contrast to the Constitution that only had one problem, the struggle over the ratification. the Articles of Confederation achieved the Northwest Ordinance and the Northwest Territory and according to a history website, the Constitution achieved that we had a system of checks and balances, that we had a bill of rights, and, eventually, the survival of a bloody civil war intact. Lastly, the Constitution had three compromises: the Great Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Slave Trade compromise.
At the time, the vast majority of European states were monarchies, with political power held either by the monarch or the aristocracy. Lynn (1999) shares that democracy presupposes the existence of three types of rights, political, economic and social: the right to participate in the political process; to enjoy a fair distribution of resources; and to be free from oppression (p.129). A liberal democracy has many features, namely: (1) They right to rule is gained through success in regular and competitive elections based on universal adult suffrage; (2) Constraint on government imposed by a constitution, institutional checks and balances and protections for individual and minority rights and lastly; (3) A vigorous civil society including a private enterprise economy, independent trade unions and a free press (Haywood, 2013, p. 270). 3.5 A clear example of a liberal democratic state would be South Africa. Liberal traditions began to form in South Africa from 1990-to date.
Even though we tend to only see the unfavorable effects of colonization, British colonizers have had both positive and negative impacts on Nigeria’s traditional society by influencing its political structure, economy and education. British colonialism destabilized Nigeria’s political system. The West African country was governed by means of indirect rule. This means that, in opposition to direct rule, the
At that very period, the republican government, headed by various factions within the parliament, had proven itself weak to the sudden putsch made by one government party. Social Democrats, the Conservative parties, ultra-nationalists – all of them hindered the already prostate and humiliated government. In our essay, we will try to answer the following question: what was Blanqui’s relevance with regards to Benjamin’s socialist philosophy? For starters, Walter Benjamin’s body of work regarding Marxist thought was not completely orthodox by many standards, and yet wasn’t also in line with contemporary western European Marxist thought. At that time, socialism had brewed into numerous splinter groups – Western European Marxist traditions had begun to split off from mainline Marxist theories.
One of the establishments of this contention examination is that what occurred amid the Kenyan 2007 decisions had its underlying foundations in a powerless national constitution. This constitution has continuously did not have a solid balanced governance framework between the official, authoritative and legal branches of government. Over the traverse of three decades, changes to the constitution were made to deliberately dissolve these parities for fortifying presidential forces. The aftereffect of these expansive powers successfully made the presidential office proportionate to an autocracy, which gave the president the capacity to utilize and mishandle this power without restriction. The quote at the highest point of the page is pregnant with incongruity and is a case of what can happen as an aftereffect of a solid yet degenerate official branch.
On account of the general force given to one individual, presidential frameworks could rapidly change into dictator administrations if circumstances grant. The impact of a presidential system on governmental issues can be seen through the more grounded part of the president when passing enactment. This is against the parliamentary system on how an executive or prime minister for the most part has a smaller part in governmental issues while parliament is normally fast in passing enactment and evading
It outlines the structure of Government and enumerates the rights of individuals” (Revenue Commissioners, 2007). Domestic law is essentially what is set out in each country’s constitution “Fundamental rights are set out in the Constitution and, in addition, the Courts have identified other Constitutional rights not expressly specified in the Constitution” (Revenue Commissioners, 2007). To
Important changes happened a lot of years before and until our days we can see amendments in this system because as we said we have an “unwritten” constitution which is more flexible than others which are in codified form. But is the British constitution a political one or a legal one. As Adam Tomkins said in his book <Public Law>, “A political constitution is one in which those who exercise political power (let us say the government) are held to constitutional account through political means, and through political institutions (for example, Parliament).” In contrast, a legal constitution is “one which imagines that the principal means, and the principal institution, through which the government is held to account is the law and the court-room.” The first remarkable changes in this constitution can someone tell that is recorded years before in 1688 with the Glorious Revolution and the next year 1689 with
Woodraw Wilson (1887) defines public administration as: “detailed and systematic execution of public law (The Study of Administration, Political Science Quarterly 2)”. Public administration plays a role in successful governance as machinery is to a part of a manufactured product. Max Weber (1978) on the other hand propagates that: “economy, society and religion also have an effect on public administration (Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology)”. He therefore believes that a bureaucratic or structured government should be considered a more rational and efficient form of organisation and leadership. Nigeria has gained independence from British rule in 1960 and has witnessed four civil republics and several military interventions
Continual Military intervention and break down of constitution weaken the role of provinces and strengthened the centralized authority non democratic directions set in Pakistan that is Fact federalism is the best pattern of pluralism where different ethnic populations co-exist calmly. There are some states having federal systems in appearance not in essence. The former Soviet Union was a federation in form only. Actually it was a unitary state because its different institutions, political party and economic planning activates had strong centralized tendencies. The similar case has been observed in Ethiopia and Nigeria. | https://www.ipl.org/essay/Federalism-In-Ethiopia-PKU64Q36JE8R |
Here in America, we have a proud and storied history. As a Reading family, labor law, and criminal defense lawyer, we are no strangers to the history of America’s legal system. One of the most iconic parts of that system is the Bill of Rights. Many countries had them before the United States, and in fact, each state had them before the formation of the United States. However, no other country’s or state’s bill of rights has garnered quite as much attention as ours. As Americans, it is our duty to understand and learn from our country’s history. To that end, we thought we’d go over the history of the Bill of Rights, as well as an overview of its amendments.
Detractors of the Constitution
You may have heard the terms “Federalist” and “Anti-Federalist” before in a history class. Federalists were for the United States constitution, while Anti-Federalists were against it. Notable Anti-Federalist states included New York, Virginia, and Massachusetts, with prominent patriots and founding fathers including Sam Adams, George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee.
The argument of Anti-Federalists boiled down to the fear that the states would get absorbed by the national government, the president and senators would collude to create an aristocratic class, and even that the president might attempt to become a monarch.
However, they were not patently against a federal government, they just were skeptical at the lack of an acceptable bill of rights. As we mentioned, many states already had a bill of rights and didn’t want it superseded by federal power. After fighting a war that they espoused was for personal liberty, they did not want those liberties taken away by trading out a domestic power for a foreign one.
Proponents of the Constitution
Notable Federalist proponents included George Washington, John Jay, Jon Marshall, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. In a bid to drum up support for the new constitution, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay published a series of papers explaining their cause, which came to be known as the Federalist Papers. In these papers, calm and even-tempered apologies were used to address the concerns laid out by the Anti-Federalists. They carefully laid out all the safeguards in place to protect people from a domestic tyrant.
11 states had already ratified the Constitution by 1788, but that wasn’t enough for the government to go into effect. Two states, North Carolina and Rhode Island, held out on ratification until after the government was created. However, their needs were heard and by 1791 they had joined and the Bill of Rights was approved.
Amendment Overview
The Bill of Rights and the Constitution were meant to be living, breathing documents. Even today, courts are constantly making decisions that affect what their implementation actually looks like. Here is just a general overview of what each right entails.
The First Amendment: Thought Liberties
Arguably the most important amendment in the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment lays out basic liberties involved with thought, expression, and belief, and could largely be attributed to the Anti-Federalists.
-
Freedom of Speech
— America has always prided itself on free speech, and this amendment is why. However, it does come with some limitations. For instance, slandering someone’s reputation with false allegations is still illegal, as is yelling “Fire” in a crowded area where panic could cause injury. If these limitations seem vague, that’s because they are, and are constantly being reevaluated. Some controversies regarding what is and isn’t protected speech include speech with children present and speech made by an authority figure, such as the president. Additionally, free speech is only legally protected from and by the government, and the amendment can’t be used as a defense against social or many instances of corporate pressure in reaction to certain speech.
-
Freedom of Religion
— The gist of this belief is that the government can’t make you accept one religion (or set of religious beliefs) over another. It’s a little more cut and dry than freedom of speech, but there are still controversies. For instance, recently the Supreme Court has upheld its verdict that forcing prayers and a moment of silence in school violates the First Amendment.
-
Freedom of Press
— Freedom of press is essentially the freedom of speech extended to professional reporters. It means that a reporter cannot be punished for reporting news, as long as that report is not a deliberate lie. Additionally, news, print, magazines, books, and movies/television do not have to be inspected by the government before being published.
-
Freedom of Assembly/Petition
— We lumped these together because they’re similar. Americans are able to both criticize government policies and join in political parties and groups of their choosing. This allows them to organize and have their critiques heard without fear of violent government reprisal.
The Second Amendment: Right to Bear Arms
The Second Amendment allows for a “well-regulated militia” for individual states, as well as the “right to bear arms”. Despite popular knowledge, the blanket right for citizens to bear arms wasn’t established until 2008 in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case in 2008. Before that, there was a heavy debate about whether the citizens’ “right to bear arms” was meant to be taken inherently, or in the context of “For a well-regulated militia”.
The Third Amendment: No Housing Troops
Before the American Revolution, the British forces had often commandeered colonists’ lodgings for military purposes, as well as raiding their food stores. This instilled a deep resentment in the colonists, who made this act unconstitutional, at least during times of peace when the country is not at war.
The Fourth Amendment: Protection Against Search and Seizure
This amendment provides protections for those accused of a crime. While there is a common adage of “innocent until proven guilty” in this country, in effect that’s not always the case. However, this amendment provides some much-needed protections in the spirit of the adage. These include the right of security in your person, property, and homes. A warrant is required for these actions. However, this protection has been legally circumvented in a number of instances, one instance being the (according to some studies, unreliable) use of drug dogs to gain access to vehicles without consent.
The Bill of Rights History and Overview
Hopefully, the first half of The Bill of Rights history and overview proved interesting. Stay tuned for the next half later this month. We believe that all citizens should be aware of their history, and the rights those history provides in order to avoid having those rights taken away, and improving on them in the future. If you require labor law, family law, or criminal law services in Reading or the surrounding areas, please don’t hesitate to give us a call. One of our knowledgeable representatives will be happy to answer any questions you may have. | https://dutkolaw.com/the-bill-of-rights-history-and-overview-part-1/ |
Most Americans take the Bill of Rights for granted. Speaking our minds, going to church, trials by jury and guns for sale at Walmart are so commonplace most of us never bother to notice, or even consider the fact that the world is very different in other places and at other times. But how did this come to pass? How did approving new rules for government end up producing one of the world’s most impressive guarantees of basic liberties?
We are certainly all lucky that history turned out the way it did, but why do we have a Bill of Rights?
RATIFYING THE CONSTITUTION
A framework for a new and stronger national government had been crafted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, but how could the proposed system be made into law? Could the framers convince the public that the weak central government of the Articles of Confederation needed to be discarded in favor of an entirely new system? The Articles required that any changes in constitutional law be presented to the state legislatures, and that any successful alteration required unanimous approval. Since the new proposal increased the power of the national government at the expense of state sovereignty, it was a certainty that one, and probably several more, state legislatures would oppose the changes. Rhode Island had already refused to send a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention because it opposed any stronger revisions in the Articles, much less the sweeping proposal that ended up being produced there.
Aware of the major challenge before them, the framers of the new plan crafted a new approach through a ratifying procedure that went directly to the people. By this method, the Constitution would become law if nine of the thirteen states approved it after holding special conventions to consider the issue. Building on a model adopted by Massachusetts in passing its state constitution of 1780, the framers suggested that constitutional law was of such sweeping significance that it would be inappropriate to have it approved though ordinary political channels.
Instead, special conventions should be held for the people to evaluate such important changes. Politicians in Congress were well aware of the weaknesses of the current central government and shared the framers’ sense that the state legislatures were very likely to oppose the new plan, so Congress approved the new terms of this unusual, and arguably illegal, ratification route. Surprisingly, so too did state legislatures that began arranging for the election of special delegates to the state ratification conventions.
A great debate about the future of the nation was about to begin.
FEDERALISTS
The supporters of the proposed Constitution called themselves Federalists. Their adopted name implied a commitment to a loose, decentralized system of government. In many respects federalism, which implies a weak central government, was the opposite of the proposed plan that they supported. A more accurate name for the supporters of the Constitution would have been Nationalists.
The nationalist label, however, would have been a political liability in the 1780s. Traditional political belief of the Revolutionary Era held that strong centralized authority would inevitably lead to an abuse of power, but the Federalists knew that that the problems of the country in the 1780s stemmed from the weaknesses of the central government created by the Articles of Confederation so it was time to strike a more even balance.
For Federalists, the Constitution was required in order to safeguard the liberty and independence that the American Revolution had created. While the Federalists definitely had developed a new political philosophy, they saw their most import role as defending the social gains of the Revolution. As James Madison, one of the great Federalist leaders later explained, the Constitution was designed to be a “republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.”
Primary Source: Painting
Charles Shirreff’s miniature of Alexander Hamilton as he appeared in 1790.
The Federalists had more than an innovative political plan and a well-chosen name to aid their cause. Many of the most talented leaders of the era who had the most experience in national-level work were Federalists. For example, only two national-level celebrities of the period, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, favored the Constitution. In addition to these revered figures, the Federalists were well organized, well-funded, and made especially careful use of the printed word. Most newspapers supported the Federalists’ political plan and published articles and pamphlets to explain why the people should approve the Constitution.
In spite of this range of major advantages, the Federalists still had a hard fight in front of them. Their new solutions were a significant alteration of political beliefs. Most significantly, the Federalists believed that the greatest threat to the future of the United States did not lie in the abuse of central power, but instead could be found in what they saw as the excesses of democracy as demonstrated all too clearly in popular disturbances like Shays’ Rebellion.
How could the Federalists convince the undecided portion of the American people that for the nation to thrive, democracy needed to be constrained in favor of a stronger central government?
ANTI-FEDERALISTS
The Anti-Federalists were a diverse coalition of people who opposed ratification of the Constitution. Although less well organized than the Federalists, they also had an impressive group of leaders who were especially prominent in state politics.
Ranging from political elites like James Winthrop in Massachusetts to Melancton Smith of New York and Patrick Henry and George Mason of Virginia, the Anti-Federalists were joined by a large number of ordinary Americans, particularly yeomen farmers who predominated in rural America. The one overriding social characteristic of the Anti-Federalists as a group was their strength in newer settled western regions of the country.
In spite of the diversity that characterized the Anti-Federalist opposition, they did share a core view of American politics. They believed that the greatest threat to the future of the United States lay in the government’s potential to become corrupt and seize more and more power until its tyrannical rule completely dominated the people. Having just succeeded in rejecting what they saw as the tyranny of British power, such threats were a part of the nation’s collective recent memory.
To Anti-Federalists the proposed Constitution threatened to lead the United States down an all-too-familiar road of political corruption. All three branches of the new central government threatened Anti-Federalists’ traditional belief in the importance of restraining government power.
The President’s vast new powers, especially a veto that could overturn decisions of the people’s representatives in the legislature, were disturbing. The court system of the national government appeared likely to encroach on local courts. Meanwhile, the proposed lower house of the legislature would have so few members that only elites were likely to be elected. Furthermore, they would represent people from such a large area that they would hardly know their own constituents. The fifty-five members of the proposed national House of Representatives was smaller than most state legislatures in the period. Since the new legislature was to have increased fiscal authority, especially the right to raise taxes, the Anti-Federalists feared that before long Congress would pass oppressive taxes that they would enforce by creating a standing national army.
This range of objections boiled down to a central opposition to the sweeping new powers of the proposed central government. George Mason, a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention who refused to support the Constitution, explained, the plan was “totally subversive of every principle which has hitherto governed us. This power is calculated to annihilate totally the state governments.” The rise of national power at the expense of state power was a common feature of Anti-Federalist opposition.
The most powerful objection raised by the Anti-Federalists, however, hinged on the lack of protection for individual liberties in the Constitution. Most of the state constitutions of the era had built on the Virginia model that included an explicit protection of individual rights that could not be intruded upon by the state. This was seen as a central safeguard of people’s rights and was considered a major Revolutionary improvement over the unwritten protections of the British constitution.
Why, then, had the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention not included a bill of rights in their proposed Constitution? Most Anti-Federalists thought that such protections were not granted because the Federalists represented a sinister movement to roll back the gains made for ordinary people during the Revolution.
RATIFICATION STATE BY STATE
The ratification process started when the Congress turned the Constitution over to the state legislatures for consideration through specially elected state conventions of the people. Five state conventions voted to approve the Constitution almost immediately in December 1787 and January 1788, and in all of them the vote was unanimous (Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia) or nearly unanimous (Pennsylvania, Connecticut). Clearly, the well-organized Federalists began the contest in strong shape as they rapidly secured five of the nine states needed to make the Constitution law. The Constitution appeared to have broad popular support.
Primary Source: License Plate
Delaware is still proud of their status as the first state to ratify the Constitution.
However, a closer look at who ratified the Constitution in these early states and how it was done indicates that the contest was much closer than might appear at first glance. Four of the five states to first ratify were small states that stood to benefit from a strong national government that could restrain abuses by their larger neighbors.
The process in Pennsylvania, the one large early ratifier, was nothing less than corrupt. The Pennsylvania State Assembly was about to have its term come to an end, and had begun to consider calling a special convention on the Constitution, even before Congress had forwarded it to the states. Anti-Federalists in the state assembly tried to block this move by refusing to attend the last two days of the session, since without them there would not be enough members present for the state legislature to make a binding legal decision. As a result extraordinarily coercive measures were taken to force Anti-Federalists to attend. Anti-Federalists were found at their boarding house and then dragged through the streets of Philadelphia and deposited in the Pennsylvania State House with the doors locked behind them. The presence of these Anti-Federalists against their will, created the required number of members to allow a special convention to be called in the state, which eventually voted 46 to 23 to accept the Constitution.
The first real test of the Constitution in an influential state with both sides prepared for the contest came in Massachusetts in January 1788. Here influential older Patriots like Governor John Hancock and Sam Adams led the Anti-Federalists. Further, the rural western part of the state, where Shays’ Rebellion had occurred the previous year, was an Anti-Federalist stronghold. A bitterly divided month-long debate ensued that ended with a close vote (187-168) in favor of the Constitution. Crucial to this narrow victory was the strong support of artisans who favored the new commercial powers of the proposed central government that might raise tariffs on cheap British imports that threatened their livelihood. The Federalists’ narrow victory in Massachusetts rested on a cross-class alliance between elite nationalists and urban workingmen.
The Massachusetts vote also included an innovation with broad significance. John Hancock who shifted his initial opposition to the Constitution led the move toward ratification. Satisfied that certain amendments protecting individual rights were going to be considered by the first new Congress that would meet should the Constitution become law. This compromise helped carry the narrow victory in Massachusetts and was adopted by every subsequent state convention, with the sole exception of Maryland.
By the spring, conventions in the required nine states had ratified, and the Constitution became law. However, with powerful, populous and highly divided Virginia and New York yet to vote, the legitimacy of the new national system had not yet been fully resolved.
VIRGINIA, NEW YORK, AND THE FEDERALIST PAPERS
The convention in Virginia began its debate before nine states had approved the Constitution, but the contest was so close and bitterly fought that it lasted past the point when the technical number needed to ratify had been reached. Nevertheless, Virginia’s decision was crucial to the nation. No one could imagine the early history of the United States without Virginia in the union. What if leaders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were not citizens of the United States? In the end, Virginia approved the Constitution, with recommended amendments, in an especially close vote (89-79).
Perhaps no state was as deeply divided as New York. The nationalist-urban artisan alliance could strongly carry New York City and the surrounding region, while more rural upstate areas were strongly Anti-Federalist. The opponents of the Constitution had a strong majority when the convention began and set a tough challenge for Alexander Hamilton, the leading New York Federalist. Hamilton managed a brilliant campaign that narrowly won the issue (30-27) by combining threat and accommodation. On the one hand, he warned that commercial areas around New York City might separate from upstate, rural New York if it did not ratify. On the other hand, he accepted the conciliatory path suggested by Massachusetts; amendments would be acceptable after ratification.
The debate in New York produced perhaps the most famous exploration of American political philosophy, now called The Federalist Papers. Originally, they were a series of 85 anonymous letters to newspapers, which were co-written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Together they tried to assure the public of the two key points of the Federalist agenda. First, they explained that a strong government was needed for a variety of reasons, but especially if the United States was to be able to act effectively in foreign affairs. Second, it tried to convince readers that because of the separation of powers in the central government, there was little chance of the national government evolving into a tyrannical power. Instead of growing ever stronger, the separate branches would provide a check and balance against each other so that none could rise to complete dominance.
Primary Source: Book
The cover of the first collection of the Federalists Papers, the essays written under the pseudonym Publius in favor of ratification of the Constitution. They were actually written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison.
The influence of these newspaper letters in the New York debate is not entirely known, but their status as a classic of American political thought is beyond doubt. Although Hamilton wrote the majority of the letters, James Madison authored the ones that are most celebrated today, especially Federalist, Number 10.
Here Madison argued that a larger republic would not lead to greater abuse of power, as had traditionally been thought, but actually could work to make a large national republic a defense against tyranny. Madison explained that the large scope of the national republic would prevent local interests from rising to dominance and therefore the larger scale itself limited the potential for abuse of power. By including a diversity of interests, he identified agriculture, manufacturing, merchants, and creditors, the different groups in a larger republic would cancel each other out and prevent one corrupt interest from controlling all the others.
Madison was one of the first political theorists to offer a profoundly modern vision of self-interest as an aspect of human nature that could be employed to make government better, rather than more corrupt. In this, he represents a key figure in the transition from a traditional republican vision of America, to a modern liberal one where self-interest has a necessary role to play in public life.
THE BILL OF RIGHTS
With the narrow approval of the Constitution in Virginia and New York, in June and July 1788, respectively, the Federalists seemed to have won an all-out victory. The relatively small states of North Carolina and Rhode Island would hold out longer, but with 11 states ratifying and all the populous ones among them, the Federalists had waged a remarkable political campaign of enormous significance and sweeping change.
The ratification process included ugly political manipulation as well as brilliant developments in political thought. For the first time, the people of a nation freely considered and approved their form of government. It was also the first time that people in the United States acted on a truly national issue. Although still deciding the issue state-by-state, everyone was aware that ratification was part of a larger process where the whole nation decided upon the same issue. In this way, the ratification process itself helped to create a national political community built upon and infusing loyalty to distinct states. The development of an American national identity was spurred on and closely linked to the Constitution.
The Federalists’ efforts and goals were built upon expanding this national commitment and awareness. But the Anti-Federalists even in defeat contributed enormously to the type of national government created through ratification. Their key objection challenged the purpose of a central government that didn’t include specific provisions protecting individual rights and liberties. Since the new national government was even more powerful and even more distant from the people, why didn’t it offer the kinds of individual protections in law that most state constitutions had come to include by 1776?
To the Anti-Federalists, the separation of powers was far too mild a curb against the threat of government tyranny. As a result, as states began ratifying the Constitution, they called for further protections to be taken up by the new Congress as soon as it met. This loomed on the unresolved political agenda of the national Congress and the adoption of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is a legacy of the victory-in-defeat of Anti-Federalists. Their continued participation in the political process even when they seemed to have lost on the more general issue had immense importance.
Together, the Bill of Rights protects some of Americans’ most treasured liberties. With some, there is a clear connection to the grievances delineated in the Declaration of Independence. Americans did not want their new government to have the power to do to them what the British had done in the 1770s.
The First Amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.
In Everson v. Board of Education in 1947, the Supreme Court drew on Thomas Jefferson’s correspondence to call for “a wall of separation between church and State”, though the precise boundary of this separation remains in dispute. Speech rights were expanded significantly in a series of court decisions that protected various forms of political speech, anonymous speech, campaign financing, pornography, and school speech.
Secondary Source: Painting
American artist Norman Rockwell’s work celebrating freedom of religion, one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court has interpreted the Second Amendment to mean that individual citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. Clearly, the Founders had not forgotten the value of the colonial militias who fired the opening volleys of the Revolution at Lexington and Concord 16 years before. The Second Amendment embodies the belief that without weapons, citizens are at the mercy of an oppressive government. Long a controversial issue in American political, legal, and social discourse, the Second Amendment has been at the heart of several recent Supreme Court decisions.
Primary Source: Photograph
In recent decades the National Rifle Association has organized protests and brought cases to court against laws the restrict gun ownership and use. They point to the Second Amendment as the foundation of their position.
The Third Amendment restricts the quartering of soldiers in private homes, in response to Quartering Acts passed by the British parliament during the Revolutionary War. The amendment is one of the least controversial of the Constitution, and, as of 2018, has never been the primary basis of a Supreme Court decision.
The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the British abuses during the American Revolution. The amendment is the basis for the exclusionary rule, which mandates that evidence obtained illegally cannot be introduced into a criminal trial.
The Fifth Amendment protects the rights of those accuse of crimes. It prevents a person from being tried twice for the same crime, legally known as double jeopardy, and being forced to testify against oneself. A person who “pleads the Fifth” in court is exercising this right. The amendment guarantees the right to due process, grand jury screening of criminal indictments, and compensation for the seizure of private property under eminent domain. The amendment was the basis for the court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona in 1966 which established that defendants must be informed of their rights to an attorney and against self-incrimination prior to interrogation by police.
The Sixth Amendment establishes a number of rights of the defendant in a criminal trial including the right to know the charges, the right to a public, speedy trial by jury, the right to confront witnesses and compel witnesses to appear in court. The amendments guarantees the right to have representation in court by an attorney, and in 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that the amendment guaranteed the right to legal representation in all felony prosecutions in both state and federal courts, thus setting up the current system of public defenders for those who cannot afford their own attorney.
The Seventh Amendment guarantees jury trials in federal civil cases that deal with claims of more than twenty dollars.
The Eighth Amendment forbids the imposition of excessive bails or fines, though it leaves the term “excessive” open to interpretation. The most frequently litigated clause of the amendment is the last, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. This clause was only occasionally applied by the Supreme Court prior to the 1970s, generally in cases dealing with means of capital punishment. In Furman v. Georgia in 1972, some members of the Court found capital punishment itself in violation of the amendment, arguing that the clause could reflect “evolving standards of decency” as public opinion changed. Others found certain practices in capital trials to be unacceptably arbitrary, resulting in a majority decision that effectively halted executions in the United States for several years.
The Ninth Amendment declares that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are not an explicit and exhaustive list of individual rights. It was rarely mentioned in Supreme Court decisions before the second half of the 20th century, when it was cited by several of the justices in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 when the Court voided a statute prohibiting use of contraceptives as an infringement of the right of marital privacy. This right was, in turn, the foundation upon which the Supreme Court built decisions in several landmark cases, including, Roe v. Wade in 1973 that legalized abortion.
The Tenth Amendment reinforces the principles of separation of powers and federalism by providing that powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or the people. The amendment provides no new powers or rights to the states, but rather preserves their authority in all matters not specifically granted to the federal government.
CONCLUSION
Americans do and should be grateful for the set of circumstances that produced the Bill of Rights. The Founding Fathers and the people who demanded it in the 1780s gave us a tremendous gift. Perhaps a few might have considered the longevity of the document, but no doubt, it was a product more of its own time, than one written with generations 200-plus years in the future in mind.
We might not be able to image a world without it, but the Bill of Rights did not always exist. It is time to stop and consider that the world as we know it was not inevitable. Why do we have a Bill of Rights?
CONTINUE READING
SUMMARY
BIG IDEA: The debate about ratification of the new Constitution divided the nation’s leaders but led to the creation of the Bill of Rights.
The Constitution could not take effect until 9 of the 13 states ratified it. This led to an important period during which the public debated the merits of the new form of government. Central to this debate was the balance of power between the states and the federal government. Also important was the idea of individual freedom and the power of government over people.
Federalists liked the new more powerful federal government. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were Federalists. With John Jay they wrote the Federalists Papers to explain the virtues of the new Constitution. Their work remains an important explanation of the ideas that underlie our system of government.
Anti-Federalists saw the new Constitution as dangerous. They believed that states should hold more power than the federal government. Thomas Jefferson led this faction. Their most important objection was that the Constitution had no protections for individuals. The Federalists argued that separating power between three branches would prevent the government from becoming too powerful and taking away people’s rights. However, the Anti-Federalists won the argument.
In the end, the Constitution was adopted as the Federalists wanted, and a Bill of Rights was added as the Anti-Federalists wanted. The Bill of Rights protects many of the basic freedoms that the British had violated before the Revolution. These include the right to free speech, press, religion, petition, and assembly. It guarantees the right to a trial by jury, protection from warrantless search and seizure and the right to own a gun.
VOCABULARY
PEOPLE AND GROUPS
Federalists: One of the first two political parties. They supported the Constitution, strong central government, Hamilton’s financial plans, and favored Britain over France. Washington and Adams were the only president’s from this party.
Anti-Federalists: People opposed to the ratification of the Constitution. They feared tyrannical central government and successfully argued for the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. They later formed the Democratic-
KEY IDEAS
Federalism: A belief in strong central government with some powers being reserved to the states.
DOCUMENTS
The Federalist Papers: A group of essays published under the penname Publius in New York arguing in favor of ratification of the Constitution. Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, they serve as a record of the ideas of the Founding Fathers.
Federalist, Number 10: One of the most famous of the Federalist Papers. Madison argued that a larger republic would not lead to greater abuse of power, as had traditionally been thought, but actually could work to make a large national republic a defense against tyranny.
LOCATIONS
First State: Delaware, which ratified the Constitution in December of 1787.
LAWS & RESOLUTIONS
Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the Constitution. Ratified in 1791, they outline essential freedoms of all citizens.
First Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.
Second Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees the right to bear arms.
Third Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that forbids the government from requiring citizens to house soldiers in private homes. It is a reaction to the Quartering Act.
Fourth Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that prevents unreasonable searches and seizures and requires the police to obtain a warrant.
Fifth Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees certain rights to those accused of a crime, including protection against double jeopardy, and against testifying against oneself.
Sixth Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees those accused of a crime the right a fair, speedy, public trial, the right to an attorney and the right to confront accusers.
Seventh Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees a jury trial for civil cases.
Eighth Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Ninth Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that state that citizens have rights although they may not be listed in the Constitution.
Tenth Amendment: Amendment to the Constitution that gives states all powers not explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution. | https://inquiryhistory.com/unit04/04-4/ |
Our Mission is to defend and promote the fundamental principles and values embodied in the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, including the freedom of speech and religion, and the right to privacy, equality and due process for all Utahns.
About the ACLU of Utah
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the nation's most prominent non-partisan guardian of freedom, with more than 1.5 million members and supporters and affiliate or national chapter offices in all fifty states and Puerto Rico. Since 1920, the ACLU has continuously worked tirelessly defending and preserving individual rights and liberties guaranteed to everyone in this country by the Constitution and the laws of the United States.
The ACLU of Utah, chartered in 1958, operates through public education, legal advocacy, litigation, and lobbying at the state and local levels to ensure the constitutional rights and freedoms of everyone living in or visiting Utah. We base our work on those principles outlined in the Bill of Rights. | https://www.acluutah.org/en/about-aclu-utah |
Washington, DC – In light of a hearing examining Department of Homeland Security law enforcement operations, the American Civil Liberties Union called once again for the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security to conduct true oversight over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), one of the worst violators of civil liberties among federal agencies. ICE has conducted dragnet-style raids of homes and businesses to sweep for immigrants; separated parents from their children and held them without due process in immigration detention facilities; and been responsible for numerous deaths due to squalid conditions.
The hearing also examined the Transportation Security Administration’s record, which the ACLU has criticized for many failures, particularly its continued use of the enormous and ineffective terrorist watch list that has skyrocketed to over 900,000 name records, and its invasive and ineffective screening methods in airports.
The following can be attributed to ACLU Legislative Counsel Joanne Lin:
“Over the past few years the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement has engaged in a systematic campaign of raiding U.S. worksites and U.S. citizens’ homes. ICE has raided people’s homes in the pre-dawn hours, banging on people’s doors, pushing their way into people’s bedrooms, and arresting everyone in sight including U.S. citizens and young children. ICE’s relentless pursuit to deport, without due process, has been so egregious that ICE has arrested, detained, and even deported native-born U.S. citizens.
What kind of immigration law enforcement system do we have when U.S. citizens are being deported to foreign countries? ICE will continue to commit gross errors and misconduct until Congress exercises rigorous oversight over DHS. The ACLU commends the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security for conducting today’s hearing and urges the committee to rein in ICE’s reckless conduct by ensuring that ICE’s law enforcement operations comport with due process.”
Stay informed
Every month, you'll receive regular roundups of the most important civil rights and civil liberties developments. Remember: a well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.
The latest in Immigrants' Rights
-
Three Years Later, COVID-19 is Still a Threat to People Who Are Incarcerated
-
Florida Sheriff Settles Lawsuit for Unlawfully Profiling and Detaining Florida Resident Born Abroad
-
ACLU Slams Biden’s Plans to Revive the Practice of Detaining Migrant Families
-
Child Labor Investigation Reveals Immigration Policy Changes We Need Now
ACLU's Vision
The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America.
Learn More About Immigrants' Rights
The fundamental constitutional protections of due process and equal protection embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to every person, regardless of immigration status. | https://wp.api.aclu.org/press-releases/time-has-come-real-oversight-end-ice-incompetence-aclu-says |
Past week, the White House put forth its Blueprint for an AI Bill of Legal rights. It is not what you might think—it does not give artificial-intelligence programs the proper to absolutely free speech (thank goodness) or to carry arms (double thank goodness), nor does it bestow any other legal rights upon AI entities.
In its place, it is a nonbinding framework for the legal rights that we outdated-fashioned human beings should have in connection to AI units. The White House’s go is aspect of a world-wide push to set up rules to govern AI. Automatic selection-making systems are participating in increasingly big roles in this sort of fraught locations as screening task candidates, approving people today for govt rewards, and determining medical solutions, and dangerous biases in these systems can direct to unfair and discriminatory outcomes.
The United States is not the initial mover in this area. The European Union has been quite active in proposing and honing restrictions, with its substantial AI Act grinding little by little as a result of the required committees. And just a handful of weeks back, the European Fee adopted a individual proposal on AI legal responsibility that would make it a lot easier for “victims of AI-associated injury to get compensation.” China also has a number of initiatives relating to AI governance, while the rules issued apply only to business, not to govt entities.
“Although this blueprint does not have the power of legislation, the choice of language and framing obviously positions it as a framework for comprehension AI governance broadly as a civil-rights concern, one that justifies new and expanded protections below American law.”
—Janet Haven, Knowledge & Modern society Study Institute
But back to the Blueprint. The White Household Office environment of Science and Technologies Plan (OSTP) 1st proposed these types of a bill of rights a yr ago, and has been taking remarks and refining the plan ever considering that. Its five pillars are:
- The proper to defense from unsafe or ineffective programs, which discusses predeployment screening for hazards and the mitigation of any harms, together with “the probability of not deploying the technique or getting rid of a technique from use”
- The appropriate to defense from algorithmic discrimination
- The appropriate to info privacy, which claims that people really should have command over how details about them is applied, and adds that “surveillance technologies ought to be topic to heightened oversight”
- The ideal to detect and rationalization, which stresses the need to have for transparency about how AI programs access their conclusions and
- The appropriate to human possibilities, consideration, and fallback, which would give people today the potential to choose out and/or search for assist from a human to redress challenges.
For more context on this major shift from the White Property, IEEE Spectrum rounded up six reactions to the AI Bill of Legal rights from specialists on AI policy.
The Center for Stability and Emerging Technological innovation, at Georgetown College, notes in its AI plan newsletter that the blueprint is accompanied by
a “specialized companion” that delivers certain methods that marketplace, communities, and governments can just take to put these principles into action. Which is wonderful, as much as it goes:
But, as the document acknowledges, the blueprint is a non-binding white paper and does not have an impact on any current insurance policies, their interpretation, or their implementation. When
OSTP officers declared ideas to build a “bill of rights for an AI-run world” final yr, they explained enforcement alternatives could contain constraints on federal and contractor use of noncompliant systems and other “laws and rules to fill gaps.” No matter whether the White Residence designs to go after those choices is unclear, but affixing “Blueprint” to the “AI Invoice of Rights” seems to indicate a narrowing of ambition from the authentic proposal.
“Americans do not need a new established of rules, polices, or pointers concentrated exclusively on safeguarding their civil liberties from algorithms…. Current legal guidelines that secure Us citizens from discrimination and illegal surveillance utilize similarly to electronic and non-electronic pitfalls.”
—Daniel Castro, Centre for Facts Innovation
Janet Haven, executive director of the Information & Modern society Investigation Institute, stresses in a Medium write-up that the blueprint breaks ground by framing AI laws as a civil-legal rights issue:
The Blueprint for an AI Invoice of Rights is as marketed: it’s an define, articulating a established of ideas and their likely purposes for approaching the problem of governing AI by a legal rights-primarily based framework. This differs from several other approaches to AI governance that use a lens of trust, basic safety, ethics, obligation, or other much more interpretive frameworks. A legal rights-based tactic is rooted in deeply held American values—equity, prospect, and self-determination—and longstanding legislation….
Whilst American legislation and plan have historically concentrated on protections for persons, mainly ignoring team harms, the blueprint’s authors note that the “magnitude of the impacts of data-driven automatic methods may perhaps be most commonly seen at the group degree.” The blueprint asserts that communities—defined in wide and inclusive conditions, from neighborhoods to social networks to Indigenous groups—have the correct to security and redress versus harms to the very same extent that persons do.
The blueprint breaks even further floor by creating that declare as a result of the lens of algorithmic discrimination, and a connect with, in the language of American civil-legal rights legislation, for “freedom from” this new sort of assault on elementary American rights.
Although this blueprint does not have the force of law, the alternative of language and framing evidently positions it as a framework for comprehending AI governance broadly as a civil-rights difficulty, one particular that deserves new and expanded protections underneath American regulation.
At the Center for Details Innovation, director Daniel Castro issued a push release with a very distinct choose. He concerns about the affect that probable new rules would have on market:
The AI Bill of Legal rights is an insult to each AI and the Monthly bill of Rights. Individuals do not need to have a new established of legal guidelines, laws, or pointers targeted exclusively on defending their civil liberties from algorithms. Utilizing AI does not give corporations a “get out of jail free” card. Existing legislation that defend Americans from discrimination and unlawful surveillance apply equally to electronic and non-electronic risks. In truth, the Fourth Modification serves as an enduring assurance of Americans’ constitutional defense from unreasonable intrusion by the govt.
Regrettably, the AI Bill of Legal rights vilifies digital systems like AI as “among the wonderful difficulties posed to democracy.” Not only do these promises vastly overstate the opportunity risks, but they also make it more difficult for the United States to compete towards China in the worldwide race for AI edge. What recent college graduates would want to pursue a career creating engineering that the highest officials in the country have labeled dangerous, biased, and ineffective?
“What I would like to see in addition to the Monthly bill of Legal rights are government actions and a lot more congressional hearings and laws to address the rapidly escalating issues of AI as identified in the Monthly bill of Legal rights.”
—Russell Wald, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Synthetic Intelligence
The executive director of the Surveillance Know-how Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), Albert Fox Cahn, does not like the blueprint possibly, but for reverse causes. S.T.O.P.’s push launch says the firm would like new laws and desires them ideal now:
Designed by the White Residence Office environment of Science and Technological innovation Coverage (OSTP), the blueprint proposes that all AI will be designed with thing to consider for the preservation of civil legal rights and democratic values, but endorses use of synthetic intelligence for legislation-enforcement surveillance. The civil-rights group expressed problem that the blueprint normalizes biased surveillance and will speed up algorithmic discrimination.
“We don’t require a blueprint, we need bans,”
reported Surveillance Technological know-how Oversight Challenge executive director Albert Fox Cahn. “When law enforcement and organizations are rolling out new and destructive sorts of AI each and every working day, we require to drive pause throughout the board on the most invasive technologies. Though the White Household does consider purpose at some of the worst offenders, they do much much too small to address the each day threats of AI, specifically in police arms.”
One more very lively AI oversight firm, the Algorithmic Justice League, normally takes a additional positive look at in a Twitter thread:
Today’s #WhiteHouse announcement of the Blueprint for an AI Monthly bill of Legal rights from the @WHOSTP is an encouraging move in the ideal course in the struggle towards algorithmic justice…. As we observed in the Emmy-nominated documentary “@CodedBias,” algorithmic discrimination further more exacerbates penalties for the excoded, those people who expertise #AlgorithmicHarms. No one is immune from staying excoded. All people today need to be very clear of their legal rights in opposition to this sort of technological innovation. This announcement is a move that quite a few local community members and civil-modern society corporations have been pushing for more than the earlier numerous yrs. Whilst this Blueprint does not give us everything we have been advocating for, it is a street map that should be leveraged for bigger consent and equity. Crucially, it also provides a directive and obligation to reverse system when needed in purchase to stop AI harms.
Last but not least, Spectrum attained out to Russell Wald, director of policy for the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Synthetic Intelligence for his standpoint. Turns out, he’s a little annoyed:
Though the Blueprint for an AI Invoice of Rights is useful in highlighting genuine-globe harms automatic techniques can cause, and how certain communities are disproportionately affected, it lacks teeth or any facts on enforcement. The doc exclusively states it is “non-binding and does not represent U.S. authorities plan.” If the U.S. federal government has identified genuine problems, what are they executing to suitable it? From what I can tell, not ample.
One particular special challenge when it comes to AI policy is when the aspiration does not drop in line with the sensible. For instance, the Bill of Legal rights states, “You should be equipped to opt out, where by correct, and have access to a person who can immediately look at and treatment difficulties you face.” When the Division of Veterans Affairs can just take up to three to five yrs to adjudicate a assert for veteran benefits, are you truly supplying individuals an option to choose out if a robust and dependable automatic system can give them an reply in a couple of months?
What I would like to see in addition to the Bill of Legal rights are executive steps and more congressional hearings and legislation to deal with the promptly escalating troubles of AI as identified in the Bill of Legal rights.
It is really worth noting that there have been legislative efforts on the federal level: most notably, the 2022 Algorithmic Accountability Act, which was released in Congress final February. It proceeded to go nowhere. | https://connectasnews.org/6-reactions-to-the-white-houses-ai-bill-of-rights.html |
DENVER – In a new strategic framework, The Road Ahead, released today, ACLU of Colorado has outlined a three-year roadmap to guide its efforts in advancing and protecting civil rights and liberties in Colorado.
For 70 years, the ACLU of Colorado has remained steadfast as the guardian of liberty for all Coloradans. The organization is fighting for a state and a nation where everyone’s fundamental rights are recognized and protected — where “We the People” means all of us.
That is why the ACLU of Colorado is engaged in an unprecedented initiative to create the strongest and most strategic organization in its history. While the ACLU will always stand at the ready to defend civil rights and civil liberties in moments of crises, it is now making a new multi-year commitment to focus proactively on three campaigns that will allow it to address the root causes of inequity and inequality.
- The Campaign for Smart Justice will build racially equitable alternatives to policing, prosecutions, and prisons that address the root causes of harm to communities of color and shrink the criminal legal system and immigration detention system.
- The Systemic Equality Agenda will repair the harms of systemic racism against BIPOC communities by increasing access to housing and economic opportunity and creating an inclusive democracy that protects and expands voting access.
- The Privacy and Liberty Project will protect and expand fundamental privacy and liberty rights under Colorado law regardless of what happens at the federal level, including protections against future U.S. Supreme Court decisions taking away fundamental rights, and government overreach and threats from advancing technology.
If, and when, the U.S. Supreme Court fails to protect fundamental rights — as it did when it overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 — the ACLU will continue to advocate for justice in the U.S. Supreme Court and on a local level to ensure protections remain in Colorado.
Its steadfast commitment to racial, immigrant and Indigenous Justice will be the guiding principles of the multi-year strategic roadmap.
The ACLU is committed to disrupting the deportation pipeline and ending cruel and inhumane practices at immigration detention facilities. This strategic framework will protect the rights and liberties of people who are immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants and maximize their ability to fully participate in democratic, civil and social life in Colorado.
“With the full force of our organization, ACLU of Colorado will work relentlessly to expand personal privacy, protect our constitutional right to vote and defend all our civil liberties in the courts, in legislatures, and most importantly, in our communities,” said Deborah Richardson, ACLU of Colorado Executive Director. “Alongside our communities, we can build power to overcome fierce opposition, change hearts and minds, and maximize long-term impact through this coordinated and evidence-based effort.”
The Road Ahead is a product of an intensive, year-long strategic planning process that included multiple rounds of input from stakeholders all over the state, the Board of Directors, and ACLU staff. | https://www.aclu-co.org/en/news/aclu-colorado-launches-new-three-year-strategic-framework |
I have the great honor of serving on the House Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over a wide range of issues including criminal justice system, civil rights, civil liberties, and voting rights. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, I take my oversight duties very seriously.
I currently serve as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which has jurisdiction over all constitutional amendments and federal civil right laws among other issues. Making sure that my constituents’ rights are not infringed upon is of the utmost importance to me. Toward that end, I am devoted to protecting the voting rights of all Americans, working to reform the criminal justice system, and ensuring that education is accessible to all people.
Incidents of unarmed African Americans dying at the hands of police in cities such as Memphis, Baltimore, Ferguson, New York City and others have led to many protests across America. While most police officers spend their careers admirably protecting the communities they serve, it is unfortunate that there have been a string of incidents where some officers discharged their weapons against unarmed African Americans. Disparities in the criminal justice system and the death of unarmed African Americans have fueled calls for reform. As someone who has always supported civil rights and liberties for all people, I am particularly concerned about the systemic causes of the protests and unrest in these communities.
I am also deeply disturbed by recent challenges to voting rights and attempts to suppress votes in minority communities. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and I am working to protect this right and make it easier for Americans to exercise it.
Protecting Civil Rights
Voting Rights
The Congressman has cosponsored numerous pieces of legislation to safeguard access to online voter registration and same day registration, to push for poll workers that are informed and reliable, to create a national voter hotline, and to ensure that all provisional ballots are counted votes. He introduced the Streamlining and Improving Methods at Polling Locations and Early (SIMPLE) Voting Act, to ensure that every state allows citizens to vote for at least 15 days prior to federal elections and require that states provide adequate poll workers and other resources to prevent wait times of longer than one hour.
In response to the Supreme Court’s decision that down portions of the landmark Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, Congressman Cohen cosponsored the Voting Rights Advancement Act to establish a new, nationwide coverage formula for preclearance and make improvements to the law. In addition, he has cosponsored legislation to require states to automatically register anyone who provides identifying information to the state’s department of motor vehicles, as well as, legislation that allows voters to provide a sworn, written statement attesting to their identification as a means by which to meet voter identification requirements. The Congressman has also cosponsored constitutional amendments that explicitly guarantee that every U.S. citizen of legal voting age has a fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which he or she resides.
Racial Profiling
Congressman Cohen has cosponsored legislation that prohibits law enforcement from engaging in racial profiling, grants victims of racial profiling the right to file suit, authorizes grants to collect data relating to racial profiling, and requires state and local law enforcement to certify that they have eliminated any practices that permit or encourage racial profiling. The Congressman is a cosponsor of the End Racial Profiling Act.
Police Reform
When, where and against whom police use deadly force is a serious issue that deserves both urgent attention and careful thought. Unfortunately, no meaningful statistics are kept to help us understand how to best prevent deadly force from being used inappropriately. The Congressman believes that states should be required to collect data on all instances in which deadly force is used by police and report that information to the U.S. Department of Justice. The required reporting would include the race, ethnicity, gender, and age of the individual against whom the deadly force was used as well as an explanation as to why non-lethal efforts were not employed or were ineffective. For this reason, the Congressman introduced the National Statistics on Deadly Force Transparency Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that prevents adequate collection of comprehensive national data regarding justified and unjustified use of deadly force with police. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Congressman is continuing to press for vitally important legislation that will ensure that our community is safe while respecting the difficult job our men and women in law enforcement perform every day.
Congressman Cohen introduced Police Training and Independent Review Act which would create an incentive for states to require independent investigation and prosecution of incidents in which police use of deadly force results in a death or injury. The bill would require sensitivity training requirements regarding racial bias, cultural diversity, and interactions with the disabled, mentally ill, and new immigrants. His bill has been endorsed by the NAACP, the Chicago Tribune, and has the support of the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus. He also introduced the Police Creating Accountability in Making Effective Recording Available (CAMERA) Act, a grant program that would assist state and local law enforcement with the purchase of body cameras to be worn by police officers. The Congressman believes that this country can do better than to allow unarmed youth to be unnecessarily chased, shot, and ultimately killed without any punishment of the perpetrator. We have a real problem in this country when it comes to the relationship between police and communities of color, which they are sworn to protect and serve. The Congressman has dedicated his career to fighting for civil rights and civil liberties, and as the Ranking Member of the Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee, he is continuing to follow these issues closely.
Gender Equality
Congressman Cohen has been a tireless advocate for women’s equality in Congress. He believes that it is important that women are not denied their reproductive rights. He stands with Planned Parenthood and the essential preventative health services such as mammograms, HIV testing, and access to birth control that it provides. The Congressman remains committed to fighting for women’s health care and opposes any efforts to defund Planned Parenthood or repeal the Affordable Care Act that could put many low-income and minority women at risk. He has also worked to ensure that women have the ability to protect their rights against wage discrimination. The Congressman cosponsored The Paycheck Fairness Act because he believes that with increased information on wage data and a commitment to eradicating wage discrepancies, our nation’s women would be better prepared to recognize and enforce their rights.
The Congressman has been a long-time supporter of women’s rights initiatives, especially when it pertains to making personal decisions regarding women’s health and family. He believes that it is important to ensure affordable abortion coverage and care for every woman. He has long been a strong supporter of a woman's right to choose and believes that this choice is one that should remain between a woman and her doctor. The Congressman is committed to continuing to fight for women’s rights here and abroad, and continuing to urge his House and Senate colleagues in Congress to do the same.
The Congressman was honored to attend the Women’s March in Memphis.
Reducing the School to Prison Pipeline
Congressman Cohen offered an amendment to the Student Success Act, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act to allow Title II funds to be used for restorative justice and conflict resolution training. Using these techniques rather than suspension, expulsion or involving the police has been proven to reduce the School to Prison Pipeline. Similar language was included in the Senate version of the bill which was ultimately signed into law by President Obama.
More on Civil Rights
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, today went to the floor of the House to urge passage of The Equality Act (H.R. 5). The measure passed the House this afternoon on a vote of 224 to 206.
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on the Courts, today participated in a hearing on “The Need for Lower Court Judgeships – 30 Years in the Making.” Congressman Cohen focused his questions to the panel of expert witnesses on the need for more federal appellate court judgeships and importance of a diverse federal judiciary that fully reflects the American people.
During his questioning, Congressman Cohen said:
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today introduced the Civil Rights Legacy Protection Act to regulate and reinforce protections for civil rights memorials and monuments across the United States by establishing federal penalties against vandalism of these sites, similar to the existing safeguards in place for the vandalism of veterans’ memorials. It would also direct the U.S. Commission of Civil Rights to create a list of monuments and memorials that should be protected.
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, today presided at a hearing on “H.R. 40: Exploring the Path of Reparative Justice.” The hearing explored H.R. 40, which would create a commission to study and develop a proposal for reparations for African Americans first proposed more than 30 years ago by the late Congressman John Conyers of Michigan.
Congressman Cohen Commemorates Dr. King’s Birthday and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday and Day of Service
MEMPHIS – WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) plans to commemorate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on Friday and the National Holiday and Day of Service in his honor on Monday by encouraging everyone to recall his prescient words delivered in Memphis the night before he was killed: “We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”
Congressman Cohen noted that, in normal, non-pandemic times, he would eagerly participate in crowded, King-inspired public events this weekend but that this year requires social distancing and limited crowd sizes.
Citing Longstanding Concern Over Trump’s Fitness to Serve, Congressman Cohen Supports Second Impeachment Effort
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, today expressed strong support for the Article of Impeachment that will go to a vote in the House on Wednesday, and made the following statement:
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) noted the passing of Miriam DeCosta-Willis today, and made the following statement:
“I was saddened to hear of the passing of my friend Miriam DeCosta-Willis, a respected community leader, scholar, educator, legendary glass ceiling-breaker and civil rights pioneer. She was also a great mother of successful children, who are committed to excellence and community-oriented like their parents were. She will be missed.”
###
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, made the following statement after hearing that Attorney General William Barr has resigned:
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today released the following statement after learning of the passing of longtime pastor and civic leader the Reverend James Netters.
Congressman Cohen Asks FBI Director to Investigate Efforts to Deny Voters the Right to a Free and Fair Election
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties which has jurisdictional oversight of voting rights, joined Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) and several Congressional colleagues in asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to conduct criminal investigations into complaints of vote suppression in the November 3 election. | https://cohen.house.gov/issues/civil-rights |
(FEE) – March 4th marks the anniversary of the beginning of government under the U.S. Constitution in 1789. It seldom gets any popular attention. But it certainly deserves some, especially in an era when we have moved so far from the very limited government the Constitution authorized (limits enhanced by the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791) with American citizens as the clear losers.
One useful way to mark this uncelebrated date might be to remember what James Madison, the “father of the Constitution,” had to say about its meaning. After all, no one in our founding generation had a greater hand in constructing and interpreting the highest law of the land, and his understanding of a tightly limited government stands sharply at odds with the Brobdingnagian role our government has since arrogated to itself.
James Madison, author of many of the most important Federalist Papers, defender of the Constitution before the Virginia ratifying convention, and sponsor of the Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives, was the preeminent interpreter of the Constitution for half a century. He made it clear that its role was to clearly enumerate the limited powers given to the federal government and to defend Americans from “the first experiment on our liberties” by its hand.
Madison left no doubt that the Constitution was to remain the highest law of the land in fact as well as on paper because only then could our liberties be defended against government abuse. The Constitution was not to be a “living document” that could transform its protections into excuses for the government overstepping of its limited, delegated sphere.
The anniversary of American government under the Constitution is an appropriate occasion to remember that, as we have increasingly abandoned its protections against predatory government, the intended servants of our rights and freedoms now act more and more like masters than servants. | http://bridgeagents.com/2018/03/09/16-choice-quotes-from-the-father-of-the-constitution/ |
Work from home is a part of our lives now. Many jobs offer either a fully remote, or hybrid model of work that provides unique challenges for those who struggle with executive functions. In this blog, we will go over how working from home provides unique challenges with executive function demands.
Inhibitory Controls
Inhibitory controls are the brain’s ability to choose what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Our brains are constantly selecting what is relevant or not. Focus is limited, so our brains are constantly shifting that focus based on our inhibitory controls. Working from home has a whole host of new stimuli that can distract us from getting our work done. When working in an office, you may go to make a cup of coffee and quickly return to your desk. At home, you can attempt the same task and be distracted by many things. Maybe you see that you didn’t do the dishes last night and decide to do them while waiting for your coffee. The same tasks that you used to do in the office can now have multiple hurdles to overcome. What if you have a family? A three-year-old who wants food can be much more important than answering a few emails. These unique challenges require unique solutions, and finding these solutions tap into another executive function: cognitive flexibility.
Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive Flexibility is the ability to change what you are thinking about, how you are thinking about it, and what you think about it. Cognitive flexibility is an important executive function because it is key in adapting away from strategies that are not working. It also helps us approach problems from different angles. Work from home challenges our cognitive flexibility because strategies that you used in an office may not work as well to working from home. Adapting your habits and strategies that worked in the office can be difficult. This can be even more challenging in a hybrid model, because you need two sets of strategies for two different work environments.
Shifting
Shifting is the ability to ‘change gears’ in our brains to do something different to accomplish a task. Shifting can occur in our attention, processing, and action. We can shift what we are focusing on in, how we think about what we are focusing on, or what we are doing in response to what we are thinking about. When you are in an office, you typically are shifting only between various work tasks. Working from home mixes together all your work tasks with tasks that are personal and home based. This ties in with inhibitory controls, because there may be temptation to shift towards these personal and home based tasks. In general, shifting is a process that takes energy and effort, so it is important to try and limit how much shifting you do in order to maintain efficiency.
Working from home provides a set of challenges that many of us have not encountered previously. Executive function strategies can help us navigate these new problems, but the key to success is knowing yourself. Identifying what the challenges are is half the battle. Once you’ve identified where inefficiencies are in your day, then you can begin to build in strategies to confront them.
To learn more about how coaching can help with working from home, set up a call with us! | https://nfil.net/work-from-home-challenges/ |
Course. Cognitive Flexibility
In this module, you will learn the concept of cognitive flexibility, understand its’ role and importance in work and everyday situations. The module also presents ways to assess the level of cognitive flexibility in adults and offers specific and non-specific tools to improve it.
Cognitive flexibility
What is Cognitive Flexibility?
OBJECTIVES AND GOALS
Click to open
At the end of this module you will be able to:
- Identify cognitive flexibility
- Recognize the role and importance of cognitive flexibility as a future skill
- Recognize and use instruments to assess cognitive flexibility
- Know and apply techniques to enhance cognitive flexibility
What is Cognitive Flexibility?
Click to open
According to the World Economic Forum, Cognitive Flexibility (CF) is among the top ten skills that will be needed in the workplace of the future are the ‘soft’ skills, the innate human skills that simply cannot, at this point, be replaced by artificial intelligence or technology in general.
Understanding and ability to recognise, what is cognitive flexibility, and what it is not for that matter, is the key to being able to develop this crucial skill, hence the largest part of the module is devoted to defining, characterising and discussion of the concept.
Cognitive flexibility is defined as the ability to transition our thoughts between multiple concepts or perspectives. Or, as defined by Canas (2003): “Cognitive flexibility is the human ability to adapt the cognitive processing strategies to face new and unexpected conditions in the environment”.
CF as a concept consists of two parts:
- Cognitive, referring to such brain functions as solving problems, thinking citically, connecting ideas and synthesizing information; and
- Flexibility, a quality associated with bending, twisting, thinking about things differently and changing approaches when needed.
Hence, the concept, in popular language, can be thought of as “flexible brain” or “brain that twists easily”.
Alternative definitions
Click to open
There are a number of alternative definitions:
- The brain’s ability to transition from thinking about one concept to another. The quicker you are able to switch or “shift” your thinking from one dimension to another, the greater your level of cognitive flexibility
- Ability to think flexibly and to shift perspectives and approaches easily
- Intrinsic property of a cognitive system often associated with the mental ability to adjust its activity and content, switch between different task rules and corresponding behavioural responses, maintain multiple concepts simultaneously and shift internal attention between them (William, 1962)
- For a number of definitions used in academic, see Ionescu (2012)
Cognitive Flexibility in literature as also known by alternative or related terminology as “attention switching,” “cognitive shifting,” “mental flexibility, “set shifting,” and “task switching”.
Analogy
Click to open
Changing channels on a TV:
A good way to illustrate the concept is using analogies. CF can be seen as changing channels on a TV where the brain is the TV, and channels are the streams of thought. In that way, if you are stuck with one channel and not able or willing to change it, the cognition is inflexible, whereas if you operate the remote control with ease and change between different channels rapidly, you have good cognitive flexibility.
What do you see?
Click to open
CF can also be presented using optical illusion ambiguous pictures such as rabbit-duck illusion, faces-wase illusion, young lady – old lady illusion, as well as Schroder’s Stairs, for example in the famous lithograph “Relativity” by Escher (1953), and numerous other pictures. What to watch out for is – how easily one switches perspectives, or how difficult it is to see the other way. The easier you change the perspective, the better cognitive flexibility you have.
Shifting perspectives
How easy is it to switch?
Escher, M. C. "Relativity." Lithograph. 1953
What is mental shifting?
Click to open
While CF refers to the ability to adapt to a change, mental shifting is the process that makes it possible to adapt to the change. Shifting is the main component in cognitive flexibility (often referred to as the same concept). Characteristics of someone with strong mental shifting:
- Adapts quickly to changes and new situations
- Tolerates changes that occur during problem solving or carrying out a task easily
- Offers alternative solutions to problems
- Easily transition from one activity to another and know how to carry themselves properly in every situation
- Captures various dimensions of reality, sees from different points of view, recognizes hidden relationships, hence easily finds alternative solutions to the same problem
- Tolerates errors and changes, able to think about a situation from another person's point of view
- Finds compromises easily
Cognitive flexibility and mental shifting: Examples
Click to open
During the module, audience can be presented with a few examples from real life situations, such as:
- You're getting ready to have breakfast and you realize that there's no bread left. What do you do? (How many other options one can think of) Do you get mad and go to work without eating? Do you go to a café and eat there? Do you have something else for breakfast? Cognitive shifting allows you to think about other options when your original plan is altered with an unexpected change.
- A good friend stops talking to you. Why is this? Is s-he mad at you? (Different situations that may have evolved) •Mental flexibility allows you to think about what has happened, and come up with a possible reason as to why they may not be talking to you. If you can think about things from other people's points of view, it helps you put yourself in their situation and think about what may have happened
- The usual road to work is closed. One day, it's pouring rain and you know that there will be traffic for miles. What do you do? (What alternative ways there are?) You could take the train, you could leave the house early and try to get ahead of the traffic, or you could take other public transportation in hopes that you make it to work earlier. Your original plans or routine were changed by an unexpected situation, but cognitive flexibility and shifting allow to you think of possible alternative solutions to help you get to work on time. You'll have to use the same abilities that you use when making a decision: experience, expectations, motivation, knowledge, and emotions.
Participants in the module can be invited to think of their own examples where they have shown good or lack of cognitive flexibility.
Cognitive rigidity
Click to open
Cognitive rigidity is the opposite of cognitive flexibility, or lack of it. It is inability to change behaviour or beliefs when they are ineffective in order to reach your objective. While in employment and life in general good cognitive flexibility is needed, there reasons for rigidity - the human brain likes stability and tries to avoid instability however it can. It can be discussed with participants if and when are the situations when some cognitive rigidity may be needed and when too much of flexibility is obstructing. For example, the need to act fast and decisive? Can it be cumbersome for an executive because it can be seen as inconclusive and weak?
Example
- If you were asked to say words that begin with the letter "A", and the only word you could think of was ”Apple", you would be experiencing cognitive rigidity, as you would be unable to create alternatives to “Apple”
- The feeling that this phenomenon causes is feeling "stuck", without being able to find a way out
- Cognitive rigidity have negative consequences in daily life, in situations that require you to create alternative strategies or solutions
- Why do some people have cognitive rigidity? | https://projectessence.eu/see-training.php?id=64 |
The authoritative text on augmentative and alternative communication, this classic bestseller is now in its fifth edition--revised and updated for a new generation of SLPs, teachers, occupational therapists, and other professionals in clinical and educational settings. Partnering with a team of distinguished contributors, renowned experts David Beukelman and Janice Light deliver todayâ (TM)s most comprehensive, up-to-date introduction to AAC interventions and technologies for children and adults with complex communication needs. Future service providers will get in-depth coverage of essential AAC topics, enhanced by helpful study questions, valuable perspectives from people who use AAC, and case examples that illustrate key principles. Significantly expanded with new chapters on critical topics, more practical information on how AAC systems work, and new online companion materials, this definitive text will expertly prepare readers to support communicative competence-and quality of life-for children and adults with complex communication needs. WHATâ (TM)S NEW Professionals will prepare for their work in the field with critical new information on: Collaborating with family members and other communication partners Making the most of mobile technologies and AAC apps Selecting an AAC system and tailoring it to individual needs Working effectively with families from diverse cultural backgrounds Supporting inclusion across the lifespan (including education, employment, and community life) Ensuring efficient patient-provider communication in medical settings Providing communication supports to people with autism spectrum disorder PLUS: Enhance your teaching with a package of online companion materials, including a resource guide to help practitioners and students learn more about AAC; sample responses to chapter study questions; and a sample syllabus. TOPICS COVERED: components and phases of AAC assessment * planning, implementation, and evaluation of AAC interventions * working with families *vocabulary and message selection *multimodal communication*unaided representations * aided AAC symbols and other representations * assistive technologies that support literacy * support for beginning communicators * education * employment * assisted and independent living * health care * selection and personalization of AAC systems * AAC access techniques and output * interventions for people with developmental disabilities * interventions for people with acquired disabilities * the importance of advocacy Learn more about the new edition!
|Author||: Erna Alant|
|Publisher||: Plural Publishing|
|Release Date||: 2016-12-30|
|ISBN 10||: 1944883878|
|Pages||: 320 pages|
Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Engagement and Participationreexamines the basic components of human communication based on the development of meaning between two people and provides a new theoretical framework for integrating the use of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) strategies into interpersonal interactions. As such, it is an indispensable resource for speech-language pathologists, special education practitioners, and researchers in AAC, as well as for instructors and graduate students in the fields of speech and hearing sciences and special education. The book employs a creative synthesis of engagement (personal involvement) and participation (exchanges) to describe meaning-making and social closeness between partners. This process allows for the acknowledgment of different levels of shared meaning and outlines a novel approach to assessment and intervention. The book also describes the importance of integrating relational (interaction-oriented) as well as instrumental (goal-oriented) communication functions as essential in maintaining on-going relationships. Most resources in AAC tend to emphasize strategies for enhancing participation, rather than strategies associated with the development of engagement ("being with") to enhance communication between communication partners. In contrast, this text uses interactions between users of AAC and their communication partners as a basis to explore the creative synthesis between engagement and participation to provide clinical guidelines for assessment and intervention in both interpersonal and classroom contexts. Key features: A novel theoretical approach focused on engagement and participation as core components in AAC interventionEmphasis on empathic listening skills of both communication partner and user of AAC strategies to facilitate engagement (emotional resonance) between themGuidance for teachers on the benefits of a meaning-based approach to communication in the classroomApplication of empathic listening strategies to people with dementia to address an increasing need for care of patients with Alzheimer disease by caregivers and family membersIntegration of social media and face-to-face interactions as central to developing relationships in AAC interactions
|Author||: Rajinder Koul|
|Publisher||: BRILL|
|Release Date||: 2011|
|ISBN 10||: 1848552181|
|Pages||: 174 pages|
Augmentative and Alternative Communication for Adults with Aphasia is a text written for practising clinicians, undergraduate and graduate students, assistive technologists and other stakeholders who are interested in learning more about the communication needs and options for people with aphasia. Although there are several book chapters dedicated to aphasia in currently available textbooks in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), this is the first book dedicated entirely to AAC and aphasia. The book aims to: Provide an overview of aphasia and various treatment approaches. Provide a comprehensive review of AAC intervention approaches for persons with aphasia. Evaluate the efficacy of AAC intervention approaches that use technology, such as speech generating devices, and non-technological AAC approaches as part of a treatment package. Examine the ways in which techniques and strategies can be applied to persons with aphasia. Better understand how both direct stakeholders (i.e., persons with aphasia) as well as indirect stakeholders (e.g., close and extended family members, friends, paid caregivers) feel about the effectiveness of AAC intervention in persons with aphasia.
|Author||: David R. Beukelman,Pat Mirenda|
|Publisher||: Paul H Brookes Publishing Company|
|Release Date||: 2005|
|ISBN 10||: 9781557666840|
|Pages||: 634 pages|
This textbook presents a life-span approach to improving the lives of children and adults who have severe communication disorders due to autism, traumatic brain injury, intellectual disabilities, or sensory impairments. Step-by-step intervention approaches are offered, as well as thorough discussions of principles and procedures of assessment; planning and implementation of AAC intervention; symbol options; alternative access; message management; vocabulary selection; service delivery; This update of the widely-used and well-respected earlier editions offers more information on individuals with acquired disabilities and continues to emphasize putting the AAC user first.
|Author||: M. Alexandra Da Fonte,Miriam C. Boesch|
|Publisher||: Routledge|
|Release Date||: 2018-07-17|
|ISBN 10||: 135178000X|
|Pages||: 322 pages|
Effective Augmentative and Alternative Communication Practices provides a user-friendly handbook for any school-based practitioner, whether you are a special education teacher, an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) consultant, assistive technology consultant, speech language pathologist, or occupational therapist. This highly practical book translates the AAC research into practice and explains the importance of the use of AAC strategies across settings. The handbook also provides school-based practitioners with resources to be used during the assessment, planning, and instructional process.
|Author||: David R. Beukelman,Pat Mirenda|
|Publisher||: Brookes Publishing Company|
|Release Date||: 2012|
|ISBN 10||: 9781598571967|
|Pages||: 593 pages|
The fourth edition of the foundational, widely adopted AAC textbook Augmentative and Alternative Communication is the definitive introduction to AAC processes, interventions, and technologies that help people best meet their daily communication needs. Future teachers, SLPs, OTs, PTs, and other professionals will prepare for their work in the field with critical new information on advancing literacy skills; conducting effective, culturally appropriate assessment and intervention; selecting AAC vocabulary tailored to individual needs; using new consumer technologies as affordable, nonstigmatizing communication devices; promoting social competence supporting language learning and development; providing effective support to beginning communicators; planning inclusive education services for students with complex communication needs; and improving the communication of people with specific developmental disabilities and acquired disabilities. An essential core text for tomorrow's professionals--and a key reference for in-service practitioners--this fourth edition prepares readers to support the communicative competence of children and adults with a wide range of complex needs.
|Author||: David R. Beukelman,Kathryn M. Yorkston,Joe Reichle|
|Publisher||: Paul H Brookes Publishing Company|
|Release Date||: 2000|
|ISBN 10||:|
|Pages||: 425 pages|
This research-based resource provides AAC professionals, physicians, therapists, service providers, and family members with proven strategies to help adults use AAC to rebuild their communicative competence.
|Author||: Billy T. Ogletree|
|Publisher||: Plural Publishing|
|Release Date||: 2021-01-12|
|ISBN 10||: 1635502969|
|Pages||: 399 pages|
Providers of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) face a myriad of challenges in a rapidly changing and developing field. Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Challenges and Solutions is a unique solution-oriented text intended to prepare professionals to face those challenges with a can do perspective. Featuring contributions from prominent AAC researchers and providers, as well as actual AAC users, this resource traverses a wide range of scenarios that clinicians deal with on a daily basis. Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Challenges and Solutions is divided into five sections with each chapter offering a different evidence-based solution. Part I provides an introduction and basis for the rest of the book. Part II focuses on the unique challenges of providing AAC in childhood, while Part III centers on dealing with adult disorders. In Part IV, the authors delve into special populations and issues, such as assisting individuals with multiple disabilities. In Part V, clinicians will find tips for becoming a solution-oriented provider. Key Features: * Contributions from national experts in AAC * Quotes and vignettes representing the experiences of actual AAC users * Featured challenges faced by providers and users alike * Evidence-based solutions for ready application in clinical contexts * Tools for implementing certain strategies, including example meeting scripts * A comprehensive glossary of terms * A highly readable writing style * An introductory chapter with bolded key terms to improve retention of the material
|Author||: Richard R. Hurtig,Deborah Downey|
|Publisher||: Plural Publishing|
|Release Date||: 2008-11-01|
|ISBN 10||: 1597567825|
|Pages||: 224 pages|
Tele-AAC: Augmentative and Alternative Communication Through Telepractice is the first comprehensive resource guide to Tele-AAC. Tele-AAC is the use of telepractice specifically for providing services to individuals using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). This text establishes Tele-AAC as a new service delivery model and promotes safe, efficacious, evidence-based, and ethical telepractice for individuals who need AAC systems. The goal is to provide readers with fundamental information about policy and service delivery of AAC services via telepractice to enable clinical practice. The text details the specific technical components unique to Tele-AAC service delivery, and how the technology, personnel, and service delivery practices may vary across settings and populations. It offers didactic and case-based content for speech-language pathologists across all levels, from introductory to advanced. Chapters are included that clarify and define the term Tele-AAC, highlight the procedures used while providing assessment and intervention via Tele-AAC, identify ethical and cultural considerations while providing Tele-AAC, and demonstrate its application in a variety of settings. The content has been enriched by the input and knowledge offered by leaders from both telepractice and AAC disciplines, and offers readers the right combination of foundational information and principles to help form a base of understanding for practitioners engaging in Tele-AAC. The field of Tele-AAC is evolving and will transform as the technology changes and advances. This text provides a threshold of understanding from which the field and practitioners can grow. | https://www.skinvaders.com/data/augmentative-and-alternative-communication/ |
Augmented worker technologies are becoming increasingly intelligent, interactive and supportive. What is their future on the shop floor?
The Cyber-Human Lab at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) at the University of Cambridge shares insights from a recent study on stakeholders’ perspectives on assistive technology in manufacturing.
The future of manufacturing is often characterised by an increase in complexity, efficiency and sustainability. As the execution frequency of simple and repetitive tasks decreases, manual tasks are likely to become more complex.
Does this mean that manufacturing is inevitably heading towards full automation? It partly depends on who you ask.
According to our recent study, the expected degree of automation on future shop floors seems to depend on one’s position in the hierarchy of an organisation – but different to what most would intuitively expect.
We asked three groups – manufacturing executives, instructors and operators – about their perspectives on worker assistance systems to uncover their experiences, what kind of assistance systems they would find acceptable, and to what extent their experiences and views of the future aligned.
Worker assistance systems are physical or cognitive support systems for operators; for example, an exoskeleton which supports operators by enhancing their physical strength, or an augmented reality system that offers cognitive support, like digital instructions during an assembly process.
We found that operators expect a technology-centric scenario and fear that they will not be required due to ongoing automation. Executives and instructors, on the other hand, believe lights-out factories or total automation are unlikely to become the new normal.
In fact, the rising complexity of production may require manufacturing skills which cannot be efficiently automated. Executives anticipate an integrative scenario, in which both robots and operators will work together on the shop floor.
This difference in perspectives is a potential barrier to users’ acceptance of and adaption to such products. Manufacturers considering or deploying worker assistance systems without understanding users’ perspectives risk poor results. Therefore, it’s essential they understand these diverging perspectives better and how to tackle them.
Suitability of worker assistance systems
While the work of human operators in manufacturing is continuing to shift, human operators are likely to remain in control of operations on the shop floor for the foreseeable future.
Worker assistance systems are expected to be mainly complementary, cognitive support systems for operators performing tasks related to diagnosis and optimisation, or standard operating procedures – like the example of the operator with mobile assembly instructions.
Major applications of assistive technology are expected in: variety and exception handling; support of complex standard operating procedures; data analysis, diagnosis and optimisation, and digital engineering.
The exception is anticipated to be in work areas such as the manufacturing of components and inbound logistics, where the number of manual tasks is likely to decrease and, eventually, human operators may become redundant.
Acceptance of assistive technology
In general, executives and instructors take a human-centric, integrative perspective on future manufacturing. That is, given the acceptance of operators, the fulfilment of relevant safety requirements, and economic effectiveness, executives and instructors welcome assistive technology on shop floors.
In industrial learning scenarios (e.g. an apprenticeship), operators also welcome extensive cognitive support to quickly acquire complex skills and learn at their individual pace. In fact, many operators would potentially accept a ‘robot teacher’ supervising their progress and providing individual real-time feedback.
After finishing their practical training programmes, however, operators’ attitude towards worker support systems seems to change. Experienced operators seem to reject assistive technology that aims to give explicit training or technological support during tasks which they perceive themselves to have a degree of mastery.
Operators also strongly prefer a support initiation mechanism that is controlled by them rather than an autonomous initiation mechanism triggered by sensors and intelligent systems.
When compared with the acceptance of cognitive support, operators’ opinions on body-worn technology for physical assistance (like exoskeletons) appear more reserved.
Operators are excited about the potential of physical assistance systems, but they fear negative effects on both their physical and mental health.
Likewise, executives and instructors expressed general concerns regarding the implications on the long-term health and safety of operators. For example, when being guided by digital instructions on an augmented reality headset throughout the entire working day, operators’ natural cognitive abilities could potentially be affected.
Executives especially pointed out that they aren’t aware of any medical studies examining the long-term implications of worker assistance systems on the operator’s mental and physical health.Especially for AR and VR long term effects need to be better understood.
Recommendations
When thinking about assistive technology it is paramount to carefully consider the individual circumstances of manufacturers and their stakeholders in industry.
Assistive technology will change the way humans work on the shop floor, how they interact and collaborate with machines. Assistive technology, however, is not about designing the most advanced technology.
It is also not about engineering prototypes which never make it to a single shop floor. It is about meaningfully assisting humans and their skills.
Assistive technology will not be the silver bullet that solves all the most pressing challenges in a manufacturing organisation. However, some assistive technology, especially cognitive assistance systems, is becoming increasingly feasible to deploy while maintaining a human-centric perspective.
Manufacturing organisations should therefore be more actively communicating the value and necessity of operators on their future shop floor.
Six recommendations to manage assistive technology:
- Involve all stakeholders throughout the hierarchy of your manufacturing organisation. Their perspective may differ, but only if assistive technology is accepted can it be successful.
- Communicate the joint value of assistive technology and human skills to your staff. Operators might fear that assistive technology could be the last step before being made redundant.
- Develop your staff. To cope with rising complexity and use, assistive technology operators will need a more sophisticated skills portfolio.
- Choose the right applications. Variety and exception handling, support of complex standard operating procedures, and digital instructions for standard operating procedures might by beneficial starting points.
- Focus on cognitive abilities and support systems. Operators tend to reject assistive technology enhancing their physical strengths.
- Co-existence often may be all you need. Collaborative robots currently do not seem feasible on most shop floors.
Authors: Mirco Moencks, Elisa Roth, and Thomas Bohné, all from the The lab focuses on how technologies can be used to augment human work and improve human performance in industry.
This article has been adapted based on the article Moencks, M., Roth, E., and Bohné, T. (2020). Worker assistance systems: Understanding the human perspective. The Manufacturer. | https://mfg.works/2021/03/25/augmenting-human-workers/ |
3 Steps to Build Resilience for Young CEOs
A young CEO faces many challenges, a demanding work environment, and sometimes even a crisis or meltdown. During this time you may feel overwhelmed and distressed. However, now more than ever, a resilient leader requires a set of strategies and skills to cope and manage, which is why building resilience as a habit is important; it will then become your reflex.
What is involved in becoming a resilient leader?
According to George S. Everly, executive director of Resiliency Sciences Institutes at the University of Maryland, a positive attitude and proper preparation are required to have enough perspective to bounce back.
You will have negative thoughts and doubt because that is the way we’re programmed. Resilient leaders cannot afford to replay those negative thoughts and get stuck, because it hurts their bottom line and affects the work culture. In my research, I have found that resilient individuals and leaders use three steps to bounce back
1. Release
There is no such thing as ‘think positive all the time.’ In fact, it’s fine to think negatively at first, as long as you recognize and become aware that at some point (and quickly) one must press the STOP button on those negative tunes and insert positive tunes and press PLAY.
First, become aware of their thoughts, words, and feelings. When you say negative things or think negative thoughts, you will end up feeling negative and therefore you will behave in that manner, causing negative results in your life. To change your results, you have to work backwards.
In order to feel positive, you have to think positively, but in order to think positively, one must use positive words.
Therefore, whenever you catch yourself thinking or saying the words DON’T, NOT or NO, in a sentence, ask yourself, “What do I (we) want?” Make sure your answer is stated in the positive and starts with, “I want…”
Example:
“The changes that are taking place after this merger are NOT sustainable.”
Notice the images and thoughts that come up as you read the above sentence. Now ask,
“What do I (we) want?”
“I want to know what the objectives of these changes are and where it will take the company.”
Now notice the images and thoughts that come up for you.
2. Reprogram
The second step in becoming more resilient involves re-programming ourselves to find solutions. Most of us get stuck in the “blame mindset” when we are faced with challenges. In this mindset, you may catch yourself saying things, such as:
- Why do I have this problem?
- How long will I have this problem?
- Whose fault is it that I have this problem?
- What’s wrong?
When you use this questioning method, you feel oppressed, broken and you’ll lack choices. However, it’s possible to re-program yourself to an “outcome mindset” by asking alternative questions, such as:
- What do I want and when do I want it?
- When I get what I want, what else in my life will improve?
- What resources do I have available to help me with this challenge?
- Can I use these resources to the best of my ability or do I require extra help?
- What can I do now to improve this situation and get what I want?
Having an outcome mindset propels a person toward critical questioning, where you start thinking of solutions right away.
3. Resolve
This step involves taking action, having cognitive flexibility, and mastering yourself in the process. Across history, certain figures have demonstrated the utmost in resilience, especially when a country, culture, or religious sect is working against that individual’s values and principles. These figures include Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, and others.
How did these individuals manage their emotions and create a positive attitude? How did they re-program themselves and bounce back time after time, even when they felt they couldn’t put any more effort into their cause? What kept them motivated to take action, to keep trying, and to never quit? The answer is simple: They believed.
If you believe, you will take action.
In this third step, cognitive flexibility is about being less rigid and having a toolbox of strategies that you can apply to overcome a challenge. The person with the most flexibility will have more control than the person who is rigid or has only one strategy.
Did you like today’s post? If so you’ll love our frequent newsletter! Sign up HERE and receiveThe ExchangeGain Change Playbook, by Shawn Murphy, as our thanks to you! | http://exchangegain.com/3-steps-to-build-resilience-for-young-ceos |
Adaptability & flexibility are skills that are highly sought-after by employers. This blog explains exactly what it means to be adaptable, why it’s so valuable in the workplace and how you can develop your adaptability.
Being adaptable and flexible is about your ability to quickly and effectively adjust to changing circumstances.
It means you can switch easily between tasks at work, for example, or adjust your working style according to the people you’re collaborating with.
When you’re adaptable:
- You’re able to roll with the punches
- You’re flexible in your behaviours and attitude
- And, most importantly, you have a positive attitude to change
While some of us are more naturally adaptable than others, it isn’t just about innate ability; adaptability is a skill that you can learn.
Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive flexibility can be seen as the engine that powers adaptability: it’s about your ability to switch from one train of thought to another or between concepts.
This means that, when faced with a new piece of information or a new scenario, you’re able to shift your way of thinking to accommodate this change. The quicker and better you can do this, the more responsive you’ll become and the easier it will be to juggle different tasks.
It will also help you to become more agile as you’ll be more prepared to navigate changes and problems when they do arrive.
Learning Mindset
To be truly adaptable you need to have a willingness to learn. New situations often require you to develop new skills and approaches, so you need to be able to take on the challenge and expand your capabilities accordingly.
A healthy curiosity towards things you don’t know is definitely a plus, but it’s mostly about having the right attitude and believing that, with the right level of effort and dedication, you can develop the attributes you need to successfully manage whatever work, or life, throws at you.
Resourcefulness
Resourcefulness is about your ability to come up with quick, clever and creative solutions and ideas, by making connections and using tools or resources that others might not think to make or use.
Resourceful people are a big asset to an organisation’s ability to adapt because they can navigate and mitigate potential obstacles with speed and agility, effectively and efficiently preventing delays and allowing the organisation to maintain its course or choose a better one.
Resourcefulness combines creativity and innovation with tenacity – a determination to find a solution by looking at the situation differently from those who have resigned themselves to the circumstances.
Versatility
The more versatile your skillset, the more likely you are to embrace challenges with confidence, handle a variety of different tasks and successfully adapt to changing circumstances.
But it’s not all about skills; versatility in the way you communicate with others, your working style, your outlook and the perspectives you can bring, your leadership style and how you behave in different team settings all support your adaptability.
Why these skills are important to you and employers
In terms of your everyday performance, adaptability skills help you to be as productive as you can be, allowing you to switch between different tasks more seamlessly and more effectively handle changes whether that’s to your to-do-list, a project you’re working on or your responsibilities at work. As a result, you’ll become a more effective and confident team member and leader.
Looking at the bigger picture, being adaptable is key in supporting your career well-being and development as it pushes you to keep learning and evolve as you go along. It also plays a key role in allowing you to work through changes and challenges, which, in turn, helps you become more resilient.
It’s no wonder then that companies are increasingly looking for candidates with strong adaptability skills as they are the ones that have the potential to grow in their roles, thrive in an ever-changing workplace and help drive innovation.
The increasing speed of technological change that companies are now dealing with also means that having people on board who are able to adapt to new processes and systems has become more important than ever.
Stay tuned for part 2 which will cover how you can develop these skills…
Want to find out more about jobs that suit your skills?
- Go on to the Careers & Enterprise Hub, and under ‘Resources’ click on ‘Labour Market Information’. There, you can ‘explore by skills’ – just click on at least 3 skills, and it’ll show you job roles that match!
- If you click on the job role, it’ll give you more information about average salary, what the role entails etc. | https://blogs.canterbury.ac.uk/careers/transferable-skills-series-adaptability-part-1/ |
The ability to respond flexibly is important for children’s functioning. For example, cognitive flexibility has been related to math and reading performance and social understanding. In this post I will discuss the findings of a study about the role of maternal support for the development of cognitive flexibility. What can parents do to stimulate and support cognitive flexibility in children?
Cognitive flexibility
Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch across tasks, rules, operations and perspectives based on changes in goals and demands. For example, cognitive flexibility includes:
- Changing strategies when a strategy is no longer effective
- Switching from one activity to another
Emotional and cognitive support
This study examined if maternal emotional and cognitive support during a problem solving task improves children’s cognitive flexibility.
- Emotional support refers to the ability to respond to children’s needs and emotions in a positive manner.
- Cognitive support includes appropriate information about tasks, for example by explaining or demonstrating tasks.
Design of the study
A total of 278 children and their mothers participated in the study at multiple time points: at preschool, kindergarten and first grade. At each time point, mothers and children were asked to play a board game which required planning and problem solving. In addition, children performed a task to measure their cognitive flexibility.
The role of emotional and cognitive support
The study found that:
- Greater maternal emotional support was related to better cognitive flexibility in children from preschool to kindergarten and from kindergarten to first grade. These effects were small.
- Mothers’ cognitive support was not related to children’s later cognitive flexibility.
- Children’s cognitive flexibility did not lead to changes in maternal support over time.
Tips
Give your child emotional support. Using emotional support during problem solving tasks may contribute to the development of cognitive flexibility across early childhood. | https://scientificparentingtips.com/home-family/emotional-support-stimulates-cognitive-flexibility/ |
Why is cognitive control important?
Cognitive control is most important when there is competition for limited mental resources, a relatively common condition in the brain (Desimone & Duncan, 1995). Cognitive control serves to reduce uncertainty in decision-making, at various levels, by controlling what information reaches focused awareness.
What is the cognitive control system?
Cognitive control is the process by which goals or plans influence behaviour. Also called executive control, this process can inhibit automatic responses and influence working memory. Cognitive control supports flexible, adaptive responses and complex goal-directed thought.
What does the power of cognitive control refer to?
Cognitive control is your mind’s ability to modify and adapt your behavior based upon considered thought. … Cognitive control allows you to set achievable goals and control your life, even when your own body seems to be rebelling.
How do you achieve cognitive control?
These habits can improve cognitive function and protect against cognitive decline for a lifespan.
- Physical Activity. …
- Openness to Experience. …
- Curiosity and Creativity. …
- Social Connections. …
- Mindfulness Meditation. …
- Brain-Training Games. …
- Get Enough Sleep. …
- Reduce Chronic Stress.
12 мар. 2014 г.
What are the 8 cognitive skills?
Cognitive Skills: Why The 8 Core Cognitive Capacities
- Sustained Attention. …
- Response Inhibition. …
- Speed of Information Processing. …
- Cognitive Flexibility and Control. …
- Multiple Simultaneous Attention. …
- Working Memory. …
- Category Formation. …
- Pattern Recognition.
21 сент. 2020 г.
What is the difference between cognitive and executive function?
The term ‟executive functions” refers to the higher-level cognitive skills you use to control and coordinate your other cognitive abilities and behaviors. The term executive functions refers to the higher-level cognitive skills you use to control and coordinate your other cognitive abilities and behaviors.
Is attention a cognitive process?
Attention is the ability to choose and concentrate on relevant stimuli. Attention is the cognitive process that makes it possible to position ourselves towards relevant stimuli and consequently respond to it. This cognitive ability is very important and is an essential function in our daily lives.
What does cognitive mean?
The Basics. Cognition is defined as ‘the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. … It is in essence, the ability to perceive and react, process and understand, store and retrieve information, make decisions and produce appropriate responses.
What part of your brain is active when engaging in cognitive control?
Miller and Cohen (2001) presented the theory that the prefrontal cortex directs cognitive control and that the “control is implemented by increasing the gain of sensory or motor neurons that are engaged by task or goal directed elements of the external environment.” Their theory imparts that the action of the …
What are three high level cognitive functions?
It includes the three core executive functions, working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. … The ability to stay concentrated, ignore distractions, and resist a response in favour of another, better response refers to ‘inhibitory control’ requiring ‘attention’.
What is an example of cognitive flexibility?
For example, when sorting cards based on specific rules, children are considered cognitively flexible if they are able to successfully switch from sorting cards based on the color of the object to sorting based on the type of object on the card.
What are high level cognitive functions?
Higher cognitive functions refer to multidimensional executive and control processes characterized by being voluntary and highly effortful. These functions include the ability to evaluate, organize, and reach goals as well as the capacity to flexibly adapt behavior when confronted with novel problems and situations.
Can cognitive ability be improved?
But research has shown that the brain has the ability to change throughout your entire life span, growing new cells, making new connections, and even increasing in size. These changes can improve cognitive function—and various forms of exercise, including tai chi, can help.
How do you maintain cognitive skills in old age?
In summary, several studies have shown the beneficial effects of moderate physical activity (such as walking or gardening), performing cognitively stimulating tasks (such as playing chess or doing crosswords), being socially active and consuming a balanced healthy nutritious diet have on preserving and even improving …
How can I increase my cognitive speed?
A person may sustain or even improve information processing speed by paying close attention to vascular risk factors, engaging in regular aerobic exercise, eating well and continuing to challenge oneself intellectually. | https://omegavector.org/illness/what-is-cognitive-control.html |
Ryan Glatt is a personal trainer and brain-health coach with over a decade of experience. He currently practices brain-based strategies for cognitive enhancement at the Pacific Brain Health Center in Los Angeles.
Ryan has pursued education from the Amen Clinics, the Neuroscience Academy, Academy for Brain Health & Performance, and the Master's of Applied Neuroscience program at King's College of London.
Recently, Ryan has released the Brain Health Trainer course, which is the first comprehensive course to be released on the topic of brain health and exercise.
Boosting the Brain with Cognitive Tasks: Dual-Tasking Principles and Applications
Exercise programs are often developed in response to goals that pertain to physical adaptations, such as weight loss, mobility, balance, hypertrophy, performance, and more. However, health and fitness professionals are now faced with a new challenge; addressing the epidemic of cognitive decline and accelerated brain aging. Health professionals recognize the beneficial effects that exercise can have but have not yet been able to develop target, effective exercise and activity programs created for the sake of cognitive and brain health. In addition, fitness professionals have not been educated on the specific exercise prescriptions for enhancing cognitive functioning across the lifespan, including techniques around enhancing facilitated exercise sessions with cognitive demands. This session will aim to identify how these gaps can be filled, and allow health and fitness professionals to understand how it can become possible to train the body and brain for optimal cognitive performance.
Objectives: | https://functionalagingsummit.com/ryan-glatt-2/ |
Two years ago I helped lead a student immersion trip to Ecuador. Along with a dozen or so students, I spent a week learning about the challenges faced by people living in deep poverty just outside the city of Guayaquil. To give our full attention to the experience, we dropped our cell phones into plastic bags upon arrival, and locked them away for the duration of our stay.
In the evenings, after dinner and board games, the students would talk about their desire to maintain better control over their love affair with technology once they had their phones back. I felt a similar impulse, although my pre-existing relationship with my phone was probably less intense than theirs.
A few weeks after we had returned home, I walked by a student from the trip. She looked up from her phone just in time to catch my eye, and we had a brief but rueful exchange about the fact that our old technological habits had returned so quickly.
The power of those habits — and their capacity to create unwanted distraction in the classroom for both faculty and students — has been the broad focus of this series. Its specific focus has been the findings of a 2016 book by Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World. In my first column, I explained how the authors view digital distraction as a clash between our goal-setting abilities and our cognitive-control capacities. Part 2 presented their arguments on how new technologies are intensifying that conflict. I want to turn now to their proposed solutions — this month in a general way and next month in the context of the college classroom.
The one solution the book explicitly recommends against is technology fasts or detoxes, in which we attempt to cut the (wireless) cord completely and go for extended periods without access to our favorite devices.
As those of us on the Ecuador trip learned in spite of our resolve, detoxing from technology works about as effectively as crash diets of any kind — i.e., not very well. This spring my wife and I gave up meat for 40 days in observance of Lent; on Easter morning we both ate at least a pound of bacon, and boy was it delicious. Likewise with technology fasts.
"While taking a break [from technology] is certainly a good thing and can act to improve our metacognition about the influence of high-tech on our minds," write Gazzaley and Rosen, "there is no evidence that extended tech detoxes actually work."
But just because fasts and detoxes are ineffective — and impractical in today’s world — doesn’t mean we should go to the other extreme and make no effort at all to manage our use of technology more deliberately. The Distracted Classroom does not treat technology itself as "the problem" — since, after all, technology has many benefits for us as both humans and learners. Instead the book’s focus is on the problems we face when we have set ourselves a goal (finish writing this essay, read this report, play with my child) and our readily available technologies play upon our cognitive-control limitations to distract us from that goal. Some people aren’t worried about that. Commenters in my previous columns have argued that our plastic brains are evolving as we speak, and, soon enough, will adapt to new technologies without any harmful long-term effects.
Not so fast, argue Gazzaley and Rosen — literally. "Meaningful and sustainable changes" to the brain, they write, don’t happen easily or quickly. "Our brains … have mechanisms for maintaining homeostasis," they argue, "a state of stability that is critical for our survival; can you imagine how deleterious it would be if our brains changed dramatically in response to even casual influences?"
Instead of technology fasts, the authors recommend two types of solutions, neither of which involves chucking your phones or heading into the woods for an extended tech-free foray.
Brain-boosting strategies. Gazzaley and Rosen explore a handful of activities that have been proposed to strengthen our abilities to push away distractions and improve our working memories — things like exercise, meditation, and brain-training games. If part of the problem of distraction stems from the limitations of our brain, activities to improve brain power could help us reduce the impact of distraction in our lives.
In their book, they rank each activity along a scale with three points on it: (1) "prescriptive," by which they mean that the activity has solid scientific grounding through multiple randomized controlled trials; (2) "signal," which refers to strategies that have some scientific support but have not been fully supported by controlled trials yet; and (3) "reasonable hypotheses," which are just what they sound like.
Although Gazzaley and Rosen find strong signals in several areas (such as meditation), only one strategy earns the label of prescriptive: physical exercise. They point to "positive meta-analyses of randomized controlled studies of individuals across the lifespan," and note that exercise’s ability to boost our cognitive functions is "low cost and widely accessible," not to mention "associated with many other health benefits."
So there’s one more reason to get off the couch. However, the potential for a college instructor to use the power of physical activity to manage digital distractions in the classroom seems somewhat limited to me. (That may be a result of my limited imagination — I’ll go for a run and decide afterward.) Fortunately the book offers a second set of suggestions.
Tech-management strategies. Gazzaley and Rosen note four areas in which people can take a deliberate approach to the management of digital distractions. The following strategies — rather than relying upon boosting brainpower — are ways to be as productive as possible while still taking advantage of all the wonders that technology has to offer.
- Metacognition: The first step to solving any problem involves understanding it more clearly. So the authors suggest an initial but essential step of gaining a clearer understanding of the reasons behind distraction, the power of technology to exacerbate it, and the potential solutions. I suggest you start by reading The Distracted Mind. But of course we need to understand how distraction affects us personally, not just brains in general. The book thus recommends a number of websites and apps that can help you better monitor your work habits and the role that distraction plays in your life.
- Accessibility: I suspect that, as you read this essay, you have multiple tabs open on your desktop or laptop, as well as a phone at hand that offers handy notifications of new messages on Twitter or Facebook, not to mention text messages or phone calls. One of the easiest ways to reduce the potential for distraction involves more deliberate management of pinging, buzzing, twittering intrusions into your life. I have nothing on my laptop open to distract me from writing these words. When I am finished writing, I will reward myself with a few minutes of social-media time.
- Boredom: Our technological distractions promise us brief bursts of pleasure — something that becomes especially tempting when we are pursuing a difficult or repetitive task. Even such tasks can be made more interesting, though. Driving to work every day represents a boring task that may spur us to check our phones while behind the wheel; one easy and obvious solution would be to vary your route occasionally. For academic tasks that require serious concentration the strategy mentioned above may work best: Alternate intensive periods of focus with deliberately planned phases of reward time in which you indulge your desire for distraction. For academic tasks that require less concentration, though, the authors suggest we give ourselves a break: "Having a more enjoyable time multitasking … may actually be what allows you to accomplish a set of low-priority tasks that really just need to get done."
- Anxiety: Here the authors combine the twin challenges of "fear of missing out" (or FOMO, as the kids call it) with the fear of missing some actual emergency. Although I spent the first dozen years of my eldest daughter’s life without a cell phone, now I find myself anxious that I will miss an emergency call from my youngest children’s school if I don’t have my phone available to me at all times. The authors discuss the power of setting clear expectations about your accessibility to others — using apps or auto-response features or even good old-fashioned signs on the door.
You can find more detail on all four of those strategies in The Distracted Mind. Next month I’ll try to translate Gazzaley and Rosen’s ideas into techniques that college instructors might be able to use.
But for now I’ve earned myself a few minutes of Twitter time.
James M. Lang is a professor of English and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. His latest book, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons From the Science of Learning, was published in the spring of 2016. Follow him on Twitter at @LangOnCourse. | https://beta.chroniclevitae.com/news/1854-the-distracted-classroom-do-tech-fasts-work |
Behavioural innovations allow humans and animals to solve novel challenges and to create new opportunities. Tool innovations are particularly useful for amplifying access to environmental resources and have had an important role in human technical evolution. While children are proficient tool users from the age of two, they show a surprising inability to innovate new tools until they are eight years old. The reasons for this phenomenon are poorly understood, yet greatly important for our understanding of human cognitive architecture in the technical domain.
Tool innovation is not restricted to humans but is also found in other taxa: recent research on children was motivated by studies on birds. Goffin's cockatoos are outstanding tool innovators that lack obvious inherited predispositions for using objects as instruments. Studying the capacity for tool innovation in a species distantly related to us will expand our knowledge on its mechanisms and origins.
The proposed project will combine knowledge from developmental psychology and animal cognition to investigate the mechanisms and ontogenetic development of tool innovation in humans and Goffins. We will investigate motivational systems (exploration strategies, play) as well as cognitive means for innovative tool modification/manufacture and combinations of more than one tool. We will test specific hypothesis drawing on known similarities and differences.
PI: Alice Auersperg; Co-PIs: Sarah Beck; Sabine Tebbich
Project participants: Antonio Osuna-Mascaro; Poppy Lambert; Jennifer Colbourne
Running time: May 2019 – July 2022
Funded by: WWTF Wiener Wissenschaft und Technologiefund.
Innovation
Goldegg Goffin Lab
Innovations, new behaviours that promptly appear in a population are important factors contributing to the problem solving abilities of many animals and are widely believed to be closely linked to high-level cognitive processing. Species with so-called ‘general intelligence’, showing high flexibility in a broad range of different problem solving tasks can be considered particularly interesting candidates for studying innovative problem solving. In this program, we use the Goffin’s cockatoo to study a number of important aspects of innovative behaviour. We apply two batteries of tasks to study the influence of individual learning mechanisms as well as individual traits (such as sex, status and personality) on innovation rate and to uncover possible strategies underlying innovation. In this respect we are also specifically interested in whether innovations appear in the animals’ repertoire while actively seeking solutions to given problems or through accidental discoveries of solutions.
Within a second line of research we proceed to apply innovation tasks requiring advanced physical intelligence that have previously been addressed in adaptive specialists (eg. Habitual tool users). The first is a hook-bending task, an example of innovative tool manufacture, while the second is a sequential tool use task, an example of associative tool behaviour. Both tasks have previously been largely applied to species with possible ecological predispositions for handling tools (tool use and/or nest construction), which are lacking in the Goffin’s cockatoo.
Project leader: Alice Auersperg
Project participants: upcoming
Running time: October 2016 - September 2019
Funded by: FWF the Austrian Science Fund.
Tool Manufacture
Goldegg Goffin Lab
In this project we confront our subjects with set of controlled problem solving experiments featuring different foraging problems and different materials for making tools: We will study the animals' flexibility and goal directedness as well as the appreciation of functionality when making a tool in order to determine to what extent their performance meets the criteria for flexible, 'intelligent' tool manufacture. We additionally analyse cost evaluation involved in manufactured tools by looking at tool 'safekeeping'.
The project will help us to understand how events of innovative tool manufacture can originate outside primates and ultimately widen our scope and enhance our knowledge on the role of innovation in the formation of tool related abilities.
Project leader: Alice Auersperg
Project participants: Mark O'Hara (Technician), Andreas Auersperg (Technician); upcoming
Running time: April 2016 - March 2019
Funded by: FWF the Austrian Science Fund.
Cognitive ecology of Goffin's cockatoos
Tanimbar Goffin Lab
The Goffin's cockatoo (Cacatua goffiniana) is a species naturally only occurring on the Tanimbar Islands in Indonesia. This species has exhibited advanced cognitive skills in previous studies conducted in captivity, including the ability to flexibly manufacture and use tools in order to access food items. However, very little is known about this interesting species in their natural environment. To reveal which factors contribute to the evolution of such 'seemingly' sophisticated behaviours, we are planning to investigate, as a first step, the diet and behaviour of wild Goffin’s cockatoos in Indonesia.
One reason for the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities may be linked to the great variety of food sources, with some items being more complex to handle. We are planning to examine and compare the relation of isotopes found in food items with the proportion of isotopes that are incorporated in feathers, we will be able to estimate the dietary composition of this species.
Another factor contributing to advanced problem-solving capacities may be experience gained through unrewarded object manipulations during object play. We will investigate precursors of functional behaviour in specially designed tasks to acquire a better understanding of how flexible tool use might arise from object play and possibly reveal the cognitive mechanisms involved.
Finally, the abilities we have observed in captive setting may be promoted by spare time that otherwise has to be spent finding food or evading predators in the wild. Thus, we plan to directly compare how wild Goffin's cockatoos fare in cognitive tasks corresponding to those conducted in captivity. If we find similar performances in wild living individuals, we might conclude that these capacities cannot be solely attributed to the captive setting. | https://www.vetmeduni.ac.at/en/messerli/science/cognition/wildlife/goffin-lab/goffin-research/ |
Children differ in their memory abilities, and these differences predict both their readiness for school and academic performance in school (PreBler, Krajewski, & Hasselhorn, 2013). During middle and late childhood children make strides in several areas of cognitive function including the capacity of working memory, their ability to pay attention, and their use of memory strategies. Both changes in the brain and experience foster these abilities.
Working Memory: The capacity of working memory expands during middle and late childhood, and research has suggested that both an increase in processing speed and the ability to inhibit irrelevant information from entering memory are contributing to the greater efficiency of working memory during this age (de Ribaupierre, 2002). Changes in myelination and synaptic pruning in the cortex are likely behind the increase in processing speed and ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli (Kail, McBride-Chang, Ferrer, Cho, & Shu, 2013).
Children with learning disabilities in math and reading often have difficulties with working memory (Alloway, 2009). They may struggle with following the directions of an assignment. When a task calls for multiple steps, children with poor working memory may miss steps because they may lose track of where they are in the task. Adults working with such children may need to communicate: Using more familiar vocabulary, using shorter sentences, repeating task instructions more frequently, and breaking more complex tasks into smaller more manageable steps. Some studies have also shown that more intensive training of working memory strategies, such as chunking, aid in improving the capacity of working memory in children with poor working memory (Alloway, Bibile, & Lau, 2013).
Attention: As noted above the ability to inhibit irrelevant information improves during this age group, with there being a sharp improvement in selective attention from age six into adolescence (Vakil, Blachstein, Sheinman, & Greenstein, 2009). Children also improve in their ability to shift their attention between tasks or different features of a task (Carlson, Zelazo, & Faja, 2013). A younger child who is asked to sort objects into piles based on type of object, car versus animal, or color of object, red versus blue, may have difficulty if you switch from asking them to sort based on type to now having them sort based on color. This requires them to suppress the prior sorting rule. An older child has less difficulty making the switch, meaning there is greater flexibility in their attentional skills. These changes in attention and working memory contribute to children having more strategic approaches to challenging tasks.
Memory Strategies: Bjorklund (2005) describes a developmental progression in the acquisition and use of memory strategies. Such strategies are often lacking in younger children, but increase in frequency as children progress through elementary school. Examples of memory strategies include rehearsing information you wish to recall, visualizing and organizing information, creating rhymes, such “i” before “e” except after “c”, or inventing acronyms, such as “roygbiv” to remember the colors of the rainbow. Schneider, Kron-Sperl, and Hünnerkopf (2009) reported a steady increase in the use of memory strategies from ages six to ten in their longitudinal study (see Table 5.2).
|Age||Percentage|
|6||55|
|7||44|
|8||25|
|9||17|
|10||13|
Moreover, by age ten many children were using two or more memory strategies to help them recall information. Schneider and colleagues found that there were considerable individual differences at each age in the use of strategies, and that children who utilized more strategies had better memory performance than their same aged peers.
Children may experience three deficiencies in their use of memory strategies. A mediation deficiency occurs when a child does not grasp the strategy being taught, and thus, does not benefit from its use. If you do not understand why using an acronym might be helpful, or how to create an acronym, the strategy is not likely to help you. In a production deficiency the child does not spontaneously use a memory strategy, and has to be prompted to do so. In this case, the child knows the strategy and is more than capable of using it, but they fail to “produce” the strategy on their own. For example, a child might know how to make a list, but may fail to do this to help them remember what to bring on a family vacation. A utilization deficiency refers to a child using an appropriate strategy, but it fails to aid their performance. Utilization deficiency is common in the early stages of learning a new memory strategy (Schneider & Pressley, 1997; Miller, 2000). Until the use of the strategy becomes automatic it may slow down the learning process, as space is taken up in memory by the strategy itself. Initially, children may get frustrated because their memory performance may seem worse when they try to use the new strategy. Once children become more adept at using the strategy, their memory performance will improve. Sodian and Schneider (1999) found that new memory strategies acquired prior to age eight often show utilization deficiencies with there being a gradual improvement in the child’s use of the strategy. In contrast, strategies acquired after this age often followed an “all-or-nothing” principle in which improvement was not gradual, but abrupt.
Knowledge Base: During middle and late childhood, children are able to learn and remember due to an improvement in the ways they attend to and store information. As children enter school and learn more about the world, they develop more categories for concepts and learn more efficient strategies for storing and retrieving information. One significant reason is that they continue to have more experiences on which to tie new information. In other words, their knowledge base, knowledge in particular areas that makes learning new information easier, expands (Berger, 2014).
Metacognition: Children in middle and late childhood also have a better understanding of how well they are performing a task, and the level of difficulty of a task. As they become more realistic about their abilities, they can adapt studying strategies to meet those needs. Young children spend as much time on an unimportant aspect of a problem as they do on the main point, while older children start to learn to prioritize and gauge what is significant and what is not. As a result, they develop metacognition. Metacognition refers to the knowledge we have about our own thinking and our ability to use this awareness to regulate our own cognitive processes (Bruning, Schraw, Norby, & Ronning, 2004).
Critical Thinking: According to Bruning et al. (2004) there is a debate in U.S. education as to whether schools should teach students what to think or how to think. Critical thinking, or a detailed examination of beliefs, courses of action, and evidence, involves teaching children how to think. The purpose of critical thinking is to evaluate information in ways that help us make informed decisions. Critical thinking involves better understanding a problem through gathering, evaluating, and selecting information, and also by considering many possible solutions. Ennis (1987) identified several skills useful in critical thinking. These include: Analyzing arguments, clarifying information, judging the credibility of a source, making value judgements, and deciding on an action. Metacognition is essential to critical thinking because it allows us to reflect on the information as we make decisions. | https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Courses/East_Tennessee_State_University/Child_Psychological_Science_Summer_2021/1.05%3A_Cognitive_Development/5.11%3A_Information_Processing |
Associate Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett ’05, Tyler Norman ’20, and Monique Pollmann (Tilburg University) published the article “Reading between the Lines: The Effects of Texting on Relationship Satisfaction and Understanding in Romantic Couples” in Computers in Human Behavior Reports.
-
Assistant Professor of Political Science Emily Sydnor was a panelist, presenter, chair, and discussant for several sessions at the (virtual) Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting. The highlights included presenting her work on students’ physiological reactions to controversial speech on campus, a collaborative project with Emily Tesmer ’20 and Associate Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett ’05, and participating in a roundtable on “Polarization, Animosity, and Violence in American Politics.” Senior political science major Emily Gilby ’21 also presented her honors thesis, “Institutional Barriers to Youth Voter Turnout,” at the conference.
January 2021
-
Assistant Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, along with collaborator Jaime Cloud of Western Oregon University, had two articles recently accepted for publication in the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences: “The Relationship between Mating Context and Women’s Appearance Enhancement Strategies and “This Old Thing? Responding to Compliments Depends on Sex and Relative Status.”
October 2020
-
Kate Davis ’20 and Hannah Hanson ’22 conducted a SCOPE project under the supervision of Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci, which was recently published in Physiology & Behavior. This collaboration also involved Jessica Bolton ’10, who will soon begin a tenure-track position at Georgia State University. Davis, a current graduate student in the Department of Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Austin, designed the project, and together, the team found that using an animal model of poverty caused long-term deleterious effects on reproductive physiology and behavior. Neonatal poverty disrupted maternal behavior, which accelerated physiological maturation in females but delayed sexual maturation in males. However, both male and female rats displayed enhanced sexual motivation. These results have implications for precocious sexual behavior and disrupted puberty in children who are born into poverty. This research was also supported by a Sam Taylor Award.
-
Recent alumni Maryam Ali ’20, Michael Broyle ’20, Kate Davis ’20, Chantal Gonzalez ’19, Devon Lucero ’19, and Lainey Stary ’19 and Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci published a new research project investigating the long-term effects of neonatal exposure to a component of soy (genistein) on male and female reproductive physiology and behavior in the journal Behavioural Pharmacology. Although this research was conducted in rats, it suggests that there may be some consequences of feeding neonates soy-based formula. | https://www.southwestern.edu/psychology/notable-faculty-student-achievements/ |
- Level:
- IB
- Board:
- IB
Last updated 22 Mar 2021
The biological approach to psychological research relies on three key assumptions:
- Patterns of behaviour can be inherited, which means that we don’t only inherit our hair and eye colour from our parents and grandparents, but also our attitudes and behaviours.
- Animal research may inform our understanding of human behaviour, because many animals have brains and nervous systems that are similar to humans
- Cognitions, emotions and behaviours are products of the anatomy and physiology of our nervous and endocrine systems. In other words, the structure and processes of our brain and nervous system govern how we feel and think.
These key assumptions are the principles underpinning all psychological research carried out within the biological approach.
Key Question: Outline the key assumptions of the biological approach.
The biological approach does just what you would think from the name: it assumes that our behaviour is the product of our physiology, that it can be researched by investigating our physiology (or even animal physiology) and that behaviour patterns are also inherited from our ancestors, both recent and distant.
3. Cognitions, Emotions & Behaviours are Products of the Anatomy and Physiology of our Nervous and Endocrine System
Psychologists investigating human behaviour from the biological approach use brain-imaging techniques to investigate the correlation between brain processes and structures and human behaviour. They focus on three areas:
- neurotransmitter activity
- hormone activity
- brain structure (including brain damage)
A) Neurotransmitter activity
Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals that communicate information via electrical impulses throughout our brain and body. They relay signals between neurons (nerve cells), transmitting signals across a chemical synapse from one neuron to another "target" neuron.
The most common neurotransmitters studied in psychology are:
B) Hormone activity
While neurotransmitters are produced by neurons when triggered by an electrical impulse, hormones are chemical messengers that are secreted (given out) by glands in the endocrine system. They enter directly into the bloodstream, while neurotransmitters are secreted at nerve synapses.Hormones therefore act more slowly on the body and brain than do neurotransmitters.
The most common hormones studied in psychology are:
C) Brain structure
The brain processes outlined above, especially those of neurotransmission and hormone release within the brain, rely on an intact brain structure. Psychologists have researched the correlation between brain structure, brain activity and human behaviour, to draw conclusions regarding localisation of brain function (certain structures having certain functions) and brain plasticity (the brain adapting to environmental and cognitive input). While it is true that brain plasticity allows one brain structure to sometimes take over the function of another when there is brain damage, any damage to the structure of the brain usually has an effect on human behaviour.
A good example of this is the study outlined below. H.M. underwent experimental surgery in 1953 to try and cure his severe epilepsy. The surgery resulted in complete anterograde amnesia (memory of events after the surgery) and partial retrograde amnesia (memory of events before the surgery). Cognitive psychologist Brenda Milner tested H.M. over many years. In the 1990s, a biological researcher, Suzanne Corkin, decided to scan H.M.’s brain to see the extent of the damage.
Key Study 3: HM (Corkin, 1997)
Aim: To investigate the extent of the hippocampal and medial temporal lobe damage to H.M.’s brain and to determine whether this could be sufficient to have resulted in the drastic memory loss suffered by H.M.
Method: One MRI scan was conducted on H.M. in 1992 and one in 1993. Before the 1992 scan, H.M. completed an IQ test and a memory test. The IQ test showed that he had normal intelligence, but the memory test showed his memory quotient (MQ) was 37 points lower than his IQ and showed he had severe amnesia.
Results: Both scans showed that the lesioning (also called ablation or cutting) of H.M.’s brain was 3 cm less than Scoville, the original surgeon, had estimated. It did not extend as far into the posterior hippocampal region as he had believed. Approximately 50% of the posterior hippocampus on each side remained, but this had shrunk considerably on the right side. Corkin et al. believe this could be due to both the removal of the rest of the hippocampus, and also to the drugs and continuing (though much reduced) epileptic seizures.
Conclusions: The small amount of normal hippocampus remaining in the left temporal lobe was not sufficient to support normal memory. Therefore, this study demonstrates the importance of the hippocampus and the temporal medial lobe area for memory.
Evaluation
While methodologically, this study was sound, ethically there are some questions. It was Brenda Milner, the psychologist associated long-term with H.M., who gave the permission for Corkin to scan H.M.’s brain. It is not clear if she was the appointed responsible adult legally able to do this. H.M., even if he gave permission himself, would not have remembered it, so there are issues with informed consent and right to withdraw, although anonymity was maintained until after his death.
Critical Thinking
Could some of the brain damage be the result of something other than the surgery? - It is interesting to speculate why the right hippocampus was more damaged than the left. The original surgery had reduced, but not cured, the epilepsy and HM was still taking drugs to control his seizures. Maybe these were responsible for some of the brain damage and memory loss?
For More Study Notes…
To keep up-to-date with the tutor2u Psychology team, follow us on Twitter @tutor2uPsych, Facebook (AQA) / OCR / Edexcel / Student or subscribe to the Psychology Daily Digest and get new content delivered to your inbox! | https://www.tutor2u.net/psychology/reference/ib-psychology-bloa-cognitions-emotions-behaviours-anatomy-physiology-nervous-endocrine |
Human anatomy & physiology are studied systematically.
Content forms around a typical two-semester college level sequence and follows the national recommendations of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society.
Recommended Textbook:
Martini, F. H., Nath, J. L. & Bartholomew, E. F. Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology, 9th ed., 2011. San Francisco: Pearson/Benjamin Cummings. 1264 pp. ... More
I offer academic classic Spanish (Castellano) taught according to core-curriculum standards upon which the public education system is based. I teach conversational practical Spanish for business, the medical field, and travel. I offer supplemental practice Spanish for those who already posses a base knowledge, but wish to fine tune the language usage particularly in writing and formal speech. I also teach fundamental beginner's Spanish with the goal of "getting-by", as well as crash course functional Spanish for overseas excursions. Curriculum is custom tailored to individual students' needs.
... More
I am currently a short and long-term substitute teacher in the Cherry Hill public school district with a Certificate of Eligibility in Elementary teaching and a Masters in Education. I have previously taught both 3rd and 5th grade for semesters at a time at Cooper School. I have also taught full-time at the Julius Nyrere charter school, then located in New Brunswick New Jersey school in the 1980s. ... More
I thoroughly enjoy my job and I have been a teacher and an advisor for the last 15 years. I have also worked with kids in various capacities or over 20 years. I have enjoyed tutoring for my school, as well as outside companies but I decided I would like to try something a little different.
I have been teaching HS English for the past 14 years. I keep up-to-date with state requirements and I am confident I can help students in all aspects of reading and writing. | http://www.ilcusa.org/08035-Tutors |
Nice to Meet You!
Integrative Wellness RI is owned and operated by Alyssa Knapp, MS, CEP, CTTS. Alyssa is passionate about helping others succeed in living healthy, happy lives.
As a Certified Exercise Physiologist and Usui/Holy Fire III Reiki Master, Alyssa uses complementary and alternative methods to promote optimal well-being and to treat issues such as stress, anxiety, trouble sleeping, as well as physical pain and imbalances.
Over the past 12 years, Alyssa has done everything in the wellness field from personal training to managing large corporate wellness programs, and has now settled into her private practice to get back to her heart, which is working individually with clients, teaching classes, creating workshops, and collaborating with others in the field.
Alyssa has extensively studied individual and community health and wellness management, including health promotion strategies, program evaluation, worksite health, exercise physiology, human anatomy and physiology, health psychology, social psychology, behavior modification, psychological research, and mindfulness meditation. Her services are designed to combine the naturally healing effects of physical activity with the power of mindfulness, meditation, and energy healing. | https://www.integrativewellnessri.com/about |
Empathy: a physiological substrate.
- Psychology, Medicine
- Journal of personality and social psychology
- 1992
The relation between empathy (defined as the ability to perceive accurately how another person is feeling) and physiology was studied in 31 Ss and accuracy of rating negative emotion was greatest when S and target evidenced high levels of physiological linkage across time. Expand
Empathic communities: balancing emotional and factual communication
- Psychology, Computer Science
- Interact. Comput.
- 1999
A study of the messages from an on-line medical support group shows that empathy is an essential ingredient in participants’ discussions and better tools are needed to empower patients to help themselves by finding information and contacting other patients in bulletin board communities. Expand
Interpersonal Effects in Computer-Mediated Interaction
- Psychology
- 1992
Several theories and much experimental research on relational tone in computer-mediated communication (CMC) points to the lack of nonverbal cues in this channel as a cause of impersonal and… Expand
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
- Psychology
- 1995
Is IQ destiny? Perhaps not nearly as much as humans think. This text argues that our view of human intelligence is far too narrow, ignoring a crucial range of abilities that matter immensely in terms… Expand
Impression Development in Computer-Mediated Interaction.
- Psychology
- 1993
This study reports an experiment of the effects of time and communication channel— asynchronous computer conferencing versus face‐to‐face meetings—on the development of interpersonal impressions.… Expand
Electronic Emotion
- Psychology
- 1987
This article investigates a new communication medium—public computer conferencing—by separately and jointly analyzing two basic aspects of human communication: (1) content, the extent to which such… Expand
Relation of sympathy and personal distress to prosocial behavior: a multimethod study. | https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/MOTIVATIONS-FOR-THE-PRESENT-STUDY-Preece-Ghozati/548dbc3abc68f146c32c54fc03e4f60f52f458e2?p2df |
English | 14 May 2017 | ASIN: B0711PWYYP | 1291 Pages | AZW3 + MOBI + EPUB + PDF | 24.1 MB
Sleep is an activity that is exhibited by virtually all animal species, but our understanding of its true function remains unclear. What is better understood are the effects on a range of human and animal biological systems when sleep is degraded or curtailed. These effects are observed in the form of sleep loss and sleep disorders.
This textbook describes the basic physiology of sleep and the range of sleep disorders and their consequences. Importantly, an overview of the impact of sleep and its disorders on human functioning across organs, systems, and physiological states is provided. These often prove to be bi-directional interactions that obscure direct cause and effect relationships and challenge our ability to understand the consequences of sleep decrements. Despite an explosion of knowledge and emerging respect for the importance of sleep to human health, much remains to be understood about it and the full effects of its derangements.
Although much of the material presented is internationally applicable, the book is written from an Australasian perspective. Over the last thirty years in particular, significant contributions to sleep medicine have come from Australia and New Zealand; achievements from these countries in physiology, clinical research, and biotechnology, feature prominently. Public health and community prevalence of sleep disorders similarly focus on Australasia, with relevant comparisons to the international setting.
Those seeking a broad understanding of sleep medicine – emerging sleep clinicians, tertiary students in health sciences and psychology – will find the book invaluable. Chapters convey essential concepts and principles without exhaustive detail. Where appropriate, further reading is referenced. In several chapters, an expert overview is provided of more complex areas – neurobiology of sleep, genetics, functions of sleep, and disorders of breathing during sleep – that will challenge those already proficient in sleep medicine.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
A/Professor Darren R Mansfield, Deputy Director, Monash Lung and Sleep, head, Monash Health Sleep Unit, Director, Epworth Sleep Centre, Melbourne.
Professor Nick Antic, until his death shortly before publication of this book, Clinical Director, Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health.
Shantha M W Rajaratnam, Professor of Sleep and Circadian Medicine, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne.
Matthew T Naughton, head, General Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, Alfred Hospital, adjunct professor of medicine, Monash University, Melbourne. | https://eshoptrip.se/product/sleep-medicine-by-darren-r-mansfield/ |
Dr. Litchfield has served as a consultant, professor, researcher, lecturer, and entrepreneur in the fields of healthcare and human performance for more than 40 years. He extensive experience includes the design, planning, development, production, management, and delivery of academic and professional education curriculum in psychology, behavioral medicine, and health education: workshops, seminars, short-courses, certification programs, competency programs, specialty programs, MS degree programs, and Ph.D. degree programs in healthcare and human performance fields.
Since earning his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Portland in 1971, Dr Litchfield has lectured extensively on behavioral physiology, respiratory fitness, self-regulation science, and business planning throughout North America and in Asia, Australia, Europe, and Latin America to diverse audiences, ranging from medical schools to corporate groups. Coincident with his entrepreneurial enterprise in education, he has for 25 years been involved in the design and development of self-regulation physiological monitoring instrumentation systems for use by healthcare practitioners, human service professionals, educators, and researchers.
Dr. Litchfield is the founder and current President (2000-present) of Better Physiology Ltd., a Santa Fe based company that manufactures educational capnography instrumentation for identifying dysfunctional breathing habits and learning new ones. He is co-founder and a Director of Behavioral Physiology Institute, also located in Santa Fe, which provides webinars to professional audiences worldwide on the subject of respiratory physiology and breathing psychology.
His specialty areas lie within the fields of behavioral medicine, behavioral physiology, behavioral health, applied psychophysiology, behavioral pharmacology, and research design. Specific areas of expertise include placebo effects, conditioning theory, drug addiction, biofeedback, and respiratory behavioral physiology. Other areas of expertise include business planning/development for healthcare professionals, and software design/development of educational, clinical, and research protocols for physiological monitoring and recording.
Dr Litchfield is a behavioral physiologist, currently specializing in respiratory physiology and breathing psychology. He and Sandra Reamer together developed CapnoLearning®, a learning program for helping people to restore good respiratory fitness through the application of the principles of behavioral analysis, behavior modification, cognitive learning, biofeedback, awareness training, and phenomenological exploration to breathing behavior.
Dr Litchfield is a current instructor and an Institute of BioEnergetic Medicine (IBEM) Board Member.
Optimal Breathing Development Work integrates ancient teachings, modern science and technology, touch, non-touch, and self-help approaches. It is compatible with ALL forms of therapeutic, religious, spiritual, and stream of consciousness expressions. Breathing mechanics are essentially the same for every normal human body but many of us lose good breathing or never had it. We need to inhale oxygen to live but we also need to exhale our breath to rid our bodies of toxins and disease. The way a person breathes will determine one's health and who they are. | https://www.ibemcollege.org/dr-peter-litchfield.html |
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has raised serious concerns worldwide due to its great impact on human health and forced scientists racing to find effective therapies to control the infection and a vaccine for the virus. To this end, intense research efforts have focused on understanding the viral biology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), responsible for COVID-19. The ever-expanding list of cases, reporting clinical neurological complications in COVID-19 patients, strongly suggests the possibility of the virus invading the nervous system. The pathophysiological processes responsible for the neurological impact of COVID-19 are not fully understood. Some neurodegenerative disorders sometimes take more than a decade to manifest, so the long-term pathophysiological outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 neurotropism should be regarded as a challenge for researchers in this field. There is no documentation on the long-term impact of SARS-CoV-2 on the human central nervous system (CNS). Most of the data relating to neurological damage during SARS-CoV-2 infection have yet to be established experimentally. The purpose of this review is to describe the knowledge gained, from experimental models, to date, on the mechanisms of neuronal invasion and the effects produced by infection. The hope is that, once the processes are understood, therapies can be implemented to limit the damage produced. Long-term monitoring and the use of appropriate and effective therapies could reduce the severity of symptoms and improve quality of life of the most severely affected patients, with a special focus on those have required hospital care and assisted respiration.
ABSTRACT
For the last two decades, researchers have placed hopes in a new era in which a combination of reperfusion and neuroprotection would revolutionize the treatment of stroke. Nevertheless, despite the thousands of papers available in the literature showing positive results in preclinical stroke models, randomized clinical trials have failed to show efficacy. It seems clear now that the existing data obtained in preclinical research have depicted an incomplete picture of stroke pathophysiology. In order to ameliorate bench-to-bed translation, in this review we first describe the main actors on stroke inflammatory and immune responses based on the available preclinical data, highlighting the fact that the link between leukocyte infiltration, lesion volume and neurological outcome remains unclear. We then describe what is known on neuroinflammation and immune responses in stroke patients, and summarize the results of the clinical trials on immunomodulatory drugs. In order to understand the gap between clinical trials and preclinical results on stroke, we discuss in detail the experimental results that served as the basis for the summarized clinical trials on immunomodulatory drugs, focusing on (i) experimental stroke models, (ii) the timing and selection of outcome measuring, (iii) alternative entry routes for leukocytes into the ischemic region, and (iv) factors affecting stroke outcome such as gender differences, ageing, comorbidities like hypertension and diabetes, obesity, tobacco, alcohol consumption and previous infections like Covid-19. We can do better for stroke treatment, especially when targeting inflammation following stroke. We need to re-think the design of stroke experimental setups, notably by (i) using clinically relevant models of stroke, (ii) including both radiological and neurological outcomes, (iii) performing long-term follow-up studies, (iv) conducting large-scale preclinical stroke trials, and (v) including stroke comorbidities in preclinical research.
Subject(s)Stroke Rehabilitation/methods , Stroke/immunology , Stroke/physiopathology , Animals , Brain Ischemia/drug therapy , Comorbidity , Disease Models, Animal , Humans , Immunity/immunology , Immunity/physiology , Inflammation/immunology , Neuroprotection/immunology , Neuroprotection/physiology , Outcome Assessment, Health Care , Reperfusion/methods , Reperfusion/trends
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The response to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus epidemic requires increased research efforts to expand our knowledge of the disease. Questions related to infection rates and mechanisms, the possibility of reinfection, and potential therapeutic approaches require us not only to use the experimental models previously employed for the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV coronaviruses but also to generate new models to respond to urgent questions. DEVELOPMENT: We reviewed the different experimental models used in the study of central nervous system (CNS) involvement in COVID-19 both in different cell lines that have enabled identification of the virus' action mechanisms and in animal models (mice, rats, hamsters, ferrets, and primates) inoculated with the virus. Specifically, we reviewed models used to assess the presence and effects of SARS-CoV-2 on the CNS, including neural cell lines, animal models such as mouse hepatitis virus CoV (especially the 59 strain), and the use of brain organoids. CONCLUSION: Given the clear need to increase our understanding of SARS-CoV-2, as well as its potential effects on the CNS, we must endeavor to obtain new information with cellular or animal models, with an appropriate resemblance between models and human patients. | https://search.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/?lang=en&q=kw:%22Experimental%20models%22 |
What's more, they may promote serious pathologies like nephrolithiasis (calcium kidney stones) because they drastically reduce urinary citrate (an inhibitor of calcium salt crystallization) and urinary pH, and increase urinary calcium (to compensate for the metabolic acidity caused by excess protein).
University of Granada scientists have proved this in an experiment in rats that examined the effects of a high-protein diet on renal urinary, plasma and morphological parameters.
Read: The Atkins diet
The researchers studied 20 Wistar rats, divided into two groups of 10. The first group were fed a high-protein diet of commercial hydrolysed protein supplements with a 45% protein level. The control group were fed a normal protein diet. The experiment lasted 12 weeks, which is the equivalent of 9 years in human terms.
10% weight loss
The results showed that the rats on a high-protein diet lost up to 10% of their body weight over the 12 weeks with no improvement in their plasma lipid profile.
Moreover, urinary citrate in these rats was 88% lower and urinary pH was 15% more acidic. In the animals fed a high-protein diet, kidney weight increased by 22%, glomerular area – the network of capillaries that filter blood in the kidneys – by 13%, and the mesangium – a collagen structure surrounded by these capillaries –by 32%.
Read: The Paleo diet
Serious long-term effects
The results of this study lead the principle author, Dr Virginia A Aparicio of the University of Granada Department of Physiology, to stress the need to closely monitor anyone on a high-protein diet. The Dukan diet, and others like it, can have serious long-term adverse effects on their health.
She warns that the negative effects of high-protein diets on the kidney also depend on the presence of other nutrients in the diet.
Read: The Tim Noakes diet
“Eating large amounts of fruit and vegetables reduces the risk of kidney stones forming – probably due to their high potassium and magnesium content, which compensates for the acidity of the high-protein diet," Dr Aparicio concludes.
Read more:
High-protein diets: are they safe? | https://www.news24.com/health24/Diet-and-nutrition/Healthy-diets/High-protein-diets-increase-kidney-disease-risk-20140123 |
Definition - What does Yoga Physiology mean?
Yoga physiology refers to the way in which the body is described and understood in yogic philosophy and teachings. It may also be used to describe the application of modern science and anatomy to the understanding of the effects on the body of yoga practice. Modern yoga teacher training will often integrate both of these approaches.
Yoga physiology traditionally considers the human body as being composed of five sheaths, or koshas. It is also thought to contain energy channels which can be activated, stimulated and influenced by yoga practice. The energy map of the human body also includes the chakras, which are energy vortexes, or centers, located in the subtle body rather than the physical body.
Yogapedia explains Yoga Physiology
In the Vedic texts, the human body is said to be made of three sariras, or “bodies,” which are related to the five koshas. The sariras are as follows:
- Sthula sarira - The gross body, which is also the annamaya kosha.
- Suksma sarira - The subtle body, which includes the pranamaya, manomaya and vijnanamaya koshas.
- Karana sarira - The causal body, which is the ananda kosha.
It is desirable to be in this third body, which causes the gross and subtle bodies to be manifested. Within the subtle body, according to traditional yoga physiology, the nadis (energy channels) are said to intersect with and through the seven primary chakras.
Also in yoga physiology, it is the nadis which carry the prana. Although nadi translates as “nerve” in English, the nadis of yoga physiology are considered distinct from the anatomical structures. Kundalini yoga describes three main nadis: ida, pingala and sushumna which run along and to the sides of the spine. | https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5222/yoga-physiology |
Summary: Study reveals how the claustrum plays a vital role in how we experience and perceive pain.
Source: University of Oxford
A new review paper, published in the journal Brain, has shown that a poorly understood region of the brain called the claustrum may play an important role in how we experience pain.
The little understood area of the brain called the claustrum may be the next frontier in improving outcomes for brain damage patients.
A collaboration of Oxford University research groups from the Department of Physiology, Anatomy & Genetics (DPAG), the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (NDCN) and Experimental Psychology (EP) have uncovered new clues regarding the function of one of most densely interconnected, yet rarely studied, areas of the brain.
The researchers reviewed studies of patients with lesions in the claustrum, which although rare show cognitive impairments and seizures. Furthermore, the lack of clinical focus on the claustrum may mean there are many more cases yet to be uncovered.
They also uncovered an underappreciated link between the claustrum and pain. It is already known that there are links between the claustrum and perception, salience and the sleep-wake cycle, but this is the first time a research team has shown how the claustrum might be more involved in the debilitating experience of pain.
Dr. Adam Packer, the lead author of the study, says that “The problem with understanding how the claustrum works is that it is deep inside the brain, and damage that is specific to it is a very rare occurrence. What makes it more difficult to work out what the claustrum actually does is that these rare occurrences are also linked to such a broad range of symptoms.”
“Clearly, when the claustrum is damaged the effects are severe and better therapies are urgently needed. It is possible that claustrum damage is more common than we currently realize, and it may be a crucial component in many more brain damage cases.”
“This work is important because it gives us some insight into the cognitive and neurological processes in which the claustrum may be involved, and gives us targets to pursue in basic research in the lab.”
The researchers found several recorded instances of either infection, auto immune, or other process that attacked the claustrum in particular, and by analyzing the results of these studies and others the most common symptoms in patients were cognitive impairment and seizures.
More work is required to better understand the claustrum and better understand the impact of damage to the claustrum, which could ultimately change clinical guidelines.
About this pain research news
Author: Press Office
Source: University of Oxford
Contact: Press Office – University of Oxford
Image: The image is credited to Andrew Shelton (DPAG)
Original Research: Open access.
“Human lesions and animal studies links the claustrum to perception, salience, sleep, and pain” by Adam Packer et al. Brain
Abstract
Human lesions and animal studies links the claustrum to perception, salience, sleep, and pain
The claustrum is the most densely interconnected region in the human brain. Despite the accumulating data from clinical and experimental studies, the functional role of the claustrum remains unknown.
Here, we systematically review claustrum lesion studies and discuss their functional implications.
Claustral lesions are associated with an array of signs and symptoms, including changes in cognitive, perceptual and motor abilities; electrical activity; mental state; and sleep.
The wide range of symptoms observed following claustral lesions do not provide compelling evidence to support prominent current theories of claustrum function such as multisensory integration or salience computation. Conversely, the lesions studies support the hypothesis that the claustrum regulates cortical excitability.
We argue that the claustrum is connected to, or part of, multiple brain networks that perform both fundamental and higher cognitive functions.
As a multifunctional node in numerous networks, this may explain the manifold effects of claustrum damage on brain and behaviour. | https://neurosciencenews.com/claustrum-pain-20276/ |
Some of the earliest clinical researchers have paved the way for much about what we know today about how the brain and other bodily functions react to stimuli. Such groundbreaking discoveries have led to important treatments that have improved the health and well-being of countless individuals today. Ivan Pavlov was an early physiologist who devoted his career to advancing science in the area of digestive secretions.
His meager roots and staunch religious upbringing played a strong role in forming the man he eventually became in his personal life and his approach to his work in the laboratory. Like many of the greatest clinical researchers of all time, Pavlov had an insatiable curiosity and a willingness to innovate and experiment in ways that had never be done and never will be done again.
Who Was Ivan Pavlov?
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born in 1840 in Ryazan, in central Russia. He was a Russian physiologist who is famous for developing the concept of a conditioned reflex. Pavlov mastered his philosophy by proving that animals could be conditioned to respond to various stimuli. He was rewarded handsomely for his work when, in 1904, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his research on digestive secretions. He was the very first Russian Nobel laureate.
Family And Early Life Of Ivan Pavlov
Pavlov hailed from a highly religious family. His grandfather was a sexton, which was a person who was employed by the church to care for and maintain the church building and its grounds, including the cemetery. Pavlov's father was a Russian Orthodox priest and raised him and his ten younger siblings according to Christian teachings.
Pavlov spent much of his adult life in school. He finally married in 1881, at the age of 41, to SeraphimaVasilievnaKarchevskaya, who was better known as Sara. He'd met Sara several years earlier when she was a student at the Pedagogical Institute. The couple was poverty-stricken and at times lived apart or with other families as necessary for housing. Their first child died during childhood. Shortly after, Sara birthed four more children with Pavlov.
While Pavlov ultimately declared himself to be an atheist, he attributed much of his success to Sara, who was very religious.
Pavlov's Schooling
Pavlov was reading by the age of seven. After sustaining injuries from falling off a concrete wall and taking four years to heal, he attended a church school. Pavlov later went to a theological seminary where the teachers were dedicated to their craft. In 1870, he abandoned his faith and gained admittance to the University of St. Petersburg to study chemistry and physiology. There, he studied under Carl Ludwig, a cardiovascular physiologist and Rudolf Heidenhain, a gastrointestinal physiologist.
Pavlov was a complicated man who was characterized by others as volatile, angry, and difficult. He was highly punctual and expected others to be as well, regardless of the political unrest in the country. Pavlov pursued his truth even in the face of fierce opposition. While he proclaimed to be an atheist and a scientific agnostic, he admitted that true religion had some benefit and strongly admired his wife's devout faith.
Pavlov's Early Career
As a student of Carl Ludwig, Pavlov conducted his first independent research on the physiology of the circulatory system. He furthered his research in cardiac physiology and the regulation of blood pressure.
Pavlov became a highly skilled surgeon, so much so, that he successfully placed a catheter into the dog's femoral artery without using anesthesia and nearly without pain. Using this procedure, he was able to test and record the effects of various stimuli on the dog's blood pressure. Using live, awake animals would be considered inhumane in today's laboratories and Psychology Today explains why there are rules in place to prevent this today.
In another experiment, Pavlov dissected cardiac nerves and stimulated the severed ends to show the effect of the nerves on the strength of the heartbeat.
Pavlov was elevated to the position of professor of physiology of the Imperial Medical Academy, which was ranked as one of the best educational institutions in the Russian Empire. In his work there, he founded the Institute of Experimental Medicine where he developed precise surgical procedures for animals with attention to postoperative care and continuing maintenance of their health.
In 1924, the Russian government announced that it would be expelling all students who were sons of priests at the Imperial Medical Academy. Pavlov took personal offense to the move, reminding the officials that he too, was a son of a priest. Standing firm in his resolve over the truth, he resigned hastily from his position.
Throughout his career in research, Pavlov insisted that students ground their results in science. He insisted that researchers use data that could be explained, verified, analyzed, and repeated.
Pavlov's Later Career
From 1890-1900, Pavlov spent most of his time in the study of secretions and digestion. Working in tandem with Heidenhain, the pair created a miniature pouch which served as an external stomach. This experiment preserved the vagal nerve supply and allowed them to isolate the stomach from ingested foods so they could study the gastrointestinal secretions in a normal animal over its lifespan. Pavlov published the results of this work in his book, "Lectures on the Work of the Digestive Glands."
Pavlov's Psychology Of Classical Conditioning
Pavlov studied secretion and digestion with normal, un-anesthetized dogs. These experiments led him to formulate the laws of conditioned reflex.
In his most notable experiment, Pavlov used a metronome or buzzer to help a dog associate the sound with food. Pavlov was able to train, or condition, the dog to salivate at the sound of the metronome or buzzer by initiating the sound and then offering food to the hungry animal. He measured the dog's salivary secretion to get a quantitative measure of the animal's subjective activity to show the connection between physiological measures of mental activity and higher nervous activity.
Sir Charles Sherrington theorized that the spinal reflex was composed of integrated actions of the nervous system that involved stimulation of the nerves to send impulses to the body's many nerve centers.Building on Sherrington's work, Pavlov drew on the connections between the conditional reflex and the spinal reflex. Pavlov added additional components to his work including cortical and subcortical influences, the mosaic action of the brain, the effect of sleep, and the effects of disturbances between cortical excitation and inhibition.
The Impact Of Classical Conditioning
Pavlov's contributions to science were only made possible by his willingness to work with normal, healthy dogs in the most natural conditions possible. The success of Pavlov was largely a result of thinking outside the box to devise a way to yield measurable physiological effects that revealed the response by the brain.
In 1930, very late in his career, Ivan Pavlov attempted to apply his laws to the explanation of human psychoses. He related the excessive inhibition characteristics of people who were actively psychotic as an inclination to protect themselves. He believed that they shut themselves off from the world to rid themselves of noise and activity that overstimulated them. This idea quickly became the basis for treating psychiatric patients in Russia using quiet, non-stimulating environments.
In the late stage of his career, Pavlov also proclaimed that language in humans involved more than spoken words. He announced that long chains of conditioned reflexes involving words could produce elaborate generalizations that would be impossible to reproduce in animal life.
In the final two years of his life, Pavlov eased up on public criticism of the Russian government, even remarking that he hoped that the government would find success. It's unknown whether his change of heart was attributable to the government increasing support of science or whether he had increased feelings of patriotism as a war with Japan was looming.
Researchers and clinicians of today can learn much from Ivan Pavlov. According to the American Psychological Association, Pavlov's work has led to new research on how the body can learn to anticipate and counteract some of the physiological effects of drugs.
Pavlov made many scientific contributions that remain relevant in psychology and medicine today. | https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/psychologists/who-was-ivan-pavlov-psychology-and-the-impact-of-classical-conditioning/ |
Vocal fatigue has remained an elusive construct—despite its significant impact on communication, vocation, and quality of life. Current frameworks define vocal fatigue in the context of vocal demands and vocal demand-responses. However, the impact of factors like individuals’ baseline vocal fitness and perception of the demand are not well understood. What is also not well understood are the effects of specific vocal demand ingredients on an individual's vocal demand responses. Furthermore, current outcome measures utilized to capture vocal fatigue lack sensitivity and underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. These gaps have led to inconclusive next steps in how to best define, assess, monitor, and manage vocal fatigue. A conceptual framework is needed to study and better understand vocal fatigue constructs. Such a framework should consider the individual's baseline physiology, psychology, key vocal demand ingredients, and biophysiological mechanisms underlying demand responses. The objective of this paper is to help the reader better understand the complex and heterogeneous nature of vocal fatigue and its impact on reliable assessment and monitoring. Future studies will require better elucidation of vocal demand ingredients, will need more sensitive vocal demand response measures, and will need to take in to account an individual's baseline physiology and psychological factors. | https://utsouthwestern.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/laying-the-groundwork-to-study-the-heterogeneous-nature-of-vocal- |
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate through current research that it is possible to alleviate and endure symptoms of long-term space travel. The author first gives general information about space travel in the various aspects of it. He then describes the symptoms that arise from the body being in a weightless environment. The symptoms are divided into two groups and analyzed. The author then goes on to cite current research that shows evidence of being able to combat the more harmful symptoms. The information was from researchers that have studied people who have spent time in space and a first-hand account from someone who had actually spent time in space. The author found much of the available resources from database searches of scientific journals and organized this data according to the source and the value of the information that was presented. The paper concludes that long-term space travel is possible with current technology although it would be extremely inefficient.
Humans have always wanted to travel to distant planets. With the level of technology mankind has achieved, long-term space travel is becoming a greater possibility. The major problem that has affected humans since they have begun expeditions into space is the physiological effects that an environment without gravity has on the human body. The realization that lack of gravity causes physical changes to the human body came when NASA started sending astronauts into orbit for short periods of time. When the astronauts returned to the ground, they would be disoriented and unable to walk. This led to some early studies on what goes on with the human body in space.
As the duration of space flights became longer, scientists began to discover other changes in the human body. One of the first findings was that without the pressure of gravity, the human heart becomes enlarged and the bones within the body began to deteriorate. The muscles of the body also begin to become extremely atrophied due to the lack of use. Scientists were able to study these symptoms even more with the launching of the Mir space station. Astronauts were spending more and more time in an environment without gravity, allowing for more studies as to what kind of problems could arise during long-term space travel. Along with studying the symptoms of space flight, there have also been attempts at negating them with machines designed to exercise the muscle and bone groups most affected by space flight. These machines have usually consisted of elastic straps that were anchored at one end and attached to the astronaut on the other end. The astronaut would stretch it out, thus keeping the muscle and bone from deteriorating as much as it normally would. That is how far our understanding of space flight and the effect that it has on the human body has come, although many other solutions are being tested for feasibility.
This paper will mainly focus on the effects that long-term space travel has on the human body, and also the solutions that are available to those problems. The first discussion of the paper will be about the various ailments that astronauts experience while in space. The second part of the paper will contain information regarding possible solutions to the symptoms that are experienced in space. Current research as to the feasibility of long-term space travel will also be discussed in the paper. The main claim that is asserted throughout this paper is, with currently available technology, humans can endure long-term space travel.
With the advancement of computer and aerospace technologies, the exploration of space is becoming even more of a reality. We are very close to having the technological ability to create vehicles capable of traveling long distances in space. The problem that is continually being encountered is the effects that long-term space travel has on the human body. Researchers have been identifying and studying these problems since 1951 .
The human body undergoes numerous changes that are usually harmless while in an environment without gravity. Without gravity there is no longer pressure keeping the fluids of the body on their normal course, and these fluids travel up to the head and chest. This causes your face to puff up, your heart and other organ to become enlarged, and the veins in your neck begin to bulge out because of the extra fluid. This extra fluid causes the body to try and fix the problem by excreting the excess fluids. These fluids contain important contents such as electrolytes, blood plasma, and calcium . The excretion of excess fluids from the body also causes the body to increase the rate at which the kidneys filter blood by twenty percent . The spinal discs also begin to enlarge from the lack of gravity. This can cause a person to grow around two inches. Another problem that occurs is the impairment of the sense of direction. The human body relies on the fluid in the inner ear to determine our direction and balance. Without gravity, this fluid no longer stays at the bottom of the inner ear and causes the body to become mildly disoriented. An environment without gravity also can cause psychological changes that accompany the physical changes. The body can suffer from insomnia and sever depression and irritation with other people . All of these symptoms that the body undergoes usually alleviate and have no lingering effects when the body is reintroduced to gravity.
The other changes that the body undergoes can be potentially harmful. Without gravity, important muscles no longer need to be used. These muscles atrophy at an incredibly high rate. After returning from space flights with a length of more than a month, the muscles usually no longer have the mass to function as they once did. This means that often times, the body is no longer able to walk or do other seemingly simple actions. The rehabilitation time for this can in some cases be longer than two years. The other potentially harmful change that the body undergoes is extreme osteoporosis. In space, the human body loses between one and two percent of its bone mass each month. That amount is on average what a postmenopausal woman loses in a year .
Figure 1: Shows difference of bone loss over time by comparing astronauts and normal adults. Source: Long, Michael E. Surviving in Space. National Geographic Magazine, January 2001, 9-29.
This amount of bone loss could cause severe osteoporosis in the human body. The amount of bone lost over a duration of two years for an astronaut would be about equal with the bone loss of an 85 year old adult (see figure 1). The skeletal system would be incredibly susceptible to breaks and stress fractures both in space and on the ground. This could cause problems once the spacecraft reached its destination and a person had to travel in an environment that has gravity. Some scientists speculate that the body could possibly be so weakened that just walking (if the muscles were not too atrophied) could cause a break or fracture . Scientists are unsure was to whether or not the osteoporosis could be completely reversed, or if it would be impossible to gain back normal bone density.
Figure 2: Different amounts of radiation exposure vs. different locations.
Earth is shielded from this radiation by both its magnetic field and the atmosphere. Space has no such protection, so the amount of radiation could be over 1000 times greater than on Earth (see figure 2). This amount of radiation could potentially cause severe cancer or radiation poisoning. Massive damage to cells can also be caused by exposure to radiation and can lead to severe internal problems .
All of the harmful effects that space travel has on the human body need to be effectively diminished in order for long-term space travel to be feasible. There are currently numerous treatments and technological advances that have been made for the purpose of combating these problems. These technologies range from specialized drug mixtures to vibrating machines. The most important treatments are those that help reduce or nullify the harmful effects of weightlessness.
There are numerous new treatments that are being utilized to treat the muscle and skeletal problems cause by weightlessness. One of the simplest items being used to help keep muscle and bone healthy is a group of bungee cords. The cords provide elastic resistance while in space that allows the user to work their muscles. The bungee cords are not enough to completely alleviate muscle loss, but with proper use, they can slow down the breakdown of muscles . Another solution to help keep muscles from atrophying is a vacuum treadmill. The treadmill works by placing a vacuum suction around the waist of the person, and this vacuum helps to hold the person to the treadmill. The amount of vacuum being exerted can be increased to compensate for people of different weights. A solution that has been recently discovered to treat the loss of bone density is a moving plate. The plate vibrates at a frequency of between twenty and fifty Hz. Clinton Rubin, the inventor of the machine, has found evidence that this vibrating contributes to the formation of new bone. After a year of twenty minute sessions per day, the bone mass of a sheep had increased twenty percent as compared to the control group .
Figure 3: Bone density of control group as compared to the group that tested. Source: Baard Erik. Bone Growth Simulator. Space.com, 2001.
The machine has only been tested on chicken and sheep so far, but scientists are hopeful that it will have the same effect on humans . There are also several new drugs that are currently not certified by the FDA, but are being tested. These drugs could potentially help increase the production of new bone material, or stop the decay of old bone material. All of the solutions for osteoporosis are currently in the experimental stage, but within the next couple of years scientists hope to be actively testing these solutions in an environment without gravity.
One solution that would completely get rid of all the problems caused by an environment without gravity would be to create artificial gravity. This could be done by using centrifugal force. Artificial gravity could be created by designing a drum that spins in a circle. The momentum of this spinning would create artificial gravity within the drum. There are several problems that prevent this solution. The first problem is the energy requirement. It would take an enormous amount of energy to keep the drum continually spinning. This is too inefficient to be feasible for long-term space travel. There are also several engineering problems that arise with designing the drum. There is a problem regarding wiring through it. If one part of the craft is spinning while the other part is not, there isn’t anyway that there could be electrical wires that run through the drum and into the other section.
The last potentially harmful issue is radiation. Shielding the spacecraft with lead can filter out much of the dangerous radiation present in space. Lead is extremely heavy, and the amount needed to lower the radiation levels to normal levels found on earth would require shielding several inches thick around the whole spacecraft . This is extremely inefficient because the amount of thrust needed to leave the atmosphere would increase several times over. Until there is an easier way to achieve orbit, heavy lead shielding remains too cost inefficient to be feasible. This solution could be remedied by designing a new, more efficient way of leaving the atmosphere. Until then, a lighter shielding of lead that blocks out most of the radiation is the most effective way of combating this problem.
It is evident through research that the technology is available to help the human body adapt to long term space travel. There is a setback though, as some of this technology has not been fully tested on human subjects. In their current state if applied together, these different solutions could help alleviate most of the problems that the body experiences in a weightless environment. This shows that space travel for a long duration at our technological level is feasible with current technology. The experimental technologies can greatly benefit astronauts by lowering their dependence on exercise and help the overall efficiency of space travel. It would be more beneficial to us to wait until our technology advances even more, but if there was an immediate need for long-term space travel, the resources would be available to help keep those involved healthy.
Baard, Erik. Bone Growth Stimulator. Space.com, January 2001. Available from: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_gear.html. Accessed 28 January 2001.
Bitterwolf, Thomas E. Radiation and Radiation Effects on Biological Systems, 1996. Available from: http://www.chem.uidaho.edu/~chem103/radiat.html. Accessed 23 January 2001.
Grigoriev, Anatoly, et al. Manned interplanetary missions: Prospective medical problems. Environmental Medicine, vol. 42, no. 2 (1998), 83-84.
Holick, Michael F. Microgravity-induced bone loss-will it limit human space exploration? The Lancet 6 May 2000.
Lackner, James R. Orientation and movement in unusual force environments. Psychological Science, vol. 4, no. 3 (May 1993) 134-142.
Long, Michael E. Surviving in Space. National Geographic Magazine, January 2001, 9-29.
Lucid, Shannon. Six months on Mir. Scientific American, vol. 278, no 5 (May 1998), 46-55. Available from: http://www.scientificamerica.com/1998/0598issue/0598/lucid.html. Accessed 4 February 2001.
Nicogossian, Arnauld, et al. Space Physiology in Medicine. Lea & Febiger 1994.
Rubin C. & Mcleod. Promotion of bony ingrowth by frequency specific, low amplitude mechanical strains. Clin. Orth. Rel. Res. 298: 165-174 (1994).
White, Ronald. Weightlessness and the human body. Scientific America, vol. 279, no. 3 (September 1998), 58-63. Available from: http://www.scientificamerica.com/1998/0998issue/0998white.html. Accessed 4 February 2001. | http://muggins.org/papers/travel.htm |
There are several types of coral reefs. In this video, we explain the difference types.
Download PDF – Types of Coral Reefs
In this lesson, we’re going to look at the different types of coral reefs.
The first one we will take a look at is fringing reefs. The fringing reefs grow near the coastline around small islands and continental land masses, wherever there is a hard surface.
They are separated from the shore by a narrow shallow lagoon and fringing reefs are the most common type of reef which you will encounter. In fact, the fringing reefs are so common that these are the ones that are most affected by human activities.
Another type of coral reef formation is the barrier reef. The barrier reef can be found parallel to the coastline, but unlike the fringing reefs, it is separated from the land by a deeper and wider lagoon.
Sometimes at the shallowest point, the barrier reefs can reach the surface of the water, forming a barrier to navigation so that boats aren’t able to pass through it.
The world’s largest barrier reef is the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, which runs about 21 kilometers along the northeast coast of Australia to New Guinea.
The third type of coral reef is atolls. Atolls are usually elliptical in shape and is usually found on top of volcanic islands. Atolls have a centrally located lagoon, and they can vary in size from one kilometer in diameter to over 130 kilometers long.
There are more than 300 atolls found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The water in the lagoon of an atoll is connected to the open sea by gaps found in the coral reef.
There are also patch reefs. These can occur within the lagoons of the atolls and the barrier reefs. Where you find patch reefs, they are usually numerous in number however they don’t usually grow so tall as to peak above the surface of the water. | https://exploremarinebiology.com/different-types-of-coral-reefs/ |
- Key rings?
- The Marshall Islands, e.g.
- Many of the Marshall Islands
- A lot of Polynesia
- The Maldives, e.g.
- A lot of Oceania
- Lagoons' surroundings
- Coral Sea features
- Snorkeling sites
- Ocean rings
- Coral islands
- Much of Micronesia's makeup
- Coral-island groupings
- Lagoon sites
- Coral rings
- Lagoon surrounders
- Lagoon shapers
- Bikini et al.
- A charge for crossing southern islands
- Coral isles
- Coral structures
- Coral formations
- Snorkeling spots
- Coral ridges
- Ring islands
- They enclose lagoons
- They're mostly in the Pacific
- South Seas sights
- Ring-shaped coral reefs
- Bikini and others
- The Maldives, e.g
- Ringlike islands
- Ring-shaped reefs
- Pacific sights
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Coral \Cor"al\, n. [Of. coral, F, corail, L. corallum, coralium, fr. Gr. kora`llion.]
-
(Zo["o]l.) The hard parts or skeleton of various Anthozoa, and of a few Hydrozoa. Similar structures are also formed by some Bryozoa.
Note: The large stony corals forming coral reefs belong to various genera of Madreporaria, and to the hydroid genus, Millepora. The red coral, used in jewelry, is the stony axis of the stem of a gorgonian ( Corallium rubrum) found chiefly in the Mediterranean. The fan corals, plume corals, and sea feathers are species of Gorgoniacea, in which the axis is horny. Organ-pipe coral is formed by the genus Tubipora, an Alcyonarian, and black coral is in part the axis of species of the genus Antipathes. See Anthozoa, Madrepora.
The ovaries of a cooked lobster; -- so called from their color.
-
A piece of coral, usually fitted with small bells and other appurtenances, used by children as a plaything. Brain coral, or Brain stone coral. See under Brain. Chain coral. See under Chain. Coral animal (Zo["o]l.), one of the polyps by which corals are formed. They are often very erroneously called coral insects. Coral fish. See in the Vocabulary. Coral reefs (Phys. Geog.), reefs, often of great extent, made up chiefly of fragments of corals, coral sands, and the solid limestone resulting from their consolidation. They are classed as fringing reefs, when they border the land; barrier reefs, when separated from the shore by a broad belt of water; atolls, when they constitute separate islands, usually inclosing a lagoon. See Atoll. Coral root (Bot.), a genus ( Corallorhiza) of orchideous plants, of a yellowish or brownish red color, parasitic on roots of other plants, and having curious jointed or knotted roots not unlike some kinds of coral. See Illust. under Coralloid. Coral snake. (Zo)
A small, venomous, Brazilian snake (Elaps corallinus), coral-red, with black bands.
-
A small, harmless, South American snake ( Tortrix scytale).
Coral tree (Bot.), a tropical, leguminous plant, of several species, with showy, scarlet blossoms and coral-red seeds. The best known is Erythrina Corallodendron.
Coral wood, a hard, red cabinet wood.
--McElrath.
-
Wiktionary
n. (plural of atoll English)
Usage examples of "atolls".
This is one of the lagoon-islands (or atolls) of coral formation, similar to those in the Low Archipelago which we passed near.
Almost every voyager who has crossed the Pacific has expressed his unbounded astonishment at the lagoon-islands, or as I shall for the future call them by their Indian name of atolls, and has attempted some explanation.
The theory that has been most generally received is, that atolls are based on submarine craters.
This theory, moreover, is totally inapplicable to the northern Maldiva atolls in the Indian Ocean (one of which is 88 miles in length, and between 10 and 20 in breadth), for they are not bounded like ordinary atolls by narrow reefs, but by a vast number of separate little atolls.
Thus Radack group of atolls is an irregular square, 520 miles long and 240 broad.
This is a great apparent difficulty, analogous to that in the case of atolls, which has generally been overlooked.
Where banks or sediments have accumulated near to the surface, as in parts of the West Indies, they sometimes become fringed with corals, and hence in some degree resemble lagoon-islands or atolls, in the same manner as fringing-reefs, surrounding gently sloping islands, in some degree resemble barrier-reefs.
We can now perceive how it comes that atolls, having sprung from encircling barrier-reefs, resemble them in general size, form, in the manner in which they are grouped together, and in their arrangement in single or double lines.
We can further see how it arises that the atolls in the Pacific and Indian Oceans extend in lines parallel to the generally prevailing strike of the high islands and great coast-lines of those oceans.
I venture, therefore, to affirm, that on the theory of the upward growth of the corals during the sinking of the land, all the leading features in those wonderful structures, the lagoon-islands or atolls, which have so long excited the attention of voyagers, as well as in the no less wonderful barrier-reefs, whether encircling small islands or stretching for hundreds of miles along the shores of a continent, are simply explained.
It may be asked, whether I can offer any direct evidence of the subsidence of barrier-reefs or atolls.
In these coral formations, where the land and water seem struggling for mastery, it must be ever difficult to decide between the effects of a change in the set of the tides and of a slight subsidence: that many of these reefs and atolls are subject to changes of some kind is certain.
Not only the grand features in the structure of barrier-reefs and of atolls, and to their likeness to each other in form, size, and other characters, are explained on the theory of subsidence -- which theory we are independently forced to admit in the very areas in question, from the necessity of finding bases for the corals within the requisite depth -- but many details in structure and exceptional cases can thus also be simply explained.
We can easily see how an island fronted only on one side, or on one side with one end or both ends encircled by barrier-reefs, might after long-continued subsidence be converted either into a single wall-like reef, or into an atoll with a great straight spur projecting from it, or into two or three atolls tied together by straight reefs -- all of which exceptional cases actually occur.
As the reef-building corals require food, are preyed upon by other animals, are killed by sediment, cannot adhere to a loose bottom, and may be easily carried down to a depth whence they cannot spring up again, we need feel no surprise at the reefs both of atolls and barriers becoming in parts imperfect. | https://findwords.info/term/atolls |
Greece is bounded on the west by the Ionian Sea, on the south by the Mediterranean, and on the east by the Aegean Sea, an arm of the Mediterranean.
Greece has 13,676 kilometers (8,498 miles) of seacoast.
Greece’s major island regions are the Ionian Islands, which hug the western coast from Albania to the Peloponnese; the Aegean Islands, scattered about the sea of the same name; and Crete, which separates the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. The Aegean Islands include the Cyclades, the Northern and Southern Sporades groups, and numerous individual islands. Crete, the site of the first European civilization, is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth-largest Mediterranean island, with an area of 8,308 square kilometers (3,207 square miles).
2. Bora Bora
French Polynesia is a French overseas collective located in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands cover a total of 1,622 square miles and scattered throughout almost 1 million square miles of ocean. The islands have the lowest crime rate of within France and any territories, and Charles Darwin visit the islands of French Polynesia during his 5 year around the world trip. The island of Bora Bora is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef, while in the center of the island is the remnants of an extinct volcano. What makes Bora Bora so popular, are the over-the-water bungalows, which are a standard feature all over the island.
With a mild, tropical climate, Bora Bora has an average daily temperature of between 77-87 °F. With its white-sand beaches, beautiful reef system and exquisite scenery, Bora Bora is every vacationer’s dream come true.
3. The Maldives
Maldives is located in the Indian Ocean, about 645 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Sri Lanka. A protective, fringing coral reef surrounds each individual island. Small patch reefs and faroes (unusual ring-shaped reefs) are located in Malé Atoll’s lagoon.
Four ocean channels cross through the archipelago from east to west. These are the Kardiva Channel, Veimandu Channel, One and a Half Degree Channel, and Equatorial Channel.
Maldives is an archipelago made up of several atoll groups. From north to south, these groups are: Ihavandiffulu Atoll; Tiladummati Atoll; Miladummadulu Atoll; North Malosmadulu and South Malosmadulu Atolls; and Fadiffolu Atoll. Next, the Kardiva Channel separates these atolls from the following groups: Malé Atoll, South Malé Atoll, Ari Atoll, Felidu Atoll, Nilandu Atoll, Mulaku Atoll, and Kolumadulu Atoll. Even farther south are the Veimandu Channel and Haddummati Atoll; the One and a Half Degree Channel and the Suvadiva Atoll; and finally, the Equatorial Channel and the most southerly atoll, Addu Atoll.
4. St Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is located between the Caribbean Sea to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Coral reefs surround the Grenadines. An underwater depression called the Tobago Basin lies to the east of the islands.
The island of Saint Vincent itself is by far the largest in the country, with an area of 344 square kilometers (133 square miles). The Grenadines are a group of low-lying islands south of Saint Vincent, with wide beaches and coral reefs surrounding them. Union Island, Mayreau, Mustique, Canouan, Bequia, and many other uninhabited rocks, reefs, and cays are part of the Grenadines that belong to Saint Vincent. The remaining islands of the Grenadines belong to Grenada. | https://torrens.yachts/the-top-romantic-spots-for-superyacht-charters/ |
The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is part of the Freely Associated States, which also includes the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau. With the dissolution of the Trust Territory of the Pacific (TTPI), a United Nations mandate managed by the United States, and comprised of those islands that had been Japanese colonies until the end of WW II, Micronesia emerged as a separate political entity. Palau and the Northern Mariana Islands negotiated independent terms with the United States. The three former TTPI districts of Yap, Chuuk (formerly Truk) and Pohnpei united to form the new Federated States of Micronesia. A portion of the Pohnpei district was separated to make the state of Kosrae. Consequently the FSM has four states, from west to east: Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae. Each state supports population centers on high volcanic islands.
Yap State consists of four volcanic islands plus 19 inhabited outer islands and atolls, with a total land area of 46 square miles. Yap State can be divided into two distinct spheres: "Yap Proper" and the "Outer Islands." Yap Proper is a cluster of relatively high islands with volcanic and continental rock, surrounded by a fairly wide reef platform. The Outer Islands are coral islands and atolls scattered over a wide area, with relatively low populations.
Chuuk State comprises the volcanic islands in the Chuuk Lagoon and some 24 outer-island atolls--in all, some 290 islands. Chuuk is the most populous of the FSM states with a land area of 49 square miles. Chuuk lagoon is the largest in the FSM. It is a world famous spot for scuba divers, with a sunken WWII Japanese fleet to explore on the floor of the lagoon. Chuuk was formerly known as “Truk.”
Pohnpei State is the national capital of the FSM. It is made up of one large volcanic island and six inhabited atolls, with most of its 133 square miles on Pohnpei Island. Pohnpei Island has a well developed barrier reef and associated lagoon.
Kosrae State is one volcanic island of 43 square miles, surrounded by a fringing reef. Its reefs and mangrove forests are considered to be among the healthiest in Micronesia. However, recent coastal development and land use patterns place the coral reefs at risk.
Each island group has its own language, culture, local government, and traditional system for managing its marine resources. The FSM has both high islands and low atolls. The islanders have strong cultural and economic dependence on coral reefs and marine resources.
Reefs in the FSM are generally in good shape, but there are water quality concerns in areas where there is ongoing coastal development and agriculture. Some degradation of reef ecosystems has already occurred in the more populated areas. Several large development projects, such as construction of an airport and a deep draft harbor, have had significant impacts on mangrove forests and local reefs. Reefs located near population centers, within harbors, and close to shipping lanes have had the largest impacts from fishing and ship groundings. Over-fishing and other harmful fishing practices are also causes of concern.
Coral Reefs Case Study: Federated States of Micronesia
FSM National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan
A Blueprint for Conserving the Biodiversity of the Federated States of Micronesia
A Rapid Ecological Assessment of the Coral, Fish and Seagrasses of Pohnpei, Ahnd and Pakin, Federated States of Micronesia – Findings and Recommendations
A threats and needs assessment of coastal marine areas in the states of Kosrae, Chuuk and Yap, Federated States of Micronesia
A field and household assessment of non-commercial fishing, per capita consumption and trade patterns for coral reef fishery management improvement in Pohnpei, Micronesia
Final Progress Report: A Field and Household Assessment of Non-commercial Fishing, Per Capita Consumption and Trade Patterns for Coral Reef Fishery Management Improvement in Pohnpei, Micronesia
Pacific Islands Water Science Center Publications - Federated States of Micronesia
The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2008.
The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2005.
The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of the United States and Pacific Freely Associated States: 2002.
Awane Marine Park Conservation Action Plan
Nett District Conservation Action Plan
Tamil Municipal Marine Management Plan
Yap Manta Ray Sanctuary Conservation Action Plan
Search the CoRIS Geoportal for Federated States of Micronesia metadata, data and publications. | https://www.coris.noaa.gov/portals/micronesia.html |
Marquesas Islands: JANUARY & FEBRUARY.
Tuamotu Atolls: MARCH, APRIL, MAY, OCTOBER, NOVEMBER & DECEMBER.
Society Islands: JUNE, JULY, AUGUST & SEPTEMBER.
MOSKITO VALIENTE SAILING
FRENCH POLYNESIA
French Polynesia is located on the South Pacific Ocean in between America and Australia.
It has 5 archipelagos: Marquesas, Tuamotus, Australes, Gambier and Society.
TUAMOTU ATOLLS
Tuamotu is really a special place on this Planet. This archipelago is the largest chain of atolls in the world, about the size of Western Europe.
Famous for the beauty of its unique turquoise clear waters and the abundance of underwater life, the Tuamotu Archipelago is a must-see destination for those who love the ocean.
Among the numerous water activities that are offered, scuba diving and snorkelling are the most popular but the lagoon inside the atolls are also perfect for windsurf, kitesurf and paddleboard.
The liveaboard option is by far the best way to explore the most remote and wild places of the Tuamotu. The sailing inside the lagoons is very pleasant once the waters are protected and usually flat. It is really like being on an immense aquarium!
We normally spend 1 or 2 nights on each anchorage depending on the activities we plan to do.
There are many options of little deserted paradisiac islands to venture into.
RANGIROA
Rangiroa means “Huge Sky” on the local dialect paumotu. It is the largest atoll in French Polynesia and the second largest atoll on the world. There are around 3.000 lucky people from all over the world living on this atoll.
From a geological point of view, the atoll originated out of delicate coral outgrowths on the summit of a underwater volcanic mountain.
This fabulous atoll is recognized worldwide for its exceptional underwater fauna: dolphins, sharks, reef and pelagic fish can be easily spotted there as well as humpback whales that come from Antarctica to breed and give birth on warmer waters (the peak season is between August and October).
There is a population of resident dolphins that are always on Tiputa's pass. We always to try our luck and take our guests with our inflatable expedition boat to see and respectfully snorkel with the dolphins always in a non-invasive way. The passes are very influenced by the tides so good timing is crucial when we go there.
In front of Tiputa’s pass you’ll see the snorkel/scubadive site called “Aquarium” where we always see enormous variety of colorful marine life at any time of the day no matter how the tide is behaving.
There are 3 villages on the atoll with a some charmig restaurants, bars and pearl markets.
Depending on the wind, there are many incredible deserted places to visit inside Rangiroa’s lagoon such as:
- The Île aux Récifs is our main sailing destination once it’s easily reached after a 3 hours tradewind´s sail from our base anchorage. The region has the singularity of presenting impressive fossil coral formations creating and drastic landscape on the external reef. It’s an amazing place to visit.
- Les Sables Roses are pinkish sandbanks located in the extreme south of the atoll. A very good place to practice windsurf and kitesurf.
- The Blue Lagoon is a lagoon inside the lagoon, very shallow. It’s exposed to the predominant tradewinds so usually is hard to visit by sailboat once we must overnight there.
MARQUESAS ISLANDS
The islands: Hiva Oa, Tahuata, Fatu Hiva, Ua Pou, Ua Huka and Nuku Hiva.
The Marquesas are the wildest archipelago of French Polynesia and unlike the other archipelagos there are no lagoons or protected coral reefs surrounding these landscapes. Instead, steep volcanic mountains plunge straight into the pounding Pacific Ocean.
This archipelago is one of the most remote island groups in the world. These primitive islands will call to your innermost savage. You can explore their rugged terrain and discover a land that few people have seen before you. Throughout the islands, there are many archaeological and ceremonial sites including houses, shrines, stone statues, agricultural terraces and burial grounds that testify to the existence of an ancient civilization.
The islands include Nuku Hiva, Hiva Oa, Fatu Hiva, Ua Pou, Ua Huka, Tahuata and other small uninhabited islands.
Hiva Oa is the most historic island in the group, with some of the largest ancient tiki statues in French Polynesia, situated in Pua Mau bay. Known as Gauguin's Island, Hiva Oa is also the final resting place for painter Paul Gauguin and poet Jacques Brel. Both artists are buried at the Cimetière du Calvaire, Calvary Cemetery, overlooking Atuona.
In the spirit of true artistry, it is here in the Marquesas Islands that many Polynesian art forms originated. The locals have proudly safeguarded the ancient techniques of tattoo, sculpture and woodcarving.
The Marquesas, more than any other archipelago in French Polynesia, beckon a very different type of traveler—one with an innate thirst for adventure. As you sail through these wild and untamed islands, you will fall completely captive to their powerful and dreamlike qualities.
SOCIETY ISLANDS
The Society archipelago comprehends two groups of islands: Leeward Islands (Îles Sous-le-vent) and Windward Islands (îles du Vent).
WINDWARD ISLANDS
Tahiti is the largest island of French Polynesia and situated halfway between California and Australia.
The island of Tahiti is divided into two parts: The larger portion to the northwest is known as Tahiti Nui and the smaller is known as Tahiti Iti. Tahiti Nui is dominated by three extinct volcanic mountains including Mount Orohena, the tallest in French Polynesia and Mount Aorai, known for its incredible views and that offers an amazing hike that we love and highly recommend to our guests. There are many hidden waterfalls on Tahiti's valleys aswell.
Mo'orea is just around 3 hours sail from northern Tahiti and is the perfect place to see humpback whales from July to November when they go there to breed.
Known for its jagged volcanic mountains and sandy beaches, Mo'orea offers amazing hiking and cycling trails through rainforest. This pristine island has also paradisiac sandy beaches and many spots that are great for snorkelling, scubadiving ans surfing.
LEEWARD ISLANDS
Bora-Bora is a small islands with a big reputation due to it's turquoise waters lagoon protected by coral reefs where many luxury resorts are currently based. It's also known for seeing the underwater life by scubadiving, snorkelling or even just paddleboarding once the water is so clear that you can see everything from the surface.
Raiatea, Tahaa, Huahine and Maupiti are also high volcanic islands with their lagoons protected by coral reefs and each one of them has it's own charm. They're not as known as Bora-Bora and Tahiti and not so crowded with resorts which makes them ideal scenarios to get to know the real polynesian culture. These islands are also very good to practice watersports such as surf, windsurf, kitesurf, paddleboard, scubadive and snorkel and also for landsports such as hikking and cycling. | https://www.moskitovaliente.com/french-polynesia/ |
Bangor Scientists in the Indian Ocean
Scientists from the School of Ocean Scientists are part of a 14 person expedition currently on a ship in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) studying the biodiversity of the World’s largest Marine Protected Area. Drs John Turner and Ronan Roche are working with British and American scientists in an archipelago of uninhabited and remote atolls located south of the Maldives. The Chagos Marine Protected Area was 4 years old on April 1st and is an Ocean Legacy Reserve of strict protection, covering 640,000 km2 and contains many of the best coral reefs in the Indian Ocean. The team and their equipment arrived at the USA Naval facility in Diego Garcia on 25th March, and boarded the BIOT patrol vessel, the Pacific Marlin for 3 weeks of scientific diving operations around the northern atolls. This may seem idyllic, but so far, conditions have been extremely demanding with rain squalls, 50 knot winds and huge waves to contend with. The team are currently sheltering in the lee of some coconut islands.
‘We have now got into a good routine, but every day brings it challenges’ explains John Turner. We often awake to the ship’s anchor chain clanking its way to the seabed, and have an early breakfast in the mess before gathering on the rear deck as the sun comes up. The diving equipment is prepared and the ship’s crew hoist our 5 inflatable boats over the side for the days activities. One boat will usually venture to the islands with a team to study the bird populations and vegetation, while the other 4 will be used for diving on the seaward reefs of the atoll’.
Many of the islands harbour internationally important populations of birds such as red foot booby, sooty and fairy terns and shearwaters. The bird populations are best on those islands which still possess some original trees rather than the ubiquitous coconut palms which are so dense that they lean out over the water, and of course on islands that do not have rats. Coconut crabs are abundant - up to half a metre in length, and these formidable creatures climb the trees to rob coconuts.
John continues ‘We are often joined by pods of dolphins which leap and spin in the wakes of our boats as we make our way through the passes in the reef to the dive sites. Here, a shallow narrow terrace of coral reef gradually steepens to a wall which plummets many kilometres. Atolls are formed by coral reefs growing on submerged sea mounts, and result in a ring of coral surrounding a deep lagoon bordered by great depths. A few days ago, we visited Blenheim which is completely submerged – it is quite an experience diving a coral reef from a 4.2m rubber boat with no land in sight, and the support vessel just visible on the horizon! After safety checks, pairs of divers descend down the reef, nearly always being inspected by silver tip sharks as we go. These inquisitive animals never leave us, often creeping up behind as we conduct our surveys. A second dive is completed after lunch, usually in the lagoon of the atolls, which have spires of coral extending from the lagoon floor to the surface. Early evenings are filled by compiling data, and on most nights, one of the team gives a seminar in our very special seminar series at sea.
One of the most important functions of the Chagos Marine Protected Area is that it serves as a reference site to measure change in the absence of direct impacts from human populations. However long term changes can be difficult to assess, especially if those scientists measuring the changes also change over the years! By recording what the reefs look using underwater video, it is possible to compare sites across years.
Dr John Turner says: "Each day, Ronan Roche and I are selecting coral reef sites which I first visited in 2006. Our aim is to dive a similar profile and record on video what the reef looks like today, and to be able to compare these observations with those made in 2006. The video records are being carefully filed so that they can be compared in future years as well."
Coral cover on Chagos reefs has been assessed for more than 20 years, providing a valuable long term record of change over time in response to major environmental variables, such as warming events and bleaching induced mortality. Although photographs of many reef communities exist, these have been taken selectively and do not really present an objective record of the state of the reefs. High resolution video recorded across wide tracts of reef can show the state of that reef. A video archive of the structure of communities allows documentation of change and the identification of features that may not previously have been recorded in counts because their significance was not evident at that time. It also enables new generations of scientists to revisit reefs visually, and the video can be reanalysed to identify changes and to address questions of resilience and response.
10 minute sequences of video are being recorded over 5 m depth intervals on both seaward and lagoon sites, and these will be compared with video recorded in 2006. We are already noticing that many of the shallow table corals that grew rapidly at shallow depths following the 1997 mortalities, and were very prevalent in 2006 and now being replaced by a more diverse range of species, which can be expected to increase in biomass in subsequent years unless affected by further impacts. Many table corals appear to have died and are being dislodged by water movement and are falling down the reef slope. Last year, we saw that corals below about 15m depth in Salomon lagoon had died, probably due to warm, dense water at depth, and low circulation due to the reefs that surround most of the atoll. We have been delighted to see recovery of many of these corals in just 12 months. Some sites displayed damage from plagues of the Crown of Thorns starfish, and we are now eager to revisit these sites to see whether they have recovered too. Such fast recovery shows that the coral reefs of Chagos are very resilient, and this is almost certainly because there are no direct impacts from humans.
The research is funded by a Darwin Initiative grant to Bangor, lead by Dr John Turner in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London and University of Warwick, working in partnership with the British Indian Ocean Territory Administration of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Chagos Conservation Trust. The scientific expedition will run until 16th April. A blog by all members of the expedition can be found here. | https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/archive/bangor-scientists-in-the-indian-ocean-18340 |
Darwin Guyot is a volcanic underwater mountain top, or guyot, in the Mid-Pacific Mountains between the Marshall Islands and Hawaii. Named after Charles Darwin, it rose above sea level more than 118 million years ago during the early Cretaceous period to become an atoll, developed rudist reefs, and then drowned, perhaps as a consequence of sea level rise. The flat top of Darwin Guyot now rests 1,266 metres (4,154 ft) below sea level.
|Darwin Guyot|
|Summit depth||1,266 metres (4,154 ft)|
|Location|
|Coordinates||22°03′36″N 171°38′06″E / 22.0600°N 171.6350°ECoordinates: 22°03′36″N 171°38′06″E / 22.0600°N 171.6350°E|
The name Darwin Guyot was proposed in 1970 and accepted by the Board on Geographic Names shortly thereafter; it refers to Charles Darwin and the fact that unlike other guyots in the region it resembles an atoll. On the second voyage of the Beagle, in the 1830s, Darwin had theorised that as land rose, oceanic islands sank, and coral reefs round them grew to form atolls. It was dredged and surveyed in 1968 by the ship R/V Alexander Agassiz; previously in the same year the R/V Argo had crossed over the guyot.
Darwin Guyot lies between Hawaii and the Marshall Islands, within the submerged Mid-Pacific Mountains. Agassiz Guyot and Allison Guyot lie to its east-southeast. These underwater mountains as well as abovewater atolls concentrate in the Western Pacific Ocean. Darwin Guyot may be part of a hotspot trail.
It lies at a depth of 1,285 metres (4,216 ft)-1,266 metres (4,154 ft) and has an elongated, northwest-southeast trending shape; an older survey had indicated a more rounded shape. The summit features an elevated rim which is probably a former fringing reef surrounding an internal lagoon like a bucket; this resembles the structure of present-day atolls and it is the first guyot in the Pacific Ocean that was discovered to have this atoll-like structure. This 18 metres (59 ft) deep depression may be a volcanic crater but the more likely explanation is that the rim was formed by living organisms. The whole summit plateau covers an area of 5 by 8 kilometres (3.1 mi × 5.0 mi) and the total volume of the seamount is about 2,287 cubic kilometres (549 cu mi).
Dredging has yielded no volcanic material, but chert, limestones (in the form of grainstone, packstone and wackestone) encrusted with ferromanganese as well as living animals were pulled up. The seafloor underneath the guyot lies at a depth of 5,250 metres (17,220 ft) and has an age of 157 million years.
Darwin Guyot is considered to be of Cretaceous origin; its age exceeds 118 million years and its history might go back to the Cretaceous subdivision "Barremian". It probably started as an emergent volcanic island that was then levelled by erosion. On the resulting platform molluscs such as rudists became established. They formed the rim as well as the irregular mounds on the summit plateau. Darwin Guyot is considered to be the oldest known atoll.
Dredging has produced fossils of animals, chiefly gastropods and rudists. Fish remnants, coral debris, and foraminifera of Albian to Turonian age have also been found. Rudists formed organic frameworks resembling coral reefs on Darwin Guyot and elsewhere in Tethyan seas during the Albian-Aptian eras. Other environments such as seagrass flats and lagoons have been inferred from the fossils.
The resulting carbonate platform drowned about 100 million years ago, or at the time of the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event (94 million years ago). It is not clear why the reefs on Darwin Guyot eventually ceased growing; one possibility is that sea levels rose quickly enough to overwhelm the ability of the reef forming organisms to keep up. Unlike other guyots, Darwin Guyot did not accumulate a substantial cap of pelagic sediments after drowning; perhaps it is too small to accumulate a substantial sediment layer or sedimentation took place but ocean currents swept the sediment off the platform. Presently, fish such as snubnosed eels occur at Darwin Guyot.
|journal=(help)
The Pacific Ocean evolved in the Mesozoic from the Panthalassic Ocean, which had formed when Rodinia rifted apart around 750 Ma. The first ocean floor which is part of the current Pacific Plate began 160 Ma to the west of the central Pacific and subsequently developed into the largest oceanic plate on Earth.The tectonic plates continue to move today. The slowest spreading ridge is the Gakkel Ridge on the Arctic Ocean floor, which spreads at less than 2.5 cm/year (1 in/year), while the fastest, the East Pacific Rise near Easter Island, has a spreading rate of over 15 cm/year (6 in/year).List of things named after Charles Darwin
Several places, concepts, institutions, and things are namesakes of the English biologist Charles Darwin:
PlacesCharles Darwin National Park
Charles Darwin Foundation
Charles Darwin Research Station
Charles Darwin University
Darwin College, Cambridge
Darwin, Falkland Islands
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin Glacier (California)
Darwin Guyot, a seamount in the Pacific Ocean
Darwin Island, Galapagos Islands
Darwin Island (Antarctica)
Darwin Sound (Canada)
Mount Darwin (California)
Mount Darwin (Tasmania)Things named after Darwin in relation to his Beagle voyageCordillera Darwin
Darwin's finches
Darwin's frog
Darwin Sound
Mount Darwin (Andes)Scientific names of organismsSome 250 species and several higher groups bear Darwin's name; most are insects.
Darwinilus, a rove beetle
Darwinius, an extinct primate
Darwinopterus, a genus of pterosaur
Darwinula, a genus of seed shrimp
Darwinivelia, a water treader genus
Darwinysius, a seed bug
Darwinomya, a genus of flies
Darwinella, a sponge genus
Darwinsaurus, a dinosaur
Darwinhydrus, a diving beetle
darwini (multiple species)
darwinii (multiple species)
Ingerana charlesdarwini, a frogPhilosophiesDarwinism
Social DarwinismOtherDarwin, a unit of evolutionary change
Darwin, an operating system
Darwin (ESA) (a proposed satellite system)
Darwin Awards
Darwin Medal
Darwin fish
Division of Darwin, a former electoral division in Australia
1991 Darwin, a stony Florian asteroid
Darwin (lunar crater) a lunar crater
Darwin (Martian crater) a martian craterMid-Pacific Mountains
The Mid-Pacific Mountains (MPM) is a large oceanic plateau located in the central North Pacific Ocean or south of the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. Of volcanic origin and Mesozoic in age, it is located on the oldest part of the Pacific Plate and rises up to 2 km (1.2 mi) (Darwin Rise) above the surrounding ocean floor and is covered with several layers of thick sedimentary sequences that differ from those of other plateaux in the North Pacific. About 50 seamounts are distributed over the MPM. Some of the highest points in the range are above sea level which include Wake Island and Marcus Island.
The ocean floor of the MPM dates back to the Jurassic-Cretaceous, some of the oldest oceanic crust on Earth.The MPM is a range of guyots with a lava composition similar to those found in Iceland and the Galapagos Islands, and they probably formed similarly at or near a rift system.
In the Cretaceous, they formed large tropical islands located closer to the Equator that began to sink in the late Mesozoic.The MPM formed in the Early Cretaceous (at c. 110 Ma) over a hotspot that uplifted the ocean floor of the still young Pacific Plate. Reefs developed on the subsiding islands and renewed volcanism in the Late Cretaceous helped maintain some of eastern islands but inevitably the guyots sank to their present depth.
It has been proposed that the MPM has crossed over several hotspots, and the MPM guyots are indeed older on the western MPM than the eastern part, but the guyots do not form chains that can be traced to any known hotspots. The MPM, nevertheless, must have originated over the South Pacific Superswell. Among the guyots in the Mid-Pacific Mountains are Allison Guyot, Horizon Guyot, Resolution Guyot and Darwin Guyot.The western half of the Easter hotspot chain, a lineament that includes the Line Islands and Tuamotu archipelago, begins near the eastern part of the MPM. The formation of the MPM thus probably occurred at the Pacific-Farallon Ridge and the Easter hotspot, or where the Easter Microplate is now located.Outline of oceanography
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to Oceanography.
|The main group|
|Individual guyots|
This page is based on a Wikipedia article written by authors
(here).
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses. | https://howlingpixel.com/i-en/Darwin_Guyot |
Located 6 hours from Australia, The Cook Islands are a magnificent ensemble of 15 islands scattered across two million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean. Lying in the centre of the Polynesian Triangle of the South Pacific, these island gems are boarded to the west by the kingdom of Tonga and the Samoa’s, with Tahiti and French Polynesia to the east.
Laying on the Tropic of Capricorn at a latitude of 9 to 22° south, the Cook Islands share the same time zone as Hawaii. They are also the same distance south of the equator as Hawaii is north.
The islands are broken up into two distinct groups, The Northern and Southern Groups. The Northern Group are all coral atolls, and the Southern Group are of volcanic origin. Many islands are covered by thick evergreen bush and are fringed by stunning picturesque lagoons.
Rarotonga is the largest and highest of the islands with a rugged volcanic interior, its highest peak is Te Manga at 652m. Technicolour coral reefs surround Rarotonga as well as dense soil which supports tropical and subtropical vegetation. Rarotonga is the most populous of the Cook Islands with over 70% of Cook Islands residents living there. Rarotonga is 32km in circumference and has a total land area of 67.19 square kilometres.
Aitutaki is another island, located north of Rarotonga. It is the Cook Islands second most popular island. Aitutaki has a land area of 18 square kilometres and is characterized by its stunning coral reefs with crystal clear waters. The highest point on the island is the Maunga Hill at 123m. Home to approximately 1800 people, Aitutaki is a beautifully secluded and untouched part of The Cook Islands. Aitutaki showcases some of the Cook Islands best beaches that are teeming with marine life and amazing snorkeling opportunities.
Both Rarotonga and Aitutaki draw crowds for their luxury resorts, stunning natural scenery and romantic tropical landscapes. | https://www.travelonline.com/cook-islands/geography |
What is an atoll?
MANY geography students may have come across the term, atoll.
But for those who didn't listen in their geography classes, the phenomenon may still be a mystery. Here we explain what an atoll actually is.
What is an atoll?
You may have come across an atoll on your travels and not actually known it.
An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, an island or a series of islets formed by coral.
It surrounds a body of water called a lagoon, which is a shallow body of water separated from the larger body of water.
Sites which include atolls have proved to be dangerous throughout history.
Read More on the Environment
Vettel may retire from F1 due to climate change despite travelling world on jets
They are hidden by ocean waves and there have been wrecks of ancient Polynesian canoes and American warships because of them.
Kon-Tiki is one of the most famous shipwrecks in history, which was caused by the strong winds and currents that surround an atoll.
It was built and sailed by explorer Thor HeyerDahl and his crew in 1947.
It sailed a distance of 6,980km from Peru to the South Pacific before encountering difficulties in the region of Polynesia, just as they were about to reach the first island.
Most read in The Irish Sun
The atoll prevented the Kon-Tiki from docking on the island and wrecked on the coral of the second, Raroia atoll.
Nearby islanders came to the rescue of the Europeans on board and rescued them from the washed-up wreck.
This is why most atolls are inhabitant islands as they are very difficult to reach.
One can find many shipwrecks from the eighteenth century to World War II at the bottom of the atoll sites.
Since they are deserted islands, they were a popular spot for the United States, Britain and France to test nuclear weapons.
How are atolls formed?
The process starts when an underwater volcano, also known as seamounts, erupts and pile up lava on the sea floor.
Eventually it breaks out from the water level and it becomes an oceanic island.
Then, corals start building a reef around the island and it becomes what's called a fringing reef.
It surrounds the island below the ocean surface that is what makes the water between the reef and the island, a lagoon.
It takes millions of years for the allot to fully form.
A process called subsidence takes place in which the volcanic island erodes and sinks.
The ocean waves make the top flat and turns it into what's called a guyot.
The fringing reef turns into a barrier reef which protects the lagoon from strong winds and waves.
Finally, the ocean waves start breaking some of the reef and create tiny grains of sand and other material.
These include organic matter such as plant seeds which form a ring-shaped island and create an atoll.
Where are there atolls in the world?
There are several atolls that can be found across the world, and despite its dangers they can be a sight of sheer beauty.
Atolls of the Maldives
The Maldives have 1,200 atolls and give those visiting an opportunity to perform some water-sporting activities.
The scenic beauty of these atolls provide a great experience of snorkelling and scuba diving.
Bikini Atoll
Remember when we said that some countries used atolls to test out nuclear weapons in?
Well Bikini Atoll was one of these atolls in which is located in the Marshall Islands.
The US used it to test out 23 nuclear devices between 1946 and 1958, at seven different sites in the atoll.
Now, it is used as a tourist attraction for scuba diving and have a look at the shipwrecks that piled on throughout the years.
Caroline Island
Caroline Island is one of the most clean and pure tropical islands in the world with one of the largest population of coconut crabs.
It is considered as a wildlife sanctuary because of its lack of pollution.
You might not have long to visit such island though, because it is expected to be completely underwater by 2025, as it stands six meters above sea.
Lighthouse Reef
It is one of the four atolls located in the western hemisphere and it is famous for the Great Blue Hole located in its centre.
It is considered as one of the best spots for scuba diving because as you go deeper, the more you can discover thanks to the clear water below.
There are stalactites and limestone formations which offer the diver views of exceptional beauty.
Funafuti
It is located between Hawaii and Australia in the capital of Tuvalu.
It is only 20 metres wide at the narrowest sides and the widest sides reach 400 metres.
It is the second least populated country in the world, with 6,200 citizens after the Vatican City and it offers many activities around its sea life. | https://www.thesun.ie/news/8872828/what-is-an-atoll/ |
The country of Micronesia comh2ises several islands in the North Pacific Ocean that are part of a larger group known as the Carolinian archipelago. In turn, this archipelago is located within a region that is also known as Micronesia, which belongs to the larger region known as Oceania. The country is located about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to Indonesia. With an area of about 702 square kilometers (271 square miles), the country is about four times the size of Washington, D.C. Micronesia is divided into four states.
Micronesia has no outside territories or dependencies.
The climate in Micronesia is maritime tropical, with little seasonal or diurnal (dayto-night) variation in temperature, which averages 27°C (80°F) year-round. Average humidity is 80 percent.
The northeast trade winds that prevail during November, December, April, and May frequently bring heavy rainfall. The short and torrential nature of the rainfall, which decreases from east to west, results in an annual average of 508 centimeters (200 inches) of rain in Pohnpei and 305 centimeters (120 inches) in Yap. Pohnpei is one of the wettest places on Earth. The eastern islands are located on the southern edge of the typhoon belt and occasionally suffer severe damage from typhoons, which are a threat from June through December.
The country of Micronesia covers the second-largest land and sea area in the region, which is also known as Micronesia. Its four states consist of four major island groups. From east to west, they are Kosrae, Pohnpei (Ponape), Chuuk (formerly Truk), and Yap Islands. The territory is made up of 607 islands, including mountainous islands of volcanic origin and coral atolls, forty of which are a significant size. Only sixty-five of the islands are inhabited. The outer islands of all states are mainly coral atolls. The primary economic activities are subsistence farming and fishing. Tourism is an emerging industry, catering mostly to sport scuba divers; geographical isolation and a lack of adequate lodging and infrastructure hinder development, however.
The Pacific Ocean surrounds the nation of Micronesia.
The Truk Lagoon is one of the largest enclosed lagoons in the world, encircled by a 225-kilometer- (140-mile-) long barrier reef and covering an area of 2,129 square kilometers (822 square miles). Ports and harbors are located at Colonia (Yap), Kolonia (Pohnpei), Lele (Kosrae), and Moen (Chuuk).
Within Micronesia, each of the four states centers on one or more "high islands." Kosrae, the smallest and easternmost state, consists of five closely situated islands, but is essentially one high island of 119 square kilometers (42 square miles). Pohnpei (344 square kilometers/133 square miles) consists of the single large island of Pohnpei (137 square kilometers/130 square miles), twenty-five smaller islands within a barrier reef, and 137 outer islands, of which the major atolls are Mokil, Pingelap, Kapingamarangi, Nukuoro, and Ngatik. Chuuk (Truk) (127 square kilometers/49 square miles) includes the large Truk Lagoon, which encloses ninety-eight islands, plus the major outer island groups which include the Mortlocks, Halls, Western, and Namwunweito Islands. Yap (118 square kilometers/46 square miles), the westernmost state, consists of four large islands and seven smaller islands surrounded by barrier reefs, plus 134 outer islands, of which the largest are Ulithi and Woleai.
There is moderately heavy tropical vegetation; tree species include tropical hardwoods on the slopes of higher volcanic islands and coconut palms on the coral atolls. Pohnpei and Kosrae have the only remaining patches of mountain cloud forest in Micronesia. Forest covers 40 percent of total land area in the Yap Islands, but it is largely secondary growth.
Low sheltered coastal areas of Micronesia are covered with mangrove forests. The Chuuk islands are an "almost atoll," encircled by a barrier reef. Of the eighty countries that have coral reefs, Micronesia ranks thirteenth in area; it contains 1.53% of the world's reefs, spanning 11,241 square kilometers (4,340 square miles). During the past century, Micronesia's coral reefs suffered from soil erosion resulting from logging, agriculture, major coastal construction (dredging and filling), military occupation, and World War II battles, along with the poaching of giant clams, sharks, trochus (marine gastropod), and other commercial species from remote reefs.
The four states of Micronesia have a total of 7,164 square kilometers (2,766 square miles) of lagoons within their coastal borders.
Pohnpei, the largest and tallest island in Micronesia, has peaks that receive much rainfall annually, creating more than forty rivers that feed the upper rain forest and create spectacular waterfalls.
There are no desert regions in Micronesia.
There are no substantial plains, hills, or valleys in Micronesia.
Oceania refers to the islands in the region that covers the central and southern Pacific Ocean and its adjacent seas. The boundaries for this region are the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the southern tip of New Zealand. The region known as Micronesia, a division of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean, includes the islands east of the Philippines and north of the equator. The Caroline, Marshall, Mariana, and Gilbert Islands are all a part of the region of Micronesia.
The state of Kosrae is largely mountainous, with two main peaks: Fenkol (Mount Crozer) (634 meters/2,080 feet) and Matanti (583 meters/1,913 feet). Pohnpei contains a large volcanic island, with the highest elevation at Mount Totolom (791 meters/2,595 feet), which is also the highest point in the country. Chuuk has fourteen islands that are mountainous and of volcanic origin. Yap has four large, high islands; this state's highest point is Mount Tabiwol (178 meters/584 feet). Yap is situated at the southern end of a submerged ridge; volcanic land formation has occurred in its five largest island clusters.
There are no significant caves or canyons in Micronesia.
There are no plateau regions in Micronesia.
There are no significant man-made structures affecting the geography of Micronesia.
Ashby, Gene, ed. Some Things of Value: Micronesian Customs and Beliefs . Eugene, OR: Rainy Day Press, 1985.
Karolle, Bruce G. Atlas of Micronesia . 2nd ed. Honolulu, Hawaii: Bess Press, 1993.
Kluge, P. F. The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia. New York: Random House, 1991.
Government of the Federated States of Micronesia. http://www.fsmgov.org/info/index.html (accessed April 24, 2003). | https://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/geography/Indonesia-to-Mongolia/Micronesia.html |
“During a volcanic eruption, we are reminded that our planet is an ever-changing environment whose basic processes are beyond human control. As much as we have altered the face of the Earth to suit our needs, we can only stand in awe before the power of an eruption.” — US National Park Service
The “Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain” is a vast undersea mountain range interspersed with islands, underwater mountains (seamounts), atolls (ring shaped coral reefs encircling a lagoon), shallows, banks, reefs and more than 80 volcanoes, that extending across the Pacific Ocean for 3,728 miles (60,000 kilometers) from the Hawaiian islands to Alaska and Siberia. The chain has been forming during the last 70 to 80+ million years by volcano eruptions and movement of the ocean floor (the “Pacific Plate”) over a volcanic region known as the “Hawaii hotspot”. Closest to this hotspot is the Hawaiian archipelago (aka Windward islands) that includes eight main islands: Hawaii (aka ‘the Big Island’, the Island of Hawaii & Hawaii Island to distinguish it from the US state of Hawaii), Maui, Oahu, Kauai, Molokai, Lanai, Niihau, and Kahoolawe, as well as a number of small islands, atolls, and seamounts, that extend 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the Kure Atoll to the Big Island, the southernmost point of the Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain.
The formation of the Big Island is the result of sequential and simultaneous eruptions of five ‘shield’ volcanoes (low profile, circular, slopping shield shaped volcanoes) over a period of about 300,000 – 600,000 years, and at 93 miles (150 km) across and a land area of 4,028 sq. miles (10,430 km²), it’s the largest of the Hawaiian islands and still growing because of the lava flow from currently active volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kīlauea.
In accordance with beliefs and practices of the traditional Hawaiian religion, summits of the five Big Island volcanoes are revered by native Hawaiians as sacred mountains, and the powerful, passionate Fire Goddess, Pele, is believed to live within the Halema’uma’u crater located at the summit of Kīlauea. Pele’s domain, however, includes all volcanic activity on the Big Island, and she has the ability to cause lava to erupt from the ground at any time. She’s been a very busy goddess during the last four decades.
The Kīlauea Volcano
The name ‘Kīlauea’ is translated to ‘spewing’ or ‘much spreading’, referring to frequent lava flows originating from the volcano. The name is well-deserved as there have been 61 separate eruptions from Kīlauea since 1823, making it one of the most active volcanoes on planet Earth. Most of these eruptions have been relatively moderate and have occurred within one of its ‘rift zones’ with lava flows moving downslope. [A rift zone is an area of ruptures on the surface that allows lava to erupt and flow from the flank of a volcano instead of its summit.] However, fire goddess Pele does periodically create havoc with explosive and sometimes deadly eruptions that expel molten rock and gases across the landscape of the Big Island.
Kīlauea’s most recent major eruption (dating back to January 3. 1983) is the longest period of volcanic activity in its documented history with lava flowing almost continuously for 35 years from the volcanic cone, Puʻu ʻŌʻō (‘high point on the skyline’) located within Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone. [Volcanic cones like Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō are formed by the ejected magma rocks piling up around a vent.] The catastrophic collapse of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō on April 30, 2018, resulted in the iconic eruption site and surrounding lava flow fields becoming without lava during the rest of 2018. The absence of surface activity for such a long period of time makes it unlikely that lava activity will resume within Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō; therefore, scientists have determined the eruption has concluded. It’s important, however, to remember that Kīlauea remains an active volcano, and hazards have not changed as a new eruption can quickly cause dangerous conditions. For Kīlauea status updates, check out the Report from USGS – Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (daily updates and warnings).
Video: Story of Kīlauea Volcano’s summit lava lake, and the eruptive history of Halema‘uma‘u. Credit: US Geological Survey
In the video documentary 100 Days: 2018 Kilauea Eruption, photojournalist Andrew Richard Hara chronicles his emotional observations of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption.
Also, see lava flow from Kīlauea up-close in HD. Two short videos, Dawn of Fire and River of Fire, (filmed and produced by Tyler Hulett) capture flowing molten lava as it moves toward the Pacific Ocean from Puʻu ʻŌʻō during daylight and night. It’s an incredible sight to see.
Visiting Kīlauea
“A spectacle, sublime and even appalling, presented itself before us. We stopped and trembled. Astonishment and awe for some moments rendered us mute, and, like statues, we stood fixed to the spot, with our eyes riveted on the abyss below.” — William Ellis (1794 – 1872), describing his first sight of Kīlauea
The first western visitors to Kīlauea were two missionaries in 1823, William Ellis, an Englishman, and American, Asa Thurston, and after the building of hotels on its rim in the 1840’s, Kīlauea became a tourist attraction. Today, it’s protected within the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park and visited by 2.6 million people annually. The park offers visitors dramatic volcanic landscapes of Kīlauea and Mauna Loa, archeological sites, historical places, and a look at rare flora, fauna and wildlife as well as hiking, biking, touring and camping. Popular stops are the Kilauea Visitor Center and the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum & observation deck.
References/Information Sources:
Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park Find Kīlauea vistor information, including eruption/emission/lava flow updates, hiking & safety tips, photos & video
USGS – Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Kīlauea history, status reports, updates & information
Wikipedia: Hawaiian Islands, Hawaii (Island), Kīlauea, List of volcanoes in the Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain, Hawaiian religion, Pele
Scientific Study: In January 2017, a NASA-led science team began exploring Kīlauea and Mauna Loa from the air, ground and space to better understand volcanic processes and find ways to mitigate the hazards.
US National Parks: There are more than 400 US national parks available to everyone, every day. Most are free to enjoy, and the 117 that charge an entry fee (e.g., Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park) offer fee-free days throughout the year.
Find Your Park ← Use the search tools on this website to find the perfect place to visit.
We’d love to hear from you! If you’d like to comment on this article, join the conversation, or share your inspiration, and you have not yet registered as an On2In2™ playmaker, please sign up via the ‘Engage page’. Don’t worry, it’s pretty quick and easy (unless you’re a robot). | https://on2in2.com/category/enlighten/science/ |
Parts of the following essay are excerpted in different form, from the introductory chapter originally published in the book:
Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific
by T.M. Gosliner, D.W. Behrens, and G.C. Williams (1996); Sea Challengers, Monterey, California; 314 pp.
Table of Contents
Geography and Geology
Early Explorers
Biotic Communities
Seagrass Beds
Mangrove Habitat
Sand Flats
Biology of Corals and Coral Reefs
What are Corals?
The Five Kinds of Corals
What are Coral Reefs?
The Formation of Coral Reefs
Coral Reef Landscapes
Biogeography
Biodiversity
GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGYOLOGY
The Indo-Pacific is a vast region encompassing the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans from Africa in the west to Hawaii and French Polynesia in the east. This area represents the largest marine biogeographic region in the world. Many Indo-Pacific coral reefs develop along the margins of the African, Asian, and Australian continents but most are associated with islands. Examples of extensive continental coral reefs include Sodwana and Kosi Bays (South Africa), Eilat and Ras Muhammad (Red Sea), Phuket (Thailand), the Madang Barrier Reef (Papua New Guinea), and the Great Barrier Reef (Australia).
Innumerable islands dot the Indian and Pacific Oceans, creating tropical shallow-water conditions conducive for coral reef growth. Island archipelagos of the Indian Ocean include the Comoros, Seychelles, Mascarene, Lakshadweep (Laccadive) and Maldives, Chagos, Andaman, and Nicobar Islands. Coral reefs have developed on these island chains. However, the greatest number of islands in the world are found in the tropical western and central Pacific. These are included in the modern nations or territories of Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Belau, the Federated States of Micronesia, Northern Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands, and French Polynesia.
The western and central Pacific Ocean is the region of the highest marine biodiversity. It can be divided into three sub-regions based on cultural geography as well as geology: Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia. The three points of the Polynesian triangle are Hawaii in the north, Easter Island in the southeast, and New Zealand in the southwest. Polynesia was originally inhabited by people migrating from southeast Asia. Most of Polynesia is made up of widely dispersed larger volcanic islands. The name "Polynesia" means "many islands". Micronesia, on the other hand, is situated between the Mariana Trench in the west and the Line Islands in the east. The name "Micronesia" means "tiny islands." This region is composed of thousands of small islands, mostly atolls, of the central Pacific. Micronesian peoples are thought to be related to islanders of the Philippines, the probable region of their ancient origin. Melanesia is a vast region of volcanic islands including New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia. The name "Melanesia" means "black islands", referring to the dark-complected peoples inhabiting these islands. Throughout the centuries, intermixing of coastal peoples from Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia has taken place in areas of geographic overlap.
Geologically, the western Pacific is composed of a complex mosaic of tectonic plates, principally the Pacific, Eurasian, and Australian Plates. The smaller Philippine Plate produces an extensive boundary region between the Earasin and Pacific Plates. Similarly, the Caroline Plate, and the Bismarck, Solomon, and Fiji Microplates create a boundary region separating the Pacific and Australian Plates. The entire region is part of the "Ring of Fire" or Pacific Rim, and is consequently extremely active geologically. Periodic volcanic and seismic activity have produced high mountain ranges and deep-water trenches at the margins of all of these plates and microplates. This constant and often violent geological activity has created numerous archipelagos and island arcs comprising thousands of islands, with extensive regions of shallow-water habitat suitable for coral reef growth.
EARLY EXPLORERS
The first explorers and colonizers of the west-central Pacific were ethnically diverse peoples from southeastern Asia, representing various waves of migration through an extensive period of time beginning in the Pleistocene Epoch, and continuing into the last millennium. These migrations during repeated glacial and interglacial periods, resulted in humans populating virtually all island groups in this vast region including the island continent of Australia, and beyond into the east-central Pacific. A disputed theory holds that migrations also took place from the Americas into the central Pacific.
European exploration began in the sixteenth century with the trans-Pacific voyages of Magellan, Mendaña, Quiros, Drake, Torres, and Tasman. This initial phase of exploration extended from 1519-1644.
Later, notable scientific voyages of discovery in the region included the remarkable achievements of William Dampier, Louis de Bougainville, James Cook, Dumont D’Urville, and the Beagle, Challenger, Siboga, and Great Barrier Reef Expeditions. This scientific period of exploration occupied the late 17th through the early 20th centuries.
BIOTIC COMMUNITIES
The shallow subtidal regions of virtually all of these innumerable islands provide optimal conditions for coral reef growth and development. Depending on local conditions including currents, wave action, turbidity, temperature, and salinity, the expression of biotic communities may vary. Four primary types of biotic communities have developed in the shallow-water tropical Indo-Pacific, depending on differing physical parameters. These are coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangrove habitat, and sand flats. Coral reefs are treated in detail in a following section.
Seagrass Beds
Seagrass meadows are considered an important ecosystem of shallow-water tropical regions. They occur in protected areas such as bays and lagoons. The seagrass ecosystem is remarkable for its high ratets of primary productivity. Thick "forests" of rapidly growing seagrasses provide a protective and productive habitat for many animals that live in or on the sandy or muddy bottom (benthic forms), on the plants themselves (epiphytic forms), and in the water surrounding the plants (epibenthic or pelagic forms).
Despite the name, seagrasses are not true grasses but belong to two other families of flowering plants – the Potamogetonaceae and the Hydrocharitaceae. In the tropics, several species often grow together in any particular seagrass meadow. Seventeen species in eight genera – Zostera, Halodule, Cymodocea, Syringodium, Thalassodendron, Enhalus, Thalassia, and Halophila comprise the seagrass communities in the tropical Indo-Pacific. This represents about 35% of the world species total. The other 31 species are found mainly in monospecific stands in colder temperate regions such as southern Australia and New Zealand, the North Pacific, and parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Green algae comprise an important component of the tropical seagrass ecosystem – especially species in the genera Caulerpa, Udotea, Codium, Acetabularia, Avrainvillea, and Halimeda. They often grow as epiphytes on the seagrasses. Brown algae of seagrass beds include species of the genera Padina and Sargassum. Seagrasses are actually consumed by only a few animals including dugongs, sea turtles, and some molluskcs and urchins. Many animals, however, graze on the green algal and diatomaceous films that grow on the seagrass blades. For detailed information and identification of seagrasses consult Phillips and Meñez (1988), and Meñez, Phillips, and Calumpong (1983).
Mangrove Habitat
Mangroves are sometimes situated between coral reefs and a gently-sloping shoreline, often in protected bays and lagoons with limited circulation. Mangroves have adapted to live in saltwater-saturated soils of highly saline condition. Conservation of mangrove areas is important for a number of reasons. The mangrove ecosystem contributes significantly to the productivity of tropical shallow-water regions. Extensive areas of mangrove growth trap silt-laden runoff from the land, thereby protecting coral reefs from sedimentation. The numerous aerial roots produced by some mangroves provide a sheltered habitat for a diverse array of marine life.
The various flowering plants referred to as mangrove are for the most part unrelated species but share similar growth habits under similar environmental conditions. These taxa include the red mangroves of the family Rhizophoraceae – such as Rhizophora (pantropical), Bruguiera and Ceriops (tropical Asia and Africa), and Kandelia (southeast Asia); the black mangrove Avicennia (family Avicenniaceae); and the white mangrove Lumnitzera (family Combretaceae) from East Africa, Asia, and Australia (Lugo, 1990).
Sand Flats
Extensive sandy areas are found between patch reefs, or in depressions and gullies on the reef proper, or in deeper areas below or beyond a reef. San flats are often textured with ripple marks due to the action of strong bottom currents. Sand flats may seem barren by day, but at night the exploration of such areas can startle the diver with a surprising variety of animal life, including the sea pens Veretillum and Virgularia, the gastropods Pleurobranchus and Coriocella, and various cuttlefish, lobsters, crabs, and urchins. These and other common night animals are active and conspicuous on sand flats, but are invisible or highly cryptic during the day.
BIOLOGY OF CORALS AND CORAL REEFS
What are Corals?
The terms "coral" and "coral reef" often produce images of emerald blue waters at bathtub temperatures, calm shallow lagoons, and beaches of sparkling white sand lined with coconut palms. It is true that the majority of coral species are found on tropical coral reefs. However, the term coral refers to a vast array of organisms that are found throughout the world’s seas from freezing polar regions to equatorial reefs, and at all depth from the intertidal zone to the bottoms of the deepest hadal trenches (Williams, 1990).
The word "coral" is derived from the ancient Greek word "korallion", which refers to the precious red coral of the Mediterranean, known to us today as Corallium rubrum (Williams, 1993). The diverse assemblage of organisms known as corals are actually animals belonging to the phylum Coelenterata (Cnidaria) along with such things as hydroids, jellyfish, box jellies, and sea anemones. All corals are coelenterates (also called cnidarians), but some are more closely related to other coelenterates than to other corals. For example, hydrocorals are more closely related to hydroids than they are to other corals. Therefore corals are not a monophyletic group, but refer to various coelenterates that produce a calcareous or proteinaceous skeleton.
The life history of a coelenterate is characterized by having alternating life styles – either as a polyp (the attached stationary stage) or a medusa (the swimming or floating jellyfish-like stage). A coral is characterized by having some form of hard skeletal structure, composed of calcium carbonate or a tough fibrous protein known as horn, or a combination of these two. Most corals are colonial, but a few are composed of a solitary polyp throughout their entire life span. The polyp is the living individual of a coral colony, made up of two tissue layers surrounding a thin gelatinous matrix that contains various cells. Each polyp has a ring of tentacles surrounding a central mouth. The tentacles contain specialized stinging structures (nematocysts) within cells called cnidocytes. Nematocysts resemble miniature poison darts, and are important in defense and prey capture.
For the most part, corals are polytrophic feeders – that is, they obtain nutrition in a variety of ways. They are all micropredators and ingest plankton and particulate matter form the surrounding water medium, but they can also directly absorb dissolved organic matter from sea water through the epidermal tissues. In addition, many species can utilize the products of algal symbiosis via photosynthesis.
Many reef corals have one-celled algae called zooxanthellae living in their internal tissues. This symbiotic relationship allows for the production of enough calcium carbonate for coral reefs to originate and grow. Corals that take part in this relationship are called zooxanthellate corals and include the fire corals and blue corals, soft corals such as Sarcophyton, Sinularia, and Lobophytum, some sea fans such as Rumphella, a few sea pens such as Virgularia and Cavernularia, and all the reef-building hard corals. Zooxanthellate corals often have a golden-brown or greenish coloration and are not brightly-colored. The coral provides a protected habitat for the algal cells and at the same time utilizes products of algal photosynthesis to produce more calcium carbonate than it could without the algae. This excess production of calcium carbonate is what builds coral reefs. The building of reefs is therefore a bipartisan effort between coral host and algal tenant, and this close working relationship explains why coral reefs are restricted to the warm, clear, sunlit waters of the shallow-water tropics. Corals that do not contain zooxanthellate are called aposymbiotic.
Corals can reproduce either sexually or asexually. Sexual reproduction involves internally fertilized eggs which are brooded on the inside or outside of the parent polyps, or externally fertilized eggs that either develop into planktonic larvae and are dispersed in water currents, or the larvae develop and settle in the vicinity of the parent coral. Asexual reproduction is common in some reef corals and involves cloning by budding or fragmentation, which either originates within the body of the coral itself, of is due to external causes (Hughes, 1985).
Corals have a long fossil record dating back 450-500 million years to the Ordovician Period of the Paleozoic Era. Three groups of early corals – the heterocorals, the tabulate corals, and the rugose corals – are now all extinct, having died out by the end of the Paleozoic. Tour other groups of corals, which developed during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras, survive to the present day – these are the hydrocorals, the black corals, the hard corals, and the octocorals. All four of these groups inhabit Indo-Pacific coral reefs, but is is primarily certain hard coral species that actually build reefs as a result of the deposition of calcium carbonate onto the surface of the reef by the living tissues of the corals themselves. Coral reefs are actually biogenic geologic structures of limestone – having been created by countless generations of living corals. Corals can be classified as hermatypic (reef-building) or ahermatypic (non-reef-building) (Schumacher & Zibrowius, 1985). Hermatypic corals are for the most part hard corals (scleractinians), but also include the octocoral Heliopora (blue coral) and the hydrocoral Millepora (fire coral). All hermatypic corals are zooxanthellate but not all zooxanthellate corals are hermatypic. Some ahermatypic zooxanthellate corals include the mushroom coral (Fungia) and Neptune’s Cap (Halomitra).
Some barnacles form commensal associations with particular coral reef invertebrates. These include pyrgomatid barnacles on the fire coral Millepora, as well as Fungia and other scleractinians; Conopea spp. on gorgonians; Oxynaspis spp. on black corals; Acasta spp. on sponges; and cf. Acasta on the gorgonian Rumphella.
The Five Kinds of Corals
Urban legend has it that all corals are associated with coral reefs and therefore all corals are threatened because coral reefs are threatened. Contrary to popular belief, however, a mere 14% of coral species actually build coral reefs -- these are the hermatypic scleractians. The term coral refers to a variety of cnidarian organisms, most of which are not associated with coral reefs.
Hydrocorals belong to the Class Hydrozoa. The three other groups of corals are anthozoans. Members of the Class Anthozoa are exclusively polypoid, having lost the medusoid stage, while most hydrozoans retain both polypoid and medusoid stage in their life cycles.
Hydrocorals include both the milleporine and stylasterine corals. Milleporine corals are also known as the fire corals or stinging corals, representing a dozen or so valid species of the single genus Millepora. Found in both the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific, fire corals probably account for more toxic stings received by divers than any other coelenterate (Auerback & Geehr, 1989: 955). Stylasterine corals, also known as lace corals, include delicate and colorful species belonging to the genera Stylaster and Distichopora, both commonly found on Indo-Pacific reefs. All hydrocorals are characterized by a massive and relatively brittle calcium carbonate skeleton, with numerous pinpoint-sized pores, from which emanate two kinds of hydroid-like polyps, which are finger-shaped with knob-like tentacles. The two kinds of polyps either have a defensive function (dactylozooids) or a feeding function (gastrozooids).
Antipatharians are the black or thorny corals, characterized by having internal axes of dark horn - calcium carbonate is absent. The axis is covered with minute thorny or spiny projections, much like the branches of a rose bush. Three genera of black corals, Stichopathes, Cirripathes, and Antipathes, are commonly encountered on Indo-Pacific coral reefs. Very thin tissues overlay the axis of a living black coral, usually resulting in a bright yellow or greenish-yellow appearance. Each black coral polyp has six finger-like tentacles surrounding the mouth.
Scleractinians or hard corals (also called stony corals) comprise most of the framework of a living coral reef. Hard corals have massive calcium carbonate skeletons with relatively large polyps (>5 mm in diameter), each containing internal radiating ribs called septa. Many important hermatypic species of Indo-Pacific reefs are colonial hard corals of genera such as Acropora, Montipora, Pocillopora, Goniopora, and Turbinaria. Common ahermatypic taxa include Fungia, Tubastraea, and Dendrophyllia. Several ahermatypic reef-inhabiting hard corals such as the mushroom coral, Fungia, are solitary (only one polyp is present) and do not form colonies.
Gold corals are skeleton-forming zoanthids represented by the genus Kulamanamama (= Savalia and Gerardia). Gold corals produce a conspiculously gold-colored scleroproteinaceous axis that when tranversely sectioned, reveals concentric layers of skeletal material.
Octocorals include the soft corals, sea fans, sea whips, and sea pens. All octocorals are easily identified by the eight feather-like tentacles that surround the mouth of each polyp. The soft corals (octocorals that do not have an internal axis) are important members of Indo-Pacific reef communities - their abundance, diversity, and biomass rivals or exceeds hat of the hard corals in some regions. The blue coral (Heliopora coerulea) has a massive aragonitic skeleton and is an important reef builder in some areas. The organ-pipe coral (Tubipora musica) is the only other hermatypic octocoral. Other octocorals are ahermatypic and have skeletal elements composed of calcitic spicules known as sclerites. In addition to sclerites, the gorgonians (sea fans and sea whips) also have internal axes composed of horn/and or calcium carbonate. The axis is smooth, not thorny as in black corals. There is one exception to this - The gorgonian genus Dendrobrachia (family Dendrobrachiidae) has longitudinal ridges on the axis, which may contain thorn-like projections. The flexible internal skeletons of sea fans and sea whips allow them to bend and sway in the currents and bottom surges like the branches of a tree in gusty winds. In the Indo-Pacific, zooxanthellate soft corals flourish on shallow-water reef flats, while gorgonians inhabit vertical walls and deeper reef areas. In the tropical western Atlantic, the situation differs significantly, as soft corals are absent, and it is zooxanthellate gorgonians that flourish on shallow-water reef flats. Sea pens or pennatulaceans are adapted for life in soft substrata, are encountered mostly at night, and are restricted to sandy regions adjacent to reefs or in sandy depressions or gullies on the reef proper.
What are Coral Reefs?
Biogenic limestone reefs are geologic structures built over time by living organims. The two most important types are algal reefs and coral reefs. Algal reefs are formed primarily by lime-secreting green and red algae such as certain species of Halimeda and Lithothamnion, while coral reefs are formed primarily by various species of hermatypic corals. Coral reefs represent the accumulated remains of the skeletons of lime-secreting organisms, primarily hermatypic corals. The thin living veneer of tissue lives on and builds upon the skeletal remains of past generations of corals below.
Coral reefs are home to an indeterminable number of species of organisms. The variety and abundance of marine life on coral reefs is overwhelming. Virtually all of the more than thirty major animal groups (phyla) are represented on coral reefs and many species no doubt have yet to be discovered and described in the scientific literature.
The importance of conserving coral reefs cannot be over-stressed. They are the world's most diverse marine communities representing banks of biological diversity. They are indicators of environmental stress such as pollution, sedimentation, and sea temperature fluctuations. They are also sources of pharmaceutically important compounds such as prostaglandins and anti-cancer agents.
Coral reefs are distributed in a circumtropical band mostly between 20° North Latitude and 20° South Latitude. The tropical western Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are the two main coral regions in the world. The tropical western Atlantic is the region of tropical and subtropical America between Bermuda in the north and Brazil to the south, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The Indo-Pacific covers the vast region form East Africa and the Red Sea to the Hawaiian and Tuamotu Archipelagoes. In a comparison of biodiversity, the Indo-Pacific is roughly ten times more diverse than the western Atlantic. For example, there are approximately sixty species of hermatypic corals inhabiting the coral reefs of the western Atlantic compared with an estimated 500-600 species in the Indo-Pacific. Coral reefs are rare or absent from the tropical Atlantic of South America and Africa due mainly to the great influx and circulation of fresh water and silt from the Amazon and Congo River systems.
Coral reefs need warm, clear, relatively quiet water for optimal growth. The distribution of coral reefs at any given point in time is determined by various limiting factors. The most significant of these are water temperature, depth and light intensity, salinity, water turbulence, and sedimentation. The optimum temperature for the growth of hermatypic corals and the development of coral reefs is 20-28°C. At temperatures below 18-20°C coral growth is limited or ceases. Temperatures above 28°C frequently induce coral bleaching - the evacuation and depletion of zooxanthellae from coral tissues. Some researchers feel that global warming will lead to widespread bleaching of corals, and could have a serious negative impact on marine biodiversity. Reef growth ceases with a widespread breakdown in the algae/coral symbiotic relationship. Water depth is important as it determines the intensity of light reaching the coral tissues for photosynthesis to occur. Most reefs grow best in depths of less than 25 meters. Light intensity, particularly ultraviolet radiation, may limit coral growth at the surface or in very shallow water, and in depths greater than 25 meters the diminution of light inhibits photosynthesis. Although many hermatypic corals can tolerate fluctuations in salinity as low as 18 parts/thousand and as high as 70 parts/thousand, around 35 parts/thousand is optimal. The amount of constant or periodic water turbulence can limit the extent of coral growth and reef development. Wave action and surge can lead to physical breakage, as well as limit growth and select for certain morphological types (i.e. robust and mound-like colonies vs. delicately branched forms). Lastly, the amount of sediment suspended in the ambient water can be a strong determinant of reef growth. Turbid water cuts down on light intensity and can also result in direct physical stress to coral colonies.
Natural threats to coral reefs and coral reef organisms include cyclones and hurricanes, periodic population explosions of echinoderms such as the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), periodic ocean warming events (El Niño), and the actions of earthquakes and volcanoes. Man-made threats include chemical and nutrient pollution, sedimentation from land clearing and coastal development, over fishing and collecting for the international aquarium, jewelry and sea shell trades, recreational use (ship anchor damage and tourism impact), and destructive fishing techniques including the use of dynamite and cyanide.
The evolutionary history of coral faunas and coral reefs is an ancient one extending back in geologic time to the early Paleozoic when the first corals appeared. During the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwanaland during the early Mesozoic, the Tethys Sea became circumglobal. A uniform worldwide coral fauna presumably flourished until the various continents began to split up. The splitting up of the two great land masses into various continents gave rise to a diversity of localized faunas. Approximately 1-6 million years ago, the Isthmus of Panama formed a complete closure between the Atlantic and Pacific. Independent evolution of corals then took place in isolation, leading to the separate faunas of the western Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific that we encounter today.
The Formation of Coral Reefs
Most coral reefs can be classified as fringing reefs, barrier reefs, coral atolls, table reefs, or patch reefs. Fringing reefs are the most common type of reef in the Indo-Pacific as well as the tropical western Atlantic. These reefs project seaward directly from the shore and form a fringe of stony coral around an island or along part of the shore of a large land mass. Barrier reefs are located further from shore than fringing reefs and are separated from adjacent land by a lagoon. The largest barrier reefs in the world are the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland, Australia, and the Belize Barrier Reef off Belize I the Caribbean Sea. Atolls are low, ring-shaped, limestone islands with a central lagoon, encountered predominantly in Micronesia, Polynesia, and parts of the Indian Ocean. The word "atoll" is derived from "atolu", a native name in the Maldive Islands. Several quadrilateral atoll-like coral reefs just to the east of the Belize Barrier Reef in the Caribbean Sea, are not true atolls but have a very different origin and development. Table reefs are small open ocean reefs with no central islands or lagoons, confined to the tops of guyots or seamounts. Lastly, patch reefs rise from the floor of lagoons and represent discrete units surrounded by sand or other non-reef substratum.
The modern theory of coral atoll formation was originated by Charles Darwin as a result of his observations at Tuamotu Archipelago (south central Pacific) and Cocos Keeling Island (eastern Indian Ocean) made between November 1835 and April 1836, during the voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. His book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, was first published in 1842 as Part 1 of the Geology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle.'
Darwin believed that the fringing reefs, barrier reefs, and atolls of volcanic islands represented a successional series through geologic time. He hypothesized that the transition from fringing to barrier reef to atoll could result from the upward growth of coral on the edge of a gradually sinking volcano. Gradual subsidence and continuous reef growth were fundamental to his theory. He believed that barrier reefs represented and intermediate stage between fringing reefs and atolls, and that the ring-like appearance of an atoll with a central lagoon represented an intermediate stage resulted from the total submergence of the summit of a volcano. The sequence of events in atoll formation can be summarized as follows.
Darwin was not the only naturalist interested I the origin of coral islands. The geologist James Dwight Dana, and the conchologist Joseph Couthouy, as member of the United States Exploring Expedition between 1838 and 1842, in Fiji made observations similar to those of Darwin. They contributed significantly to the developing coral island theory initiated by Darwin, by recognizing that sea temperature can restrict coral growth and hence can help explain the distribution of coral reefs . They also found indirect evidence to support the idea that subsidence of some oceanic volcanoes actually does take pales. Dana believed that in island such as Tahiti, a deeply embayed and irregular coastline coupled with an extremely eroded and dissected topography, was evidence for partial island submergence since the sea was not capable of eroding the shore in such a way. Neither of these principles were recognized by Darwin. Dana also recognized what appeared to be uplifted coral reef coastlines on islands of the western Pacific (as opposed to the submergence that occurred in the central Pacific). Dana's 1849 map of the Pacific represents an extraordinary achievement based on his numerous observations.
It was not until the acceptance of the Theory of Glaciation in the latter part of the nineteenth century that we had a full and vigorous explanation for coral island formation. The Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz came to the United States to a professorship at Harvard in 1837. He began to espouse the concepts of the newly developing Theory of Glaciation and the "Great Ice Age" - a theory that can be traced back to the observations and speculations of various Swiss geologist in the Alps since the early 1800s. It was not until the 1870s that the Theory of Glaciation became fully accepted by the scientific community. Between 1910 and 1948, the American geologist Reginald Daly developed the Glacial Control Theory to explain the many elevated or submerged notches and erosion terrace found on the coastlines of many coral islands, as well as recently exposed Pleistocene reefs. The theory can be summarized as follows:
The modern explanation of coral reef development should correctly be called the Darwin/Dana/Daly Theory (The 3D Theory!) of Coral Reef Formation since only the works of these three men taken together can fully explain the characteristics observed on atolls today.
Experimental verification of Darwin's and Dana's part of the theory dealing with subsidence came over a century later in the early 1950's during studies made in the Marshall Islands prior to atomic and hydrogen bomb testing. As part of an environmental assessment of the region, the United States Navy drilled a series of deep holes at Bikini and Eniwetok Atolls between 1947 and 1952. The earlier experiments at Bikini reached 767 meters below the surface of the atoll and yielded only coralline rock. In 1951-52 deeper holes were drilled at Eniwetok and at 1266-1389 meters the volcanic rock basalt was encountered. The drilling passed entirely through the 1200 meter limestone cap composed of shallow-water coral reef rock. Fossil corals from the base of the cap were dated from the Eocene Epoch (approximately 37-54 million years old). It was during the early Atomic Age (1947), while Bikini Atoll was in the news, that the marketing name was coined for the newly miniaturized two-piece swimsuit.
This study not only provided direct evidence for the subsidence of volcanoes during atoll formation, but also showed that coral reef growth, which allowed for the formation of Enewetak Atoll, has been occurring for perhaps as long as the past 50 million years. The rate of subsidence has not been constant, but has averaged only a fraction of a millimeter per year.
Coral Reef Landscapes
Volcanic subsidence has occurred mainly in the central Pacific regions of Micronesia and Polynesia - areas confined to the Pacific Tectonic Plate. This is the region where most of the world's coral atolls are found on isolated hot-spot volcanoes. The western Pacific, on the other hand, is part of the Pacific Rim or "Ring of Fire", and is consistently very active geologically. The region is reticulated with crustal plate margins, where earthquakes, uplift, and volcanic activity are commonplace occurrences. An example of this is from the early 1990s when a strong earthquake in the Madang Barrier Reef region of northern Papua New Guinea resulted in the sudden uplift of shallow water reef by 10-12 cm, thus exposing blue corals to the desiccating effects of the air.
It is probable that both geologic uplift as well as sea level fluctuations are responsible for the elevated notches and terraces in the coastlines of certain areas such as New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The combined effect of changing sea levels and geologic uplift is also responsible for the remarkable limestone landscapes known as karst. Karst theory states that sea level changes and uplift combined with terrestrial erosion and air exposure of biogneic reef regions have given rise to hummocky landscapes often impregnated with sinkholes and caves. Examples of such striking karst topography include the Blie Holes of Andros in the Bahamas, the limestone towers of Kwangsi Province in China, the Naru Hills of Papua New Guinea, and the Chocolate Hills of Bohol in the southern Philippines.
BIOGEOGRAPHY
The study of biogeography is concerned with the distribution of plants and animals as well as two concepts known as vicariance and dispersal. Vicariance biogeography is based on the assumption that fragmentation of the environment and the creation of barriers promote biotic evolution by the division of populations into isolated subpopulations (a vicariant event). In contrast, dispersal biogeography states that members of a population may occasionally disperse across barriers to establish new populations and subsequently evolve in relative isolation (a dispersal event).
The two great coral faunal regions of the world are the Indo-Pacific and the American. The latter is subdivided into three distinct and geographically isolated coral faunas - Panamic, Caribbean, and Brazilian. It is believed that two significant vicariant events took place during the Tertiary Period, which resulted in the fragmentation of the American coral fauna. These events were: (1) the closing of the Isthmus of Panama, which differentiated the eastern Pacific from the tropical western Atlantic; and (2) the development of the enormous outflow of the vast Amazon riverine system into the Atlantic Ocean, which acted to isolate the Caribbean and Brazilian faunas. A more ancient event, the gradual development of the vast Eastern Pacific Basin, acted to isolate the Indo-Pacific and American shallow-water faunas.
BIODIVERSITY
It is estimated that about 3/4 of all species of living organisms are animals. Regarding animal species, only about 7% are vertebrates. On land about 75% of all animal species are arthropods (insects and arachnids), but in the marine realm mollusks are the largest animal group, and the arthropods are represented mostly by crustaceans. A pie chart shows relative estimated species diversity for the major groups of marine animals.
Although the vast Indo-Pacific is the most diverse biogeographical region in the marine realm, it is actually comprised of a complex mosaic of faunal subregions, each with differing species compositions and endemics, The Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean as well as the western Pacific are three such areas with very high diversity. The region with by far the highest diversity is defined by a geographic triangle (the high diversity triangle) formed by the Philippines in the north, Indonesia to the southwest, and New Guinea to the southeast.
A composite theory to explain tropical high diversity includes these elements: greater energy input near the equator together with great spatial heterogeneity and favorable physical factors, punctuated with periodic disturbances. | http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/izg/CORAL_REEFS4.html |
To Charles Maclaren [15 November – December 1842]
Down near Bromley, Kent.
Dear Sir,—
I have been so much pleased with the very clear, and, at the same time, in many points quite original manner in which you have stated and explained my views, that I cannot refrain from troubling you with my thanks.1 Your third objection2 appears to me much the most, indeed the only, formidable one, which has hitherto occurred to me. I fear I shall be tempted to reply to it at great length, but perhaps sometime you will find leisure to read my attempted vindication. With respect to the first objection,3 I can hardly admit that we know enough of the laws of elevation and subsidence to argue against the theory, because the areas of different movements are not more distinct. Some have been startled at my view on directly the reverse grounds to your objection, viz. that, according to their notions of probability, the areas of the same movements were too large and uniform. With respect to your second objection,4 all those who believe that exceedingly slow and gradual elevations are the order of nature, must admit a great amount of contemporaneous denudation, which would tend to annihilate the characteristic form of the fringing-reefs during their upheaval, and leave merely a coating on the upraised land of coral-rock either thicker or thinner, according to the original thickness, rate of growth of the reef at each successive level, and the rate of elevation; indeed I am surprised that there exists even one case, viz. at Mauritius, where the peculiar moat-like structure of a mere fringing-reef has been partially preserved on dry land.
Your third criticism strikes me as a very weighty and perplexing one. It had passed through my head, but I had not considered it with nearly the attention it deserved, otherwise I assuredly would have noticed it in my volume. I had always intended to examine the limestone formations of England for comparison, but was prevented by bad health; I was, however, led away from the subject, and baffled when I consulted published accounts, for the limestones all appeared to be uniformly spread out, and most, if not all of them, to be associated with layers of earthy matter, whereas a formation of the nature of a group of atolls, would consist of separate large patches of calcareous rock, which would be quite pure.— I was thus led from the subject, and did not reflect on their want of thickness. The want of thickness, however, in any limestone formation, until it be first shewn to be analogous in structure, form, and composition, to a barrier-reef, an atoll or group of atolls, evidently cannot be brought forward as any argument against the theory of the long-continued subsidence of reefs of these classes. During the elevation of all reefs in open seas, I think there can be no doubt (as is dwelt on at p. 117, 3d. vol.)5 that a considerable thickness of the exterior would be denuded, and the only parts preserved would be those which had accumulated in lagoons or lagoon-channels; these would be chiefly sedimentary, and in some cases might contain (p. 117) scarcely any coral; within barrier-reefs such beds would often be associated with much earthy sediment. Mr Lyell, in a note just received, in which he alludes to your criticisms, speaks of the limestones of the Alps and Pyrenees, as being of enormous thickness, namely, about 4000 feet. I do not know what their composition is, but I have no doubt that the strata now accumulating within the barrier-reef of Australia and New Caledonia, are chiefly formed of horizontal layers of calcareous sediment and not of coral.
I suspect that denudation has acted on a far grander scale than in merely peeling the outsides of upraised reefs. My theory leads me to infer that the areas, where groups of atolls and barrier-reefs stand, have subsided to a great amount and over a wide space. Now it appears to me probable, that a subterranean change, producing a directly opposite movement, namely, a great and widely extended elevation, would be extremely slow, and would be interrupted by long periods of rest, and perhaps of oscillation of level. When I think of the denudation along the fault, which goes across the northern carboniferous counties of England, where 1000 feet of strata have been smoothed away; when I think how commonly volcanic islands, formed of very hard rock, are eaten back in cliffs from 100 or 200 to 800 or 1000 feet in height, I hardly see where we can stop, with respect to the probable limits of erosion on the comparatively soft, generally cavernous, tabular, though wide, masses of coral rock, standing exposed in great oceans during very slow changes of level. Most are mere wrecks, and at the Friendly Archipelago where there are upraised atolls, there are large irregular reefs, also, which I have always thought were probably the basal vestiges of worn down atolls. Many submerged reefs, which may have had this same origin, occur outside the line of elevation of the Salomon and New Hebrides archipelagoes. The great steepness of the shores of upraised reefs (p. 65. Ehrenberg quoted, and p. 51.) would probably be unfavourable to the growth of new reefs, and therefore to the protection afforded by them. I can conceive it very possible, that should, at some period, as far in futurity as the secondary rocks are in the past, the bed of the Pacific, with its atolls and barrier reefs, be raised in reefs, by an elevation of some thousand feet, and be converted into a continent, that scarcely any, or none of the existing reefs would be preserved; but only widely spread beds of calcareous matter derived from their wear and tear. As a corollary from this, I suspect that the reefs of the secondary periods (if any, as is probable, existed), have been ground into sand, and no longer exist. This notion will certainly at first appear preposterous; its only justification lies in the probability of upward movements after long periods of subsidence, being exceedingly slow and often interrupted by pauses of rest, and perhaps of oscillations of land, during all which the soft coral rock would be exposed to the action of waves never at rest.
This notion, preposterous as it will probably appear, would not have occurred to me, had I not several times, from independent reasons, been driven to the conclusion, that a formation to be preserved to a very distant æra (or which probably is the same thing, to be elevated to a great height from its original level over a wide area) must be of great extent, and must be covered by a great thickness of superincumbent matter in order to escape the chances of denudation. I have come to this conclusion chiefly from considering the character of the deposits of the long series of formations piled one upon another, in Europe, with evidence of land near many of them. I can explain my meaning more clearly by looking to the future; it scarcely seems probable, judging from what I see of the ancient parts of the crust of the earth, that any of the numerous sub-littoral formations (i.e. deposits formed along and near shores, and not of great width or breadth), now accumulating on most parts of the shores of Europe (and indeed of the whole world), although, no doubt, many of them must be of considerable thickness, will be preserved to a period as far in the future, as the lias or chalk are in the past, but that only those deposits of the present day will be preserved which are accumulating over a wide area, and which shall hereafter chance to be protected by successive thick deposits. I should think that most of the sublittoral deposits of the present day will suffer, what I conclude the sublittoral formations of the secondary æras have generally suffered, namely, denudation. Now, barrier and atoll coral reefs, though, according to my theory, of great thickness, are, in the above sense, not widely extended; and hence I conclude they will suffer, as I suspect ancient coral reefs have suffered—the same fate with sublittoral deposits.
With respect to the vertical amount of subsidence, requisite by my theory to have produced the spaces coloured blue on the map, more facts regarding the average heights of islands and tracts of land are wanted than all those, even if perfectly known, which this one world of ours would afford; for the question of the probable amount, or, which is the same thing, the probable thickness of the coral-reef, resolves itself into this,—What is the ordinary height of tracts of land, or groups of islands of the size of the existing groups of atolls (excepting as many of the highest islands or mountains in such groups, as there usually occur of “encircled islands” in groups of atolls)? and likewise what is the ordinary height of the single scattered islands between such groups of islands?—subsidence sufficient to bury all these islands (with the above exception) my theory absolutely requires, but no more. In my volume, I rather vaguely concluded that the atolls, which are studded in so marvellous a manner over wide spaces of ocean, marked the spots where the mountains of a great continent lay buried, instead of merely separate tracts of land or mountainous islands; and I was thus led to speak somewhat more strongly than warranted, of the probable vertical amount of subsidence in the areas in question.
Mr Lyell in the note alluded to, thinks we are much too ignorant of intra-tropical geology (and ignorant enough we certainly are) to affirm that calcareous rocks of the supposed thickness of coral reefs, do not occur. I am inclined to lay considerable stress on this. I do not expect the foregoing view will appear at all satisfactory to any one besides myself,—I believe, however, there is more in it than mere special pleading. The case, undoubtedly, is very perplexing; but I have the confidence to think, that the theory explains so well many facts, that I shall hold fast by it, in the face of two or three puzzles, even as good ones as your third objection.
Believe me, my Dear Sir, yours very truly, | Charles Darwin.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Coral reefs: The structure and distribution of coral reefs. Being the first part of the geology of the voyage of the Beagle, under the command of Capt. FitzRoy RN, during the years 1832 to 1836. By Charles Darwin. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1842.
Summary
Responds to CM’s review of Coral reefs [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 34 (1843): 33–47].
Letter details
- Letter no. | https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-662.xml |
The Coral Sea Islands were first charted in 1803. In the 1870s and 1880s the islands were mined for guano but the absence of a reliable supply of fresh water prevented long-term habitation. The Coral Sea Islands became an Australian external territory in 1969 by the Coral Sea Islands Act (prior to that, the area was considered a part of Queensland) and extended in 1997 to include Elizabeth Reef and Middleton Reef nearly 800 km further south.
The two latter reefs are much closer to Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, (about 150 km (93 mi)) than to the southernmost island of the rest of the territory, Cato Island. The islands, cays and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not part of the territory, belonging to Queensland instead. The outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef is the boundary between Queensland and the Coral Sea Islands Territory.
The territory is a possession or external territory of Australia, administered from Canberra by the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities. Previously it was administered by the Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Transport and Regional Services. Defence is the responsibility of Australia, and the territory is visited regularly by the Royal Australian Navy.
Australia maintains automatic weather stations on many of the isles and reefs, and claims a 200-nautical-mile (370 km) exclusive fishing zone. There is no economic activity (except for a significant but as yet unquantified charter fishing and diving industry), and only a staff of three or four people to run the meteorological station on Willis Island (South Islet), established in 1921. In November 2011, the Australian government announced that a 989,842-square-kilometre (382,180 sq mi) protected area was planned in the Coral Sea.
The Supreme Court of Norfolk Island has jurisdiction over the islands, however, the laws of the Australian Capital Territory apply. The territory's FIPS 10-4 code is CR, whereas ISO 3166 includes it in Australia (AU).
In June 2004, a symbolic political protest run by gay rights activists based in Australia, declared the coral sea islands to be a sovereign micronation. On 17 November 2017 the same group declared the kingdom to be 'dissolved', following the results of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey.
There are about 30 separate reefs and atolls, twelve being wholly submerged or drying only during low tide, and 18 others with a total of about 51 islets and cays (18 alone on the atoll Lihou Reef), some of which are vegetated. The atolls exhibit a wide range of size, from a few kilometres in diameter to perhaps the second largest atoll in the world by total area (including lagoon): Lihou Reef, with a lagoon size of 100 by 30 kilometres (62 by 19 miles) and an area of 2,500 square kilometres (970 square miles), which compares to a combined land area of the 18 individual islets of only 0.91 square kilometres (0.35 square miles). The islands are all very low.
The Willis Islets are important nesting areas for birds and turtles but contain negligible natural resources. They comprise less than three square kilometres (1.2 square miles) of land. There is no port or harbour, only offshore anchorage.
Most of the atolls fall into two groups, while Mellish Reef to the east, and Middleton Reef and Elizabeth Reef to the south are grouped separately:
The atolls of the Northwestern Group, except Osprey Reef and Shark Reef in the north, and Marion Reef in the south, are located on the Coral Sea Plateau (Queensland Plateau), a contiguous area of depths less than 1000 m.
The Nature Reserves were created to protect wildlife in the respective areas of the territory; together they form the Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site.
Elizabeth and Middleton reefs, together with reefs around Lord Howe Island (New South Wales) 150 km to the south, are regarded as the southernmost coral reefs in the world. Their location, where tropical and temperate ocean currents meet, contributes to an unusually diverse assemblage of marine species. These mostly submerged atolls which dry only during low tide were added to the territory only in 1989. They are located on the Lord Howe Rise. Already on 23 December 1987, they were protected as the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve, which has an area of 1,880 km2.
|Complex||Type||Islets/cays|
|West Holmes Reef||Atoll||2|
|Diane Bank||Atoll (mostly sunken)||Diane Bank Cay|
|Willis Group||Atoll (partially sunken)||South Islet (Willis Island), Mid Islet, North Cay|
|Magdelaine Cays and Coringa Islets||Atoll (partially sunken)||Northwest Islet, Southeast Cay, Southwest, Chilcott Islets|
|Herald Cays (North)||Reef||Northwest Cay|
|Herald Cays (South)||Reef||Southeast Cay|
|Lihou Reef and Cays||Atoll||18|
|Diamond Islands and Tregosse Reefs||Atoll (partially sunken)||West Diamond, Central Diamond, East Diamond, Southwest Diamond Islets|
|Flinders Reefs (North)||Atoll||Flinders, Main, Victoria Cays|
|Marion Reef||Atoll||Paget, Carola, Brodie Cays|
|Mellish Reef||Atoll||Heralds-Beacon Islet|
|Frederick Reefs||Atoll||Observatory Cay|
|Kenn Reef||Atoll||Observatory Cay|
|Saumarez Reef||Atoll||Northeast, Southwest Cays|
|Wreck Reef||Atoll||Bird, West Islets, Porpoise Cay|
|Cato Reef||Atoll||Cato Island|
|Middleton Reef||Atoll||The Sound|
|Elizabeth Reef||Atoll||Elizabeth Island|
|Total number of islands/cays||51|
Automatic, unmanned weather stations are located on the following reefs or atolls:
Lighthouses are located on following reefs or islands:
Willis Island, the only inhabited island, has a number of structures.
The Federal Government, through the Attorney-General's Department administers Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the Coral Sea Islands, Jervis Bay, and Norfolk Island as Territories.
As part of the Machinery of Government Changes following the Federal Election on 29 November 2007, administrative responsibility for Territories has been transferred to the Attorney General's Department. | https://demo.azizisearch.com/starter/google/wikipedia/page/Coral_Sea_Islands |
Subsets and Splits