bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Marker-Set Approaches for Assessing Gene × Environment Interactions at Gene Level
Authors: Tzeng Jung-Ying , Maity Arnab
Published: May 2017

This chapter reviews the statistical methods for studying GxE effect at gene-level. Depending on how the main and interaction effects are modelled, we generally classify the current methods into either fixed or random effects approaches. The fixed effects approaches model the main and interaction effects parametrically. They are easy to interpret and computationally efficient, but are sensitive to model misspecification of the multi-variant genetic and environment effects. In contrast, the random-effects approaches model the main and interaction effects in a semi-parametric fashion, and the effects are quantified using variance components. These models are more robust to model misspecification compared to fixed effects models, though with a price of increasing computational burden caused by the use of variance components to capture the effects.
Set-Based Gene × Environment Interaction Tests for Complex Diseases with Application to Genome-Wide Association and Sequencing Studies
Authors: Jiao Shuo
Published: May 2017

This chapter presents set-based approaches that focus on identifying G X E interactions rather than set-based approaches that are based primarily on detecting G main effects (e.g., via marginal effects). The author reviews both his own research and the development of his Set Based Gene EnviRonment InterAction test (SBERIA), as well as another set-based G X E approach referred to as GESAT. GESAT extends the variance component test of the SNP-set Kernel Association Test (SKAT) to evaluate G x E effects while incorporating the main SNP effects as covariates. While both of these approaches (SBERIA and GESAT) have outperformed other benchmark methods (e.g., likelihood ratio test) and have been demonstrated to retain the appropriate Type 1 error rate, in this chapter the author conducts simulation studies to compare findings for SBERIA and GESAT approaches, and identifies associated strengths and limitations of the respective methods.
A Gene-Based Approach for Testing Gene × Gene and Gene × Environment Interactions
Authors: Wang Tao
Published: May 2017

The importance of the gene × gene (G × G) and gene × environment (G × E) interaction has been widely recognized. It is statistically challenging to account for interactions in the analysis of genome-wide association data. In this chapter, we introduce a gene-based method for modeling G × G and G × E interactions under the regression framework. We evaluate the type 1 error rate and power of this new method by simulations. We apply this method to the endometrial cancer case-control dataset.
Statistical Strategies for Modeling Gene × Environment Interactions in Longitudinal Cohort Studies
Authors: Mukherjee Bhramar , Chen Yin-Hsiu , Ko Yi-An , He Zihuai , Lee Seunggeun , Zhang Min , Park Sung Kyun
Published: May 2017

In this chapter, Mukherjee and colleagues highlight the importance of longitudinal research designs and statistical models to investigate G x E relationships. The chapter provides a history of a range of alternative statistical models that have been used to study G X E interactions with longitudinal data, as well as a critique of their relative strengths and weaknesses. Of importance, the models reviewed incorporate information on both time invariant and time varying exposures to characterize more dynamic patterns of change across time. The authors use longitudinal data from the Normative Aging Study to illustrate some of the longitudinal models by focusing on pulse pressure, which is a risk factor for arterial stiffness. A reduced set of SNPs that have been identified in this substantive area of research were identified and the outcome measure was level of lead in the tibia bone. The authors describe their approach as a pathway orientation toward identifying how environmental exposures across time may influence changes in bone lead levels. This illustration provides clarity on issues raised in modeling G X E longitudinal data that generalize to other areas of health and to other phenotypes. It also raises critical questions about where we have been and where we need to go in the modeling of G X E interactions with longitudinal data.
A Statistical Framework for Mediation in Environmental Epigenetics
Authors: Thomas Duncan C.
Published: May 2017

The biological effects of genes depend upon how they are expressed in target tissues at various points in time, which is determined by their epigenetic state and in turn may be influenced by the environment.Some experimental data suggests that such influences can be transmitted across generations.In this chapter, I propose a general statistical framework for modelling how environmental and germline genetic influences on disease is mediated by epigenetics, both within the individual and across generations.The approach is illustrated on simulated data and on a study of the effect of air pollution and the ARG/NOS family of genes on childhood respiratory disease.
Linguistic Diversity, Standardization, and Disenfranchisement: Measurement and Consequences
Authors: Ginsburgh Victor , Weber Shlomo
Published: May 2017

In this chapter we examine the notion of linguistic and other types of societal diversity that have become an important factor in evaluating economic, political and societal progress. While most of the existing research on the measurement of diversity has been focused either on the number and size of different groups, this approach fails to take into account the degree of their distinctiveness. Thus, it is important to incorporate the notion of distances or dissimilarity between groups which should help resolving the difficult group identification problem. We discuss various ways of measuring similarity between groups, the wide range of fractionalization and polarization indices and their impact (positive or negative) on various economic and political outcomes.
To mitigate the negative impact of linguistic fractionalization, societies has often chosen to standardize by reducing the number of official languages. The numerous examples of such standardization policies (in the Russian Empire, India, Sri Lanka, among many others, including the European Union) lead to the feeling of disenfranchisement experienced by some population groups, and often end up failing. The search for a compromise between efficiency and the sentiment of being disenfranchised represents a serious challenge for any multi-lingual country or union; we examine this problem in the context of the European Union for which good data are available.
Economic Value of Reciprocal Bilingualism
Authors: Caminal Ramon
Published: May 2017

Some bilingual societies exhibit a distribution of language skills that cannot be explained by economic theories that portray languages as pure communication devices. Such distribution of skills are typically the result of public policies that promote bilingualism among members of both speech communities (reciprocal bilingualism). In this paper I argue that these policies are likely to increase social welfare by diminishing economic and social segmentation between the two communities. However, these gains tend to be unequally distributed over the two communities. As a result, in a large range of circumstances these policies might not draw sufficient support. The model is built upon the communicative value of languages, but also emphasizes the role of linguistic preferences in the behavior of bilingual individuals.
Languages and National Identity in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Multilevel Approach
Authors: Buzási Katalin
Published: May 2017

This chapter contributes to the recent strand of the empirical political and economic literature that attempts to reveal the determinants of national identification in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although previous survey-based studies provide evidence that the socio-economic characteristics of individuals, the properties of ethnic groups they belong to, and certain country-level variables influence the probability of having positive attitudes toward the ethnic group or the nation, the role of languages has not been studied in this context yet. Inspired by findings of psycholinguistics and related disciplines, we utilize the fourth round of the Afrobarometer Project (surveyed in 2008 and 2009) to conduct analysis on the possible positive relationship between language knowledge and identification in national versus ethnic terms. We introduce two language-related explanatory variables. First, the Index of Communication Potential (ICP) reflects the probability that an individual can communicate with another randomly selected person within the society relying on commonly spoken languages. Second, we take into account the number of spoken languages in one’s repertoire. The multilevel models show that although speaking more than two languages increases the chance of identifying in national compared to ethnic terms, the ICP is not significant in this sense on the whole sample. But, when we consider the nationality of the former colonizers, the ICP exhibits positive relationship with national identification on the sub-sample of the former French colonies.
Cultural Integration and Export Variety Overlap across Countries
Authors: Egger Peter H. , Lassmann Andrea
Published: May 2017

This chapter assesses the role of a larger degree of common language use between the populations of two countries on the so-called extensive product margin of trade. We focus on the overlap of products exported or imported between any pair of countries. The results suggest that the effect of varying aspects of sharing a common language on the variety overlap is both positive and important. The effect of sharing a common spoken language exceeds the one of common native language, implying that a larger overlap in language proficiency is quantitatively more important than a higher cultural proximity.
Language and Sustainable Development: Integrating the Economics of Language Policy with Poverty Reduction and Biodiversity Conservation
Authors: Romaine Suzanne
Published: May 2017

It has become increasingly accepted that economic growth must be socially and environmentally sustainable. It must be linguistically and culturally sustainable as well because the conservation of biodiversity, cultural-linguistic diversity, sustainable development and the welfare of the poor are inextricably linked. The high global overlap between species and languages where the majority of the rural poor live can serve as a catalyst for bringing together researchers concerned with biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction with those focusing on the economics of language policy dedicated to maintaining linguistic and cultural diversity. While many are aware of the biodiversity extinction crisis and support campaigns for protecting endangered species, linguists and language activists have found it far more difficult to win public support for preserving linguistic diversity and revitalizing endangered languages. This chapter makes a case for support not on the basis of political arguments or appeal to human or minority rights, but rather on the basis of economic welfare theory, by taking account of some specific features of diverse linguistic environments as a valuable commodity. Evidence is presented to show why the health of a language depends on the health of its speakers, which in turn depends on the health of the natural environment.
In a Nutshell
Authors: Harbour Daniel
Published: May 2017

This chapter presents the core empirical problem in terms of English pronouns and lays out the three central theses of the book. The empirical thesis is that the person problem is to be formulated in terms of partitions, not syncretisms, and must attend to person and spatial deixis, not to person (as traditionally defined) alone. The theoretical thesis is that there are just two person features, that they and their syntactic host denote power sets of subsets of the ontology, and that their values denote operations between lattices (sets). The metatheoretical thesis generalizes the understanding of features beyond person.
Morphological Composition
Authors: Harbour Daniel
Published: May 2017

Arguments from morphological compositionality in support of feature analyses are common in treatments of number. This chapter argues that they have an important contribution to make to person and adduces a partial typology that strongly supports the analysis of the previous chapter. Particularly noteworthy patterns are inclusives that subsume exclusives, exclusives that subsume inclusives, first persons that subsume second, second persons that subsume first, and second persons that arise from crosscutting first and third.
Spaces, Objects, Paths
Authors: Harbour Daniel
Published: May 2017

Generative work in morphology does not normally pursue a connection between person and spatial deixis, unlike more functionalist and cognitive linguistic work. This chapter presents three kinds of evidence for this move, however: morphological parity between partitions, semantic parity between partitions, and the crosscutting of person- and non-person-based spatial distinctions. A sketch of the syntax and semantics of the personal basis of spatial deixis is also presented.
Oldfangled and
Authors: Harbour Daniel
Published: May 2017

Traditional accounts of person assume that features denote first order predicates, that their values denote one-place truth functors, and that feature bundles are held together semantically by conjunction. Crucially, conjunction is a commutative operation, unlike those belonging to the current theory. The current chapter explores the consequences of semantics commutativity for theories of person features. Reviewing a range of influential accounts, it shows that these are accounts undergenerate if given only two features, but overgenerate if given more, and that means of trimming the generative excess are unsatisfactory. The chapter also compares three analyses of Bininj-Gunwok, which has a tripartite person for objects but quadripartite for person, arguing that the smallest feature inventory yields the most compact account.
The Form of the Phi Kernel
Authors: Harbour Daniel
Published: May 2017

This chapter considers the broader lessons that might be drawn from the current study of person. It draws out the core commonalities between the person and number features that have been proposed: that features are “operations” richer than first-order predicates held together by conjunction; that they are not subject to extrinsic constraints on order of composition or co-occurrence; and that there are semantic and morphological grounds for representing features of both kinds bivalently. The consequences of this study might ramify beyond linguistics by altering our understanding of and means of investigating the language of thought and the nature and evolution of mind. The author asserts, contrary to widespread opinion, minds do leave fossils, but these are to be sought, not by paleoanthropologists sifting through the archeological record, but by cognitive scientists, including linguists, via our theories of the structure of the mind itself.
Conclusion
Authors: Harbour Daniel
Published: May 2017

This investigation began with the very modest question of why, in languages like English, the meaning ‘we and you’ is covered by we, not you. By broadening this question to all partitions of person and related deictic spaces, we realize that there is a substantial disparity between possible and attested systems of person and person-related deixis. Such shortfall between the possible and the actual is a classic variety of linguistic problem, and, in responding to it, I have attempted to present a very minimal theory of person. The resulting system furnishes a range of desirable consequences, concerning the morphological composition of different persons, the semantic and morphological interaction of person with number, and the capacity to capture the relationship between personal and spatial deixis. What emerges is a coherent, unified view of the kernel of phi, the features that make up person and number. These results may ramify beyond phi theory into the linguistic theory of other feature families and beyond, into broader issues in cognitive science and the evolution of mind. The study of phi features brings us to a deeper understanding, not just of what we is as a pronoun, but of who we are as thinking creatures.
Reclaiming the Atmospheric Commons
Authors: Raymond Leigh
Published: May 2017

Reclaiming the Atmospheric Commons explains recent changes in emissions trading policy to address climate change with a new theory of sudden policy change. The new theory of “normative reframing” argues that policy change advocates can draw on the unique power of social norms to undermine support for existing policies and successfully promote new alternatives, even in the face of resistance from vested economic interests. The book uses this theory of “normative reframing” to explain the surprising and unexpected political decision to make large power companies pay for the rights to emit greenhouse gases for the first time under a so-called “cap and trade” policy, as implemented in the 2008 Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The book provides evidence that a new “public benefit” frame was critical to making allowance auctions possible in RGGI, by going beyond typical polluter pays norms in environmental policy to also include norms regarding the fair distribution of public resources such as the atmosphere. The book also argues that the public benefit frame offers promising option for promoting new climate change policies in other contexts, including the EU ETS, California’s cap and trade policy, and the EPA’s new Clean Power Plan. The book also describes the wider implications of normative reframing as a strategy for creating policy change in many contexts beyond climate policy, including improving the ability of policy theories to predict which policies are likely to change suddenly in the future.
Theorizing Norm-Driven Policy Change
Authors: Raymond Leigh
Published: May 2017

Policy scholars acknowledge that norms affect policy choice, but have not fully articulated a theory of how norms can serve as a catalyst for sudden policy change. After reviewing existing efforts to theorize non-incremental policy change, the chapter offers an initial account of a theory of norm-driven policy change that could better predict policy change as well as stability in the future. The crux of the theory is based on the new idea of normative reframing, or using a new issue frame to portray an issue in terms of an alternative norm that supports a new policy alternative. This idea of new normative frames draws on and expands ideas from Baumgartner and Jones’ Punctuated Equilibrium Theory in trying to improve our ability to explain and predict sudden policy change. The chapter concludes with a conceptual overview of how the process of normative reframing helps explain the sudden change toward auctions in emissions trading policies related to climate change, and allows for better predictions of other specific policy changes in general.
Definitions of Rationality in Philosophy, Cognitive Science, and Lay Discourse
Authors: Stanovich Keith E. , West Richard F. , Toplak Maggie E.
Published: May 2017

Because rationality is an issue across many disciplines, it has acquired many different definitions. This chapter describes definitions of rationality from cognitive science that are amenable to a program of measuring individual differences. Definitions of both epistemic and instrumental rationality are described in terms in terms of axiomatic utility theory and probability theory. It is argued that the wide range of tasks investigated in the heuristics and biases literature captures most aspects of epistemic and instrumental rationality.
Rationality, Intelligence, and the Functional Architecture of the Mind
Authors: Stanovich Keith E. , West Richard F. , Toplak Maggie E.
Published: May 2017

Because the operationalization of rational thinking comes from the heuristics and biases tradition, this chapter explicates the logic of heuristics and biases tasks in terms of contemporary theories of the functional architecture of the human mind. A tripartite model of the mind is described that is based on current dual-process theories. With this model as a framework, it is easy to see that the concept of rationality and the concept of intelligence are two different things. Rationality is actually a more encompassing mental construct than is intelligence. Thus, as measures of rationality, the tasks in the heuristics and biases literature, while tapping intelligence in part, actually encompass more cognitive processes and knowledge than are assessed by IQ tests.
Avoidance of Miserly Information Processing: Direct Tests
Authors: Stanovich Keith E. , West Richard F. , Toplak Maggie E.
Published: May 2017

In this chapter, four subtests of the CART are described. All four are direct measures of the avoidance of miserly processing. The subtests are: the Reflection versus Intuition subtest; the Belief Bias in Syllogistic Reasoning subtest; the Ratio Bias subtest; and the Disjunctive Reasoning subtest. All of these subtests have heavy processing requirements despite varying substantially in their knowledge dependence. The history of each subtest is described, as well as a large study of each subtest in which correlations with cognitive ability and thinking dispositions are examined. Correlations among these subtests themselves are reported from several different studies.
Contaminated Mindware
Authors: Stanovich Keith E. , West Richard F. , Toplak Maggie E.
Published: May 2017

Knowledge becomes implicated in rationality in two different ways. When the knowledge bases discussed in Chapter 9 are missing, the problem is called a mindware gap. A different type of mindware problem arises because some acquired mindware can be the direct cause of irrational actions that thwart our goals. This type of problem has been termed the problem of contaminated mindware. Four subtests of the CART assess contaminated mindware: the Superstitious Thinking subtest; Antiscience Attitudes subtest; Conspiracy Beliefs subtest; and Dysfunctional Personal Beliefs subtest. The history of each subtest is described, as well as a large study of each subtest in which correlations with cognitive ability and thinking dispositions are examined. Correlations among these subtests themselves are reported.
Associations among the Subtests: The Full-Form CART
Authors: Stanovich Keith E. , West Richard F. , Toplak Maggie E.
Published: May 2017

This chapter describes a large-scale study of the full-form version of the CART involving 747 subjects. Reliabilities of all the subtests are reported, as well as correlations with measures of cognitive ability and the four thinking disposition scales of the CART. Correlations among all the subtests are reported as well as a principal components analysis of the subtests. Comparisons between the full-form CART and the short-form CART are presented as well as comparisons with even briefer forms of the test than the short form.
The Social and Practical Implications of a Rational Thinking Test
Authors: Stanovich Keith E. , West Richard F. , Toplak Maggie E.
Published: May 2017

This chapter discusses the social implications of an assessment device for rational thinking. The chapter presents a table showing, for each of the paradigms and subtests of the CART, an association with a real-life outcome. The differences between rationality assessment and intelligence assessment are discussed. In the domain of rational thinking, we are interested in individual differences in the sensitivity to probabilistic reasoning principles and in the tendency to apply scientific principles when seeking causal explanations. People can have knowledge of these principles without the propensity to use them. The CART assess not only whether people have knowledge of the principles but also their propensity to see situations in terms of the probabilities. It is discussed how the CART is a measure of thinking in a hostile world rather than a benign world. It is true that heuristics and biases problems seem more hostile than typical IQ test problems in that the latter do not contain enticing lures toward an incorrect response. This is a strength, not a weakness, of heuristics and biases tasks. The modern world creates many environments for thinking that are hostile rather than benign.
Auditory Masking
Authors: Huron David
Published: May 2017

Auditory masking is described—the phenomenon by which sounds interfere with each other. A key concept is the notion of the critical band. Because masking reduces the effectiveness of the auditory system, it also tends to lead to auditory irritation or annoyance. Masking helps explain three musical practices. First, it explains why chords tend to be spaced with wider intervals in the bass region. Second, due to sensory dissonance, it provides one account of why some harmonic intervals are favored over others. Third, it explains the high-voice superiority effect—suggesting why musicians in nearly every culture tend to place the main melody in the highest voice.
Connecting the Dots
Authors: Huron David
Published: May 2017

This chapter considers how successive pitches can give rise to a sense of line. Three key concepts are described: acoustic continuity, pitch proximity, and pitch comodulation. Both pitch distance and tempo are shown to influence whether successive tones tend to be heard as a single stream. We always hear one stream when the amount of pitch change is small (within the trill boundary). We always hear two streams (beyond the yodel boundary) when a pitch/time trajectory violates Fitts’s law—a law of how things move. The sense of connectedness in a musical line is shown to share a close kinship with the perception of movement in vision, and how bodies actually move.
Hierarchical Streams
Authors: Huron David
Published: May 2017

Hierarchical streaming is discussed. Auditory scenes can exhibit different levels of organization. At the lowest level, individual partials may amalgamate to form auditory images corresponding to distinct sound sources. At a higher level, these auditory images can combine together to form intermediate musical layers, dubbed textural streams. At the highest level, all of the sound sources may combine to form a unitary percept of the whole experience, dubbed a musical stream. The distinction between auditory streams and textural streams means that there is more to part-writing than simply writing parts; there is also the counterpoint of textural streams. This chapter also introduces scene analysis trees as a graphical analytic tool for better understanding different kinds of musical textures.
Scene Setting
Authors: Huron David
Published: May 2017

Musical passages exhibit a wide range of textures. These can include monophony, tune-and-accompaniment, homophony, close harmony, polyphony, pseudo-polyphony, heterophony, and a wealth of specially tailored arrangements with various hierarchical structures. Introductory music theory textbooks generally focus on Baroque voice-leading rules to the virtual exclusion of other types of part-writing. Although most music-making bears little resemblance to Baroque-style four-part chorale writing, there are excellent reasons why this particular practice has formed the core theory curriculum for so long. The evidence suggests that late Baroque practice most closely reflects known principles of auditory scene analysis. The perceptual principles underlying voice leading provide an important entry point for understanding any musical texture—no matter what the style, culture, or genre of music-making. Like a theatrical stage, composers set a “musical scene.” Auditory scene analysis is the process by which listeners subjectively apprehend that scene.
The Cultural Connection
Authors: Huron David
Published: May 2017

The disposition to parse auditory scenes is probably an evolved innate behavior. However, the means by which this is achieved likely involves a mix of innate and learned mechanisms. This chapter reviews research showing how the sonic environment plays a formative role in various aspects of auditory processing. What we commonly hear shapes how we hear sounds. For example, research shows that how musicians hear pitch is affected by what instrument they play. Even the language you speak has an impact on how you hear. It is wrong to assume that everyone parses an acoustic scene in the same way. In general, the research suggests that cultural background and individual experience may be directly relevant to our understanding of auditory scene analysis, and hence to voice leading.
Conclusion
Authors: Huron David
Published: May 2017

The main ideas of the book are briefly summarized. This concluding chapter also presents a refined and expanded canon of part-writing advice for advanced music students. The chapter closes by offering concrete tips for performers and conductors that arise from the science of voice leading.
Afterword
Authors: Huron David
Published: May 2017

For those readers who teach voice leading and who would like to incorporate aspects of the pertinent research into their classes, this afterword offers some essential pedagogical advice.
Introduction
Authors: Lockwood Alan H.
Published: May 2017

Health, a state of complete physical, mental, social well-being and freedom from disease, depends on the ecosystems in which we live. For example, climate change results in increased temperatures that lead to heat illnesses, drought, crop failure, undernutrition, the spread of disease etc. To focus on the maintenance of ecosystems and health the UN published Sustainable Development Goals, while health professionals have enumerated causes of death and health risk factors susceptible to a changing climate. To mitigate climate change, and hence risk factors for disease, we must adapt to climate change. This requires political will, stakeholder involvement, education, research, and adequate funds.
The Scientific Evidence for Climate Change
Authors: Lockwood Alan H.
Published: May 2017

The instrumental record shows steadily rising global surface temperatures as the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases increased during the industrial age. Numerous complementary scientific techniques have shown clearly that these increases are due to human activity, notably burning fossil fuels. The instrumental record is complemented by proxy measurements that reliably document the earth’s temperature and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide for hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, millions of years. Present conditions are unprecedented in those time frames. Without drastic reductions in the emission of carbon dioxide the worst is yet to come.
Infectious Diseases
Authors: Lockwood Alan H.
Published: May 2017

A warmer climate will exert multiple and diverse effects on ecological systems. Climate change will affect disease vectors, especially mosquitoes, and disease-causing organisms, such as the protozoa that cause malaria, bacteria, and viruses. Malaria will spread to higher latitudes and altitudes. Without mitigation and adaptation to climate change half of the world’s population is likely to be at risk for contracting dengue before 2100. Lyme disease is already spreading. Hantavirus infections, which may have a 40% mortality, are likely to hospitalize as many as 200,000 individuals annually according the most recent IPCC report. Water-borne illnesses, particularly cholera, are likely to follow in the wake of tropical storms, as was the case in post-earthquake Haiti where a severe outbreak followed flooding due to Hurricane Tomas. Understanding disease ecology will become increasingly important.
Sea Level Rise and Environmental Refugees
Authors: Lockwood Alan H.
Published: May 2017

Sea levels are rising as a result of thermal expansion of oceanic water and the melting of the ice that covers Greenland and in glaciers all over the world. This added to the effect of storm surges that are likely to be higher as storm intensity increases poses threats to coastal cities around the world. Lessons learned from Superstorm Sandy and Typhoon Bhola, which killed around 500,000, are two of the most important disasters of the past century. Business-as-usual emissions will worsen these effects.
Violence, Conflict, and Societal Disruption
Authors: Lockwood Alan H.
Published: May 2017

Diverse studies of traffic, baseball, crime-temperature relationships, and others, support the hypothesis that heat breeds violence at a time when, in the US, violent crime is on the wane. Droughts and deluges lead to environmental insecurity by many mechanisms as reflected in an examination of social conflicts in Africa. Rising food prices also foster riots. Climate change is an important factor that has led to societal collapse. Other weather and climate changes, such as those associated with El Niño, are also linked to societal disruption. These relationships have contributed to the current violence in the Middle East.
Economic Considerations of Climate Change and Health
Authors: Lockwood Alan H.
Published: May 2017

Economics govern the relationship between what could be done and what is actually done. A fundamental rule of public health posits that it is medically and economically desirable to prevent rather than to treat an illness. Heat leads to more deaths than any weather-related cause. In the July 2006 California heat wave there were over 16,000 excess emergency room visits and 1,100 hospitalizations. In Washington, there were 3.1 heat-related workman’s compensation claims per 100,000 full time employees. In India the economic burden of dengue is over one billion dollars per year. Puerto Rican data suggest it is the most important and costliest vector-borne disease. Property loss and burdens associated with the production of climate change refugees add to the cost of rising sea level. It’s no surprise that careful studies in the US show that those with the highest social vulnerability will be the most seriously affected. Agriculture will suffer: the 2012 megadrought cost around $30 billion. Economists estimate that heat-related increases in crime will cost each US citizens between $20 and $30 per year by the end of the century.
Capturing the “Stem Mind”
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

Every child is open to acquire any language in the same average amount of time at the same average age and disregard the language her or his parents acquired. Moreover children all make similar errors in all languages and these are only a subset of all potential errors they could make if this were a trial and error process. This process must then be assisted by a genetic guide: linguistics can be regarded as a theory of the limits of experience on language structure.
Sentences as Snowflakes
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

The apparent complexity of the syntax of sentences can be decomposed into the interaction of some primitive and simple operations much as the complex design of snowflakes results from conditions on molecular interactions. In fact, the entire language can be regarded as a snowflake in that its structure is not progressively evolved via casual mutation but it is rather the result of general conditions on the primitive elements and the compositional rules. Symmetry and it’s opposite, asymmetry, play a crucial role, in this process.
The Boundaries of Babel
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

One of the major discoveries of modern linguistics is that languages do not vary arbitrarily: for example, all syntactic rules must be based on hierarchical structure generated by recursive procedure rather than linear order. Neuroimaging techniques have shown that these formal restrictions constituting the boundaries of Babel are in fact represented in the brain for people who learn non-recursive artificially designed rules do not involve those neural circuits that underpin language computation. The boundaries of Babels cannot be cultural and arbitrary.
Intermezzo or What Exists When a Tree Exists?
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

It is sometimes assumed that formal representation of language are abstractions and that they contrast with the concreteness of empirical neurobiological measures. It is argued that this is not so and that, moreover, the formal representations adopted in linguistics are also detectable by providing the right stimulus to the subjects at the neurobiological level; one example is given by the asymmetry of constituent structure.
Toward the Source of Order
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

Is language structure influenced by the organization of the physical world as observed by means of our senses? Or is it rather the opposite, namely the structure of language influences our perception and representation of the world. After some historical observation the notion of analogy and anomaly is explored by providing a clear empirical case constituted by those sentences which contain the verb “to be” as a main verb (copular sentences):
The Sound of Thought
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

From a physical point of view, language is made of waves: acoustic waves (outside us) and electric waves (inside us). How similar are these two types of waves? By exploiting awake surgery procedures a crucial experiment is described confronting these two types of waves when a patient reads a linguistic expression aloud or silently. The surprising result is that the two electric waves are very similar even in non acoustic areas opening the possibility to read the linguistic thought directly from the brain.
Better Than Possible: Artificial Languages
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

The human capacity to construe artificial languages has been manifested in several distinct domains including at least the following goals: to increase communication, to explore real languages, to avoid philosophical and logical ambiguities and to evoke imaginary worlds. This chapter analyses these goals and reveals that the notion of impossible language has been productive even outside linguistic research.
A Closer Look at the Turtle’s Eyes
Authors: Moro Andrea
Published: May 2017

What can we expect to be our understanding of human languages given what we have understood from exploiting the notion of impossible language? The chapter discusses the limits of our understanding, highlighting the elusiveness of linguistic creativity, and suggest a possible scenario where all syntactic rules can be translated in a geometrical representation (call it “Euclidean Grammars”).
The Micro-Comparative Syntax of Possession in Quechua
Authors: Myler Neil
Published: May 2017

The approach of this book makes two important predictions different from those of the Freeze/Kayne tradition: (a.) possession constructions can vary in the place in the structure where the possessor is introduced, (b.) the different ways of building possession sentences permitted by (a.) could have somewhat different meanings, depending on the semantic contributions of the pieces that make them up. This chapter provides existence proofs that these predictions are correct, drawn from new fieldwork data on two understudied Quechua dialects. Prediction (a.) is supported by an analysis of two possession constructions in Cochabamba Quechua, dubbed the BE construction and the BE-APPL construction, which differ precisely in where the possessor is introduced into the structure. Prediction (b.) is supported via a comparison of the BE-APPL construction in Cochabamba Quechua with a similar construction in Santiago del Estero Quechua. Both case studies suggest that the applicative morpheme does not introduce a thematic role of its own, a fact that has important implications for applicative theory. The chapter closes with some preliminary remarks on why Quechua languages vary with respect to whether or not they have HAVE.
Consequences and Comparisons
Authors: Myler Neil
Published: May 2017

This chapter compares the analysis of HAVE from chapter 4 with the standard analysis of HAVE found in the Freeze/Kayne tradition. Whereas the present approach takes HAVE to be BE plus a transitive Voice head, the Freeze/Kayne tradition proposes that HAVE is BE plus an incorporated adposition. After examining the Freeze/Kayne tradition on its own terms and pointing out a number of empirical and technical problems with it, this chapter goes on to compare the predictions made by the two approaches with respect to the structure of HAVE sentences. The Freeze/Kayne approach predicts that definiteness effects in HAVE sentences should match up with those in existential sentences. It also predicts that HAVE sentences should show signs that their subject has raised from below, and that they should pass tests for unaccusativity. In contrast, the present approach assigns a different explanation for definiteness effects in HAVE sentences, and predicts that HAVE should fail unaccusativity and raising tests. It is shown that the predictions of the present approach are correct, and that traditional arguments in favour of HAVE’s being unaccusative (such as its alleged inability to passivize) do not go through.
Information: A Brief Modern History
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

“Information” has taken on new meanings and new significance in the Information Age. The subject has moved beyond the traditional realm of engineering. Encyclopedias and text books that formerly ignored information as a topic now give it a major presence. However, we still overlook the central importance of information itself, focusing instead on information technology.
Information and the Market Economy
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

The Soviet Union tried to manage the information needed to run a centrally-planned economy. Their efforts failed in large measure due to information shortcomings. Capitalism is a much better information processor, relying on the ‘invisible hand” to recognize and respond to market signals. But capitalism can have information failures too, as evidenced by Enron, the subprime mortgage crisis, and the work of information economists.
Health Care Viewed through the Lens of Information
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

The U.S. health care system is driven as much by centralized bureaucracies as by market dynamics and suffers from information shortcomings as a result. Neither patients nor healthcare providers have access to good information, leading to a highly inefficient system. Better systems for rating doctors and hospitals and for understanding health care spending are beginning to emerge and can be accelerated.
Corporate Transparency
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

Corporations exist in an odd information space, requiring detailed public reporting and simultaneously allowing enormous secrecy. Financial reporting, however, does not paint a full and meaningful picture of corporate activities. Several straightforward changes to financial reporting can make them much more meaningful and useful to investors, analysts, regulators and the financial world in general. More robust changes to information on products can make the market system as a whole more efficient.
Something Is Missing
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

Consumers have access to substantial information on the products they buy, but much information is missing. “Sustainability information” – about traits like greenhouse gases, child labor, toxic chemicals – is not part of the flow of information. In its absence, the market cannot reflect consumer values about sustainability. New sources of information could integrate our collective values into day-to-day consumer transactions, and make ordinary shopping a path to a more sustainable future.
Where Does Sustainability Information Come From?
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

Introducing sustainability information for consumer products can be accomplished through regulation, international agreements or by the marketplace itself. Large-scale purchasers, like Walmart or the federal government, have enough market leverage to bring forward sustainability information. Once it is available, the information will help make the global market more efficient and more responsive to important human values.
Finding Things Out: Foraging for Coherence in the Information Age
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

Online resources are rapidly replacing our traditional mechanisms for retrieving information, calling for new strategies for “information foraging”. Like all foraging strategies, we try to optimize by developing rules of thumb for maximum results with minimum effort, a task made more challenging by the fragmentation of the Internet. New information tools will assist human decision-making and in time, may replace it in some fields.
Openness and Secrecy: The Essential Tension of Government-Held Information
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

Governments collect and create enormous amounts of information, some of which is publicly available, but most of which remains hidden from view. In addition to information marked secret, there are vast government records that are public in principle, but unavailable in fact. Revelations of multiple mass surveillance programs have shaken the public’s faith, but such programs are not likely to be scaled back. To reset the balance, government information should be more widely available to the public by adopting a policy of hypertransparency.
Information as a Policy Tool: The Toxics Release Inventory
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

The Toxics Release Inventory, created in the aftermath of the Bhopal poisonous gas tragedy in India, is a cornerstone of the environmental right-to-know program in the U.S. TRI is the nation’s first program to use information as an explicit tool of public policy. The program incorporates several novel features, but does not require companies to reduce toxic pollution. However, the “report card” aspect of publicly-available information has spurred substantial reductions nonetheless.
Tools, Power, and Participation: Information in the Decades Ahead
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

“Information is power” is true, at times, but not universally so. The trends in developing technologies and strategies will influence the relationship between information and power in the decades ahead. Positive results can come from new assistive technologies in fields like medical decision-making, or from everyday applications like wearable technology. Advances can promote citizen participation, but can also lead to additional fragmentation and privacy concerns.
Epilogue
Authors: Sarokin David , Schulkin Jay
Published: May 2017

We don’t really believe everything we have written in this book. However, we have done our best to make our case—more precisely, to make several cases:

• Information should emerge from the shadows as a crucial topic in its own right.

• Information alone can be a powerful agent of change in the world....