bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Information Processing and Human Memory
Authors: Eggen Paul
Published: July 2020

Information processing is a cognitive learning theory that helps explain how individuals acquire, process, store, and retrieve information from memory. The cognitive architecture that facilitates the processing of information consists of three components: memory stores, cognitive processes, and metacognition. The memory stores are sensory memory, a virtually unlimited store that briefly holds stimuli from the environment in an unprocessed form until processing begins; working memory, the conscious component of our information processing system, limited in both capacity and duration, where knowledge is organized and constructed in a form that makes sense to the individual; and long-term memory, a vast and durable store that holds an individual’s lifetime of acquired information.

Information is moved from sensory memory to working memory using the cognitive processes attention, selectively focusing on a single stimulus, and perception, the process of attaching meaning to stimuli. After information is organized in working memory so it makes sense to the individual, it is represented in long-term memory through the process of encoding, where it can later be retrieved and connected to new information from the environment. Metacognition is a regulatory mechanism that facilitates the use of strategies, such as chunking, automaticity, and distributed processing, that help accommodate the limitations of working memory, and schema activation, organization, elaboration, and imagery that promote the efficient encoding of information into long-term memory. Information processing theory has implications for our daily living ranging from tasks as simple as shopping at a supermarket to those as sophisticated as solving complex problems.
Schooling, Educational Technology, and Teachers’ Everyday Practice in Norway
Authors: Krumsvik Rune Johan , Skaar Øystein Olav
Published: July 2020

Research shows that for decades, there have been attempts to implement information and communication technology (ICT) in schools, but it has had a weak uptake among teachers thus far. One of the reasons for this lack of integration is that teachers perceive ICT as an additional load on their everyday practices that would increase the complexity of their roles. Teachers are therefore often cautious and sceptical about ICT implementation because it is often not properly attached to deeply entrenched school structure. Adaptive learning tools have provided new opportunities to facilitate this integration. Adaptive learning tools are expected to contribute to the customization and personalization of pupil learning by continually calibrating and adjusting pupils’ learning activities to their skill and competence levels. However, it is important to discuss whether adaptive learning tools need to be sufficiently anchored in the curriculum, in formative assessment, in adaptive education, and in homework to achieve their potential. In this way, we can obtain an understanding of how a systematic implementation of adaptive learning tools influences the learning outcomes, learning environment, and motivation of pupils in school, when such tools are attached to the deeply entrenched structures in school. In such implementation processes it seems like we need to reconsider the value of homework to achieve, for example, sufficient volume training and root learning with adaptive learning tools, thus freeing up time for practical mathematics and deep learning at school. Importantly, this requires a digital competence among teachers, where the critical factor is the teacher’s ability to create a teaching doctrine in which technology use is justified by didactic choices.
Education for Sustainable Development and the “Whole Person” Curriculum in Japan
Authors: Clark Ian , Nae Niculina , Arimoto Masahiro
Published: July 2020

Since the 1970s, Japanese society has endured rapid and confusing socio-economic transformation. These changes brought a sense of decentralization into Japanese life. It was a sense of loss and a sense of reality, as the stable dependencies that had characterized the Japanese way of life for centuries vanished. In the years leading up to the 21st century, this radical departure from tradition meant that the concept of continuity existed only to emphasize its absence. Society goes through a process of rapid change, posing challenges not everyone might be ready to tackle. The unintended, but inevitable, consequence is the social disaffection of Japanese youth, who may be losing their motivation (or focus) at a time of sudden and sustained adversity. The Japanese government is promoting the revitalizing energy of education for sustainable development (ESD), and even publicizes ESD’s potential for giving life a robust meaning. This is by no means an exclusively Japanese problem. In recent years, and with Japanese leadership, other UNESCO nations have integrated ESD into curricula. To fully understand the nature of the Japanese system for sustainable education, scholars need to draw from cultural philosophy, social neuroscience, historical analysis, and the ideas of socio-cognitive and constructivist theorists. Such a mix of methods provides an inter-disciplinary “geometry” of the often deeply inlaid shapes, patterns, and relationships that surround the uniquely cultural, yet highly exportable models for zenjin-education (“whole-person”).
Students’ Misconceptions and Science Education
Authors: Vosniadou Stella
Published: July 2020

Influenced by Piagetian and Vygotskian research, science educators in the 1970s started to pay attention to students’ ideas in science. They discovered that students had deeply held beliefs that were in conflict with scientific concepts and theories. In addition to misconceptions, other terms such as preconceptions, alternative frameworks, and intuitive beliefs or theories have been used to characterize these ideas. One of the first interpretations of misconceptions is that they are faulty intuitive theories, which must be replaced by the scientifically correct ones. Another dominant interpretation is that they represent category errors—concepts assigned to the wrong ontological category. Both of these views proposed that refutation and cognitive conflict are instructional strategies that can be used to extinguish misconceptions. A different approach to misconceptions is expressed by researchers who argue that misconceptions have their roots in productive knowledge elements. According to this view, misconceptions are productive in some contexts but not appropriate in others and in these latter cases more carefully articulated scientific knowledge is necessary. Yet other researchers argue that misconceptions are often hybrids—constructive attempts on the part of the students to synthesize scientific information with intuitive beliefs and theories. Recent research has shown that misconceptions are not supplanted by scientific theories but coexist with them even in expert scientists. As a result, attention in science instruction has shifted from attempts to extinguish misconceptions to attempts to strengthen students’ epistemic knowledge, and their model building, hypothesis testing, and reasoning skills. Cognitive conflict and refutation continue to be important instructional strategies not for extinguishing misconceptions but for creating awareness in students that their beliefs are not accurate from a scientific point of view. Overall, the discovery of misconceptions has had a tremendous influence in science education research and teaching because it demonstrated that students are active and creative participants in the learning process and that their ideas and understandings need to be taken into account in instruction.
Qubilai’s Maritime Mongols
Authors: Buell Paul , Fiaschetti Francesca
Published: July 2020

The Mongols, creators of the largest continuous land empire in history, who initiated an unprecedented era of international exchange, are mostly known for their land conquests and contacts, but, they also actively participated in maritime and land trade. The key event in this development was a Mongol commercialization ongoing with the Mongol conquest of key coastal areas in China and Iran that brought them face to face with the trading world of the South Seas and Indian Ocean. There was a military aspect of this, starting in Japan, Southeast Asia, and Java, and there was the diplomatic and informal initiatives of Qubilai-qan to expand Mongol influence over the seas as far as the Red Sea and Africa, in ways not achievable with military means alone. A thesis is that the Mongols in China ended by creating, with the help of the Mongols in Iran, a first maritime age, paralleling those established by the Portuguese and others that came later.
Trade in Gold and Silver: The Yokohama Specie Bank
Authors: Schiltz Michael
Published: July 2020

Although the political and military aspects of Japanese imperialism have received ample attention from historians, other dimensions of the country’s expansionist experiment with total war have been left largely untouched. Nevertheless, technologies of “soft” power played a very substantial role; in many ways, they predated and prefigured many of the repressive and militarist hallmarks of Japanese expansionism. Gold standard adoption, for instance, was directly related to Japan’s geopolitical positioning. It was a tool for projecting financial power abroad and establishing enclave economies in the colonies, for example through the creation of gold-exchange standards, the direction of the colonies’ central banks and financial institutions, and so on.

Nevertheless, the adoption of the gold standard was not an aim in itself. It was a means to a yet higher end: the very establishment of the yen as a “vehicle currency” comparable to the British pound or, after World War I, the American dollar. For that reason, policymakers in Tokyo fostered distinctly mercantilist ideas about trade and, in particular, the share of Japan’s banking institutions and the Japanese yen in financing international trade and settling international trade transactions.

The institution in the vanguard of this project was the Yokohama Specie Bank (hereafter: YSB), a bank with the explicit mandate of insuring trade among regions or countries on different currencies and, by extension, different metals (gold and silver). Soon after its creation in 1879, it was made to team up with the Bank of Japan (hereafter: BOJ) and put in charge of the international aspects of the country’s financial and monetary policy. In that role,

1. It financed the bulk of Japanese imports and exports.

2. It collected specie, part of which was added to the BOJ’s currency reserve.

3. It underwrote Japan’s sovereign loan issues.

4. It represented the BOJ abroad.

5. It even issued currencies in Japan-occupied territories before and during World War II.

In view of its controversial role in Japanese imperialism (especially because of point 5), the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) ordered its dismantling in 1946. Its assets were transferred to the newly formed Bank of Tokyo.

Although it is still heavily understudied in both Japanese and Western languages, it is key to understanding in the vanguard of Tokyo’s expansionist economic project(s)
The Ottoman Maghrib, 1505–1830
Authors: Cory Stephen
Published: July 2020

Between 1505 and 1830, the foundations were laid for the modern nation-states of Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Of these three countries, only Tunisia had established a clear independent identity prior to the 16th century. Early in that century, all three regions came under the control of the Ottoman Empire, mostly in response to attempts by European powers to create strongholds along the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. By the end of the 16th century, the Ottomans had implanted their traditional provincial governments in the regions of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, complete with governors (pashas), who ruled with the assistance of administrative officials known as beys, and a cohort of Janissary troops. Thus, governance was carried out by a foreign military caste with limited connections to the local population. These governments derived much of their income from corsair enterprises launched against European ships under the leadership of captains known as raises, many of whom were European converts to Islam.

During these three centuries, Tunis and Tripoli would develop nominally independent hereditary dynasties that were initially founded by Ottoman officials who ruled in cooperation with local religious, political, and tribal elites. In Algiers, power remained in the hands of military officers known as deys. This situation became increasingly unstable throughout the 18th century, eventually resulting in the French conquest of Algeria in 1830. Over the course of the 19th century, rising European influence would enable the French to take power in Tunisia in 1881 and the Italians to occupy Libya in 1911. Thus Ottoman rule ended in the Maghrib, but the local identities developed in these states under Ottoman sovereignty eventually led to the rise of nationalist movements in all three countries and the achievement of independence by the mid-20th century.
Cory Library for Humanities Research
Authors: Peires Jeff
Published: July 2020

Cory Library in Makhanda (Grahamstown), South Africa, was established on the basis of historical papers bequeathed by Sir George Cory, a professor of chemistry and enthusiastic amateur historian. Initially characterized by a strong settler and colonial bias, the Library was transformed by the deposit of records from black tertiary institutions threatened by the apartheid “Extension of Universities Education” Act of 1959. These included the valuable manuscripts of the Lovedale Press, which had been, for many years, the sole publisher of books in isiXhosa and other African languages. Civic organizations such as the Black Sash, the End Conscription Campaign, and the Surplus Peoples Project, which sprang up following the Soweto uprising of 1976, likewise deposited their records. The Cory Library thus became a valuable resource for all the peoples of the Eastern Cape, rather than only for its privileged sector.

Its unique and comprehensive collection of books, maps, manuscripts, official documents, and visual representations across all disciplines of all things Xhosa and Eastern Cape make the Cory Library an essential resource for all researchers with interests in this area.
Water Tariffs in Spain
Authors: Arbués Fernando , García-Valiñas Marián
Published: July 2020

In the current context of climate change, water scarcity has become the center of an intense debate in recent years. Spain is a country affected by strong regional differences in terms of weather; thus, the quality and availability of water resources vary widely depending on the area, and the country is plagued by droughts and problems with water quality. Nevertheless, urban water prices in Spain are among the lowest in the European Union. Moreover, it is a federal country where subcentral governments (regional and local) are autonomous entities with different responsibilities in the design of water policies. The extremely atomized local panorama and the strong power of the regional governments have led to a highly complex system with a wide range of water price levels and structures. Since the heterogeneity is so great, this article focuses on the tariffs related to the water supply service in the 15 largest Spanish cities. In general, urban water tariffs commonly distinguish between residential and non-residential users. Additionally, there are usually specific tariffs for different customer categories within both residential and non-residential users, which are not always justified in terms of the equity principle. It is important to note that in most cities the eligibility criteria for these special tariffs usually add more complexity to the tariff system and adversely affect horizontal equity. All these factors contribute to the great complexity of Spain’s water-pricing map. The heterogeneous tariff system found in most Spanish cities runs counter to equity principles and can send the wrong signal to users about water scarcity, thereby hindering compliance with the resource sustainability objective. Thus, most Spanish cities require a simplification of the tariff system.
Isotopic Dating
Authors: Amelin Yuri
Published: July 2020

Isotopic dating is the measurement of time using the decay of radioactive isotopes and accumulation of decay products at a known rate. With isotopic chronometers, we determine the time of the processes that fractionate parent and daughter elements. Modern isotopic dating can resolve time intervals of ~1 million years over the entire lifespan of the Earth and the Solar System, and has even higher time resolution for the earliest and the most recent geological history. Using isotopic dates, we can build a unified scale of time for the evolution of Earth, the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, and expand it as samples from other planets become available for study. Modern geochronology and cosmochronology rely on isotopic dating methods that are based on decay of very long-lived radionuclides: 238U, 235U, 40K, 87Rb, 147Sm, etc. to stable radiogenic nuclides 206Pb, 207Pb, 40K, 40Ca, 87Sr, 143Nd, and moderately long-lived radionuclides: 26Al, 53Mn, 146Sm, 182Hf, to stable nuclides 26Mg, 53Cr, 142Nd, 182W. The diversity of physical and chemical properties of parent (radioactive) and daughter (radiogenic) nuclides, their geochemical and cosmochemical affinities, and the resulting diversity of processes that fractionate parent and daughter elements, allows direct isotopic dating of a vast range of earth and planetary processes. These processes include, but are not limited to evaporation and condensation, precipitation and dissolution, magmatism, metamorphism, metasomatism, sedimentation and diagenesis, ore formation, formation of planetary cores, crystallisation of magma oceans, and the timing of major impact events. Processes that cannot be dated directly, such as planetary accretion, can be bracketed between two datable events.
Small States
Authors: Heng Yee-Kuang
Published: July 2020

Scholarship in international studies has usually tended to focus on the great powers. Yet, studying small state behavior can in fact reveal deep-seated structural changes in the international system and provide significant insights into the management of power asymmetries. Overcoming the methodological limitations of gigantism in scholarship and case study selection is another epistemological benefit. Rather than conventional assumptions of weaknesses and vulnerabilities, research on small states has moved in fascinating directions toward exploring the various strategies and power capabilities that small states must use to manage their relationships with great powers. This means, even in some cases, attempts to forcibly shape their external environments through military instruments not usually associated with the category of small states. Clearly, small states are not necessarily hapless or passive. Even in terms of power capabilities that often define their weaknesses, some small states have in fact adroitly deployed niche hard power military capabilities and soft power assets as part of their playbook. These small states have projected influence in ways that belie their size constraints. Shared philosophies and mutual learning processes tend to underpin small state strategies seeking to maximize whatever influence and power they have. These include forming coalitions, principled support for international institutions, and harnessing globalization to promote their development and security interests. As globalization has supercharged the rapid economic development of some small states, the vicissitudes that come with interdependence have also injected a new understanding of vulnerability beyond that of simply military conflict. To further complicate the security environment, strategic competition between the major powers inevitably impacts on small states. The return of conventional interstate war to Europe with Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in 2022 serves up a stark reminder of small states’ perennial concerns that “might makes right” in international relations. How small states boost their “relevance” vis-à-vis the great powers has broader implications for questions that have animated the academy, such as power transitions and the Thucydides Trap in the international system. While exogenous systemic variables no doubt remain the focus of analysis, emerging research shows how endogenous variables such as elite perceptions, geostrategic locations, and availability of military and economic resources can play a key role in determining the choices small states make.
Natural Disasters and Cross-Border Implications
Authors: McLean Elena , Bas Muhammet
Published: July 2020

Natural disasters such as cyclones, droughts, earthquakes, floods, landslides, volcanoes, or pandemics routinely have cross-border implications. Transboundary risks of natural disasters tend to be the greatest for neighboring countries but often extend regionally or even globally. Even disasters with seemingly localized impacts contained within the national borders of a given state may have indirect short-term or long-term effects on other countries through refugee flows, conflict spillovers, volatility of global commodity prices, disruption of trade relations, financial flows, or global supply chains. Natural disasters may increase the risk of interstate conflict because of commitment problems, reduced opportunity costs of conflict, shocks to status quo divisions of resources, or demarcation of territories among countries, or because of leaders’ heightened diversionary incentives in favor of conflict. In some cases, disasters may have a pacifying effect on ongoing hostilities by creating opportunities for disaster diplomacy among conflict parties. Population displacement in disaster zones can send refugee flows and other types of migration across borders, with varying short-term and long-term socioeconomic and political effects in home and host countries. Adverse effects of natural disasters on regional and global economic activity shape patterns of international trade and financial flows among countries. To mitigate such risks from natural disasters and facilitate adjustment and recovery efforts, countries may turn to international cooperation through mechanisms for disaster relief and preparedness. Regional and global governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are common means to initiate and maintain such cooperative efforts.
The Global Economic and Political Causes of Human Trafficking
Authors: Blanton Robert G. , Blanton Shannon Lindsey
Published: July 2020

While various forms of slavery and forced labor have existed throughout human history, trafficking in humans is a relatively new area of global concern, as specific laws date back only to 2000. As a legal concept, human trafficking is defined according to its requisite acts (recruitment, transport, harboring of victims), means (use of force, fraud, or coercion), and purpose (exploitation). As a basis for scholarly analysis and public policy, trafficking can be viewed in terms of multiple dimensions, as it constitutes a criminal activity, an egregious abuse of human rights, and a pervasive illicit market. Each of these frames suggests different scholarly approaches to examining trafficking, as well as different policy responses to combat it. For example, a criminal activity frame connotes a prosecutorial response toward traffickers by state agencies, while a human rights-based approach suggests increased attention and services to trafficking victims.

There is a significant, though underdeveloped, body of scholarship on the causes of human trafficking. Broadly put, extant work focuses on economic, political, and demographic variables, each of which are part of the wider array of factors that can make trafficking more or less likely. Economic factors can be assessed at both micro and macro levels, ranging from the cost–benefit analyses of traffickers to macroeconomic factors such as poverty and globalization. Political correlates of trafficking include armed conflict, the presence of peacekeepers, and the strength and capacity of domestic political institutions. For their part, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can also play a significant role in shaping state responses to trafficking. As trafficking commonly involves the movement of people across borders, some of the same demographic factors that drive migration are also associated with trafficking flows. Taken as a whole, there are still many underexplored avenues for future research. While well over a thousand articles and books have been published on human trafficking since 2000, a majority of extant research is non-empirical in nature, including general overviews of trafficking or analyses of relevant laws. A key factor contributing to this relative dearth of empirical literature is the lack of comprehensive data that reflects the complex and nuanced nature of trafficking. Given the policy-relevant nature of human trafficking, as well as its implications for human rights, there remains a great need for additional evidence-based research in this area.
Evaluation
Authors: Butler Mary Odell
Published: July 2020

Evaluation anthropology is an organic synthesis of evaluation and anthropology in which each reinforces the other. Anthropology contributes the theory of culture as a primary mode of human adaptation, ethnography, and a methodology that is sensitive to the context embeddedness of human activity. The evaluation side adds the rigorous science needed to evaluations to be credible to decision makers. These include analyses and conclusions in evidence that can be linked to evidence and to develop a rationale that permits evaluation users to reconstruct the arguments underlying conclusions. Program evaluations are concerned with the value of human interventions in achieving important social goals. They form the evidence base for maintaining, changing, or eliminating programs, decisions that affect communities, careers, finances, and the welfare of both staff and clients.

There are special ethical concerns in evaluations because of the risk to program staff providing value information about their agencies and programs. Confidentiality is critical because programs are a “small world” in which opinions and speech mannerisms can permit identification by those who work in the same or similar programs. Thus, evaluators must be cautious about the use of quotes, position descriptions, and attributions to avoid professional damage to program staff and clients.

Program evaluation has become an important field for practicing anthropologists. Anthropologists who wish to do evaluations should network with other anthropologists doing evaluations as well as organizations that employ evaluators, read and attend seminars on evaluation theories and methods, and consider adding skills such as network analysis, economics, and decision theory that will add to their value as members of evaluation teams.
World War I and Brazil
Authors: Rinke Stefan
Published: July 2020

When news broke of the war in Europe, there was talk of a catastrophe that, as a result of the close-knit global entanglements, would embroil the world in an unprecedented crisis. The world dimensions of the events were in evidence to contemporary Latin American observers from early on. Despite the region’s considerable distance from the battlefields, the First World War was felt more than any other previous event outside Latin America in Brazil, and it was clear that its repercussions would affect the lives of average citizens. The relative isolation from which people in the region had witnessed other conflicts in Europe prior to 1914 came to an end. Many Brazilians took an active interest in the war. They participated in the debates about the end of Western hegemony and the downfall of Europe, which took place around the world and would become emblematic of the 20th century. The perception of the war followed a global logic, as Brazil was entangled in the events because of the new type of economic and propaganda war. Modern historiography largely ignored the impact of the war in Brazil, although a number of treatises appeared immediately after the conflict. It was not until the advent of dependence theory that interest was rekindled in the significance of the First World War. The picture changed in 2014 when several important studies integrated new perspectives of cultural and global history. While the First World War may have long been a marginal concern of Brazilian historiography, it was even more common to find “general” histories of the conflagration devoid of any perspective other than the European and that of the United States. But in the total wars of the 20th century, even a neutral country could not remain passive. As a result of its natural resources and strategic position, Brazil was to become an actor in this conflagration.
Drought and Public Policy in Northeast Brazil
Authors: Buckley Eve
Published: July 2020

The semi-arid interior of Brazil’s northeast region, known as the sertão, has long been subject to droughts. These can devastate the agricultural and ranching economy and cause serious hardship for the area’s inhabitants, particularly those who labor on farms and ranches belonging to the landowning elite. A prolonged drought in the late 1870s led the Brazilian government to begin soliciting advice from engineers about how to redress the periodic crisis. In 1909 the federal government established a permanent federal agency, the Inspectorate for Works to Combat Drought, to undertake reservoir construction throughout the sertão along with other measures that would alleviate future droughts. In subsequent decades the activities of the drought agency expanded to include constructing irrigation networks around reservoirs and establishing agricultural experiment stations to teach sertanejo farmers improved methods of farming in semi-arid conditions. Although powerful landowners lobbied for federal aid to construct reservoirs, which helped to sustain their own cattle herds through drought years, they were often opposed to initiatives like the establishment of irrigated smallholder colonies around reservoirs, which threatened to alter the social order in the sertão. Support for the federal drought agency’s work waxed and waned during the 20th century under different presidential administrations. Often it would rise in response to a period of damaging drought, then diminish once the crisis abated.

Droughts have affected the sertão at irregular intervals since at least the colonial era. They vary in temporal duration and geographic expanse. Their impact on human populations depends on how the area of reduced rainfall overlaps with human settlement patterns and land use. Over the 20th century the years in which drought most severely impacted human communities (including crops and livestock) in the sertão included 1915, 1919–1920, 1931–1932, 1942, 1951–1953, 1958, 1970, 1979–1983, and 1998–1999. These are the periods when local, state, and federal governments received the most persistent pleas for assistance from affected populations. The precise cause of droughts in the region is debated, but they are thought to be triggered by changes in major wind patterns, particularly the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), that prevent Atlantic Ocean precipitation from reaching the sertão.
The Phonetics of Prosody
Authors: Arvaniti Amalia
Published: July 2020

Prosody is an umbrella term used to cover a variety of interconnected and interacting phenomena, namely stress, rhythm, phrasing, and intonation. The phonetic expression of prosody relies on a number of parameters, including duration, amplitude, and fundamental frequency (F0). The same parameters are also used to encode lexical contrasts (such as tone), as well as paralinguistic phenomena (such as anger, boredom, and excitement). Further, the exact function and organization of the phonetic parameters used for prosody differ across languages. These considerations make it imperative to distinguish the linguistic phenomena that make up prosody from their phonetic exponents, and similarly to distinguish between the linguistic and paralinguistic uses of the latter. A comprehensive understanding of prosody relies on the idea that speech is prosodically organized into phrasal constituents, the edges of which are phonetically marked in a number of ways, for example, by articulatory strengthening in the beginning and lengthening at the end. Phrases are also internally organized either by stress, that is around syllables that are more salient relative to others (as in English and Spanish), or by the repetition of a relatively stable tonal pattern over short phrases (as in Korean, Japanese, and French). Both types of organization give rise to rhythm, the perception of speech as consisting of groups of a similar and repetitive pattern. Tonal specification over phrases is also used for intonation purposes, that is, to mark phrasal boundaries, and express information structure and pragmatic meaning. Taken together, the components of prosody help with the organization and planning of speech, while prosodic cues are used by listeners during both language acquisition and speech processing. Importantly, prosody does not operate independently of segments; rather, it profoundly affects segment realization, making the incorporation of an understanding of prosody into experimental design essential for most phonetic research.
Affixation in Morphology
Authors: Van Goethem Kristel
Published: July 2020

Affixation is the morphological process that consists of adding an affix (i.e., a bound morpheme) to a morphological base. It is cross-linguistically the most common process that human languages use to derive new lexemes (derivational affixation) or to adapt a word’s form to its morphosyntactic context (inflectional affixation). Suffixes (i.e., bound morphemes following the base) and prefixes (i.e., bound morphemes preceding the base) are the most common affixes, with suffixation being more frequently recorded in the world’s languages than prefixation. Minor types of affixation include circumfixation and infixation. Conversion and back-formation are related derivational processes that do not make use of affixation.

Many studies have concentrated on the need to differentiate derivation from inflection, but these morphological processes are probably best described as two end points of a cline. Prototypically, derivation is used to change a word’s category (part of speech) and involves a semantic change. A word’s inflectional distinctions make up its paradigm, which amounts to the different morphological forms that correlate with different morphosyntactic functions. Form-function mapping in (derivational and inflectional) affixation is a key issue in current research on affixation. Many deviations from the canonical One Form-One Meaning principle can be observed in the field of affixation.

From a diachronic point of view, it has been demonstrated that affixes often derive from free lexemes by grammaticalization, with affixoids being recognized as an intermediate step on this cline. More controversial, but still attested, is the opposite change whereby affixes and affixoids develop into free morphemes through a process of degrammaticalization.
Grammaticalization in Morphology
Authors: Norde Muriel
Published: July 2020

Grammaticalization is traditionally defined as the gradual process whereby a lexical item becomes a grammatical item (primary grammaticalization), which may be followed by further formal and semantic reduction (secondary grammaticalization). It is a composite change that may affect both phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic-pragmatic properties of a morpheme, and it is found in all the world’s languages. On the level of morphology, grammaticalization has been shown to have various effects, ranging from the loss of inflection in primary grammaticalization to the development of bound morphemes or new inflectional classes in secondary grammaticalization. Well-known examples include the development of future auxiliaries from motion verbs (e.g., English to be going to), and the development of the Romance inflection future (e.g., French chanter-ai ‘I sing’, chanter-as ‘you sing’, etc., from a verb meaning ‘to have’). Although lexical-grammatical change is overwhelmingly unidirectional, shifts in the reverse direction, called degrammaticalization, have also been shown to occur. Like grammaticalization, degrammaticalization is a composite change, which is characterized by an increase in phonological and semantic substance as well as in morphosyntactic autonomy. Accordingly, the effects on morphology are different from those in grammaticalization. In primary degrammaticalization new inflections may be acquired (e.g., the Welsh verb nôl ‘to fetch,’ from an adposition meaning ‘after’), and erstwhile bound morphemes may become free morphemes (e.g., English ish). As such effects are also found in other types of changes, degrammaticalization needs to be clearly delineated from those. For example, a shift from a minor to a major category (e.g., English ifs and buts) or the lexicalization of bound affixes (isms), likewise result in new inflections, but these are instantaneous changes, not gradual ones.
Integrated Water Resource Management as an Organizing Concept
Authors: Ait-Kadi Mohamed , Kay Melvyn
Published: July 2020

This is an immersive journey through different water management concepts. The conceptual attractiveness of concepts is not enough; they must be applicable in the real and fast-changing world. Thus, beyond the concepts, our long-standing challenge remains increasing water security. This is about stewardship of water resources for the greatest good of societies and the environment. It is a public responsibility requiring dynamic, adaptable, participatory, and balanced planning. It is all about coordination and sharing. Multi-sectoral approaches are needed to adequately address the threats and opportunities relating to water resources management in the context of climate change, rapid urbanization, and growing disparities. The processes involved are many and need consistency and long-term commitment to succeed.

Climate change is closely related to the problems of water security, food security, energy security and environment sustainability. These interconnections are often ignored when policy-makers devise partial responses to individual problems. They call for broader public policy planning tools with the capacity to encourage legitimate public/collective clarification of the trade-offs and the assessment of the potential of multiple uses of water to facilitate development and growth. We need to avoid mental silos and to overcome the current piecemeal approach to solving the water problems. This requires a major shift in practice for organizations (governmental as well as donor organizations) accustomed to segregating water problems by subsectors. Our experience with integration tells us that (1) we need to invest in understanding the political economy of different sectors; (2) we need new institutional arrangements that function within increasing complexity, cutting across sectoral silos and sovereign boundaries; (3) top down approaches for resources management will not succeed without bottom-up efforts to help people improve their livelihoods and their capacity to adapt to increasing resource scarcity as well as to reduce unsustainable modes of production.

Political will, as well as political skill, need visionary and strong leadership to bring opposing interests into balance to inform policy- making with scientific understanding, and to negotiate decisions that are socially accepted. Managing water effectively across a vast set of concerns requires equally vast coordination. Strong partnerships and knowledge creation and sharing are essential.

Human civilization – we know- is a response to challenge. Certainly, water scarcity can be a source of conflict among competing users, particularly when combined with other factors of political or cultural tension. But it can also be an inducement to cooperation even in high tension areas. We believe that human civilization can find itself the resources to respond successfully to the many water challenges, and in the process make water a learning ground for building the expanded sense of community and sharing necessary to an increasingly interconnected world.
Latinx Immigrant Health and Mental Health
Authors: Ayón Cecilia , Nieri Tanya , Gurrola Maria
Published: July 2020

Latinx immigrants represent a large segment of the immigrant population in the United States. While immigrants tend to be healthier than native-born people, they experience a number of health disparities. Latinx immigrants experience many barriers to accessing health care, including immigration policy barriers related to undocumented or recent permanent resident status, lack of culturally and linguistically responsive services, challenges during the access verification process, discrimination by providers, and external resource constraints (e.g., cost). Many are uninsured or underinsured and experience limited access to care. Existing models to understand health are examined. A social determinants of health framework is used to understand immigrants’ health outcomes. Within this framework immigration is a social determinant of health. Substantial empirical evidence illustrates how the immigration policy context impacts on immigrants’ health through exposure to enforcement activity, threat of detainment and deportation, and actual deportation. Enforcement activity is racialized to effect all Latinxs regardless of status. Other domains including economic insecurity, education, and community and social support are other sources that may disadvantage immigrants and impact on their health. The search for economic opportunity is a primary motivation for Latinxs to migrate to the United States, yet many face economic challenges and live in poverty. Education has significant impact on immigrants across the development spectrum as they experience disparities in access. Social ties are critical to the wellbeing of Latinx, evidence suggests disparities in access to support by status. Immigrants contend with a number of challenges as they integrate into society. Social determinants of health, through multiple domains, affect immigrants’ health.
Microanatomical traits track climate gradients for a dominant C4 grass species across the Great Plains, USA
Authors: Bachle Seton , Nippert Jesse B
Published: August 2020

Background and Aims

Andropogon gerardii is a highly productive C4 grass species with a large geographic range throughout the North American Great Plains, a biome characterized by a variable temperate climate. Plant traits are often invoked to explain growth rates and competitive abilities within broad climate gradients. For example, plant competition models typically predict that species with large geographic ranges benefit from variation in traits underlying high growth potential. Here, we examined the relationship between climate variability and leaf-level traits in A. gerardii, emphasizing how leaf-level microanatomical traits serve as a mechanism that may underlie variation in commonly measured traits, such as specific leaf area (SLA).

Methods

Andropogon gerardii leaves were collected in August 2017 from Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (MN), Konza Prairie Biological Station (KS), Platte River Prairie (NE) and Rocky Mountain Research Station (SD). Leaves from ten individuals from each site were trimmed, stained and prepared for fluorescent confocal microscopy to analyse internal leaf anatomy. Leaf microanatomical data were compared with historical and growing season climate data extracted from PRISM spatial climate models.

Key Results

Microanatomical traits displayed large variation within and across sites. According to AICc (Akaike’s information criterion adjusted for small sample sizes) selection scores, the interaction of mean precipitation and temperature for the 2017 growing season was the best predictor of variability for the anatomical and morphological traits measured here. Mesophyll area and bundle sheath thickness were directly correlated with mean temperature (annual and growing season). Tissues related to water-use strategies, such as bulliform cell and xylem area, were significantly correlated with one another.

Conclusions

The results indicate that (1) microanatomical trait variation exists within this broadly distributed grass species, (2) microanatomical trait variability appears likely to impact leaf-level carbon and water use strategies, and (3) microanatomical trait values vary across climate gradients, and may underlie variation in traits measured at larger ecological scales.
Advances in smartphone positioning in forests: dual-frequency receivers and raw GNSS data
Authors: Tomaštík Julián , Chudá Juliána , Tunák Daniel , Chudý František , Kardoš Miroslav
Published: August 2020

Smartphones with their capability to receive Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals can be currently considered the most common devices used for positioning tasks, including forestry applications. This study focuses on possible improvements related to two crucial changes implemented into Android smartphone positioning in the last 3 years – dual-frequency (L1/L5) GNSS receivers and the possibility of recording raw GNSS data. The study comprises three experiments: (1) real-time measurements of individual points, (2) real-time recording of trajectories, and (3) post-processing of raw GNSS data provided by the smartphone receiver. The real-time tests were conducted using final positions provided by the internal receiver, i.e. without further processing or averaging. The test on individual points has proven that the Xiaomi Mi8 smartphone with a multi-constellation, dual-frequency receiver was the only device whose accuracy was not significantly different from single-frequency mapping-grade receiver under any conditions. The horizontal accuracy of most devices was lower during leaf-on season (root mean square errors between 5.41 and 12.55 m) than during leaf-off season (4.10–11.44 m), and the accuracy was significantly better under open-area conditions (1.72–4.51 m) for all tested devices when compared with forest conditions. Results of the second experiment with track recording suggest that smartphone receivers are better suited for dynamic applications – the mean shift between reference and measured trajectories varied from 1.23 to 5.98 m under leaf-on conditions. Post-processing of the raw GNSS data in the third experiment brought very variable results. We achieved centimetre-level accuracy under open-area conditions; however, in forest, the accuracies varied from meters to tens of meters. Observed loss of the signal strength in the forest represented ~20 per cent of the open-area value. Overall, the multi-constellation, dual-frequency receiver provided more robust and accurate positional solutions compared with single-frequency smartphones. Applicability of the raw GNSS data must be further studied especially in forests, as the provided data are highly susceptible to multipath and other GNSS adverse effects.
Berezin–Toeplitz Quantization and the Least Unsharpness Principle
Authors: Ioos Louis , Kazhdan David , Polterovich Leonid
Published: August 2020

We show that compatible almost-complex structures on symplectic manifolds correspond to optimal positive quantizations.