Modelling Demic and Cultural Diffusion - An Introduction

Identifying the processes by which human cultures spread across different populations is one of the most topical objectives shared amongst different fields of study. Seminal works have analysed a variety of data and attempted to determine whether empirically observed patterns are the result of demic and/or cultural diffusion. This special issue collects papers exploring several themes (from modes of cultural transmission to drivers of dispersal mechanisms) and contexts (from the Neolithic in Europe to the spread of computer programming languages), which offer new insights that will augment the theoretical and empirical basis for the study of demic and cultural diffusion. In this introduction we outline the state of art in the modelling of these processes, briefly discuss the pros and cons of two of the most commonly used frameworks (i.e. equation-based models and agent-based models), and summarise the significance of each paper published in this special issue

A cross-model study on the effect of power-laws on language evolution

Based on three evolutionary computational models that respectively simulate lexical, categorical and syntactic evolutions, we explore the effect of power-law distributed social popularity on language origin and change. Simulation results reveal a critical scaling degree (λ ≈ 1.0) in power-law distributions that helps accelerate the diffusion of linguistic conventions and preserve high linguistic understandability in population. Other scaling degrees (λ = 0.0 or λ > 1.0), however, tend to delay such diffusion process and affect linguistic understandability. Apart from the conventionalization nature of language communications in these models, increase in population size could also contribute to select the critical scaling degree, since this scaling degree can accommodate the influence of population size on linguistic understandability and many power-laws in real-world systems have their scaling degrees around this critical value.published_or_final_versio

Exploring the resource recovery potentials of municipal solid waste: a review of solid wastes composting in developing countries

Population explosion, high urbanization and improved living standards have induced rapid changes in quantities and materiacompositions of solid waste generation globally. Until recently solid waste disposal in landfills and open dump sites waconsidered more economical and it is the most widely used methods in developing countries. Hence the potentials in the othealternative methods such as the resource recovery and recycling and their integration into waste management have been scarcelassessed. However, the ever growing challenges posed by the rapidly increasing quantities and compositions of solid wastes ideveloping countries led to the searching for alternative waste disposal methods. In this regard the paper presented an assessmenof the resource potentials of municipal solid waste materials arising from cities in developing countries as a strategy fosustainable solid waste management. Using published data on solid waste composition the paper has identified that there is higpotentials of composting in the solid waste stream from cities in developing countries. In conclusion, it recommended the recoverof organic waste material and papers for composting and the recycling of plastic, metals, textiles and others to explore their resource recovery potentials. This will largely reduce the ultimate quantities of solid waste for disposal and lower the operatincosts. This strategy will achieve sustainable waste management in developing countries. It is hoped that the paper has provided useful guide for wastes management policy decisions in developing countries

Cultural transmission : exploring the role of language and transmission pathways in social networks

This thesis investigates previously underexamined or unexplored aspects of the cultural transmission process with the overall aim of advancing cultural evolutionary theory. The first study implements the linear transmission chains experimental design to systematically compare language versus demonstration as social transmission modes in adult and child chains. Despite its importance in social learning, language is extremely underexamined as a distinct mode of transmission. The results, however, illustrate that it supports the type of high-fidelity social transmission that is required for cumulative cultural evolution, especially in children. The second study examines social learning from a multi-generational perspective. By using a novel design, it investigates how the context of acquisition of a cultural trait affects the onward transmission of that trait. This is the first experimental instance in which onward transmission is examined. The findings suggest that a context-congruence bias impacts cultural transmission and it even modulates model-based biases. The context-congruence bias is the first factor found to link acquisition and onward transmission. The third study uses qualitative data to explore how cultural information flows in a real-world social network. It explains how the previously proposed transmission biases may impact acquisition and onward transmission, and how vertical congruence – the result of our proposed context-congruence bias – can lead to increased longevity and stability. By exploring cultural transmission at the level of the individual, we uncover new questions and present new hypotheses. As different social learning and teaching mechanisms are documented, their connection with trait longevity is also considered. In the final chapter, the implications of the studies are discussed, as are their possible limitations and the avenues for future research that arise from the findings

Revisiting telegony:Offspring inherit an acquired characteristic of their mother's previous mate

Newly discovered non-genetic mechanisms break the link between genes and inheritance, thereby also raising the possibility that previous mating partners could influence traits in offspring sired by subsequent males that mate with the same female (‘telegony’). In the fly Telostylinus angusticollis, males transmit their environmentally acquired condition via paternal effects on offspring body size. We manipulated male condition, and mated females to two males in high or low condition in a fully crossed design. Although the second male sired a large majority of offspring, offspring body size was influenced by the condition of the first male. This effect was not observed when females were exposed to the first male without mating, implicating semen-mediated effects rather than female differential allocation based on pre-mating assessment of male quality. Our results reveal a novel type of transgenerational effect with potential implications for the evolution of reproductive strategies

Children’s acquisition of new/given markers in English, Hindi, Mandinka and Spanish: Exploring the effect of optionality during grammaticalization

We investigated the effect of optionality on the acquisition of new/given markers, with a special focus on grammaticalization as a stage of optional use of the emerging form. To this end, we conducted a narrative-elicitation task with 5-year-old children and adults across four typologically-distinct languages with different new/given markers: English, Hindi, Mandinka and Spanish. Our starting assumption was that the Hindi numeral ‘ek’ (one) is developing into an indefinite article, which should delay children’s acquisition because of its optional use to introduce discourse referents. Supporting the Optionality Hypothesis, Experiment 1 revealed that obligatory markers are acquired earlier than optional markers. Experiment 2 focused on Hindi and showed that 10-year-old children’s use of ‘ek’ to introduce discourse characters was higher than 5-year-olds’ and comparable to adults’, replicating this pattern of results in two different cities in Northern India. Lastly, a follow-up study showed that Mandinka-speaking children and adults made use of all available discourse markers when tested on a familiar story, rather than with pictorial prompts, highlighting the importance of using culturally-appropriate methods of narrative elicitation in cross-linguistic research. We conclude by discussing the implications of article grammaticalization for common ground management in a speech community

Abstracts on Radio Direction Finding (1899 - 1995)

The files on this record represent the various databases that originally composed the CD-ROM issue of "Abstracts on Radio Direction Finding" database, which is now part of the Dudley Knox Library's Abstracts and Selected Full Text Documents on Radio Direction Finding (1899 - 1995) Collection. (See Calhoun record https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/57364 for further information on this collection and the bibliography). Due to issues of technological obsolescence preventing current and future audiences from accessing the bibliography, DKL exported and converted into the three files on this record the various databases contained in the CD-ROM. The contents of these files are: 1) RDFA_CompleteBibliography_xls.zip [RDFA_CompleteBibliography.xls: Metadata for the complete bibliography, in Excel 97-2003 Workbook format; RDFA_Glossary.xls: Glossary of terms, in Excel 97-2003 Workbookformat; RDFA_Biographies.xls: Biographies of leading figures, in Excel 97-2003 Workbook format]; 2) RDFA_CompleteBibliography_csv.zip [RDFA_CompleteBibliography.TXT: Metadata for the complete bibliography, in CSV format; RDFA_Glossary.TXT: Glossary of terms, in CSV format; RDFA_Biographies.TXT: Biographies of leading figures, in CSV format]; 3) RDFA_CompleteBibliography.pdf: A human readable display of the bibliographic data, as a means of double-checking any possible deviations due to conversion

Culture extends the scope of evolutionary biology in the great apes

Discoveries about the cultures and cultural capacities of the great apes have played a leading role in the recognition emerging in recent decades that cultural inheritance can be a significant factor in the lives not only of humans, but of non-human animals. This prominence derives in part from the fact that these primates are those with whom we share the most recent common ancestry, thus offering clues to the origins of our own thoroughgoing reliance on cumulative cultural achievements. In addition, the intense research focus on these species has spawned an unprecedented diversity of complementary methodological approaches, the results of which suggest that cultural phenomena pervade the lives of these apes, with potentially major implications for their broader evolutionary biology. Here I review what this extremely broad array of observational and experimental methodologies has taught us about the cultural lives of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, and consider the ways in which this extends our wider understanding of primate biology and the processes of adaptation and evolution that shape it. I address these issues by first evaluating the extent to which the results of cultural inheritance echo a suite of core principles that underlie organic, Darwinian evolution, but also extend them in new ways; and secondly by assessing the principal causal interactions between the primary, genetically-based organic processes of evolution, and the secondary system of cultural inheritance that is based on social learning from others.PostprintPeer reviewe

Communicating through sound in museum exhibitions: unravelling a field of practice

The twentieth century was the stage for several phenomena which have paved the way for museums to start exhibiting sound and to nurture a vivid and increasing interest in its potentialities. The burgeoning of sound recording technologies stands as a milestone in this respect. These have allowed sound to become a physical object and, hence, new understandings and conceptualizations to emerge. In the wake of these developments, the ways in which museum curators look at sound has gone into a huge reconfiguration. The fact that both new museology and museum practice have been turning their attention to and focus on the visitor has similarly accelerated the curators’ interest in sound as a means to build museum exhibitions. One of the latest and most striking instances in this process has been the role of ethnomusicology and sound studies in demonstrating the cultural, social, political, economic and ethical significance of sound thereby stimulating museum’s interest in dealing with sound as a mode to build both individual subjectivities and communities in museum settings. The development of audio technologies and digital and multisensorial technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality) also plays a part in this process. These have the merit to provide ways to deal with the elusiveness of sound when exhibited in museum galleries and to facilitate interactions underpinned by rationales such as experience, embodiment, and emplacement. During at least the last ten years, there has been a boost in the development of sound-based multimodal museum practices. These practices, nonetheless, have yet to be mapped, and their representational and experiential (emotional and sensorial) opportunities to be closely analysed. My thesis strives to start closing this gap by taking two analytical steps. Based on the analysis of 69 sound-based multimodal museum exhibitions staged in Europe and in the United States of America, I provide a five-use framework categorizing sound-based multimodal museum practices into sound as a “lecturing” mode, sound as an artefact, sound as “ambiance”/soundtrack, sound as art, and sound as a mode for crowd-curation. The case-study of sound art The Visitors, it unravels the communicative potential of sound for museums. In detail, the analysis stresses how sound and space comingle to articulate individual subjectivities and a sense of “togetherness.” The scope of the thesis is clearly multidisciplinary, encompassing ethnomusicology, sound studies, museum studies, and social semiotics. Overall, I seek to contribute towards the development of the study of sound in museums to develop and establish as a cohesive research field. I moreover seek to foster a sensory formation shift from a visual epistemology to one that merges the visual and the auditory.O século XX foi palco de vários fenómenos que conduziram a que os museus começassem a expor o som e a demonstrar um interesse crescente pelas suas potencialidades comunicativas. O aparecimento das tecnologias de gravação sonora constitui-se como um momento fundamental neste processo. Ao permitirem que o som se estabeleça enquanto objeto físico, vieram potenciar o aparecimento de novos entendimentos e conceptualizações sobre o som. Na sequência destes acontecimentos, a forma como os curadores de exposições começaram a olhar para o som sofreu grandes alterações. Simultaneamente, o facto de tanto os estudos museológicos como a prática museológica estarem cada vez mais preocupados com o visitante veio também acelerar o interesse dos curadores pelo som como meio para construir exposições museológicas. Os estudos musicais, em particular a etnomusicologia e os estudos de som, tiveram igualmente um papel preponderante: ao demonstrarem o valor cultural, social, político, económico e ético do som vieram claramente estimular o interesse dos curadores em usar o som como material para trabalhar noções de identidade, subjectividade e “comunhão.” É ainda de destacar o papel que o desenvolvimento de tecnologias áudio, digitais e multisensoriais (Realidade Virtual, Realidade Aumentada e Realidade Mista) têm no processo. Ao proporcionarem formas de lidar com a imaterialidade do som quando exposto em galerias, vieram também fomentar interações museológicas sustentadas pela experiência. Nos últimos dez anos, os museus têm, pois, assistido ao incrementar das práticas museológicas multimodais baseadas no som. O mapeamento e a categorização destas práticas, bem como o estudo das suas potencialidades narrativas e experienciais (emocionais e sensoriais), no entanto, está claramente por determinar. A minha tese visa dar início ao colmatar desta lacuna através de dois passos: providenciar uma estrutura classificativa das práticas multimodais baseadas em som com base na análise de 69 exposições que tiveram lugar nos últimos dez anos na Europa e nos Estados Unidos da América. A estrutura compreende as seguintes categorias: som como um modo "discursivo," som como artefacto, som como "ambiance"/banda sonora, som como arte, e som como curadoria partilhada. Simultaneamente, dar início ao desvendar do potencial comunicativo do som para exposições museológicas através do estudo de caso de arte sonora The Visitors. A análise deste estudo de caso veio demonstrar que som, em articulação com o espaço permitem trabalhar noções de identidade, subjetividade, e ainda de “comunhão.” O âmbito da tese é claramente multidisciplinar e engloba a etnomusicologia, os estudos de som, os estudos museológicos e a semiótica social. De uma forma geral, com a minha dissertação procuro contribuir para o desenvolvimento e o estabelecimento do estudo do uso do som nos museus como um campo de investigação multidisciplinar e coeso. Procuro ainda potenciar uma mudança de formação sensorial nos museus, em particular, estimular a passagem de uma epistemologia visual para uma epistemologia simultaneamente visual e auditiva

A Review of Norms and Normative Multiagent Systems

Norms and normative multiagent systems have become the subjects of interest for many researchers. Such interest is caused by the need for agents to exploit the norms in enhancing their performance in a community. The term norm is used to characterize the behaviours of community members. The concept of normative multiagent systems is used to facilitate collaboration and coordination among social groups of agents. Many researches have been conducted on norms that investigate the fundamental concepts, definitions, classification, and types of norms and normative multiagent systems including normative architectures and normative processes. However, very few researches have been found to comprehensively study and analyze the literature in advancing the current state of norms and normative multiagent systems. Consequently, this paper attempts to present the current state of research on norms and normative multiagent systems and propose a norm’s life cycle model based on the review of the literature. Subsequently, this paper highlights the significant areas for future work