1,206 research outputs found
Review of \u3ci\u3eWith Good Intentions: Euro-Canadian and Aboriginal Relations in Colonial Canada\u3c/i\u3e Edited by Celia Haig-Brown and David A. Nock
This collection of essays focuses on a specific group of Euro-Canadians: those who recognized injustices and allied themselves with Aboriginal people who also saw the injustices and were actively resisting them, and worked in a variety of ways to address them. Yet the authors approach their subjects with a critical eye, realizing many of these efforts were concentrated on aboriginal peoples who missionaries thought adopted appropriate and/or useful aspects of Christianity, European dress, and settlement into farming villages or business ventures. Additionally, the authors realize some of the actors in the book struggle[d] to reconcile their Christian morality with their own desires to get ahead. Under this rubric of analysis, the chapters analyze such varied people as anthropologist Horatio Hale, aboriginal activist Nahnebahwequa, and the missionaries E. F. Wilson and Emma Crosby. Each chapter provides in-depth background to its specific subject, and most chapters locate the transformation of their subjects within the debates of the time period. The volume thus provides excellent background for anyone seeking to use missionary documents for ethnographic, geographic, or other analysis by helping to decode the biases and inherent holes.
the book\u27s only weakness lies in its editors\u27 reticence about the importance of their work. While claiming that they hope these essays encourage others to look at missionaries as important sources, the introduction wastes time treading familiar and not very fertile ground about the history of colonialism and racism. If their audience is truly those who have dismissed missionaries, then they needed to sing the praises of their own essays instead of apologizing for doing white studies rather than Native studies.
The volume\u27s strength is twofold. First, it uncovers those rare missionaries who bucked the system and fought colonial injustice, even if in limited and biased ways. These exceptions help us understand mainstream actors and their fears and motivations. Second, and perhaps most important, it helps demystify missionaries and the resources they left behind. They are no more and no less biased than other sources, yet social scientists have shied away from them. With Good Intentions provides the means to approach missionaries in a critical and balanced manner, and that is its greatest contribution to the field
Early agriculture at the crossroads of China and Southeast Asia: Archaeobotanical evidence and radiocarbon dates from Baiyangcun, Yunnan
We report archaeobotanical results from systematic flotation at what is presently the earliest Neolithic site with hard evidence for crop cultivation in the Southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, at the site of Baiyangcun. Direct AMS dates on rice and millet seeds, included together in a Bayesian model, suggests that sedentary agricultural occupation began ca. 2650 BCE, with cultivation of already domesticated rice (Oryza sativa), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), and foxtail millet (Setaria italica). Soybean (Glycine cf. max) was also present and presumably cultivated, although it still resembles its wild progenitor in terms of seed size. Additional possible cultivars include melon (Cucumis melo) and an unknown Vigna pulse, while wild gathered resources include fruits and nuts, including hawthorn (Crateagus) and aquatic foxnut (Euryale ferox). Weed flora suggests at least some rice was cultivated in wet (flooded or irrigated fields), while dryland weeds may derive from millet fields. This subsistence system persisted throughout the site's occupation, up to ca. 2050 BCE. These data provide secure evidence for the spread of Chinese Neolithic crops to Yunnan, and provide new evidence for reconstructing possible sources of cereal agriculture in mainland Southeast Asia
Processing plant location studies II: Policy alternatives for New Zealand wool selling centres
The nature of the general facility location problem has been discussed previously by McCarthy, Rodgers & Higham and a method of solution outlined. The present paper aims to extend the solution technique so that a number of low cost solutions with differing spatial characteristics are generated. This permits entrepreneurs or policy makers to choose among the alternatives.
The facility location problem can be stated as the determination of the number, size and location of a certain type of facility in order to satisfy the demand for the services provided; the "goodness" of any solution, relative to others, is measured in terms of some effectiveness criterion. For example one problem reported extensively in the agricultural economics literature is the determination of the number, size and location of agricultural commodity processing plants (freezing works, wool selling centres, grain storage depots), so that the sum of total transport (assembly plus distribution) costs and total processing costs are minimised.
Another general type of problem receiving attention in applied operations research relates to the number, size and location of public emergency services (for example ambulance and hospital services). Here, some measure of cost effectiveness is optimised Empirical studies include those of Fitzsimmons, Savas and Volz.
This paper is concerned primarily with processing and has two major sections. The first section outlines methodology and discusses Monte Carlo and "forcing" extensions of standard solutions. The second section applies such procedures to the New Zealand wool selling centres' location problem
'The show must go on': Event dramaturgy as consolidation of community
Event dramaturgy and cultural performance have not been examined in the literature from a strategic standpoint of fostering the social value of events. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the case of the Water Carnival, a celebratory event in a rural community of Southwest Texas, demonstrating the essence of this event as a symbolic social space, wherein event participants instantiate a shared and valued sense of community. A hermeneutical approach was employed, interpreting the event and its symbolisms as a text, combined with findings from ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, in-depth interviews and analysis of archival documents. The study examines the ways that dramaturgy in the Water Carnival helps frame the ongoing public discourse for community improvement and enhances social capital. The implications of the study for social leverage of events are discussed. It is suggested that a foundation for strategic social planning is the understanding of events as symbolic social spaces and their embeddedness in community development, which can be accomplished when events are pertinent to public discourse, address community issues, represent an inclusive range of stakeholders, and promote cooperation
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Communicability across evolving networks
Many natural and technological applications generate time ordered sequences of networks, defined over a fixed set of nodes; for example time-stamped information about ‘who phoned who’ or ‘who came into contact with who’ arise naturally in studies of communication and the spread of disease. Concepts and algorithms for static networks do not immediately carry through to this dynamic setting. For example, suppose A and B interact in the morning, and then B and C interact in the afternoon. Information, or disease, may then pass from A to C, but not vice versa. This subtlety is lost if we simply summarize using the daily aggregate network given by the chain A-B-C. However, using a natural definition of a walk on an evolving network, we show that classic centrality measures from the static setting can be extended in a computationally convenient manner. In particular, communicability indices can be computed to summarize the ability of each node to broadcast and receive information. The computations involve basic operations in linear algebra, and the asymmetry caused by time’s arrow is captured naturally through the non-mutativity of matrix-matrix multiplication. Illustrative examples are given for both synthetic and real-world communication data sets. We also discuss the use of the new centrality measures for real-time monitoring and prediction
Solution of the Multi-Channel Anderson Impurity Model: Ground state and thermodynamics
We present the solution of the SU(N) x SU(M) Anderson impurity model using
the Bethe-Ansatz. We first explain what extensions to the formalism were
required for the solution. Subsequently we determine the ground state and
derive the thermodynamics over the full range of temperature and fields. We
identify the different regimes of valence fluctuation at high temperatures,
followed by moment formation or intrinsic mixed valence at intermediate
temperatures and a low temperature non-Fermi liquid phase. Among other things
we obtain the impurity entropy, charge valence and specific heat over the full
range of temperature. We show that the low-energy physics is governed by a line
of fixed points. This describes non-Fermi-liquid behavior in the integral
valence regime, associated with moment formation, as well as in the mixed
valence regime where no moment forms.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
Tempo and mode of performance evolution across multiple independent origins of adhesive toe pads in lizards
Understanding macroevolutionary dynamics of trait evolution is an important endeavor in evolutionary biology. Ecological opportunity can liberate a trait as it diversifies through trait space, while genetic and selective constraints can limit diversification. While many studies have examined the dynamics of morphological traits, diverse morphological traits may yield the same or similar performance and as performance is often more proximately the target of selection, examining only morphology may give an incomplete understanding of evolutionary dynamics. Here, we ask whether convergent evolution of pad‐bearing lizards has followed similar evolutionary dynamics, or whether independent origins are accompanied by unique constraints and selective pressures over macroevolutionary time. We hypothesized that geckos and anoles each have unique evolutionary tempos and modes. Using performance data from 59 species, we modified Brownian motion (BM) and Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) models to account for repeated origins estimated using Bayesian ancestral state reconstructions. We discovered that adhesive performance in geckos evolved in a fashion consistent with Brownian motion with a trend, whereas anoles evolved in bounded performance space consistent with more constrained evolution (an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck model). Our results suggest that convergent phenotypes can have quite distinctive evolutionary patterns, likely as a result of idiosyncratic constraints or ecological opportunities
Effects of Training and Testosterone on Muscle-Fiber Types and Locomotor Performance in Male Six-Lined Racerunners (\u3cem\u3eAspidoscelis sexlineata\u3c/em\u3e)
Testosterone (T) is thought to affect a variety of traits important for fitness, including coloration, the size of sexual ornaments, aggression, and locomotor performance. Here, we investigated the effects of experimentally elevated T and locomotor training on muscle physiology and running performance in a nonterritorial male lizard species (Aspidoscelis sexlineata). Additionally, several morphological attributes were quantified to examine other characters that are likely affected by T and/or a training regimen. Neither training alone nor training with T supplementation resulted in increased locomotor performance. Instead, we found that T and training resulted in a decrease in each of three locomotor performance variables as well as in hematocrit, ventral coloration, and testis size. Strikingly, neither the size nor the fiber composition of the iliofibularis or gastrocnemius muscles was different among the two treatments or a group of untrained control animals. Hence, the relationships among T, training, and associated characters are not clear. Our results offer important insights for those hoping to conduct laboratory manipulations on nonmodel organisms and highlight the challenges of studying both training effects and the effects of steroid hormones on locomotor performance
Effect of binary collisions on electron acceleration in magnetic reconnection
Context. The presence of energetic X-ray sources in the solar corona indicates there are additional transport effects in the acceleration region. A prime method of investigation is to add collisions into models of particle behaviour at the reconnection region.<p></p>
Aims. We investigate electron test particle acceleration in a simple model of an X-type reconnection region. In particular, we explore the possibility that collisions will cause electrons to re-enter the acceleration more frequently, in turn causing particles to be accelerated to high energies.<p></p>
Methods. The deterministic (Lorentz) description of particle gyration and acceleration has been coupled to a model for the effects of collisions. The resulting equations are solved numerically using Honeycutt’s extension of the RK4 method to stochastic differential equations. This approach ensures a correct description of collisional energy loss and pitch-angle scattering combined with a sufficiently precise description of gyro-motion and acceleration.<p></p>
Results. Even with initially mono-energetic electrons, the competition between collisions and acceleration results in a distribution of electron energies. When realistic model parameters are used, electrons achieve X-ray energies. A possible model for coronal hard X-ray sources is indicated.
Conclusions. Even in competition with energy losses, pitch-angle scattering results in a small proportion of electrons reaching higher energies than they would in a collisionless situation.<p></p>
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