Path Dependence and the Origins of Planning in Russia: Did the Bolshevik Revolution Escape Russian History?

Flyer for Fall 1996 ICS Faculty Fellow Lecture by Don Rowney.https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/ics_fellow_lectures/1022/thumbnail.jp

The microcomputer in historical research: accessing commercial databases

The objective of this essay is to describe the uses to which large automated information files may be put by historians who have access to microcomputers. The information files to which I am referring are generally bibliographic files that contain many thousands of citations relevant to the research interests of historians. Some of them exist in both printed and computerized, or "on-line" versions. However, since I want to discuss the use of these files in the context of such criteria as the speed and efficiency with which they can be used, I will discuss only the on-line version of any given file or information service

The Staffordshire political community 1440-1500

The general aim of this thesis is to produce a portrait of Staffordshire society during the Wars of the Roses. The chapters illustrate the many roles played by the local gentry and nobility-county administrator, soldier, estate holder and/or officer, litigant, retainer and kinsman- and bow these were interrelated. The second chapter carries the burden of the narrative besides being primarily about the major offices of county government and the ways in which these might be exploited by appointees (and, where appropriate, by their patrons). The other chapters, not chronologically structured, concentrate on specialised offices (e.g. chapter III on the Church and chapter IV on forests) and. social relationships in such spheres as crime, service and marriage. The thesis' overall structure and content have been largely determined by the nature of the surviving evidence. Between 1440 and 1500 the 'rule' of Staffordshire passed through a number of hands, with each change-over Illustrating a different 'model' of magnate influence in local affairs. In the 1440s and 1450s the Staffords dominated through control of the quarter of the county that was royal land and as the leading land holding family with an affinity built up over generations. Throughout the Yorkist era preeminence lay with lords new to Staffordshire, who, though powerful at court, struggled to win local support and realise this at the muster. By Henry Vii's reign the indigenous lay nobility, like its clerical counterpart, had lost most of its political muscle. Power was increasingly drawn into the bands of the leading gentry, especially those appointed to and diligent in local offices. Perquisites went to local men rather than out-of-county favoured courtiers, though forest sinecures were occasionally an exception. Similarly, crime and marriage were local affairs, as befitted. a quiet and impoverished county far from the madding crowd

Insights from simulations on the consequences of uncertainties in estimating the masses of observed galaxies

We make use of cutting-edge simulations of galaxy formation in a $\Lambda$ cold dark matter ($\Lambda$CDM) Universe to investigate the impact of the uncertainties inherent to certain observational techniques for estimating the masses of galaxies on the conclusions that are drawn from studies using such methods. By performing virtual 'observations' of simulated galaxies, we estimate their stellar and dynamical masses in the same way as in particular observational studies. The satellite galaxies of the Milky Way are highly attractive candidates for dynamical studies, due to their proximity; and in general, satellite galaxies dominate the clustering of galaxies on small scales. The total dynamical masses and internal mass distributions of individual galaxies, along with the clustering of galaxies as a function of intrinsic properties such as stellar mass, each reflect the structure and evolution history of the underlying invisible dark matter that forms the structural spine of the Universe and incubates the formation and evolution of galaxies over cosmic time. The observed stellar kinematics of dispersion-supported galaxies are often used to measure dynamical masses. Recently, several analytical relationships between the stellar line-of-sight velocity dispersion, the projected (2D) or deprojected (3D) half-light radius, and the total mass enclosed within the half-light radius, relying on the spherical Jeans equation, have been proposed. Here, we make use of the APOSTLE cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of the Local Group to test the validity and accuracy of such mass estimators for both dispersion and rotation-supported galaxies, for field and satellite galaxies, and for galaxies of varying masses, shapes, and velocity dispersion anisotropies. We find that the mass estimators of Walker et al. and Wolf et al. are able to recover the masses of dispersion-dominated systems with little systematic bias, but with a $1\sigma$ scatter of 25 and 23 percent, respectively. The error on the estimated mass is dominated by the impact of the 3D shape of the stellar mass distribution, which is difficult to constrain observationally. This intrinsic scatter becomes the dominant source of uncertainty in the masses estimated for galaxies like the dwarf spheroidal (dSph) satellites of the Milky Way, where the observational errors in their sizes and velocity dispersions are small. Such scatter may also affect the inner density profile slopes of dSphs as derived from multiple stellar populations, relaxing the significance with which Navarro-Frenk-White profiles may be excluded, depending on the degree to which the relevant properties of the different stellar populations are correlated. Additionally, we derive a new optimal mass estimator that removes the residual biases and achieves a statistically significant reduction in the scatter to 20 percent overall for dispersion-dominated galaxies, allowing more precise and accurate mass estimates. We present predictions for the two-point correlation function of galaxy clustering as a function of stellar mass, computed using two new versions of the GALFORM semi-analytic galaxy formation model. One model uses a universal stellar initial mass function (IMF), while the other assumes different IMFs for quiescent star formation and bursts. Particular consideration is given to how the assumptions required to estimate the stellar masses of observed galaxies (such as the choice of IMF, stellar population synthesis model, and dust extinction) influence the perceived dependence of galaxy clustering on stellar mass. Broad-band spectral energy distribution fitting is carried out to estimate stellar masses for the model galaxies in the same manner as in observational studies. We show clear differences between the clustering signals computed using the true and estimated model stellar masses. As such, we highlight the importance of applying our methodology to compare theoretical models to observations. We introduce an alternative scheme for the calculation of the merger time-scales for satellite galaxies in GALFORM, which takes into account the dark matter subhalo information from the underlying dark matter only simulation. This reduces the amplitude of small-scale clustering. The new merger scheme offers improved or similar agreement with observational clustering measurements, over the redshift range 0 < z < 0.7. We find reasonable agreement with clustering measurements from GAMA, but find larger discrepancies for some stellar mass ranges and separation scales with respect to measurements from SDSS and VIPERS, depending on the GALFORM model used

Development of an Automated Method for Identification of Wet and Dry Channel Segments Using LiDAR Data and Fuzzy Logic Cluster Analysis

Research into the use of LiDAR data for purposes other than simple topographic elevation determination, such as urban land cover classification and the identification of forest biomass, has become prominent in recent years. In many cases, alternative analysis methodologies conducted using airborne LiDAR data are possible because the raw data collected during a survey can include information other than the classically used elevation and coordinate points, the X, Y, and Z of the plane. In particular, intensity return values for each point in a LiDAR grid have been found to provide a useful data set for wet and dry channel classification. LiDAR intensity return data are, in essence, a numeric representation of the characteristic light reflectivity of the object being scanned; the more reflective the object is, the higher the intensity return will be. Intensity data points are collected along the course of the channel network and within the perceived banks of the channel. Intensity data do not crisply reflect a perfectly wet or dry condition, but instead vary over a range such that each location can be viewed as partially wet and partially dry. It is advantageous to assess problems of this type using the methods of fuzzy logic. Specifically, the variance in LiDAR intensity return data is such that the use of fuzzy logic to identify intensity cluster centers, and thereby assign wet and dry condition identifiers based on fuzzy memberships, is a possibility. Membership within a fuzzy data set is characterized by a value representing the degree of membership. Typically, membership values range from 0 (representing non-membership) through 1 (representing full membership), with many observations found to be not at either extreme but instead at some intermediate value representing partial membership. The ultimate goal of this research was to design and develop an automated algorithm to identify wet and dry channel sections, given a previously identified channel network based on topographic elevation, using a combination of intensity return values from LiDAR data and fuzzy logic clustering methods, and to implement that algorithm in such a way as to produce reliable multi-class channel segments in ArcGIS. To enable control of calculations, limiting parameters were defined, specifically including the maximum allowable bank slope, and a filtering percentage to more accurately accommodate the study area. Alteration of the maximum allowable bank slope has been shown to affect the comparative quantity of high and low intensity centroids, but only in extreme bank slope conditions are the centroids changed enough to hamper results. However, interference from thick vegetation has been shown to lower intensity values in dry channel sections into the range of a wet channel. The addition of a filtering algorithm alleviates some of the interference, but not all. Overall results of the tool show an effective methodology where basic channel conditions are identified, but refinement of the tool could produce more accurate results

Reframing Romantic Nature: Towards a Social Ecocriticism

Reframing Romantic Nature: Towards a Social Ecocriticism is an attempt to offer a new way of thinking about ecological approaches to literature. Rather than separate ecology from the movement of history, or support an anthropocentric historicism, my approach aims to merge the interests of both environmental and historical criticism in order to provide a more interdisciplinary view of conceptions of the natural and the social. The process of history owes much more to the non-human than has been generally allowed, especially in the face of contemporary ecocrisis. In the more than two hundred years since the advent of Romanticism in Britain, figures such as William Wordsworth have become icons, their work celebrated as defining intrinsic elements of cultural identity and history. Yet this same period has seen greater environmental destruction than any other in human existence. The poet who announces the renewal of nature does so at the dawn of the anthropocene, and it is no longer possible to treat these phenomena as entirely distinct. Looking back at the Romantics from our own era of ecocrisis evokes an ambivalence towards Romantic constructions of the natural world. This thesis is an attempt to address this complex ambivalence. The thesis advances these concerns through the reading of texts in various genres by five Romantic authors. The first chapter explores a foundational work of Romanticism, Mary Wollstonecraft\u27s Letters from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, in terms of how various landscape descriptions are interrupted by both outside forces and internal states, and how these interruptions are emblematic of the irruptive force of capital. This work, though celebrated on its publication for the beauty of its landscape descriptions, is full of a tumultuous and often vexed sense of place. The second chapter addresses the history of deforestation in terms of William Wordsworth\u27s poem The Ruined Cottage. The sense of dearth that poem evokes is, I argue, directly related to the drastic deforestation of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The next chapter examines the acoustic ecology of John Clare as exemplified in his poem The Fallen Elm. How the sounds of the natural world appear as both subjects in his poetry and as influential on the formation of his own patterning of sound is explored, as well as the ideological significance of different types of soundscapes. The focus of the fourth chapter is the urban and suburban landscapes of Thomas De Quincey. Here I examine the appearance of urban sprawl in a variety of works by De Quincey and the way in which the addicted body and the sprawling city become darkly symbolic of each other. The thesis concludes with a reading of Mary Shelley\u27s The Last Man, a novel about the end of humanity written at the end of the Romantic era. Here I consider how changing thought about the relationship of humanity to deity, along with the panic of 1825, which marked an important recognition of the global reach of capitalism, inform a broader revision of earlier Romantic idealism and anticipate later existential thought

Genetic differentiation and the evolution of cooperation in chimpanzees and humans

It has been proposed that human cooperation is unique among animals for its scale and complexity, its altruistic nature and its occurrence among large groups of individuals that are not closely related or are even strangers. One potential solution to this puzzle is that the unique aspects of human cooperation evolved as a result of high levels of lethal competition (i.e. warfare) between genetically differentiated groups. Although between-group migration would seem to make this scenario unlikely, the plausibility of the between-group competition model has recently been supported by analyses using estimates of genetic differentiation derived from contemporary human groups hypothesized to be representative of those that existed during the time period when human cooperation evolved. Here, we examine levels of between-group genetic differentiation in a large sample of contemporary human groups selected to overcome some of the problems with earlier estimates, and compare them with those of chimpanzees. We find that our estimates of between-group genetic differentiation in contemporary humans are lower than those used in previous tests, and not higher than those of chimpanzees. Because levels of between-group competition in contemporary humans and chimpanzees are also similar, these findings suggest that the identification of other factors that differ between chimpanzees and humans may be needed to provide a compelling explanation of why humans, but not chimpanzees, display the unique features of human cooperation.Anthropolog