468 research outputs found
Another analytic view about quantifying social forces
Montroll had considered a Verhulst evolution approach for introducing a
notion he called "social force", to describe a jump in some economic output
when a new technology or product outcompetes a previous one. In fact,
Montroll's adaptation of Verhulst equation is more like an economic field
description than a "social force". The empirical Verhulst logistic function and
the Gompertz double exponential law are used here in order to present an
alternative view, within a similar mechanistic physics framework. As an
example, a "social force" modifying the rate in the number of temples
constructed by a religious movement, the Antoinist community, between 1910 and
1940 in Belgium is found and quantified. Practically, two temple inauguration
regimes are seen to exist over different time spans, separated by a gap
attributed to a specific "constraint", a taxation system, but allowing for a
different, smooth, evolution rather than a jump. The impulse force duration is
also emphasized as being better taken into account within the Gompertz
framework. Moreover, a "social force" can be as here, attributed to a change in
the limited need/capacity of some population, coupled to some external field,
in either Verhulst or Gompertz equation, rather than resulting from already
existing but competing goods as imagined by Montroll.Comment: 4 figures, 29 refs., 15 pages; prepared for Advances in Complex
System
Happiness, environmental protection and market economy
The manufacturing sector is leaving the West for Asiaâs low wages and good working culture. Europe would be better off keeping these manufacturing activities, slowing down wage inflation and what is more, letting a young, cheaper workforce from the East settle down within their borders. This would aid in preserving the diverse economic structure which has been characteristic for Europe.Beside the economic growth there are two more concepts which have turned into the âholy cowsâ of economics during the last fifty years. One is the need to constantly improve labor productivity and the other is increasing competitiveness of nations. The high labor productivity of some countries, induces severe unemployment in the globalized world. In the other hand it is high time we understood that it is not competition, but cooperation that brings more happiness to humanity.Should we still opt for âhappinessâ and âsanityâ, it is quite obvious that we all should, in economistsâ terms, define our individual welfare functions corresponding to our own set of values, staying free from the influence of media, advertisements and fashion. The cornerstone to all this is the intelligent citizen who prefers local goods and services
Demanding stories: television coverage of sustainability, climate change and material demand
This paper explores the past, present and future role of broadcasting, above all via the medium of television, in shaping how societies talk, think about and act on climate change and sustainability issues. The paper explores these broad themes via a focus on the important but relatively neglected issue of material demand and opportunities for its reduction. It takes the outputs and decision-making of one of the worldâs most influential broadcasters, the BBC, as its primary focus. The paper considers these themes in terms of stories, touching on some of the broader societal frames of understanding into which they can be grouped. Media decision-makers and producers from a range of genres frequently return to the centrality of âstoryâ in the development, commissioning and production of an idea. With reference to specific examples of programming, and drawing on interviews with media practitioners, the paper considers the challenges of generating broadcast stories that can inspire engagement in issues around climate change, and specifically material demand. The concluding section proposes actions and approaches that might help to establish material demand reduction as a prominent way of thinking about climate change and environmental issues more widely.
This article is part of the themed issue âMaterial demand reductionâ
Family name distributions: Master equation approach
Although cumulative family name distributions in many countries exhibit
power-law forms, there also exist counterexamples. The origin of different
family name distributions across countries is discussed analytically in the
framework of a population dynamics model. Combined with empirical observations
made, it is suggested that those differences in distributions are closely
related with the rate of appearance of new family names.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
Noise driven unlimited population growth
Demographic noise causes unlimited population growth in a broad class of
models which, without noise, would predict a stable finite population. We study
this effect on the example of a stochastic birth-death model which includes
immigration, binary reproduction and death. The unlimited population growth
proceeds as an exponentially slow decay of a metastable probability
distribution (MPD) of the population. We develop a systematic WKB theory,
complemented by the van Kampen system size expansion, for the MPD and for the
decay time. Important signatures of the MPD is a power-law tail (such that all
the distribution moments, except the zeroth one, diverge) and the presence in
the solution of two different WKB modes.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Landowning, Status and Population Growth
This paper considers the effects of the landowning and land reforms on economic and demographic growth by a family-optimization model with endogenous fertility and status-seeking. A land reform provides the peasant with strong incentives to limit their family size and to improve the productivity of the land. Even though the income effect due to the land reform tends to raise fertility, a strong enough status-effect outweighs it, thus generating a decrease in population growth. The European demographic history provides supporting anecdotal evidence for this theoretical result
Quiescence: early evolutionary origins and universality do not imply uniformity
Cell cycle investigations have focused on relentless exponential proliferation of cells, an unsustainable situation in nature. Proliferation of cells, whether microbial or metazoan, is interrupted by periods of quiescence. The vast majority of cells in an adult metazoan lie quiescent. As disruptions in this quiescence are at the foundation of cancer, it will be important for the field to turn its attention to the mechanisms regulating quiescence. While often presented as a single topic, there are multiple forms of quiescence each with complex inputs, some of which are tied to conceptually challenging aspects of metazoan regulation such as size control. In an effort to expose the enormity of the challenge, I describe the differing biological purposes of quiescence, and the coupling of quiescence in metazoans to growth and to the structuring of tissues during development. I emphasize studies in the organism rather than in tissue culture, because these expose the diversity of regulation. While quiescence is likely to be a primitive biological process, it appears that in adapting quiescence to its many distinct biological settings, evolution has diversified it. Consideration of quiescence in different models gives us an overview of this diversity
Population policies and education: exploring the contradictions of neo-liberal globalisation
The world is increasingly characterised by profound income, health and social inequalities (Appadurai, 2000). In recent decades development initiatives aimed at reducing these inequalities have been situated in a context of increasing globalisation with a dominant neo-liberal economic orthodoxy. This paper argues that neo-liberal globalisation contains inherent contradictions regarding choice and uniformity. This is illustrated in this paper through an exploration of the impact of neo-liberal globalisation on population policies and programmes. The dominant neo-liberal economic ideology that has influenced development over the last few decades has often led to alternative global visions being overlooked. Many current population and development debates are characterised by polarised arguments with strongly opposing aims and views. This raises the challenge of finding alternatives situated in more middle ground that both identify and promote the socially positive elements of neo-liberalism and state intervention, but also to limit their worst excesses within the population field and more broadly. This paper concludes with a discussion outling the positive nature of middle ground and other possible alternatives
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