Environmental Values,Human Nature,and Economic Democracy

Recent social science indicates that the public at large behave more ethically, and favor environmental protection more strongly, than do the wealthiest minority. Yet the latter group exerts predominant control over the economy. This suggests that shifting power away from this minority and onto the majority would yield a better ecology. In this paper I spell out the implications of these considerations for “economic democracy” (ED), a well-developed alternative to capitalism that shifts power from wealthy shareholders onto ordinary citizens and workers. I contrast this rationale for ED with some thinkers’ defense of “sustainable capitalism”, and with others’ ecological arguments for ED based on economic stability and self-interest, rather than ethical behavior per se.     

The Cultural Dynamics of Copycat Suicide

The observation that suicides sometimes cluster in space and/or time has led to suggestions that these clusters are caused by the social learning of suicide-related behaviours, or “copycat suicides”. Point clusters are clusters of suicides localised in both time and space, and have been attributed to direct social learning from nearby individuals. Mass clusters are clusters of suicides localised in time but not space, and have been attributed to the dissemination of information concerning celebrity suicides via the mass media. Here, agent-based simulations, in combination with scan statistic methods for detecting clusters of rare events, were used to clarify the social learning processes underlying point and mass clusters. It was found that social learning between neighbouring agents did generate point clusters as predicted, although this effect was partially mimicked by homophily (individuals preferentially assorting with similar others). The one-to-many transmission dynamics characterised by the mass media were shown to generate mass clusters, but only where social learning was weak, perhaps due to prestige bias (only copying prestigious celebrities) and similarity bias (only copying similar models) acting to reduce the subset of available models. These findings can help to clarify and formalise existing hypotheses and to guide future empirical work relating to real-life copycat suicides.     

Interethnic Interaction,Strategic Bargaining Power,and the Dynamics of Cultural Norms

Ethnic groups are universal and unique to human societies. Such groups sometimes have norms of behavior that are adaptively linked to their social and ecological circumstances, and ethnic boundaries may function to protect that variation from erosion by interethnic interaction. However, such interaction is often frequent and voluntary, suggesting that individuals may be able to strategically reduce its costs, allowing adaptive cultural variation to persist in spite of interaction with out-groups with different norms. We examine five mechanisms influencing the dynamics of ethnically distinct cultural norms, each focused on strategic individual-level choices in interethnic interaction: bargaining, interaction-frequency-biased norm adoption, assortment on norms, success-biased interethnic social learning, and childhood socialization. We use Bayesian item response models to analyze patterns of norm variation and interethnic interaction in an ethnically structured Amazonian population. We show that, among indigenous Matsigenka, interethnic education with colonial Mestizos is more strongly associated with Mestizo-typical norms than even extensive interethnic experience in commerce and wage labor is. Using ethnographic observations, we show that all five of the proposed mechanisms of norm adoption may contribute to this effect. However, of these mechanisms, we argue that changes in relative bargaining power are particularly important for ethnic minorities wishing to preserve distinctive norms while engaging in interethnic interaction in domains such as education. If this mechanism proves applicable in a range of other ethnographic contexts, it would constitute one cogent explanation for when and why ethnically structured cultural variation can either persist or erode given frequent, and often mutually beneficial, interethnic interaction.     

Uncommon Ground: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Values

Uncommon Ground: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Values. Veronica Strang. New York: New York University Press, 1997.310 pp.     

石榴的经济与植物文化价值研究

从民族植物学的角度考察汉语中关于石榴(Punica granatum L.)的名称,重点介绍了石榴的经济价值和利用,并着重从传说、风俗方面分析石榴的文化,结果表明石榴在中国植物文化中具有重要价值,其原因在于其实用价值基础上的被赋予人性上的魅力,代表着美好事物以及进而上升为一种精神世界的追求,在漫长的人类历史中成为一种文化植物。     

The Development of an Age-Structured Model for Trachoma Transmission Dynamics,Pathogenesis and Control

Background

Trachoma, the worldwide leading infectious cause of blindness, is due to repeated conjunctival infection with Chlamydia trachomatis. The effects of control interventions on population levels of infection and active disease can be promptly measured, but the effects on severe ocular sequelae require long-term monitoring. We present an age-structured mathematical model of trachoma transmission and disease to predict the impact of interventions on the prevalence of blinding trachoma.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The model is based on the concept of multiple reinfections leading to progressive conjunctival scarring, trichiasis, corneal opacity and blindness. It also includes aspects of trachoma natural history, such as an increasing rate of recovery from infection and a decreasing chlamydial load with subsequent infections that depend upon a (presumed) acquired immunity that clears infection with age more rapidly. Parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood by fitting the model to pre-control infection prevalence data from hypo-, meso- and hyperendemic communities from The Gambia and Tanzania. The model reproduces key features of trachoma epidemiology: 1) the age-profile of infection prevalence, which increases to a peak at very young ages and declines at older ages; 2) a shift in this prevalence peak, toward younger ages in higher force of infection environments; 3) a raised overall profile of infection prevalence with higher force of infection; and 4) a rising profile, with age, of the prevalence of the ensuing severe sequelae (trachomatous scarring, trichiasis), as well as estimates of the number of infections that need to occur before these sequelae appear.

Conclusions/Significance

We present a framework that is sufficiently comprehensive to examine the outcomes of the A (antibiotic) component of the SAFE strategy on disease. The suitability of the model for representing population-level patterns of infection and disease sequelae is discussed in view of the individual processes leading to these patterns.     

Development,Alteration and Real Time Dynamics of Conjunctiva-Associated Lymphoid Tissue

Purpose

Conjunctiva-associated lymphoid tissue (CALT) is thought to play a key role in initiating ocular surface related immune responses. This study was planned to get first profound insights into the function of CALT related to development, cellular dynamics and morphological alteration using a novel mouse model.

Methods

Expression and morphology of CALT were investigated using BALB/c mice kept under different housing conditions, after topical antigen-stimulation and following lymphadenectomy and splenectomy. Particles and bacteria were applied topically to study antigen-transport. Intravital visualization was performed using two-photon microscopy.

Results

Postnatal development and ultrastructure of CALT in the mouse is similar to humans. Topical antigen-challenge significantly alters CALT expression. Bacterial translocation is demonstrated via lymphoepithelium whereas cellular velocities within follicles were approximately 8 µm/min.

Conclusions

CALT in the mouse is an immunological interface of the ocular surface, featuring dynamic processes such as morphological plasticity, particle/bacteria transport and cellular migration.     

Values,Errors, and Precautions

In the environmental health literature, errors in interpreting studies or data are not infrequent. Many are of the Type II variety. Common solecisms of this type are: treating the criterion of p < 0.05 as a sacrament; demanding complete confounder control; arguing for the existence of phantom confounders; arguing that the effect size is trivial; building nonveridical models; arguing for no effect from inadequate sample size; demanding causal proof; arguing that causality is reversed; conducting a ballot of published studies. These are examined in this paper.     

The Semiglades: The Collision of Restoration,Social Values,and the Ecosystem Concept

Defining success targets in restoration and how social values affect them are two commonly discussed issues in restoration today. We believe that how success is commonly defined—with vague terms such as “healthy ecosystem” or cited as a return to a previous, historic state—needs to be reevaluated. With the increasing number of novel ecosystems, there is an increasing conflict between the ecosystem concept, social values, and restoration. This arises from the fact that ecosystems are defined by the values of the scientists describing them, necessarily constraining the ecosystem to a generally static concept. It is not directly the concept, but how it is perceived through our filter of social values that represses the creativity and innovation needed in restoration today. Within restoration, we feel that the ecosystem concept does a disservice by ignoring the increasing number of novel systems, and that hinders real progress in a time when hesitation can be costly. To best illustrate this, we offer the example of restoration of the Florida Everglades and how it has become a novel system in pattern and process. We suggest renaming the Everglades “The Semiglades” in hopes of opening a dialog to expose social/ecosystem biases and include novel landscapes in management and planning.     

Fluid Dynamics of Heart Development

The morphology, muscle mechanics, fluid dynamics, conduction properties, and molecular biology of the developing embryonic heart have received much attention in recent years due to the importance of both fluid and elastic forces in shaping the heart as well as the striking relationship between the heart’s evolution and development. Although few studies have directly addressed the connection between fluid dynamics and heart development, a number of studies suggest that fluids may play a key role in morphogenic signaling. For example, fluid shear stress may trigger biochemical cascades within the endothelial cells of the developing heart that regulate chamber and valve morphogenesis. Myocardial activity generates forces on the intracardiac blood, creating pressure gradients across the cardiac wall. These pressures may also serve as epigenetic signals. In this article, the fluid dynamics of the early stages of heart development is reviewed. The relevant work in cardiac morphology, muscle mechanics, regulatory networks, and electrophysiology is also reviewed in the context of intracardial fluid dynamics.     

The Cultural Context of Health, Illness, and Medicine

The Cultural Context of Health, Illness, and Medicine. Martha O. Loustaunau and Elisa J. Sobo. Westport, CT: Begin & Garvey, 1997. 222 pp.     

Cultural Ecology and Ecological Dynamics of the Ceramic Period in Southwestern Manitoba

Abstract

A new research paradigm—the Co-Influence Sphere Model—is developed and applied to the archaeological record to account for the variability in prehistoric ceramics of Southwestern Manitoba. The Co-Influence Sphere Model emphasis the co-existence, interaction, and territorial overlapping of groups in the prehistoric and early historic periods

The model requires an evaluation of the seasonally fluctuating resource potential across the Plains, ‘Aspen Parkland, and Boreal Forest; the mobility and multiple biome utilization of historic groups; and the interaction of historic groups through formalized trade networks, conflict, and sharing of similar resources. The earlier emphasis on chronology and mutually exclusive home territories of historic groups is replaced by a more realistic and dynamic model of groups with core, secondary, and tertiary subsistencesettlement areas in which groups interact to varying degrees

For Southwestern Manitoba, the earlier Chronological Model (with one identifiable phase and one historic tribe per period and area) is replaced by a complicated record of four complexes during the Middle Woodland Stage, nine complexes during the Late Woodland Stage, and possibly 15 different ethnic groups in the protohistoric and early historic periods Furthermore, there is a shift in interrelationships between territorially overlapping occupants from the Boreal Forest and Plains with the advent of the Late Woodland Stage that is accompanied by the development of horticultural villages, the growth and fission of human populations, and symbiotic relationships between horticulturalists and hunters.

Use of the dynamic Co-Influence Sphere Model requires a shift away from defining complexes and seeking causal relationships or processes within a small research region. The environmental limitations, cultural history, and cultural processes of any region, and particularly a region like Southwestern Manitoba (which partly straddles an ecotone) can be determined only by an exhaustive study of fluctuating resources, ethnohistory, archaeological history, and variation in subsistence-settlement patterns beyond the region. In order to apply the Co-Influence Sphere Model to Southwestern Manitoba, local data have been related to developments in the Boreal Forest, Upper Great Lakes, Upper Mississippi, and Northern Plains. Relationships are determined by assessing regions and areas beyond the local research universe, rather than attempting to discover processes on the basis of limited local data.