Notable in cross-cultural comparisons is the variable span of time between when children become economically self-sufficient and when they initiate their own reproductive careers. That variation is of interest because it shapes the age range of children reliant on others for support and the age range of children available to help out, which in turn affects the competing demands on parents to support multiple dependents of different ages. The age at positive net production is used as a proxy to estimate (...) the close of juvenile economic dependence among a group of Maya subsistence agriculturalists. Maya children produce more than they consume by their early to mid teens but remain in their natal households for a number of years before leaving home and beginning families of their own. The Maya results contrast markedly with those from several groups of hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists for whom we have similar data. Even in the Maya case, where children are self-sufficient at a relatively young age, parents are unable to support their children without help from others. The production surplus of older children appears to help underwrite the cost of large Maya families and subsidize their parents’ continued reproduction. (shrink)

The evolution of cooperative breeding is complex, and particularly so in humans because many other life history traits likely evolved at the same time. While cooperative childrearing is often presumed ancient, the transition from maternal self-reliance to dependence on allocare leaves no known empirical record. In this paper, an exploratory model is developed that incorporates probable evolutionary changes in birth intervals, juvenile dependence, and dispersal age to predict under what life history conditions mothers are unable to raise children without adult (...) cooperation. The model’s outcome variable (net balance) integrates dependent children’s production and consumption as a function of varying life history parameters to estimate the investment mothers or others have to spend subsidizing children. Results suggest that maternal-juvenile cooperation can support the early transition toward a reduction in birth intervals, a longer period of juvenile dependence, and having overlapping young. The need for adult cooperation is most evident when birth intervals are short and age at net production is late. Findings suggest that the needs of juveniles would not have been an early selective force for adult cooperation. Rather, an age-graded division of labor and the mutual benefits of maternal-juvenile cooperation could be an important, but overlooked step in the evolution of cooperative breeding. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein famously declared that philosophy “ought really to be written only as a form of poetry,” and he even described the Tractatus as “philosophical and, at the same time, literary.” But few books have really followed up on these claims, and fewer still have focused on their relation to the special literary and artistic period in which Wittgenstein worked. This book offers the first collection to address the rich, vexed, and often contradictory relationship between modernism—the twentieth century’s predominant cultural (...) and artistic movement—and Wittgenstein, one of its preeminent and most enduring philosophers. In doing so it offers rich new understandings of both. Michael LeMahieu Karen Zumhagen-Yekplé bring together scholars in both twentieth-century philosophy and modern literary studies to put Wittgenstein into dialogue with some of modernism’s most iconic figures, including Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, Walter Benjamin, Henry James, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Adolf Loos, Robert Musil, Wallace Stevens, and Virginia Woolf. The contributors touch on two important aspects of Wittgenstein’s work and modernism itself: form and medium. They discuss issues ranging from Wittgenstein and poetics to his use of numbered propositions in the Tractatus as a virtuoso performance of modernist form; from Wittgenstein’s persistence metaphoric use of religion, music, and photography to an exploration of how he and Henry James both negotiated the relationship between the aesthetic and the ethical. Covering many other fascinating intersections of the philosopher and the arts, this book offers an important bridge across the disciplinary divides that have kept us from a fuller picture of both Wittgenstein and the larger intellectual and cultural movement of which he was a part. (shrink)

Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation offers many puzzles to those who wish to understand his theory both within the context of his biology and within the context of his more general philosophy of nature. In this paper, I approach the difficult and vague elements of Aristotle’s account of spontaneous generation not as weaknesses, but as opportunities for an interesting glimpse into the thought of an early scientist struggling to reconcile evidence and theory. The paper has two goals: to give as (...) charitable and full an account as possible of what Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation was, and to examine some of its consequences; and to reflect on Aristotle as a scientist, and what his comments reveal about how he approached a difficult problem. In particular, I propose that the well-recognized problem of the incompatibility between Aristotle’s concept of spontaneity and his theory of spontaneous generation presents an opportunity for insight into his scientific methodology when approaching ill-understood phenomena. (shrink)

Dispersal of individuals from their natal communities at sexual maturity is an important determinant of kin association. In this paper we compare postmarital residence patterns among Pumé foragers of Venezuela to investigate the prevalence of sex-biased vs. bilateral residence. This study complements cross-cultural overviews by examining postmarital kin association in relation to individual, longitudinal data on residence within a forager society. Based on cultural norms, the Pumé have been characterized as matrilocal. Analysis of Pumé marriages over a 25-year period finds (...) a predominant pattern of natalocal residence. We emphasize that natalocality, bilocality, and multilocality accomplish similar ends in maximizing bilateral kin affiliations in contrast to sex-biased residential patterns. Bilateral kin association may be especially important in foraging economies where subsistence activities change throughout the year and large kin networks permit greater potential flexibility in residential mobility. (shrink)

Research in nonindustrial small-scale societies challenges the common perception that human childhood is universally characterized by a long period of intensive adult investment and dedicated instruction. Using return rate and time allocation data for the Savanna Pumé, a group of South American hunter-gatherers, age patterns in how children learn to become productive foragers and from whom they learn are observed across the transition from childhood to adolescence. Results show that Savanna Pumé children care for their siblings, are important economic contributors, (...) learn by doing rather than by instruction, and spend their time principally in the company of other children. This developmental experience contrasts with that of children in postindustrial societies, who are dependent on adults, often well past maturity; learn in formal settings; and spend much of their time in the company of adults. These differences raise questions about whether normative behaviors observed in postindustrial societies are representative of human children. This comparison also identifies the potential mismatch between hunter-gatherer and postindustrial societies in the extent to which children may be well adapted to learn from and teach each other. In particular, spending time in autonomous work and play groups develops the cooperation and coordination skills that are foundational to human subsistence and growing up to be socially and productively adept adults and parents. (shrink)

Although databases have been well-defined and thoroughly discussed in the computer science literature, the actual users of databases often have varying definitions and expectations of this essential computational infrastructure. Systems administrators and computer science textbooks may expect databases to be instantiated in a small number of technologies, but there are numerous examples of databases in non-conventional or unexpected technologies, such as spreadsheets or other assemblages of files linked through code. Consequently, we ask: How do the materialities of non-conventional databases differ (...) from or align with the materialities of conventional relational systems? What properties of the database do the creators of these artifacts invoke in their rhetoric describing these systems—or in the data models underlying these digital objects? To answer these questions, we conducted a close analysis of four non-conventional scientific databases. By examining the materialities of information representation in each case, we show how scholarly communication regimes shape database materialities—and how information organization paradigms shape scholarly communication. These cases show abandonment of certain constraints of relational database construction alongside maintenance of some key relational data organization strategies. We discuss the implications that these relational data paradigms have for data use, preservation, and sharing, and discuss the need to support a plurality of data practices and paradigms. (shrink)

Roughly 20 percent of organic cropland wasdevoted to produce compared to only 3 percent forconventional agriculture in 1995. At the otherextreme, only 6 percent of organic cropland was incorn production while 25 percent of all croplandproduced corn. Only 30 percent of all organicfarmland was in pasture and rangeland compared to 66percent of all farmland. Clearly, these differencesreflect the greater importance of meat and dairyproduction in agriculture overall than in the organicsubsector. In recent years, the organic industry hasgrown not only in (...) volume but in products offered,moving well beyond fresh produce into dairy, snacks,and frozen foods. The estimated growth in retail salesof organic foods averaged over 20 percent a year forthe last eight years compared to only two percent inthe food industry overall, reaching an estimated $4.5billion in 1998. The mix of commodities produced atthe farm level have and will continue to change inresponse to several dynamic forces, including consumerdemand, regulation, and consolidations, mergers, andmainstream entrants at the farm, manufacturing, andretail levels. Consumer demand for organic foods hasbeen spurred by a number of factors including concernsover pesticide residues on foods, food produced usinggenetically modified organisms (GMOs), and hormones indairy and meat products. These concerns coupled withthe overall increase in demand for convenience foodsexplain the phenomenal recent growth of over 70 percent in sales of organic snacks, candy, and frozenfoods. The result has been increased demand forGMO-free grains for snacks, cereals, soy products, andfeed for dairy cows. The recent allowance by USDA forthe labeling of meat and poultry as organic willaccelerate already heightened demand for organic grainand feed from the organic dairy industry. Although thefastest growth in organic foods has been in categoriesother than produce, clearly produce plays an importantrole in the consumers decision on where to shop, anddemand should increase with the overall increase inthe number of organic consumers. Market outlets nowinclude sophisticated natural food store chains,gourmet specialty stores, and e-commerce, allowing fora broadened array of products. Mainstream agriculturalproducers, manufacturers, and supermarket chains haveentered the organic marketplace at a time of lowprices for commodities at the farm gate, fiercecompetition for retail shelf space, and increasinglysophisticated targeting of consumers. Inevitably,these changes in food products offered and in retailoutlets will lead to an organic agriculture thatincreasingly resembles the conventional foodindustry. (shrink)

We examine recent work in cognitive neuroscience that investigates brain networks. Brain networks are characterized by the ways in which brain regions are functionally and anatomically connected to one another. Cognitive neuroscientists use various noninvasive techniques (e.g., fMRI) to investigate these networks. They represent them formally as graphs. And they use various graph theoretic techniques to analyze them further. We distinguish between knowledge of the graph theoretic structure of such networks (structural knowledge) and knowledge of what instantiates that structure (nonstructural (...) knowledge). And we argue that this work provides structural knowledge of brain networks. We explore the significance of this conclusion for the scientific realism debate. We argue that our conclusion should not be understood as an instance of a global structural realist claim regarding the structure of the unobservable part of the world, but instead, as a local structural realist attitude towards brain networks in particular. And we argue that various local approaches to the realism debate, i.e., approaches that restrict realist commitments to particular theories and/or entities, are problematic insofar as they don't allow for the possibility of such a local structural realist attitude. (shrink)

Summary The enthusiasm of Renaissance humanists for classical learning greatly influenced the development of botany in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Humanist scholars restored the treatises of Theophrastus, Pliny, Galen and Dioscorides on botany and materia medica to general circulation and argued for their use as textbooks in Renaissance universities. Renaissance botanists' respect for classical precepts and models of the proper methods for studying plants temporarily discouraged the use of naturalistic botanical illustration, but encouraged other techniques for collecting and (...) communicating new observations: herbaria, botanical gardens and field trips. (shrink)

Using qualitative data based on interviews with 22 married infertile couples living in western New York State, we describe the ways in which husbands and wives interact in the process of constructing their infertility. The wives experienced infertility as a cataclysmic role failure. Husbands tended to see infertility as a disconcerting event but not as a tragedy. Couples tended to see infertility as a problem for wives. Frustration and lack of communication were typical consequences of the confrontation of husbands' and (...) wives' perspectives on infertility. Interactions with medical professionals tended to reinforce these consequences. These interactions between wives, husbands, and medical professionals may lead to taking wrong directions in treatment and to ignoring treatment options. Some of the problems we describe could be lessened by adopting a model of couple-centered treatment in a setting that incorporated routine counseling. (shrink)

Certaines ont affirmé que le concept de gender était une invention américaine, intraduisible par le mot français « genre ». Pourtant, au-delà des distinctions grammaticales, il existe depuis longtemps - bien avant Beauvoir, Oakley, et l'usage postmoderniste construit par Joan Scott et Judith Butler - un usage français du terme « genre », qui spécifie dans le vocabulaire sociopolitique - notamment féministe - la construction sociale et culturelle des sexes. L’objet de cet article est d’en rétablir les trajectoires historiques et (...) de contribuer peut-être à balayer les dernières réticences manifestées en France à son égard. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Using data from 52 in-depth interviews with working-class and professional men and women, I examine gender differences in friendships. Men and women respond to global questions about friendship in culturally specific ways. Men focus on shared activities, and women focus on shared feelings. Responses to questions about specific friends, however, reveal more variation in same-sex friendships than the literature indicates. Men share feelings more, whereas women share feelings less; furthermore, the extent to which they do so varies by class. I (...) argue that conceptualizing gender as an ongoing social construction explains the data better than do psychoanalytic or socialization accounts. (shrink)

I argue that the framing of environmental justice issues in terms of distribution is problematic. Using insights about the connections between institutions of human oppression and the domination of the natural environment, as well as insights into nondistributive justice, I argue for a nondistributive model to supplement, complement, and in some cases preempt the distributive model. I conclude with a discussion of eight features of such a nondistributive conception of justice.

The author contends that overworking residents cannot be ethically justified. There is evidence that overwork is detrimental both to the resident and to the patient. In addition, thu argument that working long hours is essential to maintain medicine's status as a profession is analyzed. The claim cannot be supported by definitions of professionalism. Although Flexner's definition does specify altruism as an essential component, it does not justify long working hours for residents. Altruism is obligatory in some limited cases, but only (...) when it is required to fulfill some contractual obligation. Keywords: professionalism, altruism, residency, medical education CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Based on interviews with a random sample of white women who are in a second marriage, this article examines changes in women's marital power across marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In some marriages, women's market work is not considered a resource and hence does not have a positive effect on marital power, particularly when husbands are employed in low-status occupations. Conversely, women who are domestically oriented do not necessarily suffer a loss of power. Hochschild's concept of “economy of gratitude” illuminates the (...) way that marital power is affected by the meanings couples assign to women's paid and unpaid labor. Furthermore, women's previous market work and marital and divorce experiences affect the meaning of their paid and unpaid labor upon remarriage, as well as their desire for each. (shrink)

Humility, properly understood as a sense of one's limits, is one of the goods internal to the practice of health care. Humility in Christian tradition has both a relational aspect and an epistemological aspect. Each of these is evident in the practice of medicine. In its relational aspect, humility includes reverance or awe for the grace and strength of patients and their care-givers, a sense that the care-provider is not self-sufficient but needs the care-receiver, and recognition of the worth of (...) those who are oppressed and outcast. In its epistemological aspect, humility is exhibited in respect for the meaning system of the patient and recognition of the limits of medical paradigms and their need for correction from the patient's perspective. The power wielded by the profession of medicine in contemporary society does not preclude the exercise of humility within the profession. Keywords: epistemology, humility, internal goods, practice of medicine, virtue CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Let K be a family of structures, closed under isomorphism, in a fixed computable language. We consider effective lists of structures from K such that every structure in K is isomorphic to exactly one structure on the list. Such a list is called a computable classification of K, up to isomorphism. Using the technique of Friedberg enumeration, we show that there is a computable classification of the family of computable algebraic fields and that with a 0'-oracle, we can obtain similar (...) classifications of the families of computable equivalence structures and of computable finite-branching trees. However, there is no computable classification of the latter, nor of the family of computable torsion-free abelian groups of rank 1, even though these families are both closely allied with computable algebraic fields. (shrink)

Sir Ernst Gombrich and the Barber from Tuscany In the spirit of Sir Ernst Gombrich, this essay uses an anecdote—a chat between Gombrich and a barber from Tuscany—to illustrate a deeper point, namely, how cultural memory, tradition, and a canon give rise to an implied language of culture and cultural value. Gombrich staunchly defended tradition against relativism. By relativism, he meant something like "radical subjectivism." To his mind, subjectivism (in the cultural and social sense of the term) is not only (...) impossible, since meaning is conferred through culture and society, but it is also dangerous (in the cultural and ethical sense of the term), since it denies the existence of shared values. Against consensus on the one hand and radical subjectivism on the other, Gombrich advocated a middle way: criticism and self-criticism to ensure latitude; the search for "truth" to ensure a limited plurality of interpretations. (shrink)

ObjectivesThis pilot study sought to develop and evaluate a novel online group-based intervention to help breast cancer survivors make healthy lifestyle changes intended to yield not only beneficial physical outcomes but also greater behavioral, and psychosocial well-being.MethodsAn exploratory single-arm, mixed-method triangulation design was employed to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of the HLM-ABC intervention for overweight BCSs. Fourteen women participated in the 10-week intervention and completed quantitative measures of the above-mentioned outcomes at baseline, post-treatment, 6-month, and 12-month follow-up time (...) points. Qualitative data were obtained post-treatment via semi-structured interviews and a treatment satisfaction questionnaire.ResultsParticipants lost an average of 2.83% of their baseline weight by 1-year follow-up, equal to a small effect size. Despite achieving only modest weight loss, participants achieved meaningful gains in the form of increased physical activity, discovery of gratifying movement, more intuitive eating habits, greater bodily and emotional awareness, and positive shifts in beliefs about being able to make healthy choices regarding food and physical activity. Furthermore, they demonstrated a slight improvement in body image and described feeling more self-compassionate, empowered, and acknowledging of variables beyond control that can present barriers to change.ConclusionAfter completing a 10-week online program, participants achieved meaningful and lasting changes on a number of healthful indicators, even when this did not correspond with a significant reduction in weight. Findings highlight the complex, multifaceted nature of “health” and lend support for promotion of healthier lifestyle following cancer treatment that encompasses not only physical weight, but also behavior, psychosocial well-being, and circumstances such as life-preserving hormonal treatments. (shrink)