Embedded autonomy Evans, Peter
1995., 20120112, 2012, 2012-01-12
eBook
In recent years, debate on the state's economic role has too often devolved into diatribes against intervention. Peter Evans questions such simplistic views, offering a new vision of why state ...involvement works in some cases and produces disasters in others. To illustrate, he looks at how state agencies, local entrepreneurs, and transnational corporations shaped the emergence of computer industries in Brazil, India, and Korea during the seventies and eighties.
After the Holocaust, the world vowed it would never again stand by and permit such heinous crimes against humanity. Yet many subsequent atrocities have gone unchecked, all over the world: from the ...killing fields of Cambodia, to Rwanda, and to Srebrenica. The bloody list continues to grow, led by the unfolding nightmare in Darfur. How and why were the world's best intentions derailed, and what can be done today to put these efforts back on track? The "responsibility to protect: - R2P for short - was unanimously embraced at the UN World Summit in 2005. The heart of this new international norm is the belief that if sovereign governments fail to protect their own people from mass atrocity crimes, then responsibility shifts to the wider international community to take whatever action is appropriate, including (in extreme cases) the use of force. The world cannot, and will not, just stand by. Evens spells out the steps needed to make R2P work in practice and clarifies the misunderstandings, real or contrived, which persist about its scope and limits. He emphasizes the need for preventive action, and for preferring assistance and persuasion to coercion, but he also makes clear when it is right to fight. The book is enlivened throughout by real world examples, analyses of current events, and assessments drawn from the author's own vast experience.
Dual-process and dual-system theories in both cognitive and social psychology have been subjected to a number of recently published criticisms. However, they have been attacked as a category, ...incorrectly assuming there is a generic version that applies to all. We identify and respond to 5 main lines of argument made by such critics. We agree that some of these arguments have force against some of the theories in the literature but believe them to be overstated. We argue that the dual-processing distinction is supported by much recent evidence in cognitive science. Our preferred theoretical approach is one in which rapid autonomous processes (Type 1) are assumed to yield default responses unless intervened on by distinctive higher order reasoning processes (Type 2). What defines the difference is that Type 2 processing supports hypothetical thinking and load heavily on working memory.
The objective of the present study was to characterize the phenotypic performance of cows with similar proportions of Holstein genetics, similar genetic merit for milk production traits, but with ...good (Fert+) or poor (Fert−) genetic merit for fertility traits. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that cows with a negative estimated breeding value for calving interval would have superior fertility performance and would have detectable differences in body reserve mobilization and circulating concentrations of metabolic hormones and metabolites compared with cows that had a positive estimated breeding value for calving interval. For the duration of the study, cows were managed identically as a single herd in a typical grass-based, spring-calving production system. A total of 80 lactation records were available from 26 Fert+ and 26 Fert− cows over 2 consecutive years (2008 and 2009). During yr 1, cows were monitored during a 20-wk breeding season to evaluate reproductive performance. Milk production, body condition score (scale 1 to 5), body weight, grass dry matter intake, energy balance, and metabolic hormone and metabolite data were collected during both years. The Fert+ cows had greater daily milk yield (19.5 vs. 18.7kg/d), shorter interval from calving to conception (85.6 vs. 113.8 d), and fewer services per cow (1.78 vs. 2.83). No difference between groups in grass dry matter intake, energy balance, or body weight was observed. The Fert+ cows maintained greater BCS during mid (2.84 vs. 2.74 units) and late lactation (2.82 vs. 2.73 units). Circulating concentrations of insulin-like growth factor-I were greater throughout the gestation-lactation cycle in Fert+ cows (148.3 vs. 128.2ng/mL). The Fert+ cows also had greater circulating concentrations of insulin during the first 4 wk of lactation (1.71 vs. 1.24μIU/mL). Analysis of records from national herd data verified the association between genetic merit for fertility traits and phenotypic reproductive performance; Fert+ cows (n=2,436) required 11.1 d less to recalve than did Fert− cows (n=1,388), and the percentage of cows that successfully calved for the second time within 365 and 400 d of the first calving was 8 and 13% greater for Fert+ compared with Fert− cows, respectively. These results demonstrate that genetic merit for fertility traits had a pronounced effect on reproductive efficiency, BCS profiles, and circulating concentrations of insulin-like growth factor-I.
An authoritative general introduction to cognitive linguistics, this book provides up-to-date coverage of all areas of the field and sets in context recent developments within cognitive semantics and ...cognitive approaches to grammar.
Deals with the dark side of the medieval theory of knowledge, the pursuit of knowldge in 'wrong' ways, 'common knowledge' and departures from it, wisdom and folly, incomplete knowledge, truth and ...lies.
A crucial challenge for economists is figuring out how people interpret the world and form expectations that will likely influence their economic activity. Inflation, asset prices, exchange rates, ...investment, and consumption are just some of the economic variables that are largely explained by expectations. Here George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja bring new explanatory power to a variety of expectation formation models by focusing on the learning factor. Whereas the rational expectations paradigm offers the prevailing method to determining expectations, it assumes very theoretical knowledge on the part of economic actors. Evans and Honkapohja contribute to a growing body of research positing that households and firms learn by making forecasts using observed data, updating their forecast rules over time in response to errors. This book is the first systematic development of the new statistical learning approach.
Depending on the particular economic structure, the economy may converge to a standard rational-expectations or a "rational bubble" solution, or exhibit persistent learning dynamics. The learning approach also provides tools to assess the importance of new models with expectational indeterminacy, in which expectations are an independent cause of macroeconomic fluctuations. Moreover, learning dynamics provide a theory for the evolution of expectations and selection between alternative equilibria, with implications for business cycles, asset price volatility, and policy. This book provides an authoritative treatment of this emerging field, developing the analytical techniques in detail and using them to synthesize and extend existing research.
Food Waste is the first academic study to tackle this highly topical subject. Drawing from social science approaches to waste, material culture and everyday life in the home, the author uncovers the ...reasons behind the vast quantity of food wasted on a daily basis by households and consumers.
Just Sustainabilities Bullard, Robert D; Agyeman, Julian; Evans, Bob
2003, 20120427, 2001, 2003., 2012-04-27
eBook, Book
Environmental activists and academics alike are realizing that a sustainable society must be a just one. Environmental degradation is almost always linked to questions of human equality and quality ...of life. Throughout the world, those segments of the population that have the least political power and are the most marginalized are selectively victimized by environmental crises. This book argues that social and environmental justice within and between nations should be an integral part of the policies and agreements that promote sustainable development. The book addresses the links between environmental quality and human equality and between sustainability and environmental justice.
How did men cope with sexual health issues in early modern England? This vivid history investigates how sexual, reproductive, and genitourinary conditions were understood between 1580 and 1740. ...Drawing on medical sources and personal testimonies, it reveals how men responded to bouts of ill health and their relationships with the medical practitioners tasked with curing them. In doing so, this study restores men's health to medical histories of reproduction, demonstrating how men's sexual self-identity was tied to their health. Charting genitourinary conditions across the life cycle, the book illustrates how fertility and potency were key to medical understandings of men's health. Men utilized networks of care to help them with ostensibly embarrassing and shameful conditions like hernias, venereal disease, bladder stones, and testicular injuries. The book thus offers a historical voice to modern calls for men to be alert to, and open about, their own bodily health.
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