Bottom Of Hierarchy Research Articles

Black Boys Matter: Developmental Equality

The life course of Black boys is a stark reminder of the realities of inequality. While recent attention to policing and high profile deaths of Black youth and adults has raised consciousness of life-threatening situations, this focus exposes the most visceral and deadly aspect of a much larger set of issues. Those issues begin at birth, and are powerfully framed before adulthood, creating inequality particularly when the individual is most vulnerable, in childhood. This Article confronts the inequalities of Black boys and their subordination, as a vehicle to expose inequalities more generally based on children’s identities.The life course of Black boys is the basis for two groundbreaking contributions. First, the Article proposes a model, the developmental equality model, to achieve children’s equality. It takes developmental scholarship centered on analysis of the experience of children of color and other “outsider” groups of children and proposes it as a critical addition to the law’s use of development as an interpretive lens or rule of decision. Rather than imagining a child without race, gender, or class when those identities so powerfully affect development, I argue identities, and their intersectionalities, must be central to the developmental model. Most importantly, this race-conscious developmental scholarship must be fused with equality principles to address structural discrimination responsible for children’s inequalities. My developmental equality model brings this critical perspective to law, as a way to meaningfully confront state action that challenges or blocks children, and as a basis to require support for all children’s developmental opportunities.The second critical contribution of the Article is its application of the developmental equality model to the life course of Black boys from birth to age 18. The article summarizes a comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of social science literature on the development of Black boys. The developmental equality model is tested against this data; and the model suggests where policy and litigation should focus to dismantle systemic discrimination that blocks opportunity for Black boys. The data on Black boys is critical because Black boys matter. But the data is also important because it exposes inequalities that affect all children at the bottom of hierarchies among children. This example therefore serves to expose and deal with all children’s inequalities.The synergy between these two pathbreaking contributions provides the basis for the usefulness of the developmental equality model to achieve real, substantive equality. The final section of the article sketches the potential use of the model to advance litigation and policy strategies.

The Birth of Modern People in East Asia : Comparing Ishida Baigan with Adam Smith

This paper amis to bring to light modern connotations of "Shingaku" proposed by Ishida Baigan in the Tokugawa period by comparing him with Adam Smith, one of the forerunners of modern economic thought.BR By the late 17th century, the prosperity and economic growth of Japan in the Edo period had begun to cause unforeseen changes in the social order. At that time, The ch?nin, who were, in theory, thought to be at the bottom of hierarchy (shin?k?sh?, samurai-farmers-craftsmen-merchants, with the ch?nin referred to the two latter groups), flourished socially and economically at the expense of the daimyo and the samurai, who were eager to trade rice (the principal source of domainal income) for cash and consumer goods. Mass-market innovations went further to challenge the social hierarchy. Despite their importance, outside Japan, the ch?nin are considered not as much familiar as a popular notion of samurai.BR Ishida Baigan (1685~1744) was a Japanese lecturer and philosopher who founded the Shingaku movement (heart learning) which advocated all education including teachings in ethics and morality. From today"s perspective, his life and works have been summarized in terms of advocating a Confucian idea that a man who cannot control his household cannot control his nation. This idea helped motivate many Japanese reformers to fight for Japanese feminists, and human and people"s rights.BR Adam Smith, on the other hand, was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economics. He has been also thought to be one of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith critically examined the moral thinking in his time, and suggested that conscience arose from social relationships. His goal in writing his work was to explain the source of mankind"s ability to form moral judgements, in spite of man"s natural inclinations towards self-interest. Smith proposed a theory of sympathy, in which the act of observing others makes people aware of themselves and the morality of their own behavior.BR In conclusion, we can say that Adam Smith proposed his economic and moral thoughts in the direction towards the modern capitalist world. However, in case of Baigan, he suggested the economic activities which were defeudalized or capitalist, suggesting some new ethics of the business men. Yet, there were not any criticisms against feudal powers or new suggestions for liberal trades. Therefore, Shingaku of Baigan would suggest some ideas far from feudal ones, but its limit lie on the point that it is fundamentlally based on the feudal system.

Complexity leadership: the secret of Jack Welch's success

Leadership theory still focuses on vision and charisma and is stuck at the bottom of hierarchies. What style of leadership did Jack Welch actually use to manage the 350 business units comprising GE to increase its stock value 1,000s of percentage points higher than the Dow Jones Stock Index, stay in office for 20 years when most CEOs are 'temp workers', and produce some $480 billion in shareholder wealth. Welch is an instinctively great manager, but not well clued in on the action-specifics of why he did so well. Complexity science offers 12 'action-disciplines' that appear to be the means by which Welch was able to enable and steer GE to produce incredible wealth. He put complexity theory into practice. Put more dramatically, Welch replaced old-style, top-down 'management by objectives' with 'management by tension'. Evidence is offered to show that Welch's methods were not learned by all the GE-trained managers who became CEOs of other firms. But some outstanding CEOs of major firms appear to be using the complexity action-disciplines as well. This article explains the secret of his success.

Three-level hierarchal modeling of gecko toe adhesion

ABSTRACTThe underlying mechanisms of gecko adhesion have been investigated through modeling of the three-level hierarchical microstructures under gecko's toe [1]. At the bottom of hierarchy, we show that the peeling strength of a spatula pad for attachment can be 10 times larger than that for detachment. At the intermediate level of hierarchy, we show that the 10 times difference in the peeling strength of a spatula pad for attachment and detachment leads to a 100 times difference in adhesion energy at the level of seta. At the top of hierarchy, the attachment of a gecko toe is modeled as a pad under displacement controlled pulling, which yields an adhesive strength more than sufficient for gecko's body weight; On the other hand, the detachment is modeled as a pad under peeling, giving rise to a negligible peel-off force. The present study reveals that the hierarchical microstructures play critical roles in providing gecko with robust attachment and easy detachment.