Broader Circumstances Research Articles

Sport and politics in Palestine, 1918–48: Football as a mirror reflecting the relations between Jews and Britons

The period reviewed in this article (1918–48) is divided into different sub-periods, each characterized by changes relating to the political reality in the Palestine and a specific set of sporting relations that grew out of these broader circumstances. It is argued that football in Palestine constituted a kind of mirror, or a litmus test, for diagnosing the psychological climate of Jewish and British relations: in times of security and rest normal friction between players in the football pitch did not turn into violent confrontations, the implications of which went beyond the boundaries of stadiums. Conversely, in the years when the political and military arena in the region was particularly conflictual, the delicate balance of relations between sportsmen and sports fans on both sides was threatened.

On Catch-Effort Methods of Estimating Animal Abundance

By making a clear distinction between catch and removal, catch-effort methods can be applied in broader circumstances than generally believed. For instance, animals can be added to a population rather than removed, data on animal sightings can be treated as 'catch,' and more than one kind of data (e.g., data on both sightings and kill) can be used jointly to produce population estimates. Models and estimation procedures are presented which illustrate these possibilities. Also, least squares estimation (generally nonlinear) can be used in conjunction with any likelihood model, and we illustrate this procedure in a simulation study involving both natural and catch hazard functions. Properly formulated, least squares estimates appear to be as accurate and precise as corresponding maximum likelihood estimates.

Aggression, War, Violence: Space/Time and Paradigm

Terms deployed in academic discourse are also commonly deployed in lay discourse. Meanings employed in the two domains obviously influence one another, and in our analytical use of terms we should be careful to recognise meanings central to lay understandings. This article elucidates some basic constraints relating to the selection ofterms. Among these constraints are discriminations reflecting both the space/time settings of social action and the paradigmatic assumptions that underpin social analysis. The argument is developed through discussion of the terms 'aggression', 'war' and 'violence'. By way of demonstration I consider two examples from anthropological discourse dealing with aggression and war where, in the choice of a term, specific paradigmatic assumptions are expressed. I go on to consider the concept of 'violence' for which, proceeding from the choice ofparadigmatic assumption, the meanings that the term can connote are laid down. Spoken words are utterances whose purpose is to denote ideas or objects. As utterances they are social actions and as social actions their meaning must be methodically discerned. It may be said, in this regard, that all communicative situations incorporate constraints to which 'enunciative acts' rationally respond (cf. Riches 1977: 131-2). The presence of such constraints is therefore embodied in a word's meaning. This being so, the meaning of a word incorporates not only reference to rather specific ideas or objects but also information about broader circumstances which are intrinsic to the discourse at hand. (The ontological standing of such 'broader circumstances' is no different from that of the 'rather specific idea or object', so it would be wrong for them to be dubbed 'context'.) But what might such broader circumstances be? Something very fundamental, I suggest, since, we are, for the moment, speaking about words in general. I will be referring in this article to two types of discourse: that of everyday lay affairs and that of professional social science. With regard to everyday lay affairs I shall presume that the 'broader circumstances' refer to aspects of the dimensions of space and time in relation to which social actions are performed. With regard to professional social science I shall presume that they refer to basic theoretical (or, better, paradigmatic) assumptions which make rigorous enquiry possible. But note that since paradigmatic assumptions themselves have space/time implications one should expect, for any given word, an essential consistency between lay and academic use. A final opening point: words are required by social scientists for labelling particular analytic distinctions. Even within interpretive social science some such distinctions can specify space/time dimensions which find no clear counterpart in lay discourse:

Early uses of the term ‘social geography’: H. Gougeon's ESSAI sur l'enseignement de la geographie (1873): A note

Abstract An earlier reference to the term ‘social geography’ than those described by Dunbar (Scot. Geog. Mag., 93 (1977) 15–20) has been identified in a MS. by H. Gougeon dated 1873. The broader circumstances of the movement to reform geography teaching and the secondary school curriculum at the beginning of the IIIrd Republic are described as a necessary context for evaluating the Gougeon MS. An English translation of Gougeon's views of ‘social geography’ is provided, and although his outline provides no more than a sketch of the possible content of social geography several of the traditional topics of this sub‐field are readily recognizable.

Energy partitioning and optical‐to‐acoustic conversion efficiency during laser generation of underwater sound

Two mechanisms (thermoacoustic and ablative) are considered with regard to how much optical energy is eventually transformed into sound. The analysis of the former begins with a fluid dynamic analysis of the generation of entropy and acoustic modal fields taking into account viscosity and thermal conduction. The acoustic modal field satisfies the Westervelt‐Larson inhomogeneous wave equation while the entropy modal field satisfies a transient heat conduction equation with similar source term. The derivation demonstrates that the Westervelt‐Larson equation is valid under much broader circumstances than was previously asserted by Bozhkov and Bunkin. The bulk of the absorbed optical energy goes into the entropy mode, but the acoustic portion can be enhanced if the spatial and temporal dependence of the energy deposition resembles a solution of the wave equation, such that initially generated waves are continually pumped by the source. An upper limit to the conversion efficiency is of order (β/ρcp)pmax, where...

Theorems on chemical network stability

The stability of steady states of a chemical reaction system is considered within a diagrammatic formulation of the problem. The system’s stability depends upon the kinds of cycles that can be constructed from a set of arrows. The following theorems are proven. (1) A chemical network has no unstable steady states if the set of cycles which can be constructed contains only certain 2−cycles or is empty; (2) an m−cycle, which passes through a reactant whole self−vertex is exactly cancelled by autocatalysis destabilizes the network in certain restrictive circumstances; and (3) a 3−cycle as in (2) destabilizes the network under broader circumstances. The restrictive circumstances of the second theorem do not appear to be capable of being broadened in general because of complexities that can be understood within the full diagrammatic formulation of the problem.