Sophisticated Concepts Research Articles

Sequential Coupling of Models for Contaminant Spreading in the Vadose Zone

The numerical simulation of contaminant spreading in the vadose zone as well as the modeling of remediation scenarios requires, in general, very sophisticated model concepts. Particularly, compositional and nonisothermal effects increase the complexity of a model significantly. This makes the solution of large systems computationally costly. To save computation time, it is reasonable to adjust the required model complexity to the complexity of the relevant physical processes. The relevant physical processes governing the system's behavior can change for distinct time scales. This can be taken into account by models that are adapted to the respective processes, which can be coupled sequentially.

The Sociological Study of Values

Fifty years ago, Robin M. Williams Jr. described eight notable changes in U.S. sociology, one of which was the “widespread diffusion of a relatively clear and sophisticated conception of the place of values in sociological study, as an object of research, as a factor in behavior, and as an element to be controlled in the prosecution of research” (Williams, 1958:621). In this essay, I ask what has become of that rising interest in the sociological study of values? I follow three distinct trajectories of sociological research on values, briefly describing the contributions of each, and identifying several lines of inquiry that strike me as particularly important and promising for the future.

Theoretical frameworks and models of learning: tools for developing conceptions of teaching and learning

A key component of academic development is the improvement of teaching with the express purpose of improving student learning. To achieve that end, we work toward helping faculty members develop increasingly sophisticated and complex conceptions of teaching so that they might more readily think about teaching in new ways. Models of learning and theoretical frameworks provide developers with ready‐made templates and vocabularies through which to help faculty members examine, name and refine their epistemological and ontological frameworks for teaching and learning. This paper is an examination of ways in which the architectural and organic metaphoric language of two constructivist orientations to learning might be used by developers to help faculty members develop increasingly sophisticated conceptions of learning and teaching. The paper also outlines the epistemological and ontological implications of three taxonomies of learning and how they might be used to challenge and influence faculty members’ conceptions of learning and teaching. Une composante‐clé du développement pédagogique est l’amélioration de l’enseignement dans le but avoué d’améliorer l’apprentissage des étudiants. A cette fin, nous oeuvrons à aider les enseignants à développer des conceptions de l’enseignement qui sont de plus en plus sophistiquées et complexes, de sorte que ceux‐ci soient plus facilement en mesure d’envisager l’enseignement d’une nouvelle façon. Les modèles de l’apprentissage et les cadres théoriques fournissent aux conseillers des gabarits prêts à utiliser et un vocabulaire par l’entremise desquels il est possible d’amener les enseignants à examiner, nommer et affiner leurs cadres épistémologiques et ontologiques à l’égard de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage. Cet article examine la façon avec laquelle le langage architectural et organique‐métaphorique de deux orientations constructivistes de l’apprentissage peuvent être utilisés par les conseillers dans le but d’aider les enseignants à développer des conceptions de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage de plus en plus sophistiquées. L’article trace aussi le contour des implications épistémologiques et ontologiques de trois taxinomies de l’apprentissage et explique comment celles‐ci peuvent être utilisées de façon à remettre en question et à influencer les conceptions de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage des enseignants.

‘Learning Study’ as a model of collaborative practice in initial teacher education

Learning Study provides a distinctive model for collaborative practice in teacher development. It combines the intensive ‘plan–teach–review’ model developed by the Japanese ‘Lesson Study’ model with a focus on the outcomes of learning using variation theory. We present an argument for expecting this approach to help trainees in initial teacher education to progress to more sophisticated conceptions of teaching. We also present findings from the implementation of Learning Study in the initial teacher education programme at one UK university over a period of two years. We conclude that it is practicable and beneficial to use Learning Study in this context and that the representational device of a ‘Learning Outcome Circle’ helps trainees to understand the implications of variation theory and opens up their vision of teaching.

Modelling, simulation, identification, and model-based control of integrated fuel-cell-based power plants

Abstract In this contribution, a fuel cell-based power plant which uses water and methane to produce electrical power is considered. While earlier publications deal with the fuel cell only, this contribution takes the whole plant into account. The distributed modelling of the hydrogen producing reformer unit is presented. Methods are developed which allow for a fast and efficient simulation of the model equations. As the other parts of the power plant are of similar dynamical structure, the simulation methods are easily transferable. The identification of parameters for the power plant is performed on the basis of measurements and dynamic simulation. Sophisticated control concepts for the optimal operation of the power plant are proposed. They consider the whole plant and couplings between the various elements to maximise the plant's efficiency.

Formalising model transformation rules for UML/MOF 2

Model-driven software development, today's state-of-the-art approach to the design of software, can be applied in various domains and thus demands a variety of domain-specific modelling languages. The specification of a domain-specific modelling language's syntax and semantics can in turn be specified based on models, which represent the approach of metamodelling as a special form of language engineering. The latest version of the unified modelling language 2 (UML 2) and its subset the meta object facility 2 (MOF 2) provide sufficient support for metamodelling, a modelling language's abstract syntax. Furthermore, based on the description of the abstract syntax, a language's static semantics can simply be specified by the object constraint language (OCL) as UML/MOF's natural constraint language, whereas the description of an MOF compliant language's dynamic semantics is still not covered. The authors try to close this gap by integrating MOF/OCL with graph transformations for the specification of dynamic aspects of modelling languages and tools. The formalisation of such an integration is non-trivial because of the fact that UML/MOF 2 offer a rather unusual and sophisticated association concept (graph model). Although there are many approaches, which formalise graph transformations in general and first approaches that offer a precise specification of the semantics of the association concepts of UML/MOF 2, there is still a lack in bringing both together. Here, the authors close this gap by formalising graph transformations that work on a UML/MOF 2 compatible graph model.

New Concept for Image Quality Control in B/W and Full Color Production Printing

Digital color production requires tight process control in order to achieve precise and consistent color reproduction – over run length, from job to job and between different print systems. The Océ Colorstream 10000 introduces a sophisticated concept of nested control loops which will be discussed in detail.

Neuroscientific approaches and applications within anthropology

Many of the most distinctive attributes of our species are a product of our brains. To understand the function, development, variability, and evolution of the human brain, we must engage with the field of neuroscience. Neuroscientific methods can be used to investigate research topics that are of special interest to anthropologists, such as the neural bases of primate behavioral diversity, human brain evolution, and human brain development. Traditional neuroscience methods had to rely on investigation of postmortem brains, as well as invasive studies in living nonhuman primates. However, recent neuroimaging methods have made it possible to compare living human and nonhuman primate brains using noninvasive techniques such as structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, and diffusion tensor imaging. These methods are providing an integrated picture of brain structure and function that was not previously available. With a combination of these traditional and modern neuroscience methods, we are beginning to explore and understand the neural bases of some of the most distinctive cognitive and behavioral attributes of the human species, including language, tool use, altruism, and mental self-projection, and we can now begin to propose plausible scenarios by which the neural substrates supporting these human specializations evolved from pre-existing neural circuitry serving related functions in common ancestors we shared with the living nonhuman primates. Consideration of the process of neurodevelopment suggests plausible mechanisms by which the highly encephalized human brain might have evolved. Neurodevelopmental studies also demonstrate that experience can shape both brain structure and function, providing a mechanism by which people of different cultures learn to act and think differently. Finally, not only can anthropologists benefit from neuroscience, neuroscience can benefit from the more sophisticated concept of evolution that anthropology offers, including an appreciation of evolutionary diversity as well as consideration of the process by which the human brain was formed during evolution.

Environmental Factors and Their Role in Community Integration after Spinal Cord Injury

Background. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model presents an opportunity to better understand previously neglected longterm social outcomes after traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI), especially the experience of participation. Purpose. The study explored the relationship between perceived environmental barriers and perceived community integration (a participation proxy) in a sample of adults with traumatic SCI. Methods. The study interviewed African American and White women and men (n=136) who had lived with SCI for an average of 11.5 years. Results. Participants reported environmental barriers at twice the level indicated by previous studies; the natural environment and the policies of government were the most problematic. Levels of community integration were also high. Data suggest a significant relationship (p<.01) between perceived environmental barriers and community integration for adults with SCI, providing support for the ICF model. Implications. Improved measures and more sophisticated concepts and theories are needed to explicate the relationship between environmental factors and participation concepts in the ICF. With respect to practice, occupational therapists need to be aware that removal of environmental barriers is only a first step in the more complex effort to facilitate optimal community integration after SCI.

The Spectacle and Detournement

This Media Literacy column is a follow‐up to the column in the September 2007 issue that discussed Guy Debord and the artistic, political avant‐garde organization called the Situationist International. This column continues the discussion of the situationist concepts of the spectacle and detournement by explaining quick and easy ways to introduce these sophisticated concepts to middle school or high school students by showing selected YouTube.com videos.

Freud, Faulkner, Caruth: Trauma and the Politics of Literary Form

����� ��� For the growing number of critics concerned to trace the links among historical forces, psychic experience, and literary expression, the growth of trauma studies since the publication of Cathy Caruth’s Unclaimed Experience (1996) offers an important opportunity for reflection. On one hand, the work in this field has been justly influential. It brings sophisticated psychoanalytic concepts to bear on collective processes, developing accounts of historical violence that are both socially specific and psychologically astute. These accounts are especially compelling when focused on what I call “punctual” traumas: historical events of such singularity, magnitude, and horror that they can be read as shocks that disable the psychic system. Thus, for example, in their readings of the Holocaust—the paradigmatic example for critics concerned with this kind of trauma—Caruth and others have helped us see how a historical moment might be experienced less as an ongoing set of processes that shape and are shaped by those living through them than as a punctual blow to the psyche that overwhelms its functioning, disables its defenses, and absents it from direct contact with the brutalizing event itself. Precisely because the violence suffered by Holocaust victims was so extreme, on this view, it affected those victims as a psychic concussion that short-circuited their capacity to “process” the traumatizing event as it took place. Traumas of this kind thus become accessible only in the mind’s recursive attempts to master what it has in some sense failed to experience in the first instance. A punctual incursion on the mind, having “dissociated” consciousness from itself, installs an unprocessed memory-trace that returns unbidden, as delayed effect, in an effort to force the mind to digest this previously unclaimed kernel of experience.

Diversity and Unity

Although Habermas's sophisticated conception of constitutional patriotism successfully avoids the charge of trying to ground patriotism in a set of principles that is too thin and abstract to sustain a real sense of solidarity and belonging, his optimism regarding the prospect in modern pluralist societies of building a genuinely shared political culture is misplaced. The march of modernization as rationalization is neither as relentless nor as inevitable as Habermas assumes. Hence the rational consensus on liberal constitutional principles that is to provide the basis for a shared political culture remains elusive. However, while Habermas's solution to the `solidarity gap' that confronts many contemporary liberal democracies remains problematic, he is right to point to the importance of a shared identity that is strong enough to turn strangers into fellow citizens. The challenges that cultural diversity and value pluralism pose for contemporary states cannot be resolved via a procedural approach that focuses solely on political legitimacy. Yet the difficulties that surround Habermas's conception of `constitutional patriotism' suggest modern states will struggle to build a collective political identity that can generate a genuine sense of solidarity. If this is so, modern pluralist states face a more profound challenge than writers such as Habermas assume.

Russischer Alltag: Eine Geschichte in neun Zeitbildern vom Frühmittelalter bis zur Gegewart, 3 vols. Vol. 1: Die Vormoderne, Vol. 2: Auf dem Weg in die Moderne, Vol. 3: Sowjetische Moderne und Umbruch (review)

Reviewed by Gregory L. Freeze Dept. of History Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02454-9110 USA freeze@brandeis.edu Carsten Goehrke, Russischer Alltag: Eine Geschichte in neun Zeitbildern vom Frühmittelalter bis zur Gegewart [Russian Everyday Life: A History in Nine Time-Pictures from the Early Middle Ages to the Present], 3 vols. Vol. 1: Die Vormoderne [Before Modernity]. 471 pp. Zurich: Chronos, 2003. ISBN 3304005830. €39.80. Vol. 2: Auf dem Weg in die Moderne [On the Road to Modernity]. 547 pp. Zurich: Chronos, 2003. ISBN 3034005849. €39.80. Vol. 3: Sowjetische Moderne und Umbruch [Soviet Modernity and Transformation]. 554 pp. Zurich: Chronos, 2005. ISBN 3034005857. €39.80. "Everyday history," long a significant sphere of European historiography, has belatedly come to Russian historical scholarship.1 Western historians, to be sure, are cautious about invoking this descriptor,2 but Russian researchers have been far more wont to do so, with the term povsednevnaia zhizn´ having become firmly entrenched in Russian national historiography.3 In large measure, of course, the interest in "everyday history" reflects a shift long underway, with the emphasis moving from elitist political history to the lesser social strata, with particular attention to their living conditions and culture. [End Page 877] Quantity, however, does not necessarily mean quality; a focus on the quotidian can mean anything from "pots and pans" to a sophisticated theoretical conception with a clear definition of goals, methods, and parameters. Far too often, it is tempting to invoke the mantra of "everyday history" but without an explicit formulation of what this means. Carsten Goehrke makes here a major contribution to the theory and praxis of Alltagsgeschichte, with a three-volume application to the entire course of Russian history. Trained as a specialist in early and medieval Russian history, Goehrke had earlier produced solid scholarship on the "material" dimension of the Russian historical experience—the way of life (byt), social and economic development, settlement patterns, and historical geography.4 Even while conducting this pioneering research, Goehrke began to develop a complex conception of Alltagsgeschichte that embraces not only material existence but also the corresponding culture—the conception of the world, the pattern of social relations, and the values and norms that constitute the cultural counterpart to the material. It is this goal—to illuminate the interplay of matter and meaning, the real and the represented—that has shaped Goehrke's work, which he has aptly called Alltagskulturgeschichte. In a cursory introduction to this three-volume study, but in greater detail in a separate essay,5 Goehrke identifies the intellectual roots of Alltagsgeschichte (Edmund Husserl and others), prominent practitioners,6 and seminal theoreticians, chiefly from anthropology (especially Martin Dinges).7 Goehrke seeks to examine the development and interaction of two dimensions: Lebenswelt, or the lived experience of everyday material reality that encompasses everything from food and housing to work and wealth; and Vorstellungswelt, or perceived experiences—how actors decode and understand their lived experiences. The emphasis here is on the concrete, the individual, and the local, not for its own sake but as a way to understand the larger world; the narrative thus focuses on the micro as an effective literary device and as a means to cast light on the macro. That enables the author to avoid the pitfalls both of a simplistic "basis–superstructure" model such as prevailed in crude Marxist historiography, and of the immaterialist claims of a radical postmodernism that treats extant documents as "texts" and not data to reconstruct material [End Page 878] reality.8 In Goehrke's view, the task is to link these two worlds—matter and meaning—in what he and Martin Dinges call "everyday/cultural history" (Alltagskulturgeschichte). To bridge those worlds, Goehrke transcends the boundaries of traditional historical scholarship. That means, in the first instance, an interdisciplinary work that draws...

Environmental Factors and Their Role in Community Integration after Spinal Cord Injury

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model presents an opportunity to better understand previously neglected longterm social outcomes after traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI), especially the experience of participation. The study explored the relationship between perceived environmental barriers and perceived community integration (a participation proxy) in a sample of adults with traumatic SCI. The study interviewed African American and White women and men (n = 136) who had lived with SCI for an average of 11.5 years. Participants reported environmental barriers at twice the level indicated by previous studies; the natural environment and the policies of government were the most problematic. Levels of community integration were also high. Data suggest a significant relationship (p < .01) between perceived environmental barriers and community integration for adults with SCI, providing support for the ICF model. Improved measures and more sophisticated concepts and theories are needed to explicate the relationship between environmental factors and participation concepts in the ICE With respect to practice, occupational therapists need to be aware that removal of environmental barriers is only a first step in the more complex effort to facilitate optimal community integration after SCI.

Ecology and valuation: Big changes needed

Ecological Economics has developed as a “transdisciplinary science,” but it has not taken significant steps toward a truly integrated process of evaluating anthropogenic ecological change. The emerging dominance within ecological economics of the movement to monetize “ecological services,” when combined with the already well-entrenched dominance of contingent pricing as a means to evaluate impacts on amenities, has created a “monistic” approach to valuation studies. It is argued that this monistic approach to evaluating anthropogenic impacts is inconsistent with a sophisticated conception of ecology as a complex science that rests on shifting metaphors. An alternative, pluralistic and iterative approach to valuation of anthropogenic ecological change is proposed.

Ion acoustic wave experiments in a high school plasma physics laboratory

We describe a successful alliance between a university and several high schools. The alliance is centered on a laboratory experiment constructed by students and faculty. The experiment involves sophisticated concepts and equipment not readily available in high schools. Much of the experiment is directly related to the science and mathematics learned in high school, with opportunities to extend their understanding by applying it to a research experience. The experiment is in plasma physics, but a similar alliance can be implemented in any area of science. Although the number of high school students affected by any one alliance is small, the impact is potentially large in the scientific life of a participating student or teacher.

The Evolution of History and the Informal Empire: La Decena Trágica in the British Press

The violent events of the Decena Tragica in Mexico, February 1913, were important news in the British Press because Mexico had become a critical region for the commercial or informal British Empire. The journalistic discourse reveals insights about the complicated perceptions foreigners, particularly British, nurtured in regards to Mexican history and the political developments happening inside Mexico and in the broader context of North America. In addition to the often-mentioned notions of racism and cultural prejudices, the language of the press reveals a sophisticated concept of historical evolution that was used to justify and explain the British influence in Mexico.

Interferometric measurement of the resonant absorption and refractive index in rubidium gas

We present a laboratory demonstration of the Kramers-Kronig relation between the resonant absorption and refractive index in rubidium gas. Our experiment uses a rubidium vapor cell in one arm of a simple Mach-Zehnder interferometer. As the laser frequency is scanned over an atomic resonance, the interferometer output is affected by variations of both the absorption and refractive index of the gas with frequency, all of which can be calculated in a straightforward manner. Changing the vapor density and interferometer phase produces a family of different output signals. The experiment was performed using a commercially available tunable diode laser system that was designed specifically for the undergraduate physics laboratory. As a teaching tool this experiment is reliable, fun, and instructive, while it also introduces the student to some sophisticated and fundamental physical concepts.

The question of identity and the narrative concept of Tilka l-rā'ia by uncallāh Ibrāhīm

This article views Tilka l-rā'ia (published 1966) as a ‘novel of identity’. The I-narrator-protagonist, an Egyptian intellectual in the 1960s, suffers from his inability to reconcile the disparate elements of existence as he believes in values such as authenticity and truth. His attitude is paradigmatic for the beginning of the period of Arabic ‘literary modernism’. The article analyses the central character's state of alienation and isolation by applying the concept of ‘identity’ of the socio-psychologist Erving Goffman. Using Gérard Genette's narratological categories of ‘voice’ and ‘focalisation’, it examines the sophisticated dualistic narrative concept of the novel and its implications for the protagonist's character and attitude and the vision of the author. The article also identifies parallels and differences between Tilka l-rā'ia and the French Nouveau Roman and discusses its relationship with the existentialist notion of revolt.

Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology before 1930

Recent scholarship has shown that the present-day meanings of the term technology are relatively recent. In nineteenth-century English, technology referred principally to a field of study concerned with the practical arts; it did not refer to industrial processes or artifacts, except in anomalous usage. In German-speaking regions, a new discourse emerged around die Technik in the second half of the nineteenth century. This German term referred to the practical arts as a whole, especially those associated with engineers and modern industry. When Thorstein Veblen encountered this term after 1900 in German social theory, he incorporated its meanings into technology, thereby transforming the English word into a sophisticated concept for analyzing industrial societies. Most scholars who drew on Veblen's concept missed its subtleties, however, among them the historian Charles A. Beard. In the late 1920s, Beard embraced a deterministic understanding of technology that linked it firmly to the idea of progress.