Great Society Research Articles

Zoonotic outbreak risk prediction with long short-term memory models: a case study with schistosomiasis, echinococcosis, and leptospirosis

BackgroundZoonotic infections, characterized with huge pathogen diversity, wide affecting area and great society harm, have become a major global public health problem. Early and accurate prediction of their outbreaks is crucial for disease control. The aim of this study was to develop zoonotic diseases risk predictive models based on time-series incidence data and three zoonotic diseases in mainland China were employed as cases.MethodsThe incidence data for schistosomiasis, echinococcosis, and leptospirosis were downloaded from the Scientific Data Centre of the National Ministry of Health of China, and were processed by interpolation, dynamic curve reconstruction and time series decomposition. Data were decomposed into three distinct components: the trend component, the seasonal component, and the residual component. The trend component was used as input to construct the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) prediction model, while the seasonal component was used in the comparison of the periods and amplitudes. Finaly, the accuracy of the hybrid LSTM prediction model was comprehensive evaluated.ResultsThis study employed trend series of incidence numbers and incidence rates of three zoonotic diseases for modeling. The prediction results of the model showed that the predicted incidence number and incidence rate were very close to the real incidence data. Model evaluation revealed that the prediction error of the hybrid LSTM model was smaller than that of the single LSTM. Thus, these results demonstrate that using trending sequences as input sequences for the model leads to better-fitting predictive models.ConclusionsOur study successfully developed LSTM hybrid models for disease outbreak risk prediction using three zoonotic diseases as case studies. We demonstrate that the LSTM, when combined with time series decomposition, delivers more accurate results compared to conventional LSTM models using the raw data series. Disease outbreak trends can be predicted more accurately using hybrid models.

심성과 심성 함양: 형이상학과 메타프락시스, 그리고 대동사회

The purpose of this article is to understand in more detail what the nature of metapraxis is, which contrasts with both metaphysics and praxis. On the other hand, it is to clarify how metapraxis discussions can contribute to the advent of the great society by critically approaching the discussion of ‘post-humanism’ in which postmodernism, which excludes the metaphysics of modern society, is expressed in a more extreme form in conjunction with neo-liberalism. By discussing this by setting a sub-topic of the main angle, perspective, and surface and in-depth, it was possible to make it clearer that metapraxis contrasts with both metaphysics and praxis, not that they are excluded, but that they are integrated ‘organically’ (or consistently). It was also clarified that metapraxis is based on ‘metaphysics’. Therefore, the trend that excludes metaphysics in the discussion of modern post-humanism is at the opposite point of humanism, which is a trend that is further away from the great society related to the love of Christianity, the mercy of Buddhism, and the humanity of Confucianism. Thus, the educational discourse form as an alternative to this, that is, ‘metapraxis’, secures its status as a theory of life beyond its status as an educational theory.

Crucial postulates of integration and social inclusion of representatives of the generation of locals with «migrational background»: triggers and remedies

While analyzing crucial aspect of integration and social inclusion, we are tended to underestimate representatives of special generations, which are supposed to be “automatically included and integrated”. We expect that someone, born to parents living permanently on the territory of the given country, will be fully adapted and naturally included into the outer community. The general desire to belong to this social community or another postulates the same requirements. However, in many situations, the person’s disposition to be integrated, adapted and socially included does not depend exceptionally on his/her desire, or even efforts to be “a member of a great society”. Sometimes, however, grand societal processes, prejudices and biases may block the necessary integration and social inclusion of people possessing foreigners’ backgrounds, even though they consequently are blocking multiple areas of social, societal, economical and general development of their community.

F.A. Hayek, Complexity Pioneer

An early adopter of complexity theory in the social sciences, the Austrian school economist F. A. Hayek consciously strove to construct a grand synthesis, conceiving of society as an information system. I suggest that Hayek’s concept of complexity undergirds his promarket stances: it was his belief that because society is a complex information system, interventions which seek to transform the system as a whole inevitably run into insurmountable epistemological obstacles. Focusing mostly upon lesser-known texts dating from the 1950s and 1960s, I present a reading of Hayek concentrating on the role the concept of complexity plays in his work. Hayek viewed social complexity as inherently good and worthy of conservation from attempts to regulate society in various ways. Yet he also supported various forms of government interventionism. I argue that for Hayek complexity holds the key to determining which specific forms of intervention are permissible in Hayek’s vision of a classical liberal “Great Society.” On first impression, Hayek’s idea of complexity seems lopsided toward spontaneous order. However, he considered on multiple occasions the possibility of systemic chaos, unintended consequences of policy, and disequilibrium.

“A Mission Without Precedent”: The Rise and Fall of the Office of Economic Opportunity, 1964–1981

AbstractThis article traces the history of the Office of Economic Opportunity/Community Services Administration, focusing on Richard Nixon’s failed attempt to dismantle it in 1973 and Ronald Reagan’s successful effort in 1981. I explore main two main questions: Why was Reagan able to succeed when Nixon had failed? and What does the dismantling of the agency reveal about the development of American conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s? Drawing on original archival materials, I argue that the Reagan administration learned from Nixon’s failures and adopted a more professional, managerial stance when it dismantled the agency in 1981. In addition, recent work in history and political science has explored how the multiracial democratic vision articulated by LBJ’s Great Society helped fuel the modern conservative movement. By focusing on the long-term opposition against OEO/CSA, this article provides new insights into how conservatives articulated an alternative ideology to postwar liberalism.

Адам Смит за финансите на двадесети век

"The advocate of a system is apt to be very wise in his presumption, and is often so enamoured of the supposed beauty of his plan of government that he would not suffer the slightest deviation from it. ... He seems to imagine that he can arrange the various members of a great society with the same ease with which his hand arranges the pieces on the chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces in chess have no other principle of movement than that which the hand imparts to them; but in the great chess-board of human society each individual piece has its own principle of movement, quite different from that which the legislator would presumably choose to impose upon it. If these two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on smoothly and harmoniously, and in all probability will be happy and successful. If they are opposed or different, the game will go on unhappily, and at every moment society must be in the utmost disorder"

“Deprived and disadvantaged”: federal advocacy for gifted youth in the United States, 1967–1987

ABSTRACT In 1972, the United States Office of Education (USOE) released a lengthy and unprecedented report about gifted education in response to a Congressional mandate. Both Congress and the USOE lamented the inadequate state of gifted programmes in American schools and urged that gifted education should become a greater national priority. In this essay, we argue that the federal government revived human capital and national security concerns in claiming that the unfulfilled potential of gifted and talented Americans had made the United States vulnerable. Better accommodating students with high abilities therefore became a paramount political agenda item. At the same time, amid efforts to eliminate poverty and facilitate greater equality of educational opportunity, both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government strategically portrayed the gifted and talented as a neglected and historically disadvantaged group in need of assistance. In establishing a broader and multi-faceted definition of giftedness, moreover, the USOE paid particular attention to racial minorities who were also gifted as a way of making its case. Such arguments fit within the political climate of the Great Society in directing public resources to historically marginalized groups. Deviating from longstanding characterizations of the gifted as inherently white and privileged, the U.S. government in the late 1960s and early 1970s portrayed them as racially diverse, “deprived,” “disadvantaged,” and warranting special educational opportunities. This example of federal advocacy thus marked a notable shift in the image of the gifted student in the United States.

A New Working Class: The Legacies of Public-Sector Employment in the Civil Rights Movement

A New Working Class: The Legacies of Public-Sector Employment in the Civil Rights Movement

Chasing Automation: The Politics of Technology and Jobs from the Roaring Twenties to the Great Society by Jerry Prout

Reviewed by: Chasing Automation: The Politics of Technology and Jobs from the Roaring Twenties to the Great Society by Jerry Prout G. Pascal Zachary (bio) Chasing Automation: The Politics of Technology and Jobs from the Roaring Twenties to the Great Society By Jerry Prout. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2022. Pp. 275. Jerry Prout provides a valuable account of the policy debates and political tensions over technological unemployment from the 1920s to the 1960s. His subject is automation, and his detailed and nuanced study fills a gap in the literature about the politics and policy of labor, the workplace, and technological change in the twentieth century. Prout's aim is clear: people struggle with the "sheer unpredictability of technological progress," which turns "anticipating the next wave of job-eliminating machines" into a "formidable challenge" (p. 3). Although the forces Prout examines are global, his study makes only a single reference to important scholarship by the late David Noble and Amy Bix, whose Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs? has widely been viewed as the standard work since its publication in 2000. Prout's narrow focus on U.S. politics and policy, chiefly at the federal level, limits the ability of Chasing Automation to present a nuanced sense of social and economic factors, especially with regard to the documented motives of large employers who embraced automation as much for control as productivity. Prout also studies only the U.S. experience of the global automation movement and maintains a sharp focus on the fitful efforts by successive presidential administrations—from Hoover to Johnson—and members of Congress to face the perils to workers of rapid innovation. These perils were keenly felt during the Depression of the 1930s and surfaced again in the 1950s and 1960s during a wave of automation that included the first spread of computers and digital networks. In Chasing Automation, Prout aims to explain the shifting politics arising from "worries about unemployment" and "the role that machines were playing in causing it" (p. 5). Prout presents two contending perspectives in the debates over the effects of automation on labor: those who argue that innovation will harm workers through eliminating entire classes of jobs (from those operating elevators to telephone switches), and those who insist optimistically that over time technological change will yield a net gain in employment. One side, "the most alarmed technophobes," predicted "a dystopian future with increasing joblessness," while their opponents, whom Prout describes as "ebullient technophiles," envisioned a future "where workers were not only fully employed but freed from drudgery." Prout ends his narrative in the 1960s, but the debates he thoroughly documents remain alive for Americans to this day, and he admits that there might be an "inability to ever entirely resolve" them (p. 10). Much of Chasing Automation recounts attempts in the 1930s and the 1960s to assist workers in coping with automation. Sharp divisions over the extent of the problem existed in both periods. In the 1930s, concerns [End Page 640] ran so high that one member of Congress advocated "taxing machines" to "slow the pace" of technological unemployment (pp. 52–53). Advocates for labor-saving devices, meanwhile, "either deny the existence of technological unemployment or regard it as of minor importance" (p. 54). In the mid-1960s, a major study of automation was undertaken by the federal government. The so-called Automation Commission, now long forgotten, receives extensive treatment, with Prout recounting internal debates among the best and the brightest who were chosen as members and well documenting how tensions between the promise and peril of innovation limited policy initiatives. Liberal "visionaries" driven by a certain fatalism, Prout reports, proposed a "guaranteed income" to ease the pain of too few jobs and to break the link between jobs and income (p. 149). In early 1965, Prout writes, "the commission seemed to represent the last best hope of realizing the liberal-labor vision of a more planned response to the growing onslaught of computerized operations." Although he expresses admiration for the commission, Prout concedes that its final report "received very limited press, and what few accounts there were ranged from indifferently informative to actively critical" (p. 203). In closing, Prout cautions against the "expectation...

The Joint Commission on the Mental Health of Children, 1965-1970: Emotional disturbance, race and paths not taken in child psychiatry.

The Joint Commission on the Mental Health of Children (JCMHC) was a sprawling, multidisciplinary project that took shape in the years immediately after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Participants included child psychiatrists, educators, psychologists, social workers, philanthropists and other laypeople and professionals interested in the plight of children. While the original inspiration for the JCMHC was to address the potential for violence from disturbed children and adolescents, its findings and recommendations were an indictment of American society itself in which poor children went hungry, minority children were oppressed and there were not sufficient resources dedicated to the mental health of the nation's population of young people. The task forces and committees of the JCMHC spent significantly more time addressing prevention and mental health rather than mental illness. Two years into the work of the JCMHC, the leadership formed a committee to specifically examine issues related to race. The final report, published in popular book form as Crisis in Child Mental Health, arrived after the unraveling of the liberal consensus that had fueled President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Most of the proposed solutions for government intervention were ignored by the Nixon administration. The focus on mental health and the willingness to take a critical look at the detrimental effects of racism had represented child psychiatry at that time. In the decades that followed, however, child psychiatrists turned away from issues about prevention, race and environment and instead focused on the problems of mental illness in individual children.

Presidential race - 2024: a portrait in a family interior

On April 25, 2023, Democratic incumbent President Joe Biden identified the central issue of the 2024 presidential election: the video shown launched the presidential campaign. The “striking” moment in it is the similarity with the previous one, four years ago. Central to them are scenes of violence and far-right extremism, both focusing on an issue that will determine the future of the United States. With all the doubts and critical attitude towards the figure of J. Biden as a possible head of the administration of the second term, experts rightly argue that the four years of his first administration “were not the New Deal or the Great Society,” although the most ardent supporters tend to say just that. At the same time, his achievements are also widely recognized: the infrastructure program that his predecessors could not implement, assistance in the fight against the pandemic, large-scale investments in curbing climate change, and an economy that is growing despite the manifestations of the crisis. It seems that there is much reason in the arguments of those American experts who believe that Americans in 2020 were looking for a remedy for extremism and division. Things haven't gotten much better since then, even without D. Trump in the White House. Differences have allowed the dominant party to “rule the country with little regard for the interests of those loyal to the minority party, and often also little accountability. The result was "two Americas with competing agendas and values". The current race is still about the "character of the country", which is reflected in the diverse palette of colors and shades of the proposed recipes for maintaining the viability and effectiveness of American democracy, among which the institution of the family and politics in relation to it, occupying a system-forming place in the structure of the political system, find themselves in center of events and debates in the new electoral cycle.

Буддийские коллекции Астраханского музея-заповедника как исторический источник по изучению истории и культуры калмыцкого народа

Introduction. Museum items tend to arouse significant research interest since they make it possible to trace household activities inherent to a certain community, i.e. aspects of life usually overlooked by archival documents. Astrakhan Reserve Museum houses an authentic collection of Buddhist icons examined in the present study. Goals. The paper attempts an analysis of Kalmyk dartsigs (Buddhist icons) as a source for historical and ethnographic research. Materials and methods. The ‘Kalmyk’ Collection of Astrakhan Reserve Museum numbers over 220 items, including 49 dartsigs. The work analyzes 48 icons, since dartsig 49 is attributed to the modern tradition and has no authentic value. The employed research methods are the historical/genetic, statistical, descriptive, anthropological ones, that of comparative analysis and others. The study is based on an interdisciplinary approach instrumental in providing multifaceted insights. Results. The shaping of the ‘Kalmyk’ Collection took place in the prerevolutionary and Soviet periods. The cultural artifacts were collected and donated to the Museum for a number of reasons, the primary one having been that members of Peter the Great Society for the Study of Astrakhan Land were seeking to preserve cultural heritage of peoples to have inhabited the region, lest the latter should be destroyed by the Soviets or lost in the swirl of history. Our comparisons of the current ‘Kalmyk’ Collection and other sources yield a list of certain Buddhist images that have been lost and are still of great scholarly interest. The well preserved thangkas without passe-partouts had been purposely painted and passed to Peter the Great Society, the poorly preserved ones with traces of soot had once been used in homes of Kalmyk commoners, while the larger and fine images are likely to have been attributes of Buddhist temples or estates of wealthy Kalmyks. The analysis of passe-partouts attests to that Kalmyks were actually handling the icons with utmost veneration, which is evident enough in the qualities of textiles the former were sewn from.

The whiteness of LBJ’s rhetoric: The appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

ABSTRACT This article presents a racial rhetorical critique of Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential rhetoric. Drawing from examinations of drafts, memos, and proclamations, I argue that LBJ in particular and the administration more generally utilized the appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and his naming as the chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican American Affairs (IACMAA) on June 9, 1967 to reinforce the predominance of the white racial frame in U.S. political life. I highlight how LBJ’s administration relocated “Mexican Americans” politically within his Great Society according to the premises of the white racial frame as Chicana/o movement activism turned toward amplifying separatist, racially charged rhetoric(s). This racially tuned revision of prior rhetorical histories of LBJ’s rhetorics demonstrates how his administration participated in sustaining white supremacy, fashioned a whitened image of “Mexican American” communities capable of flourishing in his “Great Society,” and excluded alternative political forms that challenged the assimilationism typically expected of Latinx communities more generally. I conclude that fomenting the political status of the white racial frame was integral to LBJ’s Great Society rhetoric and to evolutions in Chicana/o activism in the late 1960s.

Kamba Ramayanam, Which Describes Relationships and Friendships

Man has a tendency to live in groups. A closer look at the history of mankind shows that at all times, human beings have coexisted together as a group or as a great society. This quality, which is inherent in the very nature of man, forms the basis for the formation of relationships and the development and expansion of those relationships. A relationship can simply be defined as a relationship with a fellow human being. When viewed closely, the relationship consists of a vast body, namely, the blood relation and the social relation. The relationship that each of the members of the community has with others is responsible for the social movement, the formation of social institutions, and the extension of families. At this stage, this relationship and its superiority have been consistently emphasized in the literature as valuable. While ancient Tamil literature helps us to understand family relations and social relations, this article examines in detail the relationships and friendships of the Kamba Ramayana, a literary work of the Chola period, which occupies a special place in the Tamil epic tradition.

The Paradoxical Politics of Community Health Centers from the Great Society to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Although community health centers (CHCs) arose in the 1960s as part of a Democratic policy push committed to social justice, subsequent support has been shaped by paradoxical politics wherein Republican and Democratic support for CHCs continually morphed in response to changes in the health policy landscape. Drawing on the CHC literature and empirical examples from firsthand accounts and reporting, this article explains CHCs' curious historical development from 1965 to the present. Both Republicans and Democrats have calibrated their support for CHCs in response to a broader set of political considerations, from antiwelfare policy commitments to aspirations of establishing a national health care plan. CHCs have proven to be a politically malleable policy tool within the broader context of American health care policy. The COVID-19 pandemic raised new questions about CHCs' sustainability and future, but CHCs will continue to play a critical role in providing health care access to underserved populations. They also will continue to be an attractive bipartisan policy option within the larger framework of US health policy.

From the Welfare State to the Carceral State: Whither Social Reproduction?

Historical, feminist scholarship demonstrates that the welfare state underwrote the work of social reproduction, enabling procreation, socialization, sexuality, nurturance, and family maintenance. Carried out by families and other public and private social institutions, social reproduction includes making food, clothing, and shelter available for immediate consumption; ensuring the health and productivity of the current and future labor force; providing for people too old, too young, or too sick to care for themselves; and socializing family members. Historically, social reproduction includes both women's unpaid labor in the home and low-paid labor in the market and converts the wages of paid workers into the means of subsistence for the entire household. The economic crisis of the mid-1970s marked the end of the “golden age” of capitalism, and yielded neoliberal politics that sought to undo the redistributive elements of the New Deal and the Great Society. It called for a smaller state, greater reliance on market forces, and reduced expenditure on family maintenance. This article, a reprint of a 2017 book chapter, explores the crisis in social reproduction in the United States that surfaced with the rise of neoliberalism and the “carceral state.”

У истоков формирования «калмыцкой» коллекции Астраханского музея-заповедника

Introduction. A Joint Catalogue of Museum Items would essentially contribute to further preservation and scholarly exploration of Kalmyk cultural heritage, which is of even greater importance since quite a share of the latter had been lost in ethnic repressions and Deportation of 1943–1957. Associates of Kalmyk Scientific Center (RAS) have compiled a catalogue of the ‘Kalmyk’ collection at Astrakhan Reserve Museum and conduct systematic scholarly analyses of its elements. Goals. The paper aims at revealing origins of the mentioned ‘Kalmyk’ collection (except for Buddhist ritual objects and pho-tographs to be examined in another work). Results. The analysis shows the Collection was founded by Astrakhan Governorate Statistical Committee to have delivered a total of four items to the would-be Museum. ‘Mass’ arrivals of showpieces were ignited by the 1890 Kazan Science and Industry Exhibition’s arrangements — from three sources, namely: ethnic Kalmyks proper, Kalmyk People’s Executive Department, and Astrakhan Governorate Statistical Com-mittee. Subsequent years witnessed regular donations of Kalmyk-related items primarily from members of Peter the Great Society for the Study of Astrakhan Lands who succeeded not only in collecting but also in describing the submit-ted objects. So, the catalogues of 1890 and 1928 serve as unique sources on household life of the Kalmyks.

The Great Society, Reagan's Revolution, and Generations of Presidential Voting

AbstractWe build a model of American presidential voting in which the cumulative impression left by political events determines the preferences of voters. The impression varies by voter, depending on their age at the time the events took place. We use the Gallup presidential approval‐rating time series to reflect the major events that influence voter preferences, with the most influential occurring during a voter's teenage and early adult years. Our fitted model is predictive, explaining more than 80% of the variation in voting trends over the last half‐century. It is also interpretable, dividing voters into five meaningful generations: New Deal Democrats, Eisenhower Republicans, 1960s Liberals, Reagan Conservatives, and Millennials. We present each generation in context of the political events that shaped its preferences, beginning in 1940 and ending with the 2016 election.

The Medical Metropolis: Health Care and Economic Transformation in Pittsburgh and Houston

The Medical Metropolis: Health Care and Economic Transformation in Pittsburgh and Houston

Eco-Cultural Niche Breadth and Overlap Within the Cucuteni–Trypillia Culture Groups During the Eneolithic

One of the most applied tools for documenting cultural variability and for tracing cultural trajectories within the environmental context is eco-cultural niche modeling and its associated methodology. The niche breadth characterization quantitatively evaluates the links between a given adaptive system and ecological constraints, which provides valuable information for archeology. For this purpose, in this study, 10 independent climatic and topographic environmental variables were interpolated, and eco-cultural niche modeling techniques were used to determine whether these differences in geographic distributions and niche breadth are consequences of differences in five Cucuteni–Trypillia groups that flourished in Eastern Europe during the Eneolithic (cal. 5,400/5,300–2,800/2,700 BCE). Our results showed that the eco-cultural niches of Cucuteni–Trypillia groups are significantly overlapping, and the expansion trend of the last two cultural groups (Late Eneolithic–cal. 4,100/4,000–2,800/2,700 BCE) into the northeastern steppe regions was not due to ecological niche differences but rather a result of other cultural factors. Furthermore, we highlighted that the first three Cucuteni–Trypillia groups (Early-to-Middle Eneolithic—cal. 5,400/5,300–4,100/4,000 BCE) had slightly more constrained ecological niches in the mid-Holocene ecosystems than the Late Eneolithic groups. The results have significant implications for understanding the geographical range dynamics and distribution of the last great Chalcolithic society of Old Europe and contribute to the characterization of ecological niches they have exploited during the cultural evolutionary process.