Great Ways Research Articles

Social Media and the Online World: The New Frontier.

In the past few years, social media has really emerged to become a business tool, rather than just a network for socializing. Social media has had an impact on creating greater visibility for companies and institutions, as well as the ability to reach people all over the globe. Global Spine Journal is adapting and changing with these times. We now have Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Pages. On these pages we post updates about the journal, interesting new articles that have come out, information about submissions, membership, and much more. We are a global publication and it is important for us to be able to reach out to an audience all around the world. We invite all of you to follow us on social media. We value our global spine community and our readers, and we enjoy having the chance to reach out to all of you and share what is going on with the journal. We can be followed on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/globalspinejournal. Our twitter handle is: @globalspinej. You can find us on LinkedIn by searching for: Global Spine Journal (GSJ) We also have a regular podcast series now with a new podcast coming out every 3rd Friday of the month. These podcasts feature interviews between one of our Editors-in-Chief and the authors of an article that will be published soon, or has just been published. These podcasts are great ways to get more information directly from the authors themselves on their articles, and allow the listener to learn about the articles if they don't have time to read them. You can download the podcasts on iTunes or go to www.thieme.com/gsjpodcast and listen to them on your smart devices. Another new change has been the recent creation of the GSJ browser app. This is an app you can download on any tablet. The articles can be downloaded and then read offline at a later time. This app can be downloaded at: www.thieme.com/gsjreader. We continue to adapt and change with the times, and we look forward to more technological advances. We will continue to keep all of our authors, reviewers, and readers updated as changes are made.

Walter Lippmann: Public Economist, by Craufurd D. Goodwin

Walter Lippmann: Public Economist, by Craufurd D. Goodwin. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2014. viii, 414 pp. $35.00 US (cloth). His long career dedicated to the history of economic thought, Craufurd Goodwin has written a stimulating policy biography of the most prominent public intellectual of the twentieth century. Walter Lippmann learned about unemployment, trade, monetary policy, and fiscal issues from the likes of Keynes and Hayek. A voracious reader and active correspondent, Lippmann passed on his knowledge through books, articles, reviews, columns (most famously, Today and Tomorrow), and speeches. Teaching the public was his cardinal objective. Lippmann linked economics to larger political, even philosophical, constructs of American life, such as free markets and democracy. It was his job as a journalist to translate esoteric concepts to a public tuned out to national policies and subject to superficial politicians but which, he believed, could choose wise leaders if only it had the facts. Lippmann provided the lay public with such direction. The focus is not on Lippmann the person, as Goodwin cursorily mentions his failed marriage, various residences, and social life. A short bibliography includes some general, contextual works and writings related directly to economics. For an exposition of Lippmann's ideas on economics, however, this book is indispensable. Present at many creations (post-World War I peace planning, the advent of Keynesianism in America, advocacy for a council of economic advisors), Lippmann learned on the fly and changed as circumstances dictated. He remained above the professional and political fray, reluctant to join groups that might want to use or bias him. Goodwin focuses on the period 1931-46, though he sets up the story in Lippmann's formative years and finishes it with the twenty postwar years in which he focused on foreign affairs. This truly public economist dealt with the roots of the Great Depression and ways to avoid a recurrence after World War II. But economics was more than just numbers; it provided the basis for a philosophy of governance, social organization, and national interests. Lippmann moved from being a socialist to an advocate for the New Deal without becoming an acolyte of Franklin Roosevelt, and then evolved into a confirmed Keynesian (well before FDR and JFK adopted that view). Government regulation was the price to pay for avoiding leftist regimentation or rightwing authoritarianism --and the capitalist class's affinity for reckless speculation--and preserving freedom. As the country adjusted, therefore, so did Lippmann. What generated his economic concerns? He obsessed over the preservation of the market capitalist system by good government. He profoundly believed that free markets undergirded freedom, liberty, and democracy, but that laissez-faire thinking was unreasonable. Those who preached free markets actually undermined them by their own selfish, monopolistic interests. Thus, wise government regulations would protect capitalism from itself through countercyclical spending and saving, decent wages, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial spirit. Lippmann liked balance, reason, and principles tempered by pragmatism (that is, true liberalism). …

Charting a New Course

Curators in museums of all sizes are practicing their craft within a paradigm that in many ways seems at odds with the direction the museum field is headed. The future of the curatorial profession requires curators to shed stereotypes and loosen their grips on scholarly authority. This does not imply that curators should relinquish the roles of collecting, researching, and writing to someone who is not a subject matter expert—it simply means that a collaborative approach should be taken when developing collections and exhibitions. Front-end research, focus groups, social media, and interactives are great ways to gather ideas from visitors and can help explain what visitors know, what interests them, and what is relevant. Curators must redefine their function as subject matter experts and how they work on exhibit development teams. Lastly, in order to ensure the future of the profession, training, standards and best practices must change with the evolving nature of the craft.

Conception of a synthesis pozzolan from sediment dams calcined (Case: Gargar dams)

Silting of dams is undoubtedly the most dramatic consequence of the erosion problem in Algeria. In spite of the great ways implemented for the construction of retaining structures, the storage of water remains confronted with the difficulties of their management. It is as important to be invested to prevent silting as to build a new dam.There are two levels of Investigations: that is to say to prevent the solid matters from arriving in reserve. There, it is a question of putting obstacles to break the forces strength of surface waters but one can expect only partial results. The second solution is the evacuation of the sediments by a suitable management of the basic matters and desilting by dredging which requires the use of an external energy.But considering the great quantity of the sediments of silting, we sought to make profitable the vases recovered with an aim of dumping down the costs associated with desilting. The research work undertaken herein concern the case of Gargar dam, as a real case of silted dams in Algeria and whose rate of silting is important. The significant amounts of rejected silts present environmental problems and their use as local raw materials for the manufacturing of materials in civil engineering contributes to its resolution.The results of the physical and mineralogical characteristics of the sediments of Gargar dam directed us towards the design of a synthetic pozzolan. For, we carried out calcination of the silt at different temperatures up to 750 °C and prepared micro test samples of calcined silt-cement mixtures. The results show that the addition of 30% of sediments calcined at 750°C to cement permit to obtain a pozzolanic cement having similar characteristics with ordinary cement. This study shows therefore the possibility to value dam sediments as materials in the construction domain.The analysis by the diffraction of x-rays (X-ray) and the differential thermal analysis (DTA) show that the chemical reactions between principal minerals of the vase used and cement give the formation of new products such as the freezing of HSC and the tobermorite.

Value creation in capital waterway projects: Application of a transaction cost and transaction benefit framework for the Miami River and the New Orleans Inner Harbour Navigation Canal

Waterways have many more ties with society than as a medium for the transportation of goods alone. Waterway systems offer society many kinds of socio-economic value. Waterway authorities responsible for management and (re)development need to optimize the public benefits for the investments made. However, due to the many trade-offs in the system these agencies have multiple options for achieving this goal. Because they can invest resources in a great many different ways, they need a way to calculate the efficiency of the decisions they make. Transaction cost theory, and the analysis that goes with it, has emerged as an important means of justifying efficiency decisions in the economic arena. To improve our understanding of the value-creating and coordination problems for waterway authorities, such a framework is applied to this sector. This paper describes the findings for two cases, which reflect two common multi trade-off situations for waterway (re)development. Our first case study focuses on the Miami River, an urban revitalized waterway. The second case describes the Inner Harbour Navigation Canal in New Orleans, a canal and lock in an industrialized zone, in need of an upgrade to keep pace with market developments. The transaction cost framework appears to be useful in exposing a wide variety of value-creating opportunities and the resistances that come with it. These insights can offer infrastructure managers guidance on how to seize these opportunities.

Stella Gonzalez-Amal, Gill Jagger, Kathleen Lennon, Embodied Selves.

Stella Gonzalez-Amal, Gill Jagger, and Kathleen Lennon, Embodied Selves. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012, 272 pp., $90.00 hardcover (9781137283702) Stella Gonzalez-Arnal, Gill Jagger, and Kathleen Lennon frame their edited anthology, Embodied Selves, both with and against variegated backdrop of scholarly literature concerned with question of body. Vis-a-vis longstanding tensions in humanities and social sciences that pit discursive understandings of body--the body as a marker of social identity, for example, or as a site of power relations and disciplinary practices--against ones--that focus, for example, on biological or organic properties of body--this text is refreshingly committed to theorizing body as a kind of discursive corporeality, a thorough and complete entanglement of matter and meaning (p. 3). Avowedly drawing on theoretical insights from new materialist turn within social and political theory, collection attends explicitly to properties of body and to its corporeal practices; according to editors, text seeks to that matter--the --is accorded an active and that ... weightiness of body's materiality is felt (p. 3). The editors are quick to caution, however, that turn toward ought not (and indeed, I would argue, cannot) be accomplished by turning away from discursive. our view they note, the insights of [new materialist] theoretical turn need to be tempered to ensure that neither nor discursive should be privileged (p. 2). The body always and only appears in midst of a sociocultural milieu that mediates and shapes ways in which it can be lived, understood, and felt. In thirteen essays that comprise this interdisciplinary collection, body appears in a variety of ways, as that which is, at once, decidedly discursive--power and oppression, marginality and resistance--and inescapably material--flesh and bone, mind and senses, pleasure and pain, life and death. A central promise of text and one that is, I think, its most valuable and distinctive contribution, lies in its attempt at depicting indeterminacy of fleshly, body; body that is always corporeally and contextually specific yet can never be reduced to a static or singular nature. The volume is divided into four sections, each drawing on a breadth of topics, questions, and methodologies. Notions of affect, agency, identity, performance, autonomy, intersubjectivity, and interdependency are raised as matters of interest. While four sections serve purpose of curating particular conversations between authors/essays, such partitions are, in words of editors, artificial as many of essays share multiple, overlapping themes. In first section, Biology and Sexed Difference, essays by Linda Martin Alcoff, Kathleen Lennon, and Stella Sandford discuss possible role of biology in anchoring categories of body, each with a notable focus on biological forms of and their relation to division of sexes. Read together, chapters comprising this section exemplify pull of an objectivist account of body as well as limits of such an account. Articulating some of central themes from her 2008 book, Visible Identities, Alcoff argues that one's relationship of possibility to biological reproduction determines material infrastructure of sexual difference (pp. 19, 17). Perhaps more interesting, however, is Lennon's critique of Alcoff in Chapter Two. Echoing Alcoff, Lennon concedes that body's relation to biological has important and even profound effects on who we are and how we can (are permitted to) move through world. And, like Alcoff, Lennon also acknowledges that there are a great many ways of relating to (through use of technology, for example). …

Gaining momentum in the long, uphill battle to “get to zero”

I am truly privileged to be addressing you for the first time in the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management. I'm looking forward to getting to know you and working with you. I want to learn more about all the great ways that each of you has been making a difference in keeping our patients safe and building trust in our healthcare systems. As you know, the ASHRM Board is completely committed to finding solutions through the empowerment of our members. We believe in you. In that spirit, we are coming up with new ways to fund research and make critical connections that will fuel ideas.

“Porky Times”: A Brief Gastrobiography of New York’s The Spotted Pig

“Porky Times”: A Brief Gastrobiography of New York’s The Spotted Pig

Remarkable Retellings, Super Summaries

Retelling and summarizing are great ways to get children involved in what they're reading—and thinking about what they understand in texts.

Great Ways to Learn Anatomy and PhysiologyGreat Ways to Learn Anatomy and Physiology

Have you heard of the ‘A Pale Skin Turns Crimson Very Easily’ mnemonic to help memorise the seven functions of the skin? If not, you need to dip into this new study guide, which offers a refreshing way to learn anatomy and physiology.

The Mobile Learning Environment for the In-Service School Administrators

This paper reports the study on the students’ acceptance of the m-Learning approach in the teaching and learning process. A total of 100 students from the undergraduate programmes responded to a self-report questionnaire. From the data analysis, the study reported that the students agreed that mobile phones can be used for teaching and learning. The study also revealed that with this age group (35 – 45 years old), SMS is the most popular method of communication and mobile phones are mainly used for talking and messaging. Furthermore, the m-Learn activities are great ways to motivate students and foster interaction among them.

Good questions: great ways to differentiate mathematics instruction

Good questions: great ways to differentiate mathematics instruction

Dove va la psicoterapia? Dove va la COIRAG?

- This note means to call attention to the present frontiers of psychotherapy based on the concepts of multiplicity, project planning, complexity, integrations, valuation, etc. Group thought and group clinic are identified as great ways of contributing significantly to the present evolution of psychotherapy in the world. Attention to theoretical models and to membership must be laicized and integrated with attention to standard procedures, working methods, the setting up of a personalized cure plan for each single patient, as well as to empirical, clinical and theoretical research. Moreover, the high potential today of adopting an analytical attitude in using and elaborating several kinds of clinical groups is highlighted. Finally, the questions raised by Claudio Merlo at the opening of the present debate are integrated and brought up again. .Parole chiave: psicoterapia, gruppo, integrazione, valutazione, ricerca, modello teorico. .Key words: psychotherapy, group, integration, valuation, research, theoretical model.

Aristotle’s "Rhetoric": A Pragmatist Analysis of Persuasive Interchange

Approaching rhetoric as the study of persuasive interchange, this paper considers the relevance of Aristotle's Rhetoric for the study of human group life. Although virtually unknown to modern day social scientists, this text has great relevance for contemporary scholarship. Not only does Aristotle's text centrally address influence work (and resistance), identities and reputations, deviance and culpability, emotionality and deliberation, and the broader process of human knowing and acting in political, character shaping, and courtroom contexts, but Aristotle also deals with these matters in remarkably comprehensive, systematic, and precise terms. Attending to the human capacity for agency, Aristotle also works with a sustained appreciation of purposive, reflective, adjustive interchange. Hence, whereas this text is invaluable of as a resource for the comparative transhistorical analysis of human interchange, it also suggests a great many ways that contemporary scholarship could be extended in the quest for a more adequate, more authentic social science.

The quest for an ecological postdoc

Advertisements for faculty positions in creasingly require, or imply a strong prefer ence for, candidates who have held one or more postdoctoral positions (Russo 2004). Unfortunately, the number of available postdoctoral fellowships is not keeping up with the yearly increase in the number of graduating PhD students (COSEPUP 2000). As a result, more and more postdoc positions in ecology are creatively defined, soft money positions, often requiring some level of self-fund ing. The lack of standard application methods, guide lines, or support can be worrying for students trying to squeeze a job search in between writing dissertation chapters. Here, we describe the experiences of three recent PhD graduates in preparing for, applying to, and obtaining postdoctoral positions. We emphasize the preparation and persistence needed to reach this increas ingly important rung on the ecological career ladder. When do I begin the search process? Our own experi ences, and those of our peers, suggest that PhD students who began thinking about their future goals well before their final year in graduate school were the most success ful in obtaining quality postdocs. They shared their goals with their dissertation committees, as a way of cross checking expectations and developing a realistic timeline for degree completion. Stories of students who graduated with no job waiting for them are all too common. Less common, but perhaps equally frightening, are the tales of students who started jobs before completing their degrees and ended up with terminal AbDs (All but Dissertation). An early inventory of career and personal goals leads to success in graduate school, which provides the founda tion for a successful postdoc search (Boume and Freidberg 2006). What types of opportunities are out there? Ecological post doctoral positions can range from teaching at a small lib eral arts school, to conducting research at a large univer sity, to working for a government institution. The process of applying for each of these varies greatly (WebTable 1). In general, we have found that the complexity of the application process is positively correlated with the degree of autonomy a postdoc will experience on the job. With advertised positions, principal investigators expect their postdocs to work on the project funding the posi tion, whereas fellowship and institutional positions that require a proposal as part of the application process offer the postdoc greater independence. Due to the burgeon ing pool of applicants and the dearth of available posi tions, many students find they must create a position for themselves, which can offer even greater flexibility, but demands considerable forethought and planning. How does one create a postdoc position? One of us (KH) began the process of creating a postdoc position 14 months prior to her expected graduation date. She began by researching the past and current work of potential postdoc mentors with whom she was inter ested in working, including the work of their current students and postdocs. Initially, she sent each potential mentor a personalized email with new research ideas and explained how she thought her ideas would fit into their lab's research mission. She also inquired about funding opportunities and offered to investigate oppor tunities to write proposals with them for new funds. She maintained continuous communication with potential mentors throughout the final year of her PhD, to nur ture these budding relationships, and was rewarded for her efforts when one grew into a successful postdoc collaboration. The process itself was also extremely valuable, as it allowed KH to meet and discuss her research with several prominent ecologists. How do I make the most of professional relationships? As with any job search, it is often not what you know, but who you know that really matters. The importance of personal relationships cannot be overemphasized. In this regard, the dissertation committee can be a student's greatest asset. Two of us found postdoc positions directly through a committee member, and all of us relied on committee members for letters of reference. Interacting with committee members outside of official meetings, as well as taking a class or seminar with each member, are great ways to strengthen these relationships, which will, in turn, improve committee member reference letters. Then, when applying for jobs, references should be care fully matched to the position announcement. Social branches that extend beyond the committee are another effective means of fostering future postdoc oppor tunities. Employers frequently interview candidates rec ommended by someone they trust, and are more likely to hire someone they already know and respect. Active par ticipation at professional meetings can lead to greater name recognition. Meeting participation also offers an opportunity to assess the general level of interest in your

Table of Contents

Abstract Cover Story Learn great ways to provide excellent customer service Use training, technology to provide great customer service The Bottom Line: Customer service News & Notes Students may face prison, fines for changing grades Institutions pool resources to create education center Network and data security rank as top IT concern NC community colleges must admit undocumented students Compliance Clarification needed on sharing medical, treatment records Tools of the Trade Degree completion application will benefit students, institutions Future innovations planned Ethics What should you do if you suspect a student is in danger of domestic violence? Professional Development Boost your career with a conference Lawsuits & Rulings STUDENT AFFAIRS Student brings legal action against wrong party DISCRIMINATION University addresses allegations, OCR closes complaint Student's poor performance leads to dismissal FINANCIAL AID Salvation Army counselor can't discharge student loans Leaders & Innovators MARY KOSKAN, DIRECTOR OF ONE STOP STUDENT SERVICES, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA ‐ TWIN CITIES Show your appreciation to student veterans Make special events memorable

Patriotism and Education: An Introduction

A CARTOON published in New Yorker in October 2001 shows a couple in a New York apartment entertaining friends. As hosts clutch each other's hands, woman confesses their guests, We're still getting used feeling patriotic. Another New Yorker cartoon shows a policeman walking away from a car. Inside, reading newly issued ticket, driver asks his passenger incredulously, Flagless in a patriotic zone? In a third cartoon, an elegantly dressed woman hands a pile of expensive dresses, a fur coat, and her credit card a sales clerk and says, This isn't for me--it's for economy. New Yorker cartoons are hardly a barometer of national sentiment about patriotism following 9/11, but magazine has a distribution of over 800,000--a large percentage of which are subscriptions in city where Twin Towers fell--and its authors, cartoonists, and even advertisers reflected a melange of conflicted feelings about loyalty, solidarity, and right dissent in a Editor David Remnick was initially criticized for censoring authors and capitulating pressure from Bush Administration lend support military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but magazine also was where Susan Sontag furiously observed that the unanimity of sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy. Perhaps contributor who most plainly captured confusion of months come was cartoonist Victoria Roberts, who drew a middle-aged husband and wife sitting down dinner. Both look slightly perplexed as husband says simply, Who ever thought patriotism could be so complicated? The complexity of patriotism is further reflected in great many ways it has been represented by politicians, media, authors, critics, and religious leaders. Each has shaped various ideas about patriotism and its importance national unity and sought advance particular notions of patriotism over others. Nowhere are debates around these various visions of patriotic attachment more pointed, more protracted, and more consequential than in our nation's schools. As several authors in this special section make clear, patriotism is highly contested territory. The articles here explore relationship between patriotism and education. Pedro Noguera and Robby Cohen ask readers think about what educators' responsibilities are in wartime. Digging deep into nation's past, they present provocative historical examples that do not lend themselves facile analysis or pat good-guy/bad-guy stories. They ask whether, in an era of educational accountability, we are not ignoring our responsibility students present clear and accurate information on varying viewpoints about on terrorism. Given that our nation is at war in at least two countries, they ask, shouldn't educators be accountable for ensuring that all students have some understanding of why we are fighting, of whom we are at war with, and of what is at stake? Diane Ravitch challenges us think about what schools actually do encourage students' appreciation of U.S. culture. She points out that educators stand strong in their belief that children's self-esteem is linked knowledge and appreciation of their ancestral culture but not that of United States, where they live and will one day vote and raise children. How strange, Ravitch muses, to teach a student born in this country be proud of his parents' or grandparents' land of birth but not of his or her own. Or teach a student whose family fled this country from a tyrannical regime or from dire poverty identify with that nation rather than with one that gave family refuge. Critical of jingoistic conceptions of patriotism, Ravitch nonetheless calls for attention traditional respect for and celebration of nation's heritage and democratic principles and ideals. …

A. B. Nikitin. Hermitage Museum: i. Collection of the Pre-Islamic Period ». EIr 12, fasc. 3, (2003), pp. 240 - 245.

Objects from Iranian pre-Islamic date that are housed within the Hermitage museum come either from excavations or from a more dubious and illicit source, i.e. purchase or donations of ‘antiquities’ by great names with not always great ways of working. Nevertheless it should be said that many objects mentioned indeed come from authorized and scientific excavations. However its largest pre-Islamic collection, the silverware, seems to come from chance finds only. The article has good merit since...

The SkyWeb Express personal rapid transit system

Numerous investigators, observing that conventional transit systems are no match for the automobile on a modern road, have sought a means for movement of people that would attract many more riders while reducing costs. Understanding the benefits of automation, this activity led to the consideration of systems consisting of very small, automatically controlled vehicles running on a network of small, low-cost elevated guideways. To obtain adequate capacity and to decrease trip time, the stations would be placed off-line. In this way the system would have the attractiveness of a freeway, which permits private travel at minimum trip time, but would require a great deal less space. In the late l960s this concept became called Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and governments began investing in it. Unfortunately, there are a great many ways to design a PRT system and at that early stage there was no serious theoretical work to determine how best to accomplish such a design. As a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, the author became interested in this problem in 1968 and during the 1970s was able to study all of the PRT work underway around the world, and thereby develop a comprehensive set of criteria to guide him to an optimized version of PRT. That version is now called SkyWeb Express. The paper briefly discusses the advantages of use of off-line stations and the design of the necessary guideway, vehicle, station, operations, and control system. Means for obtaining the necessary safety and reliability are then discussed, followed by a brief discussion of system costs and cost effectiveness. Finally, a list is given of benefits for the community and the patrons. For the covering abstract see ITRD E129315.

Neutral theory in community ecology and the hypothesis of functional equivalence

Probably no ecologist in the world with even a modicum of field experience would seriously question the existence of niche differences among competing species on the same trophic level. The real question, however, is how did these niche differences evolve, how are they maintained ecologically, and what niche differences, if any, matter to the assembly of ecological communities? By ecological community I refer to co-occurring assemblages of trophically similar species. By assembly I mean which species, having which niche traits, and how many species, co-occur in a given community. In my judgement, despite a long and rich tradition of research on these questions in community ecology (Chase & Leibold 2003), we are still far from having definitive answers. Several years ago, in an attempt to provide a fresh approach for tackling these questions, I introduced a formal neutral theory for ecology (Hubbell 1997, 2001). The traditional strategy has been to assume that ecological communities are inherently high-dimensional sensu Hutchinson’s (1957) niche hypervolume for each species, and then to build rather complex models from the outset, incorporating as many of the details of the growth and interactions of each and every species and with their physical environment as possible. Neutral theory, however, adopts a fundamentally different strategy, taking virtually the opposite tack. It begins with the simplest possible hypothesis one can think of – for example, the functional equivalence of species – and then adds complexity back into the theory only as absolutely required to obtain satisfactory agreement with the data. In this approach, one does not assume from the start that ecological communities are high-dimensional. Indeed, the fundamental question now becomes: What is the minimum necessary dimensionality of the theory required to characterize a given ecological community to a desired level of realism and precision? The hypothesis of functional equivalence is the cornerstone of neutral theory. It states that trophically similar species are, at least to a first approximation, demographically identical on a per capita basis in terms of their vital rates, of birth, death, dispersal – and even speciation. Elsewhere I have also used the term symmetry to describe such species (Hubbell 2005). Under the hypothesis of functional equivalence, species can still differ in a great many ways – including characters that enable taxonomists to recognize them as good species – so long as species do not differ in their per capita vital rates. All species in all trophically defined communities violate this assumption to some degree, but the question is, how good an approximation is it? In ecology, there are often multiple, sufficient explanations for the same phenomenon (Chave, Muller-Landau & Levin 2002; Purves & Pacala 2005), and this is especially true of approximate explanations. The strategy of neutral theory relies heavily on Occam’s Razor; but whether the assembly rules of ecological communities in nature obey this maxim – to always choose the most parsimonious explanation – is not yet clear. However, as Harte (2003) pointed out, one doesn’t necessarily discard theories just because they are just approximations. Physicists still use Boyle’s Law, PV = nRT (pressure P times volume V is a linear function of absolute temperature T ), even though there are no perfect gases that follow this relationship exactly. Similarly, we continue to teach the Lotka–Volterra equations in ecology, even though no ecologist today would defend them as precise or mechanistic descriptions of nature. Much has been written about the unified neutral theory (UNT) since my book appeared (Hubbell 2001), some of it critical, and there have been several major technical and conceptual advances in the theory since then (e.g. Volkov et al . 2003; Vallade & Houchmandzadeh 2003; Houchmandzadeh & Vallade 2003; McKane, Alonso & Sole 2004; Etienne & Olff 2004). However, my main focus for this forum on neutral theory will not be on the new developments in the theory or on the criticisms. Rather, I wish to highlight the empirical observations that led me to question my own long-held beliefs about the assembly rules for ecological communities in the first place, particularly in plant communities. Before discussing these observations, however, I should sketch out a few of the major milestones in the intellectual history of the classical paradigm of competitive niche assembly theory.