Historical Action Research Articles

Learning-Based Spectrum Sharing and Spatial Reuse in mm-Wave Ultradense Networks

In this paper, the throughput maximization of millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) ultradense networks (UDN) using dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) is considered. Most of the existing works only allow temporal-domain access and admit at most one user at each time slot, resulting in significant underutilization of spectrum resource, which will be less attractive to mm-wave UDN applications. A generalized temporal-spatial sharing scheme is proposed in this paper for UDN by exploiting the location information of incumbent devices, where multiple users are allowed to access each channel simultaneously via spatial separations. For distributed applications, the global information exchange among secondary users (SU) tends to be impractical, given the unaffordable signaling overhead and latency. Thus, a noncooperative game with fine-grained two-dimensional reuse is formulated, which leads to a more efficient access strategy. It is then proved to be an ordinary potential game (OPG), which guarantees the existence of the strategy Nash equilibrium (NE). Finally, an improved decentralized reinforcement learning algorithm is designed, with which SUs can learn from wireless environments and adapt toward an NE point, relying on the individual observation and the historical action reward (rather than the global information exchanging). The convergence efficiency of the new scheme is also rigorously proved. Numerical simulations are provided to validate the performances of the proposed schemes.

Ural Pictures by Roman Semashkevich: The Principle of Narration

This article analyses the Ural period in the creative work of R. M. Semashkevich and the master’s previously unknown works. Contemporaries perceived the artist as a person of natural talent, who abstained from disputes about the ways of development of Soviet art. However, Semashkevich’s correspondence testifies to his critical view of the decision of the authorities to limit creative freedom, he wanted to demonstrate a different approach to socialist realism. It was important for him to build a method by which a painter, even staying within the framework of the ideological order, would be able to cultivate objective artistic values. Semashkevich’s artistic method of the early 1930s is characterised by the significant role of the pace of drawing; in his sketches, created in rapid succession, in one breath, the viewer is captured not only by their external accuracy, but also by the author’s passion, his mastery of the “narrator”. The directness of the “narrative” with all the possible angularities and conventions gives the viewer a sense of complicity, and it is on this that the artist builds his principle of narrative. It was important for the master not only to fix nature, but also to find a composition move, and build a figurative scene in a figurative way. The artist went on a trip across Northern Urals (1933) and then worked in Zlatoust (1934–1935), trying to find his “direction in the present”. His creative business trip became an opportunity for him to realise his individual artistic programme: he borrowed his plots from stories by old Bolsheviks — participants of the Revolution and the Civil war, and developed a special system of narration, combining elements of primitivism, popular print, and references to Barbizon painters and Cezanne. At a personal exhibition in Zlatoust, he presented historical and revolutionary paintings in which he demonstrated his understanding of the new realistic art. Using “graphic paradoxes” and colour dissonances, he created a sense of internally contradictory historical action in which casual episodes were characterised by the power of a heroic legend, and the artistic system verging on the primitivism or theatrical decorativeness gave rise to a sense of authenticity.

Reviewing ‘Feluda on Feluda’: Maganlal Meghraj ‘Writes Back’ to Tapesh

ABSTRACTThis article is a fortuitous response to Feluda’s letter to his cousin Topse by Maganlal Meghraj, villain in three Feluda stories. While agreeing in principle with Feluda’s insistence to being seen as a popular hero of the general public imagination rather than being a niche figure for juveniles, Meghraj seeks to temper the argument for the ‘popular’ by pointing out numerous continuities between Ray’s ‘arthouse’ oeuvre and the Feluda films as well as questioning some of the ‘positive’ characterizations Feluda makes of his status as ‘popular’ hero. Instead of seeing Feluda in the grand Enlightenment tradition of detective knowledge, Meghraj insists on seeing the cinematic Felu Mitter as Satyajit Ray’s dispassionate creation of a figure of public fantasy around whom contemporary Bengali middle-class public anxieties about its worth for historical action congeal. First, Meghraj sees this middle-class fantasizing a reform of a decrepit feudal order from which it has risen. Second, he sees this class fantasizing a rooting out of economic corruption arising from the unregulated conversion of feudal wealth into modern capital. Meghraj reads Mitter’s ‘going private’ and ‘going cinematic’ against the tide of difficult histories as symptomatic of a problematic Indian middle-class nationalism that is framed in a claim to the right to act out technocratic skills in order to get rid of both feudal stasis and corruption. This brand of technocratic action becomes the rallying call around which India is forced to globalize in the 1990s.

On being present to history

This paper explores the unexpected arrival of new spirits in possession of young spirit mediums at an annual ceremony in Majunga, Madagascar. I explore the significance of the event for local politics but also use it to exemplify a form of historicity different from that of Euroamerican historicism, with respect to both the structure of historical temporality and the nature of historical truth/knowledge, experience, responsiveness, and action. I argue further that the action of the spirits or mediums is simultaneously an interpretation of circumstances and that we might think more broadly of historical action as interpretive.

Undeletable Text: Eric Hobsbawm

Eric Hobsbawm's historiography is rooted in his biography, which begins with the struggle against fascism in Vienna and Berlin, which he experienced in his youth. He remained loyal to a popular front view of historical action throughout his life and career. His books divide into two kinds. Firstly, histories from below, in which he narrates the heroic failure of mostly premodern forms of resistance; secondly, histories of the totality, in which he tries to narrate the rise and spread of capitalism and its internal contradictions, particularly with organized labor. His last work, The Age of Extremes, is different, in that it is structured in terms of the effects on the West of the simulacrum of Soviet Communism, rather than its threat or actuality. Hobsbawm remains a figure of the twentieth century to the extent that his work missed the rise of new productive forces, the centrality of China, and the problems of the Anthropocene, such as climate change. And yet he at least remained loyal to a vision of enlightenment and liberation, even as his own personal communism was reduced to loyalty to the memory of fallen comrades.

SOCIAL POLICY AS FACTOR OF STATE INSTITUTIONAL STATUS

The purpose of the article is the research of theoretical and methodological aspects of social policy as the factor of institutional state statuses. Methodology. The researching in institutional providing of state social policy which may be considered as the base for performance of correspond reforms which are directed to the life level increasing, is enough popular task in scientific, theoretical and practical aspects. The scientific search of social policy as the factor of institutional status of state is carried out at the base of classical, neoclassical and institutional methodology. At the base of classical methodology it were defined the general approaches with help of dialectical analysis tools and synthesis of social relations array as historical action. With the help of system, structurally-functional analysis of social policy tasks, it’s opened its internal nature and ways of institutional providing. Institutional and neoclassical approaches allowed the specials analysing tools in modelling of dynamics and institute of social policy institute results in the conditions of market transformations. Also in the research process it were used the economic articles about the question of analysis in state social policy and given the statistic data about the analytical report to the annual President’s of Ukraine message to Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine „About internal and external condition of Ukraine in year 2015”. Research results showed what in the conditions of socially-economic and political instability, the social sphere Ukraine became the hostage of common crisis in economic, catastrophic decreasing of life level, increasing of social confrontation and rough system mistakes in the process of social institution formation. All of this neutralizes the methods efficiency about improvement of socially-economic condition of population and prevents to the implementation of necessary reforms. Practical value lays in the clear definition of priorities and directions of social policy at the state level, outlining of the main efficient ways and forms for citizens problems solving, coordinating of different social institutions activity, considering of socially-economic state development features and appearing of conditions for life level increasing. By the striving for integration to European space and building of own development strategy has to clearly understand own possibilities and external factors of influence. By the choosing the possible alternatives, the main idea of social policy should stay the strive for social justice of society and providing of stable market which doesn’t make worse the conditions and possibilities of future generations. Value/originality in the research process it’s proves that one of the primary task must be magnificent change of social policy vector and performance of urgent economic and social reforms. Looking to this, social policy institute needs serious modernization, especially in its functional displays which could be more directed to the for state social development closing for European standards. Closing of Ukraine to the economic and social standards of developed countries needs the building of socially justice society, providing of suite life conditions for socially vulnerable levels of population and increasing in efficiency of human rights protection system. In this direction, the government has to decrease the social expenses to the budget by means of private investments, transmission targeted support needy. In conditions of budget means economy, it should be carried out the transmission from paternalism in the social sphere to partnership between state, business and citizens in all aspects of social support, the result of successful functioning of social policy functioning as factor of institutional state status must be general development of Ukrainians life level.

A new proletariat in the making? Reflections on the 14 November 2012 strike and the movements of 1968 and 1995

On 14 November 2012, southern Europe witnessed its first transnational one-day general strike wave. This article compares the 14 November experience with the previous western European mobilizations of 1968 and 1995, assessing (i) their transnational dimension, (ii) their links to the European economic integration process, (iii) their historical specificities and action repertoires, and finally (iv) their impact on social class formation and labour movement organization. In conclusion, this historical comparison contends that the 14 November movement not only indicates a certain transnationalization of the social class struggle, but also a substantial recomposition of western Europe’s working classes with potentially far-reaching implications for the traditional labour movement.

Re-imagining and transforming therapeutic recreation: reaching into Foucault’s toolbox

ABSTRACTAs an introduction to this special issue of Leisure/Loisir on re-imagining and transforming therapeutic recreation, I reach into philosopher and historian Michel Foucault’s “toolbox” to discuss a critical theory and practice of therapeutic recreation. The true identity of therapeutic recreation can never be settled once and for all, because therapeutic recreation is a social construction, not an objective necessity, leaving it open to being something different than it presently is. Because there are different ways of telling the truth about therapeutic recreation, knowledge is not an inevitably enlightened path, but rather a creative and controlling power that can produce positive and negative effects in the lives of people. Disciplines like therapeutic recreation attempt to control practices and practitioners through the production of knowledge (discourses), which can constrain other perspectives on truth and ways of living. Dominant discourses of therapeutic recreation can be understood, challenged, re-imagined, and changed through historical understanding, critical reflection, ethical self-formation, and action. The papers that follow not only use some of Foucault’s tools to re-imagine and recreate therapeutic recreation, but demonstrate how critical theory may be just the medicine the field needs for the sake of freedom and justice.

Recombination in diverse maize is stable, predictable, and associated with genetic load

Among the fundamental evolutionary forces, recombination arguably has the largest impact on the practical work of plant breeders. Varying over 1,000-fold across the maize genome, the local meiotic recombination rate limits the resolving power of quantitative trait mapping and the precision of favorable allele introgression. The consequences of low recombination also theoretically extend to the species-wide scale by decreasing the power of selection relative to genetic drift, and thereby hindering the purging of deleterious mutations. In this study, we used genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) to identify 136,000 recombination breakpoints at high resolution within US and Chinese maize nested association mapping populations. We find that the pattern of cross-overs is highly predictable on the broad scale, following the distribution of gene density and CpG methylation. Several large inversions also suppress recombination in distinct regions of several families. We also identify recombination hotspots ranging in size from 1 kb to 30 kb. We find these hotspots to be historically stable and, compared with similar regions with low recombination, to have strongly differentiated patterns of DNA methylation and GC content. We also provide evidence for the historical action of GC-biased gene conversion in recombination hotspots. Finally, using genomic evolutionary rate profiling (GERP) to identify putative deleterious polymorphisms, we find evidence for reduced genetic load in hotspot regions, a phenomenon that may have considerable practical importance for breeding programs worldwide.

Imperium Suum Paulatim Destruxit: The Concept of Moderatio in Valerius Maximus’ Facta et Dicta Memorabilia 4.1

With the majority of its occurrences scattered across Latin literature and mostly lacking situational context, the Roman ethical concept of moderatio is hard to grasp in all its facets. Its fundamental meaning appears to have been the reasonable and prudent use of power, but how moderatio was actually manifested in historical action, how it varied and was defined, and who was expected to display it may still be debated. In his Facta et dicta memorabilia, the Tiberian author Valerius Maximus presents a unique and focussed discussion of the nature and the effects of moderatio (Val. Max. 4.1). The exempla he assembles clearly illustrate the patterns and processes which underlie this highly complex mode of conduct. Based on a thorough analysis of these exempla, this article attempts a definition of moderatio as understood by Valerius. Thus the paper seeks to highlight some of the essential aspects shaping this extraordinary virtue, to explore potential intentions behind its display, and to examine its function within the relationship between the powerful and those on whom their power impacted.

Dangerous Return: The Narratives of Jurisgenesis in Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun

Legal scholar Robert Cover's concept of jurisgenesis , the creation of legal meaning by polities, offers a revealing window into the historical prologues and dramatic action of William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun . Cover's work clarifies how Faulkner's character Nancy Mannigoe, an African American domestic convicted of infanticide, exhibits a nomos , or normative vision, to rival that of Yoknapatawpha County's official legal system. The text, however, remains evasive about the imaginative sources of Nancy's nomos in the antinomian power of contemporaneous civil rights activity, whose spectacles of collective black political agency triggered a troubling form of censorship in Faulkner's artistic vision.

Caroline Court Drama: Forming History

This essay outlines how Caroline court drama not only reflects or comments on events, but also served courtiers as an arena for intervention. It considers the affordances, constraints, and agency of form in networks of courtly drama in the 1620s and 1630s, exploring repertory revivals of inherited plays; interchange among public stage, court theatre, and print; and the performance and printing of court masques. In particular, Caroline deployments of romance elements, both pastoral and chivalric, work as a self-conscious and dynamic medium of historical action. Incorporating copious visual and heuristic elements of previous texts, masques like Chloridia (Jonson), Coelum Britannicum (Carew), The Temple of Love (Davenant), The Triumph of Peace (Shirley), the Mask performed at Ludlow Castle (Milton), and Salmacida Spolia (Davenant) display the spoils of their producers' quests into the archives of romance.

Caroline Court Drama: Forming History

This essay outlines how Caroline court drama not only reflects or comments on events, but also served courtiers as an arena for intervention. It considers the affordances, constraints, and agency of form in networks of courtly drama in the 1620s and 1630s, exploring repertory revivals of inherited plays; interchange among public stage, court theatre, and print; and the performance and printing of court masques. In particular, Caroline deployments of romance elements, both pastoral and chivalric, work as a self-conscious and dynamic medium of historical action. Incorporating copious visual and heuristic elements of previous texts, masques like Chloridia (Jonson), Coelum Britannicum (Carew), The Temple of Love (Davenant), The Triumph of Peace (Shirley), the Mask performed at Ludlow Castle (Milton), and Salmacida Spolia (Davenant) display the spoils of their producers' quests into the archives of romance.

Will in Scarlet by Matthew Cody (review)

Reviewed by: Will in Scarlet by Matthew Cody Kate Quealy-Gainer Cody, Matthew Will in Scarlet. Knopf, 2013 [272p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-375-86895-5 $16.99 Library ed. ISBN 978-0-375-96895-2 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-375-89980-5 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 5-7 With his father off crusading for King Richard, thirteen-year-old Will Shackley must leave childhood mischief behind him as he takes on the responsibility of governing the Shackley estate. He makes a fine start, slaughtering two wolves during a hunt with his father’s men, but when Prince John’s thugs later attack Will’s home in an attempt to force fealty, the boy flees the battle to survive. Finding refuge among a merry band of thieves (including a drunken archer named Rob) in Sherwood Forest, Will sets out to plan his revenge but is soon confronted with the possibility that injustice is not simply the fault of one bad man. The punches packed in this historical action tale are both physical and emotional, as Will discovers that the sheltered world he grew up in is a privilege for very few and a distant dream for most. Cody’s pacing is a clever construction of frenzied but focused fight sequences balanced with quiet, subtle moments of self-reflection on Will’s part. Rich characterization does justice to each of the main players here, especially the villains: their motivations are made clear and understandable so that readers, like Will, come to realize the world is a complicated place with room for good and evil and much in between. Early scenes of wolf hunting and thrilling ambushes will likely draw even the most reluctant reader in, while the careful prose and likable hero will see them through to the satisfying conclusion. Copyright © 2013 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Asymmetric active cooperation strategy in spectrum sharing game with imperfect information

SummaryIn this paper, we study the spectrum sharing problem in the cognitive network where two secondary users coexist and interfere with each other in an unlicensed channel. Each user in our scenario is independent and is unaware of the characteristic of its rival but its statistics (imperfect information). An important issue is the interaction among selfish independent wireless communication systems (secondary users) who aim to maximize their own current utility. We provide a self‐enforcing spectrum sharing framework, which has the advantage of not requiring a control center or communicating between two users. The short‐term profits of users gained before cooperation being builded are asymmetrical. The long‐term profit is used as the user's utility. Users improve their long‐term profits by creating mutual cooperation actively. The historical action of the user is used by its rival to evaluate/update the current action. The action updating algorithm is provided. Moreover, we investigate the stability of the cooperation. As demonstrated, the proposed scheme can build mutual cooperation through extensive simulations. The existence of equilibrium is confirmed by the repeated game. And our scheme can achieve a good trade‐off between short‐term profits and long‐term profits. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Exhibiting Voices: Reclaiming Authorship in the Post‐Cold War Nuclear Age

Contemporary museums have long recognised the value of oral history as part of contextual displays, and as museum objects in their own right. Oral history can make objects and histories come to life and at the same time provoke new thoughts, feelings and ideas. By connecting past, present and future, oral history can be a powerful agent for identity formation and the shaping of a collective consciousness. Yet, within that premise there is tension. While oral history interviews are accounts of historical actions that occurred over time in the past, interviews themselves are real‐time events narrated as a type of verbal performance. Interdependent from its temporality as a process, interviews are also contingent in that they are vulnerable to the particularities of location, how they are historically situated in time, and the subjectivities of participants. Oral history has therefore been dismissed as an unreliable source of information. This paper argues that because of these contingencies, oral history should be considered an important form of historical thinking. Drawing from the writing of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, especially his claim for the potential of contingency in oral discourse, it will bring into focus the potential of oral history to further dialogue between disparate groups and communities. One of the intrinsic glories of oral history is its potential to liberate thinking by opening up a gap between objects and their labels, revealing the full three‐dimensional humanity of historical action.

The Limits of Gender Domination: Women, the Law, and Political Crisis in Quito, 1765–1830

The Limits of Gender Domination: Women, the Law, and Political Crisis in Quito, 1765–1830

Agency, choice and historical action: How history teaching can help students think about democratic decision making

At the heart of both historical understanding and democratic decision making is agency – the ability to act on decisions in order to bring about desired goals. Students are rarely exposed to the concept of agency in school, however. In order to better understand the complexity of historical agency, students need exposure to a wider range of historical actors than has traditionally been found in history curricula, and they need to consider the societal factors that enabled or constrained their actions. They also need to recognize that people in the past were not simply acted upon by historical forces but were themselves active participants in events and trends of the day. Such participation involved not only large-scale political involvement but everyday actions and decisions influencing the historical development of cultures and societies. No nation or group, however, acts in complete unison, and students also need to learn about the diversity of perspectives and behaviours that characterized people in the past. By thinking about these issues, students should be better prepared to think about their own lives in the present, about their ability to contribute to societal change and continuity, and about the consequences of their actions. This is one of the ways in which history education can contribute to students’ ability to engage in democratic decision making. Studying history in isolation, however, may not be enough to enhance students’ participation in society. Instead, students need to develop a metacognitive awareness that agency is a lens for making sense of any social topic, past or present. They also need opportunities to explicitly connect historical agency to the choices that face people today as they respond to social, economic, political and environmental issues.

A Test for Selection Employing Quantitative Trait Locus and Mutation Accumulation Data

Evolutionary biologists attribute much of the phenotypic diversity observed in nature to the action of natural selection. However, for many phenotypic traits, especially quantitative phenotypic traits, it has been challenging to test for the historical action of selection. An important challenge for biologists studying quantitative traits, therefore, is to distinguish between traits that have evolved under the influence of strong selection and those that have evolved neutrally. Most existing tests for selection employ molecular data, but selection also leaves a mark on the genetic architecture underlying a trait. In particular, the distribution of quantitative trait locus (QTL) effect sizes and the distribution of mutational effects together provide information regarding the history of selection. Despite the increasing availability of QTL and mutation accumulation data, such data have not yet been effectively exploited for this purpose. We present a model of the evolution of QTL and employ it to formulate a test for historical selection. To provide a baseline for neutral evolution of the trait, we estimate the distribution of mutational effects from mutation accumulation experiments. We then apply a maximum-likelihood-based method of inference to estimate the range of selection strengths under which such a distribution of mutations could generate the observed QTL. Our test thus represents the first integration of population genetic theory and QTL data to measure the historical influence of selection.

Oaths, Threats and Henry V

Why is Shakespeare's Irish captain, MacMorris, so full of angry oaths? Why does the valiant Fluellen profanely swear ‘By Cheshu’? To address these questions is to be led through early modern accounts of swearing into the binding language of Henry V, with its dramatic potential not just to secure through speech acts but to mislead, evade and threaten. This article puts the play's preoccupation with oaths into context, both in relation to such plays as Edward III and Richard II and more largely in connection with sixteenth-century attitudes to gages, pledges, ransom and earnest. It pursues binding words not just through the main, historical action but through the King Henry and Williams plot, and the related comic sequence that leads to Fluellen beating Pistol. Overarching the discussion is a reappraisal of the play's relationship with the Elizabethan wars in Ireland. Analogues of MacMorris are found in Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir and the State Papers, while Sir Francis Bacon's observations about the oaths and vows of princes are used to illuminate the unresolved outcome of the play's high-political drama.