Historical Grounds Research Articles

Using Geographic Information Systems to Predict North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) Habitat

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are an innovative and powerful tool to define relationships between species and habitat in large marine ecosystems. The objectives of this study were: 1) to gather bathymetry, SST(sea-surface temperature), and right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) sightings data and convert them to GIS coverages, and 2) to create a GIS based logistic regression model to predict North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) distribution as a function of SST and bathymetry. Part of the Scotian Shelf, 45°00'N to 42°00'N latitude and 66°00'W to 61°00'W longitude, was used as a study area to develop the model. The validity of the model was tested in a separate area with known right whale distribution, and the results showed that the model predicted sightings where right whales had been observed. Observations had shown that during their seasonal migration, a portion of the population does not appear in the known summering grounds in the Gulf of Maine, Bay of Fundy, and on the Scotian Shelf. New genetic evidence suggested an additional summering ground. Using the model, predictions for the North Atlantic showed possible summering grounds in areas which were historical whaling grounds. The results from the model can be incorporated into the Recovery Plan for this species. GIS offers an inexpensive method to examine marine mammals in relation to environmental and oceanographic features which affect their life histories.

A Clinical Guide to Inherited Metabolic Diseases. By J.T.R. Clarke

As books on metabolic disease become more comprehensive and weightier, it is refreshing to find this user-friendly clinical guide which should suit most pockets both in size and cost. For those in training or at the fringes of metabolic disease, the standard texts that we know so well may seem rather daunting. This volume takes us through the labyrinth of metabolic diseases without assuming a prior knowledge of their biochemical classification. The author draws very much on his own extensive experience to produce a succinct and readable text. The book opens with some basic genetics and general metabolic principles, highlighting a number of common diagnostic confusions. There follow seven chapters dealing with the presenting features or ‘syndromes’ commonly seen in patients with inherited metabolic diseases. These include: neurological syndrome (encephalopathies, myopathies etc.), metabolic acidosis, hepatic syndrome, cardiac syndromes, storage syndrome and dysmorphism, acute metabolic illness in the neonate and, somewhat surprisingly, PKU (justified on historical grounds and as an exemplar for screening and treatment). The final chapters deal with laboratory diagnosis from simple screening tests to specific and specialized tests, and finally treatment, from dietary manipulation through to gene therapy. The book is well illustrated, and contains many clear tables with a surprising amount of information, as well as a comprehensive index. In short, this is an excellent guide to metabolic disease; it represents good value for money and, I suspect, will be more likely found in the owner’s pocket rather than on the shelf. It is recommended not only to the ‘busy physician’ and trainee, but to all those with an interest in metabolic disease.

Die plek en funksie van belydenisskrifte in die kategese van die Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk

The purpose and function of the articles of faith in the catechism of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk Since the publication of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika's most recent catechism text books (1982-1989), there has been concern that the articles of faith of the church, and particularly the Heidelberg Catechism, have not been taught sufficiently. In this study it is shown that the Heidelberg Catechism was only for a short period of time the exclusive text book used in teaching the dogma of the church to catechism pupils. Since 1985 it has become a general tendency in almost all reformed churches not to use one of the articles of faith or an abbreviated form thereof as basis in catechism anymore, but rather to use the Bible itself. This study attempts to point out that the Council for Catechism of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk has chosen correctly on sound theological, pedagogical, and didactic historical grounds to teach the Biblical content within the accompanying framework of the faith and not according to one or other article of faith of the church. Many factors, as indicated in this study, require that the witness of the church again be conveyed, based on the existing articles of faith, and that this then should serve as the accompanying framework for the catechism.

An Objective Disorder: Homosexual Orientation and God's Eternal Law

AbstractRecent declarations by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith have disallowed any effort to rethink the tradition's negative evaluation of homosexuality. Citing Thomas Aquinas, the CDF appeals to eternal law as an important warrant for its position. Homosexual orientation is an objective disorder. It is an inclination to intimacy which violates God's design for human sexuality. This claim excludes further consideration of the topic. This study examines Aquinas' claim to know God's eternal law. At the heart of Aquinas' argument is the simile that creation is like a human artifact and God like an artist. When we know the work we know the Artist's intent. Heidegger's hermeneutical account of the work of art suggests that Aquinas has overlooked the historical grounds for the relationship between artist and artifact. Aquinas has the simile wrong. If Heidegger's approach is a reasonable alternative to that of Aquinas, then a space is opened within Catholic discourse to rethink the question of homosexuality.

Reconceptualizing Anarchy:

How can the understandings of world historians about the critical changes in the international system be brought into harmony with the way IR theorists think about system change? One of the main obstacles to this task is Waltz's conception of structure, particularly his much criticized elimination of functional differentiation of units in anarchy. Until this flaw is corrected, the theory remains fundamentally incoherent, having misguidedly sacrificed rigour for parsimony. Waltz cannot defend both his exclusive anarchy-hierarchy dyad as the first tier of structure, and the closure of the second tier, against attacks by Ruggie, Watson and Deudney. While the anarchy-hierarchy formulation of deep structure is defensible, the closure of the second tier is not. Both on theoretical and historical grounds, anarchy is compatible with differentiation of units — there is more than one type of anarchic international system. Neorealism therefore gives a partial and Eurocentric view of international systems, and cannot sustain its transhistorical claim. With carefully specified definitions for functional and structural differentiation of units, it is possible to retain a coherent, and still quite parsimonious, theory that is capable of encompassing all of the known manifestations of international systems. Only with such modifications is it possible to address the significant systemic transformations both ancient and modern that now pass unnoticed through the broad mesh of the neorealist net.

Threat Environment for a United Korea: 2010

Threat Environment for a United Korea: 2010

"The American Romance" and the Changing Functions of the Imaginary

I N THE EMERGENCE of study of literature and formation of a separate discipline called Studies, invention of concept of an has played a crucial role. The 1940s and 50s were period in which search for a national, specifically American literary tradition took on a new urgency. This search was fueled by post-World War II visions of a new world power and arrival of what Henry Luce called the century. F. O. Matthiessen's study Renaissance (1941) had identified a literary tradition of great intellectual power and artistic originality and had provided it with a name that stuck.1 Perry Miller had transformed perception of culture-still widely considered provincial and without a strong cultural tradition of its own-by recovering an imposing tradition.2 However, his redefinition tied interpretation of culture to this Puritan legacy in a way that seemed too restrictive on regional and historical grounds. Similarly, Matthiessen's book limited America's unique cultural achievement to a particular period and to a small group of writers. It was concept of romance which solved this impasse in matters of cultural self-definition. Ironically enough, solution was suggested by an essay which developed claim of a different tradition in literature in order to describe this literature's shortcomings, Lionel Trilling's essay Morals, Manners and Novel.3 Trilling's essay summarizes what was more or less standard view of literature in English departments on both sides of Atlantic: While European novel traditionally focuses on society and its manners (in wide sense of whole array of social relations and its determinants) , writers shy away from this social reality, and, thus, from complexity and fullness of social life. Trilling's argument was developed in context and service of his own liberal critique of political radicalism and its narrow views of purpose of literature. However, his argument that reality, in contrast to epistemologically

Censorship and the Internet

Technology and censorship are often seen as opposing forces in the information age. This tension is exemplified by the case of Singapore, which wants to harness new technologies for development while having censorship controls in place. This paper looks at how Singapore is going about censorship of the Internet. It is part of a larger study into how Singapore proposes to censor without losing the advantages of new technologies. The paper begins by noting that censorship in Singapore is justified on historical and socio-political grounds. Both the government and the people want it, favouring caution and prevention over liberalism. In line with these desires, the Singapore government has drawn up guidelines for censorship. In practice, however, some of these principles conflict, especially when censorship of the Internet is attempted. The paper then looks at problems in censorship of the Internet and examines some censorship measures that have been attempted. The paper concludes with the observation that current thinking suggests it is almost impossible to both control information and reap the benefits of the information age. Singapore is trying nevertheless.

B. F. Skinner's Radical Behaviorism: Historical Misconstructions and Grounds for Feminist Reconstructions

Feminist critiques of traditional psychological approaches have generated thorough feminist revisions most notably in psychoanalytic and developmental theory. Although behaviorism has attracted strong objections from feminist critics, claims of its antithetical positioning vis-A¥-vis feminist theory construction have practically remained unchallenged. A preliminary step in formulating grounds for a synthesis is to clarify the multiple meanings of behaviorism. Specifically, the fusion of Watson’ s methodological behaviorism and Skinner’ s radical behaviorism in the literature must be disentangled in order to address the latter’ s potential as a conceptual framework for constructing feminist theory. Key conceptual features of radical behaviorism that suggest its potential as a vehicle for building a feminist epistemology include: radical behaviorism’ s contextualistic world view, its interpretation of agency, its treatment of private experience and self knowledge, and its understanding of the pivotal functions of the verbal community.

B. F. Skinner’S Radical Behaviorism: Historical Misconstructions and Grounds for Feminist Reconstructions

Feminist critiques of traditional psychological approaches have generated thorough feminist revisions most notably in psychoanalytic and developmental theory. Although behaviorism has attracted strong objections from feminist critics, claims of its antithetical positioning vis-a-vis feminist theory construction have practically remained unchallenged. A preliminary step in formulating ‘grounds for a synthesis is to clarify the multiple meanings of behaviorism. Specifically, the fusion of Watson’s methodological behaviorism and Skinner’s radical behaviorism in the literature must be disentangled in order to address the latter’s potential as a conceptual framework for constructing feminist theory. Key conceptual features of radical behaviorism that suggest its potential as a vehicle for building a feminist epistemology include: radical behaviorism’s contextualistic world view, its interpretation of agency, its treatment of private experience and self knowledge, and its understanding of the pivotal functions of the verbal community.

B. F. Skinner's Radical Behaviorism: Historical Misconstructions and Grounds for Feminist Reconstructions

Feminist critiques of traditional psychological approaches have generated feminist revisions, most notably in psychoanalytic and developmental theory. Although behaviorism has attracted strong objections from feminist critics, claims of its antithetical positioning vis-à-vis feminist theory construction have generally remained unchallenged. A preliminary step in formulating grounds for a synthesis is to clarify multiple meanings of behaviorism. Specifically, the fusion of Watson's methodological behaviorism and Skinner's radical behaviorism in the literature must be disentangled in order to address the latter's potential as a conceptual framework for constructing feminist theory. Key conceptual features of radical behaviorism that suggest its potential as a vehicle for building a feminist epistemology include: radical behaviorism's contextualistic world view, its interpretation of agency, its treatment of private experience and self knowledge, and its understanding of the pivotal functions of the verbal community.

What factors determine Sweden's provision of environmental aid to Eastern Europe?

This paper seeks to analyse the debate which has shaped Sweden's environmental aid programme to Eastern Europe over the past four to five years, through focusing on two criteria: efficiency (both economic and environmental) and responsibility. Efficiency is used to refer to using resources to obtain the maximum environmental benefit for resources expended. Responsibility is examined here in terms of ultimate liability for the products or outcomes of aid given by one nation to another, and how it affects the recipient nation's sovereignty. Do donors give aid because they feel responsible on moral, historical or other grounds? Long-range air pollution and cleaning up the Baltic Sea are used as illustrative examples. The paper concludes by looking at the current policy and practice of Sweden's environmental assistance to Eastern Europe and how this has been influenced by the efficiency and responsibility arguments.

Reply to John Bender and Mark Seltzer

Despite considerable differences in manner and matter, these two responses to my Optics and Power in the Novel make a rather similar point for John Bender, my reprimand signifies my desire to confine literary studies to the safety of the narratological garden; for Mark Seltzer, my nonsense insists on the quarantining and immunity of fictional form from the contagion of ideological interests. Neither of them seems to have noticed that my critique of certain Foucault-inspired critical moves?not to mention my reading of the studies in which they occur?signals instead that, like so many other erstwhile students of narrative poetics, I have long since broken out of the supposedly isolated enclosure. What their reaction in turn signals to me is that they would like it better if I had kept (what they take to be) my place. My critique does not fault Bender and Seltzer for using narratological concepts to construct cultural history but for misusing them: for positing a falsely facile analogy between the novelist's relation to his characters and Panoptic power. This analogy seems to me no less false for seemingly enabling historiographie advances (up toward Bender's sum mit overlooking institutional formation or down into Seltzer's graphic unconscious). The reader will have to judge whether my refusal to accept this analogy signifies insensitivity to historically significant interfiliations (Bender) and/or recourse to complexity as such (Selt zer) . What I willingly concede is my belief that persuasive ideological diagnoses of novelistic form cannot be achieved without supreme caution and extensive sensitization to the complexity involved. That this can be approached by nonspecialists in the field of narratology is clear from, among others, the work of Paul Ricoeur.1 As my semi-optimistic conclusion, at any rate, means to suggest, the intent of my article is not to disable the integration of formal innovations into the study of cultural change but to recommend that it be attempted by someone who has, on systematic as well as on historical grounds, more than a cursory knowledge of the variables he or she aims to integrate. Bender's and Seltzer's responses themselves reinforce my sense that cultural historians tend not to reflect deeply on these variables. How else could Bender, in his opening paragraph, insist that the apparent

A paradise for the extractive industries: European reports of land to the West from St Brendan to the Newfoundland voyages

A paradise for the extractive industries: European reports of land to the West from St Brendan to the Newfoundland voyages It is generally taken for granted that at least one set of pre-Columbian explorations, namely the Norse-Greenland voyages to 'Vinland' around 1000 AD, brought genuine information back to Europe regarding the North American continent.1 Irish anchorites searching for a monastic 'desert' in the eighth century A D and Bristol mariners searching for largeresourcesof fish in thefifteenth2 are also given credit for coming close to landing in North America. Thereportsof the latter two groups certainly influenced Columbus and his contemporaries. N o discussion of the background to Columbus's voyage would therefore seem complete without considering these pre-Columbian contacts. This paper will briefly re-examine the evidence for medieval Irish, Norse, and English explorations and will argue that anachronistic post-colonial assumptions as to the intent of these early explorers, aided by some misleading characteristics of the records themselves, have allowed modem, nationalistic obsessions to be imposed upon the priorities of medieval exploration and setdement. The medieval voyages do not prefigure later colonization. Rather, they are part of its 'prehistory' and give insights into the sentiments and foreknowledge, real or romantic, which insphed later explorers. A tendency to try to 'rationalize' details in medieval accounts, with attendant ethnic-stereotyping as to which nationalities are morereliablewitnesses, or were more or less 'capable' of making the voyage (a moot point, as most vessels used in extended coastal voyaging in Northern Europe have the technologically capacity to cross the 1 See most recently G. F. Bigelow, ed., The Norse of the North Atlantic, Ac Archaeologica 61, 1990, papers by Keller and Wallace, and esp. E. Wahlgren, The Vikings and America, London, 1986, bibliography: pp. 183-87; for earlier studies see esp. J. Tornde, Norsemen before Columbus, Oslo, 1972, bibliography. In general see G. Jones, 77K; Norse Atlantic Saga, Oxford, 2nd edn, 1986. 2 D. B. Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, 1481-1620, London, 1974, pp. 5-23; P. McGrath, 'Bristol and America, 1480-1631', in K. R. Andrew, N. P. Cooney, and P. Hair, eds., The Westward Enterprise, Liverpool, 1978, pp. 81-102; G. J. Marcus, The Conquest of the North Atlantic, Woodbridge, 1980. PARERGON ns 12.2 (January 1995) 98 J- Wooding Atlantic), tends to blind us to the continuum of discourse in all the medieval accounts: an interest in landsrichin naturalresources,from which European visitors could extract resources, food, timber, or solitude, according to then particular needs. The Irish voyages, in particular, though on historical grounds most unlikely to have reached America, initiated a discourse which both inspired later voyages, along the 'stepping stone' route (via the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland), and shaped then subsequent recording. From these Irish beginnings can be traced an evolving history of Atlantic exploration by medieval North Europeans, moving away from the ethnically isolated treatments which characterize the history of this subject Most explorations did not lead to setdement, but to short-term exploitation. The medieval sources reflect, even create, this motivation through then images of plenitude. The desire for short-term extractive use of paradisical lands explains the transient character of the Vinland settlements, the ultimate disappearance of the Greenland colonies, and the vestigial use made of western lands by the Irish and Bristol mariners. The historiography of the European discovery of America has become something of a battlefield for empirical historians, holding out against the reductionist critiques of cultural studies.3 Empirical history could find many better advertisments, however, than the exceptionally uncritical treatment of the sources in this topic, especially of those sources from the medieval period and earlier.4 Few studies go further than questions as to which explorers 'got therefirst',whether the technology of the different ethnic groups was capable of the voyage and why viable colonies were not made prior to the seventeenth century. Success and failure are often judged only in such terms,5 neglecting the possibility that medieval colonialism arose from 3 See most recently K. Windschuttle, The Killing of History: how a discipline is being murdered by literary critics and social theorists, Sydney, 1994. 4 For a general survey see E. R...

Pauline Authorship and the Pastoral Epistles: A Response to S. E. Porter

Abstract This brief essay suggests an alternative to modern critical orthodoxy which equates historical authorship with canonicity. Rather than settling the issue of authorship on historical grounds, a canonical approach shifts the reference point of exegesis to the biblical Sitz im Leben, where authorship of a document posits it in an authoritative theological tradition. In this case, the Pauline address of the Pastorals locates these letters within (and not outside) the Pauline corpus and so supplies additional details and perspective to the authorized (i.e., canonical) witness of Paul for today's church.

Pauline Authorship and the Pastoral Epistles: A Response to S. E. Porter

Abstract This brief essay suggests an alternative to modern critical orthodoxy which equates historical authorship with canonicity. Rather than settling the issue of authorship on historical grounds, a canonical approach shifts the reference point of exegesis to the biblical Sitz im Leben, where authorship of a document posits it in an authoritative theological tradition. In this case, the Pauline address of the Pastorals locates these letters within (and not outside) the Pauline corpus and so supplies additional details and perspective to the authorized (i.e., canonical) witness of Paul for today's church.

A Middle-Irish poem on the authors and laws of Ireland

This paper presents a critical edition (with introduction, translation, commentary, and linguistic analysis) of the Middle-Irish poem ‘Aimirgein Glúngel tuir tend’, attributed to Gilla in Choimded Úa Cormaic of Tulach Léis, and dated c.1050×1150 on linguistic and historical grounds.

Explanation v. Prediction: Which Carries More Weight?

According to a standard view, predictions of new phenomena provide stronger evidence for a theory than explanations of old ones. More guardedly, a theory that predicts phenomena that did not prompt the initial formulation of that theory is better supported by those phenomena than is a theory by known phenomena that generated the theory in the first place. So say various philosophers of science, including William Whewell (1847) in the 19th century and Karl Popper (1959) in the 20th, to mention just two.Stephen Brush takes issue with this on historical grounds. In a series of fascinating papers he argues that generally speaking scientists do not regard the fact that a theory predicts new phenomena, even ones of a kind totally different from those that prompted the theory in the first place, as providing better evidential support for that theory than is provided by already known facts explained by the theory.

Freud et la guerre

Freud and war, Peter Gay The question of Freud's relation to war is really two questions that ultimately join in a single one, his attitude toward the First World War and the attitude toward human aggressiveness in general. The way that these two questions must be asked separately and then blend together is a lesson in how personal needs, private anxeties, and cultural loyalties on one side, and theoritical, scientific insight on the other, can move along distinct paths, only to converge when the insights are finally applied to, and are permitted to correct, the needs and loyalties. It is fascinating both on biographical and on historical grounds. The story of Freud on war is a story of the triumph of objectivity over subjectivity.

Why Dinesh D'Souza Has it in For Rigoberta Menchú

The 1992 Nobel Prize for Peace went to Rigoberta Menchu, the thirty-three year old Guatemalan Indian activist. The award is well-deserved on collective, historical, and personal grounds. Clearly timed to coincide with the Columbus quincentennial, the prize is perhaps the first such instance of a major deliberative body, with almost universal prestige, officially granting recognition to the legitimate aspirations of the Native American peoples. More specifically, the Nobel Committee has acknowledged the courageous and tragic political struggles of Rigoberta and her kin, as told by the young woman in her oral autobiography, I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (1983).This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.