Synthetic Discipline Research Articles

Medical Anthropology at the Intersections

It may be hard to believe, but the discipline of is now nearly 50 years old. In 1959, one of the first references to medical anthropology was made in a article by a physician-anthropologist named James Roney, entitled Anthropology: A Synthetic Discipline (Roney 1959). Craig Janes and I discovered this in our research for article, just published in the new journal Global Public Health, on the legacy of our University of California San Francisco (UCSF) mentor, Frederick Dunn (Inhorn and Janes 2007). Fred, along with Roney, Charles Leslie, Margaret Clark, Benjamin Paul, and George Foster, were among the founders of our field. When both Ben Paul and George Foster passed away in their nineties this May, within about one week of each other, many of you replied to my e-mail announcement by saying that an had passed in anthropology. This passing of era has caused me to reflect on how far has come as a discipline and where it is headed. Medical is now very firmly entrenched not only within the larger discipline of but also as one of the social sciences in many universities around the world. The practicing side of our profession is also prospering, as seen the 2007 Society for Applied Anthropology meetings, which 1,800 anthropologists gathered in Vancouver and where themes were prominent. In short, I believe that is truly thriving. Personally, I feel grateful that perhaps this generation's most famous anthropologist, Paul Farmer, through his life's work and his many books-including Pathologies of Power (2003), which has just won the prestigious School for American Research's J. I. Staley Prize-has brought so many young people into the fold. But, where is heading in the future? I would like to argue here that the cutting edges of our field are now found at the intersections of many other disciplines. With our solid foundation in place, is now expanding outward and interacting in many productive ways across disciplinary boundaries. In the new millennium, interdisciplinarity is certainly one of the key tropes in the academy, and, my own university, I am happy to be the

Breeding new science by coupling photons with `nano'

The new field of `nanophotonics' is concerned with the generation, transport, routing and detection of light in sub-wavelength structures. There is nothing new in the desire to use small structures to control waves that are much bigger than the structures, and the science of acoustics has been dealing with this problem since the early days of musical instruments. What makes nanophotonics so special is that it claims for optics the unexplored playfield of dimensions between those of objects the human eye can see with a lens, and those of the invisible elementary building blocks of the material world, molecules and atoms. Nanophotonics is a synthetic discipline that breaks into the fields of electrodynamics, solid state physics and laser physics. In growing from these disciplines it takes ideas from them, for instance from solid state physics by drawing analogies between electrons in crystals and photons in nanostructures, and from laser physics and traditional nonlinear optics by achieving strong fields not through an increase in optical power, but through its concentration. From an engineering perspective, nanophotonics promises to develop optical functionality on the smallest possible size scale (thus allowing for ultra-high-density integration), at the lowest possible energy level (thus allowing for single photon all-optical devices), and on the shortest possible timescale (thus allowing for optical devices operating within a single period of an optical wave). In this special issue we are, however, concerned with the fundamental aspects of nanophotonics, i.e. the physics that underpins these new, mind-boggling nanophotonic applications. This special issue opens with 4 articles derived from lectures at the Summer School Photonic Metamaterials: from Micro to Nanoscale, Erice, Italy, 1–7 August 2005. These reviews establish the hierarchy of nanophotonic structures and relevant length scales, explore wave interactions in nanostructured media, and examine nanophotonic functionalities underpinned by electronic excitations and structural transformations in nanoparticles. The main body of this special issue is a highly representative cross-section of research in the discipline, with papers covering essential issues in plasmonics, nanoparticle photonics, optical properties of nanostructured surfaces, atom manipulation on nanostructures, nonlinear interactions and Raman scattering from nanostructures, enhanced transmission through nano-perforated films, linear and nonlinear effects of planar chirality, energy transfer on the nanoscale, subwavelength spatial imaging, control of spontaneous emission and lasing in nanostructures and micro-resonators, nanophotonic sensors, nanostructured meta-materials, and novel nano-fabrication techniques. As the Guest Editors of this special issue, we are deeply grateful to all contributing authors for their efforts and their willingness to share recent results within the framework of what promises to be a treasured collection of papers in the field of nanophotonics. We are particularly proud that the authorship includes both pioneers and newcomers to this intriguing and fertile field of research. The Guest Editors would like to acknowledge the collaboration and support of Diederik Wiersma and Concita Sibilia, the directors of the Summer School Photonic Metamaterials: from Micro to Nanoscale, Erice, Italy, 1–7 August 2005, which provided review papers for this special issue. We are also grateful to the PHOREMOST, METAMORPHOSE and Plasmo-nano-devices European Networks of Excellence for promoting the idea of this special issue.

Pareto, Parsons, and the Boundary Between Economics and Sociology

Abstract. Recent discussions of the separation bUniversity of Bremenetween economics and sociology in the United States highlight the way Talcott Parsons used Vilfredo Pareto's Trattato di Sociologia Generale to propose that economics study logical actions and sociology study nonlogical actions. This article argues instead that in Pareto's treatise: (1) sociology is a synthetic discipline concerned with the study of human society in general; (2) human behavior is nearly always logical from a subjective point of view; and (3) sociology studies both logical and nonlogical behavior judged from an objective viewpoint. Thus, Pareto is an important intellectual ancestor for economic sociology.

Perspectives on Diamond’sCollapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Perspectives on Diamond’s<i>Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed</i>

Ecohydrology of Water‐Controlled Ecosystems: Soil Moisture and Plant Dynamics

Ecohydrology is an emerging and synthetic discipline in the biogeosciences aimed at understanding connections between the ecological dynamics of vegetation and the hydrological cycle, and how vegetation‐water interactions influence elemental cycling and energy exchange. An ecohydrology perspective is especially relevant and important for understanding dynamics of arid and semiarid ecosystems and landscapes.In these water‐limited ecosystems, highly variable patterns of precipitation, geomorphology and soils strongly influence vegetation structure, dynamics, and function. These systems are “pulse‐driven”; bursts of biological activity commence with discreet inputs of precipitation. These short‐lived and highly active periods are separated by periods of extreme water limitation and vegetation stress. The duration and spatiotemporal dynamics of precipitation pulses and plant‐available soil moisture are key features in these ecosystems, controlling vegetation composition, nutrient biogeochemistry and energy exchange.

Marketing is Marketing—Everywhere!

The theme of this paper is that in seeking to develop strategies for the future, we should not neglect or overlook hard-won lessons from the past. Learning through direct experience is almost invariably a process of experimentation or trial and error. It is uncertain, time-consuming, inefficient, and often risky. Accordingly, if we encounter a problem new to ourselves, our first reaction should be: “Has anyone encountered this problem before?” If so, then “What did they do, with what results?” Answers to these questions are to be found in the so-called secondary sources that record the knowledge gained by previous generations. Knowledge is distilled experience which has accumulated over time. It represents our current understanding of how the world works and, because it has been recorded, it is usually easily available and often free. Common sense dictates that we should start any problem-solving activity by establishing what we know already. To support this argument, this article reviews the processes of knowledge creation and ‘cumulativity’. Unless and until we have confirmed what is already known about a subject, any effort to solve a new problem can only be a hit-or-miss affair — a case of managerial myopia. Therefore, while addressing an important question such as the role of marketing in emerging economies, we should first define what we mean by ‘emerging economies’ and ‘marketing.’ Marketing is a synthetic discipline that integrates findings from other disciplines like economics, psychology, and sociology into a holistic explanation of commercial exchange behaviour. As for emerging economies, indeed, all the advanced economies were emerging economies once, and it is quite evident that as the Industrial Revolution that started in Great Britain in the 18th century spread through Europe and North America, so each newly indutrialized country, in turn, achieved take-off more quickly by learning from the experience of its predecessors. In conclusion, this paper cites three examples of robust ideas that have stood the test of time and offers important insights into marketing today: Ricardo's ‘Theory of Comparative Advantage’ which argues that countries should specialize in doing what they do best and exchange their surpluses with other countries Darwin‘s theory of evolution and its marketing derivative — the product life cycle Copeland's ‘classification of goods’ that first identified the importance of defining goods and services in terms of needs and benefits. The message is that our knowledge of marketing is universal. Marketing is marketing—everywhere.

Is biogeography emerging from its identity crisis?

Is biogeography emerging from its identity crisis?

CA Forum on Anthropology in Public: Perspectives on Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

CA Forum on Anthropology in Public: Perspectives on Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology

Anténor Firmin published De I'Égalité des Races Humaines in 1885 in Paris as a response both to Arthur de Gobineau's racist tome L'lnégalité des Races (1853‐55) and to the racialist anthropology of the nineteenth century. This pioneering work of anthropology has been translated for the first time into English by Assclin Charles as The Equality of the Human Races (Firmin [1885]2000). In 662 pages of the original text, Firmin systematically critiqued the anthropometry and craniometry that dominated the anthropology of his day, while he envisioned a broad, synthetic discipline that would follow once this narrow approach to the study of man was abandoned. He challenged virtually every extant racial myth and laid a basis for the understanding of human variation as adaptation to climate and environment. Contrary to the polygenist doctrines of the infertility of interracial matings, Firmin extolled the value of racial mixture, especially in the vigorous New World hybrid populations. He developed a critical view of racial classifications and of race that foreshadowed much later social constructions of race. In the book he also articulated early Pan‐Africanist ideas as well as an analytical framework for what would become postcolonial studies.The Equality of the Human Races is a text that lies historically at the foundations of the birth of the discipline of anthropology, yet it is unknown to the field. It is a pioneering work in critical anthropology that awaits recognition 115 years after it was first published. [Anténor Firmin, history of racism, antiracism, historical texts, Haitian anthropologist, critical anthropology, nineteenth‐century pioneer]

Taxonomy as a tool for studying plant genetic resources

The research of plant genetic resources as a synthetic discipline has many sources which contribute to the characterization, evaluation, use and to the understanding of evolution of the cultivated plants and their wild relatives. One of these sources is botanical taxonomy, here considered in a broad sense including evolutionary science. Taxonomy of cultivated plants Characterization of the variability and the evaluation of evolutionary relationships as the two main contributions of taxonomy to the research of genetic resources are highly relevant to problems of applied botany, mainly to the management of plant genetic resources in gene-banks and to breeding aims. There are no fundamental differences between the taxonomy of cultivated and wild species, both have to use partly methods and procedures of other disciplines (karyology, biochemistry, mathematics etc.) for the accomplishment of their tasks.

What Is Conservation Biology?

Journal Article What is Conservation Biology? A new synthetic discipline addresses the dynamics and problems of perturbed species, communities, and ecosystems Get access Michael E. Soulé Michael E. Soulé Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar BioScience, Volume 35, Issue 11, December 1985, Pages 727–734, https://doi.org/10.2307/1310054 Published: 01 December 1985

Ecology

It is an impossible task to identify a precise point in time which marks the start of an important departure in scientific thought. Every such development has its antecedents in earlier observations, ideas and interpretations. This applies as much to ecology as to any other branch of knowledge, if not more so since ecology at least in part is a synthetic discipline, depending for its progress on advances in other relevant aspects of biological and environmental science. Ecology is, perhaps, more an approach to biological enquiry than a ‘subject’ with clearly circumscribed information content and terms of reference. It is, however, a distinctive approach in that it concerns the interactions between organisms and the environments within which they habitually dwell, and their interactions among themselves in populations and communities.

CYBERNETICS AND SYSTEM CONCEPTS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES

SUMMARY An attempt is made to reveal the prospects for an interaction between cybernetics and the natural sciences on the basis of molecular cybernetics, a synthetic discipline that takes into account both informational and physical aspects of the systems. In this paper: 1) A quantum‐theory‐based concept of organization (concept of a system) is formulated; 2) the unification of a number of concepts of cybernetics, a physics to build the concepts of molecular cybernetics is suggested, and 3) a concept or organization in molecular cybernetics based on concepts of a universal unit of organization, a Bion, of a coherent electron graph system and of electromagnetic natural control, is discussed. Prospects for the implementation of molecular cybernetics' devices for optimization control are also briefly discussed.

Plant Population Biology: An Overview

Population biology is a synthetic discipline that makes predictions regarding the adaptive behavior of plants through the formulation of models or hypotheses. Four main kinds of models in population biology are recognized: functional models, optimality models, growth models, and compartment models. Profitable areas for future research are indicated. Population biology is a synthetic discipline with the aim of understand- ing the mechanisms that govern the growth and reproduction of individuals and populations in order to be able to make predictions regarding future states under normal or abnormal environmental conditions. Its domain includes areas that until recently were considered to belong exclusively to the classical disciplines,of genetics, physiology, ecology, and systematics- such as gene frequency and its change in populations (genetics), energy harvesting and carbon allocation (physiology), interactions of individuals and populations in space and time (ecology), and characteristics of the life cycle (systematics). The final goal of population biology is to understand how an individual, a population, and a community function. According to Heslop-Harrison (1964) population biology makes the following propositions: 1) wide ranging species show variation over space in morphological and physiological characteristics; 2) much of this variation can be correlated with habitat differences; 3) much of this variation has a genetical basis; and consequently 4) that part of the variation that is corre- lated with habitat and that has a genetical basis is due to the action of natural selection in molding locally adapted populations from the pool of genetical variation available to the species as a whole.

Problems of Long-Term Geographic Prediction

A program of geographic prediction up to the year 2000 is proposed for inclusion in the teaching and research plan of the Geography Faculty of Moscow University. Three aspects are distinguished: (1) specific forecasting of changes on the face of the earth and in the use of resources, (2) the elaboration of methods of geographic prediction, and (3) prediction of future trends in the science of geography. The three key factors in specific geographic prediction are the hydroclimatic, the anthropogenic, and the resource factor. The principal method of prediction should be the study of chain reactions, of cause-and-effect relationships, allowing for flexible multivariate forecasts. In the science of geography, periods of differentiation and integration are found to have alternated at periods of 25 to 30 years. The most promising tendencies in geographic research are the hydroclimatic approach, the new synthetic disciplines, economic geography, and integrated mapping of geographic phenomena.

The Development of General Earth Science in the USSR During the Soviet Period

AbstractGeneral earth science, or general physical geography, is viewed as one of three synthetic physical-geographic disciplines, the two others being landscape science, or regional physical geography, and paleo-geography. General earth science is concerned with the earth's geographic or landscape envelope as a whole and with its general patterns: the laws of zonality and integrity of the landscape envelope, the circulation of matter, rhythmicity, polar asymmetry and other regularities.

The Past and the Future of Geography

At a celebration marking his 60th birthday, the author traces the development of Soviet geography, illustrating his remarks with projects in which he was personally involved. He expresses disagreement with those who are not very sanguine about the future of geography. Gerasimov sees the traditional geographic disciplines being gradually supplanted by a set of integrated, synthetic disciplines focusing on specific problem areas. He proposes that the next International Geographical Congress in New Delhi construct its program along “problem” lines instead of the usual specialized sections.