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The Rider, written and directed by Chloé Zhao, is an astonishing work of art, blending real-life people with a fictional story, thus blurring the line between fiction & non-fiction.
The Rider, written and directed by Chloé Zhao, is an astonishing work of art, blending real-life people with a fictional story, thus blurring the line between fiction & non-fiction. Many films dealing with the eternal conflict between nurturing one’s desire and reality suffer from an over-exaggeration of symbolism, dramatic establishment of the conflict, and a self-indulgence to conceive elegiac allegory using instruments like surrealism, absurdism, or narrating the story with a subtlety that internal feelings of the characters are far too muted to empathise with.
The Rider delves deeper into the consciousness of humanistic values and creates an intimate story; Chloé Zhao has a sharp instinct to gauge an impulse, she has complete control over the complex blend of human emotions that defines an individual’s relationship with himself, animals and the society.
The Rider is set in the wide, windy Dakota prairie, breathing rodeos, smelling cowboys and nourishing singular dreams. Brady (Brady Jandreau), the lead protagonist of the film, lives in a trailer with his autistic sister, Lilly (Lilly Jandreau), and their father, Wayne (Tim Jandreau). They are blood family off-screen as well, and Brady has indeed suffered a head injury which eventually inspired Chloe to write a story around it.
Brady’s life comes to standstill when he is thrown off a horse in a rodeo event. He suffers a skull fracture and has a metal plate put inside. Doctors have warned him to not ride again, as it might prove fatal. He is grappled with fear, fear of the end of life as he knew it. He slips into denial to accept that the former meaning and realities of life have changed beyond recognition. He tries to hold on to that. He tries to reconstruct his life midst of dreadful feeling that life is shutting down before it had really begun.
Chloé treads on the untraveled path, quite courageously, for the heard inspiring story that has been done to deaths, and the result is that she manages to pull off the most beautiful film of the year. She never exploits impediments in the lives of the characters as the means to evoke empathy, and further accentuate it to spin a melodramatic elegy.
Brady’s father, whose aspiration for becoming a rodeo comes crashing down after a possible accident, sinks in grief every day and treats it by gambling and drinking. Brady tries to get a job for himself, but he is looking for a temporary position. On being asked by a job consultant about his work experience and education, it is at that moment it dawns upon him that he knows nothing except for horse riding. The scene is tragic, to say the least. He manages to find a job in a local supermarket. Brady spends time with his autistic sister and best friend Lane (Lane Scott), a bull rider paralyzed by a brain injury caused due to a car accident. Brady sees a shadow of his former self in Lane, he realises that even if he is in a better position than Lane, he is rendered as handicapped as Lane himself. They watch old videos of memorable rides, and their refusal to feel sorry for themselves makes their scenes together all the more heartbreaking.
The performance by Brady Jandreau in ‘The Rider’ is intimate, heartfelt and endearing, and, undoubtedly, one of the best performances of the year. I have not felt as jolted, shaken and heartbroken by any performance in a long time. The scene where Brady tries to tame the horse is enough to prove his mettle as a great actor in making.
The Rider is the best film of 2018 (so far), even though it doesn’t follow a conventional character arc, there is an absence of traditional narrative, and it flips the rule of screenwriting on its head, it still scores a home run solely based on the heartbreaking performances of the cast and an intimate way of storytelling about the American dream & masculinity. It’s a beautiful elegy that finds silence threatening and patience rewarding.
PRODUCTION: A Caviar, Highwayman Films presentation. (International sales: Protagonist Pictures, London.) Producers: Chloé Zhao, Bert Hamelinck, Sacha Ben Harroche, Mollye Asher. Executive producers: Michael Sagol, Jasper Thomlinson, Yuji Zhao, Dickey Abedon, Daniel Sbrega.
CREW: Director, Screenplay: Chloé Zhao. Camera (colour, widescreen): Joshua James Richards. Editor: Alex O’Flinn. Music: Nathan Halpern.
WITH: Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Lane Scott, Cat Clifford. | https://www.highonfilms.com/the-rider-review-2018-an-intimate-and-heartbreaking-ride/ |
Ten Sigma by Andrew Wang is a bit of a strange creature. Science fiction, military, thriller, psychodrama.
Something to satisfy every fan, I guess.
Science fiction, in that it deals with a future world, an extension of our own, where war, division, climate change, inequality, and poverty rule. A woman dying of cancer, facing a bleak future, is confronted by a mysterious government agent, who offers a strange bargain: in return for settling the debts of her family, she is to offer her consciousness in service through a military cyber program.
This book is the story of that service. Our protagonist has her being hoovered up and her consciousness recreated in a software world where she joins a squad of fellow novices in training through increasingly difficult battle simulations in pursuit of the fabled ten sigma level of capability.
I was impressed by the military scenarios described. Ranging across the ages, weapon types, situations of attack, defence, patrol and so on, each chapter was something new. Axes, knives, energy weapons. Islands, ruined cities, castles, abstract terrain; every battle is a fresh one.
And – and here is the brilliance of the author – each situation was perfectly clear. I found no difficulty in following the complicated actions of the various characters and squads. At each stage, the choices facing the protagonist were clear. Often unorthodox tactics were required for success. Sometimes unorthodox arms.
Each battle is readable, exciting, and tense.
The individual actions are thrilling, but also the entire story. How is the protagonist going to navigate the meta-battle? And what is it?
There are wheels within wheels. Mysteries are presented to the reader, and gradually deepened before being resolved. I was in the dark until close to the end, but if I were to read through again, I might pick up on more hints. Reader, don’t skim this. Every word is important.
And ultimately, the biggest and best battle is inside the character’s head. What are the values of this strange new cyberworld? What drives the other characters? What do you cling to as the real world recedes? What tools can be found to make life – or death – easier and more palatable?
Our protagonist is faced with any number of dilemmas. Relating to their past self, what the future might hold, the various battle scenarios, the question of leadership, friendship, enmity. And sex. As an aside, the questions of sexual attraction and perversion, rape and torture emerge as a major plot feature. Ultimately whoever deals with these questions best, determines who the reader is rooting for.
Perhaps a little predictably, the story eventually renders down to a one-on-one knife-edge struggle where the main themes are presented as determining factors.
As a story, it is a deft and gripping narrative. Once hooked, the reader is bound to finish the book. There may be perhaps a little too much tension, and perhaps not enough relief, but overall it is very well paced. The various subplots develop and are resolved, and in total, it is a richly woven tale.
Five stars for an excellent science fiction military tale. Not quite Starship Troopers for action, nor Ender’s Game for clarity, but it hits a high standard indeed.
A couple of warnings. There are scenes of sex, forced sex, and torture. Nothing openly obscene or detailed, but the reader will be in no doubt as to what is happening. Likewise the violence of battle. There is blood, bones breaking, body parts severed, intestines cascading, Not a book for the gentle soul.
Nothing gratuitous, though. The scenes fit into the narrative, and the stress is vital to keep the protagonist focussed on the importance of their choices. The reader is obliged to follow along on every mission, every decision, every slash and kick and gunshot.
I have already written about my misgivings on the fundamental premise of the story: that consciousness can somehow be captured. I don’t believe that this is true. Nobody knows exactly what consciousness is – if they did, it would surely be in every science textbook – but I don’t believe that it is something that can be found in the body or brain.
Consciousness – to my mind – is merely the awareness of sense organs. We see what comes through the eyes and is filtered in the brain. Likewise with hearing and the other physical senses. But our consciousness does not engage with light or sound or heat directly; we perceive the analysis of the brain’s perception, and we can be fooled and distracted into believing that those perceptions are reality.
Which, of course, they are not. We are also conscious of our memories, and of fictional happenings. We are aware of the imagined situations and events of the world described in this book, for example.
My biggest beef with this book is the notion that everything in the brain can be sucked up and stored in a computer. The protagonist takes along all of their memories, and that becomes a major plot device, as memories fade and increasingly desperate measures are taken to preserve that aspect of personality.
And somehow there is something unique about each instance of consciousness in this computer world. Individual personalities and traits and skills also get sucked up from the body. Our protagonist has some capacity of mind, some tenacity, some vision, that gives them an edge in combat and conflict resolution.
If it’s really a software simulation, there is none of that. Everything is known, everything can be reduced down to a Turing machine where every value is binary. There is no room for mystery and magic.
So I reject the central plank in the story.
That’s okay. I reject the magic of Harry Potter, the time travel of Back to the Future, the faster than light voyaging of Star Wars and a million other SF staples. Suspension of disbelief is part and parcel of science fiction and fantasy.
Disbelief suspended, I devoured this book. You will too. | https://britnipepper.com/2019/10/26/intense-military/ |
The narrator’s relationship for the story depends upon point of view. Each viewpoint allows certain freedoms in lien while restricting or question others. Your goal in selecting a point of view is not simply finding a way to convey information, although telling it the right way-making the world you create understandable and believable.
The following is a brief rundown of the three most frequent POVs as well as the advantages and disadvantages of every.
This POV reveals could be experience straight through the lien. A single persona tells a private story, as well as the information is limited to the first-person narrator’s immediate experience (what she perceives, hears, does indeed, feels, says, etc . ). First person offers readers a sense of immediacy about the character’s activities, as well as a feeling of intimacy and reference to the character’s mindset, mental state and subjective studying of the events described.
Consider the distance the reader seems to the personality, action, physical setting and emotion in the first part of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, via protagonist Katniss’ first-person narration:
When I arise, the other side of the bed is certainly cold. My fingers stretch out, looking for Prim’s warmness but finding only the tough canvas cover of the bed. She must have had poor dreams and climbed within our mother. Of course , the woman did. This can be the day in the reaping.
Pros: The first-person POV can make for an intimate and effective story voice-almost as though the narrator is speaking directly to someone, sharing something private. This is an excellent choice for the novel that is certainly primarily character-driven, in which the individual’s personal frame of mind and development are the key interests with the book.
Cons: Because the POV is restricted to the narrator’s knowledge and experiences, any events that take place outside of the narrator’s statement have to arrive to her attention in order to be employed in the story. A novel having a large shed of character types might be difficult to manage via a first-person viewpoint.
THIRD-PERSON LIMITED
Third person limited uses the whole of the tale in only a single character’s point of view, sometimes checking out that character’s shoulder, and other times entering the character’s mind, selection the events through his understanding. Thus, third-person limited has its own of the distance of first-person, letting us know a specific character’s thoughts, feelings and attitudes within the events being narrated. This kind of POV even offers the ability to take back from the character to offer a wider perspective or perspective not limited by the protagonist’s opinions or perhaps biases: It can call away and show those biases (in frequently subtle ways) and show you a sharper understanding of the smoothness than the persona himself will allow.
Saul Bellow’s Herzog displays the balance in third-person limited between nearness to a character’s mind plus the ability with the narrator to keep a level of removal. The novel’s leading part, Moses Herzog, has downed on hard times personally and professionally, and has perhaps begun to reduce his hold on fact, as the novel’s well known opening collection tells us. Using third-person limited do my college homework allows Bellow to plainly convey Herzog’s state of mind and make us feel near to him, even though employing story distance to offer us perspective on the persona.
Merely is away of my mind, it’s all right with me, assumed Moses Herzog.
Some people believed he was chipped and for a moment he himself had doubted that having been all presently there. But now, although he even now behaved oddly, he sensed confident, cheerful, clairvoyant and strong. He previously fallen within spell and was writing letters to everyone under the sun. … He had written endlessly, fanatically, to the newspaper publishers, to people in public places life, to friends and relatives including last to the dead, his own hidden dead, and then the famous flat.
Pros: This kind of POV offers the closeness of first person while maintaining the distance and authority of third, and allows mcdougal to explore a character’s awareness while offering perspective on the character or perhaps events the fact that character him self doesn’t have. In addition, it allows mcdougal to tell could be story directly without being certain to that person’s voice and its limitations.
Cons: Since all of the situations narrated will be filtered through a single character’s perceptions, just what that character experiences directly or indirectly can be utilised in the history (as is definitely the case with first-person singular).
THIRD-PERSON OMNISCIENT
Similar to third person limited, the third-person omniscient employs the pronouns they, but it is further characterized by its godlike abilities. This POV can go into any character’s perspective or consciousness and disclose her thoughts; able to go to any time, place or setting; privy to info the personas themselves you do not have; and in a position to comment on situations that have happened, are going on or may happen. The third person omniscient words is really a narrating personality unto itself, a disembodied personality in its individual right-though the amount to which the narrator desires to be seen as being a distinct persona, or desires to seem main goal or unprejudiced (and so somewhat invisible as a separate personality), is up to your particular requirements and style.
The third-person omniscient is a popular decision for writers who have big casts and complex plots, as it permits the author to go about in time, space and character as needed. But it surely carries an essential caveat: A lot freedom can cause a lack of target if the story spends way too many brief moments in a lot of characters’ brain and never allows readers to ground themselves in any a particular experience, perspective or arc.
The book Jonathan Odd & Mister. Norrell simply by Susanna Clarke uses an omniscient narrator to manage a substantial cast. Right here you’ll observe some hallmarks of omniscient narration, notably a wide perspective of a particular time and place, freed from the restraints of one character’s perspective. It certainly evidences a great aspect of storytelling voice, the «narrating personality» of third omniscient that acts nearly as another figure in the book (and will help maintain book cohesion across several characters and events):
Some yrs ago there was inside the city of York a contemporary society of magic. They achieved upon another Wednesday of every month and read each other long, boring papers upon the history of English magic.
Pros: You have the storytelling powers of an god. You’re free to go everywhere and drop into anyone’s consciousness. This can be particularly useful for novels with large casts, and/or with events or perhaps characters spread out over, and separated by, time or perhaps space. A narrative personality emerges from third-person omniscience, becoming a personality in its own right through to be able to offer facts and perspective not available towards the main character types of the book.
Drawbacks: Jumping from consciousness to consciousness can fatigue a reader with continuous switching in emphasis and perspective. Remember to centre each landscape on a particular character and question, and consider the way the personality that comes through the third-person omniscient narrative words helps unify the imprudencia action.
Often we avoid really choose a POV to get our project; our task chooses a POV for all of us. A sprawling epic, for instance , would not call for a first-person unique POV, along with your main figure constantly thinking what everybody back about Darvon-5 has been doing. A whodunit wouldn’t cause an omniscient narrator whom jumps in to the butler’s mind in Chapter 1 and has him think, My spouse and i dunnit.
Frequently , stories tell us how they need to be told-and once you find the right POV for yours, you’ll likely recognize the story could hardly have been told any other way.
Want Additional? Consider Publishing Your Novel From Seed to fruition
Inside Writing Your Novel from Start to Finish , you’ll find a mixture of exercises, how-to instruction, and motivational airways to keep you moving forward when you sit down in front of your computer display. You’ll love Writing The Novel coming from Start to Finish in the event: | http://pmadrid.es/why-standpoint-is-so-necessary-for-novel-authors |
Linking the ongoing ecological crisis with contemporary conditions of alienation and disenchantment in modern society, this book investigates the capacity of oral storytelling to reconnect people to the natural world and enchant and renew their experience of nature, place and their own existence in the world. Anthony Nanson offers an in-depth examination of how a diverse ecosystem of oral stories and the dynamics of storytelling as an activity can catalyse different kinds of conversation and motivation, helping us resist the discourse of powerful vested interests. Detailed analysis of traditional, true-life and fictional stories shows how spoken narrative language can imbue landscapes, creatures and experiences with enchantment and mediate between the inner world of consciousness and outer world of ecology and community. A pioneering ecolinguistic and ecocritical study of oral storytelling in the modern world, Storytelling and Ecology offers insight into the ways that sharing stories in each other's embodied presence can open up spaces for transformation in our relationships with the ecological world around us. | https://www.rtgmin.org/full/storytelling-for-a-greener-world/ |
Fibromyalgia is a potentially disabling, chronic disorder characterized by widespread pain that is often accompanied by fatigue, sleep disturbances, weakness, brain fog, and sensitivity to chemicals. Patients living with the condition often experience depression, loss of vitality, and a decline in cognitive functioning, resulting in poor quality of life
At the 14th Annual Rheumatology Nurses Society Conference, Susan Chrostowski, DNP, APRN, ANP-C, Assistant Clinical Professor, Texas Woman’s University, Dallas, and Adult Nurse Practitioner, Rheumatology, Rheumatology Associates of Texas, Duncanville, provided nurses with a comprehensive overview of fibromyalgia and discussed the importance of using a multidisciplinary and personalized approach to the management of patients with this disorder.
Fibromyalgia, which affects 2% to 4% of the US population, is the second most common disorder, after osteoarthritis, for which patients are referred to rheumatology subspecialists. Researchers have identified central pain processing abnormalities in the majority of patients who develop fibromyalgia, but these discoveries have not yet led to major breakthroughs in treatment. There may also be a genetic predisposition to fibromyalgia, but further investigation into this hypothesis is required. Anxiety, cognitive stress, posterior insula, iron deficiency, and dietary factors may also contribute to the symptomatology, Dr Chrostowski noted.
Although anyone can develop fibromyalgia, the disorder occurs more frequently in women than in men. Dr Chrostowski said that the reason for this disparity is unknown, but some researchers believe that it may be because women are more likely to experience higher levels of anxiety, altered pain responses, maladaptive coping mechanisms, and hormonal effects related to their menstrual cycles. Unfortunately, these theories probably contribute to the stigmatization of the disorder.
The main takeaway is that the development of fibromyalgia appears to involve the interplay of physical, psychological, genetic, neurobiological, and environmental factors, she noted.
Dr Chrostowski explained that, historically, the diagnosis of fibromyalgia has been challenging due to a lack of diagnostic tests and biomarkers. However, in 2016, the American College of Rheumatology revised its fibromyalgia criteria to help providers better diagnose the condition (see Table).
“If a patient comes in with a complaint of widespread pain and you suspect fibromyalgia, this new tool can be helpful for diagnosis. It can also be used for the assessment of disease activity and response to treatment later on,” she said.
Once a diagnosis has been made, providers are tasked with developing an effective management strategy, which typically includes both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic elements. Drugs currently approved by the FDA for the treatment of fibromyalgia include pregabalin (Lyrica), duloxetine, and milnacipran (Savella), but these therapies are only moderately successful, leading to a 25% to 40% reduction in pain in approximately 40% to 60% of patients. Only 10% to 25% of patients achieve a 50% reduction in pain.
Non-FDA–approved medications include tricyclic antidepressants (amitriptyline); anticonvulsive, antiseizure, and antispasmodic agents (eg, gabapentin, tizanidine, topiramate); muscle relaxants (eg, baclofen); and analgesics. Cannabis and cannabinoids may prove to be helpful for relieving symptoms, but more research is needed to determine their efficacy.
Nonpharmacologic approaches often include psychotherapy, mindfulness, and exercise. Cognitive behavioral therapy, which is the psychotherapy approach with the most clinical evidence, can help patients develop effective coping strategies and manage stress. Mindfulness may be a better alternative for some symptoms, and appears to have a positive impact on pain, depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances.
Low-impact exercise, resistance training, and meditative-based therapies, such as yoga, Tai chi, or qigong, can also be effective in reducing depression and improving overall quality of life.
Other nonpharmacologic approaches that may be implemented include spa therapy, acupuncture, transcranial and transcutaneous electrical stimulation, and vibroacoustic and rhythmic sensory stimulation.
“Most of the management strategies discussed here are more effective in combination with patient education,” Dr Chrostowski noted.
Once a diagnosis of fibromyalgia has been made, patients must be reassured that they have a real disease. They also need to understand that fibromyalgia is not universally responsive to drug therapy and there is currently no “cure.”
Dr Chrostowski emphasized that self-management is essential for achieving positive outcomes.
“It is very important to convey understanding and validation. This is a real condition, and we know that it can be difficult for patients. We need them to know that we are here to help them manage it,” she concluded.
Stay up to date with rheumatology news & updates by subscribing to receive the free RPM print publications or weekly e‑Newsletter.
Subscribe to recieve the free, monthly RPM print publication and RPM weekly e‑newsletter. | https://rheumatologypracticemanagement.com/rpm-issues/2021/december-2021-vol-9-no-1/3012-demystifying-fibromyalgia-what-nurses-need-to-know |
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04 May 2014 3:01 AM
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From Wikipedia:
Its exact cause is unknown but is believed to involve psychological, genetic, neurobiological and environmental factors.
This suggests that learning to meditate on a regular basis would be a good start.
JohnN
Last modified: 04 May 2014 3:08 AM |
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02 Aug 2016 1:42 AM
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I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia about 10 years ago and am on medication. I have a terrific GP who is incredibly supportive and encouraging. He is most impressed with my Sugar Free way of life! 3 months down and now that the addiction/withdrawal symptoms seem to have passed I will be monitoring my pain levels from Fibromyalgia. Who knows, perhaps there is a link with sugar causing inflammation. My GP explained it this way - it's a misreading of the pain receptors causing the pain. There seems to be a hyper-sensitivity with some people. It's funny that "real"pain I can cope with - this fibromyalgia pain does my head in. If I forget to take my midday Panadol Osteo my body reminds me fairly smartly! I hope this adds to the conversation. | http://www.howmuchsugar.com/page-352285/377728?mlpg=2 |
Fibromyalgia posts.
The exact cause of fibromyalgia is unknown, but it is thought to be a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental factors. There is no cure for fibromyalgia, but treatment can help to improve symptoms.
This section of the Worry Head blog provides information and resources on fibromyalgia, including personal stories, tips for managing symptoms, and the latest research. Whether you are living with fibromyalgia or caring for someone who is, we hope you will find this section helpful.
With these articles, you will gain plenty of knowledge to manage your fibromyalgia disorder or/and help your partner cope better.
Can endometriosis cause fibromyalgia?
Why fibromyalgia destroys marriages?
Is trauma the cause of endometriosis and fibromyalgia?
Endometriosis and fibromyalgia treatment.
Fibromyalgia divorce rate: saving your marriage from divorce.
How to comfort someone with fibromyalgia?
How do you know if you have fibromyalgia?
Your wife has fibromyalgia.
How to explain fibromyalgia to a man?
A man’s guide to understanding fibromyalgia. | https://www.worryhead.com/fibromyalgia-blog/page/3/ |
Sciatica is a set of symptoms including pain caused by general compression or irritation of one of five spinal nerve roots of each sciatic nerve—or by compression or irritation of the left or right or both sciatic nerves. Symptoms include lower back pain, buttock pain, and pain, numbness or weakness in various parts of the leg and foot. Other symptoms include a "pins and needles" sensation, or tingling and difficulty moving or controlling the leg. Typically, symptoms only manifest on one side of the body. The pain may radiate below the knee, but does not always.
A Spinal disc herniation (prolapsus disci intervertebralis) is a medical condition affecting the spine in which a tear in the outer, fibrous ring (annulus fibrosus) of an intervertebral disc (discus intervertebralis) allows the soft, central portion (nucleus pulposus) to bulge out beyond the damaged outer rings. Disc herniations are normally a further development of a previously existing disc "protrusion", a condition in which the outermost layers of the annulus fibrosus are still intact, but can bulge when the disc is under pressure. In contrast to a herniation, none of the nucleus pulposus escapes beyond the outer layers.
Fibromyalgia (FM or FMS) is characterized by chronic widespread pain and allodynia (a heightened and painful response to pressure). Its exact cause is unknown but is believed to involve psychological, genetic, neurobiological and environmental factors. Fibromyalgia symptoms are not restricted to pain, leading to the use of the alternative term fibromyalgia syndrome for the condition. Other symptoms include debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance, and joint stiffness. Some patients also report difficulty with swallowing, bowel and bladder abnormalities, numbness and tingling, and cognitive dysfunction. Fibromyalgia is frequently comorbid with psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety and stress-related disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder. Not all fibromyalgia patients experience all associated symptoms
Problems with the spine and/or nervous system can often be the causes of poor posture. Chiropractors are trained to be able to detect whether or not their patient has good posture. It is very important to treat poor posture because it will likely develop into worse problems as time goes on.
Chiropractic treatment can be very effective in minimizing the effects of physical stress being exerted on the body due to pregnancy. Chiropractors who treat pregnant patients will have a special table that adjusts to make room for the belly at any stage of pregnancy. Weight gain and changes in posture during pregnancy can result in misalignment of the pelvis and increased curvature of the back that can cause a significant amount of pain and discomfort. | https://marschiropractor.com/services |
No one knows the exact cause of fibromyalgia, but researchers have several theories about what seems to trigger this syndrome. There is also evidence that the development of firbromyalgia involves a variety of factors working together.
Chemical imbalances. Research suggest that in people fibromyalgia, there are important body chemicals that are not within normal range. The reason for excessive or deficient levels are thought to be associated with the interaction between the organs that regulate body chemicals.
Abnormal levels of certain hormones from the hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands could contribute to fibromyalgia-type symptoms. If these glands do not work as they should, the abnormal hormone levels that they produce can result in sleep difficulties, increased susceptibility to pain, muscle pain and fatigue.
Autonomic dysfunction. The autonomic nervous system regulates important functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, sweating, core temperature and digestion. In many patients with fibromyalgia, a part of the autonomic nervous system seems over-activated.
Sleep problems. Most of the people diagnosed with fibromyalgia have sleep difficulties. They particularly have trouble with stage 4 sleep which is the time when the body heals itself. Some believe that being deprived of restful sleep means that the muscles of fibromyalgia patients fail to repair the tiny tears that can happen everyday. This is thought to contribute to muscle pain and fatigue. However,some experts believe that sleep problems result from fibromyalgia itself, and do not cause the disease.
Physical trauma or injury. Many believe that trauma such as neck injuries may contribute to the pain and fatigue which occur with fibromyalgia.
Illness or infection. In some people, fibromyalgia develops after an illness, hence many researchers theorize that bacteria or viral infections may bring on fibromyalgia.
Genetics. One theory suggests the tendency to get fibromyalgia maybe influenced by genetic factors. Some people may have inherited predisposition to developing disorders of the brain and spinal cord that greatly affects the response to severe pain.
Oelke, J. Natural Choices for Fibromyalgia: Discover Your Personal Method for Pain Relief. 2003. Natural Choices Inc.
Ostalecki, S. Fibromyalgia: The Complete Guide From Medical Experts and Patients. 2007. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc. | http://www.foundhealth.com/fibromyalgia/causes |
No one knows the exact cause of fibromyalgia, but researchers have several theories about what seems to trigger this syndrome. There is also evidence that the development of firbromyalgia involves a variety of factors working together.
Chemical imbalances. Research suggest that in people fibromyalgia, there are important body chemicals that are not within normal range. The reason for excessive or deficient levels are thought to be associated with the interaction between the organs that regulate body chemicals.
Abnormal levels of certain hormones from the hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands could contribute to fibromyalgia-type symptoms. If these glands do not work as they should, the abnormal hormone levels that they produce can result in sleep difficulties, increased susceptibility to pain, muscle pain and fatigue.
Autonomic dysfunction. The autonomic nervous system regulates important functions such as blood pressure, heart rate, sweating, core temperature and digestion. In many patients with fibromyalgia, a part of the autonomic nervous system seems over-activated.
Sleep problems. Most of the people diagnosed with fibromyalgia have sleep difficulties. They particularly have trouble with stage 4 sleep which is the time when the body heals itself. Some believe that being deprived of restful sleep means that the muscles of fibromyalgia patients fail to repair the tiny tears that can happen everyday. This is thought to contribute to muscle pain and fatigue. However,some experts believe that sleep problems result from fibromyalgia itself, and do not cause the disease.
Physical trauma or injury. Many believe that trauma such as neck injuries may contribute to the pain and fatigue which occur with fibromyalgia.
Illness or infection. In some people, fibromyalgia develops after an illness, hence many researchers theorize that bacteria or viral infections may bring on fibromyalgia.
Genetics. One theory suggests the tendency to get fibromyalgia maybe influenced by genetic factors. Some people may have inherited predisposition to developing disorders of the brain and spinal cord that greatly affects the response to severe pain.
References
Oelke, J. Natural Choices for Fibromyalgia: Discover Your Personal Method for Pain Relief. 2003. Natural Choices Inc.
Ostalecki, S. Fibromyalgia: The Complete Guide From Medical Experts and Patients. 2007. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc.
Click Here to See All 12 Treatments for Fibromyalgia
FoundHealth has 12 treatments for Fibromyalgia!
See all Fibromyalgia Treatment options and start building your care plan today. | https://www.foundhealth.com/fibromyalgia/causes |
The early stages of fibromyalgia may only affect certain areas, such as the neck or shoulders. Still, as the disease progresses, the pain can spread to many other body areas, including the back, neck, arms, and chest wall. Pain in these areas is felt as tender points, which are painful to the touch or pressure. In severe cases, the patient may also experience swollen joints. In some cases, the joints do not appear swollen or inflamed.
Pain
Fibromyalgia is a common musculoskeletal condition; symptoms can range from mild to severe. It can also lead to fatigue and sleep disturbance. Patients also experience tender points that are sensitive to touch. These points are typically located in the shoulder girdle, neck, upper arm, and lower leg.
Although the exact cause of fibromyalgia is unknown, researchers believe a poor healing response to pain causes it. This results in increased pain sensations and a higher stress level in the body. This condition is often accompanied by other symptoms, such as irritable bowel syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Fatigue
While there is no proven cure for fibromyalgia, there are treatments that can help you manage the symptoms and avoid further complications. Physical therapy may be one way to combat fatigue, while cognitive behavioral therapy may help you improve your focus. Increasing your activity levels can help you stay healthy and prevent further health problems.
While fatigue is a common symptom of fibromyalgia patients, it is difficult to describe how it manifests in each individual. Many patients describe it as persistent, inescapable physical tiredness and weakness. It is often accompanied by other symptoms and the inability to rest.
Stress
Stress is a known cause of fibromyalgia symptoms. Finding a cure for the condition can be challenging, but there are ways to manage the symptoms. One of the most important things is to take care of yourself. Try to limit your stress and schedule time for relaxation and fun. Your body needs this time to repair itself, so avoid overworking yourself.
Increasing stress can worsen the symptoms of fibromyalgia. The causes of stress vary among people, including medical conditions and various stressors. People with fibromyalgia are often more stressed than those without the disorder. Some reasons for this are work-related stress, emotional stress, and dietary changes.
Depression
Although depression is a common symptom in many patients with fibromyalgia, it’s not specific to this condition. Depression can be a reaction to a variety of conditions, including chronic pain. Although it is not a separate entity from fibromyalgia, it is closely related to the multiple comorbidities of FM. Symptoms of depression in fibromyalgia can include anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
Fibromyalgia and depression are complex disorders. Some studies have identified subgroups of FM with markedly different levels of psychological distress. Patients with no or low psychological distress respond well to 5-HT3 receptor antagonists, while patients with significant psychological distress fail to respond to these drugs. These findings suggest that the two conditions are related, and the two disorders may be treated differently.
Foods to eat
To reduce fibromyalgia symptoms, you should try eating more foods rich in nutrients and antioxidants. However, avoiding foods high in fat and salt or low nutritional value is essential. These foods can aggravate the symptoms and make the patient feel exhausted.
Fibromyalgia symptoms are often triggered by foods that contain gluten. The same can be said for energy drinks containing sugar and caffeine, which can trigger the symptoms. You should also stay away from fried foods, as they tend to irritate the stomach.
Self-management
Self-management for fibromyalgia disease (FM) is an essential strategy for reducing symptoms and improving overall health. Fibromyalgia is a multisystem disorder characterized by chronic pain, fatigue, and concentration problems. Self-management programs aim to provide FM patients with the skills and knowledge necessary to manage their condition. These programs are delivered in multidisciplinary groups and involve education, support, goal-setting, and pacing.
Exercise is essential for people with fibromyalgia because it can help them sleep better and reduce pain. However, you shouldn’t overdo it. Avoid high-impact exercises like running or cycling unless necessary, and consult your physician before beginning any new routine. You should also avoid stress, as it can aggravate fibromyalgia symptoms. | https://www.soulmete.com/fibromyalgia-symptoms/ |
Why do I have this disease?
Although the exact cause of psoriasis is yet to be found, researchers believe a combination of genetic, environmental and immune factors may be involved.
In terms of genetics, there are many different psoriasis risk genes, and they all play a part in developing the condition. If someone in your family has psoriasis, you’re more likely to develop it. For instance, if one of your siblings has psoriasis, your risk for developing it is 4 to 6 times greater than that of the general public. About 40% of patients with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis are estimated to have a family history.
Though there is a genetic component that elevates risks, many people with a family history of the disease will not go on to develop psoriasis.
Researchers believe that for a person to develop psoriasis, that person must have a combination of the genes that cause psoriasis and be exposed to specific external factors known as “triggers.” Psoriasis triggers vary–what may cause one person’s psoriasis to become active, may not affect another. Triggers can also change for an individual over the course of one’s condition. Common triggers include infections (e.g., strep throat), reaction to medications (e.g., antimalarials, beta-blockers, lithium) and injury (e.g., sunburns, scratches).
Within this context of genetic and environmental components, psoriasis is ultimately a disorder of the immune system.
How Does This Disease Develop?
In skin that is not affected by psoriasis, skin cells take about 28 days to regenerate.
With plaque psoriasis (see figure), the immune system becomes overactive and, as a result, skin cells turn over in 3-7 days, causing a build-up of skin (referred to as plaques). In people with lighter skin with psoriasis, plaques are typically pink-red and tend to have more overlying scale; in people of colour with psoriasis, lesions are more violaceous in colour (i.e., purplish, grayish). As a result, skin affected by psoriasis can be thick, painful and itchy.
At a basic level, this process perpetuates itself with white blood cells (called T-helper lymphocytes – or Th cells ) becoming overactive and producing excess amounts of cytokines (proteins important in cell signalling). In turn, these chemicals further trigger inflammation in the skin and other organs.
Overall, psoriasis is a dynamic disease involving the interplay between immune cells, keratinocytes and other skin cells. The inflammatory process and genetic risk factors seen in psoriasis may also be associated with other chronic inflammatory diseases including psoriatic arthritis. Thus, the risk of developing certain conditions is higher in people with psoriasis compared to the general population. | https://www.canadianpsoriasisnetwork.com/psoriasis/how/ |
What excess causes schizophrenia?
What excess causes schizophrenia?
The exact causes of schizophrenia are unknown. Research suggests a combination of physical, genetic, psychological and environmental factors can make a person more likely to develop the condition. Some people may be prone to schizophrenia, and a stressful or emotional life event might trigger a psychotic episode.
What part of the brain causes schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is associated with changes in the structure and functioning of a number of key brain systems, including prefrontal and medial temporal lobe regions involved in working memory and declarative memory, respectively.
Is schizophrenia caused by too much dopamine?
Many studies have investigated the possible role of brain neurotransmitters in the development of schizophrenia. Most of these studies have focused on the neurotransmitter called dopamine. The “dopamine theory of schizophrenia” states that schizophrenia is caused by an overactive dopamine system in the brain.
What hormone causes schizophrenia?
The female sex hormone estrogen has important effects on chemical signals in the brain. These signals go haywire in schizophrenia. Women’s first episodes of schizophrenia occur later in life than men’s, suggesting a protective role for estrogen.
How does the brain contribute to the development of schizophrenia?
It’s not known what causes schizophrenia, but researchers believe that a combination of genetics, brain chemistry and environment contributes to development of the disorder. Problems with certain naturally occurring brain chemicals, including neurotransmitters called dopamine and glutamate, may contribute to schizophrenia.
How does schizophrenia affect a person’s daily life?
Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling. People with schizophrenia require lifelong treatment.
Is there a genetic basis for schizophrenia spectrum disorders?
Although genetic studies, both twin and adoptive, have clearly identified a genetic basis for the schizophrenia spectrum disorders (4), the nature of these genetic factors and their range of phenotypic expression remain unclear.
How does schizophrenia fit into an evolutionary framework? | https://searchandrestore.com/what-excess-causes-schizophrenia/ |
Reducing Key Symptoms Of Fibromyalgia With Hypnotherapy
Fibromyalgia affects approximately 2-8% of the population worldwide. The specific causes of fibromyalgia are unknown to-date, but it is believed to be a combination of both environmental and genetic factors that can make anyone more susceptible. Recent scientific evidence provides promising results that support the use of hypnotherapy for the management of fibromyalgia symptoms. This offers an alternative drug-free, safe and effective way to manage this challenging condition.
Can Hypnotherapy Help With Weight Management? | https://www.wchypnotherapy.com/blog/archive/2017/04 |
If you or someone you know are dealing with a mental health issue, you are not CRAZY!
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Anxiety: Symptoms, Causes & Treatment
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CAUSES
Researchers are not sure of the exact cause of anxiety. But, it’s likely a combination of factors play a role. These include genetic and environmental factors, as well as brain chemistry.
In addition, researchers believe that the areas of the brain responsible for controlling fear may be impacted.
Current research of anxiety is taking a deeper look at the parts of the brain that are involved with anxiety.
SYMPTOMS
Anxiety feels different depending on the person experiencing it. Feelings can range from butterflies in your stomach to a racing heart. You might feel out of control, like there’s a disconnect between your mind and body.
Other ways people experience anxiety include nightmares, panic attacks, and painful thoughts or memories that you can’t control. You may have a general feeling of fear and worry, or you may fear a specific place or event.
Symptoms of general anxiety include: | http://www.sandragarcondegerville.com/thi.html |
Describe the factors that make this particular Population Vulnerable to the Fibromyalgia?
1 Answer
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Investigators are constantly looking at various explanations for the occurrence of fibromyalgia. Some, for example, are exploring hormonal disturbances and chemical imbalances that affect nerve signaling. Other experts believe fibromyalgia with its deep muscle pain is linked to stress, illness, or trauma. Still others think there is a hereditary cause or say there is no explanation at all. But while there is no clear consensus about what causes fibromyalgia, most researchers believe fibromyalgia results not from a single event but from a combination of many physical and emotional stressors.
What causes fibromyalgia?
Some have speculated that lower levels of serotonin in the blood leads to lowered pain thresholds or an increased sensitivity to pain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter in the brain. It's associated with a calming, anxiety-reducing reaction. The lowered pain thresholds may be caused by the reduced effectiveness of the body's natural endorphin painkillers and the increased presence of a chemical called "substance P." Substance P amplifies pain signals.
There have been some studies that link fibromyalgia to sudden trauma to the central nervous system. Keep in mind, though, theories about what causes fibromyalgia are merely speculative.
Who gets fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is far more common in women than in men. Some interesting studies show that women have approximately seven times less serotonin in the brain. That may explain why fibromyalgia syndrome, or FMS, is more prevalent in women.
Another theory states that fibromyalgia is caused by biochemical changes in the body and may be related to hormonal changes or menopause. In addition, some (but not all) people with fibromyalgia have low levels of human growth hormone, which may contribute to the muscle pain.
Does stress cause fibromyalgia?
Some researchers theorize that stress or poor physical conditioning are factors in the cause of fibromyalgia. Another theory suggests that muscle "microtrauma" (very slight damage) leads to an ongoing cycle of pain and fatigue. This mechanism, like all the others, is still unproven for fibromyalgia.
Do insomnia or sleep disorders cause fibromyalgia?
Most people with FMS experience insomnia or non-restorative sleep -- sleep that is light and not refreshing. Disordered sleep might lead to the lower levels of serotonin, which results in increased pain sensitivity. Researchers have created a lower pain threshold in women by depriving them of sleep, possibly simulating fibromyalgia.
Is depression linked to fibromyalgia?
Some scientists used to believe that because fibromyalgia was accompanied by low-grade depression, there may be a link between the two illnesses. Today, mental health issues are no longer thought to cause fibromyalgia. However, chronic pain can cause feelings of anxiety and depression, which may worsen fibromyalgia symptoms. | https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080818195620AA5IF9q |
How Can Science Prevent Autism?
- November 21, 2021
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The prevention of disease. The treatment options for autism spectrum disorder are available, but there is no way to prevent it. It is best to diagnose and intervene early in order to improve behavior, skills, and language development. It is helpful for all ages, however.
Table of contents
What Is The Science Behind Autism?
It has been suggested that ASD may be caused by disruptions in normal brain development very early in life. There may be a defect in one or more genes that control brain development and regulate how brain cells communicate. Premature babies are more likely to suffer from autism.
Is Autism Caused By Nature Or Nurture?
Many children with autism are caused by a combination of “nature and nurture” – our genes and the environments we grow up in. Early on in life, these two factors work together to balance the intricate development of the brain.
Is Autism Environmental Or Genetic?
Genetic and environmental factors are both involved in the development of the condition. It has been consistently demonstrated that ASD is caused by inherited variation (heritability) in the genetic code. There are, however, other, noninherited, genetic influences that may contribute to variation in a trait, according to evidence.
Can Autism Be Prevented?
It is impossible to prevent having an child with anautism, but you can increase your chances of having a healthy baby by following these lifestyle changes: Live healthy. Exercise regularly, eat well-balanced meals, and get regular check-ups. Make sure you get good prenatal care, and take all the vitamins and supplements recommended.
What Is The Scientific Reason For Autism?
It is generally accepted that the cause of autism spectrum disorder is a brain abnormality, but there is no clear cause. Children with autism have different brain structures and shapes than children with neurotypical brains.
How Close Are We To A Cure For Autism?
The majority of experts agree that there is no cure for autism. Because of this, many of them approach ASD in a way that includes behavioral, psychological, and educational therapy in order to manage symptoms or develop skills.
How Can We Prevent Autism?
What Are The Main Cause Of Autism?
The cause of autism is not one thing. Genetic and nongenetic influences, or environmental factors, are thought to play a role in the development of autism. The likelihood of a child developing autism is increased by these influences.
Who Is High Risk For Autism?
A child born to an older parent is more likely to develop autism. ASD affects 2 to 18 percent of parents who have a child with it. It has been shown that identical twins with autism are affected by the condition about 36 to 95 percent of the time.
What Is The Biology Behind Autism?
Many researchers believe that the biological causes of autism are genetic, and that they are responsible for the development of critical areas of the brain, the functioning of the formative neural network, and the distribution of gray matter in the brain.
What Happens In The Brain With Autism?
Brain tissue studies indicate that children with autism have a surplus of synapses, or connections between brain cells. Researchers say the excess is due to a slowdown in the normal pruning process that occurs during brain development.
Is Autism Genetic Or Hereditary?
80% of inherited genes are associated with increased risk, according to a study. Study results from five countries found that 80 percent of autism risk can be traced back to inherited genes rather than environmental factors or random mutations in genes.
What Are 3 Causes Of Autism?
Which Parent Is Responsible For Autism?
It has been assumed that mothers are more likely to pass on variants of the autism-promoting gene. The reason for this is that women have a lower rate of autism than men, and it is thought that women can carry the same genetic risk factors without having any symptoms of the disorder.
Are There Any Environmental Causes Of Autism?
Exposure to air pollution in the early years may be associated with autism, according to researchers. A mother who lives near a freeway and traffic-related pollution during the third trimester of pregnancy is twice as likely to have her child develop ASD as a control mother.
How Much Of Autism Is Environmental?
Environmental factors may play a role in determining the liability of up to 50% of variance in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases. | https://www.wovo.org/how-can-science-prevent-autism/ |
What Are the Different Types of Problems with the Muscular System?
Problems with the muscular system can cause a variety of symptoms, including pain, fatigue, and mobility issues. There are three basic types of muscles within the body, known as smooth muscles, skeletal muscles, and cardiac muscles, each of which are vulnerable to disease processes that cause problems with the muscular system. Some of the specific medical conditions that affect the muscles include fibromyalgia, muscular dystrophy, and polymyositis. These conditions often affect each of the three muscle types. A doctor should be consulted with any specific questions concerning problems with the muscular system.
Smooth muscles are controlled by the nervous system and are found in the digestive tract, blood vessels, and bladder. Skeletal muscles are attached directly to the bones of the skeleton by connective tissue known as tendons. Cardiac muscles are found in the heart and assist with pumping blood throughout the body. Disease processes that affect any of these muscle types can cause mild to severe problems with the muscular system.
Fibromyalgia is among the most common problems with the muscular system. This medical condition causes muscle pain throughout the body, often due to uncontrollable muscle spasms and inflammation. Additional symptoms often include insomnia, extreme levels of fatigue, and a variety of mood disorders. The exact causes of fibromyalgia are not clearly understood, although physical or emotional trauma, certain infections, and genetic factors are thought to be involved. Treatment for fibromyalgia often includes a combination of medication, physical therapy, and lifestyle changes.
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Muscular dystrophy is a genetic condition that is characterized by the absence of certain proteins that are necessary for building healthy muscles. This is a progressive disease that can cause an affected person to slowly lose the ability to perform basic tasks such as walking, dressing, or bathing. Visual disturbances, speech problems, and cognitive difficulties may also be present among those with this disorder. Supportive devices such as wheelchairs are frequently used along with physical therapy to treat muscular dystrophy.
Polymyositis causes the skeletal muscles to become weakened, gradually leading to loss of mobility. The skin on the hands often becomes thickened, although this symptom is not always present. Additional symptoms of polymyositis may include difficulty swallowing, irregular heartbeat, and arthritis. There are several factors that are thought to contribute to the development of this disorder, including genetic predisposition, viral infections, and autoimmune dysfunction. Steroid medications are usually prescribed to treat the symptoms of polymyositis, and some people with this condition may benefit from an individualized exercise program or physical therapy.
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Discussion Comments
Yes, Heavanet, that is what my doctor suggested the cause of this condition is. That is why some of the medications for fibromyalgia target nerve pain. The nerves flair, and the result is muscle pain. However, the pain itself originates from the nerves, according to my doctor.
I've heard that fibromyalgia is actually caused by overactive nerves. Has anyone else heard this? | https://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-problems-with-the-muscular-system.htm |
CAUSES OF DEPRESSION
What are the causes of depression?
It is important to remember that depression is a real medical condition. It is widely believed that depression probably results from a combination of genetic, biochemical, environmental, and psychological factors. Research suggests that environmental and genetic factors, such as a family history of depression, may make a person more likely to develop this disorder.
Medical experts believe that an imbalance of certain chemicals in the brain can cause symptoms of depression. A person can suffer from episodes of depression that can last as long as months or years. | https://www.fetzima.com/understanding/causes-of-depression |
Fibromyalgia is a term referring to pain in the fibrous tissues of the body, such as muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a form of fibromyalgia where pain and stiffness occurs in muscles, tendons, and ligaments throughout the body, accompanied by other generalized symptoms such as fatigue, sleep disruption or unrefreshing sleep, mood disorder, and cognitive difficulties such as poor memory or mental “fogginess.” The cause is not known. It is most common in middle-aged women, but can affect people of all ages and both sexes.
Depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances have all been linked to fibromyalgia.
The cause of fibromyalgia is not yet known. However, we do know that symptoms can be made worse by emotional stress, muscle strains, or overuse of muscles.
Although a wide variety of factors, including physical trauma, infections such as Lyme disease, and exposure to toxins, have been blamed for causing fibromyalgia syndrome, there is no evidence to support any of these explanations. Some studies suggest that people with fibromyalgia also frequently experience changes in mood such as depression or anxiety, but it is not known whether that is a result of the fibromyalgia or whether it’s related to its cause.
One area researchers are looking into is whether people have fibromyalgia because their bodies have an abnormal way of processing pain. However, this is still being studied as an actual cause.
The main symptoms of fibromyalgia are achy pain; tenderness to touch; and stiffness in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The neck, shoulders, abdomen, lower back, and thighs are the parts most likely to be affected. The pain may be spread out evenly over a large area, but there are also “tender points” where the pain is more severe.
Other symptoms of fibromyalgia include fatigue, sleep disruption or unrefreshing sleep, difficulty sleeping, lack of energy, and poor memory. People with fibromyalgia can also suffer from changes in mood, anxiety, migraines, headaches, severe menstrual cramps, and irritable bowel syndrome.
The symptoms of fibromyalgia come and go over time, but they seldom disappear completely. The pain may also vary from day to day in where it’s located and in intensity, and it can be worsened by outside factors such as stress or the weather.
There is no definitive medical test for fibromyalgia. The diagnosis of fibromyalgia is made by doing a physical exam and a thorough history. The doctor may check for pain and tenderness at 18 “tender points,” areas where the pain is more severe. Although pain or tenderness is a symptom, the tissues don’t show any physical abnormalities.
The doctor will also rule out other causes of muscle pain, such as lupus and arthritis. This may involve blood tests. Because there is no specific test for fibromyalgia, the diagnosis may be difficult to make at first.
Fibromyalgia is often treated in a multifaceted fashion, using both medications and non-medication methods to improve symptoms.Non-medication methods to relieve symptoms include regular sleep, regular stretching and aerobic exercises, hot compresses, and gentle massage. Counselling or other psychological therapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, can help people who feel stressed and who may need help coping with fibromyalgia.
Acetylsalicylic acid* (ASA), other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs; e.g., ibuprofen and naproxen), and acetaminophen may help with the pain in some people, but not everyone responds to these medications.
Narcotic pain killers that are not too strong (e.g., codeine, tapentadol, tramadol) may help relieve pain and improve function.
Pregabalin may help treat the symptoms of fibromyalgia by reducing the efficiency with which pain messages are passed along the nerves, thereby reducing pain.
Duloxetine, which is also used as an antidepressant, can also be used to treat the pain of fibromyalgia by affecting the chemical messengers in the body that perceive pain.
Severe persistent pain that’s focused in one point is sometimes treated with an injection of lidocaine, which may be used in combination with hydrocortisone.
Low doses of antidepressant medications (e.g., amitriptyline, citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine, sertraline) are often used to treat fibromyalgia. Antidepressants can improve sleep and may help with the pain. In higher doses, they can also be used to treat mood disorders in people who develop them along with their fibromyalgia. | http://medlog.info/fibromyalgia-syndrome-causes-symptoms-treatment-diagnosis/ |
Fibromyalgia is a condition that can be hard to understand, even for healthcare providers. Surrounded by plenty of speculation and with no known cause, it affects millions of people worldwide.
What Is Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is a chronic disorder and one of the most misunderstood conditions in the medical world today. It is characterized by widespread pain in the muscles. Unlike rheumatoid arthritis, where the pain is concentrated initially on the hands, wrists, knees, and feet, the pain from fibromyalgia is more widespread throughout the body.
This condition affects about 4 million US adults, about 2% of the adult population.1 . According to the National Fibromyalgia Association, the disorder affects about 3%-6% of the world’s population.
While pain can vary in intensity, patients describe it as a deep, persistent ache or shooting muscular pain. The disorder can result in severe pain that may interfere with the ability to perform even the simplest tasks.
What Is Myalgia?
The term “myalgia” means “pain. It describes muscle aches and pain in the ligaments, tendons, bones, fascia, and organs. Some common causes for myalgia include trauma, injuries, and tension.
Types of Pain
Acute
Acute pain is a sudden, severe pain that is usually quite short-lived but can also be persistent and debilitating. Acute pain is often the result of an injury, surgery, or a dental procedure. In some cases, acute pain can also be a sign of a chronic pain condition.
Chronic
Chronic pain is a symptom of an underlying condition or illness. The pain can last for more than six months, and it can be severe enough to interfere with daily activities. It is estimated that the prevalence of chronic pain in the US is 20.4%, and the prevalence of high-impact chronic pain is 7.4% 2 .
Nociceptive Pain
Nociceptive pain is a type of pain caused by tissue damage, disease, or any other event that produces pain receptors. Nociceptors are located in the same tissue affected by injury or trauma, which means that those receptors can be stimulated and send signals to the brain. This stimulation can cause nociceptive pain, usually described as sharp, dull, and deep.
Neuropathic Pain
Neuropathic pain is chronic pain caused by damaged or dysfunctional nerve fibers. This type of pain is prolonged, partially understood, and difficult to treat. It is different from pain caused by injury or inflammation and can be triggered by diabetes, diseases of the spine, and infections, among other conditions.
Is There a Cure?
There is presently no cure for the disorder. However, a range of treatment options is available to help relieve symptoms and make the condition easier to live with.
Is There a Defined Test for Fibromyalgia?
There is no single test that can confirm a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. One tool that doctors use to diagnose fibromyalgia is known as tender point examination. It involves pressing on various points on the body, known as trigger points. To be diagnosed with fibromyalgia, the patient must be sensitive in at least 11 of the 18 possible tender points for at least three months.
Doctors may also use other assessment tools like a questionnaire to help understand the extent and severity of the pain and fibromyalgia symptoms. Other conditions with similar symptoms may be ruled out by blood tests such as complete blood count, thyroid function tests, and rheumatoid function.
Is Fibromyalgia a Syndrome?
Fibromyalgia is considered a syndrome as it is characterized by a set of associated symptoms. The exact cause of remains unknown, but ongoing studies have been unraveling some of the mysteries surrounding the condition 3 .
Medical experts have had a hard time figuring out how to diagnose and classify fibromyalgia. Over the years, there has been great controversy surrounding the condition. Some scientists claimed that since fibro is linked to psychological factors, it should be regarded as a somatic symptom disorder. Other researchers have argued that since it can be triggered by other factors such as biology or the environment, it should be classified as something else.
Some experts believe that fibromyalgia should be classified as an autoimmune disease as its symptoms overlap with the symptoms of some autoimmune disorders. However, more evidence is needed to explore whether fibromyalgia produces antibodies or causes harm to surrounding tissues.
What Causes Fibromyalgia?
Genetics
One of the most common factors for fibromyalgia is genetics. Genome-wide association studies investigated the connection between fibromyalgia and genes and found that genetic factors are possibly responsible for up to 50% of the disease susceptibility 4 . Researchers have discovered that people with this condition have abnormally low levels of serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine in their brains 5 .
Central Nervous System (CNS)
Infections
Infections are also believed to provoke the development of fibromyalgia. Infections like hepatitis C virus, HIV, and Lyme disease that may have long-term effects on the immune system are associated with the onset. 7 Another possibility for the onset of the disease is the attachment of viral particles to glial cells, which are brain cells that affect neurotransmission and influence the pain response. 8 .
Physical/Emotional Events
Patients who have had significant injuries or experienced psychological trauma, especially in childhood, are more prone to developing fibromyalgia. In one 2012 study, researchers discovered that in addition to sexual and physical maltreatment, patients also experienced a poor emotional relationship with both parents, a lack of physical affection, addiction in the mother, separation, and a poor financial situation before the age of seven 9. However, this study does not mean that everyone with fibromyalgia has experienced trauma in their lives – it is just one risk factor.
Fibromyalgia Symptoms
Widespread Pain
Fibromyalgia is characterized by widespread pain throughout the body that patients describe as a deep, persistent ache or shooting muscular pain. The pain occurs on both sides of the body and above and below the waist. Some of the areas that are affected include:
- Head/neck
- Upper chest/back
- Outside of elbow
- Lower back
- Buttocks
- Inner side of knees
Fatigue
Fatigue is another common symptom of this chronic pain. The fatigue can be persistent, chronic, and quite debilitating for patients.
Cognitive Difficulties
Patients may have difficulty focusing and keeping attention on certain tasks. The condition is commonly referred to as “fibro-fog,” or unclear thinking.
Trigger Points
One of the unique aspects of is the presence of pain points in specific locations on the body. When these pain points are pressed, people with this condition would feel pain, while people without the condition would only feel pressure. To be diagnosed with fibromyalgia, the patient must be sensitive to at least 11 of the 18 possible pain points.
Co-Existing Conditions
IBS
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common condition that co-exists with fibromyalgia. It is characterized by bowel habit changes, with fluctuating constipation, diarrhea, or both.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
People suffer from terrible fatigue, known as chronic fatigue syndrome. The Arthritis Foundation estimates that 50%-70% of patients with fibromyalgia also fit the criteria of chronic fatigue syndrome 10
Migraine
Fibromyalgia patients can also have migraine issues. Migraines are unilateral and pulsatile headaches or pounding pain on one side of the head. Migraine headaches may be associated with aura, nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound.
Interstitial Cystitis
People with fibromyalgia are more prone to developing a condition known as interstitial cystitis. Interstitial cystitis is characterized by intense pelvic pain that people experience below the belly button.
Depression
In addition to physical and social side effects, it may also affect people mentally. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, around 20% of people with fibromyalgia also suffer from an anxiety disorder or depression 11
Anxiety
Anxiety is strongly associated with fibromyalgia. People with fibromyalgia may end up feeling isolated and missing out on things they used to enjoy. This can significantly contribute to the development of anxiety, which can negatively affect the patient’s quality of life.
TMJ
According to the National Institutes of Health research, patients with fibromyalgia have a higher prevalence of TMJ disorder. Furthermore, they exhibit some of the most common symptoms of TMJ, including clicking sounds during mouth movement, facial pain, and muscle pain in the head and neck 12
Postural Tachycardia Syndrome
Another common co-condition of fibromyalgia is postural tachycardia syndrome. This condition is characterized by an increase in heart rate of more than 30 beats per minute after standing upright for more than three minutes.
Sleep Problems
Sleep issues can often occur in people with fibromyalgia. Patients report being easily awoken in the early morning hours and having difficulty getting back to sleep. The lack of sleep unlocks another set of issues, such as increased fatigue which can be very problematic for patients.
How Is Fibromyalgia Diagnosed
- Process of Elimination: The fibromyalgia symptoms and the symptoms of other conditions, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, can overlap to a great extent. For this reason, one of the best ways to diagnose is through a process of elimination. The process of elimination can be a good way since there are no definitive tests for the condition.
- Pain Symptoms: Patients describe the pain associated as a constant dull ache. One must either have severe pain in 3 to 6 different areas of their body or milder pain in 7 or more different areas.
- Pain Timeline: For fibromyalgia to be diagnosed, the patient’s symptoms must have stayed at a similar level for at least three months.
Fibromyalgia Treatment
Patients require a comprehensive treatment plan that can include different types of treatments, including medication, behavioral therapy, and neuro-training.
Medication
Medication is often used to relieve pain and improve sleep. The most commonly prescribed medications include:
- Antidepressants like duloxetine (Cymbalta) and milnacipran (Savella)
- Over-the-counter pain relievers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Advil)
- Anti-seizure drugs such as pregabalin (Lyrica)
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy may include exercises to improve strength, flexibility, and stamina. In addition, physical therapy can also help relieve the patient’s pain. Patients generally receive a program tailored to their unique needs to help them manage specific symptoms.
Acupuncture
According to a study published in the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, the benefits of acupuncture therapy can last for at least three months after the end of treatment 13
Acupressure
Acupoint stimulation is another popular treatment. It is also a beneficial option for patients who cannot tolerate the needles involved in acupuncture therapy.
Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive-behavioral therapy has proven helpful in treatment. It aims to prevent patients from focusing on or panicking about their pain. This type of therapy can be particularly effective in patients suffering from both fibromyalgia and depression/anxiety 14
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy can help patients to understand and better address their feelings about the syndrome. Over time, they will be able to manage their situation with a positive outlook.
Diet
Patients with fibromyalgia should follow a carefully planned diet that helps keep their symptoms at bay. The ideal diet is high in lean protein and fiber and low in carbohydrates. Some foods that can help include fruits with a low glycemic index, vegetables, and whole grains.
Neuro-Training
Neuro-Training is a revolutionary new method of improving the cognitive function of the brain. It utilizes the science of neuroplasticity to rewire your brain for optimal mental performance. The process entails multiple computer-based tests and challenges, designed to measure and build specific areas of brain function.
Resources
- https://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/basics/fibromyalgia.htm#:~:text=Fibromyalgia%20affects%20about%204%20million,be%20effectively%20treated%20and%20managed.
- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db390.htm#:~:text=Interview%20Survey%2C%202019.-,Summary,65%20and%20over%20(30.8%25). | https://jflowershealth.com/what-is-fibromyalgia/ |
Were you looking for information about Fibromyalgia? Fibriomialgia is a common misspelling of fibromyalgia.
Fibromyalgia, a common and chronic health condition, can cause symptoms such as widespread pain, fatigue, and multiple tender points in certain areas of the body. This condition affects as many as 1 in every 50 people, and most commonly occurs in women (although men and children can also develop it). Although the exact cause of fibromyalgia is unknown at this time, many researchers believe that it is caused by problems with how the nervous system processes pain. Possible treatment options for the condition include lifestyle changes, medications, and complementary or alternative treatments. | http://pain.emedtv.com/fibromyalgia/fibriomialgia.html |
If someone in your family, such as a parent, has fibromyalgia, you may have concern that you will also “inherit” this condition. But how great is the hereditary risk? Is fibromyalgia genetic at all?
While there is still much to find out about fibromyalgia, many health experts believe there is a link between genes and fibromyalgia. This is because it’s believed that fibromyalgia is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, as well as abnormalities in the neuroendocrine and nervous systems.1
Dr. Kevin C. Fleming, who specializes in internal medicine, said in a Mayo Clinic article that although fibromyalgia isn’t directly passed on from parents to children, the disorder does appear to cluster within families. “The odds of developing fibromyalgia are several times higher in the immediate families of people with fibromyalgia than in families in which no one has fibromyalgia,” he said.2
Fleming added that a number of genes, particularly those that affect how your nervous system responds to pain, may help explain why fibromyalgia (as well as other disorders) seem to run in families. There is no mutation that is responsible for a specific trait (monogenic). Rather, the risk is complex and involves many genes (polygenic).3
A 1989 study published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation found that 52 percent of people who have siblings and parents with fibromyalgia had characteristic symptoms and other findings of this condition, but have not been diagnosed with it. Meanwhile, 22 percent had evidence of abnormal muscle consistency, although they did not have any fibromyalgia symptoms.4
A study in 2004 also presented proof that fibromyalgia had a genetic link. The study, which was conducted by researchers from the University of Cincinnati and published in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism,5 found that relatives of people with fibromyalgia were eight times more likely to develop the syndrome compared to those who didn’t have any family connection. And, even if they did not develop the illness, the study found that the relatives tend to suffer more pain compared to the average person.
A 2017 Korean study further explores this link, as researchers found that “certain polymorphisms in genes involved in the serotonergic, dopaminergic and catecholaminergic pathways may be involved in FM [fibromyalgia] development.” They claim that these polymorphisms affect not just a person’s susceptibility but also the severity of the symptoms.6 Nevertheless, more research is still needed to fully cement these claims.
MORE ABOUT FIBROMYALGIA
• Fibromyalgia: Introduction
• What Is Fibromyalgia?
• Is Fibromyalgia Hereditary?
• Fibromyalgia in Pregnancy
• Fibromyalgia Causes
• Fibromyalgia Symptoms
• Fibromyalgia Treatment
• Fibromyalgia Diet
• Fibromyalgia FAQ
What Is Fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia in Pregnancy
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Investing in Impact
The Center for Social Media and The Media Consortium have a released a new report on the necessity of evaluating public media, entitled “Investing in Impact: Media Summits Reveal Pressing Needs, Tools for Evaluating Public Interest Media”:
Needs include:
1) Getting on the same page: Developing shared categories of impact assessment
2) Following the story: Tracking the movement of content and frames across platforms and over time
3) Contextualizing the anecdotal: Refining methods for analyzing shifts in public awareness, deliberation and
behavior
4) Understanding our users: Creating more sophisticated profiles of audience demographics, habits and concerns
5) Moving beyond market assumptions: Defining the uses and limitations of commercial metrics schemes for
assessing public interest media
Proposed tools to help public interest media makers assess their impact include:
1) Putting it all in one place: Building a unified social media dashboard
2) Chasing the frame: Building a social issue buzz tracker
3) Telling your story of impact: Developing model formats and processes for strategically communicating outcomes
4) Asking the right questions: Creating common survey tools for evaluation and audience assessment
5) Identifying networks: Creating a suite of tools that track the growth, health and effectiveness of networks
Last, but not least, we outline why funding for joint impact assessment projects is the true “killer app.”
The report also makes a great statement that echoes the Transmission Project’s priority of community engagement over community awareness:
To be clear, effectiveness is not synonymous with advocacy. Traditional journalistic values include holding the powerful to account, engaging users in dialogue about issues, and delivering timely, relevant information—all outcomes that can be tracked. Shifts in technology and user habits mean that old assumptions about what constitutes impact must be reconsidered. Simply reporting on an issue or community is no longer the final outcome in an era of multiplatform, participatory communication.
This report developed out of a series of Impact Summits held around the country, in which our Director Belinda Rawlins participated. | http://transmissionproject.org/current/2010/5/investing-in-impact.html |
March is National Nutrition Month across Canada. The month long campaign aims to increase public awareness about the importance of healthy eating by identifying dietitians as the most credible source of food and nutrition information. To kick-start Nutrition Month, Sodexo interviewed three of its dietitians to talk about how the pandemic has shifted people’s habits around healthy eating, common misconceptions about food, and some of their favourite healthy dinner recipes.
RD Spotlights
Inspired Thinking
A National Webinar Celebrating Nutrition Month
To celebrate National Nutrition Month, we’re bringing together chefs, dieticians and other experts from across the country for a dynamic discussion about how sustainability impacts nutrition and healthy living, and vice versa.
Join Chef Michael Smith, a passionate advocate for simple, sustainable home cooking and an inspiration for families creating their own healthy food lifestyle, as he leads us through this timely and meaningful discussion. | https://ca.sodexo.com/industry/healthcare/national-nutrition-month.html |
The Alícia Foundation, Ali-mentació i cièn-cia (Alice, Alimentation and Science), is a research centre devoted to technological innovation in cuisine, to the improvement of eating habits and to the evaluation of the food and gastronomic heritage. We are a centre with a social vocation, open to everyone to promote healthy eating.
Alícia is a private, non-profit foundation created in 2003. Its Board is formed by Generalitat de Catalunya and Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation. With the complicity and collaboration of the best chefs and leading scientists. It enjoys the strategic leadership of the chef Ferran Adrià, the executive assessment of the cardiologist Valentí Fuster in health matters, contribution and support from leading chefs and the collaboration of leading scientists.
Catalunya-La Pedrera Foundation and Alícia Foundation both, collaborate and share areas: social impulse, culture, land and environment, knowledge and alimentation.
Alícia seeks to be:
-A leader in the field of applied research in gastronomy.
-An active agent that seeks to offer culinary responses to dietary problems derived from specific illnesses and disorders.
-A space for the creation of a social awareness of the importance of food as a cultural phenomenon and as a factor for education.
-A place where ideas on food and cuisine are generated.
-A stimulating and sensorial experience combining tradition and innovation.
-A project with a commitment to the territory. | https://monstbenet.com/en/alicia-foundation |
Which stakeholders and communities do we need to engage?
OVERVIEW
Development organisations need to promote profound change (Learning Area 1) as part of a broad societal partnership (Learning Area 2). This means reaching out to new stakeholders and communities.
One useful way to group and prioritise among audiences is by their function. Targeting the mobilisers, for example, can help organisations reach broad segments of society and promote action for sustainable development. Targeting the watchdogs can help organisations meet their commitment to accountability and build public trust in development work.
Development communicators also need to break the concept of “the general public” down into more meaningful audience segments, for example by understanding their different lifestyles, values and attitudes to sustainable development.
ADVICE & INSIGHTS
Communicators need to identify mobilisers and influencers with powerful stories to tell and reach deep into specific communities. In the SDG era, key mobilisers include:
- Civil society organisations, reaching into communities & putting the SDGs into practice.
- Cities & local authorities, translating global goals into local contexts.
- Schools & universities, producing development knowledge & engaging future generations.
- Businesses & foundations, engaging CEOs, shareholders, consumers & philanthropists.
Communicators need to address those seeking facts and data about how development funds are spent, and whether development organisations are delivering results. The watchdogs include:
- Parliaments, overseeing the expenditure of taxpayer funds.
- Civic activists, pressuring organisations to deliver on sustainable development.
- Media organisations, uncovering development stories in the interests of their audiences.
- International partners, expecting development organisations to uphold agreements.
In addition to different stakeholder groups, development communicators often identify “the general public” as an audience. Some go a step further by saying they seek to engage “youth”. These concepts are not helpful enough when it comes to designing communications strategies.
Today’s communicators have the tools and data – surveys, social media analytics etc. – to develop a much more refined set of audience profiles. Besides socio-demographic factors, such profiles can take into consideration, for example, people’s differing attitudes to sustainable development, lifestyles and personal interests, moral values and preferences, and media habits.
FURTHER READING
- Consider the following approaches to develop profiles and understand audiences:
- Based on whether citizens have conducted one or more of ten activities, the Development Engagement Lab divides them into six different groups, ranging from “fully engaged” to “negatively engaged”.
- By examining people’s values (e.g. family-focused / change-oriented / preference for control / freedom), Glocalities divides people into “challengers”, “conservatives”, “socializers”, “creatives”, “achievers”.
- Explore the 2017 OECD DevCom Survey on Public Attitudes Research to see how DevCom members use public attitudes research to segment audiences.
- Visit the DevCom website for summaries of recent DevCom discussions on specific stakeholder groups, including:
- Civic activists and journalists: discussed at the 2019 Annual Meeting.
- Parliamentarians: Joint Evalnet-DevCom Session at the 2019 Annual Meeting.
- Businesses: 2018 Joint DevCom-EMnet Workshop on Businesses as SDG Advocates.
EXAMPLE
In 2017, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation used Facebook and Spotify data to understand and engage young people in its Save Tropical House campaign, building awareness about rain forest degradation and producing a video with more than 1.3 million views. | https://sdg-communicator.org/toolkit/learning-area-3-audiences/ |
In an event that is already generating conversation around campus, Moulton and Thorne Dining Halls will not be serving meat during dinner on Monday, February 21. "Meatless Monday," sponsored by the Bowdoin College Democrats (BCD) and other campus groups, is intended to raise awareness about the health and environmental impacts of eating meat.
"I think the value of the event is that it has environmental importance, impacts an individuals' health—and there's also a moral dimension to it which we don't talk about very much," said BCD Co-President Katy Shaw '11.
BCD introduced the idea for "Meatless Monday" to Dining Services in early December.
"Meatless Monday' is a national initiative which the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health started," said Ben Richmond '13, a member of BCD who helped to coordinate the event.
"We heard about the event through friends in other schools...and we wanted to start it here as well," he said.
As an alternative to meat, Dining Service will provide additional items with high-protein content, such as eggs, beans and tofu. Moulton will also be serving an entrée with cashew nuts as a protein source.
"It's not a stretch for us to come up with a vegetarian menu because we have so many vegetarian options anyway," said Director of Dining Service Mary McAteer Kennedy.
"The chefs who write the menus just took a look at their vegetarian offerings and tried to come up with menus that they felt would be strong enough to have widespread appeal without the meat," she added.
While the event has garnered support from both student organizations and sports teams, several students found themselves defending "Meatless Monday" from criticism that the event is undemocratic.
"I'm really hoping that people realize that not eating meat for one meal...is not going to have the negative effects that they think," said Rachel Turkel '11, who introduced the event to Peer Health.
"Honestly, I wonder if the dining hall didn't serve meat on Mondays if people would even notice," said Turkel, who is a vegetarian. "We're told what we can't eat [every day]. If the dining halls serve lasagna then they're not letting us eat chicken parm."
"I like bacon just as much as the other guy, but I think it's worth experimenting," said Andrew Cushing '12, a member of Sustainable Bowdoin. "And I think [the] dining halls do a superb job at whatever task they're given. I think it's unfair to assume the worst."
According to the Scientific American, the production of half a pound of beef emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as a car traveling 9.81 miles.
"I always think of it as when you go to McDonald's—what you ate there would emit at least as much carbon emissions as driving there, which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it," said Richmond.
The organizations co-sponsoring "Meatless Monday" will have information tables set up in the dining halls to answer student questions.
Shaw added that going meatless has health benefits as well, such as reducing risk of heart disease and cancer and curbing obesity.
However, Kyrie Eiras-Saunders '12, who is allergic to soy, corn and wheat, said that she doesn't "appreciate [BCD] eliminating choice and having them write it off as a more liberal stance."
"Eating meat is what keeps me feeling full on a regular basis," said Eiras-Saunders. "They always have the Local Farmers Day and they do expos in the dining hall... We're not a small group in the middle of nowhere that never have heard of these concerns."
"At this point, it's being shoved down our throats," she added.
"It's not really participation if there isn't a choice," said Toby Sedgwick '12. "Saying you have to pay for something is not really giving [you] a choice."
In response, Richmond stated that "Meatless Monday" is similar to one of the several theme dinners throughout the year.
"On this night, there's going to be a meatless theme," Richmond said. "We understand that students need to be able to choose so we're definitely going to ask for feedback before going forward."
"It's a lot easier to evaluate the potential of a program after you've tried it once," added Shaw. "If we were to go to students to ask their hypothetical opinion [about "Meatless Monday"], I think that would be a different set of responses than students answering the same question after they've tried it."
From the perspective of Dining Service, Kennedy explained that Bowdoin students are always asking for healthy food options.
"As a dietician, I think it's a good idea to raise awareness about healthy non-meat selections that you can incorporate in your diet, and I think a lot of Bowdoin students are interested in health," said Kennedy. "That seems to be a theme that's getting stronger all the time." | https://bowdoinorient.com/bonus/article/6097 |
Established in 2009, Eco-Business is an independent media and business intelligence company dedicated to sustainable development and ESG performance.
We publish high quality, trusted news and views in multimedia formats on business and policy developments around the world with a sustainability and ESG-focused lens. Our platform features more than a decade-long archive of information on sustainable development issues in the region and globally.
Its content is categorised and searchable by the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and core sustainability topics, and it also provides a key platform for individuals and organisations to publish jobs, events, press release and research.
We provide research and consulting on a wide range issues which create strategic value for our partners and clients. We own and create thought-leadership platforms which inform policymaking, improve business practices and foster collaboration among different sectors.
Over the past decade, our stories and initiatives have gained international recognition and won multiple regional and international awards. We are guided by the sole objective of generating positive impact for society and the environment.
Eco-Business is headquartered in Singapore, with a presence in Manila, Beijing, Zurich, New York, and correspondents in major cities across the world.
Our partners include the world's biggest brands, Fortune 500 companies, MNCs, governments, multilateral institutions, civil society organisations and philanthropic foundations who are aligned with our values and mission.
Mission
We are a sustainable social enterprise that helps Asia Pacific’s businesses along an environmentally and socially responsible, low-carbon path. We educate and advocate on sustainable development. We remain committed to help businesses, governments, NGOs, research institutions and think tanks get their stories published and read by a wider audience by providing platforms for them to share ideas and best practices, advance public awareness and stimulate debate about sustainable development. Eco-Business is a registered member of the Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise.
People
Eco-Business attracts some of the best talent in the industry, and all members of the team are committed to our mission statement. We leverage a network of writers, photojournalists and videographers across Asia Pacific. Our writers have extensive experience and are experts in the fields of finance, economics, energy, environment, cleantech, policy, change and corporate social responsibility. Our senior leadership team is guided by our international advisory board, who are global pioneers in the business and sustainability field.
Accolades
2021: Eco-Business won two awards for Best Project for News Literacy at the Asian Digital Media Awards 2021, organised by World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-INFRA).
2020: Eco-Businss was a winner of The Peak Power List 2020 by The Edge.
2020: Eco-Business won two awards for Best native advertising/branded content and Best use of online video at the at the Asian Digital Media Awards by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-INFRA).
2019: Eco-Business won an award for Best Site / Mobile Site at the Asian Digital Media Awards by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-INFRA).
2018: Eco-Business won a Wild Jackson Award for its documentary, From Asia to Antarctica
2013: Eco-Business won won the Lee Foundation Excellence in Environmental Reporting by a Media Organisation Merit Award at the Asian Environmental Journalism Awards.
Self-help services for our community
We enable organisations to publish their jobs, events and research for free on our widely-read jobs board, sustainability events calendar and research microsite.
Press Releases
For a small fee, organisations can also publish their press releases on our platform. These are individually assessed by our team and only press releases that meet our editorial standards and are relevant get published for our wider community.
Advertising and marketing
We work with leading with the world's biggest brands to showcase and promote their brands, solutions, sustainability and ESG efforts to the Eco-Business community. We do this through various channels including advertising and social media campaigns, event coverage, bespoke events, mainstream media engagement and multimedia production.
Branded content studio
We offer a range of high-quality content production services across a range of multi-media formats, including conceptualising of editorial stories, editing, copy-writing, designing and publishing short- and long-form interactive digital stories, podcasts, newsletters, videos and investigative special reports.
Thought leadership initiatives
Eco-Business creates online and offline bespoke thought leadership events and initiatives for its partners and communities throughout the region. We provide multi-level support — from conceptualisation to content production, speaker and partipant curation, to project and event management.
Our strength is in creating a cutting-edge agenda and delivering meaningful content to a room full of targeted delegates that generates impact and action. We also attract coverage for our events from local and international news publications throughout the region. These thought leadership events enable progressive and open dialogue on targeted issues and give our clients vital personal contact with key industry stakeholders, enabling them to build influence and generate business.
Research, advisory and training services
Our research, advisory and training arm offers market research and consulting services that help businesses gain a deeper understanding of their markets and the issues most relevant to them. We also deliver ESG training and strategy sessions to the Boards of listed and private companies around the region. We provide highly-confidential, well-informed advice on strategic business decisions.
Write to us at [email protected] to request our media kit and editorial calendar. | http://www.tiffanys-jewellery.com/index-34.html |
at the School Nutrition Garden ceremony.
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) together with the Ministry of Education hosted a ceremony on Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at Wijerama Maha Vidyalaya in Udahamulla, Nugegoda to highlight the importance of school gardens for child nutrition and life skills. The event took place in the context of the project on “Scaling up Nutrition through a Multi-Sector Approach”, jointly implemented by FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) in collaboration with the Government of Sri Lanka.
Through this project, more than 6000 schools have been inspired to create their own organic and healthy garden within the school grounds. To support each school develops their own garden, FAO together with the Ministry of Education has facilitated a series of training workshops in all nine provinces, training 377 education officers.
|Nina Brandstrup, FAO Representative for Sri Lanka and|
Maldives presents gardening equipment to principals
of 22 schools in the Sri Jayawardenapura Education
zone at the school garden ceremony.
At these comprehensive two-day workshops, education specialists have learned the different aspects of establishing and managing school gardens, from selecting a location and deciding the type of beds to create, to identifying the best tools and equipment. They have also learned about fertilizing, pruning and pest control by utilizing plant extracts and modern technologies. The education specialists have acquired the skills to impart this knowledge to the school community within each province. They have been provided a guideline and manuals which teachers, parents, and children can use in establishing the school garden. As the project includes knowledge about child nutrition, health, and education, it encourages the children to directly apply what they learn in their school gardens and replicates the same healthy habits at home. FAO has distributed gardening tools and resources to participating schools across the island to support the project’s sustainability.
A manual available in both Sinhala and Tamil has been crucial to the success of the initiative and has reached over 300,000 children across the island. In many parts of the country that continue to struggle with food insecurity and undernutrition, this initiative has supported children to take responsibility for their diets and share their learnings with their families and the wider community.
|Priyanthi Chandrasekera, Project Manager-|
Scaling up Nutrition through a Multi-Sector Approach,
FAO plants a tree with a student of Wijerama Maha Vidyalaya.
Speaking at the event, the FAO Representative Nina Brandstrup highlighted school gardens as a key tool in teaching children the value of nutritious organic food and the importance of sustainable lifestyles. “School gardens can be used as a classroom by reconnecting children with the outdoors and the source of their food,” she said. “These gardens teach children about the importance of a balanced diet and nutrition while opening their eyes to new agriculture concepts. The gardens are also encouraging the children to increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables; no one can resist eating what they grew with their own hands!”
The Honorary Consul of Spain, Priyadarshini Jayawardena encouraged the promotion of school gardens to keep children safe and healthy while nurturing future generations to ensure a healthier and better tomorrow. “Gardens are of utmost importance to the development of the country. Well-nourished children are healthier and learn better, have improved opportunities for growth and contribute positively to society,” she said.
Commenting on the programme, Mr. Jayantha Wickramanayake, Director of National Schools said: “This project jointly implemented by the FAO and the Ministry of Education is a good solution to tackle health problems and the lack of awareness about the environment among school children. This programme really takes education beyond the classroom, guiding students to form a relationship with nature. I encourage all principals, teachers, and students to replicate this model in their schools. I have no doubt that this will help to create a healthier generation of youth and contribute towards minimizing the risk of natural disasters in the country with more awareness.”
Brenda Barton, Representative and Country Director of World Food Programme (WFP) highlighted that the school garden initiative ties in with the efforts of WFP to treat undernutrition in Sri Lanka. WFP distributes specialized fortified nutritious food to pregnant and nursing women and children aged between 6 months and 5 years and provides technical support to the Ministry of Health to enhance the impact of Thriposha - a nutritious and locally fortified blended food. “Our aim is to support behavioral changes through enhanced nutrition education and information on safe and nutritious foods, dietary diversity, nutrient deficiencies and their root causes,” she said. WFP also supports the Ministry of Health to conduct national nutrition surveys for pregnant and lactating women and for schoolchildren, to promote the linkage of health, nutrition, and food security as a national development priority.
The event concluded with the distribution of gardening tools to 22 school principals from the Sri Jayawardenapura Education zone of the Western Province, and the planting of a fruit tree followed by a visit to the school garden by guests and the school community.
School gardens are one aspect of the Scaling up Nutrition through a Multi-Sector Approach project, jointly implemented by FAO and WFP in collaboration with the Government of Sri Lanka. The project is part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Fund, an international multi-agency and multi-donor development mechanism created in 2014 by The United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) funded through the Government of Spain. | https://www.elankanews.com/2017/07/fao-and-ministry-of-education-support.html |
- Directorate:
- Children and Families Directorate
- Part of:
- Children and families, Equality and rights, Health and social care
- ISBN:
- 9781787812734
This consultation on meeting the needs of children and families in Scotland was published in April 2018 and invited views on our approach to Welfare Foods following the devolution through the Scotland Act 2016.
Welfare Foods Consultation: Analysis of Responses Summary Report
'Welfare Foods - a consultation on meeting the needs of children and families in Scotland' was published in April 2018 and invited views on the Scottish Government's approach to Welfare Foods following its devolution through the Scotland Act 2016. UK Welfare Foods currently includes: Healthy Start Vouchers, Healthy Start Vitamins, and the Nursery Milk Scheme. The Scottish Government proposes to replace Healthy Start Vouchers with Best Start Foods, administered through a smartcard system. It also proposes to offer free milk to all children in funded and non-funded Early Learning and Childcare ( ELC) provision from 2020.
The consultation consisted of 11 open-ended questions. 147 respondents completed the consultation, including 75 individuals and 72 organisations. A majority of individual responses (58%) were uncategorised, but there were also individual responses from: medical or healthcare professionals (21%); parents or carers (5%); and childminders (4%). Organisational responses included responses from: third sector or community organisations (28%); NHS Boards (22%); Local Authorities (18%); Representative bodies for professionals (6%); and retailers including retailers' representative bodies (4%).
The most common types of organisations that responded
Third sector or community organisations and NHS organisations were most prevalent among organisational responses
These responses have been analysed thematically and qualitatively, although agreement or disagreement in response to questions 7 – 11 has also been quantified.
Responses to the open-ended questions were analysed thematically and qualitatively, but the frequency of themes was recorded to gain a sense of their prevalence across respondents. Whilst not exact, broad frequencies are indicated throughout the text using the following key:
- 'Few' means between 5 and 9%
- 'Some' means between 10 and 19%
- 'Many' means between 20 and 49%
- 'Most' or 'majority' means 50 to 74%
- 'Large majority' or 'broad agreement' means 75 to 89%
- 'Consensus' means 90% or higher.
Questions 7 to 11 did lend themselves to more precise quantification, given that they invited respondents to explicitly express agreement or disagreement. Views on these questions are therefore provided quantitatively as well.
Views on how to increase the awareness and uptake of Best Start Foods
A large majority of respondents suggested a national awareness raising campaign through a range of media, to raise the uptake of Best Start Foods. Suggested media included mainstream media, social media, visual marketing materials, information packs and the use of celebrities or chefs in the campaign. Some participants specifically mentioned the need for this promotion to be done in a partnership between local authorities, the Department for Work and Pensions, the NHS, the Scottish Social Security Agency and the Third Sector. Consistent branding in multiple languages with an emphasis on positive messaging to improve the stigma associated with food vouchers. A large majority of respondents also saw a need to increase awareness of Best Start Foods amongst low income pregnant women and families, as well as the agencies and professionals that work with them regularly.
The role of frontline staff was seen as key for raising awareness and uptake of Best Start Foods – in particular healthcare professionals; early years providers and schools; local authority and third sector welfare rights advisers; and staff working in social care and community roles. Healthcare staff, health visitors and midwives in particular were identified by most respondents. It was felt that training and awareness-raising for frontline staff would cascade down to families and parents.
Some respondents suggested training of frontline staff or having Best Start Champions' or 'embedded workers' in each Local Authority of Health and Social Care Partnership, to promote the scheme to frontline staff. As were options to integrate the application process into health visitor and midwifery appointments, within NHS resources such as 'Ready Steady Baby!', into welfare rights, food poverty and financial inclusion services run by the third sector, and within information sent to schools and ELC providers.
Retailers were also seen as important for promoting awareness and uptake amongst users as the most immediate point of contact with service users. Suggestions for how retailers could be involved included:
- Displaying Best Start Food marketing material and clearly indicating that they accept Best Start Food payments in their shops and on their websites,
- Labelling and offering discounts on Best Start Foods including putting together 'bundles' of eligible foods to the value of a weekly payment
However, it was felt that, for retailers to play this role, they would need to have more information and training on the programme and receive practical support with the promotion.
Creating a positive image around Best Start Foods to help reduce stigma associated food vouchers was seen by many respondents as important. Most respondents welcomed the shift from paper vouchers to smartcards, which they believe carry less stigma and suggested that the design of the Smartcard could further contribute to this. A few respondents mentioned that they welcomed the change in terminology from 'Welfare' Foods to 'Best Start' Foods. Some respondents suggested a universal rather than targeted public education and awareness campaign to normalise the use of the system.
A majority of respondents stated that making the application process as simple as possible was important to increase uptake of the programme. A number suggested that further consideration should be given around language and literacy barriers to engaging with the service. A majority of respondents thought that an automatic enrolment upon confirmation of pregency by healthcare staff with an opt out option would also increase uptake. Many respondents felt that it would be useful to widen the range of staff that can sign off the application form to recognise that other professionals are likely to have regular engagement with parents and families in need. This included allied health professionals, social workers, early years providers and community workers. Some respondents also advocated for removing the need to re-apply when a baby is born to simplify the process.
Some respondents recommended further eligibility for groups such as women with insecure imigration status, women under 20, single women in receipt of Maternity Allowance, families in reciept of Council Tax reduction, and low income families who only marginally exceed the income limit or who have fluctuating incomes.
Views on the smartcard system
There was consensus amongst respondents that for the new smartcard system to work, there needed to be choice about the retail establishments that would accept them, and therefore as many retailers needed to be invovled. Respondents felt that removing the need for retailers to register would help increase choice. There was concern that choice may be limited in smaller and rural areas and for access to retailers without card payment or who were unable to afford the charge for card payments and a long wait time for reimbursement.
In terms of making the system user-friendly, respondents suggested that people should be able to easily check their balance, carry forward unused funds and have easy access to replacement cards for those lost or stolen. Respondents also stressed the importance that they look like bank cards. Respondents suggested that training for retailers may be required to make the system easy to use and that the Scottish Government regularly seek feedback on the system from users, retailers and stakeholders.
Views on the value of support
Many respondents valued the proposed increase in weekly value from £3.10 to £4.25 and widen the range of eligible foods. However, a few respondents felt that the limit was still too low.
Suggestions for a programme to support families establish healthy eating habits
A large marjority of respondents thought that the Scottish Government should go beyond providing payments to support families to establish healthy eating patterns. The recommended activity includes:
- A nationwide campaign around healthy eating for all Scots that brings together the existing campaigns such as Eat Better, Feel Better to ensure a consistent and whole country campaign
- An education programme around healthy eating and cooking which could be run by voluntary and community organisations and supported by retailers providing information on diet and nutrition
- Working on the affordability and easy access to healthier foods which can be prohibitively expensive.
Views on eligibility for children's vitamins
50% of respondents disagreed with the proposal that eligibility to children's vitamins be linked to eligibility for Best Start Foods, compared to 40% who were in favour. Respondents felt that vitamins should be provided universally to all children under three years of age with many respondents wanting to see the eligbility age to increase to five in line with current health guidance.
Views on providing free milk and healthy snacks to all children in funded ELC provision
90% of respondents agreed with the proposal to provide free milk to all children in funded ELC provision from 2020, although many respondents pointed out that dairy-free alternatives should be available. It was also argued that consideration should be given to the funding and provision of the milk offer.
96% of respondents agreed with the proposal to provide a healthy snack to all children in funded ELC provision from 2020. Clarification was sought by many respondents on what constituted a 'healthy snack', and some thought it should be restricted to a portion of fruit or vegetables. Similar comments were made regarding the funding and provision of snacks as with milk.
Although it was not explicitly asked, a large majority of respondents were in favour of providing free milk to children outwith funded ELC provision. It was suggested that this could be administered through: a voucher or smartcard, direct payments to childcare providers (similar to the current UK Nursery Milk System), or by embedding milk for non-funded ELC provision in the wider procurement of milk for childcare providers within each local authority.
A large majority of respondents (83%) were also in favour of providing a healthy snack to children out with funded ELC provision. Comments regarding the definition of a healthy snack were repeated here. The same mechanisms for the provision of milk out with funded ELC provision were suggested.
Conclusions
Overall, respondents were supportive of the proposals included in the consultation document – with the exception of the proposal to link the eligibility of children's vitamins to Best Start Foods, where a majority of respondents felt they should be provided universally.
No significant differences were observed between the positions of individuals and organisations, or between those of different types of organisations.
The responses point to areas that could be explored further by the Scottish Government. These include:
- How to involve frontline staff and retailers – both are seen as key points of contact with families – in both promoting awareness of Best Start Foods and supporting families establish healthy eating habits
- How to include retailers without card payment facilities in the smartcard system
- How to coordinate existing campaigns and projects aimed at supporting families to establish healthy eating habits
- The details of the proposed milk and healthy snack provision to all children in funded ELC provision – in terms of the characteristics of the provision ( e.g. timing and guidance) as well as its funding
- The merits and drawbacks of the three main options proposed to provide milk and healthy snacks to children out with funded ELC provision.
A common theme that was observed across responses was the wish by different respondent categories to be involved in further conversations around these issues. These include, particularly, childcare providers, local authorities, retailers and third sector or community organisations. Many respondents explicitly offered their support in the future development of these proposals.
Another common theme was the possibilities offered by technology and how to best harness them. The move from paper vouchers to a smartcard was seen very positively by respondents. Social media and smartphone technology also featured prominently in responses – as a way of engaging parents and families, collecting feedback and impact data, or even as a means to make Best Start Foods payments. | https://www.gov.scot/publications/welfare-foods-consultation-meeting-needs-children-families-scotland-consultation-summary/ |
Youth Cop26: young people are central to changing the food system
Demographics and the data collected by various scholars show that interest in a healthy and sustainable diet is growing among the youngest in society, but it must also be supported by education on these topics and information that reinforces environmental protection values.
Current demographics, viewed from our rapidly aging countries, does not appear to favor the young. Globally, however, things are different. According to data from the International Fund for Agricultural Development - IFAD 2019 Creating Opportunities for Rural Youth report, the current generation of young people is the largest that humanity has ever had and most of them now live in middle to low income countries in Asia and Africa,
which is why the interests and habits of this generation are so important: they are all entitled to live a long and stable life, a complex goal in a period of ecological stress due to climate change, further worsened by the pandemic crisis.
“The life stories of this generation and their children will mark and strongly influence the economic, social and political development of the coming decades. Their lives will reflect the success or failure of humanity in the transition to a development that is environmentally more sustainable and socially fairer”, write Dominic Glover and James Sumberg of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, UK, in a long article dedicated to young people and food systems published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.
Opportunities and risks of youth inflation
Young people have re-emerged in recent years as a central element of politics, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
One of the main reasons for this is the increase in the percentage of young people in the populations of countries where infant and child mortality rates have decreased significantly due to a general improvement in quality of life (a phenomenon known as “youth inflation”), while fertility rates have remained high because changes in social structures and family roles have been slower.
Out of a total population of 1.2 billion people classified by the UN as young (15-24 years old), nearly one billion are in developing countries, but the challenge of youth inflation is largely concentrated in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa which, according to the IFAD 2019 report, recorded the lowest levels of transformation of agricultural production and rural life, as well as of national economic production structures.
Young people, says IFAD, present both an opportunity and a challenge for the poorest countries. On the one hand they bring energy, health and ambition, as well as new prospects to drive economic development. On the other, they have justified economic and social demands that can destabilize subsistence economies, which are accustomed, when they can, to producing what is strictly required for physical subsistence.
In 2014, FAO was already promoting the mobilization of young generations of food producers and consumers as potential innovators and entrepreneurs, as well as political actors, to transform food systems. But that is not enough.
“Although the action of individuals and groups can shape food systems to some extent, especially at the very local level, the highly connected and integrated nature of contemporary food requires interventions that go beyond the individual. Changes in the composition of global food stocks and diets in recent decades are a good example of what I am saying”, Glover and Sumberg continue.
International trade, for example, has diversified the range of foods available to consumers: the global food supply and the diets of many consumers are becoming increasingly standardized in different parts of the world, and young people, attentive to global trends, are the protagonists of this change in what is put on the table, for better or worse.
It is therefore important for younger people to understand that, while the world of food production celebrates the increasing amount of choice, especially in rich countries, for the vast majority of humanity choosing what to produce, what to consume and where to get it is often hard. In the complex modern food production system, individuals, and in particular young people, therefore have a specific role to play in educating people and modifying their individual habits to make healthy and sustainable food choices, influencing fashions and the way food is eaten to ensure that the choices which are most appropriate for the planet become cool and attractive.
More information and education
In order to do this, however, they need to be more informed than they often are about this specific area of public discussion related to climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals. A survey conducted by IPSOS on behalf of the Barilla Foundation and ASviS on a sample of 800 young people between the ages of 14 and 27 shows that, among Italians, there is a willingness to fight the battle to reduce the human impact on climate change but there is a lack of awareness of the strategies that need to be implemented to achieve results.
Young people know little about the Sustainable Development Goals and, above all, they are unaware of the extent to which agricultural production and the food they consume impact on their achievement.
Only 1 in 3 of those who those who know about sustainability, think that the well-being of the planet also depends on what we put on our plates: which is a pity if you think that in actual fact agricultural production is responsible for 24% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Only one awareness emerges among young people, which is that reducing food waste is the most important sustainable behavior to adopt. In fact, 50% of them think so.
According to the data collected, 44% of young Italians are uninformed about politics, current affairs and economics, and only 15% are attentive and constantly informed. And in fact, as often happens even among older ones, the young tend to associate sustainability with environmental aspects alone, while the equally important themes of sustainability associated with the economy (13%), society (9%), food and nutrition (9%) remain in the background.
The lack of information correlates directly with general behavior and the different everyday attitudes to food waste and sustainable food choices: attentive young people and informed young people tend to prefer products from sustainable agriculture, always reading food labels carefully and constantly striving to avoid wasting water.
However, even those who are best at following good rules of behavior and a nutritionally balanced diet, still lack a holistic view of what food sustainability means. Among the 14-15 year olds, less than a third have learned the concept of sustainability, but the percentage tends to increase with age and is just over 50% among the older ones (24-27 year olds).
45% of the sample who know the subject well or at least superficially received information from school or university, while in the 24-27 age group the main source is the media, and in particular the web and newspapers.
Ideal tension
In fact, being familiar with the SDGs is not a sufficient condition for young people to consider it an urgent duty to act now. What makes the difference, however, is the sense of involvement in taking charge of the problem, regardless of any qualified knowledge of the issue.
When we are young, our lives usually involve making major lifestyle changes, which can affect our eating habits and diets: this is the time when food choices can be influenced in a positive or negative direction by families, peer groups and schools. This is why it is important to act in these three areas to increase awareness of healthy and sustainable nutrition among young people.
A study conducted by Audra Balundé of the University of Groeningen in the Netherlands and published in Frontiers in Psychology at the end of 2020 sought to shed light on the psychological mechanisms that induce younger people to adopt environmentally friendly behaviors.
“Values are the general goals or ideals of people that guide their behavior in life. Four values have proved important in explaining people’s respectful behavior towards the Planet: taking care of nature and the environment, taking care of others (what we might call altruism), taking care of one's personal resources (selfishness) and hedonistic values (i.e. seeking pleasure and comfort)”, explains Balundé. “But the first of these, namely care of nature and the environment, is the most important in terms of its impact on practical behavior in the lives of young people. Those who share these values choose more often not to waste, to recycle, to save water and so on. This has important ramifications for policy, because previous studies show that if we want young people who are attentive to environmental problems we need to explain to them how the environment, and the science behind its conservation, work. We need to do this in schools and learning environments, but not only. We also need to do it through information channels and the tools typically used by that age group, hence the web and social media”.
But how important is it for young people to put the rules of a health and sustainable diet into practice? One answer comes from a study published by Nicole Larson in Public Health Nutrition in 2019, in the context of the Eat (Eating and Activity among Teens and Young Adults) Project, which compared the answers to a questionnaire about eating habits among a group of young people in 2003-2004 and 2015-2016. “We saw increasing awareness of these issues”, explains Larson. “While in the first survey only 8.1% of respondents felt it was important to cultivate organically, in the second survey this was essential for 26.9% of the sample. Eating less processed food was important for 11.3% of young people in the early 2000s and for 37% 15 years later. As for eating locally grown food, the percentage increased from 8.3% to 30.9%”. It is even more reassuring to see that awareness has also led to behavioral changes: the number of meals prepared at home has increased, food is chosen more carefully and waste reduced.
These are important percentages as they show that change is already taking place among the young and how institutions, schools and the media need to make greater efforts to deliver a loud and clear message to all young people that the right food choices are good for the environment as well as their health.
We have new updates, research and projects for you all the time!
Keep following our analysis on sustainable development and find out more about relationship between food, health and the environment. | https://www.barillacfn.com/en/magazine/food-and-sustainability/youth-cop26-young-people-are-central-to-changing-the-food-system/ |
When we think about sustainability and our future on this planet, it’s easy to focus on the environment and the impacts our current lives have on it. However, the United Nations (UN) defines sustainability as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future across three key pillars: people, the planet, and the economy. Therefore, to have a truly sustainable future, we must also consider the two other pillars of sustainability – economic viability and social equity.
Without healthy, happy, and thriving people and communities, we cannot solve the challenges that the world faces today, from climate change to food insecurity and social injustices.
Take, for example, the role of women and girls in society. There are inequalities in the access and quality of education for woman and girls, compared with men and boys. Compounding this, women and girls are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Educated and empowered women and girls are powerful agents of change, and without them it will not be possible to achieve any of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Stepping FORWARD
As a communications agency that prioritises sustainable development within our own organisation, we feel that it’s important to use our skills as communications experts to also support causes outside of our organisation that support sustainable development.
In February 2021, FORWARD (Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development) and the University of Huddersfield, UK, published a report based on new research conducted in Bristol, which documented how the targeted measures put in place in the UK to safeguard girls against female genital mutation (FGM) may in some cases be undermining the welfare of the women and young girls they aim to protect.
The calls to action
The research revealed how members of African diaspora communities are feeling racially profiled, criminalised, and stigmatised, and are increasingly reluctant to interact with professionals or access healthcare services out of fear of being scrutinised. Professionals in health and social care, teachers and the police echo those concerns and say they are increasingly witnessing distrust and disconnection from the communities they work with.
The report proposed a series of recommendations to address FGM in a more inclusive and compassionate way in Bristol and on a national level within the UK.
Whilst the report was aimed at policymakers and multi-agency professionals, FORWARD also wanted to engage and mobilise the African diaspora community itself, and concurrently launched a broader campaign to extend the reach of the report’s recommendations.
FORWARD’s objective for the report launch and associated campaign was to:
- Increase awareness of FGM and the failings of the UK’s current safeguarding policies
- Build advocacy and mobilise action to address FGM in a more compassionate and inclusive way across a multi-stakeholder audience
AXON worked with FORWARD on a pro bono basis to help them to achieve these objectives.
What we did
Through close collaboration with the incredible team at FORWARD, we used insights to craft a strong, cohesive campaign narrative, to ensure it resonated with the multi-stakeholder audiences that FORWARD were trying to reach, taking them on a journey from awareness to engagement and ultimately to advocacy and action.
We then employed a multi-channel, individualised, and targeted approach to reach the different audiences in the right places, in the right formats and at the right time with the right messages.
Stepping FORWARD together, we were able to increase awareness through coverage in global, national, and regional media outlets, including an exclusive online and print story in The Guardian; coverage in The Voice – the only British national black newspaper; and discussion within Media Diversity Institute – an international group working to promote media and information literacy, combat disinformation and facilitate responsible coverage of diversity issues.
We engaged with influential voices in FGM and female empowerment – in particular, those who influence communities impacted by FGM, as well as stakeholders in safeguarding and policy decision-makers.
We also built advocacy and mobilised action through compelling and challenging discussions online, including engagement from Munira Wilson (MP and Lib Dem speaker for health, wellbeing, and social care), councillor Kalthum O Rivers and Labour MP Sarah Champion. The report was also published on the NHS NICE safeguarding evidence website and The National Police library, which was a testament to the reach and impact of the campaign.
Our social media campaign focussed on education, empowerment and advocacy and saw some of the best performing social media content ever posted by FORWARD. An Instagram and Facebook filter were developed to enable users to showcase their support for the campaign and to build conversations and awareness online.
Watch the video below to see some of the highlights from the campaign:
A word from FORWARD
‘’We are delighted to have worked with AXON on this campaign and to see the achievement it has made. The campaign allowed us to bring our evidence research to life through powerful and compelling messaging – not only ensuring that the voices of the African diaspora communities are heard, but also garnering action and support for our cause. Working with AXON, we’ve gained significant public attention via media coverage, and opened invaluable conversations with key influencers, from policymakers, to multi-agency professionals, to diaspora communities themselves. The campaign has been a stepping stone on our advocacy journey in reaching our ultimate goal for the re-examination of FGM safeguarding policies and procedures across the UK.’’ Amy Abdelshahid, Head of Evidence and Knowledge Management, FORWARD.
What can you do as an individual or an organisation?
We believe that, as members of the healthcare sector, we have a responsibility to take steps to protect the health of current and future generations, minimise environmental impacts, and facilitate social justice.
We need to step FORWARD together, as one, to address all three pillars of sustainability. Only then will we be able to ensure a sustainable, healthy, and happy future for all. Perhaps there may be opportunities to support organisations such as FORWARD, which are striving to empower women and girls.
Diversity is having a seat at the table,
inclusion is having a voice,
and belonging is having that voice be heard.
To find out more about FORWARD, please see https://www.forwarduk.org.uk/, and to hear more about AXON and how our Sustainability Group can support you, please get in touch at [email protected]. | https://axon-com.com/stepping-forward-a-campaign-to-build-advocacy-and-mobilise-action-to-end-violence-against-women-and-girls/ |
Hosted by the Commonwealth Club, the event featured three Bay Area-based reporters and editors who write about agriculture for regional or nationwide audiences.
The discussion provided insights into how the reporters view their work, and into the overall interest in agricultural reporting itself: The seminar attracted a nearly full-house audience of about 80 people on a Wednesday night.
It also underlined the continuing importance of Farm Bureau’s efforts to reach out to members, reporters and the general audience through all forms of media.
The moderator of the panel discussion, KQED Radio reporter/anchor Rachael Myrow, described the agriculture beat as “the intersection between fashion, health and politics.”
The panelists agreed, noting how agricultural news can be classified as a business story, an environmental story, a cultural story.
“Every story is an agricultural story,” said Andy Wright, deputy editor of Modern Farmer, which produces a quarterly publication and daily website updates aimed at an audience she described as young, urban and aspirational.
Where do they find story ideas? The reporters said they talk to farmers at farmers markets, talk to chefs, scan trade publications and websites, and listen to story pitches from farmers and people in the food business.
“Farmers are getting a lot more media savvy,” Wright said. “They’re on Facebook and Twitter. They understand the importance of connecting.”
Naomi Starkman of Civil Eats—a Web-based news service that says it aims to “shift the conversation around sustainable agriculture in an effort to build economically and socially just communities”—called social-media tools “essential” to promoting stories, and encouraged farmers to hire someone on their staff who does social media and other outreach as a part of their job.
Myrow noted that much of the current reporting on agriculture focuses on “small, niche” farms.
“Are too many publications chasing the foodies instead of informing the general public about their food?” she asked.
“What’s unproductive,” Wright responded, “is to pit big ag vs. small agriculture. What’s more important is to focus on what’s working.”
During part of the program devoted to audience questions, the panelists were asked if they consider themselves to have a mission to try to change people’s behavior.
Tara Duggan, a food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, said she considered it her mission to “understand what readers are most interested in,” which, in her case, tended to be topics such as nutrition and sustainability.
In her case, Wright said, “I don’t know that it’s my role as a journalist to promote one way of eating vs. another. My role is to get stories to as wide an audience as possible.”
Duggan noted that writing for a general-interest publication such as the Chronicle presents challenges in presenting stories about farming and environmental topics. For example, she said, “With the California drought, I feel people have reached the saturation point, even though it’s a really important story.”
As the event’s organizers pointed out, the agriculture beat was once a key area of coverage for large media outlets but, as the staffs of mainstream media outlets have shrunk, agricultural reporting has been dispersed among writers who regularly handle business stories, environmental stories or general-assignment reporting.
Still, there’s significant interest in stories about farming and food among both the general media and the specialty publications, websites, blogs and other outlets that have proliferated in the last few years.
We’ve seen that here at the California Farm Bureau, where we respond to more than 450 news media inquiries a year. During 2014, driven by interest in the impact of drought on farmers and ranchers, we have spoken with reporters from throughout California and the nation, as well as to media outlets from Canada, Germany, Switzerland, France, Japan, Singapore and Australia.
For Farm Bureau, communicating with members and the non-farm audience has always been a core function, using all forms of media. That’s why, for example, stories from Ag Alert® appear not only in the newspaper, but online and as Facebook posts and tweets, as well.
Our California Bountiful® television program—produced for a non-farm audience—can be found on the air and also online and on YouTube. The TV program and California Bountiful magazine also reach out to general audiences via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
None of the outreach that Farm Bureau does would be possible without the support and cooperation of Farm Bureau members, who give of their time to talk to reporters from our media outlets and from other television, radio, newspaper and online news media every day.
As the San Francisco event showed, people are interested in what farmers and ranchers do, how they do it, and why. Only by telling their stories themselves can farmers and ranchers assure that others don’t tell their stories for them. | https://californiaagtoday.com/tag/andy-wright/ |
Conflict cuisines examine the nexus of food and war. It includes the practice of culinary diplomacy and gastrodiplomacy by governments and citizens of countries that have experienced war or conflicts.
There are two forms of conflict cuisines:
- Food in zones of conflict, which includes issues of access to food, food security and the impact in the field of fighting on existing food supply and provisioning of goods to markets.
- Foods of diaspora populations that transfer their national foodways to new countries, creating an extension of their culture through their cuisine.
Culinary Diaspora
Diaspora communities that transfer their national foodways to new countries as an extension of their culture. Immigrants use their food culture as a means of creating a new life in their adopted country – both as a way of remembering their homeland and to earn a living.
Source: Is the Kitchen the New Venue of Foreign Policy? Johanna Mendelson Forman (2016)
Culinary Diplomacy
The use of food and cuisine as an instrument to create cross cultural understanding in the hopes of improving interaction and cooperation. Food becomes a tool to persuade, cajole and convince. It is one of the older forms of soft power used by states.
Source: Sam Chapple-Sokol
Culinary Memory
How subtly and substantially food, which is so central to the sustenance of our lives and the most natural manifestation of our humanness, affirms our cultural identity and our ethnicity and is associated with our significant social relationships.
Source: La Trecchia (2012)
Diaspora Chefs
Chefs who transfer their national foodways to new countries as an extension of their culture.
Source: Is the Kitchen the New Venue of Foreign Policy? Johanna Mendelson Forman (2016)
Gastrodiplomacy
A form of public diplomacy that uses citizens to promote food and cuisines of a country. Today, food is also being used to promote national agendas for tourism and to help create livelihoods for refugees in new homelands through training in the food sector. Food trucks and restaurants that use the cuisines of different nationalities in cities across the globe are also being used as gastrodiplomacy. In short, gastrodiplomacy leverages the power of the kitchen as a venue for foreign policy that’s beyond the control of the state.
Gastronationalism
The use of food production, distribution and consumption to demarcate and sustain the emotive power of national attachment, as well as the use of nationalist sentiments to produce and market food.
Source: DeSoucey (2010)
Gastromediation
The application and channeling of the positive emotional, cognitive and physical feelings evoked by food and eating so as to arbitrate conflicts, overcome differences, facilitate intervention and sustain positive resolution.
Source: Avieli (2016)
Nation-Branding
A form of gastrodiplomacy that involves branding a nation’s culinary culture for the purpose of promoting tourism, trade or to gain greater public awareness of certain products.
Social Gastronomy
Using the power of food and gastronomy to address social inequality, improve nutrition, educate consumers about healthy diets and engage chefs in using their skills to do social good. The goal of social Gastronomy is to create a better, more inclusive and peaceful world.
Source: Is the Kitchen the New Venue of Foreign Policy? Johanna Mendelson Forman (2016)
Sustainable Development Goals
The United Nation’s blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. The Goals set in the blueprint address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity and peace and justice. The Goals interconnect and in order to leave no one behind it is important to achieve them by 2030.
World Food Program (WFP)
The leading humanitarian organization saving and changing lives, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. As part of the United Nations, the WFP implements the Sustainable Development Goals and is committed to Goal 2 which pledges to end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030.
Food Security
The state in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. | http://www.conflictcuisine.com/resources/dictionary-of-terms/ |
January 29 2014 Connecting with your child in the garden, in the kitchen and throughout the seasons.
Connecting with your child in the garden, in the kitchen and throughout the seasons.
Last October at the Melbourne University’s Festival of Ideas I attended a keynote presentation called“Developing a Love of Seasonal Fresh Produce from Childhood”. The talk looked at kitchen gardens, children’s eating environments in the school and food environments at home. Stephanie Alexander – founder of the Kitchen Garden Program (now in over 300 schools in Australia) – talked about the importance of positive modelling as one of the most powerful ways we influence our children and how kitchen gardens promote positive social behaviour, cultural awareness and social inclusion.
As a Mum and Naturopath/Nutritionist I am fascinated by the way in which kitchen and community gardens can bring about positive social change and positively influence eating behaviours. Gardening is a great way to engage in the wonders of nature, stop to watch the grass grow and ground the senses. I have fond memories of my son age 2 being a tiger in the grass and slowly sneaking up to ‘pounce’ on a broccoli plant devouring it fresh off the plant, raw and alive, or popping peas from the pod in the backyard straight into his mouth (before we ever had the chance to cook any!). Gardening is one of many activities young children can easily help out with enjoying spending time digging in the dirt, carrying pea straw or watering the garden. Not only do kids enjoy these sensual activities but they are also more willing to try new vegies particularly if they help choose things from the garden and get involved in making colourful, tasty dishes.
Good food modelling at home is sets the foundation for proper eating habits as our children grow into healthy young adults. Tastes and eating habits are shaped in early childhood and therefore it is important your child experiences as wide a variety of tastes as possible. This develops a healthy palate for your child’s and means they will be less attracted to calorie dense empty industrial food in the future.
Learning to cook and garden at a young age also ensures a certain degree of self-reliance and less dependency on pre-packaged and/or restaurant foods. Cook with your child, appreciate the things they cook for you (even if sometimes it may not be exactly what you had in mind) and enjoy the colourful plates a variety of fruit and vegetables brings into your lives. Use these experiences to talk to children and get them thinking about where food comes from and the benefits of seasonal eating verses a globalised food supply. Our children’s connection to food culture and nature has been heavily influenced by the industrial age and we need to arm our kids with knowledge one seed at a time.
If you don’t have the space to grow your own food you can still plant a few pots of herbs and focus on fun, messy kitchen activities or make a point of making the majority of the food in your home fresh, local, and seasonal. Get local, seasonal fruit and veggie boxes or visit farmers markets which support local farmers and reduce food miles while ensuring the freshest produce possible. Alternatively keep your eye out for your local community garden or join forces with a neighbour.
The joys of gardening and cooking together with your kids are the days you will look back upon and smile. | https://parentsvoice.org.au/2014/01/connecting-with-your-child-in-the-garden-in-the-kitchen-and-throughout-the-seasons-2/ |
As part of the campaign, talks on social media platforms will be held. Special information kiosks will also be set up on the PGI campus (OPD area and Nehru hospital). The visitors will be screened for hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol with free consultations. Apart from an awareness drive in the Panjab University and in various colleges, interactive sessions focusing on stroke health will also be held in NINE and PGIMER.
Dr Vivek Lal, head of department of neurology, PGIMER, said, “We should get more involved in active living and healthy food habits to stay away from diseases like hypertension, diabetes, obesity and cholesterol.” Dr Dheeraj Khurana, professor, department of neurology, PGIMER, stressed upon the importance of spreading awareness among the public about stroke and how it can be prevented by adapting a few changes in the lifestyle. | https://media4pillar.com/befast-now-mantra-brain-stroke-patients/ |
Where have all the diners gone?
Controlling Costs
Ensuring Food Safety
Food Pricing Database
Generating Revenue
Managing Staff
Advice Squad
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Oct. 17, 2014
California district serves up farm-fresh food
The Turlock Unified School District has been a leader in ditching bad cafeteria fare in favor of items with less fat and salt and more vitamins and fiber.
Oct. 16, 2014
Vermont hospitals prescribe farm-fresh food
Part community-supported agriculture, part doctor's orders, the program is free for patients who have been recommended by their physicians...
Oct. 16, 2014
Halal food now available at Princeton dining halls
Halal food is now available on a rotational basis in the residential college dining halls. So far, halal food has been offered two or three times a week in one dining hall each day, although a fixed...
Oct. 16, 2014
Cafeteria face-lifts increase participation by 20%
Decorative lighting, digital menu boards, and tv's. These are just some of the things you'll see in several cafeterias in Palm Beach County schools cafeterias these days, not to mention...
Oct. 16, 2014
David Burke coming to William & Mary
William & Mary Dining Services will welcome Chef David Burke to campus Wednesday to take over Chancellor’s Bistro.
Oct. 15, 2014
School directors take trip overseas to learn healthy eating tips
A team of officials from the United States visited a French primary school on Tuesday looking for tips to promote healthy eating from a lesson teaching children how to appreciate good food.
Oct. 15, 2014
Alabama latest university to cut polystyrene containers
Campus dining halls no longer use polystyrene containers, and dining hall consumers who wish to use a to-go option will have to purchase a reusable container.
Oct. 15, 2014
Jose Andres details plans for fast-casual venture at colleges
Celebrity chef Jose Andres will open the prototype of his eagerly awaited fast-casual bowl concept, Beefsteak, this spring on the campus of George Washington University, the Washington, D.C., college...
Oct. 15, 2014
Hospitals dig into sustainable seafoods
Hospitals' economic activity represents close to 18 percent of the gross domestic product, meaning their purchasing could be a driving force in the sustainable food movement, says Pryor...
Oct. 15, 2014
Russell Medical Center closes cafeteria for renovation
The hospital will have the kitchen open to feed patients and offer a few carry out items for employees, but will have no dining for the public.
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FSD’s annual culinary event for noncommercial foodservice operations. | http://www.foodservicedirector.com/industry-news-opinion/news?page=156&quicktabs_most_viewed_tabby=1 |
Monday 16th December 2019 – A new survey carried out in Pune, India, shows that citizens are finding their food environment increasingly unhealthy. More than 60% agreed that unhealthy street food should be banned, and 70% wanted fruit and vegetables to be more affordable.
The sample survey was conducted with over 3,000 adults in Pune by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) auxilliary nurses, and was led by the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. It explored eating habits and understandings of healthy diets among people in Pune, as well as gathering citizens’ views on how policy makers in the city should make it easier for everyone to eat well.
Having takeaway food delivered to the home proved to be extremely popular. On average, Pune citizens use online delivery platforms to order food 1.6 times a week, with 61% using them one-three times a week and 11% using them four-10 times weekly.
Unhealthy food products are widely consumed by citizens when they eat out of the home. Over the last week:
- 39% had drunk sweet beverages (e.g. tea and coffee with high sugar content)
- 34% had eaten fried snacks such as wadapavs and samosas
- 25% had eaten Indian fast food (for example missals, pav bhajis or Indian Chinese)
- And only 14% had eaten fruit (or drunk fruit juice).
For low socioeconomic groups price is the most important driver for food choice, with healthy options being the fourth most significant consideration. For high socio-economic groups, price doesn’t feature at all in the top four drivers of food choice, which are healthy options, quality, taste and brand. Whether food is organic or not is the least important factor for all groups.
When asked how policy makers could make healthy diets more accessible and affordable, Pune citizens called for bold action to shape a healthier food environment in the city:
- 61% want unhealthy street food to be banned.
- 69% want fruit and vegetables to be more affordable
- 72% want more healthy eating in school curriculums
- 66% want tastier Anganwadi Centre take home rations
- 59% want more promotions of healthy street food.
The Gokhale Institute’s survey was undertaken as part of the Birmingham India Nutrition Initiative (BINDI). BINDI is a learning partnership between Birmingham City Council, UK, and Pune Municipal Corporation, India, facilitated by the Food Foundation. It involves the development of policies and practices as part of the ‘Food Smart City’ initiative. Birmingham and Pune have a common ambition to seize opportunities to support safer, healthier and more sustainable city food environments which prevent malnutrition in all its forms (overweight, obesity, micronutrient deficiencies and undernutrition). The focus of the partnership is on policies regarding food prepared out of the home – to encourage the food which is available and promoted is safe, nutritious, affordable and procured in a manner which supports environmental sustainability and local economic development.
Birmingham City Council has developed a parallel survey that is currently running online to gather learnings about citizens’ out of home eating behaviours in Birmingham.
Saurabh Rao, Municipal Commissioner, Pune Municipal Corporation, said: “The Birmingham India Nutrition Initiative involves the development of policies and practices through a learning partnership between Pune and Birmingham, UK, with a view to both cities becoming Nutrition Smart Cities. The goal of this initiative is tackling all forms of malnutrition and encouraging healthy food habits. Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is taking several initiatives to enhance the awareness about the importance of nutrition to the citizens and support to live healthy lives. We will be reviewing the findings of this survey and using it to form our policies going forward. I would like to thank the citizens who actively participated and provided thoughtful suggestions. We believe this initiative is in line with PMC step to ensure sustainable food systems and improved nutrition in the city.”
Anna Taylor, Executive Director of the Food Foundation, said: “We know that poor diets are the biggest cause of premature death globally. India is one of the world’s largest countries and a huge growing economy: its cities will be no exception, but we know very little about how citizens are eating. Policy makers can be highly effective in tackling diet-related illness if they intervene early before the issue becomes unmanageable, and this survey demonstrates that Indian cities have the chance to get ahead of the curve. Overweight, obesity, type 2 diabetes rates and associated health inequalities have reached crisis point in the UK, but Pune could lead the way if officials act now, and Britain could learn from the solutions that emerge in India.”
Councillor Paulette Hamilton, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health, Birmingham City Council, said: “Working with Pune is an important global partnership for Birmingham. Our work together is helping both cities to create healthier food systems to make it easier for people to grow, buy, cook and eat food in a healthier and more sustainable way. We have learnt from Pune’s survey to develop our Birmingham Food Conversation survey and by working in parallel we can start to understand the international context of food beliefs and behaviours. We know that many of our citizens have friends and family in India, and vice versa, and by working together we can better understand how this could be influencing people’s beliefs and behaviours as well as sharing between the cities technical and programme approaches to create healthier food systems in our cities.”
Notes to Editor
Please contact:
Pandora Haydon – 07789 712608 / [email protected]
Social Media
Twitter: @Food_Foundation
#BINDI
About the Food Foundation
The Food Foundation is an independent organisation working to influence food policy and business practice, shaping a sustainable food system which makes healthy diets affordable and accessible for all. We work in partnership with researchers, campaigners, community bodies, industry, investors, government and citizens to galvanise the UK’s diverse agents of change, using surprising and inventive ideas to drive fundamental shifts in our food system. These efforts are based on the continual re-evaluation of opportunities for action, building and synthesising strong evidence, convening powerful coalitions, harnessing citizens’ voices and delivering impactful communications.
About the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics
Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, established in 1930 by the Servants of India Society, is the oldest research and training institute in Economics in the country. It is dedicated to research into the socio-economic dimensions of the Indian society, and carries forward the legacy of Gopal Krishna Gokhale who founded the Servants of India Society in 1905 with a view to promote education and develop capabilities among Indians for the governance of the nation after it had attained its political independence. The Institute is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950. Over the decades, the Institute has established strong credentials in empirical and analytical research. In recognition of its contribution to higher learning and research in Economics, the Institute was awarded the status of institution Deemed to be University, in 1993. | https://www.tastingindiasymposium.com/birmingham-pune-survey-exposes-unhealthy-diet-choices-of-citizens/ |
What sort of society could bind together Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau--and Daniel Levin Becker, a young American obsessed with language play? Only the Oulipo, the Paris-based experimental collective founded in 1960 and fated to become one of literature's quirkiest movements.
An international organization of writers, artists, and scientists who embrace formal and procedural constraints to achieve literature's possibilities, the Oulipo (the French acronym stands for "workshop for potential literature") is perhaps best known as the cradle of Georges Perec's novel A Void, which does not contain the letter e. Drawn to the Oulipo's mystique, Levin Becker secured a Fulbright grant to study the organization and traveled to Paris. He was eventually offered membership, becoming only the second American to be admitted to the group. From the perspective of a young initiate, the Oulipians and their projects are at once bizarre and utterly compelling. Levin Becker's love for games, puzzles, and language play is infectious, calling to mind Elif Batuman's delight in Russian literature in The Possessed.
In recent years, the Oulipo has inspired the creation of numerous other collectives: the OuMuPo (a collective of DJs), the OuMaPo (marionette players), the OuBaPo (comic strip artists), the OuFlarfPo (poets who generate poetry with the aid of search engines), and a menagerie of other Ou-X-Pos (workshops for potential something). Levin Becker discusses these and other intriguing developments in this history and personal appreciation of an iconic--and iconoclastic--group.
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Many Subtle Channels is both an account of a glorious chapter in the history of wordplay and an equally glorious example of wordplay at work. Its author is very, very smart, but because he's so witty and so playful, his intelligence feels friendly rather than formidable. Remember the name Daniel Levin Becker: you will be hearing it again.--Anne Fadiman
A remarkable and accessible first book. [Levin Becker's] worthy subject is OuLiPo (Ouvrioir de Littérature Potentielle), which translates as Workshop for Potential Literature. Founded in 1960, OuLiPo counts among its past members such luminaries as Italo Calvino and Georges Perec. Other writers, though famous in Europe, are unknown here, but Levin Becker's account may change that. Serious about their fun, Oulipians do not take themselves too seriously; Levin Becker, only the second American member, doesn't either. In this rare alloy of autobiography, biography, history, humor, meditation, ode, shaggy-dog story, and treatise, readers will discover a book that arouses an appetite for a type of knowledge one didn't know one needed. The definition of "potential literature": "It's what you get when you go looking in language for meanings that aren't there, and find them anyway." As Levin Becker exemplifies, to delight and instruct is a purpose not limited to literature; it seems to be a way to live.-- (04/15/2012)
In this intimate and informative book, Levin Becker explores the history of Oulipo (short for Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature), easily one of the most bizarre and charming literary movements of the 20th century. Claiming Italo Calvino, George Perec, Marcel Duchamp, and Raymond Queneau among its members, Oulipo is best known for its exploration of new and seemingly impossible literary forms...Originally tasked with organizing Oulipo's extensive archives, Levin Becker finds himself gradually inducted into the inner workings of the group before eventually being offered membership into the prestigious collective. From this unique position, Levin Becker excavates the movement's history from its creation in 1960 by an assemblage of French writers, mathematicians and eccentrics, to its present-day iteration...As he delves further into the past and methodology of Oulipo, Levin Becker's palpable enthusiasm for potential literature becomes infectious. One finishes this book not only with an appreciation for Levin Becker's prose and Oulipian literature, but also with an urge to attempt it.-- (04/06/2012)
Many Subtle Channels is Levin Becker's personal history of this literature and his tribute to the people who helped create it, including [Georges] Perec, Jacques Roubaud, Italo Calvino, and Marcel Duchamp...Levin Becker gets Oulipian obsessiveness on a gut level, and his delight in palindromes and lipograms (texts that, like the Perec novel [La Disparition], are entirely devoid of a particular letter) vividly comes to life in his writing. But the book's most revelatory moments come when Levin Becker suggests that this obsessiveness comes hand in hand with a deep need for guidance. Perec once said that "the intense difficulty posed by this sort of production.....palls in comparison to the terror I would feel in writing 'poetry' freely." The constraints the Oulipians place on themselves and on each other are by nature arbitrary. Sometimes, the texts end up tricking unwitting reviewers--one unsuspecting critic missed the conceit of La Disparition completely and panned the novel for being "stilted"--but mischief, writes Levin Becker, isn't really the point. Oulipian texts existed for decades before the collective was formed and will likely continue even if the collective disbands. Random as Oulipian practices may seem, they actually embody one of the most fundamental challenges that all writers face--to test and push the boundaries of language.-- (05/01/2012)
Essentially an account of the life and times of the Oulipo group, a Paris-based coalition of writers, mathematicians and artists that was set up in 1960 with the express intention of making life difficult for its members and readers. The clue to the real nature of the group is in "Oulipo"--which, when unpacked, stands for Ouvroir de la littérature potentielle, or Workshop for Potential Literature. This is meant to describe the practice of Oulipo members, who deliberately set themselves constraints on their writing. These can include palindromes, lipograms (excluding one or more letters), the snowball (a poem in which the first line is a single word, the second two words, and so on) and other myriad forms of self-imposed difficulty. The big idea is that if you set off to write, let's say, a short story by deliberately forcing yourself to replace every seventh noun in the text with the seventh noun after it in the dictionary then you are bound to end up somewhere unexpected. Hence the term "potential literature." From this point of view, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that this is no more than a particularly mirthless form of linguistic trickiness for its own sake; a kind of highbrow Gallic version of Scrabble or indeed the quiz show Countdown. This book admirably demonstrates that this is not the case...The book is a sheer delight. Levin Becker warns us that Oulipo is not for everybody, and he makes it clear that his book will be a largely uncritical and unashamed homage to the group. He admires them so much he ends up joining them (becoming only the second American member). But most importantly he is a sharp-witted guide to the most obscure details of Oulipo activity. Above all, he emphasizes that this is not merely an eccentric offshoot of Surrealism. Rather, he describes the Oulipians as scientists in a laboratory--they experiment endlessly, preferring no conclusion to false certainty, especially the false certainties of literature in a didactic or imperative mood. As Levin Becker puts it, this is the science of literature in a conditional mood...The activities of the Oulipo group, as Levin Becker emphasizes, are all about practice and opposed to theory... What all these Oulipians have in common is the notion that play is a serious business...Indeed, as the twenty-first century grows darker by the day, it may be that we will need the effortlessly ludic lucidity of Oulipo as an antidote more than ever.-- (04/01/2012)
[A] glorious book. [Levin Becker's] account of acquainting himself with the men and women who are determined to discover "the potentially surprising ways to behold the literary possibilities of language" is all of that: joyous, sublime, mischievous, surprising and filled with possibility...You will be enchanted by Levin Becker's book.-- (04/20/2012)
A distinctly intimate and exceptionally entertaining book...If you enjoy crosswords, intricately structured mysteries a la Agatha Christie, puns, hypertext fiction, shaggy dog stories, Bourbaki mathematics, the games of chess and Go, or simply work that boggles the mind, then you really need to discover the OuLiPo...[Levin Becker] makes an ideal guide to the ingeniously madcap wonderland that is potential literature and art.-- (05/31/2012)
[A] witty, dazzling and at times breathtakingly loony book...Levin Becker paints vivid portraits of a group of literary figures, prominent in the last third of the 20th century, whose personal quirks are at least as fascinating as their verbal feints. At times, this book reads as a love letter to a French avant-garde, sidelined by the recent revival of representational fiction and affective poetry. At times, it reads as a work of literary criticism and theory, arguing for a way of writing that bypasses traditional notions of inspiration and emotional content in favor of formal architecture.-- (06/10/2012)
Composed in playfully erudite prose-exactly what you'd expect from an Oulipian-this intellectually stimulating journey into the infamous and provocative OuLiPo (the French acronym stands for 'workshop for potential literature') is suffused with the tale of Levin Becker's artistic coming-of-age amid the ghosts of Perec, Duchamp, and Calvino.--Publishers Weekly (11/01/2012)
In Many Subtle Channels, [Levin Becker] succeeds in sharing his quirky regard for the unpredictable coincidences of language, and in making the reader see the world, briefly, in an Oulipian way.--Lauren Elkin"Times Literary Supplement" (10/19/2012)
Skillfully introduces readers into the domain of constraint-based writing...Part personal narrative, part historical survey, and part expository essay, Channels begins with its author's own curiosity about the Oulipo and proceeds into an exhaustive interrogation of its principal methods and aims...Levin Becker is a charming guide to the joys of this quixotic fixation on form...Channels demonstrates that Levin Becker has earned his place within the Oulipian phalanx: he knows the work and deftly initiates readers into the vexing and prismatic world view which is at the heart of the Oulipian endeavor--an enduring attention to the linguistic coordinates that populate the landscape of daily life...This book is vital because it invites us to read within the reservoir of everyday language a living work where once we saw mere billboards and text messages. Levin Becker convincingly argues that the Oulipo's aims are hardly exhausted and that the methods of potential literature are nowise limited to writerly production--its parameters extend into the possibility for a more attuned attention to the structures that everywhere guide and confine us.-- (09/01/2012)
Many Subtle Channels is something along the lines of a memoir spliced with literary criticism, reportage, and good old boosterism of a fantastic body of literature.--Scott Esposito"The Millions" (12/08/2012)
Many Subtle Channels is a reliable history of the Oulipo and a Bildungsroman-ish account of a young writer's development into writerhood. At its best the enthusiasm is infectious, not just about the Oulipo (and Levin Becker's evident elatedness at having been made a member), but more generally about the pleasures of reading and writing. Becker makes clear what is exciting about the Oulipo: the discovery and application of constraints; the annihilation of cliché; the setting up of encounters between literature, mathematics, music and computers; analyzing and exploring, but also broadening and generalizing, the dynamics of composition.-- (12/06/2012)
In Many Subtle Channels, [Daniel Levin Becker] reports from the frontier about the cultural antics of a group that has stimulated some of the most influential as well as some of the most frivolous works of European literature. Levin Becker is clearly entranced by the OuLiPo, and his likably geeky fascination both with its annals and its ongoing activities draws readers in, until we are persuaded that, despite its reputation as a historical coterie, the OuLiPo's ideas remain alive and offer something of potential value to everyone...Levin Becker is a shrewd and entertaining writer: His youthful enthusiasm is infectious and his style, which has hints of modern American intellectual goofballers such as David Foster Wallace, combines the erudite with a cheerfully self-conscious admission of obsessive word-nerdiness.-- (05/20/2013)
Much has now been written about the Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle, or
Oulipo, a group of writers and mathematicians based in Paris, but there is
nothing quite as deeply informed, or as provocative, or as consistently captivating
as Many Subtle Channels. | https://bookshop.org/books/many-subtle-channels-in-praise-of-potential-literature/9780674065772 |
I can't believe that what started out as a little passion project between two English majors has blossomed into the tenth issue of our biannual online journal, Young Ravens Literary Review!
I am honored that so many people chose to share their creativity with us over the years. In each issue, we explore a different concept:
Issue 1 Open Theme - Creative Scintilla
Issue 2 Fairy Tales
Issue 3 Science and Imagination
Issue 4 The Heart of Cyclicity
Issue 5 The Four Elements
Issue 6 Prayers for the Planet
Issue 7 So long, Farewell
Issue 8 Centering
Issue 9 Rarity and Scarcity
Issue 10 Sacred Spaces
Weebly is a great website for tech newbies like me, but I struggled to understand how to use it at first and even today I am still learning how to better clarify my formatting. I am grateful for everything I have learned in the process and hope that with each issue, the vision of Young Ravens will improve.
With the release of Issue 10, my co-editor Elizabeth Pinborough and I ask ourselves the question: What have we learned from editing ten issues of Young Ravens Literary Review?
Elizabeth:
I am so grateful to be part of this publication. My favorite part of editing Young Ravens Literary Review for these past 10 issues has been working with long-time friend and editor Sarah Page. Sarah writes our gorgeous calls for submissions, and I am always impressed by how she frames the topic, the many angles from which she sees any given theme. She knows how to ask important questions and how to invite others to think creatively.
Reading submissions has revealed how incredibly diverse the work of poetry is today. Our authors have reinforced the idea that poetry is a powerful tool for solving the problems of this world. These nodes of individual creativity spread across cyberspace have the potential to revive a dying world, to inspire compassion, to accelerate creative problem solving for some of the truly baffling predicaments of our time, and to inspire the fellowship of verse.
One of the most valuable lessons about creativity that I have learned is to just start! Creativity begets more creativity. Everyone is a creator, and everyone has the power to discuss their feelings, experiences, and ideas in verse. It refines and challenges you. I find that reading a good poem almost unconsciously begets a poem in me. If I am attending to the poetry I am breathing, I can catch a current of another poet's creativity and ride it to a verse or two of my own. My voice requires the uplift of other poets rhythms to be possible. I'm grateful to the poets and artists who have enriched our pages.
Sarah:
Thank you, Elizabeth! I have greatly enjoyed working with you, too, these last several years! From the submission process to journal elements and introductions, I rely on your keen insight to refine each issue to a shine. There have been several times when I thought that our project would need to be put on hiatus or end because of challenges that came up in life from health to time constraints, but I am really glad we did not give up.
I have been humbled and amazed by the beauty and variety of human creativity our contributors bring to every call for submissions. Poets, artists and writers take the theme of each issue, almost like a rough lump of stone, and polish it into a diamond of many-faceted verse and imagery. I think the most important thing I have learned is that I can never know or count all the facets of an idea; perception is in the eye of the beholder. We need each other's minds to truly illuminate the depths and angles of our universe.
So thank you, dear contributors and readers, for giving Young Ravens Literary Review ultimate shape and sparkle! | http://www.iffymagic.com/2019/08/ |
New research from the University of Washington Information School and Harvard University, followed 20 years of student creative writing and visual artworks and finds that the dynamics of creativity are changing.
They wanted to find out if creativity was in decline and found instead that some aspects of creativity — such as visual arts — have been rising over the years, while other aspects, such as creative writing, could be declining.
Katie Davis, UW assistant professor, and fellow researchers studied 354 examples of visual art and 50 examples of creative writing by teenagers published between 1990 and 2011. The question they pursued, Davis said, was "How have the style, content and form of adolescents' art-making and creative writing changed over the last 20 years?"
The artwork came from a monthly magazine for teens, the writing from a similar annual publication featuring student fiction. The researchers analyzed and coded the works, blind as to year, looking for trends over that time.
The review of student visual art showed an increase in the sophistication and complexity both in the designs and the subject matter over the years. The pieces, Davis said, seemed "more finished, and fuller, with backgrounds more fully rendered, suggesting greater complexity." Standard pen-and-ink illustrations grew less common over the period studied, while a broader range of mixed media work was represented.
Conversely, the review of student writing showed the young authors adhering more to "conventional writing practices" and a trend toward less play with genre, more mundane narratives and simpler language over the two decades studied.
Still, Davis said, it's too simple to just say creativity increased in one area and decreased in another over the years.
"There really isn't a standard set of agreed-upon criteria to measure something as complex and subjective as creativity," she said. "But there are markers of creativity — like complexity and risk-taking and breaking away from the standard mold — that appear to have changed."
The researchers also note that the period of study was a time of great innovation in digital art, with new tools for creative production and boundless examples of fine art a mere click or two away, serving to inform and inspire the students in their own work.
Davis said that while previous research has typically studied creativity in a lab setting, this work examined student creative work in a more "naturalistic" setting, where it is found in everyday life.
She added that with data from such a naturalistic setting, researchers cede a degree of control over the characteristics of the sample being studied, and the findings cannot safely be generalized to all American youth.
"It remains an open question as to whether the entire U.S. has seen a decline in literary creativity and a parallel increase in visual creativity among its youth over the last 20 years," Davis said. "Because society — indeed any society — depends on the creativity of its citizens to flourish, this is a question that warrants serious attention in future creativity research."
The paper will be published in Creativity Research Journal in January 2014. The lead author is Emily Weinstein, a doctoral student in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. | https://www.science20.com/news_articles/creativity_decline-124573 |
The jobs of the employees and director Terri-ann White, who has led UWA Publishing for 13 years and worked at UWA for many years prior to that, would be “surplus to requirements”, the memo said.
“We’re absolutely fighting this,” said White, who has been known in the Australian literary landscape since her days as owner of Northbridge’s Arcane Bookshop in the 1980s and 1990s.
Canberra poet and former Prime Minister’s Literary Award winner Melinda Smith put up a change.org petition overnight that had passed 1200 signatures and was being shared across writers’ social media groups on Friday morning.
“It’s already going gangbusters,” White said.
“My inbox is going crazy as well; I am so heartened by the support we are getting for the work we do.”
UWAP has more than 320 books in its backlist and around 35 books scheduled for 2020, many of which are already in production.
The press published Josephine Wilson’s Extinctions, which won the 2017 Miles Franklin Prize, the nation’s most prestigious book prize, and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. It also published her debut, Cusp.
“That is significant, that a book produced in a university program, then published by a university press, can then go on to win these awards,” White said.
Other UWAP publications to gain national attention this year included Renee Pettit-Schipp’s poetry collection The Sky Runs Right Through Us, which won the WA Premiers Book Award for an emerging writer; Anna Haebich’s Dancing in Shadows, on the shortlist for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award; and Rozanna Lilley’s Do Oysters Get Bored? on the National Biography Award shortlist.
White said the alternative being proposed, an open-access, purely digital system of scholarly works by UWA authors, didn’t necessarily work for all academic disciplines.
She also believed universities were not just for scholarly works, but for disseminating knowledge and ideas into the wider community.
UWAP runs the $10,000 Dorothy Hewitt Award for unpublished manuscripts and has led the nation in poetry publishing since 2016, since 2015’s major Australia Council funding cuts sent numerous boutique poetry publishers under.
UWAP stepped into the breach with an innovative poetry series that cut costs with streamlined cover designs, and allowed it to publish about 40 books of poetry since.
“They have done well. They have won awards and are often sold hand-to-hand at readings,” White said.
It will undo years of publishing innovation and stunt the current flourishing of creativity in our country’s literature
Petition
“We have got them into some bookshops and they have sold very reasonably, with some having to be reprinted. That is one of the big achievements we have provided for poetry, which is a literary form necessary for the dark times we are living in.
“We also encourage academics to write for a broader readership; the smart people who want to keep up with what is going on in the world.
“We publish books that work with language and literary form that stretch the bounds … short stories, verse novels, risky interventions into language and ideas and knowledge.”
Prominent Australian poet John Kinsella, who has published with UWAP as well as overseas publishers, described the news as a shock. He said he worried about a pattern emerging between Australian literature and local universities given Melbourne University Press’s recent decision to only release scholarly work.
“The University of Western Australia has lost the plot,” he said.
“They’re not seeing the consequences of this. This kind of publishing is very important to keep the dialogue going between different kinds of readers, different kinds of thinkers.
“And from a poet’s point of view it’s absolutely catastrophic. UWA Publishing is one of the [poetry] pillars.”
The Change.org petition says that UWAP under White is a national treasure whose cessation would leave an enormous hole in the Australian literary landscape.
“The decision to disband UWAP will have a devastating impact not just at UWA, not even just in the state of WA, but nationally. It will undo years of publishing innovation and stunt the current flourishing of creativity in our country’s literature,” it says.
UWA’s memo mentioned it would ensure continued access to back catalogues and an ability for authors to obtain royalties.
UWA said in a statement late on Friday that UWAP was a longstanding part of the university and would continue as such, and softened the language of the memo, hinting that print publishing might remain part of the mix.
“To ensure that university publishing continues for many years to come, UWA is looking to evolve current operations to broaden publishing reach and impact, and to boost accessibility,” the statement said.
“Current publishing works already in train this year and next year are expected to continue, as will consultation on innovation that will assist UWA Publishing to adapt to the demands of modern publishing, with options to examine a mix of print, greater digitisation and open access publishing.
“The proposal to wind down the present form of UWA Publishing will help to guarantee modern university publishing into the future. Should the proposal proceed, over coming months UWA will look at ways to provide even more equitable access to publishing opportunities, to highlight further works with real-world impact, and to continue the proud tradition of contributing to our cultural foundations.
“UWA, like other Australian universities, is striving to be more responsive to the demands of modern
publishing, and while diversifying, is committed to ongoing promotion and publishing of works that are impactful and enriching in many ways.”
With Broede Carmody
Emma Young covers breaking news with a focus on science and environment, health and social justice for WAtoday. | https://sculptor.blog/writers-aghast-as-university-signals-closure-of-uwa-publishing/ |
The history of Reality Street
Reality Street Press moved from London to Hastings in 2004. Previously known as Reality Street Editions, it was formed in 1993, as an amalgamation of two independent poetry presses: Ken Edwards’ Reality Studios, which had been operating in London since 1978 (starting with Reality Studios magazine, which ran between 1978-88), and Wendy Mulford’s Street Editions, founded in Cambridge in 1972.
The two presses recognised a common interest in publishing the poetry of what Ken has termed the “parallel tradition”: its various formations in the UK being the British Poetry Revival (Eric Mottram’s term), the Cambridge Diaspora, and what has sometimes been called “linguistically innovative” poetry – all overlapping categories. There was also a common interest in post-New American Poetry, Language Writing and related North American fields, as well as adventurous poetry in other English-speaking regions and from other languages and cultures.
In recent years, Reality Street has also been interested in experimental prose, both narrative and non-narrative.
Wendy decided to retire from small press publishing in 1998, since when Reality Street has been run by Ken Edwards – with help from Elaine Edwards.
Publisher Ken Edwards told HOT
Reality Street is committed to producing well designed and printed trade paperback editions at affordable prices. We’re only a small, part-time operation, publishing no more than five titles a year at present – but this means that we can lavish care on the production of each book.
Narrative and non-narrative
The press’s most recent development has been the Narrative series – which includes both narrative and non-narrative imaginative prose writing. Hot reporter Joe Fearn asked Ken Edwards how this differs from prose poetry or “poets’ prose”?
Well, there are some arbitrary distinctions to be made here, as so often in life; but, for example, David Miller’s Spiritual Letters (I-II) is in our poetry list, despite being prose, whereas the same author’s The Dorothy and Benno Stories is part of the Narrative Series.
The Narrative series grew out of the conviction that there is a body of experimental, extended prose writing which (in the UK at least) has few outlets because it doesn’t fit restricted marketing categories.
On the Reality Street website, Edwards expands his explanation of the concepts explored by featured writers:
Experimental writing that brings into question the whole basis of narrative is as old as prose fiction itself – think of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, for example, with its recursive and metafictional routines. Nobody needs reminding that Joyce and Gertrude Stein blew apart the conventions of narrative fiction almost a century ago. Beckett’s trilogy progressively deconstructed narration and fictionality and their absurdities, ending on the last page of The Unnamable with the celebrated paradox “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”
The Surrealists were fascinated with the illogic/hyper-logic of dream narratives. One of their heroes, Raymond Roussel, pioneered the use of arbitrary constraints to generate fantastical content. His methods survive in the work of the Oulipo writers, such as Jacques Roubaud and Georges Perec.
Kafka, Bruno Schulz and Borges extended the subject matter fiction could address, dealing in the metaphysical dimensions beyond our domestic lives. Camus introduced existentialism. Robbe-Grillet and other nouveau roman authors applied a hyper-realistic treatment to domestic banalities which exposed their essential strangeness.
In the USA in the 1950s, William Burroughs exploited Brion Gysin’s cut-up technique to construct novels of extreme fantasy and satire that followed no known models. Less explosively but no less radically, the fiction of Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme, Gilbert Sorrentino, Fielding Dawson and others have formed a counterpoint to the normative work of such as Bellow, Updike or Joyce Carol Oates.
British official literary culture is predominantly conservative. But we can point to the cut-up narratives of poets Roy Fisher and Tom Raworth, the work of Stefan Themerson and Gaberbocchus Press, the 1960s novels of Ann Quin, B S Johnson and Alan Burns (whose Babel is entirely collage), the experimental fiction of Christine Brooke-Rose, the fantasy fiction of Angela Carter and the 1980s works of Rosalind Belben. The speculative fiction writers of the New Worlds group brought SF imagery into their work, and for a period J G Ballard also experimented with radical form (eg The Atrocity Exhibition).
Closer to the present day, the Language poets in the USA in the 1970s explicitly questioned narration, fictionality and characterisation, and the extended prose works of writers such as Lyn Hejinian or Ron Silliman were sometimes labelled “non-narrative”. In contrast and reaction to these, writers associated with the “New Narrative” movement, such as Robert Glück, Bruce Boone, Kathy Acker, Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian, have experimented with narrative techniques and explicit sexual content. Others such as Ron Sukenick and Fanny Howe have widened the boundaries of fiction in their own individual ways. And back in the UK, Iain Sinclair moved from innovative poetry to fiction and imaginative non-fiction.
The Reality Street Narrative series, Edwards told HOT
…is proud to follow these traditions, and to play its small part in extending them.
An example of this extension of the above traditions can be found in Reality Street’s latest publication, a book by Philip Terry, called TAPESTRY (2013). This book has Hastings connections as it’s based on images from the Bayeux Tapestry and reinvents the Norman
Invasion. Taking as its starting point marginal images in the Bayeux Tapestry, which have been left largely unexplained by historians, Terry retells the story of the Norman Conquest from the point of view of the tapestry’s English female embroiderers. Combining magic realism and Oulipian techniques, (resulting in a constructed Medieval language) this is a tour de force of narrative and language.
WARNING: Should hot readers want to attend the poetry reading advertised on the Reality Street website:
30 March 2013 – Reality Street writer Richard Makin reads with Iain Sinclair at the Genius Loci bookshop,40 Norman Road, St Leonards on Sea TN38 0EJ, 7.30pm
Please note that Richard Makin told HOT yesterday, it has been postponed. | https://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/arts-culture/literature/keeping-it-real-reality-street-press-in-hastings-since-2004 |
Newark Arts Alliance’s Literary Arts Discussion Series Highlights Delaware’s Poet Laureate JoAnn Balingit and Other Authors
PLUS: Eat, drink and be merry at the Apple-Scrapple Festival and the Vendemmia Da Vinci Wine and Food Festival.
For the Bookworms
The Newark Arts Alliance has launched a Literary Arts Discussion Series, which means Delaware authors will visit the NAA beginning this month to discuss their work and creative processes, starting with Delaware Poet Laureate JoAnn Balingit on Oct. 19. The series is intended to inspire current and future authors and poets to write and publish, and fans of literature in general will learn more about what goes into written works. The NAA will also present a bookmaking project at the Newark Free Library for children ages 7-12, led by local artist and arts teacher Jennifer Polillo. Each event is free and open to the public. The schedule of authors is this:
Oct. 1: JoAnn Balingit, poet laureate of Delaware, will celebrate the publication of her new book, “Words for House Story.” She will read poems and lead a discussion about where poems come from, displaying early drafts of finished poems along with the final versions to show her revision process. Balingit is the author of two previous collections, “Forage” (Wings Press, 2011), awarded the Whitebird Chapbook Prize, and “Your Heart and How It Works,” awarded the 2010 Global Filipino Literary Award in poetry. She is an assistant editor at YesYes Books and coordinates the Delaware Writing Region for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.
Nov. 16: New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd is the pseudonym of the mother-and-son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd. They are currently published by William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. Their most well known creation is Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard, who stars in a series of mystery novels set in post-World War I England. They also write a series about Bess Crawford, a nurse and amateur investigator in France during World War I. Their recent Ian Rutledge novels include the forthcoming “Hunting Shadows,” “Proof of Guilt” (2013), and “The Confession” (2012). Their recent Bess Crawford novels include “A Question of Honor” (2013) and “An Unmarked Grave” (2012).
Jan. 18: Ramona Long’s awards include Individual Artist Fellowships from the Delaware Division of the Arts as an Established Artist in Creative Non-Fiction (2013) and Fiction (2009). Her work in fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction has appeared in regional, literary and juvenile publications, both in print and online, including The Arkansas Review, Delaware Beach Life and Cricket. As an editor, she works with private clients as a developmental and content editor. She has been hired by the Sisters in Crime National Organization to edit two short mystery anthologies, “Fish Tales” and “Fish Nets,” both published by Wildside Press. Ramona’s discussion will include writing for the literary and nonfiction markets, as well as the role of independent editors in the changing publishing industry.
March 14: Cindy Callaghan is the author of the middle-grade novels “Just Add Magic” (2010), “Lost in London” (2013) and “Lucky Me” (coming in 2014), all published by Simon & Schuster’s Aladdin M!x. The popular short story, “Just Add a Famous TV Chef,” is downloaded daily from her website www.cindycallaghan.com. Callaghan is occasionally published in Writer’s Digest and is invited to speak, personally and virtually, at schools nationwide to discuss creative writing and publishing. In 2013 she will launch Give One For the Books, a donation program that matches new or gently used books with the underserved. She lives, works and writes in Delaware.
Feb. 16: Children 7-12 can meet Jennifer Polillo at Newark Free Library to join in a book-making project. Children must bring a short piece of prose or a poem to illustrate in the book they will create. Polillo holds a bachelor of fine arts from University of Pennsylvania and teaches at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, the Newark Arts Alliance, and Cecil College. She was an artist-in-residence at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for 2012-2013.
Newark Arts Alliance programs are supported, in part, by grants from the Delaware Division of the Arts. The mission of the NAA is to provide people the opportunity to explore and display their creativity, and to participate in cultural events that build community. Check it out at 276 E. Main St., Suite 102, Newark. 266-7266, newarkartsalliance.org
» for more from The Arts Buzz, click here. | http://www.delawaretoday.com/Blogs/The-Arts-Buzz/October-2013/Newark-Arts-Alliances-Literary-Arts-Discussion-Series-Highlights-Delawares-Poet-Laureate-JoAnn-Balingit-and-Other-Authors/ |
On translating avant garde and genderless literature.
On translating avant garde and genderless literature.
The pleasures of literary play in the writer’s final novel.
If the experimental French writing group Oulipo were to be reborn today, would they return as performance artists? Anne Garréta’s 2002 Prix Médicis–winning novel, Not One Day, marks her as a literary acrobat suspended between those who hold on to the group’s relevance and those who have let it go in favor of conceptual art practices.
Though she wouldn’t join the Oulipo for another fourteen years, Anne Garréta’s 1986 novel, Sphinx, is quintessentially Oulipian.
Silent film, Oulipian lyrics, and keeping it all together.
Barbara Henning’s sprawling volume underlines the joy of old-fashioned, mail correspondence and features a thorough and revealing interview with Harryette Mullen.
Hervé Le Tellier’s two recent works, Enough About Love and The Sextine Chapel, present an intellectual, geometrically woven, and wholly stimulating take on erotic-lit.
If you’re interested in the writing practices associated with Oulipo (founded in 1960, it has included Raymond Queneau, Harry Mathews, Italo Calvino, and Georges Perec), you’ll want this book recording a 2005 conference on the poetics of constraint.
Harry Mathews has covered the literary terrain: as short story writer, poet, novelist, essayist, translator and editor. Here, he and Lynne Tillman discuss his recent novel, Cigarettes, the role of the reader, and the OuLiPo’s use of literary contraintes — constrictive forms. | https://bombmagazine.org/topics/oulipo-association |
Authors:
E. G. Vinogray
Abstract
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Number of views: 311
Innovative qualities of the systematic methodology are researched. The main aspects of the innovative potential of the systematization, namely: creativity, integrational synthesis, constructivism of thinking, optimizational potential and contribution to fundamental nature of science and education – are outlined. Keywords: systematic methodology, innovative qualities, creativity, synthesis, constructivism, fundamental nature.
12-19
FAMILY IN THE CONTEXT OF TRADITIONAL RUSSIAN SOCIETY: ECONOMIC AND SOCIOCULTURAL ASPECTS
Authors:
S. N. Gavrov
Abstract
View in PDF
Number of views: 282
The article deals with the analysis of family relations in the traditional Russian society. The stage of pre-industrial type of social organization involves not only the Russian Middle Ages, both in fact and the period of XVIII-XIX centuries. Agricultural Russian society economically and socioculturally reproduced the traditional type of family and relationships. Keywords: family, patriarchal, middle ages, peasants, gender.
19-26
ROLE OF DIRECTIONS AND TRENDS OF REGIONAL CULTURAL POLICY IN THE FORMATION OF CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE IN SIBERIA IN THE LATE XXTH – BEGINNING OF XXIST CENTURY
Authors:
N. М. Genova
Abstract
View in PDF
Number of views: 266
In the article the structuring role of the basic priorities of cultural policy expressed in its tendencies and directions, making features of the regional sociocultural space in a context of an infrastructure of culture is reviewed. It has allowed the author to see the conceptual bases and prospects of its development in which nationwide and regional tendencies proved on the basis of the sociological and statistical data are displayed. Keywords: regional cultural policy, priority directions of sociocultural development, infrastructure of culture, sociocultural environment, tendencies and development prospects.
27-34
JAMES JOYCE’S «ULYSSES» AS A HYPERTEXT
Authors:
Е. Y. Genieva
Abstract
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Number of views: 285
On James Joyce’s novel «Ulysses» the author of an article reviews a problem of transforming the genre of the novel in the XXth Century literature, turning it into a hypertext, existing in the cultural space, and deals with issues of perception and interpretation of literary text. Keywords: genre originality of the novel, «Ulysses» as a hypertext of the XXth century, problem of understanding and interpretation of literary text.
34-41
SPEECH WRITER’S AND POLITICIAN’S WORK ON THE PUBLIC SPEAKING TEXTS (TO THE PROBLEM)
Authors:
А. V. Chepkasov
Abstract
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Number of views: 247
The article reveals peculiarities of speech writer and politician’s work on composition of a text. Specificity of these texts is demonstrated from a perspective of addressee and addresser, and situation of execution; major genres are distinguished; cognitive and discoursive methods for analysis of genre characteristics of a politician’s public speeches are outlined. Keywords: speech writer, politician, text, addressee, addresser, audience, frame.
42-56
CASSANDRA IN THE CHARACTERS’ SYSTEM OF AESCHYLUS’ TRAGEDY «AGAMEMNON»
Authors:
G. А. Zhernovaya
Abstract
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Number of views: 247
The article reviews the nature of Cassandra as an element of characters’ system in comparison with Agamemnon, the main hero. Typologically element of «Cassandra» referred to by the author as a character-«analogy». Studying the structure of the character of Cassandra (two ethoses, two pathoses) completed with the study of the functional values of the image. Keywords: character, ethos, pathos, character-«analogy», man-god, guilt, retribution, death, fate.
56-64
«EFROSINA» OR HISTORY OF MONUMENT DEDICATED TO CHRISTIAN NEUMANN- BECKER
Authors:
Е. V. Тuzenko
Abstract
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Number of views: 259
The paper deals with the creative work of the ΧVІІІth century German actress Christiane Neiman- Becker, early departed from life. To perpetuate the memory of hers, Johann Wolfgang Goethe wrote the elegy «Efrosina», imagery of which was implemented by J. H. Meyer in a draft for a monument. The result is a complex union of poetry and painting, in which the personality of the actress appears as an eternal symbol of spirit and creativity. Keywords: elegy, culture, creativity, beauty, talent, memory, monument, structural connexity.
64-72
CURRENT TEMPLE ERECTION IN KUZBASS: RESULTS, PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS
Authors:
L. V. Olenich
Abstract
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Number of views: 252
The article is devoted to the current state of temple architecture and iconography in Kemerovo region. The author reveals the problem of historical continuity between different periods of pre-revolutionary temple erection and the situation in the church architecture of the last two decades. Identifying those factors that inhibit the movement of the stylistic integrity of the church appearance, reduce development and consolidation, that was lost in the Soviet period, art and canonical thinking of the masters necessary for the restoration of old churches and construction of new temples. Keywords: temple erection, temple architecture, iconography.
73-76
SPIRITUAL AND ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CREATIVITY OF COMPOSER SERGEI SLONIMSKY
Authors:
I. G. Umnova
Abstract
View in PDF
Number of views: 293
The article considers contemporary composer’s works from the standpoint of those present in their spiritual and ethical guidelines affecting the various aspects of a modern art master. Attention is drawn to the creativity of Sergei Mikhailovich Slonimsky, world-renowned composer. Keywords: musical creation, world attitude of a composer, world outlook, images of values, spiritual ethical guidance of creators.
78-82
FORMATION OF A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE OF STUDENTS IN A CREATIVE UNIVERSITY
Authors:
A. A. Popov
Abstract
View in PDF
Number of views: 249
The article based on the analysis of scientific and theoretical sources of the various sciences (philosophy, pedagogy, sociology, etc.) attempts to identify the fundamental aspects of formation of HLS students in high school; searches for factors that influence the organization of HLS students in a creative institution, shall An analysis of the concepts of «health», «healthy lifestyle». Keywords: health, healthy lifestyle (HLS), factors, aspects, health teaching, block modules forming HLS of students.
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© 2013-2020, Open Academic Journals Index. All rights reserved. | http://oaji.net/journal-archive-stats.html?number=774&year=&issue=2543 |
Les Figues Press is an independent, nonprofit literary press located in Los Angeles. Their mission is "to create aesthetic conversation between readers, writers, and artists, especially those interested in innovative/experimental/avant-garde work."
Amina Cain's books include I Go To Some Hollow (Les Figues), and an upcoming chapbook Tramps Everywhere (Insert/PARROT Series). This summer her work was featured at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) as part of NOT CONTENT, a series of text projects curated by Les Figues. Amina's writing also appears in The Encyclopedia Project (F-K), and Wreckage of Reason: Xxperimental Prose by Women Writers. She lives in Los Angeles.
Jennifer Calkins is an evolutionary biologist and writer in Seattle. Her most recent book is A Story of Witchery, published by Les Figues Press. She can, at times, be found at JenniferDevlinCalkins.net.
Doug Nufer is the author of a poetry collection and numerous novels, including By Kelman Out of Pessoa, forthcoming from Les Figues, which also provides an invaluable public service in tough financial times by revealing how you can be a winner at the races. He lives in Seattle.
Pam Ore lives and works in Olympia, Washington. She has been published in several poetry journals and is currently working on her next manuscript. Her book Grammar of the Cage was published by Les Figues in 2006.
Mathew Timmons work includes The New Poetics (Les Figues), Sound Noise (Little Red Leaves), The Archanoids (a cd of solo and collaborative sound poetries), CREDIT (Blanc Press), and Lip Service (Slack Buddha). Forthcoming projects include two chapbooks: Where is it Written? from Imioplex Press, and After Darío from Molo Press. His visual and performance work has been shown widely. Mathew works as the General Director of General Projects, editor of Insert Press, and Los Angeles editor of Joyland.
Christine Wertheim is the author of '+'me'S-pace (Les Figues). She edited Feminaissance (Les Figues), and with Matias Viegener coedited Séance in Experimental Writing (Make Now) and /n/oulipian Analects (Les Figues). She writes regularly for X-tra and Cabinet; works-in-progress include a poetic suite on Mothers and an exercise in style, "How to Conceive a Poem." She is Chair of the MFA Writing Program at Cal Arts. | http://www.flim.com/spareroom/les-figues-press-amina-cain-je.html |
Jean-François Dubreuil’s paintings are striking. Bold colours, juxtaposed rectangles, backgrounds saturated with solid colours or well-endowed with whites broken by grey or yellow, where parallelepipeds take over, surrounded by these same colours which, elsewhere, filled the whole background, sometimes crossed by diagonals.
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Last product in stock!
|Model||9782841054138|
|Artist||Jean-François Dubreuil|
|Author||Jean-Marc Huitorel|
|Publisher||Regard|
|Format||Ouvrage relié|
|Number of pages||176|
|Language||Bilingue Français / English|
|Dimensions||310 x 250|
|Published||2022|
The effect thus produced immediately places this painting on the side of a geometric abstraction that was thought to be in the past, were it not for a few resistance fighters engaged in the beyond, or the below, we do not know, of history. However, on closer inspection, or over a longer period of time, there is something wrong with this foregone conclusion, but what? Although there is no lack of lures at the heart of this oeuvre, a first observation, which authorizes all the others, is essential. Jean-François Dubreuil belongs to a species of artists who haunted painting, and particularly French painting, at the end of the twentieth century, without being noticed or recognized most of the time. This species is that of the conceptual painters – crypto-conceptual, to be more precise. It is from this premise that the study of an oeuvre, permeated with Dadaism and that plays with academic abstraction, can be envisaged.
Nevertheless, it was indeed the press, with its newspapers and magazines, its dailies and weeklies (rarely its monthlies) that served as his exclusive reference point, his formal source. This taste for the newspaper, for reading it, for taking hold of it, for the sociality it implies, is fundamental to Dubreuil’s work, deeply inscribed in his way of being and in his life. It is worth emphasizing this now in order to avoid an overly mechanical interpretation of his work. In a way, Dubreuil loves the newspaper as Jacques Villeglé loves the poster.
Red, grey. And then black when Dubreuil decided, quite quickly, to treat photographs as well. This triple chromatic attribution would never change. A little later, colour would be introduced. It should be specified that for the artist, at this beginning, at this time of setting up the system and his method, neither red, grey nor black are colours, just tools for discriminating surfaces.
Although the history of painting constantly oscillates between the artist’s proclaimed freedom and servitude, whether voluntary or not, we have to wait for the development of a contemporary rhetoric, both literary and pictorial, to witness, through the use of constraining systems, the blossoming of works whose premises most often belong to contexts outside art. As far as literature is concerned, and to stick to the French example, the role that Oulipo has played, and still plays, in the elaboration of a corpus of texts based on an updated use of rhetoric is fundamental. The way in which Dubreuil applies to his oeuvre a series of constraints that do not conform to the usual rules of pictorial art by itself means he can be considered an Oulipian painter. However, he is far from being the only one to have drawn from the infinite reservoir of systems and constraints during the 20th century, where random mechanics, pure chance, but also humor and facetiousness for some, occupied a central place. | https://www.dessinoriginal.com/en/exhibition-catalogue/12875-jean-francois-dubreuil-9782841054138.html |
We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
—W.B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse”
In his recent piece, “Against Conceptualism,” Calvin Bedient seeks to “defend the poetry of affect” against the tide of conceptualism. I offer four responses here in nucleo before unfolding them below.
One. Contrary to Bedient’s interpretation, the Oulipo, that prolific group of writers and mathematicians (Ouvroir de la littérature potentielle), has never stood against subjectivity. The group aims to offer an alternative to the idea that poetry is born of divine inspiration, access to the subconscious through automatic writing, or procedures of chance. One benefit of Oulipian methods is that writers can avail themselves of literary forms and don’t have to envision the writing process as a protracted waiting-by-the-telephone for the muse to ring them up.
Two. Critics as well as advocates of conceptual poetry assert that it avoids subjectivity. At first blush it may seem counterintuitive, but both groups are invested in the same nineteenth-century values of artistic making. That is, they claim that the artist is the determining factor for the work of art and, ultimately, its guarantor of significance. My main point is that the arguments for and the backlash against conceptual poetry all re-inscribe the notion of the artist’s controlling consciousness and discerning judgment—in a word, her subjectivity.
Three. Both César Vallejo and M. NourbeSe Philip compose poetry according to formal concepts or constraints, and yet strongly communicate affect. The “lyric I” in Vallejo’s tradition-shattering verse is just as uncertain as the “I” of anti-subjective poetry. A lyric I is not a lyric I is not a lyric I.
Four. An alternative to conceptual or “uncreative writing” can be found in a cannibalistic logic of poetic displacement. Certain poets throughout the Americas—writing in English, Spanish, and Portuguese—are working against ideas of literary primacy (whereby an original with great cultural capital is followed by weaker copies). Instead, they are cultivating compositional procedures based in radical mixing. They provocatively rethink socio-political power dynamics and the race-based oppression that language is enmeshed with as they cut up and resituate texts, play with mistaken identities, and employ the cannibal as a figure of resistance to the colonial matrix of power.
• • •
Italo Calvino, a member of the Oulipo, once wrote, “Literature is a combinatorial game which plays on the possibilities intrinsic to its own material, independently of the personality of the author.” That literary material includes all of language (tropes, sound patterning, etc.), as well as any formal constraints the writer chooses to follow. Since writers are always constrained in myriad, unacknowledged ways, as another Oulipian, Daniel Levin Becker writes, “Embracing a set of carefully chosen rules is meant to focus the mind so narrowly that those obscure pressures and preoccupations fade, revealing paths and passageways that one would never notice without the blinders.” We could go even further and say that composing in form produces emotion—not only channels it, but generates it.
This is hardly a new or shocking idea, though. Coleridge, no conceptual poet, described the process of composing his Dejection Ode as a way to “animate” what was “stalled” within him. Susan Stewart notes as much in The Poet’s Freedom: A Notebook on Making, where she writes that the poem’s main problem, “the problem of the protagonist who can only see, not feel,” is solved by what Coleridge calls “the shaping spirit of the imagination.” She cites Coleridge: the poet must “out of his own mind create forms according to the severe laws of the intellect, in order to generate in himself that co-ordination of freedom and law, that involution of obedience in the prescript, and of the prescript in the impulse to obey, which assimilates him to nature, and enables him to understand her.”
An Oulipian form is no more about psychological or political control than is a garden-variety villanelle. It is certainly not “safe and reliable,” as Bedient writes; quite the contrary. When writing in constraint, anything can happen on the road, just the same as when writing without a seat buckle. This is a source of great pleasure, and one of the constraint’s great values: language may be composed almost as if in spite of oneself. To the poet, writing in constraint offers the kick of discovering what one didn’t know one was going to say. Of inviting serendipity. Form and constraint can be vastly liberating to the language that they occasion.
One of the constraint’s great values is that language may be composed almost as if in spite of oneself.
The Oulipo has never been anti-subjective. It is quite clearly opposed to several kinds of preconditions for creativity: sheer automatic writing as in the Surrealists’s unedited, “involuntary” works and games of chance (intended to tap into the subconscious), the automatism of conceptual art, and Plato’s influential idea of divinely inspired madness. Part of the reason the group was invented was to offer an alternative to the Platonic model, in which the poet launches into frenzy thanks to the action of the gods. Instead of depending on chance or divine intercession, Oulipian writers devise methods to set their own creativity into motion. As Raymond Queneau once said, there is no literature but voluntary literature. Since it was founded in 1960, the group has sought to formulate new, potential literary forms, drawing on all kinds of resources (from mathematical algorithms to complex, real-life procedures such as writing lines of poetry between metro stops). One benefit is that writers can avail themselves of these forms and don’t have to envision the writing process as a protracted waiting-by-the-telephone for the muse.
Bedient pronounces Oulipian methods “instrumental and parasitical.” He is concerned that the Oulipo has lost what he sees as the earlier avant-garde’s aim to discover “truth,” sacrificing it for “winning and fun.” This is a very odd way to think about literary making. First, because there are few writers today, Oulipian or otherwise, who would claim to be out to catch “truth” in the butterfly nets of their work. Second, because “games” would be a fine term for all of poetry. As Auden writes in “Ode to Terminus,” games and grammar and meters are what poetry is constituted from. (The general term for poetry was “numbers” during the Early Modern Period.)
Bedient writes that for the Oulipo, “originality [is] inverted into ways of demonstrating its demise.” This points to the main issue in the anti-subjectivism debate: where poetry comes from. Following a constraint in composing a poem doesn’t mean that the poem isn’t “original.” It simply means that the poet is drawing upon the copious resources of form to produce a new work of art. Those formal resources may have some longevity, such as the sestina or the venerable lipogrammatic poem, a form dating to the sixth century BCE that avoids any word containing one particular letter, or they may be newly invented, such as an elementary morality (morale élémentaire, a form Queneau minted, involving three sets of three-plus-one word compounds and a refrain of seven lines, each composed of one to five syllables). Rather than subject herself to the vicissitudes of mood and imagination, the poet can avail herself of a blueprint for making—just as she always has.
Much artistic creation comes from a desire to designate a space within which to play. I want to reframe the Queneau quote Bedient mentions, in which he quips that Oulipians are “rats who build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape.” Jacques Roubaud has said that given the labyrinth of mental, physical, and societal constraints that humans are subject to, with death the only way out, the least a writer can do is to cordon off a little section in which she chooses her constraints and decides which direction to take. Building and exploring a labyrinth, false starts, serendipitous discoveries, and an attempt to escape that labyrinth—these are all ways of imagining the process of composition. Once you begin to explore the metaphor, it is not all that different from how Coleridge imagined the creative process during the efflorescence of Romanticism. It is a way to create a reserve or a “realizable field where freedom can appear,” as Stewart writes: “We human makers confront the arbitrary nature of our own signs and the necessity of constantly reinventing them, and remaking them, under terms that are intelligible to others. In doing so, we discover the nonarbitrary—the iron laws of convention and history—that our free making, viewed retrospectively, will literally reform or transform.”
• • •
Today we are seeing a backlash against the idea of anti-lyric or anti-subjective poetry. Bedient’s essay is just one example of a reaction against the canonization of conceptual poetry in recent anthologies such as Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing and I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women. But so far, no one has noted that both this backlash and conceptual poetry contribute to reifying the idea of what the lyric is. Conceptual writing has actually trenchantly re-inscribed the idea of a guiding authorial presence, bolstering the persistent binary already in place.
Conceptual poetry is currently being defended by many of those who write, appreciate, and theorize it on grounds that rely on the notion of subjectivity. Notably, they don’t agree that it has no truck with emotion. Craig Dworkin cites Charles Olson’s dictum that poetry should be “rid of lyrical interference of the individual as ego,” but he also observes that it also may contain “heartbreakingly raw emotion, undiluted by even a trace of sentiment.”[i] Even the appropriation of language, that signature practice of conceptual poets, has been hailed as the reassertion of individuality and authority. Marjorie Perloff writes in Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century that “If the new ‘conceptual’ poetry makes no claim to originality—at least not originality in the usual sense—this is not to say that genius is not in play. It just takes different forms.” She explains, “According to taste: it is important to remember that the citational or appropriative text, however unoriginal its actual words and phrases, is always the product of choice—and hence of individual taste.” Kenneth Goldsmith terms this “self-expression,” “emotion,” and “authorship” in Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age. Viewing the recontextualization of language as a marker of “taste” or aesthetic judgment (or cultural capital), and therefore a sign of genius, is a surprisingly hoary claim, given Perloff, Dworkin, and Goldsmith’s emphasis on innovation.
We are at a moment of category fracture, when it is clear that the old terms won’t do, but we don’t have any new terms yet.
Attributing recontextualization to “genius” bolsters the fetish of authenticity that reins in late capitalist society[ii] and shows how ideas about literary originality stem from a metaphysics of origin, in Francoise Meltzer’s phrase. (By “metaphysics of origin,” she means the Western worship of all that is seen as new, true, and creative, and the accompanying paranoia that “originality” may be impossible. In late capitalism this leads to anxiety over private property and individual sovereignty.)[iii] If we follow Perloff and Goldsmith, cut-and-paste becomes the latest way to summon inspiration. This set of methods is deeply invested in reassertingnineteenth-century values, according to which the persona and subjectivity of the artist are determining factors in the work of art and, at bottom, its guarantor of significance. The arguments for and against conceptual poetry allre-inscribe the notion of the controlling consciousness and discerning judgment of the artist—in a word, her subjectivity.
Matvei Yankelvich, a poet, translator, and founding editor of Ugly Duckling Press, made an excellent point in an open letter to Marjorie Perloff. He writes that if we follow Perloff’s (and Goldsmith’s and Dworkin’s) arguments to their conclusion, the conceptualism of works such as Goldsmith’s The Weather and Traffic displays “an embarrassing indulgence in left-over Romantic assumptions of authorial intent.” I’d like to add to Yankelvich’s observation by arguing that casting authorial intent as an “embarrassing indulgence” is symptomatic of the very dynamic that Gillian White identifies inLyric Shame: Producing the “Lyric” Subject of Contemporary American Poetry. This embarrassment congregates around poems seen as offering abstracted, “personal” expression—particularly Romantic, Confessional, and “mainstream” poetry—belonging to what is assumed to be the transhistorical genre of lyric poetry. From the twentieth century onward, such poems have been criticized by scholars, critics, publishers, and writers for their “expressivity,” which is understood as narcissistic and often politically conservative. White tracks how being associated with lyric poetry has become a source of shame in many literary circles. It is disparaged for being monological and oppressive, for relying on a lyric first-person speaker (a coherent “I”) to guide the reader and articulate the perspective of her single subjectivity, or for offering closure. The lyric poem is accused of being so directive as to put the “author” back into “authoritarian.” White argues, however, that such lyric poetry doesn’t actually exist as a form or a genre, but rather is called into being through reading practices. She persuasively explains that the dynamics of shame, and lyric-expressive reading (nineteenth-century constructions of lyric codified as reading methods by twentieth-century critics), have combined to denigrate some poetry as “retrograde, politically conservative, self-indulgent.”
While affect studies have become fashionable across several disciplines (anthropology, psychology, literary theory), “lyric shame” has continued to thrive, and Goldsmith has brought Conceptual poetry to the White House and to The Colbert Report. At the same time, in academia, the question of whether the lyric may be considered a transhistorical genre is producing influential reflections (such as in the work of Virginia Jackson, Yopie Prins, Jonathan Culler, Meredith Martin, White). The entry for “lyric” in the new Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, written by Jackson, specifies thatsince the eighteenth century, “brevity, subjectivity, passion, and sensuality” have been associated with lyric poetry, but that “lyric” has not always named the same thing throughout history. She writes, “The story of the lyric charts the history of poetics.” The current conversation about conceptualism is part of this larger-scale history of poetics. It has struck a nerve with poets and critics alike, because we are at a moment of category fracture, when it is clear that the old terms won’t do, but we don’t have any new terms yet. Where are we to go after Hegel’s assertion that lyric poetry expresses personal feeling, and John Stuart Mill’s idea that poetry is an utterance overheard? And should poets also be activists? Commentators? Outsiders? Visionaries? Media mavens or PR wizards?
Today’s conceptualism debate is not really about constraint or procedure and their relative merits for writing poems, although that is the way Bedient’s piece leans. It is about the fraught notion of the lyric, the “lyric I,” and the possibility of emotional sincerity in art. It is predicated on polemical distinctions between sources of poetry (rational and planned, or “method” poetries versusirrational and “inspired” poetries), which all derive from a metaphysics of origin. Today’s debate once more asks the fundamental, mystifying questions, Where does poetry come from? How is it made?
• • •
There is a danger in canonizing non-English-language poets as martyrs whose “suffering” may serve as a beacon to “us.” Bedient names Peruvian poet César Vallejo, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and Chilean Raúl Zurita as such paragons. I heartily agree that their poetry is some of the most powerful of the past century, and fervently hope that it will be better and more frequently read in the original and in English in years to come. But do these poets have more access to the quiddity of poetry (and truth, and suffering) than English-language poets who have not been tested by difficult times? Does the experience of suffering translate into specialized, ineffable knowledge? Sanctifying these poets and their work runs the risk of exoticizing them. It is tenuous to claim that melancholy, militancy, and misery born of extreme circumstances are more authentic, sincere, vital, and tapped into life values (Bedient’s terms) than those of North American experimenters. Seamus Heaney diagnosed this phenomenon in his essay “The Impact of Translation” (The Government of the Tongue), where he discusses the vogue experienced by Eastern European poets in the West during the 1980s. “Many contemporaries writing in English have been displaced from an old at-homeness in their mother tongue and its hitherto world-defining poetic heritage,” Heaney reasoned in 1986. One can only wish for more displacement of that old at-homeness in the twenty-first century, and indeed, it is inevitable; it is already happening, not only geopolitically, but also through literary translation and through digital advances that galvanize cultural exchange. The English language itself is changing thanks to multilingual and code-switching literature, such as Spanglish (as the United States is becoming an increasingly bilingual nation), and the valorization of vernacular literatures of many kinds (including the Caribbean demotic that Kamau Brathwaite calls “nation language”).
Vallejo has often been hailed as a great bard of human suffering. His work is concerned with the “blows” (golpes) that the world doles out, and the shackles that confine and define human existence. Bedient holds up Vallejo as a counterexample to English-language conceptual poets, calling him “a seer in regard to Malignancy” and a poet “of alarm and indignation.” Vallejo does articulate one of the twentieth-century poet’s central dilemmas (inherited from Romanticism) in poems such as “A Man Passes By…” which sets the reality of poverty and death against the uselessness of art:
A mason falls from a roof, dies before lunch.How can I renew, after that, the trope, the metaphor?…An outcast sleeps with his foot behind his back.Can I later speak to anyone about Picasso?[iv]
What use, after all, in writing poems when there is work to be done to repair the world? Can we afford to be non-instrumental? This is a question that Vallejo’s poetry poses from first to last. Yet it is odd that Bedient sets Vallejo’s salutary humanism against conceptualism, for Vallejo’s poetics are deeply experimental—and share many of the concerns of conceptual artists, although not quite in the way Bedient means. Latin American conceptualism, according to Uruguyan conceptual artist Luis Camnitzer, has questioned the quiddity of art and its socio-political role, rather than focusing on institutional critique as European and North American conceptualism has.[v] Vallejo’s poems are shaped by a concern with the plasticity of language and the process of writing, ludic maneuvers, and a mix of registers (colloquial, popular speech and Peruvianisms romp with arcane scientific vocabulary) as he fashions a poetic form that corresponds to his sense of the contemporary. His work has contributed to the conceptualist strategies, politicized critique, and climate of experiment found in twentieth-century Latin American visual arts as well as in the poetry of Peruvians César Moro, Carlos Oquendo de Amat, and Jorge Eielson, Chileans Vicente Huidobro and Nicanor Parrra, and Brazilian Oswald de Andrade and groups such as Noigandres and Poema/Proceso.
But can poetry unbind actual fetters?
Vallejo’s Trilce, a watershed in Spanish-language poetry—published in the fateful year 1922—directly counters the aestheticism of modernismo with its revolutionary poetics of disjunction and linguistic acrobatics. Bedient may have been thinking primarily of Vallejo’s posthumously published poetry rather than Trilce (which he previously described in Boston Review as an “apotheosis” of “exuberant experimentalism,” lamenting that Vallejo’s “early clarity is quickly mussed”). In Trilce, as in many experimental works, solidarity with humanity cohabits with a profound engagement with language and the problem of language’s mysterious relation to the world. Vallejo’s poetry investigates the linguistic function of “I,” that stuttering, halting, fragmented convergence of energies. His poetry is an investigation of the possibility of subjectivity.
Like others who experiment with language—like Gertrude Stein, who pursued her “own interest”; like Oulipian writers who are anti-chance—Vallejo is concerned with deliberately crafting his work. This concern should not be confused with a commitment to unified subjectivity, however. In a notebook Vallejo kept while writing his poetic sequence on the Spanish Civil War, he wrote: “Is it better to say ‘I’? Or better to say ‘the man’ as the subject of emotion—lyric and epic—. Of course, it’s more profound and poetic to say ‘I’—taken naturally as a symbol of ‘everyone’—.” Vallejo is interested in emotion, but the subject of emotion may be called what you will. He might say, with Arthur Rimbaud and with philosophers and linguists, that the pronoun “I” is a grammatical cipher that indicates that the event of language is happening, before it points to anything in the world.[vi]
In one ars poetica, Vallejo compares his own poetry to a piano—without describing the music it produces. The piano alternately soars and attains the carefully orchestrated rest provided by form: it “travels inward, / it travels in joyous leaps. / Then ponders in iron-clad repose, / nailed with ten horizons” (Este piano viaja para adentro, / viaja a saltos alegres. / Luego medita en ferrado reposo, / clavado con diez horizontes. XLIV). The piano bounds the way the poem navigates through language. In this way Vallejo’s piano is akin to Arthur Rimbaud’s bugle (“For I is another. If brass wakes up a bugle, it is not its own doing…. I strike with my bow: the symphony stirs in the depths, or leaps suddenly onto the scene”).[vii] Vallejo’s first-person singular is made of language, and even if it produces music, ultimately, it is still sheer language—not a conduit for subjectivity. The notes produced are incidental to the passage of art-making through the medium of language. It is worth noting that Vallejo’s ironclad repose is not the repose of the mystic Saint John of the Cross, whose poem on theological conviction the piano poem (XLIV) responds to. Nor does Vallejo’s poetry curve smoothly like the swan’s neck in Rubén Darío and the poems of other masters of modernismo. Instead, Vallejo advocates a poetics that is fashioned through disarticulation, embracing the potentiality of the Venus de Milo’s imperfections (and literal lack of articulations) as he makes a call to “refuse symmetry unfalteringly” in XXXVI:
Are you around there, Venus de Milo?You hardly feign you’re a cripple, buddingdeep within the capacious armsof existence that furthermores aperpetual imperfection.Venus de Milo, whose severed, uncreatedarm turns over and tries to elbowacross green stuttering pebbles,eastern nautiluses, yetnesses that have startedto crawl, immortal eves.Roper of imminences, roperof parentheses.….Yield to the new unevennessmighty with orphanhood!
Rather than offer certainties, Vallejo’s beautiful exemplum generates imminence, possibility, productive doubts (inquietudes constructivas; like Keats, like Auden). His poem promotes a broken form, but it is still a form: it is written with precise technique.
Even the most celebrated poets of feeling, such as Vallejo, build their idiosyncratic poetics by constraining language through careful composition. To create the startling poems of Trilce, he drafted finely interlocking, Golden Age-style sonnets only to de-create and torque them. This is certainly a procedure, a constraint. (Think of what Jen Bervin or Flarf poet K. Silem Mohammed do to Shakespeare’s sonnets; or what Oulipian poet Frédéric Forte does in his anagrammatic rendition of Marcel Mauss’s The Gift.) Vallejo’s neologisms, unorthodox orthography, register mixing, and fragmentation—on every level from morphemic to syntactic—are strategies strikingly similar to those Bedient excoriates in Oulipian writers and others he critiques for being “conceptual,” such as, surprisingly, those of M. NourbeSe Philip. These poets all employ similar strategies, but because they do so at different times and places, those strategies take on diverse meanings in the economy of literary capital—just as ideas of authorship, originality, and work are construed and legislated differently in each case.
The poetry of both Vallejo and Philip is composed according to a formal concept or constraint that conveys strong affect. In Zong! Philip brilliantly breaks down language to indicate the problem of articulation. (Oddly, Bedient deems her book conceptual because of its use of gray font in the closing pages, not because of this phonemic fragmentation.) Philip “tells and untells” the true story of 150 African slaves murdered by a ship captain in order to collect insurance. She disarticulates the historical event. In the opening, she indicates the stuttering of drowning voices, disassembling the word “water” to its component phonemes:
w w w w a waw a w a ter
It is hard not to feel one’s chest clench empathetically, asthmatically, while reading this book. Emotion is conveyed about and through the search for communication. The cry haunts, even when it is broken, disassembled, unclear from whom it issues. In these two cases Bedient adduces (Vallejo and Philip), feeling cohabits with constraint. Philip borrows language from the 1781 legal decision Gregson v. Gilbert, which is the single document bearing witness to the massacre—its “tombstone.” In the first twenty-six poems (as many as there are letters in the alphabet), she restricts herself to a “word store” composed solely of the text of the legal decision.
itis saidhas been decidedwas justifiedappeared impossibleis not necessaryis another groundneed not be proveditwas a throwing overboard
Philip spins together a fugue, as she calls it, both in the musical sense and the sense of a state of amnesia. She explains,
In allowing myself to surrender to the text—silences and all—and allowing thefragmented words to speak to the stories locked in the text, I, too, have foundmyself ‘absolved’ of ‘authorial intention.’ So much so that even claiming toauthor the text through my own name is challenged by the way the text hasshaped itself. The way it ‘untells’ itself.
In writing Zong!, she tried to avoid imposing meaning, and to create a poem that would demand the reader’s effort to “‘make sense’ of an event that eludes understanding, perhaps permanently.” Her poetics arose out of her feeling that she needed “permission” to tell the stories of the dead. I’ll return in a moment to the notion of authorial intention that she wishes to avoid, but for now I want to note that Philip—who is a lawyer as well as poet—says that she distrusts language because it is part of the system of logic and rationality that orders the world. She compares her poetics to the contortions, force, and spontaneity of the dance style crumping (or krumping), so that “the ordering of grammar, the ordering that is the impulse of empire, is subverted.”
But can poetry unbind actual fetters? Bedient writes that “the imagination is essential to politics” because it transmutes empathy into solidarity. This is a very messy kind of alchemy—and unpredictable in its results. Keston Sutherland cautions that “readers will be more or less active and free in their uses of texts depending on thousands of unpredictable factors that no poet could ever control or design.” It is a “patronising fantasy” to imagine that one’s poetry will liberate strangers, he writes, “whose actually infinitely complex lives full of many kinds of incalculable unfreedom and oppression are routinely ignored in favour of a stupefying heroic abstraction.”
• • •
One last thought in response to Bedient’s complaint. A comparison may be helpful. Just short of a century ago, a similar confluence of debates about literature occurred in Latin America. At the same time as De Andrade’s manifesto advocating cultural cannibalism (antropofagia) was circulating in Brazil, the polemic surrounding the reception of the Hispanic poetic vanguard clustered around three major issues that may ring familiar right now: the significance of technique; the existence of genuine novelty in vanguard poetry; and creative sincerity.[viii] At that moment, a pressing question for many writers was how to craft a national literary tradition that was proper to Latin America and separate from Europe. There are some important analogies between that moment and the present one in North America, including the pitting of sincerity against an insatiable devouring of cultural memes. There are critical differences, of course, between the social and political circumstances of these cases, but it is worth pointing out that these are old tensions that exist across cultures. There are many experimental currents today beyond the one championed by Goldsmith or Vanessa Place. A poetics of cannibalism, for example, has pointed politico-aesthetic implications: it constitutes an aggressive program for the construction of a poetics that draws at will from the world’s cultural heritage.[ix]
Some very interesting poets are offering a provocative rethinking of cultural and socio-political power dynamics as they cut up or appropriate language of many sorts, play with proper names and mistaken identities, and imagine the cannibal as a figure of resistance to the colonial matrix of power, with its accompanying regime of language and capitalist consumption. There is a usurping impulse at work, as Haroldo De Campos calls it. I’m thinking of writers as varied as M. NourbeSe Philip, Mónica de la Torre, Terrance Hayes, Mark McMorris, Haryette Mullen, and Wendy Walker; and Latin American Neo-Baroque poets including Argentines Néstor Perlongher, Osvaldo Lamborghini, and Arturo Carrera, Uruguyans Roberto Echavarren and Eduardo Milán, Cuban-American José Kozer, and Peruvian-Argentine Reynaldo Jimenez. These poets appropriate literary capital through constrained recombination, recycling, and (often playful) of language. Their subversive copying indicates fissures in capitalist and race-based notions of property and subjecthood.These poets are all participating in a broadly cannibalistic logic of poetic displacement that is an alternative to conceptual or uncreative writing.
• • •
Maybe the most striking thing about this new debate is how old it is. We keep tripping over the idea that poetic inspiration and originality are possible, when we are fated to repeat ourselves, repeat ourselves, repeat ourselves—even when we go against the grain. “Arroz is arroz is arroz,” as Chicano poet José Montoya wrote.
Editor's note: This is one of two essays responding to Calvin Bedient's "Against Conceptualism." Read Drew Gardner's response here.
Image: carla arena
[i]Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2011), xlv.
[ii]“The fetish of authenticity” is Marcus Boon’s phrase in In Praise of Copying, which is available for download in pdf format from Harvard University Press.
[iii]Françoise Meltzer, Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality.
[iv]Translations of Vallejo are from Valentino Gianuzzi and Michael Schimdt, published by Shearsman Books.
[v]Luis Camnitzer, Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation.
[vi]Roman Jakobson makes this point, as does Giorgio Agamben: “before designating real objects, pronouns and other indices of enunciation indicate precisely that language is taking place; in this sense, they refer to the very event of language before referring to a world of signfieds.” For a discussion of this idea, see Susan Stewart, Poetry and the Fate of the Senses.
[vii]“Car Je est un autre. Si le cuivre s’eveille clairon, il n’y a rien de sa faute…je lance un coup d’archet: la symphonie fait son remuement dans les profondeurs, ou vient d’un bond sur la scène.”
[viii]Mirko Lauer notes that vanguardistideas of authenticity show their Romantic roots in La polémica del vanguardismo, 1916-1928.
[ix]I discuss cannibalistic poetics at length in “Poetry Is Theft,” Comparative Literature Studies (50.1) February 2014, p. 18-54.
Rachel Galvin’s latest books are a collection of poems, Elevated Threat Level (Green Lantern Press, 2018), a work of criticism, News of War: Civilian Poetry 1936-1945 (Oxford UP, 2018), and Decals: Complete Early Poetry of Oliverio Girondo (Open Letter Books, 2018), which she translated from the Spanish with Harris Feinsod. Her other books include Pulleys & Locomotion (poems), Auden at Work (essays co-edited with Bonnie Costello), and Hitting the Streets (a translation from the French of Raymond Queneau), winner of the Scott Moncrieff Prize. She is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
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CALYX Press and Oregon State University Libraries and Press have been awarded a grant of $96,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize at-risk literature published through CALYX Press.
This grant enables important literary works from the last 50 years of the feminist movement to be transformed into openly licensed e-book formats. CALYX, founded in 1976, is one of the nation's oldest feminist presses, and has published diverse authors including Julia Alvarez, Chitra Divakaruni, Barbara Kingsolver, Sharon Olds, Linda Hogan, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
The project goal is to foster wider readership and a renewed interest in the impact of the small independent press on national and international feminist movements. Taking advantage of contemporary e-book technology, the project will digitize and distribute out-of-print texts by authors now central to contemporary feminist literature.
"Feminist presses of the last 50 years, including CALYX Press, have been a fundamental part of the cultural discourse," said Alicia Bublitz, managing editor of CALYX Press, "and we are dedicated to preserving those voices in a digital world.
"The work of these presses is disappearing, and maintaining their foundational texts is essential for scholarship, history and art," she said. "This project is an acknowledgment of our great debt to these often controversial, always passionate, and incredibly powerful leaders."
According to Korey Jackson, the Gray Family Chair for Innovative Library Services, and Jane Nichols, OSU instruction and emerging technologies librarian, the work was a great connection between CALYX's independent lens and feminist literary connections, and the library's dedicated infrastructure and support for open access.
"Our hope is to inspire new audiences and foster new readers of feminist literature by making these texts openly available," Jackson said.
Click photos to see a full-size version. Right click and save image to download. | http://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2015/dec/calyx-osu-libraries-and-press-receive-grant-support-feminist-literature |
Oulipo (French pronunciation: [ulipo], short for French: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated: "workshop of potential literature") is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians which seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Other notable members include novelists Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poet Oskar Pastior and poet/mathematician Jacques Roubaud.
The group defines the term 'littérature potentielle' as (rough translation): "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy."
Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine" which he used in the construction of Life: A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new techniques, often based on mathematical problems such as the Knight's Tour of the chess-board and permutations.
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Contents
Oulipo was founded on November 24, 1960, as a subcommittee of the Collège de ‘Pataphysique and titled Séminaire de littérature expérimentale. However at their second meeting, this first name was withdrawn in favor of today's Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or OuLiPo, at Albert-Marie Schmidt's suggestion. The idea, however, preceded the first meeting by roughly two months, when a small group met in September at Cerisy-la-Salle for a colloquium on Queneau's work. During this seminar, Queneau and François Le Lionnais conceived of the society.
During the subsequent decade, Oulipo was only rarely visible as a group. As a subcommittee, they reported their work to the full Collège de 'Pataphysique in 1961. In addition, Temps Mêlés (French) devoted an issue to Oulipo in 1964, and Belgian radio broadcast one Oulipo meeting. Its members were, however, individually active during these years, and the group as a whole began to emerge from obscurity in 1973 with the publication of La Littérature Potentielle, a collection of representative pieces.
Some examples of Oulipian writing: Queneau's Exercices de Style is the recounting of the same inconsequential episode ninety-nine times, in which a man witnesses a minor altercation on a bus trip, each unique in terms of tone and style.
Plaisirs singuliers by Harry Mathews (the only American member of Oulipo) describes 61 different scenes, each told in a different style (generally poetic, elaborate, or circumlocutory) in which 61 different people (all of different ages, nationalities, and walks of life) masturbate.
Queneau's Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes is inspired by children's picture books in which each page is cut into horizontal strips which can be turned independently, allowing different pictures (usually of people) to be combined in many ways. Queneau applies this technique to poetry: the book contains 10 sonnets, each on a page. Each page is split into 14 strips, one for each line. The author estimates in the introductory explanation that it would take approximately 200 million years to read all possible combinations.
Some Oulipian constraints:
The founding members of Oulipo representing a range of intellectual pursuits including writers, university professors, mathematicians, engineers, and 'pataphysicians:
Note that Oulipo members are still considered members after their deaths. | http://www.thefullwiki.org/Oulipo |
What is Singaporean poetry? Given the apparent lack of a well-known Singaporean canon, chances are the question will draw a blank with many of us. True to form (pun intended), UnFree Verse: Singapore Poetry in Form offers a comprehensive selection of formal poetry and represents an unprecedented attempt to plug the gap where Singaporean formal poetry is concerned.
Edited by established local poets Joshua Ip, Tse Hao Guang, and Theophilus Kwek, UnFree Verse draws its material from a vast literary storehouse. It covers 80 years of print and online material and some 16 poetry forms, ranging from the archaic to the modern, Western to Asian. Ambitious in its scope and aim, the collection, armed with the unfamiliar notion of Singaporean formal poetry, hopes to demolish existing conceptions of Singapore poetry. However, rather than an attempt at canon-making, its editors insist that the text is an attempt at canon-breaking, meant to provide eye-opening possibilities for Singaporean readers and writers to consider.
One manner in which it presents this eye-opening possibility is in the blurb's question: "Might these constraints be fertile soil for creativity in Singapore?" Similar to my opening question, the question surprises readers, inviting one to ask: "What is formal poetry and its constraints?" Blank and free verse have very specific definitions, but formal poetry has only a broad, working definition; that is: "Poetry that overtly uses the effects of metre, rhyme and form". This explains the generous selection of works that was available to the editors. At this juncture, another interesting aspect of the book presents itself: In line with the editors' aim at raising awareness of Singaporean formal poetry and the forms utilized, the end of the book contains a 'Glossary of Short Forms'. The purpose of this section is clearly educational and informative, tracing the characteristics and geographic origin of each form, much as the material in the book is arranged chronologically to trace the literary history of Singaporean formal poetry.
What catches my attention, then, is the association of formal poetry with constraint, and the editors' seemingly paradoxical dream of fostering creativity amid constraint. Given that the defining characteristic of formal poetry lies in its defining characteristics, it seems counter-intuitive that any room for creativity may be found. However, I share the editors' belief that an increased exposure to the forms utilized in Singapore poetry present an eye-opening opportunity. Viewed by the creative mind, the forms which appear to constitute constraint suddenly become meaningful tools which the writer may use to enhance the message in his poetry. As a result, knowledge of formal poetry offers budding writers the tools to express themselves in more creative manners.
It is immediately apparent that 'Night Manoeuvres' parallels and borrows from Dante's Inferno. Pang's homage to Dante is further apparent in the use of the classical Italian form terza rima, an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme credited to Dante. 'Night Manoeuvres' employs terza rima to great effect, using the interlocking rhyme scheme to create a breathlessness and disorientation connecting each stanza, which mimics the military exercises many a Singaporean son has gone through. Aided by this breathlessness, readers are taken for a disorienting ride through a medley of sensations that accompany the march. The sensory images fluidly and rapidly shift from stumbling through rain to the hard knocks of canteens to slippery mud and stiff roots. With terza rima, Pang pays homage to the disorientation of Dante's Virgil in Inferno, transposing it onto a common Singaporean experience. Subsequently, the disorientation ends abruptly when the objective presents itself, a distinct touch Pang adds to the borrowed elements from Dante and Inferno. Thus, Pang's 'Night Manoeuvres' demonstrates the very manner in which local writers may utilize the characteristics of existing forms to creatively enhance the message of their poetry.
The answer to the question posed ("Might these constraints be fertile soil for creativity in Singapore?") then seems to be a resounding "yes". Dabbling in the formal mode has an effect wherein one does not merely resort to blank/free verse to escape from the constraints of form, but uses the formal structure itself as a tool of creative expression. UnFree Verse represents fertile ground for budding writers and Singaporeans, wherein the discovery of new literary forms and constraints pushes at the boundaries of one's literary consciousness and creates more imaginative room, empowering future creative expression.
The vision of UnFree Verse's editors – as well as the countless contributors whose works give form to that vision of creativity amid constraint – calls to mind a particular poem I once encountered. I find it particularly appropriate here, given that the rebellious streak of striving for creativity despite constraint in UnFree Verse is shared by the Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Taken from his poem 'Nuns Fret Not At Their Convent's Narrow Room', composed in 1807, Wordsworth writes: "In truth the prison, into which we doom/Ourselves, no prison is" in praise of the sonnet form, which he similarly utilized creatively despite its constraints. Rather, he would be "pleased if some souls [...] Who have felt the weight of too much liberty/Should find brief solace there".
Like Wordsworth, should Singaporean poetry and poets not endeavour to achieve literary freedom within the seeming prison of formal poetics? If you think so, UnFree Verse is a definite addition to your list of Singlit must-reads.
Vol. 16 No. 3 Jul 2017. | http://www.qlrs.com/critique.asp?id=1431 |
While success may have many fathers and failure is an orphan, in the case of C.D. Rose’s The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure, these orphans at least have a warm roof over their heads. Rose’s quest to “tell the tales of those whose tales will remain untold,” in the form of 52 portraits of failed literary careers seems initially to disprove the “failure is an orphan” expression—until, as in the best of fictional orphanages, some of the residents rapidly begin to look considerably less like foundlings and considerably more like offspring.
Andrew Gallix asks, in his introduction, “If, as Roland Barthes argued, the death of the author marks the birth of literature, does the death of literature—its loss, or failure to come into being—mark the birth of the author?” In this case, it likely does, in an index of literary failure of every possible variety. A near-blind author pours out a masterpiece onto a dry typewriter reel. An author strains in vain over a lifetime for a perfect first word, beaten to it narrowly by death. Another author suffers the comparatively prosaic misfortune of leaving the manuscript of his masterpiece at Reading Station. Reading this necrology of unseen fiction, one enjoys the creeping awareness that the greatest failure of anyone in the Biographical Dictionary was existing in the first place. This does tend to put their faults in perspective.
In an age in which even conventional dictionaries often include false entries as a trap for plagiarists—the New Columbia Encyclopedia likely won this game of counterespionage with an entry for Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a photographer best known for photos of rural American mailboxes who died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine—the rise of the fictional reference work is hardly a surprise, nor obviously is it particularly new. The false library or reference work has an extensive and esteemed lineage. Borges’s Library of Babel is the spiritual father of them all. Danilo Kis’s Encyclopedia of the Dead assumed a compensatory posture in the realm of biography: “The only condition ... for inclusion in The Encyclopedia of the Dead is that no one whose name is recorded here may appear in any other encyclopedia.” Roberto Bolano’s Nazi Literature of the Americas profiles a set of authors who were better off not existing (and requires some discretion to read in public).
Rose’s work, like Gilbert Sorrentino’s Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things, achieves something more comic given its relentless focus on failure.
Misfortune in dictionaries mirrors that in life, and the range of authorial mishaps in the book draws deeply from those you might imagine and a good deal more. There’s a lost modernist manuscript, “L’homme avec les mains fleuries,” lost when a friend, suspecting the author died in the Great War, complied with his request to burn it. Another casualty is U-Boat litterateur Baron Friedrich Von Schoenvorts, whose aquatically-composed works about an undersea colony of Martian invaders were lost along with his submarine. Or, more outlandishly, the bibliophage who would promptly eat his output.
Writer’s block or belabored starts, probably the most familiar complaints in the epidemiology of writer’s afflictions, are well-represented. Aurelio Quattroch “spent all of 1973 pouring over a single word, and most of 1974 erasing it.” Wilson Young, who determined he could not write until he had finished comprehensive travels, filled notebooks with “mouthwatering descriptions of the menemen eaten in Istanbul, the manoushi in Beirut and the grilled milza in Palermo,” but wrote nothing else. Then there is Felix Dodge, who, “among many other things, investigated and wrote extensive notes on Russian steamships, First World War artillery battalions, the Mauve February anarchists, Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon poetry, the United Kingdom’s lesser-used train routes, rare psychological complaints (bibliophagy and graphomania in particular), translations of obscure German and Russian literature, the nature of the true Ark, seventeenth-century traveller’s tales, Muscovite street slang, early submarines, Bothno-Ugaric languages, the practice of demonology in West Yorkshire, Age of Discovery-era Portuguese statuary and the contents of the great lost library of Alexandria. Dodge then died of an aneurysm when eventually he sat down to write.”
There are realized works marooned by linguistic difficulties and the absence of a ready readership. Ortha Orkut (even Rose’s names are memorable) wrote lyric verse that proved to be an epitaph for her language, of which she was the last speaker (this language is familiar, but only from a certain Calvino novel). Or Peter Trabzhk, who authored a Dubliners for the city of Bzyzhzh, in Spanish, a language that no one in the city spoke. Or the suspiciously Fassbinder-y Veronica Vass, whose wartime work at Bletchley Park led her to write a novel in a code that no one has ever deciphered. Hartmutt Trautman, an East German whose enthusiasm for English as the most beautiful language, was impaired by his failure to understand any of it, perhaps because his principal tool of reference was a German-English dictionary “particular to the field of East German electrical engineering.”
Some of these attempted epics sound like postmodern classics come a little too soon; to quote Steve Coogan in the film adaptation of Tristram Shandy, “written before there was any modernism to be post about.” There’s the positively Oulipian Chad Sheehan, who wrote 1,917 opening lines for novels, and no more. Virgil Haack, laboring on a genuine work of literary minimalism, sent out a work consisting only of “the single word, ‘I’ on the first, and only, page of his novel.” The editors “unanimously mistook that lonely, passionate word for the number ‘one’ and believed that Haack had forgotten to enclose the ensuing chapters of his great work.” Kevin Stapleton, who “spent the next few years in his bedsit writing tales of great journeys to Ceylon, Siam, and Persia, unaware that those countries had ceased to exist.”
There’s a prolific author whose works simply sound too perfectly eponymous: Henderby of Henderby Hall, Ernest Maltravers, and Cheverley, the Man of Honor. The author Aston Brock became convinced that writing’s failure to pay could be blamed on the replicability of the book.
“It was with this in mind that Aston Brock decided, seeing as his attempts to break into literary renown had yet been unsuccessful, that he would henceforth publish his work in limited editions of one. One copy, only. No more, ever. The author’s signature would grace the title page.”
With singularity ensured, “his novel Christ versus Warhol would attain the status and price tag of such works of art as Jasper Johns’s Gray Numbers ($40 million), Gerhard Richter’s Three Candles ($8.9 million), Cy Twombly’s Untitled 1970 ($7.6 million) or even Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog (a relatively modest $5 million).” Naturally this didn’t go according to plan.
It’s easy—at least at first—to read the biographical dictionary credulously. But specific details do raise red flags: One author’s family, for instance, is a virtual melting pot: “his mother Swedish, his father Franco-Polish, his brother Armenian.” Ostensibly the book was once a website, although the entries were soon deleted in a suspiciously Bartlebooth-like act of erasure. Some traces are more subtly salted; the authors who crop up in other entries, the fact that a notable forger’s work, “The Man With The Flowering Hands,” sounds suspiciously like the lost manuscript, “L’homme avec les mains fleuries.”
Literature being a game, like any other, intrinsically concerned with the relative winners, there is no doubt that there are, as the introduction notes, “dozens or hundreds or thousands whose work has been lost to fire or flood, to early death, to loss, to theft or to the censor’s pyre.” There are, obviously, no real biographical dictionaries for these. The fortunate thing, though, about a book that’s not grounded in recognition but in unfamiliarity—less of a “Who’s Who” than a “Who Isn’t”—is how would you possibly tell? And given the results, how could you argue? | https://www.thedailybeast.com/dictionary-of-failure-is-a-big-success |
The COVID-19 pandemic has produced so much anxiety and fear-based news, could anything good be coming out of this situation? The isolation, confinement and restrictions feel a bit like miniature prison terms–reducing our ability to embrace outside experiences and social stimulation. And the fear is creating an understandable desire to hold tightly to the way we’ve been doing business–or life, for that matter.
However, since social distancing began, I’ve been witnessing some of the most creative responses from folks all over the world involving every aspect of life, from the brilliant musical send-up created by a British family of four, to amazing ways that families are using their backyards to create mini ski-slopes, to creative problem solving by high school students responding to the N95 mask shortage, folks in every situation imaginable are reimagining their lives in such creative ways.
Some businesses have tapped their creativity to respond to shifts in their industries. Restaurants are pivoting to grocery sales and creative delivery options, Printing companies are pivoting to fulfillment centers. Telemedicine is taking leaps in providing virtual care. It’s spectacular!
And truth is, creativity is often sparked by the limits we place around our situations, not the freedoms. A Harvard Business Review article written by three authors who conducted a meta-analysis of 145 studies on constraints, revealed that constraints actually encourage more creative thinking and solutions, not fewer. As they state:
“According to the studies we reviewed, when there are no constraints on the creative process, complacency sets in, and people follow what psychologists call the path-of-least-resistance – they go for the most intuitive idea that comes to mind rather than investing in the development of better ideas. Constraints, in contrast, provide focus and a creative challenge that motivates people to search for and connect information from different sources to generate novel ideas for new products, services, or business processes.”
Perhaps that’s why we’re seeing so much innovation during this time of constrained movement, and goodness knows we need this level of thinking around almost everything in our current situation–especially in the development of testing, treatment, and vaccines.
In terms of your business, we encourage you to harness the power of innovation and creativity that current constraints have created to stay in the game with your customers and prospects and deliver them surprising and fresh value. You may just emerge from this pandemic ready to offer new products and services or deliver your present products and services in new and innovative ways.
Get creative with your communications and don’t let off the gas (remember, gas is cheap right now!). Be inspired to think of creative ways to engage and provide value through communications, especially online using Zoom, webinars, video and other rich media to reach out and connect.
Remind yourself, and your team, that our bodies may be confined, but our creativity can’t be contained! We can’t wait to see what you create as we weather this pandemic together. | https://thomathoma.com/is-covid-making-us-more-creative/ |
Critical Psychological Analysis of Liter...
by Nishank Khanna
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Psychological analysis of literary works evolved as modern psychology itself began to take form during the early twentieth century. Although this type of critique employs the concepts expressed by many noted sociologists, including Carl Jung, Alfred Adler and Otto Rank, none have contributed as heavily to this field of study as Sigmund Freud has. While many aspects of his theories have been discounted by contemporary psychologists, the fundamental ideas he expressed have withstood the test of time. Five of these, in particular, form the basis of the psychological analysis of authors and the books they write.
The Primacy of the Unconscious
Freud believed that every individual has a conscious and an unconscious mind. Moreover, he believed that it was the unconscious mind that plays the largest role in shaping someone's personality. He maintained that the vast differences between real and apparent motives are a result of this delineation between the two aspects of the soul.
The Iceberg Theory of the Psyche
Freud believed that the psyche, or "soul", of an individual was shaped like an iceberg. The small part that remained above the surface for all to see was the ego, the individual's self image that he projected to the world. Below the surface, much larger, the pleasure-principle, the id, remained away from public view. Lining this iceberg was the superego, representing parental influences. Between the conscious mind (the ego) and the unconscious mind (the id), at the "waterline" of the iceberg, was a line separating the two parts of the individual. Occasionally, the id would poke through that line, but, in most psychologically well-adjusted people, this barrier was a strong one.
Dreams are an expression of our unconscious mind
One of Freud's best-known theories states that the conflict between the ego and the id is continued while we sleep. He believed that these two aspects of our psyche expressed themselves while we sleep, using a language of symbolism and hidden meanings. He believed that id-driven dreams were outbursts of instinct and repression and that realistic dreams were an example of our ego's iron control over our soul even while we sleep.
Infantile behavior is essentially sexual
Freud believed that during an individual's formative years, he or she was entirely governed by his developing id. This developing unconscious often takes sexual and/or hostile mannerisms, as in the case of the Oedipus complex, in which a young boy falls in love with his mother and is jealous of and hateful toward his father for the attentions he receives from her. Freud also believed that any repression or neurosis formed during this time period would later surface as damaging outbursts in the mature adult.
The relationship between neurosis and creativity
Freud's last theory applies more to the author than the characters in his works. Freud believed that those who create (artists, poets, etc.) are using their creativity as a sort of therapy. He believed that an individual relieved his or her own neurotic tension through their creative work. In addition, these individuals give us insights into the nature of reality and the people who inhabit it. Thus, psychoanalyzing a work of literature can give us great insight into the unconscious of the author.
These five concepts can be employed in the study of characters and their actions in a literary forum, as well as giving us insight into the nature of man in general.
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Matheny’s Arts Access program empowers individuals with disabilities to create art without boundaries. Through the use of innovative systems and techniques, participants can take part in the visual, performing and literary arts. Regardless of their disability, clients are provided with the tools and materials needed to produce complete pieces of work.
OUR ACTIVITIES
Montclair, NJ: Studio Montclair presents its 20th Annual Open Juried Exhibition, “ViewPoints 2017,” to run from June 1 through June 30, 2017 at aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, 591 Broad Street, Newark, NJ. An opening reception and announcement of cash awards will take place on Saturday, June 3 from 6 to 9pm. This year’s show features 87 works selected from more than 1,000 that were submitted by artists from every region of the US, as well as Canada, Europe, and Asia. States curator Karen Wilkin, “The submissions to ViewPoints 2017 reflected today’s multivalence of conception, approach, and medium, so the selection of work to be exhibited had to honor widely differing possibilities without compromising aesthetic values.” The result is an exhibition of work that cuts across a broad range of media and techniques, including oil painting, various forms of photography, clay, fabric, metal, wood, and mixed
The Arts Access Program at Matheny Medical & Educational Center is designed to inspire, uplift and encourage the aspirations of artists in the disabled community. In an effort to provide access to the same disciplines available to able-bodied artists, Arts Access offers courses in all of the fine, performing, and literary arts. Using systems and techniques specifically designed for each discipline, participants can create pieces of work that are distinctly their own. On a daily basis, Arts Access fosters an environment of artistic creativity among the participating clients. The program improves the quality of life of the disabled community and those around them. In addition, Arts Access programming aids in changing the perception about the capabilities and talents of those living with developmental disabilities. | https://yoocanfind.com/ServiceProvider/35/arts-access-program-at-matheny |
Is Copyright Killing Creativity?
It's time to move toward an open-source model for literary and creative production, argues Illegal Literature, a provocative new challenge to traditional copyright models.
Illegal Literature: Toward a Disruptive CreativityPublisher: University of Minnesota Press
Length: 200 pages
Author: David S. Roh
Price: $25.00
Format: Paperback
Publication date: 2015-12
Amazon
Is copyright killing creativity?
David Roh, an English professor at the University of Utah, warns that it might be. His study Illegal Literature: Toward a Disruptive Creativity emerges as a highly academic yet deeply provocative manifesto for loosening copyright laws in the name of culture and creativity. “The cultural stakes are high,” he writes. “For to continue unabated in the established trajectory would mean a steady march toward stasis… the literary and cultural landscape will lose out on a valuable form of production.”
Roh takes the side of the creative, building a case against the barriers to creativity and culture posed by contemporary copyright law. Copyright law today has grown far beyond its original function of securing the economic profits of a work, but now also stifles content that seeks to engage with another work, either through parody or other derivative creations. Roh opens his analysis with a study of two parodic works: Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone (a parody of Margaret Mitchell’s iconic Gone With the Wind, told from an African-American perspective) and Pia Pera’s Lo’s Diary, a parodic response to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Both derivative texts were initially challenged by the original author’s estate, and although each was finally published, the threat of litigation and high costs involved risks deterring publishers from taking on other dangerously subversive texts.
In actual fact, the notion of authorial control over not just profits but also ideas themselves is much more deeply rooted in European culture than Roh makes it out to be; this is better articulated in studies which contrast Anglo-American copyright principles with continental European (particularly French) copyright principles.
What Roh does argue, importantly, is that the notion of authorial genius, and the notion that a work can truly be considered the product of a single author, is increasingly at odds with our evolving digital culture.
“[T]he romantic idea of authorial genius can no longer enjoy uncritical acceptance -- it’s simply become too restrictive,” he writes. The pervasiveness of internet trends -- memes mocking memes, pop culture products emerging from spoofs or parodies of other pop culture products -- reveals that ours is a derivative culture, in which creativity emerges from our engagement with each other; it is dialogic, to use Roh’s term. We do not lock ourselves into an attic and produce masterpieces out of thin air; we build on the work of others.
This isn’t entirely a new phenomenon. Roh notes that many of history’s most famous and revered creative producers were master plagiarizers who stole and remixed the work of others. Examples of this process date even further back. Storytellers and the purveyors of fireside myths and folktales also shared and tweaked and reworked each others’ stories freely, developing the rich cultural legacies our contemporary world is built upon. Indeed, the dialogic impulse can be seen in even the most ancient forms of call-and-response (songs, folktales, etc), where the storyteller doesn’t retain ultimate authority over their tale, but envisions storytelling as a participatory process in which the listener engages with and actually helps to build, shape and reshape the text.
These impulses, ancient as they may be, have reached a whole new scale in the digital era. Moreover, the digital era has enabled derivative creative culture to transcend traditional barriers of distribution. One no longer needs the financial backing of elites and publishing houses (and approval of church and state) in order to distribute one’s creative works: all you need is a computer and internet connection and you can reach the world. This, Roh suggests, has intensified the showdown between those attempting to protect their economic profits as based on the sole-author creator model, and those who are attempting to produce and spread derivative creative material in the face of lawsuits and copyright treaties.
Roh doesn’t mince his words (although he deploys plenty of fancy ones, which renders his work most accessible to an academic audience). Copyright is stifling creativity. He disposes of the argument, often used in defense of copyright, that financial incentives are key to inspiring creativity. Geniuses won’t take the time or effort to produce creative works unless they know that strong copyright laws will protect their economic profits and royalties, goes the argument. To counter that claim, Roh points to the widespread popularity of fan fiction: works produced by ‘amateurs’, which build on existing creative products (television shows, comics, movies) but do so with no expectation of profit.
Fan fiction is simply posted to the internet, or printed and photocopied for small-scale distribution. Yet it’s a burgeoning field, reflecting a broad-based desire to produce creative works even if they don't lead to profit. Furthermore, the intense Japanese market for self-published fan fiction manga, or what’s known as dojinshi, has reached heights unparalleled in the West, and for some dojinshi creators it actually is profitable.
What this demonstrates, however, is that contrary to foundational western copyright tenets, removing or loosening copyright restrictions in fact increases the quantity and intensity of creative production, generating even greater economic outcomes. In Japan, where derivative dojinshi based on other authors' works are respected and permitted -- there are even entire libraries of them -- they’ve produced enormous spin-off industries, with conventions and publishing houses of their own. In other words, removing copyright restrictions (or in the Japanese case not imposing them as strictly in the first place) on derivative works won’t kill creative culture, but could intensify it, both in terms of scale and economic output.
“[T]he creative community in Japan seems to thrive because looser interpretations of copyright allow both mainstream and dojinshi creators to poach from common materials without the burden of clearing rights… [they] may be necessary for the health of the manga industry so that dojinshi can find a responsive audience and dojinshi artists are encouraged to develop their skills and produce. The implication for American readers is that the increasing strength and breadth of copyright may be counter to its purpose of advancing the sciences and useful arts.”
Finally, Roh compares literary production with the open source software model. He looks at open versus closed programming systems, and the logic of horizontal versus vertical (hierarchical) networks. Predictably, open source models are often argued to be the most creative and productive: allowing the public non-proprietary access to software codes is a more effective method of finding and fixing bugs, and developing newer and more improved software.
If literary production operated along similar lines and without the interference of proprietary copyright barriers, Roh seems to suggest, the scale and breadth of creative production might be far greater. Indeed, if computer programmers had the sort of copyright protections on their programming codes that literary producers have, old and outdated code would never be upgraded and technological innovation would grind to a halt.
Open source software operates according to the model of the gift economy, Roh notes. Companies and programmers give up their proprietary rights to the products they produce -- making of them a sort of gift to the broader society -- but they know that they will receive gifts in return: newer and better forms of software and innovations made by the users who freely build on their work. The notion is grounded in a sense of the cultural value of good software: we all benefit, and it enriches our society as a whole.
The proprietary model of literary production, on the other hand, mired in restrictive copyright rules, suggests that literary producers are losing sight of the broader cultural value of their work. There’s an implicit inferiority complex at the root of proprietary models: a literary work’s greatest value is seen to be what it imparts to its creator (royalties and profits), not what it imparts to the broader society.
Roh suggests that literary and creative producers could take a lesson from software programmers and develop what he refers to as ‘literary versioning’. Much as we consider it inevitable that our operating systems and applications will eventually be upgraded to a new version, why not think of literary works the same way? Instead of trying to lock down a creative work as soon as it’s published, so as to prevent other people from altering or modifying it on their own, why not simply accept the inevitability of its modification, and acknowledge that literary works will be re-worked freely by others into new versions?
Indeed, this is already happening in other forms of culture -- movies and television series produced decades ago are being remade or ‘rebooted’ so as to be more relevant to today’s culture. This demonstrates how ‘versioning’ is being carried out not simply to refresh the technological components of a work (as in software) but also to refresh the cultural components (rebooting movies and television shows). Remaking such works every generation or two is becoming more and more common -- why should literary works be any different?
Roh’s work offers a number of valuable insights. The ardent defense of copyright on a broad scale, he suggests, isn’t so much about protecting specific works as it is about resisting a changing cultural logic that no longer values the ideology of single author genius. There’s a clash of cultures that’s gathering speed and intensity: copyright culture, which is trying to preserve control of ideas and financial incentives for individual creators, versus an emerging culture that’s grown up in a world of interconnected horizontal networks, derivative texts, and open source models where original authorship is valued less than the potential a work has for being built upon by others.
One of the outcomes, some scholars suggest, is that authors need to stop placing themselves at the centre of focus. Any move toward disrupting the copyright model will necessarily involve relinquishing authorial control, and authors risk being sidelined as their works take flight and are reworked, remixed and reinvented by the broader culture. This, perhaps, is what really frightens scholars and literary producers more than financial loss: the idea that they will lose a bit of their individuality amid a growing sea of creative and intellectual production. This may or may not happen -- open source programmers are very good at crediting each other’s accomplishments in voluntary fashion -- but the outcome might be a much more creative and intellectually vibrant culture for all of us. | https://www.popmatters.com/is-copyright-killing-creativity-2495438844.html |
By Nick Ostdick. Jun 23, 2015. 9:00 AM.
Imagine telling your boss the only way you can be productive at work is after imbibing two or three glasses of sherry. Or by lying flat on your back with your knees tucked tightly toward your chest. Or perhaps in a bathtub brimming with soap bubbles. You'd probably be fired.
But habits or routines similar to these were staples in the creative process for some of America’s most famous authors. These renowned literary figures spared no effort to create a space for the unconscious mind to play. Truly, these strange sandboxes for creativity and inspiration were crucial to the creation of some American classics. Let's explore a few authors and their peculiar, but effective, habits.
Jack Kerouac famously said, “It’s not what you write, it’s how you write it,” a philosophy undoubtedly expressed in the writing of Kerouac’s counter-culture classic On the Road.
Whereas some writers would have slowly chipped away at the novel, adding pages daily, Kerouac spent months — some say years — taking detailed notes on the novel’s characters, plot, and themes before composing a first draft on a continuous, 120 foot-long scroll during a frenetic three-week period in 1951. Typing nearly one hundred words per minute, it’s believed Kerouac opted for the scroll to avoid replacing pages in his typewriter so as not to disrupt his creative groove.
Manufacturing the optimal mental space to enable that creative groove was surely not lost on famed mystery author Agatha Christie. In writing such novels as an Appointment with Death and Sleeping Murder, it’s believed Christie would sketch-out the plots of her who-done-its in the bathtub while snacking on apples. Once the twists and turns of each novel were fully-envisioned in her mind, only then would Christie exit the tub, dry herself, and begin the work of committing her stories to the page.
The physical space or location in which famous authors work also plays a large part in the habits they develop to help corral the muse.
Photo courtesy of Steve Hopson Photography and used under CC license 2.5.
In his memoir On Writing, horror and science fiction author Stephen King explains his method for writing a first draft versus revising and editing subsequent drafts. For him, the door to his office, and whether it’s open or closed, is directly related to the different stages of his process and what he’s working on at the time.
Similarly, poet Maya Angelou believed her best work only happened when she was in a certain physical space or location. In a 1990 interview with The Paris Review, Angelou discussed how she rented a hotel room in her hometown where she would arrive each morning to begin the day’s writing. Angelou could only create in that space by lying flat across the hotel bed and composing out loud some of her most revered poems.
Angelou was also famous for requiring two to three glasses of sherry before she could sit down to work, regardless of the time of day.
One would be remiss for not discussing the strange writing habits of the imitable Ernest Hemingway, whose creative process was a hybrid between the need for the proper headspace and physical location.
Hemingway could only create in a small, cluttered bedroom in his suburban-Havana home, surrounded by books, notes, records, and other trinkets he found vital for inspiration. Such classics like An Old Man in the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls began with pencil and paper rather than a typewriter, and Hemingway stood as he wrote rather than sitting, hunched over his typewriter for a few hours each day.
Standing, sitting, in the tub, or on a hotel room bed, it’s safe to say the habits that lead to literary prowess run the gambit of the peculiar or strange. While some may be quick to dismiss these creative quirks as gimmicky, there’s no denying how millions of people the world over have been moved by these authors and their novels, stories, and poems. And at the end of the day, isn't that what we really want? | https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/strange-sandboxes-unusual-writing-habits-of-five-famous-authors |
Sustainable means that which lasts, continues, or be continued for an extended time. For example, developing a conscious plan of nature-friendly utilization of natural resources and environmental conservation is called sustainable development. Such development works help in continued the existence of natural resources and several ecological processes.
The main goal of sustainable development is to balance the population, various resources, various aspects of the environment, and development.
What is Sustainable Development?
The World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission), in its report to United Nations in 1987, defined sustainable development as a process in which the direction of investment, the exploitation of resources, and the orientation of technological development and institutional change meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of upcoming generations to meet their needs.
Sustainable development recognizes the mutuality of environmental, social, and economic systems and promotes justice and equality through people empowerment and the wisdom of global citizenship.
Pillars or Aspects of Sustainable Development
Sustainable development emphasizes a positive transformation trajectory anchored essentially on social, economic, and environmental factors. The three main issues of sustainable development are economic growth, environmental protection, and social equality.
Based on this, it can be argued that the concept of sustainable development rests, fundamentally, on three conceptual pillars. These pillars are “economic sustainability”, “social sustainability”, and ‘environmental sustainability. There has generally been a recognition of three aspects of sustainable development:
- Economic Sustainability
- Environmental Sustainability
- Social Sustainability
1. Economic Sustainability
An economically sustainable system must be able to produce goods and services on a continuing basis, to maintain manageable levels of government and external debt, and to avoid extreme sectoral imbalances which damage agricultural or
industrial production.
2. Environmental Sustainability
An environmentally sustainable system must maintain a stable resource base, avoiding over-exploitation of renewable resource systems or environmental sink functions, and depleting non-renewable resources only to the extent that investment is made inadequate substitutes. This includes maintenance of biodiversity, atmospheric stability, and other ecosystem functions not ordinarily classed as economic resources.
READ | What is Environmental Scanning? Explain Different Methods of Environmental Scanning.
3. Social Sustainability
A socially sustainable system must achieve distributional equity, adequate provision of social services including health and education, gender equity, and political accountability and participation.
Clearly, these three elements of sustainability introduce many potential complications to the original simple definition. The goals expressed or implied are multidimensional, raising the issue of how to balance objectives and how to judge success or failure
Relationships Among The Environment, Economy, and Social Sustainability
The concept of sustainability appears poised to continue to influence future discourse regarding development science. This implies that the best choices are likely to remain those that meet the needs of society and are environmentally and economically viable, economically and socially equitable as well as socially and environmentally bearable. This leads to three interconnected spheres or domains of sustainability that describe the relationships among the environmental, economic, and social aspects of sustainable development as shown in the image below.
Basically, it can be concluded from the figure that, nearly everything man does or plans to do on earth has implications for the environment, economy, or society and for that matter the continued existence and wellbeing of the human race.
What Are The Goals of Sustainable Development?
Sustainable development relates to the principle of meeting human development goals while at the same time sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which the economy and society depend. The sustainable development goals primarily seek to achieve the following summarised objectives.
- Eradicate poverty and hunger, guaranteeing a healthy life
- Universalize access to basic services such as water, sanitation, and sustainable energy
- Support the generation of development opportunities through inclusive education and decent work
- Foster innovation and resilient infrastructure, creating communities and cities able to produce and consume sustainably
- Reduce inequality in the world, especially that concerning gender
- Care for the environmental integrity through combatting climate change and protecting the oceans and land ecosystems
- Promote collaboration between different social agents to create an environment of peace and ensure responsible consumption and production
Principles of Sustainable Development – Explained in Brief
The principles of sustainable development gravitate towards the economy, environment, and society. Specifically, they relate, among others, to the conservation of ecosystem and biodiversity, production systems, population control, human resource management, conservation of progressive culture, and people’s participation. Some principles of sustainable development are as follows: –
- Conservatoin of Ecosystem
- Sustainable Development of Society
- Conservation of Biodiversity
- Control of Population Growth
- Conservation of Human Resources
- Increase in People’s Participation
- Conservation of Cultural Heritage
- Included Within Carrying Capacity of Earth
1. Conservation of Ecosystem
Sustainable development is passed out with a conservation program of the earth and nature. Natural conservation development mainly includes the conservation of the ecosystem and making it durable. It infers the preservation of natural resources, including biotic factors like birds, animals, plants, etc., and abiotic factors like water, soil, air, etc.
The primary focus of sustainable development is to utilize the components of nature without its over-exploitation and with events of conservation of the ecosystem. Preservation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is necessary for the purpose.
2. Sustainable Development of Society
Society is comprised of many families and people. Each society needs fundamental aspects like health, education, sanitation, drinking water, tracts and roads, public areas, etc. The utilization of natural components to manage and maintain such aspects in society must be so wise that the natural resources become available for future generations.
With such practice, society can obtain resources for a long time and be a sustainable society. Moreover, it also helps in developing their positive attitude towards nature and living beings.
3. Conservation of Biodiversity
It is essential to conserve all the living beings in the world. The vividness of living creatures should be saved for sustainable development. All living things are integral parts, and people should learn to conserve natural resources to protect living beings.
The decline of any species of living being leaves remarkable effects on the whole ecosystem and harms the environment. Therefore, sustainable development pays keen attention to the conservation of biodiversity as its main principle.
4. Control of Population Growth
The long-run existence of any development is not possible without a controlled population. Overpopulation increases the total number of consumers, and achievements of development works are overutilized. And the means and resources that are available in the world cannot meet the requirements. Therefore, it affects the positive features of development adversely.
The concept of sustainable development integrates with population control to make it long-lasting. Therefore, population growth control is the main principle of sustainable development.
5. Conservation of Human Resource
Sustainable development is possible with the participation of talented human resources. Skilled and educated human resources are needed for it. They should be qualified for the proper application and implementation of the principles of sustainable development.
Human resource is to be developed by providing proper health care, education, and training. Human resource contributes to adopting the principles of sustainable development.
6. Increase in Peoples’ Participation
Sustainable development cannot be sustained personally. Therefore, a joint effort of every individual is indispensable. So, to translate the concept of sustainable development into action, public participation should be increased. Thus, positive attitudes of the public should be developed in every program of sustainable development.
7. Conservation of Cultural heritage
Sustainable development has emphasized the conservation of people’s social traditions, customs, religious places, and cultural aspects. Diverse cultural heritage is the priceless contribution of society, but superstition should be evaded. To conserve the cultural heritage is our responsibility. Its preservation supports sustainable development.
8. Included within Carrying Capacity of Earth
Development must be within the carrying capacity of the planet earth. People cannot get those entire belongings that they require from the planet instantly. The world has limited resources, and limited means and resources on the earth cannot be enough for the unlimited means of people. Over-exploitation of the resources has adverse effects on the environment.
17 Principles of Sustainable Development
Many governments and individuals have thought about what sustainable development means beyond a simple one-sentence definition. Development fleshes out the definition by listing 17 principles of sustainability:
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- No Poverty
- Zero Hunger
- Good Health and Well-being
- Quality Education
- Gender Equality
- Clean Water and Sanitation
- Affordable and Clean Energy
- Decent Work and Economic Growth
- Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
- Reduced Inequalities
- Sustainable Cities and Communities
- Responsible Consumption and Production
- Climate Action
- Life Below Water
- Life on Land
- Peace, Justice, and Strong Institution
- Partnerships For Goals
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Sustainable development recognizes the mutuality of environmental, social, and economic systems and promotes justice and equality through people empowerment and the wisdom of global citizenship.
- Conservatoin of Ecosystem
- Sustainable Development of Society
- Conservation of Biodiversity
- Control of Population Growth
- Conservation of Human Resources
- Increase in People’s Participation
- Cost reduction. Construction is a $10 trillion industry but its financial struggles can’t be ignored.
- Increased productivity.
- Improved health.
- Waste minimization.
- Better use of materials.
- Environmental Protection.
- Noise avoidance.
- Better quality of life. | https://notespress.com/what-are-the-principles-of-sustainable-development-explain/ |
What Is An Environmental Management System (Ems)?
Environment face varied issues such as global warming, nuclear hazards, desertification, genetically modified organisms, deforestation. To face problems head on and to the preservation of the resources for the benefit of the future generations, a number of approaches emerge, such as maintaining ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, sustainable livelihoods, human well-being, ecosystem health, integrity and sustainability (Laberge, 2007). Moreover, the interconnectedness of ecological systems and human leads to environment management, because of the growing awareness of nature. The economy and human health can be affected by pollution, deforestation, flooding and wetland loss. So these cascading effects need to new approach about the environment and human activities.
Various perspectives are available about environmental management because of the concept of subject. Saving the nature is one of the most narrow-minded viewpoints, because environmental management includes the effects and impacts of various interactions or activities that human societies have on the environment. The main point of the term is about being beneficial to the whole humanity (Sulphey and Safeer, 2015). Luke (2007) emphasizes the firms should define the managerial goals with considering the relations ecosystem and goods or services. So, EM should plan and operate with the protection and conservation of the politic and economic interest that surround the natural resources. Because modern resource management approach starts to see the nature as an economic and political asset.
More comprehensive and systematic approaches also emerge because of the rapid growth in industrial and urban development. The growing needs of population like agriculture, recreation and travel, protected areas, water resources, costs and other lands intense pressure on nature. From this point of view, the systems about human and environment became a necessity and need to planning and managing the relationship between human and nature. But this management style should include more comprehensive, participatory and integrated approach by the help of the multi-disciplinary applications.
The researches and opinions about using and conservation of natural resources, protecting of habitats, control of hazards, measuring the field of applied ecology are subjects of the environmental management. This management style is not only about industries or companies, but also about individuals that undertake to regulate and protect the health of the nature. Because the main idea behind the environmental management is to control human impact on the natural world and interaction with the nature in order to preserve the resources. This perspective comes from the aim of the improvement of human welfare for the present and future generations in the long run. | https://www.customessaymasters.com/theorie-und-unternehmenspraxis-zurich/ |
Sustainability is the state of being in a state of equilibrium between the environment, justice, and the economy.
The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development provides the most often cited definition: “sustainable development is a development that fulfills the demands of the present without jeopardizing the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own needs.”
“Sustainability is defined as the combination of environmental health, social justice, and economic vitality in order to build vibrant, healthy, diversified, and resilient communities for this generation and future generations,” according to the charter for the UCLA Sustainability Committee. This interconnectedness is recognized in the practice of sustainability, which demands a systems perspective as well as an understanding of the complexity of the problems involved.
Sustainable practices promote the health and vitality of the environment, humans, and the economy. Because resources are limited, sustainability assumes that they should be used cautiously and intelligently, with an eye on long-term goals and consequences of how resources are used. In its most basic form, sustainability is concerned with our children and grandkids, as well as the planet we will leave them.
Environment, Development, and Sustainability is an international, interdisciplinary magazine that examines all elements of the environmental effects of socio-economic development. It is published biannually. Its goal is to find methods and means of attaining sustainability in all human activities that are directed toward such development.
It is concerned with the intricate connections that exist between development and the environment. Coverage includes interactions between society, development, and the environment, as well as their implications for sustainable development; technical, economic, ethical, and philosophical aspects of sustainable development; local, regional, and global sustainability, as well as their practical implementation; development and application of indicators of sustainability; development, verification, implementation, and monitoring of policies for sustainable development; sustainable use of land, water, and other natural resources; and sustainable use of water and other natural resources.
The aim of sustainable development is to provide economic growth, social equality and justice, and environmental protection while also protecting the environment. Despite the fact that these three elements may operate in harmony, they are often found to be in competition with each other.
Economic growth towards a higher quality of life has played a significant role in the degradation of the environment throughout the later part of the twentieth century. We have reached a point in history when we are using more resources than ever before and damaging the environment with waste products.
As civilization has evolved in recent years, it has come to the realization that we cannot live in a healthy society or economy while there is so much poverty and environmental destruction. Economic development will continue to be the foundation of human progress, but it must evolve to be less ecologically harmful.
Putting this knowledge into reality, and transforming our unsustainable methods of doing things into more sustainable ones, is the task of sustainable development.
The goal of sustainable development is to strike a balance between our economic, environmental, and social requirements, thus ensuring prosperity for both current and future generations.
In order to achieve a healthy community over the long term, a long-term, integrated strategy must be taken in order to simultaneously address economic, environmental, and social problems, while avoiding the overconsumption of critical natural resources. Sustainable development is defined as follows:
We may achieve sustainable development by progressively altering the manner in which we create and utilize technology. This will allow us to preserve and improve our natural resource base. Countries must be given the freedom to fulfill their most basic requirements, which include jobs, food, energy, water, and sanitary facilities.
If this is to be accomplished in a sustainable way, then a sustainable level of the population will unavoidably be required. Economic development should be encouraged, and emerging countries should be given the opportunity to experience growth of comparable quality to that experienced by industrialized nations.
The Government of the United Kingdom has identified four goals for Sustainable Development. Social development and equality, environmental preservation, the conservation of natural resources, and steady economic growth are some of the goals that must be achieved.
Everyone has the right to live in an environment that is healthy, clean, and safe. This may be accomplished via the reduction of pollution, poverty, substandard housing, and unemployment. No one, regardless of their age or position in life, should be treated unjustly.
Global environmental concerns such as climate change and poor air quality must be addressed in order to preserve both human and environmental health on a global scale.
It is not necessary to completely phase out the use of nonrenewable resources such as fossil fuels overnight; rather, they must be utilized more effectively, and the development of alternatives should be promoted to aid with the phase-out of these resources.
Every person has the right to a high quality of life, as well as more employment possibilities. Economic success is needed for our nation to flourish, and our companies must therefore provide a high quality of goods that customers all over the globe desire at rates that they are willing to pay in order for our country to thrive.
In order to do this, we must have a workforce with appropriate skills and education, as well as a supportive framework.
- Using a less stressful, less messy, and more intelligent method of painting a house
- Is it still curtains if there are no drapes?
- Is it necessary to get new appliances while remodeling your kitchen? | https://visionchair.com/sustainability-definition-and-features/ |
The environmental sciences also recorded significant and disturbing advances in earth systems, including climate change and habitat destruction, shifts in hydrology and nitrogen cycles, and natural resources degradation. The significant environmental change has possible adverse consequences for future human well-being, posing concerns regarding the survival of global society or "too much" by reducing critical natural resources.
Both significant population changes, including population growth, shifts in age structure, urbanization and space redistributions through migration and rising per capita incomes, and shifts in consumption pattern, such as increases in meat consumption and rising rents, have contributed to the rise in economic activities and consequent increasing effects on a finite earth.
Most individuals drink very few at the same moment. In 2015, 10% (736 million) of the world's population lived in severe poverty and received less than $1.90 a day. In 2017, the number of malnourished people reported increased by 821 million in 2016. People must be lifted from poverty through further economic development. However, growing socioeconomic disparity is itself a challenge to continued growth, which contributes to rising polarization in society.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals emphasize the elimination of poverty and hunger, gender equality, and the reduction of inequalities. The problem of sustainable requires the creation of cultural, social, and governance structures able to end deprivation. It reaches sustainable rates of production and uses while ensuring life support systems that promote human well-being today and in the future.
Economic management will potentially play a vital role in meeting the problem of sustainable growth. At the heart of sustainability is how the planet's scarce capital should be committed to 'the needs of the current' without jeopardizing potential generations' capacity to fulfill their own needs. A crucial feature of economics is how finite capital should be distributed to accomplish the critical goals; the analysis of distribution under shortage is also a traditional description of the economy.
In particular, the economics research studies the manufacture, distribution, and use of goods and services, both as a critical driver for development (increasing living standards by providing food, housing, and other basic human needs) and as a major cause of current changes in earth systems.
Economics, along with the sciences of the Earth system, is essential in recognizing the excellent and detrimental effects of and trading in alternatives. Economics is vital in understanding how human behavior will change towards sustainable development in tandem with other social and behavioral research.
With research institutions relevant to the sustainable development challenge, economics has well-evolved fields in development economics, ecological economics, environmental economics, and natural resource economics. The use of economic principles and empirical results should play a central role in the pursuit to fulfill humanity's aspirations to good living, given the earth's finite resources.
In reality, a systematic study of economists provides a basic overview of sustainable development aspects. Such research incorporates studies from other natural and social sciences in a politically appropriate context. It reveals the productive capacity for collaboration on sustainable development issues between economists, natural scientists, and other social scientists.
To attempt to tackle critical climate change policy concerns such as how far and how rapidly the greenhouse emissions will be reduced, policymakers have, for example, developed combined economic models and climate models. Notwithstanding these and many other situations, natural sciences tend to play a crucial position in understanding environmental growth, and the center of gravity of economics is a long way from addressing the goal of sustainable change.
Ecology, geology, climatic science, hydrology, and oceanography are the genetic studies, which make up the foundation of earth system sciences and provide a flexible framework to begin developing an awareness of current state and evolution. An influential survey of strategies for sustainable change, natural sciences have taken the lead.
Although the knowledge of natural sciences alone is not necessary to accomplish sustainable growth, economics is the same. Economists themselves do not have the expertise of natural science to consider the diverse biological structures through which the economic environment works and the financial operating results.
Sustained technology success calls for cooperation among social scientists, economists, and science, including. Sustainable development involves institutions and political participation, which goes way beyond the combination of scientific information centered on integrated research.
Some details demonstrate the incompleteness of teamwork in the study of sustainable growth between economists and other disciplines. Throughout a particular segment of the "Ecosystem Earth" published in April 2017 at science, which included debate regarding development, use, food output, land use, human behavior, social action, and strategy, there were no economists involved.
The lack of interest by economists in current sustainable development debates results in a lack of awareness of growth and usage decisions, the subsequent market dynamics underlying global environmental change, and how economic practices should control or mitigate adverse environmental consequences.
Economists' imperfect presence represents the complexity of economics. The urban, infrastructure and natural areas are not the primary economic fields. In flagship papers of economics, there are few social, environmental, and property-related publications. For example, the classification codes for renewables and conservation, non-renewable resources and conservation, carbon markets, or the economic environment are mentioned in just two 2018 papers reported in the American Economic Review.
Only a tiny number of the leading business divisions have fields of natural, ecological, or economic capital. Virtually every top commercial program, on the other hand, provides areas of labor economics, industrial organizations, and international trade. Also, in renewable or natural resource universities, public policy universities and agricultural economics departments, the financial, environmental, and property-economics courses.
Moreover, the economy is remarkable for its relative isolation of academic disciplines. The ratio in the economics of in-field quotes was calculated by Jacobs to be 81% vs. 59% in political science, 53% in anthropology, and 52% in sociology. However, the primary sector is mostly removed from the natural sciences, which have been a significant contributor to biodiversity, geography, geology, climatology, hydrology, and marine biology.
Given the tremendous importance of economic operation in fostering rapid improvements in earth environments and the size of the problem of sustainable growth, it is imperative to bring economies more rapidly into the center of sustainable development and to incorporate sustainable development quicker in the center of economics.
References: | https://essayrx.com/article/environmental-policy-in-economics |
How Asia develops is critical to U.S. economic and security interests. Never before have our fates been so intertwined, especially in matters of health and the economy, as COVID-19 has proven. Asia is home to 4.7 billion people—over sixty percent of the human population—and half of the global economy, and its decisions and development trajectory will affect the world for generations.
Today, Asia grapples with immense challenges—including the risks and consequences of climate change and vaccinating populations against COVID-19. They are facing rapid urbanization and the overexploitation and contamination of life-sustaining resources of the land, air, and sea. Barriers remain to stronger regional connectivity, sustainable infrastructure development, and commitment to democratic principles and freedoms. Many countries still struggle to improve health and education on a large scale, which could help prevent the next pandemic threat. Amid this backdrop, authoritarian models of development are raising countries’ debt burdens while threatening national sovereignty and sustainable progress—diminishing the promise that Asia’s future still holds.
Across Asia, USAID plays a vital role in ensuring that countries’ development decisions help realize equitable and sustainable long-term success. We help foster inclusive and equitable growth, safeguard good governance and human rights, unlock climate solutions, and accelerate progress in health and education to jumpstart social and economic development. By shaping a more prosperous Asia region, USAID advances U.S. security and economic priorities. And while Asian countries have vastly diverse development levels and needs, their interconnectedness—from trade and supply chains, to infrastructure, health and beyond—provides opportunities for the United States. Through sustainable, inclusive development partnerships such as the quadrilateral cooperation between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States (the Quad) and with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), USAID supports developing countries in Asia to realize their development goals and contribute to a more prosperous and peaceful world. | https://www-origin.usaid.gov/where-we-work/asia |
Who knew that the first-ever Earth Day in 1970 was originally planned as a college teach-in in the US? This is just one of the things I learned while writing the most recent chapter of my book, on critical-creative ways of teaching students about ecological challenges. This not really being my area of research, I learned a lot in the process of writing it, about eco-centrism, systems theory, Buen Vivir, deep ecology … Here is an attempt to summarize some of the chapter’s main points, illustrated by some photos from my recent holidays in Devon where I appreciated the marvels of nature as never before.
As in each chapter, I start with a critical take on mainstream discourses and interventions, in this case on sustainable development, with its famous but wanting Brundtland report definition of ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Whose needs? Defined by whom? Whose development? Being neither sustainable nor developmental, sustainable development prioritizes economic growth over environmental sustainability. The green economy, ecological economics, natural resources, environmental management, carbon trading, biodiversity derivatives – to varying degrees they all show the instrumentalization of nature in the service of economic development and human needs. The alternative to this pervasive anthropocentrism is ecocentrism, as concept influenced by Aldo Leopold and his land ethic (‘a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community’), Arne Naess‘ deep ecology (‘the more diversity the better’) and Fritjof Capra‘s systems view of life. Eco-centrism recognizes the integrity of the whole of the environment and that nature and other-than-human species have intrinsic values, independent from their utility for human needs.
Applied to education, sustainable development becomes Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), a global program spearheaded by the UN, which declared an ESD Decade from 2005 to 2014. ESD has resulted in declarations, summits, policy initiatives and a large field of scholarship, and many universities, Sussex included, have developed ESD-focused teaching and research programs, adjusted campus operations and developed relevant community programs. However, ESD replicates the market-driven nature of sustainable development and the larger neoliberal HE regime, while also marginalizing non-scientific knowledges from the Global South, neglecting local specificities and undermining non-Western ways of relating to other-than-human species. So, what are some alternatives?
The field of ecopedagogy extends critical pedagogy to environmental concerns and focuses on developing students’ critical eco-literacy that takes into account how unsustainable practices have been shaped by colonialism, capitalism and other structures of power. Creative approaches include incorporating the arts, emotions and place-based teaching. Decolonial pedagogies focus on ‘radical well-being notions’ such as the South African notion of Ubuntu, the Indian idea of Swaraj and the South American concept of Buen Vivir. Based on my Bolivia research for parts of the book, I trace the complex and contested ways in which Buen Vivir has transformed from an Andean indigenous cosmology centering on the inseparability of all elements of life and living in harmony with nature, humans and the spiritual world, to becoming part of global environmental and development discourses.
I also write about the need for students to develop a basic understanding of complexity and systems thinking, a field I learned about from reading Donella Meadows‘ excellent primer, among others. To be able to learn with uncertainty rather than being paralyzed by it (as we all are being forced to do by COVID), to understand the unpredictability and non-linearity of change, to appreciate the long-term cycles of ecosystem sustainability and to learn about the power of leverage points, where small changes can lead to system-level shifts are all important insights students can gain from systems thinking. What surprised me most are the similarities between some of the core ideas of Buen Vivir and systems thinking, especially about the fundamental interconnectedness and interdependence of all aspects of life and the notion that all living beings are expressions of earth’s creative forces. Ideas relating to emergence (think snowflakes), self-organization (think flocks of birds) and non-linearity (think tipping points) can be found among both indigenous relational cosmologies and systems and complexity sciences.
A critical-creative pedagogy can help students better understand foundational ecological ideas, critically examine the limitations of anthropocentric sustainable development discourses and think about the importance of relating to the environment in more eco-centric ways. It also enables students to creatively explore and experience these insights, for example through designing and playing serious games and through mapping campus infrastructures during walking seminars, two teaching activities I describe in detail in the chapter and will blog about soon. | https://www.creativeuniversities.com/post/repairing-ecologies |
We, The World: Our purpose is to maximize social change on a global scale to create cultures of peace and environmental well-being for a world that works for all. We hope you will join us in this endeavor!
In acknowledgment of the many existing documents and efforts that promote peace, sustainability, global interconnectedness, reverence for life and unity, we hereby offer the following Declaration of Interdependence as our guiding set of principles for moving forward into this new millennium. It is derived from the Earth Charter, the essential values of which have been culled from the many peoples of the Earth.
"We, the people of planet Earth, In recognition of the interconnectedness of all life And the importance of the balance of nature, Hereby acknowledge our interdependence And affirm our dedication To life-serving environmental stewardship, The fulfillment of universal human needs worldwide, Economic and social well-being, And a culture of peace and nonviolence, To insure a sustainable and harmonious world For present and future generations."
We, The World - "Our purpose is to maximize social change on a global scale to create cultures of peace and environmental well-being for a world that works for all."
Internationally coordinated efforts to expand global markets and military operations have resulted in a catastrophic increase in poverty, violence, species destruction, and damage to our environment. This constitutes an ethical and spiritual crisis that transcends national boundaries. To address this, We, The World is committed to a global strategy that can galvanize people around the world to awareness and action while fostering personal growth and transformation - without which societal change cannot take place.
The mission of We, The World is to awaken a spirit of caring and involvement in the public so that millions of people begin to see themselves as part of one global interdependent community - and actively take part in creating a world that works for all!
Working with an extraordinarily accomplished team, we have begun the process of building an unprecedented critical mass of individuals, organizations and coalitions whose efforts to create a caring world will be highly visible and accessible.
We are beginning by forming global networks of collaboration between groups and individuals involved with: human rights, ecology and animal concerns, peace and nonviolence, creating ethical economic systems, creating cultures of caring, self-sustaining green communities, personal and societal transformation, and many others whose work concerns the interests of literally billions of people and other life on our planet.
We, The World intends to create something the world has not seen before - a large scale, ethics-driven movement that broadcasts the following crucial message: A significant portion of humanity is becoming actively engaged in building a world in which every life matters.
This message is necessary to halt and reverse the "common sense" that increasingly dominates our planet: look out for yourself no matter what the consequences for other people, animals or our environment.
"The Earth Rainbow Network, founded in February 1997, currently has an extensive list of more than 2,700 people in approximatelty 50 countries sharing information, visions and feedbacks on a broad range of subjects as a way to expand and deepen global awareness and the sense of forming a global spiritual community gradually empowering itself to contribute in shaping the future of this world." .
The Earth Charter Initiative: Values and Principles For a Sustainable Future.
The Earth Charter Initiative is a global movement based on the participation and involvement of thousands of organizations, groups and individuals worldwide. The International Secretariat, its partner organizations, the volunteer National Committees, and the governing bodies of the Secretariat are collectively referred to as the Earth Charter Initiative.
The mission of the Earth Charter Initiative is, "To establish a sound ethical foundation for the emerging global society and to help build a sustainable world based on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice and a culture of peace."
The Earth Charter is an authoritative synthesis of values, principles, and aspirations that are widely shared by growing numbers of men and women in all regions of the world.
The principles of the Earth Charter reflect extensive international consultations conducted over a period of many years. These principles are also based upon contemporary science, international law, and the insights of philosophy and religion. Successive drafts of the Earth Charter were circulated around the world for comments and debate by nongovernmental organizations, community groups, professional societies, and international experts in many fields.
To download the Earth Charter for viewing click here.
organic farming, sustainable livinig, intentional community, eco villages, etc. | http://friendsoffreedom.com/EarthHm.html |
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Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
CIFOR's purpose is to advance human well-being, environmental conservation, and equity by conducting research to inform policies and practices that affect forests in developing countries. The research is driven by a commitment to eradicating poverty and protecting the environment. CIFOR conducts research
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Global Forest Watch (GFW)
Global Forest Watch is an initiative of the World Resources Institute. It does research, documents developments and serves as a platform in the struggle to preserve of the most important forests on earth. [editors ilissAfrica]
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African Forest Forum (AFF)
AFF is an association of individuals who share the quest for and commitment to the sustainable management, use and conservation of the forest and tree resources of Africa for socio-economic wellbeing of its peoples and for the stability and improvement of its environment. The purpose is to provide a
platform and create an enabling environment for independent and objective analysis, advocacy and advice on relevant policy and technical issues pertaining to achieving sustainable management, use and conservation of Africa’s forest and tree resources as part of efforts to reduce poverty and promote economic and social development.
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Dryland biodiversity is of tremendous global importance, being central to the well-being and development of millions of people in developing countries. In June 2012, at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (or “Rio+20”), global leaders from governments and civil society reaffirmed the intrinsic value of biological diversity and recognised the severity of global biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems. Although drylands were implicitly recognised, there continues to be inadequate attention to this major biome that covers such a vast part of our world’s terrestrial surface. Yet, as this book conveys, conservation and sustainable management of drylands biodiversity offers a viable pathway to deliver international conservation and development targets. This book is a global resource aimed to aide dryland management as it is the first comprehensive analysis of dryland biodiversity that is of global importance and significance.
Many people in the drylands pursue livelihoods that conserve biological diversity in innovative ways, and often with little recognition. Farmers in the Sahel for instance practice cultivation and agro-forestry techniques that not only improve productivity and strengthen resilience, but also provide family income and numerous environmental benefits. Mobile pastoralists in many dryland regions maintain herding strategies that mimic nature, thereby promoting ecosystem functions that not only underpin their livelihood but also provide global environmental benefits like carbon sequestration and species conservation.
IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is strongly committed to the conservation and sustainable management of drylands biodiversity. As a Union of more than 200 government organisations and over 900 non-government organisations, as well six Commissions of 11,000 voluntary scientists and experts, IUCN is strongly positioned to champion dryland biodiversity and to demonstrate and promote innovative ways to achieve the shared goals of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.
The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, as the international legally binding agreement on desertification and land degradation, recognizes that actions taken to combat desertification/land degradation and drought, and actions taken to promote biological diversity are inextricably linked in both purpose and effect. Working to improve both the livelihoods of dryland populations and the conditions of such ecosystems, the UNCCD delivers on this mandate particularly by advocating the need, and demonstrating the ways, to maintain and restore land and soil productivity and to mitigate the effects of drought. Aware of the inter-linkages between biodiversity, land and soil productivity and human well-being, the Convention acts to raise awareness on drylands biodiversity and its value, including species diversity, habitat and ecosystems. Additionally, it takes action to offset land degradation through effective ways of conserving and restoring dryland biodiversity. And indeed, the world came out of the Rio+20 Summit with an international resolve to achieve a land degradation neutral world, to be pursued with the implementation and promotion of sustainable land management practices worldwide.
For the United Nations Environment Programme, drylands biodiversity is a cross-cutting priority throughout its work on ecosystem management, environmental governance, early warning and assessment, and beyond. UNEP chairs and hosts the Environment Management Group, a UN system wide coordinating body which catalyses and coordinates action on important environment and human settlement issues. In 2011 the UN released the EMGsupported Global Drylands: A UN System-wide Response, which commits the entirety of the UN system to step up their efforts to protect and revitalise drylands, and improve the well-being of drylands communities, through a pro-active drylands development and investment approach.
Conserving Dryland Biodiversity is intended to raise awareness amongst all stakeholders and galvanise wider action to boost drylands conservation and development. It is a call to action as well as a guide to how dryland conservation and development can be equitably pursued. The book is designed to inform and remind us of the beauty of dryland biodiversity and its intrinsic and instrumental value. It demonstrates the mutual dependency of dryland biological and cultural diversity. The book includes new analyses of drylands biodiversity and an overview of approaches that promote sustainable development as well as conservation goals. It strongly underlines the importance of indigenous knowledge and culture to dryland conservation, and demonstrates an unrivalled opportunity for sustainable growth and biodiversity protection.
The commitment of global leaders cannot be translated into reality if the drylands are neglected or continue to be misunderstood. If historic underinvestment in the drylands is addressed and knowledge gaps are closed then dryland conservation will enable us to greatly exceed our global expectations. We, as heads of our respective institutions, are proud of this effort and we are committed to working, together and with others, to realise the worthy and vital ambitions outlined in this book. | https://www.iucn.org/content/conserving-drylands-biodiversity |
MuTri’s ecological goals
Why do we need Ecological Goals?
The world is a place of enormous potential for hope and despair, opportunities and lost chances. Universities have a vital role to play in ensuring that hope overcomes cynicism, and the future is better than the past or today. Our task is not merely that of providing knowledge or teaching skills, but to commit ourselves to the activities of securing sustainable life conditions for future generations by “educating students to serve their country and humanity”, as it is stated in University Law (Yliopistolaki 558/2009). In the face of uncertainties, geopolitical turbulence, and the collapse of global ecosystems, this is a high call, indeed.
Formulating Ecological Goals for the MuTri Doctoral School and Research Unit of Music Education, Jazz and Folk Music, has been an attempt to initiate a joint discussion of values and ethics. This is not only a discussion on identity, about who we are as the MuTri community, but specifically a discussion on how we are in the world.
How willing and able are we to face and act on global issues at our local level? How can we strengthen our capacity to envision a different future?
How were the Ecological Goals formed?
MuTri’s Ecological Goals – and the discussions leading to the formation of these goals – have taken place in the wider context of international and national efforts related to the global sustainability crises.
Finland, as one of the EU countries, has an objective of being a carbon-neutral and a fossil-free society by 2035. All sectors of the society (including education and culture) are expected to take their responsibility to reach this goal. For universities, a significant objective is carbon-neutrality (in terms of net emissions) by the year 2030. This gives us less than 8 years to act!
The Uniarts Helsinki’s Strategic Goal 4/6 is an explicit value statement that guides our efforts in the strengthening of ecological sustainability. According to the Strategic Goal 4/6, “Art is part of the solution to the ecological sustainability crisis”, and ecological thinking is assumed to permeate “operations across the entire university” (Uniarts Helsinki Strategy 2021–2030). The Uniarts Strategy Project on Ecological Sustainability was established in 2021, and this work, led by Project manager Teemu Sorsa, seeks to advance the objectives of minimizing environmental impacts, developing the competence of the university community, and strengthening effectiveness. Also, the Uniarts Ethical Code of Conduct instructs every member of the Uniarts community to “…promote sustainable development and the effort to find a solution to the sustainability crisis” (Uniarts Helsinki Ethical Code of Conduct 2021).
These documents and work provided a basis for our discussions when we began to share our thoughts on what does, could, or should it mean in MuTri that our work is “part of the solutions to the ecological sustainability crisis” (Uniarts Helsinki Strategy 2021–2030). The first discussion took place in September 2021 with a wider MuTri community, and the second one in March 2022 among the MuTri board members. My role was to facilitate and take notes on these discussions. I applied a qualitative thematic analysis to identify key themes emerging from the notes I had made and received from small-group discussions. Based on this analysis, I propose the following five goals.
MuTri Ecological Goals and their starting points
- We acknowledge the fundamental equality of all people and the interconnectedness of humans as part of the biosphere. Our efforts to advance sustainable futures are therefore driven by ecosocial thinking that aims to safeguard the conditions for all life.
This first goal highlights the importance of understanding the eco-social interconnectedness – a concept that refers to such thinking where we acknowledge that in addition to being interdependent as humans and human communities, we are also connected to – and indeed, dependent on – non-human beings as well as other living and non-living nature.
Although the natural scientific explanation for climate change has to do with greenhouse emissions, global warming and so on, the root cause for ecocrises lies in “faultyinteractions that humans have with each other and with other beings” (Keto & Foster 2021, 35). As Sami Keto and Raisa Foster (2021) along with various other scholars of environmental ethics remind us, environmental problems are problems of relationship.
Embodying this understanding of interconnectedness is therefore crucial for all efforts of addressing the ecological sustainability crisis. This may also be our biggest challenge:
so deeply is an anthropocentric view of life rooted in our thinking, institutions, and ways of conducting science, education, and the arts.
- We recognize our responsibility for urgent and resolute action for alleviating the ecological sustainability crisis. We therefore aim to actively minimize our negative environmental impact in all our research, artistic, and pedagogical endeavors.
The second goal reminds us of the finite Planet. Although the different dimensions of sustainability (social, cultural, ecological, economic) cannot be treated in isolation from each other, they can – and I argue, must – be seen as hierarchical.
Our top priority is to safeguard the conditions for life within the limits of one planet, as everything else – our health, economy, and wellbeing – are entirely dependent on that. The second goal thus encourages us to take practical measures to reduce our carbon footprint and minimize natural hazards, the use of natural resources, and other negative environmental impact in our work, travels, events, purchases, and so on.
- We perceive critical consciousness and ecosocial thinking to be crucial in efforts to advance sustainability. We systematically offer students and staff opportunities for continued learning and discussions about ecological questions and concerns.
To reduce the room temperature in our buildings or choose alternative transportation for flying is one thing, but to assume an ethical stance that is based on care and responsibility requires us to attend to values, attitudes, mindsets, and competencies – not only as individuals, but as a university community.
The third goal reminds us of the importance of the university to provide opportunities for continued learning and shared expertise. Whether it demands the implementation of new courses or new focus areas to our existing ones, we need to make sure that both students and staff working in MuTri are well-equipped to make responsible choices and work within the framework of planetary boundaries.
- We acknowledge our societal responsibility as researchers, teachers, and/or artists. We strive to increase ecological awareness and promote environmental and social justice by means of our scholarly, artistic, and societal efforts.
In light of the ecosocial interconnectedness, ecological problems are also social problems. The ecocrisis both causes and maintains inequalities, especially between the privileged elites of the Global North and the most vulnerable in the Global South. On the other hand, social problems are also ecological problems. As eco-feminists have pointed out, any manifestation of inequality, abuse, or oppression – whether environmental or social violence – stems from the chauvinist and dualistic mindset and oppressive forms of power (esim. Pulkki 2021; Vilkka 1993).
The fourth goal therefore reminds us of the importance of solidarity, fairness, and participation, and urges us – to paraphrase the educational philosopher Gert Biesta (2017) – to examine whether our desires really are desirable. For our own lives and wellbeing as well as that of our co-habitants (human and other species) on Earth.
- We consider human flourishing to be an integral part of sustainability. Our endeavors to deal with the ecological sustainability crisis include the strengthening of wellbeing and community engagement.
This final goal reminds us that human resources are also finite. One of the themes discussed during the process of formulating these goals was the “ideal model” of a researcher and/or artist. What kind of a narrative have we assumed and passed on? Does the story of a successful artist/researcher as a cosmopolitan high-flyer stand up to critical scrutiny in an age of the eco-social sustainability crisis? Are there other ways to define excellence and success than those based on the ideology of continuous growth, productivity, and competition? As we have heard today, there are. Particularly our doctoral students have actively challenged the traditional narrative by exploring new and more sustainable ways of being an artist and researcher.
The fifth goal highlights the importance of critical self-reflection of our individual and shared narratives and prompts us to assume and advance a more sustainable orientation to life (Foster, Salonen & Keto, 2019). One that acknowledges the intrinsic value of wellbeing, health, and safety of humans and other life forms.
How will we use the Ecological Goals
What happens next? How will we use the Ecological Goals?
To me, these goals are akin to guidelines of research ethics. The guidelines are like signposts: they tell us the general direction of our journey. They are normative: they signify what we hold important, valuable, virtuous. But as always with virtues – whether it is courage, fairness, or a sustainable life orientation – they are matured and “perfected” in us through practice; by applying practical wisdom, considering what is needed in each situation, and growing up to be in a certain way.
It is my hope that these goals will serve as a springboard for an ongoing debate on values and ethics in our MuTri community. A living document that helps us to stay alert and inspires us to cultivate ecological creativity and commitment to a more sustainable life orientation as the way of life.
References
Biesta, G. 2017. Letting Art Teach. Art Education ‘after’ Joseph Beuys. ArtEZ Press.
Foster, R., Salonen, A. & Keto, S. 2019. Kestävyystietoinen elämänorientaatio pedagogisena päämääränä. In T. Autio, L. Hakala & T. Kujala (Eds.), Siirtymiä ja ajan merkkejä koulutuksessa. Opetussuunnitelmatutkimuksen näkökulmia. Tampere: Tampere University Press (121–143).
Keto, S. & Foster, R. 2021. Ecosocialization – an Ecological Turn in the Process of Socialization. International Studies in Sociology of Education 30(1–2), 34–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2020.1854826
Pulkki, J. 2021. Ekososiaalinen hyve-etiikka. Aikuiskasvatus 41(2), 102–112. https://doi.org/10.33336/aik.109320
Uniarts Helsinki. 2021. Strategy 2021-2030. https://www.uniarts.fi/en/strategy-2021-2030/
Uniarts Helsinki. 2021. Ethical Code of Conduct 2021. https://www.uniarts.fi/en/general-info/uniarts-helsinkis-code-of-conduct/
Vilkka, L. 1993. Ympäristöetiikka. Vastuu luonnosta, eläimistä ja tulevista sukupolvista. Helsinki: Yliopistopaino.
Puheenvuoroja taiteesta ja yhteiskunnasta
Blogissa taideyliopistolaiset ja Taideyliopiston ystävät pohtivat taiteen merkitystä ja tulevaisuutta. | https://blogit.uniarts.fi/post/mutris-ecological-goals/ |
Beginning in the early 1970s, international organizations began to investigate and publish evidence of the continuous destruction of the environment worldwide. The Club of Rome, a think tank comprising seventy individuals from twenty-five countries, published three reports in a project they called “The Predicament of Mankind.” The first of these valuable reports, The Limits of Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind, written by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William Behrens III, depended on computer-driven mathematical models to show that the supply of natural resources could not support the then-current rate of growth of the human population and the expansion of industrial production. In the decades that followed, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Randers published two subsequent reports. In Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future, they underscored the continuing possibility that human beings would exhaust the planet’s natural resources, but they also pointed out various possibilities for avoiding the dangers while improving the quality of people’s lives. In the last report, The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, they complained that in three decades the two earlier reports had caused only endless debates and halfhearted responses to the global ecological challenges. Nonetheless, the authors remained convinced that techniques such as visioning, networking, learning, loving, and truth telling could convince billions of citizens around the world to push the industrial society toward sustainability.
While the Club of Rome pursued computer models, the United Nations began an extensive, well-organized effort to gather information about environmental destruction. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which issued from a meeting in Stockholm in June 1972. This declaration, which lists twenty-six principles, states that the protection of the environment affects the well-being of people worldwide, and that every government should work to prevent the mindless destruction of nature. In 1997, the UNEP began publishing Global Environment Outlook reports (released approximately every five years), which offer comprehensive overviews of the environmental conditions worldwide at a given point in time. Although the first of these reports showed progress in reducing environmental challenges in some countries since 1992, it said the situation worldwide remained bleak. Progress was too slow to address the serious problems. The second report revealed that the global emissions of CO2 exceeded four times the totals from 1950, and that 25 percent of the world’s mammal species were at risk of extinction. The third report, intended to show “past, present, and future perspectives,” revealed that human population growth had outpaced agricultural production, and—worse—that resources were being wasted. The fourth report, subtitled “Environment of Development,” made several recommendations to reduce environmental problems; the fifth, “Environment for the Future We Want,” acknowledged that those recommendations had not reduced the problems during the subsequent five-year period. The fifth observed that no specific solution seemed able to prevent the destruction of the environment, and called for international cooperation in addressing poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation in comprehensive ways. Collecting the information for the sixth report began in Berlin, Germany, in October 2014; that report will combine regional reports to offer a comprehensive picture of the environmental situation worldwide. Read in sequence, these reports provide an invaluable time line of global recognition of the threat of environmental depredation.
The United Nations has operated several other programs related to sustainable development, and the findings of those programs are available online and in print. For example, in the early 1990s the UN convened the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at which delegates agreed to promote education and public awareness of problems related to sustainable development. The results were published in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. In 2004, the UN designated UNESCO to lead the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) program. Framework for the UNDESD International Implementation Scheme lays out the plans for the DESD. The DESD scheme committed UNESCO to involving a full range of partners from international, regional, national, and area groups. The scheme calls for sustainable development to be taught in schools (K-12) by weaving it into various courses so it relates to the diverse types of information. In higher education, sustainable development should be a topic of research. The UN helped develop a package of information and resources for education providers.
The United Nations’ final report on the DESD, Shaping the Future We Want: UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), claimed that the DESD had activated hundreds of thousands of people worldwide to reorient education (both policies and curricula) toward learning to live and work sustainably. The report concluded that the most important lesson was the necessity for strong political leadership to move projects from policy formation to demonstration projects to teaching operations across the curriculum.
The ability of universities to incorporate sustainability in their course content and research agendas varied. Sustainability Education: Perspectives and Practice across Higher Education, edited by Paula Jones, David Selby, and Stephen Sterling, examines such efforts at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. The editors and all the contributors were affiliated with the university. The volume is interesting for the light it sheds on obstacles encountered and the reforms the university could implement to counter those difficulties. The obstacles had to do with the tradition of academic freedom, faculty members’ unfamiliarity with the details of sustainability, and a university ethos unfavorable to sustainability. The reforms included making sustainability a subject for investigation rather than dissemination; providing opportunities for faculty to learn about sustainability; and making progress in imparting sustainability practices part of the salary determination system.
The UN’s focus on the importance of education in changing social attitudes about the environment resulted in numerous papers and journal articles about how individuals could change their outlooks in service of sustainable development. Many of those writings are collected in Education for Sustainable Development: Papers in Honour of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), edited by Brian Chalkley, Martin Haigh, and David Higgit. These essays seek to explain what sustainable development meant and how colleges and universities could aid the program. In addition, several individuals involved in the UN effort wrote textbooks to spread the program’s ideas. For example, Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, wrote The Age of Sustainable Development as a textbook for a global massive open online course (MOOC). Sachs credits the 1980 publication of World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, with establishing the popularity of the concept of “sustainable development.” The UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 claims that the effort had been the most successful antipoverty movement in history, and the UN set for itself a new set of goals and published them as Sustainable Development Goals. These are similar to the millennium goals, except they speak more directly to such things as managing forests, combating desertification, ending loss of biodiversity, and conserving the oceans. The time period for accomplishing these goals is fifteen years, ending in 2030.
The destruction of environment may result in conflict between the mechanisms of the global economic system and the natural processes of the world’s environmental system. In The Wealth of Nature: How Mainstream Economics Has Failed the Environment, Robert Nadeau argues that environmental protection contradicts economic theory. The popular neoclassical economic perspective prevents people from recognizing this incompatibility and protects the industrial system as it is. Other commentators show how industrialists used concern for the environment to sell goods produced in unsustainable ways. Heather Rogers’s Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution investigates three areas in which environmental advocates tried to limit destructive practices: food production, home building, and transportation. In each case, she found that the products offered in stores were incorrectly labeled as being produced in environmentally safe ways. For example, food processors in the West bought produce from sources in countries that ignored the organic standards of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM). Food producers accepted fruits or vegetables grown with such unsustainable practices as clearing native forests to raise organic crops. By ignoring the pollution their methods caused, suppliers could produce and sell their products at less cost. In the wake of Rogers’s disclosure, Naomi Klein argued for a mass protest movement in her This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Klein claimed that the abolitionist movement in the nineteenth century demonstrated a tactic that could lead to the end of the domination of capitalism. This tactic was to focus on the immorality of environmental destruction. She called for extensive publicity that showed how capitalism allowed a few people to garner obscene profits while their industries destroyed the environment.
Environmental ethics challenges narrow notions of market-based economics. In their edited collection Democracy and the Claims of Nature: Critical Perspectives for a New Century, Ben Minteer and Bob Pepperman Taylor reveal the considerable disagreement among the advocates of environmentalism. This is especially true when theorists consider whether or how democracies can advance environmental protection. Minteer and Taylor point out that theorists such as Alexis de Tocqueville complained that democracy increased the selfishness of citizens to the point that they thought only of their own advantages. Interestingly, the editors claim, many environmental philosophers rely on Tocqueville’s analysis to find ways to turn democratic tendencies toward environmentalism.
In fairness, some scholars do not think capitalism is the culprit. For example, in Nature Unbound: Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas, Dan Brockington, Rosaleen Duffy, and Jim Igoe point out that the extent of protected areas worldwide increased from 1985 to 1995 from about 2.5 million square kilometers to about 3 million. Although the conventional wisdom is that officials will protect areas from private exploitation, this expansion took place when nongovernmental organizations such as the World Bank pressured officials to reduce their control of local affairs. The authors also point out that the extinction of species has accelerated during periods of increased funding for mainstream conservation programs. The complex processes that brought about these ironic developments demand that environmental protection policies be rethought.
Two other reports are worthy of mention. The first is The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review, which reports on an extensive study—commissioned by the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and conducted by Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and head of the Government Economic Service—outlining the costs of moving to a low-carbon economy and adapting to climate change. Stern and his fellow authors drew six conclusions, including that the worst impacts of climate change were yet to come, and they predicted that the fallout from climate change will be devastating unless people modify their behaviors—that efforts to stabilize the climate will be expensive, but ignoring the problems will be more expensive. All countries, the report warned, will have to work together to control climate change. The other publication is John Houghton’s Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, first published in 1994 and now in its fifth edition. Houghton reports on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Al Gore). Houghton chaired some of the panels.
Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. United Nations Environment Programme/United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 1972.
Global Environment Outlook [GEO]. United Nations Environment Programme .
Global Environment Outlook 2000. United Nations Environment Programme. London: Earthscan Publications, 1999.
Global Environment Outlook 3: Past, Present and Future Perspectives. United Nations Environment Programme. London: Earthscan Publications, 2002.
Global Environment Outlook 4: Environment for Development. United Nations Environment Programme. Valletta, Malta: Progress Press, 2007.
Global Environment Outlook 5: Environment for the Future We Want. United Nations Environment Programme. Valletta, Malta: Progress Press, 2012.
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. United Nations Environment Programme/Environment for Development. 1992.
Framework for the UNDESD International Implementation Scheme. UNESCO Education Sector.
Shaping the Future We Want: UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). UNESCO. 2014.
World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development, prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1980.
The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2015. United Nations.
Sustainable Development Goals: 17 Goals to Sustain Our World. United Nations. 2015. | https://ala-choice.libguides.com/c.php?g=509595&p=3484890 |
Eckersley R. 2005. Well & Good: Morality, meaning and happiness, 2nd ed. Text, Melbourne (first published 2004 as Well & Good: How we feel and why it matters).
Eckersley R, Dixon J, Douglas, B. (Eds) 2001. The Social Origins of Health and Well-being, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge.
Eckersley R, (Ed) 1998. Measuring Progress: Is life getting better? CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.
Eckersley R, Jeans K. (Eds) 1995. Challenge to Change – Australia in 2020, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.
Well & Good
Richard Eckersley. Well & Good: Morality, Meaning and Happiness (2nd Edition). Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2005. (first published 2004).
Book pdf available here:
Note: the book is provided for non-commercial research and education use. It is not to be reproduced, distributed, or used for commercial purposes without permission.
Today, many more people are living much richer, longer lives than ever before. So is all well and good? Not exactly. There is growing evidence that quality of life is not the same as standard of living, and that how well we live is not just a matter of how long we live, especially in rich nations such as Australia.
In this book, I explore what makes a good life. I go beyond the usual objective indicators by which we measure our situation to examine the subjective aspects of life that are so important to our wellbeing: meaning and purpose, identity and belonging, perceptions and expectations. My concern, then, is with how we interpret the world and our place in it, with what it is to be human – in other words, with cultures and values.
The book approaches the question from a range of perspectives – from global economics, equity and sustainability and the characteristics of modern Western culture, through the sources of health and happiness and the disturbing trends in young people’s wellbeing, to the prospects of human transformation or obsolescence. It examines the cultural roles of science, religion, economics, education, politics and the media. And it demonstrates the interconnectedness of all things, the ways in which the social forces that drive global change also shape the most personal of experiences, so that the things we need to do to improve conditions on earth over the long term are things we need to do to improve our individual wellbeing now.
The book shows that the many paradoxes and contradictions of our situation reflect not just its inherent complexity and our incomplete understanding of it, but also parallel processes of cultural decay and renewal, a titanic struggle as old ways of thinking about ourselves fail, and new ways of being human strive for definition and acceptance.
Its cultural perspective reinforces the need to shift from a worldview framed by material progress, which gives priority to economic growth and a rising standard of living, to one based on sustainable development, with its aim of balancing social, economic and environmental goals to create a high, equitable and lasting quality of life. Fundamentally, this conceptual transformation requires a deep shift in values.
The book argues that hope for the future rests on several crucial developments: a potent synergy between scientific and spiritual understandings of the world and life; our unprecedented potential as individuals to make our own moral choices and to accept responsibility for these choices; and the evidence that the necessary cultural change is already under way.
Contents
Prologue: What’s it all about?
- The ultimate question.
- Costs and benefits: global economics, equity and ecology.
- Modern western culture and its values..
- The social origins of health.
- The wellsprings of happiness.
- Quality of life.
- Media excess.
- Being young: never better, getting worse?
- Suicide in young people: causal layers and complexities.
- Future visions, social realities and personal wellbeing.
- Tales of the future: human obsolescence or transformation? Postmodern science, faith and morality.
- Beyond growth, or ‘It’s the Weltanschauung, stupid!’
- Global change and personal choice.
Measuring Progress
Richard Eckersley (Ed). Measuring Progress: Is Life Getting Better? CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 1998.
An eBook version is available from eBooks.com.
This book was the most wide-ranging exploration of national progress undertaken at the time, spanning social, economic and environmental perspectives. It brings together some of Australia’s leading researchers to consider indicators of national performance, what they tell us about the quality and sustainability of life in Australia, and how these measures can be improved. It also includes commentaries by senior bureaucrats, academics and community representatives.
At one level, the debate is about the adequacy of Gross Domestic Product, as the dominant indicator of a nation’s performance, relative to both the past and other nations. However, the debate also reaches far beyond this question to challenge conventional thinking about progress and the relationships between economic activity, quality of life, health and well-being, and ecological sustainability.
- New measures of progress.
- Uses and abuses of GDP as a sole measure.
- Causes and correlations of happiness.
- What “middle Australia” thinks about the changes reshaping their lives.
- Income distribution and poverty.
- Changes in the workplace and the family.
- Health and well-being.
- Measuring civic and social trust.
- The state of the environment. | https://richardeckersley.com.au/e-books/ |
The European Union underlines the growing importance of integrated rural development (ILE). Maximilian Ortner shows how forestry can successfully participate in this development. Forest model projects for drinking water, wood mobilization, increase in sales of wood, energy out of wood, forest preservation or airport environmental education are analyzed as examples of acts of the forestry practice in the context of integrated rural development. The examples are based on the state forests, local forest, private forest owners and the Chamber of Agriculture. About the identified success factors inform a "checklist" with the chance of success of specific projects can be assessed quickly.
forestry --- environmental policy --- drinking water --- energy
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Electricity generation from renewable sources of energy has had a long history in Germany and is highly topical. This paper deals with both aspects. A sociological analysis of technology shows how innovative technologies gradually emerged from the Utopian vision of 'velvet' energies, which became the basis of the rapidly growing regenerative electricity production. The second aspect of the paper is an analysis of the growing potential - as well as possible obstacles - of regenerative energies. The expansion of energy production from renewable sources and the tendency towards the concentration of such installations (e.g. large wind farms or solar parks) is increasingly met with opposition from the public. In addition, it is felt that considerable changes in the energy sector can only be successful if its promoters become more active.
renewable energy --- environmental policy --- energy industry
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The world has changed dramatically. We no longer live in a world relatively empty of humans and their artifacts. We now live in the “Anthropocene,” era in a full world where humans are dramatically altering our ecological life-support system. Our traditional economic concepts and models were developed in an empty world. If we are to create sustainable prosperity, if we seek “improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities,” we are going to need a new vision of the economy and its relationship to the rest of the world that is better adapted to the new conditions we face. We are going to need an economics that respects planetary boundaries, that recognizes the dependence of human well-being on social relations and fairness, and that recognizes that the ultimate goal is real, sustainable human well-being, not merely growth of material consumption. This new economics recognizes that the economy is embedded in a society and culture that are themselves embedded in an ecological life-support system, and that the economy cannot grow forever on this finite planet. In this report, we discuss the need to focus more directly on the goal of sustainable human well-being rather than merely GDP growth. This includes protecting and restoring nature, achieving social and intergenerational fairness (including poverty alleviation), stabilizing population, and recognizing the significant nonmarket contributions to human well-being from natural and social capital. To do this, we need to develop better measures of progress that go well beyond GDP and begin to measure human well-being and its sustainability more directly.
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The workshop documentation was developed as part of the inter-university project "Participatory development of indicators of sustainability. A contribution to a process-oriented sustainability strategy ". It was carried out at the beginning of March 2000 to April 2001 by scientists from the University of Hamburg, the Hamburg University of Economics and Politics (Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Politik, HWP), the University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg (Universität der Bundeswehr) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy (Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie). The workshop documented here took place on March 23, 2001 at the University of the German Armed Forces. The project team presented its work results to an audience from science and practice for discussion. Participants included representatives from companies, government departments at state and municipal level, educational institutions, consulting companies, statistical offices and associations, universities and research institutions from social, engineering and natural sciences disciplines. They came from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg. The documentation contains the lectures of four project participants, in which central results of the project are presented, and corrections by external scientists and experts. A summary of the discussion follows.
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Learning from agri-environment schemes in Australia is a book about the birds and the beef — more specifically it is about the billions of dollars that governments pay farmers around the world each year to protect and restore biodiversity. After more than two decades of these schemes in Australia, what have we learnt? Are we getting the most out of these investments, and how should we do things differently in the future? Involving contributions from ecologists, economists, social scientists, restoration practitioners and policymakers, this book provides short, engaging chapters that cover a wide spectrum of environmental, agricultural and social issues involved in agri-environment schemes.
environmental policy --- agriculture --- agri-environment schemes --- biodiversity conservation
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In The Birth of Energy Cara New Daggett traces the genealogy of contemporary notions of energy back to the nineteenth-century science of thermodynamics to challenge the underlying logic that informs today's uses of energy. These early resource-based concepts of power first emerged during the Industrial Revolution and were tightly bound to Western capitalist domination and the politics of industrialized work. As Daggett shows, thermodynamics was deployed as an imperial science to govern fossil fuel use, labor, and colonial expansion, in part through a hierarchical ordering of humans and nonhumans. By systematically excavating the historical connection between energy and work, Daggett argues that only by transforming the politics of work—most notably, the veneration of waged work—will we be able to confront the Anthropocene's energy problem. Substituting one source of energy for another will not ensure a habitable planet; rather, the concepts of energy and work themselves must be decoupled.
Political Science --- Public Policy/Environmental Policy --- Nature --- Environmental Conservation & Protection
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The alpine cryosphere including snow, glaciers and permafrost are critical to water management in the Aral Sea Basin (ASB) and larger Central Asia (CA) under changing climate: as they store large amounts of water in its solid forms. Most cryospheric components in the Aral Sea Basin are close to melting point, and hence very vulnerable to a slight increase in air temperature with significant consequences to long-term water availability and to water resources variability and extremes. Current knowledge about different components of cryosphere and their connection to climate in the Basin and in the entire Central Asia, varies. While it is advanced in the topics of snow and glaciers, knowledge on permafrost it rather limited. Observed trends in runoff point in the direction of increasing water availability in July and August at least until mid-century and increasing possibility for water storage in reservoirs and aquifers. However, eventually this will change as glaciers waste away. Future runoff may change considerably after mid-century and start to decline if not compensated by increasing precipitation. Cryosphere monitoring systems are the basis for sound estimates of water availability and water-related hazards associated with snow, glaciers and permafrost. They require a well-distributed observational network for all cryospheric variables. Such systems need to be re-established in the Basin after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. This process is slowly emerging in the region. Collaboration between local operational hydro-meteorological services and academic sector, and with international research networks may improving the observing capabilities in high mountain regions of CA Asia in general and the ASB specifically.
Alpine Crosphere --- River Basin --- Amu Darya --- Syr Darya --- Central Asia --- Water Resource Management --- Hydrology --- Environmental Policy --- Sustainable Development
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Ökologische Modernisierung gilt als Leitprinzip zeitgemäßer Umweltpolitik. Die ökomodernen Kernforderungen nach "Sustainable Development" und "Green Economy" zielen auf eine fortschreitende Entwicklung, die um eine Nachhaltigkeitskomponente ergänzt werden soll. Anhand von #on("i")#Carbon Capture and Storage#off("i")# (CCS) fragt Timmo Krüger nach den aktuellen Dynamiken in den Kämpfen um die Hegemonie in der internationalen Klimapolitik. Er zeigt: Da CCS-Technologien auf der fossilen und zentralisierten Energieinfrastruktur basieren, spitzt sich hier die Frage zu, inwieweit es zur adäquaten Bearbeitung der ökologischen Krise einer umfassenden Transformation gesellschaftlicher Strukturen bedarf.
Political Science --- Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) --- Discourse --- Hegemony --- Climate Change --- Ecological Modernization --- Nature --- Politics --- Environmental Policy --- Environmental Sociology --- International Relations --- Ecology --- Political Science
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Was haben Handcreme, Tiefkühlpizza und Waschmittel gemeinsam? Richtig: Sie enthalten Palmöl – wie bereits die Hälfte aller Supermarktprodukte. Doch wodurch wurde der atemberaubende Palmölboom mit seinen verheerenden sozialen und ökologischen Folgen in den Produktionsländern ausgelöst? Alina Brad untersucht die politischen und ökonomischen Triebkräfte, die den Aufstieg Indonesiens zum weltweit führenden Palmölproduzenten ermöglichten. Ausgehend von den historischen und polit-ökonomischen Bedingungen entschlüsselt sie das komplexe Geflecht von Interessen und Konflikten um Landkontrolle und Inwertsetzung im indonesischen Palmölsektor.
Political Science --- Palm Oil --- Indonesia --- Resourc Politics --- Decentralisation --- Political Ecology --- Land Inspection --- Non-sustainability --- Globalization --- Politics --- Nature --- Economy --- Environmental Policy --- Economic Policy --- Asia --- Political Science
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By using the term of responsibilization, this book poses the question about the attribution of responsibility and discusses the options and limitations of individual and collective responsibility for sustainable development. | https://doabooks.org/doab?func=search&uiLanguage=en&query=kw:%22Environmental%20Policy%22 |
To these ends, the article considers four main themes:
- existential risks facing our planet and civilisation;
- a new worldview and narrative for global sustainability;
- an international education initiative to help sustain life on the planet;
- building interdisciplinary knowledge systems with “a concern for the whole Earth”.
Taken together, they lead to considerations for university transformation and global sustainability.
Planetary risks in the early decades of the third millennium
Planet Earth is now in its sixth mass extinction phase with global wildlife decline – ‘the living forms that constitute the fabric of the ecosystems’– about 68 percent loss since 1970. The last species’ extinction on this scale was 65 million years ago when an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.
As mentioned in Planet Earth: Averting a Point of No Return, we have become that “asteroid.” The urgency to reconsider civilisation priorities, integrate new values and adopt a more sustainable way of life could not be greater. To a large extent, beginning with the industrial era in the mid-eighteenth century, human progress has been accomplished at a high cost as Professor Samuel Myers in his lecture for the Academy of Medical Sciences at Harvard University reminded us a few years ago:
“… the scale of human impacts on our planet’s natural systems is hard to overstate: to feed ourselves, we annually appropriate about 40% of the ice-free, desert free terrestrial surface for pastures and croplands; we use about half of the planet’s accessible water, largely to irrigate our crops, and we exploit 90% of global fisheries at, or beyond, their maximum sustainable limits. In the process, we have cut down 7–11 million km² of the world’s forests and dammed more than 60% of its rivers. The quality of air, water, and land is diminishing in many parts of the world because of increasing global pollution. These and other processes are driving species to extinction at roughly 1000 times baseline rates while reducing population sizes of mammals, fishes, birds, reptiles, and amphibians by half in the past 45 years.”
Towards a new worldview
Our worldview remains the main obstacle or culprit in our struggle for planet survival. As shown in Figure 1, the world can be viewed through two main lenses: anthropocentric (human-centrism) or ecocentric (all life). In their comprehensive qualitative and quantitative grounded theory study How Ecocentrism and Anthropocentrism Influence Human-Environment Relationships in a Kenyan Biodiversity Hotspot, the authors note that
“While an anthropocentric mindset predicts a moral obligation only towards other human beings, ecocentrism includes all living beings. Whether a person prescribes to anthropocentrism or ecocentrism influences the perception of nature and its protection and, therefore, has an effect on the nature-related attitude.”
The authors of Why ecocentrism is the key pathway to sustainability “see ecocentrism as the umbrella that includes biocentrism and zoocentrism because all three of these worldviews value the non-human with ecocentrism having the widest vision.” In support, they cite Stan Rowe’s scientific rationale that “backs the value shift”: “All organisms are evolved from Earth, sustained by Earth. Thus Earth, not organism, is the metaphor for Life.”
Figure 1: Human-Centrism and Eco-Centrism
(Source: PEAH- COP26: Tackling the Root Causes of Climate Change, 2021)
Integrative health concepts underpinning sustainability
According to a Johns Hopkins University study distinguishing among three main interdisciplinary health concepts involving global experts, the researcher identified three main camps, including:
(1) those that deal with “improving human health from the population perspective, transcending national borders, some including both preventive and individual-level clinical aspects” (e.g., public health, global health).
(2) those that are “largely concerned with the sustainability of our civilisation and resource consumption on the planet and human health” (e.g., planetary health, ecological health); and
(3) those that “encompass human, animal, plant, and environmental health and well-being” (e.g., One Health, One World-One Health).
The One Health concept
As shown in Figure 2, and underscored by the authors of ‘A Blueprint to Evaluate One Health,’ the One Health concept is integral to the ecocentric ethic (a moral purpose?), that is, shifting from reactive sectoralised interventions (‘it’s all about us’) to multi-sector preventive actions at social, ecological, economic and biological levels of society” (‘it’s about all species’).
Figure 2: The One Health Triad
(Source: World Bank - ONE HEALTH Operational Framework for strengthening human, animal and environmental public health systems at their interface, 2018)
This holistic perspective is reflected in the definition of One Health by the One Health High Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) established on 21 May, 2021, co-chaired by Professor Wanda Markotter and Professor Thomas Mettenleiter. Responding to “global health threats” and promoting “sustainable development” with a view to developing “a common language and understanding around One Health”, members agreed that:
One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.
It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and inter-dependent.
The approach mobilizes multiple sectors, disciplines and communities at varying levels of society to work together to foster well-being and tackle threats to health and ecosystems, while addressing the collective need for clean water, energy and air, safe and nutritious food, taking action on climate change, and contributing to sustainable development.
Considered historically, the origins of One Health can be traced to ancient Greece and “father of medicine,” also considered the first epidemiologist, Hippocrates (c. 400 BCE), who urged physicians to consider the environment in which patients lived. While sanitation in ancient Rome is “legendary,” it likely made things worse largely because of parasitic infections, and it took another 1800 years or so before basic understanding of the causes of diseases was possible.
In separate articles published in 2014, Professor John McKenzie et al. in Australia and Professor Paul Gibbs in the United States reached similar conclusions regarding One Health milestones. Both recognised major contributions in the 19th and 20th centuries of individuals such as Dr. Rudolph Virchow, “the father of comparative medicine,” Sir William Osler, Sir John McFadyean, Dr. James Steele and Dr. Calvin Schwabe; to name but a few leading lights.
The increase and severity of viral pandemics sweeping across the world in the 1990s and early decades of the 21st century spawned the proliferation of One Health organisations and networks. These included – in 2004: the Wildlife Conservation Society; in 2008: the American Veterinary Association, the One Health Initiative, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention; in 2009: Afrique One – ASPIRE , the One Health Commission; in 2010: the Tripartite FAO, OIE, WHO, UNICEF, UNISIC, the World Bank, the EcoHealth Alliance, the European Union. One Health reports and conferences (e.g., Australia, Canada, China, South Africa, USA) alerted the world about the on-going microbial threats, emerging diseases, influenza, and pandemics.
While these developments were welcomed by the One Health community and policymakers, it became clear that there was a need for strengthening collaboration among multi-disciplinary partnerships and developing the expertise to operationalise the One Health approach. Both McKenzie and Gibbs called for leadership development, multi-level education and training courses, cost benefit analyses, and increasing interdisciplinary engagement beyond veterinary and human medicine.
Professor Gibbs’ query was particularly timely and relevant in 2014: Is One Health simply “a short-lived response” to “emerging diseases” or “a paradigm shift” leading “to a wide and deep-rooted commitment to interdisciplinary action for the protection and needs of society in the 21st century.”?
The first report, entitled the World at Risk in 2019, of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), chaired by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and Director-General of the World Health Organization, reflected an on-going concern for the slow global response to pandemics and impending global crises highlighting “a cycle of panic and neglect.”
Early 2020 Covid-19 confirmed the world’s unpreparedness for a major global pandemic with unprecedented deaths, cases and socio-economic consequences leading to a frantic search for vaccines and unparalleled lifestyle changes – shining a light on global inequities and the need to place responsibility for the root causes of climate change, biodiversity loss and emerging infectious diseases on humankind.
Accountability for global threats was confirmed for the first time with statements referencing One Health by member countries of the Joint G20 Finance and Health Minister Meeting Communiqué in 2021 and the G7 Leaders’ Statement 2022 – perhaps recognising that no single nation has the capacity to address global existential risks we face and heeding esteemed naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough’s wake-up call: | http://www.peah.it/2022/05/10996/ |
The 10th anniversary of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food comes at a unique time for food systems transformation. In 2021, the Global Alliance and WHO collaborated to use the UNFSS platform to describe the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health — and we emphasized the need to address the critical food systems determinants of ill health.
WHO is championing a new narrative through a One Health approach and a ‘menu of action’ for food systems transformation to harness the potential of nutrition labelling, improved food safety, public food procurement, food fortification and food reformulation, fiscal policies, and marketing regulations. Such actions are long-standing, proven, scalable, implemented by countries, and monitored by WHO with a growing body of cost-effectiveness data to support them and provide win-win solutions for human and environmental health.
The Global Alliance is a WHO ally to drive forward this vision. We are both aligned on the need for a holistic narrative and systemic action and have been jointly raising the stakes and challenging policymakers.
For WHO, this effort builds on a long history of work. Since the foundation of the United Nations in 1945, the marriage of health and agriculture has been the focus to combat malnutrition. Over time, narratives on the what, how, and why have continued to evolve.
A decade ago, at the inception of the Global Alliance, the global narrative was progressing towards the need to tackle ‘malnutrition in all its forms’ and global nutrition targets were adopted. This recognized the interconnectedness of undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and obesity. It also acknowledged their shared drivers which required urgent action under the emerging SDG agenda.
In 2014, Member States aligned behind the need to transform food systems to tackle malnutrition in all its forms, as agreed in the Rome Declaration on Nutrition, which was adopted at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2). Building on this, a Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016–2025) was declared. It recognizes that building sustainable, resilient food systems for healthy diets is fundamental to fulfilling the right to adequate food for all, at all times.
In 2021, the United Nations Food Systems Summit brought together stakeholders from around the world with the shared goal of harnessing the power of food systems to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
The evolving, shared, global narrative aligns actors behind the need to scale investments during the Nutrition Decade, though the ‘how’ has had a quieter voice.
The 60 ICN2 multisectoral policy recommendations provide a comprehensive list of strategies for impact. Many countries have made substantial progress in individual areas such as healthy school meals, increasing exclusive breastfeeding, nutrition-sensitive agriculture, and eliminating industrially produced trans fats from foods.
As encouraging as these results are, we cannot limit our actions to low-hanging fruits and quick wins alone. We need the implementation of holistic and integrated policy packages that are evidence-based, sustainable, and cost-effective. These are sometimes politically challenging, as their benefits to human health can only be measured beyond political election cycles.
So many events, conferences, and declarations conclude with the call to “act now.” While this message is appealing, perhaps a more accurate statement would be “we are failing on our promises and are long overdue for action.”
We have enough information, guidance, and inspiration to take the required steps. What we need is public outrage demanding our governments to commit, invest, and accelerate policy efforts for impact. Guiding change through our food purchases, bolstering knowledge around the health-environment nexus, and taking win-win actions that will bring environmental, social, and economic benefits are achievable aspirations. We cannot let the strive for perfection hold back progress, and we cannot reach 2030 with unmet SDGs and the same messages to “act now”. It is simply too late.
COVID-19, the intensification of climate change, and the compounding impacts of global conflict must serve as a catalyst for the uptake and implementation of this new narrative. I look forward to continuing to work alongside our partners at the Global Alliance to challenge the status quo and move towards healthy diets from sustainable food systems guided by the principles of health, renewability, resilience, equity, diversity, inclusion, and interconnectedness. | https://futureoffood.org/insights/fueling-the-future-of-food/ |
Notable OrganizationsThe Security and Sustainability Guide
All of the organizations described in the S&S Guide are engaged in important and interesting activities related to security and/or sustainability. But some appear more important or interesting than others. The Guide tries to identify centers of expertise and leading-edge thought and action in all areas of security and sustainability. This is no easy matter, and opinions will surely differ as to which organizations deserve highlighting. Still, as an initial introduction to the organizations covered in the Guide, most of the following selections should be of interest to most users. Emphasis has been given to those organizations emphasizing security and sustainability, and/or taking a broad systems approach to global concerns.
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A global network of >2000 organizations in > 90 countries working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. The Global Council (governance) and the Coordinating Committee...
A bipartisan non-profit alliance composed of business, government, environmental and consumer leaders advocating for enhanced energy productivity to achieve economic growth, a cleaner environment, and greater energy security, affordability and...
A "nonpartisan organization created to educate the American public and the world about the changing nature of national security in the 21st Century." Their goal is to "forge bipartisan consensus...
Represents more than 150,000 members of the civil engineers in 177 countries. It's committed to planning, designing, constructing, and operating the built environment while protecting and restoring the natural environment....
It seeks to “empower higher education to lead the sustainability transformation” by enabling institutions “to model and advance sustainability in everything they do, from governance and operations to education and...
A research center that assesses pressing threats to US national interests and international security in the quarter-century ahead. "We define international security broadly to include the full array of factors...
A coalition of America’s largest labor unions and its most influential environmental organizations to solve today’s environmental challenges in ways that create and maintain quality jobs and build a stronger,...
A global network of large mega cities taking action to address climate change by developing and implementing policies and programs that generate measurable reductions in both greenhouse gas emissions and...
Founded by Thomas Homer Dixon based on the fact that "humanity now occupies or exploits most of Earth’s productive surface area, creating a single, tightly linked social, economic, and ecological...
This non-partisan institute is part of the Council on Strategic Risks. Its vision is to create “a climate-resilient world…which recognizes that climate change risks are unprecedented in human history, and...
Chicago Council on Global Affairs (1922; Chicago; 80+ staff and fellows; thechicagocouncil.org ) This independent, nonpartisan membership organization provides insight – and influences the public discourse – on critical global...
A network of global partners working to create a thriving global market for cleaner, more modern household cooking solutions.The initiative is hosted by the United Nations Foundation to mobilize high-level...
A global forum striving to promote policies and programs that advance clean energy technology, to share lessons learned and best practices, and to encourage the transition to a global clean...
A non-profit environmental law group pressing "for strong action from governments, shifting financial flows, changing markets, trade, and business practices" to protect people and the planet. Client Earth works in...
A collaboration of 30 climate scientists, economists, computational experts, researchers, analysts, and students from some of the nation’s leading research institutions (largely from the University of Chicago and the UC-Berkeley)...
An informal association of ~100 invited Members, independent leading personalities from politics, business, and science. They are interested in contributing in a systemic, interdisciplinary, and holistic manner to a better...
A non-partisan think tank. It works towards "the use, reuse, and misuse of resources" employing a mixed approach that gathers "data, integrated analysis, and strategic outreach" with an international scope...
The Desert Research Institute is a major research organization, which focuses on basic and applied environmental research. "investigating the effects of natural and human-induced environmental change and advancing technologies aimed...
A project based on the book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, edited by project director Paul Hawkin, which describes and ranks 100 solutions to...
It consists of individuals and organizations that predominantly act independently and occasionally collaborate. It is comprised of the ECI Secretariat, its Education Center and the ECI Council. The secretariat is...
A research institute that was founded to advance the basic understanding of earth science and apply that knowledge to decisions made by governments and businesses around the world. They aim...
A global research alliance exploring political solutions and novel, more effective governance mechanisms to cope with the current transitions in the biogeochemical systems of the planet. Developing integrated earth system...
A global standard guided by the belief that a country’s natural resources belong to its citizens, to promote the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources. Ignited...
A platform for forest owners, timber industries, social groups and environmental organizations to promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. The FSCI encourages forest...
It promotes a culture of collaborative dialogue between multiple stakeholders and sectors to encourage the search for innovative solutions. It also looks to generate new capacities, strengthen the process of...
Future Earth (2012; Paris; ~50 staff; futureearth.org) A global research platform providing knowledge and support to accelerate transformations to a sustainable world. The organization is rooted in the work of...
Formally the Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung: Global Umweltverandereungen, the WBGU is an independent, scientific advisory body set up by the German government in the run-up to the 1992 Rio Earth...
An interdisciplinary research and policy advisory organization that supports a global public welfare policy geared towards the concept of sustainable development through multidisciplinary research, impact-oriented policy advice, and internationally oriented...
Aims to reduce the main global challenges and risks that threaten humanity. Their work is based on the risk analysis ideas central to the success of Laszlo Szombatfalvy. Seeks to...
The urban component of the United Nations Global Compact (GC), the world’s largest corporate responsibility initiative. The program aims to provide a framework for cities to advance the GC’s Ten...
A research project funded by the Family Erling-Persson Foundation, to address the economic dynamics of global change and the challenge of considering how to manage economic development and use of...
An independent, non-profit think tank that brings together policy-makers, scholars, and practitioners from the world’s leading institutions in order to devise, strengthen and improve forward-looking approaches to global governance. They...
Seeks integration of economic growth and environmental sustainability, seen as essential for the future of humankind. Promotes a new model of economic growth known as “green growth,” that simultaneously targets...
The initiative is an online forum of ideas and an international network for the critical exploration of concepts, strategies, and visions for a transition to a future of enriched lives,...
An international organization that responds to challenges of security, poverty and environmental degradation to ensure a sustainable and secure future. Promotes legal, ethical and behavioral norms that ensure basic changes...
The best-known environmental activist group in the world, bases its work on the belief that the "fragile earth deserves a voice. It needs solutions. It needs change. It needs action."...
A multidisciplinary research institute, which aims “to develop transformative knowledge which is needed to pave the way towards sustainable societies through transdisciplinary research." In this context, they work towards aligning...
An organization integrated by the Policy Alternatives Research Institute (PARI) and UTIAS Integrated Research System for Sustainability Science (IR3S). It "makes policy and social recommendations on future society issues and...
The Intergovernmental Panel was established by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization as the leading international body for scientific assessment of the current state of knowledge...
An independent intergovernmental body that aims to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services, and for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being, and sustainable development. ...
The IASC is devoted to bringing together multi-disciplinary researchers, practitioners and policymakers for the purpose of improving governance and management, advancing understanding, and creating sustainable solutions for commons, common-pool resources,...
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (2007; Geneva; 10 staff; www.icanw.org) Encourages people in all countries to inspire, persuade and pressure their governments to initiate and support negotiations for a...
An autonomous body within the OECD framework, seeking “to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy” for all. The International Energy Agency examines the full spectrum of energy issues including oil,...
An independent, international research institute with National Member Organizations in 22 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. It seeks to become “the world leader in systems analysis to...
International Institute for Strategic Studies(1958; London + Bahrain, Singapore, Washington; ~60 staff; iiss.org) A non-partisan institute to advance a wider understanding of critical 21st-century security issues and their potential resolution. ...
An independent think tank championing sustainable development solutions to 21st-century problems. Their goal is a “Better living for all—sustainably.” It conducts research to foster innovation enabling societies to live sustainably....
International Resource Panel (2007; Paris UNEP, unep.org/resourcepanel) A group of about 40 scientists skilled in sustainable resource management issues, and governments from both developed and developing regions, as well as...
“The world’s oldest and largest global environmental organization,” and “the largest professional global conservation network,” with 1300+ member organizations (governments and NGOs), and almost 11,000 voluntary scientists and experts, grouped...
The JRC is the European Commission's in-house science and knowledge service and advisory with six locations in five European Union countries (Brussels, Geel, Ispra, Karlsruhe, Petten, Seville). They work to...
A leading forum for debating international security policy. Aims to address the most pressing security concerns. Strives to be a hub between "heads of state and government, ministers, leading figures...
The OECD is arguably the world’s largest think tank produces 250+ reports per year on ‘what works’ and databases with societal and developmental indicators. It promotes policies that improve the...
A "global water think tank that combines science-based thought leadership with active outreach to influence local, national, and international efforts to develop sustainable water policies." They believe that " identifying...
A non-profit organization funded by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federal State of Brandenburg. “PIK” addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts, and...
An independent nonprofit that encourages efficient and restorative use of resources. Aims to transform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. They push for the...
The principal international source of public information on all aspects of small arms and armed violence, serving as a resource for governments, policy-makers, researchers, and activists. Their work is based...
An "independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. They provide data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the...
A world-leading science center for addressing the complex challenges facing humanity. Their vision is “a world where social-ecological systems are understood, governed and managed, to enhance human well-being and the...
An independent, research network of more than 1,500+ international scholars interested in sustainability transitions. Sustainability transitions are long-term transformation processes of established industries, socio-technical systems and societies to more sustainable...
An organization that envisions an investment universe where a shared understanding of companies’ sustainability performance enables companies and investors to make informed decisions that drive improved sustainability outcomes and thereby...
An independent non-profit “global participatory think tank” of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers” that collects and assesses judgments on 15 Global Challenges, presented in its bi-annual State of...
Corruption is a major barrier to security and sustainability. This global movement shares one vision: a world in which government, business, civil society and the daily lives of people are...
The "leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system, and serves as...
SDSN seeks to mobilize scientific and technical expertise from academia, civil society, and the private sector in support of sustainable development problem-solving at local, national, and global scales. The network’s...
A platform associating the UN and the financial sector globally “to bring about systemic change in finance to support a sustainable world”. Over 200 members have signed the Statement of...
The USGCRP is "mandated by Congress to coordinate Federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment, both human and natural, and their impacts on society." It...
A joint venture of Wageningen University and the Wageningen Research Foundation, whose mission is "To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life." Its strength lies in its...
WAVES is a global partnership launched in Nagoya, Japan, aiming to promote “genuine green growth and long-term advances in wealth and human well-being.” It is a global coalition of UN...
Also known as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Looks into issues like environmental security and peacebuilding, sustainable development and climate resilience, as well as population and environmental dynamic....
Also known as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the World Bank has 188 Member Countries. It is a "unique global partnership", with "five institutions working for sustainable...
The economic forum is committed "to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” Best-known...
It's one of the “world’s leading conservation organizations,” best known for its panda logo. Their mission is to “conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of... | https://securesustain.org/the-guide/notable-organizations/ |
Be it enacted by the Governor and Assembly as follows:
1 This Act may be cited as the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act.
(a) "circular economy" means an economy in which resources and products are kept in use for as long as possible, with the maximum value being extracted while they are in use and from which, at the end of their service life, other materials and products of value are recovered or regenerated;
(b) "core active transportation network" means a central and connected network of active transportation facilities for walking, biking or rolling to and from key community destinations;
(c) "equity" means the recognition of people's differences and the attempt to counteract unequal opportunities by considering fairness and justice;
(d) "Etuaptmumk" means, as defined by the Mi'kmaq, two-eyed seeing;
(e) "extended producer responsibility" means an environmental policy approach in which a producer's responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of its life cycle;
(f) "Fund" means the Sustainable Communities Challenge Fund established under Section 18;
(g) "green business" means an enterprise that prioritizes sustainability principles and socially responsible behaviour in its business model and takes into consideration its impact on the well-being of both the natural world and society;
(h) "Minister" means the Minister of Environment and Climate Change;
(i) "Netukulimk" means, as defined by the Mi'kmaq, the use of the natural bounty provided by the Creator for the self-support and well-being of the individual and the community by achieving adequate standards of community nutrition and economic well-being without jeopardizing the integrity, diversity or productivity of the environment;
(j) "Round Table" means the Round Table established pursuant to the Environment Act;
(k) "sustainable development" has the same meaning as in the Environment Act;
(l) "sustainable prosperity" means prosperity where economic growth, environmental stewardship and social responsibility are integrated and recognized as being interconnected.
3 The Minister is responsible for the general supervision and management of this Act and the regulations.
4 This Act is based on the following principles:
(a) the achievement of sustainable prosperity in the Province must include
(b) the achievement of sustainable prosperity is a shared responsibility among all levels of government, the private sector and all Nova Scotians;
(c) climate change is recognized as a global emergency requiring urgent action; and
(d) such others as may be prescribed by the regulations.
5 (1) The long-term objective of the Government is to achieve sustainable prosperity.
(2) To achieve its objective of sustainable prosperity, the Government shall
(a) establish, adopt, support and enable goals that foster an integrated approach to environmental sustainability and economic well-being;
(b) raise awareness of the importance of sustainable prosperity and the climate change emergency and the elements that contribute to them;
(c) encourage the growth of the clean economy and work to support all Nova Scotians in benefiting from its growth;
(d) support the well-being and quality of life of all Nova Scotians;
(e) create conditions necessary for making progress toward sustainable prosperity, including regulation, programs and initiatives that encourage actions and innovation by local government, business, non-government organizations and Nova Scotians; and
(f) work toward continuous improvement in measures of social, environmental and economic indicators of prosperity.
6 The Government's targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions are
(a) by 2030, to be at least 53% below the levels that were emitted in 2005; and
(b) by 2050, to be net zero, by balancing greenhouse gas emissions with greenhouse gas removals and other offsetting measures.
7 The Government's goals with respect to climate change mitigation and adaptation and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are
(a) to complete and release a Province-wide climate change risk assessment by December 31, 2022, an update by December 31, 2025, and an update every five years thereafter;
(b) to support, strengthen and set targets for energy efficiency programming while prioritizing equitable access and benefits for low income and marginalized Nova Scotians;
(c) to work with municipalities and First Nations in the Province to take immediate and long-term action on their climate change priorities;
(d) to build climate change adaptive capacity and resilience by requiring climate adaptation planning across every Government department;
(e) to adopt the 2020 National Energy Code for Buildings within 18 months of it being published by the Government of Canada;
(f) to require any new build or major retrofit in government buildings, including schools and hospitals, that enters the planning stage after 2022, to be net-zero energy performance and climate resilient;
(g) to encourage landlords who currently lease office space to Government to transition existing office space to meet net-zero energy performance;
(h) to prioritize leased office accommodations in buildings that are climate resilient and meet net-zero energy performance starting in 2030;
(i) to decrease greenhouse gas emissions across Government-owned buildings by 75% by the year 2035;
(j) to develop and implement a zero-emission vehicle mandate that ensures, at a minimum, that 30% of new vehicle sales of all light duty and personal vehicles in the Province will be zero-emission vehicles by 2030;
(k) to develop and implement supporting initiatives for the goal in clause (j);
(l) to have 80% of electricity in the Province supplied by renewable energy by 2030; and
(m) to phase out coal-fired electricity generation in the Province by the year 2030.
8 (1) The Government shall create a strategic plan, prior to December 31, 2022, to be known as the "Climate Change Plan for Clean Growth" that addresses
(a) achieving the greenhouse gas emission targets set out in Section 6;
(b) adapting to the impacts of climate change and building a climate resilient Province;
(c) accelerating the integration of sustainable and innovative technologies and approaches; and
(2) The Government shall release annual progress reports on the plan outlined under subsection (1) and review and renew the plan within five years of its release.
9 The Government's goals with respect to active transportation are
(a) to establish a Provincial Active Transportation strategy to increase active transportation options by 2023; and
(b) to complete core active transportation networks that are accessible for all ages and all abilities in 65% of the Province's communities by 2030.
10 The Government's goals with respect to the protection of land are
(a) to conserve at least 20% of the total land and water mass of the Province by 2030 as protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, including Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, in a manner consistent with national reporting criteria;
(b) to support the goal in clause (a) with a collaborative protected areas strategy to be released by December 31, 2023;
(c) to implement by 2023 an ecological forestry approach for Crown lands, consistent with the recommendations in "An Independent Review of Forest Practices in Nova Scotia" prepared by William Lahey in 2018, through the triad model of forest management that prioritizes the sustainability of ecosystems and biodiversity in the Province; and
(d) to identify by 2023 the percentage allocation of Crown land dedicated to each pillar of the triad model of forest management referred to in clause (c).
11 The Government's goals with respect to water and air are
(a) to develop provincial water quality objectives to guide activities that affect water quality by 2026;
(b) to address and mitigate barriers Nova Scotians face to testing and treatment of rural wells by 2026;
(c) to manage the Province's air zones consistent with the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards; and
(d) to review and update the Province's air emission targets and ambient air quality standards by 2025 and conduct reviews and updates every five years or sooner if the Minister so directs.
12 The Government's goal with respect to environmental assessments is to modernize the environmental assessment process by 2024 taking into consideration
(b) diversity, equity and inclusion;
13 The Government's goal with respect to sustainable procurement is to demonstrate leadership in sustainable procurement by increasing innovation, sustainability, diversity and inclusion in government procurement and considering community benefits attached to procurements.
14 The Government's goals with respect to aquaculture and food are
(a) to support low-impact sustainable aquaculture through a licensing process that weighs environmental considerations and includes provincial regulation for potential environmental impacts, animal welfare and fish health; and
(b) to develop a Provincial food strategy for enhanced awareness of, improved access to and increased production of local food to achieve 20% consumption of local food by 2030.
15 The Government's goal to encourage the growth of the circular economy includes, but is not limited to,
(a) expanding extended producer responsibility and reducing the use of single-use plastics;
(b) reducing solid waste disposal rates to no more than 300 kilograms per person per year by 2030; and
(c) developing a plan, including specific actions and interim targets, by 2023 to meet the solid waste goal in clause (b).
16 The Government's goals to support business, training and education are
(a) to actively encourage innovative, sustainable and green businesses to establish or relocate to the Province and create an environment for innovative, sustainable and green business start-ups;
(b) to work with small businesses across the Province to get their input on ways to reduce emissions, including through rebates, targeted investments and other supports;
(c) to work collaboratively with businesses, the Nova Scotia Community College and the labour sector to modernize apprenticeship programs to ensure the Province has the tradespeople needed to meet the demands of the clean economy;
(d) to support youth to engage in the clean economy through sustainability-based youth employment leadership programs in the Province; and
(e) to promote and support climate change education and sustainability through the knowledge and teachings of Netukulimk and environmental stewardship with ongoing curricula renewal, the development of inclusive and accessible resources and professional learning that incorporates diversity and honours Etuaptmumk.
17 The Government's goal with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion is to initiate in 2022 ongoing work with racialized and marginalized communities to create a sustained funding opportunity for climate change action and support for community-based solutions and policy engagement.
18 (1) The Sustainable Communities Challenge Fund is established.
(2) The money in the Fund must be managed and used in accordance with the regulations to create competitive opportunities that encourage communities in their climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.
19 The Premier shall meet with the Round Table annually to discuss progress on sustainable prosperity and may include at the meeting any member of the Executive Council the Premier deems appropriate.
20 The Premier shall ensure that sustainable prosperity is included in the mandate of every Government department.
21 (1) The Minister, in consultation with such members of the Executive Council as the Minister deems appropriate, shall report annually to the House of Assembly on the progress made toward the long-term objective of sustainable prosperity, including progress toward achievement of sustainable prosperity goals and initiatives established pursuant to this Act.
(2) In preparing the annual report referred to in subsection (1), the Minister may seek advice from the Round Table.
(3) The Minister shall table the annual report referred to in subsection (1) in the House of Assembly on or before July 31st of the year in which it was completed or, where the House is not then sitting, file it with the Clerk of the House.
22 The Minister shall request the Round Table to carry out a public review of this Act and the regulations
(a) no later than five years after this Act comes into force; and
(b) at any other time the Minister considers appropriate.
23 (1) The Governor in Council may make regulations
(a) setting additional goals to achieve sustainable prosperity consistent with the principles and focus areas established pursuant to this Act;
(b) establishing further principles to achieve sustainable prosperity;
(c) respecting initiatives to achieve sustainable prosperity consistent with the principles established pursuant to this Act;
(d) respecting the acquisition of money for the Fund;
(e) respecting the management and use of money in the Fund;
(f) governing reporting and record-keeping requirements for any purpose related to this Act;
(g) respecting the information and content required for the climate change risk assessment referred to in clause 7(a);
(h) defining any word or expression used but not defined in this Act;
(i) further defining any word or expression defined in this Act;
(j) respecting any matter that the Governor in Council considers necessary or advisable to carry out effectively the intent and purpose of this Act.
(2) The exercise by the Governor in Council of the authority contained in subsections (1) is a regulation within the meaning of the Regulations Act.
24 Chapter 7 of the Acts of 2007, the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act, is repealed.
25 Chapter 26 of the Acts of 2019, the Sustainable Development Goals Act, is repealed.
This page and its contents published by the Office of the Legislative Counsel, Nova Scotia House of Assembly, and © 2021 Crown in right of Nova Scotia. Created November 5, 2021. Send comments to [email protected]. | https://nslegislature.ca/legc/bills/64th_1st/1st_read/b057.htm |
EU Ahead of the Africa-EU Summit taking place from 29-30 November in Libya, the Commission presents today its proposals for a consolidation of the Africa-EU relations. Building on the existing Joint Africa-EU Strategy launched in 2007, the Commission details common challenges where progress has been made and which still have to be jointly addressed, such as the poverty eradication, peace and security, democracy and human rights, global governance and climate change. While the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will remain at the heart of the Africa-EU Joint Strategy, the Commission recognizes that there is a need to support Africa in strengthening its political and economic governance to allow better mobilization of the continent’s own assets in a sustainable way.
In that spirit, the Commission proposes to focus on initiatives that could help to trigger inclusive and sustainable growth in the long-term. These proposals will contribute to shaping the Action Plan on the implementation of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy that will be adopted during the Summit.
The economic, environmental and food crisis, the emergence of new donors but also the new EU institutional framework require adjustments in the EU-Africa partnership. Europe and Africa will build on the achievements of the Joint Strategy in order to increase its impact at global, continental and regional level.
The specific added value of the Africa-EU Partnership is its political nature, its broad scope and capacity to jointly address global issues. Further cooperation will be pursued within the different thematic partnerships towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals; tackling threats to peace and security, including common work on emerging threats such as terrorism, piracy or various forms of trafficking; promoting governance, democracy, rule of law and Human rights; strengthening the legitimacy and efficiency of multilateral institutions: and combating climate change and environmental degradation.
Given the scale of the challenges facing the two continents, the Commission recognizes that the EU-Africa Partnership needs to evolve further. It proposes to focus development cooperation in support of inclusive and sustainable growth in Africa. Cooperation in the coming decade should focus on high-impact activities that can leverage investments with the aim of realising the huge potential of our partnership.
Inclusive growth relates to reduction of poverty and inequalities. Development cooperation should be particularly focused on ensuring a healthy and well educated population, better provision of services and infrastructures, skills, innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as issues such as migration. The objective is to work together in partnership to put in place a conducive environment to foster investment, trade, and jobs creation.
Sustainable growth relates to the development of efficient, green and competitive economies. Africa has a vast untapped renewable energy potential, ranging from hydro, to solar, wind, geothermal and biomass which could be used to ensure millions of people have access to electricity. Sustainable growth also includes cooperation on strengthening regional integration and trade in Africa; supporting the sustainable management of raw materials, shifting support to agriculture towards small-scale farmers producing in an environmentally-friendly way; and implementing joint programmes to provide clean energy to all citizens.
The Communication of the Commission on the consolidation of EU-Africa relations will contribute to the upcoming third Africa-EU Summit. The overarching theme on “Growth, Investment and Job creation” will set the tone for cooperation between the two continents and provide long-term orientations in these areas. A joint and realistic Action plan will be adopted giving priorities to activities that have a clear regional, continental or global dimension, have a clear added value and have a proven critical mass.
At their Lisbon Summit, 80 Heads of States and Government from Europe and Africa launched the Joint Africa EU Strategic Partnership to pursue common interests and strategic objectives together, beyond the focus of traditional development policy. The EU-Africa Partnership is the only continent-to-continent strategic partnership that the EU has. Eight thematic partnerships ensure the operational follow-up: Peace and security , Democratic governance and human rights, Trade, regional integration and infrastructure, Millennium development goals (MDGs), Energy, Climate change, Migration, mobility and employment, Science, information society and space.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at 3:36 pm and is filed under africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. | https://europafrica.net/2010/11/10/communication-from-the-european-commission-on-africa-eu-relations/ |
Sustainability science probes interactions between global, social, and human systems, the complex degradation mechanisms of these systems, and the concomitant risks to human well-being. By identifying and addressing complex challenges that are not typically considered in traditional academic disciplines, this transdisciplinary science provides the way forward to a sustainable global society. After the 10-year anniversary of the establishment of Sustainability Science, this science can no longer be considered a new discipline. Given this decade of development of the sustainability science approach, now is the right time to consider what has been learned from this scholarly exchange on research and methodologies and to apply this knowledge to the current sustainability challenges and to the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations 2015).
SDGs are innovative tools for global governance of sustainability. They differ from the traditional legal approach for addressing global problems, which focuses on the adjustment of national legal systems to meet international agreements and compliance with international law. The SDGs were created through a participatory deliberation process without considering compliance. Rather, the SDGs adopt a new approach, which we refer to as governance through goals (Kanie and Biermann 2017). These goals combine efforts to eradicate poverty and increase the development of poor countries while decreasing the human footprint on the environment. They offer a more inclusive and diverse approach by mobilizing a broad spectrum of actors in both developed and developing countries. Progress toward attainment of the goals will be measured by periodic review of indicators and the application of other qualitative methods that aim to provide incentives for further action. In many countries, serious sustainable development problems dominate policy discussions, but a little progress has been made on complex, global environmental problems such as climate change. Moreover, in many cases, social progress comes at an environmental cost. As the SDGs are not a product of science but rather of politics, understanding the interlinkages between various goals and targets will be a challenging area of research. Thus, the inherent synergies, trade-offs, and complexity of such an effort require that sustainability science informs the development of relevant policies.
New metrics will be required to monitor implementation of the SDGs, such as the inclusive wealth index (IWI), which includes natural, human, and manufactured capital in national accounts (UNU-IHDP and UNEP 2012, 2014; Urban Institute and UNEP 2018). The SDGs and progressively inclusive accounting methods are responses to the narrow focus on economic growth that creates inequality and undermines sustainability. As such, research is needed to assess how measuring wealth inclusively can support SDG implementation. SDG 8 promotes sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth and full, productive, and fair employment for all. The inclusive growth concept, though not quantified in an individual metric, is considered as growth in inclusive wealth (Dasgupta et al. 2015), i.e., translating economic growth into broad-scale improvements in the living standards of all citizens worldwide.
The aim of this special feature (SF) is to consider the potential contributions of sustainability science, and of the concept of inclusive wealth to understanding how major targets can be achieved. Articles in this SF provide perspectives and approaches on how the scientific community can best contribute to SDG implementation through scenario analysis, stakeholder partnerships, regional analyses, and ultimately policy impact.
Categorizing the ten articles in this SF
Focus on multiple SDGs and their interlinkages
Stafford-Smith et al. (2016) (1, Fig. 1) stress the importance of interlinkages and interdependencies among the SDGs for effective implementation. The authors identify three areas of interlinkages: across sectors (e.g., finance, agriculture, energy, and transport), across societal actors (local authorities, government agencies, private sector, and civil society), and among low, medium, and high-income countries. Using a global sustainability science and practice perspective, this article provides seven recommendations to improve these interlinkages at both global and national levels. The following three articles introduce innovative methods to support planning and decision-making for SDG implementation. Collste et al. (2017) (2) illustrate the use of the new system dynamics based iSDG family of models as a planning tool that can guide policy makers and ensure coherent policies regarding 17 SDGs. They applied their model to Tanzania and analyzed the impacts of substantial investments in photovoltaic capacity, focusing on three SDGs: SDG 3 regarding healthy lives and well-being, SDG 4 regarding education, and SDG 7 regarding energy. Khalili et al. (2017) (3) present a strategic framework and application of a graphical multi-agent decision-making model to improve relevancy and quality of sustainability decision-making processes. The authors apply this framework in two case studies of Shandong and Guangdong province in China. Shahrier et al. (2017) (4) introduce an intergenerational sustainability dilemma game, in which participants are made to consider the impacts of their decisions on imaginary future generations, as a policy tool. The game is applied to two types of Bangladeshi study areas (urban and rural).
Yonehara et al. (2017) (5) highlight the crucial role of evaluation in achieving the SDGs and propose a framework for SDG evaluation. The authors propose that the SDGs’ 15-year time frame can be divided into three 5-year phases: a planning phase driven by proactive evaluation and “evaluability” assessment; an improvement phase characterized by formative evaluation and monitoring; and a completion phase involving outcome and impact evaluations.
Allen et al. (2017) (6) present the recent experience of the United Nations in undertaking an indicator-based assessment for the Arab Sustainable Development Report. The approach first takes a thematic “snapshot” of the progress and trends across 56 sustainable development indicators over 2 decades. Then, a nested, integrated conceptual framework is applied for an in-depth exploration of interlinkages and dynamics among the SDGs.
The IWI is a stock-based, comprehensive indicator used to evaluate sustainability based on the wealth of nations. Ikeda et al. (2017) (7) downscale the IWI to a prefectural scale in Japan, where depopulation, an aging population, and an excessive burden of environmental regulations have led to a reduction in sustainability.
Focus on single SDG and its implementation
Velis et al. (2017) (8, Fig. 1) review the synergies and trade-offs between groundwater and human development. This article summarizes various groundwater sustainability issues at different scales. Neumann et al. (2017) (9) focus on SDG 14 (conservation and sustainable use of oceans, seas, and marine resources) and argue for a strong sustainability concept and the integration of constraint functions to avoid depletion of natural capital in coastal areas. Saraswat et al. (2017) (10) also focus on water, but explore scenarios for integrated urban water management through 2030 in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, by quantifying water demand and supply under different scenarios.
Current SDG challenges
The SDGs represent a novel, goal-based approach to global governance, which is distinct from prevailing laws and regulations. This special feature provides hope for future transformations but also indicates the magnitude of challenges ahead and the importance of research to meet them. | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-017-0486-5 |
Dr. Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, says Ghana and four other countries have developed the first-ever animal welfare resolution to promote animal-welfare driven innovations in pursuit of sustainable development.
He indicated that the resolution developed in collaboration with Burkina-Faso, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and South Sudan, was aimed at mainstreaming animal welfare into the global sustainable development agenda.
Dr Afriyie, who was speaking at the opening of the 5th Africa Animal Welfare (ANAW) Conference in Accra, said the resolution would be presented at the next United Nations Environmental Assembly in February 2022.
The ANAW is an annual conference co-hosted by Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW) in collaboration with United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and African Union InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) for professionals and practitioners, to discuss issues that cut across animal welfare, wildlife and environmental conservation.
On the theme, “I find the theme for this year’s conference: “One Health, One Welfare – For a Better and Greener Tomorrow, ” the conference would afford the participants the opportunity to assess and document the progress of agreed resolutions from the 2020 Conference.
It will also be a platform to share lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic and how this was and should be informing and influencing decisions and actions on animal welfare, environmental and human well-being in Africa.
Dr Afriyie, noted that the resolution articulated the nexus between animal welfare and sustainable development in as far as environmental protection and public health were concerned.
He said the resolution would help address challenges emanating from climate change, high human population growth rates, environmental degradation, desertification and global pandemics.
The Minister averred that Animal welfare had become an integral and important part of the development of public policies for animal resource management across the world.
In Africa, he said animal resources were essential for maintaining the ecological integrity of terrestrial and aquatic environments as well as increasing national economic growth and improvement of livelihoods.
“Scientific studies from around the world indicate that animal welfare simultaneously enhances animal and public health, while providing social and environmental safeguards. It is now becoming apparent that the genesis of zoonotic pandemics are inextricably linked to poor animal welfare,” he noted.
Dr Afriyie reiterated that Ghana was developing its first National Biodiversity Policy; aimed at promoting the sustainable utilisation and conservation of biodiversity resources to promote the economic development of our communities and the nation.
Mr Wachira Kariuki, Director, Policy and Public Affairs, ANAW, stated that about 60 per cent of all diseases affecting people and around 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic.
He mentioned that animals were the primary productive asset of around one billion of the world’s poorest people and that more than three-quarters of the world’s food crops relied at least in part on pollination by insects and other animals.
“This few facts alone signal that if we fail to adequately protect and respect the welfare of animals, we are likely to become sicker, poorer, and seriously malnourished. Animals matter at the very basic levels of our existence and they are critical to maintaining the ecosystems on which our lives depend,” he said.
“It therefore cannot be lost on policymakers and billions of people that animal welfare, environmental health and human health are all part of a delicate circle of survival that must be treated with careful consideration and delicate balance to ensure the continuation of life on earth and enjoyment of the attendant benefits of this intricate ecosystem”.
Mr Kariuki noted that “Africans were closely intertwined with animals” in their daily lives and that Africa without animals seemed unfathomable because the continent and her people had enjoyed special relationships with them from a social, cultural, and economic perspective.
“When environment suffers from our actions, we and animals suffer too from the suffering environment and the converse is true when environment benefits from our actions we benefit too and animals benefit too.
Let us choose actions that benefit our environment as that is a choice that benefits us and this can be achieved by focusing on the one health, and one welfare for a greener tomorrow. Which is our 2021 conference theme, ”he said. | https://newsghana.com.gh/ghana-four-others-to-present-resolution-on-animal-welfare-to-unep/ |
According to the United Nations, the so-called “Rio+20 Conference”—officially the UN Conference on Sustainable Development—is a new attempt in a new millennium to “lay the foundations of a world of prosperity, peace and sustainability.” The event will take place June 20-22, the 20th anniversary of 1992’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)—the “Rio Earth Summit”—and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
The main agenda items will be reviewing the progress and difficulties associated with moving towards sustainability, assessing responses to the newly emerging challenges faced by our societies, and strengthening political commitments to sustainable development. Underlying themes include finding ways to leverage the green economy to foster sustainable development and poverty eradication, and setting up an effective institutional framework for future global sustainable development initiatives. Delegates from the 200+ nations and thousands of private and nonprofit sector attendees will focus on sustainable cities, decent jobs, food security and sustainable agriculture, energy, oceans, and disaster readiness.
To the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington, DC-based think tank devoted to sustainability issues, Rio+20 is important as it forces the world’s nations to “review progress on and reaffirm a global commitment to the policies designed to foster economic growth that is both inclusive and respects the planet’s limited carrying capacity.” WRI adds that amid a global recession, a widening gap between rich and poor and heightened competition for energy, food and other natural resources, the conference couldn’t be timelier but “unfortunately, no clear vision for Rio+20 has emerged, and expectations…remain low.”
But conference participants are busy preparing. The Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future (SFSF), a network of non-governmental participants, is busy developing the Global Transition 2012 Initiative, which will lay out specific recommendations culled from organizations and thought leaders around the world.
“A goal of the initiative is to achieve an outcome from Rio+20 that catalyses a ‘Global Transition’ to an economy that maximizes well-being, operates within environmental limits and is capable of coping and adapting to global environmental change,” reports the SFSF. “The Global Transition 2012 initiative will propose focused and accessible goals, targets and policy interventions that will chart a clear route towards the greening of the global economy, and the achievement of social and economic justice.”
Rio+20 participants hope this event will be remembered as an historic occasion when nations of the world aligned behind the cause of staving off global environmental catastrophe. But the more likely outcome is a few non-binding agreements that will soon be forgotten by constituents, the media and even many of the participating countries. Not since 1987’s Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals have nations of the world been able to come together in a significant way to address specific environmental ills. And without any binding agreements already on the table, Rio+20 doesn’t look to dazzle either. | https://business-ethics.com/2012/04/28/1403-whats-on-the-agenda-for-upcoming-rio20-earth-summit/ |
- Inspired by student research and recommendations, Yale has installed multiple urban meadows and rain gardens throughout campus.
- The Yale Landscape Lab at West Campus, and the Yale Experimental Watershed host fieldwork and research projects, and offer opportunities to connect sustainability solutions to the natural and built environment.
- More than 8,000 trees have been planted in the City of New Haven through the Urban Resources Initiative, a not-for-profit-university partnership. Over 130 of the these are on campus, 48 of which recognize Yale employees for long-term service.
- Initiatives in Yale’s Sustainable Stormwater Management Plan aim to reduce the amount of stormwater runoff from campus, improving water quality and public health.
- Yale’s Water Management Plan recognizes water as a critical resource, promotes metering, conservation technologies and conservation research, and prioritizes adaptive management strategies.
What You Can Do
- Help us save water on campus by being conscientious of your use.
- Discover Yale’s many green spaces that help to manage stormwater.
- Join the many students, faculty and staff who participate annually in bird walks on campus and citizen science events to survey and record biodiversity on campus.
Our Objectives and Goals
Urban Growth and Campus Planning
Develop transformative approaches to urban growth and campus planning that address financial, environmental, and social imperatives
In May 2022, volunteers, New Haven city officials, Yale employees, and community members celebrated the planting of the ten thousandth tree—a shingle oak in Quinnipiac River Park—by the Urban Resources Initiative (URI), a community-connected nonprofit organization which works in partnership with the Yale School of the Environment. Founded in 1991, URI is actively engaged in community forestry in New Haven by employing Yale interns, high school students, and adults with a history of incarceration to plant trees on city-owned property and showing residents how to care for them.
Campus Land Use Planning Guidelines
By 2025, complete the update to the Framework for Campus Planning.
In 2022, the committee updating the Framework for Campus Planning focused on the re-examination of broad areas of campus, from Science Hill to the Marsh Botanical Garden to campus geothermal infrastructure, to refine concepts and recommendations.
Efficient Campus Growth
By 2020, develop and implement planning strategies to efficiently accommodate increased campus population and programmatic expansion.
This goal was achieved in 2020, when Facilities Planning adopted an approach to new buildings and renovations that maximizes efficiency using flexible workspace principles. This approach has been reinforced with the introduction of new, flexible work models at Yale.
Land and Water Management
Develop innovative approaches to land and water management that enhance human health, biodiversity, and environmental vitality
Landscape Management and Use
By 2021, define standards for innovative landscape management to enhance care and use of Yale land inside and outside of New Haven.
This goal was achieved in 2021. Through recent projects such as the Economics Building, Prospect Court, Gibbs Court, and the Tsai Lacrosse Field House, the new landscape management standards are creating robust and resilient landscapes while increasing transparency into the impacts of proposed projects.
Stormwater and Water Management
By 2020, implement recommendations as proposed in 2016 supplements to campus Stormwater and Water Management Plans in explicit alignment with municipal, regional, and state priorities.
This goal was achieved in 2020. The development of a campus-wide Stormwater Master Plan, which will guide implementation of priority stormwater mitigation projects, was initiated, and will be completed by 2023.
Biodiversity Plan
By 2025, establish campus best practices, standards, benchmarks, and biodiversity goals and strategies to meet and measure performance to create a campus biodiversity plan.
Although progress on the plan was delayed due to staffing challenges, renewed work on this goal will be advanced with a new Facilities Open Space Committee. In addition, current projects have highlighted and prioritized biodiversity, including the Marsh Botanical Gardens Master Plan and the Divinity School Living Village. | https://sustainability.yale.edu/priorities-progress/stewardship |
This collection presents the fundamentals of behavior neuroscience and focuses on the concepts of learning, memory, cognition, movement, addiction and behavioral disorders.
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An Introduction to Learning and Memory
Learning is the process of acquiring new information and memory is the retention or storage of that information. Different types of learning, such as non-associative and associative learning, and different types of memory, such as long-term and short-term memory, have been associated with human behaviors. Studying these components in detail helps behavioral scientists understand the neural mechanisms behind these two complex phenomena.
JoVE's overview on learning and memory introduces common terminologies and a brief outline of concepts in this field. Then, key questions asked by behavioral scientists and prominent tools such as fear conditioning and fMRI are discussed. Finally, actual experiments dealing with aging, eradication of traumatic memories, and improvising learning are reviewed.…
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Fear Conditioning
Fear Conditioning is a type of learning in which an association is established between a negative unpleasant event and a harmless stimulus. This leads to a fear of the harmless stimulus. This process is largely mediated by the amygdala, which is a brain region involved in emotions and stress reactions. Fear conditioning can be utilized in several ways to understand different aspects of learning and memory.
This video presents an overview of the principles behind fear conditioning, discusses the equipment and a generalized procedure used for this type of experiment. Finally, we'll review some real world applications of fear conditioning in behavioral neuroscience research today.…
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Spatial Memory Testing Using Mazes
Spatial learning and memory are neurological functions that allow us to remember important details associated with our environment. Scientists test this phenomenon in rodents using different types of mazes like Morris water maze, Radial water maze, and Barnes maze. By investigating spatial memory in rodents, neurobehavioral scientists can gain valuable understanding of how these processes are altered following brain damage in humans.
Here, the neurobiology behind spatial memory is briefly reviewed and some general principles behind maze tests are discussed. Then, the video explains generalized protocols on how to conduct trials with specific types of mazes. Lastly, it will explain how behavioral researchers are using these tools to conduct some specific experiments.…
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An Introduction to Cognition
Cognition encompasses mental processes such as memory, perception, decision-making reasoning and language. Cognitive scientists are using a combination of behavioral and neuropsychological techniques to investigate the underlying neural substrates of cognition. They are interested in understanding how information is perceived, processed and how does it affect the final execution of behaviors. With this knowledge, researchers hope to develop new treatments for individuals with cognitive impairments. JoVE's introduction to cognition reviews several components of this phenomenon, such as perception, attention, language comprehension, etc. Key questions in the field of cognition will be discussed along with specific methods currently being used to answer these questions. Finally, specific studies that investigate different aspects of cognition using tools like functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) or Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) will be explained.…
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Electro-encephalography (EEG)
EEG is a non-invasive technique that can measure brain activity. The neural activity generates electrical signals that are recorded by EEG electrodes placed on the scalp. When an individual is engaged in performing a cognitive task, brain activity changes and these changes can be recorded on the EEG graph. Therefore, it is a powerful tool for cognitive scientist aiming to better understand the neural correlates associated with different aspects of cognition, which will ultimately help them devise improved treatments for patients with cognitive deficits. Here, JoVE presents a brief overview of EEG and its applications in cognitive research. First, we discuss where and how EEG signals are generated. Then, we explain the use of EEG in studying cognition along with a detailed step-by-step protocol to perform an EEG experiment. Lastly, the video reviews some specific cognitive experiments that use EEG in combination with other techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI) or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).…
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Eye Tracking in Cognitive Experiments
Eye tracking as the name suggests involves tracking of eye-movements. It is a non-invasive, sensitive tool that quantifies and measures eye-movements to describe an individuals' cognitive state. An eye-movement between two fixation points is called a saccade, which is one of the fastest motor movements in our body. By observing the profiles of these eye movements, scientists can better understand neural deficits in patients with cognitive impairments. In this video, we will first look at an overview of different eye movements that eye tracking can capture and the type of data that can be collected. Then, the basic setup and experimental design are reviewed, including different types of eye trackers and details to optimize the eye tracking equipment. Finally, we will take a look at a few specific experiments utilizing eye tracking as a tool to study cognition.…
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An Introduction to Motor Control
Motor control involves integration and processing of sensory information by our nervous system, followed by a response through our skeletal system to perform a voluntary or involuntary action. It is vital to understand how our neuroskeletal system controls motor behavior in order to evaluate injuries pertaining to general movement, reflexes, and coordination. An improved understanding of motor control will help behavioral neuroscientists in developing useful tools to treat motor disorders, such as Parkinson's or Huntington's disease. This video briefly reviews the neuroanatomical structures and connections that play a major role in controlling motion. Fundamental questions currently being asked in the field of motor control are introduced, followed by some of the methods being employed to answer those questions. Lastly, the application sections reviews a few specific experiments conducted in neuroscience labs interested in studying this phenomenon.…
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Balance and Coordination Testing
Balance and coordination are critical components involved in the control of movement. Many sensory receptors and neural processing units are required to help individuals maintain balance while performing various activities. Deficits in balance and coordination occur in patients suffering from movement disorders or due to aging. Therefore, scientists are trying to understand the pathophysiology behind these conditions. One way to do that is by using rodent models and testing them on behavioral paradigms such as the rotarod or balance beam. This video discusses the currently known neurophysiology behind balance and coordination. Then, we go over protocols to run balance tests in rodents using the rotarod and balance beam. Finally, we'll discuss some current studies utilizing these methods to investigate aging, muscular dystrophy and Parkinson's disease.…
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Assessing Dexterity with Reaching Tasks
Reaching tasks are employed in behavioral neuroscience to investigate motor learning and forelimb dexterity. Much like human hands, rodents have dexterous forepaws, which are necessary for executing coordinated and precise motor movements. Experimenters may utilize food rewards to train rodents to reach and for testing their reaching abilities. These tasks help behavioral neuroscientist in understanding how CNS injuries, such as a stroke, may impair reaching ability and dexterity in humans. This video begins by discussing the principles and neurobiology of forelimb use in rodents, and then explains a protocol on how to conduct reaching experiments using different types of food rewards. Applications section reviews studies that involve reaching and food handling in animal models of CNS injury.…
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An Introduction to Reward and Addiction
Consequences play a major role in controlling our behavior. If the consequence is a reward, then it encourages the associated behavior. Rewards can come in many forms such as a pleasant feeling, money, or food. However, sometimes an individual engages in compulsive behavior despite of negative consequences, and this state is known as addiction. Administration of addictive substances is neurochemically rewarding, which ultimately causes a loss of control in limiting the intake. Scientists aim to better understand the mechanisms behind these concepts and subsequently develop new therapies for treating substance abuse disorders. JoVE's introduction to reward and addiction explains the neuroanatomical components of the reward pathway. This is followed by some of the important questions asked by behavioral researchers such as how does our brain chemistry change in response to drug use. Prominent methods section reviews some of the tools being employed in the field, like self-administration protocols. Finally, the video discusses example experiments conducted in labs interested in investigating reward and addiction.…
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Positive Reinforcement Studies
Researchers study learning of a behavior through the use of operant conditioning. This type of learning involves associating the behavior with a consequence, which is a reward or punishment. If the consequence is a reward, it leads to reinforcement of the desired behavior. One type of reinforcement approach is positive reinforcement, where the behavior is rewarded with an artificial, natural, or social reinforcer. Studies using positive reinforcement as a tool can help tease out important details about neurological functioning associated with different behaviors. This video reviews the concepts behind reinforcement studies by using an example of a man training a dog to sit. Following this, we look at a generalized procedure of positive reinforcement commonly used by behavioral researchers. This involves, training rodents to perform a behavior (lever press) to get a reward (food). Lastly, specific applications demonstrate how scientists use positive reinforcement to understand behavior.…
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Self-administration Studies
Behavioral reinforcement induced by the rewarding feelings following substance use sometimes leads to addiction, which is demonstrated by increased self-administration. Drug self-administration studies in rodents model human behavior during drug abuse. These models are useful in understanding the neurobiological behavior of addiction in order to help scientists discover new treatments for drug dependence.
This video reviews the concepts underlying self-administration studies. A general protocol of self-administration is discussed, which includes description of necessary equipment and different routes of administration commonly employed. Some modified protocols used to model more complex aspects of addiction, such as progressive ratio schedule and extinction, are also explained. Finally, experiments conducted in current addiction research labs will be examined.…
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An Introduction to Modeling Behavioral Disorders and Stress
Recently, it has been discovered that behavioral conditions such as, depression, anxiety and stress-response have a neurological basis. Understanding the biological underpinnings of these conditions may help scientists in developing more effective therapies to treat these disorders. Typically, rodent models are used in this field and behavioral scientists create these models using interventions like drug administration or surgery. It is important to understand how to create and evaluate rodent models of behavioral disorders as they play an important role in discovery of new treatments for clinical applications. Here, JoVE science education video first reviews the 'classical' criteria used to evaluate rodent models of stress and behavioral disorders. This is followed by some of the important questions that scientists are trying to answer using these models as tools. We'll also go over several rodent behavioral tests currently being used in this field and discuss applications of these paradigms.…
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Modeling Social Stress
Stress negatively affects our quality of life. In particular, some individuals experience social stress when placed in a social environment that they are unfamiliar with or have difficulty adjusting to. Since it is hard to examine mechanisms of social stress in humans, modeling this condition in animals may help scientist in developing new therapies for treating this commonly encountered problem. | https://www.jove.com/science-education-library/7/behavioral-science |
# Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes with input from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, computer science/artificial intelligence, and anthropology. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Cognitive scientists study intelligence and behavior, with a focus on how nervous systems represent, process, and transform information. Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include language, perception, memory, attention, reasoning, and emotion; to understand these faculties, cognitive scientists borrow from fields such as linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology. The typical analysis of cognitive science spans many levels of organization, from learning and decision to logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular brain organization. One of the fundamental concepts of cognitive science is that "thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures."
The goal of cognitive science is to understand and formulate the principles of intelligence with the hope that this will lead to a better comprehension of the mind and of learning. The cognitive sciences began as an intellectual movement in the 1950s often referred to as the cognitive revolution.
## History
The cognitive sciences began as an intellectual movement in the 1950s, called the cognitive revolution. Cognitive science has a prehistory traceable back to ancient Greek philosophical texts (see Plato's Meno and Aristotle's De Anima); Modernist philosophers such as Descartes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Benedict de Spinoza, Nicolas Malebranche, Pierre Cabanis, Leibniz and John Locke, rejected scholasticism while mostly having never read Aristotle, and they were working with an entirely different set of tools and core concepts than those of the cognitive scientist.
The modern culture of cognitive science can be traced back to the early cyberneticists in the 1930s and 1940s, such as Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts, who sought to understand the organizing principles of the mind. McCulloch and Pitts developed the first variants of what are now known as artificial neural networks, models of computation inspired by the structure of biological neural networks.
Another precursor was the early development of the theory of computation and the digital computer in the 1940s and 1950s. Kurt Gödel, Alonzo Church, Alan Turing, and John von Neumann were instrumental in these developments. The modern computer, or Von Neumann machine, would play a central role in cognitive science, both as a metaphor for the mind, and as a tool for investigation.
The first instance of cognitive science experiments being done at an academic institution took place at MIT Sloan School of Management, established by J.C.R. Licklider working within the psychology department and conducting experiments using computer memory as models for human cognition.
In 1959, Noam Chomsky published a scathing review of B. F. Skinner's book Verbal Behavior. At the time, Skinner's behaviorist paradigm dominated the field of psychology within the United States. Most psychologists focused on functional relations between stimulus and response, without positing internal representations. Chomsky argued that in order to explain language, we needed a theory like generative grammar, which not only attributed internal representations but characterized their underlying order.
The term cognitive science was coined by Christopher Longuet-Higgins in his 1973 commentary on the Lighthill report, which concerned the then-current state of artificial intelligence research. In the same decade, the journal Cognitive Science and the Cognitive Science Society were founded. The founding meeting of the Cognitive Science Society was held at the University of California, San Diego in 1979, which resulted in cognitive science becoming an internationally visible enterprise. In 1972, Hampshire College started the first undergraduate education program in Cognitive Science, led by Neil Stillings. In 1982, with assistance from Professor Stillings, Vassar College became the first institution in the world to grant an undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science. In 1986, the first Cognitive Science Department in the world was founded at the University of California, San Diego.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, as access to computers increased, artificial intelligence research expanded. Researchers such as Marvin Minsky would write computer programs in languages such as LISP to attempt to formally characterize the steps that human beings went through, for instance, in making decisions and solving problems, in the hope of better understanding human thought, and also in the hope of creating artificial minds. This approach is known as "symbolic AI".
Eventually the limits of the symbolic AI research program became apparent. For instance, it seemed to be unrealistic to comprehensively list human knowledge in a form usable by a symbolic computer program. The late 80s and 90s saw the rise of neural networks and connectionism as a research paradigm. Under this point of view, often attributed to James McClelland and David Rumelhart, the mind could be characterized as a set of complex associations, represented as a layered network. Critics argue that there are some phenomena which are better captured by symbolic models, and that connectionist models are often so complex as to have little explanatory power. Recently symbolic and connectionist models have been combined, making it possible to take advantage of both forms of explanation. While both connectionism and symbolic approaches have proven useful for testing various hypotheses and exploring approaches to understanding aspects of cognition and lower level brain functions, neither are biologically realistic and therefore, both suffer from a lack of neuroscientific plausibility. Connectionism has proven useful for exploring computationally how cognition emerges in development and occurs in the human brain, and has provided alternatives to strictly domain-specific / domain general approaches. For example, scientists such as Jeff Elman, Liz Bates, and Annette Karmiloff-Smith have posited that networks in the brain emerge from the dynamic interaction between them and environmental input.
## Principles
### Levels of analysis
A central tenet of cognitive science is that a complete understanding of the mind/brain cannot be attained by studying only a single level. An example would be the problem of remembering a phone number and recalling it later. One approach to understanding this process would be to study behavior through direct observation, or naturalistic observation. A person could be presented with a phone number and be asked to recall it after some delay of time; then the accuracy of the response could be measured. Another approach to measure cognitive ability would be to study the firings of individual neurons while a person is trying to remember the phone number. Neither of these experiments on its own would fully explain how the process of remembering a phone number works. Even if the technology to map out every neuron in the brain in real-time were available and it were known when each neuron fired it would still be impossible to know how a particular firing of neurons translates into the observed behavior. Thus an understanding of how these two levels relate to each other is imperative. Francisco Varela, in The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience, argues that "the new sciences of the mind need to enlarge their horizon to encompass both lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience". On the classic cognitivist view, this can be provided by a functional level account of the process. Studying a particular phenomenon from multiple levels creates a better understanding of the processes that occur in the brain to give rise to a particular behavior. Marr gave a famous description of three levels of analysis:
The computational theory, specifying the goals of the computation; Representation and algorithms, giving a representation of the inputs and outputs and the algorithms which transform one into the other; and The hardware implementation, or how algorithm and representation may be physically realized.
### Interdisciplinary nature
Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field with contributors from various fields, including psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy of mind, computer science, anthropology and biology. Cognitive scientists work collectively in hope of understanding the mind and its interactions with the surrounding world much like other sciences do. The field regards itself as compatible with the physical sciences and uses the scientific method as well as simulation or modeling, often comparing the output of models with aspects of human cognition. Similarly to the field of psychology, there is some doubt whether there is a unified cognitive science, which have led some researchers to prefer 'cognitive sciences' in plural.
Many, but not all, who consider themselves cognitive scientists hold a functionalist view of the mind—the view that mental states and processes should be explained by their function – what they do. According to the multiple realizability account of functionalism, even non-human systems such as robots and computers can be ascribed as having cognition.
### Cognitive science: the term
The term "cognitive" in "cognitive science" is used for "any kind of mental operation or structure that can be studied in precise terms" (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999). This conceptualization is very broad, and should not be confused with how "cognitive" is used in some traditions of analytic philosophy, where "cognitive" has to do only with formal rules and truth conditional semantics.
The earliest entries for the word "cognitive" in the OED take it to mean roughly "pertaining to the action or process of knowing". The first entry, from 1586, shows the word was at one time used in the context of discussions of Platonic theories of knowledge. Most in cognitive science, however, presumably do not believe their field is the study of anything as certain as the knowledge sought by Plato.
## Scope
Cognitive science is a large field, and covers a wide array of topics on cognition. However, it should be recognized that cognitive science has not always been equally concerned with every topic that might bear relevance to the nature and operation of minds. Classical cognitivists have largely de-emphasized or avoided social and cultural factors, embodiment, emotion, consciousness, animal cognition, and comparative and evolutionary psychologies. However, with the decline of behaviorism, internal states such as affects and emotions, as well as awareness and covert attention became approachable again. For example, situated and embodied cognition theories take into account the current state of the environment as well as the role of the body in cognition. With the newfound emphasis on information processing, observable behavior was no longer the hallmark of psychological theory, but the modeling or recording of mental states.
Below are some of the main topics that cognitive science is concerned with. This is not an exhaustive list. See List of cognitive science topics for a list of various aspects of the field.
### Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) involves the study of cognitive phenomena in machines. One of the practical goals of AI is to implement aspects of human intelligence in computers. Computers are also widely used as a tool with which to study cognitive phenomena. Computational modeling uses simulations to study how human intelligence may be structured. (See § Computational modeling.)
There is some debate in the field as to whether the mind is best viewed as a huge array of small but individually feeble elements (i.e. neurons), or as a collection of higher-level structures such as symbols, schemes, plans, and rules. The former view uses connectionism to study the mind, whereas the latter emphasizes symbolic artificial intelligence. One way to view the issue is whether it is possible to accurately simulate a human brain on a computer without accurately simulating the neurons that make up the human brain.
### Attention
Attention is the selection of important information. The human mind is bombarded with millions of stimuli and it must have a way of deciding which of this information to process. Attention is sometimes seen as a spotlight, meaning one can only shine the light on a particular set of information. Experiments that support this metaphor include the dichotic listening task (Cherry, 1957) and studies of inattentional blindness (Mack and Rock, 1998). In the dichotic listening task, subjects are bombarded with two different messages, one in each ear, and told to focus on only one of the messages. At the end of the experiment, when asked about the content of the unattended message, subjects cannot report it.
### Bodily processes related to cognition
Embodied cognition approaches to cognitive science emphasize the role of body and environment in cognition. This includes both neural and extra-neural bodily processes, and factors that range from affective and emotional processes, to posture, motor control, proprioception, and kinaesthesis, to autonomic processes that involve heartbeat and respiration, to the role of the enteric gut microbiome. It also includes accounts of how the body engages with or is coupled to social and physical environments. 4E (embodied, embedded, extended and enactive) cognition includes a broad range of views about brain-body-environment interaction, from causal embeddedness to stronger claims about how the mind extends to include tools and instruments, as well as the role of social interactions, action-oriented processes, and affordances. 4E theories range from those closer to classic cognitivism (so-called "weak" embodied cognition) to stronger extended and enactive versions that are sometimes referred to as radical embodied cognitive science.
### Knowledge and processing of language
The ability to learn and understand language is an extremely complex process. Language is acquired within the first few years of life, and all humans under normal circumstances are able to acquire language proficiently. A major driving force in the theoretical linguistic field is discovering the nature that language must have in the abstract in order to be learned in such a fashion. Some of the driving research questions in studying how the brain itself processes language include: (1) To what extent is linguistic knowledge innate or learned?, (2) Why is it more difficult for adults to acquire a second-language than it is for infants to acquire their first-language?, and (3) How are humans able to understand novel sentences?
The study of language processing ranges from the investigation of the sound patterns of speech to the meaning of words and whole sentences. Linguistics often divides language processing into orthography, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Many aspects of language can be studied from each of these components and from their interaction.
The study of language processing in cognitive science is closely tied to the field of linguistics. Linguistics was traditionally studied as a part of the humanities, including studies of history, art and literature. In the last fifty years or so, more and more researchers have studied knowledge and use of language as a cognitive phenomenon, the main problems being how knowledge of language can be acquired and used, and what precisely it consists of. Linguists have found that, while humans form sentences in ways apparently governed by very complex systems, they are remarkably unaware of the rules that govern their own speech. Thus linguists must resort to indirect methods to determine what those rules might be, if indeed rules as such exist. In any event, if speech is indeed governed by rules, they appear to be opaque to any conscious consideration.
### Learning and development
Learning and development are the processes by which we acquire knowledge and information over time. Infants are born with little or no knowledge (depending on how knowledge is defined), yet they rapidly acquire the ability to use language, walk, and recognize people and objects. Research in learning and development aims to explain the mechanisms by which these processes might take place.
A major question in the study of cognitive development is the extent to which certain abilities are innate or learned. This is often framed in terms of the nature and nurture debate. The nativist view emphasizes that certain features are innate to an organism and are determined by its genetic endowment. The empiricist view, on the other hand, emphasizes that certain abilities are learned from the environment. Although clearly both genetic and environmental input is needed for a child to develop normally, considerable debate remains about how genetic information might guide cognitive development. In the area of language acquisition, for example, some (such as Steven Pinker) have argued that specific information containing universal grammatical rules must be contained in the genes, whereas others (such as Jeffrey Elman and colleagues in Rethinking Innateness) have argued that Pinker's claims are biologically unrealistic. They argue that genes determine the architecture of a learning system, but that specific "facts" about how grammar works can only be learned as a result of experience.
### Memory
Memory allows us to store information for later retrieval. Memory is often thought of as consisting of both a long-term and short-term store. Long-term memory allows us to store information over prolonged periods (days, weeks, years). We do not yet know the practical limit of long-term memory capacity. Short-term memory allows us to store information over short time scales (seconds or minutes).
Memory is also often grouped into declarative and procedural forms. Declarative memory—grouped into subsets of semantic and episodic forms of memory—refers to our memory for facts and specific knowledge, specific meanings, and specific experiences (e.g. "Are apples food?", or "What did I eat for breakfast four days ago?"). Procedural memory allows us to remember actions and motor sequences (e.g. how to ride a bicycle) and is often dubbed implicit knowledge or memory .
Cognitive scientists study memory just as psychologists do, but tend to focus more on how memory bears on cognitive processes, and the interrelationship between cognition and memory. One example of this could be, what mental processes does a person go through to retrieve a long-lost memory? Or, what differentiates between the cognitive process of recognition (seeing hints of something before remembering it, or memory in context) and recall (retrieving a memory, as in "fill-in-the-blank")?
### Perception and action
Perception is the ability to take in information via the senses, and process it in some way. Vision and hearing are two dominant senses that allow us to perceive the environment. Some questions in the study of visual perception, for example, include: (1) How are we able to recognize objects?, (2) Why do we perceive a continuous visual environment, even though we only see small bits of it at any one time? One tool for studying visual perception is by looking at how people process optical illusions. The image on the right of a Necker cube is an example of a bistable percept, that is, the cube can be interpreted as being oriented in two different directions.
The study of haptic (tactile), olfactory, and gustatory stimuli also fall into the domain of perception.
Action is taken to refer to the output of a system. In humans, this is accomplished through motor responses. Spatial planning and movement, speech production, and complex motor movements are all aspects of action.
### Consciousness
Consciousness is the awareness of external objects and experiences within oneself. This helps the mind with having the ability to experience or feel a sense of self.
## Research methods
Many different methodologies are used to study cognitive science. As the field is highly interdisciplinary, research often cuts across multiple areas of study, drawing on research methods from psychology, neuroscience, computer science and systems theory.
### Behavioral experiments
In order to have a description of what constitutes intelligent behavior, one must study behavior itself. This type of research is closely tied to that in cognitive psychology and psychophysics. By measuring behavioral responses to different stimuli, one can understand something about how those stimuli are processed. Lewandowski & Strohmetz (2009) reviewed a collection of innovative uses of behavioral measurement in psychology including behavioral traces, behavioral observations, and behavioral choice. Behavioral traces are pieces of evidence that indicate behavior occurred, but the actor is not present (e.g., litter in a parking lot or readings on an electric meter). Behavioral observations involve the direct witnessing of the actor engaging in the behavior (e.g., watching how close a person sits next to another person). Behavioral choices are when a person selects between two or more options (e.g., voting behavior, choice of a punishment for another participant).
Reaction time. The time between the presentation of a stimulus and an appropriate response can indicate differences between two cognitive processes, and can indicate some things about their nature. For example, if in a search task the reaction times vary proportionally with the number of elements, then it is evident that this cognitive process of searching involves serial instead of parallel processing. Psychophysical responses. Psychophysical experiments are an old psychological technique, which has been adopted by cognitive psychology. They typically involve making judgments of some physical property, e.g. the loudness of a sound. Correlation of subjective scales between individuals can show cognitive or sensory biases as compared to actual physical measurements. Some examples include: sameness judgments for colors, tones, textures, etc. threshold differences for colors, tones, textures, etc. Eye tracking. This methodology is used to study a variety of cognitive processes, most notably visual perception and language processing. The fixation point of the eyes is linked to an individual's focus of attention. Thus, by monitoring eye movements, we can study what information is being processed at a given time. Eye tracking allows us to study cognitive processes on extremely short time scales. Eye movements reflect online decision making during a task, and they provide us with some insight into the ways in which those decisions may be processed.
### Brain imaging
Brain imaging involves analyzing activity within the brain while performing various tasks. This allows us to link behavior and brain function to help understand how information is processed. Different types of imaging techniques vary in their temporal (time-based) and spatial (location-based) resolution. Brain imaging is often used in cognitive neuroscience.
Single-photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography. SPECT and PET use radioactive isotopes, which are injected into the subject's bloodstream and taken up by the brain. By observing which areas of the brain take up the radioactive isotope, we can see which areas of the brain are more active than other areas. PET has similar spatial resolution to fMRI, but it has extremely poor temporal resolution. Electroencephalography. EEG measures the electrical fields generated by large populations of neurons in the cortex by placing a series of electrodes on the scalp of the subject. This technique has an extremely high temporal resolution, but a relatively poor spatial resolution. Functional magnetic resonance imaging. fMRI measures the relative amount of oxygenated blood flowing to different parts of the brain. More oxygenated blood in a particular region is assumed to correlate with an increase in neural activity in that part of the brain. This allows us to localize particular functions within different brain regions. fMRI has moderate spatial and temporal resolution. Optical imaging. This technique uses infrared transmitters and receivers to measure the amount of light reflectance by blood near different areas of the brain. Since oxygenated and deoxygenated blood reflects light by different amounts, we can study which areas are more active (i.e., those that have more oxygenated blood). Optical imaging has moderate temporal resolution, but poor spatial resolution. It also has the advantage that it is extremely safe and can be used to study infants' brains. Magnetoencephalography. MEG measures magnetic fields resulting from cortical activity. It is similar to EEG, except that it has improved spatial resolution since the magnetic fields it measures are not as blurred or attenuated by the scalp, meninges and so forth as the electrical activity measured in EEG is. MEG uses SQUID sensors to detect tiny magnetic fields.
### Computational modeling
Computational models require a mathematically and logically formal representation of a problem. Computer models are used in the simulation and experimental verification of different specific and general properties of intelligence. Computational modeling can help us understand the functional organization of a particular cognitive phenomenon. Approaches to cognitive modeling can be categorized as: (1) symbolic, on abstract mental functions of an intelligent mind by means of symbols; (2) subsymbolic, on the neural and associative properties of the human brain; and (3) across the symbolic–subsymbolic border, including hybrid.
Symbolic modeling evolved from the computer science paradigms using the technologies of knowledge-based systems, as well as a philosophical perspective (e.g. "Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence" (GOFAI)). They were developed by the first cognitive researchers and later used in information engineering for expert systems. Since the early 1990s it was generalized in systemics for the investigation of functional human-like intelligence models, such as personoids, and, in parallel, developed as the SOAR environment. Recently, especially in the context of cognitive decision-making, symbolic cognitive modeling has been extended to the socio-cognitive approach, including social and organizational cognition, interrelated with a sub-symbolic non-conscious layer. Subsymbolic modeling includes connectionist/neural network models. Connectionism relies on the idea that the mind/brain is composed of simple nodes and its problem-solving capacity derives from the connections between them. Neural nets are textbook implementations of this approach. Some critics of this approach feel that while these models approach biological reality as a representation of how the system works, these models lack explanatory powers because, even in systems endowed with simple connection rules, the emerging high complexity makes them less interpretable at the connection-level than they apparently are at the macroscopic level. Other approaches gaining in popularity include (1) dynamical systems theory, (2) mapping symbolic models onto connectionist models (Neural-symbolic integration or hybrid intelligent systems), and (3) and Bayesian models, which are often drawn from machine learning.
All the above approaches tend either to be generalized to the form of integrated computational models of a synthetic/abstract intelligence (i.e. cognitive architecture) in order to be applied to the explanation and improvement of individual and social/organizational decision-making and reasoning or to focus on single simulative programs (or microtheories/"middle-range" theories) modelling specific cognitive faculties (e.g. vision, language, categorization etc.).
### Neurobiological methods
Research methods borrowed directly from neuroscience and neuropsychology can also help us to understand aspects of intelligence. These methods allow us to understand how intelligent behavior is implemented in a physical system.
Single-unit recording Direct brain stimulation Animal models Postmortem studies
## Key findings
Cognitive science has given rise to models of human cognitive bias and risk perception, and has been influential in the development of behavioral finance, part of economics. It has also given rise to a new theory of the philosophy of mathematics (related to denotational mathematics), and many theories of artificial intelligence, persuasion and coercion. It has made its presence known in the philosophy of language and epistemology as well as constituting a substantial wing of modern linguistics. Fields of cognitive science have been influential in understanding the brain's particular functional systems (and functional deficits) ranging from speech production to auditory processing and visual perception. It has made progress in understanding how damage to particular areas of the brain affect cognition, and it has helped to uncover the root causes and results of specific dysfunction, such as dyslexia, anopia, and hemispatial neglect.
## Notable researchers
Some of the more recognized names in cognitive science are usually either the most controversial or the most cited. Within philosophy, some familiar names include Daniel Dennett, who writes from a computational systems perspective, John Searle, known for his controversial Chinese room argument, and Jerry Fodor, who advocates functionalism.
Others include David Chalmers, who advocates Dualism and is also known for articulating the hard problem of consciousness, and Douglas Hofstadter, famous for writing Gödel, Escher, Bach, which questions the nature of words and thought.
In the realm of linguistics, Noam Chomsky and George Lakoff have been influential (both have also become notable as political commentators). In artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky, Herbert A. Simon, and Allen Newell are prominent.
Popular names in the discipline of psychology include George A. Miller, James McClelland, Philip Johnson-Laird, Lawrence Barsalou, Vittorio Guidano, Howard Gardner and Steven Pinker. Anthropologists Dan Sperber, Edwin Hutchins, Bradd Shore, James Wertsch and Scott Atran, have been involved in collaborative projects with cognitive and social psychologists, political scientists and evolutionary biologists in attempts to develop general theories of culture formation, religion, and political association.
Computational theories (with models and simulations) have also been developed, by David Rumelhart, James McClelland and Philip Johnson-Laird.
## Epistemics
Epistemics is a term coined in 1969 by the University of Edinburgh with the foundation of its School of Epistemics. Epistemics is to be distinguished from epistemology in that epistemology is the philosophical theory of knowledge, whereas epistemics signifies the scientific study of knowledge.
Christopher Longuet-Higgins has defined it as "the construction of formal models of the processes (perceptual, intellectual, and linguistic) by which knowledge and understanding are achieved and communicated." In his 1978 essay "Epistemics: The Regulative Theory of Cognition", Alvin I. Goldman claims to have coined the term "epistemics" to describe a reorientation of epistemology. Goldman maintains that his epistemics is continuous with traditional epistemology and the new term is only to avoid opposition. Epistemics, in Goldman's version, differs only slightly from traditional epistemology in its alliance with the psychology of cognition; epistemics stresses the detailed study of mental processes and information-processing mechanisms that lead to knowledge or beliefs.
In the mid-1980s, the School of Epistemics was renamed as The Centre for Cognitive Science (CCS). In 1998, CCS was incorporated into the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics.
## Binding problem in cognitive science
One of the core aims of cognitive science is to achieve an integrated theory of cognition. This requires integrative mechanisms explaining how the information processing that occurs simultaneously in spatially segregated (sub-)cortical areas in the brain is coordinated and bound together to give rise to coherent perceptual and symbolic representations. One approach is to solve this "Binding problem" (that is, the problem of dynamically representing conjunctions of informational elements, from the most basic perceptual representations ("feature binding") to the most complex cognitive representations, like symbol structures ("variable binding")), by means of integrative synchronization mechanisms. In other words, one of the coordinating mechanisms appears to be the temporal (phase) synchronization of neural activity based on dynamical self-organizing processes in neural networks, described by the Binding-by-synchrony (BBS) Hypothesis from neurophysiology. Connectionist cognitive neuroarchitectures have been developed that use integrative synchronization mechanisms to solve this binding problem in perceptual cognition and in language cognition. In perceptual cognition the problem is to explain how elementary object properties and object relations, like the object color or the object form, can be dynamically bound together or can be integrated to a representation of this perceptual object by means of a synchronization mechanism ("feature binding", "feature linking"). In language cognition the problem is to explain how semantic concepts and syntactic roles can be dynamically bound together or can be integrated to complex cognitive representations like systematic and compositional symbol structures and propositions by means of a synchronization mechanism ("variable binding") (see also the "Symbolism vs. connectionism debate" in connectionism). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_sciences |
with 75% of the fulltime weekly hours and limited until June 30, 2024. The period of employment is governed by the Fixed Term Research Contracts Act (WissZeitVG). The positions aim at obtaining further academic qualification (e.g. PhD).
The successful applicant will work together with Prof. Dr. John-Dylan Haynes, Dr. Marcus Möschl and Prof. Dr. Thomas Goschke in project A1 of the CRC 940. The CRC is an interdisciplinary research centre that investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying volitional action control and self-control impairments. Together, the CRC and the TU Dresden offer an excellent research infrastructure and various opportunities for cooperation between experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry. Doctoral candidates are integrated into the graduate program of the CRC, which offers annual spring schools, workshops and several other training and cooperation opportunities for doctoral candidates.
The CRC project A1 investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms of intentional goal-oriented behavior. Specifically, the project assesses to what extent cognitive stability versus cognitive flexibility incur complementary costs and benefits. For this, healthy participants will be tested in behaviorally induced task contexts in which performance can be optimised either by rigidly shielding intentions from interference or by flexibly switching between different intentions. The project will measure behavioral markers such as reaction times and assess the neural processes underlying cognitive stability and flexibility with the help of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG).
Tasks: Study coordination and participant recruitment; conducting psychological experiments; project-related supervision of student assistants; preparation and analysis of behavioral and/or fMRI/EEG data; writing scientific papers; presenting research findings at scientific conferences.
Requirements: University degree (MSc. or Dipl.) in psychology, cognitive (neuro)science or related fields; substantial interest in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology; substantial expertise in statistics and research methods; proficiency in English and German; prior experience with fMRI. Scientific publications and computer programming skills (e.g., Matlab) are welcome.
For questions please contact Dr. Marcus Möschl ([email protected]) or Prof. Dr. Thomas Goschke ([email protected]).
Applications from women are particularly welcome. The same applies to people with disabilities.
Please send your complete application in one PDF document (CV, a brief statement describing your qualifications and research interests and contact information of two references) until September 22, 2021 (stamped arrival date of the TU Dresden central mail service applies) via the TU Dresden SecureMail Portal https://securemail.tu-dresden.de to [email protected] or via mail to: TU Dresden, Fakultät Psychologie, Sonderforschungsbereich SFB 940, z. Hd. Herrn Dr. Marcus Möschl, Helmholtzstr. 10, 01069 Dresden. Please submit copies only, as your application will not be returned to you. Expenses incurred in attending interviews cannot be reimbursed.
Please find the German version under: https://tu-dresden.de/stellenausschreibung/8721. | https://www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/en-au/listing/262853/research-associate-phd-student-/ |
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Journal Articles
Prefrontal Dynamics Associated with Efficient Detours and Shortcuts: A Combined Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Magnetoencenphalography Study
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2019) 31 (8): 1227–1247.
Published: 01 August 2019
FIGURES | View All (6)
AbstractView article PDF
Central to the concept of the “cognitive map” is that it confers behavioral flexibility, allowing animals to take efficient detours, exploit shortcuts, and avoid alluring, but unhelpful, paths. The neural underpinnings of such naturalistic and flexible behavior remain unclear. In two neuroimaging experiments, we tested human participants on their ability to navigate to a set of goal locations in a virtual desert island riven by lava, which occasionally spread to block selected paths (necessitating detours) or receded to open new paths (affording real shortcuts or false shortcuts to be avoided). Detours activated a network of frontal regions compared with shortcuts. Activity in the right dorsolateral PFC specifically increased when participants encountered tempting false shortcuts that led along suboptimal paths that needed to be differentiated from real shortcuts. We also report modulation in event-related fields and theta power in these situations, providing insight to the temporal evolution of response to encountering detours and shortcuts. These results help inform current models as to how the brain supports navigation and planning in dynamic environments.
Journal Articles
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2011) 23 (12): 3933–3938.
Published: 01 December 2011
FIGURES
AbstractView article PDF
Two fundamental questions underlie the expression of behavior, namely what to do and how vigorously to do it. The former is the topic of an overwhelming wealth of theoretical and empirical work particularly in the fields of reinforcement learning and decision-making, with various forms of affective prediction error playing key roles. Although vigor concerns motivation, and so is the subject of many empirical studies in diverse fields, it has suffered a dearth of computational models. Recently, Niv et al. [Niv, Y., Daw, N. D., Joel, D., & Dayan, P. Tonic dopamine: Opportunity costs and the control of response vigor. Psychopharmacology (Berlin), 191, 507–520, 2007] suggested that vigor should be controlled by the opportunity cost of time, which is itself determined by the average rate of reward. This coupling of reward rate and vigor can be shown to be optimal under the theory of average return reinforcement learning for a particular class of tasks but may also be a more general, perhaps hard-wired, characteristic of the architecture of control. We, therefore, tested the hypothesis that healthy human participants would adjust their RTs on the basis of the average rate of reward. We measured RTs in an odd-ball discrimination task for rewards whose magnitudes varied slowly but systematically. Linear regression on the subjects' individual RTs using the time varying average rate of reward as the regressor of interest, and including nuisance regressors such as the immediate reward in a round and in the preceding round, showed that a significant fraction of the variance in subjects' RTs could indeed be explained by the rate of experienced reward. This validates one of the key proposals associated with the model, illuminating an apparently mandatory form of coupling that may involve tonic levels of dopamine.
Journal Articles
Brain Areas Consistently Linked to Individual Differences in Perceptual Decision-making in Younger as well as Older Adults before and after Training
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2011) 23 (9): 2147–2158.
Published: 01 September 2011
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AbstractView article PDF
Perceptual decision-making performance depends on several cognitive and neural processes. Here, we fit Ratcliff's diffusion model to accuracy data and reaction-time distributions from one numerical and one verbal two-choice perceptual-decision task to deconstruct these performance measures into the rate of evidence accumulation (i.e., drift rate), response criterion setting (i.e., boundary separation), and peripheral aspects of performance (i.e., nondecision time). These theoretical processes are then related to individual differences in brain activation by means of multiple regression. The sample consisted of 24 younger and 15 older adults performing the task in fMRI before and after 100 daily 1-hr behavioral training sessions in a multitude of cognitive tasks. Results showed that individual differences in boundary separation were related to striatal activity, whereas differences in drift rate were related to activity in the inferior parietal lobe. These associations were not significantly modified by adult age or perceptual expertise. We conclude that the striatum is involved in regulating response thresholds, whereas the inferior parietal lobe might represent decision-making evidence related to letters and numbers.
Journal Articles
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2008) 20 (7): 1250–1265.
Published: 01 July 2008
AbstractView article PDF
Exploring a novel environment can facilitate subsequent hippocampal long-term potentiation in animals. We report a related behavioral enhancement in humans. In two separate experiments, recollection and free recall, both measures of hippocampus-dependent memory formation, were enhanced for words studied after a 5-min exposure to unrelated novel as opposed to familiar images depicting indoor and outdoor scenes. With functional magnetic resonance imaging, the enhancement was predicted by specific activity patterns observed during novelty exposure in parahippocampal and dorsal prefrontal cortices, regions which are known to be linked to attentional orienting to novel stimuli and perceptual processing of scenes. Novelty was also associated with activation of the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area of the midbrain and the hippocampus, but these activations did not correlate with contextual memory enhancement. These findings indicate remarkable parallels between contextual memory enhancement in humans and existing evidence regarding contextually enhanced hippocampal plasticity in animals. They provide specific behavioral clues to enhancing hippocampus-dependent memory in humans.
Journal Articles
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2008) 20 (4): 553–562.
Published: 01 April 2008
AbstractView article PDF
How do visual luminance, shape, motion, and depth bind together in the brain to represent the coherent percept of a 3-D object within hundreds of milliseconds (msec)? We provide evidence from simultaneous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and electroencephalographic (EEG) data that perception of 3-D objects defined by luminance or motion elicits sequential activity in human visual cortices within 500 msec. Following activation of the primary visual cortex around 100 msec, 3-D objects elicited sequential activity with only little overlap (dynamic 3-D shapes: MT-LO-Temp; stationary 3-D shapes: LO-Temp). A delay of 80 msec, both in MEG/EEG responses and in reaction times (RTs), was found when additional motion information was processed. We also found significant positive correlations between RT, and MEG and EEG responses in the right temporal location. After about 400 msec, long-lasting activity was observed in the parietal cortex and concurrently in previously activated regions. Novel time-frequency analyses indicate that the activity in the lateral occipital (LO) complex is associated with an increase of induced power in the gamma band, a hallmark of binding. The close correspondence of an induced gamma response with concurrent sources located in the LO in both experimental conditions at different points in time (∼200 msec for luminance and ∼300 msec for dynamic cues) strongly suggests that the LO is the key region for the assembly of object features. The assembly is fed forward to achieve coherent perception of a 3-D object within 500 msec.
Journal Articles
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2002) 14 (4): 578–592.
Published: 15 May 2002
AbstractView article PDF
We addressed the hypothesis that perceptual priming and explicit memory have distinct neural correlates at encoding. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants studied visually presented words at deep versus shallow levels of processing (LOPs). The ERPs were sorted by whether or not participants later used studied words as completions to three-letter word stems in an intentional memory test, and by whether or not they indicated that these completions were remembered from the study list. Study trials from which words were later used and not remembered (primed trials) and study trials from which words were later used and remembered (remembered trials) were compared to study trials from which words were later not used (forgotten trials), in order to measure the ERP difference associated with later memory (DM effect). Primed trials involved an early (200–450 msec) centroparietal negative-going DM effect. Remembered trials involved a late (900–1200 msec) right frontal, positive-going DM effect regardless of LOP, as well as an earlier (600–800 msec) central, positive-going DM effect during shallow study processing only. All three DM effects differed topographically, and, in terms of their onset or duration, from the extended (600–1200 msec) fronto-central, positive-going shift for deep compared with shallow study processing. The results provide the first clear evidence that perceptual priming and explicit memory have distinct neural correlates at encoding, consistent with Tulving and Schacter's (1990) distinction between brain systems concerned with perceptual representation versus semantic and episodic memory. They also shed additional light on encoding processes associated with later explicit memory, by suggesting that brain processes influenced by LOP set the stage for other, at least partially separable, brain processes that are more directly related to encoding success. | https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/search-results?f_Authors=Emrah+Duzel |
My research areas include behavioral pharmacology, substance abuse, and behavioral neuroscience. The general focus of my program concerns how acute doses of abused drugs alter behavioral and cognitive functioning in humans. The research combines measures of drug effects on cognitive processes with conventional assessments of abuse potential, based on subjective rewarding effects of the drug, and its ability to reinforce self-administration. The objective of these studies is to improve our understanding of how basic cognitive and behavioral mechanisms play a role in the development of substance abuse and drug addiction. Some of the general topics of study in my program include: the role impulsivity and ADHD as risk-factors for alcohol and other drug abuse, alcohol and disinhibition, alcohol and impaired driving, characteristics of DUI offenders, alcohol pharmacokinetics and alcohol tolerance.
The studies are primarily laboratory-based experiments and involve the administration of drugs to human participants under controlled conditions. Several cognitive and behavioral functions are evaluated, including: behavioral inhibition, memory, motor coordination, and information processing, and simulated driving performance. Drugs that are studied include: alcohol, cocaine, benzodiazepines, caffeine, and some current pharmacotherapies for drug abuse, such as naltrexone. The studies examine adults from various populations, including those with drug-abuse histories and those with no history of drug abuse.
My research program is funded by NIH grants from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The research is ideally suited for graduate training of students with a broad range of interests (neuroscience, clinical, cognition, etc.). Applicants to our graduate program with undergraduate research backgrounds in animal research and human cognition/learning are especially suited for graduate training in my lab.
D'Agostino, AR ;Wesley, MJ ;Brown, J ;Fillmore, MT "Effects of multisensory stop signals on alcohol-induced disinhibition in adults with ADHD." Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology (2019): Details.
Fillmore, MT "Drug abuse as a problem of impaired control: current approaches and findings." Behavioral and cognitive neuroscience reviews 2, 3 (2003): 179-97. Details.
Fillmore, MT ;Vogel-Sprott, M. "Social drinking history, behavioral tolerance and the expectation of alcohol." Psychopharmacology 127, 4 (1996): 359-64. Details.
Fillmore, MT ;Vogel-Sprott, M. "Behavioral effects of alcohol in novice and experienced drinkers: alcohol expectancies and impairment." Psychopharmacology 122, 2 (1995): 175-81. Details.
Fillmore, MT ;Mulvihill, LE ;Vogel-Sprott, M. "The expected drug and its expected effect interact to determine placebo responses to alcohol and caffeine." Psychopharmacology 115, 3 (1994): 383-8. Details. | https://psychology.as.uky.edu/users/mtfill2 |
The animacy effect is a robust memory advantage for animate/living over inanimate/nonliving items, particularly in retrospective memory tasks. Some evidence also exists for its impact in prospective memory(PM), particularly in nonfocal tasks. This study investigated the influence of animacy on a focal-PM task. Eighty-four young adults performed a l...
Oral communication (https://appesepexmeeting.appe.pt/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Provisional-programme-20-April.pdf) The animacy effect (ANEF) refers to a memory tuning towards animates/living beings over inanimates/nonliving things and is overly established in retrospective memory . In a series of studies, we explored if animate targets (vs. in...
From an evolutionary perspective, it would be adaptive to prioritize the processing of animates, due to their relevance to fitness (e.g., animates can be predators, prey, sexual mates; Nairne et al., 2017). A mnemonic advantage for animates—the animacy effect, or the finding that people remember better animates/living beings over inanimates/ nonliv...
The animacy effect–a mnemonic advantage for animates over inanimates—has been obtained mostly with young adults; studies with older adults are still scarce. These studies tend to use words representing animates or inanimates as the to-be-remembered stimuli; this calls for the need of animacy norming data from this age-group, to ensure a proper mani...
Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive and linguistic research. As words may vary on various domains (e.g., lexicosemantic and affective), which can influence performance in many ways, it is essential to select them carefully. However, databases of European Portuguese words are still relatively scarce, and their presentation is spread in var...
Words are widely used as stimuli in cognitive and linguistic research. As words may vary on various domains (e.g., lexicosemantic and affective), which can influence performance in many ways, it is essential to select them carefully. However, databases of European Portuguese words are still relatively scarce, and their presentation is spread in var...
Our results suggest that, when the PM target is an animate, PM performance if higher than when it is an inanimate. This is one of first reports of a PM advantage when animate (vs inanimate) targets are used.
This work reports a preliminary validation of the Peer Conflict Scale (PCS) for Portuguese young adults (ages 18–30 years). This instrument assesses aggression considering two of its forms (overt and relational aggression) and its two functions (reactive and proactive aggression). The initially proposed 4-factor model provided the best fit for our...
Few studies on the free association of words exist in European Portuguese (EP). This constitutes an obstacle to understand the semantic network in this language. The main aim of this work was to provide free association norms for 100 EP words. Furthermore, based on the idea that Emotional words constitute a differentiated type of words, we explored...
Everything that surrounds us can be classified as an animate (living being; e.g. cat) or an inanimate (non-living thing; e.g. spoon). We collected animacy ratings for 224 words from a sample of elderly Portuguese people. Ratings were compared to those previously obtained from a younger Portuguese sample (Félix et al., 2020). Despite the high rating...
Words are frequently used as stimuli in cognitive and linguistic research. Considering that there are various psycholinguistic variables known to influence word processing (e.g., frequency, concreteness), it is important to control for those variables. Recently, it has been reported that animacy (the characteristic of being a living/animate or a no...
Human memory likely evolved to serve adaptive functions, that is, to help maximise our chances of survival and reproduction. One demonstration of such adaptiveness is the increased retention of information processed in survival contexts, the so-called Survival Processing Effect (SPE). This study examined this effect in a native (L1) and in a second...
To face threats posed by pathogens, natural selection designed the Behavioral Immune System (BIS), which orchestrates several responses aimed to prevent contact with pathogens. Memory seems to augment this system. Using line drawings of objects, previous studies found that objects described as having been touched by sick people were better remember...
This study investigated how the characteristics of the visual surrounding environment influence older- and young-adults’ cognitive performance. Sixty-four older adults and 64 young adults performed four visual cognitive tasks (attention and memory tasks) in two independent sessions while being exposed to a high-load and a low-load visual surroundin...
We present an initial validation of the State Anxiety Scale for Children (SASC) for Portuguese children and adolescents. No significant differences were found between sexes and among school cycle groups. The data revealed good psychometric properties and the ‘anxiety-absent’ and ‘anxiety-present’ factors were confirmed. Potential applications of th...
A long-standing goal shared by researchers has been to design optimal experimental procedures, including the selection of appropriate stimuli. Pictures are commonly used in different research fields. However, until recently, researchers have relied mostly on line-drawings, which can have poor ecological validity. We developed a set of high quality...
The animacy effect in memory generally refers to better retention of animates (or information processed as animate) compared to inanimates (or information processed as inanimate).
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by a complex maturation process of various cognitive abilities. Cognitive control, which includes response inhibition and working memory, is one of them. A typical study on response inhibition to visual stimuli presents distractors and targets on the same display (e.g., the computer screen). Howev...
The animacy effect—the finding that animates are better remembered than inanimates—is proving to be a robust empirical phenomenon. Considering the adaptiveness of the animate advantage, one might expect it to remain after long retention intervals and also to be present irrespectively of an intention to learn. The present study explores these two as...
Four experiments investigated the mnemonic effects of generating survival situations. People were given target words and asked to generate survival situations involving that stimulus (e.g., DOOR: "I'm in a house that's on fire, and I can escape through the door"). No constraints were placed on the generation process, other than that it must be surv...
Assessing morningness-eveningness preferences (chronotype), an individual characteristic that is mirrored in daily mental and physiological fluctuations is crucial given their overarching influence in a variety of domains. The current work aimed to investigate the best factor structure of an instrument recently presented to asses this variable: the...
According to evolutionary psychology, animates played (and still play) an important role in our survival and chances of reproduction. Therefore, one could expect memory to remember animates particularly well. The animacy effect reflects the mnemonic advantage for animate (living) over inanimate (nonliving) items. Although it has proven to be a robu...
The behavioral immune system (BIS) is characterized by affective, cognitive and behavioral processes that work in an articulated manner to prevent the occurrence of infections. Attention and memory evolved to enhance the organism's chances of survival and have been proposed to play an important role in the BIS. The present study investigated the ef...
Our work aimed to provide a validated reduced form of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire to Portuguese adolescents (ages: 12-14 years). Using the dataset from the initial validation study of the full questionnaire (19 items) to Portuguese adolescents, we derived a 10-item reduced form – aMEQ-R (Phase 1); this was the smallest set of items th...
Visual distraction is widely studied in children, particularly in visuospatial cognitive tasks. In these studies, targets and distractors are usually shown in the same display (e.g., the computer screen). However, children are constantly exposed to visually enriched environments (e.g., elementary school classrooms), and little is known about their...
This work reports the initial psychometric characterization of the Morningness-Eveningness-Stability-Scale improved (MESSi) for Portuguese young-adults (N=466). A Confirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed a three-factor model (i.e., Morning Affect, Eveningness and Distinctness) in our data, as originally proposed. Furthermore, construct validity evide...
Researchers have unraveled multiple cases in which behavior deviates from rationality principles. We propose that such deviations are valuable tools to understand the adaptive significance of the underpinning mechanisms. To illustrate, we discuss in detail an experimental protocol in which animals systematically incur substantial foraging losses by...
The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children is a self-report instrument inspired on the State-Trait theory extended by Spielberger that measures a momentary state of anxiety (state) and a stable tendency to experience anxiety (trait). This study presents an exploratory adaptation of the Trait Scale and provides its psychometric properties for Eu...
Adaptive memory researchers study evolutionary influences on remembering. Our memory systems are the product of an evolutionary process, guided by natural selection, so one might reasonably assume that the footprints of nature's criterion (fitness) remain in memory's operating characteristics. In this chapter, we review relevant evidence across sev...
O ciclo de palestras UnderInvestigation tem por objetivo introduzir aos estudantes do primeiro ciclo as diferentes temáticas de investigação exploradas no nosso Departamento estimulando a sua curiosidade para as mesmas e criando oportunidade para que os mesmos se possam tornar atores ativos nesses mesmos trabalhos de investigação. Adicionalmente pr...
According to the adaptive memory perspective, memory should function more efficiently in fitness-relevant domains. The current work explored whether there is a mnemonic tuning in a fundamental domain for human evolution: reproduction. In two experiments, female participants assessed how desirable potential male candidates (represented by a face and...
Our work aimed to investigate how the presence of visual elements in the surrounding environment influences cognitive performance measured by four cognitive tasks in elderly and in young-adults.
OUR AIM: To contribute to the understanding of the relation between chronotype, sleep and sports performance in elite football players.
Our aim was to study the influence of the load of the external environment (high vs. low-load external environment) in two cognitive tasks performed by a group of young-adults, and to explore if the position in which tasks are performed influences this effect.
Humans likely evolved an adaptive disease avoidance system, the Behavioral Immune System, to mitigate the fitness costs posed by pathogens. This system is specially attuned to cues connoting infection risk: When perceived, these cues drive affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses, which work in an articulated way to enhance the organisms' cha...
A few seconds of survival processing, during which people assess the relevance of information to a survival situation, produces particularly good retention. One interpretation of this benefit is that our memory systems are optimized to process and retain fitness-relevant information. Such a “tuning” may exist, in part, because our memory systems we...
AIM: To investigate the influence of the visual external environment in specific cognitive tasks in children.
AIM: To propose a validated reduced version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire for European Portuguese adolescents aged 12-14 years.
Animate stimuli are better remembered than matched inanimate stimuli in free recall. Three experiments tested the hypothesis that animacy advantages are due to a more efficient use of a categorical retrieval cue. Experiment 1 developed an "embedded list" procedure that was designed to disrupt participants' ability to perceive category structure at...
Throughout development individuals vary in their circadian preferences. One of the most notable changes occurs during adolescence when individuals tend to become progressively more evening-oriented. This is a critical age period to be studied given that eveningness preferences seem to relate with physical, psychological and social problems, whereas...
This work investigated the effect of a distracting environment in the performance of visuospatial attentional and memory tasks in 56 elderly. Overall, the results revealed better performance in the cognitive tasks when these were done in the non-distracting environment, as compared to when they were done in the distracting environment.
The retrieval-practice paradigm has demonstrated that the act of selectively recovering some of the previously studied items from a category impairs the retrieval of the remaining items from that category, as compared to the retrieval of information from non-practiced categories (retrieval-induced forgetting); the practiced items are also better re...
O crecente envelhecimento populacional, nomeadamente em Portugal, exige dos psicólogos uma atenção particular a esta população que carece de cuidados acrescidos. Os idosos apresentam habitualmente declínios cognitivos, nomeadamente ao nível atencional e mnésico, e urge perceber que outros elementos podem debilitar o seu funcionamento nestes domínio...
The present work investigated the effect of a distracting environment in the performance of attentional and working memory (WM) tasks in elderly participants. To this end, forty elderly performed two attentional tasks (simple reaction time and go/no-go tasks), and three WM tasks (arithmetic, memory for digits and sequences of letters and numbers)....
Three experiments investigated the mnemonic effects of source-constrained retrieval in the survival-processing paradigm. Participants were asked to make survival-based or control decisions (pleasantness or moving judgments) about items prior to a source identification test. The source test was followed by a surprise free recall test for all items p...
Recent evidence suggests that animate stimuli are remembered better than matched inanimate stimuli. Two experiments tested whether this animacy effect persists in paired-associate learning of foreign words. Experiment 1 randomly paired Swahili words with matched animate and inanimate English words. Participants were told simply to learn the English...
As queixas mnésicas são muito frequentes na população, particularmente nos idosos. Contudo, a sua significância clínica não é consensual. Este trabalho apresenta dados comparativos de idosos e adultos relativos a um método objetivo de avaliação mnésica e a um método subjetivo. Para tal, 30 idosos e 30 adultos preencheram o Questionário de Lapsos de...
The survival processing paradigm is designed to explore the adaptive nature of memory functioning. The mnemonic advantage of processing information in fitness-relevant contexts, as has been demonstrated using this paradigm, is now well established, particularly in young adults; this phenomenon is often referred to as the "survival processing effect...
The survival processing paradigm has recently drawn attention to the functional aspects of memory functioning. The survival effect, characterized by better memory performance when information is processed in a survival context, as compared with a variety of controls, is now well established in healthy populations. The main goal of this study was to...
Distinguishing between living (animate) and nonliving (inanimate) things is essential for survival and successful reproduction. Animacy is widely recognized as a foundational dimension, appearing early in development, but its role in remembering is currently unknown. We report two studies suggesting that animacy is a critical mnemonic dimension and...
Inspired by a functional approach, Nairne, Thompson and Pandeirada (2007) showed for the first time that human memory performance is enhanced when the target information is encoded in the context of a survival scenario relative to a variety of controls. The effect came to be known as the “survival effect”. In this paper, we summarize the seminal wo...
It is adaptive to remember animates, particularly animate agents, because they play an important role in survival and reproduction. Yet, surprisingly, the role of animacy in mnemonic processing has received little direct attention in the literature. In two experiments, participants were presented with pronounceable nonwords and properties character...
Two experiments investigated whether survival processing enhances memory for location. From an adaptive perspective, remembering that food has been located in a particular area, or that potential predators are likely to be found in a given territory, should increase the chances of subsequent survival. Participants were shown pictures of food or ani...
Five experiments were conducted to investigate a proposal by Butler, Kang, and Roediger (2009) that congruity (or fit) between target items and processing tasks might contribute, at least partly, to the mnemonic advantages typically produced by survival processing. In their research, no significant survival advantages were found when words were pre...
Memory researchers traditionally ignore function in favor of largely structural analyses. For example, it is well known that forming a visual image improves retention, and various proximate mechanisms have been proposed to account for the advantage (e.g., elaboration of the memory trace), but next to nothing is known about why memory evolved such s...
Evolutionary psychologists often propose that humans carry around "stone-age" brains, along with a toolkit of cognitive adaptations designed originally to solve hunter-gatherer problems. This perspective predicts that optimal cognitive performance might sometimes be induced by ancestrally-based problems, those present in ancestral environments, rat...
Defined generally, memory is the capacity to preserve and recover information. Yet neither memory's operation nor its structures are easily understood without some consideration of function. Like other biological systems, the capacity to remember evolved because of its fitness-enhancing properties. Memory helped solve adaptive problems that, in tur...
Memory researchers traditionally ignore function in favor of largely structural analyses. For example, it is well known that forming a visual image improves retention, and various proximate mechanisms have been proposed to account for the advantage (e.g., elaboration of the memory trace), but next to nothing is known about why memory evolved such s...
The survival processing effect refers to the mnemonic superiority of stimulus encoded according to their relevance to a survival scenario comparatively to other deep processing conditions. This effect, so far only observed in young adults, occurs in an incidental learning task which consists in rating the relevance of common nouns with respect to a...
Recent studies suggest that human memory systems are "tuned" to remember information that is processed in terms of its fitness value. When people are asked to rate the relevance of words to a survival scenario, performance on subsequent surprise memory tests exceeds that obtained after most other known encoding techniques. The present experiments e...
Forgetting occurs when people fail to recover information that has been experienced previously. Most view forgetting as a nuisance, but the process is quite adaptive. This chapter provides a general tutorial on the psychology of forgetting. We focus on its empirical characteristics and proposed theoretical underpinnings, as revealed through studies...
Do the operating characteristics of memory continue to bear the imprints of ancestral selection pressures? Previous work in our laboratory has shown that human memory may be specially tuned to retain information processed in terms of its survival relevance. A few seconds of survival processing in an incidental learning context can produce recall le...
If memory evolved, sculpted by the processes of natural selection, then its operating characteristics likely bear the "footprints" of ancestral selection pressures. Psychologists rarely consider this possibility and generally ignore functional questions in their attempt to understand how human memory works. We propose that memory evolved to enhance... | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Josefa-Pandeirada |
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Prestimulus alpha oscillations as an index of increased cognitive control under the auditory condensation task
PSYCHOLOGY. WP BRP. Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ , 2014. No. WP BRP 28/PSY/2014.
Lazarev I. E., Molchanova D., Novikov N., Antonenko A., Arkhipova E. A., Husainova G., Chernyshev B. V.
Attentional lapses are usually viewed as a result of deterioration in cognitive control. Current theories suggest that deterioration in the cognitive control may be related to an increase in alpha rhythm power, although it is not clear whether this notion can be generalized outside of the visual task modality. In the current study power of prestimulus alpha-band oscillations was analyzed during performance of the modified auditory condensation task, which creates high attentional load. Prestimulus lower alpha-band power was found to decrease before erroneous responses, which can be viewed as attentional lapses related to decreased cognitive control, compared with correct responses. Prestimulus lower alpha-band power also gradually increased within continuous sequences of distractor stimuli separating adjacent target stimuli, thus reflecting gradual increase in the level of cognitive control mirroring increasing expectancy of the target stimuli. These findings demonstrate that the relation of alpha power to cognitive control level critically depends on the experimental task modality, and under conditions of the auditory attentional task higher alpha power may be an index of increased rather than decreased level of cognitive control.
Research target: Psychology
Priority areas: IT and mathematics
Language: English
, , et al., Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2017 Vol. 11 No. 218 P. 218-1-218-16
Cognitive control includes maintenance of task-specific processes related to attention, and non-specific regulation of motor threshold. Depending upon the nature of the behavioral tasks, these mechanisms may predispose to different kinds of errors, with either increased or decreased response time of erroneous responses relative to correct responses. Specifically, slow responses are related to attentional lapses ...
Added: December 25, 2016
, , et al., Theta, alpha and beta band modulations during auditory condensation task performance / Высшая школа экономики. Series PSY "Psychology". 2017. No. WP BRP 81/PSY/2017.
Outcome of a behavioral response can be detected either internally at the time of the response commission, or externally through a feedback signal. In both cases, a number of brain networks that subserve cognitive control are recruited, all networks having certain distinctive signatures in electroencephalographic oscillations. Yet most studies in the field have several limitations. ...
Added: October 19, 2017
, , et al., Cognitive Computation 2018 Vol. 10 No. 5 P. 703-717
Background Used / introduction of The early eye tracking studies of descriptive Yarbus Provided Evidence That an observer's task Influences patterns of eye Movements, a leading to the a tantalizing prospect That an observer's Intentions Could the BE inferred from Their saccade behavior. This is a dynamic and dynamic cognitive companion using a Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN). Understanding how it comes ...
Added: May 8, 2018
Применение частотно-временного анализа электроэнцефалограммы к исследованию внутренних механизмов когнитивного контроля
, , et al., В кн.: Процедуры и методы экспериментально-психологических исследований. .: Институт психологии РАН, 2016.. С. 86-92.
В настоящее время, с развитием математических методов и компьютерной техники, частотно-временной анализ электроэнцефалограммы (ЭЭГ) часто применяется для психофизиологического анализа механизмов психических процессов, т.к. он позволяет судить о внутренней организации психических процессов, о составляющих их компонентах и о временной организации событий. Настоящая работа посвящена применению частотно-временного анализа ЭЭГ к исследованию процессов когнитивного контроля. Успешное выполнение когнитивных ...
Added: December 7, 2016
Когнитивный контроль: новые мозговые механизмы, выявленные с помощью частотно-временного анализа электроэнцефалограммы при выполнении экспериментальной задачи с высокой нагрузкой на внимание
, , et al., В кн.: Когнитивная наука в Москве: новые исследования. Материалы конференции 15 июня 2017 г.. .: Буки Веди, 2017.. С. 393-397.
Cognitive control includes specific maintenance of sustained attention to a stimulus and non-specific regulation of a motor threshold. Failures in each system lead to different types of errors, associated with attentional lapses and uncertainty or dysfunction of the motor threshold. Subsequent adaptive adjustments can be implemented through two different mechanisms, depending on the type of error. Two experiments were ...
Added: June 30, 2017
Event-related potential study of P2 and N2 components on fast and slow responses in the auditory condensation task
, , Event-related potential study of P2 and N2 components on fast and slow responses in the auditory condensation task / Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ. Series WP BRP "PSYCHOLOGY". 2016. No. WP BRP 70/PSY/2016.
In tasks involving response choice based on certain stimulus-to-response mappings, at least two stages of information processing may be involved: (1) formation of sensory stimulus object representations leading to stimulus identification, and (2) application of stimulus-to-response mappings (i.e. “task rules”) to these representations leading to response selection. Most of the research done in this area ...
Added: December 25, 2016
, , et al., Plos One 2018 Vol. 10 No. 13 P. 1-18
We utilized the event-related potential (ERP) technique to study neural activity associated with different levels of working memory (WM) load during simultaneous interpretation (SI) of continuous prose. The amplitude of N1 and P1 components elicited by task-irrelevant tone probes was significantly modulated as a function of WM load but not the direction of interpretation. Furthermore, ...
Added: November 1, 2018
, , , Psychology & Neuroscience 2013 Vol. 6 No. 3 P. 235-245
The research examines the structure of interrelations of brain event-related potentials to behavioral measures and temperament dimensions during an attentional task. Three temperament questionnaires were used: Eysenck Personality Inventory, Strelau Temperament Inventory and Rusalov Structure of Temperament Questionnaire. Event-related potentials were recorded under the active auditory oddball paradigm. The stimuli (85 dB, 1050 and 1000 ...
Added: June 30, 2013
, , , Consciousness and Cognition 2017 Vol. 55 P. 11-25
Cognitive control processes influence how motor sequence information is utilised and represented. Since cognitive control processes are shared amongst goal-oriented tasks, motor sequence learning and performance might be influenced by preceding cognitive tasks such as focusedattention meditation (FAM). Prior to a serial reaction time task (SRTT), participants completed either a single-session of FAM, a single-session of FAM followed ...
Added: November 1, 2018
Background Gamma Activity in the Electroencephalogram as a Measure of the Level of Sustained (tonic) Attention during Execution of the “Active Oddball” Paradigm in rabbits
, , et al., Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology 2012 Vol. 42 No. 6 P. 567-574
Tonic brain activity has significant influences on the nature of a subject’s responses to target sensory stimuli. We report here studies of the dynamics of the background activity in the gamma-rhythm range of the EEG in rabbits during execution of an “active oddball” paradigm modified for animals – a task widely used for studies of ...
Added: December 6, 2012
States of focused attention and sequential action: A comparison of single session meditation and computerised attention task influences on top-down control during sequence learning
, , , Acta Psychologica 2018 Vol. 191 P. 87-100
Motor sequence learning is considered the result of the outflow of information following cognitive control processes that are shared by other goal-directed behaviours. Emerging evidence suggests that focused-attention meditation (FAM) establishes states of enhanced cognitive control, that then exert top-down control biases in subsequent unrelated tasks. With respect to sequence learning, a single-session of FAM ...
Added: October 29, 2018
Theta and alpha band modulations reflect error-related adjustments in the auditory condensation task
, , , Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2015 Vol. 9 No. 673 P. 1-13
Error commission leads to adaptive adjustments in a number of brain networks that subserve goal-directed behavior, resulting in either enhanced stimulus processing or increased motor threshold depending on the nature of errors committed. Here, we studied these adjustments by analyzing post-error modulations of alpha and theta band activity in the auditory version of the two-choice ...
Added: October 16, 2015
Cognitive control: novel brain mechanisms revealed by time-frequence analysis of the electroencephalogram under experimental tasks involving high attentional load
, , et al., , in: International Congress "Neuroscience for Medicine and Psychology", Sudak, Crimea, Russia, May 30-June 10, 2017. .: [б.и.], 2017.. P. 445-446.
Cognitive control includes maintenance of task-specific processes related to attention, and non-specific regulation of motor threshold. Generally, two different kinds of errors may occur, with some errors related to attentional lapses and decision uncertainty, and some errors – to failures of sustaining motor threshold. Error commission leads to adaptive adjustments in brain networks that subserve ...
Added: June 11, 2017
, , , Journal of Computer and Systems Sciences International 2014 Vol. 53 No. 4 P. 517-529
Functions that are referred in psychology as functions of consciousness are considered. These functions include reflection, consciousness of activity motivation, goal setting, synthesis of goal oriented behavior, and some others. The description is based on the concept of sign, which is widely used in psychology and, in particular, in the cultural–historical theory by Vygotsky, in ...
Added: November 20, 2015
, , , М.: Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2014
Данный отчет представляет собой подробный анализ результатов первого в Российской Федера ции международного исследования компетенций взрослого населения — PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies). Представленное исследование направлено на оцен ку грамотности чтения, математической грамотности и навыков решения задач в техноло гически насыщенной среде. Эти компетенции выделяются в качестве ключевых для взрослого на селения в привязке к социально-экономическим ...
Added: October 3, 2016
, , et al., NY: Oxford University Press, 2014
Added: September 23, 2014
ACC Sulcal Patterns and Their Modulation on Cognitive Control Efficiency Across Lifespan: A Neuroanatomical Study on Bilinguals and Monolinguals
, , et al., Cerebral Cortex 2019 Vol. 29 No. 7 P. 3091-3101
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a key structure implicated in the regulation of cognitive control (CC). Previous studies suggest that variability in the ACC sulcal pattern—a neurodevelopmental marker unaffected by maturation or plasticity after birth—is associated with intersubject differences in CC performance. Here, we investigated whether bilingual experience modulates the effects of ACC sulcal ...
Added: October 23, 2019
Влияние эмоциональной устойчивости на успешность обучения управлению системой "интерфейс мозг-компьютер"
, , et al., Журнал высшей нервной деятельности им. И.П. Павлова 2017 Т. 67 № 4 С. 485-492
Исследовали обучение управлению системой “Интерфейс мозг-компьютер” (ИМК) с помощью специально разработанного тренинга. Тренинг включал осуществление медленных циклических движений правой и левой рукой (длительность каждого движения соответствовала длительности представлений движений руки при работе с ИМК), представление этих движений, а также спокойное сидение до начала движений. До проведения тренинга и после него осуществлялось управление ИМК. По тесту ...
Added: October 20, 2017
, , et al., Neuroimage 2021 Vol. 224 Article 117445
Using movies and narratives as naturalistic stimuli in human neuroimaging studies has yielded significant ad- vances in understanding of cognitive and emotional functions. The relevant literature was reviewed, with em- phasis on how the use of naturalistic stimuli has helped advance scientific understanding of human memory, attention, language, emotions, and social cognition in ways that ...
Added: March 10, 2021
, , et al., Физиология человека (перевод) 2015 Т. 41 № 4 С. 37-43
We studied the features of cognitive functions of attention and decision making in 18 healthy subjects and 15 patients with schizophrenia with the use of pairs of two short visual stimuli (double step). In the group of patients with schizophrenia, we observed a higher number of errors and higher frequency of modified saccad ic pattern ...
Added: July 17, 2015
, , et al., eLife 2019 No. 8 P. 1-34
Spontaneous fluctuations of neural activity may explain why sensory responses vary across repeated presentations of the same physical stimulus. To test this hypothesis, we recorded electroencephalography in humans during stimulation with identical visual stimuli and analyzed how prestimulus neural oscillations modulate different stages of sensory processing reflected by distinct components of the event-related potential (ERP). ...
Added: October 25, 2019
Мозговые механизмы когнитивного контроля: электроэнцефалографическое исследование с применением частотно-временного анализа.
, , et al., В кн.: Материалы XXIII съезда Физиологического общества им. И. П. Павлова (18-22 сентября 2017 г., г. Воронеж). .: Воронеж: Истоки, 2017.. С. 980-982.
Cognitive control is a set of processes that are responsible for flexible goal-directed behaviour. We did a series of electroencephalographic experiments during the auditory condensation task. The findings obtained allow distinguishing three brain networks that carry out adaptive processes after error commission. We also show that increased response time is associated with lower level of ...
Added: October 27, 2017
Towards an algebra of existence and development of unique subjects with unique minds: A commentary to Jens Mammen’s book
, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 2019 Vol. 53 No. 2 P. 199-206
In the commentary to Jens Mammen’s book A New Logical Foundation for Psychology (2017), three issues are discussed. The first one concerns possible interrelations of: (a) others’ irreplaceability and existential irretrievability rigorously proved by Mammen; and (b) morality and attitudes to the others. Lem’s criticism of Heidegger’s existential philosophy, which paradoxically ignores mass homicide, is ...
Added: November 27, 2018
, The Russian Journal of Cognitive Science 2016 Vol. 3 No. 1-2 P. 4-20
Observers are able to extract summary statistical properties, such as numerosity or the average, from spatially overlapping subsets of visuals objects. However, this ability is limited to about two subsets at a time, which may be primarily caused by the limited capacity of parallel representation of those subsets. In our study, we addressed several issues regarding subset representation. In four experiments, we presented observers with arrays of dots of one to six ... | https://publications.hse.ru/en/preprints/139654501 |
Patients who are referred here for neurosurgery are often a bit confused when they’re scheduled for time with a neuropsychologist before or after surgery. What does a psychologist have to do with neurosurgery, anyway?
Unlike more typical psychology, which focuses on behavior and mental health, neuropsychology is the study of the anatomy and functioning of the brain, especially in its role in cognition, behavior, and psychological processes. Neuropsychologists specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of the neurocognitive and behavioral effects of neurological disorders. That’s why neuropsychology is an important element in the practice of neurosurgery, especially when surgical procedures involve the brain.
There are two types of neuropsychologists. The first conducts assessments and evaluations, and the other provides cognitive remediation and addresses the emotional aspects of a neurosurgical condition.
The first kind of neuropsychologist might evaluate a patient before brain surgery to assess cognitive functioning through tests that measure memory, attention, language, sensorimotor ability, and visual and spatial skills. Those tests also look at what are called “executive functions” — planning, organizing, problem solving, self-monitoring, and other high-level cognitive abilities. These evaluations can help identify what parts of the brain might be damaged or working inefficiently. What we find helps determine a patient’s candidacy for several types of surgery, such as Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and surgery to remove the focus that causes some types of epilepsy.
These neuropsychologists also work closely with neurosurgeons before some brain surgeries to localize functions more precisely. For example, you may have heard that one side of the brain always controls language or that there are areas specific for speaking or understanding—but that’s not true. Speech and language centers vary by individual, so a neuropsychologist may test a patient to identify that location before a surgery that might damage it. If a brain tumor or seizure focus is near “eloquent cortex” – an area controlling a function such as language – the neuropsychologist works with the neurosurgeon to map out exactly where those functions are (often within one centimeter). Once that eloquent cortex is localized, a nearby damaged part of the brain can be removed safely without causing impairment in a specific function.
Despite these precautionary measures, some patients do experience cognitive, behavioral, or psychological consequences of brain surgery. That’s where the other type of neuropsychologist comes in. Neuropsychology specialists with advanced training in post-surgical care are uniquely equipped to assess the impact of surgery, ensure continuity of care, and maximize quality of life. These neuropsychologists specialize in treating cognitive or behavioral dysfunction through cognitive remediation: they teach compensatory strategies and assign tasks that exercise and improve a variety of cognitive functions. They also address the emotional impact of surgery and with the inevitable psychosocial issues that accompany major changes in one’s life or abilities.
For example, one patient who had suffered an intracranial hemorrhage on the left side of her brain experienced difficulty with word retrieval, attention, and short-term memory. Understandably, she also felt a profound sense of loss about it and experienced changes in her sense of self, resulting in a depressed mood. Her neurosurgeon referred her for neuropsychological testing to determine the degree of impairment; based on the results of that testing she was referred for cognitive remediation and cognitive behavioral therapy. Today she’s back at work, using her new compensatory strategies to improve her abilities, her mood, and her quality of life.
That’s why it’s no surprise to find neuropsychologists working in a neurosurgery department. We are part of a closely knit interdisciplinary team that works with patients before, during, and after neurosurgery to maximize their potential. | http://weillcornellbrainandspine.org/role-neuropsychologists-neurosurgery |
Increased age at the time of insult is one of the strongest indicators of poor outcome following traumatic brain injury (TBI), but few preclinical studies attempt to evaluate potential treatments or therapies in older subjects. It appears that cognitive functioning is especially sensitive to age-related decline, and such deficits are exacerbated by TBI. Although preclinical evaluations of environmental enrichment (EE) has produced a wealth of information that indicates more complex environments are correlated with improved functional recovery, few studies have attempted to assess this paradigm in older individuals. The purpose of this project was to examine the usefulness of cognitive training to facilitate functional recovery in aged animals following traumatic brain injury. Aged (21 month old) Fischer 344 male rats were used to evaluate cognitive status prior to injury as well as the effectiveness of cognitive training following injury for each of these groups. Aged animals were characterized for cognitive ability on the Morris Water Maze (MWM) task prior to cortical contusion injury. Based on this evaluation, animals were then placed into an injury condition (cortical injury over the hippocampus or sham-injury) and cognitive training manipulation (cognitive training in the Dig task or no cognitive training). Following injury, animals in the cognitive training condition were shaped to dig in cups filled with sand for buried food reinforcer. Later, animals in this condition were trained on various olfactory discrimination tasks with scented sand for the food reinforcer. After four weeks of training on the task, the animals were again evaluated in the MWM using both reference and working memory paradigms on the task. There was a significant benefit of the cognitive training in the injured animals, but only on the reference memory task. It also appears that cognitive ability before injury does influence the efficacy of the behavioral intervention. Indeed, among the injured animals that were characterized as cognitively impaired, those that received the training demonstrated enhanced cognitive recovery on the reference memory task. Despite these behavioral differences, the groups did not differ in lesion size or on measures of blood - brain barrier compromise or astrocytic activation. These findings indicate that cognitive training can confer positive results, even in the most aged or cognitively impaired individuals. These effects were achieved even though the olfactory discrimination cognitive training task and the spatial MWM task are in differing cognitive domains. These effects may exist because success on the species-relevant, hippocampal-mediated cognitive training task requires attention to environmental cues and a dynamic environment. The findings of this study may contribute to the design of increasingly efficacious behavioral interventions following TBI to better facilitate functional recovery of cognitive abilities, especially in the more vulnerable aged individuals.
Access
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Is there anything special about the aging of source memory?
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
A battery of cognitive tests designed to measure the constructs of episodic memory, perceptual speed, fluid ability, executive functioning, and vocabulary was administered to 330 adults between the ages of 18 and 89. Each participant also performed 4 different tasks designed to assess source memory. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the validity of a source-memory construct and to explore the relation of the source-memory construct to age and to the other cognitive variables. The variance common to the source-memory variables was strongly related to other cognitive abilities, suggesting that source memory may not have discriminant validity, and there were only small unique age-related effects on the source-memory construct after the influence of other abilities was considered.
Article Number
1105
Publication Date
2005
Recommended Citation
Siedlecki, K.L., Salthouse, T.A., & Berish, D.E. (2005). Is there anything special about the aging of source memory? Psychology and Aging, 20, 19-32.
Link to request form
1
Link to request form
Click here to request a copy of this article from the author. | https://research.library.fordham.edu/psych_facultypubs/106/ |
I am interested in how the behavior and physiology of organisms are shaped by environmental change. I am also broadly interested in social behavior and the development of behavior and physiology during ontogeny. Both processes - social behavior and development- may afford individuals flexibility in adjusting to change but may also act as constraints. I believe that understanding these processes will not only help to predict adaptive and non-adaptive responses for conservation purposes and to understand population-level patterns but also to answer fundamental questions in behavioral ecology.
My background and approach are interdisciplinary and tend to focus on the mechanisms underlying behavior. I have integrated observational studies of behavior with endocrinology work in the laboratory, captive studies of cognitive processes, and field experiments to assess individual variation.
Please use the links to learn more about my current dissertatation research and my previous research. | https://juliargreenberg.wixsite.com/juliagreenberg/firm |
Summary: Paradigm shifting research in cognitive neuroscience in areas called embodied and embedded cognition and equally important research on what are called embodied and enactive approaches to emotion in universities in the last twenty years have been significantly altering our understanding of cognition, emotion, behavior, how they are intricately related to each other in the brain, and how they involve and interact with each other in the body. These findings, because they offer radically new insights on these familiar topics in ways that question the effectiveness of the typical ways in which psychotherapies (including those that are body oriented) work with these phenomena, suggest new methods for significantly improving cognitive, emotional, and behavioral as well as physical, energetic, relational, and spiritual outcomes in all therapy modalities. This forms the subject of this short paper.
What is included in a definition of cognition varies by research tradition. When defined broadly, it includes attention, focus, perception, symbolization, language, categorization, contextualization, association, imagination, memory, recall, logic, inference, and meaning, the definition used in this paper. According to the increasingly evidence-based theories of embodied and embedded approaches to cognition (Colombetti, 2014) and the embodied philosophy of mind (Johnson, 2017), all these aspects of cognition involve not just the brain but also the entire body as it interacts with (the body of) its environment.
A number of experiments have established that the learning of simple phenomena such as letter recognition in kindergartens as well as the learning of complex phenomena such as the physical law of inertia in university classes is markedly improved when the body and the environment are more involved in the learning process (Beilock, 2017). Therefore, any aspect of cognition starting with attention cannot be understood just by studying the brain. Working with the body in relation to its environment in addition to the usual work with the brain would improve all of the above-mentioned cognitive outcomes in therapy.
There have been findings in the past that link cognition to the body in body oriented psychotherapies. Eugene Gendlin (1998), philosopher turned psychologist and founder of Focusing Therapy, demonstrated through experiments at the University of Chicago that people who involved the body minimally by being aware of body sensations from time to time did better at solving cognitive problems than those who did not. Bodynamic Analysis (Marcher & Fisch, 2010), a Danish body psychotherapy system with an empirically derived map of psychological functions of the muscular system, has identified several muscles in different parts of the body such as finger and toe flexors that mediate cognitive processing in the brain. What embodied cognition research has been able to offer of late is the science and evidence that neither Focusing therapy nor Bodynamic Analysis could offer at the time for the importance of the body in understanding and working with cognition.
A number of recent studies in embodied cognition based on the physiology of the brain (Colombetti & Thompson, 2008; Johnson, 2007) have shown that all aspects of cognition (starting with initial decisions that determine which aspects of the environment we pay attention to even before our senses engage the environment in perception) are mediated, influenced, or even initiated by affect (we are here using the terms affect, emotion, and feeling loosely to mean the same). The new neurological evidence is in terms of observation of either simultaneous activation of known cognitive and affective brain areas or activation of affective circuits prior to the activation of cognitive circuits observed during cognitive experimental tasks or overlap in the brain areas engaged in cognitive and affective functions.
The evidence for the causal role of affect in cognition comes from the discovery that there are more pathways from brain areas that have to with affect to areas that have to do with cognition and behavior than the other way around (Barrett, 2017). Whereas earlier research presented by Damasio (1994) showed the importance of emotion in understanding and working with behavior, the ongoing research on embodied and embedded cognition and enactive and embodied approaches to emotion show the importance of emotion and its embodiment in understanding and working with cognition.
The role of the entire body in generating emotional experience is well documented (Barrett, 2017; Damasio, 2003; Pert, 1999). However, it is only of late that the involvement of the body in emotion has been used to establish the connection between cognition and the body. That is, emotion provides one possible link between cognition and the body (with behavior providing another possible link between cognition and the body). In experiments where facial muscles that have been known to play an important role in emotion are disabled in one way or another, cognitive processes such as imprinting and recalling of the emotions and their contexts are significantly compromised (Niedenthal, 2007).
The finding that the entire body is involved in emotional experiences informs us that our understanding of emotions would be more complete and that our work with emotions more effective if more of the body is included. The findings such as Niedenthal’s that bring emotion, cognition, and the body together inform us that we need to work with the body specifically in relation to emotions and their availability to improve cognitive outcomes.They also inform us that cognition would suffer if the body were compromised in ways that its role in emotion is diminished.
Past research on emotion focused on the brain compiled by Damasio (1999) has found significant evidence that emotions, contrary to the conventional wisdom that they are irrational and interfere with the rationality of cognition, improve the appropriateness of a person’s behavior by improving the generation of behavioral alternatives and the choice of the best course of action in any situation. These findings also offer indirect evidence that people are better able to understand the contexts they find themselves in (cognitively grasp the situations better) to act more appropriately in them when they have access to emotions than when they do not. The role of the body in behavior, expression and action, is obvious. And Damasio has observed that emotion has to occur through the body as an assessment before a behavioral decision is made.
Research shows that emotion and cognition are so intricately interwoven in the brain and the body that they are virtually inseparable as they arise in the organism even though they can be somewhat differentiated in experience as separate phenomena. In every moment the affect state of the organism drives every aspect of its cognition starting with what the organism pays attention to in its environment. In fact, Duncan and Barrett (2007) go so far as to argue that affect is a form of cognition.
Similar observations can be made of the relationship between behavior and emotion. In every moment, an organism is in a basic affective state defined in terms of valence (good or bad) and in terms of arousal (high or low). And every behavioral impulse has its basis or motive force at least this basic affect state therefore making affect and behavior also inseparable as they arise in the brain or the body even if they can be somewhat differentiated in experience as separate phenomena. Description of emotion as energy in motion and recent ‘enactive approach’ to emotion by Hufendiek (2016) are attempts to address the ultimate inseparability of behavior and emotion.
Embodied cognition research establishes the relationship between cognition and the body by establishing a relationship between cognition and behavior. All behaviors, expression and action, involve the body. We saw earlier that the learning of simple as well as complex phenomena is facilitated or inhibited by the behavior of the body. As for the inseparability of cognition and behavior in the physiology, even perception, an act of cognition, is now regarded as an action (behavior) and therefore virtually inseparable from it (Creem-Regher & Kunz, 2010). Also, the intentionality in a behavior is a meaning (cognition) and it is inseparable from the act.
The inseparability of affect and cognition, of affect and behavior, and of cognition and behavior, and the primary role played by affect in mediating both cognition and behavior make the three inseparable as they arise in the organism even though they might be somewhat separable in experience.
Psychotherapies tend to specialize in working with cognition, affect, or behavior, typically focusing on one more than the other two. Because we now know that the three are virtually inseparable, it makes sense that all these specialized therapies work to a greater or lesser extent because focused work on any of the elements would impact the other two elements as well. However, in order to ensure the best possible outcomes in therapy, these new findings suggest that we should 1) work with cognition, affect, and behavior in close proximity or association to each other and involve as much of the body as possible as all three are now known to involve the whole body; 2) work especially with affect because affect is now known to play a primary role in influencing or even initiating cognition and behavior; and 3) work with affect in relation to as much of the body as possible because affect is potentially a full body phenomenon and we know from body psychotherapy and psychiatry that overwhelming and intolerable affect can lead to physiological defenses in the brain and the body compromising their availability for cognition, affect, as well as behavior.
Emotional difficulty is often if not always the cause of defenses in the brain and body physiology. The consequent reduction in the availability of emotional information in the organism on account of such defenses can compromise not only outcomes in the affective realm but also in the cognitive and behavioral realms that we now know through recent research are highly dependent on the affective realm and inseparable from it. The shutting down of the body due to physiological defenses against emotions can also compromise cognition and behavior that are now known to depend on the whole body in other ways than through the involvement of affect.
The more the availability of emotional information in as much of the body as possible, the more regulated it is, the more bearable it is, and for a longer period of time (the definition of emotional embodiment in Integral Somatic Psychology™), the better the likelihood that the body is open and available to participate in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes; and the better the likelihood of improved cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes in all therapy modalities. To read an article on such emotional embodiment and how it can improve outcomes in all therapy modalities, please read How to Improve Outcomes in All Therapies Through Embodiment of Emotions?. The article also discusses how the current work with emotions in mainstream as well as body oriented psychotherapy modalities might be suboptimal due the lack of integration of important information on the complex physiology of cognition, emotion, and behavior, as presented in this paper.
Also, more recent body psychotherapy approaches such as Somatic Experiencing® (SE™), Focusing Therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy® (SP), and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Therapy often use detailed tracking of body sensations as a tool for working with the body. To read an article on how detailed tracking of body sensations, an otherwise effective and evidence-based tool, can at times compromise the work with complex experiences of emotions, cognition, and behavior, please go to How to Avoid Destroying Emotions when Tracking Body Sensations?.
What is Integral Somatic Psychology™ (ISP™)?
Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP) is the next generation in the evolution of body psychotherapy based on such latest findings from neuroscience, body psychotherapy, quantum physics, and energy psychology on cognition, emotion, behavior; how they are related to each other in the brain and the body, how they can be compromised by physiological defenses in the brain as well as the body; and how one can work with such defenses in the brain and the body to facilitate embodiment of emotions in simple, effective, and regulated ways to further improve cognitive, affective, and behavioral as well as physical, energetic, relational, and spiritual outcomes in all therapy modalities. ISP is currently taught in over a dozen countries. No prior training in body-oriented psychotherapy is required to enroll. To read an article on the theory and practice of ISP in a simple easy to read interview format, please read What is Integral Somatic Psychology? A Conversation with Raja Selvam. For more information on the approach, its further applications, and its international training schedule, please visit integralsomaticpsychology.com. | https://integralsomaticpsychology.com/science-embodied-cognition-and-enactive-emotion-implications-for-improving-outcomes-in-all-therapies/ |
There is increasing academic and commercial interest in the effects of particular foods and/or nutrients on cognitive function. This interest comes from the desire to understand how cognitive performance may be influenced by nutrition during the life course, from early neurodevelopment to age-associated cognitive decline due to neurodegeneration, and, in addition, from the desire to optimize or improve what may be called normal cognitive function in healthy individuals. Evaluation of this relationship requires a battery of valid, reliable, and sensitive measures of cognitive function that ideally can also act as valid surrogates or (bio) markers of the neural processes underlying major domains of cognition tests that can be used in experimental trials.
Tests of cognitive performance should assess how people respond to the cognitive challenges of everyday life and should discriminate between different states and individuals.[1, 2] Crucially, tests chosen to measure cognitive function should have the support of a consensus within the scientific community, so that findings can be used as evidence for consideration of nutritional benefit claims by expert panels such as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The term “cognition” refers to the complex mental functions that enable humans to exert control over their environment and is critical for survival. It includes domains such as memory (episodic, semantic, and working memory), language, attention, executive function, and information processing speed. Development of tests to measure various cognitive functions can be traced back over a century, and some tests have been developed or adapted to measure the different aspects of cognitive function in relation to drug or food intake and nutrient status.[4, 5] ILSI Europe recently published guidelines on methodologies for long-term nutritional intervention studies on cognition[6, 7] but subsequently decided that a more in-depth survey of cognitive domains and of criteria for choosing the most suitable tests for these types of trials was needed, a decision stemming from the broad choice of tests available as well as the move from traditional and established paper-and-pencil tests to automated computerized test batteries that offer customized tests tailored to the user.
Validation criteria for biomarkers or surrogate markers of health status have recently been reviewed by an ILSI task force. An ILSI workshop held in Lisbon in 2012 summarized the approach for evaluating markers or measures used in the field of cognition. First, regarding analytical aspects, methodology for the measure should be accurate, standardized, and robust, and the measures should have good sensitivity and specificity for the outcome being assessed. Construct validity and retest reliability are required for cognitive measures, and the levels of confidence and norms for the tests should be established for target populations. Second, a causal relationship should exist between the marker and the health or disease state being studied. Measures should correlate with the endpoint and with changes in it, and be relevant to the outcome. They should have biological plausibility, even if the detailed mechanism of action of the marker is not fully understood. Third, with relevance to nutritional status or studies, it is desirable that the marker (in this case, the cognitive test score) show a response to dietary or nutritional intervention or lifestyle changes. For nutritional interventions with longer-term effects, or where change in cognitive performance is likely to be small or immeasurable, functional or structural brain measures may be surrogates for cognitive performance, thereby confirming the efficacy of the intervention.
It should not be assumed that findings observed in one population are applicable to any other population without further validation of the marker in the new population. Innovation should not be deterred by these criteria, but novel tests or markers should be evaluated against current norms for age, education, and gender – as determined by established tests or against “gold standards” (such as diagnosis or diagnostic criteria) – to assess their validity.
This report aims to provide guidelines for those planning to study the effects of nutritional interventions on brain function as measured by cognitive performance. To this end, an overview of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that assessed the effects of nutrients on global and domain-specific cognitive performance is provided, along with the cognitive tests used. Examples covered are those with substantial epidemiological evidence of associations between cognition and a specific nutrient, such as polyphenols, B vitamins, and n-3 fatty acids.
This review includes the cognitive domains of memory (encompassing verbal, visual, spatial, and articulated working memory), selective and sustained attention, executive function, information processing speed, and global cognitive function. Commercially available automated, computerized cognitive test systems, including the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), the Cognitive Drug Research (CDR) Computerized Assessment System,[11, 12] and CogState, have been developed and improved for use in clinical trials of pharmaceutical agents or for other purposes and have been used across many different clinical settings. These batteries comprise measures of a number of different domains that can be combined in many ways or selected tests used in a stand-alone fashion. More recently, tests from these batteries have been shown to be sensitive to the effects of dietary interventions on cognitive function.[14-16]
The recommendations presented here show how essential criteria can be applied to assess, validate, and select the cognitive tests most suitable for a proposed nutritional intervention study (Table 1). Table 2 summarizes, by domain, the cognitive tests that have been used in a range of nutrient intervention trials to show frequency of use and outcome.[16-73]
|Cognitive domain||Everyday functional or behavioral relevance||Neural mechanisms assessed||Appropriate target populations||Established testing paradigms||Utility, validity, and reliability||Established sensitivity to nutraceuticals|
|Acute or subchronic effects||Long-term effects|
|Memory|
|Verbal, visual, spatial||Learning, retention, recall, spatial information, pairing of object/verbal cues with spatial information, mapping||Hippocampal, medial temporal lobes, dentate gyrus, amygdala||Healthy individuals of all ages; individuals with MCI, mild or moderate Alzheimer's disease, or other severe forms of memory impairment||World list learning, immediate and delayed verbal recall, verbal and object recognition, paragraph recall||Widely established to be practical and reliable; excellent face, criterion, and construct validation||Enhancements with carbohydrates, glucose, protein, breakfast, low-GI vs. high-GI breakfast, soy isoflavones||3 months: berry polyphenols in MCI; 6 months: high-dairy diet in habitual low-dairy consumers; DHA in healthy individuals|
|Short or long term|
|Attention (sustained, selective)||Sustained performance on attention-requiring tasks over an extended period of time in a low-arousal context, selective attention for some aspects of information while ignoring others||Sensory systems, superior colliculus and thalamus, frontal eye fields, lateral intraparietal areas, prefrontal cortex, reward and motor systems||Healthy children and adults; individuals with ADHD||Single letters, digits, or shapes presented serially where predefined stimuli must be responded to or ignored; simulated driving tests; simulated shift work||Sustained attention overlaps with “vigilance,” and arousal; selective attention overlaps with “divided attention”; other related concepts are tonic alertness and phasic alertness||Consistent improvements following caffeine, inconsistent results with carbohydrates; children and adults with ADHD perform worse on attention tests||Not commonly used in long-term studies|
|Executive function|
|Inhibition, planning, judgement, task switching, verbal fluency||Trip planning, handling finances, fixing things, using equipment, following recipes, making judgements, multitasking, using strategies||Frontal lobes and neural pathways connecting memory centers, cortex and subcortical connectivity, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex||Healthy young adults; older women and men; cognitively impaired elderly||Tests cover a broad range of abilities, some speed related, including interference, task switching, digit symbol matching, tracking tasks requiring working memory, problem solving, and mental organizational tasks||Can Include or overlap with working memory and Information processing abilities. As these higher-order executive functions are complex, not all executive tests assess the same aspect of executive function, though many have good correlation|| |
n3-fatty acids: improvement in cognitively impaired elderly. | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nure.12094/full |
# Impulsivity
In psychology, impulsivity (or impulsiveness) is a tendency to act on a whim, displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences. Impulsive actions are typically "poorly conceived, prematurely expressed, unduly risky, or inappropriate to the situation that often result in undesirable consequences," which imperil long-term goals and strategies for success. Impulsivity can be classified as a multifactorial construct. A functional variety of impulsivity has also been suggested, which involves action without much forethought in appropriate situations that can and does result in desirable consequences. "When such actions have positive outcomes, they tend not to be seen as signs of impulsivity, but as indicators of boldness, quickness, spontaneity, courageousness, or unconventionality" Thus, the construct of impulsivity includes at least two independent components: first, acting without an appropriate amount of deliberation, which may or may not be functional; and second, choosing short-term gains over long-term ones.
Impulsivity is both a facet of personality and a major component of various disorders, including FASD, ADHD, substance use disorders, bipolar disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Abnormal patterns of impulsivity have also been noted instances of acquired brain injury and neurodegenerative diseases. Neurobiological findings suggest that there are specific brain regions involved in impulsive behavior, although different brain networks may contribute to different manifestations of impulsivity, and that genetics may play a role.
Many actions contain both impulsive and compulsive features, but impulsivity and compulsivity are functionally distinct. Impulsivity and compulsivity are interrelated in that each exhibits a tendency to act prematurely or without considered thought and often include negative outcomes. Compulsivity may be on a continuum with compulsivity on one end and impulsivity on the other, but research has been contradictory on this point. Compulsivity occurs in response to a perceived risk or threat, impulsivity occurs in response to a perceived immediate gain or benefit, and, whereas compulsivity involves repetitive actions, impulsivity involves unplanned reactions.
Impulsivity is a common feature of the conditions of gambling and alcohol addiction. Research has shown that individuals with either of these addictions discount delayed money at higher rates than those without, and that the presence of gambling and alcohol abuse lead to additive effects on discounting.
## Impulse
An impulse is a wish or urge, particularly a sudden one. It can be considered as a normal and fundamental part of human thought processes, but also one that can become problematic, as in a condition like obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
The ability to control impulses, or more specifically control the desire to act on them, is an important factor in personality and socialization. Deferred gratification, also known as impulse control is an example of this, concerning impulses primarily relating to things that a person wants or desires. Delayed gratification comes when one avoids acting on initial impulses. Delayed gratification has been studied in relation to childhood obesity. Resisting the urge to act on impulses is important to teach children, because it teaches the value of delayed gratification.
Many psychological problems are characterized by a loss of control or a lack of control in specific situations. Usually, this lack of control is part of a pattern of behavior that also involves other maladaptive thoughts and actions, such as substance abuse problems or sexual disorders like the paraphilias (e.g. pedophilia and exhibitionism). When loss of control is only a component of a disorder, it usually does not have to be a part of the behavior pattern, and other symptoms must also be present for the diagnosis to be made. (Franklin)
## The five traits that can lead to impulsive actions
For many years it was understood that impulsivity is a trait but with further analysis it can be found that there were five traits that can lead to impulsive actions: positive urgency, negative urgency, sensation seeking, lack of planning, and lack of perseverance.
## Associated behavioral and societal problems
### Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a multiple component disorder involving inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) breaks ADHD into three subtypes according to the behavioral symptoms: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Predominantly Inattentive Type, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Combined Type.
Predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type symptoms may include fidgeting and squirming in seats, talking nonstop, dashing around and touching or playing with anything in sight, having trouble sitting still during dinner/school/story time, being constantly in motion, and having difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities.
Other manifestations primarily of impulsivity include being very impatient, having difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games, often interrupting conversations or others' activities, or blurting out inappropriate comments, showing their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences.
Prevalence of the disorder worldwide is estimated to be between 4% and 10%, with reports as low as 2.2% and as high as 17.8%. Variation in rate of diagnoses may be attributed to differences between populations (i.e. culture), and differences in diagnostic methodologies. Prevalence of ADHD among females is less than half that of males, and females more commonly fall into the inattentive subtype.
Despite an upward trend in diagnoses of the inattentive subtype of ADHD, impulsivity is commonly considered to be the central feature of ADHD, and the impulsive and combined subtypes are the major contributors to the societal costs associated with ADHD. The estimated cost of illness for a child with ADHD is $14,576 (in 2005 dollars) annually. Prevalence of ADHD among prison populations is significantly higher than that of the normal population.
In both adults and children, ADHD has a high rate of comorbidity with other mental health disorders such as learning disability, conduct disorder, anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and substance use disorders.
The precise genetic and environmental factors contributing to ADHD are relatively unknown, but endophenotypes offer a potential middle ground between genes and symptoms. ADHD is commonly linked to "core" deficits involving "executive function," "delay aversion," or "activation/arousal" theories that attempt to explain ADHD through its symptomology. Endophenotypes, on the other hand, purport to identify potential behavioral markers that correlate with specific genetic etiology. There is some evidence to support deficits in response inhibition as one such marker. Problems inhibiting prepotent responses are linked with deficits in pre-frontal cortex (PFC) functioning, which is a common dysfunction associated with ADHD and other impulse-control disorders.
Evidence-based psychopharmacological and behavioral interventions exist for ADHD.
### Substance abuse
Impulsivity appears to be linked to all stages of substance abuse.
The acquisition phase of substance abuse involves the escalation from single use to regular use. Impulsivity may be related to the acquisition of substance abuse because of the potential role that instant gratification provided by the substance may offset the larger future benefits of abstaining from the substance, and because people with impaired inhibitory control may not be able to overcome motivating environmental cues, such as peer pressure. "Similarly, individuals that discount the value of delayed reinforcers begin to abuse alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes early in life, while also abusing a wider array of illicit drugs compared to those who discounted delayed reinforcers less."
Escalation or dysregulation is the next and more severe phase of substance abuse. In this phase individuals "lose control" of their addiction with large levels of drug consumption and binge drug use. Animal studies suggest that individuals with higher levels of impulsivity may be more prone to the escalation stage of substance abuse.
Impulsivity is also related to the abstinence, relapse, and treatment stages of substance abuse. People who scored high on the Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS) were more likely to stop treatment for cocaine abuse. Additionally, they adhered to treatment for a shorter duration than people that scored low on impulsivity. Also, impulsive people had greater cravings for drugs during withdrawal periods and were more likely to relapse. This effect was shown in a study where smokers that test high on the BIS had increased craving in response to smoking cues, and gave into the cravings more quickly than less impulsive smokers. Taken as a whole the current research suggests that impulsive individuals are less likely to abstain from drugs and more likely to relapse earlier than less impulsive individuals.
While it is important to note the effect of impulsivity on substance abuse, the reciprocating effect whereby substance abuse can increase impulsivity has also been researched and documented. The promoting effect of impulsivity on substance abuse and the effect of substance abuse on increased impulsivity creates a positive feedback loop that maintains substance seeking behaviors. It also makes conclusions about the direction of causality difficult. This phenomenon has been shown to be related to several substances, but not all. For example, alcohol has been shown to increase impulsivity while amphetamines have had mixed results.
Substance use disorder treatments include prescription of medications such as acamprosate, buprenorphine, disulfiram, LAAM, methadone, and naltrexone, as well as effective psychotherapeutic treatment like behavioral couples therapy, CBT, contingency management, motivational enhancement therapy, and relapse prevention.
### Eating
Impulsive overeating spans from an episode of indulgence by an otherwise healthy person to chronic binges by a person with an eating disorder.
Consumption of a tempting food by non-clinical individuals increases when self-regulatory resources are previously depleted by another task, suggesting that it is caused by a breakdown in self control. Impulsive eating of unhealthy snack foods appears to be regulated by individual differences in impulsivity when self-control is weak and by attitudes towards the snack and towards healthy eating when self-control is strong. There is also evidence that greater food consumption occurs when people are in a sad mood, although it is possible that this is due more to emotional regulation than to a lack of self-control. In these cases, overeating will only take place if the food is palatable to the person, and if so individual differences in impulsivity can predict the amount of consumption.
Chronic overeating is a behavioral component of binge eating disorder, compulsive overeating, and bulimia nervosa. These diseases are more common for women and may involve eating thousands of calories at a time. Depending on which of these disorders is the underlying cause, an episode of overeating can have a variety of different motivations. Characteristics common among these three disorders include low self-esteem, depression, eating when not physically hungry, preoccupation with food, eating alone due to embarrassment, and feelings of regret or disgust after an episode. In these cases, overeating is not limited to palatable foods.
Impulsivity differentially affects disorders involving the overcontrol of food intake (such as anorexia nervosa) and disorders involving the lack of control of food intake (such as bulimia nervosa). Cognitive impulsivity, such as risk-taking, is a component of many eating disorders, including those that are restrictive. However, only people with disorders involving episodes of overeating have elevated levels of motoric impulsivity, such as reduced response inhibition capacity.
One theory suggests that binging provides a short-term escape from feelings of sadness, anger, or boredom, although it may contribute to these negative emotions in the long-term. Another theory suggests that binge eating involves reward seeking, as evidenced by decreased serotonin binding receptors of binge-eating women compared to matched-weight controls and predictive value of heightened reward sensitivity/drive in dysfunctional eating.
Treatments for clinical-grade overeating include cognitive behavioral therapy to teach people how to track and change their eating habits and actions, interpersonal psychotherapy to help people analyze the contribution of their friends and family in their disorder, and pharmacological therapies including antidepressants and SSRIs.
### Impulse buying
Impulse buying consists of purchasing a product or service without any previous intent to make that purchase. It has been speculated to account for as much as eighty percent of all purchases in the United States.
There are several theories pertaining to impulsive buying. One theory suggests that it is exposure combining with the speed that a reward can be obtained that influences an individual to choose lesser immediate rewards over greater rewards that can be obtained later. For example, a person might choose to buy a candy bar because they are in the candy aisle even though they had decided earlier that they would not buy candy while in the store.
Another theory is one of self-regulation which suggests that the capacity to refrain from impulsive buying is a finite resource. As this capacity is depleted with repeated acts of restraint susceptibility to purchasing other items on impulse increases.
Finally, a third theory suggests an emotional and behavioral tie between the purchaser and the product which drives both the likelihood of an impulsive purchase as well as the degree that a person will retroactively be satisfied with that purchase result. Some studies have shown a large number of individuals are happy with purchases made on impulse (41% in one study) which is explained as a preexisting emotional attachment which has a positive relationship both with the likelihood of initiating the purchase as well as mitigating post purchase satisfaction. As an example, when purchasing team-related college paraphernalia a large percentage of those purchases are made on impulse and are tied to the degree with which a person has positive ties to that team.
Impulsive buying is seen both as an individual trait in which each person has a preconditioned or hereditary allotment, as well as a situational construct which is mitigated by such things as emotion in the moment of the purchase and the preconditioned ties an individual has with the product.
Psychotherapy and pharmacological treatments have been shown to be helpful interventions for patients with impulsive-compulsive buying disorder. Psychotherapy interventions include the use of desensitization techniques, self-help books or attending a support group. Pharmacological interventions include the use of SSRIs, such as fluvoxamine, citalopram, escitalopram, and naltrexone.
### Impulse control disorders not elsewhere classified
Impulse control disorder (ICDs) are a class of DSM diagnoses that do not fall into the other diagnostic categories of the manual (e.g. substance use disorders), and that are characterized by extreme difficulty controlling impulses or urges despite negative consequences. Individuals suffering from an impulse control disorder frequently experience five stages of symptoms: compelling urge or desire, failure to resist the urge, a heightened sense of arousal, succumbing to the urge (which usually yields relief from tension), and potential remorse or feelings of guilt after the behavior is completed. Specific disorders included within this category include intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania, pathological gambling, pyromania, trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder), and impulse control disorders not otherwise specified (ICD NOS). ICD NOS includes other significant difficulties that seem to be related to impulsivity but do not meet the criteria for a specific DSM diagnosis.
There has been much debate over whether or not the ICDs deserve a diagnostic category of their own, or whether they are in fact phenomenologically and epidemiologically related to other major psychiatric conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), affective disorders, and addictive disorders. In fact, the ICD classification is likely to change with the release of the DSM-V in May 2013. In this new revision the ICD NOS will likely be reduced or removed; proposed revisions include reclassifying trichotillomania (to be renamed hair-pulling disorder) and skin-picking disorder as obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, moving intermittent explosive disorder under the diagnostic heading of disruptive, impulse control, and conduct disorders, and gambling disorder may be included in addiction and related disorders.
The role of impulsivity in the ICDs varies. Research on kleptomania and pyromania is lacking, though there is some evidence that greater kleptomania severity is tied to poor executive functioning.
Trichotillomania and skin-picking disorder seem to be disorders that primarily involve motor impulsivity, and will likely be classified in the DSM-V within the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders category.
Pathological gambling, in contrast, seems to involve many diverse aspects of impulsivity and abnormal reward circuitry (similar to substance use disorders) that has led to it being increasingly conceptualized as a non-substance or behavioral addiction. Evidence elucidating the role of impulsivity in pathological gambling is accumulating, with pathological gambling samples demonstrating greater response impulsivity, choice impulsivity, and reflection impulsivity than comparison control samples. Additionally, pathological gamblers tend to demonstrate greater response perseveration (compulsivity) and risky decisionmaking in laboratory gambling tasks compared to controls, though there is no strong evidence suggesting that attention and working memory are impaired in pathological gamblers. These relations between impulsivity and pathological gambling are confirmed by brain function research: pathological gamblers demonstrate less activation in the frontal cortical regions (implicated in impulsivity) compared to controls during behavioral tasks tapping response impulsivity, compulsivity, and risk/reward. Preliminary, though variable, findings also suggest that striatal activation is different between gamblers and controls, and that neurotransmitter differences (e.g. dopamine, serotonin, opioids, glutamate, norepinephrine) may exist as well.
Individuals with intermittent explosive disorder, also known as impulsive aggression, have exhibited serotonergic abnormalities and show differential activation in response to emotional stimuli and situations. Notably, intermittent explosive disorder is not associated with a higher likelihood of diagnosis with any of the other ICDs but is highly comorbid with disruptive behavior disorders in childhood. Intermittent explosive disorder is likely to be re-classified in the DSM-V under the heading of disruptive, impulse control, and conduct disorders.
These sorts of impulse control disorders are most often treated using certain types of psychopharamcological interventions (e.g. antidepressants) and behavioral treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy.
## Theories of impulsivity
### Ego (cognitive) depletion
According to the ego (or cognitive) depletion theory of impulsivity, self-control refers to the capacity for altering one's own responses, especially to bring them into line with standards such as ideals, values, morals, and social expectations, and to support the pursuit of long-term goals. Self-control enables a person to restrain or override one response, thereby making a different response possible. A major tenet of the theory is that engaging in acts of self-control draws from a limited "reservoir" of self-control that, when depleted, results in reduced capacity for further self-regulation. Self-control is viewed as analogous to a muscle: Just as a muscle requires strength and energy to exert force over a period of time, acts that have high self-control demands also require strength and energy to perform. Similarly, as muscles become fatigued after a period of sustained exertion and have reduced capacity to exert further force, self-control can also become depleted when demands are made of self-control resources over a period of time. Baumeister and colleagues termed the state of diminished self-control strength ego depletion (or cognitive depletion).
The strength model of self-control asserts that:
Just as exercise can make muscles stronger, there are signs that regular exertions of self-control can improve willpower strength. These improvements typically take the form of resistance to depletion, in the sense that performance at self-control tasks deteriorates at a slower rate. Targeted efforts to control behavior in one area, such as spending money or exercise, lead to improvements in unrelated areas, such as studying or household chores. And daily exercises in self-control, such as improving posture, altering verbal behavior, and using one's nondominant hand for simple tasks, gradually produce improvements in self-control as measured by laboratory tasks. The finding that these improvements carry over into tasks vastly different from the daily exercises shows that the improvements are not due to simply increasing skill or acquiring self-efficacy from practice. Just as athletes begin to conserve their remaining strength when their muscles begin to tire, so do self-controllers when some of their self-regulatory resources have been expended. The severity of behavioral impairment during depletion depends in part on whether the person expects further challenges and demands. When people expect to have to exert self-control later, they will curtail current performance more severely than if no such demands are anticipated. Consistent with the conservation hypothesis, people can exert self-control despite ego depletion if the stakes are high enough. Offering cash incentives or other motives for good performance counteracts the effects of ego depletion. This may seem surprising but in fact it may be highly adaptive. Given the value and importance of the capacity for self-control, it would be dangerous for a person to lose that capacity completely, and so ego depletion effects may occur because people start conserving their remaining strength. When people do exert themselves on the second task, they deplete the resource even more, as reflected in severe impairments on a third task that they have not anticipated.
Empirical tests of the ego-depletion effect typically adopt dual-task paradigm. Participants assigned to an experimental ego-depletion group are required to engage in two consecutive tasks requiring self-control. Control participants are also required to engage in two consecutive tasks, but only the second task requires self-control. The strength model predicts that the performance of the experimental-group on the second self-control task will be impaired relative to that of the control group. This is because the finite self-control resources of the experimental participants will be diminished after the initial self-control task, leaving little to draw on for the second task.
The effects of ego depletion do not appear to be a product of mood or arousal. In most studies, mood and arousal has not been found to differ between participants who exerted self-control and those who did not. Likewise, mood and arousal was not related to final self-control performance. The same is true for more specific mood items, such as frustration, irritation, annoyance, boredom, or interest as well. Feedback about success and failure of the self-control efforts does not appear to affect performance. In short, the decline in self-control performance after exerting self-control appears to be directly related to the amount of self-control exerted and cannot be easily explained by other, well-established psychological processes.
### Automatic vs. controlled processes/cognitive control
Dual process theory states that mental processes operate in two separate classes: automatic and controlled. In general, automatic processes are those that are experiential in nature, occur without involving higher levels of cognition, and are based on prior experiences or informal heuristics. Controlled decisions are effortful and largely conscious processes in which an individual weighs alternatives and makes a more deliberate decision.
Automatic Process: Automatic processes have four main features. They occur unintentionally or without a conscious decision, the cost of the decision is very low in mental resources, they cannot be easily stopped, and they occur without conscious thought on the part of the individual making them. Controlled Process: Controlled processes also have four main features that are very close to the opposite in spectrum from their automatic counterparts. Controlled processes occur intentionally, they require the expenditure of cognitive resources, the individual making the decision can stop the process voluntarily, and the mental process is a conscious one.
Dual process theories at one time considered any single action/thought as either being automatic or controlled. However, currently they are seen as operating more along a continuum as most impulsive actions will have both controlled and automatic attributes. Automatic processes are classified according to whether they are meant to inhibit or to facilitate a thought process. For example, in one study researchers offered individuals a choice between a 1 in 10 chance of winning a prize and a 10 in 100 chance. Many participants chose one of the choices over the other without identifying that the chances inherent in each were the same as they saw either only 10 chances total as more beneficial, or of having 10 chances to win as more beneficial. In effect impulsive decisions can be made as prior information and experiences dictate one of the courses of action is more beneficial when in actuality careful consideration would better enable the individual to make a more informed and improved decision.
### Intertemporal choice
Intertemporal choice is defined as "decisions with consequences that play out over time". This is often assessed using the relative value people assign to rewards at different points in time, either by asking experimental subjects to choose between alternatives or examining behavioral choices in a naturalistic setting.
Intertemporal choice is commonly measured in the laboratory using a "delayed discounting" paradigm, which measures the process of devaluing rewards and punishments that happen in the future. In this paradigm, subjects must choose between a smaller reward delivered soon and a larger reward delivered at a delay in the future. Choosing the smaller-sooner reward is considered impulsive. By repeatedly making these choices, indifference points can be estimated. For example, if someone chose $70 now over $100 in a week, but chose the $100 in a week over $60 now, it can be inferred that they are indifferent between $100 in a week and an intermediate value between $60 and $70. A delay discounting curve can be obtained for each participant by plotting their indifference points with different reward amounts and time delays. Individual differences in discounting curves are affected by personality characteristics such as self-reports of impulsivity and locus of control; personal characteristics such as age, gender, IQ, race, and culture; socioeconomic characteristics such as income and education; and many other variables. to drug addiction. Lesions of the nucleus accumbens core subregion or basolateral amygdala produce shifts towards choosing the smaller-sooner reward, suggesting the involvement of these brain regions in the preference for delayed reinforcers. There is also evidence that the orbitofrontal cortex is involved in delay discounting, although there is currently debate on whether lesions in this region result in more or less impulsivity.
Economic theory suggests that optimal discounting involves the exponential discounting of value over time. This model assumes that people and institutions should discount the value of rewards and punishments at a constant rate according to how delayed they are in time. While economically rational, recent evidence suggests that people and animals do not discount exponentially. Many studies suggest that humans and animals discount future values according to a hyperbolic discounting curve where the discount factor decreases with the length of the delay (for example, waiting from today to tomorrow involves more loss of value than waiting from twenty days to twenty-one days). Further evidence for non-constant delay discounting is suggested by the differential involvement of various brain regions in evaluating immediate versus delayed consequences. Specifically, the prefrontal cortex is activated when choosing between rewards at a short delay or a long delay, but regions associated with the dopamine system are additionally activated when the option of an immediate reinforcer is added. Additionally, intertemporal choices differ from economic models because they involve anticipation (which may involve a neurological "reward" even if the reinforcer is delayed), self-control (and the breakdown of it when faced with temptations), and representation (how the choice is framed may influence desirability of the reinforcer), none of which are accounted for by a model that assumes economic rationality.
One facet of intertemporal choice is the possibility for preference reversal, when a tempting reward becomes more highly valued than abstaining only when immediately available. For example, when sitting home alone, a person may report that they value the health benefit of not smoking a cigarette over the effect of smoking one. However, later at night when the cigarette is immediately available, their subjective value of the cigarette may rise and they may choose to smoke it.
A theory called the "primrose path" is intended to explain how preference reversal can lead to addiction in the long run. As an example, a lifetime of sobriety may be more highly valued than a lifetime of alcoholism, but, at the same time, one drink now may be more highly valued than not drinking now. Because it is always "now," the drink is always chosen, and a paradoxical effect occurs whereby the more-valued long-term alternative is not achieved because the more-valued short-term alternative is always chosen. This is an example of complex ambivalence, when a choice is made not between two concrete alternatives but between one immediate and tangible alternative (i.e. having a drink) and one delayed and abstract alternative (i.e. sobriety).
Similarities between humans and non-human animals in intertemporal choice have been studied. Pigeons and rats also discount hyperbolically; tamarin monkeys do not wait more than eight seconds to triple the amount of a food reward. The question arises as to whether this is a difference of homology or analogy—that is, whether the same underlying process underlies human-animal similarities or whether different processes are manifesting in similar patterns of results.
### Inhibitory control
Inhibitory control, often conceptualized as an executive function, is the ability to inhibit or hold back a prepotent response. It is theorized that impulsive behavior reflects a deficit in this ability to inhibit a response; impulsive people may find it more difficult to inhibit action whereas non-impulsive people may find it easier to do so. There is evidence that, in normal adults, commonly used behavioral measures of inhibitory control correlate with standard self-report measures of impulsivity.
Inhibitory control may itself be multifaceted, evidenced by numerous distinct inhibition constructs that can be measured in different ways, and relate to specific types of psychopathology. Joel Nigg developed a useful working taxonomy of these different types of inhibition, drawing heavily from the fields of cognitive and personality psychology Nigg's eight proposed types of inhibition include the following:
#### Executive Inhibition
##### Interference control
Suppression of a stimulus that elicits an interfering response, enabling a person to complete the primary response. Interference control can also refer to suppressing distractors.
Interference control has been measured using cognitive tasks like the stroop test, flanker tasks, dual task interference, and priming tasks. Personality researchers have used the Rothbart effortful control measures and the conscientiousness scale of the Big Five as inventory measures of interference control. Based on imaging and neural research it is theorized that the anterior cingulate, the dorsolateral prefrontal/premotor cortex, and the basal ganglia are related to interference control.
##### Cognitive inhibition
Cognitive inhibition is the suppression of unwanted or irrelevant thoughts to protect working memory and attention resources.
Cognitive inhibition is most often measured through tests of directed ignoring, self-report on one's intrusive thoughts, and negative priming tasks. As with interference control, personality psychologists have measured cognitive inhibition using the Rothbart Effortful Control scale and the Big Five Conscientiousness scale. The anterior cingulate, the prefrontal regions, and the association cortex seem to be involved in cognitive inhibition.
##### Behavioral inhibition
Behavioral Inhibition is the suppression of prepotent response.
Behavioral inhibition is usually measured using the Go/No Go task, Stop signal task, and reports of suppression of attentional orienting. Surveys that are theoretically relevant to behavioral inhibition include the Rothbart effortful control scale, and the Big Five Conscientiousness dimension. The rationale behind the use of behavioral measures like the Stop signal task is that "go" processes and "stop processes" are independent, and that, upon "go" and "stop" cues, they "race" against each other; if the go process wins the race, the prepotent response is executed, whereas if the stop processes wins the race, the response is withheld. In this context, impulsivity is conceptualized as a relatively slow stop process. The brain regions involved in behavioral inhibition appear to be the lateral and orbital prefrontal regions along with premotor processes.
##### Oculomotor Inhibition
Oculomotor Inhibition is the effortful suppression of reflexive saccade.
Oculomotor inhibition is tested using antisaccade and oculomotor tasks. Also, the Rothbart effortful control measure and the Big Five Conscientiousness dimension are thought to tap some of the effortful processes underlying the ability to suppress saccade. The frontal eye fields and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are involved in oculomotor inhibition.
#### Motivational inhibition
##### In response to punishment
Motivational inhibition and response in the face of punishment can be measured using tasks tapping inhibition of primary response, modified go/no go tasks, inhibition of competing response, and emotional Stroop tasks. Personality psychologists also use the Gray behavioral inhibition system measure, the Eysenck scale for neurotic introversion, and the Zuckerman Neuroticism-Anxiety scale. The Septal-hippocampal formation, cingulate, and motor systems seem to be the brain areas most involved in response to punishment.
##### In response to novelty
Response to novelty has been measured using the Kagan behavioral inhibition system measure and scales of neurotic introversion. The amygdaloid system is implicated in novelty response.
#### Automatic inhibition of attention
##### Recently inspected stimuli
Suppression of recently inspected stimuli for both attention and oculomotor saccade is usually measured using attentional and oculomotor inhibition of return tests. The superior colliculus and the midbrain, oculomotor pathway are involved in suppression of stimuli.
##### Neglected stimuli
Information at locations that are not presently being attended to is suppressed, while attending elsewhere.
This involves measures of covert attentional orienting and neglect, along with personality scales on neuroticism. The posterior association cortex and subcortical pathways are implicated in this sort of inhibition.
### Action/Inaction goals
Recent psychology research also yields out the condition of impulsivity in relation to peoples' general goal setting. It is possible these action and inaction goals are underlying people's behavioral differences in their daily lives since they can demonstrate "patterns comparable to natural variation in overall activity levels". More specifically, the level of impulsivity and mania people have might positive correlated with favorable attitudes about and goals of general action while negatively respond to favorable attitudes about and goals of general inaction.
## Assessment of impulsivity
### Personality tests and reports
#### Barratt Impulsiveness Scale
The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) is one of the oldest and most widely used measures of impulsive personality traits. The first BIS was developed in 1959 by Dr. Ernest Barratt. It has been revised extensively to achieve two major goals: (1) to identify a set of "impulsiveness" items that was orthogonal to a set of "anxiety" items as measured by the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) or the Cattell Anxiety Scale, and (2) to define impulsiveness within the structure of related personality traits like Eysenck's Extraversion dimension or Zuckerman's Sensation-Seeking dimension, especially the disinhibition subfactor. The BIS-11 with 30 items was developed in 1995. According to Patton and colleagues, there are 3 subscales (Attentional Impulsiveness, Motor Impulsiveness, and Non-Planning Impulsiveness) with six factors:
Attention: "focusing on a task at hand". Motor impulsiveness: "acting on the spur of the moment". Self-control: "planning and thinking carefully". Cognitive complexity: "enjoying challenging mental tasks". Perseverance: "a consistent life style". Cognitive instability: "thought insertion and racing thoughts".
#### Eysenck Impulsiveness Scale
The Eysenck Impulsiveness Scale (EIS) is a 54-item yes/no questionnaire designed to measure impulsiveness. Three subscales are computed from this measure: Impulsiveness, Venturesomeness, and Empathy. Impulsiveness is defined as "behaving without thinking and without realizing the risk involved in the behavior". Venturesomeness is conceptualized as "being conscious of the risk of the behavior but acting anyway" The questionnaire was constructed through factor analysis to contain items that most highly loaded on impulsiveness and venturesomeness. The EIS is a widely used and well-validated measure.
#### Dickman Impulsivity Inventory
The Dickman Impulsivity Inventory was first developed in 1990 by Scott J. Dickman. This scale is based on Dickman's proposal that there are two types of impulsivity that are significantly different from one another. This includes functional impulsivity which is characterized by quick decision making when it is optimal, a trait that is often considered to be a source of pride. The scale also includes dysfunctional impulsivity which is characterized by making quick decisions when it is not optimal. This type of impulsivity is most often associated with life difficulties including substance abuse problems and other negative outcomes.
This scale includes 63 items of which 23 are related to dysfunctional impulsivity, 17 are related to functional impulsivity, and 23 are filler questions that relate to neither construct. This scale has been developed into a version for use with children as well as into several languages. Dickman showed there is no correlation between these two tendencies across individuals, and they also have different cognitive correlates.
#### UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale
The UPPS Impulsive Behavior Scale is a 45-item self-report questionnaire that was designed to measure impulsivity across dimensions of the Five Factor Model of personality. The UPPS includes 4 sub-scales: lack of premeditation, urgency, lack of perseverance, and sensation-seeking.
UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale (UPPS-P) is a revised version of the UPPS, including 59 items. It assesses an additional personality pathway to impulsive behavior, Positive Urgency, in addition to the four pathways assessed in the original version of the scale: Urgency (now Negative Urgency), (lack of) Premeditation, (lack of) Perseverance, and Sensation Seeking
UPPS-P short version (UPPS-Ps) is 20-item scale that evaluates five different impulsivity facets (4 items per dimension).
UPPS-R Interview is a semi-structured interview that measures the degree to which individuals exhibit the various components of impulsivity assessed by the UPPS-P.
#### Lifetime History of Impulsive Behaviors
Lifetime History of Impulsive Behaviors (LHIB) is a 53-item questionnaire designed to assess lifetime history of impulsive behavior (as opposed to impulsive tendencies) as well as the level of distress and impairment associated with these behaviors. The assessment battery was designed to measure the following six dimensions: (a) impulsivity, (b) sensation seeking, (c) trait anxiety, (d) state depression, (e) empathy, and (f) social desirability. The LHIB consists of scales for clinically significant impulsivity, non-clinically significant impulsivity, and impulsivity related distress/impairment.
#### Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System
Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS) was developed based on the Gray's biopsychological theory of personality which suggests that there are two general motivational systems that underlie behavior and affect: BIS and BAS. This 20-item self-report questionnaire is designed to assess dispositional BIS and BAS sensitivities.
#### Impulsive/Premeditated Aggression Scale
Impulsive/Premeditated Aggression Scale (IPAS) is a 30-item self-report questionnaire. Half of the items describe impulsive aggression and half the items describe premeditated aggression. Aggressive behavior has traditionally been classified into two distinct subtypes, impulsive or premeditated. Impulsive aggression is defined as a hair-trigger aggressive response to provocation with loss of behavioral control. Premeditated aggression is defined as a planned or conscious aggressive act, not spontaneous or related to an agitated state. The IPAS is designed to characterize aggressive behavior as predominately impulsive or predominately premeditated in nature. Those subjects who clustered on the impulsive factor showed a broad range of emotional and cognitive impairments; those who clustered on the premeditated factor showed a greater inclination for aggression and anti-social behaviour.
#### Padua Inventory
The Padua Inventory (PI) consists of 60 items describing common obsessional and compulsive behavior and allows investigation of such problems in normal and clinical subjects.
### Behavioral paradigms
A wide variety of behavioral tests have been devised for the assessment of impulsivity in both clinical and experimental settings. While no single test is a perfect predictor or a sufficient replacement for an actual clinical diagnosis, when used in conjunction with parent/teacher reports, behavioral surveys, and other diagnostic criteria, the utility of behavioral paradigms lies in their ability to narrow in on specific, discrete aspects of the impulsivity umbrella. Quantifying specific deficits is of use to the clinician and the experimenter, both of whom are generally concerned with obtaining objectively measurable treatment effects.
#### Marshmallow test
One widely recognizable test for impulsivity is the delay of gratification paradigm commonly known as the 'marshmallow test'. Developed in the 1960s to assess 'willpower' and self-control in preschoolers, the marshmallow test consists of placing a single marshmallow in front of a child and informing them that they will be left alone in the room for some duration. The child is told that if the marshmallow remains uneaten when the experimenter returns, they will be awarded a second marshmallow, both of which can then be eaten.
Despite its simplicity and ease of administration, evidence from longitudinal studies suggests that the number of seconds preschoolers wait to obtain the second marshmallow is predictive of higher SAT scores, better social and emotional coping in adolescence, higher educational achievement, and less cocaine/crack use.
#### Delay discounting
Like the marshmallow test, delay discounting is also a delay of gratification paradigm. It is designed around the principle that the subjective value of a reinforcer decreases, or is 'discounted,' as the delay to reinforcement increases. Subjects are given varying choices between smaller, immediate rewards and larger, delayed rewards. By manipulating reward magnitude and/or reward delay over multiple trials, 'indifference' points can be estimated whereby choosing the small, immediate reward, or the large, delayed reward are about equally likely. Subjects are labeled impulsive when their indifference points decline more steeply as a function of delay compared to the normal population (i.e. greater preference for immediate reward). Unlike the marshmallow test, delay discounting does not require verbal instruction and can be implemented on non-human animals.
#### Go/no-go and stop-signal reaction time tasks
Two common tests of response inhibition used in humans are the go/no-go task, and a slight variant known as the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) test. During a go/no-task, the participant is trained over multiple trials to make a particular response (e.g., a key-press) when presented with a 'go' signal. On some trials, a 'stop' signal is presented just prior to, or simultaneously with the 'go' signal, and the subject must inhibit the impending response.
The SSRT test is similar, except that the 'stop' signal is presented after the 'go' signal. This small modification increases the difficulty of inhibiting the 'go' response, because the participant has typically already initiated the 'go' response by the time the 'stop' signal is presented. The participant is instructed to respond as fast as possible to the 'go' signal while maintaining the highest possible inhibition accuracy (on no-go trials). During the task, the time at which the 'stop' signal is presented (the stop signal delay or SSD) is dynamically adjusted to match the time after the 'go' signal at which the participant is just able/unable to inhibit their 'go' response. If the participant fails to inhibit their 'go' response, the 'stop' signal is moved slightly closer to the original 'go' signal, and if the participant successfully inhibits their 'go' response, the 'stop' signal is moved slightly ahead in time. The SSRT is thus measured as the average 'go' response time minus the average 'stop' signal presentation time (SSD).
#### Balloon Analogue Risk Task
The balloon analogue risk task (BART) was designed to assess risk-taking behavior. Subjects are presented with a computer depiction of a balloon that can be incrementally inflated by pressing a response key. As the balloon inflates, the subject accumulates rewards with each new key-press. The balloon is programmed with a constant probability of popping. If the balloon pops, all rewards for that balloon are lost, or the subject may choose to stop inflating and 'bank' the reward for that balloon at any time. Therefore, more key-presses equate to greater reward, but also greater probability of popping and cancelling rewards for that trial. The BART assumes that those with an affinity for 'risk-taking' are more likely to pop the balloon, earning less reward overall than the typical population.
#### Iowa Gambling Task
The Iowa gambling task (IGT) is a test originally meant to measure decision making specifically within individuals who have ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage. The concept of impulsivity as relates to the IGT is one in which impulsive decisions are a function of an individual's lack of ability to make rational decisions over time due to an over amplification of emotional/somatic reward. In the IGT individuals are provided four decks of cards to choose from. Two of these decks provide much higher rewards but the deductions are also much higher while the second two decks have lower rewards per card but also much lower deductions. Over time anyone who chooses predominantly from the high rewards decks will lose money while those who choose from the smaller rewards decks will gain money.
The IGT uses hot and cold processes in its concept of decision making. Hot decision making involves emotional responses to the material presented based on motivation related to reward and punishment. Cold processes occur when an individual uses rational cognitive determinations when making decisions. Combined an individual should gain a positive emotional reaction when choices have beneficial consequences and will have negative emotional responses tied to choices that have greater negative consequences. In general, healthy responders to the IGT will begin to drift to the lower gain decks as they realize that they are gaining more money than they lose both through an ability to recognize that one is more consistently providing rewards as well as through the emotions related to winning consistently. However, those who have emotional deficits will fail to recognize that they are losing money over time and will continue to be more influenced by the exhilaration of higher value rewards without being influenced by the negative emotions of the loses associated with them.
For more information concerning these process refer to the Somatic marker hypothesis
#### Differential Reinforcement of Low Response Rate Task
Differential reinforcement of low response rate (DRL) described by Ferster and Skinner is used to encourage low rates of responding. It is derived from research in operant conditioning that provides an excellent opportunity to measure the hyperactive child's ability to inhibit behavioral responding. Hyperactive children were relatively unable to perform efficiently on the task, and this deficit endured regardless of age, IQ, or experimental condition. Therefore, it can be used to discriminate accurately between teacher rated and parent rated hyperactive and nonhyperactive children. In this procedure, responses that occur before a set time interval has passed are not reinforced and reset the time required between behaviors.
In a study, a child was taken to the experimental room and told that they were going to play a game in which they had a chance to win a lot of M&M's. Every time they made the light of the reward indicator by pressing a red button, they would earn an M&M's. However, they had to wait a while (6 seconds) before they could press it to get another point. If they had pressed the button too soon, then they would have not gotten a point, and the light would not go on, and they had to wait a while before they could press it to get another point.
Researchers have also observed that subjects in a time-based situation will often engage in a sequence or chain of behaviors between reinforceable responses. This is because this collateral behavior sequence helps the subject "wait out" the required temporal delay between responses.
#### Other
Other common impulsivity tasks include the Continuous performance task (CPT), 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT), Stroop task, and Matching Familiar Figures Task.
## Pharmacology and neurobiology
### Neurobiological findings
Although the precise neural mechanisms underlying disorders of impulse control are not fully known, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is the brain region most ubiquitously implicated in impulsivity. Damage to the prefrontal cortex has been associated with difficulties preparing to act, switching between response alternatives, and inhibiting inappropriate responses. Recent research has uncovered additional regions of interest, as well as highlighted particular subregions of the PFC, that can be tied to performance in specific behavioral tasks.
#### Delay discounting
Excitotoxic lesions in the nucleus accumbens core have been shown to increase preference for the smaller, immediate reward, whereas lesions to the nucleus accumbens shell have had no observable effect. Additionally, lesions of the basolateral amygdala, a region tied closely to the PFC, negatively affect impulsive choice similarly to what is observed in the nucleus accumbens core lesions. Moreover, dorsal striatum may also be involved in impulsive choice in an intricate manner.
#### Go/No-go and Stop-signal reaction time test
The orbitofrontal cortex is now thought to play a role in disinhibiting, and injury to other brain structures, such as to the right inferior frontal gyrus, a specific subregion of the PFC, has been associated with deficits in stop-signal inhibition.
#### 5-Choice Serial Reaction Time Task (5-CSRTT) and Differential Reinforcement of Low rates (DRL)
As with delay discounting, lesion studies have implicated the core region of the nucleus accumbens in response inhibition for both DRL and 5-CSRTT. Premature responses in the 5-CSRTT may also be modulated by other systems within the ventral striatum. In the 5-CSRTT, lesions of the anterior cingulate cortex have been shown to increase impulsive responding, and lesions to the prelimbic cortex impair attentional performance.
#### Iowa Gambling Task
Patients with damage to the ventromedial frontal cortex exhibit poor decision-making and persist in making risky choices in the Iowa Gambling Task.
### Neurochemical and pharmacological findings
The primary pharmacological treatments for ADHD are methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine. Both methylphenidate and amphetamines block re-uptake of dopamine and norepinephrine into the pre-synaptic neuron, acting to increase post-synaptic levels of dopamine and norepinephrine. Of these two monoamines, increased availability of dopamine is considered the primary cause for the ameliorative effects of ADHD medications, whereas increased levels of norepinephrine may be efficacious only to the extent that it has downstream, indirect effects on dopamine. The effectiveness of dopamine re-uptake inhibitors in treating the symptoms of ADHD has led to the hypothesis that ADHD may arise from low tonic levels of dopamine (particularly in the fronto-limbic circuitry), but evidence in support of this theory is mixed.
## Genetics
There are several difficulties when it comes to trying to identify a gene for complex traits such as impulsivity, such as genetic heterogeneity. Another difficulty is that the genes in question might sometimes show incomplete penetrance, "where a given gene variant does not always cause the phenotype". Much of the research on the genetics of impulsivity-related disorders, such as ADHD, is based on family or linkage studies. There are several genes of interest that have been studied in an attempt to find the major genetic contributors to impulsivity. Some of these genes are:
DAT1 is the dopamine transporter gene which is responsible for the active reuptake of dopamine from the neural synapse. DAT1 polymorphisms have been shown to be linked to hyperactivity and ADHD. DRD4 is the dopamine D4 receptor gene and is associated with ADHD and novelty seeking behaviors. It has been proposed that novelty seeking is associated with impulsivity. Mice deficient for DRD4 have shown less behavioral responses to novelty. 5HT2A is the serotonin receptor gene. The serotonin 2A receptor gene has been associated with both hyper locomotion, ADHD, as well as impulsivity. Subjects with a particular polymorphism of the 5HT2A gene made more commission errors during a punishment-reward condition in a go/no-go task. HTR2B a serotonin receptor gene. CTNNA2 encodes for a brain-expressed α-catenin that has been associated with Excitement-Seeking in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 7860 individuals.
## Intervention
### Interventions to impact impulsivity generally
While impulsivity can take on pathological forms (e.g. substance use disorder, ADHD), there are less severe, non-clinical forms of problematic impulsivity in many people's daily lives. Research on the different facets of impulsivity can inform small interventions to change decision making and reduce impulsive behavior For example, changing cognitive representations of rewards (e.g. making long term rewards seem more concrete) and/or creating situations of "precommitment" (eliminating the option of changing one's mind later) can reduce the preference for immediate reward seen in delay discounting.
#### Brain training
Brain training interventions include laboratory-based interventions (e.g. training using tasks like go/no go) as well as community, family, and school based interventions that are ecologically valid (e.g. teaching techniques for regulating emotions or behaviors) and can be used with individuals with non-clinical levels of impulsivity. Both sorts of interventions are aimed at improving executive functioning and self-control capacities, with different interventions specifically targeting different aspects of executive functioning like inhibitory control, working memory, or attention. Emerging evidence suggests that brain training interventions may succeed in impacting executive function, including inhibitory control. Inhibitory control training specifically is accumulating evidence that it can help individuals resist temptation to consume high calorie food and drinking behavior. Some have voiced concerns that the favorable results of studies testing working memory training should be interpreted with caution, claiming that conclusions regarding changes to abilities are measured using single tasks, inconsistent use of working memory tasks, no-contact control groups, and subjective measurements of change.
### Treatment of specific disorders of impulsivity
Behavioral, psychosocial, and psychopharmacological treatments for disorders involving impulsivity are common.
#### Psychopharmacological intervention
Psychopharmacological intervention in disorders of impulsivity has shown evidence of positive effects; common pharmacological interventions include the use of stimulant medication, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and other antidepressants. ADHD has a well-established evidence base supporting the use of stimulant medication for the reduction of ADHD symptoms. Pathological gambling has also been studied in drug trials, and there is evidence that gambling is responsive to SSRIs and other antidepressants. Evidence based pharmacological treatment for trichotillomania is not yet available, with mixed results of studies investigating the use of SSRIs, though cognitive behavioral therapy has shown positive effects. Intermittent explosive disorder is most often treated with mood stabilizers, SSRIs, beta blockers, alpha agonists, and anti-psychotics (all of which have shown positive effects). There is evidence that some pharmacological interventions are efficacious in treating substance-use disorders, though their use can depend on the type of substance that is abused. Pharmacological treatments for substance-use disorders include acamprosate, buprenorphine, disulfiram, LAAM, methadone, and naltrexone.
#### Behavioral interventions
Behavioral interventions also have a fairly strong evidence base in impulse-control disorders. In ADHD, the behavioral interventions of behavioral parent training, behavioral classroom management, and intensive peer-focused behavioral interventions in recreational settings meet stringent guidelines qualifying them for evidence based treatment status. In addition, a recent meta-analysis of evidence-based ADHD treatment found organization training to be a well-established treatment method. Empirically validated behavioral treatments for substance use disorder are fairly similar across substance use disorders, and include behavioral couples therapy, CBT, contingency management, motivational enhancement therapy, and relapse prevention. Pyromania and kleptomania are understudied (due in large part to the illegality of the behaviors), though there is some evidence that psychotherapeutic interventions (CBT, short term counseling, day treatment programs) are efficacious in treating pyromania, while kleptomania seems to be best addressed using SSRIs. Additionally, therapies including CBT, family therapy, and social skill training have shown positive effects on explosive aggressive behaviors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulsive_behavior |
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In this study, we investigated the time course and neural correlates of the retrieval process underlying visual working memory. We made use of a rare dataset in which the same task was recorded using both scalp electroen-cephalography (EEG) and Electrocorticography (ECoG), respectively. This allowed us to examine with great spatial and temporal det...
Decision making is thought to involve a process of evidence accumulation, modelled as a drifting diffusion process. This modeling framework suggests that all single-stage decisions involve a similar evidence accumulation process. In this paper we use decoding by machine learning classifiers on intracranially recorded EEG (iEEG) to examine whether d...
Numerous studies seek to understand the role of oscillatory synchronization in cognition. This problem is particularly challenging in the context of complex cognitive behavior, which consists of a sequence of processing steps with uncertain duration. In this study, we analyzed oscillatory connectivity measures in time windows that previous computat...
We investigated how self-referential processing (SRP) affected self-generated thought in a complex working memory task (CWM) to test the predictions of a computational cognitive model. This model described self-generated thought as resulting from competition between task- and distracting processes, and predicted that self-generated thought interfer...
During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and “key to building more resilient soldiers.” Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting...
In response to our article, Davidson and Dahl offer commentary and advice regarding additional topics crucial to a comprehensive prescriptive agenda for future research on mindfulness and meditation. Their commentary raises further challenges and provides an important complement to our article. More consideration of these issues is especially welco...
Although meditation and mindfulness practices are widely discussed in the scientific literature, there is little formal theory about the cognitive mechanisms that comprise it. Here we begin to develop such a theory by creating a computational cognitive model of a particular type of meditation: focused attention meditation. This model was created wi...
Training in meditation has been shown to affect functioning of several attentional subsystems, most prominently conflict monitoring, and to some extent orienting. These previous findings described the effects of cueing and manipulating stimulus congruency on response times and accuracies. However, changes in accuracy and response times can arise fr...
Background: We assessed whether evidence accumulation could be observed in the BOLD signal during perceptual decision making. This presents a challenge since the hemodynamic response is slow, while perceptual decisions are typically fast. New method: Guided by theoretical predictions of the drift diffusion model, we slowed down decisions by pena...
Recent research has started to map out the cognitive and neural processes underlying spontaneous thinking. However, this basic neuroscience has mostly overlooked one crucial aspect: the dimension of being stuck in self-related thought—a phenomenon sometimes referred to as ‘perseverative cognition’. Decades of clinical research and thousands of year...
Interruptions are prevalent in everyday life and can be very disruptive. An important factor that affects the level of disruptiveness is the timing of the interruption: Interruptions at low-workload moments are known to be less disruptive than interruptions at high-workload moments. In this study, we developed a task-independent interruption manage...
Interruptions are part of everyday life and are known to be disruptive. With the current study we investigated which kind of interruption is more disruptive: external interruptions or self-interruptions. We conducted two experiments, one behavioral experiment (28 participants) and one in which pupil dilation was measured (21 participants). In both...
When asked to perform a certain task, we typically spend a decent amount of time thinking thoughts unrelated to that task--a phenomenon referred to as 'mind-wandering.' It is thought that this mind-wandering is driven at least in part by our unfinished goals and concerns. Previous studies have shown that just after presenting a participant with the...
Models of evidence accumulation have been very successful at describing human decision making behavior. Recent years have also seen the first reports of neural correlates of this accumulation process. However, these studies have mostly focused on perceptual decision making tasks, ignoring the role of additional cognitive processes like memory retri...
The goal of cognitive modeling is to build faithful simulations of human cognition. One of the challenges is that multiple models can often explain the same phenomena. Another challenge is that models are often very hard to understand, explore, and reuse by others. We discuss some of the solutions that were discussed during the 2015 International C...
Cognitive models assume a one-to-one correspondence between task and goals. We argue that modeling a task by combining multiple goals has several advantages: a task can be constructed from components that are reused from other tasks, and it enables modeling thought processes that compete with or support regular task performance. To achieve this, we...
The phase reset hypothesis states that the phase of an ongoing neural oscillation, reflecting periodic fluctuations in neural activity between states of high and low excitability, can be shifted by the occurrence of a sensory stimulus so that the phase value become highly constant across trials (Schroeder et al., 2008). From EEG/MEG studies it has...
Working memory (WM) is central to human cognition as it allows information to be kept online over brief periods of time and facilitates its usage in cognitive operations (Luck and Vogel, 2013). How this information maintenance actually is implemented is still a matter of debate. Several independent theories of WM, derived, respectively, from behavi...
There is a rising scientific interest in the neuroscience behind contemplative practices (see e.g., Vago and Silbersweig, 2012 for a review), including movement-based practices such as yoga and tai chi. Given that, it becomes important to ask how such contemplative practices differ from Western movement practices such as dance. In both dance traini...
Many perceptual decision making models posit that participants accumulate noisy evidence over time to improve the accuracy of their decisions, and that in free response tasks, participants respond when the accumulated evidence reaches a decision threshold. Research on the neural correlates of these models' components focuses primarily on evidence a...
In contrast to our increasing knowledge of the role that oscillations in single brain regions play in cognition, very little is known about how coherence between oscillations in distant brain regions is related to information transmission. Here I present a cognitive modeling approach that can address that question. Specifically, I show how a model...
Cognitive neuroscience could benefit from more detailed the-ories about how different cognitive resources interact and how those interactions unfold over time. Cognitive architectures such as ACT-R make predictions about such interactions. Pre-vious work has shown that the activation of ACT-R modules (i.e., cognitive resources) is correlated with o...
While a clear relation has been established between ACT-R and activity in fMRI, little is known about whether ACT-R has also correlates in EEG activity. Because of its superior temporal resolution compared to fMRI, EEG could potentially be used to adjudicate between model versions that differ in time courses of module activation, even while generat...
Theoretical Background Whenever we engage in a task, it is crucial we monitor our performance to make sure that it does not decline. When it does decline, the performance monitoring system takes action to remedy that, e.g., by slowing down responding (Laming, 1979; Rabbitt, 1966). Botvinick, Braver, Barch, Carter, and Cohen (2001) proposed that thi...
We investigated whether mindfulness training (MT) influences information processing in a working memory task with complex visual stimuli. Participants were tested before (T1) and after (T2) participation in an intensive one-month MT retreat, and their performance was compared with that of an age- and education-matched control group. Accuracy did no...
Although the hippocampus plays a crucial role in encoding and retrieval of contextually mediated episodic memories, considerable controversy surrounds the role of the hippocampus in short-term or working memory. To examine both hippocampal and neocortical contributions to working memory function, we recorded electrocorticographic activity from wide...
Recent studies have begun to elucidate the neural correlates of evidence accumulation in perceptual decision making. Few of them have used a combined modeling-electrophysiological approach to studying evidence accumulation. We introduce a novel multivariate approach to EEG analysis with which we can perform a comprehensive search for neural correla...
Behavioral studies of visual recognition memory indicate that old/new decisions reflect both the similarity of the probe to the studied items (probe–item similarity) and the similarities among the studied items themselves (list homogeneity). Recording intracranial electroencephalography from 1,155 electrodes across 15 patients, we examined the osci...
Similarity is known to affect memory. Visual item recognition refers to tasks where participants study a set of visual stimuli, and have to determine whether a probe item matches one of the items in the study set. This task is naturally sensitive to similarity effects and can well be described using" summed similarity models." These models posit...
Spectral analysis methods are now routinely used in electrophysiological studies of human and animal cognition. Although a wide variety of spectral methods has been used, the ways in which these methods differ are not generally understood. Here we use simulation methods to characterize the similarities and differences between three spectral analysi... | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marieke-Van-Vugt |
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Journal Articles
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2018) 30 (10): 1405–1421.
Published: 01 October 2018
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To behave adaptively in environments that are noisy and nonstationary, humans and other animals must monitor feedback from their environment and adjust their predictions and actions accordingly. An understudied approach for modeling these adaptive processes comes from the engineering field of control theory, which provides general principles for regulating dynamical systems, often without requiring a generative model. The proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controller is one of the most popular models of industrial process control. The proportional term is analogous to the “delta rule” in psychology, adjusting estimates in proportion to each error in prediction. The integral and derivative terms augment this update to simultaneously improve accuracy and stability. Here, we tested whether the PID algorithm can describe how people sequentially adjust their predictions in response to new information. Across three experiments, we found that the PID controller was an effective model of participants' decisions in noisy, changing environments. In Experiment 1, we reanalyzed a change-point detection experiment and showed that participants' behavior incorporated elements of PID updating. In Experiments 2–3, we developed a task with gradual transitions that we optimized to detect PID-like adjustments. In both experiments, the PID model offered better descriptions of behavioral adjustments than both the classical delta-rule model and its more sophisticated variant, the Kalman filter. We further examined how participants weighted different PID terms in response to salient environmental events, finding that these control terms were modulated by reward, surprise, and outcome entropy. These experiments provide preliminary evidence that adaptive learning in dynamic environments resembles PID control.
Journal Articles
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2016) 28 (2): 199–209.
Published: 01 February 2016
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The onset of adolescence is associated with an increase in the behavioral tendency to explore and seek novel experiences. However, this exploration has rarely been quantified, and its neural correlates during this period remain unclear. Previously, activity within specific regions of the rostrolateral PFC (rlPFC) in adults has been shown to correlate with the tendency for exploration. Here we investigate a recently developed task to assess individual differences in strategic exploration, defined as the degree to which the relative uncertainty of rewards directs responding toward less well-evaluated choices, in 62 girls aged 11–13 years from whom resting state fMRI data were obtained in a separate session. Behaviorally, this task divided our participants into groups of explorers ( n = 41) and nonexplorers ( n = 21). When seed ROIs within the rlPFC were used to interrogate resting state fMRI data, we identified a lateralized connection between the rlPFC and posterior putamen/insula whose strength differentiated explorers from nonexplorers. On the basis of Granger causality analyses, the preponderant direction of influence may proceed from posterior to anterior. Together, these data provide initial evidence concerning the neural basis of exploratory tendencies at the onset of adolescence.
Journal Articles
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2014) 26 (11): 2637–2644.
Published: 01 November 2014
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pFC is proposed to implement cognitive control via directed “top–down” influence over behavior. But how is this feat achieved? The virtue of such a descriptive model is contingent on a mechanistic understanding of how motor execution is altered in specific circumstances. In this report, we provide evidence that the well-known phenomenon of slowed RTs following mistakes (post-error slowing) is directly influenced by the degree of subthalamic nucleus (STN) activity. The STN is proposed to act as a brake on motor execution following conflict or errors, buying time so a more cautious response can be made on the next trial. STN local field potentials from nine Parkinson disease patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery were recorded while they performed a response conflict task. In a 2.5- to 5-Hz frequency range previously associated with conflict and error processing, the degree phase consistency preceding the response was associated with increasingly slower RTs specifically following errors. These findings provide compelling evidence that post-error slowing is in part mediated by a corticosubthalamic “hyperdirect” pathway for increased response caution.
Journal Articles
Dynamic Dopamine Modulation in the Basal Ganglia: A Neurocomputational Account of Cognitive Deficits in Medicated and Nonmedicated Parkinsonism
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2005) 17 (1): 51–72.
Published: 01 January 2005
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Dopamine (DA) depletion in the basal ganglia (BG) of Parkinson's patients gives rise to both frontal-like and implicit learning impairments. Dopaminergic medication alleviates some cognitive deficits but impairs those that depend on intact areas of the BG, apparently due to DA “overdose.” These findings are difficult to accommodate with verbal theories of BG/DA function, owing to complexity of system dynamics: DA dynamically modulates function in the BG, which is itself a modulatory system. This article presents a neural network model that instantiates key biological properties and provides insight into the underlying role of DA in the BG during learning and execution of cognitive tasks. Specifically, the BG modulates the execution of “actions” (e.g., motor responses and working memory updating) being considered in different parts of the frontal cortex. Phasic changes in DA, which occur during error feedback, dynamically modulate the BG threshold for facilitating/suppressing a cortical command in response to particular stimuli. Reduced dynamic range of DA explains Parkinson and DA overdose deficits with a single underlying dysfunction, despite overall differences in raw DA levels. Simulated Parkinsonism and medication effects provide a theoretical basis for behavioral data in probabilistic classification and reversal tasks. The model also provides novel testable predictions for neuropsychological and pharmacological studies, and motivates further investigation of BG/DA interactions with the prefrontal cortex in working memory. | https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/search-results?f_Authors=Michael+J.+Frank |
The concept of social cohesion has invoked debate due to the vagueness of its definition and the limitations of current measurements. This paper attempts to examine the concept of social cohesion, develop measurements, and investigate the relationship between social cohesion and individual health.
This study used a multilevel study design. The individual-level samples from 29 high-income countries were obtained from the 2000 World Value Survey (WVS) and the 2002 European Value Survey. National-level social cohesion statistics were obtained from Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development datasets, World Development Indicators, and Asian Development Bank key indicators for the year 2000, and from aggregating responses from the WVS. In total 47,923 individuals were included in this study. The factor analysis was applied to identify dimensions of social cohesion, which were used as entities in the cluster analysis to generate a regime typology of social cohesion. Then, multilevel regression models were applied to assess the influences of social cohesion on an individual’s self-rated health.
Factor analysis identified five dimensions of social cohesion: social equality, social inclusion, social development, social capital, and social diversity. Then, the cluster analysis revealed five regimes of social cohesion. A multi-level analysis showed that respondents in countries with higher social inclusion, social capital, and social diversity were more likely to report good health above and beyond individual-level characteristics.
This study is an innovative effort to incorporate different aspects of social cohesion. This study suggests that social cohesion was associated with individual self-rated after controlling individual characteristics. To achieve further advancement in population health, developed countries should consider policies that would foster a society with a high level of social inclusion, social capital, and social diversity. Future research could focus on identifying possible pathways by which social cohesion influences various health outcomes.
The relationship between social cohesion and population health has intrigued many researchers in the past two decades, and many policymakers regard social cohesion as a solution to the increasing health inequality and decline of civil culture. Nevertheless, social cohesion has invoked debate due to the vagueness of its definition and an inability of current measurements to capture the full meaning of the concept. Green and colleagues referred to social cohesion as “the property by which the whole society, and individuals within, are bound together through the action of specific attitudes, behaviors, rules, and institutions, which rely on consensus rather than pure coercion”. In this definition, attitudes and behaviors of citizens and governments, together with institutional and structural features, foster a consensus by society. However, most recent research measured social cohesion by way of trust and association participation. The problem with this approach is that only those limited aspects of attitudinal and behavioral measurements are covered, and thus, it is indistinguishable from the concept of social capital. Moreover, measurements, such as institutional features (i.e., a welfare state) and attitudes toward social exclusion, were not considered. To further clarify the concept of social cohesion, this paper used indicators from several global datasets and attempted to reexamine and develop the measurements of social cohesion.
Prior studies have regarded social cohesion as an important determinant of population health. With widening income inequality in worldwide, researchers and policy makers were concerned about the negative impact of income inequality on social trust and community structure (i.e., public education and social welfare program), which may further worsen population health. To address the extent of influence of social cohesion on individual health, this study used a multilevel study design to analyze the relationship between social cohesion and individual health above and beyond individual characteristics.
Many prior studies, particularly in the field of health research, used the concepts of social capital and social cohesion interchangeably. Social capital was typically defined as resources imbedded in social networks such as norms and trust that can facilitate coordination and cooperation for people to achieve interests[8–10]. Some researchers have suggested that although there are some broad similarities between social capital and social cohesion, they operate at different levels. Researchers generally agree that social capital, with its emphasis on norms derived from networks, has its foundations in groups and communities. Social cohesion, on the other hand, usually refers to cohesion at a societal level, which is normally taken to be at the level of a nation or state[6, 12]. Some other researchers have examined the relationship between social capital and social cohesion[13, 14]. They regarded social capital as an aggregation comprising three stages, with each stage building on the one that came before. In the first stage, social capital describes trust and social participation among face-to-face, horizontal networks like personal contacts with neighbors and friends. In the second stage, social capital further includes larger communities and is not restricted to face-to-face networks. The third stage is where social capital meets social cohesion, which includes trust, networks at the societal level, plus connections to formal and institutionalized power in a society. The above integration is also similar to the categorization of social capital proposed by Szreter and Woolcok, which separate social capital into three stages of bonding, bridging, and linking forms of social capital.
To construct social cohesion as a macro- and societal-level concept, Bernard proposed an integrated model of democratic dialectic, which combines social and relational characteristics and institutional characteristics. The model contains three principles (liberty, equality, and solidarity) that interact in complex dialectical relationships, and a cohesive society can only exist when the three principles reach a good balance. For instance, a society without liberty is in danger of coercion and enslavement; however, a society that predominantly emphasizes liberty, in particular economic liberty, can lead to polarization and social dislocation. Countries that emphasize liberty and equality, but not solidarity, may have government policies and regulations to provide basic state-run health welfare and educational services, but the economic inequalities fostered by entrepreneurial liberty may enable the rich to get even better provisions than others. This model is referred to as “inclusive democracy”. Under this context, government efforts are usually too uniform and private services are too expensive. Therefore, it is the call to solidarity, such as by community sectors, through which resources are organized and services provided to people in need.
Berger-Schmitt and Noll took Bernard’s model one step further and provided a useful framework to operationalize the concept of social cohesion[17, 18]. They suggested that social cohesion comprises two main dimensions. The first concerns the reduction of disparities, inequalities, and social exclusion. Examples are government efforts to provide equal employment opportunities for minorities. The second concerns strengthening social relations, interactions, and ties. They believe that a cohesive society needs to simultaneously consider both dimensions because a society only focusing on strong and intimate social relationships can lead to social exclusion. Berger-Schmitt and Noll also stressed that the availability and the quality of these relationships are both important[17, 18].
There is a similarity between Bernard’s model and Berger-Schmitt and Noll’s conceptualization of social cohesion. Both emphasize social justice, social relationships, and social exclusion. Many of the recent debates on social cohesion revolve around issues of social exclusion and value diversity as well as appropriate responses to these issues. The fundamental dilemma is how far social and value diversity is compatible with social cohesion and whether it may result in social exclusion such as excluding minority groups from certain job markets. Some researchers suggested that a high level of social cohesion entails a high level of social exclusion. They believe that a degree of cultural and value homogeneity is a necessity for a cohesive society. In contrast, many other researchers with liberal attitudes argued that diversity is not a problem for social cohesiveness. They believe that in many Western societies, political institutions are sufficiently robust to mediate conflicting interests, and societies are well equipped with values of tolerance and respect for other cultures.
Wilkinson and Pickett’s well-known book “The spirit level: why more equal societies almost always do better” initiated debates and dialogues regarding the impact of income inequality and the function of social cohesion. The book claimed that different health and social problems (i.e., mental health, drug use, obesity, teenage pregnancies et al.) were more prevalent in countries with higher degree of income inequality. The authors analyzed data in a sample of 23 developed countries and found that income inequality was associated with lower life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality, higher prevalence of low birth weight, and higher rates of AIDS and depression. For instance, in Japan and Scandinavian countries where the income inequality was low, the life expectancy was significantly better than in U.S. and U.K. where the income inequality was high among developed countries. One of the proposed mechanisms was through social cohesion, implying that in unequal societies people become less likely to trust each other or to be involved in community life, and thus, the negative outcome on health.
While the above theories analyzed the theoretical dimensions and compositions of the concept of social cohesion, scholars recently suggested a contrasting approach of examining social cohesion by regimes[4, 12, 21]. The reason for using a typological approach is because countries or regions are not always homogeneous in possessing these dimensions of social cohesion (i.e., liberty, equality, and solidarity), but a diversity of countries with different combinations of these dimensions likely exist. There is a long tradition of understanding lasting differences between countries by regimes in which countries under the same regime are usually economically, socially, culturally, and sometimes geographically close to each other. For instance, Esping-Anderson identified regimes of welfare states in Western societies based on welfare capitalism.
Instead of identifying general dimensions of social cohesion applicable to all Western states, Green[4, 21] and Janmaat sought to empirically verify the unique and durable “regimes” of social cohesion. Green et al. performed cluster analyses among 18 countries and found evidence for distinct English-speaking liberal and distinct Scandinavian social-democratic regimes, while little empirical support was found for the existence of a social market regime. To verify Green et al.’s results, Janmaat conducted cluster analyses among 16 countries and reported a reasonably distinctive and stable Scandinavian model characterized by high trust, high equality, and low crime rates. He also identified a continental European cluster, which exhibited unexpectedly low levels of social hierarchy and high levels of value pluralism and ethnic tolerance, but found no evidence of a distinctive liberal English-speaking regime of social cohesion.
Those studies generally reported that when a country is socioeconomically wealthy, it is usually more trusting, equal, safe, and tolerant toward minorities. Some studies suggested that liberal English-speaking countries had the strongest liberal attitudes and highest levels of individual freedom and thus had higher value diversity. However, some others observed that liberty is also strong in Scandinavia[4, 12]. They thought high taxes and strong government intervention in Scandinavian countries form an egalitarian welfare state providing equal opportunities for different populations, which can foster liberal attitudes and value diversity. The key issue here might be the extent to which the relational and institutional systems, in particular democratic systems, are well structured and can provide equitable access and opportunities for people from different social groups.
How does social cohesion influence individual health? Some researchers suggested that social cohesion, underpinned by national policies and political decisions, may influence individual health through providing equal opportunity and mitigating poverty, disparity, and social exclusion. For example, relevant policies provide opportunities for citizens to participate in social, economic, and political activities within communities, which would further enhance well-being. Social cohesion, manifested in policies that deliberately intervene unemployment, poverty, and health inequality, can also have positive effect on health through the re-allocation of social and health resources. A more cohesive society may invest more in public infrastructure such as education, social welfare, and health services, which narrow down health inequality and reduce unequal access to health services. On the other hand, from the psychological and behavioral perspectives, social cohesion may exert an influence through social norms to reduce risky behavior and to diffuse health information. A higher level of social cohesion may also provide more social support and mutual respect, which can buffer the adverse effects of stress[24, 25].
Some research, based on an ecological study design, looked at the relationship between national-level social cohesion and national-level health outcomes, such as mortality and morbidity. Some found strong effects of trust on mortality, while others found only modest or insignificant effects of trust and social participation on health[27, 28]. Few studies used a multilevel study design to examine the impact of social cohesion on individual health above and beyond individual characteristics, but they produced inconsistent results. Mansyur and Poortinga showed that individual-level social participation and trust do not affect self-rated health; however, national-level social participation and trust do affect self-rated health. Using data from 69 countries, Jen and colleagues showed that social trust at both the national and individual levels was positively associated with self-rated health after controlling for individual sociodemographic and income variables.
Some other relevant studies were published from the aspect of welfare states. Prior studies generally reached agreement that population health varies according to the type of welfare state regime, and a regime advocating more-egalitarian welfare policies (i.e., public medical services) is more likely to maintain and improve a nation’s health. Most empirical studies identified Scandinavian welfare states as having the best population health status. Although Asian welfare states had lower social expenditures compared to Western countries, studies found that they did not have higher infant mortality or lower life expectancy, probably because of a strong reliance on family to provide care[34, 35]. Very few studies used a multilevel study design to examine the regimes of welfare states on individual health. Eikemo et al. used a multilevel analytical approach and found that Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon welfare regimes reported better self-rated health than Southern and Eastern European welfare regimes, after taking into account individual sociodemographic characteristics and social relationships.
This study intends to further understand the relationship between social cohesion and health. At present, most of the literature on social capital focused on small groups (i.e. neighborhoods) or used only two aspects, trust and social participation, to measure social cohesion. As we have emphasized, social cohesion should be characterized as features of a whole society incorporating attitudes, behaviors, institutional and structural dimensions that bound citizens together for better life quality. Therefore, we implemented a series of procedures to comprehensively measure and analyze the relationship between social cohesion and individual health. We first followed theoretical frameworks and identified multiple dimensions of social cohesion using a factor analysis. Then, we developed a typology of social cohesion regimes with a cluster analysis to further understand the spatial patterning of social cohesion in different countries. Finally, using a multi-level statistical design, we assessed the effects of dimensions of social cohesion on an individual’s self-rated health after controlling for individual characteristics.
This study used a multilevel study design. At the individual level, study samples were from the 2000 World Value Survey (WVS) and the 2002 European Value Survey (EVS). The WVS and EVS are cross-nation surveys about social, economic, cultural, and political values and behaviors in different societies. Both surveys have almost identical questions, and are known to have a standardized study design and a rigorous data collection procedure. The WVS and EVS have executed fives waves of studies: 1981–1984, 1989–1993, 1994–1998, 1999–2004, and 2005–2008. Stratified random sampling was conducted to represent population in each society. Data collection methods included face-to-face interviews or phone interviews for remote areas. Extensive descriptions of the WVS and EVS can be found at the respective websites (http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org and http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org).
This study used individual-level samples from 29 high-income countries, since theories on social cohesion and welfare states were originally constructed for understanding the influences of social, political and economic factors in these developed countries. Prior relevant studies focused on these high-income countries, as well. For less developed countries, other theories, such as dependency theories, may be more suitable to be used as the framework to guide studies of this nature. Data on Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, and United Kingdom were derived from EVS. Data on Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and United States were derived from WVS. National-level social cohesion statistics were obtained from Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) datasets, World Development Indicators (WDI), Asian Development Bank (ADB) key indicators for the year 2000, and from aggregating responses from the WVS. We chose the time period around 2000 because a more-comprehensive list of variables and data from more countries were collected at the millennium. In total 47,923 individuals were included in this study (Table 1).
We adapted Berger-Schmitt and Noll’s framework to measure social cohesion[17, 18] and also considered Bernard’s conceptualization. Berger-Schmitt and Noll’s framework included a comprehensive list of well-grounded indicators for measuring the concept of social cohesion, comprising multiple dimensions such as equality, individual freedom, social welfare, trust to individuals and institutes, and state power. In particular, the framework has carefully considered how to incorporate social exclusion in the measurements. Compared to prior theoretical literatures, Berger-Schmitt and Noll’s framework has made a major contribution to the operationalization of social cohesion.
Berger-Schmitt and Noll’s framework of social cohesion suggests several dimensions: social and political attitudes, social exclusion, equal opportunities, regional disparities, the availability of social relations, the quality of social relations, and the quality of social institutions. Table 2 shows the operational definitions and statistics of the variables.
If you had to choose, which one would you say is most important? And which would be the next important?
Respondents’ priorities were “giving people more say in important government decisions” and “protecting freedom of speech”. Assigning 3 points for both items on first and second rank, 2 points for one of these items on first rank, 1 point for one of these items on second rank, and 0 for none of these items on first or second rank. The mean of the aggregate score was computed.
Could you please tell me if you agree with the following items at a 4-point scale?
The index was created by adding up the four items. The higher the value, the more-positive attitude toward democracy. The direction of item 1, 2, and 3 were reversed. Mean of the sum of scores of these four items was computed.
Please tell me whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified or something in between along a 10-point scale.
Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors?
How would you place your views on this scale?
The government should take more responsibility to ensure that everyone is provided for versus people should take the responsibility to provide for themselves.
The responses exhibited a range from 1–10, with 1 being “government should take more responsibility” and 10 being “people should take more responsibility”.
ADB, Asian Development Bank; EVS, European Value Survey; OECD, Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development; WDI, World Development Indicators; WVS, World Value Survey.
In terms of social and political attitudes, liberty aspirations, democratic attitudes, and value diversity were used as indicators. Liberty aspirations represent the level of emphasis on freedom of expression and political participation relative to material safety. This concept, developed by Welzel and Ingelharts, was suggested to have a great impact on the democratization of a country[37, 38]. Democratic attitudes described whether there was public support for democratic principles and systems. Value diversity represented the tolerance of a society toward social diversity and was measured as the dispersion of opinions on several social issues. We used ethnic tolerance and immigrant percentage to represent the dimension of social exclusion. Ethnic tolerance described whether participants dislike having immigrants as neighbors. The position on immigrant members of a society was suggested to be the most sensitive indicator for assessing social exclusion. Immigrant percentage was measured as the percentage of immigrants by total population in a country. We used several items to represent the dimension of equal opportunities. The ratio of female/male employment rates and gender wage gap represented whether a country had equal employment opportunities for women and men. Social expenditures, educational, and health expenditures as well as physician density measured the government efforts and investment to increase equality. Government responsibility showed people’s attitudes toward government versus individual responsibility in providing social services. For regional disparities, we used Gini coefficients to measure inequalities of household incomes. For availability of social relations, we measured membership in associations by asking respondents to indicate their membership in clubs and associations. We used social trust to represent the quality of social relations. Last, we used trust in the civil service to measure the quality of social institutions.
Self-rated health, measured by the identical questions in WVS and EVS: “How would you rate your general state of health?”, was rated as “poor”, “fair”, “good”, or “very good”. It was recoded as a dichotomized variable with “poor”, and “fair” as 0 to represent poor health and “good”, and “very good” as 1 to represent good health.
Age, gender, educational level, and household income were included as control variables in the multilevel models. Educational level was measured by asking respondents their highest level of education achieved and ranged from 'did not complete primary education’ to 'second stage of tertiary education’, and was regrouped into three categories: primary(lower), upper secondary(middle), and tertiary education(upper). Income was measured by the annual household income. Individuals were then classified into lower, middle, and upper levels of income.
An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify dimensions of social cohesion. The exploratory factor analysis seeks to discover if the observed variables can be explained largely in terms of a much-smaller number of latent factors, and to further uncover the interrelationships among the observed variables and the underlying theoretical factors. Each factor was defined as a linear combination of optimally weighted observed variables. In this study, participants’ scores on the questionnaires items would be weighted and then summed to compute their scores on each factor (dimension) of social cohesion. The method of extraction was a principal component analysis with an oblique (promax) rotation procedure since domains of social cohesion were reported to be correlated. The number of factors was decided by a significant jump in the slope of a scree plot and an eigenvalue of > 1, and the ability to interpret different factor solutions.
A cluster analysis with Ward’s algorithm was used to identify a typology of regimes based on dimensions generated by the exploratory factor analysis. Cluster analysis was primarily developed for classifying cases into relatively homogeneous groups and creates a different regimes based on selected variables. To determine the number of clusters, an inverse scree plot was used. A significant jump in the fusion coefficient in the inverse scree plot was used to inform the number of clusters extracted from the data. We also used statistics of the cubic clustering criterion (CCC), pseudo F (PSF), and pseudo t2 (PST2) to verify the number of clusters.
Multilevel regression models were applied to assess the influences of social cohesion on an individual’s self-rated health. We used SAS GLIMMIX to fit multilevel models with a binomial distribution assumption and a logit link. The estimation method was a restricted maximum-likelihood procedure. Model one was first fitted with only intercept to access the ICC of the intercept-only model. Model two was fitted with individual sociodemographic characteristics. Model 3 was fitted with social cohesion dimensions. Individual sociodemographic characteristics were added in Model 4 to assess the effects of social cohesion dimensions after controlling for individual-level characteristics.
We also calculated intra-class correlation (ICC) in each model, which represents the proportion of variance at the group level divided by the sum of the variances at the individual level and the group level. According to Snijders and Bosker, for binary outcome, the unobserved individual variance follows a logistic distribution with individual level variance Vi equal to π2/3 (that is, 3.29). Therefore the ICC for binary outcomes is calculated as follows with VA representing variance between groups (countries).
We used the likelihood ratio test to compare different models. The positive difference of -2 log likelihoods between two models has a Chi-squared distribution with the degrees of freedom obtained from the difference of the number of parameters in the two models. If the Chi-squared test is significant, this suggests a more parsimony model with fewer parameters is preferred.
Table 3 shows the five factors extracted from the exploratory factor analysis. Social expenditure, physician density, gender wage gap, and trust in civic services formed the first factor (alpha = 0.80). This factor can be referred to as the social equality factor. Items were related in different direction: the higher social expenditure and physician density, the lower gender wage gap. Interestingly, countries with higher social expenditure tended to have lower trust in civic services, which was probably due to a number of Eastern European countries included in our analysis. After the collapse of communism in 1989, these countries had high scores on physician density and social expenditure, but had relatively low scores on trust in civic services. Government responsibility, health spending, ethnic tolerance, and value diversity combined to form the second factor (alpha = 0.75). This factor can be referred to as the social inclusion factor. Items suggested that when a country had higher tolerance toward immigrants, it also had higher value diversity, and higher government efforts’ to ensure that everyone is provided. This factor also indicated these countries were more likely to have higher health expenditure. Education expenditures and gender employment ratio formed another factor, and can be referred as the social development factor (r = 0.60), representing the level of investment in human capital and in gender equity. The fourth factor included social trust, democratic attitude, and social participation (alpha = 0.78), and can be referred to as the social capital factor. The democratic attitude was highly loaded with the other two traditional social capital items, trust and social participation, suggesting that democratic attitude could be a key element of social capital. The last factor, referred to as social diversity factor (alpha = 0.57), comprised items of percentages of immigrants, Gini index, and liberty aspiration. This factor showed that countries with a higher percentage of immigrants tended to have a higher Gini coefficient, but also have a higher level of liberal attitude. Inter-factor correlations among the five factors ranged from 0.004 to 0.37.
* Underlined factor loadings indicated variables of the same factor.
A cluster analysis was carried out using the dimensions of social cohesion identified by the factor analysis. Results of the scree plot, and CCC, PSF, and PST2 statistics all point to six potential clusters of social cohesion states. Table 4 listed countries and the mean scores, as well as rankings, of the dimensions of social cohesion by clusters. Cluster I, consisted of East Asian countries, ranked low in most dimensions, except in social diversity. Cluster II, consisted of countries in Southern Europe, ranked high in social equality but low in social inclusion. Cluster III, consisted mainly of countries in Central and Eastern Europe and a few West European countries, had low ranking in social capital and social diversity. Cluster IV, consisted of Scandinavian countries, ranked high in social equality, social development, but low in social diversity. Cluster V, consisted of Netherlands, Germany, and Austria, ranked high in social inclusion and social capital, but low in social development. Cluster IV, consisted mainly of countries in North America and Australasia, and New Zealand, ranked high in social inclusion, social development, and social diversity, but low in social equality.
gRanking of H indicating the dimension score ranked in the top two; M indicating the dimension score ranked in the middle two; L indicating the dimension score ranked in the lowest two among the six clusters.
Table 5 shows the results of the multilevel analysis. Model 1 was the intercept-only model, while Model 2 included only individual-level characteristics. Individuals with certain characteristics, such as being male, younger, having a higher or middle educational level, and having a higher or middle income, reported better health than their counterparts.
aStandard error presented in parenthesis.
Model 3 and Model 4 assessed the relationship between dimensions of social cohesion and self-rated health. Three dimensions of social cohesion, including social inclusion, social capital, and social diversity, were significantly associated with individual-level self-rated health before and after controlling individual sociodemographic characteristics, as indicated in Model 4.
Based on the formula provided by Snijders and Bosker, the ICC is 0.08 for the intercept-only model. The residual ICC became 0.09 after adding individual-level characteristics. With social cohesion dimensions, the residual ICC was 0.04 and became 0.05 with the addition of individual-level variables in Model 4. Compared to Model 1, the smaller ICC in Model 3–4 and the significant likelihood ratio tests indicated that the addition of the social cohesion variables has led to a significant reduction in unexplained variance between countries.
In this study, the five distinct dimensions of social equality, social inclusion, social development, social capital, and social diversity, partly confirmed Bernard’s model of democratic dialogue, which included liberty, equality, and solidarity. Three of the five dimensions, social inclusion, social capital, as well as social diversity, were significantly associated with individual health. This study demonstrated that people in countries with higher social inclusion were more likely to report better health even after controlling for other individual characteristics. Similar results have been revealed from prior research focusing on the effect of social exclusion on health. Although social inclusion and social exclusion are not exactly opposite of each other, our finding does show consistent direction of effects. Social inclusion may affect individual health through participation in economic, social, and political activities. Furthermore, social inclusion may also influence individual social position and social class, which in turn may affect one’s health through increased access to resources that are beneficial to health, as well as enhancing the development of equitable social relationships. A society that values diversity and includes all citizens in welfare schemes may also likely foster an environment that allows individuals to have more locus of control in access to health and social services, which may also have a positive effect on self-rated health. This finding suggests that in developing a social welfare or a health care system, government should consider not only the universality of coverage, but probably should also consider the special needs of subgroups within the population.
This study once again demonstrated that social capital, which represents the principal of solidarity, is a crucial dimension of social cohesion, and the influence of social capital on individual health should not be overlooked. Social capital, in this study, was comprised of social trust, social participation, and democratic attitude. Both cognitive aspect (i.e. social trust) and structural aspect (i.e. social participation) of social capital had beneficial impact on self-rated health. Consistent with prior studies, Pooartina and Mansyur showed that country-level social participation and trust were positively associated with self-rated health. Jen and colleagues also showed that social trust at the national-level was positively associated with self-rated health above and beyond individual socio-demographic characteristics in a sample of 69 countries. Previous literature and finding from this research point to the direction that promoting an social environment that are favorable for involvement in social membership, as well as nurturing public trust in government, may improve self-rated health, and thus, probably should be considered a policy priority.
In this study, the dimension of social diversity was positively related to individual health after controlling for individual characteristics. The dimension of social diversity suggested that when a country had a higher score on liberal aspiration, it also had a higher percentage of immigrants, as well as a higher score on Gini index, which implied a greater disparity in income. Since the dimension of social diversity consists of Gini index of family income, the results of the positive relationship between social diversity and self-rated health are contradictory to the impression that countries with higher income inequality have worse population health. One main reason is that the dimension of social diversity also measures other social conditions such as immigrant concentration and liberal attitude, and thus masked the true effect of Gini index. It is also possible that countries with a higher percentage of immigrants were countries with a high demand for labor, and thus had an open immigration policy. Immigrants, in general, would tend to have lower income, yet more likely to be younger and therefore may perceive themselves to be in better health. Thus, a high percentage of younger and lower income immigrants may offset the true effect of Gini index on health. The other explanations may be differences in the outcome variables used, the level of the statistical analysis, and number of countries selected. Rather than using individual self-rated health as the outcome variable, most of the studies reviewed by Wilkinson and Pickett regarding income inequality and health conducted ecological analyses with group-level outcomes (i.e., mortality, life expectancy) and did not control individual-level sociodemographic factors. In addition, those studies focused on 23 richest countries as the target sample, and more societies from East Europe and East Asia were included in this study.
The positive relationship between social diversity and health can probably be explained from the perspective of health policy. It is possible that countries with a high social diversity are more likely to formulate health policies that respect individual freedoms and differences. Hence such societies may provide an environment more conducive for individuals to pursue health, and be more tolerant of conditions that may be associated with deviant behaviors, particularly mental or psychological conditions. In this study, the item of liberty aspiration reflected only social attitudes and norms toward individual liberty and freedom. Future research should attempt to incorporate variables such as care utilization, open markets, and entrepreneurial liberty if such information is available.
Our findings should be considered in light of the following limitations. First, we did not examine longitudinal social cohesion measurements, which may have generated selection bias. Although we did control a number of important individual sociodemographic characteristics, the relationship between social cohesion and individual self-rated health could be due to some unmeasured individual characteristics, which would lead to biased estimates of social cohesion effects. In addition, individuals with better health status are more likely to participate in civic activities and perceive the environment as a more trustful and safer place; therefore, the relationship found between social cohesion and self-rated health should perhaps be more cautiously interpreted as correlations rather than as direct evidence of the influences of social cohesion. Second, the study did not measure all aspects of social cohesion. However, compared to prior studies, we measured more aspects of social cohesion including liberal aspirations, value diversity, democratic support, and government interventions in inequality. Future research needs to improve measurements by including additional aspects of social cohesion. Although we did not directly assess the validity of the measurements, our measures exhibit content validity by covering each domain of Berger-Schmitt and Noll’s framework[17, 18]. Many items used in our studies were found to have significant relationships with other theoretical concepts and health outcomes in previous studies and thus exhibit construct validity[29, 30]. For example, the items of social trust, membership in associations, and welfare states were positively correlated with mortality, self-rated health, and other health behaviors[26–30]. Third, the outcome measure, self-rated health, is more likely to be influenced by social and cultural norms, which might not be appropriate for use in Asian societies. Asians do not exhibit extreme expressions in social interactions, they tend to give mid-point responses rather than express definite agreement or disagreement when they are asked about their health status. Therefore Asian countries would score lower in self-rated health according to the way we lumped fair and poor health in the same category. Because of the aforementioned debates, some studies suggested that self-rated health is not an appropriate assessment for cross-nation comparison on individual health status. Nevertheless, others suggested self-rated health is a good predictor of mortality in different countries. However, our multilevel statistical analysis should explain at least some parts of the variance between countries in the measurement of self-rated health due to cultural, historical, and institutional factors. Fourth, using national averages to measure social cohesion can hide important variations within countries concerning the attitudes of interest. It is thus possible that countries with similar mean values for some attitudes have different variations. Last, missing data are also a problem because of the available datasets. We limited our analyses to those countries for which there were no missing data for all of our predictors. This strategy may overlook the most disadvantaged populations, who were less likely to participant in the survey studies.
Limitations aside, this study is an innovative effort to incorporate different aspects of social cohesion. This study suggests that some dimensions of social cohesion, such as social inclusion, social capital, and social diversity, were associated with individual self-rated health even after controlling for individual characteristics. Findings from this research may partially explain why some countries have similar income, service provision, and resources, but have different population health outcome. While service utilization and resource allocation do have significant impact on population health, governments, especially those of developed countries, should also develop policies to foster a society with a high level of social inclusion, social capital, and social diversity, to achieve further advancement in population health. Future research could focus on identifying possible pathways by which social cohesion influences various health outcomes.
This study was supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan (Grant No.98-2410-H-038-004-MY2 to Dr. Ying-Chih Chuang).
YCC participated in study design, data analysis and writing the manuscript. KYC participated in study design and writing the manuscript. THY participated in data collection and data analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. | https://equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-9276-12-87 |
Collective solidarity is similar in meaning to David Emile Durkheim's term mechanical solidarity. Collective solidarity or community solidarity refers to social bond or interdependency which rests on similarity of beliefs and values, shared activities, and ties of kinship and cooperation among members of a community. In collective solidarity or mechanical solidarity social integration is based on mutuality of interests found in those societies with little division of labor and modernization. Durkheim argued that social solidarity takes different forms in different historical periods and varies in strength among groups in the same society. Mechanical solidarity is a simple, pre-industrial form of social cohesion and organic solidarity is a more complex form that evolves in modern societies.
In collective solidarity or mechanical solidarity, its cohesion and integration comes from the homogeneity of individuals. People feel connected through similar work, educational and religious training, and lifestyle. Collective solidarity or mechanical solidarity is found in traditional and small scale societies.
Mechanical solidarity is a term used by David Emile Durkheim to refer to a state of collective solidarity or community bonding. Emile Durkheim introduced the terms "mechanical solidarity" and "organic solidarity" as part of his theory of the development of societies in "The Division of Labour in Society" (1893).
Organic solidarity is a term used by Emile Durkheim to refer to a state of interdependency created by the specialization of roles, discussed in role theory, and in which individuals and institutions become acutely dependent on others in a complex division of labour.
Incorporation and Mechanical Solidarity (Collective Solidarity) in an Underground Coal Mine - Charles Vaught, David L. Smith. We illustrate the concern with mechanical solidarity exhibited by work groups within a dangerous work setting. Building upon the notions of Ralph Turner and Louis Zurcher, the argument is made that groups which must continually deal with potential disaster will manifest mechanical solidarity as the dominant form of social integration.
Scapegoating and the Simulation of Mechanical Solidarity (Collective Solidarity)
in Former Yugoslavia: “Ethnic Cleansing” and the Serbian Orthodox Church
-
Keith Doubt.
I use the concept of scapegoating to explain the ritualized character of ethnic cleansing after the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The Serbian Orthodox Churchs use of a scapegoat paradigm to incite violence created a pseudo-sense of solidarity among the Serbian people. Although this solidarity resembles Emile Durkheims concept of mechanical solidarity, I question the stability of this solidarity insofar as it is based on the negativity of war crimes and genocide.
A Proposal to Recycle Mechanical
Solidarity and Organic
Solidarity in Community Sociology. Perry,
Charles, Rural Sociology.
Reinterprets Durkheim's theory of social solidarity to argue that division of labor directly reduces solidarity but indirectly increases solidarity through secondary groups, the state, and the cult of individuality.
Solidarity, Mechanical Solidarity (Collective Solidarity) and Organic Solidarity. Anne M. Hornsby. French sociologist Emile Durkheim (18581917) coined the terms mechanical and organic solidarity to describe two types of social organization, that is, ways in which individuals are connected to each other and how they identify with the groups and societies in which they live. Social solidarity is a state of unity or cohesion that exists when people are integrated by strong social bonds and shared beliefs and also are regulated by well-developed guidelines for action. | http://sociologyindex.com/colllective_solidarity.htm |
The overall level of social cohesion in Southeast Asia stands at 69 per cent, reflected by the percentage of those who saw social cohesion overall as “strong”, according to the recent Southeast Asian Social Cohesion Radar report by the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
The report stated that social cohesion refers to “the state of affairs in which there are stable interactions among members of a society that take place in various domains of human associate life”.
The Social Cohesion Radar saw researchers survey a total of 1,000 thought leaders – 100 from each of the 10 ASEAN member states. It defines thought leaders as which were defined as “individuals who possess domain expertise in academia, the public sector, businesses, civil society and religious organisations where they would be in positions that influence public opinion”.
The survey was the first of its kind to be conducted in Southeast Asia, with previous research conducted in Europe.
Data was collected anonymously via an online 20-minute survey and where an online survey was not possible, a telephone survey was done instead. The questionnaires were made available in nine languages, including English, Bahasa Indonesia, Malay, Thai and Vietnamese.
Singapore, with its “multicultural society”, had the highest level of social cohesion at 81 per cent, said the report. Thailand and the Philippines followed after Singapore, with social cohesion in both countries at 73 per cent. Brunei Darussalam recorded 57 per cent.
Social relations, which refers to the creation of cohesion through relationships between individuals and societal groups characterised by trust and allow for diversity, played the strongest role in influencing social cohesion in the region.
Singapore ranked high in the study’s three categories of “social relations” (which showed Singapore having a mean score of 97 per cent, “connectedness” (89 per cent) and “focus on the common good” (56 per cent).
It was followed by, Indonesia (87 per cent), Thailand (83 per cent) and Brunei Darussalam (74 per cent).
“Singaporeans responded positively to all dimensions,” the study further stated, referring to certain areas under the aforementioned categories in which Singaporeans had a relatively high mean score – such as “trust in people”, “acceptance of diversity”, “trust in institutions” (all with a mean score of 4.3) and “civic participation” (4.4).
Connectedness had the second largest effect on social cohesion. It refers to the promotion of cohesion through a positive identification with the country and a high level of confidence in its institutions and perception that social conditions are fair.
Singapore (89 per cent), Thailand (76 per cent) and the Philippines (75 per cent) were ranked highest. Brunei scored 54 per cent.
The majority of the Bruneian thought leaders who responded to the survey were government employees, from business and finance sectors, and educational institutions.
The respondents were generally young.
According to the Bruneian respondents, social relations played a key role in building social cohesion in the country. The connectedness domain was the second most important in influencing social cohesion in Brunei. The domain that least affected social cohesion was focus on the common good.
Delving deeper into their views on social cohesion, a majority of the Bruneians believed that strong social networks and respect for social rules helped to bind their society together. According to their responses, perception of fairness and solidarity and helpfulness had the weakest impact on social cohesion in the country. The mean score of the responses to assess social cohesion in Brunei was 3.6, which was slightly below the regional average of 3.7.
A significant finding from the responses was the belief that donating to the poor and voluntary work would support social cohesion in Brunei. In Brunei, the perceived level of common good was the strongest among citizens, followed by the perceived level of connectedness.
Interestingly, almost twice the number of men attributed social cohesion in Brunei to the common good, compared to women.
In terms of perception towards others in Brunei and the rest of the Southeast Asian region, the Bruneian respondents were of the view that their country’s strength lies in the solidarity and helpfulness dimension.
A majority of the Bruneians ranked Singapore top in terms of the level of social cohesion, and themselves in second place. | https://borneobulletin.com.bn/connecting-the-dots/ |
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