In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Taking Up Space:Museum Exploration in the Twenty-First CenturyTiffany Sutton (bio)Museums have become a crucible for questions of the role that traditional art and art history should play in contemporary art. Friedrich Nietzsche argued in the nineteenth century that museums can be no more than mausoleums for effete (fine) art.1 Over the course of the twentieth century, however, curators dispelled such blanket pessimism by showing that what keeps (...) historical art museums, both comprehensive and modern, "alive" and relevant in the modern art world are the things that curators do with the artworks in their collections.2 In certain cases, I will argue in this article, the focus on artworks and the relationship between them can be rewardingly shifted onto the spatial aspect of the museum. I will try to show what such a shift of focus entails, show that it involves a gestalt shift (in Wittgenstein's terms, the "dawning of an aspect"), and illustrate the limits within which this can arise.3 The foremost of these limiting factors is museum architecture, and I will discuss this to the extent that it determines the limits of what curators can do. How architects do things with museums, however, lies outside the scope of this article.An Art Historical Heuristic Gets a Curatorial MakeoverNineteenth-century art museums typically were vast, labyrinthine, and built to assume the shape of a comprehensive art historical narrative, so they were easy targets for ideologues drawn to vibrant modern artworks and the controversy surrounding them. At the turn of the twentieth century new commercial galleries developed a distinctively modern mode of display in which individual artworks were showcased with plenty of space around them.4 Had existing museums changed their ways to accommodate these developments, the momentum of a new aesthetic of flatness, surface, [End Page 87] and yet purer forms of conceptualism would have been lost. It was not a time for absorption and deflation: new museums, no less monumental and historical but smaller and with fewer volumes, were commissioned to give modern art the appearance of a fresh start.5 The weightless upward mobility of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, modeled in 1945 and opened to the public in 1959, consummated this trend of the first half of the twentieth century and gave it its purest form. What the building spurt revealed was that as art changes, it demands to be reflected in its surroundings, not merely accommodated. That the response was to build new museums rather than new wings suggests the inner workings of the principle—call it "curatorial heuristic one"—that, whereas art history is fluid and simply flows forward with new developments, museums are not of this nature; they can become effete.The curatorial revision of this heuristic was a century in coming. As often happens when emerging movements are yet underdetermined, modernism suppressed in its beginnings the background factor that would seem to entail the end of modern art when finally brought into focus: the very context of display that had once set it apart. Duchamp's Readymades (1913) gave the initial nod (or wink) to the gallery context; it was, however, ignored, as a suppressed punch line, until art history was ready to concede the importance of the context of display—not in the gallery, but in the museum—to a site-specific artwork by Richard Serra: his Splashing and Prop (1968). With the museum's framing context and, concomitantly, the importance of the curator's work conceded, the barrier that had kept lesser masterpieces in the basement (or out of the museum) were removed. Unearthed, these began to circulate, and attention centered on the relation in which they stood to better-known artworks, either as suppressed alternates or as descendants of an artistic lineage. So postmodern sprawl began, with the display of multiple alternative art histories drawing, as modernism had, on available display conventions for periodizing according to internal principles (period, school, genre, style) such that detection of them devolved upon the viewer.When public uses for the new public museums began to diversify (from an historical/educational focus to aesthetic/educational and cultural/political ones), principles for ordering artworks were... (shrink)

Quel regard les musées de société posent-ils sur les sociétés ? Le musée fait partie des institutions structurantes d’une société, notamment par son rôle de création et de partage de savoir : en ce sens, il est à la fois miroir d’une société et lien critique. Préoccupés par les enjeux contemporains tels que la diversité culturelle, la numérisation, la mondialisation, le développement des activités culturelles ou encore le développement durable, les musées de société doivent sans cesse s’adapter, créer et innover (...) en jonglant avec les paradoxes inhérents à toutes civilisations. À travers des exemples français et québécois, cet article présentera un point de vue critique sur les défis et les enjeux des transformations opérant au sein des musées de société, que ce soit au niveau du discours tenu sur la diversité culturelle, de la mise en muséographie de l’autre, de la mise en valeur du patrimoine matériel et immatériel ou encore de l’engouement grandissant des visiteurs. Du fait de sa mission et de part sa dynamique, le musée de société ne serait-il pas le point de bascule qui permet d’offrir une lecture intégrée des sociétés ? Si oui, quel monde souhaite-t-il construire? De quel monde souhaite-t-il être témoin?How do social museums view societies? Museums are one of the main structural elements of any society, in particular because of their role in creating and sharing knowledge: in this sense, they are both a mirror and a critique of society. Because of their concern for contemporary issues such as cultural diversity, digitisation, globalisation, the development of cultural activities and even sustainable development, social museums have to constantly adapt, create and innovate while dealing with the inherent paradoxes of any society. Through examples from France and Quebec, this article offers a critical perspective on the issues and challenges arising from current developments in social museums, from discourses on cultural diversity, designing exhibitions on other cultures and ways of presenting the material and immaterial heritage, to the increasingly popularity of these museums among the public. Given their mission and their dynamics, could the social museum be a tipping point in the advent of an integrated interpretation of society? If so, what kind of world does it aim to build? What is the world it aims to reflect? (shrink)

The end of the twentieth century in the religious life of the Ukrainian people was marked by dramatic changes: the network of religious organizations rapidly increased, the number of believers increased, the Church with the persecuted and followed by the institution of the institution became an active element of society, seeking to find a new place in the relationship with the state. The national uplift has coincided with complex transformation processes related to the globalization of the world economy, finance, natural (...) and labor resources, culture, the spiritual sphere, and population migration. All this is extremely relevant to the problem of self-identification of Ukraine as a state and every single Ukrainian as its citizen in different coordinates, especially spiritual ones. (shrink)

This book seeks to provide new perspectives, to broaden the field of philosophy of science, or to renew themes that have had a great impact on the profession. Thus, after an initial chapter to situate the current trends in philosophy of science and the prospective of the near future, it offers contributions in five thematic blocks: I) Philosophy of Medicine and Climate Change; II) Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet; III) New Analyses of Probability and the Use of (...) Mathematics in Practice; IV) Scientific Progress Revisited; and V) Scientific Realism and the Instrumentalist Alternative. Within this framework, the volume addresses such relevant issues as the methodological validity of medical evidence or decision making in situations of uncertainty; recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and the future of the Internet; current forms of empirically based methodological pluralism and new ways of understanding mathematics with scientific practice; and the revision of the approaches to scientific progress based on the experiences accumulated in recent decades. (shrink)

This paper focuses on some issues where the process of convergence between analytical and hermeneutic perspectives, with respect to their general philosophical grounds, mainly turns out to be clear. On the analytical side, the overcoming of logical Neopositivism and radical formalism and the rejection of the atomistic theory of reference by holistic theories of meaning have been the core shifts. On the side of the continental philosophical tradition, the main theoretical change lies in replacing the centrality of the subject with (...) the centrality of language, with its links to the dimension of intersubjectivity. Furthermore, the importance given to concepts such as action and intention, mainly due to the Wittgensteinian connection between language and forms of life, has led to recognising the active role of the subject in the world and the ability of language to be a means for doing things and not just a system of signs representing the world. Such a convergence, though it has not yet been reached, seems to be particularly fertile in the legal domain. Here, for example, some outcomes of speech acts theory fit the hermeneutic view of law. (shrink)

The centre of world Christianity has shifted to the southern hemisphere largely due to the growth of the Evangelical/pentecostal/charismatic churches in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Christian unity is understood more in terms of spiritual unity in Christ than as organizational unity. The Lausanne Congress held in 2010 is a good example of this. Christian unity is to be recognized and celebrated. The primary mission of the Church is to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus. As far as (...) Christian unity is concerned, the Global Christian Forum provides the best platform, where all traditions and global church organizations can comfortably come together based on the simplest yet the most essential confession of Christian faith. (shrink)

The essay outlines the development of the history of science and medicine in Croatia since the first half of the 20th century, addressing in more detail some recent research trends that seem to have the potential to reshape and reposition this relatively marginal field within the national academic landscape. It examines the origins and implication of the “historicization” of the history of science, as manifested in, among other things, tentative convergence between the history of science and medicine and “general” (...) history. Also considered are changes in the understanding of what counts as science and who as a historian of science within a specialist community in a small country that has struggled with balancing between the national and wider contexts, and with embracing newer conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches. (shrink)

Formal epistemology is a growing field of philosophical research. It is also evolving, with the subject matter of formal epistemology papers changing considerably over the past two decades. To quantify the ways in which formal epistemology is changing, I generate a stochastic block topic model of the abstracts of papers classified by PhilPapers.org as pertaining to formal epistemology. This model identifies fourteen salient topics of formal epistemology abstracts at a first level of abstraction, and four topics at a (...) second level of abstraction. I then study diachronic trends in the degree to which formal epistemology abstracts written in a given year are likely to contain words associated with a particular topic, beginning in 2000 and continuing to 2020. My findings suggest that there has been a marked decline in the likelihood of a given formal epistemology abstract being about logical approaches to belief revision. On the other hand, over the past two decades, the salience of probabilistic techniques in formal epistemology has increased, as has the salience of work at the intersection of formal epistemology and some areas of philosophy of science. (shrink)

Debates about end of life decisions should accept that public opinion on these matters is still fluidChanges in the past half century in the attitudes of the American public regarding euthanasia and suicide in the case of incurable disease have been dramatic, and they attest to the success of a social movement that has been in part a phenomenon “of the times” . But they are also in part a consequence of a highly visible social movement and vigorous deliberate actions (...) intended to shape public opinion, moving it in a direction favourable to concrete changes in law, public policy, and precepts of the profession of medicine.During much of this period, a bewildering plethora of polls has been conducted, related in one way or another to the question of how the public has viewed the issues about end of life decisions. End of life decisions have an important bioethical component, especially as they raise questions of who makes choices and how those choices can be made in an ethical manner. Does the individual have complete control of his or her own fate? Who can act as surrogate? What role, if any, should physicians play, and what are the interests of the state in such decisions? Anyone who wants to write a justification for, or promote advocacy of, any kind of policy regarding these issues ought to be seriously acquainted with trends in public attitudes. While public opinion cannot be the final arbiter of what is ethically correct, knowledge of it will help us to address the issues in a way that will best benefit the public discourse. Unfortunately, hardly any presentation of the polls related to the subject has attempted to reconcile the …. (shrink)

Summary In Japan, the demand for the philosophy of science has recently increased, and in the last decade many changes have been brought about, among which the most remarkable is the rise of analytic philosophy.

As the world’s most populous country, China is experiencing unprecedented magnitude and speed of population ageing since it entered the ageing society two decades ago. The rapid population ageing- driven by decreasing fertility rate and prolonged life expectancy- has profound impacts on economic development and poses significant challenges for formal and informal care provision. Although the Chinese government has implemented a series of progressive policy reforms on pension, healthcare, and long-term care systems, the capacity gaps regarding the coverage, adequacy, affordability, (...) and sustainability remain large. At the same time, social and economic changes have eroded the supportive role of family, especially for rural-dwelling, childless, and empty-nest older adults. This chapter documents the statistical and social reality of ageing in China, introduces a series of policy reforms implemented by the Chinese government in response to population ageing, and describes the family dynamics and intergenerational support patterns under the changing socioeconomic background. Besides pressing challenges of ageing for family and society, this chapter also looks at the emerging lifestyle and proactivity for active ageing in China. (shrink)

Why do some epistemic objects persist despite undergoing serious changes, while others go extinct in similar situations? Scientists have often been careless in deciding which epistemic objects to retain and which ones to eliminate; historians and philosophers of science have been on the whole much too unreflective in accepting the scientists’ decisions in this regard. Through a re-examination of the history of oxygen and phlogiston, I will illustrate the benefits to be gained from challenging and disturbing the commonly accepted continuities (...) and discontinuities in the lives of epistemic objects. I will also outline two key consequences of such re-thinking. First, a fresh view on the (dis)continuities in key epistemic objects is apt to lead to informative revisions in recognized periods and trends in the history of science. Second, recognizing sources of continuity leads to a sympathetic view on extinct objects, which in turn problematizes the common monistic tendency in science and philosophy; this epistemological reorientation allows room for more pluralism in scientific practice itself. (shrink)

This volume focuses on the interactions between mathematics, physics, biology and neuroscience by exploring new geometrical and topological modeling in these fields. Among the highlights are the central roles played by multilevel and scale-change approaches in these disciplines. The integration of mathematics with physics, molecular and cell biology, and the neurosciences, will constitute the new frontier and challenge for 21st century science, where breakthroughs are more likely to span across traditional disciplines.

From 1959 to 1969 the annual number of petitions for divorce in England and Wales increased by 133%, and the rate of divorce per 1000 married population increased by an estimated 100%. Traditional explanations for the historical increase in divorce, relying on such factors as increased legal and financial opportunity, wartime disturbances and demographic changes, seem inappropriate to deal with recent experience, and it is proposed that normative changes are involved. Cohort analysis suggests that the marriages of the 1960s are (...) more vulnerable to early divorce than those of the 1939/45 war, and that this vulnerability was increasing throughout the period. It seems likely that earlier divorce also implies higher proportions ultimately divorcing. (shrink)

Woods et al. (2015) claim that secular Simple Reaction Time (SRT) slowing (Woodley et al. 2013), disappears once modern studies are corrected for software and hardware lag, and once Galton’s data are corrected for fastest-response selection. Here, this is challenged with a reanalysis of the secular slowing of SRT in the UK amongst large (N>500), population-representative age-matched (≊18-30 years) studies. Starting with Galton’s sample, this is assigned the simulated value estimated by Dodonova and Dodonov (2013, who like Woods et al. (...) were critical of secular SRT slowing, owing to measurement issues) on the basis that he collected the fastest of three trials (207.5ms). The two sexes in Galton’s study are combined (as in Woods et al.), raising the weighted sample mean to 208.5ms. Next is the Wilkinson and Alison (1989) study, which attempted to replicate Galton’s study one century later, collecting SRTs as part of an exhibit in the London Science Museum. An electronic chronoscope recorded SRTs on magnetic tape, and sampled over eight trials with micro-processor-determined variable foreperiods. The mean SRT value for the 1,189 participants aged between 20 and 29 is 245ms. The presence of long and variable foreperiods necessitates a penalty of 10ms (Dodonova & Dodonov, 2013). Another 10ms should be deducted based on key-pressing time (Dodonova & Dodonov, 2013), reducing the mean to 225ms. The studies of Deary and Der (2005) and Der and Deary (2006) are also included. The first utilized the highly representative Scottish Twenty-07 cohort. Dodonova and Dodonov (2013) identified a 53ms lag stemming from liquid crystal stimulus onset delay. This is subtracted from the weighted average of the two sexes (300.8ms), along with another 10ms for key-pressing time. The resultant mean is 237.8ms.Dodonova and Dodonov (2013) cleaned the male data in the Der and Deary (2006) study, collected from the representative UK Health and Lifestyle Survey, by removing cases for which SRT standard deviations exceeded those for choice RT. This reduced the N from 834 to 661, and also reduced the mean from 300ms to 284ms. The estimate was also penalized for LCD onset delay and key-pressing time, reducing the mean to 221ms. When the SRT value for the female sample is penalized equivalently the resulting value is 239ms. In order to simulate the female N for the purposes of taking a weighted average of both sexes, the actual female N is reduced in proportion to the male N (79.3%=881), yielding a weighted mean of 230.9ms for a combined sample-size of 1,472. Table 1 presents the data used in the analysis.Table 1 SRT means, sample sizes and sampling years for four large, age-matched UK samples[Table 1 here]Consistent with Dodonova and Dodonov (2013), N-weighted regression is employed, as the only data on sample variability is sample size. Figure 1 illustrating the secular trend in UK SRT over 100 years.[Figure 1 here] Figure 1. Secular SRT slowing across four large, representative studies from the UK spanning a century. Bubble-size is proportional to sample size. Combined N=6,622. The secular slowing between UK studies is statistically significant (β=0.97; 95% CI=0.969 to 0.971, N=6,622), at –22.8ms a century. Additional evidence for generational SRT slowing comes from Verhaeghen (2014), who suggested that the ratio of longitudinal to cross-sectional age-related slowing might tentatively infer generational changes in processing speed. Verhaeghen reports ratios for two SRT studies (0.91 and 1.15), implying both secular losses and gains. For the study of Deary and Der (2005), the SRT ratios are “censored because they were excessively large” (p. 256). In this study, the ratio of the cross-sectional slowing trend (taking the weighted average of all paired between-cohort differences rescaled in terms of change per decade for males and females), to the weighted average decadal longitudinal slowing trend for both the males and females is 0.73, for an N of 1,926 (cf. Woodley et al., 2014b, for a detailed reanalysis of this dataset). The weighted average of the three SRT ‘Verhaeghen ratios’ is 0.9 (N=4,078) – tentatively consistent with generational declines (i.e. a ratio of <1). In conclusion Woods et al. (2015) have undoubtedly made an important contribution to the debate concerning the role of software and hardware lag in the inflation of contemporary estimates of SRT, however the evidence for generational SRT slowing remains quite compelling. ReferencesDeary, I.J., & Der, G. (2005). Reaction time, age, and cognitive ability: Longitudinal findings from age 16 to 63 years in representative population samples. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 12, 187–213.Der, G., & Deary, I.J. (2006). Age and sex differences in reaction time in adulthood: Results from the United Kingdom Health Lifestyle Survey. Psychology and Aging, 21, 62–73.Dodonova, Y.A., & Dodonov, Y.S. (2013). Is there any evidence of historical slowing of reaction time? No, unless we compare apples and oranges. Intelligence, 41, 674–687.Galton, F. (1890). Exhibition of instruments (1) for testing the perception of differences of tint, and (2) for determining reaction-time. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 19, 27–29.Verhaeghen, P. (2014). The elements of cognitive aging: Meta-analyses of age-related differences in processing speed and their consequences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Wilkinson, R.T., & Allison, S. (1989). Age and simple reaction time: Decade differences for 5,324 subjects. Journal of Gerontology, 44, 29–35.Woodley, M.A., Madison, G., & Charlton, B.G. (2014b). Possible dysgenic trends insimple visual reaction time performance in the Scottish Twenty-07 cohort: Areanalysis of Deary & Der (2005). Mankind Quarterly, 55, 110-124.Woodley, M.A., te Nijenhuis, J., & Murphy, R. (2013). Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time. Intelligence, 41, 843–850.Woods, D.L., Wyma, J.M., Yund, E.W., Herron, T.J., & Reed, B. (2015). Factors influencing the latency of simple reaction time. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9:131. (shrink)

The current study examines changes in the economic, social, and well-being life events that women and men reported during the first 7 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyses compared monthly averages in cross-sectional national probability data from two annual waves of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study collected between October 2018–September 2019, and October 2019–September 2020, which included the first 7 months of the pandemic. Results indicated that people reported increased job loss in the months following an initial COVID-19 (...) lockdown relative to the same months the year earlier. Women also experienced an increase in family troubles when restrictions eased and reported increased negative lifestyle changes that persisted throughout the first 7 months of the pandemic. The proportion of people experiencing many other life events in New Zealand did not differ reliably from the pre-pandemic monthly baseline. These results highlight resilience to many potential negative life events within the first 7 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the pandemic did not affect everyone equally, and the burden of increased negative events appears more heavily borne by women. As the pandemic continues more than 18 months from initial community transmission of COVID-19, our findings provide important insight into the impact of the pandemic on potential negative life events, especially among women, that may have critical consequences for mental health, gender equality, and social well-being over time. (shrink)

We recognize a paradox of power and promise in the context of legislative and organizational changes in nurse regulation which poses constraints on nursing's capacity to bring voice and influence to pressing matters of healthcare and public policy. The profession is at an important crossroads wherein leaders must be well informed in political, economic and legislative trends to harness the profession's power while also navigating forces that may put at risk its central mission to serve society. We present a (...) critical policy analysis of the impact of recent regulatory trends on what the International Council of Nurses considers nursing's three ‘pillars’ – the profession of nursing, socioeconomic welfare of nurses and nurse regulation. Themes surfacing from this analysis include regulatory discontinuity, a tightening of regulatory control, and an increasingly managerial governance culture. These themes illuminate insights and strategies required to renew and revitalize the social mandate of our profession amidst a climate of urgency in the questioning of nurse scholars with respect to the future of the profession. At this historic juncture, nurses must clearly understand the implications of legislative and organizational regulatory changes to ensure the profession contributes to full capacity in achieving health and health equity globally. (shrink)

It was not long ago when technological emergence fundamentally changed the landscape of global businesses. Following that, business operations started shifting away from traditional to advance digitalized processes. These digitalized processes gave a further boost to the e-commerce industry, making the online environment more competitive. Despite the growing trend, there has always been a consumer market that is not involved in online shopping, and this gap is huge when it comes to consumers from developing countries, specifically Pakistan. On contrary, the (...) recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought drastic changes to the way consumers used to form their intention and behave toward digitalized solutions in pre COVID-19 times. Evidence shows that the global e-commerce industry has touched phenomenal growth during COVID-19, whereas Pakistan's e-commerce industry still holds a huge potential and has not fully boomed yet. These facts pave new avenues for marketers to cater to this consumer market for long-term growth. Hence, the study provides insights into how consumers' online buying behavior has transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of Pakistan. The study presents a framework based on the Technology Acceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behavior. Furthermore, the moderating role of gender and payment mode has also been examined. For the analysis of variables, the partial least squares method was used to conduct structural equation modeling by collecting data from 266 respondents. The results show a significant and positive impact of perceived benefits, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, and social influence on consumers' intention, but they also show an insignificant impact of gender and payment mode as a moderating variable on PEOU-BI and BI-AB, respectively. The results are of utmost significance for Pakistani businesses, marketers, and e-traders to streamline their business practices accordingly. Lastly, the proposed framework demonstrates new directions for future research to work upon. (shrink)

The present volume contains articles of well-known representatives of the Meaning-Text Theory (MTT) and other related linguistic theories. Founded by I. Mel'cuk and A. Zholkovsky in the sixties in Moscow, MTT soon became known in the West as a “prominent outsider” theory. The picture changed since then, though. MTT gained importance in several areas of linguistics and computational linguistics. It influenced the design of new grammar formalisms such as Dependency Tree Grammars. Also, specific parts of MTT have been directly overtaken (...) into other theories; consider, for example, the work on integrating Lexical Functions into Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon. The present volume is a further convincing demonstration of MTT's liveliness and relevance to the field's “burning” issues. The focus of the volume is on semantics, semantic representation and relation of semantics to surface in MTT. Six out of eight articles (Polguère; Escalier & Fournier; Paducheva; St.-Germain; Beck; Bogulavsky) deal with problems related to these topics, while the last two articles of the volume (Sgall and Rambow; Joshi) throw a bridge between MTT, or, more precisely, between dependency-based theories of which MTT is one instantiation, and other linguistic theories. (shrink)

It is regrettable that of all the wealth of available philosophical materials from the Spanish American area, publishers select for translation and diffusion in the U.S. only works of specialized interest. The change of the title of this book from the original Spanish one: Studies in the History of Mexican Philosophy, into the English Major Trends in Mexican Philosophy, is unjustified. This group of studies, which was given untranslated to the participants in the XIII International Congress of Philosophy at (...) Mexico City, constitutes a basic sample, by no means exhaustive, of what could be a collection of erudite sources for the study of Mexican philosophy. Because of the makeshift nature of a work thus conceived, the reader should not expect the periodization of historical trends to be adequate; it only reflects the specialized areas of the contributors. The study of pre-Colombian thought makes no use of modern methods of symbol interpretation and the parallel between thought structures and type of civilization. Also, research about post-scholastic logic, so intimately related to present logical work, is not reported. The best study deals with ideological trends of the independence period, and is a perfect illustration of the fecundity of historical states of collective puzzlement. The beautiful portraits that graced the Spanish edition have been removed.—A. M. (shrink)

Organisms are self-producing and self-maintaining, or autopoietic systems. Therefore, the course of evolution and adaptation of an organism is strongly determined by its own internal properties, whatever role external selection may play. The internal properties may either act as constraints that preclude certain changes or they open new pathways: the organism canalizes its own evolution. As an example the evolution of feeding mechanisms in salamanders, especially in the lungless salamanders of the family Plethodontidae, is discussed. In this family a large (...) variety of different feeding mechanisms is found. The authors reconstruct this evolutionary process as a series of bifurcation points of either constraints or opportunities forming a sequence of preconditions for the formation of a high-speed projectile tongue characteristic of tropical salamanders. Furthermore, it is shown how parallel evolution of seemingly unrelated domains within an organism such as respiratory physiology, life history biology and pattern of ontogeny has rather direct relevance to the feeding biology, thus demonstrating that organisms always evolve as wholes. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe unprecedented progress in bio‐medical sciences and technology during the last few decades has resulted in great transformations in the concepts of health and disease, health systems and healthcare organisation and practices. Those changes have been accompanied by the emergence of a broad range of ethical dilemmas that confront health professionals more frequently. The classical Hippocratic ethical principles, though still retaining their relevance and validity, have become insufficiently adequate in an increasing range of problems and situations. Healthcare that has been (...) practised for centuries on the basis of a direct doctor‐patient relationship has been increasingly transformed into a more complex process integrating the health‐team, the patient and the community. Systematic review of the specialised literatures revealed that Healthcare Ethics education has become a basic requirement for any training programme for health professionals, and should cover the different stages of undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education. Both theoretical foundations and practical skills are required for the appropriate ethical reasoning, ethical attitude and decision‐making abilities. There is growing evidence that physicians’ professional and moral development is not only determined by the formal curriculum of ethics; rather more, it is determined by the moral environment of the professional practice, the ‘hidden curriculum’ which deserves serious consideration by medical education. (shrink)

The accessibility of art in Germany underwent a fundamental change over the course of the 18th century. Aristocratic collectors opened their doors to the general public, and new museums were dedicated exclusively to art. This development parallels the concurrent development of aesthetics in philosophy and the conception of the autonomy of art. Its theoretical foundation was provided by Kant in his third critique with such completeness that the standards of beauty he worked out emerge as constitutive elements of the (...) art museum. The Romantic movement reinforced the trend in what proved to be an ambivalent way. The general accessibility of art was well suited to its transgression of boundaries, but it necessitated a new, less contingent mode of demarcation between the work of art and the observer. That became an occasion for »Romanticization« of both the artwork and its audience, demonstrated here by August Wilhelm Schlegel’s conversation on art Die Gemählde. It is further elucidated by Friedrich Schlegel’s Nachricht von den Gemählden in Paris and its echo in two texts published by Kleist: The novella Die Heilige Cäcilie oder die Gewalt der Musik and the essay on Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Mönch am Meer that was drafted by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim and radically modified by Kleist. (shrink)

Most of the on-going debate is about “how” to protect archaeological ruins, whilst at the same time allowing the general public to enjoy them. Today it is clear how important it is, from the actual planning stages of excavations, to interact with experts from other disciplines, who are working on their own findings and offering them up for collective enjoyment. Whatever might be feasible for an indoor museum is not always feasible with an architectonic ruin, as regards both presenting objects (...) with explicative apparatus that determines their significance, and exploring them in a new way when interpretations change or new ideologies are introduced. First of all, conserving excavations is the not the same as conserving a transportable object. In the past many countries in Europe preferred to “present” Roman remains simply as “gardens of ruins”, often endeavouring to stand them in sharp contrast with a more recurrent evocation of the original contexts of local life. Recently, with regard to the Roman tradition, there has been a noticeable inversion of trend in musealization operations, according to which the mere “contemplation of ruins” should be replaced by emotional contact with history. The main consequence of these new tendencies is the replacement of an informatics-based and didactic approach to musealization, in favour of a more authentically interpretative approach. Back-up resulting from experimentation in the fields of restoration and conservation becomes indispensible in implementing these new strategies for the musealization of archaeology. Continuous research and the progressive advance of conservation techniques have meant that the need to transfer archaeological remains has been avoided and an improved in situ “presentation” of these remains, both movable and immovable, can now be guaranteed. (shrink)

The concept of digital culture defines a set of values, practices, and expectations regarding the format of human interaction in today’s online society. Predictions of digital culture describe the specifics of the online environment and the general context of social life. The range of interpretations of digital culture varies between two poles: from the recognition of digital technologies as a way of presenting libraries, museums, historical monuments, etc., to the concepts of digital culture as a new socio-anthropological reality, the (...) content of which is not limited to ICT. Culture as a phenomenon means the semantic unity of human activity, the desire to format social life following ideas and values, the movement from existing to obligatory, from actual to potential, and digital culture is an adequate response to the demands and challenges. People worldwide change their placement of everyday activity, and we could admit such huge transformation in the Chinese People’s Republic exactly obvious. (shrink)

Background: Despite a gradual shift in the focus of medical care among terminally ill patients to a palliative model, studies suggest that many children with life-limiting chronic illnesses continue to die in hospital after prolonged periods of inpatient admission and mechanical ventilation.Objectives: To examine the characteristics and location of death among hospitalised children, investigate yearwise trends in these characteristics and test the hypothesis that professional ethical guidance from the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health would lead to (...) significant changes in the characteristics of death among hospitalised children.Methods: Routine administrative data from one large tertiary-level UK children’s hospital was examined over a 7-year period for children aged 0–18 years. Demographic details, location of deaths, source of admission , length of stay and final diagnoses were studied. Statistical significance was tested by the Kruskal–Wallis analysis of ranks and median test , χ2 test and Cochran–Armitage test .Results: Of the 1127 deaths occurring in hospital over the 7-year period, the majority were among infants. The main diagnoses at death included congenital malformations , perinatal diseases , cardiovascular disorders and neoplasms . Most deaths occurred in an intensive care unit environment , with a significant increase over the years . There was a clear increase in the proportion of admissions from in-hospital among the ICU cohort . Infants with congenital malformations and perinatal conditions were more likely to die in an ICU , and older children with malignancy outside the ICU . Children stayed for a median of 13 days on a hospital ward before being admitted to an ICU where they died.Conclusions: A greater proportion of hospitalised children are dying in an ICU environment. Our experience indicates that professional ethical guidance by itself may be inadequate in reversing the trends observed in this study. (shrink)

Museum displays tend to black-box science, by displaying scientific facts without explanations of how those facts were made. A recent trend in exhibit design upends this omission by putting scientists, technicians, and volunteers to work in glass-walled laboratories, just a window away from visitors. How is science conceived, portrayed, and performed in glass-walled laboratories? Interviews and participant observation in several “fishbowl” paleontology laboratories reveal that glass walls alter lab workers’ typical tasks and behavior. However, despite glass-walled labs’ incomplete and edited (...) enactment of scientific work, displaying an active workplace valuably challenges visitors’ assumptions that science is passive and that museums are home only to facts and dead things. Thus, glass-walled labs do not destroy the black box that obscures scientific practice for nonscientists. Instead, they exemplify a glass box, a kind of black box that contains a performance of scientific work. Glass-boxing describes a common way in which museums present scientific practice—that is, by making it observable but incompletely so—by inviting the public to construct a rich understanding of science as human work. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the works of contemporary St. Petersburg artists of different generations and creative trends, as well as the forms and features of their communication with each other and with the general as well as professional public. The trends of artistic communication in the city are determined by the activities of such institutions as art and non-art museums, art galleries and exhibition centers, which are a classic form of presentation of contemporary art; alternative (...) venues such as creative spaces and art clusters. The field of attention also includes the attraction of St. Petersburg authors to the organization of small artistic associations, mainly art groups, for example, "Unconquered", "North-7", "Parasites", etc. In addition to works of art, theoretical works and reflections by researchers of contemporary art in St. Petersburg and the spaces of its public presentation are involved. The methodological basis is the analysis of the works of St. Petersburg masters of the beginning of the XXI century in the context of the development of urban institutions of artistic communication. The research is based on theoretical works devoted to the problem of artistic communication and trends in the current art process. Comparative-interpretative and typological methods are used to compare the works of artists and forms of artistic communication. The problem of artistic communication in the field of fine art in St. Petersburg is becoming the subject of a separate study. This area of city life is currently developing quite dynamically, as new art associations, curatorial practices and alternative classical platforms for the presentation of the work of authors belonging to different generations and art movements are emerging. Traditional museums and galleries, as well as creative spaces, art clusters and other often non-core institutions, such as libraries and cafes, are involved in this process. Against this background, the features of St. Petersburg artistic communication crystallize, which is characterized by a desire to organize communities, to fuse realistic traditions and current trends, to escapism and symbolism, as well as an interest in oriental themes and stylistics. (shrink)

This paper briefly overviews some of the results and research directions. In the area of substructural logics from the last couple of decades. Substructural logics are understood here to include relevance logics, linear logic, variants of Lambek calculi and some other logics that are motivated by the idea of omitting some structural rules or making other structural changes in LK, the original sequent calculus for classical logic.

The objectives of this article are, first, to provide improved estimates of recent fertility levels and trends in Nepal and, second, to analyse the components of fertility change. The analysis is based on data from Nepals education. The own-children estimates for the whole country indicate that the TFR declined from 4·96 to 4·69 births per woman between the 3-year period preceding the 1996 survey and the 3-year period preceding the 2001 survey. About three-quarters of the decline stems from reductions (...) in age-specific marital fertility rates and about one-quarter from changes in age-specific proportions currently married. Further decomposition of the decline in marital fertility, as measured by births per currently married woman during the 5-year period before each survey, indicates that almost half of the decline in marital fertility is accounted for by changes in population composition by ecological region, development region, urban/rural residence, education, age at first cohabitation with husband, time elapsed since first cohabitation, number of living children at the start of the 5-year period and media exposure. With these variables controlled, another one-third of the decline is accounted for by increase in the proportion sterilized at the start of the 5-year period before each survey. (shrink)

Childhood obesity continues to rise in the United States, with now over 17% of children and adolescents considered overweight. Childhood obesity predisposes an entire generation to increased risk of chronic diseases and disabilities and is a severe threat to the economic well-being of the nation. At first thought, the solution to the obesity epidemic may seem simple: encourage people to eat less and exercise more. However, the reality is that behavioral change is difficult to achieve without also considering the interplay (...) of genetics, biological processes, and social and environmental mechanisms. As such, investment in obesity research has been considered an important tool to combat obesity and obesity-related diseases. Childhood obesity research, in particular, has drawn considerable attention, given the lower cost of prevention relative to treatment and the high potential for long-term benefits at a population level. (shrink)

Modern information technology allows academics many new ways to enhance their research activities. This article suggests that one of the most important changes in recent years has been the overwhelming proliferation of academic research. It proposes that many new developments in online publishing have been, and will continue to be, in response to this proliferation of research. It also offers some general principles based on six years' working for a series of innovative online journals, including examples of where new technologies (...) have been used successfully to enrich a journal's content without adding substantively to the workloads of authors and editors. (shrink)

This article examines the trends of digital marketing in the context of information society development. Under the influence of informatization of society, the spread of innovative development of the economic environment are transformed all its components, including changing approaches to marketing, which uses more and more digital opportunities to increase its efficiency. In society, specific relationships are formed associated with the search, receipt, transmission, production and dissemination of information using information technology. Under the influence of informatization of society, (...) the contemporary consumer and his requirements are changing, which is reflected in marketing activities. The reaction to the growing role of social networks and communities in consumer buying behavior was the formation of crowd marketing. Digital marketing is a contemporary tool for promoting a product, brand or brand through digital channels, and also uses a number of techniques that allow you to reach your target audience even in an offline environment. Digital marketing means that consumers, customers or society at large can access any information they need. Today, digital marketing is becoming an increasingly important tool for promoting almost any type of product compared to traditional marketing. (shrink)

Climate dynamics and trends have significant environmental and socioeconomic impacts; however, in the Benin Republic, they are generally studied with diverse statistical methods ignoring the nonstationarity, nonlinearity, and self-similarity characteristics contained in precipitation time series. This can lead to erroneous conclusions and an unclear understanding of climatic dynamics. Based on daily precipitation data observed in the six synoptic stations of Benin Republic, in the period from 1951 to 2010, we have proposed determining the local trends of precipitations, investigating (...) precipitation nonlinear dynamics, and assessing climatic shift in the study period by Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition and Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis method. To overcome the detrending issue in the standard MFDFA method, the EEMD algorithm is embedded into the MFDFA. The study period is subdivided into three subperiods: 1951–1970, 1971–1990, and 1991–2010. Intrinsic Mode Functions are obtained according to the climatic region in which the stations are located. Results show that precipitation variation is significantly governed by the five first IMFs, in which oscillation periods vary from 1 to 25 days. The trend curves decrease at all the synoptic stations, and their slope values vary accordingly to the subperiods. Referring to the values of the multifractal spectrum parameters, α 0, and the width of the spectrum w, consistent changes are observed regardless of the subperiods and the concerned stations. The spatial and temporal variability of precipitation indicates that the multifractal properties are good indicators for assessing changes in precipitation dynamics, and the changes in their features could be explained by the global change than by the local climate variation. Despite the observed differences in multifractal spectra properties from the three subperiods, it is not possible to verify the subdivision of 1951–2010 in three subperiods as it is done by previous studies in West Africa. Our findings can be used in the validation of global and regional climate models since a valid model should explain empirically detected scaling properties in observed data. (shrink)

Le but de cette encyclopédie en deux volumes, rédigée à l’instigation du président Hoover, était d’exposer tous les aspects de la vie sociale américaine, dans le dessein bien arrêté de saisir les rapports existant entre les différentes sphères sociales et de déterminer les transformations qui se produisent au sein de la société. Ces transformations devaient non seulement être constatées, mais on voulait encore essayer de trouver leur tendance générale, leur „trend“, c’est-à-dire la loi qui les détermine. Dans une critique des (...) résultats et des méthodes de cette „expression collective de la recherche sociale aux États-Unis“, M. G. s’efforce de montrer qu’en dépit de l’ampleur considérable de l’ouvrage, qui est également, en quelque sorte, une encyclopédie de la société américaine, le but scientifique visé n’a pas été atteint, et qu’il ne pouvait pas l’être. En effet, la théorie d’Ogburn, qui est à la base de l’ouvrage, et d’après laquelle les crises sont dues à des disproportions dans la vitesse de développement des différentes régions sociales, est insuffisante. Elle présuppose un ordre social relativement stable, dans lequel les dérangements peuvent être considérés comme de simples oscillations autour d’un noyau sain en lui-même. Comme le phénomène fondamental, la crise économique, n’est pas traité, on renonce à reconnaître méthodiquement que tous les processus sociaux sont incontestablement influencés par les faits économiques. Une autre objection importante, illustrée par M. G. au moyen d’une série d’exemples, concerne la notion du „trend“, empruntée à l’étude de la conjoncture. Le „trend“ ne peut pas avoir une loi sociale adéquate, parce qu’il tend à transformer tous les rapports sociaux qualitatifs en rapports mathématico-statistiques de valeurs. Le système actuel de la société, avec ses multiples ramifications, ne pourra toutefois jamais être saisi à i’aide de méthodes uniquement quantitatives ; il exige au contraire, dans son ensemble, une interprétation dynamique de la société. Comme le „Report“ y a renoncé, son intention théorique devait nécessairement échouer. Plus encore : les propositions pratiques qu’il fait pour l’élimination des défauts de la société américaine n’arrivent pas à la racine du mal.The joint report written at the request of president Hoover undertakes to present every aspect of social life in America. It has more over the special purpose of comprehensing the inter-relationships between these separate social compartments, and determining what social changes are taking place. Not only are these changes to be ascertained but the attempt made to grasp their trend, or in other words, to grasp the law determining these changes. G. seeks to show in a criticism of the results and methods of this „collective expression of sociological research in the United States“, that notwithstanding the extraordinary experience these 40 leading social scientists could draw upon, and the admirable comprehensiveness of this work-indeed an encyclopedia of American social life-, the scientific aim was not achieved, and could not be achieved. This is due to the insufficiency of Ogburn’s theory which underlies the work, that phenomena of crisis are to be traced to the disproportionate rates of change of the various provinces of social life. It presupposes a relatively stable social order in which upheavals are felt as mere oscillations around an intrinsically firm nucleus. Because the fundamental phenomenon of the economic crisis is not considered, the Report dispenses with the approach to a methodological standpoint, according to which all social processes are decisively determined by economic processes. Another important objection, which G. illustrates by a series of examples relates to concept of the trend borrowed from the business cycle. This can in no way furnish a suitable social law, because it tends to resolve all qualitative social relationships into mathematical- statistical formulae. Present day society, with its manifold divisions, can never be understood by quantitative methods only, but presumes a dialectical point of view for social life as a whole, which is ever in a state of flux. Since such a theoretical aim vitiated, but even its practical proposals, which it puts forward to rectify the shortcomings of American social life, fail to touch the root of the evil. (shrink)

Leadership styles vary across the vast Indian sub‐continent and are in a state of flux and change. The norms are influenced by ancient mythology and by imprints of world‐wide movements of political liberalism, socialism and economic globalization. But through all these styles, one discerns basic values which are universal and can be intuitively grasped by multi‐national managers. The paper describes the various sources of leadership understandings in India and relates them to Western traditions, notably to Aristotle’s ‘virtue ethics’.

Secular change in sex ratios is examined in relation to experience in the family. Two theoretical perspectives are outlined: Guttentag and Secord’s (1983) adaptation of social exchange theory, and sexual selection theory. Because of large-scale change in number of births and typical age differentials between men and women at marriage, low sex ratios at couple formation ages existed in the U.S. between 1965 and the early 1980s. The currently high sex ratios, however, will persist until the end of the century. (...) High sex ratios appear to be associated with lower divorce rates, male commitment to careers that promise economic rewards, male willingness to engage in child care, higher fertility, and higher rates of sexual violence. Sexual selection theory calls attention to intrasexual competition in the numerically larger sex. (shrink)

The existing computer technology is used to conduct an in-depth study and analysis of drilling waste treatment, and the results are analyzed by computer simulation optimization algorithms. Based on the system theory, we define the research system, combine the unique characteristics of the technological innovation mechanism of drilling waste treatment, and use the internal and external factors affecting the technological innovation dynamics of drilling waste treatment, such as drilling waste treatment capacity, from the current actual situation. On this basis, factor (...) analysis is used to analyze the factors affecting technological innovation dynamics from both internal and external aspects of the system, establish a system model of technological innovation dynamics of drilling waste disposal, and give the initial values of the simulation model. This will reduce the pollution of the environment and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. Drilling waste treatment technology is getting increased attention, but at this stage, there is no suitable technology innovation mechanism for drilling waste treatment. Through the simulation trend chart obtained by sensitivity analysis, the key factors in the system are found, and the innovation power mechanism of drilling waste treatment technology is constructed, which provides a basis for the formulation of enterprise technological innovation strategies and the development of technological innovation activities. Research on the dynamic mechanism of drilling waste treatment technology innovation explores a waste treatment mechanism suitable for the drilling industry, so as to promote the steady development of the drilling industry and at the same time provide theoretical support for the treatment of drilling engineering waste. (shrink)

Current local and national demographic trends have deepened the existing and formed new global demographic processes that have received a new historical reasoning that requires deep scientific research taking into account the influence of the multifactorial global dimension of the modern society development. The purpose of the article is to study the development of global demographic processes and to define the causes of their occurrence, manifestations, implications and prospects for implementation in the first half of the 21st century. The (...) authors have identified and characterized four global demographic processes, namely population growth, migration, increase of tourism, and change in population structure. It is projected that in the 30’s of the 21st century, the number and growth rates of the world population will reach the objective growth and these dynamics over the next two decades will begin to change in the direction of reducing the growth rates, which will lead to gradual stabilization, and eventually reduce the size of the world population. By the middle of the 21st century, one can observe the preservation of the growth rates of international and domestic migration, the growth of international migration flows from the South to the North and from the East to the West, the strengthening of new economically developed centers of gravity (Canada, Australia and New Zealand), the increase in migration of rural population to cities, as well as urbanization and activation of the metropolises development. The share of international tourists in comparison with the world population will be constantly increasing, and the annual growth rate of the number of international tourists will significantly depend on the world economy and may vary at the several percent level. Permanent change will occur in the age, religious-cultural and socio-economic structure of the population. (shrink)

Environmental, social, and governance is an indicator that measures a company’s non-financial performance. Many firms have recently emphasized the importance of ESG. Ascertaining what topics are being discussed around ESG and how they change over time will contribute significantly to gaining insight into ESG. Using 73,397,870 text data scraped and refined from publicly available Twitter data, this study applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation and the dynamic topic model to ascertain the hidden structure of the ESG-related document collection and the topics being (...) discussed. The study further conducts a sentiment analysis to examine the sentiment of the general public regarding ESG. Topic modeling shows that various topics regarding ESG are being discussed and evolve over time. Sentiment analysis shows that many people have neutral or positive sentiments toward ESG-related issues. This study contributes to exploring insights into ESG among the public and understanding public reactions toward ESG. We further conclude the study with a discussion of managerial implications and potential future research. (shrink)

Traditional explanations of multistable visual phenomena (e.g. ambiguous figures, perceptual rivalry) suggest that the basis for spontaneous reversals in perception lies in antagonistic connectivity within the visual system. In this review, we suggest an alternative, albeit speculative. explanation for visual multistability - that spontaneous alternations reflect responses to active, programmed events initiated by brain areas that integrate sensory and non-sensory information to coordinate a diversity of behaviors. Much evidence suggests that perceptual reversals are themselves more closely related to the expression (...) of a behavior than to passive sensory responses: (1) they are initiated spontaneously, often voluntarily, and are influenced by subjective variables such as attention and mood; (2) the alternation process is greatly facilitated with practice and compromised by lesions in non- visual cortical areas; (3) the alternation process has temporal dynamics similar to those of spontaneously initiated behaviors; (4) functional imaging reveals that brain areas associated with a variety of cognitive behaviors are specifically activated when vision becomes unstable. In this scheme, reorganizations of activity throughout the visual cortex, concurrent with perceptual reversals, are initiated by higher, largely non- sensory brain centers. Such direct intervention In the processing of the sensory input by brain structures associated with planning and motor programming might serve an important role in perceptual organization, particularly in aspects related to selective attention. (shrink)

This paper mainly studies the communication performance of visible light communication link in fire smoke environment. Compared with the previous studies, this study no longer only considers a single wavelength and considers the influence of smoke and background light noise. Firstly, the variation of background light noise caused by sunlight during a day was analyzed, then signal-to-noise ratio and bit error rate of the visible light communication link in fire smoke environment with different visibility were calculated, and finally, the variation (...) of received power with the angle β between the LED optical axis and the communication link was analyzed. The results show that, during a day from 07:00 to 18:30, background light noise first increases and then decreases, BER changes in the same trend and reaches the maximum at about 13:00, while SNR changes in the opposite trend and reaches the minimum at about 13:00. When visibility is 100 m, the maximum difference of SNR between 7:00 and 13:00 is about 19 dB, and the maximum difference of BER is about 5.3E-10. At 7:00, the maximum difference of SNR is about 13 dB between the visibility of 1 m and the visibility of 100 m, and the maximum difference of BER is about 1.44E − 11, and received power decreases with the increase of β. In addition, SNR increases with visibility of fire smoke environment, and BER changes in the opposite trend. Lastly, in order to enhance the performance of visible light communication in fire smoke environment, this paper gives the transmitting power scheme. (shrink)

Introduction -- The values surveys -- How to read the tables -- Changing beliefs and values -- Cross-national variation and trajectories of changing beliefs and values -- Economic development interacts with a society's cultural heritage -- Technical notes -- Questionnaire development -- Sampling procedures -- Fieldwork -- Principal investigators -- 1981-1984 wave -- 1989-1993 wave -- 1995-1997 wave -- 1999-2004 wave -- Creating the integrated dataset.

During the 1920s, researchers from the American Museum of Natural History led by Roy Chapman Andrews exported a large collection of valuable fossils from the Gobi Desert. While their expedition was celebrated across Europe and the United States, it aroused enormous controversy in China and Mongolia, especially after a new Nationalist government was formed in Nanjing during the late 1920s. Whereas Chinese scholars accused American scientists of plundering their natural heritage, Andrews argued that because dinosaurs went extinct long before the (...) creation of China, prehistoric fossils belonged equally to all mankind. This essay locates the Central Asiatic Expedition within a broader history of epistemic imperialism to explore what the controversy that it engendered reveals about the production, circulation, and accumulation of knowledge in a global context. (shrink)

The effects of socioeconomic factors on secular trends in suicide rates in Japan for the periods 1953–72 and 1973–86 were investigated using twelve socioeconomic indicators. Multiple regression analysis showed that the socioeconomic indicators affecting suicide rates were not identical in the two periods. The rates in both sexes in 1953–72 were closely related to unemployment rate and the labour force but between 1973 and 1986, divorce rate and the proportion in tertiary industry were most influential. The changes reflect the (...) socioeconomic changes in industrial structure in Japan in transition from an industrial to a service economy. (shrink)