The Role of Ecosystem-level Models in the Design of Agroforestry Systems for Future Environmental Conditions and Social Needs

2008 ◽  
pp. 231-248
Author(s):  
J. P. Kimmins ◽  
C. Welham ◽  
F. Cao ◽  
P. Wangpakapattanawong ◽  
L. Christanty
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Agroforestry Systems ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Ecosystem Level

Reinterpreting ‘the Mason Court Revolution’: An Historical Institutionalist Account of Judge-Driven Constitutional Transformation in Australia

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Theunis Roux
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Development ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Exogenous Shock

There have been two major periods of judge-driven constitutional transformation in Australia. The first spanned the High Court's successful transformation over the course of the last century of the strongly federalist 1901 Constitution into a weakly federalist one. The second took the form of what is generally thought to have been the less than fully realized ‘Mason Court revolution’ – the Court's attempt, from 1987-1995, to turn the Constitution into a device for expressing core Australian political values. What explains these different outcomes – why was the first transformation so successful and the second only partially achieved? This article proposes an answer to this question based on a generalisable account of the role of constitutional courts in processes of constitutional transformation. In short, the argument is that the seminal Engineers decision triggered a self-reinforcing trajectory of institutional development that led to a stable politico-legal equilibrium by the middle of the last century. The judges responsible for the second attempted transformation sought to break free of this equilibrium in order to respond to what they thought were pressing social needs. In the absence of a significant exogenous shock to the system, however, the equilibrium structured and constrained what they were able to do.

The role of public libraries in the development of social capital in local communities – a theoretical study

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 184-196
Author(s):  
Maja Dorota Wojciechowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

PurposeSocial capital, understood as intangible community values available through a network of connections, is a factor in the development of societies and improving quality of life. It helps to remove economic inequalities and prevent poverty and social exclusion, stimulate social and regional development, civic attitudes and social engagement and build a civic society as well as local and regional identity. Many of these tasks may be implemented by libraries, which, apart from providing access to information, may also offer a number of services associated with social needs. The purpose of this paper is to present the roles and functions that libraries may serve in local communities in terms of assistance, integration and development based on classical social capital theories.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews the classical concepts of social capital in the context of libraries. It analyses the findings of Pierre-Félix Bourdieu, James Coleman, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Putnam, Nan Lin, Ronald Stuart Burt, Wayne Baker and Alejandro Portes. Based on their respective concepts, the paper analyses the role of the contemporary library in the social life of local communities. In particular, it focuses on the possible new functions that public libraries may serve.FindingsA critical review of the concept of social capital revealed certain dependencies between libraries and their neighbourhoods. With new services that respond to the actual social needs, libraries may serve as a keystone, namely they may integrate, animate and engage local communities. This, however, requires a certain approach to be adopted by the personnel and governing authorities as well as infrastructure and tangible resources.Originality/valueThe social engagement of libraries is usually described from the practical perspective (reports on the services provided) or in the context of research on the impact of respective projects on specific groups of users (research reports). A broader approach, based on original social theories, is rarely encountered. The paper draws on classical concepts of social capital and is a contribution to the discussion on possible uses of those concepts based on an analysis of the role of libraries in social life and in strengthening the social capital of local communities.

scholarly journals Development history and social role of writing

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-66
Author(s):  
Ye Tuyte ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Role ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Evolutionary Development ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Writing is very important for human society. This is the highest indicator of cultural development. Writing provides linguistic communication between people. For many centuries man has been using writing to communicate with each other. It helps to connect people who are from each other both at close and at a great distance. The article examines the problem of the origin of writing in the history of mankind, the history of the formation and development of the known types of writing, as well as its social role (functions). The article reveals the issues of the process of improving writing: its meaning in the development of society, the main stages of its formation. The letter has a long and complex history of its development, which covers a period of several thousand years. Therefore, the article determines the place of pictographic, ideographic, syllabic and letter psychology in meeting social needs. of its time. The writing of the peoples of the world has developed along different paths, the writing of each language of the world has its own characteristics that distinguish it from all other types of written speech. The article covers in detail such issues as the approximate time of the origin of writing, the causes and foundations of its occurrence, i.e. the factors that influenced its emergence, as well as the first users of writing, the form of the first writing, its evolutionary development over time, existing today types and signs of writing. The issues of the alphabet that caused the origin of writing (writing), the first sounds and types of Phoenician writing, its improvement, Greek and Aramaic writing, which caused the origin of the alphabet of the countries of the West and the East, problems of the science of descriptiveness — the problem of graphics, spelling, transcription and transliteration are considered.

scholarly journals Fisiología y ecología del fitocromo: su función en las semillas

2017 ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Alma Orozco-Segovia
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Rain Forest ◽  
Los Tuxtlas ◽  
Developmental Processes ◽  
Plant Pigment ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Forest Plants

Phytochrome is the plant pigment which participate in several developmental processes regulated by light. In recent years this pigment has been associated with the detection of the environmental conditions but there is still a gap of information concerning the physioecological role of the pigment. In this paper the knowledge of the role of phytochrome on seed photoblastism is analysed based on several recent works done on the subject mainly with pioneer rain forest plants from Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz.

Sensitivity cycling and its ecological role in seeds with physical dormancy

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.M.G. Gehan Jayasuriya ◽  
Jerry M. Baskin ◽  
Carol C. Baskin
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Ecological Role ◽  
Dormancy Breaking ◽  
Physical Dormancy ◽  
Physiological Dormancy ◽  
Seed Coats

AbstractCycling of physically dormant (PY) seeds between states insensitive and sensitive to dormancy-breaking factors in the environment has recently been demonstrated inFabaceaeandConvolvulaceae, and it may be a common phenomenon in seeds with water-impermeable seed coats. In contrast to seeds of many species with physiological dormancy (PD), those with PY cannot cycle between dormancy and non-dormancy (ND). In this paper, we evaluate the role of sensitivity cycling in controlling the timing of germination of seeds with PY in nature, and show that sensitivity cycling in seeds with PY serves the same ecological role as dormancy cycling in seeds with PD. Thus, sensitivity cycling in seeds with PY ensures that germination in nature occurs only at (a) time(s) of the year when environmental conditions for growth are, and are likely to remain, suitable long enough for the plant to complete its life cycle or to form a perennating structure. Further, we describe the experimental procedures necessary to determine whether sensitivity cycling is occurring, and discuss briefly the possible relevance of sensitivity cycling to dormancy classification.

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