scholarly journals Cross-correlations of American baby names

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (26) ◽  
pp. 7943-7947 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Barucca ◽  
Jacopo Rocchi ◽  
Enzo Marinari ◽  
Giorgio Parisi ◽  
Federico Ricci-Tersenghi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Quantitative Description ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The People ◽  
Cultural Movements ◽  
Cross Correlations ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
The One

The quantitative description of cultural evolution is a challenging task. The most difficult part of the problem is probably to find the appropriate measurable quantities that can make more quantitative such evasive concepts as, for example, dynamics of cultural movements, behavioral patterns, and traditions of the people. A strategy to tackle this issue is to observe particular features of human activities, i.e., cultural traits, such as names given to newborns. We study the names of babies born in the United States from 1910 to 2012. Our analysis shows that groups of different correlated states naturally emerge in different epochs, and we are able to follow and decrypt their evolution. Although these groups of states are stable across many decades, a sudden reorganization occurs in the last part of the 20th century. We unambiguously demonstrate that cultural evolution of society can be observed and quantified by looking at cultural traits. We think that this kind of quantitative analysis can be possibly extended to other cultural traits: Although databases covering more than one century (such as the one we used) are rare, the cultural evolution on shorter timescales can be studied due to the fact that many human activities are usually recorded in the present digital era.

American Democracy Reconsidered: Part I

1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J. Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Government ◽  
The State ◽  
City Government ◽  
State Governments ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One

In his celebrated study of American democracy written in 1888, Lord Bryce reserved his most condemnatory reflections for city government and in a muchquoted passage asserted: ‘There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States. The deficiencies of the National government tell but little for evil on the welfare of the people. The faults of the State governments are insignificant compared with the extravagance, corruption and mismanagement which mark the administration of most of the great cities'sangeetha.

The Watchdog Still Barks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Knobel
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Newspaper Industry ◽  
Investigative Reporting ◽  
Ownership Structures ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One ◽  
Important Form ◽  
Better Than

Perhaps no other function of a free press is as important as the watchdog role. It is easier for politicians to get away with abusing power, wasting public funds, and making poor decisions if the press is not shining its light with what is termed “accountability reporting.” This need has become especially clear as the American press has come under direct attack for carrying out its watchdog duties. This book presents a study of how this most important form of journalism came of age in the digital era at American newspapers. The book examines the front pages of nine newspapers, located across the United States, for clues on how papers addressed the watchdog role as the advent of the Internet transformed journalism. It shows how papers of varying sizes and ownership structures around the country marshaled resources for accountability reporting despite significant financial and technological challenges. Although the American newspaper industry contracted significantly during the 1990s and 2000s due to the digital transformation, the data collected in this book shows that the papers held fast to the watchdog role. The newspapers all endured budget and staff cuts during the 20 years studied as paid circulation and advertising dropped, but the amount of deep watchdog reporting on their front pages generally increased over this time. The book contains interviews with editors of the newspapers studied, who explain why they are staking their papers' futures on the one thing that American newspapers still do better than any other segment of the media—watchdog and investigative reporting.

ANTHONY TROLLOPE ON THE SUPERIORITY OF AMERICAN FREE SCHOOLS COMPARED TO THOSE IN ENGLAND (1862)

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 571-571
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
Anthony Trollope ◽  
The People ◽  
The One ◽  
Better Than

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) followed most of his English predecessors who wrote about their American travels in attributing the chief glory of our country to our provision for universal free education. He wrote1: The one thing in which, as far as my judgment goes, the people of the United States have excelled us Englishmen, so as to justify them in taking to themselves praise which we cannot take to ourselves or refuse to them, is the matter of education; and unrivalled population, wealth, and inteffigence have been the results; and with these, looking at the whole masses of the people, I think I am justified in saying, unrivalled comfort and happiness. It is not that you, my reader, to whom, in this matter of education, fortune and your parents have probably been bountiful, would have been more happy in New York than in London. It is not that I, who, at any rate, can read and write, have cause to wish that I had been an American. But it is this: if you and I can count up in a day all those on whom our eyes may rest, and learn the circumstances of their lives, we shall be driven to conclude that nine tenths of that number would have had a better life as Americans than they can have in their spheres as Englishmen. If a man can forget his own miseries in his journeyings, and think of the people he comes to see rather than of himself, I think he will find himself driven to admit that education has made life for the million in the Northern States better than life for the million is with us.

The Origin, Meaning and International Force of the Monroe Doctrine

1920 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Charlemagne Tower
Keyword(s):  
Subsequent Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Monroe Doctrine ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
The People ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The One

I Beg leave to present in this article for consideration, a few of the characteristic details of what we know, and what has come during the past century to be known generally in the international and political world, as the Monroe Doctrine. I would point out its origin, its meaning, its development with the extension and growing importance of American national influence throughout the nineteenth century, and the importance of its bearing upon the American national life of our day—as well as its compelling power in every great movement of political weight that has taken place in the course of our dealings with foreign nations since the establishment of the Government of the United States. Its ground principle is laid in the deeply-rooted sentiment of the people of this country, upon which the fabric of personal intellectual and political independence from all the rest of the world is built up; for it has for its object the safeguarding and defence of the essential qualities of American freedom. It began to make itself felt at the moment when American freedom came into existence and separated the people of this continent from those who still lived in the old world. The truth is, that at the end of the eighteenth century a revolution had taken place which had not only the result of taking away from Great Britain her North American colonies, but, what was of equal importance in the subsequent development of political relations between sovereign states,—a revolution had taken place in the minds of men. The feudal traditions of government which had obtained for a thousand years, carrying with them the accepted formulas of supremacy and control, on the one hand, and the obligation of obedience, with the duty of submission, on the other, were intentionally removed from the plan of life and from the rule of conduct of men in America.

scholarly journals Social media and populism: an elective affinity?

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 745-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Gerbaudo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Elective Affinity ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
The People ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
The One ◽  
Intense Debate ◽  
Populist Movements

Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, an intense debate has developed around the connection between social media and populist movements. In this article, I put forward some theses about the reasons for the apparent ‘elective affinity’ between social media and populism. I argue that the match between social media and populist politics derives from the way in which the mass networking capabilities of social media, at the time of a ‘mass web’ involving billions of people worldwide, provide a suitable channel for the mass politics and the appeals to the people typical of populism. But this affinity also needs to be understood in light of the rebellious narrative that has come to be associated with social media at times in which rapid technological development has coincided with a profound economic crisis, shaking the legitimacy of the neoliberal order. This question is explored by examining the role acquired by social media in populist movements as the people’s voice and the people’s rally, providing, on the one hand, with a means for disaffected individuals to express themselves and, on the other hand, with a space in which disgruntled Internet users could gather and form partisan online crowds.

scholarly journals The American Reception and Settlement of Hungarian Refugees in 1956–1957

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
Peter Pastor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Educational Level ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
The People ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One

In the wake of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, close to two hundred thousand Hungarians crossed into Austria.  About thirty thousand of these refugees were allowed to enter the United States. Their common experience of living under totalitarian communism and participating or being a witness to the exhilarating thirteen days of the revolution and their sudden, previously unplanned, departure from the homeland gave them a collective identity that was different from the one shared by the people of previous waves of Hungarian influx to the United States. The high educational level of the refugees attained before and after their arrival made their absorption into the mainstream relatively easy. The integration process was facilitated by the shaping of a positive image of the 1956 refugees by the US government and the media.  The reestablishment of the communist system in post-1956 Hungary contributed to the perception that, for the refugees in the United States, there was no hope for return to the homeland.  This assumption strengthened the attitudes of those who wished to embrace the American melting pot model.  Many of the 1956-ers in the United Sates, however, were also comfortable with the notion of ethnic pride and believed in the shaping of a dual national identity.

Statement of the principal circumstances respecting the united siamese twins now exhibiting in London

1833 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 397-399
Keyword(s):  
Lower Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Lower Edge ◽  
Fishing Boat ◽  
The People ◽  
Chinese Parents ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The One ◽  
First Time

The twin brothers, of whom an account is given in this paper, were born of Chinese parents in 1811, at a small village in Siam, distant about sixty miles from Bankok, the capital of the kingdom. When the intelligence of their birth had reached the ears of the King of Siam, he gave orders that they should be destroyed, as portending evil to his government; but on being assured that they were harmless, and would be capable of supporting themselves by their own labour, he changed his intention, and suffered them to live. About six years ago Mr. Robert Hunter, a British merchant resident at Siam, saw them, for the first time, in a fishing-boat on the river, in the dusk of the evening, and mistook them for some strange animal. It was only in the spring of last year that permission could be obtained from the Siamese Government to bring them to England. They were taken to Boston, in the United States, where they landed in August last, and six weeks afterwards embarked for England, and arrived in London in November. They are both of the same height, namely, five feet two inches, and their united weight is 180 pounds. They have not the broad and flat forehead so characteristic of the Chinese race, but they resemble the lower class of the people of Canton in the colour of their skins and the form of their features. Their bodies and limbs are well made. The band of union is formed by the prolongation and junction of the ensiform cartilages of each, which meet in the middle of the upper part of the band, and form moveable joints with each other, connected by ligamentous structures. Under­-neath the cartilages there appear to be large hernial sacs opening into each abdomen, into which, on coughing, portions of the intestine are propelled, as far as the middle of the band; though in ordinary circumstances these herniæ are not apparent. The entire band is covered with common integument; and when the boys face each other, its length at the apex is one inch and three quarters, and at the lower edge not quite three inches. Its breadth from above downwards is four inches, and its greatest thickness nearly two inches. In the centre of the lower edge there is a cicatrix of a single navel. It possesses little sensibility, and is of great strength; for upon a rope being fastened to it, the twins may be pulled along without occasioning pain; and when one of them is lifted from the ground, the other will hang by the band alone without sensible inconvenience. For the space of about half an inch from the median line of the band, the sensibility of the skin appears to be common to both. The following experiment was tried upon them by Dr. Roget. A silver tea-spoon being placed on the tongue of one of the twins, and a disk of zinc on the tongue of the other, the moment the two metals were brought into contact, both the boys exclaimed “Sour, sour;" thus proving that the galvanic influence passed from the one to the other through the connecting band. Their strength and activity are very remarkable. They can throw down, with perfect ease, a powerful man. They run with great swiftness, bend their bodies in all directions, and in their sports often tumble head over heels without the least difficulty or inconvenience. In all the bodily actions in which the concurrence of both is required, such as running, jumping, playing at battledoor and shuttlecock, they exhibit a wonderful consent or agreement without the appearance of any previous communication of their intentions. The intellectual powers of each are nearly equal, and they have both attained the same degree of proficiency in the games of chess, draughts, and whist. They both possess great powers of imitation. In their respective physical constitutions, however, several differences are observable. Chang, as the boy on the left is named, has more vigorous health, and greater regularity of functions, than his brother, whose name is Eng. In general they take their meals and obey the calls of nature at the same time. Asparagus, eaten by either of the twins, communicates its peculiar odour exclusively to the urine of the one who has eaten it.

Archaeology in China: The First Decades

1957 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Carrington Goodrich
Keyword(s):  
British Museum ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Indus River ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
The People ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Lock In

Two years ago our revered elder statesman Kenneth Scott Latourette gave us a comprehensive review of the development during the last few decades of studies in the United States of the Sinic world. In a sense I wish to follow in his footsteps, on the one hand broadening the base to include studies by people of all nationalities, and on the other narrowing it or restricting it to cover only one branch of the many fields of learning represented by our membership. For good reasons too I limit the discussion to China alone. Not that important discoveries have not been made elsewhere, from the Indus River to the island of Hokkaido and from Siberia to the Maldive Islands, many of them bearing importantly on the growth of civilization amongst the Chinese people; a Han crossbow lock in Taxila, T'ang cash at Anuradhapura, a rock-cut representation of a Sung junk at Angkor, a late Han bronze at Oc-Eo, pre-Han silk in the frozen graves of the Altai, Ch'i state coins of the third century B.C. in northern Korea, and tenth-century block printing in the bosom of the lovely Buddhist statue which Chōnen brought back to Japan from Pien-liang in the year 985. All these and many more were discoveries of recent years in the regions now included in the Association for Asian Studies. One might, if desired, construct a much wider horizon, and so take in the Han dynasty hu or vase found in Dane John at Canterbury and now a prized possession of the British Museum, or Sung to Ming porcelain turned up at Fostat and the Kilwa Islands off the coast of Tanganyika, and the items of presumed Chinese inspiration discovered on the west coast of Central America and in Peru. But this would take us far afield, interesting though the subject may be. They show us how mobile the early Chinese were, or, if not the people themselves, certainly the work of their fingers, and how valued it was, giving tongue to the comment of Abū Zayd Ḥasan (ca. 916): “Amongst all the creatures of Allah, the Chinese have the cleverest hands at designing and creating things: for the execution of all manner of works there is no people in the world who can do better than they.”

The Repeal of P.R. in New York City—Ten Years in Retrospect

1948 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 1127-1148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Belle Zeller ◽  
Hugh A. Bone
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
City Council ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
The People ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

In November, 1936, the voters of New York City approved the use of proportional representation for the election of members of the city council by a vote of 923,186 to 555,217, after its opponents had failed by court action to prevent the question from being submitted. By a combination of Democratic delegates from New York City and machine Republicans from upstate, the constitutional convention of 1938 provided the people of the entire state an opportunity to reject decisively an amendment that would have prohibited the use of P.R. in any election in the state. Still another unsuccessful attempt to abolish the system was made in 1940—this time through initiative petition under provision of the New York City charter. With the entry of the United States into the war, no further serious effort at repeal was made until 1947, although dissatisfaction with the results of the councilmanic elections continued to be heard even above the din of war.How did the forces line up in the intense battle over P.R. in the campaign of 1947? The political parties, of course, had a direct stake in the results of the campaign. On the one side were the Democratic and Republican county organizations urging repeal of P.R., while the American Labor party, the Liberal party, the Communist party, and the Fusion forces worked for retention of the system.

scholarly journals Anti-Culture Machine: The War on Terror and its Effects on Pakhtuns and their Culture

2016 ◽  
Vol I (I) ◽  
pp. 299-313
Author(s):  
Abdul Shakoor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
The People ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Hearts And Minds

This study critically evaluates the continuing campaign against terrorism. It especially discusses the counter-terrorism policies of Pakistan and the United States of America, which affects Pakhtuns and their culture. Figures show there has been a surge not only in the number but the activities of militants in the Pakhtun region after the inception of the war on terror. It is very important, therefore, to know the effects of the war on terror on Pakhtuns culture. Mostly relying on secondary data and interviews with experts in the area, the study is a qualitative analysis of the counter-insurgency campaigns and the resultant response of the local population in the area. The analysis shows two interrelated facts. The first is that ignoring cultural values in counterinsurgency campaigns can seriously undermine the efforts of combating terrorism. The second is that engaging tribes is a useful strategy in fighting terrorism. Analysis of the war on terror further reveal that disregarding facts on the ground and ignoring strongly-held cultural and religious traditions, in other words, indifference towards Pakhtunwali, has alienated the local population, thereby strengthening the militants cause. It is recommended, therefore, that simply ignoring or deliberately targeting cultural traits can seriously undermine counter-terrorism efforts. For the counterterrorism campaign to be successful, it is necessary to gain the support of the local population. In other words, winning the hearts and minds of the people is required.

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