It Began with Babbage

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subrata Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Computer Scientist ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Von Neumann ◽  
New Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Science Of The Artificial

As a field, computer science occupies a unique scientific space, in that its subject matter can exist in both physical and abstract realms. An artifact such as software is both tangible and not, and must be classified as something in between, or "liminal." The study and production of liminal artifacts allows for creative possibilities that are, and have been, possible only in computer science. In It Began with Babbage, computer scientist and writer Subrata Dasgupta examines the distinct history of computer science in terms of its creative innovations, reaching back to Charles Babbage in 1819. Since all artifacts of computer science are conceived with a use in mind, the computer scientist is not concerned with the natural laws that govern disciplines like physics or chemistry; instead, the field is more concerned with the concept of purpose. This requirement lends itself to a type of creative thinking that, as Dasgupta shows us, has exhibited itself throughout the history of computer science. More than any other, computer science is the science of the artificial, and has a unique history to accompany its unique focus. The book traces a path from Babbage's Difference Engine in the early 19th century to the end of the 1960s by when a new academic discipline named "computer science" had come into being. Along the way we meet characters like Babbage and Ada Lovelace, Turing and von Neumann, Shannon and Chomsky, and a host of other people from a variety of backgrounds who collectively created this new science of the artificial. And in the end, we see how and why computer science acquired a nature and history all of its own.

Cities and Urban Patriciates

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas ◽  
The 1960S

Urban centers had an influence on the development of Renaissance Europe disproportionate to their overall demographic importance. Most of the population continued to live and work in the countryside, but towns and cities functioned as key centers of production, consumption and exchange, political control, ecclesiastical organization, and cultural influence. Historians still debate the relative roles of urban and rural areas in facilitating the development of capitalism in the long term. Writing on urban history has a very long pedigree dating back to the 16th century, but as an academic discipline it began to flourish in the late 19th century. Since the 1960s, the range of approaches to the field has widened considerably from concerns with political and economic organization to take in issues of governance, social structure, and, most recently, overlapping urban cultures. The role of religious belief, particularly in the context of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, runs as a thread throughout the history of the urban experience.

scholarly journals A brief history of medical uniforms: from ancient history to the COVID-19 time

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
VICTORIA RODRIGUES O’DONNELL ◽  
LUCAS ALBUQUERQUE CHINELATTO ◽  
CRISTINA RODRIGUES ◽  
FLAVIO CARNEIRO HOJAIJ
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Personal Protective Equipment ◽  
Great Emphasis ◽  
Hospital Environment ◽  
Protective Equipment ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

ABSTRACT Medical Uniforms date back from medieval times. Nursing uniforms were based on nuns clothes whereas doctors used the famous “plague costumes” and black “frock” coats from about 15th to early 19th century. In latter half 19th century medical uniforms started to change. Nursing uniforms gradually lost their similarities to religious outfits. Doctors started to use white clothing. With great emphasis on hygiene and sanitation, the idea of personal protective equipment (PPE) started to evolve with William Stewart Halsted introducing the use of rubber gloves in 1889. In the 1960s-1970s it became more usual to wear green and blue `scrubs in order to look for a greater contrast in clothing with the all-white hospital environment. In contemporary times, some specialties even stopped using specific uniforms, while others still use them. At the same time, PPE became more and more important, up to nowadays “plague costume” in the combat of the COVID-19 epidemics.

Vascular Dementia: A Historical Background

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (S1) ◽  
pp. 11-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo Román
Keyword(s):  
Vascular Dementia ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Clinical Studies ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Alois Alzheimer ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Untreated Hypertension

The history of vascular dementia can be traced back to cases of dementia postapoplexy described by Thomas Willis in 1672. During most of the 18th and early 19th century, “brain congestion” (due in all likelihood to the effects of untreated hypertension) was the most frequent diagnosis for conditions ranging from stroke to anxiety and to cognitive decline, and bloodletting became the commonplace therapy. The modern history of vascular dementia began in 1894 with the contributions of Otto Binswanger and Alois Alzheimer, who separated vascular dementia from dementia paralytica caused by neurosyphilis. In the 1960s, the seminal neuropathological and clinical studies of the New Castle school in England inaugurated the modern era of vascular dementia.

Of Research Cycles and Publication Models

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1076-1079
Author(s):  
Kirstie M. McClure
Keyword(s):  
England Journal ◽  
New England ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Publishing History ◽  
Professional Norms ◽  
Editorial Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

This response to Prof. Lieberman’s essay questions its analogy between “biomedical research” and the academic discipline of political science. Focused on the disanalogy of scope and scale between the two, it takes issue not with the “criterial framework” he offers, but with the quality of argumentation that leads us there. Supplementing the essay’s impressionistic account of editorial practice with evidence drawn from the New England Journal of Medicine and the publishing history of APSA journals since the 1960s, I suggest that the issue here is not simply editorial virtue and professional norms, but differences in the material and institutional bases of the journals’ alternative publication models.

Social administration and sociology

1973 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Warham
Keyword(s):  
Social Services ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Active Interest ◽  
History Of ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Empirical Material

It may be that when the history of social administration as an academic discipline during the 1960s comes to be looked back upon, one of the most significant developments will be seen to have been the growing influence upon it of sociology. As social services have developed in extent and complexity, a descriptive approach to the study of them has appeared ever more inadequate; and with the rapid development of sociology, both new empirical material, new perspectives, and new methods of analysis have become increasingly accessible. Social administration now uses sociological research methods, and draws heavily upon sociological theory. At the same time, both the active interest of ‘committed’ sociologists in the field of social welfare and, specifically, the emergence of the ‘sociology of welfare’ to join other sociological specializations indicate that the tendency for the two disciplines to impinge increasingly upon each other is not one-sided.

South African Historical Writing to the End of the Apartheid Era

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Saunders
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
White Males ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

While many of those who have written about South Africa have included reference to past events, it was only from the early 19th century that attempts were made to present a coherent picture of South Africa’s past. From the early 20th century professional historians, for long all white males, began to present their interpretations of the way in which the country known from 1910 as the Union of South Africa had evolved over time. In the Afrikaans-speaking universities there emerged an often nationalist historiography, while the major English-speaking historians presented a more inclusive but still often Eurocentric and mainly political view of the South African past. From the 1960s a conscious attempt was made to decolonize South African historiography by looking at the history of all the country’s peoples, but the historical profession remained almost exclusively white and the few black works of history were largely ignored. Many of those who were most influential in taking South African historical writing in new directions were South Africans who had left the country and settled abroad. In the 1970s and 1980s, a golden age of South African historical writing, shaped in part by the influence of neo-Marxist approaches from the United Kingdom and the United States, many new topics were explored, including the relationship between race and class and between capitalist development and apartheid. By emphasizing resistance to racial segregation in the past, South African historical writing assisted the process leading to the end of apartheid. By the time that happened, South African historical writing had become very nuanced and varied, but only to some extent integrated into the historiography of other parts of the African continent.

Geographic Information Science

Geography ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Schuurman ◽  
Jonathan Cinnamon
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Data ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Geographic Information Science ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Gis Technology ◽  
Knowledge Domains ◽  
New Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University

Geographic information systems (GIS) are the collection of software, hardware, outputs, personnel, and practices that together facilitate the analysis and mapping of geographic entities and phenomena. The field of geographic information science (GIScience) broadly explores the theory and concepts underpinning GIS and related geospatial technologies such as remote sensing and the Global Positioning System (GPS). The technological history of GIS began in the 1960s with the first rudimentary systems developed primarily for storing land information and for basic visualized outputs of geographic entities. As the technology progressed and permeated throughout the private sector, government, and academia—especially during the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s—a growing cadre of scholars began to examine theoretical, conceptual, and intellectual questions related to the technology, in the process creating a new science of geographic information. Michael Goodchild, a geography professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, made the first description of this area of inquiry during the 1990 Spatial Data Handling conference. Goodchild subsequently published what became an agenda-setting paper in 1992 (Goodchild 1992, cited under General Overviews) outlining a justification for this focus, which was both influential and widely accepted. GIScience draws on numerous knowledge domains, including computer science, visualization, information technology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science to create a theoretical basis for GIS. As a relatively new field of intellectual inquiry, GIScience has developed a body of knowledge with remarkable breadth and depth. GIScientists explore diverse issues including spatial data acquisition and quality, representation and visualization; the development of database and operational standards; scale, spatial analysis/statistics, and geocomputation; and the relationship between GIS technology and society. The topic areas chosen for this article largely reflect the consensus of the GIScience academy regarding the core themes of inquiry in this field, as discussed in the General Overviews section. Further, references to current trajectories and future directions for GIScience are scattered throughout this article.

Response to Symposium Reviewers

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 1080-1082
Author(s):  
Evan S. Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
England Journal ◽  
New England ◽  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Publishing History ◽  
Professional Norms ◽  
Editorial Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

This response to Prof. Lieberman’s essay questions its analogy between “biomedical research” and the academic discipline of political science. Focused on the disanalogy of scope and scale between the two, it takes issue not with the “criterial framework” he offers, but with the quality of argumentation that leads us there. Supplementing the essay’s impressionistic account of editorial practice with evidence drawn from the New England Journal of Medicine and the publishing history of APSA journals since the 1960s, I suggest that the issue here is not simply editorial virtue and professional norms, but differences in the material and institutional bases of the journals’ alternative publication models.

scholarly journals Why has Analytic Philosophy Almost Completely Failed to Exert any Influence on German Historical Writing and Reflections on Methodology? / ¿Por qué la filosofía analítica ha fracasado casi por completo en la historiografía alemana y en las reflexiones metodológicas?

2017 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Georg G. Iggers
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Siglo Xix ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Historical Social Science

The paper is a response to the question why analytic philosophy, which dominated philosophical Faculties in the English-speaking world, exerted virtually no influence on historical thought and writing in Germany. It examines major historiographical trends in Germany from the beginnings of history as an academic discipline in the nineteenth century to the present: the anti-democratic, nationalist tradition with its focus on politics and diplomacy associated with Historismus, which dominated German historical writing until after World War II, the democratically and socially oriented “historical social science” (Historische Sozialwissennschaft) of the 1960s and 1970s, committed to the analysis of social structures and historical processes, and the “history of everyday life” (Alltagsgeschichte) which aimed at a “history from below”. Yet what made analytic philosophy unacceptable to all these trends was that it proceeded in an abstract logical manner which neglected the concrete context in which historical explanation takes place.Key WordsRanke, Droysen, Meinecke, Abusch, Wehler, Historismus, Historische Sozialgeschichte, Alltagsgeschichte.ResumenEste artículo es una respuesta a la pregunta de por qué la filosofía analítica, que ha dominado las Facultades de Filosofía en el mundo angloparlante, no ha ejercido practicamente ninguna influencia en el pensamiento histórico y en la historiografía alemanas. Se examinan las principales corrientes historiográficas alemanas desde los comienzos de la Historia como disciplina académica en el siglo XIX hasta la actualidad: la tradición antidemocrática y nacionalista, centrada en la política y la diplomacia, asociada al Historicismo (Historismus), que dominó la historiografía germana hasta después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial; la “historia-ciencia social”, orientada social y democráticamente (Historische Sozialwissennschaft), de las décadas de los sesenta y setenta del siglo XX, comprometida con el análisis de las estructuras sociales y los procesos históricos; y la “historia de los cotidiano” (Alltagsgeschichte) dirigida a la “historia desde abajo”. Sin embargo, lo que hizo inaceptable la filosofía analítica a todas estas corrientes fue el hecho de que aquella procedía de uno modo lógico-abstracto, desatendiendo el contexto concreto en el que tienen lugar las explicaciones históricas.Palabras claveRanke, Droysen, Meinecke, Abusch, Wehler, Historicismo, Historia-ciencia social, historia de lo cotidiano. 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document