scholarly journals Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?

2013 ◽  
Vol 280 (1754) ◽  
pp. 20122845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Ehrlich ◽  
Anne H. Ehrlich
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Collapse ◽  
The Rich ◽  
First Time

Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.

scholarly journals CryptoKitties Transaction Network Analysis: The Rise and Fall of the First Blockchain Game Mania

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin-Jian Jiang ◽  
Xiao Fan Liu
Keyword(s):  
Network Analysis ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ownership Transfer ◽  
Time In Literature ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Short Time ◽  
First Time

CryptoKitties was the first widely recognized blockchain game. Players could own, breed, and trade kitties, which are the only prop in the game. The game gained explosive growth upon its release but quickly collapsed in a short time. This study analyzes its entire player activity history for the first time in literature and tries to find the reasons for the rise and fall of this first blockchain game mania. First, we extracted the five million transaction records among 100 thousand addresses involved in CryptoKitties in the past three years. Based on the numbers of addresses involved in the game each day, we divide the game progress into four stages: the primer, the rise, the fall, and the serenity. We construct a temporal kitty ownership transfer network and analyze the varying network parameters in the four stages. We find that a large number of players poured in during the 10th and 18th days since the game release and quickly exited in the following month. Since then, a few big players have gradually dominated the game, concentrating the game resources. Through further analysis, we find that the main reason for the rapid increase in the game popularity was the increase of public attention by media outlets, while the reasons for the rapid decline in the game popularity include the oversupply of kitties, the decreasing of player income, a widening gap between the rich and poor players, and the limitations of blockchain systems. Based on these observations, we advise on the further blockchain game design: (1) to finely control the production of props and avoid an oversupply, (2) to balance the gaming cost and revenue and protect the enjoyment of players, (3) to narrow down the gap between rich and poor and create an equal gaming community, (4) to consider the limitations of blockchain systems in their game designs.

A Qualified Assertion Database for the History of Places

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 95-115
Author(s):  
Brandon Plewe
Keyword(s):  
Data Model ◽  
Temporal Change ◽  
Religious Congregations ◽  
Historical Gis ◽  
The Past ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Complex Information ◽  
Invaluable Tool ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich

Historical place databases can be an invaluable tool for capturing the rich meaning of past places. However, this richness presents obstacles to success: the daunting need to simultaneously represent complex information such as temporal change, uncertainty, relationships, and thorough sourcing has been an obstacle to historical GIS in the past. The Qualified Assertion Model developed in this paper can represent a variety of historical complexities using a single, simple, flexible data model based on a) documenting assertions of the past world rather than claiming to know the exact truth, and b) qualifying the scope, provenance, quality, and syntactics of those assertions. This model was successfully implemented in a production-strength historical gazetteer of religious congregations, demonstrating its effectiveness and some challenges.

Trail-Blazer Dependency – A Roadmap for the Sustainability Revolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-337
Author(s):  
Jan Kunnas
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Pulp And Paper ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
Electric Car ◽  
Major Benefit ◽  
Quality Movement

While geologists are still considering whether the Anthropocene should be accepted as a formal geological epoch, it is up to us humanists to search for ways making this human era a good one. In this article, I will examine how we can use historical research to provide such tracks based on past regularities or similarities. Positive success stories from the past can at least provide faith that we can do something about our current environmental problems. This investigation is based on two case studies: the Tesla Model S electric car, and the Swedish pulp and paper industry's transition to chlorine-free bleaching. It argues that the sustainability revolution doesn't just share similarities with the quality movement of the 1970s and 1980s, but is essentially a continuation of it. In concordance with previous megatrends, the major benefit of the sustainability revolution will be reaped by countries and companies running ahead of the curve. A new term, 'trail-blazer dependency' is introduced; by setting an example, the first-movers are opening a trail for late-comers to follow.

“So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion”

1987 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 169-187
Author(s):  
Alexander Morgan Capron
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Workplace Safety ◽  
Selective Abortion ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adverse Impacts ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Insurance Discrimination

In the past several decades, the problems facing those of us who labor in the vineyards of health policy and ethics have been the problems of success — first medicine's and then, though to a lesser extent, our own. By this I mean that it has been the remarkable fruits of biomedicine, from research to health care delivery, that have produced the rich harvest of ethical, social and legal issues that have drawn our, and society's, attention.In the basic science laboratory, scientists have developed means to splice pieces of DNA together, raising questions from workplace safety to the reengineering of homo sapiens. Of more immediate concern, tests for genetic susceptibility to disease in one's self and one's offspring have been developed, thereby generating questions about employment and insurance discrimination, selective abortion, and adverse impacts on self-identity and well-being.

FC14-01 - Internal losses and the creation of “Nowhere land”: psychodynamic themes of adults with ADHD discovered during drama-therapy

2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1893-1893
Author(s):  
I. Manor ◽  
G. Yazpan
Keyword(s):  
Drama Therapy ◽  
Transitional Space ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chronic Disorder ◽  
Pharmacological Aspect ◽  
Inner Self ◽  
Socioeconomic Strata ◽  
The Creation ◽  
First Time

ADHD is a well-known, chronic disorder that persists in adulthood. During the past 20 years its existence in adults is becoming clearer, yet its dynamic aspects are rarely discussed. The treatment of adults is vital, as much as that of children; however the literature discussing it, especially its non-pharmacological aspect, is scarce.We describe the results of our treatment with drama-therapy of two groups of adults with ADHD. These groups included 11 adults (from both groups), men and women, from most socioeconomic strata, aged ≥ 60 yrs., who were diagnosed as suffering from ADHD and were treated for it for the first time in their life. Drama-therapy was selected as we believed it to be a useful method with associative, distracted ADHD patients, since it enabled the use of transitional space through non-verbal images and acts.This presentation discusses the basic themes with which patients began therapy. Interestingly, all patients, however different, shared the same themes that were built on self doubt and the pre-presumption of disappointment. The impairment related to ADHD, that was felt, but not understood, led to a strong experience of heavy losses, which we tried to define separately: of a clear path, of control, of the inner perception of borders and of the loss of an integrative inner self. All these losses were accumulated in the transitional space in a place we named “Nowhere land”.We would like to present these themes of losses and of becoming lost and to discuss their meaning.

BRAZILIAN BISHOP OUTLINES "A PASTORAL STRATEGY IN TIMES OF REVOLUTION"

Exchange ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-57
Keyword(s):  
Northeast Brazil ◽  
Profound Change ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Past ◽  
First Time

AbstractMons. Antonio Batista Fragoso has been bishop of Crateus in Northeast Brazil for the past ten years. Eighty percent of the 360,000 people in his diocese are impoverished peasants who engage in rudimentary farming. At least half of the peasants are landless. It is among these people that Bishop Fragoso has encouraged the formation of small grassroots Christian communities that are responsible for a profound change in the patterns of Christian living in his diocese. The following is LP's translation of excerpts from a talk that Bishop Fragoso gave to his fellow bishops and priests in Managua in October, 1980. This is the first time it has appeared in English. (Editor Latinamerica Press)

Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States: A Review and Critique of Recent Scholarship

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjule Anne Drury
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Irish Question ◽  
Political Economic

The past two decades have seen an efflorescence of works exploring cultural anti-Catholicism in a variety of national contexts. But so far, historians have engaged in little comparative analysis. This article is a first step, examining recent historical literature on modern British and American anti-Catholicism, in order to trace the similarities and distinctiveness of the turn-of-the-century German case. Historians are most likely to be acquainted with American nativism, the German Kulturkampf, continental anticlericalism, and the problems of Catholic Emancipation and the Irish Question in Britain. Many of the themes and functions of anti-Catholic discourse in the West transcended national and temporal boundaries. In each case, the conceptualization of a Catholic ‘other’ is a testament to the tenacity of confessionalism in an age formerly characterized as one of inexorable secularization. Contemporary observers often agreed that religious culture—like history, race, ethnicity, geography, and local custom—played a role in the self-evident distinctiveness of peoples and nations, in their political forms, economic performance, and intellectual and artistic contributions. We will see how confessionalism remained a lens through which intellectuals and ordinary citizens, whether attached or estranged from religious commitments, viewed political, economic, and cultural change.

scholarly journals Novel AI driven approach to classify infant motor functions

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Reich ◽  
Dajie Zhang ◽  
Tomas Kulvicius ◽  
Sven Bölte ◽  
Karin Nielsen-Saines ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Algorithm ◽  
Movement Pattern ◽  
Video Stream ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
The Past ◽  
Movement Assessment ◽  
Computer Based ◽  
Ablation Study ◽  
First Time ◽  
Efficient Screening

AbstractThe past decade has evinced a boom of computer-based approaches to aid movement assessment in early infancy. Increasing interests have been dedicated to develop AI driven approaches to complement the classic Prechtl general movements assessment (GMA). This study proposes a novel machine learning algorithm to detect an age-specific movement pattern, the fidgety movements (FMs), in a prospectively collected sample of typically developing infants. Participants were recorded using a passive, single camera RGB video stream. The dataset of 2800 five-second snippets was annotated by two well-trained and experienced GMA assessors, with excellent inter- and intra-rater reliabilities. Using OpenPose, the infant full pose was recovered from the video stream in the form of a 25-points skeleton. This skeleton was used as input vector for a shallow multilayer neural network (SMNN). An ablation study was performed to justify the network’s architecture and hyperparameters. We show for the first time that the SMNN is sufficient to discriminate fidgety from non-fidgety movements in a sample of age-specific typical movements with a classification accuracy of 88%. The computer-based solutions will complement original GMA to consistently perform accurate and efficient screening and diagnosis that may become universally accessible in daily clinical practice in the future.

New species and record of Pseudonereis (Annelida, Polychaeta, Nereididae) from Taiwan

Zootaxa ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4996 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-512
Author(s):  
PAN-WEN HSUEH
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
New Record ◽  
Length Ratio ◽  
Offshore Island ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Record Species ◽  
Ridge Pattern ◽  
Two New Species ◽  
First Time ◽  
Key Characters

Two new species and one new record species of the genus Pseudonereis are described from specimens collected from ecological surveys of coasts of Taiwan and an offshore island during the past 15 years: P. jihueiensis n. sp., P. kihawensis n. sp., and P. trimaculata. Epitokes of P. jihueiensis n. sp. and P. trimaculata are also described. Pseudonereis jihueiensis n. sp. can be distinguished from congeners by having edentate jaws, χ-shaped ridge pattern of Areas VI–V–VI, parapodial morphology (i.e., length ratio of dorsal cirrus to dorsal ligule or presence of small pennant-like dorsal ligule, shape of dorsal ligule in certain region of chaetigers), and no heterogomph spinigers in the subacicular fascicle of the neuropodia. Pseudonereis kihawensis n. sp. differs from congeners by having crescent-shaped pointed-bars in Area VI, λ-shaped ridge pattern of Areas VI–V–VI, parapodial morphology (i.e., length ratio of dorsal cirrus to dorsal ligule or presence of small pennant-like dorsal ligule or shape of dorsal ligule in certain region of chaetigers), and no heterogomph spinigers in the subacicular fascicle of the neuropodia. Pseudonereis trimaculata, a species originally described from Indonesia, is reported from Taiwan for the first time. A table of key characters for all species of Pseudonereis is provided.  

Profaning the Sacred: The Unorthodox Financial Activities of Catholic Clerics During the Napoleonic Period, 1796–1814

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-542
Author(s):  
Christopher Korten
Keyword(s):  
Precious Metals ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Critical Periods ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Times ◽  
First Time ◽  
Insight Into

This article reveals for the first time how Catholic clerics survived financially during the Napoleonic period in Italy (1796–1814). Despite the very rich, 200-year historiography on one of the Church's most critical periods, there is almost nothing on how religious clerics coped at this time. Their institutions had been despoiled by the French, often in collaboration with locals, negating traditional forms of clerical income, such as alms or rental income from non-ecclesiastical properties. This caused clerics to search out unorthodox – at times, non-canonical – ways of eking out a living, either for themselves, their religious communities or both, as such distinctions were often blurred. Masses were monetized and traded; ecclesiastical paraphernalia composed of precious metals were smelted and commodified, and relics were sold for profit. The uncovering of these controversial acts by men who in normal times were upstanding reveals the desperation of the times and provides insight into the rich discussion on determining the degrees of separation (and overlap) between the sacred and profane.

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