scholarly journals Got Milk? How Freedoms Evolved From Dairying Climates

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 1048-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evert Van de Vliert ◽  
Christian Welzel ◽  
Andrey Shcherbak ◽  
Ronald Fischer ◽  
Amy C. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Dairy Farming ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Old World ◽  
Lactose Tolerance ◽  
Hydraulic Theory

The roots and routes of cultural evolution are still a mystery. Here, we aim to lift a corner of that veil by illuminating the deep origins of encultured freedoms, which evolved through centuries-long processes of learning to pursue and transmit values and practices oriented toward autonomous individual choice. Analyzing a multitude of data sources, we unravel for 108 Old World countries a sequence of cultural evolution reaching from (a) ancient climates suitable for dairy farming to (b) lactose tolerance at the eve of the colonial era to (c) resources that empowered people in the early industrial era to (d) encultured freedoms today. Historically, lactose tolerance peaks under two contrasting conditions: cold winters and cool summers with steady rain versus hot summers and warm winters with extensive dry periods (Study 1). However, only the cold/wet variant of these two conditions links lactose tolerance at the eve of the colonial era to empowering resources in early industrial times, and to encultured freedoms today (Study 2). We interpret these findings as a form of gene-culture coevolution within a novel thermo-hydraulic theory of freedoms.

scholarly journals Review: Application and Prospective Discussion of Machine Learning for the Management of Dairy Farms

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1690 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Cockburn
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Dairy Farm ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Dairy Farming ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Dairy Research

Dairy farmers use herd management systems, behavioral sensors, feeding lists, breeding schedules, and health records to document herd characteristics. Consequently, large amounts of dairy data are becoming available. However, a lack of data integration makes it difficult for farmers to analyze the data on their dairy farm, which indicates that these data are currently not being used to their full potential. Hence, multiple issues in dairy farming such as low longevity, poor performance, and health issues remain. We aimed to evaluate whether machine learning (ML) methods can solve some of these existing issues in dairy farming. This review summarizes peer-reviewed ML papers published in the dairy sector between 2015 and 2020. Ultimately, 97 papers from the subdomains of management, physiology, reproduction, behavior analysis, and feeding were considered in this review. The results confirm that ML algorithms have become common tools in most areas of dairy research, particularly to predict data. Despite the quantity of research available, most tested algorithms have not performed sufficiently for a reliable implementation in practice. This may be due to poor training data. The availability of data resources from multiple farms covering longer periods would be useful to improve prediction accuracies. In conclusion, ML is a promising tool in dairy research, which could be used to develop and improve decision support for farmers. As the cow is a multifactorial system, ML algorithms could analyze integrated data sources that describe and ultimately allow managing cows according to all relevant influencing factors. However, both the integration of multiple data sources and the obtainability of public data currently remain challenging.

scholarly journals Portuguese Origins of a 16th Century Aqueduct in México

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (61E) ◽  
pp. 467-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Doolittle
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Spanish Colonial ◽  
Old World ◽  
Technology Transfers ◽  
Original Owner

Many aqueducts built during the Spanish colonial era remain standing in México, albeit not functioning. A few date to the 16th century. Some of these early aqueducts are quite spectacular and highly visible. Others are small and are located in places not easily found.  Despite their size, small aqueducts are important for understanding knowledge pertaining to  technology transfers from the Old World to the New. One such aqueduct is on the property of the Hacienda de Pacho, near Xalapa in the state of Veracruz. One of its highly unusual characteristics is that its construction involved Gothic arches. No other colonial aqueduct in México has such features. According to documentary courses dating to AD 1591, it was built by the hacienda’s original owner who was from the Portuguese island of Madeira. This paper reports on field activities involved in verifying the Maderian origins of this unique aqueduct.

Evangelization of the “New World”: An Old World Perspective

1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casiano Floristán ◽  
Michael Keefe
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
New World ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Old World ◽  
World Perspective

The theological and political context of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spain and Portugal must be taken into account if one wants to understand the motivations and methods of the first missionaries to the New World. Rather than an evangelization, therefore, we need to speak of a catechization of the indigenous peoples of America, even though this process, and the abuses that followed, came under constant critique throughout the colonial era.

Migrants in the Creation of Cultures

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Romila Thapar
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
The Creation

Migrations have had a role in forming the economies and cultures of practically all countries. Their nature and effects must be studied objectively. In her lecture delivered in October 2020 in memory of Professor Satish Chandra, Professor Romila Thapar discusses the nature and effects of three migrations, distant from each other in time, viz. the Aryan, (second millennium BC), the Kuṣāṇa (early centuries AD) and Arab (tenth century onward). These migrations contributed to both economic change and cultural evolution. These were fundamentally different in nature from migrations accompanying colonial conquests and the forced shifting of people in the colonial era. The current prejudice against migrants, by those who claim this to be an expression of nationalism, should not cloud our judgement of earlier migrations into India and their role in our history and culture

scholarly journals Addressing the dilemma of India’s state dependency on Alcohol: ‘New-Soft’ Paternalism approach

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shivakumar Jolad ◽  
Chaitanya Ravi
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Policy ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Individual Agent ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
State Dependency ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Alcohol Policies ◽  
Soft Paternalism ◽  
Conscious Choice

Indian states have alcohol policies ranging from strict prohibition to high taxation and overregulation. A pernicious effect of prohibition, in particular, has been the clogging of judiciary, disproportionate impacts on the poor and marginalized and diversion of already limited state capacities. In this article, we examine the role of state policy in India in addressing alcoholism’s deleterious impacts such as economic hardships, domestic violence and high disease burden. We have traced the current policy ambivalence to India’s history with attitudes ranging from permissiveness, colonial-era commodification to prohibition. We argue that India’s current alcohol policy can be understood as a combination of ‘old’ paternalism built on moral-religious ideas and ‘hard’ paternalism where the state interference overrides conscious choice of individual agent. We propose a ‘new-soft,’ post colonial framework which strikes a balance between individual choice, public health, gender parity and state revenues while eschewing disproportionate prosecution and punishment.

Social transmission bias and the cultural evolution of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

Ultrastructure and analytical microprobe analysis of simian lung mite pigments

1986 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 324-325
Author(s):  
R. W. Cole ◽  
J. C. Kim
Keyword(s):  
Biomedical Research ◽  
Tissue Damage ◽  
Microprobe Analysis ◽  
Old World Monkeys ◽  
Old World ◽  
Experimental Animals ◽  
The Past ◽  
Lung Mite ◽  
Mite Infestations ◽  
Cardiopulmonary System

In recent years, non-human primates have become indispensable as experimental animals in many fields of biomedical research. Pharmaceutical and related industries alone use about 2000,000 primates a year. Respiratory mite infestations in lungs of old world monkeys are of particular concern because the resulting tissue damage can directly effect experimental results, especially in those studies involving the cardiopulmonary system. There has been increasing documentation of primate parasitology in the past twenty years.

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