Tasking Students With Empathy: Field Observations, COVID-19, and Assessing an Anthropological Sensibility

In 2019 and 2020 students in an Australian university conducted a short ethnographic exercise, a ‘journal’, with an attunement to the multiplicity of meanings evident in a single space by a range of interlocutors. We emphasised and assessed ‘empathy’ as a short-hand for the kind of anthropological sensibility we hoped to encourage. By requesting an account that represented an awareness of how ‘others’ encounter and come to ‘know’ the world we promoted their adoption of a modality which is central to the discipline. We wanted them to describe the world—the terrain, the stuff of their surroundings—based on their observations of how these others behaved. To couch it in anthropological terms, we wanted them to be attuned to a multiplicity of ‘taskscapes’, Ingold’s term for the mutual constitution of people and places through culturally politically, economically, and spiritually informed actions (‘tasks’) (Ingold, 1993). These ‘taskscapes’ were illustrated through the work of McKee (2016), whose account of multiple simultaneous experiences in the Negev desert by those living in (variously labelled) Israel/Palestine, represented an unexperienced domain for most of the Australian students. Rather than reinforcing the dated notion that anthropology is something that is done ‘elsewhere’, by asking students to focus on anthropology ‘at home’ they embodied their understanding of a transferable concept—introduced via an ‘exotic’ example—through a locally embedded experience. This paper describes the delivery of this assignment in 2019 and 2020 and explores in detail the content of five student journals and their evidence of the targeted learning.

Consequences

This chapter considers some of the prominent strategic consequences arising from the prosecution of vicarious warfare over recent times. The chapter reveals its principal operational manifestations to further scrutiny with the aim of uncovering its central dynamics and shedding greater light on the often counterproductive strategic consequences of this form of war, at least as it has been conducted by the United States over recent times. It begins by presenting core Clausewitzian insights that can aid appreciation of the political dynamics underlying the use of force, and specifically as they apply to vicarious warfare. This helps explain how apparent tactical gains can shroud serious deficiencies in strategic terms. The chapter then shifts to outline how these dynamics play out in relation to three 'Ds' of delegation, danger-proofing and darkness, which are employed as short-hand descriptors for some of the central practices that have characterized contemporary US vicarious warfare.

‘The most beautiful hand’

Shorthand is a significant area in early modern palaeography, with systems widespread in the eighteenth century. Some aspired to a place in the gamut of hands taught by writing-masters at a time when multi-script literacy was a necessary accomplishment for many. John Byrom’s ‘Universal English Short-hand’ was one of the most important prior to Isaac Pitman’s. In contrast with those of rivals such as James Weston, Byrom promoted it to potential learners and patrons as a way of writing ‘in the most … beautiful Manner’. In considering some of its manifold uses by his pupils –effectively a scribal community before its publication in 1767 – this chapter focuses on Byrom’s concern for how shorthand looked on the page. This arose from his near lifelong ambition to print in shorthand – a project which at one stage involved William Caslon – and the chapter sketches some reasons why this ambition was thwarted.

Metaphor and Meaning in the Teleological Language of Biology

In the early twentieth century, neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory replaced traditional teleological causality as the accepted explanatory basis for biology. Yet, despite this rejection of teleology, biologists continue to resort to the language of purpose and design in order to define function, explain physiological processes, and describe behavior. The legitimacy of such teleological language is currently debated among biologists and philosophers of science. Many biologists and educators argue that teleological language can function as a type of convenient short-hand for describing function while some argue that such language contradicts the fundamentally ateleological nature of evolutionary theory. Others, such as Ernst Mayr, have attempted to redefine teleologyin such a way as to evade any metaphysical implications. However, most discussions regarding the legitimacy of teleological language in biology fail to consider the nature of language itself. Since conceptual language is intrinsically metaphorical, teleological language can be dismissed as decorative if and only if it can be replaced with alternative metaphors without loss of essential meaning. I conclude that, since teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological. It is the teleological character of life which makes it a unique phenomenon requiring a unique discipline of study distinct from physics or chemistry.

A Methodology to Adapt and Understand a Manufacturing System and Operations using Discrete-Event Simulatio

Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) is concerned with system and modeling of that system, where the state of the system is transformed at different discrete points from time to time, and several event occurs from time to time and the changes in state variables will transform then activities/attributes connected to these state variables changes according to the event. It is a robust methodology in the manufacturing industry for strategic, tactical, and operational applications for an organization, and yet organizations ignore to use simulation and do not rely on it. Moreover, companies that are using DES are not using the potential benefits but merely used as a short-hand basis for problems like bottlenecks, optimization, and in later stages of production like PLM, this paper aims to apply and analyze Discrete-Event Simulation through a Manufacturing System. The work describes here is to understand the concept of simulation for a system and to practice Discrete Event methodology

Prologue

… it is highly desirable—above all things—that you should now get to the Short Hand. If you can begin with me here at 10 tomorrow morning, do. Letter to Arthur Stone, 20 November 18591 1 Letters, IX, 173. On 18 November 1859, Charles Dickens met the illustrator Frank Stone in Tavistock Square. Frank, his friend and neighbour, was suffering from a heart condition. After he had ‘walked about with him for a little while at a snail’s pace, cheering him up’,...

Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous

SynopsisReference to glucocorticoids as “stress hormones” has been growing in prevalence in the literature, including in comparative and environmental endocrinology. Although glucocorticoids are elevated in response to a variety of stressors in vertebrate animals, the primary functions of glucocorticoids are not responding to stressors and they are only one component of complex suite of physiological and behavioral responses to stressors. Thus, the use of the short-hand phrase “stress hormone” can be misleading. Further, simply measuring glucocorticoids is not equivalent to measuring a stress response, nor is manipulating glucocorticoids equivalent to exposing an animal to a stressor. In this commentary we highlight the problems with using functional names for hormones, and of treating cortisol or corticosterone as synonymous with stress. We provide recommendations to add clarity to the presentation of research on this topic, and to avoid conflation of glucocorticoids with stressors and the stress response in the design of experiments.