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This is a history of Eighteenth-Century Collections Online, a database of over 180,000 titles. Published by Gale in 2003 it has had an enormous impact of the study of the eighteenth century. Like many commercial digital archives, ECCO's continuing development obscures its precedents. This Element examines its prehistory as, first, a computer catalogue of eighteenth-century print, and then as a commercial microfilm collection, before moving to the digitisation and development of the interfaces to ECCO, as well as Gale's various partnerships and licensing deals. An essential aspect of this Element is how it explores the socio-cultural and technological debates around the access to old books from the 1930s to the present day: Stephen Gregg demonstrates how these contexts powerfully shape the way ECCO works to this day. The Element's aim is to make us better users and better readers of digital archives. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
People looking for works in cities are immersed in English as the lingua franca of the mobile phone and the urban hustle – more effective instigations to reading than decades of work by traditional publishers and development agencies. The legal publishing industry campaigns to convince people to scorn pirates and plagiarists as a criminal underclass, and to instead purchase copyrighted, barcoded works that have the look of legitimacy about them. They work with development industry officials to 'foster literacy' – meaning to grow the legal book trade as a contributor to national economic health, and police what and how the newly literate read. But harried cash-strapped audiences will read what and how they can, often outside of formal economies, and are increasingly turning to mobile phone platforms that sell texts at a fraction of the price of legally printed books.
Vanadium isotope ratios (51V/50V) have potential to provide information about changes in past ocean oxygen contents. In particular, V isotopes may find utility in tracing variations at non-zero oxygen concentrations because the redox couple that controls V elemental and isotopic abundances in seawater (vanadate-vanadyl) appears to operate around 10M O2. This characteristic sets V isotopes apart from many other metal isotope redox proxies that require more reducing conditions to register significant changes in their isotope budgets. The oxygen abundance sensitivity range of V isotopes suggests that this paleoproxy could be particularly useful in tracing marine oxygenation changes throughout the Phanerozoic and potentially beyond.
Reconstruction of ocean paleoproductivity and paleochemistry is paramount to understanding global biogeochemical cycles such as the carbon, oxygen and sulfur cycles and the responses of these cycles to changes in climate and tectonics. Paleo-reconstruction involves the application of various tracers that record seawater compositions, which in turn may be used to infer oceanic processes. Several important tracers are incorporated into pelagic barite, an authigenic mineral that forms in the water column. Here we summarize the utility of pelagic barite for the reconstruction of export production and as a recorder of seawater S, O, Sr, Ca and Ba.
'Relativism versus absolutism' is one of the fundamental oppositions that have dominated reflections about science for much of its (modern) history. Often these reflections have been inseparable from wider social-political concerns regarding the position of science in society. Where does this debate stand in the philosophy and sociology of science today? And how does the 'relativism question' relate to current concerns with 'post truth' politics? In Relativism in the Philosophy of Science, Martin Kusch examines some of the most influential relativist proposals of the last fifty years, and the controversies they have triggered. He argues that defensible forms of relativism all deny that any sense can be made of a scientific result being absolutely true or justified, and that they all reject 'anything goes' – that is the thought that all scientific results are epistemically on a par. Kusch concludes by distinguishing between defensible forms of relativism and post-truth thinking.
For much of its life, the field of policy analysis has lived with a wide range of definitions of its goals, work and significance in the society. This Element seeks to sort out these differences by describing the issues, players and developments that have played a role over the life of this field. As a result of the relationships that have developed an environment has emerged where both academics and practitioners who self identify as 'policy analysts' are not always recognized as such by others who use that same label.This Element explores the reasons why this conflictual situation has developed and whether the current status is a major departure from the past. While these developments may not be new or found only in policy analysis, they do have an impact on the status of the academics as well as the practitioners in the field.
This Element provides a detailed analysis of official finances from China to Africa with special attention to the question of Africa's foreign finances policy. The findings reveal that Africa has an infrastructure gap and Chinese finances are largely used to fund infrastructure projects. However, the majority of the funds are loans, which are mortgaged on Africa's natural resources. In addition, Chinese firms are the ones implementing the projects, and much of the raw material and labor is imported from China. All these calls for Africa to institute a coherent foreign finances policy that ensures African countries fully benefit from these finances.
In the age of data-driven problem-solving, applying sophisticated computational tools for explaining substantive phenomena is a valuable skill. Yet, application of methods assumes an understanding of the data, structure, and patterns that influence the broader research program. This Element offers researchers and teachers an introduction to clustering, which is a prominent class of unsupervised machine learning for exploring and understanding latent, non-random structure in data. A suite of widely used clustering techniques is covered in this Element, in addition to R code and real data to facilitate interaction with the concepts. Upon setting the stage for clustering, the following algorithms are detailed: agglomerative hierarchical clustering, k-means clustering, Gaussian mixture models, and at a higher-level, fuzzy C-means clustering, DBSCAN, and partitioning around medoids (k-medoids) clustering.
Text is everywhere, and it is a fantastic resource for social scientists. However, because it is so abundant, and because language is so variable, it is often difficult to extract the information we want. There is a whole subfield of AI concerned with text analysis (natural language processing). Many of the basic analysis methods developed are now readily available as Python implementations. This Element will teach you when to use which method, the mathematical background of how it works, and the Python code to implement it.
Precise measurements of the calcium (Ca) isotopes have provided constraints on Ca cycling at global and local scales, and quantified rates of carbonate diagenesis in marine sedimentary systems. Key to applying Ca isotopes as a geochemical tracer of Ca cycling, carbonate (bio)mineralization, and diagenesis is an understanding of the impact of multiple factors potentially impacting Ca isotopes in the rock record. These factors include variations in stable isotopic fractionation factors, the influence of local-scale Ca cycling on Ca isotopic gradients in carbonate settings, carbonate dissolution and reprecipitation, and the relationship between the Ca isotopic composition of seawater and mineral phases that record the secular evolution of seawater chemistry.
Beginning in the nineteenth century, mathematics' traditional domains of 'number and figure' became vigorously displaced by altered settings in which former verities became discarded as no longer sacrosanct. And these innovative recastings appeared everywhere, not merely within the familiar realm of the non-Euclidean geometries. How can mathematics retain its traditional status as a repository of necessary truth in the light of these revisions? The purpose of this Element is to provide a sketch of this developmental history.
This Element has two main aims. The first one (sections 1-7) is an historically informed review of the philosophy of probability. It describes recent historiography, lays out the distinction between subjective and objective notions, and concludes by applying the historical lessons to the main interpretations of probability. The second aim (sections 8-13) focuses entirely on objective probability, and advances a number of novel theses regarding its role in scientific practice. A distinction is drawn between traditional attempts to interpret chance, and a novel methodological study of its application. A radical form of pluralism is then introduced, advocating a tripartite distinction between propensities, probabilities and frequencies. Finally, a distinction is drawn between two different applications of chance in statistical modelling which, it is argued, vindicates the overall methodological approach. The ensuing conception of objective probability in practice is the 'complex nexus of chance'.
During the period of decolonisation in Africa, the CIA covertly subsidised a number of African authors, editors and publishers as part of its anti-communist propaganda strategy. Managed by two front organisations, the Congress of Cultural Freedom and the Farfield Foundation, its Africa programme stretched across the continent. This Element unravels the hidden networks and associations underpinning African literary publishing in the 1960s; it evaluates the success of the CIA in secretly infiltrating and influencing African literary magazines and publishing firms, and examines the extent to which new circuits of cultural and literary power emerged. Based on new archival evidence relating to the Transcription Centre, The Classic and The New African, it includes case studies of Wole Soyinka, Nat Nakasa and Bessie Head, which assess how the authors' careers were affected by these transnational networks and also reveal how they challenged, subverted, and resisted external influence and control.
We live in a networked world. Online social networking platforms and the World Wide Web have changed how society thinks about connectivity. Because of the technological nature of such networks, their study has predominantly taken place within the domains of computer science and related scientific fields. But arts and humanities scholars are increasingly using the same kinds of visual and quantitative analysis to shed light on aspects of culture and society hitherto concealed. This Element contends that networks are a category of study that cuts across traditional academic barriers, uniting diverse disciplines through a shared understanding of complexity in our world. Moreover, we are at a moment in time when it is crucial that arts and humanities scholars join the critique of how large-scale network data and advanced network analysis are being harnessed for the purposes of power, surveillance, and commercial gain. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Placing evolutionary events in the context of geological time is a fundamental goal in paleobiology and macroevolution. In this Element we describe the tripartite model used for Bayesian estimation of time calibrated phylogenetic trees. The model can be readily separated into its component models: the substitution model, the clock model and the tree model. We provide an overview of the most widely used models for each component and highlight the advantages of implementing the tripartite model within a Bayesian framework.
In many parts of the world, oppositional publishing has emerged in contexts of state oppression. In South Africa, censorship laws were enacted in the 1960s, and the next decade saw increased pressure on freedom of speech and publishing. With growing restrictions on information, activist publishing emerged. These highly politicised publishers had a social responsibility, to contribute to social change. In spite of their cultural, political and social importance, no academic study of their history has yet been undertaken. This Element aims to fill that gap by examining the history of the most vocal and arguably the most radical of this group, Ravan Press. Using archival material, interviews and the books themselves, this Element examines what the history of Ravan reveals about the role of oppositional print culture.
In 1969, political scientist Jack Walker published 'The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States' in the American Political Science Review. 'Walker 1969' has since become a cornerstone of political science, packed with ideas, conjectures, and suggestions that spawned multiple lines of research in multiple fields. In good Kuhnian fashion, Walker 1969 is important less for the answers it provides than for the questions it raises, inspiring generations of political scientists to use the political, institutional, and policy differences among the states to understand policymaking better. Walker 1969 is the rock on which the modern subfield of state politics scholarship was built, in addition to inspiring copious research into federalism, comparative politics, and international relations. This Element documents the deep and extensive impact of Walker 1969 on the study of policymaking in the US states. In the process, it organizes and analyzes that literature, demonstrating its progress and promise.
In this Element the origins of corporate governance are reviewed, recognising that corporate entities have always been governed, that important developments took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the huge significance of the invention of the joint-stock limited liability company. The development of corporate governance in the twentieth century around the world is explored, with complex groups, private companies, and top management dominating shareholder power appearing in the Inter-war years. Some unresolved issues in both principle and practice are identified. Various theories of corporate governance are described and contrasted. The subject is seen to be in search of its paradigm and a systems theoretical relationship between the theories is suggested. The need to rethink the concept of the limited liability company is argued, and a call is made for the development of a philosophy of corporate governance.
How do bureaucracies remember? The conventional view is that institutional memory is static and singular, the sum of recorded files and learned procedures. There is a growing body of scholarship that suggests contemporary bureaucracies are failing at this core task. This Element argues that this diagnosis misses that memories are essentially dynamic stories. They reside with people and are thus dispersed across the array of actors that make up the differentiated polity. Drawing on four policy examples from four sectors (housing, energy, family violence and justice) in three countries (the UK, Australia and New Zealand), this Element argues that treating the way institutions remember as storytelling is both empirically salient and normatively desirable. It is concluded that the current conceptualisation of institutional memory needs to be recalibrated to fit the types of policy learning practices required by modern collaborative governance.
This Element is intended for students and practitioners as a gentle and intuitive introduction to the field of discrete-time yield curve modelling. I strive to be as comprehensive as possible, while still adhering to the overall premise of putting a strong focus on practical applications. In addition to a thorough description of the Nelson-Siegel family of model, the Element contains a section on the intuitive relationship between P and Q measures, one on how the structure of a Nelson-Siegel model can be retained in the arbitrage-free framework, and a dedicated section that provides a detailed explanation for the Joslin, Singleton, and Zhu (2011) model.