Evolutionary theory of history

Several attempts have been made recently to apply Darwinian evolutionary theory to the study of culture change and social history. The essential elements in such a theory are that variations occur in population, and that a process of selective retention operates during their replication and transmission. Location of such variable units in the semantic structure of cognition provides the individual psychological basis for an evolutionary theory of history. Selection operates on both the level of cognition and on its phenotypic expression in action in relation to individual preferred sources of psychological satisfaction. Social power comprises the principal selective forces within the unintended consequences of action and through the struggle of individuals and groups in pursuit of opposing interests. The implication for historiography are methodological in that evolutionary theory of history sharpens the focus of explanatory situational analysis, and interpretive in that it provides a paradigmatic metanarrative for the understanding of historical change.

Charitable giving: A test of a revised Theory of Planned Behaviour model

Recent world events aside, downward trends in donating behaviour in Australia have increased the need for research into the factors that inhibit and encourage charitable giving. A revised Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model was used to determine the influence of attitudes, norms (injunctive, descriptive, and moral norms), perceived behavioural control (PBC), and past behaviour (PB) on intentions to donate money to charities and community service organisations. Respondents (N=186) completed a questionnaire assessing the constructs of the revised TPB model. Four weeks later, self-reported donating behaviour was assessed (n=65). Results showed support for the revised TPB model. Attitudes, PBC, injunctive norms, moral norms, and PB all predicted donating intentions. Descriptive norms did not predict intentions. Intention was the only significant predictor of selfreported behaviour four weeks later, with neither PBC nor PB having a direct effect on behaviour. Theoretical and applied implications of the results are discussed.

Linguistic determinism and theory of mind in deaf children

DeVilliers and DeVilliers (2000, 2005) propose that deaf and hearing children acquire a theory of mind (or the understanding that human behaviour is the product of psychological states like true and false beliefs) as a consequence of their linguistic mastery of a rule of syntax. Specifically, they argue that the syntactic rule for sentential complementation with verbs of speech (e.g., “say”) precedes syntactic mastery of complementation for cognition (e.g., “think”) and both of these developmentally precede and promote conceptual mastery of a theory of mind (ToM), as indexed via success on standard false belief tests. The present study examined this proposition in groups of primary-school-aged deaf children and hearing preschoolers who took false belief tests and a modified memory for complements test that included control questions. Guttman scaling techniques indicated no support either for the prediction that syntactic skill precedes ToM understanding or for the earlier emergence of complementation for “say” than for “think”. Methodological issues and implications for deaf children's ToM development are discussed.

Asymptotic theory of time varying networks with memory and heterogeneous activation pattern

In this thesis work we develop a new generative model of social networks belonging to the family of Time Varying Networks. The importance of correctly modelling the mechanisms shaping the growth of a network and the dynamics of the edges activation and inactivation are of central importance in network science. Indeed, by means of generative models that mimic the real-world dynamics of contacts in social networks it is possible to forecast the outcome of an epidemic process, optimize the immunization campaign or optimally spread an information among individuals. This task can now be tackled taking advantage of the recent availability of large-scale, high-quality and time-resolved datasets. This wealth of digital data has allowed to deepen our understanding of the structure and properties of many real-world networks. Moreover, the empirical evidence of a temporal dimension in networks prompted the switch of paradigm from a static representation of graphs to a time varying one. In this work we exploit the Activity-Driven paradigm (a modeling tool belonging to the family of Time-Varying-Networks) to develop a general dynamical model that encodes fundamental mechanism shaping the social networks' topology and its temporal structure: social capital allocation and burstiness. The former accounts for the fact that individuals does not randomly invest their time and social interactions but they rather allocate it toward already known nodes of the network. The latter accounts for the heavy-tailed distributions of the inter-event time in social networks. We then empirically measure the properties of these two mechanisms from seven real-world datasets and develop a data-driven model, analytically solving it. We then check the results against numerical simulations and test our predictions with real-world datasets, finding a good agreement between the two. Moreover, we find and characterize a non-trivial interplay between burstiness and social capital allocation in the parameters phase space. Finally, we present a novel approach to the development of a complete generative model of Time-Varying-Networks. This model is inspired by the Kaufman's adjacent possible theory and is based on a generalized version of the Polya's urn. Remarkably, most of the complex and heterogeneous feature of real-world social networks are naturally reproduced by this dynamical model, together with many high-order topological properties (clustering coefficient, community structure etc.).

Towards an integrative theory of religion and politics

In the social sciences, debate on the relationship between religion and politics is mainly the subject of analysis in the sociology of religion and the theory of international relations. While each of these fields promotes different approaches to study their interdependency. The individual's perception of religion and politics is neglected by current research. The faithful, who participates in religious ceremonies, listening and behaving according to specific religious teachings, actively engaging in the liturgical life of the institutional form of his religion, has a specific way of understanding the relationship between religion and politics. I argue that this aspect is under-researched and misrepresented in the literature of sociology and international relations. However, a more complex analysis is offered by the study of nationalism, and especially by its ethnosymbolic approach, which includes at the micro and macro societal level the presence of myths and symbols as part of the individual's and the nation's life. An integrative theory analysing the connection between religion and politics takes into account the role of myths and symbols from the perspectives of both individuals and ethnic communities.

A mean field theory of coded CDMA systems

We present a mean field theory of code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems with error-control coding. On the basis of the relation between the free energy and mutual information, we obtain an analytical expression of the maximum spectral efficiency of the coded CDMA system, from which a mean field description of the coded CDMA system is provided in terms of a bank of scalar Gaussian channels whose variances in general vary at different code symbol positions. Regular low-density parity-check (LDPC)-coded CDMA systems are also discussed as an example of the coded CDMA systems.

Toward a theory of coordinating:creating coordinating mechanisms in practice

This paper uses a practice perspective to study coordinating as dynamic activities that are continuously created and modified in order to enact organizational relationships and activities. It is based on the case of Servico, an organization undergoing a major restructuring of its value chain in response to a change in government regulation. In our case, the actors iterate between the abstract concept of a coordinating mechanism referred to as end-to-end management and its performance in practice. They do this via five performative–ostensive cycles: (1) enacting disruption, (2) orienting to absence, (3) creating elements, (4) forming new patterns, and (5) stabilizing new patterns. These cycles and the relationships between them constitute a process model of coordinating. This model highlights the importance of absence in the coordinating process and demonstrates how experiencing absence shapes subsequent coordinating activity.

Asymptotic theory of wall-attached convection in a horizontal fluid layer with a vertical magnetic field

A horizontal fluid layer heated from below in the presence of a vertical magnetic field is considered. A simple asymptotic analysis is presented which demonstrates that a convection mode attached to the side walls of the layer sets in at Rayleigh numbers much below those required for the onset of convection in the bulk of the layer. The analysis complements an earlier analysis by Houchens [J. Fluid Mech. 469, 189 (2002)] which derived expressions for the critical Rayleigh number for the onset of convection in a vertical cylinder with an axial magnetic field in the cases of two aspect ratios. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.

TEST:a tropic, embodied, and situated theory of cognition

TEST is a novel taxonomy of knowledge representations based on three distinct hierarchically organized representational features: Tropism, Embodiment, and Situatedness. Tropic representational features reflect constraints of the physical world on the agent's ability to form, reactivate, and enrich embodied (i.e., resulting from the agent's bodily constraints) conceptual representations embedded in situated contexts. The proposed hierarchy entails that representations can, in principle, have tropic features without necessarily having situated and/or embodied features. On the other hand, representations that are situated and/or embodied are likely to be simultaneously tropic. Hence, although we propose tropism as the most general term, the hierarchical relationship between embodiment and situatedness is more on a par, such that the dominance of one component over the other relies on the distinction between offline storage versus online generation as well as on representation-specific properties. © 2013 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

What do people think about when they answer theory of planned behaviour questionnaires? A 'think aloud' study

Two studies aiming to identify the nature and extent of problems that people have when completing theory of planned behaviour (TPB) questionnaires, using a cognitive interviewing approach are reported. Both studies required participants to 'think aloud' as they completed TPB questionnaires about: (a) increasing physical activity (six general public participants); and (b) binge drinking (13 students). Most people had no identifiable problems with the majority of questions. However, there were problems common to both studies, relating to information retrieval and to participants answering different questions from those intended by researchers. Questions about normative influence were particularly problematic. The standard procedure for developing TPB questionnaires may systematically produce problematic questions. Suggestions are made for improving this procedure. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications.

Theory of parabolic pulse generation in tapered fiber

We examine similarities and differences between high-power parabolic pulse generation in an active medium and in tapered fiber with decreasing normal dispersion. Using a realistic tapered fiber design, we demonstrate the possibility of parabolic pulse generation without an external pump and determine the limitations of this approach. © 2007 Optical Society of America.

Theory of optimal power budget in quasi-linear dispersion-managed fibre links

A theory of an optimal distribution of the gain of in-line amplifiers in dispersion-managed transmission systems is developed. As an example of the application of the general method, a design of the line with periodically imbalanced in-line amplification is proposed.