Suchergebnisse

As recently as the late 1920s, there were almost no mechanisms for a systematic scholarly study of modern Asia and the Pacific in Western universities and research institutions. The Institute of Pacific Relations, formed in 1925 with its International Secretariat in New York, is largely responsible for changing these circumstances. The author outlines the principal features of the Institute's research activities until its demise in the late 1950s. (DÜI-Sen)

Humanities Open Book Program, a joint initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ; For nearly two centuries, Hawaii's leaders have endeavored to forge a unique international role for the Islands in Pacific and even in world affairs. Colorful figures such as Kalakaua, Walter Murray Gibson, and a host of others labored mightily to transform the Islands into an oceanic political power. Although their campaigns eventually failed, Hawaii was put forever on the diplomatic map with such ventures as the attempted annexation of a distant South Pacific islands group, the provocation of a quarrel with Germany that led to the brink of war, and the persistent defense of the interests of Pacific islanders in the capitals of Europe and America. A very different but nonetheless ambitious surge of activism followed Hawaii's annexation by the United States at the turn of the present century. Shortly after World War I, local internationalists formed the Pan-Pacific Union and the Institute of Pacific Relations as the foci of a concerted effort to foster greater political and cultural understanding throughout the Pacific and the world. While both groups frequently created headlines with various programs and proposals, the latter organization became widely known when it came under the attack of the anticommunist movement during the late 1940's and 1950's. Related endeavors in more recent years have produced numerous activities in educational, political, scientific, and commercial circles that presently involve a fair proportion of the Island establishment as well as numerous prominent figures from abroad. Elusive Destiny brings the details of this little-known but always present impulse in Hawaiian history together for the first time and goes on to speculate about the likely causes of successes or failures. Carefully researched and documented, richly illustrated, and concisely written, the book should interest all persons concerned with the modern Hawaiian experience.

The health implications of aviation noise are well documented and often represent a significant barrier to ambitions for growth of the sector, or for airport development. Legislation exists to help manage and mitigate the impacts of such noise, however the transposition of such regulations into European Member State law differs from state to state as does the efficacy of such measures. This paper presents the findings of a series of elite stakeholder interviews with aviation noise stakeholders to determine the efficacy of current noise management approaches, and to identify ways in which noise could be better managed in the future. The research is part of ANIMA, a Horizon 2020 funded research project that aims to better understand noise impact mitigation in the EU, with the aim of developing new methodologies, approaches and tools to manage and mitigate the impact of aviation noise, enhancing the capability to respond to the growing traffic demand. The elite interviews identified a number of themes including some limitations of the Environmental Noise Directive and the ICAO Balanced Approach, the failure of land use planning to reduce noise impact, and the identification of a number of desired future research programmes, for instance developing an evidence base of interventions to reduce noise to better inform decision making.

This report presents the work carried out, and the outputs produced for Deliverable 2.1 of ANIMA, in which EU regulations, legal obligations and practical interventions in relation to aircraft noise have been reviewed, focusing on the extent to which policy and practice have enabled effective implementation of ICAO's Balanced Approach to noise impact mitigation. As described in the methodology, the task was led by MMU and contributed to by all WP2 partners. In so doing, the report was driven by 2 primary approaches: A Pan-European Review of Existing Regulations and Mitigation Strategies, as driven by the use of data capture templates completed by WP partners and their networks. This review identified different approaches to noise impact mitigation in EU Member States and different patterns of implementation. Elite interviews conducted by an MMU researcher with aviation stakeholders who are impacted by, or who have the ability to influence the impacts of aviation noise. These interviews helped to understand how and why the patterns identified through the template forms have developed. As well as internal validation by ANIMA members, further validation of the findings of this review will also be provided by the Impacts and Balanced Approach Expert Committee who will have the opportunity, throughout ANIMA, to validate project findings, and feed in additional expertise. The first opportunity for IBAEC feedback on ANIMA will be on the key findings of this report and presented in Deliverable 2.2. The research found that whilst the transposition of the Environmental Noise Directive and EU Directive 2002/30/EC have gone a long way to ensuring that the ICAO Balanced Approach underpins aviation noise management and mitigation in the European Union, several challenges and priorities for future research remain. The main findings were: There is no one size fits all solution to aviation noise: each airport requires its own solutions based on its specific characteristics. In other words, Balanced Approach implementation needs ...

Social organization among human foragers is characterized by a three-generational system of resource provisioning within families, long-term pair-bonding between men and women, high levels of cooperation between kin and non-kin, and relatively egalitarian social relationships. In this paper, we suggest that these core features of human sociality result from the learning- and skill-intensive human foraging niche, which is distinguished by a late age-peak in caloric production, high complementarity between male and female inputs to offspring viability, high gains to cooperation in production and risk-reduction, and a lack of economically defensible resources. We present an explanatory framework for understanding variation in social organization across human societies, highlighting the interactive effects of four key ecological and economic variables: (i) the role of skill in resource production; (ii) the degree of complementarity in male and female inputs into production; (iii) economies of scale in cooperative production and competition; and (iv) the economic defensibility of physical inputs into production. Finally, we apply this framework to understanding variation in social and political organization across foraging, horticulturalist, pastoralist and agriculturalist societies.