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As the nations of the world grapple with the task of creating sustainable societies, ending and in some cases reversing population growth will be necessary to succeed. Yet stable or declining populations are typically reported in ...
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As the nations of the world grapple with the task of creating sustainable societies, ending and in some cases reversing population growth will be necessary to succeed. Yet stable or declining populations are typically reported in the media as a problem, or even a crisis, due to demographic aging. This is misguided, as economic analyses show that the costs connected with aging societies are manageable, while the economic, social, and environmental benefits of smaller populations are substantial. Earth's human-carrying capacity has been exceeded; hence, population growth must end and aging societies are unavoidable. They should be embraced as part of a just and prosperous future for people and the other species with whom we share our planet.
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This paper returns to an issue often discussed in the literature regarding the relationship between highway expansion and population change. Typically it simply is assumed that this relationship is well established and understood....
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This paper returns to an issue often discussed in the literature regarding the relationship between highway expansion and population change. Typically it simply is assumed that this relationship is well established and understood. It is argued, following a thorough review of the relevant literature, that the notion that highway expansion leads to increased population growth in the vicinity of the improved infrastructure finds only weak and often conflicting support. Using data on all major highway expansions in Wisconsin (USA) covering the period from the late-1960s through the 1990s from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT), and census data at the minor civil division (MCD) level covering the period 1970-2000, the present study deploys the analytical tools of geographic information system (GIS) software, and theory from the expanding literature in spatial analysis and modelling, to take a fresh look at this relationship. The analysis reveals that there is a modest relationship between highway expansion and population growth among MCDs within 10-20 miles of the expanded major highway. The causal structure, however, is complex. The starting hypothesis argues that population growth precedes highway expansion as frequently as population growth results from highway expansion, but the data show otherwise. The dominant causal influence appears to flow from highway expansion to population growth..
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This study examined height inequality as an indicator of income inequality during the colonial period (1910-1945) in Korea. Data were taken from a sample of 1796 male prisoners from a wide range of geographical locations and with ...
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This study examined height inequality as an indicator of income inequality during the colonial period (1910-1945) in Korea. Data were taken from a sample of 1796 male prisoners from a wide range of geographical locations and with varied socioeconomic backgrounds. Height inequality was measured using the coefficient of variation of height (CV) for each birth decade. The results indicated that height inequality, as measured by the CV, increased slightly from 3.32 to 3.35 for the birth decades 1890-99 and 1900-09, then jumped to 3.50 for the birth decade 1910-19. Considering the Kuznets curve, the presented results have socioeconomic implications for Japan's impact in Korea, at least during the early colonial period.
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Education is generally assumed to have far-reaching beneficial consequences. At the individual level more education tends to imply better health, wider economic opportunities, and greater autonomy, especially for women (Federici, ...
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Education is generally assumed to have far-reaching beneficial consequences. At the individual level more education tends to imply better health, wider economic opportunities, and greater autonomy, especially for women (Federici, Mason, and Sogner 1993; Jejeebhoy 1995). At the aggregate level the educational composition of the population has long been considered a key factor in economic, institutional, and social development (Bellew, Raney, and Subbarao 1992; Benavot 1989; Hadden and London 1996) and in the rate of technological progress (Grossman and Helpman 1991; Romer 1992). The extensive theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between human capital formation and various aspects of development is not reviewed here. Instead, this research note demonstrates the feasibility of multi-state cohort component population projections for groups defined by different educational attainment. With the increasing importance of education in a knowledge-based economy, this approach can make acontribution not only to the field of demography, but also to long-range economic planning.
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This paper discusses a Fermi-problem exercise through which I take students in several of my college courses. Students work in teams, determining the average daily Caloric needs per person. Then they use insolation values to deter...
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This paper discusses a Fermi-problem exercise through which I take students in several of my college courses. Students work in teams, determining the average daily Caloric needs per person. Then they use insolation values to determine the size, of a collection area needed to absorb the previously determined daily energy requirements. Adjustments to the size of the collection area are made based on energy absorption per biological trophic level, as well as the consideration that most diets are a mixture of plant- and animal-derived elements. Finally, using the total amount of farmland available on the planet, students calculate a maximum population value. Although the maximum population values derived herewith should not be considered authoritative, the exercise has three beneficial purposes: 1) a chance to talk about the modeling process and extrapolations, 2) an unexpected application of physics to social contexts, and 3) raising student awareness of population and energy issues.
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Human activity is a major driver of change and has contributed to many of the challenges we face today. Detailed information about human population distribution is fundamental and use of freely available, high-resolution, gridded ...
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Human activity is a major driver of change and has contributed to many of the challenges we face today. Detailed information about human population distribution is fundamental and use of freely available, high-resolution, gridded datasets on global population as a source of such information is increasing. However, there is little research to guide users in dataset choice. This study evaluates five of the most commonly used global gridded population datasets against a high-resolution Swedish population dataset on a pixel level. We show that datasets which employ more complex modeling techniques exhibit lower errors overall but no one dataset performs best under all situations. Furthermore, differences exist in how unpopulated areas are identified and changes in algorithms over time affect accuracy. Our results provide guidance in navigating the differences between the most commonly used gridded population datasets and will help researchers and policy makers identify the most suitable datasets under varying conditions.
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Embryonic stem cells are derived from a transient population of cells in the early embryo, the inner cell mass (ICM), which gives rise to the various lineages of the developing organism. Cells of the ICM are not meant to stay plur...
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Embryonic stem cells are derived from a transient population of cells in the early embryo, the inner cell mass (ICM), which gives rise to the various lineages of the developing organism. Cells of the ICM are not meant to stay pluripotent for very long. But this is precisely what researchers would like embryonic stem cells in the culture dish to do, in order to both study them as an in vitro model of development and use them as a source of other cell types in a myriad of applications in the laboratory and clinic. The trick, however, is in working out what the best culture conditions might be.
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We review contributions from the field of genomics that have helped to inform our understanding of the history and evolutionary ecology of tropical rainforest hunting and gathering behavior by humans, and discuss potential opportu...
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We review contributions from the field of genomics that have helped to inform our understanding of the history and evolutionary ecology of tropical rainforest hunting and gathering behavior by humans, and discuss potential opportunities for future studies. This perspective encompasses i) the question of the antiquity of full-time tropical rainforest occupation, ii) the characterization of biological adaptations to the particular ecological challenges of this habitat, including small adult body size or the "pygmy" phenotype, and iii) the timing and nature of interactions between hunter-gatherer groups and the farming populations that migrated into interior tropical rainforest habitats following the origins of agriculture. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.
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