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This is the first practical lesson of our enquiry: that precise formulation of the problem for the North Sea plaice confirms what so many … deliberations have frequently stated, namely that there is ample room for improvement in the plaice fishery. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) did not meet during the Second World War but, as Maurice had anticipated in 1938, it was kept alive in no small part by the strong hand of President Hjort (see chapter 6). Following the tense 1939 meeting in Berlin, Hjort called an emergency meeting of the ‘senior delegates’ from Denmark and Sweden to discuss the future of ICES (Went 1972b p. 94). Acting with the support of those discussions, Hjort encouraged the staff in Copenhagen to continue the work of ICES throughout the war. Not only would a report on administrative matters be completed, but also several scientific reports that had been in preparation were published. Importantly, the plans to create a new publication that had been made during the Berlin meeting were carried forward, with the first number of Annales biologiques appearing in October 1943. Designed by Russell to record ‘all results of importance for the understanding of the fluctuations in the marine populations as well as their conditions of existence and changes,’ (Hjort 1943 p. 6) the Annales would provide just the type of information that would be needed to recover the lost momentum when the war ended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How far … then mathematics will suffice to describe, and physics to explain, the fabric of the body, no man can foresee. The value of using mathematics in the study of biology has been advocated by philosophers and some biologists since well before the mid-1800s; the dangers of allowing its overwhelming deductive power to control the biologist's thinking has been argued just as long. Despite the purported dangers, however, in the late 1800s and the early 1900s mathematics was beginning to be applied to many biological systems. For example, Heincke in his study of the races of herring criticized his colleagues for their ‘aversion toward measurements and numbers’ while at the same time acknowledging their reticence to use this tool because, as he put it, ‘many of them have no mathematical sense, and no schooling in mathematics.’ Heincke's use of mathematics was, however, primarily statistical and descriptive of what he had measured, involving a rigor that he saw as essential if one ‘demands that his labours be regarded as a contribution to the knowledge of the true laws of nature’ (see Sinclair and Solemdal 1988 p. 195). In 1917 D'Arcy Thompson published a book titled On growth and form, which relied heavily on mathematics from a different point of view. Oriented primarily towards describing the growth of organisms, he relied on mathematical descriptions of their patterns of growth and morphology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 2 of the book "Older Persons in Southeast Asia: An Emerging Asset" is presented. It discusses the likely future changes in age distribution in Southeast Asian countries and some key dimensions of the expected population ageing. It cites the proportion of the population above the age of 80 as an important indicator in the context of ageing. Particular focus is given to the educational attainment distribution for Singapore in 2000, along with the results of a 2006 survey on people's attitudes towards health and retirement.

Presents the chapter 6 of the book "Handbook of Religion & Social Institutions." Significant changes in the religious landscape in the U.S. brought by the interest in adolescence and religion; Demography of religious engagement during adolescence; Role of religion in adolescence development; Consequences of religious or spiritual engagement among adolescents.

The Republic of Singapore is a premier example of a state whose developmental trajectory started by taking into account its international and regional location. The government explicitly repositioned the city-state to utilize its historical legacy, spatial location, economic heritage, political structure, and the demographic and ethnic constituency. Two decades after independence, Singapore already emerged as a global “city,” a feat that took others a century to accomplish. This chapter explores the use of the social services to promote Singapore's status as a world city. A hallmark of Singapore's policy making is the ongoing attention to the comparative advantages and disadvantages of a nation of the “South.” The state applies social engineering to direct the economy and society to affect the nation's place in the global economy. To legitimize its programs, the populace is exhorted to see its fate linked to that of their country and its world status. There are ongoing efforts to anticipate change and adjust manpower policies. Integration into the world economy occasions immense social dislocations, which the social services continue to moderate. The policies at first fit a particular set of circumstances, but dynamically change with conditions (Ho 1995). I focus on the government's molding a new family on behalf of its development program, the best-known example in a market economy of a society restructured by the state. Social policies shape people's goals as well as how they reach their objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

You should propose that the scientific investigations shall be accompanied by a practical exposé of the steps to be taken in order to bring the exercise of sea fishing more in accord with the natural conditions regulating the growth and increase of fish, and thus permanently increase the supply of fish in the markets of the countries adjoining the North Sea. Throughout the 1880s and the 1890s many conferences were held with the goal of promoting international cooperation between the nations of Europe. Some of these conferences were mundane but important for regulation of international trade and commerce, such as the ‘North Sea Convention’ of 1882, which defined ‘territorial waters’ and agreed upon a vessel identification and marking scheme. Others failed to reach agreement, but helped to define what would be needed, such as the National Sea Fisheries Protection Association's conferences on international cooperation in fishing during the 1890s (see chapter 3), and the 1892 Peace Congress in Berne. Of the many conferences of this period, two held late in the century are of particular interest, each in its own realm. In 1897 Nicolas II, Tzar of Russia, proposed an arms limitation conference, a proposal that shocked the world and prompted a skeptical poem by Kipling, from which came the famous phrase ‘the bear that walks like a man.’ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[T]he fluctuation of year classes [is] a prominent, perhaps the predominating factor determining fluctuations in the fisheries. Hjort's conclusions that the fluctuations in the catches were due, at least in part, to the large variability in the numbers of young herring and cod surviving from each year's spawning were accepted by almost all scientists by 1920. While D. W. Thompson continued to argue that herring scales could not reveal age precisely, and hence could not be relied on to reveal fluctuating age compositions as Hjort claimed, many other scientists began to demonstrate similar fluctuations in age frequency distributions for other species of fish. Armed with Hjort's answer to the question posed to Sars now more than a half century earlier, and with the results of the ‘War Experiment’ demonstrating the effects of reducing fishing intensity, scientists entered the 1920s with a sense of optimism. One cause of the fluctuations of fish populations was known, and the possibility ‘of turning our knowledge to the practical guidance of the fishermen’ (Thompson, H. 1929) by predicting future catches began to attract the interest of several biologists working in the North Sea and in North America. Three approaches were taken. One was based on monitoring the varying age distributions by directly sampling the commercial catches or, using research vessels, sampling the population itself. This approach achieved moderate success for the North Sea haddock and East Anglia herring fisheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]