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This research reports on how farmers perceive and adapt to climate change in three agro-ecological zones of Sidama, South Ethiopia. The main aim is to increase understanding about smallholder farmers' perspectives by documenting and analysing local people's perception of climate change. The research was held as part of a large project investigating vulnerability and adaptation to climate change. The researcher spent six months (from January to May 2012) in the field undertaking, among other things, focus group discussion (FGD) meetings from March to May 2012. Findings revealed that farmers clearly perceive climate change based on their lived experience and knowledge of their local environment. They identify shifting seasons, increased aridity, drought, erratic rainfall, floods, extreme heat and the emergence/spread of diseases such as malaria as indicators of change. Yet their perception of the causes of climate change varied: deforestation, God's wrath, abandonment of past traditions/practices, and overpopulation. They also assigned important role to religious beliefs and government authority to address the problems engendered by what they refer to as ˵changed times.″ Since the problem is rightly recognised, government policy needs to focus on aligning local knowledge and values with scientific information for adaptation to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a global scientific consensus on the anthropogenic nature of climate change, the issue remains highly contentious in the United States, stifling public debate and action on the issue. Local perceptions of and attitudes toward climate change–how different groups of people outside of the professional climate science community make sense of changes in climate in light of their personal experiences and social, political, economic, and environmental contexts–are critical foci for understanding ongoing conflicts over climate change. Contributing to a growing body of literature on the social science of climate change, we use an ethnographic approach to examine these perceptions and attitudes in three sites in Georgia across the urban–rural continuum. Our research demonstrates that the way people view the concept of climate change, its potential effects, and mitigation strategies are mediated by a range of factors, including political and religious affiliation, race and ethnicity, personal experience, economic status, environmental context, media exposure, and sense of community and place. We argue that an ethnographic approach that explores the perceptions and attitudes of specific communities in detail can add nuance to the broad-scale surveys that have dominated the field to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior knowledge and cognitive styles are considered important determinants in adaptive hypermedia learning systems (AHLSs) as they influence how learners select information to put into memory. However, there is a need to investigate how they influence learner performance and perceptions prior to comparing them and establishing if they can be used together to maximise learning in AHLSs. To this end, this study investigated the effects of prior knowledge on the use of AHLSs to set the foundation for the comparison. 60 students participated in this study. The results showed that, in general, adapting to prior knowledge improves learner performance and perceptions, especially for users with low prior knowledge. However, the results also indicated that the relative improvement in learner performance is significantly higher than that of perceptions when using the AHLS. The implications of the design of AHLSs are discussed by the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aim in this chapter is to consider how what we now know of the nervous system may account for understanding human behavior. Rather than the early view of animal spirits and surrogates for them, our view of the nervous system is that it is composed of neurons, with a mechanism of axoplasmic transport in them as schematized for a peripheral neuron in Figure 16.1. The same axonal mechanism is present as well in all neurons in the central nervous system. An example is that of cortical neurons crossing from one hemisphere to the other via the callosal tract. In addition to components required to maintain the viability of fibers and to provide the neurotransmitters acting at synaptic junctions. Other molecular signals are transported between neurons to establish and maintain the networks responsible for the integrated behavior of the organism. Networks formed in the brain under genetic control are responsible for perception, cognition and memory and are not permanently fixed. They are modified in the course of learning (Chapter 15). The broader theoretical issues relate to the degree of innateness of sensory and perceptual processes and how change is brought about. Up through most of the latter century, the concept of reflexes was held as the key to understanding behavior. In his great book on reflexes of the nervous system, Sherrington wrote, The reflex-arc is the unit mechanism of the nervous system when that system is regarded in its integrative function. The unit reaction in nervous integration is the reflex, because every reflex is an integrative action and no nervous action short of a reflex is a complete act of integration. […] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a complex service environment such as the hotel sector, assessing the perceived importance of services and facility attributes provides management with information not only to benchmark their service level provision, but also to retain and increase their customer base. The present study examines the perceived importance of the service and facilities attributes provided by a 3-star hotel. Results of the self-administered survey of 101 guests of three 3-star hotel properties in Perth (Western Australia) indicated that 13 of the 18 attributes were perceived as important. The 18 services and facility attributes were factor-analysed and three components emerged: physical facilities, service experienced and services provision. These three components were found to significantly contribute to the overall importance rating of the hotel attributes. Statistically significant differences were noted for age and residence on the physical facilities and services provided components. Results were discussed and implications with further research opportunities were suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[When Tsesarevich Nicholas] reached his majority …it was decided to send him abroad to round out his political development. At this point Emperor Alexander III had the idea of sending the Tsesarevich to the Far East …In addition to leaving him with a hostile feeling toward the Japanese, the journey produced in him an unreal sense about the East …This journey would put its stamp on Emperor Nicholas II's reign. The political objective of the Russians has always been focused on taking land that belonged to other people. They would seize an opportunity and employ a stratagem, offer a favor and win over the person who was in power, or use whatever other means necessary to place a piece of land, however small, under their influence. They would then establish permanent control over the land. The Western challenge proved highly disruptive not only for China and Korea, but also for Russia and Japan. The Industrial Revolution was an epochal change in human history. Prior to it, economies were comparatively static: They did not grow much, if at all. In the first half of the eighteenth century, English industry grew at only 0.7 percent per annum. Per capita standards of living did not change much either. Similarly, technological change was minimal. This meant that people's lives varied little from generation to generation. Once the Industrial Revolution hit, England started to grow at about 3 percent per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present war is an object lesson in many ways. The positions of the two greatest Eastern Powers of the present day have, within a few short months, been completely reversed. China, regarded as the Bluebeard of the East, is disclosed as a sheep parading in wolfs clothing; while Japan, who has never been seriously thought of at all, has with one bound suddenly entered the comity of nations and become one of us, whether we will it or no …If the Western world has been blind to the fact that Japan was steadily and surely working herself up to a position which should command for her recognition and respect, it has been equally blind to the extent to which official corruption was undermining China. The same period which has loaded Japan with laurels of admiration and applause, has sufficed to cover China with confusion and contempt …[N]othing short of a complete upheaval and breaking down of old systems seems practicable. Without losing a single ship or a single battle, Japan broke down the power of China, enlarged her own territory, and changed the whole political face of the Far East. After the fall of Port Arthur it had become evident to some officials in China that their country had to sue for peace or the Japanese army would march on Peking. In all, China would send three peace missions to Japan, two before the destruction of the Beiyang Squadron at Weihaiwei and the final one afterward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A version of the old fable in which a wolf and a jackal quarrel over the prostrate form of a lamb, while an eagle hovers overhead prepared to pounce down so soon as the combatants have reduced themselves to a state of helplessness, is just now being reproduced in North- Eastern Asia. China and Japan are contending for supremacy in Korea, while … the Russians on the northern frontier are prepared to take part in the fray. The present situation in the Far East is not the result of a gradual chain of events, but of the absolute surprise created by the unexpected results of the Chino-Japanese War. No doubt the collapse of China in 1894 was only the last act in a long drama of decadence, but it revealed to astonished Europe the utter incapacity of China either to reform or to defend herself, a fact for which we were quite unprepared … China had systematically fooled both Governments and public alike, who shared the same illusion as to her power … By dissipating these illusions and exhibiting to the world the truth concerning China's decrepitude, the Japanese victories produced almost the effect of an earthquake. With the Sino-Japanese War, Japan had achieved the key international goal that had precipitated three decades of Meiji reforms: It had acquired the status of an international power. Gone was the era of unequal treaties for Japan – but not for China. Westerners were falling over themselves to applaud Japan's successes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyone knew that a chastising would be highly satisfactory for China, but no one aspired to the privilege of giving it. Japan has. We are now witnessing the soundest thrashing being administered to China which that self-satisfied, ignorant and unprincipled Empire has ever received, and by an irony of fate the thrashing is being administered by the youngster who but a decade or two ago was her own pupil, albeit a conceited one, and by a hand which she thoroughly hates and despises. [T]he most pessimistic prophet could hardly have predicted the utter ineptitude of the Chinese military movements. The first two key battles of the war had focused on expelling the Chinese from the Korean Peninsula. The final two major battles focused on the land and sea approaches to Peking. After the Battle of the Yalu, the war theater shifted to Manchuria. The Japanese military wanted to clear the way from the Korean border to the Liaodong Peninsula in preparation for taking the vital fortress and naval refitting station of China's main naval base at Port Arthur (or Lüshun), located on the northern shore of the Bohai. The fortifications had taken sixteen years to build, and the naval station was considered superior to that of Hong Kong. If lost, the Chinese would be unable to repair their men-of-war damaged in battle and could expect to succumb to a Japanese naval attrition strategy if not to outright defeat in a major naval showdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is certain that the situation in Asia will grow steadily worse in the future …and we must make preparations for another war within the next ten years. Li Hung-chang contemplated with a woeful mien the row of Japanese officers who had accompanied the chargé d'affaires and told them in the presence of European diplomats: “In the next war we shall be beaten by you again in the same way as last time.” It may be that this competition in Korea will bring about the next conflict in the Pacific, and even menace the peace of the world. As this work has endeavored to show, in international relations perceptions are extremely important. Had China not been trounced in war, thus providing the powers with a spectacle of incompetence, the “scramble for concessions” might never have ensued. Not just perceptions by others, but also perceptions concerning others, matter. The Chinese misconstrued the balance of power both in the world at large and in their own backyard in Asia. They believed that, because they had always been dominant, so they would remain. They did not measure their own power relative to that of the Western powers and relative to Japan but assumed their own eternal superiority. They got it wrong in both cases and paid an enormous price for the mistake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese have sent an army to Korea …But it would be as reasonable to match brave men armed with pitchforks against brave men armed with rifles, as to pit, man for man, the Chinese in their present condition against the Japanese. The Japanese by their victories have drawn the attention of Europe and it is now acknowledged that they have become a great Power. An insular Empire on the Pacific, she has in a generation made herself a strong nation with an army and navy which have won victories over a proud enemy. Between the outbreak of the war in late July and the early fall of 1894, there was no heavy fighting, only some preliminary skirmishes. Two of the four major battles of the war would be fought in a three-day period in mid-September. The final two would be fought in late November of 1894 and early February of 1895. The first of these important battles took place at P'yôngyang, the former capital of Korea and the fiiture capital of North Korea. The outcome of this battle would determine which country would control the Korean Peninsula. If the Chinese forces could not hold P'yôngyang, they would probably be expelled from the country since the next defensible position was on their bank of the Yalu River, which forms the border with Manchuria. If this happened and the Japanese army crossed the Yalu River, the rest of the war would be on Chinese territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present war will, perhaps, go far to make the public of western countries understand that China and Japan are not different parts of the same country. They [the Japanese] know that the eyes of the civilized world are upon them and do not neglect any means to make their debût [sic] – as an Asiatic power fighting on modern principles – as impressive and imposing as possible. Before the onset of hostilities, the European and American press at home extended negligible coverage to the disintegrating situation in Korea. The notable exception was the Western press located in the Far East. Worthy of particular note were the British-owned weeklies: The Japan Weekly Mail, published in Yokohama, the sister city of Tokyo; The North-China Herald and Supreme Court and Consular Gazette, published in Shanghai, the great commercial metropolis of China; and The Peking and Tientsin Times, published in Tianjin, the official seat of Viceroy Li Hongzhang, who for many years served as China's quasi-foreignminister. These papers were distinguished by their detailed and passionate coverage of Far Eastern events. There were many other Western papers published in Asia as well, but most have not survived or are difficult to obtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean rulers, under whatever impulse they act, seem determined to create causes of international friction; petty causes, it is true, but these littles may make a mickle one fine day. Korea seems a very poor place to fight for. Its people are plunged in the most miserable poverty of any in the poverty-stricken East …. Japan, in spite of all her mistakes, stands for light and civilization; her institutions are enlightened; her laws, drawn up by European justice, are equal to the best we know, and they are justly administered; her punishments are humane; her scientific and sociological ideals are our own. China stands for darkness and savagery. Her science is ludicrous superstition, her law is barbarous, her punishments are awful, her politics are corruption, her ideals are isolation and stagnation. In 1894, the great Pullman Railway Strike paralyzed the economy of the Western half of the United States; the muckraking journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd published his expose of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company; and the United States remained in the throes of the Depression of 1893. In France, 1894 marked the beginning of the long, drawn-out Dreyfus affair, when anti-Semitism led to the court-martial and imprisonment on Devil's Island of an innocent Jewish officer. There were headlines concerning the assassinations of President Carnot of France and the Bulgarian nationalist, Stefan Stambulov. Tsar Alexander HI of Russia unexpectedly died, leaving the throne to his unprepared and panic-stricken twenty-six-year-old son, Nicholas II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has leaped, almost at one bound, to a place among the great nations of the earth. Her recent exploits in the war with China have focused all eyes upon her, and the world now comprehends the startling fact that this small island kingdom, so little taken account of heretofore in the calculations even of students and statesmen, has within a few decades stridden over ground traversed by other nations only within centuries. Those who most despair of China are those who know her best. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–5 is a seminal event in world history. Yet it has been virtually ignored in the Western literature. This is not the case in the East. Ever since this war, the focus of Chinese foreign policy has been to undo its results whereas the focus of Japanese foreign policy has been to confirm them. Japan used war to supplant Chinese regional primacy, but China refused to acknowledge the consequences of defeat. The war delivered a coup de grâce to the expiring traditional international order in the Far East: It shattered Chinese hegemony and demonstrated to an astonished West that Japan had become a modern great power. Such a seismic reversal in the traditional balance of power fractured the previous international harmony within the Confucian world and left an aftershock of enduring territorial and political fault lines that have embroiled China, Japan, Korea, and Russia ever since. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been noted that British policy makers thought that the Chinese should (Chapter 14) and could (Chapter 15) buy more British manufactures. This chapter shows that their perceptions of the pertinent statistics led them to believe that the Chinese could do so while at least maintaining the existing level of the purchase of opium from India. It attempts to evaluate further aspects of free-trade imperialism and other pertinent theories, exploring still further the origins of the Arrow War. I. A debt-ridden India It is often said that India was a tremendous asset to the British Empire. In fact, for the period under review India was a heavy liability. One problem was that India, administered by the British East India Company, had a net revenue which often fell short of expenses. For example, the company was in the red for four out of the seven years immediately before the Arrow War began in earnest (see Table 16.1, column 2). Even during the three years when the company had a surplus (see Table 16.1, column 1), it was far less than the annual deficit in the other years. Normally, loans are raised only when revenues are insufficient to meet expenditures. But Table 16.1, column 3, shows that whether the company was in the black or the red, it continued to borrow money both in England and in India. Why? The answer is that these loans were related to the extension of British rule over more and more of the Indian subcontinent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]