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As climate change becomes more central to geographers' thinking, climate geography as a field is developing a greater sense of self‐awareness. Whilst welcome, the historical legacy of geographic engagement with the climate brings both challenges and opportunities. As a discipline whose founding principle was to interrogate the nexus of the environmental – as well as a field with both appetite and aptitude for a radical interdisciplinarity – climate geographers are well positioned to interpret a world in which nature and human activity are increasingly inseparable. Yet what climate geographers bring in particular is a recognition of how the present landscape of knowledge reflects often contentious historical politics. By reflexively engaging with the history of the discipline and connecting this to present gaps in the landscape of environmental knowledge, climate geography as a field offers the opportunity for substantial innovation, not only as a means to interpret climate change, but as a site of action to address it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trakya Journal of Education is the property of Trakya Journal of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present article reassesses Aristotle's views on the relationship between ethical character and the natural environment. The standard reading, to the effect that Aristotle endorsed environmental determinism, is rejected. The discussion invites a more careful examination of Aristotelian texts commonly adduced to support the orthodox reading, while also providing a clear account of what environmental determinism is. I argue that the textual evidence presented by defenders of the standard reading does not match that account. All in all, I conclude, we are not authorized to invoke Aristotle's views on the relationship between natural environment and human beings in order to discredit his ethical and political project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent years have witnessed increasing attention on the study of game ecology, the virtual environments, and underlying mechanics within games. Yet, these studies often focus on the active role that players have in changing game ecology, while overlooking the reciprocal influence between game ecology and players. Methods: This study investigates the potential impact of game ecology on player choices from an environmental determinism perspective—the development of humanity is shaped by the physical environment. This new perspective is substantiated by a case study of two strategy games, Sid Meier's Civilization VI and Humankind, using an immersive-participatory method to analyze their game mechanics. Results: This study identifies four major forms of game mechanics that use game ecology to influence player choices: spatial constraints, movement modifiers, uncommon events, and dynamic indexes. Discussion: This study discusses how the identified game mechanics reflect environmental determinism and contrast with the conventional ideology of cultural determinism. Additionally, environmental determinism in video games, derived from a broader social background, is constantly evolving into new forms. Conclusion: This study introduces a new perspective of environmental determinism for analyzing the interaction between game ecology and players. This approach has the potential to offer valuable insights into guiding future game design and research endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropogenic climate change, with co-factors, threatens civilization, and thus human health. I first show that climate change is an important element of a system of hazards called “Limits to Growth”. I then argue that the interaction of climate change and other Limits to Growth elements risks civilization “failure” and possibly its “collapse”. Either consequence, were one to occur, entails profound risks to global population health, yet appreciation of this is still largely outside the health literature. I then discuss these relationships (including with civilization's destiny) with bioethical schools. The oldest of these (also called medical ethics) is strongly related to health and medicine, but in a later (1970) formulation the prefix “bio” is broader than human biology, though this school also has roots in human health. Van Rensselaer Potter, widely recognized as the founder of this school, subtitled it “the science of survival”. This subtitle seems to acknowledge an at least implicit risk to civilization. I also briefly discuss environmental ethics. By calling for greater discussion of the risk of civilization failure (or its collapse) this paper makes an important and original contribution to bioethics, however conceptualized. The major scholarly contribution of this paper is its call for the human health literature to refresh its consideration of Limits to Growth, to reconsider aspects that have become marginalized in the health literature, and for health workers to deepen their engagement with related literatures, especially of human ecology. We must contemplate the unthinkable if we are to help avert it.

Over the past several decades since Frank Snowden published his seminal monograph Blacks in Antiquity, scholars have become increasingly interested in understanding the ethnic and racial frameworks deployed by ancient peoples. The intersections of race, color, and ethnicity in classical literature have long been debated, but ancient Jewish texts tend to be left out of these discussions. In this article, I first analyze 1 Enoch's Animal Apocalypse against the backdrop of Hellenistic-era environmental theory to show that it displays early forms of race-making through its differentiation of colored bulls. Although leading commentaries offered by Nickelsburg and Tiller reject racial readings of the Animal Apocalypse's colored bulls, Matthew Black's commentary from the 1980s does not. I show that ancient Hellenistic conceptions of peoples' color, ethnicity, and behaviors shaped by environmental determinism support Matthew Black's framework for understanding the Animal Apocalypse's use of color, namely his equating of Chapter 89's black bull with Ham, contra Nickelsburg and Tiller. Second, I stress that the Animal Apocalypse's schema of colored bulls reflects the view that all of humanity derives from white, red, and black ancestors and that this ordering of the three colors constitutes a hierarchal sequencing of humankind, classified into three different types of people in descending order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a special issue of the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies that focuses on the relationship between climate change and patterns of insurgency and terrorism. It discusses the lack of academic interest in this topic in the past, but highlights the growing recognition of climate change as a major political and institutional challenge. The article explores the complexity of studying climate change and its impact on conflict, and suggests three key questions for scholars to consider. It emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary dialogue and research in this area. Another text in the article discusses the negative impact of war on the environment, including soil degradation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. It also discusses the need for a shift away from fossil fuel dependency in the military. The article further explores the potential impact of climate change on future conflicts, highlighting the complexity of analyzing this issue. It suggests that further research is needed to understand the relationship between climate change and various forms of conflict. [Extracted from the article]

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report warns in stark terms that many long inhabited parts of the world are now on course to become uninhabitable. As astronomers continue to search the universe for new habitable planets, it is equally essential to historicize the consequences of changing habitability on this one. This article reviews how scholars have engaged with the widely noted but rarely theorized categories of "habitability" and "uninhabitability." While tracing longer imperial genealogies, the primary focus is on notions of habitability in relation to European global empires in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and their postcolonial legacies. The article traces three key themes in the literature: that habitability was inherently limited, and beyond those limits allegedly lay uninhabitability; that habitability was differential and that certain places were habitable for some groups but not others (but that this might be changed by technological interventions); and finally, that the limits of habitability were not static, but could change for both better and worse. Here the links between colonialism and ideas of acclimatization, terraforming, "improvement," deliberate uninhabitability, and an "Anthropocene" have all been central to the literature. These have often been closely associated with insidious forms of environmental determinism, which are taking on new forms in an age of crisis (especially in narratives around climate and migration). By drawing together previously disparate literatures, this article ultimately calls on scholars to embrace habitability studies more widely, and to expand on their interdisciplinary potential for communicating the societal consequences of a changing climate. This article is categorized under:Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on Colombian engineer Miguel Triana's 1907 travelogue Por el sur de Colombia, this article discusses the role that labour, broadly understood, plays in the projects of state transformation of the Putumayo region, in the Colombian Amazon. The text analyses the role that physical effort plays in making possible the construction of infrastructural works such as roads in the Amazon space, but also in the concrete forms of land cultivation he observes in Indigenous peoples and in his own process of writing his travelogue. Theories of environmental determinism turn out to be key in Triana's understanding of labour as a way of transforming nature and bringing progress to the Colombian frontiers. The article makes clear the rhetorical process through which different forms of materiality – roads, bridges, books, cultivation – are seen as parallel forms of embodiment in the discourse of engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a world of smart desktop approaches, it can be instructive to return to the roots of the discussion of whether it is possible to model the behaviour of small-scale human cultures based on environmental parameters. Present-day modellers appear to have forgotten this debate, which played such an important role in the anthropology of the early twentieth century. The question was never settled. Around the 1960s, a group of theoretical archaeological modellers decided that it was possible to model the landscape behaviour of hunter-gatherers based solely on the environmental data and thereby ignore social anthropological information supporting the opposing view. This was the beginning of a tradition of archaeological modelling that ignored differences in cultural landscape behaviour in similar environments and over time, the information provided by the developing discipline of landscape ecology, and with that the documented environmental complexity and its inherent small-scale dynamics. It is difficult to detect any scientific rationale behind this conscious archaeological isolation from relevant data provided by other disciplines, and the demand for cheap and fast management methods rather than science-based arguments appears the more likely driver. This presentation traces the history of this cultural “nature versus nurture” debate and discusses its implications.

Exporting is the most common mode of entry when firms want to expand their operations via internationalisation. In this study, a comparison of the exporting performance between firms in a developed country, New Zealand, and an emerging country, Indonesia, is undertaken. The study aims to better understand the relationship between firm performance and exporting decisions, and whether performance is a result of the firms' strategic choice or environmental pressure. Exporting firms from both New Zealand and Indonesia were targeted with a self-administered survey, and the companies involved ranged from low to high internationalised industries. Eighty-seven useable questionnaires were received from company owners and export managers, with 52 coming from New Zealand exporters and 35 from Indonesia. Regression analysis was conducted with the focus on two iterations, with the first being a test of the overall model, and the second iteration comparing the model to New Zealand and Indonesia data separately. With respect to the overall model, the study found that strategic choice is the significant factor when being compared to environmental pressure. When comparing differences between Indonesian and New Zealand exporters, the study found that the export performance of Indonesian firms was significantly linked between strategic choice and the age of the firm. The study indicates that as Indonesian firms mature, they improve the flexibility of their management systems to allow better strategic responses to international business opportunities. For New Zealand companies, the situation changes somewhat, with environmental uncertainty and the length of time to internationalise, being negatively associated with export performance. The less uncertainty of the environment and the less experience of the firm in the international market, the higher the export performance of New Zealand firms. With respect to different industries, firms that operate in highly internationalised industries can be pulled by the size and strength of industry networks, such as support from the association representing the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George B. Cressey attempted to write a new geography of China, and served the United States and China as a missionary, geographer, and sinologist from the 1920s–1960s. Drawing on the archival materials of Cressey housed in the United States and China, this article examines academic mobility as a form of careering to focus on the international endeavors of a rarely recognized American geographer. I argue that the rejection of Cressey began with the Chinese Nationalist and the U.S. governments in the 1940s, and culminated in Communist China in the 1950s, entangled in political turmoil and debates over environmental determinism. This article diversifies the writing of the history of geography by breaking the dualism of centre and periphery following Cressey's career trajectory. The work also demonstrates the complexity of transnational academic mobility and its entanglements with politics. • Provides an alternative history of geography in China and the United States. • Draws on a wide range of unexplored archival evidence. • Illustrates the academic mobility existing between China and the United States from 1920s to 1940s. • Explores the USA-Sino relations between geography and politics during the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I examine the enlistment of Arctic ice to tell grand, universal stories about humanity's origins and endings. Specifically, I analyze 18th century Natural History musings that linked Arctic climate to race and human difference. I demonstrate that these musings are constitutive to an invention of pathologized migrancy across Arctic spaces that emerge as a consequence of the inability of ice to foster agricultural settlement. I call this phenomenon temperate-normativity, in which Arctic spaces of ice are produced as inferior, not meaningful on their own but read as where transit to temperate locales occurs and those who linger are consequentially rendered as aberrant. To upend temperate-normative ideals of landscape and livelihood, I analyze a poem titled "Exceeding Beringia" by Joan Naviyuk Kane (Inupiaq) wherein Inupiaq relations to more-than-human kin articulate transit and migration as a mutual, obligatory responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Carpathian Basin has been the most significant Hungarian geographical notion. Despite its relatively short history, the concept has antecedents related to the long historical process of Hungary's (self-) recognition and (self-) definition in a mostly landlocked environment. Through a critical geopolitical lens, this article investigates how and why the Carpathian Basin emerged as a geographical concept and with what effects. Before even being fully explored, the Carpathians served as a solid reference point to demarcate Hungary at a time when it was not a sovereign state. From the 1910s till the 1940s, the gradually emerging notion of the Carpathian Basin was employed to preserve, and later claim, the territory it was designated to cover. Yet the environmentally determinist ideas of Hungarian geographers – partly based on a selective reading of foreign sources – were harshly countered by their colleagues elsewhere, whose arguments were similarly tendentious but drew less on geographical determinism. The Hungarian interwar establishment's staunch longing for the unity of the Carpathian Basin, though supported by many, also implied the mobilisation of the whole society towards this goal, pointing to links between foreign and domestic policy. • The Carpathian Basin has been the most crucial concept in Hungarian geographic thought. • Based on selected foreign and domestic ideas, it largely built on geographic determinism. • It served to demarcate Hungary at times when the country's extent was contested. • In the interwar period, it legitimised official claims to territories lost by Hungary. • Counternarratives emerged in the neighbouring countries that drew less on determinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of the 18th century, a new understanding emerged of the concept of consciousness and its opposite, the unconscious, and of mental illness. An interest arose in the correct treatment of mentally ill people, as well as new ideas for practical and healthy architectonic frameworks in these people's lives. In the years around 1800, various Danish architects submitted designs for a mental hospital in Copenhagen. The four proposals, from 1792, 1798, 1802 and 1805, have been interpreted as a clear illustration of a chronological development in hospital design for mentally ill people. However, this was not a case of evolution. The four architects -- Andreas Kirkerup, C.F. Harsdorff, Philip Lange and Jens Bang -- were given different conditions, and their individual ideas and approaches varied. The four projects should rather be seen as personal architectonic expressions, which succeeded to varying degrees, reflecting a line of thought that academic literature today would describe as environmental determinism, in other words how individuals are shaped by their physical environment. Kirkerup's project from 1792 was constrained by the demand to reuse existing buildings, yet it featured several pioneering solutions to practical problems, which the next two proposals dealt with less successfully. Harsdorff's complex consisted of three buildings, one of which with two adjacent wings with cells was reserved for mental health patients, although the project revealed a poor architectural grasp of mental health care. Lange's mental hospital from 1803, inspired by foreign designs, comprised a circular central building with three radiating wings, yet Lange was more interested in geometry than function. The 1805 proposal was the most advanced, not because it was the most recent, but because it was designed by Bang, who was both a trained architect, at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, and a qualified doctor. He practised medicine for thirty years, becoming the deputy mayor of healthcare in Copenhagen. Bang had the prerequisites to create functional, people-friendly architecture that lived up to the latest international principles. His design consisted of a fourbuilding complex, complemented on three sides by semi-circular wings. The fourth side featured a low portal and corner pavilions. The proposed hospital allowed patients to socialise yet enjoy a private life too, with fresh air, green surroundings, baths and other hygiene facilities. For various reasons his proposal for Sankt Hans Hospital was never built. Yet it was the first planned hospital in Denmark -- and even in Europe one of the first -- to embody modern concepts acknowledging the influence of architecture on mental health. These ideas today, in another theoretical framework, form the foundation in the field of healing architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many have recognised poem 63 as a study in contrasts – light versus darkness, masculine versus feminine, rationality versus madness, animal versus human, culture versus nature. Caught between these polarities is the figure of Attis, removed from everything bright, male, sane, human, and civilised by one impassioned act. The poem suggests that it is partly the nature of the place, its quasi-Hippocratic airs, waters, and places, that emasculates Attis, making him like a notha mulier, iuvenca, and famula. This article will use ecofeminist theory – in particular, Val Plumwood's Feminism and the Mastery of Nature – to investigate the logic of domination running between the poem's polarities and to show how a foreign 'Eastern' wilderness effeminises Greek Attis. Moreover, it will be shown that the characterisation of Attis and the galli as a dux and his comites associates the story with the Roman imperial endeavour, suggesting that we can read the poem alongside others that portray conquest (11, 29) and the experience of young men abroad on provincial cohorts (10, 28, 47). In this way, Catullus implies that the imperial project is also made weak and feminine by its very contact with foreign places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can we theorize the relationship between discourses that antagonize each other? In a recent article, Arponen et al. demonstrate the tension between two different research models, and spotlight the compelling impact these methods have on archaeological interpretation. In response to their observations, this paper theorizes how we can understand the position of the researcher in relation to the events they analyse. Using Michel Foucault's approach to the 'discursive formation' and Karen Barad's theory of agential realism, in this reaction I argue that focusing on a single and most important point (the crux) is problematic, and theoretically outline how creating conceptual space for polymorphous causality can aid the analysis of a 'dispersion of events'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current debates about building performance evaluation often emphasize the 'performance gap' between how buildings perform in practice and how performance was envisaged during the design stage. While such debates continue to be dominated by energy considerations, increasing attention is directed towards the subjective experiences of building users in terms of thermal comfort and wellbeing. The latter trends are undoubtedly to be welcomed, but buildings continue to be conceptualized as fixed physical objects rather than entities that are enacted in practice. With the aim of challenging current assumptions, research is described which sought to reclaim the concept of building appraisal as practised by the pioneering architectural practice DEGW. The concept of building appraisal differs from current notions of building performance evaluation in that the point of departure is not the supposedly fixed entity of the building, but the essential fluidity of the occupying organization and their aspirations in terms of space. Empirical data are derived from archival sources and through extensive interaction with the DEGW diaspora, many of whom remain active at the leading edge of international practice. It is concluded that the continued fixation with the 'performance gap' reinforces long-since discredited assumptions of environmental determinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Aim Several ecological factors are predicted to affect beta diversity - the dissimilarity of communities among localities or through time. Considering the effect of primary productivity, there is a divergence in the literature concerning if it is positive, negative or hump-shaped. This is relevant considering the discussion on the role of primary productivity on deterministic and stochastic processes shaping ecological communities. The main goal of this study was to review ecological literature to explore causes for variation in the predominant relationship between beta diversity and primary productivity. Methods We have performed a scientometric analysis following the PRISMA statement for systematic reviews and the articles search was made through the ISI Web of Science® database. Results The number of articles approaching the relationship between beta diversity and primary productivity is growing more than expected by the natural growth in published articles. From the 465 articles found, only 38 directly dealt with beta diversity-productivity relationship. From them, we extracted 76 relationships, most of them positive, in almost all factors analyzed. Even so, the proportion of negative studies was higher in aquatic environments. In the Afrotropic region, only negative relationships in terrestrial studies were found. There is a clear inclination towards studies regarding large spatial scales, terrestrial environments, with vertebrates and in the Neartic or Paleartic regions. In aquatic environments there was a clear dominance of studies using small-body organisms, contrasting with terrestrial studies that used more often vertebrates and plants. Conclusions There is an increasing interest in studies concerning this relationship. Positive relations can be explained by several ecological factors, and the more common negative relationships in aquatic environments can be explained by the fact that productivity can cause eutrophication. We also pointed out gaps in the knowledge, especially considering studies in small and medium spatial scales, groups beyond plants and vertebrates in terrestrial environments, and aquatic studies in Afrotropic and Indo – Malaya regions.

Aim: I test whether species range size variation is driven by the age of the species, their intrinsic traits, environment or by historical‐geographical patterns (e.g. the location of climatic or environmental refugia). Location: Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR) of South Africa. Taxon: Angiosperms, Restionaceae (restios). Methods: I determined the area of occupancy and extent of occurrence of all restios in the GCFR, and derive a list of "single‐site endemics" (SSE). I inferred a rate‐corrected and dated phylogeny which includes 98% of the species. I explored the correlates of range size variation with phylogenetically corrected regressions, focussing on likely candidate traits (dispersal and fire survival modes), habitats (soil drainage, elevation), climatic variables (rainfall and temperature) and history (age of species). I calculated the species richness, community mean range sizes and numbers of SSE for 49 sites and 938 10 m diameter circular relevés across the GCFR, and sought correlates of these, specifically testing for historical‐geographical patterns in relationship to the distance from the centre of the region. Results: Narrow‐range restios are correlated with higher elevations, rainfall and rainfall seasonality; are found more likely in marshes and seepages; and are more likely killed by fire and have to re‐establish from seed after fire. Wide‐ranging species are found in areas with lower rainfall, at lower elevations, in well‐drained habitats, and resprout after fire. Community mean ranges sizes are larger towards the eastern part of the GCFR; and relevé data show that sandstones, shale, laterite and granites are associated with wider distribution ranges, as are soils with pebbles or sandy soils without rocks, and limestones with smaller community mean ranges than other bedrock types. The number of SSE is largely correlated with species richness, except that SSE are more likely at higher elevations. Main Conclusion: Range size variation in the restios is largely driven by history (expressed as the distance from the Kogelberg region), suggesting that the Kogelberg region may have been most climatically stable during the Neogene and Pleistocene. The second‐most important driver is the environment (i.e. rock type, elevation, rainfall), generally with spatially restricted habitats hosting range‐restricted species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neglected tropical diseases are defined operationally as diseases that prevail in "tropical" regions and are under-researched, under-funded, and under-treated compared with their disease burden. By analysing the adjectives "tropical" and "neglected," I expose and interrogate the discourses within which the term "neglected tropical disease" derives its meaning. First, I argue that the term "tropical" conjures the notion of "tropicality," a form of Othering which erroneously explains the disease-prevalence of "tropical" regions by reference to environmental determinism, rather than colonialism and neocolonialism. Second, I examine the way in which this Othering enables the abjection of tropical regions and their peoples, leading to neglect. I recommend that the term "neglected tropical diseases" be more carefully contextualised within health scholarship, education, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report uses a critique of the ontology of research on climate change and armed conflict to advance a positive and performative account of the ways in which peace could be sustained and expanded through a changing climate. Focussing on research into the relationships between climate change and armed conflict and peace, it argues that recent debates about the effect of climate change on conflagrations stem from deeper assumptions about the way the world is and can be known. The report then builds an alternative framing of peace as a phenomenon that is resilient to climate change by layering knowledge about the conditions under which peace prevails through environmental change with that on environmental peace-building and on the intersections between resilience and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Question: Dispersal limitation (neutral hypothesis) and deterministic factors (niche hypothesis) shape floristic gradients including between‐site patterns of species' dominance (co‐dominance). Because their relative importance remains poorly known, we ask how their comparative contribution to co‐dominance changes with elevation and geographical extent. Location: Madidi region, NW Bolivia. Methods: We analysed floristic composition and environmental factors of 90 plots spanning the gradient from Amazonian (<1,000 m) to montane forests at three elevations (1,200–1,500; 2,000–2,300; and 2,800–3,200 m) and two geographical extents: local (plots <12 km apart) and regional (38–120 km apart). We modelled distance decay within each elevational band with a neutral model, using two parameters (speciation rate and dispersal distance). Subsequently, we related the model's residuals to environmental differences using flexible machine learning models. Results: We found that 5–44% of the variability in floristic differences along the gradient studied can be explained by a neutral model of distance decay, while 18–50% can be explained by environmental differences. Montane forests showed an overall gradient in floristic composition that is congruent with an increase in elevation for both dispersal limitation and environmental filtering. However, Amazonian forest was more niche‐structured and more dispersal‐limited relative to its elevation and topography. Conclusions: Environmental differences explained floristic differences better than the neutral model, even giving preferential attribution to the more parsimonious neutral processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how Argentine intellectuals incorporated the natural environment into their accounts of the racial, cultural and political features of the nation. In the late nineteenth century environmental determinism, based on the assumption of a cause–effect relationship between geographical and racial factors, entered Argentina through three main routes: Lamarckism, Darwinism and Spencerianism. By the mid twentieth century, however, anti‐positivist philosophies had been fully incorporated into a body of work that analysed Argentina's socio‐historical foundations. This article examines the shift that occurred during the first half of the twentieth century in how those seeking to define race incorporated the environment into their arguments. The raza was commonly taken to be synonymous with nation. Selected works by sociologist and legal scholar Carlos Octavio Bunge (1875‐1918) and by writer and ensayista Bernardo Canal Feijóo (1897‐1982) will be analysed as influential yet overlooked examples of how 'the problem of Argentine culture' could not be separated from the question of nature understood in terms of both physical and human geography. The goal will be to reveal, firstly, the extent to which the notion of the interior as geographical and anthropological desert deeply informed the political vision of the early national period in relation to race and nation and, secondly, how later interpretations of the nation recast American nature as a foundational element of cultural authenticity based on a sentiment of geographical belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• V. rugosum presence was associated with seawater temperature. • PnTX G concentration in mussels was associated with seawater temperature and V. rugosum presence. • PnTX G persisted for several months in mussels and in seawater. • Predicted human health risk associated with PnTX G in mussels was maximum in the warmest periods of the year. Consumption of seafood contaminated by phycotoxins produced by harmful algae is a major issue in human public health. Harmful algal blooms are driven by a multitude of environmental variables; therefore predicting human dietary exposure to phycotoxins based on these variables is a promising approach in health risk management. In this study, we attempted to predict the human health risks associated with Vulcanodinium rugosum and its neurotoxins, pinnatoxins (PnTXs), which have been regularly found in Mediterranean lagoons since their identification in 2011. Based on environmental variables collected over 1 year in four Mediterranean lagoons, we developed linear mixed models to predict the presence of V. rugosum and PnTX G contamination of mussels. We found that the occurrence of V. rugosum was significantly associated with seawater temperature. PnTX G contamination of mussels was highest in summer but persisted throughout the year. This contamination was significantly associated with seawater temperature and the presence of V. rugosum with a time lag, but not with dissolved PnTX G in seawater. By using the contamination model predictions and their potential variability/uncertainty, we calculated the human acute dietary exposures throughout the year and predicted that 25% of people who consume mussels could exceed the provisional acute benchmark value during the warmest periods. We suggest specific recommendations to monitor V. rugosum and PnTX G. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of História Unisinos is the property of Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Within the framework of a history of representations, this text addresses feelings as a significant aspect of the national conformation process during the "long nineteenth century" in Colombia. The article is intended as abroad panorama and a problematization of the link between factors such as otherness, climate, race and passions. Its purpose is to show the resignification of old forms of discrimination that, although based on apparently outdated scientific paradigms, today preserve some capacity to generate representations of otherness and hegemony. Starting from an imaginary configuration of the cold lands as a reference of a "civilized landscape", the text will show how the passions (joy and anger, fundamentally) constituted the apex of a new human geography based on the new principles of climate commensurability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is among the first studies that associate anatomical characteristics to the environment in the transition region between the two largest phytogeographic domains of South America. We aimed to analyze the leaf anatomy of 22 plant species occurring in the Amazonian savanna in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, with the purpose of identifying key characters that show adaptive species strategies in their natural environments. Our hypothesis was that species typical of forest habitats would not present xeromorphic characteristics, while species typical of savanna habitats would present such characteristics. We fixed the samples in FAA 50 , 1 1 FAA 50 (Formaldehyde, Acetic acid and ethyl alcohol). that were stored in alcohol 70%, later they were free-hand cut with a razor blade and stained with astra blue and basic fuchsin. For the analysis of the leaf epidermis, we used the Jeffrey modified method of separation. Characteristics such as thick cuticle, epidermis with thickened wall and straight, presence of silica in the epidermis, tector trichomes, hypostomatic leaves, stomatic crests, dorsiventral mesophyll, presence of collenchyma and vascular bundles were associated with adaptive strategies of the plants to the environment of Amazonian savanna. The anatomic characters presented here are of great importance for the species that live in savanna environments, demonstrating plasticity and contributing to the protection of the leaves to the diverse biotic and abiotic factors to which they are subject, ensuring thus the survival of the species. We demonstrate that plant species structure of Amazonian savanna is most likely shaped by environment determinism, and this fact has implications on how we expect such plants evolve in a climate changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This memoir gives a history of my archaeological research in Brazil and especially the theoretical issues, empirical interests, collaborations, and events that motivated it. I begin with my early course and field experiences as a student, my work as a museum curator and university professor, my research in literature, archives, and collections, and my early collaborationsand interactions with other students and with scholars. Then I trace the relationship of my Venezuelan Orinoco dissertation work to my interest in the Amazon, and explain how that led subsequently to my field research in Brazil. I then summarize the work at the four regional foci of the project in the Lower Amazon of Brazil and point to what might be the theoretical implications of the results in light of the results of work by other scholars. I conclude with an explanation of how the Brazilian research relates to my preliminary research in Central Africa and conclude with the implications of the South American and African research for changing concepts of human evolution, human ecology, and culture history.

Given the ever-increasing auto dependence constituting a non-negligible portion of carbon emissions, unraveling the travel choice mechanism is crucial to designing effective sustainable urban policies. It is of great significance to investigate the impact of the residential built environment and travel attitude on travel behaviour. However, existing studies have not yet reached a consensus on the complex relationships between the built environment, travel attitude and travel behaviour. Thus, it is vital to further integrate other domains (e.g. job/employment) of an individual's life course to comprehensively understand individual travel behaviour. By integrating a novel perspective of knowledge typology (analytical, synthetic, and symbolic types of knowledge) in the job domain, this article further categorizes knowledge workers into three groups——scientific, engineering and creative workers. Based on the web survey data retrieved from 738 knowledge workers and 3924 other workers in Munich, both recursive and non-recursive structural equation models are applied to respectively estimate their travel choice mechanisms. Results show that "residential self-selection" applies more to creative workers, whereas "environmental determinism" applies more to engineering workers. The travel choice mechanism of scientific workers follows neither framework, with respect to no significant link between their residential environments and travel attitudes. In contrast, there coexist "environmental determinism" and "residential self-selection" among other workers. Regarding that the scientists, engineers and creatives potentially associate with heterogeneous travel choice rationales, future mobility studies in the era of knowledge economy should further integrate the job domain. Accordingly, "tailored-made" spatial and transport planning should be embedded in the local industrial structure and the variety of employment. • "Knowledge typology" in the job domain is used to "reconcile" the debate on residential self-selection or determination. • Divergent modes of knowledge creation associate with heterogeneous spatially-related and travel preferences or choices. • Multiple structural equation models among three groups of workers are applied to unravel the complex relationships. • Residential self-selection applies to creative workers, whereas environmental determinism applies to engineering workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the relative contribution of environmental and spatial variables to the alpha and beta components of taxonomic (TD), phylogenetic (PD), and functional (FD) diversity in ant communities found along different climate and anthropogenic disturbance gradients across western and central Europe, in order to assess the mechanisms structuring ant biodiversity. To this aim we calculated alpha and beta TD, PD, and FD for 349 ant communities, which included a total of 155 ant species; we examined 10 functional traits and phylogenetic relatedness. Variation partitioning was used to examine how much variation in ant diversity was explained by environmental and spatial variables. Autocorrelation in diversity measures and each trait’s phylogenetic signal were also analyzed. We found strong autocorrelation in diversity measures. Both environmental and spatial variables significantly contributed to variation in TD, PD, and FD at both alpha and beta scales; spatial structure had the larger influence. The different facets of diversity showed similar patterns along environmental gradients. Environment explained a much larger percentage of variation in FD than in TD or PD. All traits demonstrated strong phylogenetic signals. Our results indicate that environmental filtering and dispersal limitations structure all types of diversity in ant communities. Strong dispersal limitations appear to have led to clustering of TD, PD, and FD in western and central Europe, probably because different historical and evolutionary processes generated different pools of species. Remarkably, these three facets of diversity showed parallel patterns along environmental gradients. Trait-mediated species sorting and niche conservatism appear to structure ant diversity, as evidenced by the fact that more variation was explained for FD and that all traits had strong phylogenetic signals. Since environmental variables explained much more variation in FD than in PD, functional diversity should be a better indicator of community assembly processes than phylogenetic diversity.

Copyright of Journal of International Relations / Medzinarodne Vztahy is the property of University of Economics in Bratislava, Faculty of International Relations and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Many Arabic geographical texts from the medieval period portray the oecumene as comprising seven latitudinal climes. In general the middle clime, in which the majority of Muslim territories were located, was viewed as possessing the best environmental conditions, which progressively deteriorated the further one travelled north or south of this central territory. This theory of the climes was combined with ideas of humoral pathology in order to argue that those living in the central zones of the oecumene received numerous physiological and psychological benefits. Conversely, those like the Africans and the Turks, living at the peripheries of the oecumene, had neither rationality nor proportionate physiognomies because their humours were distorted by the harsh environmental conditions of these regions. This article, however, seeks to nuance the outline given above. While secondary studies have generally been happy to adopt uncritically this superficial understanding of the medieval Islamic worldview, which is gained from skimming the introductions to a few geographical works, few have questioned what (and where) is meant by the centre of the world, where did human habitation supposedly end, and was the medieval understanding of the seven climes uniform. These are some of the questions posed by the present investigation. I then go on to assess how far the notions derived from the theory of the climes were implemented in ethnological accounts of the inhabitants of the far north and south. In doing so I shall conclude that the standard conception of the medieval Islamic worldview masks numerous disagreements and debates in the writings of medieval scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Early twentieth-century environmentalism or environmental determinism, as it is more pejoratively known, has been widely denounced by critical human geographers on the grounds of its well-established role in imperialist dispossession and subordination. Recently, however, historical geographers have re-visited environmentalism in an effort to better understand its diverse and often contradictory deployments. This article examines environmentalist thought as a function of Latin American anti-imperialist reform movements in the first half of the twentieth century, arguing that progressive Latin American intellectuals emphasized constitutive links between race and place to support community claims to land and subsistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions At millennial scales, is the historic evolution of tropical plant communities the result of 'random walk'? Are presence and abundance of taxa independent of environmental variability? Location Lake Petén-Itzá, Guatemala, Central American lowlands. Methods We use an 86 000-yr-long pollen record to study the relative contribution of neutral mechanisms and environmental determinism in configuring vegetation in the Central American lowlands. By using variance ratios, we evaluated the role of neutral drift at community and functional group levels. Additionally, regression analyses were applied to explain persistence and abundance of individual taxa as a function of regional moisture availability and fire frequency. Results Environmental fluctuations drove vegetation dynamics in the Central American lowlands during the late Pleistocene. When the data set was stratified according to moisture availability and fire frequency, variance ratios further supported our findings. Regression analyses revealed that whereas species' presence was independent of both moisture availability and fire frequency, their abundance was closely associated with both. Conclusions Neutrality, probably expressed in the face of stressors, through factors such as the existence of microrefugia, survival of relictual individuals and phenotypic and phenologic plasticity, was probably crucial in preventing biodiversity losses. Climate, however, was the main driver of vegetation dynamics in the Yucatan Peninsula during the late Pleistocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: “Active living research” has been accused of being overly “physically deterministic” and this article argues that urban planners must continue to evolve research and address biases in this area. The article first provides background on how researchers have dealt with the relationship between the built environment and health over years. This leads to a presentation of how active living research might be described as overly deterministic. The article then offers lessons for researchers planning to embark in active-living studies as to how they might increase validity and minimize criticism of physical determinism. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Copyright of Revista de Administraçãao da UNIMEP is the property of Revista de Administracao da UNIMEP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Anuario de Historia Regional y de las Fronteras is the property of Universidad Industrial de Santander and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The internationalisation of R&D activities in foreign countries different from their multinational headquarters is a difficult decision. The local environment plays a crucial role in that decision. Based on a case study methods and the examination of seven subsidiaries with excellent research centres in Spain, the results show that aspects related to technology supply have a greater power of attraction than aspects related to market demand. However, the Spanish environment is more attractive in terms of demand factors than supply factors. As a result, Spain occupies an intermediate position in attracting foreign direct investment in R&D and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions A species' spatial pattern is the outcome of a series of filters: demographic, disturbance, environmental and functional, all varying over space and time. To evaluate the importance of function as a filter we ask: (1) do a species' functional traits allow prediction of its fine-scale spatial patterning, and (2) how consistent is the fine-scale spatial pattern shown by the same species across multiple sites where the properties of the other filters may vary? Location Species-rich Mediterranean climate shrublands of southwestern Australia's northern sandplains. Methods Using fully mapped plots at four sites (each >10 000 individuals, 74-112 species), we characterized individual species spatial patterning using point pattern analyses. We classified species spatial patterns in three ways: (1) whether they departed from a null model controlling for first-order effects (i.e. are they aggregated?), (2) parameterization of Thomas cluster processes (what form does any clustering take?), and (3) their position in a multivariate 'pattern space' (do species show different types of pattern?). We then explored the extent to which a species' functional traits, abundance and/or the site at which it occurred predicted these three facets of its spatial pattern. Results Although at all sites most species were aggregated, site was consistently important in predicting a species' spatial pattern. Regenerative response to fire - whether a species is killed by fire and recruits solely via seeds, or survives and resprouts vegetatively after fire - was the functional trait most consistently useful in predicting a species' spatial pattern. Fire-killed species tended to show more aggregated distributions than resprouters. Species present at multiple sites did not show consistency in their spatial patterns across those sites more than expected by chance alone. Conclusions Although functional traits relating to fire responses and water use predict species spatial distributions at the landscape level, at the fine scales we considered site effects were as important as functional traits in explaining spatial pattern. Within and between site heterogeneity, some of which can be generated by the stochastic properties of fire, may mask the deterministic effects of species functional traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Climate change, whether gradual or sudden, has frequently been invoked as a causal factor to explain many aspects of cultural change during the prehistoric and early historic periods. Critiquing such theories has often proven difficult, not least because of the imprecise dating of many aspects of the palaeoclimate or archaeological records and the difficulties of merging the two strands of research. Here we consider one example of the archaeological record – peatland site construction in Ireland – which has previously been interpreted in terms of social response to climate change and examine whether close scrutiny of the archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records upholds the climatically deterministic hypotheses. We evaluate evidence for phasing in the temporal distribution of trackways and related sites in Irish peatlands, of which more than 3500 examples have been recorded, through the examination of ∼350 dendrochronological and 14C dates from these structures. The role of climate change in influencing when such sites were constructed is assessed by comparing visually and statistically the frequency of sites over the last 4500 years with well-dated, multiproxy climate reconstructions from Irish peatlands. We demonstrate that national patterns of “peatland activity” exist that indicate that the construction of sites in bogs was neither a constant nor random phenomenon. Phases of activity (i.e. periods in which the number of structures increased), as well as the ‘lulls’ that separate them, show no consistent correlation with periods of wetter or drier conditions on the bogs, suggesting that the impetus for the start or cessation of such activity was not climatically-determined. We propose that trigger(s) for peatland site construction in Ireland must instead also be sought within the wider, contemporary social background. Perhaps not surprisingly, a comparison with archaeological and palynological evidence shows that peatland activity tends to occur at times of more expansive settlement and land-use, suggesting that the bogs were used when the landscape was being more widely occupied. Interestingly, the lulls in peatland site construction coincide with transitional points between nominal archaeological phases, typically defined on the basis of their material culture, implying that there may indeed have been a cultural discontinuity at these times. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Ferenc Fodor (1887-1962) was one of the leading Hungarian geographers between the two World Wars; later however, he became exiled from the academic life by the Communist regime. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death a critical review of his voluminous unpublished manuscript, a political geographical essay completed at the end of 1946, is attempted in this paper. Though imbued by environmental determinism and containing some rather vague inquires into the national character and fate of the Hungarian people, Fodor's work includes remarkable thoughts on man-land relationships and the possible future of the nation. It reflects the State of mind and the ideas prevailing in the intellectual elite of Hungary after the disastrous Trianon Treaty of 1920 which formed the political background of the Hungarian academic geography until the end of the Second World War. Fodor's work provides a clear demonstration of all the drawbacks due to the fact that the Carpathian Basin as a whole has, despite its ideal geographical conditions and abundant natural endowments, once for all ceased to serve as the frame of the Hungarian State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary is a direct response to the Forum article ‘Environmentalist thinking and/in geography’ by Radcliffe et al. (2010). Two main problems are addressed: the perpetuation of a false analogy between cultural and biological evolution, and a misunderstanding of memes. I review the literature and summarize the main issues in cultural and biological evolution and in the related field of memetics, noting ways in which the Forum’s authors’ arguments might be strengthened. In conclusion, some suggestions are made for how geographers might productively engage with innovative ideas from other closely related disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a charter member of the Association of American Geographers and a well-respected scholar in academic meteorology, Robert DeCourcy Ward was an important figure in the earth sciences tradition of early American academic geography. The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to elaborate on the contributions of Ward to modern geographical climatology; and (2) to examine some of his writing beyond scientific topics as likely cause for the lack of attention to his geographical work today. Ward’s work across a range of spatial scales from local thunderstorm events to sea breeze circulations to global climatic classification represented a ‘bridge’ between scholars in the meteorology and geography communities. His emphasis on the conceptual understanding of climate as a dynamic rather than static entity represented a paradigm shift for which he has not been credited. He was a true and early advocate for study of the relationship between people and the environment. A thorough review of Ward’s works suggests that his environmental deterministic philosophy and writings on topics outside of physical geography, particularly immigration reform and eugenics, may have contributed to his current obscurity as an important early practitioner of our discipline. We suggest that, in general, the lessons of history, both triumphant and tragic, should never be forgotten, and it is in this framework that we believe that Ward should be remembered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By the mid-twentieth century, French geographers had produced substantial works of research aiming to classify genres de vie. They had broken with the idea that nomadic and sedentary genres de vie were the successive stages of a universal history of human societies, and argued instead that they were the result of human adaptations to specific natural environments. Within this new conceptual framework, nomadism was thus understood as a form of highly evolved genre de vie responding to the particular characteristics of the steppe. But if pastoral nomadism was the best possible adaptation to the dry steppe zone, on what natural basis could the extension of European sedentary agriculture be justified? Scientific answers to this question were of strategic importance in Algeria which was the most important colony of settlement in the French empire and in fact often considered as a part of France. Through the analysis of a corpus of works published by institutionally recognized geographers concerning Algeria and Algeria's indigenous genres de vie (including doctoral theses, articles in the Annales de Giographie and literary reviews), the paper attempts to show how the concept of the 'adaptation of mankind' to the natural environment, when applied to Algeria, generated a series of intractable divides and deep contradictions. This in turn requires us to reconsider the idea that in French geography, the neo-Lamarckian concept of natural determinism systematically supported a distinction between so-called 'European' and 'Native' populations. By examining precisely the scientific usages of the concept of genre de vie in the colonial and imperial situation, the paper will attempt to reveal how the academic debates of the time were shaped by competing views of the civilizing mission of French colonialism in Algeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Basic & Applied Ecology is the property of Urban & Fischer Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the use of new regional geography as a tool in understanding the fundamental and rapid changes concerning the field in the modern world. It mentions that the authors examines the approach through conducting a study that accounts geography's role in contemporary affairs offered by non-specialists in mass media and relates the traditional practice of regional geography that prevails in the middle of the 19th century. The authors further provide recommendations as well as mentions the benefits that one can get in strengthening regional research and training in geography.

The article traces the changing role of environmental determinism in the invention of 'South African' history after 1910 through a close reading of the social biography and scholarship of Eric Anderson Walker, professor of history at the South African College (now the University of Cape Town), 1911-36. The dominant liberal historiography still acknowledges Walker as one of the founders of the national academic discipline in English, but otherwise ignores his scholarship which is now deemed irredeemably Eurocentric, empiricist and conservative. By relocating and re-reading Walker in the context of the first quarter century of the new settler nation state confected by Britain out of the wreckage of the South African War, the supposed disciplinary dead-end of his scholarship becomes the route into an examination of historical knowledge as both construct of and aide memoir to the new imaginary of white South African nationhood. It also provides a salutary warning to the modern practitioners of environmental history of the non-innocence of their field and the need to reckon with its determinist past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popularity of the work Guns, germs and steel (GGS) has served to bring the question of human–environment connections once again to the forefront of popular thought. We assert that the recent success of GGS represents both a persistence of environmental determinist logic and a contemporary trend that privileges the environment as the primary influence on human–environment relationships. The historical development of the human–environment field is reviewed from the cultural and political ecology (CAPE) perspective, with particular attention to illustrating the varying emphasis between humans and their environment. GGS is situated within this developing field through a critical analysis of the arguments and methods forwarded by Jared Diamond. The book is found to mirror earlier environmental determinism by failing to take into account many of the advances in human–environmental thought since the early twentieth century. Its popular success suggests the pitfalls of failures to acknowledge the complex, intertwined and indivisible relationship that exists among humans and their environment. Furthermore, there is evidence that the environmental determinism espoused in GGS has caught the attention of international development policymakers potentially influencing future outlays of aid and assistance to the developing world. These conclusions raise cautionary flags against repeating past theoretical mistakes by accepting simplistic, causal explanations based largely on a deterministic conception of the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The division of land on Dartmoor during the Bronze Age by the construction of moor-wide boundaries known as reaves represents a significant development in agricultural practice and land tenure. Previous research relating to the Dartmoor reaves suggests this way of life may have continued for no longer than 200–400 years. It has been suggested that their abandonment occurred as the result of a deteriorating climate, although there are no published palaeoclimatic reconstructions from the area. We therefore test the hypothesis that on Dartmoor, a marked climatic deterioration occurred in the late Bronze Age that can be linked to the abandonment of the reaves. A palaeoclimatic reconstruction derived from testate amoebae and peat humification analyses is presented from Tor Royal Bog, central Dartmoor, the first such record from southwest England. A major shift to a cooler and/or wetter climate is inferred from ca. 1395 to 1155 cal BC that is coincident with the period hypothesised as encompassing the abandonment. This climatic deterioration is replicated in sites in northern Britain, suggesting it was a widespread event. It is concluded that while the evidence supports a climatically forced retreat, there are a range of other socio-economic factors that must also be taken into consideration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]