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Explanatory Frameworks (explanatory + frameworks)
Selected AbstractsPERSPECTIVE: MATERNAL KIN GROUPS AND THE ORIGINS OF ASYMMETRIC GENETIC SYSTEMS,GENOMIC IMPRINTING, HAPLODIPLOIDY, AND PARTHENOGENESISEVOLUTION, Issue 4 2006Benjamin B. Normark Abstract The genetic systems of animals and plants are typically eumendelian. That is, an equal complement of autosomes is inherited from each of two parents, and at each locus, each parent's allele is equally likely to be expressed and equally likely to be transmitted. Genetic systems that violate any of these eumendelian symmetries are termed asymmetric and include parent-specific gene expression (PSGE), haplodiploidy, thelytoky, and related systems. Asymmetric genetic systems typically arise in lineages with close associations between kin (gregarious siblings, brooding, or viviparity). To date, different explanatory frameworks have been proposed to account for each of the different asymmetric genetic systems. Haig's kinship theory of genomic imprinting argues that PSGE arises when kinship asymmetries between interacting kin create conflicts between maternally and paternally derived alleles. Greater maternal than paternal relatedness within groups selects for more "abstemious" expression of maternally derived alleles and more "greedy" expression of paternally derived alleles. Here, I argue that this process may also underlie origins of haplodiploidy and many origins of thelytoky. The tendency for paternal alleles to be more "greedy" in maternal kin groups means that maternal-paternal conflict is not a zero-sum game: the maternal optimum will more closely correspond to the optimum for family groups and demes and for associated entities such as symbionts. Often in these circumstances, partial or complete suppression of paternal gene expression will evolve (haplodiploidy, thelytoky), or other features of the life cycle will evolve to minimize the conflict (monogamy, inbreeding). Maternally transmitted cytoplasmic elements and maternally imprinted nuclear alleles have a shared interest in minimizing agonistic interactions between female siblings and may cooperate to exclude the paternal genome. Eusociality is the most dramatic expression of the conflict-reducing effects of haplodiploidy, but its original and more widespread function may be suppression of intrafamilial cannibalism. In rare circumstances in which paternal gene products gain access to maternal physiology via a placenta, PSGE with greedy paternal gene expression can persist (e.g., in mammals). [source] What Is Your Research Program?INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2005Some Feminist Answers to International Relations Methodological Questions Methodological issues have constituted some of the deepest sources of misunderstanding between International Relations (IR) feminists and IR theorists working in social scientific frameworks. IR theorists have called upon feminists to frame their research questions in terms of testable hypotheses. Feminists have responded that their research questions cannot be answered using social science explanatory frameworks. Deep epistemological divisions about the construction and purpose of knowledge make bridging these methodological divides difficult. These epistemological standards lead feminists to very different methodological perspectives. Asking different questions from those typically asked in IR, many IR feminists have drawn on ethnographic, narrative, cross-cultural, and other methods that are rarely taught to students of IR, to answer them. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary scholarship on feminist methodologies and some recent IR feminist case studies, this article analyzes and assesses how these methodological orientations are useful for understanding the gendering of international politics, the state and its security-seeking practices and its effects on the lives of women and men. [source] Perceived Equity in the Gendered Division of Household LaborJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 5 2008Michael Braun Despite huge imbalances in the division of housework between women and men, previous studies have found perceptions of equity on the part of women to be much more frequent than feelings of injustice. Taking a comparative perspective on the basis of International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2002 data (N = 8,556), we find that, on the individual level, the explanatory frameworks that have been found to influence the actual inequality of household division of labor (time availability, resource dependence, and gender ideology) contribute to the explanation of perceptions of equity, in that they interact with the inequality of the household division of labor. On the country level, the gender-wage ratio and the average level of inequality are important predictors. [source] Clinical formulation for mental health nursing practiceJOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRIC & MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, Issue 10 2008M. Crowe rn phd There are problems for mental health nurses in using psychiatric diagnoses as outcomes of their nursing assessments and nursing diagnoses present similar issues. However, there is a need in practice to link the assessment to nursing interventions in a meaningful way. This paper proposes that the clinical formulation can be regarded as central to providing this cohesion. The formulation does not merely organize the assessment findings but is also an interpretation or explanation, made in consultation with the client, of what meaning can be attributed to the issues explored in the assessment process. Because this interpretation is dependent on both the client's and the nurse's explanatory frameworks, there are multiple ways of developing the formulation. It is also an evolving and dynamic statement of understanding. A case example is provided in the paper to illustrate how the same case can be interpreted in different ways and the implications this has for the nursing interventions provided. [source] Dynamics of ethnic residential segregation in Göteborg, Sweden, 1995,2000POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 2 2008Åsa Bråmå Abstract Most explanatory frameworks within segregation research interpret patterns of ethnic residential segregation as the result of how members of different ethnic groups have moved (or not moved) within the city and to the city from the surrounding world. Yet, few attempts have been made to proceed beyond relatively static accounts based on descriptions and analysis of patterns of segregation, to address more directly the dynamics behind the patterns. In this article, a longitudinal, individual-based data-set is used in order to analyse the dynamics, in terms of migration and natural population change, that have reproduced and transformed patterns of segregation in Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden, between 1995 and 2000. The analysis deals with questions concerning changes in the degree of concentration and dispersal of different minority groups, and the role of the minority enclaves as ports of entry to the local housing market for different groups. The findings have relevance for wider theoretical issues related to the interpretation and explanation of ethnic residential segregation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The ecology and evolutionary endocrinology of reproduction in the human femaleAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue S49 2009Virginia J. Vitzthum Abstract Human reproductive ecology (HRE) is the study of the mechanisms that link variation in reproductive traits with variation in local habitats. Empirical and theoretical contributions from biological anthropology, physiology, and demography have established the foundation necessary for developing a comprehensive understanding, grounded in life history theory (LHT), of temporal, individual, and populational variation in women's reproductive functioning. LHT posits that natural selection leads to the evolution of mechanisms that tend to allocate resources to the competing demands of growth, reproduction, and survival such that fitness is locally maximized. (That is, among alternative allocation patterns exhibited in a population, those having the highest inclusive fitness will become more common over generational time.) Hence, strategic modulation of reproductive effort is potentially adaptive because investment in a new conception may risk one's own survival, future reproductive opportunities, and/or current offspring survival. The hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis is the principal neuroendocrine pathway by which the human female modulates reproductive functioning according to the changing conditions in her habitat. Adjustments of reproductive investment in a potential conception are manifested in temporal and individual variation in ovarian cycle length, ovulation, hormone levels, and the probability of conception. Understanding the extent and causes of adaptive and non-adaptive variation in ovarian functioning is fundamental to ascertaining the proximate and remote determinants of human reproductive patterns. In this review I consider what is known and what still needs to be learned of the ecology of women's reproductive biology, beginning with a discussion of the principal explanatory frameworks in HRE and the biometry of ovarian functioning. Turning next to empirical studies, it is evident that marked variation between cycles, women, and populations is the norm rather than an aberration. Other than woman's age, the determinants of these differences are not well characterized, although developmental conditions, dietary practices, genetic variation, and epigenetic mechanisms have all been hypothesized to play some role. It is also evident that the reproductive functioning of women born and living in arduous conditions is not analogous to that of athletes, dieters, or even the lower end of the "normal range" of HPO functioning in wealthier populations. Contrary to the presumption that humans have low fecundity and an inefficient reproductive system, both theory and present evidence suggest that we may actually have very high fecundity and a reproductive system that has evolved to be flexible, ruthlessly efficient and, most importantly, strategic. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 52:95,136, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Hazardous waste: the semiotics of ritual hygiene in Cuban popular religionTHE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, Issue 3 2009Kristina Wirtz Using a semiotic framework to examine different categorizations of ritually produced ,hazardous waste' in Cuban popular religions, I argue that the ways in which waste is produced and treated generate its social indexical value and its potential to act on people. I suggest a focus on the interactions between the materiality of ritual waste and its circulation as an object of discourse. In this view, subjectification and objectification processes are shown to be related, and the agency of subjects and objects is constituted within what Webb Keane calls the same ,representational economy'. Ethnographically, I describe two different but overlapping explanatory frameworks in how religious practitioners and the Cuban state construe the dangers of ritual waste: a religious framework in which certain kinds of waste are spiritually charged, and an epidemiological framework based on long-standing metaphors of racialized contagion. Résumé À partir de l'analyse, dans un cadre sémiotique, de différentes catégorisations de « déchets dangereux » produits par les rituels des religions populaires cubaines, l'auteure avance que la manière dont les déchets sont produits et traités génère leur valeur indexique sociale et leur capacité d'agir sur les gens. Elle suggère de se concentrer sur les interactions entre la matérialité des déchets rituels et leur circulation en tant qu'objet de discours. Selon cette approche, il apparaît que les processus de subjectification et d'objectification sont liés et que l'agencéité des sujets et des objets est constituée dans le cadre d'une même «économie représentationnelle », selon l'expression de Webb Keane. Du point de vue ethnographique, l'auteure décrit deux cadres différents, mais qui se recoupent, pour expliquer la manière dont les praticiens religieux et l'État cubain envisagent les dangers des déchets rituels : un cadre religieux dans lequel certains types de déchets portent une charge spirituelle, et un cadre épidémiologique, basé sur d'anciennes métaphores de contagion racialisée. [source] Parental Control in Latino Families: An Integrated Review of the LiteratureCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2006Linda C. Halgunseth Using social information processing and cultural change models as explanatory frameworks, this article reviews the literature on Latino parental control and its implications for child development. It is argued that the use of parental control in Latino families may have motivational roots in cultural childrearing goals such as familismo (familism), respeto (respect), and educación (moral education). Consideration of these underpinnings, in conjunction with psychological and methodological issues, helps to explain variability in the use of Latino parental control and its effect on child development. Recommendations for future research include refinement of control and acculturation instruments, and attention to both contextual and individual variables. [source] | |||||||||||||