Secondary Literature (secondary + literature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Our Knowledge of Numbers as Self-Subsistent Objects

DIALECTICA, Issue 2 2005
William Demopoulos
A feature of Frege's philosophy of arithmetic that has elicited a great deal of attention in the recent secondary literature is his contention that numbers are ,self-subsistent' objects. The considerable interest in this thesis among the contemporary philosophy of mathematics community stands in marked contrast to Kreisel's folk-lore observation that the central problem in the philosophy of mathematics is not the existence of mathematical objects, but the objectivity of mathematics. Although Frege was undoubtedly concerned with both questions, a goal of the present paper is to argue that his success in securing the objectivity of arithmetic depends on a less contentious commitment to numbers as objects than either he or his critics have supposed. As such, this paper is an articulation and defense of both Frege's analysis of arithmetic and Kreisel's observation. [source]


,To prove this is the industry's best hope': big tobacco's support of research on the genetics of nicotine addiction

ADDICTION, Issue 6 2010
Kenneth R. Gundle
ABSTRACT Background New molecular techniques focus a genetic lens upon nicotine addiction. Given the medical and economic costs associated with smoking, innovative approaches to smoking cessation and prevention must be pursued; but can sound research be manipulated by the tobacco industry? Methodology The chronological narrative of this paper was created using iterative reviews of primary sources (the Legacy Tobacco Documents), supplemented with secondary literature to provide a broader context. The empirical data inform an ethics and policy analysis of tobacco industry-funded research. Findings The search for a genetic basis for smoking is consistent with industry's decades-long plan to deflect responsibility away from the tobacco companies and onto individuals' genetic constitutions. Internal documents reveal long-standing support for genetic research as a strategy to relieve the tobacco industry of its legal responsibility for tobacco-related disease. Conclusions Industry may turn the findings of genetics to its own ends, changing strategy from creating a ,safe' cigarette to defining a ,safe' smoker. [source]


Relationships among vertically structured in situ measures of turbulence, larval fish abundance and feeding success and copepods on Western Bank, Scotian Shelf

FISHERIES OCEANOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2002
ChristianS.
Using vertically stratified data of the abundance of silver hake (Merluccius bilinearis) larvae and concentrations of copepods collected in the field, we examine relationships among the vertical distribution of larval fish, their potential prey, feeding success and water column turbulence. Water column turbulence and associated stratification parameters were estimated from: (i) in situ measures of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation (,) provided by an EPSONDE profiler; (ii) in situ wind speed; (iii) the Richardson number (Ri); and (iv) the buoyancy frequency (N2). Small (< 5 mm total length) silver hake were more abundant in the least turbulent waters (i.e. at a minimum in the rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy, , < 10,7 W kg,1; Ri > 0.25; N2 > 0.001 (rad s,1)2). Partial correlations amongst ,, N2 and small hake larvae were significant only for N2. The abundance of larger (> 5 mm total length) hake larvae was positively correlated with depth and was not associated with either , or N2. Vertical distributions of three potential prey (classified by stage) were variable. Early stage copepodids were positively correlated with N2 and negatively correlated with ,. We found no evidence of diel distribution patterns for small (< 5 mm total length) hake larvae or for any of the developmental stages of the copepods examined. Neither estimate of water column turbulence inferred from wind speed nor from Ri was meaningfully related to in situ estimates of , or to larval fish abundance. Feeding success, measured either as prey items (gut),1, average prey length, or total prey volume (gut),1, was not related to predicted encounter rates between days. However, the average prey length (gut),1 was significantly (P < 0.01) related to water column turbulence. These conflicting results suggest that the relationship between larval feeding and the environment is more complicated than assumed. We conclude that without substantial high resolution in situ examination of the relationship between the vertical distributions of turbulence, larvae and their prey, the growing acceptance in the secondary literature that turbulence has a positive and biologically meaningful effect on trophic interactions between fish and their zooplankton prey (a generalization based largely on modelling and laboratory experiments) is premature. [source]


The Desired ,One': Thinking the Woman in the Nation

HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2007
Anirban Das
A review of the secondary literature on the way nationalist thought in colonial India conceived ,woman' shows three broad strands. One is the perspective of the history of art, which studies the genealogy of the iconic symbolisation of women. The remaining stands have similar objects of knowledge (the nationalist representation of women in terms of the debi) but differ in their foci of attention. The first is concerned with the (role of the) woman in nationalist thought and how ,real' women had responded to that construction. The other focuses on the processes of nation building in the colony to reach its gendered aspects. We finally make a case for a synthesis of these through a few instances. [source]


Text genre as a factor in the formation of scientific literacy

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 4 2005
Ayelet Baram-Tsabari
Learning using primary literature may be a way of developing a capacity for scientific ways of thinking among students. Since reading research articles is a difficult task for novices, we examined the possible benefits of learning using primary literature versus secondary literature, particularly with respect to their influence on the creation and formation of scientific literacy. We report on a comparison between four groups of high school students, each with differing degrees of prior knowledge in biology, who read a domain-related text written in either the scientific research article genre (adapted primary literature) or the popular-scientific genre (secondary literature). Although there was no significant difference in the students' ability to summarize the main ideas of each text, indicating that there was no eminent distinction in their content, we found that students who read adapted primary literature demonstrated better inquiry skills, whereas secondary literature readers comprehended the text better and demonstrated less negative attitudes toward the reading task. Since the scientific content of the two texts was essentially identical, we suggest that the differences in students' performances stem from the structure of the text, dictated by its genre. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 403,428, 2005 [source]


Regional tourism and South-South economic cooperation

THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, Issue 2 2001
Krishna B. Ghimire
Regional tourism within developing countries is a growing phenomenon. Yet this aspect has been largely neglected in social science research as well as tourism planning. This paper highlights the general nature, scale and economic significance of regional tourism in three leading regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The topic is especially timely as economic self-reliance and cooperation are increasingly reiterated in the context of the emergence of regional groupings. A key question addressed is whether regional tourism development represents any new and viable prospects for regional economic improvement and partnership, especially compared to international tourism centred on attracting visitors from industrialized countries. Based on a critical assessment of the experiences of three regional blocs (ASEAN , the Association of South-East Asian Nations; SADC , the Southern African Development Community; and Mercosur , a common market comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, with Chile being an associated member), the paper suggests that a basic appreciation of the prospects of regional tourism is not enough to produce perceptible benefits. Regional tourism development is occurring in a haphazard manner, with little attention to managing existing socio-economic inequalities and centre-periphery relations. The paper is based primarily on the review of secondary literature readily available to the author combined with a few documents obtained directly from different regional organizations or through Internet search. A small amount of material, especially concerning emerging tourism trends and outcomes, is drawn from a research project on national mass tourism in developing countries coordinated by the author at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva. [source]


Dirty questions: Indigenous health and ,Western research'

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 3 2001
Kim Humphery
Objective: This paper explores both Indigenous and non-indigenous critiques of ,Western' research frameworks in an Aboriginal health context. It also discusses the ,reform' of Aboriginal health research practices since the 1980s, particularly in relation to the development of ethical guidelines. Method: The text is based on both archival research and a critical review of secondary literature. Conclusions and implications: It is argued here that efforts to reform the practices of mainstream Indigenous health research since the 1980s have oscillated between taking concrete steps towards actually changing research practice and placing too great a reliance on written guidelines and positive rhetoric. In offering this analysis, the paper argues for a more challenging conception of reforming mainstream research, involving an emphasis on shifts in institutional arrangements as well local research practices. [source]


Inca, Sailor, Soldier, King: Gregor MacGregor and the Early Nineteenth-Century Caribbean

BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 1 2005
Matthew Brown
This article examines the recruiting practices, political propositions and changing identities of the Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor in the early nineteenth-century Caribbean. Based on original archival research and revision of the existing secondary literature, it seeks to understand why he has consistently been judged as a failure, and why neither Scotland nor any of the countries MacGregor worked in have wanted to claim him as their own hero. After an introduction providing biographical details and some historical context for the Caribbean in the period 1811,1830, the article looks in detail at what have been seen to be his successes and failures in the Caribbean region. It asks to what extent questions of ethnicity or masculinity have affected the way contemporaries and historians viewed MacGregor and his actions. In conclusion, it suggests that although he was a soldier and a sailor, and he was declared both an Inca and a King, his career was deemed a failure by both contemporaries and historians in Scotland, South America and the Caribbean. The main explanation for this negative assessment is that his ambitions continually fell foul of the interests of various Caribbean elites and of the distinctive historical circumstances of the region.1 [source]