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World System (world + system)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%
Engineering40%

Selected Abstracts

Portugal as a Semi-peripheral Country in the Global Migration System

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 3 2009
Pedro Góis
Although Portugal has traditionally produced many emigrants, the last 30 years have also shown increasing immigration. This increase in immigration has drawn attention away from the fact that significant emigration from Portugal continues. In this article, some of the main characteristics of migrations to and from Portugal are highlighted from a systemic perspective. The article shows that Portugal is both a receiving country and a sending country in the global migration system, and that it integrates several of the main migration systems at different levels. It is suggested that Portugal's participation in existing migration systems is best captured and explained by conceptualizing it as a semi-peripheral society, one that is part of a core region of the world system (the European Union) and displays a number of characteristics of both central and peripheral countries. The concept of semi-periphery enables one to recognize the existence of what could be termed a quasi or emergent migratory system: the Lusophone migration system, which one can conceive as communicating intensively with other macro migratory systems. Observing the country's migratory dynamics from the last two decades, and especially the migration flows that bond the Portuguese-speaking countries, one may view the Lusophone migration system as able to combine different levels of centers that (in some moments, and given certain conditions) could evolve into a bicephalous, or even tricephalous, center. These centers function as bonds among several other migration systems, and it is in the middle of this Lusophone migration system that the semi-peripheral role of Portugal becomes evident, as it can be core and periphery at the same time. [source]

Five Feuds: An Analysis of Homicides in Eastern Kentucky in the Late Nineteenth Century

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2000
Keith F. Otterbein
Kentucky feuds are an example of market-based feuding, one of two major types of feuding. Compensation is not paid for a homicide in regions where a local market system is linked to the world system. Feuding kinship groups in Kentucky struggle to eliminate each other, whereas in regions where compensation is paid functional/equilibrium theories are used to explain the balance that seems to occur between kinship groups. The trouble case method is used to analyze five Kentucky feuds. Episodes or homicidal encounters are placed within feud sequences. Encounters include ambushes, gunfights, house attacks, encounter battles, and arranged battles. Although each feud differs greatly from the others, the structure of the Kentucky feud is delineated, [feuding, homicide, Kentucky feuds, Appalachia, war] [source]

Experimental investigation of a moored floating system

PROCEEDINGS IN APPLIED MATHEMATICS & MECHANICS, Issue 1 2008
Daniel Beyer
Floating structures are generally excited by a more or less irregular sea state. Therefore the structure undergoes a nonlinear dynamical behaviour which results from hydrodynamic effects or the kinematic coupling of different components. The motions of these structures have been analysed intensively with numerical techniques which predict a wide range of nonlinear effects. On the other hand, experiments are still important when it comes to verifying these theoretical findings. Investigating such a floating structure experimentally requires a complex setup: A wave generator needs to be driven in an appropriate way to yield waves with the required characteristics at the structure. The structure itself is usually designed similar to a real,world system and it has to allow for a comparison with numerical analyses. Sensors which measure the tracks of the individual components not only have to reach a prescribed precision but also need to ensure that the motion is not perturbed as a result of the measurements. Lastly, unwanted disturbances have to be avoided. For experiments in a wave tank this includes that reflections have to be minimized. This talk addresses the development of an experimental setup for the investigation of a floating structure. It highlights components which are found to be critical for the obtained accuracy and proposes techniques to reduce experimental errors. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source]

Colonizing nature: scientific knowledge, colonial power and the incorporation of India into the modern world-system

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2001
Zaheer Baber
ABSTRACT In this paper, the role of scientific knowledge, institutions and colonialism in mutually co-producing each other is analysed. Under the overarching rubric of colonial structures and imperatives, amateur scientists sought to deploy scientific expertise to expand the empire while at the same time seeking to take advantage of the opportunities to develop their careers as ,scientists'. The role of a complex interplay of structure and agency in the development of modern science, not just in India but in Britain too is analysed. The role of science and technology in the incorporation of South Asian into the modern world system, as well as the consequences of the emergent structures in understanding the trajectory of modern science in post-colonial India is examined. Overall, colonial rule did not simply diffuse modern science from the core to the periphery. Rather the colonial encounter led to the development of new forms of scientific knowledge and institutions both in the periphery and the core. [source]

A physical, mechanistic and fully coupled hillslope hydrology model

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN FLUIDS, Issue 11 2005
David A. Raff
Abstract We present the mathematical development and numerical solution of a new model of flow processes on an infiltrating hillslope. We also present validation and sample applications. The model is a distributed, mechanistic, physically based hillslope hydrologic model. The model describes the small-scale processes associated with overland flow, erosion, and sediment transport on an infiltrating surface and is capable of capturing small-scale variations in flow depth, flow velocities, interactive infiltration, erosion rates, and sediment transport. The model couples the fully two-dimensional hydrodynamic equations for overland flow, the one-dimensional Richards equation for infiltration, and a sediment detachment and transport model. Two simulations are presented highlighting the model's ability to capture and describe the interaction between precipitation, overland flow, erosion and infiltration at very small scales. Results of the two-dimensional simulations indicate the system of equations produces hillslopes possessing characteristics of self-organization as observed in real world systems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]