Human Development

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

Development of Mu Rhythm in Infants and Preschool Children

by Maurizio Bertollo

M. Berchiccii, T. Zhang L. Romero A. Peters R. Annett U. Teuscher M. Bertollo Y. Okada J. Stephen,  S. Comani

Developmental Neuroscience

Mu rhythm is an idling rhythm that originates in the sensorimotor
cortex during rest. The frequency of mu... more Mu rhythm is an idling rhythm that originates in the sensorimotor
cortex during rest. The frequency of mu rhythm,
which is well established in adults, is 8–12 Hz, whereas the
limited results available from children suggest a frequency
as low as 5.4 Hz at 6 months of age, which gradually increases
to the adult value. Understanding the normal development
of mu rhythm has important theoretical and clinical
implications since we still know very little about this signal
in infants and how it develops with age. We measured mu
rhythm over the left hemisphere using a pediatric magnetoencephalography
(MEG) system in 25 infants (11–47 weeks),
18 preschool children (2–5 years) and 6 adults (20–39 years)
for two 5-min sessions during two intermixed conditions: a
rest condition in which the hands were at rest, and a prehension
condition in which the subject squeezed a pipette with his/her right hand. In all participants, mu rhythm was present
over the frontoparietal area during the rest condition,
but was clearly suppressed during the prehension condition.
Mu rhythm peak frequency, determined from the amplitude
spectra, increased rapidly as a function of age from 2.75 Hz
at 11 weeks to 8.25 Hz at 47 weeks (r 2 = 0.83). It increased very
slowly during the preschool period (3.1 8 0.9 years; 8.5 8
0.54 Hz). The frequency in these children was, however, lower
than in adults (10.3 8 1.2 Hz). Our results show a rapid
maturation in spontaneous mu rhythm during the first year
of life.

What symbols

by Dmitry Misyurov

This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response? This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response?

The dynamics of structural and functional complexity across the lifespan

by S. Lee Hong

Human development or human enhancement? A methodological reflection on capabilities and the evaluation of information technologies

by Mark Coeckelbergh

LLOBERA, I., “Aristotelian Social Justice” [Review of NUSSBAUM, M.C., Creating Capabilities. The Human Development Approach]

by Ignasi Llobera Trias

Soft Goals and Hard Targets in the Human Development Approach

by Mauricio Uribe López

Corresponde a la versión en inglés del artículo "Metas Blandas y Metas Duras en el Enfoque de Desarrollo Humano" publicado en: Revista Polis, Volumen 8, Número 23, Universidad Bolivariana, Santiago de Chile, 2009

Cultura, Educación y Desarrollo humano en América Latina

by Adolfo Perinat

2012. C & E: Cultura y Educación. 24(1), 111-124.

Este artículo defiende la idea de que un mejor desarrollo humano en América Latina no puede impulsarse solamente... more Este artículo defiende la idea de que un mejor desarrollo humano en América Latina no puede impulsarse solamente mediante la educación y las inversiones económicas o una combinación entre ambas. Las acciones en estas dos líneas apenas han conseguido reducir los índices de pobreza en el continente. Se ha pasado por alto un problema cultural de fondo, de mentalidades. Investigaciones recientes muestran que los excluidos son presa de la indefensión aprendida, carecen de un horizonte de vida mejor, sus disposiciones y preparación para una actividad productiva, más allá de la supervivencia, son prácticamente inexistentes. La motivación por educarse y romper así el círculo fatal de la pobreza está seriamente dañada. Se analiza la dinámica social que ha engendrado esta situación. Se mencionan algunas iniciativas que han tenido éxito pero se concluye que el problema del desarrollo humano es de índole sistémica y ha de atacarse mediante una política coordinada en los diversos frentes económico, educativo y cultural a la vez.

This present paper claims that human development in Latin America is not promoted by education and economic investments only. Programmes in both domains have hardly succeeded at lessening poverty indices in the continent. There is at the basis a cultural problem that undoubtedly deserves more attention. Different investigations have concluded that among the people suffering from exclusion there is a kind of mentality characterised by learned helplessness, lack of any expectation of improving their life and a dearth of dispositions and preparation to any productive activity beyond everyday survival. For all these reasons, their motivation for an educational process that breaks the poverty circle is severely undermined. We analyse the social dynamics that engendered this situation. Some initiatives that have succeeded are mentioned, but to conclude that the problem of human development in Latin America is by nature systemic and it has to be dealt with through a coordinated socio-political action at the different fronts of economy, education and cultural change.

Arts Practice as Agency: The Right to Represent and Reinterpret Personal and Social Significance

by James Haywood Rolling, Jr.

Rolling, J. H. (2011). Arts practice as agency: The right to represent and reinterpret personal and social significance. Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, 29, 11-24.

In this article, I reframe arts practice as agency, the right to represent and reinterpret personal and social... more In this article, I reframe arts practice as agency, the right to represent and reinterpret personal and social significance in a way that contributes a positive self-valuation. A positive self-valuation in turn becomes a berth for the beneficial habitus of the individual. Bourdieu (1990/1999) describes habitus as the locus of the capacity to generate reasonable, common sense behaviors that are beneficial to others. Arts practices are herein theorized as a stock of reasonable, common sense behaviors—making marks, making models, and making “special” aesthetic interventions that signal a person, object, artifact, action, event or phenomenon as uniquely valuable, sacred or life-sustaining. These are behaviors that human agents commonly and continually employ in response to social needs, causes, and the imperative to signify. Given the social significance of arts practice, there is also great potential in a broader application of arts education pedagogy as a force for social transformation. Brent Wilson (2005) sketches out a fundamentally democratic and transactional pedagogical framework that socially responsive and responsible educators can make use of in the cultivation of social justice, the ethical imagination, and the transformation of the systems that ill-define us.

Human Security and Development in the Lao PDR: Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want

by Kearrin Sims

Development in Laos has occurred slowly, with uneven distribution and significant negative effects. This article... more Development in Laos has occurred slowly, with uneven distribution and significant negative effects. This article challenges the simplistic assumption of human development
and human security as mutually reinforcing processes. It suggests a holistic approach addressing simultaneously competing demands from the perspective of the most vulnerable sectors of society.

Consolidating-Post-conflict-Development-2009

by Kearrin Sims

Over thirty-four years since the 1960-1975 Second Indochina War, Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) continues to inhibit a... more Over thirty-four years since the 1960-1975 Second Indochina War, Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) continues to inhibit a multitude of development priorities in Laos. One of only three remaining Least Developed Countries in Southeast Asia, greater understanding of the socio-economic effects of UXO is crucial to the development of Laos. Drawing on three weeks of field work in June 2009, primarily composed of semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation and literature analysis, this thesis examines the effects of UXO alongside an analysis of how existing responses to UXO contamination in Laos may be improved. Furthermore, it is argued in this thesis that discrepancies over the perceived seriousness of UXO contamination exist between humanitarian operators and those who live in contaminated districts. In examining the effects of UXO contamination on the consolidation of post-conflict
development, the analysis offered highlights the need for greater
understanding of this legacy of war within post-conflict and human development theories.

InformeDesarrolloHumanoElSalvador2010

by Bernardo Mendez Lugo

Ekonomi Kim İçin Büyüyor: Çin ve Türkiye'de İnsani Kalkınma

by Caner Demir

published in "İktisat ve Toplum", No.16, 2012, pp.30-39.

In this study, we investigate how human developmental parameters exploited from the benefits of economic growth. Since... more In this study, we investigate how human developmental parameters exploited from the benefits of economic growth. Since the first Human Development Report in 1990, the debate on whether economic growth ensures human development has proceeded. By the reason of their rapid economic growth performance and continental location, the countries which constitute the basis of this study are China and Turkey. Although these developing countries show great success in economic growth there are still some vital issues in human development and other social indicators. Moreover, also human development index (HDI) could not completely explain human development and freedom as a humanistic factor. With this detection, it is clear that there are some other factors that piece together with HDI, such as democracy and freedom. Within this scope, this study aims to reveal the human developmental success and performance of China and Turkey and give some policy suggestions to them to procure human development.

The society of our “out of Africa” ancestors (I): The migrant warriors that colonized the world

by Eduardo Moreno Lampaya

The “out of Africa” hypothesis proposes that a small group of Homo sapiens left Africa 80,000 years ago, spreading the... more The “out of Africa” hypothesis proposes that a small group of Homo sapiens left Africa 80,000 years ago, spreading the mitochondrial haplotype L3 throughout the Earth.1-10 Little effort has been made to try to reconstruct the society and culture of the tribe that left Africa to populate the rest of the world.1 Here, I find that hunter-gatherers that belong to mitochondrial haplotypes L0, L1 and L2 do not have a culture of ritualized fights. In contrast to this, almost all L3 derived hunter-gatherers have a more belligerent culture that includes ritualized fights such as wrestling, stick fights or headhunting expeditions. This appears to be independent of their environment because ritualized fights occur in all climates, from the tropics to the arctic. There is also a correlation between mitochondrial haplotypes and warfare propensity or the use of murder and suicide to resolve conflicts. The data implicate that the original human population outside Africa is descended from only two closely related sub-branches that practiced ritual fighting and had a higher propensity towards warfare and the use of murder for conflict resolution. This warfare culture may have given the out of Africa migrants a competitive advantage to colonize the world. But it could also have crucially influenced the subsequent history of The Earth. In the future, it would be interesting to see how we could further reconstruct the society and culture of the “Out of Africa Tribe.”

Returns to education of young people in Mongolia

by Francesco Pastore

Post-Communist Economies, 22(2): 247-265.

Relatively little is known about the youth labour market in Mongolia. This paper studies returns to education of... more Relatively little is known about the youth labour market in Mongolia. This paper studies returns to education of 15-29-year-olds by taking advantage of a recent ad hoc School to Work Transition Survey. Based on augmented Mincerian earnings equations, education and work experience appear to be important determinants of earnings. Vocational does not provide higher wages than compulsory education. Factors bearing wage gains include: living in the capital city and in urban areas in general. Factors bearing wage penalties include: gender, informal work, training, using informal job search networks, herding. Union membership, being a migrant, the civil status are wage neutral.

Music, neuroscience, and the psychology of wellbeing: A précis

by Adam Croom

Croom, A. M. (2012). Music, neuroscience, and the psychology of wellbeing: A précis. Frontiers in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 2, 393.
http://www.frontiersin.org/Theoretical_and_Philosophical_Psychology/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00393/abstract

According to Altmetric this article is in the top 5.94% of articles included in PubMed.
http://www.altmetric.com/details.php?domain=www.frontiersin.org&citation_id=556687

In Flourish, the positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are... more In Flourish, the positive psychologist Martin Seligman (2011) identifies five commonly recognized factors that are characteristic of human flourishing or wellbeing: (1) “positive emotion,” (2) “relationships,” (3) “engagement,” (4) “achievement,” and (5) “meaning” (p. 24). Although there is no settled set of necessary and sufficient conditions neatly circumscribing the bounds of human flourishing (Seligman, 2011), we would mostly likely consider a person that possessed high levels of these five factors as paradigmatic or prototypical of human flourishing. Accordingly, if we wanted to go about the practical task of actually increasing our level of wellbeing, we ought to do so by focusing on practically increasing the levels of the five factors that are characteristic of wellbeing. If, for instance, an activity such as musical engagement can be shown to positively influence each or all of these five factors, this would be compelling evidence that an activity such as musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. I’m of the belief that psychological research can and should be used, not only to identify and diagnose maladaptive psychological states, but identify and promote adaptive psychological states as well. In this article I advance the hypothesis and provide supporting evidence for the claim that musical engagement can positively contribute to one’s living a flourishing life. Since there has not yet been a substantive and up-to-date investigation of the possible role of music in contributing to one’s living a flourishing life, the purpose of this article is to conduct this investigation, thereby bridging the gap and stimulating discussion between the psychology of music and the psychology of wellbeing.

Aesthetic concepts, perceptual learning, and linguistic enculturation: Considerations from Wittgenstein, language, and music

by Adam Croom

Croom, A. M. (2012). Aesthetic concepts, perceptual learning, and linguistic enculturation: Considerations from Wittgenstein, language, and music. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science. 46, 90-117.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h479617n61n78904/

Aesthetic non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express genuinely aesthetic beliefs and instead hold that... more Aesthetic non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express genuinely aesthetic beliefs and instead hold that they work primarily to express something non-cognitive, such as attitudes of approval or disapproval, or desire. Non-cognitivists deny that aesthetic statements express aesthetic beliefs because they deny that there are aesthetic features in the world for aesthetic beliefs to represent. Their assumption, shared by scientists and theorists of mind alike, was that language-users possess cognitive mechanisms with which to objectively grasp abstract rules fixed independently of human responses, and that cognizers are thereby capable of grasping rules for the correct application of aesthetic concepts without relying on evaluation or enculturation. However, in this article I use Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations to argue that psychological theories grounded upon this so-called objective model of rule-following fail to adequately account for concept acquisition and mastery. I argue that this is because linguistic enculturation, and the perceptual learning that’s often involved, influences and enables the mastery of aesthetic concepts. I argue that part of what’s involved in speaking aesthetically is to belong to a cultural practice of making sense of things aesthetically, and that it’s within a socio-linguistic community, and that community’s practices, that such aesthetic sense can be made intelligible.

African American Female Adolescent Sexuality: Creating Change Using an Ecological-Womanist Lens

by Dionne Stephens

Few, A. L., & Stephens, D. P. (2009). African American adolescent female sexuality: Creating change using a womanist- ecological lens (pp. 75- 94). In K. Roberto & J. Mancini (Eds.) Pathways of Development: Explorations of Change. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Examining African American female adolescent sexuality within mainstream Hip Hop culture using a womanist- ecological model of human development

by Dionne Stephens

Stephens, D. P., Phillips, L .D., & Few, A. L. (2009). Examining African American female adolescent sexuality within mainstream Hip Hop culture using a womanist- ecological model of human development (pp. 160- 174). In S. Loyd, A. L. Few and K. Allen (Eds.) Handbook of Feminist Theory, Methods and Praxis in Family Studies. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.

Neither dashboard nor ‘mashup’ indices: an empirical wealth approach as a pathway to a comprehensive measure of development

by Emanuele Felice

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d’Economia i d’Història Econòmica. UHE Working Paper 2012_01, 2012

The article is composed of two sections. The first one is a critical review of the three main alternative indices to... more The article is composed of two sections. The first one is a critical review of the three main alternative indices to GDP which were proposed in the last decades – the Human Development Index (HDI), the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), and the Happy Planet Index (HPI) – which is made on the basis of conceptual foundations, rather than looking at issues of statistical consistency or mathematical refinement as most of the literature does. The pars construens aims to propose an alternative measure, the composite wealth index, consistent with
an approach to development based on the notion of composite wealth, which is in turn derived from an empirical common sense criterion. Arguably, this approach is suitable to be conveyed into
an easily understandable and coherent indicator, and thus appropriate to track development in its various dimensions: simple in its formulation, the wealth approach can incorporate social and ecological goals without significant alterations in conceptual foundations, while reducing to a minimum arbitrary weighting.