Food for all: An agent-based model to explore the emergence and implications of cooperation for food storage

Abstract

A consistent access to food is paramount for humans at individual and group level. Besides providing the basic nutritional needs, access to food defines social structures and has stimulated innovation in food procurement, processing and storage. We focus on the social aspects of food storage, namely the role of cooperation for the emergence and maintenance of common stocks. Cooperative food stocks are examined here as a type of common-pool resource, where appropriators must cooperate to avoid shortage (i.e. the tragedy of commons). ‘Food for all’ is an agent-based model in which agents face the social dilemma of whether or not to store in a cooperative stock, adapting their strategies through a simple reinforcement learning mechanism. The model provides insights on the evolution of cooperation in terms of storage efficiency and considering the presence of social norms that regulate reciprocity. For cooperative food storage to emerge and be maintained, a significant dependency on the stored food and some degree of external pressure are needed. In fact, cooperative food storage emerges as the best performing strategy when facing environmental stress. Likewise, an intermediate control over reciprocity favours cooperation for food storage, suggesting that concepts of closed reciprocity are precursors to cooperative stocks, while excess control over reciprocity is detrimental for such institution.     

An Archive of Difference: Syrian Women,the Peddling Economy and US Social Welfare, 1880–1935

Historians have scrutinised the racial classifications of Arab immigrants in the census, in immigration documents and in early‐twentieth‐century naturalisation cases. However, recent scholarship has shown that other archives – ones that do not focus on interactions with the law – reveal a different process of Arab‐American racialisation. This article contends that looking in other archival spaces, specifically the US social welfare archive, shows how ideas about gender, sexual and class difference constituted early Arab‐American racialisation. Social welfare reformers in institutional settings, including the International Institute of Boston, the National Conference of Social Work and the pages of the social work periodical The Survey, systematically linked Syrian labouring practices with notions of dependency, sexual and gender deviance, and Orientalist difference. Syrian women were racialised through their participation in the peddling economy – a network of peddlers, suppliers and domestic labourers that sustained a widespread profession of the early Syrian American community. Syrian women's labouring practices conflicted with white middle‐class femininity and posed a threat to Syrian claims of whiteness. This analysis demonstrates the centrality of gender, sexuality and class to studies of early Arab America and demonstrates how Arab migrant women's labouring practices affected their communities’ standing in the American context.     

The canopic jars of Rameses II: real use revealed by molecular study of organic residues

Four blue-glazed faience jars, on exhibition in the Louvre Museum, are referred to as the canopic jars of Rameses II. Their recent typological re-examination rendered this original assignment questionable. In order to clearly determine their use, a study of two successive organic residues from the canopic jars, using molecular biomarkers analysed by GC-MS and LC-MS and absolute dating by ¹⁴C, was initiated. The results revealed that these two materials were not contemporary to the reign of Rameses II. The first one, scraped from the interior face of one jar, was identified as an unguent made of coniferous oil and animal fat and dated from the Third Intermediate Period. The second one, originally stored with glued linen inside one jar, is likely an embalming substance, made of pure vegetable resin (Pistacia) and dated from the Ptolemaic Period. These results clarify a controversy which has been lasting over a century. The famous blue-glazed faience jars are not the canopic jars of Rameses II but are confirmed as situlae which were reused at least two times: first to store unguents during the Intermediate Period and later to store embalming packages of an unknown person during the Ptolemaic period.     

Dewey’s concept of experience for inquiry-based landscape drawing during field studies

The epistemological and educational philosophy of John Dewey is used as a theoretical basis to analyze processes of knowledge construction during geographical field studies. The experience of landscape drawing as a method of inquiry and a starting point for research-based learning is empirically evaluated. The basic drawing skills are acquired through an online drawing course. The main aim is to foster the self-organized acquisition of relevant skills to explore, describe and reflect on subjective mental and linguistic concepts in relation to scientific landscape models. The results, based on an evaluation of the students’ drawings, their responses to questionnaires and a review of students’ “reflective notes”, indicate that the approach motivated students to learn about the processes which formed the landscape and that the students perceived the method of inquiry after Dewey as a way to overcome cognitive dissonance.     

Active learning through online quizzes: better learning and less (busy) work

Active learning is increasingly promoted within institutions of higher education to assist students develop higher order thinking and link knowledge to meaning. In this paper, the authors evaluate the use of weekly online quizzes based on prescribed preparatory material as a tool to incentivize preparatory reading in order to enable and encourage active learning. The study is based on mixed data sources, including three years of student-evaluation data, to understand student perceptions of the role and value of online quizzes. The study shows a high level of student engagement with the quizzes and positive assessment of their role in encouraging the completion of prescribed reading. Online quizzes were found to be an effective mechanism for incentivizing student completion of preparatory work, enhancing active learning (such as through in-class discussions), and were relatively time efficient from the perspective of the educator.     

Influences of nationalisms on citizenship education: revealing a ‘dark side’ in Lebanon

The development of education policies is in many aspects driven by nationalist aims, especially when demonstrating postcolonial autonomy. In the case of Lebanon, Arab and Lebanese forms of nationalism have framed education policy development when transitioning out of the French mandate to an independent republic and during pan‐Arab movements against colonialism. Following 15 years of armed conflict (1975–1990), the reformed national curriculum for citizenship drew on a negotiated compromise between advocates of Lebanese and Arab nationalism to foster a unifying national identity. The practices and outcomes of citizenship education, however, reveal degrees of social exclusion, barriers to learning active citizenship, infringement on intellectual freedoms and denial of thinking historically. Evidence is drawn from empirical studies, the state of affairs of history education and student registration figures in Lebanese and non‐Lebanese systems. The findings raise debates on the role of language in citizenship education and suggest a need to reconceptualise the implementation of nationalist aims in education policies, especially by incorporating elements of cosmopolitanism.     

Religious Transformations in the Middle Ages: Towards a New Archaeological Agenda

UNDERSTANDING RELIGIOUS CHANGE between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Reformation forms one of the cornerstones of medieval archaeology, but has been riven by period, denominational, and geographical divisions. This paper lays the groundwork for a fundamental rethink of archaeological approaches to medieval religions, by adopting an holistic framework that places Christian, pagan, Islamic and Jewish case studies of religious transformation in a long-term, cross-cultural perspective. Focused around the analytical themes of ‘hybridity and resilience’ and ‘tempo and trajectories’, our approach shifts attention away from the singularities of national narratives of religious conversion, towards a deeper understanding of how religious beliefs, practices and identity were renegotiated by medieval people in their daily lives.     

The role of accredited zoos in the recovery process for species at risk in Canada

Zoos and aquariums are responding to the worldwide biodiversity crisis through major conservation initiatives like captive breeding for assurance populations and reintroduction programs. These institutions also fundraise, offer education programs, and provide critical research on biodiversity. Through a case study inside three accredited Canadian zoos, this paper illustrates that zoos and their staff members are being incorporated into many official species‐at‐risk recovery efforts on provincial, federal, and international levels. Specifically, the zoos studied are involved in every stage of the recovery process, from providing valuable research and habitat analyses, to captive breeding animals for reintroduction, to writing recovery strategies and creating recovery policy for multiple jurisdictional levels. Zoo staff indicate that zoos are uniquely suited to conservation because zoos have space, expertise, apolitical status, and the ability to connect with the public. Overall, the paper suggests that zoos can significantly contribute to species‐at‐risk protection and recovery in Canada and beyond.